Текст книги "The Queen"

Автор книги: Tiffany Reisz

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

27

A New Client

MISTRESS NORA’S DUNGEON is a happy dungeon. That was her motto. Men came to her broken in all the wrong ways and she sent them home smiling, broken in all the right ways. But in the days after Søren told her his news, Mistress Nora’s dungeon wasn’t a happy dungeon because Mistress Nora wasn’t happy. She told Kingsley to send her masochists that week and only masochists. With a scalpel she carved her name into the back of a handsome world-famous violinist, her penmanship careful and elegant as she knew her name would remain in his skin for months before it healed and faded. In an upstate home that was more fortress than house, Nora whipped a retired four-star general into near-unconsciousness. He tipped her a thousand dollars for being the first woman to beat him as hard as he’d dreamed of being beaten. The next day Kingsley sent her to a hotel suite, all gilt and red and velvet, a Rococo monstrosity from a Sacher-Masoch fever dream. In the suite she presided over a rite in which the client was tied to the bed on his back spread-eagle and branded with a branding iron on his biceps and inner thighs. Four dominatrixes. Four brands. Permanent scars. He wept with gratitude after the scene as Nora cleaned the deep wounds. In the absence of pain, the client was impotent and he’d had his first orgasm in a year when they’d branded him. The client was the wealthy twenty-five-year-old son of Hungary’s ambassador to the United Nations. Nora had kissed his forehead and called him a sweet little boy. He kissed the soles of her boots and called her his queen for life.

After four days Nora was spent. She had no more pain to give and still no peace in her heart. She lay on her back on the bed in her dungeon, her black-and-white braided riding crop in her hand. Lazily she twirled it like a majorette with a baton. If her hands went idle for a single second she knew the devil would use them for playthings. He’d use them to make her call Søren or worse, go to Søren. She had no right to ask him not to take his Final Vows. None. She’d left him. She’d also told him to stop waiting for her time and time again. She’d begged him to find someone new to love, someone new to fuck. Go back to Kingsley, she’d said to him on more than one occasion. Sleep with Simone, she adores you, she’d said on another. Find someone else to fuck. Stop playing martyr, waiting for me to come back to you. It was a selfish request on her part, wanting him to move on. She couldn’t move on completely until he did. When they were together they’d been like a couple holding hands, tightly clinging to each other in a viselike grip. She’d left him but his hand still held hers even as she struggled to pull away from his fingers. At last he was letting her hand go and as soon as he let go, she’d realized his hand was the only thing holding her up.

Søren had found a new love and it was his oldest love—older than his love for her, even older than his love for Kingsley. He was leaving them both for God. And how on earth or how in the hell was she supposed to compete with God?

Nora’s hotline phone rang but she didn’t answer it. Either it was Kingsley calling about scheduling another client or it was Søren, the only person other than Juliette who had her hotline number. She didn’t have the mental energy to talk to Kingsley right now.

Had Søren told Kingsley he was taking Final Vows yet? Possibly. The minute after Kingsley learned of Søren’s accident and injuries, he’d hired a private nurse to tend to their wounded priest twice a day. A relief for Nora. It gave her an excuse to keep her distance from him, gave her time to recover.

When near Søren, she felt too much. He exhausted her the way she imagined the people who lived at the foot of a sleeping volcano were exhausted from pretending they didn’t live at the foot of a sleeping volcano. She’d seen a volcano once, long ago, during a trip out West. At first she thought it nothing more than a snow-capped mountain until someone had called it what it was, and she knew the fear of it then for it was as fearsome as it was beautiful. Finally she understood why Søren’s skin smelled of snow and yet his touch was warm. At the volcano’s core lurked a buried sleeping fire, a channel direct from the molten center of the earth that rose to the coldest corners of the sky. When the volcano erupted—and it would someday—not all the ice and snow in the world would be able to contain the conflagration.

But the snow had to try.

And yet Nora would rather go on living in fear at the foot of that volcano than live in safety anywhere else in the wide world.

Reluctantly Nora glanced at her phone. It had been Kingsley calling. She’d call him back in a few minutes. Or maybe she’d go over to the town house and crawl into bed with him. Not for sex. She just couldn’t stand the thought of spending the night alone in her house with this news, this news hanging over her like a poison cloud. She’d sleep at Griffin’s tonight. Or King’s. Or a total stranger’s. She wished Talel would show up on her doorstep to take her away from her life for a day or two. Or anyone...

