Once Ava knew for sure that she was pregnant, it seemed her body finally allowed her to begin experiencing all the symptoms she had been anticipating. Her breasts ached morning, noon, and night. Her stomach felt perpetually queasy, although she never escalated to the point of actual vomiting. Her abdomen felt tight, even though she knew it was much too early for her to be showing. Whenever she ate, she could barely finish a few bites before she felt uncomfortably full. Eli seemed entertained by it all. He delighted in hearing what new symptoms she had developed and took great pleasure in the heightened sensitivity of her body.

Sex wasn't any more or less painful than before thankfully, so Ava surrendered herself to their usual romp through the sheets most mornings and now Eli seemed to be content with once, sometimes twice after he got back from work. Idly, she wondered if his excessive demands for it before had been from trying so hard to get her pregnant or if he finally started to tire of performing so many times in a day.

It was nothing to her regardless. She continued to cum when he fucked her, then stew over her inability to refuse for most of the day. Nighttime was her only break from obsessively thinking about her situation, and even then she couldn't do much to block it out with Eli on the other side of the bed from her, usually half-wrapped around her body most of the night. During the day she napped often. Exhaustion seemed to be the most pressing symptom she felt, but what began to creep in more, and became worse with each passing week, was her sense of loneliness. Even if she was forced to stay with him and carry this baby to term, she had no one to share any news with but him. He was the center of her world, and even if she were happy about what he had done, there was no one to talk to, and around the 10th week, since he had entrapped her, she was beginning to wither from it.

"What's wrong? You've been so distant lately."

He asked her only minutes after fucking her from behind, something that was becoming increasingly uncomfortable, not that there were many forms of sex that weren't when you were engaging in the act unenthusiastically.

"Am I usually the opposite of distant?"

She knew she was out of sorts, even by her usual standards, but she wanted to make him come to the conclusion that he was the cause of it, not that he had ever cared before.

"You seem so tired."

"I am tired, Eli. You fucked your baby into me and are forcing me to play house with you. Who wouldn't be tired?"

Eli ignored that barb. Somehow, he was even more patient with her outbursts since the ultrasound. It seemed he knew to expect an even tougher transition for her as she grappled with the changes in her body on top of the changes to her entire life since walking through the front door.

"What can I do to help you? What's something that would make you feel better?"

Let me go. Schedule an abortion. Erect a guillotine in the library and let me operate it on you.

Ava suppressed all the spiteful retorts she wanted to make, shifting in the bed and trying to shrug his hand off of her shoulder. He responded by reaching it down toward her breast, still impossibly tender after their latest tryst.

"What if I had a masseuse come one day this week? I could order you flowers, chocolate - you could go on a spending spree with your tablet. Order yourself some maternity clothes you like."

"My stuff still fits perfectly."

"But it won't forever."

She sniffled but held back the tears. Bad enough that she already had to think about these future needs without him reminding her as if they were imminent.

"I don't want anything from you, Eli. Just let me sleep. Please."

Over the following days though, he didn't listen. Every evening he seemed to come home with something else meant to entice her. First, it was the scones from his last attempt to shmooze her over accompanied by flowers. A dozen red roses were on the table when she came down the stairs. She had looked at them, said thank you, and then made herself two slices of buttered toast as it was the only thing that seemed to agree with her stomach lately. The next day he came back from work with a cheesecake. On the third day when he returned with a grocery bag containing 6 cartons of various ice cream flavors, she finally told him.

"Eli, sugary stuff doesn't agree with me at all right now."

His face fell, but he rallied quickly as he started putting the ice cream into the freezer.

"Well, if you would just tell me what does agree with you, I could get it."

"Nothing. I don't want anything."

He huffed in frustration and put his hands on his hips, "Ava, this little act is getting very old. I'm trying my damndest to be patient right now, but-"

"So sorry I can't be more accommodating to you while unwillingly carrying your child as I'm locked away in this house permanently."

"Is that what this is about? You want to go outside?"

She actually laughed, "Only you could listen to that and latch onto the last part while ignoring the first."

"There's nothing we can change about the first, Ava. What's done is done. I want you to be happy though. It's better for you, which is better for the baby. Do you want to take a trip together, somewhere private, and get you a break from being in here?"

Ava sighed and rubbed her eyes. Exhaustion suddenly washed over her, "It doesn't matter what I want."

Eli's hand slapped the counter in frustration, shouting, "I'm telling you right now that it does!"

"Only when it's something easy though, right Eli? You don't care what I want when I was begging you not to rape me. You didn't care when I begged you for birth control, or to let me go and leave this place. No, you only want to give me what I want if it coincides with your plans. You tell yourself that you love me, but that's not love. None of this, any of it, is love. It's control, and possession, and probably some deep-rooted mommy issues but hell, I'm not a psychologist. Anyway, stop wasting your money. Fuck me if you must, it doesn't matter anymore I guess. Just stop trying to make me like you. I'm sick of it."

