Safeword: Quinacridone

by Candace Blevins

  Cara wondered again if the other women lived like this all the time, and envied them if they did. She was sure she’d change her mind after a few days, but right now she wanted to be more objectified, and longed to explore the depths Travis could push past her humanity. She wondered if it might be possible to erase it all-together.

  As soon as the thought went through her mind, part of her recoiled. She didn’t want to lose her humanity forever, but she couldn’t quiet the small part of her wishing to experience existing as a thing for at least a short time. She wasn’t absolutely positive her speaking had been an accident. She’d wanted the full slave experience, including total loss of choice, and was beginning to think her subconscious had spoken up to be certain it happened.

  She stayed slightly behind and to the left of Travis as he and Mark made their way to the main parlor, where most of the action was taking place. As they passed other rooms she realized some people had broken off from the main group and had formed their own smaller scenes, as she heard the sounds of sex, pleasure, and pain spilling into the hallway.

  Men grabbed her from either side as she stepped through the doorway, and their hands held her arms tightly, just shy of painful, as she was quickly shepherded into the room and pulled away from Travis. She kept her eyes down, but it took a lot of effort to not look up. Hands at her shoulders pushed her to the floor and she sank to her knees as more hands reached for her wrists and directed them to her ankles. A strange voice said, “Grab your ankles, cunt.” The harsh words in a conversational tone made her feel even more of what she’d been called.

  Her fingers wrapped around her ankles, the position pushing her hips and breasts forward and up. Her head tilted back until she saw the room upside down, and she squeezed her eyes shut to keep from accidently looking where she’d been forbidden.

  Several men seemed to be in charge, and one of them said, as if reading a proclamation, “The slave will not be physically restrained during this portion. She is expected to hold position through ten lashes to her breasts. If the hands come off the ankles the count will begin again.”

  Travis responded, but Cara couldn’t get a handle on how close he might be. “The slave will remain in place. Please begin.”

  Cara had expected it to hurt, but the first stroke felt like multiple lines of fire striking her left breast at once. She gasped air in and barely remembered not to scream “FUCK” at the last minute, so she started with Ffffffff, but quickly substituted something unintelligible. She had no idea how much time they’d give her to process the pain so she took several fast but deep breaths to try to get on top of it. She’d expected the next strike to land her right breast, but it hit the left once again and she didn’t recognize her own voice as the scream left her mouth this time. Three more strikes lashed the same breast with only a few seconds between and she didn’t have time to draw breath for another shout. When all five had been given she opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out.

  Realizing there was no way she could handle having to start over, Cara squeezed her ankles harder, her fingers cutting off circulation to her feet, and she willed her tormenter to get the next five over with before she had a chance to let go.

  He didn’t disappoint. As before, he gave her a handful of seconds to process the pain after the first strike and then delivered the next four with barely a pause between.

  Hands grasped both arms and lifted her again almost as soon as the tenth lash fell, but she didn’t release her legs. One of the men chuckled and said, “It’s okay doll, you did good. You can let go now.”

  The kindness in his voice caught her off guard and she nearly looked up, but caught herself and kept her eyes shut as she let go and was lifted to a standing position. The men walked her to the stocks and directed her ankles and neck into the slots, and as the top closed and the locks snapped into place Cara felt tendrils of panic creeping in.

  She’d fantasized about this position for years but hadn’t understood exactly how defenseless she’d be, especially in a room filled with sadistic men. She’d been vulnerable strapped to the four pedestals earlier but the latex bodysuit functioned as shielding; plus she could relax without worry of falling. The stocks required she stand on her legs or risk hurting her neck.

  Her breathing picked up and she worried she’d hyperventilate if she didn’t get it under control, but it seemed tied to her racing pulse and she was helpless to affect either.

  She desperately wanted to raise her eyes, to show Travis she was in trouble and wasn’t sure she could handle it. She tried to take a deep breath but hands pulled her legs apart and she choked on her own spit instead of breathing air in.

  “A moment, please.” Travis’ voice came from a distance but the warmth of his palm and the strength of his fingers massaged down her spine, caressed a path back up, and then kneaded her shoulders.

  A voice she thought possibly Mark’s, the man who’d been carrying her, said, “Horses and slaves — some prefer them broken and others favor spirited. We never know if you’ll show up with one fully broken or full of spirit, and I’m still not sure what to think of this one. I trust we can proceed with the punishment?”

  Travis ran fingers down the sides of her spine, and gently patted her bottom before answering, “Yes, by all means. Let’s check her cheek and get on with things.”

  Fingers pressed her jaw open and pushed her cheek forward from the outside so the men could view the stripe of fire inside. The comment comparing horses and slaves stuck in her brain, and the phrase about looking a gift horse in the mouth came to mind as the inside of hers was discussed.

  Her position in the stocks also helped the horse analogy and she was reminded of her desire earlier to have her humanity stripped away.

  Her jaw was released and a commanding voice said, “Open your mouth, slave, and accept your pain.”

