Kidnapped for the Auction

Perin - Getting to know you

Perin turned the key in the lock behind him, wishing he didn’t have to. He had considered apologising beforehand, but would probably have led to another argument. On the plus side, they had just had a civil conversation, something he hadn’t expected for another couple of days yet!

He smiled to himself as he walked to Jareth’s: she was his! He knew that she hated him at the moment, but gods, did he want her! Not just because she was beautiful, and she was, but the way she was holding herself together was impressive. He liked the fact that she was standing up to him even though she was frightened, and moving forward she would certainly let him know if she was unhappy about something.

“Perin..!” He was pulled from his reverie by someone calling his name, and he turned to see Asher, his boss, moving swiftly towards him. He felt embarrassed when he realised that he had forgotten to call work last night to inform them that he would be needing a week’s leave.

“Sir, I meant to call you…” he started to say, but Asher cut him off.

“I was just on my way to see you, and was hoping to get a glimpse of your new wife so I could report back to the others.” He said with a chuckle, and Perin knew that he wasn’t in trouble.

“Who told you?” Maybe Lance had actually done something helpful!

“Steve, he was at the auction too, remember?”

Yes, Perin did remember. He remembered outbidding him too.

“Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “I probably need to apologise to him at some point.” It was very poor etiquette among friends to bid on a wife that a friend was already bidding on. As Steve had starting bidding before Perin it meant that Steve had the prior claim on her, but it certainly hadn’t felt like that to Perin the previous night!

“You should,” agreed Asher. “But I’m sure he will be ok about it. It’s good to see you settle down, you have been alone for a long time, and very serious of late!”

This was news to Perin; since when was being serious about his career a bad thing?!

“Ok.” He replied, not sure what to make of that.

“Anyway,” continued Asher. “The team had a talk this morning, and have offered to cover your shifts for an extra week so that you can spend more time with your wife and help her adjust.”

“Thank you sir.” He said, truly touched by his colleague’s generous gesture. He needed all the time he could get with her, and he was pretty certain that it still wouldn’t be enough for her to be settled with him.

“I’ll let you get back to her!” Asher said heartily, clapping his shoulder. “See you in two weeks!”

He continued on down the corridor, leaving Perin feeling rather shocked and a little unsettled. How long had the guys been thinking that he was “too serious” and in need of a wife? Granted, he hadn’t been out drinking with them of late, choosing to go to the gym or staying in watching movies instead, but surely that didn’t mean he was too serious!

He arrived at Jareth’s with his mood definitely less buoyant than before, but maybe giving Rowan her stuff back would earn him some brownie points. Perin knocked on the door, hoping that Jareth didn’t want to talk; he was already anxious to get back to Rowan.

The door was answered by Teresa, who quickly forced a smile when she saw it was him.

“Hello Perin!” she trilled.  “You know we don’t do refunds, don’t you?!” she laughed at her joke, and Perin forced a smile. She was always so sweet and nice, that he couldn’t help but feel that it was fake, at least in part.

“No, I just wanted to collect Rowan’s things, and see if I can get her clothes back so that she has something to wear whilst we go shopping.”

“Her things?!” Teresa asked incredulously.

“Yes, she would like them back.” He replied, feeling rather put out at her reaction.

“But Perin, reminders of her past may stop her acclimating to her new life with you! Surely it’s better for her to make a fresh start!?” Teresa was staring at him emphatically, certain that she was right in what she was saying.

“I don’t think that it will be reminders of her past that stop her from acclimatising, I think it more likely that the fact she despises me and everything about our way of life that does that!” He said it jovially, but with an edge that said he wasn’t going to discuss this with her.

“Are you having problems?” The patronising tone made Perin bristle, regardless of the fact that she just wanted to help.

“I’m sure it will be fine.” He just wanted to get the stuff and go.

Teresa hesitated on the threshold for a moment, and Perin wondered if she was going to send him away. Her smile became brittle as she finally said “I’ll go and see if I can find her things.”

Perin waited awkwardly whilst she went back inside, wondering what had made her so annoyed at him asking for Rowan’s things. He found himself wondering what Teresa’s story was; she had been here working with Jareth for as long as he could remember. He wondered if her unfailing cheerfulness and compliance was something she had always been or if it was a front that she had been putting on for so long that she no longer knew how to be anything else.

“Here we are,” she said, pulling him from his musings. She thrust Rowan’s handbag and a carrier bag of clothes at him then was shutting the door before he had finished saying “Thank you.” Her strange behaviour had got him thinking; was she actually happy here?

