“The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Katie could not move. She could not speak, and her thoughts halted; what he’d done was so humbling it stilled her inside and out. At last, she thought, someone who understands.
He gazed at her – collared, leashed, kneeling – and, in the silence between them she felt acceptance and recognition. Aching need hung in the air like a live presence.
“Come.” He wrapped the leather handle of the leash around his fist. Silver links trailed through his fingers. He didn’t look back as he walked away, leaving Katie to scramble to her feet and follow or be dragged behind.
They walked down the winding hall until he stopped before a door Katie hadn’t noticed, its wood worn to a hue the same shade as the stone lining the passage. The priest opened the door, revealing a cave-like alcove. On one wall hung a variety of crops, floggers, whips, canes, belts and paddles. There was even a ruler, long and wickedly thin. Looking at it, her insides quaked and she fought memories of unjust childhood punishments and evil nuns. Unable to look at the ruler, she turned away and watched the priest loop her leash over a chair and reach for a pair of black gloves resting on a low table. He picked them up and tugged them onto his hands, fingers wiggling into snug leather.
In the priest’s gaze were compassion and understanding. As if reading her mind he said, “Let not the sun go down upon your sins, for every man shall bear his own burden and pay his own price.”
Katie shivered, nodding, wanting desperately to let go of her anger, her guilt and her monsters.
“Pick,” he said, tilting his head towards the display.
With butterflies in her stomach, she looked back at the whips, paddles and other instruments of punishment and reached, with only the slightest hesitation, for the thing that had caught her attention from the first moment she’d seen it, a thin black riding whip. She lifted it from the wall, holding it out to the priest as she kneeled again, offering herself in the gesture he had not asked for.
“How can you do what needs to be done, Father?” she finally asked him, trembling as her gaze searched his.
“If any man is a bearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his face in a glass; if he beholds himself and turns away, he forgets what manner of man he is,” he said, taking the whip from her. Sliding a petting palm over the curve of her head, he allowed her to nuzzle her cheek into his leather-covered fingers.
“Good girl,” he said, the praise penetrating Katie, his approval felt as contentment, knowing she had pleased him by kneeling, even if she still questioned.
He turned and dipped his fingers into a basin, sprinkling droplets of holy water onto the whip, blessing it. She knew this without him saying it.
“It will sting more wet,” he said before saying the words that made it final, “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”
He helped Katie to her feet and led her back into the hall, tugging the leash sharply when she paused, forcing her into a brisker stride until they came to another door. It creaked when he pushed it open, its rusty hinges protesting.
Outside the summer breeze was warm. It kissed their cheeks in the purple, star-shimmered twilight, bringing with it the scent of damp earth, grass, and decay. The church graveyard was a tumbled maze of tombstones and crypts.
“Now we shall see through a glass, darkly. Come,” the priest said.
His words paralysed her. Could she be as strong as he and face herself in the glass, not running away as she always had before?
He tapped the whip to his boot, and she went with him to where a lone light beckoned in the distance – a lantern affixed to a tall wooden cross, the marker for a grave in the centre of the cemetery, set upon a gentle rise.
“Step up. Face the cross.”
She obeyed and he lay upon her, fitting himself into the parted crease of her ass as she clung to the cross, prickles of pain blooming on her bare chest and arms as tiny splinters pierced her skin. His leather-covered fingers trailed over her body, sweeping her hair from her back. He gave her bottom an almost casual caress and the tiniest of slaps, resting his hand on the curve of it as he kissed her neck and licked a tiny spot above her nape. She felt the warm slither of his tongue and goose bumps rose to meet it.
She worried she might pass out, blissed and lulled by his touch, but was alert again immediately when he whispered in her ear, “Lower your skirt to your knees. Press your cunt against the cross.”
She unzipped her skirt with trembling hands, pushing it down to her knees, spreading them wider to keep it in place.
