In the Land of Gods and Monsters, Part One

by Carmen Jenner

Ares washes me with a soft cloth, and I pretend that his hands on my body are nothing more than the way a nurse might touch a patient in a hospital. But that isn’t right. Because nurses don’t play between a patient’s legs. Nurses don’t pinch and tease and lay soft kisses combined with hard nips from their teeth between shoulder blades. And patients don’t get turned on by this kind of behavior. Not like I am now.

  Oh god. What is wrong with me that I like the way he knows my body, as if we really were lovers? What kind of crazy person holds her breath, anticipating whether the next kiss to my shoulder will have teeth or tongue? And is excited by either prospect?

  He slides his fingers down through my sex and teases my swollen flesh. I release a shaky breath, and squirm against him. His ministrations cease, and I hate this as much as I love it. The teasing. The aching and the longing to come, to have him pick apart my seams.

  His hands tug at my wrists, drawing them close to my body, and at first I think it’s just so I won’t stop him, but then he unbuckles the restraints and tosses the cuff aside. He gently massages my forearms and wrists to allow the feeling to come back.

  I open my mouth to ask why, but his voice is hot in my ear. “I told you I would make the choices for you, but I won’t make this one.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “Your hands are free, Pet. It’s up to you what you do with them.”

  I exhale a shaking breath. What does that mean?

  He smooths his hands over the tops of my arms, across my flat stomach, and between my legs again. This time he rubs me slowly, tenderly, the way a lover would. I close my eyes and lean back against him. I don’t push him away, even though my hands are free to do so. And now I finally understand what he meant, and what’s more, I understand what I need to do to survive him. I need to play the game, and I need to win. I have to make this man fall in love with me. It might be my only chance to escape.

  I lift my hips and slide my hand behind me, grabbing his erection and stroking gently.

  He groans in my ear. “Harder, Pet.”

  I do as he orders, and all the while his hands rub at my tender flesh. I keep pace with him, but I come undone before he does, my quiet moans drowned out by the lapping of water against the tub that echoes off the walls. His teeth sink into the flesh of my shoulder as wave after wave of pleasure rolls over me. It’s not a gentle bite, and yet it heightens the sensation. His teeth are in my flesh, and his fingers pull the last of my pleasure from me. They demand it.

  My head pounds when it’s over, throbbing so hard I cry out.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My head. It hurts.”

  He chuckles. “‘I have a headache’ was not what I was expecting you to say, Pet.”

  I turn and stare at him. “What did you expect?”

  “I expected that you would cry, or yell at me, or call me names.”

  “I can still do those things.”

  “Try it and you will earn another spanking, which will not make your headache any better.”

  I don’t know what to do now. Taking him in my hands again seems wrong, like I was just caught up in the moment, but to take him now would be encouragement. I don’t want to encourage this man. Do I? Why did I touch him in the first place?

  In the real world, Ares wouldn’t have a hard time finding a woman to sleep with. But this isn’t the real world. I’m the only woman here, and despite how I loathe him, how I shudder at the things he’s done to me so far, I also can’t lie. He terrifies me, and excites me, too. He’s beautiful, and deadly. Capable of such violence and tenderness, perhaps even adoration. He spanked me like I was a disobedient dog, but cared for me as if I really were a treasured pet. His pet.

  I rest my head on my knees because now that I’ve come, all my senses are upside down. I don’t know what I want. What I’m supposed to feel.

  “Come, Pet. Lie back,” he whispers.

  “I need . . . I . . .”

  “I know what you need.”

  He pulls me against his chest and wraps his arms around my waist. One trails the flesh of my hip. The other cups my breast, gently stroking. He doesn’t further the movements, nor does he pinch or tease. He just holds me, strokes me. I don’t know which to be more confused by: his brutality or his tenderness.

  “How? How do you know what I need when I don’t even know my own mind?” Do I like rough sex? Did I like being beaten and having my hair pulled in my past life? Who was I? Who am I now? Am I different from the me before? Would past me be disgusted with the fact that I willingly just touched my captor and came on his hands?

  “It’s my job as your Master to know what you need at all times.”

