Small Mercies

This is a five-part "tandem" story, written by two writers (Katherine English and Steven Whitman).

Part VII: Her

“Angel, for that is my name for you tonight, your Master is about to begin.”

The words...your words. echo repeatedly in my mind, between my legs, and in the very pit of my stomach. Have I chosen well this night? Will I be able to suffer the divine torture that is at hand without crying for mercy? Will I account myself well? Will I please my Master?

The bench, now warmed by the heat of my flesh... moistened by the mingled flow from my body, has become a safe haven to me...a thing that is known in a place both foreign and terrifying. Oh!...to rest here...never to face what will occur this night. Could I ask for more? But I know it is not to be, for even as I play desperately with these thoughts, my Master unbinds me...yet another trial awaits.

My hair has become a second leash...a handle by which I find myself controlled...manipulated...molded into acquiescence.

"Kneel. Show me your tongue" I hear you say, your words slicing through the darkness behind my blindfold like red-hot pokers. My tongue? My hands long to reach out...my lips to embrace...but I am barred from such contact. My tongue, and that alone must suffice. I am bewildered... lost...deprived of the sensual interface which I crave...but I obey. I have no choice.

Restrained by your fingers, woven brutally through the locks of my hair, I extend the warm, pink digit from between my lips and feel the salty taste of your hardened member against its surface. Hungrily I swirl my tongue along your pulsating shaft...longing for a reward perhaps?

[Am I doing well, my Master? Do I please you? May I now...]

But as quickly as it began, it's over, and I once again I feel myself propelled, directed, forced across the room by your unseen hand. I feel the tension build between my thighs...moisture flowing wantonly, a sensuous silkiness that floods my deprived senses.

Something hard...cold presses against my abdomen, and I find myself positioned awkwardly over some sort of barrier. My wrists are once more fettered, and I recall the voice of my aerobics instructor bidding us to "touch (our) toes". I feel my ankles being forced apart once again, and secured "spread-eagle" on the far side of this strange and chill instrument of my undoing. Once more I am humiliated... exposed as my posterior region is laid open before your gaze.

The blood rushes to my head, and I strain my neck upward to clear my thoughts...free myself from the pounding between my ears. Where are You...my Master? What is to be my fate in this most uncomfortable of postures? What do you...

"OH!"

I cry out as you penetrate me brutally from behind...the long, hard length of you thrusting deeply within my moist, trembling core. Once more. And again. You take no quarter, and I ask none, as you pound relentlessly into my belly. My cries begin to take on a different timbre, as I attempt to thrust against you...to hold you fast...to milk the essence from your body and into my own. But once again my pleas fall on deaf ears... I am thwarted... my prize is stolen from me, and I am destitute with the yawning chasm of my desire left empty and abandoned.

"Show me your tongue," you demand once more.

Obediently, I comply. Perhaps this time...?

And then I taste the sweet tang of my own juices, served up on a bed of hardened flesh. Should I be repulsed? I know that I should, but this contact...any contact indeed, has become an obsession. And so I extend my tongue and taste what is offered me...gratefully...hungrily...lustily, seeking more but restrained always by your unseen hand. Surely now I will be allowed to...

"No!" [Your voice or my own?]

Again, as before, I am deprived even the most bestial of pleasures as my bonds are released and I am propelled to yet another destination in this seductive chamber of horrors. My legs begin to tremble, and my "safe word" rises to my lips.

[Mercy]

I feel my body again restrained, my quivering legs forced apart and the cold shackles of my next trial set in place. Can you see the unfettered flow of my juices down the insides of my thighs...do you care...is it allowed? A flush overcomes me. What do you think of me now?

My arms are likewise raised, and again I feel my freedom diminished by cold steel, boundaries both cruel and unbreakable. My vulnerability overcomes me. The helpless plight of my beleaguered limbs...my body... evokes a dim terror deep in my bowels. Surely now I must cry out for respite? I feel my tears curling softly down my cheeks...wetting the silk which now clings in sodden folds against my skin. Perhaps my Master will see my plight and take pity?

But something inside of me will not allow me to use the one thing that could mean my salvation...[mercy]...and then that too is taken away. Roughly, I feel the soft, leather sac of a gag being forced between my teeth.

