Betrayed by Love Read online

  “I am going to know your body,” he trailed a hand down her belly to her sex, “inside and out.”

  He walked around the bottom of the person-shaped table. He activated some motorized bit and her legs were drawn farther apart. He emotionlessly pried the lips of her sex apart and rubbed each lip in turn, inspecting it. He then pulled back the hood of her clit and inspected that too.

  It was uncomfortable and humiliating, but not the horrifying torture she’d expected after the cane. Wilcox’s clinical detachment was much easier to deal with than the insane fervor he’d shown when talking about what a wonderful slave she would be.

  Savannah closed her eyes and started to paint. In the dark of her mind, she painted pictures. When that wasn’t enough to block out the feeling of his lubricated fingers sliding into her, followed by the cold speculum, she started to sculpt. Sculpture was a new art for her, and she found it more engaging than paint.

  She envisioned a statue of a wave, just cresting to break. What would she make it out of? Clay. Too earthy. Papier-mâché? Too lumpy. Fabric, stiffened with liquid plastic and draped, would be perfect.

  Her mental exercise wasn’t enough to distract her when he forced her mouth open with a spreader, when he forced a dildo between her teeth and over her tongue, making her gag and choke as he tested how well she could handle a cock.

  When he moved on to something else she blinked away tears and tried again to paint, but as the hours passed the painting became darker, the sculptures she created in her mind twisted and terrifying.

  Savannah survived that night. She survived, but she broke.

  * * * * *

  Roman sat on the side of the bed, his head in his hands.

  He couldn’t do it. He didn’t care if Savannah was a born submissive, didn’t care if she would be happier as some sort of full-time sex toy. He wanted his Savannah back, the girl who painted while sitting in the sunlight, the girl who kissed him as if nothing else mattered.

  This was all his fault. He’d introduced her to this world. It was his desires that had pushed them into doing this. He knew Savannah would have been just as happy with a completely vanilla sex life.

  He’d done this and now he wanted to undo it.

  He’d get her away from Wilcox, take her home. If she really, desperately needed this, he’d learn, they’d learn. The important thing was that they do it together. He remembered the sound of her moaning in pleasure and calling Wilcox Master.

  Teeth clenched, he paced their room, forcing himself to stay there, not to interrupt something that would bring her so much pleasure. He picked up her pillow. It smelled like her.

  That was it, he couldn’t stand it. He wanted her, wanted his Savannah.

  He turned to the door and sprinted from their room, down the stairs, through the playrooms to the hidden door. He pounded on the door, knowing it was hopeless if Wilcox was in the inner, soundproof room.

  But the door opened. Wilcox stepped back and ushered him in, saying, “How fortuitous. I was on my way to locate you.”

  “I can’t do this,” he said. “I know you said she needs this, she’d be happier like this, but I want her back. She’s…perfect, as she is. You have no idea how perfect she is. She shouldn’t change.”

  “You cannot undo what we’ve started,” Wilcox said, taking a seat. Roman remained standing. He looked at the door to the inner room.

  “She never wanted this. I did. Give her to me. If she really needs and wants this, I’ll do it for her.”

  “Your statement tells me you don’t understand this way of life at all.” Wilcox got to his feet and went to the door. Roman stepped up, confident he could bum-rush the other man and get into the room, but he didn’t open the door, instead he unlocked the cover on the control panel.

  “I’m sorry to tell you that Savannah has decided to stay with me.”

  “What?” Roman’s heart stood still. He looked at the window, which was still shuttered, then at Wilcox. “No. No, she’s coming with me.”

  “Perhaps it is best you hear for yourself.” He turned to the control panel and after a pause said, “Savannah, Master Roman is here. What is it you wanted to tell him?”

  “Roman!” Her voice was tinny and crackled with static. She sounded terrified. “You’re a degenerate asshole.” It wasn’t terror he heard in her voice, it was anger. There was a pause then, “You’re pathetic, a pervert who gets off on hurting women who are better than you. You’re a small-dicked asshole, and no women in her right mind would ever willingly give herself to you.”

