Jeremiah Quick (16 page)

She nodded her head, pleading, she hoped,
with her eyes. Begging. Not silence. No more silence. She had a
million words built up, waiting to tumble out her mouth, to explain
her life, to convince him she wasn't the person he thought she was,
and she didn't deserve his disdain when she only wanted him to love
her back.

"Not just now, but soon," he said.

He left her for a few minutes and came back
with a warm towel that he used to wash her backside and legs. His
movements were quick, efficient, and without comment. She cringed
while he cleaned the floor, embarrassed all over again at her
body's betrayal, grateful that he didn't groan or complain or
tease.

She fell against him when he unfastened her,
unable to hold her own weight. The pins and needles sensation in
her arms made her grit her teeth. She flopped one hand toward the
opposite arm in an effort to speed up the acclimation. He laughed,
a soft snort, and said, "Little dork," and she burned again,
wondering how she could please him.

He walked her a couple times around the
play-space, until she had her legs under her own control, and then
led her into the bathroom. "Shower?" he asked, and she nodded. The
thought of a hot shower was so amazing that she would have agreed
to more hours of silence. But the privilege didn't seem to require
that price. Maybe showers were free when you shit yourself. She
flushed with embarrassment at the thought, then shoved it away.
There was no point in getting stuck on that. It was over. Jeremiah
didn't seem hung up on it.

He greeted her with a towel when she stepped
out of the shower stall, not letting her take it in her hands, but
using it to dry her, still as if she were helpless.

She didn't like it, and her dislike must
have shown in her face, because he said, "Shh. This is the least of
what you'll have to be angry about, so I suggest you don't
bother."

Well. That was not at all what she wanted to
hear.

There was a counter set on top of cabinets
that extended past the sink, with a mirror the length of it on the
wall, and when Jeremiah decided Pretty was dry enough, he stood her
in front of this, wound the towel around her wet hair, and pressed
her down, so her breasts kissed the countertop. "Stay," he said,
and the command made her want to scratch his face. Stay, like a
dog. Like a slave.

Like a prisoner.

That thought startled her. She'd spent one
'night' in the cage, but although she'd come with him voluntarily,
it was becoming more and more obvious that whatever she'd thought
was going to happen here…wasn't. And that she'd given consent for
anything… everything, by getting into his car.

She thought about him before, in school –
how, yes, he hadn't always been nice, but it seemed more out of
exasperation for her easy life than from anything more personal. As
if… well, as if he'd thought she had a chance to be something
different, more real, better. She'd thought of herself as a willing
and worthy student. She'd been enthralled, but not held in thrall.
She was coaxed to learn his lessons, not forced.

He kept a hand on her upper back, holding
her against the countertop, and used his boots carefully against
the inside of each ankle to push her feet apart.

Her stomach flipped, a squeezing kind of
dread, and then his fingers were… yes, between her legs, spreading
her apart, not ungentle, but not gentle, either, sliding into her,
a brief but deep exploration, and she sucked in her breath, not
fighting him, but wondering if she should be.

"Ahh, Sunshine, take a breath," he said, and
she didn't know what he was doing, but sucked in air, wondering if
she would become completely apathetic if he didn't tell her what he
wanted next. And she would have laughed, except his hand left the
small of her back, and fingers parted her ass cheeks. She wanted to
cry out,
wait, wait!
But his voice filled the room. "Easy,
Sunshine. I'm not going to hurt you."

And then fingers were probing into her ass,
maybe just one, because it didn't hurt, just… this little
violation, that in the scheme of things, was small, but always felt
like the biggest, most humiliating feeling she'd ever had. The
feeling worsened, even, when he withdrew, leaving behind the
strange ache of having been opened.

And then.

"Breathe," he soothed, "it'll be okay," and
she had no idea what he was talking about… except there were his
fingers again, spreading her ass cheeks apart, and something wider…
sliding in... and as always with violation of this place, a folding
sensation in her gut, her heart, that catapulted her into helpless
submission. It was almost a relief.

