by CJ Roberts
“This is going to hurt a little but I promise you’ll feel better when I’m done.”
My body tensed. I pressed my buttocks together, afraid he wasn’t done with his belt yet. I flinched when his hands made contact with my wounded flesh. He rubbed me down with cold cream, the feel of it so delicious I leaned into his hands as he put it on. I was sure he broke skin in some places.
I wanted to cry when he stopped, but didn’t. He lay down next to me, his face close to mine, but I did not turn away. I stared him directly in the eyes. But when he smiled, it was warm, inviting, kind even. Somehow, and against all odds, it still reminded me of the first time I met him. I shut my eyes.
Exhausted, I fell asleep again. This time I did not dream.
5
Caleb shut the girl’s door behind him and locked it, putting the key in his pocket. He put his forehead to the closed door. He saw her body again, laying face down on the mattress, welts crisscrossing the back of her body from shoulder to ankle. He wanted to trace each one with the tip of his tongue, leaving no part of her untouched. Through the door he could hear her muffled crying, and a strange shiver ran through him.
Tension coiled inside him, manifesting in his entire body, his muscles tight. He stretched his hands and then fisted them tightly, knuckles popping then relaxing. He loosened his body further, forcing himself to unwind. It was three in the morning. He was wired, sweaty, and in need of something, anything—a woman maybe. He looked away, the soft hue of the lights muted but illuminating enough.
He liked this house. He liked it more with each passing week he spent inside it. From what he was told, it was once a sugar plantation until the Mexican revolution put an end to slave labor. The land was barren now, but the house still stood. The owner had spent hundreds of thousands remodeling the home, allowing for electricity throughout, though many things were still incomplete. The large, square kitchen still looked like it was falling apart, but you could see flashes of the new and modern. It had a fire stove, but a state-of-the-art microwave. The ceramic tile under his feet was probably original, but the fireplace was electric. In fact, the only room in the house that was completely finished was the one he currently occupied—the master suite.
In the background the girl continued to cry, and the sound of her sobs seemed amplified to his ears. When he shut his eyes his brain immediately sought the memory of her flushed body tied to the bedpost—open, at his complete mercy.
Caleb let out a sigh and adjusted himself. Perhaps he’d visit the bar up the street and find a more than hospitable woman to take his mind off the girl behind the locked door. He raked his fingers through his hair and expelled another rush of air as he made his way across the kitchen. He opened the fridge door; the cool, swampy air felt good against his skin, too good. Every nerve ending in his body was alert at the moment. Even the clothes he wore added a friction when he moved. Propping his elbow on the refrigerator door, Caleb leaned in and wrapped his fingers around a bottle of Dos Equis. The condensation on the bottle instantly reminded him of sweat. He thought of the girl again, and other girls, past slaves; he never tired of their salty taste, and sweet smelling sweat. Only women could boast of such a thing. Only women were capable of being so fucking sexy you wanted to lick them clean when they considered themselves dirty. He shut his eyes, leaning his forehead against the freezer as he indulged in the base sensations that coursed through him. He smiled, faintly to himself, before it slipped away. He opened his eyes and pushed away from the fridge, shutting it softly. He had conquered and she had submitted. A small victory, but it was a start.
Caleb popped off the cap on the bottle, letting the metal skid across the granite counter. He brought the beer to his lips. Strong, cold, carbonated fluid rushed down his throat dissipating some of the heat in his body. There was no denying how good he felt. He felt powerful, and nothing was more important than power. Even the girl seemed to know it, or she wouldn’t have tried to defy him at every turn.
Caleb leaned against the counter, drink in hand but not drinking. The girl is absolutely crazy. His mouth tilted up at the corners, the smirk threatening to become a full blown smile. If she knew who she was dealing with, she wouldn’t try to provoke him so much. She was downright adversarial. He winced, remembering how her knee had collided with his balls. Fuck! She was lucky he hadn’t put a belt to her ass right then. Yet, if he had, perhaps the food incident might not have happened.
