“Look, it’s the easiest thing for you to do at this point in time. All you have to do is take this,” she said, handing him a little blue pill.

“But I don’t have erectile dysfunction,” he insisted, a little distraught at not knowing what manner of weirdness was about to happen to him.

“Surely, when something good is offered, you don’t reject it. You might think it’s nonsense now, but you’ll see it isn’t. Why do we have to keep on having this conversation every time something new is introduced to you?” she asked, her voice both pleading and tired. She pushed a lock of hair from her face in frustration and half-glared at him, her eyes saying, “Why are you being so difficult? It’s your freedom I’m fighting for here.” Kenneth looked at her, feeling a little ashamed. He knew she wasn’t completely right about certain things, but he was certain of having become less and less afraid of life with every session. The problem of his impending marriage to Lynette was also becoming clearer to him. He didn’t need her any more, not her constant worry about having children or her indelible hold on his financial security. Alright, she had money, not that much, and he didn’t.

Fuck it. He shot down half a Spiegelau glass of whisky on the rocks, took the pill and went to the table.

Vanessa watched as a young boy and girl came to remove his clothing.

She could see how insecure he still was about his body, and rightly so, she thought. The girl pulled his pants down unfeelingly and Vanessa felt pity at how soft he was around the stomach, how the hair grew in patches just above his crotch. He had an awful slouch and slightly sallow skin on the areas he never allowed to see the sun.

Worse, Vanessa thought, he was the only one in this whole damn place that looked truly naked, in the saddest sense of the word, when he had his clothes off. He wanted to be like the other men and women, to be like her. Wrap himself up in a Calvin Klein body, burnish that body with some artificial bronzing, be moulded like a Tinseltown star in the gym. He needed a good diet and a workout every so often, but there was something raw in his soft, unpolished body that drew Vanessa to him. His body both fascinated and repulsed her.

She told him to lie on the table, and uncertainly, but with utmost resignation, he did. He lay there and said nothing, even though he felt slightly ridiculous, the sensation of ridicule increasing as Vanessa strapped him onto the table with thick leather belts, securing his calves and his shoulders to the cold metal slab. By now, the pill’s contents were starting to course through his blood, and he had an erection as massive as any he had ever had in his life and felt certain he was going to have a heart attack.

He expected Vanessa to leave him in a moment, like she always did after she’d made sure he wasn’t going anywhere, and for another girl to take over.

But this time, she leaned over him, her face so close he could feel her breath on his cheek. She smiled and asked, “So, are you any different now?”

“I don’t get what you mean.”

“Now. From then. Two weeks ago.”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I mean, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Liar,” she said, her voice laden with malice as she climbed over him and hitched up the bottom third of her dress. “You do not debase my efforts just like that by being an idiot. Think. It’s been different, hasn’t it?

You’d have come in your pants two weeks ago if I did this to you,” she said, lowering herself over him. Her perfume was strong and it made him dizzy, and as unlikely as it was, he got even harder.

She pulled out a slender knife hidden in her garter and pressed the blunt edge against his chest. She smiled when he cringed and looked up at her, afraid. She lowered herself onto him, her labia against his erection, and he felt just what she was like for the first time. His hardness pressed against her but wouldn’t go in, he was slightly too big. He felt embarrassed. He knew he would come soon, too soon for Vanessa’s liking, and he would feel so ashamed. It was absurd, everything was. He wasn’t like one of them; all these people had monstrous egos, and rightly so. He was a little turd their priestess had taken a fancy to, and that was all he would ever be in this place.

But being Lynette’s little turd would be worse, he reminded himself, and closed his eyes, trying to think about other things so he wouldn’t come.

He felt her press herself against him, trying to push his erection in and in, but she remained closed. She pushed harder, he felt uncomfortable, she was too dry. But she didn’t care, forcing herself hard onto him. She was wet inside, and he went in easily the moment she’d forced herself open.

Her crotch slammed painfully against his, and she gasped with satisfaction.

Looking at her under half-closed lids, he saw her pull the knife away from his chest and place it slowly, sharp edge down, against the area just above his collar bone.

“Don’t move,” she said. “It will hurt.”

The middle of the table split open vertically, just the bottom half where his legs were, just enough to pull his buttocks apart. Vanessa remained straddled over him, her knife against his flesh, rocking herself on his erection.

His heart was pounding, and he felt the adrenaline rush soaking his system and chilling his body. He both loved and hated the fear of waiting for the unknown to happen: he had gotten used to the whipping and the spanking, but this he couldn’t anticipate. He’d never been on one of the tables before.

He couldn’t think about that though; under the table, something or someone was running a piece of wet, cold cloth between his buttocks, and he couldn’t stop himself from shivering with anxiousness and embarrassment.

No one had wiped his buttocks since he was three, and it made him feel humiliated. It went the entire length, from the base of his spine to the base of his balls: up and down, again and again. Wet, cold, and slow.

He lay as still as he could, trying his best not to cringe, although he badly wanted to make the face he was in the habit of making when he’d down gulps of very strong, very bad rum. Then the wiping stopped, and he could feel the end of a cold, metal dildo tease the entrance to his bum. The dildo slipped in a little, pulled out, then slipped in a little again. And it continued like that for some time, until he was tormented with fear and anticipation. He wanted it inside, but he knew it was going to hurt, and he still didn’t like pain very much. It wasn’t in his personality; he had the singular inability to endure pain passively, as Vanessa and the rest were capable of doing.

He bit his lip and repeated in his head that everything would be fine. That was one of the ironclad rules of the club: no one died, no one got irreversibly hurt unless they did it to themselves. Yes, everything would be fine.

Then it happened: the dildo forced itself completely into him, and he felt it tearing his flesh, just so slightly, but the small wound seared through his body, and he bit his lower lip until it bled to distract him from the pain.

It was a pity he couldn’t have an orgasm there and then, he thought, because he’d read somewhere orgasms were great for numbing pain while they lasted.

But he didn’t come, and he would have to wait some time to find out.

At that moment, he was only thankful for the straps holding him down. He would have gasped and jerked himself into the knife otherwise. The sharp pain seared through his anal orifice and he could feel himself starting to cry.

This was truly horrid. He knew what had gone inside him, he’d seen it before.

It looked completely innocent when you observed it—the smoothest, wettest dildo ever—but it hurt, bloody hell. It hurt.

Vanessa looked at him, slightly concerned for perhaps the first time, but erased any trace of this emotion almost instantaneously. She’d clearly lost her desire to carry on and unsaddled him, putting the knife back into the holster on her garter and smoothing her skirt down. She looked at him for a moment before she decided to remove the dildo from his bottom.