Page 62 of Knife Volume 2

Another heavy crack. Then the third. She asked faster, voice growing hoarse, each plea tumbling out quicker than the last. The loopy hurt — God, it hurt — the evil network cabling wrapping and snapping with every strike, lighting up her already bruised ass and the backs of her thighs. Tears streamed down her face as she counted them off, desperate to finish so she could run to the toilet.

By the time she reached twenty-eight, her voice was raw and shaking.

“Please, Sir, can I have the twenty-ninth strike?”

The loopy landed harder. She sobbed, legs trembling violently.

“Please, Sir, can I have the thirtieth strike?”

The final crack was the worst. She cried out sharply, the pain blooming bright and deep across her ass.

He stroked her back once, almost tenderly. “You may go.”

She didn’t walk — she ran.

Legs shaking, ass on fire, the heavy plug still locked inside her, she bolted for the bathroom the second he released her. She barely made it to the toilet before everything let go in a long, humiliating rush.

She heard him cleaning up in the bedroom, and then watched him clean his equipment in the tub. She kept flushing the toilet, humiliated, but he didn’t seem to mind her noises.

When he finished, he told her, “I’ll put this away and then go down and get everything ready for breakfast, and we’ll get started cooking it when you come down.”

It was a statement, not a question, so she nodded.

“Good girl. Permission to speak with respect once you come downstairs. Conversation, with the same rules as before. You can get a quick shower before you come down, but don’t dally.”

And he was gone.

When she made it downstairs, he had bacon already frying, steaks ready to go on the inside grill, and eggs broken and scrambled in a bowl.

“You do the eggs, I’ll handle the bacon and steaks.”

He turned the toaster oven on, and she could see the bread already inside.

She got her favorite spatula and stood at the stove, scrambling the eggs without overworking them, concentrating on getting fluffy curds while he cooked the bacon and kept an eye on the steaks. The rhythm of cooking together felt almost normal, like every other morning they’d cooked together, and she let herself relax into it.

Minutes later, once the eggs were plated, he clipped her arms together behind her back, blindfolded her, and grasped her right bicep.

She let him walk her across the room. She stopped when his hand squeezed and held, and then… she couldn’t explain what came over her, but when he ordered, “Kneel,” as if there wasn’t a doubt in his mind she would obey, she took a step back and stayed standing.

Later, she would wonder if she was testing him, to see what he would do with perfect steaks waiting for them — would he let them go cold while he punished her?

If that was the case, she quickly got her answer, because he punched the backs of her knees so she went down hard, and then clipped her bound hands to something. She felt a chain press across her ass before she felt him connect the other end of it to her right ankle, shifting her body to have to turn slightly — likely toward his chair.

“I’m not spoiling perfectly good steaks for your little act of defiance,” he said calmly, “but you will feel the consequences of that choice within the hour.”

Dread settled into her gut and made her clit throb, but then his fingers were at her mouth, and she opened to accept the bite of steak. She needed the calories, but she was too strung out to want to eat. She chewed mechanically, barely tasting the food.

Her legs still hurt, and kneeling made her thighs scream all over again while her psyche simmered in a toxic brew of fear and anticipation. What would he do to punish her? She was terrified of the prison strap, and she kept seeing it in her mind, his hand around the handle, the cruel rubber flying into the air before it landed on her clit. What the hell had come over her?

She ate every bite he touched to her lips because refusing didn’t seem like a good idea. She’d fucked up, but there was no going back now. There was no escape from the dread and sick anticipation of true punishment she’d earned with deliberate disobedience — or the fact that every bite she took brought her closer to the time she would pay for it in some brutal fashion.

She couldn’t see what was left on the plates, but she knew in her gut the meal was coming to an end when he put the straw to her mouth for the umpteenth time. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.

Sure enough, after she swallowed, he lifted her without warning, scooping her bound body into his arms. She pressed her face into his chest, breathing him in while he carried her out of the kitchen. For one brief, treacherous moment she let herself feel safe.

Then he laid her on her stomach across the sofa, positioning her so her ankles rested on the armrest, feet dangling into the air. He lifted her hips and put two pillows under it, and the whole time, her body edged closer to a forbidden orgasm while the egg vibrated against her front wall, pressing directly over a bundle of nerves connected to her clit. Sharp, treacherous spikes of pleasure shot through her and she whimpered, terrified she would come without permission right there on the sofa.

Then the first strike landed and pain exploded across the heel of her right foot in a thin, vicious line.