When the Dark Wins

by Addison Cain

  The latter, yeah. Definitely the latter.

  Chapter 7

  I’d imagined some dark and gloomy basement where men did despicable things to women. I should’ve known there’d be a gloss to this. Isak did things with flair, as if to thumb his nose at hiding his perversity.

  The room was on the ground floor. Beyond the expanse of a thick glass wall, the surface of the sea seemed ready to swallow the house. Waves curled toward the house.

  “The glass is made to withstand hurricanes. The foundations are solid and down to rock. Even if smashed, the house would stand.” Isak’s hand at my waist was more terrible than any force of nature. He turned me, his eyes softer than I’d seen on the beach. “Swallow your wine.”

  I swallowed, gulping down two inches of the yellow liquid with the bubbles. Tasteless, though it soon made my head spin. The room wobbled as he guided me toward the square of sofas. Bollinger was on the label on the bottles. 1974. Worth a stack of money.

  I tried not to look at the four other women, distorted parts of the room’s scenery that they were. While I stubbornly viewed the ocean, the men had redecorated.

  The rustlings, the rip of zip teeth, the jangle of buckles...the gasps and small cries. I’d known, but I was unviolated, and I wanted to stay that way. I hadn’t dared to turn and see what they were doing for fear I’d attract attention.

  On the floor was evidence of civilization. Clothes. A diamante ivory dress with a bodice of fake gems. Chiffon and lace. Black and ice. In the open middle where the sofas faced, was a three dimensional work – shiny steel pipes led from ceiling to floor, parts clamped to each other. A geodesic decorated rug covered that middle area – dense black with thick interlocking lines of red and orange.

  Two women were locked into the scaffolding as if ready for a construction workers’ ball.

  One had her hands high, tied above her head. Classic, kinky fucking position.

  One was tied in a bent-over position, from chains that hung from a steel-frame cube. A pipe led into her ass, another led from within her mouth. She breathed and wriggled, and didn’t bleed, which was how I knew the pipes didn’t run all the way through. Guess she was a showpiece. Above her back, her arms were locked in a sleeve of black leather, with the wrists of the sleeve chained to the pipes. Her legs were spread in a V and locked to the floor.

  Black thigh-high boots with chrome heels and buckles.

  Obscenity in steel.

  Bent over offering. Strapped and tied. Gagged with steel too.

  “We have theme nights. This one is Construction. Let me introduce you to everyone.” Isak gestured at four men on the sofas and at Vitor, who stood near the bent-over and chained girl, with his hand running along her naked back.

  Vitor extracted the inch-wide pipe from her rear orifice. No soft dildo decorated the end. Steel had been in her and I couldn’t tell where it had been seated. Inside her pussy? His caressing fingers dripped with lubricant and left a shining trail over her vertebrae. He reached her ass and his hand partially disappeared from view. The girl grunted, legs shaking, her spine bowing as he no doubt screwed those fingers into her.

  The man didn’t even look where he was going with that hand. He kept his eyes locked on mine, his smile fixed.

  His hand seated itself deeper, worming in as he fisted her.

  The girl rocked back and forth in her cradle of chains, grunting louder and louder around the pipe in her mouth.

  “You know Vitor.” Isak nodded toward his obedient man-pig then at the nearest seated man. “And this is the mayor – his wife turned out to be a collectable. This is the local head of police – he likes to fuck the girls in handcuffs. You’re going to forget who they are after tonight.” He rambled on, saying more names.

  Men in suits, blond and bald and dark, their faces already blank.

  Remember, remember. Blond. Dark. I stared. The blur where their faces should be frightened me beyond anything Isak had yet done. I couldn’t even see them. Isak was deleting them from my head.

  The dark curls on Vitor’s head looked perfectly formed and neat. He was suave, and confident as a snake about to swallow something plump, something with a beating heart.

  Isak kept talking – words that meant nothing.

  Vitor extracted his hand and stuck his cock in the girl instead. There was blood at her mouth now as the pipe bumped her lips.

