A Good Night's Sleep

"Up. Now." The words were warm and sharp against my ear, carried on a hard, quick breath. Their tone left no room for argument or refusal, and neither did the hand pulling my collar snugly against the front of my throat, applying noticeably uncomfortable pressure. It was not a request.

Sitting at my desk in the home office we shared, I had been busily click-clacking on my laptop for almost 14 hours straight. My back ached, my knees were stiff, and my neck and shoulders throbbed with tension. But I was under a deadline for work, and nothing would deter me.

Except him.

Wordlessly, I slid back from the desk and turned to look at him. In my eyes, on my tongue, were all the reasons why this was a bad time -- the sheer volume of work we both had to finish, the tight pressure of the looming deadline, features to be completed and introduced -- we had a community to satisfy, even if only for a moment or two.

I looked up into his dark, stormy eyes, and all those valid and well-meaning reasons died, unborn, in my thoughts. "As you wish," I said. Even to my own ears, I sounded tired and slightly cranky, and I immediately pushed a smile onto my lips to soften any edge that the words might have had.

Moving further back from the desk, I felt the pressure on my collar lighten; only natural as the movement carried me closer to him. I paused for a second as a yawn overtook me, and my arms lifted over my head in a mighty, spine-arching stretch. The quivering movement felt unfamiliar to muscles that were hard and aching from being held prisoner in the same basic positions for too long. It was wonderful. Pushing myself up to stand, then, I couldn't suppress a quiet groan as my lower back screamed and my right knee crackled like a sheet of bubble-wrap under a flamenco dancer's shoes.

For a half-second, I imagined the brief flash of a smug grin across his lips, but when I looked again at his face, there was only that stern, passive expression that so often formed his features. Dark eyes watched me, glittering passively in the reflected light from the laptop's screen, and his mouth -- the same mouth that so often spent hours kissing and biting at every square inch of me until I cried and begged to cum -- was set into a firm line.

Without preamble or warning, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to my forehead, then brushed his lips softly in a kiss to the tip of my nose. His hand released its hold on my collar and cradled my cheek. My face turned and I nuzzled softly against his palm. My eyes closed and my lips brushed against the heel of his hand, and for a moment I just sank into him, the warmth of his hand against my cheek, the smell of his skin so close to me.

"Go undress in the bedroom," he said. The sound of his voice brought my eyes to open, focused on him; he commanded my full attention, he always did. Not that he would settle for anything less. "I will join you there, shortly," he finished.

He pulled his hand away from my cheek as I nodded. "Yes, Master."

I was moving past him, making my way for the door, when I felt his hand crack sharply against my ass, lingering, grabbing for a moment, searing the heat of his skin and the sting of the smack into my flesh. It made me jump. It made me squeak. It made me freeze in my tracks.

"Well? Get to it!" he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. With a mock scowl, I turned and glared at him over my shoulder and stuck my tongue out...then ran out of the room when a dark brow shot up and his hand drew back for another smack, one I knew wouldn't be nearly as playful as the first.

In the bedroom, it was a matter of moments to strip out of my t-shirt and jeans, bra and panties, and put them aside. Done, I sank down onto the floor on my knees -- well, mostly on my knees -- to wait. 'Shortly,' by his clock, could mean anything from a few minutes...to a couple of hours. In the latter case -- which had only happened twice -- I was never quite sure if he got distracted and forgot about me, or whether he intended the wait to be deliberate, just to make me sweat.

This time, it was a short wait. He came into the bedroom and without preamble pointed to the bed. "On your knees, face down," he commanded.

My breath left me. Probably something to do with the way my stomach rose to consume my suddenly racing heart. I swallowed once and nodded, managed to murmur out a quiet "Yes, Master," and stood, climbing onto the bed.

I knew, then, what was coming, so I was unsurprised by what happened next. In the middle of the bed, my knees were drawn up under me in a pose that lifted my ass quite high into the air. My cheek rested on a pillow -- as it happened, it was his pillow, which smelled rather delightfully like him -- and my arms were stretched up above my head.

