Break Her Read online

  B R E A K H E R

  A NOVEL

  BY

  B.G. HARLEN

  Break Her © 2012 by B.G. Harlen

  Sculpture by Peter Moulton (www.petermoulton.com)

  Cover design by Mr. Grey (www.mr-grey.com)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  For more information, go to:

  www.bgharlen.com

  www.breakherthebook.com

  Thanks to: the sister, the physicist, the Frenchwoman, the Wolf, and, of course, Mr. Grey.

  PART 1

  She wasn’t sure if she was actually awake. She felt funny. Immobile. And there was... Jesus. She really couldn’t move. Someone was holding her. She could feel him all along the back of her body. One of his arms was pinning both of hers to her sides, while his other arm was around her throat, maybe a quarter of an inch from cutting off her breathing entirely. As it was, she was speechless. He had a leg wrapped around each one of hers, with a force that she couldn’t counter. She couldn’t move. And she really wanted to, because as she quickly became aware of herself, she realized that this man’s penis was deep inside her. Her eyes were wide open, but she was facing away from him and could see nothing that was going on. All she could do was listen and feel. He was moving gently inside her, in and out, shallow strokes. It didn’t hurt. Not physically.

  Not physically. But in every other way.

  Before she could think, before she could plan, before she could even entirely take in what was happening, she found herself wanting to cry. Not the sad kind of crying, the weeping from sorrow or despair, but the instinctive, spontaneous sobbing of a child. The way she would cry when she was little and she’d tripped and fallen down on the street, that immediate “mommy take care of me, daddy please hold me” feeling, the impulse she still felt, if she admitted it, for a split second on those rare occasions when circumstances beyond her control caused her to lose her footing, to crash to the ground. To burst into uncomplicated tears. But you don’t. Not when you’re a grownup.

  Goosebumps sprang up on her whole body, and a giant shudder ran through her, as she began to admit to herself what was happening. Her chest began to heave as gasps began to form in her lungs.

  But the way he was holding her, she was barely able to take in enough air for normal breathing. If she let herself panic, she might suffocate.

  She tried to swallow, to stay calm.

  She couldn’t even imagine how this had happened without her feeling it.

  He moved his head against hers and placed his mouth by her ear. “It wasn’t really that difficult,” he said in a casual voice. “I just pressed on your carotid arteries while you were sleeping so you’d pass out for a few seconds. That’s all it took. The hardest thing was cutting your nightgown off. But you didn’t even wake up. You’re a good sleeper.”

  Her breath snagged in her throat as she tried to gather enough to speak, but she couldn’t. She could feel his smile against her ear. He speeded up his motions inside her. And moaned.

  “You’ll never know how good this feels,” he said in the same calm voice. She stayed still. She forced her muscles to untense. She was trying to make it as easy as it could be on herself.

  “Very good,” the man said. “Very good.” But she didn’t know if he meant what he was doing or what she was doing. “But it doesn’t work that way,” he added, making it a little clearer. “When I come, I stop. But I can’t come until you do.”

  She made a tiny sound in her throat.

  “What a bad lover I would be, if I didn’t see to it that you got some pleasure out of this.”

  He gently nipped at her earlobe. He could feel her clench her jaw.

  Everything in her wanted to scream, he knew. That was normal. But everything she did from this moment on wasn’t. He should have gotten it right then and there. If someone responds the way this woman was about to, then something very unusual is going on. Only a very special kind of person is capable of that. Not the kind of person easily dealt with. But everyone has a weakness. Everyone ignores the facts sometimes when it suits them.

  Or maybe he wasn’t ignoring anything. Because what happened next was something that had never happened before, not in a long, long career of highly professional, personalized mayhem. Somebody would manage to astound him, to astonish him, to shock him. Maybe he did know what he was doing. Maybe it was what he had always been looking for.

  He kept up the beat, in and out, in and out.

  He couldn’t see her close her eyes. She could feel him inside her, in and out, in and out. Sometimes slowly, other times faster.

  And then she wasn’t there. Initial revulsion cut off, sobs short-circuited, the present gratefully if only temporarily abandoned – at his words, her brain had wheeled around with a skid and run, hurtling, back into the dream state she’d been in before he’d awakened her. Sleep was always the answer, she’d found, the answer to a lifetime of pain, of things she didn’t want to feel. And dreaming was the only pleasure she had anymore. Somehow, on some level, she knew that right now, for just now, maybe for the last time, she had the chance to let herself believe what she wanted more than anything in the world to believe. And that would make it possible to do what she had to do.

  Instead of loud, which is what he’d expected, she got very quiet. Instead of active, passive. He didn’t know that she was very busy believing something as hard as she could, hiding from his world in one of her own.

  Four or five minutes passed. And then it happened. He really was surprised, a feeling almost unprecedented for him.

  As he felt the first of her spasms, he found himself increasing the speed of his thrusting. She clamped down on him in a short series of internal contractions, and a deep, brief groan came out of her throat. He moved his arm away from her neck, and he heard her breath come quick and fast out of her. Without even thinking about it, he came in a brief shuddering instant of pure joy. As he relaxed a little himself afterwards, he kept his arm around her and felt her still trying to catch her breath. He pulled out and lay back on the bed, moving his legs from around hers to on top of them. She was still pinned to the bed, but her upper body was free.

