After a long day of doing absolutely nothing but being a menace to my brother, it was time to go home. Sunshine had finished organizing all the relevant details for the visitors who were to arrive the next day, and Mercy had also long since finished cloning Joseph's laptop and phone. We were silent for the drive home, music filling up the car as the tires wore against the tarmac. Now armed with all the arsenal we needed, it was finally time to bring my brother in. I stretched out in the backseat, glad sunshine had practically run to the passenger seat, which was odd given that Mercy was driving.
I headed straight for my bathroom as soon as we got to the house. It had been a long day, and I was more than ready to throw in the towel. I sank into the hot bath, feeling the tension leave my body with every passing second I remained submerged in the bubble-filled tub. I let my eyes drift shut. A rush of various gruesome ideals battled for first place in my head, each depicting my brother in various shades of agony and misery. I let chaos reign over each idea, bringing me a twinge of pleasure at the thought of meting out justice to the devil's spawn.
We had a quiet and uneventful dinner, each one of us seemingly engrossed in what was to be a risk-filled week. If there were even one out of three of us who had some form of mental clarity, we wouldn't have proceeded with our plans. However, I was surrounded by women with questionable mental stability, and I was in no position to cast the first stone, given that I was in the same category. After dinner, I went for a quiet walk along the beach as I went over my plans for the following week. The cool breeze whipped past me, blowing my sheer nightgown behind me even as the chilly air textured my skin with goosebumps.
I stayed outside for more than an hour, and my mind was surprisingly calm, save for the murderous plans slowly brewing in my head, which was a conscious effort on my part. The dark sky marred by the billions of stars seemed especially ethereal that night, a stark contrast to the endless abyss that was my soul. There was no light or warmth to be found within me, just a gaping void, cold and lifeless, and it would remain so until all my enemies were six feet under the ground or wishing they were.
By the time I returned to my house, my skin was icy to the touch, but thankfully numb. I quickly made my way up the stairs, eager to cocoon myself in my weighted blankets, only to be shocked into a standstill by the scene unfolding in my bed. I have seen plenty of things in my twenty-plus years on this earth, and I had been under the impression that there was absolutely nothing under the sun that could shock me, an assumption that was currently being disproved.
There on my bed lay Mercy spread-eagled, all her bits out in the open for everyone to see. I felt my face heat up as I took in her bound legs and arms anchored to my bed using red fuzzy handcuffs. It was my first time seeing cuffs around someone's ankles. Despite my best intention or lack of any initial intention, I felt warmth originating from my core spread through my body, thawing my skin. Despite my fear of forming emotional attachments, my body, seemingly with a mind of its own, reacted in favor of the sight in front of me, forcing me to face my sexuality.
Since I had been raped, I had never even envisioned becoming intimate with anyone. Men had been permanently crossed off my list because of my trauma, and I had never explored the female option. I had resigned myself to the asexual category, happy to erase the possibility of any kind of intimacy, which was why I had been blind to Claire's feelings. Although two women had professed their feelings for me, I had never truly looked at it from the angle of sexuality. However, getting confronted by a naked woman chained to my bed paused questions that could not be ignored.
While my mind scrambled to process the unfolding scene, my feet, taking their cues from the rest of my body, took several slow steps, bringing me to the edge of the bed close to Mercy's right foot. Mercy had remained deathly still on the bed, her eyes trained on my face, not looking away for a second. Despite all my reservations, I had to admit that my thinking capacity had been halved and was working harder to stay unfazed. Her dark skin glistened under the mood lighting that she had had the foresight to turn on before chaining herself to my bed. The pink glow enhanced the depths of her skin and painted her curves and terraces in incandescent light, any living person would have been lost for words, as I was.
Her lips were curled around a red ball that was supported by leather straps that disappeared behind her head. Against her forehead, partially covering part of her cropped hair, lay a crimson blindfold. Despite her big personality and her undeniable aura, Mercy was on the more petite side of the scale. I usually towered over her, but my height advantage was usually in the background of any conversation involving the two of us. She was more outspoken, and her voice carried across rooms as if she were in a play. I found it amusing when people often whipped their heads around at the sound of hey laughter, only to be met by a tiny powerhouse.
It was then that my mind ground to a halt as the full picture finally sank in, drowning all the noise. If my body were not increasingly getting hotter as my dormant hormones slowly but surely rose to life, I would have laughed. Mercy had hit me in my only remaining vulnerable spot that I had been using up until now as my last line of defense. She was handing me control over her entire being; her limbs and senses were all wrapped up in an exquisite package, one I could not refuse.
A whimper vibrated around the ball, spilling into the air around us as my finger absentmindedly trailed across the sole of her right foot. The movement had been involuntary but her response spurred me on as I applied gentle pressure with my finger trailing a path from her foot up the soft expanse of her thighs across her stomach dipping into her navel for a second before tracing my way across the middle of her chest resting on the ball that nestled in her mouth. I pulled the ball back, the leather strap easily giving way.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked only because I was deeply unsure of how to proceed. I was no stranger to sex, but it was enemy territory for me. I had read a lot about it when I needed material for my books, but I had never felt the urge to indulge.
"I am not doing anything. All I am going to do is lie here, and you can have your way with me."
There was a needy edge in her voice, making it sound like she whining, almost begging. Her pink tongue darted from her mouth, leaving a shiny trail across her lips, probably trying to soothe her previously stretched muscles.