Author's Note: This story isn't up on the site yet, but it's another long story and I like to post the first parts so you know what you're getting into. It is a Master/slave BDSM romance.

Synopsis: Ever since she could remember, Deirdre had slave fantasies, dreams of being a princess captured by a knight, but she doesn't trust anymore, not since those fantasies wounded her. Until she meets him, that is, and he's the perfect Master, which makes him everything she should stay away from.

Deirdre

The start of this story, like the start of many stories, doesn't begin in a happy place, but it is a happy story, so I'll try to rip the band-aid off as easy as I can. Bear with me! It's worth it.

Once upon a time, there was a little princess and she was loved by everyone. Her family wasn't large, but they adored her and it was a little weird when she did things like try on Christmas charms that were meant for the family dog's collar or when she locked herself in a closet, even though she was a little claustrophobic, and imagined she was a mermaid trapped in a giant clam and had to be rescued.

When the little princess grew up, her fantasies kept evolving until she dreamed of the prettiest cages and she tried on the dog collar charms to pretend like she was a pet. She started to keep these things secret because she knew that early in life it was cute, but later it wasn't so much. She dreamed of being trapped still and being rescued, but the little princess didn't like the knights in shining armor so much anymore. How could a knight whose armor glistened so brightly ever hope to do anything like kill the sea monster who held a little princess captive? It didn't make any sense, was pure ludicrous really. So she imagined she was rescued and the knight was handsome, but his armor had blood on it. When he kissed the princess awake she was scared at first, but he fixed her with a pretty dog collar and pet her head and told her that he would take care of her.

That's what she dreamed of anyway. As you can see, the little princess was a little naive and she was eager to play and she wanted to love. She wanted to be called a good girl all the time and she wanted to do anything to make her wicked prince happy. And then the princess met someone. At first, he looked like the prince of her dreams and he acted dominating and he made her happy. He liked substances sometimes, but he always gave off the appearance that he had control. The princess thought she'd found someone who would pet her always and give her a pretty collar.

But it wasn't. It was a spiky collar. After a while, nothing seemed to ever make him happy and she got sadder and sadder. It took her too long to realize that he didn't have any control and violence without control is just violence. It isn't games. It's a head fuck, a bad thing. By the time she understood that the two of them should have never played together, the damage was done.

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Okay, sorry for that! That's really all of it, though, for the most part, I promise. He was a Dom, but I think he was a very confused one. He hurt me and at first I wanted to hate him for it, but I think he was hurting too, at the time. I think I couldn't make him happy, in the end, because nothing ever could have. I don't know what happened to him and I hope he grew, hope he did find something that fulfilled him in life. As for me, well. I did find my own ways to get over the sorrow. It left scars and I won't lie. Those scars are bad sometimes, really bad. I can't date anymore. It always goes south and it's never what I want anyway, but that's okay! I play at a place called Sulfur's fetish club and I'm a goddess in the place, which sounds really conceited, it’s true, but I only fit so well with the place because of my past, to be honest. I was just ready made for it.

People love me there, now that I’m healed a little. See, I met the owner, Asher Lavrov, before the place opened and he helped me heal a lot. He had picked up another friend of mine named Matt, who became a best friend and, yes, a kinky fuckbuddy too. They taught me how to fulfill my needs with light playing so I could have a form of therapy. After what happened, I had a lifestyle mindset where I craved, but I could satisfy myself with one night play stands at Sulfur's. I never wanted anything more and Doms never had to take very long to give me aftercare. Needless to say, I was intricately involved with the goings on in the place. My picture was behind their bar and I was on their payroll. What was even better, my day job was as a sex toy store owner and, with the circle I ran with, my life became a dream. Sulfur's branched out and Ash had need for more help.

And that's where the real story starts, the happy story. Ash asked me to go check on one of the other branches of Sulfur's that had opened and everyone in the circle knew me by then. I was the submissive kitten of our world. Ash had trained some of these Doms on me and it had all been kinky fun games, so a night getting paid to go check up on another branch? It was a carefree night. I grabbed a submissive friend of mine, Lily Lofton, and took her along to go play and make sure their paperwork was up to date.

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“It’s so weird being in these other branches.” Lily glanced at the entryway where a spanking bench and sawhorse sat against the wall, kinky decorations for enticement. “It’s like Sulfur’s, but without Ash. Like if you could see four different versions of Sulfur’s from different multiverses, you know?”

I laughed. “Lily, I love you. Come on.” But I did kind of see what she meant. The decoration in the place just felt like it had the touch of a Dom, but one that wasn’t Ash. Instead of the neat bar and play area setup of the original Sulfur’s, this place had pictures hanging all around it, arousing pictures. The ceiling was higher and it was a single floor setup, where the Sulfur’s I was used to had two floors. Two birdcages hung from the ceiling on either side of the bar, these iron monstrosities, and both of them had submissives dancing in them. One was a male that made me shiver because even my submissive radar thought he was a D type. He just had that X factor, that force of will, except he wore a collar, which seemed a pretty clear sign to the opposite. The female across from him looked like a fucking movie star and she danced with the grace of a ballerina and the sensual taunt of a stripper.

“Woah. Digging those birdcages, though.”

Lily giggled beside of me. “So, Ash must give some decent freedom to the people he has running these places, right? This is definitely not his style. This place is softer somehow... but still with hot fucking.” She tilted her head, studying a scene with a dominatrix and male submissive not far from us. The Domme had him locked in a cock cage while she fucked his ass with a dildo, trying to milk him. I shuddered, horny from the sight. The scenes in this place weren’t at all like Ash’s Sulfur’s. They all had raised daises so that they were clearly and obviously on display, where the scenes from Sulfur's Alpha weren't so obviously displayed. Against two of the walls, opposite each other, were separate stages.

“It depends. I think a few of the others he keeps on some pretty tight leashes. You know how Ash is. If he trusts you, then he gives you a lot in return until you betray it. I think the guy he has running this one was a friend of his, but I don’t remember where from.”

“Oh.” Lily drew out the word, voice going breathy. “A guy? Definitely a Dom, too.” She giggled. “Maybe we can play with him like we used to play with Ash before he got engaged.”

“I shouldn’t have brought you. You’re a bad influence.” Lily snickered again at my side, but I was grinning. “Well, I mean, Jesus. It seems like a wasted trip so far. The door guard here looks mean as fuck and no one is going to try to get past him. Hell, even the bartender looks fucking terrifying.”

Lily’s voice turned even more breathy beside me. “Oh. Oh, I didn’t even look at the bartender.”

I laughed. “Come on. Let’s start by talking to him since you so obviously want to. We can ask about some of the people and any incidents.”

Lily was already spellbound, so much that I had to pull her along beside me. The bartender, you see, was somewhere in his 40s, if I had to guess, and he was terrifying to look at, something that would probably make Ash happy to hear about. He was pretty big on people never playing under the influence, so if people came to Sulfur’s and drank, then they didn’t get to play. The big, burly guy behind the bar was a perfect build to discourage people from trying to cheat. What was more? He had a high and tight military haircut, a grisly scar along his cheek from God only knew what, and he had tattoos running the length of his arms beneath his short sleeved, collared “Security” shirt. He looked a lot like a really hot stereotype, to be honest.

Before I sat at the bar, I settled Lily into one of the high sitting stools, laughing as I did. “Sit up straight, Lily. You know how Ash taught you.”

She stared at me as if a little dazed - I pat her head because Lily loves to be degraded in front of her interests - and then glanced at the bartender, who finished pouring a drink and came down to where we sat. When he smiled, it seemed like a gesture that was intended to be soothing, but even that was terrifying. It made the scar on his face twist. “How can I help you? Fair warning, if you get anything-“

“Then you can’t play,” I finished with a wink. “Ash sent us to check out if you guys needed anything on your end of the city.”

The man’s eyes lit up. “Oh, awesome. Christopher is playing in some of the dungeons for the rest of the night, but if you want to stay and help us all close, we can answer anything you like.” His grin widened. “And, unless I miss my guess, you must be Deirdre King. Which makes you-“ He turned to Lily, who cowered against my shoulder so that I grinned. I’d known Lily for a long time and she was such a maso. Cowering was her way of flirting. “Lily Lofton.”

Oh man. Lily was hard up on this one. She bowed her head, glancing up at him fearfully. “Yes, sir.” She made her voice even more submissive than she made it for Ash, too. “I think you might have us at a disadvantage, though.”

I grinned, stroking Lily’s shoulder. And then I wanted to laugh again when the bartender tilted his head. He watched Lily nervously trail her fingertips along her throat, as if she was tracing a collar that wasn’t there. And he spoke in the perfect language of a Dom, tracing his belt in response. Lily watched the motion and shivered in excitement so that he grinned. “My name is Jackson.”

