by Sykes, Julia
She didn’t notice him watching her that night. He had seen how she found joy in pain, but he didn’t understand the first thing about why she enjoyed it. And truthfully, he didn’t want her to enjoy it. He just wanted her to be strong enough to take the agony he gave her.
On the first night of her incarceration, she had awoken to find herself locked in a cage. The world was pitch black, and the only way she realized her confinement was her inability to move. The cage was so small that she couldn’t even sit up or stretch out her legs. She had beaten against the iron bars until her hands were bloody, and her terrified screams had echoed through the darkness until her throat was raw and burning. They tapered off to wracking sobs, and eventually even those quieted as her tears dried up.
Only then did he come to her for the first time. Even the dim light of the spare light bulb that provided the room’s only illumination seared her eyes when he turned it on. Although he spoke softly, his voice boomed throughout the room, assaulting her eardrums after the long, dark silence.
He didn’t explain where she was or why he had taken her. He offered to release her from the cage, to give her food and water and the chance to use the toilet. His only condition was that she remain silent and not attempt to escape him. She had nodded in agreement, doing her best to covertly take inventory of her prison. The walls were built of dull grey concrete blocks that matched the concrete floor. The dank quality of the air let her know she was underground. There was a toilet in the corner of the room and a showerhead mounted to the wall. She shuddered as she took in the provisions that indicated he intended to keep her here for a prolonged period.
Even more terrifying were the apparatuses that she usually associated with the thrill of BDSM that were spaced throughout the room. There was a St. Andrews Cross pushed up against the opposite wall, and she recognized a bondage table and a crude spanking bench. Only this bench was crafted of rough wood, and it didn’t have any padding. Chains hung down at various points, looped through thick ringbolts that were embedded in the heavy wooden beams above.
But there were stairs leading up to the door through which he had entered. That was the only route to freedom, and she intended to fight tooth and nail to attain it. The prospect of not reaching that door was too horrible to contemplate.
He watched her carefully when he released her from the cage, but he didn’t touch her in any way. Keeping up her end of the bargain, she was compliant and didn’t speak as she stretched her muscles and took the water and protein shake he offered her. Even though she desperately needed to relieve herself, she was too repulsed by the idea of using the toilet in front of him to put off her plan any longer. She had taken self-defense classes, and she knew the most efficient ways to incapacitate a man.
Her hand shot out, aiming to drive her palm into his nose, hopefully breaking it. But she never made contact, and she didn’t even get the chance to bring her knee up into his groin. He caught her wrist almost lazily before the back of his hand cracked across her cheek with sickening force.
She screamed and cried and begged, but he just laughed as he tore off her clothes. Despite her best efforts, he easily blocked all of her attempts to fight him off.
That was the first time that he raped her. Even though she lost count of the times he forced himself on her, she still thought of it as rape.
But that was before she had broken. Now she accepted that she belonged to Master, and it was His right to use His property as He saw fit.
* * * *
The world was brightly lit and the air was sharp with antiseptic. My body was still on fire, my need consuming me. The pins were digging into my arms again, and I strained to gouge them out from under my skin. But soft restraints held my wrists at my sides, preventing me from seeking relief. I hated when Master tormented me like this, tying me up and denying me my reward for an agonizingly long period of time. He reserved this punishment for my gravest infractions.
“Please, Master,” I whined. “I’ll be good. I promise I’ll be good.”
A pair of familiar silver eyes appeared above me. The man gently brushed my sweat-dampened hair back from my forehead.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said softly. His deep, rumbling voice should have been soothing, but I didn’t trust the comfort it promised. “I know it hurts, but you have to ride it out. You’ll be okay. I’ll be right here with you.”
“What did I do wrong?” I asked, desperate to give him what he wanted. “I’ll do anything. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart. And you don’t have to do anything for me.” His words were spoken gently, but fury blazed in his eyes.
I hadn’t done anything wrong, but he was telling me there was nothing I could do to make the pain stop.
“I don’t understand,” I sobbed. “Why are you punishing me?”
His anger spilled over, tightening his features into something fierce and terrifying to behold. Rage pulsed off of him like a palpable thing. This new Master was even crueler than the first. He spoke to me so kindly while torturing me mercilessly.
“Please, Master,” I gasped out. “Tell me how I can please you.”
“I am not your Master,” he snarled.
He was so angry. My behavior was so displeasing that he wouldn’t even claim me as his slave. What would it take to win his approval? How could I possibly avoid pain if he wouldn’t give me any instructions?
Despair overwhelmed me, and I succumbed to my dark memories once again.
* * * *
Master had tried for weeks to break me. To break her.
The dark isolation in which she lived had been almost as terrible as the pain he gave her. Sometimes, she forgot what sight was until he came and turned on the light. The sight of him became the only real thing in the world. After long days of captivity, she was disturbed to realize that she almost longed to see him, if only to cling on to her deteriorating sanity. He reminded her that the world existed outside of her own head, even if that world was steeped in torture and violation.
