Authors: Alison Tyler
“You ready, Rebecca?”
Again, waiting to hear, wanting to see what I’d say.
“Always, “ was my smart-ass response. So much different from
yes
.
“You’re going to count for me,” he said next, and my head was spinning. Fucking hell, he knew the drill. But then there was silence. I hate to say the word “usually,” to imply that I often find myself in situations akin to this one—but why lie? So usually, when I am bound down to a bed, and a stern lover is about to punish my ass, the game goes like this:
A smack on my ass — the number from lips.
You get it? He hits, I count.
Sean was different. Sean wanted to hear me say the word first. I couldn’t understand. I hadn’t won the privilege yet, had I? Ah, but you see, in Sean’s mind, he wanted a relief from his job as a drummer, wanted me to count us in.
“One,” I said, and I was rewarded with the type of fire branding that I’d only experienced a handful of times in my life. The pain licked at me instantly. No slow build. No gradual flickering. But then Sean was looking at me. Gripping my hair in his fist and pulling my head up and saying, “Count.”
And I got the game. He struck, I counted the next blow. Believe me when I say this was harder than it sounds.
“Two—” and slam me down to the bed, ma’am, he cut me just as hard as the first time. Finally, I understood. I was setting the rhythm. The pace. He was letting me choose how many, and he was letting me say when. Forget topping from below—I was our rhythm section.
“Three—” I felt the cane on me like a poker, hot from the fire, burning through me. “Four….Five….”
But why, I wondered did I find saying the numbers so difficult. Numbers are little. And easy. He wasn’t asking me to call him Sir. He wasn’t making me play-act some fancy Dom/sub routine. He hadn’t even asked for my safeword, because he didn’t need one. I was giving the orders. But the orders were to cane me. And any sub will tell you, part of the thrill is giving over that power to your Dom. Putting yourself in the hands of your lover. Now, I was responsible for myself, and I could hardly face him as I realized how much more I wanted. Craved. Desired.
“Six—”
He didn’t judge. He didn’t flinch. He struck. Christ, I was so wet. I felt the liquid pooling between my nether lips, slipping to coat my skin. What would Sean say when he touched me, when he found out for himself how drenched he’d made me?
“Seven—”
I wondered if he’d realize at some point, if he’d figure out that I’d never stop counting. I’m like that. I don’t have an end. I can’t.
“Eight…Nine…”
He was moving around me now, pressing his face to my ear, whispering things to me that had me arching on the bed. “Oh, you’re such a little needling. The pain fills you up, right? Makes you so drippy. Only a bad girl would get wet like this from having her ass thrashed.” Then his fingers probing, diving inside of me, pulling out to circle my asshole with the juices of my own pleasure. “You’ll come when I fuck your ass, won’t you?”
There was no way to answer but honestly: “Yes.”
“I won’t even have to touch your clit. The shame will simply make you cream.”
“Yes, Sean.”
And he was on the bed, letting me feel the head of his cock against my hole, before pushing in hard so just the tip pressed there. Not fucking me. Not yet. But making me want him so badly. And yet—we weren’t done. Were we? He hadn’t told me to stop counting, and I hadn’t reached that pinnacle, yet. That place.
I wondered if he’d sense this. We were so in tune up until now. I wondered if he’d get that I wasn’t done, if he’d…
Sean pulled back and stood by the bed once more. He had a brown leather belt in his hand now, doubled, ready. He looked at me, and I could see the softness in his eyes, as if he were staring at something beautiful—something valuable, something he understood.
“Ten,” I said, and his lips tilted into a half smile, and he said, “Good girl. You’re such a good girl. Let me give you what you need,” as if I’d passed some test, as if I’d proven a point.
There was no more counting after that. He heated my ass for me with his doubled-over leather, beat my skin as only a true Dom knows how, before climbing onto the bed and fucked my ass. Hard. So that I was screaming out, crying out, driven down by his body. He ground me against the mattress, and the pressure of him from behind combined with the mattress on my clit made me come. Sean dug his fingers into the welts on my ass, and the pain-tinged pleasure flamed through me, until I saw sparkling lights behind my shut eyes, glinting and winking out, matches tossed in water.