She didn’t repeat the name. “Yes, sir,” she said instead and I rolled my eyes.

I stayed to the side for a while, talking with them while they flirted together. I stroked Lily and encouraged her because it seemed to make Jackson all the more interested in her. And more to the point, talking with him told me a lot of information about the structure of this place.

It was strict as fuck. I watched Jackson serve someone else a drink, watched him give the hand stamp and bracelet that marked the man as unable to play for the rest of the night. I asked about the members, asked about open door nights. Jackson spoke of the regulations with a firm look in his eyes, as if they were second nature and ingrained, which pleased me. That was how it should be and how Ash would want it. While we talked, scenes finished up around us and someone got the dancers from their cages. People talked with Lily’s new friend, who was obviously well liked despite his appearance. After some time, I left Lily alone to play, making sure she was okay, and wandered on my own.

I went through the back dungeons, glancing into the doors curiously, grinning with some of what I saw. One room I opened was pure fantasy themed. There were blue wall sconces casting this mystical light across a red dungeon bed. A standing chain structure stood in front of it. I had to appreciate the setups for what they were.

It was definitely still Sulfur’s and definitely not Asher Lavrov’s. Lily was right that this was softer in tone, in some ways. For instance, Ash had dungeon setups that were pure dungeon. His medieval setup looked like a torture chamber, which was thrilling and really cool, but it also had a harsh note to it.

This seemed... terrifying, actually. It was somehow more gentle, but not. It was quite obviously made to be more enticing, more romantic. That hanging structure in the middle of the floor seemed like it was made to display a submissive for viewing pleasure while someone fucked on the bed. What was more was the strictures of the place added a note of mysticism, rather than detracting from it. It was the same way some Masters could be into high protocol and others weren’t. On the one hand, higher protocol could seem stuffy. But if it was done correctly?

Oh, it seemed so beyond sexy, like a fantasy. These setups were like that, made to play out dreams like being a slave sold into exotic places, one to be trained for pleasure. I was getting painfully aroused just looking through some of it and I was supposed to be finding the guy in charge of this place to make sure it was in good care. Although, at that point I was so impressed that after I saw some of his paperwork, I felt like I could just ask this man if he needed anything, then tell Ash that he had great tastes in friends. Everything was so clean, so neatly done.

I looked in the next room, laughing softly to myself when I had to take a breath because I was getting too worked up. Jesus, Lily was supposed to be the bad one. I was the wildcat that didn’t get close to anyone and kept my cool no matter what.

I wasn’t ready for what was in the next door. Oh, the door was opened, wide open even, but I froze when I stepped through the way, suddenly becoming a voyeur.

It was a room with a shallow pool. Fake flowers were artfully decorated around it like another fantasy scene, something straight out of a book I would masturbate to a hundred times over. It was gorgeous and sexy, sinfully so, but it also wasn’t empty. The two dancers from the cages still had their collars and their sexy attire on. The male wore black leather pants and had matching black leather arm bands, both of which matched his collar, which glittered with a shining butterfly ornament. As for the female, hers was a far more revealing outfit. Strings circled her tits with a sheer mesh that emphasized her nipples and her hair was pinned up with glittering ornaments that matched the guy’s.

But that wasn’t all of it. I’ll try to explain this next part as best I can. You see, when you play in fetish and kink for a long enough time, you start to pick up this sense for people. It’s kind of like how Lily knew how to flirt with the bartender and sometimes some people aren’t easy to read. Other times, they’re obvious.

These two, for instance, were obviously slaves. Not submissives. Submissives, like what I was now thanks to my past, tended to play with a different mindset and with different, lighter rules. Most of those played in set time frames, although slaves could also be for set time frames, but there was a key mentality difference between being owned property like a slave and being a bowing submissive. I was that last one all the time now, as it was safer for me. But these two were slave types. It was in the way they curved their bodies to be visually pleasing because every motion they made was in a conscious effort to draw the eye and to give pleasure. Every action was with that sense of hot, total surrender. And at the moment they were serving a slight, dark haired man, who was obviously their Master.

I couldn’t look away from it. The two of them moaned and writhed at his feet and together, they licked up and down his cock, their tongues meeting in a kiss around him. And he? Oh, he had an appearance every bit as stern and desirable as his Sulfur’s because this was most definitely the man who set this place up. His entire demeanor screamed it. I watched as he trailed a whip up the man’s shoulders to make him moan. And God, the way their Master stood. His feet was at shoulder width apart and he was as controlled as Ash was with every motion, but where Ash played with easy and coolly dark delight, this man was just hard.

I took a breath when he tapped the whip on the female’s shoulder and she knew what he wanted. She nuzzled the whip as if she craved more of it under his hand, but he didn’t give it. He didn’t serve as a top in the way Ash did. When Lily got excited under the whip, Ash had always encouraged it and given more of it. This man... Jesus. He merely looked at the female and she backed away from his cock, so that the male sucked on his own, bobbing his head, and even those motions were graceful. Their Master stroked a hand up the female's head with his pleasure and she moaned, curving for his touch, but she followed where it guided her, too, as she kissed the male’s neck while he worked over his Master. She stroked a hand down to cup her slave friend between the legs through the leather he wore and he shuddered with the action, then worked to serve even more. They moved with such fucking grace that it felt like a dream just to get to watch them. I wanted to kiss the female, to see how she tasted. I wanted to stroke my hand over the male’s leather pants to feel how hard he was, to feel how much pleasure he so obviously got in servicing his Master. And those leather armbands around his upper arms? God, they were arousing too. All of it was. It felt like being the kind of spellbound Lily had been.

What was more, their Master didn’t even speak. He made it clear that he didn’t even need to. The girl arched under his every touch as if it was ecstasy to be granted it. The guy gently cupped his balls and rolled them to give his Master more pleasure while he sucked. While I watched, the male lifted a hand to the girl’s lips, without ever pausing his attentions, and she sucked his fingers, then poured lubricant on them. It was hotter than ever loving hell, the fact that they readied each other for what they knew would please their Master most.

And they did it in such a way that they wouldn’t have to stop the pleasure they were already giving him. Because the next thing the guy did when his fingers were slicked? He cupped his Master’s balls and then stroked his fingers back to his asshole. I went hot when he gently, so gently, pressed inside of him.

His Master fucked himself back on those fingers and he didn’t make a sound, but it obviously gave him pleasure. He lifted his head, his teeth gritted, and the muted light glittered along his strong jawline. Jesus, but the sight of his pleasure was intense and not just because his slaves moaned eagerly at the sight. It was the way he still stood with such security, the way he pressed the thumb of one hand to the girl’s lips and she whimpered in joy as if it was the greatest reward. She sucked as if she was starved for him, greedily and without any reservation at all. It was kind of empowering in this weird way because the guy was like that too. No matter how servile either of them were, they did their acts with no bars held.

Their Master made a soft click with his tongue and then almost lazily flicked his whip over the guy’s back. In answer, he deep throated the cock in his mouth, sucking hard and adoringly, given the command to work him to orgasm. My lips parted and I heard myself whimper and it was just a little too loud.

The two of them didn’t react at all, didn’t so much as break from their moaning service. Only the man over them reacted and that was to snap his gaze to mine, his eyes hard and stern as the rest of him.

His lips parted and he came with a soft hiss, so that my face turned flush with shocked desire. He held the head of his male slave, eyes still on mine and still glazed with his fire. Wild heat shot through my being, need so fierce it hurt.

I barely noticed how his slave pulled away when he was finished, his lips parted to display the cum he held on his tongue. The only reason why I did notice was to watch the Master’s approving smile and nod. He watched with that same prideful gaze as the guy withdrew and went to the female, who whined eagerly. I couldn’t stop another low sound when he fed her his fingers first, the same ones that he’d used to fingerfuck their master’s asshole. She made these obscene little noises, cleaning him off, and then he drew her for a kiss, sharing some of the cum that he still held in his mouth.

I snapped and scampered like a rat to the bathroom, where I masturbated in a fucking frenzy because I couldn’t even think straight enough to remember what I was supposed to be doing here. What was worse, I thrust my fingers in and out of myself until they were coated, then sucked them with soft little whines, imagining they were him and I was the one worshiping with such abject servility at his knees.

I had always played with this self creed. I didn’t give myself fully to another. I played only with people who were looking to satisfy a need, like me. And I didn’t lose control or get too close to anyone ever.

After I came down from my masturbation frenzy, I was snarling because anger was the only thing that could save me. I needed to think angry thoughts. I needed to think about how I wanted to stab him in his stupid, sexy, stern fucking face for making me remember those old fantasies that just wouldn’t die and leave me alone. I had to take a breath and force myself to go back out into his perfect, magical Sulfur’s and face him and his perfect, beautiful slaves.