He was seething, she could see that from the corner of her eye as she picked at her toast on the counter and waited for his answer. Another huff of frustration and he stormed off upstairs, yanking the tie from his throat to loosen it and giving her one last look before he disappeared from view.

She didn't even move. All she did was sit there, staring blankly at the toast in her hands, then turned her palms toward her to see the lines and study their patterns. Amazing the mundane things that become interesting when you have little to nothing else for entertainment.

That night Eli didn't press her for sex once. He didn't even come back downstairs for almost an hour, by which time Ava had managed to finish one slice of toast and ¾ of a second slice.

Eli stepped behind her and pulled her hair over her shoulder softly, using his thumbs to knead the tension in her neck as she closed her eyes and allowed him this intimacy. His hair was wet and he had changed into his sleep clothes, which meant he must have showered after their argument. Ava waited for him to order her up to the bedroom as he normally did, but instead, he continued to massage her neck and shoulders, not once trying to kiss her sensually or make it something obligatory. She stifled a yawn and covered her mouth with the back of your hand.

"You're tired. Let's get you to bed."

Her shoulders tensed again. There it was. He couldn't restrain himself for long.

Once upstairs she did her normal routine of brush teeth, using the toilet, putting on moisturizer and braiding her hair. The entire time Eli just watched her from the door until she was finished. After they were in the room she turned to him halfway between the bed and the doorway, waiting for him to pull her in close and get this over with.

Eli smiled and kissed her forehead. "Hop into bed. I just want to hold you tonight."

Ava balked. This had never happened. Not in the history of her time here. Barring the 48 hours she was at death's door from her UTI, he had never missed an opportunity to force her onto his cock. It set her on edge. What was he playing at?

He bestowed a chaste kiss on her forehead and his hand on her lower back guided her towards the bed before pulling the covers over her and smoothing her hair back from her face. Plugging in his phone over on his side of the bed, he slid between the sheets only to be met with her back. He rested his hand on her hip.

"Face me… please," it wasn't a demand, but she hesitated to obey. She waited almost a full minute before she rolled over to face him and his smile was effusive. He wrapped himself around her, holding her close enough that she could feel his chest hair against her face and his steady heartbeat under her ear. Another forehead kiss. Ava's arms were crossed in front of her but he pulled one free to drape it over his waist.

"I love you," he murmured, cupping her cheek and kissing the tip of her nose before his fingers skirted down to rest over her womb as they always did just before he drifted off.

Still in shock that he wasn't forcing her to get naked with him, and mildly horny in anticipation of it, Ava settled into his embrace and closed her eyes, letting his soft breathing lull her to sleep with him.

Something about that evening seemed to have turned a page between them. Eli no longer pressured her for sex at all. In the mornings, sometimes he would kiss her if he saw that she was awake before him, but otherwise, he would rise quietly and shower before he dressed. He always left with a kiss on her cheek and a soft hand on her stomach which lingered for a minute before he would lift it and go on his way.

After he returned at night, he would sit down to dinner with her, eating whatever he had picked up that evening while she usually opted for more toast. They might speak about his day as she never felt there was much to tell him since he could watch her every move on the cameras. At night he would roll over and hold her, but even when she felt his erection through their clothes, he never made a move. Not once.

Ava assumed that the showers he took in the morning and before bed had something to do with it. How could this man go from forcing her to accept his sexual overtures from half a dozen times a day or more to nothing? It was unnerving how easily he switched it off, and at first, it was a welcome reprieve. Her nausea was lessening as she approached her second trimester, and her appetite was still precariously bland compared to her adventurous palate before, but after the first week of little to no contact, she started feeling anxious.

In the mornings sometimes she woke and felt that gnawing ache between her legs. Once, she even swung her thigh over his hip in a sleepy lustful haze before she was fully awake. His only response was to gently remove it, get out of bed and head straight for the shower.

So he would rather masturbate now than fuck her? What was the point in imprisoning her here, in making her respond to him sexually even when she had rejected him again and again if he was going to now put the shoe on the other foot and reject her in turn?

Her stubbornness refused to acknowledge the new development, mostly because she was sure he wanted her to comment on it, to feed his ego in thinking that she missed it when she didn't. She was more than happy to not be the receptacle for his foul urges, but why did her body feel so empty?

