The Gift She Gives Ch. 10

Every night after that first night, Mr. Hughes would enter Vesper's room at some point and lay down on the bed that had been positioned beside hers. They would often lie facing one another, eyes on each other as they settled in for the night. Sometimes, they would speak, other times they would just look upon one another for a time before finally letting sleep overtake them. It became a routine that both depended on, despite the fact that there was never a set time that Mr. Hughes would appear. Sometimes, he would come in early, and leave several times throughout the night. Others, he wouldn't even show up until nearly midnight, when Vesper was close to exhaustion. But he always came to her.

They continued their lunches outside, both enjoying the weather as May gave way to June. Flowers now filled the yard and the bluebird houses along one side of the large tended lawn were filled with the chirping birds. Mr. Hughes was never late for lunch again as he had been that one day. He also made sure to never come to her straight from a client, either. They didn't speak about his work, Vesper still found it difficult to understand why it had to be the angel that prepped the women and men that visited the spa. She worried that he still did it for pleasure, despite the fact that they were now able to be intimate in their own way. She worried that he would continue his 'work,' that she would have to accept that part of him their entire time together. Considering how old she was and that she still looked young enough to pass for twenty, that could be a very long time indeed.

Despite that, Vesper felt closer to Mr. Hughes than ever, their conversations were always genuine and they spoke a lot about their pasts to each other. She had 87 years of life that she could talk to him about, and he enjoyed hearing about her time as a child with her mother in the hospital wards treating soldiers. And he had an eternity from which to pull stories of his own experience. Mr. Hughes was always very open about where he had lived in the past, places he enjoyed, and people he met along the way, but getting information out of him about his time serving his God, well, that took a little more effort, but he usually gave in and let her know bits and pieces of that former part of him. When he told her about the last time he had seen another angel, the day that he had refused to return to heaven, she had been amazed. He had really not accepted the offer to return home? It seemed surreal to her that an angel would refuse his God, but he had. He had chosen to stay here. A part of her, a part that felt extremely selfish because she had grown to really care about him, was glad. If he had left, she would never have met him, she would have never known what she was.

They talked about his friend, Domino. The woman who had become a vampire after the birth of her daughter and then moved to Minnesota. He was clear with her that he'd been aroused by the young woman, but assured her that those feelings paled in comparison, as did his feelings for Anya, to what he felt for her. Domino's fiancé, Alexandru, was being held captive by his sire in Belarus somewhere, and Vesper could tell that the situation frustrated Mr. Hughes a great deal. He had been trying vigilantly to find a way to free the vampire. Apparently, there was a sire hold that was seemingly impossible to break, and short of killing the man's sire, there was little they could really do. Killing, it seemed, was very taboo in the world of nonhumans, she found out, even the killing of a man who, by all intents and purposes, really deserved it.

He had smiled softly when he'd spoken about Domino having a vampire baby. Apparently, her ability to heal would have been extremely beneficial to the woman, as she'd been a human during her pregnancy and had almost died several times. Vesper had nodded, it certainly would have been, and she would have liked to be able to help out someone who was obviously a close friend. From what Mr. Hughes said about the woman, she was very strong, funny, and a favorite among the staff here at Vorhees. At one point, she'd been brought up in conversation with Samir, and Vesper got the impression that she was a sore subject with him because he had really liked her, despite the fact that she was in love with someone else. She'd mentioned that to Mr. Hughes and he'd frowned and shook his head and told her that Samir had an easy heart to break.

Deandra left at the beginning of June with her fiancé, Marc. The two had bought a brownstone in Boston and were going to begin a new life together. Deandra had secured a job working as a secretary for a lawyer in the city, someone who Mr. Hughes seemed to know. The two were very happy together, but Vesper had to admit that she missed her friend. Shi was busy nesting in the apartment that was just about finished, and Mr. Hughes kept her contact with Samir to a minimum. Vesper liked Brunhild, the female vampire that worked at the spa, but she was asleep all day.

