Shy Guys Make Good Boys

Author’s Note: Sorry part two took a while to post. It took a little more editing work than I thought.

The content warning is the same, that it’s a femdom romance. Thank you for being patient with me and, like always, I hope you enjoy and have fun 🙂

My Mistress, goddess that she was, had insisted that our next date be, indeed, a date. Given that I truly hadn’t intended to thwart her previous attempts, I had been playfully obedient and chastised during our interactions.

Boy toy, you’re meeting me in bloody public and I mean it, do you understand? You’re taking me to the midnight release of this movie and you’re meeting me at the door. You’re not even allowed to come to my car because I don’t trust either of us anymore.

Of course, Mistress. I’m sorry for flaunting your trust. But I’d been unable to resist a tease, too. Mistress and I had discovered and spoken about how I enjoyed her commands for things outside of the bedroom. Do you have a date dress preference?

Her answer had made me grin in pure bliss. All those years of dates where I worried about when to hold a door open or when to wrap my arm around a girl or what would be dress appropriate, all those years of fear that my subservient behaviors would irritate my date were finally… gone, at least for the moment. I had spent so long afraid that my asking for guidance in the smallest ways would come across as my being clingy or needy or irritating, except Mistress didn’t think any of those things. No, Mistress’ answer made me grin with playfulness because this is what she thought.

See, this is why we have to meet at the door. This, right here. Because if you come to help me so much as fix my hair beforehand and bow your head in that cute, hot way after I command you to clasp my necklace and kiss my neck then you’ll end up tied at my knees instead. Filthy boy toy, yes. I want you to wear your cock cage, tight boxers, those blue jeans with the shredding, a belt, a black t-shirt, your collar, tennis shoes, and your black Batman jacket because I like that one and you’re going to wrap it around me in the middle of the movie. And you’re going to be romantic about it. Oh, and you’ll give me the keys to your cock cage at the door. Actually, scratch that last bit and hold on to them yourself but you’ll ask if you have to leave to piss.

It’d made me feel like I was floating in ecstasy, being told all of it outright like that. I strained against my cage in arousal for a moment where she had me wear it rather often now, but I was becoming mildly used to the sensation. It was uncomfortable, don’t get me wrong, but the control made me thrill and after a few days without her permission to orgasm, my skin was getting that crackling sensation of electric heat. It was this body buzz that made me feel almost drugged and the longer she made me go, the more often I felt that energy, that burning, hot need in my blood stream. Her denial was my aphrodisiac and she gave me a lot of it. It hadn’t been her explicit command that I was not to orgasm without being on my knees at her place, but after my last experience leading up to a date with her, where she’d made me please her and lick my own cum off her hand, I was getting the impression that my orgasms would be allowed when I served as her boy toy.

Of course, that might very well have been my own perverted hope, when I was discovering a certain masochism within myself, when I was realizing the depth of my submissive nature.

Thinking of it made me antsy, which was how I ended up at my favorite coffee shop a few days after our last date. Once upon a time, I had craved to have these submission experiences even while I’d been afraid of them, but I had been safe with the knowledge of how shy I was, when I was not the type of person to seek out someone to share my kinks with… or even to share them when prompted, for that matter. To find myself discovering these things was disconcerting and the depth of them frightened me, a little. I know that sounds weird. It’s just kinky sex, in some ways.

Except it wasn’t. I didn’t know how it was different. All I knew was that it comforted me to feel my collar, to toy with its O-ring. It comforted me to feel the uncomfortable weight of the cock cage even if I had the keys. To add to my humiliation, she made me wear a key on a chain down my shirt, with a copy at home, one in my wallet, and one in her possession. I don’t trust you shy types anymore, love, even with that, was what she’d said and it had made me grin.

All of that was more than the flirting, too, though. It was the security of knowing it was okay to enjoy this, the security of how she loved telling me how to dress, right down to my hair style. It was pure bliss for someone like me, but even better? She turned it into sex, too, and it was fulfilling for her. That was the part that frightened me the most. How happy it made me that she flirted about it, that she enjoyed it, and she took her pleasure off of me obeying. Even better, that she took her pleasure off of my denial.

I had to take to writing in the coffee shop every time I considered these things, when it made me restless with energy. I couldn’t even write my male Dom stories anymore and I had a feeling that I knew what that meant. My muse wanted to tell this story right now and she wouldn’t let me be about it until I edited it and told someone else her current song. I sighed, glancing at my phone. Maybe I could show it to a select few instead of my usual places or mainstream publishing. Maybe I could make a different pen name.

That was always a fallback option. The only problem with that was it would mean longer between publishing something I usually wrote when I was busy editing this story that wouldn’t leave my mind alone and I hated displeasing people, even it if was to make them wait. I hate displeasing them with a story they might not like, though, either.

Damn it. So much anxiety.

I gave in and wrote, figuring that either way, nothing was going to get done if I didn’t write anything.

There’s a song by Fleetwood Mac called Rhiannon. It always reminded me, like Sherlock Holmes’ Irene Adler, of Mistress. What’s entertaining about this fact was how much it would come to remind me of Mistress the more I learned about it. See, initially it was just the lyrics of the song, when I had always been in love with Fleetwood Mac anyway. “Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night and wouldn’t you love to love her?” The music to it is graceful and calming, while the lyrics are something truly beautiful.

But then I would end up looking into the song in one of my nights of denial, when my cage was my comfort… and my torment. It turns out that Stevie Nicks got her inspiration for Rhiannon when reading a book about a witch. But there’s more to the story.

Rhiannon is also a name that means “great queen” and she’s a goddess in Celtic mythology. Of course, now if you look these things up, you’ll find those minor goddesses to have a sovereign in everything when the original beliefs are unclear. But one thing seems clear about her and that’s how she was associated with riding a great horse.

I ran a hand through my hair, thinking of Mistress’ coffee table and the picture there. This was where I’d gotten most of this inspiration from, if I’m honest. I didn’t know the story about the picture and I wanted to ask her about it when it felt okay to but in its depiction, Mistress stood small and regal by a black thoroughbred, holding his reins, her hand gently petting his muzzle, and a smile on her face. To me, the horse looked massive, but logically, I had a feeling that was because of how small Mistress was. She looked… Jesus, she looked elegant in the outfit for that photo, another reason why I wanted to ask about it. That hadn’t been a casual riding day picture. Beyond that, when had she worked with horses? We lived in a large city and I knew it wasn’t there.

Of course… It also made my fantasies run rampant and my muse was having a horny field day, using everything she could gather inspiration from.

This comparison was more fitting than I would have ever braced for. You see, Mistress was nothing of a sadist, as that was merely not her fetish. No, her touch was that of exacting control, but she didn’t need pain to get that. She was far too refined and dainty for something as direct as outright violence, force, or pain. She broke me to her bit and bridle with nothing but soft coos, knee high boots, and a very different kind of torture.

“Look at how far you’ve come, little plaything. How nervous you were at the beginning of our month together.” She traced a delicate fingertip across the bondage bridle over my head and I shifted, my eyes lowered in addictive fear. “Do you know that I’ve never actually been into pony play? I didn’t expect to end up down this path with you when we started, when it just didn’t do it for me. And yet… After I figured out how to calm you, it just seemed so fitting. To think that all I had to do to make you bow this whole time was to geld you.”

I moaned behind my bit gag, shivering while she laughed in appreciation, cupping her soft hand between my legs. “Gelding”. It didn’t mean castration, no. For Mistress, it referred to the long term chastity cage she had fitted to me. It had been a month since I’d known the freedom of getting hard without metal bars making it uncomfortable for me. I “pranced” nervously before Mistress, knowing what would come with her pleasure that day. She dressed me in my reins when she wished to ride me nice and hard and she had trained me well by then. Sure enough, she paced away and came back with her favorite strap-on harness, a large dildo that had made me choke in terror the first time I’d seen it. But Mistress had merely pet me soothingly before she’d stood back and used her riding crop on my balls, pacing around me in her shining riding boots. “Eyes on the floor, plaything. Show your respect to goddesses. And remember why you wear that cage. It isn’t about you. It’s about Mistress and I’m not giving you a choice in taking this. I promise to be gentle, though, baby. I want you to be an assfucking slut, when I want to ride you hard and often.”

The feeling of writing these things with the cage was something I was becoming fond of. It made me throb and the result was pain in the most exquisite form. I shifted in my chair, glancing up to take a drink of my latte and smiling when my twisted little foray was all the more delightful in public with the cage I wore. I hid a grin in another drink when I touched my shirt where the key hung around my neck, the key I wouldn’t use without permission.

It had only been a couple of days, but after the orgasm Mistress had given me, my skin crackled so easily with the slightest amount of denial. Jesus, she’d been drenched against my mouth and the orgasm she’d had while riding my face and using me as her cock toy holder, her boy toy to get off on and keep locked, had been something I couldn’t get out of my head. The way she arched, clasping her tits and throwing her head back, made me shiver with desire. With the cock cage, being aroused had taken on a whole new meaning. It was in my blood, a fire and need. It was in my thoughts, in the way I would see her name on my phone with a message and feel the metal beneath my jeans with all the more awareness. It was all over my skin, an intense static electricity that made me see so much as a female’s curves and feel an appreciative desire… for her. And I didn’t know how that worked, but I knew it was true.

The thought that she owned my cock right now? Fuck me, I couldn’t think about it or I’d wake up like a fucking mutt, filthy and starved. I’ll teach you to crave pussy over your own orgasms. I loved to repeat those words in my head over and over again.

It was these thoughts and the terrifying nature of my writing fantasies that made me close my writing app in the coffee shop and consider a different alternative to release some of my suddenly uncontrollable sexual energy. I was writing about her keeping me in chastity for a month while taking her strap on for hours to please her and that was something that made me as painfully aroused as it terrified the ever loving fuck out of me.

So I broke. I took a breath and curiously looked up fetish clubs, thinking that maybe I could learn a little more. There was the internet and forums and stories, sure, but somehow the thought of seeing these things in person or seeing other people who played kinky games sounded, for the first time, like it would comfort me. I went through a few different names that came up online. Needless to say, there were definitely some interesting ones that came up with my search, a benefit and side effect of living in a large city.

