Lisa Ch. 05a: Only Human

"Jessica," he whispered. "If you can hear me, listen carefully! There is no Mom, no Dad, no Marcus, Cain or Jeffery ..." in his mind's eye he could see the bodies draped around the car floor. Those people had meant the world to Jessica ... by destroying them, the men had hurt Jessica in the most profound way they could. There was nothing that could be done about that now, but maybe, just maybe he could help make her life bearable.

"There's just us Jessica. Me, Josh, Scott, Riley and Angus, we're your only family. Remember that ..." He pressed his lips to Jessica's hot forehead. "Things'll be better for all of us, if you can just remember that ..."

************************************************

That night

Riley lowered Jessica onto the bed.

She'd been in a state of semi-consciousness for the remainder of the day, and she showed no signs of coming out of it. She could barely move, and likely couldn't attempt an escape even if she wanted to, but Riley wasn't taking any chances.

He took her left arm and handcuffed her wrist to the bed post.

He felt her forehead. She was still too hot. The knot in his stomach seemed to expand and twist. His feeling of guilt grew.

He leaned back on the bed and exhaled. He could kill at the drop of the hat, and he'd had no trouble kidnapping Jessica, but despite the plans they had to use sex to punish her, he was no rapist.

He would never have admitted it to the other men, especially since the shift to the use of sex as a weapon had been his idea, but of the two years that he'd ordered the men to have sex with Jessica, he hadn't touched her sexually. For the longest time, he simply couldn't see her as anything but the young hysterical woman they took from that car that fateful day.

And two years later, he hadn't gotten past that. He'd had stirrings, and often thought that his next night with her would be the one, but then he'd get alone with her, and she'd get that look of terror ... and he just couldn't do it.

He had used the other men and especially Angus to do his dirty work for him and now it was getting out of control. Angus had to be reined in but in a way that still gave Riley access to his insights on Jessica. His were the only ones Riley could trust.

Jim was just too young and naive to be able to see things with Jessica from an objective perspective. Of the five of them, Jim had been the closest to the women in the clan. It was easy to see that he transferred his feelings for his sister to Jessica. It made him vulnerable and Riley couldn't trust a thing he said about her.

And Scott had almost the opposite issue. Being the lady's man he was, Scott couldn't seem to get the message that women weren't all going to swoon at his feet and let him get away with anything just because of his looks and smooth moves. His weakness for women made anything he had to say about Jessica just as meaningless as Jim's observations.

And Josh. Well, Josh Riley still hadn't figured out with respect to his stance with Jessica. He didn't seem to have any obvious weaknesses when it came to women but when it came to Jessica Riley's instincts told him that Josh couldn't be objective either.

And then there were his own instincts and they couldn't be trusted either. His history with women was one of mutual convenience. All the relationships he'd had in the past had been casual.

There was never much he expected from a relationship except for a way to satisfy his sexual needs. His girlfriends were mostly fuck buddies, and all he and the women had in common was a desire to satisfy their sexual urges. He'd never had a lasting intimate relationship with a woman.

His own relationship with the women in the clan was tenuous. It only existed because it had to. His mother, who killed any respect he may have had for her by turning on the clan, had only been in his life because she was his mother. So in essence he didn't know much about the psyche of women and therefore he had a hard time trusting anything he thought he knew about Jessica.

That left him relying on Angus' instincts. The problem there being that Angus was tainted by the unfortunate after effects of Beth. To say he was soured on women was an understatement and so while Angus' instincts with Jessica were likely the most reliable Riley was aware that he had to take them more lightly then Angus did.

And more than that he had to alter the interactions between Angus and Jessica because unlike what was originally planned, Angus' natural need to inflict harm on women to avenge himself with Beth was no longer useful. In fact it was counter-productive.

Riley was fairly satisfied that the solution he had implemented; decreeing that all punishment was to be determined and sanctioned by him first, would address the problem with Angus. And things were at a point now that Riley needed things to improve with Jessica.

His inability to train her as effectively and quickly as he had anticipated was shaking his confidence in himself. Added to that, he had his fantasies about Jessica and what he wanted from her and the longer they weren't coming true the more and more frustrated he got sexually. It didn't help that the mens' self-inflicted isolation kept Riley from "dating". He was getting to the breaking point ... sexually he was frustrated.

