You will want to have read the previous part of this story.
A little over an hour later, Essy faced her first real choice since offering herself to Mark at the park gates.
She had been more-or-less on autopilot through the session with the beauty therapist from the hotel; she had learned to go somewhere else when being prepared for catwalk shows years ago, and today it had been doubly important. The only surprise, after Mark’s high handed selection of a skimpy dress and flimsy high-heeled sandals, yesterday, had been the clothes the girl had brought; a super-model slick version of her standard attire— black leather bolero jacket, a low-cut, cropped pink gingham shirt, some designer ripped jeans and even a pair of black leather loafers— only with high wedge heels. The underwear, though, was very different— skimpy in the extreme, lacy, and almost see through, with a hard underwire to the low cut bra.
It had made her smile, a little, that he had been so careful to choose something like this for her, smile for the first time in what seemed a lifetime. Because she had, she realised, begun a new lifetime; at least, she been forcefully launched into it. Whatever else happened next (and she had no idea, no idea at all, what that might be, even the next hour a cloud in the shape of a question mark), her old life was gone— a chapter closed.
Everything now was post-violation Essy. Post tied and thrashed Essy, post gang-rape Essy, post eager, moaning rutting with her chief rapist Essy, post ass-fucked Essy, post learning what sex, what an orgasm could really be Essy.
Picture: Essy in the hotel
Walking was … not simple … not after last night, not this morning. There were many pains— from strains, swollen tendernesses, bruises, all strongly concentrated around her crotch, and she walked carefully, but with determined, model trained elegance, behind the hotel beautician, who had done an excellent job, but remained frostily distant and minimally polite— not at all friendly. Essy had realised that the woman had judged her to be a whore, and Essy, humiliated, weak, hazy, had not had the strength to make an issue of it.
So this was a walk-of-shame with a disapproving guide, she thought, as the woman opened the doors at the third floor— from which, the lift announcement had said, the park terrace opened.
The choice almost floored her, as the beautician walked off without a word; only a vague wave in the direction of the terrace.
Every part of Essy wanted to leave— to get back into the lift, get out of there, forget her purse, get home somehow, nurse her pain and her shame and her broken world and hope that she could live with herself. Every part of her, save the most urgent, the most desperate part of her; the part that was hungry, needy, insistent. The part that was frightened, but also determined that she must see Mark, right now. The part which was certain that nothing made any sense without Mark; that she must be with him again, immediately; that even though this was also the most dangerous thing, it was non-negotiable for her. She must see if there is anything, anything at all, any chance.
The choice had made itself, Essy being incapable of making it.
Walking slowly, with small, tentative steps, Essy found herself moving towards the terrace.
It was quite quiet— lunchtime was past, and those that were there were either finishing up or settling in for the afternoon with a book or magazine. She was glad; facing Mark would be hard enough, but a crowd of people would have been beyond her, in her fragile state.
Picture: Essy on the terrace
The second she saw him, a table right at the balustrade facing the park, away from any others, leaning back, engrossed in a book, she found herself trembling; her whole body trembled, in all registers— she was frightened, aroused, angry, happy, despairing, all at the same time. It was he— he, who had turned her upside down, so irreversibly shattered her world, in just a few short hours. Memories of many aggressive, unwanted penetrations forced themselves into her mind— more; she felt them with her body— at her mouth, her throat, her sex, her ass, and she would have stumbled had she not caught herself with desperate determination.
Tears were in her eyes, and she was panting, breathing in tiny, panicked sips, feeling her heart racing, beating hard as well as fast, hammering in her ears, a roaring sound, too, and for a second she thought she would faint, made herself breathe … breathe … breathe …
And made herself start walking towards him, wanting to cry, wanting to laugh, wanting him to look at her and smile his smile, terrified in case he might not.
That last made it clear to her, hard and sharp, then; he had smashed her shell, smashed the Essy she had built, and now all her hope, all her possible future, was hanging by a thread— the thread of his approval. The thread of the man who had whored her to strangers, who had encouraged them to hurt and degrade her.
