by Sophia Reed
"I didn't know I was supposed to do anything." I waved away the end of that comment almost before I finished it. "I mean, I've been supportive. I've been there. I've encouraged her to talk. I've let her see I still value her the same. I haven't pushed her to – "
She interrupted me. Her button down was very tight, her pushup bra doing a fantastic job with the amount of boob it was called on to display. She wore a tight skirt and very high heels and if it weren't for Annie's condition, I would have taken what was so clearly on offer. My hand tingled at the thought of putting her over my knee and pulling her skirt up slowly, forcing it above her waist before spanking her generous bottom.
If Annie were physically ill, I would have. There was nothing in our arrangement that had ever suggested I'd be faithful to her. Only that, as her owner, I'd be there. But with Annie fragile, Annie the way I never expected Annie to be, I couldn't. That seemed too great a betrayal when she'd already given so much of herself to help others.
"She's a cop, isn't she?" The doctor tapped her pen against her lower lip. "She was very strong and capable."
Still is, I thought. Just somewhere down under too much hurt. Then I told her exactly that.
She nodded, standing to pace, coming back to perch on the edge of her desk. There was nothing sexual about it now. She was thinking.
"PTSD takes a long time. You know that. You worked with Ariel. But sometimes people get stuck."
I stood and paced. "You're saying she doesn't have PTSD?"
She shook her head. "She probably does. But she's also in a place where she's not ready to do anything about anything yet. She's just reacting to her environment."
"It's an environment she's used to," I said. Even to myself I sounded sulky. Like, come on, Annie, hurry up and heal. I'm sick of waiting.
She smiled at me in a way that left no doubt in my mind what she'd like to do would be offer some scenarios and then try them out to make sure they worked. What she did instead was say, "Bring her back, Cole. Unstick her. You're not just her friend. You're not her guardian. You're her Owner. Own her. Dominate her. Take her back."
I frowned, staring mostly at the floor. "And if it doesn't work?"
She gave me a look that managed to suggest Annie would have to be crazy to not have it work and that she didn't think she was. "Then let me know and we'll think of something else."
I breathed in and out. "How hard?" I asked, confident she'd understand the question.
She did. She smiled. "As hard as you both need it to be."
That evening while Annie was working on her classes, having changed to virtual for the rest of the semester, I went into the playroom. Alone. I told myself I wasn't sneaking, but I wanted her to not know I was going in. I wanted everything to come as a surprise, as if I could jolt her out of the trauma or depression.
The room is generous. It's right off Annie's suite, but she didn't seem to track my progress through from my office, the one in her suite, through to the playroom. She was frowning at the computer like she didn't understand what she was seeing.
Sun streaks into the room from the skylights and there are tall, thin windows in between the pieces of equipment. There's an emergency backdoor, almost never used. Other than those things, the walls are very much in use. I have cabinets along one wall, with doors that slide over other parts of the doors, so I can open them outward and then slide a panel and expose more of the inside of the door. Because nothing gets a masochist's blood pumping like seeing all those crops and whips, paddles and hairbrushes and bath brushes, all those leather slappers and belts, all of them hanging on display.
The inside of the cabinets are filled with other paraphernalia. Some have glass drawers, the better to display the nipple clamps of so many different styles and levels of bite. There are wig stands to support the masks, those that cover only nose, or only eyes, or the entire head with zippers to allow in air. Or not. That was Annie's hard limit. No masks.
There were restraints in another cabinet. Handcuffs and leather laces and bungee cords and rope. There were halters and harnesses, swings and other suspension gear so I could hang her spread open as much as I wanted her.
One set of glass drawers displayed an extensive collection of butt plugs. I had never plugged Annie but I thought that was going to change. There was a small medicine cabinet topping a much deeper storage unit full of Fleets prepared enemas and suppositories, and rubber bulbs and enema bags, there were salts and soaps and mixes that could clean out a sub in record time or make them sweat through the process.
Annie detested enemas. She wasn't keen on suppositories. It still embarrassed her when I touched her there and in the hospital, despite the panties she'd worn pulled back only on one side to let the burn breathe, that was part of why she accused me of staring at her ass.
The other part was undoubtedly because I was. Annie's ass is first class. Annie's ass is a delight to fill and clean out, to paddle and crop and belt, to cane. I looked around and picked up my favorite cane, smacking it idly against my leg as I checked the cabinet that was given over to canes, birch bundles, misery sticks and the things I always forgot the name of that were like cut down canes wrapped in a bundle.
Away from the cabinets, against the wall closer to Annie's lair, there was a sink and a first aid station for eye washes. No reason why, really. I would never play with someone's face other than slapping. But better safe than sorry.
The rest of the room was a wonderland of excess and kink. There were spanking horses, like rocking horses but with restraints to hold the hands forward, to tilt the rider forward and expose the upturned ass to correction. There were spanking benches that bifurcated, opening the legs so the spanker could stand within that vee and punish accordingly, or reach between the legs to do … whatever pleased. There were benches to kneel on, bent over and exposed, arms and waist and legs buckled down and everything nicely and lewdly exposed. There were massage tables with restraints and more than one St. Andrews Cross. There were O rings drilled into the ceiling and the floor and the walls. There were leashes and ties.
