Chapter Twenty-Five
Joshua
Toy doesn’t even bother to look angry or scared when I come in. She just looks amused. She smells so bad that I have to breathe through my mouth, and her face is crusted with dried gruel, but she looks at me as if I’m the one who’s disgusting. As if I’m dogshit on her shoe.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the mighty Joshua bitch-face Smith himself, come down from on high.” Her voice cracks; she hasn’t had anything to drink all day.
“Careful,” I snap. “You don’t know what I’ve got planned for you, Toy.”
“Oh, let’s go with Tamara. Come on, Joshua shithead Smith, you’re not still fooling yourself into thinking you’re my master, are you?”
“You will speak to me with respect or I’ll bring out the skinning knives.” Why the fuck am I threatening her with something I’m not going to do? That’s a rookie mistake. It’s the kind of thing mothers do with their toddlers.
And she doesn’t flinch. There’s not even a flicker of fear in her eyes, either because she doesn’t believe me or because she doesn’t care anymore.
“Bring it,” she taunts me.
Without a word, I walk over and unchain each cuff. I pull her to her feet.
She flashes me a hideous grin. Gruel crumbles and falls from her face. “Is this the part where you tell me how much I stink, and you think I should cry and apologize, even though you’re the one who chained me up down here and didn’t let me shower?” Her breath reeks with every word. And yet I’m strangely aroused.
“Please, keep talking.” I twist my hand in her hair, painfully hard, and march her out of the room.
“Since you asked so nicely, Joshua Smith.” Her voice is raspy as we reach the foot of the stairs. “Where’s Elizabitch? Crying in her room? Trying to wash her twat clean enough that you’ll want to fuck her? She reeked of so much perfume and soap that it made my eyes water when she came down to feed me.”
Cold fury frosts my soul. I slam her up against a wall. Toy looks up at me with a sneer twisting her lips.
“Listen the fuck up.” There’s murder in my eyes. “You will stop attacking Elizabeth. She is extremely loyal to me, and I protect what’s mine.”
“I break what’s yours. I think I’m doing a pretty good job with her, wouldn’t you say?”
I take another tack. “You like to pretend that you’re compassionate, right? Well, spare some for her. She is a little girl who’s never grown up. My father broke into her trailer home, killed her parents in front of her, and raped her that same night, when she was twelve. That went on for a year. He used her whenever he’d hurt my mother too badly. Ripped open every hole, made her bleed. Elizabeth suffered internal injuries so bad that she’s permanently scarred inside. I brought her out of that Hell, and she depends on me for protection. She is the only person in my life who’s ever actually cared about me. So I will not tolerate you attacking her.”
She just meets my gaze steadily, without an ounce of fear. Grown men would be pissing themselves at this point, but not my Toy.
“She only cares about you because she’s fucked in the head. She’s a selfish cow who’s helping to keep another human being prisoner, and therefore she’s every bit as much my enemy as you are. Given the first opportunity, I will kill her. And you. God, I hope it’s both of you. Why are you wasting so much time on me? Do you think you can make me back into Toy again? Even you can’t be that stupid.”
Enraged, I spin her around and bend her arm up behind her back hard enough to make her scream. I keep bending it. “Say you’re sorry and call me master!”
“Eat shit and die, motherfucker! Ahhhh!” She screams in pain, but she won’t obey my orders. She would rather let me break her arm.
And I don’t want to break her.
I ease up a little bit and force her up the stairs and into the bathroom. I have been defeated, for the moment. I need to regroup and figure out how to regain control of this situation. But first I need to get that godawful stink off her.
“Get in. No bath. Shower.”
She gives me a flat, cold look.
Before she gets in, she peels off the bandage that Elizabeth has changed for her every day. It reveals a raw, red line going vertically up her arm, tracing the path of her cephalic vein, and a shiver of anger burns through me. The idea of Toy wanting to leave me in any way, escaping by killing herself, really pisses me off.
Hot water streams over her and streaks through the filth coating her slim body. She’s tense and remote, staring at the tile wall in front of her, no longer desperately seeking direction from me with her pleading gaze. I stand there, watching her slowly soap herself off, and I realize that my cock is rock hard and desire is flooding through me. This girl, this is the one who turns me on.
