
Author's note: please accept my dark offering, a work in progress that arrived in my mind late one night and refused to leave.  I crave your responses to it, whatever they may be; I am unshockable.  Humans only, please: phoebe_slut (at) yahoo (dot) com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Living in the Dark

by phoebeslut

(C)2007


I.

	They take her on a warm spring afternoon, on her way home from school.  She is walking on the railroad tracks behind the cement factory, listening to Macy Gray on her iPod and trying not to think about the conversation she just had with her boyfriend.  Her eyes are on the tracks ahead and her mind is elsewhere, but still a hidden awareness makes her turn in time to see a flash of white skin, dark glasses and a dark suit before she is pushed suddenly sideways and her face hits the gravel between the ties.  A knee is on her spine, her hair is yanked back, and she feels a tiny sting on her neck before everything lurches out of focus and away.
	Some time later there is another lurch back into consciousness.  It is dark; something is covering her face; she cannot move.  The screams bursting out of her are muffled by the cloth stuffed into her mouth.  She is mute, blind, terrified.
	But she can hear.
	"Shut  the fuck up," a voice says next to her ear.  "Shut the _fuck_ up right now and listen." A spike of fear runs through her heart, and she holds her breath to choke off the next scream.
	"There are two things you need to understand immediately.  The first thing is that you're no longer in charge of what is happening in your life.  I am.  I make the decisions now, and I will tell you what to do."  The voice is male, with a faint accent she can't place.  She can feel his breath on her ear.
	"The second thing is that if you don't do exactly what you're told, I will hurt you.  I will hurt you like you have never been hurt before."  There is the sound of a switchblade knife snapping out, and then whatever is covering her face comes away.
	She is staring into a mirror at herself.  Light comes from somewhere above, shining directly on her in a narrow beam.  She is standing with her  back against a concrete column, her legs spread wide.  Her body is encased in a shiny translucent material like thick, rubbery plastic wrap that clings to her contours.  The top part, which had covered her whole head except for her nose and her ears, has just been sliced away.  Her arms are crossed at the wrist behind her back, pinned between her spine and the column.  She cannot move a single part of her body so much as an inch, except for her head, which turns freely.  But there is no need to turn.  In the mirror, she can see quite clearly the devil standing behind her.
	There is only darkness behind the devil.  It is a mask, she realizes suddenly; a  plastic halloween mask.  Red, with yellow horns and a black sneer.  Real eyes behind it.  He leans forward a little into the light, and she can see that the top of the mask is dusty.
	"You'll want to pay close attention to what I say.  I don't repeat myself, and I don't make idle threats."  The devil puts a warm hand on her shoulder, and brings the other around in front of her, holding something.  It's a metal cylinder about ten inches long, about as thick as her wrist.  
	"Watch," the devil says.  There is a sound, _snick,_ and in the same instant the thing is bristling with little blades, bright silver: needle-like blades, serrated blades, curved and jagged blades angled sharply in all directions.  The devil turns the cylinder slowly, and the light glints off the surfaces.  _Snick._  The blades are gone.
	She screams before she knows what she is doing.  Can't help it, and can't seem to stop when the devil's switchblade cuts a hole in the material to expose her pussy, and when he rubs the tip of the cylinder against her pussy lips, and when he pushes it up inside her.  Until he speaks again, and then somehow she's able to hold her breath.
	"Understand this.  You are nothing to me.  If you fail to satisfy me in some way, I will end your life, but first I will torture you for as long as possible.  I may well do that in any case.  I have all the cunt I need at the moment, so yours is totally expendable."  The cylinder moves deeper into her, twisting as it goes.  "You've seen what this device can do.  I would not hesitate a moment to activate it and pull hard."
	Tears are streaming from the corners of her eyes, but she makes no sound.  No sound will come.
	"I get anything from you, _anything,_ any lip, any look I don't like, any slowness to respond, any sign of resistance -- that is all the reason I need to tear your body apart and watch you suffer.  DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"
	She nods, nods, nods, nods, nods.
