The Agony of Euphoria
His right hand reached my thigh, burning across my skin to encircle my knee. I looked away from the mirror where I was retouching my lipstick. The little glint in his deep brown eyes was back; he was ready to play. A quiet shudder moved through my body.
“You look breathtaking.” His voice was clouded by the edgy raspiness that added a touch of danger to his usually comforting tone. His compliment awoke a familiar warmth in my belly; it tasted like a promise.
“Yeah?” I answered, blushing.
His hand moved to the back of my neck; the other around my throat.
“Yes.” He said. He leaned in for a kiss, but bit my lower lip instead.
I yelped, while he chuckled mischievously. His fingers squeezed the sides of my throat and I melted into his voracious kiss.
“I can’t wait to hear those cute little noises you make when it hurts too good,” he whispered into our kiss.
When he finally let me go, glassy-eyed and softly panting, my makeup was a distant memory. With an exaggerated sigh and a cheeky smile, I pulled the overhead mirror back down. “Every time,” I grumbled as he chuckled harder, proud of himself.
The parking lot was busier than I expected. Couples in coats shuffled through the door into what seemed like a simple warehouse. Off to the side, a small group of people huddled over cigarette smoke mixed with the frost of the early February air. I was thankful that with the windows up, all I could smell was his cologne; santal and sandalwood, spiced with notes of the blunt we smoked earlier. The full moon seemed closer than ever in a nearly starless sky. She shone brightly, engrossed with mystery and pleasure.
“Are you ready?” He asked.
I nodded.
“Use your words.” Like a true musician, he knew how to use the dense depth of his voice to make my toes curl.
Wherever we were, if this side of himself reared his head out to play, he knew exactly how to awaken his counterpart deep inside a part of my brain that responded to all the wrong buttons. A treasure map that only he knew by heart, a landscape where he could always find more. More sounds, more pleas, more softness, more yeses, more life inside me than I believed should be allowed, so much more pleasure that tugged at the fabrics of sanity.
“Yes, Sir,” I breathed.
“Hm?” He asked, with the slightest rise in his eyebrow.
“... Daddy.” I whispered. Then, louder, “I’m ready, Daddy.”
He smiled with a warmth that made my shoulders relax. He knew how I felt about the nickname. The title. It was like many of the things he adored about this side of myself. The reticent wetness. The seductive betrayal of all the things I professed in my daily life and deeply believed...in the world outside of his arms.
He held the key to the velvety cocoon where I hid to feast on the sweetness of my bruises, and he dragged me out at will into the light, moaning and begging, to face a mirror that forced me to bear the fire of freedom, of surrender, with no shame and no apology.
“Good girl.” He said, sliding his hand behind my neck to bring me closer. Then, he kissed me on the forehead. I liquefied. It wasn’t even fair.
“What’s your word if you want more?” He asked, staring into my eyes with a mix of anticipation, danger, and tenderness.
“Leaf.”
“And when you need a break?”
“Sunflower.”
“Perfect.” He said, nuzzling his nose against mine. “And when you need Daddy to stop and make it better?”
“Hibiscus,” I answered, as my head and my heart filled with lava.
He kissed me again. So softly this time that my eyes moistened.
“You know you’re mine, right?” I nodded. “That I love you? That I’ll never hurt you?”
He stared into me.
“I’ll always keep you safe.”
The lights inside the lobby were blinding after the soft intimacy of the dark, warm car. Two hosts were behind the counter while another gave the speech to the newbies. “No sex, no bodily fluids, no drugs and alcohol,” he said, with a frown. His Domme sat nearby, holding the end of the leash attached to his leather collar. He was wearing almost nothing else.
Lion let go of my hand and squeezed my ass as he turned to the short, slender man behind the counter to check us in. I walked into the changing room and silently squealed with gratitude that there were a handful of lockers left. I hung up my coat and removed the rest of my clothes. I pulled his favorite heels and my robe from my bag. To slide them on, I sat down on the long bench that faced the mirrors, as others shuffled around me.
I looked up and caught my eyes in the mirror. Not much had changed in the changing room of this dungeon. Last time I was here, I was maybe 20. 10 years later, I felt like someone else.
My long locs formed a messy pineapple on top of my head. Little pieces of jewelry that adorned my tresses scintillated under the retro decor lighting. My eyes glowed and seemed even bigger with the excitement dancing wildly behind my dark irises. My red lipstick’s ghost made me look wild, like a well-kissed kidnapped princess from a romance novel. My neck was bare, but I knew it wouldn’t be for long.
