The Game Maker

by Kitty Thomas

  But I will never love our captor. I will give him my body. I will please him. I will do whatever he asks of me, but I won't let myself feel the things that are okay with Seven. I won't give him my mind or my soul.

  “I can't think how I want to take you. Any requests, Seven?”

  Seven is taking slow, measured breaths. I can't reassure him that I'm okay with our captor fucking me. It sounds insane even locked safely inside my own mind. And I'm not sure I want to see the look on Seven's face if he believed me.

  He doesn't respond to our captor's taunts, and so I’m placed on my hands and knees, facing Seven. I hear a zipper, then pants falling to the floor. I assume he removes his T-shirt as well but I can't bring myself to turn around and look at him. If he's as perfect under that T-shirt as I suspect, I don't think I could cope with the level of lust I might feel if I paused to truly drink in his beauty.

  He presses a strangely sweet kiss to the small of my back, causing me to forget for the smallest fraction of a second what he is... why we're here. A second later, his hand is moving between my legs, my arousal coating his fingers.

  “She's so wet,” he says. It's almost an accusation, as though it's yet another thing I should be punished for.

  I'm breathing hard, almost panting. I can't believe how turned on I am. It's wrong to feel this way, but something about my time in this cell, the realization of the hopelessness of the situation, it gives me permission to feel what I feel, no matter what that feeling might be.

  Three days of hunger. Five days of peace and solace. Quiet interspersed with classical music and evil sarcasm. I am the farthest thing in the world from free, but I am free of one thing... the moral judgment or pity of the outside world. Even Seven's possible judgment can't touch me in this moment because I'm so aroused by the idea of him watching me like this as our captor takes me on the floor of the cell.

  His hand snakes around my throat, pulling me back. “Look at him,” our captor says to me. “You will hold his gaze while I fuck you. Do you understand?”

  “Y-yes, Master.”

  But Seven is looking away, his gaze trained on a distant spot on the wall.

  “Seven...” he warns. “Look at her. If you look at her, I'll be gentle. If you don't...” He doesn't need to finish the last part of his threat.

  Seven turns his face toward me, his intense hazel gaze locked on mine as our captor slides easily into me. He's big, like Seven, but my body has decided to welcome him eagerly, not even asking for time to adjust to his size.

  I moan as he slams his cock into me. It's not exactly gentle, but it's also not exactly unpleasant. I watch Seven watching me as I'm fucked and used at the whim of the twisted stranger who holds our lives in his hands. His fingers dig into my hips as he thrusts.

  “Even if you can, don't come this time,” he growls. “This one is only for me.”

  There’s a low, hard flip in my stomach, and I feel myself go wetter as he slides even more effortlessly in and out of me. What is wrong with me? When Seven left me wanting in the bathroom, I felt hurt. This man does it, and it feels like Christmas.

  I know he’ll let me come; he's just decided that this time I’m to give him everything and take nothing other than the satisfaction of his pleasure. And the part of me too broken to know it's broken excitedly complies with these demands.

  He falls into a hypnotic rhythm, and I find myself opening to him more, so much so that I feel the teasing edges of a potential orgasm licking at my insides. I feel like I could chase it and catch it if I tried, but I let it flutter away like a wayward butterfly as he lets out a harsh groan, taking his pleasure and spilling into me.

  “Look at him, Pretty Toy.”

  My eyes haven't left Seven's, but that's not what I'm being asked to look at.

  “Look how hard he is. Maybe he's not such a hero after all. Crawl to him. I want to watch you suck his dick.”

  Our captor slides out of me and puts his jeans back on. I crawl over to Seven, but suddenly I can't look at him. It's somehow easier with our captor. Despite his mocking and taunts, I know he doesn't judge me because he doesn't judge. There isn't some moral barometer inside his brain deciding this is okay and that is not. So nothing I can do will ever earn judgment from him. It may earn me punishment, but never judgment.

