by Roxy Harte
Walking through the labyrinth of hallways, crossing dance floors, checking playrooms for needed repairs or dwindled stock, I go through the motions, detached. I love this place, my creation, mine and Tony’s, but with Tony gone I’ve overcompensated lack of love with my passion for Lewd Larry’s, creating more than we’d ever thought it could be. Only having met Kitten did I realize what I’d missed out on these last few years. Only since meeting her has there been a moment that I felt complete and now…she is gone. I close my eyes with a heavy sigh and lean my back into the dividing wall between the main dance floor and the hallway leading from the playrooms.
I’m not a jealous man, I never have been, but knowing that she is with him…I can’t stop thinking about her. After weeks of trying to forget her and almost succeeding, now, I want only to remember. I think about her constantly, her smile, too sad and too rare, her laugh, sarcastic and raw, and her eyes. If eyes are a window to the soul then hers lies in the great gateway between heaven and hell. I have never seen one more tortured.
I think about the times I bound her, I think about the time she spent in isolation, and during those times, her eyes changed. It was as if a great burden was lifted from her. Her soul was made free to soar and her eyes reflected true joy. Bliss.
I imagine Lord Fyre seeing that in her soul and know what he will do with it. He won’t go beyond the constraints of sanity but he will take her to the edge at every opportunity and, bringing her darkness, he will set her free. I’m not a jealous man, but I’m sad. More sad than I have a right to be. I sent her away. When she needed me, I turned my back on her. Truly, do I deserve the second chance I crave?
I don’t. Especially considering the lust I felt today at the Fair. My God, so many beautiful men…and women. What started during my conversation with Frankie as a spark of lust flared all day, becoming frustrated lust. God, I’m horny.
“You’re early.”
“Shit!” I jump, startled by George Fitzpatrick’s silent entry. He chuckles, knowing he scared me. “I thought I was alone.”
“Obviously. That was some deep thought you wrapped yourself around.”
“Yes, I suppose.” I look at his face and find him studying me. The building is lit only by the filtered light coming from the second-story windows, giving the building a bluish cast, like dusk, or early dawn, though I know the sun outside shines high and bright. “So, what are you doing here so early?”
“Meeting someone in a bit. Complicated interrogation scene request and I wanted to make sure I have everything ready. You know me, neurotic, I don’t like surprises.”
“A regular?” I stand in the middle of the hallway, blocking his path, wanting him to stay and chat, though I haven’t wanted to make small talk with George for years. Today he’s a welcome distraction.
He nods but then his brow creases, showing he’s thinking too much now, working out the puzzle of me.
“I’m fine,” I assure him.
“I didn’t ask.”
I turn to walk away, agitated, wondering why the hell I’m not having sex. I should be having lots of sex. I imagine Celia is all but frustrated.
Chapter 6
“Her heart is given him, with all its love and truth. She would joyfully die with him, or, better than that, die for him…for the want of something to trust in…”
-Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
Kitten
He said only that he wants today to be special. Special? Alarm bells go off in my head. I am beginning to completely understand the mind of a sadist now that I’ve lived with Lord Fyre for two months. Special equals I am not going to enjoy this but he is going to have a fucking really good time and somewhere along the line, he is going to convince me that I am having a fucking good time too.
He leads me to the beach—I am naked, he is dressed in jeans. I follow him down three flights of stairs from the balcony off the living room, very conscious of just how naked I am. The wind is blowing very hard and I feel like I’m fighting my way through the force of it. The sky is dark, the ocean grey and frothy. I do not want to be outside with a storm brewing. Lord Fyre knows how much I hate storms and, because we are now outside, a storm on its way inland, and him looking forward to making today special, I know that this is trouble waiting to happen—and still, I haven’t learned my lesson. I’m still playing with sadists.
