“How can you . . . How did you . . . Who . . .?”
He chuckled. “I pay someone to constantly check these things.”
“But I wasn’t going to come here. I was going to Rhode Island!”
“No you weren’t. I wouldn’t have let you. If you hadn’t gotten on the plane going to Dulles, you would have been snatched coming out of the Charlotte Airport. You just made things easier for me flying here. I’ve known where you were every minute since you walked into the Austin Airport. What’s in Rhode Island by the way?”
“None of your business!”
“Oh, I’ll find out. You’ll eventually tell me.”
“No, I won’t!”
He lifted an eyebrow as if saying, Now, now, you know that I’ll get it out of you.
“Did you really lose your memory or were you faking it, and why did you send that hospital bracelet?” I stomped my foot in anger at myself. I knew better! Why hadn’t I listened to myself?
“That was a mistake on my part. I wanted you to know that you hadn’t killed the part of me that remembered you and all that you were to me. In retrospect, I should have held that tidbit closer to my chest. Letting you know that my memory had returned was an error on my part. But it didn’t affect the outcome, you’re here now.”
“Because I’m stupid,” I gritted out, and again, I tried to pull away. His grip was unyielding.
“But still as lovely as ever and attracting attention everywhere you go it seems. So how many men have you slept with since you left me?” I watched the color bloom in his face and saw a vein by his temple pulse and wondered what he’d say if I lied and said ten. But I wasn’t quite that stupid. His thinking two was bad enough and I was sure he’d make me pay for it.
“I never figured you for an easy lay, but then again I never figured you’d run out on me either. Well, no more.” He released one hand and shoved the other behind my back, twisting it and forcing it so high that I felt pain shoot through my shoulder. Holding me in front of him, he wedged me between him and the desk. I could feel how hard and tense his whole body was and I could feel his excitement at having won the hunt and captured the prize. He picked up the passport and the envelope with my birth certificate in it and tossed them back in the safe. Then he opened the large custom jewelry case that was on the desk amid all the paper clutter. It contained all the jewelry he’d given me over the years. He fingered a few pieces while I watched him. His voice was wistful as he picked up each piece and reminded me of the special occasion when he had given it to me.
“I truly wish I hadn’t left the Gateway to Paradise in a display case in the San Diego store. But, no bother,” he said with a wave of his hand, “I’ll just design another. And this time, I will see it installed in your labial lips. But first, let’s get you more comfortable, let me show you your new quarters. I suppose it’s too much to ask that you undress yourself for me?”
“You are a sick, sick man and I am not going to stay here so you can abuse me again.”
“Oh, I think that you are.” He opened the top desk drawer and pulled out a gun.
“You’re going to shoot me?” I know my eyes were wide with shock. I never expected that Jared would have a gun, or that he would actually threaten me with one.
“Well, not in the conventional way,” he said as he tipped the gun and looked at the long shiny barrel. “As it appears you’re not going to strip for me, it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to sit still for the uh, deforestation of your pubic region. Unless of course, you’ve kept up on your depilatory regimen, in which case I would be extremely pleased, as you know how I like you smooth and prepubescent in that arena. This is a tranquilizer gun, it will assure that you do my bidding, quietly and with little fuss.”
“No! Don’t do this! Don’t!” I screamed as I slammed back against him and broke away. I ran for the door. Halfway there I heard a small pop and then I felt a stinging sensation in my upper thigh. I did make it to the door but no further. On my knees, I hung onto the doorknob until my hands became numb and slipped off.
“No,” I whispered, “Please, no.” Jared was kneeling beside me now, gathering me into his arms.
“Shhh, I’m not going to hurt you, at least not yet. But I am going to make you my naughty little girl again. You’ve made me wait so long to be with you. You will certainly have to be punished, but first let me make you more comfortable.” I felt him unbuttoning my blouse. I willed my hands to stop him but they wouldn’t move.
