“Yeah,” Gordon enthused, “Mara is something all right. I’ll be asking for her again, you can count on it.” He turned to her with a big, stupid grin, which fell away as he regarded her. “Hey, you don’t look so good. Are you okay?” He turned to Alex. “Is she okay? She looks like she’s going to puke or something.”
Alex strode toward the bed. “Probably you just wore her out,” he said to Gordon in a conspiratorial tone. “You were her first, after all.”
Gordon barked a laugh. “I like to get my money’s worth.”
Bending down, Alex stripped the sheet from Mara’s body. He placed his arm under her back and forced her upright, pulling her to her feet. He put his arm around her shoulders, his fingers closing around her upper arm like a vise. “Mara is fine. Aren’t you, Mara?”
Without waiting for a response, he propelled her to the door. Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “I’m sure you’ll want to freshen up before lunch. I’ll have the driver stop by the room in about thirty minutes to take you over to the dock. Will that work for you?”
“Yes, indeedy,” Gordon said heartily. “Like a charm.”
Alex, his arm still clamped around Mara’s shoulder, pushed her along the hallway toward an exit door. As he opened the door, she blinked in the bright sunlight, the heat of the day hitting her with a humid blast. There was a golf cart on the broad sidewalk, and Alex pushed her down into the passenger side.
An odd sense of the surreal had settled over her, as if she were moving underwater or in some kind of dream. She couldn’t seem to get her mind to work properly and her tongue felt thick and useless in her mouth.
Alex didn’t speak to or look at Mara as he drove the cart along the paved paths. Taking a cell phone from his shirt pocket, he pushed a button and, after a moment, said, “Go into suite two and straighten the room while the guest is in the shower. Be quick about it, and make sure to remove the gown and sandals the girl left behind.” He listened a moment, replied, “Good,” and hung up.
Remove the evidence. Make me disappear.
Mara started to tremble, in spite of the heat of the day. She hugged herself as the electric golf cart glided silently along. Alex turned at a glade of trees parallel to the shore, moving through a part of the island Mara hadn’t seen before. After a few minutes, he pulled to a stop in front of a small, windowless hut made of unpainted wood, its roof fashioned from strips of corrugated tin. Climbing out of the cart, he came around to Mara’s side and yanked her from the vehicle.
He hauled her to the door of the hut, which was secured with a large padlock. He took a key ring from his pocket and used one of the keys on the lock. Leaving the padlock ajar on the hasp, he pulled open the door and shoved her through. The room was dim, lit only by the sunlight shining through the open door. The air was hot and stank of stale urine, sweat and vomit. The wooden floor was rough beneath her bare feet, the ceiling low.
Alex shook his head slowly, an expression of real regret moving over his features. “I really thought you were doing well, Mara. Adapting. Adjusting. Fitting in.” He reached toward her. She flinched, expecting a slap, but instead he closed his hand around the ruby at her throat. With a sudden yank, he pulled the chain loose. “You’re not worthy of this ruby. You’re nothing now. Less than nothing. You start from zero.”
“Please, Alex, please, sir,” Mara begged. “I didn’t—”
“No!” Alex shouted, the first time she’d ever heard him raise his voice. He reached again for her, this time his hand closing hard around her throat. “Don’t make excuses or tell lies. It will only go worse for you.” He squeezed hard, blocking her ability to breathe or even cough. “You betrayed me. You broke the rules. Lucky for you Gordon Smith is too stupid, or maybe too smart, to believe you.”
His voice softened, though he kept the iron grip on her throat. “When I told him, Wallace wanted to sell you outright. I convinced him to give you another chance.” Finally he let her go.
Mara stumbled back, gasping for breath. “Please,” she tried again, “I’m sorry. I—“
Again he cut her off. “Not as sorry as you’re going to be.” He pointed to the ceiling. Following his finger, Mara saw a large eyebolt embedded there, a rope slung from it with a single large nylon cuff attached. “Raise your arms over your head as high as you can.”