A short burst of laughter escaped his lips as he recalled the look on her face when he told her to call him Master. Her eyes had said it all in that moment. He was going to have to break her down to her foundation before he’d have any chance of building her back up. The challenge was intriguing to say the very least, truly, unexpected.
Abruptly, Caleb’s smile faded. He stared down at the drain as drops of water fell slowly from his bottle. Some of the drops hung from his fingers for dear life before falling and slipping toward the drain. He stood up, taking a long pull from his bottle. Yes, he would break her down and build her up—for Vladek.
She was his and Rafiq’s instrument of revenge. Through her, they’d get close enough to kill that motherfucker. He needed to put a swift end to her rebellious nature, not admire it. He needed to bring out the Submissive he’d observed. A submissive is a survivor.
Caleb had underestimated the girl in some regard. For weeks he had observed her, and for weeks she had played the would-be chameleon. She had made it a habit to wear masculine, shapeless clothing when walking in her own neighborhood. At first, he’d thought it was simply a fashion choice, but it hadn’t taken long before he’d become less convinced of his original assessment, especially when he observed her wearing flirty skirts and bright colored shirts through the fence of her school. After that, he pegged her as woman who understood how important it was to adapt to her surroundings. She knew she lived in a man’s world, and she reacted accordingly.
It was important for girls in her position, in this kind of situation. To her parents she might have been the teenage daughter they didn’t need to worry about, because she didn’t wear provocative outfits to entice the young horny boys. In her neighborhood, she was the invisible girl, no one of interest. But inside, she was still her—whoever she was. And whoever she was, she’d appealed to him under her camouflage.
It had felt unavoidable at the time, selecting her. She had been the only one to command his attention, though he didn’t completely understand why. Then, that day on the sidewalk, during their strange encounter, he’d known he had to have her. She had made an impression on him; she would make an impression on others. Perhaps he’d made a mistake in that regard, choosing someone he had found indefinably appealing. Instead, the mystery had drawn him nearer, and now he found himself only further confused, further drawn in. It suddenly seemed such a waste that such a gift was meant for Vladek.
He turned around, leaning against the counter, the edge digging into his spine. One hand gripped the edge of the counter, the other holding the bottle, quickly cooling as veins of water cascaded down his arm. He drank. A lot rested on the girl, and in turn, him. Aside from his own vengeance, he could not fail Rafiq. Vladek Rostrovich had to die. In this, Rafiq and he had never disagreed. Upon how to execute each step, that was something else. He took another mouthful, rolling the liquid in his mouth before swallowing and feeling it fill him.
Destroying lives was something he was good at, this was no different, of course. Or was it? He drained the bottle, tasting little, but wanting more. He turned around and rinsed it out, watching the water rush out.
The girl was genuinely terrified of him, that much he was sure of. He had to use it to his advantage. Under his tutelage, she would become whatever she needed to be in order to survive. She would accept the hand she was dealt and make the best of things. She would find whatever good there was in the bad, for however long it’d last. She would fight him, that was a given, but he would convince her despite herself.
He finished his bottle, which had do
ne nothing for him. He was still restless. He walked over to the fridge again, cracked open another. Repeat. Another taste, another gulp, the thirst just growing.
New thoughts distracted him. What would he do with the girl when this was all said and done? He stood still, listening to the house, listening for signs of the girl, but there was nothing, no clamor from behind the locked door. No desperate shrieking, just a girl, plotting her time. He walked to the table and noiselessly pulled out a chair. Another long pull of beer, his gaze passed around the room. He sat. What would he do with a girl who’d never trust him? Caleb drank, set his bottle down on the table then sat deeper in his seat, head back and breathing in through his nose, eyes closed.
Caleb knew nothing about caring for a woman long term. He’d heard a lot about love in the last twelve years, but he never felt the things people talked about. He ran his fingertips up and down the neck of the bottle absentmindedly. The only person he felt any type of affection for was Rafiq, but he doubted it could be called love. Caleb understood Rafiq, understood his anger and his need for revenge. He trusted Rafiq with his life. Without that man to give him purpose, Caleb would have been lost, and for that he respected him. Did understanding, trust and respect equate to love? Caleb didn’t know. Rafiq had taught him to read and write, to speak five languages, to seduce a woman, to hide in plain sight, and to kill, but never to love.
