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"So she got off on you doing all this. Why does that make you a monster? It sounds like you were a good Master. "
"She didn't know anything about the clubs at first, just knew she wanted me to tie her up and whip her. It made her come all the time. . . in the beginning. She didn't really know about the other stuff you could do. I found out about those for her, because I knew she'd like them, and because, I liked them, too. "
"It made you hard, didn't it?" she murmured, bending forward and rubbing her fingertips over his constricted organ, eliciting a moan of pleasure, another whispered plea that she ignored. "So you did what she wanted. "
He nodded. "Anything. But some things I just couldn't. . . she wanted me to leave marks, permanent ones, and when she saw how much it bothered me, she wanted me to do it even more. And if I didn't want to do it, she'd take me to the clubs and make me watch while some other Dom did it, make me give her to another Dom. "
"Did you like that?"
"Yes. . . no. It hurt, in a strange way, but it always got me off. It just felt. . . wrong. But I liked it," his fingers dug into his palms, so fiercely they left marks. She saw the flesh whiten and inflame around the puncture. "I fucking liked it," he repeated, not as emphasis, but as accusation. "It made me hard as iron. I wanted to pull her out of his hands and pound into her, but it was like rage. . . it felt wrong. I couldn't do it, though I was supposed to be in charge. It hurt," he repeated, confused, arguing with himself.
Lauren swallowed, feeling emotions of her own rise up. A bad feeling was growing in her and she saw it reflected in Marcus's eyes. Did she really want to hear the end of this story? No, she didn't, but she would. She had to.
She pressed her knee against his left leg. She laid her hand upon his thigh.
"So what happened?"
"I just. . . I did everything she wanted, but it never seemed like enough. I stopped working for awhile, because I was pouring all my energy into new things that I thought might turn her on. It was like. . . "
"Being strung out on drugs," she finished for him, remembering.
"Yeah. . . " he swallowed, and his hands eased, twitched a bit. "One night, we went out to dinner together. Just a regular thing, though I did the usual things. I made her wear something sexy I really liked, no panties so I could play with her pussy under the table. She liked me to make her flash the waiter, you know, lean forward over the menu so he could see everything, but she didn't push as much of that, not that evening. She seemed really affectionate, not real pushy, and I could focus on her, enjoy her. But I noticed that night. . . we didn't have much to talk about.
"I realized we had gotten away from what it was that had brought us together and now it was all about sex. That night felt better, though," he added wistfully. "It was more like us again. I had my arm around her, and through most of dinner, she cuddled against me and seemed happy with me, like she was pleased with me, and that felt good. It had been awhile since I'd felt that way. "
Hadn't it been so similar for her, never feeling as if she had pleased Jonathan, always anxious, on edge, not caring about career or personal identity any longer, too keyed up to think about the destructiveness of it? It shamed her to think of it now, how she signed herself over to him, who she was, with barely a murmur or qualm. It was also frightening how she had done it, with no real sense of having done so. She had just hungered for acceptance, self affirmation, because she lost the ability to give that to herself. She had let Jonathan take it away. She and Josh, two insecure people with low self-esteem, uncovered and stripped bare by two people who needed to degrade them to feel worthwhile themselves.
It was pathetically formulaic and painful to see the mirror, but she was strong enough to look. She held the cards now, and had been holding them, since she became true to herself again and said the words that made Jonathan walk away. Now she just had to figure out what the winning hand would be for Josh.
"Tell me what she did. " Her spike heel slid against his instep, depressed slightly, just enough to cause another slight red mark, a warning. "Don't keep me waiting, Josh. "
The threat laced into the warm promise was a potent mix. His erection, waning a bit from the fluctuation of his emotions, jumped, began to swell so the straps bit into the tender skin again, and he groaned at the discomfort.
She knew the torture of desolation and desire mixed. It tore the senses apart and the shields down. She hoped he didn't need a further push. Marcus was a still presence somewhere to the left of her, and she could feel his tension.
"We left the restaurant," he said after awhile. "I had my arm wrapped around her. She nuzzled against me, then took my hand, pulling me into the shadows between two buildings so we could embrace. She was shy almost, where any other time she might have begged me into the alley in broad daylight and pleaded with me to use her where anyone could walk by at any moment and see her. But she wanted tenderness, and it. . . God, it was wonderful. I practically swallowed her, pushing her back against the bricks, but just to kiss her, hold her, feel her holding me.
"I didn't th
ink about how unsafe it was where we were. I was supposed to protect her, and I didn't even think about it. Something came at me out of the shadows. I was so stupid, not thinking about how we were in a not-so-great an area, though the restaurant was a nice enough one. Letting her pull me into an alley, for Chrissakes, and I was supposed to take care of her. . . " his lips curled in a sneer of self-loathing so bitter Lauren could taste it on her own tongue.
"There were three men. They tore us apart and two of them grabbed me, knocked me around a bit, but mainly forced us deeper into the alley, forced me to my knees and held me there while the other one shoved her onto her back in the filth of that alley and yanked up her skirt. He hit her in the face, split her lip. . . "
He pressed his head back against the cross, his jaw clenching. Lauren didn't move, fighting every urge she had to keep from touching him in comfort or speak soothing words. The wound wasn't open yet.
Blood had to be free flowing for it to cleanse itself.
"She was crying, crying my name as he rammed into her. And I lost it. She belonged to me. I was supposed to take care of her, but, no, no, NO. That's not it. "
Lauren watched, her own eyes anguished, as moisture trickled from under the mask, curved under his jaw. His voice became brutal, unforgiving.
"For the first few minutes, I didn't even try to do anything, because I was getting hard watching them do it. I was getting off on it, because it was so much like what we did. She liked the rape scenes. "
Lauren shifted, her eyes locking with Marcus's.
"I was fucking enjoying it, as if I was watching a Dom get rough with her to torture me, for not being enough. And," his voice broke, "I thought. . . she's finally. . . finally getting what she deserves. " He choked on a sob. "I fucking thought that, I remembered that like I was some kind of diseased redneck wifebeater. It was that, not her being raped, that tore it loose inside me. I lost it. "
A quiver ran through his shoulders, a tensing like a cramp.
