Dangerous Control

by Annabel Joseph

  “This isn’t anything yet. Just beginner stuff.”

  Maybe so, but my ass hurt, my thighs hurt, my nipples were killing me, and my pussy was on fire with both lust and searing pain. I stared at him, not knowing how to express all the things I was feeling, not knowing what to say. His eyes held mine, a comfort from the storm within me.

  “Are you going to cry for me, baby?”

  “I don’t know.” But I was already crying. As the rod flicked me again, a tear rolled down my cheek. It hurt so bad. I wanted him so much. He started to stroke me again, drawing the smooth Lucite over my center like a bow on violin strings. The punishment came after, always. First the pleasure, then the flick of his wrist, and agony in my most tender, sexual center. More tears flowed. I made no effort to hold them back, because I knew he wanted me to cry. There was something freeing about letting the emotion out, and I could tell he loved it. He put his hand on my neck and stared down at my damp cheeks, kissing away a few tears.

  “Do you need me to stop, Alice?”

  “No,” I said, as his fingers stroked my exposed throat. “I like it. Mostly. It’s just scary, a little.”

  “Sometimes it’s fun to be scared. Sometimes being scared turns people on.” He put down the rod, caressing my sore pussy flesh. I could feel the afterburn of every stroke he’d landed, pulsing in a hot line. Why did that turn me on so much? Why was I crying at the same time?

  He drove his fingers deep inside my pussy, so deep I could barely contain them, with the dildo still stretching my ass. With his other hand, he took off the clamps. Only his fingers—and the dildo—kept me in place as sensation stormed back to my nipples. I took shallow, halting breaths, and more tears overflowed. As he held my gaze, I realized I’d never felt so vulnerable, so endangered, as I did in that moment. I’d had sex so many times, plenty of times, and I’d always felt in control, calm, satisfied. This kind of sex had nothing to do with that.

  Because this wasn’t just sex, it was possession. His fingers probed and controlled me, asserting his dominance, telling me everything I needed to know. He pinched my sore, sensitive nipples and I tried to jerk away. Then he slapped my face, and…

  And…

  And I liked it. I got even more turned on.

  Ella had told me she liked it, and I couldn’t believe she meant it, but now I understood. My pussy pulsed around his fingers. He gave a small, wicked smile, and I thought he might slap me again, but he only kissed me, harder than any of the times he’d kissed me yet. He ended up with his fingers wrapped around my neck again, and I could hardly bear how excited that made me feel.

  “Please, Sir. Don’t let me go.”

  I kept repeating that, Don’t let me go, swallowing against the pressure of his palm. I wanted him to help me come. I wanted him to fuck me, because I wanted to come with him inside me, possessing me.

  “I don’t think I can fit inside your hot little pussy with that dildo in your ass. Come here, baby.”

  He undid the bonds and eased me off the cross. I fell to my knees, partly because my legs wouldn’t hold me, and partly because it seemed like the proper place for me to be in this dungeon. He lifted me and carried me to the bondage bed against the back wall, and pushed me onto it, positioning me on my hands and knees. He made me wait there as he rolled on a rubber. No bondage, but I didn’t care. I was dying to be touched. To be fucked.

  He used his fingers to fuck my pussy again, pressing them deep, just grazing over my clit so I went wild but got no release. I thought I’d die from wanting him inside me. “Crawl,” he ordered, slapping my ass. “Crawl to the headboard and reach for the highest bar.”

  I obeyed, stretching my arms as high as I could, desperate to please him. He was behind me in an instant, pinning me against the metal lattice, grabbing my hips and impaling me as I clung to the bar above me. I arched my back, trying to hold on, but it felt so good my fingers loosened. His hands came over mine, gripping them so I couldn’t let go. I could feel his heat behind me, and oh, the way his cock filled me…

  “It…feels…so…good,” I said as he pounded me. My knees were spread on the white sheets, and I bucked against the air, wishing I could rub myself to an instant orgasm. No, that would be too quick. I wanted to revel in his rough lovemaking until my body couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Let go,” he said. “Turn around towards me.”

