The Truest Control Ch. 06

Roger awoke in a state of some distress. Though he had collapsed into sleep out of sheer exhaustion, he hadn't slept well on the bathroom floor, and his body was sore in many places, especially his testicles. He could still smell urine on his face. But as much as he was distressed by what had happened the previous night, he was yet more concerned about the future. Liz seemed to be becoming more abusive and cruel toward him as time went by. What had started as some light, playful teasing had become a brutal system of psychological intimidation and physical violence. Roger couldn't deny that at times, he might have fantasized about something similar, but fantasies are often quite different when they play out in reality, and he had a dread that Liz would only become more controlling and harsh as time went by.

Roger understood, too, that Liz was doing all of this to intimidate him into behaving the way she wanted. No doubt if he asked her about it, she'd say that he could make things much easier for both of them if he just obeyed everything she said and avoided putting up any resistance or doing anything which might displease her. A normal person might long ago have ejected Liz from their life and moved on, but neither Roger nor Liz were normal people, and as much as Roger feared Liz, he also liked her, even liked the way she terrified him, because it was clear that she was the real thing. In the past, Roger might have fantasized about dominatrixes who would tie people up and whip them for an hour, then let them slink away to their normal lives. Liz was something entirely different, a woman who clearly wanted to take absolute control of Roger's entire life, defining everything he did, everything he said, everything he thought, and everything he was. That was a sexy idea, and Roger felt himself becoming aroused just thinking about it. Liz was truly a fantasy turned into real life. On the other hand, Roger wasn't so dumb as to imagine that turning all these fantasies into reality would necessarily end well.

He cleaned himself off in the shower, got dressed, and went to work while Liz slept in what she had claimed as her bed. Roger wondered if he would sleep on the bathroom floor every night from now on. In a larger sense, he worried about whether he should take some decisive action before it was too late. Certainly, Liz had done some things which would make it difficult for him to call things off now, but really, nothing was permanent. Roger was having serious doubts, and it might be better to just end it all before his worst fears turned into reality. There was a link between him and Liz, a special bond which both of them had felt, but just because two people can share something special together, that doesn't mean that they're meant to stay together forever... right?

These thoughts mixed together in Roger's head with various sexual fantasies about Liz. He still hadn't had a satisfying orgasm in several days, and even as he worried, he relived the things she'd done to him, and he couldn't stop himself from getting another throbbing erection when he thought about how she'd made him kiss her feet, or how she'd gotten several orgasms from him while he'd gotten none from her, and even how she'd pushed his head into the toilet. As messed up as it was, as much as he'd been afraid when he couldn't breathe underneath the toilet bowl full of her urine, he couldn't deny that the thought of it was a huge turn-on, and he continued oscillating between these two poles all day, shifting from worrying about Liz being a dangerous bitch from Hell and fantasizing about her being the lifestyle dominatrix of his dreams.

With all of these thoughts spinning around in his head, Roger found it difficult to concentrate on work. This combined with the dumbing-down effect of the powder which Liz had been mixing into his food. Although he didn't know it yet, Roger's IQ had already permanently dropped by several points; he'd sustained some mild brain damage, meaning those IQ points wouldn't come back with time, and although the effect of this decrease so far would normally be approximately equivalent to that of a person who badly needed sleep, the fact that Roger also hadn't slept well and that he was constantly thinking about Liz caused him to blunder about at work, unable to focus on the tasks that he was doing, and this state eventually led him to make a careless but disastrous mistake, deleting an entire folder of important company data when he'd only meant to copy it to another location.

