The Pleasure House

by Kitty Thomas

  He moved closer until he loomed over her. He bent and pulled her up to stand, and he just held her for a minute. It was an awkward embrace. At least it started out that way. But then he relaxed, and somehow she relaxed, and their bodies seemed to fold into one another.

  She wanted to hate him. Maybe she just didn't have the will or energy to hate anything or anyone anymore. She comforted herself with the idea that if she had the energy she'd hate him. Maybe tomorrow. After she'd slept. It would be easier then.

  Tomorrow felt so distant and impossible, like it would never exist anyway, so what did it matter what happened between them in this unreal space in the middle of the night?

  He led her to the far corner of the room to a large leather table with various rings attached around it for tying people down in various inventive ways.

  “Take off the robe and lie on your stomach.”

  “No. I-I can't do this with you. Please.” She wasn't sure if she couldn't do it because she hated him too much or because she wanted him too much—because she was afraid it would mean everything to her and nothing to him and that in the end, him pretending with her would be worse even than what Brian had done.

  Brian had scarred her flesh. Lindsay could scar her soul. She couldn't let him. She couldn't let herself... want him. Not again. She'd had the stupidest crush on him when she'd first come to his office.

  He backed her up against the leather table. Nowhere to run. Her heart pounded so hard in her chest she could practically hear it. She couldn't think straight. She hated him. No... he was scaring her. No... God, why did he smell so fucking good? And the lack of a shirt... it was doing things to her.

  He usually wore a suit. Business attire. Professional Shrink Wear. It covered up the physique he'd obviously worked hard for. She'd seen him in the gym on days off, or late in the evenings. Brian had the reputation for being the fitness buff, but Lindsay put in the time quietly without drawing much attention.

  As recently as that morning, the doctor had just been there—someone she despised, but otherwise nothing special. She hadn't seen him this way since before the house. Shannon wanted to keep the more confusing hatred. This... yearning was more than she could stand.

  “Why can't you do this with me?” he said with that professional practiced interest he was so skilled at.

  “Because I fucking hate you.”

  His hand moved to the back of her neck, threading through her hair, cradling her. He pulled her to him, his mouth covering hers in a kiss far more gentle than the danger in his eyes.

  Against every normal instinct, she sighed and sort of... melted... against him. She missed this, so much. It had been so long since she'd been kissed like this—by anyone. It had been long before the house even. The last man who'd kissed her this way had been her last master. And he'd tossed her aside without a thought in the end.

  You couldn't trust a kiss like this. It was a lie to lower your defenses. A trap. It could never mean all the things it promised. But she wanted to believe it. She wanted to fall into it and pretend and believe just for a little while. Would that be so wrong?

  Shannon pulled away from him, and then, as if to put extra punctuation on it, she put her hands on his chest and pushed him away. “This isn't real. I don't want your pity.”

  He gripped her chin and forced her to look up at him. He was so tall. Had he always been this tall? “Hear me. I want you. So get this pity nonsense out of your head. I want you. I've always wanted you. From the first moment you walked into my office. Now disrobe and get on the table like I told you to.”

  The way he looked at her caused a nervous flutter to skate across her skin. Her hands shook as she removed the sweatpants and t-shirt and climbed up on the table.

  Maybe this wasn't really happening. Maybe she was dead. Maybe this was hell. He would tease her and lie to her and pretend and give her the echo of something then snatch it away. Then it would play all over again. On a loop. Forever.

  This couldn't be actually happening. Or maybe she was dreaming.

  His hand stroking her back felt real enough. She flinched as his fingers trailed over the scars. Then he threaded ropes through the metal rings, and tied her down spread-eagled on her stomach to the table.

  She watched as he went to the other end of the cell and rummaged through a big black box of punishment tools. Brian's punishment tools. It didn't even matter that the bastard wasn't down here wielding them. It felt as though a part of him clung to everything in this room. Why would Lindsay do this to her? He probably wasn't even properly licensed to practice psychiatry.

  Shannon whimpered when she saw what he took out of the box. It was only one item but it was the most terrifying thing he could have chosen outside of a bullwhip or knife.

  A long, flexible bamboo cane. It was sealed in plastic. Lindsay took it out of the wrapping.

  “Brian keeps dozens of these. They can't be fully sterilized so it isn't safe to use the same one on many different girls. This one will be yours. We'll even put your name on it.”

  “Please...”

  Lindsay closed the lid of the box and returned to her with the cane. “Please what?”

  “I'm sorry. Please.”

  “You disobeyed me, kitten. I don't think you take me very seriously, and I can't have that.”

  Half an hour ago? No, she hadn't taken him seriously at all. Now? Definitely. In another time and place, another world a lifetime removed from her now, she would have wanted this. She would have known real consequences meant she was ensconced inside the safety of an ordered world. No one else had to understand it, as long as they did.

  It was what had drawn her to all of this to begin with: the sense of safety and order in a world gone mad. Knowing there was only one person you had to worry about, and everything else could fall away. It seemed to Shannon that the peculiarity that was the BDSM craving was a thing that could only fully manifest in a world that already made no sense. Stepping back from it, it all seemed so absurd, but in the middle of it, it felt like the only thing that was real—like a break from everything else.

