For all of a minute he studied me, up and down, his lips almost a sneer, his hands landing on my hips. He ripped his hands down my thighs, scratching me and tearing the sides of my underwear. He dropped the panties without looking where they landed, then stood and hauled me across the dark rug until we were within the framework of piping.
“Hands high.”
I snagged lip in teeth.
“I’m tying you. Defying me, Red?”
My arms rose before I could think. As expected, my body betrayed me.
“A pity,” he said softly. “I hoped to see more fire from you.”
“Give me a gun,” I edged the words out from between teeth. “I’ll show you fire.”
“There it is! Fire and spit. Another day, Red. I need to see you make cute noises tonight.”
With rope and chain, he attached my wrists to either side of the framework, then pulled the ropes taut. My arms stretched out until my muscles hurt and I squeaked.
“First noise.” He locked the knots, stalked back to the metal tray, and found a pair of scissors that might’ve doubled as a knife. The ends narrowed to a fine point.
Isak returned and began to cut off my clothes.
With my arms locked outward, there was nowhere for me to escape to, though I danced on tiptoe. Fear, there was trembling and fear. How could there not be?
Shreds of cloth were scattered, tossed, paving the air and the rug in scraps and threads of red.
His breathing harshened, turning to snarls. His bare feet slapped the floor as he maneuvered, attacking it the same as he attacked me.
By the end I was naked and panting as harshly as he, my skin blotched and bruised, etched with small scratches, some of them leaking blood. A dribble curled across my stomach and into my navel. He’d not been careful.
By his sides, his fists clenched into hard balls, fingers whitening and reddening as he tensed, relaxed, tensed.
I dared to voice a whisper. “What did I do?”
“You’re fucking perfect. That’s what.
“And broken...
“Broken and perfect. Exactly what the monster needs.”
CHAPTER 8
I circumnavigated her, this thing I didn’t want to touch with cock.
All tied and waiting. My restraint was limited not limitless.
“The suppleness of muscle, of form and flexibility.”
I circled her and let my hand trail around her in a spiral.
Her muscles moved.
“A broken normal?
“There is poetry.
“Is she made of sounds or thoughts or fucking?
“I want to see...Vitor. I want to goddamned see.
“What a broken human is made of when we get her to spill herself on the floor.
“Fuck with the sticks,
“Fill her holes.”
“Yes, sir.” Vitor approached, efficient and solid, retrieving two sticks off the sofa as he passed the pile. Prepared, we assembled prepared. Never knew what might strike a man as fun.
“Good, man.”
Her eyes were wild, darting about, until she braved me and stared.
“Why are you talking like that?”
“How...am I talking?” I smiled.
“All...broken.”
“Because.” I cupped and crushed her jaw in my hand. Her lips smooshed in. A girl made of soft dough. “I’m the monster and I’m a poet. He hasn’t sated me. He’s left me dry too long. Sometimes I swan about and leave him gathering dust.”
I did a skip, a twirl, a plié.
And ended before her. Bowed.
“Like a ballerina. I am contrite that I confused you, but...
You’re still getting stuffed.
I’m going to make you come and come, while they do too.” I waved, wrist circling in the direction of the currently fucked girls.
Vitor wedged a stick beneath her and I picked her up and let her slide down onto it. In pussy, I thought, from her expression. From her gaping and choking, from her litany of no, no, no, from her squirming.
“Lucky for you...” I leaned in, nipped her nose, her mouth. “These ones are rounded. One day I might use points. Wait, Vitor. Tsk. The man is eager to use the next bit of torture.” I stripped off my clothes, kicked them aside. “Now. Do her ass.” I held her again, while she panted and wriggled and squealed, while he wiggled in the stick. “You scream good. For a girl.”
“You don’t fucking scare me.”
But she said it quietly. “But I do.” I knew she was lying. “Close your eyes unless I let you open them.”
