Caging Cadence Ch. 03

He took his phone out, opened the video of her masturbating the night before, and pressed play. She looked away, turning her head, blushing brilliantly again. He loved that color on her, loved the look of shame shaping her features into a pathetic, cute little pout. He was already getting hard again, just taunting her like this - he only got harder when her sweet, pleading moans started blaring through the tinny speakers again, calling out his name.

"Watch, Cadence," he ordered. Unwilling, she turned her head back, raising her quivering gaze to the screen. "Watch how gorgeous you are when you climax. Look at your face - you've never looked so happy, so pretty. You were made for this."

"No," she whispered. He looked up. There was a single tear rolling down her cheek, the cheek still bearing his hand print. The icepack lay on the ground, melting, forgotten. She locked him in a gaze of her own - pleading, scared, and sad, willing him to understand her. "I was made for so much more. That's the problem, David. I'm terrified that you can't see that - that you won't see that. That I'm really just some...some brainless, wet slut to you, that making me come so many times, or that I masturbated to the thought of you...somehow that justifies everything you've done to me, everything you've taken from me. But I have plans, goals. I will never just be this, no matter how much you want me to. That's just a fantasy. It will never be real. But I'm scared..."

Her words sobered him, cooled the heat he felt. He paused the video, cutting her past self off mid-moan. He blinked, thinking, considering his next words very carefully. It was time to tell her the truth. He had wanted to wait longer, had wanted to reveal this all to her at the end, maybe. It was the key to everything, the truth of the ultimate control that she had - but maybe that made it the thing that might finally make her give into, even relish in, the plans he had for their limited time together.

"Don't be scared, Cadence," he said. "I know I won't convince you of what you really are, not this weekend. I never thought that was really a possibility - it's just fun to frighten you with it, because you're terrified of the part of you that wants it, too. You're terrified of how good some of this has felt, how wet it's made you, right?"

She closed her eyes. Another quick, short nod. The closest he was going to get to her admitting the effect he had on her.

"You don't want this with me, not forever, I know," he whispered. "But I think you'll want dominance, eventually. I think, someday, some lucky guy will get to make you his perfect little whore. But that will be later. How you feel right now doesn't change anything. It's going to happen. I'm going to fuck you. However...at the end of all of this, you have the power. Because, on Tuesday morning, you get to decide whether I stay or go."

She blinked. "Really? You're not going to try to make up some bullshit, convince my mom I asked for it? You're just going to walk away?"

"Yes," he said, honestly. "That's always been my plan. You won't be a virgin anymore by then, whether you like it or not. But, on Tuesday morning, if you tell me you never want to see me again, I'll go. I'll break up with Laura, I'll pack my shit, and I'll walk out of your life."

"After raping me," she said bitterly.

"After fucking you," he corrected. "We'll see whether or not it's rape when the time comes."

"What if I decide to press charges?" she whispered, her eyes dark. "What if I call the cops, have you arrested?"

He accepted this threat calmly - he had always known it was a possibility. Cadence was a smart girl. She had to realize that the videos he had of their encounters were far more incriminating for him than they were for her. She had to know that they were stored somewhere in her own home. Hell, he'd be a little disappointed if she wasn't already formulating some sort of plan, figuring out how to get her hands on the videos when she got out. The Cadence he knew didn't give up so easily.

He wanted a keepsake, but he wouldn't stack the odds against himself. He could erase the videos. His memory was pretty sharp. Then, it would be her word against his, if she decided to try to put him behind bars. Slim odds, even still, but those were his favorite.

So he smiled. She seemed a little unnerved by this reaction.

"You're free to do whatever you want after Tuesday, Cadence. I'll warn you that I planned for that. I won't be easy to find when this is all over. So it might not be the sweet revenge you're imagining. But if that's what you decide to do - so be it. I'm ready."

