I had no idea how many days passed. There was no way for me to keep track—no clock, no window to see outside. Nothing. But what I did know with increasing certainty was I had winded up straight in hell. The man who kept bringing me food, making me kneel like an animal at his feet and spanking my backside with a hard slap whenever I hesitated—he was the devil himself. He was cruel, and worst of all, the thing I hated most was that he left me alone in my prison with nothing but the god damned silence.

I couldn’t stand it. No sounds of cars in the distance or birds chirping outside. Not even footsteps or the low murmur of voices to suggest I was anything other than completely alone.

I’d debated provoking him over and over again, just to give him a reason to stay, a reason to talk. Hell, the sound of his breathing was better than the utter nothingness that surrounded me when he left.

During some meals, he would ask me things, questions like my favorite book and my favorite movie, and so long as I handed over whatever he wanted to know, he kept asking questions, staving off the silence I knew was coming. But the moment he ventured into personal territory and I refused to answer, he left. And the world was silent again.

The shower helped a little. At least, it did at first. But an hour or two of the monotonous sound of running water and it seemed to blur right into the nothingness. I couldn’t keep going like this. It was going to drive me mad.

Maybe that’s what he was trying to do. At first, when those men had stripped me and the devil had spanked me with his belt, I’d assumed what he wanted was sexual in nature. But now, even though I was forced to remain naked all the time, I wasn’t so sure. In the times he was here, feeding me like a dog and making my blood boil with anger and humiliation, I thought maybe what he wanted was a pet. But then he’d leave and wouldn’t return until it was time to feed me again. Who the hell only wanted a pet to feed it?

So, all I could conclude was that he was merely feeding me to keep me alive so he could watch me slowly go insane.

It was almost time for another feeding. I could tell by the way my stomach had begun to rumble. He must come at regular intervals to have my stomach so well-trained. It irritated me that any part of me had come to submit to him, but my stomach had willingly gotten on board that train.

No other part of me had though. It was still a humiliating struggle every time to go down on my knees, to open my mouth and let him feed me like an infant. The worst was when he did touch me, not sexually—aside from swatting my backside, he never did that—but intimately.

He would stroke my hair or caress my cheek. And what made it so horrible was that not once had I ever pulled away. His touch felt…good and I hated that. But after so much time with no sound, no new sights, no anything, my body seemed desperate for sensation. And the touch of my captor’s hand against my face was better than the nothingness. I was ashamed to admit it, but there were times when I’d secretly wished he’d touch me more, in new places. A hand on my arm, or his fingers on the back of my neck—new sensations to hold me over during the times when there was none.

Still, I wanted to scream at him—for humiliating me, for touching me, for not touching me, for asking me things and never sharing any answers of his own—and I nearly had so many times, but I held myself in check, knowing at any time he could stop coming back. The food would be gone and I’d starve to death. Much longer here though, and that might not be such a terrible thing.

I heard the slide of the lock and the door opened. It was him. Of course, it was him. Nobody else in the world existed anymore, not in my prison. I was irritated—more than usual—probably due to the compounding effect of so much time here.

He wheeled in the cart and closed the door behind him, and I watched him from the corner of the room. I’d long since abandoned the bathroom. The shower did little to curb the silence anymore. And at least the other room’s carpet wasn’t as hard against my backside as the cool, tiled floor in the bathroom.

I’d thought for a while I could gauge the approximate time of day by the type of food he would bring, but then he’d brought breakfast two times in a row, and two dinner-like meals after that, blowing that theory out of the water. It was the same foods though—three different meals rotated in some random order.

Crepes again, I could tell, when he’d lifted the lid. Maybe it was all he could cook, but I’d gladly take a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for a break from what had once seemed like sinfully delicious food.

He left the tray against the wall near the door and retrieved the chair from where he’d left it the day before. This was new.

He sat down against the wall and eyed me expectantly. I pushed away from my corner slowly and rose up onto my knees.

He nodded, but I was confused. If he planned to start throwing food at me and having me catch it in my mouth, he could kiss that idea goodbye. It was bad enough I had to kneel. I wasn’t going to do tricks, too. And as much as I hated to admit it, if he was going to stay over there, if he was going to stop touching me, I’d rather him just stop bringing me food, too.