  Seven is different. He might judge me, even if he doesn't want to. And I find myself resenting him a little for it. But then my gaze is drawn to the evidence of his desire. He is so hard, his erection bulging behind his pants, straining to be free to get inside my mouth, to get to the warm wet pleasure he's just been promised.

  Our captor stands just behind me, his fingers tangling in my hair. “I want to watch him come down your throat, Pretty Toy. I want to watch you swallow like a good obedient whore.”

  I am so turned on right now. I know I shouldn't be. I'm in too much danger to let myself fall into this fucked-up seduction. And it’s even more fucked-up that my brain conjures up the word seduction in relation to anything that's going on right now.

  He removes his hand from my hair, and I turn back to Seven. I struggle with the button and zipper on his jeans to free him. When his cock springs free, I'm about to open my mouth to take him, when a glint of something shiny catches my eye. The syringe lies on the ground, outside of Seven's reach, but not outside mine.

  I chance a quick glance up at him, and his eyes widen a fraction as he realizes what I just saw. I know our captor will kill us eventually, and I don't want to die.

  Before I can let myself think or lose my courage, I grab the syringe, spin around, and jab it into our captor's thigh. I push the plunger down, making sure all the drug has emptied into his bloodstream.

  I look up to find his eyes widen as he stumbles to the ground.

  “Get the key,” Seven says. As if he needed to say that.

  When I'm sure our captor is completely out, I slide my hand down inside his front pocket where I saw him deposit the key. It takes actual willpower not to ogle his bare chest. I'm trying to escape this psycho and somehow still feel the need to stop and admire the scenery. The animal part of me that only cares about rutting with a strong alpha male doesn't care about the reality of the situation or why I need to flee, not mount him. But he left me wanting, and the ache between my legs hasn't died down just because an opportunity to get away presented itself.

  Finally I turn back toward Seven. “You'll have to drag him over to the door and stretch his arm up to the panel so we can use his thumbprint to get out,” I say, which truthfully is probably as obvious as his Get the key comment. But too much adrenaline is flowing to think through all the things which must be obvious to both of us in this critical moment.

  I know our captor will probably be out for a while, but I'm still shaking so hard, rushing to try to unlock the metal cuff around Seven's wrist. I still can barely comprehend our luck.

  “You're doing great,” Seven says.

  It takes several attempts before I'm able to successfully insert the key into the lock and turn it, freeing one of his arms. I hand him the key because I don't think I can manage the next one on my own. He takes it from my shaking hand to unlock his other wrist.

  I hear movement and turn, horrified, to find our captor standing over me. “Oh, Pretty Toy, that was an unfortunate choice.”

  I turn quickly back to Seven to find he's gotten his other wrist free. He pulls himself to stand, but before he can prepare to fight off our captor, a needle is going into his neck, and he slumps to the floor. Does it just last a few minutes?

  Our captor has the shackles around Seven's wrists and the key back in his pocket faster than I can process.

  I scramble back as he advances. He tips the syringe he just injected into Seven toward me to reveal a red round label on top of the plunger.

  “This is the one with the drugs. What you gave me? Was a saline solution. It was a test, and I'm sorry to say you failed it, Kate.”

  I look over to Seven's unconscious body then back to our captor. I
don't think people can really die from fear. Because if they could, I would be dead right now—a shadowy misty soul floating high in the air above my expired corpse. But no, fate is not so kind to give me such a quick death, and the look in his eyes says whatever is coming will be slow.

  He just shakes his head at me, looking disappointed. The sickest part of this moment is the fact that there’s a part of me that feels... contrite. As though I did something wrong. As though I broke his trust. His trust. Maybe it's better if he just kills me because I'm already too aberrant to live. I don't want to see the woman I will become if he keeps letting me breathe.

  Broken sobs slip out of me even as I try to keep them locked down.

  “Not going to beg me? Or was that just for when you were pretending to be a good girl?”

  “Would it do any good?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

  “No.” Gone is his sarcastic word play and his amused expressions as he reveals each new twist in his game.

  He sighs, “Come with me, Pretty Toy.”

