As She’s Told
: Chapter 13

Anders kicked through cool water, flippers propelling him lazily upward. The intense colour of the light, the way it filtered through variations of azure, meant Costa Rica, the year he turned eighteen. Blues shaded to green as he swam up toward sunshine.

He was carrying a passenger. The invertebrate that had attached itself to his thigh seemed determined not to break the suction. What was it? Red-orange fronds, oddly hot for a sea creature, a cute little thing, but big enough to wrap around his leg and not let go. Something he couldn’t place at all.

Maybe it was an undiscovered species and he’d get it named after him. He hit the surface to startling blackness, and a confused alarm lest his creature die out in the air. No fear. Maia’s thighs were clenched round one of his, her wet vulva splayed against him. She was locked to the bed by wrists and ankles, but despite this their bodies often tangled in the night. Had she been moving against him? Her breathing was rapid. Was she awake? ‘Maia.’ No response. He was about to gently pry her legs apart and disengage himself when she stiffened, moaned and locked her legs on his like a vice. She was awake; he felt it. ‘Stop it, girl!’

She wailed a protest, and before he could pull away she came, her urgent pelvis thrusting hard.

Anders disentangled and sat up. The clock said 4:43. He turned on the light.

Maia’s head was wrapped in her arms. Her legs were drawn up as high as the ankle chain allowed; she would have rolled into a cringing ball if she’d had the option. He rolled her onto her back and firmly pulled her arms out of the way so he could see her crying face. Her skin was rosy and damp, and she smelled of sex. She was still panting, and groaning faintly on the exhales. It must have been a hell of a good one. He looked at her hard, and pressed her arms back against the pillow when she tried to resume her protective curl. She whimpered, and her head thrashed back and forth. No apology. ‘Well?’ he said at last. Maia swallowed, then muttered, ‘I’m sorry, master.”

“I don’t believe you.’

She stared at his chest, tears spilling over and trailing toward her ears. ‘I

– I – am –’ She snuffled hard. ‘I will be, anyway.’ Her voice shook and she started to weep again.

‘Damned right you will. You brazen little bitch! Did you think you could get away with that?’

‘No…no,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m sorry! I was half asleep, and then…’

‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know what you were doing.’

‘I didn’t! I don’t think I did. Not at first. Then I – I was so close!….

Master, master, please!’

‘Please what?’

‘I can’t do it! I can’t stop myself any more! Please!’

In Maia’s wet eyes there was a desperate light of defiance. Sobs wracked her. Anders sat beside her and let her turn onto her side, his hand on one shaking shoulder.

Once again he’d miscalculated. He’d got the timing wrong. And about the same thing. He sat cursing silently to himself.

He’d thought he knew her, had her mapped, inside and out. And yet clearly he’d mistaken her outward composure for something deeper. Just because she had an air of self-control didn’t mean it was more than camouflage. Hell, she’d even told him the day he got her pierced. What did he need, a kick in the head?

But she’d gotten herself well and truly on the hook now; letting her off was out of the question. ‘Why didn’t you say this the other day when you had the chance?’

She turned her head and stared at him, wiped her eyes on her arms, snuffled. ‘Question time?’ she asked, her voice clogged. ‘I thought – I don’t know, I thought – I could do it. I thought I had to.’ She let out a long breath.

‘It seemed so – insubstantial a thing to complain about. And I’ve never, I’ve never….’

She’d never responded to those scheduled time-out catechisms with any kind of a problem, except her problem with the questions themselves. So he’d relied on close observation and his instincts instead, and they had seemed to serve them both very well. How had he missed this? Apparently he’d seen only what he wanted to see, so wrapped up in the sadistic pleasure of denial that he perceived her as more capable, or less desperate, than she actually was. He had been far more careful to keep an eye out for her physical limits; this one he hadn’t taken seriously.

He yawned, looked down at the apprehensive face below him, and thought for a while. Smiled secretly, thinking of his frantic little sea anemone, using his thigh to come. Or now that he was back on land, his little hunhund. Very hot, though he wouldn’t tell her so. What now?

‘Master?”

“Mm?’

‘I really am sorry.’ Her face crumpled up. Now she was telling the truth. Guilt was radiating off her like heat off an engine.