I will not cry, I will not cry
. It
was a silent chant, and she kept at it until he pulled at her with
his hands, pulling her to standing, leaving whatever he'd put in
her
in her
, and, watching her face in the mirror, he pulled
the towel away and first finger-combed and then separated her hair
into sections.

She stared at his hands, his deft fingers,
feeling the tugs and twists, and a giddy sense of wonder grew
somewhere in the vicinity of her chest. It was a more intricate
braid than she could ever, ever pull off, and she found herself
smiling at him, almost smirking, in the mirror. Between the makeup
and his efficiency with the braid, he took on the barest hint of
femininity. Strangely, it felt right, this androgyny. It felt like
the real Jeremiah. If she had her voice, she'd ask him where he
learned to braid like that.

Now that she was clean, she was no longer
self-conscious about being naked, even in front of the mirror.

His face was young-Jeremiah again. She could
see beyond the makeup, or beneath it – the open sweetness she
remembered from before, an expression that could almost lend itself
to carefree laughter, had he been a different sort of individual.
But Jeremiah had always seemed to only possess cynical laughter,
his sense of irony much more developed than that of any of their
peers. He knew things he should not know. That was the sense. It
had always been so.

It was so, now.

He moved her away from the counter, pulling
her with him toward the lidded toilet, where he sat, positioning
her in front of him.

"Hands at your sides. Close your eyes."

She stood how he directed, swaying a little
when she closed her eyes, her legs still weak, weaker when
subjected to the 'balance-in-the-dark' test.

"Find your balance," he said, softly, as if
he knew what she was thinking, and didn't correct her when she
spread her feet a little apart. The thing in her ass, some kind of
plug or dildo, shifted as she moved, distracting her.

She felt a touch to her hip, imagined the
fingers of one hand curled around the bone, and then a cold, sharp
something at her belly, drawing a long curling line. Her eyes flew
open, and it took everything she had not to jerk away.

She let loose a cry. Just a little one.

"Ten," he said, and tilted his head to look
at her face. For a second she was so… immediately terrified – that
she almost jerked away from him, almost ran for the door, but then
he held up the object in his right hand.

It was… a ball-point pen. Just that. And
when she looked down at her belly, she could see the curled,
intricate line, in sharp contrast to her pale skin.

Not so very frightening, after all.

She swallowed. Stayed still. Met his eyes
for a second, and then let hers close. The way he wanted.
Submitting.

The pen was fine-tipped, sharp like a blade,
and it made lines in her skin in a ticklish, nerve-tingling fashion
that sometimes made her hitch in a breath, hold it. And each time
he would say, in a quiet voice, "Breathe, girl."

She got lost in the lines, the tingle and
stretch of her skin, the gliding, dragging poke of the pen that was
much kinder than the tattoo needle, yet brought back memories of
herself as a young teenager, fourteen, fifteen – carving boys'
initials into her skin with a single-edged razor, trying to cope
with those first heartbreaks. The idea was to replace emotional
pain with physical, but it didn't work for her because she found
poetry more satisfying than razor blades.

After what seemed like a long, long time,
something started happening, a twist in her gut, her anus rejecting
the object. She was trying, so hard, to be still. She thought he
might be angry if she messed up his lines. And she wanted to see
what he was doing, what she would look like when he was done. His
drawing on her had a slow, careful pace, as if there were some
purpose, some end he was intent upon.

But. She started trembling, and truly could
not help this.

And then she started sweating.

Her eyes were open again, watching him, when
the pen slipped across her skin in some way he hadn't planned. He
swore, then sighed, and tucked the pen behind his ear.

What he'd put in her didn't want to stay
there. He stood up, his hand wrapped around the start of the braid,
close to her skull, his fingers brushing the nape of her neck,
tugging her hair as he brushed the backs of his fingers along her
jaw, touching her and murmuring, "Hold it, hold it," as her guts
heaved and clenched and twisted and pushed the object out.

