I smile and tilt my chin just a fraction up.
"No."
"Too bad for our little Lena," he sneers back. "Undress." He says the word softly, almost tenderly. But the malice behind it feels like liquid ice.
Pure hatred is all that shines in those dark bottomless eyes. Suddenly I'm afraid, very afraid. Panic like I've never known before clenches at the pit of my stomach. Where is my master? Where is his warm soothing presence? The strength of his body? The power, the solace, the harbor of his embrace? Instinctively, even though I should know better, I turn to cast a quick look in his direction.
What I see turns my galloping heart into a solid block of ice. Where the image of the violent, almost animalistic, love had been only moments ago, it is now replaced by that of a man and a woman, a very beautiful woman, I realize with a pang of jealousy, kissing.
Their limbs are intertwined in an unfettered pose of all-encompassing love. With deepening sorrow, I see evidence of my master's contentment seeping out from the gap between the woman's shapely thighs. Tears start rolling down my cheeks.
"We don't believe in contraception, Isla and I," Benjamin's voice is calm, analytical in its coldness. "We do believe in polyandry and polygamy though. She is only thirty-seven years old, and always wanted a child." I can feel that monster of a man place his hand on his chin in mock contemplation. "As I mentioned earlier, I'm quite sterile. But your master, he can probably single-handedly double the population of this country and is surely well on his way to actually doing it…"
Through my teary eyes I see a diabolical smile creep across his thin lips. "I wonder if that isn't actually the reason Isla was so much looking forward to our visit tonight. Hmmm… Do you think it took? Let me see… Her last period was," Benjamin pulls out his cell phone and actually looks up an app with little purple hearts on its icon. "Yes – – nine days ago. So…"
I scream in anger. I make to slap him but with the speed of a predator, he plucks my hand from the air well before it even comes close to his cheek. He smiles but his dark eyes stay deathly serious.
"You love your master. I can see that. But does he love you? And even if he does, are you prepared to share him? In your contract it says that you have given him all rights to do as he pleases with your body. That means he might want to share you with, I don't know, say me for example. The same way I'm sharing Isla with him right now. That was my decision, to bring her over here tonight, by the way, not hers. Or maybe he might decide to put you out to be gangbanged and film you and then upload the movie to some seedy little website."
Now I am crying for real, tears pouring down my face and soaking the material of my dress where they fall on my chest. “You'd be surprised how many men get off on stuff like that. Me included. But I'm not one to judge. I wonder though, would you be, comfortable with that?”
He looks at me pointedly and then tightens his grip on my hand. "Hey, I asked your question. Don't you tune me out, not unless you want me to flunk you. You will never see him again after that.”
I look at Benjamin glassy eyed and steel my quivering nerves. My master loves me in his own way. I know it for a fact no matter what this asshole says.
"I'm sorry, sir. I – I wouldn't mind. I'm not comfortable with it, but my master is my master — he knows what's best for him and me too," I hate my quivering voice. For a wonderful moment it seems that my words have knocked out the wind from Benjamin's words.
"You are precious. Now that I'm thinking of it, maybe I'll take you as my own…"
"Never!" My voice has gained in conviction what it lacks in strength. Finally.
"We shall see about that, child. You know Isla was once his too. And now…"
"Never!" I repeat and actually believe my own words. Benjamin looks up.
"Hey, Isla baby, Lena here won't admit to it, but she is wondering how you like it being with me?"
"No, I…" I cannot finish my thought because Benjamin muzzles me with his accursed hand again and then for good measure pinches my nipples viciously through the sheer in my dress. This makes me double in two with pain. From the corner of my eye however I catch a glimpse of my master suddenly sit up in a crouch.
His face is pure unadulterated rage. He is almost all the way up when Isla's hand comes up around his neck and she says something softly in his ear. His look is all that I need to give me the strength to persevere.
***
Soon we are on our way. Benjamin has guided me into his car and we are driving to his estate where the real test will begin.
