I could smell her, feel her. This was real. As if I could doubt. A chill cloaked me. Real. People were dead. This was real. Oh shit, oh shit. I sniffled.
“Don’t, Steph? Is that what you said earlier tonight? Did you say don’t? To stop him taking off my clothes?”
I’d been trying not to look at Jodie but some small variation in her tone made me look. Were those tears wetting her lashes? If so, they mirrored mine. Was that regret I saw? Fear even? Crazy as a circus clown on crack, my emotions swung about. I sorrowed for her, deeply. For that minute flicker of time I felt it for both of us, maybe even for Klaus.
“I think I did, Jodie,” I whispered. I thought it was true. “I did try.”
I think I’d hesitated, before I had let go of my inhibitions. I wasn’t completely sure what was true though, not anymore. The night had become so surreal and so wrong, and I doubted everything.
But this was now. They’d kidnapped me. My sympathy evaporated. Lifting on my toes and squirming, I struggled to go somewhere. Up, sideways, down—I tried them all, but his hand on my throat didn’t budge at all. I lifted one knee and bumped Jodie.
“Stop moving.” He shoved my chin higher. “Stop struggling. If you kick Jodie you will find out now how I punish.”
I crumpled.
“Fuck. Please, please stop? Please?” I went up on tiptoe again for all of a quarter of an inch before his hand prevented any farther movement.
“Uh-uh. No.” He smiled at me. Bastard.
Then Jodie moved back in and snipped away the last shred of cloth that parted my dress. It swung free to either side. The cold air brushed my skin a moment before she pressed her body again onto mine. “You need to understand that you are going to be ours. You gave up your rights tonight when you gave away mine.”
Her eyes were like little worlds before me. I could sink into them, and if I did, I had an inkling they might eat me up and spit me out in small pieces. What had happened to my old friend Jodie?
Fierce was the word that sprang to mind when I saw how she looked at me. I’d never thought of her like this. I quailed, trying to shrink even farther back against the wall.
“I’m sorry.” And I was. “I’m so sorry. Let me go. I won’t do anything bad. I promise.” I curled my toes, suddenly aware I was barefoot. Where had my shoes gone?
“You’re sorry?”
Oh fuck she was ignoring the let me go part. “Yes.”
“Let you go because this has happened? Because we are stronger than you? Because we have the upper hand?”
“No,” I sobbed, looking aside at Klaus, as if he might help. Calm down, say what needs saying. Maybe there is hope. “I am truly sorry for everything. No one should have died. Or…or what happened to you. If we are careful, we can still do this the right way. We can go to the police. I can say what you need me to. I can.”
She stared with the scissors raised. I swallowed and felt the hardness of his grip on my neck. Her eyes squeezed shut a moment before opening to that light blue vista again.
Uncertainty? Maybe? I prayed hard.
“No, Steph. It shouldn’t have happened to me. They shouldn’t have died. But it has. They did. And we all have to pay. Think on that. Also,” she added, inserting the scissor blade under the middle of my bra, “This should go.”
Then she cut through my bra, as efficiently as if it were nothing, and next she snipped through the shoulders of the dress and the shoulder straps of my bra. Then she stripped me and tossed all the pieces of dress and underwear aside. I simply stood there, letting it happen. For the time being, my tears had run out. I was numb. Devastated even.
I was mostly naked in front of two people who hated me like no one else ever had.
So much had gone wrong tonight. I hadn’t really thought they would listen. I’d just hoped. While I was coming to terms with that, she put her whole hand over my breast and clawed her fingers in. The shock made me jerk.
“What now, Klaus?” she asked. Her fingertips seemed to screw in even more and my nipple, treacherous thing, bumped hard into her palm. I hissed at the pain.
“Now we leave her here, alone, for the night.”
I had shut my eyes again and I listened in that self-imposed darkness. Thank God, they are leaving me.
“You can’t get out, Stephanie,” he added. “I’m leaving all the cuffs on and the collar. They will never come off again, unless I replace them with other restraints. Or unless we decide to trust you and set you free.”