I’d never imagined how dependent on sensation I was, especially when the only consistent in my life—my father—never touched me. He didn’t hug me, or pat me on the back. He never kissed me good night. But there were always at least other sensations—the sound of his TV murmuring the news or some cheesy sitcom; the smell of the alcohol he drank or the pungent aroma of his cigarettes.

And then at work, there were other sensations—people talking, the photo machine whirring, the scent of perfumes, colognes, and food from the restaurant down the street. There were children to watch playing along the sidewalk and the brush of the breeze against my skin when I walked home.

Here, there was nothing. If there had ever been a scent in the room, I’d long-since acclimated to it. And there was nothing else. No people, no sounds, no scents. There wasn’t even a single book to read.

My books—I missed my books. I had hundreds of them, most of them passed on to me from customers in the store, like Mrs. Jenkins, who forever saw me with my nose in a book. Mysteries, romances, crime thrillers, biographies, even an old nursing textbook from Mrs. Jenkin’s college years. What I wouldn’t give for any one of them now.

But the only sensation I was allowed was my captor’s brief touch. I hated him; I hated him even more for making me crave something I despised, but I did crave it. If it was gone now, if he wasn’t even going to touch me during the brief time he was here, then it was only fair he put me out of my misery—not that I expected him to be fair.

“Come here,” he called, startling me out of my dark thoughts. I hesitated for a moment, but if it meant we could circumvent the whole trick-performing plan and he wasn’t intending to deprive me of the sensation I desperately needed, then it probably wasn’t so bad.

I moved to stand, but he shook his head and I stopped. What did he want then? It didn’t take me long to figure it out. Kneeling was no longer enough. He wanted me to crawl.

No. I wasn’t that hungry, and it really was ridiculous to be so dependent on his touch. And if he retaliated by making me skip a few meals, I’d get over it. And I’d find some way to deal with it when he took away his touch, too.

So, I lifted my chin higher and shook my head.

He sighed and stood up. I thought he was going to bring over the tray of food or else leave, but he approached without it.

“I have been more than patient,” he said when he stood in front of me. “I’ve been lenient, giving you the opportunity to make the necessary changes to your character on your own. But you’re not going to do that, are you, Pet?”

Necessary changes? Of course, I wasn’t going to change for him. Had he really thought I would? I shook my head, apparently not quite brave enough to spit out the words.

“That’s what I thought,” he said with a sigh. It sounded like a sigh of relief though, not resignation, and that confused me.

Before I could respond, he yanked me up off the floor and flung me over his shoulder. As he started toward the bed, I realized I’d been foolish to let myself forget about that first day with him, when he’d pulled off his belt and spanked me with it, shackled to the bed. Is that what he had planned to do now?

But when he reached the bed, he didn’t put me on the floor like I’d expected. Instead, he sat down and pulled me into his lap. I struggled weakly to escape, but I was so confused I didn’t really know what to do. He held me tight with one arm while the other stroked my cheek, and I sighed inside. A change from the nothingness. I welcomed it, though I was careful to keep my expression from showing it.

After a moment though, I couldn’t help but lean into it, absorbing the sensation after too much time without. But this new position made me painfully aware of my state of undress, somehow more potent now on his lap than it had been on the floor.

“I knew it wouldn’t be enough, Pet, but I had to give you this time to realize you’re never going to become what you need to be without my help.”

What I needed to be? What was he talking about? Somehow I doubted anything he could do could be constituted as help.

“You have to let go of this stubbornness and pride,” he said as he continued to stroke my cheek, and then moving lower, across my jaw, down to my neck.

My body hummed in response to the new sensation. He hadn’t touched me there before, and it seemed to awaken a plethora of nerve endings. Through my haze of sensation bliss—as wrong as it might be—I was vaguely aware of his words. The tone of his voice was soothing, particularly heaped upon the touch of his fingers, but there was an undercurrent running through him that was slowly breaking through the haze. I knew somehow that it should be setting me more on edge than usual.

And then there was an expectant silence as if he was waiting for me to say something. Was I supposed to apologize? Agree with him? Did he really think I was going to do either? I sat there stiffly, trying to ignore the sensations that came from where he was touching me.

“All right, let’s get started, shall we?” he said, leaving me just as confused as I’d been since the moment he’d come in and sat down across the room.

