Josh lifts and hauls me over his shoulder like I’m nothing, builder’s sand for his latest DIY project. And then it’s down the stairs, bumpety-bump, my legs flailing in mock protest, Josh and Becky exchanging words as we hurry along the hall, words I cannot quite unscramble cocooned in this dense polythene blackness.But I understand well enough when Josh deliberately raises his voice.”This little slut needs a lesson in gratitude. We’ve taken her, given her a roof over her head, fed her. And what thanks do we get? Fucking ungrateful little slut.”His words cut me. If only he knew how grateful I am — more grateful to be a part of what they share than I have for anything in my life. If I could just talk to him, tell him how I would do anything for him, for them both.Not a scintilla of light penetrates the sack walls shrouding my head and shoulders. As we travel, I have to picture the house’s layout while trying to ignore the impact of his shoulder bones against my ribs. He carries me as if this is a rescue from fire, the sack there to protect me from smoke. I imagine they are taking me to a safe place even though I know our destination is no safe space at all.Outside in the garden, the evening breeze caresses the backs of my thighs and exposed bum cheeks. Josh picks up his pace, breaks into a trot, and I jolt up and down on his shoulder, grow afraid my ribs will bruise. I become aware of his visceral animal nature, am made compliant the knowledge of his stamina, the strength and ease with which he manhandles me. I am his captive, the robber baron’s prize, his droit du seigneur.When he stops, I strain to listen, get my bearings. The outhouse again, its door opening, the drag of oak on slate slabs, and the creak of rusting hinges.Once inside he lowers me onto my bare feet, positions me just so and removes the sack from my head. Even the subdued red ambience cast by the subtle lighting is too much for my eyes, and I rub them with my hands, try to focus.He snatches my hands away from my face. “Who gave you permission to move, you unthankful little slut.” And just like yesterday, he takes me by the wrists, twists and holds them crossed at behind my back with his right hand. His grip is unappeasable, has the certainty of a fanatic.He tells Becky, “Change now, Darling Girl, and be quick about it!”Becky is his Darling Girl, while I am merely his slut. How I wish I were his Darling Girl.Frogmarched like a hostage to an inevitable conclusion, he slams me against the whitewashed stonework and holds me firm, my breast flat against the uneven surface. His fingers as claws, descending on my skull to twist my head, sending my cheek grating against the chilled rough surface.”Faster!” he calls out to Becky at the far end of the room. “If you don’t shift almanbahis yourself, I’ll have you strung up in this little slut’s place.”His breath in my ear carries spite in his words, telling me I’m unworthy of their attention, their love and protection.Her voice: “I’m ready, Dominus.”Josh takes my hair, coils a handful around his fingers, makes a fist and yanks. How proud I am to bear the hurt. I grit my teeth and endure it. With my eyes tight shut, I will suffer everything gladly.”Open your eyes and look at Darling girl. She has dressed up for you.”I do as he says, blinking to bring Becky into focus. She is wearing an outfit of black leather. Oh, I get it: Catwoman from Batman. She looks exquisite, sly as a Siamese, the cutest of pussycat ears. Through the chinks in her mask, I see her eyes framed in mascara. Her lips are a supper of blood.The way the leather clings to her curves! No attire could compliment her more. Her heels are outrageous, and she looms over me.Josh holds my arms out straight while Becky fastens individual cuffs to each wrist. There is a large metal ring on each.His grip hurts — but not enough.He takes my shoulder, turns me to fully face him as he tells me, “And when we are in the Room of Correction, I am to be addressed as Dominus. Is that clear, slut?”I’m starting to understand, nod stupidly as if I don’t really.”Say it then. Say, ‘Yes, Dominus.'”I feel ridiculous, yet I say it all the same: “Yes, Dominus.””You think it’s funny?””No, Dominus.”He slaps my cheek. “Take that stupid look from off your face.” He studies me, sure of recalcitrance, sees it and strikes me again.”Consider that your first and your second warning,” he says. “There won’t be a third.”It’s almost too much, and the unanticipated shock of the impact angers me. So much so that I forget the game and almost swear. And yet there is a part of me that retains some sense, watches from a still and quiet corner of my mind, tells me to bite my tongue. I push down the rage.”We need a proper name for her,” Becky says, coming closer. “Something appropriate.””Do you have one in mind?” Josh asks.”Creature suits her perfectly; she’s such a pathetic little thing, don’t you think? She needs to be back in her cage where she belongs.”Josh is thoughtful for a moment before telling me, “You see, Creature, believing yourself to be a person, a human being like Darling Girl and I, an entity with a name… it was a delusion.” He turns to Becky and asks, “What was the name Creature masqueraded under before we rescued her, Darling Girl?””She never had a name, Dominus. Sluts like her don’t have names. The boys around our way all knew that. It’s why they all called her ‘That slut from Wingfield Road.'””No-they-fucking-didn’t!” I yell for all I’m worth. “Shit, Becky! How can almanbahis yeni giriş you stand there and tell such lies about me?”His palm immediately