Mara stared at the rope and cuff. She did not want to be bound in this hot, close hut, this prison. Suddenly she knew where she was.
The box.
She took a step back. Alex moved menacingly toward her. “Do it. Now.”
Mara lifted trembling arms over her head. Alex grabbed her wrists with one hand. Using the other, he tugged the rope until the cuff was the correct height and then closed it snugly around both wrists. He pulled at the rope until she was forced nearly on tiptoe. Without speaking, he turned on his heel and walked out the door.
“No! Wait!” Mara shouted, not wanting to be left alone in this place, even though Alex was the last person in the world she wanted to be with her.
To her relief, he returned a moment later. He held out a bottle of water and all at once Mara realized she was parched with thirst. She licked her lips, watching as he unscrewed the cap. He held the bottle to her lips.
“Drink,” he ordered, tipping it.
Mara drank, gulping as much of the sweet, cold water as she could, though some of it splashed down her chin onto her chest and breasts as he poured.
When it was empty, he stepped back. “I’m going to leave you now to contemplate what you’ve done.”
Mara began to cry. “Please, please, don’t leave me here, sir. Please.”
Alex regarded her with his hard, cold stare. “Have you forgotten what I told you when you first arrived? Good girls get rewarded.” He held up the ruby necklace and then slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans with a sharp shake of his head. “Bad girls get punished. You, Mara, have been very, very bad.” With that, he turned toward the door and walked out, this time pulling it closed behind him.
The room was plunged into darkness and Mara could hear the sound of the padlock being clicked into place. Then all was silence, except her own snuffling.
After a minute or so, her eyes adjusted. The room wasn’t actually dark, but only dim. Shafts of sun penetrated gaps in the tin roof, leaving stripes of light along the floor. There were also spaces between the floorboards from which faint light glowed. She saw there was a bucket in the corner of the hut, a piece of newspaper spread beneath it.
The hut was hot, even hotter now that the door was closed, and sweat trickled down Mara’s sides and beaded on her forehead and upper lip. She continued to cry softly for a while, until the tears finally stopped. Using her shoulder, she tried to wipe her face as best she could.
For a long while she stared at nothing, leaning heavily against the nylon cuff that held her arms in place. How long could he leave her like this? How long could a person be safely suspended in this manner before real damage occurred?
She flexed her fingers, testing the strength of the cuff, but it held her fast. She was still thirsty, despite the water he’d given her. The welts from Gordon’s cane stung as sweat trickled over them. She closed her eyes, wondering if things could possibly get any worse. Then something brushed in a tickling, insect-like rush over her foot, and she squealed, jerking reflexively in alarm.
She saw something small and many-legged scurrying toward the wall—probably a spider and probably more frightened of her than she was of it. Still, her heart was hammering wildly against her breastbone, her breath ragged and hoarse.
Calm down. Calm down, she told herself. You’re going to have a fucking heart attack.
She willed herself to slow her breathing. Closing her eyes, she visualized the vast ocean and the clear blue sky. She lay on her back in the water, letting it buoy her up as a cool sea breeze stroked her skin. She drifted that way for a long while in a kind of trance, almost forgetting she was standing naked and bound in the box.
It was her
bladder that pulled her, unwillingly, from the peaceful place to which she’d managed to escape. She opened her eyes, all her ragged nerve endings and aching muscles reawakening with a vengeance, along with a painful, urgent need to pee. She hadn’t been to the toilet since right after breakfast, which was hours and hours ago now, and that bottle of water surely hadn’t helped matters.
She danced from foot to foot for a while, trying to find a position that eased some of the pressure, but to no avail. She looked longingly at the bucket, imagining herself squatting over it, imagining the relief she would feel as she emptied her aching bladder.
The pungent odor of fresh urine reached her nostrils just as she registered the warm gush of liquid coursing down both legs. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” she said aloud, trying to stop the flow as she danced and squirmed, but it was no use.