‘I know you are, sweetheart.’ He caressed her cheek, thumbed away a tear or two. ‘And I’m sorry I missed the signs. But if you think you’re going to disobey, from now on you must tell me, do you understand?’ Chin trembling, she nodded. ‘You’ve been a very bad girl, and that means some serious punishment…’ she nodded again, eyes swimming, and kissed his palm. ‘…which will take some thought, and which isn’t going to happen at five in the morning. Although… hmm.’ He eyed her speculatively. ‘Okay.

First we’ll make sure there’s no repeat performance.’

He adjusted the bonds on her wrists and ankles, spreading them wide to put her inescapably on her back. Then he went downstairs and fetched a little bottle of Tabasco from the kitchen. ‘The trick,’ he said, unscrewing the cap, ‘will be to keep this off the piercings. So I think I’ll just apply it to the very most relevant spot.’ He tipped a drop or two onto his finger, and with his other hand carefully spread her labia very wide, pulling the flesh forward a little to shift the clit hood off his target. As the tip of his finger made contact she arched and drew in a hissing breath. Anders stood up to watch. A fine sweat broke out all over her body; she shone with it. She was staring past him, her eyes as wide as a horror movie heroine’s, mouth half open, breath held. A grating sound drew his attention from her face; the chains were scraping hard against the bed frame. Her eyes rolled back; she arched harder, let out a breath and held it again. Anders went off to wash his hand, careful to do so before he peed. He’d long ago learned to avoid the chili oil hazard. Then he settled back into bed, pulling the covers up over himself and the sweating creature beside him. In five minutes he was asleep.

***

I lay staring into the night, now shading toward grey and the merciless indictment of dawn. The burn didn’t level off; its trajectory was still on an upward course, heading for the stars. It took everything I had to keep still.

But after a while it got no worse. Everything was focused in that one small spot, all my straining concentration. I wanted it to stop. Then I wanted more.

Then I wanted it to stop. Then I tried in a panic to imagine how long it could possibly go on. Tears slid down toward the pillow and I rolled my head from side to side to get rid of them. Disgusting, disobedient girl! Stupid, sneaky, self-indulgent…. He was right to respond with this excruciating, finely focused punishment, exactly where I deserved. I tried to bring back some echo of the orgasm that had brought on this infliction of justice, but it had been burned away, wiped out of memory.

It was one thing to act like an animal when forced by my master to do so; it was quite another thing to take the initiative myself and hump his leg like a dog. The self-inflicted humiliation stabbed like a hot knife, burning guiltily between my legs – no, that was the hot sauce. No, that was my shame.

I didn’t think I’d sleep at all, but the alarm tipped me out of a shallow trough into full daylight and a fresh sense of doom. The knife between my legs had blunted a bit, but all my limbs were stiff, and I was exhausted. I stumbled along on my leash, and it was a good thing that someone else was in charge of me, or I would have crawled right back into bed.

My fog was thickened by a yellowish pall of shame; when my master talked to me I was vaguely astonished that he was bothering to use language at all. Yanks and blows would have been the right level of communication for a creature like me. I whispered out the answers as to how the effects were persisting (numb and burning both), and never raised my eyes to his.

The cool morning air revived my higher brain functions a little, enough to allow the general dread and depression over my failure to focus and grow sharp. I knew something about the way Anders worked by this time. That drop of Tabasco was only an appetizer, a little preliminary to the main course. Or perhaps the first taste in a series – like tapas or dim sum. There would be more to come; a lot more. But would any of it be enough?

***

The only woman working at the lumberyard was the cashier. Val circled and closed in like a casual hawk. Out of the corner of his eye Anders saw a bit of paper changing hands.

‘I hope that wasn’t your receipt; I need that for taxes,’ he said, as they closed the back of the truck.

Val gave him a smug look. ‘Jealous?”

“You just got a new girl last week; are you finished with her already?”

“Handy to have one in reserve.’

‘You’ll have them fighting over you. I thought you hated that. Or are you getting kinkier? More than one at a time in your bed?’

‘Hey, good idea. What about your own ménage? Planning to add a slave or two? Assuming you’ll manage to hang on to the one you’ve got, of course.’

Anders smiled, thinking of the clinging, frantic thighs of the night before. He’d probably manage.

He pulled out of the parking lot, feeling the restlessness over the events of the night, and how close Val was to picking up the signals. Not today; he didn’t feel like an interrogation today. He could sense her turning in his direction, head like a radar dish.

‘Speaking of hardware,’ he said, ‘have you ever heard of a ring for a piercing that will lock, and open and close easily? Not like I’ve already got.

