Page 71 of Once Upon a Fable

Placing everything neatly back in the bag, she zipped it up and went to put it in the drawer.

“Keep it,” I said, pushing off the door and wincing at the pain between my legs. “Take it with you.”

“Take it where?” Her eyes met mine as she spun to face me.

“Where do you think?” I stepped toward her. “Your accommodations, of course.”

She balked. “Wait...you’re taking me back down into the cellar?”

I laughed with ice. “You didn’t think I’d upgrade you to this room, did you?” Waving my arm at the opulence and the many escape routes, I shook my head. “And give you the keys to run? This isn’t secure. We both know that.”

Even with a leash, she could possibly get free if I wasn’t here to supervise.

I wasn’t prepared to take that chance.

She huffed. “I won’t run. Didn’t I already prove that to you?”

“You merely proved your limits. You let bodily functions get in the way of your ability to stay strong.”

And you don’t?

The fact that I couldn’t touch my own cock. That I could handle anything—literally any-fucking-thing—yet I still couldn’t get past my aversion of self-sex. If I was braver, I had the answers inside my messed-up skull. Somewhere inside me, I knew why that was. But if I had my way, I would never remember.

Fury blazed through her gold-hazel eyes. “You’re saying you find me weak?”

“I’m saying you need to get over such things if you’re to survive here.”

“And that turns you on? Watching me use the bathroom in front of you?” Her lips turned into a sneer as she glanced at my stiff erection. “Any other fetishes I should be aware of?”

“Not a fetish. Just a part of life.”

A fragment of memories shot into my head. The soothing tones of a girl I’d once loved. The sobs of a boy I’d hugged in the dark. The stench of a communal bucket being used by all of us. We hadn’t had the luxury of being given a bathroom. We hadn’t been given privacy. Fuck, our bodies hadn’t been ours since the day we’d stepped through the cave and entered this place.

Christ.

Ice water shot down my spine as I shoved such things away and slammed the door in my mind.

What the fuck?

That shouldn’t have happened.

I’d spent a decade forgetting. I would forget for the rest of my life. Until she’d arrived, I could go months in blissful oblivion, alone and not fully recalling why, content in my loneliness because I knew there were things far, far worse out there.

First the sleepwalking and now remembering while I was still awake?

What’s next?

Full-blown recollection of things I couldn’t afford to recall? What if my nightmares entered my reality again? What if I couldn’t shut it off?

Panic made me angry, and anger made me short-tempered. Snatching her by the wrist, I barked, “Enough. Time to go home.”

She pulled against me as I dragged her from the bathroom. Her socked feet slid on the marble tile, skidding into me. “Wait. I don’t want to go back down there.”

“I don’t care what you want.”

“Please. Lock me in here. Let me have access to sunlight and a toilet, for god’s sake.”

Hauling her through the room, I glowered at the crimson and silver space. Luckily, no other memories sprang forth. Only the vague sensation that something bad had happened here, and it was time for me to go.