Page 31 of True Bastard
The sound was weak, pathetic, and it fueled a fresh surge of self-disgust.Coward, my mind screamed.Why aren’t you fighting? He replaced his knee between my thighs, jamming it against my core, and brought his fingers to my mouth, rubbing the wetness onto my lips, forcing them past my teeth. My gag reflex convulsed, but the desperation to breathe, to survive this moment, warred with my body’s natural inclination.
I wanted to spit, to claw, to make him feel even a fraction of the disgust he was forcing on me. But my fear, cold and sharp, whispered that resistance was futile, that any further defiance would only invite a worse torment. I bared my teeth, biting down, a small, desperate act of rebellion. But he was too quick.
He released my wrists and dragged my head back by my hair, his voice dangerously clear. “Do that again, Kitten, and I will make this experience a living hell for you.” He punctuated every second word with a small, slow jerk of my head. The pain—acute and sudden—was a jolt of pure terror. I immediately stopped biting, my breathing coming in fast, feral gasps. The instinct for self-preservation, the cold, hard truth that I was outmatchedand that my pain was a tool for his control, extinguished the remaining vestiges of my defiance.
I swallowed hard, my tongue inadvertently licking his fingers as my throat convulsed. The betrayal of my own body, the involuntary act of submission, sent a fresh wave of shame through me. My frown deepened, my face a mask of desperate rage, yet a chilling clarity told me I was in imminent danger. And in that clarity, a dark thought, a seed of pragmatic survival, began to sprout:What if... what if I just let him?The thought was a poison, a deep, festering wound on my soul, a terrifying acknowledgment of the impossible choice I was being forced to make.
“Open your fucking mouth,” he ordered, his voice barely containing a seething anger that crushed me more than his weight. I complied quickly, removing my teeth from his fingers just a millimeter from breaking the skin. I swallowed again, hard this time, the dry rasp of my throat a betraying sound. This act, this simple compliance, felt like a fresh stain on the purity I’d fought so desperately to hold on to.God, forgive me, I prayed, a silent, desperate plea that felt as hollow as my own resolve. “Now clean them the right way,” he demanded, jamming his knee into my sex, a brutal reminder that I was his to do with as he pleased. The slickness on my lips was a violation, the taste a sickening promise of what was to come.
My body—the traitorous bitch—was starting to respond despite my will, a dark, reviled reaction that threatened to shatter the last remnants of my spirit. He watched me, his gaze intense, a captor savoring the slow subjugation of its captive. The silence stretched thick with unspoken threats and the raw power he wielded. Tears finally spilled, hot and angry, blurring my vision, but I refused to let them fall. He wanted to see me break, to witness my utter surrender. But even as my body quivered under his control, a sliver of defiance, a stubbornember, refused to be extinguished. I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me utterly defeated.
Not yet. But the fight was becoming a battle waged on two fronts: against him, and against the insidious crawl of my own betrayal. The desire to simply cease to exist, to become nothing, warred with an inherent instinct to survive. And in this sickening dance, I knew I was already losing.
I swallowed again, the dryness clinging to my throat like a shroud. My tongue, a foreign thing, began to trace the ridges of his fingers, an act of compliance that felt both humiliating and strangely... necessary. My breathing, shallow and ragged moments before, began to deepen, a traitorous surrender to the building sensations. The sticky residue left by my own body, a testament to a reaction I could no longer deny, became the focus of my enforced attention. Each lick was a negotiation, a desperate attempt to appease, to erase. Then, a sharp, metallic tang—blood. The faint coppery taste sent a tremor through me. My jaw muscles clenched, a reflexive rebellion against this forced intimacy, this violation.
But I was a fighter. The word echoed in the hollow of my mind, a defiant whisper against the overwhelming tide of submission. Yet, what good was fighting when it only led to more pain? Was defiance truly strength, or just a path to deeper suffering? The metallic taste, the sting of what I now understood was my own blood, forced a terrifying clarity. I had to choose. Not between resistance and surrender, but between two forms of degradation. To continue this charade of obedience, to swallow my pride, or to refuse, to invite a wrath I knew, with chilling certainty, would be far worse. Fear warred with a stubborn shard of self-preservation, a desperate clinging to the last vestiges of control. I forced my mouth open, a physical act of will against the instinctive clenching of my jaw.
It wasn’t a victory, but a strategic retreat.
I was no fool; I understood the cost of angering this man.