And that was the other source of his guilt. Riley had never, never, had to force a woman to have sex with him. But he had concluded that the failure to train Jessica as had been planned could have been heavily affected by his non-compliance with his own plan.

The only way to get back on track was to fuck Jessica. He told himself that it was completely coincidental that his decision to do so occurred at the same time as he became ever increasing sexually frustrated.

He fell back on the bed next to Jessica and stared at the ceiling. Regardless of what he had to do he still had standards. Though not reflecting well on his character, her physical pain would not cause him to delay what he now knew he had to do.

But what did matter to him was that she was not incapacitated. He'd never had sex with a woman who was too drunk to know what she was doing, it just wasn't something he could do. And that self-inflicted mandate also lent itself well as a means of torture, a tool to break Jessica.

He had ordered the men to ensure Jessica was fully conscious of what was happening to her. So, while it may have been easier to ply her with drugs and drink, he decreed that they would not.

So in effect he'd ensured the men had to force themselves on her. He had made his closest friends into monsters. So now it was up to him to rectify the situation. To reign them, especially Angus, and at the same time try to mold Jessica into a compliant, if not willing participant while taking his turn as a would be rapist.

He turned to face Jessica's still form. His balls were quite literally aching as he pushed up on his elbow and looked down at Jessica's battered and fevered face. It was rare to see her that relaxed and it made him want her more. Lowering his mouth to hers he kissed it tentatively.

It was soft, it felt so good, tasted so good, he slid his tongue into it and moved his hand under her shirt and found one of her soft mounds. He teased the nipple until it hardened and then kneaded the soft flesh.

He felt Jessica shift beneath him so he came off her lips and was surprised to see her awake. She was looking at him. Initially she looked confused and then scared but just as quickly as those two reactions occurred she seemed to calm. Despite that her eyes couldn't hold his and slid to his chin but her body remained relaxed, soft beneath him, he could feel her heart beating incredibly fast as he clutched her left tit.

Jessica had awaken confused and it took her a moment to realize that she was in one of her kidnappers beds. What took her by surprise was that it was Riley's.

She only allowed herself a moment to think 'not him too' before she forced herself to go to her zen place. While her last night with Angus was not pain and abuse free there was one big enough change that was enough to convince Jessica to keep following Jim's advice.

Angus hadn't beaten her. True it meant little compared to what he did do to her but it was a change. A good change. So Jessica was even more committed to doing the opposite of what her instincts told her.

This would lead, she was sure, to justice for her family and her freedom. So her immediate instinct to push Riley away, fight, strike out at him, Jessica transformed into relaxing and trying, as much as she could, to want him to be there with her. Touching her. Kissing her. It wasn't easy.

"Do you know where you are?" he growled, panting. He couldn't seem to catch his breath and realized now that his heart was pounding just as much as Jessica's. He waited anxiously for her response. If she was still delusional due to the fever therefore, unfit to be fucked, he was sure he his balls were going to explode.

"Say it." Riley ordered when Jessica nodded her head slightly, "Tell me where you are."

"In your bedroom." Jessica whispered.

With her answer Riley's breath seemed to hitch and then speed up.

"Who's bedroom?" he asked, "Jessica look at me."

Jessica forced her eyes up to his steel black eyes.

"Who are you with? Say my name." Riley demanded, needing to know that Jessica was aware of where she was and who he was.

"Riley." Jessica whispered. Hearing what he needed Riley took her mouth again pressing his body on hers, pinning her against the bed, his hand still clutching her tit. Jessica lay still and pliant through the invasion of his tongue and lips.

Suddenly he groaned and shifted so he was on top of her, wedging his way between her legs. He ripped her undies off, wishing he hadn't bothered putting them on her in the first place, and in one fluent thrust he was in her.

Jessica whimpered briefly and after tensing for a moment she let her legs fall apart closing her eyes and forcing herself to relax as Riley thrust into her progressively harder and faster and it wasn't long until he moaned and she felt his huge cock jerk inside her and the wetness of his cum run out of her and down her thighs. Riley collapsed on top of her and passed out.

