Chapter 5: Experiments
The hollow, spent silence of Jess’s bedroom lingered in Matt’s mind for days. It wasn’t guilt that haunted him; it was the pristine clarity of his own power. He’d watched her unravel, strand by strand, and had held the scissors. He’d seen the exact moment her defiant, staged submission had melted into genuine, helpless desperation. The taste of that control was better than anything else – better than her mouth, better than the feel of her clit pulsing under his brush, better than the photos in the basement boxes.Those were static records.This was living sculpture.
And a sculpture, in his view, demanded progression.The woods had been about raw fear and exposure. The apartment had been about psychological endurance.Now he wanted to merge them. He wanted to take the controlled, prolonged agony of the edging and place it inside the terrifying, public context she secretly craved.The risk was the catalyst. The possibility of a stranger’s eyes, a stranger’s ears, would amplify every sensation, every denial, into something unbearable.He planned it with a meticulous, clinical focus. The location: the Miller’s Ridge trailhead, popular enough for plausible deniability but with dense, young spruce thickets just off the main gravel path. The time: Thursday afternoon, when the weekend hikers hadn’t yet arrived and the weekday crowd was thin. The equipment: a small, dark green backpack. Inside, the ropes—not the harsh, utilitarian ones from the first woods, but softer, hemp ones that wouldn’t chafe as quickly. The labia clamps, the silver alligators with the chain, their teeth filed just enough to bite without breaking skin. The arsenal of edging tools: the soft paintbrushes, the feathers, the dense makeup brush, the fuzzy pipe cleaners.A thick, black silk blindfold.A small, travel-sized bottle of lube. And, lastly, a simple, sharp pocket knife.
The text he sent on Wednesday night was a mirror of her own from the previous week: terse, imperative, leaving no room for debate.Miller’s Ridge trailhead.Picnic table near the map board.Tomorrow. 4 PM.Wear the rain jacket, jeans, hiking boots.Nothing else underneath.Do not reply.
He watched the message status change to “Read.” He felt a thrill, cold and sharp, imagining her seeing it, the immediate clutch of fear and excitement in her stomach.He knew she would obey. The addiction had been mutually acknowledged now.She had tied herself to her own bed for him. She would come.The afternoon was overcast, a low ceiling of grey cloud threatening a damp drizzle. It was perfect.It kept people away. He arrived at 3:30, the backpack slung over one shoulder, and sat at the splintery picnic table, watching the empty parking lot. A single beat-up sedan was parked near the trail entrance. At five minutes to four, a familiar figure emerged from a taxi at the lot’s edge.Jess. She wore a dark green rain jacket, unzipped, over a simple grey t-shirt, and faded jeans tucked into sturdy hiking boots.Her hair was in a practical ponytail. She looked like any other hiker, except for the paleness of her face and the tight set of her mouth. She walked toward him, her boots crunching on the gravel, her hands shoved into her jacket pockets. She didn’t meet his eyes until she was right at the table.
“You came,” he said, a simple statement.“You knew I would,” she replied, her voice low.She glanced around nervously. The lot was still empty save for the one car. “What are we doing here, Matt?”
“Digging deeper,” he said, standing up.He shouldered the pack. “Follow me.” He didn’t wait for agreement, simply turned and started walking down the main, wide gravel path that led into the woods.After a moment’s hesitation, he heard her footsteps behind him. They walked in silence for ten minutes, the only sounds the crunch of their steps, the distant call of a jay, and the sigh of wind in the pine tops. The path was well-maintained, edged with ferns and young saplings. They passed one older couple heading back to the lot, who offered a benign “Afternoon.” Jess kept her eyes on the ground.Another half-mile in, Matt slowed. He peered into the thick, shadowy growth of young spruce trees to their right. The branches grew close together, a wall of green needles.“Here,” he murmured.
