CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Why the hell am I here?
Question numero uno, alright.
He answers the door in a black shirt cut down the middle to show off the chiseled valley of his chest and the inky canvas it has become. It takes me a moment to drag my eyes up to his.
I don’t know what I see in them. Malice? Lust?
I enter and wait as always, though this time there is a barrier between us—the unsaid.
He nods at this, slowly rolling his sleeves up. “Would you like me to deal with her?”
“Who?”
He looks to me. “Cassandra. I did warn her.”
I shake my head, though the idea of her being peeled alive is not entirely repulsive. “No, it’s fine.”
Sleeves rolled, he crosses his arms. “I’m not what you think, not what the others believe.”
“A murderer?” This slips past my lips without thought, but it doesn’t seem to anger him.
“Oh, I am a murderer, my pet. I’ve taken too many lives to count, but the murderer?” He shakes his head. “No.”
But what’s the murderer going to say? I ask myself. ‘Hey, it’s me! I’m the one!’
Still, there’s nothing to suggest Damien is anything but truthful. In that photo they were hunting for Mortis.
Maybe to join him, I consider for the first time. Maybe they wanted to find him and join his fucked-up, murderous cause.
“No,” he says, “you’re wrong. We wanted to find Mortis, to end it.”
“When are you going to get out of my head?
He walks forward and places a finger to my lips. “But you promised me all of you, my pet, soul and body, remember? A blood pact.”
Blood?
Your virginity, you idiot.
He releases his finger slowly. “But I will end the control spell in good time. As our last session proved, you’re already far more powerful than you believe.”
So he does remember.
I hang my head. “I don’t know what we’re doing here, us, if it’s healthy.”
I hold my breath waiting for his response.
He places a finger under my chin, lifting so his eyes meet mine. “Healthy or not, it is necessary. You’ve seen the dark force at play here, a force I’ve been trying to put an end to for two decades, a force that took two close friends and countless more innocent lives to build its power…that is why we are doing this, because I cannot do this alone, because I need an equal, because I need you, Annabelle.”
“You’re using me.”
He grips my chin, pulling my face to his. “I am obsessed with you, need you, but this is more than transactional. This far transcends such inais frivolity. Now, tell me you are ready for the next trial. Tell me you’re ready to broken.”
Fuck. I know he’s in my head, puppeteering, but I can’t resist him, because I do want to be broken. I need it—his hand, his cock…whatever he has to offer. “I’m ready.”
He lets go of my chin. “To the dungeon then.”
I follow him through the wall, down the stairs…but the room we come into tonight is quite different to the room with the rack. The dimensions even seem different, the roof higher. Even the air is different—cooler again.
But it’s what the room’s filled with that concerns me the most, the angular metal and timber that makes the up the various ‘toys’ at his back. “Are you ready, little lamb?”
The shadows flow through me now the game is on. They wait in anticipation.
“Yes,” I reply, letting my coat fall away, but I am no longer ashamed. Nervous, yes, but ashamed, no.
With every session I grow more confident—in myself, in my abilities, in my body. I’m no longer the scared little girl who walked into Lumina because she had no place to go.
“This way,” the Professor smiles.
I follow him into the corner of the room.
I look up at what appears to be a giant wooden pyramid with a metallic tip. Above it is a cobweb of ropes and pulleys. In the center of it all is a large collar of sorts.
I have no idea of its purpose or intent, though my imagination runs rampant.
“Do you know what it is called, my pet?”
When I provide no answer, Darkwood speaks again. “It is the Judas Cradle.”
He moves around it, running his hands over the wooden supports as if it were a lover. “I had this one commissioned especially for my purposes from a fellow collector in Vienna.” He gestures to the top of the pyramid, covered by metal. “The tip is pointed, but blunt. See?”
I still cannot picture how the machine works, but the way the Professor is smiling pushes a cold ball right into the very pit of my stomach.
“The harness, too,” he continues, pointing to the tangle of ropes and leather above, “can be controlled from several points, allowing the lucky victim to be lowered with the utmost precision, and I am all about precision, my pet. Allow me to show you.”
An invisible force pushes me towards the machine. Another lowers the harness down above the pyramid and works to fasten it around my waist. The leather is cool on my skin. I don’t struggle. I am beyond that now.
The Professor comes behind my back and begins to fasten my wrists together with rope before working to attach more to my feet.
Bound completely, he moves to a set of pullies at the wall, and I am lifted upwards. My feet go first, the leather surrounding my waist biting down into my skin. My legs span out and apart, exposing my sex as I am steadily hoisted upwards as if common cargo onto a ship.
When I am high enough, another pulley snaps into place, and I begin to swing out over the sharpened point of the pyramid. It is only now that the true horror of the device’s nature becomes apparent.
Why am I doing this to myself? I question. Why am I allowing it? Am I this fucked in the head?
The conversation in the common room echoes around in my subconscious.
‘I wouldn’t trust him if I was you.’
But the whisper of the shadows is stronger, urging me on.
