Begging

Author's Note: This one runs more along the sadist and masochist relationship description. There are some things like needle play and hook suspension described in it, there's emotional masochism, harder pain play styles, bondage, and it's predominantly a M/f story. I hope you have fun and enjoy!

Devi

"You ready, Dev?"

I laughed on the medical table, my eyes closed against the rising terror in my throat. I'd had 15 piercings by that point and, amazingly, the terror of needles somehow never got easier. I kept expecting myself to get desensitized or to get used to this, but I never did. I had a phobia that made panic rise in my throat every time, made my heart race and made my palms tingle with sweat. And this was the worst piercing yet, or so I'd heard. "No! Okay, yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Just do it."

Morgan Rede and his tattoo artist of a wife had gotten very used to my presence in his shop. Every so often, my world would become overwhelmed with stress and it would feel like everything was spinning out of control, so I'd get the itch to get a new piercing or tattoo. I could do the piercings a little more spur of the moment, but I always put more thought and care into my tattoos. My body was a canvas and I wanted it to be a good one, so I'd started spending a lot of time with Morgan. "Okay, you know how this goes. Just take a breath. We'll do this fast together. Forceps, needle, ring. Breathe through my counts to three."

I grinned in terror, waiting for him to start, my heart in my throat. My eyes were squeezed shut and exhilaration made me feel like I could fly with the thrill. "One." I took a staggered breath. "Two." I gasped, whimpered, but breathed. "Three."

The forceps on my septum made my eyes snap open and tears sprang to them. I shook with terror when I saw the needle, but Morgan was so good at what he did. He punched the needle through quickly and I squeaked in shocked pain, a mouse-like sound that made me blush. He rapidly held the hollow point and fit the piercing through so that I flinched at a pinching sensation.

And that was it. It was over. My heart still hammered and there was a dazed after effect from the sheer rush of my own personal fear. A shudder ran through my body and I stared at Morgan, wide eyed.

He laughed because he knew me well enough to know that I was alright, that I was just riding a wave. It was a reason why I got along well Morgan and Trish. They both understood my thing, weird as it was. Oh, they didn't have the same reactions as they were both on different sides of the kink spectrum, but they got it and they never judged. "Here you go. How's that?" He held up the mirror and I took it, then grinned with a delighted laugh.

"That's awesome! Thank you, Morgan!" Euphoria was rocking me, the release after the rush. Everyone always warned that tattoos and piercings were addictive but they weren't kidding. They were so addictive. "Hey, I have a curiosity question. Do you know anyone who does body modification work?"

He nodded easily. "Yeah. Trish and I both do. What did you have in mind?"

"I want to be branded." Okay, this wasn't the real fantasy, but I didn't think I would ever get the atmosphere I wanted with my brand fantasy. Hell, even getting one was a stretch for a few reasons.

"Ah." He gave me an apologetic look. "Well, okay. So there's a problem with that. A few legal problems, for instance." I nodded because I knew that. This was something I'd wanted for a long time now and I was dead set on getting it, even if I couldn't get it quite the way I wanted. "But we do live in a large city, so if you're really wanting it then you could probably find someone to hurt you in any way you like here. The problem is, and it's kind of a key problem, if they'll do it safely and how much it'll cost. I have an idea though, if you're willing to explore some fringe edges and places with Trish and I."

"I want it. I really want it, Morgan. Tell me what to do, please." I gave him my most pleading eyes, my puppy dog ones. In the wake of the adrenaline rush, I was just bold enough to beg for it. Morgan and Trish had already introduced me to my fetish club of choice, I was getting out more, meeting new people and I was eager to keep going, especially if it meant I could get something even kind of, sort of close to my dream.

The truth was I had this fantasy of being tied down, naked, and a masked person taunting me with heated iron. I had this fantasy of whimpering and then feeling the sizzle of flesh with a kajira kef being branded into me, marking me for what I was. Of course, I'd also had a fantasy of being tethered while I shivered in terror when someone pierced my clitoral hood and I had had to settle for professional on that as well. It was both exhilarating and disappointing, but it was what I burned to have. So I would settle for professional on the brand too, so long as I could get one.

