Tales From Subspace

The water washing my skin clean was warm, but there was nothing warm in my eyes. Adam drying me off carefully, watching the delicate play of emotion on my face as he usually did. I didn't care at that point that my eyes were filled with the fires of antipathy. He led me too the pedestal, putting a thick collar around my neck and he left me kneeling towards the hard marble. I heard the door behind me.

"That will be all, Adam. Thank you." Jon's voice, and I tensed on my knees. He was directly behind me. "Turn around, Anne." I did it immediately as gracefully as I could. His voice was stern, hard. I tried to check the anger flashing from my eyes, by keeping them lowered. I was not sure what had upset me more. Jon or myself for having been so disconcerted by what had happened. Maybe I had misinterpreted everything. I could be wrong for how I feel in my confusion? I could be mistaken that he had left me the way he had in disgust. This could be some new delicate head-trip to see how much I trusted his judgment. Could this be merely a test? To see how I would react when something unexpected was thrown my way? Layers and layers of possibilities. Just a bad head-trip? A little S/M Faux pas? Jesus, I had no idea, and the ceaseless questions were driving me into a state of confusion that I had never felt before. Better to just stay angry, but I was losing it quickly. He started to speak, his voice low. Almost sibilant.

"It was the look of you there on Terry's bed. His hand buried inside you. That virginal little skirt bunched up at your waist. Your hair in pigtails." I could see what he what saying in my mind, and felt it affecting me. He pulled me against his chest, and his hands stroked my back. Slow delicious circle. "Ahh, my little novice. So much to learn."

"Why, Master? Why did you leave me there alone?" I burst out, and I felt him flinch. "Did I not please you? What was my crime?" I wanted to wound, thoughtlessly. Spear his heart as surely as he had wounded mine. Tighter he held me, the requisite tenderness that they all dished out when they felt you needed it, and I knew this even as I responded to it. Wanted it. "You hurt my feelings." My voice sounded weak and tired and bitter to my own ears, what must it sound like to his? A whiny ungrateful bitch, and I was being just that too. Shame on me.

"Every one has preferences. Yours seemed to be so easy to commute. So quick to turn, when there was something you truly wanted to experience. You lay with Terry, and dazzled him. I did not think that you would find it so very unpleasant that it would truly wound you." His voice did not sound timid, but his words were as close to an apology that someone in my position was likely to get. I almost felt bad about my actions, my reactions. "It wasn't as bad as you thought it would be, was it?" I felt myself going red with embarrassed humiliation.

"No, Master." I whispered but it scared me to admit it to him. If I admitted to my pleasure would they force me do the other things that I had said no to on my list? It caused a shiver of fear, but I couldn't even remember what they were really. Words on a piece of paper that seemed suddenly to have very little to do with the actual flesh involved.

"There is a reason for every action I take with you, Anne. Never forget that." I wouldn't forget, ever, but deep in my heart I knew that I would. Emotion was what he was trying invoke. It was what he wanted from me, but that seemed to be the one thing that I had real trouble giving to anyone. He took a leash from off of his belt, and clipped it to the standard collar that Adam had put around my neck. The only thing that I wore. "Come, Terry has some nice new toys he wants to play with in the basement. We'll talk later about Tim coming tomorrow." He chuckled in sudden good humor. "You'll realize the folly of that quick enough." I followed him down the corridor, my spirit calmer. Not thinking about the future but knowing that the walk was easy. I wasn't sure that I wanted to be delivered back into the hands of Terry again though. That wasn't really my problem at this time, though was it?

DUNGEON MASTER

The dungeon was always a little scary. I could feel my knees weaken with every step that we took closer to the door. I was almost too mind-weary to want to play anymore. I wanted to lay down and go to sleep, but they weren't finished with me yet. I knew that until they were, I wouldn't be allowed to rest.

Jon opened the door, and pushed me in on my knees. I fell gracefully. Eyes on the floor and the sets of boots suddenly in front of me. Adam's, I recognized, and Traci's. Jon's beside me. The heavy black ones next to me, must be Terry's. The crisp leather, perfectly shined.

"Put her up on the horse. Let's play." I felt myself freeze in position on the floor. Moving only when I felt the tug on the leash they had attached to me. They took me over to a piece of equipment that I had never seen before. It looked like a leather covered road barricade. I was pretty sure that it had started out as something like that too. Where it widened near the floor, it had two quick clip restraints, and the top was covered with leather. The other end had a couple of clips for wrist restraints. Jon gave the leash to Adam, and he took me to the thing. Laying me face down over it.