With a heavy sigh, Nora walked over to a coffin sitting on the floor of her dungeon. She unlocked the brass latches and opened the lid.

“Time’s up, Troy,” she said.

“Already?” the man in the coffin said. He was naked apart from his black socks and the smile on his face.

“Already. I even gave you five bonus minutes.” She held out her hand and helped him from the coffin. “No charge.”

“You’re wonderful, Mistress. I feel like a million bucks.”

“I wish lying in a coffin for an hour made me feel better,” she said. “I’d sleep in one every night.”

“Nothing like being locked in a coffin and facing your own mortality to make you feel alive.” Troy pulled on his jeans and T-shirt and slipped on his shoes. He did look annoyingly refreshed and happy. “Thank you very much.”

“I still can’t figure out why you pay me for this,” she said as Troy handed over a two-hundred-dollar tip. He was a Wall Street hotshot who regularly made six-and seven-figure commissions. He’d told her once that sensory deprivation helped with his focus and he credited his success at the brokerage to his sessions in his closed and locked coffin. “All I do is lock you in and let you out an hour later. Can’t you get your own coffin and do it at home?”

“I can’t lock myself in. It doesn’t work unless I’m actually locked in and can’t get out. My last domme would open the box every ten minutes to make sure I was still breathing. Ruined my focus. Killed my Zen. Killed my boner, too. Horrible. You leave me alone in there and that’s all I ask. Same time next week?”

“You’re welcome to pseudo-kill yourself in my coffin anytime. Or actually kill yourself.”

“See? This is why you’re the best domme,” Troy said. “You can pull off the whole ‘I don’t care if you actually die’ routine so well. That’s part of the release, the excitement, knowing I could literally die and you’d let me. I face death and conquer it. Then I hit the trading floor like Godzilla, totally immune to fear.”

“Of all the Wall Street guys I know, you are by far the most Wall Street,” she said, opening the dungeon door for him.

“Mistress, I will take that as a compliment,” he said, grinning.

“Troy?”

“Yes, Mistress?”

“It wasn’t a compliment.” She slammed the door in his face.

Through the door she heard a muffled “Love you, Mistress.”

She picked up her red leather day planner off the side table and flipped through it. She thought she had another appointment today but couldn’t remember who it was with or where it was. Juliette had taken over scheduling Nora’s clients while Kingsley was giving her the silent treatment. Juliette was so much better at it Nora almost wished Kingsley hadn’t forgiven her for Talel. Juliette actually scheduled her days off and other wonderful things like that. And whenever scheduling a new client, Juliette would work up something like an intake form for Nora so she would be better prepared for the session.

Inside her planner Nora found the envelope Juliette had clipped to today’s date. She opened and read the form.

White male, American, age 29.

Client requests a one-hour weekly session for pain and release.

Release? Basic code for “beat him until he comes.” And if he didn’t come from the beating he would be, if he earned it, allowed to masturbate while she watched and made commentary.

Client has a strong tolerance for pain but requests no broken skin. A sustained beating is preferred as client wishes to achieve and remain in subspace for the duration of the session. He has been to several dominas before. His experience level is high.

Okay. No whippings. Whips did too much damage. The flogger then, the thick elk-skin one. Those marks healed fast. And candle wax, too. The wax left red marks, but they faded within a day.

One hour of flogging? Easy money.

Nora kept reading.

Medical warning: client has an inoperable brain aneurysm. In case of confusion, strange behavior, fainting, stroke or sudden illness, cease play immediately and call 911. Client has no immediate family with whom he is in contact.

“Knock, knock.”

Nora turned and saw none other than Thorny himself standing in the doorway to her dungeon. He held what looked like at least two dozen red and white roses in his hand.

“You,” she said.

“Me?” He pointed at himself.

“You’re my new client?” she asked, pleasantly surprised. She’d had enough bad surprises lately. She was due for a good surprise.

“Is that a problem?” he asked as he stepped inside.

“Not a problem. Just unexpected. I haven’t seen you in two years.”

“Been busy,” he said. “Busy bee with busy beavers. These are for you, Mistress.”

“Thank you, they’re beautiful.”

“Watch out. I ordered roses with extra thorns.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” Smiling she set the roses on her nightstand. “Thorny, what are you doing here?”

He looked good, healthy despite the aneurysm. He had on tight black jeans and an artfully torn T-shirt, no sleeves to show off his elegant full sleeve tattoos.

“The usual reason—I need to be flogged, often and by someone who knows how.”

“I haven’t seen you in two years and you all of sudden need a flogging from me?”

