Myka had been hit before. She'd been in car accidents before. The thing about that kind of pain was that you whited out. There was a point where you just overloaded and all the pain in the world was just a dull ache. That was bad in its own way. There was always the fear that a nerve had pinched or a vertebra had shattered or something, anything, had gone wrong in your head. And that was it. That was all it took to end a career.
That, for once, wasn't a concern for Myka. Oddly liberating, considering. For the past four hours (that was the timespan they'd agreed to, although there was no way of knowing if HG had kept to it. It felt longer at some times, shorter others), she'd been hung from the ceiling by her wrists and subjected to treatment that made it temporarily impossible for Myka to recall the tender, generous, almost sappy lover that HG usually proved.
Every twenty minutes (as Myka estimated; sometimes it felt shorter, other times longer), Helena had returned. Sometimes, she threw cold water on Myka. Sometimes she beat her with a riding crop. Other times, with a cane. She always attended to Myka with a delicious sadism; sarcastically asking if Myka would like her to stop, wondering if Americans had less tolerance for pain than her usual conquests, wondering what Myka's friends and family would say if they could see her like this.
The torture, as it were, was almost irrelevant next to the verbal barrage HG subjected her to. Helena wasn't the type to carelessly flail away at Myka. All the theatrics were as carefully thought out as the cuts of a surgeon's scalpel. Naturally, Myka's nipples and buttocks had been subjected to the customary tools, but HG had also been ingenious in the ways she punished Myka's front, back, and sides. In one visit, she did nothing more to Myka's feet than tickle them with a feather. It'd been unbearable, and Myka had actually, unthinkingly gasped the safe word before HG ripped her gag away and challenged her "Did I just hear a safe word?"
In her outraged expression, only Helena's eyes had given away her concern.
"No," Myka had said dutifully.
"No?"
"No, mistress."
Nonetheless, Helena had put away the feather, never to be seen again. Ironically, it was the only thing too kinky for Myka to enjoy.
And Helena had been all too happy, in her own cruel way, to tend Myka's wounds at the end of each "visit," efficiently treating each cut and welt so it would be invisible before Myka returned to work. All the time deriding Myka, humiliating her, making her want it more.
On rare occasions when Myka was able to get through a session without a peep, Helena had rewarded her by putting enough slack in the chain for Myka to fall to her knees. There were times when Myka was sure she'd whimpered, loudly, and HG let her down regardless—it occurred to her that Helena was just being safe, making sure she didn't overexert herself. It didn't feel that way, though, because Helena only let Myka down to serve her.
"You call that licking my cunt? I don't know why I even bother shaving down there when all you do is peck it like you're visiting an aunt. Come on, do try not to be completely worthless. Be a little better than my own fingers, Myka, come now, I had such faith in you..."
On and on, slipping into Myka's ears and keeping her on a perfect edge, almost weeping when she couldn't bring Helena to orgasm. For those four hours, all other concerns, duties, expectations, and other obligations melted away. She literally existed only to please HG.
Four hours and she'd been stripped bare, every stitch of clothing ripped away or cut off. Then Helena walked in, a dressing gown over the leather corset and... other items that had made her so imposing. She pushed ahead of her, of all things, a wheelchair.
"Easy now," she whispered, her tone light and loving once more as she undid the manacles, revealing the thick white bands they had left on Myka's wrists. She caught Myka as well, helping her down onto a blanket she'd thought to cover the cold floor with. Instantly, sensation rushed back into Myka's body. She gasped, every inch of her skin glowing with a different kind of pain. Helena pressed a double-dose of Tylenol into her mouth and had a tall glass of water on hand to wash it down.
"How do you feel?" Helena pleaded.
There was only one thing Myka felt. "Please. Please, mistress..." She took hold of Helena's gloved hand with a grip so weak HG had to actively help Myka in leading her hand down to her swollen sex.
"Yes," Helena said, cooing with understanding. "Of course."
She ran her hand over Myka with the lightest of touches and Myka came before Helena could so much as enter her.
After that, it was a simple matter of Helena helping Myka to a warm bath she'd already drawn. The waters were already filled with some relative of epsom salt that instantly proved soothing. It alone was almost worth the price of being brutalized.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Helena asked again, just for Myka to once more beg her off.
"If I needed a doctor every time someone went over me with a bullwhip..."
