11. Jason
Imade her sleep on the floor.
Mandi thought it was a punishment, so she took the order willingly. She always did feel deserving of poor treatment. Pain is a constant she can depend on when everything else falls apart.
The truth is I can’t have her in my bed because I’m still too angry.
I want to hate-fuck her so bad, I can’t risk it, for fear of what I’ll do to the precious, broken girl. I told her I couldn’t trust her, but it’s myself I don’t trust.
She’s fucking hurting so badly, she won’t even tell me what’s wrong.
I could kill someone for making her feel like this, but I don’t want it to be her. Never her. Not my fucking princess.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. I tug at the T-shirt I’m wearing, and then at my boxer briefs, unable to get comfortable.
I fucking hate sleeping in clothes, but I don’t ever want her looking at my scars again. Her eyes got so sad the first time it still makes my soul ache to think about it. It’s as if she could feel my pain, and she’s already been burdened by so much. She needs protection from feeling any more.
Worried about her, I strain my ears, wondering if she’s having a more restful night than I am.
She breathes so quietly.
I creep to the bottom of my bed and peer down at her, curled into a tight little ball, fast asleep. Still breathing.
I relax into my mattress and watch over her. Is she dreaming? She was so tired, she fell asleep when I told her to. Maybe she was worn out from trying to figure out her next steps and was relieved to have me tell her.
My T-shirt covers most of her small body, but the curve of her bare ass is visible, and if I lean to one side, I can see the dark curls nestled between her legs, where I want to seed her till she drips. The way I used to.
I squeeze my eyes shut, as my cock strains against the sheets.
God. If I touch her in the state I’m in, I’ll tear her apart. Leave her more broken than she already fucking is.
What am I going to do with her?
I was heading for Mountain Lake Falls in the morning, but I can’t leave her, knowing she has nowhere else to go — why else would she come to me? Come home with me when she knows it’ll mean punishment? Maybe endless punishment, because I’m that fucking angry. There must be better options, but here she is, willingly vulnerable in the monster’s lair.
She’s at the end of her rope, then.
It was me or rock bottom. What a choice.
She’s all out of options, and I won’t be able to sit back in the mountains and relax if I’m worried she won’t have food or somewhere secure and warm to stay while she’s this dangerously close to losing her will to live.
I look at her again. Peaceful. Grateful to sleep on the floor at the foot of my bed like a fucking dog, because she’s desperate, and even though she knows this monster could turn on her at any second, she trusts me more than anyone else.
It’s a cruel fucking world, sometimes.
I want her to know how much she hurt me, but I can’t fucking sleep if I’m adding to her suffering.
I climb out of bed and carefully scoop her up. She murmurs some sort of protest, and I rock her gently, shushing her as I lower her into my bed and pull the covers up around her. She settles and remains asleep, and if I keep standing where I am, I’m going to jack my cock over her until there’s cum in her hair.
Unwilling to risk climbing in next to her, I take her place on the blanket, instead. I deserve to sleep on the floor. Treating her badly, just because she’ll let me.
Why can’t she stand up for herself? I thought she’d found her dignity and her spine when she left me behind, but clearly something out in the world broke her. She’s as fucked up as I remember, accepting my mistreatment so easily. And she came to me knowing that things would be this way. What did she do, to convince herself she’s earned all this punishment? It’s more than just her leaving me. Why can’t she tell me? How fucking bad is it?
I’m going to need a good look at her in the light of day, if I’m going to have a chance of figuring her out. Until then, I’ll rest easier, knowing she’s safe in my bed.
* * *
I wakewith my heart pounding and sit up to find my bed empty and Amanda gone. I jump to my feet and race downstairs, to the kitchen. The whole fridge shudders when I wrench open the door, but the case of beer is still there, and it looks untouched.
My breath leaves me in a rush, and I tilt my good ear toward the rest of the house.
She couldn’t have left without the sensors going off from any doors or windows she may have thought to escape through. I set the alarms so I’d know if she ran. It was either that or chain her to my bed… which I may resort to when I find her.
I hear scuffling sounds in the bathroom and breathe a sigh of relief. My gaze returns to the beer, and I yank it out of the fridge. I’ll dump it into the trashcan out back so hard, I’ll break every bottle, to keep the liquid inside from ever hurting her.
But I don’t get further than setting the case on the counter, because there are baby bottles in my fridge, and I didn’t fucking put them there.
Baby bottles?With milk inside. One full. One closer to half.
My hand is shaking when I reach for the smaller one.
My heart skips a beat. Maybe more. The muscle may have given up working entirely. Fucking feels like it. I grip my chest, as it fills with an ache so bad, it brings me to my knees.
Oh, my fucking girl.
I shake a few drops of the milk onto the back of my hand and lick it.
Thanks to my friends, I know the real thing when I taste it. It’s breastmilk.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.
Where’s the fucking baby?
There’s no baby in sight. And she came to find me, to make sense of her pain. What the fuck happened? Who did this to my princess?
I push to my feet, shove the bottle back on the shelf, slam the fridge shut, and march to the bathroom.
The door is locked when I test it, so I hold the handle and shoulder-barge my way inside, tearing the lock from the frame.
Mandi looks up from her cross-legged position on the floor with terror in her eyes.
I stare at the pump she’s holding to her breast with a nearly full bottle attached. There’s another, already full bottle, on the floor next to her.
She swivels and hurries to hide herself from me while she pulls my black T-shirt back down, but it’s too late. I’ve seen.
“You have a baby?” My question comes out in a strained whisper, but it’s as if I yelled it, by the way she hunches in a cringe.