But going back out to him didn’t help. He turned his gaze on me again and I couldn’t even remember the anger. I had been hell bent on clinging to it to protect me during the conversation with him, but it fled so fucking fast at his first attention. His eyes pierced even when he gave me a gentle gaze to try to soothe me and all I could remember were all those fantasies of being a slave princess, of the Dread Pirate Roberts reprimanding me harshly, only to hold me just as gently.

“Hello, Deirdre,” he said softly. “Welcome to my branch of Sulfur’s.”

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Christopher

Deirdre King. She was the submissive goddess in the world of Sulfur’s and its surrounding fetish club. The first time I ever saw her, she had slapped a Dom twice her size because he’d dared to hurt Lily’s feeling the wrong way. I had never forgotten it. I had asked Ash question after question about her and what she must be like, even then.

“Hello,” she replied. I had to smile at her voice because it was everything you’d expect from a submissive of her caliber. It was polite and sweet, but with that tone that suggested she could definitely be firm when she needed to. She was a Dom’s wet dream because she didn’t want a relationship. All she wanted was to submit for a night at a time, as a form of therapy. “And you must be Christopher. Where do you know Ash from?”

I laughed. “We met in college actually, back when I was still adjusting from growing up a military brat. I had all these light anger issues at the time and Ash was always the calm and collected one. Eventually, after enough rants where he patiently nodded along, I just decided the anger wasn’t worth it and here we are down this path instead.”

She laughed along, but there was something hard glittering in her eyes, something that made me curious from the start. There was something about Deirdre. I had seen her play in Sulfur’s Alpha, of course I had, but she was usually with lighter Dominants. She had this cat gear that Ash would get her to wear when he really wanted to make a Dom’s night. He used her to train them on how to top when they expressed interest, too, because there was no risk of her getting overly involved or attached. Deirdre was the submissive playgirl. Of course, I hadn’t ever played with her because I had been more along the line of being a Master than a Dominant and I didn’t think she would like playing with me.

Now that I was standing closer to her, talking to her? There was something about her, something I didn’t understand. A bad habit of being a Dom? We like understanding things. I started to watch her more closely.

“Well, that sounds like a formula that adds up entirely correctly. Military brat tempered out ending up a lifestyle Master? No, yeah, I can see it.”

I had to grin. “Guilty. And Ash told me you’re the more controlled of the submissives in his ring. I suppose now I know why.”

I nodded to where Lily had gotten to with my bartender because I didn’t think Deirdre had noticed her and I had to laugh at the look on her face because it confirmed that she definitely hadn’t noticed.

The other submissive was tucked on my bartender's lap in a chair at the bar. They weren’t bothering to hide their foray together, either. Jackson had his tongue halfway down her throat and he was all over her. Deirdre ran a hand through her hair. “Jesus Christ, Lily, you maso slut.”

My grin widened. “I think that, by societal standards, I’m supposed to be disapproving of a person coming to inspect the goings on here and ending up like that, but I’ve never been good with that kind of thing. I tend to think submissives should always be encouraged to be as free as they please in a safe atmosphere. It's sometimes rare for them to find those."

Deirdre looked to me and swallowed, her eyes flicking to my side, something that made me aroused to see. That was where I had placed my two slaves to display them after our fun together. It was a reward for them having done so well and behaved so well and they both loved being displayed. At the moment, Todd was stroking Gracie all over, caressing her while he kissed her. When he stroked a palm between her legs, Gracie spread wide for anyone to see her for viewing pleasure. Deirdre looked back to me. “I can see that.” And her voice was a little squeaky, so that I had to laugh.

“Come on,” I said gently. “Have a drink with me? It looks like you’re going to be here for a little while with your friend.”

A spark of something lit her eyes, as if she wanted to turn me down, but when she opened her mouth, she answered, “Okay. That sounds good.”

What was it about Deirdre? I watched her where she walked beside me and we went to the other side of the bar to leave Jackson alone with Lily. “Choose what you want to drink and I’ll get the glasses.”

She hesitated and got down a bottle of Jack with some of the Coke from the cooler. And it was the moment that let me know what it was about her. It was the moment that showed me what I had never noticed, even though I had seen the submissive goddess play all the time. I had seen her bow, had seen her having laughing fun and hot orgasms. And Deirdre was this sexy sub kitten too, the kind that belonged in movies. She had this natural blonde hair with these curls and these crystal blue eyes. And her body? Oh, man, it would turn anyone on. She was curvy and fit and Ash claimed the only reason why she was so obsessive with fitness was due to how vain she could be, but the result was gorgeous, stunning.

But I wasn’t interested in people who wouldn’t like my kind of play and I had never thought Deirdre would like it. And then she made me realize.

You see, she poured my drink and that was all it took. I watched her place the ice cubes, my heart thundering, then watched her pour the whiskey. Her head was bowed and her arm was graceful with the action of serving. She moved slightly slower, as if she wanted to savor every part of the feeling, too.

As if she was unconsciously making effort to be more visually pleasing while she served me.

It seemed a surreal moment when she lifted her eyes to mine, when her head was still slightly bowed to show me perfect respect. She froze with whatever she saw in my gaze because I knew and I thought she knew I knew.

Deirdre wasn’t a submissive, not at heart. Deirdre was a slave. And suddenly, it felt like a door being opened. I wanted her something fierce. Hell, I had orgasmed as soon as I’d seen her watching me train my slaves in the doorway, but with the knowledge of the possibility? It made it so much worse. I wondered if she’d been a slave to someone already and then thought that couldn’t be it. No Master in their right mind would have Deirdre in their collar and let her go. They’d do anything in their power to keep her, unless they were fucking blind, batshit insane, or dumb as a brick.

“Thank you, little Aurora.” I said it teasingly, but Deirdre’s eyes turned dark with some form of strangely tortured delight at the word. “Pour your own, won’t you? And I’ll show you more of the place.”

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Deirdre

My heart was going crazy and my mind wasn’t helping. All the blood seemed to be gone from it and all I could think of was every fantasy I’d ever had of my prince. Oh, this was bad. It was so bad. I had stayed safe from any feelings in any relationship for so long and I absolutely stayed away from any and every lifestyle Master than wasn’t Asher Lavrov.

So why was I obediently grabbing my Jack and Coke at Christopher’s nod? Why was I taking his hand and glancing at his slaves in their cage with so much jealousy that it stung? Why was I opening my mouth to ask him questions, when I should have been running in the opposite direction? “May I ask how many slaves you take and how you choose them?”

His smile was so soothing and inviting, like his Sulfur’s setup. “Of course you can. I’m sure the submissive kitten can ask anything she likes. I’ve had... a lot, to be honest.” Of course he had. God, it was so much worse that way. He was so obviously a playboy and so downright stern in his features that any submissive feeling brave enough would beg to try his slavery. “But they choose me first. They all come to me with something in mind that they want to better about themselves or something that they want to open themselves up to with the experience. Gracie's a pretty good idea for it, actually. She's a model and she saw the way one of my slaves from before walked.” He grinned at me. So inviting. So enticing. I needed to get out of here. Instead, I was listening to every word. “She wanted me to train her to do it and, since you’re a lifestyle submissive, I think you can guess a little of how I answered.”

I swallowed, feeling tortured. “That you had to train her to a mindset of serving others and the rest followed.”

“Very good.” He smiled down at me with the warmth and approval of a Master and it made me feel giddy and happy to please him.

God, Deirdre, get it together. Finish asking the questions Ash would want you to, then go home and bang your head against something until you wake the fuck up. Yes! Yes, that’s exactly what I needed to do. Wait, what would Ash want me to ask again? I couldn’t think. I was trapped in a whirlwind of desire from being near the personification of every fantasy I’d ever had, along with terror from how much pain those fantasies had caused me in the past. I couldn’t be with Masters. I had to play because my needs were a torment, but I couldn’t be with Masters. “Hey, there.”

I swallowed, looking up at Christopher. “Y-yeah?” It felt like the wrong way to address him. I didn’t want to think about what the right way would be because it involved honorifics that I couldn’t let myself say.

“You okay, Aurora?”

I never wanted him to stop calling me that. Sleeping Beauty waiting for my prince to kiss me awake while he fixed me with a beautiful collar around my throat. “Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry about this. First Lily and now me.”

“It’s alright. Here. I just wanted to show you this room. I didn’t think you got to explore anymore after catching me in the act.” He said it with such easy charm that it made me smile, even in my distracted state. There wasn’t a single hint of a blush on his face that I had watched him cum in his slave’s mouth, had watched that slave share it with a second one as if it was the greatest treat they could have dreamed of. I froze when I walked into the door he held open for me.

