Page 21 of A Dead Man's Pulse
No scream.
No moan.
It was useless. Even his cock was softening, and it always stayed hard until he was done with his creations.
Frowning, he set the whip down on the bed she’d been tied to earlier and undid the restraints holding her up. She dropped like a sack of potatoes. Anger rose within him as he stared at her unblemished chest and abdomen. Rearing back, he kicked the bitch in the ribs several times, but even that didn’t satisfy his lust. No, she didn’t deserve to be one of his masterpieces at all.
After the sun went down, he’d load her body into his small boat and dump it in the Gulf of Mexico, just like he’d done to his first two victims. Back then, he hadn’t known how much he wanted the world to see his art, and up until now, they’d been the only ones who wouldn’t be on his list of confirmed kills until he departed this world, and they found the diaries and photo albums he was leaving to ensure his rightful place in history.
As he began to clean up and wrap the dead bitch up in a tarp, his mind shuffled through the other submissives who’d caught his eye recently. Which would be the one who’d redeem him? Two came to mind—Georgia Branneth from The Covenant, and that hot little cop, Dakota Smith. He was certain that wasn’t the latter’s real last name, but it was the only one he’d heard so far.
Making a female cop one of his masterpieces was a risk, but damn, she looked like she’d fight to the finish. He’d have to think about it, but first, he had to get rid of the wasted flesh that had sullied his track record. Then he’d plan who would be next.
Chapter Thirteen
Logan paced back and forth, his nerves on edge, and tried not to bolt from the club. “Man up, Cowboy. You can do this,” he said aloud, thankful no one else was around to hear him talking to himself. “Just fucking chill.”
The big, wooden, lobby doors swung open and in walked Charlotte Roth and Roxanne London—Mistresses China and Roxy. He’d been meeting them for the past week at 0600 hours, before either of them had to be at their respective offices. After talking things over again with Trudy, he’d decided to give the desensitization therapy a try, and she’d gone over everything with both women, as had Donovan.
Roxy was one of the pediatricians in the area who was on-call for when a child was brought into the ER after experiencing a traumatic event. She was board certified in Neurodevelopmental Psychology, which covered all ages from infancy to geriatrics. It made her qualified to perform desensitization therapy. She was also adept in reading the body language of submissives during scenes.
Their first session had been a bit of a surprise for Logan—although he wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Trudy had told him they weren’t going to jump right into whipping him, but he hadn’t anticipated what they’d had him do to feel more in control of the situation.
Charlotte and Roxy had set up three of the club’s leather, wingback chairs into a “U” arrangement with Logan sitting between them. A small, empty side table had sat across from him. For the first half hour, they’d joked with him, listened as he told them what he could about his ordeal, and gave him word and image associations, so he had something else to think about instead of a damn whip. Then, he’d been instructed to close his eyes and find “a happy place.” Yeah, they’d actually used those words, making him chuckle. He’d heard someone moving around as he thought of being with Dakota on a deserted island somewhere. He hadn’t intended for her to be in his happy place—she’d just appeared.
Roxy had asked him to describe what he was feeling, and he told her about the warmth of the sun on his back, the sand between his toes, and the aroma of the suntan lotion Dakota was letting him spread over her body.
Well, actually, he’d left that last part out.
When he’d opened his eyes again, the table was no longer empty. A black, leather whip had been sitting in the middle of it, coiled like a cobra waiting to strike. As he’d stared at it, he was asked to describe what he saw and what it could be used for other than the obvious. That had made him think.
A rope to restrain someone.
Tie it to a tree limb and swing like Tarzan.
Shibari.
That last idea had made him think of Dakota with dozens of single-tailed whips wrapped around her naked body, bound for his pleasure . . . and hers. Yeah, he’d liked that image the best.
The next thing they’d had him do, after Charlotte had picked up the whip’s handle, letting the rest of the braided leather fall to the ground, had been to wrap his hand around hers, then direct their combined hands to run the leather up and down his arms and legs, and in between his fingers. Every few moments, the Domme had pulled her hand out a little further from under his until she was no longer holding the whip . . . it had been in Logan’s hand alone. Once he’d felt comfortable holding it, Roxy had held up her cell phone. “I have a recording of a whip cracking. You’ll hear nothing else.”
The first crack had caused the blood to drain from his face, and bile had risen in his throat as he’d flinched. The recording was immediately turned off, and he’d been instructed to go to his happy place. The method to their madness was to give him something pleasurable to think about instead of the horror he’d gone through. He was learning to associate the loud crack with Dakota’s beautiful body, instead of his buddies’ tortured ones.
Each session had been run the same way, and he’d nearly jumped out of his skin when the recording began, having a few moments of panic and hyperventilation, but the two Dommes knew their business. They’d monitored his reactions and turned off the recording until he settled again.
The third day, Charlotte hadn’t been able to make the session, after being called by the police about one of her parolees they were looking to rearrest on new charges, so it had just been Logan and Roxy. The doctor had shown him how to wield the whip, which gave him more and more control over the inanimate object and its destructive grip on him and his sanity. In fact, he’d been the only person all week to make the leather crack during the sessions up to that point. Roxy had demonstrated how to flick his wrist to make the leather sing as it arced through the air. At first, he’d only let the last two inches of the whip fly. He’d even flicked it against his arm, feeling the light sting. As the session moved along, he let more and more of the whip sail through the air, until he’d finally been holding the handle, letting the entire length snap with only the slightest movement of his wrist.
Today, however, was D-Day, so to speak, and he hoped like hell he didn’t freak out again or puke all over the place. Today, he’d take off his shirt, and while one of the Dommes watched his reactions closely, the other would slash the whip across his back. He’d watched them practice yesterday and knew from his research they never broke the skin. They usually trained using a piece of paper taped to a wall or a St. Andrew’s cross, but yesterday, they’d taken it one step further.
Before heading to the airport to return to California, Donovan had met them in the early morning hours. He’d removed his shirt, stood face first against the large, centerpiece cross, which had been pushed to the far end of the stage, and reached up, grasping the loops of the cross’s Velcro restraints. While China lit up Donovan’s back with the whip, Logan had sat in a chair, with Roxy at his side, her hand laying on his arm in comfort. She’d spoken to him in that soothing voice most doctors and shrinks seemed to have, keeping him in the present and in Tampa.
He’d been amazed at how quickly Donovan had relaxed into the sting of the tail which had left red stripes on his unbroken skin. One would think the muscular, six-foot-five man had been receiving a half-hour back massage instead. When it was over, the petite Domme, who was about a foot shorter than the Dom, had helped him to a chair they’d placed on the stage and given him a bottle of water to rehydrate, while she applied Arnica ointment to his back.
Instead of screaming in pain, Donovan appeared stoned for a bit until he’d recovered from what Logan had been told was subspace—basically the guy had been high on the endorphins swimming through his system.
“You sure you’re ready for this, Cowboy?” Charlotte had loved his nickname and used it more often than his real name.
“I hope so.” There was no mistaking the nervousness in his voice.