He left the path, pushing through the outer layer of prickly branches.Jess followed, the spruce scratching at her jacket. Just ten feet in, the trees opened into a small, hidden clearing, the ground soft with decades of brown needle duff. The main path was still visible as a lighter strip through the branches, maybe fifteen feet away. They could hear everything: the rustle of a squirrel, the distant murmur of the couple they’d passed. But they were effectively invisible, a secret pocket just off the world.
“Take off the jacket and the shirt,” Matt said, shrugging off the backpack and unzipping it.Jess stared at him, then at the barely-visible path. “Someone will hear.”
“That’s the point,” he said, his voice flat.“Jacket. Shirt. Now.”
Her fingers trembled slightly as she unzipped the raincoat, let it fall to the needles. She pulled the grey t-shirt over her head, standing before him in just her jeans and boots, her breasts pale and exposed in the cool, damp air. Her nipples tightened instantly.“Good.” From the pack, he pulled the ropes. “Arms around that tree.” He pointed to a sturdy spruce with a low, thick branch.
She complied, her breathing already shallower.She wrapped her arms around the rough bark, her cheek against it. He worked efficiently, tying her wrists together around the trunk with a complex, inescapable knot. He used another length to secure her torso to the tree, just below her breasts, pulling her tight against the bark. He knelt and tied each ankle to the base of nearby saplings, spreading her legs wide, the denim of her jeans stretching taut.She was pinned, bent forward slightly, utterly vulnerable.
He stood back, surveying his work. From the path, if someone looked very carefully, they might see a flash of skin through the thicket.But they’d have to be looking. Mostly, they’d hear.And she’d have to be very, very quiet.Next, the blindfold. He fixed the black silk over her eyes, plunging her into darkness. Her other senses would now scream.“Please,” she whispered, her voice muffled against the tree.
“Quiet,” he breathed directly into her ear, making her jump.“You need to be silent. Anyone walking by will hear you.Do you understand? A cough, a moan, a loud breath… they’ll know someone’s here.They might come looking.”
She gave a tiny, frantic nod.
He unbuttoned her jeans, yanked them down along with her underwear to her knees, the rough denim scraping her thighs. The cool, damp forest air washed over her exposed skin, and she gasped, the sound choked off almost immediately. Her ass was presented to him, and to the void of the woods beyond. Her pussy, already glistening with a betraying wetness, was fully accessible.From the pack came the soft clink of the clamps. He warmed them in his hand for a moment.He didn’t speak. With deliberate, slow pressure, he spread her labia apart with one hand, and attached the first clamp to the outer lip. The bite made her whole body tense, a strangled whimper escaping her throat.He attached the second. The chain hung down, a cold, slight weight. The clamps pulled her open, exposing the slick, pink inner flesh and her swollen clit to the air.
“So open,” he murmured, almost to himself.“So defenseless.”
The edging began not with touch, but with sound. He selected the longest, softest feather.He didn’t touch her with it yet. He simply dragged it lightly, slowly, up the back of her bare thigh, from knee to ass cheek. The sensation was a whisper, a tickle that made her muscles quiver. She clenched her teeth, her breath huffing out through her nose.
He traced the feather around the curve of her ass, then finally, brought it forward, through the damp thatch of hair, and let the very tip of it dance around her exposed clit.It was the lightest possible contact. She jerked against her bonds, a low moan building in her chest that she forced into a choked gurgle.
He paused.They both listened.Footsteps.Two sets, approaching on the path. A man’s voice, laughing. “...told you it was the wrong turn.”
Jess froze, her body rigid with terror.The feather was still, a hair's breadth from her flesh. Matt watched her, saw the absolute panic of exposure warring with the intense arousal.The voices passed, faded. The forest sounds returned.As soon as silence reasserted itself, he resumed. This time, he used the soft paintbrush.He coated it lightly with a drop of lube, making it slick. He painted her slit with it, up and down, a slow, maddening glide that skirted her clit.Then he zeroed in. Tiny, precise circles directly on the hyper-sensitive nub.The pressure was just enough to tease, not to satisfy.