Jessica lay beneath him and contemplated that now Jimmy was the only one of the men not using her body for sex. She appreciated that but realized that whether it was one of the men or all of the men it didn't matter. She was now capitulating at the most personal level but she had to believe that they weren't winning. This was all a means to an end.

She shifted below Riley finding it hard to breath. He was so heavy. She tapped his arm with her finger until he looked down at her through a groggy haze.

"I can't breathe." She whispered. Grunting Riley rolled off of her and seemed to fall back to sleep but moments later his arms snaked out and pulled her hard against him.

She waited for more, waited for him to take her again like Angus would have, but he did nothing but hug her and snore. She blinked back some tears as she stared at the ceiling and silently apologized to her family again before drifting off to a nightmare filled slumber.

***************************************************

A couple of months had gone by since Jessica's fever. In many ways things had gone the way Jimmy had hoped. She was back to normal physically and she followed every command to a T. To the point where Riley had given her permission to resume seeing the horses, and he even allowed her to see the dogs.

With supervision Jessica would go out for brief visits to the kennel or the barn. This was a relief because Jim had feared that Angus' abuse of her weeks before may have undermined Jim's attempts to have Jessica change her approach to interacting with the men.

In addition to Jessica's near perfect behavior, Jim began to notice subtle differences in how Jessica acted when she was alone with him, Scott and Josh versus how she acted when Riley or Angus were around.

When Angus or Riley were around, Jessica seemed to be her usual reserved self, but when it was just him Scott and Josh she seemed far more relaxed. And when he was alone with her Jessica seemed almost giddy. She'd even gone through a whole night with him, in which she hadn't had a single nightmare.

Even more amazing was that with Riley's commandment, Angus barely paid attention to Jessica at all. He seemed to watch her from afar, but in the whole time since Jessica had recovered, he had grabbed her a few times, slapped her once, but other than that, the violence had decreased.

And while all of this was good, Jim's inability to trust Jessica completely made what was supposed to be a positive and happy change into an emotionally draining and frustrating one. Scott and Josh felt it too ... and they lamented the ironic cruelty of it often.

Every act of Jessica's had the potential for another purpose. It was hard not to second guess the reason or sincerity behind Jessica's words or actions

But over the past few days something seemed off with Jessica. To begin with Riley and Angus had been away for the two days but during that time Jessica's behavior had been almost as introverted and reserved as when they were home.

That very moment Jessica sat on the sofa, curled up into a self-protective ball. Jim had had his night with her the previous night, and Jessica had been really tired. She'd fallen to sleep within the first few minutes of the TV show that they were watching and rather than cuddle like they normally did, Jessica kept her physical distance from him.

Then during the day she'd fallen to sleep on the sofa for most of the day. Now, after dinner, the men had proposed a game of cards, but Jessica sat on the sofa, knees drawn up and simply shook her head. Jim, Josh and Scott exchanged bewildered looks. Jim felt the prickles of paranoia ripple under his skin.

"Come on Jess, here's a chance for you to win another favor." Jim urged.

The tinge of despair in Jim's voice made Jessica look up at him. He was looking at her with a perplexed expression. Scott and Josh sat on dining room chairs that they'd moved on the other side of the coffee table and were watching her as well.

She felt like she should smile or something ... something to make them relax. But she didn't feel like it. She wasn't relaxed and at the moment she didn't care if they were.

She felt angry and annoyed. She pulled her knees to her chest and closed her eyes. Her period was coming and as usual she hurt, everywhere. Her stomach, her breasts, her head, everywhere. And she felt angry. Inside she felt like her blood was boiling. She'd always felt like this just before her period started but since she'd been with the men, the extra anger, irritation, annoyance had been hidden as part of her constant anger, irritation, annoyance, and hatred of the men and the situation.

Now ... now that things were calmer, she noticed these heightened sensations much more. And she didn't know what to do with them. Since she'd started using the universal gym, she'd found that the physical pain from her period had diminished somewhat.

