Trust Me

by Annabel Joseph

  He let out a long, sad breath, then reached to pick up one of the manacles I’d made. He turned it over in his hand and reached for my wrist. It worked on a delicate, hidden hinge, closing snugly around my skin and bones. I’d fashioned it with curved edges, but I hadn’t added any kind of padding. I didn’t deserve padding.

  “You know I love you, Chere,” he said, fingering the clasp. To my ears, it sounded like he was trying to convince himself. I didn’t believe him. I didn’t trust him, which made me a very bad slave.

  He closed the manacle with a snap and studied it on my wrist. I’d polished it until it shone. Without the fitting for the chain, the silver band could pass for a bracelet. He picked up the other one and put it on me so my wrists were tethered by the chain. He brought them together and covered my hands with his, and held them as he gazed into my eyes.

  “These are beautiful,” he said, and it sounded like the sad breath he’d taken earlier. “You do beautiful work. The world needs this work.”

  I tried to read his expression. I saw disappointment and doubt. Was he questioning us? Questioning whether he needed to let me go? The words burst out of me in a panic.

  “Don’t leave me. Don’t make me go away.”

  He released my hands and grabbed my face. I flinched as his fingertips dug into my cheeks. “Do you think I’d do that to you?”

  “You did do it to me. You left me before. Twice.”

  He gave me a harsh look, followed by a brisk slap on the cheek. It was hard to hold his gaze, but when my eyes slid away he grabbed my neck and I knew I’d better fucking attend to him. I didn’t know what I feared more, his punishment or his desertion. If he believed he was harming me, he would leave me. I knew that. He’d done it before.

  Twice.

  “I’m sorry,” I pleaded. “I’ll do better. I just want to be with you. The jewelry design, the business, it takes away from my time with you.”

  “You used to love making jewelry.”

  “Now I love you.”

  I felt his fingers tighten. “We have plenty of time together outside of work. You need a life besides being my—”

  He stopped talking, but I knew him well enough to understand the things he didn’t say. He wanted me to maintain a life outside of our claustrophobic emotional entanglement in case we had to part again. I knew he maintained escape plans. My career was one of them, because it prevented my complete surrender. My eyes filled with tears.

  “Don’t leave me,” I whispered, turning my neck to get more air. “Please.”

  A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  We sat like that for fifteen seconds or more, staring at one another with his hand around my neck. I clasped my fingers together and the manacles clinked.

  “I’ll find a client by next week,” I promised. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “We’re leaving for Paris in two days.”

  “When we get back, then. I’ll use that time in Paris to create a marketing plan—”

  “You don’t even know what a marketing plan is.” He let go of my neck and looked at my work. “You need to be out in the world, getting inspired, talking to people, telling them about your vision.”

  But I want to be in your dungeon. I want to be near you, loving you. I want you to love me...

  “I’ll visit jewelry shops in Paris,” I promised. “I’ll go to fashion shows. I’ll keep working if you want me to work.”

  “I want you to work.” He looked back at me, pinning me with his stern, blue gaze. “You can do both, be my slave and share your talents with the world. Your job,” he said, pointing his finger at me, “is to do what I think is best for you. I don’t want you to lose yourself inside me, inside my house and my life and my will. Inside my dungeon.”

  “Yes, Sir,” I said dutifully, but the tears were back, because he’d just described exactly what I wanted. It was what he wanted too. He’d told me as much when he came back into my life, but he wouldn’t allow himself such selfish pleasure.

  “What?” he snapped. “Why are you crying?”

  “Because you’re angry with me. And because...”

  His finger tapped on his knee. I wasn’t looking forward to the punishment later, but if I was getting it anyway, I might as well speak my mind.

  “I’m crying because I think you don’t... I think you don’t really want me. You don’t want our relationship.”

  I put my hands up to cover my eyes. He yanked them back down with the chain. “Why the fuck would you say that?”