But I found one that was obviously the most comforting to see. For one, the safety emphasis alone made me feel pretty good about it. There were some of the others that came up as places more like dance bars, a shady kind of them, and they seemed… Let’s just say it didn’t take long for me to feel not so good about their state.

The one I ended on wasn’t loud about its status, if that makes sense. It reminded me more of Mistress actually, in the sense that it knew what it was, but it was also thorough about things like safety, privacy, and exclusivity. There were nights where it welcomed new players, there were safety classes listed, the website showed pictures that, again, let you know what this was, but was also not overly conspicuous. It was tasteful, actually, as weird as that sounds. My favorite picture was a black and white one that depicted a blindfolded male submissive. He was shirtless, but was wearing blue jeans and his hands were chained wide apart over his head. A bit gag forced him silent and he wore a thick, spiked collar.

Another man stood beside him, the camera having caught him approaching the chained submissive, and the Dom held a coiled whip in a hand that looked all the more powerful for the implement it held.

So hot, even while both of the people involved were clothed. So sexual, even while both players kept their anonymity, the photography having been that clever. When it was painful to get hard, the picture made me shiver and take a breath.

I had the distracted thought that I was torturing and teasing myself for my Mistress and it made me smile. Another thing she had said was that she’d teach me a different meaning to being a good boy. I felt like some of that meaning would involve teasing myself in these ways when she enjoyed my denial and arousal. I found myself hoping for her phone calls at night, where she would make me talk filthy to her until I was in pain and she was calling my name or a degrading endearment when she came so hard that she made a satisfied purring sound at the end.

The only thing about that was my oral fetish hated the thought of her wasted cum when I could be lapping it up like her slut. After being made to suck her cock gag to taste her, I hated the thought of not getting to.

I shook myself from the stray thought line, thinking that this was why I should get out a little. Some blend of her effect and my fear made me bold enough to try the fetish club. Maybe seeing other people do it… I don’t know. I was hoping that it might settle me.

I had this strange sensation of being tamed and soothed to my collar, or of being slowly but surely corralled. Maybe my vision is tainted by such perfect hindsight however. It’s entirely possible when I can look back and see what happened and how thoroughly it happened. It seems… romantic to look back on it actually, like seeing my own “fall”, if I wanted to place it in dramatic terms and create that atmosphere. Heheh. It’s my favorite part about telling stories, to be able to toy with the wordsmithing and spin up however dark I’d like the romance to be, when factors of force and control make it so much fun.

Of course, the truth is my Mistress didn’t mean for this. It was all purely my submission.

It’s almost more romantic that way, though, isn’t it? I don’t believe in destiny or anything like that, but you could say it was “destined to be” and it does just sound like so much beautiful fun, like something Tolkien might say about Aragorn and Lady Arwen.

——–

The place was named Sulfur’s. To be honest, I didn’t know what I was doing, but the pictures I’d seen had made something as basic as jeans seem acceptably erotic for the atmosphere. Given that I didn’t much care for dressing up, I’d worn what Mistress seemed to prefer me in, as she was a more socially knowledgeable person than I was and I trusted her tastes. I fixed my tight workout briefs (otherwise, I’d learned, the lock of my cage would rattle), ripped designer jeans, cleaner shoes, a black shirt, collar, and of course my chain with its humiliation key. It made me feel a little mischievous again, especially when I considered that this was a place where people would recognize something like a collar. I was rather fond of mine, too. It was studded and my chain necklace hung loose beneath it.

I almost left at the door, even so, but there was too much background fear riding me and a sharp shock to my system seemed like it would be a distraction, if nothing else. This was the type of place that a guy who didn’t much like people doesn’t expect to find himself in and there was something enjoyably surreal about the entire thing. So I kept going with it, wondering if this was a good or bad path of my life.

The door guard smiled at me and I looked down, by force of habit, when he spoke first. “Definitely one of the new ones.”

I blushed. “Seems like it can’t be a good sign to have it that obvious.”

“Nah, it’s just from experience. You definitely need to be careful, though.”

That made me meet his eyes. I took his pen to sign in when he gave it to me. “H-how so?”

His grin made me pause and then blink, so that I paused with a realization of shocked pleasure. “That face with a collar and no tag? On the one hand, at least the collar is something. On the other…” He inclined his head in a suggestive gesture so that the sensation of shy pleasure increased, even if I didn’t lean the way he did.

“Thanks for the warning.”

“If you need help, just let me know.”

I shifted back, wondering how to take that, wondering about my sexual orientation for a moment. Gay or bisexual guys seemed awfully attracted to me at times, even if I couldn’t get into them. I just couldn’t get excited or feel much for a masculine touch, you know? Arguably, I had sucked a cock toy recently and that made me throb in my cage, so that I absently touched my necklace with the pleasure it gave me to have been emasculated for her. Oh, be real, Ryan. If you weren’t locked in a chastity cage, you’d have hit your bedroom wall with the force of your orgasm off fantasies of her fucking your ass with a torturously huge strap on. Yeah, alright, there was that too.

The inside of Sulfur’s stopped my sporadic thoughts and made me blink with the sudden realization that the fetishes were all right there. Some of them were…

Some of them were even my own. Well, variations of my own, at any rate, which was all the better in some way. These were people who might be interested in the same dynamic that I was interested in, but they had their own spin on it. They shaped their own way. It fascinated the data scientist in me, you see, with the sociological thoughts that Mistress had given me over the course of some of our conversations. She had once said that kinky relationships followed a continuum and evolution in much the same manner that any other relationship would. Of course, Mistress had gone on to say that she was definitely biased but she was more interested and fond of seeing kinkier relationship evolutions. How two people in love became polyamorous for instance. I know a couple who found out they couldn’t have kids. They ended up in our circle of kinky friends because they said they had a lot of love to give and adding another person to their relationship was how they coped. It was kind of cool to see, even if it isn’t something I would be interested in having.

It was an odd place to be confronted with the fact, but Sulfur’s fetish club made me realize a little bit how some of those continuums might work. When you walked in, there was a bar area to one side, where people could talk or get a drink under restrictions, and there was the open dungeon area to the other side. It was spacious and clean, with lights throwing the scenes into crystal clear and obvious relief. The lighting was the thing to make me shiver at first, with the thought of being strapped down and made to take what Mistress demanded of me, in sharp illumination so that every humiliating detail of my being made to suck her cock toys, for instance, was laid in full exhibition. It was a horrifying idea when I already shivered with the thought of even being here, let alone being forced to perform.

My cock cage turned briefly uncomfortable with how horrifying it was.

It was the female domination scene that got my interest, since it was a scene so close to my own interests… and yet the scene was different from how I enjoyed these things and it struck me that I now had a starting basis, a few experiences of my own, that allowed me to understand that. I didn’t delude myself in thinking I knew overly much, even so.

But the way the icy blonde Dominatrix stared down at a man with a violent snap of command in her voice and the sight of the guy’s eyes watering from the fucking machine that viciously railed him along with a ball crusher setup that made me shift in fear was not exactly what I preferred. It fascinated me to see it and to realize that fact, to have enough ground to understand that I didn’t think I enjoyed a harsh or violent atmosphere. Specifically that, though. You see, I think I always enjoyed a little bit of torment, something that was clear with how I enjoyed the straining sensation of my cage when it punished me for my arousal. And I loved thinking of it in those words, too, as punishment for my body’s lack of discipline when a good boy should place Mistress’ pleasure first. But it was a slow, evenly given punishment and torment. That, I think, was my fetish.

Watching the sadistic Dominatrix did arouse me however, especially when she started in with a cane across his thighs. He was bent forward in stocks and it left his flesh free for her to torture. The first stripe brought a sound from the man that made me shiver when it was a pained, masculine growl of a cry. His Domme laughed cruelly over him. “That sound and it’s only the first cane stripe? At this rate, it’ll be another month before you have an orgasm.”

I shuddered at that, enjoying the thrill while I wondered what the game was for them. When was her submissive allowed to orgasm? How torturous had she chosen to be on her little boy toy when allowing him his pleasure? That thought did turn me on. Even the sight of the cane fascinated me to be honest. I thought I could enjoy being striped if Mistress felt in the mood to do that, but… I also had a thought to make me shudder.

I thought it was only Mistress who would have captured my interest in that manner. When I watched the blonde with it, her motions made me shift back away, in contrast. See, I had to replace her with the image of Mistress holding that long, evil strip. Once I mentally placed myself in the stocks, staring up at my dainty, short little goddess while her presence brought me low, was when the fantasy made my blood race. When I considered Mistress pacing with her even, steady steps, tapping the cane thoughtfully against her hand before she taunted me with it by smoothing the length across my balls, I burned. Even while I knew Mistress wouldn’t use something like a ball crusher. I don’t know how I knew it, but it didn’t fit for her, with how her style was more subtle and delicate. In some ways, that seemed like it would be a lot less painful. In other ways, it made me feel like I would be humiliated more for her control exchange pleasure, when I had tasted how drenched she could get.

Of course, I could be wrong, given that I hadn’t played much with her and was still discovering myself. It was just this feeling. I thought I did have a decent amount of sensitivity to Mistress, though. It was another thought to make me pause with a different realization.

Her owning my cock, even for such a short time, had an effect on me, you see. My arousal, I suddenly noticed, was tied in the scene, but not to the Domme, although she was certainly runway model beautiful and she definitely had that confidence that I enjoyed in the opposite sex.

Of course, now that I know fully what was going on with me, I think it was a bit more than her owning my cock. Still, though, I was certainly infatuated with the idea and enjoyed the thoughts.

“Courtney is very good, isn’t she?”

The man’s voice was soft beside me but I jumped, having so been lost in my thoughts. His eyes were the warm, inviting color of chocolate when I met them before I quickly lowered my gaze. His hair was shoulder length in appearance, in this beautiful way, even while the feature gave him a hint of wildness. Other than that, though, he was a rather pretty guy.

More to the point, he had an air of security and even stillness that made me naturally lower my gaze in respect. “She is. Mean, though.” Courtney. When Mistress had mentioned her friend enjoying a romance author, I hadn’t in a million years initially suspected it to be myself. I wasn’t conceited enough when there were so many romance authors out there. In the same way, I had the passing thought of Mistress’ friend Courtney, but couldn’t imagine it to be the same person.

