by Zoe Blake
The subtle flicking of paper filled the air for a moment and she worried he’d caught her hesitation, but then he spoke. “Good. You’re looking thin, would you like to eat?”
All thoughts of sleeping on a cot disappeared. This was wrong. The next line was, Then you shall serve God in Eden until he calls you home. None of the priests had ever broken the script before, and how many times had she sat in one of these chairs?
“You may answer, my child.”
Is this a trick?
“Yes, father.” Of course she wanted food. She’d felt hunger for so long she barely noticed it anymore. Meals were infrequent, random, and always the same. Gray and grainy and tasteless.
“God wants you healthy in your service to him. I will ensure you are fed.” He paused for a long time, but she had no script for this and had learned that silence was always the better choice in this hell. “Are you grateful?”
“Yes. Thank you, father.”
“Show me your gratitude.” There was a rustle of fabric, and she shivered — but this time it wasn’t from the chill on her skin. “Come here, my child.”
Standing, she walked forward until she could see plain black shoes peeking out from the bottom of his pants. The robe was open, draped over the sides of his chair, and then she heard the zipper. Her stomach churned, but she knelt. Lifeless even as his stance widened so she could move between his legs.
“God honors those who serve him.” He kept the gentle, docile tone that all the priests had as his hand rested on top of her wet hair and pulled her head forward.
There were no words for this, no required responses, except to open her mouth and take the man’s offered cock. Out of habit, she placed her hands behind her back, grasping one wrist as his hard shaft slipped between her lips and over her tongue. Almost comforting, his thumb rubbed back and forth in her hair, only the gentlest nudges guiding her up and down. In many ways, it was relaxing. Easy. He wasn’t violent, his flesh was clean and warm, and he moaned occasionally as he whispered Hail Mary prayers into the air above her bobbing head.
“Oh, my Mother, preserve me this day from mortal sin,” he prayed, groaning as his hips lifted to push his cock just a little deeper into her mouth. Danielle took the hint, swallowing to move him into her throat. After a moment, she choked and pulled back, but his fingers pressed into her scalp, urging her down. “…pray for us sinners…”
If she’d had enough left inside to laugh, or the bravery to roll her eyes, she would have. Instead, she teased him with her tongue, sucking just a little harder to hear him stumble in the next repetition of the prayers.
“Yes, my child, just like that. God honors”—a shuddered breath and a groan—“he honors those who serve. Yesss…” He gripped the arm of the chair still covered by his robe, and pushed her head down just as he came. The taste of his seed coated her tongue, and she swallowed again and again until there was only the masculine aftertaste and his heavy breaths above her. “That was a gift, my child. Thank you.”
When he removed his hand, she pulled back and shifted to sit back on her heels, but he caught her chin and raised her face to look at him. Soft brown eyes in a middle-aged face, cheeks flushed from his efforts. He swiped at the corner of her mouth and then traced a cross on her forehead with the mix of saliva and ejaculate.
“You are blessed to be reborn in such a haven.”
“Yes, father,” she answered. It seemed to be the only correct response, and his smile — and the lack of a slap across her face — confirmed it.
“Come with me.” A command, not a request, so she stood and waited for him to put his softening dick back in his pants and close his robe. Instead of the door to the cots, he led her through the door in the corner behind his desk. It was a narrow hall, dimly lit, and as they passed other doors she knew they must be walking behind the other rooms filled with priests.
How many others had women on their knees showing their gratitude?
The hypocrisy of it all had long lost its humorous appeal, but there were always new levels to discover in Eden. At the end of the hall there were stairs leading down, just as narrow, and the old wood creaked as they descended. The room at the bottom held three long tables with benches on either side, and he gestured for her to sit.
Obeying, she kept her eyes glued to the table, following patterns in the wood until they ended and she chose a new line of the grain to follow. Then he slid a bowl of soup in front of her. Actual warm soup with tiny vegetables floating in it. Danielle was so enticed, she immediately reached for the spoon resting in it, but was pulled up short by a sharp tug on her hair.
