Page 14 of Unorthodox
Theycravethe punishment.
I know Ben wants me to fight him, so he can punish me again. He doesn’twantme on my knees. He wants another excuse to hurt me.
Slowly, though, I sink to a bow anyway. All the way to the floor. I can play this game.
And it is just a game.
My father will come for me, to save face. Not out of love, or duty, or because he misses me. But because having his daughter taken will be a blow to his reputation.
He let Max have me, temporarily, to settle a debt. But he’ll come.
And even if he doesn’t care, even if he doesn’t come, Danik will.
Danik will come for me.
Someonewill fucking come for me.
I keep my eyes on the wooden floor, and when Ben squats down and I feel something soft coming around my neck, I don’t look up. I’m barely breathing.
He loops the band of material tight, but not too tight.
If I could draw breath, I’d still find oxygen in my lungs. As it is, I’m not sure that’s what I want at all.
Ben stands after he attaches something to my…collar.
He jerks it, and I crawl on my hands and knees behind him, toward my door.
We practiced with the collar yesterday.
I realize I haven’t changed today, into the usual bodysuit I wear with the open back that allows him to make the strike of the whip more painful and that bothers me.
I’m not sure why, but it does.
Routine here is what I’ve learned to crave. The first day, I didn’t know what to expect. I tried to beg. Plead. Cry. Scream.
The second day, I tried to run.
The third day, my face swollen, my lips cracked, I stopped being stupid.
But when I crawl past the guard outside of my door, see his shoes, the hem of his fitted black pants, I have the sudden urge to cling to him. To beg him to help me.
To get Max.
But Max…
Max knows.
This is his house.
He knows.
And still, in the night when he comes to soothe me… I let him. Maybe it’s the drugs. Or that I’m exhausted. Perhaps both.
It’s probably something far worse.
I think, in my entire eighteen years, his hands are the most gentle that have ever touched me.
I hearBen lead her down the hallway just as my hands go around Evora’s throat.
