by J. A. Rock
“Bend,” Drix said quietly.
I bent at the waist. My ass stuck over the top of the bench, and the skin stretched tight, pulling on the welts. And as I leaned farther forward, the position only got more humiliating—my cheeks parted, leaving my hole completely exposed. But I reached down toward my feet until I was effectively folded in half, my chin touching my kneecaps. Bowser came over and tied me into place, winding the rope around my arms, legs, and the bench. Drix kept a hand on my shoulder, rubbing the sweaty skin between my welts.
Drix’s breath was warm in my ear again. “Do you know how bad you’re gonna hurt when I’m done with you?” He whispered the words—crooned them, really—like they were an endearment.
I whimpered, running my tongue along the spikes of the bridle plate, wishing those points were Drix’s teeth.
Drix knelt next to me. “Oh, shhh, shhhh.” Now his reassurance sounded almost like a taunt. That voice. He knew how to do such fucking worthwhile things with that voice.
“Here,” Bowser said behind me. Drix stepped back. A second later the steel ball of the anal hook pressed against my swollen hole. There was nothing I could do, no way to escape as Drix gouged me with that hook, forcing the large ball into my ass and then pushing the hook in deeper, deeper, until the ball rubbed over my prostate and I jerked.
The thing about anal hooks wasn’t the size or even the length. It was the bizarre angle, the unyieldingness of the steel, the pressure that seemed everywhere at once—on my prostate, my bladder, and somewhere deeper, almost in my gut. “Don’t come,” Bowser reminded me.
Fuck.
Bowser tied the hook to the back of my bridle. Now I had no choice but to keep my head lifted, or I’d pull the hook even deeper into me, increase that terrible pressure.
I love you, I wanted to tell Drix. I love this. Love being yours.
Something metal touched my back.
A blade.
The point dug gently into my shoulder, and my cock twitched against my belly.
A second later, the blade trailed down my back. I moaned, my heart going so fast that the unnatural speed of it increased my panic. Bowser was the one holding the knife, I was fairly sure.
He placed it against my throat, and I went perfectly still, my balls aching.
“See, he likes that,” Bowser said to Drix. “His eyes go black, and he shakes just a little . . .” Right on cue, I trembled. Bowser pushed the flat of the knife harder against my throat. “But he loves it.”
I gasped and flexed my fingers, trying not to come.
A small cut between my shoulder blades. The slightest thread of blood, running toward my neck. Then the swipe of an alcohol pad, a brief sting, and Bowser’s hand steadying me as I continued to shake.
Drix’s fingers traced circles on the small of my back. “Fuck yourself,” he said quietly. “With the hook.”
I bobbed my head, pulling the hook deeper into my ass. Drix knelt beside the bench. He reached between my torso and thighs and yanked my cock out to the side. I whimpered and kept nodding. His mouth closed around the head, and he sucked, lapping the slit with his tongue and humming gently. Sweat poured off me as I continued to move my head, the hook rubbing against my prostate. The blade of the knife swept lightly through the slickness in the small of my back.
Then Drix dug one fang into the slit of my dick, and I came. The sort of orgasm I’d never even dreamed of—a fit of hysterical pleasure, an absolute detonation of my senses.
I laughed for about five minutes when it was over. Kept snickering as they undid the ropes and removed the bridle. They slid the hook gently out of my ass. They never let me feel alone—one was always touching me, whispering words I was beyond understanding. Drix lifted me off the bench and carried me to the bed. Wiped my face with a tissue and rubbed the marks the bridle had left.
“We’re not quite done.” His voice was gentle. He waited, as though expecting me to protest. When I didn’t, he stood and left me there on the bed.
I panted, suddenly afraid again. Now that I wasn’t aroused, I hurt in a way that was so shocking, so constant, that it made me feel fragile and sick. Unprepared to defend myself against whatever came next, but also unsure how to pick myself up, how to take care of the damage that had been done. I wanted to lie here until the sensation subsided. I’d never seen pain as an enemy before. It was always something I sought, always something I couldn’t get enough of. My ability to absorb it, to find it inadequate, to triumph over it, had long been a source of pride.