"Are you going to torture me?"
"Only if you want me to."
"And if I don't?"
"Honeysuckle, remember?"
I groan. "There must be another way."
"There isn't."
"But why?" The thick heavy treads of his luxury European car swallow the sounds of the road. We ride in absolute silence. It is dark outside but the heavily tinted windows shield us from the streets of downtown Manhattan in December. I look through the glass and see people going about their predictably hectic routines. I don't feel the slightest desire to be with them however. I have perhaps indeed changed into something different. I'm no longer the girl I was only a month ago.
How strange. I feel a dark sense of belonging here, in this black car with this evil man driving it. I have molted, but unlike a butterfly, I no longer crave the light. Now, I enjoy the predictable sharp tangy taste of darkness. Slowly, I look over at the man driving and I see him smile. A shiver makes my whole body tremble.
He is a sadist. He's looking forward to my ordeal. I feel a familiar wetness spread between my legs. I think I look forward to it too. And then I wonder – – what if I really do like being a slave, no matter who my master is?
***
Master:
In my dream she's on a boat. She wears a sheer black dress. The wind is blowing strong. I cannot see her eyes but I can feel her perfume. Gentle waves of jasmine and spice make my skin tingle.
She's wearing black leather strappys on her feet. Gone are the Golden anklets I gave her. Gone is the heavy chain around her waist.
She turns. She smiles. But my heart does not rejoice. She is smiling at someone else. I don't see him clearly. He steps around where I stand and ignores me. His attention is anchored on her. She welcomes it. Her lips part and she says something. I don't have to hear what she tells him. Their chemistry is strong. I can feel it and it makes my chest hurt.
Suddenly I'm awake. The cold red digits of the clock blink mockingly at me.
It is six days, twelve hours and sixteen minutes since he took her from me. Almost a week now since Lena left. He will put her to every test he can. He will be cold and dark, menacing and awe-inspiring one moment, and warm, charming and fatherly the next.
He will flog her, chastise her lovely flesh, push her mind and tempt her body to renounce her future with me. It is the way of the dark tradition of the ordeal of love.
I know because I have done what he's doing now. A long time ago I took Isla and for ten days I tried to break her. I tried to push her beyond her endurance of pain, to tempt her, to show her she's too good for him, that she could belong to a better man, a better master, to me.
I failed.
Will Lena be as strong as Isla was? Will Benjamin succeed where I failed? The ancients say our lives have been preordained by destiny. If they are correct, either way, it will work out for the best. If Lena comes back to me, nothing will ever tear us apart.
The end is near. I cannot wait.
~
Suspended
It is dark when we arrive. I can see snowflakes fluttering suspended mid-air as if following different laws of physics than the ones controlling us mere mortals. But the cold weather is not why I'm shivering. The tall gates close behind the enormous black car and I look back through the sideview mirror and I wonder if I will ever see the outside of this mansion again.
"Undress." Benjamin’s voice is unnerving because it is so very devoid of emotion tha
t I cannot even feel his hatred anymore. It all just makes me want to scream. “Do it in the car. I want you naked like the day you were born before you step outside." I turn around in my seat to look at him in indignation but he responds by merely cocking an eyebrow. I sigh. There's no point…
***
I miss my bed. Calling the bare mattress and skimpy blanket where I sleep at my master's home a bed is laughable but I miss it just the same. Anything is better than being suspended like a piece of meat for hours on end. Naked, shivering and alone, I hang in the darkness waiting for the moment when terror becomes reality.
Chains pull my ankles apart. I grapple for purchase on the balls of my feet. I have been standing like that for the better part of the night. At first, I spent many hours imagining what the great mansion above has to look like. From what I could glimpse on the way in through the slush and the snow as I rushed from the warmth of the car naked to the door, the house is gigantic. I didn’t have time to gawk though as I felt Benjamin's cold clammy fingers on my elbow as he unceremoniously guided me in and down towards a staircase into the bowels of the building.
