I shake my head, and attempt to sit up and cover my ass with my hands, but he’s having none of it. He beats me again. This time, the pain lashes my arms, hands, and buttocks. I scream. He roars.
It goes on like this for what seems like an eon, the agony searing hot, and eking out like the tail end of a comet. I know it must only be minutes, but every lash feels like an eternity, and the stillness between each blow, the anticipation, becomes a torture all its own. My body burns with the welts as they raze my skin.
“Please, Sir, please stop. I’ll be good, please.”
“When you show me you can sit still, then I’ll stop.”
I sob and lean forward. I don’t want to, but I have no choice. I want the pain to cease.
So I present my ass. I know it will get worse before it gets better. My whole body writhes in agony as I allow my tears to spill on the soft rug. With each tear that falls, and each blow against my beaten, bloody flesh, I vow to kill this man. That will be his tithe to pay. One day, I’ll escape. I’ll be free, but my freedom will come at a price—Ares’ life. It seems a worthy exchange. After all, he stole my life. It’s only fair that I should take his.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Pet
Days turn to what must be weeks in my new cell. The hours stretch on and on in a monotony of tears, welts on my body, orgasms, long, luxurious baths with my captor, and food—which I want little of.
My mind delves into decay, an endless cycle of boredom and depression. I cry all the time. I wish I could stop. I wish my tear ducts would run dry like the rest of me has, but it’s the one constant I can count on. That and the flutter of fear mixed with anticipation low in my belly when my door announces an arrival with its cheery little beep, and Ares enters the room.
His visits are the one part of my day that take away the boredom. Dread and excitement war with one another when he stands in the center of my room and summons me to his side with a click of his fingers. I’m sure the old me—whoever she is—would be disgusted with my compliance, with how easily I submit to my Sir, but she’s still missing, lost somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind. I do what I have to in order to make life easier. I give in to him. I crawl on my knees, suck his cock, endure his welts on my body, and allow him to fuck my ass, and I come when he orders me to because Ares’ belt can be very persuasive.
One day, I’ll be free. I’ll steal back my freedom, and he’ll be the one on his knees, begging me not to kill him. For now, I’m his good girl, his submissive, his pet. Though sometimes—whether out of sheer boredom or loneliness—I’m his very bad girl. Some days, I provoke him just to feel the bite of his belt against my flesh. I crave it. Like right now.
I slide out of bed and drop to my knees, crawling to the center of the plush carpet, I kneel and settle into the child’s pose. I offer him my ass, my pink slip riding up over flesh covered in blooms of purple and yellowed bruises. Just the way he likes it. I know he’s watching on the monitors; he’s always watching, and I’m betting right now he’s hard as a rock, because he’s not an idiot, and neither am I. It’s a game we like to play. We both know it ends in welts on my body, his welts.
The second I touch myself, he’ll come storming in. He’ll beat me, call me his dirty little whore, and with any luck, the darkness will creep in and I’ll escape to that place in my head where pain and pleasure morph into one. Where I’m slack-jawed and drooling, strung out on endorphins. And when it’s done, he’ll bathe me, hold me, and I’ll pretend he’s won yet another victory, when it’s no longer entirely true. I’m a willing participant in this game because it’s the only thing I have left. He has taken everything from me, and this one act of defiance means that I am not completely lost.
I lift my hips, slide my arms between my legs, and finger the one hole he refuses to fuck. The one orifice that still belongs to me. I don’t know why he neglects my pussy. Every time he’s been inside me it’s been through anal sex, which I loathed at first, but have now learned to derive pleasure from. I’ve become an expert in making myself come in under ten seconds—the exact amount of time it takes for him to open my door from wherever he watches me on his monitors. I withdraw my finger and plunge two back in, and then I fuck myself hard and fast, awkwardly twisting my body like a pretzel to reach that one sweet spot that will have me coming in seconds. A frisson of heat spreads out from my womb. My pleasure spikes. My pussy contracts. The beep sounds, and the door swings open just as the first wave of my orgasm hits, and my Master stalks into the room. I ride out the remainder of my hedonism, bucking my hips and moaning as my body milks my fingers, and creamy cum drips out of me onto the fluffy rug.