  “You want me to work so I’ll be able to support myself when you leave. You’re not going to stay with me.”

  He pursed his lips, his eyes flashing fire. His grip tightened on the chain. “You’re mine, Chere, and I intend to keep you. But our deal was for you to maintain a creative life too, a real life with a real job.”

  “I don’t want a real job. I want to belong to you—”

  “You do belong to me,” he interrupted, not even allowing me to finish my plea. “Now shut the fuck up. I’m tired of your whining.” He turned over my wrists and worked the clasp to open the manacles. “You can leave at three o’clock to go home and prepare yourself. I’ll be home around six.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He slipped the manacles into his pocket and tipped up my chin. “This isn’t going to be a fun night for you, starshine. When I threatened punishment, I meant punishment. I’m not happy with you.” He brushed away one of my tears. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you, or that I wish you would leave. Don’t put words in my mouth or tell me what I’m going to do as far as you’re concerned, because I do what I want, and you fucking accept it. It’s very simple,” he said, pointing at his chest. “I own you. Your only job is to fucking be owned.”

  Chapter Two: Punishment

  I left at three, as instructed. That was really when the punishment started, because my thoughts, from that point on, were fixated on the pain I had coming to me, and the fear of what he might make me endure.

  I undressed and put my clothes in the guest room, as I did every day. The guest room was the vanilla room where things like clothes and belongings were kept, because in his bedroom and his dungeon I was purely his naked, obedient slave. He said the separation was necessary, that I couldn’t be doing things like getting dressed and checking my email in his bedroom. It would make us too equal, too much like some boring, traditional couple.

  God forbid we would be that.

  Once I was naked, I ate a snack and drank some water. I had a long soak in the tub, preparing all the various parts of my body for use and abuse. I used to do a similar routine before I went on dates with him, when I was a high priced escort. Back then, it had been work, routine. Now it was the manic desire to please him, even when I’d displeased him.

  After the bath, I got my collar from his bedside table and buckled it around my neck. It was comforting to put on the circle of soft, brown leather. It was also a reminder that I needed to trust him and stop worrying about how he was feeling and whether he would leave me. If I belonged to him, truly belonged to him, none of that mattered. His will was my will, end of story. I felt embarrassed now for my neurotic display, my tears and whining.

  I definitely deserved to be punished.

  It wouldn’t be the first time I’d earned a punishment. He’d turned out to be a very exacting Master, with no qualms about making me cry when I broke his rules. He supplied good rough and bad rough. The quick, sexy fuck in the back room of my studio had been good rough. Punishments were bad rough, pushing me beyond boundaries, and tapping reserves of strength I didn’t know I had.

  I lotioned myself up really well, including my nipples, which were sure to receive plenty of abuse. After that, there was nothing left to do but wait and stress, and mull over my life choices. I drifted into the guest room and lifted a stack of pillows in the closet, and took out the pair of binoculars secreted there.

  He’d never specifically told me that I couldn�
��t use the binoculars, but I was furtive when I borrowed them, and I always put them back under the pillows as if they’d never been disturbed. I took them out to the living room and focused on my old apartment across the street. Someone else was living there now, a boring, traditional couple that I spied on from time to time. They might be boring, but they were also happy. I was supposed to be happy too.

  Oh, hell. I was happy. I was just scared of losing him again, because it had happened too many times before. I kept his poetry in a special scrapbook, in the same closet where he kept the binoculars, and I clung to those heartfelt poems as evidence that everything was okay. He wrote the poems himself now. They were short and sweet, and wonderful.

  I lowered the binoculars. The couple wasn’t there right now. I rested my head against the glass and wondered if anyone was spying on me, the worried looking girl whose brown hair and brown eyes matched her brown slave collar. I had to stop worrying. I had to stop expecting him to desert me. I’d asked him to trust me, and the flip side of that was that I had to trust him.

