by Lacey Alpha
“Yes, Mistress,” he pants, giving in to my touch.
I remove the tickler, walking to the antique chest and taking out my favourite cane and a pair of nipple clamps.
I return to Pet, surveying him eagerly. My blood pumps with adrenaline. I'm going to bring this man to his knees. I'm going to take what I need from him and give nothing in return.
I slide the clamps onto his hardening nipples, tightening them and glancing up into his eyes.
He winces, sending a wave of satisfaction through me. “Good boy.”
I stroke his length, letting him believe this will be pleasurable. That he's about to get his release from me. But I won't let him climax until I've had my fun. And even then, I might not.
I step away, holding out the metal cane, the handle wrapped in leather.
Whipping my arm through the air, I hit the inside of his thigh, leaving a harsh red mark there.
He groans and I repeat the move on his other thigh, making him hiss between his teeth.
“You're hard for me, Pet. Do you think I'll let you into my body?”
“Yes,” he breathes, his eyes blazing at me, full of lust.
“Wrong answer.” I swing the cane again.
⊱✿ ✿⊰
When the sub has gone home, his body painted with the lick of my tools, I'm left sated. He won't come back. That one was weak. I had him bawling before the end. It's a rush to belittle a man like that, a huge powerful being crushed by my hand.
I am all powerful.
In the shower, I give myself release, running my hands between my legs. I don't need a man for this. There's only one reason I fuck my subs and that's when I can't break them any other way. If they enjoy the pain too much, it's pleasure that ultimately makes them crumble.
I wonder how easy it would be to make Ethan snap. He's already so self-deprecating, it's not his mind I'd need to convince of his weakness. But his body is strong, muscular. He has a fierceness in him I don't think even he sees. I want to claw my way into that strength and tear it down, piece by piece.
ETHAN
It's been troubling me, why Annalise was crying. Ever since I got back to my flat, I've been laying wide awake on my bed thinking about it.
It's incredible witnessing that kind of raw emotion first hand. The kind that isn't meant for anyone else's eyes. And for some reason, it feels important that I've witnessed it.
Creep.
I draw in a deep breath, feeling more relaxed for having seen her. The problem is, I went there to check that she's alright, and now I know that she's not.
There's something lacking in her life and I want to know what it is. A twisted part of me wants to try and give it to her. But how?
Perhaps I'll think of a way to discuss this with Clarissa. I've not felt like this before. I feel...different. Hopeful, even.
Why is that? I'm still the fucked-up stalker I was before I went there. Why do I actually feel slightly better?
⊱✿ ✿⊰
Clarissa's wearing red high heels today, matching her crimson hair which is currently pulled into a high ponytail.
“What's on your mind? You seem troubled,” she says, placing a notepad on her thigh. Thankfully, she has trousers on.
“I had a dream.” I shift in my seat.
Clarissa always makes me uncomfortable. There's something so condescending about the way she regards me.
“Go on.” She winds her pen through the air to encourage me.
I tongue the cut in my mouth. It's healing but somehow it's more sore today than it was yesterday. “I had a dream that Annalise was crying, and I wanted to help.”
Clarissa frowns. She doesn't like me using her name. Apparently the use of someone's name increases your attachment to them. And I need to focus on breaking that attachment.
She doesn't call me out on it, though.
“And what do you think that means?” She readies her pen above the page, poised to record whatever assumptions she's going to make about me.
“I don't know. But I feel less guilty now.”
She pauses at that, glancing up, her green eyes swimming with something. Disdain? Amusement? Is she laughing at me?
I clench my fists into balls, grinding my teeth. I had to attend anger management classes after I returned from Iraq. They taught me techniques to cope. Counting to ten, taking slow breaths, the usual shit. But what are you supposed to do when your anger is justified? My therapist should not be looking at me like I'm a big fucking joke. I'm certain of that.
“Less guilty?” she echoes, returning her eyes to the page and writing something down.
I'd give my right arm to see what.
“Yeah.” I shrug, trying to commit to this. I want to understand why I feel different after that encounter.
No. I need to understand. “I'd like to do something that would, you know, help.”
“Do you know what she was crying about, in your dream?” She emphasises the word, making my gut stir uncomfortably. There's something beneath her tone, like she suspects I'm lying.
I shake my head and she softens a little, resting a hand on her knee, leaning toward me. “You can't help her, you do understand that, don't you Ethan?” She looks directly into my eyes. She's telling me, not suggesting. I'm pretty sure she's not supposed to do that.
“I think I could, if I knew how.” I set my jaw. I'm not backing down on this.
Her eyes flip up and down me as she leans slowly back in her chair, a woman in control. “You've been working out again.”
I nod, tonguing my cheek. “It helps.”
“I told you it's ineffective.”
“I beg to differ.”
“You are not qualified to prescribe your own coping mechanisms.”
“If it works, why don't you 'prescribe' it.” I air quote the word, giving her a sneer.
She purses her lips, making a note.
Make all the notes you like, Clarissa, your PhD doesn't make you an expert on me.
