The Cave Ch. 01

He tossed the cup aside when I finished off the water and tugged me into the bed with him. I was afraid he wanted to continue where we had left off. I didn't think I could possibly perform for him now, not when Amy was so upset, not when I was so dazed over everything. Not while he was still tense with anger.

But he only had me lie next to him, facing the ceiling. He covered me with a fur blanket, but so that my breasts were still exposed, and settled on his side close to me. The bed felt nice, the fur soft, warm, faintly greasy from natural oils. Laying a hand on my stomach to keep me still, he licked my laceration clean. It soothed me, despite Amy's soft weeping. I could smell the spice and pine as his hair brushed against my face. Next, he licked away the tears drying on my cheeks and then nuzzled my shoulder so that I would turn to my side. He pulled me snugly to him, my backbone shaped to his hard chest. A small spoon next to a big spoon.

I tried to fend off sleep. In fact, moments before succumbing, half a plan solidified in my mind. Now that I was free, I would find the key, unlock Amy and find a way out of the cave. But Pratt began to lick the snarls out of my hair and the action of it was so relaxing and hypnotizing that I ended up asleep on his arm.

Fortunately, I awoke hours later.

*

Somebody was breathing lightly. I assumed it was Amy because I was alone in bed and the fire had been stoked.

I found Pratt standing by Amy, his arms folded critically over his chest. She was asleep. He looked deep in thought as he stared at her and I felt a stab of dread as I wondered if he was regretting his harsh action. She looked beyond pitiful, but it made me love her a little. It made me wonder how long it had been since she had to sleep in chains.

Reproachfully, Pratt exhaled through his flared nostrils and shook his head. It was unclear to me if he had made his mind up about anything. I thought maybe he wanted to bring her back into the bed with us. Or just her. Maybe he was considering putting me back in those wretched chains.

He turned to me suddenly, startled. But when he saw I was awake, he relaxed and I thought his face brightened for just a moment. If that was possible.

I heard the shuffle of his bare feet on the floor as he came back to bed. I scooted back a little to give him room and he lifted the blanket and slid in next to me. I smiled a little, unexpectedly timid. I knew this was only temporary, sleeping next to him, in this bed. Tomorrow, I might very well be back in chains. And the way Amy reacted tonight, Pratt might not let me into their bed again, at least not for a while. If I was going to escape, it was going to have to be tonight.

But I wasn't going anywhere as long as Pratt was awake. I lifted my face to meet his golden and drowsy eyes as he drunk me in, a restless sort of look that told me he wasn't feeling up to sleep yet. His large hand found my leg and he began to stroke my thigh. Freeing my hand from the bundle of fur covers, I reached out for him, touching the hard muscles of his belly. I was surprised he let me. I never saw Amy favor to touch his body other than to hold herself steady as she found her pleasure.

I slid my hand up the front of his body, slowly, my fingers burying into the thick pelt of his soft chest hair. He smelled so spicy, musky, it was intoxicating. On impulse, I kissed his furry chest and his erection jumped against my leg. Suddenly, his hand left my leg and he was rolling me to my back, holding his weight on his elbows, pressing his body down on me, gently dominating. My legs split open to accommodate him and he nestled his hips to mine, and I could feel his penis bearing down on my pubic bone like steel bar.

He began to sniff me. Eager sniffs. Fervent sniffs. The crook of my neck, my throat, behind both ears...my lips.

Across the room, Amy was still sleeping. Anything might wake her and the idea of it was both arousing and humiliating. I decided I didn't want her to see us. I didn't want her to be hurt by this.

Pratt's luminous eyes held my gaze as he reached down between us. After two tentative nudges against my sex, I widened my thighs, but he was shaking again. Not in anger. Not in lust. It was something else. He was...

...he was...

He was nervous.

Upon realizing it, my heart swelled and in that instant as he filled me, I loved him utterly. I felt the girth as well as the length and there was a moment of panic when I—despite his slow, deliberate plunges—thought I was going to rip from the inside out. But the way he was braced up on his trembling knees, I knew he was pumping shallow, careful not to fill me too far too fast. I pushed on the ridges of his ribcage and lifted my hips to meet him, feeling the soft fur strips of his loincloth twist between my legs.