On the beach, I wonder how fast I could run for it if the storm hit fast and hard, adding three full flights of wooden staircase to get there. I look up to see his house. It is perched on a cliff and magnificent to look at from the beach. I can see the other balconies, the one off the master bedroom, seeming to hang midair over huge rocks. The ocean spray there is magnificent and I promise myself to remember to ask him to let me see the view from his bedroom balcony, because for now, he commanded me to be silent.
He leads me onto the large rocks. I shriek a little, ocean spray threatening me, the surface of the rocks slippery beneath my bare feet. He holds my hand and helps me to lie down on a large grey boulder. Pulling a digital camera from his jacket pocket, he aims and shoots, directing me in poses that make me blush.
Tucking the camera into a pocket, he pulls a large coil of rope from his backpack. I eye the rope with trepidation as he approaches. A soft roll of thunder makes me forget the rope.
“Easy, sweetheart,” he commands, rolling me onto my stomach. He starts looping the rope around my wrists, behind my back, my arms bent. I am not happy about this, not happy at all, especially when I hear the rolling thunder louder, closer. Without thinking, I struggle, fighting harder until I can’t breathe, realizing only when the red haze clears my vision that he is lying on top of me, pinning me in a painful hold that takes my breath and makes my brain acknowledge that he is bigger, stronger, faster.
My heart pounds so hard it seems like it is trying to escape my chest.
He smoothes his hand down my arm, soft strokes that pull moans from my throat. Every caress, every whisper seems amplified in sensual echoes that course through my bound body. I am ashamed that I want him so desperately. I do want him. My body needs him, throbbing awakened parts of me that I never realized could ache with need before cry out for his touch, my bared shoulder, the length of my spine…innocent glances of flesh touching flesh course through me to make me writhe in painful pleasure.
“Better?” he asks, kissing my temple, releasing the hold he has on me only enough for me to acknowledge with a nod that we can continue. He loops rope around my chest, above and below my breasts, winding also around the outside of my upper arms, pulling snug, then snugger. Something inside my brain snaps a little and I feel the panic coming back. My heart pumps high in my throat and I want to scream, but I don’t. I squirm on my stomach, ridiculously testing the bonds as he loops rope around my waist and hips, knotting and twisting and wrapping as he descends my body, encasing my legs in a rope net. “Hold still.”
“I can’t.” I say, shaking, breaking my silence, trying to not freak out. “The storm.”
“Stop worrying,” he commands, pulling his camera from his jacket pocket. “I’m here with you. Nothing is going to hurt you. Trust me.”
I shake my head, unable to quit worrying, and he takes three quick shots before depositing the camera back into his pocket. Kneeling, he pulls the length of rope between my legs and starts weaving the pattern around my middle. “God, stop worrying. I’m not feeding you to the sharks! It’s called Shibari. Haven’t you ever heard of it?”
I nod, yes, of course, anyone who had hung out as long as I had at Inappropriate Voices, the underground alternative lifestyle newspaper I used to work for, would have heard of it.
“Then you know it’s Japanese erotic bondage. Have you ever experienced it?”
“Heard of it, haven’t done it,” I reply shortly, turning my head to stare at the sky.
“Nice,” he leers, kissing my temple. “Your first time and I get to be the one to tie you up.”
The first real crack of thunder sounds in t
he distance. I panic, trying to sit up, succeeding only in flopping around like a fish out of water.
“Please, please, take me inside,” I beg. “After the storm…”
He presses a finger to my lips. “It isn’t going to happen. You and I are going to face this storm together, right here on this rock.”
“No, no, no!” I cry out. “Take me inside!”
He pushes a bit of bamboo between my teeth, securing it to my face with rope. He takes another picture, a close-up of my face. “I promise to keep you safe.”
I shake, I cry, I roll around on the top of that rock as well as I can, tied front and back, but it doesn’t make him release me. Pulling the camera from his pocket, he shoots and shoots, thunder rolls, lightning strikes. He is lucky, not a single drop of rain to ruin his camera. I wish it would pour. Maybe then he would stop photographing me and take me inside.