The silence was almost worse than the blindness. In her waking hours, she talked to herself aloud, just to remember what sound was. She desperately clung to the memories of her life before she was taken, recounting them to herself as though telling a story to a close friend.
But after a while, the words began to lose their significance, and she would laugh at the strange, meaningless sounds that issued from her mouth in the semblance of coherent expression.
At times, she was tempted to surrender to the madness, to at least escape mentally. If he wouldn’t allow her body to die, she could destroy her own mind. If he used her after that, she wouldn’t really be her anymore. That way, he wouldn’t have truly conquered her. Her existence would end on her terms.
But she knew her body would survive, and he would continue to abuse it and use it for his own pleasure until it finally expired. She couldn’t abandon herself to that fate. Everyone else might have given up on her, but she wasn’t going to give up on herself.
Everything became so much harder when he introduced her to the drugs. She wasn’t sure how long she had been imprisoned when the needle first kissed the crook of her arm, but time became even more meaningless after that.
He had tied her over the spanking bench and beaten her most vulnerable areas, inflicting the maximum pain possible without breaking the skin. Splinters had dug into her as her body twisted against the rough wood. He usually demanded that she call him “Master,” claiming he wouldn’t stop until she did so.
She couldn’t hold back her screams, and she was ashamed when she begged him to stop. But she wouldn’t call him Master. He didn’t deserve that. Ceding control of her body and mind to her Master was supposed to be a beautiful thing, borne of a relationship based on trust and mutual respect. She had never given anyone that gift. If she surrendered that to her tormenter, with that one word she would surrender her soul.
Although the pain he inflicted was horrific, he alwa
ys stopped before she called him Master. He was too concerned with compromising the beauty of his slave to scar her permanently.
But on that day, he tried a new tactic. He said nothing as he strapped her to the spanking bench and beat her mercilessly. His silence set her teeth on edge. The absence of his furious demands was almost more terrifying than the sound of his harsh voice booming through the room. All she could hear were her own agonized screams, and without his commands, it was much more difficult to muster up her defiance as a mental shield.
It was only when he was finished with her that he finally spoke.
“If pain won’t break you,” he said roughly, “maybe pleasure will. I’m going to make you my obedient slave, whore. One way or another.”
She barely felt the prick of the needle; the tiny sting was nothing in comparison to the throbbing of her enflamed flesh. But even that fire was wiped out by the warm bliss that surged through her veins almost instantaneously.
God, the heroin was a beautiful thing.
But what was the sweetest relief would soon become the most powerful weapon he wielded against her.
* * * *
The brightly lit room flashed back into existence as I returned to my current reality. I remembered I had been released from my prison only to be brought to a new one. And I had a new Master as well.
I shuddered at the memory of his cold cruelty, and I squeezed my eyes shut again, longing for the darkness of my dungeon.
Although I wasn’t ready to face the fresh horrors that awaited me, I forced myself to take inventory of my body.
Inconceivably, the pain of my denial had lessened incrementally. My new Master must be tiring of torturing me. That could only mean one thing: he would want my body soon.
Despite my fear of him, I would accept him. Defying him wasn’t an option. I prayed he would allow me to please him so he wouldn’t use me too harshly. I would do anything I could to avoid further punishment. I would prove to him that I was a good slave.
My pain might be abating, but the skin on my arms was crawling. It felt as though thousands of fire ants were roving over my flesh, their tiny serrated jaws leaving little burns behind. I raked my fingernails against them, desperate to claw them off me.
My wrists were caught up by one large hand, preventing me from scraping at my skin.
Oh, god. My new Master was right beside me.
I was too frightened to look up into those disturbing silver eyes. They were so beautiful and yet so cruel. The dichotomy was far worse to behold than the lust-filled eyes of my previous Master: brown mingled with green, recalling the muck of a muddy pond. And there was always a light in them that was just wrong.
“Please,” I whispered, unable to resist tugging against his strong hold. I needed him to release me so I could soothe my crawling skin.
He ran his fingers through my hair, but his other hand still held my wrists fast, pressing them against my chest.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said gently. “You’ll pull through.”
How could he be so tender and yet so cruel? I had thought my previous Master was insane, but this man was something even more maniacal.
Burning tears slipped from the corners of my closed eyes, but I forced myself to stop struggling. I didn’t want to anger him further.
“That’s a good girl. Just breathe.”
His rumbling approval was jarring. My former Master never offered words of praise.
I pushed back my confusion, focusing on his command to breathe. He had finally given me an order I could follow. Thinking for myself always led to trouble. It was far easier to blindly obey without contemplating my reality too closely.
“Shouldn’t she be restrained?” I didn’t recognize the voice of the new man.
“I made the nurse remove the restraints,” Master said angrily. “Do you know how much they upset her? I would expect you to understand, Vaughn.”
“And you holding her down is better?” The man – Vaughn – asked, disapproval evident in his tone. “Do you really think that she wants any man to touch her right now?”
