Dark Night of the Soul

by Kitty Thomas

  I braced my hands against the edge on either side of the faucet as his hands roamed slowly over my back. He splashed water over me and moved on to my arms. When he reached my throat, something in him shifted.

  My breath hitched as soapy hands lingered over my breasts. He’d gone so long without touching me like this. He’d only touched me once before, so briefly I thought I’d imagined it. I’d been convinced that whatever it was he was interested in from me, it wasn’t sexual.

  But now it seemed things had changed. Had it been my begging that shoved him over the edge to this moment? Except for the sobbing, I’d accepted whatever he’d given me, too drained by my own existence to fight him.

  It never occurred to me to ask him to stop—to seek mercy or reprieve—because his whip was the reprieve. It was the reprieve from unpunished guilt, from numbness, from the death I’d thought I wanted.

  He splashed more water over me, then his hands moved over my belly. His mouth was on my throat overwhelming me with the warmth and softness of his lingering kiss. There was no biting this time. His hand moved between my legs as his other came around my waist, holding me against him as if I could escape anyway.

  I gasped when a finger pressed inside me. At first the movement was tentative, but when the moan left my throat, his fingers began to pump in and out of me with greater fervor. Had I imagined he’d sought permission in my response? I wasn’t sure I’d given it. I wasn’t sure he cared.

  The sounds from my mouth were involuntary at best, an automatic response to a stimulation that wasn’t pain. But I didn’t say no. Now that I’d found my voice to care what happened to me, I wasn’t troubled enough by a part of him inside me to resist. Instead, I melted against him, moving with his hand to reach the elusive peak he teased me with.

  The knock on the door shattered everything. We’d never been interrupted. It was always Gabriel who initiated all contact with the world outside the door. No one had dared approach on their own until now.

  An electric crackle stirred the air.

  Gabriel growled and got out of the tub. He wrapped a towel around himself and stomped to the door. He threw the bolt back, and I was sure the door almost came off its hinges when he yanked it open.

  “What?” he snarled.

  I only picked up pieces of the conversation—even Gabriel’s end—because I’d taken this opportunity to resume with my own fingers where he’d stopped.

  His end of the conversation sat as a dim background as I brought myself off in the tub.

  “No…No…No… Santo, you tell the queen that if she comes down here and disturbs me, I will personally remove her head from her body and take her city as my own.”

  There was a drawn-out pause where Santo must have been delivering quite a monologue in reply. In the spaces of silence from inside the cell, I wasn’t able to muffle or stop the whimper that left my mouth as I strained to completion. My head dropped back over the tub as my panting breath slowly returned to its normal cadence, as my heart stopped pounding inside my head.

  Then I realized the silence wasn’t the silence of murmurs behind the door, but a true silence. I glanced over to find Gabriel staring at me, his eyes flashing to the deep orange-red glow, his nostrils flaring, fangs peeking from his lips.

  A low hum that must have been Santo speaking, drew his attention back. “I want her to leave,” Gabriel said.

  Another pause for Santo’s response.

  “If she won’t leave, she will stay upstairs and away from here. I will deal with her when I’m good and ready. You make sure she understands if she descends those stairs…if I catch the smallest scent of her, she won’t survive our encounter.”

  Gabriel slammed the door and bolted it. He turned slowly back toward me, the glow in his eyes even brighter.

  “Did I give you permission to come, Helene?”

  I shook my head quickly.

  “Answer.”

  “N-no, Master.”

  “I’d thought we were done with the whippings. Perhaps not.”

  The tremble came to my lips before I realized I was crying. Maybe he was just screwing with me and hadn’t really been done. But to have the hope ripped from under me…

  “Pull the drain and get out of the tub.”

  My hand shook as I obeyed his order. Why was I so scared? Why was there this gnawing terror balled up inside my stomach? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d known fear like this. In all the time I’d been chained against the wall, one would think I would be blasé about it all by this point. But the thing that had woken up inside of me was the part of me that cared about things.

