by Sophia Reed
"May I ask a question?" I forgot the sir at the end of that and left it alone when I saw him register it. Sometimes it seemed worse to tack it on.
"As we go. For now, just take your shower."
He was dressed. Long sleeved henley against the cold, as cold as it gets in the Southern Nevada desert, and bare feet under his jeans. He was carrying a bag but I couldn't see what was in it and suddenly my heart was pounding and I wanted out of the bathroom, out of Nevada, back to Seattle. I wanted to be a police officer again, I wanted to be undercover with Jesse, for Jesse not to be dead, for none of the previous months to have happened.
The desire swept through me as strong as the addiction ever had.
When he's dressed and I'm not, I never feel more naked. And though he's seen me remove my clothes on multiple occasions, something about this lack of balance of power today left me shivering.
Before he could order me to, or bring someone else in to do it for me, I took off my running clothes and climbed into the shower. Over the sound of the water, he asked me questions about the fentanyl addiction. They weren't new, but I thought somehow he was interpreting them differently. He asked me about my physical addiction and symptoms, about what it felt like emotionally, about any cognitive difficulties I might have experienced as a result of the addiction and I answered him as thoughtfully as I could. The rainforest cure he’d developed was either the greatest placebo in the world or some kind of miracle serum made from vines and herbs.
Toward the end of my shower I heard him go out of the bathroom and come in again, heard something placed in the room. The trembling started again.
My contract with him is irrevocable until I find that attorney I fantasize about. It gives him control over my time, my body, my behavior, my nutrition, my education, my financial upkeep, my punishments. In short, I've given him complete control of me.
And he's a sadist.
When I pulled back the curtain and wrapped the thick, fluffy bath sheet around me, I saw that he'd brought in the small bench that sits at the end of the bed to receive clothes cast off before sleep or extra blankets.
"I'm adding this to our morning routine. I've been attending to your health and making certain you eat properly and get adequate sleep. Now I'm going to add something new. From now on each morning after your shower you will climb onto this bench and kneel until I come for you."
It was better than kneeling naked on the tile floor, but everything in me was shaking now. I didn't like this. I also wasn't sure of the next step, so I asked. "Should I kneel there now, sir?"
"Yes."
"Should I keep the towel, sir?"
"No. Pull on your t-shirt."
And I didn't like that either. It only covered me to my hips. But I hung the towel and pulled on the t-shirt and knelt on the bench.
Cole took my face in his hands and kissed my mouth, then without hesitating, said, "Turn around and go to your hands and knees."
I started to tremble in earnest. This wasn't a beating. It wasn't a punishment. It wasn't anything I was used to. It was new and it was in a more intimate place somehow, than his usual room for correcting me.
"Annie." He had started a mental count.
"Please," I said and instantly knew that was the wrong thing. I let my head drop forward and I rose, turned awkwardly on the bench as if somehow stepping down to the floor to turn around wouldn't be allowed. I knelt on hands and knees, my back to him, the way he had indicated.
"Do you know what a Fleets enema is?" he asked.
I sat before I could stop myself. "Please! Please, don't, sir! Please!" The humiliation turned me scarlet, I could just see my face in the mirror which was how I realized I'd started to cry.
"I can see that you do. Please resume the position. From now on, every morning, you will take your exercise, then you will be cleaned inside and out. This is non-negotiable."
We locked eyes. I'd wondered before what would happen if I ever remained completely firm. If I ever said, no, I won't, and stuck to it. Would he turn me out? Would he tell Seattle PD everything I'd done or even part of it? Or would he just send me away to make my own way however I could? Working security at Walmart. Going back to live with my parents. Marrying Mark. That last shouldn't even feel like a failure.
But it would.
I held his gaze for a long time before I dropped my eyes and said, "Yes, sir," and turned and knelt again, then got up to all fours.
He hadn't removed any of the wrapping yet. I was privy to him opening more than one of the things, saline apparently, and he meant for me to have them. I had no doubt he'd done his research on how much was safe to give a person at one time.
I heard the rattle of packaging stop. Felt him move close behind me. In the time I'd been here he'd never touched me there. My breathing became labored, big breaths I dragged in and sobbed out. I heard him snap on a pair of gloves and felt the cold of lube on his finger. He pressed his finger into me, up to the first knuckle and I let out a sob.
He held it there long enough that the lube became warm and dripped out of me. Something happened, then, before he even inserted the first plastic tip. Something changed but I wasn't sure if I was more determined to run or less. Only that I felt less connected to myself, felt more of my old life slide away, felt that he, incredibly, was what I had to hang on to. This man violating me in such a base way.
I cried until he finished filling me and left me to take care of myself.
5
Cole
The more control I take from her, the better.
For me.
Probably for her.
If she thinks she's found someone who can cure her addictions, I'm 99 percent certain she's right.
If she thinks she's found someone altruistically doing so in order to make the cure work and for her benefit?
