This post is in the CRUELTIES category. Don’t read it.
One day, Andrew called Nadia into his study.
They’d been busy recently arranging an event and preparing for the launch of his latest book, and she’d been able to absorb herself in work to a gratifying extent. But now there was obviously something different afoot — he was looking directly at her in a way which disturbed her — although she was also grateful, as always, for the slightest personal attention.
She straightened herself, pulled her shoulders back a little, instantly wishing she had paid more attention to her clothes this morning. It was so hard, the tightrope she had to walk — nothing overtly sexy was permitted, and yet she needed him never to forget that she was a woman — a girl — that she was a sexual being; and she knew that he, too, whatever he said, appreciated it when she got it right — she knew it, although nothing was ever said.
Getting it right for him was the most important thing in her life.
She stopped her train of thought — he was waiting. He hated waiting;
“Sorry.”
She said it casually — they had worked together for two years — he had insisted that they forge a genuinely good, companionable work relationship; and, somewhat incredibly, in the circumstances, it had worked. Simply more evidence of his brilliance.
He had few secrets from her, and she few from him. But again, she regretted her tone — it was wrong, somehow, she knew — but in what way? This was the delight and torment of her daily life — the completely paradoxical nature of her being with him. What was going on?
“Nadia, I’ve decided something. It occurred to me this morning, actually. But I want to act on it rather quickly.”
This tone of voice she knew — whatever decision he had made, it was made. There would be no second thoughts, no shilly-shallying, no ‘what do you think?’. But there was something else — another overtone…
Could … could it be?
Her legs began to tremble.
“I’ve decided to reassign you — to a different category, Nadia. With immediate effect.”
She thought she would faint. Her eyes dimmed, her legs all but buckled.
Somehow she held on, despite the roaring in her ears.
Now! Why now? Was she ready? It couldn’t be — she had never meant it to be like…
Ridiculous! What did it matter what she wanted, what she had thought; how many times, in how many ways, she had imagined this moment?
She had longed for it, dreamed of it, hated and feared and loved its inevitability, the suppressed torment over the long months.
Ridiculous, stupid girl! Stupid, stupid fucking slut…!
She felt the tears, hot in her eyes — and at the same time she almost let out a wild, hysterical giggle.
Why couldn’t she breathe?
These clothes felt wretched — so hot, so constricting.
Her chest heaved, suddenly; a gasping out-breath, followed by harsh panting, uncontrollable for a few seconds, until she ruthlessly, violently repressed them.
All of this has apparently only taken as long as his pause between sentences.
“You’ll go to the Castle tonight. I won’t be able to get there for a few days — you know my schedule. So you’ll be well on the way to being broken when I see you next. I’ve told Anne-Marie to be fairly — aggressive — with you; push you rather hard and fast; more, I’ve asked them to be very rough — hurt you badly, damage you — psychologically as well as physically — be downright cruel, in fact — you’ll understand why, I’m sure.”
She is biting her lip hard now, blinking fast to hold back the tears, determined not to fall as he continues.
“You’ll be collared within a month, branded within two. Obviously you will remember preparing and signing all the necessary indenture paperwork last November — you know that there is no way out for you—that your family will receive a generous payment, and that charity of yours, too. I won’t keep you around long — you’ll be sold on fairly soon. That revolting snuffer has made enquiries about you; you have seen the correspondence, of course. Perhaps he’ll get you — that might be the poetic way for it to go. Anne-Marie will decide, of course—I don’t really care.”
His look is thoughtful, philosophical, unemotional, as if he is considering how doing this to her might affect the balance of the universe. There is quiet for a moment, broken only by her ragged, random breathing, harsh in her throat as she struggles desperately against the rising panic.
Why? Why struggle to stay calm, stay ‘professional’? Since nothing matters now, since she is finished, apart from the suffering and the degradation and the humiliation and the rapes and the cruel laughter, why should she not simply give in to the mounting, insistent drumbeat of hysteria and start screaming now?