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against her bedpost.

“Bad week,” he admitted.

“What happened?”

“Consult with a hotshot surgeon who was convinced he could take care of this,” he said, tapping his forehead. “Long story short, he can’t. My fault for getting my hopes up.”

“Oh, Thorny, I’m so sorry,” she said.

He shrugged and didn’t meet her eyes. He looked defeated, scared, almost feverish. Bad week. She knew how he felt.

“I needed a pick-me-up. You’re the best domme in town, so the story goes. I wanted the best.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t feel comfortable taking money from you.”

“Please, I don’t want pity. Anything but that from you.”

“It’s not pity, I promise. I have a client with terminal cancer and another with chronic pain, and I take their money without batting an eyelash. But you... I knew you before you were a client. And I liked you. Plus you warned me about Milady, which you didn’t have to do.”

“You stepped in front of a whip to protect me from a beating. You didn’t have to do that, either.”

“I wish you hadn’t booked me. I would flog you for free, for the fun of it. I like you and I’m not allowed to be intimate friends with a client.”

“Or more than friends?” he asked, giving her a look—that look. That more-than-friends look.

“Or more than friends,” she said, remembering how much she wanted him the night she saw him at the Body House. Her heart broke for him. She couldn’t imagine what he lived with day in and day out. It would be like being locked in a coffin every single day and not knowing if anyone would come along and open the lid. “We already have a prior existing relationship. If Juliette had known that she never would have booked you with me. She would have scheduled you with Mistress Irina or somebody else.”

“I don’t want somebody else. I want you.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem. Dominatrixes and clients are supposed to have distance. Boundaries. I sort of crossed a line with a client a few weeks ago and Kingsley nearly fired me over it.”

“Damn.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to flog you.”

Thorny sat on her bed. He looked good there.

“Well...maybe we could arrange a trade then,” he said. “I can call and cancel my appointment, right? Tell Juliette that I chickened out. She’ll give me my money back, right?”

“Of course. I just have to tell her we didn’t have the session.”

“Then I’m not a client anymore. And you can give me a flogging. And I can give you...well, anything you want, Mistress.”

“Anything I want?”

He batted his eyelashes at her.

“You want me to beat you and top you in exchange for you fucking me?”

“Not just fucking,” Thorny said. “Women don’t pay me two grand a night for a vanilla fuck. I give the whole shebang.”

“What is the whole shebang?”

“It’s when I bang she hole.”

Nora narrowed her eyes at him. Thorny laughed and took her hand into his and kissed the back of it.

“Mistress, I have a gift. And so do you. You give me your gift and I’ll give you my gift. I’m clean. I’ve been tested. I’m a condom maniac. There is no escort on the planet who gives a better Boyfriend Experience than I do.”

Nora sat back against the bedpost. Boyfriend? Wasn’t she just wishing the other day for a boyfriend? A real boyfriend. Not an owner like Søren. Not a slave, either. An actual boyfriend. Someone to share her life with, not just her bed.

“When we’re done will you help me strip the sheets and fold them after they’re dry?” she asked.

“Absolutely. I can never get my sheets folded right without someone helping me. I like to help around the house. It’s fun playing normal sometimes. You wanna play with me?”

“It’s very hard to say no to a sexy silver fox with a brain tumor.”

“It’s not a—”

She slapped her hand over his mouth. “No quoting dumb movies in my dungeon. I get enough of that from Griffin.”

“Mess, Mus-muss.”

She lowered her hand.

“What was that?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Do you really want to have sex with me or are you just trying to distract yourself from this?” Now she tapped his forehead.

“Yeah, I want to have sex with you because I have an aneurysm. That’s the only reason. Or maybe I want to have sex with you because you’re the most famous dominatrix in town, I love being flogged, oh, and you’re so hot ‘Wicked Game’ plays spontaneously when you walk into a room.”

Nora gave him credit. He knew how to hit on a woman.

“How about this...” she said. “We’ll go to my house. I’ll give you the flogging of your dreams. If we end up having sex, great. If not, no harm, no foul. We still had a nice evening together. Good enough?”

“More than good enough. I want to seduce you, however. So, you know, watch your back.”

“Ass man, are you?”

“I’m every kind of man.”

Nora smiled. Every kind of man was her kind of guy.

“Let’s go to my place.”

“So it’s a yes?”

Nora leaned in and kissed him. He kissed her back and as they kissed she saw a volcano in the rearview mirror of her mind, receding into the distance. She felt safer already.