“This is the most beautiful dungeon I’ve ever seen.”

He laughed behind me, while I drank it in. It looked like a dream. It was circular, for a start, and the wall was stone and rough. The floor was hard but it had a big, fluffy rug covering it. It looked like a tower dungeon, except it was twisted so there were things like suspension hooks, ropes, harnesses and a sex swing. Christopher sat easily on a stool by a deliberately uncomfortable stone table. “I’m glad you like it.” Heat flooded me. He looked like a prince who belonged there, looked like someone who was only missing a princess laid on the table to serve him and his pleasure. “Deirdre, while I have you here, can I ask you something personal?”

No. Tell him no. Tell him to fuck off. Or don’t say anything if you can’t control it. Just leave instead. Run and leave. Be a coward. Do anything at all, except say- “Of course. You can ask me anything.” Inside, I was whimpering.

“You used to play with Ash. The only other regular you played with was Matt, but Ash said he became busy with his own drama at the moment. I know that you and Lily both use playing as a form of personal therapy and I know that you both have your needs. Would you like someone to play with regularly, Deirdre? Lily can come along anytime she likes and I think Jackson would be better suited for her, but if she comforts you or doesn’t get along well with him, I know masochists, too. It’s okay.”

“I-“ I swallowed, cutting off, fighting with myself. The truth was his offer was kind beyond belief. He was a safe Master, one like Ash, and someone who could definitely satisfy every submissive need I had. I was pretty sure I could ask Ash anything I liked about his friend and would get nothing but positive truths. I was pretty sure Ash would confirm the fact that he had a great deal of experience with slaves and submissives, was also sure he’d confirm that Christopher had had a lot of slaves come to him. I went to Sulfur’s and played because my desires felt like a curse. After a few weeks, I would start to fray and a nice domination session would pull me back, make me think clearly. Playing was like a reset on stress for me. It gave me a mental vacation where I could lose myself to someone else’s will and earn the satisfaction of being praised for it. This was someone who could satisfy those needs when I had them. “H-how do you mean?”

That wasn’t the answer I should be giving, goddamnit. Some strong lifestyle submissive I was. I felt like I was going to lose my mind. Christopher stood back up. “Sorry. I should have clarified that. Just as playtime scenes as you needed.”

“What if I didn’t want to take my clothes off or anything?”

He smiled and he was standing so close and my body suddenly felt too hot. “You’d never have to.”

It was everything I could ever want in one offer, coming from the prince of my dreams, who had stern, unforgiving features even while his smile soothed. “I- Um-“ He took my drink from me and sat it down.

“You’re overthinking, Aurora.” Oh, God, I loved that name. I felt desperate and needy. “You’re so scared,” he said thoughtfully, as if trying to figure me out and piecing parts together. “But not of me.” He was closer and I whimpered because I knew what he was going to do, how he was going to make me think more clearly. It had been weeks since I’d played with anyone and I couldn’t remember why Masters were bad, could only remember that I had a need to please someone else for a time and I hadn’t satisfied it.

He lifted my chin, his shoulder length dark hair tickling my face when he leaned forward over me.

Um, no, no. What are you doing? Look, ‘all adored sub princess’, are you going to listen to any kind of reason at all?

I imagined that stern face and those chocolate eyes looking down at me like he’d looked at his slaves. I imagined he was looking through cage bars, the kind of safe, happy cage I had always fantasized about and my logic shut up. His lips pressed to mine.

It was like a switch being flipped. Every fantasy I had suppressed in favor of light playing came alive like a nova. I arched in his arms, whimpering against his kiss in a begging noise and he wrapped his other hand around the small of my back, just like the perfect prince. His hand on my cheek caressed back to thread in my hair, cradling me so that I arched up against him, lifting every part of me to better display myself for pleasure. I remembered these mindsets like they were yesterday and they came back alive so easily.

He pulled away and I opened my eyes, craving more of his kiss, and if I was thinking straight, I would have lifted to it in submissive form, begging for more against him. But I wasn’t thinking straight and I waited instead, staring up at him to invite him to take what he willed at his leisure.

His eyes lit up with approval. “God, look at you. Of course you were so perfect for the Doms you bowed to.”

I couldn’t ask what he meant and it didn’t matter anyway. It let me know that he had guessed a few things about me, for sure, but then his lips were back on mine and I whined, silently begging him for mercy. I turned into pure reaction. When his hand pressed my back, I lifted in a sinuous dance of pleasure. When his tongue brushed gently against my lips, I opened up, unable to think of denying him anything. I felt like I could burn when he took advantage and his kiss turned messy and hotter than hot, hotter than blue fire. There were these sounds like soft animal cries and it took me a minute to even realize I was the one making them. He caressed the back of my head, cupping his hand so gently and I felt caged in every good version of the word.

Caged. I remembered my fantasy of wanting a happy, fluffy cage, remembered how it had hurt me so goddamn badly that I couldn’t even date anymore.

I swear I don’t remember doing what I did. I only remember being suddenly terrified beyond thinking and then I remember my palm stinging and I was looking at Christopher, who was giving me the most curious gaze of shock with a red spot on his cheek. Because I’d slapped him. One of Ash’s friends. A lifestyle Master. A really kind person. And I, the most happy and easy going lifestyle submissive, had slapped him. He opened his mouth, but I didn’t wait to hear what he said.

I just finally listened to the voice in my head and left his bar. He didn’t follow.

--------

Christopher

Huh. That wasn't what I intended.

I sat at the rack table in my Tower Dungeon and questioned a few things about myself. I couldn’t say I’d ever been slapped before. I would smile over it, except... Except the look on Deirdre’s face when and after she did it was pure terror and horror.

I revised my thoughts from earlier. At first, I had thought that no Master in their right mind could have owned Deirdre King and let her go, but now I had a different working theory. I thought that maybe she had, actually, been someone’s slave.

And now I thought that someone had severely hurt her. I had seen slaves before, ones who had been taken advantage of, or had taken advantage of, in the wrong ways for them. In some cases, the slave just wasn’t compatible or built for what their Master wanted and it had done some damage to both sides. There were other relationships where the Master’s or slave’s feelings had been toxic. Master and slave relationships required a lot of trust and either side of it could abuse that trust, sometimes without intending to, and it left damage. Very rarely had I ever found the damage intentional, actually.

But Deirdre’s fear seemed like the kind of thing from some kind of damage, even if I didn't know exactly what. It made me want to help her all the more. God, she had been playing as a submissive for years. Had she been staying away from relationships and deeper styles of play because of those wounds all that time? Sure, that kind of thing would fulfill whatever submissive needs she had, but it had to suck, too. It sounded downright awful, actually.

I called the one person who knew Deirdre better than anyone, the one person who always knew what to do. Ash Lavrov.

I started the conversation by covering for her because I didn't want him upset with such a good friend. “She was a perfect little avatar of your inspection until I sidetracked her,” I said teasingly.

To which he growled. “Goddammit. What did you do?”

And then I told him. I told him what I guessed and that I wanted to play with her. I told him about how she’d poured the drink and how it had been instantly obvious.

He let me talk myself out, let me obsess over how she was like something from a fairytale and when I was done, he was quiet about his answer. “She was hurt, Chris. I won’t tell you what happened because it’s her business and not mine, but Deirdre came a long way. She stays away from harder players because she doesn’t think she can keep her heart out of it when she knows she has that nature. Be careful with her.” Those words made me interested. They seemed to imply there was more to be careful with. “And don’t do anything. Just wait.”

Ugh. Gross. That would be his answer, the Star Wars cliché of waiting for them to come to you. It was the one thing I sometimes sucked at, even if it was the best course of action. “Okay.”

And then I remembered that I had another resource of information in my bar at the moment and had to grin because the other one was sitting in the arms of my bartender. I didn't have to be totally stagnant if I was stuck waiting. Lily, as it turned out, was every bit as playful and uninhibited as Ash had led me to believe. She asked me questions about the bar, watched my slaves with me while sighing over how gorgeous they were the same way other people would sigh over romances. By the time I asked her the questions I was dying to know, she was all too forthcoming.

But I would wish I hadn’t asked. The answers she gave me made me see red. What kind of terrible Master let jealousy choose his punishments? What kind terrorized his little slave so bad that she cringed at every turn in the nonsexual ways and what kind locked her in a windowless room for a week without a bathroom to keep her from going on a vacation with Lily? At first I wondered why Lily would talk so easily about her friend’s past, but then I realized that Lily had suffered from it too. She was a fiery little redhead when that sweetness turned to anger and she told Jackson and I a lot once we got her started on the topic. She told us a horror story involving a drug habit that was out of control and violence that was unpredictable.

