Jasmine Read online

  “Please…” I whisper, but it’s stupid. It won’t help sway him or prevent what he has planned.

  He stands for a beat, staring at me stoically before he repeats, “Take off your clothes.”

  “I…”

  He doesn’t even look at me as he turns and picks up a tin from the bench. I can’t read the label as he pries off the top, but I see whatever is inside glistening in the overhead lights. He dabs two fingers into it, and then he swabs it over one of the dowels, the one that is about waist height, lathering the rounded wood with a coating of the material.

  What the fuck?

  Dully, almost without thinking, I reach down and lift my shirt over the top of my head. He doesn’t turn to watch me, devoted only to the task he’s performing. I toe off my shoes and kick them away in a small act of defiance. He makes no reaction. Not even a twitch. My feet sting as the grit on the concrete shifts under me, and I know it’s pointless to drag this out. The bra comes off next, then the shorts, then my underwear until I stand there naked, my clothes a jumble at my feet.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve been naked before him. No, not hardly. But his response is the same as it was the first; he turns and inspects me as if I am a thing, like the toolbox or one of those pieces of leather lying on the bench. To him I could be one of the cattle in the pasture outside, except for this: I am a woman, and he’s used me like one... but he doesn’t look at me like any man has before. I’m not something cherished, something wanted. I’m just another thing he owns. One that has a specific place in his world. Fills a slot. Serves a purpose. Nothing more.

  He moves to the bench, selects an object, and then comes up close to me. “Give me your hands.”

  It’s a long, leather belt. One he’s used before, when I haven’t ‘behaved.’ I slowly raise my hands in front of me, my body shaking. The air in the barn is cold in the way it is right before dawn. He snakes a loop around my wrists and cinches it tight. The leather bites into my skin, and it hurts, but everything seems to be happening in a dull fog, movements and actions coming as if I’m three beats out of sync with the world. He tests it one more time and gives a slight huff of satisfaction.

  “Turn around.”

  I do as he says. I have a good idea what’s coming. He’ll secure my arms above me, and then whip me with his belt until I scream from the unbelievable agony of it. He’ll punish me. Teach me the error of my ways. This isn’t the first time… nor will it be the last. The barn is for punishment. I’m never punished in the house, because the house is for cooking, cleaning, sleeping. Fucking me.

  “Raise your hands.”

  Just do it. For fuck’s sake just get it over with.

  I raise them above my head, muscles quivering with strain not because I’m terrified, but because I can feel my body preparing, shutting down to avoid as much of the pain as I can. Because I know it’s coming.

  He loops the strap over the dowel up high, and I hang there with my arms stretched above me as I listen to the shuffling of one of the horses. He picks up a length of rope from the bench, neatly coiled, and within a few minutes the strap that I’m bound with is secured to the board by the rope. I can yank and twist all I wish — and I will, I know I will — but my arms won’t be able to jerk free. My feet are firmly planted to the concrete, the cold seeping up through my bones to blunt muscles that still ache from my run. My arms don’t carry the weight of anything other than themselves, and they’ll burn with fire before he’s done — but I’ll survive it.

  I have before.

  I wait to hear it. The sound of his belt coming free. That will be my signal that he’s ready to begin, ready to punish me for what I’ve done. This one will probably be the worst I’ve ever received, but… what did I expect? I ran, and while this is only the second time I’ve tried, that only makes it worse. I feel him behind me, and I wait for the first lash to fall, but that’s not what happens. Instead, his hands land on my hips as he presses his body against my back.

  This isn’t right.

  He doesn’t do this, hasn’t done this before. Is he going to fuck me here? Wait… is he really going to fuck me here like this? Before he punishes me? He leans over the top of my shoulder, glancing down as his fingers dig deep into the backs of my thighs. As he does this a thought startles me; this isn’t where he’s punished me before. Before it’s always been tied to the center post of the barn, arms up and laced around the pole. I’ve never been strapped to this board on the wall. In my exhausted state it never occurred to me, and I didn’t even notice… until now.