He made his way back to his apartment and gingerly unlocked the door, half expecting her to be lying in wait ready to ambush him with a lamp or something. Instead, she was still sitting where he left her cradling a mug of tea.

“Hey.” He said, “I got your stuff.” He held out the bag to her, and she took it with a muttered “thank you” with no eye contact or expression.

“I was hoping that you would have done the washing up whilst I was out.” He said wryly, trying to bait her. He would rather have her annoyed and speaking to him than silent and sullen; where had the civil conversation from before gone?

“I’m sorry; you didn’t leave me any orders.” She said sarcastically, getting off the stool and walking towards the bedroom.  “I’ll just get changed”

After a couple of minutes she was back dressed in her jeans, boots and jumper. She had brushed her hair too, and it fluffed out around her shoulders in an auburn curtain. He found himself longing to stroke a hand through it to see if it was a soft as he imagined it to be.

“Shall we go,” he asked her, reaching for her hand to lead her out. He couldn’t entirely mask his feelings of rejection when she glared at him and marched to the door.

“Afraid I’ll run away?” she asked mockingly.

“I just wanted to hold your hand,” he told her, feeling foolish for wanting to try and connect to her so soon. “Come on.” He opened the door, then locked up behind them, leading her through the corridors to the lift that would take them up to the garage.

“We’re going up?” she asked him, once they were inside the lift.

“Yes,” he answered shortly. He had forgotten that she had been asleep when he brought her in the lift the first time.

“Have we been underground?”

“Yes.” She was only fishing for information to escape, so he wasn’t going to elaborate.

“That’s why there are no windows. I just thought it was to stop people escaping.”

Perin didn’t respond; he was feeling rather apprehensive about going out and the possibility he may have to command her tin order to stop her getting away from him and further cement her enmity.

“Are you angry with me now?” she asked after several moments of silence. “Because if you…”

Perin sighed and cut her off before she could really get going. “Rowan please, can’t we just have a normal conversation? Can’t we try and get along for a little while?”

“You expect me to be civil to my captor?”

“I didn’t plan for this. I didn’t expect to have you as my wife; I didn’t even want a wife!” he stated, exasperated.

“You bought me! Why? If you didn’t even want a wife!” she had turned to face him, making eye contact at last.

“I don’t know. I guess I felt responsible for you. Most of the other girls would have been here for a while; they would have had time to adjust to the idea of a husband. I hadn’t even planned to go to the auction, but Lance badgered me to go.” He felt the need to make her understand that he wasn’t a bad guy.

“Lance?” she asked, her voice losing the aggressive edge.

“My brother. The past couple of years he has been looking for a wife, he hasn’t found anyone yet. I wasn’t going to bid for you but there was this young guy there being an i***t. Total arrogant arsehole. He would have taken great joy in making you submit, so I thought I would outbid him so he wouldn’t get you, but he didn’t drop out.” Perin knew that his explanation was somewhat incoherent, but hopefully she would get the drift.

“So I was a pity buy?”

He was about to snap a retort to her when she realised that she was joking with him.

“OK,” she said finally. “I think I understand.”

He felt relieved; maybe they could start to get along…

“So why can’t you just let me go? Say that I got away from you during our shopping trip?”

Or maybe not. “If I did that then they would look for you, and they would find you. Once you know about us then you cannot leave. If we were exposed to the human authorities they would destroy us. Probably experiment on us first.”

“You could say I died or something?” she sounded a little desperate now.

“I would need to show a body, and there would be an investigation into the circumstances.” Likely by his own department!

“So there really is no way out?”

He was saved from replying by their arrival to the garage.

“This way,” he said leading her towards his car. Surprisingly, she followed him without complaint, getting into the passenger seat and strapping herself in. She waited until he was pulling away from the garage before asking;

“So what do I do now?”

“Well, like I said before, once I can trust you then you can live a pretty normal life. Work, go out, whatever you want.”

“But I will be your wife? How will this work?” she seemed genuinely confused.

“You are my wife, but I’m not really sure what you mean. I don’t expect you to feel anything for me right away, but I hope in time that we will be happy together.” He risked a glance over at her in the seat next to him, and saw that she was staring at him, utterly dumbfounded.

“You think this marriage is real? How can you think that? You can’t possibly feel anything for me, you don’t know me!”

