Mentor (An Impossible Novella) Read online

  She’s going quiet now. But even though her screams are dwindling, my arousal isn’t. I had intended to use sexual touches to frighten her, but I might harvest pleasure from her in ways I had never imagined. I crave to use her body to slake this newfound need. It will take all of my willpower to wait. I need to learn her body, to understand how to best draw lust from her.

  I promised her that she will crave my touch one day. I also promised that I will be completely honest with her. She will learn that, for all my depravities, I am a man of my word.

  Chapter 2

  Kathleen

  Who are you?

  I entered a strange delirium, a state where exhaustion warred with my fear to keep me in some horrible state where I couldn’t differentiate between sleep and wakefulness. In my blindness, the lucid dreams of my painful past and the horrors of my present intermingled.

  “What the fuck is this, Rachel?” My father bellowed, his words slurred with his drunkenness.

  “Roger.” His name was a fearful gasp on my mother’s lips. “I’m sorry. It’s all we could afford.”

  Daddy angrily swiped the meager meal away. The porcelain plate shattered against the wall. Even at the age of seven, I knew that he had drunk away the money that should have bought us a proper meal.

  Mommy did nothing but apologize, but Daddy’s face turned a dangerous shade of purple that I recognized all too well.

  My sister and I ducked beneath the table just before the resounding smack of Daddy’s hand against Mommy’s face cracked through the small kitchen. Bea cringed against me and gripped my hand with her small fingers. She was only five, but she understood violence and pain as well as I did.

  Mommy, run! Why doesn’t she run? I didn’t know why she didn’t try to escape him when he hurt her so terribly. That was something I would learn later, but I would never understand it.

  Passion is a double-edged sword, and I wanted no part of it.

  The echoes of my father’s enraged screams pounded against the inside of my skull, the pain a reminder of abuse. But the harsh sting of abrasions around my wrists and ankles was new.

  I almost longed to remain immersed in my dark memories. At least they were securely in my past; the horrors of my present were too terrible to contemplate.

  My discomforts cruelly pulled me firmly back into my new reality. My shoulders screamed in protest at their prolonged imprisonment, and the unyielding metal slats of the chair to which I was bound dug into my back. I tried to swallow to alleviate some of the rawness in my throat, but my tongue was sandpaper.

  How long had I been here? How long since I had tasted food or water? My stomach felt hollow, and even my veins seemed parched and withering.

  Surely my captor wouldn’t leave me here to die. He had said he wanted to keep me.

  The idea made my empty stomach churn, even as I longed for him to return and grant me reprieve from my thirst and hunger.

  Trapped in the dark and engulfed by pain, I had no concept of the passage of time. I only knew that by the time the door creaked open, I was desperate for him. My small moan at the sound was wrought of relief rather than fear.

  “I think you’ve suffered long enough, pet.” The softness of his words might have been mistaken for caring, but I knew better. He was the one who had inflicted my suffering, so his decision to end it wasn’t a show of concern.

  My discomfort was the price for my question, and he had finally deemed that the price was paid.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Wherever I feel like going.”

  What use was that? He had promised that each question would have an honest answer, and each answer would have a cost. I had cost myself dearly with my rash query. I would have to be more careful with my words if I was going to get out of this place with my sanity intact.

  I resolved not to ask any more questions. I couldn’t afford to lose anything else to him.

  There was a strange sloshing noise before me.

  Water.

  I pulled against my bonds, blindly searching for what I needed.

  His fingertips caressed my cheek, and I jolted at the sudden contact. There was moisture on his skin, and it kissed my dry lips as he traced his thumb across them. I couldn’t help myself; my tongue darted out to catch the droplets of water, caressing his flesh as I did so. He tasted slightly salty, but the water was sweet. It was the most delicious thing I could ever recall.

  “You must be very thirsty.” His voice was low and a bit husky, as though he was affected by the touch of my tongue.

  More. I needed more. To my shame, I parted my lips, seeking to taste him again. His thumb pressed between them, and I yielded easily to the gentle pressure. My mouth closed around him, greedily sucking away every droplet of the precious liquid.

  “That’s it, pet. Good girl.”

  Revulsion suddenly gripped my gut.

  What am I doing?

  I bit down hard, a furious growl escaping me. But he was ready, and in my blindness I hadn’t been able to see his fingers hovering over either side of my jaw, ready to clamp down. They dug into my cheeks, forcing my mouth open before my teeth so much as grazed his skin.

  I would have railed at him for being a sadistic bastard, but I couldn’t manage to force out more than a croak.

  “Well, if you’re not thirsty…” He trailed off on a chuckle, and his feet scraped across the floor as he moved away from me, taking the life-giving water with him.

  “No!” An unintelligible, desperate cry made its way up my ravaged throat. “Please.” My cracked lips formed the word, my vocal cords giving up on forming coherent sound.

  Shame returned, but I forced it to the edges of my consciousness. Survival was more imperative than my pride, and I had never felt closer to death.

  His warm breath returned to my ear, and cold water dripped into the hollow at my throat. I whimpered as it trailed uselessly between my breasts. My tongue thrust out of my mouth, silently begging for more.

