Chapter 6
Chapter Six
I run and run, as fast as I can, trying to stay alert, to not get caught.
Trying to listen for my own Masters’ voices, so that I can run to them.
But the further I go, the more often I hear the crash of a slave running through the forest, the excited yell of a Hunter as they spot a slave, the thudding shots of the paintball guns being fired.
I decide to veer off to the left and end up climbing over a small hill. On the other side is a creek, and I move toward it, sliding a bit on fallen leaves, until I splash quietly into the water.
It’s so cold, colder than I remember, if it’s even the same creek I waded into before. And I realize I have this silly idea that the creek is safe somehow. As if they have dogs following my scent that will lose it in the trickling water.
Stupid.
And yet, the water calms me. I pause and lean down to trail my fingertips through the gentle flow. It’s clean and clear, and it helps me to settle my mind a bit. I hold perfectly still, listening.
Everything is quiet now, and the quiet settles on me like a blanket.
I find a fallen log at the edge of the creek and crouch down beside it, partially hidden by some ferns and a tangle of blackberry bushes.
I take a few moments to really catch my breath before climbing up the other embankment to run again. I close my eyes, inhaling deeply.
And hear laughter.
A woman’s voice. “Ah, look at this! Such a pretty Girl. Get her for me, Pet.”
A Boy approaches me wearing a leather dog mask with pointed ears like a Doberman, a thick steel collar with evil metal spikes, and a leather chest harness. His cock is long and stiff—not the prettiest I’ve seen, but does it matter? I am here to be used. I exist to be used.
I freeze momentarily as he slips a lead rope around my neck, then he tugs on it to pull me along, leading me to his Mistress, a tall woman with long flowing hair the color of pale, silvery moonlight.
She’s dressed in hunting gear, from her tight khaki trousers to her vest full of pockets, and she’s carrying a paintball gun.
A knife is strapped to her boot.
I’m shivering.
What happens to me now?
The dog-Boy brings me closer, and the Mistress reaches out to pat his head.
“What a good Boy you are, finding her. And to reward you, you shall have her.”
The dog-Boy nods his head, takes the rope and wraps it several times around my neck, then kicks my feet out from under me.
I land on the damp, moss-covered ground beside the creek with a thud.
It’s soft enough that it sinks in a bit beneath my hands and my knees.
I understand that he will fuck me, and it’s not that I don’t welcome being fucked, or the odd circumstances under which it will happen.
No. This is the life I choose. But too much of my mind is preoccupied by the idea that I may never see Master Erek and Master Séverin again.
That I may never experience again that moment of absolute freedom to sink into my slavehood. To really lose myself for once.
You think too. Damn. Much.
I really am a masochist. I do this to myself. I haven’t been instructed to do anything else.
I stay there as the Mistress slaps the dog-Boy’s stomach and thighs with the evil little crop, and he whimpers in pleasure, his cock going hard once more.
She smacks the head of his dick with the crop, and he makes a growling sound, deep in his throat.
She does it again, then again, and now, watching his cock being abused, need fills me, hot and thready, like a dark pulse somewhere deep inside me, winding tighter and tighter.
Yes. Please hurt him.
Oh, yes. I am a twisted fuck. But this is the way I was built. Or, the way my life has built me. Interesting distinction.
Thinking too damn much again.
I am not supposed to be a philosopher while in compromised positions.
Or ever, really. But nothing has ever enabled me to stop.
Not the harshest of punishments, the pinnacles of pleasure.
I can’t turn my brain off. I can’t lose myself in slavehood like the others do.
I get nothing more than the occasional glimpse of that respite.
Nothing… except for that illuminating moment in the tub with my two new Masters, who I pray I will see again.
And at this moment, I’m already getting bored with watching the puppy Boy get hit with his Mistress’s crop.
She seems to sense my disinterest—the best Masters and Mistresses always do—and she turns the crop on me, slapping my ass, my thighs, my back, even my upper arms with it.
It stings, but not too badly. A crop, in these circles, is almost a plaything.
A mere child’s toy. And I’m so in my head I barely respond to it.
She hits me harder, and I almost want to laugh, except that I want to cry, because my new and already-beloved Masters and their particular brand of cruelty are gone.
Finally, the Mistress seems to tire of this game, and I am relieved, because I tired of it almost as it began.
What a bad, bad slave I am.
I think they only want me because I’ve been trained to really fight in the Primal games. I’m good at it, fast and strong, and I know all the tricks to take even the biggest slaves down. If only they could see what goes on in my head.
Too much.
But the Mistress is waving her hand at me.
“Get up, Girl.”
Warily, I rise to my feet.
She turns to the dog-Boy, a smile on her face, then gives me a feral grin. “It’s catch and release, Girl. Go!”
I turn and run, my mind buzzing, as always.
I want to find them, Master Séverin and Master Erek.
Or, they need to find me. I cannot bear to think of never unraveling their mysteries.
Why is Master Séverin so sad? How did they manage to break through my walls of trauma and anxiety to take me into that beautiful dreamspace I’ve never quite achieved before?
I run and run, and in my head the words are on repeat, like some mantra.
Find me, find me, find me.
And then I’m hit, like a punch in the back, right between my shoulder blades, and I go down like a sack of stones, the air bursting from my lungs.
Breathless and dizzy on the hard ground, wondering what new Mistress or Master it will be next. My heart is very nearly breaking.
No.
I’ve been through enough pain in my life. I will not become so attached to these Masters. To anyone.
I take in air in enormous, gasping gulps, trying to process the pain of what I think was a paintball slamming into me.
I am finally able to move a little, and see a splatter of blue paint on the fallen leaves next to me.
I try to resign myself to the idea that I will be passed from Master to Mistress and back again in this particular game. And yet, my heart yearns…
“Ah, it’s our little Mina.”
I don’t dare to look up; I know it’s him. Master Erek’s voice, like a blanket of silk and velvet and pure blissful relief over my skin. And all thoughts of holding myself back from them seem absurd.
“You hit her in the lungs,” Master Séverin says, an edge of accusation and annoyance in his tone.
Master Erek straightens to loop an arm around his shoulder, a cocky grin on his face as he stares down at me.
“Yes, my love, but how beautiful is she in her suffering?”