Broken Bride

“I’m not going to leave her there, Angelo. I’m going to…”

What Mark is going to do never becomes entirely apparent, because I interrupt him. Bobby is usually my most overt troublemaker, but Mark isn’t without his own share of challenges.

“Move an inch toward that door, and I will take a cane to your ass.”

Mark’s blue eyes narrow to two glinting shards. He hates being physically punished. He thinks he’s above it. That’s what makes doing it so delightfully pleasurable for me.

“Get out of my way, Angelo.”

He tries to walk past me. That’s a mistake.

I catch his wrist and use his momentum to spin him around, one foot extended into his path to trip him heavily. He’s flat on the ground before he knows what’s happening, and I am on top of him, a pair of plastic zip tie cuffs around his wrists. He used to be an FBI agent, so using these adds a delicious layer of irony to his captivity.

Once he’s secured, I grab him by the forelock and pull his head up and back. “You’ve forgotten your place, boy.”

Mark tries to get to his feet. I let him get halfway before putting my foot to his chest and pushing him back down on his knees. My cock is throbbing hard again. I love dominating this man. He’s just so perfect. My living, breathing, antithesis.

The moment I first laid eyes on Mark, I had to have him. I knew there would be moments like these. Moments where his higher calling would come into direct conflict with my orders. Moments where I would win, and he would be crushed, as he has been crushed so many times before.

“Do whatever you want to me, Angelo,” he says. “But leave her alone.”

I look down at him, knowing how much it would mean to him to be able to make this sacrifice for Tilly and become her whipping boy. He would be forever proud to have spared her my wrath and twisted attentions.

That’s what makes my reply all the sweeter. I lean down. As I speak, I hear my accent thicken as it always does when I am in my element.

“No.”

He tries to get up again. I push him down again, more forcefully.

“You don’t know that girl. You're not defending her because you care…”

“I’m defending her because the last thing the world needs is more of your fucked up brand of whatever this is.”

“You’re wrong, Mark. When I met you, you were a junkie. When I met Bobby, he was on the verge of getting himself very much killed.”

“And when you met Tilly, she was an innocent virgin.”

I say nothing. Mark is so caught up in his self-righteous condemnation he doesn’t give himself time to think.

“Let me go, Angelo.”

“Let you go!?” I laugh, stalk around him, grab him by the collar and yank him up from the ground before tossing him bodily over my desk. We both know that I'd have a hard time lifting or throwing him if he didn’t cooperate at least a little. He weighs two hundred pounds and its mostly muscle.

To an observer, it looks like I’m throwing him around. But I know better, and so does he. I’m going to beat him, and he’s going to let me.

Bobby is watching, his dark eyes wide and vehement as I pick up the cane which always sits by my desk. It’s thick and brutal, and it leaves marks. I usually only use it on Bobby. It’s been a long time since Mark earned himself a punishment.

I lift the cane high, eyeball the seat of his pants, and…

CRACK!

CRACK!

* * *

Tilly

CRACK!

I peer through the door. Mark is across Angelo’s desk, and Angelo’s tall, powerful body is fully employed in the act of beating him with a cane. Every time his arm rises, I hold my breath, and every time the cane lands, I feel myself wince in sympathy.

I don't know what Mark did to deserve this. I bet he didn't do anything.

Angelo is a tyrant. He’s a handsome, evil, monster of a man. I can see him in profile, the merciless lines of his face thrown in sharp relief by the light coming through the window behind him.

I can see the expression of satisfaction on his face. He lives for this, taking out his aggression and cruelty on those who cannot escape him. For a while, I thought we were compatible, that what happened in the bedroom made us more of a single entity. I thought there was some good, or at least, not completely evil.

Then he humiliated me casually and left me to swallow his essence, treating me the same way he treats his boys. But I am not one of his boys. I am a woman. And he just scorned me.

I fucking hate him.

I hate him even more than I hated my father.