Page 46 of The Puppetmaster

I check one last time if I really have everything I need from her, every authorization, every signature, even her fingerprint. It’s all there.

Including her note.

I pick it up last, turning it over in my hand as if I’m seeing it for the very first time. The story written on there is a gruesome one for sure, and Alena blames herself for what happened–but it’s not all her fault.

I need to tell her eventually, and I will. After all of this is done. I want her to live free from this guilt that’s been tormenting her for years.

After all of this is done.

I’ve never felt guilty for what I’m doing with these girls. I know they get something in return, and I know there’s a rumor out there that even goes as far as saying that I change their lives for the better. I don’t know if that’s true, and I don’t really care.

All I care about is my mission—and our joint pleasure. Taking in my girls as puppets comes with an unusual blend of pleasure—for them and for me—and an exploitation for my cause.

Of course if all goes well, they never learn about the latter. They never learn because they never look for the truth. Alena wasn’t any different than the others. She was skeptical, but easily calmed after I answered a few simple questions. She already trusts me more than she should. But I will have to make her trust grow even deeper. I need her to give me a kind of devotion that comes close to worshipping a god.

And I will get her there, even if it might take a little longer than it did with all the other puppets before her. That only means I get to watch her dance for a little longer.

I open the safe next to my desk and file the paperwork in Alena’s folder, adding the note last, before I lock the safe and leave the office. I wasn’t gone for very long and decide to give her a little more time to get accustomed to what will essentially be her cell for the next few weeks or months, however long I end up keeping her here.

I didn’t lock the door on purpose, just to see how much I can really trust her at this point. There’s a sensor in the door’s lock that will send an alarm to my phone if she decides to open the door without permission, and another one attached to her cuffs that tells me where she is at all times. Since she doesn’t know either of those things, it will all depend on her obedience. It’s a test, but I wouldn’t mind it if she failed.

It would only add to the punishment she will receive anyway. Denying her an orgasm when she was so close to coming was only the beginning.

I spend a few more minutes in the kitchen preparing our dinner before heading back upstairs. Dorota usually cooks for me when she’s around, but when I have a puppet here, I become the cook—or they do, if I order them to. Cooking is something that comes naturally to me. I never had a mother to teach me because my stepmother wasn’t a great cook herself. And even if she had been, she sure as hell would not have wasted any time sharing that knowledge with the son of a woman she despised.

I can’t blame her. My father never got over my mother’s early death and only remarried because he felt obligated to when she announced that she was pregnant with my half-brother. It was a shitty situation for everyone involved, her, my younger brother, my father, and me. There was no love left in this house, only obligation.

I don’t know how we would have survived if it weren’t for Dorota. She was the only warm voice in our home, the motherly figure who loved us boys unconditionally.

She was also the one who taught me how to cook when I first showed interest in it. Maybe that’s the reason why I couldn’t say no to her when she brought that annoying feline here.

I prepare as much as I’m willing to right now, leaving the vegetable chopping for later—and possibly for my puppet—because that’s the one mundane task I loathe.

Besides, I have other things on my mind and am only passing time until I can go back upstairs and find my puppet ready in the way I want her to be.

That time is cut short when I hear the alarm on my phone go off announcing that her bedroom door has been opened. It’s lying on the counter next to me.

That little minx.

I wash my hands, only waiting for the phone to ring again and announce that she’s now wandering around the house without permission. But it stays quiet.

It’s still quiet by the time I make my way upstairs, checking to see whether I see her anywhere. There’s a chance she took off her cuffs, too. If she did that, I’d have no way of knowing where she is.

And once I find her, her punishment would be severe.

I don’t run into her anywhere in the house. Instead I’m surprised to find her sitting on the bed in her bedroom.

She’s wearing a white see-through negligée with matching stockings that I provided for her, her face looking refreshed and hair combed and flowing down her shoulders in silky waves.

But she’s not alone.

The cat is resting in her lap, looking so fucking content and complacent that the sight inflames me, despite Alena’s sublime beauty.

“You didn’t say anything about letting her in,” she says, looking at me with an apologetic smile. “Right? She knocked, and I was lonely.”

I step closer, unsure what to say. I’ve never seen this before. The cat is all curled up in Alena’s lap, purring loudly as she’s petting her softly.

What is wrong with that thing?

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