All of a sudden though, he flipped me over, laying me out on his lap. I flailed, trying to scramble down onto the floor, but he held me tight against him, pressing the small of my back down firmly, which pressed my most private place hard against his thigh. A sizzle of a different kind of sensation spread out from there, and I flailed harder, twice as panicked, and infinitely more disturbed than I’d been when my body had responded to his touch on my face or even my neck.

But he just pressed down harder, almost as if he was deliberately trying to grind my clit against his thigh. And whether it was intentional or not, that was precisely what he was doing, and I needed him to stop. It was wrong. Disgusting. How could my body be responding like this to anything he did?

I felt his other hand against my backside, grazing over my skin. It amplified the sensations between my thighs and made me want to press firmly against his hand. I sobbed at my own depravity. What the hell was wrong with me? What had I become in my desperate need for sensation?

His hand disappeared and I let out a small sigh of relief. But before the breath had escaped my lungs, his hand came back down with a stinging slap.

I cried out in response to the pain, and to something else. It was sick, and it made me question if I’d already taken a leap into insanity. There was no other explanation for it. How else could it be possible that his cruel slap could send a jolt of arousal through me?

He spanked me again, this one harder than the last, but the response was the same.

Again, and tears began to trickle down my cheeks. I clenched my thighs tight, fighting against the ridiculous sensations that had begun to set my sex on fire. “Stop. Please, stop,” I cried, but he ignored me, spanking me several more times in quick succession.

I struggled to get away, but it only rubbed my clit against his thigh, making it worse. So, I fought to remain perfectly still as he rained down another onslaught of stinging slaps.

It didn’t help. The fire had already been set. Nothing would put it out, and every slap and every rub only made it burn brighter. What the hell was wrong with me?

Eventually, he was done—twenty-five slaps? Thirty? Every one of them had added fuel to the fire, and now I was throbbing, desperate for anything that would quench the fire.

Instead of pushing me off, he held me there and rubbed my stinging flesh. The need to press myself harder against him was nearly overwhelming. I took slow, deep breaths, but somehow the oxygen in my lungs wound its way through my body to between my thighs and fanned the flames brighter.

His fingers skimmed down the backs of my thighs—a new sensation that shot directly to my throbbing clit. But on his way back up, he brushed over my exposed sex and his fingers stopped moving.

I redoubled the effort to get free, but his hand on my back held me there.

One finger stroked me, and I sobbed hysterically. His finger had glided far too easily, and that meant there was no denying what his spanking had done to me.

“You are very unique, aren’t you, Pet,” he said as he glided back and forth across my lips.

“Let me go. Please, just let me go,” I cried over and over again, but of course, he ignored me. His torment wouldn’t be complete until he’d turned my whole body against me.

He slid a finger to my clit and my body jerked against him. No matter how much I flailed, or how much I didn’t want my body to respond, I was helpless to stop it as he started to rub the sensitive bundle of nerves. He moved slowly at first as if he were testing my body’s response.

I kicked and tried to reach back to swipe at him, but all I met with was air. He knew exactly what he was doing because he had me pinned perfectly. His finger increased its pace on my clit and I couldn’t stifle the moan that traitorously escaped from my lips.

He chuckled, and I couldn’t possibly have been more mortified. He found it amusing, the way my body had betrayed me.

“Stop resisting, Pet. It will be over quicker if you don’t fight it.”

I knew what he was saying was true. All my effort was doing little more than slowing my body’s ascent. Unless he stopped, it was going to happen soon. I could feel the coil winding up tight inside me. But I couldn’t just stop. I couldn’t be a willing participant in my own humiliation.

So, I continued to fight him, clenching my body and gritting my teeth against the spin of the coil, winding faster, tighter by the second.

He increased his pace even more, determined to overcome my resistance, and I almost gave in. God, how I wanted to give in. The sensations were overwhelming, the first bit of real pleasure since I’d ended up in this wretched place.

He moved faster, his finger gliding easily, soaked in my own juices. I was so close. So damn close. No. Yes. No. No! I had to fight. But as I neared the top, my body took over. It refused to fight, to resist. All that existed was his finger on my clit. But then his other hand was on my ass, squeezing my stinging flesh. God, it hurt, and it felt so good as if the pain and pleasure had combined to create a new sensation—one I hadn’t known existed.

I writhed against him, and the moans I’d fought so hard against turned to cries. “Please,” I cried, but I wasn’t begging him to stop. I was pleading for something else, for the release that hovered on the brink.