Her hips began a tiny, involuntary rocking motion, seeking more friction, more pressure.He gave her less. He switched to the fuzzy pipe cleaner, tracing the outer edges of her labia, tracing her perineum, the forbidden touch making her gasp. He brought it forward and used the fuzzy end to tap, tap, tap on her clit in a rapid, irregular rhythm.
The climb was faster this time, amplified by the blinding dark and the ever-present threat of discovery. Her quiet sounds became more persistent—soft, desperate mewls against the tree bark, sharp intakes of breath. He could feel the heat pouring off her, see the subtle flush spreading across her back.
He pushed two fingers inside her, deep, curling them.She was sopping wet, her inner muscles clenching around nothing. He fingered her with that same, slow, relentless pace while using the dense makeup brush to apply a broad, vibrating pressure to her entire pubic mound.The dual assault was overwhelming. She was panting now, her quiet “ah, ah, ah” sounds keeping time with his thrusting fingers.
He could feel the orgasm gathering in her, a tangible tension coiling in her belly, her thighs beginning to shake. Just as she was about to tip over the edge, he pulled his fingers out and took all the tools away.The denial was violent. Her whole body spasmed against the ropes, a silent scream shaking her frame.A thin, anguished sob escaped her. “No… god, please…”
“Shhh,” he whispered, cruel and close.“You have to be quiet. Remember?”
He let her suffer in the aftermath, the ache profound and hollow.He started again. This time with just his mouth.He didn’t give her the release of his tongue on her clit. Instead, he blew cool air on her wetness. He used his lips to gently suck and pull at her labia.He licked and probed everywhere except the one spot that screamed for attention. He could taste her desperation, salty and sweet.
He brought her up again with his tongue finally flicking against her clit, fast and light, while his fingers worked inside her, finding that perfect rhythm. Her begging became a continuous, whispered stream. “Please, Matt, please let me come, I need it, I’ll be quiet, I swear, just let me come…”
He stopped. Again.The withdrawal was agony. She was crying openly now, tears soaking the blindfold, her body shuddering with frustrated need. She’d been edged three times in this exposed, frozen state.Her sanity was fraying.It was then he delivered the final twist. He leaned close, his lips against her ear, his voice a bare, cold murmur.
“I’m not going to give you an orgasm, Jess. Not today.”
A broken sound, half-whimper, half-protest, leaked from her.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t come,” he continued, the words dripping like poison. “It just means I’m not going to be the one to give it to you.You’re tied up.You’re exposed. You’re so fucking wet and desperate you can barely think.Someone could walk down that path any minute. A man.A woman.Doesn’t matter.” He paused, letting the horror sink in. “When they do… you’re going to beg them for it.”
“No,” she rasped, the word filled with pure terror.
“Yes.” His hand cupped her wet pussy, possessively.“You want the exposure?This is the exposure.The real risk. Not just being seen.Being used. By anyone.” He took the softest paintbrush and began circling her clit again, that exquisite, torturous pressure. “I’m going to keep you right here, on this edge, until someone comes.And then you’re going to ask them. You’re going to beg a stranger to make you come.”
He set to work with a renewed, sadistic focus.He used every tool, every technique. He varied the pace, the pressure, the location. He brought her to the shuddering brink four more times, and each time he yanked her back, leaving her gasping and sobbing softly against the tree. The physical need had transcended arousal; it was a biological imperative, a suffering that blocked out all other thought. The fear of discovery was now intertwined with a horrible, shameful hope.Maybe someone would come. Maybe someone would end this.
The light was beginning to fade, the grey sky darkening towards evening, when they heard it. A single set of footsteps, steady and unhurried, crunching on the gravel path.Coming from the direction of the deeper trail, heading back to the lot.
Jess went preternaturally still. Matt’s hand stopped, the paintbrush resting motionless against her throbbing clit.He leaned in, his whisper the ghost of a sound.
“Here’s your chance.”
