Devan finished reading. Sat there in the silence after, dreading to look up. Afraid to face Vaughn's expression. His eyes.
"You must admit, the girl's got a certain knack. Hasn't she, Vaughn?"
She stared desperately at the paper in her hands, knowing that when Vaughn spoke, his voice would betray his disgust. But he was silent.
"Goodness, Devan, you've struck the man speechless. But there's another way to gauge his reaction."
Devan couldn't resist following Conrad with her eyes as he rose from the hearth and circled behind Vaughn's chair, then bent over and put his hand on his groin.
"Fuck's sake, Vaughn, it's like gripping a baseball bat. Does that hard on of yours ever go away?"
She cringed and blushed at the thought of Conrad touching Vaughn like that, and exhaled with sudden relief when just a second later Conrad stood and wandered toward her, casually dropping onto the sofa beside her.
"Well, it just testifies to Devan's talent, doesn't it? What's really remarkable, though, is that she wrote that—what was it, Devan? Four years ago?" Conrad gave her a penetrating look. "She was just fifteen. Hadn't so much as touched herself. Quite an imagination, eh?"
In a sudden and swift move Conrad turned, scooped her up off the sofa, and settled her in his lap.
"What do you think, Vaughn? Does that story, written so long ago, still work for her? Do you suppose she's as aroused as you are?"
She couldn't look at him. She just took in his silence.
What was Conrad doing? With one forearm hooked under her knees he lifted her ass off his lap, and with brutal effectiveness yanked her panties down around her knees. He lowered her back down, but kept his arm locked behind her knees, holding them tight by her chest. A humiliating certainty about Vaughn's view made a salty sob rise in her throat, but she kept it there.
" Naughty, naughty, Devan..."
Just the tip of Conrad's finger lightly touched her opening, then slid, gentle, slippery, along her slit, smearing her slick wetness over her folds, finally rubbing her clit, making her squirm against all her effort to be still.
"...does my darling girl need to be fucked, hmmm? Should I string you up, just like that girl in your story, and have my way with you at last? Part your soft, creamy thighs, press myself against you, slide up into you..."
He slowly slid his finger inside her, and her desperate silence came out in an anguished groan.
"...slip around behind you..."
His finger slipped wetly from her throbbing cunt and slid down. She tensed and gasped as his finger brushed against her again.
"...slowly drive my hard cock into the tight, virgin grip of your ass..."
His finger teased her sensitive pucker as she waited, tense and fearful, to feel his finger penetrating her.
"Honestly, Vaughn, look at her. Tell me your little Devan isn't dying for you to fuck her right now."
Conrad slipped a second finger back into her cunt, pumping his finger slowly in and out of her as he went on taunting her ass, making her writhe, fearful, unsatisfied, needful.
"Just admit that you want her, Vaughn, and she's yours. I promise you, loathe though she may be to confess it, she'd love nothing more, at this moment, than for you to take her in your arms and fuck her into orgasmic oblivion. Or maybe..." his finger slipped out of her and touched down on her clit, and she gasped in her breath, sharp and audible, "...you'd rather she come to you, there in your chair, get your pants down around your ankles, climb into your lap, and lower herself, nice and slow, onto that raging hard-on of yours, and ride you until you cum. Hmmm?"
Everything Conrad said filled her brain with images that mingled with his taunting touching of her sex, and she was ready to sob with want. Willing Vaughn, through all her need, to say, yes, he was dying to fuck her, so she could feel him against her, inside her. His breath on her skin, his tongue in her mouth, his arms encircling her, his hands on her.
The silence piqued her fear. He wouldn't say it. Never. He'd never take her, let Conrad give her. Unless Conrad forced him. She hated, wanted to kill the little part of her that yearned for that—for Conrad to threaten some worse punishment so Vaughn would have no choice, have to take hold of her, hold her down, force himself between her legs...
"As you wish, Vaughn."
Conrad's finger lifted from her thrumming, aching clit, and he lowered her legs onto his own, kissed her shoulder, his lips soft and lingering, and slid her panties up her thighs.
"Bum up, darling."
She felt...bereft. Empty. Or hollow. Something was very wrong, in her head. Conrad's hands came to her hips and gently suggested a rise. Dazed, she planted her feet on the floor and raised her hips, and Conrad slipped her panties into place.
"Pardon us for a moment, Vaughn, while I get Devan off to bed."
