Serving in her Blindspot Pt. 02

Nothing makes me feel more like an accessory to someone else's life than sleeping on the floor.

My owner's bed isn't particularly large and if the thought of sharing it has ever crossed her mind, she's never mentioned it. There's a bed in the quarters that's about as big as hers, but it's already occupied by two slaves and I miss my own mother too much to get between Susan and hers.

It's not as bad as the bare carpet I dealt with for my first few nights, before Mede persuaded her owners to buy me a narrow futon, a small pillow and a wide blanket I layer up on itself in the winter. All easily folded and pushed under my mistress' bed, like it was never there.

It bothers me, sometimes. If I were to disappear into thin air one day, it would be hard to tell that anyone lived in here other than her. Just a few clothes in the closet, an extra toothbrush in the bathroom. Little enough that it could easily be lost among an entire family's belongings.

Then again, disappearing is what I'm here to do.

My morning routine hasn't changed much in the last two years, always waking about forty minutes before my owner's alarm goes off, with a few minutes to turn off my own alarm before it triggers a light zap from my collar. Not the most comfortable safety net if I ever sleep in, but it doesn't make any noise and I was raised to be an early riser.

I stow the futon beneath the bed and its occupant, the reason for my existence now just a lumpy shape beneath the covers, some wild brown hair poking out the top like a strange kind of weed. I leave her to her extra half hour and creep down the hall to take a shower in the main bathroom, after wrapping a plastic cover over my collar. The pressure is about half what it should be, which means either Mede or her daughter is using the shower in the quarters. Maybe both at the same time; I know how things can get, especially if your owner encourages it as a thrifty way to save water.

It costs a lot to keep a whole extra person. I'd never really thought of that before I was sold. Food is the biggest expense, even if you cheap out and buy pre-prepared goods in bulk. Unless I'm out with my owner, every meal is a three-way split of something processed beyond recognition, a far cry from my aunt's leftover miracles.

They aren't poor, just budgeting with middle class frugality. An extra mouth is a burden on that budget, as my mistress' younger brother sometimes likes to remind me, but Susan was too young to get certified as mistress' guide.

It's amazing how difficult a thirteen-year-old can make things when she sees you as the only obstacle between her and a better life. She's mellowed out since then, but she still grumbles at how easy she thinks I have it. She'll find out; in a couple of years, she's going to be given to my owner's younger brother, since mistress has me and her older brother apparently got a servant with his commission.

Susan isn't related to the free kids; the master of the house bought Mede when she was already pregnant. Two for the price of one, I suppose. Maybe even a discount for used goods.

Mede herself passes me in the hall as I'm leaving the bathroom, giving me a tired, familiar smile on her way downstairs to get started on the day's work. I sneak back into my owner's room and get dressed in total silence in the pleated skirt, stockings and thin white turtleneck I laid out the night before, because the dresser squeaks.

Now decent, I pick up my owner's phone from the bedside table, sit down at her desk and put in the pin. There's a message from my mom on there, in a chat whose notifications my mistress can't hear. She basically runs her phone through me, so I've compromised the whole thing with muted extra contacts and claimed free reign over the browser. Sometimes I'll stay up at night trawling the internet or sneak it into the bathroom for some rest and relaxation. You have to take your perks where you can find them.

Behind me, mistress stirs in her sleep, covers rustling as she shifts uneasily. It must be nerves; she normally doesn't even move until her alarm goes off. I turn to look at her, arm propped over the back of the chair in a way I'd never have even considered back when my owners could see me.

It's not a pretty sight, but nobody is first thing in the morning. She rolls from side to side, head still turning towards the digital clock beside her bed even though she knows she can't read it. Finally, she just flops onto her back, closing her eyes and trying to go back to sleep.

It doesn't work.

"What time is it?" she finally asks.

"You still have seven minutes until your alarm, mistress," I tell her, my tone perfectly servile even as I simultaneously type out a reply to my mom's message.

She grumbles, aggressively slumping back into her mattress as though she can somehow stretch seven minutes into another hour. It's almost cute.

Finally, though, she surrenders to the inevitable and rolls out of bed. I turn off the alarm and set her phone down, then fall mindlessly into our familiar morning routine, making my owner's bed as she showers, then waiting by the dresser for her to come back and tell me what she wants to wear, so that I can do my best to match up what she actually has with her desires. Nothing fancy today, just jeans and a cardigan.

