9
CHARITY
I was going to welcome this hosing, just to get it over with. The front door was open, spilling light into the gloom. I kneeled on a towel beside the tap, where the doctor had washed my feet. He’d gone off to find a hose and I was staying put, though trembling.This is not fear. I just needed rest.
I was naked apart from the collar and cuffs, but the breeze was warmer than where I’d come from…from my home. I brushed aside the pang of sadness and the few tears that welled. That was gone now. I needed a future, not a past.
The walk through the house and down the stairs had been uneventful, apart from my mild embarrassment and a wish for the staff to be elsewhere. Coming here had always been fraught with the possibility of that sort of kinky punishment. I had walked about naked at private parties, been spanked and flogged naked, just never allowed anything too intimate. Being alarmingly intimate was the doctor’s specialty.
There was, however, a freedom in being naked…and I guessed, an opening up to a world of simply being a female who was nothing more than the object of male desire. I shut my eyes, aware of the heaviness of my breasts, the stinging trail of teeth marks, and of the stir below, where everything felt well used and a little sore. If this were a monster’s house, I had yet to see it demonstrated. I felt content, stable, and ready for whatever came my way.
Strange that I felt that here—content—after all the violence and abuse on the ship.
I had never really explored my sexuality, or not as far as a person could, not to the ends of the Earth, not even to the ends of London. Most people didn’t. The problem was, I wanted more than that from life.
I yawned wide, only shivered once, and wrapped my arms about my breasts. The line of the leash ran to where he’d loosely wrapped it about a column supporting the entryway roof. I chewed the inside of my cheek. To run or not to run? Not today.
The doctor rounded the line of potted trees dragging a hose that he connected to a faucet above the footbath. To my surprise, he went to his knee before me, lifted my chin, and kissed me softly, as if it was with love. He drew away.
“This is my punishment for you hiding, Charity.”
I nodded, unable to cease studying the doctor. I almost knew the brutal squareness of his face by heart now. The shaved sides were dramatic and an enigmatic kind of sexy. He had no scars, not like me with my eyebrow scar, and I’d almost forgotten I had that. I swayed and was reminded of my fatigue.
“Punishment,” he continued, “is not the same with this arrangement, is it? It doesn’t quitefit. It may not quite give a submissive the same sense of rightness as it would if we had the usual rules and structure.”
Again, I nodded, but he had made me think. I’d only once tried a true 24/7 relationship and it hadn’t worked for me. I’d thought him too soft. I raised one eyebrow—that man was not like these two.
“Thinking?” he asked. “To be truthful, punishment like this is as much for me. I enjoy taking you through your paces.” He took a small piece of my lower lip and curled it out. He ran the tip of his finger along my teeth, as if examining them, before he went to my ear and brushed back some straying hair.
That statement of his had rung bells. It was a little unsettling how well he was reading this. The thought that he enjoyed this, always flipped the script. I loved seeing a dominant do things to me thatheloved doing, even when they hurt. It was something I was used to and one of my kinks.
“So. Are we good? Are you happy here?” Clearly, he saw my shock, and he smiled. “It’s not a trick question.” He rearranged himself and sat with his back mostly to the house, leg outstretched and a hand clasping his knee—as if this were a tête-à-tête at a picnic and not the prelude to whatever punishment was coming. “Well? Your answer, Charity? I didn’t bring you here to terrify you, or not always.” He let his gaze drop to my breasts, as if he’d suddenly thought of stitching them.
“Am I happy?” I swallowed, caught by an impulse to ask him why Jacob thought he was doing something to his lost girls, something like murder. I wouldn’t. I wasn’t stupid. The doctor was too nice not to like and too sadistic not to fear. That contentment I’d felt, it was probably a glitch in my system. “I don’t know? I’ve been here half a day.”
Happywas a word I reserved for going on holidays to the Bahamas, and not for being trapped and ravished on the Island of Dr. Hulk.
“And we haven’t really let up, have we? Or let you get your bearings.” He stared into the surrounding forest. “I offered you a safeword with limits. Tell me what you choose in the morning. Is Cassius terrifying you? I sensed some unease, more than seems right.”
Again with the slightly wrong word.Unease?They’d caned me and throat fucked me at the dining table. Anyone else would be screaming. And I wasn’t, was I? At the other house, he’d said that he had to wait to see if I suited him. If I was the type to scream in terror at BDSM at the dining table, I would not be here.
Maybe I should give him some questions. “You’re a good judge of character? You think he’s terrifying?”
“Not to me. Even if he was, say, a danger to me. I have my resources.” He angled his head. “It’s you I’m concerned about.”
“I’m okay.”
“Truth. Never lie to me, Charity. And no more hiding in cupboards and giving yourself orgasms. Your cunt is ours to play with. Lying or self-pleasure gets a girl stitched in interesting places.” He reached over, pulled one knee to the side, and spread my legs. “Like there.”
I knew how that would look. I’d seen images of labias sutured together onFetlife. A chill ran up my body, but like always, his threats did a somersault in my stomach and turned me on, especially with him studying my pussy.
He pushed my knee back into place, and I swallowed.
“I am okay. Truth,” I spoke slowly, carefully. His pants showed an obvious bulge.And I’m imagining you fucking me.Gah.I was not saying that.
“Good. If you ever want to run or struggle or hide, however, please do. Rule Seven? Never try to cause me or Cassius, or my staff, damage. Everything else is on the table. Except also Rule Eight. No fucking yourself, no masturbating, unless on command.”
“I need a print-out of this list.”