The broken, vacant-eyed, fearful slave who crawled for me? She made me sick.
Toy tips back her head and opens her mouth, letting the warm water rush in, drinking it thirstily. I stare at her parted lips and imagine them wrapped around my cock. Except now I realize that there’s a real risk she’d bite my dick right off.
After the shower, I have her dress in cotton slacks, T-shirt, and bra. I always keep half a dozen outfits for her in the bathroom.
I put the short chains on her ankles, out of spite. I reach for the thick collar. She looks at me. “Put that on me, and I won’t eat. You can shove a tube down my throat and force me, blah blah blah, big man that you are, but sooner or later, you’re going to get bored with me as a vegetable, and you’ll just fucking end this shit-show that’s my life. Now, where are those skinning knives you promised me?”
I can’t let her continue to defy me like this, so I give her an out. “You don’t want the collar? Get down on the floor and kiss my feet.”
She stares at me for a long moment, too long, then lifts one shoulder in a casual, insolent shrug, moving reasonably quickly. She presses her lips against each foot then sits up. The expression on her face is bored, and she didn’t say, “Yes, Master.”
I still don’t know what I’m going to do about this, but I realize that I don’t have to decide right away. This is a new experience, and I crave new experiences, don’t I? I can learn from this. I can stop anytime I want to. I can change directions. I can bend her to my will again when I choose, but right now, I have a front-row seat to a show featuring a facet of human behavior that is brand-new to me. So I will study and learn, and I will win in the end.
At least that’s what I tell myself.
I bring her into the playroom and chain her up with her hands over her head, hauling her up until she’s on her tiptoes. Then I leave to fetch us some dinner, which Elizabeth prepared earlier. Part of me is hoping that leaving her dangling in the playroom like that will psych her out and weaken her, but I don’t think it will have the effect I want.
And indeed, when I return and lower her to the ground, she just curses at me.
I take her to the table, and she glances down at it with a flicker of contempt. I’ve set the table with paper plates and plastic cutlery and plastic cups, so she can’t use anything to hurt herself.
She settles down, her expression pinched with disgust, and I examine this strange new creature curiously. What do I want from her?
I am part furious, part fascinated.
I will try a different approach tonight.
“I have a problem at work, Toy,” I tell her.
A frown puckers her forehead. “That’s not my name.”
“That’s what I’m going to fucking well call you, and you will answer to it.” I’ve let things go too far. I’ve got to regain some control. I’m still working out the new rules of our existence in my head, but I will not tolerate this continued disrespect.
“So, back to my problem at work, Toy.”
She looks at me as if I’ve grown antennae. Complete bafflement. “Tamara. And why are you telling me about it?”
Don’t people who live together have conversations about their problems and help each other solve them? That’s what happens in books and on television shows. I try to explain it patiently. “You understand what makes people tick. I don’t. So you can help me with this situation.”
She rolls her eyes and shoves a bite of filet mignon into her mouth. “Well, I’m just riveted, Joshua. What is your problem at work?”
“My CFO’s husband died unexpectedly of a heart attack ten days ago. It is affecting her work product.”
“Oh.” Understanding dawns on her face, and she nods, and I see a glimpse of the old Tamara. “You want to help her through this. Well, first of all, I’d give her at least a month’s paid leave, maybe two. And of course, make sure she knows about all the counseling options that are available to her, but I’m sure you already have. And then— What?” She stops, because she sees the look of annoyance on my face.
Why doesn’t she get it? “I need to know the most efficient way to fire her, to reduce the chance that she will file a lawsuit against my company, and also how to ensure that her replacement doesn’t pull the same crap.”
Her face wrinkles in horror and disgust. For some reason, that makes me angry. Why? I’ve never cared what anybody thought of me.
“You’re going to fire a woman because she’s sad her husband died?”
Why are prey so stupid? Do I need to spell it out with crayons? “No, I’m going to fire her because it’s affecting her work performance.”
She slams her plastic fork down on the table. Anger sparks in her eyes. “You’re a horrible, repulsive monster.”
