A/N - This is a sequel to Minotaur and Of Seafarers and Moonlight.
I kind of set this one up with a few things in the past two stories, but then I hesitated to write it. Alas, the story must come out of my head and onto the page. I think I must have been a masochist in my past life.
If you didn't read Minotaur, you'll probably be totally lost without the backstory. We won't be delving as deeply into the darker situations like that story, though.
Here we go...
On day four hundred fifty-five, Marietta found me. I'd spent over a year completely alone, going over my entire life in my mind while I sat in a small, mostly unfurnished house outside of Queens. I had little money, no job history and no education. I ate greasy food from street vendors, I didn't cut my hair, I didn't shave, I rarely bathed.
I had this house that no one supposedly knew about.
I had a fake ID and and a stack of cash that was dwindling.
I had the book Bobby used to read to me when I was little.
Before Bobby, I was named Tim. I lived in Peckham, a rough neighborhood in London. My mother's name was Marie, and she had more children than she could take care of, so I took care of myself. When I was eight, a woman took me off the streets and delivered me to a man. I learned much later that his name was Adrian. Back then, everyone around me called him Master.
I was with him for two months. There were other children there. The first time Adrian raped me, he was brutal and it was excruciating. I cried and screamed and threw up. By the third time, I didn't cry or throw up anymore. None of us did. There was a little girl there with me. Her name was Marietta, and Adrian liked her best of all. He was gentle with her.
She was nine, a year older than me. She had fiery red, curly hair and sparkling green eyes. At night, she slept with her arms around me. "If you believe it's not bad, it won't be," she told me.
A few weeks later, there was an auction. I remember Marietta waving to me as I was led away from the stage after it was over. I was bought by a man named Peter. He told me I was to be a gift for his brother, Bobby. He flew me to New York. Bobby was waiting for me in a nice house with a room and bathroom of my own. There were books and clothing and toys - I'd never had so many things before. There were no windows. He told me my new name was Embry.
Bobby was nice to me that first day. He played with me and fed me. When the clock said it was eight o'clock, Bobby said it was time to read me a bedtime story. He pulled a picture book off the shelf. The Pied Piper of Hamelin. I sat on his lap and he had me turn the pages while his hands went under my pajama top, touching my skin.
"If I believe it's not bad, it won't be," I told myself in my mind over and over.
When the story was finished, Bobby whispered, "Time to pay the piper, Embry." And he led me to the little bed in my room. That's what he called it. Bobby would play with me, he would feed me, he bought me things. And at night, it was time to pay the piper.
I saw Marietta once a year, at the auctions, until I was fifteen. That year, she wasn't there, and by then I'd started figuring some things out. Sometimes kids I saw year after year were no longer there with their owners, and I knew they were probably dead. It was one way they all had a hold on us. There was the unwritten rule: Comply or die.
By the time I was eleven, all it took was Bobby reciting a couple of lines from the Pied Piper, and I'd get an erection.
By the time I was thirteen, I no longer slept in a windowless room in the basement, but in Bobby's room every night.
By the time I was sixteen, Bobby was made an official member of "the family."
When I was twenty, and muscular and could be completely trusted, I was allowed to help Bobby and Peter acquire the children for their auctions. I would do anything for Bobby by that point, so when he ordered me to kidnap a small child, I did. And when I was ordered to kill a child, I did. And when Bobby told me he loved me, I told him I loved him, too.
When we delivered the FBI agent to the safehouse in Austria, Bobby told me to go home. He told me to keep an eye on things in New York since it was all so dangerous this time after Peter took the FBI agent. I wouldn't be at the auction that year.
What I did get was a breathless call from Bobby the night of the auction. "The floorboard under my bed. Get what's there and go to the house in Queens," he ordered. Then I heard a gunshot, and then nothing.
With my body shaking, I went to the bedroom I'd shared with Bobby for over fifteen years. I pushed the bed away and found the loose floorboard. Inside was a stack of hundred dollar bills and an ID for me. And the Pied Piper of Hamelin, it's cover worn and the pages yellowed.
