Chapter 32
Tuesday made it home late on a Friday after being gone twenty-three days. She dropped her bags inside the door and went to bed.
She and Knife had texted each other many dozens of times since she’d last seen him. They’d also had at least a half-dozen long video conversations, most of which ended with her having an orgasm.
He’d told her to text him when she was home and safe, so she did, and since she knew he was with his brothers, she wasn’t surprised when he responded with, “Thanks for letting me know. Look forward to talking to you after the full moon. It’s good to know you’re close.”
She slept ten hours. There’s nothing like returning to your own bed. Your own place.
Saturday was completely domestic — laundry, groceries, and damn, how did so much dust accumulate? Where the fuck did it come from?
Sunday night was the full moon, and she hung out with the pack for most of the day before everyone changed and ran that night.
This was where her wolf got to come to the front and stay there — open land, familiar scents, the absolute freedom of four paws catapulting her across ground on which her family had chased and killed deer together for longer than she’d been alive.
And then the camaraderie of the huge pack breakfast in human form the following morning. This was home to her in ways even her apartment could never be. This was where her roots truly lived.
She started to call him from her car on the way home, wanting to check in, but then decided not to. They’d both run under the same moon the night before. Just not together. Still, there was a common thread, and one she found herself hanging onto.
But mostly, she wanted to call him because she missed him.
Due to the way the full moon landed, they couldn’t see each other on schedule.
It was their third Monday apart, and the fourth since she’d been at his place.
They’d agreed to move it to Tuesday, so she’d seen him the following day, but it was still hard.
But he had to work tonight. He’d told her with so many wolves in the club, only a third of them could run at a time during the three nights of the full moon. He’d be working from two in the afternoon until midnight.
She’d been surprised when he’d shared what she assumed was a club secret, about only a third of them running at a time, but then figured it must be widely known. Common knowledge, probably the way all supernatural business organizations with a lot of wolves had to manage their labor force.
She filled her day by looking over all her notes for her next big filming day, making small edits and changes here and there, adding notes about b-roll footage she could use when it came time to edit, and how she could showcase certain ingredients.
But that night, when she was alone in the dark with her thoughts, all she could think about was all the ways her life couldn’t fit into Knife’s, and his couldn’t fit into hers, no matter how badly both might want them to.
He ran under the full moon with his brothers. She ran with her pack. Two communities with their own rhythms, traditions, obligations, and bone-deep loyalties. Two orbits that would never merge beyond stolen Mondays.
They would never run under a full moon together. Could she live with that?
Thankfully, the following morning’s sunlight chased the maudlin thoughts away, and her drive to his house was all about trying to pay attention to the road while her body could only think about his ropes, his fingers, his voice — and his dick, pounding away at whatever hole he decided to focus on this week.
He was waiting for her on the porch, and he kissed her, took her bag from her, and told her, “Run upstairs, little painslut. Use the glycerin suppository on the vanity, and then…” He kissed her forehead. “You should know by now how I want to see you waiting for me.”
Ten hours later, she was an exhausted mess. She’d known it would be a long scene. She’d actually been relieved when they’d agreed it would be all sex without a date first, but she’d expected meal breaks.
Not that she was complaining about him feeding her meals from his fingers, but still. No breaks. She’d been bound even while she ate.
And there wasn’t a single focus. Oh no, he had enough time to thoroughly torture all her high nerve density body parts. She’d thought it a pretty cool kink, when he’d first explained it.
And it was, but damn, he’d gone far beyond mere torture on her nipples, clit, asshole, vaj, even her fucking tongue.
She considered whether mangled was the right word, or perhaps savaged. He’d crushed, twisted, battered, shocked, whipped, flogged… he’d done all of those things, and more. It was a damned good thing she could change and heal.
But she wasn’t ready to do that just yet.
She didn’t hang from his ceiling that night. He took her outside. Honestly, the first pose was blissful hell, but it was still hell, in part because he decided it was time for her to graduate from jute to hemp, and fuck, it was abrasive and irritating.
