“Yes, please,” she managed.
“Yes please, sir,” he amended.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
He nodded. “As to the fruit, the first few bites were free. But now you have to pay for it.” He yanked at her arm, hauling her roughly to her feet.
A surge of terror shot through Julianna’s veins. Stephen continued, “For each additional piece of fruit, you will receive one stroke of the cane. Assume an at-attention position, hands behind your head.”
Julianna’s eyes darted with fear toward the sticks the guards held in their hands. Canes! Both men were watching her, strong arms crossed over their chests, their faces impassive. One of them had a length of sturdy chain slung over his shoulder.
“I’m—I’m not hungry…sir.”
“Don’t lie. Not that it matters. You’ll do as you’re told. You’re going to eat the fruit, and you’re going to take the cane. Pleasure or pain—it makes no difference. You serve at the pleasure of your Master, no matter what form that pleasure for him takes.” He caressed her right breast as he said this, rolling the nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
With a cry, Julianna jerked back from his touch.
“That just cost you five extra strokes, thirty-eight. Do it again and it’s another ten.”
Julianna squeezed her eyes shut as he handled her other nipple, pulling and twisting it erect. “Open your eyes,” he ordered. She did, but suddenly found herself unable to contain the rage behind the fear. If looks could kill, he would have dropped to the ground, his heart stopping before he hit.
He slapped her face twice, once on each cheek. She waited for the barrage of fury sure to follow, but to her surprise he smiled, though his eyes were cruel. “A redheaded spitfire. You can tremble and cry all you like. Don’t think I don’t see the fire. You might suppose I want to douse it, but I don’t.”
He shook his head, stroking her hot, stinging cheek with the back of two fingers. “No, we’ll keep the flame burning, but simply redirect it, channeling it into the constant lust that befits a sex slave.” His hand moved down her torso and he cupped her pussy. Julianna gasped but held her ground, too afraid of his earlier threat to pull away.
He pushed a hard finger into her dry opening and she drew in a sharp breath, hating him. He leaned close, his stale breath hitting her as he wiggled his disgusting finger inside her. She forced herself to stay still, pressing her lips together to keep from screaming.
Finally letting his hand drop, Stephen stepped back and turned toward the men still standing in the doorway.
“Gentlemen, the canes.”
The men entered the small hut. As they approached, Julianna’s every instinct told her to run, but there was nowhere to go. One of the men grabbed her wrists and held them together while he wrapped a single, thick cuff with a D ring on the outside of it around them, pulling it tight with a Velcro strap. He pulled the chain from his shoulder and threaded it over one of the wooden beams in the low ceiling. He attached one end of a clip to the D ring on the cuff and the other to the chain hanging from the ceiling, which had the effect of forcing Julianna up on tiptoe.
When she started to close her legs to adjust to the tension and lower her feet, Stephen kicked at her ankles. “Legs apart!” Julianna was literally panting with fear. The dizziness that assailed her once again wasn’t only the result of hunger.
“Open your mouth.” Stephen pushed his fingers between her lips, dropping a slice of banana on her tongue. Despite her predicament, Julianna savored the fruit, chewing it as slowly as she could.
The guards were standing behind her, out of her line of vision. She saw Stephen nod and then the cane cut through the air and made contact with her ass with a whistling thwack. The pain was far more intense than the flogging the day before. As the seconds passed, it hurt more, not less, a line of burning fire that hurtled through her nerve endings to her brain and erupted from her mouth as a scream. Instinctively, she slammed her legs together. Just as quickly, Stephen kicked them apart.
Stephen held a piece of mango close to her lips. She opened her mouth, the flavor exploding on her tongue as the cane landed on her ass, its stroke just as hard as the first.
Food and then the cane, pleasure and then the pain, over and over, punctuated by her cries, muffled in the seconds when the fruit was dispensed.
