by Brynn Ford
For a beat, a mere nanosecond of time, our eyes connect. Hers soften for the briefest moment of vulnerability before they immediately freeze over again into glacial blue.
She’s stronger than I had anticipated for such a tiny thing. Before I can get off her and back onto my feet, her hands grip my shoulders with deadly intensity and her fingertips curl, digging in deep as she pushes back.
She rolls me onto my back and climbs on top of me, settling her weight against my hips, which press my hands painfully into the hardwood floors beneath my ass. They’re still zip-tied, crossed at the wrists which are sore and raw from the way the plastic cuts in, deeper and deeper every time I struggle to break free.
Though her weight is minimal, it’s still existent, still forces my knuckles to grind against the cold floor, causing them to bruise and ache.
It’s not long before the two other men who had been holding me on my knees reappear, coming up on either side of me to help her hold me down.
Are these really the best henchman they could find?
Each man places a hand on either shoulder, grinding me down to the ground as the woman lets anger cloud her features.
The man with the real muscle looks down at me with his teeth bared as he pushes down on my shoulder, his white snarl adding a little brightness to his five o’clock shadow. His dark brown eyes flicker with determination. I can sense he’s annoyed with the way this has ruined the careful, modern styling he’s done to his ashen-hued, thick, light-brown hair.
Satisfied that I’m properly subdued, the woman nods to the men and slowly stands. “This is the last time you will behave like this, mal’chik.”
“Fuck off.”
She steps up to my side and lifts her right foot. This is the first time I notice she’s wearing pointe shoes.
It’s a goddamn ballerina holding me hostage.
I laugh at how ridiculous this whole situation has become.
She lowers the point of her slipper to the hollow of my throat and I swallow as she presses down. I can’t help but notice the graceful curve of her foot as she points it with the ease of a natural-born dancer.
“I’m capable of balancing on nearly anything, mal’chik. I could rise here against your throat, shift my weight onto your windpipe, and crush it underneath the pressure. I suggest you choose to behave if you wish to live. Death in this place has little meaning. That’s a lesson I intend to teach you quickly.”
I fight the urge to cough as she shifts, her knee bending as she moves more of her weight onto the foot that slowly suffocates me.
Death by ballerina.
There’s a pathetic way to die, though it makes for a killer headline.
With my hands pinned painfully beneath me to the hardwood floor, my shoulders forced down, and this fucking ballerina’s hard-tipped pointe slipper on the vulnerable hollow of my throat, I feel completely powerless.
Pathetically, embarrassingly powerless.
I try to speak, to use my voice to get her to stop, but it just comes out as a croak as she presses harder. The side of her lip curls up and it makes me want to wrap my hand around her throat and choke the look out of her myself. I stop my struggle, conceding with stillness and gradually, she lessens the pressure on my neck. When she lifts her foot away, I cough and clear my throat and cough again.
She tilts her head to the side as she looks down at me. “Would you like a drink of water, mal’chik?”
“My name…” I huff out a sharp breath, “my name is Ezra. I don’t know who the fuck this mal’chik is, but you’ve got the wrong guy.”
She shakes her head and clicks her tongue. “No. You are mal’chik. It means boy and that’s all you are to me.”
I cough again. “I’m no boy.”
“You’re wrong. You’re a boy and a slave and that’s all. You will call me master and you will do as told.”
“Like fuck I will.”
“Get him up,” she tells the men holding me down as she walks to the center of the room. “String him up in the corner and leave us.”
Together, they lift me, hoisting me up from beneath the elbows as I get my feet beneath me. Exhaustion from my ordeal over the last twenty-four hours is starting to sneak in as my most recent burst of adrenaline rapidly recedes.
The recent blow to my head teams up with the brief deprivation of oxygen to gang up on me, forcing my body to truly feel the effects of it all for the first time.
The fight in me drains as moments pass. I try to tap into my reserves, but they’re practically depleted. I’m unable to stop them as the men drag me to a far corner of the room. They cut the zip-ties from my wrists and trade it for rope, wrapping it around and around my wrists, now in front of me. I try to hide my intent as I lift my hands to swipe across my face, something I’ve been itching to do since my nose started to bleed from a hit an hour or so ago. There’s still some fresh blood resting inside my nostril.
I try to catch them off guard, taking a swing at the man to my right, but I’m weak. Instead of getting the upper hand, I get hit once, twice, three times in the side of my stomach, aching pain shooting up my side with each strike. My body folds around the area of attack as I grunt in yielding.
They attach the free end of the rope around my wrists to a pulley system suspended from the high ceiling. I look up as my arms are dragged high above my head to see several of these suspension systems peppered across the ceiling.
By the time my arms are settled in place, stretched far above my head, I know I’m trapped. I yank down, twisting my arms against the binding, but it’s useless.
Satisfied with their work, the men casually saunter out of the room, walking away as if what they’d just done was perfectly normal.
