Chapter 25
No way to tell what was a dream and what was real.
Were the two even separate? Memories swirled like reflections in a filthy puddle, all ripple and blur.
I dreamt about my family — my awful, fucked-up family — and those last twisted moments before I finally broke free.
Sometimes Jason was there. Sometimes, it was Carter.
Nothing was right. Carter would help me kill my father, or he’d pull me out of the farmhouse, but the house was underground, like Carter’s farm. Sometimes Carter was my father, creeping in at night to force himself on me, again and again. Except in those dreams with Carter, I liked it.
There were flashes too; waking up under bright lights, cold metal under my back, being rolled like luggage. Susan was there. Or Carter. One of them would be standing over me, touching me, whispering, vanishing. Was that real? Was any of it?
I walked out of that white room and found myself naked in the middle of a strip mall. People stared. Pointed. Laughed. My bell kept ringing. They kept finding me.
Then snap, I was back at the farmhouse. Or my apartment. Or that little cell. Wren showed up. Then she didn’t. Carter was there. Then gone. The only thing that stuck was that background hum, that buzzing fakeness of everything Just static dressed up as thought.
So when I opened my eyes again, finding myself alone on a bed in a room soaked with light, I didn’t think much of it.
Another dream. Another thread in the endless tangle.
I tried to move, to push hair off my face, groggy and slow, not sure if I was waking up or just bleeding into the next broken memory.
My arm was restrained to a medical bed. I knew I was naked, lying under a very thin sheet in a warm room.
I tried to remember my dreams. That dream I had where I had stumbled upon this weird farm-like factory, where women were treated as cows.
With a handsome man. Carter Hill. That part had to be a dream, right?
“Finally, you’re up.”
I couldn’t see him, but I knew that voice.
Carter’s voice. So, was I still dreaming?
Or was the human-cattle farm real? I closed my eyes and felt the slightly tender spot on my ass bloom with pain as I shifted.
The brand. The brand I’d gotten for Carter.
I sighed; that felt real. Too real. This wasn’t a dream.
“You’ve been in and out for a couple of days now. I thought it was best to avoid suffering through the healing process,” Carter said.
I turned to the side and found him standing right next to my bed. My head was at crotch level with him, but there was something missing.
Why wasn’t he hard? He was always hard.
He smelled better than the sharp hospital smell. His faint, dark masculine musk was so nice. I wanted more. I tried to move my head closer, but I couldn’t. My forehead was tied to the bed as well.
“Easy there, my calf. You don’t want to squirm too much and rupture your IV,” Carter teased.
‘My calf.’ That should offend me, but I was long past it. I was lost in the fantasy of being owned. Of being his. Intoxicated that a man so decisive, powerful, and handsome didn’t see me as beneath him.
“Carter, can you release me, please?”
“No. I don’t want you to get too agitated.”
I was about to protest, but his hand moved the sheets off my bed, revealing my naked body.
Shame silenced me. The lights were too bright, the pose wasn’t flattering.
I knew my current pose wasn’t doing me any favors.
As I blushed, his hand moved to caress my breasts, tracing the outline of my vitiligo marks there and down my chubby belly.
He continued across my thighs so dangerously close to my pussy, but never touched it. I moaned and bit my lip.
“Carter, Please.”
“Please what, Tiff?” He teased, “Do you want me to stroke your pretty pussy and make you come?”
“I-I,” I couldn’t speak. He was so crass and so hot.
“Come on, use your words. I want to hear it.”
“Can you p-please - Please,” answering him shouldn’t have been this hard, but dirty talk had never been my forte.
“Please what?” He teased, his fingers stroking near my pussy, but denying me what I needed.
“Please untie me?”
“Oh. Is that really what you want?”
“I want to see my brand, please?”
He was surprised, but it seemed to flatter him. He leaned forward to undo my straps. As he did, I felt his shockingly large cock through his pants as it rubbed my face. I fought the urge to tease him with my mouth.
“Turn around. I’ll show it to you while I tend to it,” Carter commanded.
So I did, exposing my ass as I laid on my stomach.
Carter folded the sleeves of his shirt and squirted some cream on his hands.
