The Wild, Wicked West Ch. 01

"I want you to think about some things while I'm gone. Your body is no longer yours, slut. It's ours. Everything you are and everything you have is ours. You are alive with my permission. You move, eat, sleep, piss, shit, and breathe with my permission. Because I let you. Each sense is a privilege."

His hand moved towards her eye and Shelby's stomach dropped. She squeezed her lids shut, her last remaining defense, but he pried her right eye open with one finger above and his thumb below. Then, he brought his index finger from his other hand so close to her eyeball that she screamed and tensed for the pain. But it didn't hurt--he just placed something cold and wet on her eye. Then, he pulled away and she relaxed briefly, only for him to repeat the action on the other side.

When he moved away, she opened her eyes and saw... nothing. It was only dark, like she'd never even opened them. But she knew she had--she could feel her lashes touching her lids. Her breath started coming in faster. Blind. She was blind.

"These are blackout contacts. You will have to earn back your sense of sight. This is how it will go--if you're good, you'll earn freedoms; if you're bad, I'll remove one. I know this must be a disorienting experience," he said, his voice tinged with some pity that she wanted to tell him to shove up his own ass, "but even though you're not free to leave or do whatever you want, you still have more freedom than you realize, slut. Obviously, we can make you deaf--that's easy. But I have more creative tortures, too.

"I have a machine set to only let you breathe as you're just about to pass out from lack of oxygen. Think about that--laying here, lungs on fire, fighting for air only to be allowed just enough to keep you on the verge of dying. I have drugs that will immobilize your body while your mind remains awake. Think about that--I can make your body into a prison and do whatever I wanted to do to it anyway. You don't want that, do you, slut?"

Shelby was crying in earnest again. She couldn't see his hand coming when he rested it on her breast, so she jumped a little at the contact. That simple touch was somehow the worst yet. It wasn't in nearly so intrusive a place as his last, but not being able to see it coming made it feel so much more invasive.

Only once he quietly exited the room and she was left with nothing but the sound of her own breathing, the soft ticking of a clock and her own thoughts, did she realize just how truly horrible this situation was. She'd assumed him being gone was preferable.

But her own imagination was proving to be worse company.