Housebound Ch. 08

Click click.

She was up and posed for him almost before she actually awoke, crouched in her little crate-cage, face down, hips up and back to pressing her holes against the bars the way he'd drilled into her with his clipped voice and a chain clamped to her clit. She'd started letting her instincts take over; they reacted faster than she did. It was easier to let her body go first, and try to figure out what was happening after.

Three days. She'd been here, been his, for three days now. During that time he had tortured her, humiliated her, fucked her--sodomized her--collared and plugged and clamped and belted her, and edged her out of her fucking mind. He still hadn't let her come. She knew that really shouldn't be a priority for her right now, but somehow, he'd made it one. He'd reduced her to a creature of need.

Emma had always liked hanging out with animals more than people. She'd even looked into vet school a couple times. Once, in a biology class, she'd learned that the affectionate behaviors people saw in their pets were actually submissive responses: rolling over to expose the throat and belly displayed vulnerability; crouching and fetching and kneading paws were attempts to curry favor with a dominant creature.

Submission was a social transaction, expected to yield rewards. Food. Comfort. Safety. Pleasure. It was an animal response, and he'd made an animal of her.

He was training his animal, too. Stick and carrot, punishment and reward, and a cue: a little hand clicker, the kind one might purchase from a pet store to teach one's pet a simple trick or two. He'd made her take a close look at it, wrapping her white-blonde hair around his fist and holding her still while he straddled her to fuck her mouth. Through her watering eyes, she'd seen that it was nothing more than a little piece of bent metal in a blue plastic casing.

"Not much to it, is there, Emma?" he'd said, pushing slowly, cruelly into her choking throat. "Wouldn't think--" he'd grunted and groaned a little, making her jerk at her restraints before he pulled out and let her breathe again. "--wouldn't think that something so small and simple could absolutely control you, a full-grown human being, in all your rich complexity. Would you?"

He pushed back in, taking speech away from her. She had to assume it was a rhetorical question.

The clicker had become her alarm clock now. She'd been surprised at how deeply she slept in the cage, curled up on a pet bed and covered with a thin blanket, but something about it made her feel... safe, at least a little. He never hurt her while she was in there; he never even growled or threatened. But when she'd been a little slow getting into position, a couple of times after being put down for naps, the consequences had been--her mind skittered away from thinking about them too long.

So when he clicked, she got up and presented, like the well-trained, domesticated animal she was. His hand reached through the bars to stroke her hair, then clip a lead to her collar; she contained a shudder. "Good morning, Emma. Are you ready to start your day?"

"Yes, James," she said quietly.

He opened the door and led her out. He had a small bag in one hand, as usual, which he set on top of the cage. "Put your hands and nose on the wall," he said, "bend at the waist, feet apart." Emma bent at the waist. Emma spread her legs. Emma put her hands and nose on the wall, bracing herself literally and figuratively. He'd been letting her sleep without her plug-belt in; it was better than the alternative, but she didn't look forward to having him reinsert it when she came out.

Emma pictured herself for a moment: naked, and pale shivering a little, visibly submissive and exposed. Her hair made a fine curtain that just touched the wall, rendering her momentarily faceless, only her ears peeking through. Thick black collar snug around her neck--that never came off. The pink of her nipples and the darker colors of orifices between her legs would be the darkest colors on her body.

James snapped on a thin glove with satisfaction she could feel without even having to see, and then she hear him lubricating his thumb and fingers. Again: better than the alternative. Emma took a deep breath but didn't quite finish it, letting out a tiny squeak when his two firm fingers slid into her cunt and his thumb followed into her ass. She was getting used to this kind of businesslike penetration, but it was still a little overwhelming, especially when he flexed his hand or curled his fingers, making sure the lube covered her well.

Not that her pussy exactly needed it. She was so wet all the fucking time now. She woke up sopping even without the plugs, walked around (or crawled) with the stubby dildo working her slippery cunt all day, and every time he grabbed her hair and bent her over the nearest available furniture for an inspection, he made her suck herself off his fingers. Sometimes he'd find a place where she'd dripped, point the clicker at it, and have her lick it up. Compared to the gritty taste of the floor, having to suck up her own wetness was almost pleasant.