The rope is rough against my wrists, wringing the gentle flesh there as I squirm, the harness keeping me held in place as I swing gently above the top of the pyramid.
The pulleys strain above, and my legs tug apart. Before long, the joints in my pelvis strain and my mouth falls open to let out a short cry of agony.
The Professor claps his hands. “Yes, sing for me, little lamb. I do so love it when you do.”
I close my mouth, not intending to give him the satisfaction.
‘Psychopath.’
He pouts. “Oh, now, now. You will be singing again soon enough. You have my word.”
My body begins to tremble, a fresh cold sweat building on my brow. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment.
He works the pulley, and I am lowered until the very tip of the device is barely an inch away from the opening of my sex.
I am cradled aloft, incapacitated. I can only twitch and jerk like a caught fish.
The ropes suddenly give a start as a rotating lever to the side is pulled. It makes a craning noise. I gasp as the frigid metallic tip of the pyramid presses past my folds, kissing the sensitive hole beyond. A mere nudge, and the brutal cold spreads up and down my body.
“I cleaned it for you,” the Professor says, watching on with eager eyes. “That is a luxury I do not provide most.”
How many has he tortured on this device? How many have died here, at his hand? The hand that now holds my life within it?
He moves the lever again and I am lowered further, the pyramid tip making full contact with my skin and beginning to press into my pussy. I toss my head back. I could be ripped apart here. Maybe that’s what he intends.
A rush of fear overcomes me, but just as I am about to protest, his fingers close around the lever. He pulls hard.
The top of the pyramid presses past my moist folds and penetrates past the outer ring of my sex.
I wheeze a little, surprised at the intrusion and the way my poor pussy conforms around this strange instrument of torture.
The Professor holds me there before pulling the lever a little further.
I whimper again as the metallic tip presses deeper. I am stretched wider now. That tip opens me up further and I let out a long, deep groan.
Why am I so wet? I wonder, ashamed.
A whole student body sleeps above and yet here I am, allowing myself to be tortured by a man twice my age for what? A greater purpose? To be fucked senseless and discarded like so many others?
I hover there, unwilling to make any move, adjust anything that might work to impale me further.
I know at any moment Darkwood could drop the lever completely and my weight would skewer me on the pyramid, the tip of the Judas Cradle hammering up into my insides. The thrill is almost erotic, bordering that fine line that skirts between death and sexuality, a line I have not known until now, when it is thrust before me—the line that has provided me already with power beyond my wildest dreams.
The lever drops more, the tip of the pyramid running right into my soaking cunt.
The air is driven from my lungs, the pyramid getting wider as I drop. It stretches me out from every angle, the pyramid oddly shaped and unnatural, never meant to be placed into a body. I’m more and more puzzled by the pleasure building within.
The shadows’ whispers grow louder, stronger.
The sting of the initial penetration dissipates, and I find myself oddly rocking forward to take more of the device inside myself. I squeeze down upon it, test my muscles and the new sensation as my head lolls in the air and my nipples turn to diamond points on flushed areolae.
“Ah, you enjoy it, my chair,” the Professor says, pulling the lever again until the pyramid sinks deeper and the tip prods right into the deep, hot confines of my cunt. My ass cheeks clench as he pulls until half the pyramid is swallowed completely, the ring of my sex drawn painfully wide and obscene as I sit there in limbo.
Lust takes over me, pushing aside logic. If I saw this just an hour ago, I would have laughed at the idea of letting it penetrate me. Nothing seems funny about it now.
I don’t know if my poor sex can accommodate any more. This isn’t a cock. It’s not human, not flexible. Another drop and I will break, the tip of the pyramid driven into my womb and vital organs beyond.
But Darkwood has other plans.
He uses another lever to lift me up slightly and then let me down with the other. In this way, I am pulled up and down on the pyramid, slowly fucked by this contraption as the sensation swells and builds and I shamefully spill fresh desire to make the unholy act even easier.
“See how you grow wet for it,” the Professor laughs. “You are a born minx, my dear, a true child of the shadows. You feel it, don’t you? How the shadows feed on it, how your power grows.”
I do.
Up and down I am lowered, the harness tight around my waist and my wrists pulled awkwardly behind my back. Inch by inch I take more of the pyramid until I am truly at my breaking point, the harsh angles of the pyramid turning my sex into a squared-out bore.
I smell it, my desire, sweat, sex all around me as I am pulled high and the pyramid leaves me, my flowered lips closing once more, and my hole left open and dripping. I look down to see the metallic tip of the chair glistening.
The Professor claps his hands below. “You have done well, little lamb, but I can tell you crave a real cock—one of flesh and blood.”
An odd twitch causes my sex to spasm and squeeze as I swing.
“Say you want it. Say you want my cock.”
I breathe hard, rushing the words out. “I want your cock.”
Shame washes over me, but the shadows are stronger, willing me on to greater pleasure.
The Professor works the pulley until I’m lifted clear off the cradle and back towards the floor, but he doesn’t lower me completely, allowing me to swing there in mid-air.
