I followed after her slowly, glancing around the place again as I did. Every window was boarded up, not even a shred of light could enter this place. It made me wonder if she could remember what the feeling of sunlight on more than just her hands and the top of her head felt like.
I found her again. She was standing in front of her bookshelf, running her fingers over the shelves upwards. From here, I could see the slight movement in her lips, but I couldn’t quite tell what she was saying. Counting was my first thought.
She stopped on the sixth shelf up, now standing on her tiptoes, and started running her fingers along the spines, her head still facing down.
Halfway down the books, she paused and pulled the book out. She fell back on her heels and walked over to her small round table, placing the book down.
I walked over, watching as she ran her fingers over the tabs marked on certain pages. I managed to read the title just before she opened it.“For the Pure of the Church”.
I had read their version of the Good Book, and I had done my fair research on the books they had in their library, but this book must have been for the Favorites alone. A study guide on how to be the perfect Favorite.
She stepped back, folding her hands together at her hips, allowing me to step up and read the passage marked.
“And truly, I tell you that a sin-free Favorite shall find joy only in the joy of her betrothed. For no other shall be the source of her delight, but her betrothed alone. Should she find happiness in any other, she shall be deemed to have strayedand worshipped a false god, thus defiling herself in the eyes of the Lord.”
How interesting. So, Thomas ripped it up because it was a joyful picture. Unlike her paintings of the horrors she had faced, this had been one of another life with a mysterious man.
I liked the way they thought but not how they executed their beliefs. To have true control and power over a woman, you must give them hope. Give them something they enjoy but force them to enjoy you more. If she became consumed with me, she could draw and create all she wanted, leave, go out, enjoy the world, but she would always come back to me. She wouldn’t be able to help it. I would be the addiction she needed to survive, and when I deprived her of it, she would crawl on her hands and knees, begging me for more.
“Please,”I could hear her say,“let me cum, please.”
I straightened, forcing that thought down. “I’m going to take this book with me when I leave,” I told her, shutting it. “For now, sit in the chair. We have much to discuss.”
She took her seat in the chair on the other side of the small table, keeping her hands tucked underneath it, and I sat across from her, leaning back in the chair, the cane leaning against the side of it.
The table was so small, it could possibly fit three people, but their elbows would be touching, their knees, their plates.
As it was, this was the closest we have ever sat near each other.
The light of the lamp from the living room cast shadows across her face, her hair still tangled from sleeping in the closet but much better looking than it had been this afternoon in the changing room. Her dress was still crooked on her. She hadn’t even moved to fix it, not even when I wasn’t looking. I wondered why. Was that part of her mental block? She couldn’t do anything without me asking it of her, and although she wastrying to break that, perhaps fixing her clothes was something she couldn’t handle on her own.
“You may fix your clothes if you’d like,” I told her. “You can do that without me asking.” Although, I did like seeing her porcelain breasts spilling up over her dress. In this state, it hadn’t been done on purpose. It wasn’t something Thomas had put her in to make her look more attractive to the eyes of those fucking their hands in front of her. This was innocent, an accident, and I wanted her to realize that I wasn’t here to leer.
But despite my words, she remained where she was, completely still.
I angled my head, eyes falling to her neck. I could see her heart racing in her beautiful throat. “Are you awake?” I asked, just to be sure.
She lifted her hand over the table and tapped her finger against it once before returning it back to her lap.
Interesting.
“Very well,” I replied easily. Did she have a game in mind? Did she have the same thoughts I had? While I was trying to make her obsess over me was she also trying to make me do the same?
Sorry, little sinner, that’s a game you will lose.
“I know about the branches and the daycares the church has facilitated, now it’s time to go deeper. How many branches of the seven churches are there?”
She was quiet for a long time before she placed her hand on the table, tapped three times and then lifted her finger.
I studied it carefully before my eyes lifted back to hers. “More than three, but you don’t know how many,” I concluded. “Are there three in the Seattle area?”
She tapped once.
Three branches in the Seattle area and the Judge was a part of one of them. “Have you ever heard the name Manuel Ruiz?”
I gave her some time to think, knowing that for questions like these, it would take her a little time to find her answer.
When ten seconds had passed, she lifted her finger and dropped it.
