Exactly like last night. Say no, body says yes. I’m consistent in my inconsistency.
The note stares up at me. Coffee-stained now, but the words still legible.
You’ll need your strength.
I eat the last grape and hate myself for it.
He doesn’t come.
All day, nothing. No visits. No summons. No demands. Just silence and space and the walls closing in. I should be relieved. After all, it’s giving me time to process. Time to plan. Time to rebuild the defenses he shattered against that courtyard wall.
Instead, I can’t help the dismay that he’s not here. Doing what? Telling me I want him? Trying to apologize for last night? Trying to charm me into a repeat? God knows.
I try to distract myself.
First, I pace. Back and forth, back and forth. Restless energy with nowhere to go, trapped in this beautiful prison while between my legs, the ache from last night throbs like a second heartbeat.
When that doesn’t work, I make my way to the studio and start sketching. But my hands shake too much. The lines come out wrong, all jagged edges and angry strokes. So I go to the library, grab a book from the small romance section and read the same page five times without absorbing a single word.
Finally, I stomp back to my room, the floor pristine clean once again, and decide to have a shower.
The water is too hot, almost scalding. I stand under the spray and try to wash away his scent. My scent. The evidence of what we did.
Here’s the passage smoothed into more cohesive, natural prose while keeping Violet’s raw, conflicted internal voice. I’ve connected the choppy fragments into flowing sentences that let the sensations and thoughts drift together organically—less abrupt stops, more lingering discomfort and denial—without adding new beats or changing the content.
Between my legs I’m still tender, but there’s this persistent ache underneath, like last night wasn’t enough, like my body is already asking for more even as I stand here trying to scrub it all away. I press the washcloth too hard and wince at the sting, but the discomfort doesn’t dull anything. It doesn’t erase thememory. I can still feel the exact shape of his fingers inside me, the slow curl that found every spot I didn’t know I had. I can still hear his voice low against my ear, that quiet certainty whispering that my body wants him, knows what it needs even when I won’t admit it.
My hand slides down without me deciding to let it. Just washing, that’s all I’m doing. That’s the lie I tell myself as my fingers brush over sensitive skin, as heat flares up instantly, like he trained my body to respond to this exact touch.
I pull my hand away like I’ve been burned.
I won’t. I refuse. I’m not going to stand here and masturbate to the memory of my kidnapper making me come. I’m not going to prove him right.
But the wanting doesn’t stop.
It throbs between my legs all afternoon. A constant low-grade ache. Punishment for what I did. What I want to do again.
By evening, I’m exhausted.
Not from physical exertion. From fighting my own body. From analyzing every moment of last night until my brain feels bruised. From waiting for him.
From pretending I’m not waiting.
Eight o’clock passes.
No knock. No command. No summons to dinner.
He’s giving me a choice. Which is worse than demanding, because now I have to decide. Stay in my room like a coward. Assert independence. Make him come to me.
But then what? He wins either way?
I open the closet.
A backless green silk dress hangs in the place he usually puts dresses he wants me to wear.
When did he choose it? Will he come and order me to wear it like he usually does?
The green dress stares at me. My hands reach for it before I make a conscious decision.
