Comfort Food (8 page)

Adrenaline hummed through my veins. Whatever it took, I was getting out.

He crossed the floor slowly, and then he was unbuttoning my shirt.

. . . She leaned into him as he removed her top and cupped her breasts, pinching her nipples painfully. In the time before, she would have cried out at the sensation. Now she was just glad to be getting sensation at all, even if it hurt. His mouth latched onto her breast, and her breathing deepened as he swirled his tongue over her flesh, soothing where he’d just hurt her.

She gripped his shoulders as he stripped the sweatpants from her body. She never wanted to wear these clothes again. He pushed her to her knees; she fumbled with the fly of his pants. Then she was sucking him, desperately seeking to please him enough that he would forgive her for her former sins.

He stroked his fingers through her hair, comforting her, urging her onward, and then he pulled out of her.

“Did I do something wrong?”

In response, he positioned her on the concrete floor on her hands and knees facing away from him, spreading her legs slightly. She could hear him rifling through his pants on the floor, and then he was on his knees behind her.

His fingers found her clit, and he stroked her. She moved back, trying to grind harder into him. It had been so long since he’d touched her like this. She was willing to do anything to make sure he never stopped for so long again. She panted, and a moan escaped her throat.

“Please . . . yes . . . ” she whimpered.

He kept going until she came and screamed out her release, sobbing with relief that he was finally touching her again. Then she turned to see him squirting something out of a tube.

Lubricant.

She started to crawl away from him, back into her corner. “No, Master, please.”

He shrugged, then stood and moved toward the door again. He refused to give her the peace of doing anything without her permission, no matter what a joke it was. She panicked.

“Don’t leave me here again. I can’t take it. I can’t take anymore of this. I’ve been here two weeks, please.”

He turned back to her and held up the lube, a question in his eyes.

She nodded and moved back into the position he’d placed her in. She still wasn’t sure this would earn her a ticket out of the cell, especially since she’d fought him.

She couldn’t help tensing when he approached her. He stroked her back over and over, his fingertips playing lightly over her skin. “Shhhh,” he soothed. “Shhhh.”

She began to calm. He’d refused for weeks to speak to her, and although this wasn’t exactly speech, it was communication. It was sound. She began to cry over the tiny crumb he gave her and relaxed further.

He prodded her entrance with one lubed finger, as he continued to stroke her back with his other hand. She didn’t resist. She cried out as the finger eased inside her, and he went more slowly, more gently.

She found she was grateful for that. It was small, but it was something. He continued with the one finger until her body got used to the sensation, and the burning pain ebbed away. Then he repeated the process with two fingers while her fear mounted higher.

“Shhhh,” he soothed again, when she started to cry, his free hand rubbing her back.

When her body had gotten used to fingers he withdrew them and slowly eased his cock into her. She let out a hiss, but soon the pain passed, and he urged her to start moving. Slowly, she fucked herself on him as he panted behind her. Then his fingers returned to her clit, and she began the climb toward her second orgasm.

When she came it felt like a shot of electricity zipping up her spine. He pulled out of her and cradled her in his arms, stroking his fingers through her hair and kissing the top of her head while she cried. More from relief than anything else . . .

SIX

He didn’t take me to the good cell. Instead, he led me to another room, one I’d never been to. When he removed the blindfold, my mouth fell open.

Too many things to look at. There were chains on the wall and a metal table with cuffs on it. There were whips and canes and other various implements of pain that I didn’t exactly know the names of. There was a giant, round bed with a red velvet comforter pressed against one wall, beside which another set of chains dangled. There was a black leather couch in the center of the room and a box overflowing with more sex toys than I’d ever seen outside a retail environment.

I realized what I’d done too late. I’d accepted. I’d called him
Master
and accepted he was in charge of me, not me. Before that moment had I still had freedom? I wasn’t sure.

He would have left me in the cell probably forever. But which was worse? The cell? Or the new tortures waiting for me in this chamber?

