The Marigold Mark

Part II

Chapter 7

Humming the melody of the last song playing during her workout, Mary emerged from the basement. Sweat glistened on her skin, endorphins flooded her brain and she felt carefree. Valentine's Day was tomorrow, and Mary planned to not only give herself to Jack sexually, but also tell him that she loved him.

A man with a Russian accent was speaking from the kitchen, "Did you forget that I own you?"

Mary stopped humming and crept closer.

"You may as well come out now, Dmitry. You never were very good at stealth," the accented voice called.

Mary revealed herself and took in the scene. Joe was tied slumped over in a chair, John was on his knees with a knife to his throat and Jorge was hogtied with an imposing man's boot crushing him into the ground, his mouth crudely gagged. Jack struggled to get free from the two men holding him. From the red around one's eye, Jack had put up a fight.

Icy fingers of dread wrapped around her neck. She reached for her phone to call 911, but it was ripped from her fumbling fingers by the only unoccupied man.

"I understand, now," the bearer of the Russian accent said studying her as he idly spun her phone around in his hands. "Viola the second. She's pretty. A bit old, but pretty." He spun back to face Jack, whose face was a sheet of white. "You made the wrong choice with Viola eight years ago. I wonder if you'll do better this time."

Mary's flight response finally kicked in and she ran for the front door. She opened it and two heavily armed men barred the exit. They encroached, walking her backwards to the kitchen, where the Russian continued to talk to a speechless Jack.

"I wonder, have you lost your touch? The barracks are ready for at least seven now. But it doesn't seem you can handle even one."

"She's not one of them," Jack croaked.

Mary turned to look at him and he buried his head.

"You lost the ability to decide that when you told me you were quitting," the Russian spat. He turned to take in Mary again, a flash of evil sparking across his face. "I'll make you a deal, Vanya, show me you can ready her in a month. If you do an adequate job, I'll let you bid on her at the auction. If you don't..."

Mary's eyes widened. Jack's fists were tensing and releasing.

"Go ahead, Vanya. The month starts..." he looked at the clock on the oven "...now." The Russian nodded at the two men holding Jack. They released him but placed their hands on gun holsters.

The Russian tossed Jack a syringe with a needle. Jack caught it in the air, and his wild eyes told her he was as scared as Mary was, or was it a glimmer of unrestrained excitement? He, at least, seemed to have followed the Russian's words with ease. Mary tried to step backwards as Jack approached her, popping the protective cap off the needle, looking for all the world like a predator closing in on his prey as he got closer. She bumped into one of the men from the entrance. Jack kept closing the distance. Mary couldn't speak, as Jack brushed her cheek whispered, "I'm sorry," and she felt the jab of a needle on the opposite side of her neck.

It shouldn't have been that easy for him to hit his target without looking if this was the first time, was the last thought that passed through Mary's mind before the world went dark.

Cold. Mary was cold. And naked, and strapped to a metal chair in a dank room, and being observed by the burly man who had pinned Jorge. Her memory resurged; Jack did this to her. Jack was going to do something to her for a month. It was a punishment. For him? For her? Did it matter? And then she was going to be sold at an auction. Oh God, Jack was involved in human trafficking.

The large man in the room with her thumped on the steel door. She envied his warm coat.

Jack opened the door and strode in. No, not Jack. Vanya, or whoever this person was. He looked at the man by the door and nodded once. The large man pushed the thick metal door shut and from the outside someone locked it.

"Your name is Benicia. This is the only name you will get. You lose it and you are just a slave. Slaves don't get names. I am Master, and he is Sir. If you need to differentiate, he is Sir Vadim, but usually he is just Sir. Do you understand me, Benicia?" There was extra emphasis on the first syllable of the name he was giving her.

A signal? A clue? Mary's kids were safe with her brother Ben.

"Thank you, Sir," she said with palpable relief. The slap that came so fast her head spun and echoed in the room.

"That was your first warning. Four more and you lose your name. Do you understand me?"

Mary tried to figure out what she'd done wrong. It clicked a moment later.

"Yes, Master," she spat. He backhanded her. Mary thought he might have broken skin on her cheek bone. This complete and utter stranger was not playing around.

