I could hear his voice, but by the time his words made sense, it was too late. The room spun wildly and the darkness had taken over most of my vision. His eerie smile was the last thing I saw, right before I slipped into blissful oblivion.
Seconds or minutes, I don’t know how long I managed to escape. But when I came to, a scream tore from my lips. Pain. Burning pain. He was beside me, but his hand was wedged behind me and his fingers were pounding into my virgin rectum. I screamed louder and tried to jerk away.
He slammed my hip into the stone with his free hand and I could feel him stretching me further, adding another finger inside me. God, no. It hurt. It burned.
He withdrew suddenly, and my screams turned to racking sobs.
“Welcome back,” he said nonchalantly as he knelt down and grabbed my ankle.
I hadn’t noticed the shackles at the base of the wall, but I saw them now as he restrained one ankle and then the other, spreading my legs obscenely. My efforts to kick and jerk my limbs out of his grasp were useless.
He stood up and moved in front of me. His eyes grazed over me, taking in every exposed inch. I squeezed my eyes shut, but there was no blocking him out. My body wore the proof of his existence and I could still feel his eyes on me.
He was still for so long, I couldn’t resist the wretched urge to open my eyes, not that it would do me any good to see what was coming next. I met his cold eyes but that was what he was waiting for. His open hand crashed into my cheek, which jerked my head and bounced it off the wall.
“Rule number three: A slave will keep her eyes down unless instructed to do otherwise.”
I glared at his toes through the stream of tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. I knew these rules. Had Derek been as brutal in his teaching of them? No. He’d never been like this man. There had always been something in his eyes—life, pain, need. There was nothing in this man’s eyes.
He crossed to the other side of the cell and returned with a long hose. He pressed down on the nozzle and my whole body was showered in a lukewarm spray. When he turned it off, he stood there. I wanted to look up to find out what was going on, but I knew better. I hung there shivering instead, part in cold, part in fear of what was to come.
“Good girl. I’m impressed,” he said, though the inflection in his tone was no different. “Let’s see if you can keep it up.”
Then his hands were on me. They were slippery, covered in soap that smelled like roses. Nothing like the soap Derek had gotten for me that was the same one I’d used at home. This man’s hands groped and rubbed everywhere while I stared miserably at his feet and watched the tears that dripped off my chin land on my breasts and mingle with the soap he’d lathered there. I would never forget the smell of that soap. Roses. A once pleasant scent turned repugnant beneath his hands.
When he grazed over the wounds on my back, I sucked in my breath and cried out at the same time, and when he slipped lower and ran his fingers over my abused rectum, I had no doubt he’d ripped me open there, too, by the sting of the soap he rubbed into me. Then the sprayer returned and he washed all the soap away. If only he could wash away my memory with it.
“Very good, slave. Perhaps you won’t be as difficult as I’d suspected. In fact, I think you’re ready for the next rule.”
No, I didn’t want any more rules. I wanted to go back to my cell and curl up in the corner until dehydration, starvation or hypothermia brought the sweet succor of death. I didn’t want to die, but this man was going to make life hell. There was no escape. No hope. His eyes held none of the promise of the humanity Derek’s had held.
Derek. I’d gladly go back to my first prison to be there with him now. Was he out there somewhere? If he was, he’d be searching for me. He wouldn’t stop until he found me. I wasn’t sure whether to grasp onto the hope or thrust it far away. Hope was a dangerous thing. It could keep a person clinging to life when the only relief to be found was in death.
If I believed he was alive though, I had to believe he was coming for me. I could endure this man—his vicious whip and vile hands. I would survive because Derek could charge in at any moment. And Derek had given me the tools I would need to survive. Submission, obedience—that’s what this man wanted. It made my skin crawl to think of submitting to him willingly, but it wasn’t for him that I would obey. It was for Derek so that his efforts to save me would not be wasted. I wouldn’t make him go through whatever he was going through to rescue a corpse.