again. I kept my head hung low and my eyes on the floor as he hosed me off. I started crying again as I watched him hose out my box, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He filled a bucket with water and I knelt down on all fours and lapped it up like a dog. Then he brought down a bowl of overcooked horse beans with a few bits of pork in it and some rice. I was full when he finally put me back into the box, and I was petrified that I would throw up again and be left to wallow in my own filth for another two hours.
“Please. Please don’t put me back in the box! Please. Just stay with me. Please!”
“You can’t speak English yet remember? You’ll have to be punished for that when I return.”
He shut the lid to the box, padlocked it and left. I started to cry again. It seemed like another eternity went by before he returned. My mind turned inward and began to devour itself. I thought about Kenyatta at the gym, working out, making his beautiful body even more perfect while I became even more repulsive. I replayed that look of revulsion on his face when he opened the box to find me there covered in my own vomit. I moaned out loud, wishing I had the means to kill myself. I began to wonder if he was really at the gym, whether he might be seeing another woman. Rage seethed within me as I thought about him fucking some slut, sharing that wonderful cock with someone else while I was here suffering for him. I tried to push the thought out of my head, but it wouldn’t go.
Why wouldn’t he fuck someone else? Men are men, and after he’s seen me like this he probably thinks I’m too disgusting to fuck. He can’t have any respect for me. I’m just his slave, his property. Maybe he doesn’t even love me? I’m a fucking fool! How did I let myself get talked into this?
Another hour went by and I started to think about my own safety. I wondered if he had remembered to lock the front door. I wondered if he had locked the basement door. I imagined I heard a window sliding open, footsteps creeping coyly across the floor above. I wondered what a burglar would do if he found me chained up like this. I began to panic. As I hyperventilated inside my stifling, oppressively hot coffin, I wondered what would happen if I had a heart attack or some other medical emergency while I was locked in the box and Kenyatta was off at the gym or fucking some whore or whatever he was doing. My panic turned to sheer terror. By the time I heard Kenyatta’s keys in the basement door, I was crying hysterically. I threw myself into his arms when he released me from my box.
Kenyatta didn’t push me away this time. He didn’t yell or strike me or scold me. He lifted me from the box, having no trouble managing my weight even with forty pounds of iron chain added to it. He carried me up the stairs and into his bedroom. He laid me on his bed and then reached into his pocket for the key to my chains. He kissed each wrist as he unshackled me and then did the same as he unchained my ankles and then finally the thick collar around my neck. I was surprised by how gentle he was. He kissed the scabbed and torn flesh around my neck and licked the blood that trickled there. Then he kissed my lips deeply and passionately stealing the breath from my lungs.
“I love you, Kenyatta.”
He smiled at me with his perfect white teeth and then stood up from the bed and walked into the bathroom. I heard him run a bath and my heart sang. I hadn’t had a bath in so long it was little more than a distant memory from a lifetime ago. He lit scented candles and filled the bath with lavender oil. Then he came back for me and lowered me slowly into the steaming water. The heat burned my welts and scars and I let out a tiny yelp. As my body began to adjust to the temperature, and the warmth seeped into my tired muscles, I laid my head back with a sigh. I watched Kenyatta undress in front of me and I felt like I was in a dream. This was all so far removed from the horrible day I’d