When she was finally in a sweat and exhausted, he attached a leash to her collar and made her crawl up the stairs on hand and knees. The cane still in hand, he gave her routine swats to make certain she understood that he was behind her and that moving too slowly would earn her another, sharper, cut from his biting cane.
She finally scrambled into the kitchen where Penelope shoved a bucket of hot water in her direction and told her to scrub the floor. Like a dutiful slave, the girl did what she’d been told. She roved blindly about the linoleum floor, bumping against appliances, the table and walls, while scrubbing a floor that had seen nothing but a cursory sweeping in some days. She did the work in earnest, as if she were happy to do something besides lie in wait in the cellar below. Every once and a while, Penelope, who was munching on an apple, swatted her behind with a wooden spoon. The girl would jerk, once letting out a tiny Ouch! and then continued her work looking very much as if she appreciated the attention. As a reward, Penelope gave her an apple of her own, which she ate with relish.
Once the kitchen floor was cleaned, as well as a blind slave could clean it, Penelope led her to the bathroom and handed her a bucket of cleaning items.
“You can take off your blindfold for this one,” she said. “But the door will be closed and barred. You’ll have to knock to get out, and you’d better have that blindfold back on when you do. Now get in there! I want it sparkling like a jewel when you’re finished. And, as long as you’re there, you might as well clean yourself. Take your time. Unlike the guys, I like you smelling sweet.”
Behind Penelope’s bitchy voice was a degree of genuine affection that she was not altogether successful in hiding.
Part of Emerson’s new policy was allowing all six to converse in Veronica X’s presence. He thought it was safe enough but he wouldn’t give-in on the blindfold, or allow them to use their names. He knew that while she seemed as docile as a sleeping kitten, she might just be playing acting to keep in their good graces, while having every intention of running to the authorities the minute she was released. He wouldn’t take the chance that she would.
Veronica’s days changed, as she gradually became part of their company, albeit remaining several steps below them in their unofficial hierarchy.
On several nights, she was the play partner for one of the men. Zack, as it turned out had a particular affection for her, which grated on Kathy Ann until he sweetly lured his adoring girlfriend back with her own night of unbridled sex. Zack even tied the two women together upright in his bedroom and watched them kiss for nearly an hour. He moved around them teasing, prodding, caressing breasts and stuffing their asses with dildos. He eventually had them both kneel on the bed side by side and went back and forth fucking their asses until both came and he shot his cum all over their pretty behinds. Veronica performed with seamless sexual skill, not like a woman coerced but one fulfilled by the rigorous demands made on her.
Zack hated the blindfold and argued with Emerson, saying it was time to remove the thing. But Emerson would not budge.
Bo preferred Veronica’s simple blowjobs to outright fucking, usually performed in out-of-the-way corners of the house—although never completely in private. She became particularly accomplished in the act, following Bo’s advice as if it were his duty to teach her until she had the methodology of fellatio perfect. She seemed to respond well to his quiet and unobtrusive manner, while relishing the act that satisfied Bo most. He always kissed her afterward and on several occasions, she was seen to smile in response.
While Emerson remained the man in charge of Veronica’s captivity, he continued to be the most aloof, especially in the company of the others. He enjoyed most enacting his scripted dramas in scenes where he clearly exerted control. He pleasured in the humiliating sexual extremes that vented his hardcore sadistic desires in ways that were not previously possible. Even as he demanded more from her, Veronica continued to feed on his attention. More than any one of the six, Emerson was the one that could soothe her ruffled feathers and make her melt into the eroticism she richly exuded. A bond was forged between them that seemed to rise above the basic issue that she had been forcefully kidnapped and was so far successfully being held against her will.
Her bonding with Emerson was a curious one. He treated her more roughly and spoke more rudely than the others, and was critical of her in the company of her other captors. But Emerson’s occasional visits to the cellar where he made love to the bound Veronica X had a lasting effect on her. It was clear to him that she longed for their private sexual trysts. She greeted him with fond sighs and urgent kisses. And when he left, she would offer up a suffering moan of despair, silently pleading with him to stay or return soon.
After that first uncomfortably intimate moment when her hands were free to touch him, he continued to keep her bound during sex. He couldn’t stand the way she clung to him as if she wanted not just his body but his heart and soul. If anything at all brought out feelings of remorse over her capture, this would, and he could not afford to soften his stance about the choice he’d made, or give-in to guilt and moralistic falsehoods.
He had to live according to his twisted values. He needed to believe that he had the right to have her, take her, use her and then give her back to the world when he was done. From that belief, he would not waver. He could not afford to become emotionally attached to Veronica X—even if he nurtured her growing attachment to him.
***
Sadie
Humiliation. Tell me about that.
Daphne
That is an odd one, isn’t it? For me just the word itself rings with a most peculiar eroticism. Logically, humiliation hardly seems like something to find pleasure in, but it certainly fit with the demented desires Emerson vowed he would experience with the girl. And unique to each of us, the experience of humiliation played a part in that time.
