by JR King
“Ariel?” Running his hand over the sofa’s back, Alexander looked like a hungry infant chimpanzee, with enormous, pleading eyes.
Oh, don’t you dare! My tongue failed me as an odd tightness closed in on my throat. As if this whole thing wasn’t way out of my depth already, he had to use the magical nickname in this torture room.
“Say something. Anything.”
My mind blank, I was struggling to dredge up the correct words. I licked my lips, gathered the courage to meet his eyes, and found my voice. “It’s a sex dungeon. Yeah, got it. Okay. Okay,” I babbled.
Drumming his fingers on the shiny upholstery of the couch, he had the nerve to chuckle, “For it to be a dungeon, it would have to be located underground. It’s on the highest floor of the mansion.”
“It’s a sex boudoir. Yeah. Okay.” I mumbled this under my breath. The more I thought about it, the more negative thoughts floated in my mind. Stories about kidnappings, girls found mutilated, or not found at all. I was getting close to losing my mind. My legs trembled and my vision went hazy around the edges. A familiar churning deep within me made me acutely aware of the fainting spell simmering within me.
“Why so pale, my pet?” Alexander’s voice was firm, but I could hear the concern underneath it, trying to ascertain if I’d play his games. Trying to find out he’d chosen a good enough candidate, or else the kidnapping was all for naught.
I swallowed hard. “How many…how many girls have you kidnapped to…do this?” The pleading tone in my voice sounded wrong.
“Kidnapped? To do this?” He smiled, his gaze unswerving. “I don’t kidnap women to enjoy sexual play with them. Enough girls out there who enjoy it. You are…a special case.”
“I’m sure you say this to all of them.” Being a girl, I couldn’t fathom why my kind would want to suffer. I could imagine why people liked to administer the pain—as dehumanizing as that is, but I found it hard to imagine that girls would freely want to experience getting tortured. I knew I wouldn’t. I thought about my dream, how Alexander was forcing me, hurting me, and I…felt enraptured. But that was a dream, a fantasy that wouldn’t translate well in real life.
“Elena.” It was a deep sigh.
I pulled my shoulders back. “My God, it appears you like to torture people, Alexander.”
His eyes bored through me so flatly that I couldn’t distinguish what underlay the anger I saw boiling on the surface. “I like to control people. Dominate them. There’s a difference.”
“Yes, yes, a sadist,” I clarified right away, so he wouldn’t have to waste his breath explaining. Imagine that redundancy.
“A sadist only wants to hurt his lovers, and though I have a sadistic side, I do control it. This here is about you pleasing me, and following my rules.” His smile has taken on a predatory air, one that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise almost as much as it made my inner thigh muscles twitch.
“You torture and abuse women.” I heard my voice begin to shake. Tired and hungry, I still managed to say with conviction, “Don’t twist words.”
“I ain’t twisting words.” His eyes turned molten silver. “In here, I want you to want to please me. Sometimes, the sex will be all about you and your pleasure, and other times it will be all about mine. I am yours, and you’re mine.”
My mouth went dry, drier than before, my heart thudding faster against my ribs. I am yours. It sounded too good to be true. “That’s rich. Rewards and punishment. I’ve heard this before.”
He quirked an eyebrow but said nothing.
“I’m a dude-magnet for perverts, how lovely.” To my absolute horror, my feet moved in his direction. Did I just do that? I was inches apart from stepping into…a new adventure. Unhappily, I sighed, “Keeps getting better and better.”
He laughed. His smirk made his eyes dance with a liveliness I hadn’t seen before, and yet it looked familiar. “Come here.” His hand felt warm and strong against my cheeks, my knees went weak at the touch. The paraphernalia in the room terrified me, but when I thought about our kisses and how he’d ordered me in that low voice to kiss him yesterday, all I could think of was that this might be worth trying.
“I won’t do anything you don’t want to try, baby. It’s been too long. I need this, you can’t keep it from me.”
I stiffened at that. Try. I felt the danger in that word and how it wound tendrils of fear around my limbs. One little word: try, that’s all it took, the thought of what could happen making me dizzy again. Maybe it was a good thing I hadn’t eaten my lunch. “I won’t try anything, you filthy bastard.”
