Desolation enveloped my senses, propelling me into that place I struggled not to slip into. The terror of being left there, suspended and restrained while David could return at any moment to finish what he’d started ate at me with serrated little fangs. Every second jabbed into cold, naked flesh until all I wanted to do was weep.

All around me, anguish ruled with an iron fist. The pure oppression consumed even a sliver of hope. I couldn’t draw in a breath without the fear of alerting someone to my existence, because no matter how brutal and painful the X was, catching the attention of the people who ran that place was infinitely worse.

I didn’t know how long I could stay there, however. Blood had evacuated my fingers, reverting them into slender bits of ice. It matched the numbness in my toes and the prickling chill in my bare thighs.

I needed my clothes, which I doubted they’d simply return. What’s more, I needed to get out of there. David could return at any moment and I didn’t even want to think what he might do once we were alone.

Biting back the urge to scream and yank at the straps, I forced myself to focus on the figure still standing immobile by the door, a lithe silhouette of shiny black against the drab concrete. She hadn’t moved, not once since her instructions to stay. Her perfect stillness brought forth images of a mechanical creature, a robot. No living person had that sort of stamina.

I pushed aside the possibility that she might have been and tried again to reach her.

“Jeremy,” I rasped out, lips stiff, tongue dry. “My bodyguard, is he okay? Please, just tell me that much.”

Eyes that had been glazed in thought blinked and focused on me. There was just a hint of movement with a subtle tilt of her head, a curious kitten.

“He has a family,” I pressed on, now that I had her attention. “Please, don’t hurt him.”

She neither denied, nor confirmed my concerns, nor did her features convey any thought towards my words. They remained a perfect, blank slate.

“Is he dead?” I demanded. “Just tell me that much.”

If she was about to, I never found out when the latch cracked and the door opened. The terror that followed immediately after nearly liquefied my bowels.

But it wasn’t David.

The realization propelled an unwarranted whimper to escape. The relief was paralyzing, but short lived.

The woman was built like a house, a massive frame stuffed into a leather jumpsuit. It almost mirrored Lady’s uniform, but while Lady’s complimented her delicate shape, accenting her trim waist, full hips, and plump chest, the other woman only came off angry and frightening. The leather looked painted on and she had no breasts, just a solid wall of rippling muscles that Arnold schwarzenegger would have envied.

She stomped forward with the stiff movements of a gorilla. She said something to Lady and earned a slow inclination of the smaller woman’s head.

As one, they turned to me. If I hadn’t been retained to the spot, I would have taken a step back in trepidation. As it were, all I could do was hang on my X and beg heaven for it to end quickly.

Piercing blue eyes bore into mine from a hard, square face bleached of all other color. Even her eyelashes and eyebrows were invisible, matching the short spikes jutting from the top of her scalp.

“Please...” I started.

My plea went ignored as the woman stooped at my feet. Her beefy hands reached for the bands around my ankles and I watched as they were undone.

Hope prickled in my chest. Were they letting me go? I wasn’t optimistic enough to believe that was the case, but I couldn’t help it.

My wrists were undone next and I found myself sliding down the X. The loss of circulation in my limbs rained needles down into my hands and feet. I nearly whined. The woman caught me when I sagged forward. There was no gentleness in the gesture. She could have been holding a sack of flour for the way I was dumped on the hard concrete without any mercy. Lady teetered forward and handed me a blanket.

Just a blanket.

A single length of cotton.

Then she and the woman took their X and left me there without ever saying a word.

I tried the door once I regained the feeling in my feet. I banged on it and kicked it, and jiggled the knob. It had been securely locked from the other side and the walls were too high to climb.

Mine wasn’t the only container. There was a dozen from what I could make out through the wall of glass. They created two straight lines, six cubes side by side on either side of the vaulted chamber. The windows all faced inward so there was no missing each other’s torments.

It reminded me of the animals at a zoo, except animals were given more freedom and basic comforts, like a place to do their business. All we were given was a hole in the center of our prisons and not even a shred of privacy to use it.

We were in a warehouse of some sort. It was large enough to hold the containers comfortably with room to spare. Some of the girls had beds, rickety, metal cots with thin mattresses and even a pillow. Others had only a blanket like me. I wondered if that meant they’d given up. If they’d been broken to the establisher’s satisfaction. I knew David certainly wouldn’t allow me a bed, even if I begged.

I pushed the thought aside. I could be put in a hole full of shit and I still wouldn’t beg him for anything. I would rather rot.

I returned to my blanket and pulled it around my shoulders. The stiff fabric chafed skin and smelled suspiciously of mold, blood, bleach, and urine. The combined assault lingered around me to toy with the repugnant stench already soaking the air. Its pungent odor rubbed into all the places it touched me and it was all I could do to keep from pitching it away from me.