Something round.’

Val looked amused, and with the air of indulging a madman said, ‘No, Thygesen, I don’t have your passion for obscure fetish technology.’ She pulled the receipt out of her shirt pocket and frowned at it. ‘Hang on, did we get the drywall screws? Shit.’ Her sliding thumb paused. ‘Okay, here they are; never mind.’ She tucked the receipt away. ‘Check with the woman who did Maia; maybe she’s got something.’

‘She can get the same thing I’ve got already – round on top, straight on the bottom. Opens with a little tool. It’s fine for nipples, but for a nose it needs to be round.”

“Why?’

He said dryly, ‘Because it’s more aesthetically pleasing to me that way.’

Her suppressed laugh came out as a snort. ‘Oh, well, can’t argue with that.’ Then addressing the problem despite herself she added, ‘There’s not much room in a little ring for any kind of lock. What about a drop of glue?’

‘I want to be able to get it on and off.’

‘Oh, c’mon, make her wear it to work! No? Wimp. Could you get one with a really stiff closure that she couldn’t manage without a tool?’

‘I thought of that. Though I’m hardly an expert with piercings myself.’

‘Well, you can practice. I’m pretty sure that the ring will loosen up, though, if you keep opening and closing it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not crazy about that solution anyway. I want a lock.’

‘A controlling son of a bitch who’s also obsessive-compulsive. Lucky girl.’

When they got to the site he began cutting floorboards to fit around a fireplace, working alone so he could think.

Maia was slipping beyond his grasp again. He knew by the way his body was feeling; there was an uneasy sensation in his chest, and his hands kept wanting to grab something. Today was all right; he had her back under control today, but he could hardly use hot sauce on her every night. Topical anaesthetic? Possible, if it lasted long enough, which he doubted. He could imagine some uses for it, but it felt like a bit of a cop-out in the present case

– a cooling down for her, a negation rather than an action on his part.

Anders measured, made another cut. Last time he’d felt this way, the answer had been to step up control. But the equipment to control her wasn’t available yet. He was fed up with himself for having once more screwed up the timing. If he’d taken the teasing more slowly they wouldn’t be in this mess. Whole generations of fatalistic forebears apparently couldn’t suppress his arrogance and overconfidence. Too much damage from that little problem. Perfectionism, too. His own petulance exasperated him; he had ninety-nine percent of the control he wanted and was grumbling because he didn’t have it all. You can’t nail everything down, Thygesen. He shook his head. No. Beyond this relationship his power had limits; that was more than clear. Inside it – no. And she needed him to have it all, just as much as he did. The problem had to be addressed. What was he going to do? He couldn’t reward her for her disobedience by holding off on the teasing that had prompted it. He shifted the cut boards to the wall and brought the next pile over to the bench. His control was going to be increasingly at risk if he kept teasing her, no matter how much guilt she felt or how much punishment he inflicted. Like it or not, she’d defied him, and that had set a precedent. I can’t stop her. He clenched his fist on the saw, then made himself relax before he screwed up the board he was cutting. He really couldn’t stop her. And then he had an idea.

***

That evening I watched from my knees as Anders installed a couple more D-rings in the living room baseboards. More attachments points, in a house that was by no means deficient in them. Then I was spreadeagled on my back, straps pulling all four limbs taut. He stood between my legs and gave me a long, unreadable look.

‘You know the expression, ‘Be careful what you wish for?”

Oh-oh. I bit my lip and nodded. He pressed something between my labia, something hard and smooth, and tightened straps around the tops of my thighs to keep the thing in place. I couldn’t get a look at it. He adjusted it so that it pressed on my clit, now fully recovered. Fear didn’t interfere with arousal; instantly I was wet and eager. How stupid could I be? I sucked in a fast breath, then opened my eyes in shock when the buzzing started. A vibrator. Oh, my god…. My back began to arch, like it had with the hot sauce, except that this was another thing altogether. Anders stood looking down at me for a minute, then stepped over my legs and sat down on the couch.

I knew what was coming, and it wasn’t going to be me. This was remote control, and he was going to turn it off at the last minute. I tried to struggle away from the vibrator, but it moved with me. Then I was struggling to get more of it, just as unsuccessfully. It buzzed away, doing what it did, a blind, oblivious blunt object. The restraint was having its usual effect on me, and the build-up came fast, then faster, and I gulped for air, and tensed, and cringed inwardly, anticipating the cut-off, the terrible need, his laughter and punishing eyes. No more than I deserved.