  Oh fuck.

  When I stood, I slipped and would have fallen, except that Gabriel moved in what appeared to me as a blur to catch me in time.

  He hoisted me out of the tub. As I stood there shivering, he took the towel he’d used and put it around me.

  He was silent as he chained me to the wall. My arms were still sore from the last stretch of time I’d been hanging there, but I didn’t dare complain. There was a new intensity to him now that I didn’t want to aggravate any further. He dug through the crate and came back with a strip of black silk which he tied over my eyes.

  He’d never blindfolded me down here before. It was such an odd thing to realize. I never could have imagined this one small detail could escalate the fear so much higher.

  “Earlier, when you begged me, I knew you’d reached the end, that you were wrung out. Empty. When we started, I wanted to bring you back, but now I find I only want to possess you more deeply. The fact that you thought you could masturbate a few yards from me, that you would take pleasure I didn’t offer you…”

  He trailed off. His words were replaced by a low growl that reverberated down my spine.

  We’d been down here forever. What did he expect? If he truly wanted to bring me back to life, he should have been happy to see some sign of it. In all the time we’d been locked down here together, I hadn’t thought of sex or orgasms or any version of pleasure beyond the slowly awakening appreciation for the food Mona kept sending down to me from the kitchen.

  He’d been so possessive of my pain. Of course he would seek to own my pleasure as well.

  Given his disapproval, I expected he’d start whipping me again. I was afraid of what that could mean when he seemed so angry. Before, it had been clinical, as if he were administering a medicine that would bring me back into myself. It had been the workings of a mad scientist mixing weird brews in a basement, and against all odds, the formula worked. It had brought the spark of life back into me, and now I was terrified of what was coming next. Where was my indifference, and why couldn’t I have it back now when I most needed it to protect me?

  I heard things being shuffled around in the crate, and every muscle in my body tightened in dread. Instead of pain, Gabriel applied an oil to my back and began to gently knead the muscles until they relaxed. I should have sunk and melted into the magic his touch created, but all I could think about was that whatever pain he planned to deliver next might hurt more with oiled skin. In that moment, it didn’t occur to me to realize the mercy he offered. Tense muscles would make the pain worse than relaxed ones.

  As if relaxing were an option.

  “You have to trust me, Helene. This isn’t like you.”

  He hadn’t known me. All he’d know was the ghost—the dead thing that strained to find a way to breathe, and that hoped to fade away with each successful breath that kept me here. He’d never met the real me, and even I had almost forgotten her in my hurry to get away from her.

  “I’m not going to hurt you right now.”

  What changed his mind? I’d been certain punishment was on its way because I’d dared to have a moment of pleasure. Couldn’t it be enough that he’d stirred it into existence, that it had been his fingers moving inside me that had made me want a release that wasn’t death?

  I sensed him step back before I heard his movement. The rumbling started once again in the crate, and I coul
dn’t help tensing. I’m not going to hurt you right now. But how much time did right now encapsulate? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? The rest of the endless night?

  I gasped when he returned, and his fingers teased between my legs, rubbing the now swollen flesh, sliding over the gathering moisture. I wasn’t sure if the wetness between my thighs was from my orgasm in the tub or if it was new arousal brought on by the relief of his hands moving with such gentle command across my skin.

  A moment later, something hard and thick pressed inside me. It wasn’t Gabriel. It was something he’d taken from the crate. A toy of some sort.

  “I will make you regret touching yourself without my express consent, but I won’t do it with pain. I want to play with you.”

  ***

  If I’d had the countdown clock, I perhaps could have said I hung there for three hours in total darkness, my arms on fire from the chains while he penetrated me with the vibrating toy, forcing me to climax over and over. But I don’t know how long it was.

  “Drink.” His arm was at my mouth, and I drank.

  As his blood flowed through me, the burning ache in my arms vanished.

