Tethered Pt. 02

His fingernails sunk into her jaw, and knew she was taking too long. "Do not make me repeat myself," her master said, voice cold and deep.

"I...you...you can use me however you want."

The slap across her cheek was so harsh she felt it on the backs of her eyes.

"This body is not yours to offer," her master said. "It is mine, and I have already done so. Now, do as I said."

Blinking out tears brought on as much by confusion and anxiety as the searing pain on her face, she tried to look over her shoulder at the man she'd been ordered to give herself to. She couldn't. Her master wouldn't relinquish his hold. Staring into her master's eyes, the words wouldn't come. Even if her mind could've conjured them, her vocal cords wouldn't cooperate.

She tensed in preparation for another strike.

It didn't come. Instead, slow purposeful words.

"Robert," her master said.

"Robert," she repeated.

"Please."

"Please."

"Would you."

"Would you."

"Fuck my pussy."

She swallowed hard again, but offered no more hesitation. "Fuck my pussy."

She may not have hesitated much, but Robert did. She heard him sigh, and it seemed a lifetime passed before he came to stand behind her. The bare skin of her rear tingled. Even in her acute and apprehensive state, she wondered what was going through the man's mind. Was he worried this might be a trap, a way to rob him? There were much easier methods. Was he simply nervous about being with a woman, much less another man's woman tied down to a table? Was he just a decent guy that, no matter how horny he might be, was reconsidering whatever deal he'd made with her master? Whatever it was, he wasn't doing her any fucking favors prolonging her turmoil.

As Robert tarried, she mentally prepared herself for this stranger's touch. She assumed he would take her by the hips before plunging into her. Would his hands be cold? Would they be sweaty? No other man had touched her in such a way in years, though a few women had. Would his thrusts be slow and hesitant, careful? Would he pound away at her like an inexperienced high school quarterback in the backseat of a car. Would he be gentle or would he hurt her? Small dick? Large? Had her master offered the man more than just her pussy?

She found it odd where her thoughts wandered. She wasn't thinking about how upset she was with her master for trading her body to this man for a couple baths, a meal, and a peaceful night's sleep. It was his to do with as he pleased. She'd given it to him long ago. He'd never shared her before, but that didn't negate his right. She either was his or she wasn't. There was no in between, not for them. That wasn't to say she wasn't angry and hurt. She was, she just wasn't dwelling on it at the moment. Plenty of time for that later. No, right now she wondered how long this man would last and where he'd finish. Would he shoot his load inside her or pull out and come on her ass? In her current predicament, her tits weren't an option, so those seemed the only viable options.

As she contemplated these things, her breathing slowed and her occupied mind calmed. Maybe if she kept her eyes closed, she could simply imagine it was her master back there taking her. Maybe...

Her briefly held calm shattered as Robert's clammy hands gripped her hips. Despite her careful preparation, a deep shudder ran through her body. The man couldn't have missed her involuntary revulsion, but it seemed he'd made up his mind. The tip of his cock press against her lips. To her utter dismay, she was soaking wet and he had no trouble entering her. He slid into her tentatively. His hands were light on her hips as he began with slow in and out motions. He let out a moan that couldn't be mistaken for anything but pure pleasure. She shivered.

She wished she could tell herself it was disgust for this man that caused it, but she knew better. She didn't want to be fucked by Robert the barkeep, didn't want his filthy cock inside her. So why was her body betraying her? Why was she fighting the moans stirring within her, struggling to rush out? Why was she clenching her pussy around him to make it tighter for him? She didn't belong to this man. So why did she have to stop herself from slamming her hips back into him, urging him to use her harder?

Robert continued his slow, easy pace. He was quiet, except for his panting and grunting. The sounds disgusted her, like he was a rutting pig. If he was, what did that make her? She tried to think of anything but this man's hands kneading her hips, his sweat dropping onto her back.

