Deep Inside (7 page)

She knew from his half-closed eyes that she was giving him not the swift sharp pain of a needle, but a soft, slow death agony that was infinitely more pleasurable.

Maureen had never found him more beautiful than now. His body throbbed as it quivered its last. His arms thrashed and his hips twitched. She longed to lick the alien stigmata, more sacred than any earthly signs of God could be. And then her tongue began to extend on its own, sliding down, long now, and she could taste the bloody holes in Tom's hands. Maureen's body convulsed again as dozens of scarlet snakes burst out of her.

He gave his final shudder. Led by a power greater than any she'd ever imagined outside church, she approached him slowly, transfixed by his beauty. Her tendrils relaxed their hold and slithered back inside her.

Except the one wrapped around his genitals. Around and around it wrapped itself, ever tightening its grip, until a silver projection, brother to the needle back in the parlor, extended out of the head of Tom's cock. That was it, she now knew. They fit together, lock and key forever.

She maneuvered herself so that her piercing hovered over the erect cock and its glistening needle. Slowly, relishing the action millimeter by millimeter, she settled her weight onto it. The needle fit precisely into her piercing.

Maureen writhed as it buried itself into her. She thought she could hear her soul screaming as it sucked the last bit of life out of him. Or was it the sound of his soul screaming as it sucked the life out of her?

“This is
not a good day!” I cried. “Nobody at work understands how I feel!”

Mom's voice clucked with sympathy over my cell phone headset. “Poor baby!” she said.

I was dressing in the locker room of the dungeon where I worked as a dominatrix. I was already fifteen minutes late for my first client. My boss, Mistress Shanna, was a stickler for punctuality and sobriety on the job.

“Fuckin' Shanna put me on probation,” I continued as I adjusted my leather bra so my nipples showed through the holes. “Just because I showed up the other day with a little X still in my system.”

“Katie, that's so unfair!” Mommy said.

“Dude, tell me about it,” I said. “Plus she got on my case because I took extra time off for my vacation.”

“How could she expect you to get to Bali and back in just one week?” my mother asked.

“She said I shouldn't have gone to Bali at all, if I couldn't get back during the vacation time she gave me.”

I then let Mom take over the conversation while I got back to the serious business of putting my hair in pigtails. She told me how perfect I was and how awful Shanna was being.

I ran my whip along Shanna's terra cotta walls. Mistress Shanna definitely ran an upscale pain salon. Perfumed candles flickered in sconces. I took satisfaction in blowing out two of them.

“I thought being a dominatrix would be so rad,” I told Mom. “I always loved the fashions. But it turns out that sadism is more than cool style. It's really hard work!”

Mom anxiously paused, then asked the big question. “Honey, how's your self-esteem these days?”

“Not good,” I said. “Not good at all. Mommy, Shanna's been very critical of my work performance.”

“Oh dear,” Mom said.

“In fact, things are going so bad for me right now that…well, I've started thinking about Larry Gamble again.”

“Oh no! Not Larry Gamble!” I knew the mention of Larry's name would strike terror into her heart.

“Katie, sweetie,” Mom anxiously said, “I think you should move back home. I have your bedroom all ready for you.”

“You live in fucking Orinda,” I told her. “I'd rather be dead than go back to the burbs!”

“I'm sorry, honey. You're so right.” Her voice was heavy with remorse. “I just can't afford to live in a chic downtown neighborhood. Your college bills—”

I turned a corner and nearly ran into Mistress Shanna. I immediately hung up on Mom. She'd understand—she always did. I yanked off my cell phone headset.

Shanna brushed her big '80s-style hair back. Her red plastic jumpsuit, I swear, crinkled loudly with her displeasure.

When I first came to work here I was in awe of her. Rich, sexy, famous: Shanna was a legend in the BDSM community because she ran a socially conscious and hygienic dungeon. But now she was getting on my nerves.

“So Katie Vail,” she said. “Got a good explanation this time? Because the last one wasn't so good.”

“I know,” I said. “But—”

She cut me off with a wave of her hand. The manacles on her wrists rattled. “Don't even try,” she said.

Oh, God. I was in for one of her your-generation-takes-S-and-M-for-granted-but-it-wasn't-easy-for-someone-of-my-generation-to-do-this lectures.

