Dream Lover

SEVEN

Her inspection was interrupted when her captor came thumping down on the tree house’s floor and asked,

"What are you wearing under that thing?" she'd been too concerned about falling to her death to consider he would be looking up her skirt. She scowled at him.

"Didn’t get the peep show you were expecting?" he only shrugged 

"It was still a good view, even if it was slightly obstructed." She was speechless so she settled for a cold silence. He stepped around her and walked further into the room he knelt in front of the fireplace did something she didn't quite catch and had a fire going almost instantly, he couldn't have gotten a fire built faster if he had the thing wired with gas. As he started moving about his home, Elle kept her position in the corner where the wood of the floor actually went into the wood of the tree. "Have a seat.”

She knew he meant for her to cross the room and take one of the chairs at the small table in the middle of the room. Elle had already figured out that pain didn’t buy her a ticket out of this dream. She wasn’t willing to see if she would wake up before she hit the ground after falling through the floor of this house. Elle dusted the section of floor off where she stood and folded her legs under herself, so she was sitting on her calves. It was his turn to scowl. "Sit over here." he said pointing to the chair Elle assumed he meant the first time.

"I'm up here okay, please don't make me move around."

"You are afraid."

"Yes"

"Of what"

"Right now, falling through this floor,"

"Nonsense this floor is as strong as it gets." He stomped hard on the floor with his booted foot dust shifted and the floor vibrated but it held. 

"Okay,” Elle said, "I believe you."

"Good, come over here." 

"I'd really rather not.” Elle said. Hoping not to offend him she added, "I like it over here." He didn't buy her act for a second. He started toward her. She knew what he was going to do but she had nowhere run and for the second time today, she was ready to beg. Pride was people on solid ground! "Please. No, no, don't!" he plucked her off the floor easily.

She clung to him like a drowning person her legs locked around his waist and her little arms squeezed so tight around his neck he had trouble pulling in air. She buried her face under his chin. It was a little like being attacked by a curvy little sea monster, Byron thought as he carried her across the room.

He’d nearly shot her earlier when she came diving down at him from the trees. He thought at first that she would have some band of thieves on him in the next moment after he’d done his best to catch her, but she’d ripped the hunting knife from his belt and began to run off again. He wouldn’t have had any trouble getting another knife and he had no particular fondness for the one he had but something, maybe just the principle of the thing, had him up and after her. Byron didn’t know how he’d thought up having her clean his house when she was all but naked and wriggling under him, perhaps it was because the last time anyone had cleaned it was nearly two months ago after he seduced a woman from the village.

Still, he had thought of it, and he intended to see it done.

He supposed this girl could be pretty. She was certainly appealing; he had no trouble imagining her without the scrap of a dress she was wearing maybe with her hair up and jewels—no—Byron stopped himself hating that his past life had crept in on a harmless fantasy.

He moved with her to the chair and sat. She didn't loosen her grip. He patted her back at a loss for anything else to do. 

"You have not fallen yet" he pointed out. 

"When we do, you’re going to break my fall." She meant that to sound defiant and rude, he knew, but she was trembling and it sounded more like a plea.

"Will you let me go?"

"Take me back to the corner."

"You will have to walk there on your own," he told her.

He went about prying her legs from around his waist, though he thought he'd like to feel them there again. When he managed to free himself, he shifted leaving her sitting in the chair. 

Without him as a life raft she squeezed herself into a tight little ball she eyed the corner. The floor had sounded steady. It hadn’t so much as creaked under their weight but she still wasn’t ready to test her luck on it. Instead, she stayed in the chair rested her head on her knees. 

It was quiet then, she sat in the chair and watched him move around the house. He felt her eyes on him until he went about the business of butchering the pig. 

"What is your name?"

"Elle"

"I am Byron Dashwood" Her face was still buried in her knees. "Where are you from?"

"Texas"

"Where is that?"

"It’s a state in a country called America it sits on the southern border between America and Mexico."

"Are you making this up?" she laughed a little. She had been being a smart ass, she supposed that was what she got.

"I'm not, I don't know how I got here, or even where here is." she told him, "I'm just waiting to wake up so I can figure out whether this is a dream or a nightmare." 

"A dream"

"It must be" Elle said, "this floor has no support beams, you started that fire instantly. You aren't even a little worried about burning wood in a wooden tree house. This whole place doesn't make sense."

"I see" Byron said, "I suppose the clothes you are wearing are respectable where you're from?"

"No one would think I belonged in a w***e house if that's what you mean." Elle said dryly. He seemed more thoughtful than apologetic. Then he changed the subject again

“The few days’ work I mentioned—"

"You want your house cleaned." Elle sighed. She’d almost begun to believe she was really in some strange alternate reality but it was beginning to settle now into a nice cliché. He was ridiculously beautiful, handsome would be an insult and he just happened to have this house that needed cleaning. Elle figured she’d play Susie Homemaker for awhile and cap this twisted dream off with a great bit of fantasy that would probably be cut short by her alarm because all the good ones always are. 

"Yes" 

"Do you have what I need to get the job done? A mop bucket of water a broom, soap and so on?" 

"I do" Finally in safe dream territory Elle didn’t even bother to ask why the hell he hadn’t used them if he had them. She just straightened herself out, put her feet on the floor, and stood up, if a little hesitantly. 

"Point me to them."