Then suddenly the whip lashed out again, this time stroking across the upcurved shape of her small pointed breasts. She gasped – not in shock, but surprise.
“Eyes on my face, slave!” Master Peter hissed.
Tink’s eyes came back up reluctantly.
“Do you know why you are being punished?”
“Yes,” Tink said, and suddenly she pretended to make her tone shameful. “Because I spilled some of your seed.”
Earlier in the day Peter had ordered her to her knees and thrust himself between her open lips until he had groaned and filled her mouth with the white-hot force of his release. Deliberately, Tink had allowed a little to spill from the corner of her mouth so that it trickled down her chin. She had made sure Peter noticed her error.
Now, as punishment, she was to receive the flogger – and secretly Tink was delighted. “I’m sorry, Master Peter,” she lied, and then had to look away quickly before he noticed the aroused glitter in her eyes. “It won’t happen again.”
Until the next time I am aching to be punished.
Master Peter led her to a sinister structure that stood in the middle of the floor. It was a flogging triangle; three ceiling-high timber beams bolted together. From where the beams joined hung silken ropes dangling from the top of the tripod.
Tink masked her excitement with an expression of nervousness. Peter gazed at her impassively. He tied her hands together high above her head with the silken ropes, and then used the handle of the flogger to part her legs until they were spread wide, her feet flat on the cold floor. She peered over her shoulder at him, with her curly blonde hair tumbling down across the smooth pale skin of her shoulders. “What are you going to do to me?” she asked, secretly delighted with the way she was able to make her voice sound tremulous. “Please don’t punish me. I’ll be good from now on. I promise!”
Master Peter smiled; a slow menacing expression as he paced around the triangle, studying her slim body in the candlelight. She was the most perfect woman he had ever seen. Not only was she remarkably beautiful, but she had the slim body of an athlete, finely toned legs and thighs, and sweetly shaped breasts that were firm and elastic to his touch. He circled her leisurely, stopping to rub his hand over the rounded swell of her bottom until she thrust her hips back to meet his fingers.
She was nineteen years old, and the perfect blend of angelic innocence and wickedly sensual sexiness.
“You have been sentenced to six lashes of the flogger for failing to please your Master,” Peter said. His voice was suddenly stern and harsh. With theatrical slowness he flicked the tails of the flogger loose so that they splayed out from the butt of the whip. Tink whimpered with suitable alarm, and then made a half-hearted effort to break free of her bonds.
But not too great an effort.
She knew the restraints were not tied tightly, and she didn’t actually want to escape. She just wanted it to look like she was struggling enough to appear convincing.
Then suddenly she didn’t need to act any more. Peter swished the flogger, and the tails of leather slapped hard enough against her thigh to get her attention.
“This is your punishment for being disobedient,” Peter reminded her. “You are my sexy whore, and I expect you to serve me with dedication and devotion.”
“Yes, Master,” Tink nodded.
He slashed the whip through the air. It made a soft cracking sound as it hissed against one of the sturdy timber legs of the tripod.
“Count!” Peter ordered.
The first stroke fell against her breasts, leaving a dull red flush on her chest. The soft leather was like a nip on the silky skin of her breast, hardening her nipples instantly. Tink moaned softly and then breathed, “One.”
Master Peter circled behind her. Tink felt her body tense in delicious anticipation. Then the whip’s long strands were flailing against the firm cheek of her bottom, sending tingling jolts straight between her parted legs. Tink felt a warm rush of molten arousal dampen the bunched fabric between her panties. Her legs trembled, and she felt the pull of the silken ropes against her wrists as her legs threatened to fold beneath her. She was so aroused! The need at the core of her was a maddening ache, desperate to be touched. She clenched the muscles within her body, but it only seemed to heighten her frustration further.
“Two,” Tink said softly.
