I wake up slowly, coming aware to my surroundings, but still partially in the world of the dream. There is no presence beside me, but that's not unusual. You get up early most days to make breakfast for the morning people in the house, before leaving for school. I am not a morning person, but with my job I have no need to be. I graduated last year, and my shift at work begins in the afternoon. My alarm hasn't gone off yet, so I know it can't be after ten. I have time. I roll over and enjoy a few more minutes with my centaur stud. I'm still drowsy enough for it to make sense.
I wake up again, with a slight pressure behind my eyes that says I've slept too long. What time is it? I rub my face and sit up, stretching, then catch a glimpse of the clock on the wall. Noon-forty?! I stiffen up, completely conscious in seconds. My head spins to look at the top of the dresser on the far end of the room. My phone alarm should have- Where's my phone?!
I swear internally and crawl to the foot of the bed to get off. Our bedroom is small, so my side is pressed against the wall to take maximum advantage of the floor space. I could more easily climb down from your side, but habit commands me to avoid moving over the place where you would be sleeping.
I flick the light switch. Nothing. Both bulbs have been removed, even the black light that we leave screwed in when the regular one starts to get painfully bright from overuse. The thin gaps between wide strips of blackout paint over our window don't allow very much natural light in, and the navy walls absorb most of it anyway. We both generally find the dark comfortable and calming, but then, I can usually still turn the light on if I need to. Now I can't. I can feel goosebumps forming. Something is not right...
I open the bottom drawer in the dresser and freeze. It's empty. I check the others. They are the same. Where are my clothes?! I swear again, this time out loud. It's been so hot at night lately, and we both took to sleeping naked once we ran out of blankets to remove. I look inside the closet. Your clothes are gone as well. What is going on? Our usually cluttered floor is bare of dirty laundry, unfolded clean laundry, towels, and anything else I could use to cover myself. Even the mattress doesn't have so much as a sheet on it.
I go over to your computer, praying you have your chat up so I can message your sister to come over and look in the laundry room for me. You're logged out. The password has been changed. Shit. I check all the drawers again out of sheer desperation, the litany in my mind growing in length and obscenity.
Eventually I resign myself to wait in the room until you get home, hoping against hope that today is one of the days where you have time to come home for lunch between school and work. If not, I'll have to call my boss in the morning to apologize for not showing up today. My phone is gone, my clothes are gone, and I've had a housemate randomly get home just in time to see me streak for cover too many times to be willing to risk a search. I turn scarlet at the humiliating memories, but the situation has another effect on me as well. One I would be damned to ever admit to anyone.
I pull my dream journal from its hiding place in the box spring. Something itches at the back of my mind when I notice the lock isn't there, but I brush it off. I probably just forgot again. No one knows where I keep my journal or knows what I write in it, so it can't be anything else. I flip to the latest page, glance over yesterday's entry with a small smile, then begin to write down the latest fantasy my subconscious has revealed to me.
It began as most of my dreams do: in a mass of sheer insanity. If I remember correctly, this one involved some characters from various nostalgic cartoons trying to take over the world, while I was busy trying to win a kite flying contest on a boat against some bug aliens. Somewhere in the madness, the water I was on became a field, and I got grabbed by a centaur.
He had dark skin that was leathery but soft to the touch. His muscles were well-toned, but not beefy. His hair was wild, and his eyes were like fire. He didn't put me on his back, just held me to his chest. I fought, but wasn't strong enough to make him let me go. As he ran, he held onto my wrists with one hand and bore my weight with his arms. His other hand was free to roam my body, and my clothes started disappearing.
He took me to a village in a forest, where I saw centaurs leading other naked women by leashes attached to collars. My captor told me not to be scared, that a broken woman can't bear children. He wouldn't hurt me. He needed me.
I was taken to a Pocahontas-like longhouse, bare on the inside but for a row of ropes hanging from the rafters. I could see two women tied by the wrists to those ropes. One was hanging upright, with her legs forcibly spread by a stick shackled between her knees; the other was also tied by her ankles so she hung level to the ground, her legs straight up and her openings visible. I was tied rather like the first, standing up with my arms over my head and my feet held apart.
My captor looked at me hungrily, but held himself under control. He ran his hands over me, cupped my breasts, felt between my legs, gauged the size of my hips, pinched my nipples, squeezed my thighs, ran his fingers through my hair... I was pleasing to his sight, and fit to bear a child.
I was taken to another longhouse, this one filled with a row of posts and thin benches that stuck out sideways from the wall. I was made to lie along one bench on my back. My hands were tied to the tall post on one end, and my feet were shackled to the floor at the other end on either side. My captor left.
A human man came in, thin but with chiseled muscles, and he began to oil me up and massage me. He explained to me my place in the centaur camp. That I was a breeding slave. That during the day, I would work like any of the other slaves. Basic chores, easy to complete. But that wasn't my purpose here; it was just something to occupy my time while the sun was up and the men were busy. During the night, an attending male slave would prepare me for my real duties. He would prepare my body, fill it with need, but not give me release. I would be slowly stretched until I could fit a horse-sized rod without breaking. At the end of a time, when I was at the peak of my season, my body would crave so much I wouldn't care who took me to the breeding post, and my instincts would take over so that I would accept any male who mounted me.
My attendant was working on the inside of my thighs when a new centaur burst in. Dapple grey coat, black skin, silver hair. His eyes held a fury that both frightened and excited me. He hadn't had a female in almost a year, and didn't care if I was in season or even prepared for a mating yet. He reared up, shoving the human out of his way, and his front horse legs landed on either side of the bench. He jammed himself into my opening and began to thrust and squeeze and throb inside me. It hurt, and something inside me screamed, but not for it to stop. I didn't want it to stop-
I jump slightly as the door to our bedroom opens and you come in. You drop your backpack on the bed and close the door behind you. I shove my journal under my pillow and start to speak.
"Bill, what on earth-"
"Shut up."
This stops me cold. You have never told me to shut up before. You have never commanded me to do anything. I sometimes wish you would, but you never do. You are too afraid of hurting me, of making me fear you. You don't like my so-called lack of a spine, my immediate reflex to obey and follow behind men.
I have learned the difference between the abuse I received and my internal desires to serve and rely on another human being for both my pleasure and theirs. What was done to me was monstrous, yet it was not the same as a good man dominating a woman. I want to serve, to be given orders. Not because I'm too weak to deserve control, too afraid to disobey. Because I am strong enough to not rebel. Because I trust you enough to willingly give up my control.
But I have been afraid to tell you this. Afraid you would find it abnormal, strange, abhorrent. Afraid you would hug me and tell me it will be alright, that the effects of my trauma will eventually fade. Afraid you, in some way or another, wouldn't be able to accept this part of me that goes deeper than anything I have experienced.