  I let go of the bar and changed position. Once again, he made me lift my hands and hang on, but now we were facing each other. He grasped my hips and drove into me from his knees, forcing my pussy onto his cock. Our chests collided in time to his thrusts, his scent and ragged breaths driving my arousal to its highest peak. My ass felt empty now, but my pussy was so, so full of him. He banged me there against his headboard, and it hurt, but it felt magical too, and when he started grinding his pelvis against my clit, I lost it.

  “I can’t—Oh God. I’m going to come.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, holding me as our bodies smacked together. He was so encompassing, so deep inside me, and around me at the same time. When my orgasm exploded, I lost my grip on the bed, but he caught me so I didn’t fall. He held me. Protected me. I let go of the headboard and wrapped myself around him, burying my face against his hair. He pushed in me once more, until I could feel him pulsing inside me. His groan was louder than my breathless orgasm whimpers.

  Without speaking, without leaving me, he pulled us backward, holding my hips so I was sprawled on top of him on the bed. I squeezed involuntarily on his cock, aftershocks from my powerful orgasm. “Holy Christ,” he said, and reached down to pull out of me. While I lay back on the bed, he took care of the condom, then returned and crawled over my sprawled body.

  “I think I’m dead now,” I said.

  He stroked my hair. “Not dead. Just tired.”

  I gazed up at him, wondering how I could feel shy after all we’d just done together. “We went a little harder that time.”

  “Yes.” His fingers stopped in my hair, then started up again. “I’m glad you said ‘we.’ I don’t want this to just be about me. I mean, I don’t want you to do things you don’t like because I…” His voice trailed off.

  I laughed softly. “I’m pretty sure I liked everything you did to me, even the painful stuff I didn’t like. I think those things turned me on most of all.”

  “Alice…” He studied me for a long, silent moment. “You’re not just saying that because you want us to work, are you?”

  “No. I’m not. Do you think I’d lie to you?”

  “It’s important. Lala. Alice. Listen.” He cradled my face in his hands. “It’s important to me that you don’t settle for something in this relationship that’s not your absolute ideal. That wouldn’t be okay.”

  “Do you think I can fake the things my body did? They were real reactions.” I was getting kind of upset. This wasn’t the type of pillow talk I wanted.

  “Shh. Okay. I believe you. But if we…if we do this thing…this relationship…you’re going to have to get used to me checking in. Not for you, but for me. You know I don’t…” He ducked his head and pressed his lips to my cheek. “I don’t want to hurt you. Not in a bad way.”

  I turned my face so he would kiss my lips. I didn’t like seeing him so worried, and I tried to express all the willingness and tenderness I felt as we ran our hands over each other’s bodies. When we parted with a sigh, I threw my arms around him.

  “I’m so happy. We should be happy, Milo. We are kind of compatible.”

  “Kind of?” He smiled, and I hoped—oh God, I hoped—everything would be okay. “We’re compatible, yes. I’m starting to believe that, but we have to keep the lines of communication open. You’re still a mostly-beginner. Yes, even with all the things I’ve done to you,” he added, heading off my protest.

  “I’d hate to see what I have to go through to not be a beginner anymore.” I pouted, then brightened. “I guess we’ll just have to keep doing more kinky scenes.”

  “That shoul
d be easy. Seems to happen with the two of us whether we want it or not.”

  “And that club you like, the one Juliet and Ella told me about? Maybe we could work up to that too.”

  He studied me, perhaps considering my worthiness to be invited into that secret enclave. “Maybe. The Gallery would be a big step.”

  “After The Gallery, I wouldn’t be a beginner anymore, would I?”

  He narrowed his eyes, giving me what I had come to think of as his “Dominant” look. “This is hard for me, you know.”

  “What is?”

  “Being rough with you. Putting marks on you and bringing you deeper into the lifestyle.” He parted my thighs, tracing the lingering red marks the Lucite rod had left on my pussy lips. “It’s hard bringing you down from your pedestal to hurt you.”

  “I was never on a pedestal, unless you put me there.”

