He waited until she was breathing normally again and stepped in front of her, leaning down so he was looking into her eyes. “I lost track of how many words were in that, and how many breaths were involved.”
Shit! She hadn't even realized she was saying words in the midst of it. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!
He raised his eyebrows and relaxed them. “You didn't know you talked? Well, seeing as how it was a rather intense orgasm, I'm inclined to just call it one stroke. You need to know I'm serious about punishments, but you also need to know I can be flexible with them if the situation warrants it. So, one stroke it is. No need to flash a red hand at me when I'm done, it's only one stroke so I'll be stopping whether you flash red or not. It's going to be more than you think you can take. Punishments are like that, yes? You'd be disappointed if it weren't.”
Sam wasn't sure how she felt about the no talking thing. The loss of words was a pretty big loss, much bigger than she thought it would be when she agreed to it.
Ethan stood and took his shirt off, folding it and placing it beside her clothes before retrieving the black PVC pipe. He pulled the cane from the black pipe and walked behind her without fanfare.
The mirror allowed her to see him raise the stainless cane, such a beautiful instrument, reflected in the mirror, like a wand of light emanating from his fist instead of a solid piece of steel. She could tell he wasn't using a lot of strength as it descended towards her ass, which was why she was so shocked at the level of pain that hit her brain when the signal finally managed to get there. If she'd sounded like a wounded animal before, it had been a wounded rabbit. She sounded like a wounded bear now, a grizzly bear with a fatal wound, and she couldn't stop the noises coming out of her mouth. She desperately wanted him to rub her ass, but was terrified it would only hurt worse if he did. When she next opened her eyes he was squatting in front of her, so their faces were on the same level.
“You won't speak another intelligible word, will you?”
She shook her head no, quickly. Too fast, it almost made her dizzy.
“Punishments from me are generally quick and to the point. It's over now, we're good. You've got four more strokes of the flogger coming to you. You'll get them all at once. Nod that you understand.”
She shook her head no; she couldn't take four strikes of anything right now, her ass fucking hurt.
“Good girl. Honesty is good. I'll rub your back for a minute while you deal with the pain. I'm happy you told me you weren't ready yet, I need to trust you'll let me know these things. Do you know why I'm not rubbing your ass? No words, yes or no with your head.”
She knew. He wasn't going to give her relief from punishment. And she respected him for it, too. She nodded her head and he smiled before standing up and rubbing her back, soothing her, calming her down. He rubbed her back for a while before coming back to her ear with his mouth. “Four more, two at a time, use your hands if you need to.”
He stood behind her and gave her two strokes in a figure eight pattern. They hurt, but nowhere near as bad as the punishment stroke had hurt, and her endorphins were now geared to the punishment stroke. Interesting. He must have noted her reaction, because she could see him using his back and arms to really lay into her for the next two strokes, and the scream that came out of her throat attested to the pain.
She saw him walking back to his bag, draping the flogger over it before picking up the PVC pipe and removing a rattan cane. Not the thin whippy kind, but not a terribly thick one, either. She knew it would hurt, and if he hit too hard he could split the skin with it, but she was pretty confident he had enough skill to keep from doing that. She could do this. She'd taken more than ten strokes with this kind of cane before. And the flogger had actually been quite a warm up. Perhaps not a traditional warm up, but it had gotten her endorphins flowing nicely.
“You don't look worried.”
He said it as a statement, not a question, and she had no way to answer him. She wasn't about to nod yes or no, then she had an idea. She looked at her hand and moved her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart, which she hoped showed him she was a little worried, but not super worried. He looked at her hand and looked back at her face. She couldn't read him, wasn't sure if he was amused, ticked off, or pleased.
He gave her four strokes, working his way down her ass so they didn't overlap, with time to recover between each stroke. She knew he was hitting her as hard as he dared without damaging her skin, but she could handle it, so she didn't signal red or yellow. She was used to this, she could take it. When the fourth stroke was over he put the cane back and brought out one with a bigger diameter. This cane scared her; she knew how this one would feel, too. She could take it, but not at the strength she could take the smaller diameter.
“Ah, you're familiar with this one, too. That's more the look I was hoping to see. Six more strokes.”
There were more screams and moans going on in the dungeon now, and she didn't feel as self-conscious about screaming now as she had in the beginning. She screamed on all six strokes, each one a traumatic line of fire and suffering, pinpointed and dreadful and absolutely perfect. He waited until the final stroke was applied before he rubbed her down. When he was finished he put the cane back into the pipe and reached into his bag, pulling out a mean looking tawse. Wait, wasn't that redundant? Were there any nice looking tawses? No, probably not.
Ethan walked to her and dropped to his knees gracefully, sitting back on his feet and placing the tawse across his thighs, the tan of the tawse contrasting on the black of his shorts.
“You've taken more than I thought you’d be able to, and without knowing how quickly you heal I'm not comfortable giving you ten of the kind of strokes with this I think you can handle. I'm going to give all strokes from your left side. Four strokes, each one harder than the one before unless you give me a signal. When I'm done I have some arnica cream I want to rub in before I let you up, okay?”
