Page 40 of Cherry Auction

Instead, I calmly unbutton my starched white shirt. I’m painted in unholy tattoos. Christ is impaled on his cross on my chest, far bloodier and more lifelike than the normal, sanitized versions worn on all those nuns’ necks back at school when I was growing up. No, in the ink on my chest, blood pours down his face from the thorn crown piercing his forehead. Same with the nails in his hands that stretch around tomy back and the slice marks in his wan chest, across the bottom of my ribs.

Everywhere else, more macabre scenes of demons, skulls, and reapers cover me, neck to wrists. During business hours, I’m respectable as fuck. But underneath, I always know what’s there.

I shrug out of my shirt as on the second monitor, I see Madison’s hand slip between her legs. On the first monitor that’s still focused in on her face, I see her confused pleasure as she begins touching herself. It’s a scrunch of her features that looks almost like pain.

I grit my teeth, my own pleasure flashing. My cock leaps again and I reach for what’s in the bottom drawer. My fist closes around the handle of my nastiest whip, coiled like a snake here for only the most special of occasions. Underneath is the collar I bought for Madison long ago. Elegant, with the Callaghan crest at the back and a large diamond at the front. I always knew one day I’d make her mine.

But first, I have to get myself back under complete control. I have to remember who is meant to be the owner of whom. Every time I draw out her pleasure and see the things she can’t deny as truth, it lures the foolish boy I was back to the surface.

It’s time to remind him just what happens to naïve young men who let themselves be tempted by beauty and apparent vulnerability.

My grip on the whip’s handle tightens as I pull it out, letting it uncoil like a viper.

I’m not a masochist.

I like to inflict the pain, not feel it.

Usually.

It’s only on the very rare occasions when the demons get to howling like banshees?—

I take three steps back from the monitor and let the cat-o’-nine-tails wail, flipping it in the particular way I’ve learned to do over the years so that it lashes backwards, whipping around and over my own shoulders.

I take it silently when the knotted horsehair ends of the leather tails lash my back. I was far from quiet the first time this instrument of torture hit my flesh. But I was trained to take it and thank my master for the favor of his touch.

On screen, Madison’s forehead scrunches in pleasure and her legs clench together around her hand as she continues rubbing her sweet little clit. I reach down and unbutton my slacks, shoving both them and my boxers down until my straining cock stands straight out like a ship’s mast.

Madison’s back arches in unconscious pleasure, perfectly mounded breasts topped with hard, pebbled little nipples. As she starts to squirm in bed, I land the second lash, on the opposite shoulder.

My entire body reacts from the pain that’s intense enough to steal my breath. My cock only throbs harder asMads rolls over on her side, her hand sawing against her clit as she fucks herself.

I land another strike. And another. I feel blood pouring in rivulets down my back that’s on fire now, soaking into the top of my pants and dripping on my polished wood floor. I only continue with another ruthless strike. The next sends me to my knees, mouth dropped open in eye-popping pain. My cock strains harder still.

On the screen, Madison’s face twists in longing. She’s almost there. Her pleasure is a moment away. She yearns for it. The release would be so sweet, the endorphin rush a reward for all she’s been through for the last few days. I’ve demonstrated to her just how good her body can feel if she works at it.

I hesitate, my whip paused, the wicked ends dripping with my blood onto the floor, waiting to see her choice.

Will she take what most humans in this world do? Will she grasp for the immediate pleasure?

Or will she obey?

I breathe hard, my own chest bellowing up and down, on the edge of a pin as, at the very last moment, she yanks her hand away in denied pleasure, twisting in the sheets and screaming into the pillow.

My hand flicks for one last lash.

Right as it lands, without once touching myself, my cock explodes with cum, milking itself in pleasure at her obedienceas pain spasms through my back. “I am in control!” I shout, and fall to my knees, whip dropping from my hands.

SIXTEEN

BROOKE

Without light,it’s difficult to tell what time it is, but I think I’ve begun to tell a rhythm to the days because Domhnall comes down and feeds me by hand three times a day now in addition to doing one of hisscenes.

After yesterday’s frustrating experience, I’m not sure what mood I’ll find him in today. He should be happy. I passed his infuriating little test.

He thinks he can control me without even being here? He thinks his words have enough power to make me do things just because his instructions are in my head, like some religion? Like God?

Just a few more days.

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