I opened my mouth to safeword. No fucking more of this. But I’d never safeworded before, and I didn’t want to now.
I closed my eyes. Inhaled slowly. You can take it. It always fades. It won’t kill you.
It was supposed to be Drix’s choice, not mine. I wanted it to be his choice.
I heard Drix rooting around in the gear bag, and my heartbeat went weak. My eyes prickled, and I fought a rising panic.
No. This needs to be my choice. I just don’t know how to make it.
Maybe crying would help. I saw guys cry in videos—really cry, not just dry sob the way I sometimes did when the pain overwhelmed me. I’d always felt smug and superior, knowing I’d never need that intense emotional release. If I could get them to stop without actually asking, then I didn’t have to make the decision. I could tell them later that I was fine, that they shouldn’t have stopped.
I felt so fucking frustrated, so fucking lost.
Talk to him. You know the drill. If you’re having trouble, talk about it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Drix return with a small wooden paddle. I buried my face in my arms and gripped the bedspread. A wooden paddle wouldn’t have been a big fucking deal at all, except that it would be on top of the damage from the cane. Drix sat on the edge of the bed. Placed a hand between my shoulders. I flinched.
“Are you okay?”
“I want to stop.” The words came so easily, I wasn’t sure at first I’d really said them.
But Drix put the paddle down and pulled me up into a hug. “Okay,” he murmured against my neck. I was too exhausted to resist the comfort. And I had no desire to resist it. I pressed against him, hugging him back. He seemed completely unfazed by the blood on my legs and shoulders. Bowser came in a moment later.
I tried to get up.
“Miles,” Drix said in my ear. “It’s okay. It’s okay now. Lie down.”
I did as he said, my body softening under his touch. I clutched at his sleeve, and he leaned in for a kiss.
“You’re amazing,” he whispered over and over. “I mean it. You are.”
Bowser watched us for a moment, then left quietly. I heard water running in the bathroom as I lay with Drix, listening to his heartbeat.
Eventually he carried me into the bathroom and set me in the tub. The water was warm and up to my neck and felt more luxurious than anything I’d experienced up to that point in my life. My welts stung, but only for a minute. Drix wet a cloth and washed me. I could see a little blood in the water. Could feel the places where the skin was broken. I sat limp, my eyelids nearly too heavy to hold open.
“You look beautiful,” Drix whispered. “All bruised like that.”
I snorted.
“I mean it.”
“You . . .” I struggled to get the words out. “Thank you. Both. For . . . doing this for me.”
“What do you think?” Bowser asked me. “Does Drix pass?”
I smiled, letting my eyes fall shut. “Yes.”
Bowser knelt by the tub. “Then I now pronounce you dom and sub. You don’t need me anymore.”
“Shut up.” I cracked an eye open. “I’ll still see you around.”
He placed a hand gently, briefly on the back of my neck, and smiled. “Maybe so.”
I wasn’t sure what exactly happened after that. I remember waking in the night in the guest bed, curled against Drix. Everything ached. I could smell antibiotic cream and felt gauze taped to a few spots on my shoulders and thighs
. Could hear Bowser snoring down the hall in the master bedroom. I watched Drix sleep for several minutes. I was so content, so relaxed. I wriggled closer to him, and his arm tightened around me.
“You okay?” he whispered.
I kissed his cheek and drifted back to sleep.
The next day, at home, I stared at my naked body in the mirror. At my bruises, my welts, my swollen lips. At all these things I’d craved for years. That I thought were part of an identity that made me truly unique. An identity I’d celebrated and advocated for and educated people about. But right now, I didn’t feel proud at all. I felt sick.
I’d been fine when Drix had dropped me off. A little tired and depressed, but that was understandable after a night of intense play. He’d asked about a hundred times if I was all right, and I’d thought I was being honest when I said yes.
But now that I was alone, everything seemed strange.
I ripped the gauze pads off my shoulders and ass and studied the deeper wounds, the ones that were dark with dried blood.