The rest of the lashes went between her parted thighs, each one flicked across her throbbing nub so that the cloth of her panties muffled the sensations, deepening Tink’s exasperation. Now there was pain, but it was the cramping ache of desire that had been teased and not released. She didn’t think she could take much more. She wanted to scream out at the top of her voice, “Please! Take me!” but she knew better than to risk it. If Master Peter knew how badly she wanted him, he could deprive her completely and leave her frustrated for days as further punishment. So she bit down hard on her lip and groaned aloud until at last Peter threw the whip down on the floor and stepped close behind her suspended body.
Tink heard the sound of his zipper being slowly lowered. Her legs were weak and shaking. There was a fine sheen of sweat across her back, making the flawlessly smooth skin glisten. Then she felt her Master ripping at the thin lace of her panties. The cloth fell away, and cool night air soothed the burning heat of her sex.
Tink closed her eyes and prayed relief would come soon.
She felt Master Peter’s hands on her bottom, easing her legs further apart, and then two of his fingers thrust suddenly inside her. She was so wet that they filled her easily, slipping deep inside so that her body clamped with instinctive desperation around them.
The sensation lasted just a few moments, and then his fingers slid from within her. She groaned again, this time louder. Master Peter reached around her body and held his glistening fingers up to her open mouth. Tink sucked hungrily, and at that very moment of her distraction, Master Peter thrust his erect hardness between the flaring wet folds of her aching sex.
Tink cried out around his fingers, a shout of sheer joy and relief as she felt the long thick length of him slide all the way up inside her. She tried to keep her balance, but his hips were thrusting, so that she hung suspended, unable to do anything other than accept each heavy plunge and pray that he would give her the release she craved. She screwed her eyes tightly shut, and in the darkness her mind filled suddenly with an explosion of erotic fantasies, priming her excitement, and drawing her closer to the edge of an orgasm.
Master Peter reached down to her breasts, squeezing the nipples between his strong fingers as he continued to take her from behind. He felt each impaling push of his hips send ripples and shudders through her body like quaking tremors. He grunted. His skin was on fire. He could feel sweat running down his back. He felt the hardness of himself swelling in size.
Peter felt Tink’s body begin to undulate, and he grabbed at her hips, clamping his fingers into the firm flesh to restrain her. She was standing on tiptoes, beginning to writhe in orgasm, and he felt the muscles deep within her body seize tight around his shaft. The grip was fierce and firm, seeming to draw him deeper into her, until suddenly he too was hurled over the edge of release.
They orgasmed together, a riot of strangled cries of pleasure and desperate gasps for breath. Tink’s release crushed every ounce of energy from her body, leaving her hanging weak and ragged against the silken bonds. Peter restrained her, holding himself rigid inside her until the last shudders of his own explosion had finally subsided. They were like survivors of some shocking disaster, wrung out and exhausted, swept away to the dark places of their minds with only each other to cling to until the joy finally faded and slowly their senses returned.
It was a long time before Peter and Tink emerged from the Pleasure Room. Tink’s eyes sparkled and there was a contented, weary grin on her face. She was naked, and Peter sent her to shower.
On the way to the bathroom she noticed a red light on the answering machine. She thumbed the button and listened.
The blood beg
an to drain away from her face.
Tink felt a black veil flicker across her eyes. She swayed on her feet for a moment and then her vision cleared as the recorded words echoed in her ears. She felt an ice-cold hand clutch at her heart. She screamed out to Peter, and then threw her hands up to her mouth and began to cry.
Eleven.
Stefan paused in the hospital driveway, revving the engine of the car, staring at the road before him. To the left was an empty home and desolate loneliness. To the right was….
…was escape.
He felt the rage come back upon him, mingled with a sense of his own reckless loathing – and guilt. He was angry, but there was no one to hate – and Stefan didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to deal with the emotions. Without some way to react, someone to fight against or something to do, he was drowning in emotional depths he had never learned to master.
He couldn’t face an empty house. He couldn’t deal with the loss and the grief.
He crunched the car into gear, spun the wheel hard and stomped heavily on the accelerator.
The car leaped forward in a billowing cloud of blue smoke and raced away into the night.
Twelve.