I had to force myself to follow Ash’s advice, but I did it. And I was in a far different mood when the little submissive princess came back to me, like Ash had promised she would.

--------

Deirdre

It had already been a while since I’d played before Christopher’s kiss, but when a week went by where I didn’t so much as visit Sulfur’s, I started to feel like I was going crazy. It was Ash who finally messaged me.

Throw in the towel and go see him, kitten. If I have to intervene when you self destruct, you won’t like it.

Bloody damn Master. He knew me too well. Ugh. I hated the fact that I totally deserved the warning too. He had seen my self destructing a few times and he knew it wasn’t pretty. I had woken up a few times with Ash at my side, after throwing up all night from deliberately drinking painful amounts, going on and on about being cursed, like a dramatic emo kid. God, it was embarrassing. And the implicit threat in his text? Shudder. If Ash said I wouldn’t like it, then it meant I really, really would not like it. I did not want to spend nights at his desk writing goddamn lines while he told me, for the upteenth time, that if I acted like a child, he would treat me like one.

I will not be stubborn until I self destruct. I will not be stubborn until I self destruct.

I messaged him back when I was standing outside of Sulfur’s Beta, taking a picture of it so he’d know I was there. I hated how good it felt when he messaged me back to say, Good kitten. Go on. He’s an old friend and you’ll like him.

I had to stop myself from being a bitch to him because bitchiness was a side effect of denying myself submissive play for a while. I really wanted to snark back at him that I damn well knew I’d like him and I didn’t want to fucking like his perfect, stern face and his perfect, beautiful slaves in their glamorous, wonderful cage.

Oh, God. That was the most jealous thought I’d ever had. I really was in trouble.

I walked in the door and gave my card to the door guard, since this one didn’t know me as well. I went past when he nodded me through, stepping into the wonderland of Christopher’s Sulfur’s, with its raised daisies and the birdcages. Just that step through the door made me want to bow so badly it hurt. I wanted to see him and see him right then. My sex went drenched and ready and it only got worse when I remembered him standing over his wonderful slaves. I couldn’t even think of the jealousy anymore when I was in that place. All I could think of was how badly I wanted to be one of those slaves, adorned with ornaments and pretty collars and displayed in a beautiful cage. I looked around for him, couldn’t think of anything but him. Was he playing again? Would he be in one of the back rooms?

None of the above. He was at the bar with Jackson and he was watching me, his eyes inviting and gentle again. I got wetter, needier, thinking of his kiss and it didn’t help that he had a long stranded flogger in the back pocket of his jeans, so that it moved when he shifted. I could see him playing with that flogger so easily it hurt. God, I had made fun of Lily for being hard up on his bartender, but I felt like a she wolf in the freaking spring, burning with sex fever just because I'd dared wait to long to satisfy myself.

When I went to him, he smiled in approval, as if he knew what kind of bravery it took me to come back and my heart fell even harder. He was a dream and every time I stood with him made my mind go crazed with my fantasies. “I’m sorry,” I finally whispered. “I-“

He grabbed my hand and it took me a moment before I even realized what he was doing.

But he was just hugging me, holding me in a feeling of safety that I didn’t realize I needed so badly. Because that was another thing of playing the right kind of games. There was definitely a feeling of security and protection involved. For me, it sometimes felt like a bubble of safety around a scene when it was happening.

He was so much the Master that the sphere of safety felt like something he carried with him. I cuddled against his chest and I couldn’t keep from smiling when he felt warm and sturdy. He was still so freaking nice and perfect when he pulled away, too. “No, I’m sorry. That was awful forward, to be perfectly fair. It’s about time someone gave me a lesson of humility.”

Ugh. How was he so secure about literally everything? He never even blushed. Even I got exhibitionist jitters every now and again! “Yes, obviously it was because you deserved it for trying to make me ‘an offer I can’t refuse’.”

He laughed when I said the last in a dramatically Italian voice and I was glad he found it charming because I was only capable of acting that much of an idiot when I wasn’t thinking straight. It had been a month since I’d played. “How have you been?”

You ever see a drunk or drugged person and how they’re sometimes all over the place and they don’t seem to have any clearly identifiable emotions? That’s how I felt in his presence at the moment. I couldn’t think. He was so stern even when he was so gentle and soothing. He didn't have a directly scary image at all, unlike his bartender or door guard, but in a different way he was scarier. It was that same factor that made him so secure, that made him stand straight, that made him kiss me that first time. It was the same way he had read me like a book and gave me that intense gaze as soon as I fixed him his whiskey one time. I had served him once.

And he knew about me after that. I didn’t know how, but I knew that was when he’d read me so easily. “Fine. I’ve been fine,” I finally managed.

He was already gently leading me away from everyone, gently leading me back down the hallways, as if he was reading me again. “I’m glad. I was worried about you after that.”

“I’m sorry.” It came out sad and sincere because it really did make me feel bad. I had another image of his male slave fingering his ass to please him and felt like my pussy was throbbing between my legs. Jesus, this hurt. “I didn’t mean to make you worry. And I really am sorry for- for-“

“Slapping me,” he said, grinning while I flushed. He opened the door to a back room and I realized it was his office when he guided me inside. “You should definitely own that. No one else has ever done it.”

When he shut the door, I couldn’t think anymore. “I’m sorry for this. Please don’t think I’m a crazy person, please.”

He was smiling that charming smile again. “Ash already warned me.”

“He did?” My voice was squeaky and my thoughts were racing and I couldn’t piece them in any kind of coherent string. “Warned you? What did he warn you about? Do I need a warning? For what?”

His smile turned to another easy grin. “For this.”

This time when he grasped me for a kiss, he was all masculine Master. His grin turned evil and his hand was in my hair again, but this time it was deliciously fierce in its hold. I growled into his mouth and opened mine in invitation, throwing caution to the winds. I wanted him and he wanted me.

When he released me from his kiss, I couldn’t stop the cry. “Oh, please! Please, I need it!”

He shushed me with the perfect amount of condescension to make me go hot with helpless humiliation, his fingers touching my lips with a little bit of violence in it. “He also told me to not be such a gentleman this time and to tell you, ‘Bad kitten. You waited too long.’” I whined, arching, and he shushed me again. That same kindness turned so fierce when he wanted it to. He was so controlled, such a Master. “Easy. I’ve got you.”

I couldn’t remember why he shouldn’t have me, why that was a problem. “Please! Please...” I struggled against him until he caught one of my wrists and then grabbed the other. He backed me against his office door and held them pinned up above my head, watching my eyes.

I felt hazy with sheer, sinful lust. I stared up at him, arched in a slutty little way, my lips parted for more, and I went still with surrender under his gaze, waiting for him. He smiled in approval. “Good girl.”

He held my wrists in one hand and finally lowered the other. Where he stroked it between my legs, over my jeans.

I squealed and I didn’t remember doing it, but my leg lifted to wrap around his to try to pull him closer. He was a kind enough Master to grant me that, to press me against the wall with his body so I could wrap my legs around his waist and I did. I wrapped tight and lowered my face to his neck with a whimper when he thrust against me. It was only later that I would realize he had been kind and kept our clothes on so I wouldn’t do something I would regret. Even when he wasn’t behaving like a gentleman, he was being a perfect one.

For the moment, he just worked me against the wall so that it gave me the sensation of being fucked and I thrashed in desire, rubbing my face in his neck until I finally lifted and begged, “Please! Harder, please! More...”

“Such a greedy little girl.” I cried out with the words, then sobbed when he curled a hand around my throat. He didn’t even choke, didn’t even have to. With him, just that gentle threat was enough. “Was he right, then? Were you a bad little Aurora? Did you stay away for too long?”

“Yes! Yes, I was bad. Please! Uh-mmm!” I cut the last off in a desperate sound, hoping he’d be nice to me, even though I had been bad and I knew I’d been bad.

I knew it because I would have said and agreed to everything he wanted, mindlessly, so long as he’d give me one more minute of his hand around my throat or a hard pull of my hair while he gave me that stern gaze and lectured me. Or if he’d make me crawl with a hand in my hair, make me kneel and look up at him and beg. I’d do anything for one more touch. It was like I was a drug addict and he was the most pure and exquisite form of heroin from my wildest dreams. “Bad girl.” He didn’t have access to my ass, so he did me one better and released my throat to slap my tits, giving his punishment to them instead. “You know better. I can’t take care of these dark, filthy little needs you have if you don’t come to me and tell me.” His eyes ate me alive, held me captive with sheer will. Had I ever thought him a perfect gentleman? How had I forgotten that the first image I had of him was of two slaves at his knees, where one lubricated the other to finger his asshole while sucking his dick? He was intensity and control and I climbed him for more, more, more. “Bad, bad girl.” My breasts stung with his abuses, delicious pricks of sensation from his light slapping.

