A Captive of Fear and Desire

by Sophie Kisker

  The vibrations ceased and she hung limp, her mind overloaded. She was dimly aware of being unhooked from the wall and pulled over to a long wooden device that looked like a padded saw horse. They pushed her over and restrained her hands far down in front, then spread and secured her legs. Her head hung down, the drool from her open mouth now trailing in a long string almost to the floor.

  He grabbed her hair and yanked her head up. Though he spoke to the camera, he looked straight at her. “Finally, we’re going to punish her for kicking my cameraman in the balls just before we got started.”

  Her eyes widened and once more, she started struggling, begging him with her mangled voice to please don’t. Instead, the sick bastard smiled. “Six cane strokes should remind her not to fight us, at least for a while.” He dropped her head and disappeared behind her.

  A moment later, a searing pain unlike any she’d ever had before landed on her ass. She threw up her head and screamed. She fought and struggled but a second one landed just below it, and then a third. By that time her screaming was frantic. A fourth one landed on her upper thighs, and then a fifth landed at an angle across the other four. She was still begging when a sixth and final one landed at the opposite angle. She sagged in her bonds, unable to fight any longer, desperately hoping her torture was over.

  Anything else he said was a blur as she felt herself being released from the sawhorse. The ring gag was pried out of her mouth but nothing was offered to wipe up the spit that had run down her front. She felt hands grab both her arms and they dragged her out of the room and down a hall. They stopped in front of a large barred cell. When she saw the dozen or so other naked women looking out at her, she panicked again. She pulled back, kicking and clawing, desperate to flee before they put her in there. Instead she found herself propelled forward through the open door where she landed in a heap on the floor.

  Master 3 followed her in. He grabbed her hair and turned her face up. “Claire will explain the rules. We’re going to train you and when we’re done, we’re going to auction you off to an owner for a lot of money. You won’t be going home ever again.” He let go of her hair. She stared at him in horror as he walked over to one of the women and unlocked the chain from her collar. “I’ll be back in an hour to lock you both up.” He turned and walked out of the cell. As the door slammed, she launched herself at it, pulling and crying frantically, but it remained firmly shut and Master 3 disappeared down the hall.

  Chapter 3

  Dan leaned back in his leather chair, the scotch in the glass in his hand almost gone. Lord knew he needed a lot more to drink than the small amount he’d consumed, yet this was the worst possible time to drink. He had to stay on top of everything, keeping the thousand or so balls that he was juggling perfectly aligned in the air. Tonight had been one of those nights, a clandestine meeting under the cover of darkness to discuss some arrangements keeping him gone since before dinner.

  One more month, he thought. He’d spent almost two years working his way to this point, and in one more month it should be over. At least the hard part. The clean-up, the de-briefing, the testifying—that would probably consume him for another ten years or so.

  He knew that what he was doing was worth it, but it was goddamn hard to keep it up. He knew that these women would be treated worse if he wasn’t involved, but he doubted that anyone would agree with him save his superiors, who had promised to write him a ‘get out of jail free’ card when this was all over. He’d need it. He wondered sometimes if even God would give him a pass for what he’d done in the name of bringing a greater evil to an end.

  And would he ever forgive himself? There were women who would probably curse his name for the rest of their lives—but if he hadn’t done these things, someone else would have done worse. In the end they, and many others, would be free because of what he was doing. Physically free. He wondered if their minds would ever be free again.

  He tossed back the rest of the drink and rose. This latest bit of introspection had been brought on courtesy of his talk with Marco. The sadistic sonofabitch had been given permission to go get a replacement for the diabetic girl Dan hoped was still alive and now safe in witness protection. Dan knew he couldn’t argue the point with DeLeo anymore; his boss was getting increasingly paranoid as this auction got closer. DeLeo lived far away, hidden so well that years of searching by many governments hadn’t turned up his home. But Dan knew DeLeo watched the cameras placed all over the building, hour after hour. There was a feed off all of them to DeLeo’s personal computer, as well as to Dan’s office.

