Truth By His Hand

by Casey Cameron

  I surveyed the apartment, trying to look at it from someone else’s perspective. What would I think if I walked into a place like this, and I wasn’t…well, me?

  The sad truth was I’d probably think whoever lived here was completely anal-retentive and not much fun to be around. As always, it was perfectly tidy, what few possessions I owned all tucked away in their designated places. Once on a date, my date had told me that being into extreme minimalism was a sure sign someone had no hobbies at all, apart from maybe serial murder. Unsurprisingly, I hadn’t brought her back here.

  “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not,” I said with a weak laugh.

  “It’s just an observation.”

  “I’m not sure that’s any better.” I scratched my head, suddenly forgetting how this sort of thing was supposed to go. It had been a long time since I’d brought a date to my apartment, and back then I didn’t have the internal minefield of kink to navigate. “Would you like a drink? I’ve got filtered water, or wine, or this weird organic juice that Tea left here. It’s a really disturbing shade of green, but it actually…tastes…”

  I trailed off, suddenly far too aware of the way Ellison was staring at me, his perfectly measured smile making me feel all squirmy with anticipation. “Do you want something to drink?” he asked, his voice mild.

  “Not really.”

  “Then get on your knees.”

  Heart hammering, I lowered myself to the floor with all the grace I could muster—which wasn’t a lot, but I got there. My floor wasn’t all plush carpet like Ellison’s—bare hardwood is a whole lot easier to keep clean—but I was starting to get comfortable enough with this position that I could handle it for a little while, at least.

  Ellison rested his fingers gently on my shoulder and walked a slow circle around me, his fingers staying in contact the whole time. His touch was gentle and should have been soothing, but there was a gnawing sensation in the pit of my stomach, something kind of sour and restless. I took a few slow breaths and tried to focus on the barely-there pressure of his fingers, the heat of that hand that could do so much to me with so little.

  “Next time we go out like that,” he mused, more like he was talking to himself than to me, “I think I’m going to make you wear a plug.”

  The words drew a sharp gasp out of me even before his hand slid down to cup my ass. He chuckled low in his chest as I fought to stay still despite the urge to lean back into his touch.

  “You remember that, don’t you?” he said, and I nodded. “Your filthy little fantasy. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to make you take my cock where anyone might see, like you wanted me to. I might. Or I might make you wait all night, wondering the whole time when I’m going to choose to use you. Would you like that, River?”

  “I…don’t know,” I whispered. I had to force the words out, and they came out weirdly strangled, not even sounding like my own voice.

  “You don’t know?” Ellison’s hand closed tight in my hair, drawing my head back. My chest shuddered as I drew each rasping breath through my tight throat. “Or you don’t want to tell me?”

  “I don’t know.” My thoughts were water through my fingers. Every time I felt like I might have an answer, it slipped through my grasp. Would I like that? I was struggling to even remember exactly what “that” was. What had I even told him? Last week felt like an eternity ago.

  He released my hair and ran his fingers through it almost tenderly; it settled me a little, slowing my racing thoughts but not making them any more clear. “That’s fine,” he murmured. “It’s not your choice anyway, is it?”

  “No, it’s not.” A cold fist closed around my heart, shortening my breath and making my head spin. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I should have been soaring with giddy anticipation of what Ellison had told me he was going to do to me: take me over his lap and spank my ass until it was red and aching before he finally fucked it. When he’d said the words casually over dinner, my dick got instantly hard, but now that the spanking was looming directly overhead, I couldn’t remember what had been so thrilling about the idea. The pain? The overtones of punishment? The simple fact that he’d be touching me?

  Ellison walked over to my couch and dragged his hand down the arm of it, touching the upholstery almost as tenderly as he’d touched me. “Get over here and bend over this. I want to get a good look at your ass before I have my way with it.”

