Master Over You

by Cerys du Lys

  None of that was enough, though. I knew this. I needed more. I wanted to eat an actual meal. I wanted to be able to go to the lake and drink my fill, but I was rarely allowed out of the church without supervision. Even when I was allowed to go outside on my own, I was not alone. Someone was watching me. I do not know who, but that is what I was told and that is what I believed. Perhaps it was a lie. Perhaps I could have escaped and I didn't.

  I scratched at my arms and legs until I bled, hoping to die. I did not die. I continued to do it. When he saw me like that, he stopped me. He took me into his bedroom and he stripped me of my clothes and he ripped out all of my nails one by one. He knew what he was doing. The device he used is similar to the one I have now. He placed my fingernails in a box, laughing as he did so, telling me that I did not deserve them.

  I was not pretty. Girls who are not pretty do not need fingernails. Even if I had them, I did not have money to buy polish to paint them. Blood suited me better. Blood is penance. I must bleed for my sins and for my selfish behavior. Trying to kill myself before I had paid penance for my crimes was also selfish, he said.

  While the beds of my fingernails flared in agony and blood dripped down my fingers, he ripped off his clothes and then threw me on the bed. He laughed at me as he took me by force. He laughed when I tried to fight him off and scratched and begged and pleaded one final time, but all I could do was smear blood across his naked body and feel pain shooting through my hands and into my arms and finally to my heart.

  I knew happiness before, and then I knew sadness. I thought I knew nothing after that, but I did not. I knew desperation and fear for a little while. Those are powerful emotions, too. Once my fingernails were gone and I owned nothing, not even myself, I finally understood what it is like to know nothing. It is not a feeling I can describe; it is a feeling borne of the absence of all other feelings.

  They did not need to hold my hands down any longer. I did not fight them off. I lay there, still, while they forced themselves on me. On occasion, through no effort or want of my own, I felt the tremors of an orgasm, but this did not pleasure me. It was a thing that occurred to my body during the natural progression of the sexual activities forced onto me. I did not want to have an orgasm, but it is difficult not to when man after man after man takes his pleasure from you, supposedly ridding himself of sin in the process, and by the time they are through, the first wishes to begin again.

  My body hurt. I would lay in the church basement, feeling cold stone against my naked skin. He used to chain me there at night, but I did not need chains any longer. I needed nothing. Why should I leave? Where would I go? I owned nothing, had nowhere to go, knew no one who would help me. I did not even own myself. I was his, and when he wished, he would kill me, and then I would be dead like I should be. He did not say this to me, but that is what I thought he would eventually do.

  Noah arrived, though. He came and he requested to be alone with me. This was when they thought he would find pleasure in my body like they did. They had done it for a long time now and did not feel the need for privacy during the act, but Noah was different. He was not called Noah, then. He was someone else, but to me he will always be Noah.

  He saved me. I thought he would take me that day, but he did not. I lay on the floor, waiting, naked, but he only watched me from afar. He stood in the room as far away from me as he could, and he remained silent. He offered me nothing but respite and peace.

  I loved him. I fell in love with him that day. I know that it seems sudden, but when your existence consists of pain and torment during every single hour of the day, and someone gives you the gift of thirty minutes of peace—one-thousand-and-eight-hundred seconds—it is not hard to love them.

  The next day when he came, he spoke to me softly. He asked me if I was hurt. What do you say to that? I did not know. I did not speak to him. I lay there, basking in nothingness, listening to Noah's sweet words, relishing the sound of his voice. He did not speak often, though; only a little. When he would speak, I counted the seconds in my mind, hoping that the next time he spoke he would speak for a little longer.

  Days passed and I cherished my time with Noah. I counted every moment with him in my mind. I knew exactly how long we were together. We were alone. They allowed us this. He never touched me or forced himself on me. I stopped laying on the floor and waiting for him to rape me. Instead I sat against the wall opposite him and looked at him. We watched each other. He spoke and talked about what he did during the day. I listened and tried to remember doing those same things. Noah and I did not do the same things, though. Even before this, I do not remember ever having done what Noah did. He spoke of the woods and the lake and how he once spent a week in a cave and survived by eating fish and whatever edible foliage he could find.

  I lived in a cave, too. It was not a wild cave, but a civilized one. I thought I would have preferred a wild cave. It sounded much better. Noah told me how during that week he woke up whenever he wanted, rising with the sun or staying in a little later, and how he spent his entire day wandering through the woods, only to return once night fell so he could fall asleep beneath the stars. When I fell asleep, I could see nothing but the darkness of the ceiling. I wanted to fall asleep beneath the stars with Noah. I wanted to wake when the sun rose, or stay in a little late, and then wander the woods, free from everything.

  Noah brought me food and drink, too. He smuggled it in secretly, because they would not like it. I devoured it. He gave it to me. He gave me everything he had. I knew Noah did not have a lot of money to purchase such things, but he did it anyway. He went without breakfast in order to bring me his jam-covered toast. By the time he brought it to me, it was cold and soggy, having remained wrapped in a napkin in his coat pocket for the entire day, but it tasted so wonderfully.