How to explain? “You’re right.” He told her after a moment. “I don’t know you, but I admire the way you have dealt with losing everything you had ever known, and I’d like to know more about you. More than that though; I Have lived my whole life with the expectation that I would one day have a wife, and that she would be the most precious thing in the world. I have watched my parents’ relationship grow closer and deepen as the years have passed. I believe that marriages that start like this can and do work.”

“You talk like you are ancient!” she still sounded unconvinced. “You can’t be more than ten years older than me, tops?”

“There you are wrong. I’m a lot older than you.” This conversation was not one that he had been looking forward to; no doubt she would be straight back to disbelief.

“What? You’re like 35?” she guessed.

“Our metabolism works differently. We age slower, live longer.”

“Then how old are you?” The dreaded question.

“Eighty-seven.”

“Eighty-seven? No way! You’re telling me that you are older than my grandfather?” She seemed utterly bemused.

“I really am.” He stated, and she fell silent. He resisted the urge to look over at her again; he had already exposed his feelings enough for one day.

“But that’s sick.” She said quietly. “You’re like some dirty old man!”

He couldn’t help but smile; of all the things that she could be offended by, his need for blood, her imprisonment, being commanded, she chose his age!

“It’s a different mind-set. I’m considered quite young in the community; we don’t reach our full physical and mental maturity until we are about 30. Although I am rather old to be getting married for the first time, I’ll admit!”

“This is all too much!” said Rowan. “I don’t want to believe any of this, but I’m struggling to come up with reasons of why you would lie about it!”

“I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot to take in.” He knew that they would have had this discussion at some point; maybe it was best to get it out of the way now.  “Can we try to make the best of the situation? You are going to be with me for the foreseeable future so we should get you some clothes and then think about what we should do next.”

“Ok,” she said, lapsing back into silence.

Perin put the radio on and they listened without comment until they arrived at the multi-storey car park in the city centre. Once he had parked he took the keys from the ignition and turned to her.

“Are you going to try and escape?” he asked her directly. She hesitated before she answered and he had his answer; of course she was going to try and escape.

“No, I won’t. There’s no point, you’ll only do that mind control thing if I do.” She managed to meet his gaze and he found himself wishing that he could trust her.

“Come on.” He said, getting out of the car and leading the way to the shops. An hour or so later, and with a much lighter wallet, Rowan still hadn’t made an escape attempt. He had been watching her closely, and not entirely just for the purposes of thwarting her escape attempts.

They had arrived at the city just before sunset and he had watched the sunlight set the tones in her hair aflame. He hadn’t seen her in sunlight before, and he couldn’t help but think how beautiful he found her. Now the sun was almost completely gone, and they only had an hour or so until the shops would start closing.

“What else do you need?” he asked her. She had been strangely compliant, buying what he had suggested she could use; underwear (purely functional), jeans, t-shirts, a couple of jumpers, flip-flops, trainers.

“I can’t think of anything else,” she replied.

He wracked his brains; she didn’t really need anything else, but she didn’t have anything that she really liked, or was more than just functional. Then he had an idea.

“It’s traditional for the first time you meet my family to be quite formal. Wil you let me get you something to wear for it?”

“Like what?” she asked, dubiously.

“Just a dress or something.” He told her. “What did you think I meant?”

“Who knows? I don’t understand half of what’s going on here old man” She had started calling him “old man” at some point during their shopping trip, and although he was sure she meant it as an insult he actually found it strangely endearing.

They walked on a little further towards a posh-looking boutique but found their entrance was blocked by a laughing couple coming out. Oblivious to them, the male, whom Perin recognised as his own kind, swung the girl around before pulling her in for a passionate kiss.

They just stood staring until the couple realised that they had an audience and broke apart with an apology.

“Rowan!” cried the girl, and Perin realised that she had been in the auction last night. She was obviously not having any trouble adjusting; she had tucked herself under the tall, blond vampire’s arm, all rosy cheeked and full of smiles. She had a silk scarf tied around her throat and he had a pretty god idea of what it was hiding. He felt a stab of envy; that guy had obviously had a good night.

“This is my Niko.” The girl continued, patting her new husband’s arm.

“Hi,” said Rowan, surprising him with her civility, “This is Perin. Perin, this is Sarah.”

“Nice to meet you!” the girl responded enthusiastically. “I told Rowan she would feel better once she had her husband! I’m sure you will both be very happy together!” 

Perin could only imagine how that conversation had gone! Knowing that he was pushing his luck, he threw an arm around Rowan’s shoulders and pulled her into his side. “I’m sure we will!”

