Her Submission

by Vonna Harper

  Shutting down the thought, she redoubled her efforts. She tried not to acknowledge his steady gaze as she awkwardly got her feet under her.

  “The leg with the rope on it,” he said, “put your foot on the chair.”

  Complying took several attempts. When she’d finally achieved the nearly impossible, he untied the ankle rope. He even helped her lower her leg once he was done. She looked at him.

  The lines around his mouth were as prominent as the last time she’d taken note of them, and he was definitely favoring his left leg. She stopped caring when he picked up his camera and started taking more pictures.

  “Who are you sending these to?” she risked asking.

  He frowned. “A friend, someone who’ll appreciate them for what they are.”

  The way he said friend distracted her from the relentless clicking. She could be wrong but it sounded as if he seldom used the word. If he was part of some kinky sex club, how did the various members refer to each other?

  Against her better judgment, she looked down at herself. Her roped breasts were swollen, her nipples still red from the clamps.

  “Will they show up on the Internet?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  He was probably saying that as a way of messing with her mind. Standing there, she wondered what he’d think if she told him about her fantasies. Would he use them to his advantage or—how could she even think this?—would he take what she told him to turn their time together into incredible reality?

  Shocked that she’d entertained the possibility, she shook her head in an effort to stop it. Being his captive had given rise to the question, that’s all. She’d never want to be his slave.

  Slave. Owned. Desired.

  Unexpected movement from him pulled her from the crazy thought. He’d put down the camera and was picking up the whip.

  “No,” she gasped as she back-peddled. “Please no.”

  He blinked, stared at the whip, frowned.

  “You don’t tell me what I can or can’t do. No one does.” He snapped the air with the thin length. “I’m going to educate you, transfer you into a form useful to me. You might think that being stripped of your clothes and restrained is lesson enough, but you’re still the old you. It’s time to become something new. Mine.”

  He’d thrown his domineering words at her before but that didn’t make it any easier this time. Sweat again drenched her. At the same time she felt cold.

  And still hot.

  I don’t want to become yours, she longed to tell him but it wouldn’t do any good. He wouldn’t listen.

  He’d kept on snapping the whip while talking.

  “This is about relating to your body in a new way, of getting deeper into yourself than you believed possible.”

  There was something seductive about what he was offering. No matter how much she dreaded being whipped, she couldn’t help but embrace his words.

  “Pain seduces. It takes the receiver into a new world, one she can’t emotionally distance herself from—or want to.”

  Was that possible? Could pain seduce? Desperate to believe him as a way of dealing with her dread, she studied his arm. He worked the whip as if it was an extension of him, an exquisite tool.

  “Take what I offer, slave. That’s all you have to do today.”

  He fastened his gaze on her left flank. An instant later, a sharp stinging sensation there rocked her.

  “No! Oh please, don’t.”

  He again whipped her in the same place. A second wave of pain bled into the first. As he started to lift his arm for another blow, she ran past him heading for the door. Half facing him as he slowly ate up the distance between them she backed up to the door and gripped the knob.

  The whip landed on her belly.

  “Please, oh god, please.”

  “There is no god here, never forget that.”

  His voice was so calm, a whisper of sanity in a world being defined by pain. He’d locked the door, but she kept wrestling with it while he planted blow after blow. No matter which way she twisted, he accomplished his goal. The whip didn’t cut her flesh, not that it mattered. It felt as if she was being stung by countless wasps.

  Screaming, she pushed away from the damn worthless door and ran back the way she’d come. Maybe her intention had been to try to escape into the kitchen, maybe she hadn’t had any plan. Whatever the answer, she never got a chance to see if another room was any safer because he grabbed the rope between her elbows and yanked.

  “You aren’t going anywhere, slave. That’s not how it works.”

  She was still trying to regain her balance when fire bloomed on her buttocks. Fighting a scream, she stood shaking in the middle of the masculine room with her back to her captor. She wouldn’t, couldn’t face him! Didn’t want to see his expression.

  He whipped her repeatedly, the blows landing on her ass cheeks. They caught fire, taking her back to all those times when her old man had spanked her. Sometimes she’d known why she was being punished. Mostly though the bastard had done so because he was mad at the world.

  She’d learn to take her childhood punishment in silence because the less she reacted, the sooner he quit. If it was possible, she’d do the same today.

  “I don’t believe in deep distress,” her captor told her as she quivered before him. “There have been a few times when I forgot my creed and—tell me how much this hurts.”

  No matter how hard she tried to hold her ground, the distress he’d mentioned made her feet dance. Her constrained breasts pulsed. Every time the whip landed on an ass cheek, she felt compelled to turn it from him with the result that the next blow abraded her other buttock. The sensations built up inside her, an accumulation of the unwanted, his way of demonstrating his mastery over her.

  Too much!

  Howling more from outrage than pain, she broke rank and again ran. This time she circled the room’s perimeter, dodging furniture as she tried to stay out of reach. His features grim, he kept after her.

  “You’re not going to get away, there’s nowhere for you to go. No way you can free your elbows or breasts. The sooner you accept the inevitable—“

  “Go to hell!”

