The Rabbit Hole Ch. 06

The Rabbit Hole Chapter 6: Pain

By Trixie Adara

Edited by Abby H.

**** Warning: These chapter has disturbing and cruel images in it. If you want something purely erotic, read the beginning and the end. Skip everything in italics. For Penny's sake, this story must be told, but the parts in italics are not meant to arouse you. ****

Penny

Present Day

"Would you like your messages?" asked Harold as Penny stormed past him. He didn't know where she went. She wouldn't tell him.

"Only from Joanna."

"Her reports are in your office."

"Thank you, Harold."

Penny didn't stop, and Harold didn't follow. She had a lot of work to catch up, but more importantly she had to reach out to Nadia. She was ready now. Nadia wouldn't resist her. No one could resist her anymore. She had proved that.

Her office was clean. She half wondered if there would be some sign of Nadia still lingering after the abrupt end to their last conversation. Maybe Nadia left something behind? There was a tinge of disappointment to seeing her office bare. It was as she preferred it, but something was off now.

Waiting for her on her desk was a clean stack of folders. Each folder represented a date. Each date came with notes from Joanna (Penny, unfortunately, left her literate for this purpose), pictures of her encounters with Nadia, and pictures of Nadia as she followed her about the city. Penny flipped through it idly. It didn't overly matter. Nadia would tell her every detail about her life in excruciating detail. Besides, nothing interesting caught her eye. Nadia was single. She hadn't found a new boyfriend. She was a teacher. She had a therapist and psychiatrist. Her parents were pastors in Texas. She had one sister and one brother. She did well in school, but nothing impressive.

In short, Nadia was ordinary. Other than her ability to resist Penny and every other hypnotist she'd been to, there was no reason she should be able to fight. There could be any factors that Joanna hadn't been able to sort out. It could be genetic or some trauma deeper in Nadia's past. Joanna wrote that she was friends with Nadia, the two spent a great deal of time together, but Nadia didn't open up about every detail of her life. There would be time for that. Penny wanted answers more than anything else, but she wasn't in a rush anymore. Soon, Nadia's mind would be a playground for her to romp through.

She buzzed for Harold, and he appeared in her doorway seven seconds later. "Yes, Miss Penny?" he asked.

"Send for Joanna immediately."

"Yes, Miss Penny. Do you want an appointment for Miss MacQuarrie?"

"Not yet. I need to to test a few things."

"Yes, ma'am," said Harold, turning to leave.

"Oh, Harold?" asked Penny with a smirk. Harold paused, his hand on the doorknob, looking at his mistress in eager expectation. Penny concentrated. She focused on her throat, her voice, tightened the vocal cords, like stretching or yawning with her mouth shut. She could feel the power in her. It was ready.

"Cum for me," ordered Penny. The air seemed to shake with the weight of her words.

Harold's eyes immediately rolled backwards. His knees buckled and dipped to the ground. He caught himself on the door, but it swung open. A thick moan escaped his lips, and Penny watched eagerly as a small stain appeared on the crotch of his pants. There was no time for questions, no time even for shock. Harold's body obeyed immediately and without question.

Penny smiled.

*************

2 months earlier ...

The walls of the cave stank with mold and stale water. Penny turned the flashlight on her phone and looked around. The floor was riddled with dips and puddles. Camille should have told her that heels would be wildly inappropriate here. If the vampire was to be believed, Penny didn't have much further to go.

After twenty minutes of stumbling in the dark, Penny found a small room with smooth walls and a domed ceiling. In the center of the room stood a dais, and on that dais sat a shallow basin. Penny paused, uncomfortable in the ominous room. She knew about the supernatural. It was hard to work so eagerly with corrupting and controlling people and not stumble upon true power, but previously she had the wisdom to avoid such complications. Perhaps Harold was right, bringing in Camille was rash.

It was too late to go back now. She'd flown across the planet, to the tiny region of Stryia, in southeast Austria. Here, Camille told her there was power. She said there would be darkness and pain, but she assured Penny that there would be power as well. Camille sent her to a small room in the back of a dark cave hidden in a remote mountain. The directions were clear, but the source was questionable.