	The devil watches her, and then he nods too, once, and exhales through the mask.  "Good.  Here comes the first test."
	Out of the darkness, the devil pulls a low metal table on wheels.  Then two metal folding chairs.  He slices the material from her neck down to her crotch where the metal cylinder is buried with its blades concealed inside it, inside her.  Her hands are still crossed at the wrist behind her back, bound with plastic ties.  Two more slices down her legs and she steps out of the plastic wrap, naked.
	"Sit," says the devil.
	She sits in the nearest chair, and the devil sits across from her.  He is naked too, except for the mask.  On the table is a small clamp, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a roll of paper towels.
	"Put your tits on the table.  Then don't fucking move.  No sound whatsoever.  I hear a peep or see you move a fucking hair, I will turn your cunt into hamburger."
	She does what she's told.  Quickly.  She tells herself she won't hesitate, she won't get herself killed.  She'll do whatever he wants and live through it, no matter how awful it is, and soon someone will come looking for her.  Her parents.  The police.  Todd . . . no, not Todd.  Not anymore.
	The table is cold steel.  The devil pours rubbing alcohol on her nipples, sloshing it across.  He pours a little on the clamp in his hand, and then he wipes it all up with a paper towel.  Her nipples are stiffened by the stimulation, standing tight and hard as he approaches them.  First he takes the right one and fits it into the clamp.  Her heart is crashing madly, her breath comes shallow and rapid and the clamp bites down hard, too hard, punching through her skin, and pain explodes.  
	She bites back at the pain with stillness and silence, the stubborn will of the self to survive.  He hasn't told her not to cry.  She weeps without a sound, almost without movement; she can't help flinching when the clamp strikes home the first time, but when the devil pierces her left nipple too she pisses herself, hot urine flooding down her thighs.  Her eyes are squeezed shut and she's trying to get somewhere far away from the pain so she won't need to feel it, and react, and die.
	She doesn't die.  The devil takes two steel rings and pushes them through the bleeding holes in her nipples, then clamps them into closed circles.  Her mind is repeating the quadratic equation: _x equals negative b plus the square root of b squared minus 4ac, all over 2a, x equals negative b plus the square root of b squared minus 4ac, all over 2a._  It's not working, she can't shut out the the pain.  Through stinging, tear-blurred eyes she sees the devil passing a slim metal chain through the rings, linking them.
	"Stand up."
	The devil tugs on the chain, and her wounded nipples sing.  She stands quickly and then the devil is clipping a leash to the chain between her breasts and leading her into the darkness.
	A few moments later she is told to stop, and the leash is removed.  The spotlit mirror and shining table somewhere behind them are the only sources of light in this large room, and all around her the darkness is nearly complete.
	She feels a hand on the back of her neck, and then another on her throat.  They begin slowly to draw together, closing off her air, and she is panicking but cannot move her arms.  Wouldn't move them if she could, because that would be a sign of resistance.  And she wants to stay alive.  
	So she keeps still as he chokes her, her trapped heart racing, and then the pressure is suddenly gone.  She breathes in huge gasps through her nose.  A leather collar slips around her neck, replacing the hands, and is cinched tight.  Not as tight as the hands were, but tight enough.  
	She feels the devil's hand on her ass.  For a moment he caresses it delicately, sending shivers through her.  His other hand returns to her throat and finds the steel ring set into the front of her collar.  When he pulls it, her head is yanked sharply forward and down, and she crashes to the concrete floor.  Through the burst of fresh pain she hears the click of a padlock closing.
	"Get the fuck up."
	She swallows the scream, swallows hard.  Her elbows and legs are scraped, bleeding.  She tries to stand but her collar is now padlocked to the wall on a short, heavy chain, about two feet high.
	"Now, bitch!  Move that ass up and out as far as it goes, and spread those fucking legs!"
	She rises on her knees somehow, hands still bound behind her back.  She spreads her legs, lifts her ass.
	"That's more like it.  Lesson one, cunt: when I snap my fingers, you get in position.  Don't ever make me wait.  You got me?"
