Hard Rhythm

by Cecilia Tan

  Any questions I was having about whether Madison really liked it when I held her down and ass-fucked her—or whatever else I did—were largely quieted not only by the conversation when she confessed she wanted to “try” to submit, but when she was the one who invited me to a private play party. That wasn’t the sort of thing a woman who was just going along for the ride would do. How could I say no?

  Not that I would have said no. Not at all.

  The drive eastward took us through the wind farms into the desert. On the way there we chatted easily and discovered we liked a lot of the same music, which meant some of the time we didn’t talk, we just cranked up the volume and flew down the highway with Primus and Cake and Jane’s Addiction blasting.

  The house was a ways from town, which made it nicely private. I’d been picturing a mansion but it was actually a small compound: a low, flat bungalow for a main house with two casitas flanking the swimming pool in back, and nothing but scrub and a sharp, rocky ridge behind that. We arrived late Saturday afternoon so we had some time to get to know folks a little before the official party time, grilling burgers and sausages at poolside.

  The first couple we met was a male dom—a somewhat round guy with curly black hair and glasses who was a Silicon Valley executive of some kind—and his submissive, a very cute, vivacious Asian gal, introduced to us as Lion and Kittyn. The heart-shaped metal tag on her collar read KITTYN. He was the silent type, while she did the talking for both of them and he participated mostly by smiles, nods, and the occasional skeptical expression.

  She was in the middle of telling us a story about the one time they’d decided to go to Burning Man, when the male sub who was manning the grill in a leather apron announced, “Burgers up!”

  “Kittyn,” Lion said, gesturing toward the grill.

  “Yes, sir!” She hopped up from the lounge chair with a huge grin. This was a girl who enjoyed serving her dom, apparently. “With ketchup and mustard?”

  He nodded.

  While she was gone, he continued the story briefly. “Trying to rent an RV anywhere in the state of California the month before Burning Man is pretty much impossible. But a friend of a friend said he’d lend us his. What we didn’t know until we went to pick it up was that he had outfitted the interior as a…how should I describe it? Groovy psychedelic bachelor pad?”

  Kittyn was back with two burgers on plates. She knelt down gracefully and presented one of them to Lion, and then sat down in her seat, picked up her burger, and picked up the story again. “Anyway, we go to pick up this friend’s RV.” She bit into the burger.

  Lion let out an audible sigh and rolled his eyes.

  Kittyn froze. “Ohmygod,” she mumbled, putting a hand over her mouth while she hurriedly chewed and swallowed. “Sorry sorry sorry.” She cringed and hid her face behind her hand for a second.

  Lion sighed again. “What did you do wrong?”

  “I’m supposed to ask your permission before eating anything. I’m so sorry, sir. I’ll try to be better next time.”

  “You say that every time,” he pointed out. “Are you very, very hungry?”

  “No! I just forgot.” She turned toward me and Madison. “I…I always forget when we’re in public.”

  “How long has it been?” Madison asked.

  Lion rolled his eyes again. “Almost a year. Funny. She never forgets to ask permission to come, but she never remembers the food thing.”

  “I’m really not doing it to embarrass you, sir! I really just can’t remember.”

  “You can remember. If you’re sufficiently aware of me and our relationship at all times, not just when we’re having sex, you’ll remember.”

  She sucked in a breath, the “trying not to cry” kind of sucking in a breath, and I looked around for a graceful way to exit the conversation.

  Madison patted Kittyn on the leg. “Sometimes it takes time,” she said. “Lion, your sub is really charming. I look forward to seeing you guys play together.”

  “I love her dearly,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to punish you for this tonight, Kittyn.”

  “Oh please, Master, please please.” She leaned against him and snuggled under his arm, the plate and burger on her lap tipping precariously but staying put.

  He stroked her hair and rolled his eyes at us one last time.

  “A burger sounds like a great idea,” I said. “I’m going to grab one. Maddie, you want?”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  We settled again to eat on the far side of the table loaded with condiments. “They seem nice,” I said neutrally.