Nothing was novel about tonight. Except that I held her almost sacrosanct. I touched her and made her writhe. Ran my hands down her slippery breasts, in her sucking mouth, played with the sweat on her butt, and I went to my knees...
I sucked on her, let Vitor fuck her ass after all. The others, hyped on Viagra, happily fucked the girls together in mouth and ass and cunt. They spewed their cum on Red and on the others. Messing the rug and the girls. I made her come until she sweated and drooled, dripped her own cunt juice as well as saliva and sweat and semen. Until some of her was white, some of her pink, some red. I let a few fuck her ass. Made her cry with orgasms until her legs wobbled then collapsed.
Fun.
But I didn’t touch her with my cock. The twist of will from my other half held me in its bonds. We had our tacit agreement which never had been spoken or written because it couldn’t be, and it held. For now.
Disgusted at my restraint, I violently fucked the girlfriend of the mayor’s daughter. My newest collectible. Her pretty chestnut hair swished like a medusa’s. Her tits bobbed up and down as her cunt gobbled my cock. Another brain-dead girl. No spite, no vivacity.
Red, though, my perfect Red, the last drip, the last spurt was hers.
This dreg of a fucked girl opened her eyes to me jacking off over her.
She resembled her old picture now.
I kneeled over her entangled body, where we’d wrapped the other girls around her for one last en-masse fuck. I squeezed my fist down the huge erection I still carried. One mistake and I’d be justified.
Broken girl?
Not broken enough.
What if I could keep her sane and aware forever? What if I kept her...
Or, better. What if I had an unending source of new Reds?
She was my key.
One mistake and I’d be out there, free.
I rose to my full height and stretched to the ceiling, knees popping, muscles strong, fingers finding a dangling rope.
I would be bad for the world.
I knew it.
He chose then to merge into me, and we both knew the same thing, and how I was sorry for what I’d done, to her.
Sort of.
Nothing was ever clear. We wiffle-waffled. Was I him or he me? Were we one or two?
Damn, the world was complicated.
I walked outside, down the steps, and into the sea, the black sea, let it froth all cold and remorseless around my thighs. Let it wash me clean. If I killed myself it would be moot, this struggle.
The sky threw down rain upon me, tapping on my upturned face.
As I trudged up the beach, crabs scuttled away, waving pincers, and I chose not to step on any. Small, guiltless creatures. I plucked a flower from the dunes. Purple, from memory. The night rendered it colorless. An owl hooted, drifted past the moon. Naked, I pulled myself up onto the hood of one of the cars and surveyed the distant horizon where it crashed and burned with white lightning. I swept away the sodden strands of hair where they fell against my cheeks.
The car metal drummed with hard rain.
Killing myself...
Where would be the fun in that?
I could still remember the last drop of my cum splattering her face and how she bucked against my tongue as she came and came, as Vitor screwed her deep.
I twirled the flower between finger and thumb. Such a soft, pretty creation.
Some things were mean
t to be.
One mistake was all I needed...I couldn’t see the indentations of the key in her head, but one mistake...surely that would do it.
I mustn’t. Must I? I was selling her.
Oh what a messy web we weave.
CHAPTER 9
He was nowhere near me and I was a limp mess of human on the bed in his room. Since I’d been delivered like some raw delicacy to the men, mostly blind, swept under the surface of reality and aware only by his will, I only remembered some of what had happened.
He’d let me see, a few times. Let me think.
A twenty-something-year-old with bright chestnut hair all in cute curls, being screwed at both ends while tied to the scaffolding. Another on the floor, hogtied and rolled this way and that for their pleasure. He’d let someone else take me while he hovered, mean as death, with his absorption in me showing even when he fucked someone else. I’d been fucked while I stood over that stick, praying it wouldn’t penetrate too far and mutilate my insides. He’d had steel and glitter in his eyes, especially when he’d made me orgasm. I hurt in so many places that merely slipping from bed to floor had me gasping.
I had a purpose though.
