Love's Wicked Craft Ch. 04

Rules for the Breaking

"The problem with temptation is that you may not get another chance."

―

-Laurence J. Peter

1

Dazed from the spell of introspection, Chase dawdled her fingers to the next page of her journal. She sat alone in her bed, staring soberly at the pre-dawn gloom beyond the room's east window. Thoughts merged like colliding storm clouds. The memories, blessed and cursed, of her night at the Fun House, of the sumptuousness of Mistress Atsuko's ropes, of stupid, stupid, Hannah, billowed, swirled and crashed like molten glowing lava splashing into a steaming, raging, sea.

Just as everything else she'd ever cared to have go off without a hitch, Chase had taken all the steps necessary to see a scene through. She made sure to relate the entire evening's plan with Hannah, explaining every detail clearly, exactly the way her special needs lover needed in order to understand her every expectation. They would observe the rules of engagement while at Master Guryon's, participating in play within reason and obeying the rules of the house. Then they would go home to indulge in each other in a session of strictly, but very sweet, vanilla sex because, as Chase had known, while being rope bound by Atsuko, her fantasies would wander to images of Hannah, she and Hannah scening, Hannah's body, Hannah's lovely mouth, and so all Chase would want for the after-care was Hannah.

But, Hannah fucked it up. Chase was well prepared for a lovely --into the morning- session of after-care and Hannah royally fucked it up. Should Chase have talked more to her about her interest in rope bondage? Would that have made a difference? Chase didn't think so. She was a top. She didn't have to spell out such things, regardless of the communication intimacy required. No, the errors in judgement Hannah made were none of Chase's fault. It was Hannah's Asperger's, she was a big girl, and she should have been in control.

As for Madam Giggles and her sub, Chase knew Hannah and the clown would get along well and were likely to play. However, she never expected Hannah to lapse so far from submission and do the foolish, foolish things she'd done. If Chase had not seen it with her own eyes, the master of the house would have reported to her how Hannah had, without having asked for permission, controlled his slaves, making them do vile things to themselves and each other in one of the spaces barred for scening, the kitchen.

The sight of it, the absolute nerve of Hannah, had caused Chase to become perfectly incensed. Her sub had assumed way too much. She had not been waiting there at the end of the evening, just outside the room where Atsuko had bound her domme. No, Chase had to go find her slave, and then, seeing her sub actually dominating had had an instant souring, chilling, and effect on Chase's desire for her. And, as if it wasn't enough, Hannah, when called on it, had behaved inexcusably: kicking and screaming like an absolute lunatic, sobbing pathetically, begging, and compounding Chase's embarrassment so that she was left with no choice.

Hannah had no right. There was a double standard in the relationship, absolutely. That, was the fucking point. No one ever said anything about switching because it was never, ever, up for debate. The top was her place alone and after-care was what they shared, was the time, the only time, when Chase was ever close to being bottom, spent, shattered, helpless.

Chase slid her palm across the page of her journal, feeling the words she'd written in her tight, neat, script. She had become a powerful, influential and independent woman, a principal of a nationally recognized Blue Ribbon school and she was preparing to start course work toward the goal of becoming district superintendent. The higher the pressure, the more she needed a reliable sub to help take the edge off with a scene, to remind her of her humble beginnings, her lowly place under the scrutiny of Heaven's Queen. Still gazing impassively out her bedroom window, Chase continued her reflection concerning the subsequent events of the night before.

She had kept herself calm enough to drive safely, stopping at a light, turning around to peer down into the back seat, at her passed out, bound and gagged, soon to be ex-lover. Chase recalled arriving at Hannah's less than quaint, ran shackle, little home, and dragging her out of the car.

There had been an instant when she saw, under the yellow glow of the porch light, the fact that Hannah, her head bouncing, parting high grass, droplets of dew glistening on her cheeks, was waking. Having ditched in her car the six inch heels she'd worn to the party, Chase hurriedly dragged her inert captive across the front of the house and around the side yard. As she pulled the bound woman through the enveloping dark, Chase heard Hannah rouse out of her unconsciousness, softly moaning, the sound trembling from the force of her head being slid along the irregular bumps and dips of the earth.

