Meet the mansion

I refused to leave the room or eat anything, but mam Nana would not let me be.

"Omorfi, you must eat plenty." She said to me. "You already have no skin, if you no eat, you will be bones very soon! Just bones."

And she was right. I was already feeling drained and dizzy, since I had barely had anything to eat the previous day. The only time I got to eat was on the flight, and I had eaten very light because my stomach was up in twists as I was very uncomfortable. Thanks to mam Nana's stubbornness, I finally got some real food in my system.

When I was done eating, mam Nana still would not let me be. She kept insisting that I go outside and explore the island. I didn't want to. I had no intention of seeing my prison from the outside. I felt like, if I remained inside, I could convince my brain that I was in an exotic hotel, on some island somewhere in the Caribbeans or the Bahamas. I could lie myself into believing that I was vacationing of my own free will, and not caught up here in bondage. If I go outside and see the mansion from out there, or see the emptiness all around, then I would be forced to embrace my new reality. I would have to accept the truth, and I wasn't ready for that.

But mam Nana, she was one persistent woman. She didn't understand my reason for wanting to remain indoors all day, and she wouldn't stop tormenting me.

"Many foreign ones, they come here for the sun and the water. You can not refuse the sun, it is gift from the gods. It kiss your skin, and you are even more beauty, omorfi." Mam Nana said to me. She kept calling me 'omorfi', and I didn't know why. But then I concluded that it was probably a greek term for 'my lady' or 'young lady', since she used it so frequently in her sentences. Little did I know how wrong I had been. It wasn't my fault though, I had never dreamed of visiting or living in Greece, so I never did a prep on the language.

After so much persuasion, mam Nana finally got me to get out of my room.

"I give you a tour of the house, I introduce you to the other staff and show you the island. Okay?" Mam Nana offered. I knew it wasn't exactly an offer, but a heads-up on the route we were about to take on our tour. I hadn't known her a full day yet, but I could tell that mam Nana wasn't a woman to take no for an answer when she was sure the answer was to be yes.

I followed mam Nana as she led me into the hallway. First she took me through the entire upper floor, showing me all the rooms and what they served for. Then she led me downstairs where I was surprised to meet quite a number of people. They were all staff of the mansion though, but I never expected to see that much people. The previous day, I had only seen the men in suit, who I had come to recognize as Jordan's security. But now, there were others. Two women, who also looked to be about mam Nana's age, were wiping the dust off surfaces, when we passed the living room.

The women looked a little confused and taken aback when they saw me with mam Nana.

"This two, they are Ekaterina and Ari. They take care and clean." Mam Nana said to me, then she spoke to the women in Greek. The two women appeared surprised by whatever mam Nana had told them, but they quickly bowed and even though I did not understand what they were saying, I understood that they were greeting me. I bowed too in response to them.

"They are saying welcome." Mam Nana whispered to me.

"I noticed." I said, nodding my head.

Mam Nana led the way again, and as I followed her, I heard the two women whispering among themselves. I heard the word 'omorfi' in their conversation, and I wondered if they were talking about me. I became curious to know what mam Nana must have told them.

"Uhm... Mam Nana." I called to the old lady.

"Yes, kallos." Mam Nana replied. There was a new term, but I already had something else to ask.

"When you spoke in Greek, what did you tell the cleaning ladies?" I asked.

"Oh, I told them who you are." Mam Nana said innocently.

"And who exactly is that? Who I am, who did you tell them I am?" I asked again.

"The boss wife. Our new mistress." Mam Nana said, and I stopped dead in my tracks. Mam Nana did not notice that I had stopped following her, and went on talking.

"You see, they do not know. Even me, I did not know until the morning, when the boss man say to me. The boss really tell nobody about it. He just give us surprise. Nobody know he will..." She was still saying when she looked over her shoulder and saw me standing at a distance.

"Kallos!" She called in surprise, as she turned around and walked back to my side. "Any problem?"

