Page 22 of Reclaimed

“Couldn’t concentrate?” I turned away, not trusting myself to speak without letting my frustration show. Ray’s body pressed lightly against my back and his hand crept forwards.

I gasped as his fingers pushed gently against my jeans between my legs. In my already needy state, even just that slight pressure felt so good, and it was all I could do not to lean into it. He smelt of his citrusy shower gel, and I wanted to inhale that smell forever.

“What are you doing?”

“If you need some release, you only need to ask.”

I swallowed thickly. He’d brought me to a point of such desperation without even really trying. This was the most intimate he’d been with my body so far, and I was in partial shock at his audacity, but could he even be audacious in a situation where he had nothing to lose? We were in his territory, and everything was under his rules. The only one with something to lose was me. I moved his hand away.

“I don’t need anything from you.”

“Suit yourself.”

*

I had felt sickened by the weakness of both my body and my will after what had taken place in Ray’s room. It had turned out it was easy for him to dominate me both physically and mentally. I wasn’t sure how to fortify my willpower, but I knew how to strengthen my body. Every morning after that I set my alarm early so that I could get up and use the tiny bit of floor space in my room to exercise. I don’t know why I felt it had to be a secret – I guess I had a feeling that Ray wouldn’t like the idea of me getting strong enough to fight back. I knew it would take far more than what I was doing to ever be able to defend myself against him, but if I could just make it more difficult for him… I never wanted a repeat of my pitiful attempts at resistance from that day.

The combination of the exercise and the secrecy meant I started every day on a high. I loved knowing that I was, even in such a small way, resisting Ray’s attempts to control my life. He noticed the improvement in my mood, but if he was suspicious about the reason, he didn’t say so.

Quite serendipitously, it was around this time that Ray started encouraging me to work in the garden, giving me even more opportunity to build my strength. One evening, we sat down with his laptop, and he let me choose some things to order. From then on, whenever the weather was good, Ray would finish work and come to find me in the garden, usually with a welcome offering of a cold drink. The fresh air, the sunlight, the exercise and the satisfaction of making a tangible change to something helped me end the day as contented as I’d started it. Our daily routine was getting more and more full, what with the cage time, the household work I did for Ray and the time spent in the garden.

*

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you looked happy,” Ray said to me one evening. We were sitting in the garden with our drinks, and Ray had brought the speaker outside so we could listen to music. My body felt that wholesome kind of fresh-air-tiredness you get from spending lots of time outside. My skin was taking on a healthy golden glow from working in the sun, and I knew, though I kept it to myself, that my body was getting stronger every day. I was too contented to bother trying to hide it from Ray.

“I am happy. I think.” It wasn’t that I wouldn’t have left if I had the chance; I still fully intended to escape, but I was able to find some kind of peace in the way we were living that I hadn’t managed to find before.

Ray leant across to put his hand on mine, and I let it stay there.

“What’s changed?”

I shrugged; I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure myself.

“I’m not sure. Lots of distraction maybe?”

“Well, whatever it is, it suits you.”

I tried to keep my next words in, but the drink had loosened my tongue.

“You’ve helped me too.” Ray was silent. Maybe he was too afraid to say anything to spoil the moment. Maybe he wasn’t sure if he’d heard me correctly. “So, thanks, I guess.”

He squeezed my hand in reply. It may have been a treacherous act on my part to show him gratitude, but it had been honest. He had helped me – he knew how to do that better than anyone. Every time I was struggling with something, he knew before I did what it was and what could help solve it. I might not trust him enough to commit myself to him, but I trusted him to look after me for as long as I was there.

11

It wasn’t long before Ray had a chance to prove that I was right about trusting his care. I’d been getting ambitious with my morning workouts, and as I was digging in the garden, my muscles were protesting. One particularly forceful movement of my arm sent a sharp pain through my right shoulder, making me cry out and drop the spade so I could only clutch at it uselessly. My eyes were watering from the pain before I’d even fully registered what had happened. I knew almost immediately that this injury was going to leave me out of action for a while. All my progress on building a stronger body was going to be lost. Tears of anger now flowed. I’d been stupid to think I could make myself anywhere near strong enough to pose a challenge to Ray. But in that moment, I didn’t want to challenge him – I wanted to let him care for me. My feet dragged me to his office, and I knocked, trying to control my tears. He looked concerned as soon as the door opened – I’d never sought him out while he was working before. When he registered the state I was in, he looked almost afraid.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I... I hurt my shoulder.” I felt pathetic as I said it; I knew it probably seemed like an overreaction to him, but I couldn’t let on about my strengthening goal, so I had to make him think it was only the pain that was making me upset. To be fair, that wasn’t hard to do, as every tiny movement of my body sent new shooting pains through the muscles in the back of my shoulder.

“Okay, pet.” He put his hand on the small of my back and steered me gently over to the sofa. “Don’t worry; we’ll sort it.” He sat me down and got me to remove my hand, which had still been pointlessly clutching at my injured shoulder. “Were you out in the garden?” I nodded. “Okay, we should probably get some ice on it. Stay there.”

I did as I was told. None of my plans against him had ever worked out. Maybe acceptance of my situation really was my only option.

Ray came back moments later with a freezer block, setting it down beside him before giving me a stern look. “I need to be able to get to your shoulder properly.”

“Okay.”

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