"Stay." He commanded, and picked up two leather legs cuffs, and two wrist cuffs. Traci came to the other side and put the left side on, while Adam did the right. Adam knelt down in front of me, and smiled just a little. He picked up a gag from the floor and pushed it through my teeth to buckle it behind my head. Getting very close to me to whisper. "Here anger would stand you in good stead. You have puzzled them." His eyes darkened, as he whispered.

"Would you like to join her, boy?" Came Terry's voice. Adam said, `No' right away, so I wondered what was coming. "Very nice marking. Some of my better work." Jon appeared to agree with him. Hands trailed over my skin making me shudder delicately, but not from cold. It was the position. My legs were wide, and open. My sex must be highly visible from almost every angle of the room. I could almost see it in my head.

"She's bone dry though." Came Jon's low voice. "Traci, if you would." I heard her beside me, and tried to turn my head. Sharp smack from a belt and someone holding my wrists in front of me. "You don't need to see that." Damn. She leaned up over me from behind. Heat radiating from her body. Hands stroking lightly, fingers feather-light. She spread my buttocks with her hands, and dipped between them. Eating me softly from upside down. Licking the very bottom of my sex as though she was moving on my clitoris.

I flinched involuntarily. My wrists jerked. Jon held tighter to them and leaned down to speak to me. The voice of the master.

"You remember when you told me, you orgasm under the strap?" I nodded, quickly. "Terry's never seen that, and when I told him about it he wanted to observe." I tightened, and felt Traci's fingers entering me. Pushing at the little spot in the heart of my sex, making me unbearably hot. Ready. I felt my breath grow short, and deep. Almost, almost. "That's enough." Jon said, so she stopped, and I moaned. My vagina clenching on the emptiness. Mind trying to recreate the feeling that was denied it suddenly. Trying to close my legs as the air-cooled the moist heated flesh.

“May I?" Terry asked. Jon's answer was to grip my wrists tighter to the top of the horse. Here it comes, I thought, bracing my body for impact. It was quick. The blow was hard and sharp. The skin trying to recoil away from it. The next the same, and the next. Some kind of flat slapper was my guess. Bright penny- copper pain as the skin became tender.

"Let it come, Anne." This was the head-trip. All I had to do was let it come. Lose myself in the dark romance of his words and my body. Let the flow over take my common sense until I no longer felt like a businessperson or a human being. Let me become the orgasm. I didn't know if I could.

The humiliation from the bedroom, making me feel silly. Like I was some kind of freak. What was I doing here? Tied up like some kind of animal. Open to view. Prepped for some kind of game that had me as the prize. I moaned around the gag. Feeling the blows thicken. The little slapper nipping at the wet cleft. I cried out, muffled by the gag in my teeth.

"No, no." but knew that it couldn't be heard, and that anyone who did hear it, would not believe it. I was having an attack of reality and did not know if I could fight it. The only noise that could be heard was my desperate cry, and the sound of the toy as it impacted with my flesh. "Help me!" Jon leaned down and started to talk. Talk in a low voice, like Rob used to do to me.

"You think that reality has anything at all to do with what we are doing to you?" I gasped, because he knew what I had been feeling. "I want no reality from you. I want your skin, your heat, and your need. You think that you are special in this desire of yours?" I shook my head, tears starting to flow as the blows became agony, and torment, drove all thoughts except those he was giving to me from my head. "I am fantasy, and reality. I am the closet in which you are mere fancy, and I, the dream-master of your nightmares." Terry started with something else. Wider and less damaging, because I had to be bright red back there. Every biting blast distinct and unparalleled in the pain that it caused me. "You can hide from the world, but you cannot hide from yourself. You want to be taken over. Driven to madness. Used and taken and cherished by the only person you truly care about besides yourself." I wanted to ask who, but knew that he already knew the answer. There was only one other person that I cared about in this room. One other being on the planet. God, don't... I shook my head. Don't say it. I'll die, right here on this thing in this room. If we mix up reality and fantasy like this I won't be able to separate it in real-life. Don't...

My body convulsed and I shook my head quickly. Muscle forming knots. Eyes closed. Jaw hard. Sweat making me slick and wet and hot. I almost steamed. I pull against the bonds and felt Jon holding them tightly to the leather.

