The Sect

by Lane, Courtney

  My chin dropped to my chest as I remained silent.

  “When I hurt you”—he stepped forward, pinching my chin between his fingers and forced me to look up at him—“what do you think about?”

  “I know what you’re trying to say. I—”

  “I’m trying to save your soul, Keaton.”

  “My soul?” I snorted at the preposterous notion. “What’s left of my soul continues to darken with the infliction of pain.”

  “No, Keaton. Pain doesn’t do it, not anymore. What really fucks you up is the way I make you feel. What really makes your soul darken is the way I make you feel pleasure. It’s drawing me. I don’t want to stop. Maybe because I want your soul to be just as dark as mine. Maybe I want your soul so devoid of light it becomes a vortex, consuming everything I fill it with.”

  I stood a little too quickly, rendering my equilibrium to go askew. I stumbled away from him. “You…just then—you sounded like Reven instead of Noah.”

  His eyes became shielded by the device he used to hide his emotions from me. I was no longer able read him from what little I was able to see. “Right now you’re here and the others have been told the reason; that you needed a more hands-on, personal punishment. I need to make it look real, and I will. Right now—today—I’m not going to do that.”

  I stood in front of him, trying to figure out what I wanted to say. He was an enigma wrapped inside a decrypted mystery. How it could’ve been that he shared little tiny aspects of his past with me, and I still stood there thinking I didn’t know him even in the slightest, was a talent that lay at his feet. “I should hate you for what you’ve done to me.”

  “You should. You really, really should.” With meticulous movements, he approached me, placing his hands on my hips, and brought me closer to him. “You were right. This place…it gets in your fucking head, Keaton. I wish I could say I was immune, but I’m not. I got off on things I never thought I would. The power trip—all of it. I never regretted my actions. I never had any remorse for anything I did.” His eyes darkened, his features firmed. “Hate me, Keaton,” he said with his voice matching the gloom in his eyes. “I’m just like him; the monster who killed your fiancé and his sister. I’ve killed before—all in the name of making the world a better place.”

  “That was different; you were protecting your country.” I don’t know if I really believed my words. I remembered Jeff’s issues and his nightmares. The consequences of enduring a war. He would never talk about it, but I had assumed he’d seen his share of horrible things. “You’re not like him”—I cleared the catch in my throat, feeling the sadness over a friend I lost that I never got to mourn—“the man who did those horrible things to me.”

  “Am I really that different?” he asked, his question obviously rhetorical with the flippant nature he posed it in. “Killing is killing. I have to tell you—my remorse? I don’t have any. I have a file on you. I have a file on everyone. I knew everything about you from your course schedule at Georgetown, to what you did in high school that branded you the ‘blowjob whore,’ and what that asshole continued to do to you.

  “I retained the information to exploit you. I lie to you constantly, Keaton. The sad thing is, I don’t think you’ll ever know what’s true and what’s false about me. Doing the things I’ve done to you and to others? I felt like I had a job to do and I did it. I took a pleasure in causing everyone’s pain. Hurting you? I’ve never felt more gratified than I do when I hurt you. You should hate me because it’s a very dangerous thing to like me.”

  “I know what you mean about this place changing you,” I said, my voice broken and soft. A part of me thought I was grasping at straws. Another part thought that maybe I was in the wrong for trying to see the good in a man who may not have had a hint of light inside of him. “I don’t believe you’re like Gregory; there wasn’t anything good to him, just him pretending to be. You are pretending to be evil, but I see little glimpses of the man you used to be. It’s not too late for you.”

  “You’re making assumptions to try to soften the man I am. Don’t.” He grabbed my arm firmly, his fingers slipped down to clasp my hand. When I looked at his hold, his fingers intertwining in mine, something awoke inside me that I couldn’t describe.

  “You’re remorseful over trying to help someone that you couldn’t.” His hold began to burn as his fingers firmed their grip. “And the pleasure, Noah? Do you take more joy in giving me pleasure or pain?”