across my cheeks. Then, “Keep this,” he mimics a zip over his lips, “shut when Darling Girl is talking to you.”She comes closer, almost whispers her accusation. “So it’s a lie if I say that you went home from the park with the Hodder brothers and let them take turns fucking you in their parent’s bed? Jeez! What a desperate little slut you were back then — to let those chavs from the Procter estate have you like that.”She turns to Josh, tells him, “And the next day, she came over to ours and ‘shared.'” She leers at me, smiles.And I know only too well what’s coming next, the thing she promised me she would never speak of to a soul.”Should I… or shouldn’t I; what do you think, Creature?”I stare and stare, my eyes pleading with her. It’s useless. I turn to Josh, begging with my eyes for him to make her stop.”Lost your tongue, Creature?” Becky says. “Looks like it’s down to me, then.”She’s caressing my body with one hand, letting her fingers linger on my breasts, my cunt while hooks are thrown into the water of memory, dredging the stagnant lake of my past. “How many times did Nathan and Connor Hodder fuck you, Creature?” she demands, though I know she knows only too well. “You told me each of them had you twice, didn’t you? And that Nathan was beginning his third run when his parents came home and caught you all at it.”What was the reason he gave his wife, poor menopausal Susy Hodder, for running you home that evening? Did he say he wanted to tell your parents what a complete and utter slut their daughter was, how their baby girl was the village bike? Was that it, Creature? Should I tell Dominus the reason why fat and balding Barry Hodder wanted you in his car? How old was he? Nearly fifty? And you let him fuck you, didn’t you? But I suppose, hey: why not. Happy families. Go for the full house.””Do you want to tell us about Mr Hodder, Creature,” Josh asks. He’s no longer Dominus, just a man hungry for salacious tittle-tattle about a teenage girl.”I shake my head.”If we’re going to make progress. I think some sharing is in order.” Josh comes to me, takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger, and tips my head back to expose my throat. “If you want to keep a roof over your head, you’ll have to do better than that.”My words, like my thoughts, are hard to string together. They come hesitantly at first. “In his car,” I say, “… his car… I was feeling so horny. You know — after his sons. They were just lads, hadn’t a clue about what a girl needs.””Where did he take you to?””His lock-up. He was a plumber.””And did he meet your needs?””Met them better than those two pathetic boys of almanbahis giriş his, for all their groping and bullish humping.”Becky again:”I told you, Dominus, didn’t I? What a little slut she is, how perfect she is. The kind of slut that only cares about herself.” She comes closer. “You told me Barry picked you up from the sixth form more than once. I remember us in our herringbone skirts and grey blazers, those awful opaque grey tights we had to wear. How many months were you fucking for him after class? Did he enjoy undressing you? I bet he couldn’t believe his luck; his very own sixth-former in her uniform, a boomer St Trinian’s fantasy come true?”I remember those afternoons after college with Barry Hodder: the drive to the railway arches, his lock-up, his hunger for me. And I am so ashamed.”Did it make you feel all grown up seducing a married man?” Josh asks. His voice is different. Their game is falling apart.”I wasn’t a kid.””Seventeen is hardly grown-up.”Why is he behaving like a jealous husband, acting like Ian? His whole demeanour is like how Ian’s would get. The accusation, the wanting to know where I’d been and who with.”I was eighteen.””And he was, what, forty-eight?”What I did ten years ago comes flooding back to me. I have sat on it and sat on it, hit it whenever it stirred, clonked it with a heavy hammer of denial every time the memory tried to claw its way out of the grave I’d dug for it. And now I can’t hide from it. Barry Hodder is standing at the graveside, beckoning me.The words come unbidden, ten years of suppressed rage erupting in a torrent of anger: “Twice a week, if you must know. On Monday and Thursday, we’d go back to his poxy unit under the railway arches where he’d kiss me and tell me I was so sweet — before turning me around and fucking me from behind stretched out over his cluttered workbench, tights and knickers around my ankles.”I stare at Josh, dare him to chastise me for my outburst. And just for a moment, I see him off-kilter. Then he collects himself and clears his throat, tells me:”You really must have been a piece of work to seduce a family man. Even at eighteen, you were slut enough to ruin a marriage.”To hear Josh despise me arouses no contrition. What Barry Hodder gave me was what I needed. All that fucking made me feel something, something all those boys had never once stirred in me. For those eight weeks my life had meaning, and I was alive.I decide not to let guilt stain me, spit words at him of my newfound certainty: “I loved every fucking moment, every thrust of Barry’s enormous old cock. I couldn’t get enough of it greasing my leadwork. Oh, you should have seen us, Dominus. You would have been so proud of me.”I am defiant, unabashed, proud.Josh fetches the riding crop from the storage cupboard, comes to me and reaches out to my nipples with it, feathers them gently. “You were doing so well, and then you started to think you were a person again when only minutes ago we explained how you were merely a creature.”