Safeword: Matte (4 page)

“Yes.”

He looked at her another few seconds and then looked out the window for a count of five or ten before looking back at her, his eyes back to normal once again, a half smile showing a bit of apology. “Since I gave you a one word answer, I'll give you another question.”

Sam's insides went to jello when his eyes changed, and she couldn't just forget they'd been... different. But she wasn't sure what to say about it. “Tell me what it takes to satisfy your inner sadist.”

Ethan reached for her hand and walked down a hallway with her, leading her into a well-appointed room at the back of the house with several leather sofas and very comfortable looking chairs. He sat down in the corner of one of the sofas and pulled her down into his lap, her legs out to the side and her back up against the arm of the sofa. Touching her face, using two fingers against her cheek to keep her looking at him, he said, “I will always respect a safeword, but my inner sadist needs to deliver pain – it needs to hear someone scream and beg and plead for it to stop.”

“Define 'it', Ethan. What specifically do you like to do to women to hurt them?”

“Oh. That. I'm not all that picky – flogger, belt, cane, whip, paddle, rough sex, anal sex, needles, electricity, wax.” He shrugged. “Some people have a high tolerance for one thing and not another, I get that. I'm pretty versatile as far as what kind of pain I like to dole out. I guess the next question is whether you’re a masochist or not.”

“I can't believe you were asking someone you thought vanilla to go out with you. How do you explain this to vanilla girlfriends?”

“It's easier for a Dom to introduce it slowly than it is for a submissive to try to explain what they want. I just start out with small hurts that happen while she's really, really turned on. I have them equate pain with pleasure, and then gradually work them up. But I don’t date vanilla very often, not unless someone really fascinates me. You didn't answer my question.”

He'd let her see his inner demons, so she squeezed her eyes shut and looked down at his chest before opening them, and then talked to his chest. It was a huge risk, but he’d opened up to her and now it was her turn. “I need to know the person I'm with can handle me. I mean, I need to be able to fight them; I need to be physically subdued. A safeword doesn't really work for that, so I need to be able to trust someone enough to eventually get rid of the safeword, so it's real. So far no one has been able to give me what I need. I've scened with two friends in Nashville who I trusted to play me without a safeword. But one of them watched my face at all times, let the other know when to back off. And they always restrained me, never played with me when I could get loose. I do need the pain, and I need to be able to scream and beg for it to stop; but mostly I need someone I can actually fight, someone I can't hurt, someone who can claim the alpha position over me for real.”

He ran his hand through her hair. Petting her, almost. “It’ll be a while before I'll play without a safeword. I'll need to know your pain tolerance, need to understand your screams, your tone of voice, the way your muscles tense and relax. But I can give you the fight you're looking for. Not here, but we can find a place to do it privately. I can provide names of people who will vouch for me from the Atlanta scene if it’ll help you trust me.”

Sam felt his finger under her chin and she let him raise her head up, and then his mouth was on hers, the warmth of his lips opening her lips, his tongue coming into her mouth, his hand on the back of her neck. She opened for him, allowed him to kiss her, to ravage her mouth. When he finally pulled back she realized she was out of breath.

“Here is what I want to do,” he said, and she realized his sexy voice was going to completely undo her. She stayed silent, letting him talk, letting his quiet words flow down onto her. “If you don't agree with something please let me finish and then we can negotiate. I want to take you downstairs and walk you to an available piece of equipment that can be used for spanking or flogging. When we arrive at the equipment you’ll remove all your clothing and get into position. I have wrist cuffs with me. I'll put them on you and restrain you to the equipment. I will give you ten strokes with a flogger, ten strokes with a cane, and ten strokes with a tawse.”

He held her gaze while he took a breath, then continued. “You will not say a word. You can scream or moan, but no intelligible words. If you need to give me a yellow signal you’ll close and open your right hand. A red signal and you’ll close and open your left hand. I will put a piece of half red and half yellow paper in front of you, so you’ll just need to look at the paper and then close and open the corresponding hand. For the purposes of the hand movements, yellow will make me back off on the intensity, and red will make me stop for a few minutes and give you some attention, but will not stop the scene. If you say Red out loud I’ll release you from the cuffs and the scene will be over for the day. Red is the house word, so once you say it out loud, the scene will be over no matter what.”

