Dirty Hands

Her wrists were crossed behind her back, her head held high. His arm was wrapped about her throat, the hard muscle of his bicep and of his forearm crushing the arteries there. Her lashes fluttered. Her pupils became wide and black and empty. She would have crumpled to the ground but for his grasp upon her naked, now-lifeless body. Piss ran down her thighs before he brought her back to the light.

"Thank You, Lord," she croaked.

Ash... His submissive... His slave? The girl breathed in ragged gasps, spittle hanging from her chin. He dropped her, kicked her as she fell to the floor. She remained there on her hands and knees, seemingly awaiting his pleasure.

"Kneel, scum," he ordered.

"At once, Lord," said the slave.

Slave. He wondered what that meant. Had she been trained by the Bitter Elm? Was there some battery of tests that she had passed? Was this the secret behind the mystery of her intense, seemingly limitless submission to him? He didn't know whether to be exhilarated or disappointed: he had thought that she was simply madly in love.

No—he hadn't thought that, in truth. He had longed for it to be true, but he had never thought that. And perhaps he had never loved her, either. She merely made his cock throb, as a piece of meat should.

Ash looked tired. She had missed dinner: the result of a long argument with the head of her department. She'd called after the meeting to ask if he wanted her to come straight home, but he said no. He sent her to the gym to work out, reminding her that her body belonged to him, and that she was to maintain it in its most perfect form on his behalf. "Hear and obey," she said, and hung up. And then, when she finally got home at nearly ten o'clock, he sent her right back to the gym to do it all again.

"Do it all exactly as you did before," he said, knowing full well that she had driven herself hard as a kind of self-inflicted punishment. And she had done it. Hear and obey, and she was gone. What had he expected?

Now it was midnight. He was angry. He was frustrated. He was taking it out on her. He kept waiting for her to challenge him—to ask him why she was being punished. And yet he dimly realized that she didn't even realize she was being punished. In her eyes, to use her in this way was his right. He didn't need a reason to treat her this way.

And yet he had a reason: he had wanted to ask her at dinner about the wand, and about the Bitter Elm, and about everything. Instead, she had been late. She'd been too busy for him. For her 'master.' How dare she?

"Is something wrong, Sir?" she said, lowering her eyes.

Justin blinked in surprise. He wondered, for a moment, whether she had been looking at him. He kept her strictly restricted in that regard: she must never raise her eyes to his. He was actually sure that she wouldn't break the rule—but that could only mean that she had detected his foul mood simply by the way he moved, and the way he touched her. Or, in this case, the way he didn't touch her. The way he hadn't been kissing her. Tasting her. Her sweat and her blood.

And then he realized that her lovely face was weighted down with worry. This beautiful girl—even as he beat her, choked her, and hurled abuse at her, was worried for him? He couldn't help but love her.

"There's something on my mind," he said

"If Sir would like to talk," she said, "the slave would be honored..."

"Don't you want to be beaten?"

"This worthless beast desires what its Lord desires, Sir."

"And what if I desire to put that to the test?"

Her expression became something angelic and ethereal. Her worry seemed to vanish. She remained impassive and yet he could read in her eyes a smile so beautiful, so filled with innocent love, that it seemed impossible that she was smiling about the prospect of being tortured. "Test me, Lord," she whispered. "Let me make You proud."

"You have class tomorrow," he reminded her.

"That is Your decision, Sir."

He sighed. He was frustrated still, of course, but he couldn't remain angry with her. Finally he said, "I'm hungry."

Ash made him a midnight breakfast. She hadn't eaten either, of course; he might have fed her from his own hand, but instead he occasionally spat food onto her sparkling-clean kitchen floor. She knelt by his feet and moaned as she scraped scrambled eggs from the tile with her tongue. He even allowed her a few little bites of his Belgian waffle—she made the very best—but he made certain to step on those first. She licked hot maple syrup from his bare heel afterward, and when he reached down to grope her, to massage her cunt, he found her absolutely sodden. Her experience of this degradation was something to behold. She knelt and suckled at his fingertips, swallowing her own cunt-sludge while squirming on the floor beneath him.

Her sex had healed, but the effect had been more a mangling of her once-pristine lips than a deliberate marking of her sex as his. She never complained, but he suspected that any penetration of her cunt was now painful for her, and he had noticed that she could no longer experience clitoral pleasure without also suffering intense discomfort. He'd gone so far as to ask her, on one occasion, whether she regretted what he had done to her.

"No, Sir," she said simply when he asked.

And yet he regretted it. More than once, he'd considered whether to have a surgeon touch up what he'd done, or whether he might have her entirely circumcised. Either one might serve to destroy the evidence of his indiscretion, and yet he wasn't sure that either would help Ash. For her part, Ash pretended not to understand his feelings on the matter. Or—and this thought filled him with both fear and lust—perhaps she wasn't pretending.

"Do you remember the weight bench I had you prepare outside?" he asked her now.

"Yes, Lord," she answered him, her voice airy and faraway.

"Come with me," he said.

His woman followed, crawling on the floor beside him as he led her outside into the back yard. High, weathered fences and tall bushes surrounded the shaded garden, with a rather grumpy-looking oak tree standing guard over all the rest. On a whim, he'd asked her to place her old weight bench out here on the porch rather than give it away. They hadn't used it yet, but he'd long had a plan. He began to bind her in place, using harsh nylon ties about her ankles and wrists, cognizant of the fact that they might cut into her skin if she were to struggle. She would expect nothing less.