James withdrew his fingers at last, and she heard him peel the glove off and drop it on her back as if she were an end table. But instead of getting out her belt, he paused. "Want to learn a new trick?" he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

Emma really, really didn't, but she couldn't bring herself to speak. She felt him part her lips again and slip something long and thin and blunt inside her, probing; she couldn't suppress a grunt when he brushed what must have been her cervix, and she involuntarily rose up on her tiptoes. James chuckled softly but moved the tip of his tool away, somehow going--around it, but deeper. Then he placed the heel of his hand against her, just above her pelvis, and began to press. Hard.

Emma lifted up onto her tiptoes again, in part because the sudden pressure took a lot of weight off her feet. She was making noises again, halting high-pitched breath sounds, as the tool deep inside her began to hum and throb. It wasn't like a vibrator, not exactly. It was like a pummeling massage focused on one tiny point, exactly opposite the pressure from his hand outside. It was--doing something. It was building, it was pressure, it was building it was building she couldn't help bear down oh fuck

With an involuntary, panicked laugh, Emma clenched and jerked and squirted, a sudden jet of something splashing on the hardwood floor and James's boots. Her fingers clawed marks from the wall paint, and if not for the fact that he was still lifting much of her body weight, she would have collapsed. She'd never done that before. She hadn't thought she could do that. Yet here she was, gushing like a goddamn pump spigot, the last of it dripping out of her as her knees nearly gave out.

But she didn't come. That was unbelievable. He'd made her fucking ejaculate and she still. Hadn't. Come. That single bark of laughter almost turned into a sob as she realized exactly what he could do to her, to her body and her cunt, without letting her off this ledge of unwilling need.

James eased her to the ground, and then--oh no. He picked up the little blue plastic thing and pointed to the puddle she'd made on the floor.

Click click.

"Nnnnnno," she heard herself say, a little whine she couldn't quite believe was her voice.

"Do I have to say it twice?" James asked, his voice mild.

Emma put her hands on the ground, fingers spread, pressed to either side of her ejaculate where the spray had beaded on the hardwood. She let herself down to her elbows. Something in her stomach threatened to heave, but she wasn't sure if it was in contemplation of what she was about to do, or at the thought of what James would do to her if she refused.

She lowered her face. She closed her eyes. She let the dumb, scared, curious animal take over.

It was mostly just water, she learned. Warm water, a little salty, and the faint taste of the varnish underneath it. She knew she couldn't get up all of it with her wet pink tongue, but she could lap, curl and flick and swallow. If she tried not to use her nose when she breathed, there was barely a taste to it at all.

"That's enough," said James finally, lifting her head and using his sleeve to wipe her messy face. Their eyes made contact for a second, and Emma didn't know what look was in hers, but the expression in his was--distant, as if he were thinking of something else. There was a flicker of something warm, like kindness, so brief she must have imagined it. And then she dropped her eyes, afraid of the consequences of looking, her body still sending every submissive signal it could.

Emma expected him to get out her plug-belt next, but he didn't put it on her. Not yet. Her insides tightened as she tried to guess what that might mean. He just took the short, thin lead attached to her collar and gestured for her to lead the way down the stairs.

He directed her out of the stairwell at the main floor, into the walkway between the plush living room and the kitchen. The floor was marble tile, cold on her feet. Normally--and it was disturbing to think of any of this as "normal"--he would have led her down it into the round room to take up a position on her kneeling charge-pad. Instead, he took her to one side of the walk, turned her to face him, and put her back to the wall.

"Tiptoes," said James, "legs apart. Hands behind your back. Good, Emma." He took her shoulders and pushed back until her posture was slightly arched, legs only trembling a little, heels off the ground. He ran a hand over her upper arm, then the curves of her torso, as if brushing lint from a prized, shiny object. Emma felt her skin prickle at his touch, and had the fleeting thought that James only touched her when he was certain it would produce exactly the sensation he wanted.

"Stay," he said, and walked away toward the--not bedrooms, at the end of the house. What were they? Spare rooms. Chambers. Cells. Emma knew what was coming next.

