Page 1 of Master

CHAPTER ONE

SASHA

This is it…

This is how I die…

Bound, gagged, and with a sea of people watching.

My sweat pools on the black leather my stomach is firmly pressed against. The cushion quickly growing slick from the puddle of adrenaline seeping through my skin. I slide through the slippery wetness as I try futilely to retreat from the brutal strikes Isaac continues to land across my ass and thighs. My forearms and shins are tied so tightly to the spanking bench that my mobility is limited to a few inches at most.

This is how Isaac likes me: bound and silently enduring my grueling punishment.

All the Doms that I have been with were cruel on occasion, but Isaac isn’t like any of them.

He’sworse.

With him, there is no difference between playtime and punishment. Both are focused on inflicting as much pain as Ican endure. Sometimes more. Neither involves pleasure—well, at least not usually mine.

Isaac gets off on my suffering; both physical and mental. He shares me with his friends—letting them watch him fuck me or dictate how I please myself—only to then spend days denying and berating me as a punishment for being a whore. The pain of denial and humiliation from his degradation is easy to endure compared to his physical impact play and sadism. He isn’t satisfied until he has left his mark in the form of bruises, welts, or blood. Or, from the roughest of our times together, all the above.

Like a good submissive, I give him everything he wants. No matter how hard it is to take it. When he’s satisfied with pushing me to the brink of unconsciousness—sometimes further—he claims me and says the words that make it all worth it.“You’re mine. No one will ever want you the way I do.”

Taking every hurtful word, denied orgasm, stranger’s eyes on me, and pained strike without complaint makes me good enough.Wanted.Worthy of beinghissubmissive.

With each breath harder than the last, I struggle to suck in air through my restraints and the pain he’s inflicting to put on a show for our audience. I remind myself through every short, labored breath, “It’ll be worth it, Sasha.” The heavy wooden paddle Isaac has been using hits my ass again, and the thuddy sting radiates across my skin as tears well in my eyes. He swings again and hits a tender, overly-struck section of my upper thigh. The pain sears along my backside, and I cry out, but my scream is muffled by the inflated butterfly gag occupying my mouth.

I shouldn’t have told him I didn’t want to do this exhibition.

Isaac swings again and again. The cumulative pain becomes unbearable, and I press my forehead to the leather beneath me in an attempt to hide the tears currently streaming down my cheeks. My heart stops when the soles of his shoes click against the black marble floors, and his fingers trail up the length of my spine.

“Look at me,” he snarls from above. Sucking in a small snot-filled breath, I lift my face from the sticky leather and open my eyes. His fingers lace through my sweat-matted hair as I stare over the bench at his cognac Ferragamo Oxfords beneath me. He fists my hair so tightly that the pain radiating across my scalp causes me to momentarily forget about the current state of my ass and thighs.

Using his grip, he demandingly pulls my attention up to him. There is no denying the disappointment in his dark-chestnut eyes when I meet his gaze. Bending toward my face, he lowers his voice and gruffs, “Are you fucking crying?”

The butterfly gag in my mouth leaves me incapable of responding, but my silence only further agitates him. He turns his fist, and my eyes blow wide as he pulls my hair so hard I swear it’s tearing from my scalp.

“I thought you were going to be a good girl for me tonight.” His gravelly whisper is as dark and cold as his stare. His ire grows with every word that passes over his lips. “Instead, you are making me look bad before all these people. Letting them think I have a poorly trained submissive who can’t even handle a fucking paddling.”

He stoops down to my level, and his nostrils flare as he sneers, “You’re making me look like a weak fucking Dom. Is that what you wanted?”

His hold on me is so tight that I can barely move when I try to shake my head to refute his question.

“No?” Isaac mocks, releasing his excruciatingly tight hold of my hair. He glances to the crowd beyond the window and a fake smile pulls at the corners of his mouth as he returns his attention to me. His fingers tenderly wiping the tears from my cheeks are a stark contrast to his devilish dark tone. “And how are you going to fix this?”

Knowing the answer he’s going to give me, I gulp, and it’s like I’m choking on the gag in my mouth.

“We need to show them how well I’ve trained you, don’t we?” he rhetorically asks, and my stomach sinks.

I can’t.

Not that it matters, because it never does. He’ll prove to me Ican. If I protest, he’ll prove it some more. “Now nod your fucking head that you agree.”

Fighting back more tears and knowing I’m putting my life in his hands, I nod to please him.Anything to please him.This gag is suffocating and every tear I cry only causes my nose to become more congested. The only relief I can provide myself is going to slowly kill me when he inflicts my punishment for making him look poorly before the other members of the club.

He lifts the bulb to the gag in my mouth and squeezes slowly, fully inflating it and further constricting my breathing. He gives another partial squeeze, the gag feeling like it might explode in my mouth, as he whispers darkly, “Be a good little bitch and fucking take it. Show them how well I’ve fucking trained you.”

From the corner of my eye, I watch Isaac lift the cat o’ nine tails from the edge of the bed to my right. He wastes no time swinging it, and the sharp sting slices through my already tender skin. Tears stream down my cheeks as the subsequent strikes feel like they’re clawing through my flesh.

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