Twelve
Beth
Beth awoke with a jolt, panic and pain rushing through her, but when she tried to lift her hands they stopped short. The clatter of chain brought awareness of the cuffs on her wrists and ankles, but where was she?
Darkness.
Complete and total darkness.
Attempting to lift her head was almost futile, because the collar around her neck was attached to whatever she was lying on. Pressing her teeth into the narrow bit of rubber between her teeth she made herself swallow the pooling saliva.
Her heart was pounding, blood thumping inside her ears, but she tried her best to stay calm, to talk herself into sanity. Yet, something about the space around her felt stifling. Claustrophobic. Flaring her fingers out she brushed walls on either side of her body, and when she strained against the collar on her throat she managed to make her shoulder brush one side.
Oh God.
This is like a coffin. Is it a coffin? Did he bury me alive?
Horror movie scenarios flickered through her mind, and she couldn’t control them. Couldn’t stifle the thoughts as they made her panic. Whining against the gag, she pulled and kicked at the cuffs holding her down. Energy waning fast, she sobbed, trying not to choke on her drool as her nose clogged from the tears.
He said he wouldn’t kill you.
He said it.
Somehow, that was a lifeline inside the nightmare. The promise of a psychopath holding her sanity together while she stared into the perfect darkness of the grave, pain creeping in at the edges of her awareness.
Her back and ass were alive with the marks from the whip, and every shift of her body reminded her of them. That had been worse than she’d imagined. Each strike of the sleek leather felt like it had torn skin and muscle, but she was quite sure she hadn’t bled. She would have felt that, right?
Right?
The whimper echoed back too close, rebounding off a surface much nearer than she wanted to imagine. Visuals of being trapped in a fucking coffin were spinning around inside her head as she pictured that asshole with his stone-cold eyes shoveling dirt atop it.
Burying her alive.
Suddenly, it was too hard to breathe. Lungs cramping, tightening inside her ribcage, and she stretched her mouth wider than the gag so she could swallow more air. Strange, high-pitched noises were leaving her on every frenzied exhale, and she couldn’t stop them.
Please let me out of here.
Please.
Rolling her head and eyes as much as she could she tried to search for light, for any hint, but there wasn’t a shred. Nothing. Just darkness and a stifling warmth that made her question how much she was re-breathing her own air.
Am I light headed?
Is that from the panicked breathing or a lack of oxygen?
A scream ripped out of her, and she fought the restraints desperately, bucking her hips, twisting and pulling — but it was no use. She was just using more of the air struggling, and as the tears rolled from the edges of her eyes, tumbling into her hair, she forced herself to be still. To hold her breath, and then let it out as slow as possible. Gasping air in was an instinct, but she struggled to slow it too.
In and out.
Slow and even.
Where the fuck am I?
She remembered the whipping, remembered him fucking her ass slowly, the pain of it, the strain of the chains and the position… and then he had finished. Right?
Her thoughts grew thick at that point, muddy and sticky, and she wished anything in her life made sense. If it made sense she could understand where the fuck she was, but everything in her world was a nightmare. An incongruent horror show that seemed to have no end in sight.
How much can you take before you snap?
He had asked her that question again, and then he’d pressed her to the concrete with his cock still in her ass. Fucking her, he had asked it again, and again, and then his hand had come around her throat.
Unconscious.
That’s what he’d done, he had choked her until she’d passed out — and then he’d apparently put her in a coffin. Beth whimpered, not sure if she wanted to die, or wanted to live, but she wanted this to stop.
‘Please let me out, please. I’m sorry, I’m sorry…’ The words were garbled, but she still tried to say them, to make them clear around the gag. Swallowing the saliva, she tried again, saying it louder, and then she strained her ears, listening for anything. Any sounds at all.
Silence.
Except for her breathing, and the dull clank of metal on metal whenever one of her limbs twitched. She had told him to just kill her, but she had hoped for a quick death, not suffocating or starving in a box.
Is that his plan?
More horror movie shit.
It was ridiculous, he wouldn’t do it like this. Not in the dark. Not in this infinite darkness where none of those fucking cameras could watch her suffer. He’d do it with a knife out in the open, in that concrete room where there was already a drain to wash the evidence away. Or he’d electrocute her, because he liked electricity in all its forms.
Cattle prods, and electric batons, and devious boxes that rushed electricity into numerous devices that he’d pressed inside her and attached to her skin. It wouldn’t be like this.
I won’t die like this. I won’t.
* * *
“AGH!” She woke up to the pressure of fingers deep inside her, stretching her, but the light was too bright to see. Whining she tried to tilt her hips away, but another finger joined the others and she screamed — was that four fingers? Was he trying to put his fucking fist inside her?
“STOP!” The word left her lips and she realized she could speak. The gag was gone. Ignoring the pain between her thighs she forced her eyes to pry open, wincing past the bright lights to make her eyes adjust.
Fingers spread and she groaned out her pain, clenching her teeth against the cry as she pulled at the cuffs. Still tied down, thighs spread just enough that she couldn’t stop this.