“Fuck it.” What the hell—she had lost control of her bladder, she might as well go all the way. With a sigh of relief, she let the pee course down her legs and splash onto the floorboards in a puddle at her feet. It seeped away between the cracks, leaving only a dark, wet stain on the wood. At least her bowels were clenched far too tightly for that to become an issue.
How long was he going to leave her hanging like this? Would they let her die here? No. If they were going to kill her, she told herself firmly, they would have done it outright. But they wouldn’t do that—why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? She and the other girls were the bread and butter of this place.
Alex said Wallace had wanted to sell her. Mara shivered at that thought, realizing with a small, painful shock that at least here on Pirate Island, despite the fact she was a sex slave, she had at least some semblance of safety and comfort, relatively speaking.
As long as she behaved.
What had she been thinking? What a stupid, stupid risk she’d taken. And now she was paying the price. Her arms were completely numb, her body coated with sweat, her legs wet with urine. How much longer until Alex returned? Would he let her down? Would he be angry that she’d peed on herself? Would he let her out of this stinky, sweltering box?
She tensed at the sound of footsteps and drew in a sharp breath. She bit her lip as she heard the sound of the padlock being released.
Alex!
She would apologize again. She would promise to be good. She would take whatever punishment was coming to her with as much grace and courage as she could muster.
The door swung open, the bright light momentarily blinding her. Mara squinted as her eyes adjusted. Alex stood in the door holding a long, coiled whip. He wrinkled his nose with obvious distaste as he stared at her. “Really, Mara. You’re disgusting. I’ve only been gone an hour. You disappoint me.”
He disappeared from the doorway, returning a moment later holding a hose with a spray nozzle attached. Aiming it low, he squeezed the trigger. Mara squealed at the sudden, icy cold blast of water coursing down and between her legs. He moved closer, aiming the spray directly at her pussy, letting the cold water pummel her sex for several seconds before he directed the nozzle upward, washing her torso and finally spraying her in the face as Mara tried in vain to twist away.
Calmly, he moved around her, spraying her back and welted ass, moving the hose over her until she was dripping wet from head to toe. Finally, he hosed down the floorboards at her feet. Stepping back, he released the nozzle, let the hose fall to the floor and kicked it away.
Though the impromptu shower had been shocking in the extreme, Mara had to admit she felt better with the urine and sweat washed from her skin, her internal temperature cooled by the spray. She shook her head in an effort to get the wet hair out of her eyes. Watching her, Alex stepped closer. Reaching for her face, he tucked wet strands of hair behind her ears.
“Please,” she whispered, tears springing unbidden to her eyes at the sudden, unexpected tenderness of his touch. “I’m sorry, sir. Please let me down. I’ll be good. So, so good. I promise.”
He stepped away from her, reaching behind his back and pulling the whip from where he must have tucked it into the waist of his jeans. “You will,” he agreed. “I am going to break you down, Mara. I am going to take you apart, piece by piece, and then put you back together again. When I am done with you, you will never, ever even think of talking to a guest as you did today. You will, once again, be my star pupil, my model submissive, my perfect, obedient girl.”
“Yes,” Mara said, frightened by his words, but more frightened at the prospect of being left alone again in this hut for who knew how long. “I promise to behave. Please, please, sir. Let me down?”
“All in good time.” He flicked the handle of the whip, unfurling the long tail of dark braided leather and snapping it with a crack in the air. “First, you need a whipping. A very thorough whipping.”
Chapter 7
The tip of the whip struck with a searing bite, like a snake’s tongue darting over her flesh. It made a small popping sound at impact, and a second later Mara felt its awful burning sting. It snapped again, catching her at the same spot on the other side. Snap, pop, burn. Explosions of pain stippled her ass and back. Sweat mingled with the water still dripping from her body as she danced and twisted on her toes.
She screamed when the whip arced over her right breast, its razor-sharp tip catching her nipple. Wincing, she peered through the slits of her eyelids to see Alex in front of her. He struck her other breast, moving with a slow, languid grace, his wrist flicking with seemingly effortless ease, his face a mask of concentration. Mara screamed again.