“Anyway, we had better go.” Said Sarah, “I’ll see you soon, I’m sure!”

“Ok, bye.” Said Rowan, and Perin nodded to them both in farewell.

They carried on walking into the store, and for a couple of moments he thought that Rowan was going to allow him the liberty that he had taken, but she quickly ducked out from under his arm.

“I can agree to act like your wife in public, but when we are alone I would appreciate it if you maintained your distance.” She said acidly.

He followed her into the shop, and walked behind her as she browsed without saying that she liked anything.

“What about this?” he suggested, spotting a green dress that he thought would look nice against her hair. He held it up for her to look at; it was a deep green colour, fitted, with a square neckline and a wide obi belt embroidered with flowers.

“Ok,” she said taking it from him and turning towards the tills.

“Don’t you want to try it on?” Didn’t women usually want to see how these things looked?

“I wasn’t going to. Do you need to see if it’s suitable?” Her voice was neutral, showing she was obviously on best behaviour out in public.

“Yes, I should see it.” He said, not because he thought that it wouldn’t be suitable, but now he just wanted to see how it looked on her.

She took it from him without complaint and went to the changing rooms. He milled around idly examining the clothes on the racks until he heard Rowan hiss his name. He turned towards the fitting rooms and saw her peering around the curtain. When she saw that he was looking she pulled the curtain aside to show him the dress and he caught his breath; she looked stunning in it. It was shorter than he had expected it would be, showing tantalising glimpses of smooth thigh. The square neckline was low enough to show a hint of cleavage, but what it really showcased was her slender neck and her delicate collarbones.

“You look beautiful.” He told her. Forgetting that she despised him he regarded her with a sense of pride; she was his wife, and he wanted to show her off.

She looked down at herself with a frown. “Isn’t it too revealing?”

“No, it’s perfect!” he said, perhaps a little too quickly.

“oh, I get it.” She said, not bother to mask her contempt. “It should be revealing. It needs to be obvious what I’m here for.”

Refusing to rise to the comment, he called “You need shoes to go with it!” With a bitter smile, she turned back into the changing room and pulled the curtain across.

They completed their shopping trip with her maintaining a sullen silence, his attempts to engage her in conversation falling by the wayside.

“Do you want to get something to eat,” he asked, after they had put the shopping bags in the car.

“Do I have a choice?” she sneered, and Perin’s patience ran out.

“Nope.” He said flippantly, “We’ll go to the little Italian on the corner.”

She followed him without complaint, even managing to smile at the waitress who led them to their seats. She studied the menu briefly than set it down on the table, without comment.

“What are you having?” he asked, trying once again to make conversation.

“The meatballs.”

He was getting very fed up with the sullen silence. “Why are you sulking with me now?”

“I’m not sulking!” she snarled. “I’m acting the only way I can when you are treating me like an object!”

“How am I treating you like an object!?” he bit out, all too aware that they had an audience in the restaurant.

“That dress,” she hissed, mercifully lowering her voice. “Is only meant to do one thing, which is attract men. You obviously want me to look like a w***e when I meet your parents!”

He may as well be honest. “I wanted you to get that dress because you look gorgeous in it! I admit it, I’m a man, I find you attractive and I want to show you off as my wife. If you didn’t like the dress why didn’t you just say so!?”

She dropped her gaze, lips set in a firm line.

“I don’t want you to be unhappy.” He continued, voice softening. “You need to tell me how you feel about things. I need to know what you want.”

“I want to go…” she started.

“I know you want to go home, but we have established that I cannot do that. Let’s eat and then head back. Maybe there is something else that you would like to do tonight?”

“I don’t know.” She said, sounding suddenly small and tired.

“Ok, well we don’t have to do anything.” He reassured her, saved from commenting further by the arrival of the waitress to take their order.

Once she had left, Rowan leant towards him, indicating that she wanted to speak confidentially. He leant in too.

“Last night, you promised that you wouldn’t touch me. What are you going to do for blood?”

That was a good question; he hadn’t thought about it. It had been over a week already since he last fed, and there was no way that she would be ready to let him take from her in the next few days.  However, the thought of going out to seduce another woman to feed from was abhorrent to him. He weighed up his options, concluding that forcing her to allow him would be worse and ultimately damage any relationship that they may have. 

“I’ll find someone else to feed from.”  He told her, even as everything in him was crying out against it.