And then I was shattering. I locked my jaw to hold in my cries, whimpering my climax. I could feel his hips slackening and with a deep grunt, he shuddered.

Catching my breath underneath him, I looked across the room at Amy. She was still sleeping, thankfully. I don't know what I would have done if she had seen us.

Pratt shimmied down my body, leisurely sniffing me, until he reached between my legs, where he pressed his nose against my wet sex and took a long heavenly inhale. And then he began to clean me up with quick laps. He was careful to avoid the most sensitive areas. When he was finished he pressed against my side and covered us with a blanket. It felt warm next to him and I was exhausted, but I forced myself to push sleep aside.

I waited for Pratt's heavy breathing. It didn't take long. When I heard it, my insides began to thrum with adrenaline, knowing it was now or never.

One of his hairy legs was twisted with mine and his heavy arm was draped over my waist. Carefully I shifted my leg to untangle it and then stopped, listened until I heard his breathing. Next, his arm.

I rolled forward slightly. Waited. Kept going. I had never moved so slowly in my life, but his arm was slipping away, feeling lighter. It was easier without his weight on me. Cooler, too. Getting out of bed would be the hardest part, I surmised. If I could do that without him waking, then I could sneak out of the cave without him knowing, either.

I started to doubt that I had time to find the key and unlock Amy, too, that I had the freedom now and I shouldn't be frivolous with it. I could come back with help and save Amy later, but if he woke up while I was looking for the key, then those chains might become my new permanent home.

But as Pratt's large hand dropped away from my hip, I started to feel confident and began to reconsider. How angry would I have been to see Amy stowing across the room without even attempting to free me? I might have screamed to alert Pratt, and knowing Amy's aversion for me at the moment she would most certainly do the same. I would have to at least try.

Okay, I decided. I would spend one minute looking for the key. I already knew where it was: in the alcove, high on a ledge, squirreled away in something ceramic. I could reach it if I climbed on one of the lower shelves.

But I must have listened just one second too long. A sleepy arm meandered around my waist and hauled me back against Pratt's body. I wasn't completely sure he'd even woken up. Even after one of his legs curled around my thigh and he absently licked my hair, I still wasn't sure.

I struggled, masking it by pretending I was just blearily stirring, but his arms were like steel around me. And it started to really weigh on me, the realization that escape was not going to be so easy. I was going to need time to think. I needed to make a plan, a better one. It might be a while before I was allowed to sleep with Pratt again. I'm sure Amy had tried to slip away once or twice like this and it was habit for him to keep us close. I thought of all those times I had mentally berated her for at least not trying to get away. She simply couldn't.

For now, I felt safe. Warm. I decided this might have been Pratt's greatest escape deterrence: he made me want to stay.

*

In the morning, I stretched myself awake. It was the first time since I arrived to the cave that I had slept through the night and I was feeling pretty good. I rolled over in the empty bed. Pratt had rebuilt our fire again and was sitting by it, staring at the crackling flames as they licked the air. His elbows rested on his boney knees, his fingers steepled together thoughtfully. Still in my old chains, Amy was awake, her eyes bloated as they stared straight ahead unseeingly. I wondered if he had gone to her in the night, the way he would come to me, but Amy seemed just too pitiful and dejected for that to have happened. She wasn't even up for the usual vain display to get Pratt's attention.

Pratt sat up and lifted his gaze to me when he noticed I was awake. His half smile was more like a sneer but I knew its intension and grinned back.

He rose from his log bench and fetched his berry basket from the cluttered shelves. I knew he had picked extra yesterday and there was enough raspberries to feed us this morning. He still fed Amy first, placing her ration on the shelf above her, and she pulled on the chains to lift herself to her feet, but only out of polite gratitude. She was lacking her typical sparkle.

As for me, I got to have breakfast in bed. Pratt poured the remainder of the raspberries into my cupped hands, pushed my hair back over my shoulders lovingly and returned to his post by the fire.

The silence was tense as we ate our morning meal. I kept sneaking looks back and forth between the two, but Amy had her eyes fixed downward the way I had been expected to in the beginning and Pratt only stared despondently at the fire. I questioned if this was their first fight. The whole thing seemed to have been blown out of proportion. Even I could tell Amy was sorry and Pratt didn't seem to be enjoying her punishment, so what was really going on?

