This had to be a nightmare.

Things like this didn’t happen in real life.

Beth closed her eyes as the man finally released her chin, and she tucked it against her chest, trying to wipe away his touch — as useless as the effort was. She knew he was still standing beside the bed, in a tailored suit that probably cost more than the rent for her shitty apartment in Santa Rosa. She could tell from the elegantly sterile room, and from the man standing over her, that he had enough money to do whatever he had planned.

Another sob threatened to choke her airway, but his eyes glinted whenever she cried. He clearly enjoyed it, and that meant she needed to stop.

Her head was just too damn fuzzy, her mouth too dry, and it was making it hard to think.

The ropes around her wrists and ankles, combined with whatever was around her neck, only made it worse. She wished this could be a nightmare, that when she opened her eyes she’d be home. Safe and sound. Laughing about her ridiculous nightmare as she took the stopper out of a bottle of wine and poured until she forgot his cold blue eyes.

But it wasn’t a nightmare.

She knew that.

Which was why opening her eyes and finding him there wasn’t a surprise, but it did make something ache deep inside. He stared at her like a bug under glass, held down with pins instead of ropes. There was something off about him, more than just the fact that he’d taken her.

He didn’t feel real.

Although his touch definitely had. It made her skin crawl, made her want to pull away even though the restraints made that impossible.

What do you want from me?

Everything.

The word echoed inside her like a funeral dirge. He’d implied that he wouldn’t kill her, because it wasn’t fun, but when he was done with her she wondered if she wouldn’t wish for death.

“You can let me go.” She found enough of a voice to speak the words softly, as if she were speaking to a wild animal, but the way he looked at her answered her plea before he’d even spoken.

“That would be a waste of effort,” he said. Almost robotic. That strange, cold tone remaining in his voice even as he stood and walked away from her towards a doorway that she guessed to be a bathroom. The sound of running water confirmed it, and she desperately pulled at the ropes again, even though her skin tingled and burned as she struggled.

He returned to her with a glass and the sandpaper scratch of her throat urged her to lift her head so he could press it against her lips. “Drink,” he commanded.

All of her panicked breathing had dried her mouth. The first wash of clean water on her tongue almost made her choke, but she managed to swallow. Again, and again, feeling the cool rush hitting her empty stomach, waking up the hunger she’d ignored in her terror.

Dinner.

She had missed dinner because she had never made it home after work — but when had he taken her? Turning her head away from the glass she swallowed and tried to focus on her blurry memories. The evening hadn’t felt any different from a normal one. She had walked towards her car, parked in the public lot like it always was, and then… nothing.

Nothing except waking up in this godforsaken bed, with the devil sitting at the foot.

Only now the devil was holding a half-full glass of water, staring down at her like some science experiment.

“Who are you?” she asked, speaking easier now that her mouth wasn’t a desert.

“Your current Master. You should try out the word, get used to it.”

“No.” Beth felt her nails pricking her palms as she balled them into fists again, but her answer only seemed to entertain him.

He placed the water glass on the bedside table before he walked to a long poster on the wall across from the bed. Resting a hand near the second line, he pointed at it: You will address me as Master. Everyone else as Sir or Ma’am.

As hard as it was to focus, she tried to read the long list, but the first one drew her attention and kept it. It was as sterile as he seemed to be, and just as terrifying.

You are not your own. You are property.

“I’m not property,” she said.

“You are, you just haven’t accepted it yet, but I will help you understand.” That odd curve of his lips happened again, something she might call a smile on anyone else — but not on him. When he did it, it wasn’t a smile, it was something more sinister. Like an animal baring teeth before it tore your throat out.

“I don’t want to understand. I want to go home!” Beth tried to make her voice strong, to make it as decisive and calm and collected as his, but there was still a tremor when she said the word home. A flash of her mom, her dad, her sister and brother and their families. Her two-year-old nephew. It weakened her, made her shudder, and so she tried to push them away as his fingers drummed against the poster.

There were weapons, tools, on the walls on either side of the list, and she knew without asking that they were meant for her.

She wanted to be brave as he lifted his hand from the phrases, taking a few steps before plucking a long metal thing from the wall. Two prongs loomed at the end, and when he wrapped his hands around the base a loud, electric snap crackled through the room.

Fuck no.

“I prefer to give you the rules up front, then you’ll know exactly why you’re being punished if you disobey one.” Casually, he walked towards her, resting the terrifying thing on the bed beside her leg. Shrugging out of the suit jacket, he dropped it into his chair, and then he worked at the cuffs of his dress shirt.

Unbutton, roll-up sleeve. Repeat.

Never breaking eye contact as he prepared to hurt her.

“Please don’t do this.” There was no strength in her voice as he picked up the tool and the bright flash from its tip was accompanied by another loud crackle of electricity. Her body jerked involuntarily, terror rolling through her.

A cattle prod. That’s a fucking cattle prod.

The name of it registered, even though the knowledge was useless.

