Heart of Steel Ch. 03

"All is well," he assured her, "I'm totally satisfied with you, Maul."

"Good." she smiled and kissed him.

Tristan rose from bed and went to the kitchen to procure a drink for himself and Maul. They always liked sharing a nice mixed drink. There was something romantic and familiar about it. But apparently his precision drink mixing took a bit too long, and Maul was particularly tired, for when he returned to the bedroom, she was fast asleep.

It may have been immoral, a mistake, gross, whatever one wanted to call it, but Tristan did find himself still excited after their encounter, feeling a part of him was yet to be satiated. And so he set the drink on the desk next to his computer before activating the PC and browsing the net for a particular site he'd come to like. As he sipped the drink, he began reading a story, an "erotic" tale of a man captured on an isle of amazonian warriors, who wanted just one thing from this wayward man. Tristan found the tale alluring, the dominance of the amazons, the submission of the man to their will. He was enthralled by it, aroused, so much so that he lost touch with his surroundings.

"So," Maul said, leaning over his shoulder, "this is what you want, huh?"

Tristan sprang away from the computer, not expecting Maul's voice right by his ear. He stared at her, illumined in the glow of the computer screen. Maul moved to the screen and began to read the story. As Tristan reached forth to change the screen, to turn off the PC, Maul swatted his hands away, leaving him to wait. Eventually he moved to the bed and sat there, leaving Maul to take his chair and finish the story. When at last she did, she turned toward Tristan, her face split by a wicked grin.

"So, little boy," she said slowly, emoting dangerous intrigue, "this is what you're into, is it? This is what you want?"

"Maul, please," Tristan implored, "I had a really hard time accepting that this is what I like, what I still wanted, after everything I endured. I didn't want to tell you, didn't want you to be mad or grossed out."

"Oh I'm not mad," Maul hissed, moving closer, "but I do think a certain naughty little secret-keeper needs Maul to punish him."

Tristan was paralyzed with excitement as Maul strode forth, pushing him down onto his back on the bed. She then departed for a moment to rummage through the closet. She returned with a few scarves and in mere minutes had Tristan secured to the bed at every limb, despite his squirming. But he wasn't scared, even when Maul brought out a leather belt, tracing its tip across his body. She laid into him with incredible force, whipping his chest and leaving stark, painful welts on his thighs. Tristan screamed and bucked against his bindings, which held surprisingly well. Finished at last with the belt whipping, Maul leapt upon him and began mercilessly biting, scratching, and tickling his skin.

"Oh Gods, Maul." he moaned.

"Shut up, slave." she commanded sharply, sitting astride him. "You're this amazon's property now, and you will worship her."

Tristan's excited moan was buried between Maul's thighs as she moved up to sit astride his face. Maul's hips worked in a downward-thrusting, pivotal motion, rubbing her sweet inner warmth against his face, forcing Tristan to please her, for a good, long while, with his tongue, until she came to a shuddering climax, which Tristan was of course forced to enjoy in worship of his "amazonian" mistress. But he was of course rewarded by Maul, who worked him to a climax roughly with her little hands. Finally, he was freed from the scarves and left to relax while Maul went to fetch a drink for herself.

"Thank you." Tristan panted when she returned. "Thank you for doing that for me Maul, I know how weird it must seem that I want that."

"Your sexual orientation is not weird." she replied firmly, cuddling up beside him in bed. "And believe you me, I very much enjoy doing that. I just didn't want to try that with you, for fear of scaring you."

"You mean, you're into it?"

"Yes sir, my little boy." she cooed playfully. "And if you're into it, and if you'll tell me whenever it goes too far, then I'll happily play these scenarios out with you."

"Our safe word can be orange. If I say orange, then we stop right there."

"That's perfect." Maul said. "And maybe tomorrow we can go buy some fun toys to further enhance this sort of play."

"You, you are just the sweetest, most accepting girl on Earth." Tristan praised.

"Anything for my Tristan." Maul replied, snuggling close and kissing his neck.

The next day, the college couple rose late from bed and enjoyed a breakfast of their favorite cereal. After breakfast and a separate shower, for Tristan still could not bring himself to shower with another person, they took a bus southward, to the same town where Tristan had once visited Lady Jane's dungeon, and began walking around. On her phone, Maul had found the address of an "adult alternative" shop that they could explore, and with a bit of navigational trickery, they at last found it. It was a quaint, unassuming storefront with a little sign that read "The Ultimate Sin."

