Page 38 of Writhe
My breath mists against the glass as I lean forward, watching as she hesitates.
“Where’s the doctor?” she asks.
A pang of guilt hits my cold heart. She asked for me. In a moment of uncertainty, she asked for me. As that last flicker of resistance flares in her wide, dark eyes, she knows she has no choice. She knows, and yet she still takes that fraction of a second to hesitate. She waits to see if I will appear.
Beautiful.
Her hands tremble as she reaches for the hem of herthin baby blue nightgown. There’s nothing sensual in her movements, nothing intentional about the way the fabric lifts, barring inch after inch of flesh. But I feel it all the same. The slow unveiling of her body is a ceremony, an offering.
She is unaware of how beautiful she is.
I watch, enraptured, as the gown slips over her head and pools at her feet.
Her collarbones are just like fragile wings, her stomach taut, her thighs softer where they press together. Despite her self-inflicted starvation, despite the bruises, despite her exhaustion, she is still breathtaking.
Her breasts rise and fall with her shallow, panicked breaths, her nipples tightening in response to the cold. My eyes trace the lines of her, committing every detail to memory—the smooth curve of her throat, the way her pulse thrums just beneath the surface. The slope of her hips, the faint marks of restraint around her wrists. She doesn’t know what she does to me. She is mine, and she has yet to understand what that truly means.
The orderly gestures again, impatient now. “In the tub.”
Eliza shudders but obeys, her bare feet stepping gingerly onto the cold floor. She lowers herself slowly, carefully, her muscles locking up before the ice can even touch her skin. I see it before she feels it—the moment the shock sets in, the instant her fragile body betrays her with a violent, gasping inhale.
Her lips part, a silent cry trapped in her throat. Herback arches, her hands gripping the sides of the tub in a useless attempt to escape the frigid embrace of the water.
I feel it like a live wire in my veins. Her pain. Her submission. Her suffering. My beautiful, fragile pet.
I tighten my grip on the notepad in my hands, poised to take notes, though I know I won’t need them. I will remember this. I always remember the moments when they begin to truly break. Frankie gestures again and the other orderlies step forward, each carrying a heavy bucket, and then?—
More ice comes. Bucket after bucket, dumped in with a rush of sound. The cubes clink against metal, and the temperature plummets. She shudders violently, her muscles locking, her breath stuttering as shock sets in.
“All the way under, now,” Frankie instructs.
She doesn’t obey—the orderlies don’t wait. They grip her shoulders, and in one fluid motion, they force her down. The water swallows her whole. The orderly begins counting, their voice even and measured, each number punctuated by the sound of splashing water and the muffled thrashing beneath the surface.
“One . . . Two . . . Three . . .”
Eliza reacts immediately. Her body jolts, her limbs flailing in blind panic, but the orderlies don’t waver. Their grips are firm, practiced, pressing her down as if she’s nothing more than a struggling animal.
“Four . . . Five . . . Six . . .”
The water surges with her desperate movements.Her legs kick, her arms swing, but the effort is futile. The human body betrays itself when stripped of control. I’ve seen this before. I’vedonethis before. But never to her. She’s trembling now, her body convulsing from the brutal cold, from the need to inhale. The primal response is taking over. Her body needs to breathe—her lungs demand it.
“Seven . . . Eight . . . Nine . . .”
I watch closely, unblinking.
There.
The moment her body slows, her strength diminishing, her mind slipping into that dark, sinking place. That beautiful point of submission. She’s almost gone.
“Ten.”
The orderlies move immediately, yanking her up in one swift motion.
Eliza erupts from the water with a choked, gasping inhale, her entire frame shuddering as she collapses forward. She coughs violently, water spilling from her lips, her lungs heaving, desperate to fill with air.
She slumps against Frankie’s chest, too weak to resist, her limbs hanging like a broken marionette.
I press my fingertips together, observing her. A growl coils in my throat, low and seething, as I watch her naked body slump against Frankie. Againsthim.