“Katie, you have a natural talent as a dominatrix. You've been given the gift of cruelty. But talent isn't enough. You have to work at it. BDSM is a calling. It was something people of my generation struggled to do with dignity—”

I vagued out while she ranted on. Who cares what a struggle it was for Baby Boomers to find their way to bondage? I had started downloading S-and-M porn from the Internet when I was twelve. By fourteen I'd spanked another girl and by fifteen my friends and I had parties where we peed on boys.

But Shanna was building to her big finale, so I made as if to pay attention. “In order to discipline others you must be disciplined yourself. In order to be a top, you must surrender to a higher power. You seem to think that being a dominatrix just means you look good in leather. I'm beginning to think you don't belong here.”

With one last flash of her eyes, she marched off. There was no reasoning with people her age. I swung my whip up and entered torture chamber number seventeen. Nancy, my client, didn't look happy.

“I rushed over here from a meeting at my company only to find that you—once again—are late!” she barked.

Nancy stood in the middle of the dungeon wearing a submission suit with cutouts that exposed her salon-tanned breasts and pussy.

“I've got to pick up my daughter from her soccer game at three. Let's get a move on!” she demanded. It isn't easy being a dominatrix when you've got a bossy client.

When I was a kid I saw all those music videos with S-and-M scenes in them. Not to mention all the fashion layouts in magazines with supermodels wearing dog collars and being led around on leashes. So cool!

But the sad fact of being a professional sadist is that instead of dancing around in music videos or fashion layouts, you deal with clients like Nancy. She was no supermodel. And she wasn't a masochist because of the fun fashions.

No, Nancy was a submissive because she had all these boring psychological issues—like she was really successful, but didn't feel worthy of owning her own company or having a beautiful daughter—and she was here to work it all out. I didn't care about Nancy's need to be released from her guilt over being a success.

Still, I knew I had to please Shanna today, so I tried to enter into the spirit. I dimmed the lights so the room was lit by candles and the TVs Shanna always had on just like they do in gyms. CNN was playing on them. I marched over to Nancy, making sure my boots clicked loudly on the tiled floor.

“You know the drill,” I said.

“You're supposed to
order
me to spread my thighs,” Nancy scolded.

Christ, she was determined to make me take charge! I took a deep breath.

I roughly pinched her nipples, then slid the tip of my whip into her cunt. After that, I threw a few classic moves her way, holding her jaw roughly while slapping her pampered ass.

She just looked at me with disdain. I whacked her harder.

“On your knees, bitch!” I ordered.

“I guess I may as well do what you say,” she muttered. “But only because I've paid for this session. Your attitude as a dominatrix leaves a lot to be desired.”

“Do you have to be so critical?” I asked.

“Oh, for God's sake,” Nancy said. “At least slap me while you whine.”

So I did. Now it was time for the nipple-torture-slash-whipping that Nancy paid highly for.

I walked over to the equipment drawer and removed a packet of sealed nipple clamps. One thing Shanna had done that really put her over with the mainstream crowd was to guarantee a high level of sanitation. Plus it was good self-defense. Even though we had clients sign waivers when they entered, Shanna never stopped worrying about lawsuits.

I fastened Nancy's wrists and ankles to a rack. I put the clamps on her nipples and attached them to chains that hung from the ceiling.

“Time for your torture,” I said. “Do you want forty strokes this time? Or should I give you fifty?”

“You're supposed to decide,” she said snippily. “Okay, I guess I have to make that decision, too, don't I? You're so inept.”

The conflict with Nancy was making tears of frustration spring to my eyes.

“And could you please tune one of the TVs to Bloomberg?” she asked. “I need to know what's happening with my portfolio.”

I wiped tears from my cheeks as I whipped her. She kept her eyes on the TV. I knew I should be counting my lashings, but I found myself drifting off.

Where had the career magic gone? Entering the BDSM field had seemed like such a cool thing to do right out of college. And I loved the way my friends were so impressed by my daring. They were all going off to the usual boring stuff: med school and ad agencies.

I had my eye on more glamorous things. Becoming a dominatrix seemed like it might be a path to fame. San Francisco is a city that loves its leather and chains, and I'd seen other domina-trices become celebrities. But now I was twenty-five and neither famous nor rich. Maybe I should have gone to law school. Perhaps my BDSM resume would help me become a Pilates instructor….

“What kind of dominatrix are you?” Nancy snapped. “It feels like you're swatting flies! And you completely forgot to pull on the nipple chains! I pay a fortune here for first-class pain and
this
is what you give me? Untie me
now.
I want to see Mistress Shanna!”