During the day she was even more bored than before, and without any physical touch or conversation to look forward to anymore, the loneliness began to worsen, and she found herself barely leaving one spot for most of the day. On her tablet, Eli had downloaded an app for tracking her pregnancy week by week, but reading about what fruit this fetus unwillingly planted inside her resembled was not something she wanted to spend her time dwelling on. There were only so many seasons of Grey's Anatomy she could watch before she wanted to rip the TV from the wall, and though the exhaustion was starting to lessen, she felt no incentive to get up even when she was awake. By the second week of this treatment from Eli, she had assumed an almost catatonic state in the bed, lying there most of the day and occasionally glancing at the cameras or leaving the room to use the toilet or make more toast. The hours passed with almost nothing to break them up. When she used to dread Eli coming back because he would expect to avail himself of her body, now she dreaded his return because it almost felt worse being trapped in this house with him, carrying his child, and lately denied any form of connection at all.

Had he really made her long for the days of being fucked by him? It seemed impossible to fathom and yet when he was her sole link to the outside world, the only human being she was allowed a relationship with, it seemed she had now devolved to the point where even fighting or fucking Eli was better than this aimless existence being shuttered away in this house like a ghost.

On a Wednesday evening, a couple of weeks after Tiffany had shattered Ava's world by confirming the pregnancy, Eli arrived home to find her sitting up on the couch as if she were waiting for him. The TV was off, and although she didn't turn her head when he walked through the door, she could see his pause from the corner of her eye before he locked the door behind him and made his way over to kiss the top of her head.

"How was your day?" he asked, carrying a brown paper bag full of Mexican takeout.

"Fine," she answered, trying to muster the courage to finally address this celibacy development. Her back was still to him, hoping that she might find it easier to say if she didn't have to look at him, but she could still see him moving around the kitchen in the reflection on the blank TV screen. Ava closed her fists and opened her mouth, determined to have it out from him once and for all what his end game was."

"I-"

"Are you up for a trip this weekend? I know it's short notice, but I need to go back to Lockwood Manor on Friday and I thought I might take you with me this time."

Her mouth hung open. "Me?" she squeaked.

Eli came around the sofa and sat down next to her, propping his arm on the back of the couch, deliberately keeping space between them while Ava processed this news.

"Lockwood Manor?" she confirmed, "6 hours north, right? Your boss's house?"

"Correct."

Ava bit her lip, "Can I say 'no'?"

"Of course. I just thought you had been so lonely stuck in here with me, especially since I'm gone so much. I thought that if you were up to it, we could go together. It would give you the chance to get outside, and meet some new people, and provided you're on your best behavior, we might be able to make it a regular thing."

Her mouth was dry. Was this some kind of test? Was he trying to make her so touch-starved and sex-starved that traveling hundreds of miles to stay amongst strangers sounded like a paradise in comparison?

"What's the catch?" she finally blurted out, and he smiled like an indulgent parent.

"No catch. Just trying to think of nice things we could do together. Get you some fresh air. Enjoy the autumn leaves. It's beautiful up there this time of year."

She pondered it for a minute. "Okay. Where would we stay?"

"At the manor. I have my own room there. They've always encouraged me to bring a 'special friend' along if I were so inclined."

Bafflingly, a stab of jealousy twinged in her heart. "I see. Who else is there?"

"Just Mr. Lockwood, his housekeeper, and his granddaughter. But it's a gorgeous estate, and everyone there will be very happy to meet you, especially Maisie."

"The granddaughter?"

"She's 10. I've known her since infancy. I think she's lonely too up there, being the youngest person in the house by multiple decades. I was only 23 when she was born so she sort of looks up to me like a father. She looks forward to my visits a lot, but it's hard to juggle entertaining her with the actual work I need to get done whenever I go. Maybe you could help me with that?"

"So you're bringing me along to babysit?"

"Not at all. She's entirely self-sufficient, but she would love meeting you and having someone else young to talk to for a few days," he paused, eyes roving up and down her body, "And I would certainly enjoy having you up there with me instead of leaving you here."

Ava nodded, still in disbelief. "Why are you trusting me to go now?"

His eyes narrowed, "Because you already know what will happen if you speak out of turn about our arrangement. Besides, I suspect you'll enjoy it more than you think."

The reminder of his threat toward her friends hung there. Of course, if she managed to tell someone at the Manor about what Eli was really like without him overhearing, she might be able to escape. He also might kill them, which wasn't a risk Ava was ready to take, even with the lives of strangers.

"I'll go. It would be nice to get out of here."

Eli smiled and leaned in like he was going to kiss her, then stopped. He seemed to think better of that impulse and pulled away, getting back up to go and eat his dinner.

"Excellent. We'll leave Friday morning around 9."


Well, that's the first 10 chapters I have completed. There are others in various stages of completion and I have about 20 chapters total lined up culminating at the end of Fallen Kingdom where we all know what happens to our villain. On the off chance that you've made it this far without fleeing in terror feel free to leave a comment or something. As I saw on another story that was equally f'd up, I'm thankful for the anonymity of the internet, lol