“I think you deserve a particularly horrible punishment for always interfering in my plans with Bret,” she said, answering her own question while tapping his bearded chin with one finger. The slight contact amped up his anxiety, and he shivered. “He may have listened to you complain about me, but he loved me.” Her derisive tone told him what she thought about that. “He would’ve never turned me out the way you kept telling him to do. And now, you’ve ruined my chance to have him how I always wanted him: in chains. So, how shall I make you pay for all of it?”
Jake’s body shook with fear, both real and chemically induced. Amy was far more lethal than he had once thought.
“I know just the place you should go,” she continued with a bright smile, as if she’d come up with a brilliant idea. “I have an acquaintance near here, a woman who’s exceptionally adept at training men to be perfect little slaves. I’ll bet she’d jump at the chance to make you a willing breeder. You’ll make her a lot of money. Once she pays me a high price for you that is.”
“P-Please…” Jake pleaded involuntarily, the drug wreaking havoc with his willpower. No matter how much he wanted to resist begging, he couldn’t stop now that he had started. “P-Please…” he muttered again, his voice shaking while fighting the drug—and losing. “Let me go…”
Amy laughed.
“Darla’s going to tear you to pieces, Jake,” she told him, her sinister smile sending waves of dread prickling up and down his spine. “A little bit at a time, she’ll peel away your pride—”
A loud thud from down the hall jolted Jake’s mind back to the present. Darkness surrounded his sweating, trembling body as terror from his nightmarish recollection lingered in his mind. As much as he hated the bleak confines of his concrete cell, he was thankful to be alone. No one expecting anything. No one demanding he perform acts that made him want to retch. No one hurting him. He waited for the sound in the hallway to repeat, but when it didn’t, he exhaled in a grateful rush and ran an unsteady hand over his face.
Why can’t I stop obsessing about what happened that day?
He slumped against the cold stone walls of his tiny prison cell, staring into the midnight-black nothingness. Scurrying sounds of small creatures sounded nearby, and in the distance he heard the soft sobs of another slave. A burning wetness welled in Jake’s eyes, and a thick ache formed in the back of his throat for the other man’s suffering. Or maybe it was for his own. He shook his head, wiped at his face again, and tried to block out the other man’s weeping.
The concrete chamber in which he sat was smaller than the walk-in closet in the tiny two-bedroom apartment he’d rented years ago. That room had seemed huge back then; this one felt claustrophobic. He had enough room to lie down and turn over, but that was about it.
His first frantic attempt to find a way out yielded nothing. Several times since, his hands had methodically slid over the wet, rough stones of his cell. His fingers dug into the concrete joints, every nook and cranny, until they hurt; still, he found no way out. Even if he had, he couldn’t have gone anywhere. The chains connected to the heavy shackles around his neck, wrists, and ankles anchored him to the wall, but he kept trying. So many times, sweat had trickled down his face and chest as he gritted his teeth, his fingers gripping the chains with a desperate strength. He strained every muscle in his body, but after hours of repeated yanking, he released them with a despondent cry and sprawled on the damp floor in exhausted defeat.
The lump in his throat returned. Would he ever see the sun again? Ever see his friends? But then, only one of those remained. Bret Masters.
He sighed and rubbed his forehead, attempting to ease the ache caused by thinking about Bret. He dropped his hand and sighed again. The long story of their friendship had led Jake to this fate. A part of him blamed Bret for everything that had happened to him in this place, which was unfair, but rationalizing didn’t stop him from being angry.
His fingers unconsciously moved to his chest. They kneaded rhythmically, trying to release the knot of despair tangled around his heart. In constant battle, resentment warred with the brotherly regard he still harbored for Bret, and the victor was, as yet, undecided.
Jake rubbed at his temples and shivered. This damn room is freezing.
Even in the spring, the room was damp and cool. Of course, being naked all the time didn’t help, but his Mistress, Darla Cain, couldn’t be bothered with clothing her slaves. Only when required to work in the cold and wet or the sweltering heat were they given the minimal basics to cover their nudity. The rest of the time, they were all bare and vulnerable to whatever their Mistress wanted from them. Or what she wanted to do to them. After witnessing much of her cruelty personally, Jake suspected she hated men—she took too much enjoyment from their agony not to. Adept at causing pain, she tormented her captives, changed them, ruling them utterly. When she tired of them, they were tossed aside and left to molder as Jake was doing now.
Jake had to admit, Amy’s choice of punishment had been well made. The things his Mistress did to him were terrible—demoralizing and humiliating—and he didn’t want to remember, but he had nothing else to do here in the lonely, oppressive darkness.
As the memories came, his mind flinched from the incident that had landed him in this cell.
Piercing agony burned across his back, and he screamed. Over and over he screamed, but he refused to give them what they demanded, would not provide them their sick pleasure.
A
