#arden.fic

The day you got the callback from Sacred Fir Nursery you were thrilled, to say the least.

Sacred Fir Nursery–who sold nearly every species of fir sans sacred firs, ironically–was your hometown’s local Christmas tree farm: a sprawling plot of land located on the outskirts of town, and home to the precious childhood memories of nearly every town resident.

You have your own cherished memories of your parents taking you as a child, bundled up in your scarf and gloves, the thick scent of fir needles clogging your nose. You recall running on stubby legs through rows of trees, throwing your arms in victory around whichever full-bodied evergreen became your favorite. You always got final say on which tree your family took home that day. They’re memories you’ll never forget.

Needless to say, when you came back home for the holidays and saw that the nursery was hiring for part-time, seasonal work, you put in an application almost immediately.

Your job is straightforward: you’re either processing purchases from behind the front desk of the cozy log cabin, or you’re trekking outside and leading families through the many rows of firs, informing them on each species, pitching all their pros, and encouraging sales. Whatever you find yourself doing, Christmas cheer is abound: the inside of the cabin is beautifully decorated, with garlands wrapped around the exposed wooden beams of the ceiling, fairy lights glittering at the windows, a cheery Christmas station always playing, and a humongous, nine-foot-tall Christmas tree standing proudly in the front corner: the undeniable centerpiece of the building, and one of the nursery’s very own.

Some might find the overwhelming festivity to be too much, but for you it’s a much-needed reprieve from the stress of your semester. And, Christmas cheer aside, you can’t deny that you enjoy the money lining your woefully broke, college student pockets.

It’s perfect.

And then he’s hired.

Your boss, Earl, invites the man inside one evening and introduces him as Remmick–an unusual name in these parts, and the only one given, so you’re unsure if it’s meant to be his first or last. The man is average height, maybe even a little below that, with broad shoulders, big features, and a mess of wavy, dark brown hair. He’s handsome in a way you don’t let yourself entertain. He looks exactly like the kind of man you might find working on a farm.

Remmick inclines his head at you, a small smile curling the corners of his mouth, blue eyes steady as he takes you in. Something about the look on his face sets you on edge.

“Ma’am,” he greets, voice thick with Southern flair. He extends a hand, taking your own before you can react, his palm large and surprisingly cool around yours. He doesn’t shake–just gives your hand a gentle squeeze. “A pleasure.”

You arch an eyebrow and pull your hand back as politely as possible. You keep your tone neutral. “It’s nice to meet you, Remmick.”

Earl goes on for a bit about Remmick’s role–he’ll be taking the overnight shift, coming in about an hour before your own shift ends–right around the time the Sun sets–and then staying overnight as security. Sacred Fir has trouble with vandalism this time of the year: usually nothing more serious than bored teenagers trying to snag a free tree in the dead of night, but it’s enough that it’s not only a nuisance, but costly.

You frown. “What happened to Jerry?”

Jerry was the man whose job this was–you haven’t seen him in about a week, Earl coming in his stead, but you always assumed he’d be back.

Earl huffs irritably. “Bastard up and disappeared on me. Haven’t heard from him in over a week. Just poof. Can’t find any decent help nowadays.”

Remmick hums in agreement, the sound low in his throat. You look over at him, only to find him already staring at you. You know in your gut that he’s been staring this entire time.

“Lucky for me.” he drawls, “I’ve been needing something to keep me busy. I’m just passing through town, but I’ll be here a few more weeks yet.”

He’s responding to Earl–but his eyes never stray from you. You feel a flush creep up your neck and look away.

Earl dismisses you shortly after that, clasping a hand over Remmick’s shoulder as they continue to discuss the job. You make yourself scarce, heading to the breakroom at the back of the cabin while there are no customers to worry about.

You can feel Remmick’s eyes on you the whole way there.

You weren’t sure what to make of Remmick when you first met him, other than that he was strange and a little unnerving and stared too much.

You decide now that you hate him.

Or at least, you want to hate him.

He’s not what you expected: you thought he’d be the kind of strange that stands at a distance, eyes tracking your every move and never looking away in shame, even when caught in the act.

As it happens, Remmick does track your every move, he never looks away, and he seems downright impervious to shame.

But not from a distance.

The man basically lives right under you—you can’t stock the shelves or clean the windows or sneeze without him hovering at your shoulder, asking you what you need or complimenting your hair or, worse, trying to make small talk.

You brush him off more often than not, sometimes gently, other times bluntly. It’s amusing, the way he deflates every time, full lips pouting and wide shoulders slumping. He makes a show of it, silly as can be, and you try not to laugh at his antics. Try being the key word—sometimes you don’t turn your head away quickly enough and he catches the smile that stretches your lips. The way he perks up can be, regrettably, endearing.

The only time he isn’t circling your ankles like a hungry dog looking for food is when a family needs help cutting and loading a tree. Which brings you to your next dilemma: 

Remmick is hot.

You noticed his face when you first met, of course–the handsomely large nose, the full lips, the masculine bone structure–but it isn’t until you see him hauling around a seven foot fir for the first time that you notice his body.

You can’t stop noticing now: the way his strangely formal button-ups strain across his broad shoulders, the large bulge of his biceps beneath the fabric, the thick and veined forearms that he occasionally exposes when he rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. Once, while helping a family load a fir atop their SUV, his shirt rode up, exposing the flat plane of his stomach and the shockingly deep V of his pelvis.

You looked away–not just looked away but turned around, not trusting yourself not to stare otherwise, an embarrassing thrill shooting through you.

You can’t help but watch him after that. You think you’re discreet–you try to be, anyway, your glances surreptitious, eyes flitting to and from his body like a dance. Your determination to limit your glances means that you miss the way he watches you back–often, keenly, his eyes taking in even more of you than you do of him. 

Seeing more than you could ever hope to see.

One day, traffic is much slower than usual–in the past three hours only one family has come through. Remmick takes advantage of the dead air, leaning against the front desk, trying to gain your attention as you type away at your computer and feign disinterest.

“I’ll get you to warm up to me soon, darlin’.”

“Not if you keep calling me darling.”

Remmick pouts, a plaintive whine rising in the back of his throat. You struggle not to find it cute, or amusing, or endearing.

Earl bursts through the cabin doors, disrupting your conversation. He’s dragging a ladder behind him. He perks up at the sight of Remmick.

“Remmick, good! Couldn’t find you anywhere. Come here, boy, and help me with this.”

Earl sets the ladder set up in the middle of the cabin, and explains to Remmick what he wants done–some frivolous adjustment to the garland that decorates the ceiling.

Like this, Earl has his back to you–but Remmick faces you head-on, his eyes occasionally flitting over Earl’s shoulder towards you.

You get a terrible idea.

You reach for the peppermint stick Earl gifted you earlier, discreetly unwrapping one end. It’s a giant, gaudy thing, ten inches long and at least three inches in circumference. Every employee got one, in lieu of a Christmas bonus.

Eyes still on your computer screen, you bring the blunt end to your mouth, the rounded tip resting heavily on the plush of your bottom lip, your tongue peeking out to swirl delicately around the tip. The taste of peppermint bursts on your tongue.

From your peripheral you see Remmick’s eyes zero in on you, and stay. 

You smile sweetly and feed the first several inches of the stick into your mouth, lips closing around the girth. You slowly drag it in and out of your mouth, the red dye of the peppermint smearing on your lips and tongue. Your cheeks hollow as you suck on it, and when you pull it from your mouth the wet pop is audible. A thin string of saliva falls over your bottom lip. You lick it off.

Remmick’s lips are parted now as he watches you, eyes dark and heavy-lidded. You can see the heavy bob of his throat as he swallows.

“Are ya listenin’?”

Remmick snaps out of it, eyes landing back on his employer, who’d been speaking incessantly while Remmick’s attentions were elsewhere.

Remmick smiles, polite. “Yes, sir. Redo the garlands. Won’t be a problem.”

Earl huffs, annoyed. “Good man. Hop on it, then, before anyone else shows up. And close your damn mouth, you’re gonna catch flies.”

Later, Remmick corners you while you’re restocking the shelves.

“That was a mean game you played, darlin’.”

You heft the box you were pulling from into your arms, walking away without looking. He trails after you, of course.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. Got me in trouble with Earl.”

“You should’ve been listening while the boss was talking to you.”

“Now, darlin’–,”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Sweetheart–,”

“That’s not better.”

You hear Remmick huff, and then suddenly a hand is on your elbow, spinning you around. He crowds you against the shelves, the box in your arms a barrier between your bodies.

“You just don’t want me callin’ you nothin’, do ya?” he asks, teasing. You tilt your chin up, stubborn.

“Call me by my name.”

So he does.

He says your name, his voice pitched low, drawing out the vowels as he rolls each letter over his tongue. Then he says it again, stepping even closer, the hard line of his body pushing against the box in your arms, pushing you even further into the shelves. He’s looking at you, head tilted to the side, lids heavy over his eyes–so dark now that you can’t make out the blue at all–, a wry smile on his face.

Goosebumps erupt over your arms at the way your name drips from his tongue like honey. You stare back at him, breaths deep, neck and face warm. You’ve nearly forgotten what you were arguing about.

He says your name again, and your heart flutters in your throat. He tuts, shaking his head.

“I’ve been saying your name and still nothing. I’m beginning to think you don’t like me at all.” He pouts, pushing his bottom lip out dramatically.

You swallow, mouth dry. “I don’t.”

Remmick presses a hand over his heart, pulling back as if wounded, theatrical. “After that show you put on for me? I don’t believe you, darlin’.” He leans forward, breath ghosting across your face, voice deep. “Don’t need to be shy about it, baby. I like you, too.”

The bell over the door rings, God from the machine. You scurry from between Remmick and the shelves, using the edge of the box to push him away. You hear him chuckle as you briskly walk away.

The back of your neck burns. Whether it’s from embarrassment or his gaze–so heavy it may as well be a touch–you can’t tell.

The next day finds you at the foot of the cabin’s Christmas tree, rearranging ornaments—turns out Earl is very particular about his decorations.

You kneel as you work. Suddenly, a broad shadow falls over you.

“Shouldn’t be on your knees like that, girlie,” a voice says, and you tense, “Might give someone the wrong idea about you. Or the right one!”

Mr. Declan. He comes by the farm at least twice a week, hemming and hawing over the trees but never buying. He always insists that you show him around–even though he should know the paths like the back of his hand by now–and hovers a little closer each time.

You didn’t even know he was in the cabin. You shudder, disgusted, wondering how long he’s been watching you. 

You stand, dusting your knees, ornaments still dangling from your fingers. “I don’t think that’s appropriate, Mr. Declan.”

Declan makes an expression of exaggerated shock. You want to punch him.

“Well, why not?!” he exclaims, hands coming up in a large shrug, “What’s wrong with what I said, exactly?”

You can feel the heat creeping up your neck. You clasp your hands behind your back in an effort to mask their trembling.

“Did you need help with a tree, Mr. Declan?”

“Well, you didn’t answer me,” he sneers, “What’s wrong with what I said?”

The bell over the door dings: it’s Remmick, just arriving for his shift. You beeline for the front desk.

“My shift is over, Mr. Declan,” you call over your shoulder, loud enough for Remmick to hear, “My coworker will have to help you.”

Remmick gives you an inquiring look as he closes the door behind him—then he notices Declan, still standing next to the tree. You swear his expression darkens. You don’t stick around to be sure, slipping into the back.

You’re lying, of course—your shift doesn’t end until an hour from now, and Remmick can’t cover the desk for long—he has other duties to attend to. Still, you slump in relief on the breakroom couch, grateful for any respite from that slimy old man.

You can faintly hear Declan and Remmick talking, though you can’t make out what’s said. It’s not long before you hear the tell-tale jingle of the door bell, and the voices cease entirely.

You step out tentatively—Remmick sits alone behind the desk, Declan nowhere to be found. 

He tilts his head at you. “You okay?”

You really wish he hadn’t asked that: you’re struggling as is to pretend you don’t like him.

You shrug. “Yeah. He’s just such a creep.”

“I noticed.”

This strikes you as odd—Remmick and Declan are rarely at the farm at the same time. You don’t linger on it, though, beat from the workday.

“Why don’t you head on home?”

Your head snaps up. “Huh? Oh, no, I couldn’t—everyone else has already left, what if it gets busy again?”

Remmick shrugs, casual as anything. “I can handle it, darlin’. Less than an hour before I close those gates and I don’t expect we’ll get much traffic between then and now. Go home. You’re tired.”

You feel like you should argue some more—or at least argue his use of the word darling. 

But you are tired.

You grab your bag from the breakroom, slinging it over your shoulder as you head out. You hesitate, then blurt out your next words before you can overthink them.

“Thank you, Remmick. I appreciate it. Have a good night.”

Remmick smiles—a giddier smile than your words warrant, truthfully. You half expect him to start swinging his feet where he sits.

“Thank you, darlin’. You have a good night yerself.”

Later that night finds you in your room, getting ready for bed. There’s no light save for the cheery glow of the miniature tree on your dresser, just dim enough to comfortably fall asleep with. 

You turn to climb into bed and freeze—you could swear you saw something outside your window, a flash of red. You step closer, until your nose is nearly pressed to the glass, looking out—but all you can see is the dark outline of tree branches, and blinking red lights—the reflection of your tree. You brush it off and climb into bed, bone tired.

You fall asleep to the faint sound of the tree branches outside your window rustling, caught in a late-night wind.

The rest of the week goes on as usual, with Remmick annoying and thrilling you in equal measure, your frustration at yourself mounting as you try to stifle your want.

Right now your feelings for him have landed squarely on annoyed.

Your shift ends in five minutes and he’s nowhere to be found: you can’t leave until you pass off the cabin keys to him. You heave a sigh, pushing away from the desk, and go to find him.

You step outside, zipping up your jacket against the chill—it’s nearly dark now, only a sliver of sun left on the horizon. You look at the rows of fir trees, dark and ominous in the twilight.

“Remmick?” you call, hoping he might be near. 

No response, of course. In fact, things seem unnaturally silent on the farm: you strain your ears, but even the crickets have fallen into a hush. You trudge down the long line of Douglas firs, anxiety mounting. You glance between each gap in the trees, hoping each time to see him.

“Remmick?” you try again, voice smaller.

Nothing.

You come to the end of the row, stepping out into the gap between the Douglas firs and the white firs. You glance to either side, but see Remmick nowhere.

“Remmick!”

You continue into the white firs, acutely aware that you’re straying further from the bright, artificial lights set up around the cabin. You make the same nerve-wracking journey down the row, checking the gaps between the trees, occasionally calling Remmick’s name—never receiving any response.

You’re coming to the end of the white firs. There’s a thick smell in the air now, both familiar and foreign. You gasp, unintentionally sucking more of the scent onto your palate, tasting it.

Familiar is the crisp evergreen of the neatly planted, faux-forest around you, the fragrance of their needles sharp and heavy in the air. Balsam.

The foreign scent sits thick and coppery at the back of your throat, and recognition hits you as you round the corner of the long row of white firs. Blood.

You see it at the exact moment you recognize its odor, coating the ground and dripping off the needles of the surrounding firs.

And you see Remmick.

For one awful, stomach-dropping moment you think he’s been hurt—or worse.

But then you really look.

It’s Remmick–but he’s hunched over, his body covering another. He digs his hands deep into the shoulders of the other person, his face buried in their neck. He’s making short, aborted motions, his head jerking back and forth in tiny increments, his small grunts and punctured noises audible from where you stand.

Digging in, you think, suddenly lightheaded.

“Remmick,” you gasp. You don’t even mean to say it, really, but it slips out anyway, disbelief clouding your voice.

Remmick freezes, his shoulders tensing. Then he detaches from the body beneath him with a sickening squelch and looks up at you.

Red. It’s all you can see, covering Remmick’s face from nose to chin, soaking the front of his shirt, reflecting in his eyes.

You gasp, or sob, and stumble back. It’s only the sturdy, prickly support of the fir against your back that prevents you from falling.

Remmick drops the body with a careless thud–you look, and groan in distress at the sight of Mr. Declan’s empty, glassy eyes.

“Aw, darlin’...”

Remmick crawls–actually crawls–towards you, his bloody hands coming to press against your thighs, his knees firm in the dirt beneath him–kneeling at your feet.

“Don’t be mad, darlin’,” he says, that familiar whine in his voice, “Just couldn’t stand the way he was talkin’ to you. He was sniffin’ around here tonight and I just couldn’t–I couldn’t let ‘im near you. You should’ve seen what he had in mind.”

He presses his forehead against your thighs, nuzzling against you like a chided pup seeking a forgiving touch. You look between Declan’s body and the man before you, panic rising in your chest.

He’s changed: the hands that press over your thighs have always been large, but tonight they’re unnaturally so, his fingers extended by several inches, more jointed than should be possible, his fingertips ending in thin, sharp points. His teeth are stained with blood and too big for his mouth, jagged and many-fanged. The eyes that stare beseechingly up at you are dark as the night sky, no blue in sight, and reflect a brilliant, duochrome red.

His fingers convulse over your thighs, the sharp needlepoints of his claws nipping at your skin beneath the denim. You gasp in pain, flinching back, and his fingers immediately relax. A high whine rips out of his throat, and he leans forward, nuzzling against your thighs apologetically.

“Please,” he begs, “Didn’t mean it, darlin’. Didn’t mean to scare you–didn’t mean to hurt you. It won’t happen again, baby, I promise. Don’t be scared. Don’t you believe me?”

So much about him has changed, but his voice–his voice is the same. It’s the same voice that pokes and prods at your nerves every day–the same voice you’ve been pretending you don’t look forward to hearing every sunset. You listen as that voice wafts up at you now, pleading.

Your hands, shaking madly, come to thread through his dark, unruly hair. He nuzzles further into your thighs, whining in relief at your touch.

“Y–yes,” you rasp, “I believe you.”

And it’s true, somehow. You do believe him.

You look back at Declan’s body, briefly meet its nothing stare, and look away.

“R-Remmick,” you stutter, “We have to–we have to get you cleaned up. We can’t stay out here. Come on.”

Remmick, pliant and obedient, lets you pull him to his feet. He lets you lead him by his clawed hand through the rows of firs, into the warmth of the cabin, back to the breakroom. He watches silently as you strip off your jacket and turn on the sink next to the fridge. You tear off half a dozen sheets from the towel dispenser, hands still shaky, and wet them under the warm tap. You take a moment before you turn around, bracing yourself against the edge of the sink, closing your eyes with a deep breath. Then you let it out and turn around.

Remmick is still there–still watching you, still flint-eyed, still dripping blood.

You come forward and begin to methodically wipe his face clean, not saying a word. Remmick watches you all the while, his mouth slightly parted, breaths deep and even, eyes heavy-lidded. His hands stay at his sides.

