Sweet Pain

by Jenni Moen

  On the nightstand was a huge bottle of water and a cup that I was going to guess had two Tylenol in it.

  But if I wasn’t in the hospital, where the hell was I?

  I grabbed the cup and popped the water open, glad someone had thought of it. It seemed safe here. But I could feel the dope sickness starting to tingle in my fingers. I needed a fix, soon.

  Letting my breath out, I slumped on the bed. What the hell was the point of trying to get a fix when the only thing I’d been chasing all this time was the pain high?

  Fuck, that was probably the reason I was a junkie. I wanted someone to hurt me and I couldn’t deal with that shit. Total mind fuck. Get high so you don’t want to get hurt.

  The rush I’d been trying to find for two damn days finally happened when Lonnie slammed me into the wall, dislocating my shoulder. The rush was there. Dopamine. Adrenaline. Sweet fucking pain.

  I was so fucked up.

  Abernathy.

  My brain remembered that detail—he showed up. And it was just about the time Lonnie was going on me.

  With no warning, I started shaking and crying. Huge sobs that shook the bed and made my shoulder send hot pain through my arm—which turned me on. And that just made me cry harder.

  The door opened a minute later, and Abernathy trotted in.

  “Hey now, what’s wrong?” He knelt in front of me.

  “You followed me, you dick!” I took a swing, but the shoulder didn’t want to work with me. “You stopped him from beating me up! Where the hell am I? What the fuck is going on?”

  His big hands wrapped around my fists that were flying around, trying to hit him. “Come on, Gianna. Deep breath. Relax. I know you’re upset.”

  I didn’t want to calm down. “You fucked me up!”

  “No, darling, I didn’t. I made you realize something about you.” He held my fist a little tighter. “Could you stop swinging at me? I can help you. But you have to stop trying to hit me.”

  “I don’t want to! I want to kick you in the face! I want to find a fix and I want to go back to being a whore!”

  His face dropped and he suddenly looked sad. “I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t know…”

  “Stop calling me darling!”

  Darling meant that he gave a shit about me and I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want anyone to care about me. I wanted to go back to the apartment with Darnell and just get high and go back to pretending I didn’t know I liked pain.

  “You don’t have to live that life, Gianna.”

  “You fucking reading my mind?”

  “I don’t have to. I can read your body.”

  I slapped him. “Fuck you.”

  “What’s scaring you?”

  That was a big question. “I like pain. Who the fuck likes pain?”

  “Lots of people. Masochists, their called. Some like just a touch and some like a lot. You, I think are a middle of the road kind of girl.”

  What? There was a name for this shit? I stared at him. He was a good-looking man, and there was honesty in his face. I didn’t get to see that in a lot of people. It was nice.

  “Why? Why do you want to show me this kinky shit?”

  “Because I like kinky shit myself. I also think you don’t really want to go back to the street corner, or doping up every chance you get.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I’d like to.”

  That hit me. No one had wanted to get to know me—Gianna, the person—in years. It was always only what I could do for them. This guy wanted to know me. I didn’t have an answer. There was nothing smart-ass or otherwise.

  He lifted himself to his full height, and I realized how big he was. Physically large, and—oops.

  Well hung. Especially if those were tighty-whities. I giggled, imagining this massive alpha male in Hanes tighty-whities.

  Turning his head, he stared at me. “What’s funny?”

  Trying to stop the giggle, I swallowed loudly. “Um…nothing.”

  “No lies, Gia. If you want to find out how I can help you kick the drugs and still get you high, no lies.”

  I cleared my throat. “I just had a funny thought.”

  “About?” His eyebrow went up.

  “Your…underwear.”

  His laugh was great and gave me a little chill. “I’m not wearing any.”

  I really wanted to reach out and touch the front of his pants and see if he was lying. His massive hand reached out for me. “Come on. I want you to trust me. I have to trust you. You can peek at my dick later.”

  “Do you promise?”