And then, like the flick of an enormous switch, the thing pressing my clit became the source of a thousand volts; my body clicked over and convulsed. I came so hard I howled, hips trembling, fists clenched. It was gorgeous. In the second wave I arched my back and looked painfully behind me at Anders on the couch, watching. He made no move.

The spasms ended, but the vibrations against my clit, excruciatingly, did not. In panic I thrashed; I couldn’t bear continued contact right after an orgasm. But it didn’t stop. I was screaming, trying desperately to pull away from the vibrator, begging for it to stop. Behind me again I glimpsed the upside-down view of him watching. And I understood that this was the punishment. My face was wet, and my body continued its frantic, pointless thrashing. Eventually the intensity shifted and rounded out and spread, and I was building again. Oh, god! I lay flat on the floor, trying to give my body a rest, but the insistent buzzing kept at me. Soon my muscles were taut again, and my hips were rocking. Anders stepped over me and came back with a beer.

My pleas and whines were completely ignored. It took longer this time, but I came again, in one single long surge, the hard plastic giving me no room to manoeuvre, no chance of subtlety, no interplay of nerves and flesh.

Just an infliction, intense, mechanical, the pleasure followed almost immediately by that overwhelming, unbearable intensity. I wrenched my hips desperately, and howled, and begged again. He picked up a book.

The cycle continued. Decades went by. I was a wrung-out dishrag, wired like a marionette, my eyes cracked and seeping. Orgasms and their excruciating aftermath alternated and merged, from one aching throb to another barely distinguishable. The room became a series of blurs with salt prism edges.

At last one blur resolved into a long form, standing over me.

‘Had enough?’

I nodded passionately, past the point of whispered pleas. The vibrations stopped. He untied me and lifted me and let me sit, stunned, in his lap.

Gently he massaged my arms and legs, rubbed tender places on my back and butt that I hadn’t been aware of, stroked and kissed me. I saw the clock; and my mind reeled. It had only been an hour since dinner.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘That ought to hold you for a while.’ Bastard.

Then he pushed me to my knees and came in my mouth like a cavalry charge.

I have to admit that the ordeal did lower the tension. The next day, for the first time in all the weeks I’d been at my job, I wasn’t fighting arousal.

Actually I couldn’t imagine ever being aroused again. The harness was just something that I wore, a necessary accessory for the slave that I was, but the sexuality of it was for my master, not for me. I was still slightly depressed because I’d had to be punished like that, but I worked like a very advanced piece of software: all systems firing, no errors.

That evening my master came home and let me up out of my corner.

After my chores I’d spent my waiting time sitting on my heels there on his written instructions, collar closely linked to the wall, wrist cuffs chained to the same spot. He was taking no chances. Completely unnecessary, I thought at first – if he imagined I wanted to touch my clit today he was crazy. But gradually, leaning into my corner, looking down between my harnessed breasts, I began to feel that crucial nerve bundle regain its function. I knew I was back on line when his big body crouched next to mine, smelling of rain, sawdust, and his own electrifying atmosphere: essence of Anders.

He didn’t allow me up off my hands and knees for quite a while. Half an hour after dinner I crawled up the stairs and stared at the floor in the back room, hands braced, legs wide, as the harness came off.

‘I enjoyed last night,’ my master said lightly, hanging up the harness,

‘but you talked too damned much.’ He picked up something else. Leather and rivets dangled before my eyes. ‘We’re going to try some enforced silence for a while.’ Something cylindrical, black and rubbery was pressed between my teeth, a tight strap pushed under my chin. He adjusted straps around my head, over the bridge of my nose. A bridle. The final ratcheting adjustments at the back of my head pulled the heavy bit deep into my mouth.

It was curved, with a thicker portion in the middle that pressed down on my tongue. I’d worn simple one-strap ballgags before, but not this head-encasing web of humiliation. There were reins attached to the bit, dangling from rings on either side of my jaw. I glanced up at the mirror, and some kind of animal looked back. Anders was behind me now. A cold sensation on my asshole that I knew well, and then the prod of something hard. Not him; not warm flesh. Something cool and rigid pushing past my sphincter. I cried out as the thing slid into me, narrower and harder than his penis; cried out again as he drove it higher. Straps tightened straight up the back, in a Y up the front; a belt circled, locks clicked. I groaned, my bridled head in my arms.

