CHAPTER 5
When I leave the restaurant before midnight with the excuse that I have a migraine—which isn’t far from the truth—I keep my hand in my bag, clutching the pepper spray.
Eyes seem to be lurking in all the dark corners of the city. The bulky men in front of bars and clubs all seem like they’re about to jump me. It’s pure luck I make it home without spraying one of them and getting arrested. Then my rape fantasy could come true in a Hungarian detention cell. Shame twists in my stomach. Having rape fantasies isn’t the same as wanting to be raped in real life. I know that, but my logical mind holds no ground when my mother’s voice invades my head.
When I’m finally in the hall, slamming the door shut, I’m on the verge of tears. With shaky hands, I turn the lock, attach the new door chain, and shove the dresser against the door. Then I sink to the floor and cry.
Tears stream down my cheeks as I bury my head against my knees, shaking with quiet sobs. I’m not sure what has broken me—the fear, the shame, or the memory of my mother’s scorn the day I found her snooping on my laptop. I’ve had much derision from her throughout my life, but the look in her eyes as she called me a ‘vile, filthy creature of Satan’ hurt more than any other.
It doesn’t matter,I try to tell myself. I’m here now, free from her and the stifling town I grew up in.
The memory evaporates as another, more present horror intrudes upon my senses. A sound from within the apartment. I freeze in place, leaning forward, ready to jump up as I listen.
Click, click, click.
Footsteps approach.
The lights come on.
Shooting up from the floor, I shove my hand into my bag. I find the pepper spray just in time to see a massive, suit-clad man appear at the door.
For a second, I’m paralyzed, just staring at him—his steely gray eyes. They stare back, uncaring and cold. The same eyes that watched me through the darkness ten days ago. They’re even more striking in the light, enhanced by the severe, angular lines of his face. Sharp like a razor’s blade and just as dangerous.
My heart pounds with a force that has black spots dancing in my vision as I take in his size. He’s as wide as he’s tall. Muscles bulge beneath his black suit, making him look like a professional bodybuilder. Only, he doesn’t have the unnatural bulges of overly large muscles. He’s just massive, as if that’s the way he’s meant to be.
Fuck. I gulp and blink, and the motion breaks the trance. Instinct kicks in. I aim the can at his head and press.
But I’m too slow. Or he’s too fast.
Diving down, he tackles me. I crash into the dresser behind me, groaning as the air shoots out of my lungs. Then I’m off the floor, the air knocked out of me for a second time as he throws me over his shoulder.
“Let me go,” I choke out as I try to fill my lungs.
Before I can recover, he has me stomach-down on the bed, straddling my ass as he locks my arms together in a tight grip on my back.
“No,” I whimper as I writhe beneath him, but he has me locked in place. All I can do is kick my legs into the mattress. My breaths grow more frantic by the second, making me drag in the hair over my face and blocking the air from reaching my lungs.
A hand brushes my hair away, and I gasp as I finally access air. But it keeps hovering at the top of my throat, refusing to go deeper as panic squeezes around my chest.
“No, stop.” I put extra effort into my struggles as a large palm splays over my cheek. But it just lies there, calm and warm. He makes a single stroke of his thumb along my jaw, and I realize the hand is not a threat. It’s meant to soothe me.
I go still. Confusion becomes a haze over my brain, but the blinding panic loosens its grip on me. My chest moves as the air finally reaches my lungs. Everything else fades as breathing becomes my only motive, and soon my lungs expand with deep breaths as I inhale precious oxygen deep into my belly. It’s the only thing that exists—breathing. And the hand on my cheek.
Slowly, the haze lifts, and I drift back to the world around me.
There’s a commotion of scraping sounds and bustling noises coming from the hall. Someone moving the dresser. Then steps sound through the apartment, a mix of clicks of fancy shoes and dragged feet. I shudder at the memory of the scrawny man who handled me like a piece of meat, and the panic crackles along the edges of my mind, but fades again when the steps stop at the other end of the room.