It was a bluff. He certainly wasn't going to convince her to press charges, not when that meant he'd almost certainly be going to prison for a long, long time. But he accepted it as a risk. She was worth it. That thought might have made him crazy, but it was true. Because the hardest part of all of this, the worst thing for David, was that everything Cadence had said to him before he forced her to come again and again was the absolute truth.

He would remember this weekend forever. He would long for her forever. He would want her forever.

She owned him.

This realization renewed some of his anger, reignited the fire he felt for her. He stood up.

"So there it is," he said. "All you have to do is endure the next forty-eight hours. And then my life is in your hands."

Cadence scoffed. "No time at all."

"In the great scheme, it really isn't."

He turned his back on her abruptly, giving her no chance to speak further. He left the closet, leaving the door open, giving her an extended view of her mother's bedroom. He hoped it would have several effects - reminding her who he was, where she was, and just how easy it was for him to keep her from freedom in her own home.

He didn't glance back to see how this impacted her. Instead, he moved through the upstairs portion of her home quickly and with purpose. He collected a few more things for her comfort from her room - another blanket, an extra pillow, the fiction novel sitting on her nightstand. He found a clean cup by her bathroom sink and her birth control pills. He was going to leave her alone for a little while again, give her time to stew over what they had discussed. Besides, the next portion of his plan involved some research - he needed time to find all of her secrets.

When he returned to her cage, she was gazing up at him warily again, but he saw the war raging behind her eyes. He pressed his lips together, trying to hide a smile. When he met her eyes again, he worked to make his own stare cold and indifferent.

"I've got some studying of my own to do," he said. He opened the cage, setting down the cup of water and the small parcel of pills. She couldn't quite hide her relief and gratitude, but he didn't acknowledge her. He pushed the bundle of comfort he had collected at her, then shut the cage door.

"Relax for a while," he told her. "When I come back, you're going to tell me everything about yourself. And I mean everything. If you don't, well..." He smirked, letting his gaze burn into her like ice. "I think you realize by now what happens when you don't do what I want, right? You're a smart girl, after all."

She locked eyes with him for only a second longer than his speech, bowing her head when he was finished. He took that as a good sign. He turned again, striding through the closet door, slamming it behind him.

Then he left the bedroom, moving more quickly than he had before, practically sprinting. He could hardly contain his excitement. This had been a late stroke of genius, something he had thought of only a few days ago.

He had access to everything he needed to pry up all of her dirty little secrets. Her laptop, her cell phone, maybe even her diary, if she were the type to keep a handwritten one - and if he knew anything about Cadence, she was. He also imagined she was the disorganized type to use the same passwords for everything, or to write them in her journal or day planner. Worst case, he would have to make a few guesses. Passwords were shockingly easy to guess, usually, given enough time and patience.

They both needed a little break. He had time. He'd work on the patience.

***

The first thing Cadence did was swallow her birth control pill, chugging the entire glass of water in one go. It was amazing how thirsty she was. She was a little late taking her pill, she knew, but it was better then skipping it altogether. Then she settled in, trying to get some more rest.

The extra pillow and blanket helped a little. Cadence used them to make her cage more nest-like, created a small, circular space to curl up in on the floor. It made the steel beneath her joints a little easier to bear. The idea of sleeping in her own bed, or sitting on the couch - what an incredible relief that would be, how comfortable - nearly brought tears to her eyes. The thought of spending another forty-eight hours locked in this cage actually did. Two days suddenly seemed like a very long time.

Maybe, if she were especially good, she could convince David to let her sleep in her mother's bed with him -

No, she admonished herself silently, What the fuck, Cadence? Stay sharp. He hasn't won yet.

At least something had come from their awful, uncomfortable little interlude. How twisted that actions she had learned to associate with a reprieve - David tending to her needs, taking time to talk to her like an actual human being - had been used by him to make her feel even worse. The way he had bombarded her with questions, caught her in her own words, showed her that goddamn video again...

But, then again, the words she hadn't been expecting to hear at all -

"I can admit that I expected you to break a little more easily. I'm surprised you've held out this long - that you're still holding out, after everything I've done to you."