	She nods as much as she can, which isn't very much in her current position.  The next moment, she feels the cylinder moving inside her.  The devil begins to thrust in and out with it, slowly.  A gobbet of spit lands on her asshole.  A finger slides in the spit around and around the pucker, dipping into it, moving smoothly and steadily.  She is so far into terror that when she begins to feel aroused, it comes as a form of relief, and she clings to it.  Something that doesn't hurt.  A small gleam of pleasure in all the fear.  
	The gleam grows.  The devil is caressing her clit as he slowly fingerfucks her asshole, and her cunt clenches around the cylinder.  Little mewing moans come out of her, around the gag in her mouth.
	"That's right, slut, you love it.  You love being used and controlled and fucked with.  And if you don't, you're going to learn to love it.  But I think you're already there."  The finger in her asshole sinks deep.  "Lesson two: when you're told to come, you fucking _come._  If you can't do that you're wasting my time, and trust me -- you do not want to waste my time."  The finger pistons, twisting, faster, and her clit is polished and swollen and she's ready, she's so ready.
	"Come, bitch!  Right now!"
	Her orgasm is explosive, a sudden intense heat that overwhelms her senses so that she barely registers the pain when her knees give way and crash to the floor again.  She tries to stay with the pleasure, ride it for as long as possible, because it's the only thing left to her.  But the glow ebbs away and, against her will, consciousness returns.  She realizes that she has been screaming.  
	The devil is breathing heavily behind her.  She hears him move around to the side, and then he grabs her hair and yanks her head up.  He grunts, a word or two she can't make out, and then something wet splatters against her cheek.  Wet and hot.  Come.  He's coming on her face.  It hits her eye and rolls down the side of her nose like tears.
	"Good.  You might just live through this, if you're lucky."  A hard slap rings out and she's knocked sideways, her cheek blazing with heat.  "I'm done with you for now.  Sleep well."
	She doesn't hear his footsteps retreating, but after a moment she hears a door opening somewhere behind her.  The spotlight in the center of the room clicks off.  Closing, the squeak of rusted metal.  And he's gone.
	For a while she does nothing but breathe.  When she's sure that she can breathe again, she starts to cry, and she doesn't stop for a long time.  She cries soundlessly, but her body moves at last; her legs fold up beneath her, her forehead comes to rest on the concrete wall.
	Gradually, the pain in her body comes into focus: bruised and strained muscles, torn skin, rattled bones, aching jaw.  And the chill of the room begins to register.  She pisses herself again and her thighs feel warm, briefly, before they go cold.  The semen is drying on her face.  The tears finally stop and she is so tired, so exhausted now, and she scoots closer to the wall.  She wishes she could move her aching arms and wrap them around her legs for warmth, but she can't.  She can't close her mouth or make any sound except through her nose.  
	She starts humming songs from the school play.  Opening night is in two weeks, and she wonders if Janet Baldwin will have to understudy for her.  Then she realizes that she has no idea how much time passed between the abduction on the railroad tracks and her awakening in this room; it might have been an hour or two, or a day, or a month.  She knows neither when nor where she is.
	Time passes.  Some of the pains, like the bruises and scrapes and piercings, recede into dull throbbing; others, like the strain on her arms and in her folded legs, intensify.  She can move out onto her knees, but they're raw and sore and can't stand it for long.  She can just barely rest her buttocks on the floor, but then her collar nearly chokes her.  So mostly she stays with her legs tucked under her, slowly going numb and prickly until she shifts again.
	She can't fall asleep, since she has to keep shifting position, but she wanders into a daze that sometimes includes periods of unconsciousness.  Her mind plays back fragments of memory.  Sometimes the recent past is there, the last week especially, with all its art/life drama.  The S.A.T. and a trig test and the play; not much sleep then, either.  The wounded look on Todd's face when she broke up with him.  The guilt that sat in her stomach on the way home.  The railroad tracks.  Then she slams out of the daze and back into the darkness again, the fear and the pain.
