by Rae, Nikki
I was relieved he wasn’t going to try to act like he didn’t know what I was talking about. Still, he held on to the hope that I would stumble over this question while knowing I’d already seen the truth. Leaning forward, I was surprised when he didn’t pull away. He let me wheel the chair closer, so he was forced to look up even more.
“I’ve seen you,” I whispered. “I can see you right now, Elliot.”
He shut his eyes as if it would make me stop, taking a deep breath before he opened them again. “And I’ve seen you, Fawn.” His eyes appeared glassy, like if I didn’t tear my gaze away he would start to cry. Part of me wanted to see his tears, but I looked away.
Master Lyon didn’t try to get me to look at him again, and we were completely silent for what felt like a long time. “You want me to better prepare you for…” I could hear him swallow, as if the words had claws as they clogged his throat. “For when I’m not there.”
I blinked at him, searching his face for any sign of danger, but he wasn’t teasing me, baiting a hook to pierce through my cheek. He wanted me to know he understood my fear. He understood my motives. The ones he could see, anyway.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Please.”
Eight
I didn’t know what I’d asked for but I needed him to give it to me. I needed the man who Owned me for now—protected, cared, and maybe…loved me—to show me all he could.
“Okay,” he murmured before leaning up in his chair, slowly rising no more than a few inches from me, eyes trained on mine. He held out a hand to me and led me to the roomy leather armchair, sitting me on the edge so my legs curled over one arm. “Lie back,” he said.
I wanted to tell him it didn’t have to be now, but even in my head it sounded childish. Of course it did. Now was all we had. There was no future for us.
“Hey.” He was back in front of me, hand cupping my face. “Don’t leave me.”
It couldn’t have been more than a second, but in that short amount of time he’d seen my face go blank as the thought crossed my mind. Now when I looked back at him, I buried it. “Sorry.”
Without any more hesitation, I scooted until my back was against the opposite armrest. It was an awkward position, but not uncomfortable.
“Separate your arms and place them behind you,” he instructed. “Whatever doesn’t strain your muscles too much.”
Again, I did as he said, forcing myself to inhale deeply as my breasts arched into the cold air and my arms stretched as they wrapped around the back of the armrest, framing my head.
“That’s good,” he encouraged, slowly walking around me until he stood near my legs.
I felt his fingers gently grip my left ankle and I jumped, glancing down just long enough to see that he was once again sitting in the desk chair. I snapped my eyes back up to the ceiling as he repositioned my feet so my knees were on either side of him, resting on the seat of his chair against his outer thighs. He allowed me to keep my knees together, but I still felt exposed, too vulnerable.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated. “Just keep your hands above your head. If you want me to stop, lower them.” A comforting hand rubbed my calf.
“Yes, sir,” I whispered.
He roamed the bottom half of my leg almost absentmindedly; he was thinking or maybe waiting for me to immediately lower my arms and put an end to it.
“One of the first things you’ll learn,” he said slowly, “is that there is no modesty. Some Owners prefer their charges wear clothing only on special occasions.”
I swallowed hard. It was impossible not to remember what I’d worn the first time in Master Jäger’s home. A silky pink dress I’d loved at the time it was delivered in the weeks leading up to my Ownership. A ridiculous princess dress which billowed out in layers of tulle. A dress of a naïve little girl. A dress only a wolf could provide.
However, once he’d shown me the cage where I’d be sleeping, once I’d crawled around the room for his entertainment, he’d told me to strip naked and make him lunch.
Jäger had burned that dress in the hearth while silent tears rolled down my cheeks. I could recall his smell as he bit into the sausage I so desperately wanted to eat, stomach growling as the juice dripped down his chin. I could recall how a piece of it got stuck in his teeth, how in an instant I felt just as insignificant.
“Are you deaf, Dog?” He’d shouted after his prior attempts to get my attention had gone unnoticed. Even then, with the name so new, it was as if he shoved me further into the ground each time he uttered it. When I nervously looked in his direction, his boot was already in my face and he kicked me back a few feet. “Go fetch my tea, dumb slut.”
No one had ever used that word around me before and I wasn’t sure what it meant at the time. Dog was enough.
“Doe,” Master Lyon pleaded, “stay with me.”
Blinking myself back to the present, I nodded and closed my eyes, only concentrating on what was around me and not what was within me. I was afraid if I dug too far, I would come up with nothing but mangled, thorny memories that wouldn’t help me right now. Would I feel the same about the ones Master Lyon had created for me, or would I call on them to chase the nightmares away?
“Sorry, sir,” I whispered. “I’m here.”
“Good,” he replied, resuming rubbing my calf before he started to remove my shoes. I’d completely forgotten about the numbness in my toes until they were free and he let me rest them near his warm legs as I heard them each drop to the floor. “You’ve been spoiled here,” he said. “Being treated like a human being.” I could tell it he intended to sound sarcastic and humorous, but it fell flat.
I focused on how soft his hands were as he squeezed life back into my feet and then my ankles and. I hadn’t realized how sore these areas were until he’d relieved the pain and I found myself relaxing into his touch.