Somehow, he didn't know. That alone was an unexpected delight, gave her a surge of vindicated pleasure. It seemed like he knew everything. Every time she thought she might get the upper hand, he showed he was already three steps ahead of her. But for once, he didn't know.

If he didn't know, maybe that meant it hadn't really happened. Maybe it wasn't real until she admitted it to him, out loud.

Broken. That's what he wanted from her. That was his ultimate goal. He wasn't going to keep her - he knew that was impossible. She'd seen the look on his face, heard his flippant tone, when he told her about the "power" she had over him. Even the thought of him applying that word to her position made her scoff when she remembered it. It didn't matter if he was going to let her kick him out at the end - as if there were even any other option after everything he'd done. That would be a hollow victory, when she was left alone, damaged beyond repair, on the other side.

She shook her head, wiping away her tears, anger boiling inside her. Somehow, the way he doled this revelation out as if it were a precious gift sapped some of the righteous enjoyment out of her plan to turn him in. He was going to violate her in every possible way, and then he was going to leave her to struggle with these new thoughts and feelings entirely on her own. He was going to smash her into sharp fragments, sweep up what was left, and dump her into the dustbin - and then, have the audacity to pretend like he was doing her a favor by oh-so-graciously telling her that he would leave her broken behind him.

It almost would have been better if he deluded himself into believing that he could still claim her, that she would choose him at the end of all of this. She smirked. Maybe she would pretend to, just so she could watch his face crumble when the cops showed up to arrest his ass anyway. What a fucking surprise that would be. That brought some of the sweetness back to her revenge fantasies, which made them more satisfying, which cheered her up a bit. She started formulating plans in her mind, thinking of more and more inventive ways that she could twist the knife for David when this was all over. Time passed more quickly when she imagined him suffering.

Which was good, because it seemed she had a lot of time to kill. And, much like her sleepless night before, surrounded by implements of sexual torture, feeling her overstimulated pussy throb with a heady mixture of pain and need...well, it was nice to have a distraction. She couldn't deny that he was in her head. She took solace in the fact that she was also in his - two captives to each other, even if Cadence was the one in the cage.

She didn't want to think about what he might be doing. The fact he said he had "studying" to do made her nervous - what could he have to study? What could be so compelling that it would pull his attention away from her, when he himself admitted their time was so short? She tried not to think about it. She lifted up the book David had brought her, the one she was reading before all of this started, in between study sessions. She hadn't had much time lately. She skimmed both covers, then opened the paperback to the page she had folded down, marking her place. She blinked a few times, then started reading. She had flipped several pages before she realized that she still couldn't remember what the book was about, or what the name of the main character was.

She closed the book with a heavy sigh, then tossed it away, biting her lip. The bars of the cage loomed above her, topped off with a dark, steel ceiling. She sat up, stretching out her legs. She felt her breath quicken, her mouth go dry. She itched to be free, to leave this cage and this closet. Just to be able to walk to the bathroom without David by her side would be a huge relief. Her palms started to sweat and a shiver crept up her spine.

It was still baffling to her that anything could distract her from the relentless ache in her thighs and pussy. But as her anxiety mounted, her physical pain became nothing more than background static in the greater, louder rush building in her brain. She had to calm down.

This happened before big tests sometimes, when she knew she'd be cooped up in the same classroom with the same people for several consecutive hours. She would no sooner leave an exam than she could leave this cage now. It evoked the same response - panic. Somehow, even though she knew his return would accompany more physical torture, Cadence longed for him to come back, just so she could focus on something other than how trapped she felt. She had manged to keep these feelings at bay before, mostly by sleeping. Now that she was alone and locked up again, with no inkling of when David would return, it was impossible to ignore them.

She took a few deep breaths, closing her eyes, picturing open doors, endless horizons, David in handcuffs...

When she opened her eyes again, she felt a little calmer. She leaned her head back, eyes wandering.

