Beyond the Black Curtain

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Beyond the Black Curtain Page 14

by Hayley White


  “We’ll see how far you’ll go.”

  His hand slid between her thighs and Ever sighed as he probed her gently, drawing forth the accumulating fluids.

  “I have faith in you,” he said. “I have the deepest faith in you...”

  He stepped around beside her and Ever shivered as his fingertips taunted her tight, crinkled nipples. The fingers of his other hand raised gooseflesh, skating up and down her stretched back.

  Yes, anywhere. Anywhere...

  All at once she stiffened as Stroud snuck a finger between her buttocks and into her anus. Ever hadn’t anticipated such a move and she didn’t know what to do as he reached deeper inside the channel.

  “You know Brooke desires this.”

  “No! I can’t—”

  “You can. You will.” His hand moved slightly.

  “No...”

  “Who is it you refuse? Me?”

  Ever emitted a low whine.

  “How can I increase my domination over you when every question is already answered? Every move anticipated.” His hand moved again. “Every refusal permitted...”

  Stroud remained at her side, studying her face.

  “You haven’t moved since I took hold. You hardly dare even breathe.”

  It was true. Ever was frozen, up on toes, her breath pent.

  “You realize the potential of this caress, don’t you? It’s a powerful path to domination – and it will be exploited.”

  Ever whimpered again.

  Her eyes snapped open behind the blindfold as Stroud gently released her. She scanned the room for audible clues as he moved away. To the right, an indistinguishable sound. A small drawer opening and closing dead ahead. A snapping noise. Silence, and then he was in front of her again. She stood tense and helpless as he slipped something around her waist. Fastened it. Something dangled in front, teasing her pubic hairs.

  “You’re anticipating pain but you won’t be hurt...” he said, his voice traveling around behind her.

  “Stroud?”

  “You won’t be hurt,” he repeated.

  Something cold and slick slipped between her clenched cheeks and, after a moment of manipulation, worked its way into her rectum. Wider. More than a finger. Cold. Deeper. Deeper than a finger could penetrate.

  Ever’s head dropped slightly back, her jaw opened, as though she would speak but she made no sound. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t – anything. The thing, whatever it was, was inside her, canceling out all thought, all action.

  Stroud deftly reached between her legs and suddenly the anxious cleft of her vagina was depressed under the cool pressure of the strap that snaked on up between her buttocks, affixing itself to the waist strap at the back, trapping that thing inside her.

  Never before had anyone bound her into such a contraption and, for a moment, she was confused between the multiples of sensation: the pressure against her clitoris, the feel of the narrow strap splitting her behind. Then, as the muscles of her anus contracted, all she was aware of was the intrusion of the phallus Stroud had inserted into her. The thing she could not, by any means, expel. Nothing else existed in that moment. Nothing at all.

  Stroud said nothing as Ever struggled through wave after pounding wave of humiliation. This was too much. It was unbearable. No one in the world had the right to do this to her. To make her feel this way. To make her feel...

  As the muscles worked, contraction after contraction, her vagina, likewise began to spasm. Ever finally dropped her head with a sigh.

  Stroud stroked her cheek and Ever shuddered as his hands stroked her breasts.

  “No one’s opened you like this before. Good. I’m glad to be the first. It’s an experience I hope you’ll never forget...”

  Forget? How could she? Why, she wanted to kill him. Just flat out...

  “The next time Brooke makes his move, you’ll be ready. I promise.”

  Ever was floating in a dimension beyond herself, beyond logic, beyond doubt or belief in promises of any kind.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wednesday afternoon was an unusual time for Brooke to turn up, but Stroud was always happy to see him and the impromptu visit was not entirely unprecedented. With unlimited time and financial resources, it was nothing for Brooke to drive miles out of his way for five minutes of idle conversation.

  Stroud was working when Brooke arrived and the confines of his study were an inadequate realm for Brooke’s wild spirit. He paced the room with maniacal intensity while Stroud sat noting careful details on the index cards before him. On a week-day, business kept him close to the phone and the ponderous cards were the slow servant to a man who refused to install a computer.

