Twenty-One

by D. Victoria BonAnno

  “I’m going to brand you tonight,” said Demetrius.

  Brand you. Chloe stared at him, feeling the colour drain from her face, her skin prickling with sickening panic. Thought escaped her. Demetrius laughed softly. He reached over and stroked her cheek with his knuckle.

  “Oh, sh, sh, sh,” he murmured, “It’s time, slave. It’s time.”

  She didn’t fight tears now. They misted her vision as she nodded. She had known on some level that she would be branded like the other slaves. She had known she would join their ranks as a number. She swallowed hard. Yes. It was time.

  “It’s going to hurt, ma chère,” said Demetrius. “Yes, it’s going to hurt more than anything you’ve felt before. But I’ll be here with you.”

  The words sounded strange coming from the man before her. His gentle tone, too, sounded strange. Chloe did not allow herself to question it. Instead she clung to it, as she clung to his soft fingers on her cheek.

  “I am going to tie you down,” said Demetrius. “You’ve been very good lately, you have, but even the most obedient slave struggles with this stage.” He knelt and retrieved a coil of black rope from the floor that he had to have carried in while she slept. “Give me your wrist.”

  Chloe extended her arm, trembling. Demetrius caught her hand in his, stroking it with his fingertips. He studied her face and she felt the same helplessness she had every time he looked at her. She fought the urge to look away when he had not ordered her eyes down. Her suffering was his to study.

  “You’ve never been tied down before,” he murmured.

  Chloe had to clear her throat to speak. “Just when Gabe and Seventeen…trained me, Master.”

  Demetrius shook his head. “Ah, well, I’m sorry these are your first experiences with it, cherí.”

  She stared at him, fighting to keep her face blank. Again, gentle words. An apology, even. There was no sign of the cold wall she had begun to expect to see him behind during her training. But this tenderness was new to her as well, and she did not know what to make of it.

  She lay still as Demetrius tied her wrists to the nylon straps under the mattress, her arms outstretched on either side of her. He bound her ankles as well, similar to how Seventeen had done it, though she was on her stomach this time, less exposed. She tested the restraints at his order. They were tight around her limbs, but not painfully so. She knew she would not lose circulation in her hands or feet. But she also knew she was trapped by the expert knots and the inability to pull her arms into her chest was no easier than it had been the first time.

  Once Demetrius was satisfied that she was secured, he returned to the toolkit, ripping open a small packet and tossing the wrapper on the table. Chloe whimpered when she saw what he had opened: medical gloves. Latex gloves.

  One of the benefits of having a doctor for a father was that Chloe had learned of her allergies in childhood, and her allergy to latex topped the charts. She remembered her first visit to the dentist, remembered feeling feverish as the dentist poked around in her mouth with gloved fingers. She remembered her throat closing. She couldn’t recall the paramedics coming in, or the epinephrine they had given her, but she would never forget the terror of being absolutely unable to take a breath, as if her lungs had swelled into something solid and incapable of expanding. Chloe tugged at her restraints without meaning to.

  “Master-”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” Demetrius shushed her. “You’re doing so well, Twenty-One, don’t go backwards.”

  “But I’m-”

  Demetrius put a gloved finger to her lips to silence her. Chloe cried out and jerked as far back as the bindings would allow.

  “Slave,” Demetrius snarled, grabbing her chin roughly. “Be still.”

  His fingers promised pain if she didn’t comply. The feeling of the gloves on her skin stopped her struggle. It was too late.

  “I don’t want to have to punish you,” Demetrius’ voice had become soft again. “This is going to be punishment enough. Do you understand?”

  Chloe’s heart had reached a breakneck pace against her ribs. Her body was cold, clammy.

  “Yes, Master,” she whispered.

  Demetrius released her face and turned back to the toolkit. He fit the small steel wedge into the clamp. Chloe fought to take deep, slow breaths, waiting for her throat to close, but nothing happened; no itchy skin, no heat, no wheezing. She swallowed and took a breath. No heaviness in her chest. She squinted in the dim light and tried to read the wrapper from the latex gloves. It was nearly out of her line of vision, but she still made out the word that flooded her with relief: Nitrile. Her father had made her memorize it. Demetrius wore latex-free gloves. Tears of relief swelled.