The harness pulls tighter around me, the leather wet as the ropes strain either side and my wrists plead for clemency.
The Professor moves to me now, taking his time, eyes burning with desire as he approaches my position. It’s as if he means to make me beg for him. Beg for his long, hard inches to plow into my pussy and pound me like there’s no tomorrow.
I am lowered enough for him to hold me under the thighs. His big hands land on my skin, his hungry gaze roaming up and down my body. He moves between my legs, his face on the same level as my chest. He guides his stiff cock to my entrance, breathing over my still swollen nipples.
I am lowered another inch or two, those same invisible forces now working the pullies.
Down I go until his member slips between the pillowy creases of my cunt and rests in the wet oyster inside, leaking fresh desire against my already suffering hole. My thigh muscles flex as my tightness spreads around the sheer girth of his cock.
Darkwood gives a whispered order and the lowering stops. His hands slide until they cup my buttocks. He keeps his thumbs parallel to my crack and splays his fingers over my hungry flesh. He leans forward and takes one of my nipples into his mouth, pulling it to twice its length with his teeth as I mew and beg.
New desire coats the head of his cock as it begins to slide inside me, exploring my depths.
Everything from before is forgotten—the larger problems at play, the drama with Cassandra…there is only myself, the Professor, and the exquisite pleasure his cock provides.
Truthfully, I don’t know what I am feeling any more. There’s too much sensation, too much contradiction.
I knew nothing of sex before I came to the Academy. I was a virgin. Now, here I am…too far gone. The Professor’s whore.
He gives another order, and I drop suddenly, his giant member gliding deep into my slit and filling me in one giant, gulping thrust.
My eyes pop wide and I buck in the restraints at the feeling of being filled.
Darkwood squeezes my ass cheeks and buries his face between my breasts as he slides out and thrusts forward again, cock slick with my need.
My wet muscles grip his cock tight, massage him as his chest rides up against the top of my cleft to bring a strange and wonderful friction that turns my head and body wild. Whatever the pyramid had been doing to me, it’s nothing compared to this wild ride of arousal.
He is breathing harder on my skin, claiming my body, his every move designed to send me one step closer to the edge.
“Oh,” leaves my mouth as I sink lower, taking more of his cock into my sex until the base of it presses against my pubis and there is finally no daylight between us as I have expanded to take him.
His lips are at my ear, his tongue curling around the shell of cartilage inside. His chin brushes into the side of my neck, the tip of his tongue stroking my earlobe as it slides across my inner ear. “You take my cock so well, my pet. Never have I encountered one so wet and eager.”
Jealousy burns again, but I force it away. My need is too great.
“Please,” I whisper back, as his body slams against mine. I try to swing forward to meet his thrusts, thinking only of finding the summit of this mountain I am scaling, to offer him some small token of the pleasure he’s provided so freely.
The shadows rise and coil. They build and bubble, his cock pumping hard upwards into my body like a piston, forever pumping, squelching, driving deeper and deeper, finding new zones of pleasure in the darkest pockets of my body until I cannot help but beg “please” over and over as I am fucked for everything I’m worth.
I stay put, crying out in ecstasy as liquid lust threatens to overwhelm me.
The shadows writhe in a frenzy, colliding and pulling away from one another. Power—raw and untapped—is channeling through me.
I don’t know what I’m pleading for, do not expect a climax until it strikes me with the force of a battering ram, blasting through my body as I thrash and scream in my restraints, mind ablaze and cunt clamping down in quickening contractions over the Professor’s fat cock.
His voice is deep in my ear again as the climax fades. He pauses, purring to enjoy the warmth and slick juices oozing out of my pussy. “Let them in, my pet. Allow them to fill you.”
I do.
Of course I do.
I let the shadows pour into my abused body, let them take over. Earlier, this would have been too much, but I have grown accustomed to this feeling now. I welcome the cold touch of these shadows as one by one they slide through my glistening folds.
Tears begin to roll down my face again as the shame returns and I realize what I have done, but still my sex craves more as the Professor resumes his fucking, my pussy so slick and wet it swallows him each time with ease. He squeezes my buttocks together to increase the friction, moaning softly.
I close my eyes and let the sensation carry me away, enjoy the silken head of his cock rising up inside me.
I curse as another climax starts to grow in intensity, the Professor grunting with the effort of reaming me out, the sounds of our union echoing off the dungeon walls. His gaze is on me. He details every expression.
His lips return to my ear. “I am going to fill you now, little lamb. I am going to fill you ’til you overflow.”
At this promise, I climax again, my sex and ass squeezing together and the Professor letting out a guttural groan as he finds his release, cock pumping me full in violent contractions.
I’m so spent I barely notice as he pulls out, sperm gushing to the floor. But still my poor cunt continues to tremble and twitch.
The restraints ease as I’m lowered, gasping and panting there on the stone like an infant as the Professor looms over me, smiling.
“That will do, my pet,” he smiles. “That will do.”