Dirty Hands

Her breasts were throbbing and filled with heat beneath his touch. She thrashed in her bonds, her golden skin glistening under the too-hot lights. Red lines traced her flawless body, each one thicker and uglier than the last: the marks of a bullwhip against her unprotected nudity. Concealed and choked by her thick leather hood, her every breath seemed faster and shallower than the last. Even so, she clutched the red ball in her right hand. She gave no signal. He would continue.

"Open her," his mentor instructed.

He nodded. His fingertips grazed her, traced the outline of her ribs and the hollow of her flat stomach as he pulled back. Little trails of sweat followed his touch. The sweat was fire against her almost-bleeding welts, he knew: she gasped at his gentle caress. The sound, half-strangled by the eyeless, mouthless mask, uncorked a bubbling frisson of need within him. He longed to look into her eyes in this moment, and instead he beheld the eyeless face of a beast. An animal. A thing. Something lesser, or something marred. Something utterly inhuman.

Justin removed his shirt, basking in the burning lights of the private dungeon. He caught a glance from his mentor. Don't give her too long, it said. He nodded and picked up the whip once more. He allowed himself just one trial stroke to renew his feel for the whip's length and weight. It was heavy. It was long enough to wrap around her breasts and reach her back again. This was no toy; it was a weapon. The long bull cracked thunderously in the air.

She nodded at him, almost imperceptibly.

He recovered the whip and unleashed it.

Her sweat sprayed the air. A cry almost escaped her lips: he heard it groaning deep in her throat as she swallowed the pain. In the aftermath, she let her head hang as her shoulders took her weight. She panted, her belly filling and hollowing beneath her welt-clad breasts as she felt it all... Endured it all... Drank it all for him, savoring it for him. Lean muscle corded in her arms and across her shoulders as she straightened, readying herself for the—

He drove into her once more with the whip, before she was ready. A strangled cry cut the air as blood began to run, oozing down her naked spine. Her hand shook, her knuckles white around the red ball.

"Good," said his mentor. "She's open for you. Let her bleed. It's good for a woman to bleed."

A moan followed, so soft as to be almost unheard. Was it pain that brought it from her, or was it something else? Was it exhaustion? Was it submission? He couldn't see her face. He couldn't know whether she was lost in the beatific ecstasy of subspace or if she were dangling at the edge of some abyss. The heavy, suffocating leather of her hood concealed that from him, left him to act on his own desires. Only his desires.

It's good for a woman to bleed.

Then let her bleed. He raised the whip and struck, and struck again, and again. He watched the leather carve her, as though the whip were a living, thirsting thing and as though he were only a bystander. He lashed her and laid her open, and he watched as thin rivulets joined into tributaries, into torrents. He watched as she gasped with the pain, her fists trembling, her body shuddering, her resolve breaking. Wasn't it? He had marked not only her back and her shoulders, not only her ass and her thighs, but also her front. Had nothing changed? Was she still as ready to endure now as when he had bound her?

Blood wept from the welts upon her breasts and across her ribs. It collected in the valley between her perfect globes and fell along the plain of her stomach, into the subtle, feminine furrows of her muscled abdomen, now hollowed by her breath, now filled as she gasped. It painted her legs and her cunt, marking her as not merely a submissive but as a pain slave: a true devot, as some might say—one whose self seemed utterly subject to the other she served. For Justin, the marks upon her body became an elixir of life and power, a thing that he craved above all. She was his canvas. He was making her beautiful. He was watching as she became more than flesh.

"Give her time," said his mentor, the man who observed from the shadows. "Let her absorb—"

The whip cracked again. The leather sizzled across her flesh. A fine mist of perspiration, tinged with her red blood, hung for a moment in the hot lights. She wasn't gagged beneath the hood, but she didn't scream again. He imagined her biting deep into her lip or her cheek, or chewing on her tongue. They would kiss in a little while, when he'd finished with her: he would pull the hood as high as her mouth and push his lips against hers, push his tongue into her mouth, and taste her blood, and the thought made his lust all the more urgent.

"There," said his mentor. "She is where she needs to be. Let her float for a while. Let her stay."

No. She didn't float. She didn't stay. It wasn't in her nature. This was a woman whose hobbies included ultramarathons and Iron Man triathlons. In the summer months, she ran up the sides of mountains for fun. Not climbed—ran! She didn't want to float here. He knew that about her, even with the mask in place. Even without being able to see the longing in her eyes, and with only her clenched fist to guide him, he knew what she needed from him. More importantly, he knew what he wanted to take from her.

And that was all that mattered. Both to him and to her: let her give and let him take. That was what they needed from one another.