You will want to have read the previous part of this story.
When he had had enough, he moved his chair out from the table a little and sat back, watching her; she was pretty sure he was watching her, at least, from his body language; she couldn’t look. Her pledges to herself about not looking directly at him aside, she was too lost in the bewildering intensity and strangeness of it all to look at him, her gaze directed at the floor, but unfocused.
She was still reeling from both her new understanding of defeat, of submission, and from the direct experience of it as she had actively participated in the shameful loveliness of his humiliation of her, of the way he had fed her, of her acceptance of a dependency on him for food, too.
All but sightless as tears welled up, she was blinking them back fast, almost angry at them, swallowing her shame at the thought of what she had just allowed him to do to her, what she had so willingly participated in, encouraged him to go further with; and all the time, she was working, working to hold herself as she hoped he wanted her.
Underlying it all, though, undeniable, was a growing bud of satisfaction, small, improbable, almost insubstantial, but appreciably there. It was almost a pleasure; a difficult, dangerous pleasure, to be sure, but it was real, and matched by a tremulous knowledge that there was peace in a part of her which had not known peace before.
It’s OK. It is OK, the thought was in her; to be here, now, like this, as thoroughly humiliated and servile as she was; so shamefully, so pathetically dedicated to trying to be give him what she urgently hoped he desired of her, even at the cost of all that she thought she wanted, almost all of what she had been striving to be.
It’s OK. Even though she knew it couldn’t last, that it was all too crazy, too weird, too disconnected from reality, to last. He’d get bored, he’d push her too far, or she’d fail to push herself far enough— it would end badly, obviously; she knew that, even though her chest hurt at the thought.
But it’s OK, now, OK to make herself spread her thighs that little bit wider, to hump her hips a little, soft and slow— hoping to be suggestive without being obviously slutty— OK to let her head fall back— it just felt right— then back and back again, until it was hanging behind her— until she couldn’t look at him if she wanted to; he could do anything to her and she wouldn’t see it coming.
She was inviting him, she saw, inviting him, deliberately, to do just that, offering him suggestive vulnerability, rather than slutty provocation— inviting him to do what he wished with her, because that’s what made it feel OK, to feel that he was with her, and interested in her, and that she was making herself obviously available to him. She bit her tongue, hard; somehow the pain intensified the lovely, and contextualised the always present sense of appalled, horror-struck fascination at what was actually happening, what she was allowing to be done to her, what she was intentionally doing to herself.
It wasn’t comfortable, the way she was kneeling; far from it; her knees were sore already from the time she had spent, there on the table, but tipping her weight back and opening her thighs had only increased the strain, and they were screaming for release; her neck, too, stretched backwards, taking the full weight of her head as it hung, almost upside-down, was stretched in unusal ways and discomforts were building into fires; her hands were becoming numb from the belt which tied them, her shoulders and upper back had gone all the way through agony to angry numbness, except for shooting pains when a larger than normal breath made her gasp— her breathing was hard as ever with the tight belt at her belly and the other at her neck.
But I’m alive! There was no moment that was not a real moment— not one. Every second was something of itself— no matter that that something was compounded with pain and and shame and horrible vulnerability, as much as it was with the lovely. There was, too, no suppression— no part of her that was not alive! Even those sane parts of her, which knew that this was dangerous madness, were wildly excited; fascinated at the extremity of her situation; so unlooked for, so precipitate, so overwhelming.
Horribly uncomfortable as she was, she was also deeply, humbly grateful to be allowed to be there, there for him, for it was undeniable; this aliveness depended entirely upon him.
It seemed he was comfortable, too, because he made no move to change anything. Thus, since, around him, she had given up on agency, on will, on even thinking about what she wanted, she had to endure, just as she was, for some time— she had no real idea how long, so lost was she in endless circles in her mind; she would never be bored in his presence, she realised; not while they both knew that she was working to make herself vulnerable to his slightest whim, to his cruelty— also openly accepted by both of them, the fact that he might choose hurt her, just as he liked, at any moment— mentally as well as physically; that he would, in fact, hurt her; hurt her often, and with sadistic enjoyment— liking to see her suffer, finding pleasure as she experienced hard pain and bitter shame.