Suddenly, she gasped, sitting up bolt-right, as her eyes landed on the latch set into the door.

The lock was missing.

***

David sat back at Laura's desk, forefinger pressed to his lips, taking inventory of the information he had collected. He had spent the last hour perusing her laptop, cell phone, and the handwritten diary he had discovered duct taped to the bottom side of her desk. He knew that one would be a goldmine when he found it, given that Cadence had gone to such lengths to make sure it remained undiscovered. So he had saved this treasure for last.

He had started with her phone - her pin number was her birthday. He scoffed. The first place he checked was her photo gallery, but other than a few selfies and shots of her with a tall, pretty blond girl, it was empty. He hadn't really been expecting nudes. Hoping, maybe. But Cadence was a good girl. Mostly. He read a few of her text messages, but he couldn't discern much without context.

Next came her laptop. Her guessed her password on the fourth try - a combination of the high school she went to and the year she was born, based on the "forgotten password" hint the computer offered. It was almost too easy. He was delighted to discover that she kept herself logged in to most of her social media accounts, and the ones that weren't used the same password as her laptop. He had combed through her internet history as well and realized with glee that she never cleared it. He could go back and see every single time she had found herself in the darker, more depraved parts of the internet, could go back and review all of the porn she had ever watched.

There wasn't much. When she did watch porn, it was late at night, and it was very, very vanilla. He was surprised to find some lesbian porn in her history, however, and recently.

He was far less surprised when he read her journal. It turned out that Cadence had a crush - from the long, achingly honest entries she wrote, a very serious crush - on her closest female friend. The friend was a young woman named Lily. She and Cadence hadn't known each other for very long, just a couple months, as they had met at college. David looked the girl up on Facebook, and immediately understood why Cadence was so infatuated with her.

She was very pretty, with a sweet face and long, shiny curtain of blond hair stretching down to her waist. Her hair was very long, almost long enough to just be a problem. Her large, blue eyes were a mirror to Cadence's, but she was clearly much taller in their pictures together. He mused for a moment as he read her profile - she and Cadence were in the same introductory psychology class, she worked as a tutor at her old high school, she had a boyfriend - imagining what it would be like to have two freshman girls under his thumb.

It was a fun thought, but he knew it would be impossible.

He didn't have the time or the resources to go after someone he didn't know. His weekend with Cadence was only possible because Laura already had a dungeon in her closet. If this all came to light, he knew Laura would be wracked with guilt, that she would recognize that she had unknowingly helped him set the trap for her daughter. He didn't feel much at all about that. Collateral damage.

But taking a stranger would be an entirely different story. So, after programming her number from Cadence's phone and into his, he pushed Lily out of his mind, focusing on the girl he already held. If, by some miracle, he found freedom on the other side of all of this, maybe he would take Lily. His next victim. He wasn't certain "ordinary" kinky sex would do it for him anymore. The power he had over Cadence was so complete, so intoxicating. If she didn't get her way, if he somehow escaped serious jail time - well, he would need a new project.

But for now, it was time to return to the closet. He collected his evidence, printing out select quotes and screencaps from her social media accounts. He kept her journal intact. He wanted her to recognize it when she saw it, to realize how deep his obsession and invasion of her personal life could go.

Then, with an air of regret, he opened the software that contained all of the videos he had taken of Cadence. The live feed showed her in her cage, utterly still. She was sleeping, piled deep beneath the blankets, only the vague shape of her body visible beneath the bulky forms. He supposed there wasn't a better way to pass the time, but she was in for a rude awakening. He couldn't blame her, given how poorly she had slept the night before. He paused, watching her sleep without really seeing the screen, considering.

If he deleted them now, he would still have to come back and erase the rest of their weekend. He needed to keep her under watch. She knew he was watching her now, and that added an extra element of control. He couldn't just turn the camera off, couldn't just leave her completely unattended every time he wasn't in the room with her. It made sense to wait, to postpone erasing this record of their time together - right?