He smoothed back her hair. He looked down into her eyes, like two crystals in the moonlight. "I've wanted to do this for a long time," he whispered. They were outside, in a quiet neighborhood. Anyone might hear them. "You'll be quiet as a church mouse, won't you?"

She nodded breathlessly.

The bench was inclined downward, so that her head was lower than her feet as she lay on it. Her body lay supine upon the worn padding, her breasts upthrust, her skin clammy in the autumn evening. It wasn't unseasonably warm, per se: rather, the season of autumn was always mild here. A little too mild for his taste, perhaps. The same could not be said of summer. He massaged one of her breasts, taking the time to enjoy her nudity and her vulnerability. He left her there for a little while.

When he returned, he carried a dish towel and a large jug of water. She must have known what he had in mind, of course; she made no comment when he approached. He tied the towel over her face.

"I love you," she whispered.

"Maybe you shouldn't," he said.

And then he began to pour the water.

He recalled a description of this torture by the CIA:

A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this is done, the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of the cloth. During those 20 to 40 seconds, water is continuously applied from a height of twelve to twenty-four inches. After this period, the cloth is lifted, and the individual is allowed to breathe unimpeded for three or four full breaths. The procedure may then be repeated.

The words slightly restricted almost made him smile. Ash began to jerk at her bonds almost at once, thrashing violently as she started to drown. To his surprise—and to his immense satisfaction—she then stilled herself, silencing her body's vehement protests via her own iron discipline. He continued to pour.

Twenty to forty seconds, according to the document: he continued to drench her until his jug was drained. Her body was well-trained; he would have guessed that she could hold her breath for three minutes or more at need, although it would be difficult to do that under these circumstances. And furthermore, he wanted to ensure that she couldn't. He dropped the jug and went at once to the side of the house, fetching her water hose and opening the spigot before returning to her side.

Ragged breaths sobbed in her throat as she struggled to ready herself for a second round. He put a stop to that by slamming his fist down onto her unprepared stomach, leaving her body convulsing from the impact and expelling every ounce of breath from her lungs.

"Have I ever told you about the Iraq study?" he asked her as he began to douse the cloth with water once more, this time from the hose. She probably wouldn't hear a word of it: she'd be too deep in panic to listen to his voice. Yet still he spoke, thinking that perhaps she would hear the calmness of his voice and wonder what kind of monster could remain calm while torturing her. The thought made his cock throb.

"It was a study of long-term outcomes for the victims of enhanced interrogation," he explained as she quivered on the edge of insanity, her body drawn taut, her every sinew flexed and shaking until she managed once again to control herself. "I was amazed by the level of psychological trauma suffered by the victims... There were reports of subjects experiencing panic attacks at the sight of rain clouds, or of being unable to shower without suffering a complete mental breakdown. What about you, cunt? Are you made of sterner stuff?"

He drew the cloth back from her mouth, permitting her a few frantic breaths. She said nothing. She had no breath to say anything.

"According to Central Intelligence," he said, a dark pleasure gripping him as he repeated the company line, "these sessions never lasted more than about twenty minutes. That's about twenty rounds of drowning—if one follows their supposed guidelines."

"If that's true," he added, almost as an afterthought, "I have to wonder how much of your sanity will be left when I'm done..."

He went on like this for an hour or more, never quite losing track of the time and yet never concerning himself with it, either. He drowned her repeatedly and told her that CIA officers lasted an average of fourteen whole seconds before surrendering. He began to use the hose to beat her naked, waterlogged body in between rounds, leaving ugly weals on her pale, shivering flesh in the cool November air. He paid special attention to her stomach, giving her several hard blows there before each round in order to ensure that she couldn't have stored up enough breath to last.

"Christopher Hitchens tried this once," he went on, telling her all he knew of this mind-shattering torture. "He lasted sixteen seconds. They gave him a ball to hold—the way I did on the night I whipped you. You don't have one now. Because you don't deserve limits. Because you don't deserve mercy. Isn't that right. You vile, worthless, lowly filth..."

And to his utter amazement, she seemed to nod beneath the drenched and drowning cloth.

That was when he raped her. He couldn't contain himself: he threw the hose aside, gripped the wet cloth that covered her face and began to strangle her with it, and as he did he forced his cock into her scarred gash. He almost kissed the thrashing, inhuman face beneath him as he fucked her—a face hidden and distorted by the wet cloth and by the immense pressure he applied as he held it tight against her mouth and nose, suffocating her. His arms shook with the effort, and he groaned against the pleasure as hot jets of cum poured out of him and into her. The feeling was electric, left him utterly spent as he collapsed on top of her.

Justin pulled the cloth back from her mouth. Still panting, still sitting astride her belly, he wrapped his left fist around one of her breasts and began to knead it, driving his fingers into her flesh with bruising force as he asked her, daring her: "Do you still love me?"

"Yes," she sobbed, her answer a tearful wail of surrender. "Yes, yes, yes, yes!"

"So be it," he snarled at her, suddenly lightheaded. He resolved to ask her the same question again after another hour of drowning.