  I pulled myself to my feet and staggered over. I was grateful to at least be off the floor, but being draped over the couch wasn’t any better. My head rushed, my lungs ached, and I jerked forward when Ellison touched me again—just a gentle brush of his hand, but it made me jump nearly out of my skin. I sagged back into the couch, pinching my eyes shut tight and trying to imagine his cushions under my cheek, not mine.

  Ellison’s hand slid up my spine, resting gently between my shoulder blades. “River, how are you doing?”

  His voice was wrong. There was no sneer or smile in his tone, only soft edges and concern. He’d never sounded like this before.

  Oh god, I was screwing this all up.

  “I’m fine,” I gasped through dry lips, trying to convince him with a little wriggle. Anything to keep him from worrying—or worse, pitying me.

  “Do you want to continue?”

  “Yes.” My fingertips slipped against my sweaty palms as I silently begged him to get on with it. I would relax if he just kept going, I was sure of it. My body would remember why I liked this so much, and I’d start breathing again, and he’d be happy and I’d be happy and everything would be wonderful. That was all I needed.

  Ellison’s hand slid back down my spine and cupped my ass, squeezing one cheek hard enough to draw a gasp of near-pain out of me. He patted me there a few times, like he was marking a spot to strike. Everything in me pulled tighter and tighter, a rubber band growing ever nearer its breaking point.

  His hand left me, and oh, that was so much worse. Terror spiraled higher in my chest, my throat dry and my face burning hot. I forgot how to breathe. My whole world narrowed down to that one spot on my body, and the flare of pain that was coming at Ellison’s whim.

  I wanted his touch, but not like this. Not here.

  “Stop—I need to stop,” I gasped, a rushed flood of panicked words pouring from my lips. “I can’t—I’m—I’m sorry, I didn’t—I just have to—”

  “I’ve got you,” Ellison said, and then he was helping me up, holding me upright with steady arms as I staggered, light-headed from the change in elevation. “It’s okay, we’ve stopped, you’re safe. I’ve got you. Shh.”

  I realized I was still talking, just spilling out a litany of half-coherent apologies while he made gentle shushing noises at me and led me to my bed. He guided me to sit on the edge of it, but instinct sent me scrambling right to the middle. I curled into a ball, my chest heaving.

  “May I join you in the bed?” Ellison’s voice was still maddeningly gentle, but his tone was finally starting to reach me a little, starting to un-knot some of the tension that had me pulled so tightly in on myself.

  “Yeah,” I said weakly, and he slid in behind me, wrapping his entire body around my balled-up form while I drew in long, shuddering breaths and tried not to cry. Way to go, River. This was exactly what Ellison was looking for tonight. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of my neck. “But why don’t you tell me what happened back there. Whenever you’re ready.”

  I let out a quiet sigh and snuggled back against him as he stroked me in long lines down my body, from the top of my shoulder to below my waist. God, this was nice. Not that everything we did wasn’t nice, and hot, and thoroughly mind-blowing…but there was an entirely different pleasure in the way our bodies fit together. He was a surprisingly good big spoon for such a little guy, all warm and soothing with his hands and his kisses and his only-mildly-frustrating questions.

  He waited patiently for me as I settled back i
nto my own head, and after a long while I finally said, “I think it’s being here. This is my space—everything is exactly the way I want it, and nobody can make me change anything if I don’t want to. It’s where I have control, where I…feel safe, I guess. Letting someone else take that control away just…well, it freaked me out. Obviously.”

  “That makes sense,” he said, pulling me a little closer.

  “Does it, though? It seems like losing control at someone else’s place would be scarier—I mean, I know for a fact I don’t have a torture dungeon here, or a bunch of bodies in my crawl space.”

  “If it helps you feel more comfortable, my house doesn’t even have a crawl space.”

  I laughed quietly into my pillow. “I’m kind of ashamed to admit if you’d told me that before I went there, it probably would have helped. Anyway, I’m sorry for freaking out on you like that. I had no idea it was going to have that effect on me.”

