The Uprising (GRIT Sector 1 Book 2)

by Rebecca Sherwin

  “Is the water okay, ma’am?”

  “It’s fine, thank you.”

  “I have some more preparations to make,” she said, wringing out the sponge and placing it down somewhere. “I’ll be back to help you out shortly.”

  I nodded. I no longer cared about fighting for my independence. Would I let her help me out of the bath? Sure. Would I let her go and do whatever she’d been ordered to, and just go with it? Of course. I no longer wanted to fight. I didn’t want to push and pull and shove. I just wanted to lay in this water forever, allowing my body to float on the gentle ebb of rose-peppermint-infused water until it was time to move onto the next part of my day. Today, I would be a medieval woman. I would allow someone else to dictate every move I made and every action I took. Tomorrow I would be strong. Tomorrow I would resume the fight to conquer my husband and his impenetrable will to keep me away from the only thing that was keeping me alive.

  Lola wrapped me in a fluffy towel that felt like a cloud and smelled like magic. It was clean and warm, but the scent of Elias’ sandalwood and ginger body wash lingered on the threads. It brought a stinging tear to my eye and I quickly swiped it away before Lola could question me or interpret it as resistance.

  “Your bath was package number one,” she explained as she led me to the bedroom. “This is package number two.”

  My mouth hung agape when she stopped me at the end of the bed where a whalebone corset waited for me.

  “I can’t wear that,” I said in a moment of rebellion.

  I’d heard about corsets; I’d never worn one but I knew they were once compulsory during court attendance, and that they were painful. It looked like a contraption, the simple bodice laughing at me because it was not simple at all. It was harsh, it was unforgiving, and it was small. I knew I wouldn’t be able to breathe and my legs trembled in preparation for the suffocation I’d undergo if I wore that thing.

  “Mr Blackwood has asked that you do.” She tucked a couple of escaped hairs back into the bun and cupped my shoulders. “I’ll do it as gently as I can.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  Pause. Seconds impregnated with my fear. It was just a corset. I’d suffered strangulation at the hands of my husband; he’d taken my breath away multiple times, with his body pressed so hard to mine I ceased to exist as a single entity. I shouldn’t have feared this piece of material with its harsh structure and ancient purpose, but that was exactly why I feared it. It didn’t belong here in this day and age. There was nothing modern about it, nothing I’d seen in fashion magazines and lingerie shops. It was nothing like the corsets the whores had worn, nothing I imagined when I thought about dressing up for Elias. There was nothing sensual or erotic about this corset…it was designed to constrict and manipulate.

  “It will be uncomfortable,” Lola finally said, dragging me away from my internal panic. “The more you think about it, the worse it will be.”

  Why did this feel like more of a torture method than lingchi or bastinado? I held my breath and closed my eyes, before nodding and dropping the towel. Lola picked up the corset, pressing it to my body and I held it over my stomach as she pulled it closed around my waist and stood behind me to begin threading string through the loops.

  “Breathe, Trixie.”

  I couldn’t breathe. God, I couldn’t breathe. My ribs smarted, my lungs ached to take a long breath, my shoulders had never been so far behind me, and my back cried at being so straight.

  “Lola,” I gasped, clawing at my stomach and trying to bend over to ease the discomfort. “Lola, it’s too tight.”

  The second her fingers touched the knot at the back, there was a thump on the door. I jumped so high my feet left the ground. Lola dropped the string, leaving it to cascade down my back and tickle the back of my bare thighs as she scurried to the door and opened it just enough to see outside.

  I moved to see who was at the door, but I didn’t need to. I could feel him. I ached to go to him; I longed to run to the door and beg him to stop this punishment, but I couldn’t move. My toes sparked with awareness, but my head spun with the lack of oxygen. I took one step, swaying towards the bed.

  “Elias,” I called, pushing off the post and stumbling two steps closer.

  Lola’s fingers flexed against the door, the tips turning white from the force as she conversed with my husband, who refused to see me.

  “Elias, please.”

  I reached the door, gripping the edge and giving it a sharp tug, but Lola pulled in the other direction, and inhalation was on her side. Being able to breathe gave her the upper hand. She closed the door and turned to me as I fell into it.

  “Mr Blackwood has advised that the corset is fine.”

  “What?” I trembled. My core ached at the idea of him watching me. “How did he know?”

  Had he watched Lola undress me? Had he seen me shift to a woman who wanted no part of this weird ritual, to someone who embraced it with fear and obedience? Had he seen her tighten the corset? Had he felt it every time she tugged, shunting me backwards before countering with a shove forwards to tighten the bodice to the point where I couldn’t breathe? I. Couldn’t. Breathe.

  “He always knows,” she said with a smile that apologised to me, but displayed so much pride for her boss.

  “Please, Lola. Please loosen it.”

  “Package number three will be on the way shortly,” she said, guiding me back to the bed and placing my hands on the post so I could support my weight. “Learn to move around in it. It’ll become easier.”

  She wasn’t just talking about the corset.

  “When will you be back?”