Rumble.
The thunder rolls, loud and seemingly directly over head just before the sky seems to open, dropping buckets of rain. I receive my wish for pouring rain, but still he doesn’t take me inside. He aims and shoots, even when my hair is plastered to my face, cold water dripping off my face faster than it rains, pounding rain hitting my body.
Rumble, rumble.
I hate the rain, I hate the thunder, and I hate the lightning. He knows these things and yet he keeps shooting. I close my eyes, crying in earnest, afraid. Shaking so hard the rope bites into my arms and legs. Hyperventilating.
It is only when I start screaming that he puts the camera away and sits beside me on the big rock. He holds me, wiping my wet, dripping hair out of my eyes. His own wet hair blows into my face. With each strike of lightning, I scream against the bamboo in my mouth, his holding me not making a difference.
He pets me, strokes me, and speaks softly to me. I can barely hear him over the thunder. “It’s beautiful,” he says. “Look at the next strike, feel the energy of that strike.”
I look, a jagged streak piercing the black sky. I flinch in his arms and close my eyes against the brilliant flash of light.
“Beautiful,” he says, lowering his face to mine, kissing me above the rope that holds the bamboo in my mouth. “You are beautiful, Sophia, more beautiful than the sky. When I pull the pictures up on the computer, you will see that I do not lie.”
He kisses me again, turning my face to him. “Open your eyes, sweetheart. See me here with you.” I open my eyes for him and he captures my gaze, his look so intense, so passionate, that I can’t look away. I don’t squint my eyes closed on the next strike of lightning, seeing only a flash of brightness across his features. “You are so beautiful. Thank you for trusting me.”
Holding my gaze, he kisses my forehead, my wet nose and in the midst of his kisses, locked in his gaze, I forget the storm, forget my fear.
Rumble.
He begins to untie the rope pattern, releasing first my mouth from the bamboo bondage, replacing the exotic wood with his mouth, kissing me hard, harder, like a man possessed. I kiss him back with equal fervor, enjoying his mouth, his tongue. His hands follow the rope, releasing my legs, my body, my arms. Free, my arms go around his neck, I want to hug him and kiss him, but he stops me, pulling me into his lap so that my back is against his chest. In silence, he holds me on the rock, rain pouring over us, pointing at each lightning strike, kissing me on the temple, and the silence between us is good. With each strike of lightning, I feel the tightness of his arms holding me. With each strike, I know I am safe with this man.
Chapter 7
“…I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul…all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.”
-Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Thomas
She is beautiful when she’s sleeping. During the ten weeks she’s been mine, it seems I spend a lot of time watching her sleep, not because she sleeps excessively, but because I can’t sleep. I don’t want to sleep—I want to watch over her, memorizing how her eyelashes flutter in dream, how her lips part in sigh. When I stroke her skin, she rolls into me, seeking me, my touch. Even in sleep, I can draw her to me.
The right thing to do would be to go to Garrett now, with the truth, the whole truth. If I only knew what that truth was. I only know that one of us is going to get hurt, him, her, me.
“I love her,” he said, when we met at her house, waiting for her to come home from the hospital. We stood outside the kitchen on the back porch, a warm summer day, the sound of lawn mowers and children playing floating over the back privacy fence with the breeze.
I’d answered nonchalantly, “It’s obvious.”
There was a painful moment of silence while we both stared at the overgrown backyard, grass high, flowerbeds weedy from lack of attention. He broke the silence, admitting, “She’s fascinated by you…and you’re fascinated by her.”
“Yes. There seems to be a chemistry that draws us to each other.”
“That’s what worries me.”
“Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine,” I’d promised him and it should have been fine. I never expected to fall under her spell. I never expected to feel anything other than what I’ve ever felt, which is as close to feeling nothing as possible and still be considered human, and there are days I am not human.
