Another way (14 page)

I sighed but followed him, knowing Will well enough that he wasn’t likely to give up. We ended up making pizza from scratch. Will was a pretty good cook, and despite our mutual love of take-out, he seemed to get off on doing stuff like making real Italian pizza crust from flour and water and olive oil.

We sat on the counters as we waited for the pizza to bake, then sat cross-legged on the couch sharing it between us, MTV on mute so strange colors and shapes danced at the edge of my vision. Will settled in my arms when we were done eating, letting me hold him as he comforted me.

“If you’re not going to whip me, then would you at least make love to me?” I asked, only half joking. I really did need a session of some sort—my head was fucked to hell.

Will looked genuinely torn over this. “I’m fighting my instincts right now, Jess,” he said in a warning tone. “I don’t think I should do this, at all, but it’s what you need… I don’t know.”

“I don’t want you to feel pressured into doing something you’re not comfortable with. Should I go to Laura?”

“What? No. Of course not.” He sounded annoyed and offended. Shit.

“I’m not trying to emotionally blackmail you,” I said softly, shifting closer to him and taking his hand. “Not at all. But I
need
this, Will. I understand if you can’t give it to me… I’m trying to help….”

He was quiet for a few moments while he thought about stuff. Then he turned to me. “I figure one of three things can happen now. I can discipline you myself, I can send you to Laura and she’ll discipline you, or you should be sent to bed to think all of this over and we can do a session another time.”

I sighed. “Either of the first two options is fine by me. It’s not a sexual thing, Will, you should know that. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s part of why I’m a sub….”

“Okay,” he said decisively, standing to grab his phone and thumbing through it. “We both need guidance here.” He held the phone up to his ear as it rang. “Laura? It’s Will. Can you talk? I’m gonna put you on speaker, is that okay?”

He sat down next to me again, taking my hand and putting the phone between us on the coffee table.

“Hey, is everything okay?” I heard Laura say. Then to someone in the background she said, “Here, can you take her?”

“I’m sorry, Laura, is this a bad time?” I asked.

“Jesse? No, it’s fine. Carrigan just fell asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her is all. What’s going on, guys?”

“We sort of need help,” Will started, then looked to me with a shrug.

“I broke up with Adele,” I explained. “And I’ve moved in here.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Laura said, her voice full of sympathy. “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” I started, and Will spoke over the end of my words.

“Jesse wants a session,” he said bluntly.

“Oh,” Laura said. “I’m starting to get an idea of why you’re calling me. Let me guess—you’re saying no?”

“At the moment, yeah,” Will said.

“Well, it’s your prerogative as his Dom,” Laura said, sounding like she was picking her words carefully.

“You think I should?” he said incredulously.

“I think….” Laura sighed. “Sometimes, Will, being a Dom is about taking complete and utter control. And sometimes you need to let your sub learn from their mistakes. There’s no point in enforcing discipline if you never let them cast out on their own to make those mistakes in the first place. If Jesse’s insisting that he needs this, and if I know Jesse like I think I do, he is, then give it to him. If it was the wrong decision, then yay for you, because you can spank his ass again later for not listening to you.”

“And if I’m right?” I asked with a smirk, squeezing Will’s hand.

“Then you can both consider this a learning opportunity. Jesse—your Dom is not infallible. Will—sometimes you should trust your sub’s instincts.”

Will kissed my temple, letting his lips linger for long moments. “What about my instincts?” he asked eventually.

Laura sighed softly. “Will, if you need some time to adjust to being a lover as well as a Dom, then I’m happy to take care of Jesse for you while you both settle.”

“I can handle it,” he said, an edge of defiance and stubbornness in his tone.

“I’m sure you can,” she said smoothly. “But this is part of being a mentor, Will. I know when to step back and let the two of you muddle through this and make your own mistakes together, but at the end of it all, I know what Jesse needs, and I won’t let your muddling get in the way of that.”

“Laura,” I said quietly, respectfully, before the two very dominant personalities started to raise their voices at each other. “Me and Will… we’re going to fuck up. We’re going to fuck up the D/s side of our relationship, we’re going to fuck up our romantic relationship, and we’re probably going to fuck up our friendship sooner or later too. I know that, I’ve accepted it, it’s what happens when you’re in… in a relationship.” I’d nearly—too nearly—said
when you’re in love.
But I’d stopped myself.