	After a while there is hunger, and then thirst.  She shivers, dreams of pizza and root beer.  Her stomach cramps up.  The cylinder finally slides out of her, and she can't get it back in; she wonders if the devil will kill her for that.
	Hours pass.  She's somehow sure of that, though she has no idea how many hours it's been.  There is no way of telling the time of day or night.  She breathes slowly and endures, because she has no choice.
	Metal scrapes.  The door behind her opens.  She skids up out of her half-sleep into brutal awareness, and quickly rises on her knees with her head against the wall.  Spreads her legs.  Waits.
	The devil laughs behind her.  "You learn fast," he says.  "That's good.  That gets you a little reward."  With a snip, the plastic ties are off her hands, which fall limply to the floor.  She has lost feeling in them; the circulation in her arms has been partially cut off for a long time.  Her body sinks down.  The relief is distant, yet still overwhelming.
	"I'm taking out the gag, too.  Got some food here.  You want to eat, you eat now or you wait till I remember to feed you again.  If you do anything with your mouth other than eat, I'll cut off an ear.  Are we clear?"
	She nods.
	The clasp at the back of her head is released and the gag is pulled roughly out of her mouth.  She gasps.  The full breath she has been longing to take surges in through her lips and out again.  It is exhilarating to breathe deeply, like flying.
	"Open your mouth.  Here comes the choo-choo," the devil snickers.  She winces as something brushes her lips.  It smells like meat.  Lunch meat, roast beef or pastrami; thin-sliced, salty.  She takes it in and chews it, hoping that it is what it tastes like and not human flesh, or poison, or some other horrible thing.  Because she's so hungry, and it tastes so good, and she feels like an animal now; she can't help herself.  She chews and chews as more folded pieces of beef enter her mouth, and swallows gratefully.  She only wants to stay alive.  She has to believe it's possible.
	"All right, you can go back to whatever it was you were doing.  Just keep it quiet, and remember, when I snap my fingers --"
	He snaps his fingers.  She is up again quickly, scooting her knees back and bracing her wobbly arms against the floor for the first time.  She leans her forehead on the wall.  Spreads her legs.  Waits.
	The devil's laugh is another relief.  He's getting what he wants, and that keeps her alive.  "That's right," he says, and smacks her ass with his hand.  "That's fucking right."  He smacks it again.  "That's fucking _right._"  A third smack, hard.  "Since you seem to be able to follow the rules, I'll take this little toy for now" -- she feels the cylinder that had fallen out of her, caressing the cleft of her ass -- "and give you something better."
	The devil's cock spears into her cunt, sudden, full, hard.  It knocks the wind out of her.  He grabs and lifts her hips as he pulls out and thrusts again; her knees rise from the floor.  Each time he fills her, he grunts.  She feels her cheeks burning as if they'd been slapped, and it takes her a minute to realize that she's embarrassed because she's getting turned on.  That's okay, she thinks, it'll make it easier if he orders me to come.  But already the devil's cock is jumping as it hits the downthrust, and she feels the splash of fluid deep inside her.  He roars, she cries out, her head is shoved against the concrete wall and she feels the impact ringing in her bones.  Her arms give way.  "Stupid -- worthless -- fucking -- cunt."  _Smack!_  An open palm whips across her buttocks, hard, fast, then a lightning storm of blows, and his cock is still jammed deep, pulsing slow spasms of come into her core.
	Abruptly he pulls out and stands over her.  "You smell like an outhouse.  You reek like a fucking dog in heat, you slut.  It's time to take a bath."  A moment later, a hot stream of urine hits her back and shoulders, then moves up into her hair.  Her hair is pulled back.  He orders her to open her mouth and she does, and swallows his piss.  All the while, he is talking to her.  "You drink that, now.  Clean out that stink inside you."  She swallows.  It's warm splashing over her face, salty-bitter on her tongue, stinging as it goes down her throat.  The devil chuckles, wipes his wet cock on her lips.  "Did you like that?"
	She nods mutely.
	"Good fucking answer.  You might make it out of here, after all."
	Footsteps.  The door.  He is gone.
	The words, ringing in her mind: _make it out of here._