Page 54 of Servitude to Serpents

He pushes me toward the piano, making me stumble. I grapple for that place inside me I found with Grandma, the one where things didn’t hurt, the one I rediscovered at Bloom. I almost feel it clawing at the tendrils, but it slips through my fingers. I can’t find it here with my master because, God help me, I love him. More than I’ve ever loved anyone. Tears blur what remains of my vision as I turn back to look at the man I should hate, his eyes still seething, molten pools of liquid gold, forest green, and sea blue.

When I turn back to the piano, it’s not because the festering fear has lessened or that I can’t feel her looming at my back, but because I desperately need to be good for him. Regardless of why he wants me, how I got here, or how much his words hurt, I need to begood. At the center of my universe stands a terrible, dangerous man, and I can’t find it in myself to want that to change. I clear my throat, willing my voice not to break. “What should I play, Sir?”

“Your choice. Don’t use the bench.”

I take a deep breath, letting my fingertips skim the ivory keys. It’s not a hard decision to forgo classical. The less the noose around my chest tightens, the better.Blinding Lightsby the Weekend piano arrangement starts slowly, giving myself time to figure it out. I’ve never played it before, but I always knew it would sound beautiful. My tears drip onto the keys as her voice booms overhead, knowing she’d hate this. The only music that should come from me is classical. Everything else was below me. So far below, it wasn’t worth my time or hers. My breath leaves me in rough pants as I play, but this time, when the emotions and anxiety hit, I don’t look for that place. I let them come. I feel each one in all its horrifying glory. I’m lost in the music when I feel him step closer, his sage and oak adding to the thrum of my pulse.

It’s when harsh lips brush my neck that I feel myself come fully alive. My master seems to exist in a world of technicolor, one I’ve always skirted the edges of but never embraced. When I'm with him, everything burns, but in the best way. With him, I’m perceived for the first time, and I'm forced to relearn everything I thought I knew about the world. Aboutmyself. With Master, I'm not a child prodigy, a failed concert pianist, Juilliard reject. I'm not the girl who killed her sister, not boring, stick-in-the-mud Chloe. I'mme.I'm Pup.

“You play beautifully, little pet.”

My very being melts at his praise, leaving me a pitiful little puddle at his feet.

“Shall we see how well you concentrate?”

My body jerks, making me miss a key as he fists the deep V neckline of my gown, ripping it until it splits just below my navel, baring me to the room.

“Tsk,” he gently admonishes, and I breathe easier, sensing the worst of his anger has passed. “I haven’t even begun to distract you yet.”

“Everything about you is distracting, Master.”

And it is—even the mind-numbing anxiety, the tang of saltwater can’t touch me here, all because for a moment he deemed fit to hoist me onto a pedestal again. Being the center of his attention is intoxicating. I don’t have a clue what I’m playing at this point, only that it sounds relatively good as I trudge through the notes a little too slowly. His hands find my pebbled nipples, rolling and kneading them with his expert touch, turning them into mauve peaks.

I moan, pressing my thighs together, wondering if I was always this fucked up, if all it ever took was a little praise, the bare minimum attention to make me forget everything else. Certainly not everything could be blamed on Bloom. My thighs are slick, and I’m panting by the time my first orgasm rips through me, Master's fingers plucking and teasing my throbbing nipples was all it took to get me there. I come violently, grinding on nothing at all as his hands leave me. The sound of the piano bench being pulled into place only barely breaks through my muted bliss.

I hear him sit, feel the press of his warm thighs as he hikes up my dress, and I’m missing notes. I’m barelytrying at all.

But I’m not scared.

I’m not waiting for the ruler.

I’m waiting forhim.

“Sit,” he commands.

My hands smash the keys as I do, gasping and wiggling until I line him up enough to sink down onto his cock. Despite how many times he has taken me, his girth always stretches me in the most wonderful way. I grind my pulsing core, burying him to the hilt inside me before his punishing grip captures my waist, forcing me to still. “Play.”

Hallelujahby Leonard Cohen comes next, and my God, he won’t let me move. Tears are filling my eyes again, but for another ridiculous reason—not that it should surprise anyone. Master has no idea; he probably wouldn’t even care.

This is my favorite song.

I know the notes and words by heart. It was the only song I’d ever listened to on purpose, hummed along with inside my head.

He throbs inside me, my core slickening his thighs.

I don’t mind. I’ll play it for you, Master, because maybe somewhere else, in a different place, on a different night, you might have wanted to know.

His kisses taunt me, but I know better than to move. My body is thrumming, begging for friction. He gives me none. Instead, he keeps me like that, desperate, stretched, and filled until the song ends.

“You’re notbad, Pup. You were never bad.” He whispers it against my skin, pushing deeper into me before gently, slowly, grinding my core down on him with his iron grip on my hips. “And you’re right, I shouldn’t care. You are my slave.”

My heart flutters, a warmth filling my chest that has nothing to do with his cock being lodged inside me.

I whimper as he stands, making my hands slap down on the keys again, forcing me to bend forward.

“I shouldn’t care, Pup.”

But…

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