Nearly two hours later, Ben dragged me through the white halls of X’s estate again. My back ached from hunching over the keys while writing lines of code into the operating system of Z’s laptop. I would have to show X what to do next, but all of Z’s business files would be open. I’d given X exclusive backdoor access to everything, and I inserted something for myself.
I gave up trying to keep track of the twists and turns. We passed through several open-air atriums. It seemed X liked to build around a series of courtyards surrounding inner gardens. I counted three such structures before Ben brought me to a large set of carved double doors. Despite all my misgivings, I couldn’t deny an anticipation growing inside of me.
X brought all the emotions boiling to the surface; anger, fear, disgust, confusion, interest, excitement, guilt, anxiety, and more simmered together and left me feeling wrung out. I was anticipatory, eager to see him again after the revelations of this afternoon. I was scared of the steel in his eyes and the predator within, but excited as well. His dominance had uncovered something within me, something I was only now beginning to accept. I approached the evening with cautious excitement, but steeled myself for the reality Z’s presence would bring. I didn’t know what I would find when Ben delivered me to X.
I gasped as Ben tugged me past erotic sculptures, getting only a glimpse of the men and women engaged in every imaginable sexual act. It would have been beautiful if not for the circumstances of my situation. I stumbled, neck craned as I looked at the doors, but Ben dragged me into a large chamber. After the stark white and gray walls, I wasn’t prepared for the crimson and black, or what awaited me inside that room.
“Come slave.” Ben was back in character, calling me slave and referring to X as Xavier rather than Master Xavier. Ben dragged me toward the center of the room taking very little care to be gentle with me.
The multitude of chains hanging down from the ceiling made my mouth go dry. My entire world slowed to a standstill, even the beating of my heart seemed to pause. A large cross dominated the center of the room. This was my initiation into X’s twisted world. Everything that came before had only been a prelude, but this, that cross, those chains, this was his domain. The hood and restraints on the plane had been child’s play compared to this.
I scanned the crimson walls. Implements of torture hung on hooks screwed into the walls. Whips of every variety were placed with the precision of an obsessive mind. Floggers and crops, paddles and canes had been laid out according to type and size. Chains and cuffs and shiny metal devices I could not identify occupied shelves and hung from pegs along the walls.
My gaze fluttered around, terrified of the next revelation, but I couldn’t stop looking. If I could take everything in, then I could destroy the power of the unknown. Blindfolds, hoods, gags, feathers, dildos were all represented. Chains, thin, thick, short, and long, hung from the ceiling or were attached to the walls. Cages lined the far wall and some even swung from the ceiling. Surrounding everything were red leather couches, chairs, and other oddly shaped furniture forming wedges and rolls. All of them had rings attached to them.
I teetered with the undeniable need to flee, but that route had been firmly denied. There was nowhere to go and I wondered if I would ever see the light of day again. What horrors did X have in store for me? What must I endure? My throat constricted against the thread of panic welling up inside me. I struggled to swallow, but my tongue felt thick.
“Come slave.” Ben pulled me to the center of the room.
My voice cracked. “B…Ben?” Turning to him for support made no sense, but reason had left me many heartbeats ago.
He hissed. “Silence, slave!” To my horror, but not much to my surprise, he brought me to the center of the room. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Do not forget what name to call me by, and don’t speak unless asked a direct question. This begins now.”
I nodded as he unclipped my wrist and attached it to the cross. He spun me to face the cross and attached my other wrist to the last support. The wood pressed against my belly and upper part of my hips.
“You wait for your master, slave.”
Do I have any other choice? As if confirming everything Ben said earlier, a heat of arousal flooded through me with the thought of seeing X again.
I listened to Ben’s footsteps as he left and then the deafening silence of the room folded around the beating of my heart. This was it. My end would come in this room. Seconds stretched to minutes. My breathing deepened then turned frantic as I tested my restraints. Ben had left my feet free, but it didn’t matter. My arms spread above my head, shackled to the cross, I was helpless. My fingers clenched and unclenched with each of my breaths, fast at first and then slowing as I gained control over my breathing.