“Please, fuck, please stop!”
“What do you say, slave?” It was him. He was above her, inside her, hurting her. Again.
“Oh God,” she whispered, and then his fingers pushed deeper, knuckles stretching her cunt. That was the word he used, and it was the only one her mind would grasp as another torrent of pain shot through her. Too much, too fucking much.
“You know what you need to say. Say it and I will stop.” The bastard punctuated his statement by forcing his fingers a little farther in. He was tearing her, he had to be. The pain made her spine shiver, made her back arch, but her eyes slowly focused despite the tears blurring the edges.
He had one hand braced on something above her, something above the… drawer… she lay inside. That was it, she was in a drawer. A huge fucking drawer, with restraints. Turning her head, she saw the metal lining she lay on, the dark hole inside where she had been trapped. A gasp ripped from her lungs as pain spiked again, a whine as her whole body tensed with the stretch of four fingers forcing her wide, and then he slid back just enough to let her breathe. “Please!” she begged.
“Say it.”
Master. Master. Master.
The only word he wanted. What would it mean to say it? What would he do if she did?
“You are going to suffer until you say it. I want you to understand that.” His hand grabbed her jaw, and then his fingers left her cunt completely only to be forced into her mouth. Stretching her lips wide with the tang of her own taste — when had she grown wet?
He released her, and the last thing she saw was a blur of lights in the ceiling and his empty expression as he pushed the drawer shut and darkness overwhelmed her. Sore and whimpering she screamed for him to come back, but she didn’t use the word.
There really was a magic word, but would using it be a blessing or a curse?
* * *
Drawer open.
The freezing spray of water hit her skin and she gasped, too stunned to scream, but then she reme
mbered her thirst. Desperate for the water she kept her mouth obscenely open, swallowed as often as she could, fighting the urge to shiver and clench her teeth.
Then came the baton. Loud, electric zaps that had her convulsing on the metal tray in short bursts. Pain thundered through exhausted nerves, but all she wanted was the water back.
Still thirsty.
She hadn’t been able to scream, or beg, in so long. Throat too dry, too raw from screaming in the damn drawer.
“Say it.” His words buzzed in her ears, humming like the lingering vibration of the shocks. Wincing, she tried to look at him, to pull his image into focus, but he was backlit by bright lights and he was nothing more than a shadow. A pit of darkness.
“Say it or you go back in, slave.”
Another zap, another groan, but all she wanted to ask for was the water. Even cold and biting, she didn’t care. Just… “Water?” she croaked.
“Wrong answer.”
The drawer slammed shut, rocking her body against the cuffs, and she flinched, tried to collect her thoughts into something not chaotic — but nothing worked.
Thirsty. I’m so thirsty.
* * *
Beth’s world slid again. Hours, days in darkness, she didn’t know how much time had passed. He hadn’t fed her, twice he had sprayed her with water, and she had tried to swallow as much as she could, even as it stung her eyes and nose. Another he had used a short, leather thing on her flesh, striking and making her scream weakly as he hurt her. Another had been confusing, she had been sure she had seen two people, and then he had given her a shot — or it had felt like a shot — she couldn’t remember.
Everything was fractured.
Something clicked and then he lifted her head, one fist buried in her hair, and the other pressed a glass to her lips. Water. It was the best thing she’d ever tasted, and she swallowed, and swallowed, feeling it wash into her empty stomach.
She wanted to thank him, wanted to be grateful, but then he took it away, and there was another loud clank, and she slid in a new direction. Towards him, his fist in her hair pulling her, but she still couldn’t lift her arms and legs.
Blurry eyes opening, she saw the glass of water atop the cabinet where her drawer was, and then he released her head and it dropped. Too weak to fight him, too weak to lift it, too weak to turn away when he unbuttoned his pants and slid the zipper down.
His cock from this angle looked larger, and when he tapped her cheek and said, “Open,” she obeyed without thinking. Fingers slipped into her mouth first, and she sucked, desperate for water, to make him happy, but he didn’t say anything else as he slid them free and replaced them with his cock. Her jaw stretched, lips folding over teeth as he pushed in slowly, a heady groan from above.
Hitting the back of her throat meant little at this angle, but he paused enough to give her one short breath before he thrust forward, into the channel that cut off her air and made her choke. Sliding back, she coughed, sputtered, and then he forced his cock deep again, holding still with her nose against his balls.
Property.
A set of holes.
It was all true, that’s what she felt like in this moment. Bound, unable to fight back, unable to struggle, no energy to be defiant and brave. He started to move, slowly at first, almost all the way out, letting her breathe, before plunging deep once more.
Catching on to the rhythm, she measured her breaths, and as his pace increased she had less and less air, until finally he was holding himself in her throat for longer and longer as she swallowed around his cock. Struggling weakly, twisting against the cuffs as she silently begged to breathe. He was fucking her throat, using her brutally, and the ache was getting worse the longer he continued.
Stop?
