“I want to swallow.”
“You want to swallow?”
“Yes.”
He stopped kissing her. His face changed, becoming hard again. “You don’t want me to come inside you,” he said. “Fucking bitch. I’ll take your ass or your pussy. What’s it going to be?”
She compressed her lips, bitterly. She kept her eyes locked with his.
“What’s it going to be, Nicole?”
“I hate you, James,” she told him passionately. “You don’t know how much I wish I never went to that gas station.”
He knocked her to the ground with his fist, and when she tried to move away, he kicked her in the side. She curled in agony, and he reached down and dragged her to her feet. He tossed her onto the bed, and she clutched at the blankets and sobbed uncontrollably.
He stood with his hands at his sides, watching her. In a moment she began to settle down. She lay motionless, catching her breath. He sat on the bed, suddenly sorry for what he’d done. She sat up and looked at him. Her lip was busted and bleeding.
“Baby, look what you made me do,” he said, murmuring brokenly. He pressed his forehead to hers. “You’ve got me all twisted up inside. I just want to love you, make love to you. I’m nothing without you.”
He was going to kill her eventually, she knew it. He was slowly killing her. He tried to kiss the side of her mouth. She suddenly twisted her face away. She was insane. Wild.
“Don’t fuck me, try to love me, just stay away!” she screamed. He tried to grab her arms. “No! Don’t touch me! Fuck you! Fuck you!” She struggled out of his hands, and scrambled off the bed. He went after her, trying to grab her. For a short time she succeeded in eluding him, but soon he manoeuvred her into a corner, and grabbed her arms.
“I’ll fuck you!” he said. He dragged her downstairs having to exert all his strength, because she was extraordinarily strong in her panic and rage.
The punishment was severe. He beat her, then she was forced to hang from a roof beam by a single handcuff attached to her wrist for several hours.
When he finally let her down she was weak and broken. She let him take her back upstairs. He chained her to the bed again. She pulled the blankets over her head and broke into tears. He dragged the blankets away and looked at her silently. She didn’t have much strength to cry. The tears trickled down the side of her nose to her busted lip. He covered her over again and she heard him go out the door and close it.
That night she pretended to be asleep, even when he rolled her over onto her back. He kept kissing her lips, until she finally had to open her eyes, because he knew she was awake.
“Do you love me?” he whispered.
She stared at him blankly.
“I have to believe you love me,” he said. “Because if you didn’t I might as well put a bullet in my head right now. Do you love me, Nicole?”
She kept looking at him. She was cold and numb. He kissed her mouth abruptly, trying to make her kiss him. She was determinedly and passively cold.
He clasped her wrists above her head to secure control over her. His other hand went between her legs, and with an abrupt movement, he forced himself between them. He pushed into her body, over and over, with fierce thrusts and shoves. He bit and sucked her face, gasping and panting. “You’re going to give me a baby, Nicole.”
His words brought hot tears to her eyes, and she felt them slide from beneath her lashes and down her cheeks. Her thoughts went to her family. They were never going to find her.
Chapter 12
As the days dragged into weeks, his behavior became more intense. He became increasingly violent and constantly warned her that if she left he would find her and kill her. Any deviation from his rules was punished by beatings or a period of incarceration in the cupboard. He often attached her to an overhead beam and left her suspended for hours on end. Another form of punishment he devised was to give her an electric shock. He stripped the insulation from one end of an electrical extension cord and would hold the bare wires against her chain and watch as she struggled to escape the current. He fed her sporadically and kept her naked. She often had sex with him and his friend Tony.
When she missed her period again, James forced her to take another test, which came out negative. He was convinced that it was giving false results. Believing that she was pregnant he seemed to soften, and even brought the television upstairs for her to watch movies.
She was watching something when Tony visited the room. He had never been allowed to come in her, except in her ass, and now that James believed she was pregnant Tony wasn’t allowed to touch her at all.
“What are you watching?” he asked getting onto the bed with her. “Looks interesting.”
She moved almost imperceptibly away from him as he crept nearer. He ran his fingertips over her knee and started to creep under her dress. She sat up, tucking her hair behind her ears.
“Where’s James?” she asked.
“He’s down in the basement doing something.” He leaned in closely, pushing his hand up her inner thigh. “You want to fuck for a bit?”
He laughed at her blank, frightened look.
“Don’t!” She grabbed his hand to stop it from going any further, but he kept pushing it up. He went straight for her mouth, mashing his mouth hard over hers. He forced her to the bed and then mounted her, violating her, pressing his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams. He seemed hesitant to come inside her, and after a few pumps pulled out, and came down her throat. He clutched her face and forced her to swallow.
“Don’t go shooting your fucking mouth off to James about this.” He slapped her head. He left again as quickly as he came.
She switched off the television and was lying on her side when James walked in later. The pillow under her head had no cover because he had stripped off the pillowcases to wash them, but then forgot.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “This place is a shithole.” He kicked a pile of dirty clothes on the floor, then stooped down searching for socks. He looked at her again. “What the fuck is wrong with you now?”
He got on the bed, kneeling astride her, and gave her a tap on the back of the head. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
“He did it again,” she murmured.
“He’s been fucking around with you?”
She winced when he stuck his hand under her dress, feeling to check her, as if he hadn’t believed her. “He won’t do it again, baby. I’ll break his fingers.”
“That’s what you said last time.” She stared at the wall. She wouldn’t looked at him. “What day is it?”
He rubbed his eyes. “Thursday, I think.”
She had lost track of days. Her life before this seemed a dreamed. She felt like this was her world now. She didn’t know how worse it was going to get.
He lifted her dress and bent and kissed her pussy, putting his hand on her belly to be closer to the baby he thought was in there.
Chapter 13
James was taking her down the hall to the bathroom, when a car horn beeped outside. He looked at her blankly, listening. The moment of distraction gave her an instant to slip past the door and slam it shut. She turned the lock just as he rattled the handle from the outside.
“Open the door,” he said. “Open the fucking door, Nicole.” She could hear the pressure in his voice. Her heart was racing. She glanced around the bathroom. She wanted to start screaming for help, hoping the visitor would hear, but she went to the window instead. It was tiny and jammed shut. Her fingers clamped the edge, and she tried to lift it. She applied all her strength, half crying, and it finally slid open. She frantically stuck one leg out the window, and just managed to squeeze through.