by Ward, Deena
I understood that what I told him had upset him. What I didn’t understand was why. I had doubted many things about Michael, but I hadn’t much doubted the legitimacy of his punishments. I doubted the ferocity of the punishments, thought they might have been excessive for my misdeeds, but I hadn’t ever considered whether or not they were misdeeds to begin with.
When the lines of his face smoothed out again, Gibson turned back to me. “How would you feel about walking while we talk? I think it might help.”
I agreed, thinking it would release some of the tension we both felt. We headed down the stairs of the deck, and made for a walking path that wound down through a grove of trees then toward the lake.
We settled into an easy stroll.
“Do you believe the punishments that night were appropriate?” Gibson asked, his voice thoughtful now.
“I was thinking about that a minute ago. No. Not now. But back then, I didn’t know what to think.”
“I see. And did Michael tell you ahead of time not to remove the Ben Wa balls?”
“I don’t remember. I don’t think so.”
“Did he warn you to never be alone in the company of another man?”
“No.”
“Did he give you a safe word to use if you were ever uncomfortable with what he was doing?”
“Only once, on the night I was punished.”
“But not at the restaurant?”
“No.”
Gibson clasped his hands behind his back and half-turned to look at me. “Then it’s important that you understand Michael never should have punished you for anything you did that night. Nothing.”
“I thought, as my dominant, he had the right to punish me whenever he wanted, for anything he wanted.”
“Not all D/s relationships involve codes of conduct and systems of punishment. In those that do, if a dominant has laid down certain rules for his submissive’s behavior and she disobeys those rules, then he has the right to punish her if he chooses. But he doesn’t have the right to invoke rules arbitrarily after the fact. It’s not fair, or sane, or safe for that matter.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “I can see that. I didn’t realize it though.”
“Also, you always, always have the right to say no.” His dark eyes were deeply intent, as if he couldn’t emphasize the point enough.
“I don’t think he was mad at me for saying it. I think he was mad about the way I said it, how I did it in front of Ron.”
“It doesn’t matter. He didn’t give you a safe word. You did what you had to do, exactly as you should have. You stopped him. Never, and I do mean never, should you be punished for using a safe word or for saying no if you have no safe word. This is a sacrosanct rule. Period.”
Gibson stopped walking, met my eyes. “You said he gave you a safe word the night of your punishments.”
“Yes.”
“I have to know, at any point or points during that night, did you use that safe word?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Not even once?”
“No.”
He started walking again and we headed into the shadowy grove of trees. “Why didn’t you use it? I can’t believe that you weren’t overwhelmed by what was happening. You couldn’t have been prepared for the intensity of it. In particular, the hood. It was too advanced for your level of experience.”
“It was hard, but he told me he had to use it to make everything feel worse. He couldn’t strike me as hard as I deserved since I was so new.”
“Did you consider using your safe word when he put the hood on you?”
“No, not really. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t realize how it would change things, either.”
“Okay.”
He thought for a while before continuing. We strolled side-by-side through the clump of trees, blotches of light dappling the path. Squirrels chattered in the branches, warning us away from their stores.
“I want to make sure — you never, not once, used your safe word?” Gibson asked.
“I said no.” I felt a little annoyed all of a sudden by his tone. It seemed like there was something of an accusation in his question.
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t. Because I handled it, like I was supposed to.” I picked up the pace, the increase of speed in my stride matching the rapidity of my defense. “I took my punishment, and yes it was hard and yes it was painful and awful at times. But I did it. And I was proud of it. If it weren’t for Michael’s video showing me up as a gullible fool, I’d still be proud of it.”
Gibson touched my arm, effectively slowing my pace. “Don’t misunderstand me, Nonnie. You have every reason, then and now, to be proud of how you coped that night. I’m not sure how you did it. Everything was against you. You were honest, sincere and brave. You weren’t a fool. Do you have any idea how much you must have surprised Michael with how well you did?”
Maybe it was strange, but Gibson’s compliments made me feel good about myself. “I think I have some idea,” I said. “He told me he didn’t expect me to be able to take so much. Maybe he actually meant it. I don’t know.”
“So, tell me if I’m correct. For you, that night was a point of pride. You pleased Michael, did everything he wanted, even though it was difficult for you to do.”
I nodded.
“And the fact that Michael set you up, videotaped the whole thing and had other people present, all of that destroyed the honesty of the events and wiped out your sense of pride in the night.”
I swallowed hard. Yes, he summed it up correctly. I nodded again.
“You’ve had two different concepts of what happened that night,” he said. “One involved honest atonement and forgiveness, the other duplicity and ridicule. You think the second kills the first, but what if I were to tell you that you’re wrong? That there was a third truth present that night?”
“I don’t understand,” I said. He’d gone too deep for me.
We were leaving the small woods, then, heading back out into the open ground, following the path down to the lakeside. The afternoon sun warmed my face and arms. Our strides were loose and easy, but inside I was tense, stinging from the recollection of Michael’s deception and what he destroyed.