  There was a click and Wilcox said, “That’s enough, Savannah.” He locked the control panel, then turned back to Roman, shaking his head. “You must understand, after time in my company she’s realized how weak a Dom you really are. She’s angry over it. I will, of course, punish her for forgetting to call you Master. She still has a long way to go.”

  “Let me—let me see her,” he whispered, heart breaking.

  “No. You should leave. I will give you one of my slaves to toy with for the rest of your time here.”

  “Savannah. I have to take her home with me.”

  “Why? Didn’t you say she’s an artist? She can work here. Send her things; she can paint as a reward.”

  This was madness. He felt like Alice fallen through the rabbit hole. What had happened to them in the past forty-eight hours? When they’d arrived, Savannah clung to him, nervous even to be naked in front of everyone, and now she was begging to stay and be trained as a slave.

  He felt small and stupid. He was too weak for her. Her words, pathetic, a pervert haunted him.

  “Fine, keep her,” he growled and walked away.

  He didn’t see Wilcox opened the blinds or the smile on his face.

  Savannah lifted her head when light filled the room. She blinked in time to focus and see Wilcox in the other room. There, on the other side of a glass window, was Roman.

  She cried out to him. She wept for her lover, her beloved, to save her, but he walked away. She watched him disappear. The small glimmer of hope that he’d come for her died when he closed the door behind himself, leaving her with Wilcox, who looked sternly at her through the window.

  Savannah closed her eyes.

  The door opened. She was mentally numb. The pain and horror of everything that was happening was too much. Her nipples and clit, doused in chili oil as one last punishment before Wilcox left, felt as though the flesh were being eaten away by acid. Her entire body was sweaty and hot, save for her face, which was wet with tears.

  Wilcox knelt before her, a rag and a small carton of milk in his hands. He opened the box, dipped the rag in the milk and began to wipe away the oil. The relief was so great Savannah almost fainted.

  “Oh yes, how very beautiful you are,” he said. “Did you see who was there a moment ago?” Savannah stared into middle space and didn’t answer. She wasn’t being defiant; she didn’t have the heart for it. She simply had no more to give. “He came to tell me something, and I’m afraid it will hurt you. More than anything I could do.”

  His face was sympathetic but his eyes glittered with pleasure.

  Please, no, she thought. Whatever it was that brought that look to his eye would be something horrible.

  “You see, I let Master Roman use one of my slaves while I trained you. It seems he’s decided he would rather have her than you.”

  He lies.

  “He’s told me to keep you.”

  Roman loves me.

  “You don’t believe it. I understand. Perhaps it is best you hear it yourself.” He pulled a small recorder from his pocket.

  There was a crackle, then Roman’s voice. “Keep her.”

  Savannah’s heart broke. She screamed and screamed, letting out the anguish that was tearing her up. She’d been betrayed, utterly, terribly, betrayed—by the man she loved. He’d lured her in, convinced her to try to do things she normally wouldn’t, and in the end he threw her away, like so much garbage.

  He took out t
he ball gag so her screams echoed through the chamber. He unbuckled her, slapping her and laughing as she struggled to get away. She’d been depending on Roman, on his coming for her. This trip had been for the weekend, nothing more, and she’d been able to hold on to the idea that there would be an end to her torture. But now that hope was gone.

  Wilcox didn’t see the couple standing in the outer room, their eyes wide as they looked through the glass into the training room. He didn’t see the look in their eyes when they realized she was far from willing. He didn’t see them watching as he strapped her facedown on the table and beat her ass with a paddle before forcing a monstrous plug into her.

  He didn’t see them hide as he left the room, nor did he know they watched him hang a ring of keys on a hook hidden behind a painting.

