Jack

I'd known I was kinky since I stumbled on bondage porn as a teenager. The chains, the beatings, the violent sex-all of it excited me. When I got a girlfriend in college, we embraced each other's dark desires. We even bought one of those introductory kink kits. I loved being her dom. Controlling her, owning her. This was the way it was supposed to be. While liberal corners of the world went on and on about women's rights, I had found myself a traditional girl who wanted a man of the house. Plus some rough sex, of course. But as I kept exploring, I started getting drawn towards things that made me more and more uncomfortable. Porn with sneering dominatrixes crushing men under their feet. Men, on their knees, being humiliated. With increasing horror I felt the pull of a part of my personality that really shouldn't be there.

Katie (my girlfriend) had made clear that she expected her men to be strong, and had made fun of any kind of weakness in men on more than a few occasions. I started to believe her. I became more aggressive in bed. I crossed her boundaries more than once. Eventually the incongruence between my increasingly vivid sexual fantasies and what was happening in our bedroom reached a breaking point. After a particularly toxic episode, we stopped having sex. A few weeks later, we broke up.

I decided I needed to get my mojo back. And that's how I found myself at The Runaway's welcome night. It was by far the most popular kink club in my city, partly because of its reputation for keeping out gawkers and other undesirables, partly because the owners were themselves closely involved in the kink community. But when I got to the bouncer, he gave me a disapproving look over.

"That shirt can't come in here."

Fuck, I knew I shouldn't have kept the button down on. I sighed, mumbled an apology and started to turn away-

"I didn't say you couldn't come in, I said the shirt couldn't." He grinned at me. "There's space to change, or in your case strip, in the lobby. They'll take your phone as well."

I reached the lobby, where a woman wearing nothing but a leather harness and a dark green armband gave me a coat check number in exchange for my shirt and my phone. I started to feel a little exposed. I wasn't unattractive by any means. I was medium height, with a nice face, and regular trips to the gym had begun to pay their dividends. The problem was that I had no idea what to do next, and it made me look just as out of place as I felt.

The coat check girl seemed to expect that, and gave me a rundown of the rules. No touching without consent. Be respectful of ongoing scenes. Staff wear green armbands. Seeing that I still looked lost, she asked what had brought me here. So I told her the story: I'd gotten sidetracked by some femdom stuff and was looking to get my mojo as a dom back after some bad experiences with my sub.

She frowned. "Did you ever actually explore the femdom stuff?"

"No, that's not me" I responded with much more certainty than I felt.

She raised one eyebrow. "I think you should talk to Charlie. Back of the club, probably near the couches, wearing a green armband. Say that Janice sent you because you're uncomfortable being drawn to femdom."

She turned away and I started to explore the club. Just past the lobby was a kind of foyer with low couches, a bar, and a sliding door to the club's courtyard. After the foyer was the main dance floor, with the usual lights, dj booth, but also an assortment of decoration suggestive of the club's kinkier nature. The room's high ceilings meant that surrounding the dance floor were two levels of lounge space. For lounging and other activities, of course.

I crossed the main floor and found the passageway to the back area Janice was referring to. Where the main room was built mostly for dancing, this one was built for play. It was almost as big, but outfitted as a dungeon. Off to one side was an elevated section, and looking out over the action was the man I assumed must be Charlie.

He was sitting on a low reclining chair without armrests. The vest he wore left his muscular arms exposed and his green armband visible, except his had a black band in the middle. He projected the confidence of someone who dominated any space he came into contact with. At his right, kneeling on a thin cushion, was his submissive, a slim woman in her early 20s. Her C cup breasts were contained by a skimpy latex top that did little to cover her flat stomach, and on her waist sat a latex miniskirt that bunched up on her thighs as she kneeled. She too wore a green armband with a black band in its center. The only other jewelry that adorned her was a heavy metal bracelet on her left wrist. It was obvious she belonged to the Master sitting in the chair.