  The dark look he gave me made me think I had gone too far, but a smile replaced it a moment later. “We’ll see.” He took my hand and dragged me out of the room.

  My skin was really crawling now, and I was going to need a fix soon. But he wanted me to see his house, to trust him. Something told me that was important to him. I played along. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of this and get something in me.

  But the room he pulled me into distracted me. It was cream, with pops of color. It was cozy. And that’s not what I thought of when I thought of Abernathy.

  Of course, when had I started thinking about Abernathy as anyone else but the guy who smacked my ass?

  “This…isn’t you. You drive sleek fast cars and wear Versace.”

  His smile was crooked. “Yeah, actually this is me. I live simply. I spoil myself when it comes to everything else. I dress like a scrub at work, so putting on Versace and driving a Lexus makes me feel like it’s worth it.”

  “What do you do? I mean, aren’t you a Dom?”

  “That’s a lifestyle choice,” he answered. “Not a living. I get up each morning and go to work like any good little tax payer. I work my forty hours, and then I spoil myself.”

  “What…what do you do?”

  “I run a construction company.”

  “Holy shit, A. McDowell Triple C.”

  “Concrete and Construction, that’s our name.” He almost sang the jingle I’d heard over and over on the television.

  “Your dad?”

  “Me da, yes.” He swept a hand around the room. “And my mother helped me decorate. She loved helping with staging and making things look put together.” He was sad, suddenly. Not the big tough alpha. “She did love this house.”

  “I didn’t know my mom.”

  He looked at me. I had no idea where this was coming from.

  “She died when I was three. Dad was a suck ass father. Most times, he forgot I was there and went to get drunk.”

  He took my hand again and led me to the couch. “Do you really want to go back to being a whore for your fixes?”

  “The hell kind of question is that?”

  “A real one.” He could see I was not in the mood to play games, but he pulled my hand away from where I was scratching my arm. “Give me a real answer. I promise I can help you with the itching and the crawling. But I want an answer.”

  “No one wants to be a whore. It’s not like I was sitting on a swing in the playground thinking, you know what’s a great career? Prostitution. I think I’ll be a street walker. Oh and let’s make this even more fun, I can be a junkie on top of it.”

  “You’re being absolutely truthful?”

  “I have a reason to lie at this point?” I realized something. “You don’t trust me because someone else does it to you.”

  “Not the street walker part. The dope fiend. The woman didn’t want to clean up. She loved being high. It was all she ever wanted to do—and whatever way she could find it. Nothing I did convinced her that there was so much more to live for.” His big, brown eyes stared into my soul—and I couldn’t keep him out. I didn’t want to keep him out. “I lost her. She got bad blow. Really bad. She was dead before I could get 911 on the phone, before I could even think to grab her and toss her in the car. And if you want me to show you how sweet pain can be, you need to quit all of it. Not even a blunt. All of it.”

  Those eyes. Str
ong and vulnerable at the very same time. He was asking if he could help me. And right at that moment, with my shoulder throbbing, my brain all kinds of fucked up from the half assed bender I had been on since leaving the Club, I wanted him to.

  “I don’t know you.”

  “You will. And I will know you.”

  “You’re serious. You can get me over this drug thing. And learn about the pain thing.”

  He leaned in close. “I will make you beg for it.”

  Shit. A chill ran down my spine. It wasn’t the shakes yet. “This is about sex, too, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the relief from the pain. If you agree to this, you are going to get fucked, hard and often.”

  “It’s just sex.”

  “Not with me. You’re not a prostitute with me. You’re a sub. You’re my charge. And it’s never just sex.”

  Damn. The heat those words induced in my sex was nearly an inferno. It had always been just sex to me. A means to an end—a quick come, a quick fix, a few bucks. But this guy, this Dom, wasn’t interested in just sex.

  I looked at my fingers and this was where and when I got to choose my future. Not a lot of people got what I had at that moment. And this guy was…well. Fucking hot. Dominant. Alpha.

