A few tears squeezed from my eyes, but when he led me out of the dungeon, I went to the guest room as I’d been told. He didn’t bother with a chastity belt. There was zero chance of me touching my clit after everything it had been through, and I was too depressed to feel sexy anyway. Orgasm denial was only fun when you wanted to orgasm. I would rather have died.
I took a shower even though the water pressure hurt my welted skin, because I needed to wash this day off me. After that, I crawled into bed, eager to find refuge in sleep. I still didn’t know what to do about Simon. I didn’t know if Price would forgive me. I’d reset our already negligible levels of trust back to zero. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Price and I had plenty of happy moments, but at times like these, when everything looked bleak and frightening, I would start to think, I can’t do this anymore. I liked the good, sexy pain we shared most nights, but the punishment pain slaughtered me. Not the marks on my body. Not the manacles and clamps and drool and snot and shame. I mean, those were bad, but what really killed me was the loneliness, the rejection, the feeling of failure, when all I ever wanted in life was to succeed at something and be proud of myself.
Men all over Asia would soon be wearing my accessories. I was creating a gold and diamond set for an A-list actress to wear to the Oscars. And yet here I was, curled in a ball of self-hatred and doubt. I wanted Price to love me. I wanted the questioning and jealousy to go away. I wanted us to fix each other, but some days it felt like we were only making each other more broken.
I’ll never be enough for him. Why do I even try?
I started to sob, and it wasn’t the sobbing from earlier, triggered by sustained and agonizing torture. No, these tears were from emotional pain. Oh God, it hurt. Everything fucking hurt, and I felt so fucking alone.
* * * * *
Shit. Fuck. Fuck.
Fuck.
I lay in my bed and watched her on my tablet, because yes, there were cameras everywhere. Yes, I loved her that much, and yes, I’d beaten the shit out of her in the dungeon. I had to. Our relationship had rules. We had a fucking dynamic to follow. I was the Master and she was my slave, and she wasn’t allowed to be around hurtful people or get herself into hurtful situations.
Even if I felt like maybe I was the most hurtful person in her life right now.
She was crying, really crying. Unlike the smaller cameras in her studio, the guest room camera had audio, and I could hear the misery wailing out of her throat, even though she tried to muffle it in her pillow.
I put my hands over my ears. I could still hear. Sometimes I loved the sound of her crying. Sometimes I licked her tears off her face like they were expensive wine. Sometimes her tears got me hard and made me want to fuck her to oblivion, until she cried another kind of tears, from sheer exhausted pleasure.
Sometimes, like now, her tears made me feel like throwing myself out a window.
I got up and started to pace. I couldn’t go to her. Tonight was about teaching her to appreciate the connection we had by taking it away from her. Our connection, our relationship, our dynamic. My beautiful, sad Chere wore my collar even now, while she lost her shit in a fetal position.
Fuuuck.
I buried my face in my hands and then stalked back to the tablet. I could mute it. I could close out the camera feed and go to bed. Even then, I knew I’d hear her, like a dog could hear its owner’s car from two blocks away. Instead, I went and stood outside the door. Maybe I could just stand here. Maybe that would be enough. I thought I’d just stand here until she stopped sobbing, but while I was making those plans, I’d already turned the knob and stepped inside.
She was so naked, so sad and pitiful. I thought, she understands our dynamic. She knows that when we aren’t together, we’re lost.
I knelt on the bed and pulled her into my arms. She turned into me the same way she’d curled into her pillow, and erupted in more tears.
“Please don’t leave me,” she said, clinging to my neck. “I’m sorry.”
“Hush.” I just wanted her to stop crying. I thought I would die if she didn’t stop crying, me, the sadist who reveled in tears. “You need to settle down,” I said.
“I can’t live if you don’t love me,” she whispered against my neck. “I know that’s weak. I know it’s stupid.”