  The cameras had been a constant nightmare. There were live feeds from the cell, the dining room, the main training rooms, and the big outdoor barn. They were on all the time and turning them off for any reason would be suspicious. There were a couple of other rooms that weren’t used as often that had cameras. Those would be turned on only if needed, and the master control was in Dan’s office. DeLeo watched at irregular hours and was known to call Dan out of the blue to comment or ask questions. Dan’s office also had a camera, which he’d insisted be turned off. DeLeo had balked, and they’d compromised by leaving the camera off but the audio on. Dan had held his breath about that demand; there was no way to communicate with Josh if the camera had remained on.

  Dan’s biggest current headaches were DeLeo’s increased calls, to interrogate him about planning of the auction. His second biggest headache was Marco, who seemed to hold a grudge against Dan, more than once claiming his uncle should have put him in charge. Dan reflected that the women didn’t know how lucky they were that Marco wasn’t in charge.

  There was a knock on his door and Josh poked his head through. Dan motioned him in. Josh was the only person who would dare open the door without permission.

  Dan didn’t know what he would have done without his partner for these last two years. Both men had a unique talent that had gotten them attention, after it had almost gotten them fired. They were both experienced, practiced Dominants. Josh had been in a casual relationship with a submissive when he’d been outed by indignant, moralistic coworkers. Instead of being fired, though, he was quietly reassigned and sent northwest from his native Puerto Rico.

  Dan hadn’t had any relationship since college and little time to devote to frequenting clubs, but as fortune would have it, he was seen leaving one on a rare visit and a report was made to his superiors. He was summoned to his boss’s office, prepared to be fired. To his surprise, he was presented with an ‘opportunity’.

  Dan had listened only a few minutes before he broke in angrily.

  “You think I’m the right man for the job of infiltrating a sex slave ring because I practice BDSM? Obviously you know fuck about it. Consent, Pearson. Consent. That’s the difference. That’s why sex is different than rape. I do not fuck women without their consent, and I never will!” He turned to leave.

  “Nor will you ever have to.” A voice from the shadows made Dan’s head whip around. A broad man, almost as tall as Dan and much wider, emerged from the corner.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m Donald Lawton. I’m the Assistant Director, and Agent Pearson’s boss.” He reached a hand out to Dan in an amicable fashion. After a pause, Dan reached out to shake.

  “Pleased to meet you, sir.” He had a carefully neutral tone.

  “Perhaps Agent Pearson hasn’t presented this situation as clearly as he should have. We’re after the head of an organization that runs the largest sex trafficking ring in the world. Hundreds of women over the last decade, who have gone missing from all over the world, are believed to be victims of this man. We’ve been working for years to get a fix on him, and he’s the slipperiest fish I’ve ever come across. Now, finally, we have an informant inside the organization, and he gave us some staggering information. One of the ‘Farms’, where they hold women until they’re sold, is near here. We’re not exactly sure where, but this contact can provide the necessary introductions for one of my undercover agents to join the orga
nization. I need someone who lives in the general area to make the meeting look plausible.”

  “You think one of the ‘Farms’ is up in these mountains?”

  “Yes. There’s a lot of thick uninhabited forest north of here, and we think it’s in there.”

  “So you want me because I’m local, not because of my off-hours and very private activities.” There was a challenge in his voice.

  “Both.”

  “Sir, I just got through telling—”

  “Dan, let me explain. I need someone who can talk the lingo and act the part. I know damn well that this isn’t the same, but you have the confidence of a man who is used to commanding women and being obeyed, even if the obedience has always been consensual. I believe you know how to walk right up to the line where consent stops and coercion starts, and if you have to walk across it to get the job done, you’ll still know where that line is when you return. Your confidence and knowledge are going to put you miles ahead of most of the overgrown bullies we’ve had under surveillance.”