Her presence exuded a submissiveness that matched the scale of her Master's dominance. The space around her felt calmer and more composed than the rest of the dungeon, as if her submission could slow time itself. The only thing I found improper was the way she leaned against her master. I always felt a slave should be more disciplined. Her master must have approved of the behavior though, because as I approached I could see that her eyes were closed and he was idly stroking her hair.

Their collective intensity was a little intimidating, and I swallowed before I addressed the Master. "Hi. I've come to see Charlie for some advice about regaining my dominant edge."

He gave me a once over. "Hmmm... Tell me more about yourself. What brings you here?"

I retold the story from the beginning. How I got into kink, my girlfriend, the advice of the lady by the door. As I did I could feel the gaze of the submissive shift on to me with interest. When I finished a good five minutes later it occurred to me that it was a little strange that I had stood the whole time, but he never offered a seat and I couldn't think of a way to sit down now without betraying my own awkwardness.

The Master was the first to speak up. "So Janice sent you specifically to learn about femdom."

"Yes, though since you're a conventionally dominant man, I'm sure she just meant for me to hear your advice." I responded.

His only reply was a smile, just barely touching the corner of his mouth. His submissive looked up at him, and something unspoken passed between them. She asked some sort of question. He gave a small nod in answer.

She didn't get up so much as she rose, floating from sitting to standing with a ballerina's grace. She was tall, an impression only heightened by her 4 inch heels. She took one, then two steps towards me, and as she did, her demeanor seemed to change. The softness of her features hardened, her posture gained a relaxed confidence, and there was a predatory gleam in her eye. The space around her seemed to shift, going from serene calm to a kind of charged static.

She took two steps to the right, picked out a riding crop from a nearby rack, then resumed her approach. There was a certain relaxed amusement about her as she kept the crop loosely behind her back and stopped in front of me. By now this beautiful woman was a little bit closer to me than I found comfortable, and any impression of submissiveness in her had disappeared. She leaned in. Her presence seemed to suck in all the air, why was it so hard to breathe? How was this the same submissive that had kneeled on a pillow moments before? She looked me up and down and somehow I felt more naked than I ever had in my life. She tilted her head to the side.

"Hi!" Her tone was cheerful but the next sentence somehow felt heavy anyway."My name is Charlie, but for the next hour you can call me Miss"

Then it hit me. The questions about exploring, the careful wording of Janice's message. I hadn't been sent here to learn about regaining his dominance, I'd been sent here to submit. I was frozen. For me to submit here would be wrong. It went against my cultural values and everything I held true about D/s. But there was something about her presence that touched something deep within me, beaconing, calling, telling me to at least keep going a little longer. I just stared at her.

She seemed to sense my hesitation, and ran the back of her hand across my cheek. "Shhhh, we're going to take this reeaaal sloooow." She drew out the last two words, filling the sentence with comfort. It didn't help.

Charlie paced around me and suddenly got serious "You don't know me, but I know you. Your past... Your fears and hesitations... Your deepest darkest desires... It's all written on you face for me to read."

She stopped and leaned in close, and whispered. "This here, this is my art. Let me practice it with you. Let me lead you. Let me protect you. All you have to do is say 'Yes Miss.'"

I didn't notice until then that I had been holding my breath. It was getting harder to think straight. When I opened my mouth to exhale the words seemed to slip out with it.

"Yes Miss."

She smiled like the Cheshire cat. "Good boy."

I shuddered as the words went down my spine, filling me with warmth from the inside out. I started to breathe quicker. My mind grew foggy. I was falling for her charm, and fast.

She leaned towards my face. There was an intensity in her posture, and it took a conscious effort not to shrink under her gaze. "Now, since this is your first time we're going to take things nice and slow. Your first lesson is about the loss of control. To that end, I will restrain and hurt you, but I will stay well within your comfort zone. Your safe word is Pineapple. If you consent, say 'Yes Miss.'"

By this point she could have told me she was going to strip me naked and march me into traffic and I probably would have agreed. She seemed to draw me in, and I caught myself leaning towards her. She noticed it too, because she took a step back. I didn't expect the emptiness the distance made me feel.

"I'm not going to touch you until you consent." She used the same tone she would when chastising a child, and it only made me feel smaller.

