Page 19 of Little Puppet

I swallow.

What have I done?

“Lie down, puppet. I’ll help you sleep.”

I don’t want to lie down, but I do so not to anger him. Even more than I already have.

He moves back onto the bed and straddles me. Methodically, he removes each of my strings from their hoops, letting them dangle freely over the bed.

I all but sigh as the last one is released.

“I never used to speak to my girls, you know?” he tells me, but his eyes are far off, like he’s speaking to himself aloud.

“Probably smarter that way,” he adds. “You’ve been afforded more comforts than they were, yet you still seem to want the same thing they wanted. Freedom. When that’s exactly what I offer.”

He’s working something over from the corner of the bed, but I can’t see it through the darkness.

When I hear the rustle of metal, fright dances in my chest.

“Master, I?—”

“Hush now, puppet. I haven’t spoken to you.”

“No, but…”

His eyes snap back to mine, growing darker even in the dusk surrounding us. “If I haven’t spoken to you, foolish girl, keep your lips sealed. Before I teach you a lesson that I’d rather not.”

I swallow audibly and nod.

He works cuffs over my wrists and ankles, which attach to the four corners of the beds, somehow becoming anchors.

If I thought the strings were terrible, this is literal hell. Tears fall freely and silently down my face.

“Are these more comfortable for you?” he asks as if he’s liberated me somehow.

“Yes, master,” I answer softly. It’s almost a whisper.

He’s breaking my spirit more than he’s breaking my mind. I don’t know who I’ll be if I do escape him.

“Good. Now, I think you should be punished for waking me up, don’t you? Good little dolls go to sleep when told to, wouldn’t you agree?”

I grit my teeth. “Yes, master.”

Every defiant fiber in my body wants to lash out and tell him to go fuck himself. But my body is exposed. My bralette is barely over my breasts, and my thin panties aren’t a very good barrier against a monster.

I don’t want him to get any fucked up ideas, so I have to agree with him. No matter what he does to me, I have to survive.

Mom is looking for me. She has to be.

“Mm, let’s see, shall we?”

I shiver against his eyes as they take in my body. Ilook like a starfish, laying on my back, ready for him to do whatever hellish thing he decides to.

He could rape me.

The realization has my heart thumping rapidly in my chest.

Please, God. Please, no.

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