A Welcome Torment

I awoke violently, feeling a harsh bite in my wrists and below my chest. Frantic, I saw I was bound to a plain but sturdy wooden chair, my arms pinned closely to the chair’s arms, my legs to its legs, and my chest to its frame.

I was wearing comfortable athletic shorts and a loose t-shirt, my clothes, but not what I went to sleep in. The last thing I remembered, I went to bed at home, after staying up late to finish a few drafts for work.

I now found myself in what looked like an abandoned warehouse, huge and sparse with old-looking crates and a few duffel bags settled nearby. Most out of place, was a brand new mattress, still wrapped in store plastic, that would have been set on the dusty and dirty ground had it not been for the wide, new tarp that lay underneath.

In looking at the bed away to my side, I finally noticed that there was a figure some distance perfectly behind me, seated in a chair similar to mine. I craned my neck to see a woman, in a fitted black suit watching me silently. She was not what I was expecting on top of everything else. She had blonde hair in a long pixie cut and a serious face. She was just watching me, the corners of her mouth pulling upward when I realized she was there.

“Not going to call for help?” She asked. She almost sounded curious.

I must have still been in shock, numb from the strangeness and fear of everything. I hadn’t said a word since I woke up, and I couldn’t find anything to say now. Her voice was too smooth, it spilled over me, running down my sides. Her tone was worse. It made me feel stuck, like wax. I forgot I was bound.

She gently lifted out of her chair, and approached me, her face completely unchanged. The sound of heels against concrete jabbed at me. My neck strained trying to see her. She slowly circled me in a wide arc, soaking in my attention. We never once broke eye contact. I didn’t even blink. She stood a few feet away still, but all I could see was the icy white in her blue eyes.

“Normally,” She said, shattering me, “you call out, hoping someone will hear and come save you.” She had crossed the distance between us and now stood above me, regarding me with her head still slightly cocked.

I couldn’t tell if she was talking to herself or to me, but it felt like I should say something. “Where am I?” I managed.

Her face finally opened into a full smile. It was surprising, but it felt like it shouldn’t have been.

“Somewhere safe, isolated.” Her eyebrows raised slightly. “I can’t tell you any more than that.”

“How long have I been…here?” I felt pathetic, shriveling up before her.

She looked thoughtful for a moment, her eyes still not leaving me. “A matter of days. You will be here for a few more. Not likely more than a week.”

The certainty that came with her statements shook me. It was impossible that they were false.

I did manage to maintain some of my own logic, even as this woman was pulling it out and replacing it with her own. “I don’t know why I ask, you could be lying.” I spoke, passionless.

She almost seemed to take it personally, her face showing a touch of hurt or concern. She leaned down and reached out one hand to the back of my chair, bending so her face hovered just above mine.

“I’ve admitted when I cannot tell you the truth. I only lie by omission.” She gently touched my chin with an upturned hand, asking me to look at her.

She smelled faintly of something hot and spicy. Cinnamon or cloves. I felt physically pulled toward her when I inhaled, and left gasping on exhale, like I had been choked. Her deep v-neck suit jacket framed an unbuttoned white button up, which was in no way attempting to conceal her. A short necklace, strung with a simple gold ring, swayed in front of my eyes. I wanted to touch her, to be wrapped up and held by this utterly powerful being.

My mind was no longer my own. I looked up toward her face and tried to kiss her. She artfully caught my lips with her cheek, and I felt her smile.

“Hm, definitely no more than a few days.” I felt her gently push me away. I was swimming in want. She continued, “But first, we speak.”

She walked away to retrieve her chair and planted it a short distance in front of mine. She sank back into it, and looked unchanged from the first I saw of her. Maybe she moved magically from behind me to before me and I had only imagined the rest.

She felt just barely out of reach, by only inches. I felt drawn to her, and agonized over what became miles between us. It wasn’t the kind of torment I was expecting when I first woke up. She watched me for a few moments, and I was happy to be looked at.

“Would you like to know why you are here?” She spoke, reigniting something in me. I wanted to please her.

“Yes, maam.” I felt stupid saying maam; she couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me, if she was older at all. If she thought it was strange she didn’t show it.

“This is all happening because of something you wrote.”