You shouldn’t be doing this–you should be calling the cops, or running, or screaming, or something. But you know that if you even think about anything besides this simple task, you’ll fall apart.

Once his face is decent, you step back. “Wash your hands. And please get rid of that shirt.”

He obeys, walking up to the sink and scrubbing his hands clean. He even uses soap. His hands aren’t quite normal, fingers still too long, nails still too sharp, but they look more like the hands you’ve seen handling firs these past few weeks. 

He pulls off his shirt and brings it under the water, though you figure the fabric is a lost cause. He ends up clogging the drain and leaving it to soak.

Then he shuts off the tap and turns to face you. He’s on you before you can even blink, handling you like a doll—he lifts you clean off your feet, placing you to sit on the table as delicately as if you were porcelain. He presses his forehead against yours, one hand wrapped possessively around your back, the other coming to cup gently at your face. He’s breathing hard, eyes impossibly dark and fixed on yours. 

He breathes your name, voice tortured, and pulls you flush against him, slotting himself firmly between your thighs and forcing your legs to spread around the bulk of his body. His hips jerk forward, his crotch brushing against yours, and you gasp: he’s hard, the impression of his cock hot and heavy even through the fabric of his jeans. He moans your name this time, head falling to rest on your shoulder.

“Darlin’,” he murmurs, nuzzling against your neck, eyes closed. His breaths are coming heavy again, and you realize suddenly that he’s breathing in you, taking in big, open-mouthed lungfuls of the taut skin at the hollow of your throat. You can smell him, too, a faint trace of blood that’s bone-deep, something your measly wet towels could never wash away.

He brings his hips forward again, and you whine at the feel of his hard dick pressing against your cunt, the layers of clothes between you be damned. He does this again and again, rolling his hips against yours until you’re a moaning mess, your back arching as you press your hips forward in kind, chasing the pressure. Remmick is murmuring against your neck all the while.

“Need you,” he moans, “Need you, baby, need you so bad, please–won’t you let me have you? Been wanting you for so long, for months, I’ll treat you so good. Let me in, baby. Let me in.”

You whine, high and needy, both at his words and the incessant drag of his cock against your cunt. Your mind has gone blissfully blank, pleasure overriding judgement.

“Yes,” you moan, legs tightening around the small of his back, pulling him in closer, “Remmick, yes–have me.”

Remmick doesn’t wait another moment: he pulls back, claws ripping through the front of your shirt and bra, the ruined tatters of your clothing falling to the side and exposing your body. He presses you backwards, until you’re laid flat on your back, and makes quick work of your jeans and underwear, yanking them down your thighs–you help him with this, toeing off your boots and kicking your clothes the rest of the way off.

Then his hands go to his own fly–you watch as he pulls his cock out and moan at the sight of it, thick and red and veiny, the tip already leaking clear fluid.

“Remmick.”

He moans deep in his throat at the way you say his name, fist squeezing around his aching cock. “I’m right here, darlin’.”

Remmick’s hands squeeze at the curve of your hips, then drag up the curve of your waist–and then you find yourself on your stomach, dizzy from the sudden shift in gravity. Remmick has flipped you over, once again handling you as easy as if you weighed nothing. He rubs his thick cockhead up and down your slit–you don’t want to consider what it says about you, that you’re so wet for him despite everything you’ve seen tonight, your slick coating him generously and already creating a litany of loud, sloppy sounds. You whine, clenching around nothing, hips moving searchingly. Remmick laughs.

“Pretending you’re so above it all–pretending you’re so above me–and look at you now, darlin’, wanting to get stuck on this cock so bad. I knew you would warm up to me.”

He doesn’t make you wait any longer: he pushes into you, his thick girth forcing him to go slow as he stretches you open. You moan in a mixture of pleasure and pain, loud and wanton, clenching around him wildly. He’s moaning too, bending over you to rest his head between your shoulder blades. Your toes curl when he bottoms out. 

You’re both still for a moment, you getting used to the way his cock stretches you to your limit, Remmick to the impossibly tight suck of your cunt.

And then Remmick pulls himself up, grabs a steadying fistful of your hair, drags his thick cock out of your clinging walls, and snaps back into you. He fucks you wildly from behind, one of his hands gripping possessively at your waist, the other still fisted in your hair. 

Each thrust punches a high, needy moan out of you, and you can’t hide the way your moans get louder, your breaths whinier, when your body jostles in a way that causes Remmick to involuntarily pull at your hair. 

Remmick notices, of course. He gives your hair an experimental tug, and you moan wildly, clenching almost painfully around him.

Remmick grunts, hips faltering, taken aback. “Damn. Is that okay, baby?”

“Yes.”

Remmick moans, guttural, and pulls your hair hard. He doesn’t let go, holding you in place: it forces you to bend backwards, your back arching, your front rising from the table–you’re half-standing now, Remmick’s hold on your scalp blissful pain, the new angle making him fuck up into you in a way that has you screaming.

Remmick slows down, his free hand wrapping around your neck, pressure light as a feather around the column of your throat, but tighter on the sides. You can feel the faintest hint of his claws, sharp pinpricks on your soft skin.

“Gotta be more quiet than that, darlin’,” he pants, “You’re liable to wake the dead.”

He squeezes at the sides of your neck–not roughly, and not over your airway, but it makes you breathless all the same, your head going fuzzy and light. You quiet down, just as Remmick intended, and he eases his grip. You gasp in a long breath of air, lightheaded, clenching around him. Remmick moans, rolls his thick cock even deeper into your greedy pussy, and clamps his hand around your neck again. He doesn’t stop as he chokes you–this time, he fucks you hard, cock pistoning in and out of you, the wet sounds of your cunt lewd.

The light, fuzzy feeling in your head somehow only amplifies the sensations traveling through your body: the delicious stretch of his cock as it bullies open your cunt, the sharp points of pain at your scalp as he yanks your head back by your hair. Your eyes roll into the back of your head as these sensations build and combine, your cunt clenching as you come hard, a hoarse scream ripping out of your throat.

You go lax in Remmick’s hold, and he lowers you to the table–but he doesn’t stop fucking you. His hips snap against yours, hard and fast as he chases his own pleasure, having not yet come. It’s too much: you’re overstimulated from your orgasm, and his cock feels as if it’s punching against your very cervix. You cry out, this time in clear pain.

Remmick stops immediately. He nuzzles his head against your back, whining guiltily. “M’sorry,” he murmurs, “M’sorry, darlin’. Didn’t mean it.”

He’s like a dog.

The thought comes to you unbidden, but not untrue. He is like a dog: he follows you around like one, whines and begs like one, and now he fucks you like one. A wild dog, maybe–feral and dangerous, but still with some indomitable part of him that needs attention and approval.

This realization gives you clarity.

You shift, gently pushing Remmick away. You wince as his hard cock slips out of you, but then you’re turning onto your back, legs spread, beckoning him forward. He’s over you at once, hands gentle as they cup your face and travel down your body. Your hands reach up to thread through his hair, pulling his head down to rest against yours.

“It’s okay,” you promise, “Try again. Be gentle.”

Remmick makes a small, raw sound and reenters you, still as hard as steel. He fucks you again, this time slower, more controlled, careful of your hypersensitivity. You sigh in pleasure.

Remmick acts just like a dog. Maybe he responds to praise like one. You bring your mouth to the shell of his ear.

“Good,” you breathe, voice low and breathy, “That’s good, you feel so good in me, baby, just like that.”

Remmick moans, hunching further over you, his hips stuttering. “Yeah?” he pants, “I feel good?”

“Yeah,” you sigh, head tilting back, and it’s true—the stretch of him alone divine, the slow drag of his cock sending sparks of pleasure through your spent body.

“Do I fuck you good?” he rasps. He doesn’t ask it in the way men you’ve been with in the past asked: as if they just knew the answer was yes and were waiting on you to stroke their ego. Remmick asks as if he’s truly wondering, as if his life is staked on your approval.

“Yes,” you gasp again, “Yes, yes, yes, you fuck me so good, Remmick, fill me up so good–,”

Remmick moans, hiking your legs up higher around his waist, thrusts speeding up. He’s drooling now, the liquid collecting at the corner of his mouth, and you almost laugh at the sight. 

Instead, you make a low, lustful sound. 

“Come here, baby,” you moan, tilting his head towards you, “Give me some of that.”

It takes Remmick a moment to understand what you mean. Once he does, he laughs. “Dirty bitch. Open your mouth, darlin’–let me see that pretty tongue.” 

You moan at the word bitch–if Remmick is your dog, then you can be his bitch—and open wide, showing him your pink, eager tongue. Remmick spits, and you moan at the dirty feel of it hitting your tongue. 

You hold your mouth open, letting him get a good look at the sight of his saliva coating your tongue—then you close your mouth and swallow, making a show of it. 

Remmick’s responding moan can only be described as destroyed. His head falls against your chest, his hips faltering in their rhythm as the sight sends him closer over the edge.

“Good, baby,” you say, fingers threading through his hair, “So good, you even taste good, fuck.”

This does it: Remmick lets out a low, long moan, claws digging tight into the flesh of your waist, hips stuttering. He gives a few final, hard thrusts, and then he’s slotting into you to the hilt, pressing his body flush against yours as he empties himself into your cunt.

You rub soothing circles over his scalp as he shudders against you, your other hand smoothing up and down his flank. You murmur into his ear as he comes down, nonsense smattered with praise, and you feel an undeniable swell of affection when he looks up at you, bumping his large nose on the underside of your chin.

Your wild dog.

He stays over you, inside of you, until gravity does its work and forces him to slip out. He stands, pulling you up with him, his large hands steadying on your back and side. He’s looking at you with wide, dark eyes, nervous again.

“You okay, darlin’?”

You take stock of your own body–your cunt is sore, but in a way you love. The pain in your scalp is almost faded now. You smile, a bit wry.

“Not my most romantic fuck, but sure. I’m okay.”

Remmick looks downright relieved. He pulls you close, pressing a chaste kiss against your forehead. Then he pulls up his jeans, tucking himself back in, and heads for the closet, where Earl keeps an array of cleaning supplies and yard tools.

You sleep through the break-in itself, something that, ironically, keeps you up at night in the following weeks.

You’d had a long day out with your friends—Celeste's wedding is on the horizon, and she was determined to find a dress before the day’s end. Your group spent the day in and out of every wedding boutique in your city, and when those options were exhausted Celeste set her sights on the next city over. You swear every fabric that'd ever been woven graced her skin in a thousand different amalgamations, and yet none of it lived up to her standards. By the time she was done wearing on the patience of both yourself and the employees of the final boutique the Sun was beginning to sink in the sky. Dressless and exhausted, yet still buzzing with bridal exuberance, she insisted on enjoying dinner at a brewery you rarely got the chance to visit otherwise.

By the time your group finished eating, said your extended goodbyes (first in the lobby of the restaurant after taking care of your bill, then again outside the front entrance, and then a third and final time at your cars), took the drive back home, caught a shower, and fell into bed—well, it was well after midnight. You barely even got to wish your boyfriend a goodnight, who was still in his office hunched over his laptop when you arrived home, brow tight with stress so acute it almost looked like panic.

You wake on your stomach, alert and abrupt. It’s pitch black, clearly too early for you to be anything but asleep. Your bladder is empty and your throat isn’t dry, so you can’t pinpoint why it is you’ve woken up in the first place. You reach for your phone next to your pillow and click it on, flinching at the bright light: 4:07 AM. You frown at your boyfriend's side of the bed, still cold and empty. Maybe that’s why you’re awake—he should be here by now. You drop your phone back on the bed carelessly, debating whether you should look for him or let the warm, soft comfort of your bedding pull you back under.

The sudden creak of the floorboards behind you quickly brushes away the remaining cobwebs in your mind. You tense before you can help yourself, eyes wide in the darkness, breath held. David?  you want to call out, but you feel foolish at the thought. Why would he be lurking behind you at 4:00 AM? You listen hard, barely daring to breathe, but there's nothing—just the ever-present hum of the house itself, the faint song of crickets outside your window, and your own slow release of breath. You tell yourself that you’re overthinking it: it doesn’t matter that you’ve never heard a noise quite like that in your thirteen months in this house, you’re still overthinking it. It was nothing—an animal stepping on a branch outside, or the house settling, or—

Your thoughts are cut brutally short when a hand clamps over your mouth, a heavy weight quickly bearing down on your back. Your scream is swiftly silenced, your attacker taking advantage of your parted lips and shoving a thick piece of cloth deep into your mouth. You buck, thrash, and jerk, but your attacker is stronger than you—they remain calm and silent as they sink all their weight onto you, clasping your forearms in a punishing grip and painfully twisting them behind your back. When their knees squeeze tight as a vise around your ribcage you get the message and go limp, heart thudding so hard you can feel it in your stomach.

"Thatta girl," they say, voice low, "Dinnae struggle and this’ll go quick."

They press a knee to the small of your back, ignoring your whine of discomfort, and make quick work of tying together your wrists. You kick your feet back against them, more out of a stubborn refusal to go down easy than the belief it’ll do anything, and find yourself regretting it when your attacker snatches your right ankle and pulls, extending your leg further backward than your flexibility allowed. You yelp high and pained through your cloth gag and they relax their hold.

"Fuckin’ idiot," they chide you, a faint thread of annoyance clouding their voice, "I said dinnae struggle."

You feel them shift atop you, turning so that they’re facing your legs, and they bind together your ankles while you moan in protest. Their weight leaves your back, but you barely have a second to feel relief at its absence before you’re being turned around and forced up, their hands painfully tight around your arms as they guide you to your feet.

"C’mon," they say, slinging an arm around your waist to help you balance on your bound feet, "He’s been waiting long enough."

He?  The words disturb you, but you can hardly question them gagged as you are. You flinch at the sudden light as you’re half-dragged out of your bedroom into the hallway, and you finally get a good look at your attacker: a pale face looks back at you, topped with a dark buzzcut. They’re dressed insultingly casually to say they’ve just broken into your home and hogtied you in your own bed, wearing a simple orange and navy blue tracksuit and matching sneakers. They're pierced nearly to excess: they sport snakebites on their bottom lip and multiple barbells through each eyebrow, the helix of their ears completely covered in studs, and their lobes stretched by large gauges.

And then there's what marks their forehead: an inverted cross, inked in a startlingly solid black. It begins right above the bridge of their nose and stretches mid-way up their forehead, the arms of the cross connecting their eyebrows. The lines of it are so thin you could almost call it delicate—but the boldness of its ink and the intentional raggedness of its borders spoke to a different story.

Your attacker sneers at your gobsmacked stare and shoves you forward—you would have fallen flat on your face if they weren’t already half-carrying you. They guide you to the sitting room, and your throat dries in trepidation as the light spilling into the hallway brightens—nothing good waits for you beyond this doorway. You hear a voice coming from the room, words indecipherable but sickeningly sweet tone clear. It’s not David's voice. It’s not anyone you’ve ever heard before.

You’re pushed through the entryway, and like a magnet your eyes find your boyfriend's. The relief you feel at the sight of him is immediately crested by a wave of horror at the state of him: face swollen and discolored with bruising, clothes splattered in blood, arms and legs bound tightly to the chair he’s forced to sit in. His eyes bug at the sight of you and he jerks against his bindings.

"No. The hell is she out here for? She’s got nothing to do with this."

"Aye, she does," says a satisfied voice, the voice, the one you heard from the hallway.

Your horror had narrowed your brain’s input to the eye of a needle, you realize. As if that voice were a flood light illuminating the world around you, you suddenly become aware of the three men in the room who aren't your boyfriend. 

Two stand sentinel on either side of him. The man to his right is tall, with a sharp, severe face and swept back blonde hair. Like your attacker he wears a tracksuit, navy blue patterned with flashes of royal blue. His coordinating royal blue driving gloves are stained wine red at the knuckles. The man to your boyfriend's left is shorter, with an impish face and messy undercut. He, too, wears a tracksuit, navy blue and dark red. His hands are bare but not empty: he’s peeling an apple—your apple, taken straight from the bowl you sat on the kitchen island just yesterday morning—with a red-handled switchblade. They both sport an inverted cross high on their brow, ink-black and permanent.

A third man stands apart from them. He stands not in the center of the room, not really, and yet—he does. The very axis of the room has tilted in his favor, his person the crux on which everyone’s attention hangs—including your own, before you can help it.

He’s blonde, though blonde doesn’t seem an adequate enough word. He’s golden, his long hair glowing even under the artificial light of the chandelier, the lower half of his face gilded with stubble. Gold glints at his fingers, each digit stacked with bright, gaudy rings. His neck is weighed down with it, at least half a dozen gold chains layered over his chest: the most prominent of them hangs lower than the rest, a large, inverse cross dangling from it. You check his forehead—bare. So either the leader of this little gang, or uninitiated. You can guess which.

The man turns as your attacker corrals you through the entryway, a wide smile splitting his face. A single gold incisor flashes at you.

"Jonesy!" he crows, spreading his arms wide, "I see ye’ve brought our guest of honor!"

"Yup," your abductor—Jonesy—replies, popping their p obnoxiously but otherwise sounding disturbingly bored. They're a second skin behind you, hands firm on your upper arms, and you get the sinking feeling that you aren’t about to be introduced to this man so much as presented.

He makes his way over to you leisurely, eerie blue eyes never once leaving your face. He doesn’t stop until he’s close enough that the fabric of his clothing—another tracksuit, his deep purple and a finer make than his underlings—brushes against the thin satin of your cami. You jerk away from him, fear instinctive, but Jonesy may as well be a brick wall at your back—you get nowhere, and the man grins at your squirming.

"Miss," he greets, tipping his head at you as if he were a gentleman and not a thug who’s invaded your home. You can’t speak, gagged as you are, so you respond with your eyes, glaring at him furiously even as you try not to cower where you stand.

"I’m so happy ye could join us tonight," he continues, as jolly as if you were old friends, "I’d apologize for the spontaneity of our meeting but, well, y’see," his smile goes flatter, his eyes several degrees cooler, "Yer boyfriend owes me quite a bit of money, and he can’t seem to figure out where it’s gone poof to." He spreads his fingers at the word "poof", wiggling them in the air. “So I thought I’d bring ye out here to help jog yer old man’s memory."

You stare at David, the words not even sounding real. He owes this man money? Who even is this man?

The man tilts his head, drinking in your disbelieving expression with thoughtful eyes. "Oh. Didn’t know, did ye? Hm? The kind of business yer man gets up to?"

You glare at him, still furious but less sure of the righteousness of it. He laughs at you and snaps his fingers.

"Right. Put ‘er over here, Jonesy."

Jonesy manhandles you over to the low sofa, dropping you down with little care. This sofa is your favorite fixture of the sitting room—a tufted tuxedo with matching bolster pillows, upholstered in a rich, emerald green velvet. It always seemed so elegant to you, but now feels akin to a padded cell: with your wrists and ankles bound as they are you find yourself sinking helplessly into the soft cushions, unable to move. 

