Hard Rhythm

by Cecilia Tan

  He continued with the layering approach, not hitting overly hard, moving the paddle from place to place, the pain beginning to ramp up as he started to hit me harder. In any other dom such a methodical approach would have come across as cold, but with Chino his passion came through: I felt as if it were vitally important for him to claim each inch of skin individually.

  And then he switched to a freer swing, hitting harder, knocking me forward with the force of the blows, and sending my mind onto another plane, one where I couldn’t sense time passing any longer and I forgot I had any reason to exist other than to be a target, a receiver, to catch what he threw. Knowing that it aroused him to beat me like this made each blow as potent as a kiss, each swat the equivalent of him licking his way up my leg or the deep thrust of his finger. I fell into the rhythm of it the same way I often sank into sex, wholly connected with my partner as our bodies did what they did over and over because it felt right.

  When he paused again, to catch his breath, I realized I was out of breath, too. Even when the brain is blissed out on endorphins the body knows it’s going through something. This time I forgot I meant to look at him while I spun through the breaths. I felt his bare skin as he molded his body against mine and licked sweat from the back of my neck.

  “Turn around, back to the wall,” he commanded into my ear. “Hands over your head.”

  I moved as quickly as I dared into position, careful not to bang my head against the wall. What was he going to do now? Paddle my tits?

  No. I felt his breath a moment before his tongue rasped hotly over one nipple. He took his time, licking each nipple until it was jutting hard, and then sucking until it was borderline painful.

  I felt his mouth moving south, over my belly button, licking all the way down until he was eating eagerly between my folds. Was he planning to make me come in the middle of this? I didn’t feel any closer to knowing what had happened to me that night at TGC, so surely this wasn’t the end…

  No. Not at this moment, anyway. He brought me to a whimpering height but not all the way to the peak of release, then stood to kiss me, his mouth musky with my own scent, sharing the salt of my sweat on his lips. He pulled back to say, “Hands against the wall again, sweets.”

  My voice came out a whisper. “Yes, sir.”

  I returned to the position and thrust my ass out, ready for more.

  I knew he’d use the studded side of the paddle now, and I was expecting another ramp up.

  I was half-right. The studded side of the paddle struck, but instead of building up gradually this time Chino went straight to brutal pain. I screamed and kicked one foot then the other but I kept my hands on the wall. The blows only got harder and when I instinctively tried to wiggle my ass out of the way, he grabbed me by my pubic hair. Bam, bam, bam—the hitting was hard and fast, solid and inescapable.

  “No! No! No!” I screamed.

  “You know how to make it stop, Maddie,” came his voice from below me, on one knee.

  “No! No!” I pressed my hands even more firmly against the wall and clamped my lips shut, biting down on the pain.

  “I’m going to get to the bottom of your mystery, Maddie. I just hope you’re ready for it.” He stood again and sank one fist into the hair at the base of my neck. The next blow was from the paddle but instead of having a big backswing it was short, almost downward, smack. I cried out, not from the physical pain exactly but from the message it seemed to convey: bad girl.

  “I’m trying!” I gasped out.

  “Are you?” Smack. His voice sounded harsh, disappointed. Smack. “Are you, Maddie?”

  A sudden sob broke free. “Yes! I’m trying so hard for you. So…hard…to be good.”

  Another sharp smack. Then another.

  “Don’t be angry!” I found myself crying. “Please don’t be angry with me.”

  “Don’t you deserve this, Madison?”

  “No!” I was crying full-on now, tears pouring down my face and gulping air as I tried to answer, the words pouring out of me without passing through any of my filters. Smack. “I’m trying so hard!” Smack. “I don’t deserve it at all!”

  Smack. “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve been good!” I screamed as another swat caught me right at the join of my buttock and thigh. “I’m a good girl! I haven’t done anything wrong! I don’t deserve to be punished!”

  “Are you sure?” he pressed, and this time no blow accompanied the words.