There was a yank on the corners of my mouth that pulled my head up. I stared up the whole length of the man in front of me, at a face austere and impassive from that angle, like a Calvinist statue consigning the sinners to hell. Suddenly he was just pure and scary god-like dom. A god of judgment, offering no latitude, no quarter.

He fastened the length of the reins to the wall, ran the tip of his whip down my side, and started me on stretches to warm up. Exercise time. The butt plug, that astonishing intrusion, kept bringing me up short, but Anders made no allowances. I’d rarely been punished during warm ups, but he punished me now. Then he started me on aerobics – standing jumps, lunges, wall squat thrusts, jumping squats. All apparently chosen to make the plug as disturbing as possible. All continued until I gasped hoarsely around the bit. I couldn’t open my mouth more than a millimetre wider than the bit, because of the jaw strap. There was plenty of room at the sides to draw in air, but in addition to everything else, I felt the frustration of being unable to hang my mouth open and pant, to close my mouth and swallow. Saliva dripped down my chin and onto my chest. I wanted to plead with him, beg for a rest. The whip bit and stung and my voice flung out its inarticulate vowels of pain. I wanted to be flung down and fucked, hard. Occasionally my weary legs would take me too far from the wall and I’d run into the bridle and feel it yank me back like an unruly horse.

At last my master let me do some cool-down stretches, and it was over.

Except for the arousal, which seemed to have been pumped into all my body tissues along with the extra oxygen and the endorphins. My frantic breathing hardly slowed. He mopped me up and wiped me down where I was, still held by the reins, butt plug a sweet immovable hell in my rear. Then I was back on my hands and knees. Long fingers ran along welts, tickled my belly, drew my swollen nipples out and tugged the rings. The fingers journeyed in lines between my legs, running along the labia rings like a stick along a fence. On the return trip one hand dipped into my soft, soaking wet centre, while the other pressed and twisted the butt plug. Wordless subhuman sounds emerged from my lowest levels.

My master’s deep voice murmured my ear. ‘Well, well. You’re horny again, my naughty girl. After all that work last night.’ I groaned and let my head drop. ‘Now, what am I going to do with you this time to keep you out of mischief?’ I looked up at him and began shaking my head, but he caught me by the bridle and held me still. ‘Come on.’ I stumble-crawled after him, hoping for anything but a repeat of the night before.

But it looked like that was exactly what I was going to get. He pulled me to the modified exercise bench arranged in the middle of the back room, fastened me down on my back with my legs up and hanging from short straps from the weight rack, and brought out equipment that was clearly electrical. I began a panicky moaning, and got my thigh slapped, hard.

‘Quiet!’ I swallowed and suppressed a whimper.

His eyebrows gathered like storm clouds, and I shrank. ‘Even bridled you make too much noise, slave. Altogether too free with your vocal cords.

Time to learn how to shut up.’ He clipped something to the bridle.

Something got inserted into my vagina, and something else pressed my clit. I watched as best I could. I shut up. He tied elastics to my nipple rings, and tied those to strings that attached through rings to my ankles. Gingerly I experimented; the slightest kick was going to yank on my nipples; the leeway provided by the elastics should keep me from damaging the piercings, but it wasn’t going to keep me from hurting myself. I managed to cut off the panicky whimpers rising in my throat, and tried to keep my rapid breathing quiet. Anders fiddled around my waist, drew out the butt plug and immediately replaced it with something colder. More fiddling. Finally he stood looking down on me, his eyes their most indecipherable grey.

A click, and I was transported back to the previous night: the vibrator against my clit began to buzz. Then inside my cunt, a thrusting sensation; I looked for Anders between my legs, but he was off to one side. Whatever it was felt wonderful, a pulsing, like being penetrated. I’d no idea electricity could feel like that. In combination with the vibrator I was going to come very soon. My back arched. I wanted to open my mouth wide, and I couldn’t; I wanted to moan and howl, and that was forbidden. The vibrations kicked up a notch; Anders had some controls and he was using them. I stared over at him, trembling. One of my legs kicked convulsively, my nipple felt the painful yank and I gasped, and instantly I was hit with a terrible kick in the rear. I screamed and it hit me again, and I began to thrash and cry. Anders flipped his controls and grabbed my face.