  I went back to the guest room and hid the binoculars, took one last look at my appearance, and went into his room. He had a chair in there, a hard wooden chair where I was expected to wait for him at least ten minutes prior to his expected arrival. Back straight, feet on the floor, hands in your lap. You’ll be there ten minutes before you expect me, not eight minutes, or five minutes.

  The first few days I lived here, he’d taught me a hundred rules, a hundred expectations for my behavior when I was in our slave space—his bedroom and the dungeon beyond. There were rules about my hair (always down, never up), about my jewelry (nothing but stud earrings), about when I could look away from him (never, in the dungeon), about when I could talk (never, in the dungeon). Respectful talk in the bedroom was allowed, but it was at my own risk. If I annoyed him, I paid the price.

  The respect spilled out of the bedroom into other areas of our life. Sometimes, at company dinners or events, I almost called him Sir. That was a no-no. I was careful what I said to him, unlike the times before, when I spoke more freely. The times before, meaning before slavery and ownership and the consuming control he exercised over me now. I’d wanted that control. I’d begged for it. I checked the collar to be sure the O-ring was at the front, and listened for the sound of him at the door.

  He arrived within a few minutes of six o’clock and found me sitting as I was supposed to be, back straight, feet on the floor, hands in my lap. He strolled over to me as I drank him up with my eyes. Master, please master me. Please punish me so we can start fresh again and I can do things right.

  When he reached me, he clasped my neck and tilted my face up for a kiss. That kiss was for being where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing. It didn’t last.

  He pulled away and turned his back on me, shrugged off his suit jacket and disappeared into the closet. He reappeared in a pair of jeans and nothing else, such a flawless specimen of enticing masculinity that I could have sobbed. His abs were flat and hard, and his jeans rode just below his hips to showcase perfect iliac furrows. I flushed as he crossed to me, all business.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “You understand why you’re being punished?”

  “Yes, Sir. I’m being punished for not being more proactive in my business. For not...for not working harder at getting my art out into the world.”

  He studied me a moment, with an intensity that made me squirm. “All it takes is inspiration. You of all people should know that.” He touched my cheek, a soft touch before the storm. “Maybe I can inspire you. Or at least light a fire under your ass. Hold out your arms.”

  He pulled the manacles I’d made from his pocket. I let out a slow breath as he secured them around my wrists, closing each clasp with a click. I was sure he’d used the words “fire” and “ass” with intentional purpose. My ass, as they say, was grass, as was any other part of my body he thought suitable for punishment tonight.

  “All right,” he said, taking my arm. “Come on.”

  He led me through his closet to the dungeon room, an echoing, concrete-walled chamber of racks, benches, and polished furniture. Once inside, he nudged me toward the tall chests where he kept all his hurtiest equipment. I had to wait there while he moved about the dungeon turning on lamps and recessed spotlights to illuminate my shame.

  When the frightening disciplinary space was awash in light, he returned and opened a drawer to take out a ball gag. He turned to me. No words necessary. I took my last few breaths of unimpeded air and opened my mouth. The ball was hard and black, and large enough to depress my tongue. He buckled it behind my head and turned back to the drawers. He pulled out a butt plug next, a glass one with a painfully wide base. I gave a little moan that wasn’t audible through the gag, not that any moan or groan would make him soften his plans.

  “Go bend over the bench,” he ordered.

  I obeyed, crawling onto the lower step and then folding myself over the raised center platform. My ass felt very vulnerable, as he meant it to. I knew that butt plug would hurt. Too soon, he was behind me, forcing me to spread my legs wider with a series of punishing slaps to my inner thighs. Once I was positioned to his liking, he parted my cheeks and shoved cold, slippery lube into my asshole. He wasn’t gentle, but I was grateful that he was being generous with the lube, considering the size of the plug.

