Chapter 35
Miami was all about the seafood, of course. Use what’s fresh and local.
The trick was to provide the normal and boring while also kicking things up to give different and interesting options.
A lot of patrons just want fried shrimp and buttery lobster, so you have to provide that, but she had great fun coming up with the perfect ceviche she hoped the marketing team would make this place’s signature dish.
And because she was tasting dishes throughout her days, she had her fill of seafood.
And that was fine, but she couldn’t wait to get back home and fix herself a stack of steaks — which of course made her think of he-who-would-not-fade-into-the-background like he damned well should.
But she canceled that thought out and enjoyed the marinated stone crab dish she’d come up with.
She ate well and she worked hard. Fourteen-hour days left very little room for anything except exhaustion, and exhaustion was its own kind of mercy.
She didn’t dare run on the beach as a wolf, so she ran on two legs and let the wolf come into her eyes when no one was around. And when they were, the wolf was still high in her psyche, enjoying the smells and sights as much as the human parts of her could allow.
Her wolf hated cities and was always subdued in them, but Tuesday knew this was more, so the beach runs were her way of trying to keep her wolf from being so withdrawn.
She knew her inner animal didn’t believe Knife was gone, and thought something would fix the situation when they got home.
It wasn’t going to happen, but trying to convince her wolf of that wouldn’t be productive.
She’d hoped to fly home on Friday, but when it looked like she’d be working through the weekend and likely wouldn’t leave until Tuesday, she researched BDSM clubs and found one she could get into based on her contacts in Atlanta.
She arrived late Thursday evening dressed in jeans with casual flats, but changed into a black miniskirt, lacy black bra, and black heels.
She walked around and watched the activity to get the feel of the place, and then introduced herself to a dungeon master who seemed competent and friendly.
She explained her desire for super-edgy impact play while blindfolded, and he walked her to an attractive man in his fifties, made an introduction, and left them to figure the rest out.
This dom asked her all the right questions about her experience, how long she’d been in the lifestyle, her expectations for what would happen after, and then finally, what she wanted in the scene.
He gave the energy of someone who’d been doing this long enough he had nothing left to prove, and he repeated things back, showing her he’d actually heard what she said.
But telling a Dom what you want can be tricky. On the one hand, they won’t know unless you tell them, but on the other, you can’t dictate the whole scene. You have to respect their position in the power exchange.
“Impact play. My preference is a short and rapid warmup, leading to the edge of what the club allows. Extreme implements — belts, whips, canes — whatever you prefer. I’m not dictating the implements or scene, just trying to let you know I’m looking for edge play and I actually mean it.
I hope to have bruises and welts to enjoy as a souvenir for days to come. ”
“The house safeword is red, where everything stops. Yellow means back off but I don’t have to stop. I always ask for someone’s personal safeword though, and ask what you wish to happen if you say it.
“It’s ketchup, and that’s a long story, but just check in with me if I say it.”
“Two more questions: How long has it been since you used it, and what was happening when you did?”
Interesting question, and the answer was absolutely going to tell him something about her. “Nearly two years, and he went far past humiliation into degradation. Completely pulled me out of the scene.”
A nod, and he lifted a duffel along with a long tube and motioned for her to follow him.
He stopped in front of a Saint Andrew’s Cross in a quieter corner of the main floor.
Not private, but away from the main traffic, which made sense because this one had enough space in front of it for a single-tail.
Rather than tell her to strip, he motioned to a cubicle mounted on the wall to the side of the cross, and she undressed down to her lacy black G-string.
He didn’t comment on her choice of how far to strip, merely buckled cuffs onto her wrists and ankles, then connected her to the cross with the efficiency of someone who’d done this ten thousand times and still took the time to do it right.
Then came the blindfold, and her world went dark. It was a good one, with little domes over her eyes so she could open or close them. Didn’t make any difference — she couldn’t see even a sliver of light even with them open.
She breathed out slowly and let the darkness settle into her like something solid. Not absence, but presence. The darkness had weight and texture, and she let it become her whole world while she comfortably leaned against the cross, and refused to let herself wish for discomfort.
Her other senses sharpened immediately. The ambient sounds of the club, a distant impact, someone’s muffled cry. Underneath all of it, the quiet of her own breathing. She focused on her nose, the scents of leather and sweat.
