Chapter 2: Travel
Sir holds the car door open for me. I put on my seatbelt, and stare out the window at the sprawling antebellum plantation house that has been my home for the last twelve months. I remember how intimidating it was when I arrived. The scale of it seemed exactly to match my dread and nervousness. But in the morning sun, it looks inviting and warm. Two ancient willows flank the front steps like a fairytale. This will be my first time off the grounds since the day I arrived. I won't ever be coming back.
I've struggled for the last few days to come terms with that notion. A week ago I believed my world had achieved some definition and stability -- a sense of order that I craved. I had the master that I had only read about in books. His care and training had instilled a calm that I had lacked. I no longer felt out of control. The urge to be self-destructive had receded; I hardly thought of drinking anymore. I had felt focused.
Just being in a car again seems strange -- sitting in the leather passenger seat seems almost too luxurious for words. Your footsteps crunch in the gravel as you circle the car. I haven't the faintest idea where I am headed. I have been sold in auction to an anonymous buyer -- an undisclosed amount to an undisclosed bidder. An action I accepted without question, without a fight, without a thought for what I want. Like the slave I have worked to become.
It amazes me what I have sacrificed so that I might sleep at night.
What I want is to stay with Sir. To be his slave. Sir understands me, makes me feel safe and cared for. I want this maybe more than anything I have ever wanted in my life. To lose it has drained me. I haven't eaten. Barely slept. The old anxiety is creeping back. My training has slipped. Forgetting things. I fidget. I feel....unraveled: a ball of string that has fallen carelessly to the floor and rolled out of sight.
Overnight I chewed all the fingers on my left hand down to the nub; a nasty habit which Sir thought he had beaten out of me. When he saw what I'd done, he was furious. I spent an hour attempting to repair the damage, even out my other hand with a file, but it was still far from perfect when I presented my hands for inspection. I wilted under his glare.
"Do not dishonor me or this house, 98."
"She will not, Sir."
"Stay." He pronounced, and left me.
Sir left me standing there, arms out, staring at my fingers until my forearms burned. My shadow stretched out across the floor as the sun set. I stood until I broke out in a sweat. I stood until my forearms went numb, panting like I was in the final miles of a marathon. I stood until I was sure I couldn't last another moment. He returned with flawless timing, and watched me struggle to hold my position for several minutes until he seemed satisfied with my struggle. He stepped in close to me.
"This is hard, 98. This will be very hard on you. Don't think that I don't recognize the stress that leaving puts on you. But this is not the first or last hard thing that will be asked of you. Always rely on your training. Tackle this pain, this stress, just as you have here this afternoon. You have stood in this position longer than any ordinary woman could. Endured discomfort, cramps, and exhaustion. Not because you are stronger, not because it hurts any less, but because you have been trained to process and endure hardship. It is your strength. Use it, stay focused, don't abandon it just because you are scared. Physical hardship and emotional hardship are more similar than not."
"Yes, Sir." A wave of gratitude sweeps through me.
"Your choice is to serve."
"Her choice is to serve, Sir."
"My choice is to train you. To prepare you to meet that challenge."
"But Sir..." I blurt out. You silence me with a raised hand.
"Don't say it, 98. I know. But that is not to be. And in the end it is not the right path for you. Do you trust my judgment?"
"Yes Sir. She does."
"Then trust me now. Put your arms down. Prepare for supper. Go."
I did as I was told; I served, but it was so very hard.
With my training here at an end there has been little to occupy my time other than preparing to depart. I clean my quarters by hand. Scrubbing the floors on my hands and knees, I realize that I am not the first girl to erase her presence from this room. I am preparing the room for my replacement. I have time to think about my thesis; it feels more and more a rite of passage -- a symbolic sacrifice to the god of lost little girls. But what have I passed into? Certainly not adulthood. I push the bucket forward and rinse my rag again. In the ringing silence of my quarters, I see all the distant, battered girls who found solace in these simple labors. They stretch out behind me like ancestors, and I see myself about to join them. How hard were they pushed? I've come back again and again to my thesis. Had time to process. Had time to feel every human emotion one way or another about it. Always the anger comes first and just as quick a voice reminds me that there were no ropes, no chains, no force; only a man's voice and my bottomless need. It doesn't dull the anger, but only leaves it directionless and frustrated. But as awful and humiliating as it was, I've come to be grateful for it. Come to see it as necessary. Until that moment, I hadn't fully committed to my new life. To some extent I was still a voyeur; a tourist of my own life; I had kept some small separation from my situation -- a tiny sliver of a gap that allowed me to intellectualize the moment rather then experience it. I don't know how you knew, but you knew. It was the jolt I needed to finally release me. I was free; I was a slave. You are right...I am a paradox.