  His fangs skimmed over my skin, and I tensed for a bite that never came. Instead he peppered kisses over my shoulder, up the side of my throat, the side of my cheek, until his lips reached my ear.

  “Helene,” he whispered. “I can leave you hanging until the dawn, and you can survive it because I’ll just keep giving you my blood.”

  The rawness between my legs from the toy moving in and out of me so long had dissipated, but his blood didn’t take away the clawing need to make the pleasure stop. I couldn’t believe it was possible to hold such a thought in my head…the nonsensical idea of wanting pleasure to stop. Everything was turned on its head.

  He gripped my throat, his voice still low. “You are going to come and come until the idea of an orgasm is the worst torture you can imagine. Do you understand?”

  “Y-yes, Master.” It already was. I needed a break. I couldn’t take any more. I was sure of it. “Please, I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “I haven’t even fucked you yet. I’m so far removed from being done with this cunt. So you’d better get used to it.”

  “Master, I’m sorry.”

  The buzzing stopped and the toy dropped to the ground. “What are you sorry for?”

  “I’m sorry I touched myself without permission.”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when the studded paddle cracked against my ass.

  “No!” His fingers were still around my throat, causing my body to arch impossibly back. “You are a thief. You stole from me. Nobody steals from me. Your body is mine. Your pleasure is mine. Your pain is mine. All of it is mine. You will take whatever I give you in whatever amounts I decide you need. And you will thank me for it. Make me believe you have the intelligence to grasp this.”

  The paddle came down again. “Master, please. Please. I’m sorry I stole from you.”

  He growled, and stroked the length of my fingers. “Such lovely hands. There was a time when we chopped off the hands of thieves. Did you know that?”

  “Please, I’m sorry!” I thought I knew he wouldn’t…chop my hands off, but he seemed so out of control that I wasn’t sure what he was capable of.

  He pressed a gentle kiss against my back, and a hundred tiny clenched muscles released. “I know you are, Helene. I know. You’re going to be a good girl for me from now on, aren’t you? My perfect little whore until the sun comes, yes?”

  “Y-yes, Master. I promise.”

  I thought he was done. But he wasn’t done. He was only giving me a moment to regroup so I could take more. The blindfold still covered my eyes. I strained to hear what he was going for in the crate. Something for pleasure? Something for pain? They were both terrible in their own ways.

  Logically, I should have given up again. I should have wanted to die again. But I’d started to feel his possession of me take hold. I began to know that I was his vessel to fill with whatever he wanted, and that my emotions were his to soak up and enjoy at his leisure. I couldn’t leave him. I felt…loyal to him.

  I didn’t know if it was the promise of helping my sister, the extinguishing of my death wish, or the desperate attachment I’d formed with my captor. He was the air I breathed, and in spite of every other thing that happened down here, breathing came easy. The air was cool and refreshing moving in and out of my lungs. I felt alive. Everything in my now tiny world happened at his command, and I was certain even life and death couldn’t defy his wishes—the knowledge of which gave me the first real mental peace I’d ever known.

  I tensed when I heard another buzz and startled when the vibrations skimmed across my nipple, already erect from so much arousing stimulation. It was another implement of supposed pleasure, but this one was too narrow and small for penetration. He took it away, and I heard scraping on the ground. It was a chair and…I was sure he’d dragged over the two wooden blocks I hadn’t known the purpose of.

  He lifted my legs and arranged me so that I stood on the blocks in the most humiliating squatting position imaginable. I felt more vulnerable like this than I ever had—something I hadn’t thought possible before this moment. I heard him drop into the chair and felt his hot breath against my thigh.

  He hadn’t only gotten the thin vibrator from the crate. I became aware of his other toys—two small metal balls—as he pressed them inside me.

  “It will be very hard in this position to hold these in place. It will be even harder when I start doing things that make you want to relax. You must not relax. You must obey me or you will be sorry you didn’t.”