She nodded and he rubbed her cheek. “No tears. Someday perhaps we'll talk about what it might take to make you cry. But not today.”
The first stroke wasn't so bad, the second was worse, the third had her screaming again, and the fourth almost made her wet herself. He must have put the cream in his pocket, because he was rubbing her down, smoothing the cool cream into her ass before she'd even stopped screaming. She wanted more. More pain, more fire, more heat. She knew he could get her farther into subspace than anyone had ever managed, but that wasn't what today was supposed to have been about. Today was about them learning about each other, seeing if there was something there to build on. Was she what he wanted? God, she hoped so.
He put her clothes and shoes and all of his things into his bag except for his shirt. When he let her up he put his shirt on her – without buttoning it – and walked her to the sofa, sitting the bag at his feet and pulling her into his lap. Sam was taller than most women, at five foot eight and a half inches tall she wore a size seven or nine depending on the cut, which she thought was a perfect size for her, but she'd never had anyone make her feel small before. When Ethan held her in his lap, she felt like a small child. It was comforting. No one who saw her in a courtroom would believe it if they saw her now, but this was what she needed. No, she needed both. Each part of her was important – the lawyer and the woman, the hard ass and the submissive.
Sam wasn’t sure how long they sat; she was comfortable in his arms and had no concept of time. It wasn’t a deep subspace, but she was definitely floating. She was pulled back into the present moment by the vibrations of Ethan's chest rumbling beneath her face, the warmth of his skin, those hard as steel muscles just beneath. “I think it's time I took you back upstairs and gave you your voice back. Your clothes are in the top of my bag, let me help you into them.”
She wanted to tell him she could dress herself, but she thought he meant she didn't get her voice back until they went upstairs, and she wasn't up for challenging his dominance right now. He'd earned her submission, shown her he coul
d dominate her without fighting her for it – though she knew that still needed to happen. He held her pants for her to step into, and she passively allowed him to pull them up and fasten them onto her. He took his shirt off of her and put it on without buttoning it yet, then pulled her shirt on over her head.
“Put your shoes on while I button up and then we'll head upstairs.”
She did as he said, fastening the straps and standing, surprised to see he'd buttoned up and tucked in by the time she was done.
When they went upstairs he took her back into the den, sat her down, and kissed her again. He melted her all the way down to her toes with his kiss. She was going to have to be careful; falling for someone before she really knew him wasn't a good idea at all.
“I love that you stayed quiet, you have no idea what it means to me. The scene is over now, and there are some things we need to talk about. I need to know how some of the things we did made you feel. First, how did you feel about the speech restriction?”
“I'm not sure. I hated it at first but…” She smiled, feeling a bit shy as she did. “Wow, it feels odd to be able to talk again. It wasn't that long, but now, to be able to tell you, well, to speak at all, to share how I'm feeling…” She breathed in, figuring out how to say it. “It's freedom again. I hadn't expected how liberating it would be to be able to speak again. I hated it at times, there were things I needed to tell you, and I couldn't. But now,” she sighed. “Now I get it. I still don't like it, and I hope you won't want it all the time, but I get why it's something you want to do.”
“To be honest, for intense scenes, it's usually the way I prefer to work. I won’t take away your words in every scene, but at least half of them, probably more than half of them once we get to know each other better.”
She didn't know what to say, she was an expert at arguing, but didn't know for sure if it was something to argue against or not. Before she could think of what to say, he spoke again.
“You don't like to be called Sammy, do you?”
“No. I don't,” she said, shaking her head for added emphasis. “It was one of the things I wanted to tell you.”
“I know. I saw the way you looked at me when I said it, which is why I didn't say it again. Not allowing you to talk forces me to pay more attention to your non-verbal reactions. It's one of the things I like about it so much. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I think I do. I'm not agreeing to more than half of the scenes with speech restrictions, but I'm not arguing against it either.”
He nodded, as if that were good enough, then changed the subject. “I want to call you something besides Sam in a scene, would you prefer Samantha?”
“Samantha is fine. Are you attached to red as a safeword, or can I use mine?”
He smiled. “What’s your safeword?”
“Matte.”
He laughed, his smile lighting up his face. “Of course it is. Okay then, matte it is. Tell me what you expect to happen when you safeword with it.”
“I've never viewed it as a scene ender, just a word to stop the action long enough to figure out what's wrong and how to go on. I think if I wanted to end the scene I'd say, ‘Matte, scene's over’, or something along those lines. If I just say it by itself it means all actions stop until we fix whatever’s wrong.”
“If you're restrained, does it mean I immediately start getting you loose?”
She shook her head, “Not unless I'm complaining of a muscle cramp, or telling you something has fallen asleep, or saying let me go.”
He kissed her again, and this time she decided to be aggressive back, running her hands up his arms, feeling of the chords of muscle just under the skin, running one hand up the side of his neck until she was caressing his cheek as they kissed. He pulled back. “What would it take... is there anything I can do to make you feel comfortable coming back to my place tonight? I'm not expecting sex. I mean, I wouldn't turn it down, but that's not what I'm asking for. I don't want to say goodbye to you when the party’s over. Come back to my house, and let me cook for you while you tell me your life story.”
