I lowered my eyes.
“It will get easier with practice, Pet,” he said, sympathetic. Not sympathetic enough to let me off the hook, though. “It was recommended you be granted coffee privileges. I’ll have to revoke that for now.”
Well, that figured. At least he wasn’t taking away something I already had. I tried to follow with my eyes as he moved out of my sight, but he reappeared soon enough, carrying a riding crop.
“Five to each breast, Pet.”
Oh, this was much worse, being able to watch the lashes as they fell. He drew his arm back, and I winced in advance, anticipating. I didn’t even know what it would feel like, but I was certain I wouldn't like it. I didn’t realize I could be whipped somewhere other than my ass!
The leather tip of the crop bit into my left nipple, a flash of pain sudden and shocking, leaving behind a sting that didn’t fade before the next strike. I writhed, even knowing it was impossible to avoid. My nipples throbbed, and I could see the red splotches blooming on soft, pale skin.
He lowered the crop after the tenth lash and stared down at me.
Oh, fuck, he wanted me to thank him. It was one thing to be prompted, and quite another to do it on my own.
Let go.
“Thank you for the punishment, Sir,” I croaked.
He smiled. “You’re a good pet,” he said. “I’ll let you rest for a few minutes, and then we’ll try again.”
* * *
Thursday, March 26, 2009, 5:13 p.m.
6.5 years ago
“He raped you!” Beth exclaimed.
“What? No, he didn’t.” I’d found myself unable to process what had happened with Zach the previous Sunday and finally called Beth and told her about it, hoping she’d be able to explain it to me. But she was horrified.
“You were drunk, and he forced you. That’s rape, Lucy! What the fuck?”
“But I liked it. I wanted it.” If I’d been raped, I wouldn't be looking forward to doing it again, would I? I’d be lying in my bed ashamed, or running to the police, or something.
“Did he ask? Did you say yes?”
“No. But I didn’t say no, either. And if he had asked, it never would have happened! It was amazing, Beth.”
“I don’t know, Lucy. What if he does it again and you don’t want it, but he thinks you do because you liked it last time? It’s not right.”
I hadn’t thought of that. I was still more troubled by my own positive reaction to being “forced” than by the idea that he might do it whether I refused or not. “He… he would stop, if I said no.”
“You don’t sound sure. What makes a guy do that, Lucy? Did you say, ‘Hey, Zach, why don’t you try pushing me down and fucking me?’ I mean, seriously, what would make him think to do that?”
“It’s been seven months, Beth, and he never once forced himself on me or pressured me or anything. Maybe… I don’t know, maybe he just thought, because I always get nervous if I have time to think about it…” He could have done it when he was giving me that massage at Christmas, or when I drank too much on our second date, but he’d been nothing but gentlemanly. “He’s always been so good to me, Beth!”
Beth sighed. “Just be careful, Lucy, and don’t be afraid to walk away if you have any reason to be scared. Okay?”
I was silent, the word raped bouncing around in my skull.
“You there?” Beth asked.
“Yeah. Um, I just… I mean, I think that was the closest I’ve ever come to, you know, orgasm. Why would I have liked it if it was wrong?”
“Lucy. Seriously?”
“But, wrong for him, maybe, but you’re saying I did something wrong!”
“No. No, of course I’m not! I just want you to be careful. Be honest with yourself. That’s all.”
“I am being honest with myself. I liked it, Beth, but I don’t understand why.”
“Okay, Luce. I don’t have an answer for you. It just rings all my warning bells.”
“He didn’t rape me!”
“Okay. Okay! I don’t know what else to say. You asked my opinion. I love you, Luce. You’re my best friend, you know?”
“You, too. I’ll… um, I’ll think about what you said. Thanks.” A soft knock at my door announced Zach’s arrival. I had kind of waited until the last minute to call Beth, but I’d been freaking out a little. “I gotta go.”
“Bye.”
I hung up and opened the door. “Hey,” I said.
“You okay?” Zach asked, giving me a kiss.
