I slowly groan awake to the sounds of some light shuffling in the room. I come to my senses and blink my eyes to adjust to the low light the room always had. The first thing I notice, it’s what I always notice, was the heavy metal ankle cuff around my right ankle. The chain on it clinks softly as I stir, and I feel the familiar feeling of the chain becoming taught as I move a little too far out of its range. I slowly sat up, dangling my chained leg off my hammock.

I am, as I have been for almost a month now, stuck in a large cage. Something like a giant bird cage. Big enough for me, a grown woman, to almost lay down in. It was surrounded in a circle by a series of thin, but sturdy, gold metal bars. Sturdy enough that I couldn’t budge them. Even if I could, my leg was secured to the outer edge of the cage by a metal chain and ankle cuff. To complete the bird cage look a hammock was suspended a little ways off of the ground for me to sleep on, analogous to a bird cage’s perch.

Since I had been here, I haven’t been allowed out of my cage. As far as I can tell the cage didn’t even have an opening for me to leave through. There was no hinged door, no possible way to get me out of the cage without destroying it. I could believe that too because the ankle cuff around my ankle was one solid piece of metal. No visible hinges of marks in the construction, same for the chain that ran to the bottom of the cage. It had to have been welded onto me. The bottom of my cage was made of the same series of gold bars that made up its walls and acted as a grate, and underneath that was loose sawdust. I hadn’t left the cage since I got here, but I still had to go to the bathroom and, like a bird, it would just fall through my cage floor to get caught underneath. Once a day a servant would come by to clean it was well as refill the food and water trough attached frustratingly to the opposite side of the cage as the one my chain was attached to. Meaning I always had to strain to get my daily meal.

I wasn’t given a whole lot of food. Just a small pile of cereal like grain a day. Probably because, stuck in the cage as I was, I didn’t have any way to work out or stay fit. I had the feeling my captor wanted me to stay fit and looking attractive. For one I was stuck in the cage naked except for the ankle cuff. The other reason, and the big one, was all the other woman I’ve seen since I’ve been here.

The servants were one thing. They were dressed as some kind of French maid. Short and sexual black and white lacy outfits, obviously with form over function. Underneath all their outfits were solid metal chastity belts and bras. The fact I can tell that’s what they are speaks to how revealing their outfits really were. I imagine the chastity devices were as permeant as my own chain.

There were also my “roommates” as I had taken to calling them. Two girls who were as stuck in our room as I was, though with admittedly more movement. There was one my captor called Mutt. I’m not sure what her actual name is, he refers to all of his servants in such ways. The maids are stuck with numbers for names. Mutt looked to be a little younger than me, but it was difficult to tell. She was kept in constant painful looking bondage. Her arms and legs were bound up in thick rubber or latex with her hands and feet tied together on her back in such a way that she constantly walked around on her elbows and knees. Thankfully it seems the thick bondage around her limbs at least padded her joints so she was able to walk on them in relative comfort. Much like my chain, her gear appeared permeant. I haven’t seen her bare arms or legs, though I imagine that stuck in her bondage for as long as they were, they would be useless by now. Taking her out of her gear would probably do more harm to her than keeping her in it at this point. Aside from that she was totally naked. Most disturbingly, she never talked beyond yelps and whimpers. I don’t know if this was because she was physically unable to or it was some spell keeping her from doing it. All this and her name made it abundantly clear, Mutt was a woman turned dog. Sometimes our captor would even stick a butt plug with a tail in her to maximize the appearance, though at the moment she didn’t have it in. It was Mutt shuffling around that had stirred me from my rest, she was making her way over to a large dog bowl filled with some kind of kibble that she snacked on. She looked up at me in between bites. Her eyes betrayed that she was still all there, still a person. For all intents and purposes though she was nothing but an animal now, only with the mental anguish of knowing she was supposed to be more.

Our other roommate was Baby. A woman that was at least ten years older than Mutt and I, though you wouldn't believe it by looking at her as she was now. She spent most of her time in her admittedly spacious crib. More of a cage than a crib really, but it had a softer and more friendly look than the kennel Mutt slept in, and it was filled with soft toys and stuffed animals to occupy her time. She was mostly left alone physically. She only had on some thick mittens that kept her from using her hands, not that I think she really could even without the mittens. Baby’s bondage was all mental. There wasn’t anything physically keeping her from talking, or walking, or using the bathroom, but she babbled, crawled, and used the diapers she was kept in all the same. Like with Mutt I can tell that the lights were on upstairs with Baby. She was likely fully aware of what was happening to her, but was stuck acting out her role as a baby. It had to have been some kind of magic.

