“Had enough of that?” Vince asked.
“Just a little more, please.”
Though I was relaxed and thoroughly aroused, I didn’t feel like I was even close to
sinking the way I had with Julian and Colin. When he used an oval wood paddle on my
butt, the sting sent me up onto my toes several times, laughing at the stress of it
to keep from crying.
Dirk reached over and scrubbed his smooth hand over my buttocks. “You pink up very
nicely, slut.”
Like he’d thrown the magic switch, I started to sink. God, what did it for me? Was
it the word
slut
? His proprietary touch? His guttural accent? Or just the knowledge that he was a
“mean-ass” Dom?
Whatever it was, I responded to it in a big way. Did I want to sink with Dirk? Did
I trust him enough?
Maybe it was time to find out.
“Master Dirk, will you finish me, please?”
“It would be my pleasure, little slut. But first let’s make a slight adjustment.”
He turned the crank, lowering my wrists to about waist height. Then he unhooked my
cuffed ankles from the frame and tugged my hips back until I was bent over, making
me feel even more exposed.
“It’s easier to target the amusing bits this way,” he told me with an evil grin.
For some reason I grinned too. What was I thinking?
Vince nudged my ankles shoulder-width apart and attached a black spreader bar to the
cuffs, ensuring they’d stay apart. Then he stood beside me, sliding one hand under
my stomach and resting the other on my low back. “I’ll help you stay in place, okay?”
I took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“I think you need an intermediary step before you play with the big toys,” Dirk informed
me. “The paddle you picked is all sting, no thud.”
He went over to the wall, picked up a rounded oak paddle and showed it to me. “Good?”
I nodded, my stomach curling just a bit in thrilled anxiety. So far nothing had hurt
nearly as bad as the spanking Julian had given me, but I had a feeling that was about
to change. And I wanted it. A lot.
“Sting first, then thud. Ten of each.”
I looked at Vince. “Did he say
ten?
”
The only warning I got was the whoosh of the leather paddle flying through the air
the instant before it slapped my right butt cheek. It took a second for the hot sting
to kick in, but when it did…
“Yeow!” It felt like a swarm of angry ants was biting my skin from the inside.
By the time he delivered the last two stingers along the lower edge of my butt cheeks,
tears streamed down my face and Vince was actively restraining me while I laughed
and swore and shifted my weight from foot to foot.
“How did you like that, slut?” Dirk asked, stepping up to rub my butt again. This
time it hurt.
“Call the fire department,” I gasped. “My butt’s blazing.” And the sinking sensation
was gone as if it had never been.
“The surface is a very pretty shade of red,” he agreed. “Now let’s see if we can add
some depth to your discomfort. Your safe words, slave?”
“Red and yellow.”
“Use them when you reach your limit. That’s an order. I’m going to go lightly, but
I’ve no doubt you’ll show a little bruising regardless.”
I swallowed nervously. “Yes, Sir.”
The first three or four weren’t as bad as I expected. They startled me, then they
stung, then they ached, and then a burn built inside the muscle. It seemed like he
hit the same areas over and over, and at five, I started to moan and flinch, bracing
myself for the next one.
“Don’t tense your buns or they’ll bruise more,” Vince warned me, smoothing his palm
over my back and hips.
I ignored him. There was no way I could relax when I knew what was coming, and I was
actually kind of excited at the idea of having marks that would last for a while.
They might be the last marks I got for a long time.
Oddly, looking forward to seeing the marks made me relax, and I took the last four
or five with only a few whimpers. My butt was still on fire and felt swollen to about
five times its usual size, but the end was finally in sight.
“You have two left. The rattan first,” Dirk said.
This was the one Colin had warmed Julian up with last week.
Dirk walked in front of me and gave me a light tap on the thigh. It didn’t feel too
bad but a second later, an intense sting flared and I flinched. “Ouch!”
“Any sadist will tell you that’s not a safe word,” Dirk grinned.
“I didn’t mean it as one.”
“Do you still want to feel it on your ass?”
I deliberated for a second. “Yes.”
