Lacie Ch. 08

Bridget drained her own cup and set it by the sink, leaning back while placing her elbows behind her on the countertop.

"It was the first time any of us ever saw her smile. It was also the first full night that she slept peacefully since coming to the mansion." Bridget informed Lacie. "Over the next few days, Master saw the effect that Linds had on Claire, and he had her keep Claire company, pretty much everywhere she went."

"I knew Master was a good person, so I did what I could to convince Claire of the fact. As you might imagine, it took a lot of work just for her to even consider the possibility that he wouldn't hurt her if given the chance." Lindsey picked up the story once again. "Then Master found out about her life before. The one on her family farm. That same day he went out and started buying up farm animals. Pharaoh and Sadie were only a few months old then, and Bo and Luke, the two collies, they were just little, tiny puppies."

"It took a while for the animals to get here." Callie said, "About two weeks."

"During that time, Master kept taking me out to the barn with him and Claire, cleaning it up, getting things ready for the horses." Lindsey said, nodding at Callie. "Eventually she got acclimated to having him around. She didn't really relax around him, at least that I saw, but the nightmares were coming less and less frequently. I slept in Claire's room almost every night. It helped her a lot. Eventually, Claire, well, she kinda surprised us all."

Lacie smiled as her natural curiosity was piqued.

"What did she do?"

"She asked me if I would sleep in my own bed this one night. When I asked her why, she only said she had 'something to do or nothing will ever change'. I didn't ask questions. We all knew better than to press her when she got evasive. I found out later that she snuck into Master's bedroom that night. We were all surprised the next morning when she sauntered into the dining hall, happy as you please, a big grin on her face as she gave us a cheery 'howdy y'all.' she grabbed a plate and waltzed right out, humming to herself. We were speechless."

The girls shared smiles at the memory.

"And?" Lacie pressed, eager to hear the rest of the story.

"Master came down a few minutes later. He looked like he was half on cloud nine, half wanting to murder someone." Muffled laughter and snickers echoed around the kitchen as the girls began to giggle. "He only said one thing to us."

A chorus of voices exclaimed in unison.

"Which one of you gave that damn crazy cowgirl the fuzzy handcuffs!?"

All the women burst out in gales of laughter. Marie raised her hand, a gleeful grin on her face.

"Guilty!" she exclaimed, between whoops of laughter. The other women laughed even harder, some of them turning slightly red in the face as they gasped for air.

"So...so, apparently," Heather gasped out, "She cuffed him to the bed, and spent the whole night teasing him, hee hee hee, oh god, my ribs hurt." She said, tears of laughter rolling down her cheeks.

"She, she, she fell asleep there!" Bridget gasped, speaking between hearty gales of laughter.

"She hadn't even uncuffed him! He was stuck there like that the whole night!" Callie finished, laughing so hard she nearly fell off the countertop she was sitting on.

"Oh, no!" Lacie said, covering her mouth with one hand as she laughed. "No wonder he looked like he wanted to murder someone!"

"Oh, he was livid." Tara giggled, wiping her eyes.

"Yeah, he calmed down a lot though once he saw Claire. It was a complete transformation. Totally different person." Lindsey said, struggling to keep from laughing more. "I asked her about it a few weeks later."

"What did she say?" Lacie asked.

"Well, I'm paraphrasing, but for two

years her other owners had deprived her of control of her own life, body and sometimes they tried to even control her mind. Indoctrination and stuff like that. Well, anyway, it was her way of 'taking back control of her own life.' She said she needed to know that she was still capable of controlling something, of meeting a challenge, even if that challenge was one she gave herself. So she set her eyes on the biggest mountain she could climb."

"She spent hours controlling the one person in her life that supposedly had complete control of her." Lacie finished, a sudden flash of clarity illuminating Claire's motivations.

"Exactly." Bridget answered. "Master isn't the type to really enjoy being tied down, but when he saw the change it had brought around in Claire, how she finally seemed like a person, not just a frightened victim, he let it slide."

"It didn't fix everything." Tara spoke slowly, yawning. "But it helped. A lot."

"So she still has nightmares. Bad ones. Like tonight." Heather put in, covering her mouth as she echoed Tara's yawn.