These thoughts made her shudder, and a deep gusty breath took her— trepidation a part of it, to be sure, but mostly a grateful, fearful astonishment that she should be offered the chance to experience such things, such unimagined intensities. The breath awakened all the pains, so that she sighed, helplessly, soft and weak, as she had to give herself up to those pains, accepting them, too, as owning her, since she knew she would do nothing to answer the urgent calls from her body to grant them relief.
Perhaps the flexing of her hips caught his eye— who knew? But in any case, his fingers were simply there, at her sex, then; quickly, they were inside her sex— so obviously wet (bitch in heat)— then his thumb on her clitoris; two, then three fingers inside her, moving with obvious intent; not fast, not slow, owning her; and now she sighed— quivery, shuddering, alternately tense and soft; she wasn’t choosing to sigh, it simply came from her, uncontrollable; immediately and obviously communicating her desire, her sensitivity, her arousal, unfiltered. She had never, not before the last few days, never in her life made such noises. She was half appalled, half happy to know that she was so transparent to him, hearing his half-voiced, amused chuckle.
“Slut.”
It was not an insult. Not meant to hurt. It was just a fact. She was a slut. She was his slut; she was wet for him, and it wouldn’t matter if she weren’t, she’d be happy for him to fuck her. It was all so simple, and she moved herself for his hand, not for her pleasure, so much as to make it easier for him to do what he wanted with her, to her, which was, it turned out, to push his three fingers very deeply inside her, crooking them so that she felt it, disturbingly, inside her belly; he was tramping about in there, making his ownership clear, marking his territory. It wasn’t about her pleasure, or sexual, even, not at all; he was making the facts of the situation harshly concrete, implementing and reinforcing them; insisting that she recognise them, that she feel them, as directly as possible, with the most intimate and sensitive parts of her her body. He was showing her that his ownership of her was physical, and that he would take complete advantage of it, as and when he pleased.
If she would help him do this to her, then it could be nothing but plain between them, the extent to which she really was his plaything, his to use and abuse. Because there was, quite simply, nothing in this for her it all. Nothing but shame, and pain, and deliberate disrespect.
And yet, she continued to help him, doing all she could to enable him to do this to her.
It was hard to feel even slightly good with this, but she made herself smile— even though it was a weak, painful, broken smile, even though her face was hidden from him; lifted her hips to accommodate him better, committed, wanting his thumb back on her clit, not getting it, just that deliberate rummaging about inside her, making his point with clarity and simplicity, imposing both physical and mental pain. Again, tears wanted to come, would have been so terribly, terribly helpful, but she clamped them back. There was nothing to cry about, after all. This was what she wanted; otherwise she’d have called the locksmiths the night before, and be safe, at Mandy’s place, making plans to call the cops.
He stood, then— she felt it, rather than saw— and his other hand was at her lips— two fingers there, then three, then straightway pushed deep into the back of her mouth, her throat, crudely invasive; her reactions, her gagging and retching ignored as he seemed to be trying to have her whole body trapped by the pincer grip of his hands. It was increasingly awful; and yet all she did was to try, try so terribly hard, to make it work for him, holding her jaws wide, holding her neck straight, even though every part of her wanted to twist away from him, eject his hands from her body, bite down with her teeth, clamp her thighs, curl in on herself for protection. But why? What else was there to do but live her choice, be her choice? Not that there was any reward, or sign of gratitude from him; it went on and on, just horrible, painful, degrading; shockingly awful, until, at no particular point— just ‘enough’ for him, there came, in an even, normal tone of voice, as if nothing at all out-of-the-ordinary had been happening;
“Good. Good girl.”
