It isn’t as gentle as the suede one. It falls hard. I use it on her back, between her shoulder blades. The hits land harder and harder. The rhythm and the strength it takes to wield this tool become an aerobic workout for me. Now I begin to sweat. My breath speeds with hers. I begin to lose myself with each impact. It’s a continuous responsibility to make sure I don’t completely lose myself to the flow of power.
I don’t want to damage her.
I do want to hurt her.
This is as much for her as it is for me. If she doesn’t hurt, if there’s no true pain, she can’t lose herself, either. There would be no point if I couldn’t control her pleasure in that way.
I feel the watchers getting restless. She is squirming slightly. I notice her hands clenching and unclenching. I ease up. “What is the word, girl?”
“Green, greengreengreengreen.”
“Good girl.”
I put the flogger away and take out a thin, whippy cane and slice it through the air. It whistles. I hear the intake of breath and begin on her upturned bottom. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. Across both cheeks, over and over in the same spot, gently—tap tap tap tap tap tap TAP. Her ass jumps several inches above the horse. Tap tap tap tap tap. I smooth the skin with my hand. Gently now, on her upper thighs, tap tap tap tap tap tap. The sound is mesmerizing to me. The feeling is becoming mesmerizing to her. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap TAP TAP. Shriek. Mmmm, good girl.
I can hear people speaking quietly as I walk back to my bag and exchange the thin cane for a heavier one and walk back to her head. I bend down to check on her. Her eyes are open and unfocused. Her mouth is open.
“Good girl.”
I rub the cane against her thighs, then CRACK. Again, slightly lower, I rub it against her skin, then CRACK. Three more times, each a fraction of an inch lower. Each time she jumps. I return the cane. Now I gently run my hand over her bottom and each thigh, smoothing the skin, caressing the welts, putting out the fire. We’re both sweating. I run my hand over her panty-clad crotch and it is soaked through. It’s time.
I move to the front and pick her head up by her hair again, staring into her eyes. She tries to focus on me. I know she can’t. “Now,” I whisper, and I watch the orgasm take her. She shivers and shakes almost imperceptibly against the horse, like the shiver that runs up a dog’s back when you rub him just the right way. Watching her come like that makes me want to fuck her, drag her off the horse and fuck her on the floor. But we’re in public.
We’ve been playing over an hour. Time ceases to exist. I unhook her wrists and move to her feet to unhook her ankles. I lift her feet off the blocks and they hang limply down, on either side of the horse. Her hands are now hanging in the same way. As I unhook her neck I maintain positive contact with her. Her skin feels electric to me. It feeds the sparks jumping on my fingers.
I help her off the horse and embrace her. She can’t stand on her own yet. I slowly walk her to the wall and hook her wrist cuffs to chains hanging from the ceiling, arms outspread. The chains support her. I place her feet apart and hook her ankles to rings in the floor. Now she can rest while I put my toys away. She is positioned facing the watchers, but I don’t think she sees them. Oh, she knows they’re there, but she is too far gone to be aware of anything other than her own body and me.
We are not done. We will continue. If I can’t fuck her now, I’ll keep myself on edge until I can. I cup her breast; she moans. I kiss her lips and she attempts to devour my mouth. People come and go. We have hours to play yet, my beautiful girl and I.
THE KEYS
Anna Watson
M
aggie almost refused to go into the seedy aquatic park, wanting to sit in the sun and read her book instead, but the kids begged and Stan gave her one of his pleading looks. Once inside, she was startled to see that there were skinny stray cats everywhere, sitting dazed in the sunlight, padding through the greenery. A small, tattered sign said that the park doubled as a refuge for unwanted pets; Maggie folded up a dollar and let Jake, her five-year-old, push it into the metal donation box.
The dolphin show was about to begin, and Stan hustled them along the path, acting like he knew exactly where to go. Ella, teetering on the brink of puberty at eleven, held his hand, clutching her notebook in the other.
Harriet the Spy
had made a great impression on her, and although Maggie swore she would never do it, she had flipped through the notebook once or twice when Ella was asleep.
