The Puppetmaster

by Linnea May

  It would only add to the punishment she will receive anyway. Denying her an orgasm when she was so close to coming was only the beginning.

  I spend a few more minutes in the kitchen preparing our dinner before heading back upstairs. Dorota usually cooks for me when she’s around, but when I have a puppet here, I become the cook—or they do, if I order them to. Cooking is something that comes naturally to me. I never had a mother to teach me because my stepmother wasn’t a great cook herself. And even if she had been, she sure as hell would not have wasted any time sharing that knowledge with the son of a woman she despised.

  I can’t blame her. My father never got over my mother’s early death and only remarried because he felt obligated to when she announced that she was pregnant with my half-brother. It was a shitty situation for everyone involved, her, my younger brother, my father, and me. There was no love left in this house, only obligation.

  I don’t know how we would have survived if it weren’t for Dorota. She was the only warm voice in our home, the motherly figure who loved us boys unconditionally.

  She was also the one who taught me how to cook when I first showed interest in it. Maybe that’s the reason why I couldn’t say no to her when she brought that annoying feline here.

  I prepare as much as I’m willing to right now, leaving the vegetable chopping for later—and possibly for my puppet—because that’s the one mundane task I loathe.

  Besides, I have other things on my mind and am only passing time until I can go back upstairs and find my puppet ready in the way I want her to be.

  That time is cut short when I hear the alarm on my phone go off announcing that her bedroom door has been opened. It’s lying on the counter next to me.

  That little minx.

  I wash my hands, only waiting for the phone to ring again and announce that she’s now wandering around the house without permission. But it stays quiet.

  It’s still quiet by the time I make my way upstairs, checking to see whether I see her anywhere. There’s a chance she took off her cuffs, too. If she did that, I’d have no way of knowing where she is.

  And once I find her, her punishment would be severe.

  I don’t run into her anywhere in the house. Instead I’m surprised to find her sitting on the bed in her bedroom.

  She’s wearing a white see-through negligée with matching stockings that I provided for her, her face looking refreshed and hair combed and flowing down her shoulders in silky waves.

  But she’s not alone.

  The cat is resting in her lap, looking so fucking content and complacent that the sight inflames me, despite Alena’s sublime beauty.

  “You didn’t say anything about letting her in,” she says, looking at me with an apologetic smile. “Right? She knocked, and I was lonely.”

  I step closer, unsure what to say. I’ve never seen this before. The cat is all curled up in Alena’s lap, purring loudly as she’s petting her softly.

  What is wrong with that thing?

  “I think she likes me,” Alena says, looking just as content as the animal. “She needs a proper name. If you don’t mind, I’ll give her one.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Alena smiles at me, seemingly oblivious at my irritation.

  “Thank you,” she says, but I don’t know what for.

  “It needs to go for now.”

  Her face drops. “Why?”

  “Because I say so.”

  “Can she come back?” Alena asks, raising her brows in a plea.

  I would get mad at her if she wasn’t already getting up from the bed and taking the cat with her as she makes a move to walk to the bedroom door. I don’t mind questions, as long as she’s complying with my current demand.

  “That depends,” I respond vaguely, watching her as she opens the door and kneels down to set the cat back on the floor outside the room. The animal lets out a noise as if to protest, but slowly walks away even before Alena has closed the door again.

  “On what?” she wants to know, turning around on the spot so that the delicate negligée seductively swirls around her hips.

  She took my order to make herself presentable to heart and looks sinfully delicious, yet innocent in her white get-up. I don’t know what made her choose this particular set, as it’s certainly among the more conservative options I’ve left her with—but it doesn’t matter either way.

  She’s only here for me to ruin her, and that’s what I’ll do.

  Her question lingers between us as I approach her with slow but deliberate steps, placing the tip of my fingers below her chin to tilt her face up to mine. A blush creeps on her cheeks while she listens to my response.

  “On whether you can be a good girl for me.”

  Chapter 30

  Alena

  I love the way he looks at me. He seems pleased for the first time since I’ve stepped inside his house, just pleased–and I revel in this accomplishment.

  The Puppetmaster is not an easy one to satisfy, and I feel more often than not it’s up to me, his puppet, to figure out what will make him happy. He only told me to make myself “presentable,” but it was still up to me to interpret its meaning.

  And it seems like I’ve succeeded in my task.

  At least that’s what I thought up until now. Because his expression darkens now, that same familiar menacing look returning to his face that I’ve seen so much of.

  “We’re still not done with your punishment,” he announces, still holding my chin up with the tip of his finger so I’m forced to look up at him. “You know that, right?”

  “I didn’t know that,” I answer truthfully. “What did I do wrong this time? Don’t you like–”

  “I like the way you dolled yourself up for me,” he interjects. “You did well, I’ll give you that.”

  A sense of relief rushes through me, but it doesn’t last long when he continues to speak.

  “But there have been too many transgressions to even count before that, and you’ve only made up for a fraction of them.”

  I want to frown at him, but refrain from doing so. If anything, I have no intention of adding to my list of misdeeds, especially if he keeps track of every single one of them like this.