The footsteps grew nearer, steady, casual.They could hear the person whistling tunelessly. A man, by the sound of the stride.
Matt gave her clit one last, cruel circle with the brush. A bolt of electric need shot through her, and a tiny, involuntary moan escaped her lips.The whistling stopped.The footsteps halted.Jess’s heart hammered against her ribs. Silence, except for the wind.
“Hello?” a man’s voice called, wary but curious.“Someone there?”
Paralyzed with shame, Jess said nothing. Matt’s hand tightened in her hair, a silent, brutal command.
“I… I heard something,” the man said, closer now.He was maybe ten feet away, just on the other side of the spruce screen.
Matt put his mouth against her ear.“Now,” he hissed, the word absolute.
Tears streamed down her face under the blindfold. The need was a physical pain, a crushing weight in her pelvis.The humiliation was total. But the addiction, the twisted craving for the culmination he had orchestrated, was stronger.
Her voice, when it came, was a hoarse, broken whisper, but in the silent woods, it carried.
“Help me… please…”
A beat of stunned silence from the path.“What?Are you hurt?” The voice was closer now, concerned.
She took a shuddering breath, the words feeling like glass in her throat, a final, irreversible corruption. “Please… I need… I need to come. Please, make me come.”
The silence that followed was profound, thick with shock and dawning comprehension. Matt watched, his own breath held, his body thrumming with a victorious, dark euphoria. He saw the stranger’s shadow shift against the thicket, glimpsed the shape of a man peering, trying to understand the scene of bound flesh and exposed skin in the gloom.
Jess, her face hidden against the tree, her body offered and pleading, waited in the most profound humiliation of her life, the ultimate exposure not of her body, but of her most depraved and desperate self. The forest held its breath.
The forest held its breath.The stranger’s shadow didn’t move. Jess’s whispered plea hung in the damp air, a corrupting vapor. She heard the sharp intake of his breath, a sound of pure shock. Then, a low, disbelieving chuckle that sent a fresh wave of shame washing over her heated skin.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” the man muttered, more to himself than to them.
Matt remained perfectly still, a sculptor observing a reaction to his work. His hand stayed buried in Jess’s hair, a grounding anchor of control in the freefall of her degradation. He watched the shadow shift, saw a man’s face—forties, rough-hewn, a scruff of beard—peer cautiously through a gap in the spruce boughs. The man’s eyes, wide and calculating, scanned the scene: the bound woman, her jeans around her boots, the pale expanse of her ass, the glint of the chain between the clamps that pulled her obscenely open. His gaze lifted to Matt, who met it with a flat, acknowledging stare.
“She’s serious?” the stranger asked, his voice dropping to a rough whisper.
“She’s never been more serious,” Matt replied, his tone conversational, as if discussing the weather. “Aren’t you, Jess?”
A whimper was her only answer, her face pressed hard against the rough bark. The stranger took half a step forward, then stopped, conflict playing on his features.This was a trap.It had to be. But the visual evidence was undeniable. The woman was trussed up, blindfolded, and clearly in a state of extreme arousal.Her wetness gleamed in the fading grey light.
“What’s the catch?” the stranger asked, his eyes fixed on Jess’s exposed pussy.
“No catch,” Matt said. He slowly removed his hand from Jess’s hair and took a deliberate step back, palms raised slightly.A gesture of ceding the stage.“She needs to come. She asked for your help. I’m just… the facilitator.”
The stranger chewed his lower lip, a dark fascination overriding his initial caution.The deviant spectacle was too compelling to walk away from. He’d stumbled into a private theater of the perverse, and the actors were inviting him to the stage. His own moral boundaries, never sharply defined, blurred and dissolved in the face of such a raw, singular opportunity.“Facilitator,” the stranger repeated, the word tasting strange. He took another step, fully pushing through the prickly branches into the clearing now. He was a big man, broad in the shoulders, dressed in worn cargo pants and a checked flannel shirt. He looked like a local, maybe a carpenter or a trail maintenance worker. His eyes devoured Jess, then flicked to Matt.“She your wife?”
