For all the confidence I projected to the outside world, I’d been a late bloomer and had only had one serious boyfriend before Bryce. And that had been back in Ohio where the boys were, well… boys in comparison to the men I’d suddenly found myself surrounded by in the big city. And no one I’d ever met before had anything on Bryce Gentry, who was something altogether different.
The first time he slapped me, it immediately turned into sex, and our sex had always been on the rough side. In the end, was a slap really all that different from a spanking? It was just another facet of the world of kink Bryce was teaching me about, I told myself. It wasn’t like he was hitting me, hitting me.
But the sex just kept getting rougher and rougher.
Until I knew he was hurting me on purpose. But always, at least in the beginning, he’d make me cum after he hurt me. So often and so regularly that the two became inextricably linked.
Just like he wanted.
It was all so confusing. Only a year before, if I saw a woman like the one he was turning me into on the street, I would have shouted at her to leave him! It would have seemed so obvious if I was looking at it from the outside. But Bryce had a way of narrowing down your world until he was all you could see.
All my friends fell by the wayside. Along with my family back in Ohio. Bryce made sure he was my only lifeline.
It was only after I’d burned all my other bridges, after he’d taken over the company I worked for and I was completely isolated and dependent on him that he really showed his true colors.
But it was too late by then.
At that point, he controlled every aspect of my life.
I woke up one morning, bruised and aching, my throat sore from Bryce choking me the night before, wondering how the hell I’d gotten to this point.
I wasn’t this person. This woman. I wasn’t the abused woman who stayed.
But I’d let my apartment lease lapse months ago since I was living with Bryce. He was effectively my boss. I barely had any money in savings and there was nowhere else for me to go. I was homeless, worthless, nothing apart from Bryce.
Plus, and this was the most disgusting thing of all…
I loved him.
Most days I justified all of it. It wasn’t really abuse. There were no black eyes. And yes, I hated it when he started ‘lending’ me out to his friends, but he was always in the room and he said it turned him on to watch me with other men. And that was something couples did, right? Had open relationships?
And if I hated it so much, then why did I cum all the time? Some part of me obviously liked it.
Even if it grew harder and harder to bear. Even if Bryce stopped keeping up with any appearance of caring about me. He ordered me to fuck his friends and then laughed with them about what a whore I was.
But by then I believed every word he uttered so deep down to my center. I was a whore. I was worthless. I proved it every time I let him lend me out to be used like a hooker and didn’t leave the next day. Hookers didn’t cum when they fucked for money.
But I did.
Because I was a disgusting worthless slut who deserved everything Bryce did to me.
But then there was that night. It was the first time there’d ever been so many men at once.
I switch the shower to a tub and then sink down as the water fills. I cover my eyes like I can scrub out the memories.
It’s useless, though. That night is seared so deep in my memory it might as well be branded on my soul.
“Christ, you’re fat today,” Bryce frowned like he was disgusted after he’d ripped my work blouse open and looked me critically up and down.
I’d just asked him what he wanted for dinner and I froze, my eyes immediately dropping to look down at myself. I thought I’d been losing weight, I’d been so stressed out lately. Nothing I ever did seemed to please him.
I was fucking pathetic, but all I wanted to do was to please him. I wanted it to be like it had been at the beginning when he doted on me. When he’d been chasing me like I was an exotic creature he couldn’t wait to catch and cherish. Where was that man? Had he ever been real at all? Surely he was still there underneath, right?
Bryce had just been stressed out at work. There was so much going on as he strived endlessly to build up Gentry Tech. He was brilliant and would be a billionaire by the time he was thirty. And I got to be a part of it. Behind every great man stood a great woman. That’s what they said, right? I was privileged to be that woman for Bryce. So I could stand a few mood swings now and then.
“I’ll just have a salad, then,” I said. “But I can cook the pork chops I got yesterday for you and—”
“I don’t want your fucking pork chops. You can’t cook for shit. I’ll just order in. You go clean all that shit off your face. We’re having guests tonight. Important ones so you better be on your best behavior, do you hear me?”
His tone was so sharp I had to bite back the tears that threatened.
But like always, he could read me. I was an open book to him, no matter how much I might hate the fact.
“Oh, poor baby,” he said, his voice gentling. He pulled me in close and ran a hand down my back. “Shh. It’ll all be all right. You’re mine and I always take care of what’s mine, don’t I?”
He pulled back and his eyes searched mine. “Don’t I, baby?”
I nodded, swallowing and he smiled.
He had a gorgeous smile and when he gave it to you, you felt like nothing in the world could be wrong.
“Now go clean up.” He smacked my ass and I went up to shower.
By the time I got out of the shower, his ‘friends’ were there.
Bryce’s eyes were hard and calculating as he looked me up and down. Gone was the man who’d smiled at me so gently earlier. Sometimes I thought for sure he must have multiple personalities. He could flip like a switch and some mornings I woke up terrified of who I’d find in the bed beside me—Jekyll or Hyde.