There were so many ideas I started writing them down. I didn't want anything to be random. I wanted all of it to mean something.
I hoped that Annie slept through the night. Because I had a feeling tonight, I wouldn't.
I didn't. I woke in the morning after a night of her dreams and mutterings and her morning hurry to get out of bed and dressed, showing as little of herself as she could.
"Annie."
She turned, surprised and obviously uncomfortable, and finished dressing fast. I shook my head at what she'd just put on. "Let's go for a run," I said.
43
Annie
I'd forgotten how beautiful the desert is at dawn. It's the one time that everything smells wet and fresh. The ground is softer. The sky magnificent.
It felt like months and months had passed since Cole had chased me through the desert morning, wielding a crop and birching branches. Neither were in evidence this morning, which was a relief.
And a tiny bit of a downer. It made me realize what I'd lost. What had happened to me on account of Bevington.
I didn't want to think the old asshole had changed my life. Cole didn't think I was aware of the night terrors because I never totally woke up. That was true, and a fair assumption. Except that it didn't feel like I ever truly slept, either. My whole life felt like it had fallen into twilight, one filled with things that suddenly made me jump. Things that made my heart pound. An unexpected touch. An unknown person.
Erin Trace had been retired, but Annie Knox wasn't completely back, and I resented it. At the same time, it was impossible not to look at Cole and hope that this wouldn't be the moment he chose to touch me.
I didn't think I could stand it yet.
"Race you to that bush," I said, pointing out one sage that stood taller than the others.
"That one? That short distance away? Not worth my time."
I smiled a little. "How about that telephone pole? That one way over
there with the hawk on it."
Cole nodded thoughtfully. "What does the winner get?"
"The winner doesn't have to eat fish for breakfast."
"First," he said, "I haven't made you eat fish once since you got back."
Back. Not home.
Whatever.
"Second, who says you're going to win? I like fish."
"I say I'm going to win," I said, knowing better. Anyway, we were running past the pole in question.
It was a companionable run that ended at the front door of the compound. Cole wrapped an arm around my shoulders, scuffed my hair and said, "I win."
"What contest?" I asked, trying to sound huffy. "We never set up parameters."
"I always win," he said. "I'm the boss."
"Wow, somebody has an ego," I muttered just loud enough he couldn't quite hear me.
"What was that, slave?"
"Nothing, Master!" I skipped ahead of him toward my suite, waiting for him to unlock the door. I could move ahead of him. He never spanked me out of nowhere anymore, for fear of hurting me.
"Hmm," Cole said, and stepped through the door behind me.
I was already heading for the shower, my heart at least a little lighter. I'd shower, then put on something comfortable and see if there was yogurt for breakfast. I had homework and –
I saw his shadow as he stepped over the threshold. The second he was inside, Cole said, "Annie."
I froze. His tone was unmistakable but I still think I heard it wrong. I started to turn toward him and he said, "Don't move. Stay the way you are."
My heart jackrabbited in my chest. My hands were suddenly clammy and all the early morning sweat from the run felt cold.
"Take all your clothes off and fold them neatly and put them on that chair."
He hadn't told me to turn around so I followed his finger to the chair set against the wall near the bathroom. It hadn't been there the night before.
He'd put it there.
My breathing turned shallow. I wanted to turn and fall on my knees and plead with him not to do this, whatever it was. I wasn't ready. I still had nightmares. I could still feel the guard's fingers inside me and Bevington's flaccid self pressed against me.
I could still smell the stink of burnt flesh.
"Now, Annie." His voice was sharp.
The trembling made it almost impossible to get my shoes off or to do anything with speed. He waited patiently as long as I was doing what he told me. When I'd put my clothes on the chair and my shoes under it, I turned back and faced him. My face was scarlet, the color staining all the way down to my chest. Standing in front of him was horrible, humiliating, humbling. Hateful.
Something had changed. It had to show. He'd see how vile and debased I was.
He wouldn't want me anymore. Why should he? I didn't even want me.
I waited for instructions.
"On your knees. Hands behind your head. Present your tits. Knees separated. You may choose feet up or down, whichever is easier with the brand."
He didn't wait for me to respond. He went into the bathroom and began getting the shower ready. When it was to his liking, he called me and ordered me in. He wore his running shorts and a t-shirt still and he followed me in. Power play: Even in the shower he was dressed and in power, controlling the naked slave.
He used a scrub brush on me, not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to get the point across that he wanted me clean. When he reached between my legs I moved back several steps without intending to, my arms crossing over my chest, one hand going down to cover my sex.
He showed no emotion, only nodded to himself and said, "Face the wall. Hands above your head on the stone. Spread your legs." And he had a belt in his hand, one that had come from god knew where, one that he would be fully capable of using on my wet, naked ass. He could turn the temperature to cold on the shower head that hit me, and leave himself in the comfortable spray.
