CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Pet
The days and nightsfollowing my field trip outside are a blur of pain, sadness, and pleasure. I never knew it was possible to both love and hate a man at the same time. To feel such elation and despair all at once.
Ares comes to me several times a day. He beats me, fucks my ass, bathes me, and is over the top with his aftercare. At the end of each day, he curls up in bed with me and sleeps. It’s as strange as it is comforting. Perhaps he thinks I’ll try to harm myself if he isn’t constantly at my side. I might have even considered it too, but I have nothing to harm myself with. He dutifully shaves my pussy and body hair in the bathroom every few days, but the razor stays there, and it’s never within my reach. I could break the mirror over the vanity, but he’d likely see it on the monitors and catch me before I had time to truly do any damage. It hurts too much to invent other ways to die, so I don’t.
When he’s not with me, I lie in bed and wish for a death I’m too broken to conjure up and carry out, and when he is with me, beating me, torturing me, and making my body come alive under his touch and tutelage, I’m free. I’m flying. I’m so deep in subspace, so tossed in his waves and adrift on the ocean of Ares, that I forget to hate him for stealing my life.
None of my memories come back, nothing more than that same image of a darkened room, a spotlight, the dizzying heights of elation and fear of spinning out of control, and the unyielding floor as my body brutally slams against it.
I don’t provoke him anymore. I don’t play our game, at least not as a willing participant. I do as I’m told. I listen when instructed, and I curl into the arms of the monster at night and sleep as soundly as I ever have, but I’m broken, fractured, and no amount of praise or pleasure will put me back together.
I toss between the covers, unable to get back to sleep. Ares is gone. He left hours ago, and I’m both starving and sickened by the thought of food. I wish I could leave this room, or, I don’t know, watch television, read a book, draw, write—something. Anything to escape the monotony of nothing.
When the shrill beep sounds from my door, I pull the sheet to my neck and sit up. Ares enters. “You’re awake.”
He holds a tray with food, fresh fruit, steel-cut oats, and buttered toast with juice. I turn my nose up at it and lay my head back on the pillow.
“You need to eat, Pet.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I don’t care,” he snaps. “Sit up now and eat like a good girl, before I make you.”
He’s provoking me. I bet he wants me to say no, to fight, so he can dole out the punishment I deserve.
I don’t want to play, so I sit up and do as I’m told. I choke down the oats and fruit, the toast and juice until I’m sick with nourishment, my belly painfully distended. I might consider starving myself to death if I didn’t think he’d make good on his earlier promises to force feed me intravenously.
“Good,” Ares whispers as he trails kisses along my neck. I close my eyes and lean into the sensation, both loving and loathing his attention. “I have a surprise for you, Pet.”
I open my lids and lean back, searching his face. “What is it?”
“You’ll see, but first, I need you to close your eyes.” He pulls the blindfold from off his wrist and ties it securely around my head. His lips are warm against my collarbone, his breath hot.
He cups my breast and draws one aching nipple into his mouth, drawing blood to the surface with the graze of his teeth and his brutal suction. I moan. I’m wet, longing, aching for him to touch me, to fuck me, to feel something more than this suffocating depression. It’s a vicious cycle of hate and loneliness combined with elation when he takes me.
“Please, Sir,” I beg, though I know not what for.
He releases my breast with an audible pop, and exhales loudly. “I could just eat you up, Pet.”
“Yes. Please?”
He chuckles, and slides his hand under the sheet and between my legs. With slow, languid strokes, Ares massages my pussy. I buck my hips, writhing against his skilled, adept fingers. Heat builds within me, unfurling from low in my abdomen. My breath becomes hurried as my hips rise to meet his ministrations, seeking my release.
Then he’s gone, the feeling is gone, and my building orgasm disappears as quickly as it came. I release a frustrated sigh and squeeze my legs together.
The dishes clink and rattle as he picks up the tray table and walks across the room, no doubt sliding his hand onto the keypad to unlock it.
I lean back against the headboard and squeeze my eyes tightly closed behind my blindfold.I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. I won’t give him the satisfaction. I dart out my tongue and wet dry lips as I wait.
He returns some time later, twice, actually. The first time there’s a godawful clamor, the second a fluttering sound, like the beating of a tiny bird’s wings. I repress the urge to yank off my blindfold, and I wait with bated breath.