by Drew Jordan
I wondered if my name was a good fit for me. Probably. It was a babydoll name. The name of someone you didn’t particularly take seriously, though you were fond of her. And didn’t he call me doll? Maybe he was right.
When he came back with four dogs on harnesses they ran right up to me. “Can I pet them?” I asked, already reaching my hand out.
“Sure. This is Royce, Colonel, Zeke, and Bourbon.” He pointed them out one by one, but I couldn’t tell who was who as they were all tumbling over each other to greet me, licking my face and panting.
I laughed, freely, rubbing fur and heads, enjoying their enthusiasm. “Hi, guys, it’s so nice to meet you.”
“I think they’re confused. They’ve never smelled a woman before.”
“They can’t possibly smell anything but fish.” The whole air stunk like salmon.
“I can smell you.”
My head snapped up. “What do you mean?” I couldn’t smell good. I hadn’t had a shower in three days.
His hair fell over his face as he leaned forward to jerk the dogs back, firmly but gently. “I mean, I can smell you. Your skin. Your hair.”
If he had stopped there, I would have been pleased, aroused. But he didn’t. He didn’t ever seem to stop when I thought that he would.
“Your pussy.”
At moments like that, I couldn’t decide if he was sexy or disturbing. My body had already made its decision. My head wasn’t so sure.
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment,” I said.
“I’m not sure it was meant to be one.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “You should have worn a hat. Your ears are cold.”
“You’re right.”
“Wait here and I’ll come back for you.”
I grabbed his arm as he went to turn away. “You will, won’t you?” My heart pounded at the thought of being abandoned, left outside for an undetermined amount of time. I could walk back to the cabin if I really had to. It wasn’t that far. But I was afraid even with that short of a distance, I’d get lost. Or stumble across a bear.
“I’ll come back for you. I wouldn’t save you to let you be left behind now, would I?”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” I murmured. “People change their minds all the time. They care. Then they don’t.”
I was thinking about my mother. About Eric. About my best friend in grade school who decided I could no longer sit at the table in the cafeteria with her because I wasn’t cool enough and boys didn’t like me.
All those hurts, slights, rejections we experience in a lifetime, amassed over time that scrape away at innocence, trust, confidence. Like an ice scraper on a windshield, they chipped away until we were clear, smooth glass and emotion skated across the surface, no one able to get in, us not able to get out.
“I don’t change my mind,” he said. “And I finish everything I start.”
It wasn’t what I wanted, not exactly. But I sat there, watching him head toward the cabin on the sled, his voice occasionally calling out to the dogs. I sat on the boat, cold, hunched over, and waited.
What was I waiting for?
Him to tell me what to do.
Finish what he had started.
He wasn’t gone long, not even long enough for my fingers to go totally numb, but it felt like forever. I said nothing, stupidly glad to see him as he rode up to me, his grip on the sled steady, his hair being kicked around by a breeze. He said nothing. Just put me into the sled, setting me where the fish had been, and I held the sides as we bumped and flew up the bank back to the yard. The dogs seemed to love the exercise and I loved watching them. For the first time, I could actually see the appeal of this lifestyle. Of being isolated from the noisy world of consumerism, electronics, social media. The world news.
The stranger was a man alone in his world with nothing but his dogs and there was something very peaceful about it, even if nature was actually in and of itself very violent. I stared down at the remains of the fish haul, a watery, reddish, slimy sheen across the bottom of the sled. I remembered the weight of the hook in my hand. The way it sank into the fish flesh. I heard the boom of the shotgun as he pulled the trigger. The bear’s heavy body, down on the snow.
The flanks and carcasses dangling in the air from his platform, like macabre piñatas.
No. Not peaceful at all.
In the cabin, we kicked off boots and I moved toward the stove. The fire was down to almost nothing. I opened the door to feed it, but he came up behind me.
“It’s fifty degrees outside. I don’t think we need a roaring fire just yet. Wait until dark.” He pulled my hair off my shoulder and kissed my neck. “I’ll keep you warm.”