  The Stalwoods waited for Mr. Wilcox to leave before they retrieved the keys and let themselves into the room. They took Savannah away, Robert scooping her up as though she were a broken doll. When she begged them, in a voice nearly gone from all the screaming, to take her away, they did. When she told Karen that Roman had done this, had given her to Wilcox, traded her for one of Wilcox’s own slaves, they smuggled her out of the house into their car. They stopped only long enough for Robert to grab his wallet and keys, and for Karen—an IT administrator—to log into the laptop she’d noticed set up in a dark corner of the room. She’d deleted the still-recording video, then crashed the whole system, but not before copying the contents to the external hard drive that sat next to the laptop and taking it with them.

  They took Savannah home to L.A. They broke into the condo she shared with Roman to get her things. Savannah, barely able to walk, had written a note for Roman with hands that shook.

  Don’t ever contact me.

  Roman found the note when he returned to L.A., only hours behind Savannah. Roman had tried to respect Savannah’s choice, but he loved her too much. He decided to take her home and make love to her until she remembered what they had together. When he’d confronted Wilcox again, demanding to see Savannah, Wilcox said Savannah had run away. Roman hadn’t believed him until he’d been in every room, including the hidden training room. Sure that she’d changed her mind about him he’d run home, expecting to see her. But their home was trashed, most of her clothes and personal items gone, a short note and her paintings all that remained of her.

  She’d run from Wilcox, but not home to him. He called and emailed, talked to their friends. He searched for her, desperate to talk to her, to have her back.

  Once, just once, he got hold of her. Nine months after she left. She was at her parents’ house in Colorado and she answered the phone.

  “Savannah,” he said in relief.

  There was a pause, then, “Don’t ever call me again.”

  “Wait, whatever it is you need I can be—” Dial tone.

  He left L.A. He couldn’t stay there. The golden light of dusk reminded him of her. He moved to Chicago where the light was different, where the cold wind cut through bone. He became harder, stronger. He closed off his heart, stayed away from the scene for years, but then went back, to test himself. There were still elements of it he found arousing to watch, but his desire to participate was gone.

  He watched others play and wondered at what might have been. He never forgot her and he never stopped loving her.

  She moved away. She stayed with the Stalwoods long enough to heal, then went to her parents in Colorado. She told them she’d broken up with Roman. When pressed, she said he’d cheated on her.

  She stopped painting.

  She moved to Savannah, the town she was named after but had never lived in. Her grandparents let her turn their barn into a massive art studio. She took up sculpture. When her grandparents died within months of each other, she used the money they left her to turn her studio into a sort of co-op, building a painting studio on the side.

  She never dated. Sex was something to be done after a night of heavy drinking, with a man whose name she wouldn’t remember. She wanted nothing to do with the BDSM world but could not stay away. She started by going to clubs, watching. Then, one night, hounded by the memory of her torture, she agreed to play with a male sub. The sub’s Domme offered him to Savannah, saying with a wink that he’d been naughty. She hadn’t realized the other people in the room thought she was a Domme.

  She took him, using his leash to draw him to her, and the darkness that lived within her swelled up. In the end, when he was panting with the combination of pain and pleasure—for despite all she’d suffered Savannah wouldn’t give only pain—he’d gone back to his Domme, who’d hugged and kissed him.

  It became her obsession, taking other subs close to the dark she’d known. They didn’t know how real their peril was. They came to her already aroused because they expected the experience to be erotic.

  A leatherworker who for a time had space in her studios made her the suit. She became anonymous then. She was invited to attend shows at clubs across the country. Between the monthly sessions as a Domme and the ongoing rape counseling, she healed. Her art improved. She became commercially successful.

  But she never dealt with the issue of Roman. She hadn’t revealed that part of the story to her counselor. Though she came to understand that what had happened to her wasn’t her fault, she never forgave Roman.