“And if I say an intelligible word other than Red?”

He smiled and his eyes went dark again, which both scared her and made her want him more than ever. “Every breath with an intelligible word or words in it will be one stroke of the stainless steel cane. One sentence in one breath is one stroke. One single word is one stroke. Two words with a breath between would be two strokes.”

She went so wet at those words she was sure her g-string was soaked. “I won't strip down to nothing. I'll strip down to a g-string, but not total nudity in front of others. I'm good with the rest of it.”

He kissed her forehead. “I'm fine with that. There’s a door at the top of the steps, and the steps lead straight down into the dungeon. From the time I open the door there will be no more words. If you have any questions, now is the time to ask.”

Sam believed in making sure she understood people, which often meant repeating back what she believed she heard. “Walk downstairs, follow you to an open piece of equipment, allow myself to be put in cuffs and restrained to the equipment. Ten strokes with a flogger, then cane, then tawse. Open and close one hand for yellow, the other for red, and you’ll put a piece of paper in front of me so I'll know which is which. Say Red out loud to stop the entire scene. I'll be punished with a stainless cane if I say any actual words besides the safeword. Do you want me to look at the floor or can I look you in the eyes?”

He smiled. His eyes were still dark, but the smile seemed real and not just sadistic this time. “The walls down there are covered with mirrors; I'll be able to see your face while I hurt you. I like to look into someone’s eyes as I hurt them, but I won't make any demands about where you look this evening. Today’s scene is for me to gauge your pain tolerance, and for you to show me you want it from me. I'll fight you for your submission later, but I need you to give it to me first. Can you do that?”

She gave a small nod, saying, “I beat Tom at sparring maybe once out of every twenty times we go at it. And I know he's pulling his punches even then. He hits just hard enough to win and no harder. But he hit you at full strength, and you took it and came damn close to beating him. Yes, I can wait. I can give you my submission today because I know you'll take it from me later. What should I do with my clothes when I take them off?”

“Place your shoes to the side and hand everything else to me. I'll expect you in nothing more than your g-string before you get into position.”

“How will things end? How will I know when I can talk?”

“If things go to shit then I'll be clear on when you can talk. If things go the way I'm hoping they will, when you've taken the thirty strokes I'll release you and carry you to one of the sofas down there and hold you for a while. I'll let you know if you can talk then, or if we'll wait to officially end the scene when we come back upstairs. There will be nothing sexual for either of us today. I'm not going to get you off, nor am I going to demand a blow job or hand job. I'm not opposed to doing that at play parties, but we've just met and I want privacy for the first time with you.”

“Can I come while you've got me tied up and beating on me?”

He smiled. “You can come from impact play alone?”

“Sometimes, not always. But, yes, when it happens it can be pretty explosive.”

He didn't appear to need any thought about his answer this time. “Normally, orgasms are only allowed when you’re given permission, but today we'll make an exception. You’re under no orgasm restriction rules at all, come as often as you like.”

* * * *

Sam tried to settle the piece of her that wanted to fight him as he put the leather cuffs on her wrists. She was comfortably kneeling on and bent over one of the most luxurious spanking benches ever, but she knew once she was strapped in the pain would start. She couldn't help it; she always wanted to fight during this part, to be dominated for real, to be forced into the bondage, strong armed into submission.

Ethan had retrieved what she assumed was his bag from a wall where other bags were also stored. She hadn't seen the bag until they got down here; he must have brought it down when he first arrived.

