He touched my bottom lip and his finger came back bloody. I just covered my eyes with my hands and cried quietly, no sound coming out of my mouth, not wanting to look in his eyes because I just lost it. It didn’t hurt that much – not really. It was just so intense, the way I felt. I couldn't explain it. I had to cry as if some kind of dam had burst within me and I had to let the emotions out.

He pulled me into his arms and kissed my shoulder, stroking my hair and I knew he felt truly bad about my lip, even thought it wasn't really his fault. Then he pulled back, removed my hands from my eyes, and shook his head softly.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You were too strong and I went a bit too far, waiting for you to make a sound to indicate you'd reached your limit." His face was ashen, his brow furrowed as he touched my lip. Then he leaned in and kissed me, taking my bottom lip between his, licking off my blood.  Then he pressed my head to his shoulder and spoke to those who stood there watching.

"This slave was trying so hard not to use the safe word that she bit her own lip, drawing blood. Drawing blood is one of my hard limits and hers, so I inadvertently crossed it. This was a mistake on my part, and is due to my failure to recognize how stubborn she is and what a high pain threshold she has. We're still getting to know each other. Don't let your position as Dominant or Master prevent you from apologizing when you recognize you've crossed a line or performed inexpertly. It's the only way to regain your slave's trust."

Then he pulled me back from his shoulder and wiped my cheeks with his fingers, so tenderly, that it succeeded in calming me. He really did regret what happened.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "It won't happen again."

Then he pressed my cheek once more against his shoulder. He picked me up in his arms, and carried me over to the Attendant.

"Can you clean off the equipment for me?" Drake said, his voice soft.

"Certainly, Master D. Do you need a private room?"

"Yes," Drake said. "Preferably one with a bathroom."

I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to see other people and how they responded to the little drama playing out before their eyes.

Soon, Drake carried me up the central staircase to a second-floor bedroom that looked like it belonged in some grand mansion in Florence instead of Yonkers, the carpets thick, the walls covered in rich brocade, the bed enormous. Drake carried me into a small bathroom and sat me on the vanity. I grimaced because my ass was tender but as he'd said to those watching the spanking, the small bit of discomfort would remind me that I'd been punished.

He ran some water and wet a washcloth with cold water, pressing it against my bottom lip for a moment.

"I'm fine," I said when he pulled the cloth away, a tiny bit of blood still on it. "Master."

"You're strong-willed," he said. "Stronger than I knew. I never wanted you to be scarred because of anything we did together, Kate. I never want to draw blood."

"Master, it's just a bit of skin I pulled off. It won't scar."

He pulled me into his arms and I slipped my arms around his neck, my tears stopped now, just a strange sense of calm descending over me.

He moved back and looked me in the eyes. "Do you want to go home now? Or do you want to stay? You've barely seen anything."

"Let's stay," I said, drawing in a deep breath. "If it pleases you, Master," I added quickly, making a face and tapping my head lightly with a fist. "I want to see the dungeon if you want to take me there."

"Are you sure?" he said, his expression now doubtful. "When we first met, I thought it would be good for your 'research' but now, I'm not so sure you'll enjoy it. Things can get pretty intense. There are people who do want to draw blood, Kate. Who do want to feel pain and administer pain. People will be fucking. It can be upsetting to you if you’re not used to it."

"Whatever you think, Master. I trust you to know what I should do."

He nodded, just staring at me for a moment as if deciding.

"Maybe it would be good to go down there for a short while, just so you can satisfy your curiosity. But I may only go in a bit deep. Not to the really intense places."

"You're scaring me, Master."

"I don't intend to. Just want you to be prepared for what you'll see."

"I trust you, Master."

"I value your trust, Katherine. I take your trust in me very seriously."

Then he kissed me, softly, and stroked my cheek with the backs of his fingers, touched my bottom lip. 

He pulled me off the vanity and we made our way back down to the main floor, walking through those assembled to watch various displays and demonstrations of technique. A few people nodded to Drake as we passed but didn’t speak to him. It was all very respectful.

