“Twelve guns?” Kel tapped her clipboard with her pen.
I did a quick recount of the paintball guns. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“Thirty-five pairs of goggles?”
I tried to recount, but got distracted by the collapsible dog run Greg was setting up near the snack table, and by my embarrassing desire to be in there. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“And the posts have all been tested again?”
“Yeah, Greg said he tried them.” No response. I snapped back to attention, and my face heated. “I mean, Greg said yes, Ma’am.”
She looked up and tilted her head, a faint smile on her face. I dropped my gaze and stared at the patches of dry, brown grass amid the green. At my bare feet, then up my hairy legs to my dick just visible under the swell of my belly. I was going to be allowed clothes for the hunt, but right now I was naked and shrinkage was a thing.
When Kel didn’t speak, I forced my gaze up again.
She crooked one finger.
I walked toward her, my heart thudding. She could make time stand still. She could draw moments like this out indefinitely, could make me feel like I was trapped in the fog of a dream. Dave made fun of me for how dramatic and fucking flowery I got about submitting, but I couldn’t help myself. When I did this shit, I wanted to feel like I was doing something epic.
I knelt at her feet. Stared at the toes of her black leather boots, imagining being flat on the ground, one of those boots on the back of my head, pressing my face into the dirt. I breathed in the cool morning air and let my breath out slowly. Waited, every nerve ready, hoping she’d touch me.
First it was just a finger on the thin steel band around my neck. She traced the collar, brushing the skin below my hairline. I tensed, and then my eyes closed as her thumb drifted from the collar down, the side of her nail passing lightly between my shoulders, sending a buzz of pleasure to my brain.
She tugged on my collar.
Slowly I raised my head. She put the edge of her clipboard in my mouth, and I held it in my teeth as she withdrew her hand. The board was heavy, made my jaw ache. I tightened my grip, my upper teeth sinking into the pages of her checklist. She set the pen on the board, which wavered a little, and I lifted my chin to keep it steady.
She slapped my face. Not very hard, and she was careful, as always, about where she hit. The pen slid across the papers, but didn’t fall. I started breathing more quickly, my cheek throbbing.
She placed her hand on my head. Stroked my hair for a while, and I slipped under, listening to the birds, to Greg singing Queen as he put up the slave hunt banner between two trees. After a moment, she took the board from my mouth and ran her thumb along my cheek. Kel-speak for Well done. I moved my tongue around, trying to get rid of the taste of clipboard, then went still as she dug her fingers deep into my mess of curly hair and massaged my scalp.
I closed my eyes for a few seconds. “I’m not gonna be able to think.”
“Hmm?”
“I need to strategize, and you’re making my brain not work.”
She stepped closer to me, and I leaned my head against her thigh. She whispered, “I think you want to get caught today.”
I shook my head, laughing softly. Pressed harder against her denim-covered thigh and flicked some grass off her boot. “No, Ma’am. I want to win.”
“Mmm.” She ran her fingers down the back of my neck again.
Part of me did want to win. Because if the object of the game was to prevent myself from getting captured, then I wanted to do that. Wanted to get it right. But another part of me wanted so fucking badly to get caught. Wanted to be taunted, dragged back to camp, chained to the post, completely at the mercy of anyone who walked by. I imagined Kel watching me suffer at the hands of strangers—okay, most of the hunters weren’t strangers, but that actually made it worse—and doing nothing to help me.
“I don’t believe you.” She let the words out like a sigh.
I hesitated. “If you told me to win, I would, Master.”
She’d been waiting for that, and so had I. I loved calling her “Master,” but I found honorifics kind of silly in general, and I was a little afraid the word would lose its power if I used it too often.
She glanced around. Unbuttoned her jeans and jerked the zipper down. Immediately, I rose on my knees and clasped my hands behind my back. She tugged her pants down below her hips.
Purple briefs. Thighs wide and pale and covered in light, downy hair, goose bumps already forming from the morning chill. I kissed her right thigh gently, then her left. Closed my eyes and nuzzled her cotton underwear, breathing her in. Rubbed my cheek against the stubble of her bikini line, enjoying the scratch. She twisted my hair around her fingers and forced my head forward. I licked the fabric; licked it again and again, until I could taste salt through the cotton. Until I found the spot that made her gasp and tighten her grip on my hair.
