Nightmare Master Pt. 02

But as hard of a sadist as he was, he was that much of a fair Master and he didn't just hold me when he was done. He soothed me, pet me first, and when he let me off the cross, he lifted me to his chest, bridal style. "It's over," he said softly. "All over now. Come here, little rabbit, and let me show you something to cheer you up." He uncovered the mirror and I stared, sniffling softly. He still pet me when he set me on my knees and gently pulled off the gauze bandage over my brand, while I took in the sight of me. My collar really was rather pretty, despite how obvious it was, and the heart padlock was glittery, despite being clearly a padlock at my throat. The septum ring seemed too large on my smaller face, just enough to be a humiliation for a slave, but it wasn't garish and I remembered all the other rings in the slave's toy room, cute ones with things like stars and rabbits at the ends. Of course, at the moment my eyes were red and my tits had lines from the cane, while my thighs were even worse.

My eyes fell to my thigh when he pulled back the bandage and, if the pain hadn't already settled me well below the quicksand's embrace, then I fell most completely with the sight of the brand.

It was a wolf's head, surrounded by the roses.

By the time he put me to bed - after eating at his feet under the crop and his bathing me in a shower since I couldn't soak my wounded thigh - I was a subdued, calm little slave, albeit in a residual state of shock. But I was quite subjugated when he cuffed me loosely and comfortably to the bed. "So you don't roll on your left side, restless little rabbit."

"Thank you, Master."

He touched my nose. "You're welcome and I hope the weekend was everything you could have hoped when we planned it."

I shuddered at his amused tone, knowing what it was for. Because it was a weekend that was never going to end for me, a masochist's hellscape that I'd never leave. I fell asleep after he left, but that night it was dreamless with the hopeless acceptance reinforced by all the times he had said the words to me.

This was what was happening and there was nothing I could do.

————

Seth

It felt like I was burning.

Jesus, the look in her eyes when the knowledge that she wasn't leaving set in, the way she cried. It was so fucking gorgeous, filled with a masochist's blend of terror and arousal, that heady mix that only someone like her could ever have, and she had it more purely than anyone I'd ever met in my life. How the hell did she exist? I didn't know but I was grateful for it.

In all my years of playing, it was a fantasy I would never forget, one I would have never dreamed I'd get to experience. It was the kind of intensity that a sadist might read about and never expect to get to feel. Of course, it was far different than the ecstasy of seeing physical suffering and feeling a body vibrate with vitality when a cane struck them.

But this? This was a slow, eager joy that spread through me. It felt like it was useless to masturbate when I'd just be hard again 30 minutes afterwards and I couldn't go to her for help. I'd pressed her harder than hard for one weekend and she'd been through enough to please me as it was.

God, the images that she'd given me. Branding her, piercing her, collaring her. I fucking throbbed. I'd never been this awful to someone, this absolutely cruel and twisted, and she had fed back to me and flirted with me, had adored me even while she gave me the fear I craved.

So this was what love was like. It was this sensation of feeling accepted, of feeling okay and at home, of peace and devotion, and it was devotion. I didn't crave for more after her, except for more of her, of course.

But, as the saying goes, all good things...

————

Nynaeve

I'd never been so fucked out in my life... and he hadn't even fucked me the night before. But when I came awake, I had that body soreness from having slept so damned soundly from one hell of a weekend. When I stretched, the heavy red covers of my circle bed slid over my cane tracks and made me flinch. He had chosen a nightie for me, also red, and I shivered when the first thought I had was that I missed my Master and far preferred waking up in the cage.

I crawled over the covers, meeting my reflection's gaze in the massive vanity mirror and blinking. The collar had shifted in my sleep and I fixed it just so, just how it should be, and then twisted my mouth so my nose made a cute little circle, fantasizing I was a little rabbit coming awake. Not so bad, he had said. Even with punishment, my covers really were cozy and my collar really wasn't so bad. His cane stripe work was always so even and he gave his marks so carefully. And then of course there was all the clothing he had for me in the closet, cute little rings for my piercings when they healed, and he had said the closet wasn't as full as he intended it to be. He was rather romantic with his painful angel wings, too. And then there was-

My eyes fell on the rose on the dresser by the door and I grinned. The roses! Maybe if I begged my Master, he'd be kind enough to get me a press book so I could keep them forever. The thought of them fading made my heart hurt and how many females always wished to be sent flowers? He gave them all the time. Well, one of them and it was usually an exchange for my blood, but that was even better, somehow.

