“Three months. A session every other day. There was no time to think. No time for me to regain my senses, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I insisted. More. Faster. Harder.”
I recalled the text message I’d sent Anna last night. “Can I schedule a session on Saturday as well?” I’d asked. I completely understood Miles’s story. I was living it.
“One day Daria quit. She stopped right in the middle of a session. She stood up and she turned on all the lights in the dungeon and she said she couldn’t watch anymore. I’d blown past safe, sane and consensual. My obsession was bordering on insanity and she couldn’t take it anymore.” He looked at me. “Remember my porn parallel? At first you can’t watch a submissive cry during a session. Then, it all becomes old hat. Daria had found the bottom to her own pit. She couldn’t watch without being affected.”
“And that jolted you?”
His lips twisted. “That is the neater narrative,” he commented, “but of course not. Addiction isn’t like that. Club Phoenix intervened. They wouldn’t schedule any more sessions for me. They forbade me entry.”
His eyes were still closed. Outside, the sky was darkening into dusk and all was quiet. The car purred on, drawing us nearer and nearer to the source of all of this. The phoenix was the bird that died in flames, but was reborn again. With each mile that the car ate up, we drew closer to that killing, renewing fire.
All the pain, all the desire, all the angst and the suffering. All the lust and the longing. Each mile brought it all closer.
“Daria should have been my wake-up call, but she wasn’t. Phoenix throwing me out should have been it as well, but it wasn’t. I found a different club, one less concerned about limits and safety. I didn’t want to be restrained, you see. I wanted to fly, to soar.”
His concern had felt like a golden cage around me. Too well, I understood Miles. I didn’t want to be protected either. I wanted to find out for myself.
“When did it end then?”
“When I started to forget,” he replied. His eyes opened and locked onto mine. “You understand, don’t you Kelly? When you lose your memories you lose yourself. I’d wake up in back alleys without any recollection of how I got there, my body aching and covered with welts, bleeding from multiple cuts and I couldn’t remember how or why or who. My mind shut it out.”
My lips started to tremble as I fought to keep myself bursting from noisy tears. Each quiet word from him had sliced into my skin. I didn’t understand why I was shaking; I didn’t understand the tears that welled up in my eyes. I moved closer to him and he opened his arms and pulled me into his body.
Memories. Losing my memories was a fear too close to the bone for me, though he didn’t know it. I’d lied and told him I’d been tested and everything was clear, but my terror had kept me from finding out. Every single time I couldn’t remember something, it was as if a canyon was opening up in front of me and one misstep could throw me down a dark pit from which I couldn’t escape.
“I can’t stop you Kelly, not if you don’t want to be stopped. I can keep you from Phoenix, but I can’t stop you from seeking out those back alleys, the same way I did. And I care too much for your safety. All I can do is be your Watcher. I will be your lifeline. But you need to find your own center. I can’t do that for you.”
“Do you care?” The question was so soft I could barely hear myself speak. My entire body stilled as I waited for his reply. For him to speak the words that might change the path that I was on, or condemn me even further.
Leaning as I was against him, I could almost hear his heartbeat. My fingers splayed out to touch him, to feel the vibrations as his heart thudded in his chest.
His reply was so simple, his voice just as quiet as mine. “Yes.” His hand engulfed mine.
I swallowed. “What does this mean, Miles?” I didn’t move from the warm security of his embrace.
“Whatever we want it to be,” he replied, maddeningly vague. “Kelly.” His voice was suddenly intent, and I paid attention to his next words. “Once upon a time there was a subconscious thought running through me that if I said enough I was choosing conformity and I was shutting off a part of me permanently.”
I blinked up at him. It was as if he could articulate my most hidden fears.
“But sex is not just about pushing limits. Sex is about intimacy and comfort and pleasure.” His hand brushed my cheek gently. “I can’t decide where you draw the line. I can’t tell you when you should say enough. You’ll have to do that for yourself.”