“Something I wrote?” I was a freelance writer, mostly with opinion pieces and tuzla escort reviews; people liked how I wrote about things. Usually people read my work because they liked how I thought, not because they agreed with me, but I couldn’t imagine anything of mine making someone angry enough to pay for a…whatever this was.

She nodded. “Something you wrote has threatened some of the asset value of a particular-“

“What was it?” I asked, suddenly realizing a lot more freedom than I had felt at any point since I awoke. “What did I write?”

She looked surprised and, just under the surface, irritated at the interruption. “We’ll discuss the details at the end of our time together. For now-“

“Who did I offend? Who could I have pissed off so deeply they would…would-”

Her irritation was no longer hidden. Her body language changed completely. This no longer felt like a conversation, but an interrogation. At some point her voice had changed. It was still firm, but before it was firm like being held. Now it was firm like stone.

“Much will remain anonymous to you. You will only know what is relevant to your time with me. After you write a retraction of your work-“

“I’m not writing a retraction! I won’t take back my word because I was threatened by some…sexy…dominatrix on behalf of a shadow…person…” I was flustered, but I finally felt in control of myself. I wanted to keep that moment, and not be sucked back into her. Self-control felt intoxicating.

Her irritation vanished under an utterly neutral face and she was quiet for what felt like an eerily long time. I started to feel uncomfortable again and remembered that I was still tied to a chair.

She stood up, unbuttoned her jacket and let it slide off one arm, taking it into the other, revealing that her button-up was sleeveless. As she lay her jacket over the back of the chair, I saw muscular arms she had taken some care to hide away. She continued to button up her blouse and again regard me fully.

“This is for the best. You’ve seen that this can be kind and gentle, now you’ll see that this will hurt, too.” She walked toward me, and I felt a fear more primal than I could understand. Some part of me was expecting her to kill me.

Instead, she walked around my chair as I flinched, gripped the back and side of my chair, and flipped all of me forward. For the briefest moment that I was falling, I was only in awe of the person who could literally throw my life upside down. Then I hit the ground. My knees and face scraped deeply against the harsh concrete, and I cried out in an intense pain. I was sobbing, but I could still see her calmly return to her chair and sit, cross-legged, watching me.

We stayed like that, it felt like hours. My knees were bleeding and crying out from the weight of me. My face was scratched and I could feel the ground digging into my skin. She seemed perfectly composed, ambivalent as I lay there helpless at her feet.

She eventually decided that I had taken enough. She stood and, just as effortlessly as before, picked me up by the chair I was bound to, and righted me, setting me down just in front of her. Without saying a word, she walked over to one of a few duffle bags, rummaged for a moment, and returned with some bandages and a small bottle. She knelt down and applied both to my knees.

The pain was sharp, but most of what I felt was exhaustion. It had all been so much. She finished with my knees and sat down in the chair now directly in front of me. Bending forward, she supported my chin with one hand and gently brushed my battered face with a damp cloth in the other. It smelled chemical, but felt soothing.

“This will numb the wounds and help them heal. We have to finish our conversation, but for now you need to rest.”

Her voice was lighter than ever, like falling asleep when you’re trying not to.

“Who…are you? Why are you doing this?”

My head sagged as I gently fell asleep. I didn’t even remember her drugging me.

***

I woke up, slowly this time. Suddenly remembering everything, I recognized where I was and started to subtly look around. If I was being watched again, I didn’t want to signal that I was awake.

She had dressed me, again in my own clothes: a favorite pair of jeans and a tank top. It was what I wore at home when I had nowhere to be.

I was in the same vast room as before, this time laid out on the bed. The plastic had been removed, and it looked like the bed had been made, with new sheets and soft pillows. The bed seemed even more out of place, carefully dressed in the middle of a dusty warehouse.

I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. The high windows were covered and the only light was from newer fluorescent lamps, glowing a pale and constant white. I didn’t see a door or the woman from before in the direction that I was laid out, and I didn’t want to risk anything by rolling over or looking around.

I tested my limbs to see how much I could move. My body was still numb from whatever she drugged me with, but I started to feel some life come back and tuzla escort bayan I could sense the plastic ties that tightly wrapped up my ankles and wrists. My cheek and knees still stung, but not badly.