“Does it matter?” Matt countered.
A grim smile touched the stranger’s mouth. “Guess not.” He circled slowly, a predator assessing prey, his boots silent on the needle duff.He stopped directly behind Jess, staring down at the presented view. “Fuck me. She’s dripping.”
“She’s been on the edge for over an hour,” Matt provided, his voice taking on a didactic tone. “Every time she gets close, I stop.The need builds.The mind starts to break.It becomes a physical ache. Right now, her clit is probably throbbing so hard she can feel her own heartbeat in it.”
As if on cue, Jess let out another soft, desperate moan, her hips giving a tiny, futile thrust against empty air.The stranger licked his lips.“An hour? Jesus.” He leaned closer, his smell—woodsmoke, sweat, and cheap soap—washing over Jess. She flinched. “And these things?” He reached out a calloused finger and lightly flicked the chain between the silver clamps.It gave a soft chime. Jess cried out, the sensation a sharp blend of pain and intense stimulation that shot straight to her abused core.
“Labia clamps,” Matt explained.“They keep everything open.Accessible. And the constant, mild pain… it feeds the arousal. It reminds her of her state.”
The stranger let out a low whistle of appreciation. He was all in now, any pretense of concern or hesitation gone, replaced by a greedy, voyeuristic hunger.He wanted to see the machinery of this torment up close. He wanted to understand the blueprint of her suffering.
“You’ve got her tied all forward, though,” the stranger observed, his voice gaining a critical edge.“I can’t see her face. Can’t see her tits. She’s just an ass and a hole like this.” He looked at Matt, a spark of illicit collaboration in his eyes. “I want to see it all.The whole… performance.”
Matt considered this, a slow smile spreading across his face. The stranger wasn’t just a passive observer; he was a connoisseur. This was better than Matt had hoped for. “You want a better view.”
“I want the best view,” the stranger corrected, his voice husky.He pulled a modern smartphone from his cargo pocket. The screen glowed obscenely bright in the dim forest gloom. “I want to remember this.”
Jess heard the unmistakable sound of a camera app being opened. A new, more profound layer of horror ignited within her.Pictures. Not Matt’s careful, controlled archival photos in a basement, but a stranger’s snapshots on a personal device. The potential for those images to exist anywhere, everywhere, was a black hole of terror opening beneath her. Her breath hitched in a silent sob.Matt nodded, as if the stranger’s request was perfectly reasonable. “A spread eagle would be better.On her back.” He moved toward the tree. “Untie her.”
The stranger didn’t hesitate. He shoved his phone back in his pocket and moved to Jess’s ankles, his thick fingers working quickly at the knots Matt had tied.The ropes fell away. He then moved to her wrists, fumbling for a moment before the bond released. Jess slumped against the tree, her limbs leaden, the blood rushing back in painful pins and needles. She was shivering violently, from cold, from adrenaline crash, from sheer shame.
“On your back,” Matt commanded, his voice devoid of warmth.Weeping silently behind the blindfold, Jess complied. She couldn’t have fought if she wanted to.Her will was ash. She let them manhandle her, the stranger’s strong hands gripping her under the arms as Matt guided her legs. They laid her out on the bed of spruce needles, the damp earth cold against her skin. The stranger quickly retrieved the discarded ropes.“Arms out.Above your head. Tie them to those saplings,” Matt directed, pointing. The stranger obeyed, binding Jess’s wrists securely to two thin, flexible trees, pulling her arms taut. Her breasts were now fully exposed to the canopy, the nipples tight and pebbled. Matt took her ankles, spreading her legs wide and tying each to a sturdy root, leaving her utterly open. The labia clamps remained, the chain dangling between her thighs, a metallic admission of her debasement.The stranger stood back, breathing heavily now, his excitement palpable. He retrieved his phone again.The soft, artificial click-whirr of a digital shutter broke the natural silence. Flash.He took a picture.Then another, moving around her, angling for different shots. The bright light painted the insides of Jess’s eyelids red through the blindfold. Each click was a violation, a tiny theft of her last shred of dignity.