"Yes Miss."

She stepped back towards me and ran her hand through my hair. It felt like heaven.

"See that wasn't so bad." She seemed as jovial as ever. "I'm going to take you to where we'll play now."

Suddenly I felt a rope tighten around my neck. I hadn't even seen when she'd gotten it, but moments later she was using it like a leash to drag me across the dungeon floor. We left the slightly raised area she had been kneeling in, and went towards the more crowded center of the dungeon.

I started to get nervous, so I started talking. "What are we going to d-"

*SLAP* My cheek stung, but the blow shocked more than it hurt.

"Shut up Jack." There was a surprising sympathy in her voice. The contrast made me shudder, and my knees grew a little bit weaker.

"This is going to go a lot better for you if you stop talking and worrying so much." I decided to shut up and focus on following the perky little ass guiding me through the dungeon. The latex bottom she was wearing left little to the imagination, emphasizing her sexuality instead of covering it. I followed the shape of her long, well toned legs down to her heels. She moved as gracefully as before, but where her movements around her master had been gentle and demure, now she walked with an almost imposing strength.

She kept me off balance as she dragged me through the dungeon, and gradually the world seemed to grow smaller. All of my mental effort was focused on keeping up. The feeling of her aura pushing down on me had grown stronger, and I realized she'd been holding back earlier. We stopped walking and I started to sag a little. Suddenly she turned and caught me. I felt a sense of relief. That disappeared moments later when she slipped a foot behind my shin, kicked my foot out from under me, and roughly but carefully forced me to the ground.

She had taken me to the opposite end of the room, in an area that was secluded from the rest of the space by decoration and a tool rack. The area contained a sort of reclined bondage table. It had wrist and ankle cuffs at opposite ends, and they were each attached to a pulley system to allow for stretching the victim.

While I was still startled from being forced to the floor, she pulled my wrists behind my back and tied them with rope. Before I knew it, she had slid my neck rope through a hook in the ceiling and attached it to my wrists. "I suggest you hold those up. I'll cut the rope if you go unconscious, but you'll be choking for a quite a while before then."

The position this forced my arms into was not painful, but maintaining it took effort. It also made it really hard to talk, and when I started to open my mouth to object again, she gave me a look that made it clear doing so would be a bad idea. I settled back down. I kept holding the pose as she did some stuff that I couldn't see on the table in front of us, and gradually my arms started to hurt. I looked up at her pleadingly and she gave me a sympathetic look.

"Don't worry my little sub, I know how long you can hold that, and you won't get out a second sooner." She tussled my hair again.

"I don't think I can do it, Miss" I wheezed.

"So don't think, just endure."

She lowered herself down until she crouched on her heels, and repeated her words. "Don't think. Endure. I believe in you." By now I was in a lot of discomfort, but I was more determined than ever before to meet her expectations.

Somehow disappointing this woman I had just met had become the worst possible thing.

I could feel her breath on my ear as she ran her hands over my body. Where she touched me my skin seemed to electrify. "Good boy... You're doing so well..." My arms were on fire. Her hand was on my chest. I started breaking out in sweat. She moved her hand to my inner thigh. I started to lean forward in duress. She steadied me with one hand, while the other moved further up the thigh.

As my arms grew weaker it grew harder to breathe. I started wheezing, but I held on. Fear started to creep its way into my heart as my strength started to fade. Suddenly I let out a yell of frustration as my arms gave way and the rope started to tighten around my neck. Before I blacked out she grabbed my hands and supported them. She kept holding them while she undid the rope with her free hand.

She let go of my wrists and pulled me into her. I felt the heat of her body. My head sank into her chest, and I could feel the softness of her breasts and the beating of her heart. I was filled with relief and an unexpected feeling of gratitude. I'm still not sure how to describe it, but somewhere in the process of holding my life in her hands she'd gotten a grip on my soul, and I felt myself sink deeper and deeper into the sweet embrace of submission.

"Good boy." She continued her gentle affection, and by now I had quite an erection . "As a reward, I'm going to take you to one of your happy places."

