Taunt Me (Rough Love 2)

He was passion and violence, and all the fucked-up things.

Beyond the Domme and her sub, a well-known rigger decorated a woman in webs of robe. She was gone, utterly blissed out as he manipulated her body. He was tender and attentive, nuzzling her as he worked at the pattern of knots. I could see a little bit of W in him, in the control he exerted over the woman, but any similarity ended there. It bothered me that I still compared all men to W. It bothered me that I remembered so clearly the dread and adrenaline of being under his power.

The Domme laughed, a mocking, joyful crowing, as her submissive victim waggled her bottom. There was appreciative laughter, a round of applause. The gay couple beside me remained in a world of their own. The bear unzipped, never breaking eye contact, as he played with his sub’s wild, blond curly hair. A moment later he grabbed a handful of those curls, and the harnessed plaything melted to his knees.

I tried not to watch, but I listened. W used to do that, grab my hair like that, and I used to melt for him in the same way. The young man made such beautiful moans and noises. Had I made noises like that? W used to choke me and slap my face, and drive into my throat until I couldn’t breathe.

The bear was growing more passionate—rougher—by the moment, not that his sub seemed to mind. I felt like an interloper. I hid my furtive glances beneath the dark curtain of my hair. Right after I stopped escorting, I’d gone back to my natural hair color, because brunettes blended in more easily than peroxide blondes. I’d also stopped straightening it. I’d basically changed everything about myself in an effort to become someone new and better, and indestructible. Not that I felt indestructible on any given day.

The scene with the Domme ended and another scene began. The characters took their places with their props: the top, the bottom, the bondage, the implements. I’d learned a lot about BDSM in the past couple years, since I’d been coming to the clubs. I learned that most people do BDSM in a relaxed and civilized way, protected by strict rules of consent. Within that consent, a whole array of activities might happen, some of them even wilder than the things W had done to me. We had never really negotiated, though, like these people. Everything he did to me was a trauma or a surprise.

And you loved that, Chere. You lived for those sessions.

Once the new Dom had his sub arranged on the spanking bench, he leaned down and whispered to her as he stroked her shoulder. So relaxed. So civilized. Sometimes I tried to convince myself that my “thing” with W had superseded such niceties as consent and civility, that we were that passionately connected, but then I remembered that our connection was pure illusion, and that he’d never even told me his name. To this day, I didn’t know his name. I’d bet that submissive knew her Dominant’s name, knew where he lived, knew his phone number.

I retreated farther into the shadows. The blond sub beside me was still on his knees, giving an incredible blowjob, if his Master’s drawn-out groans and grunts were any indication. The massive, muscular man was twice his size, and he wasn’t being gentle as he rammed his cock into the sub’s throat. I stood behind another couple so I could full-on stare at the blowjob without being noticed.

Watching them brought everything back: W’s force, his scent, even the hardness of his cock against my tongue and lips. This Master wasn’t as tall and handsome as W, but the aura of command was there. He finished with a roar, rearing deep into the sub’s throat, and the sub knelt there and took it in graceful surrender. Tears filled my eyes from the memories, or maybe the knowledge that I had never been that good. I’d always fought. W told me that he liked it that I fought. It didn’t matter now.

He’d left me.

The Master stepped back and disengaged from the sub’s mouth with a clumsy, awkward pat to his shoulders. The younger man looked up at him with a clear offer of continued availability. The Master wove a hand through the sub’s blond curls and then, to my shock, turned and walked away. I watched the sub, expecting him to crumble. Instead, he sat against the wall, took an elastic off his wrist, and used it to pull back his shoulder-length hair.

Wow. Not crushed at all. Apparently he didn’t care much about the man he’d just submitted to. After a longer look, I realized I knew the guy from Norton Art and Design. Now that his hair was pulled back, I recognized his face from the cafeteria, and the subway station where we often waited for the same trains on the way to class. While I stared at him like an idiot, he gave a little wave, then reached to adjust the straps of his harness.