  The shifting of his hands causes a surge of adrenaline to flood me. Why is he lifting me, moving my hips? Why is he pressing me so that the lower dowel is touching me, coming close to my…

  He adjusts, aiming me, staring around my side as the dowel presses into one inner thigh, then closer, then directly against my labia and I scream as realization hits me. I try to force my body back, but he’s strong, so goddamn fucking strong.

  “No, no, NO!” I kick against the wall of the barn, my already damaged feet pulsing with new pain, but I keep pushing back as one of the horses whinnies like they agree this is too far. “Goddammit, PLEASE! NO!”

  He ignores me as I fight, like he always does, but this? He shouldn’t be able to do this. It shouldn’t work. That dowel shouldn’t be able to find its mark, the dull round tip coated in whatever the fuck he pulled out of that container now smearing against me, pushing past my clenching muscles as he forces me down. Shoving it up inside me. It’s too rigid, unyielding, and it shouldn’t fit inside me at the angle it is, but it does. It stretches me as he forces it in silently, his hands manipulating me like the thing I am. A tight nut to an old bolt, a recalcitrant calf into a chute.

  “Stop, stop, stop… fuuuuck! Please, please no, no…” I choke on my next breath as the hard wood fills me. Why am I still pleading? It’s already inside me and it hurts unlike anything I’ve ever felt. The dowel jams against my pubic bone, and I swear it’s cracking, I can hear it cracking, and he is going to break me… but he doesn’t stop as he presses hard, holding me in place until I stop fighting back.

  As I sob, he releases the pressure slightly, and I want to push back, push myself off this thing he’s crammed inside me, but instead I grit my teeth and keen out a wail of frustration. Because if I do manage to climb off, he’ll only force me back on. There will be no understanding of what he’s doing to me, the damage, possibly permanent, he’s causing. It won’t matter. This is punishment, and punishment must be administered. I must take it, accept it, or be given worse — and I can’t handle worse than this.

  I may not even be able to handle this.

  When he shifts, I let him ease back without fighting, and I hold myself in place even as the discomfort amplifies with every involuntary squeeze of internal muscles. I try to dig into the concrete with my toes, my arms burning with the effort to ease the pressure inside, bringing everything, every part of me, into razor sharp focus. I groan, sucking in lungfuls of air as I talk to the wall. “No, no, no…”

  He finally steps away, surveying his handiwork. This is his punishment for my disobedience, and this is worse than the lash I’ve been given before. Without a word, he simply stands and listens to my groans and whimpers. I’ve stopped begging, making coherent words, because it’s wasted. Fruitless effort expended for nothing, and I need my energy to last for however long he plans on keeping me impaled here. He releases a placid sigh of satisfaction as he stands out of view behind me. A job well done. I want to scream at him, but I don’t, because it would mean nothing. I’ve tried before to get a rise from him, to show any sign of empathy, compassion, humanity.

  There is none.

  I stand on tiptoe and my body slowly adjusts, conforming somehow to this invasion. My breathing slows a little, my chest ceases the vicious heaving of a minute ago, and that’s when I hear it. The sound of his belt.

  No.

  No, God, no... Not that. Not now. This... this thing he’s shoved insid
e me is enough.

  I hear him pull the belt free, followed by the ever-so-quiet sound of him folding it back upon itself. I scream at him now, pushing up on my toes, trying to force this thing out of me. “Fuck you!” I shout. “Fuck you! Fuck no. No. NO! YOU CAN’T DO THIS!”

  I’m leveraging myself up to the tips of my toes, pulling with all the strength left in my arms, and the wooden rod almost slips out. I’m nearly free of it before he’s back on me, and the shove is sharp, savage, brutal as he forces me back down. Pain is a searing white curtain that blots out my vision as the dowel splits me like a knife rather than the dull, rounded wood it is.