She was amazed at the ever constant shifting of her feelings. The desire to flee, the desire to come, the desire to do anything the priest asked rapidly changed places.
“Press close. Do it for me,” he said.
Again, with only the slightest hesitation, she responded, pressing harder into the splintered cross. Pain stung her breasts and her fingers when she reached to curl them around the crossbar.
She shuddered, a feeling of complete surrender washing through her. She imagined her sins swept away in the flood and was comforted, calmed.
“Hold on tight,” the priest said, unclipping the leash and tossing it away. He clasped a shorter chain to the front of the collar and then to the cross, holding Katie on a tighter tether, leaving her enough slack to turn if she were required to but not enough to keep her from strangling should she fall.
He crouched, sliding his palms over her hips, fondling the tender creases behind her knees and the smooth flesh of her inner thighs. He eased her skirt, sandals and panties off, leaving her naked, facing the cross.
“Who dares shed man’s blood, by man shall have his blood shed.”
The priest lifted his hands to the crossbar, his fingers brushing Katie’s thumb in a comforting sweep. He reached between her legs and dragged his fingertips over her cunt. Her flesh felt puffy, throbbing, her clit lush and swollen. He gave it a flicker.
The priest used her hair to turn her head. She shivered, looking into his obsidian eyes, drowning in his words.
“Your penance,” he said, “your sins . . . repaid with your pain given to me. Sin. Atonement. Rapture.” His gaze held Katie’s as firmly as his leather-covered fingers held her cunt.
Katie felt a new surge of adrenaline clash deliciously with her aching need.
“Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spirito tuo. Bless you,” he said.
She held tighter to the cross, closing her eyelids tight, her pussy convulsing in the priest’s hand as he gave it one last squeeze.
“Do you know a prayer?”
“The Lord’s Prayer is the only one I know by heart.” Her voice trembled.
“Say it.”
She began, her voice quivering, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”
“This will hurt. Hold on and pray,” he said, before stepping away.
“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Katie’s body stiffened, and she pressed harder into the cross, wanting and fearing, guilt-ridden yet needing this so badly she ached, her longing awakened fully and begging for release.
She heard a whoosh of sound – whip through air. She felt a single mark cut into her flesh high on the left side of her back, just above the jut of her shoulder bone. She imagined the straight slash of welted skin crying blood tears, black shimmers, and she screamed.
“Go on.” His voice was calm.
“Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us!”
He waited for her to quiet before delivering another strike of the whip, leaving a new slash of pain on the upper right side of her back. Again, he waited for her screams to stop before adding to his creation, forming – with quick whip strokes – what she pictured as twin crosses carved into the flesh of her back.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” she said, her knees shaking as she h
ugged the cross to keep from falling and being choked by the collar and short chain.
The priest came to her, his hands sweeping tender and leather cool over her shivering body. He turned her to face him and kissed her mouth tenderly. She tasted her tears when their tongues met.
“Truth and mercy have come together. Righteousness and peace have kissed.”
He crouched, leaving her breathless, his dark gaze resting on the wet, pink splay of her cunt.
He kissed it, rubbing her slick offering over his parted lips.
“Atonement,” he said, his breath a warm flutter on Katie’s clit. A flicker of his tongue followed the curve of its hood, easing it up and down.
Her cheeks flooded with colour, her pain already fading. A thrilling surge of emotion threatened to spill over into a rapturous orgasm, or a wild struggle to be free.
She knew she had the power to reach up and unclasp the leash, to run away or simply ask to be let go, but she didn’t do any of these things. She wanted it all. She needed it. Groaning, overcome by the intense gratification the priest’s touch gave her, she pushed forward against his mouth.
“Rapture,” Katie sighed, as the priest lapped the nectar droplets from her slit, his tongue a wet, slithering heat.
“Give the rest to me. Let it go. Finish,” he said, pulling off his leather gloves.
He spread her legs wider as he pressed the cluster of his fingers into her, not stopping until they were deeply buried, hooked and pressing into a place that made her insides quiver.
