As always, his words only provide part of the answer.
“You’re strong, Petal,” he says. “Stronger than I thought. I never thought you’d crave it this much.”
“Never,” I repeat, casting him a dark look. “You can use that word, while I... I have no concept for it, no memories to base it on.”
The expression on his face tenses and he furrows his eyebrows, knowing that I’m about to divert our conversation in a direction he prefers to avoid.
“You have all of that,” I go on. “A past. An understanding of yourself. Memories. Maybe even memories of us, together?”
I choose my words with care, observing the reaction on his face as I voice that last sentence, searching for anything that could give me a clue about the accuracy of my assumption.
But he doesn’t give me anything. There’s no flicker, no crease, no smile or even a twitch. He just looks at me with that same controlled tension, leaving no hint that could validate my conjecture.
But he doesn’t shut me down either.
“How well did you know me before you brought me here?” I probe, daring to take it a step further. Questions. I have so many of them, but every time I voice just a single one, he pushes me back. Except for that one time when I asked about the sea. It was the first and only time I got a straight answer out of him.
Maybe this could be the second?
My hope is feeble, and when he responds, I scold myself for stirring any hope in the first place.
“What makes you think I knew you at all?” he asks, swaying his head to the side as he throws me a condescending smile.
Oh, you knew me. You must have, because I knew you.
I know, because the girl in the video said so. She obviously knew who you are, and she told me to trust you. She said I wanted to be with you, like this. She wouldn’t have said any of this about a stranger now, would she?
I want to tell him. I’m almost bursting with anger and the desire to make his head explode if I share my knowledge with him. I want to see the expression on his face when he finds out, when he realizes I only let him play with me like this, because I knew I wasn’t in any real danger.
Or am I?
And is it true that I let him? Wasn’t I the one who begged him not to stop? Wasn’t I the one who begged him to fuck me?
In any case, I can’t tell him. I promised her I wouldn’t. And if I did, she’d be the one to get in trouble, not me. I can’t do that to her, not after what she did for me, albeit she only gave me an inch when I’m asking for thousands of miles.
“It was just an assumption,” I say, lowering my head in apparent defeat. It’s a show for his benefit. He likes to see me in this place, down below, in submission to him and his will. It softens him—and it makes him vulnerable.
There’s one thing I could worm out of him, a detail that may seem minor but could bring light to my darkness, just like the white rose, and the girl in the video. I just need to be careful when choosing my words. This is a tricky one.
I can’t simply ask him for his name, because he already told me what I am to call him.
It’s hard to stop the smile from tugging at the corners of my mouth when I seek his hazel eyes and the question rolls off my tongue with unpredictable ease.
“What do people call you outside of this house?”