  He never says a word. There is barely a grunt. I keep shrieking obscenities, mindless ones that finally fade into whimpering, and only when I’m crying do I feel him positioning himself. At some base animal level I comprehend what he’s doing; keeping me trapped so I can’t free myself while he applies the other portion of my punishment. Because, of course, fucking me with a dowel isn’t enough. What kind of punishment would that be? Not enough for him. No. Punishment is whipping, and any punishment without beating me with his belt isn’t truly a punishment, now is it?

  I feel insane as he lets go, steps back, and I hear the dull clatter of the metal buckle in his hand.

  I’m lost, so lost.

  The first crack of the belt across my ass is liquid fire, pulling a scream from my lungs at the same time that my hips buck and my legs buckle, forcing me even further down onto the dowel. My body recoils instinctively, and then the next blow lands, and then the next and the next and soon there is nothing I can do but let the scorching fire consume me.

  The sounds coming from me aren’t real. No human can make them, and yet I know they are. I can feel each one torn from my throat until it’s surely raw, my voice cracking. The lashes don’t stop, I don’t count them but there are easily a hundred, a thousand, and he’s going to kill me this time. Beat me to death on this fucking wooden rod.

  But I don’t die, unfortunately.

  I continue to breathe. I survive, even as the belt continues to land, and then, suddenly, there’s nothing more. I’m panting, making half-formed cries while he stands unmoving behind me. He should be winded. I should hear something from him, a gasping of ragged breath from the effort, but there’s nothing. He simply steps back as I hang limp, my ass and thighs a wall of fire, and his breathing is normal, unhindered, while I’m at the point of passing out. The agony between my thighs and across my backside are the only things keeping me tethered to this world, and I want desperately to push it all away, to give into the darkness and fade.

  But that wish goes unfulfilled, and instead one thought takes root: at least it’s over. My punishment is complete, and I survived. I feel as if I’ll never be okay again, not after everything he’s done since he took me, but this… at least this is behind me now. These thoughts keep swirling inside me, consuming every ounce of energy I have — until his fingers land on me again.

  Touching the tight opening of my ass.

  I can’t cry anymore. Desolation is all that’s left inside me now, and I simply become what he’s always seen me as. A thing. An empty vessel that has nothing living inside it. This is what he wants, and so I simply give up. I don’t move, I don’t cry — I let go. Cease to be anything human.

  He smears more of that substance onto me. The same as he put on the dowel earlier. It is cool, greasy, and he lathers it around my ass in a thick gob. He pushes one finger against the tight opening, pressing hard until it passes inside. I feel disembodied, but my body reacts without me, clenching and then pushing back against him. He withdraws, gathers more of the gooey substance, returns to where he’s just been. He spreads me, enters a place inside me that no man has before. My mouth opens and closes with his movements, and sound escapes me, but it’s nothing human. None of what is happening now is me. These are the reactions of a thing, the responses of a single-celled creature with no thoughts of its own. Two fingers, and he is prying me wide. I’m sure there is pain somewhere, but I can’t find it in the haze. Then he pulls away, only to reappear a moment later with another coating of something that is meant to ease what he’s doing, but he needn’t bother because it doesn’t matter.

  As a thing that doesn’t feel there’s no point to his efforts.

  The fingers leave me and I know what’s coming next. No emotions bubble under the surface of my skin, just an empty void, and I’m divorced completely from what’s happening. It’s funny how quiet it suddenly becomes. I can hear him slipping out of his jeans. I don’t look, but it’s so easy to discern. He takes them off, folds them, places them on the bench. He’ll be doing his underwear too.

  A place for everything and everything in its place.

  Then he moves behind me and a slick sound comes from him. He’s lubing his cock. Of course. He doesn’t want this to hurt him. That was dumb of me; it was never about what I might feel.

  He positions himself, and finally — finally! — makes a noise. Pushing past the ring of virginal muscles in my ass is probably harder than he thought. Stupid motherfucker. I hope it fucking hurts, because it hurts me as he forces his way inside. I can’t bite back the groan of pain as a lightning strike makes it through the emptiness inside me. He grunts in a strained way, and I take it as a victory. It’s cold comfort, though. He’s inside me now, fucking my ass in long, slow strokes, fucking this thing he owns, and there is nothing I can or will do to stop him.

