Fifty Days of Sin (23 page)

No such luck. He puts his head
down near to mine, to whisper menacingly into my ear, “We’re going
inside, Justine. Don’t try anything. I’ve got a knife.” And then I
know he’s telling me the truth as he presses the point into my
back, just enough to make me feel the sharpness of the blade,
halfway down my spine. I freeze in fear and then he takes it away
and throws a long coat over me and pulls me up to my knees.

“We’re getting out now. You need
to walk properly.” The gag is still tied around my mouth; will any
of my neighbours see it, or a passer-by? I look around and see a
jogger approaching in the distance. Hope surges inside me. Michael
forces me out of the car and onto my feet and I realise that the
coat, some kind of long rainproof jacket, that he’s put around my
shoulders is there to hide the fact that my hands are tied behind
my back. As he shuts the car door, his hand is up the back of the
coat and I can feel the knifepoint nudging menacingly into my back
again. I look around for the jogger but then to my dismay I see him
head up a side-street. I don’t think he’s seen me at all.

Michael walks me to my front
door, still holding me at knifepoint, and puts my keys in the lock.
Then we’re inside and he slams the front door behind us, then takes
the key and locks it from the inside.

My back is to the door, my hands
are tied and I’m still gagged. Michael turns to face me,
withdrawing the knife but keeping it in his hand.

“Oh, Justine, why did you ignore
me?” he asks, and I flinch and try to pull away as he puts out his
hand to stroke my hair. His other hand moves up suddenly and the
knife is at my throat. “Keep still,” he warns and my heart thumps
with fear.

“All those messages and you
didn’t reply to any of them,” he continues, moving his hand to
stroke my face and, to my relief, lowering the knife. “I’ve missed
you so much, Justine. I’ve missed the things we did together. Don’t
you know how much I loved you?”

Mutely, I shake my head. Loved?
Dimly, in the back of my mind, I wonder what it means as he uses
the past tense. So he doesn’t love me any more. What does this mean
he’s going to do?

“I used to love it when you
punished me,” he breathes, and I try my best not to recoil from him
– not that I could go very far, backed up against the door. “I wish
we could do it all again. But I can’t risk letting you. So instead
I’m going to have to punish you.” He trails his hand down my neck
and softly runs it over the curve of my breast. I feel a shiver of
revulsion. “I’m going to hurt you, Justine.”

Then to my surprise he reaches
out and starts to untie the gag. He’s still talking. “I know you
like to be chastised, you dirty little slut,” he continues, and I
shrink from him further as he spits his insult at me. He is so
different from the Michael I knew, but as I stare at him with
horror it dawns on me that I saw glimpses of his dark side before,
and thought nothing of them. How could I have been so stupid? “But
I haven’t pushed you to your limits yet,” he continues venomously.
“And I’m going to do that today. Push you to your limits – and
beyond them. Way beyond.”

My eyes are wide with fear as he
releases the gag. He drops it to the floor and suddenly leans
forward towards me. I shrink back but there’s nowhere I can go as
he kisses me on the lips with surprising tenderness.

“I loved you so much, Justine,”
he repeats. “Even though you’re a whore. But I’ve seen you with
Adam.” He shakes his head and I wonder how he knows his name. “If I
can’t have you, he can’t have you either.” I feel a jolt of terror.
Does this mean he’s going to kill me?

“Michael, please, let’s talk
about this,” I start to plead, desperate to think of some way to
get out of this so I’m safe. If I can convince him that I’ll get
back together with him perhaps I can get out of here alive. “I’m
sorry I didn’t reply to your messages. I shouldn’t have ignored
you. It wasn’t Adam all the time – I’ve been really busy at work.
But I’ve split up with Adam now so I’m free. And things are easier
now at work; I’d have more time to see you. Maybe we could talk
things through and start again?”

“So you’re not seeing him any
more?” he asks, an absurd look of hope on his face.

“No, we had a massive argument,”
I reply, feeling a deep well of despair surge inside me. Is it two
o’clock yet? Will Adam be waiting for me in the Crooked Pot? Dimly,
I realise that when I don’t turn up he’ll just think that I’ve
changed my mind and stood him up. I can feel tears well in my eyes
and I blink them back. I have to focus on getting Michael onto my
side.