She realized she was rambling in her head, and forced herself to be still, to let him attach her wrists to the rings on the upper part of the bench, and her ankles to the footboard. She looked up at herself in the mirror, seeing the blue eyed brunette in the mirror and almost didn't recognize herself. She usually put her hair up for play so it would be out of the way, but he'd wanted it loose, draped over her shoulder. He put his hand on her back, let her feel his warmth and leaned down near her ear to softly say, “You're doing well, Sammy. I know you can release your wrists if you decide to, I saw you looking at them and thinking about it. I'm going to run some rope through the cuffs and tie it so you can't. I think you need to know you can't get out of this.”

Sam hated to be called Sammy and hoped he didn't make a habit of it. She'd use the signal safeword if he did it too much, as she needed to be able to tell him she didn't like it. So far, she wasn’t a fan of his speech restriction rule, but she’d agreed to it for this scene so she would follow through.

He reached into his bag and pulled some beautiful forest green rope out. Sam couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like silk rope. Her eyes followed his hands as he skillfully and methodically threaded it through cuff and ring, then draped it across the front of the bench and did the same with the other wrist. He put his mouth back at her ear, once again speaking so softly only she could hear him, his deep voice vibrating all the way through her. “I'm tempted to use this to restrain you so you can't move at all, restrain your hips and thighs and knees to the equipment. But I want to see you move, I want to see you try to escape the lash, I want to chase you down just a little bit today.”

He pulled back and reached into his bag again, taking a laminated sheet of paper out and placing it on the floor on top of her clothes, leaned against the mirror so the right half was yellow and the left half was red. He walked back to her again. “Show me yellow.”

She opened and closed her right hand a few times.

“Show me red.”

She did the same with her left hand.

“And you'll say red out loud to stop the scene completely. Nod that you understand.”

She nodded and he reached into his bag and pulled a wide piece of black PVC pipe out, pulled the top off of the pipe and unclipped a flogger from the clip in the top. She was familiar with the uses of various kinds of floggers, and this one was going to fucking hurt. He leaned down again, letting her see his eyes, see the sadist in him coming out before saying, “You understand there’s no warm up tonight. Tonight is about my hurting you within the limits you can handle. Use your hands to let me know your limits. If you communicate with me we'll make it through all thirty strikes without you saying the word
red
out loud. There is no shame in signaling yellow and red, I fully expect you to do it many times. You talked about Tom pulling his punches when you spar, this is about me learning how much strength I can use to lay into you. I don't have to flog you with all of my strength to satisfy my need to hurt you. Some people can take a lot, others can't take much. I only need to give you enough to make you scream, if that's at ten percent of my strength it’ll be as much of a turn on if it's at sixty percent of my strength. It's not a competition. I won't be impressed if you try to prove to me you can take more than you can. You will signal to me when you need me to back off, and when you need a break. Nod that you understand.”

Sam lifted her head off of the head rest and nodded before laying her cheek back down and watching in the mirror as Ethan walked around behind her.

The first stroke started at the top of her right ass cheek and went down diagonally to her left thigh. The second stroke came almost immediately after and was a mirror image of the first. Instead of screaming, she sucked air in, making a horrible screeching sound as she did. He let her get her breath and then walked to the side and struck so the tips set her right ass cheek on fire in little points all over, and the strands make her left ass cheek feel as if lines of fire had been dragged along it. He walked to the other side and did the same, again in a perfect mirror image. He was good, and she could take this. It hurt, but it was a delicious pain she welcomed with open arms.

He walked back to her left side and gave her the same kind of swing as before, but this time when the pain hit she heard herself yelling, the sound foreign, like that of a wounded animal –– a sound she hadn't known she was capable of making. She immediately started opening and closing both hands and he stopped and went to her, using his hand to gently but firmly rub her ass, as if he could just erase the pain with his hand. Oddly enough, it did a lot to make it fade, though it was still there. When she was breathing normally again he leaned back to her ear. “Your choice – no words. Let me ask the question and then I'll give a way for you to answer without speaking. Do you want me to give you the same from the other side, so you'll balance out? I'll rub you again right after I give it. Or do you want me to give you one on the other side that isn't as hard, meaning you won't be balanced.”