“Um, yeah. Yeah, come on in.” Beth’s words had me on my guard, defenses up, and that just wasn’t going to work. I stepped out of his way.
“So, you want to go out, stay in, order in…?” He flopped down on my couch.
“Um, probably a good idea if I don’t drink, you know?” I said.
He grinned. “Probably. You sure you’re okay?”
I hadn’t moved from the doorway. “Um, I was just thinking, and…” How did you ask a guy if he intended to rape you without accusing him of raping you? “Last time, I liked it. And I’m glad we finally… but…” I paced and wouldn't meet his eyes.
“Come sit down,” he said.
I sat at the other end of the couch from him.
“Lucy, what is it? What’s going on?”
“If I’d said no, you’d have stopped. Right?”
“Fuck, Lucy, what kind of guy do you think I am?! Have I ever once given any reason for you not to trust me?” He was angry. Exactly what I had been trying to avoid.
“No. Of course not. But I was really drunk, and I don’t know if – if – if it would have been different if I wasn’t.” Beth really had gotten to me. I didn’t trust my own memory of the events now.
“I don’t fucking believe this.”
“No! No, I liked it!” I looked down at my hands, fidgeting in my lap. “I think.”
“You think?”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make it sound so bad. I just… you know how it is with me… and now I’m all, I don’t know, confused.”
“Confused about what? We had fucking amazing sex and now you’re saying you think I might have raped you. Tell me how I’m supposed to react to that!”
“I don’t know! I don’t really think that. I don’t. I just… I don’t understand myself, okay? I don’t understand what happened.”
“If you don’t want to do it like that again, just say so. I won’t.” He was offended.
“I do want to do it like that again,” I said under my breath. I reached out to him, pleading with my eyes for him to understand.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I… shouldn't. Should I?”
“Shouldn't what?”
“Shouldn't want to be, you know, um...” I couldn't use the word rape, because it wasn’t. So then what was it?
“Did you like it?”
I nodded.
“Then what is the problem?”
“Why are you being so obtuse?” I cried.
“Obtuse! First you accuse me of raping you, then you tell me you liked it and want to do it again, and then you tell me that you shouldn’t like it. I don’t understand you, Lucy! I don’t understand anything about your—I don’t even know what to call it. Your neurosis? Your idiosyncrasy? Look, I like you. But this is becoming a big issue, and you’re the one who’s making it into one. I want to have sex with you, Lucy. I want to be with you. But I’m starting to feel like you don’t want those things.” He shrugged and took a turn pacing my small living room.
“I don’t understand it either. I do want those things. I do!” I hid my face in my hands.
He stopped in front of me, took me gently by the wrists, pulled me to my feet. “You’re overthinking it. Let’s go get something to eat.”
“Zach, if I tell you to just… go ahead… because I think I want you to do that, then how do I tell you it’s okay? Or, I mean, how do I tell you when it’s not okay?”
He sighed. “It’s not my usual style, and
to be honest, I wasn’t completely comfortable with it, but it worked, didn’t it? You even said so.”
“So…?” My hint wasn’t clear enough, apparently.
“Oh! Oh.” He cleared his throat. He still had my wrists in his hands. He tightened his grip and pulled me down the hall to my bedroom. “Right. This was easier when I was drunk.”
“For me, too.” I laughed, more nerves than amusement.
He spun me to face my bed and pushed me down so I was bent over the edge. My stomach did a somersault, and then I felt a very definite spurt of moisture between my legs. He hesitated, then let go of me. “Fuck, see, now I’m afraid you’re going to turn around tomorrow and say I forced you. I can’t do it like this.”
I lifted my head. “Then let’s get drunk first. I have a bottle of Jameson.”
“Jameson? Seriously? No. No, if we can’t do it sober, maybe that’s because we shouldn't.”
“We? You mean, you can’t.” I let my head drop, buried my face in the blankets.
“I can’t. Let’s eat something, and we’ll take it nice and slow when we’re both more relaxed. Okay?”
I sighed. “I guess.”