And it was over; at least, the invasion was over— she was still in her terrible position, and now, her mind jolted into physicality, everything was screaming at once; her shoulders, her wrists, her knees, her back, her neck, her ankles, even; throat and belly, too, all demanding release, some compensating kindness, and the tears threatened once more, so that it became a full time job for her, for long, difficult minutes, to get herself back under control; her body twisted and juddered as she fought herself, fought to keep her head back, her hips up, her thighs wide, even as her body was in full revolt, knowing he was watching this, feeling it, knowing that he could see how awful it was for her, feeling what that meant with some quiet part of her that was as if watching the scene, watching him half grinning, one side of his mouth curling upwards a little, as he enjoyed her suffering, as his certainty of her submission, of yet another easy defeat of needy, stupid little Essy was confirmed.
Long before she was ready, though (ready for what, in any case? It is all him; she would never ready for him; that was sort of the point, wasn’t it? That’s how there was no boredom, how every moment was alive), he was on something new;
“Up, up with you, pretty, let’s have you kneeling again, like before. I like that pose with your head back, though; we’ll go back to that— remember it. But right now I want to talk to you a little bit, and then we’ll play an interesting game; very revealing, very educational; after that maybe you can go back to that position and we’ll see if you want to ask me, pretty please, if I’ll rape your hot, tight throat.”
It was a struggle for her, without use of her arms, demanding elegance of herself, without the slightest assistance from him, only an amused expression as he relaxed in the big chair, but she made it to an upright position again, up onto her knees, and immediately, shamefully urgently, found it necessary to shuffle her shins further apart, jiggle her hips, reset her shoulders— to present herself for him as best she could manage; it was non-negotiable, paramount; already unthinkable that she not consider how she offered herself to him, her best guesses at what he would like.
He watched this, too, watched her blushes rise, watched as she found the last, small dissatisfactions to attend to, watched as she settled herelf, quite pink in the face, the pink glow to the tops of her breasts very obvious, her nipples stiffening. She couldn’t tell, for a few moments, if she was supremely happy or about to go mad— so powerful were the nameless emotions that welled up in her the moment she had nothing left she needed to do, as she displayed herself, after yet another bitter, abject, self-inflicted defeat, everything about her a pathetically transparent presentation of her defeated self for him.
The impossibility of any of this being hidden, for it to be so obvious how deeply it mattered to her that she do her poor best to please him, was made explicit, then, as the main substance of whatever it was that was going on between them (it was clearly not, and never ever would be ‘a relationship’; she was just the slut he was playing with, for now, while it entertained him, and that, too, was clear between them).
“If you were truly mine, you’d be getting a few across the tits with that belt right now. You know my preference is that your elbows, rather than your wrists, are restrained— that I like to see your little hands flapping about, speaking of their uselessness.”
Her world turned cold. A jumble of thoughts rushed in on her, tumbling over each other; it was not her fault! She had tried … just couldn’t … Why hadn’t he? … How should she have, when she can’t speak? But these were just defensive nonsense, she knew— thoughts and questions that had no relevance to the situation, since she would never voice them.
The real question; the thing she must urgently address, was how, without speaking, how, when she certainly could not bear the thought of having her breasts thrashed, not ever again in this life, the question was still there— how could she make him understand that he must do this to her; how could she ask him to thrash her poor breasts?
He must see the trembling which had overtaken her, but that wouldn’t do it.
It occurred to her— without much emotion— that she might be able to die, hold her breath, throw herself down the stairs or something. Anything, rather than face what must be faced, what was going to happen, know that it would happen, again and again, until he decided he had had enough of her. That he would beat her; beat her naked body; beat her sex parts especially; that she would let him.
And then the simple, although no less awful answer came to her. She had forbidden herself to speak to him because it never seemed that she had anything to say which was worth bothering him with. But he had said, had he not? Said it the previous day, that he would not beat her again until she asked him to.
Simply, then, to ask to be beaten would be something he would be interested in; she could speak; must speak.