“You’re lying, you slut,” he
spits, and suddenly draws back his hand to deliver a stinging blow
to my cheek. His blow forces my head back to hit the wood of the
door with a loud thud. A dull pain fills my skull and I taste
blood.

“I’m not, Michael, I really have
split up with Adam.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” he
states, his mouth grim. “I know all about Adam Benedict. I know
where he lives and I know how to get in. Once I’ve finished here,
I’ll go and find him.”

Renewed terror hits me like a
physical pain. So he plans to kill me and then Adam too. As I gape
in fear with wide, frightened eyes Michael takes hold of me and
forces me up the stairs, the knife pressing into my back. I stumble
with each step as he roughly pushes me forward, and then at the top
he kicks open the door to my bedroom.

I glance at the window, still
flung wide where I opened it earlier to let in some cooling breeze.
Michael removes his grip and for a split second I think of dashing
to the window and throwing myself out. But if Michael didn’t grab
me first and stop me getting out, with my hands tied behind my back
I’d have no way to break my fall and I’d probably kill myself with
a broken neck. And if he stopped me, would he just stab me straight
away with that deadly looking blade?

I realise, suddenly, that I left
the living room window open downstairs, too. My head must have been
all over the place when I left the house, leaving it wide open so a
burglar could have got in. Could I make a run for it down the
stairs and get outside through the open window? My heart thumps but
I don’t think I could do it. Even if I was faster than Michael
getting downstairs, which is unlikely, it would be difficult to
scramble out of the window, restrained as I am. There’s no way I
could succeed.

No, I realise, the only way I
can get through this is to try to survive for as long as I can and
hope that someone misses me. I promised Kathy that I’d let her know
how I got on. Maybe she’ll try to get in touch when she doesn’t get
any message from me. But how long will it be until that happens?
And if she doesn’t hear from me all weekend, would she just assume
that Adam and I have made up and are spending a loved-up weekend
together?

What about work – if I don’t
turn up on Monday morning would they just assume I was ill, or
would they call the police and report me missing?

Will I even be alive on Monday
morning?

Saturday, 16 June

I GLANCE AT THE BEDSIDE CLOCK.
Nearly half past two. I can see Adam in my mind’s eye. He must have
given up on me by now. Michael’s going to kill me here in my own
bedroom, and as I die Adam will think I broke my promise and stood
him up.

All these thoughts flash through
my mind in an instant, and in the meantime Michael has crossed the
room and pulled open the door of the wardrobe. My heart lurches as
I see him pull out the cane that was shoved into the back, left
there from before, when I used to chastise him with it.

“You’ve hurt me with this a lot
of times in the past, Justine,” he says threateningly, feeling the
weight of it in his palm. “It’s your turn now.”

“Please, Michael, no,” I plead.
“I did it to you because you said you wanted it. I don’t want this,
Michael, I really don’t. I’m scared. Please let me go. Sir.”

Inside my head, I curse myself.
I was going to throw the cane away. Michael bought it for me to
beat him with, and since we split up I never wanted to use it
again. I just hadn’t got around to throwing it out. Now Michael has
remembered where I always kept it and he’s about to get his own
back on me.

I watch Michael’s eyes darken as
I address him as I used to, and he puts the cane down on the floor.
Relief floods through me even as my head throbs with the pain of
his blow. He’s going to let me go.

Then I realise I’m wrong. He
comes forward and kneels down as he pulls at the button on my
cropped jeans, undoing the fly, and starts to strip me. First my
jeans come down and then he pulls off my sandals. Then he wrenches
my knickers down, baring me to him.

I see him staring at my exposed
sex, feeling more vulnerable than I ever have done before as I
tremble with fear and pain, my head still throbbing. And then he
stands and towers over me again.

“This is coming off too,” he
says and grabs hold of the neckline of my vest top. With a sharp
tug he rips it apart, tearing the fabric.

