Defaced: A Dark Romance Novel (4 page)

“Walk,” he told her. “Behave yourself, and this will be easier for us both.”

He led her inside a property. Cool interior. Solid hard flooring beneath foot.

She was taken to a room and sat in a chair. “Please,” she said. “I need the bathroom.”

A sawing action on the rope around her wrists suddenly freed her arms, and she rolled her shoulders and flexed her fingers, groaning in relief.

The man pulled the bag from her head and she blinked in the sudden light. The room around her was opulently decorated—a four poster bed, expensive paper on the walls, a chandelier from the ceiling. But it had no windows.

The man who had been holding her was in his sixties, she guessed, smartly groomed white hair pushed back from his temples, but he had a cruel look to him—something about the sharpness around his eyes, the hollowness of his cheeks, and the point of his smoothly shaven chin.

“You have your own bathroom,” he told her, nodding to a door at the rear of the room. He wrinkled his nose at her urine and sweat stained clothes. “Please, freshen yourself up. There are clothes in the closet.”

“What?”

“Shower, get changed. Sir won’t want to see you like this.”

A shiver ran through her. Sir? Was she supposed to be preparing herself for some egomaniac pervert? At least now she knew the old guy wasn’t the one who had bought her, though that didn’t mean ‘sir’ wasn’t even older.

She wanted to rebel but the pressure in her bladder had grown so great it hurt. Just the thought of being able to use the toilet made her think she would lose control, and even with everything she’d been through, she couldn’t stand the thought of disgracing herself in that way again.

Without saying another word, she clambered from the chair and raced into the bathroom. A frantic fumble with her clothing, and her bottom made contact with the seat. She breathed a sigh of relief as hot urine hit the bowl.

Lily heard the slam of a door, and the far more subtle click of a lock sliding into place. Footsteps retreated, and she was sure the older man had left the room. Lily finished peeing and got quietly to her feet. Peering around the doorframe, she scanned the room to make sure her assessment had been correct.

The man was no longer in the room.

She wanted nothing more than to wash and change her clothes. Even an electric toothbrush had been provided for her. The stench of her own urine and body odor made her sick to her stomach.

Uncertain, she looked around at her luxurious surroundings. Was this supposed to be some kind of trick? Cream tiles covered both the walls and floor, interspersed by tiny glass mosaics in aquamarine. Bottles of fragranced bubble bath and shampoo lined the edge of the tub, and a separate waterfall shower was positioned in the corner of the room. Piles of white, fluffy towels were on the heated rack.

The whole time she assessed every object for the possibility of use as a weapon—fling shower gel into her abductor’s eyes, stab him with the metal end of the toothbrush, electrocute him, even?

She knew she needed to focus on trying to find a way out of here, but the opulence and cleanliness of the space made her even more conscious of her own filth. She wanted nothing more than to be clean, anything to feel human once more.

She realized there was no door on the bathroom. Lily chewed her lower lip anxiously. If she’d been able to shut the door, she wouldn’t have felt so self-conscious, but having to strip while exposed to the other room made her feel more so. The man could open the door any moment and walk in.

She glanced between the door and the tub, unsure of what to do. A waft of her body odor assaulted her nostrils as she twisted. Another thought entered her head. How did she know there weren’t hidden cameras all over this place? She might be being watched right now, for all she knew, but the way things were going, she figured being watched was probably the least of her concerns.

She needed to wash.

Lily leaned over the tub and turned on the faucet, hot water gushing into the porcelain bath. The movement caused her muscles to seize and she winced at the pain. Trying to ignore her aches, she added a healthy dollop of one of the bubble baths to the water. Fragrant steam filled the room.

Glancing left and right, she hurriedly peeled off her disgusting clothes. She held her arm across her breasts, her other hand covering the patch of hair between her legs. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to perv over her filthy wobbly bits. She was hardly some eighteen-year-old supermodel.

Lily stepped in and sucked air over her teeth as the hot water made contact with all her cuts and scrapes. Knowing the pain would ease once she was fully submerged, she clenched her teeth and lowered herself into the tub. With a sigh, she sank back against the porcelain. The bubbles offered her some coverage, and she felt like she had some privacy.

Finally, she was alone.

Monster (Fourteen Years Earlier)

The boy was
no longer a child, but not quite yet a grown man.

He’d been aware of his own sexuality for a few years now, though his sexual experience had been limited to the few erotic passages he’d found in the books he’d been allowed to read by authors such as James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, and Henry Miller. He’d read them over and over, imagining himself in the place of the male character, and ejaculating into pieces of tissue he then hurriedly flushed down the toilet.

His contact with other people remained limited, mainly to his father’s staff bringing his meals to him. Occasionally, he’d been allowed to sit in the massive kitchen and eat quickly, though if he attempted to speak with anyone, or make eye contact, somehow his father would know and he’d be rewarded with a smack around the face or a knee in the stomach. While he longed for those occasions where he could eat in the company of others, he was often left so tense with nerves that he would say or do something wrong, he’d find himself unable to eat. His lack of social interaction meant he didn’t know what to say, even if the opportunity arose. His was a life of routine, of lessons, of physical exercise. It was also a life of cruelty. He understood that his father was trying to mold him into someone—a man of sharp intelligence and physical strength, a man with a hard heart, and capable of violence when something displeased him. In short, his father was trying to make him into himself.

