by Lila Dubois
There were people—stupid people who didn’t know her—who might describe her as haughty or at the very least imposing. Even before she was forced to take over her family business, she was personable but private. Very few people ever saw her cry. It was why it had hit him so hard every time she’d come back to whatever hotel or borrowed house had been their temporary abode, after walking through an area stricken by disease or poverty, or later, a stressful day struggling to do the job of CRD Beauvalot CEO. She’d collapse into his arms, silent tears running down her cheeks, her empathetic but steel-strong core shaken in a way that made his heart clench and his fists ball up with the desire to strike out on her behalf.
When she was doing NGO work, he’d watched her learn to compartmentalize so she wasn’t left paralyzed by sadness. Once she was a CEO, he’d watched her fracture.
And she’d started to change, emulating Celeste’s haughty attitude and air of command rather than the capable compassion she’d showed before.
With him she’d still been Vivi, his passionate, empathetic lover who’d felt everything so keenly that it built up inside her, like gas filling a room, needing only a spark to ignite.
For a while, his love had been enough to release that pressure. He’d still been able to take care of her. Slowly, he’d lost her. Been unable to reach her, unable to find that core of her, the real her.
Every conversation they’d had since reconnecting in Paris, no matter how adversarial the start, became something intimate and full of truth.
That was why he wanted to remain on his knees before her, or better yet, untie her and cradle her on his lap. To comfort those tears, but also question them. A submissive’s reaction in a scene was often as telling or more telling than their words. Not because of deliberate deception, but because one reason people sought out submission in BDSM was the release of control. When the power exchange was in place, and the claustrophobic emotional ties most people lived with were replaced with physical ones, the emotions that finally surfaced could end up surprising even those emotions’ owners.
The idea of being left as a punishment had struck a nerve. That should be explored, and yet…
He had no right.
Solomon looked away, out the windows to the ocean. Forced himself to repeat those words. He had no right.
No right.
He could touch her—that they’d agreed to, as part of the scene. It would be irresponsible for him to do more.
To untangle the Gordian knot of a woman’s, particularly this woman’s, need to submit—with all its many facets and pitfalls—was the right of her Master.
Solomon was not her Master. He had been once. Those years when they’d been traveling, learning and loving together, had been the best ones of his life.
Once again he got to hear her call him “Master.” But it couldn’t last.
Could it?
Solomon pressed a kiss to her forehead, more because of his own need than to comfort her. He stood after tucking the ginger and spoon back into the small net bag. Stepping to the side so he was out of her field of vision, Solomon took a moment to gather himself.
She’d been ready to leave when she brought him tea out on the water. He asked her to stay. She’d come for closure and he proposed one more scene together.
The truth of it was, as blindingly angry as he was with her for allowing her family to change her, to manipulate her, and force her to become someone she never planned to be, that anger wasn’t enough to make him stop wanting her.
Want her? The voice inside his head was snide. The worst of his own brutish sarcasm thrown back at him. You more than want her—
Solomon forced himself to turn, shifting his attention so he didn’t finish that thought. It was easy to be distracted from such anxiety-inducing sentiments when his other option was to look at the lovely, bound, naked, and waiting body of his Vivi.
He set the little bag with the spoon and raw ginger down between her shoulder blades. She started, but didn’t protest or move.
With both hands free he decided to indulge himself. He ran his hands down her sides, letting his fingertips brush the edges of her dangling breasts. He cupped her hips, thumbs pressing into the meaty flesh of her ass, which would soon be his focus. His palms massaged their way down her thighs and he gently caressed the soft skin at the back of her knee, just under the loose strap, until her toes curled. Then he added a few playful swipes of his fingertips along the sole of her foot. She hissed out a combination laugh and moan. Taking his time, he massaged her right foot, thumbs digging into her arch, kneading her heel and rubbing the ball of her foot. This time her groan was one of pure physical pleasure.
“More, please,” she begged.
Solomon smiled and landed a firm swat on her ass. “You won’t get the other foot massaged talking like that.”
“I’m sorry, Master.”
“You’re lucky I’m benevolent.”
“Benevolent?” He could picture her face, halfway between bemused and incredulous.
He switched to the other foot, digging his thumbs in as he started the massage. She groaned, lifting her head and arching her back.
“Very benevolent,” she said in fervent agreement, all hints of doubt gone from her tone.
Solomon bent his head, kissing the arch of each foot. He’d meant it to signal an end to the massage, but it felt like something more. It felt like the moment of reverence or worship.
Truth.
Earlier he had been thinking about how every time he saw her they ended up speaking the truth even when it was uncomfortable. Even when they’d rather not. Kissing her feet in reverence was another of those truths and reminded him vividly of a passage from The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Solomon rose, yanking his thoughts away from tragic love stories. He and Vivienne weren’t a tragic love story. They were…
He didn’t know what they were.
Again, he shook his head, forcing his mind back into the scene. What was wrong with him? Why was he having trouble getting into his Dom headspace? No, that wasn’t it, he was in his Dom headspace, but he kept slipping out of it, thinking about Vivienne not as a submissive he was going to scene with, but as the woman he’d once loved to distraction. One moment he was all lust and arousal, the next he was melancholy and lovesick.