“God, look at that,” the stranger muttered, zooming in with his phone.“Look how fucking swollen she is. And that little chain…”
“The tutorial,” Matt reminded him, reclaiming control of the narrative. He knelt by Jess’s side, his presence a familiar terror amidst the new one. He picked up the soft paintbrush from the forest floor.“The key is inconsistency. You never let her predict the pattern.” He demonstrated, tracing the bristles lightly up Jess’s inner thigh.She jerked. “The touch has to be just enough to awaken the nerve, but never enough to satisfy. It’s a promise you never intend to keep.”
He brought the brush to her clit, painting slow, broad circles around it, then suddenly switching to rapid, tiny flicks directly on the hypersensitive nub.Jess arched her back, a choked cry tearing from her throat.He stopped immediately.
“See?” Matt said, looking up at the stranger.“She was climbing.The breath catches. The muscles tense.But you stop just before the point of no return. The body is left hanging.The frustration is chemical. It’s agony.”
“Let me try,” the stranger said, his voice thick.Matt handed him the brush. The stranger knelt between Jess’s spread legs, his bulk blocking what little light remained.His smell enveloped her again, closer, more intimate. She felt the rough texture of his jeans against her bare calf.
“Like this?” He mimicked Matt’s broad circles.“Slower,” Matt coached, hovering like a director. “Make her wait for it.Think of it like winding a spring.”
The stranger slowed his movements. The brush was an alien instrument in his hand, less precise, more crude.But the effect was the same. The teasing, unbearable pressure reignited the furnace in Jess’s gut. She moaned, her head thrashing side to side on the bed of needles.
“She’s close already,” the stranger observed, awed.“She’s always close now,” Matt said. “Her baseline is the edge.Switch to a feather.The change in sensation confuses the nervous system. It resets the climb slightly, prolongs it.”
The stranger put the brush down, fumbled for a feather.He dragged the tip along her slit. Jess shuddered violently, the light, skittering touch a fresh kind of torture.He grinned up at Matt, a pupil grasping the lesson. “That’s fucking genius.”
He played with her for minutes that felt like hours, alternating between feather and brush under Matt’s quiet guidance. “Now use your fingers, but don’t touch her clit.Just fuck her with them.Deep. Get her used to the penetration, make her crave the fullness without the release.”
The stranger needed no further encouragement. He spit roughly onto his fingers, not bothering with lube, and pushed two inside her. They were thicker than Matt’s, rougher.Jess gasped at the sudden, stretching intrusion. He pumped them in and out, a brutal, straightforward rhythm. The feeling of being used by a complete stranger, under Matt’s approving gaze, while still clamped and blind, unspooled the last threads of her identity. She was an object, a teaching aid, a wet hole for demonstration.
“She’s tightening up,” the stranger grunted, his own arousal evident in his strained voice.
“She’s getting close again,” Matt corrected. “Pull out.”
The stranger did, his fingers leaving her with a wet, obscene sound.Jess whimpered, the emptiness worse than before. The denied orgasm was a phantom limb, throbbing with vicious need.“Again,” Matt said. “But this time, combine.Fingers inside, brush on her clit. Synchronize the rhythms.”
The stranger re-inserted his fingers, setting a deep, pounding pace. With his other hand, he took the brush and began circling her clit in time with his thrusts. The combined assault was overwhelming, orchestrated perfectly to tip her over the edge. The coil inside her wound tighter, hotter, a screaming pressure demanding release.Her cries became continuous, wordless pleas.
“She’s there,” the stranger hissed, his face flushed.“She’s right there.”
“Stop everything,” Matt ordered.