“Stan and Maggie never talk about anything but us,” Ella wrote in her neat cursive. “They must have run out of other things to say a long time ago. I will never get married; I will be too busy with other things.”
It was hot in the bleachers, but Jake crawled onto Maggie’s lap and huddled there. Anxious boy, he was probably frightened of the water, but his eyes grew wide and sparkly when the trainer had the dolphins dance on their tails to show off their belly buttons. The trainer, hard-bodied and lean in her red one-piece Speedo, had a compelling grin, but mostly looked slightly put upon when the dolphins, two of whom were young and new, couldn’t always do what was asked of them.
The trainer was just the kind of woman Maggie was always drawn to, and she found herself watching her face rather than the dolphins, the way her eyebrows quirked, how she narrowed her eyes as she cajoled and commanded, the quick burst of laughter when one dolphin, misunderstanding the command, reared up and kissed her cheek instead of catching the ring on his nose.
Later, standing in line for hot dogs while Stan and the kids watched the sea lion show, Maggie saw the trainer talking with some friends. She could hear snatches of the conversation; they were making plans to go out later that night, the place at mile marker 24. She pretended, even to herself, not to be listening, but she memorized every detail: the way the trainer was standing, insolent and lanky with a towel wrapped around her waist, the way she was flirting with a petite blonde. The trainer looked up and caught Maggie watching, and Maggie turned away quickly, glad she’d just touched up her lipstick in the bathroom.
That night, after everyone but Maggie had fallen asleep watching
The Lion King
, she kissed the kids and pulled sheets over them. Stan was curled in the middle of the other double bed, taking up all the room as if he knew she wouldn’t be joining him. They were on an anniversary trip, paid for and arranged by Stan’s parents, who had visited the Keys twenty-five years ago and had such fond memories: the vistas, the snorkeling! Things had changed, though, and so far, Maggie had mostly seen a lot of Good Deals, fleets of diesel trucks, dead possums on the side of the road, and once, a tipped-over crate of half-ripe tomatoes rotting in the sun. There were run-down motels everywhere with cute ’50s names—the one where they were staying, for example, was called Inn to Your Dreams.
Maggie watched her husband sleeping, feeling the familiar fatigue. Even asleep, he looked unsatisfied and sad. She slipped into the bathroom, where she changed into a low-cut tank top and her island skirt: long, flowing, patterned with red hibiscus. Her mind idled in neutral and she hummed to herself. This wasn’t the first time, but that didn’t mean she needed to think about it too hard.
The mile markers were almost invisible in the dark, and Maggie had to watch closely. She almost missed the turn, screeching around the corner with a spray of gravel and a long horn hoot from the guy who had been tailing her. Trembling a little, she pulled into a parking place at the back of a square, dusty white stucco building. A neon sign spelled out
The Sea Urchin: Your Favorite Dive
. Maggie sat still for a moment, nervous but relieved to have made it. She got herself out of the car, unsticking her skirt from her sweaty thighs. Resolutely putting her brain back into neutral, she yanked open the door.
All week, she had been sneering at the prevalent descriptor in the Keys of “a little piece of paradise” for everything from a breakfast muffin to the moldy aquatic park where her family had just spent the day. The epithet fit the Sea Urchin, though, and Maggie sighed and smiled, relaxing into the air-conditioning and looking around with pleasure. An island dyke with blonde spiky hair stood behind the bar, a discreet pattern of tropical flowers on her button-down shirt. She glanced at Maggie, sizing her up, eyebrows lifted.
“He’p you?”
So she wasn’t even from here; that sounded like a Georgia accent. As a child, Maggie’s pediatrician had been a very stern, handsome woman from Georgia, and hearing a Georgia accent still gave her that delicious thrill of desire and dread. Maggie sashayed her way to the bar, leaned over close, and said quietly, “Something cold. You decide. Oh, just as long as there’s no damn key lime in it.”
The bartender flicked her eyes over Maggie’s cleavage, laughed, and set about fixing a drink, flexing her shoulders and making her muscles stand out. Maggie settled herself on the stool and checked out the rest of the place in the mirror. A few clusters of women, a couple of gay guys kissing—it wasn’t too crowded yet, and she didn’t see the gang from the aquatic park.
