Hard Rhythm

by Cecilia Tan

  “Madison.” He sounded delighted. “How are you?”

  “Sore as hell, thanks to you.”

  “Excellent. That means you’re thinking of me.”

  I squirmed on the couch. “Yeah. Meanwhile, I sent in the V-Curve footage and write-up today and they loved it. They said they want to get three vlogs in queue before they launch the first one, so I should do two more ASAP.”

  “By ASAP, do you mean tonight?”

  “Well—”

  “Because I could come over.”

  His hunger seemed to pour right through the phone and my own surged to meet it, obliterating common sense. “How fast can you get here?”

  “Oh, you want me that bad?”

  “Yes, and you know it.”

  He chuckled.

  A flicker of self-preservation shone through. “But I’m sore. I…thought I should warn you.”

  “Oh, I bet you are. I really jackhammered your ass.”

  “This time they want me to review a kit a sponsor sent.”

  “There better not be a giant butt plug in the kit, then,” he said.

  I laughed. “I think it’s a beginner flogger set.”

  “Oh, much better. I’ll be there in an hour, okay, sweets?”

  I rushed into a whirlwind of cleaning and tidying. He’d been here just yesterday, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen the place, but I suddenly wanted to make sure not only that the area we were filming in was neatened, but that the dishes were all cleaned up and the cooking smells were aired out. I lit a sandalwood candle in a jar and moved it to a shelf so Morris couldn’t bat the flame.

  My editors wanted some variation, so every vlog didn’t look like it was in exactly the same place. Maybe this time the bedroom would be better?

  I rearranged the lights so that the bed would make a good spot for filming. I lay a maroon suede hide over the bedspread to give us a solid background color. I was just fluffing the pillows when the doorbell rang.

  It was Chino. “Come look what I did to the bedroom,” I said, pulling him into the house. “I think we should do this one in there.”

  He pulled me into an embrace before we got across the great room. “Hey.”

  “Hey?” I gave him a quizzical smile.

  “You skipped the hello kiss again.” He locked his hands behind my back.

  I blushed. “Oh.”

  “Tsk. I’ll have to punish you for that.” He leaned in to kiss me and bent me back as his mouth met mine aggressively. I resisted instinctually but he did not let up, one hand making its way into my hair and trapping me as his lips and tongue ravished mine. This was no coaxing, teasing kiss. This was Chino taking what he wanted and sending me instantly into subspace, my knees weakening.

  While one hand stayed in my hair, ensuring that my mouth could not escape his, the other snaked down my front and his knuckles rubbed up and down my mound. Could he tell how instantly inflamed I had become? I levered my hips to give him better pressure against my trapped clit. On the next downward pass of his hand he reached under my sundress and pulled it upward, then dug his fingers under the waistband of my panties.

  His fingers found wetness equal to his tongue and I whimpered, wordlessly begging him to fondle me, fingerfuck me…anything.

  Two fingers slid in and his palm vibrated against my clit. My knees couldn’t hold me anymore but I barely registered that we were sinking to the floor. My entire universe was impaled on his tongue and fingers, the only gravity that mattered the weight of his body beside me. I don’t think I’d ever had a lover who was as good with his hands as Chino.

  He was pushing me so quickly toward orgasm I thought I was about to set a new record. Two minutes? Definitely not three… But then he jerked his hand free and I cried out in loss and need. “No!”

  “Yes,” he murmured against my cheek. “Tell me how much you want me, sweets.”

  “Fuck, Chino! I…I…need…”

  “Told you you needed to be punished. Well, maybe if you’re good from here on out I’ll let you come later.”

  “Yes, sir!” His dominance closed around me like a fist. “Whatever you say, sir.”

  His smile was brilliant and devious. “Exactly right. Now, what do you need to do to get ready for this video?”

  “Oh. Um.” My loins were on fire, my clit throbbing, aching with the need to come. But I forced myself to focus. “I should do my makeup.”