"You will show your master the respect he deserves. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Master," she said more placidly.

There was no reward for saying the right words. She wasn't here to be trained as he'd been doing by gradually introducing her to sexual activities these past months. She was here to be trained to be sold, by the man she had thought she had loved. But her kids were safe. She could endure anything knowing her kids were safe. She would hold onto that and endure whatever torture came next.

"Open," Jack said. He pushed a ring gag against her mouth and shoved it in, wrenching her jaw wider than she'd ever yawned or stretched her mouth open before. This wasn't Jack. This was Vanya. Or rather, Master.

He spit in her open mouth, and she struggled against the bindings on the chair.

"Thank your master for wasting his fluids on you, Benicia."

"'hank 'oo, 'asger," Mary managed - no, Benicia, she needed to start thinking of herself as Benicia.

Master stood on one of her legs with deep-treaded shoes to position himself in front of her face. He was not gentle in applying the pressure to her leg as he shifted his weight, lining up his dick with her mouth. He was stiff as an iron rod. Benicia wanted to believe that he'd taken some sort of erection pill, but realized the more likely scenario was that he was turned on, more than he'd ever been on their disastrous weekend, or any time since then.

He thrust into her throat with reckless abandon. Even when she thought she'd pass out, he continued. Spittle, bile and finally Master's semen dribbled down her chin. Salty tears leaked down her face. Master nodded at Sir and he took his turn with her mouth. While Sir was fucking her face, Master left. He returned with Jorge, John and Joe who also took their turns barely acknowledging their recognition of her, and why not, she was Benicia now. When Joe finished, Benicia's throat raw, she was ordered to thank her master and her sirs. Then, she was left alone in the room with Sir Vadim and sat sobbing tied to a chair, mouth still ratcheted open by an obscenely large gag. Was it really only that morning that she'd been thinking about declaring her love for a man who didn't exist? She'd been living in a house with someone who trafficked women for four months. How had she not picked up on that?

Had he taken her somewhere, or was she still on his property? Oddities began to line up: the orange vests must have contained some sort of GPS trackers to notify and ensure no one unauthorized got too close to the base of the operations, which was likely accessed through a hidden trapdoor entrance in the bedroom in the cabin. The foreign-speaking next-door neighbors who never seemed to leave, but were always dressed for construction work, must have been building this underground facility. Jack's - no, Master's - odd sexual behavior. She chided herself for being so oblivious.

What were her children being told? Jack had said he'd never keep her from them, that that was Sarge's thing, but what would Master do? The stark reality of her plight truly set in then: she might never see her kids again. They were safe, but she was not.

Over the next few days, she was bound and roughly fucked in her mouth, pussy and ass and then deposited on the cold damp sub-terranean floor. When she screamed and railed at her first abrupt anal penetration, Benicia lost one of her chances at keeping her name. She lost another that same day when she tried to scratch Master as he took her incredibly sore ass for the sixth time that same day. She was given a bucket in the corner to relieve herself and cold gruel as sustenance. She was made to eat like a dog.

Each day, Master reinforced that her only role in life was to serve her Master. Every time he entered the room, she was made to present her holes for him, so he could choose which he wanted to use. Benicia lost her second-to-last chance at keeping her name when she puked all over Sir Vadim's dick unable to control her gag reflex. She was bound and raped repeatedly, but never beaten. For that she was grateful to Master. Perhaps, somewhere under the intensely gruff exterior, he truly cared about her, even if he refused to acknowledge that she had kids. "Slaves are not allowed to have family, only a Master," he said the only time he did acknowledge her request for their status.

The door cracked open, and Benicia overheard two men in the hallway.

"I'm so sorry. I did everything I could," a familiar voice said. Someone from the past before Benicia. She tried to make a separation of the two people, the one trapped here that wasn't allowed family and the one who had three loving children who were probably freaking out. Mary's parents and siblings must have begun a search party for her, involved the authorities. Would the authorities start with Master? He'd fooled her; would he fool them too?

"I know you did, Sarge. It was an impossible scenario." Master sounded sad, resigned.

"What are you going to do now, Boss-man?"

