Ginger Talbot > Quotes

“These days, there are other names for us besides predator—more civilized ways to describe us. More scientific. The one that fits me the best is a name that’s flung about far too casually these days, but it’s accurate in my case. Psychopath.”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“Ever since mankind first learned to bang rocks together and spark fire, people have been driven to define themselves, to build neat little boxes and climb inside.
They divide themselves up by religion, race, nationality. And even that’s not enough. They make the boxes smaller and smaller. They come up with all kinds of bullshit ways to categorize themselves. Introverts, extroverts. Leaders, followers. Morning people, night owls.
It’s part of the human condition—the desperate desire to figure out where you belong. To know the truth of who you are, what you are.
Me? I’d kill anyone who tried to put me in a box. And I learned the only two important distinctions very early on.
Predators, or prey.
Eat, or be eaten.
What difference does it make if you’re an introverted morning person…if you’re gurgling your last breaths through the wide-open smile that I’ve carved in your throat?”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?” I laugh, a harsh, horrible sound. “I’m fucking glad you suffered. I wish you’d suffered more. I wish your father had finished the job.” His eyes widen in surprise. He wasn’t expecting that from passive little Toy, or compassionate, caring Tamara, but I’m not either of those anymore. My pain and desperation have forged something new. “You took everything away from me. You destroyed my life! I don’t care if this is a gilded cage, it’s a goddamn cage, you asshole, you psycho, you nut job, and you make me sick!”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“I can’t!”
He cups my chin in his hand, and an odd kind of strength flows from him to me. “You can. You will. You’re stronger than you know, Tamara. Fight for yourself. You’re worth it.”
I feel as if my mind is splitting in two. My vision swims, and I think I see two Joshuas standing in front of me, and then they merge again.
He’s telling me to fight to save myself from him.
He’s telling me I’m strong and worthwhile.
Nobody has ever told me that before. Ever”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“Please don’t make me kill you!” Her face twists in panic. “I can’t be your slave again, Joshua. I can’t! Just leave!”
“You won’t be my slave.” I’m almost on her. I reach for the gun.
She shoots me in the foot, then screams in surprise at what she’s done.
Instantly, I compartmentalize the pain. And I glory in the fact that she couldn’t find the strength to kill me.
I lunge forward and snatch the gun from her hand. I wrap my arms around her as she howls and cries.
“Tamara. It will be different. I want you to come with me right now, I want you to stay with me of your own free will.”
“Never!” she howls. And the pain of it squeezes my heart.
This is what heartbreak feels like. No wonder people whine and cry about it so much. It’s vile. It makes me angry and sick to my stomach. It makes me want to kill people”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“He laughs again, a warm, rich sound. The bastard laughs.
Fear is funny to him.
I hate him so much that I can’t believe the sheer force of my rage hasn’t killed him. My hate is a storm inside me, emptying me out and hollowing me with fury”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“Those were choices she made, Tamara. They were terrible choices. It was never your fault. Any of it. You were the child, and you had no power at all. It was her job to keep you safe, and she failed at her job and left you with this miserable burden that you never should have had to carry. You do understand that, don’t you?”
“No, no, no…” I gulp for air. I’m getting dizzy.
“You will. It will get better and better, until it hardly hurts at all, until you rarely think of it”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“Freedom is pointless. Fighting is pointless. If Master freed me, where would I go? What difference would it make if I were free, with nobody to be happy at my return?
Master is the only thing in the universe that matters. He is the universe.
So I have to be Toy.
But that’s not what he wants from me either.
When he gives me permission to ask him questions, I try to ask him questions that will make him happy, like, “How can I please you, Master?”
But that makes him angry.
He is withdrawing more and more”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“Remember how much you love the cane, Tamara?” I taunt her.
“Go…” She gasps for breath. “Go swallow ground glass…Joshua Smith. You’re fucking useless. When you die, nobody will miss you.” Her voice is a trembling rasp. God, she’s amazing. I’m never letting her go. Never. She’s my sweet, brave warrior”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“You could let me go, Joshua,” I plead for the millionth time.
“If you truly knew me, Toy, you would understand that I can’t.” I think his smile is tinged with sadness. At least, if it were anyone else, that would be a sad smile. “I simply can’t.”
How can anyone truly know someone as fucked up as you, Joshua?
I step back out of his arms, as far as I can go with my ankle still chained to the chair, and my body cries out at the loss of his warmth.
He bends down and uncuffs my ankle.
But he doesn’t set me free”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“There’s a tiny spark of hope in me. The skills he’s teaching me are actually useful. Joshua let his guard down once, and I got access to the razor. Maybe it will happen again.
I hate that tiny spark of hope, though. Giving up, preparing myself mentally to die, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Hope is dangerous. Hope will weaken my resolve”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“I don’t make you sick,” he says, tightly controlled fury dripping from every word. “I make you come. I make you beg for it.”