“I’ll explain it,” Gibson said. “It’s one reason I wanted to talk about this with you, why I wanted to watch the video with you, to show you the proof. But I’ll try to work around that.”
He paused before he asked his next question. “Have you considered what Michael’s intentions were that night?”
I thought about it for a moment. “Apparently, to film me so he could sell the video online.”
“I think you’re right about that. I’m certain he had everything planned out. He went to some trouble to arrange everything, hired a crew, had Kamun there. He probably had a script that detailed what was to happen.”
I shuddered at the thought, a familiar nausea churning my stomach.
“It must have thrown him when you didn’t follow the script,” said Gibson.
“But I did. I stupidly did everything he asked of me. I was a total dupe.”
“No, Nonnie. You weren’t. Everything that happened after the first punishment was never in his original plan. I’m certain of it.”
We stopped next to a small flower bed loaded with colorful mums. They could have been any kind of flower, for all the attention I paid them.
Gibson’s voice was steady and clear. “Michael is a bad, sometimes dangerous dominant, but he isn’t without experience. He knows what can reasonably be expected of a new submissive; they’re who he’s usually with, after all. He would have assumed you were like the other women he’d been with, and that your limits would be similar.”
“Michael deliberately stacked the deck against you from the beginning,” he continued. “He set you up to fail.”
“I didn’t fail,” I said.
“Exactly. But you were meant to. My guess is that he expected you to use your safe word almost
immediately, undoubtedly during the first punishment, when he spanked you. It would have been an important part of the script that you use the safe word, and it’s the only reason he gave you one. The mask’s sensory deprivation elevated the fear, and would have done in any average newcomer.”
I stared at him, lost in what he was saying.
“But you weren’t average,” he said. “You didn’t use the safe word. And so Michael had to up the stakes and change his plan.”
“How do you know this?”
“I don’t know it for absolute certain, but the evidence points to it.”
“What was his plan to begin with?”
“My team and I had to sift through other videos in his personal library. My guess, from what I saw in those recordings, is that he planned to put you in a position where you were forced to use your safe word. Then he would have exploited the guilt of your failure to manipulate you into doing things you wouldn’t have done otherwise, probably sexual acts with him and Kamun. He would have tried to convince you to allow the crew to film it, and if you didn’t agree, he would have sent the crew out of the room, and used the still cameras to film you anyway.”
My mind was reeling. I took a few steps down the path, stopped, took a few more. I looked toward the lake, then back to Gibson. “Good God. You’re serious?”
He was so calm, so held together as he explained himself. “I am. Michael had done similar things before, with the exception of using the hood. That was new, and hints that he sensed you’d be harder to break than the others.”
My entire body stilled. This was something I hadn’t considered. I had assumed what happened that night was what Michael planned to happen. That my refusal to use my safe word had changed things, taken the events of that night in a different direction ... I didn’t know what to make of it.
Gibson took my arm and led me down the path to a small bench that nestled between a pair of large, leafy bushes. We sat on the smooth wood, next to one another, but not touching. I stared past him, seeing nothing, only aware of the whirl of conjecture inside me.
I was supposed to use my safe word. Gone in a different direction. How different?
As if Gibson heard my unspoken question, he said, “Because you didn’t use your safe word, Michael had to move onto a second punishment, which he wouldn’t have anticipated needing to do. He left the room after your first punishment. I think he did that to take some time off camera in order to decide what to do next.”
That made sense, I thought. It all made sense.
“After Michael returned and stopped what the others were doing to you,” he said, “he took Kamun aside and spoke with him. There’s no way of knowing what was said since the sound was edited out. I think Michael was telling Kamun what they’d be doing next.”
I thought, Michael stopped what the others were doing to me. Stopped Kamun from hurting me with his dry fingers, something he had only been doing because I’d been left alone, because Michael was off considering what to do next. Was it true? And even more importantly, did it matter?
“So then they flogged you,” Gibson said. “The both of them, without warming you up properly. At one point, they were hitting you in alternating strokes. It should have broken you, forced you to use your safe word. Once again, though, you blew his plans and didn’t stop him. He called it quits barely in time to avoid doing real harm to you.”
I remembered the ferocious swiftness of the strikes, had suspected two floggers were used. Of course, I couldn’t have known two men were wielding those floggers.
“The mood shifted at that point,” Gibson continued. “It was obvious on the video that Michael got excited after the flogging. I think he was both impressed and aroused by you not doing what he expected.”
He paused, seemed to be considering his words for a moment. “I think he then threw out whatever ideas he had of returning to his original script. From that point on, he played it however it moved him. He got wrapped up in the idea of actually punishing you, and he wanted to see how far you would go, how much you could take.”
I didn’t know if I wanted to believe this or not, could hardly believe it, regardless. “I don’t understand how you can know this, Gibson.”
“It would help if we could watch the video together. It’s all there.”
More nausea. Always the nausea. “No. I can’t. You’ll just have to tell me.”