I spent eighteen years with Bobby. He was all I knew, and his orders were my life. I didn't know how to live without his direction. So I didn't live. I hid in the house most of the time and trembled any time I went outside. I learned from newspapers that the whole family, besides Adrian, was dead. Inside, I died, too.
I spent over a year contemplating killing myself, but could never bring myself to do it. I didn't know how to do anything without being told. And then Marietta showed up at my door one day.
"Timmy," she whispered when I opened the door. At first I didn't know who she was talking to, and then I remembered that was the name I introduced myself with back when we were children. Her hair was still red and curly, and her eyes were still their brilliant green, but she looked older. Far older than me, like her years had been harder than mine.
"I thought you were dead," I said as I let her in.
She shook her head. "No. I should be, but Adrian broke the rules for me. He hid me away instead of having me killed."
She looked around the place and then looked sadly at me. "Go take a shower. Shave. I'll have to cut your hair. Get cleaned up. We have work to do."
I wanted to ask her a million questions. What work? How did you find me? Is anyone else like us still alive that hasn't gone back to their families?
But my body, so long used to moving and breathing and eating with directives, only took her orders. I turned towards the bathroom to take a shower and she followed me in. She sat on the toilet seat while I undressed and stepped in the stall. There was no embarrassment for me. I was used to anyone and everyone seeing my body and touching me.
As the warm water washed over me, I finally found my voice. "What work?" I asked.
"Adrian's still alive, but barely. Prison has been awful for him. He wants revenge. He's our true master, and we're going to give him that satisfaction before he dies."
My body froze. I didn't know what revenge could possibly look like, and it scared me. In all of my days of solitude, the one conclusion I came to was that I didn't want to hurt anyone ever again. But I didn't know how to function without doing the bidding of someone else, and just having her there telling me what to do was a relief after over a year of numbness.
And I understood. It was time for someone else to pay the piper.
"I'll help you, Marietta," I said robotically as I reached for the bar of soap.
The door to the shower opened and she was there, naked in front of me. "Call me Mistress," she said as she raked her nails roughly down my chest.
It's almost blinding here in its beauty. The small cottage Derek rented is painted a vibrant purple. Beyond the front porch is an expanse of rich, green lawn that gives way to white sand and then the brilliant blue ocean that seems to stretch to eternity and meld with the sky.
The water is warm and gentle and the coral reefs are full of colorful fish. I could spend hours out on the water in snorkel gear. I have spent hours out here, letting the water gently rock me while I gaze upon fish that seem almost unreal with their bright hues.
When Derek first presented me with a wrapped box on our first wedding anniversary on August twenty-third, I opened it to find a black bikini and two plane tickets to the Bahamas. I didn't know what to think at first - not about the bikini, which I couldn't imagine wearing in public at my age and with my body so altered after pregnancy - and not about the plane tickets for two, which meant we'd be leaving Leon and Rory behind.
I stared at the dates on the printed itinerary. Five nights. Could we really be gone for five nights without the kids? I couldn't imagine it. Night time was all of us piled on our bed, reading stories to Leon before Derek walked him to his own bed for the night. Night time was the quiet moments I got with Rory, breastfeeding her before putting her crib at night. And mornings were feeding her again, just as dawn was beginning to break in the sky. They were the only two times a day she was interested in breastfeeding anymore as she approached her first birthday. Her days were too busy with crawling and pulling up and babbling and exploring her world, and she was quite content with a sippy cup that she could drink from intermittently between new discoveries.
I held the bikini between my fingers and looked at Derek and he looked at me, biting his lower lip in uncertainty, while his eyes shined hopefully. "We never got a honeymoon," he said. "Desiree said she'd fly here to help my mom and your dad out with the kids. Plus, it's the perfect time with our jobs."
He was right on that account. It was the perfect time when it came to our jobs. We were in the middle of a changing of the guards at our house. After over a year working part time for the DOJ, Derek's job was going full time after Labor Day. And I'd resigned from my position at the Department of Defense and taken the State Department exam, where I'd be working as a translator part time. It was my turn to be home more with the kids, and I was looking forward to it. But none of that would start up until the beginning of September.