  She was awake now, and back, fully present once again. She turned toward him with a wild look in her eyes. He was to her right side. She raised her left arm as if to slap or hit him, but he grabbed it with his right and held it still. Tightly.

  “You don’t want to do that,” he said, calmly, as usual. She would never hear him speak in any other manner. “Let’s keep this friendly. It’ll be a lot better for you that way.” He released the arm and she let it fall, but she stayed on her side, balanced on her right arm, staring at him.

  “What are you?” she asked in wonder. There was a glimmering of tears in her eyes, but her mouth was firm and her jaw was hard.

  “A professional,” he answered.

  “Rapist?” she hissed.

  “Among other things.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Money, of course.”

  He kept his heavy legs on hers, but he stretched and put his hands behind his head. She suddenly realized she could see his face. She knew no dream could help her now.

  “Oh, Jesus, I’m dead. I can see you. You’re letting me see you.” She began to pant. This time there was nothing to stop her.

  “Nonsense. I’m not here to kill you.”

  “Really.” It wasn’t a question. She put her hand to her chest, just beneath her throat, just above her heart, trying to calm her breathing.

  “I’m supposed to destroy you without killing you. They don’t want you dead.”

  “They?” r />
  “You know,” he said, moving on, “I’m already very impressed. I could feel that. That wasn’t fake. You really came.” He smiled, as if delighted. “And fast. You’re the first one who’s ever been able to do that.”

  “Don’t take it personally,” she gasped out. It was so fast and unexpected, that, again, he was astounded. She was making a joke. He was happy to play along.

  “You weren’t thinking of me?” he asked coyly.

  “No.” There was no hint of humor in her answer. Sadness, maybe, he thought. Whatever.

  “Well. Even so. I have found, in the past, that that demand tends to really freak a woman out. She has to participate? She has to make herself enjoy it? Only one other woman was ever able to accomplish that, and it took her a lot of time and a lot of tears, you know, to get over the guilt.”

  The woman next to him said nothing.

  “You might just be much more bloody minded than anyone I’ve dealt with yet.”

  “Bloody minded.” She repeated it, as if the phrase was new to her.

  “Cold blooded,” he clarified.

  “You said that’s what it would take.”

  “And that’s what you did. Beautiful.”

  “Are we done now?”

  “I’m sorry, baby. I said destroy. This is only the beginning.”

  “So what does the end look like?” She didn’t sound like she really wanted to know. She sounded resigned. Already.

  He smiled. “If I told you that... it would be cheating.”

  Suddenly and for the first time, she looked truly panic-stricken. “My cats!”

  He shifted his position. He moved onto his side closer to her again. He put one hand on the back of her neck and with the other, he stroked her cheek. He felt her shiver with disgust.

  “They’re fine. It was very sweet, the way they sleep with you. Two little fluffballs curled up next to their mistress. I moved them to the floor. Of course, I would have no problem killing them.”

  “If I give you trouble, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “I won’t.”

  “There’s not a lot you could give. Out here in the sticks. I’ve disconnected your phones and forwarded your calls to your cell. Which I have. I think I found most, if not all, of any potential weapons. New locks on the doors. Inside. No one around for miles. Lovely scenery here, by the way. It will just be you and me. Our romantic getaway.”

  “I guess I’d only be worried if you really believed that.” And once again, she proved capable of sarcasm. Under these circumstances. It was hard to follow her moods, but not one of them so far was appropriate. Except for that instant of panic. She was intriguing.

  “Relax,” he said. “I’m kidding.”

  “Thanks.”

  He grinned at her. “You’re going to be fun, aren’t you?”

  “That’s not my intention.”

  “But you don’t have any choice, do you? You’re clearly not going to collapse right away. And I wouldn’t buy it for a minute if you did. You’re going to fight me. And that’s going to be fun.”

  “Then I won’t.” And that was when she sounded like a rebellious child.

  “I’ll enjoy that too, I bet.”

  “I can’t win.”

  “No. That’s the point.”

  She put her lips together as if to stop herself from saying one more thing. Something that might just push him further. But it didn’t help.

  Suddenly, brutally, he shoved her over onto her stomach. He pushed her face into the pillow. She struggled, but he grabbed her arms and held her by her two narrow wrists with one hand. With the other, he reached for something beside him. She heard a tiny rustling. He lifted her head by her hair to let her breathe for a moment, then shoved her face down again. Shockingly quickly, and with only the lubrication of the condom, he invaded her ass. He moved fast through the first, worst part, getting through the sphincter. Once inside, he stroked back and forth rapidly, roughly. He leaned forward with a hand on each of her elbows, pushed flat onto the bed. After a few seconds, he put one hand on the spot between her shoulder and the back of her neck, effectively paralyzing her and stopping the thrashing of her head. He let her leave it to one side of the pillow. She was sputtering and howling. Her feet beat against the mattress. She was trying to reach him with her hands, until he pushed them both under her stomach, keeping them there with his weight. His strokes were longer now and harder. Her sounds alternated between gasps for breath and grunts of pain. When he came this time, it was with a little howl of pleasure. He pulled out finally and let himself fall on top of her, then slowly rolled to the side. He put his right hand on the back of her neck and rubbed it affectionately. When she tried to scramble out of the bed, he moved his hand to her throat again and pulled her into a spoon position inside the curve of his body.