  “Hush, now,” said Demetrius, almost to himself, as he fitted the steel plate onto the clamp.

  Chloe’s relief gave way to new fear as Demetrius leaned over and swabbed her right shoulder blade with an alcohol wipe. She watched him flick a switch on the cylindrical object. A small burst of blue flame made her jump. She should have guessed it was a torch from the look of it.

  Demetrius held the edge of the metal wedge into the flame until it began to glow, and a wave of nausea rolled over Chloe, spotting her vision.

  “I don’t brand my slaves with a single strike, like a cow,” he said over the roar of the small flame. “I will brand you with this single piece, reheat it again, and make my mark inch by inch. It’s going to take a few hours. You may scream, you may cry, but remember who is Master, ma chère, and keep your manners.”

  Chloe forced herself to nod. She stared at the glowing piece of metal that would touch her skin. The bindings had been wise; staring into that glow, Chloe knew that she would have run if she could have.

  Demetrius looked at her, the flame’s reflection in his pale eyes.

  “Are you ready?”

  Chloe laid her head on the pillow and wrapped her hands around the ropes binding her wrists, clinging to anything she could.

  “Yes, Master.”

  Demetrius sat beside her on the bed, curled his fingers around Chloe’s neck, and pressed the thousand degree steel into her flesh.

  Chloe’s fingers convulsed against the rope. What escaped her lips was less of a scream than a strange, throaty outcry like an animal caught in a hunter’s trap. She had never experienced pain like this before, an instantaneous searing agony. Even when Demetrius removed the steel wedge to reheat it, her skin continued to burn.

  She heard the hum of the torch again.

  “Please, Master, don’t. Stop. Please, not again. Not again, Master.” Words tumbled out of her mouth with no regard for obedience, no fear of punishment. But Demetrius continued as if he didn’t hear her, and the dreaded steel wedge glowed fiercely once more. Chloe thrashed against the ropes with all her strength, but they held fast; she could not even bend her knees or elbows to shrink away.

  “No, please, Master!” she begged, ragged with panic. “Oh, God, please, no, no, no-!”

  Demetrius was silent as he pressed the wedge into her again, just below his first strike. Her skin hissed and Chloe screamed without restraint. She lost herself completely after those first two strikes, her world fractured into the stench of burnt flesh and the sound of her own skin sizzling like meat in a hot pan. She screamed until her throat could no longer sustain a human voice, and then what came out of her were hoarse moans and pitiful, hollow sobs. Her shoulder blade felt as if it were molten and melting away like rocks becoming magma. Each strike was agony, each pause to reheat the steel was pure dread. Chloe did not fade into an empty dream world as she had so often during her periods of isolation. Rather, everything was utterly clear in the worst of ways. She felt every strike as if it were the first until she was certain Demetrius had to have burned her to the bone. There had to be no flesh left to scorch.

  When Chloe grew quiet, unable to scream any more as the metal hissed against her, Demetrius lifted her chin, studied her eyes. Chloe barely felt his hand on her, barely saw his eyebrowless face lea
ning so close to hers.

  “Twenty-One,” his voice was distant, as if she were underwater. “What are you?”

  Chloe could not comprehend the question. What was she? She was the aching throb in her shoulder. She was the flash of heart-stopping pain with each strike. There was nothing else to be. Demetrius’ face blurred for a moment. She saw rather than felt him lift her bound hand and place it against his bare chest.

  “You’re starting to go into shock,” Demetrius explained. He pressed his fingers against hers and held her hand just beneath his collarbone. Chloe felt the barest whisper of the gloves he wore. “Listen to my voice, Twenty-One. Can you feel the scar?”

  Chloe swallowed, her mouth dry. Her hand seemed detached from her body when she tried to move them. Her fingers finally responded, sluggishly dragging down Demetrius’ skin. For a moment, there was nothing, and then she felt something raised and rough, not like the smooth, firm scars along the rest of his body.