Looking in his eyes, I quickly rationalized the trip. Leon would be absolutely fine, and I wouldn't lose anything with Rory. I could pump on vacation to keep my milk going, and Fran would cuddle her and give her a bottle when I was gone. We had a separate refrigerator in the garage at that point, and a stockpile of breastmilk in the freezer out there. So much that I'd actually donated quite a bit. And Derek and I never had had an opportunity like this.
"OK," I said to him with a smile.
His eyes lit up even more and he stopped biting his lip. "Really?" he asked, slightly surprised that I'd agreed so quickly.
"Yes," I said and laughed at the look on this face. "Let's go."
I sat up on my knees and leaned forward to kiss him. "OK about going, not about the bikini," I murmured against his lips.
He laughed. "We'll see, Em."
Three days later, we boarded a plane to Nassau.
Relaxation suited us in a way I hadn't anticipated. We did no schedules and spontaneity well. Every morning, Derek took pleasure in coating my body with coconut scented sunscreen, which typically delayed our departure from the cottage for a considerable amount of time. And every evening, he took pleasure in helping me wash off our daily activities in the jacuzzi tub. In my mind, our trip will always be remembered by the the bright colors outside, and the harmonious contrast in color of his hands against my skin when we had no place to be except where we were.
We ate when we were hungry, and we drank what we felt like when we felt like it. There was no morning or afternoon or night here - just an expanse of time that was all our own. There were surprisingly few hours of actual sleep. The hours we actually slumbered felt like more than what they were in reality: One hour sleeping next to Derek fully naked again felt like three hours to my circadian rhythm.
The only time the clock mattered to me was a couple of times a day when I'd take a few moments to pump to keep up my dwindling milk supply. And even that didn't detract from our time together. Derek would sit behind me on my bed, rubbing my back while the whir of the breast pump hummed around the small space.
Last night, we went to the Atlantis resort for dinner. After, Derek asked me if I wanted to hit the casino and I raised an eyebrow at him and smirked.
"What?" he laughed.
"Do you want to go to play or do you want to go to look around?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Whatever you want. Why?"
"You've never seen me play blackjack," I replied with a sly smile. He hadn't. The one night the team was off duty in Vegas so many years ago, I watched Derek with a throng of women around him at a Craps table and drank myself silly from the confines of a dark lounge until I could no longer think about why I was jealous.
"And?" he asked.
"Well, you find me a blackjack table with a three deck shoe or less, and the odds are no longer in the favor of the house," I said with a smile, my heart already pumping with anticipation. When it came to things like counting cards, I could probably give Spencer Reid a run for his money.
"I think I'd like to see this," said Derek with one hand on my lower back as he guided me towards the casino.
What Derek witnessed was me rapidly turning two hundred dollars in chips into over three thousand.
With a huge stack of chips in front of me, he leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, "Ever made love on a bed covered in cash?"
That pretty much ended any interest I had in the game. We stood. We cashed in my chips for twenty dollar bills. And we scattered them on the bed of the cottage last night, laughing as our naked bodies rolled around on the bed. I'm pretty sure we didn't collect it all this morning. I'm pretty sure the housekeeping staff at the cottage is going to hit the motherload when we check out tomorrow.
I laugh at the memory, the sound echoing in my snorkel tube. I'm wearing the black bikini on our last day here, finally giving in to Derek's wishes. It doesn't look bad on me, from a distance. Up close in the mirror, the only things I can see are my stretch marks from pregnancy and a five-year-old scar on my abdomen, but I'm really beyond caring anymore. The past four days have been magical, and the only person I care about is Derek. And when I came out of the cottage in my bikini this morning, his face was enough for me to forget about every flaw on my body.
I've been out here in the water for about an hour now and I'm hungry. I propel my body away from the coral reefs and then push up on the soft sand to get myself in a standing position. I take the awkward steps in my flippers, lifting my legs high, and so concentrated on my movements that I don't see Derek there in his swim trunks, sitting on the water's edge. His voice startles me.
"You are a vision in snorkel gear," he says. "A goddess in flippers."
I laugh and start pulling my gear off, but when I take in his face, I see he's not kidding.
"Lunch?" I ask him, my stomach growling slightly.
"I made sandwiches," he says. "They're in the cottage."