Terry hit me harder and faster, pushing my body to the limits of endurance. Every muscle straining against the reaction, however voluntary, of my body to this trip I was on. I would not be able to hold back. I knew that I wouldn't. It was too vital, and close and intimate. Too surely what I wanted, and did I need to fight? Jon had not given me express permission, so I did not know if I could actually do it. He was silent and gratitude flowed over me. He pulled my arms closer to him, and stroked my back with his fingers.

I broke. My orgasm sweeping me with a sudden burst of rainbow light that flashed before my eyes with strobe-like brilliance. Deeper than the first pinnacle of the night. Higher than the last time I had been beaten. More emotion involved. The secret that had not been spoken. Yes. I was starting to fall in love with someone in this room, but God help me if I would ever admit it.

It was this secret, and hidden shame that pushed me up over the top, and forced me to evaluate my body, my orgasm and my very flesh. The intense outcry from my soul, muffled into the gag that I wore. Jon holding me as still as his two strong hands could, until I collapsed back unto the leather beneath me. Gasping for air. Shuddering limply. The blows continuing until I had stopped, and all that was left was the quick jerks as the whip fell. I opened my eyes, and saw Terry standing behind the horse to the right. Whip hanging from his fingers, and Traci on her knees before him, using her talented mouth on his organ. I heard Jon in front of me, speaking to Adam.

"Take her with you, and do what you will." They released me, and I fell to my knees on the floor. "Set her up for tomorrow." I was watching Jon, walk away then come behind Traci. He freed his hard sex from his leather pants to fuck her from behind while she sucked on Terry. Her arms wrapped around Terry's thighs, supporting him. Jon's left hand tangling in her hair. Engrossed. We left dungeon, to go back upstairs.

NIGHT TALK II

The walk was quiet to Adam's room, and I felt his eyes on me heavily. Taking me in with some new kind of fathomless speculation. It was eerie.

When he closed the door on his room, he took the collar from me. The length of it falling from his fingers to the floor as he faced me. I felt fear. Quicksilver, mercurial. Running through my limbs and circling my heart. He took the cuffs from my limbs, and stood back up. Very close, but not touching me.

His hands reached for me, so quickly, that I backed away from them. Turning back to the door with a reckless unknown emotion roiling through me. I had my hand on the doorknob, and the portal half opened when he was suddenly behind me. His body hard against mine. Pushing me to the door and slamming it closed with our weight.

"Don't..." I whispered and the word itself was torment to my ears. The pleading lost sound of that simple command weakly falling from my lips in supplication. "I can't..."

"Shhh... Hush, I won't hurt you." I forced myself to silence, my hands spread against the wood before me. Eyes burning with unshed tears.

`No, not this. Never this. Not emotion, not feelings that had nothing to do with my body. Let me die in peace, and alone, and quietly painless. Let my heart alone!' Thoughts like wildfire. Dire warnings of an enormous crack in the armor. My spirit was screaming silently. No audible noise except for the harsh sound of my breath as I fought for control.

I was not used to having my feelings so close to the surface. I didn't want love, or feelings, or even nice. Was there nothing that I wanted in this world? I was so confused! The truth was that I did not know what I wanted. The flesh seemed like the only thing I listened too now. The only part of me not concealed by some thin veneer of steel and ice. I felt Adam's hands on my skin. His fingers on my shoulder. Breath warm against my neck, and so damn gentle, I almost broke from the poignant brush of him against my soul.

“Don't..." But that whispered plea had even less conviction than the first.

"Don't speak." He said, softly. He brushed the hair from my shoulder, and turned me in his arms. I kept my eyes down, not wanting to look at him. Not wanting him to see what I was feeling. His strong hands closed on my arms. His left sliding up the upper arm, and over the shoulder to rest under my chin. A caress that reminded me of my grandfather's hands as he sought my eyes to discover some secret that I had hidden. Some shame that he would find reflected in the depths of my gaze. The fingers went to raise my eyes. I resisted him, closing them to hide them.

He was insistent, seeking answers to questions that Jon had raised. Things that he had missed in his observations that he couldn't believe had gotten past him. Things too raw and open for me to want to reveal. He would not stop looking and I knew that I only put off the inevitable, but if I gave him what he sought. Adam would own me in a way that I feared more than any other. For if I loved him and he did not love me. Well, then I would be lost. If his love belonged to another, I would die. The third player in a play that would totally destroy whatever was left of my spirit when the curtain fell. I would cease to exist.

