Closing the doors, I take my time and move around the room. A smile that shouldn’t be possible crosses my lips, and I bite my lip to stop it. I have no right to smile. But on the head of the four-poster bed is a carving of a mermaid ready to jump into the waves that rise up to greet her. I want to touch the waves, even brown and wooden, there is a beauty to whoever carved them, and I’m moving until the tips of my fingers touch the cold wood. I tilt my head and close my eyes, trying to remember the feel of the water on my fingers, but it doesn’t come rushing back like I’d hoped it would.
My eyes snap open, and I’m moving towards a large arched space. There are no doors, but plants act as a concealment as I step into a bathroom that’s as large as the bedroom. A tub that you can step down into becomes my sole focus.
We never had the luxury of our own wash space. Someone did that for us. Different faces, half-covered with red material, would arrive twice a week, and we would be bathed in the same room.
My hands fumble with the taps, and ice-cold water sprays out. The shock of the cold water has a scream falling from my lips that’s so close to a laugh.
Pavel’s heavy footfalls have me looking at the archway as he steps into the bathroom.
He doesn’t ask me what I’m doing, fully clothed in a bathtub. He presses the black device in his ear.
“All clear,” he says before turning and leaving me. The water is freezing as I kneel down and hold my hands under it. A tremble starts quickly, but it jump-starts memories that I have craved for far too long.
I’m screaming as something large splits the water behind me. Panic, glee, and something that I can’t explain has my small chest pumping as I focus on the shore ahead of me. Large, strong arms wrap around my waist, and I’m airborne.
“I got you.” My dads’ voice is muffled as he pretends to eat my stomach. He got me every time we played this game. He was the shark and me, the victim.
His face fades, and I push my arms under the cold water, trying to revive it, but his face disappears. Tears of joy and pain make a pathway down my cheeks as I hunker over and try to force my foggy brain to bring my dad back to me, but it’s too distant. I can still see the freckles on his arms, along with the silver bracelet with a Celtic design that he wore on his right wrist and never took off. I’m shaking from the cold water, I’m shaking from what just happened, and I’m shaking from my past. I turn off the taps and sit in the cold tub until I have no choice but to get out. Standing, the white dress is heavy. Reaching back, it’s a struggle to open the buttons, but I manage to get them open. The heavy material pools around my feet, and I climb the three steps out of the tub. A full-length gold mirror covers a third of the far wall.
I’m not the girl I see in my head. I’m not a girl. Time has frozen for me inside, but on the outside, I’m a woman who’s fully developed. I separate my long black hair and bring it forward to cover my large breasts. The white panties leave nothing to the imagination as I step quickly across the room and pick up a towel. I wrap it tightly around my body.
My body is a temple. I’m a goddess that would be adored and cherished. That was the teaching. We had learned about different men, some attractive, some not so much. But we had to learn their names, likes, dislikes. If they selected us, we had to know about them.
Some girls left our group very early on, and fresh girls replaced them. But most of us grew up together.
Lucca wasn’t one of the men we learned about. I would never forget someone like him. My cheeks burn as I leave the bathroom.
I can picture the girls’ reactions if Lucca was one of the selected. I’m sure he would cause quite the stir. Opening the wardrobe, I take out a nightdress and wrap it around my body. Once I’m covered up, I let the towel fall to the floor.
I spot a pair of white-feathered feminine slippers at the bottom of the wardrobe. I’m ready to slip them on but pause. I love the freedom of not wearing shoes. We always had to wear soft slippers. No hard skin would ever be allowed to develop on our feet.
I close the wardrobe door, and a sense of elation has my stomach squirming. I’m looking at the door expecting to see one of the girls, expecting them to tell on me, but it’s just the back of Pavel’s head.
The room grows smaller, robbing me of my earlier reprieve.
“May I explore the penthouse?”
Pavel turns to me, his soft brown eyes not really belonging to the hard set of his jaw. A contradiction that left me unsure if I should relax or accuse him of his deceitful eyes.
“She wants to ‘explore’ the penthouse.” He emphasizes the word explore. His gaze never leaves me as he speaks to the other security member on the end of the mic.
He steps aside. “Go ahead.”
I hold my head high as I pass him. I pause at the door and decide to take a left. The hallway isn’t very wide, and the lighting is low. I’m not alone. Pavel’s clunky shoes give him away as