  “What are you going to do to me?”

  He lets go of my chin and casts me an ominous smirk.

  “A classic,” he says. “A proper spanking. Simple but effective.”

  I blush in an instant and my heart jumps as if bursting with joy. Why does that sound more enticing than frightening to me? It’s a punishment, after all.

  “On the bed,” he orders. “On all fours, your ass facing me.”

  I swallow dryly. “Yes, Master.”

  He steps aside, making a wide gesture toward the bed. When I scurry past him, he places his hand on the small of my back. Leading me, he journeys farther down beneath the hem of the negligée where he pats my ass before hooking a finger underneath the fabric of the panties I chose to wear for him.

  “You won’t be needing these,” he announces, before he starts pulling them down in one brutal motion. The sudden move makes me stumble in surprise and I balance awkwardly as the panties drop down along my legs and I shake them off in a staggering dance.

  I step out of them just before we reach the bed and I climb on the mattress, positioning myself as I was told to.

  He walks around the bed and almost makes me fall over when he grabs my left wrist and pulls me up. Reaching inside his pocket, he produces the strings he removed earlier and reattaches them through the little metallic hooks at the cuff.

  To my surprise, he climbs on the mattress next to me right after, my eyes following him curiously while he yanks the string toward the bedpost on the left. I didn’t notice it before, but there are hooks attached at the posts as well. They’re small and black just like the entire bedframe, and there are plenty of them, allowing for the strings to be attached at varying heights. He chooses one that is rather high up, his gaze darting back and forth between
me and his hands while he ties the end of the rope around the hook.

  My heartbeat is racing by the time he jumps down from the bed and walks around to repeat the same motion on the other side. My arms are stretched to the sides, sprawled out like wings as I kneel on the bed slightly bent over, only supported by the strings attached to the bedposts.

  “Move farther back,” he commands, standing behind me now. “Present that pretty ass to me.”

  I sigh as I awkwardly shift back as much as I can, losing my balance every time I lift one of my knees to move it back only an inch further.

  “More!” he barks as soon as I stop moving.

  “I can’t!”

  Blazing pain shoots through my behind when his hand lands on my right ass cheek with a blow that I did not see coming.

  “Now!”

  I mewl helplessly and force myself to move back just a little more, hollowing my back as much as I can to please him—and to make the position more comfortable for me. Already the slim cuffs are cutting into the skin around my wrists, and it’s only been a few moments.

  “Good girl,” he praises in a voice that could almost be called loving and soft.

  I can’t turn my head in this position, so my eyes stay glued to the pillows below me while I hear him moving behind my back. He opens a drawer from the dresser. I hear him rummaging around, then I hear him closing the drawer, and then his daunting steps are approaching the bed right behind me.

  “We’ll start slowly,” he promises, before he lifts the negligée up from my behind to expose my naked ass.

  I feel a whiff of cold air against my entrance when he moves behind me. I don’t even know where exactly he is right now because he’s moving as quietly as a cat, but I know he is close.

  “Spread your legs,” he commands. “I want to see your cunt.”

  A hot rush of shame overcomes me, but I still follow his demand, waddling with as much elegance as I can muster to part my legs further for him. My back is hollowed so much that it’s almost painful, and I hope to God he doesn’t want me to go any farther than this because I’m already dancing at the edge of my limit.

  For a few moments, nothing happens. He just stands there, somewhere behind me, observing me quietly, while I begin to worry that I’m failing at my task.

  But just as I’m about to apologize for my insufficiency, I’m hit with the first strike. It’s not just one but many thin leather stripes that kiss my skin violently. The pain is bearable but I still jerk forward as if it were the worst thing that ever happened to me. The strain on my wrists hurts more than the actual blow.

  “Don’t be such a drama queen,” he says. “You can’t possibly tell me that this hurts you? We’re just getting started, Alena.”

  My response is nothing but a helpless whimper because I know he’s right, but I hate to admit it.

  The second, third, and fourth strikes against my ass come in rapid succession, not increasing in intensity, but still hurting more with each one as my skin starts to become sensitive to the touch. Still, I hold myself together, barely moving each time the leather cuts into my skin, processing the ache with calm focus.

  He keeps going in a consistent rhythm, alternating between left and right as the fervor of his beats grows slowly but steadily.

  And as the hits grow stronger, so does the agony they inflict. I want to be strong and endure them without wavering, because I don’t want to give him a reason to call me a fucking drama queen again. I’m anything but that.

  I’m Alena Prey, and I can handle this. No, I can handle more than this.

  Another blow bites deep into my sore behind, but instead of flinching under the pain, I growl at him, “Is that all you’ve got?”

  A sinister laugh is all he responds with in return–and then he delivers another round of leathery strikes that put the ones from before to shame. The affliction is unparalleled to anything I’ve experienced before, and that is saying something. I never expected that being spanked could hurt this much, that the anguish could be strong enough to rob me of my vision for split seconds, that it would force out tears before there were screams. I’m crying in silence and with an unnatural stiffness while he keeps going, stronger and stronger.

  “Don’t fight it,” he reprimands me. “Let go, Alena.”

