Truth By His Hand

by Casey Cameron

  “Stand up again,” he said as he pushed himself out of his own chair, straightening his clothes. I followed along, wary, as he moved to the door and turned back to look at me. “When we walk out this door, you follow two paces behind me, hands behind your back and head down. You are not, under any circumstances, to look up from the floor or speak to anyone unless I give you permission to do so. Understood?”

  I swallowed hard, and placed my hands behind my back. “Understood, sir.”

  “Good boy,” he said, his voice a pleased rumble. He turned away and opened the door, and I rushed to catch up.

  “Two paces” was a hard distance to measure, but I did my best. Ellison, for his part, didn’t bother looking back at me, as far as I could tell. I kept my head down just in case, but what I could see of him—mainly his slim legs striding confidently across the floor—seemed to be facing decidedly away. Even though my legs were longer than his, it was hard to keep up when my instincts kept telling me to take timid, measured steps because I could crash into something at any moment.

  They say when you lose your sight, your other senses get stronger to make up for the loss. I was feeling something sort of like that now, a hyper-awareness of every little sound and smell and bump in the floor under my feet. In the background buzz of the party around us, I could make out a few different sounds with perfect clarity: the quick, sharp snap of a crop; the louder crack of a belt or strap; the rolling, almost wet sound of a hand against skin. I could pick out a few voices, too, crying out in pain or ecstasy or both, and I longed for what they had. When you cut away my self-consciousness and my inner monologue and my second-guessing, greedy hedonism was all I had left.

  Ellison stopped in front of me, and I had to take a quick step back to keep from running into him. I moved to what I guessed was about two paces away and waited as he greeted someone with a light, casual tone so unlike the one he used with me. No hint of command, no scalpel-sharp examination. Just a friendly hello. I could hardly believe he was capable of it.

  “Ooh,” said a voice I recognized as Ruby Red’s. “Is this yours?”

  I wanted to look up and see what she was talking about so excitedly, but I kept my head down, and a realization slowly dawned on me: she was talking about me. I’d never been referred to as a “this” before. I was going to have to examine how I felt about that later, when my brain was up and running again.

  “Yes,” Ellison said, a smile in his voice. “A new toy. You like?”

  I swallowed, my cock throbbing in my jeans. Okay, add that to the list of things I inexplicably liked: being talked about like an object.

  It occurred to me that I probably liked it just because Ellison was claiming me. He was openly telling another person we were together, and not just that, that I was his. It made me feel warm and loose, pleased in a way I couldn’t quite define. Content. Proud.

  “He’s gorgeous,” she said, and the weird thing was she sounded sincere. Almost awed. “May I touch him?”

  I swallowed again. This was beyond strange, but my arousal hadn’t faded in the face of all the oddity, so I kept my head obediently down. Ellison was my gatekeeper, and he could decide what to do with me.

  An image flashed into my head, of Ellison with his hand on my shoulder, handing me off to another person. Sharing his possession. I wasn’t really interested in being with other people, but the idea still stirred something in me, something dark and shameful. The idea of being used by however many people Ellison wanted, being toyed with for his pleasure like my own needs didn’t matter.

  That was fucked up, wasn’t it? My cock hadn’t got the message, though.

  “No,” Ellison said. “Maybe next time, but I want him to myself for now.”

  “Ooh, that sounds fun,” Ruby Red said. “I’m happy for you both.”

  I felt my ears burning as he thanked her, probably turning bright red while they exchanged some more pleasantries completely unrelated to me. The whole time, I just stood there, head down, arms behind my back, waiting for Ellison to tell me what to do.

  Finally he said goodbye to Ruby Red and said, “Follow me, River.” Then he was off again, striding off to meet some other kinky friend who would ignore me. And for some reason that would turn me on.

  He probably stopped to talk to three or four more people; I lost count. Sometime in the middle of the second one, I started to drift, the party fading into the background, a dull noise like the whispering of the sea in a seashell. It was all white noise; the only thing that mattered was Ellison, and pleasing him, and following him until he told me not to.

