"Get up. Kneel on the bed."
Her reaction is so fast I can't help wondering if she practices. I should ask. She has communications systems to reach the main house but she rarely uses them. And there's surveillance of course – anything else would be foolish and dangerous and just because she wants to die doesn't mean I'm going to let her or in any way aid and abet.
I should ask if she practices.
Rising smoothly, stepping easily, climbing onto the bed on her knees, kneeling, head down, arms out ahead of her, ass up.
Presented.
I stepped away from her and heard her groan, anguish that I wasn't already touching her and I felt the barest response of smile. Patience, little one. Good things come. Or bad. Or at least, desired.
I gathered up what I thought I wanted to use, unlocking it from the shatter-proof glass case that taunts her when there's no one here to remove the tools for her.
The Lexan cane. The bamboo. The oak. The birch bundle. That was enough. Ariel's face fell. I could see her looking at the case, at the slappers and paddles there. She loved having my belt used on her, loved whips and crops.
But I needed her to scream for my cane and I needed it fast. This was no play session.
"Face forward."
She did so instantly, head up and eyes on the opposite wall until I told her otherwise.
Her ass was finally filling out. She had been here years, being fed, being cared for, being locked away from the world. Not dead. Not alive. In some stage she could somehow tolerate.
I brought up the bamboo. "I want you silent. Can you do that?"
She nodded.
"Stretch your arms out." Because she'd come up to all fours. Instantly she went down again, naked boobs hovering above the covers, hands fisting the blankets. Her head was as up as she could manage. Her ass was high and white.
I brought the bamboo down and the blow rocked her body. Ariel pushed back against the pain. I saw her breathe. Blink. And focus.
Good.
The sound of the cane flying through the air, the meatier-than-expected sound of it on her flesh. The angry red of her skin starting up, on her ass, on her thighs. I caned her until she was striped and threw down the bamboo, picked up the birch, the collection of thin canes held together by a handle and I went after her, finding her meeting each blow, crying silently but presenting herself to me. Thirty - her skin taking on the hard, shiny redness of enough.
Only ten then, with the oak, a thudding cane rather than a sting that bloomed into outraged red pain. Now she was crying openly, sobbing with every blow and when I stopped she begged for more.
I'd kill her if I didn't stop. It was inside me. That rage. That fury that made me unfit to be the doctor my family had expected and moved me to pharmaceuticals where I started St. Martin Pharma and then started working in natural solutions to unnatural problems.
"More. Please. Please. More, sir."
The darkness swirled up inside me. The need to seriously hurt. The drive that made me stay away from relationships, from anything that might be mainstream. Because it was too dangerous.
Because I was too dangerous.
"Pick your tool." My voice was rough. All the need and fear were right there.
She crawled from the bed, ran to the cabinet, came back with her tool of choice. Designed, insanely, by someone who sold them on an online arts site, independent artists and, apparently, freelance freaks. Who knew? An eight inch paddle not including the handle, hardwood and decorated with what looked like four plastic flowers but which were each a circle of spikes, rubber I thought, hard and sharp and wielded with force - it was a fearsome weapon.
"On your knees," I ordered her and she dropped where she was. "Hands behind your head. This time, I want you to count."
Tell me you've found her.
Truth to tell, I'd been with Ariel less than thirty minutes. Beaten her, fucked her, didn't hold her this time. Left her crying in a ball on the bed.
No time. I wanted to get back to communications.
It had only been thirty minutes. But maybe someone would have found something.
And in all honesty, I was afraid of being with Ariel any longer. I was afraid of what I might do to her.
Afraid of what I might become of her if I didn't find Annie.
Heading back to communications, I ran.
4
Annie
Three more cities in two more days. By the time we landed somewhere we were going to stay, I had no idea if we were even in the U.S. anymore. Being blindfolded fucks with your sense of time. And Vincent got in the habit of putting sound-canceling headphones on me. I couldn't see or hear or move from my seat as each plane took off and landed. I kept waiting for the violation, the pain, the punishment or just the general fucking with, but it didn't happen.
As with most things like that, the fact of it not happening was more disturbing than if it had.
I had time on the flights to worry about being away from Cole. Not just about Cole himself but about being off the rainforest drug. I'd asked Cole from time to time, when we conversed like two humans rather than Master and slave, if this was something I'd have to do for the rest of my life or something that had a definite ending.
He never answered me.
Having my hands cuffed behind me or to the arms of the seat on the plane, able only to feel the lift and thrust of the thing, it was surprisingly like I’d expected sensory deprivation would feel like. For me, there were no otherworldly visions. No guides showing me the way, no aliens breaking through, no visions of things to come or conversations with long dead relatives.
What there was, was the exact thing I so often filled my days to overflowing with, in order to avoid: Time to think.
I had been surprised initially that Cole was willing to simply yank me from my life. Of course, a man who thinks he's buying a woman probably doesn't give a lot of thought to the consequences of that purchase once he returns her. (The symbolism there, or metaphor or allegory or whatever it is, was too good to pass up during the long flights once the fear of what Vincent might do to me faded into fear of boredom and contemplation.)
Because the thing was, Cole had accepted me (paid for me, to someone who had no right to sell me in the first place, one of those things my mind still refused to let drop once the memory was raised) to help me. Whatever I might think about his unorthodox methods and however much I might fight letting him or me know I liked them – to an extent – I had arrived on his doorstep with a note pinned to my metaphorical collar that I was to be returned. Fixed. Mended. Good to go.
But good to go. Cole St. Martin wasn't the destination. He was the guide, for lack of a better term. I had always intended to go back to my real life and even tried to run away to it more than once, before I was ready. I was a cop. I was needed. There were actually things I could do to help take down some of the ugliness happening in my community. Not ego, not bullshit – I had been undercover long enough, I knew shit.
None of that had mattered. Not my fiancé, not my career, not the drugs. When it did matter, Cole had sent someone to take out the newest gang moving into the neighborhood where the Brotherhood had been deposed. Jesse had been a lot of things, dangerous among them, but he'd at least had a cutoff age under which he wouldn't sell and none of his dealers would either. That age was much too young but at least it was a guideline.