Feeling her way through the dark, probing with her bare feet, Chase hauled her cargo up the back steps. Hannah began to protest the treatment, not so much as one surprised by it, but as one who had realized why she deserved it. She began to speak around her gag, her mutterings devolving further to shrieks and muffled screams as she twitch helplessly in her straight jacket. Chase thought that Hannah had perhaps been thinking she was at her domme's residence until realizing, dreading, that she had been returned to her own home.

Arriving at the patio's sliding door, breathing heavily from the exertion, Chase went through her key ring and chose one of the three of Hannah's she'd appropriated by virtue of their contractual agreement. Then, the door slid open, panting through clenched teeth, Chase no longer able to control her rage, dragged Hannah inside, pulled the door shut, and then swung her down the hallway. Hannah's body sped to the far wall, at which the side of her head made contact first, stopping against the baseboard with aloud crack and a thud, just before the rest of her body came to rest with a dull, staccato slap. Then, as the muscles of her face clenched around her pained eyes, Hannah began to sob.

The fact of Hannah's weeping was making Chase even angrier. She had to work a little harder to control her fury, to maintain it as an asset rather than a liability, controlling it just enough so that it was useful, practical and protective. However, that tactic wasn't doing Hannah any good. She was kicked a few times in the ribs, before getting dragged further down the hall. With each roll of her bound body, Hannah's weeping became increasingly hysterical. Presently, Chase stopped, her chest slowly heaving as she stood upright and glared menacingly down at a fitfully sobbing, snot dribbling Hannah.

In the silence beyond the woman's weeping, Chase heard a small, mournful, meow of a cat. It certainly smelled like a cat lived there, maybe three or more of them, judging by the stink. Chase peered around through the darkness and sniffed the air, a sour expression crossing her face before she stepped quickly toward Hannah's kitchen. Returning with a few paper towels, she got to her knees by Hannah's head. After wiping much of the tears and snot from beneath her nose and around her mouth, Chase proceeded to remove the ball gag.

Her vision adjusted to the darkness, Chase saw that Hannah had turned away, her eyes closed, still tearing, her lips turned inward. Chase stared, eyes wide with fury. Her breathing steadily returned to its prior briskness, and then she let herself give in to the anger, taking Hannah by the chin, gripping it like a vice, turning her face upward, shaking it, grabbing the top of her head with her other hand and saying:

"You will never, ever, fucking pull that shit on me again. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was for me? Do you care? Do you even fucking care?"

Whimpering, Hannah said:

"Yu could have used the front door you know."

Chase gave her another solid kick in her side.

Growling through clenched teeth, Chase answered:

"I didn't fucking want to use the fucking front door, you stupid bitch!"

"You realize that it doesn't really hurt when you kick me because of where I am on the autistic spec-"

Chase interrupted Hannah with another kick, a heel kick against the side of her head, which caused another resounding crack as the other side of Hannah's head hit the baseboard.

"Ouch." She squealed, "I'm crying because you brought me home and, and because I have to pee really badly!"

"Go ahead," Chase hissed, "don't let the straight jacket stop you! It's really, fitting, this straight jacket!"

Like a good sub --or at least a better sub- Hannah let her bladder go, a look of contentment softening her red cheeked, tear stained face as the puddle widened beneath her. Meanwhile, though her expression was still the picture of fury, Chase's breaths became steadily more relaxed. Then, her tone menacingly placid, she said:

"Tell me Hannah. Why did you regret to inform me that you were institutionalized at one time? You weren't always high functioning, were you?"

Hannah's face contorted. A fresh flood of tears washed her cheeks.

"I was never institutionalized Mistress!" she cried through clenched teeth, "Something, something went wrong in the Fun House, and I went, crazy! I'm sorry! Simple, dimple, cripple, stipple, ripple, nipple, wimple, nun's habit, nun's habit, nun, nun- I mean I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Forgive me and we'll start over! I'll do everything right this time! We'll read, we'll study, together, about my, problem! Please, we can fix me!"

"Problem." Chase repeated, "Problem? I'd say it's a psychological condition that requires treatment, a split in your personality you have yet to fully incorporate to form a full, entirely coherent, and self. No, I am finished with you. You're too much work. I'm done."

Hannah quickly turned her head and peered up into the venomous scrutiny of her captor. In the growing silence, as her tears subsided, she studied the expression that seemed to say: "Go ahead, give me another reason, and say something else that's totally stupid, so I have an excuse to take another whack at you. I don't care if it doesn't really hurt you. I just want to do it because it makes me feel good."