“Yes, you had to make me beg for it.” I pour all my pent-up loathing and contempt into my hateful glower. “I didn’t do it on my own. I never would have. Just kill me and get it over with, you scum-licking pig, because I am Tamara Bennett, and I will end your disgusting life or die trying. I am not Toy, I was never Toy, and I never will be. You fucking failed at breaking me, like you fail at life, you piece of shit.”
Instead of answering, he turns and storms out of the room.
As soon as he’s out the door, I hear him shouting. No, roaring. An animal sound of pure fury. I hear glass breaking and a door slam repeatedly.
I’ve made the iceman lose control.
I smile to myself.
I shut my eyes and remember that I’m Tamara again. It feels so good to be Tamara”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“She’ll kill me, or herself, or Elizabeth.
And yet I’m still not going to kill her. Even to save myself.
Once upon a time, I thought she was nothing like me. Now, as I look down at her wretched face, I see tiny facets of myself in her. Survivor of a poisoned childhood, someone who put themselves back together and came out stronger for it. She’s got hidden reserves of toughness that I never even glimpsed. And she’s got a mean streak in her too.
I like that about her. I like it a lot.
I like everything about her. If I were a normal man, I’d say that I love everything about her. She makes me wish that I could be what she needs, what she deserves.
But I am the man that I am, hard and unchanging and incurable.”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“Will he really set me free?
Of course not. He’s lied to me before without even blinking. And he’s not the kind of man who’d sacrifice his life for someone else.
He called me Tamara. He opened up the trunk again, and I could hear sirens. He took the time to tell me how he felt about me, even when it meant he was risking prison, or death.
I want to believe.
If he were willing to let me come and go as I pleased, would I come back to him”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“The thought of Joshua being arrested makes me feel queasy. That’s ridiculous. It’s so stupid. I will tell the police everything. I have to.
Would he really have set me free?
I want to believe it. After all this time, after everything I’ve been through, I still want to believe in the basic decency of humanity, and more, I want to believe in him”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“That’s not something I am capable of doing.” I make my voice gentle, and I stroke a wet lock of hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear. She stares up at me, eyes shining. So beautiful. My precious, lovely Toy. “I don’t want to lie to you again, and to say that I was sorry would be a lie. Being sorry would require a conscience, and I’m not wired that way. In my world, I define right and wrong. For me to apologize would mean that I was saying I thought what I did was…bad. You want me to be honest with you? I’m not sorry. What is right is what benefits me. End of story. But I am saying that I should not have gone so far when I punished you. And we’re going to have to work out a new set of rules and a new way to get along. Because I’m not going to lose you.”
“Why?” she demands despairingly, her face twisting with anguish. “I just want to be free. I hate it here. I hate you, and if I could kill you, I would. I will keep trying to kill you, myself, and Elizabeth, until I succeed. Do you not understand that?”
“I do. And all I can do is watch you day and night so I can protect you from yourself,”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“I am gratified by how much pain I can endure for him. Punishments that once would have had me panicked and screaming and begging, I now suffer through without a peep. I have come to crave the whipping and the paddling, because they give me a chance to prove my devotion. He doesn’t seem to notice how high my pain tolerance is now, which is devastating, because all I want to do is make him proud of me.
I accept that he’s killed me. He lied to me when he said he wouldn’t kill me. He killed Tamara. The girl who loved the smiles on people’s faces, and coffeeshops, and books, and music; the girl who dreamed about someday making a difference…she’s dead. I can’t be myself anymore, because I can’t stand to be locked up in that room alone anymore. I need Master. I am alone in the world without him. Sarah doesn’t visit me in my head anymore, and neither does the dark tormenting voice that blamed me for destroying my mother.
I thought I was making a difference in the world, and now I know that I failed at that. I never touched a single soul out there”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“Am I crying?
Elizabeth is dead, because of me, because of my monstrous selfishness.
Tamara might not choose me. If I keep my word to her and let her go, she might leave. After everything I did to her, she’d be insane to stay with me, and my beautiful girl is many things, but she is not insane.
Yes. I am crying. I am a man who is capable of sorrow, who is able to shed tears. There is something astonishingly freeing in this. I wish I could have cried for my brothers. For my mother. They deserved my tears. This feeling is like a scouring fire, cleansing and painful at the same time.
“Thank you, Tamara,” I whisper, and I turn the key”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“Our sparring sessions always end in fucking. Always. Rough, hard, glorious. I struggle at first, then submit every time, and it’s like it’s part of our sex play. I could refuse him, but the horrible truth is, I crave it. His mere presence, his heated glance, makes my sex damp with desire. The more violent our sparring, the more I want him. Pinned down on the floor, writhing underneath him, fighting to get away but really wanting it…just like the fantasies I used to shamefully entertain before I ever met him.
He resumes bathing me and shaving me in the morning. I let him cuff me to the tub without trying to fight, because I find it heightens the pleasure for me. And that ends in fucking too. That’s sweeter and more tender. I get the best of both worlds from him—soft, gentle sex, and brutal, hard fucking. I have an amazing sex life. Several orgasms a day, and they’re always mind-blowing, explosive, shattering.