When he first noticed his mistake, Roger panicked; he knew the data hadn't been backed up, and there was no way to get it back. But after a moment, the terror he felt faded to a dull buzzing in his head. Roger felt as if he were drunk or on drugs; his legs seemed to be disconnected from the rest of his body, and as he stood up, he felt like he was floating in the air instead of standing on the floor. He just couldn't think about it anymore. He couldn't think of anything but Liz pulling his head against her dripping vagina, or making him kneel at her feet, or pushing his head into a bowl of her urine. Only these things were important; what had happened with the company data was not important. Even though Roger realized, through the haze in his head, that if this continued, he would be fired, he just couldn't care anymore. As he walked to his boss' office to explain what had happened, he fantasized about what it would be like if Liz were his boss, what she might make him do to avoid getting fired, how nice it would feel to submit to her every word and let her take control of his life...

Roger's boss realized that something was wrong as soon as Roger sat down in his office. Although he was initially furious about the loss of the data, he became more worried about Roger's condition as their conversation continued. It was apparent that Roger was in some state of mental distress: his eyes were clearly not able to focus on anything for more than a few seconds, his breathing seemed to be shallow, and his hands were trembling visibly.

"Roger, I've got to ask you... Are you okay?" the boss asked with genuine concern. "You really don't look so good. Are you having some kind of medical problems? You know that you can take some time off if you need to see a doctor or get some kind of treatment."

"I'm fine," Roger lied. What else could he say? It wasn't a medical problem. He knew exactly what the problem was, but he didn't know what the solution was, and taking time off work wouldn't fix it, because if he went home, that would just mean that he'd have even more time under the influence of the source of the problem.

The boss was a sympathetic but firm man, and he had a good working relationship with Roger. After being unable to get satisfactory answers from Roger about what had happened and what was happening, the boss sent Roger home for the day with a gentle warning that Roger needed to shape up. Roger understood the hidden threat: if this kept up, Roger's job was on the line. What would he do if he lost his job?

Liz looked surprised when Roger came home early. She was sitting on the sofa in the living room, which was visible from the front door, and so the two of them saw each other as soon as he walked in. "Hello, slave!" Liz called from the sofa. "You're home early! What are you doing here at this time?"

"My boss sent me home," Roger explained absently. For some reason he didn't want to talk about it; he just wanted her to hurt him, to push him down and make him please her sexually, to degrade him and make him submit to her in every way. He needed to feel the taste of her crotch on his tongue, the sting of her hand as it slapped him, the humiliation of her insulting him...

"Why did he do that?" Liz asked. "Was there not any more work for you to do?"

"No, there was, I just... I wasn't able to do it any more," Roger concluded flatly.

"Oh, you poor dear," Liz cooed, coming to him and putting an arm around him while using the other to stroke his hair gently. "Are you sick? Do you need to go see a doctor?"

"No, I'm fine," Roger insisted. "Actually I need to talk to you."

"Oh, of course, dear, I'm happy to talk to you if you want to talk. What do we need to talk about?"

Roger hesitated. What was he going to say now? He'd been too muddled to actually plan what he was going to say, and now here was this woman, this powerful woman, this intimidating woman, this commanding woman standing in front of him. She'd been passing the time in a light-colored tank top, and the bulge of her breasts peeking out from behind it made him feel that she should be the one giving him orders, not the other way around. And yet he was contemplating being insistent with her. The idea seemed completely out of the question.

"Can we sit down?" Roger asked. "I'd like to sit and collect my thoughts for a while."

"Certainly, my dear. But first, get me a drink from the fridge. I'm a little thirsty."

It was thrilling how casually she ordered him around, as if he were her servant. It felt so good to get orders from her, and it felt even better to obey them, because with every act of obedience, he was conditioning himself to be what she wanted him to be: a person who would comply with her orders without even thinking about them. Perhaps he could be her robot, only capable of doing whatever she wanted him to do and lacking any independent will of his own. These thoughts accompanied him to the fridge as he pulled out a drink for her and as he walked back to the living room, at a time when he was contemplating taking the authority.

"Thank you, sweetheart, you're a dear," she said, accepting the drink from him. "Now, would you like to tell me what's on your mind?"

"I would, thank you," he said, beginning to sit down on the couch.

"Oh no, darling, you don't sit on the couch... You're only allowed to sit on the floor, like the servant and the doggie you are."