The stranger froze, his fingers buried inside her, the brush motionless. The precipice yawned beneath Jess, and she was yanked back from the ledge once more. The sensation was so profoundly cruel it ripped a shattered scream from her lungs, a sound that echoed in the small clearing. Sobs wracked her body, her bound form convulsing against the ropes.
The stranger looked up at Matt, a mix of respect and disbelief.“Fuck. That’s cold.”
“It’s control,” Matt said simply.He then looked down at Jess’s ravished, trembling body. Her skin was goosefleshed and slick, her mouth open in a silent wail. He nodded, almost to himself.“I think she’s earned her reward. Don’t you?”
The stranger’s eyes glinted. “My thoughts exactly.”
He withdrew his fingers slowly, then dropped the brush.He shifted his position, leaning over her, his large hands spreading her wider. He didn’t ask, didn’t whisper false comforts. He simply lowered his head and put his mouth on her.His technique was nothing like Matt’s clinical, targeted torment. It was greedy, wet, and messy. His tongue was broad and rough as it lapped at her, tasting her extensively before zeroing in on her clit. He sucked it hard into his mouth, and the direct, intense stimulation after so much prolonged teasing was electric.
Jess screamed, the sound torn from a place deeper than shame or fear.It was a pure, animal response. Her back arched off the ground, the ropes cutting into her wrists and ankles. The stranger buried his face deeper, fucking her with his tongue, sucking and nibbling at her swollen flesh. The chain of the clamps rattled against his stubbled chin.
The climax, when it finally crashed over her, was not a wave but an explosion. It detonated in her core, a white-hot seizure of release that blotted out the forest, the men, the photos, everything. It was a violent, convulsing eruption that left her limp and gasping, her vision swimming with starry blackness behind the blindfold. The stranger kept his mouth on her, drinking in the pulses until they subsided into weak tremors.Finally, he pulled away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked utterly satisfied, like a man who’d just enjoyed a fine meal. He stood up, adjusting himself through his cargo pants.
Matt knelt and began untying the ropes from her ankles and wrists with swift, efficient motions.He said nothing to the stranger.The transaction was complete. The stranger took out his phone, glanced at the screen, and gave a final, appreciative look at Jess’s shattered form splayed on the ground.
“Hell of an afternoon,” he said to Matt, then turned and pushed his way back through the spruce thicket without another word. They heard his footsteps on the gravel path, fading into the distance.Silence returned, now heavy and polluted. Jess lay naked and used, the cold earth seeping into her bones. Matt gathered the ropes, the tools, the clamps—which he carefully, almost tenderly, removed, making her hiss at the fresh ache—and packed them away. He pulled her jeans and underwear back up her limp legs, buttoned them, then guided her arms into her shirt and rain jacket.He did it all with a terrifying, impersonal care.
He left the blindfold on.
“Can you stand?” he asked, his voice close to her ear.She shook her head weakly.She couldn’t feel her legs. They were pieces of rubber attached to a hollow torso.He helped her up, supporting most of her weight. She stumbled, her legs buckling. He half-carried, half-dragged her back through the thicket to the path.The gravel under her boots sounded impossibly loud. The walk back to the trailhead was a blur of disorientation and deep, trembling cold. The taxi he’d pre-ordered was waiting, its engine idling in the empty lot.He put her in the back seat. He got in beside her.He gave her address to the driver.The car moved. Jess leaned her forehead against the cool window, the blindfold still shrouding her world. She felt his hand on her knee, a possessive weight.
“You did so well,” he murmured, his voice barely audible over the engine.
The praise, coming from him, in the aftermath of what a stranger had just done to her, was the most sickening thing of all.It acknowledged her complicity. It celebrated her utter defeat. A single, hot tear escaped the edge of the silk blindfold and traced a path down her grimy cheek.She had gotten what she wanted. She had been pushed further than ever before.And all she felt was a cavernous, freezing emptiness where her self used to be. The only thing left inside was a silent, chilling knowledge: he owned her now, more completely than ever, and the proof was likely already saved on a stranger’s phone.