by Lily White
He had to be. If he wasn’t, I was as good as dead.
“Am I?” Laughing now, he grabbed the shackles that bound my ankles, standing up and dragging me from the wooden floor onto the smooth, cold surface of the bathroom tiles. He flipped me to my back so I could look at him as he stared down at me. The lights behind him were blinding, my eyes still not fully adjusted from the darkness of the other room.
“You can stop with the psycho babble. It won’t work. Let me ask you this: have you ever wondered what it would be like to be one of your subjects? To be examined and studied like the men who are locked away?”
Kneeling down again, he ran his hand along my inner thigh, pushing his fingers through the crease of my legs when I attempted to tighten them together. He squeezed the muscle hard, causing me to shriek and release my legs so that he could explore higher.
“You know as well as I that there are many different sides to people. Good people, bad people, it really doesn’t matter. Each person has the same opposite sides. Some chose to examine the darkness from afar. They read books, they watch movies, but they still return to their comfortable lives with their families, working the same mundane jobs, repeating the same contented patterns and routines that they established for themselves. But then there are others, like you and me, who walk bravely into that darkness, who embrace it.”
“I watch it because I want to stop it.”
I felt his fingers beneath my ass, his palm push against my core and his thumb lazily circling over my clit. It was a soft touch, not hard and painful like Aiden had been. Holland’s touch was more like a lover’s caress, a tease of what he could force my body to feel. Tears sprang loose again.
“Please, Holland. I don’t want this.”
“You wanted it last night. You wanted it when you watched me dry fuck that little slut outside your office door. I could feel your body tremble against mine by your car.” Smoothing his thumb over my panties, he added, “I saw the way you looked at me and Emma.”
Chuckling softly, he said, “You’re growing wet right now as I touch you.”
I closed my eyes, not wanting to look at him. I didn’t want to see the clear green of his eyes, the strong angle of his jaw. I didn’t want to be attracted to a man who was hurting me, but I couldn’t help it. I’d been attracted to him before and over the course of the past week, I’d allowed him to become a forbidden fantasy.
“I don’t have to hurt you, Claire. Your actions dictate that.”
I laughed, desperate to pull myself from the spell he was weaving with his delicate touch. My body was not immune, but my mind was still intact. “Spoken like a true abuser. You make me do this. I only hurt you because of what you make me do.”
His thumb stopped directly over my core. The only thing separating his touch from my body was a thin slip of wet silk.
Silence thickened around us, but I still refused to open my eyes. I was too afraid to look at him, too ashamed to admit that what he was saying was right. I thought I’d been able to hide it, that I hadn’t even felt the attraction until a week before, but maybe I had.
Can anybody help it? Seeing a person walk by that is the perfect model of classic looks, can anybody help but look? I supposed if you were truly in love with someone else or if you were hurting so bad that nothing could grab your attention. I was neither of those things.
“Every time you glanced at me in class, every time you watched me walking down the halls, I knew. I looked back every so often and recognized the interest you were feeling. I felt it too. I could tell that you knew. In your attempts to avoid looking at me or talking to me…”
“Holland.”
His finger pressed in. “No. Not Holland. Not Mr. Strong. I’m done playing, Claire.”
“Holland….”
The panties were moved and his thumb was slipping slowly inside.
My eyes opened.
He smiled.
“You wanted me to do this just last night. I’m giving it to you.”
“Holl…” His thumb pressed over my lips, the smell of sex emanating from where he’d just slipped it inside me.
“Master.” He pointed to himself. Turning his hand in my direction, he said, “Courtesan. Those are the names we’ll use.” Standing up, he moved to the shower, turning the knob until a soft spray poured from the head. Steam billowed hot and sticky, up, the gossamer curtain slowly filling the room and concealing him from view.
Yes, I could still see him. His features were blurred, until he approached me again, at least.
“You know what I want to do?”
I shook my head, the realization that he wasn’t at all who I thought he was finally slamming into my consciousness.
Smiling, he reached out to pull at the band of my panties, sneaking them down my legs, exposing more of me to his hungry stare.
“I want to find out what it would have been like if you ever acted on the feelings you had for me.”
Chapter Nine
Holland
Even dirty and spent, she was beautiful. The alabaster color of her skin, the sapphire blue of her tear filled eyes. Those things were made even more beautiful by the shock of long red hair on her head. Like a porcelain doll, she looked delicate and fragile. But I knew that wasn’t true. She wouldn’t shatter from being dropped on the floor. She wouldn’t break if I handled her roughly or without care.
She was strong.
I liked that about her.
“Holland, please…”
I gripped my hands in her fire streaked hair. She cried out and I could feel different strands snapping beneath my hold. “What should you call me?”
“Holland…”
Her body practically flew across the tiles, the walls shaking when it slammed against them. She cried harder, but the sound only excited me more. I would break her. No matter what she knew about me, about the mind, about anything; I would break her. Aiden was concerned, but not me. Every person has a breaking point and I was determined to find Claire’s.
