Read Online Burn for You by Annabel Joseph - Free Book Online Page A

clean she locked it up. She couldn’t let it go, nor could she rent it out to strangers. Later. She’d decide what to do later. With that squared away, self-improvement began in earnest. She walked to the library and read books about relationships and meditation, about gardening and health, and strangely, child rearing, although her old Master had fixed her so she could never have kids. She told Mephisto every evening about what she’d read. He’d ask her such probing questions that each day she’d read more carefully than the day before.
    Other days she exercised, or got her nails done. She shopped for clothes, because she had to wear them every day now, even when she was home with Mephisto.
Non-sexual. For now.
Sex wasn’t even distantly in her thoughts most of the time, until it intruded in an uneasy, powerful pang, usually when Mephisto was close to her, or looked at her a certain direct way. Authority turned her on, no matter when or how she encountered it. Those moments of sexual awareness always took her by surprise and left her feeling unsettled.
    She took yoga classes and some computer classes at the community college. One day she went to the cell phone store because Mephisto ordered her to join the living and set herself up with a smart phone. She learned how to text and how to surf online and even how to send emails to Mephisto from her phone, keeping him informed of her whereabouts throughout each day. Mephisto returned her violin, restored and in a new velvet-lined case. He urged her to start back to her lessons, but she hid the instrument under the bed.
    Luckily, he didn’t require her to do everything he suggested. Still, there wasn’t a moment she didn’t feel he was looking out for her, and it gave her so much strength. She knew she should have been strong enough to take care of herself without reporting to him, without him standing over her, but she wasn’t, and that was just the way it was. She could blame daddy, she could blame mommy. She could blame any number of things, but by now she understood that changed nothing. As Mephisto said, Who the fuck knew why? Who cared?
    Mentally, Mephisto was all over her, engaging her, demanding her ideas and thoughts—but he never touched her. He didn’t fondle her or caress her in passing. He didn’t hug her or “accidentally” brush against her, or do anything else to make her feel physically imposed upon. Still, sometimes the memory of their past and his blatant sexual charisma invaded her mind and she almost wished he would touch her, even if the idea scared her to death. When he went out into the club to work, she never went.
    Three months passed. Four. Eventually, she stopped keeping her head down and started feeling like part of humanity again. She became part of a new world where she accomplished things, where she helped people and made them smile. Men she worked with started to notice her, even flirt with her. Nice men. Normal men. Men on the street would turn and look at her and she’d feel conflicting feelings of attraction and fear.
    Molly started eating lunch now and again in a neighborhood diner, mostly to study the lunch crowd, soak in the real world. Some businessmen were always there, reminding her vaguely of her Master. Today a group of delivery guys clustered around a table nearby, talking and laughing. Did any of them have slaves? Doubtful. One of them was giving her the flirty eyes. He was young. Handsome. Fresh-faced, with scruffy brown hair, a broad smile and a great laugh when his friends cracked jokes. He had that confident energy she was always attracted to. She found herself wondering what he would be like in bed.
    Molly frowned and looked down. Ridiculous, to salivate over him. He looked pretty buff in his brown shorts and UPS shirt though. She cast around for any memory of urban legends about delivery guys and perversity. Hmm. Nothing there.
    He caught her looking at him, and she dropped her eyes to her BLT. A minute later she