by Linda Barlow
"You're getting it. Your devotion to me is limitless, and in return I extend you my protection and don't treat you too harshly. Unless you disobey me. That would require punishment."
The thought darted across my mind that in some circumstances, the scenario he was outlining might actually be hot. If I were home and safe and with a sexy man whom I loved, I could get into this sort of thing. But with a stranger who had pointed a gun at me, knocked me unconscious, tied me up and kidnapped me? I don't think so.
"I can't do this. Please. Can't you set me ashore somewhere? I will keep my mouth shut about you, I swear."
He shook his head. "No."
I won't cry, dammit. I won't give the creep the satisfaction.
"But you can do this. You're no coward—you've proved that much already. And it'll only be for about ten days. At the most, two weeks. After that, if everything goes as planned, I'll set you free. In the meantime, you'll just have to play the game you've stumbled into. Play it well, and you'll survive. Fuck it up, and you'll die, and probably take me with you."
"If I die, you can count on me taking you with me."
He laughed. "I don't think you've got the submissive mindset down yet, Ms. Heath. Shall we see how tightly I have to wind this rope around your throat until you do?"
I shuddered. "What do you mean by the submissive mindset?"
He looked at me hard before answering. "Most people have played around with this sort of thing. Or at least read about it. Or watched porn on the internet."
I had of course. Read about it, at least. It was hard to avoid—books, TV, pop music. When I just sat there, silent and embarrassed, he said,
"No? Please don't tell me I have to explain this to a 23 year old college grad."
"I get the general idea. It's the practical experience that I lack."
"Well, to put it in terms my nasty cousin would understand, I own you. You bow, scrape and defer to me. You obey my orders without a word—or a look—of protest. No more fucking sarcasm. You are sexually available to me at all times. If I'm rough with you, you enjoy it. If I punish you, you thank me for causing you pain. If I tie you up and whip you, you come. Unless I deny you permission to come, in which case you suffer."
I experienced a moment of horror as my body reacted with a thrill of excitement to his description. It was something about his voice. It was low, a bit gravelly and hot as hell. A weird memory struck me of reading an erotic romance about a woman kidnapped by a brawny Scottish pirate who did some of the things he had just mentioned. It had been full of sensual love scenes that had rocked my world when I'd discovered the book at age sixteen.
"I'm not into that," I tried.
"I don't fucking care if you're into it or not. That's your role for the next couple weeks. Since you seem to be having trouble with the concept, we'll have to practice."
I wondered what the hell that meant.
"Strip," he said.
Oh god, oh god. I clung to what he'd told me a few minutes ago. No rape. "You said you wouldn't—"
"Do it. You have to learn to obey any order I give you without argument or hesitation. That's what slaves do."
"I'm not your fucking slave."
He tightened the rope around my neck. "The subject is not open for debate. I see you're wearing one of my shirts. Take it off."
The thing around my neck was just too much. I started to unbutton the shirt, saying to myself, it's better to be humiliated, even raped, than killed. I have to stay alive. I have to escape. He said that if I do what he tells me for two weeks, he'll let me go. He said he wouldn't rape me.
I know. I was allowing him to frighten and intimidate me. To dominate me. But when someone tightens a cord around your neck, it's difficult to remain defiant.
I took off the shirt. I was still wearing my bra, my jeans, and my panties.
"Keep going." His voice was cold. So were his eyes. That was good, right? He didn't look as if he were bursting with lust.
For the first time ever, I was glad that my breasts were small and unimpressive. I'd never been proud of my body. It was ordinary. On the thin side, which I'd always liked because it meant I didn't have to go on diets all the time like most of my friends. I could stuff myself with pizza and chips and yummy desserts because I had a fast metabolism or something. I could eat and eat and hardly ever gain a pound.
My hair was good—long and fiery red, a color I used to hate but had grown to appreciate in recent years. My features were regular and balanced enough to pass for okay-looking. Or at least, so my best friend Katy always told me. "You're not supermodel stunning, but your face is really nice," she used to say. "You should do your makeup, though. Your eyes are stunning when you spend some time on them."