“I’m sorry, sir. I’m sorry, I am. Oh!” I yelped when he abruptly pulled away from me, keeping control of me with the hand around my wrists and he forced me to the floor until he was standing over and slightly behind me.

“Sorry doesn’t really help me, but maybe learning to beg a little better will help you. Let’s make sure you know how together, Deirdre, so you don't have an excuse for next time. Show me how you ask for a spanking.”

Oh, Jesus Christ. So he could do it? I whimpered just at the thought. I was drenched in my jeans and he hadn’t even taken a single thread of my clothes. What was more, the position he had me in was with him bending over me, one hand at my chin and holding my head back. When I turned my head, I could feel his cock, how thick he was, how fucking hard he was, how goddamn horny he was to have me at his knees. I gave him what he wanted, craning my neck to look at him, and my voice was so breathy with desire that it was pathetic. “Please spank me, sir.”

He smiled down at me. “Good girl. How pretty. Of course, if you were a slave, it would be different.”

Oh, no. Please, no. He could make me do anything at the moment, anything, and this was the type of thing that I shouldn’t ask more about because every word would be enticement to make me burn worse. “S-sir?”

He crouched behind me, still stroking my jaw and his other hand stroked down between my legs, so that I shrieked. He squeezed roughly, but it was the perfect amount of sensation over my denim and his presence was already making me wild. I was so <i>wet</i>, so fucking <i>ready</i>. He made a low noise of encouragement in my ear, permission. “It’d be much different, little Aurora. You wouldn’t say those words at all. You’d trust your Master to take care of you, no matter what kind of needs you had, and you'd never ask.”

“Please! Oh, please, I need it!”

“I know you do. It’s okay. Let go, little Aurora. I’ve got you and I know what you need.” His voice was low in my ear and his breath felt hot, but all of me felt too hot. His hand between my legs slapped and squeezed and I spread wider for more, whimpering. He’d been caressing my jaw, but his hand moved to, ever so gently, close around my throat.

When his teeth locked at my neck, it was the last touch I could crave. I let go and it made my world go white with desire and pleasure.

--------

What made the whole thing worse was that he didn’t even do anything afterwards. He didn’t take for himself and he had never even needed to take my clothes off. He could have taken so much advantage of me, could have made me do whatever he wanted me to. I think I would have crawled into his cage to sleep if he made the slightest suggestion that it would give him pleasure. He never did, never even made a suggestion of his pleasure, as if he knew. He just sat on the floor and held me until I came back down again.

He was back to being the gentleman version of Christopher, I realized. I curled against his chest and he hummed against my hair. It took me a minute, but he was even waiting for me to speak first. “Thank you,” I finally whispered.

He laughed, pulling back to sit on the floor and smile at me. “My pleasure,” he answered with a wink. I flushed in reply because he hadn’t gotten any of that at all actually and I was trying to not think about the ways he was going to slake his lust later. His voice turned wicked. “And what was that thought?”

“Thinking about your pleasure,” I answered honestly.

“Now that is a fun thing to think about, if I’m allowed to be a little full of myself for a moment.”

“I feel like you’re allowed to do much more than that, sir.”

His grin was so infectious, so easy going. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve heard I’m on a tight leash and have to be inspected by this little wildcat, who once slapped someone so hard Ash almost had to make you leave for the night.”

It worked. I laughed in his arms. “You were there for that?” But of course he was. Why wouldn’t he be? “I don’t even remember what the man said to Lily, but I remember being so angry that he had managed to actually hurt her feelings. That was one of her boyfriends for a while, too, and he had to know what wounds he was hitting. Lily once flirted with a piercer after he punched the needle through because she squeaked in pain and he apologized. So she grinned up at him and said, ‘I didn’t realize how cute you were before’. The thought of whatever would hurt her just... I couldn't deal.”

Christopher choked in delighted amusement. “Please tell me that kid hasn’t tried to date a vanilla person. I feel like she’d break him after what Jackson told me.”

“She did. He was a devout Pentecostal.” Christopher opened his mouth, then closed it, and I laughed. “Yeah, none of us knew what to make of that, either. He thought she was cute and innocent and sweet.”

We bantered back and forth, over Lily, over masochists in general, over slaves and submissives.

After I left him - and we went back out to his bar where I think I convinced Jackson that I wasn’t actually a neurotic psychopath - it sank in how easy it was, how charming he was. I had known someone that seemed easy and charming before. I had suffered for lack of insight, torturous ups and downs in lack of control and never choosing the right thing. He had loved to tell me I was the shittiest submissive in the world because I’d tell him I didn’t know how to please when nothing seemed to please him. And it hurt. So bad.

All I had lived for and wanted was to be called a good girl and to curl up in a happy cage like a fairy tale princess caught by her prince. It didn’t matter that Christopher Love was so nice, that he gave me what I needed. I self destructed anyway and no one can self destruct quite like a submissive with the rug torn from under her feet. It’s one of those things we’re pretty good at sometimes, especially when we really want some goddamn structure and everything feels like chaos. It’s kind of an ironic curse of both working well with control and being unable or unwilling to give ourselves that control when we want someone else to do it.

--------

Christopher

I think the only reason why it took Ash two weeks to call me was because the man had a lot on his mind. He didn’t tell me all of it, but I knew one of his play Doms, named Matt, had picked up a rather interesting girl in Sulfur’s on an open door night and Ash was heavily involved in whatever was going on with it. He didn’t tell me much, except to say she was worse than Deirdre had ever been, but she took to Matt and Matt both adored her and was trying to help her without knowing what he was doing. Anyway, needless to say, Ash had his hands full.

But he was still bound to call when he didn’t see Deirdre for a while. “Hey. I was just checking up on your new little playmate.”

Playmate. I tilted my head. Ash didn’t sound very concerned. He sounded more playful actually, like he thought Deirdre was with me. “My new playmate? I saw her the once, but I guess it ended on a high note, sure. She said she’s busy helping you at the other bar, though.”

He was silent for a moment and when he spoke, it was simple. “She lied.”

I was grinning, but he sounded angry. “Yup. Hey, don’t worry about it. I’ll get her. You’ve got enough to deal with and it’s okay, honest.”

“I can’t just...”

“Let it go? Yeah, I got it, control freak. You’ll get updates. I’ll call you in a while.”

He let me go, but he didn’t want to and I had to appreciate that. When he’d first had me try out the new branch for him, he’d tried to micromanage every fucking thing. Ash was the kind of boss you hated. He was cold and emotionless, like an android that wouldn’t stop asking you about every little detail, from the height of the bar cooler to the placement of a sink. He was infuriating and I’d had to swallow down many a military brat comment where I wanted my own goddamn control and could work everything better if he’d shut up and let me just do it.

I was kind of proud of him for managing to hang up the phone after one of his surefire, stable lifestyle submissives lied to both of us, like a teenager trying to sneak out of the house with a friend. And we might live in a big city, but I had some valuable resources to find her and one of them was flirting with my bartender.

“Hi, Lily.” I sat down next to her, drawing her name out, and she seemed to hear something in my voice because she shifted in her chair. Jackson smirked at me. “Let’s talk about Deirdre.”

“Um.” She shifted her eyes nervously between us. “Okay. We... we can do that.”

“Why so nervous?” I flashed my teeth and she cowered. Oh, I liked Lily Lofton. “I hadn’t seen her in a while and she promised to see me every now and again. I wanted to make sure she’s okay, even though I know she’s busy helping Ash.” I said the last in a hard voice.

Lily shuddered. “Yes. Yes, she has been busy helping... helping Ash. She’s just been tired, you know, with the sex toy store and whatnot.”

“Uh huh. It’s really nice of her to help him so much right now.”

Her voice got squeakier. “It is! It is really nice. She’s good like that.” Yeah, she knew.

It took me thirty minutes to break her, which shocked me actually. The way she acted at first, I thought it wouldn’t be so long. I kissed her head when she finally confessed Deirdre's wild spree to me, when she gave me a list of bar names she might be at, starting with the most likely. I left her with Jackson, who winked and pet her and whispered that she was helping Deirdre and it was okay.

--------

Deirdre

I downed another shot of Jack Daniels at a hang out bar that was seedy as hell. It was nothing like the calm control and clarity of Sulfur's, but it worked for my purposes at the moment. God, what was wrong with me? I felt humiliated, embarrassed, like a bitch. What was more, I hadn't bowed to anyone since the light play with Christopher and my world wasn't exactly stable at the moment. It wasn't just having met him. There were other things with work, standard problems everyone deals with, and I was usually pretty good at handling them so long as I could satisfy that one cursed need. It was just part of me, my outlet and that special mindset that balanced my world.

