In the Absence of Monsters

by Jp Barnaby

  “Close your eyes,” he grunted out and I did as he commanded. The first hot stream of come hit my face heightening my shame. Over and over, his semen splattered on my chin and forehead. I wanted to plead with him—to tell him I was sorry for my failure, the weight of it filled my chest. But, I knew not to speak. He did not want my excuses or explanations or even apologies, he wanted my obedience and I failed to give it to him. Finally, he finished and walked away without a word. I looked up at Lexi, but she averted her gaze.

  Then, the bonds around my legs loosened, but he didn’t rub my skin, because I was disgraced and wasn’t to be allowed such kindness. After he untied my hips, he dropped the ropes to the floor. Next my chest was released and then he moved to my hands. I didn’t dare move once I was free…I lay across the padding completely still.

  “Get up,” he said and I noticed that he didn’t even bother to call me by name. He pushed me over to the wall Lexi faced. “Put your hands on that wall.” I pressed my palms to cold paneling and he pulled my legs back and apart. I waited silently.

  The blows came swift and decisive. Something struck my back, my buttocks and my legs. The pain was tolerable and I didn’t even think about moving. I deserved every bit of what I got because I failed him. When he finished, my skin burned, I watched the floor, panting.

  “Go.”

  I swallowed against the lump in my throat as tears fell before I even reached my room. Infuriated with myself, I slammed the door. Looking in the bathroom mirror was a mistake. Tears mingled with his semen on my face. I wet a wash cloth from the cabinet and scrubbed my face, attempting to get a hold of myself. I gave up on trying to calm myself and turned on the shower. When I went to remove my cuff, I realized that it was still in the room. I felt the weight of its absence. Would I get it back? Did I deserve to get it back?

  After the water heated, I stepped in the shower. As I stood under the spray, I felt the suffocation of his disappointment crash over me and sank to the bottom of the tub, my back against the cold tile wall. I pulled my knees up to my chest and pressed my forehead to them.

  Chapter Four

  I woke slowly the next morning, sluggish and heavy. The physical and emotional events from the previous night had taken so much from me. When I finally got a handle on myself, I had fallen exhausted into bed and, for that, I was grateful. I did not want to lie awake replaying those images in my mind: my failure, Ethan’s rebuke or the punishment that followed. Rolling over, I remained in bed, fearing the time when I would have to face Ethan. Would he return my cuff and allow me to continue to serve him? Surprised at the fear brought about by the loss of my leather cuff, I felt empty at how I’d come to depend on it. Since I’d known him, there had been a place, a secret and dark place, in my soul that had been opened—a hole that can only be filled with my willing subservience. This was my life now. No matter what kind of pain or humiliation I may endure because of it, I was beyond the point of no return.

  I couldn’t stop my thoughts from racing. What did Ethan think about my behavior last night? Did he regret his decision to take me on as a sub? Would he release me? I pressed my face into the pillow and let out a frustrated cry. Before Ethan, I never would have imagined that another man’s approval would mean so much to me.

  Shaking off the despair, I crawled out of bed. As I walked into the kitchen, I noticed something sitting on the counter in front of the coffee maker. My wrist cuff lay on top of a note from Ethan. It read merely, “10:00 AM.” Glancing at the display on the coffee machine, I saw that it was nine-thirty. I had showered the night before, so I grabbed a quick breakfast of coffee and a bagel before heading back upstairs. Conflicted, I stood in my room. He had returned my cuff, which I had immediately put on. Did that mean he wanted a session? I decided to follow our established protocol and stripped down completely. Naked and determined to redeem myself, I walked out of my room and down the hall.

  As I stepped through the door, I saw that Lexi and Master Ethan were already in the room. Master Ethan was operating the lever on the wall to suspend Lexi. What did this mean? Were we just going to start where we left off, like nothing had happened? I didn’t know how to prevent a repeat of last night. My breathing accelerated as I assumed my position on my knees, with my eyes cast down. Kneeling, I quietly waited for his instruction. After a few minutes, I felt him standing beside me. He reached down and tilted my chin up so that I looked him in the face.

