Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
I slam the front doors behind me and twist the locks into place. I’m trembling from the cold, barely able to feel my fingers.
For what feels like the hundredth time in forty-eight hours, my head’s reeling. A thick fog has surrounded me and made it almost impossible to think.
I back away from the door in staggering footsteps, staring at the wooden surface as if I expect him to walk through. Would it really be that farfetched at this point?
He’s basically everywhere.
He’s in the woods and inside the house. After everything that’s happened, he’s even inside my head. When I close my eyes, he materializes—muscles rippling and his animalistic mask more twisted than ever.
My skin still tingles from his touch, my pussy aching from taking his big dick.
But I can’t lie; the ache isn’t one of pain or discomfort. It’s the ache of lust, more damp arousal gathering between my thighs.
All while he’s done nothing but scare the shit out of me for two days straight.
What the fuck is wrong with me? Why the fuck am I turned on right now?
I scurry through the rest of the foyer into the living room and collapse on the rug in front of the burning hearth fireplace.
My thoughts are a contradiction of terror and thrill. I want to throw up at the same time I want to cry. Yet it’s also as curiosity swirls inside me and I begin to wonder what if…
…what if I hadn’t escaped into the house? What would’ve come next after that kind of raw, animalistic sex?
This is obviously a game to him. Some sick, twisted game, but a game nonetheless. He gets some type of pleasure from hunting me, chasing me through the woods, then taking me once I’m caught.
Predator and prey.
I scrub both hands over my face, then push my curls back from my forehead, sucking in air shakily as if I’ve forgotten how to breathe.
I can still feel everywhere he touched me. His hands were calloused and abrasive, like a man who had never lived among civilization a day in his life. Yet they felt so… so exhilarating on my skin as he clenched me in his hold and made me gasp in shock from the rough treatment.
It was as if he knew me. As if he sensed that, through all my fear, I still wanted him. On some level, I was horrifyingly turned on.
“This is insane,” I whisper to myself.
I lift my head and glance around the room, suddenly aware of just how wrong it’s been from the start.
The entire situation and job has been off. Everything from the timing to the promptness at which Mr. Taylor arranged for me to fly out.
This was clearly by design. I was lured here under the guise of interior decorating for the holidays.
Mr. Taylor saw to it that the estate would be empty. The staff would be gone. He probably knew the weather forecast and after some research, all about how my freelance business has been struggling.
I have social media. I’ve made it no secret I’m single and childfree and often a homebody that never takes risks or goes on adventure.
Over the years I’ve posted many memes poking fun at myself. I’ve recorded TikToks about how I wanted to take a vacation eventually.
Finally do something new and exciting.
I was the perfect mark. The perfect… prey.
And, really, what kind of older man hires someone to decorate a private home for a Christmas party when no guests are expected and the owner himself has vanished?
None of it makes sense, and it hasn’t made sense from the beginning. I merely overlooked so many red flags because I was desperate.
I wanted to believe it was real. Finally, some much-needed luck had come my way.
Rising on sore legs, I cross the room to my laptop I had left on the coffee table earlier. It’s still charging, the screen black from being asleep.
In seconds, I’m able to find the PDF documents I saved for this job. The contract loads on my screen, professionally stamped with Mr. Taylor’s company logo.
I double-click and begin scrolling, my eyes narrowing.
The first three pages are typical, full of standard details like dates, responsibilities, and clauses about property care and available amenities.
I keep scrolling, skimming over the paragraphs and bullet points I’ve previously read. Then I reach page seventeen and come to a stop when I notice a section titled Immersive Entertainment Terms.
My stomach twists into tiny, tight knots. I squint at the printed words, brows pushing together as it dawns on me I hadn’t read this part of the contract before.
Like the section on inclement weather, I’d skipped over it. But now that my eyes pass over the thick wall of text, I realize how terribly wrong I was…
Employee agrees to engage in immersive seasonal experience as designed by client or client proxy, including but not limited to: sensory exploration, primal pursuit, and psychological torment.
“What in the hell…?” I mutter, scrolling further. “Sensory exploration? Primal pursuit? Psychological what?”
Employee acknowledges that all activities fall within the scope of a controlled simulation and consents to nonverbal role play at client discretion.
As I keep scrolling, the stipulations get wilder and wilder. Things like:
Employee waives right to claim distress or breach in the event of emotional manipulation, sensory disorientation, or controlled contact designed to enhance experiential realism.
And:
Employee consents to engage in primal sexual games that may include but are not limited to chasing, biting, marking, scratching, choking, penetration vaginally, anally, and orally, and other aspects of primal play.
I stop breathing, eyes widening at the words. I never consented to that!
When I signed the contract Mr. Taylor sent me, I wasn’t signing onto engage in any kind of sex games much less primal play or whatever it’s called.
Finally, I hit the bottom page of the contract, where inches above my signature are the following words in all caps:
BY SIGNING THIS AGREEMENT, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU ARE A WILLING PLAYER.
“But I didn’t know!” I cry out to no one. My jaw hangs open as an anguished cry tears from my throat. I’m so horrified, I’m on the brink of tears or laughter.
It’s that unexpected. That crazy.
So Mr. Taylor—and possibly the others—have believed from the start that I consented to this game. That, or they counted on me not reading the contract thoroughly enough.
…does it even matter at this point?
For the next hour and a half, I’m so shocked, I’m sick to my stomach. Words and phrases from the contract keep turning over in my head, terms like “primal sexual games” and “sensory disorientation.”
Psychological torment.
At least I know I wasn’t crazy after all. This entire experience was designed to make me feel as though I were.
Every flicker of the lights. Every creak in the floorboards when I swore no one else was here.
The way the sheriff gaslit me when I called for help and the driver didn’t bother answering my call.
The cars that are dead and the trail I took through the woods that somehow led me back in circles.
The man dressed like a rippling, muscular Santa Claus with the disturbing mask and giant antlers.
He hunted me because I had offered myself up as prey.
With another full twenty-four hours to go, he probably isn’t finished with me yet.
I slam shut the laptop, working through the game-changing discovery I’ve made.
They knew exactly what they were doing when they chose me. They assumed I was easy prey that would be their helpless little toy to play with.
But as I finally accept the truth of what’s going on, I’m also forced to accept other disturbing truths I’ve learned.
Yesterday’s chase in the woods made my heart beat faster than it ever has before. The same happened today when I was hunted for what felt like hours only to be captured and then viciously fucked against the tree.
The marks and bruises he’s left on me still sting and throb. So does my pussy as these conflicting sensations and emotions war inside me.
The game isn’t over. He’s going to hunt me again like the primal monster he is, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
But the most disturbing part of it all?
…some part of me still wants to play.