“With stew? Coffee?” I asked then wondered why I played the innocent. Was that really appealing to men? That coy flirt? When we both knew that I knew exactly what he was talking about. The innocence was bullshit, a con veiled as flirtation. I had the doe-eyed look, and back home, I dressed like a child, but I was a woman. I knew things. I knew what he meant and I wasn’t sure how or why or who had trained me to pretend otherwise.
Or if it mattered one way or the other.
It was the game. The dance. I followed his lead. Hand out, I took it. This was our tango, him in control, planning the choreography. Me, his partner.
“Take your clothes off,” he told me. “Let me look at you.”
I did, without hesitation. Not quickly, but not strip tease style either. I just took my shirt off first then skimmed my pants down over my hips. It left me in just my bra which I saved for last, sliding it down my shoulders before standing in front of him naked. My ankle was bothering me and I focused on the throb deep in the tissue where foot met leg and let it ground me in the moment as I watched him. Waited.
The air caused the soft blond hairs on my arms to lift, my nipples to harden. Despite what he said, it was chilly. His eyes raked over me, his lips parted. His gaze was hungry. I dropped mine to his jeans. I could see the outline of his cock and I wanted to take charge, to drop to my knees, to pull the length of him out and into my mouth. It was how I always felt in control. I had never understood how that was considered such a subservient position for a woman. For me, it was when I felt powerful. But this was a different type of power. It required me to totally let go, to trust, in order to find out what I was capable of. So I stood still, my breathing slow, controlled. I didn’t feel like he would draw out my wait and I was right.
“Back up until you hit the wall and raise your arms.”
Glancing behind me to make sure I didn’t stumble on the floorboards, I did as he said, stopping short of the rough-hewn log walls. I didn’t relish the idea of my tender skin on splintery boards.
But he wasn’t having it. “All the way back.” He hadn’t moved. He was still by the stove, still fully dressed.
I took the final step backwards, recoiling a little at the sensation of cool wood, though it was smoother than I expected. Belatedly I realized I was supposed to raise my arms. I had them half up when he bent down, picking up some rope and tying an intricate knot. I paused to watch him throw it up over the beam that crossed the ceiling. Understanding dawned.
Quickly, I dropped my hands. “I don’t want to be tied standing up,” I said, though I wasn’t even sure why. It just sounded uncomfortable. The bed was one thing, the wall another.
“Do you have a choice?” he asked.
I did. Of course I did. “I don’t think I can,” I said, already hedging.
I wasn’t even sure why the concept bothered me. It hadn’t been upsetting to be left on his bed for an hour. But something felt… off. More intense. The coolness in his eyes had been replaced by a fiery excitement. For the first time I questioned if he were fully in control of himself.
He slid his hands down my arms, his mouth nuzzling into my neck tenderly. “Your skin is so soft. I could touch you forever.”
I stood still, confused by how quickly he’d shifted gears. I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me. But that was a stupid thought b
ecause he wanted whatever he wanted. That was all. Yet it still puzzled me why he didn’t just take me. I was in the perfect position for him to just thrust into me against the wall, and I wanted that. I understood that. This, I didn’t. His hands skimmed over my body, teasing my nipples, a finger sinking into my damp inner thighs. I spread my legs a little for him, rocking my hips. My eyes drifted closed as I allowed my body to awaken, respond to him. I wanted to come desperately. It would make this edgy confusion go away.
Just as I started to relax, his lips soft, his touch reassuring, worshipful, he yanked my arms up without warning.
“I want to string you up,” he said. “Let you hang in the ropes for me, so I can take a piece of you whenever I want like my other catches. I want to keep you safe, where no one else can touch you but me.”
The words penetrated slowly. “String me up…” I stiffened. “You want to lift me off the ground? No.”