“You promise?” she asked desperately.

“Yes, I won’t force you.” She nodded and gifted him with a small smile. Taking advantage of the slight thawing of her demeanour he asked. “Can I ask you some questions?”

 “Like what?” she asked warily.

May as well start simple. “What sort of movies do you like?”

“Anything really; action, romcom’s, dramas. Why?” She idly toyed with the straw in her drink as she answered.

“No reason. I just want to know more about you. What made you become a nurse?”

She c****d her head whilst she formulated an answer. “I guess the standard answer is that I want to help people, but that’s not the full answer. I have always felt a bit like an outsider, like I’m a little detached from other people somehow. That means that I can cope with things that other people may struggle with, like dressing wounds without feeling squeamish, stuff like that. Not that I don’t have empathy for others, I do, just that I don’t seem to get as emotionally involved…. I don’t know. I’m not explaining this very well.”

He smiled at her difficulty in explaining why she did what she did, but he understood. He too had to do things in his line of work that others couldn’t or wouldn’t.

The next question was about her taste in music (pretty eclectic) then hobbies (running) and then books. He was pleased to find that she was well read, interested in a wide range of genres. But by far the best thing for him was the way she started to relax whilst talking to him.

He sat across from her talking and eating and thinking about how engaging she was when not arguing or sulking with him. His parents would like her… Oh no, he hadn’t called his parents yet! Surely Lance would have told them already? But even so, his mother would be hurt by not hearing about it from him. He would call them when he got back this evening.

“What do you do?” she asked him, taking a mouthful of spaghetti then looking at him expectantly.

“I’m a warrior.” He told her, wondering if she would be impressed. 

“Which is…?”

“I guess to you we would be the Police. If there is any unrest within the community then we are the ones who sort it out.”

“What do you mean by unrest?” She was probing now.

“Well, anything really. Theft, violence. Pretty standard stuff.” What he didn’t mention was that he would also be deployed to recover wives who had gone AWOL.

“So you have a whole vampire judicial system?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Yes. Well not judicial system as such, but we do have justice.” He told her, pleased that she was taking an interest.

“What do you mean?”

“Say that someone stole from someone else, something belonging to them of equal value would be confiscated. Or if they didn’t have anything of equal value then they would have to work to pay it back.”

“What about murder?”

“Their lives would be forfeit.”

“So you would go and kill them?!” she asked, horrified.

“No, I would go and collect them so that their sentence could be carried out.” She looked slightly less disturbed at this.

“So it’s a real ‘eye for an eye’ society then?” she said after a moments contemplation. “What would happen to me if I ran away?” she asked suddenly.

“Nothing. You would just be returned to me.” He replied.

“What if I said that you were violent towards me?” she asked, and he wondered when she was going with this.

“I would never…” he began, but she cut him off.

“But if I said you were?” she pressed.

“Nothing would happen.” He realised what she was getting at now. “But it’s unthinkable that a man would treat his wife that way, he would have been taught from infancy that is wife is to be treasured.”

“Then why were you worried about the other guy buying me?” And there it was, there question that he always avoided thinking about; if women were treated as though they are precious then why were some still frightened of their males, and being commanded even years after they were married? And deep down he knew why; there were nasty bastards in every society and they were tolerated in his. He met her gaze but couldn’t answer her. She was right.

“So you could do whatever you wanted to me and it would be within the law?” She was determined to make her point.

“Yes, provided that it didn’t cause serious injury or death. If that happened it would be investigated.”

“So nothing would be done about it unless there was irrefutable physical proof. How can you justify that!?”

“I can’t,” he conceded. “I can’t justify that.”

They finished their food in a rather sombre manner, turning down the offer of dessert.

“Ready to head back?” he asked her once he had paid the bill.

“Yes,” she said, and they left the restaurant together.  The sun had fully set now, and the air had turned chilly. The drive home was quiet, but there wasn’t the same tense atmosphere as before; something had eased.

True to his earlier resolve, Perin called his parents when he got in, leaving Rowan on the sofa watching tv whilst he was in the bedroom. As expected, they already knew about the auction and his new wife, and yes, his mother was annoyed that he hadn’t called sooner. Despite that, she was pleased that he had done the “right thing” and got himself a wife, and wanted to know when she could meet her.

He managed to negotiate it for two night’s time, to give Rowan a little more time to adjust, but his mother was certainly putting on the pressure! Walking back out to the living room, he felt pleased by the progress he had made that day.