There was a slight whir and swish as the air moved before the loud crack as leather met skin. The tip of the whip slapped harshly against my back and I arched from the pain that shot through me.
“Mmm, it’s been awhile since this lily-white skin has been touched by the kiss of a whip.” Munch laughed a deep, nasty laugh. “That all changes now.”
Another lashing, and I cried out from it. My back was on fire, my knees wanted to give out, but there would be no escaping. I was trussed up to the cross, forced to deal with my demons as they raged in my mind. My father, my mother… Alix. Old demons warred with new ones and were more painful than the whip would ever be.
My mind was shattered, a mess of emotions and thoughts.
I lost count of how many times the whip licked across my skin, but eventually my mind calmed, everything fled, replaced by pain. The world slowed and clouded to a place where nothing mattered.
Munch was pressing against my back, against the welts and bruises he’d caused.
“Come on, boy, time to get off the cross.” He released the bindings and wrapped an arm around my shoulders as I stumbled off the stage.
Sitting on a couch, he pulled me next to him.
“Over my lap so I can put salve on you, boy.” Munch pulled on my shoulder until I lay over his lap. I could feel his erection press against my hip and whimpered. He brought his palm down on my ass. “Stop moving and making noises or I’ll take your ass right here, boy.”
“Sorry, sir.” He’d fucked me in the past in a scene so I didn’t put it past him.
He smoothed thick salve over my back and I couldn’t help but squirm as the pain surged.
“Hm, lucky it’s your first night back. You’re not so good at following instructions, it seems. Next time I won’t be so generous.” Once he was done, he gently ran a hand over my ass, the other over my hair. It was his version of after care. He could look his fill at the marks he left while giving his sub the comfort they needed. After a long while, he gave one final pat to my ass telling me it was time to get up. “You are dismissed, boy.”
I went home feeling much more content than when I’d shown up. So, it became a new part of my daily ritual. I’d check in on Alix as much as I could, but it was tearing my heart open every time I saw her so I needed a way to release the pain, and Munch was perfect at doing it.
For the next week, I’d leave work and visit Munch before visiting Alix as she puttered around her home. She looked as terrible as I felt, but she never answered my calls or texts. Sometimes I would send a text while I watched her just to see her face as she read them. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t open up to me, why she couldn’t share what was going through her head, and why for the love of God she refused to even tell me what had happened to make her run.
I knew she thought I was cheating, but what was leading her to that conclusion, I couldn’t figure out. There wasn’t a chance I would touch another woman, not when I’d rather have her in my arms, my bed, my soul. Losing her made every horrible thing I’d lived through seem like child’s play. My life hadn’t been easy and I didn’t think anything could ever hurt me like that again. Alix had gone and proved me wrong. She’d proved there was still so much agony to be felt in the world.
I wanted it to end. All of it. I wanted to go back to the months of complete bliss we’d shared. I’d give anything to return to those times.
Chapter 15
Alix
Another week had passed and I’d survived. John messaged and called me at least every couple of hours, even through the night. At least neither of us was sleeping well. It made me feel a bit better that I wasn’t alone in my misery.
After an exhausting day, I found myself parked at Scene. I hadn’t meant to go there, but since I had, I unbuckled my seatbelt and headed inside. Maybe submitting to someone else would help me finally start to get over John, since time obviously wasn’t doing it. After handing over my purse, I told the woman at the counter that I was an unclaimed submissive and she handed me a pair of leather cuffs to put on to designate me as such.
Walking into the open room, I struggled to keep my breathing calm. I had never been an unclaimed sub or played with anyone else and the idea scared me. However, I refused to back down and let it stop me from giving my all to move on from John and the control he had over me. Just that morning I had finally built myself up to taking off his pearls. The final sign that he was important to me. I felt naked without them, but it was time. Three weeks of self-pity and wallowing was more than enough.
“Looking for someone to play with?” a voice asked from behind me and I spun to find the man I’d seen John nod to many times in passing. He had to know that at one time I was claimed by him.
“Yes, sir.” I bowed my head out of respect and he stepped closer.
“What are you looking for tonight?”
“I… I’m not sure, sir,” I stuttered, not having thought so far ahead.
“A spanking? A flogging? A whipping? More?” He hooked a finger under my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze.
“A spanking?” I answered, but it came out more as a question than a statement.
“That could be arranged. Do you have a safe word?”
“N...no, sir.” We’d never required one and I couldn’t think of one on the spot.
“How about red to stop, yellow to pause so we can talk about it?”
“Okay, sir.”
“Go to the spanking bench and drop your skirt to your ankles. I’ll be right there.”
I nodded and dropped my head again before swiftly walking to an unoccupied bench on the opposite side of the room. Swallowing the growing lump of nerves in my throat, I slid my skirt down my thighs to pool around my ankles. I hadn’t worn a garter belt and thigh highs; instead I had on regular pantyhose that came all the way up to my waist.
Leaning forward onto the bench, I left my ass in the air while my chest pressed against the hard, ungiving wood.