  “Y-yes, Master.” I forgot the humiliation of the position he’d contorted me into and the lewd and vulgar view I must have been exposing. I was far more concerned with what would happen if those small, heavy metal balls clinked on the ground.

  The buzzing started again.

  I expected a full-on assault of my clit, but instead he took the scenic route. The rounded nub at the end of the vibrator was so small, it hardly seemed capable of getting the job done. Gabriel wasn’t troubled by this. He pressed it lightly against my labia and dragged the tip over the length of the swelling skin. He teased my entrance and drew feather-light vibrating patterns all over and around my most intimate places, but he didn’t allow the vibrations to reach the most potent bundle of nerves from where all pleasure sprang.

  That would have been too easy. And I wouldn’t have wanted it. I was so wrung out. I didn’t think I could possibly have or want another orgasm. And wasn’t that his end goal anyway? To sour me on the whole experience to the point I begged for pain instead? Sure he wasn’t a sadist. Sure he took no pleasure from it.

  What a liar.

  I snapped to attention as the flogger whipped across my back, each knotted leather strip leaving the whisper of a burning sting against my flesh. In my surprise, I almost lost control of the metal balls. I clenched harder to keep them from falling.

  “Stop. Thinking,” Gabriel growled. “I see those wheels going. Stop trying to figure this out. Just feel and focus on what I told you to do. You have one simple job. What’s inside you right now is all that exists.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  He adjusted the setting, and the vibrations came harder, but he still wasn’t hitting the button. He teased me like this for so long that my arms started to burn in the chains again, and the weight of the hard metal began to inch slowly down. I was terrified of what would happen when I couldn’t hold on anymore.

  Gabriel moved a hand between my legs. “You are so, so wet. They might just slip out. If that were to happen, I would be…disappointed.”

  “Master, please, I’m trying, but I can’t…”

  “Yes. You can. I have faith in you. Would you like a little mercy?”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice. He pressed his fingers inside me, more firmly seating the balls in their place.

  I released a long, spiraling sigh. “Thank you, Mast
er.”

  He continued his ministrations. It went on for so long that despite never directly touching my clit, an orgasm began building from somewhere deep within. An eternity later, he pressed the vibrating tip against my swollen bud. I gripped the metal balls hard, my mind refusing to process any pleasure happening beneath my waist. I couldn’t afford those thoughts. I couldn’t let my guard down.

  And then, the most beautiful words I’d ever heard: “Okay, Helene. You may come. Drop them.”

  He pressed the vibrator hard against me, and I relaxed and climaxed as he’d ordered me to. The metal balls clinked on the ground one at a time and rolled away. The buzzing stopped. Then his hand was between my legs again.

  “Such a filthy, slutty little slave,” he whispered.

  He pressed his hand, now wet from my juices, against my mouth. He didn’t have to command me to lick it up. A whimper escaped my throat as my tongue stroked the hand that had both hurt me and made me come.

  “Good girl.”

  When he unlocked the chains, I fell once again into his arms. This time he eased me slowly to the ground. I pressed my cheek against the cold concrete and rested.

  Santo arrived with food and set it on the table. I didn’t care that I lay naked and splayed like a strung-out whore. I didn’t care that he leered at me. And it’s possible in the haze of unreality that I spread my legs a little wider to give him a better view. I was rewarded by a low lust-filled growl.

  When we were alone again, Gabriel said, “You will eat. You will bathe. You will nap. When you awaken, I am going to fuck you. Let that fact settle into your mind. I’m going to take full and complete ownership of your body and teach you what it means to be mine. What do you say?”

  “T-thank you, Master.”

  “See? I knew you were smart.”

  ***

  I jolted awake, afraid I might drown. I was so exhausted I’d fallen asleep in the tub. He must have moved me to the bed. I had the faintest memory of Gabriel’s soapy hands sliding over my body to complete the bath I was too exhausted for. I remembered how I’d arched into his touch, how I’d writhed and begged him for more in weak murmurs that were already trailing down the path to dreams.