Mentor (An Impossible Novella) (2 page)

He allowed me to sob and beg, wielding the knife with exact, almost loving, precision.  It never once pierced my flesh, not even when he hooked it beneath the waistband of my slacks and the side of my underwear, cleanly shearing through both in one smooth motion.

Only when I was completely naked, when I had paid the price, did he speak to me again.

“To answer your question: No.  I’m not going to kill you.  I’m going to keep you.”

His fingertips brushed my bare waist, trailing slowly upward in a mockery of a caress.  Pure revulsion rolled through me in a wracking shudder.  My skin pebbled, and all of my fine hairs stood on end.

I tried in vain to jerk away from him.  “Don’t touch me!”  My protest was the hiss of a cornered animal.

He ignored me, his fingers continuing their steady progress.  They reached the outer curve of my breast, and his touch stuttered, turning almost tentative.  I would have described his exploration as tender were it not for the fact that the shivers racing across my skin were a product of disgust rather than desire.

“I will touch you whenever I want, pet.  One day, you’ll come to crave it.  You’ll beg me for the feel of my hands upon you.”

As though to make up for his moment of hesitation, he gripped my breast hard, his fingers digging into the tender flesh.  The flare of pain was shocking in the wake of his gentle touches.

“You’ll come to crave the pain as well,” he promised in a low murmur.

“You’re insane!”  The accusation came out on something between a defiant scream and a fearful sob.

“You don’t know the half of it.  But you will.”

His cruel grip eased, and his fingers massaged away the pain.  My peaked nipple grazed against his calloused palm.  Between my blindness and immobility, I was powerless to prevent all my focus from honing in on the sensation of his skin against mine.  My nerve endings crackled, making me hyper-aware of my body in a way that was utterly foreign to me.  No one had ever touched me like this; no one had ever touched me at all.  Especially not these secret places.

He tweaked my hardened nipple, and his quiet laugh mingled with my shocked gasp.  The sensation was… strange.  I squirmed, noticing how warm my skin was against the cool metal chair.

“We’re going to get along very well, pet,” he assured me.  It was the first time I had detected genuine warmth in his voice; it was a perverse, lustful heat.  I noticed that his accent was a long drawl, lengthening his words and softening them in a way that belied their cruelty.

“Don’t call me that!”  My indignant snap was ruined by a fearful tremor.  “My name is Kathleen.  Kathleen Marie White.  Please let me go.  I have a life.  I have a family,” I lied.  I would say anything to sway him.

“No.  You don’t.”  His fingers closed around my nipple again, pinching and twisting this time.  My wild attempt to wrench away only doubled my pain.  “I won’t tolerate lies.  I know who you are, Kathy.”

“Kathleen.  It’s Kathleen.”  The correction was automatic, reinforced by years of practice.  Kathy was what my father had called me.

His fingernails bit into me.  I couldn’t hold in my scream.

“I get to decide what to call my property,
pet
.”

I started crying again, and my head shook back and forth.  My mind denied what was happening to me.

He drew away from me, and I made a strange whimper as cool air rushed to fill the space where his heat had painted my skin.  His footsteps echoed through my darkness.

“Where are you going?”  My voice was high and thin with my sudden panic.  His intimate touches had disgusted me, and his coldly amused words had terrified me, but fear of the unknown surged through me.  I realized a second too late that I had asked a question.  Automatically, I recoiled.  My clothing had been forfeit for my first answer.  What would he take this time?

“Wherever I feel like going.”  His tone was casual, but his meaning was clear.  He was free; he had all the power.  He was going to leave me here, trapped in the dark and caught under the sapping weight of my fear.

His footsteps retreated further, and I shrieked out my fury and terror.

“Let me go, you sick bastard!  Let me go!”  I jerked at my bonds, my body struggling for freedom.  All I earned for myself was fresh pain as rope dug into my bare skin.

A door creaked open and thumped closed.  A lock clicked into place.  I screamed into the darkness.

His Journal
 

April 21, 1978
 

I can still hear her screaming.  The sound just does something for me.  In all my life, I’ve never felt this kind of desire.  I’ve read about the lust that claims men from the time they hit adolescence, but it’s never happened to me.  I had thought that things like happiness and joy had been beaten out of me, rendering me incapable of pleasure.  That never really bothered me before, not until I got my first taste of pleasure while I watched my father die in agony.
 

What she makes me feel is different.  My father’s end was too quick, driven by vengeance and the need to defend myself.  Killing him made me feel powerful, but the heady sensation was fleeting.
 

If I keep her, I can control her.  I can elicit her fear in bliss-inducing surges.  For the first time in my life, I hold all the power.
 

She’s so fragile.  I could break her with my bare hands.  I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.
 

My plan to allow her to question me turned out to be a stroke of brilliance.  She’s intelligent, that much has been obvious since I first saw her in the library.  Her desire for knowledge will slowly force her to surrender everything to me.  She will cede herself to me through the illusion of free choice that I allow her.  I wonder how long it will take her to realize that her one perceived freedom is my most effective weapon in breaking her.
 

She’s going quiet now.  But even though her screams are dwindling, my arousal isn’t.  I had intended to use sexual touches to frighten her, but I might harvest pleasure from her in ways I had never imagined.  I crave to use her body to slake this newfound need.  It will take all of my willpower to wait.  I need to learn her body, to understand how to best draw lust from her.
 

I promised her that she will crave my touch one day.  I also promised that I will be completely honest with her.  She will learn that, for all my depravities, I am a man of my word.
 

Chapter 2
 

Kathleen
 

Who are you?
 

I entered a strange delirium, a state where exhaustion warred with my fear to keep me in some horrible state where I couldn’t differentiate between sleep and wakefulness.  In my blindness, the lucid dreams of my painful past and the horrors of my present intermingled.
 