Free? I clutched my aching breast after she let go. But I kept my eyes closed. Go a-fucking-way!
Once he’d locked on a small chain to join my ankle cuffs together, they did as he’d said. I stayed there at the wall, letting it hold me up. I opened my eyes to watch them leave.
He pointed out a camera, and a door that went to a toilet. Then he packed away the leash, some rope, and some sort of red ball, into a chest then locked it. They walked out and the room was blissfully drained of energy and empty.
The door shut. The light dimmed to a soft glow. Near the door, a camera light blinked green. They could watch me even in my sleep.
Ohmigod, I was alone.
When I summoned the energy, I dropped to my knees and crawled to the small mattress on the floor. There was no blanket or sheet but it was a warm night. It must be late. Time seemed irrelevant when my world was disintegrating.
After lying there a while, I realized I needed to pee and managed to rise and walk in small steps to the toilet, the ankle chain catching every few steps when I got the cadence wrong. I closed the door and checked for a camera light. None.
“Fuck.” I collapsed for several minutes, sitting there on the toilet, crying. They couldn’t see me in here. Afterward I stayed there crying some more. I didn’t want them to see my tears.
Only exhaustion made me leave. I rinsed my face and went back to the bed. Sleep claimed me, washing in and out like a tide before I succumbed completely.
I gasped awake, torn from a dream about someone sobbing in a dark shrinking room. The overhead fluorescent light flashed on and the door creaked. Jodie was framed in the doorway, bleary-eyed and dressed in a pink tank top and panties. She rubbed her hand across her face.
“See. She’s okay.” Klaus moved in behind her. The man was taller by a foot or so.
“No. She was crying for ages.”
He sighed. “You want this?”
“Just for tonight? Please?”
“Okay. For you.” He patted the top of her head.
“For her too.” Her mouth twisted. “I guess.”
To my burgeoning horror, Klaus strode toward me.
“What? What are you doing now?” I struggled backward and hit the wall behind me. I covered my breasts with my hands.
“Stop worrying.” He stopped to unlock the chest and collect the leash he’d used earlier then he came and stood before me. “You can come upstairs for the rest of the night.” His eyebrows rose. “Jodie wants to pamper you. She thinks you’ll feel safer in our bedroom.”
“Safer?” I gasped out, while still futilely protecting my assets, as if he’d not seen them earlier.
“That’s what I said when she suggested this.” His small smile seemed so wrong. “I told you, I don’t do rape. You will be on the floor, on a mat I have there for Jodie when she’s being bad. Or when I just feel like keeping her as my pet.”
“Pet?” I realized I had my mouth open and shut it.
“It’s nothing. A part of who we are. You’ll learn soon. I’ll make sure you do.”
Ah. God. The assessing look he trailed up my body sent ice-cold tingling through me, closely followed by a rush of warmth. I dropped my gaze to somewhere less challenging—the floor. The man was lust incarnate in the way he talked, walked and carried himself. Also, he was my personal horrible nemesis who scared the crap out of me.
But I accepted this. I couldn’t do anything else, and I let him lead me like some bedraggled pet up the stairs to their bedroom. The leash was clicked o
nto a ring in the floor, he fluffed up a blanket on top of a small mattress, and I crashed again and fell into darkness.
For the next two days they fed me, kept me in the room downstairs during the day and in their bedroom at night. Sleeping on the mat was agonizing at times. With the ungiving floor beneath the thin mattress, my shoulder went numb every few hours, and I was forever tossing and turning, and red-eyed by the morning. Sometimes that was from crying. I tried not to do it if I thought they could see, but I couldnt control what I did in my sleep.
Was I cramping their style while in their bedroom? I didn’t give a shit. After two days I was still swinging from angry to sad to terrified so often that sometimes I just curled up and tried to think of nothing. Despite his promise, they’d not given me any tasks, or sorted out anything really. I’d forgotten it was a long weekend.