You're mere feet from your boyfriend now, who stares at you with wide, panicked eyes.

"Hey, man," he begins, stumbling over his words, “This is—this is fucked up, she’s got nothing—look, I’ll get you your money! I just need—just give me two days!"

"Two days?" the golden-haired man parrots. He inches closer, and dread fills you at his proximity.

"Yeah," David swallows, nodding. You've never seen him look so much like a rabbit in a snare. "I—I'll get it, I swear, two days, fourty-eight hours. Just don't—you don't need to hurt her. I'll do it."

"Ye'll do it?" the man parrots again, this time mocking, a sneer curling his upper lip. He walks forward until he's right before David's bound form, looking down at him with ireful eyes.

David cringes, breath shuddering. "I—,"

"Y'see, Davey, two days willnae work," the man interrupts him, "Two days willnae work because ye were supposed to have this money to me FUCKING YESTERDAY!"

You and your boyfriend both flinch at his sudden volume, the man bending forward to scream right in David’s face. He steps away as abruptly as he’d exploded, face flushed with anger, ringed fingers raking through his golden hair in agitation. His breathing is heavy, and you half-expect him to lay hands on your boyfriend. 

He doesn’t. Doesn’t have to, you soon see. He calms himself, taking in a deep breath, the color of his face returning to normal. Then he snaps his fingers. 

"Shite."

You don’t even have time to be confused by the abrupt swear—almost faster than your brain can process the man on David's right, the gloved one, is grabbing a fistful of David's hair, yanking his head back at a sharp angle. His other fist swings up, and then down, cracking right in the middle of David's face with a sickening crunch. 

You scream beneath your gag, first at that terrible sound, and then at the blood—thick, bright rivulets of it, streaming from David's nose to cover his lips, his chin, his already-soiled shirt. 

The gloved man releases David and steps as neatly back into place as if he’d never moved at all. He doesn’t react to your screams, doesn't even look at you. 

But the golden-haired man does.

He steps towards you, and you flinch away harshly. He shushes you, approach almost gentle, as if unwilling to spook a frightened animal. As if you could go anywhere anyway.

"Poor hen," he murmurs, crouching in front of you, "I've been rude, havnae I?" He reaches forward, brushes the back of his fingers softly against your cheekbone, dragging them up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind your ear. He doesn't blink once as he stares into your face. You shudder beneath his touch and he smiles. He stands up, placing a hand flat over his chest.

"Name's Jimmy," he says with a winning smile. He jerks a thumb behind him. "The grim piece of shite's Jimmy Shite and the hungry piece of shite's Jimmy Fox. And, well, ye've met Jimmy Jones, havnae ye?" Jimmy Jones, Jonesy, whatever their name is, waves loftily from where they've settled on the floor: back against the wall, ankles crossed, head tipped back in shallow rest. They look almost as bored as Jimmy Fox, who's cut the apple—your apple—into neat slices and is feeding them into his mouth off the tip of his switchblade. Jimmy Shite stares off into space, not looking bored so much as, well, grim.

"Ye'll meet the others soon," Jimmy—just Jimmy, you suppose—adds, and your stomach drops. What others? Were there more people in your house?

Jimmy snaps his fingers, and his goons look at him with such synchronized immediacy that you would find it funny in any other situation. "Fox, Jones," he says, "Fuck off, eh? Yer work here is done."

"Yup," Jones pops their p again, pushing themselves to their feet as if they can’t get away fast enough, and Fox laughs under his breath, twirling his switchblade around his fingers as he trails after them. Neither of them argue, or hesitate, or question the order—they leave like the only thing tethering them to the room in the first place was the absence of those words, and you wonder what it is about this Jimmy that makes a group of dangerous young thugs take his name, and tattoo his necklace on their foreheads, and move at the sound of his voice the way a marionette moves on strings.

Jimmy settles next to you on the couch, and you can do nothing as your body tips into his side, the cushions dipping under his weight. He wraps a steadying arm around you, pulling you flush against his side. You make the mistake of looking up and become little more than prey caught in his gaze: his eyes are too-steady, too-bright, too-blue. Dilated.

You look away, breath shuddering.

"Bonnie thing ye have here," he says to David, breath gusting warm against your neck. There's a hunger in his voice that makes you feel faint. "Ye better hope for her sake that my girls find something valuable enough in this shithole to cover yer debt."

David can only groan, still disoriented from having his nose so brutally broken—not that Jimmy pays him any mind. No, Jimmy's attention is solely on you, his hands shameless on your body: he circles his thumb at the dip of your waist, slides his hand down to fit at the curve of your hip. Reaches lower still, past the satin of your shorts, to squeeze greedily at your bare thigh. He hums, voice rough, eyes intent on the way your soft flesh fills the spaces between his fingers. His other hand reaches up, brushing gently at the curve of your breast beneath your satin top, thumb flicking over your nipple. You flinch away from him, startled—not only by his touch, but by the bolt of sensation it zaps through your body. He tuts at you, pulling you back against him.

"There, there, hen," he soothes, "Ye've got nothing to fear from me. Not yet. And look—if it ain't Jimmy Ink and Jimmima, come to save the day!"

And like that he's gone, rising from the sofa so abruptly that you fall onto your side in the space he occupied, his absence both relieving and disorienting. You blink after him, confused, and are greeted by the sight of two more strangers in your sitting room—both young women, both wearing tracksuits, both with inverted crosses inked on their foreheads. You look over at David, who eyes the women with renewed awareness. He looks, to your dismay, frightened. He catches you staring at him and can barely hold your gaze for a second before looking away.

"Jimmy Ink," you hear Jimmy say, and your eyes dart back towards him. The woman he's greeting is a study in red: her tracksuit is a bright red, as are her shoes, as is the knapsack she has slung over one shoulder—but also her eyes, bloodshot with exhaustion, and her hair, bright curls tamed into an efficient bun. "Whaddya got, then?"

The woman—Jimmy Ink—slings the knapsack from over her shoulder, dropping it to the ground carelessly. It lands with a shockingly heavy thud.

"Check it," she says, opening the top and pulling out...a book? Next to you, David makes an odd, pained sound.

It doesn't take you long to recognize the book—it's one of many, a single volume in a series of encyclopedias that David keeps in his office, displayed proudly on the book shelf above his desk. It's an old, beautifully designed set with sprayed edges and gold leaf detailing, but not one you've ever paid much mind to. Jimmy watches as his subordinate pulls out one, two, three of the thick volumes, his ever-present smile fading.

"Ye found...books?" he questions, sounding as unsure as you feel.

"Vintage Britannica."

"I see," Jimmy says slowly, something stormy clouding his features, his voice gone mean with impatience, "And is this...Vintage Britannica worth a lot of money, then?"

Jimmy Ink smiles, thin and acerbic, and you wonder if she's not enjoying his frustration. "Not as much as this."

She tips one of the books so that its pages face the floor, and you watch gobsmacked as dozens of tightly rolled bundlesof cash come tumbling out. They're thick, bound with bright rubber bands, looking like something straight out of a crime series. She tosses the book to the side without care—it lands on its spine, pages spread, and you see how the insides of it have been gutted, roughly two inches of the page borders left behind to give the illusion of a complete book.

Ink empties the other two books of their hidden wares, then squats to spread the top of her knapsack wide, revealing it filled nearly to the brim with more rubber-banded rolls of cash. "Already emptied out all the rest. He had them all over the place.”

Jimmy's sharkish smile is back, his single gold tooth glinting bright against a backdrop of eggshell white. "Good job, Inky. Verygood job." He turns his smile onto David, who's gone pale, sweat beading on his brow. "How much is that? And dinnae lie, lad—we'll count it all later."

You hear David swallow. "Forty-thousand."

Your eyes bulge at the number—forty-thousand? In cash? Just laying around your house? You want to ask him a thousand questions, the when and why and where, but even if you could you doubt you would get anywhere: David still refuses to look at you, eyes bouncing between Jimmy and the wall and the floor and his own bloodied pajama pants—anywhere but you.

Jimmy kisses his teeth, not as impressed. "Still not enough. Shame." He looks towards the second woman, who's been patiently awaiting his acknowledgement. "Let's see if Jimmima can save you, hm?"

The second woman—Jimmima, is he fucking serious?—as good as bounces forward, rocking back and forth on her heels like a child at show-and-tell, a shockingly sweet smile on her face. She's all-blue in contrast to Jimmy Ink's all-red—blue tracksuit, blue nails, blue eyes, blue cat ears of all things, tucked into white-blonde hair braided into a single plait. She spreads her arms before Jimmy, presenting rows upon rows of gold and silver jewelry—some of it you recognize as David's, some your own. Most of it you've never seen in your life.

"Solid gold?" Jimmy asks.

"Nothing less than 18k," Jimmima says, "Most of the silver is fine." She wrinkles her nose and adds, "Some of it is sterling."

Jimmy takes something dangling loose from her wrist—David's favorite watch. He throws a smirk over his shoulder at your boyfriend. "Cartier, eh? Not bad, for a cheaper series. Ye've got good taste. Or is it yer lady keeping you stylish?"

"Don't talk about my lady," David spits, and you're surprised at the venom in his voice, especially after the way he's been avoiding your eye.

Jimmy freezes. Laughs. Hooks the watch carefully back over Jimmima's wrist. "Shite."

You flinch as Jimmy Shite’s gloved fist cracks against David's cheek with dispassionate brutality. David's head snaps to the side with violent force, a dark bruise immediately beginning to disfigure his face, and you groan in distress beneath your gag.

"I can say whatever I want about yer woman," Jimmy says, voice flat, all his faux charm and cheeriness gone, "I can do whatever I want to her, too. Remember that."

He turns back to Jimmima. "Anything else?"

"Just this." Jimmima digs in her pocket and pulls out a small velvet box. Jimmy takes it from her, and you watch with detached incredulity as he opens it to reveal a diamond-studded, gold ring. Jimmy whistles, turning to proffer it towards the two of you mockingly.

"Engagement ring, eh? Cute. Though I hate to run the surprise." On the contrary, he looks quite pleased that you’ve found out this way. "What kind of gold?"

David says nothing, jaw tight and trembling. Jimmy glances up at Shite, who takes a fistful of David's hair, jerking his head back roughly.

"18 Karats," David says through gritted teeth.

"And the diamond...what's that, eh? Four, five carats?"

"Five," David spits. Jimmy laughs, low and mocking, and snaps the box closed, dropping it back into Jimmima's outstretched hand.

"Fancy lad. Take care of yer woman good." His grin drops. "But yer still short."

He walks over to David, crouching down so that he's level with his bloodied, battered face. "I'll give ye one more chance: where's my money?"

David's responding silence twists your stomach into knots. He finally meets your eyes, looking past the golden fall of Jimmy's hair. You wish you could name the hollow, regretful look in his eye. You feel tears sting the back of your eyes, already knowing what's coming.

"I don't—I don't have it."

For a long, dreadful moment Jimmy is silent. You observe his profile from where you lay: watch the way his lips twitch before flattening into a tight line, the way his prominent nostrils flare even further in rage. He stands abruptly, turning towards his girls.

"Get back to the car. Ye did good, lassies."

"Thank you, Sir," they say in unison, Jimmy Ink blandly, Jimmima emphatically. They head out with their loot, Ink not sparing you a glance, though Jimmima turns to wave at you with out-of-place geniality. Jimmy Ink reaches over and grabs her by the sleeve without even looking, pulling her faster out of the room.

"And ye, Shite," Jimmy adds. Jimmy Shite leaves without a word, though he eyes you with naked curiosity as he passes by—the most emotion he's shown this entire time.

Which leaves just you, David, and Jimmy.

Jimmy circles around the back of David's chair, uncharacteristically silent. He brushes the back of his ringed knuckles across your boyfriend's swollen face and David flinches harshly, expecting pain. Jimmy laughs meanly. He circles back to David's front and tilts his head up, touch gentle. David looks up at him with swollen eyes.

"I thought ye'd be smarter than this," Jimmy says, "What were ye thinkin', eh? That ye'd just get a freebie from me?" Jimmy drops his hand and David slumps bonelessly.

"Yer lucky we found what we did," he continues, “Whoever that cash was meant for will hurt ye for losing it, but not as bad as I would have. That gold and silver's almost got you level. But ye still owe me."

David tries to speak, his words slurring. He pauses, spits out a thick glob of blood and saliva, and tries again, voice weak with pain and exhaustion. "I swear I'll get it to you, man, just...just give me some time, I—,"

"Oh, no, no, no, lad," Jimmy cuts him off, waving his hands as if in dismissal, "Ye don't need to worry about that. I’ve got everything I need right here."

You and David both look up, taken aback by his words and abrupt change in tone. Jimmy is smiling at David, a genuine smile that makes your skin crawl. He moves behind David and lifts his chair clean off the ground with shocking strength. He brings him forward, depositing him so that he's barely a foot away from the couch—you could reach out and touch him, if only you weren't bound.

Jimmy steps back, rolling his shoulders and neck, cracking his knuckles against his palms, looking for all the world like he's preparing for a fight. He smiles at you, gold flashing.

"Alright, hen. Let's get yer man’s debt settled, eh?"

You stare dumbly at him as he approaches, his words bouncing frantically between your ears but refusing to sink into your brain. It’s not until he lays his hands on you that you snap out of it, jerking wildly in an attempt to dislodge him—it’s a futile attempt, the rope around your wrists and ankles combined with the give of the couch effectively paralyzing you. His rings sting against your skin, the metal shockingly cold, and he handles your body with little care. Your stomach drops at the way he arranges you—face down, ass up, your knees and upper body sunk deep into the soft cushions, wrists still bound tight behind your back. You flinch at the gust of cool air that brushes against your stomach and breasts, gravity and the new position working together to humiliate you further as your satin cami falls forward, exposing you. You feel like a hog on a spit.

David stares at you with a horror that matches your own. You close your eyes, unable to bear his dark, wild eyes, but they snap back open at the feel of something cold and hard brushing against your face. You're terrified to be met with the sight of a gun, an aborted squeal escaping from behind your gag. Jimmy shushes you, eyes no different from the gunmetal—cold and steely and burrowing into your skin.  

"Now, lass," he says, "I’m gonna untie yer ankles. But I want ye to remember what I have here. Dinnae do anything stupid. Nod if ye understand."

You nod, the presence of the gun at the base of your skull ensuring swift obedience. You feel Jimmy's hands work at your ankles, and it isn't long before the rope is loosening, and then gone entirely. Jimmy rubs circles on your ankle with his thumb, almost soothing, then slides his hand up your calf.

"Good lass," he praises. The pressure of the gun disappears, and you hear a clatter as it's sat on the console table against the back of the sofa. Then Jimmy wraps his hands around your thighs, right above your knees, and spreads your legs as far as the width of the sofa will allow. He settles between them, so close you can feel the warmth of his body emanating against the backs of your thighs.

"What—what the fuck are you doing?" David stutters, furious.

"I told ye what would happen if ye tried to fuck me," Jimmy says. You jolt in surprise as he touches you without preamble, fingers dragging long, slow strokes over the slit of your pussy. Even through your satin shorts and lace panties you can feel him in detail, his thick fingers sinking between your soft labia, the tips of them brushing teasingly against your clit. "D’ye remember what I said?"

David swallows. "You said you’d fuck me harder. But—but—," David shakes his head, helpless, "This ain’t right, man, she’s—,"

"Think of this as mercy, lad. Yer lucky ye’ve got sucha bonnie thing here to help settle yer debt. Be honest—would ye really rather I kill you than fuck this pussy?"

David doesn’t respond—or maybe you just don’t hear him, the roar in your head drowning out everything else as the reality of your situation comes crashing down. Fuck you? Fuck you. He's going to fuck you—no, he's going to rape you, take your body the same way he’s taken everything else of value in your home—with violence, because he can, because nobody is going to stop him. Because it's that or David is short on his debt and dies.

Your thoughts halt abruptly when Jimmy’s thumb reattaches to your clit—he first bears down, pressure firm and steady, then eases up, his thumb brushing over your clit in teasing, feather-light circles. He goes back and forth like this—heady, lingering pressure followed by playful, electrifying flicks. You whine with pleasure despite yourself, your clit growing erect under his touch. You try to jerk your hips away from him and succeed only in further rutting against his hand, bolts of pleasure branching from your cunt deep into your belly. You hear Jimmy laugh at you, low and breathy.

"How responsive ye are, hen. Ye’ll make this easier than I expected."

Shame and embarrassment crash over you, but the feelings are quickly replaced with alarm as Jimmy yanks your shorts down unceremoniously, letting them pool around your knees. He moans at what he sees, deep and primal, and heat floods your face from sheer mortification. You know how you must look from his point of view: bound and spread, back arched like a bitch in heat, plush ass spilling out of your cheeky-cut lace panties.

And wet.

You can feel your own warm slick dripping out of you, soaking into your panties. The thin fabric clings to the outline of your needy pussy, the folds of your labia as perfectly displayed as if you were nude. You've always been sensitive to touch, quick to arousal at even the slightest stimulation. You thought you were lucky to have a body so primed for pleasure, but now? It feels nothing short of cruel.

Jimmy hisses, shifting behind you, and for the first time you risk looking back at him. You regret it immediately—he's squeezing at his cock through the fabric of his trackies, brazen and indulgent. He's thick, based on the breadth of his fingers around it. Long, based on how close to his waistband he squeezes. You look away, anxiety curling in your gut.

"So wet for me already," Jimmy says, "I know I'm good with me fingers but that—that's something else. Yer old man dinnae treat ye well, I can see that now. But dinnae worry, hen—I'll show 'im how to fuck you right."

"Fuck you," David erupts. He bucks in his chair, face contorted in rage. "Fuck you, you cunt, you'd be nothing without your fucking cult, that's why you need me tied to this fucking ch—,"

You hear Jimmy sigh, soft and annoyed, and his warmth disappears from behind you. That's all the warning you get before the sound of a gunshot cracks through the room, sudden and impossibly loud. You scream, more in shock than anything, and your eyes immediately search for David.

He's fine—wild-eyed and clench-jawed, shoulders so tense you're afraid he might crack under his own pressure, but untouched. His head and shoulders are dusted with white, and you realize that Jimmy shot at the ceiling above him.

"Shut the fuck up," Jimmy reprimands, voice blasé, "or the next one goes in yer chest, and I fuck her anyway. Dinnae be stupid, lad."

