by L. DuBois
“Stand on the rung,” Master Dowell ordered, “and hold on to the legs.”
Sejal positioned herself so she was facedown over the stool, standing on one of the rungs, her hips at the perfect height for fucking, and grabbed the rung on the opposite side of the stool. She looked like she was holding on for dear life, which was probably necessary given the enthusiasm with which her master had fucked her.
Master Dowell looked to the side and a man stepped out of the crowd.
Rosa caught her breath.
Liam.
He looked…different. His jaw was shadowed with stubble, and there was something cold and almost grim about him. Not, not cold and grim. Heart thumping hard, Rosa studied the familiar lines of his face, looking at the way the corners of his eyes pinched and the lines bracketing his mouth. He looked…resigned.
Liam walked up to Sejal and started to unfasten his pants. Master Dowell stepped back, leaving Liam and Sejal alone in the center of the crowd.
Master Khan grabbed the back of Rosa’s neck. “Stay,” he murmured.
Rosa hadn’t even realized she’d moved, but she had, taking a small step forward before the man who was currently her top, who quite literally held her leash, put his hands on her. “This is a gang bang,” Master Khan said quietly.
Liam stroked Sejal’s lower back, then ran his hand over her ass. Rosa made a small sound. She wasn’t sure if it was longing or pain.
On one hand she was currently so worked up that she partially wanted to watch Liam fuck this other woman. She wanted to see what he looked like as he had sex—usually she was too close to get to enjoy the visual. Liam had a nice ass, and she only really got to see it in action when there was a handy mirror.
On the other hand, she wanted to slap the brunette woman and then slide into her place on the stool. She needed to be fucked. Not just that, she needed, wanted, Liam to fuck her. Really fuck her.
Liam started to push his pants down, and around her the crowd cheered him on good-naturedly.
Liam’s lips quirked in a wry smile, and Rosa leaned forward, about to take another step, when Master Khan tightened his grip on her neck, pressing in just hard enough with the tips of his fingers to hurt.
It wasn’t her Master Khan should have been worried about.
Hachiro’s shoulder bumped hers as he pushed past, walking up to Sejal and grabbing her head possessively. Liam raised a brow, pausing, his pants around his thighs, his cock—thick, beautiful, and so wonderfully familiar, poised to slide into Sejal’s pussy.
Hachiro was totally naked except for a harness—another H item. His cock was erect, his shoulders tense.
Sejal turned her head to the side, away from Hachiro’s cock. Rosa’s eyebrows went up, and she wondered how many in the crowd knew that Hachiro was her Master, at least when they weren’t playing the game.
Like a knight riding out of the mist, Master Dowell pushed out of the crowd he’d melted into, put a hand on Liam and Hachiro’s chests, and shoved them back.
Sejal scrambled off the stool and flung herself into Master Dowell’s arms. He hugged her, bending his head over hers with a tenderness that made Rosa’s stomach hurt.
“Sejal,” Hachiro said sharply. “You have to submit.”
Rosa had noticed Hachiro wasn’t particularly submissive, though he obeyed Master Khan. It was clear that even though he’d decided to submit as part of the checklist game by joining the harem, he considered himself to be on a different level of submission than herself or Luscious. And apparently he thought Sejal should still obey him.
“Don’t talk to my submissive that way.” Master Dowell’s voice was icy.
“Your submissive for now,” Hachiro countered.
“No.” Master Dowell grinned. “Mine. You gave her away, permanently.”
The skin around Hachiro’s eyes tightened. “No. I would not do that.”
“That you wouldn’t do? But you’re fine giving her away for the weekend. You’re fine using her for your own pleasure, using her to play at being submissive without actually having to submit. Fuck you, dude.”
The crowd, including Rosa and Luscious, watched the drama unfold in rapt silence.
“I did not—”
Master Khan released Rosa’s neck, and untied the crop that dangled from his belt. “Enough.” He snapped a crop against Hachiro’s chest.