  Normally, Brooke’s broody restlessness served as a kind of energy elixir for Stroud, but on this day the mood was intrusive, like that of a fidgety child who seeks the attention of a preoccupied parent.

  “I saw Ever yesterday,” Brooke remarked.

  Stroud’s pen paused in mid-word. “Did you?” Were Brooke’s mood and those words a prelude to news thoroughly dreaded, though not altogether unexpected?

  “She works near the Knolls, you know.”

  Stroud continued to write with half concentration. “No. I didn’t know. How was she?”

  “She looked cold and miserable,” Brooke stated flatly.

  Stroud smiled suddenly. “The sight of you always makes her miserable, or haven’t you noticed?”

  “She didn’t see me,” Brooke said, side-stepping the taunt.

  “Oh.” Now Stroud was perplexed.

  “I thought you said she was a telemarketer.”

  “That’s what she told me,” Stroud affirmed.

  Brooke’s pacing ceased and he faced Stroud. “Well, what’s she doing out on the street with a clipboard?”

  Stroud’s brow creased. “A clipboard?”

  “It looked like she was canvassing people.”

  “Canvassing? For what?”

  “You tell me.”

  The men’s gazes locked momentarily. Although Stroud was puzzled by Brooke’s report, a quiet relief flooded the harbor of suspicion, simultaneously sweeping away the questions that, if he’d put them to Ever, may have diverted the impending disaster that nearly destroyed everything.

  ***

  As predicted, Stroud followed through diligently with Ever’s training regimen, but the dungeon was not the only setting for the practice of the new discipline.

  The couch in Stroud’s small sitting room contained a pull-out bed. Ever was surprised to see the bed open and made up when Stroud led her in there one afternoon, and even more surprised when he made her lie down on it and chained her wrists to the metal bar that supported the head of the mattress.

  She was naked, as he kept her most of the time anymore, but the fire was burning brightly and he pulled the blanket over her. Those factors, plus the presence of the now familiar plug and crotch strap kept her mind off the cold.

  During the last few visits, he’d imposed this discipline upon her with increasing frequency and for longer periods. The dimensions of the devices he employed had, likewise, increased.

  As she lay there, she replayed each scenario in her mind. The intensity of their encounters in the dungeon. The simplicity of routine the morning he’d bound her wrists to the headboard of his bed, manipulated the thin leather belt around her waist and, turning her on her side, inserted the butt plug and fastened the holding strap. He’d left her to lie in silent contemplation as he took his morning shower, shaved, dressed and went downstairs to prepare breakfast. Ever was grateful he didn’t make her wear the loathsome object around the house, but her body held the memory of its presence as she sat down to breakfast that morning.

  Surprisingly, Stroud did not exploit the ground he’d prepared with these patient ministrations and Ever could only assume that privilege was being reserved exclusively for Brooke.

  Ever lay a long time on the hide-a-bed, two hours, by the crystal clock on the mantel. She’d hardly moved at all, having
spent nearly the entire time staring into the mesmerizing flames of the fire, wondering just when Stroud would consider her finally ready for Brooke, who had not made an appearance since the debacle over the ottoman three weeks before. She’d suffered a thousand agonies of doubt over it since this training began and she wondered if Stroud would even forewarn her of the inevitable test run.

  Finally, Stroud came in and sat down beside her. He stayed there a while, his hand under the covers, enlivening the skin of her flank with teasing caresses.

  “When are you going to release me?” Ever asked softly.

  “In another hour, perhaps,” he replied and Ever sighed.

  He did at least relieve her of the plug and belt, and Ever dropped into a spontaneous sleep, awakened twenty minutes later by his weight on the mattress behind her. She rolled half over, opening her eyes to see Brooke framed in the doorway leading to the hall.