“Are you still writing a journal?”
She had me doing that from day one. I have to admit, the technique does help to organise my thoughts. Especially when it comes to dividing dreams from reality. Sometimes the lines are blurry.
I nod in confirmation.
“Bring it with you next time, I'd like to see it.”
I grind my teeth. I don't like the idea of that. Clarissa has all the insight into my head that I'm comfortable with giving her. That journal is unfiltered. Each page a confession, an admission of my darkness. Her reading it would feel like such an invasion of privacy.
I'm hit with a jolt of guilt as I realise that that's exactly what I did to Annalise last night.
That makes up my mind in a wave. Clarissa can read the journal, even if it does cause me anxiety.
It's the least you deserve. Scum.
“Good. Now, tell me more about this dream you had.”
I clear my throat. I'll just tell her how it was in reality. Clarissa's heard worse.
“I went to see her, to...watch her. At her apartment.”
“In the dream?” she confirms, her eyes flaring slightly.
I nod stiffly. “In the dream.”
“And?”
“And she was crying.”
“That's it?” She sounds a bit annoyed but it's beyond me as to why.
“Yeah.” I shrug.
“And how did it make you feel? Intrigued? Excited? Aroused?”
I stand abruptly, anger pulsing through me. ”No!” I demand, my voice louder than I intend.
She looks mildly satisfied by my reaction, jotting down another note.
I want to rip the book from her manicured fingernails.
“But you are sexually attracted to the girl?” She raises the usual, degrading brow.
My shoulders tense. I shut my eyes, trying to find a calm space inside me.
Attracted to her? Hell, she's beautiful. “Of course I'm attracted to her,” I blurt.
“Sit down,” she snips but I don
't.
“It's not what you're thinking. It's not- filthy,” I spit through my teeth, my chest burning.
Clarissa regards me with an investigative stare. She doesn't believe me.
Sordid fuck-up, her eyes seem to say.
“Do you masturbate over her?” she asks, her tone light like she hasn't just made my insides shrivel.
I shake my head resolutely. “No. I just told you- it's not like that. I lo-” I halt, dropping my eyes, my gut twisting sharply.
“You what? Love her?” she prompts, an almost imperceptible note of mocking in her voice.
I crack my neck, dropping back into my seat. “No. I'm not capable of love,” I repeat her own summation of me in a flat tone.
“It's good to hear you admit that at last, Ethan.” Her tone is mellower now, as if I've pleased her.
I shift again, dropping my eyes. Why does my chest feel like it's being compressed by a tonne of bricks?
“The girl in your dream, have you considered that you were feeling good about her crying, not about helping her?”
I frown heavily, rubbing at my beard. It's thick and itchy as shit. Hell, when did I last shave?
“No. I definitely wanted to help.”
She narrows her eyes on me. “Are you sure?”
I taste my lips, feeling confused. That's not why I was feeling good, was it? That's fucked up.
No, I decide. It wasn't that. “It's because she was sad and I felt I could help,” I insist through gritted teeth.
“Aha,” she says knowingly, placing her pen down. “It seems you're suffering from delusions, Ethan. To justify your obsession with the girl.”
My throat goes dry and I nod. She is the expert, after all. Perhaps she does know what she's talking about.
“It's a very dangerous stance to take,” she continues, making anxiety dance through my body.
Dangerous?
Monster, monster, monster.
“It could be the manifestation of your delusions. An idea that you can offer the girl something she needs. And if you begin to truly believe that, you might permit yourself to visit her.”
My blood chills. Maybe she's right. Maybe that is what I'm doing.
I nod slowly, absorbing her words.
“What can I do?” I ask, desperate for guidance.
Clarissa seems more comfortable at last, now that she has my full attention. “I'd like you to call me if you have this kind of episode again. We'll work through your thought process together. Don't make any rash decisions without speaking to me first.” She produces a card from her black leather handbag, reaching across the space between us.
I take it, thumbing the 6 x 4 white card with her name and number at the heart of it. There's a spiral on the bottom of the C and the S. Clarissa Sinclair.
I tuck it into my jeans' pocket.
She scans me from top to bottom. “I've been thinking, perhaps it's time you sought employment.”
“I have enough money. I don't need a job.” My father was a wealthy businessman. I didn't even know he'd died until a woman turned up on my doorstep a year ago with a letter in her hand. I was the only heir to the fortune of a man who hadn't even bothered to write a will. From the vague explanation I was given, he won the money betting on horses. So I know nothing had changed since I last saw him.
“That isn't the point,” she presses. “It would give you an outlet. Something to focus your obsessive tendencies toward.”
I chew at my cheek, nodding. “Alright,” I grunt. “If you think it will help.”
“I do. However...” She gives me that up and down look again. “You would need to work on your appearance before an interview.”
“Right,” I say vaguely, running a hand into my overly long beard.
⊱✿ ✿⊰
I shaved for the first time in, well, I don't remember. It's strange to see my jaw clean again. I prefer a line of stubble. This is extreme. I had my hair cut, too, so it no longer falls into my eyes. It's clipped in at the sides, longer on the top.