  He slapped me lightly on the thigh. “Get to it, then.”

  I hurried into the bathroom with my makeup kit and then stood there with my legs shaking. I wanted him so badly I could barely stand.

  I stripped off my clothes, washed my hands and between my legs, then started on my face. My hands were unsteady, though, and I couldn’t do my eyeliner without getting it everywhere.

  I sat down on the toilet and took some deep breaths. When was the last time I’d felt lust so strong that my entire body shook with it? Never, maybe. I stole a peek through the cracked open door into the bedroom.

  Chino was setting up the computer and cameras. He was whistling merrily to himself.

  I grinned. He really enjoyed torturing me like this. He was having a blast.

  And so was I, if I was honest with myself. That felt special and rare.

  Okay, Madison. Get your face on and get ready for whatever he’s going to dish out next.

  * * *

  CHINO

  “Okay, Maddie, should we do the full unboxing of the kit?”

  “Sure,” she said, kneeling at the center of the bed. She looked perfect against the earthy color. She was naked and wearing a set of heavy glasses that doubled as a camera, making her look like the sexiest librarian you can imagine. She faced the camera on the side table first. “Hi, I’m Madison and welcome to my toy reviews. Today we’re doing a product placement.”

  “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” I joked.

  Maddie made a face. “That’d be funnier if it was a dildo.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “It’s some kind of BDSM for Beginners kit. Let’s find out what’s in the box, shall we?” She tore into one of the packages we’d ignored yesterday and pulled out a toy with gray leather tails. “First up…nice flogger.” She ran her fingers through it. “Very nice. And here’s another one just like it but suede and…aha, a third one made of rubber.” She swished them around in the air. “And under that?”

  She pulled up a set of Velcro wrist straps and ankle straps. “I sense a theme. It used to be that all sex toys were either black or pink. Now everything’s gray.”

  Next came two short gray cylinders with eye hooks at each end. She quickly figured out they were portable expandable spreader bars and how to extend them to their full length, about three feet.

  “And…oh, of course,” She pulled a gray thong panty from the bottom of the box.

  I slipped the camera from her face and put it onto my own. “Okay, sweets, let’s see you wear the thong.”

  People think it’s sexy watching a woman undress. That’s nothing compared to the way Madison looked putting one pointed foot through the thong, then the other, and shimmying it up her thighs and over her hips. The lacy gray strip almost disappeared between the globes of her ass. It looked enticing on camera, but the camera couldn’t capture the way my blood surged, the way my hands itched to touch her, the way I wanted to pin her down and possess every inch of her. She lay back on the bed like a classic pinup girl, full-bodied, luscious, glorious. Knowing that she’d obey my every command made the sight even hotter.

  I pulled the box off the bed so it wouldn’t be in the shot and realized she had left something in the bottom. Weird. She must have missed it. I plucked the last gray item out: a blindfold with elastic straps.

  I stretched it out with my hands. “Maddie, come here.”

  She looked up and froze, an oh no look caught in her eyes. Because she’d made a mistake and forgot the last thing?

  I tried to smooth it over. “One more thing.
Or should we save it for later?”

  “Yes, please,” she said, her voice rich and sweet with submission and relief. I was very conscious that this was all being captured on video. Maybe she just didn’t want to stop to explain what was going on.

  “All right,” I said, going with the flow. I set the blindfold aside. “Why don’t we try getting you into these spreader cuffs?”

  I encouraged her to lie facedown and then spread-eagled her across the bed with her wrists locked to the ends of one of the expandable rods, and her ankles to the other. She made a giant X, her rump an inviting target smack in the middle.

  Smack in the middle. “You’ll have to tell the viewers how each of these floggers feels,” I said. “I think we should start with the suede one.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, craning her neck to watch me twirl it in the air. The handle was about six inches long and the suede tails were maybe a foot long at most. I gave her a swat with it. “Well?”

  “Hardly feels like anything.”

