Cole hurt me and I stayed. He humiliated me and I stayed.
He opened the door to let me out and I stayed.
That meant something. Right? And the first time I'd been there, back when I "Had a choice" (I still had a choice, I wasn't the one who thought I didn't).
I'd fought him every step of the way on the Master/slave, Dominant/sub stuff. I hadn't signed up for that. I hadn't signed up for anything, that asshole Samuels had sold me. But I didn't leave when he beat me for disobeying. Sometimes I even knelt when told and didn't go where he said I couldn't.
Without knowing it, without setting out to do it, I'd made my decision.
I'd been sitting on the edge of my bed and when I finally emerged out of my own thoughts I realized I was staring directly across the cell at the door to the main house.
It was open. Not just unlocked but physically open. Cole had left it open when he went through. It was an invitation or a tease.
Or it was simply to allow me to make the decision without being coerced in any way.
It was also the way to get to him. No way of knowing where he'd gone but the hour was running out. Probably he was in the main house. He didn't play the kind of games where he'd go for a run or leave the compound after giving me an hour to get back to him with an answer.
I started for the door, nothing more in mind than finding him, when he came through it himself. He was backlit by the bright Nevada sun and for a minute I was dazzled at the black of his silhouette and the bright of the outside sun, and then I saw he had stopped moving.
He'd said I had to come to him and yet he'd come to me. It looked like that had just hit him.
He stood utterly still, watching me.
I started toward him. This was my thing. My part to play, my decision to relay. Halfway across the cell I realized this was wrong. There needed to be a gesture. There had to be some way he wouldn't mistake what I was saying. What my decision had been.
I stopped and now I was closer, I could see his eyes, watching me from where he stood. Deliberately I tilted my chin down, meeting his eyes for a long, long, wordless second.
Then I dropped my gaze. I unsnapped and unzipped the cheap jeans, stepped out of them. I wore no panties – there had been limits to what my EMT driver friend could provide on short notice – and I hadn't been able to shave in the hospital. I hated how I looked and felt the flush moving over me along with Cole's eyes. He hadn't moved or spoken yet and I doubt very much he knew for certain my answer.
I pulled my shirt off, and my bra, and threw them on top of my jeans before I walked forward toward him. The sun shone in through the doorway on the south side of the cell, lighting the white tile. My feet warmed with every step. When I reached Cole, I looked at him for a long time.
He held out one hand, as if not knowing what I was choosing. His hand was at my shoulder height and palm up. I put my hand into his and allowed him to help me kneel.
I heard his intake of breath then, and no exhale. He was holding his breath. That made me smile but he couldn't see it because I kept my gaze down. Slowly, without looking at him, neither of us speaking, I took one of the most strenuous poses: my fingers laced behind my head, my elbows held well back and open so my breasts jutted out. I sat back on my heels, my toes turned all the way under so I knelt on my heels. My knees rested on the tile, spread wide.
He whispered my name. "Annie. Are you sure?"
I wavered. I had expected him to react. I was offering myself which I hadn't done before, though I made no promises that I'd be any more tractable than I had ever been. For me the desire to be dominated, the longing for something kinky or for discipline, the idea of asking Mark on a birthday or anniversary would he like me to play some role that left me his to control and fuck as he chose, that always, always faded out after enough orgasms. Most of the time I didn't even tell him. When I did tell him, nothing ever came of it.
That wasn't what made me waver. There was the specter of him punishing me when I wanted it, and hurting me for the hell of it whether I wanted it or not, and punishing me when I didn't want him to touch me. There was the fact that my own will would be put away somewhere and there would only be Cole and what Cole wanted and would be his.
What made me pause was Cole himself. Because when he asked if I was sure, there was something wrong. Something that almost told me to run. Something that wavered as if he were going down for a third time, drowning or losing or somehow succumbing to something and he didn't want me to know it.
I didn't know what was going on but if I stayed with him, safe from Mark and my father and hospitals and next steps, I'd learn.
I was making my decision.
11
Cole
She was beautiful. Kneeling. Submitting. Promising.
There were lies there. I could hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes. Because even now she couldn't keep her tone respectful, couldn't cut out all the sarcasm and anger. Even now, promising to remain, to honor a new year and a day contract, she was looking up, meeting my eyes and in her expression, there was Annie, front and center. Judging. Deciding. Making choices.
I wanted to take that away from her.
She'd come to me because I bought her. In a way, no one ever truly buys another person. They pay people to deliver them and they pay to keep them there and they pay to do whatever it is they think makes them an owner but it's a lie, a vanity. Everyone belongs to themselves in the end.
But Annie. I was going to break her. I was going to make her mine. Because I had purchased her, no matter how much of a fairytale that fact was. Samuels, with the police department Annie worked for, sold her to me. Although I had paid him more than enough money to disappear and start over (he did disappear; I'm not sure it could be called starting over) it was the fact that she was delivered to me that was important.
Annie came to me because she was addicted and I was working on cures for opiate addictions. She returned to me after the first time she ran because having had a taste of the rest of the package – the dark side of kink – she wanted it again. She never wanted to say that, not aloud. Not that simply. But it was that simple.
She'd gotten hooked to the kink as easily as she had to the drugs.
But now that I had her, I did not want to let her go. She was delightful to hurt and she fought back so nicely.
She'd live up to her promises whether she liked it or not.
The truth was her addiction was history. She was healthy and clean. Samuels sold her to me because he had no honor. I bought her because I wanted a sub who had no alternatives, someone I could hurt, punish and bring pleasure to. Those were my intentions. The fact that in trade I could cure the opiate addiction? That was just more winning for me. Because the pharmaceuticals weren't approved by the government yet. They were still experimental. I didn't want to kill anyone. I definitely didn't want to hurt anyone with the cure – that isn't the kind of hurt I do.
I just wanted someone who couldn't argue and couldn't fight. The fact that Annie is drawn to the dark and that when she ran she sought it out in other cities when she couldn't find me, that was all just luck of the draw.
I wasn't one who was going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Stand up," I said.
She looked up, surprised, then looked back at the floor and rose gracefully. Now she was standing, she didn't know what to do with her hands. They were supposed to be locked behind her, but she had enough to process.