  She shrugged and took a step back, edging ever closer to the door with the promise of leaving me alone suffocating in my own body as my husband watched on. She opened the door and nodded once in reassurance before she stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her. The second tear of the day fell when I heard the lock twist, barricading me in.

  I wasn’t just punishing Trixie. I was making us both pay for the mistakes we’d made. The corset had been an addition I made this morning. I wanted her choking, suffocating, strangling, like she made me do every damn day, and every damn time I was near her. I wanted her to know how it felt to be in love with her. I wanted her to know she’d stripped me of all control by taking hers away. I had planned to send her on a romantic adventure. I’d wanted to do something nice, something modern; something that showed her how much I loved her. I wanted to prepare her for more revelations tonight and have her excited to stand by my side at the ball.

  But it wasn’t to be.

  So I’d hold her captive in our bedroom and I’d watch on as she struggled to accept the ritual I threw her into head first, with lungs that couldn’t fully expand.

  As usual, she shocked me. I’d felt it in my soul when she snapped and ceased to exist as Trixie Ashford, born in 1990. Instead she was Trixie Ashford of a century unknown. They all meshed together; a bath from the fifteenth century, a corset from the nineteenth…she’d embraced them both, and I wasn’t done. I’d felt it when she became a historical woman in a contemporary world and I swear, I fucking loved her more for it. How could she deny who she was when I’d sat and watched her become it?

  I had cameras all over the house; Trace had helped me install them and downloaded an app on my phone that allowed me to access them remotely no matter where in the world I was. I’d resisted using them on my wife until today. I’d only used them to spy on staff, but now, today, it would be my way of staying beside Trixie and simultaneously have her begging for me to be there.

  I stepped back into the room down the hall and sat at the desk, kicking of my shoes and lifting my legs to rest my feet on the table. Trixie hadn’t been in this room and I had never been more grateful for the huge TV mounted to the wall. Modern conveniences weren’t something Blackwood House indulged in, but I’d had the sudden urge to buy a TV a few years ago and, well, here we were. Flicking my finger across the screen, I shot the live-acti
on footage from my phone to the TV, seeing Trixie in high-definition, vivid colour and all her perfection as she clutched the bedpost and cried in loneliness. Good. It was how I’d felt last night knowing I’d be alone forever, the end of my bloodline, for as long as she decided to deny me my right to procreate.

  “Are you happy?” she cried, looking around the room. She wouldn’t find the camera; it was as small as one of the specks of frame on the oval mirror on the dresser. It’s where the lens was hidden, capturing every corner and crevice of the room. No matter how intensively she searched, she’d never find it.

  “Very,” I muttered, knowing she’d hear me through the speakers.

  I’d never been worried or remorseful about my stealthy skills at playing hide and seek. Today was no different. I’d been prepared for Trixie my entire life, and I would take great pleasure in watching her sweat it out in a corset that wouldn’t allow her to move and try to break out of the bedroom.

  “You look stunning, Ashford.”

  “Fuck you.” She kept her forehead pressed to the bedpost. She was done. So soon? “I hate you.”

  “You should.” I shifted on the seat as my cock reacted to her anger. I loved it. I wanted the fight. “I told you so many moons ago. It didn’t stop you.”

  “Was it supposed to?”

  Was it? Didn’t I want her to save me? Wasn’t the point that I wanted her to protect me from myself and the dark desires I’d kept hidden my entire life? I didn’t answer her question.

  “I think it’s about time we had a conversation.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you. How dare you sit somewhere on your fucking throne and watch me suffer?”

  “Is it really so bad?” I already knew the answer. Once again, Trixie Ashford was lying to herself. “It doesn’t make you hot that I’m watching you? It doesn’t make your cunt wet when you think about how hard I am sitting here watching you writhe inside your own body?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, sitting up to lean closer to the TV. The picture perfect resolution did nothing to showcase her true beauty, but it did everything to make me want to bury myself inside her until I forgot my own name. “Are you sure you don’t want to squeeze your legs together when you think about me fucking you in that thing? You wouldn’t be able to breathe. Imagine the sparks of pain that would flare in your ribs every time I drove into you as the whalebones kissed your flesh.”

  “What do you want from me?” she spat, throwing her head back and growling at the ceiling. “You want me to tell you I’m sorry?”

  “I think we’re beyond that. And we both have something to apologise for.”

  “So what do you want?”

  “I want you to turn around and press your back to the post.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Disobey and you’ll find out.”

  She thought for a minute, but she knew I was absolute in my decision to stay away from her. Would she still accept a punishment knowing it wouldn’t be me administering the pleasurable painful cocktail?

  “I choose to disobey, Mr Blackwood.”

  Fuck! That wasn’t part of the plan.

  “Very well,” I clipped, my voice tight with the urge to roar at her and demand she stop pushing me. I cut the microphone on my end and stood from the desk. Retrieving the footage onto my phone, I left the room, grabbing the box by the door on the way out, and stalked through the house to find Lola.