Morgan's idea turned out to be really awesome. He and Trish talked with me when she finished a tattoo session and he showed me videos of this thing called body suspension. Eight gauged needles were pierced through the back, or other body parts, of a model and then they were used to suspend them. In some of the videos he showed me, there was blood. In some, the model swung on the hooks while someone pushed her. In others, they took a chain and swung themselves. My blood raced at the thought of all of them. As soon as I saw it, I felt this kind of lust for it, this eager dread for the thrill and how terrible it would be to feel the sharp pain and then to fly so high while my flesh was tugged. I looked at Trish shyly while she watched and laughed. Trish had taken to me a while ago and she seemed to think of me in the same way she might think of a little pet. She had this strange form of affection for how reckless I was, how playful I was even while I was also hiding a hard fucking masochistic core. She loved how I wore pigtails and masturbated to Buffy fanfictions involving Angelus torturing Drusilla to madness.

"What do you think, Devi? We might not know someone who will give you the brand, but we can find out together there, if you're game. We're all friends, if not acquaintances, in that circle and I know one of them will either be willing to do it or will know someone who will."

Alright, now I was three potential degrees away from maybe, possibly getting what I wanted. Which probably meant I had less degrees of separation between myself and Kevin Bacon. But I was game anyway because life was about the journey and not the destination. "Let's do it. Name the time and place!"

"We'll get in touch with some of the other piercers and send it to you, kitty cat."

In the meantime, I stayed around the shop and neither Morgan nor Trish minded. By that point, I was counted as one of their friends and Trish thought I was someone to take under her wing and protect. She had made it clear that she thought I had a personality that would be easy to hurt. Which was probably true. Okay, it was definitely true and I had definitely been hurt and abused in some probably terrible ways, but I had some funny stories from it. There's a bright side to everything in life really. Even fear, as awful of an emotion as it could be, had its fun parts.

I was a slave to fear, if I'm being honest with myself. I was terrified of everything from butterflies to the dark to the cartoon version of Ichabod Crain. And somewhere along the way while living with all of that fear, I had started to get off on it. Which was probably good, since the only other option was agoraphobia.

When I got home that night, my new septum ring was still fairly sore and when I lay down in bed, my body pulsed with pleasant aftershocks from my terror rush of the needles. I closed my eyes and imagined the piercing had been a different story. I imagined myself in a dungeon, a cold and dark place where I was naked and shivering in terror. I pictured a shadowy masked stranger that came to my prison cell and pulled me up by my hair while I struggled. Maybe he would slap me or roughly grab me by my throat in threat when I resisted, so that I would cry miserably. And he would drag me and chain my arms behind me, chain me by a high collar to the wall so that my head would be forced up. I imagined myself squealing in terror while he applied the forceps... and I orgasmed to the memory of the needle punching through my nose, gasping in dark frenzy.

————

It was three weeks before the body suspension group got together to do their thing. Fortunately, I worked a 9 to 5 job at a weapon tech place called Ballistics and I worked on their engineering team, analyzing deviance shaves to make sure they fell within safety parameters. It was a wonderful job with a decent enough pay and, even better, they didn't give a shit about how their engineers looked. If they ever had cause to, I could easily get rid of any visible piercings without problem and my clothes covered any tattoos. What was more, I had job security due to a contract agreement.

And, as if it needed any more bonuses, the hours were generally standard with weekends off, like most jobs. Which meant that when Morgan sent me a date, I could call Trish that night and tell her I was in. She let me video call her in all my excitement and listened to me ramble while I drew yet another portrait of Spawn. I had to start drawing again to soothe some of the excitement because I didn't really know what to expect, but it felt like one step closer to my end goal.

And it was nothing like anything I could have expected anyway. For a start, Morgan led the way, while Trish fussed with my hair and cat ears, and he led us to this old warehouse of a building outside of the city. It was this wide open space with a pulley system for the suspension hook and chains. I'd never forget the setup. The hook hung from the middle of the room, with old concrete beneath it like something out of a horror movie. The lighting was bright and industrial. It was a crude atmosphere, almost cruel, but that was actually perfect for its own way.

