Dirty Hands

After that evening, his mentor made it clear that Justin was no longer welcome in his home. It seemed that he was troubled by what he'd seen. There had been a time when Justin would have been saddened by their parting, but that time was past. It was for the best. The man could not accept what he could not understand, and he could not understand the connection between Justin and the woman.

Her name was Ash. Ash like the tree. Ash like her hair. Ash like what remains after an all-consuming flame has wrought its work. Ash Clark, PhD, Department of Philosophy, according to the card she'd given him the night they first met—when she'd written her private number on the back and bitten the card with her lips. It still bore the imprint in her crimson lipstick. He kept it on his nightstand and there were times when just looking at it made his cock swell.

That night began period of abject Hell for her, and bliss for him. Bliss for them both. Eight full weeks of Hell-bliss.

She was on sabbatical for the semester. He wasn't, but his course load was light: he had only to finish his thesis. It was going well, but not so well that he didn't thank her for the distraction and the chance to shirk his responsibilities. After that first night, they spent the time at a cabin in the mountains, a place that she said belonged to her family. They would be completely alone. She spent the time completely naked, whatever they did together: hiking, fishing, fucking, torturing. More than once, he wondered if she was ever afraid. Did she think about being so completely alone in this place with a man whose greatest desire was to give her pain?

But he could never have hurt her. Not really hurt her. She was too beautiful and too precious. Too rare a creature. It would have been like cutting of his own hand; he never really considered it. He only wondered if she had.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked, a smile in her bright eyes.

"What do you mean?" he said, putting aside the book that sat on his lap. He hadn't been reading it anyway.

"You had that look in your eyes again," she said. She leaned forward to put her hands in his, her lean body stretched across the porch from where she knelt to where he sat. "I always wonder what you're thinking."

She lay her head on his knee, and he ran his fingertips through her hair. He examined the healing cuts carved into her back by the light of the setting sun. They would scar. She'd wear them for years to come. He didn't mind; he thought they were beautiful. He had to shift himself, making room for his desire as she nuzzled him. Yet he wondered if she felt the same way. What would she say to people who saw those scars, at the gym or at the beach? Would the eyes and judgment of strangers serve to drive a wedge between them?

"I'm thinking of marking you tomorrow," he said, trying the words aloud. "Would you like that? Would you like to be marked for me?"

The woman at his feet—Dr. Ash Clark—became a girl in love. Became a groveling slave. Became a thing. She slid from his thigh onto the floor, her ashen hair laying on the painstakingly polished wood. She kissed not his feet but the ground beneath him, always remembering her un-worth in his presence... In His presence.

"The cunt would be honored, Sir," she whispered. She moaned the words: "Your shitbag cunt is unworthy of Your mark, Sir—but still it begs for this. The filth pleads with You to mark it in whatever way You see fit, however You deem it worthy. Please, Sir—please, Lord, grant this meat Your mark as it pleases You."

His breath caught in his throat. His lungs seemed filled not with air but with fire, and his hard member ached behind his jeans even after he adjusted himself once more. This wasn't what he'd meant, though: he'd really meant to ask her. He wanted to know how she felt. Was she playing a role? Was this a spell that would be broken when their eight weeks were up and they had to return to the real world? Would she regret begging him for this?

And yet he couldn't refuse her.

In the morning, he loaded her pack with water, food, and snacks, and a few other sundries, with ropes and whips, with cuffs and a gag and her heavy leather mask; he loaded it with a tent and with his sleeping bag, even though he expected to sleep out under the stars; and he made a show of adding a long survival knife to the gear, ensuring that his eyes met hers as he slid the sheath into her bag. The resulting load was far heavier than it had any need to be, and yet that was the point. Like Isaac and Abraham they set out, with his Ash carrying the tools he would use to destroy her. At least, that was the impression he wanted her to have.

Their one and only concession to practicality on a trek such as this was her hiking shoes. Well, that and the sunscreen that now gleamed on her skin as they made their way up the slope. When the trek began, he had intended that they would go all the way to the top before her marking: her cabin sat in the shadow of a low, green-topped mountain, and from her front porch it didn't look to be insurmountable. Once up on the slope, however, the true moment of the challenge became clear to him, and he began to moderate his ambitions. She was sweating and panting beneath the heavy pack, and its straps chafed her shoulders. He was tiring as well, though not so much that he feared he wouldn't make the climb. Rather, he wanted to have all his energy available when the moment came—when he marked her body and they made love. It was a little after noon when, at last, he asked her to halt for a little.

"Set it down," he said of the pack. He gave her water and then took the still half-full bottle from her before she could drink herself sick. She knew better, and yet still she made him do this. Made him care for her. He slapped her face and she moaned; he drank and then spat water into her open mouth, and she smiled. He sat against a tree, his cock hard. She nestled between his thighs, her body shivering lightly as the sweat cooled on her nudity. Needfully, she nuzzled at him. It wasn't long before he gave in.

Ash had been in the scene for a good while longer than himself. He wasn't actually sure of her age. She must have been in her thirties, and yet she didn't look it. Save for the flashes of wisdom that he sometimes caught in her gray eyes, she might have been a girl of twenty-five. The way she moaned and whimpered as she nosed at his bared cock, licked and suckled at his sweat-seasoned member, she might have been younger still. Nonetheless, his partner had been well-trained by someone, or by many someones over the course of more than a decade of devoted service. Her mouth and her tongue and her soft, swollen lips were skilled far beyond any other woman he had experienced. It took all his will, all his remaining energy, to make the moment last as long as it did.

He groaned out his pleasure as he finished on her tongue, lacking the willpower to draw himself out of her, to spray his cum into her eyes or smear it in her hair as he might have wanted. She swallowed greedily, inviting him to discipline her for such an overeager act, and yet he declined. He shuddered as he ran his fingers through her sweat-damp hair, his chest rising and falling as he panted with joy. "Why, Dr. Clark," he gasped, "I believe you were hungry."

Thirsty, too, she said with her eyes.

In a moment, he gave her that as well.