by Livia Grant
“Yessir,” she slurred, and closed her eyes again.
By the time he’d finished and unclipped her arms, she was fully awake. He eased them down to her sides and then helped her sit up. She swung around to perch on the edge of the table, blinking at the light. He put a blanket around her shoulders and after a minute she hopped off. He picked up her dress and shoes, then led them back over to the couch.
“Good?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye as he pulled her down next to him on the seat. He picked stray bits of wax off her body.
“Oh, yeah. Good,” she assured him. “Thank you, sir.” It was the best time she’d ever had, to be honest. This was a man who knew what he was doing, and she blessed the roulette wheel for pairing them up.
Chapter 9
“Okay. Let’s go see what’s next.” Adam smiled as he stood up and held out her shoes.
She groaned silently at the sight but slipped them on, wishing for an absurd moment that guys were turned on by ballet flats as much as by heels. “Sir? May I put my dress back on?” Her feet protested as she stood up.
“No, you may not. Stand up straight, shoulders back, hands clasped behind your back, and walk up to the stage with me. You’re beautiful and I want to enjoy looking at you.”
This was tough. She wasn’t an exhibitionist by nature, but she took a deep breath and nodded.
“Good girl.” He took her elbow and escorted her back up to the roulette wheel, where Chase still stood guard. The dom gave an approving glance at Sari. She felt her face grow hot and decided to stare at his feet while the two men exchanged brief pleasantries. Adam handed her the white ball, Chase sent the wheel spinning, and she tossed it in.
This time the wheel assigned ‘Whipping’. She’d been whipped a few times, but Adam didn’t look thrilled.
“Chase, I have no objections per se, but it’s been a few years since I did this, and I’d rather not have my sub be marked all over as I practice on her.” He clearly meant it as a joke, but her breath caught in her throat as her pussy clenched. Another fantasy ran through her mind - the slave who was used as target practice for a master learning how to wield a whip. She’d be tied tight, and he’d make mistakes, and she’d cry out and scream as he perfected his aim…
“Sari? You okay? You disappeared again.” Adam’s concern inserted itself into her daydream.
“Fine! Sorry, sir!” She gave him a bright smile and ignored the clenching going on between her legs.
He turned back to Chase. “Anyone here who could give me a refresher?”
The emcee peered around the room. “There’s Master D and he looks like he’s in between scenes. He’s the best around.” He motioned to the dom who was escorting his rather satisfied-looking sub to a couch. Master D murmured something into her ear, and came over. The three men introduced each other, and then Master D and Adam moved off to the side. Sari stood awkwardly, hands fidgeting nervously, until they returned.
“Master D has agreed to give me a refresher. And, since I saw how you stared at those cages when you came in, I’m going to put you in one of them so you don’t wander off while I practice.”
Oh… “Yes, sir!” she said, more eagerly than she intended.
“You’re my captive slave, awaiting your punishment, watching me warm up as you sit in your nearby cage.” He snagged her wrists behind her back again as he led her across the stage to where the cages sat, all in a neat row.
He let go of her wrists. She slipped to her knees and crawled into the cage without being told. It was small, and she was forced to remain kneeling with her head bent, her high heels making the position awkward.
He closed the door behind her. “Let’s make sure you don’t run away once you see the whip.” She heard the lock click. Slaves are locked in cages to await their masters’ pleasure and pain.
She watched from between the bars as Adam and Master D had a lively conversation, Adam using his hands to describe something she couldn’t hear, and both men chuckling from time to time. Master D grabbed a pillow from one of the couches, and Adam produced some bondage tape, and they secured the pillow to the cross, just below where the two pieces of wood crossed, and roughly where her ass would be placed in a few minutes. Her breath caught as Adam pulled a meter-long whip out of his bag. It was long enough to have some real bite, but not too long that it needed extraordinary skill to use. The two men talked more, turning the whip around, the more experienced dom showing the other different ways to hold it. Finally, Adam took up his position and with a flick of his wrist, sent the whip snapping into the pillow.
Her pussy pulsed and she groaned. The strange thing was, once she was tied to the cross and awaiting her first blow, she’d be petrified, contemplating calling her safeword before they even got started. And after the first blow, and the second, the pain would be overwhelming, and she’d be crying out and begging him to stop. And then it would be over, and she’d recover from the experience, and remember the wonderful parts of it, and count the minutes until she could do it again. That was the strange dichotomy of S&M.
It only took a handful of strikes before Adam was hitting in the center every time. He moved around a bit, trying from different angles, and getting suggestions from Master D. Finally, he nodded. The two men shook hands and Master D returned to his patiently-waiting sub. Adam removed the pillow, now a little worse for wear, and turned towards the cage.
Sari’s breathing grew short and erratic. It was her turn.
He helped her out of the cage and led her down to the cross. Without pause he had her arms and ankles secured to the polished wood. To her surprise, though, he wasn’t done.
