Tragic Beauty (Beauty & The Darkness #1)(48)

I become intimately familiar with every item in The Cage. The Beaded Cat, the Rawhide Flogger, the Lexan Rod, the Rattan Cane, the Birch Switch, the Braided Crop, the Signal Whip, the Cattle Prod, the Power Box, the Speculum, the Scalpel, the Hooks, the endless types of clamps, gags and harnesses, and the list goes on. He gets new things he finds online, or sometimes he makes his own. Sometimes he doesn’t even pull from The Cage. Sometimes he uses other things. Like his fist inside me, or a wet rag over my mouth. Sometimes he makes me do things to myself. Those things are always the hardest. Always so hard.

But I use Gavin to help me. He gets me where I needs to go. But there are times when those green eyes fade and all I can focus on is the beast—on the things he does to me, or makes me do. Things that make me want to break, to fall apart and beg for death.

Slowly though, I learn ways to survive. I learn that if I keep myself calm and control my breathing—center it—I can manage the pain better. I learn that when he beats me, no matter the tool, it hurts worse when my body is tight, so I try to focus and keep my muscles soft and loose. I learn to accept the pleasure he grants, knowing it will help when the pain comes. And when it comes—as it always does—I learn to seek out the high, to relish in the endorphins that flood my body, helping me to get to that place…that place where everything fades and I just float. That place he once told me is called ‘subspace.’ But he won’t always let me go there. He likes me aware. He likes me to suffer.

Then there are times when nothing I do helps. Sometimes it’s all wasted efforts, because he knows now. The sadist knows how to hurt, how to inflict pain of the acutest kind, and draw it out, both mentally and physically. He’s perfected it like an art form, and become a true master of his craft.

A master of suffering.

And that’s what I do. I suffer. Then after the suffering, I’m always so out of it, he has to carry me to the mattress, where he lies me down and pets my hair, telling me how beautiful I am, what a good girl I was. ‘Aftercare’ he says it’s called. ‘To bind me to him.’

Over time, it comes to include tending to the places he’s hurt me, gently rubbing antiseptic ointments on my cuts, or salves on my bruises, knowing the faster I heal, the faster he can hurt me there again. And sometimes, if he can’t work out his rage to get to that quiet place, he’ll leave me in the crate, then come back when he’s calmer and put me to bed. And that’s how I always fall asleep, every time, with him sitting next to me, stroking my hair, giving me the tenderness I’ve learned to accept and even come to crave.

Eventually I wake, realize it’s not just a nightmare but my life, then go cleanup for the next time. Then sometimes when I’m ready, he comes for me right away, because he watches me. Always watches. Occasionally, he allows me some time to curl up in the closet, giving me some quiet, but I know it won’t be long before he comes for me again.

Then it starts all over.

The endless cycle.

Suffer.

Sleep.

Shower.

Suffer.

Somewhere along the way, when he was in one of his darker moods, he told me my ranch had been sold, and all my things with it. I think I slipped under that day.

Eventually, the world beyond my cell fades. Everything blurs. Days become weeks, become months, I think. I have no concept of time, no idea if it’s day or night. All I know is the routine and the little marks I make with my fingernails in the far corner of the closet, when I’m huddled up tight, like now.

One hundred and fifty-three marks.

That’s the number of ‘sessions’ he’s had with me. That’s what he’s taken to calling them. And somewhere along the way, I started counting them. I guess to give me some measure of my time here. Not knowing, otherwise, makes it feel endless, like I’m adrift with no end in sight.

But there is no end in sight.

I don’t know why I even make these marks.

It doesn’t matter anyway.

At least he’s safe. And my friends are safe. Ben’s safe. They’re all safe.

That’s all that matters.

Sometimes, when my mind’s working, and I’m curled up here, in my dark little corner, rocking back and forth, I’ll take the precious memories of Gavin, of the horses, of the Hanley’s, and even my father, and sift through them in my mind, savoring them like a piece of meat to a starving soul, then tuck them away good and deep, where the beast can’t get to them.

And sometimes I think of the books that were once mine, of the worlds I used to escape to, and try to escape to them again. Especially that island, the one in The Black Stallion, where it’s just the boy and the horse. I like remembering how they found ways to survive, and how they got rescued.

Then there are times I think of Shayne, but back when he was just a boy. His eyes were dark, even back then, but there was still an innocence about him. That innocence that comes with being a child. He didn’t have much of it, but if I think hard, I can see it in those eyes. And it’s so weird to think of him that way, and I don’t know why I do it. Maybe to make him more human to me, and not just a beast. Because thinking of him as human lets me hold on to the hope that maybe someday he’ll realize what he’s doing is wrong, and maybe he’ll let me go. I know it’s a long shot, but still, it’s something. And something’s better than nothing.

But the hard times—the worst times—are when my mind feels so shattered, that the memories disappear—gone—like they never existed. Those are the times I feel myself being sucked under, to depths so dark I know I’ll never be the same. It already feels like I’m fading. I can’t even look at myself in the mirror anymore because all I see is a ghost. A pale ghost with big, hollow, blue eyes and ribs poking through. In fact, I’ve lost so much weight that the wedding ring fell off during one of the sessions. So now I have a thick jagged scar around that finger instead. Another scar to go with all the others, all mixed in with new bruises and old bruises, new cuts and old cuts, and topped off with a MR cattle brand on my hip.