by Sansa Rayne
“Good. Now tell me, when you were on the farm, were you ever bound with rope?” asked Mason, resting his arms on my hips, pulling me in close to his body. I could smell a hint of Cabernet on his breath.
“Yes.” It was a farm; it had plenty of rope.
“What about chains?” he asked, letting go of my nipples so he could slip his hands through my legs and up to my thong. I’d bought a new one, perhaps because I liked to be spanked, and didn’t want too many layers protecting my skin from Mason’s hardened hands. It didn’t offer any as he pressed his fingers into me.
“No. Brady preferred rope,” I answered, trembling.
I felt Mason bristle at the mention of the name. I wished I hadn’t said it, though he was the one who brought up the past.
“And you liked the way the rope felt? Was it rough on your skin? Did it leave marks?”
I sighed and shivered, remembering the exact sensations Mason described. He nudged me forward, with a slight spank, so I moved as I answered, “Yes.”
“When he was done punishing you, did he untie you right away? Or did he ever leave you?”
Shaking in place, I let Mason lift my arms until he could secure my wrists in the iron manacles hanging from the ceiling. “He always untied me,” I said.
“Is that what you wanted?” He turned the crank a single revolution, and I felt my arms lift a little further. I pulled on the restraints, but the fixtures were solid, inescapable.
Enraptured by the implacable grip holding me up, I could barely concentrate on his questions. I squeezed my legs together, furiously aroused. “I don’t know.”
“Think, Abigail,” he said, giving the crank another turn. “Did you want to be untied after the whippings?”
Did I want to be untied now? Of course not. Was it different before? I didn’t think so; I felt the same as I did back then. “No, sir. I wanted to stay bound.”
Mason grinned, then turned the crank one last time, pulling my arms until they were completely taut. The only way I could relax them was by standing up on my toes, but I couldn’t stand on my toes indefinitely.
“Do you know what this is, Abigail?” He came up from behind and wrapped his arms around me, fondling my breasts through the fabric of my dress. He kissed the back of my neck, biting softly as he massaged my chest.
“What what is?” I wanted him to keep touching me, to let his hands wander lower.
“The bind you’re in. It’s called a predicament. You can’t relax. You can’t prevent some part of your body from hurting, or being stressed.”
“I see.” Sure enough, I was once again completely at his mercy. If he didn’t let me down from this position eventually, it would get very, very painful.
“Do you like it?” He spanked my ass again, then one more time, giving each cheek a slap. I yelped from the pain and teetered on my toes, swaying back and forth.
“Yes!” Blood thundered through my veins; my backside throbbed and the muscles in my arms burned. I drank it all in, thirsty for a high no wine or cocktail could create.
“Brady never did this, did he?”
“No.” He hadn’t. Brady wasn’t a particular fan of bondage. His rope work was effective but more suited to bales of hay than a woman’s skin. The burns he’d left could smart for days, even with soothing lotions. Clearly bondage was not as important to him as it was to Mason, or me.
Like I’d wished, his hands trailed their way down my stomach, caressing every inch of me, and when he reached the hem of my dress, he hiked it up suddenly, exposing my barely clad bottom. For a moment I didn’t feel anything and wondered why he’d stopped. I pivoted on my feet, at the expense of my arms, to see him scanning a shelf full of whips, canes, crops and more.
“Turn around,” he barked when he caught me peeking.
I complied immediately, untwisting the chains and finding my footing. After a second I could hear the whoosh of something parting the air. It sounded like a whip, but more diffuse. When it struck my bottom, I reeled in pain. It felt like dozens of smooth lashes, and it caught the entire cheek at once, raising welts that stung and burned.
“First time with a flogger?” he asked.
“I think so,” I said. I was lucky to say that much. I quivered, hoping to receive the torment of another swing.
“What did Brady use?”
I couldn’t think straight. “I don’t know.”
“Whips?”
I nodded. Yeah, he used whips.
“Canes?”
Were there? “No, I don’t think so.”
“Paddles?”
“No.”
“His bare hand?”
“Yes.”
Mason smacked my ass with the flogger again. I shouted from the pain, but shivered, shaking my behind in the hopes of inviting another hit.
“You little slut,” he said. “You get one taste, and you want to drink the whole cup.”
I whined softly, blushing. He was right.
“I’m going to teach you discipline so that you’ll accept what you’re given, rather than seek to take.”
I moaned, imagining having to wait on him whenever I wanted carnal pleasure. The idea terrified me, but it also sounded obscenely hot. Submitting to his will; accepting his dominance… What was it about serving him that made me unbearably excited?
“Yes, sir.”
Mason yanked my thong down to my feet. “That’s more like it.” He set the flogger down and brushed my bruised skin with his hands, every touch shooting fresh tendrils of pain into me. I gasped as every sensation made me squirm. I hungered to be filled.
“I’ll bet he really enjoyed using his hands,” said Mason.
“What?”
“Brady.” He fired off two quick slaps. “He probably got quite a kick out of spanking you.”
“He was…”
Two more spankings, this time on the other side. Mason clearly had as much finesse and power with his left hand as he did his right. “What’s that?” he asked.