“Yes,” she said against his lips. “Why not?”

“Yes, excellent,” he said. He seemed more than happy. More like...relieved. Did he need a flogging from her that bad?

“Don’t die in my house,” Nora said as she found her keys to lock up the dungeon. “My neighbors think I’m weird enough as it is without a bunch of ambulances showing up to cart your beautiful corpse out of my house.”

“I’d rather come in your bed than go in your bed. You know I’m hypersexual, right? I can get off about eight times a day.”

“Eight?”

“My cock isn’t huge but it’s tenacious.”

“I’ve never met a tenacious cock before. I look forward to making its acquaintance.”

“You’re going to beat me up first, right?”

“Oh, Thorny,” she said as she locked the dungeon behind them and they walked down the hall arm in arm. “I’m going to do such things to you...”

“Good things? Bad things?”

Nora smiled at him.

“Good bad things.”

Thorny kissed her again right in the hallway.

“My favorite things.”

He abruptly stopped kissing her and took a step back.

“Wait,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re not going to get in trouble with Kingsley for this, are you?”

“No, of course not. As long as he doesn’t find out.”

“Good. Just checking.”

“I’ll tell you what Kingsley told me once when he and I did something we weren’t supposed to do—what he doesn’t know won’t hurt us.”

“What if he finds out?”

“He’ll hurt us.”

“Can I ask one more question, Mistress?” Thorny said as they headed to the exit.

“Sure thing. What’s the question?”

“Why do you have a coffin in your dungeon?”

28

A Mirror Image

NORA PICKED UP her Lexus at Kingsley’s and drove her and Thorny to her house in Connecticut. The dog days of August were earning their bad reputation today. The clouds hung in the sky heavy, dark and low and the air simmered with heat. The electricity in the atmosphere made the hair stand up on her arms. Her clothes clung to her skin and it seemed everyone, herself included, wanted nothing more than to be naked inside an air-conditioned room. A few drops of rain fell presaging the coming summer storm, the sky heady and swollen but waiting to burst open. Even the sidewalks steamed.

When they arrived at Nora’s house, Thorny whistled his appreciation while Nora turned off her cell phone. Last thing she wanted was Kingsley calling and interrupting her night off.

“Looks like the kink trade pays better than the flesh trade,” Thorny said.

“You know what they say—if you want to afford a house in New York City, you move out of New York City.”

She let him in and took him up to her bedroom. Luckily her cleaning lady came on Fridays and the house looked and smelled clean and pleasant. Thorny looked around appreciatively. She liked this, bringing guys home to her place. It would be a crime to have such a nice house and no one to share it with.

“This is my bedroom,” Nora said. Sunlight streamed in through the sides of Roman blinds against the window.

“Sexy,” Thorny said. “Nice bed.”

Nora patted the iron footboard. The bed was a bit medieval-looking, and anyone who’d been in Søren’s dungeon would see it looked a bit like his. She had such good memories of that bed...

“You’re not the first client who offered me something in trade for my kink. One of my boys owns the largest furniture store on the Eastern Seaboard. He told me if I could beat him until he passed out, he’d let me have the pick of his showroom. Voilà.”

“Passed out? Jesus,” Thorny said, tugging off his jacket. “That’s too rough for my blood.”

“Don’t worry. I only hit as hard as my boys want to be hit. You like floggings, right, but hate whips? They feel too much like switches?”

“You remember that?” He grinned, obviously pleased.

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks.” She walked to him where he stood at the foot of her bed, leaning against the post. She put her hands on his chest and kissed him again. He wasn’t nearly as tall as Søren. She guessed his height at about five-ten. In her three-inch heels she could easily reach his lips. His kisses were sweet and gentle, affectionate, but with a hint of the passion she knew he hid within him. She could taste it on her tongue. Copper. The same taste as the electricity in the humid August air.

“So you’re going to give me the Boyfriend Experience?” Nora asked.

“I am.”

“Then I will give you the Submissive Experience. How does that sound?”

“Does it involve you putting me into subspace and getting me off so hard I can taste music and smell stars?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds perfect. But...we’re doing this in here?” he asked.

“Why not?”

“Well...it’s a bedroom. Just a bedroom.” He glanced around the room and she saw what he saw—a spacious bedroom with a recessed sitting area, an iron bed, a few novels on the nightstand and a lamp, and not much else but an ornately carved cheval mirror standing in the corner. Apart from two potted plants hanging from the ceiling by the mirror, there was not much else...

Or was there?

