“Not enough pain, bitch?” the man growled as he slapped John’s cock.

“No, sir,” John moaned. “More. I need more, sir.”

I gaped at his words. My brain struggled to understand the side of John I was witnessing. I glanced around to see if anyone else was watching their scene, but oddly there was no one else within hearing distance, as if it was too painful to watch or they’d been warned away.

My eyes burned as I returned them to John. Tears wanted to escape, but I kept them back so they didn’t blur my vision. I needed to watch. I needed to let it sear into my brain that there was so much more to the man I thought I knew so well.

Hulk moved to a nearby table and grabbed a bottle of lube. He let some of it slide down the crease of John’s ass before he shifted his feet. I could only assume he was taking himself out of his pants, since he pressed against John while whispering words in a harsh tone. They were spoken so low I couldn’t hear them, but his stance said it all. They weren’t pleasant ones.

“You are going to take me in your body, boy. If you so much as move to escape the pain, I will tear you open, do you understand me? Do you want me to make your tender little hole bleed? Then you’ll remember me reaming you for days.”

“N...no, sir. I don’t want to bleed, sir,” John whimpered — actually whimpered. His voice sounded like a little boy’s, one who was pleading to be saved, and my heart skipped a beat. I had to dig my fingers into my palms to force myself to stay where I was. He had a safe word; he could make it stop if he truly wanted to.

The man rolled his hips before thrusting against John and from the cry of agony that left him, I knew the man was filling his ass. I audibly gasped as tears finally escaped my eyes. The man turned his head and met my gaze as he pounded into John with a hand around his throat. A harsh smile came over his face before he turned back to John.

“Even your ass can’t get it right. No matter how many times I fuck you, all you do is whimper like a little bitch. You are so pathetic. No one will love you. No one will ever care if you live or die because you are so fucking worthless. If you weren’t trussed up, I’d make you suck the shit from my dick until I came down your disgusting throat.” The man’s words made my throat work overtime to keep from releasing my stomach contents. I couldn’t stand to watch more. I lowered my head in shame. I was only an observer and yet I couldn’t handle it. How he managed to take it I didn’t know.

It wasn’t the fact he was with another man that confused me, but the fact that he was submitting, that he was being degraded without objection. I couldn’t wrap my head around how things had changed so rapidly in his world.

I focused on the burning pain in my ass and knew it was nothing compared to the pain John had to feel from the lashes to his back. I tried to tune out the nasty words spewing from the man fucking John. It seemed to last forever before I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. Glancing up, I found it was the man who’d spanked me.

“Come, little one,” he said in a soft tone. I stood and he helped me pull up my skirt before ushering me out of the room.  He led me down the hall filled with doorways I knew led to private rooms until he finally pushed one open and followed me in. “Sit.”

I eyed the room, which appeared to be an office, as he sat in one of the chairs and waved a hand at the other.

“Alix, I’m Gabe. I’m the owner of Scene. Please sit. I need to talk to you. It is very important.”

I eyed him cautiously feeling more nervous than I had out in the playroom.

“If you care at all for John, you will want to hear what I have to say.”

My heart thudded harder in my chest when he mentioned John. He had information about him. I needed to know what it was. Pulling the chair a bit farther away, I sat facing him.

“Good. Now I trust you witnessed the scene going on out there, correct?” He crossed an ankle over the opposite knee, relaxing back into his seat.

“Yes.”

“John has been here every day for the last week. Sometimes multiple times a day. He’s suffering. He is punishing himself in the only way he knows how. It helps calm his demons, but it also gives him a new pain to focus on since he can’t control the other pain he’s dealing with. I don’t know exactly what is going on between the two of you, but I suspect you can help him more than he is allowing me to at this time.” Gabe dropped his leg and leaned his elbows on his knees.

“I...I don’t know what I can do.” I shook my head in denial.

“Talk to him. See if he will share what it is that’s eating at him. It’s something personal. I might know his past, but something set him off. Something pushed him over the edge and he doesn’t even seem to be trying to control it. He’s lost in his head, in his demons, his pain.” Gabe ran a tired hand over his face. “I’ve tried. Every time he shows up here, I try to get him to open up, but he refuses. He won’t talk about it.”

“You think he’d talk to me?” I shifted in my seat, my sore ass rubbing against my skirt.

“I don’t know. It can’t hurt. While it seems the two of you are no longer Dom and sub, he had a connection to you that I’ve never seen him have with anyone before. I’ve known John for quite a few years, too, so I know it’s not something to be taken lightly. Please, if you care for him, try. Try, not because I’m asking, but for him.” Gabe reached across the space to clasp my hand in his. “Please.”

I sighed. I didn’t know if John would talk to me. What if it was me that had caused him to go over the edge? I didn’t think I could handle the guilt. It might not have been my fault I’d left, but I hadn’t allowed him to talk to me about it. Maybe giving him that chance would help. Maybe if I pushed to know what was going on in other areas of his life, he would talk. I would try, because I couldn’t stand seeing him hurt so much.

“I’ll go see him at his office tomorrow,” I told Gabe, who released a sigh as his shoulders relaxed.

“Thank you. I will be indebted to you. John is a good friend and I don’t like seeing him this way. As for you little miss, you need to be more careful about which Doms you play with. No matter what happens with John, you need to learn to set clearer boundaries if you’re going to scene with new Doms. Talk about limits before you scene. You could’ve easily been put in a hairy situation real quick. Luckily, I spotted you when you came in and made sure you were here to witness John’s scene since it was the only way you’d understand how much pain he’s in.”

“Understood.” I stood with a nod. I couldn’t sit in the office anymore. I needed privacy to build the courage to enter John’s office in the morning. Needed to plan what I was going to say to him.

Gabe walked with me until I turned to leave and he returned to the main room. The urge to look and see if John was still on the stage nearly had me following him, but I forced myself to leave instead.

After another restless night, I found myself dressed in a pantsuit, hair in a severe low ponytail, and heading into John’s office shortly after he’d passed through the lobby.

“He doesn’t want to see you,” Mariah sneered as soon as she saw me.

“That’s not for you to decide.” I walked briskly past her desk and pushed open his door without knocking. Locking it, I leaned against it as he looked up from a small stack of papers.

Slowly one eyebrow lifted as he watched me.

“Look, we are going to have a talk and I don’t need Ms. Thing out there bothering us.”

“Let me take care of that.” John stood and walked calmly toward me.

If I hadn’t seen him the night before, I wouldn’t have guessed he was any different than any other day before we’d been together.

“Excuse me. I can’t open the door if you insist on leaning on it.” He stood only inches away and his delicious scent surrounded me. His eyes were guarded and cold as he looked down at me.