by Livia Grant
All the best stations were taken by the time Newton retrieved his playbag from the table where he’d tucked it so no one would trip over it. He lost sight of Abby in the hustle and shuffle, but spotted her again when she arched up on tiptoes to wave him out into the crowd of seated onlookers. It was an open section of floor near the rear wall, away from the other event participants, which Newton liked. On the one hand, a lot of people were going to get a bird’s eye view of Abby as she challenged his authority at every step. On the other, they were going to get a bird’s eye view of him putting her back in her place, too.
“How about here?” Abby asked, gesturing around them. “I doubt we’ll need a lot of room for tickling.”
“It’s not the tickling that takes room.” Newton motioned with one finger for her to turn around.
She folded her arms across her chest. Eyes narrowing, she didn’t obey. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
She cocked an eyebrow.
“All right, look.” Newton set his playbag upright and squared off against her. “If you don’t have any intention of following the rules of the game tonight, then—”
Dropping her eyes, Abby raised both hands in instant surrender, but he wasn’t about to let her off that easy.
“—don’t waste my time. All I have to do is walk out of here and you lose too.”
She surrendered a little higher. “You’re right.”
“So let’s set a few ground rules right now. We both want to win tonight, but more than that, I think we both came here hoping for a night full of fun and maybe an experience or two we wouldn’t ordinarily have thought to try.” Newton thought about it. “Like tickling. I don’t know about you, but this will be a first for me.”
“It usually starts like this.” Abby struck a pose, fingers curled in what she probably meant to be playfulness. But she was still a little pricklish, so the effect came out with her fingers looking more like claws. “Kitchee, kitchee koo.”
He pointed at her. “Now see. This is what I’m talking about. I didn’t come here tonight to argue with anybody, much less you. I came here tonight to play. So you’ve got one choice and I’ll thank you to make it right now. You’re the sub, I’m the Dom. You either do as I tell you, when I tell you, or just safeword right now. I’ll go get a beer and probably have a wonderful time somewhere else. But I’m not going to put up with one more argument out of you. I mean it. One more, and I’ll safeword. We can both go home. What do you say?”
Drawing a deep restraining breath, her lips flattened together. “You’re right. I came here to have a good time. Just because you’re a jerk doesn’t mean—”
Grabbing his suitcase, Newton snapped about on his heel. He whistled through two fingers, signaling Terry from out among the nonparticipating guests where he’d found a spot from which to watch all the scenes currently taking place.
“All right, all right!” Abby hissed. She ducked around him, slapping both hands against his chest in an attempt to stay his leaving. “You win, damn it! I’ll behave.”
“Yeah. Like that was convincing.”
Terry was coming towards them now, wading his way through the tables of onlookers.
Abby checked his progress. Newton could see ‘oh crap’ written all over her face right before she swallowed it—swallowing her pride along with it—and turned back to him. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to call it an early night. What can I do to make you change your mind?”
“Is there a problem?” the DM asked once he’d reached them.
“Not sure,” Newton said.
Her face colored and her eyes flashed, but she kept her mouth shut. Cocking his head, Newton studied her. He doubted she’d be able to maintain her angry silence longer than it took Terry to walk away again. Still, if she was willing to try… A slow smile tickled at the corners of his mouth and her eyes narrowed at him. Defiance darkened the blue of her eyes to that of a stormy sea—a submissive silently threatening to overtake him with the fury of her swells unless he did as she wanted.
And she wanted to play.
Maybe it was time she learned who was in charge and who only thought she was.
“Fine,” Newton said aloud, surprising himself almost as much as he’d apparently just surprised her. “Time’s a ticking. Let’s do this.”
Leaving his bag where it was, he approached the nearest table to swipe a vacant chair. “Is anyone using this?” he asked, and once he received a confirming ‘no’, he dragged it into the middle of the open spot of floor they’d secured. Positioning himself to face the audience, he dragged his suitcase over and laid it on its back directly behind the chair. Unzipping the main compartment, he dug through the neat assemblage of sorted plastic containers until he found his sensation kit.