A moment of sympathy passed over his features. “Okay. I’ll try to explain. For one thing, after the second punishment, Kamun and the crew had to scramble around to keep up with Michael’s movements. It was obvious they didn’t know what he might do next. I’m certain he never planned to secure you on that table, or he would have had it readied in advance. Instead, he had to uncover it, and then the lights had to be dragged across the room and there was a great deal of nonsensical dubbing throughout it all, probably hiding Michael’s directions and the crew’s complaints. The body language of Kamun and the crew suggested they weren’t happy with Michael changing the plans.”
“One important piece of evidence is at the end,” Gibson continued. “As Michael finished the blows of your final punishment, Kamun approached you, clearly expecting to do something to you. Michael pushed him away, and it was apparent to me that he was warning Kamun off of you. There was a brief, heated discussion, but it was dubbed over with rubbish about how the sub had paid for her sins, and so on with the absurd, invented plot.”
I nodded. I remembered the plot well. The hokey dialogue. The disobedient sub. It should have been laughable, beyond corny, and it would have been, had it not starred me.
“Kamun and the crew obviously weren’t happy,” Gibson said. “Kamun stalked out of the room, and the crew followed him, leaving their gear and shutting the door behind them. Michael quickly struck you one more time then climbed onto the table, straddling you. Then ‘The End’ flashed on the screen. It was over.”
I tried to catch up with everything Gibson said. The video ended when Michael climbed on top of me, just after he finished the ten blows. I well knew, though, that my time in that room and on that table didn’t end there. There was a lifetime yet to go, where Michael made me wear the completed, miserable hood while he took me.
I looked at Gibson, his calm expression, so steady and controlled in his explanation, telling me what must have been hard for him, probably nearly as difficult as it was for me to hear.
“That wasn’t the end,” I said. “I mean, where the video ended. More happened.”
“I know. There was an uncut recording of that night, in his library, only of the wide-angled stationary feeds, no soundtrack.”
“You watched it?”
“I did.”
“Has anyone else?”
“No.”
“It was just Michael with me, alone, at the end, on the table?”
“Yes.”
“The others, they seemed angry when he made them leave?”
“Yes. I think Michael had promised them that they would be with you, but he changed his mind and sent them away. It was similar to what happened in the bonus shower video, which was actually more of a clip. The crew surprised him by showing up in the doorway. He tried to wave them off but they ignored him. He let them film for a short while, less than five minutes, then he stood up and took a step toward the camera. The clip ended there.”
“Did you find more footage from the shower? I mean, in Michael’s private library, or anywhere else?”
“No.”
I needed to move. I stood up and headed down the path again. Gibson quickly caught up and fell in alongside me. We were soon beside the lake, winding around the edges of the sparkling water, next to the rushes and cattails which lined the shore.
I didn’t know what to make of everything Gibson described. For the second time, what I thought happened that night wasn’t what actually happened. Or it was, but it wasn’t. It was difficult to keep straight. Too many versions of one night.
I was relieved to know that only Micha
el had sex with me. I hadn’t dwelled on it in the past weeks, but I hadn’t dared hope that the others hadn’t been given a turn with me while I was strapped to the table. And now I learned that Michael sent them away. I wasn’t violated, or not in that way, at any rate.
Then there was the what-if. What if I had used my safe word the way Michael had intended? It would have been a different evening. Would he have been able to manipulate me into agreeing to the cameras, to Kamun joining us? No way to know with certainty.
Maybe, though, I wouldn’t have given in to the phony guilting. Maybe I would have left unscathed, and there would have been no video that anyone would pay to see. Michael couldn’t have destroyed everything, because he wouldn’t have had a weapon.
It was a killer what-if. I snagged a long reed as I passed a clump of grasses. I shredded the reed in seconds, sending curly strands of green twirling onto the stone path.
I turned to Gibson. “Why have you told me all of this? It’s only confusing me. Making me regret more.”
“No,” he said quietly, gently, “no additional regrets.”
He touched my arm, slowing my march until he brought me to a halt.
The sunlight fell on his handsome face and sparkled on his dark hair, in the few strands of silver around his temples. I was breathing quickly from emotion and the short burst of speed, but Gibson was steady as ever, an emblem of calm support, the patient and compassionate guide.
He held my gaze. “I told you this for two reasons. First, to explain how wrong Michael was in the way he treated you that night, all the ways he was a bad dominant. You need to know, so in the future, you’ll know what you should demand from a partner. And hopefully, what to avoid.”
I could accept that, even appreciate it.
“Michael’s misconduct began with the premise of the evening,” he said, “punishing you for behavior that wasn’t wrong to begin with. And it ran throughout the night. He pushed you too far, hit you too hard and too many times, he left you alone with untrustworthy men, he put you in a hood that would have muddled your thinking, and then, he completed the hood with a gag that left you unable to use your safe word. I’m guessing he never gave you an alternate signal to use to warn him if you needed to stop or if something went wrong.”