There was a medical mirror on a pivot arm overhead, he lowered it for me before moving a smaller one to reflect my fat ass.
I saw it. A sun rising from behind two rolling hills and, over it, a CH monogram intertwining both.
‘Sunshine Sanctuary’ was written around the logo.
It was etched in pink and healing skin, slightly raised.
“It’s… Beautiful,” I said, thinking about what it represented. “Do you like it?”
“I like it even more now that it’s on you,” he said before squirting more lotion directly over the brand.
He was tender and gentle, massaging the lotion into my scarred skin. I felt surprisingly loved, cherished. Every gentle caress reinforced that feeling.
“I was a good calf for you,” I muttered, pathetically, craving his presence, his happiness.
“You were a lovingly perfect calf,” Carter assured me.
His praise turned me on so much. It didn’t feel cheap.
It felt earned. I had burned my skin for him, but it had landed me his sincere admiration.
I sighed as his hands worked higher, massaging the small of my back.
I imagined him dragging me down the bed, spreading my legs, and finally fucking me.
He didn’t. He just kept touching me, ignoring my wetness slicking my thighs.
“Carter. I want you,” I admitted.
“You need to be patient, my little calf,” he teased.
“But I need it, please.”
Carter moved away, dipping under the IV line to place a kiss on my back and sigh. “I understand. You were very good. I’ll reward you, just not right now.”
“But, what if I-”
He leaned down and, to my surprise, he kissed me.
On the lips, ever so tenderly. My eyes closed, my heart fluttered, and I felt like a teenager in love, or how I imagine that a teenager in love would feel.
His lips molded to mine again and again, then he teased my bottom lip with the tip of his tongue.
Something needy, dark, and fearful opened in my chest. He had to be using me.
Playing with me. No man could love me, let alone such a man like him.
I tried to push those thoughts back and sink deeper into the kiss.
I couldn’t, not fully and as I tensed, he pulled back.
“Did I… offend you?” Carter asked while studying my face, “I should not have kissed you?”
It was cute that the man who kidnapped and imprisoned me suddenly worried about consent, but I shook my head.
“No, that’s not it, I just don’t know you, Carter.”
“You know me better than you think. I’m not as deep as I may seem, Tiffany.”
“I doubt that. Regardless, can you just tell me about yourself.”
“I suppose.” He pulled a chair next to my bed to sit. “What do you want to know?”
“Why none of the girls have a mark like I do?”
“Because you are mine. They are farm property, but you … you’re special. You’re my calf, not Sunshine Sanctuary’s.”
“Yours?”
“All mine.”
I nearly blushed at that. His, special, important. I shook my head to clear my mind and tried to remember more basic questions. “What’s your, uh, favorite color?”
“Black.”
“No, it isn’t!”
“It is!” He argued with a slight smile.
“Why are you always wearing white, then?”
“Because that’s my second favorite color,” Carter says, “All black would be horrible in the sun.”
“Oh. Then why black?”
“Because it’s all colors in one.”
“Why white?”
“Because it balances black out. Yin and yang.”
“Ok, ok.” I chuckled at our rapid back and forth. “What is your favorite movie?”
“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” he said after a moment of hesitation.
“Alright, cowboy, tell me the truth.”
“Fine. It’s The Goonies.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. I saw it when I was a kid and I never stopped liking it.”
“Fine. Why do you like me?” I smirked.
“I’ll pass on that one,” he answered.
“What? No! You can’t pass!”
“I just did.” He shrugged.
“You are impossible!” I huffed.
We both laughed and shared a rare moment of intimacy and ease. I thought for a moment longer. What other innocent question could I ask this man?
“What’s your favorite food?”
Carter paused. His smile was gone. I didn’t understand, but he shook his head and, without explaining or answering, he got up.
“You should sleep. The mark is almost healed. Tonight you can come sleep in our room. I’ll meet you there.”
‘Our room?’ Our? I was stunned. I watched Carter leave, then slowly turned, careful not to sit on my IV. After such a long time, days he had said, dozing off and on, my body simply didn’t want to stay awake. Yet, horny and thrilled, I repeated it in my head.
‘Our room.’ I was going to sleep in his room with him. Would we cuddle? Would he finally fuck me? God, I fucking wished.