  “We come to the crux of the problem. I put you up there a long time ago. This is going to take some time for me, Alice.”

  “That’s fine.” I said it quickly. I didn’t want him to think too much about why he shouldn’t hurt me. I just wanted him to hurt me again. “We can take as long as you like. Just know that I loved tonight, and I’d love to go with you to The Gallery, when you think I’m ready for it. If you wanted me to go.”

  “What if I take you to The Gallery and you find another Dominant you like more than me?”

  He said it in a jokey way, but there was some deeper emotion. Possessiveness? Jealousy? Surely he knew I’d never love anyone more than him. No one else could give me the history, the kindness, the talent, the connection running through our veins. I didn’t care about playing with other men, except that it might excite him, and deepen our power-exchange bonds.

  “Stay here tonight?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Yes, Sir. That would be great.”

  “And move back in tomorrow? Blue would love it.”

  “And you?” I asked, laughing.

  “I’d love it more. I’d carry your shit here myself from Lower Manhattan. Carry it on my fucking back like a pack mule.”

  He kissed me then, but with some wistfulness, some reserve beneath the love and warmth. I knew some part of him was still afraid he’d hurt me by accident. And what if things didn’t work out? What would we do? How could we overcome that?

  I huddled against him, pushing those possibilities away. I loved him more than I thought I’d ever love anyone. We were bound by fate to make this relationship work.

  Chapter Fifteen: Milo

  I walked into Coleman’s Steakhouse fifteen minutes late, after dropping off Alice at Lincoln Center. She’d been late for her call time, too. Since we’d moved ahead with our relationship, things had gotten crazy in my Bridgeport apartment. Now that my resistance had crumbled, we were making up for lost time, for years of unrequited longing. My dungeon had never seen so much action. As I crossed to my friends’ table, I could still taste the faint hint of her on my lips.

  “He appears,” said Fort, raising a glass. “Out from the clutches of his draining love affair.”

  “Here’s to getting drained,” Dev chimed in, taking a drink. “We got some Lobster Cocktail for starters, Milo.”

  They both chuckled at the word “cocktail” like a couple of eleven-year-old boys. They were enjoying the fact that I’d been sucked into my own love affair, after all my scoffing and insistence that relationships weren’t for me. I was enjoying being in love, more than I ever hoped I would. Over the past few weeks, Alice and I had grown close to the point of pain. Well, her pain, my pleasure.

  “Glad you could make it out,” Fort said as I sat across from them.

  “Sorry I’m late. I had to drop Alice at the theater.” After I finished whipping her ass and fucking her, which took a delightfully long time. Once she got me going, I forgot everything else—her work, my work, even dinner reservations made weeks in advance. I gave myself a moment to imagine my masochistic lover shifting on her sore cheeks under the gaze of the audience and conductor at tonight’s concert. For two weeks now, she’d had some kind of marks on her ass, because I couldn’t resist her. I was finally coming to terms with her insistence that it was okay. “What are you guys drinking?” I asked.

  “A Santa Maria Pinot Noir,” said Dev. “Have some. It’s good for your heart.”

  I accepted a glass and took a sip, the wine blending deliciously with Alice’s lingering scent. I must have had that “look,” because both of them smiled at me.

  “So, things still going well?” asked Fort.

  “Yeah, very well.” I tried not to look too smug. “Very, very well.”

  “How’s the violin coming?”

  “Almost finished. Just a week or so left for the glue to cure, and she can take it to the Met with her. But my mother has to think of a name for the violin first.”

  “Your mother?” asked Dev. “Why your mother?”

  “Because his grandmother died,” said Fort. “Remember? She used to name them. Now his mother names them.”

  Yes, and Alice will name them one day. The thought came to me so naturally, so clearly, that I almost said it out loud. I already pictured Alice as my future wife, a dangerous assumption when our romantic relationship was still relatively new. I took a deep drink of wine, glad that my olive Italian skin didn’t show a blush.

  “So, my mom’s thinking over names,” I said. “Alice and I have a vote too. She already vetoed the name ‘Lala.’”