After a few minutes of hearing nothing, I decide to risk rolling over and looking around. I didn’t sense the woman anywhere, just a faint whiff of her perfume. It did seem that there was a bit more unpacked; an assortment of…somethings lay scattered over a faraway crate. I gently craned my neck to see when I heard her behind me.

“You can’t be curious and sneaky at the same time.”

I rolled over in surprise. She had forgone the jacket today, wearing the necklace from before over a tight maroon blouse. Sleeveless. A part of me groaned in appreciation of being treated to the sight of her arms again. I remembered that last time I saw them, and I managed to stir up some caution and reservation.

She approached the bed and, seeing me tense up, sat on the far corner, giving me a wide berth and the same almost smile.

“We should talk.”

“Do I have a choice?”

She was stoic. “Why don’t you eat first? You’ve been here awhile; you must be hungry.” She gently nodded past me, and I turned to see a tray laid out at the head of the other side of the bed. I had been so distracted by what was laid out further away, I hadn’t noticed.

Blushing from embarrassment and anger, I turned back.

“Is it drugged?”

Her eyebrows lowered in a mild confusion.

“It’s drugged, isn’t it? You’re going to rape me. You’re going to rape me and torture me and hurt me until I give you what you want.” I tried to feel like fighting, but I was holding back tears, finally realizing what this was. My wrists started straining uncomfortably against the plastic ties.

Her face hadn’t changed. “Yes I am.”

She hadn’t denied it. The tears stopped welling. Somehow knowing for sure, seeing the certainty of it in her, wasn’t worse.

“To be more precise, I’m going to coerce you, seduce you, hurt you, and dominate you. After that, you will do as you are told, because I tell you.”

She laid it out like it was so simple, like it didn’t make me feel spinning and lost.

“You’re going to…seduce me into doing…what someone else wants?”

“Yes.” She smiled. It was small but genuine. “But first, we’re going to talk.” Her smile faded, all business. “You’re going to eat, ask questions, and prepare for the next few days. They will be…intense. But until we start, your wrists and ankles are the worst that will happen to you.”

The plastic was starting to bite uncomfortably into my skin as she said it, but it certainly wasn’t torture. I took another look away from her, to the tray at my side. Sourdough toast, a small dish of fig jam and coffee, without cream or sugar. It was the same thing I ate everyday for breakfast.

“This is-“

“Your favorite.”

“A last meal.”

She hesitated. “For awhile.”

I let the despair flood in for a moment, grateful to be feeling something I could understand. I briefly considered escaping, now that I had my body and mind back, but decided against it. I remembered the way she looked into me the last time I made her angry. If she needed to hurt me, she would.

I meekly ate, and then we sat in the quiet, on opposite corners of a king size bed.

“I’ll write the retraction.” I said, without looking up. She said nothing.

“Whatever it is, just tell me what to say and I’ll write it. I’ll take back whatever you want.”

After a moment, she stood and walked around the bed to reach me. She sat next to me and I stiffened. She carefully set one hand at the base of my head. I was her prisoner, but she moved my head so tenderly into her shoulder. I started to cry.

“Oh, Dana.” Her voice had almost no inflection. “No you won’t.”

I blinked into her neck. “What? Yes I will, I promise.” I pushed back to look at her, a strange desperation reaching at me.

“No.” She said, with a familiar rigidity. Her hand was still on the back of my head. Her pinky finger curled at my neck. “What did I say?”

She must have seen the confusion I felt come to my face.

“Did I tell you to write a retraction?”

After a moment, she flicked the back of my ear with her thumb, prompting me. “Before, you said-“

“Am I telling you, right now, to write a retraction?”

“…no?”

“No. And what did I say when I sat down? Just a minute ago?” There was no sternness to her voice, just certainty.

“You said we should talk.”

“That’s right. Right now, I’m telling you to relax. Ask any questions that you have, and when you are ready, we’ll begin.”

It all started flooding back. Her scent. Her body. Her strength. The way she could move me, command me. Everything of me was powerless to anything of her. I wanted her. I wanted her to approve of me, so badly. It made me tremble.

“Are you going…going to kill me?

Her face laughed for her. “No, I’m not going to kill you.”

“But you will hurt me?”

“Yes, I will.”

I escort tuzla felt the tension in my body.

“I will make you want to hurt first, if that is any consolation. It will feel good.”

Something leapt into my chest; it wasn’t my heart.

