Chapter 21

The café buzzed with the shrill laughter of schoolgirls, their music blaring from a phone, their voices screeching over one another. In the corner, Pembroke sat behind his newspaper, his coffee untouched. He feigned irritation—the elderly gentleman, his peaceful morning ruined—but in reality, his eyes flicked over their bare legs, their pretty faces, the braces glinting on their teeth. Blondes, brunettes, all of them loud and alive.

Having his own slave the same age had sharpened his awareness of their bodies. He knew exactly what it would feel like to slide a hand up that dark-haired girl’s thigh, to feel her squirm, how tight her teenage cunt would be inside her knickers. Of course, she’d scream. Call him a nonce. Have him arrested.

But he could go home and do far worse than that to poor little Grace. He shot them one last longing glance as he stood, adjusting his trousers. Then he walked out, already imagining Grace’s naked body.

A few hours later, Pembroke sprawled across the new basement bed, his belly rising and falling with satisfied breaths. Grace straddled his thighs on all fours, her pink negligee stretched taut over her slight frame—the mesh barely containing her pebbled nipples, the hem riding up to expose her pink panties to him. She worked his hairy feet with careful fingers, her tongue dragging between his toes in slow, deliberate strokes. The damp warmth of her mouth made his toes curl, his cock twitching upwards against the gusset of her knickers.

“Hmm ... very nice, child. While you work my body, I think I might play you a video. Have a look.”

The screen faced his feet so she could watch while her lips stayed pressed to his skin. Pembroke’s view was mostly blocked by the curve of her ass and the pink strip of cotton wedged between her cheeks, but he didn’t care. He’d seen the footage before.

A reporter filled the screen—an older woman with steel-gray hair, her expression grave but human. A real person. Not Pembroke, not the moaning porn stars on loop, not even the distorted footage of her own mother. Just a woman, standing against the windswept cliffs of Willowbridge, the sea crashing behind her in a dull, endless roar.

“Nearly six months have passed since Grace Perkins disappeared here,” the reporter said. “Searches have uncovered items of clothing belonging to the 14-year-old, but no body—similar to previous reports of those presumed to have fallen from these cliffs. Today, these fences”—the camera panned to jagged metal barriers, freshly installed—”have been put up to prevent, or at least monitor, these tragic disappearances ... and give succor to the families of any future victims.”

Grace’s tongue stilled against Pembroke’s foot as she saw her own photo of herself in her school uniform, smiling, gormless, innocent as the reporter described her disappearance.

Pembroke’s fingers slipped over her crack and pushed gently against the flimsy cotton of her panties. “Now, keep licking, you can watch and listen with your eyes and ears.”

Grace obediently ran her tongue along his bunioned feet, he fingernails scraping gently against his soles, just like she had been taught, as she listened to the report which concluded that she was dead, another tragic statistic.

“Only your mother still believes you’re alive, Grace. The police told me themselves—they’re certain now it was suicide, they’ve given up looking for you. Everyone else has moved on.” His thumb traced he edge of her panties against he buttocks. “I’ve been trying to convince your mummy, but she still wants me to research wild goose chases for her. Pathetic, really, but it’s decent money.”

A dark chuckle rumbled in his chest. “I don’t mind, though. As long as it doesn’t cut into our time together. I do enjoy spending time with her, you know. Watching her suffer. I’m a sadist, after all. Your body, her mind—I just love hurting you both, it’s just who I am.”