Don’t think about it, I willed myself, refusing to give into the tears burning to make their way to freedom. I slumped against one corner and slid to the ground. Cold stone bit into flesh. It infused in the threads of the blanket until I was simply clutching an icy sheet. I drew my knees up to my chest and swaddled them the best I could, but the blanket wasn’t nearly large enough.

Frustration gnawed at the back of my throat, wedging itself in my airway until I couldn’t breathe without choking on a sob. I turned my face into the corner and begged myself not to fall apart.

Kieran was on his way. I knew he was. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in me, not a sliver. I knew he wouldn’t stop until I was home again. Then I’d make sure David and everyone responsible paid. I would not let any of them get away with this. I wouldn’t turn the other cheek. I would not cower. Never again. I just needed to keep my head down and wait.

I MUST HAVE DOZED OFF, because the bang nearly sent me sideways to the ground. My head jerked up just as two men stepped into my tiny confinement with Lady between them.

She crooked a finger at me to get up. The crimson tip glinted in the dim light. I was momentarily distracted by the long, graceful length as I struggled upright.

“Where are we going?” I asked, already knowing she wouldn’t respond, but unable to stop myself.

A crop materialized seemingly out of nowhere in the hands of one of the men. It swung down before I could realize its purpose and smacked my thigh. The blanket padded most of the blow, but I still felt the faint sting and yelped.

“You don’t speak unless spoken to,” he barked. “Move.”

I started forward, but the second man closed his fist into the blanket and ripped it off me, taking with it the heat I’d gathered underneath, leaving me in the chill of the room.

I bit back my protest when I glanced at the rod in the first man’s grip.

They led me from the cube and marched me out.

I wasn’t the only one. Others were being hauled from their prisons. All were in their underwear. All seemed unnaturally complacent with their situation. I didn’t see a speck of fear anywhere. Their acceptance to being stripped, assaulted, and kept locked up like animals made me wonder if they’d been there longer, if the brainwashing actually worked. The very thought that they might be that good sent a wave of nausea through me. It made my palms slick and my nerves prickle.

No. I wouldn’t submit. I would be stronger.

Clenching my fists tighter, I fixed my gaze stubbornly ahead, fighting not to study the occupants in their glass cages as we passed. I fought not to cringe at their discomfort and pain, as well as the torture they were being placed under.

One girl was locked upright with her wrists and head caught in a wooden trap. Another girl was hogtied with ropes on the ground. There were other creative methods of restraint, of bondage, that I couldn’t bring myself to look at, like the girl bound to a wheel, her entire body bent backwards as the wheel was spun by a beefy, topless man in jeans.

I looked away when he caught me staring and bared his teeth.

I’d been correct in my assumption. The warehouse loomed menacingly far out on all sides, a vacuum of space as bare as it was cold. The gray concrete clashed with the dull green of the windows and the chilling wails of torment roller coasting along the rough surface. Straight ahead, I could just make out a series of steps leading up to a single, iron door stamped into the stone. Its rusted façade pulled the eye, demanding to be watched as it drew closer. It seemed larger than life looming high over the chamber.

One of the men pushed me up the steps, gruff in his shove. The place between my shoulder blades ached from his fist. Lady never said anything, either because she didn’t speak, or because she didn’t care. I would have put my money on the latter. She seemed so far from everything, so removed, but not the way a trauma victim would be. It wasn’t fear in her eyes. She was just unconcerned. I suppose if she’d done this long enough, it would have been easy to turn a blind eye. Plus, the way she melted when her boss had touched her made me think Stockholm syndrome. Why else would a beautiful woman like her allow other women to be beaten and kept in cages?  I wouldn’t.

At the top, the second man wrenched the door open and I was forcibly nudged through.

I barely had time to process that the door wasn’t locked when I was plunged into absolute darkness. The square patch of light from the room behind us vanished with the bang of the door closing. It cut off the stench and the wails. It muffled everything, except the steady shuffle of our feet moving purposefully forward. My idea to run was stilled only by the meaty hand one of the men clamped around my arm. Every fat finger cut into flesh, leaving marks.

Our time through what must have been a corridor ended when Lady pushed open a door at the very end. It was beyond me how she knew where the thing was when I couldn’t even see my own hand in front of my face, but the crack appeared in the darkness, creating a long, clean gash down one side that widened as it was opened.