Roger looked into her face for a moment, trying to decide what to do. Would he take this moment to refuse her order and tell her that things had gone too far?

Liz seemed to recognize Roger's intentions. In his face, she read a glimmer of resistance, of second-guessing her order, and she smiled ever so slightly, the corners of her lips turning up in a way that showed she was ready. She liked a challenge, and if Roger was going to resist at this point, then it would only be so much better when she finally defeated him.

Roger saw this edge of defiance in her expression, and realized that demanding to sit on the sofa was not the battle he wanted to win. So, sitting on the floor as she requested, he asked her: "Why are you at home, anyway? How come you're not at work yourself?"

"Oh, I don't have a job anymore," she said with a smile. "I quit."

"You quit?" Roger asked with some surprise. "Why?"

"I don't need a job anymore," she said simply. "I have you now."

Roger paused, trying to absorb this new information. If Liz was now unemployed because she expected him to provide her with everything, what would she do if he put her out? But this thought was followed by another one: why was she expecting him to give her everything she wanted? What was he, her father? The desire for her to use him, the mental fantasy of having her take more and more from him, contrasted with a sense of indignation at her presumptuousness. It would have been one thing for her to ask him for support, but she hadn't even said anything about it; she had simplyassumed that he would give her everything she wanted, as if she were a child...

"Liz, I need to ask you... No, I need to tell you... You're a great person and I'm happy to be with you, but... This kind of behavior, just coming into my house like you own it and asking me for money..."

"I'm not asking you," she said with a smile.

"But you probably will," Roger said. "I mean, you..."

"No, of course I won't," she cut him off. "I don't have to ask. I never asked you for this house, but Ido own it, because I was ready to take it, and you were ready to give it to me. That's how it works. I don't have to ask you for things. You'll give me what I want because that's the kind of relationship we have."

Even though Roger knew she was right, he had to resist this idea. He had a growing sense that he had to do something about this, had to do it now, something he should have already done a long time ago but which urgently needed to be done as soon as possible. There was no time like the present.

"Liz, listen..."

"I don't like you using that tone of voice with me," she said, kicking him in the face again. It wasn't a very hard kick, but it was firm enough to hurt, enough to give Roger the understanding that she would make things worse for him if he tried to make any trouble for her.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. Then he silently berated himself for being so weak-willed. What was wrong with him? He needed courage at this time. "I just need you to understand, just because we're together, that doesn't mean... Um..." he broke off, unable to finish his sentence. Just what didn't it mean?

"Yes, darling?" she asked, smiling in delight at his confusion and inability to form a complete sentence.

"You can't just expect that people will give you money just because you want it," he blurted out, trying to speak quickly before the words fled from his thoughts. "People need a reason to give you money."

"You have all the reason you need, darling, and you even just told me the reason."

"I did?" Roger asked, trying to remember what he'd just said. He mentally replayed his own words back in his mind, and then he realized that she was right. He'd said all the reason she needed. "Because... Because you want it," he said slowly.

Liz smiled even more broadly, like a cat who's just caught a mouse.

Roger remembered what he needed to do when Liz wanted something. "And that means... You mean... Since you want it... That means..." Roger paused, swallowed hard, and said the words that sounded simultaneously so terrible and so incredibly erotic. "I should beg you for it."

Liz beamed a smile that lit up the whole room and nodded in triumph. The expression on her face, that smug smile of confidence and victory, communicated it all: she knew that they both knew that he would do it, that he would beg to give her money, that he would get on his knees and plead with her to take everything he had, because he loved it when she took from him, needed her to take from him, needed it more than anything.

"H-how much?" Roger stammered, shaking with powerful emotions that were beginning to well up within him. "How much should I beg to give you?"

"Five thousand dollars," she said slowly and distinctly, letting the words hit him like a hammer. The smile was still there, that smile that said he would do it just because she wanted him to.

"F-five thou...thousand dollars," he repeated, as if she were a judge who had just read off the number of years in his jail sentence. "I... I... Oh..."

