Ignore the Warning Label Pt. 05

But, as much as it hurt, it did fade. Heartbeat by heartbeat, the initial burning crushing feeling shifted to a duller ache. Interestingly, it was much more localized than something like a spanking. Impact play seemed to send sensations all over my body. These things just affected near where they bit into me.

I tried a few tentative deeper breaths. Achy, but not too bad. 'I can take it!' Happily, my eyes met Malcolm's again, to see that his focus had never left my face. I knew it wouldn't. He loves watching me fight through his painful challenges. 'I got this, bring it on!'

He raised an eyebrow, reading my expression. "So confident?" He took hold of the strings, tied like leashes to each pin. Slowly, carefully showing me just how little he moved them, he very lightly tugged and sent a disproportionately large bolt of searing pain through me again.

It hurt, but this time I was ready for it. I got to watch Malcolm as he watched me, loving how he drank in my pained expressions and involuntary gasps. He was a captivated audience, letting me see how turned on he was just as I showed him how much I hurt for him. He understood exactly what he was doing to me, and it thrilled him -- both the excitement of the act itself and my submission. It made me feel incredibly appreciated and wanted.

"Very good," he said, and let the strings fall. Instead of adding more pins, though, he gently slid his hand along my thigh. Excitement flooded in from where he touched, and legs flew open, bending at the kneed to accommodate my cuffed ankles. "Eager, are we?" He said, stroking higher, distracting me from the ache in my chest by teasing just on the very edge of my pussy.

***

"He really likes teasing you," Vivian observed. She'd leaned forward towards me, eagerly listening. The last snickerdoodle sat forgotten on its plate in her lap.

"You have no idea," I laughed. "Malcolm doesn't know how to just do anything without teasing around it first. You going to finish that?"

"What? Oh! No, all yours," she passed me the cookie and I made it disappear. "Has he always been like that?"

I smiled, getting momentarily lost in a flood of memories. "About some things, yes. Our porn chats, for instance. He's always been super teasy about that. Other things, not at all. Like, if you ever see him debating something, he's very much to the point and no words wasted."

She leaned forward even more and lowered her voice, as though trying to avoid being overheard despite us being alone in her living room, "I have no idea how you deal with the tease and denial. You or Nicole. I couldn't keep that up for a single day."

"I'm pretty sure Nicole still gives Malcolm shit for turning Sam on to that," I laughed. "He's been into that kink for as long as I've known him."

"Is it a power thing?"

"For him, it's THE power thing. It's different than anything else. Like, the clothespins, for example. I only need to be submissive and obedient to him for as long as they're on. Once they're off, it's like the game is over. Orgasm control, on the other hand, is fucking constant. Every second of every day, there's this fundamental part of me that's handed over to him. There's a part of me that's constantly focused on keeping myself obedient, no matter how fucking horny I get. It's like I'm always being submissive to him, even when we're apart. Plus," I hesitated, reddening slightly again before admitting, "he's always been a manipulative bastard, and he loves how easy it is to push my buttons when I'm wound up."

***

Pleasure and pain together are very intense. I read something, somewhere, about how they overlap and hit on similar parts of the brain. Someone did a study with brain scans and found that pain and orgasms make the same regions light up. I think. Something like that. The point is that they're much more similar than different, so feeling both at once is like an overload.

I was proud of myself for remembering neurology trivia like that. It meant I still had a few brain cells left over. Not bad, considering my attention was being ripped apart. Malcolm was keeping me close to the edge of cumming with two fingers inside of me and his thumb rhythmically massaging my clit, and I was busy focusing on feeling as much of him on my cunt as physically possible. Simultaneously, he kept putting more clothespins on my tits, and I was kept very busy hyperventilating and grunting expletives into my gag.

I'd long since lost count. Ten? Fifteen? There was a small forest of them covering each breast, each one connected to its neighbors by string. It hadn't even been very long! He kept me going in a rhythm. He finger fucked me, pressing into my clit hard to get me right to the edge of cumming, then responded to my telltale vaginal clenching with a dose of the blazing hot pain of a new pin biting into me. Around and around we went, up to the edge and back, thumb circling my clit, fingers rubbing my g-spot, pins spiraling out from my nipples around and around my breasts.

