Page 76 of The Cartographer

Thwack.

“How’s that?”

He cracks an eye open to glare at me, but I don’t fail to notice he’s getting harder as well.

“They never go dead. Not like some other areas of your body. At some point, if I were to keep beating you elsewhere, you’d go numb. What fun is that? None.”

Thwack.

“The other nice thing is that, in fact, I can keep hitting you with exactly the same force…” I hit him again, the cane making contact with the middle of his foot. Not the ball and not the heel, but the center of him where it’ll give the most impact. Provide the most sensation. “…but it will feel as though I’m hitting you harder. Are you finding that to be true?”

Thwack.

He chokes out a small noise, and joy rushes through my system. I’ve been told this is quite painful, and while I’m not hitting him so hard, it’s a sensation most people have never experienced and the novelty of it can put even the most experienced masochist off-balance. Hart’s not terribly experienced. No, I am his sole experience. I’m his entire world, and if that’s not a heady sensation, I don’t know what is.

With the next strike, I notice he’s broken out in a light sweat. I want to lick the product of my labors off his skin, taste the salt of his pain and his effort, perhaps bite him before sucking the pain away. Not yet. If this were a different day, I might stop. He’s perhaps had enough for an introduction. That’s not what I’ve promised him, though. I’ve sworn to give him a distraction, to make him forget, and while he has at this second, I’m going to make this last.

“The other delightful thing is no one can see what I’ve done to you.”

Thwack.

“But you’ll feel it.”

Thwack.

You’re going to feel me for days. Every time he takes a step, every time he stands, every time he slips on a shoe. I’m not doing any permanent damage because I’m not hitting him hard enough to even get close, but he probably doesn’t feel that way.

He’s trembling now. I’ve almost got him. Eyes clenched closed, jaw set, and muscles rigid. He doesn’t tell me to stop, though, doesn’t say the words. Perhaps because he wants to prove himself, but he can’t. Not this time. That’s not what this is about. I want to break him, and I’m going to. Because deep down, he wants to be broken.

I hit him again and again, sometimes pausing to pace and lecture him further about the history of it—fascinating, if disturbing—and to give him time to dread the next blow. His knuckles whiten as he clutches the clips at his wrists and the tendons stand out on his neck. I want them between my teeth, want to feel the harsh beat of his racing pulse against my tongue. Drink up his pain and swallow it. Keep it. These small moments of almost delirious pleasure.

Delirious isn’t quite right because I’ve still got full control of my faculties. Have to with something so delicate. With the next crack of the cane against his soles, he lets out a ragged cry. I’m close.

Thwack.

Give it up, Hart. Give yourself to me. All your pain, all your hurt, all of you.

With the precision of a percussionist keeping an entire orchestra on task, I hit him repeatedly, and finally,finally, he yells. A sound that comes from his core that reverberates through my bones.

I have him. I’ve made him mine.

With three more carefully measured cracks, he’s done for. Those resolutely held-back tears stream over his face, and beads of sweat roll down from his temples to join them. A sheen of perspiration covers his neck and chest, probably at the juncture of thigh and hip too, if I checked there. So much evidence of what I’ve done to him. Salty, slick proof. It’s the best thing on earth.

There’s a vague pull somewhere deep inside me in a place I don’t like to acknowledge. That piece of me wants more. More sweat, more tears, more pain. That piece doesn’t particularly care about Hart; all it cares about is more. I’m not a beast with no sense of control or decorum, though. I’m a man, control refined and distilled until it makes up 99.99 percent of me, and that small, ugly piece isn’t winning today. Because I care about Hart—very much—and he’s had enough.

I set the cane aside, tucking it away where he can’t see it, and I go to him. Release the ropes around his feet and carefully, slowly unwind the bonds from between his toes, fixing his ankles. I cosset him with streams of kind words and soothing caresses while I work, because after all that, this is when he starts to struggle. After his feet are free from their bondage, I climb over him to settle in a straddle just below his hips so his straining cock rubs at the crotch of my trousers.

Leaning over him, I grasp his wrists in my hands. Not that my fingers can circle them, but I can hold him well enough. He could perhaps launch me right off him if he wanted to, but I bet the pressure feels good, reassuring, and he stills underneath me.

“Open your eyes, Hart. Look at me.”

His eyes snap open at my order. They’re wild, the pupils dilated, and he’s blinking more than he usually does, tears still sliding down his cheeks. Overwhelmed. I wait for him to focus on my face, and then I lean down deliberately and take what I came for, running my tongue along his neck where it meets his jaw and up to the hollow behind his ear.

The brackish liquid pooling there is more satisfying than the finest scotch. I’d like to bottle it. Instead, I take another swipe, then nip at him before reaching up to his wrists and undoing the clips, making sure to hold his wrists down when he’s been released. Too much freedom can be jarring after something like that, and I don’t want him to feel lost.

So I hold him down and kiss him, press my lips against his until he opens for me, and I slip my tongue inside his mouth where he tastes not so much of salt but of humanity and desperation. I’d devour him if I could. He kisses me back—challenging, almost hostile. That’s fine. I can handle his belligerence, but I don’t think that’s what he wants. So I tighten my grasp on his wrists, kiss him harder, and rock my hips against his until our cocks are rubbing at each other through the summer-weight wool of my trousers.

I’ve done a lot of filthy things with countless people, but somehow this frottage is one of the most intense experiences I’ve ever had. Not being buried balls-deep in some willing and lovely sub, not orchestrating all the moving parts of an orgy, not Matthew wrapping his incredibly talented lips around my hardness, but this graceless display of pure need. It hadn’t been my plan because it’s terribly uncouth, but suddenly I want to make him come like this.

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