"Thomas?” my hands lightly touched his chest, my breath against his shoulder. “May I … please you?"
"No … I am not here for that. Just to make sure you get to sleep."
"Please? I need to give you something for all you've done. You've wasted I don't know how many hours on me already, buying me coffee, taking me to stupid movies and now, tonight, you finally get some peace and quiet and look at me, I pull this stunt."
"It's not a stunt. You reached out for help when you needed it, I'm so proud of you."
"Thomas,” my voice cracked. “Do I have to beg? I need to suck your cock. I need to kneel for you. I need to center … on your manhood."
He smiled. If it's possible for a man to take a blowjob to indulge a woman, he did. Not that he didn't enjoy it. My kissing, murmuring lips all over him. “Thank you, thank you … you saved me."
"Not me,” he was careful to say stroking my hair. “You must find your higher power."
"I know.” What I didn't tell him is that he was it, like it or not. He was as high as I was going to get. And was that so bad? Thomas never steered me wrong, he's got so much integrity and honor, and he would see himself torn apart before he would ever do anything to hurt me.
My breath catches.
He did tear himself apart, didn't he?
"Well, well,” says Brian, interrupting my little reverie. “I see the brat can behave after all."
I look up at him, jeans, no shirt, and no shoes. Somehow I have gotten down onto my knees. My jeans are off and my shirt, too.
Holy shit, I have followed orders…
"Slaves generally spread their knees a bit wider, though, and arch their back."
"I'm not your slave."
"As long as you're in this room you are."
"And you're a prick. In the room and out."
This smile is a new one. It goes right to my crotch. “You know how much I'm going to enjoy beating you?"
He's giving me butterflies and fucking with my head, too. I'm sure it's intentional. “How would you feel about a blow job instead?"
"I'd love one-but not until your ass is hamburger."
"Have I told you how much I don't want this?"
"Once or twice?"
"And you don't give a fuck, do you?"
"Not really."
"Can I tell you I'm scared?"
"You should be."
"Not very reassuring, are you?"
"Do you want me to be?"
"I want you to get this over with, that's what I want."
He purses his lips. “Bring me the belt."
My heart slams in my chest. Such an ordinary thing, a man's belt, suddenly transformed, imbued with so much power. I don't really know what this thing can do, outside of pictures on the Internet. I've masturbated to some. No one knows that, not even Thomas.
"My father hasn't taught you much, has he?"
A flash of anger rises as I stand there, holding out the leather strip for him, so gingerly retrieved. “What's your problem? I got it for you. Here it is."
He tells me to bring it like a proper slave girl.
I say no fucking way and he slaps me. It makes me hot. It makes my pussy clench. I feel the warmth on my cheek.
Brian throws the belt back on the bed.
Down I go to my knees. I crawl on all fours, head down. Each brush with the cheap carpeting sends jolts through me of crazy need. If this were Daddy I would just tell him I need sex and we'd stop everything. But Brian isn't his father. And I'm sure being punished for ever comparing them, aren't I?
I remain on my knees, sliding my breasts across the mattress far enough to reach the cursed belt. This time I clench it in my teeth. Like a proper slave girl.
"You look good like that, Caroline.” His praise humiliates me further as I return to him, little more than a dog sent to fetch.
Bastard … doesn't he know I'm a kitten?
"Drop it at my feet. And don't move."
My hair is in front of my face; I can't see anything but carpet fibers, the belt and Brian's bare feet. I've never been so focused on a man's will in my life.
He pets me with his hand. “I'm going to break you,” he says in a tone so soothing.
My head is really fucked with now…
"You know the irony? It's my father who opened this side of me. The sadist. He told me all about his interests and like I told you, I was freaked at first. It wasn't disgust though; it was something else. He was touching on feelings I already had. I never told him I liked this stuff at all. I guess I was ashamed because I don't have his gentle ways. I like it rougher. I like girls who need it rougher. I wonder if he knew that? I wonder if he told me all he did for my sake, not his?"
The answer is yes, that's how Thomas is, but I'm not going to tell him that. Not while he is humiliating me, petting me in my underwear as some kind of bizarre foreplay for whipping.
"Get on your belly, Caroline.” His breath is quicker, tighter. “I want to see you at my feet. Completely."
I lower my body to the floor. I'm breathing more quickly, too. Okay, so this does feel like foreplay … I must be as messed up as him.
"You have a nice body,” he assesses my prostrate ass. “You keep it up well for my father."
His every word burns me more, makes me feel the slut. My nipples are rock hard, caught inside the bra. My panties are so wet I am sure I will stain the carpet.
"You can kiss my feet if you like."
If I like…
The motherfucker, what choice does he think I have?
I tell myself I do it to appease him, to make my beating go easier, but the truth is … I need it.
He knows me, I think, and I hate that.
"A girl like you shouldn't be free. A girl like you should belong,” he says as I press my lips, once, twice and then a third time.
There is anger in his words, but it's not directed at me. I feel such a security right now, such a sense of being in place, the woman, servile, object, the man, accepting, even as his mind continues to dwell on loftier things.
Screwed up, right? I mean what kind of self-esteem building is this? After the first time Thomas and I made love and I thanked him for like the fiftieth time he marched me into the bathroom of his bachelor pad as he called it-the condo where he lived while away from Monica and the girls.
"Stop putting all this energy on me, put it on this woman here,” he showed me my own reflection. Go on,” he held my shoulders from behind. “Tell her you love her. You love that little girl who's been hurt so bad."
I couldn't do it, honest to god, he had to keep at me and at me, I got so furious, I called him all kinds of names but he wouldn't relent until finally I broke apart. The admission came out in tears … what was wrong with me, crying over such a silly exercise?
"It isn't silly,” said Thomas. “It's the most important thing you'll do. Without this the rest of your time on the planet will be a tragic waste."
How's that for food for thought?
He ordered me to do it every day, morning and night, looking into the mirror, talking to the little girl.
"Yes, Daddy,” I whispered. It was the first time I called him that.
I blink, enough times to get back to the present. What a time traveler I am lately.
Brian is the one I am dealing with. Brian and his little power trip.
Our little power trip.
"Ready to kick this up a notch, Caroline?” he lets the end of the belt dangle, along my back. I arch my spine, I release a moan. Any hope of hiding my complicity in this is gone. Still, I have to keep resisting, he has to keep raising the stakes, making me have to resist-that's the game.
"No, I am not."
Sure enough he squats down and goes to work. His hand taps my ass, treating it as the piece of meat it technically is, until I end this. “You are being a disobedient slave girl. I think you need to learn your place."