There was never a break! Each new clothespin was a fresh bite of intense pain. Just as that started to fade to join the achiness of all the other pins, Malcolm's speed and intensity picked up and I found myself close to an orgasm yet again. And, just as he slowed down to let the edge fade away, another fresh burst of pain bit me.

All the while, his face was constantly there above me. As I moaned and whimpered, rolled my eyes back in my head and squeezed them shut, hyperventilated and caught my breath, Malcolm's look of calm dominance was like a rock. It was a weird sort of calm. He was obviously excited. Very, very excited, but still, he looked somehow peaceful. Like he was in his element. Like there was no more natural place for him to be than knuckles deep in his best friend's desperately teased and denied cunt while holding the leashes to the zippers of agony on her tits.

He leaned down close to me, his chest brushing against the ends of the clothespins and sending a wave of pain all through me. At the same time, he kissed me on the forehead, and somehow everything else kind of floated away. I lost track of the couch under me and I swear I felt like I was weightless in his arms as he kissed me.

"Are you ready to explode?" He asked, sweetly.

'They're an absolute bitch when they come off...' That sounded absolutely amazing! Our eyes met and I nodded eagerly.

His fingers inside me thrust with a new urgency, hitting my g-spot hard while he simultaneously pressed into my clit. "Then cum for me."

'FINALLY!' It didn't take any effort to build to the edge. I'd been there so many times already, all I needed to do was stop holding myself back. My orgasm wrapped itself around Malcolm's fingers and ripped through me, bursting in waves of magnificent clenching pleasure. My legs clamped shut around his arm, trying to draw him deeper into me. My clit throbbed and throbbed for all it was worth as I thrust my hips into Malcolm, wanting to feel even more of him, every thrust against my clit intensifying the strength of my orgasm.

All that happened for about three seconds. Three second of pure bliss, then Malcolm raised the arm holding the strings threaded through all the clothespins, and both my breasts exploded.

I don't know how to describe how much it hurt. It's hard because it was the most intensely focused pain I'd ever felt in my life. In a burst of clacking sounds, every clothespin was ripped from my skin, leaving behind volcanos of agony that made me think my tits had caught fire. And yet, somehow, despite that, I didn't want to escape it or make it go away. I wanted to feel it for all it was worth. I wanted to show Malcolm how much agony he'd given me and how much I could take for him.

I forced my suddenly teary eyes open and found his above me, right where they belonged. He'd taken hold of his spot in my hair, gripping me possessively, letting me feel every bit desired and owned.

And somehow, I was still cumming. I have no idea how, but my cunt and core kept right on convulsing. Pleasure ripped through me from below while agony smothered me from above. They seemed to resonate, my pelvic muscles sending ripples up to my chest, setting off painful aftershocks every time my breasts moved.

Fortunately, the mind breaking intensity didn't last very long. After the initial horrific burst, the clothespin marks settled down pretty quickly to warm pockets of honestly kind of pleasant achiness. My orgasm ran its course until I finally felt myself relax. My floaty feeling came back as Malcolm lay himself down on the couch behind me and spooned into me, running his hands lightly and tenderly over the spots the pins had bitten me.

"You're going to love the way these look," he said, then removed my gag.

"Fuuuuck," I slowly exhaled, trying to work life back into my jaw.

"You know, that's always the first thing you say after I take this off." There was amusement clear in his voice, but then that dropped and he sounded concerned. "I'm sorry, Devyn. I shouldn't have pressed you so hard. I shouldn't have--"

I flipped myself over to face him as best I could with my still cuffed wrists, ignoring the renewed ache every time my chest hit something. "No, Sir," I said, trying to sound as forceful as I could while still feeling light and achy and post-orgasm glowy all at once. "Ask me how I feel before you go feeling regretful."

He raised an eyebrow, but asked.

"It was amazing!" I said. "It was so intense, I didn't know what to feel. We're definitely doing that again, Sir."

He just shook his head, his expression a mix of surprise and admiration and attraction and conflict. "But I made you cry." He brushed some moisture from the corner of my eye to demonstrate.