Standing over her, I waited until she looked up at me. So small, so pale. She lay there crumpled over herself, a mess in ripped and stained clothing that sat bunched and wrinkled over her body. They annoyed me, those clothes. I wanted her completely bare, I wanted to see what, until now, I’d only been allowed to imagine.
“Who am I?”
Her mouth opened and closed again, words wanting to be spoken, but she thought twice about allowing them to be heard. Finally, those full lips parted and she said, “Holland.”
Wrong answer.
I hated tossing her around, hated hurting even one hair on her head. But she would never learn otherwise.
“Who. Am. I?”
She coughed where she now lay crumpled against the side of the bathtub. I was afraid I might have broken something, but quickly brushed off the concern. This wouldn’t go on much longer.
The first day was always the hardest. With each woman I’d helped train, they had to go through this initial part. Pain, abuse…it contrasted nicely with the pleasure of the orgasm we would give them next. They would learn to accept a soft touch from our hand in order to avoid the crushing blows. It was basic psychology.
I had Pavlov to thank for that.
No. This wasn’t a dog drooling over some chosen stimulus. This was a form of conditioning. Act one way and you’re shown pleasure…act another and you’re shown pain. Claire, regardless of her education, would soon learn how to behave just like every other woman we’d trained.
Kneeling down beside her, I brushed the hair away from her face. Her eyes were swollen from her tears, her nose red from sniffling. She looked so tired, but that would soon change. She would be beautiful again when I was through with her.
“Who am I?”
Her lip trembled, tears dripping off her cheek and chin. She fought so hard against finally giving me what I wanted.
“Master.” Those two syllables were spit out in such anger that the sound of it excited me enough to fill my cock; making i
t push painfully at my pants, begging for release. A release I was about to find with Claire.
“Thank you.”
I moved to the corner of the room and flicked a switch by the mirror. It wasn’t a light or anything that could be seen or heard in the room. It was a surprise…for Claire.
“I’m going to remove your shackles. When I’m done, you’re going to walk beneath the shower. There is soap, shampoo, everything you could need to clean yourself off. You don’t want me doing it. I promise you that.”
She nodded, finally understanding the dynamic that would play out between us. Her submission, her obedience…it made me want her even more.
Removing a key from my pocket, I crossed the room again noting the way she flinched as I drew near. I didn’t hold it against her. I’d just stopped beating her. It was an action that would need to be corrected later on in her training.
To be a courtesan, a woman had to know her place, had to accept that she served a purpose: to make men feel wanted. Flinching away, even just a slight movement, could ruin the illusion of absolute desire for the man who approached her.
When the shackles were removed, she pushed up into a sitting position. Shaky and unbalanced, she leaned against the side of the tub as she looked at me. I couldn’t count the tears that trailed over her face and I tried to ignore them as best I could.
This part was always difficult, but so worth it when I watched the women blossom into what they would ultimately become.
I offered her my hand. It was a small bit of kindness in the nightmare of her day. She hesitated at first, looking up at me with a complete lack of trust in her eyes. Yet still, she reached out with her bound hands, curling her fingers over my palm and pushing up on her legs as we stood. Her body rocked because her muscles were almost too weak to support her.
“Let me help you.” Grabbing her waist, I held tight. We approached the shower, but I pulled her aside before she could enter. I had to remove her clothes.
“I want to untie your hands for you. Can I trust you to continue doing as you’re told?”
Her voice was so sad when she answered, “I couldn’t fight if I tried.”
Nodding, I gripped her chin between my fingers, tilting her face up so that I could look down into her eyes. I was seeking out her thoughts without forcing her to speak them. A twinge of guilt pushed through me, but it was gone in a flash, replaced by the knowledge that I would hurt her again.
Loosening the leather cords, I absently rubbed at the skin of her wrists when the bindings fell to the floor. The marks were angry and red, so deeply embedded that I knew they wouldn’t fully disappear until the following day. I hoped I wouldn’t have to replace the cords. I didn’t like to see marks marring the perfection of her skin.
On a breathy whisper, I said, “Step under the water.” My voice fucking shook on that order.
It shook.
I blamed it on my excitement, the first taste of a woman I’d imagined beneath me for several months. Innocently at first, I’d admired her, but it wasn’t anything more than that until the past two weeks. I wouldn’t have done this if not for an unfortunate chain of events: her lecture that sounded like a challenge and the order that gave me a reason to take her.
Moving aside, I gave her room to move. Her steps were sluggish and unsure. When she’d crossed half of the room, she hesitated. Hair slid along her back when she glanced at the open door leading into the hall. Her thoughts were almost audible, they were so clear in her body language. She wanted to run. She was desperate for freedom, but she didn’t make the move to leave.
The weight of her submission fell heavy on her shoulders when she finally crossed the rest of the room and stepped into the shower.
I watched her with unblinking eyes, heavily hooded by lust and power. Only a day before, she’d sat proud and intelligent at the front of her class, expertly speaking of a topic she now was being forced to live. Her knees continued to shake, barely supporting the weight of her body when she grabbed the bottle of body soap and poured it into her hand. Iridescent suds graced her body, small rainbows sparkling atop the white blanket of her skin.