The room was questionable as well. It looked ancient, but it didn't feel that way. It wasn't stuffy or abandoned. It smelled cleaner than the rest of the room besides a sharp tang of something that reeked of copper. Penny wasn't sure. Was this it? Some ancient chamber in the heart of a mountain connecting to deep and dark magic? Who filled the basin? Did someone protect it? Was it as simple as Penny walking up and taking a drink? Was that water in there?

Penny waited. Time slowed. Each moment was heavy. There was the hunger in her, the dark passion for power. She knew what she wanted. She knew what she needed. Camille had been clear. Drink from the basin. That's it. The room was filled with darkness, but where was the pain? Camille had promised pain.

She bent down and grabbed a small stone. She threw it into the room. Nothing happened, just the clatter of stone on stone. Penny was sure she wasn't alone. Camille was not a simple creature. She consumed, that was where her power came from. Whatever Camille had sent Penny to would consume as well. The basin was a test, but it wasn't the source.

Penny swallowed. She didn't have time to waste. Nadia was waiting for her. Joanna was waiting for her. A whole world of injustice was waiting for her, and she would set it right. But she needed power first.

As she approached, she saw a small clay cup next to the basin. The basin itself looked to be painted black. It was crude, lacking the smoothness of a professional touch. Penny couldn't tell if the liquid inside the basin was red or if the inside of the basin was painted red. She paused, looking around the room. She was still alone but obviously being watched. Something was waiting for her to drink.

Penny sighed. She was being childish. If some terrible evil was waiting for her in the darkness, she gained nothing by be afraid. It hadn't destroyed her yet. Why not meet it head on and reason with it?

Penny grabbed the clay cup and scooped up the liquid. It wasn't thick as she had feared. It wasn't red either. It was a simple amber, almost a light gold. She smelled it. It didn't smell like anything.

"What the hell," muttered Penny. "If you make a deal with a vampire, you're going to get screwed one way or another. Might as well get it over with."

Penny drank it one gulp. She expected it to burn. She expected a horrendous or acrid aftertaste. She expected the pain Camille promised. Instead, she tasted nothing. Not sweetness or saltiness. Not bitterness or acidity. It was like water, though it barely touched her tongue.

What Penny did feel immediately was a sudden and sharp migraine. She dropped her phone and lost its light. Despite the total darkness, the room felt too bright. Her eyes burned like the tiny bit of light in the cave was solid, driving through her eyes and into the front of her brain. She closed to her eyes, trying to dull the pain. Through the back of her eyes there was a faint swirling light. It widened and opened the field of her vision.

My little brother. He's crying in his crib. He was sick all the time. I could no longer sleep with my older sisters. The pajamas they put me in were itchy. Not silky like my sisters. So itchy. I cried for someone to help me. I stomped my foot and said I hated these pajamas, but no one would listen. They went to my brother. No one saw me crying.

Penny opened her eyes. Her brother was gone. The pajamas were gone. She sank to her knees, holding the side of her head. What was this?

"Pain," said a voice somewhere. Behind her? In the darkness? In the corner of her mind. It echoed through her. It was deep and gravelly, like the earth itself speaking to her through shifting boulders.

My sister, Sheri. She was beautiful. I loved her long hair. If I was good, I could brush it. I would sneak into her bedroom and sleep alongside her. When my parents found out, they took me back to my room, no matter how much I kicked or screamed.

Penny rolled to her side, holding the side of her head. "Why?" she asked.

"Purify," rumbled the Voice.

My dachshund Susie and I snuggled in bed. She was the only one that knew I was crying. She licked my face. She was my only friend. I took her everywhere. I trained her and competed in dog shows with her. She loved being in the the ring. She was great at showing. Majestic. We were the cute ones competing against adults. When I was seven, I came home from school, and my Susie was gone. My parents had sold her for breeding. She was more valuable that way.

"Stop!" gasped Penny. She rolled onto her hands and knees, trying to steady herself. She needed to find her phone. If she found her phone, if it was still working, she could get out of here. She needed to get out of here.

"Purify," commanded the Voice.