  “Yes! I’m…you said I was everything you ever wanted! I’ve been good!” I stamped my foot, tears streaming down my face. “I’ve been good! Please, Daddy! I’ve been good!”

  The word “Daddy” seemed to echo in the air and I froze, trembling, terrified, disbelieving I’d said it and afraid he was going to walk away from me in disgust or frustration or whatever it would be that meant I wasn’t really what he wanted. That I wasn’t good enough. That this had all been a very damaging mistake.

  But sweetness and light poured down on me from his answer. “That’s my girl.”

  I felt his body against mine again, the sheen of sweat on his skin cool against the flaming hot flesh where the paddle had done its work. “That’s my girl,” he said again. “Daddy loves you, sweets.”

  Now my tears were tears of release, of relief. “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes, Maddie, you’ve been very, very good. And I think maybe we’ve dug down to what you were holding back.” His lips pressed against the top of my shoulder. “Now, tell your Daddy what you want. Good girls get a reward for being good.”

  Was he asking me now if I wanted to fuck? Hadn’t he said I would have to be ready to take his name in ink for that, though? I was way too much of an emotional wreck right at this moment to be able to tell whether I’d regret it or not if I said that, though I seriously wanted to. That’s how a script would’ve gone—fuck me, Daddy, fuck me now—and then all the fucking ever, roll credits. But this wasn’t a porno film. I was too deep in little-girl-land to be thinking rationally but not so deep I didn’t still know it wasn’t right to make it happen like this.

  “I want to please you, Daddy,” I said, my voice tiny but clear. “Please let me please you.”

  The tightening of his arms around me felt like I was being wrapped in his approval, as if it were seeping out of his skin and into me, the best drug in the world. I felt no pain, not from the bruises, not from the fading fear, not from anything. “You please me so much,” he said. “So much. You’ve been so good, so perfect, Maddie. I love you.”

  Those words rocketed through me, ears, brain, heart—I love you!—and I pressed back against him, sucking in a breath. “I love you, too.”

  His fingers snaked down my belly toward my snatch. “Are you sure?” A hint of amusement crept into his voice.

  “I’m sure.” In the back of my mind the thoughts flickered about how I’d been wrong about so many things about him, and how again and again he’d proved himself right for me. The “other woman” had been his sister. The house hunting hadn’t been for a rock star ego palace but for his mother. The joking flirtation had been genuine interest in me. His passive manner hadn’t been lack of dominance but the patience and confidence of a hunter. I truly was sure now about him, about how I felt, what I thought, and what I needed deep down. I couldn’t explain why but that didn’t change the fact that the moment I’d called him Daddy I’d felt a restless need in me filled.

  His fingers spread me and one of them set to flicking my clit. His teeth explored my back, nipping a few times while his other hand plumbed both of my holes. Mine still had not left the wall.

  He made me come like that, both his hands working me mercilessly, making me scream as the orgasm ripped through me. And then a second one, and an even louder scream. I suddenly wondered if he had neighbors who might mind the noise.

  “Such a good girl,” he murmured, the fingers inside me twisting and making my hips writhe. “Come for Daddy. Show me how much you love me. Come again.”

 
I came again, exhausted and no longer experiencing it as pleasure, exactly, except that the best pleasure of all was pleasing him and feeling that approval wash over me as he praised me. “Perfect girl, beautiful girl, so good. She tries so hard for me.”

  I panted, nodding because I couldn’t quite swallow enough to speak.

  “One more, sweets. Come one more time for me.”

  I shook my head then finally cleared the lump in my throat. “I don’t think I can.”

  “No?”

  “But I’ll try, Daddy. I’ll try. But what if I can’t?” The panic flooded in suddenly, sweat breaking out all over my skin. “What if I can’t come? Will you be mad at me?”

  I felt his mouth against my labia then—a kiss—and I opened my eyes to see him on the floor on one knee between my feet, looking up at me. “I won’t be mad if you try your best. But if you really can’t, Maddie, you know how to stop the scene.”

  Right. Drop my arms. That hadn’t even occurred to me. “I-I’ll try.”