We descended a wide staircase to the basement and immediately the atmosphere changed. The basement was dark and made of old brick and had a cold-sweat feel to it like in a cave. Some heavy bass-filled electronic music played in the background, its beat insistent. Dubstep. I recognized it – Trolley Snatcha by The Future. It was probably the only Dubstep tune I knew. When I lived in residence at Columbia, one of my roommates played it endlessly.

The lighting was subdued and there were imitation torches on the walls, flickering with an eerie light that I knew was electric rather than a flame. But the effect was the same. A bit spooky and definitely darkly sexual.

The basement was divided into room-like spaces. Each room was open to a central aisle. Inside each room was some kind of apparatus and people inside using it to inflict various forms of pain or pleasure on each other. People down here were all dressed – or undressed – for the atmosphere. Leather, latex, rubber. They wore and used chains, masks, ball gags, spreader bars. There were whips and floggers of every design on boards, and over the sound of the music, I heard the crackle of electricity and turned, looking for the sound.

"Electricity, Master?"

"Yes," he said, his voice low. He squeezed my hand. "We won't go there."

We walked around a crowd watching a scene, threading through people who stood and watched, Doms with their subs on leashes, some kneeling at the Dom's feet, watching the events transpire inside the rooms.

In one room, a twenty-something male sub with short spiky white-blond hair was standing in the center of the room, his hands bound to hooks in the ceiling, his legs spread with a spreader bar. His testicles were imprisoned in some kind of cage-like structure and he was being struck on the ass and back with a flogger. His bald-headed older Dominant dressed all in black leather stood behind him, whispering something into the sub's ear every few strikes. The sub had a huge erection, obviously turned on by what was happening to him.

I was shocked by the explicitness of the scene, and everyone watched like we were children watching something we weren't supposed to.

"…not allowed to come until I give you permission…" I managed to hear the Dominant say.

Drake and I stopped for a moment and he stood behind me. "Cock and ball torture," he whispered in my ear. "I can feel myself shrink just watching it."

I smiled, thinking of him shrinking. It was clear that the sub enjoyed what was happening. He had a huge erection, and I suspected he was close to orgasm by how rigid he was, the way his face was red, his breathing fast.

Drake took me to a room where a Domme was busy flogging her male submissive, who was bent over, his hands and feet in manacles. It was then I realized she was Lara – Mistress Lara.

Sadist.

"Master, that's Lara."

"Shh," he whispered in my ear. "Remember your manners. She's in scene right now. Don't distract her. I said she might be here."

"Sorry, Master. That's Mistress Lara." I watched her, fascinated. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a high ponytail. Her submissive wore only a leather jock strap and leather boots, a ball gag in his mouth. She stood behind him and lazily slapped his bare ass with the flogger. It was as if she couldn't really be bothered to flog him with any focus.

"Why does she look so bored?"

Drake stood behind me, his arms around my waist. "He's likely into humiliation as well as pain and submission. She's humiliating him by appearing as if she doesn't really care. It's what he likes and needs."

The sub's ass was getting progressively redder as she flogged him with a bit more gusto.

"You. Are. A. Worm," she said, her voice derisive, punctuating each stroke with a word. "You should be wriggling on the ground at my feet, slave."

I turned to Drake. "He likes that, Master?"

"Oh, yes. He's actually a very hot-shot fund manager by day, but in private, he likes to submit."

"She did that to you, Master?"

He smiled. "Yes. I never intended to use these kinds of techniques, but she wanted to see if there was a sadist in me – or a masochist. There wasn't."

As we watched, Lara bent over her sub and spoke to him, whispering in his ear. His ass was thoroughly red. Then she went around beside him and picked up a cane. She ran the cane she held in her hand over his ass, trailing it between his ass cheeks before striking him several times, leaving long streaks across it.

We left Lara's scene and went to another room where a man dressed in leather chaps was busy fucking a woman suspended from a hook in the ceiling, her hands in cuffs above her head, her feet in straps also attached to the ceiling. She wore a blindfold and had a ball-gag in her mouth. I was fascinated with that scene for it was the least violent. It was pure sex, bondage and leather. This I could get into, but then I saw her ass, it was as streaked red. I saw several implements lying on the table next to the wall – floggers, riding crops, canes, tawses. The Dominant was ramming into her, hard, his hands on her hips, pulling her to him with each thrust.

