They were here.
Chapter Eight
H
e wasn’t sure what he’d see when they found Breanna. The first thought that came to his mind as he looked upon the woman kneeling in the straw was: “I don’t want anyone looking at her.”
It was such an odd thing to think, but it just popped in there, before he had a chance to filter it through reality, sanity, or logic.
Such things appeared to have taken leave of this place.
“What do we do now?” Derek hated the uncertainty in his voice, almost as much as he hated the erection he knew his jeans were failing to hide. This whole thing was fucked. Truly fucked. Yet here he was, staring at her. Staring at the generous, heaving breasts he longed to feel fill his hands, at the long, pink nipples he wanted to taste on his tongue, at the big, wide eyes he wanted to kiss the fright from.
“You bought her my friend.” Kurt slipped past Derek, moving into the stall to stand over his wife. “She’s yours to do whatever you like with. That was the deal.”
Breanna’s eyes moved up to her husband’s, and Derek saw something exchanged there, so much said without a single word.
“Then I want her covered up. This is insane.” Derek scanned the enclosure. “Gotta be something we can give her.”
Kurt turned back to him, an eyebrow raised. “Why would you do that? She’s here to be seen. That’s
also
part of the deal.”
“Is this up to me or not?” The surrealness of this conversation was almost painful. “You said she’s mine, right?”
Kurt’s jaw clenched, then he held up his hands. “All right. You’re right, she is.” He walked back outside the stall. “Hang tight.”
Then he found himself, alone in a building filled with people, with his friend’s wife, naked, on her knees, helpless.
“I — I have no idea what the hell I’m supposed to do here.”
“I’d say you’re doing—” Breanna’s throat moved. “—just fine.” She flashed him a nervous smile. The same smile that lit up her face, the few times he’d met her. How she’d managed it in this situation, he’d never know.
You need to stop being a fucking pussy, and just roll with this. She picked this, remember?
He tried not to look directly at her as he spoke, but thought better of it. Absurdly, he didn’t want her to think that he didn’t want to look at her. God, all he
wanted
to do was look at her. All night long. For the next hundred nights.
“I need to know if what he told me … is this something you really —
wanted
?” He met her gaze. “I can’t do this if this was forced on you. I just can’t.”
The relief he saw in her eyes buoyed his spirits, and she smiled again, this time with more confidence. “I chose to be auctioned, yes … ”
“Here comes the ‘but’, right?”
She dropped her gaze a moment, color flushing her cheeks. Then she met his gaze again. “What happens afterward, after the auction …it’s not up to me.”
“You mean you — just do whatever he says?”
He looked behind him to see if Kurt had returned. No luck.
“I do whatever you say.”
Whoa.
He took in the whips handing from a row of hooks on the wall beside her, and thought what they might do to her—
Stop it. Right now.
Breanna’s brow furrowed, and she glanced beyond him.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m—” the flush bloomed fully then, coloring her entire face. “—I’m not supposed to talk.”
“
What
?”
She swallowed hard. “That’s one of the rules when I come here. No speaking unless spoken to. It’s always been that way.”
“What … why?”
This was getting weirder by the second, but he’d be lying if he said part of this intrigued him. Was this some sort of elaborate role-playing thing? Is that was this was all about? Then he thought back to what he’d witnessed, what he’d heard out there, and thought better of it. If this was just a game, it was the most elaborate mind-fuck of a game he’d ever heard of.
This was the real deal.
“Jesus H,” Derek said, rubbing his chin. He looked behind him once more. “I need to see where the hell Kurt … ”
“Don’t go, please Derek. Sir.”
A chill traveled down his spine, even as his cock ached, fully at attention. So, he found this whole thing way over the top. Apparently, his cock wasn’t getting with the program. Not one bit.
Sir?
Kurt appeared in entrance to the stall again, grinning. He shoved a red and blue striped blanket at Derek. “Here, this is all we have out here.”
“This is it?” Derek held up the heavy wool blanket. “This is your barn, right?”
Kurt shrugged. “We usually take clothes
off
out here — not put them back on. You’re lucky I found even that.”
Derek spread the blanket in his arms, grimacing at the fact that it was made of wool. He didn’t even want to think of the itching it would cause, laid over her bare skin. He moved behind Breanna, and froze in his tracks. Her arms where bound forearm to forearm in a tight, intertwined leather harness behind her back. He glanced up at Kurt. “Is that really necessary?”
“What? Her arms?”
Derek nodded, spreading the blanket over her shoulders, draping the scratchy wool over the slopes of her quivering breasts. She tensed as he laid it fully over her, then relaxed as he patted her gently on the back.
“Don’t worry about it. They’ll be loosened once Lino takes her—”
“Wait, wait. Back up the train.” Derek jabbed a finger at his friend. “Who the fuck is Lino? And where is he taking her?”
Kurt winced, crossing his arms. “We didn’t get a chance to go over that part did we?”
“There’s
more
to this circus? Guess maybe it’s time to fill me in, you think?”
Kurt grinned, holding out a hand. “I didn’t want to freak you out. Baby steps, you know?”
Derek sighed, scrubbing his face with both hands. “Look, lets just assume I can take anything you tell me from here on out. Deal? I did, you know …
buy
your wife.”
The straw on the floorboards rustled as Kurt circled his kneeling wife, his hand caressing her golden hair. “Lino has to take her to be prepped.”
“Prepped for what? Where is he taking her?”
Kurt stopped, kneeling down in front of his wife. “Another part of the facility.”
“Facility? You mean this place, right?”
Kurt nodded, then looked up at him. “He’s going to be teaching us.”