He walked behind me and gave me two across the butt in quick succession before I had
a chance to brace myself.
“Son of a bitch!” I said through my teeth.
Then two arrows of fire streaked across the back of my thighs then and I jerked hard,
screaming, “Red, you bastard!”
“Had enough of that one, eh?”
“I said
one
from each of them,” I forced out bitterly, writhing as my body tried to process the
pain into something my brain could cope with. It helped when Vince rubbed the marks
vigorously.
“One stroke is hardly enough to get a good feel for any impact toy, slave.”
Still panting, I scowled at the sneer in Dirk’s tone. “It would have been enough for
me.”
“So you don’t wish to experience the Delrin then.”
Ah, so that was his game. “I can take it.”
He chuckled. “In that case, you will take it until I hear your safe word again. Agreed?”
Oh hell. “Fine.”
“You hide more fire than I realized,” he told me.
“Is that a good thing?”
“In certain contexts, a very good thing.”
I heard the cane whip through the air behind me and sucked in a breath, closing my
eyes tightly.
Nothing happened. Shit, he was practicing?
I sagged, and he struck two, three, four times. The pain wasn’t coy—it screamed across
my butt like grazing bullets and reverberated right down to my bones—but I took it
as long as I could stand it. Whimpering, I writhed in my bonds, frantically trying
to get away from the blossoming mushroom cloud of agony. After eight, I burst into
tears.
“Red, red, red!” I sobbed.
An instant later my hands and feet were free, and Dirk swept me up in his arms, still
writhing and sobbing and trying to hold my abused butt. He laid me facedown on a padded
leather table and took my hands, and then someone else’s hands started massaging my
butt firmly with oil. It made the pain even worse, and I fought for a couple of seconds—and
then went under.
I drifted for a long time as the pressure and warmth worked their way up my back to
my neck and down my legs to my feet and toes. A series of images flashed through my
mind: Julian watching me from afar; Julian hugging me in the mad scientist’s lab,
looking up at me between my breasts; Julian surrounded by a platoon of dedicated surgeons;
Jordan lying on the operating table with his head completely severed from his body;
Julian cradled in Colin’s arms; Colin sobbing in my arms…
Julian naked on his hands and knees, being sodomized and tortured by a faceless condemned
killer.
Was there anything Julian Kilmartin wouldn’t sacrifice for his research?
I didn’t even realize I was weeping silently until Dirk asked, “Good tears or bad,
little slave?”
My sigh was almost a sob. “Both, I guess.”
“My Vince is a talented masseur. I promise, your aching body will feel much better
for his deep-tissue torture.”
I sighed again. I’d finally sunk deep enough to find the clarity I’d sought, but it
hadn’t brought me the verdict I wanted.
“Is there anything he can do for my aching heart?” I whispered.
Dirk sighed, too. “I wish there were, my dear.”
“Will you drive me to the airport tomorrow?”
“If that’s what you wish.”
No, it wasn’t what I wished. But it had to be done.
* * * * *
Early the next morning, Julian and Colin met me in Julian’s little sitting area, as
I’d requested in my text to Colin the night before.
Judging by their expressions as they sat side by side on the sofa, they knew I was
leaving. Of course Dirk would have let Julian know my plans. Colin looked distant,
cold, with his jaw clenched and his arms crossed. Julian just looked…resigned.
I took the chair opposite them, wringing a tissue between my damp hands. While part
of me wanted to see Julian get down on his knees and beg me to stay, to hear him swear
to never again do anything to jeopardize himself or another human being, I hoped he
wouldn’t. It would just make it harder to leave.
Drawing a trembling breath, I said the only thing I could.
“You both know I’ve always been almost fanatical about following rules. It’s probably
a big part of my being a submissive. I believe there are reasons for rules. They make
me feel safe. They
keep
me safe. Without rules, there’d be anarchy.”