  “Are you going to behave?” He asked sternly.

  Hating him, I nodded.

  Loathing faded to bliss when a drop of water hit my waiting tongue. When I pulled it back into my mouth to swallow, his wet forefinger thrust in. He was harsh, invasive this time. Instinctively, I tried to jerk away as his touch neared my throat, but his other hand closed around the back of my skull, blocking my retreat.

  He stilled, waiting. Now that his hand was at the back of my head, I knew that he wouldn’t be able to prevent me from biting him. I also knew that if I did so, he would leave me again, denying me the water I so desperately needed.

  “It’s your choice,” he told me calmly. He knew what I was thinking, had predicted my actions. How many steps ahead was he?

  Cold swept through me as I recognized my captor’s intelligence. I was relying on my own mind to save me, but his was obviously formidable.

  And this round undeniably went to him.

  If I had the strength, I might have laughed madly. Did I really think I had a chance to beat him, to win? We weren’t even playing a game; he was playing, and I was his toy.

  I slumped in my seat, recognizing my defeat. I forced my mind to shut down completely, to ignore the anger and grief and humiliation. There would be time to try to out-think him later. For now, he held my life in his hands, and I was too desperate for sustenance to deny him.

  “Good girl,” he praised me again as I accepted him. I shuddered.

  Slowly, he pulled his finger through my lips, dragging it along my tongue. It fought to keep him in, craving the moisture he offered.

  Once he had fully extricated himself from my mouth, I heard the sloshing sound again. Seconds later, a blessed pool of water was at my lips. The cool liquid dripped over the side of his cupped palm onto my waiting tongue. It slid through his fingers to drizzle onto my throat, my breasts, my stomach. Every inch of my body was greedy for it, desperate to soak up as much as possible.

  He repeated the process, not stopping until my tongue no l
onger felt sundried and shriveled. He appreciated its return to velvety smoothness by stroking two fingers into my mouth, sliding them in and out. I didn’t even realize that I followed the pumping motion, trying to keep him – no, the water that lingered on his skin – in my mouth.

  His low rumble of approval seemed to vibrate through me, but despite my self-loathing, I couldn’t stop myself from whining in protest when he finally removed his hand completely.

  “Don’t be greedy, pet,” he chided. “You take what I give you.”

  Before I could muster up the anger to snarl at him, something fleshy and wet pressed against my lips. The sweet melon touched my tongue, and its delicious juice burst in my mouth when I bit into it.

  “Good behavior is rewarded.”

  “Fuck you, you sick bastard!” The words never managed to form on my tongue; it was too concerned with consuming as much of the honeydew as possible.

  He was no longer gripping the base of my skull to hold me in place. Instead, his hand caressed my neck. His fingers played through my hair, massaging my scalp. The simple comforting touch helped ease some of the tension that had gripped me during my hours of tight bondage. I fought the urge to drop my head back, to welcome the contact. I didn’t entirely succeed.

  When my stomach no longer felt achingly empty, his fingers touched beneath my chin, silently closing my waiting mouth to let me know that he was finished feeding me.

  Disgust rattled insistently at the edges of my consciousness, but I resolutely forced it back. I couldn’t face the humiliation of what he had done to me. My behavior was abhorrent, but I hadn’t had a choice.

  Had I?

  I should have died before accepting that treatment, I berated myself.

  But self-deprecation wouldn’t do me any good now. What was done was done.

  Put it behind you. Move past it.

  I had learned to ignore the horrors of my past long ago. I wouldn’t have survived otherwise. That was all I could focus on for the time being: survival. I couldn’t escape if I was dead. I had lived through abuse before, and I could do it again. I wouldn’t let this bastard beat me.

  The cold edge of the knife against the crook of my arm was now a familiar sensation.

  “Don’t move,” he warned. Again, his soft tone was a perversion of caring. The man holding a blade against my skin wasn’t concerned with my well-being. He was concerned with maintaining his control over me.

  The rope briefly bit into the abrasions around my wrists, and I hissed in pain just before my bonds fell away. My tormentor had sliced through them as easily as he had cut away my clothes.

  I had all but forgotten that I was naked. When base imperatives like hunger and thirst weren’t met, the denial of social norms like covering one’s nudity seemed unimportant. Now that my need for sustenance had been slaked, my discomfort at the sensation of his hands on my bare skin returned full-force.

  But that was nothing compared to the humiliation he was about to force me to endure.

  Once he had freed my ankles, his hands closed around my waist, pulling me upright. My cramped muscles shrieked in protest, and my legs gave way beneath me. I collapsed against him, and he caught me easily. My hands strained to lash out at him, but my arms hung uselessly at my sides.

  One arm braced around my waist, and his other hand stroked up and down my back.

  “Shhh,” he soothed me.

  A childlike sob ripped its way up my throat as an overwhelming surge of emotion tore through me: anguish, fear, fury, humiliation, and a sick sense of longing. I craved comfort, and his twisted parody of care tricked my shattered mind into accepting his touch.