"So?" I said, stubbornly. "Tell me, did you ever see me make any attempt to safe signal? Malcolm, I made you a promise. I promised you that I'd be totally honest with you about all of this. In return, you promised me that wouldn't second guess what I tell you. Well, I'm telling you, I honestly loved this." I paused, then continued, "and I know you did too, and there's nothing wrong with that. Quite the opposite, actually. If you didn't like it, all my hard work would be kind of wasted."

He half chuckled, half sighed, "Well, when you put it like that—"

I slipped my bound arms around his neck in an attempt to pull him close. At the same time, I pressed myself into his obviously very hard pants crotch. "I get it, I really do. I get why you sometimes feel conflicted when you think you've really hurt me. I'm not trying to downplay that, I'm just trying to set your mind at ease. You're a kinky dominant fucker, not some kind of broken toy that needs to be fixed, Sir. You are who and what you are, and that's exactly why I want you. You're mine, and I never want you to change."

***

Vivian had smile a mile wide. "That's so beautiful," she said. "You care about him so much, he's so lucky to have you." Somehow, that praise made me more self-conscious than vividly describing torture and orgasms.

"Thanks," I said with an awkward laugh. I really suck at talking about my emotions. "I just feel lucky to finally have him."

"You're healing him while romancing him. That's really special. It's like giving sex therapy literally."

"Thanks," I muttered again, and she took mercy on my embarrassment and changed topics.

"I've never tried clothespins either. I'm really curious now." The way she said it, with clear sincerity and eager excitement, turned my awkward laughter genuine. "Was it something I said?" Vivian asked.

"It's just us! I just got done trying to figure out how to explain how much those bastards hurt, and you take it as a ringing endorsement." I moved across the couch and tossed an arm around her. "You might be a little crazy."

"Me!?!" Vivian exclaimed, amused and mock indignant. "I saw your look back at the party watching Natalie get caned. You can't tell me you're not plotting to get Malcolm to give you marks like hers."

"Fine, guilty! So we're both insane. Sorry, I might not be the best therapist to cure you."

"Don't sell yourself short. You really helped me last week, and don't think I haven't noticed how you've got me smiling again tonight. Maybe it takes somebody with my affliction to cure it."

'Busted.' "Am I that transparent?"

"Maybe a little," she said. I'm not sure what I expected, but she was smiling. "That party got all of us really turned on, but you wanted me to believe you and Malcolm didn't have plans to rip each other's clothes off?"

"Erm... well... okay, yeah. Sorry I lied about it."

"Please don't be sorry. It means the world to me." Her expression of naked gratitude was enough to melt my heart. "I have no idea what I did to deserve it, but it really does mean so much to me."

It was finally time. If I couldn't turn my good intentions into actions now, I never would. Still, it sucked to go down a line that was sure to upset her.

"You know, back on that first night, Malcolm made me talk to Nicole before he let me rip his clothes off. Or, well, I guess I never did get to actually rip them off, but you know what I mean."

"You mean when you first asked him out? Why did he do that?"

"He wanted me to understand what I was getting myself into. It was supposed to be a warning, but I mostly ignored it, and it's worked out fine anyway because of how great he is. Even afterward, he made me read a bunch about everything we were thinking of doing." I met Vivian's eyes, trying to gauge her mood. Open? Receptive and trusting? Maybe a little apprehensive? "But nobody ever gave you any of that."

Vivian didn't say anything. She dropped her eyes, but her expression didn't close down. "As I'm sure you've found out, there's a million different ways to do BDSM. There's truly no one size fits all, it's whatever works for you. However, there are some things that everybody agrees about. One of them is that denying aftercare to a submissive who needs it is always wrong."

After the self-loathing Vivian had shown at the party, I'd been expecting her to react poorly. I hadn't expected her to sigh and nod, slowly. "I think Susan has been trying to tell me that for a while." She said, referring to her sister. "I have tried to talk to Paul about it, I really have. It just... I don't know... I start, and then somehow, we get distracted."

I'd like to think I held venom out of my voice reasonably well. "You start feeling like you're supposed to be there for his pleasure, and your needs are not important. Or you're not worth his coddling and you should be strong so he can enjoy himself. Or you just get sidetracked by sex or something before you can explain how you feel? Sometimes, he makes you feel special, and you think he understands. And then, on top of that, it's so hard for you to bring up because you're so used to obeying him that disobeying or making him mad at you feels horribly wrong?"

