Story of L

by Debra Hyde

  He freed her from the chain, led her from the room and into a wide hallway. From the white walls to the tiled floors, everything was painted or tiled a sterile white. Cells like her own lined both sides of the hallway, most open, one with its door closed—seven in total, L realized. At the end of the hallway, Reese led her into a large dormlike bathroom.

  “Thirty minutes,” he told her. “Then breakfast.”

  Thirty minutes? She didn't need that long for her hygiene and almost looked Reese in the face to tell him so, but threw her gaze to one side and narrowly averted a mishap.

  “I don't need that long, Reese.”

  “Yes,” he replied, turning to leave. “You do.”

  She found a basket of toiletries with her initial sticky-noted to it. Then saw Cassandra’ handwriting, terse and direct.

  Shave. Thoroughly. I want a naked cunt.

  Cunt. The word ignited her. Its thrill an arrow to a bull's-eye, her cunt shot alive with an ache—an ache so sudden that L yearned for someone to grab her between legs and propel her into shuddering relief.

  The void? A swell of anxiety gripped her, not arousal. No, not the void, but something far less complex but almost as demanding. Lust. Plain old lust. Thankful for it, L stepped into the shower stall, razor in hand and the caddy of goods at her feet. She turned on the water and washed all worry away.

  Chapter Nine: Cassandra, At Last

  Groomed, fed, L followed Reese, leash-bound. Her ache of arousal had swelled again at the sight of the leash and throbbed at the sound of its clip at her collar's O-ring, but for good reason.

  Cassandra. I'll see her!

  Around her, the magnificence she suspected upon her blindfolded arrival proved accurate. The house was a mansion, an exquisite expanse of marble floors, indoor pillars, and wrought-iron staircases. L glanced at an arched window and, spying water beyond its frame, murmured surprise.

  Reese chuckled. “Amazing, isn't it? Too bad it's autumn. Nothing like a breeze from the sound on your naked skin!”

  L smiled back but kept her eyes elsewhere. Walking, she padded barefoot through this luxury and glimpsed countless superb interior details. Yet no matter the wonders that surrounded her, her own nakedness remained profound. Not her body—somehow, she had always been comfortable with her nudity—but in her newly denuded flesh. Every step was rife with new sensation—the swish of thigh against labia, of air sweeping across never before bared skin, of moisture exposed. Composed, L absorbed these new sensations in quiet grace. Like a devotee before a great god's splendor, she found ecstasy not in boisterous beseeching or in prideful approach, but in silent and unassuming submersion.

  Then, a turn, abrupt and without warning. A tug of the leash. A step forward, across a threshold. A glimpse—and sudden panic!

  That curvaceous body, seated in throne-like fashion. That hair, full like a mane, falling in cascades. Those legs, one crossed over the other. That posture, strong and capable, ready to rise and seize power in an instant.

  And taboo to her eyes.

  Trembling, L shoved her gaze to the floor, glued it to the rich loom of an oriental carpet that stretched across the room. However brief the transgression, L prayed that Cassandra had not seen her error.

  The leash tugged again and led L further into this domain. She passed occasional chairs and tables, a sofa, the spindled legs of a stand that suggested a massive globe. Light streamed from stories-high windows and the smell of leather filled the room. But in her fleeting glimpse, L saw where the scent originated and it was not in the accouterments of sadomasochism, but in something just as grand: old books. A veritable repository of them.

  Reese brought L to Cassandra, dropped the leash and stepped out of the way. Attentive and unwilling to break the rules, L stared at one of Cassandra's feet. Raised in crossed-legged comfort, clad in a richly hued, patented-leather blue, its open toe revealed just a hint of Cassandra. L memorized its peekaboo of toe, the curve of its arch, the shape of its strap, its sole, heel, anything to keep her gaze from wandering.

  L felt Cassandra's gaze upon her, taking stock. Her skin prickled like it would when sun emerged fully bright from behind a passing cloud. Sol. She thought of the lace wheel under her pillow.

  Her idyll, however, evaporated at Cassandra's first words.

  “Spread your legs.”

