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him. You will be more like an eager partner than a slave – and that’s not what he paid for, and certainly not what he wants.”
    “How?”
    “You fake it till you make it,” I said honestly. “When he tells you to bend over and spread your legs, you comply immediately, smiling with excitement. When he thrusts into you, you will moan and encourage him to use you, to fill you more deeply. At first he will try to hurt you. He will try to enforce his authority by creating more depraved and more desperate situations that you must endure, trying to find the point where his pleasure becomes your pain. At each and every test you must be enthusiastic and eager. You will act like his command – no matter how sexually depraved – is your absolute fantasy come true. He will tire of you quickly… but how can he complain to Alistair? How can he send you back and protest that you are broken when, in fact, you are a wildly eager participant in every sexual challenge he sets you?”
    Slowly Amy seemed to come back to life – the understanding dawning in her eyes and then flowing into her body so that she sat straight-backed, infused with a renewed spark of energy. She studied my face frankly and then the touch of a wicked smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
    “Teach me!” she said.
     
    * * *
     

Chapter Four
     
    Amy
     
    “Teach me,” I said.
    I could feel the adrenaline pumping, zipping up my spine. Maybe, in another place and time outside of here, Robert’s idea would have seemed ridiculous; our plan nothing but straw-clutching, desperation-fuelled fantasy. But not here. Here it made perfect sense. Robert’s words reached far below the cold steel of rational thought. They reached in deep and grabbed hold of my very soul. I could do this, with his help. We could do this.
    “Now,” I said. “Show me. Please! I’m ready for this, I’ll do whatever you say, whatever it takes.”
    How naturally the words tumbled from my lips. I closed the distance between us, as though we were two sailors overboard, clutching at each other in joy as the faintest shadow of land appeared on the horizon. I could have kissed him, not through any attempt at obedience, but simply in gratitude for the sense of life he was restoring in me. Robert’s eyes stared into mine, calm and confident, as always, but this time there was something more. Maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see, but his eyes mirrored my renewed hope, that same flicker of optimism.
    “On your knees,” he said, and I dropped to the floor without hesitation. He paced around me in slow circles, and my skin felt alive to his presence, as though a static current was running through the fine hair on my arms. I jumped as his hands fell heavy and hot on my shoulders. “This position will be one of your greatest assets,” he said. “Your classic submissive stance. Keep your back straight, and your head angled down, eyes towards the floor. Palms on your thighs. Spread your knees, just a little. Enough to be inviting, without overplaying it. Shoulders tipped back, breasts proud.” Strong fingers kneaded at the tension in my neck for just a moment. “And relax, Amy, breathe. Breathe steady, breathe calm.”
    I thought back to the breathing techniques I’d learned as a youngster. A phase of night terrors had gripped my early teens, and I’d often woken breathless, heart racing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In for seven, out for eleven. I focused on nothing but the air in my lungs, the rhythmic whisper of my own life-force as it slowed and calmed and connected me with that one beautiful moment of now . And right there, on the bedroom floor, holed up in a guest house amidst Hell itself, I let it all go, until there was nothing left but me. Breathing. Existing. Being.
    My senses heightened, Robert’s slow steps thudded loud in the room. I kept my gaze lowered, as instructed, and the grain of the oak floor sharpened, its gnarly imperfections becoming vivid and