He stilled, looking into my eyes as if there weren’t Coke-bottle-thick lenses between us. “You truly believe that?”
“What’s not to believe? If everyone around you is telling you that, then there must be something to it, Einstein.”
“Then, Little One, you need to hang out with a better class of people.” He moved his hands away from me, placing them on either side of me, but now I was caught between the bar at my back and this tall, fit, gorgeous man at my front. His firm thigh moved forward, pressing between my own flabby thighs, forcing them to spread, and I glanced up at him in panic as he invaded my personal space. He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “You need to hang out with me.”
“Hey looky, it’s the StayPuff marshmallow man!” Someone in the surrounding crowd was trying to be clever with an old, stale line that I had heard a hundred times. And yet it still hurt every time it was said, as if it were the first. I must have winced.
“Beautiful…do not listen to them.” It was as if he were trying to hypnotize me with those sweetly whispered words. He turned his gaze away from me to glance over his shoulder, and his tone when he spoke next brooked no argument. “You need to go away before I have to hurt you, and believe me, it would be my pleasure to hurt you, for hurting my friend here. So get lost, now!”
Even wearing my Coke-glass thick glasses, in the darkness of the dingy bar, I couldn’t see if my verbal assassin had wisely buggered off, but I didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to stand up against that tone of voice.
Big and Tall, as I thought of him, turned back to me, sweeping in and pressing a kiss against my lips. I just stood there like a statue as those insistent lips and that apple-scented breath of his swept me away. I was stunned. I was shocked absolutely numb. I tried to think of why this was happening to me, and why I wasn’t putting up a fight. Number one: I was straight. Number two: he was a guy. Number three: girls didn’t want me kissing them, so why did he want to kiss me? Number a zillion…I’m a short, fat, near blind, red haired geek and not someone tall, dark, and handsome, like him.
His hands were still on the bar. I could feel his biceps brushing my shoulders. There was something wrong with this picture, and it began to make my internal alarm ring loud. I moved to push him away and he countered by pressing his thigh up tight against my crotch. I was lifted off my feet a little. I was too damned heavy to be lifted off my feet, yet here I was, hung off his thigh. And it was obvious I wasn’t going anywhere, unless he let me.
I squeaked again, and he leaned forward, his tongue quickly pushing its way into my opened mouth. He moved one of his huge hands toward my face and in another moment he’d pulled my glasses off. His invading tongue was slipping along mine, and I could taste the lingering essence of a smooth whiskey and smoky apple.
Oh my God, he could kiss.
My hands finally fisted his shirt, and I tried to push him away. I might as well have been pushing at a brick wall. This stranger was going to finish this kiss when he decided to finish it and not before.
Twenty-nine years old, and I had barely been out of the box. By the time this brown haired god of lust and desire released his lip lock, I was panting, and the sound of my blood coursing through my veins seemed to be louder than the music still pulsating out on the dance floor. If he pulled his thigh away now, right at this moment, I would simply fall boneless to the floor.
“Sigmund, you have the most gorgeous green eyes…” His hand came up and he stroked a knuckle down the side of my face. I couldn’t see squat with my gorgeous green eyes. His features were just this side of being a blurry smudge as I looked up into his face to try and read if he was lying to me or not. “I would love to see me reflected forever in your eyes, Beautiful.” He tucked his bent knuckle up under my chin, pushing me to look up.
“I’m not beautiful.”
“Of course you are. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Sigmund.”
“My name’s not Sigmund.”
“It is your first name.”
I cursed the men I had come into the bar with. They must have told him.
“I don’t use it. I’m Edward.”
“I do not like Edward. I will have to change that to something more suitable.”
That broke whatever lusty web he was weaving around me. I jerked my chin out of his hold. “Listen up. I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but I am out of here. I know what I look like. I don’t need some steroid-popping meathead making a mockery out of my lack of experience and looks.”