"No," I scream, but my cries are stifled...held fast by this newest of torments. Fear overcomes me. What of my "safe word"? Has my one and only power, the one security to which I cling been taken from me?

I flex my wrists, my legs pumping uselessly beneath me. This was not our deal...not in the silent bargain we'd struck at all. My options have been obliterated...my "kill switch" disabled. I am at your mercy...and I fear that you have none to give. I hear my voice, a muted scream lost in the thick padding of this terrifying room you have designed.

"Please...no...no! Mercy!"

But my cried go unheard...swallowed up by the leather sac which presses swollenly against my tongue. Hope crashes around me, destroyed by the desperate terror which dominates it.

And then I hear your voice parting the silence. A reprieve. Three nods, and I will be spared. A mere three nods and all of this will be but a tortured, erotic memory. Three nods and I will be once more free from this nightmare.

But I cannot.

Something inside of me forbids me to acquiesce...forbids me to seek the shelter that I should crave so desperately. I will cry out...of that I am certain. I will test my bonds with tortured limbs, struggling for the freedom that three nods alone can give me. But I will not...cannot commit the act that will win me my release. You have branded me in places most invisible. I am Yours.

I nod my head once, and await the touch of my Master.

................................................................................................

Part VIII

Him

I have never been more proud of you than I am at this moment. I lean forward to whisper this to you, but I know too that this is a test for me as well. Can I withstand the temptation of your helpless form any longer? Will I be strong enough to withhold mercy long enough for you to achieve a passion as yet only imagined in your darkest hours of dreaming?

For gone is my Sarah Rose, and in her place I have bound my Angel, hung there for my taking. I smile at this, knowing that release awaits us both, but in a fashion we have yet never experienced.

I walk to the front of you, my eyes drawn to your working limbs and your heaving breasts, bisected by the leash, marring the surface of your perfect skin. I see you begin to calm, and your head settles, resting now, wondering what will come next. Your position, while helpless is far from uncomfortable, but I can tell that your strength to stand will be sorely tested. I turn, reaching behind me for an object I have yet left alone, something I never would use outside these doors unless you said the words. But you have, said them over and over again, in that silent language of a body betraying a logical mind.

I see the message written in the glistening flow down your thighs. You want more. Much more. But how much more you can stand will be something we both shall find out soon enough. I stroke the tip of one achingly hard nipple with what I have taken from the wall, and you stiffen, both in the taunting pleasure and in the knowledge of what is being applied. It is a short riding crop, designed to inflict sudden, searing pain, but to not mark its target unless applied excessively. Used on horses, you will taste it tonight on your skin. Not as a punishment, for no crime has been committed, but as an understanding of yourself, of what you are capable of sustaining. And of myself as well, knowing that you, in some part of your soul, need and desire the completion this night will bring.

I stand behind you now, the crop sliding along the curves of you. You lunge backward at me, trying to feel more, feel anything, and then I step closer. My hand, gloved now in supple calfskin, cups your right breast. You shudder, moaning loudly at the first hint of contact. I caress the nipple, feeling its hardness straining under my ministrations. Then I place two fingers on either side of your protruding need there on your breast, and I begin to squeeze. Gently, applying more pressure. I see your head begin to move, side to side, my eyes riveted to you watching for the only plea for release to which I can respond. I let go, and the blood flows to it again, hearing you sigh beneath the leather of your silencing. Then I fiercely tweak it, and the hint of pleasure is nearly flooded away by the pain felt, and just as suddenly, my left hand, armed with the crop, descends.

The contact of leather with bare, helpless flesh is one I have imagined for quite some time. But your body’s thrashing at the dual impact of both the leather crop and the mangling glove is one I had not anticipated. I nearly give in, telling you how many more you will have to endure, as I see your head loll to one side, the echoes of a stifled scream seared forever in my memory.

I strike again, swiftly moving the other side of your body, my left hand now renewing the assault on the left most sister of the previous victim. My right hand bears the crop now, and it is applied swiftly. Once, twice, alternating blows. I count, beginning a rhythm at the 3rd stroke that lasts until…

10.

Yes, 10 will suffice. The tears are flowing down your cheeks freely now, and I see you begin to nod your head to stave off further agonies. I step away, and I see you raise your head as your body shakes with sobbing. My Angel, my sweet one, my eyes are drawn to the gaping of your thighs. And I see what I had feared might be absent…the glistening wetness has grown in the candlelight. Your smothered cries now taper off to quaking sobs as I am transfixed at your body’s reaction to what has taken place. I step to you, releasing hands and feet, and you crumple against me, your arms seeking solace around my body.

