by Kitty Thomas
In this world created by two wills split into a polarity of the exercise of power and the surrendering of it, nothing else needed to make sense. It felt like a pause button. That pause button on the world had been so intoxicating to Shannon once that she'd walked right into this cage, into a world that was even more chaotic and dangerous with someone like Brian within its borders.
This was the second time Lindsay had called her kitten. She wouldn't let herself like that pet name. It was sort of sweet and sexy and playful all at once. Was that how he saw her? She shook that thought out of her head. That wasn't what she was, and they both knew it. That pet name... it was such a mockery. Why not slut or whore or something that at least felt mildly honest? Kitten. Fuck him.
Still, there was the cane to contend with. It was the bigger threat at the moment. “Just let it go this once. Please, I'll do whatever you want.”
He paced beside the leather table she was tied to as if considering it.
“Hmmm. I thought you said you'd never fuck me. Never must be a very relative term in your world.”
“I-is that what you want? To fuck me?” Why was he doing this?
She shivered as he dragged the tip of the cane down her back.
“Oh yes. And so much more.”
“O-Okay. Done. Let's do it.”
Lindsay chuckled. “Oh no, I already told you not tonight. Fucking is for good girls only. And you've been a very bad girl. In fact, I think we can sweeten the torment a little so the lesson is well-learned.”
Shannon's eyes widened as he pulled a small white tube out of his pocket. It hadn't been used on her in years and never by Lindsay. But she remembered the arousal cream. It wasn't the sort of thing you forgot.
She'd experimented with creams like this years before when she'd been free. Some of them were pretty good, but none were like this. This one made you feel like you might die if you weren't penetrated or if you couldn't come. And the effects lasted a full hour on most of the girls. Shannon seemed to remember it lasted a bit longer with her.
“N-no. You can't.”
Lindsay chuckled. “For somebody who's tied up, you seem to make a lot of demands. You tried to escape this world tonight. I need to make absolutely sure you're here with me. I need your one hundred percent full focus. On living.”
Before she could protest again, he'd snapped on a medical examining glove and opened the tube. “It makes such a mess.”
Shannon squirmed as he applied the cream between her legs. Then he took the glove off and put it in the trash can in the corner of the cell, along with the plastic wrapping from her brand new mint-condition cane.
Brian was a clean freak. He let the other trainers and partners use his dungeons, but he expected everything to be kept as meticulous as he kept it. If anyone left a mess behind, there would be hell to pay. For someone who brought so much chaos into the lives of others, Brian was absolutely driven to keep everything around him neat and tidy.
Most of the men in the house thought, wisely, that it was probably best not to push the buttons of the sociopath who lived underground. And so they all complied with his obsessive demands.
When Shannon had gone to the spa after being with Lindsay in the kitchen, the fitness room had been quiet. Brian was probably back in his room with Mina. It was only a few doors down from the cell she now occupied.
Lindsay returned to her side and took the cane from the table. Again, he ran the tip of it slowly up and down the center of her back.
“P-please. Don't make me scream.”
“You're a screamer? Excellent.”
“I-it might wake him.” Suddenly being locked in with the doctor felt a lot safer than it had only a few minutes ago.
Lindsay's expression turned serious. “Why do you think I locked the door? Though I do find it interesting that you're locked in a cell with me and a cane, but Brian is the only threat you can think about. I'll make a deal with you. Take this punishment like a good girl and I'll set us up our own private dungeon on the other end of the house, far away from Brian.”
“Where on the other end of the house?” Shannon wasn't aware of other dungeons.
“You know the locked door in the south wing?”
“I thought that was storage or something.”
Lindsay shook his head. “It goes downstairs to another set of dungeons, or really, comparable stone-walled basement rooms like these. They aren't as equipped or set up as Brian's, so everybody just started using these.”
“Why are you training me?” The more he talked, the more it seemed he was planning something long term. Why would he set up their own private room in a set of dungeons she didn't even know the house had?
Lindsay leaned down, his eyes level with hers. He was too close, his gaze too intense. She wanted to shut her eyes and block him out, but she knew he wouldn't like it. So she held his gaze and waited for an answer.
“Because. I. Want. You. Do you understand, kitten?”
“Y-yes, Sir.” She would admit it was a good act, but she didn't believe him. There was no way he could want her. He just wanted to distract her into wanting to live long enough that he wouldn't feel he was to blame when she finally succeeded in leaving the house.
“Good,” he said, seeming to accept her concession.
Shannon clawed at the table, the cream finally starting to work. It was far more intense than she remembered. Or maybe it was more about the man she was down here with, the cluster of confused emotions, and the ever present fear of waking Brian just down the hall.
“Cream kicking in?” A taunt.
“Y-yes, Sir.”
His mouth brushed against her ear. “It's time to create associations that would make Pavlov jealous.”
Shannon tried to rub herself against the table to relieve the growing arousal, but the way he'd tied her down made it impossible to gain the necessary friction.
She jerked and yelped when the cane struck her thigh in a sharp, angry snap.