The somber mood returned slightly, but the pleasant memories and recent laughter had done wonders in chasing away their feelings of helplessness. Tired, the girls decided to try and return to their beds. Walking back upstairs, the women were all silently relieved to see that Master's door was closed and Claire's sobs and screams had silenced. Slipping into her own bed, Lacie pulled the chilly covers back over her. Her thoughts whirling in her mind, Lacie found sleep difficult. Slowly her body heat warmed her covers and Lacie began to relax, but still sleep did not come easy. As she lay there, deep in thought, stroking the oval on her choker, (it had become a habit over the past few weeks), Lacie discovered that her own concerns of belonging, finding her niche, though still important to her, were no longer the driving force they had been. Lacie's life was a good one, and remained so. Any concerns over the path her life would take could be dealt with in time, and when problems arose, she knew she could handle them. In comparison to the things that some of the other girls had been forced to endure, Lacie's feelings about finding her niche seemed petty. Closing her eyes, Lacie drifted off to sleep, hints of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

The next day, Lacie woke to a soft knocking at her door. Lifting her head, Lacie rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she called out.

"Yeah, come in." Lacie sat up, pulling her sheets higher up her body as she did, covering herself more completely. Lacie was surprised to see Claire poke her head into her bedroom. Lacie could tell that the tattooed girl had barely gotten any sleep, her eyes were puffy and red, ringed with dark circles. She was wearing a white robe and was barefoot.

"I'm sorry for waking you. I just... wanted to talk for a bit."

"Not a problem Claire, come on in. Here, sit down." Lacie responded, curling her legs closer under the sheets, inviting Claire to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Thanks." The goth girl smiled, sniffling a bit as she shuffled across the room, sitting down next to Lacie. "Look, I'm sorry about last night. Bad dreams and bad memories, sometimes they come back and catch me off guard."

Lacie lifted one hand and placed it gently on Claire's arm.

"Not your fault. It's really not. I don't blame you at all."

"I still feel like I owe you an explanation."

"I disagree, but if you feel like you want to tell me, I wont stop you." Lacie knew the catharsis of just letting it all out, and if Claire was coming to her, she didn't want to put the older girl off by denying her the release of that stress and anxiety. Claire smiled in response, sighing deeply, her shoulders slumping forward as Claire rested her elbows on her knees. The Claire before her seemed much reduced to Lacie, and her heart began to beat just a little faster, leaving her wondering if she even wanted to hear Claire's story.

"You know most of my past up until I was sold. I want to tell you the rest." Claire said, looking blankly at Lacie's wall. Lacie drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, setting her chin on the tops of her knees.

"My family sold me to a slaver group, they were the ones who did the tattoos and piercings. They sold girls like that. They'd tattoo them, keep them in lightless cells to whiten their skin, sometimes they'd permanently tattoo dark makeup onto their faces. They weren't gentle. The piercing and tattoos were all done while you were sedated, to keep you from fighting and messing up the designs. You could be 'modified' to meet your buyer's preference. I was modified for one buyer, but he died in a car accident before he could pay for me. All these," Claire said, pulling the neck of her robe down to reveal one of the stars on her shoulder, "All the tattoos, meant something to him. But since he never paid for me in full, I still belonged to the slavers. But I was considered 'damaged product' because of all the permanent stuff they'd already done. They couldn't go back and erase it, so I was sold to the highest bidder at an auction for damaged goods."

Lacie had heard of the auctions. Slaver groups and individual owners could go in and sell their damaged or overused slave girls. The poor women were usually the kind who had the worst sort of masters. The violent ones, the drug users, the drunks, felons and gangs. They were broken women, the kind who had retreated into their minds so deeply, they almost never responded, no matter what was done to them. The kind that had given up, had given in and no longer fought, or thought for themselves, the kind that no longer screamed. They were sold for pittances, and very often they simply gave up the will to live soon after. Most died in months.

