by Cara Dee
The ear-piercing onslaught startled Shay, and he ducked his head as if something were coming at him.
I coughed into my fist and cleared my throat. Since the track was playing, I took the opportunity to dig out my water bottle and quench my thirst too. Then I got settled once more and turned off the music, leaving us in utter silence except for Shay’s heavy breathing.
Oh, perfect. I pressed the sixth button. I couldn’t not. One slow breath filled the air, followed by a second and a third, mocking his own breathing.
“What the fuck!” Shay fought against his restraints and turned halfway around, his ass still glued to the floor. “Is that the best you’ve got? Fuckers!”
I cocked my head at him. He was getting defensive, which could only mean one thing. The fatigue was taking its toll. Everything River was doing to him was working.
The sounds of labored breathing and gasping reached their crescendo before they faded, one breath after another.
Shay sat still in the center of the floor. About three or four feet away from a shower drain.
All alone.
His breathing evened out, and he pulled up his knee to rest his forehead on it. His profile was hauntingly beautiful. Without making a sound, I retrieved my phone and took a picture of him.
“You don’t scare me,” he mumbled, rubbing his forehead against his knee. I bet the burlap sack was itchy. He flexed his fingers again too. “I’m not scared.”
I cast a glance at the ceiling. Aside from the fixed shower heads, there were several hooks attached to the ceiling for suspensions, and Shay would get a taste of that soon enough.
But not today.
The slow torture continued.
In the span of approximately ten minutes, I wore Shay down further by repeatedly pressing my thumb on two of the tracks. Ten seconds of Rammstein, ten seconds of silence, rinse and repeat until his shock morphed into anger—until he’d learned the pattern and stopped twitching whenever the track exploded in the echoing chamber. Then I let the silence stretch for a bit.
Shay waited. I could see how tense his body was as he braced himself.
Ten seconds became twenty and thirty and forty…and just as he let out a breath and thought the assault was over, I pushed play on the recorded laughter.
“Oh, come on!” he shouted over the cacophony of cackling.
I grinned, flooded with a sense of childish fucking glee.
Shay growled furiously and stomped his foot where he sat.
His transformation was incredible to witness. I wished the sack over his head wouldn’t shield his facial expressions, but his body spoke volumes anyway. He could be visibly angry and tense one second, only to deflate and come off as pitiful and weak the next.
I could only imagine his thought process, how he tried to make sense of everything, and how he struggled to prepare for the unknown.
Once the laughter had ended, he drew a long breath and rolled his shoulders. His arms being restrained that way had to hurt by now. He’d been cuffed for over an hour at this point.
And still, this was just the beginning.
The third hour was when things got really interesting.
Shay was exhausted, in pain, and had said that he needed to go to the bathroom.
Using the iPad, I sent River a message.
He’s getting upset. Should I do my pain session with him now or later?
Originally, I was going to do it after River’s interrogation, but sensing that Shay was nearing the brink of tears…
River’s reply popped up.
Unlike you, I at least try to stick to my plans. How’s he holding up otherwise?
Figures.
I responded.
The fatigue is getting to him. He needs to go to the bathroom. He’s hungry. If I could just give him a session with a whip or a flogger, I think it would stabilize him a bit. He’d get some form of release so you can continue for longer.
I shouldn’t have typed that. Before River’s answer appeared, I already knew what he was going to tell me.
You’re worried. Either you’ve become emotionally invested, or I’ve missed something and should be there to check in on him. Which is it?
I suppressed a sigh and pinched the bridge of my nose.
River hadn’t missed a thing, and he knew it. Despite our experience, we tailored each scene and treated a new partner for what he was—new. New to us. New to our dynamic. But as co-Sadists, River and I had perfected our way of communicating with each other, and if there was anything about Shay that River needed to know, he could count on me to convey it.
Knowing full well that it was impossible to evade the answer for very long, I opted for a cop-out reply for the moment.
See you in 30 minutes for your shift.
This was Shay’s fault. It was he who made me fret and bite my thumbnail as if I were a nervous preteen. For the love of Christ, no matter how much I’d always preferred physical sadism over mental, watching and assisting River with his scenes had never failed to excite me. Until now.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. A young man who denied having Little tendencies—and to be fair, he wasn’t a Little in any obvious, outward way whatsoever—and yet, he drew out the Daddy Dom in me with a force I hadn’t anticipated. Because those glimpses of vulnerability he revealed were unlike anything else. I watched him sit there on the floor, rocking back and forth, whimpering, pleading to go to the bathroom, hands cuffed, bag over his head, and all I wanted to do was run over to him and tell him Daddy was here.
I checked my watch.
Seven minutes until River was due.
He was sticking to the plan, which meant he was about to mindfuck Shay pretty hard.
To the boy, it would feel like River was running a sharp blade across his body. In reality, it was a glass pin—similar to the kind Ivy used for knitting—dipped in a bucket of ice. The cold combined with the thin needle had fooled plenty of subs.
Ivy liked to call it the “mindfucky wand.”
I usually found it funny.
Eight
Shay Acton
I sniffled and gnashed my teeth harder.
…forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine…
Sweat and tears burned in my eyes, and my face itched like crazy. I couldn’t shake it. I kept rubbing my face against my knee, but it only made the itching worse, and my hands were killing me. My shoulders protested painfully, my ass was cold, the room was chilly but had a humidity to it that made me feel like I was running a constant cold sweat. But worst of all was my stomach. I had to pee so damn badly.
River probably wanted me to humiliate myself by pissing right here.
…fifty, sixty…
Wait. I shook my head. I got it wrong again.
…thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two…
I didn’t know why I was counting anymore. I’d tried to search for patterns in the thread count of the burlap bag, but it wasn’t bright enough. It strained my eyes. So I’d started counting to one hundred instead, over and over.
…sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six…
“Ow…” I whimpered as I tried to stretch my arms within my confines. The cuffs weren’t that tight; my wrists didn’t hurt much. My shoulders, though…fucking hell. Tears streamed down continuously at this point, and my breath kept hitching on a cry. I didn’t want to cry. I wanted to pee and then sleep for a week in River and Reese’s bed.
I tried to stretch my neck a little. Never knowing when that loud-as-fuck music or laughter would return had forced me into a position where I was keeping my head lowered. Ready to press one ear against my shoulder to drown it out.
What number was I on?
Fuck. I had to start over.
One, two, three, four, five…
I missed Reese. I wanted him here to comfort me and tell me everything was gonna be all right, even though I already knew.
I was fucking pathetic!
I snarled to myself and took a deep breath, which I promptly cho
ked on when I heard the unmistakable sound of a door opening. Holy shit. My heart started pounding instantly, and I turned toward the sound. They’re here! They’re back! They’d actually left me. So, there had to be a camera of some sort, right?
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I rasped. “Please. I beg you.”
“I put my knife around here somewhere…”
The low muttering had to belong to River, and I was so relieved to hear a voice other than my own that I became weepy.
“River, is that you?” I croaked. “May I please, please, please go to the bathroom?”
“Riv—”
“Quiet,” River snapped. At me, I assumed.
Emotions surged forward. The defeat was too crushing. It hurt my heart—like, my goddamn feelings. Hell, everything hurt. There was pressure on my chest, my eyes stung, and my throat closed up. A rushing sound in my ears prevented me from deciphering anything, though I thought I could hear whispering.
“Grade your pain level, boy,” River ordered.
“Almost eight.” I swallowed hard, refusing to sob like a baby.
I went rigid and steeled myself as one of them came closer. Something heavy and metallic clanked against the floor. At the same time, a door opened and closed.
I jumped at the contact when two hands materialized along my sides.
“Stand up,” he commanded quietly. It was River’s voice. I was certain now.
He didn’t touch my arms but tightened his grip on my sides and hoisted me up.
“Ow,” I whispered. Every joint and muscle hated me.
Uncuffing me was next. He stuck a key into the lock, and I heard the little snick.
“Careful when you move your arms now.” He removed the handcuffs. “So, you’ve been sitting here this whole time?”
No, I went fucking shopping.
“Where else would I go?” I groused.
He flicked the back of my head with a finger. Who the hell did that anymore? My mom did it when I was little.
“I meant, you’ve been sitting here on your ass the whole time,” he said. “You haven’t gotten up to stretch your legs or anything.”
Oh.
I…didn’t know what to say. Why hadn’t I gotten up? Why hadn’t the thought even entered my stupid brain? The silent tears kept rolling down my cheeks, but for every inch I brought my arms forward, the pain intensified and messed with my head. I was losing my footing. It’d been such a long day. How long had I been in this room, or wherever I was? Six, seven, eight hours?
“I’m tired,” I mumbled.
“No, you’re just weak.”
I flinched.
By the time my arms were hanging limply along my sides, River left his spot and walked away. But he wasn’t leav—
“Gah!” I recoiled at the sudden downpour of cold water, which automatically made me lift my arms—and my God, that hurt. Owww. Was I in a freaking shower? My voice echoed, though. Like, enough that it’d convinced me I was in a bigger space. My voice carried farther than it would in a small shower.
No, no, no, this was too much. I couldn’t process anything anymore. The cold turned warm, but there was never a second left over to relax. One pain set off another. If it wasn’t my arms or my itchy face, it was the cramps from having to piss or exhaustion or hunger or thirst… I could drink. The waterdrops trickled into the burlap sack, and I tried to catch them with my tongue.
“You’re still not moving,” River said, baffled. “What the fuck is wrong with your head? Two steps sideways and you’d be away from the water, but you won’t even try. You can’t think that far. If I came at you with a knife, would you just stand there and bleed out?”
I screwed my eyes shut and felt a wave of shame roll over me.
What was wrong with me?
“Fucking useless,” he laughed, a dark sound that echoed in the room and reverberated in my skull. “And since you insist on standing there, even when I’ve told you that you can move, let’s test my theory.”
What was he going to do?
Fear twisted my insides.
A small voice at the back of my mind screamed at me, urging me to move, urging me to think faster, urging me to react. But where would I go? I was so tired, and I couldn’t focus on anything for longer than fragments of moments.