The man laughed. “She most definitely is. She’s rather proud of it, I might add. She’s so much a pure sadist that she’s also proud of her ability to orgasm from caning a man. No stimulation or any of the rest. Just pure release in how much she enjoys torturing him. Of course, the guy who got to experience the first time it happened for her was in ecstasy over it.”

That was enough to make me meet his eyes in shock. “That’s… that’s freaking terrifying.”

His grin was soothing. “It is, isn’t it? I’ll tell you a secret, though. She was more terrified about it than anyone the first time, before she was fully comfortable with all of this. Now that she’s okay with it, Courtney is incredibly experienced and caring though. She’s wonderful at teaching new ones, as shocking as it sounds. Her entire appearance changes when she turns the sadism off in favor of instruction.” His wink made me pause. “I think it makes her more terrifying, to be honest, that she could be so exact and controlled over her cane and desires.”

“Yes, s-” I cut off the word and paused, blinking with shock that it had almost felt so natural to say it when I had never in my life fantasized of using a guy’s honorific. And it still wasn’t that really. It was more that the man before me was so… calm. Controlled. It was the atmosphere that surrounded him, too, of course, of being in a fetish club, but… Let me put it this way. Even with as new as I was and knowing as little as I did, the man in front of me was obviously nothing but a top. I didn’t know what kind, but he was a top.

“It’s okay,” he said it gently and I felt happiness at his tone, when he seemed pleased. It was a moment that revealed a lot to me, too. In this atmosphere? It gave me a lot of pleasure to hear his approval and it wasn’t sexual in the least little bit for me. I wondered what that said about my submission, wondered what it meant for me. I wasn’t sure, but it was something that scared me. “You can say it. I would like hearing it.”

“I-I don’t… Er, I’m sorry if this is weird to say. I don’t want to insult you but I don’t know this very well. It’s just that I’m straight.”

His laugh was low and easy. “And you’re wearing a collar. It’s alright. Sometimes it’s not about that. Sometimes submission is a deeper trait with nothing to do with relationships or sex and it just feels nice. Although, it is definitely a loss for me.” He winked again at that and I couldn’t help but smile shyly, even if it made me blush like mad.

And then I tried it out, wondering. “Yes, sir.”

It made me happy, in a frightening way, because he was right. It had nothing to do with sex at all and everything to do with the strange forms of peace and serenity that came with bowing my head and waiting. “That was gorgeous. May I ask if that collar is from someone else?”

I looked up at him and nodded at first before he gave me a gentle, chastising look that made me speak aloud. “Yes, sir. It is.” Another thing that frightened me was how my cage still became uncomfortable at speaking the polite honorific even if it really didn’t have anything to do with sex and this wasn’t someone I was interested in. It was as if the pleasure was too conditioned in some way.

His eyes were approving. “It shows by the way.” That chocolate color of his eyes was somehow the warmest, most soothing sight, but then they turned delicately amused. “And, of course, there’s this.” He touched the key around my neck and I shifted back in the slightest gesture. It was a confused motion, to be honest, when I didn’t wish to displease him, when he was a guiding type of figure, someone who had a sense of security. “Sorry. That was forward.” There truly was an apology in his gaze and it both calmed and enticed. But then all of him enticed in some way. He was one of the most welcoming people I’d ever met. “I’ve turned far too, ah, accustomed to the type of people who come here regularly. And here I’ve become rude. My name is Christopher and I’m the forerunner of this place, for lack of a better term.”

“Oh! I’m sorry, then.” I definitely shifted back then. “Did I-?”

“Do something wrong?” He touched my shoulder and I went still while he studied the reaction with a pleased look. “Not at all. I just like meeting people.” I felt… increasingly strange while speaking with him. Calm and eager all in one even if those two things didn’t seem like they should go together. Speaking with him in that atmosphere was making me think of Mistress and it gave me a kind of conflict when I had come to associate guidance with sex. The end result was that I wasn’t interested in him still… and yet, I wanted him to guide. I wanted to feel obedient. “Won’t you tell me your name, though?”

“Oh, right. Of course. It’s Ryan.” I made to apologize again but something in his eyes made me fall still and wait instead.

“Ryan.” He smiled. “It fits you. Did your Mistress tell you to be here? I only ask because it seems like a pattern with the shy ones and I was curious if it’s someone I know.”

That made me flush, but it was more in excitement at the thought of her commanding me places like this. “No, sir.”

There was something of pure pleasure in his expression. “But imagining it makes you happy. Would your Mistress mind if we spoke together?”

“Um. Define speaking.” It was a knee jerk answer after the way Mistress had defined speaking with me. It made me blush when he instantly laughed in happy reply.

“Ah, you’re definitely still new but definitely being trained in some ways, with some of your answers. Speaking means that you will kneel at my knees and we’ll talk. Like this, for instance.” His hand was gentle on my shoulder and he guided me to a chair at the side, away from the scenes. “I would like to sit in the chair with you at my knees. Unless that’s too far.” His chocolate eyes were encouraging. “Minimal touch. Well, not that you could do much of anything even if you were inclined.”

I paused at the suggestion, shocked with how badly I did want that. And when I thought about it, I had the same logic as when I considered going to Sulfur’s. It seemed like Mistress would approve of my exploring these things, so long as I behaved of course. I didn’t want to play with anyone else or even look with the interest of sex. No, my interest was all on her. I just had curiosity.

Actually… Christopher’s offer seemed all too good to pass up. It aligned exactly with my interests. “Yes, sir. I’d like to talk, please.”

“I’m glad.” There wasn’t the sexual race of excitement or anything like that when he tugged me down with a finger through my collar. No, this was different from the first few times when Mistress made me feel flirty and excited. This made me consider different facets and aspects of submission. Kneeling in front of Christopher made me think of Mistress’ aftercare, when it was more still and secure. I looked up at him, feeling more curious than anything at how correct it felt. He did exactly what he’d said, as well.

He talked, easily and commanding the conversation in a manner as adept as Mistress could have, working through quiet questions, things like why I’d gone there, for instance. He asked what kind of relationship I had, while I tried to answer as best I could, confessing that I’d thwarted her dates, which made him laugh. “For all of our good intentions, life still happens.”

While we spoke, he stroked a finger down to my cock cage key, delicately toying with it while he watched around us every now and again. It made me lower my gaze, feeling a sense of contentment at the thought of him looking after his fetish club. I think what amazed me the most about the entire setup was how it should have repelled me in fits of fear. It wasn’t doing that.

I looked up in shock when he absently stroked a hand through my hair at a point and he instantly froze, as if shaking himself. “Forgive me.” He actually looked embarrassed. “I’m used to my own slaves at the moment and they’re touch oriented. That was presumptuous.”

“N-no. No, it’s okay.”

Christopher’s eyes lit up and he experimentally ran his hand through my hair, in another of those calming gestures. I wondered at that answer I had given, how I wished to please him enough to lean forward for more of his petting. “You said slaves,” I said quietly.

“I did. I have my lifestyle slave and a couple of ‘play’ slaves, as much as I dislike that term.” He was so open and he spoke of it playfully. “The second kind are slaves that want to be that way in finite sessions.” He grinned. “The first one? She never leaves my collar. Complete obedience, 24/7.”

I shifted at his knees, thinking that through, thinking of Mistress commanding me what to wear with another sense of curiosity. Christopher studied me and I couldn’t quite meet his eyes, when all of this gave me a fair bit to think about. His voice was soft when he spoke again. “Forgive me for bothering your night. The truth is I can’t help but be attracted to a certain kind of person. It’s been a while since I’ve seen that in a guy. For me, it’s special.”

“What do you mean?”

I felt oddly hypnotized by him and then wondered what magic he held. Of course, the real answer was that he knew more about my nature than I did. He knew it just by watching me toy with my collar while I watched the sadistic Domme in such fear and curiosity, when my demeanor was afraid but also willing to please even then. Someone like Christopher Love, I later learned, recognized me as a match to how controlling he was.

Because he was a Master.

His smile was thoughtful. “It’s nothing bad, I promise. It’s just that…Well, if you ask a friend of mine what my type is, she would laugh and say, ‘Obedient’. That’s, evidently, what I’m attracted to.”

I considered that and considered his hair petting, then thought over all the times in my life when someone with more presence than myself had commanded me to do something, how I had such a habit of softly saying, “Okay,” and going along with it when it soothed me to do that. There was a truth in it and Christopher wasn’t wrong in whatever his radar picked up. “Understood.”

Christopher smiled over me. “Would you like to tell me more about your Mistress?”

And I couldn’t help the small grin that it brought to my face so that he laughed when the response was so immediate. I never got to answer, though.

She answered for me, her voice drawing my attention so that I tugged out of Christopher’s finger where it held my collar. He may have been someone to soothe me, but there would never be anyone I would want to please as much as her. The shock of her voice gave me an amazed joy and I smiled up at her from my place on the floor.

“You have got to be kidding. I’ll kill your Clotho, Ryan, I swear that I will. I insist on a date only to find you in the arms of Christopher Love and in Sulfur’s fetish club?”

——–

I grinned shyly up at her, unable to stop myself from how excited she made me. Because she looked stunning, wearing her leather boots and dressed as she was in one of her sinfully short dresses. She had a duffel slung over one shoulder and a shopping bag with her, one with a bright red heart on it. Her hair was braided again in a way that got to me. “Hello, Mistress.”

Christopher laughed above me, having sat back as soon as I pulled away. “So, you’re the one. Welcome to my pet sitting service. This one wandered in and he’s an awful good boy.”

I felt alive with a kind of gleeful pleasure at his game for me, at the affectionate degradation. He ruffled my hair and it only heightened the headspace, the same one that Mistress had already shown me so effectively. “It gives me concern that you went to him so easily when we all know what your type is,” she answered quietly.

Christopher shrugged, glancing down with a faint smile. “I don’t know what you refer to, Sonya. I was just making my rounds.”

Mistress snorted and I stared up at her, hopeful, so that her eyes turned soft. “You’ve never been to a place like this before, have you, little boy toy?” Her smile turned rueful and crooked when I shook my head.