“Looks, my boy, can be deceiving.” She winked at him and pulled away. On her way to her closet she glanced back over her shoulder. “You should be taking your clothes off right now. In case you didn’t know.”

“Yes, Mistress.” He yanked his shirt off and she saw both of his nipples were pierced with silver hoops. Lovely. She did her best to ignore his body while she set up the room. From her closet she took out a black step stool and two lengths of rope. She threw a two-foot chrome spreader bar on the bed and found her favorite fawn-colored wrist and ankle cuffs. They were padded with soft faux fur on the inside. She wanted Thorny to feel coddled and comfortable, even in bondage.

“I’m only going to flog you, but you’ll be cuffed so you won’t be able to move much until I let you out. I’ll monitor your pain. If it’s good you say green. If you need me to back off a notch or slow down, say yellow. If it’s bad say red. Red won’t stop the scene. It’ll just stop the flogging until you’re ready again. Your safe word will end everything. What’s your safe word?”

“Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second.”

Nora looked at him with a raised eyebrow. Thorny aimed at her one of the sexier grins that had ever been aimed at a woman in the history of sexy grinning.

“I don’t safe out often,” he said.

“Queen Liz it is then.”

From the top of her closet, Nora pulled out a black bag. She tossed it onto the bed and unzipped it. Thorny wasn’t naked yet. He still wore black boxer briefs but she didn’t scold him. His interest in stripping had no doubt been diverted by what Nora took out of her bag.

“Suede,” Nora said, pulling out the first flogger. It had fourteen-inch scarlet-red tails. “Very soft and sensual. The bright blue is next. It’s deer-hide. The leather is buttery. Feel?”

She held it out and Thorny ran his fingers over the tails.

“Nice. Very smooth,” he said.

“This black one is bull-hide. Much sharper edges. The yellow-and-black one is rubber. It’s stingy like a bee so we’ll leave that one alone. It would feel a little like a whipping. But this one...” She held up a hunter-green-and-black flogger. “This one’s elk. Heavy and thuddy.”

“I like thuddy.”

“I thought you would.” She pulled out one last flogger but didn’t remove it from its red leather case. “This one’s special. I’ll save it for last.”

She lined them up on the bed in order of lightest and softest to heaviest and hardest. Thorny gazed at them with heat in his eyes.

“Why do you like floggings?” Nora came to him and ran her hands over his chest, shoulders and arms.

“Floggers are beautiful. They can feel soft one second and hard as steel the next. Takes an expert to wield one the right way. And you can get hit with them all over your body. Arms, legs, feet, anywhere, without doing real damage. I don’t know. They’re just sexy and scary and sensual all at the same time. Just like you.”

Nora kissed him again, slipping her tongue between his lips slowly as she eased her hands into his underwear and pushed them down. Her lips left his reluctantly, but she continued her downward trajectory as she dragged the boxers to the floor and bade Thorny step out of them. She stood up and took a step back.

“Very nice,” she said of his body. He was hard already. All of him and not just his cock. He had a hard flat stomach, a hard V of muscle on each side of his torso, hard hipbones that jutted out, and two vertical hard lines of muscles in his thighs. “You run.”

“How did you know?”

“Even blindfolded I could recognize runner quads. You have a lovely body, Thorny. I can’t wait to use it and abuse it for my amusement and pleasure.”

“That’s what it’s here for, Mistress.”

“Yes. Yes, it is. And now to show you the secret of my bedroom. Go stand facing the mirror.”

He did as ordered. Nora picked up her ropes and her step stool and carried them over to Thorny. Now there were two Thornys—the real one and the mirror one.

She put the step stool by his left foot and climbed it.

“Excuse me whilst I put my ferns away.”

“I don’t think you get enough light in here for ferns, Mistress.”

“It’s okay. They’re fake,” she said. “I had to tell the contractor something to get him to install two hooks in the ceiling of my bedroom, didn’t I?”

Thorny glanced up at the J-shaped hooks screwed into the plaster above them.

“I told the contractor I needed two hooks for my plants and that he should make sure they could hold two hundred pounds each.”

“Those would be some big fucking plants, Mistress.”

“That’s what the contractor said.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I like my plants the way I like my men—hanging from hooks on my bedroom ceiling. He didn’t ask any more questions after that.”

Nora looped her rope over the hooks and came down from the stool. First, she buckled the padded cuffs on Thorny’s wrists, then she hoisted them above his head and secured them with the rope. Next she cuffed his ankles and bound them to the two-foot spreader bar. When she finished, Thorny stood immobile, naked and hard three feet from her mirror with his arms tied to the hooks on the ceiling and his feet rooted firmly to the floor.

