Subjection (21 page)

His shower is slightly nicer than mine, with one of the massager things on the handle and a variety of shampoos and soaps to choose from. Which ones will smell like him? Can I at least hold on to that?

I find the right one, some sort of manly scent, stone or something ridiculous. I think it actually smells more like lavender, but of course lavender wouldn’t sell well. I’m rubbing it across my skin when it hits me that I might not be in a warm shower again, or using scented soap, or attending parties or eating or helping with work or being with my master ever again.

I drop to the floor and sob, heedless of the consequences. I’ll look weak, maybe even defiant again, but it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve failed enough, what’s one more thing? He’s going to sell me anyway.

I don’t know how long I’m there, because the water has gone cold when I hear a knock at the door. I don’t answer. I will myself to die, to pass out. Anything would be better.

“Sascha?” he demands, pounding on the door more forcefully this time.

I still don’t answer, curling in a ball and hoping illogically to freeze to death.

I hear the door opening, and I regret not locking it. I curl up tighter and put my hands above my head, whimpering when the left bangs against the edge of the bathtub. It aches.

I hear the shower curtain open.

“Jesus Christ!”

I’m dragged up roughly by my shoulders and I go limp, expecting the inevitable slap that should follow such a move. Maybe he’ll slap me hard enough to snap my neck.

He shakes me instead, not hard enough to snap my neck, but hard enough to make my eyes open against my will like a toy doll. He looks more relieved than angry when they do.

“For fuck’s sake, Sascha, I thought you were dead!” he snaps, finally refraining from shaking me. I don’t understand why he looks so scared at the thought. I won’t bring him that much money when he sells me; why else would it matter if I die?

“I’d rather be dead than sold, master,” I mumble, sitting up only because he’s forcing me to. It’s easier to go along than it is to fight him.

Holding me up with one arm, he reaches to shut the water off with the other, slamming the handle down with significantly more force than necessary. “Goddammit, get up now!”

I do. I’m trained that well, at least, and when I do it he pulls me out of the shower and proceeds to dry me off with excessive vigor, although he’s not quite as violent as he was with the shower.

“I’m not selling you, I’m taking you to the goddamned doctor!” he snaps. “So if you’re going to martyr yourself or whatever the fuck you’re doing, you can knock it off right now!”

The words sink in as he finishes drying me off and shoves the clothes into my hands.

“Put these on!” he orders, stepping out as if I have some dignity. I’m half-surprised that he doesn’t dress me himself.

I move robotically. I think of the robo-clerks at fast-food chains and clothing stores, and I laugh unexpectedly at the image of myself as one. I can’t stop laughing any more than I can stop crying. This is it, then, I’ve lost my mind. I can’t tell how long it takes me to regain my composure, but I do eventually stop laughing. The crying… I just hope it’s okay.

Reality moves like a dream as I step out of the bathroom and follow my master down the hall and out to his hov-car. He doesn’t say anything to me, doesn’t even look at me. He focuses on the road more intently than I’ve ever seen before, and he grips the steering wheel until his knuckles are white, despite the fact that the indicator light says that the auto-drive is in use and he doesn’t have to steer.

“Master, you said… if I fucked up…” I hear the words leave my mouth and I regret them.

“You did nothing wrong. I’m not selling you.” My master grinds the words out between his teeth. His face grows red and I cower away when he slams his fist against the steering wheel. “I meant if you were mouthy or rude or something.
Not
if my supposed best friend assaulted you in my kitchen. Bobby and I are the only ones who fucked up last night, not you.”

I sit there quietly, trying to process it. He’s not selling me. He’s not even angry at
me
, I don’t think, although it’s hard to tell with how angry he is. I guess he’s angry at Bobby? That makes sense, it was Bobby who damaged me and interrupted his night, but the strange thing is, it seems like my master is angry at himself. He’s acting guilty, like he had just allowed someone he cared about to get hurt, but I’m just a slave. Can he really be that possessive over his property? I don’t understand him, but that’s nothing new. All I can do is wait and respond to whatever he decides to do with me.