“Filthy,” he murmured, the low cadence of his voice luring me in. “You’ve no idea how filthy I could be, pet. But you wonder, don’t you? You wonder when you touch yourself and wish I were doing filthy things to your body.”
How could he just assume I was considering any of this? Part of me, the half-sane, half-intelligent part, wanted to shout the longest line of profanities in the history of mankind. I tried to keep my calm. I really tried to hinder the crash and burn. But suddenly, blackness roared through me, and I felt the bile rising from my stomach and the blood rushing from my face. My eyesight faltered, the blackness overwhelmed me, and slowly, I fell away from existence.
When I came back to my senses I was seated on a high X-back chair at the kitchen island, powerful arms keeping me from drooping. “Are there any particular dietary restrictions you care to tell me about, or have you just resolved to behave stupidly?” Alexander was looking down at me, sternly. I scowled, trying to pull away from his viselike grasp. He tightened his hold. “Why didn’t you finish your lunch?”
“Why do you care about what I did or didn’t eat?” I spat out. “Give me some latitude here. I haven’t an inkling of what’s happening, and yet I’m muddling through it.”
One of his hands captured my chin, pulling my head up to look at him. “Watch your tone. I don’t take kindly to bratty behavior.”
“How could I fucking forget, sadist,” I tried angrily.
“Watch that mouth.” He shot me a warning look that carried much heat. “Don’t defy me, Elena. Don’t be rash, and don’t give me lowest-kind-of-wit attitude.”
“Or what? You’ll hit me again?”
“That was a mistake. One that I largely regret.” He lowered his voice. “Don’t add fuel to the fire or else I’ll take you upstairs. You’ll enjoy getting spanked, and no matter how wet you’ll be, dripping on my bed, I won’t make you come. Right now, just know your fucking place and do as you’re told.”
He had a good point. I could end up liking it, just like I’d enjoyed getting bathed by him. The thought was depressing. Remind me not to tell him any of this.
The aroma of rosemary and garlic penetrated my senses.
“I’ve cooked this feast for you. What do you think?”
“What do you care?”
He smiled. “What do I care?”
Why was he trying to uplift my dismal mood? I sat up and laced my fingers in my lap. I must not, will not succumb to his cocksure charm tonight, I resolved.
Gesturing at the two plates on the marble-topped island, he took one and watched me take the other. I relished the seasoned flavor of rosemary chicken as the meat touched my tongue, and reached for another hunk of bread. As I took another bite, Alexander sent me a grin that widely reached his eyes. “How’s the bread? I baked it myself.”
Yeah right, as if he would soil his hands to bake bread. Hiring cooks is what men like him did.
In my still-shocked state, I hadn’t even noticed I’d docilely eaten everything until he got up. I moved to rise but before I could get my legs out from under the island, he tapped my thigh. “Don’t move.”
I rolled my eyes when he came back with a pint of Capannari’s finest.
“Open up, baby.” I opened my mouth and let him slide the spoon past my lips. I looked up and caught him grinning as he pushed the utensil further into my mouth. “Chocolate ice cream is your favorite, isn’t it?”
“You don’t like dessert, do you? You didn’t order any when we had dinner and meals in this house come with fruit only.”
“Desserts aren’t healthy food, I rarely indulge them here. I like them when I’m out. At home I like basic and carb-free sweet options. As someone who’s in love with produce, over half of my diet consists of fruit and vegetables.”
“Why ice cream, then?” I let a little syrup slip into my voice with this.
His gaze darkened but he kept feeding me. “Little girls like chocolate.”
“I’m 22.”
“Exactly my point.”
“Are we…going back to that room?” Funnily enough, the thought no longer scared the living daylights out of me.
“I have to work, Elena. 6 PM is too early to stop, gotta catch up.”
“Oh.”
He traced the lineaments of my lips. “Yes—oh. Would you like to watch a movie while I’m working?”
Good old happiness struck me, blurring the darkness. My hands flew to his neck. “That’s perfect.”