It was the third week of June now, and Vesper woke up early one morning to find that Mr. Hughes had left her room already. It was not an uncommon occurrence, she was prone to sleep in a little bit, especially on the weekend, and he had a business to run. Getting up, she showered and dressed and ate a small breakfast that came up on a tray shortly after she rang for it. She had repeatedly expressed her ability to make herself a meal, but the kitchens were a busy place, and Mr. Hughes had asked her to allow them to take care of her nutritional needs. It felt like a guilty pleasure having her food prepared for her everyday. If she was to stay here indefinitely, she wondered if maybe he would acquiesce to having an apartment created for her in the large mansion, as he'd had created for Faeron and Shi.

Bailey and Barnum were growing so fast, and while she moved about the room, both kittens were alternating between following her, or chasing after each other and rolling around on the floor. She smiled as she watched the two pals as she got ready for the day. Maybe later, she would sneak them back down to Mr. Hughes' office again. She knew he was secretly warming up to them, though he would never admit doing so within her earshot.

Finally, she left the tray on the table closest to her door and opening it, she walked out into the hallway. Looking to the left, in the direction of Mr. Hughes' bedroom, she bit her lip and sighed for a moment, Vesper always felt a little melancholy when he left before she woke up. Then, turning her head in the opposite direction, she took a step towards the double doors that led to the staircase when she heard a muffled cry coming from somewhere near Mr. Hughes' bedroom. Frowning, she stopped walking and turned back towards the sound that she had heard.

Puzzled, wondering if she'd heard something for sure, she remained where she was for several minutes, waiting, listening for the sound to occur a second time. Just before she was going to give up on the noise, Vesper heard another muffled cry, closely followed by a third. Furrowing her brow, she walked quietly towards the sound. There were several doors between her room and the one that led into the spa owner's larger room, doors that she had never bothered to try to open, as she figured they belonged to rooms occupied by other employees of Vorhees. Stopping outside of the door closest to Mr. Hughes', she put her ear closer to the heavy wooden entry and listened closely.

She could hear faint noises inside, and then, that sound again. Vesper bit her lip and put her small hand on the knob. Trying to turn it didn't work, the door was locked. She looked around her, there was no one else in the hallway, and she knew that the keys to all of these rooms were different, and that only Mr. Hughes had a master set. Shaking her head, she wondered if she should just go downstairs and look for Mr. Hughes or Shi and ask them about the contents of the room. But the sound inside bothered her, as if someone was being hurt. Closing her eyes, she tried to think of what to do, and then she realized that she'd once had a conversation with Mr. Hughes from inside of his room. She'd been near the window in the alcove and she'd seen a door. It didn't look like a closet door, and Mr. Hughes had said it went to a storage room.

Maybe that was another way into the room that now puzzled her, Vesper thought as she moved down towards her absent would-be lover's room. His knob was open, luckily, so she went inside and closed the door behind her. Walking over to the closed alcove door, she tried the knob and found it locked, which she figured might be the case. But she knew that Mr. Hughes kept keys in his dresser. She looked through the dark wood drawer and smiled softly as she pulled out a small set of them. Going back to the alcove door, she tried several of the keys on the ring until one went in, and thankfully turned, opening the lock.

Vesper was expecting a storage room, and in fact, upon entering the first few steps, she did see that wooden shelves lined both sides of the entryway. They were, in fact, used for storage, she could see, but she hadn't expected them to store a myriad variety of sex toys and bondage supplies. Frowning, she looked from the baskets of dildos and vibrators, to ones that held ball gags and ass plugs. Each basket was labeled and dated, each item inside positioned correctly. The whole area was extensively organized and left absolutely no room for imagination about the purpose of the room.

However, if one were to ignore the contents in the baskets on the many shelves in the entry, they only had to step farther into the room to see the many strange tables and benches and other metal contraptions to realize that this was a sex room, a bondage room. It was a bondage room connected to Mr. Hughes' room. And furniture and sex equipment were not the only contents of the room. There were five people in this room, five humans, she could tell, and they were all naked and tied up and strapped down. It was from one of these people, four women and one man, that she'd heard the noise. Upon her entry into the room, there had been several whimpers and tensing of muscles as they expected that it had been their master who had come for them.