  Had she really said that? Certain she’d enraged him, she looked back at him. His jaw remained set, but what unnerved her the most was how his eyes glittered. He was enjoying this.

  Of course he was, she acknowledged as she put all her energy into keeping ahead of him. No one would do something so incomprehensible unless he loved dominating.

  Domination. Restraining and stripping her because he could.

  She’d circled the room for the third time when she realized what he was doing. He wasn’t really pursuing her. Instead, he snapped the whip behind her. Other than slowly turning, he wasn’t putting out any effort. In contrast, she was wearing herself out, still dancing to his tune.

  There was no escape from this room. She might bolt into the kitchen, but if he didn’t want her in there, he’d simply haul her out and back into here. Then his diabolical game would begin again.

  Somewhere between resigned and determined to hold onto a shred of dignity, she jammed her toes into the carpet and stopped with her side to him.

  “Do what you’re going to,” she hissed. “I can’t stop you.”

  “You could try.”

  “Why? So you can get off watching me?”

  A pause. “Not just that. I want to see even more fire from you.”

  She never saw his arm move. One second they were carrying on an insane conversation, the next the whip struck the side of her breast. Again driven by instinct, she hunched her shoulders the little the elbows tie allowed and presented him with her back.

  The next blow laid a hot line on her thigh.

  “Ah!”

  “There’s the sound I need to hear. Let’s see what it takes to get that out of you again.”

  Don’t move! Don’t run like some blind panicked beast!

  Ruled by the command coming from a plac
e she didn’t know existed in her, she held her head high. The whip kissed and teased, sometimes landing hard enough to force out another cry. She didn’t try to keep track of where the strikes landed, and when he ordered her to turn in circles, she gave into the harsh words.

  The two of them were in a room built of wood, heated by wood, illuminated by the sun. No one heard her and no one saw him aim and aim and aim at her naked, defenseless body. She thought of herself as a ballerina twirling on top of a music box only there was no music here, only whip snaps and the sounds he forced from her.

  Her fingers kept reaching for something they couldn’t reach, her breasts throbbed, her hair was plastered to her neck and cheeks, and her body—her hurting, on-fire body existed as something separate from her mind.

  “Stay with the sensations. Take them as far into you as they’ll go. Surrender your breasts, buttocks, and thighs to the throbbing.”

  “I can’t—I don’t…”

  “Don’t try to speak.” A spark struck the top of one breast and then the other. “Words require too much concentration.” The whip laid down a burning line on the inside of her right thigh. “Feel your body. Listen to everything it’s telling you. Become primitive for it, and for me.”

  He wanted her to do something for him? She would, she would if only he’d stop hurting her.

  “You’re still thinking.” He sounded disappointed. “Sensation is the only thing that matters.” Fire briefly danced over her belly. “I wasn’t going to do this until later, but I’ve decided to take advantage of where I’ve sent you today.”

  Once again he was giving her too much to think about. Something hot enveloped her. Now that he’d stopped switching her, she fought to comprehend where the heat was coming from. Some of it of course was the result of her beating, but that wasn’t all. She was exhausted, engulfed.

  Engulfed in what? Sensation? He’d kept using that word.

  “Stand by my equipment bag,” he said in a conversational tone. “You will do that for me won’t you? I won’t have to do anything to make it clear that this is an order.”

  His words were such a salve to her wounded psyche that she was standing near the bag before the ramifications sank in. The lump on the floor was where he kept his—his slave tools.

  “Go on. Take a look.”

  Trembling so she had to widen her stance to keep from falling, she watched as he upended it and shook out its contents. She couldn’t get past the reality that she was closer to him than she’d been since he’d stopped her from running into the kitchen.

  “There.” He picked up a pair of handcuffs. “That’s one of the things I’m after.”

  “Cuffs? But—“

  “Your shoulders and arms have been under that particular strain long enough. Time to change things around.”

  What an idiot she was, she acknowledged as he stepped behind her. She cursed her blind capitulation when he snapped the cuffs over her wrists and then released her elbows, but what could she do? He’d overwhelm her if she resisted.

  She was still trying to make her peace with the freedom to her elbows and the harsh metal around her wrists when he slid heated fingers over her arms. She started, couldn’t relax.

  “The time will come,” he said, “when you’ll welcome my touch. The journey has already begun. Eventually you’ll turn yourself completely over to me.”

  Completely. “No.” She tried to step away from him. A masculine arm snaked around her throat and he pulled her back against his hard body. He fingered her right breast. “I’ve always enjoyed it when a slave struggles, but you need to learn it won’t do you any good.” He spoke into her ear. “You’re mine. Mine. End of discussion.”

  Chapter ten

  Mine. Kaci could barely think for the words he’d just whispered. She’d been helpless from the first moment he’d touched her, but the totality of her situation hadn’t truly sunken in until now. She had no choice but to allow him to support her weight. Because of him, her body bore countless whip marks. He wasn’t done punishing her. She just didn’t know when it would start again.