When she lifts her head, though, she’s eerily calm. “Lucinda has a baby,” she says, ending her milking session. She seals the bottle and sets it next to the other one, before getting to her feet and moving to the sink, to wash her breast pump.
She doesn’t say anything more, and I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
“And I don’t know how to tell you more without making things worse,” she says in a monotone. “I need to get these to her. She doesn’t live too far. I can walk there. Thank you for letting me stay. In your bed. I told you I didn’t deserve it.”
I stride over, press her to the wall, and pin her there with my hand on her neck. “I’ll decide what you deserve when you’re in my house.”
She meets my gaze, bold and blinded by her own self-loathing. “And what do I deserve, Jason? What do you want to do to the woman who said she’d marry you, and then disappeared? The one who wanted so badly to stay but couldn’t? The one who can’t make decisions for herself, because they’re always the wrong ones that leave others to clean up her mess? The fucked up little whore, who causes nothing but pain to the people she loves? I’m no good. No matter how hard I try, I only ruin lives. I’m a parasite. A disease. What do I deserve? Because I can only think of one path that leads to a cure, and everyone would be a lot happier if I took it.”
I search her sad eyes, and then press my lips to her forehead before resting my chin against her hair. “You deserve to be understood. And until I can give you that, you’re under my protection. You talk of taking any fucking cures again, and I’ll make you wish you had.”
She twists free enough to give me a blank stare. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“It would if you knew how badly I’ve wanted to fucking torture you these last twenty years,” I rumble, tightening my grip on her throat and thrusting my leg between hers.
“Nineteen,” she corrects me, rubbing her hot little cunt against my bare thigh, so I can feel her slick against my skin. “But if you stretch it to twenty, you’ll probably live to regret it.” She flashes her sad eyes at me. “I’m so fucking regrettable. Aren’t I, Jason?”
She’s trying to provoke me, so I’ll punish her. As is her way.
“I’m poison,” she continues when I resist.
“So many fucking lies you tell yourself,” I whisper as I move with her needy body, giving her the attention she craves. “Tell me one truth,” I urge, shoving her higher, until I can rub my swollen cock against her pussy and have her soak me through my boxer briefs. I slide my hand under the shirt I made her wear to match my own and palm her soft breast. “If you’re so fucking poisonous, why provide breastmilk for a baby?”
Her eyes fill with tears. “The innocent shouldn’t be deprived of nourishment.”
“No. They shouldn’t, precious girl.” I grind into her harder, before I pull away and leave her to sink to the floor in a breathless heap. “You’d know all about that.”
I collect the bottles she filled with milk and walk away before I lose control and shove my fat cock in every hole she has, to hear her scream.
I put them in the fridge with the others and stare at them.
If her sister has a baby, why the fuck is Mandi feeding it? Is that how she’s producing milk? She’s been breastfeeding her sister’s baby? I know that could bring in a supply of breastmilk. Hell, Ben and Maggie forced lactation with herbs and a pumping machine.
My cock thickens, and I stroke it. I bet Mandi looks gorgeous with a baby at her breast. I’m fucking jealous of anyone who’s seen it.
I shut the fridge and head back upstairs.
Did she have permission to feed her sister’s baby? Or did Lucinda catch her in the act and kick her out? Or is Mandi lactating, because it’s her fucking baby, but her sister’s raising the kid as her own? Has Mandi’s been deemed too unreliable by some asshole who didn’t give her a chance? — Because I believed her when she said it was ’Cinda’s baby. The words rang true.
Did my princess have a baby, and then give it up? Why? Because she thinks she’s fucking poison?
I pace around my room, and then pull on a pair of pants — bike leathers — and reach for a bag, to pack for Mountain Lake.
Mandi arrives in my doorway, and I throw it back in the closet because I don’t even need to take anything with me, and I can’t go anywhere until I get some actual fucking information.
“Where are you going?” she asks, sounding scared.
“We are going to deliver the milk,” I inform her. “Then we are going to talk, until I’m satisfied.”
She gets down onto her knees and runs her tongue over her bottom lip. “I can satisfy you right now, if you’d like.”
“I doubt it,” I mutter and push past her so I don’t stay and choke her with my fucking cock.
Once I start venting my rage, I won’t want to stop.
One fuck is never enough with that girl, and the withdrawals from her absence will be too much to bear again if I’m none the wiser for the reason she left me in the first place. I need answers before I’ll consider getting close enough to let her burn me a second time — which seems inevitable. Apparently, we’re both gluttons for punishment.
She follows me downstairs and into the laundry room, where I pull her jeans and sweater from the dryer and throw them at her. “Get dressed. We leave in ten.”
She does as she’s told. Sits where she’s told. Eats what she’s told. But she’s not doing any of it to please me. There’s just no fucking life in her. She’s an empty shell. A robot, who only turns on when something cuts her deep.
I wanted to study her in the light of day, but it’s hard to look at her and not feel sickened by what she’s become.
Did nobody give her love in the years after she left me? Nobody held up a mirror, for her to see the light she had inside? I can’t see the spark in her anymore. Is it hiding or gone completely?
“Wait here,” I command, though I doubt she’d budge until I told her where to go next. She’s stunted, like a pawn on the chessboard instead of the queen.
I head down to the basement with only one focus. I walk past the wall full of floggers, belts, and paddles. Past the stocks and chains and shackles. Past the ropes and benches. I open the glass case that has been the focal point present in every scene I’ve ever performed down here, and remove the helmet and leathers from the feminine mannequin.
I return upstairs and dump them on the table in front of Mandi, don my own jacket, grab the cooler bag I packed her breastmilk into, and sling it over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”