  The lingering desire to hurt him only filled me with that much more distress at the knowledge that there was nothing I could do against him. I could feel the muscles of his chest and arms undulating around me as he continued to stroke me. Even if I possessed the strength to fight him, my limbs were still screaming from their prolonged immobility.

  I was powerless, and that was exactly how he wanted me to feel.

  That knowledge helped me gather my wits. My sobs quieted, giving way to my determination to defy him. He might have control of my body, but I would deny him control of my mind.

  He recognized the return of my willpower. Again, he proved that he was several steps ahead of me when he scooped me up into his arms. I gave a little shocked squeal at the disorienting movement. My sight was still denied me, depriving me of any sense of balance.

  When he swung me down, my naked thighs came to rest on something cold and hard. I started crying again when I realized what it was: a toilet.

  “Fuck you,” I flung at him before my sobs robbed me of the ability to speak.

  He said nothing; he just allowed me to cry while he petted my hair. His other hand held the flat of the knife across my throat, a silent warning not to fight him. For a moment, I considered leaning into the blade, to end this perverted torment. The psychological torture was so much worse than the physical pain he had inflicted upon me.

  Death at the edge of his knife was a siren’s call. The blade had so cruelly stripped me of so many things: my clothing, my dignity. Why not let it take my life? At least it would be on my own terms.

  To my chagrin, I discovered that I was a coward; I just couldn’t do it.

  I’m not sure how long it took, but he simply waited until my needs overcame my resistance.

  “I hate you,” I managed to hiss when he lifted me up once again.

  “I know.” I could feel him shrug, as though my hatred was of no consequence to him. His casual demeanor was belied by the hint of pleasure in his voice. He wanted me to hate him. Even my loathing was a weapon to be used against me, an indulgence he savored.

  I shuddered in his arms, but I had no more tears to cry.

  He laid me down on something soft. I couldn’t hold in a small sigh of relief that he hadn’t returned me to the cruel metal chair.

  Before I could even consider pushing through the pain in my stiff limbs to fight him, his hands closed around my upper arms. His fingers worked my sore muscles, and I couldn’t hold in my moan as the tightness eased. I went limp beneath him, losing the will to resist.

  Later. I’ll fight later. I’m too weak now, I’m blind, and he has a knife.

  Yes, later was definitely better.

  His hands progressed along my arms, drawing them up above my head to stretch my shoulders while he massaged away the pain.

  Suddenly, his weight settled over my hips, and his forearm pinned down my left wrist while he firmly grasped the right one.

  “What-”

  I stopped my panicked question just in time.

  “What are you doing?”

  Something soft encircled my wrist, pulling tight just before a metallic tinkling filled my ears. The quiet snick was familiar, and it took me three horrified heartbeats before I accepted the meaning of the sound.

  Padlock.

  I struggled in earnest, wildly twisting beneath him, but his weight restrained me as efficiently as the rope that had held me to the chair.

  He quickly repeated the process on my left wrist. I jerked against the restraints as soon as he released my hands, but my efforts were met with a clanking sound, and I realized that my range of movement was restricted to no more than a few inches.

  His fingers gently traced down my arms. I felt something harder than his hips pressing into my belly.

  I might have been a virgin, but I wasn’t completely naïve. My captor was aroused by my struggles.

  The knowledge increased the frenzy of my instinctive efforts to escape him.

  “Shhh,” he soothed me again, his hands caressing the outer swell of my breasts.

  My nipples pebbled automatically at the touch, and bile rose in the back of my throat.

  Rape. He’s going to rape me.

  “Don’t.” I couldn’t manage to force out more than the one word.

  “I’m not going to rape you, pet,” he reassured me, reading my thoughts
again. “You’ll ask me to fuck you one day.”

  “You sick bastard!” I found my voice. “You’re crazy!”

  His hand closed around my throat. He didn’t squeeze; it was a silent warning. I went still instantly, my damn survival instinct kicking me into obedience.

  “I already told you: you don’t know the half of it. But I won’t tolerate such rude language. Pets aren’t supposed to speak. Your words are a privilege, and you should be careful how you use them unless you want to lose that privilege.”

  I swallowed hard, and my body began to tremble. Even if I had dared to hurl more insults at him, the fear that clogged my throat would have prevented me from doing so.

  Maintaining his hold on my neck, he abruptly ripped the blindfold from my eyes. The flood of light seared them, and I screamed as I clamped my lids closed.

  “Please-”

  I stopped myself before I could beg him to return me to the darkness. Not only did the light hurt, but I was terrified to face my reality, to face him. Somehow, the blindness had made it less real. If I opened my eyes, the world would take shape around me, and the horror of my situation would become concrete.

  Coward, I accused myself. How could I ever hope to escape if I couldn’t take inventory of my prison? I needed to learn everything I could about where I was and who my tormentor was if I wanted to see the outside world again.

  I blinked hard, forcing my eyes to focus. The room seemed painfully bright, even though my mind registered the fact that it was only dimly lit. The shadows on my captor’s face told me that much.

  He shifted where he hovered above me, tilting his face up slightly to force the shadows to dissipate. Recognition jolted through my gut, and I gasped.