For she will be screaming soon enough, she knows, having watched other girls taken down. Why struggle so hard to be sweet for him, to avoid disturbing his peace? It’s not as if anything she can do can affect him, even—whatever she does now will be nothing more than entertainment, an interesting experience to add to the others (for even someone as prolific in his procuring as Andrew has not done this more than thirty times — there is nothing routine about this for him, she knows).
No! no! I have been through this, thought it through, so many times; this is my chance — my one chance — to prove myself to him, to become someone worth paying attention to, perhaps, even if only for a few moments.
“You needn’t worry about arrangements here, it’s all been worked out in advance. You’ve been a truly excellent PA, but not completely irreplaceable — I’ve a very capable woman waiting downstairs—the woman you took over from, in point of fact.”
“In a few minutes, she’ll prepare you for me, then give you your first taste of the whip — she is jealous and angry, so she will be cruel — I’ve reassured her that she can do whatever she likes with you. If I fancy, I may use you for a little while after that — break in your arsehole, possibly; see if I can’t rip you, since you’re virgin there.”
“You can go through details with her later, once you’ve been humbled, been terrorised and dirtied. She will keep you as long as she thinks necessary, but I doubt it will be long; she can’t wait to know that you’re in hell. The Castle will receive you whenever she’s done with you — there’s no problem there — no-one is waiting for you; you’re nothing to anyone, now.”
Nadia’s mind is on fire. Incoherent babble runs through her brain, random samples from his calm words, ludicrous ideas of things to say.
As he watches her, her remembered resolve comes back to her; ‘when it happens, you’ll take it as it comes, you’ll remember how you begged, and you’ll be sweet and calm; grateful, graceful and compliant’.
The words seem the product of a disordered mind. But still, right now, they are the only things which make any sense at all.
This is it.
The moment she has been living for since last November. This is it.
Now. Right now.
Her new life starts now.
She has been assigned to a new category.
From now on (although possibly not for very long, it seems), she will cease to be Nadia and become N (or whatever letter they assign to her).
But then soon — all too soon, from what he has said — she’ll be simply a number, then a piece of cunt for sale, then possibly a piece of tortured meat, begging, without hope, for a few more minutes of life — or perhaps for a more speedy death. Her breath comes gustily, but she is not sobbing, hasn’t let her face crumple.
‘When it happens, you’ll take it as it comes, you’ll remember how you begged, and you’ll be sweet and calm; grateful, graceful and compliant.’
Some small measure of composure returns to her through repeating this.
She builds on it, calms her breathing a little, straightens herself. After a few seconds, she manages a smile.
It is a weak, frightened smile — a carefully constructed smile, but it is a real smile, to show that she has prepared herself, as she should have, for this moment — a smile that is plastered over deep fear and trepidation, a smile that is all for him, to tell him that this lovely girl is going to go through with it.
That she is going to fulfil her stupid contract — give herself to him, body and soul, in the full knowledge that he is going to treat this gift as nothing but a brief, cruel entertainment — one which will begin with her heartbreak, then go on to psychological and physical degradation and then, in one awful way or another, cruel destruction, followed by efficient, unremarked upon waste disposal.
The smile is accompanied by a pretty blush. He is interested. Nadia blushes rarely. He likes it—wonders at the sudden access of feelings of attraction to her. That was her tragedy, of course—that she had desired him so, while he — for some reason or other, had found her interesting enough to pay attention to; had found her unappealing, despite her obvious prettiness, and the luxurious curves of her body.
She looks at him, then, seeing something in his eyes, blushes again, and demurely looks at the floor.
No — look at his sex. Look at his groin. Look at your ruler.
She knows these things, has seen other girls taught them, but has been forbidden to think of, let alone practice them herself. Her blush deepens, until, in a voice that sounds completely unlike her, she hears herself say;
“Th .. thank you, Sir.”
