Chapter Thirteen
Juliet
Nipple clamps. They’ve always been right at the top of my no no list for good reason. My nipples are sensitive little flowers, and this asshole just shoved a red-hot poker into them.
Christ, it hurts.
I wriggle on the weird dildo stick, but I don’t know what I’m trying to do. I’m lodged as securely as if he’d chained me in place. It presses up inside me like an iron bar, splitting me in two. The shoes are already cutting my feet, and a wave of panicky lightheadedness washes over me.
If I had a safe word, I’d already have used it, but there’s no such thing here. I’m completely at Saldar’s mercy, and he hasn’t shown very much of that so far. I shouldn’t have broken his stupid rule.
Is this as good as your fantasies? You never had a safe word in those.
That taunting little voice can go all the way to hell.
He tweaks my clamped nipple again, and the hot rush of pain obliterates even the voice. Why did he go straight to clamps? It’s like he knew it would be agony for me. How much research has he done?
He steps away, and all I can do is watch in horror as he fetches a wickedly thin cane. He disappears from my view, behind me, and I twist to watch him, which presses the dildo deeper. At least the pain in my nipples is fading as my body adjusts its expectations.
I swear I feel the moment the endorphins dump into my system and lean into them, willing the floaty euphoria to come as it always does. I try, but the position is too weird, requiring too much effort on my part. My mind stays obstinately present. Goddamn it.
A high-pitched swish is my only warning before the cane lands, and I jolt, squealing. I’ve never been bitten by a snake, but it’s what I picture as thin rattan slashes into my already bruised skin. The sudden movement jerks me on the dildo, too, and my pussy throbs, bruised.
“Keep still.” Saldar echoes my thoughts. “I might want to use that cunt later.”
Such savage, nasty words. They echo in my head as he whips the cane down again, and I force myself to keep mostly still. He called me doll before. Is that how he sees me? As a thing to be played with? It feels that way.
The sick part of me likes the thought, but when the cane slices a particularly sore spot, even that part yells out for help. I swear he’s aiming for the bruises. I manage to ask, “Please, Master. How many?”
“Until I think you’ve had enough.”
Fuck. I can’t fight the sob as he strikes me again.
I start begging by ten.
I lose count after twenty.
My mind finally softens, but it’s not the lovely floaty peace I usually find during a punishment. It’s a red haze, creeping across my vision with each lightning strike. He moves around my body, leaving angry red welts in his wake, and it’s all I can do to keep my feet underneath me.
It’s too much. I can’t take it.
“Thirty. Well done, doll.”
He stands in front of me, and his image wobbles as I try to focus. My voice comes out mushy. “Doll, Master?”
“Only well-behaved slaves deserve their names. You’ll need to earn yours back.”
No responses cross the sizzling wasteland my mind has become. I’m saved from answering when he plucks off one of the nipple clamps.
Oh fucking fuck.
The only thing worse than having them on is taking the damn things off.
Pain fills the place the clamp left behind, and I yell, my throat scratchy.
Just as the agony fades, the absolute bastard takes off the second clamp, and I whimper, my hands twitching against my bonds.
I want to cradle my poor tits and massage the blood back into them.
If he was a kind and considerate dom, that’s what he would do. Instead, he just flicks both of them, one after the other, and smirking as I cry out.
His mask feels less like a mask every moment.
It’s becoming normal, as things do when they’re all you have.
We moved to the US when I was fourteen, and for the first few weeks, I kept tripping out at the accents; I felt like I’d been sucked into a movie.
But it quickly became just the way people talk.
Is that what’s going to happen to me? Is being held captive by a demon going to start to feel normal?
Saldar turns away, and I tense, braced for him to assault me with another horror, but he only sets the timer where I can see it. I’m really starting to hate that timer. For all I know, he’s changed it to move slower than the real time.
And seriously, only fifteen minutes have passed? There’s no way in hell that’s how long I’ve been stuck on this thing. No fucking way.
Saldar taps it—two quick taps—and I get another weird flash of déjà vu. It’s a very human mannerism, and I try to place it until he says, “Forty-five minutes to think about your actions. Then we move to stage two.”
Stage two. How many stages are there? I shiver as he sweeps from the room, cloak swishing dramatically behind him. I could never capture that movement in the game exactly how I wanted to. Nothing like the live action version.
Forty-five minutes to go. My feet are already on fire, and my pussy feels bruised from the constant pressure.
I want to shift around to rest my feet, but the slightest movement moves the dildo.
My nipples still sting, and my skin is heated from all the cane strikes.
Everything hurts, and the time left on this device stretches away like an infinite ocean.
This isn’t the sort of kink I signed up for.
Punish me, sure, but then give me lots of orgasms and cuddles. Wrap me in a fluffy robe and feed me ice cream. Don’t leave me alone and treat me like a thing.
Yes, because those relationships went so well.
Shut up.
At least the snarky little voice in my head is distracting me from my feet, which are the worst thing about this whole scenario. Caned, impaled by a dildo, nipples red raw, and the thing that bothers me most is the high heels.
I try settling more weight on the dildo, but fuck—no, that’s not happening. Painful feet it is. Forty long minutes to go.