She pulled me up, and I put all the focus I had left into getting to my feet. Then she pushed me onto the table and started to tie my hands to the corners. I thought we were done, but I didn't have the energy to object anymore. My arms hurt from trying to hold them up, and a big part of me was just relieved that my first ordeal was over.

By now I'd forgotten all about the preoccupations that had brought me to The Runaway in the first place. My values, my conflicting feelings about femdom, my wounded heart-all had been washed away by the dominance flowing from Charlie; the woman who had just saved my life from a predicament she herself had placed me in. All that was left was this, this moment, this intensity, and this relief.

She ran her left hand over me, and heat spread through me. Her right hand was still holding the riding crop, though I couldn't see most of it under the table I was now attached to. She finally explained to me what would happen next.

"You've just learned what it means to hurt for another. Now I'll teach you what it means to let yourself get carried away by that hurt." She put down the riding crop, and picked up a blindfold. The last thing I saw was her bending down to gently kiss my forehead.

"I'll give you one more mercy" she whispered, and suddenly I felt something force it's way into my mouth. I tried to mumble something about how gagging someone was generally not considered a mercy, all that came out was unintelligible moaning. Somehow she knew my question anyway.

"Shhhhh. Soon, you'll understand."

At this point I was blindfolded, gagged, tied spread eagle, at the mercy of a woman I had just barely met. I imagined in that moment there must be other people watching us, and started to remember how embarrassed I felt at the idea of a man submitting. Charlie seemed to sense it, because almost instantly I felt the sting of the riding crop on my thigh.

"You're going to sink now. "

She stroked the welt that was just starting to form on my leg.

"Sink into my pain, my touch, my control."

The next couple of hits were much more sensual, they only stung a little, but they were unpredictable. She would hit some part of my body, I would jerk in response, then she would wait, and hit somewhere else. There never seemed to be any pattern, and the moment I anticipated a hit and tried to steel myself I would inevitably find that the hit never came, or came somewhere I hadn't at all expected. Once or twice she went so far as to swing the crop through the air, so that not even the sound of the swish would warn me of the impending sting.

I couldn't see the blows, I couldn't move from them, I couldn't even complain about them. Suddenly I was grateful for the gag, since it saved me from having to think about what an appropriate response is to someone that is beating you. Somehow being unable to act freed me from worrying what others would think.

The net effect of this was that there wasn't really anything left for me to do besides try to relax and take the pain. I realized the irregular timing was intentional. Once I stopped tensing for the hits, and started to let the pain into me, it seemed to stop hurting as much. Instead it sank into me, through me, became me.

At this point, I started losing track of time. In fact, I started losing track of everything. I felt by now Charlie had covered my entire body with hits from the riding crop, and seemed to be working on the second or third layer. Everything was on fire. But then I started to feel a sensation I can only describe as sinking. I stopped flinching as strongly in response to the sting of the crop, and I started to feel this serene calm.

Suddenly I was floating, and I distantly noticed that I had stopped moving at all. The welts still hurt, my entire body was still on fire, but somehow the pain didn't hurt anymore. It just was, a sensation, a moment, a gift given to my by my domme for me to accept with grace.

Charlie kept going a little bit longer, but moments later she seemed satisfied. She started stroking my body. If pain was now neutral, then gentle touch was almost orgasmic. I had lost myself in a puddle in the center of the leather bench, but where she touched me I existed. My whole consciousness seemed to follow her hand as it gently traced the lines of my arm. It traveled up as she brushed up my sides. And it followed her down as she slid her palm down my chest and towards my crotch. The spice of pain from all the welts she was brushing over only seemed to sweeten the sensation.

"My silly little sub, you probably wish you could cum right now. Unfortunately for you, this is a spiritual, not carnal experience.

She unclipped my bonds and practically dragged me over to a nearby couch. Once there, she took me into her arms, and put my head back onto that sweet spot on her chest that just let me make out her breathing and her heartbeat. I remember being surprised at how slow it was, she was the epitome of calm. I started to open my mouth, but she put her finger on my lips.