Chapter 7
W hen I wake up the next day, I’m not sure if it’s light or dark outside.
It seems that while me and Stone slept, Lowell had come down and done some renovations to the cellar.
The curtain has been replaced by some piece of heavy wood, Stone has been restricted further in his place—bracelets of steel with another set of chains looped through them adorn his wrists, and yet I’m still free to move about.
I know it won’t last for long because that’s not the point of this. I didn’t think the point would be to fuck someone other than Lowell, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I’m in for another day or evening of mind games.
“I was wondering when you would wake up,” Stone’s groggy voice says in the darkness.
I don’t reply; not right away because after the way he shoved me when he was done fucking me, I don’t feel that he’s earned the company of my words again.
“We talked about you, you know,” he says conversationally. I stop trying to pry the wooden panel away from the window and walk toward the stairs. Would it be too much to hope that maybe the door isn’t locked? Should I even dare to attempt to find out?
I set a foot uncertainly on the bottom step, but almost immediately pull back. This could be another trick—a test—and I won’t fall for anything he isn’t willing to compensate me for.
“Don’t you want to know what we said?” Stone asks curiously. “Or at least what he said?”
I shake my head even though I know he can’t see my response, but I refuse to speak to him right now. He promised he wouldn’t hurt me, and while I’ve been through much worse physically, I’m sick with the feeling that I thought he cared.
Stupid girl; always looking for comfort in the arms of strangers.
It’s clear to me now that I hadn’t thought this through. I was swayed by the promise of my own personal little dreams of having a place to live and dismissed the obvious danger that was lurking behind Lowell’s eyes when he first approached me.
“Cessi? Can you hear me? I feel like I’m talking to a wall right now,” Stone complains in exasperation.
Because you are .
I turn toward him and stick my middle finger in the air. Even though he can’t see me, it’s nice to be able to tell him to fuck off.
“Oh, I see. You’re mad at me. Why? Cause you didn’t get to cum?” he asks. I can feel the smirk on his face, and it makes me angry, but I still say nothing to him. He’s desperate for conversation and he assumes that if he can sting me with his words, I’ll speak.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. I’m just fucking losing my mind down here, you know? I hate that there’s someone in this room with me and not speaking. It’s like Lowell the first time he chained me down here and it’s starting to freak me out if you want me to be honest.”
He lets out a long, tired breath and I can hear the chains scrape along the ground as he gets to his feet. He grunts against his new restrictions and sighs.
“Will you at least come here and let me hold you? I know it won’t mean shit to you, but it’ll make me feel a little bit better about being in the dark—verbally and visually,” he finishes with a mumble.
His suggestion is cruel in the fact that he knows that I want to be needed. He felt it when he first laid down on top of me, with the first kiss placed so softly against my neck, he knew that I wanted nothing more than to feel wanted.
“Cessi? Please?”
I close my eyes and sigh. I’ve never had a man beg me to let them put their arms around me before and it strikes a nerve in me, but not in the way it should. If I let my guard down with Stone again, is it what Lowell wants? Will we have to dance for him again or will he even care?
I don’t want to do anything to anger him because he holds our lives in his hands and the slightest misstep can lead to our downfall.
Fuck.
I walk in a straight line, unable to see where I’m going.
Stone rattles his chains again in an attempt to put his arms around me and I realize that I’ve walked much too far to the right.
I turn to the left and hold my hands out, finally grazing his arm with my fingertips and move closer to his body.
“Thank you,” he whispers gently into my ear as he does his best to wrap his arms around me. Because of his newly acquired chains, he’s only able to hold me by the hips, but he pulls me closely against him and breathes deeply.
“Don’t be mad at me, okay? I say stupid shit when I’m nervous. Just… talk to me Cessi; all we’ve got is each other now,” he says, softly brushing his lips against my hair.
My heart races slightly as his words, but I
quickly manage a way to calm myself. I have to be smart from here on out, and I have to realize that he’s only saying these things because of the situation we’re in.
If Stone still looked like what I think he did before Lowell got a hold of him, he wouldn’t have given me a second glance on any other day in an ordinary life scenario.
He’s scared; even though he hasn’t said it, he has to be because I am too.
“What did he promise you?” I finally ask, breaking my vow of silence against Stone’s steadily heaving chest. “Money?”
“No,” he replies as he nuzzles his mouth against the top of my head. It’s almost as if he’s in a world of his own right now.
“Then what did you promise him?” I ask, taking a step away. Stone chuckles and attempts to pull me back into him, but I pull farther away and move just out of his reach.