  The “why” ate away at her like a cancer. Why would he betray her? What in her was so forgettable, so unlovable, that the man she’d loved with an abiding passion had been willing to give her away as if she were a broken toy?

  Chapter Seven

  Current Day

  “Peter, just give me her address.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I…I know her. From L.A.”

  “Whoa, is she the girl you talk about sometimes?”

  “I don’t talk about her.”

  “Four neat whiskies and you do. The beautiful artist.”

  “Something like that. Just give me the address.”

  “I emailed it to you. She lives in Savannah.”

  Savannah. He’d always teased her about being named for a city she didn’t live in. Her grandparents were there. He would have looked for her there, if he hadn’t first found her in Colorado.

  Now he knew where she was, and now he had some answers. She hadn’t gone vanilla, she was a Domme, and a good one. That still didn’t explain why she’d reacted the way she had.

  He’d lost five years of his life wondering what happened. It was time for answers.

  He boarded a plane the next afternoon.

  * * * * *

  Savannah picked up her car at the airport and drove home, going too fast. Her phone beeped and she picked it up, reading a text message from Karen. On our way. Don’t leave.

  She’d contacted them, telling them she’d run into Roman. She hadn’t known who else to call.

  Back in her studio, she paced the floor. When pacing wasn’t enough, she rolled out a huge piece of butcher’s paper and started to sketch. She drew a woman, larger than life size, her arms and legs distorted and disjointed like a Picasso. Manacles around her wrists, ankles and neck attached to chains.

  Roman held the chains. Unlike the woman, he was lifelike. She tested herself, seeing how accurately she could render him after all these years.

  He was handing the chain to a gaunt figure in a white dress shirt. She drew Wilcox salivating, his eyes wide with longing. She made him a pathetic, comical creature. When she couldn’t stand looking at the image anymore, she pushed away the paper, tore off another sheet and kept drawing.

  * * * * *

  He rented a car and tore out of the airport parking lot. He drove fast, anxious to see her as afternoon faded to dusk.

  You betrayed me. You murdered me.

  Her words haunted him, and the need to understand them ate at him. He finally found the address. It was a beautiful old farmhouse holding court amid acres of cultivated land. He turned left between white gateposts and started up the shrub-lined drive.

>   He didn’t get far.

  A black sedan was stopped on the drive, parked at an angle so he couldn’t get past. Two people leaned against the back. Roman got out of the car.

  He was about to ask them if this was Savannah’s house when a shock of recognition went through him.

  “Karen? Robert?” It took him a minute to identify the Stalwoods. Robert had gained some weight, Karen’s hair was going gray, but he couldn’t mistake his former friends. He’d contacted them asking if they’d seen Savannah after that weekend, but they said they hadn’t. Less than six months later, they left L.A. when Karen was transferred to Richmond.

  “Roman,” Robert said coolly. Karen glared at him. He looked at the house, barely visible through the tall trees. He’d never felt as though he really understood what had happened that weekend, but after seeing Savannah—and after her reaction to seeing him—he’d gotten the feeling that there was far more going on than he knew. The appearance of these two confirmed it.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “What are you doing here?” Robert returned.

  The ball of dread that had been slowly forming in Roman’s stomach solidified. “You never lost contact with her,” he said, putting the pieces together. “Are you the ones who taught her to be a Dominatrix?”

  They didn’t reply. Karen looked away, her face drawn in lines of grief.

  Roman took a deep breath and asked the question he needed the answer to. “What happened five years ago?”

  Robert nodded, as if that’s what he’d been waiting for. “I don’t think anyone but Wilcox knows for sure.”

  Bile rose in Roman’s throat at the name. “Wilcox and Savannah.” He’d been manipulated into letting Wilcox train Savannah. If he’d been smarter and stronger, he would have said no, even if it meant she didn’t reach her full potential as a sub.

  “No,” Karen said. There was something in her voice that drew him back from his self-recriminations. “I suspect neither of you really knows what happened.”