  “Go and put these on her,” I said, tossing the box onto the counter in the kitchen. I didn’t look up from watching Trixie trying to train her breathing.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lola scurried past me with the third package, disappearing out of the kitchen. I trudged after her, climbing the stairs as I watched her enter the room and place the box on the bed. By the time I returned to the office and transferred the video back to the TV, Trixie was pleading. My cock twitched in my pants, the sounds of her cries for mercy making me instantly hard.

  “Please, Lola.” She wrapped her arms around the bedpost and pressed her cheek to the unforgiving hardwood. “I can’t even move on my own feet yet.”

  Lola wouldn’t back down. She knew she’d be in for a shift in the crematorium if she backed down and heeded to her instincts to connect with Trixie, instead of her job to obey my orders. She took the first shoe from the box. I’d calculated the height perfectly. At five feet five inches, Trixie was seven inches shorter than me. In five inch heels, she’d be at the perfect height. The perfect height for me to dive into her neck and suck on her bruised flesh. The perfect height for me to bend and grind my cock against her. She’d be the perfect height for me to slip between her legs and rub my shaft between her folds. She’d just be fucking perfect; like a marionette on strings that I controlled with my will alone.

  Grabbing Trixie’s ankle, Lola slid the black strappy shoe onto the first foot. I watched enthralled as she pulled on the straps, securing the shoe to her foot and my cock wept with euphoria as Trixie pressed her foot to the ground. Her body raised the extra five inches and all I could think about was her body sliding against mine as it did. Chest to chest. Stomach to stomach. Feet to feet. She’d only have to tip her head back a little and I could dive into her mouth and steal her breath to replace the oxygen she zapped from me with her presence.

  Lola secured the other shoe and Trixie wobbled on the thin heels. I’d never seen anything so sexy in my life. There was something so fucking erotic about her vulnerability. My cock was so hard it threatened to break through the zip on my jeans. My head pounded with the need to fuck her. My eyes burned as I committed the image to memory. My fingers flexed and one hand dropped to stroke myself through my trousers. Trixie was crying. She was lost, uncomfortable, and it pleased me so much more than it should have to see her finally breaking for me. Because of me.

  “Package number four will arrive shortly,” Lola said, cupping Trixie’s cheek.

  I’d allow her that. I’d let her soothe my wife so her soul healed a little bit before I swooped in and chipped at it once more. Lola left the room and all that could be heard were Trixie’s sniffles as she shuffled on the spot and gripped the bedpost with white-knuckle force.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  I reconnected the microphone. “I told you I wanted to talk. I just wanted to see your face. You disobeyed because you thought I wanted a challenge. You were wrong, Ashford.”

  “I guess I was.” She took a deep breath and turned, pressing her back to the bedpost. “Is this better?”

  “Immensely.” A pang of sadness penetrated my chest and I scrubbed my hand over my face. I no longer had the power or motivation to want to do this. “Why are you crying?”

  “Because you hurt me.”

  “Did I?” I asked, refusing to believe that was the most important reason. “Or are you crying because some small part of you likes it?”

  “You know I like it. I don’t care about the physical stuff. It appears you could beat me until I’m black and blue and I’d still want you. It’s the emotional stuff that hurts.”

  Finally, she was being honest. Finally, she was giving me something to work with. I could fix us, if I knew what had gone wrong.

  “I wouldn’t hurt you beyond anything you enjoy.”

  It was the truth. I think.

  “I know. I trust you with my body, Elias. I don’t trust you with my heart. You’re breaking it.” She sniffed again and I watched her bottom lip tremble. “Why?”

  “Because you break me,” I confessed. “The heart can heal. The soul cannot.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that without me, you would survive. You would heal. Without you, I’m nothing. You’ve taken everything and the only way I can accept that is to know I’ve taken everything from you.”

  “Why can’t you see that you have?”

  Because she still had fire in her eyes. As long as the inferno scorched me like it did—paralysing me to everything bu
t her—she held power over me. She had something I didn’t, and I couldn’t bear it. I’d been in control my entire life, and Trixie had torn it down in a matter of months.

  “Because you’re still standing.”

  “Baby…” I shuddered at the emotion in her voice. The fear, the sadness, the love. “You don’t have to break me to have me. Do you think I’d be yours if I was no longer my own?”

  Fuck. I dragged my hand through my hair as a collection of Eli’s slammed into me at once. Each one had a different solution. Each one had a different way of interpreting what Trixie meant. I was no longer mine, but I was hers. What did it mean that she wanted both? She’d floor me. She’d strip me bare. She’d leave me. She’d fail to love me…like my mother had. Where had that come from? I growled.

  “Walk to the chest of drawers and open the top right.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, Ashford. Now.”

  I kept the anger within. I kept the beast on a leash. I kept thoughts of my mother from my mind. I watched as Trixie took a tentative step, wobbling on the heels, keeping her hand on the post. She took the deepest breath she could, her breasts almost spilling from the corset as she poised herself to walk tall. See? I hadn’t broken her. I hadn’t walked with that much confidence and strength since she’d waltzed into my life. Putting one foot in front of the other like she lived in five-inch heels, Trixie crossed the room and opened the drawer as I mirrored her action with the drawer on the desk next to me.