I think she senses I’m on the edge with that. It brought up too many… feelings. I can’t… I told her I couldn’t… I’ve spent the past several weeks intentionally pre-occupied with work trying to shove it all down and not think about it. There’s this self-destructive part of me coming out that wants to blow things up with her so she can’t get any closer or see any more. And that’s not safe. For her.
I’m afraid of myself with her. I’m afraid of feeling with her. I can’t let her do these things, and I can’t let myself do things. I feel I’m always on the edge of completely losing control, of turning on her like some ill-tempered dog, all because I can’t handle all the feelings trying to move through me. I feel like I’m on fire from the inside, and I don’t know what to do to put out the flame.
I find her outside, swimming naked in the pool. I feel an eyebrow inching up. She’s full of surprises these days.
I hang back in the shadows, but no one would notice me right now, anyway. Every eye is on her. Every male gaze is filled with lust, and I want to go back down to the basement for weapons and mow them all the fuck down for looking at what’s mine. Don’t they see the word on her back? Don’t theyknow?
I think I might combust when she finally steps out of the pool. Annette is there with a towel to wrap her up and guides her away from the group. I know that look on her face. It’s concerned House Mother Annette. She’s over there no doubttrying to convince Mina what an awful monster I am for carving a property claim into her back.
I feel like I’m watching a re-run. Didn’t we already play out theOh no, someone must save Mina from the monster in the dungeonstoryline? Because I’m pretty sure we did. But she was always safe with me. At least she was before these new developments between us. I’m not sure anymore.
The thing that has always kept Mina safe was the fact that she was like me in my pain and abuse. Our scars make us a matched set that belong together like a couple of macabre glassy-eyed dolls at Halloween. But now she’s also like me in my darkness, and I don’t know how that plays out for her. Yet she’s unafraid, like a moth dancing too close to the flame. But maybe shewantsto be consumed. I can’t tell with her anymore.
Does she have a death wish? If we were both fucked up before, it’s a thousand times worse now.
I take a deep breath. I’m ready to interrupt this bullshit with Annette, and if everyone at the house wants to gawk, I’ll give them a show.
“Master,” Mina says, when I reach them, she lowers her eyes demurely when she speaks to me. I’m not sure if it’s a performance… her just playing the good girl in front of the others, or if she’s signaling to Annette that I’m here so she’ll stop saying whatever she’s been saying that’s likely to piss me off.
Because I know something very real has shifted in our dynamic.
I’m so confused right now. I love the stunning badass Mina has become. Watching her take out the younger Matsumoto and his guard was a show I’d buy tickets to watch again, but I also don’t want her to pretend to be the good girl for me. I want that piece of Mina back. I want her submission. I still want to own her, and I’m not sure anymore if she truly wants the same. The most horrifying part is, I’m not sure I care if she wants the same.
I’ve killed every man who ever forced her submission, who ever humiliated her in front of others, who ever hurt her and left permanent scars. I’ve done the last of those things, and I know right now I’m about to do the other two, and if so… then how am I any different?
She told me once how Jason said there was something inside her that made men want to hurt her and how she’d never find a man who could be gentle with her. Then against all odds, I found I could be. Am I about to lose that edge over the other monsters? I just need her to submit. I try to telepathically will her to understand this.
But what if she doesn’t need or want the same anymore? I feel lost, like there’s something screaming inside me, this hollow, angry, hurt sound, like a wounded animal, and I just need to hurt something to make that sound stop, to make the itch stop crawling over my skin.
I feel the anger boiling up inside me. It’s not even at Mina. It’s at this fucking situation where suddenly I, what? Have a conscience? Weighing right and wrong like some fucking hero? Good and bad? What the fuck is she doing to me?
I grip her by the arm and pull her back toward the rest of the group who hasn’t stopped watching this train wreck unfold. I turn her so that they can all get a clear, unobstructed view of her back.
“Take a good long, look, people. Embed it into your fucking long term memories. This. Is. MINE,” I snarl.
They all show the appropriate fear. Even the men have always been wary with me. Eyes are averted from mine. No one will save her from me.
I look to Mina, afraid to see the scared, broken woman I met that first night, but she doesn’t even flinch. I know I must be leaving a mark on her arm, with how hard I’m holding her, but she doesn’t try to pull away.
I want to shake her. I want to shout at her that she can’t trust me. She’s doing the same thing all over again, trusting a bad man who will hurt her. I want to whisper in her ear toRun. But even if I did, I know she wouldn’t. She’d stand, and challenge me to reign in my own demons. For her sake. For our sake.
I take a long, slow, breath, attempting that impossible feat now.
“Get on your knees,” I growl.
I’m strangely happy that we’re not actually on the concrete right next to the pool, but in the grass. I hold onto this one thought that tells me I haven’t lost all sense, that I can hold onto the need to protect her still.
She gracefully drops to her knees in front of me and bends forward, brushing her lips against my leather boots.
What. In. The. Fuck.
This is the subservient protocol we teach the girls. But Mina doesn’t do the protocol, she hasneverdone the protocol. When she first came here, we realized she was too broken to even do that much. That level of humiliation was just triggering her into flashbacks from her past. And here she is, outside next to the pool with the eyes of about twenty people on her, kissing my boots like some slave-bot.
I bend and put my fingers under her chin to raise her face to mine, all I see in her eyes is glazed over lust.
This isn’t an act. This is real.
I take a long, slow breath. When I bought her and took her as my own, I promised this girl I would never hurt her. I promised I wouldn’t punish her the way I punished others. I wouldn’t take out my sadism on her. I would never make her bleed or leave permanent scars. I would never humiliate her or do anything sexual with her in front of anyone at the house. And now it’s like I have a checklist and I’m just ticking off boxes. One betrayal after another. One broken promise after another.