Traipsing after him, we went down the exasperatingly long hallway until we reached the door to what was obviously going to be his bedroom. The doorknob obliged. He stood back and waved a hand in the direction of the open space, and said in a clipped tone, “After you.”
The room was no longer in shadows when I walked through the door. Scary, how the house was alive, anticipating every move of its inhabitants. I was determined not to look star-struck by the elegantly furnished bedroom of the most eligible bachelor in the US of A. That’s why, “Looks nice,” I told him distractedly.
Stepping toward a set of wide doors, he took off his vest and opened the doors. “Make yourself comfortable.”
I could scarcely believe where I was standing. Outrageously large room, and a king-size bed that looked fit for royalty dominated it. The walls were painted a light grey, evoking feelings of romance and lust. A flamboyantly framed mirror looked down from above the fireplace, and a small chandelier hung above the area rug there. A dark red daybed and a bed bench provided vivid contrast against the Venetian four-poster bed. While my gaze roved over the décor that was decidedly masculine but luxuriously appointed, Alexander stepped out of the dressing room and quietly closed it before wheeling around to face me. My breath caught in my throat. Even you would have gaped.
“Oh, that’s just not fair,” I mumbled.
With only low-hanging lounge pants, he was all but naked. Of course his abs were as chiseled as his unshaven jaw. The pants were so low on his hips that I could see the slanting curve of his hipbones and, between them, a sparse trail of hair that ran from his navel down under the fluffy black fabric. A perfect work of art that belonged in the ICA, the MoMA, or the Louvre. I fixed my eyes to his mouth. I remembered how his lips locked to mine had felt and I wanted to experience that magic again.
“How many girls have you brought here? I’m curious.”
“None.” Somehow, that answer sounded creepier than him saying, “Fifty.”
“You only use the playroom?”
He looked at my chest, my neck, then his eyes shifted to my mouth and lingered there. “Mostly.” The indifference in his voice gripped my spine with ice. “It has been redecorated and everything is brand-new.”
“How many have seen it?”
Just when I hoped I was going to hear none again, he said, “Maybe twenty.”
“Short-lived…romances?”
He glanced at me, his face impassive. “Short-lived affairs. I fuck, hard, Elena. Nothing else to it.”
I didn’t like hearing that. Imagining it. “Twenty is the final—,”
“Those twenty I considered important enough to bring in my home. I’ve fucked another ten in two weeks during Spring Break, so let’s not try to total anything.”
“Is that supposed to impress me?”
“It isn’t, but it does impress pedestrian girls. Jesus H. Christ, you’re in a different category.”
Depressing news, he’d fucked hundreds, maybe even thousands. Yet, I still wanted him. I had to find a sliver of respite from the power he exerted over me, from the burning desire he inspired in me.
Back propped against the headboard, he worked on his MacBook while I sat primly, with my knees and ankles pressed together, and watched reruns of The Big Bang Theory. The respite was a total let down. We neither talked nor did we—sadly—make out.
Just after Steve Wozniak’s special guest appearance, Alexander’s voice cracked, “I want to talk to you, Elena. I want your full, unbiased attention. Come here.”
His breath was warm against my forehead, his eyes finding mine. They looked so empty, not even clouded or detached. I wanted the darkness back in them. “Don’t hate me for what I need. Don’t throw me on the scrap heap.” His jaw trembled as he spoke, the sinews on his throat standing out against his skin. “I know how fucked up I am, and I don’t need someone spelling it out for me. The very last thing I want is for you to be a mindless puppet…,”
Digesting his sad tone, dizziness crept up my temples. “Quit while you’re ahead,” I cut across him to stop the bloodletting. “I don’t want more drama! Wanna watch the next one together?”
“I’ve a whole speech prepared.”
I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth. “Nonsense, as my grandma says.” I pinched his arm. “Watch with me, handsome?”
He closed his laptop.
Elena Anderson
The Safeword Reflection
A few days went by, and then the game started. And just like WoW, it couldn’t be paused. I despised S&M and everything it stood for, but my body was betraying me. I no longer wanted gentle, loving touches I was accustomed to, I craved Alexander’s sadistic touch.