She kept telling herself these awful things about him in the hope that they would help her be strong against him, but they did the opposite; they reminded her that she was a broken victim— a slut, her wantonness made public, that she was now in a world where Mark is the only person who both knows who she is, and has— apparently— a clear idea of what she might become.
Without Mark, she is lost. The fact that it is Mark’s fault that she is lost is salty, sharp, painful; rips at her whenever she sees him or thinks about him— but in the end, it’s just a historical detail. The hard fact is that he is what can make sense of her new existence.
A waiter surprises her then; polite, nervous— a young lad, really. She recognises the signs; he’s overawed by a girl with model looks, taller than him; he can hardly speak;
“Are … Are you…”
She can’t bring herself to speak, either, but manages to point at Mark in such a way that the boy seems to understand that she is there to sit at his table. He follows behind her, she has no idea why, doesn’t care; she has wild thoughts chasing themselves around her head.
Her reality is this moment, approaching Mark, seeing him look up from his book, see his head turn, seeing his eyes on her body first; her groin, her feet, her breasts, her neck, seeing his smile begin, and holding her body for his inspection, just as she had learned to do as a teenage model, parading herself for uncaring, selfish strangers, quick to judgement, harsh with their sharp-tongued criticisms, their demands for improvement, their thoughtless, cruel judgements. They had prepared her for Mark so well, she thought.
But still … still, it made no difference how she had come to be here; she was here, and he … he was looking into her face and there was — if not a smile, then satisfaction, at least, in his eyes. He was pleased with her; she could live.
It was pathetic, she felt pathetic; physically so, her knees weak, and, when she realised that there was no spare chair at his table, was incapable of even thought about what to do; was she to stand, fetch a chair, kneel? Did he want to send her away? None of these possibilities were helpful, since she could do nothing, nothing, it seemed, but wait; hold herself well, so that he should not decide that she was ugly, after all— a dirty slut who, in the light of day, had not been worth fucking— such was her internal monologue, try as she might to be strong, to be Essy; she was, in truth, little more than a ball of desperation at that moment, painfully aware that it had been her body, all along, which had interested Mark (and, hard to acknowledge, but impossible to deny, it was his interest in her body which had, remarkably, grabbed at her, then, too).
An age passes, a microsecond— she has no idea; Essy, standing, trembling, smiling a poor, weak attempt at a ‘hello’ smile, self consciously pulling her shoulders back, letting one leg take her weight, bending the knee of the other, posing for him; offering herself for his judgement.
She is angry with him, she does hate him— but not much of her is occupied with these feelings, while a good part of her is actively suppressing them, considering that the worst thing she could possibly do is to risk displeasing this man on whom— like it or not— her future sanity seems to depend.
Mark’s attention has moved on, though, in favour of the waiter; it seems he’s been waiting to order;
“Tea, strong Assam; a pot for two. Hot chocolate. Crumpets, hot; lots of them, some toasted with cheese; plenty of butter, Blackcurrant jam, French mustard,” He knocks back the remains of some aperitif; “Oh, and you can take this. Quickly, now, thank you.”
He watches the boy go, before picking up his book, setting his bookmark, puts it to one side, before turning his attention back to Essy, looking her over dispassionately now, as if assessing her.
As if he were a headmaster, or something, she found herself thinking, feeling very much unequal to any sort of speaking, or decision; dearly wishing that the waiter had not been so overawed— first by her and then by Mark’s imperious manner, that he had omitted to find her a chair, leaving her stranded, her weakness and indecision exposed, Mark simply watching her, almost as if she were a stranger.
Picture: Essy, being assessed
And then a little shift happens— just a small move he makes, hard to say exactly what, but the idea is in her mind, from nowhere, that she would like to be on his lap again, as she had been, earlier, held, and, before she knows what she is doing, she has stepped toward him, and made a sort of dipping motion, very tentative, bending her knees, swivelling her hips a little; begging him, basically, for permission to sit on his lap, as if she were a little girl, half frightened, half infatuated with a visiting uncle.
