೦ Anna ೦

 

My heart is racing so rapidly that I can feel my pulse on my tongue. I feel beyond sick and keep swallowing against the hand that almost chokes me, to keep the bile out of my mouth. I’m terrified of the idea of throwing up right now. The blindfold is glued to my face now, drenched by my tears.

This has to be a nightmare.

This can’t be true.

This isn’t my Sam.

It can’t be.

Yet, I still can feel his iron grasp around my throat, every single finger that dug into my neck have now moved and are lingering beneath my collarbones. His hands are that large.

His words are still echoing in my head. No, not his, his father’s words. Sam sounds just like his older brothers, but he means every word, unlike them.

My own question sounds weak, insecure, and just as desperate as he makes me feel.

“What happened to you?” But I already know the answer before the last word even jumps from my mouth, so I add it, knowing that this would have been his answer anyway: “I happened to you.”

His silence just proves I’m right and all my resolve, all the strength I just gathered, willing to defy my captor oozes out of me, like blood from cut wrists. My knees, my feet, my legs don’t want to carry me anymore, and I don’t care if my shoulders ache as my legs give in beneath me.

If I cried because of the shock, of my disbelief, over his harsh words, or his rough treatment, I now cry out of regret and sorrow.

All those years I feared he had died that night, and had beaten myself up that I didn’t fight harder, didn’t demand that the men who had taken me would turn around and get him, too. I believed their arguments; I had been too distraught and shocked, to really act.

All the time I have begged and pleaded for him to still be alive.

I even prayed.

But I didn’t waste even one second wondering about Sam having survived and what it meant.

How selfish of me.

How ignorant. How cruel.

I wanted him to be alive, so I wasn’t responsible for his death.

Hearing my Sam talking like this makes realization come crashing down on me like a tsunami, smashing the air from my lungs, make me drown, as I remember the little glimpses I got and the scenes I had witnessed, while living on the Church’s premises. It has taken me years to understand what really is going on there, but I somehow managed to not connect the dots, until now.

Sam must hate me. The only boy, the only man I have ever loved, apart from Grandpa, hates me. And I deserve it.

“I’m…” I stammer. “I’m so sorry, Sam...ael. So, so sorry. They told me you were dead. I didn’t dare ...”

“Shut your mouth!” he hisses at me.

Sam never raised his voice against me before. I couldn’t stop myself from sobbing. It just seems to anger him even more. Suddenly, his hand digs into my hair at the back of my head and yanks it backwards. I know that even though I can’t see him, Samael is glaring at me right now. The heat of his stare radiates onto my skin.

“You will only speak, when I tell you to, Rachel,” he tells me, and him using that name for me is worse than any violence he could use against me. “Do you understand?”

I nod slightly, as his hand is still holding me in an iron grip.

“Answer me,” Samael’s voice grows quieter with every syllable he utters.

“Yes,” I whisper hoarsely, yearning to please him, hoping that if I’m obedient, he’ll give me the chance to earn his forgiveness.

I can’t stop the tears from fleeing my eyes, as I can’t stop my mind from imagining what he must have endured all these years.

My sweet, caring Sam has turned into this, because of me. It’s not important that he found me, or that he hates me. It’s important that he’s alive.

For a second, I expect him to order me that I must address him as ‘master’ or ‘Sir’ but he stays silent, not releasing me, just breathing down on my face. And the chill of the room is replaced with the heat of his body being close to mine.

Suddenly, I don’t mind the uncomfortable position I’m in, as long as he is this close.

“Soon, you will mean your words,” Samael suddenly says, his voice husky and thick, sounding more like he is telling me sweet nothings, because my body reacts to him like that.

How can he possibly think that I’m lying to him? That I’m not really sorry for what has happened?

The idea of him being tormented for years because of me is beyond terrible. But the thought that he holds me responsible is unthinkable.

It wasn’t my choice that the men left him behind. It hadn’t been my grandparents’ decision either.

“You know what is going to happen to you, Rachel,” he continues, easing the pull on my head, not moving away, and once again my body reacts to his in the most embarrassing way. “You know I am going to punish you for betraying me. And I am going to teach you how to be a proper, obedient, god-fearing believer. Just as you were supposed to be.” He leans in to me, his lips are brushing my ear, chasing goosebumps across my skin, as he speaks lowly: “And more.”

Those two words make me shudder in the wrong way and he notices it.

“What is that?” he asks and almost sounds as if he is disgusted.

Before I know what he’s up to, he pinches my right erect nipple forcefully. Pain shoots through my body and from my throat breaks a groan, as my arousal turns pain into pleasure. He repeats the treatment on my other nipple and my reaction is the same. Heat shoots into my cheeks as I am deeply ashamed. I can’t stop myself from grinding my legs together, doing my best to hide the effect he evokes in me. I’m so terribly wet, it’s embarrassing.

