by Shannon West
He got to his feet, with a haunted look. “No! My parents can’t know I was here. I have to leave!” He ran away from me before I could stop him and took off toward the front door.
“Oh Christ.” I wondered if it was even worth going after him, and then I remembered the way he acted in the truck coming here when I told him he had to see a psychiatrist. The boy was a fucking raw nerve. I sighed and went after him, going out a side door to cut him off. I stopped him just as he hit the parking lot.
“Get back inside, Kingston. I told you, I’m in charge of you tonight.”
“No! You can’t make me!”
“Actually,” I said, taking out a pair of cuffs from my back pocket. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
****
Kingston
I’ve been through some humiliating shit in my life. The strip search in jail sprang instantly to mind, along with the rest of the time I spent there. The time my mother came in my bedroom and found me cutting my thighs with my razor blade too. Then when she marched me up to my father’s study and made me tell him exactly what I’d been doing. And of course, most recently, when Memphis burst into my bathroom and found me covered in blood. Yep, humiliation city. But every damn one of those times paled in comparison to being thrown up against the building, my hands pulled behind my back and cuffs going on my wrists. Put there, I might add, by my most hated enemy!
And that was really the crux of the problem. I’d been tied up before by Doms—a lot of times, and even cuffed. But never by someone I actually knew in my real life! Never by the man I hated most in the world!
He pulled me inside, then unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it down over the cuffs to hide them and patted me on the cheek. He stood back to admire his handiwork.
“You’re looking good. I really need to gag you too, I guess, but I’m willing to take a chance, if you are.” He leaned down to look in my eyes. “What do you think? Can you be good or do you need the gag?”
“I hate you!” I spat the words at him but he never flinched.
“Oh, I’m sure you do. But you’re going to learn to mind me—the easy way or the hard way. It doesn’t matter to me which one.”
“I swear I’ll kill you for this when I get free!”
He reached into his jacket pocket and came out with a ball gag. I hated the things whenever a Dom tried to make me wear one. It was humiliating and I couldn’t take the idea that Memphis would do that to me.
“No!” I cried and panicked, trying to dodge, but he caught me around the waist and held onto me. “Hey, settle down! I was only teasing.”
He caught me around the waist again, pulled me up to face him. “I would never hurt you or make you do anything you didn’t want to do, understand?”
“Then take off these fucking handcuffs!”
“When I can trust you not to run, I will.”
“Please. Just let me get out of here. I want to go home.”
“To do what? Finish what you started? Not a chance. Now come on, we’re going to dance.”
I must have looked at him like he’d truly lost his mind, because he laughed out loud. “That’s right, dance. That’s what happens to bad boys who try to run away from me. Maybe you’ll think twice next time. I doubt it, but maybe.”
He pulled me by my belt loops back into the bar and onto the dance floor. I could feel my face burning in shame, but to my surprise, nobody even so much as glanced in my direction. It was funny—I could allow myself to be tied up naked and suspended on a St. Andrew’s cross to be beaten. But the idea of Memphis making me do something? It just killed me. I knew Memphis! It would be too real—too much. My eyes went immediately to where I’d last seen the cheerleaders, but they were nowhere around.
“They left when you did. As spooked as you were, I guess, at the idea of rumors getting around about them.”
I looked up at Memphis pleadingly. “Let’s sit down. I won’t try to run again, I promise.”
He shook his head and smiled down at me. “No… Let’s dance,” he said softly in my ear for the second time that day. Only this time promised to be totally different. He was holding onto me with both hands on either side of my waist and he began to tug at my belt loops again, moving my hips and making me go along. The song was “Drowns the Whiskey” by Jason Aldean, a bluesy, not-too-fast, not-too-slow tune that was easy to sway to. And that’s all I did at first, still so embarrassed and thinking everybody was watching me. I thought this was only about humiliating me, but Memphis stayed on the floor with me, his fingers still controlling me by my belt loops.