Hanging from the dresser was a day dress and matching shoes, something that made me tilt my head. I looked down at my ankle and realized the cuff had been unlocked and I could easily unstrap it. It made me nervous for a moment, seeing the dress, because I wasn't a submissive who was very good with unspoken commands and hints, which was one of the reasons why I most definitely appreciated his taking whatever he damn well pleased. For a law school student, I was pretty damned oblivious to subtlety sometimes, but even that was carefully addressed with the note on the vanity.

Get dressed and go to the sitting room.

And I'd seen where that was when he'd taken me through to the dining room to eat. That was another thing. Good Lord, I had an ostentatious Master. I could eat in that decor, wear the kind of luxury most people only dreamed about, and he was a very good caretaker.

Yeah, but I doubt most would dream about being taken care of like this. Like an object owned, a slave and not a play one, but the real thing, with a Master who found it relaxing to use weightlifting weights for tit torture. Even so, for someone like me, it wasn't terrible. I tugged my collar, shivering at the thought of breaking for him, at how long it would take for me to wonder why he didn't hurt me one night, when I would start to associate his love with pain. How long would it take me to get confused and to crave those dark sensations only he could give so well and with such cold experience?

I paused when I was dressed, resting my head against the door to breathe for a moment, trying to focus through the hot arousal pulsing through me. Just the thought of those twisted nightmares were an aphrodisiac to drive me insane. The thought of Two and Pet didn't help any. They would call me insane for this kind of fiery lust at what was happening and what I was afraid of, both of them for different reasons.

I shook myself and thought of different things, like the dress he had chosen to display his slave in and how gorgeous it was for being a day wear dress, and opened the door. One step at a time.

He was there, in the sitting room where he'd commanded me to, and he wasn't alone. I stared at Ash when he looked up from the chess game he was playing with my Master. And then I snapped my gaze to Master's when he stood up.

Ash cut him off, pointed Master back to his chair. "Not yet, you don't."

But once I met Master's eyes, I couldn't look away again. "You... you..." I stuttered.

Ash stepped closer to me. "Hey, Evey. You know how brutal this can be already, remember? Come back slowly, yeah?"

I glanced at him but then shot my gaze back to Master's and he was starting to smile because I think he understood all too well. "I th-thought- I thought- I thought it w-was real." It came out breathless. "You made me think I was never going to be free, ever. You broke me! The solder gun!"

"The brand," he finally answered softly. "And I did do that."

"You were so mean! You're the worst!"

At that he quit trying so hard to hide his smile. "I'm terrible, absolutely evil."

When I finally looked back to Ash, he looked both exasperated and resigned when I had tears in my eyes. "It was a fairy tale! Oh, it was the worst, best thing ever! I felt broken and terrified and like I was trapped forever in a torturer's dungeon! He didn't even take my sense of time! I- I-"

Ash sighed, but Master looked victorious. He finally stood and Ash let him go to me, so that I quivered in fear and love all at once when he tugged me to his arms. "Sorry I had to break your illusion, but my lack of conscious doesn't seem able to outlive the strength of your masochism." He stroked a finger down my cheek. "You can go back to it, though, if you like."

Ash snorted. "Romantic bloody proposal, Seth."

"You mean it?" I whispered it, knowing I shouldn't make a decision like that when I was flying so high, so fucking high. I had thought of myself as an object, for Christ's sake. I still partially thought of myself as that and I couldn't seem to come out of it and what the hell was wrong with me that I didn't even seem to want to be free of it? I started to shake, wondering if I'd ever even make it back from that dark place...

When I kind of didn't want to.

"Ahhh." Master smiled. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the voice of my conscious becomes too loud at the exact, perfect time that your masochism finds its limit. Come here. Too intense. We do this slowly."