  I don't move. What difference does it make if I try to obey him now or if I resist? “Are you going to kill me?”

  “No, Kate.” He stretches out his hand. He's far calmer than I would expect. I did jab a needle with what I thought were drugs in his leg after all. “Now,” he says.

  I want him to rush at me, all anger and venom. I want him to grab me and forcibly remove me from the room, drag me kicking and screaming to the dungeon because I cannot just voluntarily walk toward him. But he doesn't. He just waits.

  He can apparently wait forever for me to go to him. What else can I do? Run? Where? Around the cell? Into the bathroom? There's nowhere to hide, no way to escape. He can just let me wear myself out.

  “It will be worse for you if you don't come with me now.”

  These words are all I need to start moving, this small permission to obey him without self-recrimination. After all, it will be worse if I don't. So I'm not the stupid girl walking willingly to her doom. I'm the smart girl, stopping this from escalating and becoming worse.

  I take the offered hand and he leads me over to the door. There’s a brief pause while he presses his thumb against the thumbprint scanner, and the door slides open, taking us back out into that impossibly ornate hallway.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks.

  I hadn't noticed it with everything that has transpired. “Yes, Master.”

  I expect he will lead me to the end of the hallway and that other steel door that leads into the underground dungeon, but he doesn't. Instead, we stop a couple of doors before that where he takes me into a large modern kitchen.

  “Sit,” he says, indicating a bar near the kitchen island.

  I sit on a stool, bewildered.

  “I'm going to say this once, Kate. This house is locked down. There’s no way out. Every window is locked and can only be opened with a key. Each door is locked. The windows are shatterproof. There’s an alarm that would sound anyway if anything was breached. So don't be stupid again.”

  I watch quietly as he takes out some pans and begins to make bacon and eggs. I don't understand what’s happening. I thought he was going to kill me, but he claims he isn't. And I'm sure he’ll punish me. The fact that he's decided he wants to feed me right now is beyond my comprehension.

  I feel suddenly self-conscious being naked upstairs in his bright kitchen with black and white parquet floors and the huge windows which offer me a stunning view of the gently rolling landscape outside.

  My gaze shifts to a wooden block with an array of no doubt very sharp kitchen knives in it. He turns away from the stove and catches my guilty gaze.

  He chuckles. “Don't even think about it. You don't want to escalate our relationship to knives. Trust me.”

  I swallow hard and nod. Even as the smell of bacon and eggs wafts to my nose, I'm losing my appetite. How can I possibly eat knowing something extremely bad is about to happen to me? I try to keep my tears quiet, but I fail.

  He makes no comment.

  When the food is done, he places it in front of me and pours me a glass of milk. “Eat.”

  I'm not sure if it's the smell of the food triggering my appetite or if somehow biologically my body now responds to his commands. I think it's the first thing but I wouldn't swear on it.

  “Aren't you going to eat?” I ask.

  “I already ate.”

  He cleans up the kitchen and washes the dishes, then he leans against the kitchen island, watching me as I finish up the last bite of eggs. He takes the plate and glass from me and washes those as well. I pray it takes him forever to finish this task so I can stay in the warm, bright, safe kitchen a little longer. At the same time, I can't stand the maddeningly slow way he moves, the way he drags out the time leading to whatever horrors await me for stabbing him with a needle while trying to escape. Can he really blame me for wanting to be free and safe?

  “Come, Pretty Toy,” he says.

  Then he just walks out of the kitchen. He doesn't grab me and drag me along like some hostage. He simply expects that I will get up and follow him. And I will because every door and window is locked. Everything is shatterproof. There’s an alarm. Resisting or running is pointless, and it will only make him angry. I bite back another sob as I slide off the kitchen bar stool and follow him out of the room and the rest of the way down the hallway to that steel door with the security panel that leads down to hell.

  He inputs a code, and the door slides open. There’s a wide, sweeping motion of his arm in that gallant after you gesture. I'm sure I'm about to faint. A wave of dizziness moves over me, and my legs don't want to support my body anymore, but I take a deep breath, and it passes.

