~
You bolted up in your bed, a cold sweat soaking your back. Hearing someone groan next to you, you remembered that Alois had made you submit to him again that night. You had become used to this...this heinous routine.
A year was a long time.
You couldn't believe it.
Claude brought you the paper every morning like you had requested. That was the only way you could tell what day it was, for your windowless, escapeless cell held no answers. Only a ticking clock and a newspaper helped you keep your sense of time.
"Now, now. Did someone have another nightmare?" Alois' voice made you alert, and you felt as he sat up and wrapped his arms around you. You didn't look at him, but meagrely nodded and Alois gave you a kiss on the cheek. "You seem to be having an awful lot of them lately, ____."
"I know," you muttered glancing at him, and they're all your fault. "I'm sorry to have woken you." Alois shook his head as he leaned his forehead against yours,
"It gives me a chance to comfort you," he noted gently, pulling you back down to the bed with your head on his chest; he ran his fingers through your hair and then kissed it. Alois had been quite tame since you quit trying to escape. You had learned, eventually, to suck it up and to deal with your cell life. You had tried and tried to escape, but you had never gotten past the panel at the top of the stairs. You had even tried to kill Alois a few times, but nothing worked. The guards were on you in a matter of seconds and ripped you away - you hadn't even made a scratch on him. "A girl so lovely as you shouldn't be having such horrible dreams - I love you, ____." You sighed, a mild twisting in your gut,
"I love you too, Alois." You were finally able to say that without stuttering. You had practiced it up and down and now it was totally flawless. There was no hint of stutter in your words, or of sadness in your voice. It was the way Alois wanted it now - truthful sounding. But you knew it could never be; you could never love Alois. Ever. And you had tried to. You figured that if you were stuck in this cell for the rest of your life, then might as well try and find some good in your captor. You could never find any. All of the goodness you used to see in Alois had been burned out. He was hallow now. He had no soul. He had no heart. To you, he was a boy of Blackness. Of Darkness. And there was no light to be found any more. Not even a speck.
Although you were convinced otherwise, you listened intently to the beating of Alois' heart. It still pounded when he touched you, and you knew that he did have some love for you. Some feeling for you. However, the attention he gave was anything but what you craved. You craved something sweeter, something lighter. Someone who sent butterflies herding through your stomach. Any butterflies you had for Alois in the beginning were lost now. They were dead. Just stones that now created dread and weight in the pit of your stomach. You never thought you'd ever feel living butterflies again. For Alois was the only man to touch you. Alois, Claude, Thomas, Timber and Canterbury were the only males to ever see you; none of them gave off the feeling you craved. If anything, the butlers frightened you and some times more so than Alois did. Most times, though, they offered more comfort than their master. The triplets, who were your guards most of the time, would talk to you. You'd even read books to them because they seemed like they got bored.
You did this with Claude on occasion, when he allowed you. He'd bring classics he hadn't heard for a while, and, though your voice seemed like it grated in his ears most of the time, he let you read to him. Hannah, though, was your greatest companion in the manor. Being the maid assigned to you by Alois, she spent the most time with you. You two gossiped like school girls when the mood suited you. Or you'd read to her while she braided your hair, which had grown quit long in the past year. Sometimes you'd try to teach her chess, but it never seemed like she understood it or that she wanted to. More often than not, when you got lonely, Hannah let you tell her stories of life before Alois. You told her stories of your parents, and of the friends you had, and of your adventures in America. She always seemed to enjoy them; unfortunately, she always got called away just when you were starting to feel like a person. That was something else you had discovered over the last year - you weren't a person here. You were an object, a prize - a trophy that had been put on display. You didn't have feelings, you didn't need light or fresh air.
Alois had stopped taking you outside when you kept trying to run away from him, despite your promises not to. He hoped, time and time again, that you had changed. That you had come to like Trancy manor, but you hadn't and so you were kept tucked away. A secret only the household knew about. You knew Alois would always love you, though, and you knew he'd never stop trying to get you love him. Deep in your heart, you knew you couldn't love him and that you wouldn't and you refused to. You knew that that was the reason you couldn't find any light to love in Alois - you simply refused to see it. You didn't want to. You couldn't. You just...couldn't bring yourself to do it.
You often found yourself wondering if anybody was out there looking for you. You wondered if your father was still alive, if your friends were bothering to look for you. You wondered if Esme, the friend who was abroad in America, had phoned to tell you father that you should be home. You told her that you'd phone or write when you got back to England, and you always stuck to promises like that. Maybe she could tell that something had happened since you hadn't done that. You could only hope.