He did something more than amazing to me, then. Master caught me by the scruff of my collar and I bowed my head while he guided me to where he and Ash had been playing chess. And he had me kneel at his knees so that I tumbled safely back beneath that quicksand, away from that terrifying light that was freedom and decisions.

Although, I didn't fall quite so deep. While he spoke with Ash about Sulfur's and played chess, I came back little by little with small actions. At first, it was looking up at my Master for his permission to talk with Ash. And then it was speaking a little more. And then it was talking without permission. And then it was talking about law school plans and forcing my mentality to remember that I was Evey and not Honey.

When I looked at Master while he watched, his hand stroking me the entire way through, I think we both knew how it was going to end, though, even if I was still terrified of the thought of wearing his collar, even if his slavery was absolute. Somehow it made it all the worse that he had given me that taste of it, that glimpse of the mindset he would carefully enforce and condition. It was proof of a kind for how awful and capable he was.

But there was something in the sorrow in his eyes that said his conscious wouldn't let him keep me under after that weekend, even if I think he likely could have gotten away with it, no matter how meticulous Ash was.

Part of me wondered how dangerously close I had come to having him do it in full.

I do know that when Ash helped me to my feet and softly said we really needed to get back to Pet, Master's eyes turned fierce for a moment before he quelled it. Because I think he knew there was no way in hell that Ash was letting me stay there when he would have Stockholm Syndrome concerns. I know that's what I for damn sure knew.

But then Master waved and my weekend was over. When I finally sat in the car, I wondered if I was ever going to be the same and then wondered if I wasn't the luckiest girl alive. I touched the collar at my throat, where I hadn't made the decision to take it off or keep it yet, and stared out the window.

————

"Ugh, why is it the worst feeling ever coming back to reality like this?"

I took another drink of wine and Two laughed. "I don't know as much about that part of it."

Pet grinned. "I'm... actually a terrible person to talk with about that too. You know, the whole taking drugs thing at the time and all. Everything was really surreal when I ran from Master."

"I wish everything was surreal right now." I paused, staring into my wine, and finally made myself whisper it. "I felt beautiful. Gorgeous. Like the most treasured object ever. It was so scary." I let the romance take over my words, helped by the wine. "I was decorated with cane stripes and they were lovingly spaced in a perfect pattern."

Pet laughed quietly. "Weird how it works, huh? There's something about feeling owned. It's like a fantasy book. And all the time you think about how you must make him look by being his slave, because owning you has to make him look more ethereal or mysterious or something."

"Exactly!" I breathed it in excitement, leaning my head on Two's shoulder so that she wrapped her arm around me comfortingly.

"I don't know about that part of things, but I do know about the cane stripe thing. Canes are the best already because they're... Oh, man. It's this love-hate-thrill-lust thing, you know? They hurt something fierce and you hate it... but you don't though. You want to stay away, but you can't and it's the worst and best thing ever all at once."

Pet tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and after my weekend, I couldn't stop staring at her hair. It was icy blonde in color, and Ash had meticulously glossed and cared for it until it shimmered in the light, so exact in how he nurtured his slave. I remembered when she was first getting back to being his, her hair had been messed up where she'd cut it and he had calmly and methodically fixed it. It made me wonder if my hair might eventually become so beautiful when I remembered Master so lovingly brushing my locks. "You're both crazy. The cane just sucks." She paused. "Well, okay, not entirely. Sometimes, it is really nice to have a session when Master feels dark and it hurts. I like knowing it's hard to serve him or please him in some way and succeeding to do it anyway. It makes me... happy. Like I earned it."

"Mmm." I closed my eyes, smiling. "It's so romantic."

Two laughed and pet me. "It's okay, Evey. You know why Ash is keeping you here right now, right?"

"Huh?" I looked up. "Oh, yeah, no. I totally do. The place I was in that last night was... Oh man, it was definitely insane. It was the kind of thing I never would have dared to dream for. So no, I get it, you know?"

Two smiled down at me. "Just making sure. God, you're actually kind of amazing, Evey, you know that? Like, that's the kind of balls deep headfuck game that can jack up a psyche and you just... I don't know, you're one of the most grounded, well adjusted maso sluts I've ever met, I guess. It might be in large part because I can't understand the depth of the slave mentality thing at all, but it's the kind of thing I think is pretty cool."