I wore a dark jade lace teddy with a pattern of stitched colorful flowers that contrasted delightfully against my dark skin. I looked like a tree of pure lust. My generous fruits threatened to spill out of it at the lightest bounce. The long black velvet robe hid the lingerie’s corset shaped backside that ended in a thong. The matching stockings made my legs look like they went further than ever. The ensemble was complete with the dark red heels he bought me for last year’s wedding anniversary. It was one year later, so much had changed.
I can see our first time playing so clearly, like I was still there.
We were in Amsterdam, back in the quaint boathouse that we had rented for the week, after a long night of live music, blunts, and beer on balconies of pencil-shaped buildings. We’d danced, held hands, kissed against streetlight poles on bridges, and talked to people from around the world in search of connections and experiences, packing stories for a lifetime.
He’d unzipped the short red dress that’d flirted with his fingers all night. Under, over, through, his hands were everywhere that night. I might as well have been naked. He’d played my body like an instrument, and by the time it was just us, I was trembling with need. He kissed the back of my neck, then my shoulder, before biting it playfully.
“Again,” I whimpered.
He took in a short breath.
“Please,” I ventured further into the intensity of the moment. “Harder.”
His eyebrows lifted with curious excitement. His eyes met mine, silently ushering us through a portal in our relationship into a new sensual world, all of our own.
The large, heavy door groaned to let me in. I walked into the dungeon’s main playroom. It was a busy night. I searched for his tall, dark frame. And there he was, all the way in the back of the room, sprawled on a vintage sanguine red loveseat that sat on a low platform. He looked like a mix between a snake, a feline, and a bull.
He always looked so languid, his long limbs carrying him gracefully. He moved like a dancer, or a boxer. He wore his hair in braids with a high-top fade, joined with a glorious beard that felt good everywhere. It emphasized his plump lips and boyish smile, which contrasted with his deep, thoughtful eyes that were perpetually clouded by a pensive frown across his bushy eyebrows.
Noticing me immediately, he leaned back into his seat and swallowed hard. I walked towards him, our eyes locked in. The energy in the room felt electric. What was it about love that completely changed the chemistry in any space surrounding The One? His smile grew larger as I got closer. When I finally reached him, he took my hand and kissed my knuckles one by one while staring into my eyes.
“Kneel.”
I joined him on the platform and obeyed. He reached behind him and presented our play collar. A black velvet choker with an ornate ruby that lay on my chest like a hidden treasure in a dark oasis. His index traced it against my skin and dipped into my cleavage, where he distracted himself for a moment. He pulled me up into his lap and turned to continue speaking to the couple on a couch near us.
The man looked like a lost, kinky cowboy. He wore leather pants, an open leather vest over a black shirt that showed his chest, and a single gold chain with a round medallion. A cowboy hat rested next to his thigh on the couch. His fingers were covered with dulled silver rings and ended in black painted fingernails. He had a large lip ring that he kept rolling his tongue over as he spoke to Lion about his business of sourcing and selling torture toys.
The woman had beautiful, long curly red hair that partly covered her lithe body. I couldn’t see her face; it was pressed against his boots. She looked completely enthralled with rubbing them, dead to the world. From time to time, the man would reach his heavy hand down to pat her gently on the head, and she’d hold his legs tighter, in a blissful trance. After a while, they got up and headed to the fire cupping station that had just opened up.
“You wanted to join her?” Lion whispered in my ear.
“Um, what?”
“Do you want to clean my boots?” He asked with laughing eyes. I scoffed.
“What? We don’t talk about your foot fetish?” He was actually laughing now, knowing damn well it was a secret he had tortured out of me one night after noticing that I moaned instead of protesting at his tickles after I showed him my fresh pedicure.
“We do not.” I replied with a pout.
“I mean...it’s not about the feet,” he said after a moment of silence. “How do you perform your devotion when you know you’re truly accepted and seen? When you have no worry of being judged? How do you give yourself over to the breadth of experiences your body can offer and teach you?”
I didn’t reply. I just nuzzled closer into him as he slid my robe off me with a groan of appreciation. He pulled me in for a kiss, and I melted in his lap. His hands felt like they were under my skin, stroking a layer of myself I didn’t know existed. He felt firm under me and growled into my mouth, drunk on the power exchange. His hunger for control threatened to swallow me.
“Come with me,” he said, gently pushing me up. He slid his arm around my waist and held me tight as we moved towards the small crowds that were watching kinksters engaged in scenes.
Close to the middle of the room, a short slender woman was almost finished tying up a large and tall woman with colorful braids down to her butt. Lion stood behind me with his arms around my waist, pulling me into him. His chin rested on the top of my head. He felt warm. And hard.
The Domme attached the suspension hooks and we waited excitedly to watch her partner ascend. She was an expert at the art of Shibari; the patterns she wove across her body with ropes told a tale of devoted love, of deep appreciation for the beautiful landscape she wanted to tame and keep.