  “Mmmmmmm,” he said.

  “You motherfucker,” she snapped. She was still struggling, so he lay one leg firmly on top of hers.

  “And I haven’t even touched these beautiful breasts yet,” he said, caressing them with his free hand.

  She screamed, not a sound of fear but of full-on frustration.

  “Shhhhh,” he said, as if to a baby. “Shhhhh.”

  She actually quieted. But she continued to breathe heavily.

  “Now, are you going to tell me you didn’t enjoy that?” he asked, with another of his stomach-turning smiles. He really wondered what she would say.

  She managed to turn her head to look up at his. He winked.

  “I’ve had better,” she spat out, and turned away.

  He leaned in and kissed the back of her neck. She shuddered.

  “I’ll give you some time to think through your strategy,” he said. From somewhere, he took two sets of plastic cuffs and cuffed first her legs together, then her hands to the bedpost. “Daddy needs to get a little rest.” He added, in a completely different tone, as he moved to his side of the bed and stretched out. “Fuck with me, and I’ll really hurt you.”

  She said nothing. She just stayed where she was and thought.

  She thought about two things.

  She thought about the helplessness, which was the thing that could destroy her – the gut-twisting awareness that he could do whatever he wanted to her, that at any moment he could do anything, anything at all, no matter how terrible.

  And she knew how terrible people could be.

  And she thought about the thing that could save her. She thought about the gun that was hidden less than two feet away from where she lay, bound and at this bastard’s mercy.

  It was almost funny. For that first moment upon awakening, for just that first fraction of a second, she’d thought it was her husband, she’d thought for one fleeting instant of pure joy, that everything was finally all right. Of course, she knew immediately after that it wasn’t. But for those first, vital few minutes, she let her mind burrow, like a chilly toddler under a mountain of blankets, back inside that fantasy. It was what she needed to do. But it was also what she wanted to do. To believe. Before she had to stop. Before she had to really wake up. But the longing that she’d given in to, that she had used to confound him, to flip his plans upside down, was like having the white pieces, the first move in a chess game. A tiny advantage, easily lost, like her ability to pretend that this wasn’t happening, to find very temporary respite in a dream. How unlike her, really, to have any of those left. The next thing she felt was rage. Sheer, mind-numbing rage. Well, that was interesting. She hadn’t felt anything like that, or really anything at all in such a long, long time. Nonetheless, she cut it off, she cut it off almost immediately, before it could destroy any chance she might have to get out of this in one piece. Anyone who’s had a small child knows how to do that. It wasn’t long before the bitter, caustic self she knew so well re-emerged, ready, as always, to do pointless battle. All she was left with was the determination that she was going to come out of this alive, not because she had any particular desire to go on living, but because
she sure as shit wasn’t going to let this asshole or any other be the one doing the deciding. Whatever he may have thought about the issue. That’s all she knew.

  The decision having been made, it became all about how. And how meant doing the opposite of everything he expected her to do. Everything he was prepared to handle. Without throwing him off his stride so much that he just killed her outright even at the loss of his own anticipated fun. It came into her head immediately, what to do. Scheherazade. She would tell him some good stories. Some of them might even be true. Maybe all of them. That wasn’t important. The only thing that mattered was keeping him more intrigued than annoyed. That shouldn’t be too difficult. She’d always had this weird ability to keep her head in a crisis. She couldn’t help thinking. She was betting he would like that, would like the challenge, someone who was on such an obvious ego trip as he was.

  Like this. Like the worst thing in the world was to wake up to find his dick up her crotch. Not that it wasn’t disconcerting. And quite frankly, an almost forgotten sensation. But she had a vivid imagination and a wide knowledge of the horrors of the world. In the greater scheme of things, this was nothing. And how proud of himself he was. He thought he was so original to add on that lovely fillip about her having to come before he could or would. She had to hand it to him; it was clever. Some might call it diabolical. It would definitely upset the uninitiated. But he was so very, very pleased with himself. He was all vanity. And vanity was a giant target.

  She had to be different from the others, but not too different. Shocked, angry, anything but stupid. They’d always said she’d had a heart of ice. Only two people knew differently, but neither one of them was here now.

  She knew she’d given this man a shock. Yet she also realized that to demonstrate right away that she was not like the others was also to let him know that she was capable of a self-control and a capacity for rational thought at a time when few were. He wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating her. But then again, he would continue to overestimate himself. She could see that right away. And also that she couldn’t afford to second-guess herself. She didn’t have the attention to spare. She needed to do what her calculating mind told her to do, and if she went too far in a wrong direction, she’d have to play it from there. It’s not like she’d ever done anything like this before. Just thinking about what lay ahead, she was already exhausted.