Dominating Jess: A Fantasy Fulfilled Novella (5 page)

Yet at the same time,
I was astonished to find myself leaning back toward Zee as if I wanted him to
hit me again.

I didn’t. Of course I
didn’t.

Did I?

The only thing this
pain reminded me of was when I got my tattoo. Getting the cherry tree that
curved from the bend of my right arm and up my shoulder, the blossoms dropping
down my back, was some of the most intense pain I’d ever gone through. But
then, trapped for hours in the tattoo artist’s chair, lightheaded and nauseated
from the pain, I’d felt something else: a pleasure-filled heat, knowing that
I’d chosen this for myself. I’d memorialized my seventh birthday when my mother
filled my bedroom with cherry blossoms still on the branch. I hadn’t known then
that she’d stolen them from the landlord’s tree, and that she did it because
she couldn’t afford to buy a gift. I’d just known I’d loved it, and I chose to
tattoo my body with the memory. I had put
myself
through the pain.

And it was the same
now. I’d signed up for this.

Zee hit me again, and
my thoughts scattered as I tried to remember how to breathe afterward. My back
felt more numb now, a relief.

I’d chosen this. I’d
allowed
Jake to take me here. And over weak white wine served in tiny plastic bottles
on the plane on the way here, he’d taken out a black Moleskine notebook.

“Tell me what you
want. I have a contract I’ll need you to sign later, when you’re totally sober.
But for now, we’ll just make notes.”

I had smacked his arm
lightly and pulled the airplane blanket tighter around me. “I thought you were
supposed to give me what I want.”

He nodded, but his
face stayed serious. “I can’t do that unless I know what that is.”

I looked at the thin
man seated on the other side of Jake. The man’s eyes were closed, but I lowered
my voice anyway.

“Just give me what you
give the others.”

“Impossible. Everyone
has a different vision.”

I shook my head. “I
can’t...”

“You’re going to have
to get over that shyness.”

I met his eyes, and my
heart jumped inside my ribcage. I guessed I would. He’d probably see me naked
soon. Jesus.

“You look nervous
suddenly,” he said. “What are you thinking about?”

I shook my head again.

“One thing,” he said.
“Tell me one thing you want.”

I found a piece of
courage. “Being naked,” I said softly. “In front of...”

“In front of people.”
He made a note. “What else?”

“I feel like I’m being
psychoanalyzed.”

“Interesting. What
else do you feel?”

I heard the joke in
his voice, and I relaxed. “I feel like you’ll do the right thing. Even if...
even if someone else is touching me.”

He made another note.
“You know everything we do is driven by you, right?”

I nodded.

“So now, tell me what
you want and, more importantly, what you don’t want.”

Pushing my shoulders
back, I said, “I want it all.”

Jake raised a
skeptical eyebrow. “You want a stranger to take a razor and bleed you in front
of an audience?”

“
No
!” I drew
back. “What?”

He shrugged. “I’m just
saying. What people want differs. So you have to tell me. You want to be
touched by strangers.”

“Y-yes.”

“Do you want to be
fucked by strangers?”

I swore the sleeping
man to Jake’s right stirred a little. I whispered, “Yes.”

“Fucked where?”

“What?” Did he mean
indoors, outdoors...

“Ass, mouth, pussy, or
all three?”

“Good God.”

He laughed and took
another sip of his wine while he waited for me to recover from the question.

I jumped off the cliff
edge I felt I was standing on. “Anywhere. In answer to that.”

He made another note.
“Pain level?”

I squirmed. This had
to be more embarrassing than anything he would do to me, right? “High
tolerance.”

Looking closely at me,
he said, “You sure, tough girl?”

“Of course I am.” I
wasn’t. I wasn’t sure of anything. Was I even doing the right thing? I felt too
much when I looked at Jake. What we would do together wasn’t going to be a
problem, I thought. What I was feeling for him right
now—again—might be. But goddamn it, this was his fucking job. This
was what he did for a living. He didn’t
feel
for women. He just worked
for them. He’d explained that to me when we’d first started talking about doing
this.

As if he could hear my
thoughts, he put the armrest up between us. He put his arm around me, drawing
my head to his shoulder. For the first time, he kissed the top of my head. “You
know this isn’t what I normally do, right?”

“What do you mean?” I
said to his chest.

“I’ve never
brought...” he paused and cleared his throat. “I’ve never brought someone I
cared about before. I’ve always been really careful not to cross that line.”

“Why me, then?”

He leaned his cheek
against the top of my head. “I don’t know.”

I had fallen asleep
like that, resting against him, and I hadn’t woken up again until the man on
Jake’s right—the one I thought had been listening—had to get out
and use the restroom. He touched me a bit too much while climbing over me and
met my eye meaningfully when he did. I shuddered. Was this what it was going to
be like? Would Jake just let anyone touch me when we got there?

I was pulled back to
the present as Zee hit me again with the whip. I screamed but this time,
instead of the sound being short and sharp, I leaned into the yell. I let
myself wail, and it felt good. At Jake’s table, he nodded without turning
around, and I knew I’d done something right.

Zee continued to hit
me, moving the whip down my right leg, then my left. I could feel my skin
getting red, then turning to liquid fire that ran up and down my sides. My
flanks heaved as I breathed between stripes, and I dripped with sweat. The
endorphins racing through my blood were so thick they were making me dizzy. I’d
moved away from the pain—as if I stood next to it somehow—and into
pleasure. My clit was throbbing, even though Zee had avoided all contact with
that area.

I lifted my eyes from
the floor. Something had happened, and I struggled to figure out what it is.

Oh. Zee had stopped.
Was he on a union break? Would he go have a coffee and a smoke and then come
back for more? I knew I couldn’t take much more of the pain, even though at
this moment, just for this second, I was resting in it.