  His eyes glimmered as he searched my eyes in silence. “What if I told you they both felt the same?” As if his hand had behaved against his will, he abruptly pulled back and nodded to the bed. “Rest. Tomorrow we’re going to have to do something you won’t like to make this whole thing believable.”

  “I sang for you,” I said quietly, halting his exit. “I sang for you, not Reven or anyone else. And now, I can’t sing anymore.”

  “So the caged bird finally stopped singing? Ironic.” His breath unfurled slowly as he remained with his back to me. “Get. Some. Sleep.” The echo of his movement faded away as he disappeared down the hall.

  THE TUB was the first place I visited when I returned to my bedroom in the morning. Soaking in the hot water served to alleviate my muscle aches from being tied up, but did very little to cure the pain of my surface wounds. It was different than it was before. He was different than before. He used the weapon he forced me to make. The times in which the knotted rope hit my skin were done with a deftness that helped me find my way of coping with pain again. He was patient with me, waiting until my mind slipped into a particular space before he flogged me again, spacing each hit until I was there.

  With every hit, bits and pieces of the happier times in my life came back to me.

  In a way in which I wasn’t proud to admit to, it felt special for many reasons. The reason that stuck with me the most, he used the tool that was made by the both of us. The discomfort he left me with didn’t break me or empty me. Eventually, I realized I didn’t need my coping mechanism to numb me because the pain began to awaken a little piece inside of me that Rebirth had nearly killed.

  I stared at the marks on my back and behind through the bathroom mirror for more than a few minutes. I equated his marks on my skin to the feelings he had for me that he wouldn’t express. Every jagged little line felt like a sentiment. His words weren’t angry or fueled with acid, they were gentle and kind, reminding me to use my ways of coping even when I no longer needed to.

  When he was done, he tended to my wounds, being very tender with me.

  What scared me the most was that our arrangement was verging on becoming completely consensual; that someday I would ask him to hurt me because I would want it.

  When he held me in his bed afterward, I fell asleep in peace. I felt a safety and a euphoric warmth I hadn’t experienced since before I was taken.

  I became contented in the marks he made, equating them to manifestations of something I’d long missed. But then I realized, missing something that never belonged to me was an impossibility. What he began to give me was new. My contradictory thoughts and emotions began to slide to one side. I believed I began to develop feelings for a man who tried to break me.

  I looked up at my reflection, catching the sight of my smile in the mirror. As I fingered my lips, I began to frown.

  It was my thirtieth sunset from the day I nearly succumbed to the alluring darkness, otherwise known as Noah. The buzz around the compound was that the six-week seminars were close to coming to an end for the year and would be picked up again in the new year. Many of my housemates were anxious because it was said that the last month of the last seminars were intense. No one would elaborate on why. I assumed from what many had told me that it was the month many would lose their lives.

  The same woman asked for me day after day; Mrs. Sherman. She never really spoke to me; she simply wanted me to accompany her to the paradise room. We would sit somewhere away from the activities and enjoy the silence between us amongst the din of the
others.

  A hand on my behind startled me out of my daze as I stood with only one other inside the theater lobby. A middle-aged gentleman, profusely sweating above his brow, leered at me. “Come to my room, honey.” He wiggled his eyebrows with his hand sliding further and further up my behind.

  An obstruction developed in my throat, hindering my ability to decline. My limbs were frozen in place, unable to run. The thought of having to do something I put out of my mind didn’t help matters.

  His hand was roughly shoved away. When I looked at the person who’d dissuaded the man in front of me from engaging with me, I was more than a little shocked. “You know better than that, Mr. Daniels. She’s above your level. Pick one of the women inside the Eden room.”

  Grumbling, the man left, following Noah’s directions to the other side of the lobby.

  Noah wouldn’t look at me; instead, he kept his eye trained to the camera in the room. “Someone else wants you.” He grabbed my arm to another area of the lobby.

  The same woman I’d spent a great deal of time with in the theater greeted me with a smile. “Can I offer you a drink?” She pointed to the bottle of champagne on the table. “It’s sparkling apple cider but we can pretend it’s something more appetizing.”

