Captivated: Spellbound (Book Two) Read online

  My cell phone was inside so I checked my emails and Facebook updates. I’d suddenly lost the motivation to take pictures of my funny outfit. Which was probably due to the fact that it was soaking wet. I stripped out of it and put on a tank top and yoga pants. Alexi said he wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. We could play his little dress up, no panties, roll play when he showed up. Until then, I was going to wear something comfortable.

  My mother had called about twenty times in the last 24 hours. I supposed I should call her, and tell her I was alright. Although, part of me wanted to make her sweat. After I’d unpacked my clothes and the rest of my things, I took my cell phone back out and stared at my mother’s contact info. Dang, I’ll just call.

  “Hello?”

  “Julia! Oh my God, where have you been? I didn’t see any Facebook updates. The last one I read said you might travel back with those British kids you met. I’ve called like 100 times. What are you doing? Are you back in Venice?”

  “No. I’m still in Odessa.”

  “What? Why? Didn’t your friends already leave?”

  “Yeah. They left.”

  “But why didn’t you go with them? It was safer for you to travel in a group. Why are you still in Ukraine?”

  “I met someone. I’m staying with him, rent free.”

  “Julia what in the world have you gotten into?”

  “I’m staying at a friend’s cottage. He has an old house he said I could stay in for free if I took care of the place for the summer.”

  “That sounds strange.”

  “No, it’s pretty normal for this part of the world,” I lied, but she had no idea. I just wanted her to know I wasn’t dead in a ditch. I wasn’t really prepared to get into all this “what in the world are you doing, Julia” stuff.

  “Mom, Mom. Chill, OK? I’m fine. I’m safe. I’m spending the summer doing exactly what I planned to do. I’m just going to stay in one place is all. I didn’t have enough money to keep traveling, so I found a way to make it work. I’ve done a lot of painting. I’ve seen a lot of cool stuff. Aren’t you happy for me?”

  “I’ve been worried out of my mind.”

  “Sorry.” I really couldn’t handle the conversation any longer, so I told her good-bye and hung up.

  OMG! My mother made me crazy. Couldn’t she just trust me and be supportive. I’d always done exactly what my parents wanted, and I was so sick of it. I wanted to puke. I was twenty-two years old, almost twenty-three, and it was my life. I could do with it what I wanted. I was going to live, love, breath, fuck, feel myself from the inside out. It was my time to be my own person. Fuck her if she couldn’t get behind that.

  Right now, I just wanted to live for today— make mistakes, do daring things, feel the intensity of what makes life worth living. And I was doing that with Alexi. The weird ass role play thing he had going on was a serious mind fuck, and I liked it. I liked to feel on the edge— like my entire world was fading into blackness. It gave me a thrill. It made me wet. It made me want to suck the cum out of life with my own two lips.

  Still, part of me knew this whole deal was pretty crazy. Alexi was a freak. A fucking sexy freak, but a freak none-the-less. I was definitely falling for him, but could I trust him? I wasn’t completely sure. I didn’t want to get sex trafficked or stuck in the Ukraine forever.

  I dug into my backpack looking for my passport. It was there, along with my return ticket and a bundle of Travelers Cheques. I looked around the cottage for a place to hide them. Finally, I found a loose floorboard in the living room, and pulled it up. I placed my passport, plane ticket, and Travelers Cheques in a plastic bag under the floor board and replaced it, stomping down on it to make sure it didn’t reveal itself.

  By the time I was finished hiding my insurance policy, I was wiped out. Living the rustic life was tough. I ate the rest of my leftovers from lunch, washed myself with some warm water in the sink, and climbed into the old metal framed bed to sleep.

  Chapter Four

  I dressed in Alexi’s freaky clothes, without panties, and made myself tea and porridge with milk for breakfast. The electric range made my life much easier. Alexi suggested I paint that morning, so that was exactly what I planned to do. However, first I wanted to explore the vineyards and forest beyond. After breakfast, walked out around the front gate and ducked back into the vineyards beyond the cottage. The estate was a wide expanse of land that went back toward a dense forest on the west and north sides and down to a lake the bordered it on the east.