What was worse? I didn't even have a good excuse for doing this, for acting the way I was, and for not going back to Christopher. I was just being a fucking coward, but all I could think of was how awful it had been the last time I had gotten too close to my fantasies. I moaned, placing my face in my hands before I downed another shot and, by then, I absolutely had the intention of making myself sick. Because I deserved to be sick and to go through the pain the next morning. God, really? Some reliable friend I was to people like Ash who thought so highly of me. What was wrong with me, that I needed to play those games or I lost myself in self punishment? I didn't know, but it was torture sometimes and the worst part was playing sometimes wasn't even satisfying. All it did was make me get close to that girl who dreamed of being locked in a tower by her knight. Lately, I dreamed I was Rapunzel and maybe I struggled my cage at first, but the knight in his shining armor held me safe and secure and he cherished me. He always caught me when I tried to leave my tower and he always punished me to make me feel safe all over again.

"Hey there, Hawthorne Heights. Chin up." Despite the teasing words, his voice was so gentle. Christopher Love. God, he even had the name of a knight, at least to me.

I didn't obey him. I lowered my head to the bar table and moaned. I didn't even bother to ask how he found me or what he was doing, either. I couldn't get away with lying to someone like Ash for a long amount of time. "Why am I like this? Why can't I just turn it off and be like normal people?" I went to take another drink, but he stopped me with a light hand over the shot glass.

"Hey, there, Aurora. I know it isn't much consolation right now, by the looks of things, but I think you're pretty damned wonderful the way you are. I'm really glad you're not whatever you mean by 'normal'." I finally looked up at his stupid, perfect face and gave him a pathetic gaze, so that he smiled.

I rubbed my hair, which was a mess. I was defeated as hell and he looked as put together as the night I first saw him, when he was getting his cock sucked by two slaves he didn't even have to speak to in order to command. "I hate you. How are you so fucking perfect and gorgeous?"

He grinned and paid off my tab while I was too drunk to even realize he was doing it, while I only realized it after the fact and then wanted to slap him for being the perfect goddamn prince. "There's a lot of people who'd disagree with you on that. Every slave I've ever had enjoys the fantasy play of my control for set time limits, but has always confessed, after they're done, that they wouldn't want it 24/7, for instance." He was even guiding me out the door with his hand at the small of my back and with such ease that I barely even noticed that, either. I barely even thought about the fact that I shouldn't want to go anywhere with this man.

"I hate you."

He made a low sound and I realized he was finally frustrated. "Would you tell me why, then?"

I snorted and my petty shit came up, thanks to the alcohol. My emotions were all over the goddamn place and I couldn't think in the presence of this man. "It doesn't fucking matter. Just go back to one of your perfect, gorgeous slaves and leave. Me. A-"

He cut me off in the one way I couldn't fight against. It was the same way he already knew would shut me up and make me still. With a kiss.

I moaned into his mouth, lost to his force of will because that seemed a thing alive. He was put together and commanding and he had all those perfect qualities of the master I had always dreamed of, every last bloody one. He was nurturing, hard, stern, controlling. I whined up against him, lifting when he cupped the back of my head, so turned on and so fucking needy again. He growled back against me and my whine rose to a cry of submission. If I tasted like Jack, he didn't seem to care in the slightest. His lips turned all the harder with my surrender, almost cruel, but that made me more excited, so that he chuckled wickedly, and then I realized why when he stilled my body.

Where I had been writhing in a sinuous dance against him, right in a goddamn alleyway. He finally broke away and kept his hand in my hair to hold my face up to his, so that I was forced to meet his eyes. "Jealousy does not suit you, little Aurora. It doesn't have a place for me and it for damn certain doesn't belong in our favorite fetish bar.” I whimpered, not sober and so horny by how controlled his voice was where I was so weak and vulnerable against him. That voice lecturing me made me feel even hotter than some of the sex I’d had.

“Yes, sir.”

It slipped from my lips as if it just belonged there, as if it was whole and right that I should look in his eyes and say it. And he reacted to it, standing taller, his hand tightening in my hair to better hold me under his control. Under his care. Under his calming will. “Good girl. Such a sweet girl you can be. You’ll find I can be very kind to good girls, Deirdre.”

Jesus, I didn’t doubt that. I remembered the girl sucking his thumb when he fucked it between her lips even while his male slave worshiped his cock. I turned my head so that his hand was cupping my face, then nuzzled, and then I was just drunk enough to take that same finger and taste it myself. He made a low sound when I sucked it between my lips, carefully covering my teeth. I worked smoothly, nursing him with my own worship, because gods knew I could do that. I couldn’t bow the ways I loved most with my forms of submission, but I could play with toys in my bed, pretending like I was serving, imagining I was an exotic princess captured by a conqueror’s knight and given as a reward... And it was so easy to serve him like that when I was just inebriated enough to let go.

His breath was hot against my forehead where he exhaled with horny fervor. “Just say the word, Deirdre, and I’m all yours, if that's what you want. I’ll give up my play slaves and let my pets go, but I want something in return for that. I want a relationship where you actually come and see me.”

He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to say it, that a relationship with him would work to the end goal of my being his slave. I thought of his pets, eagerly performing on display in their cage, thought of them dancing in their other cages, of how every single perfect motion had been to serve the eyes of anyone who watched them. Then, I thought of myself in one of those cages with no one to share the spotlight with and no one to take some of the attention with me. I thought of myself being made to dance for him. It should have terrified me. It should have made me want to leave his touch because I had felt the way that kind of training and trust could be turned around into a betrayal.

The Pleasure Garden was the name of the room he’d been in when I’d first seen him, something he'd told me when we last talked together. And for some reason, I couldn't think of the fear as well as I had been able to before. The liquor numbed out my caution and left heat and arousal. “Tell me what you want, Deirdre.”

I want your collar and I want to be the only one who wears it, but I'm really, really scared of you. “I want you to take me home and fuck me until I can think straight again.”

Eh. Close enough. He grinned down at me. “Yes, Mistress.”

I shivered at how wrong the words sounded from his mouth and took his hand and I was too drunk to realize that he hadn’t asked where I lived. Because he was taking me home. Just not to my home.

--------

Christopher

I had visions of having her in my bondage bed, of riding her into the padded leather and feeling chains under my hands even if I couldn’t use them with a drunk girl. Just the roughness with Deirdre’s firecracker heat under me would have been enough.

She didn’t allow me to do that. I opened my door to let her in, intrigued by the out of control emotions in her eyes, wondering at them. Such jealousy, from Deirdre? That was no light thing, but I meant my offer even if she wasn't sober enough to quite consider what it meant coming from me. She could have all my attention, if she asked me for it, my monogamy even if that word kind of made me want to choke. I stayed calm, keeping my voice soft, because I wanted her to be calm. “Here. Let me show you some of the house, l-“

And she shut me up with her kiss, not that I was complaining for the moment. Oh, don’t get me wrong. If I could ever get her to wear my collar, I would have stopped it, even if her kisses were delicious, violent things. It sometimes sucked that you had to forego pleasures that would be fun, in favor of punishment when those pleasures were disrespectful or manipulative.

I didn’t have to worry about that at the moment. Deirdre bit me, so hard I grunted with a little surprise, and she shoved me back against the wall. “Jesus Christ, everything about you is, like, the perfect D type, did you know that? Everything. You're so bad for me and I can't just make it stop. It's infuriating."

I smiled soothingly. "Master type, more than a Dom, actually, but listen. I know why you're so scared and I can help you, little Aurora-"

She shut me up again and I growled into her violent kiss, loving it. She tasted like whiskey and lust. “Stop. Calling. Me. That.”

Ah, my little firecracker did have her princess fantasies. Poor Deirdre, to have been so wounded in her past. I wanted to train her with so much unconditional love that she quit being scared of the things she loved so much. I wanted to show her how wild it could be when her fantasies were made real, so much that she never wished to be vanilla again. I wanted to smooth her hair from its tousled state and teach her that not all trust was betrayed. For the moment, I just kissed her back, taking her drunk violence and returning it in the small ways I was permitted. She could take all of her pain out on me, if she needed. I could handle it. I grappled with her in my entryway, stroking my hands up to cup her tits in a fierce caress that made her gasp into my mouth. I slapped one through her t-shirt and then grinned when she moaned in greed.

Deirdre had a little bit of masochism. She raised to my violent strokes, arching her back when I milked her through her shirt. “That’s it, good girl. Offer up to me when I want you.”