You hear the clatter of the gun on the table, and then Jimmy is settling back behind you, the velour of his tracksuit soft on your skin. His hands land on your thighs, then slowly slide upwards to squeeze shameless handfuls of your ass. He hooks his fingers through your panties and pulls them down to join your shorts around your knees. He hums deep in his throat, voice thick, and you wince as his large hands spread the cheeks of your ass wide, exposing the parts of you he wants to see most—your clenching, wet pussy and shy, tight asshole. You turn your face into the cushion beneath you, humiliated beyond your wildest imagination.

"Perfect," Jimmy breathes. He spits right over your asshole, wet and messy, and your gag does little to muffle the embarrassing noise you let out. He rubs a finger over your hole, pressing his saliva deeper into you, pressure just hard enough to tease a breach. You tense, anxious even as your pussy throbs at the new and strange sensations.

"Relax, lassie," he says, "Yer boy dinnae touch ye here, do he? Shame. I won't either, then—not tonight. Ye wouldn't be ready for that." His finger leaves your virgin hole, and you tremble in the wake of his touch, though whether it's from relief or residual anticipation you can't say.

You feel him brush against your wet slit, trading one hole for the other. His fingers dip between your labia, dragging up and down the length of your pussy, pausing to circle teasingly around your clit at every pass. Your head is spinning—not only from his skilled touch, but from the unexpected sensations of his stacked rings. The cool, hard bands slide smoothly between your labia, their ridges and sharp edges providing a shockingly pleasurable contrast. The edges of the highest rings catch against your clit and you moan, high and shaky.

His hand is coated in your wetness now—you can feel it in the ease with which his fingers slide against you, and you can hear it: that loud, pussy-slick suck of where your bodies meet. You can't help but respond to him now, hips jerking sharply against his fingers, your gag barely muffling the moans you’re unable to stifle. 

There's no warning before he breaches you, a single finger sliding knuckle-deep into your pussy. The digit is thick enough on its own to stretch you pleasantly, but it’s the addition of his rings that have you moaning like a whore, sudden and loud, your pussy clenching around him. The added girth of the rings, the strange coolness of their metal inside you, the way their textured edges rib at your walls—it's unlike anything you've ever felt before. Jimmy huffs a laugh, breath ragged with desire.

"Good girl," he pants, "Show me how good it feels."

He twists his finger slowly, his rings catching deliciously at your clenching walls. You whine, hips stuttering against him, demanding more. He gives it, pulling out one finger and giving two back. He sinks into you deliberately slowly, letting you really feel it—every gemstone, every ridge, every bump and angle. His fingers bottom out to the second knuckle, then retract with a filthy, wet twist. He settles into a rhythm, fucking you with his fingers and twisting with every backward pull, his rings scraping your insides raw. You get lost in a plethora of sensation, rolling your hips back before you even realize what you’re doing, riding his fingers. Wet and honeyed sounds fill the room.

You never knew a single hand could offer you so much.

"Knew ye would have a honeypot on ye," Jimmy says. You come back down to earth, remembering who that hand belongs to. "Soon as ye came through that door, knew ye were too sweet for this weak fucker 'ere. How much did ye know about yer man's double life? Not much, I reckon. Bet ye thought he was big fish, eh? A big man, feared on the streets?" Jimmy chuckles, mocking. "He's just the chum, lass. But I reckon ye can see that now."

You realize with great shame that Jimmy is right: you don’t know what David gets up to, not really, because you don’t want to know. You know that it’s under the table at best, illegal and dangerous at worst. You also know that David makes enough money to buy you gold jewelry, and designer dresses, and a gorgeous home. You had no interest in hearing about the real-life horrors that came with such a man if it meant challenging your own comfort. And in truth, though you were loath to admit it even to yourself, there was a part of you that enjoyed being wanted by such a man—wealthy and powerful, maybe even dangerous.

And now here you were: tied up and gagged in your own home, stuck on the fingers of a man who really was dangerous.

Your pussy clenches hard around Jimmy's fingers, and you tell yourself it's because of those rings. He laughs at you, pushes in deep, laughs again when you clench helplessly around him, over and over, wet pussy drooling all over his fingers and dripping down his palm.

"A honeypot," he repeats. Fingers still deep in your cunt he reaches beneath you with his free hand, rubbing hard at your clit in time with the pitiful jerks of your hips. You seize around him, screaming beneath your gag, coming so hard around his fingers that it almost hurts. 

Jimmy's fingers slip out of your sopping cunt, and you slump onto your side, boneless. You feel him wipe his wet fingers off on the back of your thigh, and somehow this is the most dehumanizing thing you've endured so far.

You flinch in surprise when Jimmy's fingers ghost over your bottom lip, parted wide around the cloth gag. He pulls the gag out with shocking gentleness and tosses the soaked fabric to the floor. You breathe in deep through your mouth, relieved at the extra oxygen, flexing your aching jaw. Jimmy makes a lustful noise, the sound coming from deep in his throat, and you freeze. His glacial eyes are fixed on your lips.

"Perfect mouth," he murmurs, "Knew ye'd have one, sweet thing."

You've never felt more self-conscious than right now, with those eyes on your face. You turn away, though there's only so much you can hide like this. He tuts at you, the back of his fingers brushing against your cheekbone.

"Dinnae hide from me, sweet girl. Look at me. Dinnae make me say it again."

You look, vision blurry with tears—and your eyes land over his shoulder, right on David. Your stomach bottoms out: you'd forgotten all about your boyfriend, even as you came on another man's fingers right in front of him. You break down crying, the shame almost too much to bear.

"David," you gasp, "David, I—I'm so sorry, I swear, I didn't—I didn't want—,"

"It's okay." David cuts you off. He doesn't say anything else. Won't look at you. His eyes stare at the far wall, wet and dark and empty. You slump further into the sofa, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

"D'aw," Jimmy's voice is cloyingly sweet, mocking and amused, "Aren't ye two just tragic? Me old dead heart cannae take it."

He shifts back behind you and wraps his hands around your hips, hauling you into your former position without any care for your tears. You cry harder at the reminder that this payment isn't over.

"Please," you beg, "Please don—," you yelp, cut off as a hard smack lands across your ass.

"Stop yappin' or I'll put that gag back in." Jimmy's voice is flat, devoid of emotion in a way that tells you he means it. You bite your lip and fall silent, though quiet sobs still shake your shoulders.

You hear rustling and look despite yourself: Jimmy is shoving his tracksuit bottoms down his thighs, allowing his swollen cock to spring free. It's even larger than you feared, long and thick, red and angry. Everything about it seems exaggerated to your fearful eye: the size, the leaking tip, the engorged vein running along the shaft, the thick thatch of (golden, of course) pubic hair at its base, the heavy sack nestled beneath it.

You can't take it. There's no way. You open your mouth, plead on the tip of your tongue, and remember Jimmy's threat just in time. You look away, tears stinging your eyes, body trembling in fear.

Jimmy laughs, soft and breathy, almost genuine. "Dinnae be so scared, honey. Tremblin' and shakin' like ye weren't loving it just a minute ago. Ye'll love this, too. I promise."

One of Jimmy's hands lands on your ass, spreading you open, and you feel the thick, hot head of his cock rub along your slit, parting your labia. He presses shallowly against your entrance, dipping just deep enough to tease, then drags himself down until his cockhead is kissing at your clit. You flinch away, clit still oversensitive from your climax, but Jimmy grips tightly at your hip, dragging you back into place. 

One hand firm on your hip, the other guiding his cock, he slides back and forth between your folds, over and over, alternating between pressing his head against your slick opening and bumping it against your hard clit. You cry from the mixture of pain and pleasure, your swollen and overstimulated clit sending confused signals through your body. Jimmy presses a little harder every time he passes over your clenching hole, dipping in just a little deeper—but never deep enough to breach. Finally, you whine in frustration, your hips bucking back as he teases against your hole once again—you feel so empty, desperate for something to stuff you full to bursting.

Your desperation is what he was waiting on, it seems: his hold on your hip tightens, and this time when he passes his cock over your entrance he pushes. The head pops in with a delicious stretch: you moan before you can help yourself, shamefully loud and wanton. You flutter wildly around him, your pussy desperately trying to draw him in deeper yet. Jimmy moans and obliges, sinking in another inch, then two, before coming to a stop. You're less than a slut beneath him, cunt a dripping and clenching mess, needy and loud with no regard to the man tied to a chair barely a foot away—but even still you're too tight for him, the hot grip of your cunt almost painful. You feel it, too, the way the burn of his entrance threads your pleasure with pain. You're split even wider than you expected, if possible—wider than you've ever been split before.

Jimmy laughs, breathless and dazed. "Damn. Yer boy over there never fill you up like this, did he?"

You don't answer. You don't look at David, either, and for the first time the reminder of your boyfriend's silent, defeated presence does nothing to curb the pleasure electrifying your body. You buck against Jimmy, demanding, biting hard at your bottom lip in a poor attempt to stifle your desperate noises. Jimmy pats at your thigh, condescending.

"Dinnae worry, lass," he says, fingers finding your hard clit, rubbing slow, steady circles over it, "I’ll help ye through it—we’re in this together, ain’t we?"

You cry out, your clit over-sensitive and hurting so good. His free hand squeezes tight at your ass, blunt fingernails and stacked rings nipping sharply at your soft skin. You moan loudly, hips rolling back, chasing after the dual sensations: they combine in a way that goes straight to your pussy, your hole gushing slick around the tight seal of his cock, clenching desperately around him as he sinks in another inch. He makes a smug, satisfied sound.

He works at you like that for a while, one hand on your clit, the other at your ass, pain and pleasure opening you up to take him deeper, inch by inch, until he finally—finally—bottoms out. Jimmy moans, long and deep, leaning over you to rest his head against your back. You can feel the fine tremors running through his hands and thighs: a dangerous man made fragile by your body. 

"Jesusfuckinheaveninhell," he breathes, nearly incomprehensible. He pants against you for a moment, regaining his composure.

His bliss is your discomfort: you’ve never had something so deep inside you, deep enough that you swear you can feel it in your chest, your guts and organs and beating heart pushed aside to make room for nothing but Jimmy. You jerk, panicking. 

"I can’t—I can’t breathe." You wriggle underneath him, stuck and helpless. "Please, I can’t breathe." 

Jimmy sits up, and you instantly feel less suffocated—but he’s still inside you, a sword through stone, deeper than should be possible. You've bitten off more than you can chew. You try to jerk away, to pull off, but your panic has tightened you back up and all you manage to do is make him tug at your insides, painful and unyielding. 

Jimmy shushes you, his hands rubbing soothingly at your sides. "There, there, hen. Calm down. And we were doing so well. Ye can breathe. Do it with me, now, with my hands. Breathe in." He slides his hands up your sides until they curl high over your rib cage, just beneath your hanging breasts. You breathe in, breath stuttering.

"Now breathe out," he orders, sliding his hands back down until they rest above your hips. You breathe out. 

He repeats these motions, your breath following the slow drag of his hands, until you relax—still overfull, still with a cock in your chest, but no longer making things worse for yourself. Jimmy huffs a laugh, thumbs rubbing soothingly over your hips.

"Poor honeypot. Yer boy there ain’t never fill ye up like this, did he? Bet it feels like it’s knockin' between yer lungs. But that’s just in yer head, pretty girl. Ye can breathe. Can’t ye?"

You nod, then gasp as his blunt nails dig into your hips.

"What did I take that gag off for, eh? Out loud. Ye can breathe, can’t ye?"

"Y—yes."

"Good."

He reaches underneath you, pinches lightly at your clit. You yelp, hips bucking.

"Stupid bitch," he chides, voice almost fond, "Ye’ve ruined all our progress, havnae ye?"

You shake your head, barely understanding what he's asking. His nails dig painfully into your hips again, and you groan. 

"What did I say? Answer me when I ask ye a question. Have ye undone all our progress with yer little episode?"

"N—no," you whimper. 

"No?" He leans back, spreading your asscheeks wide. "This little pussy here is still wet for me, then? I can fuck her any way I want to, right now?"

You moan, clenching at his words. You understand now: your progress—the slow, arduous process that was getting you wet and open enough to take him to the hilt. You clamp your mouth shut, fearful. Jimmy laughs and his fingers brush lightly over your clit before working at it in earnest, in the way that’s been working so well for you so far—your reaction is instant and embarrassingly predictable, a moan of sheer pleasure ripping out of you. Jimmy leans over you as he works your aching clit, body warm against your back, voice gritty in your ear.

"Sweet lass. Tightest cunt I’ve ever had, it’s a shame ye’ve been wasting away here all this time. No other cock will do once I’ve fucked ye proper, ye hear me? Feels like too much now but once I’ve got you sliding up and down this cock ye’ll see ye were made for it. Cannae breathe now but once I’ve got it in your throat ye’ll realize ye don’t need air more than ye need me. I’ll fill ye up every which way, honey—I’ll fuck this cunt, then that sweet mouth, then yer little asshole here. Ye want it, don’ ya? Don’ ya?"

He spits this filth at you as he works you into a frenzy. You don’t answer—can’t answer, your mind too fogged with pleasure, mouth hanging open, drool pooling over your chin. You couldn’t form a coherent sentence now if your life depended on it. Jimmy hooks two fingers over your bottom lip, forcing your mouth wider.

"Ye’ve got the brains fucked out of ye and I havnae even fucked ye yet. I know ye can do it, lassie. Answer me. Ye want me to fuck ye, don’ ya?"

You moan, mouth closing around his fingers, sucking on them mindlessly. Your pussy is aching, pulsing hot around his cock, your clit harder than it’s ever been as he grinds against it, hard and slow. He rolls his hips and your eyes roll to the back of your skull.

"Don’ ya?"

"Yes," you breathe, barely more than a sigh.

"What’s that? Ye want me?"

"Yes," you repeat, louder, voice shaky.

"Ye want me to fuck ye?"

"Yes."

"Want me to fuck this sweet cunt?"

"Yes!"

"Fuck ye better than yer man ever did, fuck ye full of my cum?"

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes—,"

"Good bitch."

Jimmy pinches at your clit, hard, and you come harder than you’ve ever come in your life: you clench around Jimmy’s cock and gush, fluid squirting from your pussy, drenching Jimmy’s velour tracksuit and the couch beneath you. You scream with it, though you can barely hear yourself through the cotton in your head. You slump, boneless, the lower half of your body held up only by Jimmy’s hands on your hips and his hard cock, which still penetrates through you like a steel beam. You come down from your climax slowly, a panting, twitchy, wet mess.

Your eyes land on David. His gaze isn’t avoiding you this time—he stares dead at you with dark, unreadable eyes. Shame and embarrassment crash over you like a wave.

"David, please—,"

You don’t finish the words—can’t because suddenly you’re overwhelmed with the hot drag of Jimmy’s cock pulling out of you, then slamming back in. It knocks the breath out of you, and you can do nothing more than brace yourself as he sets a hard, fast pace, each thrust in punching the breath out of your lungs. His head presses against your spine, a deep moan reverberating through him.

Your climaxes have done you good: you take him without too much pain or resistance despite his size, the repetitive drag of him along your walls sending faint sparks of pleasure through your body. You’re well lubricated, too, the sloppy wet sounds of him plowing your pussy loud and obscene. You, for the countless time since Jimmy first touched you, forget about David's presence.

Jimmy does, too. His hands flex at your hips, breath coming in hot, damp puffs against your back. For the first time he is not mocking, or goading, or taunting: he only pants and moans, his voice taking on a high, desperate edge as his hips stutter rapidly against you.

You hate the heat that curls in your belly at his erotic noises—hate that you’re still wet and yielding for him—hate that your body somehow still wants more.

Jimmy slows, lifting from your back. His hand tangles in your hair, clunky rings catching painfully at the strands—though truthfully your body doesn’t seem to know the difference between pain and pleasure anymore, the sensation going straight to your battered cunt. Jimmy uses his grip to turn your head, right towards David. 

"Does he fuck ye like this, honey?" Jimmy asks, stroke changing deliberately—he pulls out of you with a long, slow drag, then rolls his hips forward, fucking back into you at an angle that has your toes curling, pathetic mewls spilling out of your mouth. It feels good—different from the pleasure of your clit, but no less efficient at scrambling your brains.

He tugs at your hair, impatient. "What was that?"

"No," you slur, the cruelty of the question barely registering—you’re no longer looking at David, anyway, eyes firmly in the back of your skull. Little more exists to your overstimulated brain than Jimmy—Jimmy’s cock filling you up, Jimmy’s hand tight in your hair, Jimmy’s voice in your ear.

Jimmy tsks and releases your hair, placing his hands on your hips and rolling them back to meet the thrusts of his cock. You moan and clench around him, wanting more and no longer of a mind to be ashamed of it.

"Shame, lass," Jimmy pants, "I know ye love it. I can—aah—feel it."

With no warning Jimmy spreads the globes of your ass, exposing and spitting right over your asshole. It doesn’t humiliate you the way it did the first time—now you moan like a whore, shuddering in arousal. You roll your hips back against him, pussy clenching, wishing in your fucked-out haze that he’d fuck your ass, too. You’ve never even had it there but you want it now, want it from him.

"That’s it, honey. Oh ye love it, don’ ye? Love me inside of ye, love me fucking ye like this. Say it."

You moan, swallowing the drool that’s collected in your parted mouth again, beyond words. Jimmy grips tight at the hair at the base of your skull and yanks.

"Say it."

You moan louder, toes curling, brain fuzzy. "Iloveit," you slur.

His hand twists painfully in your hair. "What?"

"I love it!"

Jimmy laughs meanly and lets you go. Your head drops, a marionette with its strings cut. "Good," he says, and then he’s pushing into you to the hilt, stilling once his hips are flush against your ass. You whine, not in discomfort, not anymore, but in protest.

"Needy bitch," he says, that almost-fondness from before back in his voice.

You feel his fingers at your wrists, tugging and unlacing, and it takes your brain a few seconds to catch up as the ropes around your wrists fall limply to the side. He’s unbound you completely now. 

You lower your arms slowly, shoulders aching fiercely from the position they were held in, and cross them underneath you, resting your head against your forearms. You sag in relief, neck no longer strained from supporting your upper body against the cushions.

David calls your name, sharp but aborted, as if he didn’t really mean to say it at all. 

You look at him. There’s more emotion on his face now than last time, his brows knitted and mouth parted. He looks almost pleading as he calls you again, voice unsure.

"Baby, I—I—," his mouth hangs open as he searches for words, "I’m sorry. I love you."

The words come to you muted, as if spoken through a wall. You can’t decide what his apology means to you, if it means anything at all. It certainly doesn’t mean now what it would have an hour ago.

You don’t say I love you back. 

Instead—hating yourself, feeling the most cowardly you’ve ever felt—you turn away, using your newfound mobility to prop yourself up on your arms and hide your face in the back of the couch. You brace yourself against your arms, shift on your knees, and use this leverage to throw your hips back against Jimmy, once but firmly.