It was a testament to how much of me he’d taken that I thought the bare cell was worse. He wouldn’t leave me alone in this room. He would be there with me. It should have sickened me. It should have made me scream in terror, but all I could feel was relief.

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see the nice room again, but this was better than the past two weeks of nothing. I turned to see him gauging my reaction. The door to this new chamber, equipped with the same technology as the others, stood open.

He always gave me choices. Or maybe what he gave me was force wrapped in the pretty package of pretend free will. I’d spent a lot of time analyzing him, and though I knew he was obviously in some sense crazy, there was always a logical basis for his decisions. He believed he was giving me options, in his own twisted way, and therefore he wasn’t the bad guy.

Either he didn’t recognize blackmail wasn’t a choice or he didn’t care. He hadn’t used physical violence. Until now. Whips seemed pretty violent to me. But I knew him now, more intimately than he thought.

He believed he could hide his soul from me by never speaking, but his actions told me everything I needed to know. He wanted me to beg for the whip. And I would do it. I’d do anything he wanted. The door stood open, and he stepped aside, and we danced our little dance.

Would I run? Or would I stay and obey him? The choice was obvious. There was nowhere to run to. He’d already shown me this was true. He would never force me to do anything in that dungeon room. He would just put me back in the bad cell and ignore me like a crated, misbehaving puppy.

His eyes held challenge, and I stupidly still had enough defiance inside me that I wouldn’t run from him because I couldn’t face the shame and humiliation of going to that other cell again. The last incarceration had been two weeks, no time off for good behavior, no response to any of my demands or clever tricks. Next time would it be three?

Or would he tire of this constant disobedience and shut me away forever?

I didn’t move toward the door. I held his gaze and said, “I’ll do whatever you want.”

I could see evidence of his arousal outlined through the pants he’d put back on. He was wearing only jeans, the muscles of his chest so beautiful I could hardly stand to look at him.

Still, he didn’t move. I walked to the door and shut it, and then panicked because I’d just locked myself into a sadistic torture chamber with my captor. My captor who I trusted not to hurt me because he never had before, not physically anyway.

I’d made my choice. I turned and moved back toward him, still naked. He hadn’t put the clothes back on me, and I was glad. I’d rather be naked than wear the clothing I’d come to associate with punishment.

I watched him, waiting for his next move. He studied me for a few minutes as if his brain were cataloging all my actions and reactions on a hard drive somewhere.

He held his hand out to me, and I stepped forward and took it, trying to stop shaking. He smiled that soulless smile that made me feel warm and like I was dying all at the same time. A flush crept over my body from the predatory gleam in his eyes.

. . . He led her to the bed and arranged her on her knees facing away from him. The soft velvet was a warm caress against her skin. She heard his footsteps recede over the concrete floor, and she squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see what he’d gone to get. She was unsure which would be worse, an instrument of pain, or pleasure.

When he returned, his hand was gentle on her chin, raising her face toward him, and she opened her eyes. She could see something soft and almost human in his gaze, and she wanted to latch onto it. He turned her face so she could see the riding crop dangling loosely from his hand.

Her eyes flew back to his as the same cold fear she’d had in the other cell came rushing back. His eyes held question. He’d only hit her if she agreed. The mockery of her free will made her angry, but her anger was dwarfed almost completely by the feel of his hand on her face.

He’d been gentle in the other cell. He’d taken something profoundly scary and been kind and reassuring. She was still reeling from the careful way he’d held and rocked her afterward and then watched her with something like concern as he’d put his pants back on.

Her eyes drifted to the riding crop again, and she nodded. Then he was behind her. She tensed as she heard the crop slice through the stillness of the room. It was deafening. And then the sharp, loud pain. She gasped, tears in her eyes.

“Please . . . ”

He stopped.

“No, don’t stop.” She wished she could take the words back, but any further begging died in her throat as she relaxed and let the crop fall on her.

How had she allowed him to turn her into something so ugly? Someone who craved any sensation at all, even if it was pain. A few moments passed, and she let the rhythm of the strikes wash over her. When she’d reached the threshold of complete surrender, the pain morphed into something tolerable and almost . . . pleasant?

