Mark loved to give her pleasure nearly as much as he loved to make her suffer. The combination of the two was a powerful aphrodisiac for them both. She had become a masochistic, deeply sexual being, and he knew just which buttons to push to make her come. Indeed, he’d installed some of them.
True, lust did not equal love, but for now it was enough.
Chapter 8
She had learned to handle the fear over time. To keep it at bay. To be quiet so he would relent and release her. Sometimes he rewarded her with lovely, powerful orgasms. Yes, there was pain associated with every pleasure. She understood and accepted that was how it had to be. It pleased Mark to see her suffer, and therefore it pleased her. The really weird thing was that as time had passed, the pain and pleasure sometimes fused together, blending so she couldn’t tell one from the other.
At those times, she was lifted out of her body—a spirit floating just above, filled with a dark, powerful energy that was like nothing she’d ever experienced back in the before time. When she thanked her Master after those sessions, she truly meant it.
She hated to displease him, but sometimes, despite her very best efforts, she did so. Then she would try to accept her punishments with what he called submissive grace. It worked best when she could disappear into that small, secret place inside her where she no longer felt the hard wood of the paddle against her ass, or the icy water in the tub, or the brutal cut of the cane.
She could even tolerate the cage now, as long as it didn’t last too long, as long as she could see that line of light beneath the closet doors. The light kept her anchored, connected to this world. When it went out, she was flung into the hard, unyielding arms of her night terrors—hours and hours alone and adrift, locked in the tight, cold confines behind metal bars, all alone.
She tried hard to be good, and so avoid the cage. It was so much nicer to sleep in her Master’s warm, strong embrace. If she positioned herself just so in his bed, she nearly forgot the chains, and he was so tender with her. She didn’t even mind being wakened in the night so he could use her body. After all, she belonged to him—he could do as he wished.
Alana sighed and curled a little tighter on the metal floor of the cage. She hadn’t meant to displease him today—in fact, she wasn’t even sure what she’d done. She rested her hands under her cheek, her eyes fixed on the line of light. He would come soon for her, she was sure of it.
She would do better, next time.
As she lay hovering on the edge of sleep, her mind drifted to the before time—before Mark. She hadn’t always been here. Of course, she knew that. There was another life, another time, filled with schedules and shoots and paparazzi and parties. She’d never had a minute to breathe, to drift, as she was doing now.
She tried to capture some specific memory from the before time, but it kept slipping away, just beyond her grasp.
She sighed again. It made her head hurt to try to remember. Better to stay focused on the moment. He would come for her soon, she was sure of it. Then he might take her to the playroom for some bondage and sex play. Maybe a flogging. She loved the flogger, with its heavy, thuddy tresses of suede that stroked her skin until she was transported out of her body and went flying in that free, open space somewhere just outside of her consciousness.
Hopefully he wouldn’t use the cane. She still hated the cane, even though the Master told her she should love everything that pleased him. She tried to, but it hurt so fucking much. She especially hated that sound—that terrifying whippy whistle in the instant before the rod marked her with its fiery sting.
Yet, even with the cane, she was sometimes transported to that special place. Just when the pain became intolerable, if she was lucky, it would happen. An odd kind of serenity would fall over her like a cloak, snuffing out the fire of her panic.
Mark had explained that when that happened, she was in a state of submissive grace—of true acceptance of the gift of suffering he offered. All she knew was during those times, the orgasms she experienced were like nothing she’d even known in the before time. She had had no idea that a person could feel anything so intensely. It was like an instantly addictive drug, and she had come to crave that sensation.
As she dreamily recalled the last powerful climax, her clit gently throbbed between her legs. She imagined his tongue licking so sweetly along her labia, or the rough but welcome exploration of his fingers, or the perfect friction when he was inside her, fucking her so hard, so good…