Jimmy laughs raucously. Laughs so hard he has to brace himself over you, his entire body shaking with it, hips twitching involuntarily. You sigh, even these crumbs filling you with pleasure.

"Tragic lovers, indeed," Jimmy wheezes, "Guess she’s made her choice, hinna she?"

You hate him. You wish he would shut up and fuck you.

Eventually he does, recovering from his laughing fit and reaching to squeeze lewdly at your ass, kneading the soft flesh leisurely. "Such a good bitch," he purrs, "Got this sweet honeypot all sticky on my cock. Yer mine now, honey. Now give me one more."

He grips you tight by the hips and rolls his own back, drawing out his thick cock slowly before slamming back in, deep and merciless. He sets a brutal pace, lifting your hips to fuck you how he wants. Your pussy is almost use to him by now, sucking him in with glee and clenching tight when he pulls out, reluctant to let him go. The sloppy, suckling sound of his cock drilling into you fills the room with filth—the only other noise is Jimmy himself, moaning and panting, loud and frantic.

His pace goes erratic, hips stuttering as he nears his peak. He moans deep in his throat.

"Come on, honey," he pants, "One more, I said. Come around my cock and I’ll fill ye up proper. Come on, c’mon, cmon—,"

You moan—you’re so close and you haven’t even touched your clit, Jimmy’s thick cock awakening nerves in your pussy you didn’t even know you had.

Suddenly, Jimmy gathers a fistful of your hair and twists, your hair tangling painfully in his grasp as he pulls your head back. You cry out, the sharp sting of your scalp sending you over the edge, pain the same thing as ecstasy. You clench hard, creaming all over Jimmy’s cock, and he follows right behind you, collapsing over you and moaning desperately. 

Jimmy comes: it’s obvious from the sound he makes, a drawn-out moan spilling from his mouth like lava out the lip of a volcano—hot and molten, long and roiling.

But more than that you can feel it: his massive cock jerks inside of you, over and over, shooting wet heat deep in your belly. You marvel at it—you’ve never actually felt David come inside you before, and he’s done it hundreds of times. It goes on for ages, the hard twitches softening and spreading out until they cease completely.

Jimmy doesn’t move for a while, panting heavily against your skin, golden stubble scratching at your back. Eventually he sits up and pulls out, cock still large enough even in its softened state that the drag of him feels endless. You wince as he exits you—you feel your cunt gape, squeezing around open air, and a stream of hot cum dribbles out of you. It coats your swollen folds and abused clit, leaking down to drip onto the already-soaked sofa. You collapse onto your side, sore and exhausted.

Jimmy slouches against the arm of the couch, running a hand through his hair, golden locks sweaty and bedraggled. He pants as if he's just completed a marathon. Your eyes drift down his body despite yourself: his trackies are still shoved down the lean muscle of his thighs, and his cock hangs limp and shiny with your fluids. There's a large dark patch on his pants and the bottom edge of his jacket from your earlier wave of release. Jimmy doesn't miss your gaze.

"Still ain't had enough of it, have ye, honeypot?"

You look away, jaw trembling. Jimmy chuckles. "Dinnae worry, hen. Ye'll get more where that came from."

He tugs his trackies back over his hips and slips off the sofa, yawning and stretching exaggeratedly, his back and shoulders popping loudly. He reaches over the back of the sofa for his gun, and you're too tired to even feel fear at the sight of it. Jimmy turns to David, bound and silent.

"Howzat for a debt settled? I'd say we're even."

David doesn't look at Jimmy—doesn't look at you, either, his gaze firmly fixed on the floor in front of him. You've never seen him look so angry.

"You've made your point," David says, voice flat.

"Ay, I'd say yer woman made it for me."

"She's not my woman," David spits, and it’s now that you realize his anger isn't directed at Jimmy—it's directed at you. You flinch at his words, shame rearing its head, too little and too late. You realize that hot, silent tears are tracking down your face, wetting the hair at your temple. Jimmy grins, razor sharp.

"I'm glad ye understand—she's mine now. The last piece of settlement on yer debt. Be grateful—normally I ask for late settlements in blood."

Jimmy makes to turn away, then swings back around at the last second, gun tapping against his temple as if in thought.

"Let me ask ye—she always that tight?"

David looks away, empty-eyed. Jimmy taps his gun against David's temple. "Asked ye a question. Yer—apologies, my—little honeypot always feel like heaven?"

"Best I ever had," David says, emotionless. His eyes don't once lift from the floor.

"And she always come like that, eh? Squirt all over ye?"

This gets a reaction out of David, a muscle in his jaw jumping. He looks up at Jimmy, then back to the floor. Jimmy clicks the safety of his gun off, encouraging.

"I—I haven't...she's never..."

David trails off, chest rising rapidly as his breath quickens. Jimmy steps back, blue eyes wide with wicked glee.

"Och!I see. No wonder she was gaggin' for it."

Jimmy turns away from David, done with him, and walks to where you lay on the sofa. Your eyes track him silently—you haven't moved an inch since you collapsed. He kneels next to your head and settles the full force of his blue eyes on you: you forgot how exposed you felt beneath his gaze, your chest flayed open and ribs bared. But you don't look away. Not this time. The corner of Jimmy's lips lift into a half-smile.

"Can ye walk, honey?"

Your brows furrow at the question, your mind moving slowly. You try to move your legs and immediately cry out, a hot pain flaring that begins at your core and spreads throughout the rest of your body.

"No."

Jimmy's smile is sickening. He likes that he's hobbled you.

"Pull yer shorts up, then. I'll have to carry ye."

You push yourself up, slow and shaky, groaning in pain: everything hurts, especially your abused pussy. You wince as more of Jimmy's cum slides out of you, pooling between your legs on the ruined couch. You pull your panties and shorts up with trembling hands, cringing at the wet way they cling to you. Jimmy has crossed the room at this point, bending down to pick up something off the floor: David's robe, torn at one shoulder and stained with blood. He walks back over and throws it over your shoulders, guiding your arms through the holes. You're surprised at this gesture, which almost feels like kindness. Jimmy smiles down at you as you belt the robe closed.

"Very good. Cannae have those maggots outside seeing my honeypot still drippin'."

He bends over and hooks one arm under your knees, the other wrapping around your shoulders. He lifts you with that same shocking strength from earlier. Once he has you firm against his chest he brings his mouth to your ear, stubble scratching roughly against your cheek but lips soft where they brush against your skin.

"Yer real quiet, honey," he murmurs, voice too smug to be called gentle, "So I'll say it again to make sure ye heard: yer mine now. But dinnae worry—I take good care of what's mine."

You say nothing—but you sink into the warm, soft velour of his jacket. This must be good enough, for he brushes his lips against your temple—not quite a kiss—and swings around, walking you out of the house.

"Goodnight, ye piece of shite," he calls over his shoulder, "If I see ye again I'll kill ye."

The nighttime air is cold against your bare feet, the rest of your body shielded by David's thick robe. A black SUV with pitch-black windows sits on the edge of the property, nearly indecipherable in the dark. As Jimmy approaches someone slips out of the driver's side: a young man in a black and white tracksuit. He opens the passenger door for Jimmy, and you take in his appearance: shoulder-length black hair, black-painted lips, apathetic black eyes.

A black inverted cross, inked neatly on the middle of his forehead.

"Sir," he says simply, nodding his head curtly.

"Snakey," Jimmy greets, and you can hear the ever-present humor in his voice, "Thank ye much."

Jimmy deposits you onto the front seats—modified to comfortably fit three—and slides in after you. The young man closes the door behind you, and Jimmy positions you so that you're laid against his chest, his arms wrapped possessively around you. You glance into the backseat and are met by the faces of the people who invaded your home—Jones, Fox and Shite, Ink and Jimmima. They stare at you and Jimmy with expressions frozen in various stages of disbelief. The young man in black and white slips back into the driver's seat and cranks the car, which hums to life with a smooth, silent purr.

"Let's go home, Snake," Jimmy says, not offering any explanation to his cult.

"Yes, Sir."

Snake doesn't spare you a glance, expression cool as he puts the vehicle in drive. You notice a second tattoo wrapped around his neck: a black snake with white fangs spread over the knot of his Adam's apple. He doesn't turn on the headlights as he peels off into the night, the group's departure from the house as unnoticed as their arrival.

Jimmy's fingers are a cage around you, his thumb rubbing absentminded circles on your arm through the fabric of the robe. You allow yourself to sink into him, half-between sleep and fuzzy consciousness. You allow yourself to enjoy the warmth of his body, and the softness of the velour against your cheek. You don't allow yourself to think of who he is, or what he's done to you, or what he might do yet. Of what you've done.

Soon enough, you're lured into sleep by the gentle rock of the SUV as it speeds down the road ahead.

You’re awoken by the strangest shift in your body–you think at first that you’ve somehow ended up on the very edge of your bed, and are now primed to tip to the floor. You jerk back instinctually, your bedding soft against you, but shockingly hot and firm. Your eyes open to check for the time and you are at first puzzled by what you see–not the familiar contours of you and David’s bedroom, nor the soft red glow of your alarm clock, but rather the flat, black planes of a dashboard, the bright LEDs of its components searing your bleary eyes.

You’re looking at the inside of a car. The shift that woke you was the vehicle coming to a stop. You blink away from the harsh LED light, your gaze drifting upwards to the windshield–and that’s when you see the house. 

Though house truly seems too tame a word–it must be a mansion, large and sprawling as it is. Warm golden light spills from its many windows, and in the darkness surrounding it you can make out hints of paved walkways, tall bushes, even a large fountain–beautiful landscaping befitting such a home.

You hear the muted sound of a door opening–multiple doors opening–and the dark interior of the vehicle is suddenly flooded with overhead light. You squeeze your eyes back shut–less in protest of the light, and more because the events of the night are flooding back.

You, bound and dragged forward like a sacrifice. David, tied to a chair and battered bloody. And that man. Jimmy. What he did to you.

What your sleep-addled mind thought was bedding is just him. The chest you lay against and the arms wrapped around you are solid and unyielding, the combined warmth of his body and the velour of his tracksuit turning him hot as a furnace. You’re acutely aware of the hard heat of his thighs beneath you, the steady rise and fall of his chest against your body, the warmth of his breath against your neck.

You force yourself not to tense—let him think you’re still asleep. It’s not as if you want to be awake.

From beneath your eyelids you see the interior of the car darken as the doors are slammed shut. They brighten once more, and you feel a gust of frigid air as Jimmy’s door is opened for him.

“Thank you, Snakey,” you hear him say, the vibrations of his voice in his chest seeping into your own body. His tone is light and cheerful—happy, as if he couldn’t want for anything more in the world. Your stomach twists in disgust at the sound.

Jimmy climbs out of the car, his grip on you never faltering. The artificial warmth of the vehicle is replaced by a flat chill, the night air nipping at your exposed ankles and bare feet.

Once outside you can hear the soft murmuring of overlapping voices, occasionally punctuated by a burst of laughter—Jimmy’s sidekicks, talking amongst themselves. You hear the doors of the SUV opening and closing, and then the soft hum of it driving off. There are less voices after that.

“Inky,” Jimmy calls, a rumble beneath your ear. It takes you a moment to recall which one he’s referencing—one of the young women, the one with the thin smile, red all over. You hear her come closer.

“Sir?” 

“Come with me, lass.”

She must obey, for they begin walking without another word. You’re soothed back into a state of half-wakefulness despite your circumstances. The warmth of Jimmy’s chest is a shield from the night cold, the sway of his walk steady and soothing.

You can tell when you reach the mansion you glimpsed earlier–Jimmy’s footsteps slow, and you hear the telltale sound of a door being opened for him. The chill of the night air is replaced with warmth as he steps inside, the black behind your eyelids suddenly golden with light. You can’t help it–you open your eyes, curiosity getting the better of you.

Your vision is limited from your position in Jimmy’s arms, but you’re able to glimpse a high ceiling, a gold-lit chandelier, and a tall, winding staircase, its railings deep chestnut and elegantly balustered. Already you can see why Jimmy called David’s home–nice by anyone’s standards, including your own–a shithole.

Jimmy chuckles, and your eyes find his face–he’s already looking down at you, as if he has been for some time now, his teeth bared in a cheeky grin. Your stomach does a panicked flip, your limbs briefly tensing as if to take off in flight–a rabbit who’s forgotten that she’s already in the snare.

“Little hen done playing dead, then?”

You say nothing and look away, burying your face in his chest for lack of any other place to hide. Your silence must not bother him too much–he laughs, his fingers briefly digging cruel grooves into the flesh of your arm and thigh where he holds you, but nothing more.

The rest of the journey is made in silence, the three of you trekking up the winding staircase. Your refusal to open your eyes again disorients you–you couldn’t say where the staircase ended and the upper level began, but suddenly Jimmy is stopping, his voice lashing a sharp command. 

“This one,” he says, and there’s barely a beat before you hear the distinct sound of a door being unlocked and pushed open. 

There’s another change beneath your eyelids, the golden glow of the chandelier fading into the muted grey of an unlit room. It’s colder, too–you wonder when’s the last time this door was opened. You suddenly imagine that he is carrying you not into a room, but through the lip of a dark cave, hard and gray and damp, with chains bolted into the walls to keep you prisoner.

Your eyes snap open, as if to make sure this isn’t your reality, and you’re almost relieved when the room is just a room–a bedroom, to be exact, almost as large as you and David’s master. Jimmy carries you to the large, four-poster bed pushed against the wall, and panic floods your body with heat. 

“No,” you say, voice so small and hoarse that you’d be surprised if Jimmy even hears you.

You jerk in his arms with surprising vigor, sudden and forceful enough that it takes Jimmy by surprise, if the way he grunts and fumbles his hold on you is anything to go by. David’s tattered, bloodied robe does you some good here, the fabric loose and slippery enough that it allows you to slip free. You slide down Jimmy’s body, his fingers still tight around the robe that no longer encases you, and nearly find your footing on the floor–but then his fingers are digging hard into the flesh of your arms, blunt nails biting into you painfully as he yanks you back up. He throws you over his shoulder with little fanfare, sending a hard, punishing slap to your ass. You cry out in pain and he kisses his teeth in agitation. 

“Calm down,” he barks, “I’ve got better things to do than fuck ye all night. Ink, get the covers.”

You groan against his back, anxious and hurting, your brief struggle reawakening every ache and pain you’d accrued from this man mere hours ago–especially the ache in your core. An aborted scream is caught in your throat as you’re suddenly tossed from over Jimmy’s shoulder, your body in freefall for a terrifying moment before you’re landing on your back, onto a soft mattress. The duvet has been pulled back–Ink’s doing–and Jimmy wastes no time wrapping it back around you, pressing its soft edges into your sides, leaving only your head and neck visible–quite literally tucking you in. He gives you one of his awful smiles, this one closed-lipped, crooked, and satisfied.

As cold as his blue eyes are, and as smug as the set of his mouth, he still looks at you with something horrifyingly close to tenderness. He speaks without ever taking his eyes off you.

“Go wait outside, Inky. I’ve got to tuck me little hen in proper.”

Ink doesn’t move or speak. She eyes you with something that you think–that you desperately hope–might be concern. Jimmy doesn’t look away from you, but he must notice Ink’s lack of movement–he tilts his head to the side, just slightly. Not enough that he’s looking away from you, but enough that he’s facing Ink more than he was before. This simple, silent gesture speaks louder than words–Ink leaves the room without another moment’s hesitation, shutting the door softly behind her. 

Leaving you and Jimmy alone. 

Jimmy turns towards you fully, settling on one knee at the head of the bed. He brushes a hand from your sternum to your belly, leaving his hand to rest warm and heavy over your lower stomach–too close to your mound for comfort. You shiver at his touch despite the thick duvet that divides you and turn your head away from his expression–still that unsettling mix of flat cold and sickly sweet. He tuts at you, reaching to tilt your head back in his direction.

“Dinnae be so cold with me now, honey. Ye’ve been so good for me up ‘til now.”

You ignore this delusion. “You can’t just keep me, Jimmy.” You keep going despite the way his smile falters, “I–I have a life. The police–,”

Jimmy’s scoff cuts you off. “The police? And who’s calling them? David?” His voice takes on a nasty edge at the name. You flinch and look away. “Ye know now what kind of business he gets up to. He willnae be calling any police, lovey. Not tonight or tomorrow. He’ll lick his wounds and clean his place and pretend as if ye never existed. It’s all he can do. Ye seem to be forgetting–ye are not here on a whim. Yer here to pay a debt. Now fuckin’ look at me.”

You glare at him, eyes blurred with tears, mouth set into a stubborn, trembling line. Jimmy grins, evidently unconcerned with the hatred in your eyes so long as those eyes are on him.

“Good lass,” he praises, “Now give Jimmy a kiss goodnight.”

You’re repulsed by the idea, but Jimmy doesn’t give you much of a choice–the fingers still framing your face tighten painfully, the pressure on your jaw increasing until you have no choice but to open your mouth. He leans in, mouth slotting over yours. 

He wastes no time exploring your mouth, his tongue sweeping over your own, over the roof of your mouth, even over the back of your teeth–over every inch of you. It doesn’t feel like it’s about sex–it feels like he’s out to make a point, or stake a claim. Or both. You force yourself as still as a rock, stubbornly determined to give him nothing–but it’s hard to fight the instinctual urge to kiss back.

He takes his time with your mouth, pulling back for breath and then licking back into you with a soft moan. He draws back to nip and suck at your bottom lip, then dives back in, his tongue passing over yours in a slow drag. You lose your one-sided fight–your tongue surges forward, brushing against his in an act that feels against your own will. He latches on greedily, sucking your tongue into his mouth, moaning deep in his throat. This is too much for you–you pull back, throwing your head to the side to dislodge the kiss. A string of saliva still connects you–you feel it slacken and fall against your cheek, leaving you cringing in disgust.

Jimmy pants above you for a moment, silent for once. You expect him to force you back into the kiss–you brace yourself for the pain of his fingers on your face, or the wet intrusion of his tongue. To your surprise, he doesn’t–instead he sits back, arm thrown over his knee, head tilted back as he regards you with dark, heavy-lidded eyes. He drags his tongue over the plush of his top lip, gathering your combined saliva, slow and lecherous, eyes on you all the while. For once, you don’t look away–you watch as he draws his tongue back into his mouth and swallows.

“Good lass,” he praises again, “That’ll do for now.”

And like that, he rises and heads for the door, not another word or glance spared for you. You can barely manage any relief, raw and violated as you still feel from his kiss. He opens the door, the golden light of the hallway turning him lustrous. He steps out, pulling the door behind him, but not quite shutting it–a thin sliver of gold still lights the corner of the room, and you can just make out his pale hand grasping the handle. He and Ink are speaking, you realize. You strain your ears to listen.

“I want ye to watch her. She’ll be yer responsibility when I’m not here.” 