  I couldn’t believe he owned so much land. His story about how his family had settled the land during Communism, didn’t quite make sense, but I didn’t know how things worked here, so maybe it was true. Anyone in the US who owned this many vineyards would be quite wealthy. Probably wealthier than my parents who owned two acres and a five-bedroom house on Mercer Island. (My dad was a corporate lawyer; he did pretty well.) I had an idea of land value from business school, and this whole set up looked like money to me.

  I walked toward the forest beyond the vineyard and peaked inside. It was dense and crowded. It looked like scrubby new growth with no paths through it. It wasn’t exactly a welcoming park, so I decided to take a look another time. I walked around the northern side of the vineyard toward the lake. The whole place was set up with automatic irrigation on a timer. It looked pretty high tech.

  Then it irritated me that I was living without running water, when the grapes had it— on a timer. I sighed. The day was gorgeous. The lake water was silver-blue and rippled from a gentle breeze. I walked down to the shore and put my hand over my eyes to shield them from the sun as I looked into the distance. I could see little houses on the other side of the lake. Chimney smoke billowed up into the cloudless sky. I put my hand in the water and felt that it was warm. Nice. I’d have to go swimming out there soon.

  When I got back to the house, I gathered my art supplies. I went out to the front yard and sat on the grass in the shade, placing my watercolor supplies out in front of me. I took a watercolor pencil and sketched the cottage and front yard. The front garden was overgrown with old rose bushes and flower beds that once were probably quite lovely. It was a shame. Alexi had told me he maintained the house, but he hadn’t maintained the gardens.

  Around the back, past the shed, was a patch of land inside the old wooden fence that separated the cottage from the vineyards beyond. It seemed like it must have been a vegetable garden in the past. Now it was inhabited by shoulder high weeds. My drawing was taking shape, and I began to slowly build color into the shape of the cottage and teal-blue sky. When I was almost finished, I heard the distinctive sound of Alexi’s Porsche coming up the driveway behind me. I stood and waited for him, my painting drying on the ground.

  Alexi parked his car in the driveway and stepped out. He was dressed in a light-gray Armani suit that hugged his body like a glove. His hair was slicked back in a low ponytail, and he wore Armani sunglasses. He approached, and I could smell his scent— rich and spicy like a wet dream.

  “Hello, my Darling. You look fantastica,” he said quickly.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to sound seductive, but it came out as bashful.

  “I have some things for you. I’m sorry. I can’t stay longer today to fuck you,” he said leaning into my ear.

  “Why, what’s up?”

  “I have things to attend to. What a lovely painting." He picked up my piece and studied it, “I really must get you larger paper. You are so talented. You should have all the best.”

  “That would be nice."

  “But for now,” he said, moving back toward the car. He opened the trunk. “I have brought you this.”

  I moved toward him to look in the trunk. All I saw as a bunch of hand tools.

  “What is that for?”

  “I want you to clean up the yard, prune the roses, and clear out all those weeds in the back garden. I’ve brought you some young vegetables. You can plant them when you are done.”

  “You’re kidding right
?”

  “Don’t you like gardening?”

  “Sure, but…” I didn’t have anything to say. I felt a little used. I mean, I liked it when he used me for sex, but he could have hired some kid to come take care of the garden.

  “This will give you something to do. I think you will be happy with the results. Next time, I will bring you the best art supplies money can buy. You like watercolor only, or do you use other— what do you call it? Медиа-искусства… Art's media?”

  “I use mostly watercolor. It’s kind of my thing."

  "I will get you everything you need, my Darling.”

  He helped me take all the gardening tools to the back shed and put the little plants on the front porch. So, he really wanted me to do all this manual labor, huh? I looked at him bending over in his expensive suit and my mind washed over with lust and darkness. Gardening might be fun, I thought, looking this ass and the graceful curve of his back. It was a good way to stay fit, anyway. I wished he could stay and watch me work for him, and make love to me in the bare soil. Before he left he handed me a pair of work gloves and kissed my cheek.