And then I was toppling over. I’d asked, and he’d delivered, springing free the coil that had wound tight inside me and sending out waves of blissful pleasure from my sex.

I sagged against him as the waves receded, and only realized then that with his hand on my backside, that meant he hadn’t been holding me down. I could have scrambled away, but I hadn’t. I’d laid there, writhing, on fire and begging for the orgasm he’d given me.

I did scramble down off his lap then, and he didn’t stop me. I ran across the room to the corner—my corner.

He didn’t demand that I come back. He didn’t even laugh at me like I’d been expecting him to do. In fact, he seemed to ignore me completely as he turned his attention to the tray of food. He seemed relaxed as he sliced the food and began to eat, but there was a tension that radiated from him, all the way across the room.

It wasn’t anger—what did he have to be angry about? He’d humiliated me more than I thought was possible for a person to be. He was probably quite pleased with himself at the moment. Still, the tension remained through bite after bite, and eventually, I recognized it. I couldn’t not. Not when it had been the same tension that had held my body in its grip when he’d had his wretched fingers on me. Spanking me, or turning my body against me, or some combination of both had turned him on.

Without my permission, my eyes darted to the fly of his pants, looking for confirmation. And the massive bulge I found there left no doubt.

So, this was sexual for him. Then why had he spent so much time tormenting me with silence? I’d dismissed the possibility after what must have been days of near-total solitude. And it wasn’t that I wanted it—I didn’t want this to be sexual, no matter how much my body had just proved otherwise. But I needed to understand, to know what exactly my future held in store. Or maybe I just needed to think about something—anything—other than how my body had just turned against me and responded to the devil’s touch just moments before. Trying desperately to fight back more tears, it was easier to try to analyze him than to turn the looking glass inward.

It dawned on me then what he was doing. He was eating my food. When it was gone, there would be no more until he returned. And I had run back to the very spot this had started. If I wanted food, I would have to crawl over to him—to the man who had taken humiliation to a whole new level—and kneel before him like a good pet. But I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to see the knowledge in his eyes of what I’d let happen.

No, I would rather starve.

He finished my meal while I huddled in the corner. I tried not to look at him, but sick curiosity kept drawing my eyes back. I’d never seen one before—the thick bulge in his pants. I’d seen drawings in health class and had learned that a penis increased in size when a man was aroused. But I’d never imagined it could grow that much.

Against my will, the image came to mind of him trying to force that enormous bulge inside me. I cringed, thinking I would certainly split in two. But the thought appealed to the sick, depraved girl inside me, the one who had writhed against his fingers and moaned in pleasure despite how wrong it was.

What the hell had he done to me? Before this, I’d never…well…there’d been the occasional strange dream, the kind that would wake me, sweaty and aching, and disgusted with myself for conjuring the dark scenes.

But they had been dreams—nightmares by any normal standard. And this was reality—bitter, harsh reality. I couldn’t simply wake up from this nightmare and shame-facedly relieve the ache before drifting back to an innocent slumber. But maybe that’s all this was. My body was simply responding the way it had in those dreams. I’d rewarded it often enough for it, rubbing hard and fast to the last snatches of the dream until my body convulsed with its relief.

It didn’t make it any less humiliating now, but it helped to explain why I’d responded the way I had.

“You are very unique, Pet,” he said, drawing my attention back as he rose from the chair. And then he left with the tray.

I debated going to check around the chair, pathetically hoping he’d left some kind of scraps behind, but I knew he hadn’t. It would be hours before I had the chance to eat again, and who knew what horrible thing he’d make me do for it.

It seemed I no longer paid for things with money—of which I’d had precious little, to begin with. The price he demanded was my pride. My humiliation bought me food, but what happened when he’d extracted every bit of it from me? Then what would he demand in payment?

I closed my eyes and shifted tighter into my corner. The carpet rubbed against my abused bottom, providing a fresh reminder of what had happened and making the tears in my eyes well over. Maybe it would be better to get it over with—to stop resisting, stop trying to hold onto the pride and dignity he was just going to take away from me in the end.

I’d been right about this being sexual for him. And I’d been right that he’d been trying to slowly drive me insane. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to stop until he turned the girl he’d taken into nothing but a complacent shell he could use any way he wanted. Why try to stop it from happening when it was going to happen eventually?