  “Tell me what you learned from last night, Jayden,” he said in a low soft voice and I relaxed when I realized he wasn’t angry.

  I thought about the previous night and hated how my voice shook when I responded.

  “I learned that I hate to displease or disappoint you, Master Ethan.”

  Considering that, the corners of his mouth fought a smile. “You could have said that you learned that pain or humiliation await you if you displease me. You also could have said that you are frightened of the pain or the humiliation. You could have said that you hate me because of the degradation I inflicted upon you. Instead, you effectively said that displeasing me feels like failure and upsets you,” he said, stroking my hair absently. “That is beautiful, Jayden. I am very pleased by your attitude.” Leaning down, he stroked and then kissed the top of my head. I closed my eyes briefly, reveling in his praise and affection.

  I felt like a puppy who had finally learned a new trick.

  “Today, again with Lexi’s help, I am going to train you in control. Come with me,” he said and returned to where Lexi remained suspended. He picked up something I couldn’t see and I followed him as quickly and gracefully as I could on my knees. He motioned for me to stop a few feet in front of Lexi, putting my face, level with her glistening sex.

  “Now, watch closely Jayden,” he instructed and he walked up behind Lexi. I wasn’t sure what this was about, but he didn’t appear angry or even displeased with me. Sliding his hands under the ropes holding Lexi’s legs, he massaged her breasts until she moaned softly. Next, he stepped closer so that she could feel his clothed body against her naked back, putting his lips to her ear, nibbling gently on the lobe, breathing onto her neck.

  “Mmm…my Lexi,” he murmured to her, just loud enough for me to hear as he rolled her stiff nipples between his fingers, pinching them hard. When she arched her back and moaned loudly, he continued in a harder voice, “You look so fucking hot like this…so helpless, naked and spread for me.” Running one hand down her taut stomach, he continued, “I should turn you around and drive right into you, fuck you right here, right now.” As his hand reached her sex, she whimpered at his words. He stroked her gently before he teased, “I’m going to make you beg to come on my cock.” He slid his fingers inside her. “That’s my good girl. You’re so wet.”

  He slipped a silver vibrator out of his pocked and turned it on. As he rubbed her eager, exposed sex with it and her muscles clenched and she let out a long, low, open-mouthed moan. He slid the vibrator into her and, while she tried in vain to rock her hips against it, he worked and tormented her until she whimpered and writhed, suspended and vulnerable.

  “Do you see how hard she is concentrating? She has redirected her focus to distract herself,” he explained, continuing to stroke her wet sex.

  “Lexi, tell us what you’re thinking right now…” Master Ethan requested into her ear, while the hand not wielding the vibrator massaged her breasts.

  “Atlanta…Georgia…” she panted, her eyes closed tight and her brow furrowed in concentration. “Springfield…Illinois… Albany…New…York…” For her to speak, took a great deal of effort. He pulled her hard against his chest and spoke to her.

  “You are such a good girl, my Lexi. You please your Master so well.”

  His eyes met mine and he continued.

  “Control isn’t about you or what you want. It’s about giving yourself to me, every part of yourself. It’s about my control.”

  “Come for me, baby,” he murmured in Lexi’s ear. I watched, enthralled as she bit her lip. I wa
tched her face relax and she appeared focused on the sensations. Within seconds, her body began to shudder and I saw her overexcited sex spasm around the vibrator. Crying out in sheer pleasure and thanks for her Master, her head fell back onto his shoulder, her back arched. Ethan held her, murmuring soft words. As her cries subsided and she began to calm, he removed the vibrator and set it on a nearby table.

  Then he addressed me, “Training yourself to prolong your pleasure and delay your orgasm makes the release itself more intense. You must find something non-sexual that you can focus on to delay your orgasm, Jayden. You want to keep what happened last night from happening again, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Master Ethan,” I said fervently. Never again did I want to suffer his displeasure. I thought hard about things that I could use to refocus, to distract myself from the physical pleasure in order to gain affection instead of degradation. Thinking about Lexi’s example, it would be better to select something that I could name systematically, but something I had to think about. Counting wouldn’t work, for example, because it would not distract me. Something geographic, like Lexi…that would work. Then I had it.

