The Big Book of Submission (33 page)

“What about scalpels?

I froze.
Shit
. My heart leaped up into my throat and my stomach took a nosedive down into my lower intestines.

Fuck!

I am unsure exactly how long it took my intestines to reorganize themselves in my body, but as they did, I came to a realization. This was my opportunity. This was my Hard Thing. My chance to give back to her, for all she has given to me. To show her how much I loved
her. And
god
, I loved her. So much that it hurt.

I said I've never let anyone do that before. I said I was scared. I said I didn't know what to expect. I said I knew it would make her happy. I said I knew this was my Hard Thing. And then…

Then I said yes.

I knew that this would be intense. I knew it would not be easy. I knew, actually, that it would be
the
hardest thing I have done for her…for anyone.

I spent a good portion of the week before the event trying to gear myself up for the cutting scene on Friday. “We'll start small,” she assured me…and I had to stop myself from typing,
Um, Ma'am? Have you met…you?
She does nothing halfway. I knew this would be no different.

I told her every night that I was frightened. I assured her that I was trying to work through my fear and that I was excited and eager and scared to tears all at the same time. And she, in her patient and quiet way, calmly watched as I worked through my panicked emotions and arrived, inevitably, at submission.

Walking into the medical dungeon was hard for me. I was dizzy. My heart was pounding in my ears. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I just knew if I stepped the wrong way on those heels I would teeter and fall flat on my face. I remember sitting in the chair while she set up, grinning over at me every now and again, cracking jokes. Then, just before we started, she took me in her arms and hugged me tightly. She told me I was her treasure
and that if I didn't want to do this, I didn't have to. She told me that if I didn't feel I was ready, I could back out. That if, halfway through, I decided that I didn't want this anymore, I was to tell her. But I had already decided.

When I say I decided, I mean that I was determined to do this in the way one is determined to lose weight or finish a project by a deadline. I wanted
so very badly
for my Mistress to be proud of me in a way she has never been before…but the
peace
about my decision didn't come until after I felt the cold, sharp steel dragging along my flesh. I didn't
accept
it until after I felt her drawing it across my skin and the heat of the blood that seeped from the wound travel through me. The sensation trickled across my flesh and shot out through the tips of my fingers and toes, and I couldn't help but gasp at each little jolt of warm, intoxicating pain.

I don't know how long I lay there while she carved into my skin. I was dizzy. I was trembling. I was crying. All I could hear was her voice every now and again, telling me I bled for her so beautifully and how proud she was of me. What a
good girl
I was being.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, the heat of the pain and the blood melted my fear away and left nothing but perfect submission, perfect trust and perfect love. There was nobody in the entire world in those moments except her and me, Owner and property, bound by pain.

You know how some people just
have something
inside them that you can taste from across a room? You
can smell it on them and feel them coming from a mile away. Like they've taken a piece of Life and claimed it as their own. Now I have it, too.

I have faced one of my most intense fears. I have walked through darkness, trembling and frightened…and not only did I survive, but I found light and love to embrace me as I came out the other end.

And I wear the marks of my journey with pride.

BREATHLESS

Dorla Moorehouse

T
he ridges of your index fingers press against my trachea, and I know that there will be exactly ninety heartbeats until I lose consciousness. Every time we begin, there's always the knowledge that accidents do happen, that people make mistakes, that they count wrong, lose control. Every time we begin, there's always the fear that this will be the last minute of my life, that something will go wrong and I'll never wake up. And then my family and friends will find out my dirty secret.

But if I'm going to die, at least I'm going to enjoy myself.

A staticky tingle runs along my neck and around my collarbone. Then, after the first dozen beats, the rest of my body starts to register what's happening. The sparks of sensation hop down my spine and roll down my chest
until my nipples perk up, and both electric paths meet in my cunt. Now my legs are twitching, and I attempt to hook them around your hips, but you widen your stance. Your hands are all I get for now.

You won't even kiss me, not like this. That's for after, to reward me.

You won't do a single thing to me except hold me there and watch me gasp, watch my face flush, watch me thrash with a mix of arousal and fear.

No touch other than the pressure against my throat.

No look but the hard control in your eyes.

No words. We have other ways to communicate.

At twenty beats, my heart rate accelerates, caught up in the lack of air and the surge of my adrenaline. If you don't notice when the speed change happens, if you miscount, I'm in danger. Before I know it, I've lost count. Now, my life really is in your hands. I let my vision wander a minute, gaze on your ever-hardening cock, then zero back in on your face before the tunnel vision sets in. Your face is my focus. Your eyes are my strength and my trust.

I focus on your hands, meditating on your skin and the pressure it provides. You'll leave a few marks on me, two purple thumbprints in the gap between my collarbones, and from the correct angle, they'll look like a heart. I love the way those marks linger, the way I get to wear the evidence, even though I'll have to spend the better part of a week being careful with my wardrobe. I don't want to deal with questions—or worse, assumptions.

Trying to zero in on the feeling of your fingertips, on the bruise forming beneath my skin, I close my eyes, yearning to become pure sensation.

But you don't let me keep my eyes closed. Eye contact turns you on; staring into my dilated pupils as my body trembles, knowing your power over me, makes your cock grow even harder, makes your biceps tense. You shake me just a little, not enough to hurt, but enough to keep me here, in reality.

Eye contact lets you know I'm still conscious.