“Thank God for your food.”
Salivating, she swallowed a mouthful of drool as she clasped her hands and bowed her head, reciting the prayer he wanted. It was hard to wait after she finished, knuckles turning white as the seconds ticked by and the steam coming from the bowl started to diminish. Finally, the priest released her hair.
“You may eat, my child.”
Danielle attacked the bowl with more interest than she’d shown anything since… well, since she could remember. Not like there was much to remember, but in none of those memories lurked anything as pleasant as the warm broth sliding down her throat. It pushed back the frigid chill in her skin, ebbed the shivers, and she didn’t even care that there was no real taste to it. Bland, simple, but by far the best thing she’d swallowed in Eden.
As she savored the soup, letting each spoonful fill her mouth before she ate it, the vegetables too soft to even chew, a new memory surfaced.
Bright sunlight, green grass, a café. A young, handsome man smiling at her as he reached over the metal lattice of the table top to grasp her hand. His lips moved, but there was no sound, no voice, just a playful grin and a silent laugh.
Then it was gone, taking the kind face and the feeling of safety with it, leaving her with only a meager spoonful of broth. The shallow bowl had emptied too quickly. Her spoon scraped along the ceramic as she gently tilted it to try and get the last few drops without lifting the actual dish to her lips. Before she could get the last tiny spoonful, the priest plucked both items from her hands. “Continue to serve God, and you may earn more.”
Nodding, accepting, she tried to focus on the feeling of warmth in her belly where it gurgled and rumbled, as desperate for the food as she had been. For once she was actually grateful when she said, “Thank you, father.”
He smiled at her, setting the bowl and spoon on a counter beside an old stovetop. A large pot squatted on a back burner, and she wondered if it was full of soup. Just how many bowlfuls could be waiting in there? Did the priests always have hot soup? Every day? Did they eat it more than once a day?
Useless questions.
“Come now,” he beckoned, tilting his head toward the door on the far side of the room. It wasn’t a choice to follow, there were no other options. But the priest had been gentle, and he had fed her warm food. For that, she would crawl after him over the stone floor if he asked.
How little it cost to buy her fidelity.
Another door, but the next hallway was a little wider, with a long, worn carpet running down the middle. It was softer on her feet, warmer, in fact the air itself seemed to lack some of the chill of the rooms upstairs. Or maybe she was just drying off and filled with warm food for the first time since she’d awoken in Hell. Anything was possible in a world that made no sense.
He stopped at a door just before a bend in the hall and knocked softly. “You may enter,” a man’s voice replied, and the priest led her inside. White curtains hung from the ceilings, cordoning off six small spaces in the room. Like an old hospital.
Had she ever been in a hospital?
There was no memory roused by the sight, but the man who stood from behind his desk made her stomach twist around the digesting soup. It was easy to see cruelty once you knew what it looked like, once you’d experienced it, and this man was cruel. Even if he was dressed like one of the priests, sans the white collar. Instead of the tr
aditional marker, he had a white sash around his middle, keeping the narrower style of robe close to his waist.
“She is fresh from baptism,” the man commented, approaching to run a finger down her damp arm.
“Yes. Her two hundred and sixteenth.” The priest said the number in his quiet voice, but her heart stuttered in her chest.
Impossible.
She hadn’t been in Eden long enough for that many punishments or calls to service to have happened. And the damage had to be serious for a baptism to be ordered, which made it impossible. She’d remember that many horrible things happening to her, even if she couldn’t remember the good things, the things from before, she remembered everything in Hell… right?
Her stomach churned, nausea burning a path up her throat as she lifted her eyes to the kind priest to find him smiling.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
The priests were still talking, but she could barely hear them. Words about God and grace and purity. All lies, but their voices were narrowing, growing softer, just like the lights. It was hard to breathe in the dim. Her heart beating too loud in the mounting quiet.
And then the world tilted and everything went black.
