The anger felt wrong. Felt like betrayal of everything he'd trained into me. Good girls didn't get angry. Good girls accepted what they were given. Good girls waited patiently for their owners to return.
But their owners were supposed to return.
"You promised," I told the empty apartment, forcing myself to uncurl one muscle at a time. "Said forever. Said mine. Said you'd keep me."
My legs screamed when I tried to straighten them. How long had I been folded into myself? Long enough for joints to forget their purpose. Long enough for muscles to atrophy from disuse. Long enough that standing felt like rebellion.
But I stood anyway. Swayed, caught myself on the coffee table, stayed vertical through pure spite.
"I could die here." The realization came with another wave of anger. "Die waiting for you because you programmed me to need permission for basic survival. Is that what you wanted? A dead pet as testimony to your training skills?"
The kitchen seemed miles away, but rage propelled me forward. Each step felt like betrayal—of him, of my training, of the good girl I was supposed to be. But underneath the guilt was something sharper. Harder. A spark of the old Lilah who'd rather burn down the world than die quietly.
Water first. My hands shook as I filled a glass, and I almost asked permission before drinking. Almost waited for approval that would never come. But the anger overrode conditioning just enough to bring glass to lips.
The first sip hurt. Everything hurt. But it was real pain, physical and immediate, not the endless emotional agony of abandonment. I drank slowly, carefully, aware that too much too fast would make me sick. Some desperate part of me imagined him watching, approving of my caution even in rebellion.
"See?" I told the surveillance that didn't exist. "Still being good. Still taking care of your property. Even though you abandoned it."
The money mocked me from its place on the counter. I wanted to burn it. Wanted to scatter it from the windows and watch it flutter away like the promises he'd made. But that would be wasteful, and good girls weren't wasteful.
"Fuck being good."
But even as I said it, I handled the money carefully. Placed it in a drawer where I wouldn't have to see it. Evidence of transaction completed. Payment for services rendered. Here's your money, now disappear and pretend twelve weeks of transformation never happened.
My phone—when had I retrieved it?—lay on the counter with its cracked screen. Still functional despite my tantrum. I stared at it, this bridge to a world I'd forgotten existed. Somewhere out there, people were living normal lives. Making choices without permission. Existing independently.
The thought terrified me.
But dying terrified me more. And that's what was happening—slow death by conditioning. Withering away because I couldn't act without approval from a man who'd made sure I'd never find him again.
"Pizza." The word felt foreign. When had I last chosen food? Weeks of being fed by his hand, meals selected for optimal nutrition and control. But pizza was simple. Pizza was what the old Lilah would order. Pizza was rebellion disguised as normalcy.
My fingers shook as I navigated the app. So many choices. Toppings and crusts and sizes that felt overwhelming without someone telling me what I was allowed. I closed my eyes, stabbed randomly, ordered whatever my finger landed on.
"See?" I whispered to ghosts. "Can make decisions. Can function. Don't need you."
The lie tasted bitter, but I swallowed it with more water.
Forty minutes until delivery. Forty minutes to remember how to be human. I forced myself toward the bathroom, each step a small betrayal of trained stillness. The mirror showed a stranger—hollow eyes, matted hair, that expensive nightgown wrinkled and stained with tears.
"You look like shit," I told my reflection. "He'd be so disappointed."
The thought nearly sent me back to the couch. But the anger held, fragile scaffold keeping me upright. He'd left me. Lost the right to disappointment when he'd abandoned his creation.
The shower took three tries to figure out. Different from his, with controls that didn't make intuitive sense. But eventually, hot water poured down, and I stepped under it still wearing the nightgown because removing it felt like too many decisions.
The water hit like absolution. Like punishment. Like the baptism I'd never gotten after he rebuilt me. I stood there, letting it soak through silk, washing away days of crystallized tears and accumulated grief.
"I hate you," I told the water, told him, told myself. "Hate what you made me. Hate that I still love you. Hate that I'mstanding here imagining you're watching, approving of me taking care of myself."
But I did imagine it. Couldn't stop. Every move felt performed for an audience of one who'd never see it. Look, Daddy, I'm showering without being told. See how good I am? How well I can follow implied protocols even abandoned?
The nightgown came off eventually, peeled away like a second skin. I found soap—his preference in scent, because of course this apartment would be stocked with things he'd chosen. Washed mechanically, trying not to think about the last time these hands had touched my body. How they'd mapped territory they'd claimed forever.
"Liar." The word echoed off tile. "Beautiful, perfect liar who built me into something that can't exist without you."
Clean felt strange. Human felt stranger. I found towels—plush and perfect like everything in this designed life. Dried off while avoiding my reflection, unable to face evidence of his abandonment. No collar marks remained. No bruises from his hands. Like he'd been erased from my skin as thoroughly as from my life.
