“Yes, bring the shot here. I don’t want to risk waking her. She’ll awaken to reality soon enough, but for now let her sleep.”
When the doctor was finished with her, she’d be unable to get pregnant and be immune to any sexually transmitted disease she came in contact with. Devin was fairly certain that she had all these attributes already from her father, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Better safe than sorry.
*****
Anna had strange dreams. Strange and uncomfortable dreams. Strange dreams weren’t unusual, but painful ones were. Her body was poked and prodded and an occasional sharp sting slipped through her sleep. She’d felt the warmth of a bright light above her for a period of time. At one point, her chest felt like it was on fire and she struggled to breathe. A sharp poke in her arm and the pain in her chest subsided, allowing her to ease back to sleep.
When she awoke, her body ached as it had after her first day of intensive summer ballet classes years ago. She groaned as she stretched her arms above her head, opened her eyes to find herself in an unfamiliar room. It was pretty and ornate with gilded wooden carvings in the high ceiling. Not as high as the handsome man’s room, she thought to herself and smiled.
She felt...different. Memories of what had happened with Devin returned and she wondered where he was. She felt...grown up. She trailed her right hand down her left arm and down to her body, remembering how he’d touched her. A stirring below her belly made her wonder if that happened every time you had sex. If so, no wonder people liked it so much, although she’d learned over the last few years that there were different ways to have sex; some of which looked very painful.
Tabitha and Zoe, who lived downstairs in Jack’s house, had sex a lot and it looked painful, though they didn’t seem to mind. Jack said they were from the Manor; that he was training them. They were a year older than Anna and men came to see them all the time.
Anna was glad Devin hadn’t been like that. He loved her and wanted her to feel good. She wanted to make him feel good too, although she was certain there were other women in his life that could do a much better job than she could.
Devin’s wife, for example. Anna was positive that Devin would never marry someone who didn’t make him feel good. His wife was certainly a wonderful woman and so lucky to have married someone like him.
She sat up in bed, once again wondering where Jack and Devin were. Should she go look for them? She was naked and didn’t like the thought of wandering around a strange house without clothes on, though she wasn’t shy about being naked. She was naked most of the time in her own house.
Anna spotted a pair of double doors across the room from the foot of the bed. She stood, her legs a little wobbly, and walked carefully to the doors and opened them; it was a closet, but empty. She wandered around the room and finally discovered a bathroom with a robe inside. After taking a moment to pee, she put the robe on and approached the big doors that she guessed led outside the room. Where exactly they led, she had no idea, but her desire for Jack and Devin outweighed her fear of the unknown.
She reached out for the door handle to turn it, but it wouldn’t turn. She tried again, this time harder, but it still wouldn’t turn. She stared at the door for a moment, unsure of what to do next and was surprised when the door opened on its own. She took a step backwards, but not quickly enough. The door pushed against her and she lost her balance, falling to the floor on her rear.
A giant of a man looked down at her with a frown on his face. She smiled tentatively and stood, adjusting her robe. “Is Jack out there?” she asked hesitantly, hoping he’d stop glaring at her.
“I’ll let him know you’re awake,” he growled.
Anna’s eyes widened in surprise. No one had ever spoken to her like that, and she was hurt that a stranger would dislike her so much. He turned and pulled the door closed sharply behind him. She was alone again, but at least she knew that Jack would be with her soon.
She turned and walked to the window. Pushing the sheer curtain aside, she looked out onto a grassy lawn with a thick border of bushes a few hundred feet away. Her thoughts strayed to the dream she’d had about the handsome man in the dark bedroom. This dream had been different from other dreams she’d had of him. This time he saw her...talked to her, even though she had no idea what he’d said. I wonder who he is. Devin’s reaction made her wonder if he might be a real person, not just part of a dream.
The door opened behind her and she turned to see Jack and Devin walk in the room. Her heart soared when she saw them and she ran across the room to hug Jack with all her might. It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t hugging her back and she was confused. She took a step back and smiled into his face.
“Hi, Jack,” she said brightly and turned to Devin. “Hi, Devin.” She leaned forward to hug Devin and he took a step back, avoiding her embrace.
Tears sprang to her eyes as the unthinkable happened. They’d never rejected her embraces before. Something must have happened and they’re not sure how to tell me, she thought to herself. What could have happened, she had no idea. Her parents were gone and they were the closest thing to family she had, so she couldn’t imagine what could make them so distant.
She looked back at Jack. “Jack? What’s wrong?” He simply looked at her. Was that disgust on his face? Why was he looking at her like he looked at Tabitha and Zoe?
She looked quickly at Devin. “Devin?” she said in a timid voice. “Did something happen?” His expression was similar to Jack’s.
Anna’s stomach knotted as she took a step back and stared at the two men she loved more than anything in the world. They’d never acted so coldly towards her.
Suddenly, Devin reached out and hit her across the left cheek. He hit her so hard that she stumbled to her knees, one hand on the floor preventing her from falling further and the other cradling her face. A cold wave of disbelief washed over her as she looked up to the faces of the men she loved.
