Chapter Eight
“Clean her up,” Luthian repeats, “and we’ll let you come.”
Firo’s tongue is dry against my cheek. I wonder if he’s had anything to drink at all during the hours he’s been tied down, because he sucks Luthian’s cum from my face as if it’s lifegiving water in the desolation of the Sorrowlands.
“Don’t forget her mouth,” Luthian commands him. “it’s quite talented. Perhaps I’ll allow you to try it sometime.”
Firo’s lips claim mine with fierce passion that leaves my head spinning. I’ve always thought of kisses as something given out of love and affection, but all I feel from him is desperation to consume me, to be consumed by me. I give in, sweeping my tongue into his mouth as he does to mine, tasting him and Luthian and swooning for more when my Guardian lifts my head away.
“That’s enough for now, Cenere.” There’s an amused note in Luthian’s voice. “Lest we get caught up and ruin our lesson.”
Still holding me by my nape, he pushes me toward the middle of the table, directly in front of Firo’s helplessly bobbing cock.
“He’s had some time to cool down, so it should be safe to touch him now. But if I tell you to stop, you must; he can’t come yet,” Luthian explains.
“Yes, Guardian, but... How will you know?” How will I know?
“There are telltale signs that release is imminent. For example, here,” Luthian cups the fleshy sack beneath Firo’s cock. “Not everyone displays the same signs, but a common one, one that you’ll notice in Firo is that he’ll draw up tightly here. Notice, too, how he drips?”
Luthian takes my hand, curling all but one of my fingers into my palm. He traces that fingertip across the slit in the head of Firo’s cock. The bound faery hisses.
“Are you a bit sensitive?” Luthian mocks him. He straightens my fingers and moves my hand over Firo’s shaft. “You may feel his pulse increase. He’ll rock his hips up to meet you, trying to go faster to reach his climax. But you must always maintain control. Don’t match his speed.”
Luthian wraps our joined hands around Firo’s flushed, straining cock. Instantly, the faery on the table bucks and moans with relief.
“We’re going to practice that control, now,” Luthian explains, gliding my hand slowly up Firo’s length. “You may find yourself growing excited. You might wish to speed up. But we’ll stay at this pace. Even when he’s teetering on the brink. Even when he begs.”
“Yes, Guardian.” I let him take complete control of my hand and commit everything to memory. The slight flick of my wrist to glide my palm over Firo’s tip before beginning the journey down again. The pause at the base before another gentle rise. Firo writhes and groans, bites back pleas. A steady stream of clear fluid slicks my hand and pours freely onto his stomach. Just as Luthian described, Firo tries to lift his hips in his own rhythm.
“Haven’t I warned you already?” Luthian chides him. He releases my hand. “But still, you disobey me. Cenere, keep up what you’re doing. If he moves at all, stop. Take your hand away from him entirely.”
“Yes, Guardian.” I concentrate on keeping my pace steady, just as he showed me, but watch from the corner of my eye as Luthian moves to the end of the table. He produces a long, thin rod and gives it a few sharp swings, slicing the air.
“You know the punishment, this time,” Luthian says, and without any further warning, snaps the reed across the bottoms of Firo’s spread feet.
Firo screams, his body bucking.
“Does that count as moving, Guardian?” I ask.
“It does. Take your hand away.”
“No!” Firo screams. “No, please, I was so close!”
“You won’t be rewarded for disobedience.” Luthian slashes the rod across Firo’s feet again. Another strike, and another, while Firo screams for mercy. And yet, through the pain, his cock never flags. Not even when the strikes of the cane split his skin, arcing droplets of blue-black faery blood over Luthian’s white tunic.
I want to beg for mercy for Firo. I don’t. It has become clear that mercy will not be a part of my training.
Finally, after twenty brutal, cutting blows, Luthian stops. He’s breathing hard, and I note that he’s erect again. Inflicting that pain has aroused him. How many of the faeries at the Court of Pleasure and Torment will be the same?
“And he will hurt you,” Luthian said of the King.
I only hope they take my human fragility into account; faeries, while immortal but not invulnerable, are made of stronger stuff than my mortal body.
Firo sobs, tears running down his face and into his dark hair.
“Resume, Cenere,” Luthian says, wicking the blood from the cane. “And Firo, if you wish to finish, you will hold entirely still. If not, you won’t come until sunset. In three days’ time.”