Washed, collared, and leashed, but he hadn’t attached me to the bed. I was free to roam this room.
My wet hair swayed before my eyes as I studied the shadowy room for the tenth time. There definitely was no-one else here. I dare not stand in case someone on the deck noticed me. The doors were open and Isak had gone somewhere unknown. Vitor might be out there, though.
He hadn’t bothered banning me from many things, too confident for his own good. I guess I had looked exhausted. I was. Even on hands and knees I trembled with fatigue.
Awake and reasoning, and I saw my chance.
The capsules tempted me beyond all possibility of resistance. I crawled to the desk and slid out the drawer he kept them in. By feel, I punched out a few then sneaked back to the bed and hid them underneath. If he found out they were missing or someone vacuumed the room, I’d lose my opportunity, maybe forever. Chances must be taken or I’d never escape. Whatever, whoever he meant to sell me to, they’d be no better than him.
And I knew he meant to. He’d said it, in the other room.
“The cartel I sold her to only cares she’s CIA. They like the idea of playing with her.”
“Thought you wanted her?”
“I do but she’s a key I can’t afford to keep.”
“A key?”
“A dangerous one.”
Those voices had spoken above me. That must’ve been after, while I lay on the floor in a slutty heap. No, not a slut. I hadn’t volunteered. That’d been their label, not mine.
Not my fault. Any of this.
There’d been whispers too, ones I’d lost the meaning of. Those whispers of his haunted my dreams like spiders spinning webs in the dark.
CHAPTER 10
Was he completely mad? I eyed him over the rim of my champagne glass. He laughed, sharing some joke. I didn’t think I would ever know for sure what he was. The mesmer infection affected him but was that true insanity?
He’d danced around me like some petite ballerina then ordered his men to fuck everything, including me. Not being able to stop myself coming when he...arranged it to be so, was what hammered home the depravity. To find joy when others suffered. Vile.
Not my fault, I kept telling myself.
And I’d suffered as much as the others.
Maybe I’d finally weasled my fingers into that crack, that weakness in his psyche?
I’d palmed the capsules and brought them to this table. All around me men and women ate and drank. A banquet of food that I was too sick with anxiety to enjoy. His overbearing will only touched me lightly and he sat beside me, facing the other long table. So many people all seemingly happy and scoffing down food and wine. Why were we here? What was he celebrating?
His wine held more than wine. It had been my goblet but I’d held it below the table, opened my palm above. Praying no one would see what I did, I’d let the powder sprinkle onto the liquid and sift into the bubbles. Then I’d switched the glasses. Three capsules were dissolved in there.
If he found out, I might be dead soon.
If the drug worked, after all these years, what would it do to him? Would a normal Isak be kind to me, free me, before the drug wore off? It was my hope.
I didn’t even know if the drug was past expiry, or the correct dose. My stomach roiled with nausea. I swallowed bile when Vitor eyed me, as he forked meat into his mouth. Sometimes that man, who was supposed to be Isak’s conscience, and what the fuck was that, scared me more than Isak.
The people around me seemed almost normal. I hadn’t spotted any of the zombie girls he routinely fucked. If they were normal people, unrelated to Isak’s sexual perversity, I still couldn’t say anything about being his captive, about being held here immorally, if not illegally. I’d tried over the years, many times, my brain would not allow my tongue to say it.
That was one of the most mind-wrecking influences he had on me – that I couldn’t discuss anything with others. A psychiatrist would have fun with what was inside my head.
Isak turned, and took my hand, caressing it as he liked to. The radiating warmth of his body was enough to make me cringe internally. He wore a casual, tan shirt, and dark pants. I found myself staring at the small, ivory-colored buttons.
His fingers clicked. “Up here. Eyes, Red.”
I met his eyes. Drink, man. Please drink.
Around us people kept talking – gardening, the weather, who was screwing who, maybe. I didn’t listen, my attention wholly on this man.