I’m silent as we drive to the doctor’s office, and I sit stupidly in the car until he comes around and takes me by the arm, half-dragging me out of the car. He’s not trying to hurt me, but I guess if I don’t want to be hurt I should walk instead of sitting here, frozen.

We don’t even sit in the waiting room, he just takes me straight back to the office. Of course, he must have called first. Everything is always so smooth for him. I wonder if we’ve kept everyone waiting while I cried in the shower, and I wonder how my master is able to make everything work so perfectly. I can’t help but think of how difficult I make his life, and it starts a fresh round of tears down my face.

The doctor looks at me and frowns.

“It wasn’t me.” My master’s voice is trying to be an angry growl, but he almost sounds sad.

“You explained that,” the doctor says quietly, guiding me to sit on an exam table, my master standing nearby. “And I believe you. Are you pressing charges?”

My master shrugs. “It’s petty destruction of property. Nothing more than a fine. I have other means.”

I don’t understand what my master’s talking about, and I don’t care. I wouldn’t expect him to press charges against his friend for using me like the whore that I am. It’s enough that he stopped him.

The doctor nods. He looks at me, and I turn my head away.

“Let him see your lip, Sascha,” my master orders.

I’m surprised enough that he uses my name that I do it, and a second later the doctor is poking and prodding at it. He frowns at it, but he’s not really hurting me, so I stay still.

“Well, if he had been in last night I might have recommended stitches, but it’s stopped bleeding. I’ll clean it up and bandage it. What else do we have?”

My master doesn’t even bother to answer, he just grabs my left arm, lifting it up. I try not to wince, but my hand hurts, more so than it did in the shower, and it’s an ugly shade of purple and blue and green that I don’t really want to look at. I whimper instead, resisting the urge to pull it back against my chest and hold it there where it’s safe.

The doctor takes it and touches it and makes it hurt, and mutters something about x-rays. I don’t want x-rays; I just want to be left alone. Haven’t I had enough done to me? I just want to hide and cry for days until I feel better. At least when I was hurt badly enough at the brothel, I was allowed that.

“He’s also…” my master hesitates, fidgeting uncomfortably. “I should probably let you check that part out alone. The, uh…”

“Sexual penetration,” the doctor fills in with a nod, clinical and calm. “You said it was rather violent?”

My master shrugs; I can see that he’s clearly unwilling to talk about this. “I guess, I mean, I didn’t see it, but from the state he was in… just check it out.”

The doctor nods again, walking over and opening the door to the exam room we’re standing in. “Certainly, just step out—”

“Please, master!” I yelp, clutching his hand in terror even though I know how horribly inappropriate it is. “Please, no!” I shouldn’t touch him, and I shouldn’t beg him to do anything, but I can’t help it.

He looks shocked, but he doesn’t pull his hand away from me, and he doesn’t move. “I didn’t think you’d want me in here.”

I don’t, not really, but I don’t want him to leave me alone with someone else, either. “Please, don’t go, master.” I can feel my face burning with shame at the request.

“I’ll stay,” he says quietly, glancing at the doctor. I hallucinate him squeezing my hand, because, surely, that can’t be real. “Do you have a chair I can sit in?”

I zone out a little bit during the next part. I’m aware, vaguely, that my master is given a chair, and he sits next to my head, looking uncomfortable as the doctor does what he needs to do. I comply when I am asked to take off my pants, and I feel the doctor’s hands on me, cold and clinical like they are when he passes the x-ray scanner over my hand, and when he disinfects my lip and places a tight bandage over it to pull the freshly lacerated skin back together. That part probably hurts the worst, but even then I just cry silently and wish it was over. I wish it was all over, and even though I’ve been hurt so much worse, I’ve never had someone take care of it afterward, never had to see my master looking uncomfortable and angry because I needed taking care of.