Firo whimpers. His hands fist with the effort of not moving while I resume his torment. Up, down, slowly, slowly. I don’t speed up, don’t increase the squeeze of my fingers around him. I keep pumping, watching his body for the signs Luthian has taught me, though Firo doesn’t shift an inch. Luthian stands by, not speaking, not showing a flicker of emotion on his face. He observes silently, cane still in his hand, while Firo stares up at the ceiling. His lips part slightly. He gulps in air once, twice, and when it releases, it’s on a scream of rapture as he erupts over my hand.
“Keep going. The same speed,” Luthian instructs. “Firo, you may move, if you wish.”
Long, viscous white strands fly from Firo’s tip still. His shaft twitches and pulses with each one. He groans and shakes until finally, sweat and tears rolling down his face, he goes slack on the table.
“Keep going,” Luthian commands me.
Firo’s eyes fly open, wide. I see “No!” form on his lips, but his voice doesn’t come out.
“I’ve silenced him,” Luthian explains. “Some students find the screaming involved in the next part...disquieting. Same tempo, please.”
I can’t help but note the agony twisting Firo’s features. He’s long since stopped coming, and he struggles against the bonds, bangs his head against the table. But I do as Luthian commands, watching Firo’s feet flex, his hands grasp for something intangible.
I don’t know what comes over me. “Guardian, if you don’t mind... I would quite like to hear him.”
A cruel smile passes over Luthian’s lips. “Very well.”
He lifts the spell with a wave of his hand and Firo’s hoarse, painful screams echo through the cavernous library.
“Please! Stop!” he cries. “I’ll give you anything!”
I don’t know what’s come over me. I imagine my smile is very much like Luthian’s, mocking tenderness, pretend concern. And though my Guardian hasn’t instructed me to, I coo sweetly, “Anything?”
“Anything! Please!” He sobs, squeezes his eyes shut.
And I laugh at him. I laugh at his torment.
And I understand.
There is pleasure in pain. Pleasure can become pain. They are inseparable. It doesn’t matter if I’m giving the pain, as I am now, or receiving it, as I did spread wide for Sarta’s needle. I revel in his agony.
Luthian tilts his head at my taunting. Is he proud? Is he angry? I can’t tell. I can imagine the cane slicing into my feet and they tingle. So does my aching, stiff pearl.
“I’m... I’m...” This time, when Firo comes, his emission trickles.
And I laugh at him again. “That’s not nearly so impressive, Guardian. Will the next one be?”
Luthian smiles indulgently. “I wasn’t going to continue, but what an excellent question. Shall we test it out, Firo?”
“No, please, no more. No more!” he begs.
Luthian pretends to consider, then nods to me. “More.”
I feel dizzy with the power I’m exerting over poor Firo, and guilty at the pain I’m causing. But it’s exhilarating, too, to watch him fight his bonds uselessly, then give up, then struggle again with renewed vigor.
“Pay more attention to the head,” Luthian advises. “If you wish to be truly cruel.”
On the next upward slide, I twist my palm roughly over the bright red, sore-looking tip, and I’m rewarded with more pitiable sobbing and shrieking. I put my other hand to work on his shaft, still slow and steady.
When he comes a third time, he begs for it not to happen. A pathetic few drops escape him. He’s entirely dry.
“That’s enough,” Luthian says finally. I take my hands away and, with no other way to clean them, wipe them on my skirt. They’re sticky, the remnants of multiple releases pilled on my fingers and palms. Luthian leans over Firo, presses his hand on the faery’s trembling, jerking chest. He places the softest kiss on the hollow of Firo’s throat and runs a hand over the cum turned watery on his stomach.
“You’ve done so well,” my Guardian murmurs. Then, he takes his dripping hand and smears it over Firo’s face. With a snap of Luthian’s fingers, the bindings are gone. He helps Firo sit up. “I’m very proud of you.”
I feel the strangest flicker of jealousy at that. After all, I’ve done the work. It’s my arm that aches. My body that throbs in desperate need of release.
“I haven’t forgotten you,” Luthian says with a crooked smile, and I wonder if he can read my thoughts. “Your lesson isn’t done today. You have my permission to relieve your need. Then, you may join me in my study. Brujon knows the way.”
“Thank you, Guardian,” I say, and bow my head to him before I leave the library.
As I walk away, I hear him murmuring words of comfort to Firo.