“Okay, Kingston. This is how it works. You said you were a sub when you came here, but most subs actually like a little bondage. So maybe you should pretend to like it too and pretend to be responsive to your Dom’s needs.”
“Oh yeah, smart ass?” I said, still letting him push and tug me around the floor. I wasn’t sure why. “So, what’s in it for me?”
“Well,” he said, grinning at me. “In return, I’ll pretend to be responsive to yours.”
I twitched restlessly under his hands, refusing to look at him. “Thanks for nothing. And I’m not pretending anything.”
“Sure you’re not.”
“I’m not!” I said hotly, struggling against the cuffs again.
He took me by my shoulders, pulling me up on my toes so he could whisper in my ear. “Aren’t you tired yet, Kingston? Wouldn’t it feel good to just let go and let me handle things for a while?”
I stiffened and blew out a long breath. “Okay,” I said, “I’ll dance for you.” I slowly began to move my body against Memphis’s, rubbing my groin on his thigh and moving my feet a little in time with the beat.
“Is this more like it…Master?” I asked, looking up through my eyelashes at him, trying to get under his skin. Hell, this had to be as uncomfortable for him as it was for me. Wasn’t it?
“It’s pretty good.” He let go of my shoulders, taking a step back and leaning against the nearby wall, folding his arms. “Go ahead. Show me what you got.”
I smiled and closed my eyes, then threw back my head as I gave myself over to the music. I twisted as gracefully as I could and swayed provocatively to the music. I wanted to see him sweat.
I twisted and twerked my body in time to the music as a light sheen of sweat began to glisten over my abs. Suddenly, Memphis leaned forward and gave one of my nipples a hard pinch. The pain shot right through me and my head fell back. My mouth opened on a soft “Oh.” I felt myself straining forward for another touch. He turned me around instead and pulled me back against his body and held me there as the music continued. I rubbed my ass against his groin, needing to make him feel something. The music pulsed around us and I looked up over my shoulder at him.
“I thought I was too much of an amateur for you? You told me to go home and get in a chat room.”
Memphis smiled and leaned in, bringing his lips close to my ear and making me shiver. “That’s why I decided to teach you a few things.”
I wanted to say something smart—something mean. But he was leaning into me and his breath was gusting gently against my ear. I used to come to this club for one thing and one thing only—the rush brought on by the pain the Doms gave me. The pain made me fly and feel alive. Memphis was right—I had never felt like a sub. But Doms weren’t the ones on the receiving end of the lash or the flogger, so if I wanted this—and I did—I had to play the part of one. And role-playing was what it was all about as far as I was concerned.
From the time I was a little boy, I’d known I was different from other kids. Not so much because I preferred the other boys over the girls. Although I did. But also because I was so curious about sex. I’d never forget my father finding me standing in front of the men’s magazines in a book store, years ago, and looking at the naked pictures. That had been after my older brother died, and there had been several times I’d smelled something funny on his breath. He acted different too, like he was angry all the time.
That day, he�
��d been furious. I had been looking at the pictures and getting a strange feeling in my penis as it inexplicably got stiff. I didn’t even know what it was all about, really. I was only about nine years old, but my father had slapped at the bulge he noticed tenting out the front of my pants and told me I was bad and dirty. Later, I’d received the worst spanking of my life, and my father said I should be ashamed. It took me weeks before I could look at him again.
After that, I had packed my sexual curiosity away with steely determination, refusing to let it see the light of day. Later on, when I was older and got a boner in the showers or locker room, I would ruthlessly stand under an icy stream of water, digging into my thighs so hard with my fingernails that blood ran down my leg and swirled down the drain. I came to associate arousal with pain, and on the mornings when I woke up early, sticky with cum, I stripped the bed in the pale dawn light, hoping my mother wouldn’t find them before I could stash them to wash and dry them separately before she got home from work in the afternoons.