  “Have you thought of something that you can use? Are you ready to show me that you can control yourself?” I nodded and he motioned for me to sit on a nearby table where he pushed me down, binding my wrists to the head of the table, my ankles to the bottom. No bars, no cuffs, just very simple knots. He stood next to the table stroking my erection with his warm hands, no lube this time, just spit and the liquid seeping through the tip. Spreading the liquid over the head, he rubbed my cock with his palm eliciting a deep groan from me. From base to tip, he stroked me with his strong hand, drawing fiery tingles through my groin and I nearly whimpered. He kept pumping me while he kept a close eye on my face. What he was looking for, I wasn’t sure. This continued for several minutes until the feeling became too intense, then I knew it was time for my plan. I closed my eyes and recited in my head:

  Seattle Mariners

  San Diego Padres

  San Francisco Giants

  His hands picked up tempo and I locked my jaw, concentrating hard on my list and trying not to feel the perfect pleasure he forced through me. I tried to keep my focus on the West Coast, but after a few minutes, I struggled to remember any baseball team at all.

  Chicago Cubs

  Chicago White Sox

  Boston Red Sox

  Unconsciously, I started to move my hips against his hands, thrusting my hard cock up into them. My Master’s hands on me, working me for his own ends, felt unbelievable and I briefly wondered if he would take me.

  Atlanta Braves

  New York Yankees

  New York Mets

  I continued to fight hard to stay in control until he released me abruptly. At first, I thought I’d done something wrong. But he leaned down and kissed my forehead, stroking the shadow of my hair.

  “Beautiful, Jayden,” he began, “You controlled your desires. I am very pleased. You learned even faster than Lexi. For that, you will get a very, very special reward. You may orgasm when you’re ready.”

  “Thank you, Master Ethan,” I whispered and watched in utter disbelief as he lowered his mouth to my straining cock. My mind had a hard time processing the scene and I heard Lexi gasp as he wrapped his perfect lips around the head and sucked gently. Driving my head back into the soft leather covering of the table, I continued reciting teams at random, trying to pick up the ones I missed with a map in my head. I looked down and watched as his mouth slid along my length and his lips came to rest on the base, where the head of my dick pressed against his throat, and I nearly came right then.

  I wanted to prolong the moment, because I was sure it would never happen again.

  When he sucked harder, I choked out a cry. With one hand pumping my cock, he let the other trail slowly down to stroke between my legs, and then farther, and into me. My cries grew louder and my hips rose off the table, matching his rhythm. Lifting my head, I watched as my erection slid easily in and out of his perfect mouth with closed eyes, he worked furiously on me.

  Finally, I ran out of teams, so I rested back on the table and just let myself feel. The breeze from the open window blew across the light sheen of sweat on my body. The resistance of the ropes stopped me as I tried desperately to put my hands in his soft hair. But mostly, I felt Master Ethan’s mouth and I thought about his perfect lush lips, making my orgasm explode through me. Crying out, my back arched and I felt my semen erupt into his waiting mouth. He swallowed every bit before licking my softening cock as he released me.

  Master Ethan left me bound to the table, utterly spent, as he made his way back to Lexi, opened the panel on his pants, and slid into her without a word. As he had promised earlier, he made her beg for her second orgasm. She begged and pleaded with him to fuck her harder, to please let her come…swearing she would be a good girl, that she would please him. Her control began to slip, her cries got more frenzied, as he slammed into her over and over, using her ropes for leverage. Finally, he growled his permission and she shrieked and whimpered in her release. It started to make me hard again to watch her just throw her head back and give in to the feeling. Master Ethan soon followed. He groaned and panted loudly as he filled her.