It was Christopher who broke the quiet. “But that’s really what makes it such fun. Surprises are the best and speaking of surprises.” I glanced to him when he winked at me. “Sonya has a few of those for you, ones she just picked up from the same slave I was telling you about. I wouldn’t dream of ruining it… little pup. But I think you’ll like it.”

I looked to Sonya, blinking. “S-surprises?”

Her smile was secretive again. “Yes. Christopher’s slave is someone named Deirdre. She owns a sex toy store and, since I couldn’t make it to her store, I sent her the money for what I wanted so she could buy it for me and bring it here. Maybe I should show you one or two of them now, actually. If you’re going to keep thwarting my attempts at dating you, then you’ll amuse me when you do.”

Uh oh. I swallowed and nodded so that she laughed, sitting across from Christopher, who grinned happily. My fear only grew with the Domme’s scene a little ways from us and now I had the realization that it might very well be the same Courtney that Mistress had mentioned before. Her friend only frightened me all the more with her scene, when she was working her submissive over roughly with the cane, far beyond what I knew I could take.

It made me all the more excited when Mistress clipped a familiar chain leash to my collar, handing the lead to Christopher behind me, so that I swallowed with fear of where this might be headed.

I couldn’t keep from jumping with the sound of another cane stripe, my attention pulling back to that when it terrified me so much, when it only made me think about what I would be willing to submit to for Mistress all over again. But Mistress smiled when my eyes flicked to the other scene in fear again.

“Easy. You don’t need to worry about all of that, little boy toy. We’re going to play a little game of our own. Although, just to make it more interesting for you… I’m not sure what Christopher told you already, but she doesn’t let them get off anymore and she doesn’t even like her orgasms without sadism anymore.”

Christopher laughed above me. “I was nice about my explanation.”

Mistress’ smile made me shiver when she met my eyes, watching me. “Little boy toy, you went so easily to the one person who has the most control in this place. Maybe you’d like something like that, where there is no hope for release and the only satisfaction you’re allowed is the knowledge that you suffered to please your Domme.”

I whimpered, eyes going wide with the recent revelations and ideas that had only just come to me. It made me shake my head for the moment, even if I knew she was right. “Not l-like that, please, Mistress. Please?”

Her eyes gentled. “Easy. We don’t want you too afraid, baby. And maybe not like that, no, but if you did want something like that, as a reminder, I did say that I could find someone for you to experience it with, when I might not be able to give some things to you.” The thought made me grateful, even while it made me feel a bit of confusion with how I should have been openly considering these ideas for obvious reasons. That was why I had come here, to look into more.

Except, I was on her leash again and she was sitting over me across from Christopher, petting me while she made the offer clear again.

“Her and Jackson are two of the most romantic sadists I’ve ever met, by the way.” I shifted to turn when Christopher’s voice was soft. He stroked down my neck, then pressed gently to make me bow my head before him. “I think one of my favorite Courtney moments was watching her press play piercing needles up Dustin’s thighs, when he was just curious about sadism and felt a little trepidation towards it. I’ll never forget it. She had him sitting down, gagged and in one of those godawful leather hoods, while she held him from behind and kissed his neck, whispering that he could be good for her and take another needle… and then another one.” I shifted under his hands, exhaling when I could picture that kind of scene.

He made it worse when he leaned closer. “Just think. There’s no release at the end. There’s just taking more than you thought you could take and feeling the satisfaction that you did it for the pleasure of someone else.” I couldn’t keep from a shudder of more fear than before when the truth was I thought I would do that… if it pleased Sonya. If that kind of submission display excited her, I thought I actually would bow my head and quietly ask her to pierce me through with another one. I could imagine my voice shaking when I did and doing it anyway with the same emotion from the night she’d made me lap up my own cum, when I hated it.

And loved that I hated it even more.

That was the truth of it, that it only made me uncomfortable to think of trusting someone else that much, even when I still wanted to bow to others, too. I couldn’t process that at the moment, though, and it felt like a conflicted idea, that I would take such comfort in Christopher and become antsy with the thought of sadism from someone other than Mistress… and still think that I could take that for her, if she wished for that.

I whimpered in a pain of arousal that came with my fear, shifting at the end of my leash so that Christopher answered with a quiet laugh above me. His hand was a coarser touch than a female’s and I felt a new sense of terror when I thought I might know where this scene of Mistress’ was headed, when she knew my orientation.

Sure enough, she shifted her chair closer and opened the bag she had, pulling out a new dildo that was larger than the double ended one she’d used to fuck my face before. I shifted, throbbing in my cock cage, jumping at the sound of one of Courtney’s cane stripes, shivering against Christopher’s touch when suddenly this had passed into something sexual, and it all came full circle so that I reached that magical place where it felt like I could drown or fly at Mistress’ command. And at the moment, it felt more like drowning in submission. I couldn’t seem to find it in me to fight in the slightest, even with the dread racing up my spine.

The most I managed, just barely, was to whimper a pathetic, “No, please. Please.”

She overrode that so easily and I shuddered in the strangest delight when she did. “Hush, baby, and behave like a good boy toy. Open up for me so I can show you off.”

Christopher’s touch only made it worse, but Sonya was as careful as always. She kept a hand on my jaw, a softest tease of a touch where she stroked her forefinger along my cheek in a gentle petting motion. It was just enough of her female touch, with the perfect amount of dominance, that I opened my mouth for the cock toy and moaned when she pressed it between my lips, when I could take it so easily after a night of sucking one that was covered in her cum. This one wasn’t. No, this one was just to make me burn in humiliation.

I ached for her in this way that was torture. “Good boy toy. And how good you look in that collar.” I wrapped one hand around her leg in a tentative gesture that waited for her to stop me anytime, but she didn’t and I just accepted, holding on, burning alive with the thought of what this image was. Jesus Christ, it was the wildest blend of humiliation for a straight guy, too. I shifted just to hear my leash rattle, then gasped around the toy when Christopher trailed a finger down my cheek.

“How well behaved he is. And so good at sucking a cock toy. He’ll like his other toys even more, though.”

I shuddered, drifting in that drowning headspace where there was nothing but waiting for a command, nothing but the comfort of obedience. It was peace and acceptance in an intoxicating blend. I inhaled and being so near Sonya made me shudder all the harder, when I could smell her arousal, that scent that made me feel lustful in the darkest way. Lately, it was a scent that was starting to drive me wild, in the way that a dog might lose every thought except a single need and for me that need was her release.

“He’ll like one of those a little too much, so it’s a reward. The others, well, he’s not quite ready for.” She pulled my head back by my hair and I thrilled to the rougher touch, loving her for it, gasping when she pulled away the cock toy. “So long as you’re a good boy toy for my amusement, understood?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Good boy.” She handed the toy to Christopher, who smiled down at me, so that I lowered my eyes in obedient surrender, inhaling the smell of sex. The sounds of Sulfur’s only made things all the more wild, a blend of pained cries, of ecstasy, of begging. Courtney’s was still the loudest in my mind, though.

“Easy. It can be overwhelming. Give me your hands, Ryan.” I loved how degrading it felt to obey him for her amusement. I gave him my hands, lost and happy about it. You want to know one of the best things about that drowning headspace, too? There was no stress, no questioning. There were no racing thoughts of statistics formulas, no wandering mental pathways that toyed with wordsmithing and played with effective sentence structures. No, see, all of that fell completely, easily silent and all that remained was that feeling of serene waiting for another command to follow to please her.

Christopher took my wrists in one hand, holding them behind my neck. “Mind your manners when given command. Say, ‘Yes, sir’.”

I was starting to love this headspace in the most dangerous way. I was insanely good at it, so much so that even I knew I was good at it when I usually questioned everything. “Yes, sir.” It was easy as breathing to obey, to reply like her good boy when she said she wanted to show me off. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“It’s okay, little pup. Now, open up.”

I couldn’t even whimper anymore. I just closed my eyes and did it, accepting again, thinking of the stories of Courtney, of how it would feel to fall forever in this headspace and to earn the godawful pleasure of every, “Good boy,” when the only release was more pain. The thought was horrifying and dark as all hell, so much that I couldn’t keep from fixating on it, especially after Mistress’ words on it. I could absolutely see why someone would want it. I could absolutely see letting the world turn dark while being blinded, a latex feminine touch stroking over my shoulders in between licks of pain.

“Tilt your head back so I can fuck your face easier, good boy.” I obeyed that too and opened my eyes when I heard Mistress shift above me, watching her kneel in front of me. Her eyes were fiery with her dominant lust and it was something I thought I might do just about anything to see. Jesus, she looked fierce, for all her smaller stature, as if she was riding one hell of a wave off of my degradation. That’s when it started to sink in, I think, that the more I flew in that headspace, the higher I took her with me. Or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe the more sexual adrenaline she felt off giving me these commands became as deep as I could drown in an ocean of subjugation. I didn’t know anymore where her high ended and mine began, only knew that we were part of one coin.

I arched with a cry around the toy, leaning back against Christopher when she cupped me between my legs. She looked like an animal when she leaned closer, like something feline and dangerous when she grazed her teeth along the side of my neck. “Good boy toy. Jesus, you turn me on, baby, so much that I don’t even want to make it end with an orgasm when it just feels this goddamned good.”

Christopher was a hard wall behind me, fucking my face thoroughly with the cock toy by then, having increased his rhythm. I’d learned from the last time to swallow through the gag reflex and he’d given me a few practice thrusts before he worked me over. He leaned over me and his voice was low, both calming and intent. “It always amused me how many people underestimated the softer Dommes. There’s a kind of sadism that comes with any kind of domination, even for those of us who aren’t really sadists. Even if we’re not, we do still enjoy twisted and difficult displays of submission… which is sometimes all the more sadistic for the fact that it doesn’t stem from sadism. Getting to humiliate such a good boy toy like you, for instance.”

Sonya laughed and I watched her through the tears starting in my eyes from trying to not choke. “It’s a fair statement, love. I’m not nice to submissive guys. That’s what I keep trying to warn you about.”

