Page 41 of Under His Skin

Giorgis startled and shrank back. “What? Don’t I get to pick my safeword?”

If it were up to Tracht, there would be no picking of any safewords at all. “Names are bad for safewords. And red is understood as a safeword by everybody here.” As amusing as it might have been to ignore the safeword on the basis of it being his own damn name, Tracht couldn’t risk drawing attention here.

“I guess that makes sense.” Giorgis didn’t make any other move, though.

Tracht wondered what the hold-up was until he realized that the idiot was staring at the St. Andrew’s cross with fear.

That should have been enticing, but Tracht didn’t feel the usual thrill. He’d once made Alex assemble one of these crosses, just to watch Alex’s mounting dread at what would come after. He remembered Alex’s reluctance to assemble it, and how tense he’d been attaching the manacles to the beams.

“Is this your first time?” Tracht asked with a lightness he didn’t feel. He wanted to just get started already. The flogger in his hands was too light for his tastes, and Giorgis too skinny, the atmosphere in the club too clean and safe, but Tracht was not going to leave unsatisfied.

“Ah, yeah, I had to work up the courage to even come here. My friend said it was great, everybody’s really chill here, but she’s been doing the kink scene for years and years. She offered to come with me but oh my god, I don’t want her to see me getting my rocks off, y’know?” Giorgis took a step closer and lifted his hands up to the manacles.

If he was a true beginner, he probably shouldn’t have started by having a complete stranger bind him to a cross and flog him, but Tracht wasn’t about to tell him that.

“I’m fairly experienced, so you’re in good hands,” Tracht said instead, hoping to hurry things along. “I’ll help you get cuffed.”

Without waiting for Giorgis to agree, Tracht lifted up his wrist—so thin that Tracht thought he could easily snap it in half—and wrapped the manacle around it. Giorgis gasped loudly, but he cooperated more fully for the second cuff, raising his hand and stepping closer to the cross. His entire body trembled already though.

Tracht half wondered if he should just leave the idiot like this and find somebody more experienced, but in the end he decided that was too much effort.

He backed away to admire the view, only to find that there really wasn’t much to admire. Without any significant muscle to speak of, Giorgis’ bare back was barely worth looking at.

It was unlikely that any at the subs at a club like this one would compare to Alex in physique.

He sighed to himself and casually flicked the flogger, letting it hit Giorgis’s shoulders.

Giorgis jumped and cried out. “Hey! Aren’t you supposed to give me a warning?”

“That was the warning stroke,” Tracht said mildly. “I wanted to test your reaction. I’ll get started now.”

He wanted to give a real hard stroke, but he was too aware of all the possible onlookers. So he kept his movement limited to just his wrist, letting the actual impact remain light. Giorgis’s pale shoulders barely even warmed under the first few strokes. If he did this to Alex, Alex would be wondering why Tracht was being so gentle.

Giorgis, meanwhile, cried out sharply after every one. “Oh. Wow. That stings!”

Tracht experimentally gave a slightly harder lash. The tails of the flogger landed on Giorgis’s upper back, and Giorgis gave a strangled cry.

“Oh wow. That was—that was a lot. More? I think I want more. I don’t know. Uh—”

If Giorgis would just shut up, maybe Tracht could start enjoying himself. The next flurry of strokes was stronger, causing red to bloom under Giorgis’s skin in a way that wasn’t displeasing.

Except Giorgis cried out. “Slow down! Wait!” He struggled in his bonds, as if trying to escape. The rattling of chains was more enticing than Giorgis’s voice.

It would be so easy to ignore him. To completely flaunt all the rules. Let the tails of the flogger wrap around Giorgis’s skin, let them fall on his hips, on his spine. Watch blood start to well up and drip down, hearing the screams of pain. If he had a heavier flogger—

But he saw the timer on the wall, showing that ten minutes had already elapsed, and Tracht realized that he wasn’t going to get any real satisfaction from continuing this farce. With a disgusted sigh, he lowered his arm.

“Never mind,” Tracht said. He almost left Giorgis hanging alone, but once again he had to consider the reactions of others. He pushed the release button and walked away before Giorgis could say anything.

He should have known that a place like this wouldn’t satisfy him. It hadn’t all those years ago, after all.

Chapter 12

The hotel room was okay. Alex didn’t hate it; the bed was soft and the bathroom clean. He’d stayed in worse places with Nick. This one even had a huge vid screen suspended on the wall across for the bed, so if Alex felt like it, he could just chill out and watch movies.

He didn’t feel like watching movies, but he was tempted to turn one on anyway just to shut Galanis up. They were both seated at the small kitchenette table, Galanis’s tablet between them.

“I have several psychiatrists and therapists I can recommend you to, who would be happy to help you work out your issues. Everything I’ve heard about Captain Tracht is very troubling, and I can’t even begin to imagine what he’s put you through.”

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