“She shouldn’t be alone,” Master ground out.
“She wouldn’t be,” Vaughn countered. “The nurses could watch her twenty-four/seven if you hadn’t intimidated all of them into staying out of the room.”
Nurses? What were they talking about?
Don’t think, I reminded myself. Just accept what’s happening.
Breathe. I continued to comply with the one order he had given me.
“They don’t understand. And neither do you,” Master said sharply.
“I understand that the staff members here are trained to deal with recovering addicts. I understand that they’re medical professionals. You’re a field agent with the FBI, Smith, not a nurse.”
“You’ve always been the perfect goddamn Boy Scout, Vaughn,” Master spat. “Some of us aren’t as pure as the driven snow. I know what withdrawals feel like; I know what she’s going through from firsthand experience. I don’t need a fucking medical degree to understand the hell she’s in right now.”
“Okay,” Vaughn’s voice was softer now, placating. “I get why you feel a connection to her. But I’m worried about you, buddy. You should go home and get some sleep.”
“I’m not leaving her alone. I can’t.” Master’s voice was strained. “She’s been tortured. By someone like us.”
“I am nothing like the bastard who hurt her,” Vaughn said, fury bleeding into his calm tone. “And neither are you. It’s not on you to make amends for what he did.”
“You’ve seen the marks, but you weren’t there when I found her.” Master said angrily. “She moved like a trained submissive. That fucker even collared her. She called him ‘Master,’ but she was clearly terrified of him.” He sounded disgusted.
There was a long pause before Vaughn spoke again. “I think it might be best if you’re not on this case at all. You obviously can’t approach it with any sort of objectivity.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to be objective when that asshole has used what we do and twisted it to destroy her? We use pain and pleasure to bend submissives to our will, but he’s perverted those methods and fucking broken her, Vaughn. Her eyes… It’s like there’s nothing there, nothing left inside her. She doesn’t even know her own goddamn name. And it makes me sick that I know just how he did it. The doctors here can’t understand that. So no, I can’t be objective when it comes to this case. And if you were a real Dom, you couldn’t be either.”
There was a pause.
“May I speak with you in the hall, James?” Vaughn asked calmly, politely.
Master squeezed my wrists gently to reinforce his control. “Don’t scratch at your arms, girl. I’ll be right back.”
I swallowed hard. This command would be much more difficult to follow than his order to breathe.
As soon as he released me from his restraining hold, the ants seemed to double in number, tormenting me, tempting me to disobey. I clenched my fists, forcing myself to keep my arms pressed to my chest where Master had left them.
Don’t think. Don’t think about it.
Breathe. Don’t scratch your arms.
I allowed the commands to become a litany running in the background of my mind. In order to distract myself from the horrible burning itch, I focused on my surroundings. Since I was keeping my eyes resolutely closed, my sense of hearing was heightened, and I honed in on Master and Vaughn’s distant conversation.
Master’s voice was harsh, and the occasional expletive punctuated his muffled statements with sharp clarity. He placed emphasis the curse words, making them discernable when the rest of what he was saying was garbled.
In contrast, Vaughn’s voice was quieter, softer. He spoke in steady, even cadences.
Eventually, Master’s voice turned more subdued in the wake of Vaughn’s unrelenting calm.
I heard only one pair of footsteps returning to me, and I instantly recognized Master’s touch as he gripped my hand
s gently, rubbing soothing circles across my palms.
As much as I feared my new Master, I was suddenly glad that my former Master had given me to him. He offered words of praise and gentle, rewarding touches.
A chilling thought struck me. Maybe I hadn’t been given to him; maybe he had taken me without permission. If my former Master found me and discovered that I had been disloyal, he would hurt me.
Which punishment would be worse? The retribution of my former Master or the cruelty of my new one?
But was he cruel? He had tortured me by denying me my reward, but he certainly wasn’t being cruel to me now.
Yes, I preferred this treatment. I had to ensure that my new Master would keep me.
I opened my eyes so I could meet his silver ones. “I’ll be good for you, Master. I promise.”
His expression twisted in fury. “Don’t call me that,” he snapped.
I cringed away from him, squeezing my eyes shut again. I had looked at him directly and spoken without permission. I braced myself for pain, but I was shocked to feel his fingers running through my hair again in a soothing rhythm.
“It’s okay, girl,” he said more gently. “You’re okay. Just rest.”
I had made the right choice. Although his ferocity terrified me, that same ferocity would protect me once I convinced him to accept me. Master would keep me safe from His retribution if He returned for me.
I just hoped my new life wasn’t more painful than the last.
Obeying Master’s order, I fell into sleep.
* * * *
I relived the day I came into being, the day the woman I had once been had finally given up.
She had been in the dark for so long. The only time she was blessed with the light was when he came to hurt her, to violate her. She dreaded that blessing.
And she dreaded the high of the heroin almost as much as she craved the sweet hours of release from her reality, from her pain. Every time he hurt her, every time he fucked her, he forcibly gave her the drug as her “reward.”