I breathed a deep sigh, trying to cleanse the fight from my body. It held on tight. I could feel it wrapped tight around somewhere in the center of me, woven into the fabric of my being. I kept breathing, trying to disentangle each strand.

My eyes grew heavy, and I didn’t fight them. Every moment of sleep had been a struggle, but now it seemed like the exhaustion had finally caught up with me. I welcomed it, willing it to help me slip away. To escape the pain, the uncertainty, the humiliation…even if only for a little while. I would struggle to offer it all up later. I would worry about handing over whatever pride I had left later. Later.

I drifted off quickly, but he followed me there. In my dream, he teased and tormented me. He tied me up and he hurt me. And he held me down with my arms pinned above my head and he rammed his massive cock deep inside me.

When I awoke, I was sweaty, and the aching throb between my thighs was all too familiar.

But when I looked up, he was there. He was staring down at me with an amused grin on his too-handsome face. My cheeks flamed, remembering the scene in my dream and wondering what clues my sleeping body had given him about what had been going on in my head. Had I moaned? Begged? Touched myself?

“Hello, Pet. Sweet dreams?” he queried with an expression that said he knew too much. “Kneel,” he said and I struggled up onto my knees, hoping he’d abandon the subject and feed me. I’d gladly crawl all around the room if he’d just leave the topic alone.

Instead, though, he crouched down in front of me and he slipped his hand between my thighs.

I tried to back up, but my corner gave me nowhere to go.

He didn’t run his fingers along me this time but shoved a finger inside me. Oh god. Sensation. Too damn much sensation. On top of the dream that still clung to my body, his touch was too much.

“Hmm, very sweet dreams it seems,” he said as he removed his finger and raised it to his lips.

My wetness glistened on his finger and I squeezed my eyes shut as he slipped it into his mouth. And then I felt him pressing his finger against my lips, trying to force it inside. I kept them closed until a low growl rumbled up from his chest in warning. Reluctantly, I let him in, and I tasted myself on the invading digit. It wasn’t crepes, or either of the other meals he fed me. It was something different. New. Earthy, with a soft sweetness like honey. The new sensation fed my depraved brain.

“Tell me about your dream,” he persisted.

“I-I don’t want to,” I said, finding it difficult to concoct some mundane dream with the man who’d starred in it in front of me and my body taut with unwelcome arousal.

“You know what you want is irrelevant,” He told me. “You can tell me, or you can fight me on it and I’ll strap you to the bed and whip you until you do.”

Something told me he wasn’t bluffing. “You,” I blurted out. “…you were inside me,” I confessed miserably.

He looked surprised—I’d actually surprised him—but it was short-lived. “If you wanted me to fuck you, Pet, why didn’t you just say so?” he asked, but he was just taunting me. Even if I did want it—which I didn’t—if I had asked him for it, he would have denied me just to torment me more.

“I-I don’t.”

“I don’t think your body agrees with you,” He said as he slipped his finger back inside me. I tried to squirm away. I really did try. Or at least, I wanted to. But it felt so good; like a thousand sensations all at once. Besides, it would make no difference. If I shot to my feet and tried to get away, he’d just stop me and punish me for it. Maybe if I stayed still, he’d tire of me.

But he kept it up, plunging in shallowly, again and again, making my body clench around him innately, trying to draw him in deeper. And then he did. He thrust in deeper, and his finger glided against too many sensitive nerve endings for me to stop the quiet moan that escaped my lips. But then he froze, right there inside me.

I wanted to run, and I wanted to make him move inside me, both wants warring against each other and keeping me just as frozen in place.

“You’re a virgin?” he asked, though it sounded more like a statement than a question. However, the surprise in his eyes was unmistakable.

“Y-yes,” I sobbed, knowing that if there’d been any hope of him leaving that part of me alone, it had just vanished.

“You’re nearly twenty years old. And you look like this,” he said, motioning to my body with the hand that hadn’t stilled inside me. “How’s that possible.”

I didn’t want to like what he was saying. I didn’t want to take it as a compliment, that he thought I was attractive. It shouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter. And yet, a small, despicable thrill traveled through me, realizing it was true.

But he wanted to know how it was possible I was still virgin? Maybe because I’d spent every day of my life since becoming a teenager trying in vain to prove I wasn’t a whore, that I would never be a whore. Not like my mother. Every day I spent trying to show my father I wasn’t like her.