O O O O O
The moment the door latched she felt the tears spilling down her cheeks.
"Devan? Darling, what's wrong?"
Fuck, Conrad had a nerve, pretending to give a shit about her. About anything except his little games. His psycho fantasy. She could hardly bear to let him touch her, but somehow didn't care enough to push him away. So she let him gently comb her hair back with his fingers, let him caress her cheek and kiss her forehead. When she finally looked at him, his expression startled her, it looked so like genuine concern.
"Tell me, Devan. What's upset you?"
"You're making him hate me." Her confession, her accusation came out a garbled sob.
"Devan," he sighed, pulling her into an embrace. "I'm not. You can't really believe that Vaughn's capable of hating you?"
"That story..."
"Devan. Darling. Trust me. You can't protect your love by hiding your real nature."
"You think you know my real nature? You're just using what I've written, what you think you know about me, to justify living out your own fucked up fantasies."
She tried to struggle free but he went on holding her until she gave in and went limp in his warm arms.
"Say what you like to me, Devan. But stop pretending to yourself. Those stories reflect something real about you. About what you need. Until he understands that, Vaughn—anyone—can only love a pale facsimile of the real you."
Conrad didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. Vaughn knew her. Knew her better than fucking Conrad ever would, no matter how many stories and diaries he'd read, however many little confessions he forced out of her, or how he tried to pry into her soul with his eyes as he pinned and touched her. Vaughn cared for her. The real her.
But as her mind rebelled against Conrad's words, she felt something inside of her dimming and shrinking.
All the fight seeped out of her. Without understanding why, she finally came undone, and let herself melt in a violent flood of tears, let Conrad hold her through it all. She was only vaguely conscious of him putting her to bed a long while later, and slipping out of the room.
OOOOO
That story. Conrad was right. He didn't know her.
All this time, again and again, mentions of her stories had brought to mind...what? Bodice rippers. Beautiful women futilely defending their chastity and voluptuous charms against rogue men desperate with passion. Corsets and pirates.
But her story, her mind, she was dark. Violent. Frightening. Like him.
His cock was still hard, aching. It seemed like he'd been like that all day. In strobing flashes Vaughn recalled the image of the kidnapper sliding his fingers in and out of his victim's cunt as he fucked her ass, and half-consciously knew he'd masturbate to that mental picture once he'd been cuffed to the bed for the night and left alone. It was so like his own dark fantasies. A variation on his own theme.
Then Devan. Then Conrad. A flash, an image from her story, Devan the kidnapped woman, Conrad the rapist.
Then guilt. Then fear.
They were talking. He heard the indistinct hum of their voices seeping through the wall. Conrad wouldn't, not like that, behind a closed door, Vaughn was almost certain. But still he strained, listening for any sounds of struggle, any distressed note in her voice, any suspicious silence. His whole body, his whole being strained toward her when they were apart, when Conrad had her and he couldn't be sure what was happening to her.
At last the door opened and closed again, and Conrad appeared before him.
"Have a drink with me, Vaughn?"
"Alright."
Why not. Conrad was going to chew his ear off, either way. Might as well dull the senses a little. Conrad grinned, as if Vaughn was an endless source of amusement to him, then padded quietly over to the kitchen—Devan might be falling asleep, and Conrad had a funny way of being considerate of his hostage—to make the drinks. Conrad padded back, then, set the drinks down, and undid one of Vaughn's wrist restraints. It was routine by now. Conrad carefully restoring Vaughn's use of an arm, then stepping cautiously out of range while Vaughn got himself free of any other restraints. And, of course, the tranquilizer gun always in hand or in reach.
"Shall we step out onto the porch, so we don't disturb Devan?"
Vaughn replied with a gesture toward the door.
"After you, Vaughn."
Vaughn took his drink from the table and they went outside. Following a gesture from Conrad, Vaughn took a seat in one of the big redwood deck chairs, and Conrad took the chair beside him. It was strange, how when Devan wasn't right there, Vaughn felt no fear with Conrad. He was almost at ease. Only when she was there, when Conrad might hurt or upset her, was Vaughn strung up on tenterhooks. Now, though, bombarded by a million strange impressions of the last hour, the day, the last week, for a moment Vaughn almost forgot Conrad's presence. But then he felt the man's patient stare. When Vaughn turned to him, Conrad had a weird look on his face. Maybe it was just that he wasn't smirking. No, there was something warm, almost tender in the way that man was looking at him.
