Captive Bride (The Secret Bride 1)

I remain in position feeling the cool air of the room on my exposed flesh. I am not wearing panties and regret that decision. But the two pairs I do own are so tattered and thin they wouldn’t have provided much coverage anyway.

I desperately want the lashing to begin. Stinging pain would be far better than the intense degradation I am feeling now. I may never be able to face Christopher again after this punishment. What must he think?

“You are a sick, sick man,” I hear Christopher say.

“I am a man of conviction.”

“You’re insane for even thinking of this. And a coward. Who’s to say I even care what you do to her?”

“You care,” Papa Rich says. “No man would want to see an innocent girl pay for their crimes. I have a feeling it will just take a couple of lessons to truly keep you in line. Just know each whipping will be worse.” The leather touches my skin, and then I can sense the belt is being raised behind me to prepare for the first strike. “But just to prove my theory that you’ll make sure your whipping boy doesn’t suffer my wrath often, let us begin.”

9

Christopher

Jesus fucking Christ. What do I do?

Do I try to stop him? But even if I charge him, I already know the chain doesn’t reach where they stand. I’m also wise enough to realize storming toward them may help ease my conscience that I at least tried to stop this cruel act, but it will also only anger him more, and my whipping boy will pay for it rather than me.

“You want to whip someone, be man enough to try to whip me.” I attempt not to look at the bare skin of the woman bent over for my viewing. She’s owed her dignity, and I won’t gawk at the display, yet at the same time, I feel I owe her the respect of not ignoring the situation by simply looking away.

I want to close my eyes, cover my ears, and scream from the top of my lungs, but I know it will only intensify the situation. I can’t give this psychopath what he wants. He wants to break me. He wants me weak. He wants to see my fear.

The first strike lands firmly on her upturned ass. She squeals but holds her position even though her thighs quiver.

“I rarely have to punish Ember,” Richards says as he raises his arm to prepare for the next assault. “You’ll be a lucky man in that regard. You won’t have to discipline her often, if at all.”

This man…

He speaks as if it is completely normal to spank a grown woman.

This woman…

Remains in place and doesn’t put up a fight as if she too believes this is the way of society.

Although a quick glance around at my nightmarish surroundings makes it quite obvious I’m trapped in a morphed reality. This is their world. Their twisted and distorted ordinary.

He whips her again, this time a cry escaping from her trembling frame.

I can’t watch as he does it again and again, but I have to. I fear what will happen if I look away.

The whipping boy.

The cruelest torture imaginable.

I watch a poor girl get a belting that would have anyone pleading for mercy, and yet she remains mute. She whimpers, she cries out with each contact of leather against flesh, but she never begs.

I’m helpless. I can’t do anything to help her. I want to grab that belt and beat the living shit out of the monster. I want to wrap the leather strap around his neck and suffocate the life right out of him. With every wallop, my desire to kill the man grows. I want him dead. I want to murder another human being. I want to become the monster he is but even worse. I want to make him pay. Pay in the most agonizing way possible.

“Enough!” I shout.

Richard doesn’t stop. Instead, he looks at me with an evil grin and snaps the implement on her twice as hard as he had been doing. Ember howls into the musty air of the cellar but does not collapse even though her knees wobble.

“Stop! Stop! You cruel bastard!” I stand from the chair, though I know my actions mean nothing to this man.

His venomous smile grows. His whipping intensifies.

“For the love of God, fucking stop!”

I have to do something. Think. Outsmart. Otherwise he will beat the girl within inches of her life just to prove a point to me and make me suffer.

Ember screams this time as the belt cracks against her, and I nearly vomit.

“She’s mine!” I yell, which has him pausing mid swing. “She’s my fiancée, and I demand you stop touching her in this way. She’s not your concern to discipline in the eyes of God. She’s now mine!”