  Protector.

  “My brain wants me to go find something, anything that’s going to stop the dope sick. I need you to show me. Show me how much I like pain and how I can live with myself knowing I’m a freak.”

  He stood. “Do you trust me?”

  Chapter 7

  I didn’t know if she was going to do it. She had to trust me, and if she didn’t…

  …I would drop her off at her house and try to forget her.

  I didn’t want to do that.

  The sad, sweet eyes of this girl who was trapped in a life she didn’t want stared at my outstretched hand.

  This was as important for her as it was for me. I wasn’t trying to replace Lina’s death with something. I was trying to make her death worth something in my eyes. And at the same time, Gianna was trying to decide if she wanted out, for real, for good. She was fighting a raging battle in her mind, admitting she liked pain.

  What I didn’t tell her, what I needed her to find out, was how much pleasure was going to accompany it. That’s what this was about to be. Showing her that even though she liked pain, there was so much power in owning that, and using it, and so much reward. Such a wonderful reward.

  Finally, she took my hand. “I trust you. Show me.”

  “Your safeword?”

  She smirked. “Grapefruit.”

  “Good girl. We’re going to do a scene now. That means that you’re submissive, and I’m your Sir. Your body is going to start craving the high more and more. You need to listen to me. This isn’t going to be easy, but I will help you through the DTs and then we can start learning some more good stuff.”

  I made a mental shopping list of what I was going to have to add to my arsenal: canes, clamps—both nipple and clit—jute rope, and I had to talk to my old Mistress to see what else she could come up with.

  As long as Gianna stayed beyond today.

  I led her back to the bedroom. She stopped at the door. “Here? Sir?”

  “Here, darling. The Club is a fun place to play, and we will have scenes there. But right now, you need to see that I don’t need to hit you in any way to give you what you need.”

  She trembled. “The nipple things?”

  “Clamps, Gianna.” I leaned into her ear. “I have one for your clit, too. I think you’ll enjoy that.”

  She wasn’t ready to be comfortable with this, but I was going to push it. Until she uttered that safeword or I thought she was pushing too hard.

  Right now, though, the delightful torture I had for her was simple. Very simple. I shut the door and stared at her. She was a lovely little thing, curved and tucked in all the right places.

  “Strip.”

  “What?”

  “Five hits with the paddle.”

  “Oh, God, what? Sir, I don’t understand.”

  “When you disobey me, you get paddled. You questioned my directive. Strip. Get on the bed, face up. Vite, vite, darling.”

  She still hesitated, but this time did actually obey me. It was endearing to see her so shy over her body after I had spanked her ass all the way to orgasm in front of an audience. A moment later, she scrambled onto the bed and lay down, one hand over her pussy and the other arm over her breasts. While she stripped, I had pulled a few things out of the chest of drawers.

  I sat down next to her, and I could see that she was starting to get the sweats. This might work out better than I had planned. I took her hand from over her breasts and held it up above her head, looping a piece of rope over her wrists. “You are never to be embarrassed about showing me your body. I enjoy your naked skin, your pert breasts. I plan on feasting on all of it.”

  “Sir, I haven’t taken a shower…”

  “The doctor and I washed you earlier.” I put a finger to her lips when I saw her start to protest. “No. I’ve seen you naked and beaten, both good and bad. And the doctor is a trusted friend of the Club. No one will know you’re here.” The tension in her body dropped, and I moved her hand away from her sex, looping the rope around that wrist as well. I pulled them up above her head. I tightened the rope a bit and then caught her curious eye. “Your training begins now.” I yanked on the knot and the rough rope bit into her wrist.

  She gasped, jerked—then sighed. Immediately, Gianna looked terrified, and I ran a hand down her cheek. “Listen to me. No one outside of our safe circle will ever know that you like this. Unless you tell them, it’s not their business. Enjoy it, pretty girl. You may give me suggestions so we can learn what you like and what we have to explore.”