  He laid out his cards for Dan, and in the end, Dan had to agree that the operation sounded like it would work. More to the point, the operation was an important one that needed to work. DeLeo needed to be removed from humanity.

  The informant was able to get him into a low-level position that didn’t involve the women at first. He’d met up with Josh Contaldo, who had been in place for a month, and the two had become fast friends. Their ability to speak the language of domination and submission got them noticed and they moved up quickly, eventually winning DeLeo’s trust and being put in charge of The Farm, which was indeed near Dan’s hometown.

  Dan and Josh looked exactly the opposite of each other. Dan was tall and slender, well-muscled, with blond hair and fair skin that showed his Scandinavian heritage. He made it a point to always dress in a button-down shirt and carefully pressed pants, which set him apart from most of the thugs who now worked under him.

  Josh was shorter but wiry, a combination of his Afro-Hispanic background. The muscles under his brown skin filled out his t-shirts with impressive bulges. He had black hair that curled up in tight ringlets on his head—his mother used to call it ‘perma-hair’ since it never seemed to need any attention—and long eyelashes framing beautiful, expressive brown eyes. He had girls swooning over him anywhere he went. What kept him from being too pretty was the still-healing knife scar on his right chin and down his throat, a souvenir he earned earlier in the year while rescuing a woman from a knife wielded by another man when she fought back. He resembled many of the other men and so was able to blend in among them without notice. Dan found him an invaluable partner.

  The news Josh brought him tonight was not what Dan wanted to hear.

  “Marco got another girl.”

  Dan tried to keep the frustration from his voice, always aware that there were ears tuned to his every word.

  “Has he processed her already?”

  Dan’s presence at the processing was supposed to be mandatory to prevent the worst of the abuses that some of the men were likely to inflict. It didn’t surprise him that Marco had flaunted the rules yet again while Dan had been gone.

  “Yeah. The usual. He sneaked her in just a little while ago without letting me know, either. He also punished her for kicking Harry in the balls.”

  That almost made him grin. Harry, Master 5, was an idiot, and any woman who got the drop on him had Dan’s full approval.

  “She in the cell?” At Josh’s nod, Dan turned the computer monitor on and clicked over to the cameras. It was the middle of the night but enough light was on to monitor the large room. It had three concrete walls and a barred front. Inside were twelve narrow beds. One wall had the door to the bathroom. The cell faced a large open area. A hall off to one side led to small rooms, and beyond another locked door lay Dan’s office and the men’s dorms.

  Right now all the women were locked to their beds with short chains attached to their collars. The only activity was with Claire, who held the new girl in her arms, the tear-stained face hidden but her backside clearly visible with fresh cane marks. Claire rocked her back and forth, shushing her, letting her cry, while the other women stared silently from their cots. Dan always marveled that despite their own circumstances and fear, they were always willing to comfort one another, and they were at their unhappiest when a new woman joined them and became caught up in their hell.

  The reason this hell hadn’t been broken up long ago was that in exactly four weeks, there was going to be an auction. As far as DeLeo knew, it had been Dan’s inspired suggestion, and DeLeo had loved it so much he dismissed the danger of appearing in public himself so that he could be there. That was the idea. Over a hundred very rich men, all of whom had bought and sold women for many years, had been invited. Most of them had egos so big they couldn’t resist showing off their wealth in front of each other. They trusted DeLeo, and DeLeo trusted Dan. And Dan prayed every night that the Agency would have all the right plans in place to put every one of them in deep dark holes forever.

  ~ ~ ~

  Laura was empty. There were no more tears to cry. Claire had told her everything she knew, which was little, and all the rules, of which there were many. The tall woman, with dark red hair and pale skin, had been unable to offer a single piece of comfort save her arms. Claire had been there two months. Most of the women had been there less than that; two had been there longer. Occasionally one would be sold and would disappear. Claire answered Laura’s questions before she even asked them. Yes, they had tried to escape—from time to time a new girl would make the attempt—and the punishment was severe. They were surrounded by deep woods, and somewhere out there—no one knew how far—was an invisible fence. Any woman who managed to get that far found herself flat on her back after being shocked into temporary paralysis by her collar.