After breakfast, Amy got water first and I noticed she had left very little for me, but I didn't mind. I had had extra last night and I was sure she was extremely parched after all her weeping, so I downed it in one gulp and handed the cup back to Pratt.

He let Amy down first for her morning relief. I didn't expect everything to change now that I was allowed in Pratt's bed and I didn't want it to, either. Least of all Amy's standing in the household. She should go first. And as soon as the second clamp was released, she fell to her knees and began to plant apologetic kisses on his ankles. His reaction was guarded. He looked neither pleased nor displeased with her.

She scrambled to her bare feet and Pratt swung his arm, a half-hearted attempt to stop her before she jumped into bed with me. I had a fur blanket draped over my shoulders, taking advantage of the warmth and modesty it granted me while I still had these privileges. Amy threw herself into my lap, her blonde hair splaying everywhere. My feet were tucked under other blankets where she couldn't reach my ankles, but she began to contritely peck at my nude thighs with her lips. It surprised me to say the least, and I glanced up at Pratt for help. But he only stoically watched, arms crossed, holding onto his own biceps.

Her hands found mine and she squeezed them, frantically kissing my knuckles. "I'm sorry," she pleaded between kisses. "I'm so sorry."

"Amy, it's okay. Really," I said, astounded. "I don't think I understand what the big deal is."

"I shouldn't have pushed you," she whispered, pressing her forehead to my hands, keeping low to me.

I was pretty sure this was all an ostentatious demonstration for Pratt, to show him her remorse, but I still felt like she meant it on some level. And the wet kisses she left on my thighs had awakened a new desire I'd never felt before.

"I'm not mad, Amy. I never was." Looking up, I tilted my head at Pratt, imploring him to end this and put things back to normal. Yes, I knew that would allow me less free time in his bed, but at least then things would be predictable again.

Pratt strode over to collect his slave.

Amy clasped her hands to my face and planted a firm kiss fully on my lips. It happened so fast, it took me a moment to comprehend what had transpired and another moment to realize I wanted to do it again. I had spent the last week in perpetual arousal and I frankly missed the act of kissing.

I looked at her and leaned in to kiss her again, but Pratt pulled her away by the elbow and led her into the next room. I sat stunned for a moment, recounting the kiss a few times, her warm taste still on my lips, but then something occurred to me.

I was alone.

And free.

Jumping out of bed, naked, I ran gingerly across the room to keep my feet from making slapping sounds on the hard rock floor. I slipped into the poorly lit, cold nook and approached Pratt's system of narrow shelves. They were full of strange little things, but it was too dim to see them all. A rusty, metal ashtray full of bloody teeth from various animals, an old soup can full with dried pens and dull pencils, a torn leather driving glove with no match and other found oddities.

I raised my foot high to prop up on the lowest sill and reached up to another higher shelf to start the climb over to where he hopefully kept a spare key. Sometimes Pratt kept the key in his waist band for hours, forgetting to put it back. If I could get my hands on a spare, I could hide it somewhere by my chains for a later escape. Peering down at my feet, I stepped up to the next highest ledge, shuffling into the general area.

I found a dirty clay bowl all by itself. No spare key.

"Shit," I mumbled. Carefully, I lowered down to the next ledge, feeling for the stone sill with my toes. Maybe he kept a spare in another more inconspicuous spot. But it was so cluttered and chaotic that I knew it would take half the morning to look everywhere. I climbed down to the next ledge...

...and my eyes snagged on another key. I dropped down to the floor, feeling the hard shock all the way up my shins.

This key was different, shoved against the wall and held there by a layer of dirt and dust, without a container to keep it safe. I picked it up and examined it. It wasn't like the key Pratt used for the cuffs, a one-tooth skeleton key, while this one was more serrated. It was smaller than an apartment key, but larger than a locker key.

I had to try it. I doubt I'd be able to sleep at night if I didn't. Slipping back into the main cavern, I glanced down the hall as I passed the fire pit. Dark and empty. I hustled up to my bed, running over the straw and picking up one of the shackles, turning it to find the lock. I jammed the key against the hole, but it was as I thought. It was much too large.

