Rosered

The bar was small, and very crowded. The modified dance floor was blonde wood, nicely polished. Quaint was the word. The place was the perfect neighborhood bar- well the perfect neighborhood leather bar. You see arranged artfully around the dance area, with its floor length mirrors, was an array of bondage equipment. A horse, suspension chains and a large black punishment cross.

I had never been on a punishment cross personally, and I felt my palms get damp as I followed the Master and Mistress over to it on the dance area. I carried paddles, floggers, slappers and canes in my arms from the equipment case. The instruments of my torment.

I kept my eyes down. My heart starting to pound and my breath getting short as we got nearer to its darkness. Not with fear as much as heat.

They had set it deeply into a corner, and put a cover over a pool table next to it, a red leather pad. The Mistress motioned for me to lay out the equipment, and I did so neatly. My fingers shaking. They ordered me to get the quick secures from the equipment case, so I could be fastened to the cross by the collar and cuffs I was wearing. The restraint things I had been wearing all night since the Bloody Valentine show. The show where She had carved Her initials into my breasts with a razor blade I had cleaned off myself.

It was after that supremely erotic spectacle that they had asked me to be The Master's entry into the Rose Red Contest- The Master/slave combo with the reddest backside wins a gift certificate for Wicked. The local Leather store. I immediately agreed to it. Pleasing them both.

I waited patiently before the black cross, when I had finished laying the things out, waiting for instruction. Waiting for the punishment to begin.

Now when I say punishment, one must understand that it was for no other reason than this contest and my wish to show my willingness to submit to them. Whatever they desired. This was for no infraction of any rules, nor their pleasure, or my education. It just was. That part of me needs it, loves it, craves it, is merely part of the head game we Sado/masochists play with each other. I surrender control willingly. The Master and Mistress offer to take it from me- as my gift to them.

The Master pushed me gently closer to the glossy darkness of the cross, and told me to raise my arms. Using the quick secures to bind my arms high and closely to the cool surface. His fingers softer than the Mistress', always softer. I spread my legs so my feet could be bound the same way. He moved my skirt out of the way of his flogger and left my buttocks clear to view. I was captured and at the mercy of the Master and Mistress. A position of total trust that I had happily assumed.

That I was submitting myself before a roomful of complete and total strangers, strangers that proper slave etiquette meant I was forbidden to look at, merely added to the spice. Fired my imagination and raised my pulse deliciously.

I felt hands on me. His hands, the Master's. His voice caressing my ears with sound so low only I could hear it. A brush of air against my nape, his breath sweet. His body close enough to mine to just be a line of heat against my bare side. Finger's firm as he wrapped the tails of his flogger around my throat pulling my head back so my shoulder rested against his chest. I shivered and closed my eyes. Feeling the first warm flush of endorphins flooding my system as fear rolled my mind. Ignore the crowd and focus on Him. The Master's voice is all that's important. His wishes and instructions. He spoke.

"Are you ready?" I nodded trying to force sound past the lump in my throat. The fire burning in my throbbing blood.

"Yes..." Too soft. "Yes, Master." I managed after clearing my throat. He backed away, and the first blow fell, forcing the air from my throat with a soft sound.

<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>

The move into subspace or slave space is a form of self hypnosis. That I can surrender enough of myself to get off on pain is a clinical process. A process that every person, trained as a pleasure slave like I was, knows how to do. We can sublimate ourselves and go beyond. This is a game we sexual masochists play not only with the Top/Dominant but with our own bodies and our own minds.

We have to be able to lose ourselves and still pay attention to the wishes, instructions and needs of our tops. Their desires are foremost to the true sub in a service scenario. A place I was trying to get too. Half in, Half out. Still every scene is different, and I with my years of experience was a novice in many ways to the arena I was playing in. I knew that I would have to take more, be more graceful, and more willing, to survive here, and I have never wanted anything more in my life. Had I my wish I would never leave this world I was visiting.

Pain is relative and every good submissive knows this. It still hurts, and the pain was there for me. I tried to count blows like a good little subbie but they soon fell so fast and furious I had no chance too. I tried to count again when they switched to the paddle, the strap and the slapper. Going completely still when they touched the skin of my buttocks to check for damage. Too check for progress.