No, she wasn’t. I had started to piece it together. We hadn’t even had sex together yet and I was getting the impression that it had a lot more to do with the fact that Mistress was perfectly content with the sexual connection that came from seeing me caged, collared, and bowing to serve her. That’s what did it for her. I adored her for that, though, when the opposite did it for me. I couldn’t speak for the moment, so I closed my eyes and leaned into her palm as best I could. She sighed above me, in a kind of satisfaction.

“For instance, right now, you’re going to cum for me.” That made my eyes go wide, so that she smiled wickedly, taking the key to my cage and trailing it down before she unbuttoned my jeans. “Pull down your jeans and boxers.” I obeyed awkwardly, even while the thought of this made me shake, the realization that another guy was holding me and I was surrounded by people in a fetish club. I finally choked around the cock toy, so that Christopher pulled it away from me, tsking.

“Bad boy toy. You were doing so well. Open back up.”

Mistress’ hand was harsh in my hair so that I quickly obeyed. She gave me a cool look. “Don’t do that again. You and I both know how good you are at sucking cock and I want you to cum while he fucks your face with that one. You want to get off for me?”

I nodded as best I could when I had a feeling the punishment for failing to amuse her would mean a longer time without orgasm. My other trepidation had more to do with the fact that I hadn’t gotten her off yet and I hated the thought of my own release without her pleasure, when I had always been very much a “ladies first” kind of guy, when that was what fulfilled my own pleasure.

But I was learning, namely that her pleasure was sometimes not connected to her orgasms and was more connected to seeing me brought low. “Good boy toy.” I finished pulling down my boxers and she stood easily. Sonya was a kind of secure that I admired, too, and she had no problem with standing and pulling down her thong, stepping out of it gracefully. It drove me wild, the way every motion she made was so confident. She knelt back in front of me, trailing her finger down to the lock of my cage and flicking it while Christopher chuckled and abruptly thrust the cock toy in one rough motion to make me shudder when I took it.

“That’s it. Very good boy toy. You’re making me jealous.”

Sonya chuckled. “I’m afraid he doesn’t lean your way. He’s just being an obedient little plaything right now.” I whimpered when the cage’s lock clicked open and she gently freed me. It seemed like another humiliation that I was hard so quickly, when I was finally free to be that way without the pain that came with it. I sucked the toy eagerly, shifting with the plug in my asshole.

Christopher stroked a thumb over one of my wrists where he still held me secure. “Neither was Todd when he started, but he learned to love playing with me.” I thrilled to the words in a way that horrified me and then forgot about it when Mistress used her thong, where it was slick with her own arousal, covering the head of my cock with the fabric so that I nearly thrashed and then was forced to go still when she gently, slowly, stroked me.

“Todd was already into you.” I could barely hear her over the roar of blood in my ears, where I was about to blitz apart and was trying for all I had to hold it back, to wait for permission like a good little boy toy. “Ryan? You want to cum for me?”

Christopher pulled the toy away, while I felt like I was in a different world. “Yes, please, Mistress.”

“Good boy.” I shuddered with the thought that they were so casually in control, had been carrying on with their conversation like I wasn’t about to break apart. It was another favorite thing about Mistress, that she didn’t let her arousal take over until she damn well felt like letting it. As it was, her voice was perfectly fine. Mine was a hoarse plea, desperate and greedy and conflicted. Pleasure, a kind that I’d been staving off with every time I thought of her perfect body, a kind that was both torment and bliss when wearing the cock cage, was a flood through my blood and my pulse was like fucking thunder. “Look up at Christopher.” I was tense all over with the effort of holding back release.

And I obeyed in a sense of desperation, hoping to God that she’d give me permission if I was good. Christopher stared down at me and his shoulder length hair was no longer the only hint of his wildness. No, his eyes were somehow like the masculine side of Mistress’ gaze, the way they were almost violent with dominance. She made it at least a little easier to do this when she crouched over me and kissed up my jaw, so that I closed my eyes in bliss.

It was Christopher who retaliated, slapping my face lightly.

My hands fisted with the shock of white heat that went through me at the action and I couldn’t keep from yelping a stunned sound of discovering a new fetish, so that Mistress laughed against my jaw and Christopher smiled wickedly. He’d dropped the dildo and tightened his fist on my leash instead, forcing me to lift closer to him.

His slap was nearly enough to rip my control away from me and I marveled that I managed to hold onto it at all when that turned me on so much, when Sonya was still ever so slowly stroking up and down my cock, her thong still covering the head of me. Control felt like something that belonged to people like her and Christopher, not myself, and yet, I managed, with the terror of falling short for her when she would command me with such careful thought, when she tried to keep everything in our relationship mapped out and planned.

She finally, finally, gave me mercy, switching her slow motions for a harder jerking motion and her voice was wicked in my ear. “Cum for me.”

That bubble of pleasure abruptly burst and I shouted with the force of it, when the world suddenly went dead, that blinding kind of explosive release that made my ears ring. I bucked into her hand and then gasped when my leash was tugged to force me still.

It turned me on all the harder that it wasn’t Sonya’s touch on that leash at the moment, even while she felt like the one who was truly in control. It felt like I was at her whim and was forced to just hope that she wouldn’t torment me with something worse.

I was staring up at Christopher when my body came back down from the high that was intense enough to leave me dazed and nearly passed out. His gaze was filled with approval. “Little plaything, indeed. Jesus, you’re so damned good. Open up.”

I looked to Sonya instead, who was smiling with a kind of pleased pride that made me moan in satisfaction, a bone deep kind that made me want to snuggle at her feet like a good boy toy. But it only got better. Like I said, I learned that when I was weak with satisfaction was when Sonya would always have more depravity for me. My release came with things she wanted me to learn to enjoy, so that I conditioned this sleepy contentment with things like what she did next.

“Open up, baby, that’s it.” I whimpered when I opened my mouth… so that she could gag me with her thong, where it was drenched from my orgasm. I sucked obediently and held still so that she could tape my mouth shut around it. “Good boy. Now, Christopher actually already hinted at one of your rewards for behaving and entertaining me. Little pup.”

I was relaxed in Christopher’s grip, far more acceptant of his hand petting my hair, but I froze with what she pulled from the bag next, sucking my cum off her thong a little harder when her gift made me feel gleeful. She was laughing by the time she lifted the neoprene puppy mask to my face, one of the cute ones that was black and red. “There we go. How well it fits you and how much like a good boy toy it makes you seem.” I tilted my head when she scratched behind my ears, staring at her out of the mask.

Christopher tugged my leash and I turned with it, falling obediently still with happy ecstasy when Mistress left my cock cage off and fixed my jeans again. I sucked her thong clean while she pet me down my neck and whimpered happily when she took my leash back in hand, so that I crawled to her feet, where she let me collapse against her knee, to close my eyes in contentment.

I even shifted like a good pup when Christopher had to reach too far to pet me, and adjusted automatically when my chain leash was pulled.

——–

Sonya

Motherfucker.

I was going to get a goddamned date if it killed me. I stomped my foot outside of Sulfur’s, standing across from Ryan with arms crossed, so that he grinned sheepishly while I playfully glared at him, having stripped us both out of our fetish gear so that I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with my boots over top of the jeans.

“I’m sorry.”

“You are not.”

“Okay, I’m kind of sorry. No, really! I mean it, I’m sorry it wasn’t the date.”

“I’m getting that goddamn date, Ryan. It’s, like, obligatory now.”

He laughed, in a heightened state of giddiness after a night like that. “That’s absolutely fair. It’s a payment demand now.” It made me smile, how well he was coming out of his shy shell when he was so conflicted about these desires. It made me feel way more than I would have been comfortable with, except somehow our two insecurities seemed to force the other to stillness in a strange symbiotic circle. I couldn’t keep my fears of emotion and attachment when he allowed me to take so much control and he couldn’t seem to feel as much conflict when I had that control.

Bloody hell, had I found someone that could actually deal with my bullshit? It seemed like too much to ever hope for. “You’re damned right it is. You’re taking me to that movie on Friday night. The midnight release.”

He grinned bashfully. “I’m taking you to the movie on Friday night.”

I paused, then giggled with a thought inspired by the Star Wars pendant he always wore. “You don’t want to sell me death sticks.”

He burst into laughter. “Was that a joke, Mistress?”

When he walked beside me, even that kind of made me smile on the way home. I hadn’t gotten off, hadn’t had sex, nothing like that, but what had happened was more my drug of choice than even sex was. “It was, actually. If you’re going to walk with me, put your arm around my shoulder.” It struck me how easy it was to say those things with him and to not feel like such a bitch about it, either, especially when his eyes lit up and he happily did it, holding me closer to him while we walked.

“It feels strange, being without it,” he said softly.

I had to smile when I knew what he was talking about. “Don’t get too comfortable being without the cage. You’re putting it back on after you get home and shower.”

He paused our walking, softly saying, “Yes, Mistress,” and he watched me for a moment, nervously, before he stroked my neck, gently stroking his thumb along my jaw while I paused, wondering again at the emotions I had and how I was becoming used to them. It made me thrill when he was so hesitant, careful with every touch when he didn’t want to overstep. His voice was soft when he made to move closer, so that he paused and softly asked, “May I?”

And it was moments like that one and chess that were making me break, so that my armor of ice was starting to fall apart and melt around me. “Go ahead.”

His eyes lit up in so much happiness and he looked like my submissive dream, with his studded collar, the key to his cage on a chain again even if he didn’t wear it at the moment. He wore a leather jacket over his black shirt in the cool night air and his hair was definitely tousled, although this time it was more from mine and Christopher’s attentions than Ryan’s nerves anymore. What was more, there was a kind of free and happy playfulness in his eyes, which made me delighted to see when sexual confidence was what a place like Sulfur’s was made to give.

I placed my hand over his, my heart thundering for a reason I couldn’t fully fathom and maybe that’s what made the moment so special. He was so very careful, ever the good boy, and his lips pressed to mine so that I closed my eyes and clasped my free hand to the back of his head, stroking up his hair. My God, he was amazing at it, too, slow and sweet. Even his kiss was pure submission and it made me wonder at how his past girlfriends ever let him leave when his motions were tentative in nature. He didn’t insistently press his tongue to my lips, no, because he so hesitantly licked, asking permission when he couldn’t out loud. And when I opened, it was because I had the control, because I wanted to make the kiss deeper. Even then, he was soft about deepening it, making every action feel like a kind of dance between us. He asked and I allowed. And then I switched back to commanding, growling to pull him closer.

