He drys me off from head to toe before he wraps my body in a large towle and my hair in a smaller one. The way he does it with such ease has my mind kicking into overdrive. It seems like he has done this before and the thought of Ivan giving another women a shower or bath like this has a lot of unwanted feelings settling into my gut. Curiosity gets the better of me and though I know I shouldn’t I ask anyway.
“Do you do this a lot? I’m only asking because it seems like you know what you are doing wrapping up my long hair in that towel.”
“I haven’t done this in a very long time, and I don’t typically.” Sadness coats his words, and I’m relieved at his confession, and again I don’t understand why. It’s not like he really cares about me. Not in a sense that he cares what will happen to me after I leave this place. “This room is where I go to escape the madness of this place.”
He wraps a towel around himself before leading me to his bedroom. Once there, he deposits me onto his bed. It’s so soft underneath my legs, all I want to do is curl up and go to sleep on it.
Dread overcomes me like a wave when I remember what he said… I can shower and then I’m going back in the cell. I’ve been trying not to think about it and I succeeded, but now that I remember what’s going to happen I’m on the verge of crying.
This is only a short vacation from my new reality. He is going to bring me back downstairs and leave me and then I might never see him again. My eyes burn with unshed tears. I don’t know why but I don’t want to cry in front of him right now. I watch him dig through his dresser grabbing a few items throwing them onto the bedside me.
He turns back around to face me and I try to hide that I am on the verge of crying but of course he sees the unshed tears in my eyes.
“I told you… I can let you take a shower but you have to go back to the cell now.”
“I know. I just hate it down there. I’m so cold… and alone and I worry about someone coming in to hurt me all the time.”
Ivan gives me a conflicted look and I know I should be thankful for a shower and I am, but I don’t want to be down there. I don’t want to be away from him.
“I’ll give you something warmer to wear and like I said before, they won’t come back, they might be dumb but they know how to follow orders… they won’t disobey me.” His gaze flickers over my half naked body like he might be tempted to want something more from me.
“I… that’s all I can and will do for you. No one is going to mess with you while you’re here.” He doesn’t apologize and I don’t expect him too. I just need to stop hoping for a miracle and realize that soon I’ll be nothing but some rich man’s toy. This is my new life…
“Here, put these on.” He points at the clothes beside me. A thick grey sweatshirt that looks to be three times to big and a matching pair of sweatpants, with a black pair of boxers.
“Do you have some paper towel?” I feel my cheeks heat with embarrassment as soon as I ask the question. I’ll take the embarrassment over bleeding all over myself.
“Yeah, why?” He ask as I watch him get dressed. His movements are effortless.
“For my… you know… period.” I don’t know what I’m more embarrassed about, talking about my period or the fact that I just watched him get dressed.
He doesn’t seem to be embarrassed about either thing and walks out of the room leaving me alone for few moments. I immediately start to panic.
Until this moment I thought I just didn’t want him to leave me in the cell by myself but now I realize I don’t want him to leave me alone at all. I just want to be with him, near him. Maybe it’s the constant being alone that scares me, or something else I don’t really know but the realization hits me hard because I know staying with him is never going to happen.
He comes back and hands me a roll of paper towels. I take it and pick up the clothes he’s laid out for me. “Can I do this in your bathroom?”
“Go ahead,” he nods toward the bathroom and I get up and walk into the bathroom. I close the door behind me but don’t lock it. I don’t see the point. If he wants to come in here I don’t think the flimsy wooden door would stop him even if it was locked. That and if he wanted to hurt me he already would’ve. I unwrap my towel and hang it on a hook before I unroll a few pieces of the paper towel and fold it into a pad.