  “Two of these are new. Women arrested for minor offences who I found were susceptible. Vitor makes sure we let them go after these little parties.”

  He’d chosen an odd man to be his conscience.

  More than five women in total then, over the years. He’d lied, hadn’t counted ones like these who were casual captives. How many had he made fuck him and his friends?

  Isak had cultivated the most influential, local men. The best of the worst.

  With my hand in his, he led me further, through a break in the sofas then he sat and had me stand before him. A metal tray lay on the sofa. The contents had slid noisily when he sat and disturbed the upholstery. Scissors gleamed, as did clamps, sharp things, and strange devices.

  My throat burned as if he’d stuck something metal down there.

  “That’s got your attention,” he murmured. “Inch up your dress and hold it so I can see your nice bits.”

  Nice bits? Demeaning term.

  I strived to disobey and my hands obeyed him not me.

  “Let me see that underwear I gave you.”

  It matched my satin and silk, raspberry-red gown.

  Higher, higher, up my thighs, gathering cloth with my fingers, holding my breath, until I had the cloth high enough to expose my panties.

  For all of a minute he studied me, up and down, his lips almost a sneer, his hands landing on my hips. He ripped his hands down my thighs, scratching me and tearing the sides of my underwear. He dropped the panties without looking where they landed, then stood and hauled me across the dark rug until we were within the framework of piping.

  “Hands high.”

  I snagged lip in teeth.

  “I’m tying you. Defying me, Red?”

  My arms rose before I could think. As expected, my body betrayed me.

  “A pity,” he said softly. “I hoped to see more fire from you.”

  “Give me a gun,” I edged the words out from between teeth. “I’ll show you fire.”

  “There it is! Fire and spit. Another day, Red. I need to see you make cute noises tonight.”

  With rope and chain, he attached my wrists to either side of the framework, then pulled the ropes taut. My arms stretched out until my muscles hurt and I squeaked.

  “First noise.” He locked the knots, stalked back to the metal tray, and found a pair of scissors that might’ve doubled as a knife. The ends narrowed to a fine point.

  Isak returned and began to cut off my clothes.

  With my arms locked outward, there was nowhere for me to escape to, though I danced on tiptoe. Fear, there was trembling and fear. How could there not be?

  Shreds of cloth were scattered, tossed, paving the air and the rug in scraps and threads of red.

  His breathing harshened, turning to snarls. His bare feet slapped the floor as he maneuvered, attacking it the same as he attacked me.

  By the end I was naked and panting as harshly as he, my skin blotched and bruised, etched with small scratches, some of them leaking blood. A dribble curled across my stomach and into my navel. He’d not been careful.

  By his sides, his fists clenched into hard balls, fingers whitening and reddening as he tensed, relaxed, tensed.

  I dared to voice a whisper. “What did I do?”

  “You’re fucking perfect. That’s what.

  “And broken...

  “Broken and perfect. Exactly what the monster needs.”

  Chapter 8

  I circumnavigated her, this thing I didn’t want to touch with cock.

  All tied and waiting. My restraint was limited not limitless.

  “The suppleness
of muscle, of form and flexibility.”

  I circled her and let my hand trail around her in a spiral.

  Her muscles moved.

  “A broken normal?

  “There is poetry.

  “Is she made of sounds or thoughts or fucking?

  “I want to see...Vitor. I want to goddamned see.

  “What a broken human is made of when we get her to spill herself on the floor.

  “Fuck with the sticks,

  “Fill her holes.”

  “Yes, sir.” Vitor approached, efficient and solid, retrieving two sticks off the sofa as he passed the pile. Prepared, we assembled prepared. Never knew what might strike a man as fun.

  “Good, man.”

  Her eyes were wild, darting about, until she braved me and stared.

  “Why are you talking like that?”

  “How...am I talking?” I smiled.

  “All...broken.”