He leaned back again, drank, and then set the bottle in a different spot. He stared at the ring of water on the smooth lacquered surface of the table. Leaning forward, he dragged his other hand through it, creating two long translucent trails. They traveled along the surface of the table, slick and solitary, before colliding into one another when his fingers came together.
A few years ago, Rafiq met a woman. The woman was his wife now and had given Rafiq two sons. Caleb had never met them, nor would he and he’d never expected it. He fully understood his role with Rafiq. While afforded great respect and appropriate affection as someone Rafiq had risen into manhood, Caleb was not family. It was not a confusing situation for him, the boundaries clearly defined and consistent early on.
Perhaps there had been moments when Caleb had felt something akin to jealousy toward Rafiq’s family. However, he consoled himself with the knowledge that what Rafiq and he shared ran deeper. They shared a thirst for vengeance. They were equal partners in the settling of old scores. It suited him fine since he knew nothing of family. He could scarcely remember his.
There were a lot of things Caleb couldn’t remember: his birthday, his age, what his name used to be. It didn’t bother him to not remember, though he sometimes wished he knew where he’d grown up so he could avoid it. This small detail had the ability to put him on edge whenever he was forced to visit America for one reason or another. What if he had a mother who thought he was dead? It was his secret horror to fathom a mother elated at the sight of him. Because whoever her stolen boy had been, he was most certainly dead, and Caleb wanted him to stay that way.
The bottle, somehow drained again, rested in his hand, still cool to the touch. He got up as quietly as he’d sat, and silently moved through the kitchen. He rinsed the bottle, listening to the soft glug-glug of the water going down the drain. Then took a soft towel and wiped away any evidence of his presence. It wasn’t the forgetting Caleb didn’t like, it was the remembering.
He needed a shower and a lot more beers. He’d miss beer when it was time to return to dry, spiritless, Pakistan. It was an excellent aid in the forgetting process. He just hoped the bar in this piece of shit town was still open.
Once inside his room, Caleb removed his clothes and walked into the bathroom to take a shower. Setting the temperature of the water, he let the room steam up before he finally stepped inside to put his face under the jets. The water washed over his nakedness, scalding him slightly, but Caleb welcomed the slight pain. He would never admit it, but from time to time, he needed to feel pain as much as he needed to dole it out.
Once again, Caleb envisioned the girl, face down on the mattress, welts crisscrossing the back of her body from shoulder to ankle. It was perverse the way this particular image affected him. It made him aroused instead of sick. It was ironic.
Unable to fight it, Caleb thought of the past and of Rafiq.
Vladek had not always been rich and powerful. Once upon a time, the seedy Russian had been a mercenary and a trafficker of anything that would sell—drugs, guns, people, it didn’t matter. He traveled throughout Russia, India, Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, Africa, Mongolia, Afghanistan, and one fateful day, Pakistan.
Muhammad Rafiq was a young man then, a captain in the Pakistan Army under the direction of a zealous Brigadier. The war against Saddam Hussein dubbed by the Americans as Desert Storm was well under way and Rafiq had been called to assist the coalition forces on the ground.
Rafiq, whose father had just passed, preferred to remain close to home until he could make arrangements for his mother and sister, but it was not to be. The Brigadier was thirsty for rank, and nothing elevated rank like a war. Rafiq’s absence was unavoidable and ultimately disastrous, for it was during his two year absence that Vladek set his eyes on Rafiq’s sister, A’noud. By the time Rafiq returned with the happy news that he had earned the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, his mother had already been murdered six months earlier and his sister was missing.
Assuming responsibility, Rafiq devoted what resources were available to him to discovering the identity of his mother’s murderer. He followed every lead, chased every rumor trying to ascertain if his sister might still be alive.