“He was trying to help me… stay pure.”
Mason laughed cruelly. “He was a grotesque man who liked punishing young women.”
“How do you know that?”
He stopped for a moment. The question seemed to catch him off guard. I thought for sure he would pummel my ass, but instead he brushed my hair back. “Because ascension isn’t real,” he said at last. “You know it.”
I bucked against my chains, trying to dislodge him. “Maybe. But how do you know what Brady believed? People have been wrong before. Just because ascension isn’t real, that doesn’t make him a bad person.”
He ducked below my outstretched arm and got in my face. “You’re wrong, Abigail. He knew perfectly well ascension was a lie. He was a monster.”
“How do you know?” Tears streamed down my face, not because of the charge he levied against Brady, but because I believed him. I felt like the ground beneath my feet was collapsing, and I could barely stand already.
“Because he knows what happened to the other girls,” said Mason. “They didn’t float off to heaven. They’re out there somewhere, and he knows where.”
“Stop it.”
“He did something terrible to them, and nobody has seen them since!” he yelled.
“Shut up!”
He thrust his fingers into my core and started to rub vigorously. “You think these restraints are what really bind you?” he asked.
An eruption of bliss fried my synapses, yet his question thundered in my head.
“If you told me to let you go right now, I would,” Mason whispered into my ear. “Because I’m not a monster.”
Was he expecting me to thank him for that?
“But it’s because I’m not a monster that you wouldn’t be afraid to ask.”
I moaned as he increased his tempo with his fingers.
“Did you ever ask to leave that farm? Did any of the other girls?”
Pleasure and sorrow tore me to pieces; I cried as I shook my head.
&n
bsp; “Maybe they were afraid of making trouble because might they’d be the next to go?”
“No!” I shouted. “That’s not… not how it worked.”
Mason abruptly pulled his fingers from inside me. “It’s not?”
I panted, trying to catch my breath. “There was no pattern. They left when they left. Good, bad; new, old — it didn’t matter. Devout or skeptical, lazy or diligent — made no difference.” After I said it I broke down, and let my body go slack. My juices dripped; my core still raged, hungry for the release withheld by Mason.
“Thank you, Abigail,” he said.
Then he planted his lips on mine and kissed me so hard I thought I’d faint. My arms and feet raged like infernos and my core ached for release, but all I really felt was his soft lips on mine, the heat of his hands wrapped around me, his hard chest against my breast. The pain of not knowing the other girls’ fates burned my heart to ash. He set the fire, but also threw himself in front of the blaze to shield me. My body already hurt so much from the flogging, a little grief couldn’t make it much worse.
Then the pain disappeared completely. Without breaking from our kiss, Mason reached down and hiked up my dress. A second later, I felt his cock pressing against my tight entrance. I moaned as he eased it in slowly; I’d become soaking wet, but his member was still too large to penetrate easily. He worked his way in and out, and I gasped every time he dug in another inch.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered, his thrusting growing faster.
I nodded, silent tears raining down my cheeks. He wiped one away with his thumb.
“I want you… to trust me… Abigail.”
Ecstasy filled me until I felt lighter than air. My knees gave out, and I would have fallen if not for the chains binding my wrists. “I trust you,” I mumbled, nodding.
Mason worked faster, pounding me harder. I wanted to scream as a spasm shook my slight frame.
“I’m going to protect you… from men like him.”
His hands gripped my backside, pulling me into him even harder; his hands inflamed the throb from my punished cheeks, but I didn’t care. I was ready to explode, and all that held back the tide was my remembrance of a promise I’d made.
Mason smiled as he recognized my obedience. “You can come,” he said.
Relieved, I let go of my control and allowed the euphoria to flow, howling in Mason’s ears as his hammering intensified. I bucked and thrashed, overwhelmed by the pleasure and pain.
As the orgasm ripped through me, Mason groaned as he reached his own peak, and soon he was holding me tightly, breathing deeply. I cried out when he let go of me, consumed for an instant with panic that he was leaving once again, even though I was in his basement. I heard the whir of the crank as my arms lowered. Next Mason released the manacles, and I fell into his embrace. He carried me to the bed and gently set me down.
He kissed me, then got in bed next to me. “I meant what I said before.”
“I know.” I believed him, but what did it say about me that I believed Brady so thoroughly too?
“Abigail?”
“Yeah?”
Mason turned onto his side, facing me. I spun around so I could see him. My backside still ached, and not lying down on it felt better.
“I’d like you to do something for me. It might be hard.”
“What?”
“I want you to tell me about the others.”
“The others?”
“The ones who ‘ascended.’ The girls who disappeared.”
“Why?” she asked. Like I had a way of answering that.
All I wanted to do was spread her legs and dive back into her, make her hurt and come and scream so loud my neighbors would remember there’s actually somebody living in 1C. Part of me begged to just let her fall asleep, and join her in it until we’d rested enough to have another go. I hadn’t felt this good in years. But the job came first.
“I think it’ll help,” I said. It was a lie and also it wasn’t. It would help her, in a way. More than one, actually. Maybe her therapist could assist me on that one.
“How could it, Mason? They’re all gone, and I did nothing to stop it.”
