Dirty Hands

Their short break became a lazy midday spent together beneath the shading canopy of a whispering aspen grove. They lay against one another in luxuriant languor, his fingertips once more tracing her healing lacerations, her lips nuzzling and worshiping him again and again. Not until the sun was bound toward the westward horizon—on the far side of the mountain ridge—did the two of them think of moving again. By then, thanks to the high ridge to the west, magic hour had already begun to descend.

Ash was pushing a plug into place. Her tight, swollen asshole was filled with his cum and she wanted to keep it. He gave her permission, and she paused in lifting her pack to ensure that the plug was secure. Something in her expression caught him off-guard: a kind of absent concentration, eyes unfocused and yet smiling, lips parted, her back arched and her body both dirty and sweaty after their rampant recreations. Even though he was fully sated, he knew in that moment that he had to have her once more. He had to keep her, not just for now but forever.

Almost at once, his camera was in his hand. It was the only thing he'd carried himself. The light was perfect. He framed her and took the photograph.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

The moment shattered like crystal.

"You're beautiful," he said lamely.

"Please don't," she said. "Sir, please."

Stunned, he lowered the camera. "I wasn't going to share it with anyone," he said. "Just..."

"Sir, please," she said again, her lovely face etched with concern. "I'll happily do anything else you ask, but just this—I can't. Please. Okay?"

He deleted the photograph. He offered to show her the memory card: it now contained only images of wildlife and landscapes, but she refused to look. Her expression only became darker as he tried to console her. She even shrank from his touch as he reached out to caress her, to run his fingers over her cheek and comb them through her hair. "I'd never do anything to hurt you," he said.

She gave him a level look and said nothing. Her response brought his eyes down to her breasts and her abdomen, where pale pink lines still marked the path of the bullwhip that had scored her some weeks back. He lowered his head and looked away.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"No, I'm sorry."

"No!" she said, her voice thick with emotion.

A snap of irrational anger struck him. Why couldn't she simply let this go? It had been a whim on the spur of the moment, and he had acted, and he had taken it back. No harm had been done. What difference did it make? She had let her desires be known and that was that!

She had let her desires be known.

And now she was angry. Not with him, but with herself. Because she had let her desires be known. She had allowed her own interests, however momentarily, to override his own.

He grabbed her by the throat. He struck her—twice!—hard! His movements were clumsy, uncertain; he didn't slap her so much as cuff her, and she cried out in pain and surprise as the second blow split her lip. "Is there a problem, shitbag?" he demanded of her, his nostrils flaring as his lust soared in response to this sudden outburst of power and violence and something... Nameless. Something more.

"No, Sir!" she said, eyes down, voice firm and confident. Blood oozed, rolled slowly down her chin. Her nipples were nearly as hard as his cock.

"If and when I decide that I want to have a photograph of you," he said, "you will pose for it. You will fucking autograph it, if I say. You'll post it on Facebook and LinkedIn. It'll be your profile picture. Is that clear to you, fuckhole?"

Ash reeled, her whole body shivering in response to his words. Her lashes fluttered and her pupils dilated, growing large and dark in response to his declaration. "Yes, Sir," she whispered, far less confident now.

"Louder!" he snapped.

"Yes, Sir!" It was a cry and a moan and a plea. "Please punish this cunt, Sir, for speaking out of turn."

"Maybe later," he said. "We have to get moving. I want to mark you at sunset. I want to be standing on top of the mountain."

In truth, he hadn't given that question any thought—the matter of the timing, the location, etc. Now that he'd said it, though, it was down to both of them to make his pronouncement true. She stiffened and went at once to her pack, hefting it onto her shoulders, heedless of the way the heavy load chafed at her naked skin or the fact that the cuts on her back and shoulders reopened as they went. He made her pause long enough to renew the sunscreen and bug spray that protected her. Of course it burned those healing lacerations, but what of it? She was His. She was meant to bear that pain for him, just as she was meant to bear the load.

Because of her load, he permitted her to set the pace for them both, and the pace she chose was grueling: the more so for her than for himself, and yet he soon wished that he had been more circumspect in his planning. His legs and back were soon aching, and it was all he could do not to pant for breath. He checked his watch as they approached the summit, when the green crown of the mountain first came into view, and he guessed that they would have about half an hour on top before night began to fall. He ought to have planned ahead. He ought to have known by now what he meant to do. But what was it?