  In this world created by two wills split into a polarity of the exercise of power and the surrendering of it, nothing else needed to make sense. It felt like a pause button. That pause button on the world had been so intoxicating to Shannon once that she'd walked right into this cage, into a world that was even more chaotic and dangerous with someone like Brian within its borders.

  This was the second time Lindsay had called her kitten. She wouldn't let herself like that pet name. It was sort of sweet and sexy and playful all at once. Was that how he saw her? She shook that thought out of her head. That wasn't what she was, and they both knew it. That pet name... it was such a mockery. Why not slut or whore or something that at least felt mildly honest? Kitten. Fuck him.

  Still, there was the cane to contend with. It was the bigger threat at the moment. “Just let it go this once. Please, I'll do whatever you want.”

  He paced beside the leather table she was tied to as if considering it.

  “Hmmm. I thought you said you'd never fuck me. Never must be a very relative term in your world.”

  “I-is that what you want? To fuck me?” Why was he doing this?

  She shivered as he dragged the tip of the cane down her back.

  “Oh yes. And so much more.”

  “O-Okay. Done. Let's do it.”

  Lindsay chuckled. “Oh no, I already told you not tonight. Fucking is for good girls only. And you've been a very bad girl. In fact, I think we can sweeten the torment a little so the lesson is well-learned.”

  Shannon's eyes widened as he pulled a small white tube out of his pocket. It hadn't been used on her in years and never by Lindsay. But she remembered the arousal cream. It wasn't the sort of thing you forgot.

  She'd experimented with creams like this years before when she'd been free. Some of them were pretty good, but none were like this. This one made you feel like you might die if you weren't penetrated or if you coul
dn't come. And the effects lasted a full hour on most of the girls. Shannon seemed to remember it lasted a bit longer with her.

  “N-no. You can't.”

  Lindsay chuckled. “For somebody who's tied up, you seem to make a lot of demands. You tried to escape this world tonight. I need to make absolutely sure you're here with me. I need your one hundred percent full focus. On living.”

  Before she could protest again, he'd snapped on a medical examining glove and opened the tube. “It makes such a mess.”

  Shannon squirmed as he applied the cream between her legs. Then he took the glove off and put it in the trash can in the corner of the cell, along with the plastic wrapping from her brand new mint-condition cane.

  Brian was a clean freak. He let the other trainers and partners use his dungeons, but he expected everything to be kept as meticulous as he kept it. If anyone left a mess behind, there would be hell to pay. For someone who brought so much chaos into the lives of others, Brian was absolutely driven to keep everything around him neat and tidy.

  Most of the men in the house thought, wisely, that it was probably best not to push the buttons of the sociopath who lived underground. And so they all complied with his obsessive demands.

  When Shannon had gone to the spa after being with Lindsay in the kitchen, the fitness room had been quiet. Brian was probably back in his room with Mina. It was only a few doors down from the cell she now occupied.

  Lindsay returned to her side and took the cane from the table. Again, he ran the tip of it slowly up and down the center of her back.

  “P-please. Don't make me scream.”

  “You're a screamer? Excellent.”

  “I-it might wake him.” Suddenly being locked in with the doctor felt a lot safer than it had only a few minutes ago.

  Lindsay's expression turned serious. “Why do you think I locked the door? Though I do find it interesting that you're locked in a cell with me and a cane, but Brian is the only threat you can think about. I'll make a deal with you. Take this punishment like a good girl and I'll set us up our own private dungeon on the other end of the house, far away from Brian.”

  “Where on the other end of the house?” Shannon wasn't aware of other dungeons.

  “You know the locked door in the south wing?”

  “I thought that was storage or something.”

  Lindsay shook his head. “It goes downstairs to another set of dungeons, or really, comparable stone-walled basement rooms like these. They aren't as equipped or set up as Brian's, so everybody just started using these.”

  “Why are you training me?” The more he talked, the more it seemed he was planning something long term. Why would he set up their own private room in a set of dungeons she didn't even know the house had?

  Lindsay leaned down, his eyes level with hers. He was too close, his gaze too intense. She wanted to shut her eyes and block him out, but she knew he wouldn't like it. So she held his gaze and waited for an answer.

  “Because. I. Want. You. Do you understand, kitten?”

  “Y-yes, Sir.” She would admit it was a good act, but she didn't believe him. There was no way he could want her. He just wanted to distract her into wanting to live long enough that he wouldn't feel he was to blame when she finally succeeded in leaving the house.

  “Good,” he said, seeming to accept her concession.

  Shannon clawed at the table, the cream finally starting to work. It was far more intense than she remembered. Or maybe it was more about the man she was down here with, the cluster of confused emotions, and the ever present fear of waking Brian just down the hall.

  “Cream kicking in?” A taunt.

  “Y-yes, Sir.”

  His mouth brushed against her ear. “It's time to create associations that would make Pavlov jealous.”

  Shannon tried to rub herself against the table to relieve the growing arousal, but the way he'd tied her down made it impossible to gain the necessary friction.

  She jerked and yelped when the cane struck her thigh in a sharp, angry snap.