And it was in that light and place that I first saw him. I know that people talk about love at first sight all the time, but that's not quite the right words. This was more like terror at first sight or transfixed by first sight. As soon as I saw him, it felt like a fall from grace. He stood out just that much for me. For a start, he didn't have any visible tattoos like most people in that circle and place showed off. Granted, he wore jeans and a long sleeved shirt, with the sleeves rolled back some. He was clean cut, no piercings, no marks of interest. His dark brown hair had a slight amount of length to it, enough for him to part it to the side and have it neatly swept out of his way. He wore a mask for the moment, and even that was plain medical white.

But it was his eyes that got me. They were lowered to his slightly gruesome task of inserting suspension needles... and they were empty, in a way that made me shiver in fear. I didn't know him, didn't know who he was, but he scared me more than anyone I'd ever met. There was something in his sure motions, something in the way he sat. Piercers were relaxed and professional, but he possessed this extra factor, this intensity, that he shouldn't have had. I didn't have a name for it, but it drew me to him. It was like being hypnotized by someone who wasn't aware of the fact that I existed and I moved closer to watch him work.

His model lay still, calmly breathing into a chair. It was another guy, an extremely pretty one with colorful hair who I could instantly sense was not interested in my gender. His eyes were closed and his head was rested on his arms, his lips curving upwards in a sense of exhilaration that I found familiar. The man behind him had already pierced one of the 8 gauge gilson hooks through his back. While I watched, he applied forceps to the other side and what amazed me the most was the fact that he didn't count. He didn't give any warning at all for his model. Instead, he just abruptly pierced the needle through and I jumped in terror, feeling the expected cold sweat at the sight of needles and piercing work. Even after all of my piercings, my fear of needles still held some power, but I could never look away from it. There was a little bit of blood and I stared at that as well, transfixed by the way it bubbled to the surface so beautifully. He neatly used gauze strips to soak it until his model's flesh adjusted to the hooks pierced through his back, and then he held the hooks and moved them beneath the skin. The sight of that always managed to make me feel a little faint as well, even in the videos, but it was a good kind of weakness that made my legs unsteady with pinpricks of adrenaline. And with this man, it was amped somehow, evolved into something that ruled me and made me feel as if I floated outside of my body.

I got to hear him speak for the first time when he was done, while I was still swallowing back my fear, and his voice didn't help. It was both absent of key human emotions, while it possessed ones it shouldn't have had. And again I didn't even have words for what those things were. "There. Morgan's wife can set you up on the hook." I wrapped my arm around myself, feeling cold from that sound, taking note of the fact that he knew Morgan and Trish, too, at least enough to name them.

"Yes, sir." The model he'd pierced hopped up, looking as if he was having the thrill ride of his life. What was more, he moved easily and with a security that said he'd done this before and knew how to play. And indeed, I turned to watch him briefly while he went to Trish and they talked with familiarity. She looked at him the same way she looked at me, with that sense of protectiveness.

I turned back to the man and his hooks. He looked like he belonged with that gleaming silver medical tray among the concrete and heavy iron setup. And for the first time he met my gaze, his expression empty and assessing. And then his eyes moved to a point behind me.

I jumped when Morgan touched my shoulders. "Like it so far?"

The question brought me back to myself a little bit and I grinned, leaning into him slightly for some courage. "Yes! It's amazing." And really, it was. My body thrummed with pleasurable tingling from the wake of terror and rush just from getting to watch the piercing process.

"I thought you might. This is one of the ones you might want to talk to, by the way." The pleasant rush intensified when he tugged me over to the man I had been entranced with. The sense of surreality overtook me and I heard the exchange as if from far away. "Devi, this is Dr. Ezra Calloway. He's a plastic surgeon."

"Hello." I cowered like a shy bunny rabbit, rather than an edge player who had a phobia of needles and masturbated to it after piercings. Instead of a girl with a hatchet man tattoo, I was a frightened mouse hiding in the night. I stood too close to Morgan, as if he might protect me, and hated myself for acting like I was.

