Warehouse 13: Kiss The Fist

Myka had been hit before. She'd been in car accidents before. The thing about that kind of pain was that you whited out. There was a point where you just overloaded and all the pain in the world was just a dull ache. That was bad in its own way. There was always the fear that a nerve had pinched or a vertebra had shattered or something, anything, had gone wrong in your head. And that was it. That was all it took to end a career.

That, for once, wasn't a concern for Myka. Oddly liberating, considering. For the past four hours (that was the timespan they'd agreed to, although there was no way of knowing if HG had kept to it. It felt longer at some times, shorter others), she'd been hung from the ceiling by her wrists and subjected to treatment that made it temporarily impossible for Myka to recall the tender, generous, almost sappy lover that HG usually proved.

Every twenty minutes (as Myka estimated; sometimes it felt shorter, other times longer), Helena had returned. Sometimes, she threw cold water on Myka. Sometimes she beat her with a riding crop. Other times, with a cane. She always attended to Myka with a delicious sadism; sarcastically asking if Myka would like her to stop, wondering if Americans had less tolerance for pain than her usual conquests, wondering what Myka's friends and family would say if they could see her like this.

The torture, as it were, was almost irrelevant next to the verbal barrage HG subjected her to. Helena wasn't the type to carelessly flail away at Myka. All the theatrics were as carefully thought out as the cuts of a surgeon's scalpel. Naturally, Myka's nipples and buttocks had been subjected to the customary tools, but HG had also been ingenious in the ways she punished Myka's front, back, and sides. In one visit, she did nothing more to Myka's feet than tickle them with a feather. It'd been unbearable, and Myka had actually, unthinkingly gasped the safe word before HG ripped her gag away and challenged her "Did I just hear a safe word?"

In her outraged expression, only Helena's eyes had given away her concern.

"No," Myka had said dutifully.

"No?"

"No, mistress."

Nonetheless, Helena had put away the feather, never to be seen again. Ironically, it was the only thing too kinky for Myka to enjoy.

And Helena had been all too happy, in her own cruel way, to tend Myka's wounds at the end of each "visit," efficiently treating each cut and welt so it would be invisible before Myka returned to work. All the time deriding Myka, humiliating her, making her want it more.

On rare occasions when Myka was able to get through a session without a peep, Helena had rewarded her by putting enough slack in the chain for Myka to fall to her knees. There were times when Myka was sure she'd whimpered, loudly, and HG let her down regardless—it occurred to her that Helena was just being safe, making sure she didn't overexert herself. It didn't feel that way, though, because Helena only let Myka down to serve her.

"You call that licking my cunt? I don't know why I even bother shaving down there when all you do is peck it like you're visiting an aunt. Come on, do try not to be completely worthless. Be a little better than my own fingers, Myka, come now, I had such faith in you..."

On and on, slipping into Myka's ears and keeping her on a perfect edge, almost weeping when she couldn't bring Helena to orgasm. For those four hours, all other concerns, duties, expectations, and other obligations melted away. She literally existed only to please HG.

Four hours and she'd been stripped bare, every stitch of clothing ripped away or cut off. Then Helena walked in, a dressing gown over the leather corset and... other items that had made her so imposing. She pushed ahead of her, of all things, a wheelchair.

"Easy now," she whispered, her tone light and loving once more as she undid the manacles, revealing the thick white bands they had left on Myka's wrists. She caught Myka as well, helping her down onto a blanket she'd thought to cover the cold floor with. Instantly, sensation rushed back into Myka's body. She gasped, every inch of her skin glowing with a different kind of pain. Helena pressed a double-dose of Tylenol into her mouth and had a tall glass of water on hand to wash it down.

"How do you feel?" Helena pleaded.

There was only one thing Myka felt. "Please. Please, mistress..." She took hold of Helena's gloved hand with a grip so weak HG had to actively help Myka in leading her hand down to her swollen sex.

"Yes," Helena said, cooing with understanding. "Of course."

She ran her hand over Myka with the lightest of touches and Myka came before Helena could so much as enter her.

After that, it was a simple matter of Helena helping Myka to a warm bath she'd already drawn. The waters were already filled with some relative of epsom salt that instantly proved soothing. It alone was almost worth the price of being brutalized.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Helena asked again, just for Myka to once more beg her off.

"If I needed a doctor every time someone went over me with a bullwhip..."