Vivian's eyes had grown wider with each sentence, and my already melted heart broke a little bit. "How did you know that?" She asked in a small voice.

"That's pretty much the posterchild for abusive dominant. It's also what Malcolm is terrified of me feeling from him. I hugged her closer, expecting her to need some kind of support. "None of that stuff happens by accident. He knows exactly what's going on. He needs to in order to keep heading you off like that. It's a deliberate choice he's making. He knows what you need and he's deliberately not giving it to you."

Vivian was quiet for a minute, looking more confused than hurt. I hugged her a little tighter to my side, trying to seem supportive without words. Finally, she said, "but why would he do that?"

'Could be worse. At least she's skipping over denial.'

"I don't know. Maybe he's one of those people who thinks life is like porn, and all this emotions shit he's heart about is just a you problem. Maybe he's lazy and can't be bothered. One way or the other, the why isn't important. It turns out the same. Some people are just shitty, and he's one of them. You can't tell him how you feel because he already knows, and he's shown you his response time and again."

The silence was longer this time, punctuated by deep sighs from Vivian that sounded like the kind that barely kept tears back. I hated them, they sounded so pained, but I had no idea how to help her.

"You're right about the disobedience part," she finally sniffed. "Just thinking about doing it is hard."

"It's one of the things Nicole explicitly told me." I said, making rubbing circles on her back. "We'll go through hell to avoid our Doms being mad at us. It can make sticking up for ourselves really difficult. That's why it's so important to be with somebody who deserves your trust." I couldn't take another long silence between us, so I kept on rambling. "It's called power exchange for a reason, Vivian. Exchange -- not gifting. You give your power over to a dominant, and you get something from him in return. Maybe it's love, support, release, whatever. The point is, it's a two way street. You don't deserve to be miserable like you are with him." She sniffed loudly, but I didn't back down. "No! None of that. You do deserve better. Even if you don't think so, I do. Look at me, Vivian."

Obediently, she raised her head, her red and watery eyes filling me with sorrow and further hatred for the scumbag that had done this to her. "Do you know why I'm here with you tonight? It's because you're worth it. Making you happy is genuinely worth it. You're an amazing person and an amazing friend. I know this sucks... but, well, you deserve better, and need to hear that." I hugged her tight, as if I were trying to squeeze my words into her by force. "Everybody thinks you're great, except for you yourself. You are worth it. You deserve to experience the same happiness you give other people."

Vivian's dam finally broke, sobs shook her and tears rolled down her face. It took a while, but when she calmed down, she seemed different. Determined.

-------------------

Vivian lay in bed staring at her phone. She'd lost count of how many times she'd reached for it to send him a message, only to lose her nerve and put it off again until tomorrow. She knew what she wanted to say. Something short and sweet. A clean break. Just like she'd done for the Tinder guys that hadn't quite gotten the message that she wasn't looking for anything permanent. There had been surprisingly few of those. Most had been more than happy with her one or two night fling business model.

Dispatching her clingy Tinder hookups hadn't made her nervous at all. After all, they didn't really know her. They just saw the slut. This was Vivian herself, standing up to her Master, and it terrified her. She rolled over in bed, unable to get comfortable in any position.

Why? He only saw the slut too. She'd done her best to show him her other side, but he'd never been interested in anything but the slut. Why did she care what he thought of her? It was difficult to analyze her own feelings, she kept impulsively shoving them down, balling her fists and breathing through her teeth.

Just a few days ago, she'd been so optimistic. Sitting in her office looking at the text from him about her party outfit, she'd been so determined to make their relationship better. Stronger. To forge with him what Devyn had with Malcolm, what Nicole had with Sam, Susan with Dean, basically all the other couples she knew. That text was the last she'd heard from him. Just twenty words. That's all he'd had for her after their last session. After he'd whipped her, had anal sex, and left her a sobbing mess without even a backward glance.

Another breath hissed between her teeth, and she tossed over again, trying and failing to find a cooler spot on her bed.