Bold as ever, Maul pulled the door open and strode in, leading Tristan along by the hand, like a child. But he liked it, he liked being cared for, being protected. And now, knowing he was becoming more and more capable of doing the protecting. The shop itself was surprisingly clean, Tristan found himself expecting something a bit more dark and unscrupulous. But here he had a well-lit, organized venue with soft music playing in the background. Maul was like a kid in a candy shop, darting around from one little stand to another, or dragging Tristan down an aisle to look at things.

Tristan was equally excited, but exponentially more subdued. Though biologically, he was exactly as exuberant as the vivacious, redheaded pixie that led him about. Every item, he wanted to buy it all, to have it all. And this was not aided by a sale that the store was having, a massive discount on many, many products as a promotional deal to commemorate something significant in the store's history, or something of the sort of which Tristan was not entirely aware, but for which he was very grateful.

"What about this?" Maul proposed, holding up a harness fitted with a double-sided phallic device. "Is this something that would interest you?"

"Not so loud." Tristan flushed.

"Is it?" she persisted.

Tristan looked at the device, long and thick, and rigged with a vibrating feature. He remembered Hilja, remembered what she'd done to him, and a shudder went through him. But seeing it in Maul's hand was somehow more exciting for him than it was startling. He could imagine it in use, with his consent, and that feeling of "bound yet free" was there inside him once again. / It's so odd, how the very same things done to me before could excite me now, if done with Maul./ It was the consent, it was the freedom to choose helplessness that made Tristan nod and say, "Yes, I'd like that very much."

"I think I will too." Maul agreed.

They explored for a long while. Maul found a changing room, which she entered and emerged from, clad in stiletto heels, skin-tight black leather, and little cat ears atop her head. Tristan was speechless and the outfit was added to the growing list of stuff they were somehow going to manage to afford. They were walking down an aisle to select a nice set of clamps when a familiar blonde-haired woman turned around and greeted them.

"Tristan," she exclaimed, "hi there!"

"Oh, Lady Jane, hello." Tristan said sheepishly.

"How do you two know each other?" Maul asked deviously.

"I uh... I went to her dungeon for a session before you and I started dating." admitted Tristan, expecting Maul to become flustered.

"I wasn't going to say anything," Jane stated, "confidentiality and all. Just thought I would say hi. I hope I've not caused a stir."

"Not at all," Maul exclaimed, "that's awesome that Tristan was exploring this with someone more experienced in the area. I could sure use some pointers."

"Maybe she should watch you work." Tristan joked.

"Yeah," Jane agreed excitedly, "like an internship. Except you won't get any college credit for it I'm afraid."

They all laughed.

"I'd like that a lot," Maul agreed, "maybe you could do a session with Tristan and I could do a bit of note-taking."

"That sounds perfectly reasonable." Jane said. "Just make an appointment and we can make it happen."

"Sometimes I wonder if my sex-life is actually happening or if it's just some unbelievably hot fantasy." Tristan laughed.

"Oh it's happening." Maul assured him. "Now let's get going, I'm already hungry for lunch."

"Yes ma'am." Tristan agreed.

"See you two around." Lady Jane called after them as they went to the register, paid the reasonable but still rather high bill, and exited the store with discretely-wrapped packages of sexual deviance.

The pair stopped for lunch at a German restaurant. Sitting outside on the porch, they dined on hearty sausages, thick bread, and sauerkraut pungent enough to alarm passersby. Both of them relished the food, eating massive helpings until their bellies felt full to bursting. The restaurant scored this lunch with a soundtrack of German folk music, which Tristan loved.

"So you like all this Germanic stuff, right?" Maul asked.

"Yeah, Germanic food, culture, and the lore of the Norse, who were an ancient Germanic people." Tristan explained. "As you can well see, and well know by my Mjolnir, I follow the path of the Germanic heathens."

"Heathen? Like evil, lawless people?"

"No no," corrected Tristan, "I can't believe we haven't discussed religion before. Heathen means: of the heath or wilderness, it just refers to the old tribal Germanic cultures: Norse, Danes, Swedes, all of them."

"Okay, that's cool." Maul replied. "I always figured something like that was the case, but it just never came up."

"Very true."

"Plus, I have other stuff on the mind right now." Maul added, eyeing their packages, which rested by her feet.

"Oh, me too." Tristan agreed.