"I was sold for seven hundred dollars, less than a twentieth of what the other man would have paid had he lived. A man in his thirties bought me. At first, I was relieved, because he was one of the few who was there with a woman. At first I thought she was his wife. Turns out she was his sister. He had bought her too, and they lived in a really nice house. It wasn't what you think, he was a sadist, but he never touched her, as far as I knew, anyway." Claire said, seeing Lacie's disgusted expression. "They both worked for the same company. And they... loved bringing their work... home with them." Claire leaned further forward, her shoulders jerking with barely restrained sobs. Lacie reached out and rubbed her back, trying to comfort the emotionally torn woman.

"They were designers. For a company that made... torture devices." Claire sobbed, fresh tears leaking from her eyes. "They bought me so they could test the... efficiency of their new designs."

Lacie leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Claire, holding the other girl tightly while she wept. Lacie heard a noise from the hallway, and saw Master standing there, Bridget following closely behind him. Lacie flashed them a look, warning them to stay away. Lacie didn't know if Claire wanted others to hear her story. Master and Bridget gave her silent looks of apology, but entered her room anyway.

Lacie opened her mouth to tell them off, despite being terrified of yelling at Master, but Claire's hand came up and gently covered her mouth. Her shoulders still shaking gently, Claire shook her head. The goth girl's other arm waved the two newcomers into the room. Master's deep voice thrummed throughout the room.

"We're here because we have something to ask of you Lacie, and I'm not sure if you're ready to hear it yet. Remember you can always say no. We'll find another way to accomplish what needs to be done, but it'll be much easier and faster if we have your help. Claire's story is a part of that." Sitting down in one of the chairs Lacie had placed around her room, Master faced the two girls on the bed, Bridget silently stepping past him to sit on the edge of the bench beneath Lacie's bay window. Shuddering, Claire had recovered enough to continue her story.

"They kept me restrained for two years. He was more interested in whether their new designs worked, but she was cruel beyond anything I'd ever seen. She did what she did just because she liked to hear me scream. Every two weeks or so they'd have some prototype or improved design they'd want me to test. It was agonizing, day after day, they'd starve me, beat me, strap me into whipping devices, trap me in a water filed tube with stinging jellyfish, tying my head above water so I couldn't drown myself, depriving me of sleep till I began to hallucinate. I was hospitalized twice in the first year. The only reason they didn't just let me die was that my 'mistress' thought I was an exceptional screamer." Claire shuddered.

Master came over and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, lending what comfort he could. Claire gave a wordless moan of relief, and slid sideways, resting her head against his chest, her eyes fluttering closed as she struggled to keep speaking.

"When I was first brought there they had two other girls. Becky and Sarah. Becky died a few months after I got there. No one knew she had a heart defect till she died. They had strapped her into the device that they used on my back." Lacie remembered the burn scars on Claire's lower back, their shape showing that they had been burned into Claire when her torturers had electrocuted her again and again. "The first shock sent her into arrhythmia. Her heart gave out on the second or third shock. She was strapped in and she couldn't get away. She died in minutes as Sarah and I watched. Master and Mistress didn't even seem to care. A few hours later, some people from their company showed up and hauled Becky's body away. Sarah was her sister. She gave up a few weeks later. When she stopped screaming for them, they took her to another auction. I never saw her again. I was alone there for over a year and a half."

Claire sniffled, wiping her eyes as she straightened, pecking Master on his cheek as she did. He let Claire sit up, setting his hands in his lap as Claire adjusted her position on the edge of the bed. Claire threaded her arms around Master's and rested her head on his shoulder. Master leaned into her and pressed his cheek on top of her head. The moment was so tender, Lacie couldn't help but feel a surge of jealousy. Quickly stifling the inappropriate emotion, Lacie leaned back into her headboard, waiting for Claire to finish her story. Claire took another deep, shuddering breath, and continued.

"Eventually, they felt like they had perfected some of their designs and took me to the place they worked, so I could demonstrate for them. I was kept in a cage the whole trip there. I didn't even have enough space to move. I was collared and kenneled like a disobedient dog. Finally, they got to where they were going, and unloaded everything from the back of the van, except me. They left me in the back of the van. I was there for almost four hours. The van was sweltering, it was over a hundred degrees out that day. By the time they came to get me, I had passed out from heat exposure." Claire sat up and turned, facing Lacie fully as she drew up her knees onto the bed. Master wrapped one arm around Claire's back, squeezing her opposite shoulder.