Just another Tuesday at the office.
Music jolts me back into defensive mode as it rings out over a speaker system in the studio. My head whips around, searching for the source of the classical piano music that starts to play. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirrored wall to my right.
I look like hell.
My dirty blond hair looks particularly dirty, falling in grungy pieces around the crown of my head. There are dark circles under my normally bright and well-rested green eyes and my sandy skin is brushed with smudges of dirt.
My jeans look like they’ve been drug through the mud, the pre-manufactured tear near the knee of the right leg is ripped open into a gaping hole. The collar of my T-shirt is stretched out and uneven from someone hoisting me up by the fabric. There’s dried blood on my face and hands from wiping at my bloody nose.
My whole body aches from hours of fighting.
My eyes catch her movement in the reflection from the mirror first, a graceful line of a woman sweeping her arms and stretching her legs. I turn my head to watch her as she begins to dance.
As much as I already hate this bitch, I still can’t tear my eyes away from her. Her movements are precise perfection. She’s a frozen heart that melts to music and dissolves to dance.
Fuck her.
As she lifts to the tips of her toes and stretches her arms high above her head in a way that mirrors my own captive position, I can make out the full shape of her. She’s slender, like every other ballerina I’ve ever met, yet has a touch more curve in places that draw curiosity to see what’s beneath the stretched-out fabric of her black leotard.
This woman wishes to own me, to do me harm, for what reason, I still don’t know. But the sight of her talent in motion gives me goosebumps, makes my heart thump and my thigh muscles twitch to be in motion with her on the dance floor.
A dancer always dances.
The song comes to an end and so does her movement. Her eyes immediately lock onto mine and again comes the glacier from the icy blue, scraping slowly but steadily across the space between us.
She strides across the floor toward me with all the poise of a dancer e
xiting the stage after a performance.
She sighs. “I wasn’t expecting you today. You’ve interrupted my rehearsal.”
“I hate to break it to you, princess, but this has interrupted my whole life. So why don’t we just cut ties now and get out of each other’s hair?”
“No one leaves once they’re brought here.” Her eyes shift away, then back to pierce mine again.
I let my tired head fall over onto my arm. “Please spare me the cryptic bullshit. What am I doing here?”
“You’re here to dance.”
“To dance?”
“I require a partner for our annual performance. My last didn’t live up to my master’s expectations…” She steps closer, invading my personal space. “That partner is gone now, and you are here to replace him.”
“Gone?”
“Yes, that’s what I said. Why do you keep repeating me? My English is excellent, can you not understand me through my accent? I lived in New York since I was eleven. Perhaps I’ve developed another accent that you have trouble understanding.” She tilts her head as her words drip with sarcasm.
The side of my mouth curls up. I might have found her interesting if it weren’t for the circumstances.
“I understand your words, but it doesn’t help me understand why I’m here.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “I told you, mal’chik, you’re here to dance. All you need to do is accept that and obey me and we will get along fine. Continue to fight and there will be consequences,” she turns her head toward the door, “for the both of us.”
“What consequences?”
She circles and disappears behind me. I turn my head as far as I can, feeling the need to keep my eyes on her every move. I can only see the shadow of her movement in my peripheral vision, but I hear the clunk of something hard thud against the floor.
Thud, thud, thud, with every other step she takes, moving to stand beside me. I crane my neck to look around the back of my arm and see her there at my side, a black cane in hand. I watch her eyes as they rake across my body, surveying me with an appraising look.
“You look strong, though you’re nearly too tall for me.” The end of her cane taps against the heel of my boot. “Yellow boots, jeans, T-shirt. Has my master brought me another beat-boy? A hip-hop dancer? If that’s the case, I may as well sign both of our death certificates now.” I feel the heat of her breath as she sighs against my side.
“Looks can be deceiving,” I reply.
She makes a sound of agreement. “True. So, which is it? What style do you dance?”
I swallow as she steps closer. “Contemporary.”
She laughs, though it’s without humor. “Of course. You’ll have the worst habits of all.”
I jump as her hand falls upon my shoulder and my head turns instinctively to look at the source of the touch. Her hand is small, like her, with delicate, slender fingers. Her nails are bitten to the quick and unpolished, the skin around them torn and red in places.
When she speaks again, her voice is smaller, quieter than before, and holds a secret plea that I don’t think she wanted me to hear. “I think you’re the last, mal’chik. I need you to submit to me. I need you to learn the rules quickly, and I need you to follow my instructions carefully.”
Her fingers drag across my upper back, tracing an invisible line between my shoulder blades. My muscles jerk at the tickle of her soft touch along my spine as her fingers travel down, her hand stopping at the small of my back.
My chest tightens.
My breaths quicken.
This woman is powerful, there is no doubt about that with the way her touch electrifies me. It pisses me off to react that way to someone who holds me hostage, someone who thinks she has the upper hand, someone who wants me to follow the rules.