  “Master?” I roll the word over my tongue, testing it. I hate it, I decide, but a part of me understands it too. It’s so easy to hand over control to him, because I don’t know what I want. I don’t know my own mind at all, and therefore it can’t be trusted. I can’t be trusted.

  Before my captivity, did I submit to someone on the outside so easily? Is this what I’ve always been? A puppet? A pet? Does it even matter who I used to be? In this bathroom, and in the cell downstairs, I am submissive. I’m the girl who will do anything to get away, and that means letting him touch me, letting him beat me, letting him trust me, and one day, finally being free.

  I don’t know how long we stay like this, me caught up in my head, and him laying soft kisses alternated with sharp little bites to my flesh. But when the water turns cold, he tells me to sit up as he pulls the stopper from the drain and empties the tub. He turns on the showerhead and washes us both. The spray from the warm water stings my sensitive nipples. He rinses my hair, the water sluicing through my long, dark strands. Ares hands me the showerhead and I continue to hose us both down, playing with the water as he pulls a bottle of luxurious shampoo from the side of the tub and pours some into his hand. He lathers the soap in my hair, causing bubbles to froth and foam around us and to trail over my body. I lean back into the sensation of having someone—this man—care for me when he’s capable of such cruelty. He takes the showerhead from me, tsking when he sees that I’ve been focusing the head a little too long between my legs.

  “Careful, Pet. You don’t want to earn another spanking already.”

  “Sorry,” I mumble, my cheeks turning hot with embarrassment.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Sir, I’m sorry, Sir.”

  “Good girl.” He presses his lips to the back of my head. When my hair is free of suds, he pours conditioner into his hand and smooths it through the strands. I could get used to this.

  After rinsing off, he steps from the tub, pulling me after him. I stumble over the side, but his huge arms surround me, steadying me, protecting me. Ironic, considering how he loves to dole out pain and abuse.

  Ares combs my hair, and my fear comes slamming back. Fraying my nerves.

  I don’t want to go back to that room, not to the dark, damp cold. But I know better than to beg. I know better than to say anything at all.

  When I’m clean and groomed, he places the blindfold over my eyes again and I fight back a sob. I do as he says, standing where he positions me, and then I hear the familiar beep as the door opens. We exit, and I walk forward, the way I know we always go after we leave the bathroom, but he grabs my shoulders and spins me in a different direction, to the left.

  “This way, little one.”

  “Y-yes, Sir.”

  My heart hammers against my chest, terrified of what he might do. I know it can’t be more pain and bloodshed, because ordinarily he bathes me after he works me over.

  A few more steps, and then he brings me to a stop. There’s more waiting, another loud beep. A keypad then.

  The door opens. I swallow hard as he pushes me into a room. It’s air-conditioned, but not cold, not like my cell. It’s temperate, though still chilly enough that my nipples bead, and my skin wakens and forms goose bumps. The door whooshes closed behind him and then I feel his fingers at the back of my hai
r, tugging my blindfold free.

  I blink against the intrusion of light, my gaze zeroing in on the room around me. A big king-sized bed is piled high with pillows and blankets, and a marshmallow duvet stares back at me. The walls are covered in a soothing eu de Nil green wallpaper with blush-colored cabbage roses and fat bluebirds in the branches. In one corner sits a dresser with makeup, and a small brass mirror. On the other side of the room is a large walk-in closet filled with lace and other fine fabrics. I don’t understand.

  I turn to face Ares. “What are we doing here?”

  “This is your new room, Pet.”

  My room? With its pretty walls and shiny gifts, silks and laces hanging in the closet, and expensive heels with shiny red soles?

  My room. With a soft bed, and softer comforter, and lock on the door that only Ares can enter and exit any time he wants. It might be better than the cell downstairs, but this is no room—it’s a cage. A gilded one.

  He watches me closely as I move toward the closet. I feel his eyes on my ass as I reach for the light and turn it on, stepping inside. My eyes peruse the racks, but these are not clothes. They’re instruments in seduction. They’re delicate silk slips, and lacy chemises, and I don’t care that they’re intended for the sole purpose of turning him on. I pull one off the hanger—a pale pink silk slip—and toss it over my head. The soft fabric grazes my nipples as it slides down my body. It feels so strange to wear clothing again. Constrictive, after days or possibly even a week, of being naked.