It wasn't that he couldn't afford it. Roger had much more money saved up than five thousand dollars, because he made a pretty good salary but had hardly any living expenses and rarely bought anything. The problem was the unfairness of it all. She was telling him that he would give her the money, and he knew that that wouldn't be the end of it. She would have him do it again. The next time it might be ten thousand dollars, or even more. And it could just go on forever, probably would go on forever. Roger was not a businessman, and he was not good with handling money. He'd made a good amount of money by being a technology professional, but he had no business or financial sense. He was a technical guy, and he'd only made his money through the sheer luck of happening to get a job that paid him money for his technical skills. Roger sometimes worried about what would happen if he lost his money or his job, because he was not the kind of guy who could get that money back easily if it was gone, and because he hadn't grown up rich, he knew what it was like to not have money. He resented people trying to get money from him just because he had it, and although he would have done it for Liz, he didn't like the certainty that he would do it. At that moment, he was afraid not so much of her, but of himself, of the realization that his own submissive nature and his need to be manipulated meant that he would gladly have her use him because he loved it when she used him for money. And as much as he liked that idea, he disliked it in equal measure.

And suddenly, it all came together. His fear of her, of himself, of becoming financially destitute, of losing his job and his livelihood, of her continued control of his life and his continuing descent into weakness and degradation and abuse... all of these came together in that moment, and suddenly, for a moment, Roger became more angry than he had ever been in his life.

"That's it," he said. "That's the last straw. I'm not going to take this," he said, standing up and taking a moment to collect himself.

"Oh, of course you will, don't be silly," she said, apparently unfazed by his words, still leering at him with that same smile of complete self-confidence.

"No. No! No, I won't!" he said, his voice rising with every word. "I've had enough of this! This was a fun little game for a while, but it's gone too far. I don't appreciate you humiliating me. I don't appreciate you flushing my head in a toilet like a high school jock. I won't tolerate you..."

"Except that you did," she interrupted him. "You love it when I humiliate you. It makes you feel wonderful. You enjoyed it when I flushed your head in the toilet almost as much as I did. And you'll tolerate whatever you were about to say you won't tolerate. Not only will you tolerate it, you'll beg me for it."

Roger closed his eyes and thought to himself:Ugh... She's right. Then he realized that he'd said these words aloud. She laughed at him, at his total confusion, at his completely ineffectual efforts to defy her.

Roger opened his eyes. "Get out!" he shouted with as much force as he could muster. "Get out of my house,now! I'm through playing games with you! This is my house, not yours, and I have the right to expel people I don't want here! You've had your fun, now go!" And he actually went so far as to physically grab her, pulling her off the sofa.

She laughed in his face. "Oh, what a wimp you are, Roger! Always acting according to your feeble, dumb little impulses! If you want me to go, I'll go. You don't have to force me. Just let me get my suitcase that I brought yesterday, and I'll leave."

Roger took his hands off her and watched her in silent fury as she walked toward the stairs. "I left the suitcase upstairs. I'll just go and get it. Wait here for me while I get it; I'll just be a minute."

Roger wanted to follow her so that he could keep an eye on her. He didn't trust her, and he was worried that she might try to do something sneaky while she was upstairs. But he also didn't trust himself, and he was worried that being in her presence would weaken him. It might be better to stay alone for a moment to collect himself and be free of her influence at this time. So he nodded silently and let her go upstairs by herself.

True to her word, she came back down with the suitcase just a few moments later. Turning to look at him, she said simply "Bye," and walked out the door, pulling the suitcase behind her. The door slammed shut, and then she was gone.

Is that it? Is it really over? Roger wondered, sitting on the sofa and trying to collect his thoughts. He could hardly believe that after all of his worries about her resisting him, she would just suddenly leave of her own will. Had it really been that easy the whole time? Did he really just have to say no and she'd leave? It seemed incredible after the past few days. And yet, here he was, sitting alone on the sofa in an empty house.