I decided it could have been something he found in the woods, another trinket to add to his collection and that it didn't unlock anything. There was no time to think about that now. Pratt and Amy would be back soon.

Hearing something, I spun around, but I was still alone.

Hiking down the rocks, I sprinted this time, and my feet slaps on the floor sounded so loud to my ears. Back in the alcove, I replaced the key, taking care to match it up with the outline of dust already there and shot back to the fur bed. It was a good thing I left the shelves when I did, because it wasn't long before the two of them appeared.

Amy ran ahead of Pratt and I thought she might come back to continue our kiss, but she padded right by me. Pratt let her go, but watched her sternly as she did. I should have known her destination would be her own chains, claiming her rightful spot on the bed. She managed to clamp both arms in herself and then patiently awaited the key, her eyes flicking intrepid and defiant between Pratt and me.

Resigning, Pratt sighed and reached into his waistband for the key. Glancing down at me, he passed by and began locking Amy in. It was clear to me then. Amy wasn't going anywhere; she deserved the bed and the freedom it afforded. I on the other hand, was still fixing to escape. And sleeping in the bed every night would make me forget that.

Glancing down at the bed, I detected strands of gray straw still sticking to the bottoms of my feet. Quickly, I wiped them off and hid the evidence under one of the blankets, just as I felt Pratt standing beside me. I don't think he noticed.

My time of honor in the cave was over and I accepted my new standing gracefully, taking Pratt's hand and letting him take me back to the next cave for my break. It was sort of a relief, I realized, when I crawled into his lap for my scouring. The guilt of first-chair was too much for me.

Back in the main cavern, Pratt secured the clamps on my forearms and after, he took a second to smooth my hair. His expressive eyes were doleful and contrite and I wanted to let him know I understood. I leaned forward and chastely kissed the seam of his lip.

He looked at me and I think he might have blushed a little under all those whiskers. It was spontaneous of me, without knowing how he would receive it, but he responded by burrowing his nose cheerfully into the crook of my neck, sniffing heartily and I shied away from its ticklishness with a soft giggle.

He licked me goodbye, once on the cheek and again on my left temple near my hairline.

It would be his last lick for a long time.

*

Over the course of the day, Pratt seemed perfunctory towards us, compassionate, but a little distant. He doted on Amy more than usual. Extra water, extra bathroom breaks, extra touches that were supposed to be secret from me. But his actions lacked enthusiasm.

And it wasn't because he was saving his interest for me. The only time he looked at me was if he was feeding me water or during my voiding.

I noticed something else strange, too. He didn't get an erection once all day. I thought he enjoyed having two naked slaves strapped to his walls for him to view whenever he liked, to taunt sexually at every opportunity. But today he wasn't taking any pleasure in it at all. The notion of escape was becoming increasingly desirable for me with every awkward moment. I hoped it wouldn't always be like this after a fight.

Later on, I would wish this had only been a fight. Some domestic spat, easily forgotten.

Dinnertime came and went, but Pratt never left to collect our meal. Only water for us today. I was hungry, but I was getting used to the limited calories so it wasn't so bad. I knew he wouldn't let us starve. My belly was bloated with water, which helped, and I managed to doze a bit, to help pass the time.

After one of my small naps, I found Pratt squatted down at the water bucket, his back to us, filling the cup. I shifted in my spot, rolling my shoulders to stretch them, preparing for another round of water and bathroom breaks. I was looking forward to it. I needed to walk around some and the abundance of water was starting to press insistently against my bladder and it made me shiver.

He stopped at the shelf for the key and went to Amy first, feeding her all the water, insisting she finish even when it looked like she'd had enough. Cup empty, he tossed it aside and stood to unlock her shackles and tucked the key into the band of his loincloth. Although we hadn't eaten since breakfast, I could see Amy was regaining some of her confidence as she strut across the room, Pratt's large hand guiding her by the small of her back as they disappeared down the tunnel. I hoped it meant this funk would be over soon.

While I waited for my turn, I pressed my thighs together as the urge to urinate intensified. Pratt had kept us thoroughly hydrated and now I was feeling the uncomfortable effects. I watched the mouth of the tunnel for another minute. Waiting, waiting, waiting.