Make-up is a similar process, one she sticks to fastidiously if there's even a chance of her going out in public. I think it scares her that she can never be sure what she actually looks like, so she always tries to present her best face to the world. I follow her lead as best I can, making sure I'm immaculate without overshadowing her or forgetting my place. It's partly old habits, but mostly I don't want anyone to tell her she has a slovenly slave because then she might start paying attention to me.

Playing with a human dress-up doll is satisfying enough, as work goes, right up until it's time to loop the remote for my collar around her neck, gently moving her hair out of the way. The feel of it on her sternum is her way of telling when I'm finished. She rises, stretches, and heads for the door.

"Start packing," she orders, before disappearing to eat her breakfast.

I get to work, opening the curtains and window to let some air in, even if that air has been marinating in traffic fumes for the last eighty years. The bags are already laid out, a mixture of suitcases, soft sports bags and cardboard boxes, one already filled with cookware Mede has sacrificed from the kitchen even though she knows we won't need them.

I dismantle the room as meticulously as I can, moving from dresser to closet as I empty my owner's drawers of clothes, keeping my own separate in one of the sports bags so they're easier to pick out at the other end. From there, it gets difficult. There's an entire childhood in this room; trophies, pictures, soft toys. The stuff free people accumulate like dust, going forgotten and unnoticed for years until they suddenly need it right this second.

I can't pack all of it, but I can't leave it all behind. My owner wouldn't know it isn't there, but I can't have her living in an empty room. All I can do is cast my mind back over the last two years, trying to recall what she's asked for, where in the room she's lingered as she loses herself in the memory of what's right in front of her face. I'll get it wrong, I'm sure, but that's just how it goes.

Maybe she won't even think about it. It's not like she'll know where I put everything. My owner lives in a bubble, only really capable of interacting with the world through me. Here, in her own home, she knows where everything is and can navigate her way around easily enough, but it'll take time to adjust to somewhere new. She won't like it; she'll get irritated.

Disappearing becomes a shield, when she's angry. Mistress doesn't take things out on me because she doesn't really understand I'm here. Any perk you can find.

It takes me most of the morning to sort everything, my mistress returning only so that I can set up an audiobook on her phone before disappearing back downstairs. Finally, I roll up my futon and stuff it into one of the soft bags before stepping back and looking over the sparse room with my hands on my hips.

Of course, breakfast has been and gone, Mede and her daughter finding time to swallow a bowl of grits between my owner and her parents breakfasting together and the sixteen-year-old boy drifting down several hours later. There's an apple in the fridge with no clear owner. I eat it leaning against the kitchen countertop, then join my mistress in the lounge, standing beside her armchair with my hands clasped in front of me.

"You're all packed, mistress," I say, softly so as not to startle her. She nods, taking in a breath and tapping her earbud to pause the audiobook. She only ever wears one; why become deaf as well as blind?

"Toshi said we could arrive whenever?"

"She did, mistress. I'll text her when we leave."

I can read the apprehension in her face, mingled with just a hint of embarrassment and anger. College is a big change in both our lives, and out of State college doubly so. Her father didn't want her to go, when Philadelphia has perfectly good institutions of its own that I could drive her to, but in the end her mother persuaded him that it was for the best, that it would give her daughter a chance to spread her wings.

It was a long argument. Long enough that, when the decision was finally made and set in stone, the college had already rented out all of its single rooms for the year and their fire insurance wouldn't allow me to sleep on the floor of a double, between mistress and some random roommate.

I'm not necessarily sad about that. I haven't had a day to myself in over two years and without being able to relax in my owner's non-existent line of sight I'd probably just break down or go insane. Mistress took it hard, though. She'd built up this fantasy of normal college life, dorms and roommates and all.

Instead, my owner's fantastically rich friend has come to the rescue with a room in the condo her daddy rented for her. It sounds like charity, and mistress hates the thought of needing charity, but at this point it's either that or not going to college at all.

Still, I'm sure it smarts. Especially since her dad makes a living looking after the private aquarium owned by Arima Toshi's father, and I'm pretty sure she was only introduced to Toshi in the first place because he was fishing for a raise and figured his daughter would be able to charm a pampered princess.

Not a real one, but from what I understand there's only a few degrees of separation.