I'm 100 percent positive she's wrong.
Her tears were luscious.
Her submission when my finger invaded that most secret place was glorious.
I don't think she realized that just before I removed my finger and began to administer the enema, she tightened back up again.
She's gearing up to fight.
Breaking her will be magical.
6
Annie
Tad Charles sounded suspicious when I called. He knew where I was. It had become almost inevitable that someone in Seattle PD would know the truth. He knew what Samuels had done, to some degree, and thought the man a fool.
So did I. A fool I intended to fuck up when I got my life back. It was all I could do not to waste a little time asking him if he knew where Samuels was. Since I was still in Southern Nevada for the duration, it didn't matter.
I was compiling a list of people I wanted to fuck up or maybe even kill, à la Aya Stark, only no one had beheaded anyone I loved.
There was a guard who had watched me strip-searched by a nurse my first morning, after Cole had actually freed me and I'd flailed and failed and found my way back. That guard had watched me strip down and consent to a cavity search that left me sweating, I blushed so hard, nauseated by the invasion. He had sneered and smirked at my humiliation.
I'd sworn I was going to kill him.
And Samuels. For putting me in this position.
What I'd do in retaliation for him saving my life – that I didn't know.
"I can't talk long, Tad. I just." Need to feel some control. Want to know I'll get back to the job someday. Want to talk to somebody still doing what I need to do.
Want a modicum of normalcy in my life for two minutes.
Every time I used the phone it was dangerous. Cole only let me call my father and that was only as a reward for spectacular behavior. Or because I'd become so freaked out of being out of contact that even his reassurances that he'd be notified if my father's health did anything but improve wasn't enough.
"Girl, when are you coming back to the job? We miss your smiling face."
That was a lie. My face was rarely in the office and it didn't
smile all that often, either.
"I'm working on it. Look, can you tell me anything that's going down with the Brotherhood? I feel out of touch and I'm having nightmares that the drugs are just flowing through the streets." Unfortunately, that wasn't a lie.
"So you think you're the only one who can make a difference? All right, I get you."
Even the mocking humor was pleasant. I liked hearing it again and feeling like I was a part of that world of automatic mockery and putdowns.
"Well, I don't know how you've survived without me," I said and listened as he agreed, but then sobered.
"Look, you're supposed to be in rehab and I respect the hell out of you for doing whatever it is you're doing and sticking to it. Obviously you are because I don't think any other thing would keep you away. Only if this makes you come back and it's too soon - That’d be on my head."
"That would be my responsibility," I told him. "I'm serious, Tad. I'm having nightmares. I need to know what's going on."
And then, because he's honest and true and a real friend and a good cop, he told me.
There'd been two deaths of high school kids, both overdoses by good girls nobody even knew were doing fet. One had been a track runner who got injured and started abusing opioids. After a very expensive tour of facilities, her parents thought she was clean.
They were wrong.
The other girl had never met a drug she didn't like. Unfortunately, fentanyl didn't like her back.
There were reports coming in about bikers from other cities setting up shop and the Brotherhood starting to ride out to protect their territory. I reminded myself that Jesse was gone and that I'd never had an obligation to the group other than bringing them down.
I was still at cross purposes about that.
Bring them down.
Set them free.
No. Bring them down. Before they did to high school students what they'd done to me.
You did this to yourself.
True. But I had help.
"You hear anything about my dad?" I bit my lip and held my breath. The call was getting long. I had to let go and decide what I was going to do.
"He's okay. Visited recently."
"Because he had to?" While he'd been hospitalized IAD had dragged up old cases from when he was an active police officer and charged him with several counts of using excessive force.
He had. Sometimes. But he was a good cop.
"Once. Most of the charges have been dropped. What's left is a slap on the wrist that his old lot's unwilling to drop because it'll make him look weak. Nothing's going to happen to your old man."
"Thanks, Tad. What about the other time?"
I could hear the smile in his voice. "Came in to say hi. This place is hard to leave, Annie. So get the fuck better and get the fuck back here and then –"
We said it together. "Get the fuck back to work."
7
Cole
There were two girls on the bed. Not my bed, because there was a good chance it was going to get messed up.
What I'd done to Annie in the morning had me so hot I called Marilyn and Steph, had them show up and strip down and I'd been fucking them, the two of them tied one on top of the other so I could just move them up and down and take whatever hole I wanted.
Now that wasn't enough and I stripped the duct tape off them, gave Marilyn a dildo and said, "Hurt her."
I stood back, hard as a rock, stroking my cock as I watched Marilyn order Stephanie to her knees and start plunging the plastic phallus into Steph's ass. Steph grunted with every thrust, rocking forward.
Good. That was good. Beautiful to watch their breasts jiggling and hear Stephanie grunt.
But my mind was on what I was going to do to Annie.
Because I wanted to. Because I enjoyed it and she did too, even if she couldn't admit it yet.
And because the instant I'd walked in here to fuck the girls, I'd seen the red light shining on my phone by the bed.