Drake stood behind me, one hand on my belly, the other wrapped around me and resting on my neck as if measuring my pulse and respirations. I knew he was monitoring my response to what I saw, trying to understand what aroused me, what repelled me.

"You like this scene," he whispered in my ear. "Your pulse just increased, your breathing is more shallow. If I slipped my fingers between your lips, you'd be nice and wet. Do you want to try this one day?"

"Yes, Master," I said, butterflies in my stomach. "Except for the ball gag and the cane."

He squeezed me. I held his hands, which were now clasped around my waist.

"What do you think of all this, Katherine?"

"I think that these people need each other, Master," I said, somewhat saddened that they felt a need for pain, but whatever the reason they did, it pleased them. I liked watching. It aroused me, even when there was pain involved. Drake was one of these people. Maybe our kinks weren't so intense as theirs. Maybe neither of us liked pain or needed it, giving or receiving. But we needed submission and dominance. We needed what each other gave.

"I need you," I said quietly, realizing that I was one of these people, like Drake said. He kissed my neck.

"I think it's time to go back upstairs," he said, his voice a bit husky.

"Yes, Master."

 

He took me back up the stairs out of the darkness with its heavy scent of sweat and sex and other aromas I couldn't name, but would forever be associated in my mind with dungeons. We passed through the bright salon where couples stood and watched demonstrations of various techniques, and through the next room with darker lighting, where people danced to a VJ playing some Latin music, a video being projected on a wall, a mirror ball spinning, casting the room in thousands of sparkles.

We stopped at the edge of the dance floor and Drake took me in his arms and started to dance, placing one of my hands on his hip and the other on his shoulder while he held my hips. We swayed together for a few moments, him smiling down at me.

"Drake Morgan, MD," I said, smiling back at him. "I didn't know you could dance, Master."

"Oh, I have been known to cut a rug from time to time."

"Cut a rug?"

He laughed. "It's an old term for dance."

 I realized as he led me around the dance floor for a few moments, smiling broadly, that I loved it when Drake smiled. His face lit up, and it seemed all the cares fell away and he was happy. It made me happy to see him so relaxed.

The next song was slow, something from the big band era I didn't recognize, and we just melted together, my arms around his neck, his around my waist, my head on his shoulder, his face in my neck. I loved the feel of his body against mine, how warm he was, his body so strong, reassuring. I felt totally safe here, at this high-roller BDSM party where people drew blood, electrocuted each other, and struck each other with whips and paddles. Drake made me feel safe. I felt as if I could do anything with him, give up total control to him, and he'd know what to do. Yes, he had gone a bit too far with the spanking, but it was my fault, trying to go beyond my own limits to please him, despite it upsetting me too much. It wasn't really his fault that I bled. I was determined to beat him in the game of how much could I take and how much was he willing to give.

"Ms. Bennet, I think I want to fuck you now," he whispered in my ear. His words sent a shock of lust through me, and I emerged from this sweet dreamlike state I'd been in from slow dancing with him.

"Yes, Master," I said, my voice breathless. He took my hand and led me out of the ballroom and to the staircase, back to the bedroom assigned to us. He pulled me over to the bed and practically threw me onto it, and I laughed as I bounced and he climbed on top of me, a smile on his face.

I waited to see what he'd do to me, my hands above my head, him between my spread thighs. He just rested on his hands above me and his gaze moved over me, from my face and lower. Then he bent down and kissed the tops of my breasts, which bulged out over the bodice.

"You look delectable."

He pulled the leather bodice down just a bit so that my nipples poked out over the edge and then he began to suck and nibble them, sending delicious chills through my body straight to my groin.

"Master," I said, my eyes closed as he sucked and licked my breasts. "Are you going to tie me up?"

"Shh," he said and sucked one nipple into his mouth, his tongue circling the areola. I groaned and arched my back, pressing my breast into him.  "A slave doesn't ask what her Master has planned. She just waits. But I think I'm going to just fuck you missionary style tonight."