He pushes me to the bed, making
me lie down on my tummy, my bottom exposed. He manhandles me into
the centre of the bed and I feel him grip my ankles and shove my
legs far apart. Then as I struggle to no avail against the tape
that binds my hands behind my back, he’s fastening my feet to the
foot of the bed with some string that he’s taken out of his pocket.
He secures my ankles firmly and the string digs painfully into my
flesh.

Then I feel him rip away the
tape from my hands and he quickly pulls my arms above my head and
ties my smarting wrists together again, using more string to attach
them to the bedposts. I’m spread-eagled face down on the bed,
turning my face to crane round and see him. With a stab of fear I
see him pick up the knife.

With two deft movements he
slices through the material of my vest top at the shoulders, and
pulls it away from my body, throwing it on the floor. Then he digs
the blade under the straps of my bra. I shrink back as I feel the
cold steel of the blade on my skin. I tremble underneath him as he
does it; the ease with which he slices the fabric makes me realise
just how sharp that knife must be. Then he unhooks the back of the
bra and roughly pulls it away from my body, leaving me naked. I see
him put down the knife and pick up the cane.

“Michael, please, don’t do
this,” I cry out. “I’m begging you. Sir. Please don’t.
Dalmation!”

“We’re past using safewords now,
Justine,” he hisses into my ear. “Now I don’t want to hear another
word from you, except to count the strokes. Any more noise and I’ll
make it worse for you.” I clamp my mouth shut at his threat. Then
he says, “One hundred strokes.” I gasp in fear. A hundred? I’ve
withstood thirty strokes from Adam, but a hundred? Oh, please, God
give me the strength to withstand this. Please, please don’t make
it hurt too much. And let me stay alive long enough for someone to
find me and make this nightmare end.

But the nightmare is only just
beginning. The first blow comes hard and fast with a sickeningly
loud noise and enough strength to force the air right out of my
lungs. “One!” I manage, panting, my mind already reeling from the
pain. Michael may not have hit me any harder than the blows I’ve
withstood before from Adam, but this has brought home to me the
difference between playing with pain and a real-life assault. The
difference is fear. All those weeks ago, when I let Michael tie me
up and beat me, and then later with Adam, I thought I’d felt fear
mixed in with my desire. Now I know I was wrong. This is real fear,
the feeling that’s engulfing me now, the cold, sick gulf of terror
that’s threatening to drown me.

But I hardly have time to
process these thoughts as the second blow comes down on my behind.
“Two,” I count, tears forming in my eyes, and then Michael hits me
again. “Three!”

Again and again he hits me, the
agony spreading through my bottom but accompanied only by a
gut-wrenching terror. The desire I’ve felt when I’ve been tied up
consensually is completely absent and all I can do is try to focus
on withstanding the onslaught and remembering to count. “Fifty,” I
cry, registering that I’ve reached the halfway point, then Michael
moves his focus and starts to beat the backs of my thighs. I can’t
restrain a scream at the force of the pain before I stammer out the
next number. He carries on lashing my body without mercy, the cane
biting into my legs again and again as the red-hot heat of his
blows spreads through my body.

Finally, the last blow falls.
Michael brings it down with all his strength across both of my
buttocks. “A hundred!” I gasp, hot tears streaming from my eyes,
limp and broken on the bed. I shut my eyes and hope against hope
that he gives me a break before he starts to hurt me again.

Then, to my amazement, he picks
up the knife and slices through the string that’s restraining my
legs. I tiny fountain of hope springs up inside me. Did I
misunderstand him? Does he not want to kill me after all? Is he
going to let me go? He crosses to the top of the bed, cutting
through the string that’s attaching my wrists to the top of the
bed. I stare up at him, heart thumping with adrenaline. But he’s
left my hands tied. I lie still, afraid to move.

“Get up,” he commands me and I
struggle to make my trembling limbs obey me. Unsteadily I clamber
off the bed and rise to my feet to stand in front of him. I
stumble, my backside and legs pounding with pure throbbing agony,
but I manage to regain my balance and somehow stay upright. He
smiles at my weakness, still holding that deadly-sharp knife. How
could I have found him so attractive, not knowing what a monster
there was inside him?

“I think you’ve got something to
say to me,” he says. I stare at him blankly. The pain has rendered
my brain incapable of working out what he means. After a pause he
continues, “You need to thank me.”