"What I do best."

"You're going to break her."

"I'm going to break her."

"She'll never be the same."

"No, she won't."

One set of feet shuffled off and the door opened fully.

Somehow hearing Master's words confirming his intent made everything more real. Benicia didn't move, didn't present herself like she'd been taught so far.

"In position," Master boomed. When Benicia still didn't move, Master grabbed her by the hair and frog-marched her from the room where she'd been kept into another room full of contraptions. This one was worse than that awful room he'd called his Gentleman's Parlor.

As she was strapped down to a bench, Sir Vadim joined and assisted.

"Benicia is dead," Master hissed in her ear. "You will be punished for your disobedience, slave."

Benicia is dead. Benicia is dead. The words rattled around in her head: Sarge apologizing for not being able to do enough. Her new name, her codeword. Not stripped of her name. Benicia is dead. Her kids were dead.

The slave didn't feel the first thwack of the leather strap nor the fiftieth. The slave had no idea how long she'd been there. Her kids were dead, and she was a slave. There was no Mary with children and a family, there was only a slave with no name.

She was released from the bench and brought back to her cell. Master tossed her in a heap on the floor. He took one look at the vacancy in her eyes, turned, and with sagging shoulders, left her alone in her misery. He had meant what he said to Sarge. He'd break her and he did.

Three days in? A week? That's all he'd needed.

Chapter 8

The slave was beaten regularly from thereon. Sometimes she had been a bad slave, sometimes Master just wanted her to feel pain. She was a slave at the whim of Master. One day, she was given to her many Sirs as a mitten. When Master found out how much she'd screamed and cried through the day of being double-fisted, she was left impaled on two large silicone fists with her feet dangling so only her big toes touched the floor for a day. She was a good slave mitten the day after that, and Master gave her an orgasm.

Master had never given her one of those before and she tried to be good so she could earn another. But being good was expected. She was a slave and Master decided whether he wanted a slave to have an orgasm or not; he rarely did.

Her nipples were stretched, twisted and bruised. She was suspended by bound breasts while Master stuck thick steel rods in her pee hole. The slave was permitted to urinate and defecate only when Master gave her permission, even when he pumped her so full of liquids through her mouth and ass she thought she'd burst.

She was given drugs so her period never came; it would have inconvenienced Master, and slaves wanted to please their masters at all times. Slaves didn't have rights: she wasn't allowed to speak without permission, call herself anything but Slave, or be on furniture - except for punishment devices her Master or Sirs placed her on - or think about anything other than how to be a good slave for her master. Whenever Master wasn't around, Sir Vadim reminded her that slaves weren't allowed to have family or names, but the slave already knew she didn't have family or a name. It was just another of the many maxims instilled in her by rote.

Master was a good master, she was lucky to have him spending his precious time on her. His time was precious, her time belonged to her master. Master had a bed brought into the room that by his grace he allowed her to occupy. He could have left her in the punishment room if he chose to be constantly punished, but he was a kind and benevolent master. The bed was for him or for her Sirs, so they could be comfortable when and if they wanted to fuck her. She never tried to touch the bed, because it was for Master or Sir, not for slaves.

Every few days, the slave was given a sudsy bucket of ice-cold water and a brush with hard bristles to scrape her skin and teeth clean. Sir liked to rinse her with a pressure washer and leave her shivering in the cold puddle.

Sir Joe kept her free of hair and fixed her posture. Sir John taught her how to use proper terminology when addressed and administered her shots to keep her monthly cycle at bay. Sir Jorge brought in new Sirs for her to pleasure. One Sir really liked to play with needles and the slave was so bad, yelling and screaming for him to stop, that she was strapped and locked into a constrictive box for two days without food while she was poked with needles relentlessly. When she was brought out, she was a good slave and allowed the Sirs to stab her with needles everywhere they couldn't reach from her position in the box.

The Russian - who was not to be addressed, she was admonished - appeared in the room Master granted her the use of one morning.

The slave presented herself and Master used her and then let the ten Sirs the Russian had brought with him use her body however they saw fit. The slave knew she'd been good when Master smiled at her.

