Shutting my eyes against the dark, I whispered, “I forgive you.”

His body stuttered, halted suddenly in a harsh and rigid climax. He jerked my head back and mashed his lips against mine, sucking and biting at me with a violence that triggered my own orgasm. I came with long inner pulls of his twitching cock and a quiet cry that tumbled onto his tongue.

As our bodies softened and cooled in the aftermath, he stared at me, almost bewildered.

A slow blink brought awareness and a glimmer of wonder. His mouth curved in a sleek, satisfied smile.

He bent his head and licked my bottom lip. “I liked that very much.”

For reasons I couldn’t analyze, his words made my sex clench around his softened cock.

He chuckled and rolled to the side.

With leisurely movements, he untied me. I rubbed my wrists for a moment, unsure about what to do. I could make a run for it. There would never be a better chance than right now. But it felt overly dramatic. I had my things on the bathroom counter and a fifty dollar deposit at the front desk. It hadn’t hurt. It was only casual sex. In fact, it was the best sex I’d ever had. The only consensual sex, if I could call it that.

Leaning over, I pulled the condom off, using my hand to keep it from spilling. He jerked in my hand then grunted.

“What are you doing?” he muttered.

I cocked my head. “Cleaning you. Isn’t that…? I thought…”

He sent me a lazy grin. “Let me guess. Boyfriend number two.”

“He wasn’t my boyfriend.”

“Well he sounds like one hell of a bastard, but it seems I owe him one.” He gestured to himself. “Get to it then.”

I turned back to my task, licking up the salty juices from his softening cock, his balls, working my tongue down into the taint as I had been taught to. It had tasted copper with my blood then. It was the way between a man and a woman, he’d said, and I had never questioned the practice until now. Still, it seemed to satisfy this man too. He let out a small sigh as I ran my tongue from the tip of his cock to the base.

When I had cleaned him, he pushed my head gently down against his stomach. His abs were hard and lightly-furred—an unconventional pillow. Exhausted from the fear and the struggle, sated from climax, I slipped into a dark sleep.

I dreamed of my mother. Her face was distorted and twisted.

She sneered at me. “Not so proud now, are you?”

“I didn’t want to do it,” I sobbed. “He made me.”

“You left just so you could fuck guys like him.”

“No, no.” I pleaded for her to understand, for her to absolve me. “I didn’t know.”

“With that face and that body?” she scoffed. “You knew what would happen, and you wanted it.”

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

“I did, girl. I told you not to go…not to go…”

I woke up with a cock in my mouth. I gasped, struggling to breathe. It took me a few minutes and several thrusts to get oriented. My hands were tied behind my back, arching my body up as I lay on top of them. He straddled my neck, thrusting mercilessly into my mouth. He didn’t seem to notice that I was awake now, or care that I had been asleep before. He simply used me, and something subversive sent warmth to…to my cunt. That was what he called it. But there was nothing but cool air between my legs as he sawed his cock against my tongue.

I tried to use my tongue, to find the rhythm, but it was erratic, only in his head. I could do nothing but open to him, to take him repeatedly until he grunted and filled my mouth with foamy cum. A drop spilled out of the corner of my mouth and trailed down my skin. There were no tears left, only this.

He sighed as he slipped out. Sleepily, almost as if he were still sleeping, he scooted down my body until his head rested on the cushion of my breasts. They were soft and plump, but they couldn’t have made a comfortable pillow. Still, he fell asleep almost instantly, his breathing evening out into a peace I could only envy.

Blinking up at the water-stained ceiling, I wondered if I could pretend this night had never happened.

I must have drifted off to sleep, because when I woke, my arms were in agony. He used me many times that night. He dragged me onto his cock, forcing me to ride him while my arms were still bound behind me. He controlled the speed of my thrusts with twists and slaps to my breasts. The next time he licked at my cunt, sucked and bit until I came with a screaming abandon I’d never felt or even imagined.

The next time he dragged me by my hair to the bathroom where the bright light stung my sleep-dimmed eyes. He scrubbed my body with the harsh soap, as if to remove every trace of him. Then he took me back to the bed, spread me open, and sprayed ropes of cum across my breasts, ruining all his work.

There was an inconsistency there, as if he were fighting himself just to fuck me. I started to fear that he would kill me after all. Maybe it would get to be too much. Maybe we were stuck in an infinite loop of lust and hatred, and the only way to end it would be to kill me. Which would I prefer—to spend an eternity in purgatory or take a gamble with hell? But these were only the meandering thoughts of an exhausted mind, because this would end soon. Already morning light whispered through the curtains. Our sex had turned sluggish and sloppy, though he seemed reluctant to end it.

I knelt, my face and shoulders pressed into the coverlet as he pushed into me from behind. When he came, his groan sounded like an animal in agony, a cry for help. He jerked back his cock, and I knew it was as sensitive and raw as my own tender flesh. It didn’t make sense why he pushed himself to the pain, but we weren’t operating on the laws of logic here, not inside the looking glass. There was only our primal senses, a sort of ironic inevitability, like an animal who fights to the death just to prove that he’s dominant.

I dozed on the bed, too broken to move, as I heard him get up and rummage around the room. The sink in the bathroom went on briefly. There was the sound of water nearby, and then he was raising my head, tilting it up. The curve of a cup touched my lips. Cool water slid down my parched throat, following by a bitter aftertaste and powder residue.

I made a face and tried to pull away.

“Shh,” he said, nudging the cup against my lips. “Drink up.”

My limbs were too heavy to push him and already the liquid ran down my neck. I opened my mouth and drank. Relief filled me.

“That’s a good girl.” He leaned down, whispering into my ear. “I’m sorry about this. I really am. You’re too good.”

He’d really done it, I realized as my consciousness faded. He’d killed me, and now we could both be free.

Chapter Five

The Niagara Falls State Park is the oldest state park in the United States.

I woke up in a rumbling, rattling darkness. My body was jolted around. I heard the hollow bang of metal, but some sort of thin padding protected me from the worst of the blows. Every time I tried to move, pain seared through my brain. As blood returned to my fingers and toes, agony followed. So I focused on staying as still as possible, eyes shut tightly against the possibility that was becoming more and more certain.

The back of a truck. I was in his truck.

He hadn’t killed me. He’d been apologizing for kidnapping me. It wasn’t hard to figure out what I would be used for. This was a nightmare, exactly the kind of thing my mother warned me about. I would take all of the precautions she wanted while secretly rolling my eyes because that kind of thing only happened to girls on TV. Not to me. Oh God, not to me.

Whether from remnants of the drug or just fear, I felt exhausted, and I allowed the steady motion of the truck to lull me into a thoughtless place. Nothing so comforting as sleep, but free of the nightmares my mind drew for me. Last night had only been the beginning. There was more.