Iris woke up with the numbness of her left arm that she used as a pillow when sleep was too much for her to fight around three in the morning and fell asleep while finishing the website design that she was doing for her client.
And yet despite the feeling numb on her arm, she did not lift her head. She glanced up and met her own reflection on the screen of her laptop which had also fallen asleep to inactivity. She reached for the mouse and moved it to check how much work she was able to finish before sleep knocked her down.
She smiled a bit when she saw that she was almost finished with the job. She was thinking of what her schedule would be like for the rest of the day when her stomach grumbled.
"Yeah, eat first," she said to herself as she straightened her back which was cramping a little from hunkering on her desk for a long period of time.
She massaged her arm which was still numb as she stood up from her ergonomic chair, bending her body from side to side to stretch her back muscles. She glanced at the clock on the wall sporting the time at nine thirty-two in the morning.
She was asleep for about six hours but her body still felt so tired and she could feel the start of a headache but it was not so bad. It was something that could be cured by some food and a warm shower. She had to finish the website that she was creating for her client so that she could get another job. She had checked her bank account last night and it was not as big as she wanted it to be.
She had no other source of income to augment her savings and the only thing she could do was to get more jobs and sacrifice her sleep. However, she still had to do her driving lesson and her online classes, and she had to be with Calixto whenever he wanted to go somewhere.
His unannounced schedule was something she hated. She could not plan her schedule because she had no idea when Calixto would decide to go somewhere or do something and he would require her to be with him whether she liked it or not. She was his food and it was expected that he would take her with him wherever he went.
She had already accepted her fate, however, it still pissed her off that she could not plan out things because Calixto never told her things in advance.
There was another job that she could take two days ago but she gave it to another friend online because she was outside and could not sit down on her computer for a long time with the things that were happening without her consent.
She did enjoy the club and the experience, minus that part where Talon followed her in the bathroom and he and Love started to threaten to kill each other as though it was nothing. Maybe for them, it was nothing. They were not easy to kill. But she was a mere mortal and could bleed to death. At that time, she had no idea where Calixto went and what he was thinking when he left her in Love's custody. She was another freak. She had a hard time understanding how her mind works for she seemed to change her mind in a blink of an eye.
She still followed her accounts on social media though. She even tried to read the articles that were written about her online and the list of men that she was rumored to be dating. And the more she read about her, the more she could not see the woman she met in person. The write-ups online were so far-fetched with the Love that she met and dragged her to the club. They could not be so different that if she did not know for a fact that it was her, she would not believe that it was the same person.
"Maybe it runs in the family," she murmured to herself, pouring herself a glass of milk and heating it up in the microwave. The new microwave was one of the added amenities that Calixto provided for her when he had the basement renovated. It no longer looked dreary and gloomy. The basement looked like a high-end studio apartment with all the new technology that was available on the market.
The basement was equipped with a heating system so that she no longer felt cold here and the mold was all gone. But the thing that she loved the most with all the upgrades was that she could take a warm shower now and even a bath for the bathroom had a bathtub.
When she heard the microwave ding, she carefully took out the warm cup of milk and put it on a saucer, and carried it to the bathroom. She could drink her milk there while doing her morning routine. Some would question her choice of place for having warm milk but she did not feel disgusted or anywhere by eating in her bathroom. She cleaned her bathroom well, she was the only one using it, thus, there was no reason for her to feel bad about eating or drinking there.
She sometimes does her work in the tub. She called it maximizing her time.
Her attention was focused on balancing the cup of warm milk and carrying her laptop in her right hand which she grabbed from her computer desk on her way to the bathroom that no words came out of her mouth when Talon opened the bathroom door for her to enter.
"Busy day, eh?" He said grinning at Iris, nodding at her hands that were full.
When she did not move from shock, he gently pushed her inside the bathroom and closed the door behind her. The hair at the back of her neck stood up when she heard the bathroom door click.
Talon had locked the two of them in the bathroom!