So that was what he meant by most of the time. He certainly wasn’t wasting any time, and his tone didn’t imply she could argue with him. She took the bill and walked toward the bar, passing another naked woman carrying drinks on the way. The other woman wore heels at least five inches high, and she was tottering in them. Zoe was glad Nick had let her go barefoot, because she’d feel far more self-conscious in shoes like those.
She bought herself an overpriced soda and carried the two drinks and his change back to the table. The collar had worked quite nicely to warn people off. She’d been aware of a few stares, but no one approached her. She set down the drinks on the table, along with a violet five-dollar note and a couple two-dollar coins.
“Drinks cost a lot here.”
“The profits on Sunday go to benefit an organization that works for sexual freedom in Australia, so I don’t worry about that. Thank you, you did that well. I know you weren’t eager for a stroll. Have a seat, Zoe.” He tapped a chair with his foot.
“Yes Sir.” She sat down, barely suppressing a yelp at the feel of the cold metal on her naked back and bottom.
“The chair will get warmer.”
She started to make a face and then thought better of it. He knew the chair was cold, and had me sit in it anyway. Sadist. “I could get a cushion. Stu never let me use the furniture at clubs and parties.” She crossed her arms in front of her breasts, aware of his gaze on her.
“You know better, Zoe. If I wanted you covered, I’d have let you wear clothes.”
She gulped, uncrossed her arms and grabbed her soda, her grip a bit tighter than it needed to be.
“I’m not Stu. For which I think we can both be grateful.” He leaned back. “I thought I’d tell you what I have in mind, and we’ll have our drinks. When we’re done drinking and talking, you’ll go get a cushion.” He nodded over to where a handful of hucksters had tables set up to sell their wares. “Garvin over there sells floggers, very good ones, actually. We’re going to go over there and test them, and see what will work best for a scene between the two of us. As I promised, there will be no restraints involved, and the flogger will be light enough that we don’t have to worry about bruises.”
“Test them how?”
“On your back, of course.”
“Right there? Where people are shopping?”
“Right there. Where people are shopping. If I thought you needed options, darlin’, I’d give them to you, but I don’t think that’s what you want. Or what you need.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
He looked very serious. “Then I suspect you’ll get up, fetch your clothes and walk out. I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t certain. The question is whether you have the courage to get what you crave. Only you know the answer to that, but my bet is on yes.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that, so she didn’t. He was right, and yet how could she still want Domination so much after seeing how things had gone with Stu?
Ten minutes later, in spite of her doubt, she was holding his hand while he looked at floggers. He took his time, and she was very conscious of her nakedness, but eventually he narrowed his choices down to two. One had thinner tails, but more of them. She remembered from her limited experience that the thinner the tails, the more a flogger hurt.
“Mind if I try them out, Garvin?” he asked.
Garvin, a tall, beefy blond, shook his head. “Have at ’er. I see you found yourself a nice target. What’s your name, sub?”
She looked at Nick and he nodded for her to answer. “Zoe,” she said. “You must be Master Garvin.”
“I must be.” Garvin chuckled. “Thank you for advertising my products.”
“Uh, sure.”
“Stand up straight, Zoe, and face the table. Hands behind on your head, that’s a good girl.”
Facing the table meant facing Garvin, and she wasn’t at all sure she liked that. But it also meant facing away from most of the club, so that was good. Garvin sat down and gave her another look over, long and slow, the kind of look that told her that if Nick ever set her free she’d have other options. It was annoying, but flattering too. He could see all her scars and blemishes, and yet he wasn’t turned-off.
If men imagined what clothed women would look like naked, maybe they also mentally Photoshopped naked ones. She wasn’t getting the disgusted reactions she’d expected. Then again, maybe it marked her as an edge player, and that was somehow attractive to Garvin. She hoped not. She didn’t want anyone to think she’d wanted those marks on her body.
“Would you mind giving me a little room?” Nick asked an older man who was standing close. The man took one look at what was going on and nodded. People were forming a half circle around them, giving Nick room for a backswing.