“You can keep begging.” He trailed the twin prongs at the tip down her thigh and she whined, waiting for the pain. “But read the first rule aloud.”

Lifting her head once more she stared at the stark black letters, but her mouth wouldn’t form them. I’m not property. I’m a person.

This can’t be happening.

Sudden, blinding pain zapped her thigh, the pop of the cattle prod firing almost lost in her involuntary yelp. It had been quick, sharp torment, and now the muscle was sore beneath it, the skin tingling. The man sighed, eyes narrowing slightly as he looked her over before he met her gaze. “I do not enjoy repeating myself, that is another lesson you can learn from this. Now, read.”

The cattle prod touched the inside of her other thigh and Beth jumped. “You— you are n-not your own, you are property.”

“Good. Now read it in the first person, not the second. I want to hear you acknowledge the words.” He tilted his head towards the wall, prompting her unnecessarily. “Go on, slave. I am not…”

Clenching her jaw, Beth bit back the tears as he called her slave again. What had she done to deserve this? Why had he picked her? This was—

The sharp stab of electricity on the delicate skin of her inner thigh forced a scream. It ripped out of her, straining her throat, her legs trying to close. To protect herself.

Impossible.

The fucking metal prongs slid higher on her inner thigh and panic owned her completely as she shouted out the words he wanted. “I’m not my own! I’m property! THERE! Just stop, please don’t.”

“Was that so hard?” he asked, a smile that was not a smile on his lips. When she only glared at him, he dug the points of the prod into her skin, pressing until they hurt all on their own, his cold smile never faltering. “Second rule.”

Beth swallowed, looking at the poster again. “I can’t do this, I can’t be a slave, I swear this—”

Somewhere, someone was screaming. It wasn’t until the too-loud sputter of electricity stopped that she realized it was her. She’d never heard her own voice like that. It sounded like someone dying, and he watched her with fascination as she gasped for air. Eyes never wavering, not even a hint of temper, just a serene enjoyment of her suffering. “By all means, continue disobeying me. If you pass out from the pain I’ll just wake you up so we can finish.”

He’s insane.

She was tied down to a bed in front of an insane man holding a fucking cattle prod. Skin burning, muscles twitching, she wrapped her hands around the ropes like they could help her. “I will address you as…”

“Yes?” The cattle prod moved to her hip, just on the inside of the bone. Normally, she was terribly ticklish there. Even the brush of a finger could have her collapsing into giggles, but nothing happened. Fear and pain made the idea of laughing impossible.

“I will address you as Master.” Never. “Everyone else as Sir or Ma’am…” She swallowed as the words sunk in. “Are there really others here?” Others like him? Just the idea had her stomach turning as he moved the metal tips in tiny circles on her skin.

“Not right now,” he answered, and then his eyes slid down her body, landing between her thighs. “Keep going.”

“I will kneel in all rooms, and again whenever you enter.” Licking her lips, she twitched with the urge to deny every word leaving her lips. I’m just reading, I’m not agreeing. These are all lies. Lies, lies, lies.

“Do you need me to prompt you?” The man’s ice blue eyes glinted just before the pain hit. A shorter burst than before, but it felt worse on her stomach. She could taste blood in her mouth as awareness returned. One side of her tongue ached as she whimpered and tried to blink the tears from her eyes to read.

Just get it over with.

“I will crawl when told to follow. I will ask permission to speak, to ask a question, to—”

The man’s smile widened as he dragged the dangerous metal across her lower belly, and then he adjusted his hold on the controls and pressed the tips against her folds.

“Oh, God, no, no! It says orgasm, it says ask permission to orgasm!” Beth tried to pull away from the prod, heels digging into the mattress, hands pulling on the ropes, but she couldn’t move more than an inch, and that inch was painful. Pulse pounding in the blood trapped in her feet. It didn’t matter anyway, he continued stroking her with the fucking cattle prod, grazing her clit, but there was no pleasure. There would be no pleasure here, and she knew that. His eyes were empty. Two hollow, icy caves. “Do you honestly think I’ll orgasm?”

“It happens sometimes.” The flippant response was just a confirmation, as if orgasms happened on accident. As if she might stumble into one and have to apologize. He’s psychotic. “It will be extraordinarily painful if I pull the trigger right now, slut.”

Her fear ratcheted up another notch, and she scrambled to speak, “I— I will wear no clothing, unless you provide it.”

“That’s right, although that one is more for whomever I sell you to. If you could find clothes in this house, I’d be quite impressed.” He removed the prod from between her legs and she sagged against the mattress in relief... until he brushed it across a nipple. Poking at the tightening bud with one of the prongs. She felt frozen as she watched, breath held in her lungs. A tsk’ing sound left him, but she opened her mouth too late.

The bright flash nearly blinded her, so close to her face as she snapped back from the wash of agony. Crying, screaming, cursing she tried to blink away the multi-colored blotches in her vision.

“Slave, I will put the cattle prod away as soon as you read the last two rules.”