I don't know if he was smiling when his hand stroked along my spine, but I could tell from the touch that he was not displeased, and immediately I felt half the tension in my body drain away. True, I hadn't thought that I was in trouble -- he was always quick to make it clear when I'd done something to displease or disappoint him -- but knowing that he was, indeed, happy made all the difference in my world.

It was a simple matter to fasten the cuffs around my wrists, a pair of cuffs attached to a single chain that allowed me to turn -- or be turned -- over without being unbound. Black leather with red accents, they were lined and comfortable, and the touch of them against my skin made me shiver, a soft sigh spilling across my lips. When he applied small, brass padlocks to each one, I knew that they were going to be on for a while. A long while. My mind immediately flashed to the looming deadline and all the work before us.

I don't know how he knew...whether it was some sudden tension in my body, or if he just has a direct connection into my mind, but almost as soon as thoughts of work entered my head, I felt his hand crack down on my ass, stinging and reddening the cheek he'd spared earlier. "Stop!" he growled. "You know better -- no work in the bedroom."

Tears welled in my eyes. Not from the sting of his hand, but because he was right: I did know better, and I was disappointed in myself. "I'm sorry," I cooed in a mewling little voice, sniffling and rubbing my cheek against his pillow, trying to find a dry spot where I'd not tear-streaked the smooth, crisp cotton.

I heard him sigh as I felt a thigh cuff slip about my leg, just above my knee. "Don't be sorry," he said as he buckled it securely into place. One of a pair, it would ensure that, no matter what happened, I would remain up on my knees with my ass in the air. I groaned into the pillow softly and shifted my position, spreading my legs wider, parting my knees to where I knew they'd have to be.

"Sorry doesn't fix anything," he said. It was something he said a lot. I had something of a habit of apologizing. All the time. Even for things that weren't my fault. It was a habit he was determined to break me of. One of many, many bad habits I'd become aware of -- and started to break -- since knowing him.

The second thigh cuff went around my other leg, and within moments, I was bound, helpless, to the bed. Whatever came next -- and I knew what was coming next -- I was in it for the duration. Any choice I had in the matter was gone, I was totally in his control.

That knowledge sent a wave of comfort washing through me, as fresh and soothing as the first rain in spring. I didn't trust myself, couldn't trust myself.... I was still learning how to trust myself. But trusting him was second nature. It had taken a little while, but I had long ago learned that he would make me hurt -- he would cause me pain -- but he would never, ever hurt me. It might seem a superficial difference, or even that there is no difference at all, but what it came down to was this: physical pain hurts, yes, but it fades and then is gone, while emotional hurt -- the kind that comes from betrayal of trust -- never truly heals, it scars.

It was one of the many lessons I was learning, one of the many things he was teaching me, in the process of becoming the person I could be, rather than simply settling for the person I was allowing myself to be.

I was suddenly very aware of myself, of my body. The room's air moving against my skin, the ache of my back and neck and shoulders slowly easing as the pose I was in forced my muscles to stretch out of their tightly bundled knots. I could feel the bed shifting this way and that as he moved into position behind me, the tickle of my long, dark hair against my back and shoulders, the press of my breasts into the mattress with every breath.

His hand was on me, stroking my lower back, kneading at the tightly wound ball of stress and ache there, and I could feel him frowning. Then his hand stilled, rested warm and firm and sure, against the small of my back, and I knew it was time.

The first blow was still a surprise, his bare hand cracking against my ass, lighting a fire against my skin, as the warmth of his palm lingered, driving the sting deep into my flesh, and I jumped, crying out softly. When his hand drew back, I could feel, with an aching sort of precision, the imprint of his palm and every finger. So clear they were in my sensual perception, that I imagined I could feel the impression of the ridges of his fingerprints in my flesh.

When his hand collided with my upturned ass again, it was on the other side, with the same fire-branded impact of the first, searing the feeling of his hand against my creamy skin and leaving an angry pink print in its place when he withdrew. Another keening little whimper rolled out of me, another spasm of surprise to bow my back and tense my muscles...and still, I knew, this was only just the beginning.