She had no idea what was in the duffel or the tube he’d carried. Likely canes in the tube, but beyond that — a tawse? A sap? A loopy? Would he take his belt off or use a strap from his bag? She had no way to know, and no way to prepare, and the not-knowing settled over her like a second blindfold.
Her heartbeat picked up, and she let it.
She’d told him what she wanted, and now she waited to find out how he’d work within that.
He didn’t speak again. He didn’t need to.
He started with either a heavy strap or belt and took her at her word about not wasting a whole lot of time warming her up.
The first dozen strokes were solid, building heat fast across her upper back and ass.
In a mere two dozen strikes he went from medium to oh fuck, and then he took her to that edge she’d been craving.
He read her body like a book — when her breathing changed, when her muscles started to shake, when she was right at the edge of too much.
He took her there again and again, to the edge of what she could handle, holding her there forever, and then switching to another implement and starting over on the same inflamed, battered flesh.
By the time he switched to the cane, she was so far in subspace she craved the double-pain, the sensations she could feel all the way to her bones.
Each strike landed with the initial impact, then a secondary of fire bloomed loud.
Strike and strike, blow after blow, until her whole back and thighs felt like one continuous burn.
She’d stopped thinking while he was using the strap.
Just experienced the sensations. Floated through them and became the pain and the pleasure.
No stress, no cities with too many people, no airplane tubes with stale air, no hotel rooms that smelled of things she wished she couldn’t define, no men on motorcycles who’d said I love you in a parking lot and then let her walk away.
This Dom sent her out of her body until she floated somewhere outside herself, lost in the rhythm of leather, wood, and the sharp sting of the tawse. The cane. No thoughts. Just sensation and the quiet, competent attention of a stranger who knew exactly what he was doing.
She floated for a long time.
Her only requirements for after had been to get her to the quiet area so she could come back to herself, but he did more. He brought her water, covered her with a blanket, and then just sat with her.
She came back to herself in pieces — her body first, cataloging the heat and every yummy ache, and then her brain slowly came back online, like a system rebooting after a controlled shutdown.
She sat with the blanket and the water until she felt fully human again, and then thanked her sadist for the evening. He thanked her for being a dream to torture and hurt, and she made her way back to the locker room to change into her street clothes and arrange for a ride back to her hotel.
The dungeon master waylaid her between the locker room and the exit.
“You seem fine, but that was an intense scene, so I’d like to check in with you. Also, do you need us to call you a car? You shouldn’t walk back to your hotel alone, even if it’s close.”
“It isn’t close, and a car should be here in about two minutes.” She lifted her phone so he could see her screen, and he nodded.
“Excellent. You seem lucid enough, but if you need more time, you should take it.”
She assured him she was fine, but he walked outside with her anyway, and she respected him for it.
It wasn’t actually that unusual for the employees in BDSM clubs to care beyond what a normal establishment does, and she’d found that people who join real-life clubs are generally all-around good humans.
Kinksters finding ethical ways to scratch their itch.
In contrast, sadists without a moral compass enjoy their hobby in places where consent doesn’t matter.
Miami moved past the windows in its nighttime version — neon, full of people, with the smell of the ocean getting more and more pervasive as she neared her oceanfront hotel.
She felt wrung out in the best way. Loose, sore, and completely present in her body.
The only thing missing from the scene had been rough, intense sex after — but that wasn’t how most elite clubs worked. They’re about the scene, not the sex.
And the scene had given her almost everything she needed. The relentless, unending impact, the restraint, the distance the blindfold afforded, and the focused attention of a skilled sadist.
It’d scratched every itch she’d had.
Except that one.
She stared out the window and missed Knife more than she had since she’d sat in P.F. Chang’s and pretended a spicy meal could actually give her enough endorphins to survive losing him.
The Dom tonight had been nothing like Knife — different style, different energy, different everything. And that’d worked to keep Knife out of her head during the scene, because he’d kept her fully present in every fucking moment with his skill and intensity.
It was only now, in the quiet of the car, that the motherfucker showed up anyway.
But she only let herself wallow in sadness for a few minutes before she dragged herself out of it.
She’d just had an amazing scene, and she still hurt beautifully from it.
She was in fucking Miami on the damned beach, and she actually looked forward to going to work the next day with ideas for how to make a dish even better.
Life was good.
And then she had to admit it was mostly good. If she could just carve the memory of a certain biker out of her chest, it would be perfect, but she was working on it.