Beside her Luscious murmured, “Bad move, Hachiro.”
Master Khan struck Hachiro’s erect cock with the crop. It silenced anything Hachiro might have been about to say. Hachiro sucked in air, his hands curled to fists at his sides.
Master Khan faced him. “Master Dowell isn’t wrong. You like the kink, but not obeying. We’ll work on it.”
Master Dowell was pulling Sejal into the crowd, leaving Master Khan, Hachiro, and Liam center stage.
Master Khan looked at Liam. “I feel bad you were denied.” He gestured to the stool where Sejal had been, then stepped to the side, so Liam had a clear view of Luscious and Rosa. Rosa’s gaze met Liam’s and time stood still.
How could he be both so familiar and a stranger? He looked harder than she ever remembered him being. She’d seen him broken with grief, grim, determined, but never hard. Not like that.
Normally when they were at Las Palmas there was a sort of detachment in his gaze. At various times she’d attributed that to worry over hurting her, disinterest in being her Dom, annoyance with whatever they were doing, or distraction because he was thinking about work.
There was no detachment in him now. He seemed unyielding. A cold, dangerous, intense strength.
There. That was it. That was what she thought he would be like as her Master. She wanted to feel that strength, to be forced to surrender to it.
Master Khan gestured to her and Luscious. “You can chose one of the women in my harem to have for a scene. No vaginal intercourse, anal or oral only.”
Liam’s gaze slid away from her, and suddenly he seemed to be looking everywhere but her. “If Luscious is willing…”
She’d thought he couldn’t hurt her any more than he already had, thought the wound in her heart couldn’t be any deeper. She’d been wrong.
Luscious stepped up, running a hand over Master Khan’s arm, and then sank to her knees in front of Liam. “How may I serve you, Sir?”
No. No. This isn’t happening.
“You didn’t pick me?” The words escaped her on a sob-heavy breath. She swallowed, tried not to cry. Maybe if she hadn’t been so strung out on arousal she could have been able to control herself.
Liam didn’t even look at her. “I’d like to take her someplace more private.” The words were directed at Master Khan.
Rosa lunged forward. She wasn’t thinking. She was reacting. She wasn’t even sure what she was going to do—though slapping Liam was a possibility. Then again, shoving Luscious to the side and taking her rightful place on her knees in front of her Master—her Master—was equally possible.
Master Khan caught her, grabbing her around the waist. “You’ve already earned a punishment, don’t make it worse.”
“No! Liam!” Rosa shouted and twisted.
“Hachiro,” Master Khan barked.
She missed the next bit of what he said, distracted because she was looking at Liam, trying to read his expression. He’d turned his head to the side, and some strong emotion had twisted his features. What was that emotion? Was it anger? Who was he angry at? Was he angry at her? Why?
She wanted him to come for her the way Master Dowell had come for Sejal. She wanted him to push Master Khan’s hands off her, wrap her in a hug. She wanted him to love her the way he once had, before years and life had reduced them to this.
A blindfold was jerked over her eyes. Rosa twisted, tossing her head, trying to shake it off. She needed to see him, needed to understand this stranger who was Liam. Her elbows were jerked behind her back, pressed together until they were almost touching. That forced her to stop struggling and hold still. The pressure on her shoulders wa
s just this side of painful.
Her submissive instinct should have kicked in. Her head should have dropped forward, her body defaulting into a spread-legged submissive stance.
Should have.
Instead she kept her head up, her blind face searching. “Liam,” she called out.
For a moment she thought she felt him—the familiar warmth of him, so close that the heat of his body radiated to touch her skin.
Whoever held her arms jerked her back, away from Liam. A gag—something narrow and hard, probably one fashioned after a horse’s bit—was shoved into her mouth, the straps pulled tight and buckled around the back of her head. Some of her hair was plastered to her right cheek, held there by the gag.
Taking a deep breath through her nose, Rosa forced herself to calm down. The need to fight—not just her current bondage, but to fight for Liam—gnawed at her. It was a frantic feeling, like a trapped butterfly in the center of her chest.