Monster went for weeks with the same member of staff bringing his meals to him, but one day the person changed.

The door cracked open. Instead of the olive-skinned man in his twenties, whose name Monster didn’t even know, who had been bringing him his meals recently, someone young and blonde entered the room.

His heart stuttered in his chest, and he took a sharp inhale of breath.

He’d never seen anything so beautiful.

As she walked into the room, the tray containing his meal held in both hands, she kept her eyes down. Monster stared, taking in the delicate features of her face, the rosebud of her lips, the fine line of her nose and jaw. Her hair fell in soft waves well past her shoulders, the tips brushing the swell of her breasts. Her waist was tiny—small enough for him to wrap both hands around and have his fingers touch. A pink flush rose high in her cheeks, as though she could sense him staring at her.

She walked over to his desk and placed the tray down. It rattled as it hit the surface, and he realized her hands were shaking. Did he frighten her? It was a good thing she’d been bringing him a sandwich rather than soup.

He desperately wanted to speak to her, to say hello and ask her what her name was, but he was frozen by her beauty. His heart hammered, his mouth ran dry. The sun had entered his room, with all its blinding brilliance, and it had scorched every part of him that allowed him to string a sentence together.

The girl turned in his direction, but kept her head lowered. The briefest hint of a smile tweaked the corners of her perfect lips—lips he wanted to crush his mouth to and taste—and she bobbed a small curtsey before almost running from the room.

He crossed the room and ran his fingers down the edges of the tray where she had been holding it. The sides of the plastic were still warm from her touch, and his breath quickened. His eyes slipped shut and he imagined it was the girl’s fingers he was touching—the first time he’d ever made contact with a female of his own age.

His groin stirred and he snatched his hands away. She was sweet and innocent. She didn’t need a monster like him becoming aroused over her. He would ruin her purity just by thinking such thoughts. Yet Monster couldn’t stop himself from thinking about her. Even though she’d only been in his presence for a mere moment, he’d embedded the memory of her face in his mind and found he was unable to think of anything else.

When his father arrived an hour later for his lesson, Monster found his thoughts to be scattered. He answered simple mathematical questions incorrectly, and forgot parts of history he’d known by heart.

His father reached across the desk and grabbed him by the shirt, giving him a rough shake. “Where is your mind, Monster? I know it’s not with me.”

The last thing he wanted was for his father to know about his thoughts of the girl. “I’m sorry, Father. It’s a book I’m reading. I can’t get the story out of my head.”

“Well, you’d better. I’ll stop you reading fiction if you can’t concentrate on fact.”

That would have been almost as disastrous to Monster as his father finding out about the girl. Fiction was his lifeline, his way of living the lives of so many people he aspired to be—beautiful people sometimes, sometimes not so much. But they were all a way to escape outside of the four walls of his room and his father’s property.

He forced himself to concentrate, but as soon as the lesson was over, he fell back into his daydreams about the girl. He counted down the minutes until his next meal was to be brought to him. Perhaps she wouldn’t come back? She might have been covering for someone else. But when the time finally came around, and the door opened, it was the girl carrying the tray again.

Exactly as before, she kept her head down and didn’t acknowledge him. Words trembled on the tip of his tongue, a desperation to ask her about herself, but he was painfully aware of both how he looked and what his father would do if he found out. He wasn’t frightened for himself—well, maybe a little—but was more worried his father would harm the girl to punish him for daring to speak to her.

Once more, she placed the tray on the table and turned and left the room.

The next few weeks became divided into meal times for Monster. He anticipated the minute or two he got to spend in her company with an obsessiveness he’d never known before. He didn’t know her name, and never dared to ask. She never spoke to him, never even made eye contact, but she had the silkiest golden hair he’d ever seen, and smelled like lemons. He imagined she was the product of the sun, something everything light and warm and happy was drawn to. In his fantasies, she met her blue eyes to his and took his hand. She told him she was in love with him and would take him away. Then they’d make the kind of love he’d read about, and would come with a twisted guilt, for both himself, the girl, and his father.

Almost three weeks into her delivering his meals, as she entered the room, her head bent as she carried in the tray, she failed to notice a corner of the rug turned up. Her foot caught on the edge and she stumbled. She lunged forward with the tray, the bowl it held flying into the air, before flipping over, and a meal of rice and lamb and tomatoes spilled all over the floor. The girl managed to keep her balance and she froze, the tray still clutched in her hands. All the color drained from her face and she stared at the mess with the sort of horror he’d imagine someone might display upon finding the body of a beloved pet.

“Oh, God,” she cried.

The first words he’d ever heard her say.