It was one hell of a kiss and I finally had to end it, pulling away while I stroked his hair, enjoying how soft he felt under my touch. It was the kind of thing that should have scared the hell out of me.

As it was, it only gave me a vague sense of nerves, and I covered those up with more control. “If you keep playing with me, you’ll get to feel the anal toys I got for you.”

“Yes, Mistress.” His eyes were submissive and fearful when he pulled away. And that’s what made it okay. I’d be lying if I ever claimed to be the stronger in our relationship. Sure, I might have had fire and I might have been the decisive one, but him and his submission were the real reasons why everything worked out. He was nothing like me when I submitted. He truly loved it for the sake of serving, of pleasing, and it was something that I admired, that level of selflessness in a person. It was something that was gorgeous and when he asked permission even with his tongue, it was the kind of thing to make a girl feel adored and validated.

Because even in those little ways, he never ceased to try to please. Maybe it was good that all my efforts were thwarted actually. Hell, I’m not the romantic, but maybe there was a rhyme or reason to it even. Maybe these things wouldn’t have gone nearly so well if they had happened in any other order.

You see, I finally, finally, got my date. And it was all the more wonderful for the things I’d started to learn about him in other ways.

——–

“Hello, Mistress.”

He met me outside of the restaurant first because I had changed the timing of the date when it seemed like I was finally bloody well getting it. I’d insisted on dinner and a movie. It was literally the most boring, traditional, and standard date in the fucking world. I had taken every possible avenue to ensure that this was not taken from me, that we were having this. Like, not domination fucking, but going out.

“Hello, little boy toy. Don’t you look gorgeous? Here, hold my hand.”

He grinned when he took my hand, when I had been the one to choose his outfit, making him send me pictures of his shirts until I found the perfect one. He wore his collar and his key on a chain, with his cock cage under his clothes like always. “You’re too kind, Mistress, although I feel it would probably be cheating if I took credit. You, on the other hand…” He winked, being cute when he knew that made me more playful, although this time I laughed when he kicked it up a notch and lifted my hand to kiss the back of it, deliberately being dramatic. “You look beautiful, Mistress.”

I narrowed my eyes, feeling flirty with how his eyes sparkled, with how his submission made every little action seem open to becoming something sexual and playful. Sure, during dates, there was a routine for a lot of people where they would sit across from each other, that kind of thing. But with him, even the smallest thing, like saying hello, felt like something that I could turn into hot domination fun. I loved it and I loved him for giving me the chances to play in these ways with him.

Example? “Okay, that was too good. I don’t trust you. Fix your key necklace around my neck until we get to the movies.”

He gasped in mock shock. “Too good?” But he was grinning happily when he unclasped the necklace, helping me turn so he could fit it to my neck, and he was the perfect gentleman about fixing my braid over my shoulder so it wasn’t in his way. “Mistress, you put me in a no win situation. I can’t be good.” He paused in fixing the necklace and kissed my shoulder where I wore one of my favorite strapless dresses, a longer one this time. I’d had to forego the boots for small heels to wear it, but it was a nice change every now and again. “And I have no intention of finding out what happens if I’m bad.”

I laughed and turned back to take his hand again. “No, little boy toy?”

His return grin was as playful as always. Dear lord, he was a flirt when he was forced from his shy cocoon. “Your orgasms are insane. I’m too scared to try to find out what punishment might be like.”

I smiled at that, when I thought the truth was that he was just too good to begin with, when his eyes lit up to even the smallest approval. And the way he’d looked when I’d dressed him in his puppy mask that night that was magic? Jesus, the contented pleasure was something wonderful to see. “I’d far prefer to train you anyway.”

That made him look down with a shiver when he held the door open for me. “I’d like that as well, Mistress.”

It made me pause with thoughts of dating him and of actually training him. The beginning scenes were like feeling each other out, but I was forced to admit that it didn’t feel that way anymore. The fact was he was so submissive in nature that it couldn’t have felt like that for long. It was frightening in some ways, how willing he was to give up so much for the sake of subservience. Like how much he’d loved his cage. Jesus, I didn’t even let him orgasm unless it was with me for the moment, but that had been something that started as another of my wary experiments. Except he didn’t voice any kind of complaint about the fact, excepting when I was actively teasing him and wanted to hear him beg.

Because he knew I wanted to hear him beg. It was the kind of thing that made me wonder, seriously, how far this was going to go. When I tugged his leash, he responded without thinking. When I told him what to do, he acted as if it was a comfort to be told like that. The more direct I was about it? The better he liked it.

He watched me, standing to the side when I told the waitress what we needed, and he followed easily with what I decided. But the real tell happened when she asked for drinks and he watched me again, with a spark of excitement in his eyes, one that made me suddenly feel part of a filthy little exhibition. I had to work to hide my smile when I wanted to feel wicked, thinking of those times when I had found him writing in public. “Two waters, please.”

His eyes were practically glittering with mischief and I couldn’t keep from smiling along with him, letting the silence speak for itself. “What if I said I liked Pepsi?”

It made me feel evil, pure sinful, when his voice was that form I’d seen from him before, when he had that hidden side that liked to sit in coffee shops and write hot, kinky sex where strangers worked around him. “I would say that’s too fucking bad when I saw that look. Water is good for you anyway.” I toyed with his key around my neck and his eyes flicked to the motion so that his grin widened, even while he shifted in that tell-tale way that meant he was fighting arousal.

In turn, it only turned me on in the fiercest way.

“I can’t argue that.”

Jesus Christ, it was good I had insisted on somewhere out. Even just being near him was a trial in desire. “Good boy.” He shuddered with how much he loved those words and I laughed. “Is this how our dates are going to go? Lessons in who can torment each other the hardest? Because I can promise you’ll lose the next one after a few weeks without getting relief while I take all I want from you.”

His eyes widened and he shook his head. “I don’t want to play that game, thank you, Mistress.”

I had to laugh again. “You’re in high spirits. I like getting to see the side of you that talks like this, love.”

“Well, I can’t just give that side to everyone easily when it’s obviously so charming. I mean you can see how dangerous that would be for yourself.”

“Oh, great, I have a submissive who lets these things go to their head.”

It was… magical. It really was. He talked back with me and I loved every second of it, especially now that it felt like I had the control so thoroughly. Every now and again, I would trail a finger down the key’s chain around my neck and it made the world feel okay. Somehow, I could balance out the lack of control that emotions felt like with control over him and it worked. At one point, I stood to go to the bathroom and deliberately dropped my keys again, so that he knelt and this time when he stood up, his eyes were playful.

“I think we’ve been here before, Mistress.”

“Imagine that.”

He bowed his head with a small smile and I left him, laughing.

But there were two conversations that interested me most. The first one was short and it was while we were still eating.

“Kara Rhys has been awful silent lately,” I said.

He went still, his smile turning rueful. “She has, hasn’t she?” He hesitated before he finally confessed, “Her muse has been acting up.”

“Ah. Fallen silent, love?”

“Not exactly.” He studied the table again before answering. “It’s more than she’s been inspired by recent events and refuses to write about male Dominants very much at the moment. She’ll let me write about them every now and again, but I think she wants me to put out something different and doesn’t seem to want to cooperate if I don’t.”

I smiled. “I think you should put it out, then.”

He lifted his head. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Imagine how much heart it would have when your stories already have heart. Kara Rhys can be curious enough to try writing something new like the rest of the authors in the world. Besides, you could just post it as one of the free stories and go back to the other series that you like.”

He grinned, shyly. “I’ve been considering it. I just… I don’t know.” His laugh was small. “She should be perfectly content to go along with the stories I want to write at the moment, too. One is a wedding story that she should be super excited about because it’s totally an indulgence. And another story is nonconsent, involving the laws of Gor and saving someone’s life.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Is it that wedding?” I was leaning forward before I could stop myself and Ryan froze before he lifted his eyes to mine, grinning wickedly. I leaned back. “I mean…”

“You too, huh?”

“Don’t judge me, but yes!” But I took his hand too and kissed it. God’s honest truth? I’d been curious about him, so I’d read. “Seriously, I think it’d be cool if you wrote what you’re into. If it’s not, then hey, you know, it happens. Sometimes it’s harder to write something that close to you, from my understanding. Something about getting caught up in all the details you fantasize about and not being able to get the flow and pacing correct. I mean I could see where it would be a problem, but you could try it and see what happens. I think you should. If nothing else, you’ll have gotten it out of your system and found out if you’re good at that too.”

His eyes were hopeful on mine. “Maybe.” He grinned. “The other idea is that I’ll do it and then make you read the feedback first to tell me how bad it is. I always imagine the worst with these things.” He looked so much like he should have been wearing that puppy mask again. “I like making people happy with romantic things and I hate it when I don’t get it right.”

“Stop being cute.”

He laughed in his pleasure while I enjoyed the sight of him, fingering the necklace of his to comfort myself again.

The second moment, though, was actually at the movies with him. I stopped him outside the theater, with a critical gaze, deciding he was missing something, a little bit of submissive accessory. I ended up getting a strand of black ribbon from my purse and tying it around his upper arm, right beneath his shirt sleeve so that he watched curiously. “There. Start wearing that with the black shirts you wear for me. I like it.”

“Yes, Mistress.” God, why did it always look like he should wag a tail? Because it did. I watched him raise his hand to run his fingers through his hair and slapped it.

“No, stop that. Your hair is tousled enough.”

His grin was all the happier again. “Yes, Mistress.”

And I had to laugh, having fun. Because it was fun. Jesus, all those moments where I felt so damned guilty, where the voices of family members came back to haunt me. Lower your voice, Sonya. Just let it go, Sonya. You’re too outspoken and too, well, demanding, Sonya.

Those moments felt like playing with him. It felt arousing as all hell and his reaction was the kind that didn’t come with my being a bitch. No, he somehow alleviated all of that. It was almost like he was so much my antithesis, so laid back and in need of guidance, that it mitigated how decisive I was and it was great. I let it free to play as I liked, keeping him outside the theater to clasp his hand, smiling wickedly. “Not yet. I want to enjoy this, when it took forever to get a date with you, boy toy. Give me a kiss.”