‘Shh. Quiet, girl!’ he demanded. ‘Quiet! Look at me. Pay attention. The plug in your ass is on a painful setting. There’s a mike by your mouth that triggers it.’

I gasped and held my breath as the stimulation started again, let it out as gently as I could. If the feelings couldn’t get some release through sound or movement, if it all had to be contained, I was going to implode. My lungs caught each breath and held it. I can’t I can’t I can’t…. Hands and arms were flexing, head turning from side to side. Without hope I drew my arms and pelvis up tight, trying somehow to fend off the inevitable. And then the first spasms hit, my legs flew out, and a gasp escaped me. The shock stopped the orgasm dead. Tears sprang from my eyes. I turned to my master, saw his smile, and shut my eyes tight.

The stimulation continued inexorably. I squirmed and arched in vain attempts to pull back, winced at the resultant inadvertent pull to a nipple, already painful from the last debacle. The vibrator clung and buzzed. The thrusting sensation spread arousal wide, wider; so sweet and so terrifying.

My hands clenched into fists above their cuffs. Here it came again – oh, god

– and again at the first contraction that shocking blow; I thought I’d suppressed all noise but I could hear it ringing in my ears a moment later.

Again the orgasm stopped in its tracks. I wanted to scream, long and loud.

My master still watched, his smile oddly gentle, though there were lights dancing in those grey eyes. I put everything I had into silent pleading, staring at him. He stroked my arm.

‘You’re going to learn, girl, like it or not. Stop fighting it.’

Stop fighting it? Was he mad? How?

All right, I thought. I breathed light and fast, and gently I spread my knees as wide as they could go, trying to relax into the sensations. At the same time I attempted to block all motor and vocal responses. I almost made it that time. I got halfway into the orgasm before the pull, the pain and the shock hit me.

‘Better, girl.’ He stroked my hair back from my sweating face. ‘Getting there.’

I didn’t do as well the next time, or the next, and sanity began to slip.

Echoing around inside my skull was every variety of curse and whine and desperate appeal. I shut my eyes so tight my tears turned back and ran down my throat. How could he do this to me? How could he turn my own body against me like this?

But at last the orgasm came and the shock did not. I opened my eyes wide and stared at the ceiling, hanging on, just barely, through one shuddering wave after another. My legs escaped my control once or twice, painfully, but my voice did not; I got through it without making a sound.

The vibrator and the pulsing stopped. My gratitude was immeasurable, because if it had gone on into the unbearable aftermath there was no way I could have contained myself. He leaned over me, one hand gentle on my heaving chest. ‘That’s my good girl,’ he said. ‘Next time you’ll be quicker.’

***

Over the next couple of weeks, I was subjected to many variations on the theme: extensive teasing, and then punishing orgasms that exhausted my libido until I was teased again. Every other day he went back to the simple, excruciating repetition that he’d subjected me to on the first day. He said he didn’t want me to get conditioned out of moving and making noise all the time, just when he chose. I made plenty of noise through the bridle on those evenings, back on the living room floor, spread-eagle and sweating. That part of the punishment continued more or less the same.

The predicaments, on the other hand, got more stringent as the days passed; my head and arms and toes were tied to my nipple rings as well, so that I had to learn to keep my whole body still.

The toes were the hardest. Like trying to sneeze without closing your eyes. I hadn’t known that I flexed my toes when I came; who thought about feet at a time like that? Well, maybe some people do; not me. But now I had to think about my feet, and the rest of my limbs, and especially my voice, all while being taken over by devastatingly thorough enforced orgasms. Mind you, a little pull on the rings wasn’t bad; it was even good if I could keep it under control. But my devious master made sure that was never, ever easy.

His mercy with the off button didn’t last long. As soon as I was managing to keep still through the first orgasm, he left the vibrator on, and made me go through the intolerable aftermath as well. And I had to learn to tolerate it without a single cry.

He upped the ante by adding sticky electrode pads to various sensitive spots for additional punishment – my buttocks, for instance, and my breasts (with carefully alternating current – he discoursed to my silent, trussed form the risks of electricity above the waist). The smaller the pad, the more painful the shock, so of course the pads got smaller. He also experimented with pleasurable electrostim, but always in the context of driving me crazy and watching me try not to writhe.

