Page 88 of Servitude to Serpents

Her hair is like silk under my tough palm as I pet her softly. So softly. Her entire backside and swollen, wet holes are raw and brutalized. “Shhh, baby. You look so fucking pathetic like this. So pretty.”

She thrashes, whimpering, trying to free herself as I jerk off my pants, letting my cock settle on her smooth, pale belly while I pin her arms underneath my knees.

When she sees the marker, she dissolves. “No, no, no,please!”

“It’s your fault for saying no to me. Your fault for disobeying, for saying you don’t fucking want me. You can feel sorry for yourself when I’m done with you.”

She sobs. “I tried! I tried to please him. Itried.”

The cap of the marker comes off with apopas I lean in, sprawling the wordbadacross her neck, right where I intend to choke her.

“Tell me honestly: did his cock go inside you? I want to know everything.”

She tells me through pants and sobs about how she tried, how she didn’t want it, how she threw up on him. I wish it was enough to stop this. Each word pushes me closer to the edge, wedging the knife deeper, one I thrust into my own gut. I want to stop this, but I’m beyond reason, beyond her salvation. A slave to myrage, my insanity, like all those years ago. I’m fucking bleeding out, hemorrhagingforher. Because of her.

The only person who has ever brought me to my knees.

She struggles, begging as I jerk her legs apart, my cock nudging her entrance as I nip and tug at her nipples. “I SAID NO.”

“No is not a luxury you can afford, my love.”

She whimpers as I lean back, entering her with brutal efficiency, all the while scribblingbadacross her perfect body, peppering my bites in between.

“What are you,pet?” I growl in her ear, my hands bruising her waist as I quicken my already-punishing thrusts. Her small breasts heave, sobs mixing with pleas and moans.

“I’mbad,” she sobs as I fuck her into the mattress. Ignoring her begging, when her cunt spasms, her body betraying her, my hand finds her throat, applying pressure until her clawing and scratching grows weaker.

I drag her body’s betrayal out of her over and over again until my own release rips through me. This time, when she comes alongside me, the word bad covers her, but it’s whittled into her soul, her skin red and angry from my abuse. Her sobs are silent now, just a shuddering in her chest, and before I pull out of her, the gravity of what I’ve done hits me. It makes bile rise in my throat, but I canbreatheagain, so I do. I breathe her in, letting it balm things that don’t deserve it, not while she’s looking at me like that. Each breath reels me back in as I press kisses to her swollen lips. “Pup…”

“I hate you.” She says it blankly, with such finality, I have to swallow past the tight pressure in my throat.

I leave her there.

Because I fucked up again.

And I don’t know how to fix any of it.

Chapter thirty-three

To own is to… Scrape

Chloe

Mom hung on for as long as she could after they found Renee’s remains. I remember the vacant, eerie stare she had in the days before she tried to kill herself the first time. I remember being woken from sleep, the familiar, comforting sounds of Dad coming home that night. I’d blown my stuffy nose before settling back down on my pillow, only to be jolted moments later by his screams. It was a terrible sound. I remember everyone’s panic as they rushed her to the hospital, trampling over their bedroom where she’d swallowed the pills. Nobody saw the note she left, but I did. I read in graphic detail her goodbyes that made no mention of me. I read of the way she begged the police to let her see what remained of her daughter. Not hereldestdaughter, just herdaughter,because I no longer had the right to that title. I had given up my place as her daughter the moment I said yes and swam just a little too far out that night. I read her vivid recount of the state of my sister’s body, how the police were right. It was all she could see now when she thought of her little girl.

I didn’t understand until I was older, the desire to end it all. I’d find that dark place many times following my exile from their lives. I knew how it felt to want so badly to stop existing but neverenough. Never enough to move past the sobbing on the bathroom floor, clutching a bottle of pills in my hand, only to place it back in the cabinet and wash my face. I’d wake up the next morning and get to work five minutes early with a smile on my face, because as long as I smiled, they wouldn’t see how I was rotting on the inside, how everything was heavy and everything hurt. The little things never felt little to me.

I structured my days down to every single minute because then, I wouldn’t schedule time to cry. I wouldn’t sit and think too hard about any one thing, because that was a slippery slope. When Iwouldslip, it was always a landslide, and I’d be back on that bathroom floor with that bottle of pills I knew I’d never use, and I’d be back at work the next morning, five minutes early.

When I was taken, the effect was similar, only this time, instead of me keeping myself busy to avoid the pain, there was simply such an abundance of it. It stopped my tears, ran them dry with the brutality of it all, and I’d learned physical pain, pleasure, and agony were all so very subjective, a fact that was further compounded after I met him.

My master.

From the very start, he took the control I’d longed to give up, but he didn’t need to prod me to obtain it. He was consuming and harsh, but he never hurt me more than what he knew I could take. He coddled and cared for me in a way I’d never experienced, doted on me the way they’d always doted on her. I felt pretty and adored.Special.

Loved.

I was allowed to cry, to feel all the tiny things that tore me up inside.

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