Then, as Hannah's gaze took in the delicate, enticing, sheen of sweat across Chase's shoulders and chest, as she took in the twinkling of the Icey gem at her throat and along each facet of the steel chain mail mesh, strapless cocktail dress that barely hid the woman's voluptuousness, Hannah began to feel her sorrow fit itself, slipping warmly, into the armor of her anger.

"Split personality, huh?" she spoke finally, her eyes never leaving Chase, "You're the fucking poster child for psychological conditions, Mistress. I mean, where does someone like you come from anyway, with your scening in nun's habits, beatings and baptisms?"

Glaring, Chase quickly lowered herself to one knee, and then seized Hannah by the hair. She saw herself smash the bound woman's head against the floor, and then into the wall. Then, as the image sent itself seeping down her spine and into her arms, and before it reached her hands and fingers, Chase yielded her grip on Hannah's hair and got back on her feet.

"I'm finished talking about this and I'm finished with you." Chase intoned, her words smooth and cold, "We're done! I don't want to see you! I don't want you near my house! You harass me, get all stalker on me, I will ruin your life! Say you understand!"

Hannah didn't answer. Her eyes darted, peered into the shadows between Chase's legs, across the silhouettes of her bare feet, across the chainmail of her dress, her bare shoulders and hard face, cast in a grey blue light of the street light that came in from the living room window.

I think I heard somewhere that all romantic relationships have challenges and require some work. "Was Hannah's first answer.

Chase glared, clenched her teeth, gave the woman another hard kick to the side, and then repeated her command.

"Never, fucking, come near me, again. Do you understand what I am telling you?"

Her expression remote beyond the single sudden tear that began to stream from the corner of her right eye, Hannah gave her second answer, her voice distant, low.

"I understand."

Chase slowly tilted her head, glowering disgustedly, eyeing Hannah as if she was some large insect turned helplessly on its back.

"We could have lasted you know," she whispered, "If you weren't so fucking socially inept."

Her gaze hard, Hannah peered up into Chase's eyes, their blue radiance obscured in shadow. Gradually, Hanna's chest came to heave as her face contorted into an ugly thing, a mask of herself, lined, creased, splotched with fury and grief. Then, her voice a hiss, trembling, she said.

"You, were using my social ineptness as an advantage in our, relationship! You, are fucking crazy. You have no idea what you're doing to yourself, do you?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" asked Chase, folding her arms.

"Did you know that your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart? Fuck, fuck fuck! I, I mean, what you're doing to yourself, its nuts! You're living a play life. You aren't a real person. At play, you're a projection of yourself. At work, you're a projection of yourself. You came from a family. I came from a family. Mine is gone, but yours, yours must be around. They were the first ones to make you, Chase, the Chase I met in the shoe store."

Chase tensed during Hannah's pause, the sound of her pounding heart echoing in her head, the sight of Hannah on the floor, bound, strapped and buckled, the fresh tears and slick snot under her nose making her face a spectral glow in the blue dark.

"Or maybe that was the domme Chase," Hannah continued, "cornering prey. I don't know. My point is, my point is..."

Chase watched as Hannah looked, and then shut her eyes tight and proceeded to quickly mouth a series of what Chase could only hazard were words. Then, nodding to herself, opening her eyes to reveal a great intensity of focus, Hannah looked her in the eye and said:

"You can only suspend yourself above the love you're supposed to eventually fall into for so long. If you don't give yourself up to love, ever, you'll just, you'll just, float off somewhere, never to be truly held, seen and accepted. Sure, they accept you at your play parties, but that's like being with people you work with, only at a different job. Being a domme is a job. Scening is working. That's all you do between the two lives, work, work, work. Mistress, you deserve to just be Chase and, well, so do me. I mean, someone else, whoever, deserves it from you."

Silence filled the dark, dank, little house once again. Struck by Hannah's sudden, uncharacteristic depth, Chase's expression softened ever so slightly.

"I'm finished." Said Hannah, "You can kick me again now."

How dare she, thought Chase. Where does someone like me come from? You think you're so fucking smart. This is my fault. How stupid was I to think, to think...

