Claimed: A Forced Submission Romance Read Free Page A

smile into a grimace, some sort of resignation settled over her, paradoxically buoying, slightly, the terror. “Now you’ve done it,” someone else said, inside her head. She had an urge to look at her shoulder to see if a little version of her, with horns, a tail, and a trident, sat there chiding her – the dark side of conscience, just like in the old cartoons. “What did you expect?”
    Her rational side moaned, “I don’t know. Certainly not this!”
    “This?!” her demon laughed, “What’s this? Nothing’s happened yet.” Well that was true. Sandy finally made it to the wall at the edge of the parlour. Now, where was the door to her room? Maybe she could still find sanctuary until Lindsay and the others got back. “C’mon,” the demon in her coaxed, “you love it. It’s exciting, eh?”
    “Aye, Lass.” The hand gave her another meaningful squeeze. “Don’t fret yourself. We’re mostly harmless, we lot here.”
    “Mostly harmless?” Sandy almost laughed. “Right!”
    “Relax. Have another drink.” He must have felt her body quake, for he stepped in front of her and added, with a kind of dopey grin, “There’s nothing to be scared of.”
    “Nothing to be scared of?” She shrieked silently. “Are you fucking crazy?” But she just looked at him blankly – steadying her breath, trying hard to calm herself.
    As he moved away, apparently in search of another drink for her, she finally let it all seep in. Up till then, she’d tried to keep the menace sub-conscious – insisting to herself it was all in her imagination. Now, she let herself consciously – fully – understand what was actually happening. “Oh, shit,” she murmured, “How did I get into this?” She looked around again, catching her breath. Admitting her situation to herself helped, at least it allowed her to think a little more clearly. “And how am I going to get out of it?” She shivered slightly, a feeling of impending disaster prodding her; then stood straight and proud in an attempt to bolster her courage.
    And that was the definitive moment; Sandy remembered with amazing clarity. A frozen silence hung palpable in the air, then almost imperceptibly the voices became audible once more. Faintly at first, then rising. Like a radio, regaining reception after passing around a mountain, Sandy began to detect the odd word, then phrases. The innuendo persisted. The suggestive pall was still in the air. It was odd, she thought. Everyone was still pleasant – no one the least bit nasty – but they were all, every one of them, joining in – persistent and persevering – and lewd. “No,” she muttered in her head, giving it an imperceptible shake, “no, they’re not going to rape me.” She scanned the faces, yet again. All smiling; all friendly; all hungry. “No,” she insisted to herself, “there’s got to be a way out of this.”
    “They don’t actually understand,” she explained to herself. “They think it’s okay – what they’re expecting.” Suddenly, she almost felt sorry for them, as if the whole bunch of them were just a little bit too dumb to see the howling error in all this.
    But, they were the champions – and Sandy, unbeknownst to her, had been chosen, or, at least, had innocently wandered into the feedlot, and was now destined to be offered up, as their perk – as their reward.
    Still, Sandy hoped, maybe Lindsay would get back in time to save her. Again, she peered furtively about the room, but apparently none of the woman had sneaked back in I unnoticed. She studied her ‘captors’ intently.
    Actually they didn’t look bad – not like actual ‘bad guys’ – just a bunch of twenty and thirty year-olds back from their rugby game. But, they were all watching her. She could feel it, even though most of them were still being marginally surreptitious. Their smiles were all cheerful, and ostensibly benign, but there was something behind it all – something in the air – something she had,