  Master 1, who ran this place, was not too bad, and Master 2 was harsh but fair. Master 3—the man who had brought Laura here—was a bastard. There were rumors that he wanted to take over, and Laura saw Claire shudder at that thought. He was a sadist, she was warned; try to stay out of his way and be very obedient around him. He and Master 5 were buddies and they liked to torment the women for no good reason. Master 4 and Master 6 were not too bad. There were other men around, big men with lecherous, hungry looks. They were guards and didn’t participate in the ‘training,’ and they weren’t allowed to touch the women.

  “But why are we here?” Laura had to ask again.

  “There’s a big auction coming up in a month. We’re going to be sold.”

  Laura stared at her, the words as shocking as when Master 3 had uttered them the first time. “But—but—this is the twenty-first century! They can’t do that!”

  Claire just looked at her. “I went through the same disbelief you’re going through. I’ve been here long enough to realize that those who are stronger can always do what they want to those who are weaker. And sex makes men do horrible things.” She sighed. “You’re not going to understand this for a while yet, but most of us have stopped fighting, for now. Not just because we get punished if we do, but because it’s exhausting to fight all the time when there’s no hope of winning. We have to wait for a better opportunity.”

  “So in the meantime…” Laura prompted, not really sure what she was asking.

  “In the meantime, we train. To be pleasure slaves.”

  Laura shook her head. “No. No. They can beat me all they want, but I’ll never be a pleasure slave.”

  “They’ll beat you, yes, if you fight and disobey. But what Master 2 will probably do first is give you an hour or two of continuous orgasms. And then he’ll turn around and get you so aroused you’re desperate to have another one. It’s—well, it’s addicting, and frankly, confusing. It didn’t use to be. Some of the other women who are gone now said it was really awful when they arrived. No pleasure––they were just beaten into submission until they were broken. When Master 1 and 2 came along, everything changed. They started
giving us pleasure—whether we wanted it or not. And they started teaching, really teaching, how to do things like deep throating. Or they use plugs to open up our ass to take a cock, instead of just shoving one in there. Some women have been trained in massage, others in cooking; there was even one woman who painted. They insist we take care of ourselves, and eat enough, and keep ourselves clean and groomed. I understand now that our price has increased quite a bit.” Her face twisted with an ironic smile.

  “So are you training in something then?”

  Claire chuckled once. “Piano. Believe it or not, I was pretty good in my former—well, before this—and so they gave me a piano and ordered me to practice every day.”

  Laura shivered. “Really? But—don’t you hate piano playing now?”

  “Surprisingly, it’s the one time of the day I feel like a real person. They let me play whatever I want. I wouldn’t give it up for anything. It holds me together when I want to come apart.” She paused. “Sometimes Master 2 comes in to listen. He never interrupts, and he always compliments me after I’m done. I like playing for him, even if he’s one of the men who is keeping me here.” She shrugged.

  “But you all get punished,” Laura prompted.

  “Yes. When we disobey, we get punished, and it’s awful. We also get lessons in how to handle the pain. They’ll start off slowly and gradually build up and encourage us to breathe and not tense. They insist we not fight it, that we accept the pain. They tell us it’s part of our new identity and we can’t avoid it. We can make noises and cry out, but we’re not allowed to plead for them to stop. When we do, especially at the beginning, they start the lesson all over again.” She looked down at the floor. “That’s the part that’s the worst.”

  The door banged open and they jumped. “Bed time for little girls,” Master 3 sang. He re-locked Claire’s chain and grabbed Laura by the arm, dragging her over to an empty bed. He fished a chain out from under the pillow and locked it to a ring on her collar. “Any more talking and I’ll whip you good. Go to sleep.” He turned and left.