"You'd be any woman at all." Helena practically pushed understanding on her.

"I guess I'm not just any woman then."

"Certainly not. And by the way, it wasn't a bullwhip, it was a horsewhip, there's a keen difference..."

"Not from where I was hanging."

"I have firsthand experience, I can assure you."

"I believe you." Myka smiled. Her lips hurt, owing to the very specific torture Helena had selected. A series of hard, brutal kisses that had literally left Myka breathless. "Would you like to wash my hair?"

"I like anything to do with your hair." Getting down on her knees upon the bathmat, Helena gathered up a vast quantity of shampoo in her hands and took to massaging it into Myka's scalp. It was pure bliss; not even a twinge of pain. Myka suddenly understood why Helena had been so reluctant to pull her around by the hair, something that had come up in a previous bout of enthusiastic lovemaking.

"Mistress?"

"Please, don't call me that. Not when no one has a riding crop."

"Helena," Myka cooed, relishing the lovely sound. "You used to do this in London, right?"

"Yes, Myka." Although reticent to talk about it, Helena marshaled her words.

"Was it... I don't know... a thing?"

"I dabbled in a great many extracurricular activities." Helena pulled up a lock of Myka's hair and lovingly twisted it in parody of Myka's usual curliness. "To your benefit; I hope you're grateful I was perverse enough to 'hold hands' with open-minded women and the occasional nun."

"Very grateful. But c'mon, HG, that was a sex dungeon back there. Who builds a sex dungeon on a whim?"

"A man?" Helena guessed. "No, I was initially... impressed by how readily available such things are in your century. Back in my day, they were very underground. Secret circles, hidden printing presses... Perhaps I overindulged."

"What other way do you indulge?" Myka teased.

"Give me your backside, dearest." Myka leaned forward so Helena could, gingerly, lather her criss-crossed back with soap. "But as I recall, you were rather enthusiastic about finding out my 'kinks'."

"How am I supposed to react when I find out you have a bondage porn stash? Tell Pete so he has enough jokes to last until the 22nd century? I know it's not a 'traditional' couples' activity, but... I mean, I liked it."

"Did you?" Helena asked seriously.

"It was really..." Myka hesitated. So did Helena. "It hurt, yeah, but it was like the pain was... detached from hurting. I knew you weren't really going to harm me, so all that left was the sensation. It was intense, sure, but then you, uhh... you matched the intensity. I'm not sure I want it to be our regular Saturday night thing, but... I'm trying to think of a classy way to say that you did some really cool things to my nipples."

"Well, that is a very American way to put it..." Taking gentle hold of Myka's chin, Helena ushered her back against the bath pillow. Stretched down the length of the tub, Myka gave in to having the front of her body washed. Her poor, abused nipples sprang to attention at one pass of the washcloth.

"You still haven't told me why you liked it," Myka said, eyes closed, enjoying the deep-bellied heat Helena was stirring in her. "Are you embarrassed that it's your one-true-kink?"

"Do you expect me to be ambivalent about the prospect of hurting you?" Helena asked very seriously.

Myka's eyes opened. "Are you really ashamed right now?"

Helena shrugged. "Sometimes I feel as perverse as I am."

"I asked for that. I enjoyed it. Even if you're a pervert, you're not alone."

"I know." Helena took Myka's hand. She lifted it, only to wash at the marks the chains had left. "I guess it seems... it occurs to me... that suffering is intrinsic to humanity. We each have our crosses to bear, our pain to feel. I thought perhaps if you felt some pain in a controlled environment, where it could give us some satisfaction, then it could alleviate suffering elsewhere in your life." She scrubbed harder at Myka's hand, fingers interlocked with her own. "I've been so very unkind to you..."

Myka surged out of the bath, pulling Helena to her by the hair and kissing her so hard they both felt the sweet pain of crushed lips. "No," she said, simply and definitively. "Don't bring that into this. You've brought me too much happiness to ever have to beat yourself up to even things out. I wanted this and I want you. You're my one-true-kink."

Helena breathed. "That's a very American way to put it..."

Myka kissed her again. Softer this time. So it didn't hurt either of them. "You're going to take a bath with me now."

"I am?"

"And I'll have my way with you."

"Ah."

"Just call me Mistress Bering. I punish people whose hair isn't as good as mine."

"I suppose you'll want me to take off my apparatus so you can wear it, then?"

"Don't second-guess Mistress Bering."