But I push your hands away, and you tighten in my arms again. You had thought that this was the final test. And indeed, in many ways it was.

But release…I crave such a thing from you in ways both familiar in their end, but alien in what I have yet in mind for you.

I half carry you in your weakened state back to the table, laying you face down where your torturous journey began. You sigh, still quaking in the aftermath. I gaze at you, as your head rests on your arms, and I see the redness raised by the leather as it colors the roundness of you. Unable to control myself, I lay my lips along each cheek. Once. Briefly. You stiffen, for that area is still too tender to touch, but you moan as well, craving more from me. And more you shall have.

I run a wide strap underneath you, as you turn your head seeking me. I secure the strap to its connections, but do not put it into use as yet. Swiftly, your hands are again bound, as well as your ankles. The gag is removed, and the leash is fastened to a ring in the floor. Some of this you are able to perceive, while the rest is unknown to you.

You feel the table begin to lower beneath you, and then the strap is tightened around your belly. As the table lowers, you are raised, until the table stops, and you are drawn up on your hands and knees. You smile at the strap, knowing that you savor this position anyway.

But the strap is to hold you up when you can no longer do so yourself. It will secure you when your strength is gone and I am still taking you for my pleasure. For such a thing will come to pass. And soon.

I walk to the front of you, and my hand grabs your hair. I pull your head up.

“Open your mouth.”

You groan, hoping that at last this means what you have been craving for these last hours. Your welcoming mouth opens to me, then you are nearly gagged as I plunge the length of me past your lips. You quickly recover, as you try to relax your throat to accommodate me. But I am merciless, ravaging your mouth as I will soon ravage the rest of you.

I stroke in and out, your hands straining to touch me, helpless there. Then as quickly as I have begun, I pull away, and you hear me striding behind you. You whimper, you moan, you nearly speak, but you know that such things are not yet to be.

You nearly cry out Mercy! to end this now and enjoy what we have enjoyed so often. But you cannot. You dare not.

Not yet.

Not now.

I position myself behind you. You hear buckling, straps being tightened, then a sound you are not familiar with. Then, you feel something begin to enter your dripping chasm. You tense, nearly crying mercy, for it is unfamiliar…did I bring another here? Then your stomach leaps, and turns, as you realize that while it feels lifelike, the object is decidedly not human. Then, it is withdrawn. You sigh with relief, but also disappointment. Disappointment. Such a mild word to describe the nearly devastating withdrawal of the object.

Soon it returns, but only the head. Then you feel a more familiar object, nudging at the entrance that now rests above. Lubricated, it begins to nudge against you, and then my fingers move under you, working your hardened secret.

You gasp loudly, then scream, as both the real and the manufactured me plunge into you. Hard. Brutal. And your mind briefly wonders how…then you remember a picture we had seen of such a device. A strap on for a man to pleasure his partner in both openings simultaneously. You are revolted at the alien intrusion, but your body cannot deny what the dual assault is doing for your pleasure. Kept on the brink so long, you begin to tremble violently.

I sense this, and quickly withdraw. You cry out your denial of this event, wordlessly. I stand back, watching your body heaving in the candlelight. You are slumping against the strap now, me thankful for its presence… you wishing it gone so that you could at last rest. But you hope, oh you hope that this is not yet over.

I step behind you again, and without preamble, the ravaging of your most secret places begins anew. I plunge in and out of you, my hands now absent from your body, and you start to buck at me again. You are so close, your release imminent, and then…

NO!!!

I withdraw again.

I remove the apparatus, and step to you again…

Me, myself, all of me, is suddenly plunged into the raging torrent that washes from between your thighs. You scream again, in the greatest of pleasure, but this is not yet the time. I pull away, but I quickly return. To that brutalized ring of muscle. That forbidden place where you seek my intrusion so desperately. I plunge in and out, once, twice, again, then away.

My control is nearly done, as is yours. I stand now, silent, as your body writhes in the hope that your movements will incite me to mercy, that I will return and satisfy the inferno which my efforts and your own body’s betrayal have stoked.

To Be Continued...