But it turned out…I was just like her. There was no denying it now, now when all I wanted to focus on was the finger inside me, the finger that I desperately wanted to start moving again, preferably back to my clit like he’d been doing before, rubbing until the fire inside me culminated into something exquisite.

He didn’t though. He moved around inside me as if just enough to make sure I didn’t forget that he was there—as if I could. And then, all of a sudden, he withdrew completely and stood up. I didn’t watch where he went—it was too humiliating to look up, and I didn’t want to see what he was doing. I kept my eyes glues to a speck of fluff on the floor by my feet.

He returned a moment later, and I wished I’d paid better attention—not that it would have made any difference in the outcome. He hauled me to my feet and shackled my wrists in the restraints that must have been the ones attached to the bed. I tried to pull away, but of course, it was useless.

He pulled me over to the bed and hooked the restraints high up on one of the posts, which pressed hard against my face and the valley between my breasts. Had I made him angry? Why was he doing this?

But when I turned my head to look at him, he didn’t look angry. “What are you doing?” I whispered frantically.

“You’ve been full of surprises, Pet, and I think I’d like some answers,” he explained. “This is how it works. I’m going to ask you a question. When you tell me the truth, I will reward you with pleasure. For every time I believe you have lied to me, you will get the belt. Do you understand?”

No! Of course, I didn’t understand any of it. But I kept my mouth shut and nodded once. What difference did it make? He’d do what he wanted regardless of whether I understood.

“Good. Let’s get started then,” he said as he reached around from behind me and palmed my breasts. I tried to wriggle out of his hands but stretched tautly, I couldn’t move more than an inch. And even if I had been able to get away, would I have? The fire between my thighs was anything but extinguished and what he was doing was feeding it. Would I have stopped him, even if I’d been able to? Not so long ago, I would have said yes, with absolute certainty. But it was harder to believe that now when I could feel my chest straining against the post between my breasts, trying to press harder into his hands.

“Have you ever let a man do this, Pet?” he asked as he toyed with my nipples, sending rivulets of desire to my sex.

“N-no,” I answered honestly.

“Really? And what about this?” he persisted as his hands grazed down to my backside and cupped my cheeks.

“No…” I answered as the pulsating between my legs intensified.

“What about this?” One hand circled around in front. “Have you ever let a man play with your hot, little pussy?” His fingers pressed against my clit and started to rub.

“No…never,” I whispered, certain I was red with embarrassment from head to toe.

“You have a beautiful body, and you’ve kept it to yourself your entire life—why?”

I didn’t want to answer. It wasn’t just my body or my pride he was after, but my secrets, the things that made up who I was. But what would be a feasible reason? Why did a normal girl abstain from sex?

“I just…I’m not good with people. I’m awkward, that’s all.” Yes, it made sense. A socially awkward girl would have a hard time getting a date.

“I didn’t ask why you don’t have a boyfriend. I want to know why you don’t fuck.”

“It’s the same thing!” I yelled and then tried to rein it in. “I mean…I couldn’t just go up to some guy on the street and…you know…”

He chuckled. “Actually yes, Pet, you really could.”

He meant it. He really thought I was attractive enough that I could do that. I hated how much I liked hearing that. He rubbed faster, making my body jerk against him.

“But you lied to me, didn’t you?” His tone had grown serious.

How could he know that? He couldn’t possibly know the reason I’d done my best to be a good girl, to be anything but what he was turning me into.

He stopped rubbing, and I heard the quiet slide of his belt as he slipped it off his pants. “No, please. Don’t,” I cried.

The belt landed with a thwack across my backside, and it jolted my whole body, pressing my clit hard against the post directly in front of me, and making my body respond with a fiery ache. Oh god, no. Not this, too.

Another lash, crisscrossing the first. It stung, making me cry out, but it made the fire in me blaze hotter, too.

Two more, and then he dropped the belt on the bed in front of me. “Let’s try this again. Why?” he asked as he ran his fingers lightly over where he’d struck me.

“Because of my father,” I sobbed. “Because he always said I’d be a whore.” Now was he satisfied? He’d wrenched that private piece from me.

He didn’t move for a moment, as if he was taking time to process what I’d said. I thought he was done—he’d gotten his answers. I needed him to leave. I needed to be alone, and as much as I hated to admit it, I desperately needed to quench the fire he’d created that was making it near-impossible to think about anything else.

