by Drew Sera
“Anth, this will be the last time any of us are here. We get this shit done today because none of us are ever coming back here. You and I need to help her, and try to understand what she went through. That way when she wakes up crying about a closet or fuck knows what else, you and I have a starting point. I’ll push, you just need to support both of us.”
He understood. I needed him to not argue with me, and to be her shoulder.
“Fine. But if it gets to be too much, I’ll take her out of there. Tread carefully, Col. There’s some fucked up stuff in there.”
I appreciated his concern for her and for warning me about the shit that awaited us. But I honestly felt like I’d be okay and could focus on getting Sydney to open up while we sorted this place out. Maybe I was being naive about it because I really haven’t had first-hand experience around violence. Anthony grew up in it and Sydney had been living in a hell recently. We would do our best to finish going through her apartment as quickly as possible.
She had tons of mail and I was glad we brought back the box to carry all of it. When we got back inside the tiny hell, I handed her the mail so she could go through it while Matt, Anthony and I went through the kitchen first. She didn’t make eye contact with me when I gave her the mail and it made my chest ache. A Dom had to do what he felt was the best for his sub and what she needed. And sometimes, it wasn’t what the little sub wanted. She needed to be able to talk to us about her past and we needed to know what happened. It would help her heal. As much as she didn’t want to, she was going to have to open up and face her past to move forward. She took the mail over to a spot on the floor and sat down to go through it. I felt like the Bad Dom, which made Anthony the Good Dom. He and I were not going to make a habit out of playing Good Dom, Bad Dom. That had disaster written all over it.
The three of us had silent conversations as we cleaned out her cupboards. Sydney told us she wanted to donate just about everything that was in good condition. She didn’t have much of anything and it made me sick to think that she silently went on like this. I wish I would have known. There wasn’t anything here worth donating. She had a few plates and plastic cereal bowls, mismatched silverware and a few plastic cups that were from fast food places. Anthony pulled a Wonder Woman and Batman magnet from the fridge and put it in the “keep” box. I raised my eyebrows at him and he nodded and whispered for me to trust him. I opened some drawers in the kitchen and found some broken pencils and pens along with loose off brand bandages. There was still some food in the pantry but it was all store brand stuff. Her fridge was bare and when Matt opened the freezer he pulled out some baggies that held cubes of ice. It dawned on the three of us at the same time that these were ice packs for her bruises. None of us could say anything and I took a deep breath. It was too quiet. None of us were speaking, and we were just trying to get through it. Anthony was leaning on the counter rubbing his forehead. I glanced over the kitchen counter to look at Sydney. I could see the back of her crouched down with her arms wrapped around her legs and looking at mail still. She was quiet also.
“Baby, anything exciting in the mail?” I asked but didn’t get a response.
I headed around the corner and saw her concentrating on some mail spread out on the floor. I looked down and saw she had some pictures spread out. When I looked closer, I saw they were of her tied up, chained up, gagged, bloody and bruised. They were in her mail. Fucking Howard sent them to her. Sydney snapped out of her trance of staring at the pictures and tried to quickly gather them. I took hold of her hands so she wouldn’t touch the photos anymore. I called Matt and Anthony over and pulled Sydney off the floor and took her to the couch.
“No, don’t let them see!” She begged and tried pulling away from me. I pulled her to sit on my lap and guided her head to lean against me. I had to calm both of us down. I rubbed on her back and rocked her in my arms. When I stopped rocking her gently I could feel her body quivering and shaking subtly. She was wound tight right now and I went back to rocking her in my arms.
“Shhh, baby. It’s okay. They’re not going to sit and flip through them. You don’t need to be looking at them either.”
As I stroked her back I realized the toll this place was taking on all of us. It was like a heavy, suffocating box. Just then I noticed the coffee table and found it difficult to pull my eyes away from it. The legs were nicked and there were large screws in each leg that were attached to D-rings. This was the table Anthony warned me about. Howard bound her to this thing in her own apartment! Rage was rapidly filling me as I worked to calm myself because I knew she would be able to tell that my body was now tense. When I looked down at her, I met her eyes. She saw me looking at the table. This is the stuff Anthony and I needed to know. As much as it broke my heart, I had to push her some.