* * *
Monday, November 9, 2015, 8:00 p.m.
Day 3
I didn’t mind Kneeling at Rest even for 10 or 15 minutes, but we were approaching the 45-minute mark, and I’d had quite enough. My feet were asleep, and if Blue Eyes made me stand up quickly, I’d fall over. Still, I had no interest in earning yet another punishment—my ass was still sore after another failed “oral training” attempt—so I knelt quietly beside his chair while he answered some emails and read a book, having fetched him a drink and endured his random groping. Never had I felt more like a pet than now, as his hand once again found me, patted my head, caressed my breast, and disappeared.
“I want to have sex, Pet,” he announced. “Bedroom.”
Startled at his speaking after such a long silence, and subtly trying to restore feeling to my feet, I pulled myself to standing and grimaced at the pins and needles.
“Is there a problem, Pet?”
“This Pet’s feet are asleep, Sir,” I said.
He laughed. “Take a moment.”
Whew. When I could take a step without losing my balance, I followed him to the bedroom.
“Show me Supplication with Knees Spread, on the bed,” he said.
I’d avoided practicing this position more than I had to because it was so tiring, but now I was beginning to think it would be a good idea to spend more time with the strenuous ones to build tolerance for them. I climbed up on the bed and assumed Supplication, then opened my knees and lifted my hips.
“That is lovely, Pet. Your lines are perfect.”
Lines?
He ran his hand along my back, tracing my spine. “The arch of your back, the separation of your cheeks, granting access. Very nice, Pet!”
The separation of my cheeks?
“Perhaps we’ll take a new photograph for the book.”
My shoulders were starting to protest, and my “lines” weren’t going to last much longer. Not that I’d reject any praise Blue Eyes wanted to heap upon me! Fortunately, he didn’t make me wait or wonder any longer. He knelt behind me and kissed me right at the top of my butt crack. I shivered as the act sent goosebumps prickling all the way up to my neck.
“Transition to Flogging Pose Kneeling, Pet,” he said, his hands on my hips.
I pushed up on my elbows and brought my knees closer together, noting the immediate relief. This position was much easier to maintain.
“Good.” He reached under me to cup my breasts, trailed his fingers down my sides, eliciting a quiver that started in my ribcage and traveled straight to my clit. He caressed my ass, my inner thighs, grazed my clit with one finger. I gasped at the jolt that shot through me, the flush of warmth in my pelvis. He moved closer to me, put a hand on the back of my neck, and pushed me down. He held me like that, my face pressed into the mattress. I turned my head enough that I could breathe. His cock slipped easily into me, and I pushed back into him, making myself participate, feel, enjoy.
“Good, Pet,” he murmured. “But hold your position.” He chuckled and began a gentle thrusting.
“Oooh,” I breathed. This was like that last time with Zach, being held down, entered from behind. And like this morning, when Lustful Guy had taken me… somewhere… with his fingers and then his cock. As Blue Eyes moved inside me, I instinctively adjusted the angle just so, tilting my hips only slightly so that he was stimulating that area Lustful Guy had found with his fingers.
My breath grew fast and shallow, and I gripped the blanket beneath me in tight fists. Blue Eyes pumped faster, easing up his hold on my neck and instead using that hand to reach under me again. He pinched my nipple hard, just short of painful, and I bucked my hips, pressing up and back to meet his thrusts. Bursts of joy shot through me. I was actually smiling, breath coming in little gasps that ended with a whispered, “oh God,” or “yes.” I’d never done that before!
“Let go, Pet,” Blue Eyes whispered, fucking harder and pinching my nipple again.
My eyes rolled back in my head. Pressure built around his cock and just above, everything tightening. Let go. Let go. I opened my hands, allowed myself to release a full-throated shout on his next thrust, and then I thought I would be carried away, or pass out, or… I didn’t know, but another cry was pulled from my chest and I burst into tears, sobbing into the blankets as Blue Eyes finally came and withdrew. He knelt behind me with a hand resting lightly on my lower back. I got myself under control quickly, dazed, not quite sure what had happened.
