Page 59 of Cruel Master
Not being able to ask questions must be killing her. I take my time setting up the punishment, placing the timer in her eyeline as usual, then squeezing out a generous amount of the stinging lube. It tingles on my fingers, heating my skin, and she hisses as I use them to open up her ass.
From what I’ve read, repeating familiar punishments will help during this transition period. She needs to stop seeing a difference between Saldar and me. We must become one and the same—her master. I used this punishment five times for this very reason, until Juliet learned to behave and stopped giving me the opportunity.
I’ve selected a nice, wide plug, and it takes a couple of minutes of twisting and moaning from Juliet until it’s fully inside her. Then, I set the timer for thirty minutes. I give her one final slap on her cherry-red ass, and she yelps, clenching on the plug.
“You’re a lucky doll today. For the way you behaved, I could have made this much, much worse. I knew today would come as a shock; I expected a single outburst. A second will get you a very different result.”
Before I leave, I check her pussy with the hand not coated in the stinging lube. My two fingers slide in as easily as ever, and the relief is undeniable. Her body still craves this, even though she knows it’s me. From the pained little noise she makes, she must be thinking the same thing.
I repeat the words I said on her first day. “You’re going to love being owned by me, doll.”
I hope with everything I have that it’s true.
I close the door behind me, muscles relaxing as it clicks shut. The temptation to stay in the room is almost unbearable, but I can’t let myself give in to it. As Saldar, I left her alone to think. Now, as myself, I have to follow the same pattern.
If I slip and start behaving like a different man entirely, all my hard work will have been for nothing. All I can do is pace outside her prison, checking the screens every fifteen seconds.
I will the timer to count down faster—how can thirty minutes take an eternity?—when something in the corner of the top right monitor catches my eye. Flickering, like one of the pixels is on the blink, but moving in occasional regular patterns. My heart drops, all the elation of the last half hour draining away in an instant.
Not again.
The first time this happened, a week ago, I dismissed it as my mind playing tricks. But then it happened a second time, and a third. Part of me still thinks I’m imagining things, but it’s getting less and less likely to be true.
It’s not Morse code. Not quite, anyway, though sometimes occasional letters make it through. A long flash, then three short flickers. A fairly clear B in the code, but the flickers before and after were nothing but gibberish. Later, the B replayed, followed by a pause, then another pattern. Short then long. BA. But again, everything else was nonsense.
Since then, it’s happened almost every day. The BA has repeated too many times for it to be random. Other letters, too. An N. What looked like OT, though I couldn’t be sure on that one. An E. But all scattered, as though someone is fumbling with the language, struggling to make sense of it.
I should tell someone, but who? Just like with the gym bag incident, speaking up feels like more of a risk than keeping quiet. Too many people have their knives out for me. Speaking about flickering lights that could possibly be fragments of Morse code could get me a one-way trip to a padded cell.
I need to be here for Juliet, not trapped under psych evaluation.
I stare at the flickers, trying to make some sense out of it. I’ve learned Morse code since the first, creepy message, and the letters come easily to my eye. An M, on its own. E and N again, though I can’t work out whether they're supposed to be together. Then the only phrase I’m really sure of. BA.
D.
I freeze, staring at the spot. A long flash, then two short ones. AD, unmistakably. The flickers devolve back into nonsense, but I don’t look away. That was new, and its placement, right after BA, has my skin tingling.
BAD.
The small word holds weight.
I’ve tried not to think too hard about what the flickers mean, keeping everything focused on Juliet. But there’s only one explanation that makes sense, and if it ends up being true, we could all be screwed. Maybe some fragment of Candice is still on the loose. Maybe she’s trying to communicate.
BAD.
It doesn’t tell me a lot on its own, but an uneasy feeling lodges in my stomach anyway. I watch the flickers until Juliet’s counter reaches zero, then brace myself to head back in.
Without the ritual of donning my Saldar costume, the transition from my normal self into Juliet’s master is jarring. I psyched myself up for an hour the first time, but I can’t keep giving myself that luxury. Soon, if all goes well, Juliet is going to be in my apartment. In my life. I’m going to have to stop thinking of myself as two different people.
Time for lesson two.
Juliet whips her head up as soon as I enter, twisting to see me as best she can. Her eyes scan me, and I can’t help but wonder what she thinks of the physical changes. Right now,though, I’m sure her focus is on getting rid of the plug, and she has one more test to pass before that happens.
“Comfortable?” I give the word a sarcastic, mocking edge. She flinches but doesn’t retaliate, as per her instructions. “Would you like me to remove it?”
Her face twists, and she gives the finished timer a pointed glance but manages a “Yes, Master.” Good.
“I’ll need an orgasm from you first.”