“What are you doing?” he grumbles, yanking at my hair again and I freeze mid-movement.

Oh God, no. He noticed. Why couldn’t I just keep still and endure this?

His hand brushes across the wetness of my briefs and touches me right beneath my clit. It puts my nerves on fire. Another heat wave of shame rolls through my body and my face is burning.

But the sound he makes, makes me shake my head instantly: Samael lets out a deep, reproachful sigh. He thinks I’m a slut! He thinks that I’m sleeping around.

“I’m not!” I blurted out my protest, biting down on my lower lip too late.

“What did I tell you?” Samael asks icily, and I wish instantly that he would have been angry instead.

“That I will only speak when you tell me to,” I respond, quickly.

“Exactly,” Samael sounds almost approving, and for a split second I believe that I’ve done well, until pain jolts through my body as his flat hand slaps me between my legs, pushing the air from my lungs.

I gasp, but the rush of pleasure that follows almost turns the sound I make into a groan, which I barely manage to suppress.

“Unbelievable,” Samael murmurs, rather talking to himself than addressing me.

He slaps my clit once more and I somehow only whimper. But then hits me a third and a fourth time, forcing me to moan. And I want more.

“You are a slut,” Samael scolds me, forcing my head towards his face again. “You are enjoying this.”

I press my lips shut to prevent myself from talking again, but shake my head, determinedly.

“Then tell me,” his mouth is at my ear once more. “Why do you think you are not a slut, Rachel.”

Him calling me this makes me wince, it feels as if he’s slapping my face, but I’m eager to answer him.

“Because,” my voice fails me.

Not because I’m ashamed, but due to his finger drawing circles around my clit. How does Samael know about this, when it’s a sin?

“I’m…” I gasp as he increases the pressure.

My eyes roll backwards and I moan. It feels so much better when he does it compared to imagining that it’s him when it’s my hand touching me.

I so desperately want him to continue. I want him to sink his fingers into me, to push my briefs aside and bury his cock inside me, fuck me, claim me, make me his. But right now, I’m just proving him right. I should have kept my mouth shut.

“Answer me,” he hisses at me and slaps between my legs one more time, as if to show me that I’m not only a slut, but also a liar.

“Because…,” I whisper, gasping for air. “I saved myself for you.”

 

 

⌽ Samael ⌽

 

“You what?”

I can’t believe what I just heard.

Anna, a virgin?

She is twenty-one. She had been at a boarding school before returning for college. That I found out, after reading her file. Anna didn’t have any guidance, not from a parent or grandparent, not from a priest or psychologist, and she still saved herself?

Am I wrong, about her? Or is she lying again?

She told those girls that she had a boyfriend. Was that a lie? Or did she stay chaste despite of him.

“I saved myself for you,” Anna repeats her words as if she can sense my disbelief.

Oh, Anna, you cannot mislead me.

“You are not only a slut, but also a liar,” I let go of her, needing physical distance.

My disgust makes my stomach churn and revolt.

“I’m not lying,” she whispers.

“Quiet!” I shout at her.

“Sam, please,” she begs me, sounding so innocent, so sincere, just like she used to.

It was unbearable.

“I love you.”

Those three words. This insolence!

These words turn the world on its head. They are more painful than any tool my father can turn on me. No torture is crueler than hers. Using my feelings against me. How dare she? Throwing them at me to make me falter and fail, once more.

How can she know?

“I told you not to call me that,” I growl at her, my wrath eating at my voice.

I cling to the control I can execute over her. I reach out and turn my wrath into my ally again. And I can feel myself grinning, disappointed that she cannot see my triumph. But it doesn’t matter, because I now know how to punish this lying, deceiving witch.

With quick steps, I passed her by and watch how she tenses, expecting me to touch her again, but I open the door to her cell, and leave her behind, to closed the big metal door behind me, locking it with two heavy bars.

“Sam?” I can hear her call after me, in disbelief at first, then in shock, and eventually in panic. “Sam? Sam! Samael! Please?”

My grin fades as she continues pleading. I walk to the monitors and switched off the speakers. The world falls silent, but I can still hear voice as I see her still shouting, sobbing, pulling at the chains in despair.

Anna cannot see me, she cannot know that I have monitors installed, so why continue the act?

Anna continues to shout my name, asking me to come back, yet no sound reaches my ear. After all, her cell is soundproof. I cannot risk anyone passing by to hear her. No one can know she is here. Thoughtlessly, while watching her, I bring up the hand I touched her with, and inhale her scent, realizing too late what I am doing. I use that hand to slap myself.

