He Made Me His Servant, Then Begged Me to Say No novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Rule One
A burn, a wrist under cold water for far too long, and three rules in a car.
At midnight Eli knocked on the connecting door and heard nothing.
He knocked again, softer.
"It's open."
Laurence's bedroom was dark except for a single lamp.
He sat on the sofa in a grey T-shirt with a stack of papers on his knee.
He did not look up.
"I'm hungry," he said. "Make me an omelette."
"Now, sir?" Eli asked.
"Is that a complaint?"
"No, sir."
"Kitchen's down the back stairs," Laurence said. "Make two."
Eli stood in the doorway for a moment, waiting for the catch.
There was always a catch.
"Two," Laurence said, still not looking up.
"And you eat yours at the counter, sitting down."
The Greywater kitchen was bigger than the whole group home where Eli had spent his last three years.
He found the eggs, the butter, a copper pan with a handle as long as his arm.
He had learned to cook at fourteen, when the cook at the home quit.
Somebody had to feed the little ones.
He cracked six eggs one-handed into a bowl and was whisking when he realized Laurence had followed him.
Laurence leaned in the doorway with his arms folded.
He said nothing.
Eli's back prickled, and he cooked with his shoulders up near his ears.
The butter foamed and went brown.
He tipped the first omelette onto a plate and tilted the pan for the second.
The handle slipped in his wet fingers, and the whole pan swung down against his wrist.
The pain was a bright, short line.
Eli did not cry out.
He dropped the pan into the sink with a clang.
He stood with his hands pulled to his chest and his shoulders hunched, bracing for the blow.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sir, I'll clean it..."
"Stop."
Laurence was across the kitchen before the pan finished ringing.
He caught Eli's wrist and turned it over.
In the light above the stove a red welt had come up across the skin.
"Hold still."
He pulled Eli to the sink and ran the cold tap over the burn.
The water was icy and Eli hissed.
"Don't move it."
"It's not bad, it's just a..."
"I said don't move it," Laurence said.
Laurence's fingers closed around the back of his hand.
He held it under the water for a long time, much longer than a burn so small could possibly need.
Eli watched the water run over their joined hands.
Laurence's thumb lay on the inside of his wrist, where the pulse was, and the pulse was fast.
His thumb was not steady.
Eli looked up.
Laurence's jaw was set hard and his eyes were on the burn, and the muscle in his cheek was jumping.
He's angry, Eli thought.
It was a reasonable explanation, and he held onto it.
"You're careless," Laurence said at last.
"Yes, sir," Eli said.
"I didn't tell you to hurt yourself."
"No, sir. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize to me," Laurence said.
Laurence shut off the tap.
He opened a drawer without searching and took out a first aid kit.
He dried the wrist with a clean towel and dabbed it with ointment.
He wrapped it in gauze, three turns, neat and tight.
Then he taped it down and kept the hand in his for one more breath.
"Eat your omelette," he said, and let go.
Eli ate it at the counter, sitting, and it was the best omelette he had ever made.
Laurence stood across from him and ate a piece of dry toast in silence.
His hands were steady again, and his eyes did not leave the bandage.
In the morning Laurence drove him to campus with the radio off.
Rain ran down the windshield.
Eli had one hand in his lap and the other, the bandaged one, held carefully against his coat.
At a red light Laurence said, to the windshield, "Rules."
Eli straightened.
"One. Nobody else gives you orders. Not Brant, not the housekeeper, not my father. Only me."
"Yes, sir," Eli said.
"Two. If there's something you can't do, you tell me. You don't try, and you don't hide it."
"Yes, sir," Eli said again.
"Three."
The light turned green and the car did not move.
A horn sounded behind them.
"Three. You say yes to everything I tell you."
Laurence pulled out into the road.
"That's all."
It sounded like the worst rule of the three.
Eli was surprised to find it was the one he could hold onto.
He knew how to say yes.
He had been saying it all his life.
They stopped at the foot of Bell Hall, and Eli reached for the door.
"Sorrell."
"Sir?"
"If anyone gives you an order," Laurence said. "Any order, at all."
Laurence was looking at the dashboard.
"You tell me who."
Eli frowned.
"Why?"
"That's rule one."
Laurence's thumb began to turn the watch on his wrist.
Eli got out into the rain.
He carried the burn into class under his sleeve.
Nobody had ever bandaged him like that.
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