  Shockwaves of dread and desire racked her as he stepped into the room. He took a seat in the easy chair at the end of the bed as Stroud pulled back the sheltering covers and encouraged Ever onto her back. She offered only minor resistance as Stroud crooked up her near leg and secured it against his ribs with his left arm, and only slightly more resistance as he urged her right thigh out to a wider angle. Her arms gave an involuntary yank at the chain as Stroud’s hand contacted her vagina. Her free leg flexed also, as though to telegraph her desire to snap to and conceal the secret realm Stroud had so unreservedly exposed to Brooke’s inquisitive gaze.

  “Lie still,” Stroud admonished and Ever closed her eyes as the caresses began, her free leg still visibly taut against the voluntary restraint.

  “The leg can be tied,” Stroud informed her, as though to abolish the last thought she may have entertained of disobeying him.

  The gentle caresses continued and Ever’s body locked with tension. Her emotions vied wildly between the indignity of this intimate exposure to Brooke and the demand for Stroud’s touch – after all these weeks still the only vehicle through which she was permitted fulfillment.

  Ever couldn’t expel the mental image of Brooke’s avid observation of the contractions of that hungry cavern, or the delight he must be taking at the sight of Stroud’s capable fingers sliding into that cum drenched place to force it open again in an admission of longing. Then again, slowly, torturously working the exterior tissue, the nerve endings of which now controlled every bodily function, from the curling of her toes, to the frantic pumping of her diaphragm, violently expelling the short urgent gulps of air as quickly as it sucked them in.

  Ever whimpered and then moaned, one sound the shadow of her fear, the other a faint echo of her desire to break loose. She froze completely when Stroud’s fingers sought to reduce the tension of her anus. Although there was no definite resistance in the leg he clutched to his rib cage, Ever’s back flexed slightly, as though to lift the reluctant passage more conveniently to his grasp. The power of her sexual craving had finally driven her from the constraints of self-consciousness into the open vistas of utter abandonment.

  Stroud persisted subtly, to keep Ever confined to the plane of betwixt and between for as long as possible. Even Brooke was frozen in place, elbows on the armrests of the chair, his fists pressed to his lips as the last moments of the drama played out.

  As Ever finally slipped over into the abyss, the men seemed to be pulled along with her, all whispering a collective sigh of release and pleasure. Stroud rode the undulations, second upon second, neither falling back prematurely nor forcing her beyond the perfect rhythm and intensity of each wave. It was the longest voyage she’d taken at his hand, but he made sure to withdraw at the precise moment, before she could commence another ascent.

  He gently released Ever’s leg and wiped his hand on a towel as her breathing regulated and at last she opened two bleary eyes. It was a small, restrained smile that curved his lips as he looked at her. As she moved to straighten the liberated leg and close up, he knew it was the signal her defenses would shortly be realigned.

  Instinctively, Brooke read the moment, also, and rose from the chair. Ever’s head rolled slightly as her eyes focused on him.

  Then Stroud’s hands were on her, firmly reinforcing the command from his lips to roll over. Ever’s heart recommenced the frantic tattoo from only minutes before when Brooke appeared in the doorway, as her mind now relayed the knowledge that he was taking off his jacket.

  “Remember, we can still restrain you,” Stroud advised as all the trivial, yet significant nuances of sound in the room telegraphed what was about to happen.

  Ever couldn’t recall ever being so frightened by a situation – or so aroused. As the men prepared for this dark incursion, she wondered which emotion would win out.

  Although anticipated, the cold gel still came as a shock against her skin, as had the determination of the hands that a moment before pulled her unwilling legs apart. The abrupt undulation of the mattress as Brooke knelt between her quaking thighs almost caused her to scream in terror, but the unyielding burden of his body across her back killed the urge, making decision impossible.

  She cried at first, partly in pain, for despite Stroud’s efforts, there was pain. But Brooke was careful and slow, and as he worked his way deeper into the snug, tense channel, Ever was grateful that he never once solicited her opinion or reaction.