Eventually, of course, I’d been able to have sex with partners, though it was always vanilla and therefore, safe. It was a few years later that I’d tried my first BDSM club, looking for answers, and found out how much I loved the role play, the dressing up in leathers, the way the Doms talked to me. Lying naked on a bed bound to the bedposts with leather restraints or hanging from a St. Andrews cross wasn’t safe at all. Then I was forced to be a completely sexual being, one who liked it dirty and rough to the point of discomfort. I could leave behind my former self and be someone else entirely. The restraints, the futility of struggle, the pain, the master's words telling me I was a good boy—these things enabled me to fully connect with sex in a way I’d never been able to in real life.
“Look just at me,” Memphis was saying. “Nobody cares, but don’t worry about who’s watching anyway. Dance for me,” Memphis was saying and his voice was like the whiskey in the song, smoky, dark and intoxicating. My heart was thudding in my ears and the look in his eyes was making it hard to breathe. Dance for me, that look said, you know you want to.
And I did. I wanted to show him, to prove to him I was as brave as he was. As fearless, even though both of us knew that just wasn’t true. For that one moment, though, I thought maybe it was. I wanted it to be. I turned in his arms and looked just at him and not anywhere else. Those dark eyes of his were swallowing me whole and even though I wanted to close my eyes, I couldn’t. All I could do was sway to the music because he’d told me to. I didn’t have to think about it. I didn’t have to agonize over any kind of decision—he’d taken that power away from me. I simply had to obey, and that’s what finally set me free. Knowing that he was there to catch me if I fell or if something went wrong meant—everything.
He stepped up closer to me and slipped his arms around my waist, and it was the most natural thing in the world for me to put my head down on his shoulder. God, he smelled so good. He pressed his body closer to mine and nudged his knee gently between my thighs, and I looked up at him just as he was gazing down at me. He nuzzled his face against mine and kept moving me around the floor. I forgot where we were or about anybody who might be watching…I almost forgot to breathe. His hand moved over my back, caressing every place he touched. He lowered his lips to my ear and murmured something low and sultry that I didn’t quite catch. I leaned up and brushed my lips across his jaw.
And then the music stopped.
I gasped, suddenly coming back to myself. I shrank away from him, embarrassed at how I’d responded to him. He let me go, backing away almost as fast as I did. We looked at each other across a widening gap and all the loneliness, all the fear and indecision came rushing back in. I was in fucking handcuffs in a club, dancing with my shirt off and my hands cuffed behind my back—with Memphis Sawyer!
My face burned with humiliation and my knees unhinged and tumbled me to the floor. Strong hands pulled me to my feet and I looked up to see Memphis’s Uncle Mason, gazing down at me with concern. I looked for Memphis, but he was nowhere to be seen. Closing my eyes, I let Mason lead me off the dance floor and sit me down. I let my forehead droop forward to rest on the table top. If I had thought things couldn’t get much worse, the universe had just proven that it was only getting started with me.
I wanted to disappear but knew that was impossible so I considered sliding down the booth and hiding under the table until the club closed. My head pounded and my fingers itched to feel the coldness of a blade between them. My skin, already heated from the dance floor, tingled with the need to feel it—desired the pleasure it so hungrily craved. I knew cutting was my only chance to make the pain go away…and the pain needed to fucking go away.
“Kingston,” a deep voice broke into my thoughts. He hadn’t been overly loud, but there was something about the tone that jerked me back to reality—my horrible reality. “Look at me, please.” Immediately my eyes drifted up to see Mason standing over me, his big body blocking any hasty exit I might have considered taking. No sooner has my gaze landed on Mason, when Ben, the Dom I’d talked to earlier at the bar—stalked over and stood next to him. He looked pissed. Actually, they both looked mad.
“Are you okay?” Mason said, his voice deep with concern.
Perfect. I’d done something to piss off two Doms. As scary as that was, I felt worse about whatever the hell it was I’d done to make Memphis look at me the way he had before he’d disappeared into the crowd of people. I couldn’t tell if it had been disgust or horror, but knew it had to be between the two. I was currently sporting a mix between humiliation and shame. What the fuck had I been thinking? My pathetic neediness had caused me to cross stupid lines with Memphis—laying my head on his shoulder like we were a couple. Kissing his jaw. Hell, we hated each other.