“Hands,” the man demanded when he stepped behind me. I lifted my hands to my lower back and felt rough rope being wrapped around them, securing them together. “Safe words?”
“Red and yellow, sir,” I answered automatically.
“You will get twenty then you will sit on your knees until I tell you to get up, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Something much firmer than his hand slapped against my ass and I cried out. The familiar burn spread over both cheeks at the same time. He had to be using a paddle of some kind. John normally used his hand and I had expected the same from the stranger, but it wasn’t more than I could handle.
Again and again the paddle came down. I tried to count in my head, but gave up after losing count the second time. Everything became blurry and I felt the haze of subspace take over. It was a blessed peacefulness I needed. I could breathe again; I wasn’t in pain from heartbreak. Oddly, however, the pain didn’t morph into a sexual pleasure like it did when John was inflicting it; instead it added another layer of comfort around me. Each time the paddle came down, my panty-hose burned against my skin. I wished I had worn my thigh highs or nothing at all, but it was too late. The added sensation only made it more real, more intense.
Finally I was jostled and forced to move off the bench. My knees pressed into carpet, my skirt still around my ankles. A heavy hand forced me to sit back, my sore ass pressing against my heels.
“I will be back for you. Do not move until then or I will spank you all over again with something much worse than a paddle. Understand?” The man pushed a finger into my forehead until I looked up at him.
“Yes, sir,” I murmured through the haze. My tongue felt thick and hard to move, but I managed to get the two words out.
“Good girl.” He turned and walked from my sight.
I couldn’t say how long I sat like that. My knees ached, my back ached and my ass burned like never before, but still the man hadn’t returned. It was a cry from a familiar voice that made me lift my head to find where it was
coming from.
Everything stopped. The room dropped away and all that was left was the couple in front of me.
John was tethered to a cross while a hulk of a man unleashed a long, snakelike whip, making it snap against John’s back. His back was already covered with welts in various stages of healing, but there wasn’t an inch of unmarred skin left. Not that it stopped the man from repeatedly laying into him. Just the sound of the leather against his skin made me shiver. It had to hurt, but John simply held his head down and took it without a single sound.
I’d never seen John as a submissive and would happily never witness it again. It was a scary sight. He was no longer the strong, controlled man I loved, but one who was obviously beaten down to the point that he wasn’t feeling pain.
When the hulk dropped the whip to the floor and closed in on John, I wanted to run to him, to save him, from what was coming next. He’d had enough in my eyes. I didn’t know how he came to be there, but it wasn’t right. I couldn’t understand.
To my surprise, the man reached around and unbuckled John’s slacks and let them fall to the ground before roughly shoving his boxers down as well.
“Not enough pain, bitch?” the man growled as he slapped John’s cock.
“No, sir,” John moaned. “More. I need more, sir.”
I gaped at his words. My brain struggled to understand the side of John I was witnessing. I glanced around to see if anyone else was watching their scene, but oddly there was no one else within hearing distance, as if it was too painful to watch or they’d been warned away.
My eyes burned as I returned them to John. Tears wanted to escape, but I kept them back so they didn’t blur my vision. I needed to watch. I needed to let it sear into my brain that there was so much more to the man I thought I knew so well.
Hulk moved to a nearby table and grabbed a bottle of lube. He let some of it slide down the crease of John’s ass before he shifted his feet. I could only assume he was taking himself out of his pants, since he pressed against John while whispering words in a harsh tone. They were spoken so low I couldn’t hear them, but his stance said it all. They weren’t pleasant ones.
“You are going to take me in your body, boy. If you so much as move to escape the pain, I will tear you open, do you understand me? Do you want me to make your tender little hole bleed? Then you’ll remember me reaming you for days.”
“N...no, sir. I don’t want to bleed, sir,” John whimpered — actually whimpered. His voice sounded like a little boy’s, one who was pleading to be saved, and my heart skipped a beat. I had to dig my fingers into my palms to force myself to stay where I was. He had a safe word; he could make it stop if he truly wanted to.
The man rolled his hips before thrusting against John and from the cry of agony that left him, I knew the man was filling his ass. I audibly gasped as tears finally escaped my eyes. The man turned his head and met my gaze as he pounded into John with a hand around his throat. A harsh smile came over his face before he turned back to John.
“Even your ass can’t get it right. No matter how many times I fuck you, all you do is whimper like a little bitch. You are so pathetic. No one will love you. No one will ever care if you live or die because you are so fucking worthless. If you weren’t trussed up, I’d make you suck the shit from my dick until I came down your disgusting throat.” The man’s words made my throat work overtime to keep from releasing my stomach contents. I couldn’t stand to watch more. I lowered my head in shame. I was only an observer and yet I couldn’t handle it. How he managed to take it I didn’t know.
It wasn’t the fact he was with another man that confused me, but the fact that he was submitting, that he was being degraded without objection. I couldn’t wrap my head around how things had changed so rapidly in his world.
I focused on the burning pain in my ass and knew it was nothing compared to the pain John had to feel from the lashes to his back. I tried to tune out the nasty words spewing from the man fucking John. It seemed to last forever before I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. Glancing up, I found it was the man who’d spanked me.
