Being so close to Bowser had a rather profound effect on my autonomic nervous system. It was not the intense, nuanced attraction I experienced toward Drix, but I did associate Bowser with pleasurable physical sensations, and I was failing so miserably at having fun that perhaps my body was a bit desperate for serotonin.
“Miles,” Bowser said as we walked. “It’s been a long time.” He wore black leather gloves and a lovely green sweater. Khakis, pressed and creased.
“Yes, well. I don’t go to dungeons much anymore.”
“You and Drix are . . .?”
“Doing fine. Yes. Thank you.” I always sounded snippy when I was anxious, and I wished I knew how to modulate my voice.
“I gotta admit, I was hoping I’d end up catchin’ you today.”
“Well. I don’t . . . I hardly think the whipping post will be my cup of tea. But if I had to be caught, I suppose I’m pleased it was you.”
He laughed his unnervingly deep laugh. “From you, that’s high praise.” We walked on. He stopped near a bush and took out a pocketknife. The sight of the knife stirred me into a nascent erection. Bowser had, in the past, used a scalpel on me to extremely gratifying effect. Had trained Drix in the art of cutting as well.
He carefully reached into the bush with his gloved hands and cut a fairly large section. I studied the soft, pointed green leaves and thick, hairy stem. Nettles.
He glanced at me. “What d’you think? I saw these earlier, and . . .”
My throat was dry. “Certainly. If you wish.” I kept walking, trying not to look at the mass of green in his arms. The nettles snagged at his sweater, pulling the emerald threads. I got harder.
It was startling, after spending time in the cool darkness of the woods, to emerge once more into the camp. The sun was appearing and disappearing behind clouds, and three of the six whipping posts were in use. I saw Girltoy on one, and two slaves I didn’t recognize on the others. The pen contained two dripping-wet slaves, and Regina was leaning on the gate, holding the hose and conversing with them while Bella monitored the posts.
“I do not wish to be placed in the paddock,” I informed Bowser tightly. “I’ll spend my half hour on the post and be done.”
“All right.” Bowser selected a post and set the nettles beside it. He grabbed a pair of cuffs and attached them to the post. Bella brought over my cards and my gear bag. This was all happening very fast, and I felt strange and not quite myself. Or perhaps too much myself—highly strung and terribly officious.
The truth was, I wanted Drix. I felt guilty about failing to listen to him last night when he’d told me about the deposition. I was sorry that I sometimes took him for granted, forgot that we were both new at love, and learning.
“Strip,” he said cheerfully.
I removed my clothes and protective eye gear and approached the post. Halted suddenly. “I’m nervous,” I admitted, surprising myself.
He stopped too, brow furrowing. “About being on the post?”
“No. No, not just that. I really . . . I’m concerned that I’ve not made clear to Drix how much I value his participation in my family,” I blurted, horrified that I was revealing this to Bowser of all people. And worse, I continued. “He essentially lives at my house, and yet I have not extended a formal invitation to him to move in.”
Bowser glanced at the cuffs. Sighed, then turned his attention back to me. “Would you rather not—”
“No. No.” I stepped forward and held out my wrists. “I apologize for what I’ve shared, and I wish to be at your mercy.”
He attached the cuffs to my wrists. There was something oddly poignant about the familiarity of the gesture. How many times had he strapped my wrists to his steel exam table, and then . . .
Goodness. How quickly my youth had vanished. I was happier at thirty—having a business and a child and a partner—than I had been as a questing twentysomething. But I supposed every now and again I thought how . . . permanent it all seemed, this life I had built. I’d settled into a version of myself that felt fairly safe but decidedly unextraordinary.
“So.” Bowser tightened the right wrist cuff. “Is there a reason you’ve been waiting to ask him?”
“I’m not sure.” I watched him pin my cards to the post. “My list of limits is quite extensive, I realize. But that was created with strangers in mind. You are welcome to perform an unlisted activity, since I trust you.”
“Ah. Thank you, Miles.” He grinned and crouched to open my gear bag.
“I suppose,” I said, as I watched him rummage, “that adopting my son was such a profound life event that I’m hesitant to make any other large-scale decisions for a while yet.”
“I heard you’d adopted.” Bowser nodded. “Had no idea you’d been plannin’ on it.”