I frowned, wanting to see how being surrounded by all the kink would affect him. I thought it would make him more intense, maybe trying things with me that he hadn't yet. Instead, he wanted to fuck me vanilla? I bit my lip, holding back my protest.

"Don't do that," he said, touching my mouth. "Kate, you just have to let me decide how I want to fuck you. It shouldn't be your concern. You're going to come one way or the other, so leave this up to me. Do you understand?"

I nodded and let my mouth fall open slightly. "Yes, Master. I'm sorry. I just thought…"

"When we're in scene, don't think of anything but pleasing me. If it pleases me to fuck you missionary style, it should please you to comply."

I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes. "Yes, Master. I apologize but I just can't help but be curious why. I thought at a BDSM party…"

He didn't say anything for a while, and even though my eyes were closed, I could almost feel his eyes on my face, his expression so intense.

"I like contrasts and appreciate irony, Kate. Downstairs, everyone's busy getting their kink on, and here we are, fucking like a pair of ordinary lovers."

I opened my eyes and stared into his for a moment. Was he saying that's what he wanted? That's how he felt about me? Just ordinary lovers?

"So this is an ironic fuck, Master?" I said, unable to keep a grin from starting.

He grinned widely, his eyes crinkling, a mischievous look on his face. "Very ironic. How transgressive are we to fuck like this at this party? Now shh and spread your legs wide like a good vanilla girl."

Then, he very deliberately and very slowly began to seduce me with his touch and his mouth and his words, whispering in my ear how much he wanted me, what he would do to me. I didn't think it would be as intense as if I was bound and helpless, but it was in its own way. He undressed me slowly, removing the dress and the garter belt and hose, and I was surprised. I thought he'd want to keep them on, given he liked the look of them and how leather smelled when warm. But he seemed to want me completely naked instead.

Then he undressed as well and lay between my legs, fully naked, his thick erection pressed into my groin. He took his time, working me up with his fingers and his tongue, exploring every part of my body, so that I was aching with need. Then, he pulled me on top of him so that I lay with him between my thighs.

"Seduce me now," he said and closed his eyes. So I did, repeating exactly what he did to me, using my mouth and tongue and fingers, rubbing myself against him shamelessly, shoving my breasts in his face, my hair trailing down his body as I placed a trail of kisses down his belly and began teasing him, breathing on him, slowly licking him all over before sucking him into my mouth, my hands cupping his scrotum.

By the time it came to actual fucking, I was so ready, my face heated, my thighs quivering as he entered me, working me up in his way, stroking me with the head of his cock, and it didn't take long before I was ready.

"Master, I'm going to…"

But he didn't stop. He just kept on with what he was doing.

"Look in my eyes," he said, holding my face in his hands. I could barely keep them open, but did. "Say my name."

When my orgasm started, he just fucked me missionary style until I cried out, his name instead of Master on my lips.

He came as well in a few strokes, his face red with effort, then his jaw slack, his eyes half-lidded as his orgasm started, ramming himself into me with each spasm. He collapsed onto me and panted in my ear for a moment, then kissed my neck. I couldn't help but smile.

He pulled back and saw my smile and smiled himself, a trickle of sweat on his forehead.

"So?" he said, raising his eyebrows, grinning like a fool. "How was vanilla ice cream without any chocolate sauce and whipped cream tonight? Good enough?"

"More than good enough, in case you didn't notice, Master."

He bent down and kissed my throat.

Then he couldn't resist and sat up between my thighs and spread my legs wide so he could watch his come drip out of me.

I covered my face to stop my smile.

"What are you smiling about, Ms. Bennet?" he said and I could hear the amusement in his voice. "The fact I can't deny at least one of my kinks?"

I opened my hands and watched him as he cocked his head to the side, admiring his artwork.

He glanced back to my face, and smiled and his smile did something to me. I can't describe it, or explain it. Whatever it was we thought we'd be to each other, I felt as if that had been passed, surmounted, overcome. What we became I wasn't sure, but I knew the agreement was pretty much thrown out the window.

If Drake realized it, he didn't seem to care.