“Sorry, sir.” He’d fucked me in the past in a scene so I didn’t put it past him.

He smoothed thick salve over my back and I couldn’t help but squirm as the pain surged.

“Hm, lucky it’s your first night back. You’re not so good at following instructions, it seems. Next time I won’t be so generous.” Once he was done, he gently ran a hand over my ass, the other over my hair. It was his version of after care. He could look his fill at the marks he left while giving his sub the comfort they needed. After a long while, he gave one final pat to my ass telling me it was time to get up. “You are dismissed, boy.”

I went home feeling much more content than when I’d shown up. So, it became a new part of my daily ritual. I’d check in on Alix as much as I could, but it was tearing my heart open every time I saw her so I needed a way to release the pain, and Munch was perfect at doing it.

For the next week, I’d leave work and visit Munch before visiting Alix as she puttered around her home. She looked as terrible as I felt, but she never answered my calls or texts. Sometimes I would send a text while I watched her just to see her face as she read them. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t open up to me, why she couldn’t share what was going through her head, and why for the love of God she refused to even tell me what had happened to make her run.

I knew she thought I was cheating, but what was leading her to that conclusion, I couldn’t figure out. There wasn’t a chance I would touch another woman, not when I’d rather have her in my arms, my bed, my soul. Losing her made every horrible thing I’d lived through seem like child’s play. My life hadn’t been easy and I didn’t think anything could ever hurt me like that again. Alix had gone and proved me wrong. She’d proved there was still so much agony to be felt in the world.

I wanted it to end. All of it. I wanted to go back to the months of complete bliss we’d shared. I’d give anything to return to those times.

Chapter 15

Alix

Another week had passed and I’d survived. John messaged and called me at least every couple of hours, even through the night. At least neither of us was sleeping well. It made me feel a bit better that I wasn’t alone in my misery.

After an exhausting day, I found myself parked at Scene. I hadn’t meant to go there, but since I had, I unbuckled my seatbelt and headed inside. Maybe submitting to someone else would help me finally start to get over John, since time obviously wasn’t doing it. After handing over my purse, I told the woman at the counter that I was an unclaimed submissive and she handed me a pair of leather cuffs to put on to designate me as such.

Walking into the open room, I struggled to keep my breathing calm. I had never been an unclaimed sub or played with anyone else and the idea scared me. However, I refused to back down and let it stop me from giving my all to move on from John and the control he had over me. Just that morning I had finally built myself up to taking off his pearls. The final sign that he was important to me. I felt naked without them, but it was time. Three weeks of self-pity and wallowing was more than enough.

“Looking for someone to play with?” a voice asked from behind me and I spun to find the man I’d seen John nod to many times in passing. He had to know that at one time I was claimed by him.

“Yes, sir.” I bowed my head out of respect and he stepped closer.

“What are you looking for tonight?”

“I… I’m not sure, sir,” I stuttered, not having thought so far ahead.

“A spanking? A flogging? A whipping? More?” He hooked a finger under my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze.

“A spanking?” I answered, but it came out more as a question than a statement.

“That could be arranged. Do you have a safe word?”

“N...no, sir.” We’d never required one and I couldn’t think of one on the spot.

“How about red to stop, yellow to pause so we can talk about it?”

“Okay, sir.”

“Go to the spanking bench and drop your skirt to your ankles. I’ll be right there.”

I nodded and dropped my head again before swiftly walking to an unoccupied bench on the opposite side of the room. Swallowing the growing lump of nerves in my throat, I slid my skirt down my thighs to pool around my ankles. I hadn’t worn a garter belt and thigh highs; instead I had on regular pantyhose that came all the way up to my waist.

Leaning forward onto the bench, I left my ass in the air while my chest pressed against the hard, ungiving wood.

“Hands,” the man demanded when he stepped behind me. I lifted my hands to my lower back and felt rough rope being wrapped around them, securing them together. “Safe words?”

“Red and yellow, sir,” I answered automatically.

“You will get twenty then you will sit on your knees until I tell you to get up, understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Something much firmer than his hand slapped against my ass and I cried out. The familiar burn spread over both cheeks at the same time. He had to be using a paddle of some kind. John normally used his hand and I had expected the same from the stranger, but it wasn’t more than I could handle.

Again and again the paddle came down. I tried to count in my head, but gave up after losing count the second time. Everything became blurry and I felt the haze of subspace take over. It was a blessed peacefulness I needed. I could breathe again; I wasn’t in pain from heartbreak. Oddly, however, the pain didn’t morph into a sexual pleasure like it did when John was inflicting it; instead it added another layer of comfort around me. Each time the paddle came down, my panty-hose burned against my skin. I wished I had worn my thigh highs or nothing at all, but it was too late. The added sensation only made it more real, more intense.

Finally I was jostled and forced to move off the bench. My knees pressed into carpet, my skirt still around my ankles. A heavy hand forced me to sit back, my sore ass pressing against my heels.

“I will be back for you. Do not move until then or I will spank you all over again with something much worse than a paddle. Understand?” The man pushed a finger into my forehead until I looked up at him.

“Yes, sir,” I murmured through the haze. My tongue felt thick and hard to move, but I managed to get the two words out.

“Good girl.” He turned and walked from my sight.

I couldn’t say how long I sat like that. My knees ached, my back ached and my ass burned like never before, but still the man hadn’t returned. It was a cry from a familiar voice that made me lift my head to find where it was coming from.

Everything stopped. The room dropped away and all that was left was the couple in front of me.

John was tethered to a cross while a hulk of a man unleashed a long, snakelike whip, making it snap against John’s back. His back was already covered with welts in various stages of healing, but there wasn’t an inch of unmarred skin left. Not that it stopped the man from repeatedly laying into him. Just the sound of the leather against his skin made me shiver. It had to hurt, but John simply held his head down and took it without a single sound.

I’d never seen John as a submissive and would happily never witness it again. It was a scary sight. He was no longer the strong, controlled man I loved, but one who was obviously beaten down to the point that he wasn’t feeling pain.

When the hulk dropped the whip to the floor and closed in on John, I wanted to run to him, to save him, from what was coming next. He’d had enough in my eyes. I didn’t know how he came to be there, but it wasn’t right. I couldn’t understand.

To my surprise, the man reached around and unbuckled John’s slacks and let them fall to the ground before roughly shoving his boxers down as well.