My eyes and my ears were the last parts of my body to succumb so I had to listen to his soft voice cajoling me, as if I was a little girl, while my eyes looked into his lust-filled face and he whispered what he planned to do to me.
The next thing I knew, I was on a soft leather sofa in the video room Jared had on the basement level, next to his wine cellar.
I looked around but he wasn’t there. I could hardly escape though; I was tied hand and foot, naked under a satin sheet. It was cold, so cold that I could feel the tips of my breasts tightly puckered and hard, painfully so due to the chill. Jared had always liked it cold down here so I had rarely come down to this level of the house.
I looked around and saw there had been many changes made to this room. It no longer looked like a viewing room, a place to watch old movies on a big screen, although the plasma TV was still there hanging on the wall in the center of the room. I was off to the side and around me was a variety of workout equipment. I could make out a pommel horse, parallel bars and a balance beam.
When had Jared taken up gymnastics, I thought as my head reeled. It was so heavy I had to lay it back on the sofa bolster. My eyes tried to focus on the series of pulleys and chains hanging from the ceiling. All around the room were ropes, cushioned pads, and mattresses. What the hell were they for? A shelf over in the corner contained bottles, jars, and tubes; one tube I recognized as K.Y. Jelly, a large jar on the top shelf appeared to be Vaseline and one of the bottles was baby oil, another—almond-scented massage oil. A feeling of dread came over me as I realized what Jared intended to use these things for.
In fear, I rubbed my legs together and quickly discovered tenderness at the top of my thighs. I had been waxed, and none too gently judging from the soreness of the touch of just my inner thighs overlapping to that sensitive region.
I heard someone coming down the steps and into the hallway. The door opened and I saw Jared stroll in. He was dressed as usual in an impeccable business suit.
“Hi, honey, I’m home,” he called out, trying to sound jovial, but sounding sinister instead.
“Untie me you filthy bastard! How dare you molest me like this! I am not going to be your wife anymore; I’m going to divorce you! I want you to let me go this minute!”
“I don’t think so, sweetheart. And after what you’ve put me through the last few months, I don’t really care what you want anymore.” He came over and sat beside me and lightly ran his fingers over my cheek. I jerked away.
“You know, a lot of women would be happy to have the life you had. You didn’t have to work; you could buy all the clothes and doodads you wanted and you had one of the most premier cars manufactured in the world, until you sneakily sold it, and I was always surprising you with expensive, designer jewelry. All you had to do was satisfy me sexually. How hard was that? Most women would find pleasure in that chore. I’m a handsome man and very innovative in the bedroom arts. But not you, you had to run away from all this.” His hand waved in the air indicating the house above us. “You had to humiliate me. Then you let other men have you. So now it’s high time you were punished.” He stood up and took the sheet with him. I instantly felt the chill of the room and bemoaned my traitorous nipples.
His bold eyes caressed me and I could see passion ignite in his eyes. “You are still the loveliest woman I have ever seen.” He reached his hand down to caress my breast and I shrank back against the sofa. That enraged him. The caress instantly became a painful squeeze, followed by a brutal pinch to my nipple. With my
nipple between his thumb and knuckle, he pinched so hard that I felt pinpoints shoot out behind my eyes. I screamed from the pain and then I kept screaming, hoping someone would hear me, though I knew the house was too isolated for that.
“An expression of your extreme discomfort is allowed but I’m not listening to you scream like a banshee unless I’m causing you to!” He reached into his pocket, took out a handkerchief and wadded it up. “Scream like that again and this gets stuffed in your mouth!”
He went over to a low table and picked up the TV remote, pointed it at the large screen and I watched as the screen filled with images. “I thought you might like to see what I’ve been doing since you were gone, what I’ve had to do to be pleasured since you weren’t around.”