Except, she couldn’t. Part of it, of course, was that she didn’t want to— couldn’t bear the though of that atrocious pain, that horrrible, soul-crushing experience again, of watching a man wind up to hurt her so badly, on purpose, for no purpose beyond his own entertainment, in such a tender place; that he would do it again, and again, for as long as it entertained him; that her suffering, her pleas, her terrible need for an end to the anguish was of no account, no account at all, save to the extent that it might increase his enjoyment of hurting her. Knowing that she would once again bear terrible marks, disfiguring, shaming, but most of all, signals, visible proof, that she had been thrashed, that she was a girl who could be thrashed; marks that would take days to fade— those from that evening in the hotel still faintly visible.
But that was not all— somehow, her jaw wouldn’t open. It was clenched, convulsively tight; she couldn’t speak, couldn’t bring herself to break the geas, even for … for something she had logically convinced herself must be said.
In her anguish, she broke another self imposed rule— she looked him in the face, eyes wide, begging him for … For what? Some way out of this— but how could he know?
Except that, of course, that he knew exactly.
“Good girl” he said; “I do appreciate your silence; I’m grateful for it, and would be happy for it to persist; but I think, perhaps, that you have something to say to me? Something that might be useful to us, in the resolution of this silly disappointment?”
It struck her, then; her eyes wide, openly begging him to help her, that he was still a stranger to her, this man who had taken her over, for whom she seemed determined to remake herself as a helpless, hopeless slut. His face was still new to her; she simply had not spent enough time looking at it to know it. Since that first morning, in the cafe, she had not really looked at him, face to face, for more than a few minutes at a time, and all of those times— as all of her time with him has been, since the park gates— highly stressed for her.
I’ve given my life to a stranger! A man whose face I wouldn’t easily recognise in a crowd, a man who is a sadistic, manipulative, charming pervert! What have I done?
Terrible turmoil threatens her, but she has only just recovered from the last one; she simply cannot bear another struggle with herself, and, this time she is ruthless; merciless with herself. To hell with the consequences— she just needed to get through the next ten minutes.
So what, stupid? You’re here, he’s got you, you’re naked, and lost, and you have no idea what you are any more. Smile, cunt, and ask him to do what he wants with you. At this point he’s one hundred times a better bet than relying on your own dumb instincts. Maybe, if you’re lucky, he’ll fuck you and give you an orgasm and you can forget everything for ten minutes, moaning and jerking like a broken toy while he watches you, and sees you for the helpless slut you really are.
Deep inside her, she understood that this, too, was a part of his technique; to have her repeatedly take the easy way out in the short term, to avoid facing up to what she had done to herself. She knew it, understood it, saw just how terrible it was, and hated herself for it.
Hating herself, too, was part of it. She saw that too. The more she hated herself, the less point in being herself— and the only person who cared about her enough to have any plans for who she could be instead— was Mark.
And the only way out of that spiral of thought, was to let it be what it wanted to be— let it be lovely ; let the letting go of herself, the acceptance of another defeat, with all the promise of future degradation that implied— just let it be lovely.
And so, wondering at herself, at her ability to let this insane logic be what saved her, she found herself jiggling a little more for him— just to let him see how powerful he was, for her, how weak she was for him, intentionally diminishing herself in front of him, and then she found she needed to giggle— it just came naturally to her— a pathetic, tiny Hhmp! of a giggle, so weak and unsure of itself, so completely unlike the Essy she had been for the last few years, as she had been on the Tube that morning, so few days ago, that Essy who was gone, now, gone forever, to be replaced by this … this jiggly, naked, needy thing, which was … which was clearing its throat, apologetically, also communicative of weakness, of desperate uncertainty about anything, anything at all, except that she wanted his attention— needed it so desperately that she was going to say something unutterably stupid and terrible;
“Please … ” her voice sounded wrong; high-pitched, breathy, babyish; like someone else, someone ridiculous, someone from a stupid porn fantasy, playing up to what a child-like, eager slut might sound like, even though she was just trying to speak; it just came out like that;
He was waiting; she needed to say more; but it was hard— very hard; and wrong, too— very wrong. She shouldn’t ask him to beat her; she really, really shouldn’t.
And yet there it was again, that stupid, girly voice;
“Please, … Sir. You … you should feel free to … to beat me.”