“Ah ah, kitten. There will be no more self care. If you receive pleasure, from now on it comes from me. No one else in this house, including you. Do you understand?”
It had only been coming from her for the past three years. Well, and Annette on occasion when they had time and could slip away. Anton usually liked to watch his pet with other girls, but Shannon knew he gave them privacy because he didn't like to see the scars. Annette assured her it wasn't personal, that it upset Anton to see what Brian had done to her, but Shannon could never believe that was all it was. Everyone had to close their eyes and pretend she was whole. They could never let their hands linger too long on expanses of skin that weren't as smooth as the rest.
It made her feel so alien.
She shrieked as the cane landed again.
“I'm sorry, am I boring you?” Lindsay said.
“N-no, Sir.”
“No one gives you pleasure but me. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes, Sir.” As if he could monitor that. He went to work in the city during the day. He was gone so much, there was no way he could enforce such a rule. As if he'd even bother. He didn't care enough for her to invest that much time and energy.
But if he wanted to play this game for a few days or a couple of weeks, she hated herself for it, but she'd take it. She'd grab onto it like a starving woman even if she hated him because they both knew it was the last opportunity she'd ever get. And then it would be back to being ignored again. She didn't have the luxury of turning this down. Before long the combination of the years creeping onto her and those marks refusing to fade into the past, and even the chance of anything with anyone would be long gone.
If only she'd never come to the house. If only she'd never gone to Lindsay. The ad had said Kink-friendly sex therapist. His office was in a high rise in a very nice part of the city—so inviting and safe. She'd thought that was what she needed. But it had only been a crutch. She could have moved on from her last master on her own. She might have had a chance to find someone else, to have somet
hing real.
The tears began to flow freely. Let him think it was the cane.
Before she could fall down another self-pity spiral, the cream reached its full effect and suddenly all she could think about was the throbbing need between her legs. It was such a confusing cluster of feelings. Hatred, regret, need. And the only person there to sate that need, the very object of her hatred and regret.
“Please...” she whimpered. The urge to say “Master,” clawed at her throat, but she stopped herself in time. She wouldn't embarrass herself like that. He'd only laugh at her. She knew as well as he did that word meant something far deeper than what he wanted to give her.
She was sure she'd never utter that word again, except in her own mind in feverish fantasies under the cover of night.
“What is it you need, Shannon?”
Less than an hour ago, they'd been sitting at the kitchen counter, him asking her this same question. She wasn't going to tell him. She wasn't going to fuck him. But he wasn't playing fair. The cream was a very persuasive tool. It had a way of making you see the world differently—of changing priorities in an instant.
Pain and arousal. Twin catalysts the house used to get whatever it wanted. What was it exactly that the doctor wanted from her to break out these tools?
“Tell me,” he said.
“I need to be touched.”
“It's not just the cream,” he said. “We both know that. You've needed me to touch you for a long time. It practically radiates off you.”
Shannon shook her head, somehow finding the will to resist him, however limp the effort. “No. Not you. Never you.”
The cane sliced through the air and came down hard on her ass.
“Ow! Motherfucker!”
“That's for lying,” he said. There was another short painful snap of the cane against her thigh. “And that is for the language. You call me Sir. Not Lindsay. Not motherfucker. Are we clear?”
“Y-yes, Sir.”
“Good. I remember the way you used to look at me when you came to visit my office in the city. I remember you used to wear those too-short skirts and heels. Your legs seemed to go on forever. And then when you sat and crossed your legs, the silk skirt slid up your thighs exactly the way you wanted my hand to slide up them. Isn't that right? Did you imagine that whisper of fabric moving up your leg was my fingers teasing you? Did you think about it when you were alone in your bed at night after our sessions?”
Shannon felt the blush creep up her neck and into her face. “That was then,” She said, fighting the need even as she continued to writhe and squirm against the table, seeking contact that just wasn't there.
“And earlier tonight? When you got out of the shower? What was that hungry look about?”
“Your imagination,” Shannon said, knowing she was playing with fire. This wasn't the Lindsay she thought she knew, and yet she couldn't let herself admit the truth to him. She didn't trust him.
Suddenly that large warm hand was pressed between her legs, exactly where she'd always wanted it. It felt as good as she'd imagined it would—better even. Especially after such a long stretch of denial.
“Tell me to stop, then.”
Shannon pressed harder against his hand. Her hips began to move without her conscious effort.
He pulled his hand away, leaving her humping the air. “You're right. We should stop. It's inappropriate and you said you didn't want...”
“Please.” The word came out desperate and strangled. Not her finest moment if she wanted to resist him.
Lindsay picked up the cane again and moved to the front of the table. “Lick.”
She licked the length of the cane, not sure where he was going with this. A moment later it landed in a sharp wet sting across her ass. Oh. That was where. It had been too long since she'd played this way with someone. She could barely remember how any of it was done. The rules. The protocols. The creatively nasty signature styles and habits of the master in question. The personal private rituals, unique to him—to the two of them ensconced in their own private world. A world she used to live in.