She'd been captain of the debate team back in high school, a lifetime and more ago. Debate had been an easy fit for her as, much to her mother's dismay, she'd been quite fond of arguing since around the time she'd learned to talk. But more than that, she'd enjoyed the long hours of study and preparation, filling her head with information, with points and counterpoints on a barrage of issues. Most of all, she'd relished using that hard-acquired knowledge to eviscerate her opponents. Nothing quite like the look of immobilizing defeat on the pimply face of a smug, know-it-all teenage boy.

She'd somewhat succeeded in blocking out the sensation of Robert's irregular rutting when her master's hand, which had yet to give up its grip on her chin, released her. But only long enough to take hold of her mouth and pry it open. She barely had time to take a quick breath before he thrust himself rudely into her throat. Unprepared, she choked as he filled her with his complete length. She tried breathing through her nose as he pressed a hand against the back of her head and pushed in further. No breath came. She bucked, but only a little. She'd been tied too tightly for much more than a belabored twitch.

His cock exited her throat and mouth as quickly as it had come. She coughed and gasped for air.

The thrusting from behind her stopped, though she barely registered this. Popping stars filled her vision. Her mouth was watering. Knowing she had only moments to get her breathing under control, she did so with every ounce of training she had.

What would her debate team think of their sweet, but fiercely competitive captain now? They would shake their heads in disgust at the whore she'd become. She wouldn't blame them, though she was quite certain that at least a couple of the boys would've paid a year's allowance just to be permitted to watch.

Her master forced his way into her mouth easier this time, easy being a relative term when it came to him. The hand at the back of her head burrowed its fingers into her hair. He squeezed, making her scalp sting as he pumped slowly but persistently into her mouth. She wrapped her lips tightly around him, relishing the smooth feel of him, the exquisite taste.

Robert seemed to take this as a cue to continue. He resumed his boring pace, but as her master used her mouth harder and faster, sloppy sucking noises filled the room and she gagged loudly. This, Robert seemed to like. It spurred him to thrust deeper, harder. Now she could hear his skin slapping against hers. Her flesh rippled like waves. His grip on her hips deepened to an almost painful level.

Tied to a table, immobilized, unable to escape. One man roughly fucking her mouth, warm drool spilling down her chin. Another plowing her with more and more vigor from behind. Her only option was to take what they gave, until they'd had their fill of her.

The beginnings of an orgasm formed deep within her. She felt it coalescing, whirling, stirring, willing its way out of her. Heat flushed into her cheeks, created fresh sweat on her forehead. She told herself it was because of her master, just him. It wouldn't be the first time he'd elicited a screaming orgasm from her just by fucking her face. But she knew she was lying to herself. It was both men. It was the mortification of two cocks ramming into her, filling her, spit-roasting her on this table. It was the exquisite pleasure of four hands groping and prodding her, two sets of heaving breaths. It was the situation she'd been forced into. She didn't like it. She hated it. She hated that she liked it. So much.

"Come," her master said without breaking stride.

She screamed against the cock in her mouth as her orgasm rocked her insides and sent her body into convulsions. That was enough for Robert the barkeep. He pulled out of her and, with a cry not dissimilar to her own, sprayed the twin mounds of her ass with hot semen. Her master lasted a minute longer, pounding at the back of her throat relentlessly, making it deliciously sore. He gripped her by the sides of her head, thrust once, twice, then shoved his full length down her throat and pumped his come into her.

When she could create coherent thoughts again, she found she'd been untied, moved to the bed, and a blanket had been wrapped around her. She shook the exhaustion away, opened her eyes, and stared at the two men standing by the door. Her master reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold nugget. He pressed it into Robert's hand. Robert had a strange look plastered on his face. It wasn't an unhappy one though.

The barkeep said something she couldn't make out. He shook her master's hand. Her master clapped him on the back, replied, and Robert laughed heartily. His lips moved on his flushed face, but she couldn't hear the words.

When the man left, her master walked across the creaking floorboards to stand over her.

"Why did he laugh, Master?" she asked sleepily. "What did he say?"

Her master smiled down at her. "I said you would definitely need another bath. He said this one was on the house."

8

That night, her master bathed her for only the second time since she'd become his.

