Page 33 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

It was different. It wasn’t the same, and it wasn’t what I wanted. She didn’t hit me hard enough at first, and I think she figured it out after a while. She was too kind to me. She prompted me to breathe, stopping in between the strikes to smooth my skin.

I’d been topped by women before, and it didn’t result in the same mental headspace as when a man topped me. She wasn’t mean enough. She was too nice, and I knew she was doing it as a favor. But it was enough to get my emotions all going one direction, and give me something concrete to feel, something I could trust. Eventually, I got there, letting my thoughts fall away from me until I found quiet, floating peace.

She untied me, rubbed some lotion into my bruised ass, and held me against her chest until I fell into a dreamless sleep.

After Christmas, Sophieand Mark left for a vacation for a few days, which set me off into a spiral of thinking that everybody hated me for no apparent reason. Cat spent most of her time trying to distract herself from her sadness by keeping the children entertained. Alex and Jake were off in their “secret” cabin in the woods that everybody knew about. There were a few others around, but nobody who I really considered a friend. So after a few days, when the short-lived satisfaction from my session with Cat had faded, I got depressed, then bored, and a little angry.

Your friends aren’t neglecting you. They don’t hate you. They just have their own lives.

But knowing something and feeling it were two different things.

I spent time in my room coloring, reading books, and watching YouTube. Inevitably, my tastes in music and videos led me to kinky shit, and I listened to old episodes of theLeather and Lacepodcast, and even read part of Reuben Weston’s book.

Pain and Pleasure,his most popular book, was about the best ways to use sadomasochism to enhance impact and sensory scenes. The level of detail was exhausting, and I skipped whole chapters that included diagrams of muscles, blood vessels, and nerves. But the chapters detailing and explaining past scenes he had done with his masochistic playmates?Holy balls,that toy I ordered better get here soon because his writing was doing things to me.

I also ended up watching more of his rope, bondage, and Shibari tutorials online. The grace and confidence he exhibited when he played was enthralling, and I got a rare chance to see him in his element. He looked happy. He smiled, he laughed, his eyes lit up with excitement, and it made him look like a totally different person. It felt like I was spying on him, or reading his diary, because I’d never seen him so open. His movements looked like a dance. It almost made me mad, because I hadn’t been able to see it myself. And it made me hurt for him a little. I found ways to get my release. How did he find his? Did he ever? I knew sadists; they needed us as much as we needed them.

Then I watched an old interview with Reuben and another popular Dom in his area, Jeffrey Ludlow. It was recorded a few years ago, live from conference. They talked about their training, their induction into kink, and their dynamics. Jeffrey asked Reuben a question that caught my attention.

“So, I knowmyanswer, but... how do you feel about brats?”

The audience at the conference started murmuring. There was some cheering, some laughter, and overall disruption. Reuben looked directly into the camera and gave a very intimidating facial expression, demanding respect and silence. The crowd hushed.

“Well, I think you and I are both on the same page for this. I was trained the old-fashioned way, and was a submissive before I became a Dominant. So my opinions are going to fall on that spectrum.”

No wonder he’s so boring and quiet and blah when he’s in public,I thought.

“But personally, I don’t consider brats to be submissives.”

Oh what now?

“I think they can be bottoms. And some of them are neither submissives nor bottoms. They’re just...brats. It’s a kink, not a submissive category. There is nothing submissive about purposefully acting up to manipulate your top into giving you what you want, and I have zero tolerance, patience, or respect for it.”

“Oh, fuck you too, Reuben,” I snapped, and closed the window to the interview.

Irrationality was part of my disorder. And right now, I was irrationally mad. My chest was aching a little, because after the Holiday party a few weeks ago, I’d grown a little attached to Reuben Weston. Part of the reason I was so fucked up was because I got attached to people really easily for no bloody reason, but that was just part of who I was. It wasn’t going to change.

Sadly, the opposite was true as well. Just from that simple statement, knowing he didn’t believe I was a submissive and that he had no respect for fellow brat-kind, immediately made me hate his guts. I wanted nothing to do with him, and if I saw him bleeding on the side of the road, I would shit on his face and leave him to rot.

Well okay, practically speaking, I wouldn’t. But that’s how it felt at the time. And it stayed that way longer than I cared to admit.

January rolled around, and I was getting stir-crazy again. I had shifted to annoying Scott and Brian, since Reuben was on my shit list, and also not around. The Murphy’s were fun to pick on because they picked back. I guess it was an Irish thing, to insult people you like. The worse the insult, the more they liked you. It was basically my love language. And Brian Murphy was pretty much the most gorgeous specimen on the planet. The dark scar that went down his entire face only added to the yum factor.

One night, we were all sitting around the rec room whenyou-know-whocame upstairs, looking delicious in dress pants and a white shirt rolled to his elbows. I tried not to react or even look his way when he came in, but it was hard since he was like fourteen feet tall and had shoulders like Jake Greenwood’s truck.

We were playing Truth Bomb, which was one of our favorite games. It involved drawing cards, answering the questions, and rolling dice to figure out what happened next.

Reuben sat a few seats away from me, and I ignored him with elegance and grace. It was Maggie Greenwood’s turn, and she was studying the three questions on her card, trying to decide which one she was going to answer.

“Okay,” she said. “If you were a dog, which breed would you be?I think I’d be a German shepherd.”

“I disagree,” Alex said. “I think you’d be a poodle.”

Lisa laughed. “But your brother is a German shepherd.”

“Nah,” Jake said, putting his arm around Alex’s shoulders.“We’re Wolf clan. You’re a wolf, Mags.”

“I think Jake is a golden retriever,” Sophie chimed in.

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