‘Oh my word, you should see this. Instant thin lines. I think you’re going to have some welts.’ The wonder in his voice made me feel affection and a weird kind of pride at how pleased he sounded. He may not have been a sadist but he did love to see the marks. Not that I could say anything about that: I was incapable of stopping my fingers from running along my body when bruises blossomed in the days after he hurt me. They were a colourful illustration of the fun we’d had.
No fun yet, though. There was no other way to describe it – the whip hurt like hell. I couldn’t help but flinch when I saw him swing and heard the noise as it moved through the air. Where my skin had gone red from the flogger, the thin lines of the whip were even more noticeable. When he whipped my breasts I bit my lip and when he whipped my feet I almost kicked him.
This was definitely the most challenging pain he had put me through and certainly the most pain I had experienced in a long time. Slightly hysterically, I wondered to myself if it was possible my tolerance for it had lowered. It hurt so much. Had it hurt this much before? Had I just forgotten? Eroticised it? How could I cope with this? When would it stop? Would I be able to last?
In a rarity for Adam, he wasn’t doing anything else to me while the whipping took place. There was no sense of humiliation or degradation, nothing else for my brain to focus on, challenge or rail against. It was just pain. Harsh, jagged, relentless pain. And, forgive me for stating the bleeding obvious, it hurt. So, so much.
Adam was watching me closely, but now it was less to do with experimentation and more about him checking up on me. That calmed my panicky inner monologue a little. I knew I could trust him, knew he would look after me. I knew I could take more but I could sense a little reticence and concern in him.
He put the whip aside and reached for the crop. OK, maybe the perceived concern was hysterical optimism on my part.
A third implement meant having to try to get used to a whole different intensity and type of pain once again. It stung, especially against the already-lumpy lines left by the whip and the reddened areas of skin courtesy of the flogger. The pain was sharp and direct on a relatively small area, and he swung hard from the start.
He cropped me all over quickly – arse, thighs, stomach, breasts. I didn’t know where the next strike would hit and I was starting to find it very challenging, struggling to breathe, to focus on processing the pain. He kept going, further than he ever had before, striking my nipples and then, when I tried to protect myself, hitting my arms until I moved them out of the way and put them back on my head.
My head was swimming and my eyes began to water. The pain was breaking me down but at that point I wanted it, was yearning for the cathartic release. That didn’t stop me flinching or gritting my teeth, though. I knew if he kept this up I was going to burst into tears.
Then he stopped. He was in front of my face in an instant. Stroking my hair and kissing my forehead. It was lovely but it felt odd. It was almost like orgasm denial to me at that point – I could take more and I wanted to.
‘Please.’ I whispered, brokenly. Desperately.
‘What do you want, sweetheart?’ His voice was tender, tinged with genuine concern.
‘You don’t have to stop. Please don’t stop. I want you to make me cry.’
He touched his forehead to mine. Closed his eyes. After a deep breath he moved back, his gaze searching. ‘Are you sure?’
I swallowed and nodded. ‘Yes.’ I blushed a little. ‘Please.’
I’m not sure I’d seen conflict in his face before. He’d always seemed so sure of everything. He put his hands round my throat on a regular basis, but making me cry in pain was one of the few things he hadn’t experienced. He’d made my eyes water before, but he had never made me sob, never made me properly weep with pain. I could tell he wasn’t sure whether to push me, whether I could cope. But this time I knew. I trusted him, truly trusted him, and I knew.
He’d brought me so close. I wanted to feel tears stream down my face, yearned for the release of my body being racked with sobs, the catharsis of the pain.
For a long moment we looked at each other. Despite my glistening eyes I was smiling. ‘Trust me.’
He didn’t speak for long seconds. Slowly his mouth curved and he smiled back. ‘I trust you.’
He took a deep breath and began again, making sure to hit me at least as hard as he had before. To start with he moved around my body as he had previously, making me guess where the next strike would hit, even hitting between my legs a few more times.