  “They’re cute.” Maddie gave me a slight grimace, like she felt exactly like I did: like we weren’t going to say anything bad about them when they were right over there. Cute or no, I got the feeling that what Lion and Kittyn had wasn’t right for us, anyway.

  Us. Was that just wishful thinking on my part or were we really as deep into this relationship already as I felt like we were?

  “Should we have come up with scene names, you think?” I asked.

  “For anonymity purposes?” She chuckled. “I don’t think either of us is in danger of losing our jobs if our bosses find out we’re kinky.”

  “Ha, true. I get the feeling it’s not just anonymity, though. People pick a persona before they jump into the community. Neither of us seems to be doing that.”

  “Well, I’ll confess one thing to you,” she said, licking her lower lip as she looked out over the scrub desert. “Madison isn’t my given name.”

  I laughed gently. “Well, you know Chino isn’t mine.”

  She looked back at me and smiled. “Maybe our whole lives are one big scene, then.”

  “Oh, definitely.” That came with the territory of rock stardom and celebrity. “Did you pick the name for anonymity purposes, though?”

  “Initially, yeah, because I didn’t want my parents to Google me and be shocked and appalled by what they found. But when I picked it as a name I had this feeling, too—that I was becoming my own person, I guess. Not that I wanted to disavow that I was their daughter—I’ll always be that—but giving myself a name felt symbolic of being my own person. You know?”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” There had been a point where my stepfather had declared “Chino” to be too “Latin”—yes, he called it “Latin” as if he needed an extra-Anglo word for it—and had tried to call me “Al.” He’d even tried to get my mother and my super-obedient siblings to do it. But none of them could get used to it. By the time I left home they’d simply stopped saying my name at all. “When I hit the street I could’ve used any name I wanted. I stuck with Chino.”

  “The nickname your dad gave you.”

  “Yeah.” I hadn’t thought of it that way at the time, but she wasn’t wrong. “It felt right.”

  As the sun set I felt my energy rising like it did before a show. There was no arena here, no mass crowd of thousands of fans screaming, but the excitement was building nonetheless. I took Madison into the casita that was to be ours for the night.

  I could feel the electricity rising on her skin, too. I moved her to stand in the middle of the throw rug between the bed and the dresser and ran my fingers lightly down her bare arms. “Are you nervous?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a huff of breath. “I…I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  I closed my hands firmly around her shoulders. “Nothing’s wrong with you. You can sense what’s going to happen. I’m going to do terrible, awful things to you, and no matter how much you enjoy them, there’ll always be a part of you that fears what’s coming.”

  “Oh.” She sucked in a breath. “I mean, I know that. It’s not like I’m some newbie.”

  “Maddie, it’s okay. If you weren’t buzzing with nervous excitement I’d be worried.” I gathered her hair to one side and pressed a kiss against the back of her neck. “When you pretended to be submissive for doms in the past, did you not get nervous?”

  “Not really. I don’t know why
this time’s different.”

  I suspected what was different was how hard we were falling for each other, which reassured me, actually, even if she hadn’t come out and said it. “Tell me if there’s anything in particular you’re worried about. Is it this crowd?”

  “No. Everyone seems nice. Sakura’s always introduced me to good people. I guess…I guess I’m just a little freaked that I have no idea what you’re going to do or what you’re going to want. You haven’t given me any hints at all.”

  Aha. I had wondered if keeping her in the dark about what we might do would bring up the same kinds of feelings as the blindfold had, and it was nice to know I was right.

  But then she said something that made me realize maybe it wasn’t simply fear of the unknown. “If I don’t know what you’re going to do, I might not be prepared for it.”

  “Prepared how?” I asked. “You sound like you want to study up in advance or something.”

  I felt her stiffen, freezing up as the thought hit home. “I…I guess.”

  “Did you ever think that what would please me more than you being well-prepared for what I’m going to dish out is you being surprised by it?”