If I wasn’t his prisoner, he’d be the perfect lover”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“I watched my brothers, both older and younger, those less worthy, fall one by one. Did I feel anything as I watched them gasp their final breaths? I don’t know anymore. I don’t remember what feelings feel like. They’re not useful to predators.
With each death, my father’s gaze burned with scorn. My mother’s lips quivered, and tears shimmered in her eyes, but she didn’t shed a single one. My father was a predator. She didn’t want him to devour her.
I learned the lessons my father taught us, and I adapted, and I alone survived.
A predator doesn’t ask. He takes.
A predator knows no fear.
A predator is a hunter, and a hunter needs prey.
A predator can only win if someone else loses”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“Why are you crying and laughing at the same time?” he demands.
Was I laughing? So many feelings are flooding my body that I don’t know what to do with them.
I look at him haughtily. “You’d have to be human to understand, Joshua dick-sucking piece-of-crap Smith. And by the way? You’re a liar, you little turd-breath asshole. You lied about nobody reporting me missing. You know why you had to lie? Because you’re fucking weak!”
He lashes out and slaps me, and my ears ring, and I laugh and laugh, spiraling up into hysteria. “Oh my God. My God. Thank you for proving my point, wussy girl. I call you weak and it hurts your sad little feelings, and you respond like a puppet because I jerked your string. You just slapped a woman half your size who’s chained to a bed! You’re so brave, Joshua! Did that make you feel good about yourself? Are you going to come now?”
Just fucking kill me already. What do I have to say to push him over the edge?”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“My name is Toy, Master!”
I slash her breasts with the whip. “Louder!”
“My name is Toy, Master!”
I keep whipping her until the front of her body from tits to crotch is livid red. I make her rasp out her submission again and again, until her voice is hoarse and it’s agony for her, and then I make her scream it some more.
Then I do the cruelest thing I’ve ever done. Far crueler than the whipping.
I break my rule and I lie to her. It’s necessary. She needs this is as much as I do; she just can’t appreciate it. She can’t hold on to hope anymore. That hope, it’s harming her. It’s making her do foolish things.
Things that might make me kill her.
And I don’t want to have to kill her”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“What are you doing?” I ask, astonished.
“It’s called a hug, Toy.” He says it with gentle mockery.
He’s hugging me to make me feel better.
His arms tighten around me, and I melt into him before I can stop myself. His body is so strong, his grip so firm. I rest my head on his shoulder and close my eyes and breathe in his warm, masculine scent, the faint whiff of cologne and sweat and male musk. Then I circle his waist with my hands and hug him back.
I hug my kidnapper.
I hug my torturer.
I just want to feel better about everything, I want to leave my nightmare behind even if it’s just for a few moments of make-believe, so I pretend that he’s none of those things. I keep my eyes closed tight and pretend that he’s my boyfriend, my lover, my protector. And in a way he is. I have no doubt that if anyone tried to harm me, Joshua would kill them or die trying. He’s the only man in my life. The only man who’s ever given me an orgasm. When we have sex now, it feels like making love, and he always, always makes sure that I come first.
Why couldn’t he have been like this when he first took me? I think I’d have been in love with him by now.
He begins stroking my hair, gently, fingers trailing through the tresses.
“This isn’t so bad,” he murmurs, and I’m not sure if he’s talking to himself or me. And a little bit of me melts. This is probably the first time he’s ever hugged anyone, and, heart-breakingly, the first time he’s ever been hugged. Several minutes slide by, slowly, sweetly”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“I am at peace.
Joshua hurt me horribly when he told me that nobody was looking for me. Now I know the truth. There’s at least one person out there who cares, and that is enough. And that is worth dying for. This nightmare is about to end. I will finally float free away from here, and I will be who I want. Tam with a Plan. Tam who helps other people.”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“Elizabeth could die.”
I put on the blank mask that I practice in the mirror every day. “Cool. One down, one to go.”
Joshua shakes his head, and contempt pinches those perfect features. He pushes his chair back and stands up. “Evil isn’t a good look on you, Tamara.”
“Would you let me go if I helped you? If it was the only way to save her life?” I call after him.
He shakes his head.
“Worth a try,” I say with a bitter laugh. “And good to know exactly how much of a selfish prick you are. You’d really let her die rather than set me free?”
“Absolutely.”
I feel a well of rage swelling up in me. How can he be so heartless? And this is the man Elizabeth would die for. Poor her.
He starts to walk away.
Something stirs inside me, sinking sharp little claws into my conscience. “Wait.”
He pauses and looks back at me expectantly
Why am I helping him? Why am I helping her?
Because that’s who I am. Because if he kills that part of me, then he’s won”
― Ginger Talbot, Tamara, Taken

“When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.”
― Ginger Talbot, 30 Days of Pain

“Once a woman hits her fifties or sixties, though, she moves into a sort of different status. From then on, she is seen as sexless, and no longer a threat. And she is also revered because of the traditional respect for age.”
― Ginger Talbot, Matteo