Unraveled by Her (18 page)

I push the thought of her out of my mind, and concentrate, instead, on Robert’s words.

“But if circumstances ever dictate that we are compelled to spend a few days apart, you might want to remember what I’m about to tell you—my answer to your question regarding the secret of Dungeon Two—and that should serve to help you satisfy yourself when I’m not there to do it for you,” he says.

A fantasy, Robert is about to give me a fantasy!

Chapter Fifteen

As always, he is one step ahead of me, one of his most irritating yet most magical talents. He says, “I don’t usually deal in sex fantasies, simply because I have the drive, the desire, and the means to make my fantasies reality. So for me, the majority of my fantasies are simply plans. Just not this one. Not for you,” he says, as he slips one finger inside me, then two more and fucks me with them, relentlessly.

“It’s very simple. Simple, but harsh, perhaps even cruel,” he says, and, on the word “cruel” thrusts his fingers into me hard.

I can’t wait to hear it, but what he’s doing to me right now makes it almost impossible for me to focus on his words.

“Now concentrate and imagine yourself in this position,” he says, then under his breath murmurs, “Not that you will ever be . . .”

Meanwhile, I sit up straight and wait for him to begin.

“Picture this. As my submissive, on one particular day, you displease me immeasurably. First, I bend you over a whipping bench, then punish you unmercifully, to the point of tears,” he says, and deep inside, I give thanks that Robert has helped me release my inhibitions about emotion and that one day, when he decides the time is ripe, and we are in the dungeon together, he will punish me and I shall cry for him without holding back.

“But although you are sobbing, abject, contrite, I decide that a mere whipping wasn’t sufficient to demonstrate to you the error of your ways, so I bring you in here, to Dungeon Two,” he says.

I gulp.

“Now I want you to consider whether or not you will ever be equal to experiencing the cruel and unusual punishment I am prepared to detail to you next,” he says, with another hard thrust of his fingers inside me. So hard, so deep, that I can’t but moan.

I can only nod in answer.

He gives me one last penetrating look, and his eyes level with mine for an inordinately long time. Finally, he clears his throat and says, “Imagine this, then; you are sore, contrite, almost broken. I ignore your distress, and then I order you into the Pit. And you comply.”

“Can I try it, please, Master, just for a minute, just to see what it feels like, locked down there?” I say.

“I was afraid you’d ask me to put you down there,” he says, and I can tell that while he was genuinely afraid that I would, part of him hoped for it.

“Just for a few minutes, please, Master, please!” I say.

“I can’t deny you anything, Miranda,” he says, then gets up off the couch, pulls me up behind him, and in one swift gesture strips me of my robe so that I stand beside him, naked.

“Seven minutes, just so that you can learn and then imagine how it will feel for you to be relegated to the Pit as punishment, and then you will always remember . . .” he says, and points to the steps.

I start to shake from head to foot with a combination of terror and erotic excitement, but still start down the narrow steps.

For a split second I hesitate and—just as Robert already has—I ask myself whether I should really be doing this so soon after my ordeal at the hands of Georgiana and Tamara, who, after all, had me trapped in their equivalent of the Pit.

Probably not, but at the same time, I am so caught up in the thrill of the moment, the trancelike effect of being in Robert’s power, to such a degree that I long for him to subject me to this, and there is no way in the universe that I am going to back out.

And certainly not because of Georgiana. I refuse to allow her shadow to defeat or control me, or to mar my excitement or curtail my exploration of BDSM in every rainbow color, light and dark.

At the bottom of the stairs, there is hardly enough room for me to stand upright, so I squat on the floor and gaze up at Robert, suddenly overcome by a sense of shame at my own abjectness.

“Are you sure you can handle this?” he says.

I’m not, but hell will freeze over before I back down from a challenge.

“I was never surer of anything in my life,” I say.

“Just a taste. Just seven minutes,” he says, his voice hoarse and even lower than usual.

And then he shuts the trapdoor above my head with a bang and leaves me crouched on the floor of the Pit, in the darkness.

After only a couple of minutes, I already feel light-headed, faint, yet somehow elated.

Each second in there feels like an hour.

The silence around me is deafening.

Then I hear thunder crash above my head.

Only it’s not thunder.

It’s Robert, striding across the dungeon floor.

Is he moving toward the trapdoor?

Or away from it?

I’m not sure.

All I know is that down here, in the punishment Pit, naked and alone, I understand more forcibly than ever that when it comes to my sexuality, I, Miranda Stone, really am two women.

The first hopes desperately that Robert’s footsteps will come closer and closer to the trapdoor, and that any minute now he will open it and release me.

But the second woman hopes with all her might that his footsteps are moving farther and farther from the trapdoor, and that he will leave me locked in the Pit for many more minutes than seven.

Which woman will gain the upper hand? A conundrum. And one which could take an entire lifetime for me to understand.

In the interim, I wait down in the Pit, in total silence.

And the minutes feel like hours, days, weeks.

Then the trapdoor opens and the Pit is flooded by light.

Robert reaches down to help me up, and I fling myself into his arms.

“Too harsh and cruel for you, Miranda?” he says when he’s stopped kissing and hugging me, and together we sit on the couch again.

“I don’t think so,” I say, but am not really altogether sure.

He gives me one of his piercing looks, the kind that makes me feel as if he can see beneath my skin.

“Probably not. But then you’ve only experienced the first half of the Pit punishment, not the second,” he says.

And I blanch.

“So would you like me to tell you about the rest of it?” he says, and plunges his fingers into me, while I nod, all big eyes and pounding heart.