  L gulped. In all her experiences, she had never been held up for inspection before. She spread her legs and kept her eyes averted, glad for the rule. Looking Cassandra in the face, facing her scrutiny, would wither her.

  “Turn around. Keep your legs spread. Bend over and grasp your ankles.”

  That gaze denied was at best a marginal improvement. Tension raked L as she reached for her ankles. Blood rushed to her head, its noise loud and pounding, nearly dizzying her. Yet she assumed the humiliating position, trembling and all too aware that she gave full view to her now denuded cunt.

  From the corner of her eye, L saw the crisp cut of pants legs and gleam of shoes—Reese, close by, a measure of comfort. Then, a second reassuring realization: although command and compliance felt rife with humiliation, they came from the very woman—the one woman—who had quieted the very cunt L now presented.

  New ache swelled. L was ready.

  * * * *

  Touch met L's skin at the base of her spine. Her body responded with a shudder so instant, so overwhelming that L knew it was insuppressible. She gasped, her cunt throbbed. Her body's want had raced ahead, leaving her conscious want in its wake.

  Cassandra laughed, attuned to her and pleased. The touch traveled up her back, that single finger that could so thoroughly provoke. Just like it had that one night at Hippolyte's. It reached her neck and a tickle shivered outward, sending goose bumps across L's skin and taking her into another gasp.

  Another laugh and then a question.

  “So. Did she look you in the eye?”

  The moment of truth.

  “Sadly, no. She's every bit as competent as you expected.”

  “Well, that won't stop us from having a bit of fun at her expense, now, will it?”

  “Of course not, madam.”

  Reese's deference spoke volumes. The shift in his tenor was unmistakable. Something was soon to happen. L had to suppress a shudder.

  “L, straighten up,” Cassandra instructed. “Show Cur my mark.”

  Relieved of her position, L found a new dilemma before her. With her eyes averted, she had no idea where Cassandra's sycophant stood. The hint of mint and leather she had detected upon her arrival eluded her senses now.

  She employed Reese's deference and addressed Cassandra. “Madam, I do not know where he is. Could you point me in his direction?”

  “Turns towards me.”

  L turned, following Cassandra's voice, her eyes at her mistress's feet.

  “Yes, good. That will suffice. Now, your wrist.”

  She offered her arm.

  “What do you think, Cur?”

  However beneath Cassandra Cur might be, L surmised that he had enough standing to fawn over Cassandra.

  “Lovely. I've never seen anything like it.”

  Never seen anything like it? What does he mean by that, L wondered?

  “Beautifully intricate. You've outdone yourself, madam.”

  Cassandra had marked others and if Cur was as long in her standing as Reese claimed he was, then surely he had seen other marks. Then it hit her: Cassandra had never employed this actual tattoo before. The mark was newly invented—and just for her.

  I'm not like all the others, L realized. Shocked, a hot blush burned her cheeks, the likes of which L hadn't felt since she was a child.

  “Why the infinity sign?” Cur asked.

  “Because I've never had such hope before. L jumped my hurdles with a finesse I've never seen before. She tackled everything I set before her with competency and courage.”

  A hand encircled L's wrist and tugged her away from Cassandra's attentions. Reese, telling her, “Come. She'll want yo
u set up now.”

  L followed, glad for the chance to hide her overwhelmed state from possible notice. Each step with Reese took her farther from Cassandra's immediate scrutiny and, with each step, surrender and serenity blossomed. It was ecstasy's waiting promise: surrender and you will be rewarded.

  At the end of those steps, which had L merely cross the room, she found herself staring at the cushioned seat of a chair rich in brocaded fabric and dark-stained wood. Reese coaxed her up on it like a master trainer working a circus liberty horse. Climbing onto it, her knees upon its thick cushion, legs spread wide and braced against its arms, L had no doubt that she would, like that well-schooled horse, give whatever spirited performance Cassandra had in mind.

  She leaned forward and placed her arms over the upholstered back. She rested her chin and neck atop the chair back. She thought of a church kneeling chair, but knew she knelt there in anything but Augustian chasteness. Hers was not a religious act—humble, yes; submissive, of course—but far too wanton a devotion to resemble anything Godly.