  “Really? How about now?” I put more oomph into the downward stroke. She flinched but then said, “I suppose it’s nice for a warmup, but it doesn’t hurt at all.”

  “Let’s see how it feels after a while.” I began flogging her steadily, alternating swipes at her right cheek with her left, crisscrossing in an infinite loop—no, really, the motion traced the infinity symbol in the air. My patience was finite, though. “Your skin is looking nice and pink now,” I said.

  “The suede feels almost soothing, like some kind of exotic massage treatment.”

  “Massage. I like that idea,” I said and rubbed my hands up and down her reddened skin.

  “Oooh, now I feel it a little,” she said.

  “You should. There’s still faint marks on your butt from the other night. Let’s try the leather one next.” I held it up so the camera could get a good look at it.

  The sound it made when it hit her flesh was sharper, louder than the suede, and the sound she made was, too. She yelped but then settled down as I moved into the same crisscrossing rhythm, hitting her as lightly as I could at first. I gradually increased the pressure, the smack increasing in volume the harder I plied it. Finally I switched to snapping it like a towel, and she screeched on each one of those. A few welts began to come up where the snaps had caught her and I ran my palms over the spots before digging my fingers in.

  “Now I’m really feeling it,” she said with a moan, wiggling her ass in my hands.

  “I think a couple of these welts might bruise a little, too,” I added. “But if I hadn’t really snapped it at the end there you’d have no marks at all.”

  “Good to know,” she said. Then she let out a breath. “The rubber one last?”

  “Yep. You ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  “Okay, folks watching at home…” I tested the rubber one on the underside of my forearm and whistled in appreciation at the instant welts that showed up. “Can you guys see that? And it stings like a motherfucker. Hey, am I allowed to say ‘motherfucker’ on this video?”

  “I’m pretty sure if you’re allowed to show my boobs you’re allowed to say anything you want,” Madison said with a laugh.

  “So are you,” I replied and then gave her a sharp smack with the rubber tails.

  “Oh, fuck!” she cried.

  “Like I said.” I swatted her again and her head snapped back.

  “Ow!”

  “Ow? You make it sound like it hurts,” I joked.

  “You weren’t kidding when you said it stings like a motherfucker!”

  I gave her a third swipe and she began to pant, saying, “Okay, you know what? I’m not sure the people who made this ‘beginner’ kit knew what that thing feels like, because if you didn’t know better and you started with that you might think ‘nope nope nope, I’m not a masochist after all.’”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “It burns. It really burns. Maybe it’s just me but it’s not my favorite sensation all on its own.”

  I massaged her buttocks then, soothing her. “Well, that’s useful to know.” I meant for me, but it was probably good for the viewers watching at home to know, too.

  I unstrapped her from the spreader bars. “Slide down. Put your feet on the floor and lean on the bed on your hands.”

  She did. Was her obeying me ever going to be less than utterly thrilling? I hoped not. It was one of the best feelings in the world.

  I picked up the blindfold then and slid it over her head, covering her eyes and tamping down her hair.

  “Chino,” she said, but then she didn’t say anything else.

  I put my hand on her back. “You got something to tell me, sweets?”

  She shook her head and I wondered what was going on in her mind. Maybe she didn’t want to have to say the word “no” to me?

  I lay the three floggers across her bare back as if she were a display table and filmed a panning shot. Then I pulled them aside. “I’m going to flog your back now,” I said.

  She said nothing, just put her head down in preparation. I could see the tension in her shoulders though, as she steeled herself.

  I started with the suede and watched that tension go out of her as she realized, oh, it’s the soft one. She realized she could take it, that she even liked it, and soon she was rocking side to side with soft moans as I whipped her into a sensual haze.

  Then I switched to the leather one without breaking rhythm and she gasped, tensed all over again, and then went through a couple of waves of starting to relax into it only to tense up again suddenly each time I changed the pressure or angle of my stroke, gasping and flinching.