How would he mark her? She probably thought that he simply meant to keep it a secret from her, to keep her in suspense. In truth, he hadn't decided for himself just yet. The tools he had made her bring along were more than sufficient, whatever means he chose—from a kind of makeshift branding, with wire and a campfire, to a hard scourging with a barbed flog, to anything in between. Yet whatever he chose, they would have to go down in the morning. She would have to hike the whole way back. He wasn't about to carry her.

The question was still troubling him as she was setting up the tent, in case he should wish to have it. As she was gathering a few bits of dried wood for a fire. As she was breathing, carefully, on the kindling, and coaxing the flame into life, he was sitting meditative beside the fire pit she'd made. The sun was all but a memory in the west as she knelt before him.

She glowed in the firelight, her body limned with sweat and spiced with dirt. She smelled like work and green things growing, like a kind of Earth goddess. There was something primal about her. A word came to him.

Athame.

"Bring me the knife," he said.

Even kneeling, Ash seemed to rock back on her heels at the words. Yet there was not surprise on her face. Only acceptance. She bowed low, pressing her forehead to the earth before him. "Hear and obey," she said in a low, soft voice, instinctively entering a kind of higher, more refined protocol between them.

He thrust the blade into the flame as she watched, purifying it. The bright fire danced around the dark steel, staining it with heat and light. "Lay down," he commanded. "Offer your flesh to me."

She did, with her eyes raised to the stars and her hands open and her thighs parted. Her back arched as she lay, her breasts heaving as the excitement of the moment burned through her panting breaths. He let the heated edge of the blade kiss her thighs, and then her stomach, and then her breasts. She gasped, almost silent, accepting the heat and the soft caress of steel.

There were tears in her eyes.

"Don't tell me that you're not worthy," he said when he saw them. "I decide that. I make you worthy."

Another gasp, louder, tore from her lips at those words.

"This place is our altar," he said, now straining to keep his voice soft and even and steady—to keep his hands from trembling with excitement. "Tonight, you are my sacrifice. Body and soul. If you want this."

"Your slave does, Lord," she whispered.

"No," he said firmly. "Not my slave. Not my cunt. Not this hole. None of those. Do you want it, Ash? Do you want it, Dr. Clark?"

Her eyes were wild. Confused. She stared at him, uncomprehending.

"This isn't a game," he snarled.

"Slave—" she began. A tremor shot through her, and she corrected herself: "I do."

Then she closed her eyes as the knife touched her throat. She pushed her chin toward the sky above, thrusting her neck upward.

"So be it."

She waited, her breasts heaving again. It seemed she was waiting for him to plunge the knife into her throat, to spray her life's blood upon the ground. A ragged moan left her when she realized it, too—when she understood that it was not to be. Her each breath became a trembling rattle of excitement then, and he dragged the knife slowly, carefully down over her breasts and her belly, back to her cunt.

"Frontier families used to mark pigs by cutting notches in their ears," he said. "You're my fuck pig. You should bear my mark—but not on your ear."

"Oh..."

"Here," he said, teasing her cunt lips. "And here..."

"Oh—oh, God!" she gasped, her hips bucking, almost impaling herself on the blade.

He placed his hand on her belly to steady her. "Yes," he whispered, smiling. "I am. But you usually just call me Sir, or Lord..."

"My God," she called him. "Please, mark Your property."

He took the multi-tool from his pocket and used its pliers to get a grip on her wet, swollen lips. He was needlessly cruel, crushing her flesh with the serrated jaws. She groaned. "Not a sound!" he commanded her, and the groan stopped. Agony was etched upon her face as he squeezed tighter. What did it matter how much damage the pliers did? He was going to cut her. Carve her. His hands were shaking.

Then she was bleeding. He cut deeper. Sawed deeper. More blood. She groaned, biting back hard against the pain, striving to swallow it for Him. For her God. He cut again, more carefully this time. The sharp blade parted her flesh and the pliers tore free, a bruised and damp notch of her cunt clasped in their cruel jaws.

Sweat bathed her. She collapsed onto her back before the fire, moaning, writhing in agony, lost in throes of ecstatic submission. He could see the need in her eyes.

"Be still!" he commanded her. "I'm not done."

"Oh, God," she said, and this time the words were all too intentional. She lifted her eyes toward him—only as high as his chin—and gazed upon him. "God, lend strength to Your slave..."

"Would you like to be bound and gagged?"

"If You wish it..."

"What about a kiss instead?"

That brought a moaning growl from her lips. He kissed her, tasted the blood in her mouth. When he pulled away, she laid herself on the ground for him again.

"Satisfy Yourself, Lord God..."

He lifted the pliers, showing her the torn and useless meat clenched in their jaws. "When I finish," he warned, "I might make you eat all of this."

"Hear and obey."