I wouldn’t let panic rule me. There was nothing I could do about my situation. The only thing I could control was myself, so I would control what I could.
A door opened, not the set of double doors behind me, but a door to the side. I didn’t have to look to know who approached. It was X. I knew his step intimately. He came to stand behind me and stroked my throat. I jumped at the warmth of his skin. His fingers clamped down, wrapping around my neck. I winced as I attempted to swallow beneath the constriction. The heat of his breath whispered against my ear.
“I won’t apologize for hurting you. I can’t deny it’s what I need. I thought I would be able to hold off, that I would be strong enough, but you ignite a darkness I can’t control.” His hand tightened against my throat.
I gasped as he squeezed the soft tissues of my neck. My body reacted to his touch, burning, melting, igniting beneath his undeniable power. He pivoted around the cross until he stood before me. The heat in X’s eyes acted as an accelerant to the fire smoldering in my belly, turning the embers there into a blaze. Within seconds he incinerated me with his gaze.
“Good,” he said as he cupped my cheek, “you feel it too.”
Such a tender move, but with him it was a move engendered to establish dominance. His hand tightened and then released around my throat. Gulping air, I gave a strangled groan. I lost even more ground in our battle as he collected my hair, twisted it together and brought it forward over one shoulder with a tug. I couldn’t help but shiver, even though the room was more than warm enough. I stared into the eyes of a man blinded with lust. My attention skittered to the wall of whips and crops.
“We’ll get there.” He turned to follow the path of my gaze. His finger pressed against my lips. “Ben told me what you did. Thank you, it will be rewarded, but first you need correction for your disrespect. And of course, you have your punishment later tonight to endure.”
Damn, Ben. I closed my eyes as hot pinpricks threatened tears. This was the thanks I received? X stroked my throat with his thumb.
“Pain doesn’t always need to come with discipline, Raven. With time, I’ll show you how pain becomes pleasure.”
Had X finally snapped beyond reason? I wasn’t permitted to speak. If I broke one of his rules, would he hear me? Or would it push him to punish me faster? I struggled not knowing the rules of this world. There was so much to learn. I didn’t know how brave, or how strong I could be. Looking at the wall of torture devices, I prayed my pain threshold was higher than I imagined.
His hand dropped to my breast. “You’re beautiful, and perfect for me; the other half to make me whole.” He brought both hands to cup my breasts, hefting their weight.
I fisted my hands as my nipples peaked at the stimulus. My back arched, pressing my breasts into his hands. A smile tugged at the corners of his impeccable eyes.
“God, you’re so responsive. We have just a few moments before our company joins us…”
I breathed shallowly as my body betrayed me.
What was I afraid of?
He kissed a tear on my cheek. “Don’t worry, Raven, I will not force you. There’s a promise hanging between us, one you can’t escape.” He traced the line of my jaw and lifted my chin as tears poured out of my eyes. He vented a deep sigh. “For what I must do to you, you’ll hate me. I have a role to fulfill, it’s everything you believe of me, but not who I am. Believe me when I say I would rather die than do this to you. I ask you to forgive me.” His words cooled me off. “Don’t hate me for what happens next.”
I pulled away, my heart pinching with pain. He made no sense. Closing my eyes, I berated myself for my weakness. Whoever X was, he had mastered the female body and he had certainly mastered mine. I was a fool, because I wanted to believe him and a piece of me already forgave him.
I despised the power he held over me. This man was my captor, not my lover, and I’d forgotten that along the way. It was time to take back control of my mind, if not my body. I had lost so much, so fast. I couldn’t believe I had caved under his dominion and shuddered at how far I had fallen. I sagged in my restraints with defeat.
“I don’t hate you. I hate myself.” I said it in the faintest of whispers, never meaning for him to hear. Although it was against the rules to speak, saying it aloud made it real. And I certainly needed to hear the truth.
“What?” The hiss of indrawn breath alerted me I hadn’t said it quietly enough.
“Nothing.”
“You hate yourself? Why would you say that?”
I turned my cheek, avoiding his demands.