I look...good.
I eye myself in the bathroom mirror. This is how I used to look. When women would throw themselves at me on a Friday night, at a bar with friends.
What happened to me?
I rub my eyes, taking in a breath. Can I be that man again? Self-assured, attractive, witty. Incredulous as it seems now, I actually used to be funny.
That man is gone. You're not him any more. You're all that's left of a train wreck.
My chest constricts.
Shoulda killed yourself in Iraq.
Shoulda coulda woulda.
I gaze blankly at my mouth which is pulled into a taut line. When was the last time I smiled? Really smiled?
I try it for half a second, then grunt at my stupidity, heading back to the bedroom.
I spend an hour hunting for job advertisements online, scrolling through post after post on my iPad. There's nothing I'm good at. Nothing I even want to be good at.
My skills are army-based. What use are they in this life?
After heating a microwave dinner and managing half of it before losing interest, I find myself pulling on some running shorts and a raincoat.
I'll do a lap of the block. Or two. Just to stretch my legs.
The rain sweeps over me as I head onto the street, the glow of street lamps casting the world in a dreary orange.
Once around the block and my heart is pounding. It feels good. I start to forget again.
Monster.
I do another lap and the voice is drowned out by the pounding in my ears, the rush of rain hitting the pavement, a distant whirring of an ambulance siren.
I find myself jogging along the next block, in the direction of her.
I'm only going to the park. I'll run a lap then head back.
I circle it twice, a burning sensation growing beneath my ribcage. It's like there's flames inside my chest, licking my heart.
Two more laps.
Three.
A blood-chilling scream stops me dead, raking harshly against my ear drums.
I gaze around the empty park.
I'm hovering at a three-pronged junction in the path. It's dark, lampposts marking the diagonal route across the centre of the grass. A dark figure stands there, moving, swaying, dance-like.
I squint into the rain, uncertain of what I'm seeing.
My instincts encourage me forward and I quicken my pace to a jog once more.
As I near the figure, I realise it's not one, but two people, struggling against each other. A handbag is discarded at their feet, the zip wide, catching rainwater from the sky.
“Hey!” I shout, using my soldier voice. It always serves to command authority.
I move out of the glare of the nearest lamp, my eyes adjusting to the darkness beyond it.
And my heart stops working.
It's her.
Annalise.
And she's in trouble.
ETHAN
My instincts takeover.
I snatch her arm, simultaneously throwing a hard punch at the guy who has hold of her. He rears away as my knuckles crack against his jaw.
He swears, stumbling backwards, nearly knocked to the ground by the force I used.
I pull Annalise behind me, putting myself between her and her attacker. The guy gains his feet, turning and sprinting off into the night.
I move to follow but slim fingers tighten around my wrist.
“Thank you,” she gasps and I can barely bring myself to turn around, my heart feeling like a lump of solid ice in my chest.
I twist out of her hold, moving toward her bag and picking it up, eyes firmly on the ground. Handing it to her, I avoid her gaze, putting another meter between us. Four hundred and ninety nine left to go...
“You're welcome,” I mutter, dipping my head and moving to leave.
This isn't happening. How can this be happening?
“Wait!” she calls and I have to look at her.
I take in her sopping dark ha
ir, her glittering amber eyes, near-gold beneath the hue of the lamplight. I'm undone, spellbound, enraptured by her like I always am.
“Could you walk me home? I'm just a block away,” she pleads.
I tongue the inside of my cheek.
You're the type of danger she's afraid of, Ethan.
“Please?” she adds, looking rattled, her fringe pasted to her skin from the pouring rain. She's so beautiful, it tugs at my chest. And she's looking right at me, face to face, asking for my help. This is exactly what I felt she wanted from me.
How can I refuse?
“Alright,” I grunt, heading across the park in the direction of her flat.
She hurries to my side and I slow, letting her take the lead.
You shouldn't know where she lives, psycho.
“What's your name?” she asks, her voice trembling.
“Ethan,” I reply without thinking.
Shit.
I definitely shouldn't have told her my real name.
“You should probably call the police,” I tell her.
I can't do it for her. That would look really great if the police did some digging into who I am. They might discover that I'm in therapy for my obsessive behaviour. Clarissa wouldn't cover for me then.
“When I get home,” she insists, reaching for my arm, moving closer.
I glance down at her wide-eyes. Is she seeking reassurance from me? This is so messed up.
“I'm Annalise,” she says and I nod silently like this is news to me.
I know your name, your surname, your nickname.
Creep.
“What were you doing out here so late?” she asks, her voice softer, seeming slightly more relaxed.
“I was running.” I don't look at her but feel her eyes on me, taking in my face. What if she's seen me before? What if she knows I've been watching her?
I'm eternally grateful that I decided to shave today. I look like a different man. Not the homeless, drunkard I was projecting this morning.
“In the rain?” she questions as we turn onto her road. I'm careful not to guide her, letting her show me the way.