"Sooner or later," Conrad said after a long silence, "when the moment is right, Vaughn, I'm going to take her. You know that."
He knew. Of course. But it was a blow to hear it. He felt sick. Weak. He gulped down a mouthful of whiskey.
"It's what she wants. You know that, too."
"She doesn't want to be hurt. That isn't what that story means."
"What the story means, Vaughn, what all her stories mean, is that Devan wants things she's ashamed of wanting."
Conrad paused, waited for Vaughn to meet his eyes.
"You can understand that, can't you?" No derision in his voice.
Vaughn remained silent.
"She wants to be, sees herself as a certain kind of person, and the desires she has don't fit. She wants to experience them, but doesn't want to be responsible. She wants them done to her, so she can experience them, and still be innocent."
Vaughn sat there, futilely searching for the answer, the words that would derail Conrad and save Devan.
"I shan't hurt her. But there's only one way to do this, Vaughn. And that's to let her believe she hasn't a choice. Because otherwise she'd feel she was betraying you. Your mutual...affection. I won't say love since I doubt you've made such a declaration to one another."
Conrad rose, then moved in close, the way Vaughn had seen him close in on Devan a dozen times, and a moment later Vaughn felt the soft touch of Conrad's hands on his shoulders, felt his breath against his ear, and an unpleasant feeling rippled through him.
"But you wouldn't see it that way, would you? If she gave herself to me?"
Conrad accepted Vaughn's silence. Vaughn hardly twitched as Conrad pressed himself against him, whispered to him.
"I feel quiet sure about you in this, Vaughn. That you could watch as Devan realized her fantasies, that you could take part in that, and care for her just as you do now. That for you nothing would be lost. Or spoiled. But Devan, young and relatively innocent as she is, despite all she's written, isn't ready to grasp that such things are possible. She needs a little illusion of helplessness."
Vaughn would have argued. Even knowing he'd said it all before, knowing that it wouldn't make a difference, that Conrad would disregard everything anyway. He still would have tried, for her sake. But he no longer trusted himself where she was concerned. He could no longer tease apart what he believed to be her wishes, and his own. So he was silent.
When they went back inside Vaughn was permitted to take a leak before Conrad cuffed him to his bed for the night.
"How do you sleep, Vaughn? On your side?"
"What?"
"Tonight I'm cuffing both your wrists, so choose your position carefully. We don't want you fatigued tomorrow for lack of sleep."
Vaughn didn't get it at first, why Conrad suddenly felt the need to cuff both his hands, instead of the usual one. But when Conrad left and Vaughn's mind went racing back to Devan's story, he knew instantly. The asshole didn't want him jerking off. And he could guess why.
OOOOO
In the middle of the night Devan woke, her body humming with an unfulfilled need stirred by Conrad, by the story he'd forced her to read, by the knowledge that Vaughn had been aroused, hearing it. She started to touch herself, almost without thinking about it, but as her fingers slipped inside her panties and found the silky wetness between her lips, the images in her head frightened her so much, and were so persistent, resisting all alternate fantasies, that she snatched her hand away and waited for sleep to put an end to her tormenting thoughts.
OOOOO
In the morning Conrad rapped softly and opened Devan's door. As he entered she sat, strangely still, staring out the window into pale gray light. Conrad stepped inside and shut the door, noting as he turned back to her how Devan's jaw seemed to flex slightly, how her breathing seemed to speed.
"Sleep alright?"
"Fine."
Her voice lacked its familiar defiant ring. And she'd not met his eyes once since he'd entered. Odd. Even when he sat down on the bed beside her, her eyes remained stubbornly fixed on that window, when normally he'd be rewarded with one of her adorable accusing glares, or a deliciously fearful, questioning glance as she waited to see how he'd touch her. What he'd make her do.
He uncuffed her first. Then with two fingers he began to pull the covers down her body. He laughed at himself—silently of course—for having actually developed an utterly visceral association with these flimsy little white configurations he always had her wear because they evoked the costumes in which she always dressed her heroines. Her breathing changed but she gave no protest as he ran his fingertip slowly up her leg, from the graceful arch of her foot, over the rigid little peak of her ankle, along the curved muscle of her calf, her knee, her thigh, then lingered to wander along the edge of her knickers.
"Look at me, Devan."