  “River,” he said, and I realized we were standing near the door. I’d completely lost track of time and space.

  “Yes, sir?” I said, my voice soft and breathy.

  He put a finger under my chin and gently lifted my face to face his. He inspected my face with a disinterested gaze. “Did you drive here?”

  “No, sir. I rode with Mariah.”

  “Good,” he said with a small smile. “I really don’t think you should be driving in this state. Do you want to come back to my house?”

  “Yes,” I said, practically whining with need. “Please, sir.”

  He released my chin and I put my head obediently back down. I heard a bit of muted rattling, and a moment later Ellison held a phone where I could see it. “This one is yours, yes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He took it back without a word, and my brain finally jerked into some semblance of consciousness again. “Um, I should let Mariah know I’m not going to need a ride. She’ll wonder where I am.”

  Ellison chuckled. “You didn’t even notice we already said goodbye to her?”

  I swallowed. “No, I…we did?”

  “Mm-hmm.” He opened the door. “Let’s go.”

  He told me I could raise my head in the car so I wouldn’t get carsick, but I kept it down most of the way anyway. I kind of liked this—the minor sensory deprivation, and knowing that Ellison was in charge of what I experienced. Knowing he would take care of me.

  It wasn’t like the uncertainty of a blindfold, that total darkness and mystery. I knew I could raise my head at any time, and to a greater extent…I trusted Ellison. Sure, that was partly because he’d told me exactly what he was going to do—maybe not the specifics, but I had a pretty good general idea. But mainly I just knew that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me…well, to damage me, I guess. Hurting seemed entirely in his repertoire.

  And enjoying it seemed entirely in mine.

  12

  As we got closer to Ellison’s house, the pleasant floaty sensation started to fade a little, replaced by a sort of low-key anxiety. This felt important somehow, like there was something at stake here besides a couple of potential orgasms.

  Why are you feeling that way? I could imagine Ellison asking me. Even in my head he was obnoxiously persistent.

  He’d made a promise to me back at that party—a promise that seemed to cost him something. That moment of hesitation when I’d asked him about exclusivity haunted me. He’d been reluctant; uncertain. But he’d made the promise anyway. He’d sworn not to dominate or sleep with anyone else but me for the foreseeable future, and now he was about to get a taste of what he’d agreed to settle for. I couldn’t help but feel a little pressure to make it good enough that he wouldn’t regret his choice.

  Which was a terrible way of looking at it, and I knew it. But logic had never stopped me from doubting myself before, and it clearly wasn’t about to start now.

  There was no trace of hesitation in him once we got in the door, though. He pinned me to the wall right in his entryway, one hand on the center of my chest, and the effect on me was instant. I went pliant again, doubts—well, not evaporating entirely, but easing—as my breathing picked up in anticipation of what he had in store for me.

  “Now, what should I do with you?” he mused, dragging his finger down the side of my face so gently it tickled and made me twitch. “Maybe I should follow through and make you s
ing for me.”

  The smile on his face was…playful. It was a look I’d only seen the barest traces of on his face before, and something joyful bubbled up in me at the sight of it. I grinned back at him. “I’m a little teapot—”

  Ellison crushed his lips to mine, and I melted into him as his tongue thrust into my mouth, hot and forceful. The joy surged in me, sparkling and strong as I welcomed him into me, moaning against his lips with unrestrained pleasure. His hand firm on my chest, his tongue sliding against mine—it was everything I’d ever wanted from him, because this time it was mine.

  His breath was nearly as short as mine when he broke away, and I probably should have just sat back and enjoyed the intensity of it, of knowing I’d affected him so much. But I just couldn’t help myself.

  “—short and stout—”

  His hand cracked across my cheek, sharp and sudden. My eyes flew wide open, my jaw dropping as I drew a startled breath. Ellison’s mouth was still pulled up in a hint of a smile, his eyes still crinkling at the corners, but there was a hint of danger in his voice when he spoke.

  “Behave. Unless you truly want to be punished tonight.”

