Hard Rhythm

by Cecilia Tan

  Later.

  “I’ll count,” I said, and stepped back to take aim. Twenty strokes, eh? She had plenty of real estate down there: ten on each side was barely going to cover each cheek from all angles. But my intention wasn’t to just beat her all to hell. I wanted to make it last. I wanted to make a connection. I’d been biding my time for so long, I wasn’t going to rush through it like some newbie.

  I didn’t hit particularly hard, just hard enough to wake up her skin, to pink it up. The sound of the leather smacking her bottom was more arousing than the dirtiest dirty talk I’d ever heard, and the sight of her back arching as I laid on the blows made my cock strain upward in response. Oh, yeah. That was what I wanted. Seeing Madison take what I could dish out made every dom instinct in me sit up and roar.

  Frankly, being a dom is a lot of work. In my time in the scene I’d tried everything and everyone—after all, it was practically a rule of being a rock star that the “purity test” was your to-do list. Unless you’re some kind of control freak, there are easier ways to get off than domination. It takes the right partner to be worth it, which was why I didn’t just play with anyone available. But right then, reddening her ass and hearing the paddle go smack, I had no questions about whether Madison was worth it. I wanted to rope her hands and drag her into a private room. I wanted her. Not “for sex,” not for “a girlfriend,”—it wasn’t on that level of thought. It wasn’t a thought at all, in fact. It was pure desire.

  And she wasn’t even acting “submissive.” That only made me want her more. A lot of the control freak male doms of the world can’t handle that kind of woman.

  But I can.

  * * *

  MADISON

  Chino seemed determined to spread the redness all over my butt. He’d barely gotten one good swat in on each part of my bottom before it was time to switch places.

  He handed me the paddle with a little bow and put his hands on the wall. I imitated him, rubbing my hand over the peach fuzz of his buttocks before I took to swinging the paddle. Unlike me, he had hard, tight buns, easy to hit both at once. I swung upward slightly, catching the tender underside with each swat. He gritted his teeth and by the time I neared twenty he was grunting on each blow.

  His turn again. “Remember, Madison,” he said as he ran his hand over the striking zone, “all you have to do to make the pain stop is put your hands down.”

  I could feel the warm spot on the wall where his hands had been. “Not likely.”

  “As you wish.” He stepped back.

  This time he hit much harder and it was me who grunted. Apparently he’d gone easy on me for the first round, but since I hadn’t gone easy on him, now the gloves were off. He was putting a full swing on each blow and leaving the paddle against my skin so the studs would dig in. Still, I’d suffered worse. This wasn’t that bad…

  Until he got to eleven and I felt my palms prickle with sweat. What was going on? All of a sudden there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room, but as I sucked in breath after breath the feeling only got worse instead of better.

  I felt his hand on my shoulder, solid and warm. The blows had stopped and his voice was calm in my ear. “You all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right.” I blinked. Wasn’t I? I let out a breath. It was just a little adrenaline rush, I told myself. No big deal.

  He sounded amused. “Because it’s your turn.”

  “Oh.” I stood straight, my heart still pounding but my head high. “I lost count.”

  That smirk again. “Good thing I’m honest, then.” He held out the paddle and I took it, remembering my goal. To wipe that smirk off his cheeky poseur face. His flushed, exhilarated face. That wasn’t the only part of him that was flushed, either. The eager curve of his cock beckoned, a glistening bead of precome at the tip catching my attention. I gave his shaft a couple of quick tugs to surprise him—sometimes a little attention right there would drop a guy into subspace once he realized someone else would do him—but not Chino. He growled low in his throat.

  I started paddling him as hard as I could, taking the full backswing and really laying into him. But did he scream? No! The bastard started barking like a dog on each swat!

  When I got to twenty I almost threw down the paddle in aggravation, but I took a breath, thinking if I lost my cool I lost the contest. Keep calm and carry on; isn’t that what they say? I gave him a glare as I handed over the paddle and put my hands against the wall again.