Oh dear. I’m going to pay for that.
“Present,” he growls through bared teeth. I hide my smile and note the implement of torture in his hands. A flogger. Not leather, but a silicone one with little knots tied at the end of each strand. I’m not going to be able to sit down for days.
I scramble across the floor to his feet and assume the position: kneeling with my legs spread, my back straight, and my palms upturned on my thighs. He flicks his wrist, and a thousand tiny pinpricks of pain strike my pubic mound.
Immediately, I squirm, trying to ease the sting of my flesh, but I’m struck again. Two quick blows on either side of my thighs. The pain fans out, spreading across my reddened skin. I exhale a shuddering breath.
“Don’t you dare close your legs.”
I shake my head. “No, Sir.”
“Now, repeat after me. ‘I will not play with my pussy, Sir.’”
“I will not play with—”
He swats me again. This time on my breast. My nipples peak and burn with the punishment. “Louder.”
“I will not play with my pussy, Sir.”
He chuckles darkly. “Come on, Pet. You can say it with a little more conviction than that.”
A flick of his wrist sends pain lacing across my abdomen. I cry out, but the lashes come in quick succession all the way down to my pussy, where he mercilessly strikes me again and again. Between gasps and moans, I repeat the words over and over like a mantra, loud enough for him to hear.
“That’s right. You. Will. Not. Play. With. My. Pussy,” he bites out, peppering each word with kisses from his flogger upon my flesh. “Do you understand?”
I’m shaking with fear and rage. My whole body throbs with the need to come again, to feel the release of pleasure after all of this pain. “Yes, Sir.”
“Good.” His smile is wolfish, hungry, and conniving. “Now, you may play with my pussy.”
My brow furrows in confusion as I meet his infallible gaze. “Sir?”
“Do it, Pet. Make it good.”
“Yes, Sir.” I stroke my hands down through my wet heat and moan, circling back to pinch my clit the way he does that has me coming in seconds. I’m not Ares, though; I don’t have his capabilities. So I stick to what I know I do well: fucking myself as he watches. Pleasuring the hole he refuses to sink his cock inside.
“That’s it, princess. Show me how you like it.”
I dip my fingers in, one then two, and pump them in and out as hard and fast as I can. I writhe as he lashes my thighs and pussy in an endless driving rhythm of torment.
“Do not come.”
I moan, “Please, Sir. Please may I come?”
“No, sweetheart. Only I get to make you come, and it won’t be like this. It’ll be a lot more painful.”
I mewl like a kitten crying for milk. His milk. I want him to grip my hair until I yelp, to pull me closer and kiss me breathless. To slap, pinch, tease, and sink inside, fucking me with ruthless abandon until I’m begging him for more, but he doesn’t. He just watches with that usual cool detachment.
Why can’t I affect him like he affects me? Why can’t he show me even the smallest bit of mercy and let me see that he needs me just as much as I need him? The physiological evidence is there in the bulge in his pants, but he is more monster than man, and monsters don’t need anything but the souls of in
nocents.
“I’m sorry, Sir. I’ll be good.” My breathing is ragged, my skin hot and itchy, my pussy aching with need.
He chuckles again, as if my begging amuses him. “You say that so often, Pet. I’m afraid it no longer holds any meaning.” His boot nudges my knees. I hadn’t realized I was closing them. “Keep those fucking legs opened for me.”
“Yes, Sir.” I don’t recognize my voice. I don’t recognize myself, but then I suppose that’s the beauty of amnesia. You can reinvent, rebirth, and remake yourself over and over.
This lifestyle may not have been my choice. I may have been coerced by a Master so depraved he makes my skin crawl as much as he makes me hot and needy. I may be held here against my will, but I’ve grown to love the way he touches me, the way he ruins me, and tears me apart before lovingly, and so carefully, stitching me back together. He’s my maker as surely as he is my Master, and I live to submit to him. I also live for the punishment, and the pleasure that comes so freely with that.
