Down The Garden Path Ch. 1

Although she knew that they were the rulers of Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest, and that they had a religion which included human sacrifice, she had not given any substantial thought to how their rituals were conducted. Her attention was caught by a primitive-style painting of a human sacrifice, and she began reading. It was both horrible and irresistible, imaging the victims being paraded to their bloody demise, up the steep steps of the temple. No swift, mechanical guillotine for the executions which would make the sun continue to shine. The priests used a dagger to cut out the victim's beating heart. In the painting, the victim appeared to still be alive, but the priest held the heart high above the body from which it came.

She did not like blood at all, and was terrified of doctors because of the periodic immunizations they had given her. Still, something about the picture, and the description of the rituals leading up to the moment of death fascinated her. She looked at the picture and read the article many times over a period of several months. She tried to imagine climbing the steps, lying on the altar, wrists and ankles held by the assistant priests while the dagger was raised above her.

She imagined it as a willing submission to a predestined fate, as opposed to a murder. The aspect of complete surrender, gave her the same sort of thrill she first knew while watching the aspiring Houdini's being bound. Of course, the Aztecs were not about entertainment, and escape was not an option for their victims, but, as she realized many years later, it was the extreme power dynamic that spoke to her.

Now that she was long-past her childhood, she had friends in "the scene" and could finally indulge her submissive sexual desires without fear of being labeled "sick" or, even worse, thinking of herself in pathological terms.

She loved the fetish attire, the open attitude about one's sexuality and the thrill of being both a voyeur and an exhibitionist in the dungeons. Most of the scenes were at least moderately interesting to her, a few enthralling, and a very few were beyond the boundaries of things she wanted to see. Needles, sutures, cutting, anything that fell into the "blood sports" category was on her list of hard limits to do and soft limits to even watch. If a companion really wanted her to see something that involved opening the skin, she could, but she would rather not. Over the past two years, she had learned how a "never" could go to a "maybe", the "maybe" to a "yes", and the "yes" to a "please". However, she had continued to shy away from anything that involved cuts or punctures. She was relieved when Talon told her that he had no desire to take their play in that direction. She knew she would not refuse to do virtually anything he would ask of her, and she most definitely did not want to see, or feel, her skin being broken.

After a few months, she found herself fantasizing about being "marked" by her lover in more lasting ways than the purple stripes made by his rattan canes. Unlike many of her fellow S & M practitioners, she had stayed away from tattoos and the only parts of her body that were pierced were her earlobes.

Now, she enjoyed imagining herself getting a hood piercing, with him standing beside her, telling her it was only a moment of pain in exchange for hours of pleasure for both of them. The challenge of her fear, and the desire she had to push herself beyond it made the fantasy all the more thrilling to her.

She did not know whether she could ever go through with it in reality, or if she really wanted to, but the daydream had become a permanent fixture in her fantasy repertoire. In spite of his very accepting attitude about all things safe, sane and consensual, she felt afraid to say much to him about this particular thought. Whether she was afraid of his lack of interest or just uneasy with her own fantasy, she did not know.

At a party, they had played Truth or Dare and his question was what he would like to do that he had not yet done. She was looking at him, but still jumped when he snapped open the switchblade she found so erotic when they did knife play. He smiled at her reaction and then said that he would like to take knife play farther and do superficial cutting. She was both thrilled and surprised, given his earlier comments about needle play. She had thought he meant that nothing in the blood sport realm held any appeal for him. Now, she had a very different view, and another fantasy.

After the warm-up spanking, he would shift the scene into knife play. She would close her eyes and feel the flat side of the cool metal blade move over her face, neck and breasts. Then he would draw faint pink lines with just the point, vertical, horizontal, and curved, like the lines on a roadmap. The knife made scratches without breaking the skin, yet it felt just a fraction closer to drawing blood each time. She was not bound, just positioned as he wished and told to remain that way.

She began to long for the burning pain of a cut, the chance to go somewhere new to both of them. She focused her mind on his power over her in this type of play, literally life and death. Each time the sharp edge was dragged over her skin, she felt as if she was climbing those ancient pyramid steps, offering herself not to the priests and the Sun, but to her Dominant lover and their mutual desires.

"Your skin is mine, kitten," he whispered to her. "Tell me what you want right now." She took a breath to speak, then hesitated. "Tell me, kitten. Do not stop to think, just let it come out." His left hand slid between her legs, feeling how wet she had become. He moved his fingers to the entrance of her pussy, and stopped. She tried to move against him, and he took the tantalizing fingertips away. "No, dear, you have to tell me", he said.

"Sir, please, go on. Do it. I want you to cut me", she said.

His palm traveled down her ass again, and stopped between her legs. "And you want to come, too, don't you, slut?" he said, as he thrust two fingers deep into her.

She cried out from the sudden entry, and the pleasure it brought. She knew she could come immediately, if given the command, but she also knew she would not be allowed to feel the orgasm until he ordered it. The knife was moving over her back again, and her attention was divided between the fingers she held in a steamy internal embrace and the erotic danger of the weapon in her lover's other hand.

"When I tell you to let go, I want you to forget everything but how your body feels at that moment, kitten. You can go anywhere you want, and I will be here with you." he intoned, and began to move his fingers slowly out and then back into her pussy. "This is how I want you, my slut, open and wet and ready for any sensation I choose to give you."

She felt the pressure continue to build, waiting on his permission for release. The speed of his thrusts had increased, as had the speed with which he was moving the knife blade over her back. When she began to fear that she would lose control, he gave the order. "Come, now!"

The orgasm was both long and intense, and his fingers were buried in her throughout. Still riding the waves, she felt a sting between her shoulder blades, followed by another, and then another. "You are mine" he said each time, and she knew that she was his, completely, at that moment. Even the burning pain she was vaguely aware of now was blissfully erotic. They had crossed the boundary together.