I complied. He used body wash, soaping me carefully, his fingers staying on the outside but running along my sex, intimate and unstoppable. My muscles were hard, my breathing shallow, my heart rate galloping. I glared at the wall until he told me to bend over and spread my cheeks.
"No!" It was too much. I turned and found him standing with the enema attachment spewing water from the other shower head. "Sir, please!"
He blinked. Didn't say anything. Waited.
"Please." My voice barely rose above the shower water.
"Are you going to safe word?"
Was I? Red swam through my mind, headed for my lips.
And fell away.
I met his eyes for one long, dangerous minute. Then turned and spread myself open for his ministrations.
He cleaned me out. Left me to my own devices to clean up.
Told me not to bother dressing.
To meet him in the playroom.
For a long time I sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the brand object to even the tepid water it had been exposed to. A towel was wound so tight around me I could feel my pulse beating hard where it dug in under my arms.
A dozen times I started to go for my clothes.
The thirteenth time I got up I left the towel over the back of the chair and walked into the playroom.
44
Cole
She came into the playroom.
Naked.
Thank everything holy.
45
Annie
"May I know what you mean to do, Sir?"
"No."
"Sir?"
"Be silent."
He wasn't the Cole who had raced me on other mornings, running through the desert. He wasn't the Cole who had caught me in his arms and held me as I ran from Bevington's house. He wasn't the one who punished me, tying me to benches and using canes on me until I screamed. He wasn't the Cole St. Martin I had known at the beginning, the one who auctioned me off to raise money to fight sex trafficking. Money he could have simply donated.
He liked the irony.
He had hated the effects, when Kie and her Master got their hooks into me, took me to Paris and hurt me severely.
This was the sadist I rarely truly saw, the one concentrating on every step he took, enjoying what he did and giving no quarter to the masochist who rethought every fantasy, every lustful, hopeful thought.
He took my hand, not unkindly, and led me to the middle of the room where chains hung down. Leather restraints hung at the end of them and I found myself panting, repeating that this was different. There was no Evie. It was possible there truly was no Bevington any more.
I couldn't bring myself to care.
There was no Joseph.
I was safe here.
But bile rose in my throat when he pulled my left hand up to the first cuff. I didn't speak, only swallowed loudly again and again, and Cole waited, the sadistic gleam on his features. He liked that I was that scared and that scared me more.
What if he'd changed while I was gone?
What if he'd changed since I'd returned? Because I'd returned? Because I had returned and he could see how ruined I was.
He buckled the other wrist into the restraint. He cuffed my ankles and pulled my legs apart, cuffing them so my arms pulled up tight and I was bent forward at the waist.
He wrapped a white silk scarf over my eyes and nose so I breathed through my mouth and so I could still see light, but not what was happening.
He said, "Red?"
I swallowed. My throat closed up. It took a minute before I could say, "No. Sir."
He moved away from me then, behind me, and I remembered saying in the hospital that I could feel him looking at my ass. He was again, looking at my ass and everything between my legs, displayed for him. He could circle round, quiet on stealthy feet, and look at my heaving breasts as I struggled not to panic.
He could do anything he wanted.
Because I had chosen to surrender to him.
The knowledge didn't help. I was struggling to breathe right when the fist cane strike
snapped hard against my uninjured left side.
And nowhere else.
Cole was an expert. His strikes went where he directed them. He laddered my left side, then took the cane across the tops of my thighs, making me struggle and thrash, sucking air, determined to stay silent. Whatever he'd planned, it would be more than this, but he was starting with caning, the thing I hated the most, the hardest thing to take, the bite and pause and then the explosive aching fiery pain.
Out of the whiteness, he asked, "Are you Annie?"
I didn't answer. He'd told me not to speak.
His voice again, accompanied by another wicked cut of the cane. "Are you Lily?"
I moaned. Softly. So softly.
"Are you Erin?"
I didn't answer.
He hit me again, repeating strikes, going up and down my legs, carefully only hitting the left cheek but with so much control and so much force, jolting my body.
Jolting my mind.
"Are you ERIN?"
Half a dozen strikes before I could process them and I heard him through the cane down and move up behind me. He dragged my hips to him and plunged his erection into my sex. He took up a rhythm that left me swaying, panicking, holding on for dear life to the chains that the cuffs were attached to.
Until I heard him say, Let go.
My fingers were rigid, curled there. Locked.
Annie.
Let go.
I've got you.
I've got you.
"I've got you."
He came inside me and my own orgasm thundered through me, leaving me too weak to stand without him. Without the chains that kept me safe.
Without Cole's hands on me.
Something broke. What I thought had broken before hadn't. This time, truly, something broke. I howled, sobbing, the white scarf darkening as I drenched it, then a lightness and coolness as it was lifted away and Cole held my face between his palms.
I realized I could see again, that my eyes were open and I was looking at his face, at the merest hint of mischief in his eyes, though he wasn't smiling his triangular grin. Not yet.