“Stop moving your head, darlin’. You don’t need to see this time. Just feel.”
She faced front, where she’d been told. Now she couldn’t see what was going on at all. She could hear the sound of the flogger passing through the air. She’d seen Doms do that before, getting the feel for their instrument before they used it on a sub’s back, so she could visualize what was going on behind her. She felt a slight, cool breeze on her back as the leather fanned the air. She relaxed. He knew what he was doing, and he was being cautious. She’d taken much worse.
Still, she was startled when the flogger finally smacked on her back. It took her a moment to process that it wasn’t pain, just surprise. The second blow was easier to take, even though it wasn’t any lighter. He was definitely pulling his strokes though, because the weight of the flogger alone, with his full strength behind it, was probably enough to make her lose her balance. She wasn’t worried about falling. She wanted to do him proud. The last thing she wanted was to embarrass him in public. She wouldn’t even mind if he swung a little harder, or a lot harder, as long as she didn’t embarrass him.
After a dozen or so strokes, he stopped. He set the flogger down on the table. To her surprise, it was the thinner-tailed one, each tail a half-inch across. Yet it didn’t feel bad at all. Part of that was his strokes, but she could feel the weight of them, especially the last ones.
She pushed aside the conundrum of the flogger to try to sort out her own feelings. Why do I feel so strongly about not letting him down? We’re just passing ships, really. No future, no past. All about the moment. And yet I don’t just want him to do kinky bad things to me. I want to serve him. He sure deserves it more than Stu ever did.
“Now the other,” he said. Again, she listened to a few strokes through the air. She wanted to be present and focused, to let him know which one she liked better. But instead she was getting aroused. Her nipples were stiffening and tingling even in the warm air of the club. She realized, suddenly, that she was proud to be seen with this strong man. As messed up as she was, she could still get a hunky guy, even if only for a moment.
She didn’t think he’d take too kindly to being called a trophy man though. And she wanted to be careful not to get carried away. She had been proud of how deep she’d been able to go with Stu too, of how total her devotion was. It hadn’t led her to a good place. But she couldn’t help the physical reaction. It was her.
The leather tails whacked her, feeling sharper than the narrow strips of the first one despite their width. It was still gentle compared to a cane or a riding crop even, but it gave her the sting she’d expected from the first. She leaned back into it, conscious of how stretching her shoulders pulled at her chest. She didn’t look at Garvin, even though he was in front of her. He was just occupying the space where she was gazing. It was the man behind her for whom she was trying to look perfect.
Nick put the other flogger on the table and picked up the one with lots of narrower tails again. “I’ll take this one.”
“Don’t you want my— Sorry, Sir.” The fact was, it was as well she didn’t ask, because she’d not been focused on which one she preferred. One was more thud, one was more sting, even if it hadn’t been the one she’d expe
cted doing the stinging. He looked at her, not angry but clearly surprised.
“I saw your feedback, Zoe.”
“Yes Sir.” At least one of us was paying attention. She didn’t know what to do, to show him that despite her runaway mouth she really did trust him to make the selection. Either would have been fine, and it was his money, after all.
There is one way. She knelt on the hardwood floor and looked down. She knew of no better way to show her intent to submit. It might have felt better with a cushion, but she’d endured worse.
“Look up, Zoe. I don’t want to see how humble you are. I want to see your face so I can read you and know what you’re thinking. Have the courage to show it to me.”
She looked up into his gaze, and the warmth there eased her heart. She’d never thought of it that way, that looking up at her Dom might be a way of showing submission too. She wondered what he could read there, and if he could read how strong she felt right then. She knew it couldn’t last. A woman didn’t fall in love with a man she could know for only a few days. But he was perfect. A gentleman, and a pushy Dom when he wanted to be. A tear formed in her eye. Just for a few days. It was so unfair. But she knew he was helping her find the courage to look for someone else someday, and that was a good thing. Even if she didn’t want anyone else.