Then he began to focus. The crop struck my breast and I winced. He did it again. And again. He began to strike me harder; he swung his arm back further, I was struggling and I felt the lump in my throat rise. Again and again and again he hit me and all I kept thinking was, ‘Please don’t stop’.
Then it happened. My mouth had been tightly shut, my lips pressed together as I endured the pain, but one final blow made me open them and cry out. It was the release I had been waiting for. My knees buckled and I collapsed on the floor, tears flowing freely and my body shaking as I began to sob.
He was there in an instant. Crouching with me, arms holding me tight, whispering words of love. I gasped, ‘Thank you’, over and over again, trying to reassure him that I was OK and that he had done what I wanted, what I had craved, what in that moment I had needed more than anything else.
As I clung to him I felt his erection pressing against me and smiled through the tears, even though I was in no position to do anything about it just yet. Soon, though.
Eventually he picked me up off the floor and took me to bed, lying down with me and making sure everything was really OK. In this instance I think it was as much to reassure himself as it was to reassure me.
As I came back to myself and we continued to cuddle we discussed what had happened, the way we usually did when we’d tried something new. But this time I was asking him how he felt about pushing himself as much as he was asking me how I had enjoyed it.
Softly, we talked. I was exhausted, like I had been broken down and rebuilt, and as he brushed my hair off my shoulders, I told him how much I had enjoyed it, enjoyed being challenged. He kissed me softly on the shoulder, and I turned his head and kissed him deeply on the mouth instead.
As we began moving against each other and he slipped inside me, he broke the kiss and stilled.
For a moment I was worried something was wrong, the expression on his face was so earnest. ‘What is it?’
Then he broke into a smile, the wide smile of my Adam, the smile that can be brought about by everything from a toe-curling blow job to a slice of carrot cake to finding a repeat of Man v. Food on TV.
His voice was filled with wonder. ‘You’re so fucking wet.’
I stuck my tongue out at him. ‘It’s ungentlemanly for you to say so.’
He laughed out loud and kissed my nose. ‘You think it’s ungentlemanly for me to point that out, but you’re OK with me whipping, flogging and cropping you until you cry?’
I looked at him with mock-seriousness. ‘That’s correct. What’s your point?’
His tone was properly serious, though, and still filled with wonder. ‘It’s incredible. You’re incredible. I’ve never hit anyone until they cried with the pain before. When you started sobbing it was like a wave rushed through you. The release was almost like an orgasm. It was amazing. So sexy to watch. It felt,’ he broke off to pull a face, but then continued, ‘it sounds lame, but it felt such a privilege to be the one who could break you that way.’ He looked sheepish. ‘I sound like a pretentious prick.’
I laughed. ‘I think it’s fair to say most pretentious pricks lack the self-awareness to know that’s what they actually are. You’re alright.’
He smiled back at me and, in unspoken mutual agreement, we began to move our hips. ‘Thank you.’
I grinned and gasped as he grabbed my arse, his fingertips pressing against a plethora of bruises and welts. ‘You’re welcome. And thank you.’
&nbs
p; He kissed my nose. ‘You’re welcome. And thank you.’
We kept fucking and eventually we stopped thanking each other. It took a while, though. We’re nothing if not polite.
Except, you know, when we aren’t.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It might sound a bit strange to say it, but after the catharsis of that afternoon, my life with Adam fell back into its regular rhythm. Any remaining fears about being pushed too far had gone, while the conversation about James a few weeks before seemed to have brought about a kind of peace born of the fact we both knew better than ever where we stood. Life was busy and the months passed, with Adam getting a flurry of new clients for his business while I took on more freelance work than ever before. Our weekends were a mixture of the usual social stuff – families, friends, trips to the cinema – and working in companionable silence on laptops, stopping only for tea or occasional moments of friskiness.
