Slave Jade (19 page)
The older cop shook his head sadly. “She's awful skinny. Just a sack of bones, poor baby. What in God's name happened here? Who are these people?”
~*~
Lisa was trying to scream, but she was gagged, and her arms were bound painfully behind her back. Gilbert was standing over her, pouring a bucket of blood over her head. She screamed into the gag, her voice lost in a void of terror...
“Lisa! Lisa, baby, it's okay it's. It's just a bad dream, baby. Wake up, honey, it's just a dream.”
Bursting forth from the nightmare into consciousness Lisa grabbed at her mother, who was trying to cradle her in her arms. “Oh, Mom! Thank god. Thank god. Oh…” Lisa clutched her mother, hugging her tight. Her mother soothed her, murmuring in the soft sweet cadence she had used to calm her daughter when Lisa was small.
After a few minutes Lisa's taut body eased, and she fell back on her pillows. “I'm sorry, Mom. I thought the nightmares were going away, but still sometimes they get me...”
“Don't be silly, angel. My god, after what you've been through, who wouldn't have nightmares!” Lisa had protected her parents from the grueling details of her actual captivity. She hadn't told them about the beatings and repeated rapes. They could see for themselves that she had been starved, and they were horrified, certain worse had happened, though they hadn't pressed for the details.
She kept her body hidden from them, not wanting to shock them further by the myriad of welts and faded lash marks that covered her back, bottom and breasts. Though most of them had healed, a long, pale scar remained, marking her from shoulder to hip, a permanent reminder of her time in hell.
She had moved back home, once she was stabilized in the hospital, and had put on a few pounds. She was seeing a therapist, and she was working through the pain of what had happened to her in their sessions.
Curiously though, except for these nightmares, she felt happy. So alive! She appreciated everything about her life now. Her wonderful friends, her terrific parents, the way the grass grew so green and soft, the way an orange tasted, the way her own pillows plumped just right beneath her head. Each day was filled with gratitude. She knew she'd never take the freedom to live her own life for granted again.
And she found great solace volunteering in the local shelter and soup kitchen every weekend. Knowing she was helping to fill an empty belly gave her peace of mind. Each bowl she ladled healed a tiny part of the psychic wound left by Gilbert Johnson.
That was his name, she had learned sometime later. Gilbert Johnson. He had survived the bullet wound, and though she had thought at the time that she wanted him dead, Lisa was deeply relieved and grateful that he was still alive. She didn't want his blood on her hands.
The trial was set, and he was waiting in the county jail, without bail. While she wasn't looking forward to reliving the nightmare in court, or exposing her parents to all the sordid details that would invariably come out at the trial, she was glad for the chance to put him behind bars, hopefully for the rest of his life.
The man who had started out as her romantic ideal, a fictional Dom in a virtual world, had turned out to be a bully wannabe, and far worse, a dangerous man who had no boundaries. He didn't seem to grasp that other people were human beings. Somehow, he had lost himself in his virtual world, and what tenuous hold he'd had on reality had dissolved when he found himself the master of the girl of his dreams.
Lisa was certain now that his twisted domination would have continued to escalate, eventually leading to her death. Realizing how close she had come to dissolving into his mindless slave, living only for stingily offered creature comforts and avoidance of punishment, made Lisa realize how close we all are to losing our humanity.
Like a prisoner of war, Lisa had modified her behavior in ways that would seem extreme and even insane to those who lived their lives in freedom and safety. She'd compromised herself, but she recognized now, with the help of her therapist, that she had done what she could to survive—to save her own life. Even when her mind had seemed to shut down, allowing her to focus only on the little things that got her through each day—this was just a survival tool as well. Luckily, it hadn't gone so far that she couldn't find her way back.
And now, she wouldn't let Gilbert steal any more of her soul. Nor would she let him taint her continued exploration of her true submissive sexual feelings. What he'd offered, what he'd forced, had nothing to do with the romantic exchange of power, and the unique intensity of a D/s relationship based on love and trust.
She was still looking, though much more carefully, for a man who fit her groove. But she wasn't in a hurry. She'd take her time, and meet them in person. No more virtual Doms, and no more hours fantasizing about some email pen pal who might be no more than a collage of stolen advice, magazine pictures and lies.
Looking back, she found herself sometimes overwhelmed with grief and rage at what one evil and deluded man had done to shatter her life.
But looking forward she found herself filled with hope, and a love of life so vibrant it shimmered like sunlight dappling a river that stretched farther than she could yet see.
at Romance Unbound Publishing
The Solitary Knights of Pelham Bay
Texas Surrender
Cast a Lover’s Spell
Sarah’s Awakening
Wicked Hearts
Submission Times Two
Confessions of a Submissive
A Princely Gift
Accidental Slave
Slave Girl
Lara’s Submission
Slave Jade
Obsession
Golden Angel: Unwilling Sex Slave
Frog
The Toy
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