(Weeks and weeks earlier…)

“I’m sorry!  I’m so sorry.  I don’t know what happened just then.  I didn’t mean it.”  I’m having a hard time seeing through the narrow slits of the leather hood laced over my head.  I’d been tearing at the collar holding it down since I got off the St. Andrews cross my Master had been punishing me on.  Finally, I claw the collar open and rip off the hood.  Master is trembling.  His hands are raised defensively.

“You don’t know?!  Jesus.  You freaking attacked me!” 

“No, I didn’t.” I said meekly, knowing dang well I had just placed Master in a rear naked choke hold.

“How’d you even get out?  You were cuffed to the cross.”  I cough to hide my side-eyed wince.  Master notices.  “I cuffed you myself!”

“I’m sorry.  It’s just…. I got out.”  Master was still backing up.  “I’ve always been able to get out.  I flex my wrists when you bind me.  It creates a little slack, just in case.”  That’s when I realize I am circling him and backing him into a corner.  I stop moving.  (Shit Tina.  You can’t DO that when you’re being submissive.)

“YES Tina!  I can see that you got out…”  I interrupt Master.

“Pet.”  Master looks at me dumbfounded.  “You called me Tina.  You usually call me pet.”

“Look Tina…”

“Or at least you call me GIRL!”  This isn’t right.  It’s coming apart.  Not again.  “When I’m BAD, you call me ‘girl’, Master.  I’m sorry.  I’ll get back on the cross.  Please Master!”  Master lurches back and almost falls as he slams into the wall behind him.

“I’m NOT your Master.  Fuck!   You’re the goddamned Terminator, Tina.”  Tears are pouring off of my cheeks.  I didn’t even know I’d been crying. 

“No.  Please.  I need to be owned, Master.”  He’s grabbing his phone and his keys and leaving his wallet.  The wallet is closer to me than he’s willing to get.

“It’s just not working Tina.  I’m not the right one for you.”  I pick up Master’s wallet and hold it out to him.  He is staring at it unsure if he wants it bad enough.

“What’s wrong with me Master?”  I’m at my end.  I’ve run out of ideas.  I need someone to break the thing that drives me to act out.  I need to be broken.

“It’s all you’ve been through, Tina.  You have emotional scar tissue that’s as thick as elephant hide.  You obeyed me.  You tried to be a good girl.  But I wasn’t really dominating you.  You were always just placating.”  Master reached out his hand as far as his arm would stretch and plucked his wallet away.  “You pretended to be…”  I interrupt him again.

“…your damsel.”  I wipe my eyes.  This isn’t going to work.  It really is over.  Again.

“I tried, Tina.  I really did.”  Master is halfway up the stairs.  I’ll never see him after this.

“Where do I go, Daniel?  What do I do now?”  My heart rate has reduced all the way back to normal.  I can feel the blood leaving my face and my color fading from red.

“I don’t know.  You can always look into that farm….”  And he was gone.

Daniel was talking about a place he’d told me about to scare me when I was his new slave-in-training.  It was his ultimate threat.  It was a terrible place controlled by truly evil people.  They were people who committed atrocious crimes.  They destroyed lives.  They treated human beings like commodities to be sold and traded for profit.  Daniel claimed he knew people from his early days training as a Dom that worked on the Farm for its Masters.  Daniel claimed that they didn’t have any of the mercy or humanity that even the most severe Doms in normal BDSM circles have.  Daniel claimed that they could break ANY person down and turn them into whatever they wanted them to be. 

ANY person.   Even me.

------------------------------

(Back to the present and the barn.)

I can hear the off hum of the milking machines.  There’s a dozen of us, captives.  All strapped in and tied up the same way.  I was careful to get a good look at the rigging.  It’s solid.  Super restrictive.  Not unsafe for long-term restraint.  But not exactly comfortable either.  As with most forms of bondage, taking away the subject’s manual dexterity is the key.  In this case, all of our arms are folded up behind us in a hyperextended box tie.  Out arms are held tucked and close against our ribs with leather straps.  The buckles are in front where our hands could never reach them.  Our wrists are crossed and held together between our shoulder blades by a single-piece metal cuff fashioned with a memory foam inner lining that creates a tight seal, immobilizing our hands.  I can’t even twist my wrists with them locked in the cuff.  There’s no outer lock or hinge.  There’s just a small keyhole.

I’m exceptionally good at picking locks.  At least I am when I have lock picks.  I have lock picking tools hidden in my shorts, but as I expected, I’ve been relieved of all of my clothes.  One of the stalls against the wall appears to be the dumping ground for all hu-cow property, as I saw them toss my own articles onto a heap contained inside it. 

Fortunately, as I just mentioned, EXPECTED to lose those tools.  That’s why I made sure the thugs took the fight to the ground.

I gently spin my head in a circle several times and then whip my hair back behind me.  My long, thick mane lands square on my back.  I comb through it with my fingers and find plenty of pieces of straw picked up from when I thrashed my head while struggling on the ground.  I discard a number of pieces that feel too thick or too brittle.  I finally settle on one that is short enough, thin enough and rigid enough to manipulate the pins inside the cuff.  I go to work.  It’s a simple enough lock.  Just three pins need to line up.  I feel metal scrape against metal as the ratchet is released and the cuff pops open.  It’s easy enough for me to release the buckles to the straps and the ankle manacles from there.

I stand up and brush myself off.  I’m at the end of the row of my eleven hu-cow sisters.  Almost none of them pay the slightest attention to me as I stretch up on my toes, reaching for the ceiling.  Only the one, pretty, brown-haired hu-cow so much as bats an eye.

I twist to the right and then to the left, encouraging normal blood flow.  The trip in the van had been cramped.  I find bondage to be emotionally comforting but it takes a physical toll.  My one curious hu-cow pretends not to, but she watches my every move.

“What’s your story?”  I ask smiling.  Startled, she shifts her eyes off of me and straight ahead once again.  “It’s ok.  I’m not with those men.”  She chewed on her bit nervously.  “They wanted to make me into one of y’all.”  I walked around in front of her.  She kept her eyes down trying not to look but wanting to do so very badly.  I continued walking all the way to the stall with the pile of clothes.

“Let’s see what we can see,” I say and start to sort through shirts and bags and accessories.  I retrieve the hidden lock picks from my shorts but leave my clothes in the pile.  I have no plans to “escape” immediately, so I’ll have to remain naked for the time being. 

Wallets and phones and items of value are gone.  But I eventually come across a lanyard with a student ID clipped to the end of it.  The photo looks like my new friend the curious hu-cow, only with a much shorter, more stylish hairdo.  I walk carefully over to the rack of milking frames.  I crouch down in front of the unbroken one.  She’s getting braver.  She looks at me openly now.  I see confusion but longing in her expression.  I take her face in my hands as gently as I can, and I feel her relax just a bit.

“Hello Katie.  I’m Tina.”  My heart is strangely full of hope, and I grin with sincerity I haven’t felt in a long time.  “Let’s find out what makes you special.”

TO BE CONTINUED

(Based on an amazing story by, and featuring a cameo with, the grest @KatieBlake !)