  I looked at Noah, not sure what to do.

  “Oh, don’t worry about me,” she assured me. “There is a reason I’m able to sit next to you in the paradise room without making a move on you. I’m not interested in you that way. I’d just like to see you…you know…pray.”

  I looked at Noah again, who pressed into my ear. “Mrs. Sherman wants you to masturbate in front of her, but she won’t touch you. Let her take you to her home.”

  Home? Mrs. Sherman had a home here? It would’ve rendered her as one of the elites and given her the power to do whatever she wanted to me. I thought I’d lost my ability to see the nature of people. I held out hope that I hadn’t, because Mrs. Sherman had the most gentle eyes of anyone here.

  I had nodded before I registered the action. The fuzziness clouding my brain began to lift, and I wondered why Noah was still protecting me.

  The woman never touched me as we moved outside, walking along the path. Noah stood not far behind us, clutching a tablet I’d never seen anyone on the property with; he seemed very preoccupied with it. I glanced back at it and it was noticed. His warning glance forced me to turn back around. It could’ve been that he knew what I was thinking; that my thoughts had turned toward getting ahold of the tablet because it might’ve helped me to escape. He’d be wrong.

  The night was chilly, but beginning to warm for another season. The snow was long gone and little peaks of life were evident in the buds on the trees and the return of lush green shade of the grass.

  We stopped at the third house, walking up to the porch. Once inside, she turned on the light and revealed a home with an open floor plan and a very modern theme.

  Noah remained downstairs while Mrs. Sherman led me upstairs and unlocked the double doors that led to her room. The bedroom suite contained a seating area and a bed on a raised platform. The windowed wall showed a prime view of the forested area that cloaked the theater.

  I turned back to her. Feeling nervous about the situation, I sat on the edge of the bed while she took a seat on the couch directly in front of it.

  “I know I’m not much to look at,” Mrs. Sherman apologized. “The gentleman who has been helping you, would you like him to be in the room?”

  “No!” I shrilled.

  “Are you sure?” She grinned, indicating that she wasn’t put off by my abrupt answer. “He’s much better looking than I, and there is something in your eyes when you look at him.”

  “I-I don’t need motivation.” Closing my eyes, I slipped my hands against my thigh. I touched my warmth; the dryness added to my displeasure. I felt nothing when I rotated my hands across my clit, but I pretended I did by moaning.

  “My mistake,” Mrs. Sherman said, rising from the couch

  I glanced around the room, noting the camera that Noah’s house completely lacked.

  My bad deeds were numerous and I was living on borrowed time. Noah could only protect me from so much. I wanted to live and find a smart way to escape. Running for the hills at the first opportunity wasn’t the way. I had hopes that the woman in front of me, who would easily do a favor for Noah for some reason or another, might’ve been my key. “Please stay. I’ve had a rough time here. I just…”

  “Need help?”

  I looked at the camera, knowing it was zeroing in on me. I closed my legs and sobbed.

  “Oh, no, honey. Don’t do that. I’ll tell them you did perfectly fine.”

  “They won’t believe you. They’ll know.” I looked up at the camera, but instead of pointing at me, it was down. The tablet Noah carried made sense; he brought it to watch me.

  Within moments, there was a knock on the open door. Mrs. Sherman invited him in with a smile.

  As Noah entered the room, his displeasure was evident with the way he glared at me. He lifted his expression to regard the woman seated on the couch. “Mrs. Sherman, she will perform for you. Just give her a minute.” He tugged my arm and shoved me into the adjoining bathroom.

  I shrunk from his touch, my back touching the cold, marble tile on the walls.

  “I thought you were stronger than this?” He scowled while stage-whispering to me. “You’re going to let what’s happened to you affect you? Don’t let anyone take anything from you, Keaton. Do what I fucking told you to do or I’ll call back the man that made you dry heave and have him fuck you. Is that what you’d prefer?”