Such a useless word. It didn’t do anything. Why had she ever even learned it? If someone wanted to ignore it, they did. Whether it was running a stop sign, or whipping someone, or fucking their throat — what did stop mean if it meant nothing?
Her mind was growing hazier, the fog thicker, and she felt numb as he worked in and out of her mouth, barely a snippet of air allowed on some of the harder thrusts that required him to pull back a little further. Throat on fire, tears burning her eyes, she felt his hand wrap around her throat and squeeze.
Is this it? Is this when he kills me?
Instead of death, she felt him come before she tasted it. Heard his low groan, felt his grip tighten across her neck, and then she was choking. As soon as he pulled out, her stomach emptied, and she heard him curse.
Still choking, she turned her head, but air wouldn’t come.
Metallic clangs echoed like they were coming down a long hallway, and then her world turned again, and she was gone.
Thirteen
Beth
Master.
You will call me Master.
There will be no freedom, no escape. You will call me Master, and then you will be sold to someone new, and then you will call him Master. That is your future. Accept it. Say it.
Words invaded her mind. His words. Digging in like burrowing worms until they felt like they had always been there. A permanent fixture in her head. An absolute truth. She fought them through the haze, pushed back as hard as she could, but they were there, and she was so tired.
It was a choice. One of the only choices she had left in this hell but making it would be worse than dying. It would be the death of her mind. The death of her self.
Saying it would finally make the first rule true — I am not my own. I am property.
The world around her felt distant, but she knew she was sitting up slightly, on a hard surface, which couldn’t be the drawer. She had been held flat inside that hole. Getting her eyes open took too much effort, they felt swollen, the light burned, but finally she saw white, and dark gray walls.
A bathtub. She was in the bathroom, propped up in the oversized tub, with its angled side, and there was a large towel draped over her skin. No restraints here but, as she looked around, she saw a glass of water set on the edge and she grabbed it, spilling a little as she swallowed past an aching throat.
“Of course she’s alive, I don’t kill slaves.” His voice came from the bedroom, speaking to someone.
Was the other one back? Beth strained to listen, to clear her mind enough to focus, but there was no other voice.
“The IV took care of that, and I thought we agreed you would not interfere.” He was so calm, so empty, but she looked down at her arms, finding a pair of small, dark spots in the crook of her elbow.
He’d given her an IV. To keep her alive.
He wouldn’t allow her to die.
Putting the glass down, she brushed the dots, traced the splotch of a bruise around them, and then she moved her fingers to her bruised wrist. Darker than before the whipping, before the drawer.
A shadow made her eyes lift, and he was there in the doorway. Dressed in a pristine pale button-down shirt, dark slacks, his shining shoes. He was holding the phone to his ear as his eyes moved over her, but there was something new in his expression.
Something terrifying.
There was a hint of anger narrowing his gaze, lowering his brows just a fraction, but as small as it was… it was still more expression than she’d seen out of him beyond his strange smiles.
His jaw twitched, and then he turned away, and a moment later she heard the door shut.
* * *
Anthony
“You just had to have this one, didn’t you? Had to have the blonde California girl no matter what I said.” Marcus was ranting, but Anthony’s own temper was breaking through the cold he always felt. A rare occurrence.
“We both saw her on the beach, she drew both of our eyes. Do not pretend I made this decision on my own.” Pacing the hallway, he forced a deep breath into his lungs.
“I told you I needed to follow her, needed to watch her, you put her on the fucking list as soon as you found out her name!”
“I’ve been taking girls for years wit
hout your assessment of their submissive traits, and there has never been an issue.” Anthony felt his fingers form a fist, reassured that he’d turned off all the cameras so that Marcus couldn’t see his reaction. He needed to get this back under control, needed to get her under control.
“You could have given me a fucking week!”
“We both agreed that having this operation offline for the duration of your house preparation would be fiscally irresponsible, and you needed to go North.” Keeping his voice steady wasn’t a challenge, it was the irritation moving through his veins that was troubling.
“Then you could have picked another name off the goddamn list, Anthony! ANY fucking name, it didn’t have to be her!” Marcus shouted, and the volume of it was bothering him more than usual, getting under his skin faster.
He hated it.
“She was the highest potential profit on the list based on customer feedback.”
“Well, now you have her! Your high potential profit cunt. So, what the fuck are you going to do with her?” Another slam of something from his end of the line. Marcus was breaking things, and for a moment Anthony wondered if that would help ease these strange sensations making his fist tighten, his jaw clench.
What would he do with her?
The problem wasn’t a lack of ideas, he had too many things he wanted to do to her. Too many punishments in mind, each more severe than the last — but he didn’t want to kill her. He never killed them.
For a time, the girl’s defiance had been entertaining, so much better than the more fragile responses of others they had taken. The quick slide into constant crying, fear. This one had felt like a challenge at first, and he had enjoyed pushing her, bending her further and further, making her suffer.
But, by this point, every other girl had called him Master. By this point they were desperate to please him. Working on their submission, their behavior, learning to be perfect dolls as he erased their sense of self one punishment at a time.
Breaking Beth Page 10
