C is for…

by L. DuBois

  When she stepped back to check her reflection, the blonde sub who’d helped her with her makeup smiled. “It’s like Black Widow meets Playboy Bunny. Gorgeous.”

  Beth stared at her reflection. Her hair hung in a perfect straight line around her neck, the eye makeup drawing attention to her face. The lace panties kept the outfit from veering into leather-fetish costume territory. She looked strong and powerful.

  “I don’t look very submissive.”

  “So?” The blonde who’d done her makeup capped a small pot of liquid eyeliner and wiped the brush off on a tissue. “You want a Dom who’s strong enough to handle you, in your complete bad-ass package.”

  Complete bad-ass package. She liked that. Beth smiled at her reflection.

  With profuse thanks and promises to replace all the pieces, Beth left the Subs’ Garden and headed for the Orion Room.

  When she reached the door, she knocked once and opened it—she didn’t hesitate or second-guess how he’d want her to show up. If he wanted her to crawl into the room then it was his job to tell her that. She had every right to expect a Dom to be clear with her…and for him to respect her desires, needs, and wishes.

  The room was lit by cool blue recessed light, the high ceiling studded with small LEDs that mimicked the real night sky, the three stars of Orion’s Belt slightly brighter than the others.

  Master James stood in the center of the room, looking strong and dapper in black slacks and a gray dress shirt open at the collar.

  “You got the list I left you.”

  “Yes…Master James.” There was no denying the little blip of panic she felt because she’d purposefully paused before adding “Master James” to her sentence. Maybe this new bad-ass persona and worldview on how she was going to submit—and what it meant to be submissive—would take a bit longer to get used to than she thought, if such mild disobedience caused discomfort.

  “There, under the chains.”

  Beth paused for a second to see if he’d include any orders on how he wanted her to get there, but he didn’t, so she walked over to stand under the structure he’d indicated. The large metal frame looked like a piece of gym equipment—the kind used for pull-ups and cable exercises. One of the overhead cross pieces had chains dangling from it, giving the otherwise calm room a hint of dungeon atmosphere.

  She took her position facing him, waiting with her hands relaxed at her sides. There were flutters of arousal dancing over her skin, but she wasn’t lost in the feeling.

  “Raise your arms.” Master James stood in a shadowy area of the room, his face hidden from her.

  Beth lifted her arms, helpfully positioning her wrists near the heavy padded cuffs attached to two lengths of chain.

  The heels of his dress shoes clicked on the floor, and Beth dropped her gaze—not only out of submission, but because some stubborn part of her didn’t want to look at him, afraid that if she did she’d lose the anger that was a cold ball of white light just behind her breastbone.

  The cuff slid easily around her left wrist, buckling into place. The fabric of his shirt brushed against her hip as he leaned across to cuff her right wrist.

  Beth licked her lips, trying to hold on to the anger, to use it as a shield against the feelings his nearness caused. Her body didn’t care that he’d shut her down when she’d asked for more. Her body remembered what it felt like to be touched, to be mastered by him.

  When she was in place, her wrists at shoulder height, Master James walked away. Spotlights came on, bathing the area where she stood in bright light, and effectively blinding her to anything outside the circle of light.

  “You look different.” His voice and footsteps told her he was coming back, but she couldn’t see him.

  “Yes, Master James.”

  “It suits you.”

  “Thank you, Master James.”

  The tip of a bamboo cane appeared in the spotlight, inching towards her as if it were a sentient thing. The slim cane was long enough—nearly four feet—that by the time the pointed end came to rest on her breasts, only Master James’s hand was visible.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come today.”

  “We aren’t done with our letter, Master.” And I wouldn’t turn down the chance to play with you again, even if you hurt me.

  “Remind me, what do we have left?”

  “Caning and choking.”

  “Have you been caned before?”

  “Yes, Master James.”

  “Where?” He traced a pattern over the smooth fabric of the bustier with the tip of the cane.

  Beth had to pause and think before replying. “My back and shoulders, thighs.”

  “And did you enjoy it?” The cane dropped to her panties, catching on the lace.

  “No, Master James.”

  He stepped closer, his arm up to his shoulder now in the light. The cane slipped between her legs, pressing up on the sex.

  “And do you think you’ll enjoy it now?”

  Beth closed her eyes. A caning was brutal by anyone’s standards. She wasn’t a pain bottom, so for her the pleasure from a caning would have to come from the submissive aspect of it. With anyone else she would have said no, would have accepted the caning because that’s what a good submissive did.

  Yet she knew, she knew, that with Master James even this otherwise terrifying implement of torture would lead to bone-melting pleasure.

  “Beth, you didn’t answer my question.” There was a hint of chastisement in his voice. Instead of upsetting her, it pissed her off.

  Her gaze snapped up, to the shadows where his face would be. “You know the answer to that.”

  “I want to hear you say it.”

  Beth jerked her chin to the side. “Why? You know how I react to you. You know I want…” More. I want to wear your collar.

  The silence stretched, uncomfortable and tense.