  “I won’t be back for a few days, please enjoy the gardening. And Julia, I like you in those clothes.” He winked and slowly reached under my skirt along the inside of my thigh and lightly stroked my pussy, pulling me close to him. “Good girl,” he said, he bent down to kiss me. Then he let me go and said good-bye. I wanted to do anything for him, I wanted to please him, serve him, labor for him, be his own. Mostly, I wanted him to stay.

  Chapter Five

  After Alexi left my mind turned bitter, I stood there with the scythe in my hand staring at the overgrown back garden. He had to be kidding. This was getting a little out of hand. Sure, I liked gardening; I liked camping; I liked all those things, but this game of his was getting a little too “real” for me. He could have at least given me a weed-whacker or something. A scythe? Seriously? The rest of the tools he’d unloaded in the shed weren’t much better: hand pruners, a hand saw, a shovel and rake, and a file to keep them all sharp.

  I’d never been much for manual labor, but I was fit, and I could do the work. But I was bothered that he wanted me to do it. What was the deal anyway? I looked out at the tall weeds in disgust. Well, he was letting me stay for free. I thought this little arrangement was a sex thing, maybe a romance thing, but apparently he wanted me to work to earn my keep. Hell if I knew. He seemed to have some kind of peasant girl fetish. So weird. But, I wasn’t interested in going back home yet, and there were worse ways to spend the summer.

  I picked up the scythe and walked out into the field. It was about a quarter of an acre. Not a lot of land for power tools, but quite a bit for the sweat of a person’s back. I swung the scythe. I’d never used one before, but after a while I got the hang of it. I thrashed the weeds down to about six inches tall in a great sweeping row as I walked forward.

  That weird sense of going back in time hit me as the sun beamed down on my back. Half-way down the second row, I was sweating. From my estimation, it would take about ten sweeps to get the whole area mowed. I guessed the idea was to mow it, and then turn over the soil. I knew that much about gardening. I eyed a spot near the gate to begin my planting when the whole thing was turned over to exposed soil.

  Under the hot sun, shearing down the weeds, I began to feel competitive with myself— like I wanted to prove something. I hacked at the weeds with all I had, driven an inner force that was all my own. It was the same drive that came over me when I was working out or writing a paper to get the top grade in my class. It was the same drive that made me want to stay in Europe all summer instead of just a few weeks. I wanted to win; I wanted to succeed.

  It took me until the sun started to dip toward afternoon to mow the entire garden. I was so hot and thirsty and sweaty, I wondered if I could keep working. My hands stung with blisters, so I pulled them off and washed them with cold water in the kitchen sink. I sat at the table and ate bread and cheese and drank cold tea from the fridge.

  I wanted to impress Alexi even thought I'd become irritated with his expectations of me. He said he wasn’t going to be back for a few days, and I wanted to have the whole garden turned over, and the whole front yard pruned and weeded before he got back. Then he would see what this little Capitalist was made of.

  After I ate, I went into my bedroom and looked at my cell phone. My mom kept calling and leaving voice mails, and emails, and Facebook messages. I turned my phone off just so I didn’t have to look at them. Gardening for my lover was better than a summer of working at my dad’s office filing memos and enduring subtle sexual harassment from old sickos.

  Back out in the garden, the sun was cooling toward the west. I slipped my gloves back on my sore hands, and drove my sharp shovel into the soil. It slid down easily, and I turned it over. Again, I drove the shovel down into the soil and turned it over. I repeated that same movement countless times. My mind went blank in the monotonous motion, sweat dripping down my brow, until my shovel hit something hard. I thought it was a large stone, and tried to dig it out.

  When I shoved down again, and tried to leverage under the side of the stone, a metal box rose to the surface of the soil. What the heck is that? I leveraged the other side of the box and brought the whole thing into the open air. I bent down to my knees and brushed the box off. It looked like a cash box, but it was locked. I picked it up and brought it to the front porch were I fiddled with the lock with a knife. These things were usually easy to open. With a small crack, the lock relented. I lifted the lid and was completely unprepared for what I found.