  We talked a little. I talked to him now. He knew my name. I knew him, too. We had not talked much before this. Noah did not say it, but I thought he was shy. Perhaps not traditionally shy, but he did not like to talk much. We talked a lot now, though. He spent his afternoons with me when he could. We spent them together. Most of the time we were not alone, and more often than not it involved him watching me be tortured, abused, and nearly killed by the others, but we did spend some time alone. I cherished my time with Noah.

  Once, he took me to his home. It was in the middle of the night. This was when I no longer needed chains to keep me in place. Where would I go? I was nothing. I was Angel. He snuck into the church and found me in the basement, though. We absconded into the night and arrived at Noah's home. He brought me into it and we gorged on food he bought and saved just for this occasion. We spent hours together, sitting in the near-dark in his room, only seeing each other by the light of the moon and a flashlight he had borrowed.

  I lay beneath blankets and we cuddled together. I felt warm and soft. I do not know how or why, but I laughed. I remembered. I felt happy again. How did this happen? What happened to me to make me feel that way?

  I looked at Noah and he looked at me while we hid beneath his blankets with his flashlight. I saw his face in the yellowish glow and he smiled at me. I smiled back at him.

  "Can..." he started to say, but he paused. I touched his hand, the one holding the flashlight, and it bolstered his confidence. "Can I kiss you?" he finally asked.

  I did not answer him with words. He tried to take back his question. He stuttered and stammered and begged me to forgive him. He said he should not have asked that. It was wrong. It was bad. He did not mean to do it.

  I kissed him.

  I did not mean to and I do not think Noah meant to, either, but we soon found ourselves naked that night. He entered me, but not before begging and pleading with me to say that I would like it. He said he would not do it if I did not actually want to. He did not want to do it for himself, he said. He wanted to do it for me. He wanted me to feel special.

  It is funny, because I did not want to have sex with Noah for myself that night, either. I wanted to do it for us. I said yes.
I kissed him. He still did not enter me. I needed to pull his hips forward forcefully before he would allow his erection inside me.

  That was the first time he ever had sex. It was the first time I had ever made love. It ended in a couple of seconds, and I laughed. He stumbled and stuttered and apologized and tried to pull himself out of me, but he felt so nice and warm and I loved the feeling of him on top of me, so I held him there.

  "No," I said. "Please? Stay?"

  He stayed. He became hard again soon. We tried another time. This time was very good. I did not have an orgasm, but I felt so soft and warm and glowing that it did not matter. Noah had never left me, stayed in me and with me the entire time, and then he came inside of me again.

  "No!" I begged him, while I laughed and buried my face into his neck. "Stay?"

  "Don't leave," he said suddenly. "Stay here with me. You can stay here and you never have to go back."

  "That is a nice thought," I said. "It will not work, though."

  "Why?" he asked.

  He looked hurt. I did not want him to be hurt, so I kissed him gently.

  "He will come," I said. "He will hurt you."

  I did not tell Noah that this was not entirely the truth. I did not tell him that I would hurt him. I did not want to hurt him, but that is what would happen. Being with me would hurt him, because I should not exist. I should not be with anyone. I should be dead. I should die. I needed to deal with the consequences of my actions. Noah was not going to punish me, and he could never punish me. I did not want him to punish me, either. If he did not, he would be wrong, though. He would then need to deal with the consequences of his actions, and I did not want him to be put in the same situation as me. I did not want them to hurt Noah. I did not want them to rape him. I did not want them to starve him and refuse him water and shove his head into a marble tub filled with water until he drowned, only to revive him and repeat the process a week or two later.

  Noah looked at me, fierce. His cock began to swell. He looked angry. Not angry at me, but at life and the world. He pulled out of me slightly and I thought he would leave me. I grabbed his hips, begging him with my hands. He thrust back into me hard. I... what was that?

  Sparks. Delicious, wonderful, erotic sparks.

  We rutted in his bed like wild animals, except that makes it sound poor and wrong. Animals who mate with one another do not hate each other. They are kind. They want to create children together. The male dog may snap his teeth around the females neck while he mates with her, but he does not do this to torture or hurt her, he does it because it is his instinctive need and because in some small way I think he loves her. He is kind in his roughness. He loves her so much and he does not want her to leave him.

  That is what Noah and I did. He was rough, and yet he did not hurt me. No, the opposite. I felt very good. Noah never left me. This was the third time we made love that night, and it was also the longest. He gave up his first time to me in a matter of moments, and he made the second time very comfortable and soft. The third time was rough and exciting and erotic.

  I came while he pounded into my tortured and wicked body. My body clenched against him, hands squeezing his sides, inner walls clenching against his cock. He was not done, though. He continued, more. He spoke to me the entire time, although I do not know if his words made complete sense. He promised me he would never hurt me. He promised me that he would save me. He would do something. He would help me.

  Noah, I wanted to tell him, you already have. I am saved. You are helping me. What more can you do? I do not think you can fight against everyone? They will come for you, Noah. They will hurt you. You cannot stop them.