  The adorable sheepish look on her face won me over to her a little more. “Tighter, Sir?”

  I laughed. “I can do that.” Her nipples pearled in response to my second tug, biting the rope into her skin a little more. While she enjoyed that, I captured her ankles and secured each to a bed post, opening her pussy to me like a flower in the morning.

  She got an adorably terrified look in her eyes when I snapped on the latex glove.

  “S-sir?”

  “Relax, Gia. This is protection for me. You’ll see.” I picked up a small vial and unscrewed the cap and dashed a touch onto two fingers of the gloves, pinching it ever so lightly with my thumb. I brought it to the lips that hid her clit and spread the fine powder on either side.

  The gasp she first let out was from my hand, and the one that followed was for the sensation the powder gave her. Her eyes popped open, and her face contorted a bit. “Sir! What…?”

  “Itching powder.” I grabbed the vial from the nightstand. “Let that work for a moment, darling. I’ll be right back.”

  She groaned and twitched. I headed for the attached bathroom and quickly gathered a few things: the porcelain basin, some soaps, and three washcloths. I ran the water to lukewarm, and as I was filling the basin, I heard Gianna gasp and moan.

  Itching powder hurt. If it wasn’t scratched, it started to hurt very quickly.

  I walked back to the bed, putting everything on the nightstand. Then, I pulled over a chair and sat. She turned to find me, her eyes wild, her breath heaving her breasts. “What are you thinking, darling?”

  “It hurts. I want to scratch!”

  I nodded and sat back, watching her squirm. She tried to rub it off or scratch in every way possible, and all it was doing was making it worse. I couldn’t help but smile. I did like watching this. I knew it was just the right kind of pain and just the right amount.

  “Oh, God,” she breathed. “Oh, shit.”

  I let her go for another two minutes. Finally, I leaned into her ear. “And you like this, don’t you? That low shock of pain. That thrumming. Say it, Gianna. Tell me.”

  “I love it. I fucking love it.” She had barely hesitated.

  “We’re going to play some more, dar
ling.” Not sure she heard me, I pinched her nipple and elicited another shocked gasp, followed by a moan.

  “More, please, Sir.”

  “Good girl.” Selecting another object from my nightstand, I moved to stand over her. Not kindly, I took a nipple in my gloved fingers—that still had itching powder on it—and pulled, twisting a bit. I slipped the nipple clip on and pressed it tight. She let out a little incoherent yell and arched up off the bed. Repeating the ministrations to her other breast, this time earning a small scream, I sat back and watched her. I waited just a minute more before taking the last clip in my hand. Careful not put the powder on her clit, I gathered enough of the bundle nerves of her pussy to hold a clip. She let out a rending scream at the sensation and this time her words were clear.

  “Oh, fuck yes, that feels so good!”

  I kissed her forehead as I slipped two clean fingers into her waiting tunnel and pumped slowly. She tried to press against them, but I held my pace. Her body was shaking and trembling, and I didn’t know if it was the withdrawal or if she was shaking with the sexual rush.

  “Color, darling.”

  “Green, green.” She panted, her breasts heaving. Pulling on the chains, I made them tighter and pulled on her body. “Oh God, oh shit.”

  I sat on the bed next to her, still moving slowly in and out. “Do you want to come?”

  “Fuck yes, yes, please.”

  I used my thumb to flick the clip in her pussy. She screamed, but it wasn’t enough to make her come. I moved my fingers all the way into her and hooked them around to find that sweet, soft spot inside. I pressed against it as I flicked the clip again—then pulled the clip off.

  The rush of blood back into her clit finished her. She came, screaming at the top of her lungs, yanking against the ropes that held her fast. Her face was glorious as she came, her eyes pressed closed in delight.

  Her cheeks were wet, but the tears were not those of sadness—they were those of someone who was discovering what the world could be. They were the tears of someone who was finding joy where there had only been contempt before. They were of someone blossoming under the careful, caring hand of her Master.