My master never wanted a slave, because slaves are a problem, and I’m nothing
but
a problem. I challenge him, I waste his time, I eat up his money and food and time and I make him look bad and I ruined his relationship with his friend. I’m sinking into despair when I hear the doctor state that a variety of bones in my hand are broken, and I’ll need a cast, and I realize exactly how much of a useless problem I’m going to be. I curl into a ball on the exam table and sob, heedless of the free men who are staring at me in shock. A hand touches my back lightly and I jerk away, whimpering and sobbing even harder.

“Give me a minute alone with him,” I hear my master saying.

“I don’t know if that’s really the best idea.” The doctor sounds apologetic, but I’d be apologetic, too, if I was arguing with my master. “You know how I feel—”

“Just do it.” My master cuts him off in the same demanding tone that he uses with me. “I’m not going to hurt him.”

“Your family’s training methods would dictate otherwise, Cash.”

“I’m not going to hurt him.”

There’s silence for a moment, and I let the words wash over me. I don’t understand them. I don’t understand the comment about my master’s family and their training methods, and I don’t understand my master’s insistence that he’s not going to hurt me. Why else does he want me alone? A few seconds later, I hear someone walking out, and a hand lands firmly on my shoulder.

My master pulls me up to sit and face him. I can’t help but look at his eyes.

“I’m sorry this happened,” he says, all curt and businesslike. “And I’m sorry that you’re in pain. You did nothing to deserve it, and I’m working on making it go away, but I can’t have you sit here and lose your goddamn mind because someone says they’re going to put a cast on your broken hand. Is that understood?”

“Yes, master,” I reply automatically, but I’m still terrified. “I won’t, I won’t be able to—”

My master gives me a shake, firm, but not nearly as hard as he did when he found me in the shower. His grip is tight on my shoulders and I don’t want him to let go. “Do you think I don’t realize that you won’t be able to do a goddamn thing? It’s not the end of the world, Sascha. You’ll heal in a few weeks and then you can catch up on everything you’ve gotten behind on. I’m not going to make you do what you used to when your goddamn hand is busted up—what kind of person do you think I am? Do you think I’d blame
you
for this?”

I can’t answer, because I don’t know. He’s decent to me, but he’s not exactly kind, he demands some sort of fucking perfection, but he’s not overly harsh, even when he punishes me. I’m terrified of him, but still I cling to him. I let my head drop against his hand and I think I’m hallucinating again when I feel him go from clutching my shoulder to holding my head. I wish he wouldn’t ever let go.

“You’ll be fine, Sascha,” he says firmly, gripping my shoulders one last time before stepping away. He walks to the door and leans out, beckoning the doctor back. “Give him a painkiller and something for the anxiety. I don’t care what it costs, just do it.”

I flinch when the needle slips into my skin, but within a few minutes, I feel the cessation of pain throughout my body, and the worries that I had about upsetting my master seem far away. I’m at a doctor’s office, and I’m comfortable, and everything seems great. Even the slight pain in my hand as the bones are set and placed in some sort of cast material doesn’t bother me, and I smile at my master. He’s a nice man, I decide, and so is the doctor. Another small machine is brought over, and my hand gets warm, and maybe it should hurt, but it feels good, and I start to fall asleep. I think there should be a nurse to catch me, but there’s no nurse here, and the doctor is doing something with the cast, so it must be my master who catches me and holds me up gently and leads me to the car a while later. He does smell like lavender.

Walking in on Sascha and Bobby made me aware of two things I was trying desperately to avoid: I care far more about Sascha than a master should about a slave, and my best friend is not the kind of person I want to associate with any longer. Slaves are property; they can be used, hurt, sold, destroyed—it doesn’t matter. I should have been simply irritated to see Bobby on top of my slave, as I would have been if he had borrowed a sweater from my closet without asking me, but I felt so much more than that. If I had been armed, I would have shot my best friend without blinking.