“Relax for me,” Nora ordered as she made a circuit around his body, dragging her fingernails lightly over his stomach, sides and the small of his back. “Go as limp as you can.”

He closed his eyes, and she saw him sagging in the bonds.

“This is as limp as I’m going to get,” he said and Nora paused in front of him, looking meaningfully at his erection. Only looking. Not touching. That would come later.

“Excellent.” Even going limp, Thorny had barely moved. The spreader bar, rope, hooks and cuffs held him firmly and safely in place. Nora touched his face and let their eyes meet.

“The name Thorny suits you. Like a hawthorn bush you’re a little dangerous to be around, but you are very lovely to look at.”

“Thank you, Mistress.”

“Are you blushing?” she asked, smiling at him. “Did I make a whore blush?”

“You did. Can’t wait to make a domme beg.”

“Wait your turn,” she teased. “You’re all mine now. You must spend a lot of time taking care of your clients. It’s good you’re taking some time to let someone else take care of you.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Taking care of me?”

He pushed his hips forward, but she didn’t scold him for it.

“I want to take very good care of you,” she said, slipping a blindfold over his eyes. The mirror in front of him was for her, so she could watch his face and his reactions. She wanted him utterly lost in sensation, seeing nothing, feeling everything. “You’re in my hands now, in my bedroom. This is the safest room in the world right now. Nothing and no one will harm you here. Your body will be honored. Your desires will be honored. Your trust in me will be honored. Do you believe me?”

“Yes, Mistress.” He whispered the words. Good. The spell was already taking effect. She ran her thumbs over the arch of his cheekbones, over his lips. She outlined his ears and caressed his collarbone with her fingertips.

“I’m going to enjoy flogging you very much,” she said, running her hands up and down his sides, over and around his rib cage. “I love flogging beautiful men. Worse ways to spend a hot August afternoon, right?”

“I can’t think of a better way, Mistress.”

She took her suede flogger off the bed and combed her fingers through the velvety tails.

“You’re with Mistress Nora now. Nothing bad ever happens when you’re with Mistress Nora. Only good things. Wonderful things. Things like this.” She brushed the tips of the flogger tails over the tops of his bare feet and toes. Thorny smiled. With a light back-and-forth motion, Nora brushed the flogger across his shins. She worked her way up his legs, gently caressing him with the flogger, letting the tails lap and lick at his skin. Holding the flogger high over him, she ran the tips of the tails over the full length of his penis.

As she swept the flogger over his erection, Thorny’s hips undulated in rhythm with it, a sight she found terribly erotic. She looked forward to when it was his turn showing off his special skill set. But now all she wanted was to give him the flogging of his dreams. Nothing else mattered.

When Thorny’s breathing grew heavier, Nora moved to his backside, not wanting him to come until after the beating. She whisked the flogger over the back of his legs now and between them, licking at his inner thighs and testicles. She did nothing that hurt, nothing that caused pain. She wanted only to wake up his body, put his nerves on notice.

“Best ass I’ve seen in a long time,” Nora said, gently slapping the ass in question with her flogger.

“Thank you, Mistress.” Thorny gave her a little wiggle.

Nora stepped back and used a wide swing now on Thorny’s back and arms. She was careful to keep the pressure as light as possible. Nothing would jar him out of the safe space in his mind faster than a hard hit when he wasn’t prepared for it. No...this moment was all about pleasure...teasing...tickling...caressing...the soft stroke of suede on bare skin. Thorny was a vocal submissive. His sighs and gasps of pleasure filled the room. When she’d touched every part of his body with the flogger, even running the tips of the tails over his face, she stopped and tossed it on the bed. She came back to Thorny and put her hands on his hips, rubbing them to bring more blood into his pelvic region.

“On a scale of one to ten in the realm of impact play,” she said, “that was about a one. A whip can get you to a ten. I’ll take you to about a six or a seven and bring you back down again. We’ll go there together. You won’t be alone.” She spoke in a low voice and kissed the back of his neck between sentences.

When she returned to Thorny, she had the second-lightest flogger in her hand. She tickled his back with the tails and she saw a shiver pass over his body.

“You like that? It’s the deerskin. I’m going to start easy, at a two, but I’ll move up to a three quickly. Thighs, ass, middle and upper back and shoulders. No kidneys, no head, no neck. You will enjoy this, Thorny...almost as much as I will.”