Without thinking, I grabbed my cock over my pants, unable to stand the thickness the sight of her had caused. Blood pulsed through my body and I massaged myself. I was desperate to extend the moment where I was only a spectator viewing the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
Her soaked, dark red hair was plastered to her body by the spray of the water, the color contrasting against her skin in a display of molten flame. Her breasts were pushed up into tight buds, the nipples a beautiful shade of soft pink. Water trailed over her abdomen in rivulets that ran the smooth contour of her feminine belly. She wasn’t hard, but she wasn’t soft either. She was perfection, at least to a man like me.
Between her legs was a flash of hair that matched her head, a strip of deep crimson flame that drew my eye and pushed me over an edge I’d been balancing since I woke her up this morning.
Slowly reaching up, I unbuttoned my shirt, my eyes glued to her body as I stripped the offensive material from my body. Tight and constrictive, it was like shedding a second skin, my actions nowhere near fast enough. I couldn’t wait another second to be inside her, to finally take something I’d wanted above all else over the past few days.
I wasn’t the type of man to wait. I never had to. However, in this instance with this beautiful woman, I’d been forced to do just that. I hoped that my patience would serve to amplify the satisfaction of forcing myself inside.
Releasing my belt, I allowed my pants to fall and pool at my ankles. She opened her eyes then, probably noticing the sound of the metal buckle striking the floor. She didn’t panic, not from what I could see in her expression. Still strong, still in control of herself, but not backing away or protesting in any way.
I wondered for a split second if she was still playing a game, but quickly dismissed the question for my certainty that she was. A wicked grin tugged at my lips.
She could play for now because ultimately, I would win.
Kicking off my shoes, I stepped out of my pants and moved at a snail’s pace across the room. Her eyes never left me, her body cowering against the wall with each step I took forward. I didn’t want this to be violent, didn’t enjoy the initial days as much as the man who trained me.
No.
I preferred the finished product, the women who made it their life to seduce and entice. A trained courtesan was a precious possession, a bastion, an escape for the man who desired ultimate control.
Stepping through the thick steam that hung heavy in the air, it was as if I’d parted a curtain when I approached. Her body glistened in the water and my muscles were hard beneath my skin. Stepping beneath the spray, I watched her body flinch at my proximity. I paused, allowing her the time to accept my presence and for the rigidity inside her to loosen in tolerance of my touch.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
That was a lie. I did want to hurt her, but not in an abusive sense. I didn’t want to punch her or strike her like some brain-dead meathead who had far too many chemicals running through his blood. My brand of pain came with seduction, with sex. It was the caress of leather against the body, the strike of a crop or my palm that brought her blood to the surface, but didn’t free it of the skin.
“Then don’t. Let me go, Holl…” She cut herself off before I had the chance. “…Master.”
I smiled. It was only a tease of amusement in my expression because I knew she hadn’t yet submitted. When she said Master, there was still the bite of hatred in her voice, but it only excited me more.
“Turn around. Hands against the wall and keep them there.” My words came out on a growl, something deep and dark rumbling up from my chest.
She shook her head ‘no’, her eyes widening in horror. I didn’t move to correct her, choosing instead to wait patiently for her compliance. It came quickly and within seconds, her body was turned away from me, her hands splayed across the cold, we
t surface of the tiled shower wall.
Air escaped me on a rattled breath, my skin tightening and my hands clenching in anticipation of my release. I took my time looking her over. I had no reason to rush.
Stroking myself slowly, I ran my tongue along my bottom lip. I wanted to taste her skin, to bite into the light pink color that the hot water had caused to blush along her body. Stepping forward, I released my hold on my cock to grip my hands over her waist. She shuddered at the touch, her muscles tightening against my hold, but relaxing again.
Pressing myself against her, I allowed my head to fall back so that the spray of water could beat against my face. I wanted this more than I’d wanted anything before.
My fingers curled over her, digging into the soft flesh of her hips. She bucked back against me and I hissed out a strangled breath at the friction of her ass along my cock. Pulling my head forward, I opened my eyes and looked at her from beneath water spiked lashes.
Running my palms up her body, I relished the feel of her. My hands met her tits and I squeezed knowing that she would push back again. A slight gasp sounded from her lips, but was silenced when I rolled the already hard nipples between my fingers.
“I want to taste you, Courtesan.” Resting my forehead against her back, I continued to massage her breasts in my hands, the thickness of my cock pushing between the cheeks of her ass. I wouldn’t take her there, not now anyway, because this wasn’t about pain.
It was about possession.
Lifting my head only slightly, I ran my mouth from the crook where her shoulder met her neck and up along the tendon stretched taught beneath the skin. Her pulse beat heavily against my lips, my tongue flicking out to taste the salt of her skin.
I was going to explode.
My teeth bit into the skin and she cried out. I held tighter, not willing to be deterred by her sobbing tears.
“Shhhhhh….” Releasing my bite, I pulled my mouth away to comfort her. “Give in to me and it will be pleasure instead of pain.”
She didn’t relax and I knew that this first time would be better for me than her. Eventually, she would want this and crave it. She’d beg for her Master’s touch.