Around her, people—men—were talking. She’d been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn’t been listening, which was a stupid mistake.
Even with the gag in, she wasn’t really trapped. She had two non-verbal safe words. She could either cross her fingers on both hands, or put her chin on her chest and hold it there for a count of 30. Both of those were the equivalent of saying “yellow”—whatever was currently happening would stop and Master Khan would check in with her.
“Bring her over.” Master Khan’s voice was harder than she was used to hearing. The man’s nearly omnipresent half-smile was usually evident with each word he spoke.
“Step up,” he ordered.
She obeyed, tentatively stepping up, nearly stumbling when the surface she was stepping onto was lower than she thought.
She felt her corset loosening, and then it was stripped away. Cool night air hit her bare breasts. She was wearing a pair of “cheeky” panties, cut so high in the back that most of her ass was exposed. Deft, confident fingers tugged at the panties until even more of her rear end was exposed, the fabric tucked between her butt cheeks and tugged up the globes of her ass.
There was a faint creaking noise and the platform beneath her shifted slightly. The blindfold was ripped away and she blinked, the torchlight and recessed lights in the overhangs that protected the walkways at the edges of the courtyard seeming bright after the darkness of the blindfold.
She blinked a few times, then took in what was before her.
She stood on the end of a small wooden platform roughly three feet wide by four feet long. The other end of the platform had a thick square post rising up to waist height, and atop that was a set of stocks. The upper piece of the stocks was raised and waiting for her.
Master Khan appeared at the end of the platform, facing her with the stocks between them. Whoever held her elbows—it must have been Hachiro—released her. She rolled her shoulders and bit down on the rubber coating the bit, then swallowed the spit that had gathered in her mouth.
“It’s time for us to play another card from the hand we’ve been dealt.” Master Khan was back to smiling in that wicked way.
He paused, waiting for something, or perhaps just for dramatic effect. “You’ve earned a punishment, but not just any punishment. You’re going to experience humiliation.”
Humiliation. That was the “card” he’d been talking about. She had yet to hear a full accounting of all the items for H, but she was sure that this was one she would have marked as at least willing to try. She hadn’t filled out the checklist while thinking about what she really wanted. She’d filled it out while thinking about what Liam might want and enjoy, only indicating a hard “no” when there were items she was sure he’d find so distasteful that her indicating a willingness to attempt them might be a turn off.
Master Khan crooked a finger, then twisted his hand and pointed at the stocks. Rosa swallowed hard, fear tightening the muscles of her abdomen into a hard, tense tangle.
She looked away from Master Khan, scanning the crowd behind him. They’d wheeled out the stocks, placing them in the courtyard amid the statuary. She recognized many of the same people who had been watching earlier amid those waiting and watching her now. The one she didn’t see was Liam. Or Luscious.
“You try my patience, Rosa.”
The tone of his voice, the command and hard edge, had her moving instinctively before her brain had time to throw up any additional objections.
Taking a half step forward, Rosa bent at the waist, placing her neck in the leather-lined center depression. She rested her wrists in the matching smaller semi-circular cut outs on either side.
The upper beam was lowered gently, trapping her. A shiver worked its way down her body, and that shiver wasn’t entirely of fear. The part of her that had first been drawn to BDSM, that needed to submit, was reveling in this forbidden and dark activity. How perverse she was, that she would willingly place herself in the stocks.
Bent forward like this, she couldn’t stop the drool that pooled at the corners of her mouth and then ran down her lower lip, dripping onto the sandy soil below.
The height of the stocks was low enough that her legs and torso formed an acute angle, pushing her ass up into the air.
“Humiliation.” Master Khan spoke a bit louder than he had before. “That is your punishment.” He lowered his voice until only she could hear him. “I know you’ve been humiliated already, more thoroughly than I could ever match.”
Rosa closed her eyes, hoping that she wouldn’t cry. Master Khan was right. Nothing he could do to her would be more humiliating than her boyfriend, the man she loved, choosing Luscious instead of her.