The worst thing is, the voice isn’t wrong. Kink plus responsible aftercare never kept my attention for long. Do I deserve this on some level? No. I never asked for any of it. Even if I spent far too much of my life imagining this exact scenario.
My battered brain is in no state to process any of this.
The minutes—if that’s what they really are and Saldar isn’t messing with me—creep as I try everything I can to relieve the discomfort. Nothing works. He said two hours if I broke his rule again? Well, that’s not happening. I’ve never wanted to orgasm less in my life.
By the time the door opens, my feet are white-hot balls of agony. My legs shake from the strain of holding myself up straight, and when Saldar stands in front of me, brow raised, any dignity I might have clung to evaporates.
“Please, Master. Get me off this thing.”
He doesn’t reply. How many actual words has he spoken since he captured me?
A hundred? Not many. But I suppose he’s not interested in my conversational skills.
He unlocks my wrist restraints, presses a button on his remote, and, oh God, thank you, the pole slides down, pulling out of my body with a wrench.
I collapse, ending up in an ungainly sprawl at Saldar’s feet.
He’s less human than ever from this position, standing over me like a fucked-up statue.
Time stretches out as he watches me. He doesn’t waste words, but he doesn’t waste movement, either.
There’s a stillness to the man, as if he’s got forever to spend on me, and there’s a tiny part of me that glories in the fact.
I’ve always leaned toward high-achieving, busy men who match my own energy. The downside, though, is they've always got something else to be doing. Like Hadrian, with his creations.
I flinch away from his name. The guilt has managed to follow me even here. What would he think if he could see me now? He’d be disgusted. I never let him see this side of me. I didn’t want to hurt him.
Saldar’s deep voice brings me back into the moment. “Have you learned your lesson, doll?”
Doll again. Well, if he wants to call me that, I can’t stop him. As of now, my only priority is staying away from the dildo stick and getting these shoes off. “Yes, Master. May I remove the shoes? Please?”
“You may.”
I wince as I roll my sore shoulders forward and carefully remove the horrible shoes. Saldar collects them, in his usual silent way, and unfastens the dildo from the stick, setting them by the door. “On your feet. In the corner. Face the wall.”
My legs wobble as I stand, and goosebumps prickle my skin.
What now?
I try to convince myself I’m just afraid, but part of me is excited to see what he’ll do. I’m at his mercy in a way I’ve never been able to find in the outside world. There’s something liberating about having no control.
I’m itching to turn around but force myself to keep still. He’ll be watching. He'll catch me. Before long, his voice rumbles out again. “The one-bar prison will remain as a warning for next time. Two hours. Don’t force me to use it. You may turn.”
I do and frown as I take in what he’s done. The dildo stick now holds an even larger rubber cock, and a different pair of heels, with an even higher stiletto, sit next to it. I shiver at the thought of being put back on it. Never again.
But the rest, I don’t understand. Saldar stands next to the altar, which he’s covered with something that looks soft and furry. Sex toys line one side, everything from tiny bullet vibrators to microphones to rabbit-style dildos.
It’s all geared toward female pleasure, the sort of collection you’d get at one of those awkward overpriced sex toy home parties, where you always end up buying stuff you never wanted because you feel bad for the woman hosting it.
He taps the table. One, two. Never three. There’s something familiar about it. “Lie down. Legs spread.”
I do as I’m told, like the good little slave I’m becoming.
Exposing myself for him like this still feels awkward, despite my continually naked state. There’s a difference between being naked and displaying myself for a complete stranger. And an emotionless, savage one at that.
Is he planning to get me off now that he’s punished me? It’s a nice thought, but I doubt it. It doesn’t fit with what he said before, and I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Worse than if he’d produced some other spanking device. Not worse than more nipple clamps, though. Nothing could top that.
“The next twenty-three hours are a test of your self-control. Fail, and you know what the punishment will be.” He nods towards the dildo stick.
I relax, just a little, as it starts to make sense. The toys are designed to tempt me. Well, big deal. It’s not going to work.
Then he holds up a syringe filled with liquid. It’s the type you use to give pets medicine, no needle on the end, but I shy away from it anyway, heart racing, and shift to the edge of the altar. “What’s that?”
I neglect the “Master,” but for once, he doesn’t call me out on it. “It’s harmless. Just an aphrodisiac, which will stay in your system for twenty-four hours. You need to learn to control yourself and obey me no matter what. Open up.”
I keep my mouth clamped tightly shut. Nope. Not happening. He’s not drugging me. I shake my head, unwilling to open my mouth to speak.
His voice drops even deeper. “Open up, doll, or it’s back on your one-bar prison. Last chance.”
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He means it. Of course he does. He doesn’t know the meaning of an empty threat. And then what? When I’m an absolute mess after two hours on the thing, he makes me drink it anyway?
That’s what would happen. I know it, and he knows it. My breaths come shakily now. “Please. Don’t make me.”
“I’ll never lie to you. It’s harmless. Open up, doll. Now.”
He’ll never lie to me. Despite the insane world he’s trapped me in, it feels real. And anyway, I have no options. No choice. He’s taken them away.
I clench my fists, squeeze my eyes shut, and open my mouth.