The Velvet Choker

Peering closer, she realized the craftsmanship must be superb, to hide such a seam. Glancing behind her, she grasped the edges of the box, unmindful of her fingerprints on the shiny surface, and gently lifted. She was sure it would stick shut, that it was locked in some hidden way, but the lid swung open unhinged toward the back wall and seemed to float there, revealing a large mirror on the inside surface.

Close it, her mind screamed. Close it now!

Remembering the weight of the exquisite necklace at her throat, the one Mr. Kauffman had made her try on, she peered inside, wondering what amazing piece of jewelry must rest there. The box was lined with black velvet, and at first, she saw nothing, no sparkle, no shine. She couldn't believe it was empty!

Frowning, she reached for the lid to close it back up, when she heard that soft hum again. Her breath caught and she looked back in, seeing nothing. She reached inside, then, her fingers trailing along the velvet edges until they touched something metal at the bottom. She grasped it, but it felt like nothing, like air in her hands, and it wasn't until she had it in the light that she realized why.

It was a velvet choker, a cameo nestled in its center with two crescents on either side. The woman's profile was beautiful, distinct, and even in this rough fashion, seemed familiar. Lydia turned and brought it further into the light, her eyes lifting to the painting hanging over the mantle. She was sure, almost sure—was it? The very same woman?

There were silk ties at each end, and she considered putting in on, like she had with the heavy diamond necklace in Kauffman's workroom. But she had been invited then. Now she was trespassing, and she knew from the fast hammering of her heart that just holding it in her hands could get her fired. Would it be worth it?

The choker was nothing compared to the impressive weight of the diamonds she had modeled for the master of the house. It was easy, no clasps even, just a simple tie. Turning to glance into the mirror, she held the necklace up to her bare throat, a black, linear sash cutting a sudden, shocking path across her neck. She hadn't noticed the rope-like designs that radiated out and around from the centerpiece, black beads separating them, and one sole bead dangling from the center. She delighted in the way it sparkled and moved as she turned her head from side to side. It was truly lovely.

"Try it on."

Lydia screamed and the necklace fell to her feet in a soft, wispy flutter, both of her hands going to her neck, as if she were protecting it. Kauffman stood in the doorway leaning heavily on his cane, his gaze sweeping upward from the dropped trinket to meet her eyes.

"I'm sorry!" she apologized, her cheeks flushed with shame and embarrassment. "I know I wasn't supposed to...I didn't mean...I just..."

"Hush." He came to her so quickly it shocked her, not using his cane at all, swooping the choker up and balling it in his palm. The black ends dangled out of his closed fist like dark tentacles and she backed away when he took a step in her direction, opening his hand to show her.

"It's lovely work, isn't it?"

Lydia nodded, wide-eyed, her breathing harsh in her own ears. "Sir, please, I'm sorry—"

"Try it on."

She shook her head, feeling her knees trembling as they touched the back of the bed—he had backed her up that far. "No." Her whisper was hoarse, thick. "No, I don't want to."

"But you did want to." He waggled a finger at her, his rheumy eyes gleaming. "Just a moment ago, it was right here at your delicate throat. You were moments away from tying up these loose ends, weren't you, my dear?"

"No," she lied, swallowing and shaking her head as if that could cement her denial. "I was putting it back. I shouldn't have—"

"No." His voice turned angry as he held the choker up, pulling it taut in front of her eyes. "You shouldn't have. But you did. You did."

Lydia fought tears, blinking hard, trying to keep her composure. She was ashamed at being caught, embarrased that he'd seen her modeling the necklace in the mirror, showing off, and she had a real dread of being fired for her transgression—but the fear beating in her chest had nothing to do with any of that. The feeling clawing its way up from her stomach to her throat, choking her words, was of Kauffman himself, the way his eyes moved from her to the necklace. He looked hungry for something she didn't understand.

"Mr. Kauffman," she started, trying to keep her voice from shaking, and almost succeeding. "I know what I did was wrong. Please forgive me. It won't happen again."

"No?" He rubbed the velvet between his fingers, his eyes narrowing. "Somehow I doubt that."

She blinked in surprise, offended by his accusation, although moments before she'd had the forbidden object at her throat. "I won't do it again—I promise you, I won't! It's obviously something very special to you...something that belonged...to her?"