The problem with the BDSM community was that in an effort to rebrand itself after centuries of bad press—to prove that its participants were mentally stable, fun-loving, communicative, “just like everyone else”—we’d failed to take into account what I’d once told David. That the kinky world was comprised of people. And a lot of people are fucked up.
It was definitely not normal to want to be hurt as much as I wanted to be hurt. I looked in the mirror, and I saw a sickness, and I saw all the ways that sickness might be transferred to my son through me, and I wanted to die. Or just . . . to never have been born. Or to have been born vanilla. Maybe that was less melodramatic.
But I wanted to be melodramatic. I wanted to scream and break the mirror. Was there anything I could do to make these bruises heal faster so I could be clean, start again?
“We need more non–self-loathing masochists,” Kel had told me the night I’d gotten my cigarette burns at Riddle.
Well too fucking bad. Sometimes I did loathe myself, because I was human, and I wasn’t going to pretend to have some cornucopia of self-esteem just so I could be a shiny ambassador for the BDSM world.
How my friends thought I could do the Hymland College talk was beyond me. The last thing young adults needed was my influence. I’d been those college kids once. Throwing around terms like “sex positive” and “RACK” and “safe space.” I’d believed so thoroughly that I could do good work as a queer masochist. That I could be a role model.
But I had loved last night so much.
I touched a bruise on my chest. Definitely time to go for the full melodrama. Drix had called my bruises beautiful. Which gave me this unbelievable peace and pride. Made me feel like someone extraordinary.
But why did he think I looked beautiful when I was hurt? Was it only because I liked it? Or would he like it even better if I was unwilling? Helpless? Sadism and masochism were disorders. Years ago, I’d read all kinds of shit about it. Treatment. Reconditioning. Helping people like me lead “normal” lives. One site I’d visited had said that sexual masochism usually impaired an individual’s ability to function. Was that true? How did I know the difference between sexual fantasies—which I had frequently—and an obsession that impaired my ability to function?
I pressed another bruise. I needed to talk.
And I knew who I needed to talk to.
“So,” I said. “I’ve called this emergency meeting of the Subs Club because I’m having an identity crisis.”
I sat with Gould beside me and faced Dave and Kamen across the table. The table was covered with pink-white petals from a bouquet of shedding flowers in a vase. I focused on the petals and forced myself to speak.
Kamen was tuning his guitar. Gould was skewering petals on a toothpick. Dave was watching me.
Kamen positioned his fingers on the neck of the guitar. “We’re listening, dude.”
“I, um . . . did a very intense scene last night.”
Gould and Kamen both looked up.
“And it was . . . good, but . . .” I really didn’t know how to explain this. “Okay, better than good. Beyond reason.”
“But?” Gould said.
“But I just don’t see how masochism can be normal.”
Dave cocked his head. “Of course it’s not normal.”
“What?”
“It’s a diagnosable disorder. It’s in the DMV-4 or whatever.”
“DSM,” Gould said.
Dave nodded. “That too.”
I’d been hoping for something more along the lines of, It’s totally fine, Miles. You’re a special butterfly.
Dave continued, “Masochism’s not normal. Neither is me shitting in a child’s potty-chair so that my partner can get off on humiliating me. Pretty much everyone has some kind of disorder. It doesn’t mean we’re bad people.”
Kamen nodded. “Like how Gould can’t watch NBC because it’s an odd number channel.”
“Exactly.” Dave swept his hand toward Gould. “And look how cool Gould’s life is, aside from the fact that he can’t watch The Voice. Which is probably a good thing, because the voting on that show is a travesty.” He shook a fist at the heavens. “Amanda Brown . . .”
I sighed. I should have known they wouldn’t take this seriously. “But I don’t want to have a disorder. If I do my weird shit healthily and consensually, then what’s the problem?”
“Exactly,” Dave said gently. “Your being a masochist doesn’t have to hurt anyone but you. And you like when it hurts.”
“But it could hurt my child!” I snapped. I didn’t even know James yet, but I felt protective of him in a way that was overwhelming, immeasurable.
