The House of Pain Read online

  A swift movement, and my dress is in shards. Another movement, and it is ripped off me. I am entirely naked. The rest of the stage is dim, but the spotlight shines down on me. I close my eyes, suddenly overwhelmed by what’s coming.

  John is having none of this. “Keep your eyes open,” he snaps, his command punctuated by a swish of a flogger. Heat sears on my skin. The flogger has hit me on my midriff, with some tails catching the sensitive underside of my breasts. I wince in pain, dancing away, teetering for balance. The audience mutters appreciatively. They like seeing my reaction. They are enjoying watching me flee from the pain.

  My pussy is soaked, a fact that hasn’t escaped John’s attention. He catches my eye and winks at me. I give him a faint smile. So far, this has been intense, but John is clearly an expert. He’s reading me well, giving me enough pain to have me teeter at the edge, but never fall.

  “Gentlemen, I’m now going to flog Sara’s body,” John announces. He holds up the flogger, showing it to the audience. It is blood red in colour, the long tails made of suede.

  “Sara.” John eyes me harshly. He has a piece of chalk in his hands now, and he draws a ring around me on the floor, perhaps four feet in diameter. “See the ring, Sara? You can move, but you must stay inside the ring. Understood?”

  I nod quietly.

  Slash. The flogger hits my breasts this time. I scream in pain, but at the same time, I can feel my body tingle with arousal. “You will verbally acknowledge my instructions.” John’s voice is cold.

  “Yes Sir,” I say quietly. Tears have welled up in my eyes. I concentrate on my breathing. Breathe in. Breathe out. Relax. Let the pain flow through you.

  “Gentlemen, what do you think? For each time she goes outside the circle, I think I’ll add two strokes of the flogger.”

  Applause. Whistles. They agree with John.

  I bite my lips. I am not expecting this. The circle was not discussed, neither were additional strokes. I find that this turns me on even more. The potential for the unexpected serves as a powerful aphrodisiac.

  “You will get thirty strokes of the flogger on your body, twenty on your breasts,” John tells me. I nod.

  He raises his hand, flicks his wrist expertly. The flogger slashes across my belly. It feels like fire on my skin. I squeak, jump. The noise is amplified across the room by the microphone, now hanging above my face.

  The flogger rises and falls again, this time catching the underside of my breasts. I dance away, losing my balance, fighting to stop myself from exiting the circle John’s drawn for me. I barely succeed.

  John grins at me. My struggles to avoid stepping outside the circle amuse him. “I like that you are paying attention to that circle, Sara,” he says, laughing. The audience laughs too. I flush in embarrassment, but my body betrays my excitement – my nipples are hard, my pussy is creaming, and I’m holding still, yet again, for John to whip me.

  The flogger rises, falls. The blows fall down, without cease or pause. Strokes hit my midriff, the underside of my breasts, my thighs, the top of my pussy. I writhe away from the strokes, or do I move towards them? I’ve lost the ability to tell. I’m in a special place, a soft place, where the pain is all I feel, and the pain feels like pleasure. I hear myself through a hazy distance, I’m whimpering. There are tears running down my cheeks, and red lashes are visible on my skin, where the flogger has etched its path.

  I realize that I’ve craved this feeling for a long time.

  John’s now rubbing his hands over me, the calluses in his hands feel like sandpaper against my sensitive skin. He’s touching my breasts, kneading them, bouncing them up and down, using his hands to smack them around. He’s pinching my nipples, rolling them between his fingers, stretching them out, causing me to lose my balance again. I feel complete, utter pleasure. I bite on my lips, mewling softly, marvelling at how good this feels.

  “Ready for the breast flogging?” he asks.

  “Yes Sir,” I say, longing etched in my voice. My assent is picked up by the microphone, the room hears my arousal. Wolf-whistles fill the room.

  I vaguely note that the flogger is shorter this time, before the strokes start.

  I wasn’t sure what to expect in a breast flogging, but I love this. The flames of arousal blaze into a fire, as I struggle to hold back my orgasm. The flogger rises and falls, and each stroke brings pain, but also, so much pleasure. I dimly find myself pushing my breasts outward towards the audience, silently imploring John to please, please continue. John notices my reaction, and laughs. He obliges, whipping me again and again, continuing that sensation that is torment, but also sweet lust.