They spent the rest of the day at home, unpacking and stowing away the wealth of items they'd purchased. It had nearly broken the bank, but Tristan wasn't spending much lately, so he was not concerned. Plus, it felt to be a worthy expenditure. So he was entirely happy with the products that they unpacked and then stored away in the closet and chest of drawers for later use. / Hopefully not MUCH later though,/ Tristan mused silently. From Maul's hungry expression, she was thinking something similar. That and augmenting her wardrobe with some of this stuff was hardly a bad thing in Maul's book.

That night though, Tristan had work, and Maul joined him and Dave in the shop. She was working on a large-scale drawing, not for class, but for recreation, and to that end she spread her poster-board out on an empty table adjacent to the register and set about to drawing. First outlining with pencil and then using a myriad of coloured markers to complete the design. Tristan was working register whilst Dave was taking his time about restocking the rap section with some new release or other of some grossly auto-tuned performer in whom Tristan had no interest and even less respect.

Finally, Dave emerged from the store room, without any fresh albums. He ambled up to Maul and stared down at her drawing with what at first appeared to be unyielding focus, though a closer look betrayed his eyes drifting off as though gazing into some deep hole in time and space. Maul looked up.

"You like?" she asked. "It's a clash of vikings with the Romans."

"It's beautiful man." slurred Dave.

"Dave," demanded Tristan, "are you high?"

"A little, bro, not going to lie." admitted the bulky metalhead. "Want to light up?"

"I can't. One of us has to work."

"Close up early," Maul suggested, "Tony won't mind, will he?"

"No," Tristan said upon a bit of thought, "he'd be okay with it just once. No one else is even here."

"Rock on, my brothers."

"I'm a girl, Dave." Maul pointed out.

"Oh yeah. I forgot, sorry bro."

Tristan was not sure how much of a good idea this was, but his "fun with Dave" sense was trumping his judgment, and so he went to the door, made sure no one was coming in, then locked up and set out the closed sign. / Tony's always closing early for trivial shit, it should be okay if we do it just this one time, right? Sure it /will!/ With that mental assurance, he joined Dave and Maul, who were already headed back to the store room.

Once inside, Dave lit up a pipe. Seated on unopened crates of albums, they passed the pipe around. The oddly sweet aroma of the marijuana filled the room, as well as a cloud of smoke. The drug hit Tristan nicely, filling his lungs and carrying through his body with that wonderful, lightening effect it seemed to always have on him. From the peaceful look on Maul's face, it was having the same effect on her. Dave was already far-gone.

"So Tristan and I are going to a dominatrix tomorrow." Maul mumbled happily. "She's pretty."

"That's cool," Dave said, "those chicks are pretty awesome."

"Yeah," Tristan agreed, "awesome and safe."

"Safe?" Dave asked. "I guess so, in a weird way."

"He means safe for him, like they're not going to rape him." contributed Maul.

"Maul!" Tristan exclaimed.

"Rape? What did that like happen to you?" Dave inquired.

"Yeah," Tristan admitted, mostly under the influence of the weed, "some chicks after a concert. That's why I was gone that whole month. When you covered for me with my folks, remember?"

"Dude, that's heavy." Dave murmured. "I didn't even know girls could do that to a guy, you know?"

"They can." Maul assured him. "Poor little Tristan found that out."

"Yeah." Tristan sighed.

This was not going in a fun way for him. He felt unhappy, miserable, emotional in all ways unpleasant.

"Dude," Dave exclaimed, "this is fucking depressing. Let's rock out, come on!"

Dave bolted from the storage room, leaving Maul and Tristan to finish off the remains of the pipe they'd been smoking and refilling. Soon, loud thrash metal, courtesy of the band Vektor, washed over the store. Tristan and Maul erupted into the aisles, singing along to "Black Future" whilst Dave ordered a pizza over the phone. This was of course a difficult process, given the brain-breaking loud music and the current state of mind inhabited by Dave. But he struggled through the complexities of pizza delivery and soon they had a pizza and a two liter bottle of soda to share between them as they ran up and down the aisles singing along to music and mocking the "lesser" artists stocked on the shelves.

"Tristan," Maul said as she ran toward him, careening off of him and giggling, "sorry I spilled your secret."

"It's okay," he mumbled dumbly, "just don't tell my parents."

"Why not?"

"They won't believe me, I don't think, and they don't need to know and I don't want them to know how I lost my virginity."

