SEVEN

BELLA

I waited until the door closed to do it. Once I heard the key turn in the lock, I picked up the plate and brought it down hard onto the wall next to me, not easy to do with my other three limbs still bound in place. The sound of it smashing felt so loud, I was sure he’d come back down, he must have heard it. But after a few seconds frozen in place, nothing happened and I started to move again. I picked up the longest shard and began sawing at the rope holding my other wrist in place.

At first nothing happened and I felt as if my chance at escape had gone. But as I muttered, “Come on, come on,” over and over again, a frond of the rope broke free, falling away and bringing a fresh spurt of energy to my work. I knew I had to be fast. He could be back at any moment.

I kept sawing, my arm aching from the effort. Gradually the strands of the rope began to fray, then snap. I don’t know how long it took but after effort so hard, my arm was nearly numb, I was able to wriggle my wrist out of what remained of the rope.

I turned my attention to legs. I had already begun to saw when I realised what an idiot I was. With both hands free, I could simply untie the knots, though this was harder than I thought as they had been tied so tightly. In the end,  I used the tip of the plate shard to ease the knots loose enough to get my fingers in. Another minute and I was untied. I knew I had to get moving. Time was running out. I’d been lucky so far but it wouldn’t last.

I was up and off the bed in seconds, almost collapsing to the floor, my legs refusing to work after so long tied on one position. I had to massage them frantically to loosen up the muscles and I was still limping as I made my way over to the stairs. I climbed them as quietly as I could, stopping at the top, pressing my ear to the door and listening. I could barely hear anything but there was something. It was him. He was talking to someone. The sound was too faint for me to make out the words but when he stopped talking, I braced myself. He was coming back, I felt sure of it.

When the door was unlocked, I was ready, my heart thumping, adrenaline coursing through me in preparation for what might be the only chance I had to get out of there. The door began to open and before he realised what was happening, I was out, barging past him, breathing in a lungful of air, ready to scream at the top of my voice.

The scream never got out. His hand clamped over my mouth and as I fought to get away, his arm wrapped round my body, throwing me back against the door so hard, the air was forced out of me. I gasped, wheezing emptily as he glared maliciously at me. I tried to rise but he was faster, his legs hadn’t been tied down for hours on end. He got me under the armpits, dragging me back down the steps a second later whilst I tried to scream for help.

He threw me down the last few steps and I yelped with pain. Looking up, I saw him slamming the door shut before he pounced on me again, throwing me onto the bed. “You should have behaved,” he spat, kneeling on the back of my legs, his hand rising into the air as I fought to free myself.

“No,” I pleaded. “Let me go!”

His hand whipped down through the air and landed on my ass, the sound of the smack echoing round the cellar. It stung painfully but I was too busy fighting to care. I tried to get free but he was too strong for me. He just kept spanking me, his hand slapping down on my ass harder and harder, his face cold, his mouth no more than a thin line. “You need to learn to behave,” he said, each word punctuated by another blow.

I started to scream but he ignored me, pain coursing through me as he kept spanking. “Apologise!” he growled.

“Please stop,” I begged, still squirming to try and move my hips to one side, anything to lessen the agony of what he was doing to me.

“Apologise!” he snapped again.

“Let me go.”

“Not until you apologise.” Another smack, this time on the top of my thighs. My screams reached a higher pitch, the pain was unbearable.

“Get off me!”

He shifted position, yanking my legs a few inches apart. I fought all the wilder as he spanked the very tops of my thighs. Another inch and he’d touch a part of me I was determined to keep away from him. “Last chance,” he said, his hand high in the air. “Apologise.”

“Go to hell,” I snarled, refusing to give him the satisfaction. Everything seemed to slow down, his hand moving through the air for a minute or more, my body turning but too slowly. His arm swung down and down and I watched it, unable to take my eyes from its inexorable swing. My body started to tense up, knowing what was coming but unable to do anything about it. My mouth was half open, ready to scream again but when it happened I was in too much shock to do so.

His hand slapped down between my legs, a spank landing directly onto my pussy. It wasn’t the pain that got to me, though that was substantial even with the knowledge that he had pulled back the blow at the last moment, using a lighter swat than before. It was the sense of helplessness. I could do nothing about it. He had complete power over me and that was what shocked me to my core. The sensation of his hand slapping my pussy made the scream die away, made my skin crawl, made my heart stop in my chest.

His hand didn’t move away. It remained in place, his palm resting directly on me. As I squirmed to try and get away from it and from him, it brushed over me and despite every part of me crying out in terror and despair, my body refused to react the right way. It whispered in a quiet but unignorable voice that it wanted his hand to stay there.

I refused to listen. The very thought was despicable, disgusting, abhorrent. I didn’t want him to touch me. I couldn’t want that. “Apologise,” he said, his hand rocking slightly in place, his fingers kneading the flesh underneath him. “Apologise right now.”

“I’m sorry,” I managed to mutter, desperate for him to move away from me, to stop that whispering thought that refused to leave my head.

“There,” he said, standing up and brushing himself down. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”