I had to pause and take another calming breath before I could continue. “What you
did, Julian, runs counter to every moral, ethical and legal rule for medical care
in the world. You performed an experimental procedure on your own brother without
informed consent. You denied him the right to refuse treatment. You jeopardized the
career of every single medical professional who had anything at all to do with this
surgery, including Colin and me. You deceived and manipulated me every step of the
way. And you allowed a stone-cold killer to assault and torture you in exchange for
his body. All in the name of your almighty research.”
He flinched, looking at the window and blinking repeatedly. His Adam’s apple rose
and fell before he said, “I know.”
“I love you, Julian, and I understand your wanting to save your brother. But when
I think about staying with you, I have to wonder what you’ll sacrifice the next time
someone you love is dying.
Who
you’ll sacrifice. You seem to be answerable to no one here. You’re a law unto yourself,
a veritable god among men, and the rest of us are nothing more than pawns for you
to manipulate and control. Is there any rule you won’t break, Julian? Any line you
won’t cross to get what you w-want?”
Julian shut his eyes tightly, and God, I wanted so badly to stop hurting him, to stop
hurting myself. But if I’d learned nothing else from my time with him, it was that
there was no way around the pain—I had to go through it. And so did he.
Wiping my eyes, I pulled myself together and finished it. “I always thought you
were
a god, that you could do no wrong, and now I know you’re only human and just as flawed
as the rest of us in your own way. And believe it or not, I love you even more for
it. But right now, I don’t trust you, and without trust…that love just doesn’t work.
At least not for me.”
I forged on before my determination could waver. “And Colin, you lied to me, if only
by omission. You brought me here, and you were every bit as willing to risk my career.
I know you did it out of love and concern for Julian, but that doesn’t make it any
easier to accept. If anything, it makes it worse knowing you’d throw me under a bus
for him.”
Colin’s heel began bouncing, as if he were about to explode, but he looked right past
me, still clenching his teeth.
I sighed, wishing he’d say something, anything, even if it hurt. “I love you, Colin…so
much…and I wish—”
My voice broke again, and I stood up abruptly. I had to leave while I could, before
I broke down and begged him to come with me. Or worse yet, threw myself into both
their arms and begged them to tie me up and make me stay.
“Rachel…” Julian looked at me then, his eyes so filled with bitter knowledge and regret,
I almost relented. “Please. Just go.”
March 29
Exhausted and achy after twelve hours on my feet, I slammed my locker door and laid
my forehead against it with a groan. Never again would I take three months off work.
I’d been regularly covering shifts in the ER for almost two months now and had yet
to adjust to the hours and the physical demands. There was a shortage of emergency
physicians in Seattle, and taking the temporary job at the university medical center
had seemed like the right thing to do until I figured out where I wanted to go next.
I would have gone back to work a lot sooner, but less than a week after arriving at
my parents’ house, I received a check from Julian for the full term of my contract.
In the cover letter, he said he couldn’t in good conscience offer me anything less
since his misrepresentations had cost me the EVI fellowship.
He also said I was still entitled to a percentage of any patent income resulting from
the surgery, but I immediately fired off a letter renouncing my share. The last thing
I wanted was to profit from Jordan’s misfortune.
The check, though, I felt fine about keeping. I paid off my student loans and deposited
the rest, then did nothing but lie around my parents’ house plucking out depressing
songs on my guitar. I longed for Julian, but it was Colin I missed with a bone-deep
intensity I’d never experienced before. While Julian was my master, Colin was my companion,
my other half, and at first he felt like a limb that had been amputated from my back.
I’d wake sometimes in the night and reach for him, only to realize he wasn’t behind
me. Then I’d hold my pillow to my face and weep into it, sick with misery. Despite
my efforts to muffle my sobs, Mom would usually come in and sit behind me in the dark,
rubbing my back, letting me know without words she was there if I wanted to talk.
After six weeks of that, she told me sternly at the breakfast table one morning that
my life wasn’t going to get any better until I started living again. It was time for
me to pull myself together and get a job. It was kind of humbling, and yet strangely
enjoyable. Rather than making me feel bad, her scolding made me feel loved in an unexpected
way, like I was worthy of this kind of attention from her. I
was
worthy of her worry and concern.