5. To own is to… Subjugate
Chapter five
To own is to… Subjugate
T he sudden blare of the fluorescent lights only bothers my puffy, dry eyes for a second, because the smell that hits me after removes all traces of discomfort. My body screams in protest, the world wobbling as I shoot up on my bed. My body moves with a sudden burst of energy I don’t have to spare. A worn-looking older woman flashes me a wary look as she approaches. My eyes slam away as she meets mine.
“I’m not a Mistress. You can relax,” the woman offers as she nears, seemingly unphased by my nudity or ragged state. I can’t take my eyes off the plate in her hand and the heaping food piled there. Steak, eggs, rice, and God, I don’t even care. My mouth waters. I’m so thirsty, I didn’t even think it could do that. “You need to pace yourself, or you’ll just throw it back up.”
I nod eagerly, grimacing as I reach for the plate.
I don’t eat slowly, forgetting the silverware to shove bits of pre-cut steak into my mouth. I choke, coughing to dislodge a chunk from where it got stuck halfway down my throat, until her weathered hands enclose around mine. “Calm yourself. There will be more.”
“C-can you help me? I- My family is wealthy, they’ll pay-“
Her sudden and harsh shush makes me flinch, nearly displacing the tray in my lap. “They always watch. There’s no leaving here, not unless you’re sold. My job is to get you back to health. I won’t hurt you.”
But they will. It goes unsaid between us, hanging in the room.
How long?
How long has it been?
I wrack my brain, my chest squeezing when I realize I genuinely don’t know.
My eyes well over with tears as I slowly reach for a fork, my fingers uncoordinated and weak. It tumbles to the mattress. “Grandma would be mortified.”
She pushes my hands away, piling a combination of eggs and steak onto the fork before offering it to me. It’s a simple gesture. She’s here to get me healthy again. It shouldn’t mean anything. To her, it probably doesn’t, but I chew between my whimpers and silent, tearless sobs. She feeds me slowly, methodically dabbing my mouth between bites. It’s so…maternal, it makes my chest ache, knowing this is a kindness I likely won’t be afforded again.
“What’s going to happen to me?” It's such a vague, loaded question, maybe even a risky one, but I can’t stop myself from whispering it.
Her lips thin as she gathers the dishes, handing me a cup of lukewarm tea. It has a funny taste; I don’t question what’s in it. “You’ll continue your training, and you’ll regain your strength.”
I didn’t think there was a force strong enough to sour my overfull belly. “Will…will it get better?”
Her hand brushes mine briefly as she takes the empty paper cup. Such a simple touch, a kind, meaningless one, but I flinch. “You’ll harden yourself to it, and if you’re a believer, you’ll pray to stay in the House of Bloom.”
Panic ratchets up my chest, making my lip wobble. “There are worse places?”
“The Sirs will help you to harden yourself, child. There’s a method to their-“ The word madness lingers heavily, going unspoken as she offers me a weak smile. “ Obey .”
She exits quickly, leaving me again in my solitude, the never-ending well of anxiety and dread. My lids are heavy, a food coma battering my brain toward sleep, but I keep my eyes on the girl in the mirror. Sleep makes everything more painful. When I’m sleeping, my cunt and ass aren’t torn and raw. My body isn’t nude, my hair not soaked with urine and oil. When I’m sleeping, I’m being pestered at work by Clara. Brady is following me around the employee kitchen. I’m in my small apartment, watching Family Guy reruns. When I’m sleeping, I’m staring at Renee as her small, round face slips under the water.
Several more filling meals later, when the door opens, I’m more than a little excited to see the gentle older woman. Twice a day, I get to eat now. Twice a day, I get real soap to clean myself, proper food to eat. Two days, if I’m counting right, that my body has been left to heal. It’s when Sir's face, followed by the faces of two other men enter that I realize how silly it was to be excited about anything here. I don’t waste time crawling off the bed toward the center of the room. Not walk— crawl . I’ve always been a fast learner. My eyes are on the upturned palms in my lap as I stare at them, the dry, cracked skin despite it almost constantly being wet.
“Stand up.”
I still wobble, but it’s easier already as I get to my feet. My eyes are glued to my reddened toes as a fourth man enters the room. I immediately recognize his voice. My heart hiccups in my chest as the man from the overhead speaker steps closer. His cologne is so decadent and thick, like patchouli oil, I can almost taste it.
“The auction is in seven months. Short window. Can you ensure she’ll be ready?”
Seven months…
Dread is a living, breathing thing as it takes root, almost more sentient than me.
“Actually, Sir, I had hoped I’d be permitted to keep-“
“No.”
I hear Sir’s teeth snap together, and a small relief floods through me. The prospect of the unknown is better than having random objects shoved inside my ass for the rest of what’s sure to be a miserable life, even if the unknown simply offers a different flavor of despair. I’ll almost certainly come to resent that statement.
“I have half a mind to keep her myself. I’ve yet to hear her play.” He laughs. “But I’m a greedy old bastard. She’ll make us both an obscene price at auction. I’m finding myself owing again, House Ragnar this time. Julissa’s pretentious ass snorts her weight in coke, then sees fit to start…playing with the house girls a little too hard.”
My pulse drums in my throat as they speak.
“No, she’s much too pretty to keep here. I like her innocent and light… It’s been quite endearing these past months. We’ll dress her in lilies.”
Months.
That information rattles around in my brain, because it’s not right, can’t be right. I haven’t… No . No , I haven’t been here for months. My teeth gnaw and chew at my bottom lip, gnashing the flesh until the taste of copper tickles my tongue.
One of the other men in the group finally speaks up, edging closer. “Lilies?”
The intercom man turns back to me, leering as I shake. “The only one this season.”