It was then that she hit me, The Mistress. I don't know what she had in her hand, but the heat was instantaneous. It took my breath away and ignited the fire burning in my blood in a single stroke. I pulled my body as tightly into the cross as I could get, and it wasn't near close enough. Yet it wasn't a single stroke that she laid upon my flesh. It was like a metronome. Same place, same depth, same weight to her hand, as well-practiced as it is. My mind went into hyper drive as I struggled not to move, and not to fight, even though I knew it was useless. I felt my hands clench and unclench desperately. I suddenly knew that I couldn't take one more, but... If I quit...

Panic.. I bit my tongue and struggled on the cross in earnest to escape. I lost all self control. I felt it building in me and didn't know which I fought more the urge to use my safe word, and stop my torment or the urge to not orgasm on that cross, in front of all those strangers without permission. Permission I would never have the guts to ask for. The secret I never even tell myself. I was about to open my mouth when she just stopped working me.

The surcease from pain was so sudden that I sagged into the cross limp, head hanging. Sweat rolling down face. My hair damp.

"Are you alright?" They asked me, and I pulled my self back from subspace. My chest heaving so I felt like I had just run a marathon.

"Yes, Mistress." So beautiful, My Mistress, anything for you. She ran a black metal striker against my lips, and I kissed it dreamily, running my tongue along its surface in gratitude, wishing I could lay my head against her feet in a show of respect. Hearing her speaking to the Master about the state of my posterior, that I bruised easily but the continual blows were diffusing the color nicely as they kept working me into a pretty shade of red.

Then they started again, and I swore. My body jerking as raw flesh was struck.

"Jesus Christ!" and getting a stern "shhhh." from someone behind me. I pulled my lower lip between my teeth, wishing I had been gagged. It made things so much easier sometimes. They paused and I felt a hand between my open legs. Feeling the dampness of my arousal. No way to hide how wet I was, and I did try to pull my bound legs closed, uselessly. Why even try?

"None of that...Don't you like this?"

"I love it, Mistress." I gasped out, staying still as someone explored my body with soft fingers. I knew it wouldn't last though. They would start flogging me again.

They did too, and it wasn't the random sensuous flogging of the Master, but the hard metronome of the Mistress. Even tempo and pressure.

It was like they had never stopped. I went back to a heated delicious agony in a matter of seconds. Fighting my body and my own need. Knowing that I wasn't going to make it this time. I was going to orgasm. I cried out to stop it. Hearing unshed tears under my voice.

"Mistress, Please...Don't..." I clamped it down. Bit down on my tongue hard enough to draw blood and refused to beg for mercy. Hands clenching and unclenching into fists helplessly until gentle hands touched me.

"Don't what, slave?" She asked, and I felt something break inside of me until it came out in my voice. A ghost of unshed tears.

"Please, please don't make me say my safe-word, Mistress, please..." I begged and hung my head in shame. Pulling lungfuls of air into my chest in gulps trying to regain control.

They pulled back from me and why not? What a disappointment I must be with my delicate skin and lack of control. My lack of grace in extremis. I felt like a wretched failure. I could almost hear them talking over my hoarse breathing and pounding pulse but not quite. It was the last comment that I heard her make as she discussed my skin.

"We need to take a break for a few moments anyways. See..." Hands and nails brushing my raw buttocks so I hissed with pain. It stopped and he was next to me again. The Master. The Lady was gone.

I freely admit to bisexuality. but thanks to an abysmal track record with men for the last few years. I have been dating women only. I even came out as a lesbian to my family. Now, I have a ton of male friends, and one male top that I service occasionally, but that is Service. He's a switch, like me. Service is a task. A generally pleasant and rewarding task, but still... sometimes it is also taking the torment the top wishes to inflict upon you just because he/she wishes to torture you intimately. It somehow makes it easier to think of it as just service. An expert service that I had been trained to provide on command, oh so long ago. Not my job to question it, just my job to accept it as a slave.