But then he reached around me and his fingers made contact with my too-sensitive flesh. I moaned—I couldn’t stop it. And something inside me snapped.

I’d confessed. I’d admitted out loud what had dictated my life for so long. But with the admission came the acceptance that I’d failed. The way my body was burning, the years of dark and twisted dreams, and the thoughts running through my head right now of just what I wanted this man—my captor—to do to my body.

Whatever he’d done to me had vanquished a lifetime of keeping my body and thoughts in check. And what I hated most, what made me wish I could wrap my hands around his neck and strangle him to death, was that it felt so damn good. To thrust harder against his fingers and feel him rubbing faster. And faster. To feel him driving me higher.

There was no sense in denying it. He knew exactly what he was doing to me. He knew what I was, how my body responded in ways it shouldn’t. He knew I was the whore I’d tried to deny being for too long.

And I didn’t care. I didn’t want him to stop.

“Oh god, yes,” I cried when I was nearly there. I didn’t want to bite back the words, or the moans. And I didn’t want to stop my body from writhing against him. I’d kept it locked up all my life, and my only reward for it was this hell, this devil.

God damn it, I just wanted to come. If he was going to make my life a living hell, then I was going to take what pleasure from it I could.

And when I was there, when I’d reached the brink, I didn’t try to stop it. I threw myself over the edge as wave upon wave of depraved pleasure pulsed through me.

“Very good, Pet,” he whispered next to my ear as I came back down.

The intensity of my arousal now past, what I’d done, how I’d spurred it on was like a thousand drops of humiliation all raining down on me in the aftermath.

“Unfortunately, why you’ve kept your pussy to yourself is not the only lie you told, is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I sobbed. I really didn’t.

“You said you’ve never let a man play with your pussy. But you let me, didn’t you?” he whispered slyly as he reached for the belt.

I opened my mouth to protest, but remembering the way I’d welcomed his touch, not just now but the last time as well when he’d spanked me, I slammed it closed. But I yanked hard on the restraints at the same time, trying futilely to escape.

He couldn’t do this. He was the one who’d made my body respond like that. I hadn’t wanted it. It wasn’t my fault. And my fault or not, with my body’s arousal sated and my backside still stinging from his belt, this was only going to hurt. Badly.

“Stop. No. Don’t,” I yelled, but it didn’t faze him.

He brought the belt down with another resounding thwack, and the pain radiated down to my toes.

Again, but this time there was something else in the pain, a kindling spark.

One more, and when the lash of fire jerked my hips forward and pressed my clit against the post, I held myself there, feeling the spark burst into a flame. It was depraved and mortifying, but it was also the only way to turn the pain into something else, something even hotter than the fiery sting of my backside.

Two more, and I started to rub wantonly against the post. I couldn’t stop what he was doing to me, but I could use it. I could use my body’s sick pleasure to escape the pain.

He dropped the belt after two more strikes, and when he reached up to the restraints, I thought he was finally finished with me.

But again, I was wrong.

He spun me around until I was facing him and hooked the restraints there. I was breathing heavy, but not out of my mind with arousal, still sane enough that I tried to object when he knelt down in front of me and lifted my foot off the ground. When he lowered it onto his shoulder, I tried to yank it away, but he held it firm. And then he leaned in until he was just a hair’s breadth away.

I could fight him—not that it would amount to anything. I could feel his warm breath on my moist flesh. Did I want to fight him?

As if my body was answering for itself, my hips jerked forward and his mouth pressed against my clit. I could hear him chuckling, but then his tongue flicked across the sensitive nub, and I didn’t care.

He flicked back and forth, fast, and my body started to writhe. I felt the oddest need to touch him—to feel his flesh beneath my fingers, to twine them in his hair and hold him close against my sex. But handcuffed, all I could do was stand there and watch as his mouth did wicked things, flicking, sucking and nipping at me until the world narrowed once more to his mouth and the wildfire he was feeding with everything he did.

When he sent me over the edge this time, I could feel the blissful waves of my orgasm from my fingertips to the tips of my toes.

He looked up at me, his lips glistening, but it wasn’t his lips that caught my attention. It was his eyes. Vivid, blue eyes. Comforting eyes in a man who was anything but a comfort. Why? And why did they seem so god damned familiar?

He stood, and I waited for him to mock me, or touch me, or spank me, or whatever else he had in mind. But he just unshackled me and left. He walked out of the room without a word.