  “I never thought of it that way before.” I could hear the wheels turning in her head.

  “There’s a reason I haven’t clued you in and it isn’t that I haven’t given a ton of thought to what we might do.”

  “A reason?”

  “Yes.” I stepped back and watched her posture. “I figured keeping you in the dark about what I want to do or what toys I brought would make you nervous.”

  She swallowed. “Well, you were right. So it’s all going according to your plan?”

  “Yes, sweets.” She shivered as if the AC had just kicked on, which it hadn’t. “You swear you didn’t peek into my bag while I wasn’t looking?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Because I did peek into yours.” I ran my fingers lightly across her shoulders and goose bumps came up at my touch. I circled around to face her. “And I couldn’t help but notice that you packed a leather paddle with metal studs.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “Yes. I…thought it might come in handy.”

  I ran my fingers over her eyebrows, down her lips until they parted slightly, taking in the beauty of her face with my hands.

  “So does bringing the paddle that made you break down and cry last week mean you want that again?” I began to circle her, pulling the straps of her sundress off one shoulder, then the other.

  “I brought it because…it was familiar. And you seemed to like using it.”

  “Ah. So you brought it for me?”

  She seemed to sense a trick question. “For us,” she said. “I didn’t put too much thought into it. Just seemed like a good possibility.”

  I started unzipping her dress. “All right. How about the things you brought to wear? I found a couple of sexy negligees, thongs, stockings, two corsets…isn’t that kind of overpacking for an overnight trip?”

  The dress unpeeled from her body and then hung on her ample hips. “I didn’t know what you’d like so I brought a bunch of things for you to choose from.”

  “Oh, that’s interesting.” It truly was. She’d clearly put a lot of thought into this, which was exactly what this little pre-scene warm-up interrogation was supposed to show me: her thoughts. “So you were actually trying to guess what I might like? And picked things trying to anticipate my taste?”

  Funny how she bowed her head a little as she answered, sinking gradually toward subspace. “Yes, exactly.”

  I pushed the dress over her hips and it fell to the floor. She wasn’t wearing underwear. I smiled. “Well, you got one thing right.” I smoothed my hands over the curves of her ass. “The thing I like you wearing best is nothing.”

  I smacked her lightly and she made one of those sweet little girl-grunts.

  I climbed onto the bed and leaned back against the headboard, crossing my ankles. “But go on. Try to prove to me I ought to choose one of these other outfits. Try them on. Model them for me.” I unzipped my jeans and let my junk out into the open air. “This’ll be the judge.” I was half-stiff already, so it was going to take a real effort on my part not to respond. But it was something to say, you know?

  I lay back and watched my girl work her ass off to please me. Nothing could please me more than that.

  * * *

  MADISON

  Good job, Chino, I thought as I picked up my dress from the floor and opened my suitcase. Between taking me into a private area and what he’d said, he’d managed to turn my nervous energy into a positive thing just when I’d been starting to think I might make some excuse for why we shouldn’t play tonight. I’d known he was clever on the spur of the moment but I hadn’t realized what a devious dom he could be when he had time to plan. He’d had all week to think about tonight.

  And so had I. I put one of the black lace teddies on first and twirled on the carpet in front of him. You could still see my large dark nipples right through it, and I bent over facing away from him so he could see my ass revealed as the edge of the teddy rode up.

  He waved his hand like a king telling his jester to get on with it. Okay, not the teddy, then. I went for the brown and brass corset our designer friend Dara had made for me next, with garter and stockings and a skirtlet that could be stripped off while leaving the corset in place. I put the edge of the skirtlet in his hand and then pirouetted away from him, leaving it behind in his grip.

  “Very nice trick.” He nodded. “But no.”

  And so it went through everything else I had brought. An electric blue leather corset with matching high heels, no. A sheer “slave girl” tunic, no. Thong and bikini top, no.

  I stood beside the bed buck naked with my hands on my hips. “That’s all I brought. What do you want?”