I had been dreading first service to the Master, even though I knew in my rational mind that he was a decent person with his hard, yet gentle hands, and wounded eyes. Still men were dangerous in my mind. He scared me, a lot. Not as a top, but as a male human animal. Dangerous.

Not tonight, however, his voice was gentle in my ear.

"Would you like something to drink?" Heaven. I thought when he asked me that. I was so dry.

"Water would be lovely Master, please." He left me alone, and try as I might to not look around I did glance at the people around me. I stopped myself quickly. I had seen more than I wished to of the crowd watching me. A big crowd.

I let myself even out. Pulse slowing, breath returning to normal. After glow settling in when the Master rolled the cold water bottle over my neck and down my back. I moaned in relief. I felt like I was on fire. Wonderful pleasure. The coolness welcome against my skin. He came around to the front of me. Opening the bottle and holding it to my lips so I could drink deeply.

"Are you okay?" He was talking to me as though I wasn't quite the miserable failure that I thought I was. He didn't act like he was disappointed in me. I was being petted and cared for as though I were a good slave. I cleared my throat and told him my thumbs were tingling- probably pressure on my radial nerves. He quick released me and let me dangle my arms down at my sides for a few delicious moments. Shaking feeling back into them. "The contest is in a half hour, we'll start again in a few minutes."

"Is it red, Master?" I asked him, hoping he would answer me.

"Oh, yeah.." His hands on my skin again. In my hair, on my neck. Petting me. It was at that moment that I suddenly had no more fear of him. I almost didn't care that he was male. I loved him completely, and wanted to serve him in any capacity that he wished of me. He had just clicked into place in my head as Master. I felt like his. I felt like theirs. All of theirs.

Now, it wasn't the love of love songs, and their happily ever after horseshit. It was his beauty, his cruelty and his kindness, in that order, that I loved at that moment. The kind hands in my hair, and on my throat. His asking me if I loved him as he had whipped me the first time. The melting tenderness that all subs crave and we never ask for. We simply bask in it when we earn it by submission and willingness to serve. Anything for you.

It was more than that though. I had seen him take as much as a good sub could take, and not balk. He stayed calm and collected. I admired his grit. He set a good example.

<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>

Time moved on quickly and I was given more water. He allowed me to catch my breath. Set my defenses back up. My body buzzing with desire. I could scent it in the air, my heated flesh. I know my eyes blazed with it. I really had to force myself to not look around, but keep my eyes down, demurely and my full attention on the Master.

When he re-secured my arms to the cross he set them lower this time, so I wouldn't damage the radial nerve that was still buzzing. Thoughtful, Master, thank you.

The Mistress wandered back over, and she said that it was five minutes until the contest. I could do that. I could do anything for five minutes.

They started out hard this time, well it felt that way to me, but I was so raw the lightest touch was agony. Not that it mattered as I slipped into subspace for five minutes... I can do five minutes. I can do five minutes... then I was gone. Head back, pain moving through me deliciously to settle at the apex of my thighs. I was drenching with it, and I knew it. Telling myself to accept. To become patience. then...

A voice... The Mistress.....

"You will be rewarded later, for being so good." Ummm... that made it so much more bearable. Something to look forward too.

Five minutes ended too soon. He quick released me, and I followed him to the center of the dance floor with the other two contestants. Only two, a man and a woman.

The Master pulled a bondage horse into good light, and had me bend over it. He rearranged my garter's so the rosy color of my flesh was easily seen, and we waited for Mystress D to judge the contest. She did so with paint chips. I was very surprised when Master L announced that we had won the competition. I did feel a small twinge of pride in our victory.

The Master said that it was no contest really, after we had won. My buttocks were by far the more worked and reddened.

They ended up drawing for second place as well. All in all it was a good night. I served my Master and Mistress to the best I was able too with as much willing acceptance as I could give to them.

Yes, a very good night. I learned something about myself, and about the Master and Mistress. I could take more than I thought I could, and they respected my limitations without judging me as a failure for them. Limits can be stretched. Respect cannot.

I came to the complete realization that I was probably the luckiest submissive in the bar that night. A beautiful Master and Mistress to torture me, train me and work me? Maybe the luckiest submissive in the state.

The End.

Rene

2/4/03