“I need you to stay as still as you can so I don’t miss.” He wound several lengths of bondage tape around her waist and the wood, right where the boards crossed. Her waist was pinned, and she couldn’t move from side to side at all. Her delicious fear increased. Slaves can’t wiggle to escape their punishment…
He gathered her hair and pulled her head back. “Ready?”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered, already falling down the rabbit hole of submission. He moved her hair over one shoulder and stepped away. Her sense of hearing was acute, picking up the little noises he made behind her. Still, she was completely taken by surprise when the first blow landed on her unprotected backside. She grunted, then panted, letting the familiar pain flow through her body. It felt as though it had landed perfectly.
She was still dealing with the first when the second one arrived, stealing her breath and making her struggle against her bonds. This was always where she knew she was an idiot for offering herself up like a sacrifice to the goddess of pain. This is where the fantasy always fell apart. This fucking HURT. She gasped and shook as number three landed, this time on the other cheek. Holy hell, this man hadn’t forgotten a thing about whipping. She wished he’d forgotten a little more. Number four yanked a cry out of her, a gasping sob that lasted for long seconds. Her hands pulled futilely at the cuffs.
“Please, stop!” she cried. The fifth blow didn’t fall.
“The safeword is red, Sari.”
“I know! Please, please stop!”
She hoped he realized that she had to plead and beg, to give voice to the anguish she was suffering, but she didn’t really want him to stop. He must have understood, because the fifth blow fell and she cried out long and loud.
“All right, Sari, you’re doing fine.”
She didn’t feel fine. She was lost in a world of pain. Subspace, the place she’d been in during the wax play where she was relaxed and experiencing pain as pleasure, always eluded her when it came to intense pain like this. This was simply endurance, for the sake of pleasing her master. That reason alone was enough to make her push through, though her safeword sprang to her lips as the sixth strike fell.
She screamed, then dropped her head, once more panting to deal with the pain. He paused, waiting for her to give him a sign to continue or not. She took a deep breath, lifted her head, and nodded.
“Good girl, Sari. Two more and we’ll be done. Can you do it?”
Could she do it? Oh, God, she wasn’t sure! But her dom was asking her to try, so she would. She nodded again. Blow number seven was the most painful so far. It wrapped around her hip and she heard him curse at his mistake just before the pulse of white-hot pain reached her brain. She let out a keening cry and pulled hard on her bonds, trying to bounce away the awful sting. He was at her side in an instant, gently rubbing the pain away, and she was grateful. The doms she’d played with before had rarely acknowledged their mistakes, and almost never soothed them. She lifted her head and smiled.
“Thank you. I’m okay.”
He stepped away and she braced herself. “Last one,” she heard, just before it hit. This one landed across both cheeks. She knew there’d be a mark there for a long time, and she opened her mouth to give a low scream. She shook uncontrollably.
He was at her side in an instant, rubbing her skin again.
“You did so good, that’s right, I’m proud of you,” he murmured as he unwrapped her waist and unlocked the cuffs, and she fell backwards into his arms. He picked her up and carried her to a couch, where he eased her down and then sat beside her. Despite the pain of the whipping, it was only marginally tender to sit on the area. They sat in silence for a few minutes, and just as she knew it would, the experience became a magical and arousing memory.
“Thank you, sir. I liked that a lot.”
“I did, too! I was worried at first that I was going to mark you up horribly for life, but it seems I haven’t lost as much aim as I thought I had. Sorry for the one bad one, though.”
It’s my pleasure to be marked by accident, by my master.
He laughed. “So, my temporary sub has some intense fantasies, does she?”
Sari sat up abruptly. “Did I say that out loud?”
He grinned and nodded. “I’d like to hear more.”
She colored. “Don’t we have to see what our next assignment is?”
He pinched her nipple hard and she squealed, but kept her hands in her lap.
“I decide when we’re ready, and I want to hear one of your deepest, darkest fantasies. And based on what I’ve observed, they involved cages, and being whipped by your master.”
Her hands fidgeted in her lap. “Yeah,” she admitted.
“Capture fantasies?”
She nodded.
“Torture fantasies?”
“No! I mean, that’s too far.”
“But perhaps taking what I want, when I want, and punishing you if you resist?”
He’d just bared her soul, in one single sentence. She fixed her eyes on her tightly clasped hands, unable to answer him.
“Sari.” He placed a finger under her chin. “Eyes.” She struggled to lift her gaze to meet his. “It’s okay.”
She opened her mouth to reply, when shrieks of laughter broke out. She swiveled her head to see Master D carrying his sub, sprinting around the room, while the woman laughed out loud. It made her smile. But it also broke the moment.
Adam chuckled. “I’d like to talk to you more about this sometime. But you’re probably right; we need to pick our next activity before we get disqualified.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her off the couch.
Chapter 10
Back at the wheel, Chase handed her the white ball and set the wheel spinning.
She crossed her fingers as she tossed the ball in, remembering that the odds of the ball landing on the one activity she hadn’t marked were very small. The wheel spun round and round and when it finally slowed, her heart skipped a beat.
“Vaginal sex with condom.”
What? No! No… Why? The one thing she didn’t – couldn’t – do! She swayed on her high heels and Adam caught her arm.
“Sari? You all right?”
“Sir? May I go to the restroom, please?”