Then we’re waiting again. For a third man? For someone new? I don’t know, and I don’t dare go there, afraid what horrible scenarios my mind will conjure. So I stay still, breathing in and out. In and out. The clock is an eerie omen in the dead stillness, but as time drags on, it becomes a gentle rhythm that lulls me into some kind of warped peace.
But peace never lasts in nightmares. The sound of the front door breaks the silence, and firm steps announce that the waiting is over as a third man enters my nightmare.
When the hand on my cheek disappears, my breathing immediately picks up speed, and I realize it was the only thing keeping me off the verge of panic. Cold dread slithers around my lungs, and I yelp as a new hand touches my face. But it’s even more gentle than the first, fingertips caressing with feather-light softness, and the panic recedes like a wave pulling off the shore—not gone, but not quite there.
There’s no mistaking the touch. It’s the same fingers that explored my body a week ago. They are uncharacteristically soft for a man’s hand. Maybe even manicured, I think as the back of the hand slides down my wet cheek. Their owner must be rich and vain—a control freak of the worst kind.
“It’s good to see you again,” the new man says in a voice that resonates through the room with the kind of commanding authority as rare as a white tiger. It spurs an instinctive need to bow down and obey. A need that scares me as much as it thrills me.
Chills erupt down my spine when he speaks again, this time in Hungarian. His words prompt the man on top of me to lift up and flip me onto my back. Before I can react, he settles on me again, pinning me in place with his weight.
I pull at my hand to wipe the hair out of my face and clear my vision, but another hand comes ahead of me. Recognition sparks in my skin the moment long fingers touch me to brush my hair aside. They move slowly, brushing several times to get all the hairs. I close my eyes, almost sinking into a trance under the soft touch.
When I look again, my eyes clash with a pair of hazel ones that glimmer with deceptive warmth. Fear clogs in my throat, making me swallow hard.
I shouldn’t be surprised. The first time I saw Istvan Gabor, I knew something was off, and when I found the note on the table, I knew he was the third man. I just couldn’t come to terms with it.
Pressing his index finger to my lower lip, he coaxes me to release the air I’m holding in, and I let out a long, ragged exhale as I stare helplessly up at him.
“Such a pretty new toy.” He traces the same finger across my face, admiring the forms and contours. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again,” he whispers, as if the words are meant for my ears alone.
He waves the man on top of me off, who moves to sit beside me on the bed. I don’t dare to move a finger as Gabor roams his gaze over my body with eyes so sharp they seem to penetrate my clothes, caressing my every curve.
“Strip her,” Gabor orders, summoning the man behind him with a motion of his hand.
Grabbing me under the arms, the man beside me pulls me up to sit between his legs and starts removing my jacket. I don’t protest. I just keep staring into the dangerous depths of Gabor’s eyes as he takes a step back to enjoy the show.
A few buttons on my waitress’s shirt pop over my chest, and I still don’t move.
It’s not until a scrawny man with eyes like a hungry hyena and a repulsive sneer steps in front of me and grabs my feet that the trance snaps.
Suddenly, my eyes are no longer on Gabor. They’re everywhere. I try to pull my legs to me, but the scrawny man digs his fingers into my calves as he yanks at my shoe.
I cry out and try to kick him as I shove at the hands working on my shirt. But it’s useless. The scrawny man digs his fingers deeper into my skin, and a thick arm bands around me like a piece of steel welding me to the ridged wall of muscle behind me.
“No, stop,” I squeal, shoving at the arm, but it’s no use. Using his other hand, he grabs the white fabric and rips. Buttons fly over the bed, and I stop flailing to hug the fabric in place. But I’m like a kitten in the claws of a mighty lion. Massive hands simply pull my arms loose and rip the shirt off in a matter of seconds.
I stare down and see my pants disappear down my thighs. I kick my legs, but all I achieve is receiving more brutality and fabric burning across my skin. Even so, I keep struggling, wearing myself down as I lose all my clothes.
