"Did you bring it?"
"yes Mistress, I have.."
"Just give it to me, shut up."
I had just reached the bottom step when I heard the whisperings at the front door. Our doors were always dark now. The house seemed to be losing its sense of.. home as Eliza lost her .. well her senses. I stood perfectly still, seeing the slightly stooped young man at the door, he passed my Mistress a grubby little package and she shoved a few coins into his greasy palm, they clinked softly. He saw me though, and I held my breath. If he gave me away, she would think I was spying on her!
"Mayhap's I can sample the pudding before I go.."
I wanted to throw something at him! Immediately I took the next step, hard, so the bells would give me away.. so she would see I wasn't spying! I clutched three towels to my chest. Eliza turned and glared at me, Even veiled I knew the smirk on her lips was cruel.
"You don't want to bother with her.. she's Frigid."
The man snorted and turned to leave. I didn't care that he was a greasy dirty man! I would have been so pleased to serve him, to leave this horrible house. I would have been pleased to be street whore over this life. It was easy to think this now.. As Eliza shut the door slowly and turned her glinting beetle like eyes on me. I wish I could say I was brave and strong and that I held my head high. And once that might have been true.. but no more.. years under the woman's boot had taught me how to be meek... weak..
"Please my Mistress! I was only bringing down the towels to be washed.. I wasn't spying, I heard nothing!"
She ignored me. I do not think it matters to her if I spied or not. I think she just enjoys punishing me. In her eyes.. in her world.. all of this.. her missing companion, the money gone, the state of the house.. its all my fault. Every lick of the whip on my pale skin serves to remind me.. this is all my fault. She does this to me to make me loveless, to make me empty like her. But it does not work, does it? It only makes me long more.. for affection, for love.. even brief love. I suppose this why I miss Damos, even though he despises me.. or why I seek the painter who pretends to no longer know me.. or why I kneel for the poet and try to emulate his own slaves when he thinks I am defective ...or why I serve the drawn upon man who quietly mocks me. None of that matters.. I just need their love, a smile, a touch.
Until Eliza is forced to live upon her knees she will never understand this about me.. my great need.. for a Master.