Lydia glanced at the painting and the nude woman's eyes pleaded. They seemed to say, Save me. Save them. Save who? Lydia wondered. There's no one to save, except myself and there are no secrets I want to know. As curious as she had been about what was inside the box, who the woman in the portrait was, she decided then and there that she wasn't going to put her job in jeopardy because of it. No matter how tempting it seemed.

"It is my best work." Kauffman sighed, and there was both a pride and a longing in it. "And yes, she was the last to wear it."

Both of their eyes moved to the painting, the woman there still, lifeless, and yet shining in the bright sunshine all the same, her eyes telling tales Lydia could only imagine of nights in this boudoir with a lover—perhaps a young Kauffman himself? Shaking her head to clear it, Lydia grounded herself by squeezing her hands into fists, making her nails dig hard, hard into her palms. The pain was good. It brought her to her senses—and she was nothing if not a sensible girl.

"Please, just give me another chance." She turned her gaze to the old man, eyes pleading with him. "Don't fire me for this. Please don't."

"Then..." His thin lips spread into a little smile as he held up the choker, an offering. "Put it on."

"No..." She backed away, suddenly horrified by the prospect. Modeling the forbidden piece alone, secretly, was different, but putting it on in front of him? It was too humiliating to bear. "Please, no..."

"If you want to stay, you will put it on!" He held the ribbon above her head as he maneuvered behind her, pushing her away from the bed and toward the mirror. "I want to see it on you."

"No..." She shook her head as he lowered the necklace. He was moving slowly, and she felt caught in a trance as she watched the ribbon descend. She would have let him put in on her right then. She'd even begun to lift her hair out of the way so he could tie the ends into a neat bow, when she clearly heard the words, "Save them."

Neither of them moved or spoke, but she knew he'd heard it too. She caught a glimpse of surprise in his eyes as the necklace stopped in mid-air. Lydia didn't think, she just reacted, slipping past him and running toward the door.

"Lydia!" The booming sound of his voice stopped her as she passed the threshold and she hesitated, one foot in the room, one foot out. "Lydia, the jewelry box needs polishing." His voice had moved back to smoothness almost instantly. "You will be back tomorrow."

It wasn't a question. The foot outside of the door itched, aching to go. But part of her remained, and she whispered, "Yes," just loud enough for him to hear, before disappearing down the hall.

* * * *

Lydia hadn't returned for a week. She called in sick to all of her cleaning jobs, not just the Kauffman place. She wasn't really sick, not at first, but she stayed in bed, the curtains drawn, tucked under the covers as if she were. Admitting what she was really feeling would have been too impossible to entertain, the fear dug in her belly like a hook, but the longer she stayed away, the more she really did begin to feel sick.

She wasn't feverish, but she felt chilled as if she were. Her body hurt, her bones ached as if longing for something, and she wondered for a day or so if she had self-fulfilled her own prophecy of illness and caught the flu—but there was no congestion, no headache, no sore throat or stomachache, none of the tell-tale signs. Just an overall, dull body ache for...something.

At first, she expected the phone to ring with a call, either from Kauffman himself (or most likely from Mrs. Bauer) or perhaps the company for which she worked, making it an even cleaner break, telling her she was fired. When that didn't happen, she just continued to pick up the phone every morning to call and say, "I'm sorry, I can't come in, I'm still sick," before collapsing, shivering, into her bed again. It wasn't until the dream she had in the early morning hours of the new week that she finally knew what she needed to do.

"Save them..."

The whispered words drew Lydia into the boudoir. They seemed to come from two places at once, from the portrait hanging on the wall and the seamless box in the corner, and she looked between them, waiting to hear the voice again.

"Save them..."

The box had the stronger pull, and even in the dream, she ached, something contricting in her throat like the closing of the aperture of a camera as she approached the shiny, mahogany object, her trembling hand outstretched. Barely breathing, she opened the box, and like dream imitating life imitating dream, she removed the black choker from inside and stood in front of the mirror with it held against her neck.