My T-shirt. My panties. My bra.
“No!” I cry, but no one answers, and I whip my head back and forth until I stare down and see my naked body. Defeat slams into me, and when the men release me, I just hug my knees to my chest as tears pool in my eyes.
The man behind me rustles with his own clothes as Gabor climbs up on the mattress, grabs my ankles, and straightens my legs on each side of him.
I catch a glimpse of an olive-toned arm covered in black tattoos before I slap my hands to my face, needing to hide my distraught expression since I can’t hide anything else.
A defeated whimper slips past my lips as Gabor slides his fingers over my pussy and positions them at my opening. I feel the brutality rolling off him in waves just before he slams straight in.
I buck against the man behind me and scream, but the sound dies in a massive hand as the man behind me predicts my reaction. He pulls my head back into his shoulder as he clamps his hand tight over my mouth, and I go absolutely frantic. I push and pull at his arms, and when nothing happens, I dig my nails in until I can’t stand the feeling of breaking skin anymore.
Gabor drags his fingers in and out, slowly but forcefully, scratching at my dry walls. When a bit of moisture gathers down there, he adds a third digit and picks up speed. I jerk my hips against the painful intrusion, but he pins me with a hand on my mound.
I scratch at that hand instead, and the man behind me is about to grab it when Gabor says something that makes him stop. I don’t get it, but I don’t think as I keep flailing, scratching, and shoving.
With his fingers seated deep inside me, Gabor leans forward and fists my hair to grab my attention. “What can you do about it?”
“Mmh, mmh,” I protest behind the hand as I stare into Gabor’s cruel eyes.
“Huh?” he goads.
I shove my palms into his chest as he leans closer, but he remains right in front of me, and that’s when I get it. He wants me to feel the hopelessness of it all. He wants to taunt me with my weakness as he bores his hard eyes into me, chipping away at my will little by little.
“Nothing,” he sneers and slaps my jaw before leaning back.
My hands lose strength, and my fight is weak and more symbolic than anything from there on. I wish they would have tied my hands. That way, I wouldn’t feel this devastating weakness of being able to fight and not achieving a thing.
Gabor returns to fingerfucking me. He is merciless as he rams his fingers deep into me, over and over. When one hand tires, he just uses the other. My only consolation is that my inner walls grow more wet as he goes. I try to convince myself that the moisture is a defense mechanism, but when Gabor rubs his thumb around my clit, my nerves spark to life, shooting bolts of sensation through my pelvis. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to force my focus away from my pussy, but sensations keep exploding in my nerve endings, and I become so wet there’s a constant slippery sound coming from between my legs.
“You like this?” Gabor mocks.
When my eyes land on his, the triumph I find there extinguishes the last remnants of my fight. I slump in the arms holding me, becoming as useless and weak as I feel.
My screams morph into quiet sobs, and the man behind me releases my mouth to curve his hand around my cheek. He touches me with the gentleness of a lover. But that’s not what’s happening here. I know it, yet I can’t resist the illusion. I desperately need it. So I turn to my side and bury my face against the warm shoulder, not caring who it belongs to.
As my inner muscles contract, a sob wrenches from my throat as I realize my body is about to betray me. I’m so exhausted I can’t control it, and with a couple of sharp spasms, the orgasm rolls through me, turning my whimpers into a sick mix of despair and lust.
I can’t take it—the violation, the betrayal, the shame. It all swirls in a nauseating whirlwind in my mind. I don’t want my body anymore. It’s vile and wrong—no longer mine—yet all I want to do is disappear into it. It’s the only way to escape the scornful taunt of my mind. So that’s exactly what I do. For a while, I let the feelings in my body consume me and allow myself to feel utterly shattered. I’m so broken I cling to the man behind me as I weep into his shoulder.
I vaguely notice Gabor pulling his fingers out and getting off the mattress. “Clean her up and get her to bed,” he orders as the clicking of his shoes announces his departure. The slam of the door becomes the last sound I hear before my world sinks into numb stillness.