“What is that?” Abby grudgingly asked.
Removing the lid, he selected two items—the twin of the black glove, which he left in the storage container, and a stainless steel rod, crowned by a wheel of toothy spikes. “If you have to pee, I suggest you do it now.”
When he looked up, her eyes were glued to the Wartenberg wheel in his hand.
“I already told you,” she tried, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if she actually stammered or if it was a trick of his ears in what was rapidly becoming a noisy room. Most of the other contestants were already getting started with their scenes, but Abby wasn’t distracted by them. She stared straight at him and never once looked away. “I’m not ticklish.”
“That’s what you said all right.” Closing his playbag, Newton stood up long enough to seat himself on that waiting chair. He beckoned her to him. “Come here, Abby.”
She didn’t move. “Why? I mean… if there’s no point, then…”
She stopped when Newton smiled.
“There’s all kinds of points,” he replied, and beckoned again. “Especially since, as I already told you, I pay attention.”
“It’s either comply or safeword and forfeit the game,” Terry said implacably.
If she considered that option, she didn’t give it more than a second or two before, jaw clenched and lips pressed tight, at last Abby obeyed.
Chapter 3
“Take your panties off,” Newton said, already rolling up his sleeves. The vampire glove was draped over one strong shoulder. The metal handle of the Wartenberg was sticking out of his back jeans pocket and, God help her, the sinewy bunch and release of his muscular forearms as he freed his arms for a wider range of unencumbered motion was far more impressive than she cared to admit. It set her nerve endings humming, particularly those already prickling into wakefulness all across the surface of her bottom.
She opened her mouth, the argument—‘It’s a thong’—springing readily to her lips, except no more arguing, he had said. Not one more word, or he’d call the scene himself. Then they’d both lose. Much as she wanted that free month’s membership, that wasn’t what made her shut her mouth and keep it that way. She didn’t want to lose. She refused to be seen as weak.
She was never going to let anyone see her like that again.
Instead of his forearms, now she stared at his hands. They were a lot like Danny’s—big, blockish, with thick blunted fingers that all too soon finished fussing with his sleeves and dropped down to rest upon his jean-clad thighs. She shook herself mentally. Dropping her gaze to the floor—commercial carpet, in a dungeon; obviously, whoever came up with that bright idea wasn’t in charge of after-party cleanup—Abby swallowed the last of her pride. She also dipped her hands up under the lacy hem of her babydoll negligée, hooked her thumbs in the waist of her thong panties and skimmed them down her legs.
Heat flooded her face. It took root in the middle of her chest, a tiny burning lump of shame no bigger than a kernel of corn that she could feel like a meteor embedded up under her sternum. She couldn’t really say why it was there, either. It wasn’t like she was completely nude and she had been before—completely nude—right here in this dungeon. What she hadn’t been, however, was any
kind of undressed in front of Newton. Around him, sure. But not in front of him, as if she were doing it for him.
“Good girl,” he said approvingly as she stepped out of her panties, leaving them in a puddle of black cloth on the floor. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Avoiding his stare, she kept her head down and her hands clasped tight over her mons. She regretted wearing see-through lingerie. On any other night, it would have been fine, but not in front of this man. Not when he was seated where he couldn’t help but see right through the lacy hem to the shadowy triangle not quite hidden behind her hands.
“Come here.” He patted his thigh. “Bend over my knee.”
Her gaze snapped up to his at last. “Why?” Nervous as she was, that came out sounding much harsher than she meant it to. Too late, she tried to cover her mistake. “What does that have to do with tickling?”
“You aren’t in the proper headspace,” Newton replied. “I could tickle you all night long and you would never respond correctly because—”
“I’m not ticklish?” she finished for him. That came out harsher than she meant it as well.