  When Reese made no attempt to correct her, L knew she had assumed the correct position. He wasted no time winding wraps of rope around her wrists and ankles, capturing them in, she assumed, deliciously scratchy hemp. He worked deftly, drawing the rope tight against her skin, pulling her into the heady squeeze of bondage. He anchored her firmly to the chair, drawing her arms in downward supplication and tying them to the back legs of the chair, anchoring her ankles to the front legs, and, in a final gesture of immobility, bound each thigh to the arm rests.

  L flexed against the ropes, not to test their strength but to absorb their restriction. A throb of lush want burst within her—arousal on the rise.

  Perched there with her rump perfectly exposed and available, she expected the whip, perhaps a paddle, tensed for it even, but when Reese's hand reached between her legs, L jolted. A chuckle answered her, implying that she was in for a surprise.

  Fingers felt about her labia, drawing a wanton breath from her, tempting her to succumb further, but they weren't there to pleasure her. Like the rope-tying hands before them, they were all business and no play. Small pinches grabbed her flesh—clamps, adorning her outer labia, two to each labia, L realized—but with so little pain that she knew they had to be mild alligator clamps. But why? That wouldn't make her squirm. It made about as much as sense as the absence of the whip.

  Something tickled along her foot. Something slight and trailing—trailing from the clamps. She knew that sensation and scoured her mind for a correlation.

  Electrical wiring? Electrical play? A TENS unit—it had to be!

  “You know what this is, don't you?” Cassandra asked, her tone haughty and superior. L couldn't help but think of a cat teasing a mouse it had pinned, paw over tail.

  “Yes, ma'am,” L answered, breathy with anticipation.

  “You know it, then. Tell me, did you like it?”

  “Yes, ma'am.” But not all TENS units were kind, and memories of it made L shudder and provide an addendum. “But it can hurt. Sometimes I can't process it.”

  “I see. Then we'll experiment. We'll test you. And whatever current entertains me the most is where we'll leave it.”

  Cassandra didn't exactly offer any reassurance. But it didn't prevent L from consenting.

  “I understand, ma'am.”

  “Reese, the power unit, please.”

  L took a cleansing breath and readied for the pulse that the machine would soon deliver. Electrical play could be kind and evocative or harsh and demanding. It all depended on the device delivering it, the settings chosen, the dominant's desires, and the submissive's bodily abilities. And none of it required cattle prods or shock weapons. L remembered swatting games couples played at Hippolyte's when people discovered that a whack from a battery-powered bug-killing “zapper” could make an unbound submissive leap across the room. L had taken a hit from the racket-like device but found its sting too coarse and unrefined. A violet wand could provide a better experience, one that could, in the right hands, feed into her arousal, but one wrong twist of the wrist and its static disbursement too easily turned a pleasurable excursion into an endurance test.

  Not everyone experienced electrical play the same—most people liked the physical challenges such toys provided—but L found them difficult. Only the TENS unit, with its adjustable muscle-seeking electrical pulse, could reliably suit L's libido.

  Bated, she awaited its first tingle.

  Tingle never showed. Prickle did, in the form of a coarse electric itch, and microcosmic lightning crackled across L's labia. L squirmed, she bucked, and her squeals quickly became a cry for relief.

  “Too strong?” Cassandra's question invited a response, but Cassandra had hardly posed it in a conventional tone. Rather than ask, it commanded feedback.

  “Yes!” L spat back. “Yes!”

  The electrical current scaled back to a mere pulsation. L withered in relief, panting and thankful.

  “You may provide verbal feedback whenever the pain overwhelms the pleasure. I welcome this chance to discover your limits, dear L,” Cassandra instructed. “However, understand that I may want to see you in pain. Especially if the cumulative evidence tells me that you can bear it.”

  L nodded. “Yes, ma'am.”

  Despite its comparative kindness, the pulse that coursed through her labia was, in its own way, an agony unto itself. It mimicked the contractions of an orgasm in a clumsy, clownish sort of way, replacing something spectacular and breathtaking with a crass comedy.