  “Take a small step backward, bend at the hips.” The cane guided her, pushing against her pussy. “Back up more. Arms together, bend your elbows.”

  When he was done, Beth was bent at the waist, her torso not quite parallel with the floor, her arms together supporting her upper body weight, wrists higher than her head.

  Master James laid his bare hand on the back of her thigh, and she felt the skin to skin contact along every nerve ending in her body. Unable to balance the physical demands of this position with the emotional work it took to hold on to her anger, Beth gave in, laying her cheek against her own arm.

  “Beth…” His voice was soft, and lips brushed over the bare strip of skin between the top of her panties and the bottom of her bustier. Teeth nipped at the line of her spine.

  “Master,” Beth whispered, squeezing her eyes shut.

  There was no room for the future or the past, there was only now, only this moment, this man.

  He nipped her ass through the lace panties, then inched them down. She was wet despite her efforts to ignore him, and the lace clung to the slick folds of her pussy.

  “I can smell you. I know how aroused you are. You should be terrified. A caning will hurt.”

  “I know, Master James.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “Yes, Master.” But not of physical pain.

  His hands, which had been roaming over her now-bare ass, paused, as if he heard the things she didn’t say.

  Finally he stepped back. “I’m going to cane your ass. Then I’m going to fuck you as I choke you.”

  The words were brutal, his plan containing none of the more obviously pleasurable elements of last weekend’s scenes.

  The first blow of the cane landed across the middle of both ass cheeks. The cane was quiet compared to the crack of a paddle, the whistle and small thump barely audible before Beth screeched.

  It hurt—not more than was bearable, but enough that she couldn’t stop herself from reacting.

  Master James ran his fingers gently along the mark he’d just left. The skin was too hot for the touch to be pleasant, but when he wrapped one arm
around her waist, holding her tight against his side as his fingers dipped into her pussy, Beth forgot about the pain.

  “You’re very wet, Beth.”

  “Yes, Master James.” She moaned, arching her hips.

  Two fingers stroked their way from her clit to the entrance of her pussy and back, moving with maddening slowness.

  “I could train you to come from the caning alone.” His voice was dark, the hand around her waist tightening. “I could bring you right to the edge of orgasm a thousand times, each time stopping to lay a nice welt on your ass. Eventually you’d be so desperate to come your body would use the pain as the final stimulus to push you over.”

  One finger entered her, curling to rub against her g-spot. Beth spread her legs more, rocking against his finger as much as she could.

  “Eventually your body would associate the caning with orgasm.”

  Beth didn’t understand why he was telling her this. That didn’t seem like his brand of BDSM. Did he think that’s what she wanted?

  “We could get so lost, so wrapped up, that it would seem okay, seem normal.”

  The finger slipped from her pussy, and before she could brace herself the cane lashed against her naked skin. This one was lower, striking the soft skin where ass met thigh at her “sit-spot.”

  Again she screamed, this time dancing in place a little. Her underwear tangled around her ankles and she almost fell, but Master James again caught her, two fingers of his free hand sinking into her pussy. He fucked her gently until her panting breaths of pain changed into a different kind of pant.

  “I once trained a submissive to come when I used the crop on her inner thighs.”

  “You did?” Beth couldn’t hide her surprise.

  “I wouldn’t touch her except to tie her legs open and crop her. She’d come just from that. Then I’d put her on her knees, have her suck me off, and lock her in a cage. If she wanted to come again she had to beg me to beat her.”

  His grip on her waist had tightened and, ignoring all the rules, Beth broke out of his hold and straightened, turning to face him, one arm pulled awkwardly across her chest. In the harsh spotlights, the lines of pain on James’s face were like gashes in his cheeks and forehead.

  “James?” For the second time Beth failed to call him Master. This time it was out of concern. He didn’t look like himself—she had no idea what that expression meant, but it couldn’t be an indicator of happy feelings.

  “The sub, the one I’m talking about, she wore my collar.”

  “Oh.”

  “And when we weren’t at Las Palmas, she was my fiancée.”

  “Oh.” Beth puzzled that over. “I don’t understand.”

  James’s gaze met hers, and slowly the lines in his face melted away, his lips curling up in a smile. “That makes two of us.”

  “Your fiancée was your collared sub, and you trained her to come only when being beaten…”

  Repeating it out loud didn’t make it any easier to reconcile the tale with the man she knew.

  James sighed, nudging the cane, which he’d dropped to the ground, with the toe of one glossy shoe. “We got into the lifestyle together. She was the one who found out about Las Palmas, but joining—getting in—was a status symbol for her. We’d never been with anyone other than each other in BDSM play, and a year after we’d joined, and she’d put on the collar, things fell apart. We were pushing each other—using our sessions here to take out our aggression with the vanilla world. She started to fight me, push back, then accused me of being weak. So I’d take it up a level, try to be the Master she needed. Months would go by when we didn’t even have sex, here or at home, yet we were always covered in bruises, especially her.

