Author's note: My attempt to make the awful normal for our heroine continues, but just because it's become routine for her, doesn't mean everyone else will enjoy the darkness. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
Last night, he let her sleep upstairs for the first time in days. Once he'd finished fucking her into oblivion, he fell soundly asleep, letting her lay there against his broad chest while she listened to his heartbeat and intermittent snoring.
The last time she'd been up here, he'd shackled her while she was healing. This time he let that slide, either because he trusted himself to wake up if she tried to escape, or because he'd been too exhausted by how hard he'd used her to think about it. She suspected the former, but it didn't matter.
All that mattered was how she gloried in it. Whether it was about trust, or something else, it felt so different from what she'd grown used to, that she had a hard time ignoring the lack of weight on her ankle long enough to fall asleep. If he'd let her keep a diary, she would have written about this moment, she decided, among many others, of course.
If the night in the woods was the beginning of the end for her old life, then a night like this was the end of the beginning for her new one. Would that be enough for her, though, she wondered? She'd planned on being a doctor. She had been getting close to her bachelor's degree before her real life had been put on hold by whatever "this" was. It was true that she'd never enjoyed a class as much as she enjoyed the way David used her, but as she lay there, she couldn't help but worry that the lust would fade.
No matter how connected she felt to her owner, this intensity couldn't last forever, could it? Something had to give eventually. These thoughts eventually put a damper on the excitement that made it impossible to sleep, and she fell asleep cuddling against him.
In the morning, he got up shortly after dawn. He didn't wake Sarah, though, so she just laid there sleepily while he made them a simple breakfast. It was only after he was finished and sitting at the table that she joined him.
They chatted, and ate slowly, largely because they spent most of the meal holding hands. It was a shockingly cute display for someone that beat her regularly, but she enjoyed it just the same.
Eventually, she tried to work the conversation in a way that might get her owner to address her doubts by saying, "That's true, but there's more to life than a good breakfast."
"Is there?" he asked skeptically before pretending to finally get what she meant. "You mean sex, right? Hot. Hard. Painful. Sex."
Sarah squeezed her thighs together at that sentence, and leaned forward to kiss him for a moment before she tried to get this conversation back on track. "No, well - that too, but I mean, more to life than this. This cabin. This life. Man cannot live by sex alone, or something."
"Already getting cabin fever, are we, princess?"
"No," she denied it by instinct, even though he was probably right. "I'm not saying I have to go back to the real world tomorrow - just that - you know, I'd like to know what that's going to look like, you know? I think that's fair."
"I dunno. This world feels pretty real to me." David was still smiling, but the good humor behind it had gone out, and left her feeling cold.
She looked away and focused on her last scrap of toast like it was the most important thing in the world, while she tried to figure out how to not make this any worse. "I-I just... I mean this is definitely real. I'm really happy. I only--"
"Want to know when you'll get your chance to escape?" He asked.
Sarah looked up in horror, and tried to deny it, but he was already up and moving toward her.
"No, of course not," she pleaded, moving away from him as he grabbed her by the hair. "I-I'm sorry! I shouldn't have brought it up."
"It hasn't even been three weeks, and you're already looking for the way out, huh, cunt?" he asked in a cruel tone as he pulled her head back slightly and slapped her across the face with his other hand.
"No, I'm not, I just-- Ahhhh, that hurts," she screamed as he pulled her to her feet and moved toward the door. She tried to put up a fight, but it was ineffectual as always, and after a few seconds he grabbed her arm instead of her hair, twisting it around behind her and applying a little pressure to force her toward's the door.
"I get it," her owner said, pretending to take sympathy on her. "I've kept you cooped up in here for too long. A young thing like you need's time outside to stretch her legs."
"No, that's not it," she gasped, trying to protest at the same time she tried to keep him from breaking her arm. She just knew that he was going to make her go jogging again, only this time it would be completely naked. He wouldn't even give her the flip-flops she'd worn last time, though.
He didn't though. He pushed her outside, toward's the tree in his front yard, and the whole time he lectured her about how she'd feel better after a little time in nature. She wasn't quite sure what he was getting at, though, not until he pressed her down into the cold grass and put a knee in her back.
"This is all my fault. I've been too soft with you," he said. "Don't worry baby. I'll make sure that never happens again." He took a rope that was already tied to the trunk and began to tie her wrists behind her back while she lay there shivering.
"Wait, no - what are you doing? Where are you going?" she asked as got off her, and she struggled to stand up without using her hands.
"I've got some errands to run, but I'll be back in a few hours," he promised, with a smile. "Don't wear yourself out too much."
He left her there, shivering in the cool morning air, completely naked. It wasn't a particularly cold morning, but it wouldn't be warm for hours yet. Even if it had been perfectly lovely, though, she wouldn't have been able to enjoy it like this. It was a humiliating position. Not only were her wrists tied behind her back in a way that made it impossible for her to get at the knots that bound her, but she was tied to a fucking tree. She couldn't go more than about ten feet in any direction, and even if she wasn't moving in an effort to stay warm, she would have been hard-pressed to find a comfortable position to wait for this particularly humiliating punishment to be over with.