With his fingers up inside me, he thrusts, twists, turns, and moves them sometimes straight up, sometimes more to the right, sometimes forward, sometimes slightly backward, while he pleasures me, finger-fucks me, and through it all talks up an erotic storm.

“Imagine this, Miranda: fifteen minutes in the pit, not seven. You down there, naked, alone, in silence, with nothing to occupy you but your own thoughts, your own realization of what and who you really are.”

“And just as you sink into that silence, that darkness, that consciousness of who you really are, what you really are, and what you really want, you hear footsteps directly above you. Footsteps that stomp over the trapdoor above your head.”

“Like before,” I manage to say, just as he pauses for a fraction in finger-fucking me.

He flashes me his most dominant look.

“Not exactly,” he says.

And I look at him questioningly.

“Because those footsteps won’t just belong to me, but to someone else, as well. To another beautiful woman, but one who is not nearly as beautiful as you.”

Much as the prospect terrifies me, I feel the orgasm build within me stronger, faster, deeper, and totally against my will.

“And while you cower in the Pit, naked and alone, you will hear the sound of me bending that woman over the couch. Then the sound of a crop on her naked flesh. Then her cries, first of pain, then, when I start fucking her, cries of ecstasy.

“And fuck her, I do. While you, Miranda, are in the Pit, in the dark, picturing in every detail exactly what I am doing to another woman, and hearing every bit of it, and suffering all alone down in the Pit,” he says.

“That’s really sadistic,” I say.

“Of course it is,” he says, and then, with a knowing smile, he plunges his fingers deep into me, then adds, “And the fact that fantasizing about it gets you so wet is really masochistic.”

He’s right.

“Of course it is, Master,” I say, and he rewards me with his all-conquering Robert Hartwell smile.

Chapter Sixteen

The next day at breakfast, Robert asks whether I’ve ever walked a labyrinth—an ancient and intricate walkway stamped on concrete on the ground, but without walls.

I know that Georgiana walked the labyrinth in the castle grounds on practically a daily basis. The thought of literally following in her footsteps is unthinkable to me.

“A labyrinth is almost older than time, darling. I first walked one in Chartres Cathedral when I was very young and unhappy, and somehow, the act of putting one foot in front of the other, focusing hard so that I didn’t cross the lines, miraculously put me into a meditative state,” he says.

Robert, the ultimate man of action, meditating?

I find it difficult to believe.

But then he’s so many things, so much the Renaissance man, that I shouldn’t be at all surprised that he’s spiritual as well.

“I found that state eminently healing. And problem solving, as well. Which is why I’ve walked the labyrinth’s path every day since I first bought the castle and had one installed here,” he finishes.

So it isn’t there because of Georgiana at all . . .

“I think it might be good for you to walk it, after . . .” he says, then jumps up, “Let’s take a walk there together, and I’ll show you.”

I follow him, and while we stroll down to the labyrinth, he gives me a brief lesson on its significance.

“The labyrinth dates back to prehistoric times, when it was believed that the strange pattern was designed in order to trap evil spirits,” he says, and two images swim before my eyes, one dead, one very much alive. I am overcome with the wish that I could trap both of them in the labyrinth to rot in hell.

“One of the best and most famous examples is in Crete, in the palace of Knossos. It was designed for King Minos to contain the minotaur,” he adds, just as we arrive at the edge of the labyrinth, where he points out the intricate pattern, and the heart of it, at the center.

“It’s like the petals of a flower, isn’t it? Start at the entrance, and then tell the universe what you need, what you want, ask the question to which you need an answer, take a deep breath, and start walking. And when you reach the center, and the mood takes you, spend a few minutes standing on one of the petals and enjoy the moment. Then walk back to the entrance again. By the time I get there, I often find that the answer to my question has come to me,” he says.

“I’d love to do it, then.”

“Take your time, darling, and I’ll see you back at the house when you’re done.” He kisses me on the cheek and leaves me there alone to ask my question: how can I dispel this nightmare I’m in?

Half an hour later, when I’ve arrived back at the labyrinth entrance again, I know what I must do. I must confess everything to Robert right away. I must tell him that Georgiana is still alive, that she was the architect of my kidnapping, how she executed that kidnapping and all the twisted intentions that motivated her to unleash such evil upon me

I still struggle with whether to include in my confession her supposed justifications for what she did: sudden poverty, rape, an evil genius manipulating her, and finally, the ultimate blackmail, into which she claims she was coerced on pain of death.

All I know is that the time has come for me to tell Robert the truth and let the chips fall wherever they may . . .

But when I burst into the library, primed to confess everything to Robert, he greets me eagerly. “I so hope you enjoyed walking the labyrinth like I always do, darling. If you did, we can fly to Crete tomorrow and walk the one there together,” he says, and apart from the fact that I’m filled with warmth on hearing the word “we,” I am also reminded of his vast fortune, his jet-set money-is-no-object lifestyle, which means that he can command any one of his pilots to fly him anywhere on earth at a moment’s notice.

“That would be lovely,” I say, although I’m not sure that after he listens to my dire confession he’ll even want to go to Huntington Mall with me, never mind Crete.

He looks so delighted that I loved the labyrinth that it seems downright cruel for me to immediately launch into the confessional speech I planned.

At dinner, then.

“By the way, I’ve invited Mary Ellen and Rory to join us for dinner tonight—they can’t wait to hear all about Hawaii,” he says.

Okay, after dinner. I’ll tell him everything after dinner, when they’ve gone.