I watched, horrified, as a middle-aged man bent a small child over a chair and pulled her plaid uniform skirt to her waist. While she pleaded for the man to stop, he tore her panties and unzipped his pants. I couldn’t watch anymore and averted my face, using all my strength to turn my body into the back of the sofa. I was sobbing with all my heart now, as all I could envision in my mind was Angelina in that very same position while a perverted old man pawed at her and slaked his evil lust inside her tiny little body.
Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that my pitiful sobs and keening noises were turning Jared on until it was too late. I soon found myself jerked up off the sofa and folded almost in half against the end of it, while Jared acted out his own sick fantasy, pretending that I was that little, helpless girl. I could sense him focusing his heavy-lidded eyes on the perverted scene above us while he continuously plunged into me, stopping only to renew generous handfuls of lubricant where our bodies met. I was sure this was for his benefit and comfort and not at all for mine.
I managed to keep the bile from choking me, as his hand on the back of my neck forced my head upside down. He jerked suddenly, followed by a full body shudder and then he groaned his pleasure. His disgusting mission accomplished, I thought he would leave me alone then, but he didn’t.
From my skewed vantage point, I saw him cross the room and carefully select a ping-pong paddle from a varied assortment of paddles. I tried to scream, but the sound got caught and came out as a wretched sob. My throat was dry from all the heavy breathing and gasping and now I was even hiccupping. I was terrified, as I knew what was coming; he’d played this horrible game with me before. I’d just had a nightmare about it the other night.
This time his eyes, as he approached, told me that things would be different. He tapped the paddle against his hand as if hefting it, testing it for the task at hand. That he was looking forward to meting out this punishment was obvious—his leering smile and the crude way he groped me while repositioning me made it evident that he would derive great pleasure in doling out my penance. I cringed inside because I knew, without a doubt, that in order for him to be sated this time, I would truly have to suffer—tonight there would be no faking it.
“Fifty really good smacks should do it, make you understand how truly bad you’ve been. You’ve been a very naughty girl, you know.”
“No,” I whimpered, “please no.” Then I bit my lip, because I knew that’s what he wanted me to do. If I cried, if I pleaded, that would be the icing on the cake, it would please him to no end.
The first few whacks were painful and brought the cries I was sure he was salivating for. I could just picture the gleam in his eyes and the desire building in him. After ten I was less sensitive, so he hit me harder. After twenty I was writhing, frantic with rising terror and on fire with a deep burning pain. At thirty I thought he was going to kill me, that this was the way I was going to die—turned upside down with my backside as red as a baboon’s. At forty, my mind shut down and I was in another zone—watching from someplace outside my body as Jared wound up to deliver near lethal blows. By forty-five I had passed out. I never knew if he’d made it to the prescribed fifty.
Chapter Forty-one
When I woke, Jared was holding my shoulders, speaking softly and trying to get me to drink some broth. “There, there, it’s over. And if you’re a good girl, we won’t have to do that again.”
I knew I had to keep my strength up until I could figure a way out of this, so I didn’t resist. I drank the broth, but I refused the chunks of chicken. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to eat anything solid for quite some time, as I wouldn’t be able to stand the pain of eliminating it, and so did he. It was a punishment on top of a punishment; there was no end to how demonic he could be.
“It seems I can no longer trust you to stay here and be home for me when I return from work, so I’m going to have to keep you tied up. You’ll have enough chain to get to the bathroom but not enough to get to the door or window. I have to go to work now to make the Gateway for you, so you’ll be on your own for a few hours. Feel free to use the TV, there’s other videos in the cabinet, some very good porn, so help yourself.”
“Jared, don’t do this. Let me go.”
“Never. That will never happen. You are mine and I won’t ever give you up.” He placed a kiss at my temple and then ran his hand down my side. He bent and closed his mouth over my nipple and he suckled it. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard trying to keep the broth from coming back up.
“Clothes, can I have my clothes?”