On some level, I guess I was hoping he’d make my choice for me. That he’d sweep me into his arms and become my Dominant and he would control what I did and didn’t do. But real life wasn’t that simple. I needed to choose on my own.
But I wasn’t sure if I still retained the ability to judge what gave me pleasure.
Chapter 10
This time, the Watcher stiffened when a man walked out of the darkness. I watched as every muscle in his body tensed. His fingers balled into fists at his side and he exhaled, a harsh sound in the dungeon. When he turned to look at me, I could see the message in his eyes. Just say no.
Curiosity kills the cat, you know? I should have listened, but I didn’t. I wanted to know why my Watcher was reacting the way he was.
The top starts spinning.
“Do you submit?” The words echoed around the dungeon.
“I submit.”
The man with the goatee, the one that the Watcher had tried to protect me from, smiled though his smile didn’t reach his eyes. His voice was high and fluting. Almost musical. It sent instinctive chills running through me. “Then, shall we get going, my slut?”
And just like that, yet again, it began.
I was completely immobilized and the wax dripped steadily on my exposed, vulnerable flesh.
There were candles, the same way there had been candles during my first session. There was a flogger set out on the table, the same way that first day. Everything was coming full circle.
Yet I hadn’t been afraid my first session. Now, fear prickled between my shoulder blades.
My arms were extended out straight at my sides and tied to the metal grating I’d been pushed against. A knot of rope pushed into my mouth, chafing against my tongue every time I yelped in pain. I was tied at my waist, and again at my ankles, holding me open just the way the man with the goatee wanted.
The candles stained my skin with blood-red wax, and my skin ached in response.
I’d been exposed to candles before. When Adam had dripped wax on my skin, I’d writhed and moaned, but I’d remembered enjoying myself. Or had I? Everything seemed so far away and I just wanted to surrender to the oblivion.
I wasn’t enjoying myself now. The flame was being held too close to me and the drops of wax were skin-burningly hot. It felt like drops of fire were raining down on me and all I wanted to do was cower and hide until the storm passed. In some distant part of my mind, alarm bells were slowly starting to ring.
Yet I didn’t utter my safe word or make any other gesture that would indicate that I wanted this to stop. In his corner the Watcher gripped the arms of his chair so tight that his knuckles were white.
The candle dripped on my nipples, the flame just inches from my skin. I saw the fine hair on my body shrivel up from the intense heat radiating from it. I wanted to shrink back and retreat, but the metal grating at my back provided no relief.
“Please,” I tried to beg through the gag. The sound was an incoherent shriek.
Red, red, say red, my mind yelled. But I didn’t speak. I didn’t understand why. All I knew was there was a door and I needed to walk through.
Every time I whimpered in pain the man with the goatee grunted in pleasure. “Mmm,” he kept warbling and I shuddered in revulsion. Wasn’t I supposed to be turned on? I was in a sex club. Wasn’t this supposed to be fun?
It’s fun when you know when to stop Kelly, my mind reminded me. I’d passed fun so long ago, I couldn’t even see it in the rear-view mir
ror.
The flame danced against my nipple. Now there were two candles and his hands were moving in a figure-eight and my skin was splashed with drop after drop of hot wax as the candles traced a line of fire in the air.
I kept moaning through the gag in my mouth. I just wanted this to end. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I wanted to curl up in a bed next to Miles and never wake up again.
The wax dripped on my hips, on my toes. My body was shaking with fear and nerves and the man in the goatee noticed. He grunted his little sighing sounds of lust and he laughed at me. He was feeding off my terror.
Say red, say red, say red, my mind implored.
“That’s it, little dove,” he crooned. “I want to watch you struggle.”
I shuddered at the tone of oily lust in his voice. Even listening to him I felt unclean and violated.
He kept bringing the flames of the candles right up against my skin and I kept screaming through the gag. I felt the Watcher’s gaze boring into me. His green eyes were screaming a message of his own. Stop this, Kells. I could almost hear his voice in my head. His sweet, kind voice, telling me that whatever I wanted was possible and mine to take.