  For a moment I think that maybe this is part of my punishment, but then I dismiss that entirely. No. No, the dowel that he now grinds me against, the painting of pain he created on my skin with his belt; those were the punishment. This? This is his love. This is his love for me played out with my ass splayed over his cock, his fingers digging into my hips so I will know how much he cares for me. This is how it’s always been, from the first time he took me.

  Be good. Follow my orders. Do as I say and you won’t be punished.

  I think this might be the first time for him too. First time fucking a woman in the ass. What is the taking of one new hole against all the others? But it’s different this time. He’s moving faster, reaching his peak more quickly than he has since that first time he took me. I can hear myself grunting in time with his thrusts, the haze of disembodied pain buzzing somewhere that can’t reach me, and then I hear him making noise too. Groans that are asynchronous with my own, and with his own thrusting. He’s going to come soon. His breath huffs out as he swells, and his rhythm becomes rapid, disjointed, nothing like the control he normally displays.

  “Jasmine,” he groans, his fingers digging into my hips, and I can feel there will be marks there tomorrow. His hips slam into my welted ass, holding still where he presses tight to my back, his voice an elongated groan as he releases his seed deep inside. I feel it, every heated pulse that hits me where I’ve never felt this sensation before — and then he’s done.

  He doesn’t move. No, he holds me, impaled on one side by the wood of the barn, on the other his own flesh. Flesh that still twitches within me. His breathing slows, becomes even, and control is established once again as his fingers loosen but don’t let go. No, now he holds his precious object, his treasure, in his hands. I feel him lean down, and I crush my eyes shut.

  I know what’s coming.

  “I love you, Jasmine.” The whisper is a razor, and I wish he would drag it across my throat and end it all. But he won’t kill me. He just holds himself there, his lips soft against my ear, and I feel his breath. Calm. Smooth. Easy.

  My punishment is over.

  For now.

  Lucky me.

  Three

  Her

  I thought everything hurt before, but when he lifts me off the wooden shaft it slides out of me like slick sandpaper. Grating, painful, a throbbing ache to match my newly violated ass. I hate him, but I’m so exhausted I can barely summon the anger I know I should feel. It’s a weak buzz in my blood, hazy as his fingers slip from my hips. My rage may be dull, but my fe
et burn on the thin layer of dust on the floor — more fresh wounds to focus on as he dresses. The rustle of clothing, the metallic clatter of his belt returning to his pants… I try to tune it out. It won’t take him long, and I resist the urge to look, to acknowledge him in any way. He’s not real, and he doesn’t want me to be either.

  For one glorious moment I’d felt as dead inside as I should be after all of this, but as my eyes wander up to the rope keeping me tethered to the wall, I can feel the sting of tears.

  You will not cry anymore. Stop it. Fucking stop it.

  Clenching my teeth, I squeeze my eyes shut and pull on the leather and rope keeping me bound. Letting my body weight do the work until my fingers start to tingle, going numb, and I wish it would spread. Take me over. Break the rope and knock me out cold on the chilled concrete. Maybe crack my skull hard enough that I’d never wake again.

  But then he’s there. One large hand on my back, forcing me toward the wall as if it’s so easy to move another person. It’s all so useless. Wasted effort, wasted energy that I don’t have to spare. When he releases the rope, my arms fall limp against my front, blood rushing back to my fingertips with icy sparks. A few months ago I probably would have hissed, tried to shake them out, laughed and whined about the weird sensation — but now it barely registers.

  A second later, the leather strap is removed, and he hangs it back up where it belongs. Carefully, as if it really matters whether the long strip is flat or not. He’s not talking now. Exhaustion is probably eating at him too, and my brain stumbles as I stare at the soft morning light leaking through the top edge of the barn.

  Did I really lie under that tree all night?

  I could have crawled deeper into the grass. I should have forced my body to move as the moon carved its path across the night sky. I should have crawled directly toward the coyotes and begged them to end me, because he never will.