It wasn’t until much later that I’d realize that no, there was only Bryce, singular, and he merely found it convenient to adopt different masks depending on which was most useful for manipulating his current target.
But I was still his personal toy back then, unwilling to admit to myself the mouse trap I was caught in.
Bryce was waiting for me when I got out of the shower. He didn’t let me dry my hair or put on any clothes.
He just put a leather BDSM hood on my head. It had holes for the nose and mouth but that was it. I was blind and everything was muted by the leather. It was disorienting.
Still, I could hear enough to make out Bryce’s voice as he ordered, “You accept everything that’s given to you tonight, do you hear me? If you don’t, I’ll be very disappointed and will have to punish you.”
I shuddered, both at the words and at his icy tone. I’d disappointed him once before. He’d locked me in a closet for 48 hours with only a jug of water and a bucket to pee in.
He led me down the hallway to the rec room. As soon as we entered, I could smell the mix of competing colognes. The soft chatter of voices stopped as soon as Bryce paraded me into the middle of the room.
Just how many men were there?
“On your knees,” Bryce ordered me. Then, to the room. “Now, who wants to fuck my girlfriend first? Her mouth or cunt, you can have one or both. She’s everyone’s whore tonight.”
My body went tight and I wanted to yank away from him. He felt me flex and his grip around my arm clenched tighter.
He bent over and hissed in my ear. “Don’t you dare fucking embarrass me. There are men here whose business I need. Are you going to help my career advance or are you going to break my promises to my guests and cost me my business? These are lucrative contracts I need.”
How dare he put me in this position? my mind screamed. While another part of me whispered: he needs you. You’re vital to his business. You can get through one night of this.
“And you know it turns me on seeing you with other men,” he whispered, voice going softer f
or just a moment, his hand caressing down my back. “You’ll be safe. They’ll all wear condoms. I’ll fuck you so sweet after they leave. Do this for us, baby. We’re in this together, aren’t we?”
Young, dumb, and so fucking naïve, I nodded.
The next moment, there was a cock pressing against my lips. It wasn’t Bryce’s. It was bigger, for one.
And whoever it was attached to wasn’t shy about shoving it down my throat. I choked on it at the same time as a hand reached between my legs from behind. The fingers were rough as they probed me but Bryce had trained my body to respond to rough over the past eight months and almost immediately, I grew wet.
The hand sped up its ministrations the wetter I grew and no matter how brutally I was being face-fucked, I came, choking and spitting up around the cock in my mouth at the same time.
The next moment, the man from behind pushed his cock into me and I was being fucked from both ends. Cheers came from all sides and I began to realize what a herculean task lay in front of me. All these men wanted to fuck me? In one night?
But then someone was playing with my ass as the man continued fucking me. I didn’t know if it was the man himself or someone else. Because they weren’t all just standing back now. Hands grabbed me from all sides. Squeezing my breasts. Slapping my ass. Slapping my face. Sticking fingers in my ass. Pinching my nose until I really choked for breath on the cock in my mouth.
The man fucking me grabbed my hips and came at me harder and harder with every in stroke, almost rivaling Gentry in brutality. He slapped my ass hard with every outstroke.
Hating myself didn’t stop my pleasure from ramping higher and higher again the harder he fucked me.
“Little bitch is about to come again, Dylan,” Bryce laughed. “Looks like you really do know how to fuck whores the right way.”
And then Dylan’s grunting voice in response. “You only know you’re doing it right if you can make them cry.”
Dylan. Oh God it was Dylan.
How did I forget the name until now? It’s true I’ve tried to block out that entire night, not remember details, but still. Or did some sick, subconscious part of me know all along?
But God, now to know that it was his horrible brother fucking my mouth at the same time. I gag and cover my mouth.
I need some mouthwash.
I need a brainwash.
The water of the bath is finally deep enough, I sink down on my back, completely submerged.
You knew it was a possibility Dylan was there. You knew Bryce and Dylan were acquainted around that time.
It was a few months before his sister moved away, now that I think through the timeline based on my research and what he’s told me.
I close my eyes. It’s nice down here under the water. Sound is muted. Life is muted. I don’t have to be who I am.
What if I just never surfaced? If I just stayed down here? Breathed the water into my lungs?
What does dying feel like?
How much would it hurt?
More than living?
I open my eyes and look through the water at the undulating light on the ceiling. My chest is starting to burn from not breathing.
How long did Dylan stay that night?
One man left early. Was it him? I remember Bryce asking the man why he was leaving so soon. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to concentrate. Had Bryce used a name?
Think. Think.
The more I concentrate, the more everything I’ve tried to repress comes bubbling back up.
“Leaving so soon? What, you’re just going to take your fuck and run?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t— This is too much for me right now.”
Bryce’s caustic laughter rang through the room, echoed by several other men.
“Wouldn’t have thought you were such a pussy. She loves it. Besides, things are just getting fun.”
Two other men were fucking me and concentrating on what Bryce was saying seemed important because I kept thinking: any second he’ll call it off. He’ll see how hard this is for me and he’ll put a stop to it.