The neighborhood girls liked to play with me. I fascinated them, I think. There was something about me that pulled them to me. I liked the attention. I liked that people wanted me. I did things to them. Made them react to me. Their faces. Their moans. Their Lust.

"No," croaked Penny. She opened her eyes. The pain cut through her like razors shoved through her ears and eyes. She needed to get out of here. She needed to keep her eyes open. She got to her feet, slowly. The room spun around her, but she kept her footing. She didn't need her phone. She needed to go. She needed to get out of here.

Penny staggered to the entrance of the room, but as she reached out with her hands to find the tunnel that fed into it, she found only wall. She used the wall to guide her to the left and started searching for the way out blindly. Each moment her eyes were open was agony. She wondered if she was bleeding, if she was dying. But she couldn't close her eyes. She couldn't go back.

"Purify," demanded the voice.

"No," whispered Penny. "No."

She followed the curved wall of the room. Time felt wrong. She must have circled the room by now. Maybe a dozen times by now. But the wall was everywhere. She couldn't find the way out. Maybe there was no way out.

"What do you want from me?" asked Penny.

"Remember."

"Why? Why do I need to remember that?"

"Purify."

"I can't. Please. I can't remember that. Isn't there some other way? Any other way?"

"Pain."

They would touch me. Reaching out for me, their hands finding me in the dark, I felt wanted for the first time. I felt seen. I felt beautiful like Sheri. I liked to make them feel good, to take care of them. I like to make people feel good. They would be talking, babbling like school girls, but when they got quiet, late at night, they would look into my eyes and calm down. Their breathing would become heavy and ragged. They would fall asleep staring into my eyes.

Penny opened her eyes. "Please," she begged. "No more."

"Remember."

My next door neighbor's father worked at a salvage company. One day, he brought home a barrel of porn books. I loved books. I read everything I could when I was alone. I was always alone. The barrel was like a treasure chest to me. One of my friends read them with me in the attic. I found stories of boys being turned into girls. I showed them to her. She didn't like them. I loved those stories the best, the boys became so pretty. People wanted to touch them once they were pretty. I knew I was one of them.

"I'm not one of them," muttered Penny. She was on the cavern floor again. Her knees and shins were bruised and scraped. With her eyes open, the pain returned. It was lightning directly into her prefrontal cortex. It was a thousand forgotten hands, reaching out for her throat, her legs, her arms, where the ropes bound her, and pulling her back into the basin. The memories would drown her in the basin. She was lost. She lost.

"Remember." The room shook with the Voice's impatience.

One of the babysitters found us in the attic. I was reading, and my friend was touching me. We were trying to be like the pictures, but none of us was the boy. We needed a boy to finish the picture. We hid in shame, but she wasn't angry. Why wasn't she angry? She tied me to a chair. She touched me. I wanted to cry out, but I couldn't make it stop. I was powerless. The others girls watched. I came in shame. The babysitter said I needed training. It wasn't the last time.

"No," groaned Penny. "Make it stop." She stumbled in the dark and found her phone. The screen was cracked. She tried to unlock the screen, but the backlight was hell. She was blinded and the world was white. The white was agony. The pain spread from her head to her body. She shook from it. Her skin was stabbed with a dozen knives. Then a dozen more. The knives turned hot, and Penny prayed her nerves would die. She prayed her body would pass out from the pain. There was no mercy. There was only pain.

"Remember," ordered the Voice.

"Will it stop?" screamed Penny. Her legs shook. She held the side of her head, she covered her eyes, but nothing stopped the white hot pain. Nothing hid her from the light. She had to close her eyes. That was the only way, and that way was death.

"If I remember, will is stop?"

"Remember."

"Fuck you."

"Remember. Pure. Pain." The room shook again. The dais fell over and the basin spilled, drenching Penny in the amber liquid. Her eyes shut to shield themselves, and Penny remembered.

*******

The private mental hospital had been converted from an old route 66 roadside motel. They drove me into the courtyard under a stone arch with river rocks lining the drive. They were going to fix me. The babysitter told my mother I needed to fixed. My aunt. My mother. My babysitter, one after another. They all wanted to fix me. I could ensnare them, entrap them, but they still wanted to fix the thing that allured them. No one could control me.