  The flames rise higher and higher in me. I struggle to hold back the orgasm. I’m suddenly keenly aware there are twenty pairs of lust-filled eyes fastened upon me. A sheen of sweat breaks out on my skin. I’m poised at the edge, and then the flogger curls around my breasts again, this time striking my nipples for the first time, and I come, screaming, writhing in my chains, unable to hold anything back any further, sobbing as the waves of pleasure course through me.

  As I find awareness again, I can hear the applause in the room.

  ***

  We are not done. I am unbuckled from the shackles, told to kneel at the side of the stage again while John gets the next set ready. I obey, this time facing the audience so they can drink in my flaming skin, see the welts the whip has raised. My head is bowed, my eyes are shut. I feel like I’ve run a marathon. I’m utterly drained.

  “The final act, gentlemen.” John’s voice fills the room. I look up; I have not been paying attention. There’s a screen now at the back of the stage and a large desk in the middle of the room. John gestures to me, I get up and come towards the desk.

  John pulls me on top of the desk, has me lie back with my legs spread wide. He buckles my legs and arms into a spreader bar, and has me raise my legs and arms in the air. The spreader bar is hung on a chain from the ceiling; the chain is tightened till there is no slack.

  My arms are spread wide, my legs wider. My ass is open for the audience, my pussy on display. I try to visualize the sushi menu of pain, try to remember what’s left. Ah. My ass is now going to get flogged, and my pussy cropped. The dessert, if you will, in tonight’s menu.

  There’s a camera hanging above me, along with the ever-present microphone. I stiffen. I don’t want to be recorded. “Relax,” John soothes, his voice low so only I can hear. “It’s a feed to the screen, so that the audience can see your face. Nothing is being recorded.”

  I am bound, helpless. There isn’t anything I can do to protest, but I find I believe John. He has no reason to lie to me. I nod my consent.

  “Now gentlemen,” John laughs, addressing the audience. “Sara thinks I’ve forgotten about how many times she stepped out of her circle. You guys counted though, didn’t you? How many times did Sara step outside the circle?”

  Crap. I had forgotten about the circle as I navigated the pain. How bad is this going to be?

  “Six!” “Five!” “Ten!” The voices cry out. I’m not sure if they are relaying the count of how many times I stepped out of the circle, or if they are just expressing how many additional strokes they’d like me to have.

  John grins at the range of numbers shouted out, but finally raises his hands for silence. “I counted five,” he says. There are a couple of boos in the audience, but they subside quickly.

  “Twenty strokes on the ass, Sara, plus your extra ten.” John’s voice brooks no dissent.

  I gulp. In the aftermath of my orgasm, I’ve forgotten that my ass was pretty heavily spanked at the start of the evening. Flogging on my already reddened ass will be, to put it mildly, intense.

  John swishes the flogger through the air. It makes a sound that can only be described as ominous. I clench every muscle in my body; writhe a little in my bonds. The audience chuckles.

  Again, John swishes the flogger in the air, drawing out the moment, building the anticipation. I am tense. Every nerve in my body is on e
dge.

  Finally, when I think I’m going to break and beg John to please, please just flog me, the flogger swings down on my butt. I struggle in my bonds, my body writhing as the pain flows through me.

  “Assume your position, Sara.” John’s voice is implacable. It takes me a few seconds, but then the words register, and I move to obey.

  “Good girl.” There’s approval in his voice as the flogger comes down again, and then, again once more. He’s striking me carefully, avoiding my pussy. I clench my teeth, but a moan escapes me as the blows rain down. My flesh feels like it is on fire.

  John pauses and strokes my ass. His fingernails graze my cheeks, causing me to whimper as the sensation courses through me. I moan. My pussy is once again creaming in response, and because of the way I’m positioned, my response is very, very visible.

  “Looks like she likes it, gentlemen.” John laughs, the audience laughing with him. He resumes the flogging. I moan, writhe, shudder, but I feel myself drift into my special place again, the place where I can’t tell what is pain, and what is pleasure.