His tongue snaked in a languid twirl through the furls of her pussy and over the knob of her clit, sliding up and down in firm knowing strokes timed with the thrusts of his fingers into her cunt. His mouth was hot, his tongue gliding with velvety strokes. His teeth raked, and he suckled until her legs began to buckle and her body accepted all of his hand.
“For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.” Katie finished the prayer, her voice ragged, panted moans as she came – a surge into the priest’s mouth. Pushing closer, shuddering release, her cunt gripped his fist as spasms of pleasure washed over her in waves. Cresting, they left in their wake a new sense of peace.
When he pulled his hand from her, she felt a trickle of come slide down her thigh like a tear she no longer needed.
“Dominus noster Saint Michael te absolvat et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo,” the priest said in a low and final tone after the last pulse died.
He stood, his gaze warm as he kissed Katie’s cheeks and freed her. Enfolding her in his arms, he held her close, soothing her.
“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Be free, Katie O’Malley.”
He unclasped her leash, but the collar remained – an anchor as the priest led Katie away, absolved.
The Peanut Butter Shot
C. Sanchez-Garcia
My trainer Case is oiling my skin, rubbing it down with a camphor salve that stinks to get the sensitivity down around my penis, the nipples, and behind my ears, erogenous zones where I’m sensitive. Doc Corman, the SFCC Certification medic is waiting beside Gerry, with his little black bag and witness forms for when Case gets done with me. Burned out Gerry, tore up from the floor up, she’s sitting on the locker room bench, eyes on the floor, probably thinking about sex with me or else just nothing. She gets a little more simple every day. Soon there won’t be much left. My own sweet fluffer girl. She’s my sexual punching bag. I work out on her. Its illegal, it’s evil, but hell, we all do it. Every fighter needs a sparring partner.
They used to wrap tape around your hands to keep you from busting your knuckles up against the bones of somebody’s face. Me, it’s the opposite. I have to wear special gloves when I’m not in the ring. These gloves, they go for about $12,300, something like that, dermatologically custom-made. The insurance pays for them, so like I give a shit, but that’s what they go for. I’ve got real warm soft hands. Women tell me they’re softer than a baby’s hands. My champion hands are insured by management for about $567,000. My tongue’s insured too, definitely, so I can’t drink anything hot or cold or eat spicy, which sucks but it’s the job. My tongue and hands are my weapons.
I have to exercise my fingers like a rock climber, play fast glissandos on a piano and take special treatments to make them super-sensitive to touch. Hell, I can speed-read Braille. My fingertips can read someone’s rising skin temperature. That’s why I wear gloves. That’s why management insures my hands for half a million. I have to do tongue exercises to increase my tongue’s sensitivity and strength and length. I can stick my tongue a third of the way down a beer-bottle neck. Or a pussy. I can write my stage name with my tongue on a paper the size of a coin so perfect you can read it – Mack Daddy. That’s how fucking good I am. Just so you know. I can pick up and read the pounding of an opponent’s heartbeat pretty much anywhere on their body so you know when they’re almost ready to pop and then keep them stuck tight on that knife edge of unbearable pleasure until they’ve got to come so bad they can’t stand it and they’ll do anything for you. Then you’ve got them. You can’t count on reading their irises’ dilation, because most people try to close their eyes when they’re on the edge of orgasm and they’re scared and they’re fighting it. They don’t know being scared just makes them want to come sooner and harder. I never let myself get scared because then you lose your grip on your nerves, and it’s a game of playing your opponent’s nerves. Never let the other guy get a hold of your nerves.
You read their breathing, because they can’t hide their breathing. You read the stuff an opponent in the ring can’t fake. You read the contractions along a female fighter’s vaginal walls. You don’t read that by putting your finger inside like amateurs think, no, because a trained female fighter can fake that. You learn how to feel it off the tiny jitter on the outside one-eighth inch of their interior labials. The jitter never lies. Most people don’t know that. I know vaginas better than a gynaecologist. I have to.