I had thought that our life was intense before, but this nightly torment was a whole new level. Each time he released me I clung to him, dazed and exhausted; he spent a lot of aftercare time holding and cuddling. I’d calm down, recover some kind of equilibrium, and remember arousal as if it was a distant cousin who’d stopped visiting years ago and moved out of town. And the next evening I’d be compelled back to the ordeal by leash and whip, hot, wet and terrified.

Pleading of any kind would have been futile, so it was probably just as well that I was bridled almost constantly during that period. In fact, as soon as my bowl was licked clean each lunchtime, I had to make my way back to the bench and get into the bridle myself. The closure was a ratcheting lock arrangement, so once I was in, that was it until my master got home. The gag could be released separately, but only with one of his friend’s clever little keys. And that happened only briefly when he fed me. For sucking his cock he inserted other gag arrangements – big ring gags, or dental gags to force my mouth open. Humiliation upon humiliation. When he took me off the table and soothed me he held my bridled head to his chest, and kissed my hair through the straps.

During that period, practically the only time I spoke at home was for a few minutes that second night, in whispers after we went to bed. My master snuggled up behind me, ran one warm hand from my chained arm down to my side and then onto my thigh. I leaned back against him. Something was missing. Usually the touch of his long body got me going like nothing else; in some ways that was the hardest tease of all. But it was all used up, it seemed. Until next time. ‘How are you holding up, girl?’ he murmured.

‘Tell me.’

Carefully, I considered this question. I was getting what I wanted – an utterly controlling, imaginative dom, who loved me into the bargain. He used and cared for me as the property I was, and for that I was profoundly grateful. He was taking care of his property now, checking for damage, hidden stress or strains. I understood that by now. The property had no right to hold back. How was I holding up anyway?

‘I’m scared, master,’ I whispered. ‘So scared…. But I’m okay.”

“Scared of what?”

“The next time. It’s hard…. I’m so sorry I messed up.”

“When?’

‘When I – when I came – the other night. So bad at controlling myself, I’m sorry; I’ll try….’

He squeezed me gently, put a hand on my lips. ‘Shh. I know. What else besides guilty and scared?’

‘Happy. My god…. More than that. No words….’ I thought some more.

‘Secure. Safe. Frustrated. Sometimes panicky. I don’t know,’ I sighed. ‘I’ve got all these contradictory feelings. Angry? I get – I get mad sometimes, you know, when it really hurts, or – or when you really push me – I can’t help it.’

‘Of course.’ I could hear the smile in his voice. ‘That’s part of the fun.

If you never got mad I’d be worried.’ He squeezed me tighter. ‘As long as it’s not building up. That or the anxiety.’

‘It never lasts long.’

‘Good.’

‘Master?’

‘Mm?’

‘How long – how long is it going –’

‘Until the piercings are ready. Then I’ve got some alternatives for keeping your libidinous impulses in check. Until then I’ll just have to keep your cunt so overused and done over that you aren’t capable.’

I suppressed a whimper. The piercings seemed perfectly healed, but the last estimate I’d heard as to when they could be used was ten days away.

‘Of course I prefer you to keep you in a state of frustration, so enjoy this while you can.’ Enjoy? A groan escaped me.

He made an indeterminate sound in the back of his throat which on consideration I decided was a snicker. Then he firmly hushed me, and settled down to sleep.

The next night there was no more check-in with the property. I lay there chained to the bed but finally free of the bridle, which I’d worn almost continuously since early afternoon. Teeth brushed, face washed. Mouth my own. Hoping for a little comforting conversation. Then Anders walked in with leather in his hand, turned my head toward him and enclosed my lower jaw in a no-nonsense muzzle. Straps on either cheek joined at the bridge of my nose and carried on over my head. He pulled this and the neck strap snug. Carefully he drew my hair out from under the leather, pulled the closure a couple of notches tighter, and clicked the lock. ‘You should be able to breathe through your mouth if you have to; try it,’ he said. My lips could open a little under their padded band; just barely, but enough. I sucked some air through what had to be a small hole for the purpose. Not much use for noisemaking, but adequate for respiration. He pinched my nose lightly, and made me try again; still okay.

My jaws strained against leather, testing, and then gave up in defeat. I found myself making ‘mm’ noises and rolling and twisting my head to try the limits of this new confinement. It was more comfortable than the bridle, but I looked up at him in some distress at the thought of sleeping this way.

Still, I was his own thing. His own silent thing, if he chose. And bad girls had to take the consequences. He smiled down at me, put a finger to his lips, and turned out the light.