He made quick work of his suit, changing into athletic, casual apparel. It wasn’t his good looks that convinced me to say yes. In fact, you could scar his face irretrievably, shave his head bald, starve him out of his surfer’s body, and he would still have sex appeal. What made him sizzle were the confidence that reeked from his pores and the offhand arrogance with which he dominated everyone.
In a low voice, he said, “Get down on your knees.” A steely, stony look slammed down across his face like a mask as he explained what he was going to do. The scenario was remarkably dark and cruel, darkly dreaming Dexter kind, but at the same time I could see something promising in the sinful gleam in his eyes. Gradually, the river of doubt shrunk into a stream and then it became a trickle. I sat absolutely still and listened, nodded. I felt him caress my cheek, his touch emboldening me as he drew his fingertips down my neck, then up again.
“Do you understand why I want to do this?”
“I do.” A shiver worked its way up my body.
He raised a cupped hand to my face. “Will you be all right?”
Beneath his firm touch, the pulse at my neck was racing. “I think so.”
“Will you do it if you’re not?”
“I will.”
He stroked my scalp with one fingertip. “Promise you will safeword.”
I didn’t flinch at hearing safeword. “Promise.” I gave him a tiny smile. “There will be blood?”
His mouth softened. “Not if you keep on an even keel and safeword in time. This is a test to reach your limit and have you stop me, a one time deal.”
“Has it started?” A childish question, I knew, so I gave my head the tiniest of shakes. “I…I’m new.” My brain abandoned me as I stuttered, sounding as if I didn’t have the appropriate age let alone the IQ to be in his playroom.
“Not totally.” He lifted an eyebrow as if to say he thought I was stupid.
“Are you waiting for the sadist in you to take over?”
Touching my cheek, he seemed to stifle a smile. “He’s already taken over. There’s no blame or shame that can befall you when using code red, Elena. Easy and prehensile, don’t forget it. Understood?”
He was shirtless, and I studied the tattoo on his bicep. It was a swirling dark rin
g, the darkest, most intricate symbol I’d ever seen. If it were anyone else, tramp stamp, my mind would have castigated. “Yes, Alex—,” I started, but too late, he slapped me across the face, knocking me backward. I cried out in surprise first, then pain. It stung, burned like fire on my beaten skin. By all means, if he was going to hit me this hard during a spanking session, I was sure I wouldn’t last a minute. Aside from the pain, I could feel the panic rising in me—garish panic. If I simply asked him to stop, without using the code, would he? I remembered Michael’s words: ask me gently, softly, and you’ll have my attention. Scream at me, and you fucking lose me.
Dear God, what had I gotten myself into?
Disbelievingly I raised my hand to my cheek. No gesture—no word would dissuade him, just the safeword. I wished I were on holiday in California. Ha, I almost smiled thinking of all the fun I could be having in Napa. Chanric Inn’s breakfast alone was worth the entire trip.
“I told you not to use my name in here, Elena,” he told me dryly. Cut to the quick, it came as an immense surprise when he dipped his head and pressed a rough, almost painful kiss to my lips. I could feel a warmth that seemed totally inconsistent with his staid, cruel appearance. “Brave girl, I knew it. Oh, you brave, brave girl.”
“Should I call you…like master? I read that slave girls do that.” My words were breathy but sure.
His lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Call me nothing. You’ll call me something if dominance turns out to be your thing, okay? No hard feelings.”
“How?”
“You’ll see.” His tone suggested he didn’t really care. He looked determined and resolute to teach me how to stop him. “Now, I’d like you to stand up, pet.”
My heart raced. I carefully got up from the lush mamasan cushion placed at the foot of the bed, and looked up at him. “Has the game…has it started?”
He cocked an eyebrow, his voice deceptively mellow, “It’s started all right.” In one moment, everything changed in the playroom. Through his Ralph Lauren linen pants, I could see an erection starting to build. He brushed a thumb across my cheek. “Little Elena. Sweet little Elena. There, there, don’t worry. I promise I’m not going to hurt you,” his lips brushed against my ear as he concluded in a raspy, terrible voice, “much.”