He could have transported Katie from room to room easily, Emma was sure. He'd had no trouble bundling them up and carrying them before, or hooking Jen and Amber to that disturbing luggage-rack contraption and wheeling them into the elevator. The only explanation for this was that he liked to make Katie struggle.

If Emma was a tamed animal, Katie was still somehow fucking wild. She had on a full mask-hood in addition to her collar, black and opaque with only two little holes to breath through, and her wrists were shackled to a steel ring fitted around her just above her hips, which also held her plug-belt in place. But even though her face was unreadable, even though she was stumbling blind and naked down the hall behind him, something about her posture said Fuck You in big letters.

She probably wouldn't have been moving at all, but James seemed to have keyed her... accessories... to his proximity. Maybe to that remote-control watch he wore. When Katie moved closer to him, Emma could hear the buzzing vibrator rise in pitch; when she veered off course, she could hear the little cracking sounds and muffled yelp as her shock collar went off. Like an invisible fence, if everything were invisible.

"Good stay," he nodded to Emma, as if acknowledging a nervous pet. "Keep it up. I'll be right back." Katie banged into the back of a low couch, half-fell over it, and kicked wildly as the collar gave her a sustained series of jolts before she managed to right herself. James grinned as he led her into the stairwell instead of the elevator. Emma, remembering her own degrading and painful climb there, could only imagine how it would feel to make the descent without being able to see.

The door closed behind the two of them, and Emma's instincts said: do as we're told. Calves burning, eyes downcast, exposed and alone and waiting. Back to the wall. Pulse beating in her throat, hair a little mussed around her face, skin prickly and alive in the cool air. Nipples embarrassingly stiff, pussy still visibly wet from learning her new "trick" upstairs. Petite girl alone in a big room. Archway to the left of her, leading into the kitchen.

A tendril of a new thought began to worm its way into her head, and it was: your hands aren't bound. You are alone. He'll be a moment. You're next to the kitchen. The kitchen, where you once forgot to look for a knife.

The thought ran up hard against the blunt, blank wall of her submissive instinct. We stay, it said. We are good. Thinking means hurting. Curiosity means fear. Be dull, be pliant, let your owner's hand rest on your collar, stay--

Emma had never actually applied to vet school. She just didn't have the attention span.

Her heels touched down and she hesitated just one moment longer before pushing herself into it. Barefoot on the cold floor, she padded around the corner and into the dark of the kitchen, its wooden blinds drawn against the morning. It was laid out like a fancy open-back restaurant, with one marble countertop against the wall and a parallel island in the middle of the room. It was expensive-looking but oddly unadorned, like a lot of this house seemed to be. No knife block sitting out anywhere--though she did see the blender he'd used to make Katie's bland, disgusting food--but there were plenty of drawers.

Emma felt stupid for a second, contemplating them: they were flush with their borders, and had no obvious way to pull. Finally, she tried pushing in on one corner, which gave a little click and a sigh as it bounced against springs to slide smoothly open. It was empty. So was the next. Was this whole place some kind of prop? The third drawer, at least, got her six identical rolls of plastic wrap; Emma shivered as she realized this was probably less for keeping food fresh, more for wrapping up struggling girls like packages. She shut it and tried the top one in the next set.

Chagrin dropped through Emma like a sinkhole. She didn't want to have seen this. She didn't want to know this. She wanted to rewind, step backwards out of the kitchen, and erase the sight of the drawer from her mind. She wanted to be a good girl who stayed. She should have trusted her instincts.

She'd found the knife drawer, all right: six of them, laid out in a glass-topped and locked case on velvet, fitted neatly into custom-cut outlines. Each was unique: dagger, serrated combat knife, poniard, carpet hook. Each was gleaming and clean. And she knew, sure as her bones, that these were knives James kept for killing.

Killing he'd done already, or killing he planned to do? Emma tried to undo it either way. She slid the drawer shut and skittered back to her place on the wall, got up on her tiptoes and let her head sink down submissively. Shit shit shit, she thought, heart pounding even faster than her usual anticipation of his return. Okay, calm down. He couldn't read minds. There was no way for him to know what she'd seen.