The thought of crushing his control—a fleeting, suicidal impulse—died a swift and merciful death. He stood abruptly, his release of my hair a sudden absence, a chilling void. My mouth, no longer held captive, felt raw and exposed. A wave of dread washed over me, an oppressive acknowledgement of what was to come. Cringing, I knew. I had just bought myself a moment’s reprieve, a cruel and pointless delay before the inevitable.
He attacked me viciously this time, and too late, I realized he’d been holding back.
My ass became a series of welts upon welts as my blood rose fast to the surface, swelling and heating every place that he punished. Each sting was a fresh betrayal, not just of my body, but of the small, defiant voice that had whispered, telling me I could outmaneuver him. I had chosen the path of least resistance, and now I was paying the price for that perceived wisdom, a consequence that felt like a punishment for a crime I hadn’t even committed. The pain was a testament to my failure, a stark reminder that I had made the wrong choice, a choice that would haunt me long after the welts faded.
“Motherfucker!” I screamed, the word ripping from my throat, a raw, desperate sound. His fingers, slick and cold, curled against my wet sex, a violation that sent a jolt of pure terror through me. He grasped the fattiest part of my ass, a cheek in each hand, and hauled me up to kneel on the bed. My body obeyed, a puppet to his mastery, and I scrambled to follow his lead, a sickeningly familiar script playing out. There was no resistance this time, only a hollow compliance as he pushed at my knees, forcing my body into a position of agonizing vulnerability, exposing my glistening sex.
He vaulted atop the mattress, his weight crushing, and I realized with gut-wrenching horror what was about to happen. I struggled, frenzied, a frantic animal caught in a snare. Hestraddled my back, facing my ass, his grip tightening on my arms where they met my shoulder blades, his knees a vise on my thighs. I wanted to break free, to scream until my lungs gave out, but a deeper, more insidious thought took root.What’s the point? He’ll just hurt you more. Just endure it. It will be over soon.That thought, the desperate need for it to be over, warred with the burning injustice of it all.
He raised his hand high above his head. The muscles in his arm coiled, a predator about to strike. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat of dread. I closed my eyes, a futile attempt to block out the inevitable, but the image was seared behind my eyelids. He brought the hand down with such accuracy and speed that the stinging in my sex nearly had me jumping from beneath his weight. Tears sprang to my eyes, hot and involuntary, blurring my vision. I renewed my pleading, a flicker of desperate hope igniting within the ashes of my despair.
“Please!” I cried out, the sound thin and reedy. “NO!” I cried again, my voice cracking with a terror I couldn’t contain. “Joshua, no!”
His name was a plea, a desperate anchor to a reality I was being ripped from.
Instantly, he stopped. His hand, a raised weapon, hung in midair. The silence that descended was deafening, charged with an unbearable tension. He slowly turned his head, his gaze finding mine. His eyes, usually so full of casual cruelty, were now alight with cold, hard anger.
“What the fuck did you just call me?”
Chapter Nineteen
Firestride
Seething, I reached for her as she scrambled away. “What theFUCKdid you just call me?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, backing herself into a corner.
“Did you just call me Joshua?” My voice, a guttural roar, ripped through the charged silence. The raw fury radiating from me was palpable, a physical force that seemed to crackle in the air between us. The name, a slip of her terrified tongue, had shattered the carefully constructed wall of dominance I’d been erecting. It was a name I hadn’t heard spoken in years, a relic of a life I’d meticulously buried, and hearing it now, uttered by her, ignited a molten rage that threatened to consume me.
She flinched, her eyes widening in genuine terror as she finally grasped the depth of my fury. The desperation in her gaze was a stark contrast to the defiant spark I’d grown to both loathe and, in some dark, twisted corner of my being, admire. Her body, still slick with my touch, trembled, not just from the physical aftermath of my actions, but from the raw, untamed anger that now radiated from me. The game had irrevocably shifted, and the rules, already blurred, had just been rewritten in a language of pure, unadulterated rage.
“Who spoke that name?” I snarled through clenched teeth.
“I... I don’t know,” she stammered, her voice barely a whisper. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her already terrified gaze. “Someone slipped it under the door. A piece of paper. Itwas there when I got back from lunch with your mother and sister. All it said was Firestride is Joshua Michael. I’m sorry. I won’t ever say it again. Please don’t hurt me.”
Her plea was a desperate, ragged sound, and it tore at something within me, a raw, exposed nerve that I’d been trying so desperately to ignore. The name, Joshua, was a ghost from my past, a life I’d fought to escape, a life I’d sworn I’d never revisit. And she, my defiant little kitten, had somehow unknowingly resurrected it.