“That’s not how that table came, is it?” She looked away from me but I tugged her chin towards me. “Tell me, Sydney. I need to know.”
She made a heavy sigh and looked down at the table. I glanced over at Matt and Anthony. Matt had collected the pictures and Anthony stood close with his hands on his hips, watching over us like a hawk.
“He’d tie me to it.”
My eyes were flying around the area directly in front of us trying to see if anything else looked out of place or altered. She knew what kind of stuff I was looking for.
Her breathing was getting faster and she started looking around the small living room area. She got off my lap and went over to the small tube TV and pulled the antenna off. She pulled on the ends so it would extend and set it on the coffee table. She sat down on the floor and pulled her shoes and socks off and raised her feet to show me the bottoms. I knew the bottoms of her feet had been hurt, but none of us knew exactly how. Now we knew. She remained silent but had just shared a wealth of information with me.
Sydney put her socks back on and then her shoes. She wouldn’t look at me. She went back over to the metal stand that the television was on and brought over a black fabric box and pulled the lid away slowly and looked in it.
“This is the bad box. I hate this box. Lots of times, he’d wait until the pills had been in me a while before he used this stuff.” She wiped away tears from her eyes and took a deep breath before pushing the box towards Anthony and I.
She began picking up M&M’s that were strewn all over the floor by the coffee table and couch. Matt hurried over when she started to pick up pieces of the glass bowl the candy must have been in. Anthony and I glanced in the “bad box.” It was filled with electro stuff. Violet wands and accessories, a circuit board, electro anal dildos, electro clips and pads. Everything to instill fear if used in ways that I’m sure Howard did. It was fine if it was done consensually, but this wasn’t. Sydney was tortured with it.
I was hit with guilt and decided that I couldn’t push too hard. Talking about it was one thing, but she was back in this horrible fucking place and was physically picking up weapons that tortured her in her own home. I didn’t know if she even wanted to be near me right now, but I had to try. Lowering myself from the couch, I scooted over to her on the floor and pulled her to my lap. She didn’t push against me or give me any indication that she was scared of me or didn’t want to be near me, in fact her small hands dropped the M&M’s and took hold of my shirt and I wrapped my arms around her.
“He’d bind you to that table and hit the bottoms of your feet.”
“Yes, Sir.”
I swallowed hard as I held her shaking body. I glanced back at what she called “the bad box.”
“Anything to do with electro sex is a hard limit for you, Sydney. Anthony and I aren’t into it and you don’t have to worry, baby.”
Her voice was shaky and her chin quivered. I held her while Matt and Anthony carried out more trash including the electro box. She didn’t have anything personal in the small living room area. Nothing. Just a couch, the torture device coffee table and a small antenna TV that sat on what looked to be a metal plant shelf.
Sydney went back to sorting ma
il while I went over to a closet with Anthony. He gave me a look that told me this was the closet he and I talked about earlier.
“Sunshine, are there any clothes that you want to take?”
I stared at the huge clothes bar and leather straps that hung down. My hands took hold of them and slid down the length until I was crouching, staring at her footprints on the wall. Fucking bastard. Anthony looked to be filled with the same amount of anger that I was filled with.
“Sydney, sweetheart, are there any clothes you’d like to take home?” Matt asked her gently as he stood next to her and stroked her hair. Matt knew that Anthony and I were close to coming apart and had tried stepping in. Sydney hadn’t responded though.
Anthony and I turned to see her still crouched over in the center of the room but she had her head down on her forearms. Matt lowered himself to the ground on front of her and was brushing her hair over her shoulder. He was good with her and calm. I was glad he was here to keep everyone calm and in check.