James emerged from the stairs, barely breathing hard, mere seconds after she had taken up her post again. "You can relax your legs," he smiled; she did so, letting out a slightly exaggerated sigh of relief. He walked up and leaned into the archway, arm up above his head; when she glanced over nervously, she could see the lean muscle of his side peeking out under the hem of his shirt.

He straightened, took out his clicker, and made a quick "come here" gesture with his fingers. Click. He wasn't looking at her. Her pulse began to pound up into her throat as she walked closer. Her pale, bare thighs brushing against each other was the only sound.

"Warm feet," he murmured. "Cold tile foor." He pointed down, as if casually pointing out a roadside attraction. "Little steamy footprints that take just a minute to fade..."

Emma's every instinct said to run. She tried, too, but his hand moved so fast she couldn't see it, and then he had her by her hair. She let out a little whining cry, trying to lock her legs and stop him, even as his other hand grabbed the scruff of her neck--fucking hard--and almost threw her down to the ground. But he dropped to the floor with her, crouching next to her face and holding her cheek pressed to the tile.

Then he started scrubbing her back and forth over it, grinding her cheek into the polished surface, as if she were a human rag.

"Ah ah," he tutted as she instinctively tried to get her hands under her and push off. "Did I tell you to use your hands? I guess now you don't get to." Suddenly his knee was in the side of her face, pinning her head down and making it ache, while two painfully thin plastic zip-ties appeared from his pocket and lashed her wrists behind her back. Then--fuck--she couldn't see what was happening, but it got worse: wrists twisted up together, almost to her shoulder blades, some other strand of plastic tying them to her upper arms to keep them from sliding back down.

Emma felt like an origami puzzle, and it fucking hurt, and pulling against it hurt worse. But pain was preferable to the humiliation as he grabbed her face and resumed using it to "wipe" out the now-almost-invisible toeprints. Between each one, he dragged her a little farther along, smearing her whole body across the floor as she emitted helpless whimpers of protest.

James always picked her up with so little effort; this time he didn't even grunt. He just deposited her on her back on the table, rested one heavy hand over her collar and throat to keep her still, and reached into one of those stupid drawers to grab something. Then he started to beat her tits with what she could only assume was a rolled-up newspaper.

Compared to some of the pain he'd inflicted on her that first day, having her breasts spanked wasn't actually that intense, but she squirmed and cried out anyway. Emma's reserves of self-control were empty; he had all the control for both of them. Smack. Smack. Smack. She could feel each impact all the way through to her ribs, and the tingling rush and heat as they turned pink and then red, nipples contracting into stiff nubs despite the abuse.

Emma lost count of how many blows he took at her chest before he dropped his toy (it looked like a roll of parchment paper, really, thought some distant part of her) and grabbed both of her breasts. His fingers dug in, really really hard, enough that she could feel a little ring of bruises start around each one--and then he pulled up, lifting her back off the table, pressing an elbow between her legs to make sure her back arched in a pretty way. Then he dropped her again.

"I can make some deductions about what you were looking for in here," he said over her ragged breathing. "Did you find them? You must have." He opened the knife drawer, and Emma's heart stuttered. He undid the lock on the glass case, and her heart stopped.

"Spread your legs. Open your mouth," he said, and Emma, despite everything her brain was shrieking, did. The muscles in her thighs were taut and trembling. He had the dagger. He dipped the point between her teeth, just slightly, and said "now close."

Her jaw clicked shut on the raised surface of the metal, near the tip. The knife stayed there, straight up, perfectly balanced and erect, a miniature sword of Damocles in her own fucking mouth. She stared at the blurry pommel as her breath misted on the blade.

"Don't move," he said, his voice soft in her ear as he brushed a little of her fine blonde hair away from it. "Don't thrash. Don't open your mouth to scream. I know you can do this."

James straightened, and he was holding another of the knives now, the flat curved one. He took an easy step to the stainless freezer and pulled open its drawer. The only thing in there was a bottle of chilled vodka. He set it down with a clink next to her waist and turned the lever on the sink tap, picked up a bar of plain black soap, wet it and began to lather one-handed.