Page 8 of Wanted
His hesitation was so slight it could barely be called that.
“Fine,” he said, coming into the room with her anyway. He didn’t look at her as he pinned the paper to the wall at face height directly in front of the scale. He then tied a pen on a string to the thumbtack. “Step on. Let’s get a base weight for tomorrow.”
If he thought this was a punishment, he could think again. There hadn’t been a single week since Master had gone to prison that she hadn’t been ordered to miss at least one day of meals. If he thought she was opposed to losing more weight, he was wrong. Master didn’t allow fat on his menagerie girls, and she had long ago become the queen of never pinching so much as an inch of unwanted weight.
She stepped onto the scale, watching without interest as he adjusted the balancing arm.
“Eighty-four,” he said, and then wrote that next to the date at the top of the pinned paper. “Either my scale or the hospital’s is a little off. But it’ll give us a base to work from. Stay here.”
Taking her bloody clothes with him, again he walked out and when he returned it was with an old t-shirt and a pair of sweats. He tossed them at her from the doorway. “Put them on and meet me in the living room. If you’re not there in five minutes, I’ll add two smores and another movie to your punishment.”
She startled. “Wh-what?”
“You heard me,” he called back over his shoulder, already walking away.
Standing in the near-empty bedroom, she looked at the clothes in her hands. Sweats. Menagerie girls did not wear sweats. Menagerie girls didn’t wear anything when at home with Master.
Marcus wasn’t Master, and wasn’t this all the very point he was trying right now to drill into her? Shoulders slumping, Pony crawled into the worn t-shirt and oversized pants. The elastic waist was too loose. She had to hold them up as she padded in bare feet back out to the living room.
“Couch,” he ordered from the kitchen, where he had a bowl out on the counter already and was now busy digging through a drawer for silverware. He was making a dessert. Next to the bowl was an assortment of sauces—chocolate syrup, strawberry jam, nuts, whipped cream in a can, and maraschino cherries.
She was good in the kitchen. She always had been, although Puppy’s mother had never allowed her to do any of the cooking or cleaning at her house. Not that Pony would have. Puppy’s mother had hated her. That bitter old woman wasn’t anyone’s master either, not by a long shot. But the longer she stood watching Marcus in the kitchen doing what she ought to be, the stronger that long dormant desire to serve became. It itched up her spine and despite his order, she took a step toward him.
Closing the cupboard drawer, he pointed at her with the spoon he’d chosen. “Couch, right now or I’ll add to your punishment.”
Stomach dropping, skin itching, fingers tightening their grip on the waist of her too big pants, she went to the couch. Sit, he’d told her, but he hadn’t told her where. Where did he like to sit? In the middle, on one of the ends? What if she took his preferred spot?
“One,” he counted from the kitchen.
She began to panic, her breathing quickening, her chest heaving. “Where should I—”
“Two…”
“Where’s your sp—”
“Three.”
She sat, her whole body erupting into panic so sharp it cut through her veins like lightning. Perching in the middle of the couch, her feet drawn up under her, she heard his too-little, too-late tsk.
He took a bottle of caramel syrup out of the cupboard and set it next to the empty bowl. “Do you have any food allergies?”
“N-no,” she stammered, so nervous she was shaking.
Pausing, he glanced at her. “Good girl, Anna.”
She’d forgotten the ‘sir’. Her stomach lurched, but the warmth of his unexpected praise slipped over her like a warm blanket. It settled the wildness of her badly shaking nerves, though she still shook as she watched him put the caramel back.
“Lactose intolerant?” he asked, getting a tub of vanilla ice cream out of the freezer.
“No.” Sir! Her throat tightened, only just choking the word back. Her lips clamped, refusing to let her mouth speak it.
He watched her struggle not to say it for almost a full minute before the corner of his mouth curled into a faint smile. “Very good girl, Anna.” He put the sprinkles away next. “If only I could put it all away, but that wouldn’t get the point across, would it?”
She was going to be sick. She rubbed her stomach, the warmth of his praise both a balm upon her starving submissive’s soul and a knife cutting her traitorous self to ribbons.
He scooped a single rounded ball of vanilla ice cream into the bowl, then topped it with a sprinkle of granola, an entire slice of banana, chocolate syrup, a spritz of whipped cream, a sprinkle of nuts, and finally a single bright red cherry.
He brought it to her, handing her the bowl first and then the spoon. He turned on the big television affixed to the wall above the fireplace mantle, signed in to Netflix and chose ‘Chicken Little’ off the kids’ menu. Taking a blanket off the back of the couch, he draped it over her, tucking it in around her legs. “Comfortable?”