I wanted him. I did. I really did.
Yet, my lips wouldn’t articulate that word. I couldn’t make myself say it. Red. Such a simple word, really. Only one syllable. I could open my mouth and spit the word out through my gag and this would end and Miles would take me in his arms.
And then what, Kelly? Then, when your own memory begins to fail, you put him through the same heartbreak you are going through each day with your mother? Is this what you want for Miles?
Never, my heart screamed in reply as it broke. Miles who had paid every hospital bill. Who gave to me without ever stopping to measure. Who had been there for me every time I needed him. Who was there for me right now, his bottle-green eyes etched with pain.
I’d once thought he was bland and boring. How could I have been so wrong?
Everything hurt. The wisps of hair on my skin burned as the flames drew too close to them. My skin prickled uncomfortably as the heat grew unbearable. Yet, my heart ached the fiercest of all.
I couldn’t subject Miles to the grey fog that my life had become. If I kept going with the session I would harm only myself. If I stopped? Miles would be dragged into the morass with me.
The top keeps spinning.
My Watcher kept watching.
I should have noticed the bucket. I didn’t understand how I could have missed it.
It was a large blue bucket. Wide enough for my shoulders to enter and if I stood up, the sides would come up to my hips.
I should have noticed that the bucket was filled with water. But I didn’t.
I was too busy trying to stop my head from spinning as the man with the goatee suspended me upside down, my entire body encased in bindings. My body lifted off the floor as he tugged on a rope that passed through a pulley. I bent double and tried to struggle, but he just laughed at me.
The gag was gone now. The word was at the tip of my tongue, but it wouldn’t come out. Red, red, red, my subconscious screamed, but I remained silent.
I noticed the bucket only as he let go of the rope, and I was dunked, head first into the water.
Instinctively I panicked. The images flashed through my head. My swim coach with his teeth shining white as he grinned and shoved me into the deep end of the pool. My desperate struggles to swim, though I didn’t know how. My complete utter certainty that I was going to die.
I was certain I was going to die today as well. In the distance I heard that oily laugh.
Then, just when my body was starting to thrash in helpless futility and the bright bursts of white were popping in front of my closed eyes, I heard the pulley creak, and I was pulled up.
“Leave now,” my Watcher stood very straight, cradling me in his arms, still encased in the rope. My hair dripped on his chest, and I couldn’t stop shivering.
The man with the goatee sneered. “She didn’t use her safe word,” he tried to argue. “Who are you to stop the play? She has given consent.”
“I am her Watcher.” He didn’t raise his voice. But in his tone, I heard true danger. “I have the right. I watch over her and I keep her safe.”
Time passed; I didn’t know how much time. When awareness returned, I was still in the dungeon. A blanket was wrapped around my shoulders and the ropes that had held me prisoner were gone.
But the Watcher was still in front of me and in his eyes, I saw deep anger and a simmering, smouldering fire.
“Is this what you want Kelly?” His voice was so dangerous that my entire body poised to flee, like a gazelle running from a hungry cheetah. He took a step towards me.
I should have retreated. I didn’t know how to retreat. I dropped the blanket and stood straight, facing Miles.
He closed the distance between us alarmingly fast and his hand closed around my neck. “Is this what you need Kelly? To feel so close to danger that any misstep would result in you falling?”
His grip tightened and I couldn’t breathe. I curled my fingers into fists and my nails ground into my palms. “Yes,” I choked out. His grip eased, ever so slightly, so I could speak. “No. Maybe. I don’t know what I want.”
I want you, Miles. But I can’t drag you down with me.
“You want to be used Kelly?” He smiled a thin smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You want to be treated like a piece of flesh? A toy for my pleasure?” He laughed. “I can do that. Get on your knees.”
“Miles…” I started.
“All I want from you is obedience.” His voice was a whip of slashing pain. I got on my knees.
“Is your cunt wet Kelly? Are you getting off on this?”