She waited, and watched. Waited for more questions that I couldn’t think of. It was overpowering. I wanted her to do…something to me.

“Ok.”

“Ok?”

I could only nod.

She slowly leaned back, resting her weight on her arms, watching as I reacted to seeing the stretch of her muscle. She cocked her head at me. “Kiss me.”

I blinked, but slowly scooted toward her. She had no reaction to watching me awkwardly clamber to her while having my arms and legs bound in front of me; she only watched. I stopped a few inches from her, my resolve suddenly tested, and then gingerly moved my lips into hers.

It was a religious experience. I felt humbled by her. In a moment, I was nothing and she was everything. I had never known a touch, even a kiss to have that power. It was like she pulled the life from me, and filled me with hers.

My hands badly wanted to feel her. Would she want me to touch her? I gently grazed her blouse below her chest with a few fingers. She responded by taking my hands and pressing them to the bed. Having my answer, I pushed down, using that leverage to lean further into her. I offered her my lips and my tongue, and she took everything I gave, gently pulling me in with the love of her mouth.

The passionate grasp of her kisses turned to gentle, persistent pecks and her lips started to roam across toward my earlobe, hesitating only over my raw cheek. Her body made me cold, her voice in my ear made me shiver.

“Good girl. Bend over the bed.”

I moved to hurriedly follow her direction, nestling my waist into the edge of the mattress. We were so low to the ground that my knees hung just above the floor. She noticed, and took one of the bed’s plush pillows and pressed it into the tarp beneath the bed for me to kneel on.

“Is it painful to kneel?” She asked, seeing me wince.

“Yes…it’s ok, I can take it.”

“Good girl.” I loved letting that phrase run over me.

She took a moment to caress my legs before standing up and walking toward what I had been desperate to see earlier, returning after a few moments with something heavy that she rested on my hips.

“Eyes forward.” She said before I could turn and see what she left.

My head skipped over any orders from my brain, following hers instead.

“If that falls, if you turn, I’ll double what I use it for.”

She walked away and I could hear her rummaging and setting out whatever was in the few duffle bags behind me. I tried to sense the object by its weight and balance, shifting my hips slightly. It was heavy, like a block of wood. The weight was-

It clattered on the floor next to me. I turned to stare at it, horrified. Then I saw what it was: a dark, wooden paddle. It gleamed and grinned at me.

I heard a muffled “That was fast.” behind me and jerked my head back to the bed.

She lightly picked the dark thing off of the ground and roughly forced it between my legs just above the knee. My legs shifted apart, just straining against the plastic ties on my ankles. Then I remembered. “I’ll double…”

I felt it in the same second that I realized it was coming, an ungodly crack against my backside. I gasped my shock into the bed, grunting in exertion and endurance. It felt primal. It felt good.

More came. It seemed like she was trying to burn through my pants, sear through my body, reach past me to my core.

After a few more blows, I crumpled, my body tried to crawl away, into the floor. The paddle set its hard and cruel body against my back, pulling me away from escape. It burned heat into me as I clung to the ground.

“Please.” I cried, tears burned out of me.

“Please?”

“Please no more.”

“We aren’t finished, Dana. This won’t end until we are.”

I gasped through choked breath, “How-how much more?”

“That depends on you. But there is more.”

I curled up in anguish. I didn’t know what to do.

A hand appeared on my shoulder. I jumped in surprise, but it stayed planted. It moved gingerly to the side of my neck, but my eyes were fixed on the floor.

“Push further.” A voice said. It was hers, but it was under still water. The panic in my heart slowed, anchored by her hand, her voice.

“Just breathe. Think of nothing else.” I did.

My hands pushed me up from the ground and back into the bed. My body at least, free from my mind, was certain and sure.

“Are you ready?”

My head nodded for me. The paddle appeared on the bed next to me, but I didn’t look. Hands reached around my front, undid the buttons of my jeans but I didn’t look. I let them slide away. A voice swirled into me.

“I told you I would double your punishment and I will. We’re halfway done.”

A searing crack against skin made my body gasp and heave. Halfway. Another one broke me up, I tried not to bend, halfway done.

I was breathing heavily, but steady, curled up over her. When she had finished spanking me, she gently pulled me onto the bed, and set my head down in her lap. She was stroking my hair.