His eyes were alive with play and he clasped one hand to my waist, cupping the other to my chin so that I turned my face up to his, thrilling to how he was larger than me. Even with his slight figure, I was smaller, but I had always been a smaller person. I didn’t lift for him either, mischievously making him come to me when I wanted him to play more of the part of my boy toy. He knew, too, just like I’d known the look in his eyes at the restaurant and his eyes were sparking. I was proud of him, delighted with how much he was opening up to these things, when he had started so shy. He still wasn’t to the point I would have liked him to be and I had the goal of breaking him to be okay with all of this. But he was doing so well.

His kiss that time was a soft, dating kind of kiss. He didn’t ask permission to deepen it like he had before, instead staying in the realm of quieter PDA, making it adoring instead of lustful. It made me shiver with loss when he pulled away and looked down in subservience, when he quietly said, “Yes, Mistress.”

“Boy toy, you have no sense of self preservation. Come on, you’re tempting me to end my own date early and I want to see this movie.”

“Of course, Mistress. Have you seen all the rest in the series?”

He stepped back and he was delightfully, beautifully reserved, his eyes downcast even while he smiled so calmly and lightly, demure.

You know what made me the hottest about it? I think it was something about how men were supposed to be the more violent and physical of the species. All our lives we’re told that and seeing him, when he bowed, when he cast his eyes down in subservience, felt like this filthy, deviant, hot thing. I think that’s also why I loved seeing him wear what I thought of as the more masculine types of bondage. Leather, for instance, instead of something softer like silky ropes. Because it gave me this filthy thrill to see him in it… and then to make him suck a cock toy in emasculating ways.

He watched me with his head tilted while I glared at him, horny and trying to go back to the question. He was just being a good boy. “I’m going to answer you, but first, are you free tonight?”

His smile was wicked. “Yes, Mistress.”

“You’re coming home with me.”

It turned to an outright grin. “Yes, Mistress.” He paused, then softly added, “I didn’t bring clothes.”

I grabbed his hand and walked him inside, leading him and getting more turned on by the minute. “Then take me to your place afterwards to get them so you can come back and keep me company and play with me.”

And that’s when the second moment happened, with a soft, shocked female voice. “R-Ryan?”

Ryan froze beside me and I stopped, wondering curiously who it was, wondering at his expression when he made a low sound and turned to face the new girl. But then I turned with him and looked at her too.

Holy hell. All I had to do was look at her to know who she must be because they were so much alike that I burned to know if they were twins. “Hello, Rachel.”

She glanced to me and I stood forward, thinking that social anxiety definitely ran in his family. He got a lot of those submissive cues honestly, it would appear, because his sister stayed back as well, and she shifted away from the crowd of people, rather than display the impatience of someone more dominating. “Hello. You have to be Ryan’s sister.”

She laughed and Ryan grinned. “Yeah, twins.”

“That will do it,” I said teasingly, holding out my hand. “My name is Sonya, by the way.”

“Sonya. You’re… Wow, you’re gorgeous.”

That made me blush, especially coming from her. A female Ryan, it turned out, was downright adorable in her own way. She had his baby face but on her feminine features, she appeared younger and it was fascinating to see. “You’re too kind, especially coming from someone as pretty as you.”

That made her blush along with me and I wanted to laugh with how even that characteristic was the same as her brother’s, when it started as a reddening at her neck. “Can I ask a question that might sound weird?” She glanced at Ryan, who looked down in a way I didn’t understand at first and then it only got more intriguing with her question. “Are you, like, dating dating?”

It wasn’t the question that made me so curious as much as his reaction along with the way she stated that question. The other part that was incredibly intriguing to me was a stray thought that it appeared as if our families would get along delightfully well, if these two were any indicator to their upbringing. She was every bit as reserved and anxious as Ryan was, every bit as energy fueled in that strange way that made Ryan mischievous every now and again. I smiled when I gave a gentle answer, making it as encouraging as possible. “I think Ryan prefers me to answer a lot of questions, but I also think maybe he has to be the one to give answer to some.” He lifted his eyes to mine and I winked to him, lifting his hand to give him comfort. The truth was I might prefer to speak for him as much as he preferred me to speak for him, but social propriety was not always conducive for that kind of thing.

He smiled at the look in my eyes, at my gentle nudge, as discreet as I’d made it. “Um, it’s okay if you answer in this case. She’s asking because they all think I’m gay, but to clarify, yes, we’re dating dating, Rachel.”

I couldn’t keep from a grin. “You think he’s gay?”

She gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah, I mean but only really because he never brings girls home anymore and Mom was convinced he was trying to keep it secret or something. I kept saying that he didn’t give off those vibes, though.”

That was interesting, but not nearly as interesting as how casual Ryan was about it. He shrugged when I looked at him. “It was easier to let them all think that than to deal with them asking if there were any girls I was interested in.” He made a face. “Dating was getting stressful.”

And here’s why it was such an interesting conversation. Barring the fact that Ryan wasn’t particularly effeminate in nature, barring the fact that nothing about him made me think he was gay with all the experience I had in a place like Sulfur’s, barring how he would rather propagate that thought than deal with his family asking questions about his relationship status, barring all of that? It was that last sentence that made me pause with a new kind of knowledge, one that warmed my heart so much that it distressed me.

Because I knew why relationships would have stressed him out. I could guess about nineteen reasons off of what I knew about him without talking about it first. I hadn’t stopped to think about it but it suddenly clicked, just how submissive he was in nature. Of course I already had some obvious indicators, things like how much he loved wearing his cock cage all the time and he truly did enjoy his denial in favor of only receiving pleasure when I wished to see him have it for my own amusement. That wasn’t a light thing. So no, I had the indicators that I’ve already mentioned.

But that knowledge made me stop and truly consider some of the friends I knew from Sulfur’s. For instance, Christopher’s slave was a submissive named Deirdre who had always used submission as a form of therapy in her day to day life. It was how she coped. She would start fraying at the edges due to the stress of life or whatever else might come her way and she would come back to life with a session of submitting because pleasing someone else made her calm again. It gave her the strength to deal with how many people she couldn’t please when no one was ever capable of pleasing everyone. Now, of course, as Christopher’s slave she was the most happy when she was given a constant source of happy validation in his collar. Christopher wasn’t the light kind of Master either. He had entire lists of rules and a kind of stuffiness that would drive most submissives insane. I know I couldn’t have dealt with it. But for someone like Deirdre, where submission was a deeply ingrained part of her nature? It was freedom. It was bliss.

I considered that along with what I knew of her vanilla relationship attempts and how she had said it was the worst. She’d end up pissed off all the time with someone who wouldn’t take control when she needed them to take control and her emotions would run rampant with fears of not doing what would please them when they wouldn’t tell her how to please them. She said it was awkward and awful.

I held Ryan’s hand tighter, thinking of how quickly Christopher had been drawn to him. Of course he wouldn’t date. Of course he’d be confused and conflicted. I imagined that look on his face when he both teased me and just as wonderfully made me feel so acceptant of my own flaws, in a way that only a submissive really ever could, when that was something that took a special kind of heart and wasn’t borne from sexual kinks, but instead was just a nature. Jesus, it must have been torture for him when someone took him on a date and left decisions to him, when he had the hang up that a lot of male subs had, how society had always told them that they were supposed to be the decisive one, that they were supposed to make those choices. How freaking nightmarish would it be to go on a vanilla date with that mindset and torture yourself the entire bloody time with stress to ruin a perfectly good time?

It was a moment that almost broke me, one that made my heart feel so warm with the thought of how good he was, because he was. I already wanted to keep him as mine and not in a way that was much in the way of a partner. No, I already wanted him back in his leash or in his dog mask.

I smiled at Rachel. “No, we’re dating dating, as much as I hate disappointing anyone.”

She laughed at that, while I thought about those other fears of heartache I had. They no longer seemed like they mattered really.

He’d be worth it, every last bit of it. Even if it hurt like hell and didn’t work out, the experience would damn straight be worth it. I still didn’t have an exact plan in mind, still didn’t have a full idea of where these things might lead, but I did know that I wanted them to go somewhere and I wanted to be part of wherever that somewhere was.

It wasn’t the exact moment where I broke, but I can pinpoint that as one of those moments, like steady pressure being given to my armor, which was already melting and cracking, lines fracturing out from impact points. No, see, the exact moment where I broke, where it all came to a head wouldn’t be for a few months, actually.

But they were far from a boring or stagnant few months. After we watched the movie together that night, I made Ryan show me his place and then took him back to mine in the starting point of a routine that spiraled into fucking ecstasy.

——–

Ryan

It was like being caught in a whirlwind. That night, she barely got me through her door before she was all over me, when she finally seemed to decide she was done leashing all that fire she could have, when she let loose that same animal that had held a riding crop beneath my chin and lifted me for a kiss sparked with her strangely delicate brand of violence. Her hands were fierce in my hair and she kissed with this purring sound of lust before she managed to pull away. “Lift me up against the wall.”

And I moaned before I did, when she was that much smaller than me and it was natural for her to wrap her legs around my waist, her dress riding up her thighs, and it made me sigh out a pained breath when I instantly throbbed in the cock cage. But then her lips were back on mine in messy, hot kisses and she ate up all of my sighs of torment, riding me in this dancing motion that was hotter than hell. It was torture how sexual it was and it made my vision run hazy, so that all I could think of was desire and need.

But of course she loved that because she was Sonya. The woman, the goddess. She loved it because that state made me wildly obedient and she took advantage of that fact when she tugged down her dress and lifted one of my hands to cover her breast. “Mistress,” I whispered it, with more than a little begging behind saying her name like that. “Please.”

She didn’t give me mercy yet and I loved her for that. “Roll the nipple like this.” She took my fingers and showed me just how she wanted it, tossing her head back with ecstasy. “Oh, Christ, that’s it. Tug. Harder.” I did it, inhaling the scent of sex, losing my mind a little with how she was riding me hard, then harder. She was vibrant with her desire and she never held anything back ever. She grasped my head and pulled my face back to hers when her body went off in release in my arms, kissing me to smother the cry into my mouth so that I gently held her tighter.