Will lifted our joined hands and brushed a kiss across my knuckles.

“If you want my opinion, then I think you should go for it, and deal with the consequences afterward,” Laura said.

“Thanks, Laura,” I said and Will echoed my words.

“Hey, guys?” she interrupted us before we could hang up. “If you do decide to have a session, take a cell phone into the playroom with you. I don’t care how long you’ve been playing together, if you need me, call me for fuck’s sake. Steven is here tonight, and he can watch the girls if anything happens.”

“No problem,” Will said, then kissed my cheek quickly. “Go on upstairs, sweetheart. I’m just going to talk to Laura for a few more minutes.”

I nodded silently, slipping to the floor to kneel in front of him and kissing his knee before rising and heading upstairs. I could have lingered to try and overhear the rest of the conversation, but I knew I’d need time to collect myself before the session.

Knowing that he was going to hurt me didn’t make me nervous. Instead, it filled me with a warming sense of calm, a knowledge that all of the things I needed to make amends for would finally come to pass.

I stripped off in our bedroom, leaving my clothes in a pile on the floor, and walked naked to the third floor. I found my spot easily, sinking to my knees and trying to let go of… everything, really. It was difficult though. There was too much going through my mind.

Will arrived in silence, still in the same clothes he had been wearing downstairs. It struck me that he hadn’t wanted to leave me alone for too long, not even for long enough to change. He set his cell phone down on the padded table and started to strip off his sweater and T-shirt, presenting himself to me bare from the waist up.

“Stand,” he ordered, his voice sharp.

I rose as gracefully as I could manage. Will kissed my bowed forehead, then retrieved my collar and cuffs, attaching them efficiently. I got the impression this was the last sign of affection I’d receive from him for a while.

Master signaled for me to follow him and placed me in front of the large cross on the wall, deftly attaching me to it by the wrists and ankles so I was spread out in a large X, facing away from him.

“We’ll start slowly,” he announced. “I want to make sure you’re warmed up properly. Then we’ll progress. What are your safewords?”

“Red and yellow, Master.”

“Good. Prepare yourself.”

He did as he promised, starting out with a medium weight flogger that caressed and kissed my skin, bringing the blood to the surface and warming through my muscles. I quickly sank into the headspace where I would submit to his pleasure, his pain, his desire… whatever he wanted to give me was more than I deserved, and yet, I craved it and would beg for it.

“Tell me why I’m doing this,” Master demanded.

“To make amends for all the pain I’ve caused other people,” I said, trying not to sob on the words.

“Who have you hurt?”

“You, Master. Adele. I’ve neglected my friends. I was disrespectful to Laura. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Master, I’m so sorry….”

“I refuse to beat you for hurting me,” Master said, although he kept up the regular lashes against my back, ass, and thighs. “I am giving you this so you can forgive
yourself,
Jesse. If I wanted you to atone for anything regarding our relationship, we would go through the proper means of communicating it, first of all. You would know exactly why you were receiving every single stroke. I’m doing this for you. Because you need it.”

I dropped my head, pressing it against the wall and presenting my back to him. He was right. Of course he was right. Master switched to a new flogger; he must have been satisfied that I was adequately warmed up. For a long time the only sound was of leather hitting skin, heavy breaths, and the occasional muttered curse.

It hurt. Fuck, did it hurt, but at the same time, it felt like relief and forgiveness and blessed mental silence. Nothing mattered except the pain, nothing at all. He was my Master and he could give this to me like no one had really ever been able to give it to me before.

He stopped and I could hear his heavy breaths. “Where are you, Jesse?”

“Not at a ‘yellow’ yet, but close,” I said, my voice harsh and hoarse from the occasional cry or scream of pain.

“Okay. I’m going to switch to a different whip, but this is the last one I’m going to use. Don’t wait for me to check in with you, if you need to use a word, use it, okay?”

“Yes, Master.”