"Okay." she consented, taking Tristan's hands and leaping up onto his torso, holding herself there with her legs and arms. "You're so big and strong now!"

"Maul, you're tiny," Tristan cackled, "I could probably do this before I ever bulked up."

"I can hold her, throw her to me!" Dave called.

Tristan moved close and tossed Maul lightly, a short distance into Dave's arms. It wasn't so much a toss as it was a long-range handoff, but the gesture was enough to make Maul squeal and kick. Dave couldn't keep a hold of the squirming metal pixie and she hastily escaped, rocketing about the store, giggling like a maniac and chanting, "Catch me if you can. I'm a princess and you're evil trolls. Catch me!" And thus they entertained themselves for a long while until they at last, exhausted, collapsed to the floor in an aisle, laughing and reminiscing about fun times and telling rambling, aimless stories.

As fun and rambunctious as the adventure was, it wound down and they all returned to their homes for much needed rest. The next day, Sunday, Maul had paid for a mid-afternoon session for Tristan with the friendly Lady Jane at her dungeon. And to that end, they boarded the south-bound bus yet again and rode out of Pine Ridge.

The day was sunny and warm. Tristan still wore his black garb, as he was constantly wont to do, come rain or shine. Maul, as Tristan had been, was surprised by the dungeon's pleasantness and non-threatening decorum in the entry room and transition room that preceded the dungeon proper. The dungeon itself, with its walls lined in different devices and apertures, did not in the least threaten Maul. As she darted around the room like an errant pinball, eagerly inspecting the myriad devices, Tristan found himself thinking that she very much was not repulsed by this world of masochism and sadism. / Even though she's never practiced it, sure seems like my interests were not what made her start to think of it as intriguing./

For this session, Tristan was stripped totally naked and stood in the middle of the room, shivering in the chill of the air. With leather, forearm-length gloves, Lady Jane handled his lower extremities, fitting a ring around his scrotum and a locking device around his manhood.

"This," she explained to Maul, "is a chastity device, which only opens with a key. You," she added, handing the key to Maul, "hold it, so you control when your man is allowed to be erect and have a release."

"I like that." Maul purred excitedly.

/Me/ /too,/ Tristan's mind confirmed amidst a cloud of arousal.

Then Tristan was led to the same whipping bench he'd been shackled to in the last session and was once again shackled down. Lady Jane demonstrated, somewhat copiously, the handling of whips of varying length, and the proper use of two variants of paddles, those with and without metal studs embedded in the leather. Maul was then permitted to try her hand at it. Tristan's ecstatic screams were testimonies toward her success in quickly mastering the way of the whip. And the paddle.

"Are you happy, Tristan?" Maul asked.

"It hurts so, so good." Tristan answered amid gasps of pleasure and shudders of pain.

CRACK came the whip across his shoulder blades.

"What was that?!" Maul demanded of him.

"I mean, it hurts so, so good, Mistress Maul." corrected Tristan.

"Good boy."

"You're learning well." Jane praised.

/This/ /is/ /Heaven,/ Tristan thought. / I'm so happy I can still enjoy this sort of thing after all I've been through./

Tristan was moved then to another device, a simple mattress surrounded by studs to simulate bedposts, to which his limbs were shackled, spread out entirely, giving him no range of motion. Lady Jane then walked Maul through how to aptly find and exploit ticklish spots all over Tristan's immobilized form. Maul enjoyed this torture far too much, and Lady Jane had to rein her in "Before poor Tristan laughs himself into a coma. Maul moved on to learning the best places to scratch and bite, places that evoked the strongest reactions from the bound metalhead. When he was finally unshackled, Tristan was exhausted, but the two women were not yet done with him. / And I love that they're not done with me,/ observed his mental voice.

"You can order your submissive to do anything," Jane explained to Maul as they sat side-by-side on high seats, "and so long as it stays in his comfort zone, and pleases you both mutually, then you're having a good round of play."

"Tristan," Maul ordered, "crawl over here and remove our boots. Lady Jane and I deserve massages for our hard work pleasing you."

"Good!" Jane exclaimed, patting Maul on the shoulder, which elicited a smile from the metal nymph.

As he was commanded, so did Tristan obey. Both women wore boots with wickedly-pointed high-heels. Tristan carefully slid the boots from each of them, setting the footwear aside. First, he took up Maul's feet in his hands, but she uttered a displeased tone and pushed him away with a dainty foot pressed firmly into his face.