  She thinks I’m going to switch to the rubber one without warning her, I realized. In fact, I was considering it. It was logically the next thing to do in the scene. If this were a porno movie that would have been the point of the earlier segment where we tested it out, right? The here-comes-the-one that really really hurts.

  But this wasn’t a porno movie—not exactly—and this wasn’t just some actress. This was Madison. And I’d like to think I wasn’t that stupid.

  I ramped down the intensity and speed of the blows, slowing gradually, and saw that instead of ramping down with me she was getting more and more keyed up, her breathing quick and her shoulders shaking with anticipation.

  With fear.

  I turned the camera off, set the glasses aside, and closed the laptop on the side table. I laid my hand gently on the spot in the middle of her shoulder blades. I could feel her heartbeat and panic trying to rise. “Breathe, Maddie. I’m here.”

  “Oh, God,” she said, struggling to contain herself, swallowing hard.

  “You’re so good. You look beautiful,” I said, trying to give her some positive emotions. Did she think I was punishing her? That wasn’t the vibe I was trying for at all.

  It didn’t help. She clearly thought I was just pausing to build her up to something terrible. “Oh, God,” she said again. “Oh, no.”

  I knew she was freaking out and I didn’t want that. The question was whether I should end the scene instantly, or if I should ramp it down slowly to a close. Sometimes too sudden an ending was traumatic, too, like yanking somebody with an injury out of a hole. Sometimes it was better to ease them out. I put my hands on her shoulders again, massaging firmly. “Breathe.” I squeezed her tense traps as she exhaled, then worked my thumbs under her shoulder blades as she took another breath in. “Breathe.”

  She listened to me. She did as I said. Oh, Maddie, you beauty, you angel.

  When she was breathing calmly on her own I kissed her on the back of her neck, rolled her onto her back, and slid the blindfold off. She opened her eyes, blinked like she was seeing light for the first time, and then I kissed her on the lips. “All done,” I whispered, and kissed her again.

  Her return kiss was sudden, passionate, almost desperate, and her arms wrapped around me like I was rescuing her from the depths of a dark, dangerous hole.

  I
kissed her and held her and rocked her. Some of her gasps for breath sounded like sobs and her cheeks were wet. Oh, gorgeous, oh, sweetness, don’t cry, don’t cry. Don’t you know Daddy loves you?

  The bottom dropped out from under me as that thought rocketed through my brain. Now wasn’t the time to drop a bomb like that on her. Time to show her how I felt instead of saying something she might not take the right way. I slid a hand between her legs and encountered the rough lace of the thong. I’d forgotten about the thong. “Tell me what you want, sweets.”

  She made an inquisitive noise and opened her eyes.

  “You’ve been very good. A very good girl. Tell me what you want as a reward.”

  She blinked for a moment. “Can I ask for anything?”

  “Anything short of my car,” I said. “I need that to get around.”

  That made her smile. “Dork. You know what I mean.”

  “Do I? Come on, Maddie. When a dom asks a question sometimes it’s because we really want to see what kind of answer you’ll give.”

  “You know what I really want, though,” she said, biting her lip.

  “Hm, yeah, that would be, a top reporter position at the political news desk at the LA Times, world peace, and the best cheeseburger in Southern California. How’s that for a guess?”

  “You left your cock off the list,” she pointed out.

  “Well now, I wasn’t going to presume.” The piece of me in question was straining against my jeans so the reason I’d left it off the list wasn’t because I wasn’t in the mood. But I hadn’t been sure she would be, after all that. “Is that what you want? Is there somewhere special you want it?”

  She squirmed a little in my arms. “You know exactly where I want it. But…you seem to be saving it. I don’t want to push.”

  “Maddie, listen to me. When the genie comes out of the bottle and grants you a wish, don’t mess around. You have to just go for it. What I want most is the truth, not for you to try to figure out what answer I want you to give. If you want me to fuck you, P-I-V style, now’s the time to play that card. If there’s something you want even more than that, though, say that instead.”

  She mulled that over for a few seconds. “I don’t know…”