She struggled to speak. “D-Devin, why-”
But she didn’t finish her sentence before he leaned forward and hit her on the other side of her face, this time sending her sprawling to the wooden floor.
“Don’t call me Devin,” he snarled. Snarled.
Incredulity flooded her as she looked up at him, jaw trembling. The tears that had stung her eyes moments before now cascaded down her cheeks, irritating the rapidly forming abrasions.
Anna didn’t know what to do. Neither of the two men had ever so much as raised their voice at her, and here she was, on the floor, having been hit in the face by her beloved Devin. Twice. Her mouth gaped wordlessly as she stared at them. Were these the same men with whom she had cuddled so recently?
Jack reached for her arms and pulled her to her knees, her rear resting on her heels. “You will sit like this with your hands like this,” he brought her palms together under her chin in a prayer-like position, “whenever we are around. You will only stand if given permission. Do you understand me?” His voice was harsh. He’d never spoken to her like that. He spoke to...he spoke to Tabitha and Zoe like that, not to her.
“Do you understand me?” he repeated, his voice slightly louder and demanding.
“Y-y-yes....” Anna wasn’t sure what to call him. Devin had hit her when she addressed him as she always did. “Yes, Jack,” she said quickly and winced as she braced for another hit. And it came. A moment later she was on her hip again, this time having been hit by her beloved Jack. She stared up at him for a moment as he looked at her through narrowed eyes.
“You will call me Master, as all my trainees do.”
She continued to stare at him, trying to grasp what he’d said. Trainee? He must be joking. But one look in his eyes and she knew there was no humor in his words.
“You will refer to me as Master as well,” Devin instructed. “Do you understand?”
“Y-y-yes, Dev—” She stopped herself before the offending word escaped her mouth. “Yes, Master.” The term felt foreign and uncomfortable. Where was her
loving Devin? Her heart was broken and she wanted to sob and scream at the same time, but something inside told her it would be better to remain silent. She bit her lip instead.
“Things will be different from now on,” Devin continued. “You will not look us in the eye unless given permission. Nor any other man. You will submit yourself to Jack’s authority, and mine, obeying without question everything we tell you to do. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master,” she said in a shaky voice.
There was a pause and then Jack spoke. “You will continue to live with me, but your room is now the downstairs room, as it has been vacated by the other girls.” His voice was cold and frightening.
The downstairs room? Anna never stepped foot down there, but the cries and screams that had travelled upstairs made her never to want to go there. Now she would be living down there? Oh, what horrors awaited her down those stairs?
“You are finished with school. You’ve had plenty of education and won’t need any more to succeed in the future. You will continue to take your two ballet classes a week, however.”
Anna wondered at the concession of dancing. When her parents had died and she’d gone to live with Jack, he had cut back her dancing to just two classes per week and forbidden any performances. She’d not been able to talk to old friends, or anybody for that matter, and had been forced to change schools. But his loving manner had made up for it for the most part. He kept her mind and body busy with other things.
Without thinking, she looked up into his face and began to ask why when he reached down and hit her across the cheek again.
“Did I give you permission to look at me?” Jack shouted at her. She jumped at the harshness of his voice.
She quickly looked back down at the floor, tears now flowing freely though she remained silent. The tears fell onto her lap where they made dark spots on her white robe.
Jack continued. “As I said, you will continue to dance. Those classes are to keep you...shall we say, healthy? But you will be too busy for more than that. There are other skills that are more important for you than dancing.”
“Yes, Master.” She stared at the floor.
“You will not leave the house without my permission. Your life will revolve around Devin and myself. If, on the rare occasion you are out of the house and you see someone you know, you will ignore them. You will not speak to them or look at them. If they approach you, you will turn and walk away.”
“Yes, Master.”
What was left of the normal part of Anna’s life had just turned upside down. She didn’t know what to think, what to feel. She didn’t know what “lessons” Jack was talking about, but she had a feeling she wouldn’t like them. She’d not seen the lessons that Tabitha and Zoe had taken, but she had heard many of them. She’d seen them bruised and hurting. She’d watched Jack yell and scream at them for the smallest thing.
Anna had gone to Devin after she’d lived with Jack for a few weeks, upset over the abuse Jack was inflicting on the girls, but Devin had said that the girls were being trained for something special and that they’d be okay. Somehow, he had made Anna believe what Jack was doing was okay... at least at the time. Anna had learned to ignore it as much as possible because it hurt her heart to see it.
Men came to Jack’s place frequently to utilize the services of Tabitha and Zoe. Jack had Anna stay in his bedroom on those nights watching TV with the volume up high, though she could still hear sounds that frightened her. When he saw that she was upset, Jack, and sometimes Devin, would visit her in the bedroom, distracting her from the sounds by teaching her the pleasures of being touched by a man.
After about a year of being kept in the bedroom, she was allowed to be out in the living room when men visited. They were always very nice to her and sometimes Jack would let them touch her, with the promise that they wouldn’t hurt her. They were rough with Tabitha and Zoe and made them cry or scream in pain.