He undid the bindings and pulled me to him. Kissed my cheeks, my lips. Then, while I watched, he lifted a pen from his bedside table and wrote a number on my skin. “I’ve got to be at a shoot early,” he said, “so don’t worry if I’m not at your side. Just call me when you wake up.”
I felt like I finally
was
awake. As if he was the prince who had finally awaken me from 100 years of slumber.
*****
Sean was the core of the band, he kept them on track. Not only when they played, but for rehearsals. He had a low-key way about him, but I could tell right off that he was the leader—even if their main singer, Derrick, would have liked the job himself.
Power struggles make some people tense. I’ve always enjoyed a show of wills.
I think that’s how I got myself into this.
But you don’t even know where I am. You don’t know that I’m tied to Sean’s bed, while he and Derrick sit out on the deck, drinking beers, trying to decide what to do with me.
Even more importantly, you don’t know how I got here.
I’ve got plenty of time to think things over. They’ve left me alone, and I can hear the low rumble of their voices, but I can’t discern what they’re saying. I tense my arms and tug, but that just makes the bindings tighter. I thrash on the mattress to see if I can create any slack. Sean’s tied me down enough times for me to know that this is useless, and I wind up coated in a sheen of sweat, feeling ridiculous for trying to get free.
I don’t want to get free. I only want to know what my options are.
Sean didn’t want options. Sean wanted me and him—him and me—every dawn after a gig, every evening before rehearsal. He wanted me bent over the seat of his Triumph. He wanted me spread out on the deck of his patio. Or in the bed of his truck. He had a way about him, that quiet, soothing way that somehow went against the image he portrayed on stage. There was nothing fast about him when he wasn’t playing the drums. Everything was slow, methodical. The way he tied me down when he fucked me, fingers carefully working the knots. The way he buckled the ball gag between my lips. Never rushing. Never even seeming to fully heat up.
Low key, like I said.
And then there was Derrick. On stage, the man was a feline, stalking, crawling even, strutting for the crowd—Iggy Pop with those six pack abs. An aberration with his long silver mane of hair, even those he’s barely thirty. He had that super star ego, and a body like a statue come to life. When he sang the hardcore songs, everyone in the places moved to the beat. But when he sang a ballad, all the girls got still.
Why did I even notice? Why did I pay attention?
Not because of the way he was on stage, but the way he was off. The tantrums and the ranting, the fast motion of his temper. I liked the heat of him. That’s the truth. The fucking throb of him. And when he brushed past me once, and I felt his breath on my neck, I knew I was going to let him take me.
I think he screwed me first to get at Sean. To say,
Look here, buddy. I got her, too.
The second time? I think because he liked me. He liked the way I tasted when he went down between my legs. He liked the purr I made when I came, legs tight around him, hair spread out on his pillow.
The third time? We were at a party in Malibu. Fucking under the light of the moon. There was romance. Words were said. Love might even have been murmured.
And the fourth? That’s when he found out I was still fucking Sean after. He thought he’d won me. I mean, I guess that’s what he thought. I’d had no intention to choose one man over another.
That’s why they’re staring out at the canals of Venice, and I’m strapped down to the bed with a blindfold covering my eyes. That’s why they’re having a pow-wow about not only what makes a band work, but what makes a girl work. A girl like me. A girl with needs.
Things could have gone so differently. Derrick could have dumped me. Sean could have moved on. How many girls at their gigs would put out willingly? How many vixens would climb happily into either boy’s bed? But I sensed something between these two from the start. The love-hate relationship that makes the band what it is. Electrifying and mesmerizing. Their chemistry draws the audience to show after show. I wanted all of that power—and I wanted it for myself.
Derrick kept trying to interrupt me when we were talking. I said, “Look, I’m sorry if I let you down.”
“The fuck you did,” he growled. “What were you thinking?”
“What were
you
thinking?” was Sean’s low retort. “You knew she was my girlfriend.”
I liked that they weren’t fighting. I liked that we were all in the room together. I felt that we could do something, salvage something, from the ashes I’d created. Really, I felt that I could ultimately give them what they wanted.
That’s what I said. That’s why I’m not driving in my car down the 10 Freeway, out one boyfriend and one fling, off to a bottle of whiskey in an nearly empty apartment. I said, “Look, I’m sorry. I liked you both. I didn’t do things right, and I know that. I was dishonest, and I know that, too. But can’t we… you know? Can’t we work something out?”