It’d been a magical night in some ways. She’d never been bound outside like that before, but the rough, scratchy crotch rope dug mercilessly between her labia, the two cruel knots pressing hard against her clit and asshole with every tiny shift of her weight.
She’d been a raw, mangled mess even before he’d tied her into this pose.
But it wasn’t just the brutality of the knots inside her labia. The bark bit into the soft skin between her legs, and her shoulders ached and pulled with every breath. Being outside made her feel exposed. No one could see her behind his privacy fence, but this wasn’t about logic.
And the ropes didn’t give. They claimed her, holding her to the tree, bending her backward while he took her apart, torturing her nipples and tongue in ways she’d never imagined.
Eventually, after maybe six hours, he’d cut her down, released her arms from behind her back, and then hung her from her wrists, her body right side up, her legs bound below her as if she were leaping over a hurdle.
This gave him plenty of access to keep torturing her already raw clit, pussy, and asshole.
He kept her well hydrated, and he fed her regular snacks as well as meals — every bite from his fingers, no forks or spoons, and she tried not to think about what it meant that her wolf went quiet and content every single time.
Like being fed by hand was the most natural thing in the world, when they both knew what it meant for a wolf to offer food directly.
But she soon realized that keeping her hydrated wasn’t necessarily a kindness, because she wasn’t allowed to speak, and that meant she couldn’t ask to go to the bathroom.
She watched the moon and stars traverse the sky while she needed to go so bad it hurt.
Finally, when the pain was so great she had no choice, she relaxed her muscles and emptied her bladder. She felt the heat leaving her body. Heard the liquid hitting the ground beneath her while he watched, but she could only close her eyes and breathe through the shame of it.
“There we go,” he said. “Your body belongs to me when it’s in my ropes. Not you.”
She was relieved when he moved her so she wouldn’t have to smell the scent of her humiliation, but the gratitude soon faded because the next pose pulled her shoulders back all over again.
She couldn’t stand, couldn’t sit. She completely forgot her shame from earlier and could only focus on surviving.
She tried to judge the time by the moon, and she figured she was about an hour in on this pose when he must’ve decided her legs were too free, because he added chains that held them apart.
She had to hold herself up to take the weight off her shoulders, and all she could do for relief was go up on her toes and then down off them.
Eventually, she couldn’t hold herself up, and she hung from her arms.
And all the while, he was focusing on a body part — and he could get to everything from this pose.
Above her, the open sky stretched forever — stars sharp and bright, the moon crossing the sky like an old friend.
She could feel the cool night air on her exposed cunt, on her aching nipples, on the sweat that kept trickling down her ribs.
She was completely exposed to the night, to him, while the ropes held her exactly where he wanted her, making her fight gravity whether she wanted to or not.
And then he came at her with more food, but she wasn’t hungry. Couldn’t possibly eat in this pose — until she recognized the smell of the French onion soup, in a cup so he could tilt it up to her mouth. Also, his tone of voice let her know bad things would happen if she didn’t drink it down.
The soup kickstarted her hunger, and he fed her pieces of steak from his fingers, telling her what a good girl she was with every swallowed bite.
He’d fucked her between positions. Leaned her over the back of his Adirondack chair and gone to town on both her ass and pussy. He’d finished in her pussy the first time, her ass the second. He also fucked her mouth multiple times while she was in various poses. Especially the last one outside.
She’d agreed to twenty-four hours, and he used every minute of it, so far — she figured maybe twenty hours in. He’d napped some, sitting up in the Adirondack chair, but never longer than an hour or two. And no way could she sleep in the third pose.
Throughout the day and night, between torturing specific body parts, he’d used a variety of loopy johnnys on her while they were outside.
She figured it out — they didn’t make a loud sound.
He didn’t have close neighbors, but floggers, whips, and belts have specific noises. A loopy is mostly quiet when it lands.
And who had so many? The smallest looked like it was made of old phone wire. Another she was certain was made from network cabling.
The worst was as big around as his thumb, the loop as big as a plate. Another smaller one was made of the same damned stuff.