I surveyed the wall where the straps and paddles hung. He had given me a slight slap with his hand, and though it had made me uncomfortable, I hadn’t hated it.
“Tell me how it makes you feel, Jonah,” I said. “How did it make you feel when you slapped my behind?”
He sighed. “Melanie, do you really want to go there?”
I drew him toward me, cupped his cheeks, and pressed a soft kiss on his lips. “I love you. That will not change. Now I want to know you. Deeply. Please tell me. What do you feel when you slap me on the ass?”
He closed his eyes for a moment. After a few timeless seconds, he opened them. “No one has ever asked me that before.”
“Really?”
“That surprises you?”
“Yes, very much. I love you, and I want to know everything about you. Everything you feel.”
His lips fell into a beautiful smile. “That must be the difference, then. None of my other partners ever loved me.”
I shouldn’t have been so surprised. He had told me as much when we first discussed his enjoyment of BDSM activities. He hadn’t told any of them that he loved them, and apparently they hadn’t loved him either.
“Does that mean you don’t have an answer?” I asked.
“It’s not something I’ve ever put into words, Melanie.”
“Could you try? For me?”
He rubbed his temple, sighing. “For you, I will try. I would do anything for you, Melanie. Anything at all. And although I’ve always known that, I don’t think it hit me with full force until right now. For you, I will try to put this into words.”
He took my hand, rubbing my palm with his thumb. “I see you looking at those instruments on the wall. Yes, I’ve used them, but no, I don’t always use them. Sometimes I only use my hand, as I did on you. But whether I use an implement or my hand doesn’t seem to matter. When I use a prop, it’s for the submissive’s pleasure, not my own. I get the same pleasure no matter what I use. It’s like the riding crop, or the paddle, or whatever I use becomes an extension of me. As it comes down on the submissive’s flesh, I feel it as if it is my own flesh touching hers.”
I closed my other hand over his. “That’s fascinating. I never would’ve known.”
“I’m not sure I knew it consciously myself. Not until I just put it into words.”
“What else do you feel?”
“Although I am the one inflicting the pain, I feel it. I feel it in my hand. The sting, the tingle. It travels through my fingers, up my arm, and into my entire body. It soaks into my groin, and my cock grows hard.”
I nodded.
“And then the redness of the submissive’s flesh… I feel that warmth in my own body, and sometimes, when I looked down at my chest, I become red as well, even though no one has slapped me.”
His words had a dark beauty to them, and although I still didn’t quite understand his full motivation for the play he enjoyed, I was beginning to see a little more clearly.
“In a way,” he continued, “it’s not all that different from normal vanilla sex. When we’re close, Melanie, and you become wet for me, I can feel your arousal, even before I touch you between your legs.”
“I understand. I feel your arousal too.”
“When I’m taking control over a submissive, my arousal becomes almost…” He shook his head. “It’s primal, but in a different way than you’re thinking. I can feel my adrenaline rushing through me. It’s not that I want to physically hurt my partner, at least not in a bad way. But those endorphins that my partner emits as the pain turns into pleasure somehow transfer to me. When she begs for more, my arousal intensifies and comes to a boiling point.”
“From a medical standpoint, that makes sense,” I said. “A person in pain will produce endorphins. They act kind of like… Well, like narcotics. They block the pain receptors and can cause euphoria. But that doesn’t explain why you get those feelings as well.”
“Not from a physical standpoint, no. What drives me is producing it in the person. The feeling of being in complete control of someone else’s pleasure. Something in me opens. I feel every slap of the riding crop, every prick of the needle, every burn of the melted candle wax on the submissive’s flesh.” He closed his eyes. “It’s arousing to be so in control yet so out of control at the same time.”
I squeezed his hand. “I never knew it could be like that.”
“For me, it feels good. It feels right to me to be in a dominant role, to know that another person trusts me that much. But I’ve learned something, Melanie. Although I love being in control of someone else’s pain and pleasure, and though I feel every bit of it myself as if it is happening to me, I have no more power than the person I’m dominating.”
“Why do you say that?”