There was certainly humiliation inherent in a woman being made captive and held naked in a cellar. No one missed that. Just as those times when Kathy Ann, Penny and I were led down the paths of our own humiliation, we all experienced some vile satisfaction in the girl’s degradation. But Emerson wanted more. He wanted to go deeper, always deeper, always more intense, to places that would frighten even him.
I think one of the hottest moments of Veronica X’s captivity came the night he brought her upstairs on a leash and made her sit in front of him as she might sit on the floor when she gave Bo his much loved blowjobs. She looked up at him—this was a time when we truly wished we could see her eyes gazing into his. I imagine we missed out because we couldn’t see the fine nuances, the fear, the hunger, the contempt—I didn’t even know until several years later what color they were. On the other hand, I’m sure I would have found the intimacy between my husband and the girl even more difficult to bear, if I’d seen a beseeching look of adoration in her eyes returned by a look of devotion in Emerson’s. He was already stretching the boundaries of my tolerance. She clears her throat, the memory difficult.
That night, Emerson held the leash up short as if Veronica X could actually look him in the eye. ‘You’ve been practicing blowjobs on my friends, fucking like a little minx, acting like a brazen whore. It seems to me you’re enjoying yourself. Or do you want to deny that?’
I felt a twinge of hurt coming from the girl, real hurt. ‘Oh, no! I do, I really do enjoy the sex…’ She struggled saying this—although not all that much.
‘Yes, I can see you do. You’re a natural born slut, aren’t you?” He sneered. Too bad she couldn’t see that sneer. ‘Say it!’ he demanded.
‘Say what?’ she innocently came back.
‘Tell me about the slut you are, tell me everything you’ve found out about yourself since you’ve been here.’
She was anxious, that was obvious, and her body was aflutter with excitement. She sat back on her heels, and I could see her thighs quiver. Even her breasts jiggled in anticipation.
‘I know, sir, how much I love sex,’ she started.
‘And what else?’ h
e demanded. He grabbed her hair in his fist. I remember thinking how much the lovely red curls had grown in just a few weeks. She panted a bit, her lips parted and wet. I could have rubbed myself off at that point. Such a longing in me. I was nearly in tears with want, wanting that much intensity from my husband. Oh, I had experienced this sort of passionate intensity from him, but it was never enough, never enough.
She shakes her head, closes her eyes and bites her lip, remembering with a wince of pain. She finally sighs and opens her eyes again, recovered, gazing at Sadie, ready to speak again.
Anyway, he made her say it all.
‘I love the bondage, sir, and … how you’re holding my hair now and, and … being made your slave.’
He jerked her head. ‘Not enough! I want details, slut, graphic details!’
I could see a strange rage on his face. Mesmerizing and wild. I can’t imagine what it might have felt like not being able to see it. Maybe that’s what allowed her to be so frank.
She spoke up anxiously, wanting to please. ‘Crawling, yes, crawling, sir, at your feet…’ they way he forcefully tugged the chain made her strain, ‘and, and…eating, sir, from a dish, and peeing in front of you…pain, yes, even that, I think I enjoy the pain.’
‘Of course, you enjoy the pain, slut!’ He derided her for even questioning that fact.
He let go of her hair and slapped her face, not hard, but enough to have her body spasm erotically from the blow. She let out a muted whisper. I think that she’d forgotten that anyone else was in the room.
‘You even like that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘No, tell me exactly what you like.’
‘I like you slapping my face, sir,” she panted heavily. “I like it when you make love to me in the cellar…and when the big man makes me suck his cock…and when I lick your friend’s balls…and when the girls kiss my mouth…and when you smack me when I’m bad…’ She rambled on and on. Everything that turned her on.
‘You’re hot now, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Yes, what?’
‘Yes, sir, I’m hot. I’m very horny, sir. I want to masturbate myself for you. I want to suck your cock, and lick your balls. I want you to sit on my face the way your friend did, so I can take your cock down my throat…’
The five us watched her speak and got hornier as her excitement soared. I didn’t know whether I wanted to slap her silly, make love to Emerson, or leave him altogether.
Sadie
What did happen?
Daphne
He made her crawl out in the middle of us and masturbate herself. He wouldn’t let her focus on him. He forced her to remember that there were six pairs of eyes watching every lewd move she made. I think before it was over she might have been crying.
During that incident, we saw something in Veronica that we didn’t anticipate ever seeing. I suppose her submissive nature had been evident all along, but we didn’t take it quite so seriously until she suffered through the humiliating interrogation from Emerson and ended it with her hand inside her crotch. It was quite astounding to see a girl having been made a woman and put under such extreme stress deliver a perfectly authentic display of sexual lust.
The strangely private performance had not a single trait of the XXX porn we see so often now. It’s likely she’d never seen that sort of thing. This was long before videotapes, and in those days, good girls like Veronica would not have been found in peep shows. No. Her performance was real, from the plump hands that roved her skin at will, that stopped to pinch a nipple and wait for the jolt to record between her thighs…to the odd way she grabbed her ass cheeks and squeezed until I suppose it hurt…to the times she cocked her head, ran her shoulder against her cheek, and then turned enough to nibble her own flesh. It wasn’t the getting off as much as it was these small intimacies that made the scene almost impossible to watch.