“Home?” Her voice quivered. “This is my home.” She was crumbling. Sydney gestured around the studio apartment as tears streamed down her face. “This is what I have. It’s my home.”
Anthony handed the box to me that he was holding and quickly walked to her and put his hands on her cheeks forcing her to look at him. He was angry over everything in here but I wished he had calmed down before he approached her so quickly. She doesn’t do well around quick movements.
“No, it’s not your home, Sydney. This isn’t a home. This is a horrible place where horrible things happened. Fuck!” He was looking around the room frantically and then shut his eyes to calm himself. He took a deep breath and let his forehead rest against hers. “This is the place where Colin and I almost lost you before we even had you. This is not your home. Home is where you’ve been living for the past month. Home is where you feel safe and cared for. Home is with Colin and I. You have Colin and I now.”
He took one of his hands off her cheek and pulled the hem of his tee shirt up to expose his horrible scar. Anthony took her hand and held it on his scar.
“Sydney, I got this at the place I lived and grew up. Never, ever did I consider that my home.”
Fuck, this was turning out to be very emotional and mentally exhausting. Anthony grew up in a violent situation and he never clung to it. Sydney was a little different. This was her first place that she got on her own and it’s unfortunate that it turned into a living hell for her. Anthony can always get her to come around. He has that connection with her. He pulled her off the floor and brought her over to where I was by the closet.
“Let’s finish this sunshine and then we’ll go home.”
Sydney smiled at him through her tears and we worked on the contents of the closet. It was worse than what I had imagined. There were only a handful of clothes, and what was there wasn’t worth saving. She pulled out her blue canvas sneakers and considered them. She put them in the donate box and then picked up some black dress shoes and turned to look up at me.
“Maybe I should save these for when I go back to work.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d never be going back to work. Certainly not at this juncture. And if somehow she won that battle with me, she wouldn’t be wearing crappy shoes. I know that may sound harsh, but she’s done doing without. This was because she had to. She did it to survive. No more. I don’t even know how she walked around our office following the beatings her feet took from a fucking TV antenna. I was going to need a rigorous work out session to get this anger out of me.
“Those would be nice shoes to donate, baby. Someone just joining the work force would be able to use those.”
She smiled and agreed with me. “Good idea, Sir. They’ll make someone happy.” She set them in the donate box. I swallowed past a lump in my throat and quickly shook it off. Sydney is genuinely a good person. She had next to nothing but was happy knowing that someone would be able to get use out of her crappy shoes. She quickly moved through the rest of her clothes while I focused on the heavy leather straps that hung down in the closet. The feet marks that Anthony and I stared at a few minutes ago pulled my attention back to them. I felt sick.
Matt was kneeling beside her now and was holding up articles of clothes for her to decide what box to put them in. He held up the orange sweater Anthony and I had seen her in at work.
“This one has a hole in the back, sweetheart. You can’t keep this one.” Matt spoke softly to her, and again, I was so grateful that he was here with us.
I took the sweater from Matt’s hand and looked for the hole. It was on the back of the collar. Perfect size of a finger. A fucking asshole’s finger. I wasn’t going to go down that road, nor was I allowing myself to dwell over how it happened. In the grand scheme of things, that was minimal. Hell, a sweater hole was nothing compared to being tied to a closet bar, or bound to a coffee table while being beaten with a TV antenna, or chained to a heater and burned.
More of the sweaters and shirts we had seen her in were added to the trash pile due to holes. Anthony had pulled some jeans off the hangers and stared at them. I was unsure of what horror he found with the jeans and when I said his name, he thrust the jeans into my hands. They looked normal until I looked inside the waistband. Attached to the waistband were frayed pieces of cloth. I recognized it as a microfiber cloth. The cloth had been sewn onto the sides where her raw skin would rub against. It wasn’t just in the jeans, but all of her pants. I quietly folded the pants and set them in the trash box and took another deep breath.