I kept my gaze on the floor. The answer was yes, though wild horses weren’t going to drag that confession from me.
“Spread those knees wide Kells,” he mocked. “Let me see the damp wetness between your legs, the way your thighs stick together with your juices. You love this, don’t you?”
I had no idea why I felt safe. The man with the goatee had caused real trauma. I had a feeling that I was going to be waking up screaming from the nightmare of being submerged in the water many times in the coming nights. Perhaps I was just numb, but it didn’t feel that way. I felt a prickling that I once used to know as pleasure.
“And now Kelly,” he said, his voice hard, “you are going to get punished.”
I heard myself ask him what he was going to do to me. I heard the tremor in my voice. But I wanted Miles to punish me. Demons had been spawned in this room tonight and I needed him to exorcise them for me.
“I’m going to show you what pleasure feels like,” he replied grimly. “Since you can’t seem to remember.”
Memory. Forgetting. At any moment every single one of my memories could be erased. And if you didn’t remember something, did it even happen? Did anything matter? My spine stiffened. Miles thought I was being stubborn when I didn’t use my safe word tonight? Oh, he had no idea of the weight of the burdens I carried.
“Do I have safe words?” My voice sounded very far away to my ears.
He laughed mockingly. “Ah, she remembers she has safe words.” There was a forced lightness to his voice that didn’t suit him. Miles had never been cruel to me, but he was edging close to cruelty now. I’d pushed him to the edge of his own darkness. “Crawl after me.”
He led the way to a far corner of the dungeon and flicked on a light. There was a bed there, the bedding soft and warm. A curt nod of his head and I sat myself on the edge, the sheets caressing my sore skin and I closed my eyes, waiting for his next command.
The top keeps spinning.
“Don’t you dare close your eyes.” His voice was hard. “Lie back on the bed.”
I scooted up, ignoring the ache in my entire body. My skin was still crusted with red wax and I left little crimson crumbles on the bed as I moved on the soft sheets and rested my head on the soft white pillo
w.
“Very good Kelly.” He smiled a small little crooked smile, but his expression was unreadable. “I want you to keep your legs open for me. If you close them, I will punish you. Understand?”
I nodded as I watched him sit on the bed and lean forward. The mattress dipped with his weight as his head lowered towards my pussy. I inhaled sharply. He was going to go down on me.
For many months now, multiple men had explored my limits at Club Phoenix, but there had never been any attempt to conceal the lack of intimacy between the participants. When they touched me, it was to position my body better for their pleasure. If I received an orgasm, it was almost incidental. My pleasure had never been of primary importance.
I had thought that that was what I wanted. But when Miles nestled between my legs and lowered his mouth onto my folds, I realized I had missed this. No man had gone down on me for so long. I felt his tongue flicker and lap up my pussy; I heard the groan of pleasure from the man whose head was buried between my legs.
I threw back my head and groaned without restraint as the tip of his tongue traced a delicate circle around my clitoris. His fingers peeled back the hood and he made contact with that red, pulsing nub of need again. This. I had definitely missed this.
Lightning flashes of pleasure radiated from my core outward, filling my entire body with longing. “Please, Miles,” I begged.
He laughed mockingly, holding my gaze. “But you don’t want this, do you, Kelly? You don’t need intimacy, right?”
He didn’t even know why I wanted to forget. He didn’t know I hadn’t been tested for Alzheimer’s. He didn’t know what I dreaded. “Fuck you Miles,” I snapped, “you don’t know anything.” My protest was cut off as he sucked my clitoris between his teeth and I moaned in pure pleasure. “Please, more,” I clenched out.
His eyes bored into me. “I’ve been watching you, Kelly,” he said. “I know exactly what gets you off. I know exactly how hard to push. I know exactly where you need to be touched. I know what you hate and what you love and what you need, deep down inside.” Two fingers pushed into my dripping pussy. “And now you are going to face everything. No more hiding.”
The Darker Side of Love (A Dark Erotica Boxed Set) Page 9