Elsie
I knelt before him as he circled me, my heart beating so hard I thought it was going to rip from my chest and plop onto the floor before me.
His shoes were dirty and scuffed, and for some reason that surprised me. My new Master had paid a hard price at auction for me, yet it seemed he couldn’t afford new shoes.
“What is your name?”
“Bonnie, Master,” I answered. I knew how it worked by now. And every Master who had purchased me knew how I worked. That’s why my wrists were already in chains, so I couldn’t fight him. Not that I had the energy, or the inclination, to contest this anymore.
I remained still when he placed his hand on my head and dug his fingers into my skull harshly. I swore he was trying to touch my brain, gouge at it and pull it from my head.
Frank had tried so hard to teach me how to control the beat of my heart, and, still, I failed him.
Fear rendered me breathless when my Master continued to force the pressure between my brain and skull out through my ears, and I yielded to his cruelty, whimpering in pain as I curled into a ball under the agony.
“Get up!” he barked, finally removing his agonising grip.
I stumbled around, the restriction to my arms making me clumsy as I once again knelt on the hard floor.
“The chains suit you, girl. I believe we’ll keep them.”
“Yes, thank you, Master.”
He came to stand in front of me, his shoes once more gaining my attention and giving my mind a short reprieve.
“Look at me.”
I lifted my face, making sure to keep my emotions in check as I looked at him. No master liked to see emotion, and I learned very quickly how to control those.
“Get up.”
Standing, I made sure to keep my eyes on his, as he expected.
His sneer was sickening, and I bit my tongue when he grabbed my t-shirt and ripped it from me, my shorts following until I was stood naked before him.
“Let’s find out what your limit is, shall we?”
Because I had trained my eyes on his and not looked away, I didn’t see the thick piping in his hand. Not until he ordered me to turn around and bend over….
“Elsie!”
Euan bound me in his arms, trying in vain to stop me freaking out and subdue the scream that was still rupturing the silence of the night.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he soothed when I buried my face in his chest and liberated all the fear in a mass of tears.
“Why won’t they go away?” I sobbed, holding him tighter as I strived to ground myself.
“Because your mind can’t let go yet.”
“Not the nightmares,” I contested. “The tears.”
I sensed his soft smile, even if I didn’t see it. “Why do you want to stop them?”
“Because they hold no purpose. They don’t achieve anything.”
“They let you breathe, Elsie. Stop fighting it and let them go,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to my head. “And then take a first real breath.”
“But what if I don’t want to take that breath? What then?”
He tilted my head back with a finger under my chin, and frowned, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
Lowering my eyes from his, releasing myself from his scrutiny, I shrugged. “What if that one new breath scares me.”
“It only scares you because you will feel, and you don’t want to feel,” he stated, then shaking his head, he corrected his words. “Or rather you’ve been taught to fear emotions. But it’s impossible, Elsie. No human being is incapable of feeling. Not even you.”
He leaned back against the headboard and drew me around, so I was straddled across his lap, my soft chest pressed to his hard one. His hair tickled my nipples and aroused me, yet again, and I started to grind my clit on him.
He grinned up at me. “I’ve unchained a beast.”
“I don’t know about a beast,” I breathed against his lips as I slid down on his hard cock. “But definitely a need.”
He watched me intently as I rocked over him, the stimulation to my clit and the stretch of his thick cock inside me building me towards my climax quickly.
“You’re so fucking hot,” he moaned as his fingers dug into my hips and he guided my speed. “So fucking…”
I shot off him and grabbed the sheet to my chest when the door opened, and Frank stood staring at me. There was so much hurt and disappointment in the darkness of his eyes that I couldn’t find the strength even to offend him with an excuse.
My heart hurt, but I wasn’t sure why. For Frank? For me? Or for Euan?
Shaking his head slowly, Frank sighed and walked away, leaving me sitting in a slump on Euan’s bed.
“You want me to try and talk to him?” Euan offered as he tenderly rested his hand on my shoulder. “Tell him that this wasn’t on you, that I seduced you.”
I could hear the worry in his voice, and I smiled, hoping to ease his concern. “It will be okay. My career is over already anyway. This won’t make much difference.”
I prayed he didn’t catch my lie. Whereas Frank had hinted at allowing me to walk away if his conclusions over my reckless behaviour came back negative, giving myself bodily and emotionally to another only resulted in one kind of termination.
A chill crept over me, and I rose from the bed and picked up Euan’s shirt from where he’d tossed it earlier. Wrapping it around me, I pushed open the balcony doors and stepped into the night.
Euan came up beside me and handed me a lit cigarette.
“Maybe leaving Three Blades will give you that new breath you’re so fearful of taking,” he said quietly, blowing his smoke out into the darkness.
I knew he couldn’t understand, and I didn’t expect him to. The night I had been brought to Three Blades when I was eight had been the night I had taken one of those new breaths that Euan was always talking about. I had inhaled new air, filled my old lungs with newness, and started a life I couldn’t ever have comprehended at such a young age. It had been that single breath that had bestowed so much and taken so much away. But, throughout it all, it had given me a sense of being needed, wanted. It had given me a family and a purpose, and it had made me who I was today. Without that, who the hell was I?
My life was over now anyway, so why I was worried about the what ifs was beyond me.
“It’ll be okay, Elsie,” Euan promised.
I nodded, blowing out my smoke and watching as it danced in the air and merged with Euan’s.
My phone pinged from inside the bedroom where I had left it on the nightstand.
I stood staring at the text for a long while, until a chill crept into my bones and Euan brought me back to bed, his embrace doing nothing to warm the iciness feeding on me.
Frank: You know the charge. At 1800 hours tomorrow, I will terminate your service. Do not be late.