She looked terrible. There were deep hollows beneath her eyes, her hair lank with a week's build-up of grease, her cheeks splotched with the few bits of food she'd managed to get down during the week—tomato soup, a grilled cheese sandwich. Sick food. She felt ill, even now in her own dream, in a dream world where things should shift, her self-perception steadied on the memory of itself. Instead, she saw herself as she was, forehead slick with sweat, eyes dull, mouth slack, the black ribbon of necklace cutting a swath across her thin, pale throat.

Slowly, she brought the ends of the choker together at the back of her neck, encircling the delicate expanse, not tying it, just admiring the stunning contrast between her pale skin and the dark fabric. For a long time, she was transfixed on the necklace itself, the way the cameo in the center glinted in the light, and she gasped when she looked up into the mirror again, seeing herself transformed.

It was still her face, her eyes open wide in astonishment, but her hair was washed and styled, piled up on top of her head in fat, blonde curls, her cheeks flushed with blood, her eyes bright with light. And while she had been clothed in an old, stained t-shirt when she first entered the room, now she was nude, the smell of her skin rising like dozens of roses all around her.

What's happening to me? She wanted to ask someone, even her own reflection in the mirror, but the words wouldn't form. She tried again, her lips making the correct pattern, her tongue moving, but no sound came from her throat.

I'm beautiful, she said, or rather, didn't say but mouthed to her mirror dream self, a stunning realization that held a great deal of power in her mind. Not only beautiful, she thought, lifting her chin to admire the choker at her throat, but well. That all-over ache she had felt even in her dream had completely disappeared.

The necklace, she realized, reaching to tie the ends behind her throat. She needed the...

The phone jarred her out of sleep hard enough to jerk her out of bed and onto the floor as she reached for it. Work, inquiring about her cleaning jobs. Would she need someone to fill in for her, perhaps on a more permanent basis? Her supervisor this time, not one of the girls, and she knew it was now or never. Lydia swallowed, touching her throat, sure that no words would come out when she spoke.

"I'm better," she croaked, her voice hoarse from misuse but intact. "I'm coming in." The words, I'm better, weren't entirely true, she thought, still caught in that liminal space between waking and dream as she put the phone down and shakily got up off the floor to take her first shower in a week—but they would be. Soon.

* * * *

"Hey, there she is!"

Lydia nearly dropped her caddy full of supplies as she whirled around in the supply closet to face the man in the doorway. He filled it completely, his eyes roaming over her uniform as they always did, lingering on her hemline.

"We thought you musta died or something." Jonas dropped a wink at her that she knew he must think was charming, leaning his shoulder against the door frame and blocking the way out completely. "What happened?"

"I was...sick." She shifted the caddy from one hand to the other.

"Better now, though?"

She nodded, taking what she hoped was an invisible deep breath, and headed toward the door, saying brightly, "Back to work I go!"

"Aw, what's the hurry?" he asked, not moving from the exit. "There's no fire, and that damned creepy room sitting up there can wait, don't you think?"

At one time, Lydia would have laughed and agreed with him. She might have casually even suggested a cup of coffee in the kitchen and probed him further about what he knew about the "creepy room" upstairs, flattering him enough to keep him at bay. But not today. Today she didn't just have to clean the boudoir, she needed to be in it, to enter the space no one else dared to go, to touch those things which had become so familiar. She needed it like she needed air to breathe.

"Please," she murmured, looking up at him with pleading eyes. "I need to go."

Her tone was her downfall, she knew it instantly, but there was no time to change her tact, and she didn't even know if she could anymore. She had always been wary of him, but her self-assurance had made it clear to him—and all men, really—that she wasn't going to be messed with. Something had happened to her, though, and now she felt like giving up, and her pleading tone gave him all the permission he needed.

"No, baby, I'm pretty sure I got just what you need." Jonas grabbed her around the waist, quickly shutting and locking the door behind him as he used his body to turn her, pressing her toward the wall. His kiss was hard, the weight of him crushing the air out of her lungs as he groped her through her uniform. She struggled, but he was strong, and she was incredibly thin and weak.

His hand slipped down the V of her uniform blouse and into her bra, fondling her breast. He slid another hand up her skirt, impatient with her panties—she wore stockings, not hose—shoving them aside to roughly probe through the nest of blonde hair between her legs, searching for heat. He groaned against her mouth when he found what he was looking for, shoving his fingers up inside as he began to grind his erection against her thigh.

