I feel like a new creature. Like my life is just beginning.
“You told me you liked pain. That it made you feel alive.” Logan’s voice is level, but his fingers tremble slightly as they pass over my breast. Even without me saying it, he knows something of what I’m feeling. That’s how attuned we are.
“It does. I do.” I raise my chin. “Give me the rose with the thorns.”
He turns back to bend over the tray, but his cheek curves. “Leave it to you to see the beauty in pain.”
“The way I see it, life is equal parts hurt and love. If I numb myself to one, then I miss out on the other.”
“You speak as though you’ve had a lifetime of suffering.”
Silently I tally up everything I’ve been through. My mother’s death, my father’s grief. The illnesses that have shaped my entire life. My own striving for love. “I’m not saying I’m the only one who’s suffered. Or that I’ve suffered more than most.”
Logan remains silent and I keep babbling. I feel like I’m having such huge revelations and I want to share some of it with him.
“Socrates says if all the world’s suffering was laid in a pile, most people would choose their own portion. I wouldn’t change my life for anyone else’s. But I’ve been numb for too long.” I lock eyes with him. “I’m ready to be awake to my life. Even for the parts of it that hurt.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. He just stands there, ice blue gaze searing straight into my soul.
Then suddenly he starts stripping out of his shirt and my mouth goes dry. Crossing the room to a sink, he washes his hands, then returns to show me the needle.
I can’t stop my smile. “I’m not afraid of needles.” I’ve encountered enough in my lifetime.
He shakes his head and starts to sterilize the needle. “This will earn you twenty patents,” he says gruffly, still turned away from me. The muscles of his back are as chiseled as the stone walls of his castle.
When he comes to my side, I grab his hand. “No.” He is missing the whole point.
His nostrils flare and his gaze is a blade. “This is happening, Daphne.”
I drop my hand and soften my voice. “That’s not what I meant. You don’t have to give up patents for this. I want it.” I want you. But I’m not quite brave enough to say that yet.
For a moment he’s frozen except for a slight widening of his eyes. The blue of his iris is a thin circle of ice. Then, in a growl, “What game are you playing?”
“No games. Not any more. I want to do this.”
“No patents?” The furrow between his brows is etched deep, he’s so confused.
“No.”
He stares at me a long moment. See me, I plead silently. See us. What we could become.
“This doesn’t change anything,” he says, and pinches my nipple in preparation. I watch him, not the needle, as if I could communicate everything I’m thinking telepathically.
I want this. I’ll do anything...for you.
Because it’s true, I want to be awake. I don’t want to be numb or frozen anymore. But there’s more to it than that. I wouldn’t have woken up to just anyone. I want the man in front of me. My first crush. My first love. I want it all, with him.
I’m a silent observer as Logan bends over me. I see him and the room as if I’m a ghost by the ceiling. A young woman prone on the table, her hair spread in a dark halo around her head.
The pinch, when it comes, feels far away. Logan adorns my left nipple with a tiny barbell with green jewels. His eyebrows are furrowed again, but this time in concentration. Then he sterilizes everything and repeats the process with my right.
He lets the needle clatter onto the tray. “It’s done.”
I come back into my body, sucking air into my lungs. My nipples throb. But so does my clit. My full ass only emphasizes how my pussy is empty.
Logan examines me thoughtfully. His fingers come to my cunt and slide inside. “Wet,” he says hoarsely.
I stare at him as if I can see past the mask. “Always.” For you.
He presses a button and the table starts to lower. I jolt. Now what?
He kneels and tugs my legs down, dragging me to the edge of the table until I’m straddling his face.
I rise up on my elbows. “Wha—?”
“You’ve earned this.” His voice is muffled between my thighs.
The mask is cool when it touches my skin. Soon it’s slick with my juices. I grab his hair and cant my hips, rocking into his mouth.
“That’s it, baby. Grind it out.” He angles his head and probes my pussy with his tongue. A minute more and it’s too much. My toes scrunch and I cum, screaming.
He rises over me, his chin and mask shiny. Grabbing his shirt, he mops his face.
I lie back, insides still quivering. The pain in my nipples is a million miles away. “How many?” I gasp.
He raises a brow.
“How many patents did I give up in exchange for that orgasm?”
He licks his lips, which are glossy with my essence. “None.”
My heart stops for a second. I smile, and he returns it. Just a small quirk beside his lips, a tiny parentheses, but it’s enough.
This doesn’t change anything, he’d told me. In that moment, we both know he’s wrong.
Seventeen
Present Day
Logan
She lies on the table, her body a delectable offering to a cruel god. Green jewels sparkle at the reddened tips of her breasts, the tan cleft of her ass.
She spent the day training her ass for me, stretching it until she crawled in here with a plug so large it pushes her ass cheeks apart. It’s got to be uncomfortable, but when I twist and tug on it, her pussy weeps. Her juices drench my hand. Needy little thing.
Needy enough not to want patents in exchange for what we just did. Is this just some new game? Another way for her to manipulate me?
I frown briefly even as her eyes smile sleepily at me. I drop my hand. “You should rest.”
“No,” her voice rings out. “You need to claim all of me.”