But he already was. He had the ropes around the wrists firmly. Then he pulled the other end, wrapping it around his own wrist. My arms strained, drawing upwards in a way that wasn’t comfortable. My feet didn’t leave the floor, but I was on tiptoes. If he had a name, I could have used it sharply then, protested that I’d passed my comfort zone. But I didn’t know his name.
“I can do whatever I want, you know. You’re my kill.”
That made me panic. I started to jerk against the ropes, totally freaked out by his words. I hoped he just meant I was like the animals hanging in the yard, owned by him to taste when he wanted. That was disturbing enough. But what if he meant literally, to kill me? “I want to go. I want you to take me to town tomorrow. I don’t like this.”
Even as I said it though my traitorous body hummed as he dipped a finger inside and drew back out to attentively swirl over my clit. My breath quickened and I felt that inevitable build towards blissful, powerful release. I stilled, frightened by my own reaction.
“Not yet,” he murmured.
As I strained against his finger, against the ropes, against him, I wasn’t sure if he was telling me not to orgasm or that we couldn’t go to town yet. I pressed the issue. “Can we go to town tomorrow?” But my voice had no venom, no confidence. I was too distracted by the sensations he was drawing out of me, and I was afraid of him. Of all the things he could do to me. Of my own vulnerability.
The rope chafed, my calves strained. But everything in me felt centered on the core of my body, where he was coaxing me to release. To oblivion. It shouldn’t have been that intense, but I was overly stimulated. On the edge for days.
His free arm lifted me up off the floor. “Wrap your legs around me,” he commanded.
I realized he was going to give me his erection, finally, now of all times, here against the wall. So I did as he told me to, eagerly, forgetting why I wasn’t supposed to be okay with any of this.
My weight resting on him, back scraping the raw wood, arms going numb from being raised up, I gave a cry of deep, guttural pleasure when he thrust into me. He paused, me pinned to the wall, his eyes trained on mine. It reminded me of the first time I’d seen him, just days earlier, when I’d opened my eyes and smelled blood. Those blue eyes had arrested me, frightened me.
They did both again now.
He paused, buried deep inside me. I could feel the throb of his cock and I swallowed hard, hovering on the edge of orgasm. One stroke and I’d be done. There would be no holding back this time.
“I’m not taking you to town,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I whispered, sorry I’d brought it up. I didn’t want to talk.
“I’m not taking you back ever.” His voice was low, seductive, hypnotic. “I found you, Laney. So I get to keep you.”
I stiffened. It was meant to be sexual, nothing more. Dominant pillow talk. Not literal. I tried to laugh, but it was breathless, weird, panicked. “You make it sound like I’m your prisoner.”
“I guess technically you are.”
He started to move inside me, a slow deep rhythm that despite my confusion dragged a low groan from me. Gravity had me seated fully on him, and I couldn’t have moved if I had tried.
I didn’t. “You don’t mean that.” I felt lightheaded, confused, disoriented.
His grip on my hips tightened and he didn’t break his steady pounding into me. “Yes. I do.” Each of his words was punctuated by my back hitting the wall. “You’re not leaving. Ever. I thought you understood that.”
“I don’t understand at all.” He’d never said that. Anything like that. I had agreed to be submissive in bed, not stay with him forever, tied up. I felt crowded suddenly and my instinct was to wonder where my phone was. To call someone. To get the fuck out.
But I couldn’t.
There was no way to call anyone.
Nowhere to go.
My back against the wall.
And yet, my body still opened for him, wet and welcoming, and my nipples were still taut because he didn’t really mean I was literally a prisoner. He was just exerting his dominance and I could like it and it didn’t mean anything.
When he gripped the back of my hair, and murmured in my ear, “You can come now,” I did.
A big, sweeping, unnerving, appalling orgasm that shocked me in its intensity even as I thought I wanted nothing more than to go home and forget my stranger had ever existed. The game was too intense for me, and I didn’t know the rules. And what if it wasn’t actually a game? I cried out, agitated even as physical ecstasy and satisfaction rolled over me, body jerking.