But in the past week, she hadn't had a chance to work out. And so now, the pain seemed so much worse. And Riley and Angus were gone. When they were around, she managed to smother her feelings. But somehow, she didn't feel like smothering them around Jim, Josh and Scott. She dropped her forehead to her knees ... maybe she should be more cautious with how she felt. With the amount of anger coursing through her no good could come from letting it out.

Josh had heard the despair in Jim's voice too and he knew just how Jim felt. Things had been going well for so long. Jessica seemed to be enjoying the comic he was creating and the comic books they read together became a ritual that he, and he was certain Jessica, looked forward to. She'd seemed happy ... happier than she'd ever been before. But now this.

From out of nowhere Jessica seemed distant again. He flashed back to his last night with her and instantly got hard. She'd been fine then ... better than fine, he'd fucked her and she had felt so soft and relaxed beneath him that he'd cum extra hard.

Just remembering how he'd emptied his balls into her made them constrict in his pants ... God he hoped he didn't cum in his pants. There was only one place he ever wanted his cum and that was in Jessica. In her warm and tight pussy ... and suddenly it dawned on him, fuck she hadn't had her pill.

"Christ ..." Josh muttered. Kicking back his he stood. "We forgot to give her the pill." He stalked off to the kitchen to get a pill.

"Shit ..." Scott muttered. That reminded him that he still hadn't fucked Jessica ... nor touched her, since the promise he'd made. He felt his groin tighten as he remembered the nights he had had with her ... her masturbating ... using the toys he'd bought for her. She hadn't asked him to touch her yet ... hadn't even let him use the toys on her. Just watch.

He groaned as the pain in his balls began. He crumpled over a little. At least she let him do that ... but he had been sure that she would have asked him to pleasure her by now. The upside of it though ... he thought to himself as he watched Josh coming back, was that at least he knew she couldn't get pregnant with his kid. But her strange behavior now worried him. What if she never asked him to fuck her? God, what would he do then?

"The pills are done." Josh said returning and stopping next to Jessica, "Here you're going to need this ...." He added holding a pad out to her. Jessica's face turned bright red. The one thing she couldn't get used to was having them have so much control over her body.

Thank God she had had her period before she'd gotten to this retched place. Thank God she'd had it when she'd had the chance to talk to her Mom about it. Otherwise that would have made the humiliation of the men knowing ... of them handing out pads to her like they were band aids, one thousand times worse.

"Jessica ..." Josh repeated, waving the pad in front of her face.

That was the final straw. She wanted to take her own damn pills, wanted to control her pad supply herself, wanted some pills for her pain, she didn't want to place any bets for stupid favors that were meaningless in the long run. Didn't they consider that what she really wanted to ask for was to go home? They probably thought they were doing her some kind of favor with the bets. Knowing Jimmy, Jessica was sure of it. But it wasn't the kind of favor she wanted. Not right now anyway. Jessica grabbed the pad from Josh's hand.

"Thanks for the news flash!" she said. And while she felt like yelling, yelling so loud the roof would come off the house, her voice was very low and controlled. Angry, low and controlled. Josh's expression shifted from shocked, to angry, to confused to shocked again and his jaw hung open. Jessica noticed both Jim and Scott looking like she had insulted them somehow. Her head hurt and she dropped it to her knees again. She didn't care.

"Jessica ..." Josh said in a stern voice, grabbing her shoulder. Jessica jerked away ... her shoulder hurt too.

"Jessica!" All three men growled simultaneously. Josh had crouched down in front of her. She raised her head to find his angry face inches from hers. Scott and Jim had gotten to their feet and stood towering over her.

"I'm sorry ..." Jessica said quietly. She tried to drop her head down again, but Josh caught her chin and tilted her head back. "It hurts so much ... I'm sorry."

"What hurts?" Josh asked, eyeing her with suspicion. He looked really angry.

"Everything." Jessica said and a tear rolled down her cheek. "My head, my abdomen, my arms, ... everything. And I feel so angry. I just want to scream." She continued. "I don't want to play cards, I don't want you giving me my birth control pills, and I don't want you telling me when I will need a pad! It's my body ..." she said with a sob. Tears poured down her face as Josh continued to clutched her chin. The men watched her in silence.