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And at the same time, I knew better. A tiny part of me, buried under the anger and unacknowledged, maybe not even there, honestly not there in the first few minutes that I fought him, that part knew there was more to my outbursts. I was just as angry and spitting in the playroom as during the moments at the table when the anger sparked so hot I could shout out against him despite knowing what would be coming. That was real. I was really mad. I didn't like being shut out. I didn't like the idea he thought he could formulate what I was going to do undercover without me.
So that part was honest anger from a person who still considered herself a person and that the construct of Master/slave or Owner/slave or Master/sub, whatever it was we were doing, would be put aside when the real, grownup stuff started. Under that, under the honest anger, a part of me had been pushing him for just this reason. To make him act. To bring on what I craved and couldn't ask for because pride and embarrassment and common sense and self-preservation stopped me. Because once here, I was terrified. Once he started, it hurt.
It was going to hurt.
It was going to happen.
I went limp and let him guide me.
He took me to the bed. His silence was almost more unnerving than anything else. When I glanced back over my shoulder to look at him, his mouth was a straight line that almost looked like pain. As if he truly regretted what he was about to do. Or as if I had actually let him down.
Both those things might be true. But so was the light in his eyes that gleamed with anticipation.
He took my left wrist and wrapped it in a leather cuff, snugging the thing tight around me and giving it a tug, then slipping his fingers between my flesh and the cuff, checking for circulation. My pulse banged hard against the backs of his fingers and I knew he could feel my excitement as well as my fear.
He didn't say anything about it, though. He clipped a snap hook through the ring on the cuff, then looped leather through the other end of the hook and tied the restraint to the top of the poster at the end of the bed, drawing my arm up above my head. He repeated his actions with my right wrist, pulling hard to spread my arms wide. An ache started up under my arms and between my shoulder blades where I was stretched.
He knelt at my feet to fasten cuffs to my ankles and secure them to the legs of the bed. When he stood I waited for him to trail a finger between my legs, to tell me how wet my sex was.
He didn't. He moved directly to the cabinet across the room where he kept many of his implements and unlocked the door. He left it open, swung wide so I could see the canes and misery sticks, the crops and paddles that hung there, the hairbrushes and canvas firehose straps, the leather slappers and straps. Sometimes I thought it looked like a dungeon had exploded into his house.
Other times I just shuddered.
There was more. There was always more. He'd left the door open so I could look in. Even determined that I wouldn't, I did. There was no way to stop myself.
He'd made his selection. I hadn't realized I'd stopped watching. My mind had turned in on itself, thinking through what was real and what was fantasy. That could almost make me laugh. Because it didn't really matter if I believed it or not. It definitely wouldn't matter once he started.
Cole didn't bother with redundancies or rhetoricals. He didn't ask me if I understood what he was doing or ask my permission to punish me. He sometimes would order me to beg him to start.
He didn't seem to be in a mood even that playful today.
"Annie."
I'd thought I was back. But his voice seemed to come from a long way away. Like I was in a dark room somewhere, dreaming, maybe.
"Sir."
"Are you ready?"
Fuck, no, I'm not ready you sick son of a bitch! One or both of us is crazy and one or both of us needs help and I'm not ready!
"Yes, sir."
He made a sound a bit like a laugh. I wasn't sure what it was in response to. "We had an agreement, Annie."
I didn't run! I'm still right here. Only it's ME that's here. Damn it.
"Yes, sir."
"You enjoy your freedom from addiction and your ability to move forward with your life."
He didn't mention my having a life. I might not have if he hadn't given me his rainforest opiate cure.
I didn't respond because it didn't seem to be required. I tried to stand still, but even after all this time, being stripped naked was humiliating. Knowing that he could look at me, probably was looking at me as he stood behind me. Knowing all he had to do was run a hand between my legs and he'd know exactly what I was feeling.
Not exactly. Did the sadist ever know all about the anxiety and fear, the dread and the rethinking that went on before the first blow? Because after the first blow, it was all regret. All bargaining and begging and twisting and trying to make it through.
Probably not for every sub. I imagined there were couples out there where the Master demanded, "Are you ready?" and tacked on "Honey" without meaning to and where she shivered within her silk-scarf bonds and squeaked out Yes before he began to flog her with a butter soft flogger, her skin pinkening only because of the repetition and –