“Cutting down on her training would ease the strain, as it’s so close to auction time. Especially if you aren’t planning on running her trail in-house.”
Their words fade after that. My pulse whooshes in my ear while they speak about me like I’m not a human, not even here, the way you hold your pet as the vet tells you the best way to put it down. I was just offered a prized position I never applied for. For the first time since I woke up in this hell, it occurs to me it won’t end. There’s no fucking light at the end of this. The little mundane things I’ve worried about, the things that have kept me rooted, evaporate in an instant. I won’t need to stress about the story I’ll tell my friends, my family. If they’ll judge or look at me differently. If I’ll still have my job at Dr. Abrishon’s office. What my landlord will do with my stuff, if I’ll have to pay back rent.
It doesn’t matter.
Oh God, none of it matters.
I’m not going home.
With that, my head snaps up, staring at the men in front of me. Their boisterous conversation ends abruptly, each one turning to level their glares at me in return. “This is sick.”
“Remember yourself,” Sir warns.
I ignore him, turning fully toward the older man, his polished hair and clothes screaming the same decadence I was raised in, perhaps even more. No, definitely more. “You’re fucking sick.”
I don’t beg to go home, trying to bribe my way out with funds I was cut off from years ago. I glare. It’s disobedience, willful disobedience, the only card I have here. He simply frowns at me, running his tongue across veneers that look so perfect, it’s almost creepy. “Yes, I think we will give her a contact for that eye. It’s quite unsettling when you’re looking directly at it.”
That’s it. My eye. I’m so far below him, he doesn’t even acknowledge my words. My disobedience is taking an indescribable amount of bravery to show.
“What?” I breathe, but Sir is on me. He grips the back of my neck in a violent hold, wrenching me toward the floor until I’m bent at a ninety-degree angle.
Intercom man chuckles, such a casual, indifferent sound. “Punish her, but no marks. I prefer my Lilies unscathed.”
These men are monsters far beyond anything I’d dreamt of at night, anything my mind could conjure on the worst of days.
“ I will never be unscathed again.” Feeling every inch of the anger, the despair, I use it, knowing it won’t take long for Sir and his friends to rip the fire from my chest. They couldn’t have picked a better girl that night. In a bar full of people with something to return to, with families willing to have them, within a bar full of fighters and strong women, they found me .
One of Sir’s friends, one of the men from the first night, jerks out his chub length, waving it in front of my face. “You ever sucked a cock before?”
I stare at it blankly until Sir’s grip hardens, digging into pressure points I didn’t know I had. “No, Sir.”
He loves that; of course he does. My raw knees slam against the floor, his hand traded for Sir’s as he jerks my head up to face him. “You bite me, and I’ll fucking end you, whore.” That’s the only warning I get, vomit curdling in my gut as my chest knots with fear. His dick tastes stale, sour. I have no reference for what one should taste like, but I can’t imagine it’s this. I gag as he slams to the back of my throat, his foreskin shifting back, letting out more of the sour, foul taste, like salty cottage cheese that went bad.
It hurts. With my stuffy nose, I struggle to drag in a breath as someone grabs my hips, scooting their hungry hands inward until they can spread my cheeks. I was never religious, but I send up a silent prayer they take my vagina. I’m lifted off the ground until I’m left on just the balls of my feet, and then they slam home in my ass, only their spit softening the first blow. The familiar deep burn opens a barely healing wound left from Sir, making me scream around the dick as it slams home again. It’s sensory overload, my head light from a lack of oxygen.
“Yeah, tighten your lips. Fucking suck it. Fuck! Suck it, suck it, suck it. Suck it. Fucking whore. Fucking suck it.” He repeats it like a mantra as drool leaks from around my mouth, trying to hold it as open as I can, the burn of vomit in my throat a looming threat.
Sir’s boots are hazy through one bad eye and one watery one, but I recognize them all the same: the pointed snakeskin toes and black shiny bases. I don’t recognize the machine he holds in his hand, the long stick with something protruding at the end.
“Fuck, man, don’t hit her with that until I’m out of her mouth.”
Fear swallows me whole, making sweat bead at my hairline as they use me like a ragdoll between them .
“Hurry the fuck up then,” Sir responds.
The other Sirs take that command to heart, pounding into me with a violence that makes my legs give out. My mouth fills with silva, adding to the foul concoction I’m desperately swallowing past until that familiar hot, uneasy feeling pools in my gut. My sick surges up my throat, spewing out around my lips as he spurts, his cum and bile mixing like slosh in my mouth as I heave.
“Nasty bitch.” He jerks out, his palm slamming over my mouth, adding to my growing panic, because I’m choking, struggling to get even an inch of breath. “Fucking swallow it.”
I choke, coughing, but manage to do at least half of what he says. His hands leave me, no longer offering support as I crumple to the ground, sputtering and gasping for air as the man’s cock is ripped free from my ass. His curse fills the room as ropes of his sticky, hot cum cover my back where I lie retching on the floor.
It’s then that I realize what Sir is holding. He sets off the cattle prod, its ear-busting crackle filling the small room as he walks behind me. “You liked that, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I croak.
“You liked choking on his cock. I bet you came so fucking hard, your ass getting fucked like that.”
“Yes, Sir, I did,” I sob.
“Tell them.”
The men walk in front of me, looming like demons waiting for my praise. “I came so hard. Your cocks feel so good inside me.”
“Grab her arms,” Sir commands.
My sobs stop abruptly, bitter fear plunging me into silence. “Please, I won’t do that again. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Sir.”
“Yes, I know you won’t.”
The metal prongs scrape a slow but steady journey into my core. I’m begging, pleading, reasoning until I’m screaming. The cattle prod goes off deep inside me, my scream cutting off until darkness takes me again.