  But only briefly. The pulse quickened, strengthened, and it rippled with promise. It felt closer to orgasm. A real orgasm. L knew the drama a TENS unit was capable of and she yearned for it to take hold of her.

  Again the pulse sped up, this time with a twinge of the harsh coarseness that had first assaulted her. Cassandra had dialed up its intensities. L moaned, ready for more.

  “That doesn't sound like pain,” Cassandra observed.

  L said nothing.

  “Are you in pain?” Cassandra teased.

  “No, ma'am,” L managed.

  “I didn't think so.”

  Cassandra turned a dial and intensified its coarseness yet again. The prickliness returned, a shadow of its initial appearance, and folded into the pulsating current. Together, they made L heavy with want. Or rather, they made her cunt heavy with want.

  Legs splayed, her ass round and inviting, clips and cords adorning her labia, L felt captive to her circumstances. She was a scene to behold, a thing to be toyed with—vulnerability personified.

  Yet all too human.

  Desire's ache awoke under the pulsating current and joined its dance. Intense, it melded into the tempo, followed its lead, and suddenly L no longer knew the difference between the electrical current and her own arousal. Suddenly, every pulse felt like an orgasmic contraction. Sensation engulfed her entire cunt, urged it to make real what it mimicked.

  And then, Cassandra's voice.

  “Reese, my cane. Fetch it.”

  The words hit L hard. A surge of ache rushed through her, suddenly pitching her into orgasm.

  Or what seemed like an orgasm. It lacked pinnacle, that abrupt snap before ecstasy. Yet L hurtled forward into a pounding throe she found all too familiar. It heaved waves of contractions, and L cried out and, bleating to the throbbing rhythm, revealed her state to all. Laughter—Cassandra's—floated to her, another sound in this, her strange brew. L heard it, recognized it, but was too far lost to react to it. An opiated rapture clouded her as her orgasm waned, mixing every sound, every sensation, every awareness into a euphoric ambrosia. A feast of endorphins, and her body was its glutton.

  When the cane struck, L barely felt it.

  Her wallowing, however, was short-lived. The second strike roared across the flesh of L's ass, blazing with pain. It jolted her, made her lurch, and drove a hard, choking lump into her throat. And it produced the reaction Cassandra wanted.

  “That's more like it.” />
  The third strike hit L across the sweet spot, that small pasture of rump just above the thighs. It landed in concert with a pulse from the TENS unit, creating so sweet a sensation that an aching groan escaped her. Now a sponge to all sensation, L sopped up electrical pulses and cane strikes with gusto, sometimes bearing them as distinct and separate pleasures, other times as a collective mélange. Finally, like a crescendo of music, the swift blows of the cane met the hot lightning crackle in a sudden cacophony. L screamed, thrashed, instinct telling her to escape.

  And just as suddenly as the moment consumed her, it was over. Panting, wilted, L felt a wreckage throbbing between her legs—and it wasn't the TENS unit. I came, she discovered, amazed.

  “Very good,” came the assessment. Then praise: “Remarkable.” And finally, “Reese, take her to my quarters.”

  She was put to bed, naked, her mind a hazy blotch. The memory of people's voices floated out of the haze: her friends, watching her at play, some laughing, other speculating, but all agreeing to two key words: “she's cooked.” Jargon for being so endorphin-ridden that it left her all mush. A culmination that left tops and spectators pleased and convivial.

  But this was not Hippolyte's. Weak but aware, L lay swaddled in soft sheets and a downy coverlet, her head cradled by a yielding pillow. Shifting slightly, she felt welts protest against the soft cotton fabric, felt stickiness between her legs. Reaching down, she cupped her mons, a habit born of a long-ago need to self-soothe, and despite the plaintive twinge that answered her touch, L was too far spent to consider its message.

  Sleep was upon her. It dowsed her like a wicked witch's poppies, one pleasure center overtaking another. Strange sleepy thoughts rabbled in her fading awareness—paisley patterns, music, even a near dream that made no sense. Then, slumber, true and unperturbed.