A/N: Another adapted story from a different platform, centered around subspace as a coping mechanism in difficult moments. Planned three part story. This is the established kink dynamic of a Jekyll and Hyde-ish service top and a not-at-all-conflicted sub. Very self-indulgent on my part. Expect pain kink, descriptions of subspace, and consensual non-consent. Being consensual, I posted it under BDSM. There will, however, be descriptions of past trauma.
***
Strip and turn around.
James's voice was a velvet strip wrapped around his words. Insinuating itself in her mind, throbbing between her legs. The ground beneath her feet on days when the world was made of quicksand. Blues and cigarettes and too much coffee and lack of sleep and broken plates. But his voice was the rope she could tie around herself. Not a prisoner, not trapped. Safe.
"Do it," he said, his voice raspy. "Strip slowly. I want to watch you."
The stranger with hardened features, behind his mask. But he wasn't a stranger at all. And sometimes, she forgot it was a game as she sank into it, the sea of cotton that clouded her vision and reason. The comfort. She started working on her shirt with her eyes fixed on the buttons.
James brought the belt down on his open palm and the smack resounded in the room hidden inside herself. Heat flared up in her abdomen as she let out a shaky breath.
"Look at me. Slower," he said.
She found him, through the grey web, inside the puzzle pieces of his features. Running her tongue over her lips, tasting the bitterness of the tobacco. But it wasn't James she wanted. Not cuddles on the sofa and hot chocolate as the cold wind howled outside. The man in front of her
was
the wind.
Helen steeled herself as she held his gaze, with its sharp edges that could cut through glass. Appraising her with unwavering calm. Sometimes he took her with desperation and passion. His frantic touches, his darkened gaze lost in her depths. But not now. Slowly, as he'd ordered, she revealed her body to him. Taking off her black shirt and letting it slide to the floor. Unzipping her skirt as though they had all the time in the world. Only the faintest glimmer betrayed his arousal as he watched her. Drinking her in with his eyes, sipping, savoring her.
When she was done, she stood under the weight of his appraisal. Waiting for the unending seconds to pass, with their maddening slowness. A different James would reassure her.
You're beautiful
, he'd say, on those days with no lead on her tongue and no spikes in her heart.
You are so beautiful to me.
She didn't need his reassurance now. And he knew, after so long, what to give and not.
"Don't look down," he said instead, when she threw a fleeting look at the ground.
He dropped the belt and approached her, and the lights flickered again. As she stepped deeper in the secret room inside herself. Where she could stretch out her arms and spin in place and forget the world outside and the past. Where she could be and nothing more, letting her musings go, letting herself fall off the edge of a cliff, because he'd be there to catch her.
He stood in front of her now. Shimmering between them, their desire was a siren song on the wind and the fire burning inside her veins. He cupped her breast, brushing his thumb over her nipple. Once, twice, as her wetness trickled down her thighs. He hummed his approval softly and bent to lick the hardened nub. Helen made to wrap her arms around his neck, but he grabbed her wrist.
"No touching," he said, in between licks. "Eyes forward."
As she lowered her arms, the fog inside her mind thickened, interspersed with static and dizziness. Her palms itched with the desire to grab on to him and hold him, to pull him closer, while the version of her spinning around in the hidden room relished in his command. She gazed over his shoulder into nothingness, unable to hold back her moans. James kept licking her nipple while he twisted the other one, and then his hand trailed down her body, leaving goosebumps in its wake. She parted her legs for him.
The small groan that fell from his lips when he encountered the wetness between her thighs pierced the grey web like only victory could. His light touch was an autumn wind gently directing the withered leaves to their final moments, but she could sense the simmering promises in it. So close. It was everywhere, the anticipation. In the movements of his tongue on her breast and the way he dipped his fingers inside her. In his firm grip on her waist. In the fluttering and humming of her body.
More,
she thought.
Please.
At length, when she was certain she couldn't take it any longer, he withdrew his hand. When he picked up the belt, she breathed out a sigh of relief.
"Turn around now."
She obeyed as her arousal darkened the edges of her vision. James's measured footsteps from behind her were the metronome to the burning melody of her desire. One. Two. Three. Four. His touch between her shoulder blades was rough as he pushed her forward. She grabbed the back of the sofa and her knees touched the seat. Without being told to, she arched her back. All around her, desire weaved a pulsating web.
"Mmmhmm. So obedient," he said.
Helen felt the light caress of his belt on her back on a quick inhale. Up and down. And back up. With teasing slowness and endless patience. Tensing as he dragged out the moments, she heard the slow drawl of the music once more.
It was never just the pain, it was the promise. The waiting without knowing when he'd strike. The sound. All of it, an intricate tapestry of pleasure. She'd beg soon, even though he didn't allow it. Because she wanted him to forbid it. Like yin and yang they circled each other, drinking in each other's pleasure and amplifying it, until it boiled over in their own little insane symphony. On days like today.
James caressed the small of her back, with the tips of his fingers this time, telling her, though it was superfluous, that he was there.
"What would you prefer, hm? The belt or the belt buckle?"
The question froze in her mind, turning every shred of coherent thought to ash. Imbibing her consciousness with arousal as well as confusion. She didn't want to decide. She didn't want to think. Thoughts were the spikes in her heart and the lead in the clouds. The scratches on her palms from falling down. Shards of plates smashed against the wall. Didn't he know?
"Shh," he whispered, sensing her nervousness. "I'm sorry."
Nodding slightly, she squeezed her eyes shut. Preparing to forget again. About glass shards and the past. How the streetlights looked when she couldn't sleep. Sinking into the sea of cotton and leaving it up to him.
When the first blow fell across her ass, the grey web started shattering. The light pain pierced the stony barrenness of her mental landscape. He had favored the belt. The next blow was harder. As was the next one. James stopped to snap the belt in the air and she moaned with abandon. Willing herself to simply let go. Of everything that was and would be. Nothing mattered. Not on days like today. A few more blows and she was close to an orgasm. But knowing him, he wouldn't let her.
