Mistress of Redemption (25 page)

came from garbage. Because you

were abandoned like garbage.”

“Please, stop.” He hated begging.

Not the mocking kind he did to win a

Mistress’s favor, not even the kind

he’d done in reaction to his physical

passion for her, but the true, bottom-

of-his-gut pleading for something to

take away the pain, the hurt. That

kind of begging was an admission

that someone had been able to hurt

him, that he would have to rely on

someone else. He hated it. Hated

anyone who made him feel it, except

he seemed incapable of hating Dona.

He just wanted her to stop. “Don’t do

this.”

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Joey W. Hill

“Sshhh. Look.”

He’d rather have been boiled alive.

He looked at the new image, his

foster mothers gone as if they’d never

been, except they were imprinted on

his own life in ways it was getting

hard to deny.

This woman was younger than he’d

remembered her. She wasn’t more

than

nineteen. Limp blonde hair, the

sunken cheeks of an addict, hopeless

blue eyes the color of his own. She’d

taken him to a homeless shelter, told

him to stay there. Not even that she’d

be back. Just, “stay here”. In about an

hour one of the men who stayed in the

shelter had noticed him, taken him to

the priest, who in turn called the

police and social services. The cogs

of the machine began to turn, to grind

him up. He could still remember the

confusion, the desperation of having

no control. Of wishing, forever it

seemed, that she would come back

and give him the chance to be better.

“Your mother.” Dona’s voice, quiet.

When her hands moved to his arms,

rubbing them even as they were held

fast, he couldn’t push away the

memory or keep himself from saying

it.

“I sat on her lap once. Tracing the

needle tracks on her arms. She took a

pen and helped me connect them to

draw animal shapes. It was a game

and she smiled at me…

We made an elephant, sort of. She

hugged me. She got high later that

night, threw a beer bottle at me to get

me to leave her alone.”

He closed his eyes to keep himself

from seeing his own face now, the

tiny white scar covered mostly by his

eyebrow so he was the only one who

could see it. As he shook his head,

trying to push away the image, he

couldn’t seem to stop shaking it. He

started to thrash, jerking back and

forth. Yanking against the hold of the

mirror, he shoved against Dona’s

grip, shrugging her off. It was going

to let him go. The strength of his rage

would be enough to break even

Hell’s grip on him. The room would

be consumed in flame and simply

explode from it.

“You bitch.
You fucking…stupid…

bitch
.” He screamed, roared at the

image, wanted to be free so he could

beat on it. Not just break it into

pieces. He’d grind the shards to dust

under his feet, even if it cut him. The

blood would mingle with the dust and

it would be justice. “I would have

done anything to stay with you and

you were a stupid…loser…junkie…

whore. Tell this fucking…thing…

to…LET ME GO!”

Dona’s touch came back, rested on

his back. He fought, railed, screamed

endlessly as she said nothing, just

stood behind him as a silent witness.

It seemed to take a long while, but at

length he became self-aware again,

enough to feel her soft stroking on his

skin, the way it seemed to be easing

the compression in his chest, the

burning in his throat and behind his

eyes. It helped him get a grip and

stop, gasping at his exertions.

“Look at yourself. Look.” Her voice

resonated through his upper body

because she pressed her mouth

between his shoulders, sliding her

hands around to stroke his chest and

belly. Long, soothing motions with a

hint of nails.

A tall man with murder in his

expression, his body layered with

cold sweat and his muscles taut,

wanting to destroy something with

them.

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Mistress of Redemption

“You said you didn’t believe you

could have a true Mistress,” she

whispered, kissing the base of his

neck, making him close his eyes.

“That you didn’t believe in the

fantasy of it. Jonathan denies you the

reality. He’s the angry little boy

acting out, terrified, hiding in the

closet, afraid his foster mother will

find and beat him again. Or worse,

not care that he’s there, as if he’s

nothing, as if his existence doesn’t

matter.”

“Stop it.”

“No. You said it yourself. Think of

what you made of yourself. You
are

strong.

You’re not garbage.” She slid under

his arm and was between him and

that mirror now.

When she lifted her hands, laid them

on either side of his face, they

seemed so fragile.

He could break her fingers with

barely any pressure and yet she

seemed to have no fear of him when

he was like this. When he was so

enraged he feared himself, what he

was capable of doing. “The only

thing you lack is the courage to love,

to forgive. That’s the only thing that

gives Jonathan power over your soul.

That’s what turns all those good

things to poison. Let the little boy go

and become the fine man I know is in

my arms.

Forgive.”

“This can’t be forgiven. Not ever.”

“Are you talking about your mother?

Or yourself?”

She was gone. His hands were free

and the glass shattered, as if the brief

interlude was just a passing dream

and now time had resumed, the

mirror feeling the impact of his fists.

Blood bloomed on his knuckles.

The shadows in the surrounding

mirrors swirled, a heavy fog that

spilled out of the glass and poured

into the room, black and silver,

twisting together like the bodies of

charred trees, touching his nose with

the acrid smell of burning flesh. It

warned him that something was

coming, something that was at the

heart of all of it. What had brought

him here, the foundation of everything

else. He knew enough to try and

close his eyes, but he couldn’t.