I was locked in a room with only a bed. The nurse came in and wrapped me in the sheets so I could not move. I was hers. She told me it was like a hug. It would hold me. I was safe. They needed me to be safe and still while they fixed me. I wanted to be fixed. I knew that what I was was wrong.

The next day I was placed in an ice bath with a rubber top over the tub and only my head out. They put a ball gag in my mouth to keep me from screaming or biting my tongue. They hooked up electrodes to my head and turned on the shock therapy machine. It was heaven and hell throughout my whole body. I could taste cooper. I was nothing but pain.

Back in my bed, I was trapped in my nurse's wrappings. She said I would be safe, and I was only safe in her arms, in my bed. I heard music playing. It was faint and fading, like coming from a different room. I remember the sound of bells. I heard the rain pouring down outside my room. Every sense was so much more. I could hear birds in the background. I could smell my nurse, rooms away. I could feel the sun behind the clouds and the stone and my thick blankets. I don't know how long I was there, feeling everything, so deeply connected and so completely abandoned. I lived a whole life in peace, until the nurse returned.

There were hypnosis sessions after that. I was strapped into a chair. My genitals were wired up to a machine, and the nurse darkened the room. With my new eyes, I could make her outline out in the darkness, but she didn't know. She didn't know I had lived lifetimes and seen more than she could understand. She started to hypnotize me with the sound of her voice. It was loud, being so close, and it drowned out everything else.

Then there, in front of me on the wall, were scenes of female bodies. They were so pretty. I admired them. I wanted to be them. I knew them. Something in me, older than me, knew them. Then the images moved. The women had sex. I had never imagined what women could do with each other. What happened before, what happened to me, was a sick joke. What these women did with each other was a dance. It was a miracle. It was majesty. It was everything I was not.

I started to get aroused.

And then the pain. My genitals were on fire. My mind went blank from the pain, and I passed out. I came to with nasty smells in my nose, and the room was dark except for her outline. She talked to me again, and then the images and the pain. Over and over.

My mind shut down from the pain, and I awoke in total darkness. The sight beyond sight was gone. I think I had been fed but I don't remember it.

The days melted together. I was in the bed and then the ice and the shocks. Over and over. Day after day. I became numb. It was the only way to survive. The only way out was to retreat deeper and deeper into myself, but my body wasn't safe. When the sessions started, I would leave my body and float away to another place. It was dark there. Scary. But I felt no pain there. There were other beings there. Dark, hungry beings. They wanted me, like everyone else. They whispered to me, telling me about revenge. They offered power. Their voices were deep and rumbled. In the dark with them, the world shook like boulders shifting. I was afraid of them. At that time, I was always afraid. But I was safe with them. I could be safe.

I don't know how long I was there. I remember that they were strong, and I was getting weaker. With their strength, they drug me to pool of water. It reflected bright light and it washed over me. The light was thick, like a wind or rain. Blanking out, the darkness and a voice in my head said that I was stronger than the darkness. I was special. The light would protect me. I knew it was true. I was safe, locked away from the darkness and I could stand there in the darkness. I felt peace in the darkness, but I was bathed in light. I was someone else inside and someone else outside. Penny was neither, but she was safe.

Hearing voices took me back out of the darkness. I opened my eyes. The nurse was laughing, showing me more women making love. I wasn't aroused. I wouldn't be shocked again. I couldn't speak with the gag in my mouth, but she looked into my eyes and I had her. I had her like the little girls in my attic and in my bad. I had her and she would help me break free. She would serve me, and I serve the voices.

**********

Penny gasped and opened her eyes. There was no pain. The room was dark but fainter now. The dais, basin, and cup were crashed over on the floor. Her clothes were wet with the amber liquid. Penny looked around. She could see the tunnel leading out of the domed room. She looked for the source of the Voice, but there was nothing.

"Is that it?" she asked.

"Yes," said the Voice. It was calmer now, like a cascade of gravel.

"I'm done?'

"Yes."

"What the hell was the point of that?"

"Remember."