  “I told you, there’s no need to apologize.” His hand rose to my hair, following the now-familiar path from side to top, and that simple gesture was enough to chase away the last shreds of terror lingering in my chest. “There’s no way to be absolutely certain how you’ll react to a situation until you’re actually there. I’m not upset or disappointed.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  I dragged my fingers over my pillow, smoothing out the wrinkles and plucking at a bit of lint stuck to the edge as his hand continued its reassuring strokes. The fabric never stayed smooth, though—the movements of his hand and the shifting of the mattress as we breathed kept making it bunch and pucker again each time I flattened it down.

  God, that bugged me.

  “Do you ever wonder if the people who are into this stuff are only into it because of some kind of…I dunno, mental issues or past trauma or something?” I asked, in part just to distract myself from the wrinkles.

  “No. Do you?”

  “All the damn time,” I said with a sigh. “I mean, I’ve got this huge grab bag of issues, and it’s not like I can point to any specific thing and say, ‘Here it is, this is why I want to be on my knees and pushed around,’ but this nagging suspicion is always there. This little part of me that wonders if I’d be into any of this stuff if I hadn’t had such a fucked-up childhood.”

  “How was it fucked-up?”

  My laugh came out bitter and hollow. “Do you really want to hear about it? It’s kind of a huge downer—straight out of the tragic backstory playbook. Not that I haven’t already thoroughly ruined the mood tonight.”

  “I want to hear anything you’re comfortable telling me.”

  My natural reaction would have been to roll my eyes and say something sarcastic. Of course you do. But something about the way he said it made the words die in my throat. Maybe it was his tone, maybe it was just that he’d lulled me into this warm, dreamy place where everything he did was warm and comforting and special, but whatever it was, I couldn’t bring myself to just chalk this up to Ellison being Ellison.

  I believed him. I believed that he wanted to hear about me—not my kinks, not my motivations, not my filthy little fantasies. Me.

  I blew out a little sigh. “Well, the main thrust of it is that my dad was a piece of shit.”

  Ellison shifted behind me, like he was getting more comfortable, and his arm circled around my chest so he could put his hand over my heart. I really liked feeling it there. “I remember you mentioning that.”

  Right, at the party. Another River Fact he’d filed away. How could a gesture as small as remembering a tidbit of information make me feel so cherished?

  “So…yeah, he was pretty stereotypical, really. Alcoholic, abusive, short temper, completely tyrannical and controlling. I guess he wasn’t always like that, but my mom told me that once she got pregnant and dropped out of school, it was like he let his true colors show. Almost like he knew she was trapped now, and he could get away with whatever he wanted.

  “He never hit me. I mean, he spanked me a few times, but nothing really serious—it was my mom who got the full force of it. She did everything she could to protect me from him. I don’t know, maybe he wouldn’t have actually done anything to me because I was his flesh and blood or whatever, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She’d send me out to play with the neighbors when he came home in a bad mood, that sort of thing.”

  My eyes felt hot, the way they always did when I talked about this. I’d done a lot of…you know, processing over the years. So much processing, so much therapy, so much talking, but nothing ever took away the sting entirely.

  “I wish I’d realized at the time how awful it was. I wish I’d been able to tell the neighbors why I kept coming over sad and scared. Maybe they could’ve called the cops or done something to help. But when you grow up with that kind of stuff, you don’t realize it’s not like that for everyone—it’s just how life is.”

  Ellison pulled me tight against him. “It’s not a child’s job to protect adults—it’s the other way around.”

  “Yeah, I know that,” I said with a sigh, tapping my temple. “Up here. But I don’t always remember it here.” I patted the back of his hand where it rested over my heart, and he slid his hand out from under mine to capture it in a tight grip against my chest. I couldn’t help but smile, just a little. “Who knows—it might not have even helped. Domestic violence isn’t exactly a ‘one call and it’s fixed’ sort of issue. If the police showed up, maybe that would’ve just made him angrier and more violent. It’s not worth fixating on, but that doesn’t mean I don’t fixate on it anyway.”

