by Sophia Reed
When we reached the next building he told me to stop and wait, then to follow him in once he had unlocked the door. I got barely a glimpse at what looked like an enormous gym again, like the dungeons in San Francisco had, and then he told me to drop my gaze.
"Don't look up again until you're instructed to do so."
That would be hard. Paranoia is the trademark of cops and martial artists. It's not discouraged, it's groomed. It was natural for me to want to check out every inch of wherever I'd been taken, and not seeing what was coming would make whatever he had planned that much worse.
Because I had a feeling things were about to get really weird.
But I knelt where he pointed, my knees on hardwood which wasn't so different from kneeling in the do chang before Taekwon-do, and I waited for him to do whatever he was doing. My heart thudded painfully in my ribcage. It's one thing to take on an assignment I know is right, morally sound and necessary for community or safety or just plain fucking saving the lives of teenagers. To do that and know that at any time on any day my cover could be blown and I might end up dead. Or worse.
Because there is a worse. There's the pain that comes before the killing. Unendurable. Unbearable.
Unending.
He said nothing would be done to me that was permanent.
No scarring, no amputations, no branding, no tattooing.
He didn't say there'd be no scaring, no hurting, no hitting. He hadn't said there would be an absence of sharp things or of any kind of punitive action.
Or even of being worked over with a baseball bat. It seemed too gross and showy and overboard. It seemed too much to expect from Cole.
I was still scared.
So I waited with my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest and my eyes fixed so hard on a spot on the floor in front of me it was a surprise it didn't burst into flame.
"Annie." His voice broke me out of my fears. "Stand up. Come over here. You may raise your eyes only to see what's directly around you."
Before I could ask, he added, "Don't look at my face."
I wondered if he could possibly be so arrogant to think my not being able to look at his face constituted punishment. I didn't quite stop the smile that came at the thought.
"Keep your eyes down," he snapped, and then, "Come over here."
Here was beneath one of the jungle gym type racks, a frame of rolled metal with bars every eighteen inches or so. I'd seen someone hooked up to one in one of the San Francisco dungeons, spread-eagled and tied tight, his hands encased in something like leather mittens, as if he had any chance of using them when they were tied at the end of ropes.
Cole positioned me to stand in the middle, then told me to spread my legs wide. When I did he slid his hand between them, letting his fingers brush my folds.
His laugh was deep. "That's my girl," he said and I felt the flush and humiliation crawl through me. He held his fingers up, shiny with my juices, to show me how wet I was.
He made short work of tying my legs with heavy rope to either side of the square. His attention seemingly on something else, he came up behind me and removed the shirt, easing it off my shoulders like a boyfriend taking his girl's coat. He paused to run a hand over my shoulders and down the arch of my back.
Then he took first one wrist and then the other and bound them tightly with rope, feeding it up into the metal square above my head so that, when minutes later he finished tying off my arms, I was spread-eagled with my arms pulled upward and my legs well separated.
There was no way I could resist anything in this pose. No way to run.
Finally I'd have to stand and fight something.
He came around to stand in front of me. "Look at me."
He was beautiful. Cruel, strange, sadistic. But so pretty.
"Do you know why I'm doing this?"
Because there's something even more wrong with you than there is with me?
"To help me?"
He broke into one of his rare big, triangular grins. "Partly. Yes. But mostly because I can. I want to. It will help you kick the fentanyl but it's not completely necessary. I intend to break you down. I could do it in different ways.
"This is just the one I intend to enjoy."
After that he didn't talk and a part of me that was rapidly figuring things out knew better than to speak either. He came up behind me with a wide, thick, black scarf and tied it over my eyes and nose. Instantly I began to pant, breathing through my mouth, feeling my fear ramp up.
That seemed to suit him well.
He didn't give me any other instructions, just moved away from me. I concentrated, trying to see through the scarf, but everything was blacked out. There was nothing to smell or taste and the only thing I could feel was the cold floor under my feet and the rope around my ankles and wrists. Even my hearing was muffled because the scarf covered my ears.
He stopped moving then, probably just watching me, and I twitched, feeling like the moment had been going on forever.
What are you going to do?
He was so still for so long I thought he might have gone. I thought even in this insane situation I might be able to sleep, standing up, bound.
And then the first stroke of the riding crop cut through the air and into the flesh at the top of my thighs.
There was only a second's warning and I didn't know what I was hearing when it came. The crop made a whoosh of noise as it slashed through the air. Seconds later the back of my right leg exploded into fury. It felt like a wasp sting, so sharp and hot I yelped and waited for the instruction to stay silent.
It didn't come. Apparently he didn't care if I made noise or not. There was an interminable stretch of time while I tried hard to figure out where he was, what he was doing, when the next strike would come. My mouth was open wide, but I was barely breathing through either nose or mouth. My hearing was even worse now because my ears were ringing in some kind of situational tinnitus and my heart was pounding with a loud, hollow, metal sound, as if it were caught inside a locker and beating its way out.
