Jeremiah Quick

by SM Johnson

  Like a prisoner.

  That thought startled her. She'd spent one 'night' in the cage, but although she'd come with him voluntarily, it was becoming more and more obvious that whatever she'd thought was going to happen here…wasn't. And that she'd given consent for anything… everything, by getting into his car.

  She thought about him before, in school – how, yes, he hadn't always been nice, but it seemed more out of exasperation for her easy life than from anything more personal. As if… well, as if he'd thought she had a chance to be something different, more real, better. She'd thought of herself as a willing and worthy student. She'd been enthralled, but not held in thrall. She was coaxed to learn his lessons, not forced.

  He kept a hand on her upper back, holding her against the countertop, and used his boots carefully against the inside of each ankle to push her feet apart.

  Her stomach flipped, a squeezing kind of dread, and then his fingers were… yes, between her legs, spreading her apart, not ungentle, but not gentle, either, sliding into her, a brief but deep exploration, and she sucked in her breath, not fighting him, but wondering if she should be.

  "Ahh, Sunshine, take a breath," he said, and she didn't know what he was doing, but sucked in air, wondering if she would become completely apathetic if he didn't tell her what he wanted next. And she would have laughed, except his hand left the small of her back, and fingers parted her ass cheeks. She wanted to cry out, wait, wait! But his voice filled the room. "Easy, Sunshine. I'm not going to hurt you."

  And then fingers were probing into her ass, maybe just one, because it didn't hurt, just… this little violation, that in the scheme of things, was small, but always felt like the biggest, most humiliating feeling she'd ever had. The feeling worsened, even, when he withdrew, leaving behind the strange ache of having been opened.

  And then.

  "Breathe," he soothed, "it'll be okay," and she had no idea what he was talking about… except there were his fingers again, spreading her ass cheeks apart, and something wider… sliding in... and as always with violation of this place, a folding sensation in her gut, her heart, that catapulted her into helpless submission. It was almost a relief.

  I will not cry, I will not cry. It was a silent chant, and she kept at it until he pulled at her with his hands, pulling her to standing, leaving whatever he'd put in her in her, and, watching her face in the mirror, he pulled the towel away and first finger-combed and then separated her hair into sections.

  She stared at his hands, his deft fingers, feeling the tugs and twists, and a giddy sense of wonder grew somewhere in the vicinity of her chest. It was a more intricate braid than she could ever, ever pull off, and she found herself smiling at him, almost smirking, in the mirror. Between the makeup and his efficiency with the braid, he took on the barest hint of femininity. Strangely, it felt right, this androgyny. It felt like the real Jeremiah. If she had her voice, she'd ask him where he learned to braid like that.

  Now that she was clean, she was no longer self-conscious about being naked, even in front of the mirror.

  His face was young-Jeremiah again. She could see beyond the makeup, or beneath it – the open sweetness she remembered from before, an expression that could almost lend itself to carefree laughter, had he been a different sort of individual. But Jeremiah had always seemed to only possess cynical laughter, his sense of irony much more developed than that of any of their peers. He knew things he should not know. That was the sense. It had always been so.

  It was so, now.

  He moved her away from the counter, pulling her with him toward the lidded toilet, where he sat, positioning her in front of him.

  "Hands at your sides. Close your eyes."

  She stood how he directed, swaying a little when she closed her eyes, her legs still weak, weaker when subjected to the 'balance-in-the-dark' test.

  "Find your balance," he said, softly, as if he knew what she was thinking, and didn't correct her when she spread her feet a little apart. The thing in her ass, some kind of plug or dildo, shifted as she moved, distracting her.

  She felt a touch to her hip, imagined the fingers of one hand curled around the bone, and then a cold, sharp something at her belly, drawing a long curling line. Her eyes flew open, and it took everything she had not to jerk away.

  She let loose a cry. Just a little one.

  "Ten," he said, and tilted his head to look at her face. For a second she was so… immediately terrified – that she almost jerked away from him, almost ran for the door, but then he held up the object in his right hand.

  It was… a ball-point pen. Just that. And when she looked down at her belly, she could see the curled, intricate line, in sharp contrast to her pale skin.

  Not so very frightening, after all.

  She swallowed. Stayed still. Met his eyes for a second, and then let hers close. The way he wanted. Submitting.

  The pen was fine-tipped, sharp like a blade, and it made lines in her skin in a ticklish, nerve-tingling fashion that sometimes made her hitch in a breath, hold it. And each time he would say, in a quiet voice, "Breathe, girl."

  She got lost in the lines, the tingle and stretch of her skin, the gliding, dragging poke of the pen that was much kinder than the tattoo needle, yet brought back memories of herself as a young teenager, fourteen, fifteen – carving boys' initials into her skin with a single-edged razor, trying to cope with those first heartbreaks. The idea was to replace emotional pain with physical, but it didn't work for her because she found poetry more satisfying than razor blades.

  After what seemed like a long, long time, something started happening, a twist in her gut, her anus rejecting the object. She was trying, so hard, to be still. She thought he might be angry if she messed up his lines. And she wanted to see what he was doing, what she would look like when he was done. His drawing on her had a slow, careful pace, as if there were some purpose, some end he was intent upon.