  Moving in slow-motion, he reached around her torso with his free arm and lightly rubbed her right nipple.

  “Tell me you hate being touched like this. Say something to make me believe you loathe everything about what has happened to you.”

  The necessary words backed up in her throat, but she couldn’t get them out. Every muscle and nerve felt acutely alive. Her entire system was ragged, out of its element and trying to make sense of this new existence he’d thrust her into. The longer he massaged her nipple, the less anything except the erotic manipulation mattered.

  “It isn’t as bad as you need it to be, is it?” He switched to her other nipple, his fingers kissing her tight flesh. “One minute I’m subjecting you to pain, the next there’s pleasure.”

  “No,” she whispered. “I don’t want—“

  “Maybe your mind doesn’t, yet, but your body is primitive. It understands pleasure and pain, fullness and hunger, warmth and cold. When it is satisfied, nothing else matters. You have potential, slave. Potential I will exploit.”

  This man who’d taken her from what she was familiar with could be a poet. He used words in ways she’d never experienced.

  “In many respects,” he continued in his sing-song tone, “the first days are the hardest. Resistance comes from many sources, fear high among them. Slaves want back the world they understand. The future is beyond their comprehension because the present is so intense.”

  Keep rubbing my nipple, please. Hold me against you so I can feel your heat. Give me some of your strength. Make me believe you’re doing this because down deep you care for me.

  “As for why we make the initial impact so intense—otherwise the transformation takes much longer, wasting valuable time that could be put to better use.”

  She was a prisoner in this man’s world. Sooner or later he’d rape her—wasn’t that why he’d taken her?—but he wanted more from her.

  He wanted everything.

  “Seeing you helpless turns me on, satisfies a need, but I promised you a measure of relief. Its time you got it.”

  It took incredible self-control not to lean against him when he stood her upright. She concentrated on trying to control her shaking as he slowly unwound the red lengths from around her breasts. The restored blood flow burned through her. She hoped he’d massage her. Instead, he picked up something she couldn’t see because her back was to him. Whatever it was, it felt soft when he pressed it against her spine.

  Suddenly he grabbed her hair and yanked, making her stare at the ceiling. An instant later something covered her eyes. Panicked, she tried to shake it off.

  “Don’t!” he snapped. “Damn it, you know better.”

  “This is called sensory deprivation,” he said once he’d fastened the blindfold around her head. He patted her cheeks. “It’s an extremely effective method of encouraging a subject to focus on what a master wants her to.”

  Master? Had he used that word before? Maybe it had only been part of her fantasies.

  When he spun her in a half circle, she assumed she was facing him. Darkness conspired with her useless arms to threaten to push her into madness. No matter how hard she fought to stay in control, she wasn’t sure she could.

  Seconds passed. Because he wasn’t touching her, she had no way of knowing whether he was where he’d been when she’d last seen him. For all she knew, he could have left the room. Maybe he was sitting in one of the chairs watching her, waiting for her to fall apart.

  Where are you? Please don’t leave me.

  No, damn it, she wouldn’t beg! Pride was all she had left.

  Being deprived of the ability to see made her less sure of her balance and she again widened her stance. What a sight she must be for a man who considered him a master of human flesh.

  The passing seconds were like never-ending fingernails on a blackboard. Locked within herself, she became even more aware of the metal around
her wrists and the collar hugging her neck. She didn’t know what to call the sensations on and around her breasts, just that they were an accumulation of everything they’d been subjected to. He obviously was a master of abuse—and of stimulation.

  Small fires continued to burn throughout her body. The way the countless tiny sparks heated and caressed her flesh, she wasn’t sure she wanted them to end. Sticky juices clung to her pussy and the insides of her thighs. Just thinking about what he’d done to her sex and ass hole started a new flood.

  Not aroused! No, damn it, not imprisoned by sexual need.

  Yet.

  “You’re a work of art, an erotic sculpture. The time will come when you fully embrace your sexuality, slave.”

  Startled by his unexpected voice, she tried to determine where it was coming from. She had little enough left, just a small measure of pride. If he thought she’d bow before him, he was mistaken.

  “Your body has pretty much taken everything it’s capable of today. You’re still high on adrenalin and stimulation, but there’s going to be a crash. You’d love to have something to eat and drink followed by a shower and sleep wouldn’t you?”

  Sleep? Yes! Oblivion.

  “You’re more vulnerable than you ever thought it was possible to be. Any minute now your body will say enough. It can’t take any more. But it’ll have to.”

  In her mind’s eye he was reclining in one of the leather chairs. She imagined he was sipping a drink. Maybe he’d stripped off his clothes in preparation for forcing himself on her. His blood-engorged cock would stand out from his lean yet muscled body and he’d idly massaged it.

  What hole would he push it into?

  Shuddering, she clamped her mouth shut. She’d tried giving oral sex when she’d been drinking but hadn’t gotten anything out of the effort beyond a sore jaw and a feeling of yuck. Of course if she was forced—

  “You’re going to call me Master. I don’t need to spell out what will happen if you don’t do as I command.”