“I thought we established that a long time ago.” I reach forward and grab her chin, squeezing hard. She winces, and tears of pain shimmer in her eyes. “And by the way, every time you insult me or disrespect me, it gets added to the list. I’ll fucking bury you in a coffin and leave you there until your oxygen runs out if you keep this up.”
She manages to wrench her face from my grasp. “God, I hope so. Can we get started? I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll never have to see you again.” Then she shoves her plate away. “Were you actually trying to have a normal conversation?” She sneers. “Because that was an epic fail.”
That interests me rather than angering me. I am always willing to learn from my mistakes. “Explain.”
“I said something that you didn’t like, and you threatened me with harm.”
“Well, obviously. What’s your point?” Again, it’s that Martian-speak that dribbles from people’s mouths when I’m just trying to have a simple conversation with them.
She takes a deep breath, then lets it out very slowly. From my studies, I know what that means. She’s angry with me, but she’s trying to calm herself down. “You’re sitting there trying to make me think we’re in some kind of relationship. People in relationships disagree on very important issues from time to time. If one person goes nuclear every time that happens…well, the relationship’s not going to last.”
“I don’t know what made you think that. This isn’t a relationship, because that implies that you and I are equals. We’re not. And you will speak to me with respect.” I blast her with the look and the tone of voice that have made grown men shit themselves.
It bounces off the icy bedrock of her new flesh. “I’d have to actually feel respect for that to happen. Come on, Joshua crybaby weakling Smith, admit you failed and just end it for me.”
She wants me to surge toward her in fury, to whip her or snap her neck. She wants to control me by making me angry. For the time being, I won’t give that to her.
I lean forward and lace my fingers together, examining her face, trying to figure this out. “Before I put you in the cellar that last time…you were happy when I rewarded you with my approval and conversation. Now you’re not. What changed?”
In reply, she tries to stab me in the eye with her plastic fork.
I’ve never been so turned on in my life.
I bat her hand aside easily and growl “That’s it. You want punishment? I’ll punish you, baby.”
I leap to my feet and sweep the dishes in front of her aside. I bend her arm back and yank her pants down. My arousal has taken over. I can’t contain it.
“Are you wet for me, sweetheart? I know you are.” Her hair spills down over her shoulders, half hiding her face. With my free hand, I slide two fingers inside her tight sheath, sopping them in her glorious moisture. I curve them up to meet her G-spot, and slowly, tauntingly, move them in and out. Her inner walls swell, closing in on my fingers as I lovingly torment her sensitive core.
She clenches her fists, and her head is twisted to the side, and her face melts into a look of pure ecstasy. She’s sucking in deep breaths and whimpering with each stroke. I feel her sheath clenching around me as I drag my fingers over her G-spot again and again.
Finally, she pants, “Let go of me. St-stop that.”
“Now how many minutes did it take you to remember to say that?” I taunt her. “I lost count.”
I slide my fingers back out and give her ass a tremendous smack as I keep her pinned down on the table. She cries out, a hoarse sound of pleasure and pain, and my raised red handprint blooms on the white globe of her right cheek. I have marked her as mine. I smack her again and again, her flesh quivering and jiggling beneath me, until I’ve laid an entire garden of those red, red roses on her pale flesh.
Arousal floods through me, and I fumble with my pants and bury myself in her wet heat.
I’m sliding in and out, in and out, and hot waves of pleasure flow over me. She squirms wildly underneath me, whimpering in protest at first, then settles down and pushes back. I love it when she does that, when she surrenders to me completely, her body gone helplessly wanton and needy.
“Oh, oh, oh…!” she wails, and I force myself to stop and slide almost all the way out. She gives a strangled cry and rocks her hips, pushing back against me so I’m inside her again. “No!”
“All right, Toy, if you insist.” Laughing at her, I start fucking her again. I don’t even need to touch her clit to get her to come. Her inner walls convulse and squeeze me so hard I have to pull out before I come inside her. I’m not wearing a condom, so I pull out quickly and explode, spraying her buttocks with my hot, sticky seed.
She lies there, face down on the table, her body shuddering with the aftershocks.
I pull her up and wrap my arms around her, trapping her. I breathe into her ear, fiercely. “You’re still mine, little Toy.” She stiffens with anger, and I love it. I’m actually hard again already. “I will never let you go. Never. Never. Never.”