More recently, though, Tabitha and Zoe presented themselves to Jack’s friends and spent the evening quietly pleasing them. Anna was fascinated at what they could do with a man’s body, obviously pleasing them and making them moan. The men were still rough sometimes, but the girls didn’t seem to get as upset as they did before.
*****
Devin contemplated Anna’s tears as he stepped closer. His other girls, including the girls that Jack trained for him, were just property. They had no birth certificates or social security numbers. They had no need for a 401(k) and the government did not know they existed. At least not officially; plenty of elected officials knew his girls personally. Anyone born in the Manor was kept off the radar, and many generations of girls had been born and died in this place, unbeknownst to most of the city. Yes, they had names, and he knew them all, but they were just sexual objects to be used to keep the men happy and compliant.
Anna wasn’t like that. She’d been born to loving parents, raised in a loving home until Devin decided it was time for her to become his. She was special. She had qualities only a handful of females in the entire world possessed, but she didn’t need to know that. He had rights to her; it was not an issue of legality. The will of the Brotherhood was what counted, and no one would deny his right to her. She was born in his region and he claimed her at her birth. But his plans for her were different from the others who kept similar women. His Brothers didn’t need to know that, though. Not for now anyway. They’d find out eventually, but by then it would be too late.
Devin gave Jack a satisfied smile. Everything was coming together as expected. This was good. This was very good.
Chapter 1
Four Years Later
“Sit.”
I dropped into my submissive position without having to think about it. After years of sexual lessons from my Master Jack, there were many things I didn’t have to think about anymore; I just did as I was told. It was less painful that way.
Sometimes.
“Good girl.”
I could hear him walking to the side of the room where he kept the whips, pause, and then walk back towards me.
He stopped behind me and trailed a black braided leather whip on the floor in a circle around me. I shuddered as he trailed it up my back and then slowly wrapped it around my neck once, twice, three times. I held my breath. I knew what he’d do next, just not when he would do it. The longer he waited, the harder it was to time my breathing.
He didn’t move. I didn’t move.
I could hear him breathing, slow and steady. I used to be able to anticipate his moves by listening to the changes in his breathing, but not anymore. I think he must have realized what I had been doing and changed his tactics.
Abruptly, he pulled the whip up and back, yanking my body back onto the painted cement floor. Instinctively, I moved my hands up to my neck under the whip to keep it from choking me as he dragged my naked body across the floor to the archway where he disciplined me.
He yanked the whip upwards to make me stand.
“Up,” he commanded.
I obeyed, carefully keeping my eyes focused on the floor in front of me.
“Hands up.”
I put my hands above my head and he cuffed them into place. I was careful to keep my face impassive, but internally I shuddered. No matter how many times he’d whipped me, it always felt like the first time. Perhaps it was because my body always healed itself quickly, not allowing my skin to toughen up. Or perhaps it was just the nature of the whip.
Almost four years had passed since Master Devin took my virginity. Four lonely years since my beloved Devin and Jack became Master Devin and Master Jack. Four years since I’d been held in a manner that didn’t involve sex. Four years since I’d heard the words, “I love you.”
I couldn’t even begin to count the number of times I cried myself to sleep, wondering if I would ever wake up from this nightmare that my life had become. Why? Why did my guardian hate me so much? He used to love me. Master Devin, too. What did I do to make them despise me? Maybe if I were be
tter, if I did everything the way Master Jack wanted me to, then he would stop hitting me. That if I was good enough, the Jack I knew as a child would return and love me again.
But no matter how much I strived to be good enough, I failed. As soon as I started getting better at something, Master Jack would change how it was supposed to be done so that I failed again. Then he would chain me to the archway and whip me until I passed out, which didn’t take that long.
Despite all the cruelty in my life the last few years, I never got used to being hit; every time felt like the first time. For reasons unknown, I healed faster than normal people and calluses didn’t grow anywhere on my body. They didn’t grow on my heart, either, leaving it unprotected from the verbal abuse of my Master Jack and his friends. Oh, how their words stung, sometimes more than their fists.
A few months after my lessons began, I tried to kill myself by cutting open my wrists. I bled a lot and passed out. Master Jack saw what I’d done and was beyond furious. He wrapped my wrists and then took me to see Master Devin.
I didn’t want to think about what Master Devin had done to me that night. But I never attempted suicide again. My body healed too quickly to succeed and I never, ever, wanted Master Devin to be that angry with me again.
I didn’t see Master Devin very often; he was a busy, important man. Whenever he did come for a visit, he and Master Jack spoke of things I never completely understood. Like how a senator wasn’t listening properly, or how the mayor was ignoring him. Master Devin did not like being ignored. He would look at me with his cold eyes and give me a cold smile, but didn’t touch me. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Once she’s trained, that won’t be an issue anymore,” Master Devin said one time after a discussion with Master Jack about the governor. “She’ll be able to convince them.”
The Life of Anna, Part 1: Enslaved Page 2