It didn't take long before the blows were falling against my backside like rain, over and over again, pounding at the tender flesh, leaving it raw and pink, then angry red. His blows increased neither in rhythm nor in strength, but the pain steadily built. I'm not sure when the tears started flowing, nor am I certain when I started sobbing in earnest. I don't know how many times he spanked my ass. I don't know for how long it went on. All I know is that at some indefinable, hazy point in the process, something unhinged inside of me.

All of the worry and stress and pain, all of my fears for the future, my pressures of the present, my scars of the past, dissolved into pure sensation. That sensation was like a fire on my ass that radiated throughout my entire body, warming me, cleansing me. Like a fire in a crucible, or the consuming flames of a Phoenix's birth, it destroyed all the poisons inside of me and left only the raw, searing pain of the moment. There were no more fears of the future, no more worries of the present, no more regrets of the past.

There was only the pain in my ass, and in that pain there was freedom.

On and on it went, until I thought my entire body would break, until every inch of my flesh burned with the same stinging heat as my ass. Sobbing, wailing with abandon, incoherent and feral....

The blows stopped and almost immediately, I was filled with a new sensation as he plunged his cock deep inside of me. I cried out as my body shook and tightened, cumming immediately. I could feel, now, his hands on my hips, his fingers digging into my flesh, pulling me back against him as he fucked me with a demonstration of the same sort of raw, wild abandon I felt in that moment.

My senses shifted, and I gradually became aware of more than just the pain in my ass...there was the pleasure of him thrusting hard and fast and deep, over and over, into my hot cunt, the cool air against my hot skin, cooler along the insides of my thighs where my own wetness had long been streaming out of me.

All at once, I felt my collar tighten around my throat, my head pulled up off the pillow slightly as his hand once more gripped the chain. "Tell me," he growled, his voice thick and hoarse with the desires coursing through him.

"I'm yours!" I responded, my aching ass arching up to thrust hips back against his as he drove into me again and again and again, relentless and unyielding and wonderful. My voice was raw and harsh, a grating sound in my ears compared to its usual smooth girlishness all bubbling giggles and delightful squeaks.

"Yes," he hissed, pushing himself harder, deeper into me, as though physically driving home the point he was making. "My what?"

I groaned and wished for more leverage, to be able to push back harder against him, but the stretch of my body, the chains holding me in place, wouldn't allow more than the minutest of movements. "Your treasure!" I cried out. I was so many things, a million little different things that he told me every day. "Your love! Your pet! Your slave!" They poured out of me, each one accented at the end with another thrust of his throbbing cock deep into my dripping wet cunt.

Another hiss. "Yes." His hand released my collar, and slapped hard at my still aching ass.

He said, "Cum for me."

My body said yes, Master.

I don't remember him unchaining my thighs. I don't remember him laying down beside me, a tangle of legs and warm, naked skin, holding me tight in his arms. I don't remember when I started crying again, or when he started petting the wavy lengths of my raven-black hair.

But I remember his whisper on my ear. "It's alright, my pet."

I was crying, sobbing, against his chest, my arms still chained above me, held warm and safe and secure. Tears of pain and fear and sorrow and joy and laughter and relief flowed out of me. It was...a release. And one that I desperately needed. I cried and I cried. And when I thought I had nothing more...I continued to cry.

After a while, my tears stopped. After a while, my gasping breath calmed. After a while, he kissed my forehead, and spoke.

"Now, my pet, you will sleep. And you will sleep well." He kissed each of my eyelids.

"And when you wake, you may return to work." He kissed the tip of my nose.

I simply nodded. With my arms still chained above my head, there was nothing more I could do. But then, there was nothing more I wanted to do. My body felt incredible. Sore, yes, but loose and languid; the knots and aches that had built up from too many hours at my desk had long ago melted away. I felt...relaxed and safe and sure and loved. I felt good.

I nuzzled myself closer to him. "Stay with me?" I asked softly, in the hoarse little whisper that was all that was left of my voice.

I could hear the smile in his voice, even as he kissed the top of my head. "Yes, my sweet, until you fall asleep." Again he kissed my forehead, then tilted my face up to take my mouth instead.

"And yes," he said quietly, a smug little smirk pulling at his lips. "You are mine."