Page 33 of High Roller

“Yes, Sir,” I mutter.

“Gracie, let’s not start the scene like this. Come here.”

He pulls me into a gentle hug, and I drink in his scent. It’s possible that I’ve grown more addicted to it since he left his jacket in my car the other night.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper against his chest. “I’m ready now.”

He kisses the top of my head. “Good girl.”

As I pull my dress off and climb on the table, I look over to where Luke was sitting with Lili only to find them hurrying from the room.

Victor caresses my back. “She must have changed her mind. We can check on her later.”

Why am I even so worried about her? She almost got me in trouble, and I’m still unclear where we stand on whether or not she’s the enemy or merely associated with the enemy. Either way, I’m sitting here worried about a woman that Victor kidnapped.

I pull my thoughts back to the present moment as Victor tears open a sterilizing wipe to clean my back and upper thighs.

A small crowd has gathered, and because this is a demo, he explains his process and the importance of keeping things sterile. At the beginning of every demo I do with Victor, I have to suppress a smirk because it’s hard picturing him—a known member of a major crime family—as an educator discussing kink safety. But he’s actually fantastic at it, and soon his voice relaxes me fully.

“Needles are not something you jump into without basic anatomy knowledge,” he says as he picks up a sterile marker. “Isn’t that right, doc?”

The gorgeous doctor who sometimes provides her services to us agrees and offers a basic anatomy lesson for anyone interested later.

“Tonight, I’ve chosen needles with some purple tips since that’s this lovely creature’s favorite color. But you can get them in all different colors and gauge sizes. Needles are a particularly delightful way to inflict pain because it’s also a way to turn your subject into a piece of art. Gracie has kindly offered her back, bottom, and thighs as our canvas tonight. I’ll do a less painful ribbon lacing on her back, a small heart on her ass, and after that I’ll use her thighs to show you a few more slightly… sadistic techniques.”

My body ignites at that last phrase. I would be completely OK with an entire scene of nothing but the latter, but I’ll enjoy all of it.

As he speaks, he’s using the marker to put guide marks on my skin for the heart and the ribbon lacing. He has on gloves, so his nails aren’t scratching me, but I can feel them as he moves the pen around.

When he’s done, he picks up the tray of needles to begin.

I can sense the eyes of everyone on us, and it gives me a little thrill. Some people are close enough that air moves across my body as they shift to get a better view of what he’s doing, but when Victor pulls my skin taut with one gloved hand, all of that falls away, and I breathe in right as the metal tip of the sterile needle touches me. The little pinch as it slides in one portion of skin and out the other is my cue to exhale.

It’s a slow process at first, because Victor is explaining the angle of the tip, how to make sure you don’t go too deep, and other important details for safe needle play.

“Now that I’ve done the first few slowly for everyone to see, I’m going to do it the way I would if this were a private scene. Once you get competent at placement, you can go at speed and get all the needles done in a couple of minutes.”

He squeezes my shoulder. “Are you ready to fly for me, Mariposa?”

I exhale long and slow before I answer. “Yes, Master Victor. Very ready.”

He pats my bottom before he places the tray of needles on the small of my back for quicker access. My back is suddenly a sea of sensation, pinch after pinch biting into me as he quickly places the needles. The sharp sensations send little shocks of pain and pleasure through my system. The endorphins and other feel-good brain chemicals are flooding my system, and I’m almost sad when he places the last one.

“Such a good little pincushion,” he murmurs in my ear as he leans across me to pick up some ribbon—also in purple—to lace around the plastic heads of the needles.

The sensation of him lacing the ribbon is not painful, but there is a definite sense of danger knowing he could accidentally pull a needle up too much and tear skin. He’s never done that, of course, because he’s incredibly careful, but he’s casually explaining to the audience how badly such a mistake would hurt, and my body is reacting as if it sounds like fun. Or more likely it’s reacting to Victor when he says, “Most of the dominants in this room enjoy the cries of pain the illicit from their subs. You simply want to make sure you’re hurting them the right way, so they keep coming back for more.”

When he’s done with the ribbons, he pulls out his phone. He and the other owners and a few key staffers are the only ones allowed to have phones on the club floor, and he shows everyone that he’s only photographing my back so I can see the fruit of my suffering.

My eyes nearly tear up when I see what he’s done with the ribbon. The way he’s placed the needles and looped the ribbon makes a simple but gorgeous butterfly design.

“Thank you, I love it,” I manage to say without actually crying.

The needles in my ass barely register as anything, until he criss-crosses some needles over themselves. When he does that, it makes what he calls a button in the center of the heart, and he demonstrates how tapping on it can cause interesting sensations for the submissive.

He gives it a final hard tap to make me yelp before moving on to the thighs.

“Now, Gracie got out of a punishment earlier tonight—I know, I know it’s very unlike me,” he adds at the exaggerated gasps of shock that come from members of the audience who know him well. “But then she had the nerve to get a little sassy about it after the fact. So now I get to have my payback on her thighs.”

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