Page 139

God, I want to.

But I have learned the cost of teeth.

“You are weak,” he says.

The words are gentle and that is the worst of it.

“You are nothing.” He snarls.

Somewhere inside me, a woman snarls. Faintly, far, far away and I miss her. He tilts my face toward the mirror across the room and a stranger stares back. She is thin, painted and extremely breakable.

“Do you see?” he asks. “This is what my father saw. What he intended, before you ruined everything with fire and childish fury.”

His thumb presses against the bruise hidden beneath powder, “you shall return to the objectification he intended for you.”

His words make my stomach roll. My memory flashes, a room with bindings, unfamiliar hands. Pressure where I did not want pressure. Voices laughing around the edges of my fear. The taste of bile, the tears hot against my temples. His voice above all of it, instructing, correcting, reminding them not to damage what belonged to him. Strict rules for the doll. Strict rules for the men. No marks where they might show and no broken bones unless approved. No death, never death. Death, I have learned, is a luxury he refuses to give me. I close my eyes, I envy corpses. They are beyond being touched, beyond being arranged and not being painted into obedience.

A corpse cannot be threatened with the blade or with a needle. With the word he uses when I fight too hard.

Lobotomy.

He says it as if offering tea. As if carving away pieces of my mind would be a mercy. You would be sweeter, he told me once, after I spat blood onto his shirt. Quieter. Easier to love.

Love.

Men like him should not be allowed that word. It becomes filth in their mouths.

He releases my chin. “You are thinking too loudly.”

My eyes open and the words escape; “I was thinking you talk too much.”

The slap comes fast, but not hard enough to break anything. He is careful now, always careful. My head turns with the force of it, cheek burning and bright spots scatter across my vision. Then I laugh, weakly, barely sound, but it exists. His expression sharpens as he crouches beside the chaise until at my eye level. “You believe defiance makes you strong.”

“No,” I whisper. His eyes narrow.

“Defiance reminds me I am still here.”

The silence that follows is worth the pain. His face changes. In one breath, I see the burned boy beneath The Collector. I see the fury, the grief and the hatred he has polished into power but called justice.

Then he smiles. “You are learning to speak like a martyr.”

“I have no interest in martyrdom.”

“No. You always preferred murder.” He hisses.

I turn my face toward him. “And you always preferred ownership because no one stayed with you willingly.”

His hand closes around my throat, not tight enough to stop my breath but enough to remind me that he can. The old terror rises and so does the old fury, they meet inside me and turn to poison.

“Careful,” he says. My pulse beats beneath his fingers.

“Or what?” I whisper. “Will you take more from me?”

His grip tightens. I smile, but my lips tremble with it, though I still smile. “There is less left each day. You should be more economical.”

I think he will lose control. I hope he forgets his rules and kills me, ending this. That thought frightens me more than his hand, though I do not truly want to die, not fully. I just want this to stop. There is a difference, though the distance between the two grows thinner each day. He lets go and air returns too quickly, and I cough despite myself.

He stands, smoothing his sleeve. “Maybe I have been too generous.”