  “Yes, sir,” I breathed, and oh god, I was rock fucking hard.

  Somehow I suspected his idea of “punishment” wasn’t the “playful, sexy spanking” sort where you can still sit down comfortably afterward. The sound of it stirred a dark little desire in me, small but definitely present, and I wondered if someday I might want him to do it. My cock twitched, a thrill shooting up my spine as I imagined it. How far would I have to push him? How badly would I have to transgress?

  Tonight, though, I didn’t want that. I wanted to revel in him. I wanted him to be pleased with me. I wanted to be good for him.

  He lifted his hand from my chest, and I instantly missed its weight. “Go to my bedroom, remove your clothes, and wait for me. I want you on your knees at the foot of my bed when I get there.”

  I nodded, not sure I could form words, and hurried off to do as I was told. My clothes ended up in a loose pile in the corner; I wondered for a moment if it would be more “submissive” to fold them neatly, but I didn’t know how long he was going to be, and I didn’t want to risk taking too long and not being ready when he got there. It was a good choice, because I’d barely had time to start my usual internal monologue of worry and self-doubt before he came in. He was perfectly composed and looked exactly as he had just a moment ago; I wondered if he’d even done anything out there, or if he’d just waited around twiddling his thumbs to build up some anticipation.

  With a tiny shudder of excitement, I realized it didn’t really matter—what he did wasn’t my choice. My only concern was obeying him.

  I kept my head up because I was feeling greedy, starved for the sight of him, and he didn’t correct me on it. He simply stood in front of me and began unbuckling his belt. It reminded me of that first night in the parking garage, and my mouth watered at the thought of tasting him again, of him fucking my throat with his hand in my hair.

  That didn’t seem to be what he had in mind, though. I watched, my heart thumping faster, as he slowly and deliberately slid his belt from its loops, moving with unhurried care as he tucked the buckle into his hand and folded the length of it into a long, flat loop.

  “When I flogged you,” he said, his attention on the belt as he slid it through his hand, “you told me you wanted more. Now that you know how it feels afterward, do you still want more?”

  I bit down on my lower lip, my eyes sliding shut as I remembered the exhilaration of being hit, the desire that had curled deep inside me for him to push me, to find my limits and dwell at the edge of them until I couldn’t take it any longer. I’d felt a light ache the next day, and the red marks he’d left had faded to faint yellowish bruising before they’d disappeared a couple days later. Surprisingly, it hadn’t been awful. In a way, I’d liked having his mark on me, liked the reminder that he’d been there.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Even though you might still hurt tomorrow?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, looking straight into his eyes. “Please, I want you to hurt me.”

  His eyelids slid to half-mast and the tiniest, most perfect little moan I’d ever heard escaped his lips. I’d never felt so triumphant.

  “You have no idea what that does to me,” he murmured. He dragged the belt down the side of my face, and I breathed deep, smelling leather and him, a truly intoxicating mix. “Bend over the bed and show me your ass.”

  If you’d asked me just a couple months ago what I’d be feeling in this exact scenario, my response would have been “somewhere between morbid curiosity and utter horror.” Most people’s idea of sexy bedroom times didn’t involve flat-out beatings with a belt.

  But as I followed his instruction, exposing myself just as he demanded, I felt nothing like that. I was confident, calm, and…strangely giddy. I knew I was giving him exactly what he wanted, and any minute now he would give me exactly what I wanted, even if I didn’t know exactly what that was yet.

  He dragged the belt over my ass, light enough to almost tickle. I squirmed for him, desperate for more, and he rewarded me with a light tap with the flat of the belt—nothing like a real hit, but enough that I could feel it, hear the faint smack against my skin, and imagine what it would feel like when he hit me for real.

  “Are you sure you can take this?” Another tap, this one on the other cheek.

  “No, sir.” I stretched my arms far across the bed and pressed back ever so slightly toward him. “But I want to find out.”

  “Good answer,” Ellison said with a low, soft chuckle. The belt left my skin. “Just like before, just tell me if you want to stop. We’re not pushing your limits tonight; we’re only finding them.”