“What the hell was that, Mason?” Ben growled. “He should know better than that bullshit!”
“I’m sorry,” I said automatically, though they weren’t talking to me. “I’m sorry.” So accustomed to apologizing when I didn’t meet my parent’s expectations, the words tumbled from my mouth without hesitation or thought. A feeling of weakness rushed through my blood.
“Ben’s not talking about you, Kingston,” Mason answered. “He’s referring to my nephew. You didn’t do anything wrong.” He turned to Ben and said, “Can you stay with Kingston while I go speak with Memphis?”
Some pride finally found its way to me and I snapped, “I don’t need a babysitter! I need the fucking keys to these handcuffs and absolutely nothing else from the rest of you!” Granted it was hard to pretend to be a badass with your hands cuffed behind your back, but I gave it my best effort. I wasn’t a lightweight by any means, but Mason, Ben, and even Memphis were not only larger than me but had some sort of intimidation gene that made me want to….
Hell, I don’t know what it made me want to do.
Mason moved enough for Ben to slide into the booth next to me—crowding me but then wrapping a finger around my belt loop to keep me from scooting away from him. “Easy, boy,” he said softly. “Turn around a bit and let me get these cuffs off you. Memphis should have never left you alone while you were bound. I know I never would have.”
Oh, fuck. Perfect. Mason had conveniently disappeared as quickly as Memphis had earlier, leaving me alone, handcuffed, and being hit on by a Dom. If I didn’t get a blade between my fingers before long, a panic attack and severe depression were in my very near future.
“Well, we’ll never know what you’d do, because you won’t ever have the chance. Don’t waste your time hitting on me. I just want to go home. Now, do you even have a key to the cuffs? I need to get out of here!” I felt my panic notch up to the next level—the danger level.
Instead of becoming angry from my rebuff, he leaned closer and said, “Calm down, Kingston. Take slow, deep breaths for me. Yes, I have a key to the cuffs. All the Doms have a universal key that fits the restraints used in the club.” The key slid into the lock. “Your breathing hasn’t calmed any. That disappoints me, because I as
ked you to take slow, deep breaths for me. Were you listening?”
With my panic amped up, I found it difficult to breathe, much less answer his questions, so I was thankful when he kept talking, obviously not expecting an answer or caring what my answer might be. “And just for the record, I wasn’t hitting on you. Earlier, at the bar? Then I was hitting on you. Right now, I’m trying to give you what you need since Memphis pulled his disappearing act. Anyway, you’re his, so I wouldn’t trespass on someone else’s territory.”
The second the cuffs were released, I fought to get my hands free from beneath my shirt and brought them to the front of me so I could dig my nails into my wrists. The calm, even tone of Ben’s voice did seem to be helping the erratic beating of my heart, but I still struggled to breathe. As if I hadn’t done enough already to draw attention to myself, I guess my plan was to top off my act by dying.
With what could very well be my last breath, I said, “I don’t…belong to Memphis.”
“Sure, you don’t,” Ben answered. “Can I try something? You’re still struggling with your panic attack. Let me help.”
“N-nothing h-helps,” I gasped, beginning to panic even more.
He scooted closer and twisted our bodies on the bench seat until my back was against his chest. Before I could protest, he wrapped a hand around the front of my throat and applied enough pressure to get my attention. His other hand covered my eyes. “You’re wrong about two things, Lashes. You do belong here and you do belong to Memphis.”
A tad more pressure to my neck.
“Do you like your new nickname? Lashes. You have really long eyelashes. I feel them now, fluttering beneath my hand—kind of like angel wings. Are you an angel, Kingston? I hope not. Angels don’t have nearly as much fun as…” His voice droned on and on, soft in my ear and oddly soothing. My panic started to ebb.