I saw a bunch of wire hangers in the closet on a hook above the clothes bar and instinctively reached for them. They had been pulled or twisted into various shapes and some even had smaller pieces of metal wrapped around the existing wire. He actually made wire hangers hurt more. Anthony had his hand over his stomach and I glanced down at Sydney. She was looking up at me with unsure eyes. I handed Anthony the hangers to get rid of them and then knelt down by Sydney.
“Baby, this closet is the reason you’re scared of closets, isn’t it?”
Sydney nodded and tried to find her voice. She looked in at what were undoubtedly her own footmarks on the back of the wall. She was struggling and I’m sure she wished I would stop pushing. But a Dom needed to push his sub sometimes. She nodded at my questions. As painful as this was for all of us, it was good she was getting it out.
“He knew I hated the dark.” She sat and continued to look in the closet. I stayed beside her and rubbed her back to comfort her. “When I was bad, he’d blindfold me and wrap those straps around my wrist. Sometimes he’d hit me with those hangers or just leave me in there. I don’t like the dark.”
“I know you don’t, baby. You will never be in the dark again.” I pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “Where did he hit you with the hangers, baby?”
She wouldn’t make eye contact with me but was talking. She shrugged and whispered that he hit her anywhere he wanted between her neck and knees.
“Baby, reach up and shut the door. You’ll never face the inside of it again.”
She didn’t hesitate at all and swiftly closed the door ending it with a small smile. Our strong kitten went over to help Anthony go through some plastic boxes by the bed. They were filled with tattered books and more broken pencils and pens. I frowned at this because it struck me as odd. On the counter was a pen that was just the ink insert of a cheap plastic pen. On the nightstand, I saw another pen outside of the plastic outer part of the pen. What was the deal with broken pencils and pens in pieces?
“Sydney, baby,” I waited until she looked up at me. “Baby what’s with all of the broken pencils and pens?”
I actually thought maybe this was a nervous trait of hers or maybe something to do with how she dealt with stress. Either way, I was just curious.
“Um…I…um.” Sydney’s voice shook and she looked up at Anthony.
Anthony was looking at Sydney and tried encouraging her to finish saying what she started.
Anthony gathered the box that he and Sydney had been putting stuff in and stood. Sydney knelt down on the floor as Matt, Anthony and I gathered around her. Sydney pushed the mattress to her bed up and slid her arm between the mattresses. Matt and I quickly held the mattress up to help her. I glanced under the mattress as she pulled out a spiral notebook. We let the mattress back down and she stood up and held the notebook out towards me. Anthony sat back down on the bed and pulled her to sit on his lap. Nestled in the spiral binding was a familiar looking pen that was unharmed. It was blue and said Everett Gaming in silver. We had tons of these pens floating around our office.
“Um, I would write sometimes…about stuff.” I still didn’t understand the broken writing utensils but felt that was coming so I remained quiet as I held her closed notebook. “Howard knew I liked writing and he would tear up my notebooks. He’d snap my pencils or pens. Sometimes he’d light my pages on fire with his lighter and throw it in my sink. I’d cry when he’d do it and I knew he was proud of himself when he saw me upset. So I started leaving old pens or pencils out in the open along with sheets of paper that looked like I had started writing on. They were decoys so he wouldn’t take my real one. I started hiding my real notebook under the mattress so he wouldn’t find it. I brought my pen home from work and hid it too.”
“Sunshine,” Anthony pulled her against him and he stroked her cheek.
Sydney instantly found comfort with Anthony and wrapped her arms around his neck. I knew she was extra fragile in that moment. She was curled up as close to herself as humanly possible. Anthony understood this and held her tightly. Howard was pure evil, and not only did he nearly destroy Sydney physically, he also fucked with her head.
I looked down at the notebook in my hands. The edges were tattered from being shoved between mattresses and part of the cover was torn. But the inside of it contained everything of importance. This was her outlet. This is how she stayed standing and came to work every day with a smile on her face. This, I most definitely was interested in reading, assuming she’d allow me to. I continued to stare at it and Sydney’s small voice pulled my eyes from the tattered notebook to her.