Solomon made a disgusted noise. He was a fucking idiot.
“Master?” she questioned.
“I need one more thing. I’m not abandoning you.” That wasn’t exactly true, but he didn’t want her to think that noise, and the emotion behind it, had been directed at her.
Solomon walked away from her, but this time he didn’t leave the room. He went to a chest of impact play instruments and opened it. He made his collection of toys available to his guests, except for a few custom floggers and whips that needed special care. One of the staff helped him clean everything after a party, which also gave him a chance to check for splinters, loose seams, or other wear and tear.
All that meant that once he opened the chest, he had his pick of impact toys. Paddles in a variety of lengths and thickness were laid out on a removable tray. The tray below that held several whips, from a six-foot whip only very experienced players were allowed to even touch, to a sjambok, snake whip, and quirt. He wanted something with a good thud or thump impact, not the sting caused by tools with a more focused, localized impact. He lifted out that tray and another one of floggers. Though floggers had a good thud, he wanted to have precise control.
He finally found the tray he was looking for, which had a variety of crops, and also a few small rounded paddles that resembled the ones used to play ping-pong, and several wooden hairbrushes. He picked up a wooden hairbrush with a large rectangular head. The boar bristles had never been used to comb hair, but had been used to torment plenty of submissives. Before replacing the other trays, he also grabbed a round “good and evil” paddle that had suede on one side and hard leather studded with small brass brads on the other.
He studied the implem
ents, then turned, looking across his personal dungeon at the submissive waiting for him. Solomon centered himself, deliberately and intentionally leaning into his Dom headspace in a way he usually didn’t require. Normally he could walk through the dungeon doors and the physical transition was enough to trigger the mental one.
Having Vivienne here had thrown him off, but as he walked back to her, paddle and brush both clutched in his right hand, he wasn’t Solomon. He was Master Carter. Vivienne’s Master.
He snagged a chair, dragging it over and positioning it near her head. Solomon grabbed the bag off her back. Laying the impact implements where she could see them, he took a seat.
She jerked when she saw what he’d set down, then raised her head, looking at him.
Solomon casually braced one booted foot against the upright support under her left arm and tugged the ginger and spoon from the bag.
Vivienne’s eyes flicked from the ginger to his face to the paddle and brush.
Solomon examined the ginger root. There, that section was perfect. A nice fat finger jutting off the main stalk. It was wider than his finger, but with a slight taper where it met the center root. He broke off the other fingers, then used the spoon to begin scraping off the brown skin. The spicy scent of ginger filled the air.
He saw Vivienne inhale sharply.
“Have you ever been figged before?” he asked.
“No, Master.”
“I don’t want yes/no answers. You know better than that.” There were some people who enjoyed high protocol style of communication where a submissive could only ever answer with a few predetermined responses—“Yes, Master,” “No, Master,” “As it pleases you, Master,” and the like. If he asked a question, it was because he wanted information.
“Yes, of course, Master.” She bowed her head for a moment, probably resting her neck muscles before raising her head once again, her half-fascinated, half-horrified gaze on the plug he was creating out of the ginger. Even after scraping off the skin, it was big enough that she would feel it once he inserted it, and the neck wasn’t so narrow that there was risk of it breaking off inside her.
“I have never been figged before.” She stumbled a little with the wording, her accent thicker. Both sure signs she was nervous, excited, or both. “You were the only Dom I ever even discussed it with.”
“Surely you talked about it when you were going over checklists, negotiating scenes.”
“My play partners haven’t always been that creative.”
“Morons.”
“They gave me what I needed,” she said softly.
Solomon ignored that, concentrating on paring the ginger. Part of him longed to know what men had dared touch her so he could fantasize about hurting them. Another part of him wanted to know if she’d had the opportunity to engage in scenes that made her feel safe and calm because he knew how important that was.
Both of those lines of questioning would lead him further away from where they needed to be. Specifically, she needed a nice burning ginger plug up her ass while he paddled her.
Solomon smiled in anticipation, letting his other thoughts float away as he focused on the now. “People in the lifestyle like to say that figging for punishment began with the Victorians. That’s probably more an urban legend than anything, though there is some suggestion that inserting roots into the anus was used as a punishment in ancient Greece. Also, the term figging comes from some other word I don’t remember that refers the practice of doing this to horses in order to make old horses dance around like they’re young.”
Solomon held up the ginger butt plug in examining it from all angles. It was ready.
“How much this tingles or burns depends on the person,” he continued. “I’ll check in with you using the stoplight method. If the burn becomes unbearable, use your safeword.”
“Yes, Master.”
“The wonderful part about figging combined with spanking—and by wonderful, I mean sadistic—is that if you clench your ass muscles to minimize the pain of the spanking, you’ll tighten your anus around the ginger, increasing the burn there. If you keep yourself relaxed in order to minimize the burn from the ginger, you’re going to feel that spanking more than you normally would.”