  He gestured at his limp cock flopping out of his jeans and then crooked his finger to beckon me.

  I crawled across the bed toward him.

  He chuckled softly and joked, “Now remember, you have to ask permission before you can eat me.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, master,” I said, “may your slave please have the pleasure of your cock in her mouth?”

  His eyebrows rose and he pointed at the fact that his erection was starting to rise. “Hm. Apparently Mr. Stiffie likes when you ask permission.”

  “He’ll like this even better,” I said, taking hold of his shaft and licking a wide stripe across the head. In my hand he thickened and swelled and I licked him once more before waiting.

  He chuckled again. “Yes, you may devour me, my slave girl.”

  I took him all the way in and he began spouting the most lovely obscenities. Apparently that was the kind of blowjob Chino liked. Or one kind, anyway. So far I hadn’t found much that Chino didn’t like. Outside on the patio music began to play, some kind of techno, and I took that as a sign that the party was getting started.

  He pulled me off him after a short while and gestured me back to the rug. I stood there waiting for his next command. I was so much calmer now that I wasn’t constantly worrying about what was going to happen. I mean, I was still wondering—constantly wondering—but something about how complete his dominance was allowed me to let go. I felt like now that he had taken control it wasn’t my job to worry about what to do next. He was giving me just enough leeway to let me express myself while following his orders but not enough that I felt anxious about what I did. That wasn’t a dom style I was used to, but it was fun.

  “Please me,” was his next command.

  “Sir?” I wondered if I’d missed something.

  “Please me. However you think I might like to be pleased. If I’m not pleased, I’ll punish you, and if I am pleased, I’ll share the pleasure with you.” He pulled slowly on his cock with two fingers.

  I needed more to go on, though. “Would it please you to watch me dance?”

  “Do you think it would?”

  “I think you like to watc
h.” I struck a pose. The music wasn’t very loud coming through the window to the patio, but it didn’t have to be. “And I like to dance.”

  He gave me a tiny nod of assent.

  I wasn’t warmed up, but this wasn’t a full-on routine either. There were plenty of moves that showed off my body that wouldn’t result in a pulled muscle. Flow it, stretch it, move it, shake it. Arms, legs, hips, boobs. I danced long enough to work up a light sheen of sweat.

  He snagged me by the arm as a move brought me close to him and pulled me on top of him. “Rub your cunt on my dick.”

  “You’re not wear—”

  “Don’t put it in. Don’t you dare, girl.” His voice was rough in my ear, as rough as the hand in my hair.

  “Yes, sir.” I rolled my hips, grinding my mound against his rock-hard erection.

  “Get it wet. But not inside,” he ordered.

  I spread my legs and curved my spine, using one hand to spread my folds so my natural lubrication—which was copious now that he was manhandling me—buttered him well.

  “You want to know the real reason I haven’t fucked you in the traditional manner yet?”

  “Yes, sir.” You mean it isn’t just to torture me with deprivation? I wondered if what he was going to tell me now was actually a reason or if this was just an excuse to talk dirty. Either way, I was all ears.

  “Most of the women I’ve been with, for a night, or for a relationship,” he said, rolling me onto my back and pausing to suckle my nipples before he went on. “They come in two kinds. The kind who hold back because they believe their vagina is some kind of prize I’m supposed to win, and the kind who think my cock is some kind of prize they’re supposed to win. And you know what? Neither one of those attitudes has ever worked out in the long run. It’s lose-lose.”

  Okay, that was not a dirty-talk kind of explanation. “I don’t think either of those things are true.”

  “I know, which is one of the things that intrigues me most about you, Maddie.” He shifted downward between my legs and spread my folds with his thumb, admiring my clit. “It helps that you’re not a twenty-two-year-old ingenue. You’ve been around almost as long as me.” His thumb brushed across my clit and my hips jerked. “I’ve tried to develop a healthy appreciation for all the kinds of sex that aren’t P-I-V.”