She can feel herself blushing, feels the shame, but, now that she has conceived of the notion, she finds herself extraordinarily needy, vulnerable, really simpering for him now, feeling her cheeks hot, feeling the craziness of being so foolish and weak for the man who has just subjected her to the most traumatic and destructive experience of her life.
But doing it anyway.
And worse, having a sick feeling that she could learn to need this sick feeling, play acting the part of a silly, needy, weak-minded bimbo for him, while he simply watches, face impassive, not responding, just that small, self-satisfied, calm smile. Play acting, but with them both knowing she means it. That she is, truly, experiencing need. That she is, humbly, needfully, asking him to let her express her weakness, consolidate it, make it visible, in public…
At last, she manages to speak; the first word she has said to him since entering the hotel, nearly a day ago (she has uttered words while being thrashed, while in the throes of sex, it’s true, but those have been almost involuntary, more animal noises than speech);
“Please…??”
She hardly recognises her own voice— husky, hesitant, soft, fearful, wheedling; pathetic. She realises that she has leant forwards, as she spoke, blatantly offering him her cleavage. To be so ashamed, and still to be doubling down on the behaviour that shames her…
He raises an eyebrow a little— keeps her hanging; they both know he is being cruel to her. They both know that she is too exposed, now, to do anything but allow him to play with her as he chooses.
She wants to cry but dares not, certain that he is testing her, that playing this game, letting him play this game, with her as the plaything, is important.
Important for what?
She can’t think. In any case, she is in too much distress, finding that her hips are jiggling, her knees flexing, as though she is in urgent need of a toilet, humiliated on a whole new level by this teasing, cruel manipulation, appalled that she cannot find the slightest shred of the old Essy, who would have slapped him and walked off at the very start of everything, finding that the only resolution to her stress is to giggle; a giggle which is half a sob, desperately recovered from, which ends up capped off with a girlish questioning lilt, weak and foolish sounding.
A giggle that isn’t even sure of its right to exist,
Her heart is hammering now— a sort of self-induced panic attack of shame threatens, and she has to work; work hard; work ruthlessly to suppress all her wishes for dignity, for decency, for fairness, for respect; forget all that, and work for his approval, work on her breath, and her tears, and her knees, and her hands (which are flapping uselessly from her wrists in a futile attempt to relieve some of the tension).
When she has recovered sufficiently to focus again— her vision had blurred, so lost was she, so turned in on herself— he is smiling more broadly; the smile harder, now, his eyes relaxed.
“Very good, Essy. Very good. You will learn to control yourself for me.”
The simple statement hits her like a train; without anything like a thought process, she somehow knows that its implications are enormous. That with those few words— you will learn to control yourself for me — he has laid an infinite weight upon her psyche, made a cage for her soul, and she is, once again, rendered numb by the relentlessness, the speed, the accuracy of his invasion of her, the words like a precision guided missile to the heart of her vulnerability, of her neediness, of her deep character.
He has laid a Geas upon her; a spirit quest. He has crystallised the central issue of her new life. She doesn’t really understand how she knows this, what it really means, how it will shape her; nothing is clear, except the certainty that the phrase has seared itself into her mind, not as words, so much as a glowing imprint of his requirements of her, a representation of his iron and unalterable will in respect of her, a bleak but unshakeable foundation for her new self, the one she has to build from the ruination of her old one.
She cant tell if this is a good thing, or a bad thing, for her. In keeping with everything from Mark, it seems to be both; on the one hand an ominous imposition, of which, as with the conditions she had accepted in the park, the real implications seem likely to to terrible and destructive for her, as a person; while it is also undeniable that their stark simplicity offers the prospect of a life without complex, draining choices, a clarity and down-to-earth promise as attractive as the idea of a cool cave lake in in a sandstorm.