  After he finished preparing my ass, he spread my cheeks wide and held them open. I closed my eyes as I felt the hard tip of the toy against my hole. He worked it in and out, causing a little more pain each time. Even though he trained my ass with plugs and dildos, and even though he frequently fucked me there, it was still a struggle every time. I whined and pushed out as he nudged the widest part of the base against my ass. He had to stop and add more lube. I wanted to move, to squirm away, but I didn’t dare.

  Surrender. It’s supposed to feel bad. This is a punishment.

  I cried behind the gag as he started moving the plug in and out again, all the way to the widest part. The long, rough fingers of his other hand pressed into my skin as he held my cheeks open. Finally, with an aching stab of pain, he shoved the anal toy home. I clenched around the base, relieved that the acute pain was over, but there was still the discomfort of having a large, heavy bulb seated in my ass, and surely more anal torment to come.

  He walked around the bench and I raised my eyes to look at him. If he wasn’t behind me, or on top of me, I was supposed to meet his gaze. I tried to swallow. The first bits of drool gathered at the corners of my lips but I wasn’t allowed to wipe it away.

  “Does that hurt, bad girl?” he asked.

  God, yes, it hurt to be bad. I nodded, trying to communicate how sad and sorry I was. He stood over me, my figure of authority, my owner.

  “Fifty with the paddle to begin.”

  My whole body cringed. He put a finger in my collar’s O-ring and dragged my torso down to rest right on the upper platform. He unhooked the manacles from their connecting chain and fixed one wrist to either side of the spanking bench so my arms were spread wide. Spread wide in every way, I thought ruefully, as I clenched on the plug inside me.

  “Keep your fucking ass in the air,” he said, walking to stand behind me. He gave me some warm up spanks, pausing now and again to force me to arch my back. “And keep those legs spread, so I can paddle your thighs too.”

  I dropped my head, wishing this was over rather than just beginning. The warm up spanks stopped, and I sensed rather than heard him pick up the paddle. This wasn’t playtime. It was punishment, and he went to town. He spanked one cheek at a time, avoiding the plug’s base. It wasn’t a big paddle, but the small, thick ones could be brutal. Each blow was hot, stinging fire, and I squealed behind the gag. I was supposed to stay still and I did my best, but I couldn’t control the trembling in my legs or the frantic movement of my feet.

  “Ass out,” he scolded whenever I tried to cower in a self-protect
ive way.

  I lost count of the paddle strokes after the first dozen or so. I couldn’t keep up; I was just trying to hold it together. When my cheeks burned beyond bearing, he moved to the backs of my upper thighs, and it absolutely killed like hellfire. Ow, ow, ow, ow... I yanked at the manacles I’d so carefully crafted, and wiggled my ass back and forth to try to lessen the ratcheting pain.

  “Be still,” he warned, spanking me harder as punishment.

  I braced myself against the bench and cried behind the gag, knowing there would be no lessening, no stopping until he was done. At last, the sharp cracks of the paddle died out in the quiet dungeon. I went limp against the platform, and watched a stream of drool drip from the gag down to the floor beneath me.

  “I know it hurts,” he said, squeezing my ass cheeks. “That’s the only way you’ll learn. That’s the only way you’ll do better.”

  I moaned in agreement, wondering what would be next. It turned out to be a strap, a narrow, supple piece of leather he used on me a lot. Again, he punished my hurting bottom and then the sensitive skin at the apex of my thighs. I imagine he gave me fifty more. It felt like a thousand and I started bawling.

  “Spread your legs wider,” he said, unmoved. “As wide as they’ll go.”

  When I complied, he used the strap on my inner thighs. I screeched behind the gag, grateful now that he’d put it on me, because I didn’t think I would have been able to hold back the words screaming in my head. Stop, stop. Oh my fucking God in heaven, stop torturing me.

  By the time he put the strap away, my entire backside and upper legs were on fire. The butt plug was an afterthought. It still didn’t feel good, but it felt better than having my ass paddled and my inner thighs strapped until they burned. I prayed the punishment was over, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be that lucky.