You've been circling for days. Melancholy and restrained. Constantly on the verge of something that you never articulate. You conceal it well, but I know you the way a sailor knows the wind. You remain my Sir, but everything has changed and we both feel it profoundly. I expected...no, I hoped, that you would take me again; one last time. I waited expectantly, and finally worked up the nerve to ask. But you said it was forbidden. Impossible was your exact word. I'd been sold and was no longer his to claim. I cried. You asked me why, and I said it felt like we were breaking up. You smiled, but not cruelly, and hugged me tightly, petting my hair before shooing me away. But I felt you watching me as I turned the corner, and in my heart I want to believe that I am more special to you then all those other girls. That night when I got into bed, on my side table, there was a single swan white magnolia blossom floating in a flat glass bowl. It was from a tree that sits along a creek at the north end of the property. It was the spot where Sir conducted many of our interviews. Where he read to me. I watch the blossom float peacefully across the water until I fall asleep. I've never wanted a man to love me before....how ironic.
This morning, when I woke, regular clothes were laid out for me. Not mine, but they all fit: blue jeans, a pair of black mules, a white tee shirt and a black leather jacket. Matching bra and panties. A purse. It all looked so normal and adorable. I practically lived in jeans all through high school and college; it felt incredible to put them on again. Not to mention a bra...when was the last time I wore a bra? I walked around in circles for a few minutes just enjoying the feeling of street clothes like a fool. I could be a girl shopping at the Gap; the thought made me giggle and I put a hand over my mouth to muffle myself.
We drive in silence; I have a hard time relaxing with you this close by, and I realize I am sitting at attention. My back only touches the backrest when you accelerate. I'm on my way to a new life: a new master. Yet I'm so focused on never seeing Sir again that it hasn't really hit me. The notion that the man who has been my guide, teacher and master for a year will soon be gone from my life is incomprehensible to me. I described it as a breakup but really it's much, much worse. No fight. No closure. No reason. Oh no wait, I forgot, there is a reason. I've been sold into slavery to a person I've never met. I don't even know if it is a man or a woman. That's the reason. It is a funny, scary, ludicrous truth.
"Little, I want you to breathe." He says. 'Deep breaths. Come on now."
"Sir." I feel on the edge of hysterics. My heart is pounding.
"There is some makeup in the glove compartment. In the visor there is a mirror. Why don't you fix yourself up."
A mirror? I'm almost afraid to look. Sir is my mirror. Who will I see? Will I recognize her? I lower the visor slowly, and a pair of frightened eyes greets me. I want to touch them. The girl looking back isn't as much of an alien as I imagined. She looks different than I remember. Harder. But also radiant and healthy in a way I hadn't expected. She has sharp, intelligent eyes. I'm like a child seeing its reflection for the first time, and I'm rapt. It takes a gentle nudge from Sir to get me moving.
"Falling in love over there?" You needle playfully.
I blush, "sorry, Sir." I busy myself with the mascara, lip gloss, blush until I'm pleased with the result. It isn't until later that I realize that Sir has distracted me from my panic attack. How does he do that? Sir puts on one of my favorite Belle and Sebastian CDs. I haven't heard it in forever, and don't even remember telling Sir about it, but the familiar melodies make me happy. I stare at his hand on the armrest fighting the desire to hold it. I know it would disappoint him, and I don't want his last memory of me to be weak and maudlin.
We drive two hours to an airport. It isn't the closest one to the house, which is probably the point. We park in short term, and Sir takes an overnight suitcase out of the trunk. He gives it to me, and I wheel it behind me. He talks while we walk. He gives me one hundred dollars in twenties, a cell phone, a fake driver's license. My name is "Marcia Harden". Sir knows I like the actress, and it makes me smile - a little joke between us. He says it will be easy for me to remember. He gives me a sealed envelope, and tells me that inside is a roundtrip ticket -- he explains that one way tickets sometimes draw undue attention. I'm proud that Sir thinks of everything. A driver will be waiting in baggage claim to pick up Marcia Harden.
"Keep this safe." He hands me a small, platinum padlock. Etched in the side is a symbol that might be Chinese or Japanese. "You serve whomever has the key, Little One."
I'm only to use the phone in an emergency. There are two programmed numbers, and I'm to call them both if anything happens. He has other instructions: what to do if no one is there to greet me, if the flight is redirected to another airport, if the police speak to me for any reason. I take it all in, compiling Sir's directions into a mental list as I have been trained.
