***
Whenever I read a book about a woman falling in love with her captor, it made me scream out aloud in anger and disbelief. It’s just a book, one part of me would insist. But I’d been imprisoned for two years. I’d lived through my captor’s mood swings. When I least expected it, I would be rewarded with a pretty dress, with a piece of chocolate or best of all, with a new book. But the flip side was also true. When I least expected it I would be punished. Beaten. Caned. Given to his guards so I could be gang raped.
All of it was to instill one belief into me. Everything depended on Dylan. My life and my death. My happiness and my sorrow. Everything was his to control, and if I wanted to survive, I needed to learn to please him as well as I could.
Waiting in Madame Lorraine’s dungeon, my skin felt cold and clammy. I was on the verge of a panic attack. I’d had these, off and on, a few times in the last six years. I’d had one the first time I’d killed a man. I’d woken up with nightmares of being trapped in my cell in Abeokuta, waiting to be summoned by Dylan. I’d been startled awake, time after time, screaming for the guards to please stop hurting me.
Lucien had looked at me eight weeks ago when this plan had been hatched, my panic attacks on his mind. He had asked me if I was going to be okay.
Lucien was driven by his thirst for revenge, the same way I was driven by mine. There was no room for anything else. It wasn’t concern for me that had prompted his question, just a worry that our plan wouldn’t work if I’d broken down at an inappropriate spot.
“I’ll be fine,” I had replied, shutting the conversation down before it could start. Now Madame Lorraine’s trainers were almost here and I was running out of time.
Obedience was simple. I was practised at obeying. But what I had to do was something far more difficult. I had to genuinely experience pleasure and arousal when I followed their directions. I had to crave the bondage and the submission. I had to welcome each stroke of the flogger. I had to believe that pleasure and pain were two sides of the same coin and I had to convince myself that when I renounced control, I would fly.
I had to act and I would have to be believed. This was more important than any role I’d ever played in Dylan’s Nigerian stronghold.
Two years ago, had I been asked if I could do this, I would have shaken my head. I thirsted for revenge but I didn’t lack self-awareness. My body had reacted to defend itself against Dylan’s thrusts, lubricating to minimize the pain. When my former Master had strummed on my clitoris, I had climaxed. But these were the automatic responses of my body. My mind hadn’t felt pleasure. I wouldn’t have been able to fake something I’d never experienced.
But that night after I’d killed Ivan, I’d run into a bar and I’d met a man. Marc. As I waited for Madame Lorraine’s trainers, I wrapped the memory of our night together around me as if it were a blanket that could insulate me from the cold in my soul.
***
There were two of them. A man and a woman. Or, to use the proper lingo, a Dom and a Domme.
Both of them were dressed in black. The man was bare-chested, his muscles tight and sinewy. The woman wore a tight leather corset that showcased every inch of her body and she looked absolutely amazing. They both moved towards me.
“Look at me,” the woman commanded. I met her eyes.
They both smiled. “Come,” the man said. He held his hand out to me, and helped me rise from my kneeling position. “Let’s discuss safety before we start, okay? Jenny, right?”
I nodded. Ellie Samuelson was gone. She’d disappeared into the dusk. She’d last been seen in the parking lot of a Cleveland mall eight years ago. No one was looking for her anymore. But Jenny Fullerton had a sister, Alicia, who was dying of leukemia. “Yes Master.”
The man shook his head. “I’m not your Master, Jenny,” he said. “My name is William. If you like, you can call me Sir.”
I nodded. “Yes Sir.”
The two of them led me to a couch that I hadn’t noticed in the corner of the dungeon. Lucien would have flayed me alive for not being observant enough and he would have been right. We never knew what little detail could help keep us alive, or help us find Dylan.
“Sit,” the woman ordered again. She smiled at me warmly, her gentle expression at odds with her firm tone. “My name is Karen.” She winked at me. “Please don’t call me Mistress, it makes me feel old.”
I laughed, surprised that joking was permitted in this space, and they both glanced at each other. Why?