We invaded her privacy, and to me that seemed as much a wrong as anything else we’d done.
One truth was plainly clear after this exhibition, Emerson had made her into a slut, just as he’d earlier vowed he would.
Later that night, he went down to the cellar and I followed him. When he realized this, he said, yes, I could watch. Of course, he had to blindfold the girl, so I could watch with the lights on. She was bound to the big bed, and I stood off to the side where I watched him straddle her head and fuck her face just as she’d hoped for. I’m not sure I could have withstood the strong emotion that surfaced in him when he rammed his erection down her open throat. He looked like a stallion fucking, his flexing muscles moving with a powerful grace I’d, of course, never seen first hand. Perhaps I’d been the recipient of such rigorous energy, but I rather doubt it. I think it was a quality of that particular moment. And for once, I was honestly grateful that Veronica X was the object of Emerson’s sexual passion and not me.
Chapter Ten
Small matters drove a wedge between Emerson and his wife. Anyone looking with fresh eyes on the situation could have guessed that the tension among all six of them was mounting. The repartee between writers had virtually ceased—no one had written a word, or even attempted to work on their craft for nearly ten days. The gaiety they sometimes shared, even the invigorating arguments ceased. Everyone retreated to their own worlds to brood. Penelope, Kathy Ann and Bo would go into town to eat, or sometimes drive back to the city for a day. Oddly they felt forced by the circumstances to return, when returning only meant that they’d be thrown back into the uncomfortable environment of their dark desires.
While the others certainly shared in the disquieting malaise, the increasing anxiety was most painfully evident between the married couple.
He griped at her. She griped at him. They left each other alone for hours. She’d tell him she wanted a day away to herself and he’d refuse her. Refused, she’d storm off, afraid to say more to her edgy husband.
One afternoon, however, Daphne was gone for nearly four hours before anyone realized that she wasn’t in the house.
“Anyone seen my wife?” Emerson called to Zack and Penelope who were reading on the porch.
The brunette looked up absently, her eyes tired from reading. “No.”
“Zack?” he tried again for a response.
He sat up a little startled. “Uhh, no, buddie, don’t think I’ve seen her since lunch.” He went back to his paper.
“Well, if she’s not in the house, where would she be?”
Penny looked up again, annoyed this time. “Dear, if she’s not in the house and not about the house, she must be in the woods or down at the lake. Or maybe she’s taken a car into town. God knows, she has to be bored with this scenario by now. Aren’t we all?”
Emerson didn’t reply, although the look on his face was bewilderment mixed with his normal degree of frenetic energy.
“Maybe she’s taking a nap,” Zack offered without looking up.
“Don’t think so,” Bo said, as he moved from the interior of the house to the porch eating a fresh peach. “You guys up for a swim?”
“Soon as I finish this chapter,” Penelope said.
“So, no one cares but me that she’s gone?” Emerson tried one more time.
“You’re her husband. Maybe you’re the one who should be caring the most,” Zack suggested.
***
Three hours earlier, Daphne had roamed the house, alone. The day had been hot, not one for high-energy activity. Kathy Ann had gone to town for a haircut and groceries. Bo and Zack had been fishing all morning and were not yet back, and Penelope, claiming her stomach was off, had spent most of the morning in bed. After a hike in the woods, Emerson had taken off in his car.
There weren’t many thoughts in Daphne’s mind, which seemed common in this period of time. She felt as if she were wasting away—as if they were all wasting away. The game that had occupied so much of their time and energy had reached a bitter impasse. Her own soul was despairing and in need, but of what? She couldn�
��t say for sure.
She was wearing her favorite sundress to keep cool, a thin blue chambray that floated about her perspiring skin with any hint of a breeze. The hem tickled the backs of her shapely calves, and the front was cut so low that when she bent over you could see all the way to the bush of ash blonde curls at her pubic mound. She walked barefoot from the second floor to the empty first floor of the house, and then, without much thought she opened the cellar door and peered down into the darkness. Feeling a rising heat between her legs, she slipped inside the door, closed it behind her and carefully took the stairs until she reached the bottom and cracked open the cellar door.
“Veronica X,” she said to the darkness.
“Hum…um.” The girl had been sleeping and stirred hearing the voice emerge from the silent and inky black.
She was tied to the bed, not her pallet, and Daphne moved forward until she reached the languid form of the bound female. She lay down next to her, resting a hand on the girl’s chest where she could feel her breath move in and out as her flesh rose and fell, inhaling, exhaling, a rhythm continuing undisturbed.
“You’ve been sleeping?” she asked.
“I sleep a lot.”
“The sex tires you out?”
“I suppose so.”
She seemed tentative but willing to talk. It was good for Daphne to hear her speak. “You don’t have to worry. It’s just the two of us here,” she said.
“I don’t know which one you are. I think I know the sound of your voice but then I get confused. And I have no names to go by.”
“We can’t have names,” Daphne said.
“Yes, I know.”
She listened to the girl’s breathing. She felt no significant emotion. Weeks before there was always a prickly anxiety in the cellar. Not now. “What’s it like to be down here?” she asked her,
“Lonely.”
“But it’s quiet.”
The Abduction of Veronica X Page 11