She sought to catch her breath as he took a break from kissing her mouth to pull her top open and bra down, popping the first two buttons on her blouse and letting her breasts spill free so he could suckle them while he worked the zipper on his pants. He must have heard her draw breath, because a big hand covered her mouth the moment she opened it, muffling the scream she issued.

"Don't," he warned, grabbing her by the hair and shoving her to the floor. It was cold tile, and Mrs. Bauer kept it as clean and shiny and slick as the dining room table. The wind was immediately knocked out of her as she landed, and then he was on her, crushing the air from her lungs again, hand over her mouth once more as she twisted and bucked underneath him. He struggled between her legs with one hand, with her panties, his hard cock, and she didn't care in that moment that this man was going to take her virginity in some stranger's cleaning closet, she really didn't care, she just wanted it to be over so she could go...

The desperate need to be somewhere else, anywhere else (no, not anywhere...you know where you need to go) rose up in her like a fire and she bit his hand hard as he attempted to aim his hard cock between her thighs. And she screamed then, she managed to find her breath and scream.

"Help me! Please! Someone! Anyone! Rape! Rape!" The last word was strangled with his hands—both of them now—at her throat.

"Shut up!" he hissed, squeezing, the light above his head making his face just a shadow as he choked her.

She groaned as he slammed her head against the tile, but her heart rose as she heard Mrs. Bauer's voice outside the door.

"Who's in there?"

"Help!" Lydia squeaked as her airway constricted, seeing bright stars in a sudden darkness, although her eyes were still wide open.

"What's going on here?" Mr. Kauffman, now, the sound of a key in the lock, and Jonas was up, quickly straightening and zipping as the door opened.

Lydia gasped, trying to sit, her breasts still exposed, her skirt pulled up, her panties askew, trying to focus on the two figures standing in the doorway, the old man and the housekeeper. The latter glared at her exposed on the tile floor, and the former's eyes were both concerned and full of—Lydia wouldn't recognize the look until later—lust.

"Just a little slap and tickle," Jonas said with a grin as he tucked his shirt into his pants. He shrugged at the glaring Mrs. Bauer. "What can I say? I couldn't keep her off me!"

"Out!" Kauffman's voice thundered and Lydia cringed on the floor, moving quickly to cover herself. The thought of being fired wasn't so bad, not anymore. She'd been terrified at the idea of having to look for another job, but now it was just the thought of being separated from this house, from the boudoir, from the necklace...even now, it was all she could think about.

"Jonas, you're fired." The old man lifted his cane and poked the younger one in the gut. "Get out of my sight."

Jonas looked like he wanted to fight, but he didn't. Instead, he strode silently out into the kitchen and they all heard the door close behind him.

"Please," Lydia pleaded, crying now, scrambling to stand and pick up her cleaning caddy. "I just want to go clean the boudoir. I just want to do my job. Please."

"Ah, Lydia, perhaps we need to call—" Kauffman started.

"No!" She straightened, her jaw set. "I'm going to the boudoir and that's final!"

Kauffman gave a stiff nod and stepped aside as she passed. Lydia didn't turn as she neared Mrs. Bauer, who had moved out of the closet doorway and further into the kitchen. The woman hissed at her, too low for Kauffman to hear, "Tramp!"

She didn't care. She didn't care about anything. She just needed to get to the boudoir—to the necklace—and she knew, she just knew, that everything would be fine again.

Just standing in front of the jewelry box made her feel better—the tightness in her chest relaxed, the ache in her bones disappeared. Even the sharp new pain of her throat where Jonas had throttled her, and the throbbing lump on the back of her head from where he'd smashed it against the floor slowly disappated as she polished the wood with her cloth, shining it so brightly the sun gleamed off its surface and hurt her newly light-sensitive eyes.

She heard the sound of him coming up the stairs—the cane coupled with each footstep was unmistakable—but it didn't stop her. Reaching into the box, she lifted the choker, turning to look at herself in the mirror over the dresser. Just like her dream, she looked terrible, the dark circles showing under her eyes, her hair pulled back into a severe ponytail, showing the already forming bruises at her throat.