Page 32 of I Will Mend You

Xero gives me an encouraging nod. “That’s right. Don’t play their game. They want to see you fighting.”

Harsh fingers unbuckle the crotch of my straitjacket, making me flinch. Xero’s words of support fade into nothingness when Locke fondles my labia and rubs a circle around my clit.

“Grunt also tells me you’ve been a very dirty girl. Now I’ll have to cleanse your filthy cunt with a sterile solution before inserting the pessary.”

The large man enters the scene, holding a colonic irrigation bag filled with clear liquid. At its base is a plastic tube, which he passes to Locke. The cylindrical object pushes into my opening, making me shudder. Before I can even adjust to the intrusion, Locke turns a valve and cold liquid enters my vagina.

I squirm, try to push away, but the straps restraining my limbs are too tight. The muscles of my vagina clench, expelling the fluid.

Locke taps on my clit. “Pay attention, Dolly. The more water you push out, the more times we’ll have to repeat this cleansing.”

“Stay with me,” Xero says, his voice a beacon of sanity. His fingers tighten around mine with a pressure hard enough to crush the bones. “Breathe and relax.”

My breath deepens, and I focus on Xero. His arched brow. His regally straight nose. The way his cheekbones curve, creating a dip that leads down to his strong jaw. He’s the personification of masculine perfection and was all mine until I ruined everything by setting him alight.

“Don’t think about that,” he snarls.

I focus on how handsome he looks in that tuxedo, and how he entered the Ministry of Mayhem with the swagger of a king. I think about how he sat on that leather throne and commanded the man from the club to get us drinks. Everyone wanted him, but he only had eyes for me.

“That’s right, baby,” he says. “Only you.”

Somewhere on the edge of my awareness, cold water fills my vagina, but I imagine myself in a stone bath with moonlightstreaming in through stained-glass windows. Xero hugs me from behind, his strong arms wrapped around my waist.

A gloved hand slaps my thigh, and a voice orders me to release the liquid. I push it out, my head turned to the side so my gaze is still locked with Xero’s.

When something rubbery and thick enters my vagina, I picture myself lying in Relaney’s spare bedroom with Xero between my spread legs, inserting the toy.

“You know I strung you up to a light fitting because I knew it would break,” he says.

At the time, I thought I was going to die. Especially after I stepped out and found Chappy hanging from the ceiling hatch.

“Don’t think about that guy,” Xero says.

My mind skips to the red envelope containing Chappy’s tongue, complete with the ball piercing. His punishment for daring to offer me pleasure.

“Cut!” Dolly says.

Xero vanishes, leaving me alone again. There’s a camera in my face, another standing behind where Locke sits between my open legs, and another behind my head. All three men back away, giving Locke the space to rise.

He pulls off his gloves, making a show of disdain as he tosses them between my legs. That only makes Dolly giggle. When he removes his mask, he turns to Dolly.

“How was she?” she asks.

“A cheap imitation,” he replies with a grimace.

Laughter and applause fill the studio, and the few onlookers who had gathered to watch the scene walk away to finish working on their sets.

Revulsion trickles down my spine. Both at my inability to maintain Xero’s hallucination in Dolly’s presence and at Locke’s pathetic attempt to gain favor with his boss’s wife.

As the pair saunter toward another part of the set, Seth removes my gag, unfastens my restraints, and marches me across the hall and through another set of doors, into an unlit corridor.

His grip tightens on my arm. “I won’t carry you around like Grunt does. If you run, I’ll just tackle you to the ground and fuck your ass.”

The threat hangs in the air like a noose. I glance into his black eyes and nod, knowing full well he’s begging for an excuse to assert his dominance.

He stops at a door with light seeping through its edges, raps on it twice, and waits. I shuffle on my feet, my breath ragged, my insides on fire, and my head spinning from not having eaten in nearly thirty-six hours.

A draft meanders through the walls, chilling my legs, which are still wet from the water dripping from my vagina and gathering at my bare feet.

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