Still on my tiptoes, I
could feel his heavy tread as he walked away. He crouched at Jake’s table and
said something. Jake nodded.

Another man in a thin
black business suit who looked like a concierge came up to me. I closed my eyes
for a second, hoping Jake wouldn’t take that moment to look at me. I braced for
what might be coming, biting my bottom lip, grateful that the heavy rubber
wasn’t in my mouth anymore.

Instead, though, the
man reached over my head, undoing something above me. He lowered the hook, and
he raised the rope at my wrists off and down, allowing me to bring my arms to
rest in front of me, leaving them still bound. I gasped, not expecting the
intensity of the pain in my shoulders—my muscles had stiffened into tight
knots with my arms over my head for so long. I wished he would take the
shackles off my feet, that he’d undo the rope at my hands, that he’d give me a
chance to stretch like I would at home to ease the pain. I could picture three
stretches I taught in my gym that would help me right now, could almost feel
the relief they would bring. But instead, the concierge said, “Don’t move.” I’d
been lifting one heel from the floor, putting all my weight on the other foot,
but I stopped, bring both heels together. I was almost used to the stilettos by
now. “Stay,” he said, in the tone he’d use to speak to a dog. I noticed for the
first time that I could hear a classical piece being played quietly overhead. A
Chopin nocturne, one of my favorites. I wondered if there had been music on the
whole time, and if my senses had been too overwhelmed to notice it until now.

I licked my lips and
looked up at the red velvet draped ceiling. My mouth still tasted of rubber.
I’d bitten the inside of my lip at some point during Zee’s whipping.

I’d been whipped.

In public.

While being
watched—well, watched might be overstating it since the card players were
serious—by men I didn’t know. Glancing briefly around the room, I
realized that there were a few women players, too. I hadn’t noticed them
before, but now I could feel their curious eyes on me. A redheaded woman met my
eyes. Emboldened by the relief from pain, I gazed back at her, admiring the way
her crimson lipstick matched her hair. Her eyes narrowed and flashed to Jake,
and belatedly, I knew I might have gotten it wrong. Shit.

There was a subtle
shift in the room. Men put their cards down as if they’d heard a silent
instruction to do so. I heard chairs shifting as weight was moved. The nocturne
was quieter now, or maybe it was the blood that was rushing in my ears that
made it seem as if they’d turned down the volume.

Jake stood.

All eyes turned to
him, including mine.

He came to me, and I
felt buoyed by relief. Jake was back.

He touched the side of
my face, caressing my cheek. Then he ran his thumb across my bottom lip and I
felt my fingers tremble. Maybe we’d go back to the hotel now. Maybe, just
maybe, we’d go to dinner together. I would order. For both of us. Losing
control was hot, yes. Getting it back would be even better. I leaned toward
him, hoping he could read in my eyes what I needed.

He smiled. I longed to
press my fingertips to that slight crease in his cheek, the one that deepened
into a dimple when he laughed.

“My sweet little
whore,” he said.

His hand went to his
belt.

My heart paused in its
beating, stuttering before starting up again. Was he going to hit me with his
belt? Would it hurt more because he wielded it? Less?

He kept going, undoing
his fly. Underneath he wore no boxers, no briefs. His cock came out and into
his hand. It was the first time I’d seen it, and holy hell. It was glorious.
Thick and heavily lined with ridged blue veins, just my first glance had me
even wetter than I’d been a second before. I could feel myself dripping down my
right thigh, a coolness remaining where the slick dripped.

In one swift,
startling move, he reached behind my head, gathering my hair into a tight
ponytail and pushed me downward. I landed unceremoniously on my knees. Without
giving me time to even take a breath, without letting go of his tight grip at
the back of my head, he used his thumb to open my jaw and rammed his cock down
my throat.

I gagged, immediately.
It was too much, too deep. I couldn’t breathe, and I panicked. I scooted
backward on my knees, trying to pull my head away.

Jake pulled out and
jerked my ponytail down so that my face rose to the ceiling. I met his eyes,
the panic still beating inside my rib cage.

“You will
not
pull away from me.”

With his free hand, he
lightly slapped my cheek.

“I repeat, you will
never
pull away from me,whore. Your mouth is mine to use any time, in any way that I
want. You will keep your throat open, and your teeth clear of my skin. If you
don’t, there will be severe repercussions.” He glanced around the room. “And I
love repercussions.” Quieter now, he said, “Don’t try me. We’re friends outside
of here. You can be the boss all you want. But here, you’re just a piece of sex
equipment.” He smiled again, that sweet, crooked smile, and I lost my breath.
“Now, open your beautiful mouth, slut. Take my cock. All of it.”

I opened my mouth.

This time he went
farther, hitting my uvula, drawing back, and then ramming himself in deeper.
Desperately, I tried to breathe evenly through my nose around his cock, but
when it filled my throat completely, no air could reach my windpipe. My eyes
watered and I concentrated on controlling my gag reflex by making a swallowing
motion with the back of my throat. When I did, I was astonished at how far he
was able to go. I’d given head before, sure, but I’d always used the
time-tested surefire combination of lips, tongue and wetted fingers. A little
tongue and a lot of rubbing got a guy to come without ever having to battle
this assault. Whenever I’d watched porn, I’d always wondered how those women
could take the whole cock into their mouths. Somehow I’d thought it was an
optical illusion of some sort. I didn’t believe in sword swallowing, either.
I’d accepted it as something I didn’t understand.

Now I understood. Jake
wasn’t fucking my mouth. He was fucking my throat.

As he rammed himself
in and out, using his hand fisted in my hair to slam my face against his
crotch, I got it. For the first time I realized what it felt like to be used.