Chapter 4
A sharp pinch between her legs woke her with a jolt, and Danielle tried to shift… but couldn’t. Body stiff, eyes sticky, refusing to open even as something hard and cold slid deeper inside her. Then there was another sharp stab of pain at her entrance coupled with a metallic clink.
“Ah, you’re awake.” It was the cruel priest, his voice light, but she felt his hand on the inside of her thigh as he pushed it wider and manipulated the thing buried inside her. “The sedative worked quite quickly on you. Have you been eating enough?”
Sedative?
Questions that she couldn’t ask or answer through her stiff throat, and it took more effort than it should have to swallow. Her mouth was dry, like her eyes, but she finally managed to scrunch up her face enough to get her eyelids to open.
She was on a medical bed, surrounded by white curtains, her legs spread wide in stirrups. Strapped down at wrists, waist, shins, and ankles. The man at the end of the bed still wore no collar, and she wasn’t even sure he was one of the priests, but he did lift his eyes to hers before another metal clink heralded a painful stretch inside her. A croak came from her throat, as close to a cry as she could manage, and he smiled.
“Hmm. You’re a little thin, but I guess that is to be expected. And we should never question the decisions of the divine.” He pulled a tray closer, metal clattering atop it before he bent between her legs once more.
Like a gynecologist.
A doctor. A word that she recognized, but like everything else, she couldn’t remember going to one. How much of her memory was missing? The woman had said she would remember almost everything eventually, but she seemed to be losing more. Two hundred and sixteen baptisms, here, in Eden — that couldn’t be right. They had her confused with another of the women. Someone else. Not her.
Something stabbed inside her and a croaked cry escaped her lips, tears leaking from her eyes when she squeezed them shut. Then there was another stab, another, and she tried to pull on the straps, but only managed to earn a sharp slap to her thigh. “Be still,” he commanded, though there was a gleeful edge to his tone that made her feel sick as the next stab felt too deep. Wrong.
Her inner muscles twitched as he withdrew a long needle from inside her, and then her cunt spasmed painfully hard around the metal still holding her channel wide. She whined low in her chest, unable to voice the horrible ache as her body cramped, seized. What had he done?
“There,” the man said to himself, and then with another metallic clink the pressure was mercifully relieved, and he slid the thing out of her to set it aside on the tray. Warm liquid seeped out of her, dripping down her ass, and she wondered if it was blood.
But why go to all of this effort just to kill her? There were so many easier ways.
His hands returned, pushing her legs farther apart until the stirrups seemed to catch and hold them wider. The position strained her hips, but there was no point in even trying to speak. Nothing she said would stop him. Eden had taught her that lesson well.
Swiping up through the wet mess between her thighs, his thumbs slipped through her folds and spread her flesh wide apart. Then the man leaned close enough that she felt his exhale, listened to the slow inhale that sent a shiver over her skin. There was no gentleness to his touch as he pinched her labia, roughly massaging before pulling those tender lips apart again. Inside, her cunt was tensing, fluttering, twitching, but she closed her eyes to all of it. Tried to push away the strange sensations, the clinical way he inspected her, and the dull ache whenever he manipulated her.
“Good, good,” he muttered to himself as he finally stopped. Danielle opened her eyes to find him standing at the end of the bed, tall, thin, almost gaunt. “Now, let’s see how you perform in service.”
She braced herself for pain, used to the degradation of being a set of holes for men, but nothing prepared her for the agonizing stretch of just his fingers entering her. That horrible smile was back on his face as he worked them in, bracing his other hand beside her hip so he could lean forward and watch her suffering. An almost silent cry was all that escaped as her lubricated cunt eased his entry even as it refused to open for him.
“Beautiful in your suffering. Like a proper virgin.” There was a manic edge to the way he said the last word, and she shook her head, denying the word, but he only grinned wider as he pumped his fingers once more and then withdrew. “Oh, I know that you’re thinking of your calls to service. But you have been baptized, purified by the Lord, our God. Made clean again so you can fulfill a higher purpose.”