  The pain of the paddle radiated from my buttocks down my legs and up my spine. But it wasn’t serious enough to be the cause of the tightness in my throat or the stone in my gut. I forced air in and out of my lungs, my eyes clamped shut, trying to figure it out. Maybe I should have eaten more than a granola bar for lunch. Maybe I hadn’t remembered to drink water for a while. I clamped down on everything, knowing all I had to do was outlast him. I focused on that goal.

  I felt his hand at the small of my back. His voice was low and firm in my ear. “Your turn.”

  “Thank you.” I snapped my eyes open and grabbed the paddle again.

  This time I laid into him without a pause between blows, bam-bam-bam, and this time there was no dog barking or cheeky waggling of his ass. This time he threw his head back, his teeth gritted, a long grunt or growl erupting just as I got to twenty.

  “Whew,” he said as he let his arms down slowly. “Remind me never to make you mad.”

  My jaw dropped. Couldn’t he tell I was mad already? I put my hands against the wall, my thoughts whirling, but it was difficult to think through all the freaking out my body was doing.

  The first blow came quickly and I suddenly focused: What exactly was I doing? I shook my head. I knew better than to hit someone in anger. That went against everything I knew and everything I’d been taught about BDSM, against everything I counseled victims of abuse about on the hotline. My knees began to shake as the realization sank in along with the next few blows. I was really out of control. And why? Because Chino was annoying? That was not a good reason to hit someone, even if he did volunteer for it.

  A sob caught in my throat as I realized he was slowing down, smoothing his palm down my buttocks between each hit, and then giving me a sharp, corrective swat with the paddle before soothing the sting again. The unexpected feeling welled up that I deserved it, I deserved to be corrected, punished, in front of everyone. How could I have let my emotions get the better of me like that? I was supposed to set an example. I was supposed to enforce the rules, not break them.

  “Fifteen,” he said, keeping the count aloud. “Sixteen.”

  I swallowed hard, trying to keep all my emotions bottled up. I would not cry. Not in front of everyone. “Chino,” I forced through my tight throat.

  He swatted me sharply again. “Seventeen. Remember, Maddie. If you’ve had enough all you have to do is drop your arms.”

  I pressed my palms flat against the wall. Could I do it? Could I bring myself to give in?

  “Eighteen.” After this one he didn’t soothe the skin and a new sob tried to erupt. Why? Because having that small dab of forgiveness taken away was abruptly soul-crushing.

  What the hell was going on in my mind, my heart?

  “Nineteen,” he said from right beside me as he swung the paddle…but this time he only placed it lightly against my skin, as if he knew I’d had enough, as if he knew it was only going to take a feather to knock me over. As if even one more gentle tap would be too much.

  I dropped my arms and fell into his.

  Chapter Two

  MADISON

  In the BDSM how-to books and SM 101 seminars they always talk about how people can get blindsided during scenes by unexpected emotions or sudden memories. It had never happened to me before but as Chino led me to a private side room—to collect his “prize” of fifteen minutes to do as he wished—I realized that must be what was going on. Every emotion I could imagine was zinging around inside me like ping-pong balls: anger, shame, fear, sadness, confusion.

&nbs
p; And lust. Most confusing of all, I was dripping wet and didn’t know what to do about it.

  Well, maybe Chino was going to have his way with me, if his comments to the spectators as he half carried me away were any indication. Axel and Ricki and Sakura had all congratulated him as we’d left the scene. The door closed behind us as he took me into a private room. He swept me literally off my feet then—and I am not a petite girl—picking me up and then laying me down on a bed. I expected him to start unlacing my corset, but I heard him rustling around beside me. Was he getting lube or something?

  No, a bottle of water. He cracked it open and encouraged me to sip from it. I concentrated on swallowing, on not spilling it, on handing the bottle back without dropping it. We were in the “princess” room, the one with the four-poster canopied bed. The posts each had pairs of leather cuffs attached, hidden by the canopy. I wondered if Chino knew they were there. I decided not to tell him.