“And there’s a second card I think we can play in this round.” Master Khan was speaking loudly once more.
She opened her eyes in time to see him turning to the crowd. “Each of you will have the opportunity to spank the lovely Rosa. And, as hickeys are another of our items, anyone who is so inclined is welcome to bite and suck.” That was greeted with a few chuckles. “I’m sure the visual reminder of her punishment in the days to come will extend her humiliation.”
Master Khan stepped to the side, and crooked his finger once more. Hachiro, who’d been acting as henchman—holding her arms, lowering the top piece of the stocks—walked over, and at Master Khan’s gesture, dropped to his knees. Master Khan freed his cock from his leather pants and grabbed Hachiro’s head, forcing the other man’s mouth onto his cock.
Rosa’s pussy pulsed with need.
She was getting aroused by this. All of it.
A smiling couple walked out of the crowd and circled around behind her. She lost sight of them as soon as they passed by the side of the stocks. Normally, even if restrained, she would have been able to see them out of her peripheral vision.
Hands. Strangers’ hands. They landed possessively on her back and the bare cheeks of her ass. A foot pressed between her ankles, forcing her legs wide, lowering her ass a little.
Rosa gasped, letting her head hang for a moment. She could tell that her neck would get sore if she kept trying to look up.
Was her Master, her lover, out there, watching her humiliation?
A hand cracked against her ass, causing her to lurch forward, her trapezius muscles hitting the padded edges of the stock.
A second later the heat and pain registered, a hot spot on her left ass cheek. She gasped and then shuddered, need biting down on her.
She wasn’t just aroused, she was once more wild with need. This was meant to be humiliation, meant to be punishment, and her body was alive with desire.
My Master might be watching.
The thought had barely registered before a second spank landed on her other ass cheek. She moaned, wishing they’d stripped off her panties, left her bare, her naked pussy visible and vulnerable.
She raised her head, scanning the crowd again. Looking for her Master.
My Master.
Her gaze paused on Master Khan, who was watching her with the sort of attention a Dominant need
ed to have when their submissive was in such a vulnerable position. He wasn’t her Master.
Teeth clamped down on the back of her left thigh, pinching her skin, a warm, wet tongue laving her before sucking on her flesh.
There were more people walking up, looking at her and smiling, laughing, anticipation coloring their features. Her arousal dampened as she scanned faces. He wasn’t there. He really had left her.
A flush of hot humiliation rolled over her. She was less than these subs who walked beside their masters. She was unwanted, a toy, a momentary diversion for those who were valued by their Doms, treasured by their Masters.
Smack, smack, smack.
The spanks fell more quickly now, her ass warm and smarting. They were different hands, she could feel that, from the angles of the smacks and the varying degrees of strength. One particularly hard smack hit her sit-spot, and she whimpered into the gag, more drool leaking from her mouth.
The platform shifted, and she had no idea what that meant. Was someone going to fuck her? She couldn’t stop them. She was helpless. That both terrified and aroused her, an unpleasant yet somehow decadent combination.
Teeth clamped on the skin over her ribs, pinching the skin tightly enough that she winced. More teeth settled on her hip. Fingers flicked her nipple, sending a bolt of pleasure through her at the same time the teeth moved, biting down on another bit of thin, vulnerable flesh.
She raised her head, blinking so the tears that had pooled on her lashes fell, sliding only partway down her cheeks before gravity pulled them from her skin and they dripped onto the earth.
The crowd had thinned out, or perhaps it was that they were all behind her, hands spanking her now burning ass, teeth settling on her legs, sides, and a few on her hanging breasts, biting and sucking.
Someone stepped to the side and she saw him. Her Master.
Liam half sat on the stool Sejal had been on earlier, his legs spread and braced, pants open just enough so his cock jutted out.
Luscious was kneeling on a pad, her hair wrapped around his hand, her lips on the head of his cock.