“Time for the extra five.” She barely heard the words, but she felt the strike of fire, slicing over her ass and thighs and heard the sound of her own screams. She began to pant, unable to fill her lungs, a gray film obscuring her vision…
Julianna opened her eyes, for a moment completely disoriented. She felt the weight at her shackled wrists and realized it was her own body, sagging heavily against them. Her face was damp and felt flushed, and rivulets of sweat rolled down her sides and between her breasts. Her ass and thighs were stinging and burning and she groaned in pain.
“You fainted.” Stephen was still standing in front of her, the now-empty bowl of fruit cradled against his chest. “We’ll build up your tolerance, once you’re in the slave quarters.”
He spoke so matter-of-factly, sending a chill down Julianna’s spine. He nodded toward the men, who proceeded to unhook her from the chain and remove the cuff from her wrists. She sank to her knees, clutching at her stomach, which was cramping painfully from the fruit after no food for two days.
“Thank me and the boys for your training. That’s another rule to get into that pretty head of yours. Whatever is done to you, whether you’re in training, or a guard is just using you for his pleasure, you will thank them by kneeling and kissing their foot and saying the words, ‘Thank you, sir, for using this worthless slave.’”
Julianna stared at Stephen. She would rather eat dirt than kiss that bastard’s foot. As to thanking his thugs for beating her—fuck that! He was watching her face, his eyes narrowing and his expression darkening.
Just do it, an urgent voice whispered in her head. You took the caning. Do what he says and maybe they’ll leave. Her gut was roiling now. She needed to relieve herself and she was damned if she’d do it in front of these dreadful men.
She bent forward, touching her lips to Stephen’s dusty sandal. “Thank you, sir…” The words stuck in her throat but she forced them out. “… for using this slave.”
“This worthless slave,” he corrected.
“This worthless slave,” she repeated through clenched teeth.
Turning, she repeated the process with the two men, brushing her lips over their heavy black boots. Slowly she knelt back up. Stephen was watching her. “Your position. Assume a kneeling, at-attention position after you offer your thanks.”
Hoping she understood him correctly, Julianna knelt back on her haunches, trying to hold herself so her ass barely grazed her heels, the tender skin still throbbing from the caning. Shaking back her hair, she lifted her arms and locked her fingers behind her head. She gazed straight ahead, fervently wishing Stephen and his henchmen would suddenly disappear in a burst of flame, or better yet, that she’d awaken from this horrible nightmare.
Instead Stephen gestured to the men, jerking his head toward the door. They walked out of the hut, but remained just outside the open door. Stephen turned to Julianna. “Who are you?”
Julianna drew a breath. “Number thirty-eight.”
He struck her cheek and she instinctively reached for her face with a cry. He struck her again. “Back into position! Never fall out of position. Now we’ll try it again. And this time address me properly!”
With tears in her eyes, Julianna managed to reassume the position, hands behind her head. “Who are you?” he said again.
“Number thirty-eight…sir.”
“That’s correct. And what are you?”
Julianna stared at him blankly. Had he told her this? What she was, or rather, what he wanted her to say she was? She racked her brain, and could recall nothing about this. He was watching her, his eyes hard, his mouth curving into a cruel smile. He lifted hi
s hand and suddenly she remembered and said breathlessly, “A worthless slave, sir!”
His hand dropped to his side. “That’s right. Right now all you are is a worthless slave. But we will teach you, number thirty-eight. You will be stripped of your modesty and your pride. You will learn to serve in ways that never even crossed your innocent, narrow little mind. We will mold you until you are no longer worthless, but very valuable indeed. You will become a sex slave, a pain slut, an eager whore. I’ll teach you all about the masochistic pleasure of a thorough whipping while your Master’s cock is shoved down your pretty little throat.
“In the final stage of your training, you will do more than merely submit. You will come to embrace your new status. You will live for your orgasm. You will die inside each time you disappoint, and you will pay the consequences, rest assured. You will exalt in your degradation, and thank us for each and every new humiliation.”