It was over an hour’s drive from their farm outside Drakesburg to the hospital, and Peter drove with grim determination. Tink sat silent and pale in the passenger seat. She saw the turnoff to Stefan and Renee’s estate flash by, and then Peter was wrestling with the car as he set the vehicle into the tight twisting bends that wound down towards Bishop’s Bridge.
They arrived at the hospital late; visiting hours for the evening were ending. Peter drew doctor Raynor aside and spoke to the man earnestly and quietly for several minutes and then came back, reaching for Tink’s tiny hand.
“We’ve got thirty minutes before they kick us out,” he said. “I told the doctor you were Renee’s sister.”
Renee was sitting up in the bed when Peter and Tink entered room 103.
Tink felt her breath jam in her throat. Renee’s face was darkly bruised and swollen. Her skin was pale, her hair a tangle against the crisp white hospital pillow. Her eyes looked empty and vacant. Tink’s smile trembled on her lips. She dashed to the bed and threw herself across the mattress, taking Renee in a careful, emotional embrace.
“Thank God you’re safe,” Tink whispered, and then saw a shadow of awareness come into Renee’s eyes. They stared at each other, and then Tink saw the grief come to the surface, and she let her own show. The tears began, and Renee’s shoulders shook silently. Tink opened her arms to her, and Renee leaned into them so that Tink held her to her chest. Neither of them spoke for a long time until Renee’s sobs became muted and soft.
Peter came silently and slowly to the bed. Renee saw him through teary eyes and she made a little mewling sound in her throat and then tried to dab at the tears that glistened on her cheeks. She tried to smile, but the swelling of her face made her wince instead. She began to shake, wildly and uncontrollably, and then she screwed her eyes tightly shut. Peter reached for her hand and held it in his own. She felt light and frail as a child.
They clung to each other, Peter, Tink and Renee until Renee was finally able to control her tears and trembles.
“Stefan?” she asked softly.
Tink shook her head, and a deep furrow of concern creased her brow. “I don’t know where he is.”
Renee stared blankly for a moment.
“He left a message on my answering machine,” Peter explained softly. “He told us what happened, asked us to come as quickly as possible… and then asked us to take care of Jeffrey.”
“He’s not with you?” Renee looked confused. Everything felt vague and blurred. She pursed her lips, forced herself to concentrate through the fog of the drugs and her despair.
Tink shook her head slowly. “Renee, we don’t know where he is. Peter called your house from his cell phone on the way here. There was no answer. And we’ve called his cell. He’s not answering.”
Renee’s eyes grew slowly wider. She felt a wave of alarm and fear wash over her. She moved in the bed carefully, grimacing as a sharp pain stabbed at her shoulder.
“He was devastated,” Renee said softly.
Tink wiped at the tears in her eyes. “We all are, Renee. But the main thing is that you’re going to be okay.”
Renee shook her head slowly. She licked at her dry cracked lips. “But Stefan… I don’t know what he will do,” she whispered, and the fear within her rose. “He doesn’t know how to deal with these kind of feelings. His first wife…. He never…. got over the way…”
Peter clutched Renee’s hand reassuringly tighter, and smiled into her face. “Don’t worry about Stefan,” he said softly. “You just worry about yourself. When we leave here I’ll call him again – and I’ll keep calling him until he answers. He’ll be all right, Renee. Just focus on yourself, and getting better.”
Renee nodded and tried to smile again. But this time it was fear and a new dread that stopped the expression reaching her lips.
Stefan had disappeared – and she suddenly felt very alone and very frightened.
Thirteen.
Stefan drove through the night, haunted by the ghosts of his past, shaking with frustration and impotent rage – seeming to die inside as the emotions ravaged and tore at his soul and his conscience.
He thought about Renee, and he was overcome by the sense of his betrayal. He should have stayed with her. He should have been the rock she would need. He should have been the hero she could rely on. But instead he was fleeing – and in the torment of his thoughts he tried to rationalize.
