“So is that what you do now?Drugs?”I ask, finally breaking the silence.It’s not far from my original supposition that he’s part of the Mafia or some other criminal organization.
“No,” he says, to my surprise.“That part of my life ended when my parents were killed.I took the family business in a different direction.”
“Which direction?”I remember him telling me something about an import-export organization, but I can’t imagine Julian doing something as innocuous as selling electronics.Not after what I’ve just learned about his upbringing.
He chuckles, as though amused at my persistence.“Weapons,” he says.“I’m an arms dealer, Nora.”
I blink, surprised.I know a little—or at least, I think I know—about drug dealers, thanks to some popular TV shows.Arms dealers, however, are a complete mystery to me.I strongly suspect Julian isn’t talking about a few guns here or there.
I have a million questions about his profession, but there’s something I need to know first, while Julian seems to be in a sharing mood.“Why did you steal me?Is it because I remind you of Maria?”
“Yes,” he says softly, his voice wrapping around me like a cashmere scarf.“When I first saw you in that club, you looked so much like her, it was uncanny.Except you were older—and even more beautiful.And I wanted you.I needed you.For the first time in years, I was truly feeling.Of course, the emotions you evoked in me were nothing like what I’d once felt for her.She was my friend, but you…” He inhales deeply, his chest moving under my head.“I just needed you to be mine, Nora.When I touched you that day, when I felt the silkiness of your skin, I so badly wanted to take you, to strip off those tight clothes you were wearing and fuck you senseless right then and there, on the floor of that club.And I wanted to hurt you… the way I sometimes like to hurt women, the way they ask me to hurt them… I wanted to hear you scream—in pain and in pleasure.”
His hand continues playing with my hair, and the caressing touch keeps me calm enough to listen.In the darkness, none of this is real.There’s only Julian and his voice, telling me things that a normal person would find frightening—things that somehow make me wet instead.
“I brought you here, to my island, because it’s the safest place for you.My business associates are always looking for signs of weakness, and you, my pet, are a weakness of mine.I’ve never felt this way about another woman.I’ve never been so—” he pauses for a moment, as though searching for the right word, “—so fucking obsessed.Just the thought of another man touching you, kissing you, drove me crazy.I tried to stay away, to put you out of my mind, but I couldn’t resist seeing you one more time at your graduation.And when I saw you there, I knew you felt it too, this connection between us—and I knew then that it was inevitable… that I would take you, and you would always be mine.”
His words wash over me like a warm ocean wave, bringing with it trepidation and a kind of unhealthy excitement.Some twisted part of me revels in the fact that I’m special to Julian, that he’s as helplessly drawn to me as I am to him.
For some strange reason, I feel compelled to reciprocate his openness.“I was afraid of you,” I tell him quietly.“In the club, and then when I saw you at my graduation, I was afraid.”
“Only afraid?”He sounds amused and mildly disbelieving.
“Afraid and attracted,” I admit.This seems to be the night for revelations.Besides, he already knows the truth.Despite my fear, I desire him.I’ve wanted him from the very beginning, and nothing he’s done since changes that fact.
“Good.”He runs his hand lightly down my back.“That’s very good, my pet.It’ll make things easier for both of us.”
Easier?I consider that statement.Easier for him, certainly.But for me?I’m not so sure.
“Did you ever contact my family?”I ask, thinking of his promise all those days ago.“Do they know that I’m alive?”
“Yes.”His hand pauses at the curve of my spine.“They know.”
I wonder what he told them and how they reacted.I wonder if it made it better for them or worse.
“Will you ever let me go?”I already know the answer, but I need to hear him say it anyway.
“No, Nora,” he replies, and I can feel his smile in the darkness.“Never.”
And bringing me closer, he holds me until we both eventually fall asleep.
16
Nora
Over the next few months,my life on the island falls into a routine of sorts.When Julian is there, my world revolves around him.His moods, his needs and desires, rule my days and nights.
He’s an unpredictable lover—gentle one day, cruel the next.And sometimes he’s a mix of both, a combination that I find particularly devastating.I understand what he’s doing to me, but understanding doesn’t make it any less effective.He’s training me to associate pain with pleasure, to enjoy whatever he does to me, no matter how shocking and perverted it is.And always afterwards, there’s that unsettling tenderness.He turns me inside out, takes me apart, and puts me back together—all in the span of one night.
And his training is working.I go into his arms willingly now, craving that high I often get from a particularly brutal session.Julian tells me that I’m a natural submissive with latent masochistic tendencies.I don’t know if I believe him—I know that I certainly don’t want to believe him—but I can’t deny that his peculiar brand of lovemaking resonates with me on some level.Toys, whips, canes—he’s used them all, and I have invariably found pleasure in some part of what he was doing.
Of course, he’s not always sadistic.Sometimes he’s almost sweet, massaging me all over, kissing me until I melt, and then making love to me when I’m nearly out of my mind with need.On days like that, I don’t want to leave the island.All I want is for Julian to keep holding me, caressing me… loving me, in whichever way he can.
Perhaps that is the most disturbing part of it all—the fact that I now crave my captor’s love.I don’t even know if he’s capable of that emotion, but I can’t help needing it from him.He wants me, I know that, but it’s not enough.Somewhere along the way, I’ve lost my hatred for him, and I don’t even know how or when it happened.I still resent my captivity, but those feelings are now separate from the way I feel about Julian.
Instead of dreading his visits to the island, I now eagerly await them.His business keeps him away more than I like, and I begin to understand how pets feel, waiting for their owner to come home from work.
“Why can’t you conduct more of your business from here?”I ask him one day, after we wake up together in the morning.He always sleeps with me now.He likes holding me during the night; it helps him with his nightmares.