It sounds a bit daft to say it, but it remained a novelty to have a boyfriend whom my parents loved, with whom I could spend four hours in a pub arguing about the top-ten film sequels ever made (and whether The Empire Strikes Back still counts as one following the Star Wars prequels) and who didn’t get annoyed when I worked weekends or late nights because he knew how much my job meant to me. The fact that not only was he the filthiest man I had ever met but he also took work as seriously as me, and wanted kids and a home one day, was, frankly, the icing on the kinky cake.
The sexual side of our relationship didn’t slow, but it certainly settled within our wider life together. There was still plenty of stuff that felt intense and challenging, but there was a lot more straightforward sex too – albeit with occasional nipple pinching or a stray spanking here or there.
One particular Saturday we weren’t doing anything intense, though. It was early evening, and Adam and I were curled up on the sofa with freshly poured glasses of red wine to toast him completing his first set of accounts for his new copywriting consultancy (the most difficult part of which was, ironically, getting the paperwork from his bank in the first place).
We’d talked about buying somewhere together, mostly pie-in-the-sky stuff, although the rent on our current flat gave us enough leftover money each month to put some aside. With his business doing so well and my freelance work taking off, our savings were looking healthy and we were trying to work out if we were in a position yet to consider making a move. The completion of his accounts was another piece in the jigsaw.
We were discussing the relative merits of waiting for a little while (not least so we could afford to buy some furniture), when my phone pinged.
Initially I ignored it, as we were alternating between waxing lyrical about what our house would be like and coming up with ideas for new clients for Adam’s business – ex-colleagues we could tap up for freelance and consultancy work. I hadn’t known him to be happier on the work front – he was motivated, enjoying the creativity and the freedom of being his own boss. The Adam who had been so bored with his job before his redundancy, and so negative in its immediate aftermath, was long gone. It was lovely to hear his enthusiasm, and I was enjoying coming up with my own ideas to help him with his venture. The fact that, one day – mortgage lenders allowing – it could enable us to have our own home too was just a bonus.
We were bickering good-naturedly about where my collection of china dragons (don’t judge, I collect them) would go when my phone pinged again. One message on a weekend when I wasn’t on call for work was easily ignored. Two in quick succession was more of a sign that something was going on. He looked at me, and then nodded to the phone.
‘Go on, it’s OK. You should check your messages.’
I grabbed my phone and read them. They were both from Thomas.
Charlotte has ended things
between us. We’re through.
Followed immediately afterwards by:
Although apparently we
weren’t ever actually together.
Stupid me. Fancy a beer?
I passed my phone to Adam and he scanned the messages.
‘That doesn’t sound good. Do you want to ring him?’
I gave him an impulsive hug. Adam’s laid-back nature was one of the things I loved most about him, but never more so than then, when the needs of a friend, one who was effectively an ex, had gate-crashed our evening. Not only did he not have a problem with it, but he knew that I would want to check on Tom. In spite of the sexual side of our friendship ceasing long ago, Tom remained one of my best friends – and it took a laid-back boyfriend to be fine with that. That Adam felt secure enough in my love for him to be that relaxed was something I was very grateful for.
‘Do you mind?’ I gestured to the wine glasses. ‘Rain check on this?’
He kissed the top of my forehead. ‘It’s OK, sweetheart. I can pick your brain for business ideas whenever. Go ring him.’ He leaned over to get his own phone. ‘I’ll text Charlie and see how she’s doing.’
Which is how our quiet night in ended up with us in two different bars getting drunk with other people.
By the time I arrived at the bar, Thomas had already clearly had a couple. He also looked more miserable than I had ever seen him.
‘Hey you.’
He looked up and waved in half-hearted welcome, before turning his attention back to his drink.
‘I’m going to get a beer. Do you want another?’ I asked, not sure it was a good idea but not wanting to seem rude. He nodded.
When I got back to the table he was fiddling with his phone.
‘I thought I’d text her. But I don’t know what to say.’