Dave gave me a strange look. “Only if you, like, throw yourself in front of a bus outside of his kindergarten just for the thrill of it.”
I put my head in my hands. They didn’t understand. Because they were younger. Because they all had relatively mild kinks. Because their bodies didn’t bear evidence for days on end of the things they wanted in the bedroom. Because they weren’t about to become fathers. “I don’t want him to lose any chance of being normal just because I couldn’t be.”
“Miles.” Dave waited until I looked up. “Your kid is never gonna be normal. He’s gonna be raised by a pain slut, a six-hundred-year-old vampyre, Lady Bracknell, your very pleasant and surprisingly normal dad—when he’s around—and your sister, who, I’m sorry, is six different kinds of certifiable.”
“Also there’s us.” Kamen glanced up from tuning his guitar. “And as a group, we’ve been banned from two water parks, one bar, and a dog-grooming salon.”
Dave nodded again. “That kid doesn’t have a fighting chance of blending in. But if you just accept that now, then you can get ready to support him through being the awesome little badass he’s sure to be.”
It wasn’t that simple. How fucking terrified would I be to end up with a kid like me? To learn—even if he was of legal age and with someone he loved—that he liked being hurt? I’d never be able to relax.
“Miles,” Gould said quietly. “Are you just freaking out because you had fun last night?”
“No. I’m freaking out because I’m terrified about my future and my child’s future.”
Dave leaned back. “What happened to living in the now because the Dark Ravens think time is a meaningless construct?”
“Fuck the Dark Ravens,” I muttered.
“You know what you’re gonna do, man?” Kamen came around the table, strumming his guitar. He sang:
“You’re gonna go to Hymen College,
“And you’re gonna tell the youth
“That being beaten is awesome,
“And that’s the goddamn truth.
“And you’re gonna keep getting beaten,
“Cuz that’s what you like to do.
“But you’re not gonna tell your kid
“Until he’s old enough to . . . handle it . . .” He kept picking and humming.
Dave bobbed h
is head in time to the music. “You kinda lost it there at the end, buddy.”
Kamen leaned down and banged out a chord in Dave’s ear. “It was an artistic choice.”
I smiled in spite of myself. “You guys are so weird.”
“We’re actually way weirder than you,” Dave pointed out. “Except in bed.”
“Do you spend all day thinking about being hurt?” Gould asked. “Like, how often do you think about it? Every three minutes?”
No. I spent most of my time thinking about fatherhood. My friends. My family. Whether A2A needed a new logo. What I was going to make for dinner. Really, I thought about pain very little, except when I was around Drix, who made me crave it. “I don’t usually think about it that much.”
“There you go.”
“But sometimes I think about it a lot.”
Dave shrugged. “Sometimes I spend literally a whole day thinking about a Philly cheesesteak.”
“This isn’t as simple as you’re making it,” I argued.
“It’s not as complex as you’re making it. If you feel mentally ill, then go to a therapist. If not, keep getting beaten by a vampyre.”
“I’m not going to Hymland College,” I warned. “I really do have to pull back from the public scene.”
Dave raised his brows briefly. Sighed. “Fine.”
“Why are you pissed at me for having legitimate concerns?”
“Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry.
“You’re not sorry.”
He shrugged again.
Gould glanced at me with a fair amount of sympathy. “It’s okay if you don’t wanna do it, Miles.”
“Yes.” Dave shot Gould a look. “Each man must act in accordance with his traitor’s heart.”
Gould kicked Dave under the table. He was hiding a grin. “Hey. I didn’t let you bully me into not playing with GK and Kel. I’m not gonna let you bully Miles either.”
Dave got up and crossed behind Gould to throw his arms around him. “I know. You shouldn’t.” He planted a kiss on the top of Gould’s head.
I would never understand those two. Handsy as a couple of newlyweds. As exasperated by as they were enamored of each other. I felt that familiar brush of jealousy. I’d likely never have that level of closeness with any of them. I would always be just a little bit peripheral.