“Answer me.” His voice lowered, a dominant tone, the one full of command that turned my insides to jelly.
“No.” I shook my head and ignored his command.
He could do whatever he wanted. I’d already given in, what more could he take? He’d stolen my dignity, and would make me beg for him to take me fully. I would, too, as sick as that was. It was simply a matter of time. I was ruined, but I would not give him my mind. He already had everything else. We both knew what would happen later tonight. I had lost this war. I would beg and he would take everything.
“Raven, don’t deny me.”
I glanced back at him. “Or what? You’ll whip me? Find some other way to punish me? Have sex with me in front of my father? Or maybe you’ll sell me to some other sadistic freak?” I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You win. I’m not going to fight you. I’m yours.”
He pressed his forehead to mine and breathed out a sigh. He shook his head, rocking his forehead against mine. “Life is not so simple, slave.”
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” He lifted his head and our eyes collided in an intimate embrace of wills.
I breathed out, releasing some of the tension in my body. “Sometimes you call me slave. Sometimes you use my name.”
His eyes hardened, and he drew back. “Don’t.” The muscles in his jaw clenched as if I’d hit upon a nerve. He turned away and walked to the far wall. “It means nothing.”
He ran his hand along the line of whips hanging from the hooks, pausing to caress the long bullwhip and cat-o-nine tails. My stomach clenched, then relaxed as he moved down the wall, fingers trailing over implements of torture I wanted nothing to do with, but which he seemed intimately familiar. He stopped at a length of hard flat leather, nearly the length of his forearm, something between a crop and a paddle. He lifted it off the wall and hefted its weight in his hand.
“This should do.” How easily his voice carried in the room, although I was sure he projected the callous tone for my benefit. He made a show of walking back to me, carrying his chosen weapon before him. “Ben mentioned you failed to call me Master.”
I drew in breath, certain what came next. No way was I going to break another rule.
“You call your father Z. Is this not so?”
“Yes, Master.”
“When did this begin?”
“I was young. Maybe six or seven.”
“But to his face you call him Papa?” He slapped the leather thing in his palm. A solid thwack sounded in the room.
I jumped at the sound. “In front of others, I do. When it’s just him and me, I don’t call him papa.”
“So, Z? The letter? It’s derisive?” The arch of his brow told me X already knew the answer to his question. I was so screwed.
My attention latched on to the device X held. I couldn’t make myself answer because I knew what would come next. Fear kept my mouth closed. My lower lip trembled. X stepped up to me and lifted the flat leather rod in front of my face.
“It’s called a tawse.” He pressed it to my lips. “Kiss it, and when I’m done, thank me.”
Prickly heat, the precursor of tears, burned behind my lids. My lips trembled as I kissed the leather. I despised the surge of heat blooming between my legs. This thing within me that wanted X to hit me with that thing confused me as much as it aroused me. I couldn’t understand how I wanted it—him—so badly.
X stepped behind the cross and rubbed the leather tawse up and down my back. “There’s something you need to learn about sadists, Raven,” he said. “Pain excites me. I like the power in forcing your body to turn pain into pleasure.”
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
I screamed.
His breathing came hard and fast. His words turned frantic, guttural, primal. Deep breaths panted in my ear. “For me, nothing gets me harder than dispensing pain. Every time you disobey...” He pressed the hard length of his erection against my hip. Then stepped away from me.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Deep sobs burst from my lungs as intense sensations flared to life.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
My bottom pulsed with pain, hot lines throbbed with each beat of my heart, radiating out with white hot fire. I sobbed and cried for him to stop. I begged him to end it. He unchained me, flipped me around, pressed down on my shoulders and forced me to my knees.
“Nine strikes with a tawse, Raven, and my dick is ready to explode. This is what you do to me. When I punish you, my cock swells with need. So, when you disobey, you’ll feel the bite of my whip, then see to my release when I’m done.”
I glanced up. Big mistake. Fury and lust swirled in his eyes. The double doors to the Hall of Horrors opened wide and Z's clipped voice called out.
“Starting without us, boy?”