I nod and reach a hand out to him, helping him stand up. We make our way to the cottage, flippers and snorkel mask dangling in one hand while my other is clasped around Derek's. "I can't believe this is our last day here," I say as we make our way in the door.
He turns on me then. He turns and pushes me against the cottage door. At first, all I can see are the sandwiches on the little counter of the kitchenette, but the hunger in my stomach quickly gives way to a different kind of hunger as Derek's tongue makes its way from my collar bone to my ear, savoring my sea salt skin.
I could ask him to stop. I could say, "After we eat." But I don't, because that's all it's taken with him on this vacation. One touch of his lips on my skin and any banal needs my body might have - food, water, sleep - become a distant memory.
His skin is hot from the sun, but my body is still damp from the water. We are the perfect contrast as his warm chest pushes against the wet top of my swimsuit. I'm wondering where he might move me. The bed? The floor? The small table in the corner? We've christened every inch of the seven-hundred square feet in this place in the past few days, but we haven't christened this door. I think this as Derek reaches his hands under my upper thighs and lifts me. Oh, I think. We're not going anywhere at all.
And we don't. I wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck and smile at him as he awkwardly removes his swim trunks while we're in this position. He doesn't bother with my bikini at all, merely peeling it to the side. I feel his gentle fingers on me, making sure I'm ready and then he's inside me with a shared grunt and moan.
The curtains on the windows blow and billow from the sea breeze and Derek's arms are around me, and we are the most beautiful things in the the Bahamas at the moment, maybe the world. I think this and then I have to close my eyes to the sights around me, because it's all too much. His soft hands are on my hips and he's pushing me back against the door, his muscles rippling as he moves inside me.
We are perfection at this, living this loud and loving this much. We are a chorus when Derek's moans increase in tempo and my whimpers and sighs and crying out in alto to temper his baritone. We are quiet puffs of air when it's all over, deep breathing between deep kisses.
We're pretty damn awesome for two people who have tipped the scales into their mid-forties.
When Derek pulls out of me and adjusts the bottom of my swimsuit, my legs are like rubber. I sink to the floor and he smiles at me. He fetches the plate of sandwiches and two bottles of water. He tosses a towel on the floor and sits down, completely relaxed in his nakedness.
"Sorry," he says as he bites into his sandwich. "I couldn't help myself."
I huff out a laugh. "Don't ever apologize for something like that."
He grins and I pick up a sandwich, taking a bite, marveling, not for the first time, at how the two of us and our pasts collided together to make something so magnificent with each other.
The rest of the day is a haze of memories. We leave the cottage long enough to jump into the ocean together one last time, and then we're back inside again, this time on the bed. We have dinner reservations that we blow off. Instead, Derek heads out to pick up food for us, which we eat in the bathtub. We both concede to the notion that we can sleep on the plane home the next day and we're up much of the night. I acknowledge that sleep will be possible on the plane, but sometimes around four o'clock in the morning - when I'm on my knees and Derek is behind me, his chest draped over my back - I begin to wonder if I'm even going to be able to walk through the airport.
We leave the cottage at eight o'clock in the morning. We cross the threshold with our suitcases and smiles on our faces, and we're both managing to walk. Sometime in the cab ride to the airport, our focus shifts, nearly simultaneously. The past five days have been indescribable, but going home is going to be amazing, too.
We do sleep on the flight, our fingers entwined.
We arrive home to Leon, who runs down the front steps and jumps into Derek's arms and reaches a hand towards me, so we can wrap ourselves around each other.
We arrive home to Fran and my father, who is holding Rory. And my sweet baby girl looks at me curiously for a second, like she might have forgotten who I was. But then she smiles. "Mama!" she exclaims in delight and then reaches for me.
It's later that night, when Rory latches right on to breastfeed before going to sleep, that the tears come. Derek is tucking Leon in and my beautiful girl with her eyes just like mine and her rich, mocha skin is gazing at my face as she drinks.
Her hands are grasping at my skin and her eyes are getting heavy and my tears drip down my face. It's not about missing my time with Derek, or missing the kids while we were gone. It's about everything - that Derek and I get this. We get this home and our family and friends and our children, but we get things like the Bahamas, too.
We get it all, and it's so good it's overwhelming.