I blushed, then laughed. "Well, thanks, but I don't know how much credit you should be giving me. I've had to stop myself from correcting it when you say my name, like, every time now and it's been a fucking week."

"You and him have been texting now, right?"

I grinned when Pet burst out laughing and it was Pet who answered. "Yeah! Last night, oh man, last night was the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. Okay, have you seen Seth for a picture of what he looks like, how much of a monster he is?" Two nodded and Pet's grin widened. "So, last night we're playing Fortnite together."

Two rolled her eyes at that. "What losers. Real men play Apex."

"Yeah, if they want an anxiety attack. Hush. So we're playing Fortnite and when we log on, Evey sees this skin that she dies over. I mean she goes into a laughing fit. It's called the Nighthare and it looks like a rabbit from hell. She starts messaging him to send him pictures and voice chat messages about how this cartoon skin has meathooks hanging from his ears and it's the most hilarious thing ever. Master is reading a book in the bondage bed and watching this with that look he gets when he's vaguely wondering how his life ended up this weird sometimes. But we start playing, right, and then when we back out, Evey has a gift."

Two froze with her wine. "He bought it for her."

I couldn't quite meet her eyes. I was laughing too hard. "He's a cartoon rabbit and he has meathooks."

"Dear God." Two closed her eyes. "That is true love. The man had to make an epic games account to buy that. That's a stain he's going to take to his email grave and never be rid of. And he does not look like the type of person who plays goddamned Fortnite. Like that's true humiliation, I'm just saying, especially when you consider that he and Ivory buy their skewers from the same place."

I grinned. "And he branded me. With a brand."

"No shit, is that what branding means?"

I laughed and Pet giggled across from us. And then I closed my eyes, hugging Two. "He's so dreamy. I've been trying to say his name since I left."

Pet had a smile in her voice. "I can't say Master's name anymore. Well, like you, he wouldn't give me his name to begin with. I'm sure I could have found it online though."

Two snorted. "You mean right on the website of this fetish club he owns? Yeah, you definitely could have. It's not like he's hidden about who and what he is. The man lives in the back of Sulfur's and sleeps in a bondage bed." She nudged me. "I know I've heard Pet call him by his name before though and I've said Ivy's name all the time. Ivory. Ivy. Flatline. Master." She grinned. "I like all of them."

Pet smiled again, bashfully this time. "I don't like saying it very much. I mean I love his name but I never want to be disrespectful, you know? But sometimes when we're out with vanilla people around, I have to and it always makes me giggle a little, how much of a hang up I sometimes have with it. The only scary part for me is how I know some people would heavily judge me for feeling that way about his name and the disrespect thing and it stresses me out trying to hide the worries. But I can say it in a sentence like this: 'Master's name is Ash'."

She lowered her voice on the name and grinned so adorably that I had to smile too. Even Two had to smile crookedly and she wouldn't know romance unless it nailed her tits to a board after writing in permanent marker on them. The truth was that Ash's proposing to Pet came with an engagement ring that would make anyone feel starry eyed. Her ring was as sparkling as her eternity collar and cuffs were discreet. "Okay," I finally said, tugging my own collar. I still wore it but I had to make the decision on whether or not I wanted to keep it. Ash had rolled his eyes when he learned the soldering gun part of it.

"Really?" He'd said, looking at Master. "You couldn't choose an option with, I don't know, a hex key or something?"

To which, of course, Master had merely been calm again. "Not dramatic enough. I made sure the lock part was smaller in design and left room with the collar so it will easily cut off without jarring her." He smiled at me, winking, while Ash ran a hand through his hair in exasperation.

I pulled my thoughts away from that wink, from how dreamy he was. Because he was. Of course he couldn't choose something so easy as an eternity collar that came off with a hex key. He had his sadist's pride to be met with flair, after all. "Okay, I'll say it. Master's name." I froze and took a breath, laughing a little. "Master's name is Seth."

The soft voice behind me made my heart leap fit to burst my chest and Pet had a grin that said she'd set me up. "Honey's name is Nynaeve, but that was rather mean of her parents, so we call her Eve or Evey."