  He waits.

  I feel the tears sliding down my cheeks again. But I know they don't move him—at least not in the way I would want them to. The outline of his erection pressing against the fabric of his jeans tells me that much. I walk in front of him, down the winding stairs into the dungeon.

  I'm already on my knees when he gets down there, mostly because I can't hold myself up. And really, it's more like child's pose in yoga. I need to breathe, and this is the only way I can get deep enough breaths into my body without hyperventilating. It's only a bonus that I know it will please him and look like submission. Maybe it is submission. I know it's fear.

  His footsteps stop next to me, and then he sits on the ground. I flinch when he strokes my hair and then my back. Over and over again. This is the last thing I expected from him after what happened upstairs—gentleness. And I know it's a lie, but I don't care. I will drink it up like it's the last drop of water on earth. I need just another few minutes of peace before he hurts me.

  Oh god, what is he going to do to me?

  “I'm not going to harm you,” he finally says.

  “But I thought...” I shut my mouth because what the fuck am I doing? If he's decided not to hurt me, I don't want to argue him out of it. Be smarter, Kate.

  “I'm going to train you. Don't misunderstand. This isn't kindness or a long lost conscience rearing its head. It's just the best choice for the outcome I want. Punishment and pain are always an option. And I’ll use them as necessary, but I want to own every part of you. Completely. If I use too much pain, your fear will drive you to try to escape again. I would never truly own you. But if I inspire gratitude... you're mine forever.”

  Well, at least he's laid out his evil plan, so I don't have to drive myself crazy trying to figure out what's going on. Even as I think these thoughts, I know he's calculated the choice of even telling me this. And already I feel gratitude moving through me, unbidden. When one goes from thinking they're going to die to thinking they're going to be tortured, to a good breakfast and the absence of those things... gratitude is the only response one is capable of.

  I know I shouldn't feel it. He's keeping me as a slave. He took me away from my life—such that it was. None of this is okay, but I feel so grateful anyway as if everything he's done so far has been one giant
favor. And the pleasure and desire that repeatedly winds its way through me at his touch and the promise of it makes it seem true.

  The words, “Thank you, Master,” slip out of me so fast I can't stop them.

  He chuckles at this. He has me exactly where he wants me. I think he wanted me to jab that needle into him no matter what he says about his disappointment at me failing his test. He's not disappointed. It's all going according to plan.

  Even if I had experience with psychopaths, it wouldn't matter. I’m one hundred percent sure that there’s not another human alive who would make the choices this man makes. He possesses the most terrifying combination of brilliance, evil, and patience. And I’m the unlucky lottery winner of his attentions.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I whisper.

  “That question was a long time coming. Because I want to.”

  There’s a long silence. He finally speaks again. “Were you expecting a sad childhood story? Did you want to understand what turned me into such a soulless beast? Would that make it all okay? If you could point to some moment in time where I was a sad, scared little boy? Well, sorry to disappoint, Pretty Toy. That's not my story. My parents gave me everything I could ever want. I started out having everything, and then I doubled that wealth. I’ve acquired every object I’ve ever wanted, and now I've acquired you. My living, breathing fuck doll.”

  He stands, then I feel his hands wrapped around mine, helping me off the floor. He leads me to the bondage bed at the far end of the dungeon and lays me down on my back. I watch as he goes to the large box where he got the vibrator the last time. He returns with a ball gag.

  “Open,” he says when he's beside me.

  I open my mouth, and he presses the black rubber ball into place, fastening the straps behind my head. Then he presses a button on a remote, and the classical music I'd almost forgotten about begins to fill the dungeon. It's all so... civilized.

  He doesn't restrain me. On a certain level, it's overkill. He doesn't need to tie me down unless it pleases him. The door at the top of the stairs is locked. There’s no way out. I could jump off the bed and try to run, but he might change his mind about punishment if I do that. And I would eventually get tired. He only has to wait me out. He's already shown how patient and willing to wait he is.