It was both a heady and an awful combination, fear and pleasure. They didn’t belong together, yet they collided within me like a pair of cymbals. Adrenaline and serotonin, a swirling cocktail that made my head spin.
He held me tightly. “You’re going to be a very happy prisoner, I promise you that. Unless you try to leave me.”
His lips brushed mine and I shivered because I heard and accepted the truth. He meant it. I knew it in the core of my being. He wasn’t going to let me go.
The touch of his mouth was soft, but his voice was rough. His grip in my hair tightened until my eyes started to water. “You won’t try to leave me, will you?”
I shook my head, out of instinct, fear. Self-protection.
“Now close your eyes.”
So I did.
PART TWO
CHAPTER EIGHT
The room was dark. The ropes binding my wrists kept my arm extended painfully in the air, but I didn’t dangle. The stranger held me tightly, my legs around his waist as he stroked in and out of me, not with violent stabs, but with passionate thrusts, his breathing hot on my neck.
I kept my eyes squeezed tight, black spots dancing behind my eyelids. I held my breath, too, hoping that I would pass out. Just fall right back into the oblivion I’d experienced after the plane crash. I’d wake up and none of this would have happened. No crash. No rescue. No strange stranger.
He wasn’t taking me back to my life. He was keeping me with him, a prize. A prisoner. Like a pet. He couldn’t be serious. But he had sounded serious, and I felt the press of panic. It was like an electrical current under my skin, making me skittish, jittery, breath ragged and uneven. Because I knew he was serious. Deep in my gut, where instinct roosted, I knew that this was what he had wanted all along. He had seen me, he had wanted me, he had been debating if he wanted to keep me. It was finders, keepers. To him, it had been like stumbling across an abandoned dog. You take it home, you feed it, then you decide if you want to take it to the shelter or let it lie on your floor every night as yours. I had passed the test and now I was a prisoner.
He’d made a spot for me on the rug at the foot of his bed.
I wanted to turn my head, escape his breath, his closeness, but I was afraid. Even as my body stayed damp and aroused, I was afraid, and that was what scared me more than anything. Why wasn’t I screaming, fighting?
Because I was scared of his reaction? Or because I liked it?
The thought made my eyes pop open in d
efiance. I stared into his eyes, meeting his icy gaze head on. He didn’t groan or moan or show any outward sign of enjoying what he was doing. Instead he looked like he was more excited by my reaction than the actual act of burying his cock in me. The only sound in the room was the wet give of my body with each invasion, and the sharp gasp of my breath that accompanied it.
We stared at one another, time standing still, my thoughts frozen. I was hypnotized by him, unable to break away, terrified that if I blinked, he would somehow own me. I would cease to be me and I’d be only his. I’d disappear into nothing, a puppet of skin and flesh, even my beating heart manipulated by him.
If I had words, they stayed locked in my throat. There was only the silence of night and the thump of my back into the wall, the tight release of air from my lungs.
He pulled out suddenly and there was the warmth of his ejaculate bursting over my inner thigh, though you’d never know if it felt good to him or not, given his blank face. But I didn’t care. I just wanted him out of me. I couldn’t handle the intensity of it, the unruly combination of anger and pleasure. The way I wanted to both hit him and wrap my arms around him. It scared me, made me feel fucked up, made me angry with him for doing this, angry with me for starting it. Because I had. Maybe he never would have done this if I hadn’t asked him to.
But what kind of fucked up girl thinking was that? That it was my fault he wanted to hold me prisoner? It was exactly that. Fucked up girl thinking. Because that’s the message we always hear… that insidious implication of guilt and responsibility and it was wrong, all wrong. It was too many thoughts, too many emotions, too much blame and self-loathing, and unwillingness to just look at him and hate his face, like I should. I wanted to hate him. I swallowed hard and felt his cum sliding down my leg and I pictured kneeing him in the groin. Biting his lip off. Knocking my forehead into his.