I shouldn’t have assumed that anything normal could come of my Mastering her; after all, she made Garrett fall in love with her when we had all come to believe that Garrett would never love again. He loves her and she loves him. Knowing that should make a difference. It doesn’t. I have fallen in love with her and Garrett needs to know that. If I were an honorable man, I’d tell him, before one of us gets hurt. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day. Or, I could wait until this wears off. Why cause a problem if there is no problem?
Soon, she will return to him and all will be right with the world again.
I stroke her cheek and she opens her eyes. “Lord Fyre?”
“Do you want to play, sweetheart?”
She smiles, sweetly, naughtily, the corners of her mouth barely curving. God, she is so sexy when she smiles at me like that, it touches something in my core. Smiling and stretching, making still sleepy sounds that wrap around me, making me want her desperately. Nodding, she says, “Let the games begin.”
I smile at her, laughing lightly at her pure, innocent enthusiasm. Her smile brightens, though if she knew what I had planned for her she might not be smiling at all. She might be terrified. But she isn’t terrified, she trusts me, and it is her total trust that has lured me in. I’m in love with her. Lightly, I ask, “Can you swim?”
My friend Bob, from my soccer team not the SM world I mostly travel, is a deep-sea fisherman by trade and, as such, owns a fairly large vessel. When I am possessed by the need for high sea and adventure, he can usually come through for me with ready, willing and able transportation. Today, I needed a few extras, and in true Bob fashion, he came through for me.
Kitten caged is a beautiful sight.
Cuffed and shackled to the inside of a shark cage, she eyes me warily. I am in a wet suit, she is naked. The water is going to be cold. That I plan for us to go into the water didn’t cause her much alarm. That I am suited up with an oxygen tank and she is not has her slightly nervous. Okay, she’s scared shitless. I can see it in her eyes, even through the mask I put over her eyes so that she will be able to see clearly under water. She handles scared shitless very well—just one of the many things I love about her.
“Ready?” Bob asks, a note of unease in his own voice. The only point in my favor is that when I drag him out on these excursions I pay him very well for his time and I haven’t killed anyone. Scared us, me included, a few times, but nothing we haven’t lived to laugh about.
With my nod, he hits the controlling switch that will swing her cage out over the side of the boat. It is only when she hangs suspended above the ocean, her feet getting wet, that she cries out, “Lord Fyre!”
“You asked me if I could swim,” she tries to joke, twisting her wrists in her shackles, trying to get free. “I want to remind you, Lord Fyre, that I can’t breathe underwater.”
“Trust me,” I call out to her. “It’s all I ask.”
The cage continues to sink, leaving her chin deep. “Oh shit,” she says, still trying to tug free.
“Inhale, Sophia!” I command, screaming over the noise of the boat just before she goes under.
Bob glances at his watch nervously. “What was the plan from here?”
I pat his back. “I’m not going to let her drown, brother. You take care of the fresh meat. I’ll take care of the girl.”
Adjusting my tanks and regulator, I prepare to enter the water. Watching him pull fresh, bloody meat from a sack, I drop into the ocean, taking only a second underwater to get my bearings on the cage. It has been less than two minutes—she isn’t struggling in the water. She hangs suspended, eyes closed. For a second I am nervous, my own breath catching. Wrapping my hands around the metal bars, I enter the opening in the top of the cage quickly, joining her inside the cage. It is only when I touch her that she opens her eyes. Her lips curl up in that naughty smile that could bring me to my knees in worship if I would let myself. I take the mouthpiece from my lips and press it to hers, helping her to get it just right. She inhales. I kiss her on the cheek, running my hands over her stretched body, feeling her ribcage expand with air. I caress her softly and she shivers in my embrace.
Holding my own breath, I rummage inside my waist pouch for the weighted nipple clamps I brought along for our underwater scene. As I attach them, her eyes grow wide. It is only when our cage is bumped that I realize it is not the pain of the clamps causing her anxiety but a shark. Moving behind her, I wrap my arms around her waist, holding her, absorbing her trembles as the shark pounds into our cage a second time.