  “Yes,” her voice was hardly a whisper. “I feel it.”

  Demetrius nodded. He let her hand go. She didn’t see the water bottle before he put it to her lips, but she swallowed reflexively, and with each sip of water, the world grew clearer. She saw the scar he had put her hand against. It was round rather than horizontal like the rest of his scars, with rough tendrils of knotted flesh stretching from it like a sunburst. Chloe had seen enough news stories to recognize a bullet wound, though she had never seen an old one. She wondered how she hadn’t noticed it before, but what was one scar in a multitude of scars?

  “Who are you?” Demetrius asked. He pulled away the water bottle.

  Chloe swallowed again, “I...I am Twenty-One,” she whispered, “I am a slave.”

  “Good girl,” Demetrius whispered. Chloe wondered if she imagined the relief in his voice. “Good girl. Let’s continue.”

  The metal wedge returned, the pain returned, but Chloe had no more screams left in her. As the brand stung her flesh, she laughed. She laughed with the same wild abandon that Demetrius had when she had struck him during her first training session. She laughed madly as her Master continued his work, laughed as her sex throbbed with heat in time with each molten strike. Agony blended into ecstasy and back again, until she no longer knew whether she cried out from pleasure or pain. The words to La Vie En Rose disintegrated in her head. By the end of things, the tune, too, burned away.

  Chloe lay in sweat-soaked sheets, her hair clinging to her face, breathless and silent by the end of it all. She did not have the strength to move her arms and legs when Demetrius untied them. She did not see any evidence of rope burn on her writs or ankles, which she had expected to have after struggling so hard against her restraints in those first hours.

  “Good girl,” Demetrius said. “You did well, cherí.”

  Chloe turned her head to watch him remove his gloves and pack up the toolkit. She could see his erection pressing against his zipper, a sight that quickened her pulse despite her exhaustion. He had enjoyed her pain. She had known he would. She was relieved that she had done well, that her slipping into shock had not ruined his pleasure. The thought was a strange one, but it felt appropriate.

  Demetrius sat down beside her and rubbed a dollop of ointment onto her fresh wound. Chloe sucked in a breath. The ointment stung on contact, but soon began to soothe. She savoured the feeling of Demetrius’ hand moving in slow circles along her burnt flesh. He reached forward and brushed the hair from her face. Chloe leaned into his hand, into the cool press of his bare skin. Demetrius laughed softly and stroked her cheek.

  “You are mine now,” he murmured, leaning in and running his fingertip along her bottom lip. “The person you were before I found you is dead. You belong to me.”

  Tears misted Chloe’s eyes, tears she thought she had run out of by now. She thought of his hand on her face, stroking her, how she craved his touch, and she knew his words were true. There was no place for her but here, no one who mattered but him. She waited for some inner protest, but there was only silence, only his hands and his mask and his eyes.

  “Yes, Master.”

  The world seemed to hold its breath. Demetrius rose.

  “Do you want to see it?” he asked.

  Chloe hesitated. She had seen Three’s and Seventeen’s marks, and the marks on every slave in the showers. Did she want to see the number etched into her own flesh? She did. She had to.

  “If it pleases you, Master,” she whispered.

  “Oh, yes, I think you should, cherí.” The low purr in his voice had returned, the chaotic rumble that vibrated in Chloe’s bones.

  Demetrius took her into his arms as if she were made of porcelain and carried her to the bathroom. Chloe rested her head against his chest, breathing in his sharp, sweet scent. She wanted to run her hand along the smooth scars decorating his body, wanted to feel the roughness of the bullet scar once more, but she kept control of herself. She was a slave, she only touched her Master when he allowed it. His hair fell around her, tickling her face and her chest. He set her down but held her arms for support, which was just as well, as Chloe felt shaky the moment her feet hit the tile.

  “Look.” He twisted Chloe gently so she could look over her right shoulder. “You have my mark now, ma bichette. You will for the rest of your life.”