It wasn’t overly bright on the other side, much to my relief. The lights were lowered to the dimness of a movie theater with only a few randomly lit spots throughout. The room itself was a threat of sorts, an oval chamber smaller than an opera house, but bigger than a personal home theater. The place below us was a series of circular chairs facing a stage far below. At the top where we were, a strip of carpet made up a narrow, curving path behind a row of seats, separating the sitting area from the wall of cages on the left.

There were eight stacked up on top of each other, barely big enough for a large dog, which was what their purpose actually was. I’d seen them in airports, transporting pets, massive, black kennels. But there were no dogs there, just women being forced inside and sealed in.

“I’m not going in there!” I tore free of the hand gripping me and rounded on the trio. “I’m not a dog!”

The smack sent the world spinning. Pain flared up through my entire face, a blistering heat that burned behind my eyes. Blood filled my mouth, choking me when I cried out.

“Get inside!”

Woozy with sickness, I wasn’t prepared when they stuffed me into one of the cages. The frame rattled when the door was slammed shut behind me. A click snapped into place, ensuring I went nowhere.

It was remarkably larger than I’d expected at first glance. I could almost sit up, but barely. It still bent my head forward, pressing my chin to my chest and mashing the roof of the cage against the back of my neck. It forced us down in a groveling, bowing position with our knees against our chests ... like dogs.

Lady studied me a moment through the bars, her expression masked in shadows and the top part of the cage I couldn’t see without forcing my face against the bars. I couldn’t even be sure she was even really looking at me, except that she hadn’t moved. I wondered if I could plead with her again now that her goons were gone, but she’d already turned on her heels and was leaving me amongst a row of other women, all in cages around me. But none of them seemed to be there against their will. The eager expressions on their faces, the way they seemed to be adjusting themselves to see the stage properly, it made me think they were excited to be there.

What kind of madhouse was I in? There was something happening that I was missing, some key element that I hadn’t grasped. The whole situation stank of kidnapping, abuse, and a heavy shift of sexism, and yet, these women couldn’t hand themselves over fast enough.

I turned to the brunette on my right.

“Excuse me?”

She turned wide, green eyes on me through the tiny squares. “Yes?”

Her calm was momentarily disorientating. We could have been two people in line for coffee and I was about to ask her for the time. How was she so unfazed? We were in cages!

“Where are we?”

Her smile was brilliant through the bars. “You’re new! It’s okay. It’s all a bit disorientating the first time. This is orientation. Master Rutherford is going to go through the rules. He’s amazing. He likes making sure the dolls and their Sirs know what they’re getting into. So considerate. A lot of places don’t do that.”

Nothing she said made sense. She could have been speaking an entirely different language, except she wasn’t and that was somehow worse.

“So, you’re here because you want to be?”

Confusion flickered over her pretty features. “Of course. My Sir wants me to be trained by a professional and I want to please him.”

I really needed to stop asking her questions. It seemed like the more I asked, the less I understood.

“How do you leave?”

Her smile was completely gone now. “Have you talked to your Sir?”

“I don’t have a ... Sir. I was brought here against my will.”

She gave a weak, uncertain chuckle. “What? No, Master Rutherford would never allow that.”

“I don’t want to be here!” I hissed. “I want to go home.”

The girl jerked back and hit the side of her cage, startling the girl on her other side. “I ... I would talk to Master Rutherford. Tell Lady your safeword.”

“I don’t have a safeword.”

She shifted uncomfortably. Her gaze flicked to the stage, then back to me.

“I don’t ... I don’t know...”

I felt like I’d broken her. The excited woman with the shining, delighted eyes and grinning mouth was cowering at the back of her cage like a beaten dog. I didn’t know whether to apologize or tell her to knock it off and tell me how to get out of there. But I chalked her up as a dead end and turned to the woman on my left, a stunning woman with skin the color of dark chocolate and the deepest eyes I’d ever looked into.

“Excuse me, how do I get a safeword?”

Those dark orbs bore into me, infinitely endless, a bottomless pool of all the things her lips never said. She stared at me with the same silent wonderment as Lady and I wondered if that was part of the initiation, to cut off their tongues.

“She’s in training,” the woman on my right murmured. “She’s been forbidden to speak unless her Sir says. In fact, none of us should be speaking. We could get into a lot of trouble.”

Great, I thought. That was one way to keep all the prisoners from rebelling; forcing them not to speak. Well, I wasn’t going to simply live in a cage and get whipped. I’d never been much of a fighter, but I wasn’t going to make this easy on any of them.

The houselights took that moment to flare on, not too bright, just enough to illuminate the stairs and the flood of men who entered along the bottom of the auditorium. I wondered if David was amonegst them, eager to learn all the things he could do to me and get away with. He wouldn’t miss an opportunity like that.