“Whatever, man,” the stranger said dismissively. Then, “You coming, bro?”
Another voice said no, he wanted to stay. Then there was the sound of a closing door.
It was Dylan. I thought when he’d said ‘bro’ he’d just meant friend. But he’d actually meant brother. Because it was Dylan and he was asking if Darren wanted to leave with him.
But of course psycho Darren said no.
I jolt up out of the water, heaving for breath. Water sloshes all around me from the sudden movement and I push hair back out of my eyes.
Dylan wasn’t there when things turned so awful later on.
He wasn’t there when I begged Bryce to stop. Over and over I cried that I wanted to stop but Bryce just kept ordering man after man to use me however they wanted.
There were no such things as safe words with Bryce.
There was only what he wanted.
I’d trusted him before that night to never let it go too far.
Was Darren one of the men who slapped me so hard that for the first time, I did have a black eye? Was he one of the men who kept on fucking me long after I had no more strength to be up on my knees or to try to fight them off? It must have been little better than fucking a corpse but maybe that was how they liked it.
It went on all night. For hours and hours and hours. Just when I thought it was done, another would enter me.
No matter how sore or bloody or broken I was.
When it was over, when it was finally over, Bryce just left me there, in that horrible room.
I thought he’d come back for me after he showed all his ‘friends’ to the door and help me to the bath. Back in the beginning, after he use me roughly, he used to do that. Take care of me. During the worst times, it was the only thing that made it even bearable.
But Bryce didn’t come for me that day.
I don’t know how long I laid there on the rough carpet, spent condoms littering the floor all around me.
Hours. Maybe a whole day? I passed out at one point. Not sure I would call it sleep. When I finally got up, the apartment was dark. Bryce was out.
And to my everlasting shame, I didn’t leave right then.
The only thing I had strength for was a bath and then to fall into bed, where I stayed for a week.
Bryce only bothered me when he wanted to fuck me. I just laid there and took it, no matter what he did to me.
“Jesus, I guess that finally broke you.” He laughed as he said it, the whole time still fucking me. “I was wondering what it’d take. Well, if you don’t want to get kicked out on the fucking street you better get some life back in you cause you’re fucking boring like this.”
He pulled out and left the room.
I finally crawled out of bed and made my way to the bathroom.
I poured the contents of a bottle of some prescription sleeping pills into my hands.
I poured a glass of water.
I dropped my head back and shoved all the pills in my mouth.
… and then I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet and spit them all out, every last one of them.
I flushed and went to the sink to scrub at my tongue.
And then I pulled on a robe and left Bryce’s apartment. I didn’t take anything other than my phone. I didn’t even change or put on any other clothes.
Bryce was wrong.
I wasn’t broken completely.
But I was close.
So very fucking close.
If I didn’t leave then, right that very second, I wasn’t sure I’d have the guts to later. So I walked out in my robe.
I dialed the number of an old friend from college. The fact that Paula even picked up the call after I’d completely ghosted her months earlier speaks to what a good person she is.
When I broke down and confessed my situation through tears, she came and picked me up. She let me stay at her place for the weeks it took to find another
job and start piecing my life back together.
Bryce didn’t have the influence he would have a couple of years later, so he wasn’t able to blacklist me like I’m sure he wanted. I was able to find another good job.
I tried to have normal relationships. But it turned out after Bryce, I couldn’t cum without pain. I tried. God knows I tried. With a couple of very sweet and earnest men, I tried so hard.
When that didn’t work, I looked in other places. BDSM clubs. There I could find men who would hurt me and please me at the same time.
I sought out Jackson Vale, who Gentry had also wronged so badly. I thought we could heal each other. For a while I think it even worked.
But Jackson never genuinely wanted to hurt me. He humored me with light spankings but he never would touch the whip.
Even other Doms I played with throughout the years… there was always something missing. A couple of them genuinely enjoyed inflicting pain but it was always so controlled.
Where was the menace? The manipulation? The mindfuck?
Was that why I really sought Dylan out? Because I hoped he’d be more like Bryce? No matter the research I’d done on him, had I deep down hoped he’d hurt me just like Bryce used to? That he’d tear me down day by day and try to break me?
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I whisper as I grab the soap and start to scrub at my body.
God, am I so desperate for sensation, to feel fucking anything that I was hoping to find Bryce 2.0 in Dylan?
But I didn’t. Dylan is the antithesis of Bryce. He doesn’t want to hurt me.
I stop scrubbing as I stare at the wall.
Because that’s not true, is it? Dylan does want it. He just hates that he does. He fights against it.
But does that really matter at the end of the day?
Over and over I’ve told Dylan that it does matter. That it’s okay to want it because he never steps a toe past the line.
But you’ve never given him a line.
Really, we’ve never even come close. All we’ve ever done is play. Fucking play.
I throw the bar of soap in the water and pull the plug, standing up angrily and grabbing for a towel.
I’m done playing it safe.
Chapter Fourteen
Hurt So Good: A Break So Soft Novel Page 11