“Very sadistic, Master,” she agreed.
He thought she’d maybe been going for a wry tone, but desire and anticipation, as well as that wonderful little thread of fear, were all present in her voice.
Solomon stood, the ginger he’d formed into a plug in one hand. Taking a half step, he scooped up the brush and paddle, then walked around to the rear of the spanking bench.
“Are you ready to begin?” He laid the impact toys on the small of her back.
“Yes, Master.”
Her voice trembled and Solomon smiled.
Vivienne held her breath as Solomon spread open her ass. Her knees were separated due to the configuration of the bench, but while she was certainly vulnerable and on display, now she was truly exposed.
She felt air caress her anus, and involuntarily her muscles clenched.
“I won’t be using lube to prep you,” her Master said. “The lube would act as a barrier between you and the ginger.”
“I understand.” Her voice came out as a croak, and she licked her lips, then swallowed.
His fingers moved slightly, and despite the fact that she’d prepped for the scene and knew every inch of her body was smooth, moisturized and groomed, she felt awkward and embarrassed. She’d never thought too hard about why it was that she enjoyed anal play. Everyone had their own theory, from the definitively biological explanation of additional nerve endings in the anus, to the more perverse, forbidden nature of it, which called to those who enjoyed any sort of alternative sexuality. All she knew was that being plugged was almost like a shortcut to subspace for her. The pleasure pain of the insertion, and the constant intrusion of an anal plug helped keep her centered in her subspace. Not that she needed that shortcut with Solomon.
Something brushed against her anus, the movement soft and quick. She wasn’t sure if it had been the ginger plug or his finger. A second brush, and she clenched tight.
“Relax,” he admonished her.
Vivienne hung her head, relaxing the muscles of her neck and shoulders and then letting that release of tension flow down her back to her ass. She drew in a slow breath and then deliberately blew it out, her body getting heavier, seeming to melt into the bindings that held her to the spanking bench.
Another touch to her anus, but this time it didn’t disappear. She kept her breathing shallow but steady, waiting and patient. Submissive.
The invader wiggled against her, working in a slow, massaging motion. It felt good, and Vivienne relaxed, enjoying herself.
Then the burn started. At first it felt like a tingle, then heat, almost as if whatever was pushing against her but not yet entering was slowly heating like a curling iron that had just been turned on. The heat built, and if she hadn’t known what he was doing, she would have thought he was holding something that was physically hot against her.
Her breathing was no longer even and she was fighting the urge to shift away, to clench.
“Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“It’s starting to burn.”
“It will get worse when I insert it.”
Vivienne whimpered.
The ginger root anal massage paused for a moment. “I love it when you make that noise.” His voice was gruff.
“Why?” she asked.
“That sexy little whimper…” His voice dropped to a growl. “It makes me want to both hurt you more and rescue you.”
Vivienne closed her eyes as a sharp sweep of arousal lanced through her. The heat in his words was a match for the burn of the ginger.
She wanted him to abuse her. Needed it. Needed him to take away her control and use her. It felt dangerous, but was safer than a vanilla first date, because she trusted him, knew he would take care of her.
“I want that too, Maste
r,” she whispered.
“Relax.”
That was her only warning before the pressure on her anus increased. For a moment it was just that, just pressure, an inward push, and then her body started to give. The tight ring of muscle opened, yielding to the naturally slick ginger, which he’d shaped so it was smooth, if blunt.
Though the exterior skin felt scorched from the ginger, as he pressed it deeper, there was only the normal burn of being penetrated. The plug felt large; though she’d seen it and knew it was far from the largest thing she’d ever had used on her ass, it was on the larger end of the spectrum of things she took comfortably, without first having to build up to the insertion with graduated size preparation.
“This is the widest part,” he informed her, his voice deep and dominant.
“It doesn’t burn.”
“Yet. Takes two to four minutes for the full intensity to set in.” He worked at the plug in tiny little motions, minuscule rocking thrusts that didn’t stimulate so much as they kept her aware of the fact that he was holding the plug so the widest part was stretching her ass open. As long as he held it there, not allowing it to slide all the way in or for her body to naturally push it out, she would feel that burning fullness.
What she felt now was a mere shadow to what it would feel like if he fucked her ass. Despite her current pain, she wanted that too. She wanted him to fig and spank her, fuck her ass. She wanted to cry from that unique, wonderful meld of pleasure and pain. She wanted to be undeniably used and dominated.
The hand not holding the plug squeezed one ass cheek. “Where are you?”
“Green,” came her immediate reply.
Ginger was naturally slippery once peeled, but that wasn’t the same as a smooth plug coated in lube. He relented, and jammed it forward with a little thrust. She let out a sharp cry of discomfort. Another push and it was seated inside her. Her anus closed around the neck of the plug as the asymmetrical base pressed against the crack of her ass.
Vivienne let her head hang, her eyes closed. She focused on the feeling of the ginger plug. It was big enough that she was aware of pressure from within, the neck a nice size to give her that impossible to ignore feeling of fullness she loved about any kind of anal play.