I say magic because it's a very real possibility as our captor is a vampire. He's tall, thin, and awfully pale. He looks like he’s dead, and I guess that’s not far off. He’s a full-on Dracula style blood sucking vampire. Though he’s never drank my blood, and I’ve never seen him feed from Mutt or Baby. I have seen him feast on the maids several times. Going by the maid’s reaction, it was an almost orgasmic experience for them. Maybe that was why he kept them in chastity. Though it could be for the same unkown reason he kept Mutt, Baby, and I the way we were. I don’t think he needed to keep them on edge to get them to do what he wanted; he has magic. To what extent he is magic, I don’t really know. I know that he can control people. I’ve seen it with Mutt and Baby and I’ve felt it myself. I think that’s what keeping everyone so silent and compliant. His eyes glow red and he stares into your soul. When he does you can’t help but do what he says. It’s like a tingling in the back of your head that you can’t ignore, one that only gets stronger when you do anything other than what he says. It’s the only magic I’ve seen him do, but I know he’s also super strong as well. I’ve seen him rip a chain not unlike my own off of a wall with one simple tug. I often wonder if my ankle cuff was welded on of if he molded it around my ankle.

He uses this mind control magic to keep his harem. I don’t really know why. It seems he keeps me and my roommates around for fun, even though I’ve never seen him crack a smile around us. He feeds from the maids, but there are more than he would need to feed so it seems he keeps them around for fun as well. I’m less sure about what he wants from me.

My name, or the name he gave me, is Mockingbird. My new birdcage home seems to enforce that. I don’t know what that name means though. So far, I just wait around in my cage. There’s something with the bars, he can’t touch them. That’s why it's always the maids who handle me, give me my food, and clean my cage. As much as this cage was my prison, it kept me safe from him as well. He couldn’t hurt me physically while I was in my cage.

I’ve been here long enough to go from fearing him to being confused by him. The safety of the cage certainly helped with that. He clearly has a thing for permeance, well he has a thing for a lot of things. Not that you would know it by looking at him. He’s perpetually down, constantly sad or angry despite being surrounded by a harem with every possible fetish I can imagine, and those are just the one’s I’ve seen. I know he has more in his dungeon, wherever that is. I’ve become frustrated. I’ve been doing nothing but waiting around in a bird cage for a month. He rarely ever comes in here anymore, and when he does, he just pets Mutt or plays with Baby. He never acknowledges me. Why bring me here just to make me wait around? Why take me away from entire life to just lock me in a cage all day? If he wasn’t literally a creature from my nightmares, I’d tell him off. Not like he could get me in my cage anyway.

Speaking of the devil, he flits into the room silently. Maybe he had been here the whole time, it's hard to tell since he can be remarkably still and silent. He emerges from a dark corner of the room. His red eyes first and then his thin, tall, body. He moves impossibly slow yet still fast and sits down on the large bed in the room. Mutt goes over to him and he starts petting her gently. Baby babbles incoherently in her crib, and he makes his way over to the crib. He picks Baby up into his arms and bounces her while Mutt clambers at his legs. As he made his way back to his bed, he met my eyes for only a moment. That moment seemed to last for an hour, even if it was only a second.

I’m expecting something to happen, at least an acknowledgement of my existence. Nothing. He looks at me for a second and sits back down on the bed without saying a word. I couldn’t help but sigh in exasperation and pace around my cage in annoyance. I groaned and pouted in my cage.

His gaze slowly moved to me, Mutt and Baby both looked at me with concern. I met his gaze with my own. Long since over the fear, I met his dull lifeless expression with one of annoyance.

“What?” I finally ask after a moment of our starting contest.

“She speaks,” He spoke slowly.

“Yeah, she speaks,” I mock. “Can’t do much else.” I kick my leg, deliberately making the chain go taught. It clinks as it falls to the floor of my cage. He's unphased by my outburst. After a moment of eye contact, he goes back to shaking a rattle for baby. “I don’t understand you,” I tried to continue the conversation. Not sure why. Maybe the boredom is finally getting to me. He can’t hurt me in my cage so there wasn’t any harm to it.

“What don’t you understand?” He looks at me with curiosity.

“What do you want from me?” I almost scream. His answer was silence. “That’s what I don’t understand. Why keep me here. Am I somehow fulfilling some other fetish that you aren’t getting from Mutt or Baby or whoever else you’re torturing down in your dungeon.”

“No,” he says plainly. I wait for further explanation but none comes.

“No?” I ask in confirmation. “God, you're ridiculous.”

“If I told you what you were meant to be, it would ruin it.” He explains vaguely.

“Ho. Lee. Shit.” I exhale in exasperation. “You are ridiculous. Do you think all this mysterious brooding is cool or something?”

“Brooding?”

“Yeah brooding. All you ever do is mope around like a sad sack. You have a literal fetish harem in your cringe ass sex dungeon, you think you’d at least be happy about it.” At this comment he leans forward a bit and seems to think before speaking again.