Needless to say, I wasn't wearing any makeup. Anyway, the creep wasn't looking at my face.
I removed my bra next, because the thought of removing stuff below the waist really freaked me out. I did it awkwardly, blushing and feeling ashamed. I didn't know this guy. He had knocked me out, tied me up and kidnapped me. He'd threatened me with a gun and a knife. He'd put a noose around my neck, and now he was making me strip.
"Faster. Christ, you're acting like a virgin who's never taken her clothes off before."
I stiffened, ricocheting back to something Mark had taunted me about. We'd had a fucked up sex life during our year together. I don't think either of us was ever satisfied. I thought he was pretty vanilla and boring in bed, and my attempts to encourage a little more adventure had been ignored. But he hadn't been happy with me, either, although he never said why. He used to taunt me sometimes by making cracks similar to what Nick had just said...implying that I wasn't very sexy. Or that I was too shy.
Maybe I was a little modest, but I wasn't ashamed of my body or anything like that. I just wanted a man who would take charge. How could I strip if I wasn't turned on?
"Well? Do I have to get my knife and cut those jeans off your body?"
I undid my jeans and slid them down over my hips. "Why are you doing this?" I asked, feeling truly miserable.
"It amuses me," he snapped. He sounded either angry or sarcastic. I wasn't sure which.
"I don't take off my clothes for men I don't even know."
"You do now," he said, yanking the rope around my neck again.
Dumbass. As I forced down the jeans, my panties started to go with them. What the fuck...they were going to be next anyway. I pushed both pants and panties down my legs and over my feet. They fell to the floor. I hunched up, arms around my middle, hating the man at the other end of that rope.
"Good," he said. He pulled me close to him by means of the rope. I froze, expecting him to start pawing at my naked body. But instead, he loosened the macramé belt and removed it from my throat. I sagged with relief. He tossed me a blanket from the foot of the bed. "Now lie down on the floor and go to sleep." He gathered up my clothes and tossed them into one of the drawers with a lock on it and locked them inside. By the time he had finished doing that, I had wrapped the blanket snugly around myself.
"I need to use the bathroom before I sleep."
"You can use it when I'm done, slave."
When it was my turn, I dawdled in the head for ages, treasuring the only privacy permitted to me. I kept the blanket wound around me; no way was I letting it slip.
When I returned to the cabin, Nick was lying on the bunk. He was still wearing his jeans, I was glad to see, but no shirt or shoes. He had tossed a pillow to the floor beside the bed. When I lay down there, I took up most the space left in the small cabin.
He reached up and switched off the overhead light, then glanced at the head door, which I'd left ajar. "You left the light on in there."
"I can't sleep in total darkness."
"Why not?"
I wasn't about to reveal my claustrophobia, my desperate need to hold back the night. I felt weak enough in his presence as it was. "I just can't."
"Well, I can't sleep with light in my eyes." He started to get up.
He hesitated, and then cursed under his breath. "You're a real pain in the ass."
For some insane reason I heard myself say, "I guess if we were lovers, we'd fight."
"If we were fucking," he retorted in a smooth-as-liquid voice, reducing the word "lovers" to it most basic meaning, "I'd be content to leave the light on. In fact, I'd insist upon it."
Cheeks burning, I buried my face in the pillow. If we were lovers? What the fuck was I thinking?
"Go to sleep. No escape attempts. I haven't bound your arms and legs again, but I will if you so much as stir from the spot where you're currently lying. I want a peaceful night. No more idiotic attacks with William Shakespeare. I'm a light sleeper, and I'll know if you try anything."
I rolled over with my face turned away from him. I was certain I would be lying awake all night, reliving every horrible moment of my captivity, but to my amazement, I fell asleep and didn't wake up until morning.