“No!” Panic slashed through me as something sharp sliced up my back, and I flinched away and turned around. Ignoring the throbbing ache in my arm, I reached back to feel if I was bleeding. “Why are you cutting me? I haven’t done anything wrong!” A new round of tears welled up in my eyes and spilled over.
“For all the bragging you’ve done about your martial arts skills, you have the reflexes of a fucking toddler.”
Fuck. I gulped and turned around again. I couldn’t be sure where his voice was coming from—or rather, it was moving. And I couldn’t see shit through the sack over my head. Not even shadows or contrasts.
The pressure in my lower abdomen grew heavier and heavier, and I couldn’t stop the whimper from falling out.
“Please,” I cried. “I need to go to the bathroom, River. Please, Sir. I’ll do anything.”
“Just when I thought you couldn’t get any dumber,” he muttered. I didn’t know what made me flinch more, his words or his hands landing on my shoulders. He guided me to where the water came down the most and told me to stay put. “You’re willing to do anything…except for piss where you stand? In a motherfucking shower?”
I sucked in a breath and froze. The sharp cold was back. He dragged his knife slowly over my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut. The soft rasping sound from the blade traveled to my ears. Was he drawing blood?
“Please, please, please, please—”
“Do you even know what you’re pleading for?”
I don’t know!
“Get down on all fours,” he ordered.
I exhaled a pitiful sound and carefully dropped to my hands and knees. The water pelting down on my back made it impossible to figure out if I really was bleeding or not. I felt the pain…I think?
“I reckon it’s time to quit callin’ you fighter,” River said. “You haven’t resisted whatsoever.”
“I’m sorry.” I sniffled and hung my head. My brain couldn’t process anymore. “I like it when Reese calls me little fighter, though.” A flash of a memory whizzed by, of Reese holding me in bed and being all Daddy-like, and I wanted that very much right now. I couldn’t help it. I missed him. “Is he here?”
“Who?”
“Da—Reese.” Shit.
I didn’t get a response right away, but I heard him farther away, rustling with something. The sound of a zipper being pulled down was unmistakable.
“He’s here,” River replied eventually. “He’s gonna give you a nice flogging session.”
Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no. Flogging was too pleasurable. If they mixed pleasure with my suffering now, I just might lose my mind completely. I didn’t want to be flogged. At all!
Both River and Reese were suddenly right by me. One kneeled behind me, the other rubbed my back in firm strokes. My fingers acted of their own volition and tried to dig into the tiled floor, the fear spiked, and yet I was unable to cower away from them. I stood there stock-still instead and just tried to control the ache in my stomach.
As I forced some air into my lungs, it hit me how stuffy it had become. My head was soaked by now, but I couldn’t tell the water apart from the sweat. Or the tears, for that matter.
“It hurts,” I rasped.
“What hurts?” River asked.
Everything. Ironically, everything except his two fingers that he was currently sliding up my ass. There was usually a sting first…
“I have to pee,” I whimpered.
“No one’s stopping you.” It was only a few seconds later that River pushed his cock inside me, and I couldn’t take it. Applying pressure to my prostate hurt more than I could put into words. Tiny explosions erupted throughout my body.
Shortly after, the first lashes of
Reese’s flogger struck my back.
I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
The pain spread like wildfire in my veins.
I started sobbing.
Too much, too much, too much.
River fucked me unhurriedly, effectively forcing me to feel every goddamn inch of his perfect cock gliding in and out of my ass. The sensations draped a warm blanket of lust over me, but it didn’t hold a candle to the hurt. And Reese’s work…I couldn’t. I didn’t know if it was pain or if it was pleasure. The thin leather strands of the flogger landed across my soaked back. I shivered, I trembled, I sobbed, I fucking moaned. Oh God, no. The rhythm of the flogger lulled me into a false sense of euphoria, and it was like when you woke up in the middle of the night and had to go to the bathroom, but then you fell back asleep and dreamed that you went to the bathroom…only to wake up once more and realize you needed to go more than ever.
My breathing slowed down.
My heart rate returned to normal.
My tears stopped streaming.
It was as if my entire body was shutting down, and it was all because of what they were doing to me. River pushed in slowly as Reese’s flogger landed on my flesh with a hundred fiery splats, River withdrew his cock as Reese let the leather strands tickle my skin in their retreat, and River pushed in again as Reese started over. One continuous loop of smooth pushes and pulls.
“Let go, Shay.” River’s low command hit me at the same time as it felt like he couldn’t push his cock deeper. And he stayed there. “Humiliate yourself for us.”
I shook my head against the crushing embarrassment.
River chose to make it worse by reaching around me and wrapping his fingers around my semihard cock.
Then Reese had to make it worse too. As he increased the rhythm, he started alternating between clean strikes across my back, stinging blows along my arm, and slithering lashes near my ribcage, which caused the strands to trace the curve around my midsection and strike my stomach too. I couldn’t anticipate where the hits would land, but the last one turned me on beyond belief. Holy fuck, he was a god with that tool. He struck with perfect precision, the beginning of the leather whacking me hard against my side, and the strands plastered themselves to my body like a slap-bracelet until the very tips fanned out over the soft part of my stomach and rained a smattering of fire.