“I’m not trying to be cruel,” he whispered, fingertips now lightly grazing my skin. “I’m trying to prepare you. I know how the minds of men like him work.”
That was probably true, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
“He will probably want to beat you as soon as possible.” His tone hadn’t changed, but it was so blunt I felt it like a blow to the abdomen. “But you knew that.” He paused, letting me absorb what he was saying even though he was right; it wasn’t hard to figure out what a man like Jäger would want to do to me the second I was back under his Ownership.
“But,” he added, “I’m sure you’ve been beaten enough to know how that will feel. You’re good at shutting off that part of your brain, aren’t you, Doe?”
Eyes still closed, I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Lightly, I felt his warm lips against my bare knee. “Spread your legs.”
I hesitated, contemplating for the briefest of moments before I did as he’d ordered, unable to move more than a few centimeters.
“Wider,” he said. “I’m allowing you the choice to do this yourself. Others will not.”
Once again, he was right. He was giving me something men like Jäger took away.
Taking a deep breath, I complied, widening the space between my legs until I could go no further.
“Good.” His voice sounded overly sweet, yet sincere. He knew how uncomfortable thinking about these things made me—mimicking them as if to store away for the appropriate reactions later, when I was with someone with rougher hands, clumsy fingers, and filthy, degrading words.
“You can be exposed at any time, Doe,” he said. “Your body or your true intentions.”
Even though Master Lyon had seen me in the most intimate of ways, the most raw and honest, right now was the barest I’d ever felt in front of him.
He sat back in his chair, either taking in every little detail or wanting me to think that he was. Half of my existence would become humiliation, so I supposed this too was supposed to be stored away for future use.
“You won’t be human anymore,” he finally said so quietly I almost didn’t hear him. I kne
w this as well, but the way he’d said it told me he knew it better. “You will become less than a dog or a worm, Doe.” His hands soothed up the backs of my thighs, squeezing in a way I could only interpret as comforting. “You will become nothing but a vessel to fuck, hurt, and defile.”
I fought to keep my hands over my head, to keep listening to the truths I’d already known but had been too terrified or preoccupied to examine.
“All you’ll be,” he said, and I gasped as a single finger just skimmed the beginning of my entrance, but I kept still and made my legs stay open, “is a series of holes for others to use.”
I didn’t say anything and once he realized I wasn’t upset by his words or how he touched me, he came closer. Positioning my legs so I was no longer open to him, he stood, leaning over me slowly so I could feel his reassuring weight on top of me. That’s what it was; reassuring. He rubbed my arms until I could feel his face close to mine, nose against my cheek. Briefly, our fingers intertwined and our hands squeezed together as if we were afraid to let go.
“That’s when he gets tired of beating you,” he whispered in my ear, turning my chin so my head lay to one side. Posture adjusted, his hands went back to roaming my body. “Men like him,” he went on, breath warm, “they don’t know how to touch a woman, how to make them crave it, beg for it.” One hand tangled in my hair, his other palming my right breast. It wasn’t too hard, rushed, or clumsy. He wanted me to imagine the contrast of these things—how they would be with him and how they would be with someone else. He was showing me what it would be like without the fear, without the threat of him harming me.
I must have tensed because I realized my muscles had begun to relax just as his grip loosened. Lifting himself up carefully so I could see his face, my eyes flitted open as a reflex. I kept them open when he didn’t scold me; his expression only seemed concerned and focused.
“Do you want me to continue?” he asked.
I hesitated a moment to think, but thinking was too dangerous right now. Planning was the only safe option, and with that, I would only focus on the end goal of this little exercise and how it would help me survive later. If I thought, I could only concentrate on how screwed up this whole thing was. How I was letting him do this to me when I could have been fighting; I could have been making my current Owner feel half of what I would with my soon-to-be Master.
“Yes, sir.” I looked into his eyes, wishing I could burn their brown depths into my mind for when I would need them. Then I let my eyelids slide closed.
Unmoving, I could feel his chest expand and contract as he took deep breaths. He hadn’t asked the question just for me, but him as well, so he had a chance of stopping without being the one to crack first. I was the one in control here. I was the only one who could make it stop.
It was so unlike the real thing, where I was powerless and controlled nothing. It was much easier to start this way.
Master Lyon’s hands had returned to my skin, warm, strong, but surprisingly soft. He only touched my arms, innocent parts of my legs. “I’m sure you’re aware that a man like Master Jäger won’t be gentle, won’t care about your pleasure, but men like him are also impatient and eager.” He cupped my cheek as if to make sure I wouldn’t imagine too hard; that I wouldn’t leave him alone in the room again.
“And old,” I whispered, and I felt his breath and heard his quiet laugh. I found myself with a ghost of a smirk before it disappeared. How did he do that? How did he make me want to please him, even now, when the truth was in the open and this game would belong to us no longer?
“Yes, he’s old,” he whispered back, hand leaving my cheek only so it could roam the contours of my stomach. “With him, you will have been beaten, broken down more than you thought possible.” His face came closer now, and I was slightly more at ease like this; more protected.
“That’s how men like him get off,” he said. “He’ll want to see you broken, sobbing, all your fight gone.”