  Inside, was a Russian passport and a bunch of strange objects. They looked like voodoo dolls rapped with pink, silk ribbons. There was also an amulet in the shape of a pentagram. I shivered as I touched the items. What is going on here? I opened the passport. It was of a pretty young brunette woman. The date was 1982. I couldn’t read the name because it was in Russian. Who was it? Why was it out here? It looked like some kind of occult magic box. Who was that woman? Was she still alive?

  I put everything back in the box. My heart pounded. 1982— Alexi probably wasn’t even born yet. I sighed with relief. Whoever had hidden this passport with all these voodoo objects was almost definitely not Alexi. Still, I had to wonder. This was his land, and his parents, and grandparents before him. Someone in the Petrenko family was responsible for this. His father? His grandmother the gypsy? I had to hide it before he found out I knew. I didn’t want to bring up some dark family secret and get in the middle of something messy. I took it behind the coal shed and buried it several feet below the soil. I’d pretend I’d never seen it.

  By the time I was done hiding the evidence it was getting dark. I’d only finished turning over about a quarter of the field. The rest would have to wait until tomorrow.

  Chapter Six

  I was so dirty and so sore from working all day, a sink bath wouldn't be enough. There was a washroom with a big tub on the other side of the living room. I took my heat stick and a full bucket of water and brought it to the bathroom. It only took about ten minutes for the heat stick to heat the water to near boiling so I poured it in the tub.

  Then I had to go back out the well, pull up another bucket, and lug it into the house to heat. I repeated this process about five times until I had a full tub of hot water. I grabbed my toiletries from my bedroom and took them to the bath.

  I removed my clothes and slipped into the hot water. It was heaven. I don’t think I’d ever been so grateful for a bath in my life. My tired, sore muscles eased into relaxation as I washed my sweaty body with a bar of handmade soap that sat on the edge of the tub. It smelled of lavender and honey. I rubbed shampoo in my hair and slipped down under the water.

  I put conditioner in my hair and then began to shave my legs. I was getting more muscular and losing body fat. I didn’t think that was possible. I was eating sausage and full-fat milk, yet my body was getting more toned. I rinsed my legs and the conditioner out of my hair.<
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  When I was finished shaving, I lay still in the warm water. It felt so good. The dim, single bulb, that lit the room, flickered. I prayed the electricity wouldn’t go out. That was all I needed— no electricity.

  I ran my hand down my body and thought of Alexi. I wished he were there with me— in the tub, caressing my body with his big smooth hands. The thought of him was instantly arousing, and I tilted my head back as I stroked the insides of my thighs. Gliding up toward my pussy, I felt sensation tingle across my whole frame. I pushed a finger inside my lips and tickled the growing mound of my clit, absently, not committed to anything. I just played with myself, letting the sensation wash over me, thinking of Alexi’s mouth on my pussy, this dick in my mouth.

  But I was so sore and tired. I didn’t have the energy to get myself off. Plus, I’d rather leave that for Alexi to do. It would only be a few more days until he returned and every time we played, it was so intense. Masturbation seemed an insult to it. I rose from the tub, letting the water drip down my glistening body. I patted myself dry and put on some underwear and a tank top. By the time my head hit the pillow, I was already asleep.

  ***

  I woke up and washed out the peasant outfit. Alexi said he wouldn’t be back for a few days, so I took the opportunity to wash the filthy dress and shirt and hang it on a line in the front yard. I put on jeans and a tank top, and plenty of sun screen to work in the garden. It took me all day to finish turning over the soil in the back garden. I stopped several times to eat and wash my hands. I had to bandage them up because I was getting pretty bad blisters. That night I took another bath and slept soundly.

  The next day I looked at the front garden and assessed the work that would need to be done there. I’d grabbed the dry peasant outfit from the line and put it one. Alexi might be back today, so I didn’t want to take any chances with disobeying his rules. Last time he found me with panties on, I’d gotten a spanking. Which, of course, I liked, but I still wanted to please him.