“No, no clothes. I prefer you like this. But here, I brought some ointment for you. Roll over so I can put it on you.” I didn’t help him but he easily managed to get me on my stomach on his own. He took generous dabs of salve and smoothed it over my cheeks. It was hard to believe from his gentle, caring caresses that this was the same man who had made me need the salve in the first place. He acted as if someone else had done this to me and now he was here caring for me, trying to make me believe that I was the most precious thing in his world.
When he was finished, he stood up and wiped his hand on a towel and then he drew a line of kisses down my spine, ending with a long, lingering one on each hot cheek. I cringed inside but tried not to show it, as he didn’t do well when I showed any sign of rejection. While I was recovering from his ministrations, he took the opportunity to attach a thick chain to my ankle. “I’ll be back this afternoon with a nice surprise,” he whispered in my ear and then he was gone.
I tried to sit up but was unable to tolerate the pain, so I stayed where I was and tried to figure a way out. I finally eased myself off the sofa, thankful it was buttery soft and conformed so easily to the awkward bend of my body. I gingerly walked around. It was very slow moving as each step sent shooting pains up my thighs to my buttocks. Jared had been right; I could make it to the bathroom but nowhere near the door or window. I looked around for a phone, but of course, there was none. I wished I was one of those secret agent types who could reach into the wall, know exactly which wire took care of what and either place a call with only a stripped wire or alert the alarm company that there was an intruder so someone would come investigate. Alas, I had no 007 skills. My only skill was repeatedly getting myself into hot water. I found the sheet that had been discarded, wrapped it around my body and went back to the sofa. I stretched out on my tummy and tried to fall asleep. I was dreading Jared’s “surprise,” so it was no wonder that I slept fitfully.
Chapter Forty-two
I heard him the second he returned. He was galloping down the steps and even though I couldn’t see him, his gait sounded jaunty, as if he was somehow pleased about something.
I didn’t bother to move or acknowledge him when he came into the room. My nose twitched and my tummy grumbled from the smell of the food he had brought. He was tempting me with solids again.
“Dinnertime. I brought you some spaghetti, one of your favorites,” he said as he placed a big bag on a card table and drew up a chair. “Oh, I don’t imagine you’re quite ready for the chair yet. Maybe you’d be more comfortable eating on the sofa.” He brought the table over and forced me to eat. I didn’t say a word.
“I have a great start on the Gateway, I secured all the s
tones this afternoon. With luck I should be able to install it by tomorrow or the next day.”
“Whoopee,” I deadpanned.
“Hey, it’s really going to be a thing of beauty. Wait ‘til you see.”
“Most women can’t view themselves in that area.”
“Oh, yeah, well . . . I’ll get you a mirror.”
“Why are you so set on this? No one’s going to see it but you. I imagine healing will take forever, if one manages to heal without getting an infection down there to begin with; it will be nothing but pain for the woman and I can’t believe it will give pleasure to the man. So why are you spending so much money and effort on labial piercings? Surely, there isn’t a huge market for this type of thing.”
“You’d be surprised. I have advance orders for the Gateway. I was offered $60,000 for the one that’s on display in San Diego, of course, it has two perfect, yellow, one-carat diamonds and two very rare sapphires. And for your information, sales of nipple clips and wires, as well as belly button rings, have tripled in just the last six months. I think the Gateway will be a big seller for the high-end market, but I haven’t installed it on anyone yet. I’ve been waiting for you. You will be the first to be adorned with my Rainbow Gateway.”
“I don’t want to be adorned.”
“As I said before, what you want no longer matters to me.”
I stopped talking and refused to eat anything else. He stared at me in anger. Then after a few moments, he reached over and pulled the sheet that had been tucked under my armpits down to my waist, exposing my breasts to his heated gaze.
I was unnerved as he stared at me and tried awkwardly to cover myself but he kept his hand on the edge of the sheet and wouldn’t let go.
“I said I had a surprise and here it is.” He handed me a jewelry box that was instantly recognizable as having come from his store. I dreaded opening it.
“Open it.”
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