Chapter 10
Knife checked the time. He’d been at it a little over an hour, but he was nearly done. He stepped in close, running his hands over the ropes, checking tension and pressure with the same precision he used breaking down a carcass.
Satisfied, he grasped her left foot and bent it, bowing her spine further into a deep, elegant arch.
He wrapped the fingers of her right hand around the top of her foot, then tied her palm to the top of her foot, locking the position.
The stretch through her shoulder and the additional pull on her left hip on top of her bowed spine made her whimper inside the hood.
Her left arm was still free, dangling uselessly below her. She lifted it to rub all around the leather hood, tried to put it back on her stomach, but without the other hand to hold onto, there was nothing to do with it.
It was a deliberately cruel choice on his part, the constant, low-level reminder that she had one small illusion of control, and it was useless to her. He smiled to himself and tested the crotch rope again, just because.
Finally, he tied her right ankle off to the last rope hanging from the circle, stretching her body out with a graceful arch in her back, her head hanging down.
She needed fluids, and that meant being creative, but he’d planned for this.
He soaked a long sponge in a tasteless electrolyte mixture, unzipped the mouth hole, and touched the sponge to her lips.
When she opened her mouth, he inserted the sponge and watched her suck the liquid from it.
He gave it to her two more times before zipping the hole over her mouth closed.
Then he worked the pulleys.
The cables tightened with soft metallic clicks.
Her body rose slowly, smoothly, lifting higher into the air.
She twitched hard at the sensation — the sudden awareness of height with no way to see how far above the floor she hung, no way to judge distance or safety.
Just the ropes holding her, the stretch deepening, the knots pressing harder between her legs as her weight shifted.
He raised her until she hung high enough he could easily walk under her, and then he stepped to his gaming setup and got comfortable.
His new post-apocalyptic game waited on the big screen. He’d barely started it and was still early in the map, accumulating weapons and ammo, learning the ruined landscape. He set a one-hour timer on his phone and let himself sink into the game.
Between objectives, he glanced up at her, but he was always aware of her scent — steady pain growing slowly, arousal simmering.
Her breathing was slow and deep, the rhythm of someone firmly in subspace, floating through the pain.
Every so often her body twitched and jerked, likely when a knot shifted over a nerve or the toys pulsed just right.
He watched her for a long moment, then went back to the game, content.
When the alarm chimed, he made it to a place he could pause and save, and he walked to the wall. Lowered her.
She had a long way to go before the pain grew and seasoned her enough for him to play with her, but it wouldn’t do for her to spend the entire time in subspace.
Oh no, he’d have to yank her out every hour, and this was her first excursion back to the real world.
He took his belt off, aimed, and the first strike landed across the front of her left thigh — a crisp, stinging snap that left a beautiful red line. Her shocked scream filled the room, followed by a sharp yelp when her jerk did interesting things to the knots in the crotch rope.
He worked methodically, laying down a dozen neat stripes across both thighs, watching the way her muscles jumped and her breathing hitched inside the hood.
Next came cruel alligator clamps with teeth, snapped onto one nipple, then the other.
Finally, he lifted the thick, bright blue rubber band.
He popped the bottom of her right foot first, middle of the arch, between the ropes. Then the side of her left tit, the soft skin of her inner right thigh, and a dozen fast pops all around the knot pressing into her clit.
Never in the same place twice. She never knew where the next sting would land. Each pop made her jerk and whimper, the hood muffling her desperate sounds.
He removed one nipple clamp and immediately pressed the electric toothbrush against the swollen tip.
She screamed behind the leather, body bucking hard.
He held it there for long seconds, then clamped the nipple again and moved to the other side.
Same treatment — clamp off, toothbrush on the sensitive peak, her frantic cries filling the hood, then clamp back on.
Finally, he aimed the toothbrush to the left of the knot pressing into her clit.
She jerked violently, and a raw, muffled scream tore out of her as the intense vibration hit the already overstimulated bundle of nerves. Her whole body convulsed in the ropes, hips trying uselessly to twist away.
He kept it there until her screams turned hoarse, then moved to the right side.
Ten minutes of pain, and he offered her the electrolyte-soaked sponge again. When she’d sucked up about twelve ounces, he took the nipple clamps off, then turned the egg and plug off.
No sensation at all this time, other than the ropes and knots. He raised her back into the air, returned to his chair, and set his phone for an hour and a half, this time.
- - - ? - - -
Tuesday hung in utter silence.
Time passed in a strange, floating blur.
Her left arm was the worst. She couldn’t find any position that worked. She tried tucking it against her side with her thumb under the ropes, but the knots were even more punishing with the extra weight wedged in.
She tried letting it hang, but the pull on her shoulder turned into a deep, burning ache within minutes. She tried folding it across her chest, but without her other hand to help, it didn’t work.
Every solution created a new problem. In the end, she held it over her head and let it dangle from that angle. It hurt, and quickly fell asleep, but it was the only way to let the rest of her drift deep into subspace.
The damned knot on her clit had gone from steady pressure to outright tyranny. Early on, it’d been manageable, but now it felt like a heated vise grinding against her with every tiny sway of her body. Her hips kept twitching involuntarily, which only made it worse. She couldn’t get away from it.
But there was no choice but to endure.