“Because you aren’t in the proper mood to submit,” he corrected. “Look, if you don’t want to do this, then you know what you need to say. Perhaps we could try again another night?”
As if there were any way in hell she’d consent to scening with him if she weren’t being forced. Rules of a stupid Valentine’s Day game were hardly a gun to the head, but still…
Abby glared, as cross with herself as she was the rest of the situation. “No,” she muttered. “No, it’s fine.”
Newton patted his lap again. “Come on, then. Right over. Let’s see if we can’t sweeten our grumpy baby’s sour disposition.”
She glared.
He cocked an eyebrow back, and the longer she stood there and the longer the silence between them stretched endlessly on, the more she began to feel exactly like that. Petulant. Childish. She had come here tonight with such high hopes and now here she was, the only submissive in the place not having any fun—except for one maybe, a submissive across the room loudly resisting the pet play activity the roulette wheel had chosen for her; already Terry was excusing himself from watching their scene to go handle the situation. So, at least there was one silver lining in this mess.
This wasn’t how she’d wanted the night to go. This was just the kind of behavior that could pin a good submissive with a bad label and guarantee, even if she was invited back to play again, that no other play partners would scene with her. At least not the ones who knew what they were doing. And not just at Black Light, either. Large as the BDSM community seemed at times, it wasn’t so large that gossip on bad play experiences wouldn’t spread through it faster than fire through a paper factory.
Her stomach tightened. So did the tangle of her own fingers, clenched tight before her. She really, really didn’t want to be the focus of that kind of gossip. She didn’t want to be someone no one wanted to play with.
Abby stared at his lap, the tangle of knots in her nervous stomach growing in both number and tension. What was the worst that could happen? He’d smack her ass a few times, maybe grope and fondle a bit. She could fake a moan if she had to. Faking a laugh would be harder, but unnecessary. The requirement of the scene was that he tickle her. Whether she laughed or not was completely irrelevant.
She could do this.
Bending, Abby let her hands rest on his knee, instantly trying to tell herself that the sensation she felt rolling over her was the crawl of disgust and not the sinuous tingle of awareness waking up her nerves because she liked the solid feel of his muscles or the scent of his aftershave. She laid herself across his lap and her nipples tightened, loving the soft scrape as her heavy breasts moved underneath the gossamer flow of her negligée. One could hardly blame them for not recognizing disgust when she felt it. Nipples could be easily confused like that.
“Nice.” The heat of Newton’s hand settled warm against the back of her thigh. His other swept the back of her skimpy outfit up, baring the round curves of her bottom.
There went that rolling wave of disgust again, prickling up her legs to center beneath his palm and sweeping out across her back, wrapping her middle, crawling her ribs, confusing her breasts to make the beaded tips tighten even more.
“Let’s see if we can’t put you into a more compliant mood.”
Abby stiffened like a plank when his hand moved from the back of her thigh to rest, as if it belonged there, on her ass. That prickled now too. The whole surface of her left bottom cheek, all the soft flesh beneath his open hand, prickled and tingled and ached to be touched.
“Are you nervous?” Newton asked, tracing an almost comforting circle upon the tense summit of her ass.
“No.” Hands braced upon the floor, Abby stared at a spot of carpet between them.
“You’re trembling,” he pointed out.
“No, I’m not.”
“Liars get spanked.”
She rolled her eyes. “Since it’s going to happen no matter what I say, it doesn’t really pay to tell the truth, does it?”
He swatted her and Abby’s whole body startled in response. The clap had been loud, seemingly louder than any other sound in that crowded room that also included one couple arguing with Terry and another DM and thirteen other scenes taking place. It must have been her vantage. Maybe having one’s head closer to the floor somehow helped sound find her ears, or the carpet amplified the crispness. Either might have explained the heightened sound, but it didn’t explain how much more crisp the blow itself felt. It made her catch her breath and in the involuntary convulsion that followed, somehow her hands left the floor. She grabbed both the chair and his leg instead.