"Where does someone like me come from?" spoke Chase without the slightest hint of emotion, "I came from me!"

Hannah leveled her gaze on the woman, and then, speaking again as if she'd practiced for that very moment, she said:

"No, not all of you. You were born. At the start, you were made, just like I was made, only I was made with an Asperger's gene and you were either just plain born a top or got turned on very early by some serious fucking scene."

Chase stared, glaring, her contempt brilliant despite the darkness. Flashes of memory and ghostly shadows flickered in her mind, sending fast blood through her heart and electric spiders crawling through her core. In the next instant, she gave Hannah another swift kick into her side. Hannah cringed only slightly from the blow. For most anyone else, the pain might have had a greater effect. But, as Chase, in those last moments, understood, it was not the physical impact that hurt Hannah, but the pain of her domme's wrath struck fear and her mercy brought healing, healing she would deny her former sub.

"Why does anything," Chase hissed, "have to factor into my becoming a dome who enjoys scening with masochism and other play? Why couldn't I have just adopted a life style?"

"Because you just couldn't." answered Hannah, wagging her head on the floor, "There's something, a sadness I see, I feel in you when we scene. I don't know. You, you just couldn't, that's all."

What the fuck did she know? She was a quandary certainly, a paradox, a contradiction, which, initially, made Hannah seem a very likely candidate for scene play. Chase wanted Hannah to be who she was as much as she wanted her to function with appropriate social aptitude. Yet, the life, the BDSM life, does go against the prevailing social grained, does it not? But isn't that part of how it works, part of why it works, because it goes against the grain of polite society, polite conduct and polite, vanilla, flavorless, sexual pursuit?

Yes and, now firmly entrenched among communities all over the world, it is its own social network with its own customs and norms. Then maybe, okay, it was Chase's fault, to assume Hannah, Asperger's addled Hannah, could work her impaired social mind to think inside, last inside, the BDSM box. But, so what? Chase didn't care, not anymore.

"What I did tonight," said Hannah, staring deeply into Chase's eyes, and then looking away, ""I just, I just wanted to have some power too was all. It felt, good. It felt really good."

A gradual tremor rose in Chase, her eyes widening with indignation as the rage rumbled through and then waned back into the depths of her soul. Presently, she took a deep breath, slowly closed her eyes, folded her arms, opened her eyes again and said:

"Yes, it certainly does feel very good. Which, is why I do it, do it the way I want it done."

Then Chase padded her way behind Hannah's head. Once there, she got to her knees and effortlessly brought the bound woman to a sitting position.

"Chase?" Hannah uttered nervously, "What, what are you doing?"

Bewildered, turning her head to try to meet the domme's gaze, Hannah continued to stutter and stammer her apologies and pleas for a second chance. But, ignoring them, Chase carefully reached her right arm around Hanna's shoulder, hooking the bend of her arm around her neck. Then, clasping both hands, the domme Exerted pressure with her biceps and forearms on both sides of her former lover's neck, at the carotid arteries.

"I don't want you to have any power over me." Hissed Chase as she maintained the pressure on the sides of Hannah's neck and pulled her right arm inward so that the embrace was more effective, intimate, "I won't let you or anyone else, ever, not anyone. No one, no one assumes to tell me who I am or why I do what I do, no one Hannah. Find power on your own, with someone else."

It was then that Hannah's mute struggle ended, Chase's blood choke having been masterfully executed. The thud of her heart settling into a quiet rhythm, Chase released her grip and checked Hannah's pulse. Feeling that it was normal, and that her breathing was the deep breathing that would ultimately lead to REM sleep, the domme eased a limp Hannah back down to the floor, and then rose back to her feet.

Alone, warm in her bed, Hannah's smell still in the pillows and sheets, her perfume still lingering in the bedroom air, Chase watched the memory integrate into the brightening grey day beyond her window. It's not that complicated, she thought. It doesn't have to be. I'm not that complicated, maybe. Maybe it's Hannah that's too complicated. She was fun though, lots of fun. Too bad. Chase looked down at the page of her journal, and then at the pen that had rolled away, having settled between a rumple and fold of comforter. Chase had done some reading on Asperger's months before and had taken some notes. They lay there on the page, each word, a ghost, like the ghost scent that mingled in the fabrics of her bed and in the very air she breathed.