“Would your life story be involved in there somewhere, too?”
He smiled. “If you want to hear it, yes. But I asked first.”
She thought for a moment and said, “You were big in the Atlanta scene?”
He nodded and she pulled her cellphone out of her pocket, scrolling through her contacts until she came to Kirsten, hoping she wouldn't catch her at a bad time.
“Hi Sam.”
“Hiya Kirsten. Look, I know this is kind of an odd question, but do you know someone named Ethan Levi who lived in Atlanta?”
Ethan spoke before Kirsten had a chance. “You know Kirsten?”
Kirsten spoke through the phone. “Ooooh, I'd know his sexy voice anywhere. Yep, I know him. He's a good guy. A great guy, actually. You’ll probably want to wait to hear the details later, but I'll vouch for him. He learned a lot from Master James, the two of them are pretty good friends. Ethan's known for being a pretty intense sadist, and he doesn't mess around with the rules once he dictates them. He'll respect safewords though, and I think that's what you're really asking.”
“Yeah, pretty much. Were you and he an item?”
“Oh, no. But he dated someone I know in Atlanta. He was a good guy to her even after the breakup, and she was a bit of a bitch to him. Cheated on him and used him pretty bad.”
She realized Ethan could hear Kirsten through the phone and she didn't want to make him uncomfortable so she said, “I've been invited back to his place after the play party and I think I'm going to go.”
“Cool, call me tomorrow afternoon and we can gab. He's a great guy. Assuming, you know, you like sadists.”
Sam handled the end of call niceties and hung up, watching Ethan's face as she did so. “Kirsten says you're safe. I'm not opposed to the idea of sex tonight, but I'm not committing to it, either. I want to have my car there, so we'll need to stop and get it so I can follow you.”
He grinned. “You need an escape clause.”
“Yes,” she laughed, “I guess I do.”
Nodding, he said, “I'm good with that.”
They waited for Tyler and Viv to finish their scene and get past the aftercare to tell them she was leaving with Ethan. Tyler wasn't happy until he found out Kirsten had vouched for Ethan, and then kissed her on the cheek and told her to have fun.
Chapter Four
As promised, Ethan dropped Sam off at her place. She invited him in while she packed a toothbrush and a change of clothes, throwing in an oversized shirt and loose shorts to sleep in. She'd left him in the living room when she went up for her things, and he was in her kitchen when she went back downstairs.
“You have a beautiful home, Sam – what made you choose this one?”
“Lots of things – the view, the yard, the kitchen, the master bathroom, the location. It's more house than I need most of the time, but it's a great house for entertaining.”
“Do you want to fill it with a family someday?”
She shrugged. “I don't know. I mean, part of me thinks I should think about that stuff, about kids and a husband, but part of me knows my life is too hectic as it is. I work long hours, and when I'm not working I'm often at the dojo, or running, or...” She ran her hand through her hair. “I don't know, Ethan. I’d like to have someone to share my life with, but I've been pretty darn picky, and I don't see that changing. What about you, do you want kids and a wife and great big mortgage someday?”
“Picky is good. I'm kind of picky myself. I don't know for sure about kids – some days I think it's a good idea, some days I don't. I figure once I find my soul mate it’ll be a decision the two of us make together. I don't think I'm going to know for sure until I find her. If you're ready you can follow me. Give me your cellphone number and I'll call you so you'll have mine in your phone in case we lose each other en route.”
As they were on the way out the door it occurred to her to ask, “Where do you live, any
way?”
“Oh, I'm renting a place on the side of Signal Mountain. It's not much but it's remote, secluded, surrounded by woods, and has an awesome view. My game plan when I came here was to get a new branch up and running, with the idea that once it was self-sufficient I might move on to Nashville or Knoxville. But if I have a reason to stay in town then I’d certainly stay.”
“Don't you think we're getting ahead of ourselves? Yes, there’s been an attraction since the beginning. One we’ve both obviously felt, even though I was stubbornly denying it because of the whole kink thing. And now we know we're both kinky, and seem to have complimentary kinks, but this doesn't mean we’re going to live happily ever after Ethan. Give it time.”
He smiled, a cocky smile that said he knew differently but was going to let her think what she wanted until she saw things his way. “Okay, drive carefully, I'll see you there.”
* * * *
Ethan grilled steaks and vegetables while they talked, and pulled out a fantastic bottle of red wine to go with them. He made a raspberry dish with drizzles of chocolate over it for desert, and hand fed it to her, letting her lick his fingers clean between bites. She helped him clean the kitchen, with the conversation going all over the place – their most embarrassing moment in high school, the details of their first kiss, how they lost their virginity, how strict their parents were, what made them start taking martial arts, how they discovered the world of kink. When dinner was over, they moved out onto the screened in porch, which had an incredible view of the city below.
Safeword: Matte Page 4