Free Awakening by Kitty Thomas Page B

that. I just want to show you that there is nothing to fear from me in the dungeon. If I awakened your body once to something you didn’t think you could experience and want, I can awaken it again.”
    I’d gone still in his arms, my head resting in the crook of his neck. I didn’t struggle against him, even though I wanted to. I still felt too weak and exhausted from everything that had already happened today. My pulse ratcheted up again to an unnatural pace as he carried me down the spiraling stairs to the dungeon.
    The lights were still on from before.
    He didn’t put me down until he picked the contraption he wanted me on. “We’ll stick with simple, this time,” he said. I wasn’t sure if simple would hurt more or less.
    I didn’t resist him when he helped me straddle a bench and lay forward over it. I was afraid whatever he was about to do would be much worse if I fought him. He took my wrists and then my ankles, each in turn, fastening them down in heavy metal. The sound of the locks clicking in place leeched the last bit of hope out of me.
    Even without him touching me, I was immobile. Naked, spread out, tied down. Completely helpless, leaving his hands free to bring whatever torture on me he so desired.
    “Shhhhh,” he said. “You’re okay. Everything is okay here.” My body trembled under his touch as he stroked my back. “I’m just going to use the flogger on you today. Something light and easy. I’ll work you up very slowly over time. There is nothing to fear here.”
    It didn’t matter how many times he said it, I didn’t believe it. He couldn’t change reality and pain with only words. He moved away from me then, over to the nearest wall, and selected an instrument with a leather handle and several long leather pieces attached to it. I cringed and closed my eyes.
    He made his way back over to me. I jumped, then settled when his hand stroked over my back again. “While I was out this morning, I dropped several messages in the ocean for your people. I’ll keep trying until I get some kind of response. My intent isn’t to keep you from ever seeing your family again.” He swept my hair to the side out of his way. “We’ll find some way for you to visit them. Maybe we’ll take a boat out once we’ve established contact.”
    A tear slid down my cheek and dropped onto the stone floor. “Thank you, Master.” I didn’t understand how someone who could be so kind to me could have this in him. I was tempted to beg him again, thinking maybe I could reach him and gain mercy, but before I could open my mouth, the flogger came down on my back.
    It was just once, then a long pause, as if he were letting me assemble the sensations and turn them over in my mind. I needed that processing time. Going from someone who was uncomfortable with simple human touch to being initiated into pain as a purported pleasurable activity was a big leap.
    While my body had cringed away as the leather fell on it, it didn’t feel like I’d anticipated. It was a more intense sensation than I was used to, but in honesty I couldn’t define it as pain. The little leather fingers of the flogger were stimulating, warming, but not painful.
    He did it again, and again, and again. Each time, the intensity and feelings slowly escalated, but they never got to a point where I couldn’t tolerate it. Just a light sting and a warmth.
    His hand stroked over my back again. “If you relax and accept it, the feeling will transform.”
    To what? It wasn’t horribly painful, but the idea of relaxing my body while he hit me with anything was too foreign to assimilate, but I tried. I breathed slowly in and out, and closed my eyes. I thought of the sea and swimming alongside the dolphins. Anything to release the tension still curled inside me, as if I were only waiting for it to get worse somehow.
    I managed to calm myself and the next time the flogger came down, my body was relaxed, loose. I gasped at the sensation skimming across my