  After several long minutes, he tucked himself back into his pants, refastening the panel and turned to us. “Now, my pets, your training will be intensified this week. There are several things I want to teach you that you will have to do perfectly by this weekend. I want you to display every intimate detail of your naked body, to control your orgasms and to exemplify perfect submission. Do you understand?” We both nodded in agreement. “We will be having guests.”

  A few days later, his words were still ringing in my ears, and I clung to the session we’d have that night. It had to be more preparation, right? I wasn’t ready to perform for guests.

  “Hey, Jayden,” Lexi said, her light airy voice was pleasant in the sparse expanse of the kitchen. I had never seen Lexi in the house other than in the playroom. She must have arrived early for our session, as we still had fifteen minutes until we were due in the room. She wore jeans with a soft pink sweater, and I realized I had only seen her dressed that night in the bar. Clothing suited her.

  “Hi, Lexi,” I greeted her, smiling. When she smiled back, it took me off guard as it softened her whole face. She was just a clean-cut kid in our kitchen. No one would ever guess she was a well-trained sexual submissive. Critically, I appraised and decided that even with her pink sweater, she still looked better in just her leather cuff. I could understand why Ethan kept her naked and waiting for him.

  “How’s school?” she asked, grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

  “Out, thankfully. I don’t think I could concentrate on class while I’m worried about these mysterious visitors,” I whispered to her conspiratorially, not knowing if I was supposed to talk about things from the room outside the room. Ethan and I never spoke about that aspect of our relationship outside the boundaries of the room. We always had those talks on the mats, away from the equipment.

  “Don’t be nervous, it’s going to be fine,” she told me, reaching over to touch my cheek in a surprisingly kind gesture. It was really the first time we’d spoken since the bar. “He just wants to show his friends how proud he is of you. You’re really doing well, it’s almost like…” she broke off, almost as if she felt she’d said too much.

  “Almost like what?” I asked curiously and turned to face her as she blushed and looked down.

  “Almost like you were supposed to be his sub,” she whispered, sneaking a peek up at me to see if I was upset. Shrugging, I let her know her comment didn’t bother me.

  “I don’t know why I feel like this about our arrangement. It just feels…Well, it feels natural to me. I can’t really explain it,” I said in a quiet voice and, to my surprise, she nodded.

  “I feel like that too.”

  A few minutes later, we made our way up to the room to
gether. Just before I reached out to open the door, she took my hand and squeezed it. I smiled at her and, as I turned the knob, she released my hand. Master Ethan was not yet in the room, so we quickly disrobed side by side, dropped our clothes on the bench, and assumed our positions on our knees, waiting for him to arrive. A few minutes later, he entered and we maintained our positions facing straight ahead, eyes down. I saw him stroke Lexi’s hair as he walked by on his way to turn on the music, as always. Master Ethan had a great appreciation for classical music and, honestly, I’d started to get hard every time I heard it, no matter where I was.

  “We will not have an evening session today or a morning session tomorrow. This will be our final session in preparation for our guests. I want you to be well rested and able to perform up to your potential for me. They will arrive tomorrow afternoon, so I want you both in here at noon. Is that understood?” he asked severely and we both sounded our understanding. I wanted to reassure him that we would do as expected of us for his guests but, of course, I remained silent.

  “I have a little challenge for you, Jayden,” he continued and when I looked up into his face, he told Lexi to come to him. When she knelt in front of him, he pushed her onto all fours facing me. “If you meet that challenge, I will give you a very special treat. However, if you fail…” he trailed off and picked up a long thick leather strap. “Lexi will suffer the consequences.” As an example, he gave Lexi two hard lashes of the strap, she screamed and her face contorted in pain. The sound went right through me, and I shivered, horrified by the injustice. Why should Lexi have to suffer for my failures? I’d been doing very well this week, but what if I didn’t make it? Should I use the safe word and stop the scene? He would be very angry if I stopped it before it even started.

  “And if you’re thinking that you’ll safe word, that safe word only applies to you. Lexi would have to use her own word and let me warn you…she’s never used it.”