  Instead I said, “Thank you. Um, I mean, I’m sorry.” I couldn’t even figure out what I meant; that’s how jumbled my thoughts were.

  He climbed onto the bed beside me and I noticed he’d wrapped a towel around his waist. That was odd, I thought. He held his arms open and it felt right to settle against him. The warmth of his body and the sound of his heartbeat were soothing. Grounding. I felt my pulse slowing from the frantic flutter it had been.

  Then he spoke. “What are you sorry for?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know.” I was sorry for freaking out, but since that had led to him winning I supposed there was no reason to apologize for that. Wait, that wasn’t what I meant at all. “I mean, I’m sorry I went at you so hard. I’m not usually like that. I got a little out of control.”

  He stroked my hair and it felt like forgiveness. I felt the lump in my throat again and had to ask, “Do you forgive me?”

  “No harm done, sweets,” he said and kissed my hair. “No harm done.”

  Relief so intense it bordered on euphoria flooded me, my guilt blown away by that gentle kiss. “Can I do anything to make it up to you? I’m yours for the next fifteen minutes.”

  He let out a long sigh. “Are you sure you’re up for anything?”

  I steeled myself. Having already let down my own standards for conduct once tonight, I wasn’t about to disappoint myself again. “Anything. That was the deal.”

  “Okay, because this might sound kind of weird.”

  “I’ve seen and done a lot of weird shit in my time, Chino.” A lot weirder than being paddled almost to tears by some rock star.

  “Yeah? How weird?”

  “Like the time I tried ‘exotic dancing.’ There was one guy who paid for a lap dance but only if I’d wear a lucha libre wrestling mask.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Actually he was one of the nicer guys. He wasn’t the reason I quit after a month.”

  “No kidding. Well, my request is a different kind of weird.”

  I was starting to feel more like myself again and I raised my head so I could look him in the eye. “Okay. What is it?”

  His eyes were a deep brown ringed with black and I felt like I was looking into his dark depths—dizzying, disorienting. Like my world was shifting. Especially when I heard his voice catch as he said, “I want to talk. I…need to talk to somebody.”

  I found myself reaching up to touch his cheek, brushing the side of his lips with my fingertips. Was it the serious, pained look on his face that made him look like a different person, or was it that I was seeing him with new eyes? “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” He met my searching stare with his own. “But I had a bit of a flashback, I guess you’d call it? A realization, anyway. You seem like you know what’s what with BDSM. And there are some things I can’t talk about with the guys in the band.”

  I sat up a little more, surprised, intrigued, and wondering what on earth he was about to tell me. “You can talk about it with me.”

  He hitched himself up all the way and rearranged the pillows so we could lean against them, but he could still hold me close. He didn’t start speaking right away. He stroked my hair, pushing stray locks of it behind one of my ears with his fingertips. The deliberate gentleness was such a contrast to the savage energy I’d beat him with and reminded me again of the way he’d brought me to my moment of surrender.

  “I realized something while we were playing. Maybe something I’d suppressed or maybe you just don’t think about things as a kid,” he said.

  I stroked his hair with my own fingertips now, emulating him, encouraging the words to flow.

  “My parents split when I was ten,” he said. “And you know, I considered myself the man of the house after that. Ten going on thirty, you know what I mean? We had a couple of tough years then, until this rich dude swept my mother off her feet.”

  His eyes were distant as he said this, focused on the far wall—the far past. I tried to imagine him at eleven years old, thinking he had to be the man of the house. A far cry from the irresponsible gadfly I’d pegged him as.

  “They got married, and we moved out of LA and into his place, a huge house in a good neighborhood outside Toledo, six bedrooms, three-car garage. But that’s not what I should be telling you. The thing is after they split, I never saw my father again.”

  I counted his breaths while he thought about it. His eyes looked troubled. “What did you realize?” I asked.