You drew circles around Alois' pale chest with your finger. You could tell by his breathing that he was fast asleep; you tended to be a teddy bear to him. If he was the one having nightmares, he'd usually make his way down to your cell to cuddle. Occasionally he'd have Claude bring your sleeping form up, and you'd wake in the morning with Alois clutching your body like you were his only life line. It was at times like this, when it was just you two in a dimly lit room, when his features were outlined and calm and his breathing was even, that you enjoyed looking at Alois. He seemed so sweet and soft while he was sleeping; those intense irises covered by pale eye lids and his thin lips slightly parted in a drowsy way. His chest rose and fell in a steady pattern, and, just for a moment, he looked like a child; sweet and innocent, not sadistic and twisted. Just for a moment you allowed for all of the bad to escape from him. You allowed him pass. You allowed him innocence. Just for a few hours, if only a few minutes, you allowed Alois your pure love. But it was always ruined when you glanced around and reminded yourself of the place you were in, and why you were there. It was always then that you started to hate Alois again, and you hated that he made you feel like this; so much push and pull - so much hatred, so little love, when you found that it was all he ever needed.
He needed love.
And if he wasn't going to be given it freely...well...then he was just going to take it.
You knew this better than anyone; better than Claude, better than Hannah, better than any number of people.
And you did love Alois.
Once.
Long ago.
But you knew now that you never would again.
When there was a ball going on up in the manor, you liked to listen. You listened to the music and remembered all of the dances you had been to. You liked danced to the music, turning and twirling with an invisible partner around your cell. But you ultimately listened in hopes of hearing Alois flirting with another woman. In hopes of hearing him falling in love with someone who wasn't you. You never got your hopes up, though. You were his, and this was undeniably clear. He even branded you. You now had the Trancy crest burned into the left side of your back, just under your rib cage. It wasn't very large, no bigger than your hand, but it was big enough for anyone to tell that it was a family crest. It was enough to brand you as property. You didn't have to marry Alois to be his property now. But, just as a safe guard, Alois announced the two of you officially engaged about six months ago. And though it wasn't announced to other nobles or to the paper, it was known to you. To the household. Alois bought you a very expensive, very large diamond to show this, and the wedding was to be held before the year was out. The only relief you had was that it was only the end of January. But the wedding could still be held any day.
Even if you didn't hear Alois' flirting during the dances, you occasionally heard familiar voices and always secretly hoped that someone would find you. That some way, somehow, somebody would open up that panel at the top of the stair case and follow it down to find you. But you've had no such luck so far. No square of light illuminating the wall and stretching down the staircase, no footsteps on the cold stone steps or echoing off the walls. Nothing. Nobody knew you were down there. You understood, now, how the previous master of the Trancy household had managed to keep all the boys down in the cell where you now resided. Even then -
You only knew because Alois talked in his sleep.
You hadn't realized until then that you were holding your breath and so you released it, breathing in time with Alois. This you were used to. The calm after the storm of your nightmares - the ones mixed with blood stains, and Alois' face and maniacal laughter. You didn't know why, after a year with the beast, you just started to have nightmares. But they came. And they were vicious. And they made you sweat and cry. On the nights Alois came to your cell, they were the worst. Especially if it was another night where he'd charge down the stairs, rip open the door to your cage and then slam you roughly against the wall, his mouth a bruising force against yours and his hands groping at you like they were trying to grasp reality. Most days it was just that something had upset him, and the only way he knew to express it was to be rough with you. Only later, during your two's drowsy pillow talk, would he cuddle you and admit what the matter really was. No matter what extreme emotion Alois held, it was you he unleashed it on. Anything to make himself feel better - and you were always the perfect remedy to him; a tonic, a cleanser, an addicting toxin. He had said more than once that you were addicting. Every time, you tried to ignore that fact. And sometimes, the only way to get through the night was allowing yourself to think that you were a drug to him. To think to yourself that he had a problem. You didn't like to think that he was just obsessed with you and unreasonably convinced that you were the answer to everything. But, even if you didn't like it, you got Alois to calm down. Sometimes, that was all he needed. You were all he needed.
You relaxed against Alois, your nightmares somewhere far away and forgotten; upstairs a clock chimed an undecipherable time. You sighed, allowing your eyes to drift shut. You had to ground yourself at times, just take in reality; here was a guy who was irrevocably in love with you, but you hated. You were a captive in a cell that, while piled with books, left a lot to be desired. You were branded with the family crest of a mad man. And you hadn't seen anyone but the master, and the workers, of the house in a year. Through all of that, though, you still liked to imagine that you and Alois had gotten married long before, when you could actually be in love with him. You occasionally took it upon yourself to try and make the best out of this terrible situation. So you imagined at you actually fell in love with Alois and that you were in your room at your family's manor, lying bare side-by-side like you were in your cell. You imagined being able to look out your windows at the gardens, and having Alois gently caress your exposed shoulders and back to coax you to bed once more.
You imagined a loving Alois.
You imagined being in love with Alois
You imagined being far away from your cell.
You just imagined being free, and being in love.
Sometimes, Alois' face would morph into those of other young men who had come to try and be your suitor but your father hadn't found quite right.
And -
Sometimes,
It stayed as Alois.