Free Hummingbird by Nathan L. Flamank

could smell the scents of this woodland wonderland.
    Without thinking Selena walked out on to the large deck, wooden planks did indeed run the length of the house and Selena stopped at the wooden railing and looked down and she quickly realised that she was standing on a walkway that extended out over the forest beneath her and she saw thick metal stilts stretching out from a cliff at a ninety degree angle to the underside of the decking and she felt her senses spin at the sudden realisation that she was standing above a drop that she gauged to be at least a hundred feet.
    Selena let out a yelp and backed across the deck and she stepped backwards in to the kitchen and she glanced down at her heeled feet and she heard Jack chuckle and she spun around to face him.
    ‘It can be a little disorientating at first,’ Jack said. ‘The house backs on to the edge of the cliff.’ Jack watched as Selena tapped her feet against the marble flooring as if testing the ground beneath her.
    Jack laughed. ‘Relax Selena, the house is firmly on terra -firma, only the decking stretches out over the cliff.’
    ‘Are we safe?’
    ‘One hundred percent, the rocks here haven’t moved in millions of years, I doubt today’ll be any different.’
    ‘Who owns this place, it’s beautiful?’
    ‘Hungry?’
    Selena had a hundred questions but at the mention of food her stomach growled and she realised that she was famished; she hadn’t eaten anything of worth since the day before yesterday and she nodded her head.
    ‘Please,’ Selena said and she started across the kitchen to a large glass-topped table, she pulled a chair out and began to sit down.
    ‘I didn’t tell you to sit down Selena, in fact I didn’t give you permission to do anything.’
    Selena glanced back at Jack and for the first time since coming in to the kitchen she looked fully at him.
    Goddamn it, he’s one sexy motherfucker , Selena allowed.
    Jack was wearing pale jeans and a grey t-shirt, the shirt showed off the cords of tight sinew and muscle in his arms and neck and the shirt clung to Jack’s toned and sculpted torso; he wasn’t muscled like some gym-freak but he had the build of a soldier and Selena figured that in many ways the word soldier was apt; he’d served his country with distinction before becoming the head of the Fat Man’s own private “army” of enforcers.
    ‘What?’ Selena asked, she’d never been the most patient of people but this was unbearable; the not knowing what was required of her was frustrating like Jack couldn’t imagine.
    ‘You don’t get to do anything without my saying so first. You want a drink? You ask for it. You want something to eat, you ask for it, you want to sit down, you ask, you want a shit, well guess what ? You ask for permission, are we clear Selena? You have no say over anything, are we clear?’
    Selena felt her face go red and she had to bite back on the anger wanting so spew forth from between her tightly closed lips. Selena nodded her head.
    ‘I understand.’
    ‘Good. Now turn around, put your feet together and bend over the table, place your elbows on the glass table -top and don’t fucking move until I tell you to,’ Jack began to spoon scrambled egg on to a plate with a wooden spatula and Selena’s stomach rumbled.
    ‘You clear on what you’ve been instructed to do?’
    ‘Yes,’ Selena said sharply and she turned away from Jack and put her feet together, the heels of her thigh-high boots clicked together and she bent over the table until her elbows pressed down on the glass. The table’s surface was lower than she had expected and she knew only too well that her ass now presented itself to Jack’s gaze.
    Selena started to turn her head, to glance back at Jack but he stilled her his next words.
    ‘I fucking told you not to move, that you have no say, fuck Selena, you’re so fucking dumb that it’s un-goddamn-believable. If I wanted you to move your fucking beautiful head I’d have told you