  I touched my temples, feeling the stress headache pending. “What is wrong with you?” I rasped, my irritation palpable with every word. “Why do you keep putting up this heartless act one minute and then pretend that you care for me the next? Choose a side or just—stop it!”

  “I am heartless, Keaton,” he replied gruffly. “Or did you forget that because I showed you a few times of kindness? I’m not your bitch. If I’m nice to you, it’s for a reason and it’s not to make you fall for me. Fix this. Because if you fuck up again, Reven will make it worse. Instead of two men, he’ll make is six. And he’ll pick the men from the pool of throwaways. I don’t have say over them. If they get to you, they will fuck you all at once. Brutally. They will tear you apart because they are feral animals that can occasionally be leashed. All you have to do is get wet and come. Is that so damn hard? I stuck my neck out for you so you wouldn’t be pawed down by the piece of shit who wanted you. Make me believe you’re grateful.”

  “You make my head spin,” I whispered, feeling the ache in my head a little more. “Is this you lying to me again? Because you’re helping me…again. Why don’t you admit you care? You threaten me with making me fuck another man, but you and I both know you wouldn’t allow it to happen. Your true problem is that you hate that you care, because you know as much as you want it and wish it, I’ll never belong to you.”

  His eyes darted to the ground as he rubbed the back of his neck, it was certain he either didn’t know the answer to my question, or didn’t want to answer it. “If I’m inconsistent it’s because you…distract me.” He kept his eyes to the ground, growing more and more uncomfortable.

  Crossing my arms, I stepped forward. “How?”

  His eyes darted to mine. “When you smile. When you look at me. When I fuck you. When I taste you. You distract me from my job. And when you used to sing, your voice…” He sighed, leaving the sentence unfinished. “Don’t break, Keaton. That’s all I’m trying to say. Stay together, and I’ll do what I can to make sure what happened to you that day won’t happen again.”

  I blinked at him, completely thrown from one feeling to another.

  He searched my eyes for a moment, silently. “Look”—reaching up, he cupped my face—“I know you feel like an object and like everything that was special about you was taken away, but you were wrong. Do this, and you’ll see what I mean.”

&
nbsp; I looked back at the door feeling differently. Awake. “Turn the camera back on.”

  His posture lifted as he opened the door. Unable to look at me, he gave me a nod.

  I sat back on the edge of the bed, calling Mrs. Sherman’s attention when I slipped my dress up to my hips and spread my legs. She blew back in her chair, giving me a smile and then discreetly glimpsed up at the camera behind her. Turning back to me, she mouthed, “Show him, not me.”

  Keeping my eyes on the camera, I began to slide my hands up and down my slit, evoking moisture from my canal. I bit my lip and moaned.

  I rubbed slower between the soft folds. Moving my fingers up, the pads of my fingers touched my soft, wet, swelling clit. When I shut my eyes for a moment, whom I saw touching me was expected. I kept them open and on the operational camera, rubbing in faster and harder circles.

  My breath was pinned, straining my normal breathing pattern. My body shook, trembling with a cooling rush. The gate was knocked down and what coursed through my veins made my moans bounce of the walls. I rubbed my doused fingers wildly against my clit. I writhed against the bed, thrusting my hips against the motion of my fingers as the euphoria devoured me from the inside out.

  As it began to wane, I slowly looked at Mrs. Sherman who gave me a satisfied grin. “May I see you again this way, Miss…?”

  “It’s just Keaton,” I told her, panting.

  Giving me a wink, she stood. “You did a great job, kid. I’ll see you again.” She pulled the door open wider, directing me to leave.

  I padded out of the door, stopping in the hall. Noah wasn’t in the hall; instead, Tobias was.

  “Hurry up now, I’m here to escort you back to your room,” he snarled at me and turned, striding down the hall.

  I sighed and my posture dropped, but my body still burned from the latent fire. The connection between my mind and body were threatening to reconnect. It couldn’t happen here. Never again could it happen while I was stuck inside this place.