Holy shit. He picked me up by my shoulders and rammed me hard against the corner wall. I dangled there, helpless. Now, I’m a big man, close to three hundred pounds, yet he picked me up and held me like I was an errant puppy.
“You are not understanding the situation you are in, my little thief.”
I froze. Thief? He knew my guilty secret? I wiggled to get free, but he just tightened his grip on my collarbone, grinding down on it. I cried out in pain and slumped back against the wall, and fell down a long way to the floor when he suddenly released me. I flinched as his fingertips ran along my brow line.
“This is so beautiful. It sparkles. It snaps. I want this.”
“You want what?”
“Your mind is a fascinating landscape, Sigmund.”
“I told you, my name is not Sigmund.”
“I will take you into my care this night. I vow to you that I will make your physical body as beautiful as your mind, Sex.”
“Sex?”
“Yes. Please.”
A sharp pain akin to a bee sting hit me in the back of the neck. I leaned forward as my world began to tilt and waver. His strong arms dragged me close to him, and his mouth whispered into my ear.
“Sex, if I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?”
I remember being outraged but helpless as darkness swooped in and carried me away.
Three
Sex at Home
I’d woken up in this place, naked, and well aware that I had been physically assaulted whilst unconscious. Aside from the pain of the physical assault kicking in when I came to, there was also a miracle waiting for me, which I discovered as soon as I opened my eyes…and was able to see clearly for the first time in far too many years.
Somehow Marcus, my kidnapper and abuser, had given me back my sight. I didn’t know how he did it; all I knew was that I was able to see again because of something he had done to me. I remember crying, because I could hold my hand up as far away from my face as I could reach and yet still see my palm prints and my fingertips clearly. You don’t appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone, and if you get it back, it’s priceless.
I was still crying when he returned and took me again. At the time, I thought it was an even trade—an eye for a hole.
In the beginning, Marcus was stern and brutal, but only until he had cowed me. He had said early on that he wanted me to fear him. His logic was that I wouldn’t do what he wanted if I didn’t. And he was right. I didn’t do what he wanted those first few weeks, or was it months? I don’t know which, but eventually I did everything he ordered me to do because he terrified the living crap out of me. Every time he came to me, he took his time with my body and made me feel pleasure against my will. But unwanted pleasure for hours on end, whether it results in a climax or not, is still sexual assault.
And he assaulted me almost daily for hours at a time. At least, it seemed like that, but I couldn’t tell the passage of time because there was no access to daylight or a clock to mark it. The only thing that marked it for me was the meals that arrived in the dumbwaiter on what I assumed were a regular basis.
At first I was hungry all the time because he had me on a strict diet. But eventually my stomach shrunk, and my habit of comfort eating was broken. Soon it came down to either having sex, or working out in the weight room, or running on the treadmill; I took the physical workout, and the weight dropped off me.
I wheezed when I first tried to walk on
the treadmill. Walk, not run. I thought I was going to die of a heart attack. Ten minutes to walk a mile, I was ordered. I couldn’t do it. I was crawling on the treadmill when my time ran out.
Marcus set out daily goals, and if I didn’t reach them, it didn’t matter if I was legitimately exhausted or not, I was sexed. Consequence sex. Punishment sex. After the first time, he’d taken every care not to tear me again, but when it was this kind of sex, I just endured until he got his rocks off.
The more weight that dropped off me, the nicer he got. There were also fewer consequences and more rewards. If I reached the goal for the day, I was given a kind word and a smile, a pat on the head as if I were a good little puppy who’d piddled on the newspaper this time and not on the floor.
Rewards were him doing everything I liked for as long as I wanted it. Mentally, I wanted him off of me, but it was as if my body had a mind of its own. It matched his depravity and sometimes surpassed him. I went crazy on him, dragging him willingly down the road to carnal salvation.