The new flogger was lighter, but that made the strokes sting more. As Master worked over my back and thighs, I’d occasionally get a sharper tingle of pain… eventually I worked out that this must be the flogger that had angled tips to each strand, and they were cutting into my skin.

Master gave me time to breathe in-between the first few strokes, then started to whip me with an even, regular speed. I tried to hold on, grinding my teeth and clenching my fists, but sooner than I would have liked, it got to be too much.

“Fuck! Red! Red….” But he’d dropped the whip before I’d even spoken the first safeword, and by the time I’d finished the second, he had one arm around my waist, holding me upright as his other hand deftly undid the bonds at my wrists.

“I’ve got you, baby, I’ve got you….”

I barely noticed that I was crying, swiping at my wet face with the back of my arm. I braced my hands on the wall for balance as Master leaned down to release my ankles, then he scooped me into his arms so I was clinging to him desperately, my own hands clasped behind his neck.

Master sank to the floor, sitting cross-legged so I could sit on his lap with my legs around him too. For a moment it seemed like he didn’t know where to put his hands; in the end he rested them on my sides, caressing up to my arms and gently stroking my biceps where the lash hadn’t hit my skin.

“I’ve got you,” he repeated in a soothing voice, kissing my hair and gently rocking me.

I took a deep breath, calming myself as I took in the feel of my chest pressed to his, how the hair at his nape was damp with sweat from the exertion of doing this for me. Only with the quiet did I notice that I must have been making some kind of noise.

“Can we move?” Master whispered. “I really want to tend to your back, and this isn’t the most comfortable spot.”

I nodded, extracting myself from his grasp. As he stood to collect his shirt and phone, I knelt in my submissive pose for him, falling back into the position that was most natural to me since he hadn’t commanded me to be any other way. My eyes were lowered, but I felt his shock as he turned back and found me kneeling. My stomach pitched at the thought of disappointing him.

Master took a few more strides until he was standing in front of my kneeling form.

“Wrists,” he commanded sharply, and I held my hands out to him. Master removed my cuffs, gently running his thumbs back and forth across my reddened skin. I’d clearly been tugging at my bonds.

“Stand and display,” were his next words, and I tried to make my movements as graceful as I could. “I’m going to remove your collar, Jesse,” Master explained softly. “The session is over, however, feel free to come back to me in your own time.”

“Yes, Master.” I spoke the words reverently.

When my things had been put away, Master took my hand and led me back to his bedroom, gently encouraging me to lie down on my stomach and to make myself comfortable. I relaxed into the pillows, turning my head so I could watch for when he’d come back out from his bathroom.

“Are you okay?” he asked with considerable concern in his eyes when he did emerge with a few bottles of salve and cotton wool.

“I’m good,” I sighed. “Amazing, actually. That was unbelievable.”

“That’s good,” he said dispassionately. “I’m going to clean you up a bit. Try and stay still for me.”

“Am I bleeding?” I asked, the words coming out a little more excited than I had anticipated.

“In places, yes,” he said drily. “You needn’t look so pleased about it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t really.

“No, you’re not,” Will said, with a touch of humor.

“No, I’m not,” I sighed.

He cleaned off areas that stung, then applied the salve to my whole back and ass, then more stinging stuff to what I guessed were the cuts. My back felt hot and sore and amazing, my ass was practically twitching with happiness, and I guessed that my muscles would be screaming in the morning. Fuck. Morning.

“Will, I have work tomorrow….”

“I can call in sick for you if you like. If you do go in, you can’t do any lifting at all. You’ll kill yourself.”

I nodded and Will’s weight shifted on the bed as he placed the first aid stuff on the nightstand.

“Can I see it?” I asked hesitantly.

“Yeah,” Will said after a moment.

“How does it look?”

More silence. “Fucking beautiful, Jesse.”

I
LET
him help me up and get to the bathroom, where there was a long mirror over the sink. I had expected to be red from my shoulders to my thighs, but instead there were thick stripes of color crisscrossing over my skin, my ass was a splotchy red, and bruises were already darkening my skin. I wasn’t cut in many places, just where the very tail of the whip had caught me, and despite Will’s tender ministrations, they were still oozing the tiniest amount of blood.