It was all too whole and right when she pulled us apart with a soft press against my shoulders and then pressed me to my knees. “Give me your hands.” She took my wrists together in her small hand and grabbed me by my hair again. “You want to get off later? You’re going to let me ride your face nice and hard first and you’re going to do exactly what I tell you to with your tongue.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I whispered it, eager and in a kind of hell all at once while staring up at her pussy after she took off her silky thong. She pressed my face to her and I laved up her slit in the way she loved most, thrilling to the sound of her eager cry over me, to the way she pulled my hair to have me closer, to make me work my tongue faster. The hot, sultry scent encompassed everything after about a few seconds and I loved it so much that the chastity cage punished me for the enjoyment.

When she pulled my face away, all I could see when I looked up was her. The rest of the world was a red background of lust and need. I pressed eagerly back to her pussy when she gave me the slightest pull, when the only release anymore felt like her pleasure, when everything faded into the thoughtlessness of needing her approval. Because her approval was the way to release.

“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re good with that tongue of yours, baby, but you need help. Let me teach you a little bit.”

She taught me for an hour that felt like eternity, teaching me exactly how to flick my tongue up to her clit in a way to tease her the most, teaching me exactly how to thrust my tongue when she was worked up, then teaching me how to suck harder when she was riding me in a rhythm close to the ledge of release. “Good boy. Let’s play again.”

I moaned and obeyed when I didn’t particularly want to find my way back out of subspace, when I was reaching that strange place that I had been so intrigued by in Sulfur’s where even Christopher’s touch had felt like comfort, where it wasn’t about the sex, where I wasn’t sure how far down in this I was falling, what I even was to her anymore. It didn’t feel like a boyfriend.

Or maybe I just didn’t want it to feel like being her boyfriend, which was far more terrifying.

At the end of the night, when I finally satisfied her, she’d whispered her reward in my ear, and she’d chained me in cuffs and attached my leash to my collar by that point, so that she was tugging the leash and I was tugging against the bondage holding my hands behind me. “Why don’t you fuck me so you can cum inside me, baby?”

I moaned in her ear, in so much pain that I didn’t even think about the answer. “Yes, please, Mistress. Thank you, Mistress.”

She’d laughed and unlocked my cage, then unchained my cuffs before she lay on her back, smiling up at me with a wicked look, tugging my leash so that I crawled over her. “It’s okay. That was mean, I know, and later, we’ll work on making you last as long as we want, but why don’t you just enjoy being rewarded now?”

I moaned with what that might mean for later, but every last thought was gone when I pressed to her entrance, when she was so drenched and silken all at once that it made me shudder in ecstasy, a body spasm with the best sensation I’d ever felt in my life. She surrounded me, a caress, and her voice was soft when she told me squeeze her tits, when she commanded me to stroke her, when her smile was still sinful with intent, and it was all enough to set me off, so that my world went white and my ears rang with the orgasm. I couldn’t keep from a barked cry of a sound again, couldn’t keep from that release that was pain when it was so good, so goddamned good, that it felt like hell.

She was still smiling when I came back to, staring down at her from my position over her, suddenly realizing it was the first time we’d actually had sex.

When the exhaustion set in was when her soft voice had that other command for me, one I was becoming so very used to. She tugged my chain leash and clicked her tongue, so that I crawled backwards in a daze, head bowed. “Good boy toy. Lick me clean.”

I shuddered with the thought, with how much I loved how I hated doing it, with bliss better than even release, and backed away enough to lower my face to her pussy again, licking with a soft, defeated mewl. I raised my eyes up to her at one point and she was rested back against the pillow with a look of total contentment on her face, her eyes closed while she stroked my hair, as if enjoying the satiation of her humiliating control, in the same way a cat enjoyed being lazy after a kill. I shuddered again and went back to licking my cum from her pussy.

It only got better when, at the end, she held me cuddled against her stomach, petting my hair in gentle strokes while she enjoyed us both when we were satisfied and lazy together. When it came time for bed, though, in the early hours of the morning, she tethered my leash to her bed frame and rolled over. “Hold me.”

I woke up laying on my back while she lay cuddled against my side, one hand wrapped across my chest, so small against me. I carefully wrapped her closer, slowly so I didn’t wake her, and curled over her in one of the rare moments where I would allow that sense of protective submission to have its sway. Her braid was a mess so that I smiled with the thought that my Mord-Sith fantasies were hotter with the reality of them, when the reality came with things like messy braids.

And, of course, my cock cage went back on the next morning when we finally woke up together and she taught me how she liked to be bathed, when she started a routine there as well. Little tethers of the slightest ideas wrapped us together through the beginnings of small rituals that would tie me to her as effectively as the chains she sometimes used to hold me.

What was interesting was her insistence on our dates, though. I started to piece it together with a submissive’s eyes, where I was sensitive to her comfort zone when of course I would be when I wanted to serve in those boundaries, in the same way that of course she would be sensitive to my sexual comfort zones for the contrasting reason that she wanted to press mine. It was a fascinating thought to see come to life, the differences and similarities in our roles, but I digress.

See, she initially insisted on a date again immediately after that night of training me to better eat her out, wishing to take me to dinner again. That time she had me meet her at the entrance to her apartment building and her eyes were playful and wicked when she softly said, “Fix your key necklace around me, boy toy.”

And where I might have once flushed, I smiled and kissed her forehead in a way I knew she loved, then obediently fixed the chain around her neck, carefully placing it just so. “Yes, Mistress.”

Her eyes had that fire in them and she was a flirt like before where we talked endlessly about the fantasy movie she had been so excited to see, where we talked about the rest of the movies in the series. There were a fair few highlights much like before, things like when she cut off a piece of the sandwich she liked and lifted it to my lips for me to try, while I met her gaze, a moment that felt like bowing to get her keys all over again when I couldn’t keep from lowering my eyes with the sensation of her feeding me. It made me miss the puppy mask in some dark way, made me have fantasies of curling up with a leather harness while she fed me in humiliating ways.

Her smile was wicked when I lifted my gaze back to hers, swallowing the food she’d given me. “Good, right?”

At that point, I was forced to admit that I was saying the words any chance I got, just to say them. “Yes, Mistress.”

But that’s not where it truly got interesting with the rest of the way it went. No, see, it got interesting when I was flirting with her. “So, games and epic fantasies, Mistress?”

She laughed. “Don’t tell anyone. Being kind of nerdy about fangirl choices makes me seem too human. But I might have gone to the Ariana Grande Rift Tour in Fortnite. And I might be a big fan of a certain series with a character named Anomander Rake.”

I froze, then laughed, when that last reference was a truly nerdy one. “I bought the Lebron James skin, to be fair. But did you know the reason why Malazan was as large scale of an epic as it turned out to be was because it was originally an RPG world?”

“I did not.” She leaned forward, her eyes excited in that way she’d had when I’d bought her the Arctic Fox stuffed animal. It was that look that I treasured when it felt like seeing my Mistress without her mask, even as lovely as her mask was. “But that makes sense when Gardens of the Moon just throws you into the story and hopes you can keep up with a learning curve steeper than a ski slope.”

I burst into laughter and her eyes were shining in playfulness. But that was when her gaze turned… different. It wasn’t a bad kind of difference, either, at least not to me. It wasn’t particularly negative in its appearance, not at all. Although, I suppose to someone else who tried to date her, it might come across as negative or guarded and I could see where it would easily come across that way.

For me, it was merely a look that came with the control she had that I loved so much already. I bowed my head, taking a drink of the water she had ordered for me, waiting with a sense of heightened arousal for what might come next, wondering how the puzzle pieces might fall, what image they might shape of my relationship with her when she was so fascinating to me to begin with.

It wasn’t that night when I got my answer. It was two nights later actually after she called me when I was at work. I answered with a sense of thrill, glancing out the window of my office with that sense of dirty exhibitionism that came from writing my stories for some reason. “Good afternoon, Mistress.” Manners felt like an innate thing when I wore her key to my cock cage around my neck and felt under control no matter where I was these days.

“Good evening, little boy toy.” And that. God, I loved being called that. It felt degrading in this caring way, affectionate and humiliating in a blend. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Nothing at all so far, Mistress.” But my blood was starting to turn to fire with the question. The crackling desire that I was becoming frighteningly accustomed to across my skin wasn’t nearly so bad when she had just let me have orgasm so recently. The other frightening thought about that? I was kind of… used to and okay with my orgasms being such a rarity, somehow. I didn’t know how it was so easy and seamless for me to be wildly okay with that fact. I only knew that it had something to do with that sensation of pleasure at Christopher’s knees, one that wasn’t something to do with sex. It had to do with the heavy sensation of the cage that felt like being cradled, in that oh, so perfect wording that Mistress had used to describe it.

Her voice was soft with temptation in my ear, my personal snake with a desire that gave me conflict, a desire that felt like it was about to break me. And if she were a snake, I pictured her as a King Cobra, beautiful, lethal, and graceful all in one. “Want to come over and try something new? You should probably check your courage for it.”

I smiled at my desk, suddenly thinking that my day had seemed a bit… boring. Odd, when I had never had a problem with boring, but now with her invitation, I had a rush of fear that I rather enjoyed. “I can’t say I’m known for being overly courageous, Mistress, but I want to try what pleases you.”

“Come and play with me, then, little boy toy.” I’d felt a sense of wild excitement when I left work, of fear and submissive energy. These days I always felt so close to that magical place where I could fly or drown and I didn’t have a preference to which one she chose for me anymore. It was becoming that addictive in an all around sense. I know it sounds crazy, but I was starting to piece together that those moments of pleasing her were something of a cure all. For everything. If I had a rough day at work, where I felt like nothing I was doing was good enough, where my statistics and spreadsheets felt subpar when I was a perfectionist at how neat I could make them, I knew how to fix it. I could bow to her and know that what I was doing was good enough. I could be soothed with having a command given to me and following it, without having to question when she was so very clear with her pleasure or displeasure. Even if I was feeling low on a day, when everyone has those low days, I could find happiness in hearing her pleasure.