  I shivered, a mix of excitement and fear fizzing in my chest. Finding my limits would still involve pain, but I trusted I would enjoy this. Even more, I trusted him. “I will, sir.”

  “Good boy.”

  The first blow landed an instant later, before I even had time to anticipate it. I yelped with surprise more than pain—it stung, but it didn’t precisely hurt. But even I in all my inexperience could tell he was holding back—this was barely a taste of what he could do to me.

  Ellison hit me a few more times like that, alternating cheek to cheek in an easy, predictable pattern. I could already feel the blood rushing to my skin, warming and tingling as he covered it with stinging blows. My cock ached to be touched, damp and leaking onto the bed with every tremor that wracked my body.

  When he gave me the real thing, it was…exquisite. Pain unlike any I could remember, a combination of sting and smack and thud that flared up hot each time the leather left my skin. A quick flash that was over before I could fear it, leaving a dull ache in its place to remind me of its touch.

  “Still doing okay?” he asked, his hand skimming over the skin he’d lit up in brilliant sensation.

  I whimpered in response, my mouth barely able to form words. “Yes, please. More.”

  The next hit was harder—sharper than before by an order of magnitude. I nearly choked on my cry.

  “Please what?”

  Then I remembered. “Please, sir.”

  “Better.”

  He dialed back the force, but my skin remembered that lash. Each time he returned to that cheek and lay down another hot stripe of pain across it, I pinched my eyes shut, gritting my teeth against the throbbing. Each blow seemed to go deeper into me, into my…soul, or self, or whatever—penetrating every layer of me to the soft core inside, battering me from the inside out.

  I couldn’t tell if he was hitting me harder or if I was just getting more sensitive. The yelps he beat out of me were getting louder, and I was jerking forward more with every hit as the pain built higher and higher, ever closer to toppling me.

  “I think—” I gasped, my throat dry from use. “I think—maybe—I can’t take much more.”

  A warm hand rested on my lower back, drawing some
heat away from my aching ass. I managed to steady my shuddering breath, and Ellison’s voice floated to me from somewhere very distant. “Does that mean you want to stop now, or stop soon?”

  “I don’t—” I had no idea. A strange sort of terror I couldn’t explain welled up in me. It wasn’t right for him to ask, and it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted him to decide. I wanted him to give me all the pain I deserved. “I think…stop soon.”

  He patted my ass almost affectionately, but I was so sensitive it felt like a slap. I bit my lip to keep from crying out, my nerves singing from his torment.

  “I’m going to give you five more,” he said. “These are going to be hard, right where you’re already sore. If you can take them without making a single sound, I’ll let you have my cock.”

  The fear surged in me again. “What happens if I have to make a sound?”

  I pinched my eyes shut, hating how needy I sounded. I wasn’t supposed to be demanding anything from him, but I wasn’t sure I could do what he wanted, and if I didn’t get to come—if I failed him—I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

  “You still get to come,” he said, his voice low and soothing. “But it won’t be on my cock, and it’ll be by your own hand.”

  The image that statement painted—of me jerking off while he watched, impassive—settled into my brain, hot and faintly humiliating. It was uncomfortable to think of, and wasn’t anything like what I wanted, but it didn’t leave me feeling hollow and abandoned. It was something I could do if I had to. For him.

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  “I know you will.”

  The next blow was searing-hot on my skin, and I had to clamp my lips tightly shut to keep from crying out. Rising up through the pain, there was a little surge of pride, a soft flush of satisfaction that I’d managed to obey him. I held onto that feeling through the next two blows, and it kept me still and silent—it wasn’t quite relaxation, but something like it. I sank into the bed, my body still jerking but my mind at peace.

  The fourth one was laid right across the stripe of fire he’d left on me earlier, and I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth. Horrified, I mashed my face into the bed—had he heard me? Were breathing sounds allowed? Cold, insidious fear slithered through me, so much more prominent than the pain, as I waited for his judgement.