  “Then she started asking to play with other Doms. So I’d give her to these other men, most of whom were way more gentle with her than I was, and she’d seem to enjoy it, but when the sessions were over, she’d break down and start sobbing, begging me to protect her. The next weekend she’d quietly ask if I was going to give her away, asking in a way that I knew meant that’s what she wanted. And every time she’d come back acting like she’d been the victim of something. Once I even started a fight, accused another Master of abusing her. Right as I was about to throw myself at this guy I see her, out of the corner of my eye, sort of smiling, like she’s enjoying this, enjoying watching me defend her.

  “When it finally fell apart, she accused me of using the collar as a cover up for domestic violence. Our breakup was messy, and the cops were almost involved. The overseers stepped in—they didn’t want anything about the club being mentioned in police reports. The last time I saw her, she threw the collar at me and called me a sick freak.”

  Beth took a step toward him, only to be pulled up short by the chains. She wanted to touch him, to reassure him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I haven’t told anyone that story before, though plenty of people at Las Palmas know about what happened.”

  “That’s why collar is on your hard limits list?”

  “Yes. I’m one of the reasons Las Palmas has an alternative. There’s too much potential emotional baggage with a collar.”

  Beth nodded. Partners or groups who wanted to be formally recognized as being in an exclusive relationship within the club had to be bonded. Often that meant collaring too, but bonding was actually a formal arrangement between the parties.

  There were things she wanted to say, should say—that she was sorry for asking him to collar her, that if she’d known she wouldn’t have asked, that she’d never been happier as a submissive than she was with him.

  But the words wouldn’t come, stuck behind a wall of awkwardness Beth would never lose, so instead she responded in a way she hoped he’d understand. Turning, she bent, resuming her position, waiting for him to continue caning her.

  He didn’t react, and Beth’s stomach clenched with embarrassment and regret. Just as she was about to stand up, his hands cupped her hips. He stepped up behind her, and even through his pants she could feel the heat of his cock against her ass.

  “Beth.” Her name was a plea, a pledge, on his lips.

  “Yes, Master?”

  He moved away, and she wasn’t surprised when she heard a faint whistle, followed by a line of fiery pain as he struck her for a third time.

  This time she whimpered. “Thank you, Master.”

  “Don’t. You don’t have to say that.”

  “But I mean it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know after this you’re going to fuck me while you choke me and we’re both going to come. Then we’ll do something else, and we’ll come some more and I won’t have to worry about whether I’m pleasing you, or being a good submissive. That’s all I want, and everything I need.”

  The cane struck again, this blow harder than all the others, and Beth screamed, throwing her head back, tears in her eyes, but the trembling that wracked her wasn’t just from pain. Then he was there, his big body huddled around hers, his now-naked hips pressed against her abused ass, one hand on her back keeping her bent forward, while the other slid around her neck, pulling her head up.

  Beth sucked in air, trying to process all the things she was feeling—pain from the caning, arousal because he’d caned her, anticipation from his naked skin against hers, delicious trepidation from his hand around her throat.

  His hips shifted, his cock finding its way to the entrance to her sex. Fingers tightened around her throat as he thrust in. Beth sucked in air—she could still breathe, but she couldn’t ignore or dismiss his hold on her, his control of her body.

  Her pussy clenched in pleasure as his cock filled her. He was long and hard, just what she needed inside her.

  “Beth.” Still holding her by the neck, he used his other hand to jerk down the bustier until her breasts sprung free. Fingers closed over her aching nipples, plucking the tight buds.

  “Master.” It was nothing more than a whisper, but he growled in apparent pleasure and s
tarted fucking her in earnest.

  Beth was buffeted by sensations—pain and pleasure chief among them. It took her a moment to realize she was fighting him, not physically, but emotionally, so focused on sorting out what she was feeling and what was happening that she hadn’t given herself over.

  All she had to do was trust him, give in and submit.

  With a sigh she did exactly that—letting go of her anger at him, at herself. Releasing her worry and need to dissect what was happening.

  “That’s it,” he whispered, as if he understood. Maybe he did. He knew her in a way no one else did, or ever had.

  “I want to feel you come.”

  She couldn’t respond, the pleasure and his hold on her robbing her of breath. Instead, Beth let her body tell him what he needed to know. When he pinched her right nipple hard, twisting the bud to the point of delicious pain, she tipped over that glittering edge, falling into the delicious darkness of pleasure.

  Behind her, James groaned, jackhammering into her fluttering pussy as he too came.

  “You didn’t think we were done, did you?”

  Beth opened one eye, looking up at Master James. He’d carried her to a mat in the corner, since this room didn’t have a bed.

  “We’re done with our checklist.” Beth responded.

  “Do you want to leave?”

  “No.”

  “Then spread your legs so I can put a clamp on your clit.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  *****

  “What are you feeling?”

  James’s voice and the fingers dancing along her naked back roused Beth from her semi-asleep state.

  “My ass hurts.”

  He chuckled, the unrepentant sound unique to Doms. “Tomorrow I might give you a nice spanking, just to see what you look like with pink cheeks.”

  “A spanking on top of a caning?”

  “Do you object?” There was a hint of steel in his voice.