Page 3 of Shame
“Carmen?”
I nod.
“I’m Lucas.” He opens the back door and gestures for me to enter, so I do. He sticks his head in. “Enjoy the ride. It’s not very far.”
“It’s cold,” I say with a shudder. I’m colder on the inside than I am from the actual temperature in the car, though, but how can I tell anyone about that.
“I’ll raise the temperature for you.” Even his voice is kind. He closes the door and I settle in.
Black leather seats, and a mini bar that I immediately examine, curiosity getting the better of me. Sadly it’s only got a few bottles of water. Maybe it’s intentional. I could have used a shot of anything that is strong, that would numb me, but maybe Mr. S won’t allow that. I realize we’re moving, and that I never even noticed when he started driving. He’s good. The ride is incredibly smooth. And much too short.
I gawk as we pass through the guarded gates to the mansion. Everything is beautiful and bright. Very non-threatening. The garden with neatly trimmed bushes, the white house, a fountain. Birds are singing and the sun is shining. Surely a man with such good taste can’t be all bad?
My family lives in a shed that gets scorching hot during the sweltering days and freezing during the numbingly cold nights. We have to go to the common well to get water, but we do have electricity. I used to love to sit and read, but since we all slept in the same room, I was always shouted at to turn off the light and go to bed. An uncle was moving to the USA, with the promise of work at a farm. I wanted something more than a dirt floor, and calloused hands. I wanted a life, so I went with him. My uncle got his arm squeezed between a cow and a wall. The bones stuck out through the skin. He couldn’t afford to take proper care of it after the first visit to the hospital. It got infected, then it spread through his body and he died. We rushed him to the hospital, pale and sweaty, but it was too late, and his heart gave out. He kept trying to talk to me, but I never got to hear what he tried to say. I knew farm work, but I wasn’t needed so I ended up alone, at sixteen, with nowhere to go. A girl always has one merchandise she keeps with her at all times, so I began selling my body, my mind somewhere else, drifting to the stories I had read in the books. Heroes and heroines. Dragons. Witches. Happily ever afters.
None for me. No happily ever after. Nothing but humiliation and filth. It was a blessing at first, being picked up by the matron after two years out there. I have nice clothes, a clean room, a shower. A blessing. Until today.
I have run out of luck, and I know it.
CHAPTER TWO
Carmen
The driver, Lucas, the strong Viking, opens the car door for me. I step out as elegantly as I can, remembering to keep my knees together not to flash anything that isn’t yet supposed to be flashed. It’s meant for the boss, and no one else. The pebbles crush under the soles of my high heeled sandals as I walk the few steps to the marble stairs that lead up to a heavy, ominously dark, front door. Before I even knock, it swings open, revealing a heavyset guard. If he sat on me, I’d be crushed. I hope he won’t sit on me.
“Miss Moreno, I assume?”
I nod and straighten, raising my chin. “Yes.”
“If you’ll come with me. Mr. Salvatore waits in his office.”
I try to walk with self-assured steps behind the big man, but my knees shake so much I swear I hear the bones in them rattle in the silent entrance hall. I know there’s beauty around me by the way colored light plays on the floor, but I can’t take it in. The closer we get to the double doors on the right wall, one of them slightly ajar, the more jittery the butterflies in my stomach become.
The guard knocks on the door. “Miss Moreno here for you, sir,” he booms, his voice so loud, I jerk. There’s no answer, but he motions for me to enter, pulling the door open for me.
I can’t feel my face when I step over the threshold into the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen. I barely register it, though. In front of me, in the center of the room, sits the man I’m here to see. Whose every whim I’m to obey, whose every dirty pleasure he wants to pull from my body, I’m to give him.
I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready. I’m not hardened like the other girls, despite everything I’ve been through, the thousands of men I’ve let between my legs. I’m not ready for this man, so beautiful my gut clenches, his eyes so dark they’re like voids that will swallow me, his power so great he can crush me with a flick of his finger. I’m nothing and he is everything.
The injustice strikes me. We’re both born out of the womb of a woman. We were both wrinkly little infants with a future unwritten. I have a heart, lungs, hopes, and fears. So does he. But in here I am nothing. My life isn’t worth even the clothes on my body.
I stand indecisively right inside the door, hearing it whisk shut behind me.
“Miss Moreno. Don’t be shy. Come closer.”
His feet are propped up on the desk and a slight fog from a lit cigar hovers in the air between us, the odor suffocating, heavy. My uncle loved his cigars. I always hated them.
I approach him, one step at a time. His fierce eyes flame hot and ice cold at the same time as he regards me.
“Closer. Aren’t you a shy little one? Stop right there. That’s good.” He stands and walks around the desk with slow steps, never letting go of my eyes.
When he gets so close I have to bend my head back to still see his face, I realize how incredibly tall he is. I have high heels, and still I’m more than a head shorter. If I leaned in, my ear would be level with his heart. If he has one. What would he do if I actually lay my cheek on his chest? I chase away the silly thoughts that flit through my mind and instead I stand with my hands clasped behind my back, jutting out my chest. I have natural breasts, and they’re large, uncomfortably so. Men tend to go wild over them. The matron told me to use what I have, to take control, so I show him my best assets. Maybe I can make him wild for them too? Not too wild, though. Please.
Salvatore makes a slow, slow circle around me. His presence prickles in my back, making my skin feel too tight.
“How old are you, girl?”
“Eighteen, sir.”
