Chapter 12

The room was quiet. Too quiet. 27 sat in the center of the mattress inside the cage and listened. Nothing. No footsteps. No voices. No doors opening.

Just silence.

For the first time since arriving, she wasn’t in the basement.

The realization should have felt bigger. Instead it felt strange.

Unsettling.

The mattress beneath her was soft. The blankets were warm. The air smelled clean. Everything about it was wrong. She should have hated it. Yet she couldn’t stop touching the sheets.

Her fingers dragged across the fabric again. And again. Soft. Comfortable. Safe. The thought made her flinch.

Safe.

No.

Not safe.

She was still trapped. Still owned. Still wearing a collar around her neck. Her hand rose unconsciously toward it. The leather felt familiar now.

That realization disturbed her even more. Days ago she had hated the thing. Now she barely noticed it. 27 lowered her hand quickly. Her gaze drifted around the room. Pink walls. Pink curtains. Pink carpet. Empty. Almost waiting.

The Mistresses had said she could earn things. Furniture.Decorations. Privileges.

The words repeated themselves inside her head.

Earn.

Reward.

Listen.

The more she listened, the more she received. The less she listened…Back downstairs.

Her stomach tightened. The basement appeared in her mind immediately. Concrete. Darkness. Loneliness.

The image was so vivid she wrapped the blanket tighter around herself.

No.

She didn’t want to go back. The thought arrived instantly. Too instantly. 27 stared at the floor. That should have bothered her. Instead she found herself thinking about what else might appear in the room.

A lamp.

Books.

Maybe a chair.

Maybe plants.

Maybe…

Stop.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Those weren’t her thoughts. Or maybe they were. She wasn’t sure anymore. Her mind felt foggy. Not empty. Just difficult.

Like every thought had to push through thick water. She tried thinking about her old life.

Really tried.

She focused.

What was her apartment like?

The answer came slowly.

Small.

There had been a window.

Maybe.

A couch.

She thought there had been a couch. The memory slipped away before she could grab it. Frustrated, she tried something easier.

Her name.

Nothing.

The room seemed to grow colder. Her name. She had one. Obviously she had one. Everyone had a name. But whenever she reached for it..

Nothing.

Just emptiness.

A blank space where something important should have been. She was pretty sure it started with a L..or was it a S..

Her breathing quickened.

Think.

Think.

Think.

A face appeared. Gone. A street. Gone. A voice. Gone.

Everything slipped away before she could hold it. Everything except, Mistresses. The thought arrived immediately.

Sharp.

Clear.

Viv.

Elara.

Their voices. Their rules. The way they moved together. The way Elara smiled. The way Viv watched everything. Those memories stayed. Those memories were easy. 27 hated that.

She pulled her knees closer to her chest. Why could she remember them so clearly? Why did thoughts of them come so easily?

The answer frightened her.

Because they were all she had now. The realization settled heavily. If they never came to feed her or care for her, she’d be trapped in this cage and slowly starve to death.

Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. She wasn’t sure anymore. Time felt different here.

At some point she found herself kneeling automatically. Back straight. Hands on her thighs. The position came naturally now.

She held it for several seconds before realizing what she was doing. Then several more. Practicing.

The thought startled her. She was practicing. Alone. No one was watching. No one had told her to.Yet she adjusted her posture anyway. Straightening slightly. Correcting herself.

As if Viv might appear and inspect her at any moment. The absurdity of it almost made her laugh. Instead she felt something worse.

Embarrassment.

Because part of her wanted their approval. The thought landed hard. She stared at the cage bars.

No.

No, she didn’t.

She couldn’t.

Could she?

The room remained silent. No answer came. Only the memory of Viv saying ‘good girl’. Only the memory of Elara smiling. Only the memory of being noticed. Being seen.

She remembered one thought. One thought that seemed to make its way through the fog. Her laying on her bed and her hand in between her legs. The release and freedom of being able to cum.

Something she hadn’t done in..however long since she’d been taken.

She didn’t need it, she was too focused on survival. But now, as she laid in her pretty pink room, in her pretty pink bed. She thought of her beautiful mistresses. The sexual tension that radiated off of them. She couldn’t imagine them ‘playing’ with her as Elara called it.

Maybe that’s what she wanted..? To be a good enough girl to be played with.

She hated how that riled her up. She squeezed her thighs together as she felt the throbbing in between them. She knew better than to try and touch herself. That was something definite.

27 buried her face in the blanket.

The worst part wasn’t that she was thinking about them. The worst part was that she was waiting for them.

Waiting for footsteps.

Waiting for the lock.

Waiting for the door to open.

Waiting for attention.

The realization made her stomach twist. Somewhere along the way, the silence had become harder than the lessons. And that terrified her.

Because she wasn’t thinking about escape anymore.

She wasn’t thinking about freedom.

Not really.

She was thinking about tomorrow. About what they would teach her next. About what she could earn. About whether Elara would smile at her again. About whether Viv would say ‘good girl’.

The thoughts came so naturally she didn’t even notice them at first.

By the time she did,  It was too late.

Because they were already there. Settled comfortably inside her head.

Waiting.

Just like she was.

And sometime during the night, curled beneath soft blankets in the center of a pink room that wasn’t hers, 27 fell asleep thinking about her Mistresses.

Again.

——-
(She’s losing her mind hehe.)