Minutes later, her sub was flying. She looked like she had reached a different world. Her body was completely relaxed. Her curves spilled over her restraints, forming a tantalizing sculpture, suspended over our captivated eyes. A low, continuous moan escaped her as her Domme praised her, telling her how beautiful she was, how good she was being for her, how she wanted to keep her forever. We watched as her words hypnotized her. On any other occasion, I would feel like I was intruding. But here, it was church, a goddess's temple.
Lion took my hand and we moved to an abandoned X-cross. The intimacy from the last scene made me feel lightheaded, like I was in a different world of my own. He left me briefly to grab his duffel bag from our red couch. I turned to admire the cross. It was intimidating; the leather was thick, with red patches at the extremities and the center. A large mirror was against the wall and faced the back of the cross. Even though he’d tie me up facing the wall, I’d still be able to watch him in all his power, and the moment I’d break for him.
He appeared behind me, his long fingers curling around my throat. He kissed me on my cheek and asked,
“What’s the word?”
“Leaf, please,” I replied with a dark smile.
“Of course it is,” he teased. He grabbed my hand and pushed me against the cross. The air felt cool on my exposed cheeks, but that’s not why I trembled.
He kissed my hands one by one and raised them to tie them up to the arms of the cross. As he braided his favorite knots, he spoke to me in that low voice that always inevitably released the waves.
“You know, I knew what you were when I met you.”
“Hmm.. what?”
I didn’t see it coming, but I should have. The sound of his palm against my skin hit me before the pain. The delicious pain I’d been salivating for since I walked in the room and saw him, the Lion, unchained.
“Daddy!” I watched him smile behind me. “What, Daddy?” He bit my shoulder and said,
“A little pain slut.”
I moaned, despite myself.
“Mh-hm... There you were, commanding the room of disgruntled White academics in a yellow dress, completely in control. It didn’t matter that they didn’t think that you deserved to be there. All that mattered was your word, your expertise, and your power.”
As he secured me against the cross, his hands were everywhere, keeping me present in the moment.
“When I introduced myself, I saw it in your eyes. I knew you would bend for me.”
“You didn’t say anything,” I replied. “Not until after we got married. And I had to make the first move.”
“I wanted us to fall in love first,” he replied with a small, pensive frown.
On last year’s anniversary, as he’d held me, I’d whispered all the things that set my skin on fire when I thought of him. How that part of me that I had buried and forgotten about was awakened, and she wouldn’t rest. How I wanted us to go deeper, into the corners of our minds that didn’t need to make sense.
He didn’t hesitate to lead me there, creating moments and scenes where we could explore trust. We didn’t play every day. The magic, for us, was in the falling; my inability to resist that side of him, and the loss of control he felt after earning my submission.
Resisting was delicious torture that promised only more satisfying pain. But some days, I just needed it. And he knew it instinctively. The passion, the abandon, the desire to be carried through rapture. Out of my head, into my every nerve, awakened masterfully by his sensitive hands.
By the time he clicked his tongue with satisfaction, I stood spread-eagled, watching my reflection in the mirror. I looked ravished. He seemed taller from this position, and I watched him as he displayed his toys on a table nearby. It didn’t take long until I was panting, my bare toes dancing against the cool floor.
“Tell me again.” He said, with another lash of the flogger. His voice was gravelly, and he was a little out of breath.
“I love you, Daddy.” I moaned. I wasn’t screaming anymore. I didn’t know how much time had elapsed.
We’d just reached the apex, where I could feel each strand of the flogger striking the exposed skin of my back, which was likely purpling. The force he used at this point was measured. He intuitively knew how to prolong the ecstasy pouring from the sting of bruises, his deep voice guiding us through a scene of confessions, and the love in our eyes in our reflection. The ornate mirror on the wall now resembled a portal between what I could see and what I could feel, the dizzying movement between action and reaction, and the delightful mystery of the unknown, of the what’s next.
I was grounded. I was floating. I didn’t recognize myself anymore. He set down the flogger and approached me, his hands everywhere.
“What’s the word, beautiful?” His voice was a warm cocoon and I felt like I was slipping out of reality.
“Sunflower, Daddy.”
“Good girl, such a good girl.”
He murmured it over and over, deepening the trance with hypnotic adoration. His fingers rubbed my core. It took maybe two seconds before I was whimpering in his arms, completely ravaged by an earth-shattering rhapsody.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m perfect.”
I was still coming back, with a dreamy smile on my lips. I was somehow in our garden tub, filled with my favorite lavender bath bomb. He was in the doorway, holding a tray of fruit, some tea, water, and a joint. I don’t really remember how I got in here, or even how we got home.
All I knew was I was safe and loved, with a passion that matched mine. Out of this world.