  She withstood the initial hurt and the on-going strain, and she didn’t cry uncle. Didn’t dare utter one syllable of dissent because, as the moments passed, she began to relish these sensations. She mentally urged him on, submerging herself in her submission to this brutal act – firing to the concept of his absolute domination over her.

  She was his, without choice, compromise or compassion. She wondered with awe and remote disappointment if she would ever achieve another moment like it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was a bitter day near winter’s end the next time Brooke surprised Ever on the boulevard. Unfortunately, it was past the lunch hour and she was caught, clipboard in hand, quite apparently canvassing people on the open street. Ever hadn’t seen Brooke approach and, as she turned from one rejection, preparing for the next, there he was, his presence seeming to dominate the entire landscape.

  He was as captivating as ever, but in his eyes was a feral gleam that seemed incongruent with the situation.

  “Just what is it you’re doing out here?” he demanded, leading Ever to believe the meeting was not entirely coincidental.

  Unwilling to fully disclose the humiliation of the circumstances, she said, “It’s part of my job,” which was the truth.

  Brooke’s eyes narrowed and Ever feared further interrogation but, with the same abruptness, he asked, “Where is it you work, exactly?”

  Reluctantly, Ever nodded back over her shoulder. The school was hard to miss with the big white banner emblazoning the name across the front of the building.

  “What time do you get off?”

  “Five o’clock.”

  Brooke pinned her with those feverish eyes again.

  “I’ve got to get back to work,” she said.

  Brooke nodded without comment, so Ever turned and moved off in search of a likely prospect for her pitch.

  ***

  The encounter with Brooke was on Ever’s mind all afternoon. Never-the-less, she managed to entice two prospects into agreeing to interview with the student coordinator. She was feeling pretty good about it when she closed her desk drawer and picked up her purse to leave that evening.

  The street was nearly dark when she stepped outside. Headlights glared and the flow of traffic was thickening with the onset of rush hour. Ever descended the stairs and headed for the bus stop. The bench was already full so she stood at the curb, her purse clutched protectively against her stomach, a small briefcase gripped in her free hand. The briefcase was unnecessary for work, but she carried it every day, to keep her writing supplies constantly on hand, should a spark of inspiration strike during one of her breaks.

  This wa
s the most dreaded hour of her day. The winter sun set early, stranding her on these dark, cold streets. Easterners assumed it was always warm in this coastal state, but winter mornings and evenings could be bitter indeed for those reliant on public transport. At this time of night, the line was over taxed. More than once, Ever had endured the agony of watching loaded buses pass without slowing. The timing was crucial and, ever since she’d been forced off the phones and onto the streets with that cursed clipboard, she’d not been able to get away early enough to catch the first bus. Two had passed already and she shared the frustration of the mixed crowd that waited there with her.

  All at once, a car veered out of the traffic and pulled into the curb. Ever prepared to step back as the driver leaned over and rolled down the passenger window.

  “I thought I’d missed you,” Brooke said over the din of the traffic. “Get in. I’ll take you to dinner.”

  Ever hesitated on the curb, grappling for an excuse to throw at him.

  “Get in,” he insisted and Ever grabbed the door handle with almost Pavlovian obedience.

  They dined locally at a restaurant of Brooke’s choice. Not a fancy place, but the food was tasty. Ever was enshrouded in her customary circumspection, but she was quick to notice the strange intensity still evident in Brooke’s eyes as he studied her. As always, she was disconcerted by his presence. Disconcerted and stimulated. Although not unusually chatty, Brooke did seem inordinately curious about matters Ever was not eager to discuss.

  “Just what is going on with this job of yours?”

  “Let’s not go there, Brooke.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s rather a sore point.”

  “I see. So you think you’ll be looking for a new job soon?”

  “If there was one to be had.”

  “What’s in the briefcase? More work?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I carry my lunch in it,” Ever said.

  “I thought you ate out.”

  “Not always.”

  “You could have left it in the car.”

 

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