Sean got the deal first. He understood the implication in my offer, as I knew he would. He was the one to let his lips go up, in that trademark half-smirk, half-smile to say to Derrick, “Wait here, for a second. Just wait,” while he took me to his room and tied me down on the bed and chose his favorite blindfold from the drawer. And he was the one to whisper in my ear, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, slut. But I believe you’re going to get what’s coming to you.”
And now, they’re out there, looking at last sparkle of sunlight on the water, and Sean’s explaining to Derrick what makes a girl like me tick. He’s saying the words that need to be said.
Oh, god, here they come. Footsteps on the creaky floor. They’re either going to let me free and tell me to go fuck myself. Or they’re going to take me once more, for old time’s sake, and then push me out the door. Or… and this is the “or” I have my heart set on, we’re going to form a partnership.
But shit, I know that scent—damn it all to hell—here’s Sean with the ball gag.
“You got yourself here, right where you wanted to, didn’t you?”
A headshake from me that becomes a nod.
“I’ll buckle you up, then, as you’re unable to do the job yourself.”
And the taste, that taste you can never get used to. Rubber and poison. But he’s kind. He removes my ability to speak and gives me back my sight, because in one magic move, the blindfold’s off, so I can feel my eyes, so wide, staring from Sean to Derrick, from the lion to the handler. The front man and the wizard behind the scenes.
“We were going to start by fucking you in the dark,” Sean says, and his voice is so cold I can hear the crushed ice. “Make you guess which cock was inside of your holes.”
I look from him to Derrick, who is leaning against the wall, gazing back at me with an expression of sick satisfaction.
“I suggested that we punish you if you couldn’t tell which cock was which, but you’d like that too much, wouldn’t you, slut?”
His mouth comes close to my ear then, so that Derrick can’t hear, as he says, “It’s not rape if you consent, right?”
And I think back to the night when he and I shared our fantasies. The dark ones. The scary ones. And I know Sean is about to give me what I have always wanted the most.
Now, he backs off, and he’s in his professor mode. I can tell.
“She likes a little pain,” Sean says, “to start her off.”
Derrick’s eyes are cautious. We’ve fucked four times. But we’ve never done anything truly dirty. The dirt was in the cheating. The dirt was in the game. Now, he sees. Now, he knows. I couldn’t choose him, because Sean gives me what I want. But Sean sees the way Derrick looks at me, there’s a connection. Three points to a triangle—although I was never very good at math. He reaches for the frat paddle, one of his favorite devices, and starts to spank me. Hard and fast, with power behind each blow. I have this coming to me, at the very least.
That doesn’t minimize the pain.
When tears begin to leak from my eyes, he hands the toy over, and says, “Your turn, D.”
Fear shines bright in Derrick’s gray eyes, and I can see that he’s not sure. Not sure that he wants to hit me. No. Not sure that he knows how. That’s the thing. Derrick likes to be in charge. he knows how to do everything. Sean’s grin spreads. He takes the paddle back, and he moves slowly, like someone in an instructional video.
“This. You smack her like this.”
The stroke is strong. And there’s pain. But the situation has dulled my senses. I hardly feel the blow. It’s like when someone’s spanking you while fucking your ass—you know the palm’s meeting your skin, but your mind is processing a whole different sort of drama.
Derrick watches, nods, takes the paddle from his drummer, and strikes firmly, connecting perfectly. Then again. And again. I can tell how much he’s enjoying punishing me for failing him, for letting him down, but I am watching Sean. I am watching Sean watching Derrick.
“Try this one,” Sean says, taking the paddle and handing over a crop.
Derrick’s eyes are gleaming. His breath is coming fast. He takes off his shirt now, so I can see his hard, flat belly, and then he uses the crop. I am writhing on the bed. The pain is intense, but the pleasure from two men working me over, two men paying total attention to me, is addictive.
Yet I see what I thought I saw at the beginning. I see the connection between the boys. Sean, with his hand on Derrick’s arm, suggesting, maneuvering. Then Sean, with his hands on Derrick’s jeans, pulling them down, moving his mouth close to Derrick’s ear, and saying, “Take off the gag, now. Let her get your cock all wet, man. Let her suck you.”