He didn't speak and I was too overwhelmed to bother asking any questions. He silently cuffed my wrists to chains hanging from the ceiling and then attached my ankles to iron manacles embedded in the floor. I was forced to stand spreadeagled and naked in the center of an otherwise empty room. The chains around my wrists were taut enough to make me stand on the balls of my feet if I didn't want to dislocate my shoulders.
“Good night, baby slave,” he said without turning to look at me from the door. His voice was devoid of the faintest sign of remorse or hatred. He stood there waiting and finally I answered.
"Good night, sir."
He nodded and flicked the light off casting the room and me and total darkness.
I'm not sure what is the purpose of having me just stand here like that but one thing becomes abundantly clear as the hours slowly and excruciatingly slip by: I cannot sleep. Not like that, suspended the way I am. I am slowly becoming intimately familiar with the meaning of the word discomfort.
It isn’t so much the pain or the awkwardness of my nakedness. By now I am well past that. But I am so keyed up emotionally that I soon begin to experience the sharpest, deepest pangs of anxiety and sheer panic I have ever felt.
Soon I am screaming for mercy. I am prepared to give up anything this man wants, just so he would come back and flip the light switch again. I scream bloody murder until my voice grows hoarse and my vocal chords are on the verge of ripping. Eventually I succumb to a sort of slumber midway between a real sleep and full wakefulness. I drift off and start dreaming fitful nightmares.
I don't know how much later it is when Benjamin finally returns. If I had the energy, I would have smiled with joy. I have never felt quite so happy before in my life. He is back! He is going to release my chains and help me out of my misery.
“Shhhh, little one," I feel his breath on the nape of my neck where his long spindly fingers gently caress my sweaty skin. I feel his hand trail down between my legs and the way I'm splayed out there's nothing I can do but moan at his touch. “Shhhh, baby… You are dry.” I feel his fingers grate against my parched folds. “You must be thirsty,” he says and I feel the soft rubbery nozzle of a water bottle at my lips. I drink ravenously. The water has an odd, metallic taste, but I don’t care. “Pace yourself, sweetheart don't drink too much. I will be back with more later," he says.
Wait! Be back? No, I want you to let me go! Now! I think, but I dare not lift my lips off the nozzle for fear that the precious liquid will stop and the thirst will return.
And then just like that, without saying anything more, Benjamin steps back, places the bottle on the floor by my feet and walks away! I hear the desolate clang of the heavy iron door close shut behind my interrogator. At this point I have no more energy to scream, but merely moan, my mewling whimpers echoing back at me from the naked walls of the room. I sound so pathetic and desperate. At least now the glaring neon lights are on. Minutes fall upon each other and become hours and I slowly start to come to grips with my ordeal.
Blinded
I have to pee!
Oh dear God, surely he doesn't mean me to go like that, right here standing chained like an animal, in the middle of this garish room?!
“Benjamin! Come back!” I scream. “Help! Please somebody, anybody help me.”
The futility of it all comes crashing down and for an awful moment the thought crosses my mind that he might never return!
But then I remember what he said: "I will be back with more later,” and my heart fills with joy and I relax again. Soon a groan escapes my lips. What I had been miserably withholding has now trickled down my outstretched thighs forming a rivulet of yellow at my feet. I crane my neck and look down to see it slowly meander away from me towards a grated hole in the middle of the concrete floor.
Suddenly I am struck by a realization — I am strung up not unlike a carcass in the center of a modern-day dungeon. Unbidden, my mind races with images of the women who had to have preceded me here. Completely unbidden and unwanted the face of my mother floats up in my mind's eye and a deep nerve-racking sob renders me in two.
My mother! Eleanor! My master and Benjamin clearly knew her once. Know her still? And just like that with a certainty brought on by my subconscious, I just know it — my mother was once tied up and put through her paces just like I am now.