There was a lot of movement, the thunder of feet, the rustle of clothes, the creak of chairs being claimed. Even when everyone was settled, there was the low hum of chatter, the excited buzz that always followed a show. Then it all died as the man from the party arrived on stage. He stood before the crowd, hands clasped in front of him. He observed the group with cool deliberation. It seemed to be a favorite expression of his, like he was searching for something.

“Welcome,” he said once he had the room’s full attention, “to the Doll Factory. Many of you have already spoken to me, but I appreciate you arriving for the orientation. I believe this is the most important step between you and your doll. The bond you forge in the next four weeks with your sub will be the foundation to a long and fruitful relationship.

I’m Tiberius Rutherford, for those of you who I haven’t met officially. I am the Lord and Master of the Doll Factory. Everything we do here is legal and by the book. We treat you and your doll with respect and do our best to ensure you the best experience with safe and tried methods to better your lifestyle.”

He paused and turned his body slightly to the left. One hand extended, long fingers splayed.

From the shadows, a secondary hand appeared, small with slender, elegant fingers spanning forward to meet his. I recognized the red nail polish a second before Lady stepped onto the stage with him in her black panties, corset, and epic heels. She still wore her cat ears and feline contact lenses. She’d only lost her pants, it seemed.

He drew her to him, his features a mask of adoration, of the kind of devotion poetry were written about, and kissed her knuckles lightly. He murmured something to her, lips still brushing her skin and Lady all but dissolved on the stage.

Still a delighted pink, she was drawn forward and made to take his place, an angel beneath the spotlight.

“This is Lady, my better half.” He touched her back lightly, a delicate graze of his fingertips and no one missed her shiver or the way she seemed to catch her breath. “We came together by accident, but I’d be lost without her. It took us years to come to a place we were both happy, which goes to show that nothing happens overnight. It takes work, patience, and dedication, but most importantly, trust. I can’t guarantee you will get here with your doll, but I will guarantee, like anything worth working towards, a long, hard road ahead.”

Maybe it was because I’d spent the night pinned to a wooden X, or on the cold ground, but I wasn’t getting the implication that these were people who went out of their way to abduct and keep women hostage, especially when he’d said himself that it was a legal operation. It did make me wonder what David had told them. Had he made them believe I was crazy? Surely that wasn’t the path he’d take a second time, not when this was clearly a business and no one would touch a mentally unstable girl.

I thought of the contract he’d made me sign. I had in all clarity given him permission to keep me, to do whatever he wanted to me. I had signed the bottom line. Maybe that was all they needed, a written form of consent by me.

But it wasn’t supposed to mean anything. It wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to be far away from that place and that man by the time the contract deadline ended. And how the hell was I supposed to know a place like that existed? The whole thing was so damn fictional I couldn’t even wrap my head around it.

It didn’t matter. Contract or not, I would make them see reason. I would explain my side. Once they saw who David was, they would help me. They had to.

The orientation didn’t take nearly as long as I would have expected. Rutherford gave his speech, a ten minute rundown of how The Doll Factory was created and why. But the excitement started when a girl was brought up by a man holding the silver cord of her leash. She was made to kneel, eyes downcast. She was made to crawl to him and even lick his toes, basically a pretty show pony to prove that they could take any girl and turn her into a submissive.

I watched, fascinated, but not interested, not the way everyone else seemed to be. The Lord and Master business wasn’t for me. I had no desire to be whipped or collared. I might have tried it if Kieran had suggested it, but not like this, not held captive and forced to endure it.

The whole production lasted a little over forty-five minutes. Then the audience was ushered out and the girls were released from their cages. Each one seemed to have their own Lady, just a different version, but disturbingly beautiful in their leather getup.

I had Lady herself with her two male friends.

“No!” I blurted when they wrenched me from my cage. “I want a safeword! Then I want to talk to Tiberius Rutherford. I’m being held against my will and if Kieran isn’t called immediately, I will sue the crap out of all of you for kidnapping, assault, and accessory to rape!”

I blurted it all out quickly, afraid of another backhand if I didn’t finish in time.

Lady put her hand up when the man on her left made a reach for me. Her cool gaze stayed on me, level, assessing, but shrewd.

I took that as a sign and plunged on. “David lied to you. He had me drugged and kidnapped. He shot my bodyguard. He took me away from my home!” I heard the crack in my voice, but I didn’t care. “If you let me use the phone, Kieran will tell you, or you can call him. Just ... please, please don’t let David have me.”

Lady turned her chin an inch to one side and met the gaze of the man on her right. She gave a subtle nod.

I thought that meant she believed me, but the men grabbed me and pulled me back to my cube. I was tossed inside and left there.