Puppet On A String (5 page)

      
“Mr. Darcy, sir, I really need to talk to you.” A wildness of emotion seemed to overtake her in that fearful moment and she was about to cry.

      
“You do?” He looked strangely amused by her halting presence and the raw emotion that poured from her trembling form. For just a moment, his face softened and looked more welcoming than she’d ever seen it.

      
“Yes, sir. Please. If you don’t mind.”

      
“Then come here,” he motioned her to his side.

      
“Sir, I really can’t be…”

      
“Come here,
Shelby
.”

      
This was the first time he’d called her by her first name, and the sound of it seemed to ring through her body like a beautiful bell. She didn’t object this time.

      
Once at his side, he ordered her to sit up on his desk.

      
“Sir?”

      
“Yes, that’s what I said.” He’d rolled his chair back and pointed to the cleared space at the top of the desk.

      
This seemed like an awfully odd thing to do. But she was still so very scared of him, and being so completely under his control, she couldn’t object.

      
“This is awfully awkward,” she blushed, as she edged her bottom up on the edge of the shiny black surface.

      
“I know it is. I also know that you’re feeling ashamed of what we just did. I took advantage of you. I stripped you of your virginity. You were a virgin?”

      
“Yes, sir, I was.” There were more tears gathering in her eyes.

      
She sat on the desk with her hands grasping the sides, her knees locked together, her face staring down at his placid and amused expression.

      
“I knew that to have you,
Shelby
, I’d just have to take you. A man like me is not going to attract the eye of a lovely young girl like you. But my feverous passion will. I could feel it rouse your own passions from the moment you stepped into my office two weeks ago. You may not have realized it then, but you will as you get used to being with a man. This is unfamiliar territory for you, am I right?”

      
“Yes, sir. Very unfamiliar.”

      
“Which makes you particularly suitable for me. You will find me an insistent and demanding lover. But you’ll find me kind as well, as long as you yield to my demands. Don’t bother to fight what you feel. I know there will be a temptation to go home and try talking yourself out of the relationship. Don’t let that happen. Don’t give in to that kind of schoolgirl silliness.

      
“Let me assure you that this is not a simple affair for me. It’s not a lark, it’s not a way for me to exercise my power over you – though I certainly will. I am quite serious about being the only man in your life, the only man you will ever want or need. I have no doubt about that or about my intentions toward you; I felt them the first time I laid eyes on you. I knew then. Which is why I have no qualms about having forced myself on you today. We needed to break through the one barrier that remained. From now on, it will be much easier.”

      
He reached out with his hands and gently parted her knees so that they were wide open, and he could see straight up her skirt to her pale pink panties. “Were there bloodstains?” he asked.

      
“A little,” she said meekly. She was too overwhelmed by his little speech to even think straight.

      
“Let me see.”

      
“Sir?”

      
“Let me see. Take them off, the panties.”

      
She started to speak, but could not make anything come out. Then with graceless movements, she reached under her skirt, first lifting one hip then the other in order to pull her panties off her ass and finally down her legs.

      
Mr. Darcy inspected them briefly, then tossed them into his bottom desk drawer, a soon to be forgotten trophy.

      
“No panties anymore,
Shelby
. Not ever, unless it is your time of the month. Your pretty little pussy belongs to me.” Again his finger was deep inside the valley of her sex, moving adroitly in a way that sent waves of pleasure through her loins and caused her belly to spasm and her sex lips to dance on his finger. “No more fighting anymore. You have no need for that. I’ll give you everything you need and much of what you want. All you have to do is put yourself in my hands.”

      
He already knew that she was under his power and there was nothing that would shake his hold on her.

Chapter Four

Shelby
woke when she heard the clanking of her cell door. Someone had brought her some food, which she wanted to refuse. Rent with fear and loathing, her body angrily denied its needs. But when she got a whiff of something unexpectedly pleasing, her stomach changed its mind, and her hunger won out over stubbornness. She dove for the food, eating with her hands the bread, the meat, the potatoes and vegetables, until there was nothing left on the tin plate. She drank from a bottle of water then curled up in the old blanket and sat with her back against the cold cell wall.

      
Three days elapsed before Jessup came again. She knew this only because the guard that brought the food told her so. Perhaps she should mark the days with stick-like etchings in the concrete wall – but she was not yet that bored by the long hours alone. Her thoughts kept her company, that and the dreams that swam through her psyche when she passed out. In her more cogent times, she wondered if she’s been drugged to keep her so compliant and perpetually sleepy. Not that rebelling against her circumstances would have gotten her anywhere. The cell could not be breached, at least not in any way that
Shelby
could devise. Eventually Jessup would come for her again. He wanted something from her, and though she had no idea what it was, he would try again. If he tried again, maybe she could sway him.

      
While she knew it was ridiculous to think that she could earn his compassion, she clung to the possibility nonetheless.

      
During one of these three days, she couldn’t quite remember which one, there was a table brought into her cell on which she was lifted and laid down on her back. The event was jarring; her sore body ached in response to the touch of brutal men. A flashback to the gang rape filled her with fear and then with a verboten feeling of desire that she pushed away with all the strength she could muster.

