“Tell me anything.” Noah kissed Piper’s forehead.
“There is a cage in a basement. At one of Jayson’s friends’ houses.”
Noah stayed put.
Noah’s hand on his back held Piper tighter. His breathing changed slightly.
Piper let it all come out. It had been in a basement at a house in Hillsborough, not Atherton. Steel bars. A mattress pad on the floor. No pillow. A bottle of water. Nothing else.
Jayson had walked him down years ago. Still in the suit from dinner. He had pointed at the cage and said,kneel, and he did as he was told.
Jayson had closed the door and turned the key and put the key in his pocket. Then Jayson had walked back upstairs.
Piper had stayed kneeling in that cage for hours. He could not check the time, because everything with a time was taken from him. He had counted ceiling tiles. There were thousands. He had worked out the math of the floor space and the cubic space and the likely weight of the cage.
Jayson had come back in the same suit. He had unlocked the cage. He hadn’t said anything. Jayson had indicated that Piper should turn around and face the bars. Jayson had taken his trousers down.
The sex happened through the bars.
Piper had gripped the cold metal with both hands. The bars had dug into his hip bones. Jayson had worked him open with minimal lube.
Piper had bitten down on the inside of his own arm hard enough to bleed. He hadn’t made a sound. Making a sound at his friends’ houses had been the thing Piper learned not to do in year two. Jayson had fucked him hard making the metal digfurther into Piper’s hips with every thrust. The cock had been pressing against his prostate and his body did what his body did when it was stimulated.
Then Jayson came and put his pants back on. He had patted Piper’s shoulder once before he left. He had looked at the cage before he had gone back upstairs.
Piper had stayed in the cage until morning. Cum had leaked out of him onto the mattress pad. He hadn’t cleaned it up. He hadn’t moved. He had stayed because Jayson had not told him he could leave. The door was open, but the order had not been given.
A housekeeper had found him at six the next morning and not looked at him. She had set a towel and a bottle of water by the door and left. Jayson had come down later and told Piper to clean up and be in the car in twenty, and had left again.
Piper said, into Noah’s chest, “That was one of the years I told Vivienne I was overtraining.”
Then Noah said, quietly, “How many times did that happen?”
“I don’t count.”
“Piper.”
“I don’t count on purpose.”
“Okay.”
“I am telling you because you asked why I think he’ll end me if I stay with you.”
“Okay.”
“That is why.”
Noah’s hand on his back pulled Piper closer in.
Piper said, eventually, “This can’t happen again.”
“I know.”
“Really can’t.”
“I said I know.”
“I mean it.”