  “Ah ah, kitten. There will be no more self care. If you receive pleasure, from now on it comes from me. No one else in this house, including you. Do you understand?”

  It had only been coming from her for the past three years. Well, and Annette on occasion when they had time and could slip away. Anton usually liked to watch his pet with other girls, but Shannon knew he gave them privacy because he didn't like to see the scars. Annette assured her it wasn't personal, that it upset Anton to see what Brian had done to her, but Shannon could never believe that was all it was. Everyone had to close their eyes and pretend she was whole. They could never let their hands linger too long on expanses of skin that weren't as smooth as the rest.

  It made her feel so alien.

  She shrieked as the cane landed again.

  “I'm sorry, am I boring you?” Lindsay said.

  “N-no, Sir.”

  “No one gives you pleasure but me. Do you understand?”

  “Y-yes, Sir.” As if he could monitor that. He went to work in the city during the day. He was gone so much, there was no way he could enforce such a rule. As if he'd even bother. He didn't care enough for her to invest that much time and energy.

  But if he wanted to play this game for a few days or a couple of weeks, she hated herself for it, but she'd take it. She'd grab onto it like a starving woman even if she hated him because they both knew it was the last opportunity she'd ever get. And then it would be back to being ignored again. She didn't have the luxury of turning this down. Before long the combination of the years creeping onto her and those marks refusing to fade into the past, and even the chance of anything with anyone would be long gone.

  If only she'd never come to the house. If only she'd never gone to Lindsay. The ad had said Kink-friendly sex therapist. His office was in a high rise in a very nice part of the city—so inviting and safe. She'd thought that was what she needed. But it had only been a crutch. She could have moved on from her last master on her own. She might have had a chance to find someone else, to have something real.

  The tears began to flow freely. Let him think it was the cane.

  Before she could fall down another self-pity spiral, the cream reached its full effect and suddenly all she could think about was the throbbing need between her legs. It was such a confusing cluster of feelings. Hatred, regret, need. And the only person there to sate that need, the very object of her hatred and regret.

  “Please...” she whimpered. The urge to say “Master,” clawed at her throat, but she stopped herself in time. She wouldn't embarrass herself like that. He'd only laugh at her. She knew as well as he did that word meant something far deeper than what he wanted to give her.

  She was sure she'd never utter that word again, except in her own mind in feverish fantasies under the cover of night.

  “What is it you need, Shannon?”

  Less than an hour ago, they'd been sitting at the kitchen counter, him asking her this same question. She wasn't going to tell him. She wasn't going to fuck him. But he wasn't playing fair. The cream was a very persuasive tool. It had a way of making you see the world differently—of changing priorities in an instant.

  Pain and arousal. Twin catalysts the house used to get whatever it wanted. What was it exactly that the doctor wanted from her to break out these tools?

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “I need to be touched.”

  “It's not just the cream,” he said. “We both know that. You've needed me to touch you for a long time. It practically radiates off you.”

  Shannon shook her head, somehow finding the will to resist him, however limp the effort. “No. Not you. Never you.”

  The cane sliced through the air and came down hard on her ass.

  “Ow! Motherfucker!”

  “That's for lying,” he said. There was another short painful snap of the cane against her thigh. “And that is for the language. You call me Sir. Not Lindsay. Not motherfucker. Are we cl
ear?”

  “Y-yes, Sir.”

  “Good. I remember the way you used to look at me when you came to visit my office in the city. I remember you used to wear those too-short skirts and heels. Your legs seemed to go on forever. And then when you sat and crossed your legs, the silk skirt slid up your thighs exactly the way you wanted my hand to slide up them. Isn't that right? Did you imagine that whisper of fabric moving up your leg was my fingers teasing you? Did you think about it when you were alone in your bed at night after our sessions?”

  Shannon felt the blush creep up her neck and into her face. “That was then,” She said, fighting the need even as she continued to writhe and squirm against the table, seeking contact that just wasn't there.

  “And earlier tonight? When you got out of the shower? What was that hungry look about?”

  “Your imagination,” Shannon said, knowing she was playing with fire. This wasn't the Lindsay she thought she knew, and yet she couldn't let herself admit the truth to him. She didn't trust him.

  Suddenly that large warm hand was pressed between her legs, exactly where she'd always wanted it. It felt as good as she'd imagined it would—better even. Especially after such a long stretch of denial.

  “Tell me to stop, then.”

  Shannon pressed harder against his hand. Her hips began to move without her conscious effort.

  He pulled his hand away, leaving her humping the air. “You're right. We should stop. It's inappropriate and you said you didn't want...”

  “Please.” The word came out desperate and strangled. Not her finest moment if she wanted to resist him.

  Lindsay picked up the cane again and moved to the front of the table. “Lick.”

  She licked the length of the cane, not sure where he was going with this. A moment later it landed in a sharp wet sting across her ass. Oh. That was where. It had been too long since she'd played this way with someone. She could barely remember how any of it was done. The rules. The protocols. The creatively nasty signature styles and habits of the master in question. The personal private rituals, unique to him—to the two of them ensconced in their own private world. A world she used to live in.