“Me?” You can hear the incredulity in Ink’s voice. 

“Am I talking to the fuckin’ air in front of ye?” 

“But I–ye told me to handle the doctor. I need to–,” 

“Ye need to do what I tell ye. My pet here needs a feminine touch to settle in.” 

“Then Jimmima–,” 

“Ink.” Jimmy’s voice has gone flat and dangerous. The following silence makes anxiety build in your gut.

When Ink speaks again it’s just two words: “Yes, Sir.”

Jimmy shuts the door fully behind him, and the room is plunged back into dim grayness. You can make out the shadows of their feet at the bottom of the door, but if they continue to speak you can no longer hear them.

You keep your eyes on the bottom of the door, only occasionally looking away to glance at the doorknob. If Jimmy leaves or–infinitely worse–decides to come back inside, you want to know.

Your vigilance is noble, but you find that you’re even more worn thin than you’d realized: soon enough the light at the bottom of the door is blurring, and your eyes become lead weights in your face.

You drift to sleep before you know it, gold still burning at the back of your eyelids.

The next time you wake up, you know exactly where you are.

Early sunlight spills through the single, wall-length window in the room. In the daylight you make out the details of the room you missed the night before–the large vanity dresser, the fully-stocked bookshelf, the two doors that you can only assume lead to a closet and a bathroom. All the furniture is in deep wood tones, elegantly carved and surely antique. The top half of the walls are covered in ornate wallpaper, the bottom half paneled. The curtains and the bedding are in deep jewel tones. You can’t deny that it’s beautiful.

And soulless–empty and staged, like something out of a catalogue.

You’re still flat on your back, tucked in exactly how Jimmy left you. You slept like the dead.

You shift where you lay, dislodging the duvet around you. You wince in pain, your body sore all over, nowhere near recovered from last night’s events. Your cunt is sore and, as if to add insult to injury, you can feel where you and Jimmy’s combined fluids have dried between your legs, tugging uncomfortably at your skin with every movement. You sit up in bed, hissing between your teeth at the pressure–he’d abused your ass as much as he did your pussy, you suddenly recall. The duvet falls from your shoulders over your lap, and that’s when you notice the neatly folded stacks at the foot of the bed–one stack of what looks like lounge clothes, and the other a towel and washcloth, topped neatly by a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a plain bar of soap.

Somebody came into this room while you were sleeping. You try not to let it upset you.

You toss the duvet from over your body and swing your legs over the edge of the bed. Standing as tentatively as a newborn fawn–careful not to further irritate your bruised body–you slowly limp to the sliding doors next to the bed: it opens into a large closet, as you expected, completely bare without even a spare hanger to indicate its purpose. You close it and go to investigate the window–no latch. You feel along the frame as if you could simply be overlooking it, and when you still find nothing you try to lift it open anyway. It’s a futile effort–the window may as well have been soldered shut.

You look through the pane and see nothing but green hills and a distant, winding road. You wonder just how isolated you are–you have no clue how long the drive from David’s house took, asleep as you were. You try not to feel frustrated with yourself over this lack of foresight: the persistent ache in your body is enough to remind you of why you preferred the bliss of sleep in that car.

The vanity is next–you look briefly at your reflection, cringe, and look away. You determinedly ignore yourself in the wide mirror as you open up every dresser the vanity has to offer–it’s completely empty, save for a single box of tissues in one of the bottom drawers. You take it out and sit it on top of the dresser. Considering your current circumstances, you’ll probably need it later.

You burst into a fit of laughter at this thought, unable to stop the flood once it’s started, shoulders shaking. You drag your hands down your face as it subsides, feeling trapped and insane.

You limp to the door leading to the hallway, your body lagging as the pain you’re in becomes more pronounced. You try the doorknob–locked, of course. It doesn’t budge even a millimeter under your grasp, and there’s no keyhole. You can tell that the knob and the door are both made of sturdy, impenetrable materials–the kind of materials David used to fret over when renovating his own house, muttering about security. You turn away, trying to fight off a wave of panic–and then flinch at the way the skin between your legs pulls.

You’re still covered in him–still leaking him. You can’t bear the thought of staying this way any longer: how are you supposed to think?

You beeline for the third and final door in the room. As expected, it reveals a bathroom that’s as spacious and gorgeously constructed as the bedroom, with terracotta flooring and glass shower walls. There’s a single window above the shower, round and large, spilling abundant daylight into the room. It’s high, too–you know immediately that you could never hope to reach it without a ladder. You open up every cabinet and mirror, not even sure what you’re looking for at this point–but the bathroom, of course, is as empty as the closet, as empty as the vanity. It’s as if this mansion was just built yesterday, not yet lived in.

Or a façade.

You shake these thoughts off–the purpose of this building is the least of your concerns, and out of your control to boot. 

Something you can control: the current state of your hygiene.

You don’t waste any more time–you first brush your teeth, the water hotter and your scrubbing more vigorous than perhaps necessary, but you’re eager to rid your tongue of any evidence of Jimmy. Once done, you turn the shower on–hotter than you can normally stand it–, shed your filthy nighties, and step under the spray.

It hurts. You flinch at the burn of it, but you need it–you can feel it washing him from your flesh, drowning out the memory of his touch. You lather your washrag and scrub your body harder than you ever have before, stand under the scalding spray to rinse yourself clean, and then repeat this once, twice more. 

Afterwards, you squat in the middle of the tiles, blistering water running down your back, and push, forcing that last stubborn bit of him out–it’s hard to believe, even as you feel it slide out of you, just how deep he planted his seed last night. You shudder at the feel of it and reach for the detachable shower head, switching it on and aiming it right at your pussy–any other time something like this would be done for pleasure, but right now it’s meant only as a cleansing.

You can’t bear the thought of even a drop of him remaining in you.

You stay under the spray for what must be nearly an hour, until the water runs cold and won’t reheat no matter how far left you turn the handle. You dry hastily, wasting no time pulling on the clothes left neatly folded for you, as if he might walk in at any moment and take advantage of your nude body.

The lounge set is silk, the material cool and soothing against your singed skin. The sleeves and pants are blissfully long, the fit slightly oversized on you. It’s a welcome change from your skimpy nighties: you button the shirt all the way to the top. It almost feels like armor.

No underwear was left for you. You try not to linger on it.

You’re just finishing buttoning your shirt when the door opens: fear seizes you and makes you freeze like prey. You just barely relax when you hear a woman’s voice, agitated and clipped.

“Fuck off, JJ.”

“I wanna see,” a male voice whines, “Come on, I stay home once and miss all the fun.”

You watch as Ink pushes backwards into the room, still in her bright red. She’s facing a young man, who’s trying to shoulder his way through the door–he’s lean and eager-looking, his blonde hair shaved into a buzzcut, his thin face bisected by scarring. He bears the same mark as his peers: a dark, inverted cross slashes down the middle of his forehead. His eyes lock onto yours, bright and green, and you tense. He lights up as if he’s just won the lottery, whistling sharply.

“Fuck yeah!” he says, “Boss has great taste.”

Ink swings around, gaze sweeping over you from head to toe. It’s then that you notice she’s carrying a silver platter–a literal silver platter–topped with a round dome. She steps properly into the room, turning her back on her companion, but not moving from the doorway–blocking him out.

“Good,” she says, “Yer up. I’ve got breakfast.” She swings around, voice hardening as she addresses the man behind her. “JJ, fuck outta here. If ye dinnae right now I’ll tell Jimmy ye were oogling his woman.”

That makes the man–JJ–finally look away from you. He sneers nastily at Ink, but backs away. Now that he no longer crowds her, you can make out his outfit–another tracksuit, of course, his as green as Ink’s is red.

“Not much of a woman, that,” he says, looking down at Ink but jerking his head in your direction, “That’s a toy through and through.”

“Ye’ll be a fuckin’ chew toy if ye dinnae–,”

“Fuck off, yeah, yeah, I got it,” the man says, waving a dismissive hand in Ink’s direction as he turns away. He stops in his tracks, twirling back around with a wicked smile on his face. “Hey, Inky, d’ye suppose Boss’ll let us have a turn with her once he’s thro–,”

Ink slams the door in his face. You can hear the faint sound of his laughter through the thick wood and cringe, looking down at your bare feet. Some time during the man’s appraisal of you, you’d crossed your arms protectively over your chest–despite his absence, you can’t bring yourself to lower them.

Ink turns back around, tray balanced neatly on one hand. The two of you regard each other silently for a moment–you’re unsure what to make of this woman, and you’re certain she feels the same about you. To your surprise, Ink looks away first, huffing in a put-upon way. She walks briskly past you, so suddenly you startle, and sets the tray on the large vanity dresser, next to your box of tissues.

“Dinnae mind JJ,” she says, not looking at you as she fiddles with the silver dome, “He’s just trying to scare ye. I dinnae think he even likes women.”

You’re not sure what to say to that–you’re hardly about to thank her for her reassurances, complicit as she is in your captivity. She turns around at your silence, ever-present frown on her face.

“Have a seat, then,” she says, gesturing at the vanity chair, “Breakfast is served, or whatever the fuck they say.”

You hesitate, but in the end sit down as instructed–you are hungry, you realize, now that food has been mentioned. Ink pushes the tray across the dresser until it’s centered neatly in front of you–you notice at least half a dozen small tattoos inked across her hands. Your eyes linger on the letters blazoned across her knuckles: WWJD.

Something tells you the acronym has little to do with Christ.

Ink removes the silver dome with little fanfare. “Bon appétit.”

Breakfast is a large waffle. Arranged around it in small bowls are an assortment of toppings: fresh berries, warm syrup, powdered sugar, butter. There’s a cup of tea on a saucer, a small jar of honey and a bowl of sugar cubes next to it. The scent, previously contained by the dome, wafts up at you, and your stomach reacts with an embarrassingly loud growl.

Still, you can only stare down at it, unable to bring yourself to reach for the silver fork and knife.

“It’s not poisoned, ye know,” Ink says, “Jimmy likes ye too much for that.”

“Did…Jimmy make it?”

Ink scoffs. “No. The cook did.”

A cook. The house–the mansion–you’re in is luxurious. At least eight people live here, assuming Jimmy keeps his underlings close. Nine, if you count yourself, but you don’t do that. Of course there’s a cook.

You begin to eat, tearing into your waffle plain, not even bothering with the toppings as hunger overtakes you. Ink suddenly beelines for the bathroom and you watch after her, puzzled. Your stomach does an odd little flip when she comes out with your discarded nighties balled in her hands.

“What are you–,” you swallow your suddenly dry throat, “Why do you–,”

“They need to be washed.” Ink’s voice is short.

“Can’t I do it?”

“Ye cannae leave this room.”

Stubborn tears sting at the back of your eyes. “I don’t want you to wash them.”

Ink scowls and holds out your shorts–stained red with blood, crusted with dried cum. “Ye want them to stay like this, then?”

You can’t help it–the sight of your ruined clothes, the reminder of what happened to you, the embarrassment of someone else seeing and knowing, being trapped in this room–it all compounds and you burst into tears, fork clattering loudly against the silver tray as you bring your hands up to your face.

It takes about a minute for the worst of the sobs to make their way out of you, the heaving of your shoulders lessening as you calm. Your jaw aches from the effort of trying to hold your cries back, your eyes sore, your nose stuffy. A dull headache throbs at your temples–you’ve lost a lot of water from crying since last night, you suppose.

Ink offers you the box of tissues as you collect yourself. She won’t quite look at you. You take it without a word and go through the messy process of cleaning your nose, uncaring of her presence.

“Sorry,” she says, surprising you, “That was unnecessary.”

When you look at her, your bloody shorts are out of sight–bundled into your cami top, you assume. You throw your tissues into the wastebasket next to the vanity and shrug.

“I don’t want them back. You should burn them.”

Ink shrugs. “Probably will. Yer robe’s already trashed.”

David’s robe. You don’t bother to correct her. You hadn’t even noticed its absence.

“Does he do this often? Rape women and then force you to serve them breakfast and clean up their bloody clothes?”

Your turn to be cruel, you guess. You expect–you want–Ink to flinch at this; you want to see her shoulders curl in and her face twist with shame. You want some indication that maybe she would help you out of this. But she only looks at you, gaze unhappy but steady.

“No,” she says, “This is a first.”

It’s not the response you expected. Before you can think of what to say, Ink is backing away, expression flattening. “Make sure ye eat,” she says, “There willnae be anything else until evening.”

She leaves at once, gone before you’ve had the chance to even process her words, the door clicking behind her with finality.

You look down at your tray and try to find your appetite again.

You spend the rest of the day bored out of your mind. 

You skim the bookshelf: few of the old, lofty titles are familiar to you, but you take some to bed anyway and attempt to read them. By the fourth time you doze off mid-sentence, you give up. 

You sit vigil at the tall window, eyes keen on the scenery beyond, waiting for any signs of life that aren’t birds or small animals. After an hour, you give up.

You brush your teeth again. May as well. It makes you feel better, at least. 

Finally, you bang on the door leading to the hallway, loud and incessant, hoping it might draw someone to you. Nothing. Either Ink is busy or she hates you more than you thought.

In the end, you force yourself to go back to sleep—at least that’ll make the time pass quicker. 

The Sun is just beginning to turn west when Ink shows up with another platter. This time, she has no green-clad strangers with her.

You don’t move from where you’re sprawled out on the bed, not that she seems to care—she places the new platter on the foot of the bed and beelines for the platter from this morning, still sitting on the vanity. She eyes the largely untouched breakfast for a moment and then begins to pop the berries into her mouth. 

“Jimmy willnae be happy with ye not eating,” she says around a blueberry.

“I was banging on the door earlier,” you say, ignoring her statement, “Did no one hear me?”

Ink shrugs and tears off a piece of waffle from the edge you didn’t touch. “House was empty most of the day. We’ve all got our jobs to do. Why Jimmy put me on babysitting duty when he knows that is beyond me. Take it up with him.”

Her back is turned to you. You’re almost certain she can’t see you through the vanity mirror from this angle. She closed the door behind her, but you know that it can’t lock or unlock from the inside—your captors always lock it behind them as they’re leaving.

Your pulse jumps in your throat as the idea hits you. You don’t let yourself overthink it—you slip as silently as you can manage from the bed and make a break for it.

You have the door halfway open when Ink reaches you, a human battering ram forcing you against the door, slamming it back shut in the process. She wraps her arms around you, pulling you backwards, and you drop your weight like an anchor, going dead in her grasp. This catches her off guard–she falls backwards, unbalanced by the shift in your weight.

You scramble out of her grasp, crawling for the door and pulling yourself up by the knob. You feel a tug on your pants and kick back wildly without looking, the muffled umph you receive in return letting you know you made contact. You yank the door open and run into the hallway. 

You falter, disoriented by the change in scenery. The chandelier you glimpsed last night hangs right before you–you’re briefly blinded by its crystalline golden glow. You’ve stepped out onto an indoor balcony of sorts, the winding staircase from last night on either side of you, leading to the floor below—to a way out. You bolt to the left, bare feet sinking into thick red carpet.

You’re just coming up to the top of the stairs when Ink catches up to you. She snakes a hand into your hair and hauls you backward, her other arm wrapping around your torso. She slams you back onto the carpeted ground, the impact winding you. You don’t even get a chance to catch your breath before Ink is bearing down on you, her weight on your ribs constricting your breathing even further. 

“Fuckin’–cunt–,” she snatches your wrists together in a shockingly steely grip and begins to drag you across the carpet—back towards the room you’ve been held hostage in all day.

You kick and twist in her grasp, though it doesn’t do much to slow her down—so you screech instead, screaming like a banshee out of hell. 

It won’t do anything, you know—no one is coming to save you, even if they do hear you. But it will give the woman currently dragging you back to your living hell a headache.

You’ll take your petty wins where you can find them. 

Once Ink has you back in the room—you refuse to think of it as your room—she wastes no time leaving, dropping you like a sack and locking the door behind her.

You scream again, just to let it out. Then you kick at the door—it hurts you more than the wood. You limp back to the bed, ankle twinging, dejected, and fall into it facedown.

Back to waiting. 

Barely an hour has passed when the door opens again. 

The Sun is just beginning to set over the green hills, lazily throwing its deep, golden rays through the window. You’ve been watching the beautiful scene mulishly from where you lie on the bed, bored and increasingly angry.

You roll around to face the door, expecting Ink.

It’s Jimmy.

You sit up, heart leaping to your throat. Jimmy grins at you, wide and toothy, gold incisor glinting in the setting sunlight. He looks broad in the doorway, still in his purple velour, still with his gold hanging heavy from his neck and stacked upon his fingers.

The most ridiculous tiara has been added to his ensemble–it shines silver against the gold of his hair, pinning his long hair back from his face. Dozens of delicate, white gems glimmer in its setting, and you wonder if this hedonistic, tacky man has something of genuine value on his head.

“Good evening, bonnie thing.”

Your eyes dart behind him—despite your earlier anger, you hope to see Ink lingering behind him. He catches your look and hums, stepping fully into the room and shutting the door behind him.

“Just you and me, honey.”

He walks towards the bed where you still sit, hugging your knees to his chest. One of his arms hangs by his side, a box in hand. The other hand reaches towards you, his knuckles brushing gently against your cheekbone.

You flinch away from his touch, as if he hasn’t already touched you in ways irreversible—as if he hasn’t already been inside you.

He pauses, lips thinning at your rejection.

“No greeting for me, honey?”

You turn your head away from him, jaw tensing. You know how much he hates it when you refuse to engage with him. Let it speak for you.

You hear him kiss his teeth in disappointment and try to brace yourself for what he might do next. 

To your surprise, he breezes past you, heading towards the vanity. Both of the platters sit there now, the second completely untouched. You never even opened it after your altercation with Ink.

Jimmy opens it for you, revealing a sandwich. It’s cold and several hours old now, but you can tell by the look of it—layers of different cheeses and meats, stacked on artisan bread—that it would’ve been the best sandwich of your life. Jimmy tuts in exaggerated disapproval, and you think of Ink’s earlier words. Jimmy won’t be happy with you not eating. 

“Jimmy Ink said ye tried to escape earlier,” he says, replacing the dome and turning to face you, “Had the bruise on her face to back it up. Figured ye might try something like that, honey–Ink wasnae too happy with me, but that’s why I had her watching over ye. Between my girls, she’s the one better suited to that kind of wrangling. Jimmima would’ve let ye slip right through those doors–not that it would’ve done ye any good.”

He stalks towards the bed, as slow and leisurely as a wildcat tracking its prey, until his thighs brush against the edge of the mattress. “Thank me, honeypot, for making sure it was Ink who hauled yer disobedient arse right back where ye belong and not one of me lads. I dinnae think ye would much liked their treatment.”

