Page 9 of Retrograde

“W-what?”

“Do you want me to repeat myself?”

Corrado!

“N-no. No!”

“Then do as I fucking said.” There is thunder in his eyes, his voice hard like a falling hammer.

I walk around him on unsteady legs, grit and pebbles cutting into my feet, each attempted breath dying in my throat with a choked rasp. The iron bars are cold and rough with rust. I grip them hard, my knuckles white. I look to the ground, and I keep getting closer and closer to it as I step back, my head coming level with my hands, my back straight, and my ass up in the air. All of me exposed to him to do with as he pleases.

“Legs further apart.” I do what he wants, my lungs searing with the lack of oxygen, my heart beating painfully against my ribcage like a trapped bird. “That’s it, there you go.”

The only person in the world I hate more than him is myself. Because it always ends up like this, always. I never resist. A part of me dies each time I quietly allow men like him to use me without resistance—like a thing deserving no respect and no autonomy. The part of me that felt good inside her own body. The part that liked looking at herself in the mirror. The part that could feel happy to be alive, even in a world like this.

No matter how slowly, how agonisingly, it’s a good thing he will kill me soon. Because this is different. This is worse. He is the Necromancer. Not just some military thug who ran out of call girl money a little too soon before payday, and I happened to be around. This is targeted. He doesn’t just want a woman. He wants me, specifically. He isn’t after my body. He is after my soul, or what’s left of it, and I feel it in the marrow of my bones that I’ll emerge from this a walking corpse.

I’m covered in cold sweat, goosebumps erupting all over me. I sway, nearly toppling to the side, but a large hand grabs my hip, steadying me, holding me in place.

I groan, but the sound abruptly turns into a sob when I finally start crying without knowing I was going to. I don’t try to stop, though, letting my tears fall to the ground with faint splats.

“Don’t you faint on me, Hotshot. Not worth it. This will only take a minute.”

His words confuse me, but I have no time to dwell on them because from behind me comes a sound that makes my blood run cold.

The sound of a condom wrapper being ripped.

I howl. There is no point in hiding my fear from him. My lungs finally expand, air rushing in. I’m crying, loudly and messily, snot oozing out of my nose in transparent ropes.

When he first breaches my entrance, I think at first that I must have gotten lucky, that he has the smallest, thinnest dick of all the dicks in the world. But then I realise that it’s not his cock between the lips of my pussy. It’s his finger, covered in the condom.

He is slow and careful, almost gentle. His touch skates over my front wall, and an involuntary shiver runs through me. He reaches deep, his warm, balled fist pressing hard into my flesh on the outside. He glides from side to side, exploring. He grumbles with satisfaction and then withdraws.

“What—”

I yelp as his finger slides into my other hole, just as deft, purposeful, methodical. Its intrusion is invasive, but not painful.

“Fuck,” I gasp, swallowing my tears.

Once again, he reaches as deep as he can go and then withdraws.

“Okay,” he says nonchalantly.

I can hear him peel the condom off behind me and then move further away from me. I stay frozen in place, my breath ragged and my heart rate still rapid as I process what just happened.

“Much as I’m enjoying the sight of your cunt more than the sight of your traitorous face, you can stand up now.”

I snap upright, wiping the mess off my cheeks. He’s picking my scattered clothes off the ground, bundling them in the crook of his arm.

“What the fuck was that? A fucking cavity search?”

I stare at him open-mouthed as he scoops up my discarded underwear.

“Usually an unpleasant necessity.” He shrugs with a wicked smirk. “But clearly there are exceptions.”

“What the fuck did you think I had in there?”

“Oh, you’d be shocked.” He grimaces in emphasis, almost amicably, like he’s forgotten all about who I am for a moment.