  “Because.” I cupped and crushed her jaw in my hand. Her lips smooshed in. A girl made of soft dough. “I’m the monster and I’m a poet. He hasn’t sated me. He’s left me dry too long. Sometimes I swan about and leave him gathering dust.”

  I did a skip, a twirl, a plié.

  And ended before her. Bowed.

  “Like a ballerina. I am contrite that I confused you, but...

  “You’re still getting stuffed.

  “I’m going to make you come and come, while they do too.” I waved, wrist circling in the direction of the currently fucked girls.

  Vitor wedged a stick beneath her and I picked her up and let her slide down onto it. In pussy, I thought, from her expression. From her gaping and choking, from her litany of no, no, no, from her squirming.

  “Lucky for you...” I leaned in, nipped her nose, her mouth. “These ones are rounded. One day I might use points. Wait, Vitor. Tsk. The man is eager to use the next bit of torture.” I stripped off my clothes, kicked them aside. “Now. Do her ass.” I held her again, while she panted and wriggled and squealed, while he wiggled in the stick. “You scream good. For a girl.”

  “You don’t fucking scare me.”

  But she said it quietly. “But I do.” I knew she was lying. “Close your eyes unless I let you open them.”

  Nothing was novel about tonight. Except that I held her almost sacrosanct. I touched her and made her writhe. Ran my hands down her slippery breasts, in her sucking mouth, played with the sweat on her butt, and I went to my knees...

  I sucked on her, let Vitor fuck her ass after all. The others, hyped on Viagra, happily fucked the girls together in mouth and ass and cunt. They spewed their cum on Red and on the others. Messing the rug and the girls. I made her come until she sweated and drooled, dripped her own cunt juice as well as saliva and sweat and semen. Until some of her was white, some of her pink, some red. I let a few fuck her ass. Made her cry with orgasms until her legs wobbled then collapsed.

  Fun.

  But I didn’t touch her with my cock. The twist of will from my other half held me in its bonds. We had our tacit agreement which never had been spoken or written because it couldn’t be, and it held. For now.

  Disgusted at my restraint, I violently fucked the girlfriend of the mayor’s daughter. My newest collectible. Her pretty chestnut hair swished like a medusa’s. Her tits bobbed up and down as her cunt gobbled my cock. Another brain-dead girl. No spite, no vivacity.

  Red, though, my perfect Red, the last drip, the last spurt was hers.

  This dreg of a fucked girl opened her eyes to me jacking off over her.

  She resembled her old picture now.

  I kneeled over her entangled body, where we’d wrapped the other girls around her for one last en-masse fuck. I squeezed my fist down the huge erection I still carried. One mistake and I’d be justified.

  Broken girl?

  Not broken enough.

  What if I could keep her sane and aware forever? What if I kept her...

  Or, better. What if I had an unending source of new Reds?

  She was my key.

  One mistake and I’d be out there, free.

  I rose to my full height and stretched to the ceiling, knees popping, muscles strong, fingers finding a dangling rope.

  I would be bad for the world.

  I knew it.

  He chose then to merge into me, and we both knew the same thing, and how I was sorry for what I’d done, to her.

  Sort of.

  Nothing was ever clear. We wiffle-waffled. Was I him or he me? Were we one or two?

  Damn, the world was complicated.

  I walked outside, down the steps, and into the sea, the black sea, let it froth all cold and remorseless around my thighs. Let it wash me clean. If I killed myself it would be moot, this struggle.

  The sky threw down rain upon me, tapping on my upturned face.

  As I trudged up the beach, crabs scuttled away, waving pincers, and I chose not to step on any. Small, guiltless creatures. I plucked a flower from the dunes. Purple, from memory. The night rendered it colorless. An owl hooted, drifted past the moon. Naked, I pulled myself up onto the hood of one of the cars and surveyed the distant horizon where it crashed and burned with white lightning. I swept away the sodden strands of hair where they fell against my cheeks.

  The car metal drummed with hard rain.

  Killing myself...

  Where would be the fun in that?

  I could still remember the last drop of my cum splattering her face and how she bucked against my tongue as she came and came, as Vitor screwed her deep.