"You haven't lost your touch after all, Vanya," the Russian said. "Let's see what you can do with another month." The Russian spun on his feet and departed; all the men, including Master, followed him out.

There was more pain, more instruction, more punishments earned for being a bad slave. Slaves could only get better by being punished for their transgressions. Punishments took up Master's and Sirs' time, and slaves should avoid being a burden for their masters.

The Russian decreed the slave needed another month of training. And then another month after that.

Somewhere in that timeframe, whether it was for a day or a night - the slave didn't know; her time belonged to her master, and there was no differentiation in the same ever-lit dim bulb that dangled from the only two rooms she ever saw - Master emptied the place of all the Sirs. He brought her to the punishment room and strapped her on her back to a wooden two-by-ten plank that rested on sawhorse legs. The leather straps were wrapped around her before being cinched to the board, above her tits and below them, pinching her stomach so she could barely suck in air and forcing her lower abdomen to spill around the sides of the strap. Her arms were appended to a wooden curtain rod with her shoulder blades and head hanging over the end of the board. Each leg was similarly bound to a curtain rod and then wrenched apart and tied to the corners of the room so that she was stretched into an obscene and painful straddle.

Master then tied a vibrator to her clit so that she couldn't get away and permitted her to come at will. It was enjoyable at first, while Master stood in the corner watching her reminding her that he was a good and benevolent master for allowing her to orgasm. And then he brought out a funnel gag, strapped it into her mouth and, holding her roughly by the scalp, forced her to drink a large quantity of water. He grabbed a speculum and spread her cunt wide before inserting a catheter. All the while the vibrator buzzed at her clit. Master took a wooden skewer and began stabbing the flesh surrounding her cervix opening until liquid began to dribble from the catheter. And then he pumped air into what she learned was an inflatable catheter, stretching her urethra. He resumed his torture of her cervix, while her clit became a bundle of frayed nerve endings. Finally, Master stepped away from her cunt and shoved his cock into her mouth. She was immensely grateful whenever Master allowed her a breath; he was a good and benevolent master for allowing her that ability instead of just taking his own pleasure.

Master stepped away leaving the incessant buzzing at her clit. When he returned, he increased the catheter's girth and poured more water into her mouth through the reinserted funnel gag. He inserted first one, then two, then three dildoes into her ass and the slave bit her cheeks and her tongue to prevent herself from screaming. Only Master decided when she'd had enough.

He resumed the stabbing motion with the wooden skewer against her cervix. As he battered her insides, he reiterated the maxims she knew, searing every lesson he'd deigned to teach her into her brain. The slave was drenched in sweat despite the chill of the room from the constant forced orgasms. More water, thicker catheter, continual abuse of her cervix and still the buzz of the vibrator continued.

Nipple clamps came next, with a chain wound around Master's back. A ring gag was inserted, and Master fucked her mouth, every thrust tugging at her nipples. Any relief at sucking in air was offset by the pressure wrenching her nipples upwards towards her shoulders.

The cycle continued again: water, inflated catheter, punished cervix. The slave did not yell, or scream, and Master didn't punish her for the tears that leaked down her face, because as he reminded her again, he was a good and benevolent master and only he decided what she earned.

Master removed the speculum and the dildos and finally shut off the vibrator. But the second it was removed he pinched her clit between a fierce clover clamp. He unbound her legs and her torso from the board, stoppered the catheter and, leaving her arms bound in a straight line, dragged her by her ankle back to the primary room he kept her in.

In line with her typically feeding ritual, he fastened a thick metal collar around her neck that barely granted her the ability to turn her head side to side, let alone any upwards or downwards movement and then he bolted her by the collar and a short chain to the floor where she waited for him to bring the meal. The meal was always some mixture of flavorless ground substance; the slave, if she'd been permitted to remember or think of human food would have likened it to a combination of bland grains, ground poultry and minced vegetables, so devoid of flavor as to be considered gruel.

With her arms bound as they were, attempting to eat from the platter - while her master fucked her, aggravating her cervix with every thrust - became a new challenge in discipline. She knew that the fucking wouldn't end until she'd finished her meal, just as whichever Sir was there for feeding time never did, so she mashed her face and tongue into the plate.