She didn’t know how much of that he managed to read from her face, but he turned away to hand Garvin some money to complete the transaction. Then he knelt down, whip handle in one hand, and scooped her up, the flogger trapped between his hand and her butt. “Time to find a better place to play, darlin’. I’ve got a St. Andrew’s reserved in ten minutes.”
She was startled by the ease with which he picked her up, but she didn’t mind that. But one of the large X-frames was another matter. “You promised me you wouldn’t tie me to anything.” She was panicking half because he might do it, and the other half because she was almost willing to let him. Bad things happened once she was tied up. Very bad things.
“No restraints, no ropes, no knots,” he agreed smoothly. “Just something solid to lean against and hold on to.”
She let out the breath she was holding and snuggled against his chest. “I think I already have something solid to lean against and hold on to.”
He grinned at her. “Yeah, but it’s darn awkward if you use me for that while I’m flogging you.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ve got five minutes until I have the cross reserved. Go hit the ladies’ room and I’ll set up.”
“But I don’t have to go.” Besides, there was something decidedly awkward about walking into a public restroom with her clothes already off.
“But you will, and I don’t want that happening during our scene.” He pointed the cross out. “Meet me over there.”
She scrunched up her nose at him but she knew he was right. “Yes Sir.” He’d had a drink too, and he wasn’t headed to the restroom. Or maybe he was, confident he could make it in and out before her. He was probably right. Men.
How did he have the cross reserved, anyway? He hadn’t been out of her sight, except when she was walking to get drinks. Which meant he’d planned the whole thing ahead of time, possibly before she’d even agreed to go. Apparently he knew she’d say yes before she did. She allowed herself a smile.
When she got out, he was there at the St. Andrew’s Cross, looking perfectly comfortable. It was nicer than the ones at the club in Dallas, made of stained cherry wood instead of painted black, and with a feature she’d never seen before. The front of it was actually upholstered in leather, with a bit of cushioning. Sometimes spanking benches had a bit of padding, but X-frames were usually bare wood. She walked over. A question gnawed at her. He had an idea of her history. Why did he want to beat her with anything, even a fairly lightweight flogger?
“Sir, permission to ask a question?”
He smiled. “Sure, darlin’. Fire away.”
“Why do you want to do this to me?”
“All sorts of reasons. It’s a power trip, for sure. I’d love to tell you to take it for me as a form of service, but the truth is this time it goes way beyond that. It involves facing what you’re scared of, and remembering what it is you liked about it in the first place. And letting yourself feel the endorphin rush that comes from stressing your body. BDSM can be intense without being hurtful. You know that in your mind.” He tapped her chest, to the left of center. “Now you need to know it here.”
“Thank you, Sir.” She let a breath out she’d been holding. She had enjoyed floggings, once. When she had trusted that they wouldn’t go too far. “Where do you want me, Sir?”
He took her waist and positioned her. He wrapped her arms around the cross as if she was hugging it. He spread apart her legs until they were a match for the cushioned lines of the X. Something solid to hold on to, indeed. She gave a push with her legs and the cross didn’t move anywhere. She heard him chuckle behind her.
“Solid enough?”
“Yes Sir.” She braced for a blow, remembering what it felt like. “Why does that one sting less than the other one, even though the tails are thinner? Were you swinging it differently?”
“Because there are so many of them, they get in each other’s way. I think they compress the air in front of the flogger too, giving it more wind resistance. Fewer tails, and they’d go faster and sting more. Don’t take my word for it though, darlin’, I’m not a physicist. I know that it’s true, that if you put a lot more tails on a flogger it gets thuddier.” Again a chuckle. “You’re full of questions.”
Even though she could hear the amusement in his voice, she took the last comment as a rebuke. She didn’t want to fail him, but she was probably going to anyway. At least the fact that she had only a little while meant that she could fail him only so many times. “Sorry, Sir.”
