I saw banks and racks of whips and straps, belts and crops, of canes and paddles and other things I couldn't even identify. I saw hoods that could all but totally zip closed, encasing the head, those with padded ears and padded eyes, those that would never open anywhere but for the smallest opening at the mouth.
I saw dildos and butt plugs and Cole had dragged me to where he wanted me and I slammed my eyes closed again, not wanting to know, wanting to somehow get through whatever was coming.
Wanting strangely to make him proud.
More than that. I wanted absolution. I wanted forgiveness. I wanted to atone for the things I'd done, the things that were part of the lifestyle I was trying to bring down because sometimes the only way to that ending, the part where the bad guys go to jail and off the streets and the kids are – however temporarily – safer, was to play along. To go make buys. To go make sales.
I'd never hit that second part but only because a buy had gone south. Only because I'd been with my father in the hospital, terrified for his life when Jesse lost his.
I wasn't doing enough fast enough, I wasn't deep enough, I'd never taken my cover far enough. My own addiction was nothing, my own life was nothing. I had let Cole down but more than that, I'd let all those people out there at risk of the drugs and the people who developed them and distributed them and dealt them - I'd let those people down.
I'd let my family down.
I'd let myself down.
And still I fought. I fought him when he dragged me to a spanking bench, meaning to put me on my knees, my ass cranked up, my legs strapped down. When he would have reached for something – a cane, maybe, I didn't think I could ever stand to be caned again, the memory of the pain alone was enough to push me close to sickness, wanting to vomit out my fear.
I broke away from him and I tried to run, even knowing there was nowhere to go.
He brought me back. Seemingly patient, but I felt the fury in his hands, in the way he was restrained as he touched me. He stroked my back. He stroked the hair he'd been pulling.
"Annie," he whispered. "This is going to happen."
I went limp. I felt him arranging my body to suit his needs. I felt him strapping my legs down, separate from each other, felt him adjusting the bench so my arms were strapped down and my head hanging, my body in pretty much an inverted seated posture. Blood rushed to my head and my ears started to ring again.
Half my senses were heightened. I felt his hands. I felt the cold of the leather bench against my naked tits, my hips, my belly. I felt the air of the room around me, would never be as comfortable naked as some people were. As the women in the gym where I used to go who strode naked from the shower to their lockers, running a towel through their hair because we all had the same parts and who the fuck would care if theirs were uncovered?
I did. I was the one who never forgot when Jesse was fucking me in the Brotherhood clubhouse that there were men on the other side of a flimsy wall who could hear every grunt, every slap, every snarl Jesse made, every sound I made of pleasure or pain.
And maybe I liked it in some perverse way.
The same way I craved this in some perverted way I was nowhere near ready to admit to myself.
But not while it was happening. I didn't like the pain when the pain was coursing through me. I was afraid of it, afraid of him, I wanted out of here, I wanted clothes and comfort and –
The first blow jolted me so hard I reared up against the straps holding me and screamed.
He was caning me. He was caning me!
He was caning me and I was trapped, buckled in place, spread open on the spanking bench in the remote desert compound of a crazy billionaire philanthropist who said he was just trying to help me and nobody who really did care about me knew where I was.
I screamed again.
Very quietly, Cole said, "Yes."
The schedule Cole kept for me was very precise. Even when we ran longer than usual the other parts of the schedule fit into place like a jigsaw puzzle. I was here for X amount of minutes and then here for this much time.
I had an idea when he'd taken me into the room.
I had an idea when he'd brought me out again.
I was in there for less than two hours.
I was in there for more than an hour and a half.
There was blood on my ass where he'd broken the skin in half a dozen places. Not, as I would have guessed, with the cane. More likely with a strap.
I hadn't cried at first. Whatever I thought, I hadn't. Always when it started I was determined. This time I would be stoic. This time I would just take it. Because it was meant to help me as much as it hurt me.
This time I would be silent and I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
This time.
But I broke. Every time. I broke. Sobbing out my fear and loathing for myself and hatred for the things I wanted to fix and couldn't fix. For the lives ruined, so much bigger than mine, the problem so much more than one person could manage and here I was, miles away from where I was supposed to be and not helping not making a difference just here, for me.
For Cole.
For my sins, I suppose. I don't believe in sin. I believe in bad people but they aren't sin. It’s human intention and bad behavior and more often than not, something that had been bent on the inside.
There were things I wanted to fix and cure and take care of and there were things outside of me that didn't care what I wanted.
He had punished me, creatively and thoroughly and for a very long time, for calling and finding out about the job and making myself impatient for getting back to it.
The job that punished me in its own way.
When he was finished, he took me out of the room as though I couldn't stay there. As if I might become too familiar with it.
As if that room could ever lose its power to make me afraid.
He took me out and gave me a series of orders he expected me to follow. What areas to disinfect. How long to shower. What to wrap myself in when I got into bed.
He did not stay or offer aftercare.
He was still angry.
For once, my own anger wasn't glowing hot.
I stood watching as he walked out the door of the suite and heard him lock it behind him, sealing me in. Without moving from where I stood I turned my head and looked to the bathroom where I’d find the disinfectant and the shower.
Then I wandered on trembling legs to the bed and slid into the sheets and pulled the softest of the microfleece blankets over me. I curled into the tightest fetal curl I could manage.
I fell asleep.
9
Cole
For the moment, she was broken.
On the monitors I watched her as she contemplated doing everything I'd told her. Surprisingly, I thought she probably had heard me and remembered the orders.
Then she walked, stumbling, to the bed and climbed in, curling into a tiny ball and pulling the blankets almost over her head.
I smiled and turned off the feed.
She'd earned a little privacy.
10
Annie
When I woke, Cole was sitting on the edge of my bed. My first reaction was utter panic because I hadn't done what he said to do. I started to struggle up in the bed and was appalled at the pain that surged through my back, ass and legs. The strap he'd taken to me had felt like nothing but fire on each stripe, but it had left behind the solid bruising of something that thudded into place.