He might have been six foot four and a solid two hundred and forty pounds, but there wasn’t a scrap of fat on him. He had proven that even when I was twice my size, he could toss me around like a plushie. He had also shown me that he could gently pet me like a little kitten and make me purr. He was a mass of contradictions that confused me, keeping me off balance.
When I complained about it, he just smiled his Mona Lisa smile and said, “Good. You are hard enough to control at the best of times, so if keeping you confused will make you pliable to my will, I will continue to do it.”
Somewhere along the line, I began to wait for him. I caught myself anticipating his arrival. When did I stop resisting him? He was still a kidnapper, a sexual assaulter…a rapist. I didn’t date men. I didn’t date anyone. So why the hell was I getting an erection from just smelling apple-scented bath products?
He was taking me over.
I was a fighter. I have always been a fighter. Even when my eyes began to fail, I went ahead and learned how to drive. I crashed the family car more than once, but driving had been tops on my list of things to do as a teenager. It had been the most important thing I wanted to experience, before I went completely into the darkness of blindness. Fear was always there in the background, but I never had let it run my life. Ruin my life.
Look at me now. Yes, I was down one hundred and fifty-four pounds, but at what cost? I cringed when Marcus reached for me. I didn’t know if the sex was going to be a punishment or a reward.
And when had I started answering to the name of Sex? Even the help were calling me that…and I’m answering to it.
I rested my head back against the towel roll and the lip of the tub. I’m not a plaything. “My name is Sigmund Edward Xavier. Edward Xavier. It’s not Sex. It’s not Little One. It’s Edward.”
It felt a bit funny to be saying my name out loud in an empty bathroom that gave it back with a little echo. Still, it was a validating statement. I had forgotten my cardinal rule. No one could make me do anything I didn’t want to, if I was willing to pay the consequences. I didn’t have to fear the consequences; I just had to accept them. I knew what the result would be if I didn’t play sexy for the big vampire. I could avoid the pain, or I could lose myself. There wasn’t an option.
“I am Edward.” If I had nothing else, I still had my identity.
The warmth of the water began to ease away the pain and aches of my muscles, and closing my eyes, I continued to let my mind drift.
The only good thing that had come of my enforced association with the vampire was that I could see now, and I had to admit that it was a precious gift from my captor. For more than half my life, my world had been shrunk down to the end of my nose. I could almost forgive him for all the indignities I was forced to endure just for that, but honestly, I needed to escape this prison, to be my own person again and not his pet. I might not have found a way yet, but I was going to get out of this place, one way or another. No vampire was going to stop me.
I relaxed more and sank back against the towel. I had made up my mind. Marcus had gotten as far with me as he was going to get. I wasn’t going to roll over and take it anymore. I was Edward Xavier, the man. Not Sex, the slut. Marcus was going to find out that I couldn’t be manipulated anymore. The tension that had been so coiled in my core unraveled, leaving me stress-free.
With my decision made, I slept.
Four
Sex’s Disclosure
I woke up because that damned vampire began handling my body as if I was little more than a rag doll. He moved me forward in the water, climbed into the tub, and sank down behind me, forcing my thighs apart with his knees to slide me down on his hard cock. No warning, and with minimal preparation, just the way the sadistic prick liked it as consequence sex. I cried out and bit my lip, drawing blood. Blood hitting the air for vampires was like blood falling into water to sharks. With a snarl of lust, Marcus withdrew himself completely from my portal, and though I tried not to tense up, knowing what was coming, I did anyway.
His re-penetration was brutal, and I screamed, just like he wanted me to. My body went rigid, I arced backwards, and my neck ended up on his shoulder. I heard him gasp sharply when he saw the blood trailing down from my lacerated lip. He lapped up the thin line that had run down my throat, turning my head easily in order to get every last drop of my blood by wrapping his fist around the hair that he’d insisted I grow out.His tongue cleaned my lower lip and brushed at my teeth, gathering up every tiny trace.
