Liberated by the Pen Ch. 03

The enormity of what I had illustrated to her stung her resolve, weakening her mental defenses. The fortitude of her self-delusions in contradiction with my assertions. "No, you tied my hands behind my back. You gagged me. I didn't have a choice." Her voice was soft.

I walked to her then, lifting her chin up gently, for emphasis, my eyes meeting hers. "You always have choice Amelia. You chose to play the game with me instead."

The hurt that flooded her eyes was agonizing to behold. My grasp remained reassuringly firm on her in its intention. Amelia violently extricated herself from my grasp, flinging her limbs and stomping away to the balcony, as if distance away from me would disprove the truth. She opened the door and stepped out, leaning against the railing, breathing deeply. She absently fingered the foliage of the branch, snapping off a leaf. I followed her, pressing my body against hers, providing her encouragement by my presence. This would be a difficult mental obstacle for her to accept. She disregarded my touches as she contemplated the significance of my words. My hands skimmed the curve of her upper arms, rubbing in reassurance.

"Don't touch me." She hissed at me as she pulled from my grasp. "Just give me some time to myself Gabe. Can you even do that for me." Her tone, exasperated, desperate. "Please."

"I'm not imprisoning you, Amelia. You are," I murmured softly in her ear. "You've always had the power. I don't need to retrain you, other than to provide the very evident reminder that I control you already, independent of confinement. You detained yourself to me entirely of your own volition earlier today. You abided by my requests, independent of my action. You ceded control to me. You always had the power. Whether you turned me in, whether you stayed to play with me, whether you saw me - you control your own self Amelia. Our connection may have been premised on a series of illusions, the deception of the fake apartment, the dishonesty of taking you out of the city, your manipulations, my responses in measure. However, I no longer need to force your hand. Our connection is authentic. There is no longer any artifice.

I removed my hands from the heat of hers and stepped back, inside to the apartment, permitting her the reassurance of space and silence. I studied her from the screen door, her shoulders hunched, deflated. She lingered outside for long moments, shaking her head, muttering. She wiped her face angrily as the tears splattered to the metal railing, no doubt replaying the events of the morning, trying to dispel the truth that refused to be vanished in confrontation.

She wanted to enact violence at the rage threatening to derail her cognition, and the closest target was the tree. She snapped off a leaf in fury before her hand abruptly stopped mid-air. She tugged at another, and then another off the branch. She turned around and her eyes met mine. She flung open the balcony door and ran back indoors to the main window and opened it fully, feeling the sun and breeze on her skin. She picked up her telephone and heard the dial tone. She reached for her cellphone that had been abandoned on the floor earlier in the morning and typed a text to her friend. Moments later there was a ding as she received a response.

"What the fuck? We're not underground, are we?"

I shook my head. "No Amelia. I never said we were. You only assumed as much when you noticed the exterior door. I didn't dispel your assumptions."

She took wide steps to her door and flung it open revealing the exterior door I had ordered installed earlier. "I don't understand Gabe. We're not in the ersatz apartment?"

"No. We're in your apartment. The door was only meant to provide the illusion of control. You failed to observe that your phone operated, that scissors were in your grasp to maim me. If you were underground your body wouldn't have been illuminated by the rays of the sun, and you wouldn't have felt the breeze. I know you little one. I understand how desperately you need to be convinced of having your will abrogated to feel liberated enough to act with a degree of shamelessness. For you, the illusion is often a sufficient pretext."

"Give me the goddamn key, Gabe. You've had your fun."

I merely shook my head, retreating to the sofa again, and pointing to a spot on the floor in front of the coffee table. She crossed her arms over her chest in rebellion, refusing to accede and comply with the most rudimentary of requests. I saw the flex of her jaw, the grinding of her teeth before she accompanied me on the sofa instead.

Always so willful. Constantly so delightfully determined.

I turned to face her. "What is it you truly desire in life Amelia? When you confronted me in my office, I realized how resilient you really are, but how ultimately fragile you become when admitting your true desires. Deception has always been your panacea. Convincing yourself that you're a victim to my maliciousness so that you can enjoy what we share is unnecessary. I know what you are, and I accept that. Yet, you always require a modicum of force due to your unwillingness to commit. You were petrified of acknowledging your submissive fantasies in person, yet fully willing to spread your legs on camera for me. You moistened so easily whenever I'd demand you suck my cock or peel your ass cheeks open so I could pillage into that sacred tightness. The more I restrained you, the more compliant you became. You owe it to yourself to admit how powerfully your fantasies control your sexual habitus. You owe it to yourself to live in the light of openness, without fear and absent of judgement. There's power in admitting your desires. But the taste of vengeance looms strong in you."

She only scowled at me, wordless in her rejection of my observations, as if silence would serve an adequate refutation to the embodiment of sexuality that we both knew to be the truth, but only one of us was willing to acknowledge. Amelia refused response to my reflections of her character. She only remained on the sofa, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around her in a protective embrace.

"No," she only wordlessly murmured repeatedly. "No. That's not factually true. I was always combatting you to flee your clutches." Her words were barely above a whisper.

"What is you really want Amelia?"

I slid the two collars across the surface of the coffee table towards her. The leather collar of her imprisonment lay heavy over the detective's business card. The knitted collar she had willingly gifted to me, gracefully weightless over the key to the metallic door. Confusion clouded her eyes as she examined the objects before her, unable to decipher the symbolic significance of their juxtaposition. I inched closer to her seated form. With one hand, I tipped her chin up, forcing her to meet my eyes so that she would understand the words of her future.

"The choice is yours Amelia. If the leather collar is your preference, then I will contact the detective and confess my offences. The wheels of justice will ultimately determine what happens to me. But we will have one last celebratory period where you will acquiesce to my every desire. In wearing my leather collar and cuffs, you will be unreservedly mine. Your body, your mouth, your ass, your cunt will be mine to freely use as I determine. You will abide, with enthusiasm, knowing you give yourself to me for the sake of vengeance. A parting gift before I atone and perform my penance. You will decide if you wish to see me in the future, and the conditions of that meeting. But you will receive your pound of flesh in my atonement."

My hand drifted to the knitted collar, the suppleness of yarn soft on my fingers. "If you prefer the knitted collar, you'll experience a sense of liberation you've never felt before, in your willing surrender to me. Your life will be yours, though I will be your Master. In gifting your submission to me, I in turn will nurture you, provide for you, assist you in your sexual explorations. The unspoken fantasies of your nightly dreams will become reality, and I will revel in the position as your Master, fulfilling the unspoken wish that you dare not utter to others. The dynamic of force may be retained if the illusion is more palatable as it is consistent with your kinks and fantasies. Ultimately, you will experience a measure of liberation while pledging your loyalty to me."

She shuffled off the couch and slid to her knees then, tentatively reaching forwards, palming the heavy leather that once adorned her neck daily in her captivity. She traced the embossed words, "GM's little one," words that once terrified her, but now seemingly promised a path towards salvation.

Her fingers shifted to the knitted yoke of her own creation, gracing her fingertips along the circumference of the woven piece. My hand automatically stroked down the smoothness of her hair as she silently pondered. She reached for the key. I exerted the barest squeeze on the back of her neck, dissuading any thoughts she may have had.

Her eyes lifted as she turned her head to me and met my gaze before drifting back to the two collars silently awaiting her decision.

"What is it you desire Amelia, accountability or liberation?"