She dropped to her knees and placed the tray on the floor. Hurriedly, she pick up the overturned bowl and then started scooping hot rice and meat up with her hands, dumping the mess back into the bowl. As she scooped, her breath began to hitch, her shoulders shaking.

Monster stared at her, unsure of what he was supposed to do. If he went to help her, would he horrify her even more? Would she look at him and run screaming from the room? He didn’t want to make things worse, but he couldn’t just stand and watch her either.

As one of her handfuls revealed the tomato stained rug beneath, the hitching breaths gave way to a sob, and a tear ran down her cheek.

Monster could stand by no longer.

Three long strides brought him directly in front of her and he dropped to one knee as though about to propose.

“Don’t cry,” he told her. “It’s only food.”

“I’m not crying about the food,” she said, though she kept her eyes lowered to the mess while she spoke. “I’m crying about the rug. I’ll be beaten when they see the damage I caused.”

He reached out and touched her gently on the arm. Her skin felt impossibly soft beneath his fingertips and his eyes drank in every detail—the fine golden hairs on her arms, the rounded tips of her nails, the pale tone of her skin. The tears rolling down her cheeks stirred something inside of him, a desire to not only protect her, but to take her as his own. Her vulnerability made him want her even more than he already did, even though it was impossible.

“You didn’t do anything,” he said. “It was me who spilled the tray.”

She lifted her eyes to him, and for the first time someone looked him fully in the eyes. Her gaze didn’t flick to his deformity. The deep blue of her eyes met completely with his, the tears trembling in their depths.

It was as though she was seeing the real him.

“But then you’ll be punished,” she said, her voice a breathy whisper.

A faint smile touched his mouth. “I don’t care.”

She shook her head and her eyes left his as she continued to attempt to clear the mess. “No, I can’t have you do that.”

“You don’t have any choice.”

She continued to pick up the food, so he reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Take the tray and leave this room as though nothing has happened. I will keep the bowl.”

“No, I can’t …”

“Go,” he snarled. “Don’t make me say it again, or I will be the one you receive the beating from.”

Her eyes widened with shock and she fell back.

He hated himself for saying such a thing to her. Where had the words come from? They’d burst from his mouth before he’d been able to give them any thought. But he got what he wanted. Without saying another word, the girl snatched up the tray and ran from the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

Monster remained on his knees and stared at the mess. What had he done? He was more like his father than he’d thought. For the first time, someone had looked at him as though he wasn’t a monster, and he’d rewarded her by acting like one.

When enough time had passed to allow the girl to get away, he got back to his feet and banged on the door. “Father? I need more food.”

He waited a moment, and then repeated the banging. He doubted very much that his father was out there, but one of his men would be sent in his place. His stomach churned, his heart heavy with remorse. He didn’t care what his father would make of the spilled food or the damaged rug. It was the idea of what the girl thought of him now that caused the turmoil spinning around inside him like a whirlpool.

Several more thumps on the door finally brought footsteps pounding down the hallway. He’d not been expecting his father—he normally worked during any times that weren’t scheduled ‘lesson’ times, but even so, his father was the person who opened the door.

“What the hell is going on, Monster?”

Automatically, Monster stepped back, his chin lowered. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Father. I spilled my meal.”

His father’s eyes took in the mess before him. “How the hell did you do that?”

“I planned to eat in the armchair while reading. I tried to carry the bowl over, but I tripped on the corner of the rug.”

“Stupid boy.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll make sure I eat at the table in future.”

His whole body tensed, preparing himself for the blow he was sure would follow. But his father glanced back toward the door and exhaled a sigh of exasperation. He seemed distracted, his mind somewhere else.

“You should have got the girl to bring you more food.”

“I would have, Father, but she had already left.”

For the first time, his father’s gaze lifted to Monster’s face. He studied him in that way he did, as though he was able to read the thoughts in his son’s head without needing to hear them. Heat began to climb up Monster’s neck, and he willed it away, but the willing only made things worse. His father’s eyes narrowed and then flicked back down to the stained carpet and spilled rice and meat.

“I’ll send someone in to clean up,” he said, eventually. “But you can go without your food. It will teach you to take more care.”

Monster tried not to exhale a sigh of relief. Going hungry was no big deal. He’d been through a lot worse.

His father left the room.

Monster hoped he’d send the girl back in to clean up, so at least he’d get the chance to tell her he was sorry for being so harsh with her, but when the door opened—and Monster’s heart leapt into his throat, only to plummet again—he saw one of the elderly women who cleaned. She bustled into the room, not even acknowledging him, and set about sweeping up food and scrubbing the rug.

The hollowness in his stomach wasn’t just due to his hunger. He watched the minutes tick by until the afternoon turned to evening. All he wanted in the world was for the girl to return so she would look at him again, and he could tell her he was sorry.

But when the door opened that evening, the girl didn’t bring him his meal. Her delicate, beautiful face and honeyed hair had been replaced by a cold man with grey hair and a portly belly who slid Monster’s tray of food toward him with a grunt, as though he’d been feeding the master’s dog instead of his son.