“Take them down.”
I opened my eyes. Took the waistband in my teeth and started to ease her underwear down, her pubic hair coarse against my nose.
She smacked my shoulder. “Hurry up.”
My dick swelled and my balls tightened. I tugged on the elastic, adjusting my grip a couple of times to get it over her hips and ass, and then she shoved my head between her legs. I lapped at her clit, ignoring the pain in my scalp as she yanked my hair. She rubbed against me until my face was wet and I was panting, struggling to balance without the use of my arms.
I heard the high-pitched, breathy cries that meant she was close, and I slid my tongue back and forth over hair and skin, dipping between folds and trying to tilt my head to get my tongue inside her. But she wrenched my hair again and held me still while she took what she needed, my head clamped between her thighs, her cunt hot and slick as she rubbed it over my face. Her breath hitched several times, and she finally let out a long sigh. Gave my hair one last twist and then let go, pushing me away.
I steadied myself. Lifted my hand to wipe my face, then stopped. We’d been honing our protocol lately at public events, and I wasn’t sure I had permission to clean myself off.
Somebody whistled nearby, and I jerked my head around.
Greg was standing a few feet away. The bastard. I hadn’t even heard him come up. I grinned at him.
He grinned back. “Didn’t want to interrupt.”
“Jesus.” Kel pulled up her pants and buttoned them. She glanced down at me and then threw a nod toward Greg. “Can you believe this joker? Spying on us in the woods?”
I shook my head. “I can’t.” We weren’t technically in the woods—we were in a meadow at the edge of the woods—but hey.
“What a lech.”
“Such a lech.”
“We ought to test a whipping post out by tying him to it.”
I nodded. “Good plan.”
“Hey,” Greg protested. “If you came across a show like that, wouldn’t you watch?”
Kel walked over to him and kissed him. “Snacks set up?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“You’re the best.”
“I know.”
“Are you gonna make the rules speech? Or am I?”
“You’re in charge.”
She swatted his ass. “Did you text Bella and Reg?”
“They’re on their way.” He gripped her upper arms gently. “Everything’s under control.”
She gripped his arms too, and they shook each other, making noises like they were being electrocuted. “I’m nervous,” she admitted, letting him go.
“It’s gonna be great,” I told her. “People are so excited about this.” They really were. Over the past few months, Kel had put me in charge of some Riddle-related things, including answering emails. People were pumped about the slave hunt.
She smiled a little. “Yeah? People seem excited. I just really want it to go well.”
You could say what you wanted about Kel—and people did—but she genuinely cared about our community. I didn’t doubt that, even after everything that had happened. She and Greg had worked and saved for years to open Riddle. And it had only been open a year and a half when my best friend and former boyfriend, Hal, had died there while doing a breath-play scene with an inexperienced dom named Bill Henson.
I’d hated Bill—still did. And it had been a multiyear struggle for me to reconcile Kel and Greg’s kindness toward me after Hal’s death—and my growing attraction to them—with how angry I’d been with them for giving Bill a second chance. But now here we were. Nearly four years later, Kel was my master, and Greg her second-in-command. Riddle’s membership was back up, and people seemed, for the most part, to have moved on.
I was still working on that part.
Greg brushed her hair back behind her shoulders. “It’ll go so well people will demand a hunt every weekend.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Once we figure out the best way to do it, we could do a couple a year. Maybe make one a foxhunt.”
“Yep.”
She pecked him on the cheek and slapped his shoulder lightly. “You should have Gould do your boots. We’ve got time. Kit’s under the table.”
Greg pulled up a chair but didn’t sit. He glanced at me. “Come here. Bring the kit.”
I crawled to the equipment table and grabbed the boot blacking kit from our bag. Started toward him.
He snapped his fingers.
I stopped and looked at him.
“Clean your face.” He nodded at the ground. I stopped. Leaned down and wiped my face on the grass. I could feel dirt clinging around my mouth, and my cheeks grew hot as I lifted my head. Then I crawled the rest of the way to him, set the kit on the ground, and clasped my hands behind my back. Bent forward until my forehead touched his right boot. I kissed the leather; did the same with the left.
“Thank you.” He took a seat.
I picked up the kit and went to work.
