Page 9 of Rise of a Fallen Man

She was a woman. So much smaller than me. Soft and vulnerable. She belonged to the house where I lived. She was a part of the family that my guts demanded I protect. My fist was almost as big as her head. If I hit, I’d injure her, badly.

Everything inside me rebelled against hurting anyone, especially someone who looked like her, even if she had hurt me first.

She pulled me down by my hair until her hot breath hit my temple.

“You do as I say, Salas, like everyone else does around here. Your life is mine. As is the life of your father. It’s up to me to make it hard or easy for him. And it all depends on how well you’ll please me.”

Her mentioning of my father further paralyzed me. She saw the effect of her words on me and smiled, letting go of my hair.

“Now, be a good boy, and we’ll be friends. You want to be my friend, Salas, don’t you?”

She slid her dress off her shoulders. There was no undershirt this time. Her breasts spilled from her bodice. The tips tightened into buds in front of my eyes. I didn’t know a woman’s body did that. I had no idea what that meant, but I just couldn’t stop staring as my mind raced.

Even if I brought myself to hurt her, there’d be consequences. An assault on a woman was a crime punishable by death. I’d be executed. I didn’t know exactly what she’d do to my father after that, but I knew it wouldn’t be good.

But there was more to my feelings than fear of death. As she shoved her dress down her hips, then took her underwear with it, I couldn’t take my eyes off her naked body. Some dark, sinful part of me wanted to stay and see what would happen next.

“It’s wrong,” I muttered, licking my dry lips.

She came flash to me, naked, save for the milky-white stockings held up by the pink ribbons over her knees. The stockings were so thin, they looked like mist sprayed over her legs.

“How can it be wrong when it feels so right?” She gripped my cock through my pants. To my mortification, it grew harder in her hand.

“I must save myself for my wife, my lady.” My words came out hollow, as if from someone else’s mouth. My body no longer felt like my own either.

“Oh, but a wife needs to be pleasured,” she murmured. “Let me show you how.” Stroking me with one hand, she took my hand with the other and pressed my palm to her breast. Her body felt soft and inviting. My fingers curled around the pillowy sphere as if on their own. “You’re such a handsome boy, Salas. If you make me feel good, I’ll let you have some pleasure too.”

Maybe I should’ve pushed her away after all. Maybe I should’ve chosen the execution over degradation and shame. I would’ve given half of my life to be able to flee that room. But I also wanted her to keep touching me. And I wished to touch her back.

“Good boy.” She slid her hand into my pants. Her cool fingers wrapped around my heat.

Instead of fighting her grip, I leaned into it. The throbbing ache in my cock grew stronger, and everything else fell into the background.

Without fully realizing it then, I fell that night. And I kept plummeting further down ever since.

THE MIRROR STOOD ONthe floor, propped against my bed. I sat on my knees in front of it, naked. Red welts from Lady Lana’s nails and her riding crop decorated my chest and shoulders.

She rarely hit hard enough to break the skin, but always strived to inflict enough pain and shame to make mereflect. She loved watching the ripples ofreflectionquiver through my body. For her, it was as much a goal of all our encounters as her climax.

Over the past few months, she’d visited my room much more frequently than her own husband’s. To make me comply, she used both the proverbial stick and carrot. The “stick” was quite literally her riding crop, as well as the threats to hurt my father. The “carrot” was the possibility of my orgasm that she dangled in front of me as the ultimate reward, occasionally granting it to me.

I couldn’t fight her. But I never stopped searching for ways to deny her, if not the access to my body, then at least the pleasure of seeing my shame and my fear.

I lifted the riding crop I’d stolen from the stables. Keeping my eyes on the face of my reflection in the mirror, I swung the crop and hit myself on the back. Hard.

My skin flared with searing pain. The boy in the mirror winced, baring his teeth like a cornered dog. I raised the crop again and paused, allowing him to take a good look at it, then brought it back again, ready for another strike.

A barely perceptible wave moved across my face in the mirror as I brought the crop closer to strike. I braced for the blow. As the sting burned my back, however, the wave faded and disappeared.

It wasn’t the blow or the pain that scared me the most, I realized, but the anticipation of it. If I learned to wait for it without trepidation, there’d be noreflection. If I resigned to the inevitable, I could combat fear.

Acceptance became my weapon against shame.

There was no point in striving to be good anymore. What Lady Lana did with me at night was wicked. Rotten. Bad. It made me wicked too. I had let the sin tempt me, and I’d succumbed to it. There was no coming back now. No saving me. Bad boys didn’t deserve good things. Those who had forsaken decency had no right to feel ashamed.

Without fear or shame, there was noreflection.

Lady Lana had taken my innocence, but there was one thing I could and would deny her—the pleasure of seeing my weakness displayed to her.

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