He lunged again, sweeping over the bed and to the other side, grabbing me by the collar, and making the sharp points of the design dig up under my jawline.
“Luka, don’t?—”
“Too late for that.” He gleamed as he pulled me over to the corner with the chair.
A soft click was heard, and the pressure relief from my neck followed, the collar clamoring onto the floor. I glanced at him through my lashes as I rubbed my neck.
“Don’t look so hopeful,” he said flatly. “I need you to focus on this exercise. I simply cannot have you getting overstimulated from anything other than the task at hand.”
“What do you mean?”
He picked up a mason jar from the floor and dumped the contents out in front of the chair. Hundreds of grains of rice scattered onto the floor, mimicking the sound of soft rain. I suspected that sound would be the only comforting thing about this activity.
“Kneel.”
“Kneel?”
“Yes, Alina, you heard me correctly. On your knees, on the rice,” Luka instructed.
I looked down at the rice scattered along the floor. What was this?
Before I could think too hard, Luka kicked the back of my knees one by one until they landed on the rough surface.
I cried out, shaking at the shock of the movement. The little bits of rice dug into my skin from my own weight on top of it.
Luka stepped around me and sat in the chair. I was not facing him in this position. He had a nice view of my side profile from where he sat. He rested that long crop across his thighs, watching me.
“Get up on your knees, nice and straight,” he ordered, giving a light tap to my behind with the end of the crop.
As I went up on my knees, I could feel the rice grinding against the bony parts. I stumbled forward slightly, and my hands landed on the ground.
Fwip!
His crop slapped my hand, and I flinched away from the ground.
“I said straight, not forward or backward.” He tilted his head mischievously at me. It was like he was waiting for all the wrong moves without telling me the rules—I had to figure them out as I went.
“You can’t just punish me when I don’t know what you want me to do,” I gritted through my teeth, staring forward at the wall and refusing to look at him.
“I gave you pretty clearinstructions.”
I stood on my knees as straight as possible, but the rice made it hard not to waver. I leaned back slightly to adjust my position on the coarse surface.
Fwip!
He whipped the back of my thighs, eliciting a yelp from me. I could feel the burning continue in a straight line where the crop had hit me.
The same would happen if I leaned too far forward.
Fwip! Fwip!
Back and forth, he would hit the back and front of my thighs to keep me straight. When I glanced down at my legs, I could see red lines appearing in the places he hit, searing into my skin so it remembered.
After a while, I gotreallygood. I kept myself straight, still, calm. If I just focused on the wall ahead and let myself drift, I forgot the pain digging into my skin, burning my flesh. Breath control was paramount when trying to tune everything else out. He stopped hitting me with the crop. There was nothing to critique until he decided to change the rules again.
While I got him to stop smacking me with the crop, it did not stop the lashing in my head. The pain was the only thing to focus on unless I dissociated from it, which risked my posture faltering. The lightheadedness crept up on me slowly. Soon, I could no longer ignore the pain, but with it came another feeling. It was like my body was making up for my situation by sending endorphins. The pain and numbness bloomed in small increments and became more intense the longer I waited. During the first half, maybe I was running on adrenaline, but now it was all melting together, and I could not tell pain from anything else I was feeling.
“You are doing so well, Alina,”Luka praised.