  An oily cloth was pressed into her mouth and her lips suffered the spicy burn before her tongue and the roof of her mouth. She’d heard Travis mention ginger, cinnamon, and clove; and had mistakenly assumed the fire wouldn’t be too bad. Her cheek had hurt, but nothing like this. If it built on itself, she was in trouble.

  Fingers pushed something into her pussy and then into her ass, igniting both to a searing blaze, and she felt her hands and neck on the wooden stocks as she fought her restraints. Her legs marched up and down, and her entire body, save wrists and neck, was in constant movement as she danced, trying to find a way to ease the fire burning in all three places, but nothing helped.

  A voice pronounced, “We’ll give her ten minutes before we begin the caning. Watching her prance around is making me horny again and my slave’s on toilet duty for the hour.”

  Someone casually offered the use of his slave’s ass, and Cara’s mind jumped from the pain she was experiencing to the spectacle she must be presenting as she pranced, trying to deal with the relentless caustic heat. She tried to still herself, but it hurt too much and seemed to build instead of fade.

  She soon realized they’d stuffed the same type of porous rag into her mouth, ass, and pussy. If she squeezed, more of the mixture came out and amplified the burn. The trick was to stay relaxed. If only she’d known beforehand.

  By the time the men were ready to begin her caning, random tears found their way down Cara’s face as her eyes filled, the moisture piled onto the lower lids, and eventually spilled over. She fought the stocks until her wrists felt raw, and she wished they’d padded the wrist sockets and not just the neck. Common sense told her they were protecting her vertebrae, but still.

  The first cut of the cane was brutal, and met with more fire in all three holes as the impact made her clench everything tight and give herself another dose of acidic heat just as the secondary pain of the strike invaded her senses.

  She survived all ten strikes, but was openly crying after the fourth, and tears now streamed down her face. Cara thought someone different must be wielding the cane than had flogged her breasts because this man gave her plenty of time
to feel every stroke before brutally dispensing the next.

  As the tenth stroke fell, a man in an ultra-expensive suit stepped in front of her and pulled the cloth from her mouth as he ordered her to stick out her tongue. Chopsticks were quickly banded in place, forcing her tongue far in front her mouth, and metal clamps with teeth placed to the right and left sides. Another man off to her left proclaimed, “The tongue offended, and will be punished!”

  She could see the shiny silver clips on her tongue if she crossed her eyes and looked down, and terror built inside her.

  She recognized Travis’ pants as he stepped into view. “Slave Sarah has never experienced the TENS before, so I’d like to request a ball in her hand as a safeword, and notification of how much time is left, at fifteen second intervals.”

  The room fell into silence as someone walked across the floor, opened a box and rummaged around, and took a direct path towards Cara. Something touched her palm and she curled her fingers around it, feeling dimples with her fingertips. A golf ball?

  Travis wrapped his hand around hers and she closed her eyes to remind herself she mustn’t look up, as she desperately wanted the connection just a few seconds’ eye contact could provide. His voice was soothing, comforting. “Dropping or throwing the ball will make the electricity stop. Sometimes slaves release it unintentionally when a sharp spike catches them by surprise.” He pulled the ball from her hand. “If you drop it on accident, immediately give us a thumbs up to let us know you don’t need to stop, and we’ll put it back and continue.” He folded her fingers in and raised her thumb, wrapping his hand around hers again. She felt another encouraging squeeze and his hand fell away and the ball was replaced.

  After much discussion, the men decided to grant a time update every thirty seconds, with a final signal at fifteen seconds to go. She’d receive a mild hand slap to the ass as notification.

  Travis accepted the terms and her tongue instantly exploded in metallic agony.

  Cara screamed until there was no air in her lungs, sucked in a few seconds of air, and bellowed until she was depleted again. She was vaguely aware of her ass and pussy burning worse as she kicked her feet and fought the stocks, but her attention was solely on her chastised tongue.

  The battery analogy hadn’t been quite right. This was more like the pain one feels when the dentist is drilling away at a tooth and suddenly hits a nerve the Novocain didn’t deaden. As if lightning bolts had been sharpened for days, so they cut and sliced as they arced fire through flesh and nerves.

  She almost dropped the ball to safeword when the first slap came to her ass, because she was certain she couldn’t handle this much torment three more times. The intensity decreased barely enough to allow a few deep breaths, and she resolved to go the distance, not wanting to disappoint herself or Travis by cutting their adventure short.

  The power level ramped up again as the second slap landed, and if Travis hadn’t made sure she understood the electrical current stayed on the outside of her skin she’d have safeworded. The electricity surging through her tongue turned it into a sick Frankenstein puppet, jerking and dancing outside of her mouth, trapped by the chopsticks to keep it lurching and jolting in the dry air.

  When the final slap signaled the last fifteen seconds she took a deep breath and prepared for the intensity Mark had warned of. Her hand gripped the ball with a death grip, as she intended to see this through. She wanted to see how much of her humanity these men could strip from her, and that wouldn’t happen if she had to leave.

  Her mind splintered, and the survival center of her brain took the reins, turning the personality parts off so she was no longer Cara. All logical thought processes fled as she grew hyper-aware her neck and arms were stuck, and her tongue was trapped and in so much pain she was in danger of passing out. She couldn’t flee, the only thing she could do was fight the stocks, and this fight was taken up by every cell in her body.