Her words stung. I knew exactly how she felt.
“There was nothing you could do. And you were there for them when they needed a friend.”
She snorted. “Not really. I believed in ascension. I was terrible. I ratted out the other girls for misbehaving, I rambled on about heaven and how they’d be back with their families soon…” She started tearing up, and I felt for her, I did, but this wasn’t what I needed. I had to remind myself that if I’d waited such a long time, I could wait a little longer.
Still, it sickened me to see her beating herself up, and to think about the monster who drove her to such a wretched state. I rolled on top of her and kissed her. Her taste sent sparks right to my cock. Two seconds of my tongue in her mouth and I’d be hard as a rock all over again.
Fuck it.
I let the kiss go on, pinning her wrists and straddling her. Inside a voice was tempting me to say exactly what I was thinking, but I couldn’t let myself. If I told her everything, I’d lose any trust I’d built. She’d realize meeting her at Dante’s that night wasn’t an accident, and she’d be furious.
Maybe not. She’s an understanding person. Involuntary wishful thinking. Foolish. She’d want to know why I didn’t come clean from the start. I’d want to know that too, in her place. So I dismissed notions of laying the cards all on the table and remembered the long game. In chess, you don’t go right for the king; you weaken the defense around it first.
“None of those women were kidnapped,” I said at last, staring into her eyes.
“What?” she said, gasping for breath.
“I read that none of you were abducted. Brady drew you in. Is that right?”
“Yeah… It is.”
I kissed her on the forehead. “That man was a master manipulator. You may have believed him more than most, but he fooled all of you. It’s not your fault.”
She turned back to me, blinking away tears. They dripped down her cheeks and left dark spots on the sheets.
“Think about it, Abigail. Weren’t you excited when you arrived at the farm? Weren’t the others too?”
She nodded, sniffing.
“Tell me about them. You’ll feel better.”
“Where do I start?” she said, her voice soft and thin.
I wanted to say “the beginning,” for expedience, but I thought better of it. “Anywhere, Abigail. I’m not going to leave. And neither are you.”
I got out of bed and grabbed a few bundles of rope off the shelves. I tossed all but one onto the bed. She watched quietly as I made a band around her ankle and secured the other end around one of the bedposts. She didn’t make any attempt to stop me, and by the time I bound her arms and both legs, she breathed heavily. I could only imagine the dozens of emotions running through her: arousal, fear, guilt, comfort… I felt a similar tempest, balancing my own regret at using this poor girl, but also pleased to help her.
Some people think a person’s motives aren’t important, that their actions are what really count. I didn’t see it that way, though sometimes I wanted to. Sure, Abigail would feel better if she processed her trauma, but that wasn’t my goal. I had a more important objective, and soothing Lamb’s conscience was her therapist’s job.
I picked up my flogger and paced around the bed. “Talk,” I said, as if she were some perp under interrogation.
“Elspeth,” she said. “She was the newest good soul.”
“How long had she been there?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
“A few months. Brady said that her ascension was coming soon. He just knew it. I used to think she was scared because she didn’t believe in ascension. Now I know… what she was really afraid of.”
I shook my head, disgusted. “Did he say that about all the girls before they disappeared?”
“Sometimes,” she said, nodding
. With her body bound so tightly to the bed, it was nearly all she could do. Occasionally she pulled at the ropes, enjoying their unbreakable grip. “Other times you’d wake up and a girl would simply be gone.”
And yet he never “felt it coming” for her. Lucky Lamb. Of course it made sense that Brady would know when an “ascension” was coming, but not always. Fucking monster.
“You can hardly blame her for running then,” I said.
“No, I guess not. Especially with what Isaac was doing to her.”
“Isaac?” I hadn’t heard about him specifically, though I knew his name was amongst those arrested during the raid. “What did he do?”
Abigail told me about listening to them through the walls at the farm, and as she spoke I wanted more and more to put a fist through the man’s face. How long had he been at the farm? She didn’t know. Did he do that to other girls? She didn’t think so, but wasn’t sure. The girls were too afraid to speak out.
“They wouldn’t tell me, anyway. They didn’t consider me to be on their side,” Abigail lamented.
“You couldn’t have helped them,” I said, bottling up my fury.
She started crying again, but before the floodgates could open, I snapped off a sharp snap at her breast with my flogger. She yelped and twisted, shocked by the sudden strike.
“Know why I did that?” I asked.
She glared daggers. “No.”
I swung again, connecting with her firm, young breasts. She gasped, but reacted better this time.
“I did it because I wanted to. Because I could.”
I think if her hands weren’t tied, she would’ve slapped me. “You’re an asshole,” she muttered, looking away.
I grabbed her chin and forced her head back straight so she would see me smile. “Exactly. Sometimes people are assholes, Abigail. People can do terrible things and have no accountability. Like Brady, if nobody ever catches him.”
Stop it, I thought. You’re losing it. That’s too far. I had to pull back.
“You can spend your life being angry about what some asshole did, or you can learn how not to let it happen again.”
To hell with Abigail’s therapist. I’d been getting answers out of people for years. Causing a little pain usually worked, though I’d yet to try it on somebody who enjoyed it.