The next strike came in the same fucking place and I made a sound that was sharp enough to cut through all the things blocking my hearing. I moved violently, or tried to, but the ropes kept me almost completely still. I started to pant faster.
The next strike was a sharp snap against my ass, right side, then left, then back and forth so fast I couldn't believe he could move like that. Maybe there were two of them. Maybe he'd brought in more people. Maybe that meant they didn't have guns trained on me and maybe then–
But the ropes were holding, I could barely move. I heard myself making a grunting sound with every blow. I'd lost count of the volleys of strikes, each hot and sharp, the sting radiating out.
I might have started to go numb but he changed sides, going after the left side of my ass, and now the timing wasn't certain. Where he'd had almost a rhythm going, now I didn't know when the strikes were going to fall. I couldn't even sense movement, no shadows, nothing.
I just stood there, jolting everywhere when the crop struck. After half a dozen or more he went after the thigh, beating it with the crop until I thought I'd come unhinged, then suddenly it all broke off. I could feel tears rolling down my face, and I turned my head to where I thought he was standing behind me.
That's when the first strike fell across my left breast.
His guards all but carried me out of the room I'd never completely seen. They wrapped my arms over their shoulders after Cole had draped a robe around me, cutting me down one arm at a time so I could hang on to the guards. The blindfold wasn't removed until I was free of the room.
I wanted to see what was in there. I wanted to know what else he had planned. There was probably no way to prepare for anything like that but if I couldn't take it, if I just couldn't bear it, what did I do now? I'd signed an agreement.
He'd paid money for me to a man who didn't own me and now he considered me his property.
If that was considered an actuality, my signing a
n agreement would definitely be binding in his opinion.
He had the muscle to enforce that opinion.
In the morning I'd felt so good, so free of the addiction and like even if there was more withdrawal to come, I could do it. I was on the road to a new life.
Now I just wanted to curl up somewhere.
… with someone.
That was the horrible truth. That was the one thing I'd never admit, never tell him. He seemed to think now the tables were turned and I'd been brought back, that I had no say in the matter.
He'd find out that wasn't true. I didn't want him and I wouldn't have him. He was a sadistic son of a bitch and I hurt. I hurt so bad. The places he'd hit with the crop were throbbing and I knew they'd swell along the edges, marking out designs, maybe even bruising in the shape of the thing.
For now I knew there would be sharp red crop marks all over.
And the thing I'd never tell him was that I wanted to be fucked. I wanted it right now. And I didn't want it from just anyone. Not just a cock. Not a dildo or a vibrator or my own hand. Not Mark. Not anyone else.
I wanted him. I wanted Cole St. Martin right now, preferably on the floor of the room I'd just been pulled out of. I wanted him to take me and to hurt me while he did, to plunge into me and hurt me in all new ways.
I thought with that line of thinking I was probably in trouble.
I thought that with me pursuing that line of thinking, Cole St. Martin might be in trouble also.
Because I wanted him to fuck me.
And after that? I wanted to kill him.
From what I'd read about the lifestyle, if that's what I was falling into with Cole St. Martin, and what I'd experienced in the dungeons on my way to some form of real life in the scene, there was supposed to be aftercare.
Cole didn't even follow his men. They dragged me back to the room I'd woken in and threw me down on the bed. By the time the robe fluttered down over me they were already at the door.
I lay there in a curl of misery, wondering just what I'd agreed to. When I'd been searching for Cole it had all seemed so simple. In part I had truly believed he was searching for someone to try his cure on. That seemed logical and benign.
I'd come into this nearly blind and that didn't make sense for someone who’d spent her career going into new roles, pretending to be different people, and judging every situation before setting foot anywhere near it. I knew better than to assume.
I had to expect I hadn't been assuming.
I'd been hoping.
As I lay on the bed, the need for sex kept flashing through me. Even if I'd thought my own hands could satisfy that amount of want, I wouldn't have indulged. The idea that this room wasn't wired for sound, for surveillance and for recording was laughable. He hadn't strictly told me I couldn't touch myself but it seemed a likely addition to everything else, one I might learn about too late and the hard way.
That wasn't what I wanted anyway. I didn't want to want anything.
I'd fought to get here and put myself through degrading rituals I'd never have participated in otherwise. I'd struggled to find Cole. I'd told myself I believed in his cure and now, in all honesty, my job probably did depend on me kicking the habit here. It was the fastest, surest possibility.
That meant I was stuck here.
The tears wouldn't stop coming.
A long time later I sat by the window, looking out at the setting sun. The mockingbird was pretending to be a car alarm. From elsewhere on the grounds I could hear people doing things, machines running, cars starting and stopping again.
No one had come to see to me. In the bathroom off my room I'd found a first aid kit and by rearranging my body parts like I was playing twister, managed to see myself in the mirror long enough to determine there were only a few places I wanted to swab with antiseptic.
I'd had the afternoon alone.
The last time Mark and I had sex, it was only the violent parts that had meant anything to me. I'd thrilled even as I was furious when he cuffed me.