  Ma bichette. Chloe’s heart stung, but no tears came. The significance of that pet name seemed trivial and pointless. What mattered now was the mark on her right shoulder blade. It was large, about six inches across and three inches wide. Chloe had expected it to be bright red, like a fresh cut, but the actual marks were dull and yellow, instant scabs in a sea of raised red flesh. It was a Roman numeral, as she knew it would be: XXI. The letters were thicker than she had expected them to be, given the narrowness of the steel wedge.

  Chloe felt her Master’s eyes on her. He stood in the mirror behind her pink and sweaty form, fingers curled around her arms, staring at her through his reflection. Chloe leaned into his chest and he brought his arm around her waist. She could not stop looking at herself in the mirror, wrapped in the arms of her otherworldly captor, framed by his pale form. Tears swelled again, though they did not fall.

  “You need to sleep,” said Demetrius after a long moment. “You’re going downstairs to join the others in the morning. You’re ready to be one of them.”

  Chloe barely registered his words. She stared at the branded, collared stranger in the mirror.

  “Yes, Master.”

  Chapter 19

  November 6, 2011

  Mariane thought she was going to be sick. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking cutting through campus to get to the bars. She had planned to head through the Student Union, the quickest way to Hollington’s tiny downtown strip, and there they were, half of the student body, holding a candlelight vigil for their fellow student, Chloe Leroux, now two months missing. Mariane cut through the crowd, burying her face in her blue scarf, her pulse in her throat, watching her own feet scramble to escape the tearful voices and messages of hope.

  The flickering Downstairs bar sign couldn’t have shown up sooner on Mariane’s path. She needed a drink. Now. The blast of warm air and the stench of grease from the kitchen made her stomach lurch. She settled onto a barstool a safe distance away from the few other patrons at the bar at 8:00 at night.

  “The usual, sweetheart?”

  Mariane jumped, looking up from her scarf. She hadn’t noticed Gavin, the senior bartender at Downstairs, standing right in front of her. She cleared her throat.

  “Double it.”

  Gavin gave a short nod and pulled a double shot glass from the bar. Mariane busied herself with peeling off her coat. A couple of guys down cheered at the TVs over the bar, making her heart leap. Fucking frat boys screaming at a screen like their enthusiasm actually mattered. This was why she didn’t go to sports bars on weekends. She watched Gavin pour a generous amount of Jameson into the glass in front of her, topping it off with a bit of lime juice.

  “Your Iri
sh Pecker,” he said with a wink.

  That was normally Mariane’s cue to say, “You’re my Irish pecker, Gavin,” but she wasn’t in the mood to flirt tonight. She swallowed the double and sucked in through her teeth. The bite of whiskey bringing her out of her own head.

  “I’m going to need another,” she said. “Rough night.”

  Gavin raised a sandy blonde eyebrow. “Am I gonna have to make sure you get home safe again?”

  That made Mariane smirk. “Maybe if you were still single.”

  Gavin flashed her a grin and made his way down the bar to help the cheering frat boys. The candlelight vigil crept back into Mariane’s head. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on something else until the alcohol kicked in, yet the tear-streaked faces of the crowd haunted her. Chloe was a shy girl; most of the people at that vigil didn’t even know who she was before she disappeared. They weren’t her friends, they weren’t her family. They wouldn’t have given a fuck about her if she hadn’t made the news. Mariane had to smile at the thought. She didn’t deserve to look down on them when she was the reason Chloe was missing.

  “Gavin!” she waved the empty shot glass. “Need booze!”

  She’d never forget the way she felt when Demetrius had threatened her outside of the Oryx. It was the same fear she’d felt when he’d pulled her aside years ago and warned her never to speak of what she had witnessed that night. His hand on her arm had been so strong, even while he bled from a bullet wound in his chest. Mariane buried her head in her hands. She wished she had never seen anything. She wished she didn’t know that he’d taken Chloe. He denied it, but she knew. She should never have brought Chloe to the Oryx. She hadn’t thought about it. She hadn’t thought Demetrius would give a girl like Chloe a second glance.