The old prize fighters would bust your nose or your ribs. A punch to the kidney that would make you piss blood for a couple days. We sex fighters, we bust your will to live. We take away your will to be free. People look naked to us. We see inside your mind. You just think you know what you want, bitch. I know what you really want, because that’s how I get you. That’s how I take you down. I look at you bitch – I know what you want way better than you do. I know it even before you know it. That’s because I see you. I see you like God sees you.
What I do takes as much training as an Olympic Karate champ. Most people don’t know this either, but when you’re talking to someone, most of what you’re saying is subliminal, without words. In one minute, think about it, in one minute you send 3,000 signals to the person you’re talking to, 3,000 non-verbal fucking signals. Think about that, that’s really amazing shit. You don’t even know what they are. But the real part of you that lives behind your brain, the part of you that dreams at night, that part knows. The difference between you and me – I know I’m reading you. Fuck, I know your signals before you do. I look at you, and ignore your words and read your face, the way you blink, the way you stand, what makes your voice shake, and I’ve got you nailed, taco belle, I got your carbon cunt print, I got your pussy nailed to my bedpost. I’ll be stuffin’ your muffin’ ten minutes after you tell me your name and you won’t even know why you’re doing it, and before you get your little pink panties off, I already know just how to screw your motherfucking brains out. I know where your buttons are going to be and in what order to push them. I know what your secret kink is going to be. It ain’t bragging if it’s true, and this is true shit I’m telling you. That’s all it is.
You have to feel what the opponent feels every second, even though they try to hide their feelings, fake out your ass, trick you. It’s the art of the soul fuck. It’s fucking voo-doo. At least till someone imprints you and puts you out of business for a while, or maybe for good. Or into rehab. Imprintation varies a
lot. Sometimes it’s a habit you have to shake off, like having a crush. Sometimes it can be pretty bad. In the fighting ring, I’ve imprinted twenty-five women, fifteen of them before I became SFCC Federation Champion, and also seven men. Never been beat. Ten of those women became stalkers because they couldn’t break the addiction to me, after what I done to them in the ring, and had to be locked up. Three of them self-snuffed, last time I checked. This game is high mortality shit. Just so you know. That’s how fucking good I am. That’s right.
My sparring partner, Gerry, she’s about used up. Her eyes these days, they’re like bomb craters. She doesn’t shoot, doesn’t snort, doesn’t smoke, but she’s a drop-down fuck junkie. I’m her dealer and I’m her bong. That’s what being imprinted means. I imprinted her ass. Twice at the same time. Bang. Bang.
She’d do anything for me. She wouldn’t be able to stop herself. She’d gouge her eyeballs out with a spoon if I asked her to. I never sleep with her. The one time I passed out in her bed, she tried to kill me in my sleep with a lamp cord, to get herself free of me. Crazy ass bitch. And she’ll never forgive what I did to her. She’s right. Hell, I’d kill me too.
Her eyes are like streetlights from all I’ve put her through. They switch from something that you wouldn’t call love exactly, but something like idolatry, or addiction. Sick love. And then hate. The hate is clean. The hate part I get. Her eyes look at me, and they just go from stop to go and back to stop. She’s in a special private hell, I know, I know, I understand that part too. She didn’t do anything to deserve it, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and got herself soul-fucked out of her damn skull by a true expert. She keeps breaking down, and the next time she tries to throw herself out a window I might just let her. I can replace her – like that. I made her like she is. Got her down, and sweetly twisted her nerves just the right way with my hands and tongue, until her whole somatosensory nervous system overheated past the edge human beings were ever made for and dropped into the void of the High Pleasure. I kept her that way, screaming my name until she was screaming for help and then begging me to finish her, let her orgasm, because I always hold out until they beg. I fucking love it when they beg.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 11 Page 41