There were crimes that damned a

man the moment they were

committed. The soul always knew it.

After that, nothing evil he did

mattered. The black magic of this

place wouldn’t let him have the

escape of seeing Dona this time. The

mirrors clustered around him like the

walls of a coffin, dancing out of the

way only when he struck out at them.

Then his fists stopped in midair,

clenched, unable to strike. For he

was surrounded by her. By so many

different images of her.

Eliza.

“You met Eliza when you were with

your last foster mother. Your first

true love.

You were seventeen.”

Eliza had been fifteen, and that’s how

he saw her now. Straight blonde hair,

blue eyes. It was suddenly so

pathetically obvious why he had

stayed with Lauren longer than the

other Mistresses he had manipulated.

That same purity in her glance. Not

the sickness infecting his own soul

that made him such a good match for

his foster mothers, so capable of

manipulating them. He’d manipulated

Lauren, but he’d never touched the 99

Joey W. Hill

core of her, because she was a grown

woman who had been strong and

clean enough that the filth of his soul

hadn’t been able to completely break

her. Eliza hadn’t been so lucky.

“You can’t make me look at her. You

can’t.” He dropped to a squat on the

ground, his hands tight over his head.

He wouldn’t look at it. He’d be

damned first.

Careful, Nathan. There are no

metaphors in Hell.

The smoke cleared. He recognized

the irony in the combination of smoke

and mirrors, but he still wouldn’t lift

his head. Not until he felt the brush of

Dona’s leg against his side.

He exploded into motion, seizing her

so in less than a blink he had her on

her back, his body arched over hers,

hands pinning her wrists to the

ground, sitting on her hips to hold her

down.

Her eyes were wide, startled, telling

him she hadn’t anticipated that move.

Nor had some other power, if the

rumble that went through the floor

told him anything. It gave him the

fleeting uneasy feeling of a lover

about to confront the father of the

village virgin he was ravishing. He

didn’t care. Let whatever demons that

dwelled in this place come get him.

He wasn’t going to be torn open and

left to bleed. He’d go down fighting.

His chest rose and fell, not from the

effort of pinning a woman half his

size, but the reaction of a man being

chased over a long distance by things

he knew he’d never outrun.

He’d keep running until he couldn’t

run further, though. When he went for

her lips, she bit him. Snarling, he

settled for her throat, biting her back,

suckling on the skin to mark her as

his, tasting her with his tongue,

pressing his cock hard against her

belly, letting her feel how much he

wanted to fuck her. He could rape

her, but as much as he hated having it

pointed out by her earlier, he didn’t

work that way. He wanted her to

command him, to arouse her so much

she couldn’t deny her own need. Her

breasts pressed against his upper

abdomen. He hated that corset.

Letting go of her hands, he reached

down and yanked the cups out of the

way so he could grip the full curves,

feel the press of her nipples in his

palms.

“I want to see you come.” His voice

was rough, pleading to his own ears.

“I’ll grant that wish.” Those

sorceress’s eyes, looking up at him,

told him a blink before it happened

that he’d never had the upper hand at

all.

The world spun and he was on his

knees, ten feet away from her. He

wanted to howl. Dona was still there,

her corset dipped down like a waist

cincher, showing those luscious

breasts fully. When he tried to move

forward, he was brought up short. He

had manacles on his biceps and

wrists and they were chained to an

eyebolt in the floor, as if he were an

animal in truth. As she studied him

with that remote expression that saw

everything, he felt vicious despair at

it, at the way he felt so close to

understanding one moment, close to

getting into her head and yet yanked

away in the next blink. The mirrors

still rotated, but at the moment they

were mercifully blank.

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Mistress of Redemption

He wanted his hands on her thighs,

his mouth and body close to hers. She

came to him, cupped his face, let him

catch his lips briefly on her wrist, the

curve of her palm.

Then she strolled across the chamber,

back to that old Victorian fainting

couch, complete with gold tassels

over the carved wood and rich

tapestry-patterned fabric.

Tracing her hand over the top of one

breast, she paused, her gaze going

somewhere behind Nathan.

“Come,” she said imperiously. “I

wish you to service me.”

Nathan stiffened as two men walked

past him. Both were specimens of

physical perfection, muscled, oiled,

cocks erect. Each had an identical

harness on his cock. A painfully tight

chain ran from the base of it through

the cleft of the muscular buttocks and

hooked to the firmly buckled waist

strap. In the front, there was a series

of straps fastened with a metal stud in

an overlapping point on the cock

harness. They fanned out over the

shaved pubic area in a sunburst

design studded to the waist strap,

measured exactly to keep the cock

pulled up high.

One of the men had dark hair rippling

down his back. The other’s locks

were almost white, so they were like

yin and yang. As they turned, he saw

one had wholly white eyes and the

other black, both appearing to be

blind, finding her by her voice only.

“Dona, no. I wanted—”

“To bring me fulfillment yourself? I

don’t think so. You prefer to tease

women, not bring them true

pleasure.” She reached out, caressed

and stroked the cock of the white-

haired man now standing at her side.

Bending, he finished unlacing the

corset all the way down the front as