9

She felt as if she were walking on pillows. The sneakers were worn and scuffed, the left one had a quarter-sized hole in the toe, and they were a tad too large for her feet. Compared to the duct taped sandals she'd worn for the last six months, though, they were Heaven. The morning after their night with Robert the barkeep, they'd found them outside the door to their room. She'd put them through a week's worth of traveling now, and they were holding up nicely.

They hadn't spoken of that night, but it had been the only thing on her mind since. She wanted to speak to him about it so badly. She wanted to ask him why, why now? Should she take it ominously? Was a part of him tiring of her? Why had she enjoyed it so damn much? The last question was the easiest to answer, and the most difficult. She wanted to know his thoughts, but he hadn't chosen to bring it up. She wouldn't do so herself.

The green of the leaves was giving way to harsh reds and burnt oranges the next time he shared her.

10

The town was called Sanctuary. It wasn't a particularly clever name, but it was an actual town with houses and buildings that used to be stores and banks and restaurants. There was even a park in the center the townsfolk kept up nicely. Not a great many such places had survived.

They met a pair of men at the local tavern. Brothers. The eldest was about her age, and handsome. The younger might've been eighteen, and hadn't been as genetically rewarded as his brother. He was funny though. She was allowed to speak openly within the group. She drank foul-tasting moonshine that burned her belly wonderfully, ate fried potatoes, and laughed at the endless supply of dirty jokes the younger brother told.

Under the light of a crescent moon, her master sat mildly on a bench in the well-kept park, while the two brothers took turns fucking her, making ingenious use of a rusting merry-go-round.

They moved on.

The weather was inching toward colder when they came to a village called Freedom. The name promised more than the ramshackle place could hope to provide. There, they met a man and woman traveling together. Drew and her master turned out to have a lot in common, and they struck up a quick friendship. Jessica was nice enough, she supposed, but hard and not much for talk. They decided to strike out from the village as a group.

Many miles from the town, it began to rain. And rain. After the second day of travel in the nearly ceaseless downpour, they came upon a large barn and decided to wait out the storms there.

On the second night in the barn, she and Jessica had been stripped and tied to posts under the hayloft. Her master and Drew had taken turns beating each of them with her master's rod, a thin switch they'd found, and a crudely-made but highly effective flogger Drew had produced from his backpack.

The storm subsided and the group parted ways. The ache of the delectable bruises and teeth marks lingered for days.

They moved on.

When they met Darryl, for some reason, her first thought was of an old Jay and the Americans song.

The man held court over a group of hangers on in a ratty bar in a village called Resurrection. Broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, he stood a good six inches over the next tallest man. Darryl was loud and brash, grizzled and rough. When her master made his way over to the man and struck up a conversation, she couldn't help wondering if everything about this giant was proportionate.

It was, she discovered as the massive man stood over her in a room upstairs and unleashed the scarily large cock from his trousers. Rarely had she met a cock she had trouble fully taking into her mouth, but she struggled with Darryl's the second he shoved it in.

It was too much, and the man was too forceful. She gagged and lost her wind as he grunted loud enough for his buddies downstairs to hear. Mouth full, she slapped at his knee frantically, but he didn't stop. She punched at him. He laughed and pulled free just long enough for her to choke out the word red, then she was full again and he continued pounding at her mouth.

Through eyes blasted with stars, she glimpsed her master's rapid movement. He struck the larger man twice in the face, and suddenly she could breathe again. Darryl toppled to the floor, but her master didn't stop. His knuckles were cracked and bleeding when he finally let Darryl be.

Her master helped her to her feet, arm around her shoulder.

They left Darryl soaking in so much of his own blood that she doubted he'd forget the word red ever again.

The first flurries of winter found them in a settlement that had once been the town of Hatfield, so said the faded green sign peppered with buckshot. Hatfield had burned to the ground years ago, but a small band of survivors had claimed the ruins and called them home. They were thirty in all. They lived in tents. They smoked copious amounts of weed. They were, by all accounts, a mellow lot. Come nightfall, everyone bedded down in the cellar of an collapsed schoolhouse.