  Ares smiles when I emerge from the closet. “That color suits you, Pet.”

  I suppose he likes it because he can see my nipples and the ugly bruises beneath the material. I nod and move toward him, unsure of what to do. I probably shouldn’t have walked into the wardrobe and dressed myself without his permission, and I wonder if I’ll pay for it later. I wonder if I will scream and cry, or if I’ll enjoy it?

  “Get up on the bed.” A thrill runs through me at his thick tone of voice.

  I climb up on the high duvet, knowing he can see my pussy and my ass as my slip rides up. I deliberately sway my hips, making my movements long and feline and overtly sexual.

  “If I didn’t know any better, Pet, I’d say you were trying deliberately to be a tease.”

  “No, Sir,” I whisper over my shoulder.

  “Liar.” He slides his hands around the front of my thighs and pulls me back to him. He pushes my slip dress up and over my ass. He lowers his head and bites, hard. The flesh is still tender and bruised from the spanking, and all of my senses turn electric as his hand comes down in a series of several sharp slaps. I cry out, and squirm. And then he rubs away the sting before withdrawing. “Don’t fucking move.”

  “No, Sir.”

  He stalks across the room and opens the top drawer of the bedside table, fishing out an item I can’t see properly because it’s concealed by his large fist. A moment later, the unfastening of his zip rings out in the quiet room. I shiver.

  Oh God. He’s going to fuck me, like this. Me on my hands and knees. From behind. Like an animal. I shouldn’t have provoked him.

  He shifts closer. Cold liquid slides over the seam of my ass. I brace myself, closing my eyes as I wait and breathe. I can’t see it, but I imagine that powerful body behind me, his thick cock sliding in and out of me. But when his crown butts up against my flesh, it isn’t my pussy he’s seeking entry to.

  “No,” I cry and attempt to close my legs. “Please, no.”

  “You shouldn’t start things you can’t finish, little one.” He teases the puckered flesh, pushing at me, seeking entry into my body through a hole that in no way should be able to accommodate him.

  “Please, Sir, please. I’ll do whatever you want—”

  “I know, and what I want is to take your ass. Now, you can give it to me and I’ll make it nice and easy, and very pleasurable for you, or you can refuse, and I can take it anyway.”

  A sob escapes me, and I push back against him. My legs tremble on the bed.

  “Good girl. Relax. Once I get inside, you’re going to come so hard you’ll wonder why you ever refused.” He splays his hand in the center of my back and roughly pushes me down on the bed. His breath is hot on my neck as he whispers, “Relax, little one. Give yourself over to me, and this will all go so much easier for you.”

  I sob, but don’t say a word. He can’t have my submission, not entirely. I refuse to give him all of me. I gasp as the warm head of his cock drives slow, maddening circles against my sensitive flesh. His hand comes down hard on my cheek, and I wriggle, trying to ease the burn by rubbing myself against his groin. He doesn’t let me, of course. He pulls back and rubs the head of his penis against my ass. And then he pushes inside. I scream, my flesh on fire as, little by little, he shoves in deeper. He’s too big. It hurts too much. Everything inside me shouts for him to stop.

  “Breathe, Pet,” he says in his low, graveled voice, now tight with pleasure.

  I can’t breathe. The pain is too much. He edges in farther, and just when I think it’s impossible, when I think he will tear me apart, he adjusts his hips, driving forward, thrusting farther inside again.

  I cry out.

  “Let go. Trust me.” His voice catches, as if he were the one enduring this agonizing pain. “Let go.”

  How can I let go? How can I feel anything other than shame, humiliation, and despair as he takes my most private of places, and tears me asunder? “It will only hurt for a little while.”

  Ares’ hands come around my sides. One digs into my hip; the other finds my clit and strokes gently over the sensitized flesh. I jerk both into and away from his touch.