Chapter 8
ELLIE
I was alone in the cabin when I woke. The boat was pitching more vigorously than it had been the night before. I sat up. The blanket must have slipped off me during sleep, since I was only half covered. Either that or he had uncovered me to look at my body. I imagined him doing so, while I was unconscious and unable to stop him, and I felt myself flush.
It wasn't an entirely unpleasant feeling. Instead of remembering how he had forced me to strip and threatened to strangle me, the first thing I thought of was how built his body was. How honed his face. How sexy his voice was. And once again I grew angry with myself for having such thoughts about the man who was holding me captive against my will. Did I have Stockholm syndrome? How long did that take to set in? I didn't think you could come down with Stockholm in only 24 hours, but what did I know? Maybe I was just weak and pathetic.
My clothes, which he had taken last night, were still locked away. Even my own shirt, the one I'd washed and hung to dry on the towel rack under the sink, was nowhere to be seen. Worse, I discovered that he had locked all the drawers and cupboards where he kept his own clothes. He had left me nothing to cover myself with except the blanket.
Bastard. The blanket was wool, scratchy and hot. We were in the Aegean, and the air was already feeling warm and humid. Was he planning to keep me naked?
At least he hadn't raped me. So far, he'd kept his promise about that.
I used the bathroom and washed as best I could at the sink, wishing for a shower. Then I had nothing to do. I could vaguely hear voices on deck—the men talking among themselves—but I couldn't hear what they were saying. My stomach growled. I hadn't eaten much in the past 24 hours and I was hungry. There were several water bottles on the shelf over the sink so I helped myself. I was surprised at how thirsty I felt, but I suppose being scared out of my wits had contributed to that.
I tested the door just to make sure I wasn't free to wonder up on deck. Nope. Locked.
Fortunately, the books weren't locked up, so I found the historical mystery I had started reading yesterday and fell into Stephen Silkwood's Renaissance England world. The story was good, if rather violent. I kept turning the pages until I heard steps outside the door and the sound of the key in the lock. I wrapped the blanket more securely around me as my captor entered the cabin.
He was holding a tray of food. I smelled hot coffee, which made my mouth water. "Hungry?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Yes, Master."
I rolled my eyes and repeated the words, "Yes, Master."
He set the tray on the end of the bed where I was sitting. "What's your name?"
"I told you my name. Have you forgotten it?"
"Wrong answer. You're a slave. You no longer have a name. Drop the blanket. Fold it neatly and lay it on the bed. You are not permitted to use it in place of clothing."
I clutched the blanket to me. "Where are my clothes?"
He pulled something from the pocket of his pants. It was a couple of pieces of rope, roughly woven into a circle. "This is all you will be wearing today."
It was a collar. Probably handmade. When I just stared at it, he grabbed me by the hair—my long thick hair made this easy to do—and dragged me to my feet. He ripped the blanket away from me. While I struggled with the idea that he was now looking at my naked body in the full light of day, he took advantage of my frozen stance to twist the rope collar under my hair and tie it in back. It fit me tightly, and I bucked under his hands, beginning to panic even as I told myself that I could breathe fine and to calm the fuck down.
"Next time I give you an order, you will obey me instantly or be punished. Do you understand?"
"Fuck you."
He slapped me lightly across the face. My hand flew to my cheek and I backed away from him, more angry than hurt. No one had ever raised a hand to me before. I'd certainly never allowed any man to strike me!
"Are you crazy?" I shouted. "Some kind of psycho abuser? Don't you ever fucking hit me again!"
He grasped a bunch of my hair in his hand and forced me to my knees. "You forget yourself, slave. Either we do this my way, or you go overboard with a weight bound to your feet. I don't have time for your bullshit defiance. We're going to spend the day curing you of it."
He went to the door and yelled out for Metin. I heard footsteps approaching and, to my horror, Nicholas opened the door and let the younger man into the cabin. I was kneeling on the floor, naked, and he allowed Metin, who had been kind to me, to see me like that. Well, maybe he couldn't see me too well, because Nicholas had placed himself between me and the door, blocking the other man's view. I stared at the floor, afraid to see if Metin would try to look. "My slave isn't hungry, after all," Nick said. "Please remove her tray."