It was a quiet, familiar routine. I’d been working on proper boot-blacking technique for a few months now, and I liked the rhythm of it, liked listening to Greg and Kel talk while I worked.
“So we ended up with thirty-three participants total,” Kel was saying. Twenty slaves and thirteen hunters.”
“Not bad,” Greg replied.
“It might have been dumb to offer such a big prize to the hunter who bags the most prey. What if everyone spends the whole time out in the woods and no one stays at the whipping posts?”
Greg snorted. “I’ve told you, you’re underestimating how many exhibitionists we have. People are gonna want to play. If anything, we’ll have problems keeping the hunters in the woods, and we’ll have to give a ton of gift cards to slaves.” He shifted his foot slightly. I started over again with the polish.
He extended his right leg lazily and pressed the toe of his boot against my balls. I tried to keep working, but as the pressure built, I paused to catch my breath. He laughed. “Too much?”
I closed my eyes briefly as he pressed harder. Pain shot through my gut. “Please, sir,” I said unsteadily.
“Please what?”
“Please, sir, have . . . have mercy.”
For the first year I’d played with them, they’d accepted that I didn’t like to talk during scenes. Didn’t like to ask for what I wanted, didn’t like to protest when something wasn’t what I wanted. It was part of the reason I’d wanted to become a slave—I didn’t want choices; I just wanted to accept what they gave me. But once we’d started a 24/7 relationship, they’d cracked down on my unwillingness to communicate. Greg’s new thing was making me beg. Making me beg for specific things.
The have mercy stuff played to one of my favorite fantasies: begging and being ignored. Greg would make me plead for what I wanted, but I never knew what his answer would be.
He locked eyes with me. “Not yet.” He pressed harder.
My eyes watered. I was too proud, too used to being silent to beg again. But the pain increased, and finally the words burst out of me. “Please, please, sir. Mercy.” I panted. “M-mercy.”
He took his foot off my balls. “Since you asked so nicely.” He ruffled my hair.
“It’s almost eight.” Kel grabbed a couple of wipes from a canister on the snack table and cleaned my face. She removed my collar and put it in our gear suitcase, then held out my Mount Rushmore boxers, and I stepped in. Even after more than two years of playing together, during which I’d endured countless humiliations, I still had trouble letting her dress me. I didn’t know why, but for some reason, having someone else put my clothes on me was embarrassing beyond words.
Jeans next. She slapped my stomach when I tried to suck it in. Snapped and zipped the pants, then pointed to my sneakers. I put them on. She handed me my shirt.
When I straightened, she pointed to the ground. “I’d like you on all fours until the hunt begins.”
I’d kind of figured, but the words still gave me a jolt. I’d be on all fours in front of my friends.
Which I was one hundred percent ready for.
Absolutely.
Not.
“Yes, Master.” I lifted my chin and touched my lips to hers. The kiss grew deeper, until I started to sink into the joy of it, the perfect warmth that came from trusting her. I was hers to use and to command, but I also existed to protect her, care for her, give her anything she needed. She threaded her fingers under my shirt collar and pressed her tongue deep into my mouth. Took her time, holding me in place while she moved her tongue gently in and out, sweeping it over mine. I moaned softly, and she hesitated, then smiled against my lips. Drew back, her eyes still shut. She opened her eyes and gazed at me. “One more thing.”
I waited.
“Don’t get caught today.”
“Master?”
She stroked my cheek. Leaned slightly forward as though she might kiss me again, but stopped before her lips met mine. “I expect my slave to win. If you don’t, in addition to whatever you’re given on the whipping post, you’ll take an additional punishment from me later. Understand?” She nuzzled my ear and then stepped back.
My face and chest flushed.
She knew exactly how to play me. There was nothing I wanted more than to please her, obey her. There was nothing that embarrassed me more than failing her. If she told me to win today, I’d do everything in my power to win. And if I failed, it would make my time on the post that much more humiliating.
The problem was that I wanted to be tortured by strangers.
So now I had a choice: Did I obey her and try my hardest to win? Or try less hard and . . . win torture by strangers?
I would obey her. Of course I would. She was my master.
But . . .
Maybe I’d try my hardest, and some very skilled hunter would just happen to shoot me . . .
“Gould?”
I gave her what I hoped was a casual smile. “Yes, Master. Of course.”