“Would that make it better? If I were happy?”

“Fuck no! You’re still a fucking monster! You ruin people. Mutt is never going to be able to walk again. Baby is never going to be out of diapers.”

“And what about you?” He cracks a smile. The first time I’d seen him smile since I’ve been here. It only makes me madder.

“I will never be able to deal the trauma of having to deal with such an insufferable prick on top of the trauma of being your weird sex slave.”

“Sex salve?” He balked. “That's presumptive.”

“You’re dick probably shriveled up and fell off anyway you walking corpse.” He laughs before responding.

“Oh, come now. Don’t be so banal,” He brushes me off as he leans back in the bed.

“Who the fuck says banal?” I bite back quickly. “You must be from some backward ass Victorian time period. I bet that’s why you’re obsessed with treating women like objects. What do you miss the good old days back when you could flog your wife for overcooking the roast instead of treating her like a person?”

“Biting and contemporary commentary,” his grin grows.

“Are you getting off to this?” I back away from the edge of my cage and start to feel disgusted.

“You underestimate me,” He quickly corrects me.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m not underestimating you,” knowing that this wasn’t some weird sex thing for him makes me more confident, even if I'm still not sure what the endgame here is.

“Oh,” He stands up challenging me. “Then you must have met others of my kind surely. If you’re so sure you’re not underestimating me.”

“I haven’t met another vampire, but I’ve met plenty of assholes.”

“Is that what I am?” his voice raises a bit. “An asshole?”

“More than that. You’re a monster.” I'm at the edge of my cage, staring my captor down with an angry gaze. He stays still. Seems I cut him pretty deep with that comment. I didn’t think it would.

“If you think I’m a monster,” he spoke up after a while, but in a much quieter tone. “You really haven’t met another vampire.” He plops back down on the bed and motions for Mut to join him. She clambers onto the bed but goes over to entertain Baby. The two play with each other and almost fade into the background as I focus on the vampire. I still can’t figure him out. I don’t know what he wants with me. What was the point of it all? It’s so frustrating. “I’m so happy that you are finally singing Mockingbird,” he says almost jovially. The way he talks makes me feel gross. I slink away a little. “Tell me, are you afraid of me Mockingbird?”

“No!” I scoff. “Why should I be scared of you? You’re pathetic. If anything, you’re the one who’s scared. So scared of dying that you gave away a part of yourself.” Any smile he had on his face fades, replaced with a somehow even more dour and serious expression. I think I hit home and hurt his feelings there. I want to keep going. This is probably the only way I’ll ever hurt him. “You gave away your humanity,” I think on my feet and go with what sounds the worst. “Only a monster would do this. Surround himself with all these tortured souls just to try and feel something, and I can tell it’s not working. What happens, I wonder, when you finally do loose it. That last bit of a soul you have that keeps you human and makes you feel anything.”

“Enough!” he cried his eyes glowing red and his stare boring into my skull. I can feel the tingling of his mind-altering magic at work and I’m unable to speak. “Your song is as sweet as it is stinging Mockingbird,” he moves next to my cage. “But I think it’s time you sleep.”

He grabs a large sheet and tosses it over my cage, blocking out most of the light and leaving me in almost darkness. I’m still unable to talk, his spell is lingering, or maybe there's some long-term hypnotic block he put on me that's keeping me from talking while the sheet is over my cage. It’s more than a little humiliating that, like a real bird, I grow silent by just having a blanket thrown over my cage, but I’m satisfied. I really got him at the end, enough that he had to shut me up. I feel like that’s as much as I’m ever going to hurt him. I think I’m starting to understand him more too. I was right in that all of this: me, Mutt, Baby, the maids, and the people in the dungeon, are all just him trying to hold onto something, trying to feel something. That’s why I’m here. He left me able to talk, and gave me this safe cage so that I could insult him without recourse. Remind him of what he is and what he lost. Remind him how far he’s really fallen. All so he can feel that little bit of humanity.

Maybe it would be better if I stayed quiet. If I didn’t give him that reminder he craved. It felt so good tearing into him though. Hurting him in the only way anyone really could. It made me feel good, and it was the only bit of entertainment I’ve had in a month. I could do it again, I could do it every day. It was selfish, and it played into exactly what he wanted, but how could I not.

I can hear Mutt and Baby playing, and I could imagine the vampire watching them with that blank expression he usually had, or maybe with a pained expression still reeling from what I said to him. That image is more fun so I think that’s the one I’m going with because that’s the one that makes me happier. I clamber onto my hammock with satisfaction while listening to the quiet sounds of Mutt and Baby’s playing and thinking of new things to say to hurt our captor.

AUTHORS NOTE: Another one off for you all. If you're hungry for more check me out on ream https://reamstories.com/bigred0603 or subscribe star https://subscribestar.adult/bigred0603