      
While two guards held her knees open, a third slapped a hot towel against her crotch. The three waited several minutes, speaking to each other casually in a foreign tongue she did not recognize. Finally, with their attention back on her, the towel was removed and her pussy hair was lathered with a smelly cream. Finally, a straight razor began a harrowing journey to rid her of every bit of pubic hair from between her legs. She was surprised by the efficiency of her barber. He worked quickly with skillful strokes, with what was obviously a very sharp blade.
Shelby
had trimmed and shaved herself just days ago at home, but the stubble was already growing long. Apparently, Jessup required that she be shorn of every speck of pubic hair, since that was the result.

      
After the three men were gone, and
Shelby
was back on the cell floor, she pressed her hand to her pussy and found it so smooth to the touch that she couldn’t stop herself from playing with the sensitive furrow. Her mind retreated to the awful scene of torture, the memories coming at her relentlessly, despite attempts to steer her thoughts to better times and better men. So savagely pent-up, it took little more than a minute to release, to feel pleasure from the memory of pain. She would rather have not needed the release, but once it was over she felt much better and rested more easily in her semi-conscious stupor.

When Jessup came to her cell again, he dragged two chairs and a table into the room, aided by another one of the guards, although none of the guards stayed. The session would be just the two of them again. Jessup’s sadism;
Shelby
’s unwilling compliance.

      
The one chair was a standard slat back in which Jessup would sit, the other was much the same, though it had been fitted with straps and eyebolts for immobilizing her in bondage.

      
“I can’t have you moving,
Shelby
,” he said, revealing a quirky sort of kindness. And what was this: already he’d started to use her first name? Was this to promote intimacy, suggest some kind of camaraderie in the proceedings? Only a mind twisted like
Shelby
’s might think something so strange. Was this to move her into giving up the information he wanted so badly? The information she did not have? She sensed that men like Jessup would use any means to get what they wanted, including what sounded like genuine kindness.

      
Again efficient, again with an air of stern command, Jessup roped her to the chair, hands behind it, thick smelly hemp circling her naked torso and pulling up tight so that she was utterly fixed against the slats of the chair. The ropes lifted her breasts from below and squashed them down from above, which put them into a painful bondage, leaving her nipples sticking out red and engorged with blood. When he got to her legs, he opened them wide apart and tied them off to the outside of the chair legs so that her pussy was splayed wide and her sex lips were available for what
Shelby
could only envision as more torture. The fact that her pussy had been shaved made sense now, given what she expected to happen. Although it was still not all that available for him to torture – long as her cheeks were firmly planted on the chair seat. She had yet to imagine how the man would torture her this time.

      
With an officious air, Jessup opened up a black valise, although with its lid upright and facing her,
Shelby
could not see what was inside. Her fear naturally expanded under the spell of this mystery.

      
“Whatever you plan to do will not change a thing. I swear to you, I know nothing about that disk. Torture me all you like, I have nothing to tell you. Please, sir, a little pity…” She rushed on more anxious by the minute. An overwhelming sensation of panic had begun to work its way through her psyche, produced by a sudden feeling of claustrophobia.

      
Jessup appraised her with a thoughtful stare; though the man was remote and purposefully guarded, his energy commanded the room and the quivering Shelby. She could not bear to look away. “Sorry, Shelby Ryan, you have me nearly convinced. But it really doesn’t matter what you say or don’t say. I’m beyond asking you questions, or gleaning information. I’m here to do as I’ve been ordered. Yes, I do answer to those above me in this chain of command. They told me to press the case with you, take all measures at my disposal to make you talk. So, whether you talk or not is really of no interest to me. I do this because I can, because it’s my job, because I’m a sadistic bastard who enjoys causing beautiful females to suffer.”

      
“You can’t! You can’t be that evil!”

      
“Evil? Now that does amuse me. You call me evil.” He laughed. “I’ll see if I can live up to that description.”

      
He pulled out needles and
Shelby
shrunk back, if not literally, then figuratively. Within minutes, her breasts looked like pincushions with needles poked through the soft flesh, and others shoved through her nipples. Each time he grabbed her breast to forcefully jab a needle into her flesh, the shock stunned her overwrought nerves. She panted heavily, breathing through each burst of pain, clenching teeth and sobbing softly. However, once the pain subsided she was left with the aftereffect of her rising endorphins and a sweet bath of pleasure moving through her.

      
Her eyes were half closed, her mind in a drunken stupor. Taking a deep breath, she smelled Jessup’s rising pheromones, his feral male essence. The taste of desire on her tongue could not be ignored. Though multiple piercings like this were new to her, other events in her past had taught her how to handle sessions of extreme pain, when one level of torment was only exceeded by the next.

      
However, whatever pleasure or joy or sexual satisfaction she might have felt as a result of the torture, she could not let Jessup know that she experienced anything other than physical agony. If he sensed the truth on his own, then that was her bad luck. But to hedge her bet, she made herself cry out, forced her face into a twisted grimace and begged for his mercy. Every response was carefully calculated now.

      
Had the pain made her so sane, so clear thinking? Strange as it seemed, for the first time in days her mind was crystal clear and her outward response to the piercing was purposefully scripted. She prayed that Jessup would be clueless about her plan and maybe he was, since he moved almost mindlessly through his ritual, apparently getting buzzed every time he plunged another needle into her flesh.

      
He said nothing. He barely looked her in the eye.

      
Shelby
couldn’t bear to look at her aching breasts. Even the smallest touch of his fingers produced a vibration enough to send a new river of pain shooting through her fried nerves.

      
The way he stood back and viewed his handiwork,
Shelby
thought he was done. She breathed deeply and hung on, determined to remain unruffled until the ordeal was over.