I wasn't sure which was worse, being deprived of my coffee and the traditional Turkish breakfast of bread, white cheese, fruit and jam that had been on that tray, or the shame of having been naked in front of another man. Either way, I pretty much wanted to die.
"You'll eat when you learn to obey," Nicholas informed me.
I was beginning to hate Nicholas Gabriel. "From a psychological point of view, this is not the right way to deal with me," I informed him. "I don't respond well to people pushing me around."
"You don't get it, do you? What you like or don't like is irrelevant. Your thoughts and feelings are of no interest to me. Your sole reason for existing is to obey me and please me. Your body is no longer your own."
"But...it's all an act, right? You don't really believe that?"
"You have to believe it. That's what counts. You have to believe it so utterly that you don't make any mistakes. You have to be conditioned to believe it. Am I getting through to you yet?"
He was. It's a game, I told myself. He had written this part for me, and now he wanted to rehearse.
"If you fuck up, you die," he reminded me.
Intellectually, I understood, but my instincts told me there was something more going on here. "If it's an act, why do you look like you're enjoying this?"
He stared at me in silence, and I thought I saw something kindle in his eyes before that cold control stamped it out. "I have a lovely, naked woman kneeling at my feet. What's not to enjoy?"
* * *
He informed me that I was being slave-trained. That this was usually a much more lengthy process, so I would have to endure a crash course. Apparently we would be meeting his evil associates tomorrow. I had one day to learn to act like a broken woman with no will of her own and no fight left in her.
He was ruthless. I told myself that it was like boot camp—designed to be just short of unendurable. He was the harsh, angry drill sergeant who was teaching me to be a soldier. To follow orders. To survive.
"Eyes down," he said, pointing at the floor. "You don't look me or any other man in the face unless I give you permission."
Jeez! I bowed my head. I was not cut out for
this.
I heard him moving, and lifted my head enough to peek at what he was doing. He got a leather belt from his cupboard and a long piece of cloth. As he turned back toward me, I quickly pressed my forehead against the carpet.
He pulled my face up by sliding his hand into my hair and twisting. He wrapped the cloth around my head and eyes several times before tying it off. “I’m going to teach you to respond to the sound of my voice. The blindfold will prevent any distractions.”
The cloth was completely opaque. I couldn’t see a thing.
“The rules are simple: You do what I tell you to do with all possible speed. If you don't obey, I will hurt you. If you don't obey quickly enough, I will hurt you. If you make a mistake, I will hurt you. If you complain, I will hurt you. If you speak without permission, I will hurt you. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” I snapped.
He slapped my thigh with the belt, and I yelped. It stung. Because of the blindfold, I couldn't even see if he had left a mark.
“What mistake did you just make, slave? You may answer.”
"What mistake did I make? I took a few pictures of a beautiful dawn sky."
"Jeez, you are asking for it. Answer the fucking question."
I sighed. "I didn't call you by your lordly title of, what was it? Oh yeah...Master."
He struck me again. When I cried out (more out of protest than pain, since it didn't hurt that much) he said, "Don't scream. One more sound and I'll punish you much more severely."
He opened the door and took me out to the main salon of the yacht. I inquired nervously where Metin was, since I was still naked, and he assured me he was at the helm and would not see what was happening. Since I'd been unconscious when he'd brought me aboard, I didn't know the layout of the salon, but it seemed a lot larger than the sleeping quarters.
In rapid succession, he made me crawl, walk, move three paces. Stop. Move four paces to starboard. It took me a few moments of trying to focus on the vessel's forward motion before I figured out which side was starboard. Turn. Crawl four feet forward on my belly. Stand. Walk in a circle. Crawl in a square. Walk to the port bulkhead wall. Go to him and kneel.