Vesper felt all the blood leave her head and in her dizziness, she sunk down to the floor to sit on her bottom as she slowly fought to breathe. Bringing air into her lungs suddenly seemed like an impossible task. This was not work. This was not 'prepping' clients. This was his personal sex room. This was Mr. Hughes' personal 'collection' of sex slaves. She knew she was crying, that tears were falling from her eyes and coating her cheeks, but she didn't care. Mr. Hughes was having sex, and he wasn't having sex with just her.

Being unable to breathe was quickly creating a problem, and Vesper crawled out of the room and shut the door behind her. Leaning against it, she tilted her neck back and sucked in a much needed breath. Dear God, how could he have kept this from her? How could he tell her that he loved her and be doing this? Why hadn't he stopped when they had started to get to know each other? Shaking her head, she finally wiped at the tears in her eyes and slowly got to her feet. Turning, she relocked the door and then pocketed the keys. Her legs felt like they'd been turned to jelly as she made her way slowly to the outer door of his bedroom, and Vesper walked through it and down the hallway to the staircase.

The stairs proved more difficult, and she held onto the railing heavily as she made her way down them. Thankfully, her destination was close by and when she opened the door to his office, she breathed a little easier, he was not inside. Going to his desk, she opened the top drawer and pulled out the folder inside that contained checks to his accounts. Finding the ones from his personal account, she saw that he'd pre-signed his name to a number of them. She knew he often did that because Faeron and Shi often ran errands for him and it made it easier for them to access his accounts. Grabbing what she needed, she put the folder back in the desk and left his office.

Walking back up the staircase, she eventually made her way back to the bedroom at the end of the hall, and going inside, she locked it from the inside, and then went to the internal door and unlocked it again. Walking inside, she put the items down on a table that she'd taken from the office and walked over to the first person that was tied up in the room, a young woman with auburn colored hair and freckles that was strapped to a cross. Without a word, she unstrapped the woman carefully, helping the woman to her knees as she was freed, her muscles not quite ready to support her weight.

"You're not Mr. Hughes." The woman said eventually, her green eyes wide as she looked at Vesper.

Vesper frowned a little and nodded, "Yes, I am not. You won't see him again, do you understand?"

"B-but we have a contract. I'm to be here another two months." The woman responded, shocked at this sudden change of events.

"Are you being paid a settlement at the end of those two months of service?" Vesper asked.

The woman nodded, "Yes, $50,000."

Vesper nodded, "Fine."

She picked up the pen and scrawled out an amount double what the woman had mentioned and then put the check in her hands. She watched as the woman read it, and her eyes widened a little more as she looked up at Vesper.

"I take it you have clothes here?" Vesper waved around at the room.

"Yes, in a drawer, there." The woman nodded and pointed to a cabinet farther back in the room.

"Get dressed and wait as I deal with everyone else." Vesper told her.

"Yes, ma'am." The woman seemed to understand that Vesper was not one to be trifled with, which was helpful, she was not happy about having to do this, she certainly didn't want to argue with these people over their continuing to fuck the man she'd fallen in love with. Love, gah, how could she love someone who perpetually disappointed her?

The next woman, a curvy brunette, seemed a little more hesitant to do as Vesper ordered, but she eventually was getting dressed, a check for a large sum fisted carefully in her hand. The man came next, and Vesper struggled a bit with the tight bonds that held him down. When he was freed, she wrote him a check as well and then sent him to dress. Once all five of them, all young and beautiful, were dressed in regular clothing, she brought them out into Mr. Hughes' bedroom and then turned to face the five of them, her face stern, her body still heated with the anger she was filled with.

"The rules are as they were with Mr. Hughes. You are not allowed to discuss your time here, with anyone. What you saw, what you did, it is all off limits. You will not endanger anyone at this spa, nor will you ever return, for any reason whatsoever." She said in a stronger voice than she felt she could muster and watched as each one of them nodded.