"Open your eyes." I heard his command over the pounding in my heart, and squeezed them shut tightly. "Open them!" I did, trying for neutrality. Blankness, but it was impossible. I pushed at him, tears flowing down my cheeks.

"Don't.. I told you not too. Why did you..." Pulled tightly to his chest, and held still by a strength that I knew would be futile to fight. I could not. I would not... He put his lips on mine. The breath of his cologne running over me. Tongue slipping into my mouth so softly that I could barely feel it, until it twined with mine. Being lifted and turned until I was dizzy with motion and laid down on the bed. His body over mine, and hands reaching for protection while never once did his lips leave mine.

He was covered and in my body before I could take three deep breaths around the lump in my throat. Before more than six tears had run down my face at the insistent motion of his body in mine. Adam's face traveled down my neck, and I leaned into it. Using my hands to good purpose. Pulling him closer into me. His next words blown softly against my ear. Sibilant, sweet. Filling an empty part of my spirit that I did not realize was empty.

"I care for you too." So easy for men to say those words when they were inside you, and working their organs to orgasm. I longed for it, and wanted it, but did not trust it. They never understood it. How you love the top, but were not in love with them. They always made it personal. I resigned myself to the misunderstanding. I leaned into his ear and whispered back. Voice low. Sudden wry humor in my tone, as I surrendered to the inevitable.

"Tell me again, show me how you cum." He started to laugh. Breaking his rhythm for a moment as he fought to stop it from spilling into his lovemaking, but unable too. He shook with it, and pulled me closer. Looking down into my eyes. Eyes that shone with a sudden shy humor. "Jesus, Annie. How the hell did I end up with you?" I smiled slowly. Dragging his body deeper between my thighs. Putting my hands into the long hair that hung over his shoulders, smoothing it. Feeling it curl around my fingers. Trapping them in silken bonds.

"Just lucky, I guess." I murmured, reluctant to surrender to the intimacy of the moment.

"Why didn't you want me to know?" That was an easy one to think, but not to say. How to tell him of it? I looked away. "I read your journal, are you afraid I'll hurt you? Not emotionally, but physically?" I shook my head no, it was the emotional pain I did not want. My reluctance to speak was obvious to him, but the motivation behind it was not. It was an educated guess on his part, what came out of his mouth next.

"You couldn't see how I felt about you. You didn't know either." True enough, blindness for how other people feel was not necessarily an asset here where observations were so important. Maybe I hadn't wanted to see. I had to think though about my own inspiration. I needed to think it through. It would be difficult, but how to decide what to do with it. I wanted to be `normal.' What was normal? That was the real issue. I could lay under Adam, take his body into mine, but I did not know if there was enough real emotion left inside me to let him have what I felt he deserved. "What are you thinking?" He asked, gently. Watching the play of feeling over my face. His body once again moving with mine. `God, he had a nicely formed penis. Perfectly placed to rub the right spots.'

"That's it's been so long since I've had anything to do with anybody beyond a quick fuck. I really don't know what to do with this whole situation." He looked surprised.

"How long has it been since you have had..." He was going to say the L- word. I could feel it. "A lover?" I shrugged. Had I ever really? Someone to really laugh with, or talk with, or play with?

"Never, really. I don't have the gift of inspiring great love in anybody. I just am... the way that I am." I didn't really want to talk about the stunted, malformed nature of my emotional health. I didn't feel comfortable with it, or calm enough with his sex slipping into mine so deliciously. This was too close for me. I felt more relaxed with some distance. I always thought that I would be better off with an arranged marriage. Someone that would want to make-love once a day, but leave me alone for the rest of my life. "I have never had anybody to laugh with. Anybody to share anything real with. I was lying to myself about the way that I looked at you, because I didn't really want to know that you had someone else in your life, or even had another life somewhere else that I could not be a part of." That was true enough, and although I might regret it tomorrow. I wanted to get it off my chest before the sun crawled over the horizon. "It was easier to love you from somewhere over on the other side of the room, enjoying your beauty, than to let you know and ridicule me, or own me completely. Love was more power than I wanted to give anybody. Especially someone in a position to use it to some psychological advantage." He looked stunned.