The next breath I took nearly stuck in my throat and choked me.
“But,” he added, “you aren’t going to break, are you, my brave, strong Doe?”
“No, sir,” I said, and it was like a promise.
“No,” he repeated. “But you need to make him believe you have.” His hands wrapped around my wrists, pinning my arms to the chair above me. “The longer you take to break, the more you prolong the worst part, which is over in minutes.”
It was simple, the way he worded it, but I could tell by the tone that he didn’t believe what he’d said. He knew the worst part would be longer for me. He couldn’t begin to guess how things would go beyond that.
“Will…?” The word left my mouth unbidden, tight and shattering the rest of my question.
His grip around my wrists loosened a bit. “You can ask me anything, Doe.” His soft voice was strained. “Anything that will help you.”
Shards of glass cut my throat. Still, I forced the words out of my mouth. “Will it hurt?” I asked. Then, in an even smaller voice, I said, “Will it hurt, Elliot?”
His fingers found renewed strength around my wrists, but it wasn’t a warning. Now they held on as if he feared doing so would rip us apart from each other too soon.
“Yes,” he whispered what I already knew, “but…”
Maybe the idea upset him more than he’d thought it would, imagining it so clearly alongside me. With the path laid out, it was easier to accept. Like a list of instructions I needed to follow in order to live through it.
“But,” he repeated after what felt like a much longer time, “it gets…easier.” His body became tense on top of me and I almost opened my eyes again. “Sex is just a bodily function,” he whispered. “For me, it became as routine as showering.”
I took in a staggering breath.
“Three,” he commanded in his normal voice, at his normal volume.
I scrambled to understand, remember which position matched this number. My trembling legs bent, knees to my chest as I slowly brought my arms down to hold them there.
“Good.” He soothed the wrinkles from my forehead with a reassuring hand. “Men like him will want to see you,” he said, shifting closer so I could feel the fabric of his pants against me. None of this made him hard, and it was comforting to know he wasn’t enjoying this. “They like to watch the fire in your eyes go dim. The moment you become a blank, vacant pretty thing they wouldn’t otherwise be able to fuck if not for the Order.”
He allowed me to take a deep breath before he continued.
“You will show them this too,” he said, “but you won’t really be broken, will you, my Doe?”
One simple word in front of the name he’d given me and my chest filled with unshed tears. “No, sir.”
“Only I can break you.” I felt his fingers graze my cheek. “And if I break you, I will always put you back together. I would never leave you broken.”
I struggled to grasp his meaning as my head swam. I could only know what I felt, and as much as I wanted to rip myself from all his tangled roots, deep down I would always be attached. He could only break me if he had my permission; mentally, emotionally, sexually. If I was destined to be broken from birth, I’d want it to be Master Lyon who did it. I would save that piece of myself for him at the very least. He Owned me, body and soul, and I couldn’t explore that fact any more than that or I would break myself before anyone else could.
“I’d want it to be you.” The declaration tumbled from my mouth.
He pressed a soft, deliberate kiss to my temple. “You’d want what to be me, Doe?”
I gulped, trying to hold back a sob. “I would want you to be…my first everything,” I said, thankful I’d kept my eyes closed so I wouldn’t have to look at his reaction to my childish confession.
Now I heard him swallow, a tiny twitch of his hardness against me before he took a deep breath and it disappeared. “If I had a choice,” he whispered in my ear, sending goose bumps down my exposed skin, “I would be the first to teach you every
thing.”
Finally, his mouth captured mine, tentatively at first, then hungry, heated. I matched him before he backed away and said, slightly breathless, “Five.”
I knew this one. He’d once told me this was the most favored among straight male Members. Still, I would have to stand up to perform my task.
“M-may I open my eyes while I switch, sir?” I hated myself for stuttering but it was instinct to do to. Plus, I needed to do these things, act this way, be this person. I had to practice it now while I was with him. I’d wasted so much time already.
“Yes,” he said, straightening and taking a few steps away.
It was colder somehow, without him hovering near me, but I didn’t dwell on it. Instead, lowering my legs and bracing my arms against the armrest, I opened my eyes just long enough to stand, turn around, and climb back onto the seat on my hands and knees, facing the backrest and away from him. I arched my back slightly, sticking out my backside the way he’d taught me.
I heard his shoes on the hardwood and he gathered the hair from my neck, tugging firmly at the base of my skull so my head moved backwards and arched my back even more.
It had suddenly become warm behind my ears, a pleasant shiver tingling through my veins. I felt his breath against the back of my neck as he spoke. “If you want me to stop,” he murmured, “tell me.” His free hand slowly rubbed the length of my spine, which helped calm my racing pulse. “I want you to tell me to stop only if you truly feel you need to. Not because you’re scared, embarrassed, or uncomfortable. Understood?”
I shifted my knees on the cushion, trying hard not to think about why he felt the need to clarify. “Did I do something wrong, sir?” I asked, guessing this was the reason I was in position five.
He’d told me men liked this one in particular for beating girls. The skin along my backside was pulled tighter this way, which would cause more pain once the punishment began.