  “Brains do that.”

  “Mine especially,” I said with a morbid chuckle. “We even left a couple of times, but there was nowhere to go. My mom didn’t have any way of supporting us—she never even finished high school—and my dad always found us. So we always went back, and a week or two later it would all be just like it was before, with Dad making threats and following through, and Mom doing her best to keep me out of the line of fire.”

  I looked at my free hand stretched out in front of me, and turned it back and forth, watching the shift of my tendons under the image of the light bulb. It looked almost like the pull chain was waving in a breeze. “When I was little, she’d try to pretend it was a game. She told me the hall closet was my ‘secret fort,’ and she’d send me there when he got mad. It wasn’t much of a fort,” I said with a wry chuckle. “I had some books and stuff in there, and sometimes I’d grab a flashlight, but more often there wasn’t time. So I’d just sit there in the dark, listening for things to go quiet and wondering what he was doing to her.”

  Ellison didn’t respond, but he reached toward my outstretched hand; I brought it in close so he could hold it, stroking his thumb gently over the ink-stained skin.

  “Did you know they even have glow-in-the-dark ink now?” I closed my eyes, imagining the pad of his thumb as kisses across my skin. “It’s hard to find tattoo artists who will use it, but I keep wondering if I should try. But then again, I’m a huge wuss when it comes to pain, and the back of the hand is not the most pleasant place to get tattooed.”

  “You took pain very well for me,” he said, his breath tickling the hairs on the back of my neck. “You even begged for more.”

  “Yeah, well…I seem to remember someone telling me once that endorphins can change your perception of pain.”

  “So I did.” Ellison chuckled and burrowed into the back of my neck. “Thank you for telling me all that,” he murmured against my skin, and it made my whole chest go a little melty and soft.

  “Thanks for listening. And for not making a huge deal out of it.” I flipped my hand around in his and dragged them both back to my chest. My heart was finally beating slow and steady again, and I wondered if he could even feel it now that it wasn’t frantically hammering. “I’ve kind of had my fill of pity and ‘poor baby’ responses. It is what it is, you know?”

  Ellison gave me an affirmative hum. “Are your parents still together?”

  “No, t
he story does at least have a happy ending: Dad dropped dead of liver failure when I was 17. He literally drank himself to death.” Some distant part of me always wondered if it was polluting my karma or something to be celebrating the death of another human being. I never could summon too much guilt over it, though. “Mom went on to find true love with a guy who smokes so much weed he couldn’t hurt a fly even if he wanted to. And I grew up to be a neurotic but happy artist who likes getting ordered around and slapped, for some reason.”

  “You still talk about that like you think it’s related to your past.”

  “I don’t know what I think.” I stretched out a little on the bed, some of my muscles finally loosening up and allowing me to relax. “I mean, it’s abundantly clear that a lot of my general issues stem from that. My need to control everything, to know exactly how my day is going to go, to have my private space be my own.”

  “Your aversion to blindfolds.”

  “You caught that, huh?” I laughed weakly. “I just wonder if this whole…submission thing is just a way for me to give up control while still being somehow in control of it. Doing it on my own terms, because that’s the only way I can. But that just brings up the bigger question: where does that initial desire to lose control come from? I mean, I can come up with some theories, but none of them feel quite right.”

  “Does it need to have a reason? Does knowing why you like something affect your enjoyment of it?” I realized his voice was back to normal now, back to its smooth, mild tones of clinical curiosity, and my feelings on that were…decidedly mixed. It had been nice when he was just holding me and whispering soft words of comfort into my ear, but I had to admit it had been more than a little unsettling. This at least was familiar.

  “Not really, I guess, but I like knowing things. It seems like you of all people would empathize with that.” I threaded my fingers together with his—whether to reassure him that I wasn’t snapping at him out of irritation or to reassure myself that he couldn’t get away, I couldn’t say. “Why are you into this? What drives you to dominate people?”