“You were close, Pet,” he said when my sobs quieted. “Maybe tomorrow. I’ll take you upstairs now.”
* * *
Monday, July 4, 2011, 2:30 p.m.
Four years ago
“You made it!” Cory said, greeting me with a friendly hug. He ushered me through the house to the backyard, where the barbecue was in full swing. I’d been dithering about whether to go, hoping Beth would invite me over or that my family was doing something, but all my potential plans had fallen through except this one. “Jen?” he called.
Jen emerged out of a clump of women, some of whom I vaguely recognized from college and other get-togethers, and waved to me. “Hey, Lucy!” she shouted. “Come over here. You remember Margot, right?”
Cory put his hand on my shoulder, which seemed an odd thing for my best friend’s husband to do. “If they get to be too much for you, I’ve got the game on in the living room.” He winked at me and wandered back inside. I stared after him, bewildered, and then went to join Jen.
The other women nodded or smiled at me in welcome, and then returned to their conversation. “Can I get you anything?” Jen asked. “Beer, soda? Help yourself to whatever you see.” She gestured toward the table full of hot dogs and hamburgers, chips and dip, and veggies.
“Thanks,” I said.
“So, how’ve you been?” Margot asked. Margot had been Jen’s roommate in our senior year, when I’d finally drawn the single room I’d been vying for since freshman year. We’d hung out, but I’d never been as close with her as Jen was.
“Good. You?”
“Good.” The small talk continued while I tried desperately to remember the names of the other women chattering happily. Jen was always the more social one and I was the tagalong.
Always the tagalong.
They were talking about their jobs, their boyfriends and husbands, and whether they wanted kids. One of them was pregnant, and when the talk turned to babies, I couldn't take it anymore. I liked these people. They were friendly, had always been nice to me, but I didn’t have a boyfriend, or a husband, or even a prospect, and to have kids, you had to have sex, which I hadn’t managed to do since that last time with Zach. I edged away, deciding to take Cory up on his offer.
A couple other guys were in the living room with him, all of them only half watching the baseball game. Baseball was never really
my thing. Cory grinned when he saw me standing uncertainly in the doorway. “Hey, Lucy. Come on in.” He introduced the other guys to me as the husbands of two of the women outside and then patted the space beside him on the couch.
“You a fan?” Cory asked, pointing at the TV with his chin.
“Not really,” I said. I sat on the edge of the couch next to him. There was something a little off about this whole thing.
One of the other guys handed me a bottle of Corona. They didn’t talk much, and the quiet companionship put me at ease. As did the second beer.
“So how do you know Jen?” Tim asked. He was Janine’s husband, the one who was pregnant.
“College,” I responded.
Oh good, I could have small talk in here, too. I accepted a third beer from Cory and reached for some chips on the coffee table. Cory’s hand went up the back of my shirt. I froze and took a desperate swig of beer.
Fuck.
“Uh, I need to pee,” I muttered, and dashed for the bathroom.
I studied myself in the mirror. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I said to my reflection. “Why?” I liked Cory, but only as my friend’s husband. He was a good guy. He’d never so much as hinted at something like this before!
I splashed some cold water on my face and resolved not to finish that third beer. I needed my wits about me. Had the other two guys noticed? Did they care?
I opened the door to find Cory on the other side, leaning against the wall opposite the doorway. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just, things aren’t so great with Jen right now.” He shrugged.
“But Jen’s my best friend!” I hissed. “You can’t just—you can’t—you can’t!”
“We haven’t had sex in almost a year,” he continued.
I could certainly relate to that. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because,” he said. “I just thought, if Jen leaves me… I’ve always liked you, Lucy.”
Always? What did that mean? “What are you talking about, Cory?! I wouldn't do that to her! Maybe I better go.” I had to step closer to him to fully exit the bathroom. I tried to hug the wall, but the hallway was narrow. He snagged my hand and pulled me closer.
The House Book One: Pet Lucy Page 11