It doesn’t matter; none of it matters, she realises; the truth of the situation is that he is in control of her, already; it is beautiful and impossible, seductive and unbearable, but again, none of it matters, because it will happen as he wants it to; he is simply too far ahead of her in the game, effortlessly superior in his understanding of how she works, for her opinion of anything to be more than mildly entertaining; a sideshow.
She whimpers to herself, very softly, and is thrown a bone, which she receives with pathetic and shamingly grateful delight, as, with the most minimal of movements, some small shift in body language, he makes it clear, then, that she may sit on his lap.
She has been judged acceptable, she hopes, and the depth of the effect this has on her is almost as humiliating as having allowed herself to be toyed with so; the rush of soft and frothy gratitude that wells up in her at this small intimation of approval almost overwhelms her again.
This time, the tears she blinks back are tears of weakness and joy, rather than weakness and fear, but she blinks them back just as determinedly, smiling a full, soft and revealingly fluttery smile for him as she— very tentatively, paying attention exactly to the way he is moving his knees, his hands, so as to be sure she sits as he wishes her to, deeply unsure of herself, blushing hot again— as she lowers herself onto him, until, with a further flush of unlooked for and oversetting pleasure, experiencing as she never has before, a strong and specific feeling of vulnerability between her legs as she brings that part of herself into contact with his body; like Pavlov’s dogs, she has rapidly learned to associate intensity of physicality— pain— in her hitherto most protected places, with being close to him, and a flush of naked fear passes through her, a certainty of her complicity with future cruelty, right there, where she is softest.
With another ridiculous, humiliating little giggle (her fear and her vulnerability nakedly audible, she knowing he will hear it) and a final small collapse as this fear turns her leg muscles to jelly, she is, at last, curled onto his lap, able to rest her face into his shoulder, close her eyes and sigh; breathe slowly again, his arm around her shoulders.
He lifts her knees with the other hand, so that her heels can catch the seat of the chair at his side, she all soft and willing, like a doll that wants to help itself be posed; she is in more or less a foetal position, now, bundled up. The hand moves from her legs then, pushing up between her thighs, and, without a moment’s hesitation, she moves to accommodate it, her sex wanting the feel of his hand, welcoming the way he takes hold of her there, firm and assured, no matter that they are in a public place.
It’s not that she feels safe. There is no ‘safe’ with Mark, not since he had shattered her world by making it clear to her that he wanted her to allow herself to be fucked by two strangers— and by showing her that she was unable to do anything to resist his expectation of compliance. There is no safety at all; she knows this— only varying degrees of— frankly— fear, but it lessens the fear to be allowed to be near him; in his arms, to be more in his control.
Crazy, that the way to feel safe is to give the man who is the most dangerous thing she has ever encountered in her life more control over her. Crazy, to welcome his hand to her pussy, when she knows that he will hurt her there; that she must always expect pain from him, there, as the price of his attention,
His hand has her pussy, right this moment. The pussy that same hand has thrashed with a heavy leather belt, with full force. The hand that has brutally wrenched her thighs apart so that she can be raped by a vile stranger. The hand that, at Charles’ request, had choked her until she had completely lost control, and begun thrashing hysterically, David holding one of her knees, stretching her wide, her hands tied behind her back, her whole body rejecting what was happening to her with utmost force, determined that she would not be subjected to such atrocity, but unable to make the slightest difference to what goes down, none; inflaming them to greater extremes, if anything (I love fucking girls who know just how pretty they are when they’re in total distress. Nothing like it.; Charles had said, conversational, as if he were commenting on the quality of a glass of wine).
But despite all this, what his hands have done to her, she is deeply certain that there is nowhere else she wants to be. Nowhere else she can imagine being able to be, either.
He has weakened her, smashed her, and it is with desperate urgency that she hopes that he wants to keep her.
The waiter speaks; he must be bringing the food. She dare not look up, cannot imagine what sort of a picture she presents, has no option but to swallow the humiliation. Another person in the world assuming that she is some sort of whore.