Going over to the phone, she picked it up and dialed for one of the downstairs servants, "Yes, Mr. Hughes has some guests leaving the spa immediately. Five of them. Yes, they will need transported to the airport. How long? Five minutes, fine. Thank you."

Hanging up the phone, she turned back to them, "Do any of you have anything you need to ask? Are you all able to make your way from here once you're at the airport?"

"We were each given an open-ended plane ticket to leave, ma'am." The man said, sheepish as he stood with the four women.

Vesper gulped softly as she nodded. "Follow me downstairs, do not stop for any reason."

They all nodded again, knowing that she was angry, that this situation could become volatile somehow, and as she walked into the hallway, they followed closely behind her. When they were downstairs, Vesper was thankful that the foyer was empty, and she was able to lead them out the front door without anyone seeing. When the large SUV pulled to the front from the side of the house, a driver inside ready to transport them, Vesper walked to the driver's side and smiled at the man who had immediately exited the vehicle.

"Derrick. It's good to see you." She said with a happy nod, she had gotten to know the man well during her stay.

"Hello, Miss Vesper. I'm taking some guests to the airport for you?" He smiled back at her.

"Yes, please. These five will be your passengers." Vesper waved at the women and the man who she'd brought outside.

"Of course, have a wonderful day." The driver smiled again and opened the back doors of the SUV for them to enter the vehicle.

Vesper folded her hands in front of her chest as she waited for the vehicle to pull away from the spa. She found herself completely unable to move until it had disappeared down the long drive. Sighing, she almost wished that she was able to leave the spa herself now, she had absolutely no desire to have any further contact with its owner. She wanted to beat him senseless. Repeatedly, until there was nothing left. But the unfair part was that even if she was able to touch him, to beat him, she would heal him with each punch. Yes, her life was completely unfair right now.

When her breathing was a little more even, and her body was shaking a little less, she wiped the tear that had worked free from her left eye and then she walked back inside the spa. Going upstairs, she went back to the room where Mr. Hughes had kept his sex slaves, there was nothing else she could call them, and stood looking around at the equipment in the room. Biting her lip, beyond angry at what he had done, what he had kept from her, she tried to figure out how to deal with all of this. How was she supposed to deal with how gutted she was, how horrible he had made her feel, keeping such an awful secret from her? She had wanted to love him, she had wanted to love him with every bone in her body.

Vesper choked back a sob and put a hand over her mouth. Looking around her, she saw that there was a phone on a table in one corner of the room. Walking over to it, she picked up the receiver and put it to her ear. Shi answered.

"Shi, this is Vesper. Where is Mr. Hughes?"

"I believe he is with a client right now, Vesper. Can I get him for you?"

"No, no that's all right. Do you know when he's expected to be free?"

"Not until right before lunch, I think. Vesper, is everything okay? Your voice sounds a little funny."

"I'm fine. I'll see him at lunch. Please don't disturb him." She dropped the receiver back onto the base and looked at the room around her again. Just seeing all of this...stuff...made her sick to her stomach.

Biting her lip, she picked the receiver back up and dialed a different number.

"Yeah?" A deep, tired sounding voice said from the other end.

"Samir, it's Vesper. Were you sleeping?"

"Um, yeah, it was a late night. You need something? Your voice sounds scratchy." He asked.

"Could you come down to Mr. Hughes' room. I need your help with something." She asked, being purposefully vague.

"Sure, I'll be there in a second." He hung up and Vesper walked over to the doorway that led to the alcove and waited for the blond man to enter. When he did, it was with a confused and slightly worried look on his face.

"What are you doing in here? I thought the two of you camped out in your room all the time." He asked, running a hand through his messy hair as he walked towards her. Samir was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt that looked to have seen better days, it fit him snugly and emphasized the muscles on his chest. Why couldn't she have fallen in love with him? He would have been immensely more tolerable.

"Come with me." She nodded with her head towards the alcove and turned and walked towards it and back into the connected room. She missed the way his eyes widened and he tensed at seeing where she was headed.