The whip moved down her body, curling around her ribcage, bisecting her stomach, stinging like an angry wasp on the insides of her thighs. “Please,” Mara begged, panting, tears rolling down her cheeks. “No more. No more. I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…”
Her pleas fell on deaf ears. Alex didn’t look at her face, his focus entirely on the trajectory and savage impact of the whip. The braided leather whipped across her back, painting stripes of pain between her shoulder blades. There was no escape, no way out. All she could do was endure. Mara’s eyes fluttered shut, her head falling back as she gave in, as she gave up.
The dark cloak of fear that had fallen over her senses lifted, if just a little. There was light coming through tears in the fabric of her suffering. She could almost smell the salt tang of the ocean. A breeze lifted her hair and all at once she was flying—skimming parallel just above the water, her body powerful, light and free.
She was vaguely aware of the continued snap, pop and burn of the leather but somehow it mattered less now. It seemed far away, overridden by the soothing lull of waves lapping gently beneath her and the sound of the air whistling in her ears as she flew, her arms outstretched like powerful wings, her legs like a bird’s long tail behind her.
She was free.
Mara’s eyes burned as if bits of sand were lodged beneath her eyelids. The room was dark, the floorboards hard beneath her. She pushed painfully up onto one elbow. As she came more fully awake, so, too, did her skin, which pulsed and ached in a thousand places. Gingerly she touched an especially painfully cut on her right thigh. It was ridged and tender but the skin appeared intact.
She didn’t remember when or how the whipping had ended or being released from the cuffs. She did remember waking once earlier, when it was still daylight outside the box. She was curled into a ball on the ground in the center of the room. When she’d tried to sit up, dizziness had overcome her and she had lain back down, welcoming oblivion once more.
Now she sat again, carefully, slowly, and drew in a deep breath of the stale air. Her stomach was clenched into a hard, empty knot. Her mouth was dry, the lining of her throat parched, a bitter taste on her tongue. She looked around the small space. The ambient light of the moon shining through the cracks allowed her to see the bucket in the corner, though she was too dehydrated to need it.
Pushing herself slowly to her feet, she stretched tentatively, carefully moving her arms and legs. Something scuttled, a faint, scrab
bling sound that made Mara give a little cry, but then it, whatever it was, was gone.
“It’s okay,” Mara muttered hoarsely to herself. “You’re okay.” She was stiff and sore, but, other than the myriad welts and bruises covering her body, she seemed to be intact. She walked in a slow circle around the space, stomping her feet to scare away any lingering bugs or critters that might have joined her for the evening. Scanning the area carefully for the hose or a bottle of water, she saw nothing.
She listened for any sound of humanity outside the walls of her prison, but heard only the cacophony of crickets and frogs singing their night song and, beyond that, the ever-present sound of the surf lapping at the shore. “Hello?” she called out in a small, tentative voice. It came out as a croak. She cleared her throat and called louder, “Hello? Alex? Anyone? Please?”
Nothing.
Settling beside the wall opposite the bucket, she leaned carefully against the rough wood, wincing as it made contact with her abraded skin. She drew up her legs close to her body and brought her arms around her knees. Resting her cheek on her knees, she began to rock. Her mother slipped into her mind from her resting place in Mara’s heart. Remember how I used to sing you to sleep after a nightmare?
Mara did remember. Alone in the empty hut, she began to sing in a small, reedy voice, channeling her mother’s memory into song: Sleep, my child, let peace attend thee, all through the night. Guardian angels God will send thee, all through the night…
She sang the whole song, and then she sang it again, and again, until her eyes slid closed, the words dissolving on her tongue. She lay down, curling with her back to the wall, imagining her mother’s warm, strong arms around her as she drifted into a troubled sleep.
Mara startled awake with a cry at the soft touch of something moving over her cheek, the word tarantula skittering like a spider through her dream-soaked mind.
Dark Obsessions Vol II Page 10