  He stops. He must be done. I can feel the tracks of tears on my face, but I don’t remember crying. I am floating.

  “Ten crops on your pussy, Sara.”

  This forces me to pay attention. All evening long, this particular item on the sushi menu of pain has been the one that has given me the most anxiety.

  The first stroke falls on my pussy. Whap. My nerve-endings explode in pain, my hips writhe, almost lift right off the table. I feel an orgasm start to build again instantly, my traitorous body unable to distinguish between pain and pleasure.

  And again. I scream this time, my voice filling the room. John is unrelenting though. The crop makes contact again and again with my pussy lips. I moan, shudder, flinch. My pussy leaks. I can feel the wetness drip down towards my asshole.

  John pauses at the half-way mark. He spreads my pussy lips open and shows the audience the wetness in my pussy. “I think you are enjoying yourself, Sara,” he says.

  He turns towards the audience. “Gentlemen, we are almost done. Would you count down the final five strokes with me? Let’s start with five.”

  The crop falls sharply on my pussy. I hear the audience collectively yell “Five!” as my body struggles in my binding, and the flaming pain flows through me. My pussy feels red, painful, very, very aroused. The strokes and the shouting audience are all pulling me up, raising my arousal, taking me to the edge.

  Crop. “Four!” I dance in my bindings, jumping as I react to the pain. My body shudders. I am so close to the edge.

  Crop. “Three!” There’s cheering now, as the waves of pleasure start hitting that point of no return. I feel my orgasm build, expertly controlled by John’s crop.

  Crop. “Two!” There’s steady applause now, whistles. I don’t hear any of it though. I am at the edge of a massive, shuddering orgasm.

  Crop. “One!”

  And that’s it. I explode hard, fists clenching, body dancing, as if I was waiting for that last stroke before I gave myself permission to come. There’s loud, sustained applause, but I don’t hear any of it. My awareness has narrowed. My clenching pussy is all I am conscious of right now, and I am in my private world of pleasure.

  John is uncuffing me and helping me on my feet. I bow. He walks me off the stage, escorts me into the antechamber, and leaves me alone to process the last hour.

  Chapter 3

  I am huddled in my dressing gown, sitting in the antechamber. My body is criss-crossed with red marks; the proof of my recent flogging. I have orgasmed twice while being whipped, and I am drained.

  Possibly twenty minutes later, there’s a knock on the door. It is John.

  “How do you feel?” he asks me.

  “Okay.” I am not able to form coherent sentences.

  “Take off the robe, and lie down,” he orders, gesturing to a massage table in the corner. I obey. He has a tub of cream in his hands, and he massages it into my body, expertly soothing the reddened skin. “This will help the healing,” he explains.

  His hands feel good. Not a sexual kind of good; I am not attracted to John. But his hands are strong and steady, and they soothe my muscles.

  “You are good at this,” I murmur, as I turn over, and his hands move over my breasts, midriff, and pussy.

  “Mmm. Spread your legs.” Another order. I do.

  He’s checking my pussy for signs of damage from the crop. There isn’t any. Before the session, he has assured me there will be no bleeding, and there isn’t any. There aren’t a lot of welts either. John has caused plenty of pain, but the effects are transient.

  “Good,” he says in satisfaction. “You won’t have too much soreness, you can even have sex tonight, if you want.”

  With Colin? My boyfriend has reacted in shock and horror when I told him I wanted to be spanked. I shudder to think of Colin’s reaction if he sees my body now.

  I dress as John waits. I glance at my phone. It is late. One thirty in the morning. John hands me an envelope of cash. I look. There’s $1200 in there. I raise my eyebrows in surprise. This is almost double of what I was expecting.

  “There’s the $500 first-time bonus,” John explains, “$100 for the extra flogs we added on the fly, $200 you earned, and the remaining money there is a tip from the audience.” I flush. I’m mortified, really. I didn’t do this for the audience; I did this because I wanted to be whipped.