***
I don’t know how long I sit there in the arms of the man who has just enabled my abuse. He doesn’t say a word—doesn’t move a muscle except for the strange strokes of his thumb along my hairline, hidden beneath my dark locks like it’s our little secret.
At some point, I drift off. When I come to again, I’m sprawled over him, hands flat on his chest and my ear resting above his heart. Thud, thud, thud. The rhythm is steady and slow, reflecting the innate strength I feel in his huge hand and strong body. It’s strangely reassuring. At least for a short while.
As the self-deprecating thoughts filter back in and my mind works through what just happened, the safety fades, and nausea roils in my belly. There’s nothing reassuring about this man.
Pressing my hands into the mattress, I push off him but instantly regret it. The moment I lose his hand on my neck and the steady beat of his heart, a petrifying sort of fear washes over me.
He only lets me spiral for a minute as he loosens his tie and rolls his sleeves farther up to reveal a full sleeve of tattoos on his left arm.
When he hoists me into his arms, I can’t find the will to protest. What’s the point anyway? My strength is gone, and I don’t think any more is going to happen tonight. Gabor is gone, and the lanky man goes to work on the bed, ripping off the sheets the moment the massive one carries me away. Clean-up duty, it seems.
The massive man carries me to the bathroom and gives me a few minutes of privacy as he lets me use the toilet.
“Don’t lock,” he says, pointing at the key in the door on his way out. “I’ll break the door in.”
I hadn’t even thought about it, and I’m not going to test him. I don’t doubt for a second that he’ll do it.
The moment I flush, he comes back in. He untangles the hairbands from my messy tresses as I wash my hands, then herds me into the shower stall.
I close my eyes as the hot water beats down on me, soothing the brokenness and nervousness that makes my skin jittery like I have a fever.
Thinking he’s about to leave, I startle when his hands are suddenly on me.
“Shh, I’m just cleaning you up,” he says with a reassuring squeeze on my arm. When I gaze up, up, up, to meet his steel-gray eyes, it’s like I’m seeing him for the first time. His eyes are cold and hard, but something warmer seems to reside deep within them. Something that matches his reassuring hand rather than the detached indifference of his actions.
Or maybe I’m just seeing what I need to see.
Or maybe not.
As he roams his hands across my skin, cleaning every crevice of my body, it’s like he’s trying to wash away the degradations. He slides his large hands across my skin with a firm, yet gentle touch, never lingering even though he touches all the private parts of my body.
“On your knees,” he says, turning me around and supporting me by the arms as I sink to the floor on shaky legs.
A rush of something familiar billows through me as I settle in the position. Kneeling has always been a potent act of submission to me—something that required a strong presence and steady dominance. Even at BDSM clubs, most Doms can’t muster that sort of natural authority, but as I sit here, I find that this man exudes it even stronger than the best Doms I’ve played with.
It scares me, but part of me wants to sink into that thoughtless, submissive headspace as his fingers work against my scalp and the scent of roses fills the air. He washes my hair with such care that I can almost believe I’m submitting to him of my own free will. For a moment, I let myself sink into the illusion, but when he helps me back up and out of the shower, the dream shatters. Cold, harsh reality hits me like a fist in the gut.
I’m disoriented and confused when he carries me back to bed and sets me down on the edge. There are barely any traces of what happened here. The other man is gone, and the room is back in its usual order, the dresser back in its place under the TV. The only things witnessing that this is not a normal night are the black duffel bag on the dining table and the black suit jacket at the back of my crimson armchair.
And the clean sheets. I run my hands over them. It’s the same type of crisp white sheets you’d find in expensive hotels. Luxurious and so, so wrong. They don’t belong in a meager apartment like mine. And that’s because it’s no longer mine. Just like my body isn’t.
My captor—or maybe babysitter—retrieves some kind of medical equipment from the duffle bag and brings a chair with him to sit in front of me.