  I twirled the flower between finger and thumb. Such a soft, pretty creation.

  Some things were meant to be.

  One mistake was all I needed...I couldn’t see the indentations of the key in her head, but one mistake...surely that would do it.

  I mustn’t. Must I? I was selling her.

  Oh what a messy web we weave.

  Chapter 9

  He was nowhere near me and I was a limp mess of human on the bed in his room. Since I’d been delivered like some raw delicacy to the men, mostly blind, swept under the surface of reality and aware only by his will, I only remembered some of what had happened.

  He’d let me see, a few times. Let me think.

  A twenty-something-year-old with bright chestnut hair all in cute curls, being screwed at both ends while tied to the scaffolding. Another on the floor, hogtied and rolled this way and that for their pleasure. He’d let someone else take me while he hovered, mean as death, with his absorption in me showing even when he fucked someone else. I’d been fucked while I stood over that stick, praying it wouldn’t penetrate too far and mutilate my insides. He’d had steel and glitter in his eyes, especially when he’d made me orgasm. I hurt in so many places that merely slipping from bed to floor had me gasping.

  I had a purpose though.

  Washed, collared, and leashed, but he hadn’t attached me to the bed. I was free to roam this room.

  My wet hair swayed before my eyes as I studied the shadowy room for the tenth time. There definitely was no-one else here. I dare not stand in case someone on the deck noticed me. The doors were open and Isak had gone somewhere unknown. Vitor might be out there, though.

  He hadn’t bothered banning me from many things, too confident for his own good. I guess I had looked exhausted. I was. Even on hands and knees I trembled with fatigue.

  Awake and reasoning, and I saw my chance.

  The capsules tempted me beyond all possibility of resistance. I crawled to the desk and slid out the drawer he kept them in. By feel, I punched out a few then sneaked back to the bed and hid them underneath. If he found out they were missing or someone vacuumed the room, I’d lose my opportunity, maybe forever. Chances must be taken or I’d never escape. Whatever, whoever he meant to sell me to, they’d be no better than him.

  And I knew he meant to. He’d said it, in the other room.

  “The cartel I sold her to only cares she’s CIA. They like the idea of playing with her.”
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  “Thought you wanted her?”

  “I do but she’s a key I can’t afford to keep.”

  “A key?”

  “A dangerous one.”

  Those voices had spoken above me. That must’ve been after, while I lay on the floor in a slutty heap. No, not a slut. I hadn’t volunteered. That’d been their label, not mine.

  Not my fault. Any of this.

  There’d been whispers too, ones I’d lost the meaning of. Those whispers of his haunted my dreams like spiders spinning webs in the dark.

  Chapter 10

  Was he completely mad? I eyed him over the rim of my champagne glass. He laughed, sharing some joke. I didn’t think I would ever know for sure what he was. The mesmer infection affected him but was that true insanity?

  He’d danced around me like some petite ballerina then ordered his men to fuck everything, including me. Not being able to stop myself coming when he...arranged it to be so, was what hammered home the depravity. To find joy when others suffered. Vile.

  Not my fault, I kept telling myself.

  And I’d suffered as much as the others.

  Maybe I’d finally weaseled my fingers into that crack, that weakness in his psyche?

  I’d palmed the capsules and brought them to this table. All around me men and women ate and drank. A banquet of food that I was too sick with anxiety to enjoy. His overbearing will only touched me lightly and he sat beside me, facing the other long table. So many people all seemingly happy and scoffing down food and wine. Why were we here? What was he celebrating?

  His wine held more than wine. It had been my goblet but I’d held it below the table, opened my palm above. Praying no one would see what I did, I’d let the powder sprinkle onto the liquid and sift into the bubbles. Then I’d switched the glasses. Three capsules were dissolved in there.

  If he found out, I might be dead soon.

  If the drug worked, after all these years, what would it do to him? Would a normal Isak be kind to me, free me, before the drug wore off? It was my hope.