He began to speak, the rolling low timbre of his words distracted me for a few seconds, then I understood what he asked. “The next argument of yours, girl? Why is this wrong? I’m selling you tomorrow.”
He swallowed. Oh god. How long before it worked?
Would I see a difference?
“Speak. Give me two reasons. You have one tick so far. Majority wins.” He winked.
Wins what? “You’re selling me to someone who wants to torture a CIA agent. How can I win?”
“No I’m not.” The frown seemed to say it was a truth he believed. That was impossible. I’d heard him say this.
“Who then?”
His hand arrived under my jaw, stroking the length of the bone. Such a large hand. I’d often felt its heaviness. Even if he wasn’t able to make me kneel for him and surrender my neck to his grasp, or lick his boots, those hands would still make me afraid.
“A cartel member, yes, but he just wants you for a sexual partner. He’ll harm you less than I might.” His finger tapped his glass. “The things I’d do. But I keep myself as good as I can.”
I was his key and he wanted the key far away. Or so he’d said. He said so many contradictory things. “What you let the others do to me last night wasn’t bad? Jesus.” I sighed.
Silence. His face barely changed but it was enough for me to see a hint of puzzlement, maybe even fear. Fear, in him?
I began to wonder if he remembered what he’d let them do. And if not...that bothered me. Did he not know what his monster did when he allowed it out? Was it him and was he it? Or were they two halves that barely met?
Fuck.
“You’re avoiding what I asked. Answer. Argue your side. Convince me I’m wrong to have taken you.”
“It’s bad for you,” I blurted.
“Go on.”
“You’ve been made into this monster, locked yourself away from society. You could have done so much good by living as a normal man.”
Another swallow of wine went down and I tried not to look at his throat.
“The only expert on that is me. I think I prefer this. I have years left to live and as a mesmer, I have powers. I have acquired money, friends.” His smile stilled my heart. Keep beating, keep beating. “Lovers. Before I was a lowly potential lawyer with a life in ruins after my fiancée dumped me. I like what happened
, but I’ll award you a half tick. Fair?”
I nodded. Did he truly believe he liked himself as he was now? Maybe that was his monster speaking through him? Who was the real Isak and could he come back if drugged? Soon, I might find out.
“Give me another argument. The night grows old. Maybe we can all fuck you in a conga line if you get this one wrong?”
The man to my right laughed. He’d heard. They couldn’t be innocents.
“It’s bad for me then.” So true.
“Is it now?” Isak picked up a sharp knife, one smeared with food, positioned it point down over the white tablecloth and spun it, slowly. “Tell me more.”
“I could be normal, doing my job, happy.”
“But a mesmer can make you very happy. True? Have you ever climaxed like you did when I handled you.”
Blushing should be impossible after everything, yet my cheeks heated. “No. Life is more than orgasms, sex.”
“But that is a primary need of humans – sex. Agree?”
I wanted to deny everything he said, couldn’t. “Yes. You can’t deny the other things in life are important too.”
“Such as?” For once his focus seemed less fierce.
“Family, friends, being happy with simply being somewhere wonderful. Helping others.” It was difficult giving a summary of life on the spot.
“I see.” Yes, his eyes were gentler. Perhaps the drug was working. “I’ll give you another half tick. Two out of four. So, it’s a draw. Tell me about your family.”
“I...can’t.” Wouldn’t. As if. He hadn’t made this a command. I could feel the difference, always.
“Pick another topic then.”
I blinked.
“The Incans. Football. Politics in Ireland. I don’t care. Pets.”
Bizarre. How strange to have a conversation with him, but this was better than being poked or mocked or made to do almost anything else he’d wanted me to. I ventured conversation about animals, and we talked, until dessert was eaten and he’d drunk the champagne. I was a little drunk myself.
Hope was rearing its head.
He’d swallowed every drop.
“I have to do this...” Isak stood, his chair grating across the floor as he pushed it back. “I have an announcement!”
The Book of Red: ISAK & Red and bonus prequel Used Page 5