  I don’t know what he means by that, but I’m too overwhelmed by the torment he’s inflicting upon me to even consider asking.

  And then it happens. A shift happens, a shift that I neither brought forth nor expected.

  I relax, worsening the strain on my wrists but relieving myself of an anguish that was becoming too strong to bear. He’s still whipping me, and he’s still doing it with the same speed and magnitude as he has been for a while, but the impact it has on me changes dramatically.

  The leather strings no longer feel like hot daggers cutting into my skin. Instead, they feel like a caress. Like a warm embrace, soothing, and giving me a solace I’ve never experienced before.

  I realize that my eyes have been closed for a while, and when I open them, my vision is blurred, the images shifting and wavering as if I were under the influence.

  Did he give me something? But I haven’t drunk or eaten anything since I got here and the last sip of champagne was hours ago.

  That can’t be it.

  My lips part to release a desperate moan as I decide to stop questioning this. Whatever is happening with me will be happening no matter whether I understand it or not.

  “That’s a good girl.” I hear his voice as if in the distance. “Very good girl.”

  I can barely hear him or make sense of the praise, but the way it is said to me feels like a balm in itself.

  “Count,” he orders, pausing for the first time. “We have six left. Count them.”

  I begin with the next blow.

  “Six.”

  My voice is hoarse and laced with pleasure.

  “Five.”

  I tumble under the infliction, realizing that these last flew blows aren’t like the ones before.

  They’re worse. Way, way worse.

  “Four!”

  The number is a shriek, the first one that leaves my lips.

  “Three!”

  This one ends in a bloodcurdling wail that echoes through the room long after the immediate pain is gone.

  “Two!”

  I break. The sting is too much to take, despite only lasting for a second. It hit me with a ferociousness so deep that I lean into the strings with such force that I fear I might rip them.

  But unlike me, they hold up.

  “One!”

  I don’t even know if he heard that last one because I’m crying uncontrollably now, shaking my head in disbelief.

  It’s over. I can’t believe I made it.

  I jump up in surprise when I feel his hand between my legs.

  “Don’t move,” he warns as he begins fondling me.

  I can feel it. I don’t understand it, but I can feel that I’m wet beyond belief–and his touch, albeit gentle, feels a thousand times stronger than it did earlier. He barely grazes along my clit while carefully parting my lips, and it feels so unbelievably good that I lean into his touch, hollowing my back and releasing a deep and needy groan.

  He chuckles behind me, softly patting my labia before he his hand retreats, which I greet with a disappointed mewl. Just a moment later, I can feel something else pushing against my core, something new, something foreign. It’s not his hand, that’s for sure.

  “Don’t you dare move away,” he warns me. “You’ll come for me now, puppet.”

  Before I can even think of a response to that, I’m rattled by a vicious tremor right on top of my clit. Oh my God, it’s a vibrator, and a strong one at that. The sensation is almost too much for me at first, but I fight the urge to flee from it and try to listen to him like I did before. He told me to let go, and once I did, I was floating on the most rewarding high I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.

  He told me to come, so I d
o. My climax hits me with such violence that I almost pass out from it. My entire body is tensing in fierce spasms, and in response, he only presses the vibrator against my clit with even more force. I’m shaking my head, already overly sensitive from a peak that was as rigid as it was gratifying. The waves of delight are receding, but he is not.

  I’m twitching, fighting to obey his demand while wanting nothing more than for this to end.

  “Stop!” I scream at him.

  But he does the opposite and only pushes me further, now holding me in place with his other hand. Hot agony travels through my behind when he places his hand there, pressing against my tortured skin while the vibrations of the toy turn me into a fluttering maniac. My eyes roll all the way back into my head when torment turns into carnal ecstasy.

  “There you go,” his muffled voice comments when I reach yet another peak. This one isn’t quite as loud of an attack as the one before, but it still hits me with cruel frenzy. My eyelids flutter uncontrollably, as does my entire body. Saliva blends with the tears running down my cheeks, and I begin to drool.

  “P-P-Please...”

  My plea is cut short by another assault, another shockwave, another jerk that robs me of my senses and sends me into a delirious rhapsody. The relish is curling deep inside my core, tearing me apart while my rapacious body wins over my confining mind.

  There’s a part of me that’s still begging for him to stop, but the words never leave my lips, and the thoughts are soon cast aside when another luscious invasion charges at me, taking another piece of my mind.

  I’m lost, floating, forgetting—desperately gasping for air while this carnal pleasure eats me alive.

  And I don’t want it to ever end.

  Chapter 31

  Raad

  She’s a shuddering mess by the time I’m done with her, collapsing onto the mattress like a rag doll when I loosen the rope from the bedposts. I watch as she turns on her side, curling up into a fetal position as she weeps freely into the pillows.

  I give her a few moments to come down from her high and adjust her breathing, using the time to undress myself. She doesn’t notice at first because she’s too preoccupied with her own turmoil, but by the time I step out of my pants and stand before her wearing nothing but my boxer briefs, her teared-up eyes trail up to meet mine. Her gaze is still fogged and her mind and body still trapped in the afterthought of subspace.