Yes! There was a problem.

I didn't want to be addressed as Jordan's wife! Not by his staff or anybody else. I wanted to be recognized for what I really was. A prisoner!

I didn't want the staff treating me as if I was a princess, when I was really in hell. This would only buttress Jordan's grand plan, because even his staff would testify to me being recognized and treated as his wife.

If ever I got my chance to fight this legally, because I hoped to, I needed real witnesses who would know the real truth, beyond the farce Jordan was weaving. And being recognized as a mistress by his staff, wasn't going to help that course.

"Why you so pale?" Mam Nana asked, feeling me up.

"Mam Nana." I called to her.

"Yes omorfi mou." She replied.

"Could you stop addressing me as omorfi and kallos?" I asked.

Mam Nana suddenly burst into laughter. She spoke in rapid greek, then in English, she said.

"My stars, your greek is too poor. You say it funny."

She burst into laughter again. Then she asked seriously. "But why do you want me to stop calling you by them?"

"Because I am not. I never want to be omorfi!" I cried.

"But you are already, omorfi." Mam Nana said. "You cannot change it, it is a gift from the gods. And we must acknowledge it when we see it?"

"What?" I asked, a little confused. It didn't sound like we were talking about the same thing. "What do you mean?"

"Ise poli omorfi." Mam Nana said with a big grin. "I call you omorfi because you pretty! Very pretty." She said.

I was stunned.

"And kallos?" I asked.

"Kallos." She repeated, correcting my pronunciation. "Beauty. You are beauty. So beautiful." She said.

My mouth fell open.

"What you think it mean before?" Mam Nana asked, seeing the shock on my face.

"I thought it meant mistress, or young lady." I said, shrugging.

Mam Nana bent over and laughed so hard that her shoulders vibrated.

"Kallos, you need good lessons in Greek. Let us say, I teach you, and you teach me good English. Deal?" She offered me. I nodded absent mindedly. Then mam Nana turned around and continued. "Come, I show you the kitchen now and the goddess of meals." She said.

I followed her into the kitchen. An old lady was sitting at a stool, sorting out vegetables. She looked way older than mam Nana, and her hair was completely grey. But her hands were strong as she worked. The old lady looked up at us with bright blue eyes when we walked into the kitchen. She frowned at seeing me, and seemed very annoyed. She looked at mam Nana and spoke in Greek, and I could hear in her tone that she was very irritated. Mam Nana replied quickly, and the kitchen lady's eyes widened, just as the cleaning ladies had. Her mouth fell open as she turned her eyes back on me. She stood to her feet and walked over to my side.

"You are the little prick's wife?" She asked, measuring me with her eyes. "How impossible!" She exclaimed.

Her English sounded way better and clearer than mam Nana's. She had a little American accent to her tune, and I wondered if she had lived in America before.

"You look decent." She said, nodding her head. "I thought you were one of his mistresses, and I wondered why Nana would bring one of those whores to my kitchen. I didn't know you were his wife, how could I have ever guessed?" The woman said.

My ears piqued at her statement, and mam Nana shifted uncomfortably beside me.

"Tell me child, did you become his wife after being his mistress? Are you with child? Is that why he married you so suddenly? If not, if you are decent as I sense you are, how did you end up with that kind of man?" The kitchen lady asked me, but mam Nana stepped in before I could even process the series of questions.

"Okay! Okay now. Enough now Dimitra. We go now. I must show the mistress the rest of the house." Mam Nana said, pushing me along.

When we stepped out of the kitchen, mam Nana whispered to me.

"Ignore Dimitra. She is not bad person, but she always want be tough. She will warm up to you, give time." She advised me.

I didn't care about what she was saying, as the kitchen lady's words kept echoing through my head. She had seemed very serious and sincere when she said those words, and with mam Nana's reaction, I could guess that she was trying to hide something.

Once again, I found myself wondering what kind of person Jordan was. What kind of person was my captor?