Chapter 40

"Yes." His hand pauses at the curve of my spine. "They know."

I wonder what he told them and how they reacted. I wonder if it made it better for them or worse.

"Will you ever let me go?" I already know the answer, but I need to hear him say it anyway.

"No, Nora," he replies, and I can feel his smile in the darkness. "Never."

And bringing me closer, he holds me until we both eventually fall asleep.

Over the next few months, my life on the island falls into a routine of sorts. When Julian is there, my world revolves around him. His moods, his needs and desires, rule my days and nights.

He's an unpredictable lover—gentle one day, cruel the next. And sometimes he's a mix of both, a combination that I find particularly devastating. I understand what he's doing to me, but understanding doesn't make it any less effective. He's training me to associate pain with pleasure, to enjoy whatever he does to me, no matter how shocking and perverted it is. And always afterwards, there's that unsettling tenderness. He turns me inside out, takes me apart, and puts me back together—all in the span of one night.

And his training is working. I go into his arms willingly now, craving that high I often get from a particularly brutal session. Julian tells me that I'm a natural submissive with latent masochistic tendencies. I don't know if I believe him—I know that I certainly don't want to believe him—but I can't deny that his peculiar brand of lovemaking resonates with me on some level. Toys, whips, canes—he's used them all, and I have invariably found pleasure in some part of what he was doing.

Of course, he's not always sadistic. Sometimes he's almost sweet, massaging me all over, kissing me until I melt, and then making love to me when I'm nearly out of my mind with need. On days like that, I don't want to leave the island. All I want is for Julian to keep holding me, caressing me . . . loving me, in whichever way he can.

Perhaps that is the most disturbing part of it all—the fact that I now crave my captor's love. I don't even know if he's capable of that emotion, but I can't help needing it from him. He wants me, I know that, but it's not enough. Somewhere along the way, I've lost my hatred for him, and I don't even know how or when it happened. I still resent my captivity, but those feelings are now separate from the way I feel about Julian.

Instead of dreading his visits to the island, I now eagerly await them. His business keeps him away more than I like, and I begin to understand how pets feel, waiting for their owner to come home from work.

"Why can't you conduct more of your business from here?" I ask him one day, after we wake up together in the morning. He always sleeps with me now. He likes holding me during the night; it helps him with his nightmares.