  But. She started trembling, and truly could not help this.

  And then she started sweating.

  Her eyes were open again, watching him, when the pen slipped across her skin in some way he hadn't planned. He swore, then sighed, and tucked the pen behind his ear.

  What he'd put in her didn't want to stay there. He stood up, his hand wrapped around the start of the braid, close to her skull, his fingers brushing the nape of her neck, tugging her hair as he brushed the backs of his fingers along her jaw, touching her and murmuring, "Hold it, hold it," as her guts heaved and clenched and twisted and pushed the object out.

  It was… loss of control and utter humiliation, as bad as shitting herself earlier, worse even, because he was here to witness – and when the plug clunked to the floor, she was hollow – as if half her personality had fallen away with this failure to obey. She spent a whole minute hating him while he picked up the plug and placed it in the sink, then wiped her face with a cool, damp cloth.

  He stood her before him again, and continued drawing complicated lines, down to the tops of her thighs, up over her ribs to just underneath her small breasts. Swirls and symbols, like hieroglyphics, meaningless to her, but oddly appealing when she risked a glance at the mirror.

  Her legs started shaking, and she lost the strength to hold herself up.

  He caught her the moment her knees buckled and carried her into the dungeon, then set her down and walked her around the edges of the room, pausing to study pieces of equipment here and there, making a decision.

  His hands guided her. One was a light touch at the back of her neck, palm cupped, a light squeeze now and then, pressure to indicate veering right or left. The other was at her hip, just a touch, no pressure, nothing obscene.

  He tugged her toward a structure that reminded her of a gymnast's vault horse. It was covered in black vinyl, and, like the bed, had various straps and cuffs attached. He bent her over the side of it, her head hanging toward the floor. The restraints were attached to the legs of the thing, and he fastened her wrists practically to her ankles
, which left her exposed, open to his eyes and hands.

  She heard a squeak, and opened her eyes to see him sitting on a stool with wheels, behind her. She felt a gentle touch behind her right knee, followed by the fine sharp tip of the pen, drawing a line.

  This went on and on, until her skin was filled with lines.

  As he drew swirls and patterns, perhaps even letters and numbers, on the soft flesh on her inner thigh, she could feel his breath there, steady and even, and a heaviness grew in her center that opened her further, despite the fact that she was getting a headache from this bent-in-half upside-down position, and that she was probably red-faced and not looking her most attractive.

  And when he touched her there, it was so erotic she sucked in a breath.

  His laughter was low, not mean, but not his most charming sound, either, as he slid one long finger right into her cunt and crooked it.

  "Mmm," he said. "I suppose if I bite you, you'll scream."

  She didn't answer, but her vaginal walls clenched hard around his finger at the very idea.

  "Tell you what," he said. "I'll give you your ten, and then give you your voice back. And then maybe I'll bite."

  He dipped his head, tilted it the littlest bit sideways, and Pretty could see his eyes, between her own spread legs, her head still upside down, and without conscious thought, she tilted her head, as well. He had some unfathomable expression on his face, a benevolence that she was afraid to trust. And yet… what choice did she have?

  She nodded, a jerk of her chin, and hoped against hope that untying her and letting her stand up was in his plan.

  It was.

  His fingers released her ankles, one at a time, and then walked around the bench and unfastened her wrists. He helped her stand.

  Ahhhhh…. her equilibrium was fucked up… and first she swayed into him, then away, then backward, until she leaned against the bench, breathing slowly, in through the nose, two, three, four… out through the mouth, two three, four… until the dizziness passed.

  "Ten poses," he said.

  Ten what? She couldn't grasp what he was talking about, the word made no sense. She pictured red flowers, Mexican penny coins… but blood must have finally made its way to her brain, because she understood what he meant by the time he added, "Like a... porn star, or a Playboy model," and gave her a lascivious grin.

  And for some reason she couldn’t even comprehend, she grinned back at him.

  And then she arched her back across the sawhorse, raising her hands to let her fingers float to her braided hair, setting one foot atop the other, then lifting her toes in a slow slide up her other leg until they rested on her knee, shaping her legs into a triangular number four.

  "One," he said, and "Very nice."

  She held the pose while trying to think of what the next one should be, then raised her torso off the sawhorse, dipped her head, formed a pout, and put her finger in her mouth. Wisps of her hair fell over her eyes, and she looked up at him through the fringe, going for a naughty innocence. She rested her free hand on her hip.

  Jeremiah shook his head. "Not naughty enough. Pinch your nipple, or touch between your legs."

  She almost smiled. He liked the naughty. She fought to maintain the pout, and let her fingers trail along her hip bone, squeezed it – proud to find it so prominent after giving birth multiple times – then across her soft little tummy, down her pelvis, across her clitoris, and settled it between her pussy lips. Mmmmm, she moaned, silently to herself. If she had her voice, she would have moaned it for him to hear, but she didn't want to lose. She was tired of suppressing thoughts, questions, exclamations of shock and pain. Moans of pleasure.

  She wanted her voice.

  "Two. I like it," he said.