  “I was not a good kid. I was a hellion. One time, I must’ve only been five or six, Flor was a baby and Vicente wasn’t even born yet. Mom was at work, and I did something bad like knocking over my father’s beer when I ran through the TV room. Dad wasn’t a particularly big guy but times like that it was like he got huge. His hair was thinning but he wore it in a long ponytail and when he got mad it looked to me like his whole face and scalp got red, and with the patches thinning it was like his face was devil-shaped. Scary as shit when you’re a kid, you know? Anyway, this time, instead of just reaching out and swatting me like he did when I was a toddler, he roared ‘how many times have I told you no running in the house?’ and ordered me to stand in the kitchen holding on to the back of a chair.”

  I held my breath while Chino felt his way through the memory. One of his hands trembled slightly.

  “I’d completely forgotten about this. What came to me during the paddling was this: He told me to stay still, that I was a big boy now and if I wasn’t going to act like one I had to learn to take my punishment like one. And then he went to the bedroom, came back with a paddle, and paddled the shit out of me.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, feeling the guilt about how hard I’d hit him again. “I made you have a flashback to being abused as a child. I’m so sorry. You know I used to volunteer at a domestic violence hotline, right? You can tell me about it—”

  “No, no, that’s not even it, Madison.” He laughed, gently but genuinely. “It wasn’t like that. It didn’t become a regular thing. It was really nothing to a snot-nosed tough-guy like six-year-old me.”

  I didn’t really believe that, but he went on.

  “No, the thing I realized is this. He went to the bedroom to get a paddle. As a kid it never occurred to me that it was hidden in there for any reason but to be brought out when I was bad.” He raised an eyebrow. “But think about it. Why did they have it? It’s obvious.”

  Aha. “Your parents were kinky.”

  “Apparently. What a thing to realize, eh?” He looked thoughtful. “Kinda challenges the idea that my sexuality is some kind of rebellion or breaking the mold or something.”

  “Do you think of it as rebellion?”

  “Given how religious my mom got—yeah, I guess I do. It never occurred to me she wasn’t always like that.” He moved his jaw as if trying to swallow the idea. “Until now, that is.”

  “No one really wants to think about the sex their parents have.”

  “True. And things changed so drastically when we moved in with my stepfather. The total opposite of my dad. This guy was a strait
laced, church-going, tie-wearing type who wanted dinner on the table every night at six and the kids in bed by nine. It meant my mother didn’t have to work anymore, though, and we went to a fancy suburban school.”

  “Was that…good? You don’t sound very happy about it.”

  “I hated it. I hated the suburbs, I hated the Midwest, I hated my stepfather. He and I fought constantly while my mother begged me over and over to be good. But I wasn’t good at being good. I got into trouble at school, with the local authorities, with the police. Finally my stepfather had enough. He threatened to throw me out when I was sixteen because I was getting into so many fights. I saved him the trouble and left on my own.” Chino moved my hand to his chest and I could feel his heart pumping. “And here I am, beating you black and blue.” He turned to look into my eyes. “Making you have a flashback of your own.”

  His gaze pinned me where I was, my tongue frozen in my mouth, my heart starting to flutter like a trapped bird. Now that the scene was over I wanted to retreat to my safe illusions and not face the truth about what I was feeling. Chagrin and embarrassment flushed my cheeks.

  “You want to tell me about it?” he asked.

  I closed my eyes, but I could still feel the heat of his gaze. “I didn’t have a flashback.” I felt his hand massaging the back of my neck, then his fingers working their way into my hair.

  When he tightened his grip slowly I felt a sudden rush of my arousal, like he’d turned on a tap. Oh, shit. I tried to tell myself that being dominated couldn’t possibly be what I needed, but I was more turned on than I’d been in years. “I’ve still got seven minutes left,” he said, his face very close to mine. “Are you sure? Tell me what was going on with you, Madison.”

  “There’s nothing to tell, really,” I insisted, but the lie was making my insides twist. Since when was I so interested in obeying a dom? Since never, that’s when. But okay, here was the truth…or at least a truth: “I don’t know what happened. I just went out of my head for a bit. No big revelations. No memories. Endorphins. That’s all.”