Like I said, not a good day.

Minutes later I was trying to make excuses in Mistress Shanna's office. But Shanna wouldn't hear any of it.

“You're always asking for more time off,” she said. “Well, now you have it. Think of yourself as permanently on vacation. You're fired.”

I could feel my mouth drop a mile.

“What about my health insurance?” I asked.

 

I was
on my bed, making slow circles against my crotch with my new Hitachi Magic Wand. Mommy had sent it as consolation for losing my job.

My clit was swollen and I could smell my heat. I chewed on the corner of my Scooby-Doo comforter, getting it wet with saliva in the way that always turned me on. I'm such a kid! But I couldn't come. Shit! It was driving me crazy.

Since Shanna fired me, I'd been holing up for weeks in my dinky apartment. Talk about unwashed plates and piles of clothes!

When I did get my loser ass in gear, I headed to Starbucks for a caffeine hit, picked up a couple in their thirties, and treated myself to a three-way. It was pretty cool. They certainly seemed to enjoy playing with a ripe young thing—that would be me.

Yet I couldn't get off, even when she strapped on a gorgeous silver dildo. It just made me droopy. So much for the magic of double penetration.

What was happening? My life was out of control. Mommy said it was a question of my self-esteem. I switched the Magic Wand off and got out of bed.

I had a ritual at these moments that always made me feel better. I went to my closet, opened up boxes, and surrounded myself with the trophies and ribbons I'd won as a kid. Tons of them sat there gleaming and shining at me.

As I always did during this ritual, I flashed back to the moment when I won each award. The silver plate embossed with my name—I got that for swimming. The huge tri-colored ribbon—that was for math. And the crystal cup—that was for spelling.

I remembered those moments of triumph. But instead of making me feel better, my mind played evil tricks on me. I remembered that I hadn't gotten the awards because I'd come in first or been the best.

The fact was that each and every one of my classmates were also given gold stars and trophies! I remembered how the teachers explained that they didn't want for any of us to feel badly. That's why they were giving the same awards to all of us. The point was to make all of us have good self-esteem.

A horrible thought entered my twenty-five-year-old brain. Maybe, if everybody got a trophy, then the awards I'd won didn't meant anything. Maybe I wasn't special.

It was like all the fog of the Bay Area descended on me.

 

I drifted
a depressed evening away at the computer. I surfed through bukkake porn. I panned a college friend's first novel on Amazon.

Eventually I found myself Googling all the people I'd gone to school with. The last time I'd done that it had been such a mood-boost: they were all doing worse than I was. One girl had even died. I hadn't known her, but still—it made me feel better, and that was a good thing.

But tonight my Internet research revealed that
everyone
from my class seemed to be doing
better
than I was!

There was an announcement on my class alumni page that sent a chill through me. After two years as an unpaid intern James Lee had been put on full-time. And further, Daphne O'Neal had just gotten back from Vermont where she'd tied the knot with her girlfriend.

There was only one thing that could make me feel better: thinking about Larry Gamble.

I went to my dresser and opened my little keepsake box. That's where I stored the retro see-through panties I wore that fateful day in seventh grade.

By the way, I was wearing them long before Scarlett Johansson made them famous in
Lost in Translation.
I put them on in front of the mirror and admired the way you could see my butt crack through the fabric. I touched myself as I replayed the formative incident that happened thirteen years ago.

Larry Gamble.

He must have been thirty-five at the time. Tall with high cheekbones and fierce black eyes. He always wore cords, carried a briefcase, and had the most conservative haircuts. He was like some dorky teacher off a WB show.

But he was different than the other teachers in our school. They spent all their time trying to raise our self-esteem.

But Larry ran a strict classroom and made us memorize facts and spell correctly. He said the psychiatrists and education specialists had it all wrong when they said that people need to feel good about themselves before they can achieve in life.

Larry said it was the other way around. He had some nutty theory about how self-esteem
follows
achievement. Nobody ever talked to us like that.

Fuck, he was hot.

He even insisted that we call him “Mr. Gamble” rather than “Hey, Larry.”

I'd sit in his class and dream of tying him up, or maybe slitting my wrists in front of him. Or maybe I'd slit his wrists. I couldn't figure out what I wanted. Hey, I had only just started looking at S-and-M porn on the Internet and didn't know what I was doing yet!

One day Larry sprang a test on us, demanding that we write an essay. I carefully wrote on the paper, “This is booooring.”