She is much more cunning than I expected, more alluring and seductive. But it still surprises me how easily she lies to me. How easily she is telling me exactly what I do not want her to say to me, but secretly hope to hear from her.

But what if she is still a virgin?

This is truly God’s work, as Rowena told me repeatedly. My father will be beyond proud if I bring her back exactly as he demands: pristine, untouched.

Although, if she is not lying, it means that things just have become more difficult. Since I cannot do half the things to her I planned. I will have to rethink the training sessions I prepared.

I hesitate as my train of thoughts comes to a stumbling stop. If Anna is not lying about being a virgin, did she not lie about everything else she said?

Or maybe she tells one truth to make all the other lies believable to me? It makes sense.

I must be sure about whether she is lying or not. So, I will still punish her for being consumed by lust. Not because of the ache inside my chest that is – I must admit – disappointment, regarding something I should be indifferent about. Sex, is a weapon, a tool, and nothing to be enjoyed. I should not be crestfallen about not getting to fuck her, because I would not have enjoyed it. I am not supposed to enjoy it.

No one would expect her to be a virgin when I return her to the flock. She has been out in this filthy world for six years. She has been abroad. She has been at college. Both places of cardinal sins.

No one would know that she was a virgin when I captured her. Once broken, she would never dare to tell anyone that I took what had been supposed to be mine all along.

No! I shake my head. I am disgusted by myself. I hit myself against the chest, repeatedly.

She is getting into my head already. This was her plan. Anna is trying to seduce me and it is working.

I am still so weak.

I adjust my pants since my cock is rock-hard and makes me feel uncomfortable.

I let out a deep sigh. There is no pleasure without punishment for a guardian. Heading towards the door that led upstairs, I pass by the line of floggers, paddles, and other tools I had gathered for Anna’s training and grabbed the nine-tailed flogger right next to the door.

‘The higher the rank the more tails,’ I hear my father’s voice in my head. I am the only one who has a nine-tailed flogger.

I climb the stairs without watching where I am going. I have spent most of my childhood at this place, until my grandparents died. They left shortly after each other. They couldn’t live without each other. After that, this house had been empty until my father granted me the permission to restore the place on the outer limits of the Church’s property.

My mother’s parents had been farmers, and had kept to themselves. I never got the chance to ask them why they were not participating as much as the other families did. Maybe my mother’s death was the reason.

Locking up the cellar door behind me twice, I continue walking to the bathroom and turn on the hot water, undress myself, without looking at the mirrors that I know show countless scars of different sizes and forms on my body.

I put the flogger onto the toilet seat within my reach, as I step under the scorching stream but ignoring it as I lower my head to let the water give me at least a little relief. It is brief.

My cock hurts from being hard and the memories of Anna being chained to the ceiling, her voice, her scent, her pleading, just makes it worse.

The worst thing, however, is the thought that she is still a virgin. Thinking of this changes the images in my head, transform memories into fantasies of me fucking her against the wall, her moaning my name in pleasure, giving herself to him. Her lips on mine, her lips around my cock, my seed inside of her, making her mine.

I can’t stop my imagination from running wild, while I grab my rejection and masturbate under the burning water, thinking of her. Thinking of being her first and last, because when I am finished with her, she will not be Anna anymore. Anna could be mine and mine only. I would be the only one ever giving her pleasure, or ‘light’ as Rowena calls it. Being the first to violate every hole of hers, hands around her delicate neck, choking her. Anna still begging me for more, begging me to fuck her, begging me to make her pregnant…

That final fantasy makes me come, violently, while her true name escapes my lips: “Anna.”

I am doomed. I am beyond saving.

Those words of hers repeat themselves in my head. ‘I saved myself for you. I saved myself for you. I saved myself for you.’ It just will not stop. It does not stop.

Not when my fists hammer against the tiles.

Not when they punch my chest.

Not when I hit my head against the wall.

The images do not stop either.

Gritting my teeth, fueled with wrath, I yank the flogger from the toilet seat and swing it around, and all nine tails collide with my back. The water is still running. My cock is turning erect again.

Once more I move my arm swiftly and bring the tails of the flogger down on the other half of my back. But I can still hear her in my head, still see me fucking her, defiling her, taking what is meant to be my fathers for myself.

Though shalt not steal.

I continue, swinging the tool of torture repeatedly, not stopping despite droplets of blood falling into the water like tears. Because this fantasy just will not stop continuing in my head. And it is still right there in my mind as the flogger falls from my hand from exhaustion.

Maybe, I should simply unchain her and bring her to my father and be done with it all.