Her body betrayed her, taking this new sensation and responding with arousal.

He stopped then, and she had a moment to catch her breath before he returned with a single-tailed whip. She’d thought it was ending, but he’d only been warming her up for more. She’d read enough to know this wouldn’t be pleasant.

The whip cracked a few feet from her, and she jumped, finding her knees no longer wanting to support her weight. He allowed her to lie on her stomach and ran his hand over her back and the roundness of her ass. Then the strip of leather whipped across her skin, leaving a sting so sharp it brought tears to her eyes.

As he whipped her, she cried out but didn’t beg him again. She let it happen, whatever he wanted, as long as he didn’t take her back to the bad cell.

He continued, and she found herself floating while the endorphins flooded her system, and he pushed her higher still. Tears streamed uncontrollably down her face, but it wasn’t the pain that made her cry.

It was release, absolution. The surrender, finally, of everything to him. The acceptance that she was now his creature, not her own, and the inexplicable peace that brought her.

Finally, it stopped and she could feel a warm wetness on her back. He’d made her bleed. She felt his tongue trailing over the opened flesh. He stepped away from her, and she worried he wasn’t finished yet. Maybe he would take her beyond her ability to tolerate the pain to make her prove her new loyalty to him.

When he returned, he had a small basin of water, cloths, bandages, and ointment. He patched up her wounds, then turned her in his arms and kissed her softly on the mouth.

He retrieved the blindfold again and she scooted back.

Her voice cracked, “Are you taking me back to the cell?” If he took her back there and left her to rot after this . . .

He shook his head. She crawled back to him so he could tie the piece of fabric over her eyes . . .

When the blindfold came off, I was in the nice room again.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

I couldn’t stop saying it. It was a mindless litany now. I turned in his arms and my mouth found the hollow of his throat, and I kissed him.

He left me then. When he returned, I was stretched out on the bed, the pillows propped underneath me, watching for the door to open again. He rolled in a cart laden with barbeque chicken, corn on the cob, fresh green beans, cole slaw, rolls, a salad, iced tea.

He sat across from me and fed me. It was the first time in a long time. I let him, leaning into his touch each time he stopped to stroke my breast. I no longer saw this as what I had to give him in order to eat. Now it was reward.

Anything that wasn’t the bad cell was a reward. In less than six weeks he’d turned me into this. I hated the part of me that was so weak I couldn’t hold out longer, that I’d sell my soul for him to touch me and not leave me alone.

Wouldn’t any sane woman be grateful to just be left alone? What was wrong with me that being kept in that cell without his presence was the worst thing he could do to me? Far worse than being his fuck toy.

I’d convinced myself it would have been different if he’d been as ugly on the outside as he was on the inside, but he wasn’t. He was cruel beauty, a sculpture, a god, and I couldn’t tear my eyes from him. I’d seen his expression soften in the dungeon with the whip. I’d do anything to have him look at me like that again, no matter how insane he was.

It didn’t matter anymore because we were both insane. How can the crazy judge the crazy? He was a sadist, and he’d trained me into the perfect masochist. Or maybe it had already been there, waiting for the right circumstances to present themselves.

I’d been thinking more about my first boyfriend and how I’d reacted to being forced to orgasm, how different I was from those around me.

He’d finished feeding me.

“Did you pick me because you knew I would respond this way?”

He just smiled.

“You’ve got money and looks, and you’re obviously smart,” I said. I left off the crazy part because I’d just promised myself I’d do whatever I had to do to stay in the good cell. I wasn’t even sure this wouldn’t buy me more isolated punishment. Still, I pressed on. “You could have anyone you wanted. You could have seduced me, and I would have willingly played your games.”

He arched a brow at me, and immediately I realized how stupid that sounded. He
had
seduced me, after a fashion. He didn’t want the illusion of control; he wanted
actual
control. That was something very different. No matter how women might fawn over him, what he wanted, what he needed, was something he could only get in this way.