“Come, little one,” he said in a soft tone. I stood and he helped me pull up my skirt before ushering me out of the room. He led me down the hall filled with doorways I knew led to private rooms until he finally pushed one open and followed me in. “Sit.”
I eyed the room, which appeared to be an office, as he sat in one of the chairs and waved a hand at the other.
“Alix, I’m Gabe. I’m the owner of Scene. Please sit. I need to talk to you. It is very important.”
I eyed him cautiously feeling more nervous than I had out in the playroom.
“If you care at all for John, you will want to hear what I have to say.”
My heart thudded harder in my chest when he mentioned John. He had information about him. I needed to know what it was. Pulling the chair a bit farther away, I sat facing him.
“Good. Now I trust you witnessed the scene going on out there, correct?” He crossed an ankle over the opposite knee, relaxing back into his seat.
“Yes.”
“John has been here every day for the last week. Sometimes multiple times a day. He’s suffering. He is punishing himself in the only way he knows how. It helps calm his demons, but it also gives him a new pain to focus on since he can’t control the other pain he’s dealing with. I don’t know exactly what is going on between the two of you, but I suspect you can help him more than he is allowing me to at this time.” Gabe dropped his leg and leaned his elbows on his knees.
“I...I don’t know what I can do.” I shook my head in denial.
“Talk to him. See if he will share what it is that’s eating at him. It’s something personal. I might know his past, but something set him off. Something pushed him over the edge and he doesn’t even seem to be trying to control it. He’s lost in his head, in his demons, his pain.” Gabe ran a tired hand over his face. “I’ve tried. Every time he shows up here, I try to get him to open up, but he refuses. He won’t talk about it.”
“You think he’d talk to me?” I shifted in my seat, my sore ass rubbing against my skirt.
“I don’t know. It can’t hurt. While it seems the two of you are no longer Dom and sub, he had a connection to you that I’ve never seen him have with anyone before. I’ve known John for quite a few years, too, so I know it’s not something to be taken lightly. Please, if you care for him, try. Try, not because I’m asking, but for him.” Gabe reached across the space to clasp my hand in his. “Please.”
I sighed. I didn’t know if John would talk to me. What if it was me that had caused him to go over the edge? I didn’t think I could handle the guilt. It might not have been my fault I’d left, but I hadn’t allowed him to talk to me about it. Maybe giving him that chance would help. Maybe if I pushed to know what was going on in other areas of his life, he would talk. I would try, because I couldn’t stand seeing him hurt so much.
“I’ll go see him at his office tomorrow,” I told Gabe, who released a sigh as his shoulders relaxed.
“Thank you. I will be indebted to you. John is a good friend and I don’t like seeing him this way. As for you little miss, you need to be more careful about which Doms you play with. No matter what happens with John, you need to learn to set clearer boundaries if you’re going to scene with new Doms. Talk about limits before you scene. You could’ve easily been put in a hairy situation real quick. Luckily, I spotted you when you came in and made sure you were here to witness John’s scene since it was the only way you’d understand how much pain he’s in.”
“Understood.” I stood with a nod. I couldn’t sit in the office anymore. I needed privacy to build the courage to enter John’s office in the morning. Needed to plan what I was going to say to him.
Gabe walked with me until I turned to leave and he returned to the main room. The urge to look and see if John was still on the stage nearly had me following him, but I forced myself to leave instead.
After another r
estless night, I found myself dressed in a pantsuit, hair in a severe low ponytail, and heading into John’s office shortly after he’d passed through the lobby.
“He doesn’t want to see you,” Mariah sneered as soon as she saw me.
“That’s not for you to decide.” I walked briskly past her desk and pushed open his door without knocking. Locking it, I leaned against it as he looked up from a small stack of papers.
Slowly one eyebrow lifted as he watched me.
“Look, we are going to have a talk and I don’t need Ms. Thing out there bothering us.”
“Let me take care of that.” John stood and walked calmly toward me.
If I hadn’t seen him the night before, I wouldn’t have guessed he was any different than any other day before we’d been together.
“Excuse me. I can’t open the door if you insist on leaning on it.” He stood only inches away and his delicious scent surrounded me. His eyes were guarded and cold as he looked down at me.
Feeling stupid, I stepped to the side. He opened the door and stuck his head out.
“Leave, now. Lock the office behind you,” he demanded with a stern Dom tone of voice before closing it and returning to his perch behind his desk. “Now, what was it you wanted to talk about?”
“How do you know she left?” I glanced at him before looking toward where Mariah was probably listening.
“She will. Would you rather waste time debating on how well my secretary listens to orders or talk about whatever it is that has you in my office so early this morning?” He looked at me expectantly.
“I’d rather avoid all things involving your secretary,” I said quietly, but sat in the chair across from him. “I’ve decided to give you the chance to voice whatever it is that has you still blowing up my phone. Obviously you have something to say.”
I couldn’t help but be defensive. It wasn’t how I’d planned to come to his office and speak with him, but he was so cold, so harsh, I fired back with the same tone, forgetting I was there to help him deal with his pain.