Mistress Mine

14- slave's POV

I had changed, turned my covers and was ready to go to bed when Mistress appeared on the door of the room I slept in. On instinct, my eyes swept the room for  anything that was out of place that I should've fixed. I was told that the room and the space I had would regularly be checked to see if everything was in order, or even to look for anything that wasn't mine to have. It was something that the senior slave had done at the Cruzes. Here, however, Mistress hardly came around.

"I'm leaving early tomorrow," she said, "I want you to keep an eye on her in the morning. Make her breakfast and send her on her way as soon as possible. Don't let her wander around too much."

"Will do, mistress." I nodded, although I had very little idea of how I was going to manage a free person to do as I bid. Especially someone who shows up on your door in the middle of the night, uninvited, and takes the couch as theirs without so much as asking.

As it seems, my facial expression didn't reveal much of my internal disoriented thought, for she seems pleased.

"When should I have breakfast ready?"

"Don't worry about it." She waved me away. "I'll buy coffee on my way."

I never understood free people's fixation on buying over priced coffee that they can get with fraction of the price if they only made it at home. After the great depression, nobody indulged in such luxuries, and the coffee shop businesses went bankrupt, companies worth millions went out of business.

Years later, and when the economy overcame its own obstacles, everything went back to just the way it was, coffee shops included. Everything, except for slavery, for slavery was what saved the economy in the first place.

I didn't argue, though. Living with this owner, you learn quickly not to. She follows all her dietary rules to unbelievable acute degrees, with the exception of coffee.

I did as she's asked, didn't prepare a breakfast, but woke up early just to be there as she leaves. She wasn't a morning person, barely said her goodbyes as I have her the keys and her phone, and then she was gone.

My Mistress didn't seem too fond of her friend, and it didn't take me long to find out why. 

I had kept an eye on her throughout the first few hours of my Mistress' departure, and she had slept soundly as I went through chores around the house, not stirring for once. But just as I disappeared in the kitchen to start the preparation for launch, I came back to find her gone. The blanket she used was crumbled on the floor, and right beside it were the heels she wore last night, so I knew she was still in the house.

I checked the guest bathroom, but couldn't find her. And as I was just in the kitchen, and had passed the open study room that my Mistress never uses. That only left my Mistress's room for her to be in.

I cursed. She had specifically ordered me to keep an eye on her, she never went out of her way to have me do something. And the one time she did, I fail exceptionally.

She was nowhere to be found in my Mistress's room, and neither was she in the adjoining bathroom nor the dressing room that never gets used. I stood contemplated where else she could possibly be when I noticed two drawers were ajar in the left-hand side of the wardrobe, a section my Mistress never uses.

So she's been here, just not anymore. And there was only place left that I hadn't looked in.

My room.

And indeed, she was there. When she turned, her arm halfway down my drawer, she didn't seem surprised to see me, nor embarrassed that she was caught snoopong. Granted, I owned nothing of it as a slave couldn't possibly own anything, but that only meant that my owner did.

She smiled, her eyes twinkling as she laid eyes on me. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes."

It was a reminder of the reason I've been bought for, but my Mistress didn't seem to care for it much, and so it stopped being a big deal even with me trying to press the issue of my usefulness. Still, it stopped me on my tracks, unhinged me in a way I didn't think possible. But then she turned and started opening another drawer. And it was enough to snap me out of my daze. "What are you doing, ma'am?"

But she didn't look back, didn't even seem to hear me at all. And as I made my steps towards her, she was already done going through it all, a nd closing it with a thud.

"The Cruzes send their regards," Sybil said, "Emalyn especially. She wanted to be here, to check on things. But didn't want Suzy on edge."

Mistress hated to be called that.

But she's said something else. Something borderline dangerous. And made very little sense. She was sent to assets the situation, then. To find how far I've reached.

She went on, "She's wondering where you've gotten in the mission she's set you on. Is he gone yet?"

"He's on tour,"  I told her, "But he'll be back."

She laughed soft and sweet. "Tour? He travels in a van and sleeps in motels."

I didn't say anything. There was nothing to add.

"I've found no trace of anything of his anywhere, though."

"He doesn't leave anything overnight."

"So he hasn't moved in here. At least you were good for something."

I wanted to tell her that it wasn't reason. That I had nothing to do with it. That I'm completely ignored and looked over, and that yesterday she's ruined the moment the closest thing that came relevant. I should have told her. It was my job to tell her. It was what I was bought for. To drive the boyfriend out and away.