“You want me to fuck your ass?” My hand returns to the plug, pushing and pulling to make it stretch her back hole. My cock strains against my zipper.
“You promised.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You implied.” Her eyes flash indignation. I trained my ass all afternoon long...for this?
I pull on the butt plug, drawing it out of her. Her middle tenses and she sighs when I push it back in. Oh, she wants it all right. She’s not faking that.
“I won’t be gentle,” I warn. She doesn’t get to tease the beast without consequences. Which she well knows.
“I can take it.” She’s confident. Still, her eyes widen when I shuck off my jeans. My cock is thick and pulsing. I grab her right hand and bring it to my cock. Her slender fingers barely fit around my monster dick. Did she forget so soon how big I am?
I grit my teeth as she jacks me, and my toes curl into the stone floor. Fuck, her touch feels so good. I want to grab her and fuck her hard. To finally be inside her body again. Her eyes are so welcoming. Her skin flushed. Her pussy weeping its juices for me. My hips jut forward towards her hips, needing contact even as something else inside me clenches, holding back.
“Can you, Daphne? Take all of me?” My voice comes out harsh. Almost cruel.
Daphne’s not affected in the least. Eyes hooded, she only tries to reach for me with her left hand, but I pin it back in place.
Control. I have to stay in control.
I thread a hand in her hair and bring her to her knees before me.
“Suck me,” I bark. I widen my stance and my cock bobs in front of her face. “Make it good.”
She opens her mouth and swallows the head of my cock eagerly. Too eagerly. Halfway onto my dick, she chokes, her eyes watering. I loosen my grip, allowing her to control her own movements. She pulls off and gasps, but forces herself back onto my cock, gobbling me down like a starving
woman at a feast. I hit the back of her throat, and she gags, but keeps fighting to stay on.
“Oh, fuck, Daphne. Fuck me.” I cradle her face. Tears stream down her cheeks, a black river of mascara, but she doesn’t quit. Her hands massage my thighs.
“Look at me,” I order, and she does. Wide, green eyes, wet with tears but still hungry. Desperate with need and…desperate to please me, too. Fuck, what is she doing to me? Besides turning my world upside down. I want to push her. I want to punish her. I want to make love to her.
Her head bobs frantically and she gains another few centimeters with each pass. I hold her a moment on my dick and then let her back off to catch her breath.
“Back up. On the table. Hold yourself open and offer yourself to me.” I lost this war before it even began.
She scrambles up and kneels on the low table. Face down, hands on either ass cheek, tugging them apart. The butt plug fills her tiny hole. I draw it out and watch the stretched skin retract. My cock throbs so hard I almost black out. Fuck me.
I have to have her. Now. I grab a bottle of lube and slick up my cock. If I touch her beautiful golden skin too soon…
“Fuck me, Daphne,” I breathe as I line up my cock with her back hole. Her anus has shrunk without the plug, and I push inside before she tightens up even more. My entire body shutters with first contact and I’m glad she’s facing away from me and can’t see.
The head of my cock breaches the first tight ring of muscle. She wriggles a little, helping me work in further and oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. I almost lose my mind. Her channel squeezes me tight and all the blood rushes from my head to my dick. I steady myself, my hands huge on her tiny, tapered waist.
Every time I have my hands on her, it feels like the most natural thing on earth. In a world full of wrong, here, finally, is something right.
And then the terrible, wonderful thought strikes me: What if she’s real?
What if she’s really my girl? What if she really is the girl next door that I met all those years ago? That girl at the beach who walked out in the red bikini and scalded my eyes. The girl I could talk to for hours. The woman I gave her first kiss, her first orgasm, the only woman I’ve ever— What if she’s real? The innocent and the sex pot and the perfect and imperfect, all wrapped up together in the marvelous package laid before me, wanting me for nothing else other than me?
Her hair cascades down her back, slipping off when she tries to turn her head. What does she see? A monster, a giant beast impaling her on his impossibly big rod? I ease further inside her and fall forward, covering her body with mine. I’m wedged tight inside her, dying to fuck, but I want to feel her, gather her trembling form into my arms.
I kiss her between her shoulder blades but the smooth, false skin of my mask is still a barrier between us.
“Eyes front.” I tug on her hair to enforce the order. The thought that she might be my fantasy made reality is too much, but like a fool, I still want it. I’m also tempted by the vision, and with her body wrapped around me, I’m lost in her. Finally inside her again, I can’t bear any more barriers between us. Even if it makes me the biggest fool in the universe.
But when she’s facing forward again, I rip off the mask and toss it to the corner. Then I grasp her hips and slide her back onto my cock, making her groan as I conquer her ass. Her channel squeezes me so tightly I’m afraid my dick will snap off. I rock gently and lights flash in the corner of my eyes. The lube eases my entry, but in this moment, I just need to fuck her. I need to claim what’s mine. I want to hold on to possibility. And I want her to feel me so far into next week that she knows who her Master is.
My orgasm gathers in the base of my spine. She’s passive under me, grunting softly as I ream her ass. A perverse part of me loves that she’s uncomfortable. But I also want to make her cum. Watch her fall apart while I’m balls deep inside her ass. Make her love the depraved things I do to her body. Make her crave them. Make her crave me.
