“Yes.” He confesses, knowing where this is headed.
“And before me... you had someone else in my place? Someone else who came to you with three snakes thrown in her shipping crate?”
“I did.” He nods, not taking his eyes off of me.
“What happened to her?”
He licks his lips before pulling the bottom one between his teeth, contemplating the answer that I already know. If he bought me to kill me and he had someone before me, I can deduce that he killed her. The question is why?
“She didn't live for long.” He admits.
“I asked what happened to her.” I clarify, smacking the table just enough to get him to look directly at me instead of at the table. “I want to know what you did to her.”
Cal looks startled by my sudden tenacity but not disturbed by it. In fact, he almost seems to have been waiting for this conversation.
“Do you want the high-level overview or the play-by-play?”
Fuck.
I amsonot equipped to deal with a sociopath, even with my own incredibly questionable mental health. Maybe especially because of it.
Maybe it's morbid, or maybe it's sick, but I want every detail.
25
Cal
“Little doll?” I venture, waiting for her to give me proof of life... anything other than sitting there in shock and horror.
I guess I should have lied to her.
I've just told the woman I bought to kill how I murdered the woman who I brought here before her, in detail. I watched the way her lips pressed tightly together when I told her about the sexual exploits and the way her eyes widened when I told her how many different times I thought about killing her before I actually did it. I told her how I fucked her as she slipped under the water, how I didn't try to help her, and how I just laid her on the ground and waited for her to die. I don't tell her how unsatisfying it was, how anticlimactic it was, until I grabbed the knife and stabbed her.
But I did tell her about how I packed her in a suitcase and flew her back to my family home to bury her in the mausoleum and how I decided when I got another one that I'd control myself better so she would last longer. I think that's what she's hung up on right now. And I did make her last longer. I had the last one for all of two hours. It's been over two months with my little doll, and I'm still just as obsessed as I was when I first saw her. I don't regret that she's awake, but I do wish I could still fuck her whenever I wanted. I liked that she was always ready for me.
“So, what is all of this?” She asks, gesturing to the remnants of our dinner, the empty bottle of wine. “Playing with your victim?”
I don't know how to answer that because I don't know the answer at all. I didn't intend for her to wake up before I'd planned it, and I hadn’t planned ityet. Now that she's been awake, my choices have been either kill her or enjoy her company. And I have been enjoying her company.
“I don't know.” I tell her honestly. “I haven't wanted to kill you yet.”
“Oh?” She laughs, standing up so that her chair comes out from beneath her, scraping across the floor. “Well, thank you so much for the compliment. Truly, a master of seduction, you are.”
“Is that what you think I was doing?” I puzzle. “Seducing you?”
“Of course it's what you were doing.” She scoffs. “Wine and a home-cooked meal like this is some sort of first date? Come on, Cal. Admit that you're trying to fuck with me... or at least fuck me again. Is that what you want?”
That feels like a trap.
Of course I want to fuck her again. I don't want anything more than to fuck her again. But I suspect that's not what she wants to hear.
“I was just trying to make things better... to get to know you better.”
“You want to get to know me?” She laughs. “We're not dating, Cal.”
“What else am I supposed to do? Throw you in the basement? Tie you to my bed?”
“If you're going to kill me, be a fucking man and do it!”