“Lovely,” Newton said. “I’ve seen you scene off and on for two years and I never knew you colored this nicely. How about you? Are you feeling more subservient yet?”
She glared at the carpet. “Fuck you.”
He swatted her hard enough to make her jump all over again.
Ow, she mouthed, stubbornly refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing that aloud.
“How about ticklish?” he inquired. “Are you feeling ticklish yet?”
Craning her neck, Abby glared at him now too.
“I’d say that’s a big no.” His lips twitched, as if he were fighting back a laugh. “Well, I suppose I ought to put at least a little effort into this, hadn’t I? After all, the clock’s a-ticking.”
The heat of his resting hand abandoned her, and Abby tensed so hard that her toes curled. Her hands fisted, gripping both his ankle and the chair leg tight, and she grit her teeth to keep back the cries she just knew he was going to delight in beating out of her. He might have deserved it, but she hadn’t been very nice to him over the years and now was his chance to get even. She knew this. In every cringing inch of her, she knew it. Except that it wasn’t his spanking hand that she felt next.
The pinwheel spines that crowned the Wartenberg wheel rolled its needle-tipped caress up the back of her thigh. Jolts of sheer sensory panic zipped up her spine and down into nerve endings that took each sharp poke and delightfully misinterpreted them. The prick of each metal tooth sparked an instant writhing reflex. Abby opened her mouth to shout, but what came belting out was three hard barks of involuntary laughter that she’d have just as soon cut her own throat before emitting again.
Clapping a hand over her mouth, Abby reared up on his lap, fighting to break free of his restraining arm and get well out of reach from that wheel. “Oh my God!” she gasped, every inch of flesh the Wartenberg had traveled now humming in heightened sensitivity. “What the hell did you just do?”
“I’m not the only member of Black Light who used to attend other dungeons. In particular, I’m not the only one who remembers last year’s Beat in the New Year party at Overtime.”
Abby’s stomach lurched in tight and hard. For a moment she wasn’t sure she could breathe as she felt his hand—bare fingers now
trailing up the back of her leg, following the same path the Wartenberg had forged all along the undercurve of her left bottom cheek—before he cupped the no-longer ticklish flesh and squeezed, molding her ass in the palm of his warm hand.
“Eight Doms,” Newton reminded her, while the nerves in Abby’s stomach flipped and twisted until the giddiness almost overwhelmed her. “All of them taking turns with you, one after the other, after the other, with canes and straps and floggers, leaving no part of your body untouched. And none of them elicited the same reaction you gave when ol’ Marcus put on his finger claws and began to rake you with them. I’ve seen a lot of women scream and moan and squirm under the scrape of those claws. You’re the only one I’ve ever seen who laughed… and writhed…” He curled his fingernails under, hooking tender flesh that seized when he scraped and sent those awful races of ticklish glee zipping through her nerves.
Abby threw her head back, erupting in kicks and helpless squeals. She bucked, the full force of his weighted arm pinning her across his lap while his nails raked the tender line between her buttocks and thighs. She vaulted backward, fighting to get up. “Let go! Let go, let go!”
He didn’t. Instead, half a heartbeat after his scraping hand vanished from off the backs of all her firing sensory nerves, the flat of his palm came cracking down again. All vestiges of ticklishness were smacked out of her with a jolt that hit harder than anything she was prepared for. And yet, as far as spankings went, it was so anticlimactically mild that for a moment, Abby couldn’t process it. She’d been expecting brutal. She’d been expecting a hardwood paddle or the Lexan stinger that Newton kept in the main pocket of his suitcase playbag. The one with the holes that for more than a year now, she’d watched light fires and leave bruises on every submissive to lay herself across his lap or bend over a spanking bench and offer herself up to its biting sting. She’d expected Newton to take his revenge on every mean little thing she’d said or done to him over the years, and there were more than one or two. If she didn’t already know he’d deserved every bit of it, she’d almost regret that right now.