“No worries, Zoe. Just an observation. Do you have any more?”
“Is it really okay?”
He kissed her back, right between the shoulder blades. “Yes, it’s really okay.”
“How long are you going to beat me with the flogger?”
“As long as it takes.”
Oh, that’s clear. “And are you going to hit me harder than you did when we were testing?”
“Probably.”
The answer should have bothered her, but it didn’t. He thought she could take it, and if he thought that, then she probably could. She wanted to surrender everything to his judgment, let him do whatever he wanted to her.
No. Her hands clenched tight.
He tapped her tense shoulders with his hand. “Easy, darlin’. I’ll start out nice and soft.”
“Just the flogger, right?”
“Just the flogger. I don’t have any other toys with me, because I didn’t want to cart them around the zoo.”
She nodded. “Okay. I can do this.” She pressed her weight up against the X-frame. It was designed to accommodate even the biggest subs, and her boobs protruded through the upper crotch of the X. The rest of the thing towered above her, but with her arms wrapped around it she had enough of her torso at the center point to hold her steady.
The first blow was just a pat. The leather was soft against her skin as he dragged it slowly away. It felt like a hundred fingers feathering across her back. He laid a few more on, same as the first. It was enough to warm her skin, but it definitely wasn’t pain. A loofah would hurt more.
She heard him take a step back, and the tails came up to strike her bottom, once on each cheek, as if to remind her that he might target her there as well. He put a little more sting in it, but they were still light, little pinpricks of sensation from the tips of the tails that quickly faded.
The next dozen were heavier, increasing in intensity, making her hug the frame tighter. Still, nothing she couldn’t handle. She closed her eyes, blotting out the scenes of people playing beyond her. She didn’t care about them. Just her and Nick.
Then he landed a blow that jolted her. It would have caused her to lose her balance if she hadn’t had somet
hing to hold on to. That hurt. But it faded before she had a chance to turn around angrily, and she kept her place, feeling the warmth. She tensed for the next heavy one, and it didn’t come. Instead, he went back to the lighter strokes and she relaxed, only to receive a heavier one.
“Don’t brace for them, darlin’, it’ll only make it harder. Scrunching all your muscles up doesn’t help you.”
She knew he was right. She tried to relax. When the next hard one came, she didn’t tense up. Soon it was almost all hard ones. He landed them on both sides of her back, and both cheeks of her ass. The few light ones wrapped around the posts to strike her breasts, or between her legs to tickle her rapidly moistening pussy. Her nipples turned into hard nubs, extra sensitive to each sting of the flogger. Yet somehow it all only relaxed her more. Something inside her let go. She floated on a natural high, the hardest strokes no longer painful. She found herself trusting him completely, and this time she didn’t recoil from that thought in fear. She’d stopped analyzing it. It simply was. Each stroke, even those that landed on her back, sent a charge that mixed with the sensations from everywhere else deep in her core.
Her pleasure built on itself, but it couldn’t quite cross over into ecstasy. Her release was hauntingly close, and her euphoria stopped her from achieving it. The sensations had become too soft, even though she could hear him grunt with each blow and knew he was putting his back into it. “More.” She didn’t yell it, she didn’t have the strength, but he heard even her soft voice.
He moved closer to her, his body up against her left side, and she felt the stinging slap of his hand on her bottom. First on one side, then on the other, then, softer, in the middle. He thrust his fingers into her wet and waiting pussy, which grasped them eagerly in an instinctive convulsion. He pulled them almost out, and then drove them in again, the palm of his hand striking hard against her already sensitive behind.
She wiggled down, thrusting her backside out for him, urging him on. He slid his other hand along her waist and dipped down until it touched her clit, and a few rubs and thrusts later her body convulsed of its own accord. She moaned, undulating against him, fucking his fingers while her pussy squeezed and released them, her vision filled with white light despite her closed eyelids. “Oh my god, Sir.” She rocked against him, loving the feel of his fingers totally inside her. The only thing better would be his cock.
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