by Vonna Harper
Needing more. Needing him.
At length he’d recorded what he’d turned her into to his satisfaction. After draining his drink, he picked up the whip and walked around her, striking her as he did. The insect sting sensations landed everywhere, seemingly leaving no part of her untouched. Her breathing grew ragged.
Master’s sex slave.
“Even if Carnal Incorporated is shut down, another will take its place,” he said, “because there will always be men with the means and desire to own human flesh.” The whip clattered to the floor. “And because there are enough submissive women to feed that need. Some are converted from the independent women they were. Some, like you, come to it naturally.”
With him behind her, she was hard-pressed to concentrate on what he’d just said.
“You smell of submission. It oozes from your pores.”
She was still trying to find the lie in what he’d said when he reached around her. His too-large hand spread over her collar so the leather bit into her throat. There was nowhere to go except into him. His chest rubbed against her shoulders while his cock ground into the small of her back.
“One reason I often place a slave in a cage—“ His other hand snaked around her hips and then between her legs. “is because that way she isn’t touched for a while. She has no doubt that sooner or later I’ll start manhandling her. The waiting—the waiting helps break her down. You didn’t need that.”
He hadn’t kept his hands off her. From the beginning they’d roamed over her body, just as he was doing now.
If he asked what she was looking at she wouldn’t be able to say, not with his strength sealing her to him, his hand heating the collar against her throat and his fingers between her legs.
Scared and excited, she surrendered to the primal need to give him as much access to her sex as possible. Even as she widened her stance, a part of her demanded an explanation. Didn’t she have any pride? Any modesty?
Pride belonged to women with clothes and freedom of movement.
Women without submissive needs.
Master was no longer whipping her or taking her picture. Instead he was fingering her because he knew how much she loved it.
Loved? Yes, that.
The pressure against her throat ended, and he started working on the knot that held her gag in place. When the rope loosened, she pushed it out of her mouth. He hadn’t given her permission to talk so she focused on working feeling back into her mouth.
“In time,” he said, “you’ll reveal everything about the thoughts, images, and needs that turn you on. I already know a great deal about them. Having your fantasy man be in charge touches you on a deep level. You don’t know why and that occasionally concerns you. As an independent woman you should want to be a man’s equal so why do you envision yourself on your knees?”
Damn him, he was right.
The hand between her legs had stilled while he was talking. When it started moving again, she squirmed but didn’t try to break free. A muscled forearm pressed against her right breast, and he closed his fingers over her left, effortlessly trapping both. Claiming them—and her.
“Go back in your mind for me, slave,” he muttered seductively. “Take me into your past and tell me about the events that formed the woman you turned into. Start with the parents you didn’t want to talk about.”
Caught off guard by his command, if that’s what it was, she tried to separate herself from what he was doing to her body but couldn’t. She was on Master’s deck, in his chains and ropes, surrounded by him. Giving into him.
“Why do you care?” she whispered around her tumbling thoughts. “Isn’t—isn’t controlling my body enough?”
He didn’t immediately answer. “No, it isn’t. Otherwise I won’t know if you’re keeping things from me.”
No, he wouldn’t. But she’d held so much locked inside for so long, been so alone. “My parents are alcoholics,” she blurted. “That says a lot, doesn’t it?”
“They drank all the time you were growing up.”
She’d barely opened the window to the past and already his insight rocked her. The fingers against her sex stroked and caressed while the hand over her breast cradled it. Surrendering to the living blanket around her, she rested her head against his chest.
“I, ah, I haven’t seen them for a couple of years. The last time I did, the change in their appearance shocked me. They looked so old, wasted. They were living together then but that could have changed. Again.”
“So they sucked as parents. When did you leave home?”
Even though his question hadn’t taken her into the most painful part of her life, strangely she wasn’t ready to leave the subject of her childhood. Even as she tried to decide how much Master deserved to know, the strain on her up-thrust arms made it impossible for her to focus entirely on the gift of his body and hands. To take strength from him.
“A sensitive subject,” he said. “I wondered how many I’d find. Let’s try another approach. How did you lose your virginity?”
“What? With Mickey.”
“Was the idea mutual?”
“Yes.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
That’s fairly young. Did you know what you were getting into?”
“I ah, my old man—I started developing early and he, you know.”
When Master didn’t press her to continue, she silently thanked him. An all-knowing finger slipped past her clit hood and settled against the center of her ability to feel pleasure. Along with a shot of arousal, she felt—protected.
“My folks didn’t care if my brothers and I saw when they were having sex so I had—“
“You thought you knew what sex was about.”
“My old man talked about how I was turning into a cock tease. I wasn’t sure what he was getting at so when he tried to climb into my bed…”
“Tried? You weren’t able to fight him off?”
Were they really having this conversation? Maybe the greater question was what had he done to make her existence revolve around him?