Shaking her head harder, she tried to whimper, to cry out as he plucked the white sash from around his waist, and then started on the buttons of his narrow robe. Jolting at the straps, she didn’t even know why she was fighting. It was only making him happy.
It always makes them happy when you beg or fight or cry.
Swallowing, Danielle forced herself to stillness and stared at the ceiling, trying to remember every terrible thing that had happened to her inside Eden. The beatings where she’d been punched and slapped and kicked. Struck with batons and canes for disobedience. Whipped for punishment and entertainment. The vicious rapes in every hole she had. It had all been horrible, and for some unholy reason she had survived. She always awoke in the baptism baths. Clean and healed through God’s grace and love, or so they said.
But this was Hell. The woman in the chain room had told her that, and she had been right about everything except for her memory. Danielle didn’t even harbor the hope of being saved anymore — there was just the wait for a death that never seemed to come.
“I am blessed to be the one to ensure you are prepared, and if necessary I will provide any additional treatments you may need before your next baptism.” He glided his fingers down her stomach, gentle until he pressed the heel of his hand into the softness above her pubic bone.
She flinched as he pushed down hard, like he was trying to crush her insides, but then there was another trickle of warm liquid leaving her cunt. Blood, or not, he swept his cock through it, prodding her entrance as he spread his fingers over her lower belly, fingernails dug into tender skin like a claw.
“Be joyful in your suffering, child. We all serve God in our own ways,” he whispered reverently, eyes wide, manic smile spreading as he pushed in.
Muscles jerking, Danielle gasped as pain blinded her. It felt like he was tearing her, sawing his way inside with blades instead of flesh. She tried to twist her hips away but he held her in place. Pinned under his weight, in agony, her core spasmed and cramped around the invasion.
He forced another inch inside and groaned as her mouth opened in a silent scream. “So good. So perfect.” Licking his lips, he stared down at where their bodies met. “Let’s see how well you perform, my child.”
Tears slid into her hair, warm tracks on cool skin, and Danielle tore her eyes from him. Staring at the ceiling, she tried to escape like she had on so many other calls to service. There was no pleasure, just a rending pain as he worked inside her. Whatever he’d done had made her cunt tighter than naturally possible, reducing everything to pain for his pleasure. Nothing more than a body that he’d twisted for his own purposes. Grunting, he shunted another inch inside, and her voice croaked as she tried to beg him to stop.
“You can take it. You were chosen, so I know you can.” The man slid his hand lower to rub his thumb over her clit. Merciless circles that made her tremble. “God honors those who serve.”
An explosion of pleasure, it was the inverse of everything happening inside her, and something like an instant orgasm flooded wetness between her thighs. Desperate for air, for respite, drowning in a chemical overload that she couldn’t even voice. In the haze, he forced the last of his cock inside and her body zinged back and forth between extremes until she was shivering, taut muscles straining at the straps. Angled above her, he watched it all with eyes too wide, his fanatical expression taunting her with a zealot’s glee.
“See? The agony and the ecstasy. God often gives with both hands,” he whispered through harsh breaths. “But we must accept his tests as well as we do his gifts.”
Danielle shook her head, hair sticking to her cheeks as he began a torturous pattern. Hips pulling back and slamming forward, mercilessly fucking her until the bed clattered against the wall and the pain had her lungs seizing. Every thrust felt like being torn open, her inner walls cramping as her body tried to curl inward but couldn’t. Just when she thought she’d finally black out, escape the nightmare, his thumb would return to her clit. Forcing her to come in a soul-jarring snap of obliterating ecstasy.
Minutes or hours could have passed in that hellscape, listening to his harried prayers, his fucked-up comments between grunts and groans, until he finally pulled out of her. Fist wrapped around the ruddy shaft, he started jerking his cock faster and faster, one hand braced beside her waist as he bit down on a moan and spilled his seed in ropes across her stomach.