He stared down at her, a fire behind his eyes. “Not only that, you will mean it. It is that sincerity I seek. That sincerity I demand. It is not enough to merely go through the motions, pretending to be obedient, while inside your defiance rages.”
Julianna looked down at hearing these words, wondering if her expression had given her away. Stephen laughed softly. “Not only is your body—every inch, every hole—now in our possession, but your mind is as well. I will break you down, number thirty-eight, not to destroy you, but to build you back into something worth a great deal to men willing to pay for it.”
He put his finger under her chin, forcing her to look up. “I am not easy to fool. I will know when you have truly succumbed to my power, and accepted and embraced your new role as slave. Then, and only then, will you be ready for sale. How long we keep you here, and where you ultimately end up, is up to you.”
He moved behind her. “Stand up. Let me see the welts.” Julianna rose unsteadily to her feet, forcing herself to get into position. Mercifully, the cramps in her gut had eased somewhat. Stephen ran a finger along one welt, his touch rough against the tender skin. He put his mouth close to her ear. “This is nothing, number thirty-eight, nothing to the beating you will receive if you try to defy or disobey me or any of the trainers or guards.”
He moved back to face her. “This is a business. Time is money. If I decide you’re taking too long to make the transition, then instead of finding yourself in the palace of some Middle Eastern sheik, or the country estate of some British Earl, you will be sold to pimps who will whore you out to any taker with a wad of cash stuffed in their pants. You’ll be lucky if you live out the year in their clutches.”
Julianna’s legs gave out and she sank to the floor. She felt too weak and frightened to move. Stephen continued above her, “I trust you’ve learned your lesson, number thirty-eight. Don’t prove me wrong.”
She heard the door close and the piece of wood that kept her locked in being dropped into place but she didn’t move. Only when she heard the vehicle engine start up and then fade away did she lift her head and push herself upright.
She looked around the small hut, hardly able to believe this was really happening, though the welts on her ass and thighs felt all too real. She stood slowly, glad that the dizziness caused from hunger had abated, though the stomachache she’d traded for it wasn’t much better.
She touched the abraded lines that crisscrossed her skin. Twisting back, she tried to see the damage. She was shocked to see the dark red lines and began to feel faint again. At the same time, her damn intestines were acting up, and she knew she’d have no choice but to use the bucket.
She’d had to pee during the night, and had torn a piece of the now useless dress to use as toilet paper. Moving toward the cot, she tore another piece of the gauzy fabric and took it with her to the waste bucket, dreading the thought of having to squat and defecate over it.
She placed a leg on either side of the bucket and lowered herself, careful not to touch it as she willed her bowels to release and ease the painful cramps. She glanced at the camera in the ceiling, her face turning hot at the thought of some creep watching her, but she had no choice. Her bodily needs finally won out over her embarrassment. She wiped herself as best she could and dropped the soiled piece of fabric into the bucket. She draped the remainder of the dress over the bucket, though it did little to block the stink in the small, windowless hut.
She moved back to the cot and lay down on her stomach, trying not to dwell on what new horrors lay in her future. To think, only a few days before she’d thought that finally something good was happening, that her luck was turning around. What a joke. She’d been set up from start to finish. This whole thing was organized, funded and executed with cold precision and detachment. A business, Stephen had said, that dealt in slave trafficking.
Not only that, they intended to brainwash her. She was no longer Julianna Beckett. She was a number, an object, to be molded, sold, used and discarded. She shivered, though the room was warm, and rolled to her side, hugging herself.
“You are not a number,” she said softly, the microphones be damned. “You are Julianna Beckett, daughter of Emily Anne Beckett, and you will survive this.”
Emily Anne…the proud, strong woman who had raised her daughter alone, always her protector and later as Julianna matured, her friend as well. And then last year the cancer hit, striking like a snake, sinking its venomous fangs fatally into her. Mother became daughter as Emily was left as weak, bald and helpless as a baby, ravaged by both the cancer and its treatment. Yet even through it all, her mother’s spirit never wavered.
