Page 137 of The Professor's Wife

“Shh,” he whispered. “Close your eyes and sleep. You’re still coming off the pill.”

“What pill?” My words sounded slurred and panicked.

He didn’t respond. He kept giving me delicate touches. A stroke up and down my arm. A tender touch over my eyes so that I shut them.

My body relaxed under his touch as more tears slid out.

Whatever I had done, he was still here. He was still doting on me. He didn’t hate me.

But God, I hated myself.

I fell back asleep.

It was so very dark.

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling, trying to get my head to clear. I felt woozy, like I might vomit. My stomach gnawed at me.

How long had it been since I’d eaten?

I licked my dry lips and groaned as I tried to turn onto my side. Whatever was on my leg made a scraping sound.

I tried to sit up and touch it. To see what it was, but my body didn’t cooperate.

Too tired, too out of it, I lay there waiting for Oliver to come back. But time seemed to drag, and every second felt claustrophobic and desperate.

What was wrong with me?

The door creaked open. I watched Oliver step inside.

“Oliver?” I cried out. “What’s wrong with me?”

He didn’t respond straight away.

I squinted, trying to understand what I was seeing. He carried two oil lamps. He set one down within my reach on the floor. The other he placed just beyond it, its dim flame casting long shadows across the room.

“Oliver, what happened to the lights?”

Was there an outage?

He didn’t speak to me. He stood there, unmoving, watching me.

I wondered at that moment if this was a dream—a nightmare, more like. My head was so cloudy, I thought I muststill be sleeping, and so I watched him in return, waiting for the dream to end.

Time stretched in a way that felt tangible. My stomach tightened and my bladder felt heavy. My head pounded, and my thirst was so strong I kept licking my lips.

Everything around me was too real to be a dream.

Thinking that—realizing it—made the situation all the more horrifying because…I didn’t understand.

“Oliver,” I whispered. “You’re scaring me.”

Clarity came slowly, and my body seemed to start working again because when I tried to move, I was able to turn.

I slowly began to sit up. My eyes finally left Oliver and ran over the room. Over the thin pad beneath me. Over the revealing pink robe that showed my arms, cleavage, and most of my legs—

I let out a horrified cry when I saw the metal digging into my ankle.

Chains.