If anyone had discovered the bodies, I hadn’t been told. Whenever that thought hit me, I felt ill. We’d left them there dead and cold, on the bed. By now, they’d be rotting, and no one knew except for us. That was so callous. They’d made mistakes, like I had, but someone out there would want to grieve for them. Often I’d awaken from the memory of me standing in the middle of the room, watching Leon and Melissa on the bed, waiting for them to stir and breathe again. I’d awaken to find myself staring at nothing. That memory was wearing a groove in my mind.
From the way Jodie and Klaus were walking on eggshells, I doubted the bodies had been found.
Irrational hope surfaced, just a shred, a glimmer. Maybe, they would let me go?
Tuesday. Early morning light filtered in through my eyelids. I lay there, thinking through my options. Klaus would be back at work today, I’d gathered. Jodie would be alone. Could I appeal to her to free me? Could I even dredge up the courage to attack her with something and demand she let me out?
I opened my eyes a fraction. Their murmurs and noises had woken me. He had her mounted on him and both were naked. But her soft sounds, that I’d thought were moans, were not, I realized. She was crying.
“What is it beautiful?” He reached up and placed his hands either side of her face, cradling her. “Tell me.”
“It’s—” She sighed. “Everything. How can you just carry on like this? I mean, what we are doing is…” She glanced at me.
“She’s still asleep,” he murmured. “And if she’s not, so what? Say what you want to.”
The sag of her shoulders and slight lowering of her head said anguish. It bothered me. They were the ones who had turned this into a nightmare, weren’t they?
“I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m afraid the police will still discover some evidence that points to us. I’m lost, really, damn lost.” She played quietly with his fingers. “I don’t think I can go to work anymore even. How can I? I love what I do. Filming. I loved it. But now, one of us must stay home, with her. Klaus, what are we doing? We’re keeping a woman captive…it’s just so, so wrong.”
“You know why we are doing this, what the alternative is. Say the word and I’ll give myself up. Or I’ll get you, or both of us, out of the country. Say it if that would make you happy again.”
Yes! Do that! Do the right thing. I ran a finger around the leather edge of the cuff on my wrist, and hoped.
Jodie choked out a laugh. “No. Hell no. Okay. Okay.” Hand on his wrist, she smiled down at him. “I’m sorry for being all stupid. I know it’s the best we can do.”
“Not stupid. But yes. I believe this is the best option. That woman is not blameless.”
Fuck you, Klaus.
“Yes. I know.”
“The police,” He seemed to just stare for a moment. “I can’t say for sure, but I think we have a good chance at not being found out. And so, we will stick to our plan. But right now, I want to make love to you. I need to. I think you need this too.”
Then he drew her down and kissed her.
“I love you,” Jodie whispered.
“Jodie, remember this, I will never love her. No matter what. You are mine.”
“I wish you could actually say you love me, though.” Even I could hear the desperation in her words.
“You know that you and only you are truly mine.”
How fucking romantic. So they were in love. And, damn, how I envied them. I’d never had that amount of love from anyone—man or woman. I was pretty sure he loved her even if the idiot had trouble with the word. Even bad people could be in love. But were they the only bad ones here? What was I?
Fascinated, I watched them make love on their rumpled bed a few yards away.
Soon her soft moans arose along with, I assumed, Klaus’s cock that must be inside her.
My eyes still open merely to slits, I watched avidly.
My mind’s appreciation of their lust didn’t seem to care about what they’d done to me. He gripped her wrists at her back in one hand while he drove up inside her. When she tried to match his strokes by undulating her pelvis he slapped her breasts hard enough to make me wince.
I swallowed at her blatant moans as they climbed in loudness. Seemed as if she liked that.
His thrusts grew even more powerful, smacking wetly into her while his free hand worked at her between her legs. She threw her head back and arched then screamed as her climax ravaged her.
I shouldn’t be watching. I shouldn’t be getting aroused, not when they planned to do god knows what to me.
Despite my misgivings, I was…I was stunned at the raw beauty of this, and beneath the blanket I reached between my own legs and began to massage my attentive little clit. Already it was hard and sensitive and it throbbed awake, rising even more as I stroked it.