Not taking time to judge the danger in what she was saying, she handed him the details of the nights when her drunken father had tried to rape her. She wasn’t sure how many times he’d waved his limp penis in her face while straddling her before he gave up. Disgusted as she’d been by the sight, she’d eventually stopped resisting. He rubbed himself all over her while she tried not to throw up, but he was never able to produce an erection. Finally he told her it was her fault. No man would ever want such an ugly bitch.
The words ugly bitch knotted her stomach. All those years later and they still hurt.
“Damn him,” Master muttered. “Some men should never be fathers.”
Was he speaking from personal experience? Would he ever reveal anything of his own past?
Please, I want to know.
“There’s much more you’re going to reveal, but I don’t want to go at it like this anymore.”
His tone made her wonder if he was confused but that couldn’t be. Master was in charge of everything that happened between them as witness by how effortlessly he’d kept her suspended between arousal and discomfort. When he loosened the rope holding her arms up, her belief in his take-charge personality took another forward step.
She couldn’t help but groan as blood began to flow back through her arms. She didn’t know what to do with them—or the rest of body. He was standing apart from her just watching her, learning what about her?
Anxious and eager, she studied the rope dangling from her handcuffs.
Master’s possession. Wearing his collar.
Rocked anew by the thoughts, she lifted her head. Master wasn’t handsome. There were too many rough edges to him with dark whiskers blurring his jawline. Too many scars.
And yet…
“Tell me something.” He folded his arms. “How do you feel now that you told me about what your father tried to do?”
“Exhausted.” B
ut it was more than that. Even though the shadows had lengthened, she still felt warm. She couldn’t remember when she’d last talked to someone else let alone seen another human being. Master had become her world.
Master’s gaze moved to her breasts. “Do they still sting?”
Despite the quick conversation change, she kept up. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to answer as honestly as possible, just that she did. “They feel alive.”
He nodded and sat back in the chair. His leg probably ached. Would a massage help?
“Why do you think that is?” he asked.
The weariness she’d been struggling to overcome faded with every breath she took. Beyond all reason, there was something magical about these moments. She should try to figure out why that was but just living in them was enough. She lifted her hands and cupped her breasts. Touching them re-awakened the fluttering sensation in her pussy.
“Maybe because everything that’s happened to me has been so intense.”
“More or less than your old man trying to hump you?”
What would her sperm donor think if he could see her now? Would anyone recognize what she’d become? Did she? “They’re nothing alike.”
“Aren’t they?” He waited a beat. “Two men have forced you against your will. Taken control of your life.”
There was nothing casual about his comment. Maybe he intended to make her pay for saying the wrong thing, but she didn’t think so.
Hoped not.
“I was a child then. Now I’m an adult.”
“A naked and chained one who calls the man who did these things to her Master.”
Her head pulsed so she could hardly think. She was on the brink of exhaustion with no way of knowing how her future would play out. She staggered over to the closest wall and leaned against it. Hopefully he wouldn’t ask why she continued to cradle her breasts but why would he? He already knew.
He studied for a long time starting with her feet and slowly moving up her nude body. Something in his expression made her wonder if he was trying to decide to tell her something.
“You’ve never brought a captive here?” she ventured.
“No.”
“Why did you with me?”
She expected him to point out that he’d been staying here since his accident and expediency had made the decision, but the longer he remained quiet, the less sure she became. His gaze was unsettling but far from how she’d felt when her drunken father had stared at her. Back then she’d felt dirty. Now she had worth.
“What about the men in your life?” he asked unexpectedly. “When you were with one, were those relationships influenced by what you had with your father?”
She looked past him to the darkening wilderness. Before long night would further isolate her—and him—from the rest of the world.
“I just wanted to get away from my old man. When Mickey—“
“Oh yes, Mickey. The man who took your virginity.”
Maybe someday she’d tell Master that his hard statements played a large role in what had broken her down. Now, however, she had all she could do to battle the sexual hunger warring with her weary body.
“What was the first time like?”
Instead of wanting to avoid the question, she pulled the memory around her. Eyes unfocused, she mentally returned to the afternoon Mickey had picked her up after school and driven her out to an abandoned barn he knew about. She hadn’t wanted to go home because her parents had been drinking and fighting for days. Mickey was twenty. In retrospect she knew he was too old for her, but back then he represented excitement, maturity, and security. They’d been doing some pretty heavy petting over the past few weeks, and the other night he’d taken off her bra and sucked on her breasts. Made her squirm.
She told Master that and more, even how Mickey had driven with his hand inside her pants. Once at the leaking wreck of a structure, he’d shown her the sleeping bag he’d spread out over some hay he’d raked together. She’d shook as he undressed her and averted her eyes while he stretched a condom over his erection.
A voice she barely recognized told Master how she’d still been asking herself if this was what she wanted to do when Mickey laid her out on the sleeping bag and crawled on top of her.