"I came around to half a dozen men standing around me. I was naked. They woke me up by electrocuting me. The machine I was strapped into punished a slave by constantly shocking her with electricity. It could be set to any interval. My owners set it to shock me every minute. My body was contorted and strapped down, I couldn't even move my head or fingers. The men standing around me were the company's production board. They decided whether designs were worth putting into mass production. Each of the men took his... turn with me, even while I was being shocked, part of the design kept them from being hurt by the electricity. That was just the beginning. My owners had half a dozen machines they were trying to get their bosses to sign off on. They kept chloroforming me, and once I was out, they would strap me into the next one. All day long they did this. I was raped again and again by those men. All day long. I was burned, whipped, shocked, stung by jellyfish, one of the men even had a knife he used to cut me, just to watch me bleed, just to hear my screaming. That's how I got these." Claire pulled her robe aside, revealing a number of her scars, but pointing towards a pair of deep, jagged slices that crossed over each other on her right hip.

"Eventually it was over. It was the worst I'd ever felt. I felt so degraded, I wanted to die. I just wanted to give up and die. I was so alone, so scared and so hurt. Everything hurt, my whole life seemed to be nothing but pain, present pain, past agony, and the promise of more tortures to come. If you could die just from wanting to, I would have. I simply stopped doing what they wanted. I let my body go limp. I collapsed and I just lay there." Claire closed her eyes and her head hung. It seemed to Lacie that the other woman had simply run out of tears. Master cut in, finishing the story.

"I had been there to hear a business proposal from the company's board of directors. She was out in the parking lot when she collapsed. It was pure chance that I was outside at the same time. It wouldn't have been surprising for her to have simply passed out, considering all the fresh wounds on her body, but I could see her eyes were open. I was nowhere near Claire all day, or I would have stopped it. I had no idea what was happening. When I saw her collapse, I started walking towards her. They were whipping her, trying to get her back on her feet. I got them to stop, and when I asked them who she was, they said she was "Not worth thinking about. A mere product tester." As you might imagine, I was infuriated at their callous treatment of Claire, despite not knowing her. Her owners were cursing at her, promising bloody vengeance for embarrassing them by refusing to follow their orders."

"He paid for her right then and there." Bridget added. Lacie turned, having almost forgotten that the blonde was there. "He went on some BS tirade about 'equipment maintenance.' How the girls have to be taken care of so they last longer. It was a cover, but they bought it. He demanded that they sell Claire to him so he could make use of her talents as a tester. After he forced her recovery, of course. Since the company was trying to get him to sign off on a business deal with them, they didn't really have a choice. They made Claire's owners sell her to Master that same day."

"That's why I ran when I got here." Claire said, her voice little more than a whisper. "I didn't know he was lying to them. I didn't know I had just been rescued. I just hoped that if I ran, he'd shoot me rather than chase me down. I wanted to die. I didn't want to live with any more pain. When Heather finally caught me, all the other girls just waited with me. They all sat there and cried with me. Heather cleaned my wounds, feeding me by hand, keeping me partially sedated for the first two days while I healed."

"She was in very bad shape. It took some time before we were even able to get her to talk to us." Bridget said, shaking her head. "We wouldn't let Master near her. Then there were the nightmares."

"To be perfectly honest, I didn't want to be around her at first." Master said quietly. "She needed time to heal, and it was more than just her body that was badly damaged."

"It wasn't till Lindsey came and helped me recover that I began to feel like I could be a person again." Claire said, sniffling into the sleeve of her robe, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "She helped more than she knows. I had been... considering suicide... to escape the nightmares. But Linds helped keep them away. She saved my life. I've never told her that. I didn't trust Master either. Not really. But over time, I grew to love the farm he built for me. I loved the mansion, I loved the girls here, I loved everything here. That was when I realized I felt human again. I felt happy again. I was spending more time smiling than crying. I was enjoying my life, and it was my life. No one else's. No one could tell me I was anything less than my own person." Claire was smiling now, and she patted Lacie's knee. "Just like every other person here. That's when I finally realized I trusted Master. The same night I realized that, I asked him if I could join him in bed."