She was getting bold. She hardly waited until I left the suite. Probably checking on her father. Or maybe on her job.
Didn't matter. Rules were rules. She was supposed to be out of contact with the so-called real world for her own good.
She should have listened.
8
Annie
He sent for me at noon.
Breakfast had been solo, a plate of fish and green stuff. I sometimes tried to identify it but apparently green healthy food has endless variations and in the end it didn't matter if it was seaweed or chard: It was all disgusting.
One time Cole had laughed and told me I was like a child, unwilling to eat what was good for me because I found it "yucky." He pointed out the importance of a balanced diet and laughed when I suggested ice cream was part of a balanced diet. Then he'd fed me the green stuff, bite by bite. It didn't make it less repellant. It didn't get me any ice cream, either.
The next time I took exception to the amount of healthy food on my plate versus the amount I was anxious and willing to put in my mouth, he slammed both fists down on the table, cleared it by the expediency of swiping all dishes onto the floor. He lifted me bodily onto the table and beat the hell out of my ass until I shrieked in pain and cried.
This morning it was green stuff and a book, a plate of eggs, and a spiral paper notebook and pen to take notes. I was getting an unofficial degree in criminal justice, it seemed. Cole felt that I might be with him for a year, though he hadn't actually said that to me yet. What he had said was that the time I spent with him should be worthwhile. Therefore I was studying so when I left, if I chose not to go back to Seattle PD or Seattle PD decided it was better off without me even if I was totally rehabbed, I'd have some options.
He thought DEA was a good choice for me. Having beaten an addiction and having a good arrest rate, they'd be lucky to have me, he'd said in a tone of voice that suggested he knew enough people in the agency to make certain of it.
That day during the boredom of yoga and meditation I'd pondered whether I'd be happy to get into the DEA that way. It was food for thought.
So was what I was reading as I ate. It was currently constitutional law, the case law that had come to be the go-to for amendments like Miranda, the case that led to the Miranda statement given to anyone arrested. Miranda came into being in a 1966 case in which the suspect had kidnapped and raped and after being arrested by officers at his house, was held in isolation and interrogated for two hours.
That seemed a fairly innocuous amount of time to me after having lived with Cole St. Martin for more than a month now, closer to two months with the amount of time I'd been gone.
But apparently two hours was enough for Miranda, who didn't have counsel with him or anyone advocating for him or telling him he had the right not to incriminate himself.
The Supreme Court of Arizona said his rights hadn't been violated and he could go ahead and serve those 20 to 30 years.
The U.S. Supreme Court didn't agree and found for Miranda. Out of that case law came the requirement to advise people upon arrest of their rights.
On some level I knew a lot of this. On others, it was interesting. It wasn't enough to keep me reading all day and when Cole was gone, I had too much time on my hands. But it was interesting. The idea that I could sail through classes after doing the coursework in my own form of custody and maybe start over in a different, more intense form of police work - That was welcome. It was something else to think about during meditation.
It wasn't enough to think about during other things.
Cole sent for me as I was finishing lunch, which was fish and green stuff and coffee. No bread, no chips, no lunch meat, no strawberries. I had a bad feeling about that. Cole knew I loved strawberries and since they're perfectly healthy, usually included them with my meals since – of course – there was no dessert.
When I got out of here, I was going to fall face-first into a German chocolate cake before I went out searching for the people on my list who were going to pay for thei
r treatment of me.
For the first time ever, it occurred to me that Cole might make that list. What he'd done to me in the bathroom – my face flamed with humiliation again and I forced myself to concentrate again on the case law.
Then a guard came and told me to get up and accompany him.
I didn't know him. The guards sometimes changed and sometimes were the same assholes as usual. They were uniformly big and muscled, the kind of muscle that knows how to work, not the kind that's just for show. He carried a baton, a taser, and a gun.
I stood instantly. There was no point arguing with him, he wasn't the problem, and there was nothing except my badge, hidden back in my room, that belonged to me in this compound. The notebook, the case law book, the pen, the clothes I was wearing, they were all Cole's. I had no need to protect any of that stuff, or make sure no one fucked with it.
And then – I was Cole's, also. I was still working on stopping him from fucking with me.
The guard dropped me off at the door to the room where most of Cole's debasements took place. I still didn't know what to call it. Dungeon, prison cell, playroom, punishment room, therapy office.
There were no instructions from the guard. He simply let go of me and thundered away in the other direction, leaving me to my own devices.
That was one of the most dangerous of tricks. Cole would wait to see what I would do. There were few ways to win. There were myriad ways to screw up.
After a couple minutes of contemplating my options, my heart pounding and my ears ringing, I stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind me, then sank instantly to my knees at the edge of the room, hands in my lap, head bowed.
I kept my gaze down even when I heard Cole sometime later, crossing the room to me. He stopped just short of me, standing there, probably looking down at me. I kept my eyes down.