Lauren ventures where she can, not wanting to step into any of the rooms lest she intrude but peering into any which catch her interest. Each of the two upper floors are laid out the same, with a hall passing perpendicular to the front doors and along the shared wall of the mansions, rooms branching from the left side. Each room has its own theme, by colour scheme and what it holds. Some, Lauren finds frightening or downright repulsive, containing things like weapons, restraints, and in one, nothing but an old, dirty mattress in the center. Others are enchanting, like the large library on the third floor above the cinema with floor to ceiling windows, or the room decked out to look like a forest, complete with false trees and a rope swing hanging from a branch.
She's about to head down to the ground level when she spots Camila exiting the 2nd-floor cinema, a small frown marking her features.
"Where have you been?" She questions, tipping her chin up and regarding Lauren down the ridge of her nose. The older girl freezes mid-step on the staircase.
"Exploring," She shrugs, "Just the open rooms."
Camila seems to think this over and glances down the hall. Lauren follows her gaze, wondering which door she's looking at, but when she cant identify any, she turns back.
Camila nods, holds out her hand, and instructs, "Come with me. There's something we have to do."
Lauren's green eyes dart to the foyer beneath her but she lets out a small breath and heads back up towards the young woman, allows her hand to be taken, and follows as she is led back down the hallway toward the room at the end. Camila inputs the code in the padlock before swinging open the door, revealing a black-painted room to Lauren. The atmosphere rises to a tension similar to the electricity in the air before a thunderstorm, crackling away and leaving anticipation in many a heart. By now, Lauren has learned to associate darker colours with rooms she'd rather not enter, so these walls are far from inviting. Camila tugs on her arm, though, and she's forced to follow her into the dark room. A light switch is flicked and a red neon ring hanging from the ceiling buzzed into life, casting a dim glow over the room. It catches on various shining objects, dances on the steel table beneath it, and lays softly on Camila's skin as she reaches out for an object on the table, still holding Lauren's hand tightly in her own.
"What is that?" Lauren questions as Camila then brings the thing up toward her neck.
"It's a collar," Camila answers simply as she fastens the heavy leather around Lauren's pale neck, "I know you have questions about your reason for staying here, Lauren, and I will answer them in time. For now, I want you to wear this at all times unless I remove it. Do you understand?"
She frowns, and shakes her head. "Why?" She asks, her hand already coming up to tug at the restriction. It's relatively loose around her neck, and she knows Camila could've fastened it tighter if she'd wanted to, but that doesn't make it any less uncomfortable.
Camila's eyes, red beneath the light, as is everything else, narrow accusingly, "Because I said so, and you are to do as I say. Do you understand, Lauren?"
This time, with a gulp, she nods and, when it's slapped away, drops her hand back to her side.
A small smile crosses Camila's lips. She steps closer to Lauren until they're touching at various points, and whispers, "You're mine, Lauren." Her eyes fall to the collar, fingers drawing shapes on Lauren's hips, "For at least a month."
"Do your parents know?" Lauren blurts. Feeling incredibly awkward, she blushes as she looks down slightly into confused brown eyes now raised to her own, "About this side of things, I mean. Because, well, they were the ones to pick me up, and your Mom seemed shocked when I told her earlier that we'd watched a movie together, and-"
"They know," Camila confirms, looking back down with possession dancing behind her pupils, "But you won't be wearing that in front of them. Not yet."
Her hands tighten on Lauren's hips, slipping along the slick material of her slacks.
"I trust you've 'explored' the third floor?" She raises a brow as she steps back from Lauren, moving back over to the door and letting daylight pour into the room before flicking off the neon light. Lauren nods, and she continues, "The orange bedroom near the end of the hall, that's yours. I want you to change—there's clothes on the dresser—and then meet me in the foyer."
With that, she slinks from the room and Lauren is left to follow her instructions.
When she looks upon her reflection, she allows her eyes to linger on the black leather collar sitting starkly against her pale neck and wonders just how prominent a role Camila's apparent oddities will play in her life for the next 'at least a month'. She owns Lauren, she says, and Lauren is to do as she says. Lauren has always been nobody's but her own, and she does as nobody but herself says, so she's sure she'll have Camila under control soon, even if it means bribing her with a few followed commands here and there like wearing this dumb collar. She's not an animal, she's a human being with free will that she will not be giving up to some stranger she barely knows, even if the stranger resembles the epitome of Latin beauty both while sleeping and awake. Giving the outfit of surprisingly comfortable jeans and a loose-fitting t-shirt with a sweeping neckline a once over, she slips into the bathroom and ties her hair into a high ponytail before heading down to the foyer.
Camila doesn't notice her arrival, too absorbed by that plaster handprint as she trails a fingertip around its outline, perched in the chair with her bare feet propped up on the table. When Lauren clears her throat, her eyes widen and shoot up to the older woman and she quickly presses the plaster against her stomach as if trying to hide it.
"Lauren," she greets like she hadn't been expecting her. She quickly regains her composure, and smirks appreciatively, "Comfortable?"
Lauren nods and, when she's beckoned, follows Camila through the central of the three doors opposite the front entrance, through a modern living room, and out through a set of French doors onto a stylish porch with a view that goes on for miles.
As her eyes drag over the gentle slope leading down to a vast wood, the city beyond that, and a lake to the left, she hears Camila utter a quiet, "Take this to my bedroom, please."
"Are you sure?" A male voice questions, and Lauren assumes it's a worker of some kind, "I thought-"
"I thought I warned you about questioning me, Mendes," Camila hisses, "My bedroom. Now."
Silence follows, and Camila glides into place beside Lauren, sans handprint, looking out over the Cabellos' land.
"Pretty, isn't it?"
Lauren agrees, her eyes now following the sloping edge of the patio around to a pool set to the right, outside Camila's family's side of the mansion.
"I have my own pool, too. It's around the side of the house. More private that way," The girl explains, following Lauren's gaze for a moment before capturing her green eyes with her own, "Has anyone ever told you how alluring your eyes are?"
Lauren scoffs and turns back to the distant city, "Once or twice. Some prefer 'intimidating.'"
"I am not easily intimidated, Lauren," Camila comments in return, sliding an arm around her waist, "The fact that you're a Jauregui doesn't change that. Doesn't change it at all."
Lauren smirks and pushes back ever so slightly into her arm, "Nor am I, Cabello."