Ezra Calloway. The name didn't fit him. He needed the name of a demon instead and I couldn't have said why I thought that. It was only when he took off his mask that I could even tell he had a polite smile, the slightest curving of the lips that didn't so much as touch his eyes. "Hello back. How can I help?"

Polite, so polite, but so very distant as well. I opened my mouth to answer, then looked at Morgan who smiled calmly and nodded for me to go ahead. I pictured Calloway's hands holding the needles and hooks and had to swallow to wet my tongue. "Scarification. I want a brand."

He didn't react with any shock or judgment and he spoke without a care in the world. "I could, but I wouldn't suggest it for you. Brands don't have very good projection on lighter skin tone after they heal. Cutting the image often works better."

I considered that, trying to think it through while I was still nearly choking on fear. "What if what I wanted was less delicate and had thicker lines?"

He shrugged. "Branding would probably be easier then."

"I want one, please."

He stood up and went to his bag at the side, returning with his wallet and a business card. He sat the wallet on the medical tray and handed me the card. "Whenever you like, just call and I'll give you pricing and set it up." Still, no encouragement. No playfulness. No extra. No judgment.

I took the card, feeling emotionally flayed. This man didn't even realize it, but he was a slap to my face. I was sexually aroused and eager to pay him to hurt me and I didn't even care what the brand was anymore. I just wanted to feel more of this terror, while he held hot metal to my flesh and I whimpered in pain. Twisted? Yeah, but there it was. Maybe it was part of the reason why Morgan and Trish were so attracted to me because I had kind of been projecting this onto them as well. It was the closest thing I could get to my real desires. To be more exact, it was the closest I dared to get to my real desires. I dabbled in kinky forays and games, but I tried to get my fix through other venues. BDSM games could be really dangerous with the kinds of things I felt, so I was relegated to this. And at least with Morgan the sexualized aspects were easy to separate. He wasn't scary and he was married, so I didn't fantasize about him after the pain and torture of a piercing. I always pictured someone faceless instead.

This man got rid of my hope of that separation. I could already see his face with a cruel expression while he held me down and turned me into a slave by branding me, while he punished me for every slightest resistance. "Thank you, sir," I said softly. It was the best I could do. Calling him "doctor" would have made me feel awkward, but I had to be respectful in some way because it felt right and the word tingled on my lips as soon as I said it.

"You're welcome."

I shivered, head bowed, wondering what was wrong with me that I pictured myself in that chair while he pierced me through with hooks and tethered me to the pulley. I pictured other things, worse things, and stayed by Morgan's side when Calloway went his own way. I couldn't stop glancing at him when he stayed around for a while, watching his model swing gracefully from the hooks. And his model obviously enjoyed himself too. Giddy glee filled his face when he swung in an arcing circle. Trish grabbed him by his ankles at one point and spun him around until he shrieked with laughter, still spinning with thin trails of blood forming beneath the hooks. But I saw all of that out of the corner of my eye.

It was Calloway I noticed. He watched the model absently for a while and I wondered why he was there. Some people went because they had a belief that hook suspension heightened the mind and spirit. Some were there for reasons kin to mine, because the thrill and ride were so damn fun. For the piercers, ones like Morgan participated because he enjoyed helping people find this experience. Others were there because this was a group of likeminded people and they played and played alike. But Calloway didn't strike me as any of those.

Indeed, he left quietly without talking to anyone first. No one else seemed to pay it any mind at all, but I couldn't help turning to watch as he left the warehouse with his bag. I shivered, wishing I knew more about him, wishing I could see him again in worse ways.

It was then that my eyes fell on the medical tray and I saw his wallet still there. I ran to grab it and a card fell out, one that made my eyes go wide because it was something I recognized. I picked it up as well, my body feeling numb and shaky, and I ran out the door to catch him just in time, trying to not give myself enough time to think about what I held.

"Wait! You left these."

He stopped to my call, squeaky as it was, and turned to me in the darkness, waiting while I ran to him. I handed him the wallet and the card that had fallen. "Thank you."