It took Rafiq three years to hear the name Vladek Rostrovich. After murdering Rafiq’s mother, he’d taken A’noud, but apparently, he’d tired of her after a short while. He had retired her to a brothel, established by him in Tehran.
Rafiq went to Tehran, but like his mother, A’noud had been dead long before he had arrived to rescue her. With his hope of finding her alive scattered like ashes in the wind, his fervor for vengeance only grew. He was going to burn the brothel to the ground, kill every patron and save the proprietor for last. If he was later court-martialed and put to death, it was a risk he was willing to take.
But then, he heard a sound, so unspeakably horrible it gave voice to his own suffering. He followed the screaming to a door that would change everything: huddled in blood and filth, darkness pulled tight around his small, shaking, angry form, was a boy in desperate need of a doctor. A boy the proprietor called Kéleb—dog.
Pained, disgusted, and mourning his sister, Rafiq recognized the look in the Kéleb’s eyes. They were eyes that knew the anguish of being unspeakably wronged. They longed for a death that could not come too soon. Rafiq offered to purchase the boy from the proprietor who warned him the boy was likely near death and he would not offer a refund. Rafiq accepted the terms and carefully wrapped the wounded, mewling dog in linen so he could take him to the hospital.
Kéleb had been incredibly mistrusting at first, unconvinced that Rafiq did not desire from him all the things as the rest. He attacked Rafiq repeatedly, punching, scratching, and kicking wildly with no concern for how he injured himself in the process. Rafiq had felt for him, but he was also impatient and unwilling to suffer the repeated attacks of an angry teenager. Rafiq used force to calm him down, until he could be reasoned with.
It wasn’t until Rafiq offered him a taste of something he thirsted for that Kéleb became something more than his fear. Under cover of darkness, Kéleb had learned to kill for the very first time. It was too easy, over too fast. While Rafiq stood guard at the door, Kéleb shot and killed the man who had tormented him for most of his life. He had stood over the body, admiring the large hole that was once Narweh’s face. In his hand, he held the .44 Magnum Rafiq had let him borrow for the auspicious occasion.
The gun had been given to him by an American officer as a show of gratitude for Rafiq saving his life. Rafiq said it was “Dirty Harry’s” gun, but Kéleb did not know this man. He only knew the damn thing had thro
wn him backward onto the ground when he fired it. He’d missed the spectacle of Narweh’s face exploding, only appreciated the damage afterward. Whoever Dirty Harry was, Kéleb admired his weaponry.
Later that evening, Rafiq had relinquished ownership of Dirty Harry’s gun to Kéleb and confided in him the story of how he’d come to find him that day in Tehran. Rafiq spoke about his mother and sister, of the futility of his search for Vladek, but mostly, his passion for revenge.
When he was finished, an alliance was formed, a pact so solid, it made everything else irrelevant. That night, after the boy confessed to having no recollection of any name but dog, Rafiq renamed the boy Caleb – the loyal disciple.
Caleb blinked; the water had grown cold against his skin. He stepped out of the shower, feeling as though it had been useless. It had been twelve years since that night in Tehran. Twelve years. Five since he had last questioned why he was doing one thing or another.
In the beginning, when he’d been a young man shadowing a powerful Pakistani military officer, speculation about their relationship and Caleb’s past had run rampant. Life’s lessons came in ways that were unexpected, though, as a man, he knew some of them had been inevitable. Like the day Rafiq had taught Caleb to mitigate rumors by putting the loudest voice to rest—permanently. It had been harder than killing Narweh, but easier than he’d thought it would be. The men who spoke of such things were not good men and it made them easier to kill. But regardless, the hushed whispers, the condescending smiles and speculative gazes told him there were still those whom doubted his motives and authenticity in their world.
Respect came at a very high price in the criminal world, even more so in the Middle East, and especially for a Westerner like Caleb. There could be no half way, Rafiq would remind him; it was all in, or nothing. If Caleb stood any chance of finding Vladek, he would have to venture into his world. Thus began his journey into the world of training pleasure slaves.