“Here it is, darlin’.” The barkeep was now in full flirting mode, uncertainty dispelled. “Specialty of the house: a Sea Urchin.”
Maggie smiled, paid, and took a sip, watching the bartender swagger off to another customer. The drink was tart and had a zing; just right for such a hot evening. Brain in idle, Maggie scanned the bar again. Ten minutes later, the door banged open and the trainer arrived.
Wearing mirror shades, leather pants, and a white T-shirt, the trainer was far from the sporty dyke Maggie had taken her for at the aquatic park. She looked incredibly butchy, incredibly hot. Feeling nervous again, Maggie blushed as the trainer gave her the once-over. Probably she didn’t recognize her, though. Maggie found that usually a woman with kids was invisible to lesbians. Maggie took out her lipstick case and refreshed her lipstick, smoothing the deep burgundy over her thin, expressive lips. When she snapped the case shut and checked the mirror behind the bar, the trainer was still looking. Maggie sipped her drink, adding a fresh kiss to the rim of the glass, holding the trainer’s eyes.
Maggie was the first to look away. Stomach in knots, she slipped slowly off the bar stool. Ever since she’d gotten here, she’d really had to pee. Maybe when she got back from the bathroom she would muster the nerve to ask the trainer to dance; some people had started dancing over by the jukebox. She was so intent on getting to the bathroom that she didn’t notice the trainer following her. Like a little girl, Maggie began bunching up her skirt before she even reached the stall. Suddenly she felt heavy hands on her shoulders as the trainer came up behind her. Maggie squeaked and half turned, letting her skirt drop.
“Pick that back up and turn around.” The trainer had a high, smooth, authoritative voice. Her hands on Maggie’s shoulders were firm, commanding. Maggie reached down slowly and slid the skirt back up over her calves, her thighs. She was sweating; the bathroom wasn’t air-conditioned.
“The whole thing.”
Oh, what am I doing?
thought Maggie. Something about the way the trainer was talking to her, she couldn’t help herself; she gathered the skirt and pulled it up around her waist, her heart pounding, her pussy coming alive. The last time she had gone out on her own like this, a gentle tomboy had taken her to a hotel and they had spent hours kissing and licking and cuddling. That’s what she had been expecting, that’s what she wanted. The trainer’s hands moved down to Maggie’s ass cheeks, sliding the silky material of her panties around and around, roughly massaging, grabbing handfuls of flesh. Maggie was panting, pressing back into those demanding hands. Stan had asked her once how she was able to let strangers touch her, but the trainer seemed to know exactly who Maggie was.
She leaned forward and hissed in Maggie’s ear, “You wanted me to follow you.”
“No! I mean, maybe, I mean, I don’t know!”
The trainer barked out a sharp laugh. “See, I think you’re one of these slutty girls who likes to give her husband the slip and come find someone who knows just what she needs. Find someone like me who knows a thing or two about slutty girls like you.”
So she did recognize her. Maggie blushed and stammered, trembling with urgency. No one had called her a girl since high school.
The trainer squeezed her ass hard enough to really hurt, and Maggie jumped. “Am I right?”
“Yes, yes!” The answer came tearing out of her.
“And you want me to stay? You want me to stay in here with you, nasty, dirty girl? There’s no telling what I’ll do, only that I’ll do what I like. You’d better think about it.”
Maggie had been thinking about the trainer all day. “Stay!” She tried to turn around, but the trainer stopped her, murmuring, “Keep your skirt up.”
Maggie rucked it up again, then whispered, blushing, “Please, I really, I have to pee!”
“You have to pee?” The trainer left off ravaging her ass, splayed one hand across her lower belly and cupped her pussy with the other. She squeezed Maggie’s pussy, squeezed Maggie’s belly, then let go and gave her a push. “Let’s go.”
Dizzy, confused by sensations—the urgency to pee, the heat and wet in her cunt—Maggie stumbled into a stall and the trainer locked the door behind them.