He didn’t react— his face didn’t change; he was paying attention alright— looking at her as he had, that first morning, so that she felt he was looking inside her, that he saw; saw and understood all the feverish little thoughts where the words, the implications, the meaning of what she had just heard herself say, out loud, for both of them, where those were all squirming around in the pathetic excuse for a self that she had allowed herself to collapse into, that mess where every thought chased its own tail, where everything was fear and need and yearning for the simple relief of his smile, his satisfaction, his pleasure, his decision to fuck her, give her an orgasm, relief which would turn immediately into poison and then back into lovely, and oh! oh! He was going to say something…
“Good. Yes, good. I think so too. But I’m just wondering, pretty— to be sure; are you saying that I should feel free to beat you this time— as a one-off, or are you meaning that I should feel free to beat you generally; whenever I feel like it, beat you any way I should wish?”
He was so perfect! So perfectly hard on her! If his voice had betrayed the slightest excitement, or nervousness, or relief, she might have been free, at that moment. But he betrayed no more emotion than might have attended a decision about who was going to clear the table.
He was like a diamond, she thought; sharp, impossibly hard, cold, immutable, relentless. And yet he smiled at her, he tidied her place, he fed her, he called her pretty, even caressed her, sometimes.
This, her initial reaction, was to the manner of his response, her experience of his voice, the feelings his words aroused in her - frightened, yes, but hot, too; no two ways about it; being spoken to that somehow had a mainline to her belly, got her not and bothered, made her mouth dry, upped her heart rate, made her think about the way he fucked her, how invaded she felt, how suffocated, how swooningly vulnerable, how desperately, urgently grateful …
… only slowly, then, as she cooled down a little, had the precise meaning of those hard words made itself felt, until it exploded in her mind like a hand-grenade.
How could that question even be asked, let alone be serious? How could an answer be expected of her, a naked, stupid girl, holding her hips forward so that her pussy lips would gape, just a little, for him (consciously doing this, keeping her hips moving, ever so slightly, whatever else was going on, having discovered that it calmed her to do this— and noticed, too that it made her nipples move, too, which had attracted his eyes more than once)?
How could he ask this of her? It would break her heart to answer it— no matter what her answer was.
Her whole body convulsed then, softly, but unmissably— a little emotion-quake, as her heart did break, again, as she realised she was going to give him the answer he wanted.
Of course she was. There was nothing else to do.
Another giggle broke from her; not a laugh at all, really, but an expression of heartbreak, grief, fear which had been constrained into the form of a giggle, but that had to be expressed, lest she go mad, start screaming, tearing at herself; and then she was panting— actually panting, mouth open, breathing hard, the fear having prompted her body to assume she was in physical danger.
Which, of course, she was.
And still, he watched; interested, but completely relaxed; just watching; enjoying the show as a young woman, against all her better judgement, against all learned morality, probably against the law, too, as if that mattered, as she got herself to the point where she would give him carte-blanche to beat her; a man whom she knew to be a sophisticated and unapologetic sadist.
And then it was over, and she was bizarrely calm, and sure, and free of contradiction.
Her smile was small, and her lips trembled, but it was real and soft— a happy smile, even; though it was a wistful happiness, full of the knowledge of pain, and sadness, and fear, and suffering; her eyes were soft, too; shining with unshed tears, and her voice was different also— now low-pitched, steady, sincere— she wanted him to hear her, wanted there to be no question left between them, so that she never again had to face the choice she had just made;
“Of course, Sir. Of course. You … you should feel … you should have no … no doubt about my wish that you have complete freedom to … to beat me. To beat me, however you wish, whenever you wish. Thank you. Thank you, Sir.”
She kept his gaze, steadily, for a long moment after that, before, trembling visibly, she lowered her gaze, and, for a small, precious while, experienced calm inside herself. Never mind that it was a moment only, that she would now live in fear forever. Calm was something. Somethings would be rare for her, now; she knew. She would take this for what it was, and treasure it.