Slowly he ran his fingertips over the welts he'd left. How disappointing it must be for him to have so little fresh unmarred skin to play with. If he flogged or whipped her back, he'd be competing with another man's marks in a game he could never win.
She realized suddenly that she was still crying. This agonizing sobbing sound was coming out of her, so foreign she kept forgetting it was her. How could she make those sounds? She was sure she'd cried every tear, felt every regret, ruminated and obsessed over every grudge. She'd thought she was empty, done.
It was that emptiness that had finally brought her to the brink of her own demise. Yet here she was, the emotion spilling out, a never-ending fountain bubbling over with rage and pain. She flinched when he started to stroke her back. She flinched because she expected to feel him flinch when he touched her. She expected his fingertips to stutter and halt against the scars in revulsion. But they didn't.
He touched her as if she were unbroken.
“What do you need, Shannon?”
“Something you can't give me.”
“You don't know until you ask.”
She shook her head. “It can never be you.” Even though he was the only offer on the table. Even though he was the only one she'd wanted back when things were simple.
The arousal cream continued on in its mission to drive her crazy, but her mind had become so far removed from sex that it acted as a dull background throb which she kept forgetting how to define because all she could think about was how this couldn't happen with the doctor.
She couldn't give herself to him like that—not in the way every last insane ounce of her wanted to. She couldn't give in to the id. She'd made that mistake once. He'd already proven he wasn't a man she could trust.
He pressed warm soft kisses against her back, trailing up to her neck. He quietly untied her, then he sat beside her on the leather table and pulled her into his arms, his mouth finding hers, lingering there, softly at first, then hungrily as if he might devour her whole. She didn't resist him. It felt too good. Even if she hated him. It was so late. She was so tired.
He carried her up the stairs to his suite and laid her down on his giant bed in the plant room. Ralph was asleep in his cage though the parakeets still twittered quietly to each other. He covered the bird cages with a blanket, turned on a thunderstorm white noise machine, and then climbed into the bed with her.
Shannon barely breathed as he pulled her against him and wrapped an arm around her.
“What are we doing?” she whispered.
“We're sleeping.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Sleep, kitten.”
She knew what he'd said in the dungeon about wanting her, and the kiss had felt real enough. And they'd shared a moment—she thought—but she couldn't help thinking this was all some strange unconventional therapy that meant nothing beyond keeping her from killing herself. She couldn't let herself believe it was anything more.
But if it was therapy, it might be working because suddenly dying was the last thought on her mind.
Chapter Four
Lindsay woke to a scream and a hard kick in his shin as Shannon flailed about in her sleep. He rolled toward her, gripped her wrists, and held her tight.
“Wake up. Shannon, wake up! It's a dream.”
Her eyes shot open and she looked around, wild-eyed. “Lindsay?”
“Sir,” he corrected. He didn't plan on letting her get away with the casual first name basis thing she'd been trying to pull. Eventually she would be calling him master. At least that was what he intended. But he needed to be sure before he crossed that line with her. If he truly took responsibility for her, he had to take responsibility for her. After what had happened with her last master—to think nothing of the situation with Brian—taking her and discarding her would be worse then letting her remain unhappy and lonely in the house.
Hadn't he alre
ady made this mistake once? Bringing her here without taking responsibility?
“Sir,” she repeated, a wary expression on her face.
She scooted up and leaned against the headboard, pulling the blankets up around her, taking them half off him in the process. Her hair was the most adorable rumpled mess. He had to stop himself from ruffling it like a big idiot.
“Do you remember what you were dreaming?” he asked instead, lapsing into the comfortable therapist role.
“Yes.”
“And?”
Shannon rolled her eyes. “You know what I dreamed.”
“That day?”
“Yes.”
“How often do you have this nightmare?”
“A lot.”
He hadn't realized she was still having the Brian dreams so frequently. But how would he? He was the last person she would have confided in about such a thing. Most of their encounters for the last several years had been awkward exhanges in hallways with monosyllabic grunts or nonchalantly looking away until the other passed.
Lindsay glanced at the clock and sighed. It was already seven-thirty. He might as well get up and start the day. He was usually up well before this. It was pure dumb luck that his first patient in the city wasn't until eleven today.
“Would you like me to give you something?” he asked out of habit more than anything. Pills were the easy solution—and probably the wrong one in her case. And of course whatever he gave her, he'd have to strictly monitor to ensure she took it instead of stashing it for later. A lot of drugs could kill you if you took a giant handful at once. Not just sleeping pills.
“Y-you mean like a drug?”
“Yes, like a drug.”
She shook her head. “You can't fix me with a drug.”
He had ideas about how he could fix her. Ideas that had been forming in his head since that first pretty cane welt had bloomed out over her ass the night before. He wanted to run his fingers over those welts again. They would last a couple of days at least, maybe three. It depended on the individual. There was time. He watched her for several minutes, allowing the silence to build until it was too uncomfortable for either of them to exist in, then he finally got up and started to get ready.