  He came inside of me two times before that, and I came more times than I could count on his third attempt. I did not know I could feel like this. I did not know it was possible. We panted and groped and shoved our bodies against one another in ecstatic glee. Noah began roughly, but he found a certain sense of confidence and power in his stride after that. I laughed and giggled and smiled and kissed him because I felt so happy with him right now. I did not believe I knew how to be happy before, but I now realized I did.

  He came again, but not before grinding his cock and his body so hard against me that an orgasm forced its way through my body, too. This was not an empty and meaningless climax like I was used to, but a powerful, intense, and amazing one. I felt everything, all of us, Noah and I together.

  I felt alive.

  After that third and final time, Noah collapsed atop me. He begged me to stay.

  "Please?" he said. "We'll hide. I'll leave my parents. We're both old enough. We're both adults. We can live in the woods in that cave I told you about. We can go somewhere else. I'll find a job and save money so that we can move away somewhere where no one knows who we are. Please?"

  I did not know what to tell him, so I told him yes. He seemed so happy.

  I lied, though. He fell asleep soon after, but I forced myself to remain awake. I nuzzled against his body one final time, feeling comfort and warmth beneath his blankets. We ate so much and made love so many times that my eyes nearly refused to stay open, but somehow I managed to keep myself alert.

  I slipped away from him in the dead of night and returned to the basement in the church. I do not think anyone ever knew what I did; only Noah, who came for me and brought me with him when everyone else abandoned me and hurt me. It gave me strength and made me feel powerful.

  Noah did not accept that. He did not say otherwise, and he still came to see me every day. He did not come to sneak me away with him again, though. He did not come to sneak me away with him again in the same way, at least.

  He did come one night. There were others, too. All of them. We were to remain awake and vigilant until the sunrise, because of some important meaning derived from it on this specific night. I do not remember why or what we were doing. I was not invited so much as forced to come because I would be the entertainment in order to remove the boredom caused by remaining awake in a quiet church for the entire night.

  They took me. They raped me. They hurt me and abused me, but I expected this.

  And then they died. Noah killed all of them. While the men in the basement took their pleasure from my body, he killed those outside and upstairs. He stabbed them with artful precision. After the night we spent together, after I left him, Noah spent his evenings learning how to kill a man perfectly and with alarming alacrity. They died quickly, slumping to the floor, bleeding, lifeless.

  One by one, as the men using me left the basement and walked upstairs, Noah killed them. Finally I was alone, but I did not know it yet. I smelled something strange, but I did not want to leave the basement with so many people nearby. They would hurt me more. I was hurt, but I did not know if I could stand being hurt even more.

  I knew happiness because of Noah, and it was becoming difficult not to feel anything anymore. I would remember him and I would smile, even if only for a fraction of a second. The emotion was fleeting, but it was there, and it was very real to me. A fraction of a second in the middle of eternity can sometimes seem like a lot. He gave me so much happiness even if it does not seem like it was a lot compared to what a normal person feels.

  Noah walked down the stairs into the basement. I saw his bloody shirt and the knife in his hands. I did not fear him, though. Why should I fear Noah? That did not make any sense to me. I could not comprehend ever being afraid of him. I ran to him to see if he was hurt. He was not.

  "I killed them," he said. "I killed them and I set the church on fire. We can leave now. No one will know. They won't hurt you ever again."

  I did not know what to say to him. Did he really do that? If he did... he was right. They would not hurt me. If they did not hurt me, did that mean that I had repented for my sins? Was I free now? Would I die, or...?

  We went upstairs. Noah held my hand and guided me up the steps. My body shivered because I was naked. He showed me a dress he brought with him, and he gave it to me. It was for my escape, he said
. I put it on while he went to the pulpit of the church and cleaned himself as best he could in a bowl of water used during Sunday sermons.

  I saw them. They lay scattered throughout the pews, bleeding. The fire started small, but by now it was becoming bigger. I went towards one of them and knelt beside their body. Blood flowed freely out of the man's neck. I placed my hands in it, feeling his life and his warmth forming a pool atop the cool, smooth stone tiles.

  I pressed my hands covered in his blood against my dress without thinking. Beautiful white became a vibrant red. I pressed my hands back into the blood and then brought them to my face. I remembered the feeling of cool water bringing shivers to my body whenever they drowned me. This was not cool, but warm. I shivered, but for a different reason; I did not know why.

  After they revived me when I drowned, I felt cold and lost and lifeless even though I was alive. Feeling this man's blood dripping down my body made me feel revived, too. Now I was warm and brilliant and alive, though. I was whole and good and pure.

  Blood touched my lips and I licked it. It tasted of sweet iron and raspberries. I brought a finger to my mouth and licked it clean. They did not give me adequate food or water for days, and only Noah offered me sustenance, but right here and now I had so much. I had this man's blood at my fingertips. I was so hungry and so thirsty and I knew Noah would give me food and something to drink later, but I could not wait any longer.

  I lost myself in a different sort of way. I did not know what happened or how I arrived outside of the church. Noah pulled me away and we left together. I looked over my shoulder at the place I'd been trapped for what seemed like forever. Fire consumed it, red and hot like the blood on my hands. The building burned, shattered, and then fell. There was no one to save it.

  Noah destroyed it, he left them all for dead; he only saved me.