  The whole evening has been magical. I want to blurt out that I want to do this again, but there’s a small voice of caution in my head that stops me. I have a real life, a boyfriend who would be appalled if he ever found out what I did tonight. This behaviour is insane.

  John’s watching me. He can probably tell what’s going on through my mind. After all, I’m not the first girl who’s ever been whipped at the House of Pain. “It’s a lot to process, I know,” he says, his voice gentle. “Take your time to decide what you want to do next.”

  I nod. Now, his voice turns fatherly. “It’s late, Sara, I’ll put you in a cab, okay? Don’t take transit at this hour.”

  I laugh silently at this. John’s whipped me for the last hour, but he’s concerned about me taking transit? I don’t say anything though. I nod again.

  I fall asleep as soon as I get home. I sleep well and deeply.

  ***

  It’s a busy week at work. There are rumours of layoffs and I resolve to get my resume ready. Our department is well regarded, but in the brave new world we live in, there’s never any certainty about employment.

  When I’m not working, I’m pondering what to do. I’m torn. I want to go back to the House of Pain, but I know how risky it is. And, there’s Colin.

  ***

  I’m having dinner with Colin. We’ve only dated for three months; but I like him. He’s funny, kind, easy to hang out with.

  And he won’t spank me at all.

  This is a cliff I’ve reached. I cannot lie to Colin about the House of Pain. It isn’t technically cheating, but that’s a technicality. I know that what I did was wrong, and the worst of it is that it set my pulse racing, and my body aching to do it again.

  A great sadness comes upon me – Colin deserves better than me. He deserves someone who doesn’t wake up moaning as she dreams of a flogger descending on her pussy. At the end of the day, no matter how much I like him, Colin doesn’t meet my needs, and I don’t meet his.

  We break up.

  I apologise, but Colin is genuinely a nice guy. He reaches out, holds my hands in his. “Whatever you are looking for,” he says softly, “I hope you find it, Sara.”

  The tears start falling on the subway on my way home. I cry myself to sleep. Right now, I’m hating myself for craving the pain and for ruining my relationship with Colin.

  ***

  A month passes. I focus on work. I’ve applied to a couple of jobs I find online that seem in my wheelhouse. I get a call back from one of them. I have an interview scheduled.

  I find my interview s
uit, dry-clean it and interview for the job. The first interview goes well. The second interview goes better. I’m excited about the prospect of this job. It is a promotion, which will be good financially. I’m reaching the point where I’m exceedingly tired of my tiny studio apartment, and would like to move somewhere a bit nicer. Plus, I’ve learned everything I can from my current job, and promotion opportunities don’t seem too likely, given we might all get laid off. I keep my fingers crossed.

  ***

  My sadness over the breakup with Colin has receded. I know I did the right thing. I want to be able to explore my sexual fantasies with my partner. I don’t want to hide a part of who I am. As I process this, my thoughts go back to the House of Pain. John’s whip on my breasts. I bite my lips and clench my thighs. A powerful shudder of arousal flows through me.

  I’ve managed to go five weeks without calling John; without setting up the next show. I don’t last six weeks. That Friday afternoon, once I’m done with work, I call John.

  ***

  John’s words are a curveball.

  “I’ve had a cancellation – one of my regular girls is sick. She has the flu. She just called me. There’s a show tomorrow night. Do you want to do it?”

  I hesitate. “So I don’t get to pick what’s in store for me?” But as I speak, I’m checking my calendar, trying to see what I have planned to do tomorrow. Not a lot. My pussy is moistening and my nipples perk up. I realize I’m clenching my thighs in arousal.

  Who am I kidding? I want to do this.

  “No.” John’s voice is level. “The audience’s expecting certain things. I’ll go easier on you, but the program’s basically set. Want to do this?” He’s slightly distant, impatient. If I say no, he’ll call the next girl on his list, and then the next one. He’s running a business here.

  “Okay.” My voice is the merest whisper.

  “The show’s at midnight. Show up at 10.30pm at the store, and I’ll prep you for what’s coming.”

  “Okay,” I say again. We quickly go through the names of the audience. None of them are familiar. I’m going through the motions, and I know it. My pulse is racing; anticipation surges through me.