Maybe they are right. Maybe he will make her a whore, now. Maybe she’ll learn to like it. Maybe she’ll have no choice. She certainly likes fucking Mark; even if it is sore and frightening. The thoughts go round and round in her head, never landing, hardly even thoughts; more feelings, glimpses, flashes of visions, insights.
She makes excuses for herself; I’m sleep deprived, traumatised, have been beaten and raped and humiliated.
Essy never makes excuses. Maybe she’s not Essy, any more, then? If not, then who is she going to be?
She has no idea. And then it comes to her; he does. Mark has a plan for her.
Frightened; really frightened, then. It won’t be a plan that is good for her; that much is obvious; not good for Essy, anyway.
She snuggles into his shoulder, needing comfort in the face of fear, knows it makes no sense to seek comfort from the source of the fear, does it anyway, and moves, too, to give his hand better access to her crotch, of which he immediately takes full advantage, making her sigh, softly. It’s not so much sexual, his hand, there; not now, not after three frenzied fuckings in a morning, not when she is so terribly sore down there.
Of course, its impossible that it not be sexual, a man she hardly knows grabbing and holding her pussy in public, her encouraging him to hold her there, of course it is sexual; but really, its about control, she thinks…
He controls her pussy. He has access to it, and he can hurt her there, and he can offer it to strange men so they can fuck it, and he can use it to make her have an orgasm for his entertainment if he wants, and he can tame her by pleasuring her there, too. And he holds it in his hand, right now; holds it so very, very nicely, it has to be accepted, as if she is made for his hand to hold her so.
It’s as if it’s more his pussy than hers … she lets the idea float in her mind. Her own sex, so intimately connected to her mind, and to her sense of herself as a woman, but not actually hers. Actually not belonging to her. Belonging to a man— a near stranger to her, a controlling, cruel and powerful man— her pussy, his to use as he pleases. It’s horrible and fascinating at the same time, and she moves for him, for herself, to feel how strongly he is holding her; holding the pussy that he owns, the feeling of her sex not being truly hers, anymore, demanding to be tested. There is a lurking unease in her at being unable to summon even a small amount of outrage or disgust at this proposition; surely it should be violently unacceptable to her? Surely, she should not be getting even slightly turned on by it?
Things seem a bit detached from reality then— am I daydreaming? she wonders. At any rate, she is unaware of much outside these strange, dark and disturbing thoughts until there is the waiters’ voice again, and Mark moves. She smells food, realises she is powerfully hungry, and looks up, almost into the face of the waiter, who is bending, arranging dishes. He meets her wide-eyed, questioning look, still not sure where she is, quite, his face impassive as a servant’s should be, but he has changed his view of her; no longer intimidated, but encouraged; there is a horrid glint in his eyes, and a tiny curl at the corner of his mouth, telling her that he is enjoying ugly thoughts about how it must be with her, for her to let herself be treated so, in a public place. His eyes go lower, then, lingering on her cleavage for just long enough to feel noticeable, but not to be the basis for any complaint.
A tiny bit of Essy comes back, as she refuses to be intimidated by a waiter, refuses to let the shame she feels control her, and, instead of shrinking away from him, she makes herself more obvious, sitting up a little, her shoulders going back, pushing her breasts forward, lifting her uppermost thigh, opening her crotch, so that Mark’s hand, so outrageously gripping her there, must be obvious to the boy, holding the pose until she has registered his shock, then looking up, to catch his eye, a little of her habitual fierceness in her look, thinking to shame him, only to be shocked herself as Mark’s hand abandons her crotch, to first undo the button, then the zip fly of her jeans, then grab at her lifted leg, under the knee, yanking it further outward, spreading her thighs shockingly wide, exposing her skimpy, all but see-through panties;
“She’s exactly the sort of skank slut you’re imagining, I can assure you.”
Marks’s voice is as relaxed as ever, but its impact, as so often, is large. The waiter starts, steps back, stares for a second directly at Essy’s all but naked pussy, turns bright red and then scuttles away, to a short laugh from Mark, who calmly pushes her legs closed as she, frozen with shock, cringes, mortally shamed.
