Hear Me

Touch yourself.

No, slower.

We have all night.

There was probably a psychology student somewhere writing a salacious thesis on women like me. Abused, confused, we couldn’t even help it. We paid with sex, we coped with sex, everything was sex to a poor liberated slave. But my body didn’t care about political correctness, and my mind wasn’t too broken up over it either. This was Sam’s gift to me: my sexuality returned, pleasure sharpened.

The timbre of his voice reverberated deep inside me as my fingers stroked my clit, like touching a memory. I climaxed to the brush of his breath, the ache of his hands, the warmth of his praise.

I came back to myself as the AC switched off, casting me in a bittersweet silence.

Chapter Ten

“Are you sure you don’t want to go? You don’t have to play. Just have a few drinks.” Anya frowned. “It’s been two months already.”

Two months of working at this job, though I hadn’t yet figured out why it was so important that we made the regional top sales lists. Two months of returning home to a cold, empty apartment. But the thought of going out into a crowd was even worse.

I stood up from my desk and stretched. “I’ll take a rain check.”

I still didn’t remember how I had ended up in the hands of those men or why I had been targeted. For all I knew, it could have been a random drugging at a kink club just like the one she was always pushing me to accompany her to.

“You need to relax. Have a good time. You can meet a guy who can give you one.” She gave me a suggestive smile. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

Rape and torture, though I wouldn’t say so. I wouldn’t risk my friendship, however two-dimensional it was, with Anya, when she had been so willing, even eager, to reconnect with me. Everyone else I met in the hallways had avoided me since I got back, as if my presumed psychological trauma were contagious.

“Look.” Her face softened while her eyes took on a strange glint. “You can tell me what happened to you. Maybe it will help you work it out.”

There was something about the way she focused on me, her posture…

“I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s kind of hard to talk about.”

She laid her hand over mine. “I know, but I won’t judge you. No matter what they did to you. Seriously.”

A shiver ran through me as I recognized her expression: anticipation. Like she might get off on what I told her. No, that couldn’t be right. Probably just some sort of clinical paranoia shit, keeping anyone from get

ting too close. She wanted to help me.

And I did want to be wrapped up tight somewhere, safe somehow. Maybe a Dom could give me that. The thought of being under a stranger’s control made me nervous, even though I knew that not every man was like them.

I glanced down the hallway to make sure no one was nearby. “Well, it’s hard for me to imagine being with a man… that way. Not just sex, but giving over my power like that. And to someone I don’t know or trust. To be honest, it’s really scary.”

“Exactly! You’ll be afraid as long as you don’t do it. Fear of the unknown. You need to face your fears. Once you find an awesome Dom, one who knows how to treat you right, you’ll be fine.”

I was skeptical but nervous about disagreeing with her outright. I may have been uneasy enough to keep the specifics of what happened to me, especially regarding Sam, to myself, but I was lonely enough not to cut off contact with her completely.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really just… not ready.”

She turned away but not before I saw her roll her eyes. God, I wished I could be back to normal. Back then we had gone out, had a couple martinis, woken up in strange beds in pricey high-rise condos, and compared bruises the next day at work. It was a good time, wasn’t it?

I shook off the feeling that I was being watched in the parking garage. It was a leftover feeling from being held captive, I told myself. Not real.

Dropping my bag in the entryway, I stood in the middle of my apartment. A chic blue sofa sat in front of a flat-screen television. A fake white daisy sat in the windowsill. Though I had quickly fallen into the routine of my work, I had never felt comfortable here. The cool air felt stale, the 600-threadcount sheets dusty.

Maybe I should move, though the thought of packing up all this impersonal stuff made me glum. Maybe I could find a cute little house. Something with trees, where I could see the stars. Somewhere I could breathe again. That brightened my mood, even though I’d have a painful commute.

I wandered into the bathroom, brushed my fingertips across the expensive cosmetics. I had found them unopened in the cabinets, as if I’d been stockpiling for the nuclear holocaust with organic astringent. The countertops had been empty… I paused. There hadn’t even been a toothbrush.

So what had I used before I’d been taken?