But I cannot. I must prove to myself that I am stronger than my third cardinal sin, and that I can withstand her, that I can discipline and teach the very woman that has been my downfall.

When I manage to do that my father will forgive me everything.

When Anna is gone. My pain will be gone.

When Anna is Rachel, all of this will stop. The pain, the agony, the desperation, and the dreams.

 

೦ Anna ೦

 

For a second I’m sure Sam is walking straight towards me, but then he passes me by, without hesitation and shuts the door behind him. I can hear the locks and bars securing what sounds like a very heavy door.

I can’t believe it. He won’t just leave me here like this. I call out for him without considering it first. I shout his name, beg for him to come back, over and over again. I’m growing desperate with every single time until my voice turns hoarse.

It’s only then when I think of the possibility that he might not hear me, because he walked out of my reach. Maybe this room is soundproof.

It would make sense.

I shake my head. Why isn’t my mind functioning? Is it still the drugs in my system, or have they already vanished, leaving me weak and emotional?

I have to admit that I never believed Sam would be the one to kidnap me. But this isn’t my Sam, is it?

My body starts shaking as a horrible thought takes over my mind. All this fury in his voice, the reproach, the disgust, what he said, how he acted.

My Sam died that night, just not in the literal way. I killed him and this man, who had the same voice as my Sam, was a stranger. This is Samael.

I have no clue what he has in store for me, but if I’ve been able to imagine what would happen to me if Michael or Gabriel would get their hands on me, I’ll have to expect that the youngest of Joshua’s sons is capable of the same.

“No,” I shake my head, trying to stand on my trembling legs. “I can’t believe it. He’s in there somewhere. I just have to try and remind him. He can’t honestly believe that I left him on purpose. That I’m lying to him. I never lied to him.”

I had told him, I love him. I told him that I saved myself for him and the reaction to my words was so far beyond my imagination. I knew right then that it was the worst I could have said. He had been furious, and I drove him even further away.

‘No one loves me,’ he told me all those years ago.

Seven years, to be precise. I remember it perfectly, how beaten up he had looked. Covered with cuts and bruises, his back all bloody and red, as if it was one big open, gashing wound. I had no idea what had happened to him and he refused to tell me, not even talking to me the entire time I carefully dabbed away the blood and cautiously put ointment on the parts of his skin that wasn’t ruined, just as my mother had told me to, as it would be my duty when I was a woman.

“But I love you,” I had murmured as a response to his statement.

I remember with my eyes closed and covered with the blindfold, how Sam had turned his head to face me, looking at me with big black eyes, as if he was asking, begging me not to lie to him.

I have never lied to him.

Back then I blushed, averting my gaze to continue tending to his injuries, but I could still feel his eyes on me, watching me closely. My heart had pounded in my chest and yet fluttered like a butterfly, making me feel dizzy. Even more so, he placed his hand on mine I had thoughtlessly put next to him to get some balance as I needed to reach to other side of his body. His touch had made my blood sing in my ears.

A sob escaped my throat, echoing in the cold cell I’m held in, and I can’t hold back the tears.

All is lost now, isn’t it?

How could I be so stupid and not know that if Sam survived the shot he might change through the years that would follow?

How couldn’t I think of the possibility that his father would manage to break him, to change him into that blind obedient puppet he wanted him to be?

But I’ve clung to hope for so long, despite my best efforts to be rational and reasonable, I can’t let go of it now.

Everything is different with Sam. He’s the one that didn’t die. And there’s a reason it was him who captured me. There must be. I can save him.

I want my mind to take over my body and shut down this uncontrollable sobbing that is shaking my entire body, but it won’t stop. For too long I’ve locked away my sorrow and pain behind walls; these walls of rationality, guilt, and a promise to live for my grandparents and for Sam. And now, these walls have crumbled as if they had been nothing but dominos, fallen because I finally met Sam again.

It doesn’t make any difference that he’s not the Sam I remember, or the Sam I dreamt of. Or that he is the exact opposite of my fantasy.

My walls of resolve and iron determination have fallen and there is no way of building them back up. So, I let the tears run, let it all out, the loss, the pain, the desperation, all the held breaths, all the tentative answers, the twisting of truth, the act I played for so long. I shed all these fake skins and masks I put on through the last six years, to bury all and everything that was me, just because I didn’t want anyone to get hurt because of me.

Fate is such an odd thing. It must be in love with irony, because it is just that, irony. That of all the people who could set out to return me it has to be the one who helped me to run away in the first place.

I knew that someday I’d have to pay for being forced to abandon Sam, I’d have to pay for what happened to my grandparents.

Being at Sam’s mercy makes perfect sense.

Somehow, it’s a consolation.