“Spanish?”
“No, you asshole.” Kurt couldn’t quite suppress his smile though. “He’s going to teach us how to train her.”
Derek’s eyes caught Breanna’s and he saw the truth of things there. This was really happening, and though he did see concern, even dismay in those blue eyes, he saw something else that was unambiguous.
Anticipation.
“Um, Kurt, in case you haven’t noticed, your wife doesn’t need ‘training’. She’s not a dog, she’s a person.”
Kurt’s finger stroked across her mouth, and she closed her eyes, pressing a kiss to it, her soft, full lips making Derek wonder how they’d feel as he kissed them. Then Kurt stood.
“That’s why Lino’s going to be teaching us. And it’s why we’ll be training her.”
“For what?” Derek’s voice was almost a whisper, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear the answer.
“She’ll be trained to become … something else.”
Chapter Nine
S
omething else? WHAT something else?
Breanna watched the two men talk, conversing above as if she weren’t even there. Things had taken yet another turn for the surreal. When she’d first floated the idea of being put up for a term, she hadn’t even been sure if she were serious. She’d heard the rumors about what went on with the women who’d been sentenced to one. Voluntary or not, once they’d agreed to surrender themselves to the Trust, there was no telling what might be done with them. Perhaps they’d just be shared between a jaded couple in bed a few nights? She’d heard tales of husbands who treated the women as little more than maids — maids who were required to perform a few extra duties though. The whole system was only whispered about and no matter how much she’d interrogated her husband on the topic, he’d always been maddeningly vague, even evasive.
It had been an off-hand remark she’d made after forgetting to schedule something for one of Kurt’s business trips. “Guess you need to put me up for a Term,” she’d joked, exasperated at her occasional forgetfulness. She was an administrator for a large clinic, responsible for literally dozens of employees, involved in every aspect of the business — and sometimes she’d forget to do something as simple as schedule a flight. Always harder on herself than anyone else, she’d let that little comment slip out.
Kurt had told her he’d arrange it, his eyes sober, almost solemn. He hadn’t even given her a chance to back out, to protest that she wasn’t serious. Had it mattered? Didn’t her quick, silent acquiescence say as much as any words could have?
Did Kurt somehow know she sometimes lay awake at night, listening to his deep breathing as he slept, and wondering what a Term would actually be like? Could he tell that she fantasized about anonymous, rough sex at the hands of several men? Particularly one man who crept repeatedly back into her thoughts? It wasn’t possible for Kurt to know how dark, how twisted her fantasies had become. To be treated as less than a woman, objectified … used. Such thoughts kept her awake at night, amplified her desire as Kurt’s thick cock pushed its way into her, drawing a moan from her.
Now, as the men stood talking above her, she realized that making this fantasy come true had been a
helluva
lot more than she’d anticipated. Everything had been so much more intense, in the flesh. The avid, sparkling eyes in the audience taking in the spectacle, relishing her degradation, the skirring sound of the leather as she pulled against its implacable grip, the earthy scent of the straw and the musty, weathered floorboards.
She watched her men — odd to think of them that way already, but she did — marveling at their height. Though almost six feet herself, Kurt still looked down upon her at his 6’4”. His rangy, lean body and shock of jet black hair perfectly matched the chiseled, not quite pretty face, the lines at his eyes and mouth showing the ravages of time in that most flattering of ways that men (much to her dismay) seemed to wear so well. Derek was perhaps slightly shorter than her husband, but, as she stole glances at him, she could tell he was powerfully built, broad shoulders straining a dark dress shirt that tapered nicely to a narrow waist, the thick, corded thighs nicely shown off by the well-worn denim of his jeans. The prominent bulge between those thighs told her that part of him at least seemed to disagree with his obvious dismay at her predicament.
She found it endearing in a way, that he’d be so concerned for her. Indeed, though she
was
genuinely worried that she’d bitten off more than she could chew, she felt better with both of them there. Though Kurt could be strict, even cruel at times, she knew he’d never let her be hurt. She knew that soft core he couldn’t quite hide from his wife, that part of him that she knew how to call to. It was how she usually ended up getting her way — despite the fact it was Kurt who indisputably “ran the ship”.
“We need to find Lino,” Kurt said, meeting Breanna’s eyes. “Let’s get you up. You’re probably needing to stretch your legs anyway, right?”
She watched him a moment, not sure if he was really wanting her to respond. Then he gave her the slightest of nods.
“They’re falling asleep,” she whispered, surprised at the softness of her voice.
“Damn.” Derek knelt down next to her, a soft hand on her upper arm. “Here, I’ll help you—”
“Derek, wait,” Kurt said, grabbing his shoulder. “Let her. She’s gonna need to get used to this anyway. Just untie her.”
“Whatever, I thought she was ‘mine’,” Derek muttered, loosening each of her arms to Kurt’s amused chuckle.
“Oh she is, she is.” Kurt pulled a length of thick black leather from one of the hooks above her. He handed it to Derek. “Which is why you get to do the honors.”
A collar? Oh, shit.
Firmly into unfamiliar waters now, she swallowed, telling herself to be strong. This was what she wanted. Not to know what came next, the opportunity, the paradoxical
freedom
of simply floating along with the current, to go where it took her. It was a central appeal of the Term — that complete lack of choice, once she’d made
her
choice to agree to it.
She watched Derek look from the collar, over to Kurt, and back to the length of leather swinging from his hand. “You’re serious with this, Kurt?”
“Of course.” Kurt held up a leash, curled into a loop. “What do you think I’m going to attach this to?”
Oh, fuck.