On the second day in Hatfield, they joined a pair of men and a scrawny young woman with strawberry birthmark on her cheek outside town to help harvest a portion of their favorite crop. They didn't get a lot of work done. Instead, they sat in a circle within the rows and smoked the fragrant herb from a glass bowl. They'd been through three towns since he'd last shared her, so she was caught off guard when her master instructed her to enter the circle on her hands and knees, open her mouth with her tongue out, and receive eagerly anything that was given to her. Besides her master, the young woman with the strawberry birthmark had tasted the best.

They moved on.

They let the winter months pass them over in a ranch house on a high hill overlooking a frozen lake. With a few modifications, it suited their purposes nicely. She helped her master board up the windows and all but the back entrance. They cleared a few bird nests and some debris from the chimney. Holes in the roof had to be patched. They melted snow for water and stored it in large pickle jugs found in the basement. Same as each year before, they'd been stocking up on dry and canned goods scavenged from houses along the way. They'd have enough to last them into spring if winter didn't stretch too long. If it did, well...

They'd acquired seven new books, and he read to her most nights. Normally, she was lucky to get this treat a couple nights a week, but she wasn't complaining.

To her immense gratitude, her beatings became more frequent. Lost in throes of his lashes, all she had to concentrate on was breathing, enduring, holding as still as possible. The world and its nightmares faded from her like shrinking objects in the rearview mirror. Her only worry, though the frequency had increased, the severity lessened. There were times he'd have to stop to fight through a coughing fit.

Spying eyes wouldn't have noticed it, but he was more tender with her at the ranch house. He permitted her to sleep in bed with him most every night. He held her in his lap more, the way he used to. He occasionally brushed her hair. Even though he beat her mercilessly with that same brush, he kissed her more when the beatings were over. She relished this change, this reemergence of the man he'd been before the world had ended. It never lasted long. After a particularly sweet night, the next he would seem to forget himself and his cruelty and torture would find new heights. She didn't care. She loved both.

Most nights they were left alone. One night, they weren't.

It was the most terrified she'd ever been, and at one point she was positive she'd never see a sunrise again. They'd won out, but she hadn't been able to sleep more than a few minutes at a time for the next week.

The snow began to thaw in what she thought was probably April. Within a couple more weeks, the road cleared enough for them to commence their travels. A good thing, as their supplies were almost gone.

They moved on.

11

"Break time, my treasure."

She froze stiff. Break time? They'd just had break time this morning. She was forced off her leash once per day. That was their routine. That was the way it worked. Once was plenty. Once she could manage, but twice in one day? What kind of sick new game was he playing?

She almost protested. Almost. Still, she flinched when his hand went to her throat to release her.

Obediently, she limped toward the edge of the road. She cast a glance back at him. He was looking off into the distance, paying her no attention. She took a step off the crumbling asphalt, and another, another. Each step away from the safety of the road, away from him, made her feel as if she were wading into ever-deepening waters. If she went too far, she would be overtaken and drowned.

She almost felt the icy teeth of the treacherous waters. She recited her rules over and over in her head, until they were a meditation. She focused on her breathing, a balm, like the recitation of her rules. The comfort was meager, but tangible. Waters rising, she sunk further into her place of sedation.

She vaguely heard coughing in the distance.

The frigid water rose to her chin. It was threatening to pull her under when his voice pulled her to safety, as real as a rope he'd thrown her.

Despite the heat of the day, she shivered as she returned to the road.

Leash in hand, her master came to her. She offered him her throat. Instead of attaching the clip, he stroked her cheek gently. He turned and resumed walking, the unattached leash dangling at his side.

For a few long moments, she stood motionless, mouth slightly agape. Her master got further and further away. She didn't know what to do. Wrong. She knew. She hurried after him, maintaining composure. She caught up and slowed behind him, four feet back, to his right.

12

The next day, he left her off her leash longer.

The next day, longer still.

The next, they had to stop on the side of the road as a coughing fit took him. She pulled his head into her lap and stroked his back for what seemed an eternity.