He needed space. He needed time to come to terms with the devastation that threatened to shatter him. He needed to channel the rage and anger into something he could fight against. He needed answers – or at least to understand.
Without them, he was no help to Renee. Without understanding and clarity, he would self-destruct.
But as he drove deeper into the night, it was his guilty betrayal that hung like an executioner’s blade over his head.
It was only when a soft blinking light on the car’s dashboard caught his attention that Stefan suddenly clawed himself from out of his tormented haze, and blinked with surprise.
He was low on fuel. He cast his eyes ahead. Through the windscreen in the distance he could see a small cluster of lights. He drove on until a sign appeared in the night.
‘Welcome to Mears. Population 1465.’
Stefan eased his foot off the accelerator. There was neon ‘Motel’ sign by the roadside. He pulled into the driveway and climbed stiffly out of the car.
There were lights glowing in the reception area. He stepped through the glass door. On one wall was a wire rack stuffed with daily newspapers and postcards. There were framed prints on the other walls. Stefan paid them no attention. He glanced at a woman sitting behind a high timber counter.
She had a friendly smiling face, glowing with a natural cheery happiness that Stefan envied. She had strawberry-blonde hair that framed her face in soft golden waves. She was reading a book on a kindle device. The woman looked up at Stefan and he noticed a nametag pinned to her blouse.
‘Barb Johnson’.
Stefan tried to return the woman’s smile but it slipped off his face. “Do you have a room for the night?”
Barb Johnson narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. This was her family’s motel, run by her and her husband. Over the years she had seen plenty of travellers – but none quite like this man. Often, late-night guests were young couples looking for a place where they could sneak a night of passion together, or gaudily dressed hookers on the arm of middle-aged businessmen. But the man standing before her didn’t fit into any of those boxes.
He was tall, and ruggedly handsome – and yet his face was etched with deep lines of fatigue. He was tanned, and yet the color of his face seemed grey and ashen. He carried himself with a natural athletic gait, and yet his posture as he leaned on the counter was heavy and fatigued. He looked like a
wealthy man, but the clothes he wore were paint-spattered and dirty.
Barb frowned, curious and puzzled. “Sure,” she said softly. “Just for one night?”
Stefan nodded.
Barb opened a leather-bound register on the counter and handed Stefan a pen. “Just your usual details and your vehicle registration,” she said.
Stefan wrote quickly. He felt himself swaying as he stood. He took a deep breath and held the air in his lungs until he felt steadier. Then he dropped the pen on the counter and held his hand out for the key.
“Room 103,” Barb Johnson said.
Stefan flinched. He looked at the woman. He felt his heart begin to thump in the cage of his chest like a war drum. “Please,” he said, his voice sounding pained, “Can I have a different room?”
Barb Johnson frowned quizzically, but then smiled. “Sure.” She handed Stefan a key to another room. He turned to go, but then stopped suddenly.
“Is there a bar somewhere nearby? A place I can get a drink?”
Barb nodded guardedly. “Of course,” she said. “But it depends. Are you drinking to celebrate … or drinking to forget?”
Stefan’s eyes began to mist. “To forget,” he said quickly.
Barb handed him a business card. “Marty’s Bar is down the road about a mile.”
Stefan took the card and stuffed it into his jeans pocket.
He wanted a drink.
He needed to forget.
Fourteen.
There was a small suitcase in the trunk, packed with a spare shirt, trousers, shoes and toiletries. It was a case Stefan kept in the car when called away on business trips. The shirt was rumpled, the trousers creased. Stefan shrugged as he changed. It was better than jeans and sweatshirt.
Marty’s Bar was made gloomy by soft lighting and cigarette smoke. A long counter ran the length of the far wall, behind which were glass shelves stocked with bottles of spirits. All the tables and chairs were made of simple dark timber, like the furniture in a saloon from the old west. In one corner was a jukebox. The crowd was a mix of sullen serious drinkers and a raucous group of women celebrating a birthday. Stefan found an empty table in a quiet corner.
Her Master's Kiss Page 27