Yes, well. I don’t exactly tell my play partners details of my private life. “It didn’t seem appropriate to discuss it.”
He took out a pack of black clothespins that had special holes drilled in them for zipper cords. “You do realize I’m willin’ to be your friend? You know?”
My balls tightened as he removed several pins from the package. “That’s very kind of you. But I believe being my friend requires a special level of endurance.”
He grinned, biting his lip. Pinched my left nipple and rolled it until it was hard, then attached a pin to it. “You’re not so bad.” He did the same with my right nipple.
The pain was just enough to heighten my senses. I exhaled.
He picked up the nettles and very casually swished them against my ass. The sting was immediate and invigorating. I tensed as my cock angled upward, the head slick. “I don’t even know for sure that he wants to move in with me. But it seems negligent of me not to even discuss it with him.”
Bowser shook the nettles between my legs, so the tiny needles snagged my balls. I hissed and threw my head back. He worked his way down my calves. “It couldn’t hurt to bring it up. Right? Tell him what your concerns are? Here, hold this between your legs.”
I moved my legs closer together, holding the mass of nettles between my inner thighs. The needles jabbed my scrotum and the base of my cock. I started to feel calmer as the pain grew. “The thing is, I’m not sure I really have concerns. Perhaps at this point I’m just so embarrassed about delaying that I don’t want to bring it up and discover he’s been hating me for months for not asking sooner.”
“He ain’t gonna hate you. You got some nice bumps back here.” Bowser ran a hand over my ass.
“Yes, I do swell a great deal in response to nettles.”
He began fastening clothespins in a line across the middle of my ass. These black pins had real bite to them—much more tension than the average wooden pin. I had to close my eyes to get a handle on the pain. “Oh, you’re good,” I whispered.
He quickly created a second line of pins a few inches below the first. I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth. My nipples were really starting to ache, and the chemicals from the nettles were making themselves felt in my thighs and balls.
He leaned down to search the bag again. “You got string?”
“Front compartment.” I faced the post. “There’s no doubt in my mind that I love him.”
“Well, then.”
“I know. I’m being an idiot.”
He found string and shears and cut two lengths of string. Removed his gloves and threaded each string through a line of pins. Then he returned to the pin package and made another row across the top of my ass. That area—the crest of my ass—was the most sensitive. The smart there was high-pitched, agitating. My cock seemed to pulse, and there was a heat between my legs that was due to more than the nettles.
Perhaps being up on the post wasn’t quite as ridiculous as I’d imagined it would be. In fact, I was feeling very captive, and it was quite wonderful. A few people had come over to watch, and I felt . . . hot. He cut more string and threaded it through the top row. I shifted, and the nettles bit harder into my thighs.
“Nice,” Bowser said, stepping back. He found a two-foot Delrin cane in my bag. That thing stung like nothing else in the world. This would be good. Excellent. Fun. The sort of pain that would take me out of my head.
I missed Drix even more terribly. This rush of emptiness and need and regret. It should be you. You hurting me. And it should be you, sharing my home.
“My house has just always been mine,” I said quietly.
“Aw.” He tapped the cane between the top and middle lines of pins. “It’ll still be yours. Yours and his.”
I flexed my wrists in the cuffs. “Perhaps I have been unwittingly leaving space for my feelings for him to change. But they’re not going to.” I paused. “I have a gift basket for you, by the way. My bounty. It’s some tea and fruit. Maybe some chocolates.”
“That’s sweet. Now hold still. This is gonna hurt.”
Bless the man.
He drew the cane back, and with a flick of his wrist, landed it hard between the first two rows of clothespins. An absolute fire rose in my body, and I clenched my legs hard around the nettles, letting the pain carry me off.
“I’m going to tell him,” I declared when I could speak again. “I’m going to tell him as soon as I see him.”
“That’s the spirit.” Bowser positioned the cane between the middle and bottom rows. Landed it with a crack that echoed across camp.
I couldn’t breathe for several long seconds. The sting pushed bile into my throat, ignited already-crackling nerves.
Finally, I inhaled with a croak. Punched the post with one cuffed hand. “Oh, Mary, mother of God. We are having fun now. Whoo!”
He drew the cane back to hit me again.