Hannah lay awake, staring at the ceiling. The dim glow of the street lights filtering in through that gap at the top of the curtains illuminated the room in a hazy half-light, like sepia on old film. It felt like a dream sequence, a surrealist painting. The only thing that made it horribly real was the weight of the leather collar around her throat and the cold tag resting against her skin.
After she finished cleaning herself up, her captor had led her back into the bedroom, sitting up against the headboard and pulling her into his lap. He wrapped his hand around her throat and gave Hannah her phone, whispering instructions into her ear in a low, amused voice. Hannah barely remembered the actual phone call. Jackie made horrified, sympathetic noises and wished her well on her flight.
When she hung up, the man told her she'd done well. He held her, resting his chin on her head, idly stroking his hands over her body. Some time along the way she began to shake, then to cry. In the moment, she couldn't have told anyone which specific thing made her cry - that he'd successfully used her to buy himself an alibi, that she'd cut off her only escape route, or that he was being so gentle with her. He held her as she sobbed, kissing her temples and stroking her hair, murmuring soothingly.
Hannah hated him.
For the rest of the day, she was granted a strange kind of reprieve. Though he was never farther from her than arms' reach, he allowed her to wander through his home, getting a feel for her surroundings. The plug never came out, and although she couldn't feel his come inside of her, it was a constant reminder that she was not here willingly, that he would use her body however he wanted, even when he wasn't actively raping her.
At dinner, he made her kneel beside the table and fed her by hand. If she wasn't so starving, after not having eaten anything all day, she would have tried to fight it. As it was, she felt herself settling into a kind of detachment, like she was observing what happened to her body without feeling it. The inside of her mind was noisy - half-formed escape plans and jibbering horror at her own compliance - but she pushed it aside. For now, there was nothing she could do but take it.
She slept in his bed. The cuffs didn't come off - Hannah was beginning to suspect they would be a fixture as permanent as the collar for as long as she endured this - and he clipped them together before binding them to the headboard, keeping her from escaping while he slept. He held her in his arms like a lover, and it wasn't long before his breathing went soft and even.
Hannah contemplated smothering him with a pillow, but she didn't know how long it would take before he was missed and she couldn't get enough leverage to lift herself up off the bed. So she lay there, staring at the ceiling, unable to hold a concrete thought in her head. In the silent dark she realized that she didn't even know his name.
It would be better if he was cruel, Hannah thought. Really cruel, like torture and beatings. It would be better if he didn't hold me when I cried or tell me it will be okay, that I'll get used to him. I don't want to get used to him.
A tiny, traitorous corner of her mind told her that it would be easier if she settled in and stopped fighting - easier to turn her brain off and easier to endure, both. Hannah clenched her teeth and glared at the ceiling, shoving that voice down ruthlessly.
At some point, she must have fallen asleep, because the next morning she woke to sunlight on her face. For a moment she forgot where she was, but the second she tried to cover her face against the sun she was brought up short by the cuffs, and everything came rushing back. Hannah rolled over as much as she could and buried her face in the pillow.
"Did you sleep well?" He didn't sound nearly as threatening and cold when his voice was thick with sleep, but Hannah still didn't answer him. He waited for her to answer for several moments, and sighed when all she did was remain perfectly still with her head in the pillow. "Usually you wouldn't get away with refusing to answer me when I ask you a question, but I haven't had coffee yet. You get a pass this time."
Hannah wanted to scream at him, but she had a feeling that shouting abuse at her captor would make things worse. She hunched her shoulders and drew her knees up, curling into a ball as best she could.
"Are you hungry?" he asked, and again Hannah didn't answer. The thought of food made her stomach growl, though, and he chuckled. "I figured you were. You're lucky. Sunday is the only day I bother making real breakfast. Otherwise it would be yogurt and granola."
He got up and left the bed. Hannah raised her head from the pillow, tracking his movements with her eyes. He shuffled into the bathroom, yawning and scratching at his ribs. It was terrifyingly domestic, if you ignored the cuffs around her wrists, the collar on her neck, and the plug still resting inside her.