  “Good girl. Because if you don’t come, I won’t either.” He had two fingers inside me and was gripping his cock with his other hand. “So I really need you to do it for me.” His tongue swept up my sore clit and then he sucked it into his mouth, torturing it with the tip.

  It worked. It hurt to have my bare, overstimulated nerve endings roughed up relentlessly, but I couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing him, of leaving him unsatisfied. I screamed one final time, my legs shaking as I came, clamping my thighs against his head. His breath was hot and sharp against my skin as he must’ve come himself, but he didn’t let up until my aftershocks were completely done.

  I don’t remember how we ended up lying down on the rug, but there we were, breaths slowing, my eyes opening to see his doting smile. His hand was between my legs, cupped loosely over my flesh, massaging it gently.

  “Not ready to give me back my body?” I said with a smile.

  His eyes were serious. “Never, sweets. I want this forever. I want you forever.”

  “Am I your girl?” I was trying to ask what that meant exactly but the words hadn’t quite filtered up after the wracking orgasm had taxed my brain.

  He kissed me as gently as he ever had, his lips sensuous and full. “Yes, sweets, you are my girl, my one and only girl.”

  I whispered the word, wanting to taste it in my mouth again: “Daddy.”

  He kissed me again more firmly, forcefully, and slipped a finger inside me again, his tongue doing the same. When he lifted his mouth from mine he said, “I knew ‘slave’ wasn’t right for you.”

  “I knew ‘master’ wasn’t right for you,” I answered. “But ‘sir’ still works in scene, you know? When it’s time for…discipline.”

  He nodded. “A girl obeys her daddy, and is rewarded when she does. She’s punished when she doesn’t.”

  “And if he’s good and fair he doesn’t punish her unless she deserves it,” I added.

  “Exactly right, sweets. You belong to me, but that’s because we belong to each other.” He wiggled his finger inside me. “There’s only one more test my girl has to pass to make it official, I think.”

  “To make the relationship official, you mean?” I asked, so endorphin high I had to make sure the words were making sense.

  “Mm-hm,” he affirmed. “To consummate it.”

  Right. Despite being completely exhausted and deeply sated, I still felt a sharp spark of desire for him where his finger was buried. “Yes, Daddy,” I whispered. “But I thought you said I needed your name on my skin before you’d do that?”

  “Hm, so I did,” he said, nuzzling in my hair.

  “I want it,” I found myself saying.

  “My cock?” he purred, voice rich with amusement.

  “Your name. In ink. On my skin.” I wriggled against him. “And your cock.”

  “Mmm. My cock won’t be ready to go again for a while, though,” he said, pulling his hand free of me and lying back to tug on his limp flesh. No response from the organ in question.

  I draped my arms on his chest and rested my chin against them. “That gives us time to go get me inked.”

  “Oh ho, is my little girl impatient?”

  “Very.”

  He thumbed my lips, admiring my face, or maybe searching it for something. “Is it just that your girl persona is impatient or is Madison tired of being strung along?”

  “Both,” I said. Now that I was thinking about it, Daddy/girl made more and more sense. As a child I had been headstrong and independent. My parents had always been supportive of anything I truly wanted to do—paying for dance lessons, ice skating lessons, clothes I wanted, cheerleading camp, you name it—but they’d been wary of praising too much. I’d gotten most of my validation from my own accomplishments, only a little bit from their praise. And as I’d gotten older, I’d pulled away from needing their approval entirely, choosing my own major in college and deciding where to live and how to work since then.

  But had I ever really stopped needing approval? Was the journalism major really my own choice or was it something I thought they’d approve of that I’d also liked? I believed I’d outgrown the need but deep down it was still there. My “girl” role was proof. I’d been keeping her buried for so long, telling myself not only that I didn’t need anyone’s approval, but I didn’t need love, didn’t need a man to be happy, didn’t need to be subservient to anyone. Guess what? I did need love, I did need approval, I did have a deep need to obey and to be challenged with hard work in order to get that approval.