It was… loss of control and utter
humiliation, as bad as shitting herself earlier, worse even,
because he was here to witness – and when the plug clunked to the
floor, she was hollow – as if half her personality had fallen away
with this failure to obey. She spent a whole minute hating him
while he picked up the plug and placed it in the sink, then wiped
her face with a cool, damp cloth.

He stood her before him again, and continued
drawing complicated lines, down to the tops of her thighs, up over
her ribs to just underneath her small breasts. Swirls and symbols,
like hieroglyphics, meaningless to her, but oddly appealing when
she risked a glance at the mirror.

Her legs started shaking, and she lost the
strength to hold herself up.

He caught her the moment her knees buckled
and carried her into the dungeon, then set her down and walked her
around the edges of the room, pausing to study pieces of equipment
here and there, making a decision.

His hands guided her. One was a light touch
at the back of her neck, palm cupped, a light squeeze now and then,
pressure to indicate veering right or left. The other was at her
hip, just a touch, no pressure, nothing obscene.

He tugged her toward a structure that
reminded her of a gymnast's vault horse. It was covered in black
vinyl, and, like the bed, had various straps and cuffs attached. He
bent her over the side of it, her head hanging toward the floor.
The restraints were attached to the legs of the thing, and he
fastened her wrists practically to her ankles, which left her
exposed, open to his eyes and hands.

She heard a squeak, and opened her eyes to
see him sitting on a stool with wheels, behind her. She felt a
gentle touch behind her right knee, followed by the fine sharp tip
of the pen, drawing a line.

This went on and on, until her skin was
filled with lines.

As he drew swirls and patterns, perhaps even
letters and numbers, on the soft flesh on her inner thigh, she
could feel his breath there, steady and even, and a heaviness grew
in her center that opened her further, despite the fact that she
was getting a headache from this bent-in-half upside-down position,
and that she was probably red-faced and not looking her most
attractive.

And when he touched her
there
, it was
so erotic she sucked in a breath.

His laughter was low, not mean, but not his
most charming sound, either, as he slid one long finger right into
her cunt and crooked it.

"Mmm," he said. "I suppose if I bite you,
you'll scream."

She didn't answer, but her vaginal walls
clenched hard around his finger at the very idea.

"Tell you what," he said. "I'll give you
your ten, and then give you your voice back. And
then
maybe
I'll bite."

He dipped his head, tilted it the littlest
bit sideways, and Pretty could see his eyes, between her own spread
legs, her head still upside down, and without conscious thought,
she tilted her head, as well. He had some unfathomable expression
on his face, a benevolence that she was afraid to trust. And yet…
what choice did she have?

She nodded, a jerk of her chin, and hoped
against hope that untying her and letting her stand up was in his
plan.

It was.

His fingers released her ankles, one at a
time, and then walked around the bench and unfastened her wrists.
He helped her stand.

Ahhhhh…. her equilibrium was fucked up… and
first she swayed into him, then away, then backward, until she
leaned against the bench, breathing slowly, in through the nose,
two, three, four… out through the mouth, two three, four… until the
dizziness passed.

"Ten poses," he said.

Ten what? She couldn't grasp what he was
talking about, the word made no sense. She pictured red flowers,
Mexican penny coins… but blood must have finally made its way to
her brain, because she understood what he meant by the time he
added, "Like a... porn star, or a Playboy model," and gave her a
lascivious grin.

And for some reason she couldn’t even
comprehend, she grinned back at him.

And then she arched her back across the
sawhorse, raising her hands to let her fingers float to her braided
hair, setting one foot atop the other, then lifting her toes in a
slow slide up her other leg until they rested on her knee, shaping
her legs into a triangular number four.

"One," he said, and "Very nice."

She held the pose while trying to think of
what the next one should be, then raised her torso off the
sawhorse, dipped her head, formed a pout, and put her finger in her
mouth. Wisps of her hair fell over her eyes, and she looked up at
him through the fringe, going for a naughty innocence. She rested
her free hand on her hip.