I may never look into his eyes again, she realises, and now she can’t hold all the tears in, so that a few splash down onto her blouse, turning it translucent, affording him his first real sight of the curve of her breasts —satisfyingly, as rounded as expected — it seems fitting that this has been made possible by the results of mingled fear and sadness; what remains of the girl’s life will consist mainly of fear and sadness now.
She is shaking. She has learned the rules by heart. Without explicit permission, she may utter only three formulations; ‘Yes, Sir’, ‘Thank you, Sir’ or ‘No Sir’ — the last only to be used in unavoidable circumstances.
Even under the whip, she is not permitted to use words — only to make noises — and these, to the best of her ability at the time, are supposed to be sexually entertaining.
So that’s it. She has said what is permitted, and now she can only wait, wait on his pleasure.
Her mind is full of things she wants to tell him — she is pathetically, tragically eager to tell him just how she is feeling — let him in on the detail of just how all the searing and conflicting emotions are affecting her. They have had quite a few interesting conversations over the months, about how it must be for girls giving themselves over to destruction — he has been her friend, in a way.
No more.
It is bittersweet to recall his words to another girl in similar circumstances — a devastatingly pretty, sweet and innocent blonde, humbled in front of her, nearly a year ago. ‘Your feelings are no longer of interest to anyone. They mean nothing, since they affect nothing — except in the odd case where they might provide entertainment.’
Her heart is simultaneously broken and overflowing with joy. It is the strangest feeling, like throwing herself off a cliff, naked, in the full knowledge that her body will be dreadfully smashed and ripped by sharp rocks below, all the while breathing in the strongest, most glorious and intoxicating perfume, intensely emotional choral music filling her ears.
“Come closer. Good. Now, perhaps you’ll remove your panties, then lift your skirts for me.”
My God, it’s really happening — their first sexual encounter! Right now — here, in the study, the room where they have been colleagues — she’ll show him her pussy.
No romance, no preamble, no tenderness. Not even friendliness, or even desire — his voice was cool, measured, without the slightest indication that this is even particularly interesting.
She reminds herself that he has done this with many pretty girls before her — that she is nothing special — just another stupid idiot who has fallen under his influence and has given herself over to his cruel and greedy whims.
Oh, but she has been so eager for the chance to give in, for so very long! But for it to be so hard, so cruel, so casual!
Stupid, stupid slut! This hardness, this cruelty is precisely what you asked him for! Begged him for!
Nevertheless, her heart is bursting with happiness, even as more tears spill from her eyes. She walks as she has practiced in the mirror each evening — even though she is wearing plain brown flats, in accordance with his instructions.
She is amazed that legs continue to hold her up, so intense are the feelings, so rapidly do her knees tremble.
Fingers feel like sausages, she thinks, as she attempts to be smooth and elegant in reaching up inside her sensible skirt to catch at the sides of her decidedly not sensible little panties. Her face is on fire, her heart is hammering. She feels, at the same time, the most intense feelings in her young life of love, shame, happiness and fear — all devastatingly intermingled — as she lifts her feet; one, then the other, then wonders what to do with the elegant, lacy scrap, until a little motion of his finger indicates that she should pass them to him.
He holds them up between them, a little smile on his lips and in his voice;
“Disobedience, eh? Pretty and expensive disobedience, too. You’ll bitterly regret that in a short while, I can promise you.”
Her instructions had been abundantly clear — she was to behave in all respects like a modest convent girl without vices. Boring, sensible clothing, no masturbation, neat and plain and unpretentious in everything. The panties were something she had thought she could get away with — seeing as he never so much as touched her arm.
She trembles, as she lifts her skirt. She has practised this curtsy, too, having seen three different girls do it for him — it is the most exciting, frightening thing to do — so transgressive, so sexy, to lift the veil of privacy so as to expose your naked sex to your new owner for the first time.
With a shock she realises two things — first, that she is wet down there; very wet — secondly that he is about to realise that she has broken another rule — that her dark honey pubes are trimmed to a perfect little lozenge, which blatantly directs the eye to her now naked sex — the style she knows he prefers. She is not supposed to shave her body hair.