He’s a looming presence over you. You maintain your stubborn silence and refusal to look at him, though you tremble faintly now at his proximity.

He reaches the limit of his patience: his fist comes up and slams against the post of the bed nearest him. The wood rattles under the force of his hit, the vibrations of it traveling through the entirety of the bed. You jump at the sudden sound, hands coming up to cover your face.

“I said fuckin’ thank me!”

You try to maintain your composure–you really do–but the fear that’s thrumming through your veins makes the tremor in your body even more prominent, and your breath stutters in your throat.

“Thank you,” you whisper, voice shaky. Tears blur your vision and you blink them away. You still can’t bring yourself to look at him.

“Good,” he says, voice higher than usual, as if still holding in anger. He pulls back, fist lowering, and your shoulders relax a fraction.

They tense again when he speaks. “Come sit on the edge of the bed, honey. I’ve got somethin’ for ye.”

You slide over to the edge of the bed, finally deigning to look at him as you do so. A smile twitches across his face when he catches your gaze and you cut your eyes away, narrowly avoiding rolling them.

“Good,” he purrs, “Now turn to face me.”

Doing so would put your legs over the edge of the bed. Jimmy stands too close for this to be possible. You look up at him, not bothering to hide the irritation you feel. He grins at you, clearly pleased with himself.

“Ye can figure it out, honey.”

Heat blooms hot in your chest and travels up your neck to your face. You swallow the humiliation, still shaken from his outburst, and open your legs, throwing one around the width of his thighs so that your own are spread around him.

Jimmy laughs, low and satisfied. “To the edge, honey.”

You hate him. You slide forward until you’re seated on the edge of the mattress. The position brushes your crotch against his thighs. It’s awkward, too, unbalancing you–you’re forced to bear your weight on your hands, which are propped on the mattress behind you, opening your body up like a flower in bloom. Jimmy drinks the sight of you in greedily, blue eyes lingering on your breasts, then the wide spread of your thighs–or rather, what lies between them. 

It almost feels like a joke now, the comfort your conservative loungewear brought you earlier. A suit of armour couldn’t save you from Jimmy’s penetrating gaze.

“Good lass,” he says, voice thicker than it was, eyes darker. He brings his hand forward, proffering the box you’d noticed earlier. “I’ve got a gift for ye.”

You bring one hand from around your back, realizing what the box is as your fingers close around it–a phone, still neatly contained in its packaging. You take it from him, puzzled, scooting slightly away from him so that you can open up the box without unbalancing. To your relief, he doesn’t stop you. You take the phone out–it’s new, black, sleek, the latest model of its kind. You click the button on the side and a default homepage lights up the screen.

A homepage–not a welcome screen. It’s already been set up.

You distrust it immediately–there’s no way Jimmy hasn’t tampered with it, somehow.

You set the phone facedown on the bed and look up at him. “I want my phone.”

Jimmy’s easy smile twitches, then drops altogether. “I just gave ye yer phone, hen. It’s not to yer liking?”

“I don’t want this phone, I want my phone.”

Jimmy pauses and then laughs. “As I seem to recall, ye left yer phone behind last night. It’s long gone by now.”

Left it behind. As if you had a choice. Anger warms your chest and neck. “Then–,” you try to choose your words carefully, “Then we–someone–can go back and get it–,”

“Nah, honey,” Jimmy cuts you off, “That ain’t happenin’.”

“Why not?” you bite, voice sharp despite yourself.

Jimmy is tilting his head as he looks down at you now, observing you with the keen, curious interest of a cat waiting to see what the mouse between its paws will do next. Then he smiles, slow and cruel.

“Ye think yer gonna just waltz back into David’s house and pack yer things, then? After last night? After what ye did to the poor bastard?”

“What I did to him?”

“Fuckin’ another man in front of yer lover ain’t the way to go, honey–not unless he’s into that and I dinnae think that limp dick ye called a lover was much into it.”

You open your mouth to respond and find that you can only inhale, sharp and hurt and angry.

Jimmy’s words–the way he’s made it sound as if last night was something you did and not something that happened to you, as if you sought to hurt David intentionally, as if this were all your fault–you know none of it is true, and yet you still feel panic fluttering behind your ribcage like a trapped bird.

David doesn’t see it that way–he can’t. He was upset by the end, yes, but–it couldn’t have been at you, not really. He was as much a victim of that situation as you were. He’s a better man than that–a better man than the one stood in front of you. 

“He–he knows you forced me. He’d never hold that against me.” You can’t help the way your lip curls in disgust when you add, “He’s not like you.” 

Jimmy laughs at this, and before you can blink, his hands are on you, grasping roughly at your upper arms as he pulls you to your feet. You make an embarrassingly high, frightened noise and flail in his hold, your flight instinct kicking in–but his hands are a vise around you. He pushes you against the post of the bed frame, caging you between it and his body. He leans into you, his expression too mean to be called a smile.

“That’s where yer wrong, honey–yer little boyfriend is more like me than ye think. Yer man may not have appreciated that show ye put on with his big head, but his little head certainly did.” He grabs himself through the fabric of his velour pants as he says this, emphasizing what exactly he means. You wince in disgust, backing further into the post, wanting as much distance between your bodies as possible.

You don’t believe him for a second. “You’re a liar.” 

“Oh, dinnae get me wrong–he was angry enough when ye were squirting all over my cock, that’s true. But I think he was just embarrassed, honey–upset that he could never make ye do that himself.”

“Get away from me.”

“He was hard as a brick from the moment I put ye face-down on that couch–making a wet patch in his trousers like a fuckin’ teenager.” He sneers in disgust as he says this and you could almost laugh at the absurdity: Jimmy disgusted not by what he did to you, or what he’s accusing David of, but by the thought of David making a mess in his pants. 

Your vision is blurry with tears now–all you can see is the deep purple of Jimmy’s chest. You shove harshly at him, though it barely pushes him back for a second before he’s crowding your space again, laughing under his breath. 

“You’re a filthy fucking liar.” 

“I’m many things, honey, but a liar ain’t one of ‘em. Not my fault he wasn’t the knight in shining armour ye thought–in fact, seemed to me like he enjoyed seeing his little damsel in distress. Bet ye if I’d let him up out of that chair he would’ve fucked ye right with m–,” 

His words become too much, or else the emotions bubbling up inside you do–shame, indignation, anger, panic. Like a shaken bottle due to burst, you lash out, all those emotions and more backing you. You punch him.

You’ve never thrown a punch before, and you probably end up hurting yourself more than him: your balled up fist makes contact right beneath his eye, the hard bone of his cheek painful beneath your knuckles. Jimmy grunts, low and surprised, and stumbles back. There’s a moment where time itself seems to stop as you and Jimmy regard each other, both shocked at what you just did.

Time restarts as you watch Jimmy’s face. The way it changes is fascinating: at first open and unguarded with shock, the most honest you’ve seen him look yet, his eyes wide and mouth slack. They both shift at the same time, his eyes narrowing as his mouth twists into a tight scowl. His nose scrunches, nostrils flaring like a bull’s, face flushing a stark red.

You barely have time to feel fear at the rage on his face before his fist is lashing right back, aiming in the same exact spot–high on your cheekbone, his knuckles connecting painfully with the bone, the rings stacked on his fingers scraping your eye.

He hits you hard–you drop like a sack, sprawling bonelessly across the mattress.

Those first few seconds after the hit are maybe the clearest your mind has ever been—there are no thoughts, no emotions, just pain. It isn’t kind enough to stay isolated to where he hit you, either—it travels from your eye in sharp, branching pulses, spreading over the entire side of your face, from your temple to your jaw. Even your teeth ache.

You’ve never been punched before—certainly not by a grown man.

You make a sound, delayed—something between a whimper and a sob. The pain settles into a loud, throbbing ache–still awful, but you can think again. You touch at the point of impact, tentative, and jerk your hand away immediately when even that soft graze makes the pain intensify. There’s blood on your fingertips—Jimmy’s many rings must’ve split you open.

You feel a dip in the mattress and look over, vision blurred from pain—and in your hurt eye’s case, from swelling. Jimmy is leaning on one knee in the middle of the mattress, one arm braced casually on his thigh. The other reaches out and pushes at your shoulder, turning you on your back. You groan at the way the shift in position sparks fresh pain in your head.

Jimmy brushes the back of his fingers over the damage he dealt, a nasty bruise already forming. Trace amounts of your blood coat his fingers, and you watch as he brings them to his mouth and licks it off.

There’s an angry red mark on his face where your unskilled punch made contact. The sight of it makes something triumphant swell in your chest, hot and ugly.

“Didnae mean to hit ye so hard, honey. But ye really shouldnae have done that.”

“Fuck you.”

Jimmy laughs, high and oddly giddy. Then he grabs you by your wrist and forces your hand between his legs.

He’s hard, hot steel wrapped in soft velour. Of course he’s hard, the godless bastard. You try to pull away, but he’s stronger than you–he presses your hand even firmer against his cock. You can feel the agonizing heat of it, the intimidating width, the way it pulses in time with the beat of his heart. 

You pull away again, and this time he lets you. You turn onto your side, putting your back to him, cradling your head with a soft, plaintive groan. You hear him rise from the bed, and the low, heavy sounds of his footsteps as he stalks to where you lie. You can feel him hover over you, dread filling the pit of your stomach. He pulls your hands away from your face, and you glare up at him fiercely. He’s looking down at you with that same unsettlingly tender expression from the night before, pale eyes heavy-lidded and soft.

And cold.

“Bonnie thing,” he purrs, his thumb brushing over the bruise he’s left you, “Even prettier like this. I’ll fuck ye, if ye want. Since ye demanded it of me.”

He pulls back, his hands latching around your ankles as he goes. He uses his grip to drag you forward on the bed until your hips sit on the edge of the mattress. You kick at him, screaming in rage–he jerks back, turning his face to the side to dodge your kicks, and then rushes forward, wrapping his arms tight around your raised legs, the mockery of a hug. You hear him laugh, and then he’s bearing all his weight on top of you, the force of it pushing your legs forward until your knees are pressed against your chest. 

The extreme angle makes you cry out in discomfort. Your hands come up to push against Jimmy’s shoulders, to no avail. You jerk and wriggle, searching for a way out, but then you notice the hot, hard press of Jimmy’s erection against your cunt, the layers of clothes between you doing nothing to mask the feel of him. You go still with a pitiful whimper, unwilling to give him any further pleasure.

The new position puts Jimmy’s face right over yours–the tiara pinned in his hair doesn’t stop a few long, wavy strands from falling forward, kissing gently against your skin. He’s panting from the brief struggle. He’s turned on, looking down at you with dark, intent eyes.

Then he grins.

Jimmy shifts back, his weight coming off you just enough for your knees to lift from your chest, and then he’s reaching down, ripping the front of your lounge shirt open with one quick, brutal tear. The buttons pop and scatter carelessly, the fabric parting to reveal your breasts–you cross your arms over your chest protectively, sobbing, thinking back with irony to how relieved you felt to be dressed in these clothes. Jimmy laughs cruelly at your attempt at modesty, turning his attention to your bottoms–he makes quick work of yanking the fabric down your hips, then halfway up your thighs: just enough to expose your ass and pussy. 

The absence of any underwear in your folded stack feels especially intentional now.

Jimmy’s attention shifts back to your chest. He grabs hold of one of your arms, pulling it away. 

“Dinnae hide, honey,” he says, “Let me see those pretty tits. Didnae get to last night.”

You spit at him.

It’s a better shot than your frantic punch, landing almost squarely in the same spot–right beneath his eye, across his cheekbone. Jimmy flinches back, eyes squeezing shut, entire body freezing in shock. He laughs, the sound more disbelieving than amused, hand coming up to wipe the saliva from his face. He opens his eyes, hand pausing, looking down at you–with his face covered as it is, you can’t quite make out the emotion behind the stare. Jimmy pulls his hand away, shaking it out once, twice, as if to rid it of some toxin. His expression stays neutral.

Then he slaps you, hand landing hard across the unbruised side of your face. You go slack beneath him, dazed, ears ringing. This second hit has reignited the sharp pain in the other side of your face, and you can only lie there, overwhelmed by the painful dual sensations.

Distantly, as if it’s happening to someone else, you feel him move your other arm from over your chest, fully exposing your breasts.

“Good,” you hear him say, “That’s better.”

You hear fabric rustling, and then feel the hot drag of his bare cock up and down your dry slit. Panic brings you back to awareness.

“No,” you beg, teary eyes finding his, “Jimmy, please.”

“It’s alright, honey,” he soothes, “Yer worried ‘cause yer not ready, is that it? I’ll make ye ready. Yer an easy one, honey—I’ll turn ye back into my little honeypot soon enough.”

He lets up his weight and you could cry in relief when your body unspools, your legs parting around the bulk of his body, hips aching from the sharp angle they were pressed in. 

Jimmy leans over you, bracing himself on one forearm, his other hand coming up to squeeze at your breast. He nuzzles against your tits, mouthing over them in lazy, open-mouthed kisses. You tense—you weren’t expecting this. 

Jimmy notices your tension and laughs, shifting so that he can cup both your breasts in his large hands, circling his thumbs over your rapidly-hardening nipples. 

“Relax, honey. I’ll make ye feel good.”

He leans down, taking one of your nipples into his hot mouth, licking and sucking at it languidly. You gasp, bucking.

Jimmy takes his time, clearly enjoying himself, tongue tracing lazy, wet circles over the skin of your areola, then traveling up to flick teasingly against the bud of your nipple. He sucks it fully into his mouth, drawing back until it releases with a wet pop, then dives back in, sealing his lips back over the sensitive bud and sucking with a deep moan.

You moan yourself, arching your back completely off the bed before you can help yourself.

Jimmy chuckles against your breasts, giving them a frisky squeeze. “That’s right. Give me some honey.”

He switches to your other breast, lathering it in the same attention, sucking and circling over the hard point of your nipple with his tongue. He pulls back, flicking his tongue over the bud as he goes like a parting kiss. He squeezes your tits together between his hands, switching back and forth between them, mouth greedy and searching. 

You whine, back arching once again, hips rolling searchingly, desperate for some pressure or friction against your cunt. Jimmy pulls back from your breasts with another wet pop, eyes dragging down your body.

His lips twist into a gleeful smile at the sight of your pussy, slick and swollen, just as he told you it’d be. 

“Good lass,” he breathes, “Fuckin’ honeypot.”

He shifts, pushing his velour-clad knee against your cunt, the odd rough-soft feel of the fabric electric against your swollen clit. You rut against him greedily, hips rolling against his knee, mouth parting around a loud moan, head falling back.

Jimmy pulls his knee back, and you whine in protest.

“What’s that, honey?” he goads, “Ye need somethin’?”

You look away, stubborn, and he chuckles. He dives back into your tits, alternating between licking and sucking over your sensitive nipples and pinching them between his fingers. You go loud and wanton at the sensations, hips bucking in search of friction, hands clutching onto Jimmy’s broad shoulders desperately. He pulls back again, pinching harshly at your nipples, eliciting a gasp from you. He doesn’t let go, pulling them back as if to tug them straight off your body, eyes intent on the way your tits stretch forward. You whine, the pain erotic, and he lets go, watching the way your breasts move like water with dark eyes and parted lips.

He presses the hard flat of his knee forward, indulging you–you grind down at once, embarrassingly loud and wet as you take your pleasure, hips bouncing against him. He watches you, watches your tits, a man obsessed, stroking his erection absentmindedly.

He draws his knee back again and you groan in frustration, hands leaving his shoulders to cover your face. “Please–,” you gasp, pathetic.

“Tell me what ye need, honey.”

You groan again, hands still over your face. Him. You know he wants you to say him. You refuse.

Something brushes over your clit and you jerk in surprise, hands lowering–Jimmy has his hand between your legs, his thumb brushing light circles over your clit, his knuckles tracing the line of your wet slit. His other hand still strokes his cock. You whine, legs spreading further.

“Wet as a fuckin’ fountain,” he says, “Could feel how wet ye were through the velour, honey. See? I know what ye need. I just need to hear ye say it.”

You almost moan his name. You bite your lip hard enough to hurt instead.

“I don’t need you.”

Jimmy laughs, drawing his hand away. You try to pretend as if that doesn’t make you want to die.

“About to lose yer head because ye cannae ride my knee like it’s a cock. I think ye do, honeypot.”

Jimmy stands from the bed, pulling you forward until your cunt rests at the edge of the mattress. He hikes your legs up over his shoulders, bearing his weight on your thighs in a way that has you once again bent in half, your pussy tilting towards the ceiling–if he fucks you like this, he’ll be thrusting down into you, all the combined force of his weight and gravity behind his thrusts. The thought makes you clench, and you desperately hope he doesn’t notice.

Jimmy takes his cock in hand and rubs it up and down your slit–this time you’re more than wet, and you coat him in warm slick. You both moan–you at the nudge of his shaft against your clit, him at the promise of your sweet cunt. You feel his thick cockhead press against your entrance and panic briefly seizes you: it took you so long to accept him the night before, he can’t possibly expect to just slide it back in?

But he does, in one long, slow press of his hips down into yours. You whine, legs jerking, toes curling. There’s pain, of course, but more than that, there’s pleasure, the stretch of his thick, long cock overwhelming your senses in the best way. You clench around him as he pushes deeper, your head thrown back, drool pooling in your open mouth. Eventually, he hits a wall–your cervix itself, you’re sure. You whine in discomfort, though it’s a drop in a pond compared to that delicious stretch. Jimmy comes to a stop, panting hard above you.

He’s not even fully sheathed in you, and yet you’ve never felt so full in your life.

Jimmy takes a moment to collect himself, fingers flexing over the soft give of your thighs.

Then he braces one foot on the edge of the mattress and fucks you.

The pace he sets is demanding, every downwards thrust of his hips punching a loud, shameless moan from your lungs. You were right about the angle–his cock quite literally pistons into you, hard and relentless: you can hardly think for how thoroughly he fucks you.

Your breasts jostle with every movement, liquid in motion, downright painful at times–your hands come up to restrain them, your fingers digging into pliant flesh, nipples peeking from between your fingers. Jimmy watches greedily.

Then he looks at you.

He slows his brutal pace to a stop, reaching out to take your face in his hand. He turns it first to the left, then the right–you cry out at the sharp stab of pain his scrutiny sends through your temple. He drinks in the sight of your bruised eye, your swollen cheekbone, the thin scratches that decorate either side of your face. He looks sickeningly smug.

“Gonna make a right mural out of ye if ye keep that attitude up. Think yer gonna spit on me?”

His fingers suddenly frame your jaw, tightening painfully. You cry out again, and he hooks his thumb over your bottom lip, pulling your mouth open. He leans forward and spits, then forces your jaw back shut, hand clamping tight over your mouth.