He looked a bit broken and, to be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what to say either. Let’s face it, ‘Are you OK?’ was out, because he clearly wasn’t.
‘Do you think texting will help?’
He shook his head dolefully. ‘To be honest I don’t know there’s anything more I can say to her. I think we’re done.’ His face flashed with grief, as if hearing the words out loud, even from his own mouth, was too much to bear. ‘Fuck, I think we’re done.’
It seemed surreal. Bearing in mind how happy Charlotte had been when we’d gone out, I couldn’t understand what had happened to cause such a change. So I asked.
‘What happened?’
He didn’t speak for a long time. So long that I wondered if he’d actually heard me. Finally, he replied.
‘I told her I loved her. Twice.’ He smile was thin-lipped. ‘I think it’s fair to say she doesn’t feel the same way.’
Shit.
‘She broke things off? Because of that?’
He nodded. ‘The first time I said it, it kind of slipped out. We were lying in bed and she was curled into my arm and I said it.’ Something in my expression must have given me away. ‘No, don’t look like that, it wasn’t a post-sex thing. We were just cuddling. It was really nice. Cosy. When I said it, she stiffened a bit, but I thought I’d better just say it properly – I’d spent ages thinking it and having to be careful that I didn’t blurt it out. So I told her. I told her I loved her, that I wanted us to be in a proper relationship together.’ His voice got quiet. ‘That was when she moved away.
‘She told me that she didn’t want anything serious. She never had. That this was all about having fun sexual experiences with people she liked and trusted. She was quite upset about it, but she also seemed a bit angry at me telling her I had these feelings when we’d always said what we had was casual. I told her that it was fine, we could go back to being friends with benefits, that would be enough. But she said she now knew it wouldn’t be enough for me, that I deserved better and that we should end things properly. A clean break.’
I honestly didn’t know what to say to make him feel better. In fact, worse than that, I knew there was nothing I could say, no combination of words that could help.
‘I’m so sorry, Tom.’
He smiled wanly. ‘I know. I’m hoping she’ll change her mind, but I’m not optimistic. I’m so stupid for t
elling her.’
I put my hand across the table to squeeze his. ‘You can’t help how you feel.’
He shook his head. ‘I know, but I’m now going to have to stop feeling it. I just don’t understand. A proper relationship was the next step. We had so much fun, we did so much stuff together – munches, parties, threesomes. The sex was literally the best I’ve ever known.’
I burst out laughing and he looked sheepish.
‘I’m sorry, Soph, I didn’t mean it like that.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t count really.’
I laughed again. ‘It’s just as well I know what you mean and have a sense of humour or you’d be in so much trouble.’
He looked discomfited but continued doggedly. ‘I just think that sexual compatibility, that mutual open-mindedness, would be a great basis for a relationship.’
I nodded. ‘Definitely.’
‘But it’s not enough.’
‘No.’
We finished our beers in silence.
Adam got home a little after me – I’d poured Tom into a taxi, while Adam (ever the gentleman) had instead seen Charlotte to her front door. I’d picked up my glass of wine and resumed my place on the sofa as soon as I got home, half watching the news channel as someone reviewed the next day’s front pages and half letting my mind wander, thinking about how rotten Tom felt and how lucky I’d been in meeting Adam. My fury at the cack-handed matchmaking that had got us in the same room was a distant memory.
He sank down on the sofa next to me and leaned in for a kiss.
‘Hey you.’
I smiled and pulled him into a hug. ‘Hey yourself. How’re you doing?’
His smile was wry. ‘Not bad. I’ve had more fun Saturday nights though.’
I nodded gravely. ‘Me too. How’s Charlotte?’
He sighed. ‘Not great, not sure whether she’s done the right thing, questioning the friendship they had, worrying she’d led him on, worrying whether she was stupid to break things off.’
‘It’s so rotten. I honestly thought from seeing them together that they were both pretty smitten with each other.’
No Ordinary Love Story: Sequel to The Diary of a Submissive Page 25