His flogger strikes my breast, hard. I inhale sharply. My skin sings with the cruelty of pain as a red weal blossoms on my flesh. I continue to fuck my fingers, harder, faster, and my Master gives me another quick reprimand by lashing my hand. It stings like a bitch, and I cry out in protest. “I told you not to come, Pet, and I can see you’re just seconds away.”
“No, Sir.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.” He shakes his head and paces. “Stop touching yourself.”
Another protest, another lash, but I do as he orders and slide my hands free of my body. “Lick your fingers clean.”
I take them into my mouth, tasting myself, my eyes closing with the sheer eroticism of it.
“Look at me when you lick them clean,” he growls, all anger and frustration now. Why won’t he fuck me? Right here on the hardwoods of my gilded cage? Why does he insist on depriving us both? “My dirty little whore, you want me to fuck you right now, don’t you?”
“Yes, Sir,” I pant. In my mind’s eye Ares loses control, shoves me back on the floor and takes me hard and viciously where I lay, breaking all of his rules. “Please, Sir.”
“No.” My daydreams up and vanish. “Only good girls get fucked, and you are not a good girl.”
“I am, Sir, I swear.”
“You really believe that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I pant, undulating my hips so he might strike me again.
“Get on your knees.”
I scramble across the floorboards, eager to do whatever he says. He unfastens his fly and pulls his long cock free of his pants. It bobs in the space between us, an inviting dusky pink.
I crawl forward. He fists my hair and nudges his wide head against my lips. I open, like a good girl, but even I’m not prepared for the force with which he drives into my mouth, pushing right to the back of my throat. I gag. My eyes water, and he tightens his fist in my hair. “Breathe, Pet. This is not new.”
I gasp, I choke, but he doesn’t remove his cock, and eventually I settle my mind and breathe in through my nose the way he showed me last time.
“That’s it. Good girl.”
My skin breaks out with goose bumps. I like being his good girl, but I like being his bad girl too. “Relax your throat, baby doll. I’m going to fuck it, hard, and you’re gonna swallow my cum down like a good little slut.”
My throat constricts as I nod. True to his word, Ares pumps his hips back and forth, making me take all of him until my nose is buried in his pubic hair and it tickles my upper lip. My mouth is sealed tight around his cock. I let him use me, and then I grip his balls, squeezing firmly, the way he likes it, as his seed spills down my throat.
His chest heaves. He’s panting, and sweat beads over his shoulders and across his brow. He pulls out and as those dark eyes meet mine, for the first time I think I see the man inside. A man who wants me, who maybe even loves me, who at least loves having me torment him. But too soon his eyes lose their warmth, that hint of a smile vanishes, his face becomes impassive, and the monster creeps back in.
Ares takes my chin in his hands. “Who owns you?”
“You, Sir.”
“Who owns your pussy?”
“You do,” I whisper with conviction, because it’s not just something I’ve been trained to say. It’s true. I may hate him. I may plan my escape and plot his death every second he’s not touching me, but that makes me no less his. Ares owns me. A part of me thinks that no matter what happens, he always will.
“Who tells you when to come?”
“You, Sir.”
“That’s right. Now clean up your goddamn mess.” He takes his cock that’s slowly leaking cum, and shoves it roughly against my lips. They crack. I wince, running my tongue over the fresh cut. The metallic taste of blood fills my mouth. I feel my teeth smeared with it.
Ares’ responding stare is ravenous. He pulls me to my feet, and he does something he never has—he kisses my lips, hard, and penetrating, and all-consuming. Like gasoline to a flame. He tugs me closer, one hand in my hair the other encircling the nape of my neck, and as his fingers kiss the fragile bones of my throat and threaten to shatter them, to suffocate me, his tongue dominates my own.
I can’t breathe. I can’t remember my past, but I know I’ve never quite been kissed like this. With so much passion, and vigor, and life.
Too soon, he shoves me away. He lets me go and my knees are so weak, my body and mind so stunned, that I fall.
