I’d expected the answer, but somehow it hurt anyway.
“When are you going to accept that you don’t call the shots around here? You might’ve been someone when you were out in the world,Ryder,” fuck, he really did know my real name, which made him calling me Toby even more disconcerting, “but down here? You’re just my pet.” The words were ruthlessly delivered from an equally ruthless man.
I tensed, hating the fact that I was letting this get to me. I thought I’d done well, but then, it had only been a handful of days — maybe a week, maybe not. I wasn’t even sure anymore, and honestly, it didn’t matter that much. How could it, when it wasn’t going to change anything?
Wasn’t there some statistic about people going missing having the greatest chances of being found within the first 24 hours? 48? Well, I sure as fuck hadn’t been found in the first couple of days, which made my chances get lower and lower by the minute.
And I had to consider the idea that I might never be found.
“I’m never going to bejust your pet,” I told him, gathering all the courage I could and directing my words at him with as much as I could manage. “Even if you break me down, I’m going to be more than that.”
For a moment, I was pretty sure a smile flickered across his lips, but it was gone before I could figure out what it meant. Amused? Mocking?
Pleased?
I didn’t know. He’d been mostly… weirdly courteous to me. Apart from the whole making me humiliate myself in front of him over and over thing, he didn’t go out of his way to be cruel.
I could always feel his eyes on me when he was downstairs. Hell, I could feel his gaze on me even when he wasn’t,always aware of the fact that he was probably watching me through cameras. I knew he wanted to touch me. Our little exchange the other day had more than proven that.
But he barely did.
Why?
It was the first time I wondered it, because it was the first time I really gave a flying fuck. It wasn’t even that so much as I just… wondered what kind of man he had to be to do this to someone.
“You’re still going to submit,” he said, just as he had so many times before. “You’re going to be my good boy, Toby. I just know it. You’re already on the path. We just have to keep going.”
I didn’t want to keep going.
“Fine. I’ll wear the stupid plug,” I said. If I could get an idea of the layout of the basement, I might have more of a chance of eventually getting out and…
And what? Finding a weapon? Getting him to let me go? I doubted he had anything down here that could be used that way anyway, unless I could find something made of glass or cheap metal.
He didn’t seem like a cheap metal type of guy. Everything had been luxurious and well-made.
“But I want a better bed and a clean blanket,” I told him.
He considered me for a moment, and I could see the wheels turning in his head: was it too much of a demand to accept from me?
Would he do it? I couldn’t tell from his expression, but it was always hard to read with the way the scars distorted half of his face.
“You’ve been good,” he acknowledged.
Fucking finally.
“I’ll replace your bedding after you put the plug in. But ifyou take the plug out, I’ll take it back and you won’t have anything to sleep on but a sheet.”
He meant it, too. I could hear the conviction in his voice, and I loathed him for it.
“Fine,” I snapped. “I’ll wear it, like I said. You don’t have to make threats.”
Except for the fact that we both knew he did need to make threats. Otherwise I would try my damnedest to find a way around his rules, to try to find loopholes even though there might not have been any.
I offered my hands to him so he could unwrap them from the mitts, freeing them and making me feel more human than I had… except for the fact that the tail was going to reverse that.
He grabbed the bottle of lube we used every day for my enemas and slicked up the plug, putting a thankfully generous amount on it.
“Turn and raise up your ass so I can watch,” he ordered me.
