Nightfall ✓

À terre

0 9

À t e r r e

[FRN] touching the floor.

IT WAS COLD where she was being kept. She could hear water dripping somewhere nearby. Wilhelm, as he'd told her to call him on his seventeenth visit, said the sound drove the strongest men to the brink of insanity but it wasn't doing much to her.

"I can't stay here to cuddle, babygirl." He spoke gruffly as he stood up from the mattress, nudging her legs apart so he could watch what he'd done to her. "It's the fucking pipe. Reminds me of when I served."

"You went to war?" She asked softly. "I never met someone who's been to war."

He was quiet for a moment, looking down at her. Clo had stopped fighting him by the ninth visit after he had threatened to use the bat he carried with him on her kneecaps.

"Yeah well," he grunted, "I wouldn't expect ballet would have war veterans."

Wilhelm yanked on the chains, pulling them towards him to see if they would hold. She'd used the blood on her hands to get out of them once and he did not want to take the risk of her escaping once again.

"You shouldn't cheat on your wife," she murmured as she sat up, adjusting the chain that went around her neck to check if he'd loosened it. He hadn't. Her head bent at an awkward, uncomfortable angle before she turned to her side and pressed it near the wall where the hook was.

Wilhelm laughed, yanking the chain that went around her ankle. "Aren't you fucking Alec Daichi while being married to that mathematician to pay for fucking ballet, Mrs Beauchamp?"

"You're not getting anything out of this though, are you? At least I'll get to finish ballet school."

There was a cruel grin on his face as he stood up, lifting a boot and pressing it to her kneecap.

"I thought I'd beaten the hope out of you of ever getting out of here, Mrs Beauchamp. You really think Daichi will send someone looking for his whore?" Wilhelm scoffed before pressing harder on her kneecap.

Clo let out a shuddering breath as he leaned closer, digging his nails into her chin.

"My husband will know something's wrong if I don't call–"

Would he really? He did not seem to care at all these days. And it's not like she could blame him.

"You'll die here, Mrs Beauchamp." He stood up straighter to leave before smiling at her once. "And we should really get you a mirror, I reckon. It's a shame you think I'm not getting anything by fucking you."

Clo watched him leave, leaning her head against the cold cement wall. She supposed his words would have scared anyone else. To her, they just provided relief. If she never got out of here, she wouldn't have to justify herself to Theo or Alec that it wasn't her fault. There would be no pain, no humiliation.

As pathetic as it was, this dungeon somehow felt safer than any other place. It was safer than Alec's bedroom and it was safer than her home with Theo. Hell, it was safer than her ballet studio and she never thought she'd ever think that. Ballet was her life. Her purpose.

She wasn't particularly scared of Wilhelm. He was sloppy in his approach. The man couldn't hit her with his bare hands so he used a bat or his belt now. It was laughable to think he had a conscience but in a weird way, he did. Even during sex, he seemed to forget that he could hurt her as much as he wanted to. He was cautious for some reason.