When Jesse had pounded his fist into the pillow beside my head I'd been afraid – and thrilled and alive and orgasming.
When Cole had read me the salient parts of the contract, I'd expressed the horror of what he had in mind, reminded myself that if I ran, I had nowhere to run to.
But there'd been a deep part of me that I didn't want admit, that had been anxious and excited. After all, when Cole had stroked his fingers between my legs, he'd found me wet and slick and wanting.
I didn't want to admit to that part. I didn't want any part of it.
So where did that leave me? I'd already gone back to the job I loved and the work that called me, and found I couldn't do it for more than a few weeks before some aspect of it so distressed me I threw away common sense and started using again. What now?
For the first time in my life, I considered suicide.
24
Cole
She was mine.
There's a kind of sub, usually one who is strong and proud in her everyday life, who cannot bend to meet the dom's demands.
Annie had sought me out. She'd followed me and researched me, her inquiries leaving a trail that was reported back to me. She had never been out of my sight or far from my control, even when she headed into the most recent undercover operation.
At the same time, she resisted so beautifully. Breaking her would be a delight. It appealed to the sadist in me. To watch her crumble. To leave her finally reduced to tears.
And at the same time, breaking her down worked with the therapies I could put together. Pharma only goes so far. There's a need to break down the ego that says I can handle this, I'm stronger than it. She kept trying to prove she was.
She kept failing.
No matter how it seemed, I wasn't driven by hate. I didn't want to break her to see her ultimately fail or die. I wanted to save her. I wanted to free her into being who she was.
But I would enjoy the fuck out of the struggle on the way there.
She'd signed the contract faster than I expected. I was almost sorry about that. There's an anticipation that builds before the first time I'm able to take a new sub and punish her.
It wasn't just the resistance. It was the shame. That was so delightful to watch. The way she blinked when I ordered something, either doing it myself or ordering whatever it was through one of my people, like the nurse who’d greeted her when she was cuffed to the bed. Annie colored beautifully when she was humiliated, her skin darkening from its usual olive to a dusky pink. She was angry and embarrassed; beyond embarrassed, humiliated at being forced to strip and worse still, it was all on her. Her own responsibility. Her own decision. Because she had made the choice. She could refuse to comply and find herself knocked out, waking unharmed in a posh and paid-for hotel on The Strip.
She didn't know that. Her fear might be to wake in the desert, too far from civilization to get help when she was on foot, without water.
Or she might anticipate not waking at all.
Neither of those were true, but I didn't bother disabusing her of the notions.
Her own acquiescence of the acts, choosing to strip, submitting to the search, her first punishment – they all burned hotter as she was required to decide. To choose the acts. To make her say please would be the next step.
When her shirt had been cut from her, that was undoubtedly a relief. How could it not be? She hadn't been required to make that decision, to choose whether or not to allow it. She had been unable to stop it and it had simply happened to her.
I might be imagining it or assuming too much too soon, but I thought there was a part of her that enjoyed that.
She'd never admit to it.
And she didn't know yet, because she’d searched for me, that it doesn't change for most subs. The anticipation, the imagining, the fantasizing about the pain will always, always, be better than the actual pain itself.
The comedown after.
The orgasm during.
The self-ca
re or aftercare when she's survived. All of those are better than the actual moment.
She'd learn. The moment hurt. The moment was what mattered.
The moment was transformative.
I'd let her go. Eventually. And when I let her go, she will have been transformed.
25
Annie
There was no disconnect between sleep and waking the next morning. I awoke knowing exactly where I was and why. It was awareness honed from working undercover where waking without knowing everything that had gone on before sleeping could get you killed.
It also helped that the mockingbird was making car alarm sounds outside the window.
Memory was further jogged by the fact of Cole, shaking me awake.
He didn't do it roughly or cruelly. In fact, he woke me with gentle but persistent shaking.
"Rise and shine, Annie. We're starting your new life today."
I sat up in bed and swung my feet out onto the floor. I wore my own t-shirt and underwear because no one had given me anything the night before. When I tried to get up, he put one hand out, touching the center of my chest. For a second I hovered between standing and sitting, a sort of modified squat position, then slowly went back to the bed.
"Look at me," he said.
I hadn't been. I thought, when in doubt, following the last instruction I'd been given was probably my best bet. My eyes rose to meet his. I saw no emotion there, nothing cruel or anxious. Nothing kind, either.
"First, your morning routine will be with me unless I'm working or out of town and haven't taken you along. On those occasions, I'll leave a trainer for you."
"Trainer?" I asked and at the very last second, thought to tack on, "Sir," though that part didn't come out as a question.
"Your morning routine will include some variation of the following: Five mile run, seven mile hike, or an hour on an elliptical machine or treadmills, followed by weights, the body part determined by the day of the week. Monday arms, Tuesday chest, Wednesday shoulders, Thursday back, Friday legs. Saturday and Sunday are recovery days. Weights will be followed by work on a heavy punching bag and yoga."
