Page 14 of Brutal

Strange.

I hear a door open from not too far away, and I hurriedly shove the bottles back into the box, sliding it back into the cabinet beneath the sink just before he opens the bathroom door.

“Good evening,” he says cheerfully. “How’s my little Mimi doing? Fun day?”

“It was fine,” I answer neutrally. My mind goes back to the first aid kit, and I wonder if I can ask him about the pill, but I hear more footsteps.

There’s another person out in the bedroom. I tense and glance past Brutal, wondering if he’s going to share me with somebody.

He grins at me, but his entire demeanor is weird. This morning, he’d had this restlessness that had made him shift from side to side, animated, gesturing with his hands. He seems calmer now, and I wonder if that has something to do with the pill bottles.

“Okay, well, it’s time to get up and stretch those legs, then I have a special visitor ready to visit your cunt and make sure you’re not carrying anything,” he says. He goes to the chain and unlocks it from the collar around my throat. “There we go.”

I wrap my arms around myself and wait for him to do something else.

I hate how meek I am. How I’m just waiting.

But I learned my lesson about acting out.

“Come on,” he says, mild annoyance making his brow furrow as he looks at me. “Get up. Let’s go. Hunter’s not the type of person who likes waiting.”

I slowly get up, feeling a little off balance. “Who’s Hunter?” I ask cautiously.

Brutal looks at me, and at first, I don’t think he’s going to answer. Then he says, “He’s just a gynecologist. Don’t worry. He’s a dick, but he’s not going to touch you or anything. His girl would have a heart attack and cry to death.” He rolls his eyes.

You’re a dick too, I don’t say. I follow Brutal out to the bedroom, relieved at the added warmth of the room.

I am not happy to see the other man, though. He’s about the same height as Brutal, wearing a light dress shirt and gray slacks. His dark hair is neatly styled, and his light blue eyes stare at me with open disgust.

“Her hair is dyed,” this ‘Hunter’ says in clipped tones.

“How observant of you,” Brutal says dryly. “Yeah. It was like that when I bought her.”

He’s so casual about it, like people buy other people every day. Maybe in his circle of friends, they do, and it’s a chilling thought.

Hunter’s lip curls in displeasure, but he motions toward the bed. “On there. Legs wide so I can get swabs and inspect her vulva.”

Before I can move of my own volition, Brutal grabs my arm and starts pulling me toward the bed. I realize that Hunter wasn’t talking to me, and it makes me despise him a little bit more because of how dehumanizing he’s making all of this.

“Up,” Brutal tells me.

I climb up onto the bed without argument, and it’s every bit as soft as it looks — definitely better than the cage he’d put me in the night before and the cold tile of the bathroom floor.

I don’t have time to spread my legs of my own volition before Hunter and Brutal push them apart for me. I focus my gaze on the ceiling instead of trying to keep up with what they’re going to do to me.

Knowing won’t make a difference.

“There’s tearing,” Hunter says as his cold fingers touch the skin around my hole.

“My bad,” Brutal says, an echo of laughter in his voice.

Great. Of course he thinks it’s funny to hurt me. I knew as much, but I didn’t know he’d make light of it this way.

“I can’t make her tighter if you tear her cunt too much,” Hunter answers.

Something colder than his fingers pushes against my hole. Maybe it’s a speculum, although the memory of going to a gyno is hazy and I don’t remember what it all felt like.

“Oh, come on. It wasn’t just me,” Brutal says carelessly. “She’d probably already had several dozen men use her cunt before I bought her. Besides, I haven’t fucked her there yet, and I was mostly gentle with her ass.”