  When the pain finally stopped it took several long seconds for her to realize where she was, and why. A fog lifted as essential systems in her body turned back on, and she felt as if she’d come out of a week-long coma instead of ten seconds of mind-splintering torment.

  She considered later that she’d determined not to drop the ball so the men would have a chance to make her progressively more of an object throughout the weekend, but the distress and suffering of those ten seconds did more to suppress her humanity and bring out the base animal in her than all other activities combined. She didn’t need them to strip anymore of her humanity afterwards; she needed warmth.

  Fingers came into her vision and squeezed the clamps open, relieving pressure on her tongue the electricity had made her forget. The chopsticks were removed and the kind voice from earlier said, “Shhhh, it’s over. Your Master will pull the fire from your other holes in a few seconds. Punishment’s over, doll.”

  Her instincts had her looking up and he put his hand over her eyes before they reached his face. “You don’t want to do that; keep your head. Do you know where you are?” He sounded genuinely concerned and it helped bring her back. She nodded as fingers pulled her pussy apart and gently drew the cloth out. The one in her ass was next, and though the extraction squeezed more of the fiery oil onto delicate tissues, the burn felt muffled compared to the earlier intensity.

  The man in front held the side of her face in his warm palm and Cara leaned into it, thankful for the touch.

  The stocks were opened and strong arms tenderly stood her up and then lifted her, carrying her as one would an infant.

  She recognized Mark’s embrace, though she’d yet to see his face, and relaxed into his chest as they left the room and headed up the steps.

  Travis opened the door to their room and Mark carried her straight to the bathroom, settling her bottom on a folded towel in the empty bathtub. Cara felt drugged, and only marginally aware of soap and warm water rinsing the fiery oil away. Fingers probed her mouth, checking the top and bottom of her tongue, the roof of her mouth, and the insides of her cheeks. When finally moved to the bed, she lay in Travis’ arms as Mark rubbed something on her ass, and for the first time she realized the cane had left large welts.

  She awakened a few hours later to find Mark gone and Travis still holding her. They had another conversation about subspace; followed by a discussion of how the Master/slave dynamic strips the slave of many of the things we consider defines us as human. Both agreed they didn’t want it full-time but would like to explore it more during scenes.

  “Were you...did it turn you on, watching them punish me?”

  She had her head buried in his chest and it rumbled against her cheek as he answered. “The first parts, certainly. Your reactions as they flogged your breasts, and then the way you danced after the fire oil application; but I knew you were handling it okay and I could see you were still turned on. The final strikes of the cane were difficult for you, and from then on I was so focused on whether I needed to draw a stop or allow you the experience...”

  His torso moved as he shook his head. “I’m getting hard now, thinking back on it, but I can’t say I was horny for the final cane strokes or any of the TENS portion. Are you ready to talk about how you feel about the experience?”

  She nodded, but kept her face in his chest. “Yeah, and you’re pretty much dead on for when I started losing my arousal, but it all happened so fast. I wouldn’t stop it now, even looking back on it.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, as I was conflicted during the TENS. You were in a true panic, but I could also see you squeezing the ball to make sure you didn’t drop it. I thought you were about to toss it once, but it was as if you changed your mind.” He sighed. “I didn’t want to rob you of the experience, but I was concerned you might be waiting for me to stop it.”

  “No, I promised a long time ago I’d let you know if I hated something or if it wasn’t doing anything at all for me.” She hugged him tighter and closed her eyes. “Looking back on it now, I think I lost more of my humanity at the end than
you’ve ever taken from me.” She finally pulled her head away and looked up. “Is it normal for pain to rob someone of...I don’t know, it’s like it turned off the part of my brain that’s me, and some emergency override program was running instead.”

  He stroked her cheek, his eyes serious. “Yes, some say it’s the reptile brain taking over, and everything else shuts down so the survival center of your brain has the use of all available resources. In today’s society, not many people experience it, but it was once a vital part of humankind’s ability to stay alive.”

  “You’ve never taken me there.”

  “No.”

  “Have you pushed others that far?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stop giving me one word answers! Knowing you as I do, I have a feeling this feeds your inner sadist in a big way. Talk to me, please!”

  He breathed out and said, “I’m sorry, it’s just...I’m not sure if you’re up to it and I can only enjoy it if you want it. Masochists who want to be pushed so far past the point of rational thought, beyond panic, are rare. Even if you decide you want it again I won’t let you agree to it tonight, not so soon after the experience.”

  She absorbed his words a moment before saying, “Okay. I think I want to do it again, but the idea terrifies me. I’m so horny remembering it, though; I’m not sure what to do with myself.”

  Travis smiled and kissed her forehead. “We have a few choices for the next couple of hours. We can join the main group again, or I can text Mark, and he and Nicolas will bring their slave so the five of us can play. I’d prefer the latter, as we can relax the rules if they come here, and I think you need to be able to talk and look me in the eyes, at least a little longer.”