That is about when my tears start rolling down my cheeks. One by one they soon become a veritable stream, pouring down my sides as sobs threaten to break me literally in two.
I'm not exactly sure why I'm crying. Is it because I'm afraid of what has happened to me? Or perhaps it is because I'm afraid of what is to come? Perhaps, my tears spring with the realization that my mother, the person I cherish and worship most in the world, was once a woman just like me — a woman in search of greater meaning, of a master. Was she ever able to find him?
One thought leads to the next and now my head is split with the worst headache of my life. Too many questions, some of them too hurtful to even formulate in words. Yet one among them floats above the rest like a storm cloud. What if my master was also hers?
Could Doctor Branigan, my master, actually be my father?
The thought suddenly sends pins and needles through every fiber of my body making my knees go week and my belly queasy.
No, please, God no!
He did mention having known my mother way back and so did my Inquisitor Benjamin. But Benjamin also is apparently infertile, or so he says. My mind feels like mush infused with cotton balls as it struggles to remember every last word my master said in reference to Eleanor.
Until, at last, mercifully, I remember him telling Benjamin that he ran tests on me at the hospital. Benjamin had asked if I was his. At the time, I thought they were referring to my status as his slave but now I know what they were really talking about. Doctor Branigan had taken a blood sample from me and actually done a paternity test! And thankfully, he said, it had come back negative.
My body slumps down again into a lull of grateful relaxation. The thought that I might have even spent a day, let alone the better part of a full month as my own father’s live-in submissive would have surely driven me insane.
Exhaustion overwhelms me and I drift off into a restless slumber. When I wake again, it is many hours later. I can tell by the numbness in my shoulders and the pain whirling all across my distended body. I know I should feel hunger but I don't. I remember that the water Benjamin gave me had a sweet metallic taste to it. He must somehow be artificially suppressing my appetite.
I hang there, sweaty, dirty and dejected, but feeling happy even though I'm not exactly sure why.
Perhaps I am merely going through the biochemical ups and downs of captivity. I realize something else too. In spite of my predicament, I feel aroused! I cannot understand why that would be and then a fullness in my chest presents the answer.
I am in milk for
a second day now! And nobody has used a pump or so much as suckled on me. I look down and shock forces my eyes wide open. My small boobs are crisscrossed with thick blue veins oddly contrasting with my puffy pink nipples that look positively engorged and angry-red in comparison.
Oh God, no! I feel my emotional roller coaster take a nosedive. I know how happy my master was when I came in milk. Never mind the pain, the discomfort, but if I don't pump soon, I know my body will revert to normalcy and my milk will soon dry up.
“Please!” I beg the empty room. “Please,” I beg the barren walls.
And then I hear it! Footsteps. There is somebody by the door. It opens and I see Benjamin walk in.
“Please, sir…”
“What are you begging for, slave?” He asks, his voice, even and dispassionate. Almost mechanical.
“I…my master…I'm sorry,” I break down in sobs. The humiliation, the shame of it all is too much. I blush deep crimson.
"My breasts, they are full of milk. If I don't pump soon, they will dry up.” Benjamin looks down at my chest. His eyes are cold and analytical. He steps forward and hefts first one breast and then another. I feel his fingers pinch and squeeze and sure enough, a long white stream of liquid springs forth from the pores along my puffy and sensitive nipples.
“I suppose you are, but then, why should I care? It's not like you're my slave.” His eyes now looking deep into mine.
“My master,” I hiccup, “He will be crestfallen.”
“So you want me to figure out a way to keep you in milk just so you can keep your master happy when I send you back to him?” I nod energetically.
Benjamin's fingers draw lazy circles from the tips of my nipples down to the base of my boobs and then back up again. "Hmmm, I guess we can figure something out, but you need to offer me something else in return.”
Lena's Fall: Volumes Eight through Fifteen of Lena’s Journey Page 6