  And with Chino as my Daddy I’d get all that. Love, praise, affection, protection, correction. A perfect match. I could be headstrong and independent in a way I didn’t associate with “slaves” or even with “submissives.” But I had a place. A role. And Chino would put me in my place when I needed him to. I could feel it. “I don’t want to wait. I want to capture this moment forever.” I climbed on top of him and leaned down to put my mouth beside his ear and whispered it again. “Daddy.”

  His hands caught me by the hips and he growled. “Fuck, you are a naughty girl sometimes.”

  “That’s why I’m your girl,” I said. “That’s why you can’t wait to put me in my place.”

  “Fuck yes.” He ground against me. “And put every inch of me into you.”

  “There’s a tattoo place on the corner,” I pointed out. “Do they know you in there?”

  “They don’t, but given some of the art they have in the window, I bet they’ll understand what we want just fine.” He looked up into my eyes, his dark and deep, misted with lust and love. “I should get inked, too. ‘Maddie’s Daddy.’”

  I ran my hands down his chest, over the designs he had there, all black work. “Where will you put it?”

  “At the crease of my thighs, one word on each side.” He licked his lower lip. “It’ll hurt like hell to get it there, but that’s the right place.”

  I sat up, straddling him. “And on me? Where should your name go?”

  “Right here.” He drew his index finger across my womb, parallel to the top of my pubic hair. Then he looked up and I felt pinned by his gaze, by the force of the desire in it. “Maddie.”

  “Chino.” His name felt as loaded as the D-word all of a sudden. As if the heady bond we had while in scene no longer faded when we went back to being our “normal selves.” I swallowed sudden excitement. That was exactly it. If we stayed together we were never going to be those old selves again. My tongue touched my teeth for a moment as that sank in. “We’re really going to do this.”

  “We really are, sweets.”

  “I don’t mean the tattoos. I mean, us.”

  “That’s what I mean, too.” He reached up and cupped my breasts admiringly. “And I couldn’t be happier about it.”

  “Couldn’t you? That’s pretty heavy, what’s going on with your family.”

  He nodded. “I know. That only convinces me more that we belong together. You were so good with my sister. And it just feels so ri
ght. Like it’s fate that brought us together when I needed you most and showed me not to hold back.”

  “So wrong that it’s right,” I said with a smile. “Daddy.”

  “Maddie,” he answered, giving my rump a mock swat.

  “What’s the best part of being my Daddy?” I asked, wetting my lips and giving him a seductive look.

  “Besides having your hungry pussy within reach all the time? The right to discipline you—and that means both punish and reward. I love you, Maddie. But if I weren’t your Daddy you’d bristle every time I tried to protect you or teach you or correct you.”

  “You like protecting me.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I do. I also know being overprotective would be a mess. You’re still going to work at the club, I assume. I won’t always be there. My girl will have to take care of herself sometimes. Fortunately she’s a big girl I can trust. Which means a nice reward when I get home.”

  “You know a girl only has one Daddy,” I said.

  “And this Daddy’s only going to have one girl. You.” He pulled me down for a kiss.

  He rolled me over onto my back and ravished my mouth. If either of us had any more words to say right then, they were devoured instead of spoken. I had never felt so complete in my life.

  Chapter Fourteen

  CHINO

  Madison and I practically stumbled across the street, both giddy from that freefall feeling that only comes when you’re falling headlong into love. I couldn’t keep my grip on my angst and worry with the flood of sweetness pouring between us. A shower had cleaned us up but didn’t dampen my ardor in the slightest. We kept catching each other’s eyes, looking deep and thinking, we’re really going to do this. Be together. Yes.

  We walked down to the tattoo place to see if the sign in the window that said WALK-INS WELCOME was really true. A young guy with seven or eight rings running up the ridges of his ears greeted us. He had a tattoo that went all the way around his neck in a slim collar of words. Until he was bent over the counter writing out something I hadn’t been close enough to read it. Looked like a motto or saying about submission, though.