  Dev grinned. “The Lala? That wouldn’t be a very dignified name for your fancy, schmancy instrument.”

  “It was her childhood nickname, from Lilly-Alice. We all slip up and call her that sometimes. I don’t know what it’ll end up being. Ma wants it to have something to do with love and romance, but if things between Alice and me don’t work out…”

  “They’ll work out,” said Fort. “You’re one of those guys who never falls for a woman until he really, really falls.”

  “Yeah, you’re like those penguins that only imprint on one partner for their entire life. You’re going to spend the next fifty years wandering around a proverbial rookery with rocks in your mouth to bring to Alice’s nest.”

  “Dev, you’re such a freak,” said Fort. He turned back to me. “Speaking of penguins with rocks in their mouths, Dev’s started the ring shopping process.”

  I slapped my blond, wisecracking friend on the back. “You don’t say? They all fall like dominoes. Congratulations, man. Does Ella know?”

  He shrugged, smiled. His paler skin did show a blush. “She probably knows. We’re at the point where things aren’t in question. But how do you find a rock to impress an astrophysicist girlfriend who probes the mysteries of the entire universe?”

  “You said probes.” I snickered.

  “I’m sure she’ll love whatever you get her, considering the connections you have to Sinclair Jewelers,” said Fort, raising an eyebrow.

  The waiter came to take our order, and we tried to talk about other things, but the conversation kept coming around to our girlfriends—and fiancées.

  “You know,” I pointed out. “Our five-years-ago selves would have been disgusted with us.”

  “Yeah, well, our five-years-ago selves were knee deep in debauchery at The Gallery,” Fort said.

  “Those were the growing years,” Dev mused as a joke.

  “The growth of our debauchery,” Fort agreed.

  “Alice has been asking me about The Gallery,” I blurted out. “Well, ever since your gossipy submissives tried to ‘help me out’ by telling her about it.” I rubbed the back of my neck, staring down at my mostly rare steak. “I’m not sure what to do.”

  “You mean, whether to take her?” Fort asked after a moment. “Do you think it would be too much for her?”

  “She’s really just started this journey.”

  “Yeah,” Dev laughed. “But she started it with you. It’s not like Ella and Jules didn’t warn her about every damn thing from the start. My feeling is, if she
’s interested in going, you’ll probably need to sate her curiosity.”

  Fort shrugged. “It’s a good place to connect, to grow closer as a kinky couple. I’m sure if you brought her, she’d enjoy the experience. You’d know how to make it work for her.”

  “Yeah.” My lips tightened into a line. “She’s game to try anything. Maybe that’s why I’m nervous.”

  Fort and Dev looked at each other, then Dev spoke up. “Maybe we could all go, you know, to offer moral support. Ella always enjoys it.”

  “Juliet does too,” said Fort. “And if they were there, it might make Alice more comfortable during her first time. And Dev and I could be there in case, you know…”

  In case something awful happens. In case you take shit too far. In an atmosphere as intense as The Gallery, things occasionally went wrong. Very wrong. As it happened, the two men across from me knew that from personal experience.

  “Well, I’ll think about it. We’re still discussing the possibility,” I said.

  In the flush of our dawning relationship, since she’d taken to masochism so naturally, I’d been excited about introducing her to The Gallery. Early on, I’d taken her to Michelle to be fitted for the requisite uniform, but going through that process with someone I cared about so deeply… It wasn’t the same as fitting out other girls. I started having second thoughts.

  Of course, by then, Alice was beside herself with excitement about the whole perverse secret-club thing, and assumed it was just a matter of time until we went there together. I loved The Gallery—it was such a fundamental part of my life and identity, but when it came to Alice, I was torn. I wanted to take her, but I didn’t want anything between us to change. I didn’t want the pathos and violence of The Gallery to scare her off the path we’d embarked on together.

  “He’s not listening to you,” said Dev, drawing me from my thoughts and anxieties.

  “What? Huh?” I shoved a piece of steak in my mouth, pretending I was only preoccupied by the food.