For a beat, I stare up at him. That cool mask of his is completely gone, and the man beneath stares back at me, rattled. He turns and stalks from the room, and I’m left shaking and crying on the floor because that’s not how we play the game. He’s never kissed me like that, nor has he ever left me without the kind of aftercare I’ve come to expect. Tender touches, and forehead kisses, and long, luxurious baths where I curl into his warmth, and he soothes the burn, the ache, and ultimately makes me feel safe.
Without it, I’m bereft. Lost on dry land, a land of gods and monsters where I am nothing. Less than nothing. Or perhaps I’m already dead. An angel of white and gold, covered in mud and black ichor, far too fragile for this place. Too broken for the horrors to really sink in. Unlovable and undeserving.
I crawl to the closet, and pull up the soft fur rug, curl up in it, and cry. Why would he do this to me? This isn’t part of the game. This isn’t how we play. This isn’t a victory for either of us. It’s an impasse, a stalemate, and it hurts far worse than losing.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ares
The door slams shut behind me and I roar my frustration to the empty house. She can’t hear me. The walls are soundproofed, but I need to get away. I need to put as much distance between me and Pet as I can.
I prowl into the kitchen, upending the table in my frustration. The chairs clatter against one another. This morning’s coffee cup ricochets off the wall, spilling black liquid down the eggshell surface.
“FUCK!” I roar. I hadn’t meant to kiss her. I hadn’t ever meant to do that. In all the time I’ve trained slaves, I’ve kept them from this one truly personal act. I haven’t regretted what I’ve done, not for a second, not in the ten years my brother and I have been doing this. I’ve never had one regret, but this? This was unforgiveable. I need to erase the tape so Hermes will never see.
I set the table to rights, clean the coffee from the wall, and then I stalk back to the viewing room. Several motionless screens stare back at me. It doesn’t take long to find my Pet. She’s huddled in the closet, wrapped in the rug from the floor. Where she goes when she’s sad. Always that same fucking spot.
Shit. I just undid weeks’ worth of work, weeks of trust exercises down the fucking shitter because I couldn’t control my impulses. I’m no better than my siblings.
I watch her for a beat. She rocks back and forth, the movements so infinitesimal I doubt she’s even aware she’s doing it.
“Jesus,” I say to no one at all, and beat my fist against my skull because I fucked up b
adly. I fucked it big time. I have no right to kiss her.
I stalk out of the room, knowing I have time to erase the tape later. Hermes will not be here until tomorrow, and I have all night. I need to make sure my Pet is taken care of. I need to ensure she’s not in there blaming herself for my swift departure.
I slide my hand onto the keypad and enter the room. It’s quiet, and I walk slowly over to the closet.
“Pet,” I say. Her head peeks out of the furry cocoon and wet, red-rimmed eyes stare at me. She’s filled with remorse, and hate, and sadness. I can see it all in her gaze.
“I need you.” No answer. My anger rises inside of me, but I already fucked up once. I need to do this right. “Come here,” I command in my best authoritative voice.
She unwraps herself and crawls on her hands and knees to my feet the way I taught her. She’s the most perfect slave I’ve ever trained.
As far as submissives go, she’s terrible at it. Too strong-willed, though she does enter subspace naturally and without too much coercion. She follows instruction well enough—likely due to years of rigorous ballet training—but she’s a brat. She needs discipline daily. An older man might find her too much to handle, but for me, she’s perfect. Just naughty enough to earn a spanking we’ll both enjoy.
Right now, though? It appears I’m the one who needs disciplinary action.
I see the hurt in her eyes. The uncertainty. I did that. I changed the game without letting her know the rules. I reach out to tuck her hair behind her ear. She flinches as though I might strike her.
“Shh. I’m not mad at you, Pet.” I asses her body, the colorful artwork of bruises and welts. My artwork. She’s a masterpiece. “Are you hurt?”
She clears her throat, swallows hard. “No, Sir.”
I trail a finger over her soft cheek. She’s so fucking beautiful it hurts. “Are you okay?”
“No, Sir,” she says on a sob.
“Shh. On your feet, little one.” She rises, and I slide my hand around her waist and pinch her ass. She doesn’t gasp, doesn’t squeak. She doesn’t so much as make a sound.
In the Land of Gods and Monsters, Part One Page 7