My wedding day started with my uncle's hand on my neck.
Ruben squeezed once, the way he always did, and I knew what it meant.
Ruben: She's quiet. Best part about her. You can fuck her and she won't make a sound.
I stared at the steps and made my face empty, because empty was safe.
The man who bought me looked at me like I was paperwork.
Dorian: Let's get this done.
Not one word about it being a wedding.
Ruben: Move your ass. You're his problem now.
I caught myself on the rail. My hands were shaking before I even sat down.
The clerk asked if I consented, and I nodded, because I was never given a choice in anything.
My name on that paper looked like someone else's name.
He put the ring on me the way you'd drop a coin in a slot.
It was cold. It stayed cold.
Ruben: Go on. Kiss her, or it don't count.
My heart went hard against my ribs, and I hated that it did.
His mouth was cold and dry, and it told me nothing at all.
Then his thumb moved along my jaw, just once, and my lips parted on their own.
I wanted more of it. That was the worst part.
A man who had not said one kind thing to me, and my body leaned toward him like a dog.
He read his phone the whole ride and never once looked at me.
I counted the streets going by and told myself I had been somewhere worse.
Nora: Sir. Ma'am. Welcome home.
Home. The word hit the marble floor and died there.
I followed him because there was nothing else I could do.
My shoes were cheap and they clicked too loud, and he never slowed down.
Dorian: You're here for one thing. My father's will wants an heir, so I need a womb.
Dorian: That's the whole arrangement. Don't dress it up.
Dorian: Don't expect my bed, my time, or my face at breakfast.
Dorian: I'll keep you fed. I'll keep you safe. That's the deal, and it's a hell of a lot more than you had.
Then he was gone, and the door closed soft, and that was the loudest sound in the whole world.
I stood there a long time. I didn't know where to put my hands.
I wrote the only true thing I knew.
He owns me now. So what do I own? I underlined it twice.
Dorian: She hasn't eaten. Since the courthouse. Not once.
Nora: Sir?
Dorian: Feed her. Bring it up yourself, and don't make her talk.
A bowl of soup. Bread. A spoon laid straight, like it mattered how it sat.
Nobody had ever asked if I was hungry. Not once in my whole life.
I wrote, he told the house to feed me. Why would a man do that?
Then I crossed it out, because a cross-eyed hope is still hope, and hope was the thing that always got me hit.
He said I was only for an heir, and then he told them to feed me.
One of those things was a lie. I lay awake all night trying to figure out which.