“What the fuck is this, Rachel?”  My father bellowed, his words slurred with his drunkenness.
 

“Roger.”  His name was a fearful gasp on my mother’s lips.  “I’m sorry.  It’s all we could afford.”
 

Daddy angrily swiped the meager meal away.  The porcelain plate shattered against the wall.  Even at the age of seven, I knew that he had drunk away the money that should have bought us a proper meal.
 

Mommy did nothing but apologize, but Daddy’s face turned a dangerous shade of purple that I recognized all too well.
 

My sister and I ducked beneath the table just before the resounding
smack
of Daddy’s hand against Mommy’s face cracked through the small kitchen.  Bea cringed against me and gripped my hand with her small fingers.  She was only five, but she understood violence and pain as well as I did.
 

Mommy, run!  Why doesn’t she run?  
I didn’t know why she didn’t try to escape him when he hurt her so terribly.  That was something I would learn later, but I would never understand it.
 

Passion is a double-edged sword, and I wanted no part of it.
 

The echoes of my father’s enraged screams pounded against the inside of my skull, the pain a reminder of abuse.  But the harsh sting of abrasions around my wrists and ankles was new.
 

I almost longed to remain immersed in my dark memories.  At least they were securely in my past; the horrors of my present were too terrible to contemplate.
 

My discomforts cruelly pulled me firmly back into my new reality.  My shoulders screamed in protest at their prolonged imprisonment, and the unyielding metal slats of the chair to which I was bound dug into my back.  I tried to swallow to alleviate some of the rawness in my throat, but my tongue was sandpaper.
 

How long had I been here?  How long since I had tasted food or water?  My stomach felt hollow, and even my veins seemed parched and withering.
 

Surely my captor wouldn’t leave me here to die.  He had said he wanted to
keep
me.
 

The idea made my empty stomach churn, even as I longed for him to return and grant me reprieve from my thirst and hunger.
 

Trapped in the dark and engulfed by pain, I had no concept of the passage of time.  I only knew that by the time the door creaked open, I was desperate for him.  My small moan at the sound was wrought of relief rather than fear.
 

“I think you’ve suffered long enough, pet.”  The softness of his words might have been mistaken for caring, but I knew better.  
He
was the one who had inflicted my suffering, so his decision to end it wasn’t a show of concern.
 

My discomfort was the price for my question, and he had finally deemed that the price was paid.
 

“Where are you going?”
 

“Wherever I feel like going.”
 

What use was that?  He had promised that each question would have an honest answer, and each answer would have a cost.  I had cost myself dearly with my rash query.  I would have to be more careful with my words if I was going to get out of this place with my sanity intact.
 

I resolved not to ask any more questions.  I couldn’t afford to lose anything else to him.
 

There was a strange sloshing noise before me.
 

Water.
 

I pulled against my bonds, blindly searching for what I needed.
 

His fingertips caressed my cheek, and I jolted at the sudden contact.  There was moisture on his skin, and it kissed my dry lips as he traced his thumb across them.  I couldn’t help myself; my tongue darted out to catch the droplets of water, caressing his flesh as I did so.  He tasted slightly salty, but the water was sweet.  It was the most delicious thing I could ever recall.
 

“You must be very thirsty.”  His voice was low and a bit husky, as though he was affected by the touch of my tongue.
 

More.  I needed more.  To my shame, I parted my lips, seeking to taste him again.  His thumb pressed between them, and I yielded easily to the gentle pressure.  My mouth closed around him, greedily sucking away every droplet of the precious liquid.
 

“That’s it, pet.  Good girl.”
 

Revulsion suddenly gripped my gut.
 

What am I doing?
 

I bit down hard, a furious growl escaping me.  But he was ready, and in my blindness I hadn’t been able to see his fingers hovering over either side of my jaw, ready to clamp down.  They dug into my cheeks, forcing my mouth open before my teeth so much as grazed his skin.
 

I would have railed at him for being a sadistic bastard, but I couldn’t manage to force out more than a croak.
 

“Well, if you’re not thirsty…”  He trailed off on a chuckle, and his feet scraped across the floor as he moved away from me, taking the life-giving water with him.
 

“No!”  
An unintelligible, desperate cry made its way up my ravaged throat.  
“Please.”  
My cracked lips formed the word, my vocal cords giving up on forming coherent sound.
 

Shame returned, but I forced it to the edges of my consciousness.  Survival was more imperative than my pride, and I had never felt closer to death.
 

His warm breath returned to my ear, and cold water dripped into the hollow at my throat.  I whimpered as it trailed uselessly between my breasts.  My tongue thrust out of my mouth, silently begging for more.
 

“Are you going to behave?”  He asked sternly.
 

Hating him, I nodded.
 

Loathing faded to bliss when a drop of water hit my waiting tongue.  When I pulled it back into my mouth to swallow, his wet forefinger thrust in.  He was harsh, invasive this time.  Instinctively, I tried to jerk away as his touch neared my throat, but his other hand closed around the back of my skull, blocking my retreat.
 

He stilled, waiting.  Now that his hand was at the back of my head, I knew that he wouldn’t be able to prevent me from biting him.  I also knew that if I did so, he would leave me again, denying me the water I so desperately needed.
 

“It’s your choice,” he told me calmly.  He knew what I was thinking, had predicted my actions.  How many steps ahead was he?
 

Cold swept through me as I recognized my captor’s intelligence.  I was relying on my own mind to save me, but his was obviously formidable.
 

And this round undeniably went to him.
 

If I had the strength, I might have laughed madly.  Did I really think I had a chance to beat him, to win?  We weren’t even playing a game; he was playing, and I was his toy.