Too lost in the shock and shame of it all, I barely realize what he’s doing as he disinfects the crook of my elbow and wraps a rubber band around my arm. It’s only when he punctures my skin with a needle that my brain kicks in.
“What are you doing?” I say in a high-pitched voice as I reach for the needle, but he simply swats my hand away and gathers both in one massive grip in my lap. “No,” I whimper as my chest constricts. “Please don’t drug me. Don’t sell me.” Red panic descends over my mind as I’m convinced he’s going to pump me full of drugs and sell me into prostitution.
Grabbing my jaw, he pins me with a look so forceful it knocks the fear back. “It’s just a little blood.” He holds up a vial full of my blood. “See.”
I glance back and forth between the vial, the needle, and his eyes. “Why?”
“To check for STDs.” He takes two more vials of my blood, then pushes me down to lie on the bed, spreads my legs open, and swabs the inside of my pussy.
When he finally lets me move up to lie with my head on the pillow and pull the comforter over me, I feel empty and lost. Tired to the bone. I just want to close my eyes and drift away. So I do that. I close my eyes, shutting everything out as I feel sleep creep in to claim me.
But this nightmare has no end. I’m yanked out of the empty darkness by a massive hand that wraps around my upper arm. My eyes fly open and widen at the sight of a needle coming straight for my arm.
I try to jerk free, but the needle is already stuck in my arm, and a tightening sensation aches in my muscle as he shoots the contents of the syringe into me. Tears pool in my eyes as I stare up at him, shaking my head as I plead with him silently.
He doesn’t say a word, just takes out the needle, packs up the blood and the swab, and clears everything away. I keep staring at him with round eyes, expecting the drug to kick in any minute.
“Are you selling me?” I ask, biting down on my lips to hide the quivering.
“No.” He turns my crimson wingback chair to face the bed and sits in it.
“Why the drugs, then?”
“So you won’t get pregnant.”
I close my eyes tight. There’s no relief in those words. He might not sell me, but that shot means the abuse has only just begun. This night was just the beginning, and next time, fingers won’t be the only thing Gabor forces inside me.
“Go to sleep,” he says, breaking me out of my thoughts.
I open my eyes and stare into sharp gray ones, uncaring and cold. He’s watching me with blunt directness, and I allow myself to do the same with him, studying this gigantic man who comes at night and seems to have no qualms about the horrible things he does. But despite the apparent cruelty, there’s something powerful and worthy about him that incites respect. He looks like a king on a throne. A mighty man who people would bow down to in deference.
An unwelcome inclination to do just that pops into my mind. I blink with the urge to break eye contact—pull myself out of the disconcerting thought—but he gives a slow shake of his head. My throat bobs as I swallow hard. If I met this man at a BDSM club, I would fall to my knees and submit from that sheer look alone. There’d be no protecting myself. There is no protecting myself under those eyes.
His eyes narrow slightly. I think he knows exactly what I’m thinking, and he seems to revel in it as he keeps watching me with brazen directness, spearing straight through my broken barriers, into the place where my submission resides. It hurts—God it hurts. Yet I let him insert himself there and ensnare me into his silent will, and I relish the pain, feeling more alive than I have for a long time.
I want to give in and let him have it all because I know without a doubt that this man is strong enough to carry it. But I also know it will break me. This man is sent by the devil to do his dirty deeds. What little care he seems to hold for me is false—maybe even an order from above to make sure the new toy doesn’t break.
Still, I can’t stop watching. Even knowing how dangerous it is, I also know this man is the only thing I can cling to in this storm that’s about to wreak havoc on my life.
I should have listened to my family—sought help instead of insisting nothing’s wrong with my needs. Because they were right. I am sick. No healthy person would orgasm at the hands of their perpetrator, and no healthy person would be drawn to the man who has brought on the violation.
I should have listened when I could. Now I’m paying dearly for that mistake.