All of that has led to this frankly pathetic display of procrastination. Everything's packed, the car is fuelled and her parents keep walking past the living room door, waiting to see if she's ready to go. Maybe this is the point where I should offer some words of encouragement, but that's not who she wants me to be.

Not that she wants me to be anyone, so I've made myself nobody.

Her mother breaks first, asking me for a coffee to get me out of the room, then sitting down to have a good, long talk with her daughter. I leave her to it, deciding to give them at least ten minutes before even thinking about returning with a drink. In the kitchen, however, the master of the house is waiting for me.

I stop, mask breaking for just a moment before I lower my head and give a quick curtsey, glancing up to see whether this is an ambush or he's just getting a drink.

"Clarisse," he says, and I have my answer. It's honestly awful the way I associate my real name with serious, usually bad talks. The rest of the time, I'm just the nicely Anglicised Clara.

I straighten up, keeping my head lowered and clasping my hands behind my back. A contrite posture suitable for receiving verbal correction or stern advice.

"You've done well over the last two years," he starts. "You're a hard worker and you take your duties seriously, but Tori is going to need you more than ever. College isn't high school, and living with a friend isn't the same as living at home."

He pauses, but I don't say anything to fill the silence. I can tell he doesn't want me to.

"She'll go out, maybe she'll get into trouble. I want you to keep me in the loop. Let me know what she doesn't tell us when she calls."

I feel my mouth dry up, my chest suddenly cold and tingly. I hate being put in a position like this. I hated it before I was sold and I hate it now. I take a breath, trying somehow to look even more servile than I already do.

"Master, I'm sorry but I can't spy on my owner for you. If there's a serious problem, I promise I will call you right away, but I can't send reports. It would be a betrayal of trust."

That's it. Open defiance has always seemed pointless to me, but sometimes you have no choice but to defy a free person to serve the only free person who matters. It happens a lot, in a lot of ways. My role shields me from some of it, but I see it all the time; strangers groping slaves on the bus or trying to order one around while they're out on an errand for their real owner. Like we're just communal property.

You can never tell how a free person will react when you tell them no, even though you have no other choice. He could threaten me, or hit me, or just insist. In the end, though, this is a natural consequence of the deed he gave his daughter on her eighteenth birthday.

"You're right," he says instead, and something within me uncoils. "She needs someone she can trust out there and I'm glad she has you."

He steps forwards, suddenly looming over me, the natural authority of the free only heightened by all his height and size. It would be so much worse, I think to myself, if I was owned by a man.

"But she needs more than a robot, Clarisse. She's still vulnerable, and I'm not talking about her disability. If she breaks down out there and you do nothing but watch, I will make you pay for it."

"I understand, master," I say, pushing sincerity into my tone and punctuating it with a bow that I hold at its lowest point. "Her well-being is my only priority."

"Good," he replies, the word dripping with finality. "Now, hopefully her mother has talked some sense into her. The girls are bringing down her luggage. Go give them a hand."

I rise as he finally pours himself a glass of orange juice, curtsying again to his back before returning to my owner's bedroom, passing Susan on her way down the stairs with one of the lighter bags in each hand.

It doesn't take long for the three of us to bring everything down to the car, a ten-year-old grey hatchback that is honestly my pride and joy. Driving is incredibly freeing, and more than worth a summer of lessons with a pot-bellied instructor and his wandering hands.

Mede and Susan linger after the car has been packed all the way to the roof, waiting by the steps to the terraced house until mistress and her parents finally emerge, mistress clutching her phone like a lifeline with the earbud still in her ear. Mede looks over the three of them, then leans down and whispers something in Susan's ear that sends the girl rushing back into the house, returning with my owner's brother and a coolbag just after her parents' have finished saying their goodbyes.

To his credit, mistress' generally useless younger brother manages a genuine goodbye of his own, before the two slaves offer their own respectful farewells and the bag of sandwiches for the road.

Mistress doesn't say much as I help her find the passenger side door, waving half-heartedly out the window as I turn the engine on. Her family waves back, and part of me smiles at the sight. It's hard not to be moved by a genuine display of affection, even if it isn't aimed at you and the person it is aimed at can't even see it.

I think back to what her father said to me, my foot pausing just above the accelerator.

"Are you ready, mistress?"

She turns to me, eyelids blinking over milky-white cataracts, mouth half open in confusion for a moment before she finally speaks.

"Just drive."