He left the bedroom, and a few minutes later the house was filled with the smell of coffee. There was a sizzling noise - bacon, or maybe eggs - and the ticking of a toaster oven. Hannah shifted uncomfortably. Now that she was truly awake, she needed the bathroom, but like hell was she going to beg him to come in and untie her. It would serve him right if he forgot about her and she wet the bed, but she didn't want to lie in it.
Eventually he did return, a mug of coffee in one hand. He ignored her for a few moments, setting down his coffee and shrugging on a dressing robe. Hannah tried not to squirm, but she couldn't help it - he eyed her with a smirk, like he knew exactly what was going on. Finally, he let her hands loose from the headboard. "Go relieve yourself, I'm sure you need to. The plug stays in. Then come to the kitchen for breakfast."
He left the room, much to Hannah's surprise. He hadn't unclipped her cuffs from each other, so the bathroom was a slightly awkward affair. The window in the bathroom had decorative, wrought-iron bars affixed to the inside. No possibility of escape that way.
She crept out into the hallway, trying to keep her movements as silent as possible. The second bedroom was locked; Hannah suspected it was an office, as she had not been allowed inside during her explorations the afternoon before.
The living area was closed off from the hallway by a pair of french doors. Hannah tried to open them silently, but the door stuck and came loose with a loud thump and a creak. Hannah heard footsteps behind her and whirled around. "I wasn't-"
The cold anger in his face stilled her tongue in her mouth. He grabbed her by the hair and twisted, pain sparking across her scalp, and dragged her into the kitchen. He shoved her into the kitchen table, the edge of it striking her bare hipbones painfully, and forced her down onto its surface, bent at the waist. Hannah braced herself and didn't cry out as his palm cracked across her asscheek, screwing her eyes shut and biting her lip to contain the pained noises that wanted to escape her as the spanking continued.
Hannah counted fourteen strokes before he stopped, his hand resting on the red, tender skin of her ass.
"I don't believe 'living room' sounds anything like 'kitchen,'" he said mildly. Maybe that was the scariest thing - his calm even when he was obviously angry with her. "I wasn't going to make you earn your breakfast - I already told you I dislike discipline before coffee - but you ruined that for yourself."
Hannah remained silent, but her heart started to pound behind her ribs. Breakfast smelled and looked delicious. Now that she was bent over the table she could see two plates laid out with toasted bagels with cream cheese and eggs. A steaming mug of coffee sat beside the plate at the head of the table. Her stomach growled. Dinner last night was barely enough after skipping both breakfast and lunch. Hunger gnawed at her.
He pulled her up by her hair and yanked her around the table, nudging his chair with his foot until he could sit with one arm on the table. He twisted his hand in her hair and Hannah couldn't help but gasp - it hurt, and it forced her to her knees.
"Stay there," he said. "If you don't, you will regret it. I haven't even begun to get creative with your discipline yet."
Hannah swallowed and stayed still, but when he undid the belt of his bathrobe and pulled it aside, revealing that he was already hard in his boxers, she immediately said, "No."
"No?" he asked, sounding amused. "You must not be hungry." He pulled his cock out through the slit in his boxers, stroking it idly. "If you want to eat, you're going to have to suck me off first."
Hannah stared up at him in disbelief. He wouldn't starve her, would he? Intellectually she knew that it would take more than a couple skipped meals to really impact her health, but what if she kept refusing him until she was actually starving? Would he force-feed her, or would he let her waste away until she starved herself to death?
"Hannah," he said, frowning at her. "Don't make this hard on yourself. You can have a very good life with me, or I can break you and send you somewhere else. I'm being gentle. I can be cruel just as easily."
Cold prickled in Hannah's gut. She hadn't forgotten about his threat the day before, to sell her - the very thought was absurd and surreal, but Hannah wasn't that naive. She knew she was a prime candidate for sex trafficking, and if her captor said he could get ahold of a buyer, Hannah didn't doubt him.
Which meant she wasn't the first girl he'd done this to, and she didn't doubt him when he said he could break her, either. She dropped her eyes to the floor, her mouth twisting. She wouldn't make this easy on him.
"Suit yourself," he said. "I am going to eat before everything gets cold."
True to his word, Hannah started to hear the sounds of a fork clinking against a plate, chewing and noisy sips of coffee. It made her stomach growl again. Reluctantly, Hannah lifted her eyes back up to his cock.