After running his hand over her breasts and pinching both nipples until she gasped, Klaus laughed then flipped her over onto her stomach. With one hand clawed in her hair and the other holding her ass cheek he started fucking her in earnest. I moved finger and thumb up and down on my clit, faster and faster. The tension of an orgasm built to imminent explosion level so quickly I prayed they wouldn’t notice my own gasps. His violent thrusts buried her face under the pillows, buried her choking gasps and squeals.
The moment he came every muscle in his body seemed intent on driving his cock even deeper into her. They were a montage of fucking sculpted in lust and groans and straining muscle.
I shouldn’t be doing this. This was so twisted. I ceased moving my fingers and just held them there, thumb and forefinger a fraction of an inch, a fraction of movement, away from my now supersensitive throbbing clit.
Stop. I hissed in through my teeth.
Too late. His orgasm triggered mine. Waves of pleasure shook me. My legs clamped in on my hand. I shut my eyes and bit down on the blanket, striving, at the same time as I enjoyed the last ripples of my orgasm, to contain the roughness of my gulping breathing.
The shudders as he came down from his climax were mine also. Then, as I quietly removed my masturbating hand from its warm burrow between my thighs, he looked across at me, and at the movement of my blanket, and he winked. I blushed, and still couldn’t stop the harsh rise and fall of my chest. Fuck him.
I glared back and his smile faded into a narrow-eyed calculating study of me. Crap. I chickened out. I pulled the blanket over my head.
The thud of him getting out of bed then the subsequent thump of his footsteps approaching made me oscillate between an urge to throw back the blanket and tell him to fuck off, and a need to hide away forever. My heart hammered madly.
“Come out, Stephanie.”
“No,” I said, quiet yet defiant. What a good start to the day.
“I think you just earned your first punishment.”
I quivered and stared into the dark under the blanket. What the hell did that mean?
A few seconds later the blanket was ripped from my grasp.
“What a surprise,” he said dryly. Then he unlocked the leash from the ring and tugged on it. “Crawl to the bed.” The jerk on my neck made me glower up at him.
“I am not an animal.
” And to his bed? As if. When I went to rise he put his foot on the leash so I was unable to get up.
“If I say you are to crawl, you crawl. Come.” He tugged again.
“Damn you,” I muttered under my breath, but I went to hands and knees and crawled. A few feet from the bed he stooped and picked me up around the middle then carried me the rest of the way half-draped over his arm like some sort stuffed toy he’d rescued from the floor. He plopped down on the bed with me head down over his lap.
“Fuck! Put me down, you cunt. You have no right!”
If it wasn’t for his hand also gripping my hair, I’d have done a far better job, but I squirmed anyway and tried to bite his thigh. Between my cries and cursing I heard him tell Jodie to get a ball gag. The bed rocked as she went to do as he asked. Thinking he was distracted, I sank my nails into his thigh but only managed one deep scratch before he shoved my face into the bedclothes then wrenched both my wrists behind me and linked them together.
I didn’t have any idea what I was really doing except delaying the inevitable.
“Bastard,” I spat those angry words into the sheet, inhaling the scent of their sex. “Fucking let me go! Let me go!”
“No,” he said calmly. “You are going to learn to obey without all this nonsense. The consequences of disobedience…” He slammed his hand down on my ass. The slap jolted me forward and seemed to echo. The sting nailed me to the spot. Each phrase from then on was punctuated with another smack of his hand. “Are. Immediate if possible. Painful. If possible. Or otherwise appropriate. You will not. Swear. At me or Jodie.” One side, then the other. Harder and harder, like some robot on a mission to obliterate my ass. By now I was gasping in a choked, high-pitched fashion. “Gag, Jodie.”
With him holding my hair tight enough to make me wonder frantically if he was going to pull it out by the roots, a smooth ball was wrestled into my mouth and a buckle done up at the back.
“Bastard,” I coughed weakly around the ball.
“What?” Slam, he hit me again.
Bind and Keep Me, Book 2 Page 6