You screech in rage, feet kicking wildly, hands coming to push at his shoulders. He doesn’t budge, of course. He looks down at you with a sadistic kind of glee in his eyes.

“Swallow it,” he commands.

You groan in disgust, squeezing your eyes shut–but you do. You have little choice. Jimmy eyes the bob of your throat, releasing his hold on your face once he’s satisfied.

“Good lass,” he says, “Try that shit again and I’ll make ye swallow my piss next time.”

Jimmy pulls back, readjusting his hold on your thighs, and resumes his plundering of your pussy. He goes slower this time, fucking down into you with measured, steady strokes. It doesn’t take long for the godly stretch in your cunt to once again override all other senses–you sigh in pleasure, arching off the bed, inadvertently putting your tits on even greater display for Jimmy. You’re so wet you can feel your own slick dripping down your ass, to the small of your back. Jimmy’s pace picks up, and you both moan–you can’t help the way you grip and clench around his thick cock with every outward draw, as if your cunt is loath to ever let him go. 

Jimmy braces himself on his forearms on either side of you, head falling against your chest as he loses himself in your cunt, his tiara scratching lightly against your skin. He’s loud now, moaning and grunting into your skin, hips working fast against your body. The only thing louder than Jimmy is you: your own whines and pleading moans, yes, but also your sopping cunt. You take him in gladly, wetly, messily, the wet, sucking sounds of your pussy speaking louder than words ever could.

Jimmy moans loudly against your chest, and then braces himself on his forearms, leaning forward so he can speak directly in your ear, voice gritty and shot with pleasure.

“Forced ye,” he pants, mocking your earlier words, “I didnae force ye to squirt all over my cock. Didnae force ye to get so wet for me, either. Not then and not now–and yet here ye are, honeypot.”

You shake your head furiously, as if that might somehow make the words he says untrue.

“No.”

“No,” Jimmy mocks, “That’s right, hen–no, I never forced ye into anything.”

You squeeze your eyes shut. He grips your chin between his fingers.

“Look at me.”

“No,” you mock back, eyes still squeezed shut like a stubborn, disobedient child.

Jimmy slaps you. It’s somehow even harder than the first slap, and the coppery taste of blood blooms over your tongue as the soft inside of your cheek catches painfully against your teeth, flesh tearing. The cold, hard steel of his rings leaves a lingering, stinging impression on your skin. You moan, cunt clenching wildly around his cock. Your own reaction takes you by surprise, a hot flush of humiliation warming your entire body.

Jimmy laughs, incredulous and wheezy. His hands grip low on your thighs, close to the junction of your hips, holding you in place as he fucks you even more vigorously. The movement of his cock in and out of you is euphoria, the stretch alone toe-curling. You bite your lip, trying to hold back any more noises after your embarrassing outburst. You try to focus on the pain, instead–the ache in your eye, the stabbing pain still radiating from your cheekbone, the way the entire side of your face stings from where he slapped you. But just like last night, pain and pleasure seem to become one: it makes no difference to you.

He’s fucking a litany of high, delirious sounds out of you before you know it.

“Good fuckin’ girl,” he pants, “Knew ye fuckin’ loved it. Now look at me.”

You look, eyes bright and glazed with pleasure, mouth wet and parted.

“Good. Fucked all that attitude right out of ye. Now open yer mouth.”

You moan at the command and open, sticking your tongue out for good measure. Jimmy laughs in delight.

“Slut.”

He leans over you and spits generously onto your extended tongue. You feel it slide from your tongue to the back of your throat, and close your mouth around it greedily. You should hate it. You want to hate it. Yet you find yourself swallowing at once, not even needing prompting this time. The sheer filth of the act makes you moan as if you’d just swallowed the sweetest honey. You clench involuntarily, gushing fresh cream around Jimmy’s cock, and he moans, hips stuttering.

He comes to a slow stop, hips rocking into yours, cock nestling deep inside you. You moan at the depth of him, head falling back, neck bared to the animal over you–and he is an animal. The bruise swelling the side of your face, the coppery tinge on your tongue, even the way he fucks you–only an animal masquerading as a man could be capable of such things.

He looks down at you, panting, recollecting himself. Thinking. You can feel his thumb rubbing absentminded circles over your thigh.

“Yer gonna ride me, hen. I wanna feel that honey dripping down my cock.”

Before you can process this, Jimmy is pulling out of you, leaving you so terribly empty, cunt clenching desperately around nothing. You push yourself up onto your forearms, watching as Jimmy makes quick work of undressing–he first strips off his pants (no underwear, of course–you could have guessed that), then his jacket, and then the plain white tee underneath. His many chains, rings, and his tiara–they all stay on. You watch in disbelief as he folds his discarded clothes, setting them next to your forgotten phone.

The sight of his clothes like that, so neatly folded at the foot of the bed–it answers the question of who came into this room while you were sleeping. You look away from them, stomach twisting.

Your eyes find Jimmy’s, who’s already looking back at you, head tilted curiously, that stupid tiara still firmly in place. You realize suddenly that this is your first time seeing him fully nude–you skim him from head to toe, and then look away, oddly embarrassed.

Jimmy tsks at you. “Ye can look if ye want, hen.”

You laugh–you don’t even mean to. You’re absurdly proud of how dismissive it sounds. 

“I don’t want to.”

“I suppose I’m not as pretty as ye are, honey,” you hear his heavy footsteps, coming to stand directly in front of you, “Ye should see how ye look right now.”

A frazzled, embarrassed heat floods you as it occurs to you how you must look–ruined shirt still half-hanging from your shoulders, nipples hard and dark and wet from Jimmy’s mouth, bottoms halfway down your thighs, cunt a weeping mess and still clenching in sporadic intervals, begging for something to fill it.

Your arms raise to cross over your chest, an automatic impulse, but then Jimmy’s hand is coming around your wrist, as firm and unyielding as a shackle.

“Let’s not play this game again, honey. Take it off.”

Jimmy’s harsh hold around your wrist has reignited that familiar, angry, humiliated spark in you–but you know better than to argue this. You shoulder the top the rest of the way off, the silky fabric falling in a heap behind you. Jimmy lets go of your wrist, satisfied, then makes quick work of yanking your bottoms the rest of the way off, pulling them past your ankles and letting them fall to the floor in a careless heap. No neatly folded stack for you.

“Now give me some room.”

You scoot to the foot of the bed, giving Jimmy space to climb onto the mattress. He makes himself more than comfortable, spreading out on his back and stretching his limbs like some giant, gold-furred cat. His head and shoulders are propped comfortably by the assortment of pillows at the head of the bed, his cock standing tall and proud between his legs. He crooks two fingers at you and you crawl towards him, burning with irritation.

“Go on, honey,” he says, “Ye heard me earlier.”

You balance on your knees, swinging one of your legs over his hips to straddle him. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, the proximity to his cock alone has your pussy clenching in anticipation, your clit positively aching. You take his cock in hand, skin silky over a steel shaft, and hold it in place as you sink onto him.

There’s no pain this time, your body long remolded to fit him–just the gut-deep bliss of being filled. You bottom out this time, your cunt completely receptive to him now, your head rolling back on your shoulders, toes curling, mouth parting in a blissful sigh. Your sigh soon turns into a moan as your hips rock forward once, and then again–and again and again, in short and greedy bursts, your cunt clenching wildly.

The pleasure of this angle takes you by surprise–it briefly turns you into something that doesn’t exist beyond the pleasure of Jimmy’s cock, inside you, right now. You lose yourself in it, riding him hard–not quite bouncing on his cock but rolling, your hips sliding over his like waves on a shore, back and forth, wet and slippery and utterly overwhelming. Distantly, you hear Jimmy curse beneath you, his hands coming up to grip your waist. Your hands clutch over his, both of you hanging on for dear life.

“Slow down, honey,” Jimmy moans, and with a plaintive whine you do, hips rocking to a slow stop, the wet, sloppy sounds of your pussy obscene. Jimmy laughs breathlessly, his large hands rubbing up and down your sides.

“Such an easy, bonnie thing ye are. Didnae even have to ask ye to ride me like a fuckin’ horse. Am I still forcing ye now?”

This clears the lust drowning your mind, your good sense abruptly resurfacing for air. You tense, glaring down at him, shoving his hands from your sides, your skin crawling at his touch.

You don’t even try to dislodge his cock from your guts, but you don’t let yourself think about that.

Jimmy pulls his hands back, holding them palm-up around his head in a wry gesture of surrender, his expression amused. “Didnae like that, did she?”

“Fuck you,” you bite, “As if you wouldn’t have forced me some other way!”

“Would I have, now? Didnae give us much of a chance to find out, jumping on me the way ye did.” He watches as the anger builds in you, eyes bright and gleeful, teeth on full display in a sharkish grin.

“Getting angry are ye, honey?” His smile goes flatter, meaner, teeth bared. “Are ye gonna do something about it?”

You stare down at him, unsure. Jimmy huffs a laugh and turns his head to the side, tilting his chin up. Offering himself.

“Go on, honey. Hit me. I willnae get angry with ye. It’s a good way to let it out.” He turns back to look at you, smile still sharp and mean, eyes even moreso. “But I guess ye learned that earlier, didnae ye, when I laid yer stupid ass out–,”

You slap him, of course.

It goes better than your punch, the impact actually feeling significant–Jimmy’s head snaps to the side, and your manicured nails catch against the side of his stubbly face, leaving thin, red lines. Barely a beat has passed before he’s laughing, giddy and wheezy. You swear you feel him twitch where he’s seated inside you.

“Atta girl. Knew ye had a good hit in ye.”

Now that your anger has ebbed (and he was right about that–the hit did let it out), you see just how easily you played into his game, one he’s clearly deriving some sick pleasure from.

You can’t do this–you feel sick yourself, of this man and his volatile moods and his voice and his hands on you.

You move, making to climb from atop him, but Jimmy’s hands fly to your waist, squeezing painfully and forcing you back into place–fully seated on his cock.

“Ye’ll stay right fucking there–so convinced I’m forcing ye, then I guess I will.”

Tears spring into your eyes, tired and overwhelmed. “You’re a disgusting man.”

“Not disgusting enough for ye, honey–ye love it.”

That makes the tears come faster, hot and angry and self-pitying. You wipe them away furiously.

Jimmy must not like this response–he pinches at the soft skin of your hip, hard enough that you yelp, flinching away from his touch–that will surely bruise later.

“Stupid lass, sitting up there crying when I already told ye what ye need to do–hit me.”

You hate him. So you do–you send an uncoordinated slap across his face, and then another, and another. You scratch harsh welts down his neck with your nails, beat your fists furiously over his chest. He smiles in the middle of your assault, wide and pleased, and so you slap him harder, wishing that he’d bleed the way he made you bleed.

He likes it–his hands settle over your hips, and he holds you in place as he begins to roll his hips up into yours. It’s not long before pleasure begins to travel through your body, the drag of his cock against your walls bringing your cunt back to life. The pleasure comes at around the same time you tire yourself out, panting hard, still crying, hands balled into fists on either side of Jimmy’s head.

You find yourself rolling your hips back to meet his, body electric even as your mind is miserable.

And then the glint of Jimmy’s tiara catches your eye. It’s so stupid–you hate it almost as much as you hate him. So you tear it off, your hand wrapping around the bejeweled silver piece and yanking. It gets caught in Jimmy’s hair and he cries out–more in surprise than anything, but also with a hint of the first real pain he’s felt all night.

You’ve barely pulled it away from his head before he’s regained his bearings, hand clamping hard around your wrist and twisting. You make a high, pained noise, releasing it immediately–it slaps back against his face, still caught in his hair. He lets go of your wrist almost immediately, but only because his attention is on his stupid, stupid fucking tiara instead.

He’s detangling it from his hair, cringing every time it snags painfully in his long locks. It’s not long before he gets it free and–to your surprise–tosses aside, aiming vaguely for the foot of the bed where his tracksuit lies. You expected more delicate treatment of something he must surely flaunt as a status symbol.

Then his eyes land on you, dark and angry. You freeze in fear, anticipating another hit–and then yelp, startled, as he instead flips your positions, sending you once again landing on your back on the mattress, his broad form a suffocating presence over you. He wraps a hand around your neck, not squeezing, but firm. A threat.

“Dinnae push yer luck. I’ll excuse it this time since ye didnae know and I was encouraging ye to be bold, but I’ll only tell ye this once–nobody, under any circumstances, touches my crown. Do that again and I’ll show ye more than just anger, honey.”

He releases your neck, and then slaps you–not as hard as the previous two, but still enough to make you moan in pain. Or pleasure.

“Now hit me back.”

You do, hand firm, your slap echoing loudly. He grins, pleased, then hikes your thighs up, pushing them back until you’re folded in half again, this time with your knees spread on either side of your torso rather than directly over your chest. Like before, Jimmy hooks your legs over his shoulders, his weight bearing across the backs of your thighs. Unlike before, he is intimately close to you, the entire length of his body lying against yours, warm and heavy.

You groan at the ache in your hips, and then moan, louder, when Jimmy slots himself between your legs and fucks you. He goes quiet, save for his soft moans and pants, intent on chasing his pleasure–his eyes dart from your shaking tits to your bruised, teary face. He seems equally turned on by both.

Your hands thread through his hair as his thrusts go brutal, a liferaft. The force with which he rocks your body makes you tug at the long, wavy strands involuntarily. Jimmy moans, and you tug harder, with more intent. He moans louder, head tilting back in pleasure.

“Keep that up and I’ll cream this sweet pussy right now.”

You yank, hard, twisting your fingers deep in his roots, the way you remember him doing to you last night. He moans, long and guttural, and then laughs.

“Good lass. Learn so quick.”

Jimmy props himself up, looking down at where your bodies join. He slows his thrusts, rolling his hips leisurely into yours, watching the way you take him in and nearly refuse to let go. He rubs his fingers over your clit, and you jerk in surprise, whining–it’s been neglected for so long, swollen and aching and hypersensitive.

“Will ye squirt for me again, honey?” he asks, rubbing steady, gentle circles over your clit. “Felt so honored last night. Was it yer first time?”

It wasn’t, but it was your first time with a partner, and certainly the most you’d ever released. Not that Jimmy needs to know that.

“No,” you gasp, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, even as he plays your clit like a fiddle.

Jimmy tsks. “I dinnae believe ye, honey. But that’s alright–we’ll build trust soon enough.”

He rolls his hips forward, sinking his cock as deep into you as it’ll go, his fingers pressing harder and faster against your clit. You cry out, hips jerking up. He pulls out slowly, pausing the movements of his fingers, and then pushes in again, balls deep, fingers resuming.

You as good as lose your wits–the deep, penetrating stretch of his cock coupled with the hard press of his fingers over your clit turns you into something less than human, something driven only by cock and pleasure. You twitch your hips desperately forward, wanting him to go faster, harder, to fuck the life out of you, your cunt clenching and creaming wildly around him–there’s a white, frothy mess where your bodies meet, coating the length of his cock and surrounding your messy, greedy hole. You’ve never been louder–even though he’s fucked you harder than this–, something about these combined sensations turning you base.

Then he stops.

“Jimmy,” you whine, high and pleading, “Please.”

“Please? Ye gonna come, honey? Gonna gush it all over me?”

“Please.”

“I want to feel it, honey.”

“I will–I will, just–just let me come.”

Jimmy laughs and works you again, his slow strokes picking up pace, his fingers over your clit never letting up. You’ve never been so vocal in your life, screeching like a cat in heat. Jimmy is mostly silent, his brows drawn in concentration, eyes intent on where your bodies meet. When he does speak, it’s to guide you to your peak, voice breathy and broken up by his own small, lustful noises.

“Come on, honey,” he encourages you, fingers working fast over your clit, “All over me, put it all over me. Dinnae be shy, bonnie thing, I know ye can do it, cover me with it, gush that sweet cunt all over me, come on, come on, come–,”

You do come, and it’s just as he hoped it would be–your pussy turns into a fountain, gushing clear fluid all over him, an amount that should be impossible. You scream, loud and long, cunt clenching almost painfully around him, legs jerking. You can faintly hear him underneath it all, a litany of yes and good lass and all over me, honey.

You drop against the mattress like a wet rag, limbs turning boneless, utterly spent–but Jimmy is still hard as a steel beam within you. He’s hunching over you at once, fucking into your lax body like an animal, chasing his own release.

“Come on, honey,” he pants into your ears, “Do Jimmy a favor.”

You understand, even with your brain as fogged as it is. Your hands come up, threading through that golden hair, fingers clutching weakly at the roots. You pull, as hard as you can, as hard as your sapped strength allows, twisting the strands between your fingers in a meager imitation of the way he abused your own scalp the previous night. Jimmy moans long and low into the crook of your neck. He brushes his mouth against your ear, speaking words that your lagging, floating mind can barely comprehend.

“Sweet lass. Didnae know Heaven was in a cunt–I’ll keep this piece of Heaven with me always. Stubborn ye are now, honey, but I can tell ye: ye willnae want for anything so long as my cock has a home in you.”

Nonsense. You forget the words as soon as he says them, so much of a mush is your brain. You remember that you’re supposed to be doing something.

Your fingers, gone so lax that they’ve nearly slipped from Jimmy’s hair, find their purpose again, twisting back into his roots. You yank at them again, and then again, and again–your strength is negligible, but this must do the job, for Jimmy’s hips stutter, his thrusts turning erratic and somehow even harder, the man as good as whimpering his release in your ear as he pounds your pussy into oblivion. You can feel the fine tremor going through his body–and like before, you swear you can feel the pulsating twitch of his spending cock, the molten heat of his cum filling you to the brim.

You moan at the feeling: it’s perhaps the most intimate sensation ever visited upon your body.

Jimmy is just barely holding his weight off of you as he comes down, propped weakly on his forearms, his golden locks a curtain around both your faces. After a while, he pushes off, flopping onto his back at your side, chest heaving. You wince as his cock slips out of you, and then again at the feel of his hot cum leaking from your gaping hole, down the cleft of your ass. You stretch out your aching body, wincing at the pain in your hips, your face. You wonder if you’ll ever go another day without pain.

Despite it, you feel like you’re on a cloud, light and fuzzy. You’re surprised when a violent shiver wracks your body, and you realize how cold you are now that you’re coming down from the exertion of sex, a sheen of sticky sweat covering your body. This stirs Jimmy, who sits up, reaching his arm across your body to grab the edge of the duvet. He pulls it over your body in an odd echo of the night before, when he’d tucked you in. When you meet his gaze, his eyes are bright.

“Did ye hear me? Of course not–poor lass disnae know if she’s here or there. Fucked the brains out of ye, did I? I said ye cannae sleep in this bed tonight–ye’ve got it ruined.” He grins and you see your own tired face, reflected distortedly in his gold tooth. “Ye’ll have to sleep in mine.”