“Of course. You want me to walk with you? You’re a little pale.”
She forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just kind of hungry.”
“Take a few minutes to eat something. We don’t want a sub safewording from hunger,” declared Chase.
She nodded and murmured a thank you, and fled as fast as her high heels let her to the women’s locker room. The door closed behind her and she fell into a chair, hissing at the contact of the hard chair on her new welts. She dropped her head in her hands.
Shit shit shit. What was she going to do? She wasn’t going to let it happen. She couldn’t. She was going to have to face the fact that she was going to leave here and never be able to come back. She was sorry that Adam would lose, though. This was not fair to him.
She kicked her shoes off and reveled in the freedom to bend her toes. Suddenly she needed to wash her face. She spied towels near the showers and grabbed one, then spent a few blissful minutes with her face planted in a hot, wet towel. When she finally looked up into the mirror, the only thing left on her face was her waterproof mascara.
What the fuck are you afraid of? He’s a nice guy! He’d never hurt you. In fact, he was head and shoulders above almost every dom she’d played with so far.
Her mind flashed back to the hayloft on her parent’s farm, to a warm summer evening, with a boy… and the laughter that turned to tears, and the begging and pleading that finally turned to despair… and then to the accusing voice of her best friend telling her that no one would marry a girl like her. She’d left for college soon after, but things were never the same again.
She’d stayed aloof from guys, protecting herself. Sex was never a part of any scene she’d agreed to after she started playing in clubs. Maybe this is the best way. A one-night stand. Someone you’ll never see again, to get you past the speed-bump that’s been looming over you for so long. She chuckled at the mixed metaphors.
She trusted him.
She was tired of living with fear.
An idea began forming in her head, one that had more than a little appeal to it…
Adam grinned as he adjusted the belt around his red velvet tunic. He’d been surprised when Sari had asked if he would consider including an elaborate scene with costumes in this next game. He was even more intrigued when she’d told him it was related to the fantasy she’d shared earlier. He was delighted to grant her wish.
Under his tunic was a reddish-gold shirt, and on his feet were high black boots. The little submissive kitty in platform boots who ran the small but well-stocked costume closet had tried to get him to put on the black hose that were part of the original costume, but Adam had drawn the line at that and retained his own black pants. He also declined the small crown that would have completed his transformation into a look-alike of Prince Humperdink from The Princess Bride. The curly black hair on his head hadn’t helped mute the image whatsoever.
It was better than the woman’s first choice. Someone here had a sick sense of humor, because he’d been presented with a replica of the famous puffy shirt from the Seinfeld episode of the same name. Replica, hell. Knowing the guys who bankrolled this place, it might be the original. Nonetheless he’d declined it, and now sported an entirely different look. He fingered the blunt dagger thrust into the belt and let his imagination consider the possibilities.
Sari emerged from the tiny dressing room, having transformed into a princess. She had on a long, ice-blue gown, which contrasted with her chestnut curls perfectly. It had a scoop neck and long, tight, sleeves, and a carefully concealed velcro strip closing the tight front of the bodice. The kitty had not been very submissive in her warning to Adam. “Don’t you dare rip this dress open all the way down!” He’d given his promise to be careful. The dress fell into a full, floor-length skirt. On her feet were matching blue ballet slippers, and her smile as she walked told him she was silently blessing whoever had thought to include flat shoes as part of the costume. As she approached, she fell into a deep curtsy that she held until he told her to rise.
He could get used to this.
He offered his arm and they received more than one approvi
ng glance as they made their way over to a high-top table. He placed a glass of water and a small triangle turkey sandwich in front of her and they talked while they ate.
“So, tell me more about this idea?” He smiled as he bit into his own sandwich. She looked less pale than when she’d run to the bathroom, but since they were talking for a few minutes anyway he’d ordered her to eat something.
She blushed bright red and swallowed. He watched as she struggled to put into words a fantasy she’d probably never told to anyone - or hardly admitted to herself.
“You, um, capture my kingdom and take me hostage. You want to marry me to become legitimate, but my father is hiding, and so you try to get me to tell you where he is…” She stared at the table as she continued talking, avoiding eye contact.
He liked the idea. It was also becoming obvious that he liked this woman. She was refreshing and honest, and, well, innocent. It was a strange word to use about someone who clearly loved domination and submission and wasn’t a complete novice to BDSM, despite her statement earlier. She was everything his ex—.
Stop, dammit. He had to stop comparing them. That was a different time, and he was a different man. And this interesting, innocent woman was making herself vulnerable to him. He wanted to give her the best time he could come up with.
He asked her a few questions, and probed for any triggers. They agreed that ‘mercy’ would be the signal that things were getting a little too intense. It wouldn’t interrupt the mood of the scene like ‘yellow’ might. They discussed the entire scene right up to the end to make sure they were both on the same page, and by then she was squirming in her chair. He held out his hand and she placed hers in it, smiling shyly, and he led her in the direction of a couch.
Chapter 11
The prince surveyed the woman kneeling before him, trembling but defiantly looking him straight in the eyes. He’d cure her of that. “What is your name?” he demanded.