Next time, I’ll train her ass myself, and force her to cum only when the plug is wedged tight in her bowels. I want to do such filthy, wrong things to her and I want to make her love them.
I reach my hand under her and, sure enough, she’s a sopping mess. Poor, neglected pussy. I find her clit and grind the heel of my palm against it, making her cry out. My free hand grabs a handful of her hair, drawing her head back as I pummel her bottom. I want to hurt, to destroy her. Break her down until she’s in pieces. Then rebuild. She’ll be reborn. I’ll make her new. Make her mine.
A roar builds in my throat. Daphne cums with a howl, my hand at her clit and cock in her ass. She shudders hard, her back bowing until I’m afraid she’ll break in two. Her ass clenches around me, ripping out my cum. I fill her to the brim with my creamy offering, then pull out and coat her perfect ass.
Then I lean on the table, trembling, weak from my orgasm. The mask glimmers in the corner, empty eyes pointed in our direction, a judgmental voyeur. My clothes are crumpled on the floor. I left pieces of me all over the room.
Because, this night and always, Daphne’s the one who broke me apart.
She’s destroyed me. And I’m the one reborn.
* * *
Daphne
I thought it might mean something: giving myself over completely. But when I go to turn around and hug my Master, he stops me. A dark cloth drops over my face. He blindfolds me carefully, and leads me from the dungeon. Rose petals whisper at my feet.
Logan is gentle as he guides me to the bathroom, to a shower first for a rinse and then a tub full of fragrant water. Judging from the soft fluttering against my bare skin, he’s added rose petals. He eases me back and washes me gently, taking care not to disturb or submerge my newly pierced nipples.
But he won’t let me touch him. When I reach for him, he captures my wrists.
“No,” he rasps.
“But…” I bite my lip. We just shared a moment, I know we did, but he’s holding back. Retreating behind his stone walls. I opened myself completely, but it wasn’t enough to earn his trust.
I fight back tears as he takes me from the tub and dries me off. He removes my blindfold so I can take out my contacts. But his mask is back, firmly in place. I finish my business in the bathroom and head to bed where he waits for me in the darkness.
“I want to see you,” I whisper as he draws up the covers, tucking me in.
“I know.” His lips are on my forehead. The mask is cool on my skin. And I hate it. I hate how he hides. Not because he’s holding back from me, but because he thinks he’s ugly. The mask is a shield, but it hasn’t stopped me from hurting him.
He retreats to the door, pausing when I call his name.
“How, Logan? How can I earn you?”
He pauses and my silly heart fills to the brim with hope.
“You can’t.”
And when he leaves, I feel nothing but despair.
Eighteen
7 Years Ago
Daphne
My whole life has been spent towards one goal: saving my mother from death by this horrific disease.
And I failed.
I didn’t grow up fast enough, finish my degree quick enough, spend enough time with her while I had her on this earth.
And now she’s gone.
Gone.
It’s not fair. I believed so hard we would save her. That if I just did everything I was supposed to and worked hard enough…
But I’ve been a little naïve fool, imagining there’s any order or balance or fairness to things in the universe at all.
I’ve been a child still believing in fairy tales.
It rains while they lower my mother into the ground beneath an angelic statue at Thornhill. The heavens weep along with me and my father.
The entire community would have been here, but my father refused anyone beyond the priest, Logan and Adam, a few others from the research lab, and me.
I don’t have any friends here, other than Logan, but he’s standing under an umbrella beside
my father, though his eyes keep coming to me.
I don’t care. I don’t deserve to be comforted. I failed her. I deserve every ounce of chill and cold and hurt and—
I hiccup as a fresh round of tears hits me.
A woman I barely know from Dad’s lab comes over and tries to put an arm around my shoulder but I pull away.
They’ve finished putting Mom in the ground and I rush forward and throw a single bright red rose on top of the casket. Her favorite.
And then I turn and flee back towards Thornhill, abandoning the umbrella about halfway there and letting the rain lash my face the rest of the way.
I’m cold to the bone as soon as I yank open the heavy wooden front door and I’m breathing hard as I slam it shut again. I flee upstairs to my bedroom.
I slam that door, too, and shove rain-soaked hair out of my face as I start to yank at the collar of the stifling black dress, when I see it—on my white, virginal bedspread—a single red rose.
Just like the one I put on Mama’s casket. A crimson Heathcliff. Her favorite.
I slink out of the heavy, soaked dress so that I’m just in my silk camisole and slip and curl onto the bed, clutching the rose and fingering the delicate petals.
Who put it here?
It feels like a sign from my mother. A reminder of beauty and goodness when all I feel is pain.
There’s a knock at the door and I sit up. Did Dad actually come after me? Did he put the rose here? He’s barely tried to comfort me since she died. Hasn’t even tried to hug me. Is this his way of reaching out?
“Come in.”
But it’s not Dad who pushes open the door.
It’s Logan.
The disappointment at it not being Dad is only momentary because I immediately feel a rush of gratitude that Logan did come. Of course he noticed me leaving the funeral. Of course he came. He’s Logan.
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