“Act the slut and you’ll be treated like a slut, girl.”
She looks up at him, face white, but his voice, and his smile, are not stern, but rather amused, and she feels, for the first time, a little burst of anger at him, and after a brief scan of the terrace, which reassures her that the little incident, which had lasted only a few seconds, appears to have passed unnoticed by others, she expostulates;
“You! You …!”
Before dissolving into laughter at his comical expression. Suddenly, somehow, everything is changed by this, and it’s as if it is twenty four hours earlier, and they are at the first cafe table, having begun to make friends, everything between them innocent, intriguing, interesting, full of possibility, and— just like that, as if by magic— the events of last night are cast in a new light; as if they had been no more than a sexy game between the two of them.
This new way of understanding it all is bewildering to Essy, but so, so very appealing, that she finds herself smiling at him as if they were lovers, friends, sharing a joke, and finds herself opening her legs again, slowly, just a little, to give him his own, private view of her crotch, which gets her his hand, back there, very intimate indeed, now, and a smiling insult;
“Skank slut.”
To which she replies, greatly daring, but smiling, not pulling away from his hand at all, but rather pushing herself against him, inviting liberties;
“Rapist.”
And that’s another shift, as his face turns serious, and his fingers work at her, she having to move to cover the surge at her hips, to make it seem as this is some sort of lovers’ game to anyone who might be watching, disguise the fact that her jeans are open, that he has three fingers inside her pushing the scratchy lace against the raw inner walls of her vagina, making her gasp at the sensation, and it is clear, suddenly, blindingly clear, that she is his; totally his, in that moment, swooning for the power of him, the certainty of him, his total disregard for anything except that which he wants, the glory that it is her that he wants, the breathtaking crudity, the unapologetic violence of the way that he takes what he wants from her, the enormity of the implications of her letting him do these things to her, the fear of the unknown extremes she is making herself vulnerable to, the gratitude in her that it is she, she of all the millions, whom he has chosen to do this to.
He looks at her, for a long time, then— she has no idea how long, his face as still and unreadable as ever, fingers working lazily, slowly, inside her, looks at her with such patient, careful attention that she is lost in him, wanting this to last forever, knowing it can’t, already mourning the end of it before it ends, which it does, all too soon, albeit with with a prize that is worth having.
“Just so, little girl, just so. You pass the test.”
And she, as if it is the most ordinary, obvious thing in the world, replies immediately, emphasising her words with an obvious opening of her already spread thighs, a deliberate backward flexing of her shoulders, lifting her chin, exposing her sex, her breasts, her neck to him in a slow, elegant, intentional offer of her vulnerability;
“In that case, I’m yours, Mr. … Mr. Haversham. All … all yours. Please?”
It’s as if they have had the conversation before, she feels— everything flows as if ordained, despite the wild import of the words that are spoken, the seal on the feeling that Essy’s life was over.
“If you’re mine, pretty, if this cunt is mine,” and his hand moves, powerfully, to emphasise his ownership, his power, his control, his greed, and she melts; “ Then you won’t get the explanation I promised you. Or any explanation, ever again.”
That felt very final, to Essy. Gloriously, terrifyingly final, but still, still, the dread words kept on flowing, like a fast running river; obvious, unquestionable, anything that caught the attention already moved on, a done deal.
“I … I understand. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I … I think that’s all I have to say.”
“Sir. You address me, pretty, as Sir.”
“Sir. Thank you. I will … I will call you, Sir. Sir.”
This last was said in a wondering whisper, accompanied by a desperate squirm as his thumb grazed her clitoris, so sore, so engorged, so wet.
He pulled away, then, leaving her bereft;
“Do yourself up, hussy, then I think we’ll have you kneeling. There are crumpets to feed you.”
Read the next part of this story.
A note on the images— these were all generated with AI, something I’ll be doing more of, since it becomes possible to get images that are a/ copyright free, and b/ more closely aligned with the way the story tells it. Let me know what you think.