Don’t let them break your spirit, Alma had whispered. Julianna could hear her mother’s voice in her head, echoing these words.
Julianna would fight. She had no weapons and she was a prisoner on this tiny island in the middle of nowhere, with no apparent way out. Nevertheless, she wouldn’t give up. She would fight, with stealth and cunning, until she found a way to escape. There was no other tenable choice.
The idea of being subjugated, her free will denied, her liberty stolen, her very essence as a human being erased, was simply not an option. She would get away, come hell or high water. She would do it for Emily.
She would do it for herself.
Chapter 4
Julianna was lying on her cot when they came through the door. She sat up and hunched her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as the two guards who had beaten her came into the hut. She tensed, terrified it was going to happen again.
“Get up. It’s time to go,” one of them said in English, though his accent sounded Spanish. She was at once relieved and anxious. What new torture awaited her? The man who spoke was swarthy, with black eyes, a broad nose and very tan skin. The other man had fairer skin, dusted with freckles, his hair a rusty red. He had a pointy nose and chin, and reminded her of a fox.
So, you can talk, she wanted to say, but didn’t. No point in antagonizing the men who had beaten her twice and had been given the right to rape her. She stood nervously, covering her body awkwardly with her arms, though neither man seemed to look at her with much interest.
The dark man, who she dubbed the Spaniard in her head, produced two sets of Velcro cuffs with clips attached. He placed them on her wrists and ankles, securing the wrist cuffs behind her back. The other man, the one she would call Fox, attached a short piece of chain between the ankle cuffs, hobbling her but leaving enough room to walk.
They led her out of the hot, stinking hut and Julianna breathed deeply, grateful to be in the open air. “Where are you taking me?” she dared.
“Slave quarters,” the Spaniard replied tersely. They placed her between them on the ATV and drove toward the center of the island, stopping in front of the barracks she had seen before. As they took her from the vehicle, she couldn’t stop trembling.
They led her through a door on the side of the building and entered a long, narrow corridor with barred cells along either side. Julianna looked to her right and left as she was hustled down the hall. She counted eight c
ells, four on each side. Each had a mattress set in an iron frame and a toilet in the corner. In three of the cells she saw naked women, each curled on her bed, apparently asleep. They all had thick leather collars around their necks, with a chain running from the collar to the iron leg of the bedstead. One of them was facing the wall as she slept, and Julianna saw that her back and ass were covered with long, thin red welts much like the ones now fading on her own body.
She jumped and drew in her breath sharply at the sound of a woman’s screams somewhere farther down the corridor. Neither the Spaniard nor Fox seemed to notice, or if they did, they ignored it. They led her past the cells to a much larger area that had three showerheads set into the wall, and two long, thick black hoses coiled beneath them. There were drains in the floor and Julianna realized it was some kind of communal shower.
She expected to be told to shower. She knew she stank from sweat and being confined in that stifling, rank space for so many hours, and her hair was a tangled mess. She longed for the fresh, clean water and the feel of soap lathering on her skin.
But instead of leading her to the showers, the men led her to the adjoining wall. It had eyebolts of varying sizes and thicknesses embedded into it. Fox released the clips that held her arms behind her but then re-clipped them together in front of her. He raised her wrists and attached the clips to one of the bolts. Reaching down, he removed the cuffs and chain from her ankles and set them aside.
“What are you doing? Please, don’t hurt me.”
Neither man responded. They both went to a large table with supplies on it and put on thick rubber aprons. Fox moved toward the wall and picked up one of the coiled black hoses. The Spaniard selected a scrub brush with a long handle from the supply table. He squeezed a generous amount of liquid soap onto it.
Fox pressed the handle of the metal nozzle at the end of the hose and water began to spray from it, and Julianna understood she was to be hosed down again. Fox turned the jet of water on her. It was cold and she gasped, sputtered and twisted as the water sprayed over her body and face.
Dark Obsessions - Volume I: Four Intense Capture Fantasies in One Sizzling Collection Page 4