  “Please, please.” I don’t know what I’m begging for anymore. For him to stop? For permission to come? I don’t know. My legs shake violently on the bed. My whole body is quaking with pleasure, with sensation. I love this. I hate this. I need this. “Please?”

  “Don’t you dare fucking come, Pet.”

  “Please, Sir, please. I need to.”

  “No!” He growls. “You will not come until I say you can.”

  A sob breaks free of my throat. My whole body is quaking with need. I don’t know how to stop it. It’s pleasure and pain, and then he grabs hold of the base of his cock and jerks it up and down inside me.

  I come so hard I see stars. My legs threaten to give out. My pussy clenches, one wave of glorious muscle contraction after another, and I squirt all over the bed.

  Behind me, Ares stills. “Did I say you could come, Pet?”

  “I’m sorry, I-I can’t . . . oh, god,” I cry out as my body involuntarily comes again.

  “You will learn.” He pulls out of my ass and picks up his belt off the ground. “Get on the floor.”

  “No, please. No.”

  “Get on the fucking floor, Pet, and don’t make me tell you again.”

  “Yes, sir,” I cry as I slide off the bed with trembling legs. He clicks his fingers and points to the ground.

  I crawl to his feet. “Kneel.”

  I do. I keep my eyes on him and do as he commands. He takes my chin between his thumb and forefingers. It’s sticky with lube, with me, and I want to shy away from his touch, but I don’t. I sit still.

  “Now, you disobeyed an order. Twice.”

  “I didn’t mean to. I’m—”

  “Shut up. You don’t speak unless I tell you to, you got it?”

  I nod solemnly, but my chest is tight with anger, and I’m certain my eyes are filled with indignation and tears.

  “You’re such a precious thing, aren’t you? So fragile, and yet so stubborn. I’m going to break you of that. Do you understand?”

  I don’t speak because I’m afraid of more reproach, so I don’t say a thing.

  “Do you understand?”

  I nod, but this isn’t the right answer. He glares down at me with one eyebrow arched.

  “Yes, Sir,” I bite out through my teeth. He puts his booted foot at the base of my spine and presses down hard. I have
no choice but to move forward over my knees or risk an even greater punishment.

  “I don’t like your tone, Pet. Say sorry now.”

  “Sorry, Sir.” My voice comes out panicky and shrill. I hate how pathetic I sound, sniveling like a small child, begging him for mercy when I should be looking for ways to escape. Anger wells in me. I don’t understand. Why does he need to play these games with me? Why keep me at all? There must be a million women out there who would willingly agree to do the things he wanted. Why did he have to take me?

  “Mean it, Pet.” His boot presses harder into the base at my spine, and it dawns on me, he could crush me like this. He could snap me in half like a twig, and I would be gone. Murdered. For a beat, I entertain the idea. Would it be the worst thing? Surely ending my life swiftly would be a much greater mercy than being forced to submit to his every dark desire?

  “I’m sorry, Sir.” And I am. I’m sorry he ever laid eyes on me. I’m sorry I ever woke up from what was clearly a vicious blow to the head. I’m sorry I asked to leave the cell downstairs, and I’m sorry I ran to him for protection when his brother sought to kill me.

  The toe of his boot nudges against my sex. I stiffen, but I don’t make a sound. He teases my clit, and I try not to squirm. I’m so swollen and engorged, my pussy drenched and throbbing for more. I put up with his musings until I can’t help but writhe against him, seeking more pleasure. I’m a pathetic being, ruled by need because my orgasm is the only escape I have. It’s the only way my mind can be free of him, even if it ensures my body becomes a little more enraptured, a little more imprisoned, by his touch every day.

  “Keep still.” Ares’ deep, husky voice dances over my skin like a melody.

  I nod, and try to do as he asks, but his boot is teasing my clit again, and my legs quake. The dreaded whooshing of his belt assaults my ears before the leather bites into the soft flesh of my ass.

  I scream. The white-hot pain forces me to roll out of the fetal position until he strikes again, this time catching the tender crease between my ass and thigh.

  “Get back into position, and keep still.” His voice is raised barely above a whisper, but the unspoken threat in his tone is loud and clear.