Page 116 of For Real

He looked up, smiling, moisture glistening on the lips that had kissed me and hurt me, and reached below the level of the table, where I couldn’t easily see. When he brought his hands back up, he was holding a set of clover clamps connected by a steel chain. They glittered between his fingers, promising pain.

I was damp with sweat and spit and ecstasy, powerless to resist, wanting and not wanting, and waiting for him to deny me the choice, to give me whatever he chose to give. His fingers fumbled against skin—once, twice—as he clamped me. And each time, his eyes held mine, the lust in them its own caress, as I hissed at the chill, sharp bite. Breathing through it and knowing it was nothing to the burning agony that waited for me when he took them off.

“There.” Toby stepped back. Surveyed me, his subject, his kingdom. He was flushed and a little sweaty too, as breathless as me, the ridge of his erection outlined against his jeans. “Fuck. Wow.”

I’d done that to him. Made him hot and hard and hazy-eyed. And in that moment, any pain, all indignity was worth it. No. Part of it. Inextricable from it. Inseparable, indistinguishable from joy.

Toby seemed to be having trouble looking away. “Okay. Right.” I loved the harshness of his voice when he was like this, fiercely turned on and full of cruelty. “I’ve got a lemon meringue pie to finish.”

“And…” My lips were dry, my body spread and aching, pain gathering intimately both inside and out. “What do I do?”

There was nothing but love in him as he told me, “You suffer for me.”

Which was what I did while Toby put his crust in the oven and began to work on the filling, talking to me all the time about what he was doing, the words blurring with the pain and the discomfort, until everything was Toby and all the ways he touched me and loved me, hurt me and delighted me. I floated, the edges of my world turned as soft and frayed as feathers. It was strange to be so physically abject, and so completely happy. Toby’s.

God. I hurt. I hurt.

There was something relentless about it, the steady heartbeat of pain and the slow drop-drop of time. Moving brought no relief, just a reawakening of harsher agonies, unwanted pleasure, the thrust and press of metal inside me, the sway of the chain, and the tightening of the clamps on my nipples. Even breathing stirred the air too much, made it rasp against skin grown tight and hot and thin.

Sometimes I could not hold back my sounds.

Sometimes my eyes would sting with helpless moisture.

And sometimes Toby would come to me, put his mouth to my mouth or against my eyes, and take my groans and all my tears.

I liked being able to watch him. My restraints, in that respect, had set me free. There was nothing for me to do but look and revel in my looking.

He seemed happy, moving around my kitchen with the same confidence he had learned in touching and taking me. The muscles of his back shifted under his T-shirt like the memory of wings as he worked, and every now and again I’d catch the flash of his forearms, all pale skin and sinew, dusted only faintly by dark hair, the occasional freckle. He was leaning most of his weight on one leg, so his arse was tightly nestled against the denim of his jeans.

Perhaps a stranger would look at Toby and see little more than a skinny postadolescent with a shockingly bad haircut. But he was my boyfriend, my dom, my fragile prince, and he was nothing less than beautiful to me. I loved the tender spot at the back of his neck and all the whisper-soft hairs that would stir beneath my breath. I loved his narrow feet and his disproportionately large toes. I loved the small, flat mole that lurked beneath his left earlobe. I loved the place between his collarbones and the hollows beneath his clavicles where sweat gathered and gleamed. I loved the slim and gorgeous cock that tasted so much of salt and him.

These were the rosary beads of my submission. Though my only god was love.6

“I’ve got about five minutes before the crust’s done.” He came and stood in front of me, and his fully clothed proximity suddenly reminded me of my own nakedness, my own vulnerability. He brought with him a waft of wholesome smells: flour and sugar and baking pastry. “Wonder what I should do with it?”

He ran his hands over the straining, sweat-slick muscles of my abdomen, and I flinched from his gentleness, which only jostled the hook and the chain and made me sob a little. He hushed me, soothed me, strung soft kisses across my body like fairy lights. I was too raw to even think of resisting. I just leaned into him, lost, seduced, begging for his touch, letting the pleasure fill me like the pain.

He gave me that as well, his nails and his teeth leaving reddened tracks and marks, gifts across my skin. By then, it was all sensation, and me all yielding. He found the tender places—the underside of my arms, the edge of my ribs, the crease of my groin, the side of a knee—and ignited them like touch paper, until I was nothing but fire and lightning, made and unmade by his harsh breath and his trembling hands and all his frantic, whispered words of wonder and gratitude, love and desire.

Then there was silence, stillness. Toby’s eyes locked on mine as his fingers closed around the clamps. A tug, and they were gone.

An infinitesimally tiny fraction of a second roared through my ears. And, after, everything was pain. Engulfing, all-consuming, inescapable. A red-hot, skin-deep rush. The taste of copper in my mouth. I couldn’t move. I didn’t dare. I could only shake and endure. Surrender. Stare into the too-bright mirror of agony until there was no fear left. Only the sharpest light and a pure, deep peace.

I heard a feral, rough-edged screaming. Me?

“Holy God. Holy holy fucking God.” Toby’s head was thrown back, his throat rippling, his mouth stretched in a helpless gasp. His hands—which, I now realised, had held me throughout—tightened on my legs. Another shudder jolted through him, and then he doubled over against the table, moaning and clawing at me.

My throat hurt, but the rest of the pain was fading.

Traceless as frost in sunlight. The world looked different, clearer, cleaner, slightly photoshopped, as if I’d inhaled pure oxygen. And I felt, strangely, like laughing.

Toby uncurled slowly. “Fucking hell.” He sounded shaken. “I just…fucking hell.”

I carefully looked down at him. Though I still didn’t precisely like them, even my bonds troubled me less. “Are you all right?”

“I…just like”—he was already flushed, but somehow he turned even redder—“totally came. When you screamed…it was…just so fucking beautiful.”

“Thank you,” was all I could think to say. But it wasn’t just a dominance game. I meant it. Thank you for the pain. Thank you for letting it mean so much to you. Thank you for believing I’m beautiful. Thank you for making me feel so powerful. Thank you for loving me. Thank you. Thank you.

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