  She nodded, then traded the finger in her mouth for the one that had been between her legs, and he hissed in a breath. She sank to her knees, still sucking on her forefinger, and reached to take his hand, press it against her heart, which was beating fast. She was embarrassed to be getting turned on posing for him… because she was choosing what to do, because she was naked and he was clothed. Because he was in control, and she was compliant.

  She shook away the embarrassment, turning away from him, went to her hands and knees. Arching her back and looking over her shoulder, she tugged her hair loose from the braid and shook her head until her hair fell across her face. She peeked at him through the strands.

  "Three," he agreed.

  She faced him again, rested her butt on the floor, leaned back against her elbows, and let her legs sprawl out in front of her. She shifted her weight to one elbow and lifted one leg with her hand, holding it, straightening it, until it was in the air, exposing her wet center, so wet it almost begged for a fucking.

  Damn. This was hot.

  "Four."

  She found other poses that pleased him, some he asked her to hold for longer than it took to think of what to do next, but for the most part he was content to watch, to comment on the lines of her body – not the stretch marks, not the lines he'd drawn – but the length of a limb, the sharpness of her collar bones, the fact that he could see every rib when she arched a certain way, despite the fact that she was nowhere near starvation skinny.

  Some poses were variations of others, but apparently were acceptable, because he kept count, and when he reached ten, Pretty felt a rush of relief from her head to her heart to her toes, and had to stop herself from dropping her head down to kiss his feet.

  She almost laughed, stopped herself, and then laughed anyway. It was over, right? The torture of having no voice was over.

  "That's ten…" he said, and her face must have looked comically startled, because he laughed, held his hands up in surrender, and grinned just a little. "You may use your voice."

  "Thank god," she said, and for some reason talking made her feel naked and ridiculously shy. How had she not understood that having no voice gave her some privacy? She tried to recall the names she'd been going to call him the minute he let her talk again… but couldn't remember a single one. When she looked at him, she didn't see a callous bastard. She didn't even see her old friend. No, she saw… Jeremiah Quick, her mentor, her maestro. Damn. When had that happened?

  "Well, you've been dying for your voice, don't you have a million things to say?" he asked.

  "I – huh. I thought I did."

  That awkwardness again. It was hard to speak to him as an equal when she was naked and he was not. And maybe because she knew there was no 'equal' – he was the one in charge.

  Chapter 16

  There was no measure of time. It could have been weeks that Quick spent drawing on her skin, it could have been a few days.

  All she could judge about time came from cramped and tired muscles that had been tied into one position for too long, the growl of her stomach, the urgency of bowel and bladder, though she seemed bothered by such trivial human things less and less.

  There were periods of Jeremiah's presence, lights on, his pen dragging sharp lines in her skin. He gave her water before and after, and once in a while the warm grainy-sweet cereal.

  And there were bleak, empty periods of darkness without his presence. During these, she tried to sleep as much as possible.

  She didn't try to escape. She didn't fight him. He was capable of thorough and brutal punishments. He had the tools, and knew how to use them. But that wasn't even why, although it was hard to articulate the why, even inside her own head.

  He didn't always tie her, and in fact, when he was working on her shoulders and upper arms he sat her facing the back of a ladder-backed chair, pushed up to the table, and he gave her an ashtray, a cigarette, and a cup of coffee.

  It was okay to talk to him now, but she often didn't. There was something spiritual happening here that she clearly felt, even if she didn't understand it.

  His pen, his hands, and his lips touched her everywhere, exploring, knowing, tasting.

  Sometimes she wanted to rip him out of his clothes and write her name
across his back, his sharp hip bones, his thin chest.

  He was making her belong to him, and she wanted to do the same.

  There was nothing in the world but this.

  Most of the time she didn't think about or worry about her family, her husband, she just waited in the dark, dreaming of Jeremiah's hands and longing for his return.

  When she didn't speak for three drawing sessions, Jeremiah put music on, loud enough that it was pointless to talk. Pretty didn't know the songs or the artists.

  Some he played more than others, and she started learning the words, feeling the essence of the noise in her muscles, her bones. Her fingernails. And when he left her in silent darkness, she would hum them to herself, or even sing softly. La la la loooove... and other bits and pieces of the ones he played the most. She came to love them, these dark, rich, sad songs.

  She'd stopped crying, although she often felt she was on the verge of tears.

  This was something… she didn't… understand, because he wasn't hurting her, he wasn't scaring her, and when he did speak, it was almost always with kindness.

  When he drew on her back, he put her face-down on the table and pulled up a chair, as if seating himself for a meal. She felt him tracing a steady, particular line along the right edge of the tattoo on her left shoulder blade, and his pen never moved to the left of that line, never interfered with the feather pen and inkwell that were the symbol of herself.

  She'd watched him take great care around her forearm tattoo, as well, the one with the names of her children. He held her still and drew whorls and patterns just to its edges, never letting his lines cross the lines of her ink.

  He didn't bathe her during the drawing phase, which she started to feel self-conscious about.

  The lines on her inner thighs and legs were faded after two mortifying instances wherein she'd peed herself and he'd had to clean her up.