It doesn’t matter — she knows she will be whipped whatever — it’s worth it for the joy of knowing that his first view of her sex will be just as he likes it. She sobs a little — with overflowing emotion that she manages — just — to experience as joyful.
He laughs a little now, genuinely amused — tolerant, relaxed, she is flooded with gratitude to realise.
“More disobedience! My dear, you cannot possibly have anticipated the terror and horror that the punishment for this will bring down upon you. For what it’s worth, your little puss is very pretty, very enticing. That will not be permitted to last, now — I will instruct that you will take a violent beating from a weighted rod there, between your legs, in just a few minutes — a terrible, destructive experience; ruination — and all so pointless, since as you know, I have never been in the slightest interested in using you in that way.”
The fear that comes from these words is real — she knows that he never speaks of such things lightly, and that he is certainly correct, that she will urgently, desperately wish not to have disobeyed, that she will, very soon, be consumed by terror and agony, will be made to suffer unimaginably; but nevertheless, for now, she can also bask in the wonderful, special knowledge that he thinks her sex looks pretty and enticing.
Such a tiny, stupid thing to hold on to, to hope will sustain her through the merciless devastation that is shortly to be imposed upon her.
“You’re rather wet, aren’t you? “
He answers his own question by testing with lazy fingers, tantalisingly softly, bringing an ecstatic moaning sigh from her, shivering as her haunches contract again and again. She is at once agonisingly ashamed of her obvious arousal, and desperately eager for more of his touch — more pretty blushes, uncontrollable trembling.
“Tell me, have you disobeyed with regard to sexual pleasure — do you masturbate? Have you had any kind of sexual relations since our conversation?”
His voice is soft, relaxed, but she is desperately eager to convey to him the rigour with which she has obeyed this instruction;
“No. No, Sir”
He is looking at her face, she knows, but keeps her eyes on his groin, as his fingers continue to work her, ever so softly. She wonders if she might die now. But instantly she knows that this is a silly thought. She will die when, where and in a manner someone else decides to have her die (almost certainly agonisingly, in terror, sexually degraded; her suffering, her trauma, her shame having no meaning, no purchase, beyond the provision of entertainment for laughing, grinning strangers) and certainly not before.
Her lips tremble at this thought, and a wave of real horror washes through her, because she knows that she is right — that this is no exaggeration. She is lost. Gone. Nadia’s life is over. There is only the prospect of becoming cunt; of being relentlessly brainwashed until she is brought to the point where her own understanding of herself is that nothing, nothing at all, about her matters apart from her use-value as cunt — to the point where, even in her own mind, she is unable to see herself as anything but cunt.
She has been enthralled by seeing other girls being dehumanised in this way; watched in sick fascination — half appalled, half savagely excited by their suffering, their humiliations. But now, now it will be her whose only choice will be how hard she makes it for them to bring her to the inevitable subjugation. For Nadia knows that she stands no chance, no chance at all against the heartless genius of Anne-Marie.
She flinches; tears spill through tightly squeezed eyelids, her mouth twists, her thighs tense. The urgent need to escape forces itself into her disordered mind. Her head comes up, suddenly, her eyes darting left and right.
He laughs, understanding just what is going on with her, feeling his cock stiffen, deciding that he will, indeed, delay his lunch meeting in order to have ample time to make this one scream with a violent rape of her tight rear hole;
“Too late now, pretty. Nothing can save you. It’s been too late ever since you had that documentation session with the old man. I sold your identity to the snuffer straight afterward; your death was registered against some other girl’s remains, six months ago. You no longer exist.”
“If you wish to prolong the experience, you will try, as hard as you can, to be entertaining. If you cannot bear it, you can try to make yourself irritating. You will never know, of course, what difference this makes — if any — since you now have only one life, which — whether you try hard to please, or decide to resist, will be filled with shame, horror and cruelty, and will end when and how whoever owns you chooses.
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