Chapter 1 Her Early Life

Siena was just a girl no one wanted. She had always wondered why she was ever born. Why had the creator seemed it fit to put her in her mother's womb? Had she been created as a mistake? Because I gat was how it seemed. Her creation must have been an accident.

after the accident of her birth, her parents died and that was another thing she could not help wondering about. Had they died because they could not bear to be with and bring up a child like her?

"I must be cursed. Jinxed, more like", she thought miserably . As she stood outside their house

The rain fell hard that day.

She stood on the porch of the Greystone Estate, her school uniform soaked, knees bleeding from another fall she couldn't explain. Her guardian - Aunt Lillian - barely looked up from her phone as she opened the door.

"Don't drip on the marble," she snapped. "Use the servant's entrance next time."

Siena was sixteen. Silent. Dismissed. This was her life. The life she had lunch ved for the past sixteen years and who knows how much longer she would have to leave ve this way. Probably, forever. After all she did not have a say in it. She had been told she should be grateful for the little she got and that she was alive at all. It was a laugh because she didn't feel she was living. She was merely existing and sometimes, she wished for death. She was just too cowardly to commit suicide. It was not as though she had not tried. Oh, she had trued to do away with her miserable life a number of times, but she had been unable to go through with it.

"I am really pathetic", she always thought in self disdain."No one wants s me and I can't even summon the courage to do everyone a favour and end it all!"

She limped through the back and went straight to her room - if you could call the attic that. Cold in the winter, sweltering in the summer. A cot. A cracked mirror. A single bulb that flickered like it was trying to die.

It was darkness. It was hell and she had been asked to be grateful for even this.

"I guess I have to be. Isn't it better than staying in the streets?" she often said with a smile by way of consoling herself.

At school, she was quiet. It was her defense mechanism. Her attire was old and torn, no matter how hard she tried to keep it neat. She still stood out and the bullies had a field day with her.

At home, she was invisible.No one took any notice of her, except to send her on errands, treat her like trash and leave all the chores to her, not caring if she was in good health or not. Rest was a luxury she treasured anytime she could get it.

But though she was invincible, she watched. And listened.

She learned to shrink into corners. To take blows without blinking. Her uncle - the one who smelled of cigars and vodka - liked to remind her she was a burden, something left behind by a mother who'd "spread her legs for the wrong kind of man." She never met her father. Her mother was a whisper and a headstone.

So, not only did she have to endure the hardship and misery that was her life, she was also reminded that her mother was a tramp who may not have known who amongst the numerous men she consorted with was the father of her child.

But there were other things.

Secret things.

Late at night, she'd sneak into the library and run her fingers over leather-bound novels with forbidden stories. Tied wrists. Dominant lovers. Obedient girls. Things that made her ache, made her question her own mind. It was always an explanation scape from the harsh world she was living in. It transported her to various desirable places and with people - men who desired her and showed her their desire in a number of different unconventional ways.

She'd press her thighs together in the dark, pulse racing, as she read about surrender - not from weakness, but longing. And she found herself longing for things she could not yet understand. Not only did it keep her entertained but it was also her form of escape from the world that hated her. A world that did not want her. But for this moments of pleasurable longing, her life might have no meaning.

One night, when Uncle Frederick found the book tucked under her mattress, he sneered. "Filth," he said. "Is this what you want to become?"

Then he slapped her. Twice.

The bruises healed, but something inside her didn't.

Something burned. Something that cried to be let out.

Then she turned eighteen and accidentally found a hidden letter addressed to her from her real mother - it had one name and a bloodstained seal - she made her choice. She could not longer remain in this prison her uncle and aunt had made for her. She could not longer continue living this way. She had to find or forge her path, whichever one it turns out to be.

So, she ran.

She ran straight to the underground. Straight into the mouth of desire. Where she was not called a nerd, a bumpkin, someone not sophisticated. Someone who didn't belong in the modern society. Someone who was trash and treated as such. She ran to where her innocence wasn't mocked. It was sold.

She had not set out to sell herself - her innocence but as she watched others in the underworld, as she watched their unrestrained attitude towards sex, everything she bottled up since she turned sixteen and started reading about desire, dominance and surrender till date, came to the fire, wanting to consume her.

She wanted to live out the fantasy she had had for so long but her handler/ guardian in the underworld had other plans for her.

"You are still a virgin, aren't you?" he asked. "You have not done it before, have you?"

She didn't know how to answer. She didn't want to discourage him. But her silence was answer enough.

"I know just the place for you", he continued, looking at her with a leering smile on his face. "She sure will fetch a good price, what with a body and face like hers", he added to himself, pulling on his imaginary beard.