“I don’t follow the fucking rules.”
She lifts the cane and holds it perpendicular to the floor. She swings it to land with a light thwack, flat against my abs, and my muscles jerk as I suck in my gut, flinching away from the black rod. She moves to stand behind me, pressing in closer, reaching around me to grab the other end of the cane with her free hand, pulling both ends back hard. It digs into my torso, creating a line of pressure right across my belly button. I curl around the ache with a low grunt.
“That may have been true before, but it’s not true now. You can give me your submission freely or it can be forced from you.”
Her body molds to mine along my back as she yanks, tightening her grip with the cane, using her strong body against mine for leverage to dig into me.
“You’ll have to force it,” I growl.
“That’s fine,” she breathes, releasing the cane in an instant, and moves away. “I always get what I want.”
I open my mouth to bite back, but clamp it shut again when pain shoots through my backside. She strikes me with the cane, right across my ass. I groan. The pain is sharp and ebbs quickly, striking up my agitation.
“That one doesn’t count,” she says.
I could see her now, standing by my side. My breath hisses through my teeth as I blow out the literal pain in my ass.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What’s your name?” I demand more forcefully the second time. I’m punished for my insistence with another strike that forces a groan.
“I’ll tell you my name when you’ve earned it with your submission. When I can trust you to obey me, when I can trust you to dance with me, then you’ll know my name.”
“I’d prefer to know now so I can personalize my hatred of you.”
I can see her head dip. “The others hated me at first, too. It won’t stop me from breaking you. I have to break you, mal’chik. It’s a simple matter of life-and-death.”
“You won’t break me.”
“I will.” Her head lifts and her arm pulls back. “It’s time for you to learn your first count of eight.”
I chuckle and hear how tired my voice sounds with the low rumble of it. “Do you really think I’m going to dance for you right now? The moment you untie me, I’m knocking you on your ass and getting the hell out of here.”
“You misunderstand me,” she says. “I don’t mean for you to dance. You’re not ready to be unshackled, to be free with me just yet. I don’t trust you, and you don’t have respect for the situation you’ve been forced into. The first count of eight you will learn is pain. Pain is what you get when you refuse, when you deny, when you disobey. You’ll count as I strike, mal’chik. If you refuse or miscount, I’ll start again.”
She swings hard and the cane collides with my flesh, slicing an even sharper pain than the last through my cheeks, rippling down the backs of my thighs. I try to hide that it hurts, but hell, it stings.
“Count, mal’chik. That was one.”
I purse my lips in refusal.
She sighs. “Fine, we’ll start again.”
She swings and strikes again, landing with precision over the thickest part of my ass. My thighs clench against the shooting pain that runs right down the back of my legs. It’s clear she’s practiced at this. She must be, given how much it hurts for such a petite young woman to be swinging that thing at me.
Without warning and without giving me time to choose, she hits me again, but this swing lands across the back of my thighs. I cry out involuntarily and my knees buckle, forcing me to sway in my suspension. She hits me in the same spot, one, two, three more times, each sting more painful than the last.
“Fuck, stop!” I yell at her.
She tries to flatten her tone, but I hear the hint of trepidation. “Now count, mal’chik.”
As the cane lands against my ass again, I weaken.
Like a fucking coward, I weaken.
“One,” I force myself to say.
Her hand softly touches the midd
le of my back but drops away almost immediately. “Good. Again.”
She strikes.
“Two,” I say.
I’m rewarded again by the softness of her fingers drawing low on my back, stopping just above my belt buckle before falling away again.
She strikes.
I groan, “Three.”
“Very good.”
This time, a gentle grazing along my side that makes me flinch.
She strikes.
“Four.”
Again.
“Five.”
Another.
“Six.”
“Good, mal’chik. Only two more.”
If her goal is to convince me that she gives a shit about the pain I’m feeling right now, she’s doing a damn good job. She could make me believe she didn’t really want to do it, but I know that would be naïve of me to think.
The woman is beating me, holding me against my will. She would be stupid to think I won’t fight her again when my hands are freed and my energy is restored.
“Seven,” I manage to say as she hits me, and I hardly have time to blink before the final strikes falls. “Eight.”
The cane clatters as she drops it to the floor and circles around in front of me. She stands still, watching me, her chest rising and falling as harshly as mine. She looks the same as she did before, but her face droops with contradiction.
Her blue eyes slice into mine and it shoots through me, just the way the pain shot through me when she struck me with the cane.
“I don’t enjoy punishing my partners,” she says quietly. “It’s simply what I must do to survive. You’ll understand that soon enough.”
I lift my head to meet her eyes. “Tell me your name.”
Her chin rises with dignity, her eyes narrow, her lips purse together. I see a flicker of warmth pass across the cold blue of her eyes like a lightning strike. As quickly as it appears, it’s gone.
“You will call me master.”
Chapter 2