She met his eyes, held his gaze. With an effort, it seemed. He stood, slowly pushed her feet apart, mounted the bed, knelt between her legs.
"Look at me, Devan."
She forced her eyes back to his. Like that first night, he touched her. Over her panties. Just lightly.
"Do you think I don't know, Devan, why you're avoiding my eyes?"
He was touching her so softly over her panties that he could hardly detect the soft contours beneath. But he knew very well how these delicate caresses tormented her. Whispering his fingers between her thighs, over the thin white fabric, he watched her brow tighten, heard her breathing change. Very slowly he leaned in until he knew she could feel his breath on her lips.
His hand went still, lifted off, hovering above but still in her moist, warm atmosphere. Her taut brow slowly, definitely furrowed.
"You don't want me to see your fear, hmmm?"
He teased her cunt through her panties again, teased her mouth with the briefest hint of his tongue. Watched her brow smooth.
"But it's no use, darling. I know you're afraid. And I know what it is you fear. You think I'm going to fuck you."
She gasped as he slipped a finger under the elastic and into her slick cunt, writhed as he slid it slowly out and in again.
"But you're afraid..." he put his lips to her ear. "...that I won't."
She flinched and glared at him with a flare of indignation. Maybe even hate. But then that pretty blush lit her cheeks and her eyes went bright. He'd guessed it.
Never had she hesitated to meet his eyes when she was angry, accusing, even afraid of him. Her evasive eyes, he'd decided, could only mean one thing. She wanted him. And no doubt she was ready to die of shame and confusion at her desire. Another pretty opportunity.
"Or, worse yet, you're afraid that you'll have to admit it's what you want before I'll fuck you."
She gasped and arched as he slid a second finger into the hot, slippery grip of her cunt, letting the pad of his thumb tease her clit over her knickers as he fucked her.
"But I won't be so hard on you, my sweet Devan."
He gazed at her a long while, reading her, letting her feel him, letting her hear how his arousal had changed his breathing.
"You needn't say a word. I'll fuck you. Just so long as you don't tell me not to."
She looked stunned. Hurt. He slipped his fingers from her, took his hand from between her legs. Her lips parted. Then closed. He grinned, took hold of her hips, pulled her against him so suddenly her back hit the mattress.
He was on her. His chest pressed to hers, his eager erection pushing against her cunt through his clothes and her knickers. He found her wrists and pinned them down by her shoulders and brought his mouth to hers, hovering millimeters from a kiss. She panted, her sweet hot breath teasing his lips. But she didn't say a word.
"I want you to know, Devan, that I've never wanted anyone as I've wanted you. And I've never wanted you as I want you now."
It was the truth. Sweet Devan. So lovely. Intoxicating, some romantic would say. Frightened but aroused, trembling, but dying to yield. She wasn't struggling, only panting beneath him, her breath on his mouth, her chest and belly caving and rising under his. But he tightened his grip on her wrists until the slightest look of alarm came to her eyes.
He could do better.
"But not here."
He pulled her up, off the bed, spun her 'round and caught her against him. He'd gotten damned good at that little move since he'd taken her. With his free hand he flung the door open and in seconds had her where he wanted her. On the dining table, inches from where Vaughn was duct taped into his front row seat.
"Please, Conrad," she sobbed as he forced her down on the table. "I don't want this."
"Naughty girl. It's a bit late now. You had your chance to say no."
He'd watched. Very carefully. Not one line in Vaughn's brow, not a muscle in his face changed at those words.
Devan, though. Poor girl looked like she'd just been caught in the middle of a murder. No, like she'd just realized she was a murderer.
Conrad climbed on top of her, let her swipe and kick and writhe for a bit before pinning her down to immobility, relishing the way she panted with all that futile effort. Then he waited. It would only take a moment, he knew, until she remembered. He'd do whatever he liked, and there was nothing she could do.
Conrad could hardly believe this moment was finally here. No more holding back. No more games. Now he'd really kiss her. Really touch her. Not merely as a pleasant means to an even more promising end. Put his mouth on her. Taste her. Go into her. Just the thought took more of his breath than their struggle had. Fuck, he wanted her.
He brushed his lips over hers. She let him. But she was all rigid, under his body, under his mouth. He drew back, looked at her, took in the new breed of fear in her eyes, smiled sweetly, sunk his nose in her fragrant hair, put his mouth by her ear, whispered.
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