He lets out a sigh and drops his hands to his sides. “What does anyone want? What do you want?”
“To be free,” I reply quietly.
“No. That’s not what I’m talking about. Don’t be in this moment, Cessi. Be outside of these walls walking the streets, looking into cars for a potential new client, and tell me what it is that you want.”
“I… I want to be loved,” I finally say, wiping away a stray tear.
“Bingo.”
It makes perfect sense to me now why a man Stone’s size would be so easily captured by such a silver tongue. He was promised a basic human emotion and he fell for it; like I had for the money.
“You know what’s consuming me?” he asks quietly. “I can’t help but think that maybe if this were a different time and place, that maybe we could have learned to love each other.”
Another lie.
Another blasphemous blow to my heart and I’m losing myself to his false hopes. The same hopes that Lowell bestowed on him once upon a time.
“No,” I reply, taking a deep breath.
“Because I’m a whore and so are you. Whores don’t get to love; that’s not who we are.”
“Wow,” he replies with a chuckle. “That was harsh, and to think I had no idea that I could feel any worse than I already do. Okay. Well, that’s that, I guess.”
I raise an eyebrow.
Was this a test or a testament to how he could have felt about me? Nothing in this abyss makes sense anymore and I have yet to find the sliver of truth in all of the lies being hurled at me. Could it be that the one truth that was finally spoken, I managed to brush aside so brutishly?
It doesn’t matter.
This isn’t another time or place and we both know it. I have no choice but to chalk it up to simple conversation from a man conditioned for nothing more than depravity under the will of his owner and pray for a better outcome for myself.
“How long have you been down here?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Days, weeks, months… years. I don’t
know. I stopped counting when he took away all the sharp objects I used to mark the time on my skin.”
“What?”
“Oh yeah; I forgot to tell you. The scratches you saw on my body? I did those. It was the only thing I could do to pass the time down here and it’s also how long I know I’ve survived.
But my face and my dick? That was him when he figured out why I was bleeding from a new cut every time he came down here to feed me.
That’s why I barely get meals anymore too.
He doesn’t want me to mark myself anymore and when he does decide I’ve been a good enough boy to eat, he feeds me himself. ”
“Not always,” I remind him quietly.
“Yeah to be honest, that took me by surprise, but I can tell that he likes you. If he didn’t he would have fucked you instead of my throat. I really hope he brings water down soon,” Stone says more to himself than me.
I rub the sides of my head and close my eyes tightly.
Lowell is more complex than I could have imagined, but now I know that the day he sticks his cock inside of me, I’ll end up chained to a wall too.
I have to be nice to him and I have to try to stay on his good side—if he even has one of those—to not end up like Stone.
“Fuck; shut up, he’s coming down,” Stone suddenly says, his chains rattling as the door at the top of the stairs opens.
Lowell descends the steps quickly and I move in the shadows back toward Stone, shrinking against the wall. In the blinding darkness, I reach a hand clumsily along the wall until my fingers find his and I lock our hands together.
Stone gives me a reassuring squeeze as he lowers himself as quietly as he can to the ground and lets a small growl slip from somewhere deep inside.
And just like that, he’s nothing more than an animal again.
“Cessi?” Lowell calls out in his quiet tone.
“I’m here,” I reply as a slight tremble starts to take hold of me. Stone squeezes my hand again, before he slides his fingers out of my grip, and gives me a gentle shove toward our master.
“Come to me, please. I’ve brought you some food,” Lowell says.
I let out a sigh of relief and begin to walk toward him. I wasn’t hungry until he mentioned it, but I also won’t eat unless I can share some of it with Stone. Even if it’s just scraps, he deserves food for his performance from the previous night.
“Thank you,” I say, when he grabs my wrist as I approach him. He steers me back toward the stairs and lowers me down, sitting next to me and waiting patiently for me to begin eating my meal.
“What’s the matter? You’re not hungry?” Lowell asks quietly. The plate has sat on my lap for no more than a moment and he’s already acting as if I’ve disappointed him.
“I was just wondering,” I begin slowly, “If I can share some of this with Stone.”
Lowell scoffs next to me and snatches the plate from my lap. I expect him to stomp up the stairs like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, but instead he makes his way across the room and disappears further into the darkness.
“Open your mouth,” he barks. The scraping chains that have become as common as the air I now breathe fills my ears as Stone does as he’s told. Lowell comes back moments later, sits down in a huff, and damn near slams the plate back onto my lap.
“He’s had ‘some’. Now eat your fucking food before I throw it away,” he mumbles angrily.