“It hurt, but it was over so fast I barely knew what was happening.”
“Hair trigger. It goes with being young.” Master patted the broad chair arm. “Come here.”
Trembling much as she’d done that first day with Mickey, she walked over to where Master was sitting and perched on the chair. He pulled her around toward him, lifted her legs onto his lap, and rested his hand on her thigh. She couldn’t relax. Maybe she didn’t want to.
“What about the next time?”
Chapter fifteen
Master was touching her. Connecting with her. How could she be anything expect honest? As the shadows deepened, she painted a picture of the weeks and months following their first time. Mickey was insatiable when it came to sex. The longer they were together, the more she wanted the same thing. Mickey knew what triggers to touch and what to say to make her feel like a woman. She could barely concentrate on her classes because at the end of the day her boyfriend would be waiting for her. She’d climb into his car, spread her legs, and throw back her head. Beg to be fucked.
Mickey started calling her his whore. Far from being embarrassed, she took the word as a badge of honor. Proof that someone loved her.
“He knew how awful things were for me at home. One day I couldn’t talk for crying. I don’t remember what had happened, probably more of the same. Anyway Mickey said we should live together.”
“Were you still fifteen?”
“Yes. I know what you’re going to say, that I was too young.”
“You were.”
Until now every time Master touched her it had been to hurt or sexually stimulate her. His large hand on her thigh served both as a reminder of what he was capable of and something deeper. Something she needed.
A mechanic, Mickey lived in an apartment over a closed-up furniture store. That part of town was in sad shape, but she didn’t tell Mickey how much it spooked her to be there alone. Anything was better than being around her parents. Used to living hand to mouth, she hadn’t asked Mickey for anything.
Looking back, she realized the school knew how little money the family had because she got free lunches in exchange for helping to clean the cafeteria afterward. Once she moved in with Mickey, she started bringing home leftovers. Mickey kept saying their money problems were temporary because his boss intended to make him a partner once he’d learned more about the business.
But that never happened and some weeks Mickey barely made enough to pay the rent. Sex continued to be incredible—once she had her first climax she couldn’t get enough. Maybe, she told Master, that’s why Mickey and she stayed together. That and her ability to supply them with almost everything they ate. Also come summer Mickey hoped to earn what he called a shitload of money fighting forest fires. Shortly before school let out, she went everywhere she could think of looking for work. She hadn’t told Mickey what she was doing in part because she wasn’t sure she was going about it the right way, in part because what if she failed? It wasn’t as if she had a lot of self-confidence.
A place selling Chinese food at the mall food court hired her to work fifteen hours a week, most of them evenings and weekends. She was proud of her accomplishment, but Mickey complained he hardly ever saw her.
“You two started to fight?” Master asked.
He’d been quiet for so long that his question caught her off guard. The wood under her buttocks was hard, and her shoulders were getting cold. His hand still rested on her thigh, keeping it warm.
“I didn’t say anything when he raged on me because I didn’t want to be like Mom screaming all the time.”
“He should have given you credit for bringing in some money.”
Why Master had taken her side didn’t matter as much as realizing how much she w
as revealing. Now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop. By the middle of August Mickey had only been called out to fight one fire. No matter that the worst fires usually occurred in late summer and early fall when the forests were dry, he was getting more and more uptight. Then one day soon after she’d gotten her driver’s license, he suggested they go for a ride in the mountains. She was so glad to see him in an update mood that she hurried to pack a picnic lunch.
“He let me drive. He’d taught me how to drive but this was the first time I’d been off paved roads. I was nervous because I didn’t want to cause any damage to his car. He, ah, he started talking about wouldn’t it be something if someone started a fire out here. That way he’d get a lot of work at great pay.”
“He was that someone?”
She wanted to jump to her feet and hide, but it was too late so she nodded and wrapped her hands around her arms. Today was surreal. Everything that had happened to her lately seemed more dream than reality.
“I didn’t know it but he’d put a gas can in the trunk. After we’d gone about twenty miles on this old logging road, he told me to stop.”
“You could have grabbed the can once you realized what he was up to.”
“I should have, but I didn’t. He was five years older than me, and I was hesitant because things hadn’t been good between us lately. Also…”
“Also what?”
“We needed the money,” she whispered then went on to describe how Mickey had poured gas over the dried grasses and bushes. The moment he touched a lighter to them, everything exploded. She jumped back in the car and started turning around while Mickey threw the gas can into the fire. They argued all the way back with her telling him the fire would kill animals and birds and him saying she should have stopped him when she’d had the chance.
By the next morning Mickey had been called to fight the fast-moving fire, leaving her to listen to the news stories about how arson was suspected. A day later the police knocked on the door. Unknown to them, a fire lookout had spotted their vehicle. Her fingerprints were on the steering wheel so she couldn’t deny she’d been driving.