And my voice was dark, yes, but she reacted to that too, her head falling back with this sexy cry that made me kiss her again, made me drink in those whimpers of hers. She pulled away for a second and finally seemed to come back to herself, growling like the little wildcat I had fantasized about taming. I started having dreams after I realized what she was, where I reconciled how fierce she could be with the slave I had seen. And oh, she lived up to and beyond those wicked fantasies of mine. She ripped my shirt and that was the first time I’d ever had that done to me, but it made me thrilled. What was more, she tore through the tatters to bare my torso and she seemed to like what she saw an awful lot. She traced the Roissy tattoo on my chest before she kissed me again, her tongue lashing mine while I moaned eagerly. And then I pulled away, gritting my teeth against the pain when she clawed those vicious nails of hers up my back, so hard and slow that it was torturous and I felt that tiny, itching wetness that comes from the smallest wells of blood.

When I focused on her, she was smiling as if in a kind of satisfaction and it made me laugh. “Pleased with yourself for leaving your marks like I’m your dog? Is your jealousy satisfied now, Deirdre?”

She didn’t even hesitate. Her face was unapologetic when she answer. “Yes.”

And that was about the moment that I realized I didn’t care how and I didn’t care what it cost. I wanted Deirdre, more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. I wanted to take those sharp claws she could have and file them down with a relentless grindstone of slavery protocol. I loved Deirdre, beautiful wildcat that she was, and I wanted to tame her at the end of my whip and leash, until she performed for me. Those claws of hers were exquisite and her teeth could be fierce, too, but I wanted to love her in the safety of a cage so hard and much that she never needed teeth nor claws ever again.

Alright, so my plans of being a gentleman went out the fucking window but what the hell. It wasn’t like I was ever good at being that anyway. I met Deirdre violence for violence instead, taking the chance she’d given me to just... let go, at least a little.

I decided it was pretty fun, too, especially when I managed to cup her between her legs so that she jolted in my arms. “Look at you.” My voice even sounded more animal, more possessive. “Look at how greedy this little pussy is. Does it need to be fed a cock, baby?” She moaned as if she was in pain from how horny she was and I laughed at her all the harder.

She went crazy in my arms, like the most beautiful angel, even more amazing than any fucking fantasy I had ever had of her after that first night when I saw her slap someone.

--------

Deirdre

My memory wasn't as hazy as I would have expected when it came to that night. I had managed to drink a fair bit before he found me, but apparently my two weeks of abuse to my body had built a decent tolerance. I remembered all of it. The way we never even made it to his room, for instance. We tussled and switched positions in his living room floor, like two dogs in heat. Well, partially in the floor, where he let me ride him with a look of fierce possession in his eyes, smacking my ass until he got frustrated and growled, “Turn around and bend over so I can spank you better while you fuck me.” And I obeyed, grabbing his knees and clawing my nails into his flesh when he made good his threat and spanked me so my ass sizzled with heat. And then that switched when he finally snarled and pushed me up and forward, so he could pull out from under me and fuck me from behind, on his knees while I was shoved forward. As soon as he thrust inside of me, I cried out and bowed low to the ground, face down and ass up for more, for deeper. “Give me your wrists,” he snapped behind me.

His voice was so much like a whip crack that I whined out my answer of, “Yes, sir,” and obeyed without even managing to feel a spark of anger. He held my wrists in one hand because they were so small compared to his grip, and grabbed my hair with the other, like he was holding a twisted version of reins. I choked on bliss with how helpless it made me feel, how it felt right to be bowed low and offered up for him to use because he most definitely used me like that. He thrust inside of me in a furious pace, until I was sobbing out in need and then frenzy and then rising torment. And then I finally arched and I couldn’t even make a sound with the orgasm it gave me to be his plaything in his floor. He moaned behind me and I realized I’d taken him over with me, so that he was humping me, banging out his own orgasm like an animal. And thank God he had thought of condoms because I sure as shit didn’t.

He wasn’t even done after that. He growled and lifted me when I was still stunned with the force of pleasure, laying me on one of his chairs while I shook, but he seemed intent. He got on his knees, tugging the condom off when his cock was softening, and I didn’t see what he did with it and didn’t care because he lapped at me, eating my pussy and Jesus fuck, Christopher Love was an animal. He sucked between my legs, making these low growling sounds so that I shook in arousal all over again with how much fire he had, with how filthy he was. He thrust his tongue inside of me and sucked so that I grabbed his head with one hand and bit my wrist with the other. His growls only rose in volume when I pulled his hair, until he finally looked up at me and I moaned, entranced with delicious fear by how much he looked like a monster. His eyes held this ferocity that made me shake. “Harder,” he snapped.

I squealed when he thrust his tongue back inside me and grabbed his hair with both hands, pulling so that he snarled in pleasure and sucked again, obscenely. I thrust my hips, holding his head and pulling him forward in a fucking motion, riding him until those waves of pleasure crashed inside me and I was writhing, drenching his chair and his face. “Christopher!” He growled at the way I said his name, then sucked hard again so that I arched, my world melting into tortured heaven.

I made to lift up when he nibbled and it felt so sensitive, but then he looked at me and pinned me back with just his gaze, as stern as it was. “No. You lay just how I’ve put you until I’ve had my fill, you bad little girl.”

And then went back to eating, as if he’d never have his fill. It seemed an age until he pulled me out of his chair and by then I had no fight left. I whimpered and went where he shoved me, tugging him with me when I fell against his wall. He laughed at that and made me turn around, then spanked me, holding me with one hand at the small of my back while he slapped with the other, hard spanks. I keened in ecstasy for every one, turning my head to watch him.

He was staring down at my ass, watching the way my flesh rippled with every strike, his lips parted as if it was the most arousing thing he’d ever seen in his life. It made me whimper and his gaze flashed to mine at the sound, his lips curving up in a heated smile at whatever he saw on my face. He showed me mercy, turning me around and getting another condom. Once he had it on, he lifted me against the wall and rubbed against my core, teasing my entrance so that I finally broke. “Please! Please, I’m so empty...”

He made another of those low sounds and thrust inside of me, stuffing me full, so full, and he held me as best he could. And he was so warm with this glow of sex, like a god of lust and control all in one. He pant a little, but not as if he was about to be tired anytime soon, more as if he was frenzied with how hard he was rocking inside of me. I whimpered, my legs tight around his waist, and his head was back slightly until I grabbed him by his hair again and made him be closer, until I pressed my lips to his with a low whimper of submission and need and begging.

He moaned as if the sound wounded him and when he pulled away, his voice was a soft whisper. “Oh, Jesus, Deirdre...”

I choked when I came and said his name a third time and, that time, I was fucked all out of confused anger and fight. All that was left was submission and I was close, so close to breaking and telling him I was dying for his collar and I was scared for how badly he might be able to hurt me. So it came out another plea and a whine. “Christopher, please! Sir, please...”

He moaned and bit my shoulder and I’d never forget it, never. I lifted my head for him to have easier access, surrendering to him with a happy sob while he drilled me against the wall. Then, he made this low snarl of a sound and pulled away from the wall, taking me back to the floor, and my legs shook when they fell open. This time, he crawled over me and I expected violence with the territorial gaze he gave me, but when he stroked a hand under my ass and lifted me up so he could fill me, his touch was gentle. He lowered his face to mine and kissed me with this loving hum. What was worse was how his other hand was a caress around my throat, the softest, sweetest control. No bondage besides his touch, no pain besides the way my muscles burned from our spree, and no cruelty at all.

And that was what broke me. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back in surrender, spread my legs for him to use me easier, arched my hips to help him go deeper. I didn’t say anything, but I think he knew. His eyes when he finished with a moan said he knew. They were peaceful, the Master version I had first seen him have. “Pretty Aurora,” he said softly.

“Yes, sir.” He smiled in satisfaction, his eyes lit up with his pleasure and the sight made me glow, made me tingle with joy from my head to my toes.

He kissed my nose and I felt numb when he lifted me to his chest, when he carried me to his bed. Like Ash, he apparently slept where he dungeon fucked. I didn’t look at it too closely besides to notice when he put my clothes on my side of the bed. He covered me up and stroked my hair gently.

I waited until he passed out while petting me so gently, waited until he pulled away in his sleep, until he was on his back and his shoulder length hair was splayed messily across the pillow.

And I got dressed and left. It wasn't my ghosting him, nothing like that. It wasn't any act of cruelty at all, in fact, or even an act of cowardice.

I just knew that I was done for and lost and I needed a minute to collect myself before I fell to him, needed a minute to pray to whatever higher power existed that the fall didn't have a terribly painful ground waiting for me at the bottom this time.

 

great story