My blood was like an aphrodisiac to him, usually ramping him higher and rougher. When my body took over from my brain, I urged him on, wanting him to drive me stupid with ecstasy. I was almost ill, thinking of what I wanted from him, that I gave myself to him even when he was using this as punishment for not finishing my 10k run on the treadmill. What had I allowed him to turn me into?
You sick, fucking vampire prick.
He paused in mid-thrust.
“I heard that.”
Marcus tightened his fist in my hair, forcing my head up higher and tilting it towards him so he could stare at me with those low-glowing red eyes. He was aroused but not so much as to be out of control. He made sure I was watching as his fangs descended. It was still a soul-chilling horror to watch that creep show. He was going to bite me, and he knew that I knew there was nothing I could do to stop him. It wouldn’t have mattered; even if I weren’t impaled on him, his strength was inhuman, because he was inhuman. His red eyes caught fire, and he smiled.
Oh my God, he’s going to screw me while he’s drinking—again. No, no, no, no, no, nononono!
I fought him, for all the good it would do me. My futile attempts only made my hips move, which aroused him even more and all the thrashing around made me seem like a willing participant in one of my daily rapes.
My hands came up, and I tried to push his face away. I managed to wedge a finger in one of his nostrils, so I jammed it deeper and tried to rip his nose off his damn face. I was rewarded with a head butt. I saw stars, just like in the cartoons, and then everything tumbled into darkness.
Hmm, I guess I won this round.
It seemed that my little victory party was going to have to be held off. I awoke to searing pain in both my ass and at my throat. He’d done it anyway, the bastard. Well, at least I hadn’t been present for the dual sensations of Marcus trying to make my rape pleasurable and using me as his own drink box of blood, sensual flavoured, erotically spiced, and spiked with a healthy dose of terror. Damn, I’m in pain and so very weak…and thirsty. Just how much did he take?
I heard the tinkle of ice cubes hitting the glass walls of a tumbler as it was filled with liquid. The sound made me take note of my situation. I was crouched on the floor. My knees felt bruised and aching from kneeling for what must have been a long period of time. It was obvious that I been out for quite a while. My shoulders were aching, and wait a minute…My wrists were cuffed together behind my back.
Oh that ass!
&n
bsp; “There are times, Sex, when I become very exasperated with you. Just when I think that you and I are coming to an understanding, you find another avenue to take to annoy me, which just leads to more discipline and training for you. It would be refreshing if you would remember that for once. I mean, it is not always pleasure for me to punish you. I grow weary of it too, when it brings you no pleasure, my pet.” Marcus came to a stop in front of me.
I knew he was waiting for me to sit up and beg just like a good little puppy, but I stayed hunched over and simply stared at the floor. I wasn’t going to help him belittle me more.
He sighed and continued on. “Because of what you did today, you have lost the privilege of using your arms. If you want to eat, I will have to feed you. If you want to drink, it will be from my hand, and as we have learned from the past, I will force what you need into you if I must.”
He picked me up by the scruff of my neck with one hand and dragged my dead-weight ass to the long leather couch that was in the room. It was made of a very soft leather, and its color was black, to minimize the show of blood when he punished me. He threw me there now, to land crumpled on the floor, and then he sat down on its cushions, opened his legs, and set me between his knees. His massive hand took my chin and pulled me up to my own knees, and then he turned my head to the right to so he could look at how savagely he’d ravaged my neck. He hissed, and his lips flattened into a straight line. My neck had to look as wonderful as it felt.
“I took you in anger because of this.” He pointed to his face. A jagged thin line of healing showed that I had done some damage to his nose, but to no avail, as it was already mostly healed.
I may not have managed to rip it off. But, at least I’d ripped it open. I knew better than to smile in triumph though. How triumphant can one be when they’d been raped and used like a snack pack? I looked away, finding the grey concrete of the floor more interesting than his new scar.
Cake: A Blood Nation Novel (Volume 1) Page 2