As I get closer to my limit, instinct tries to have its way with me. My fingers fiddle with the smooth cord attached to the bell I'm supposed to ring if I need to stop, but I won't let instinct win. I won't let fear take over. I want the reward that will come from my endurance. I feel my pulse everywhere when you have me trapped like this, and it's strongest in my cunt. All that rhythm, tightening my muscles, leaving me desperate for release that might not ever come if you forget yourself, if you hold me just a little too long.

Suddenly, your hands pull away. The bell drops, muffled by the carpet as my fingers engage, grip your shoulders, and I arch my hips to welcome your cock, pull you toward my panting lips for a kiss. I've barely had a chance to draw a full breath, and already your cock is inside me.

You never go slow, and I don't blame you. I've seen you growing harder by the second, your dick straining away from your abdomen, stiffening as I struggle. I pull
you deeper into my body, muscles trembling as oxygen flows back in, hooking my legs and refusing to let go this time. Even though I'm lying down, I get a head rush, and for a moment I think that now I'm going to pass out, but I breathe deep, focus on your eyes, which are now fluttering open and closed as you get closer and closer to orgasm.

My own body has been ready from the moment you circled your fingers around my throat. The energy stored up rips free, and
this
—this is worth every bit of risk I take when I let you choke me. Heat slams out of my lungs and races out of my cunt and up through my chest, down through my legs, leaving me quaking against the pillows. When it's done, I'm swept right back up into your body, still rocking and thrusting, still absorbed in your own tension. I squeeze my thighs even tighter, gripping you so deep in my body that you can barely pull back. Your quads suddenly go rock hard and you stop moving, bracing yourself against me. Your fingers clench against my shoulders; there will be more bruises there, more marks of your ferocious devotion. As you reach your apex, rough, ragged breaths spill out of your throat, and when you're finally spent, you collapse on top of me, your heart pounding so hard that I can feel it setting off my own rhythm.

When you regain your senses, you place soft kisses at the spot on my throat where you've bruised me, and then move your lips along my collarbone, brushing the other areas you've marked in your passion.

“Are you sated, love?”

These are the first words I've heard from you since the moment you walked in my door, slammed it shut and carried me upstairs.

“Yes.”

Tonight, when we go to dinner, I might not wear jewelry that conceals the bruise at the base of my throat. Tonight, I might not wear a high-collared shirt, or something with sleeves. Tonight, I might let people see, let them stare. Assumptions be damned.

Perhaps some secrets should be left open.

PERFECT GENTLEMAN

Donna George Storey

I
t's strange to be ringing her doorbell in a suit and tie. Perversely, he feels a stirring in his groin. She made it clear he wouldn't get any tonight unless he proved himself the perfect gentleman. Not that he's exactly gentleman material. The world of fancy manners and elaborate rules is about as sexy to him as a moldy fish fork.

She, on the other hand, looks very sexy in her old-fashioned dress cinched at the waist, hair swept up like a 1950s movie star. She waits outside his car, gazing regally into the distance, until he realizes he's supposed to open the door for her.

It's not a very promising start to the evening.

At the fussy French restaurant, he finds the menu incomprehensible and the waiter a pompous ass. She
watches him the whole time, a smile playing at her lips, as if she knows he's hard as a rock under the white linen tablecloth.

Back on her porch, she extends her hand. “Thank you. I had a lovely time.”

Enough is enough of this stupid game. Impulsively, he pulls her in tight for a kiss. She shakes free, glancing disapprovingly at the bulge in his trousers. Obviously he's failed the test.

Then she smiles and invites him inside.

Settling beside him on the sofa, several chaste inches away, she asks if he likes being a gentleman.

“It's not exactly my style, but you were right.”

“About what?”

“The pleasures of restraint.”

“
Self
-restraint,” she corrects him. “It's turning me on, too.”

His cock twitches. Suddenly his chances are looking much brighter.

“Do you want to keep playing?” she asks.

A simple
Fuck, no,
and he'd have her naked in bed in an instant, but something dark and twisted inside him makes him shrug and say, “Sure, why not?”

She narrows her eyes, cat-like. “Aren't you going to try to kiss me again?”

“May I?”

She giggles, but opens her mouth to him easily enough. Their tongues dance. She makes mewing noises, like she always does when she's ready to go at it. Yet
whenever he tries to touch her breast, she twists away. She's not wearing a bra, either, but some weird, rigid undergarment—a corset? His penis throbs in his pants, oozing precome.

“Control yourself, please. Remember that I'm a lady.”

In spite of her protest, she's the one who practically pulls him down on top of her. She wiggles, as if to resist, but it's the same move she makes when they're fucking, to get more friction on her clit.

“No, please,” she whimpers as she lodges her thigh between his so she's putting just the right pressure on his cock.

“Come on, let's do it,” he begs.

“You know I'm saving myself for my honeymoon.”

Cut the crap
, he almost blurts out. Suddenly he understands those suckers in days gone by who proposed in the heat of the moment. He's so desperate he'd do anything to get inside her pants. Stealthily, he grasps the hem of her skirt and eases it up. His fingers meet bare thigh above a band of stocking. He shivers. As coy as she pretends to be, the little cocktease is soaking wet down there.

She pushes him off, straightens her clothes. “I don't think you
are
a gentleman.”

He blushes, oddly ashamed of his animal urges, which doesn't make sense because this woman is no spotless virgin. She's let him fuck her ass and liked it.

She purses her lips. “The trouble is, if I send you
home now, you'll just play with
your thing
by yourself, won't you? That's bad for your character.”