And being filled with the egg and plug while they were turned off was a whole different level of hell. Filled without that low, steady vibration made her asshole stretch open and cramp. The weight of the egg made it shift inside her, often in synchronicity with her rectum spasming around the plug.
Every cramp, every involuntary clench, every shift of the egg’s weight, every scrape of a knot over raw nerves, every pulse of pain — this was her only sensory input, drawing her mind to the pain and multiplying it exponentially.
Time stretched endlessly. She tried to track it — counting breaths, counting the pulses of pain in her shoulder — but she failed every time.
There was no anchor. No sound. No scent except cinnamon.
No sight. No clock. She counted to sixty in her head, but it pulled her out of her fog, so she didn’t do it again.
Minutes felt like hours, and hours felt infinite.
The disorientation wove in and out of the soft haze of subspace.
More than once the words formed in her mind: How much longer?
She swallowed them hard to keep them from escaping her mind and reaching her voice.
The threat of straight cinnamon oil on her tongue and clit kept her silent.
Each near miss felt like its own small, deliberate act of submission.
She was choosing this. Even now, fully informed, she was choosing his ropes.
He let her down and turned everything on inside her again. Let her suck liquids from the sponge again. Lifted her.
The next time she came down, everything was turned off, and he did the thing with the nipple clamps and then the snaps all over her body again.
The sponge again. Thankfully, the clamps came off before he lifted her once more.
This time felt interminably longer, and she didn’t know if it was her imagination, or if it was really longer.
Finally, she felt herself moving again. It was impossible to tell which direction, but she assumed he was lowering her.
And then the hood was tugged and she felt the vibration of the zipper opening, then the strap on her chin was released.
Cool air rushed across her lips after the long isolation. The sudden return of even that small sensation was overwhelming.
But it wasn’t the sponge this time. Something slick touched her lips. Slid inside. Deeper, and deeper.
His cock.
Seconds later he was buried in her throat, and she fought for breath.
Upside down, bent backward, he fucked her throat hard and fast, one hand holding her left wrist while grasping her chest harness, the other wrapped around the back of her head.
And Tuesday was helpless, fighting for air while her clit throbbed under the damned knot, and her pussy clenched.
And again, she had no idea how long he fucked her face, only that when he finally came, it was yet another sensation.
She’d never like the taste, and her brain catalogued his as what would happen if you put a slimy oyster in a blender with sour buttermilk and rancid bitters — but she swallowed every drop like a good girl, and then whined when he zipped the mouth closed again and she was left with the lingering, awful flavor stuck to her tongue and the back of her throat.
Then something struck her left breast — a sharp slice of agony that flared hot across her skin while she was still trying to catch her breath inside the hood, the taste of his come still strong.
She jerked hard, a muffled cry tearing out of her before she could stop it.
Another strike landed on her left thigh, just as sudden, just as stinging.
Then her left breast again. The blows kept coming to her left side with no pattern she could predict, each creating a crisp, burning line that made her body flinch violently in the ropes.
She had no idea what he was hitting her with.
No idea how many more there would be. No way to brace or prepare.
She could only hang there, helpless, while the pain kept arriving out of nowhere, each impact making the crotch knots grind harder against her clit and openings.
A pause, and then the pain started on her right side, back and forth from breast to thigh with no discernible pattern.
Her heart hammered. Adrenaline flooded her system, and her breath came fast and shallow behind the leather, tears soaking the inside of the hood, with no way to escape, no way to anticipate the next strike.
Her body jerked and flinched with every blow, pressing knots against raw nerves while she helplessly tried to twist away from something she couldn’t see or hear coming.
Then the strikes stopped.
For a few heartbeats there was nothing but the ropes, the cinnamon, and her own ragged breathing.
A vicious sting exploded on the inside of her right thigh — pinpoint sharp, like a single spark of fire.
She yelped, body jolting hard. Another mystery object.
A cattle prod? Some kind of electric zap?
The pain was intense but localized, gone almost as fast as it arrived, leaving the spot tingling and raw.
Another pop, this time on the underside of her left breast. Then one on the sole of her right foot. Then an especially brutal snap right beside the knot grinding into her clit.
They kept coming, fast and unpredictable, hitting a different spot every time — breasts, thighs, the bottoms of her feet, the soft skin just above her pubic bone.
She never knew where the next would land.
Each tiny explosion of pain made her flinch harder, the ropes scraping, her body twitching uselessly against the bondage.
More adrenaline dumped into her system, and the fight-or-flight instinct surged through her with nowhere to go.
Her pulse raced, her breathing turned frantic behind the leather, tears soaking the hood.
Whatever was causing the sharp little stings, they kept finding new places to bite her, and she couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t even brace for them.
And then both his hands were on her again, and she breathed out in relief until she realized he was tightening the crotch rope, forcing the knots closer, so they pressed harder into her most sensitive places.
The mouth hole was unzipped again, and she was relieved when the sponge touched her lips. She drank everything he offered, then the chin strap was back, the hole was zipped closed, and she felt herself rising into the air once more.
Time became her foe all over again. The clit knot a worse hell than ever. Her anal muscles cramping around the fat plug. Nothing to do with her loose arm, while her right shoulder and left hip were torqued by the circle her leg and arm were forced into.
And her spine still bowed into an arch, stretching everything unnaturally.
She had no idea how long she’d already hung there, or how much longer she would have to endure. The twelve hours she’d agreed to over French toast now stretched out infinitely before her.