The Angel (The Original Sinners) (16 page)

“I read your checklist, Angel,” she said as he closed his eyes.
If he’d been a cat, he would have started purring. “I found it very interesting.
You want pain, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Michael breathed.

“Pain makes you feel better, doesn’t it?” Nora asked, her voice
soft and hypnotic. “It’s like white noise…soothing, calming, blocks out the real
pain, the bad thoughts, that other pain that you don’t want. Right?”

Michael’s eyes opened wide.

“Yeah. Exactly, ma’am. How did—”

“You aren’t my first masochist, Angel.”

Michael laughed a little. Griffin had told him Nora had
hundreds of clients back when she was a dominatrix. Hundreds of clients who made
her hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of course he wasn’t her first masochist.
Just looking at her, feeling himself falling under her spell, he could easily
understand how men would mortgage their souls just to be able to kiss the toe of
her boot.

Nora’s fingers found that tight knot at the base of his neck,
that place where he stored most of his tension. Michael tilted his head toward
her, gave him better access to his stress.

“I think,” Nora began in a half whisper, “that I’ll beat you
tonight. But I don’t think I’m going to punish you or be mean to you like I did
with a lot of my clients. I think you’ve had enough people being mean to you in
your life already.”

Michael’s eyes clenched tight as her words burrowed a hole into
his heart. Ever since the night his parents had discovered what he was, Michael
had suffered nothing but insults—freak, sicko, fag—from his father and
abandonment by his mother. No one touched him anymore, no one hugged him, no one
ever even wanted to talk to him except for Father S, and even he had to keep his
distance because of the Church. But now the most erotic woman in the world was
touching him, talking to him, making him feel like the center of the world.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said in a voice he could barely
hear.

Nora caressed his face with the back of her hand. Leaning in
she pressed a little kiss to his lips before moving her mouth to his ear.

“Take your clothes off,” she ordered.

Michael reached behind his head and yanked at his T-shirt,
pulling it off with one swift motion. He unbuttoned his black plaid skateboard
shorts and pushed them and his boxers off, kicking them off his ankles into the
corner of the room. The night he and Nora met, he’d fumbled so nervously with
his watchband that she’d had to take over and unbuckle it for him. Now he felt
no such jitters. The watch and wristband that he always wore in public were off
and on the floor in seconds.

“Your swiftness to obey is touching,” Nora said, smiling at
him. “But you have to slow down and let me enjoy watching you undress. Your
priest makes me strip for him, you know.”

Michael felt a coil of need begin to twist in the pit of his
stomach.

“I didn’t know, ma’am,” he said as Nora looked his naked body
up and down.

“We’ll be having a lovely evening at the rectory. He’ll be
reading in his armchair, I’ll be sitting at his feet writing, and out of nowhere
he’ll snap his fingers and order me to take my clothes off.”

Michael said nothing.

“Sometimes,” Nora said, pressing close to Michael’s body, “he
doesn’t even look at me. He keeps reading. He orders me to do it just to
humiliate me. Jealous?”

Once again Michael closed his eyes. He tried to imagine what it
would be like to belong to someone, to be owned like Nora was. What would it be
like to give his body to someone so completely that they could order him out of
nowhere to strip naked. God, it would be so embarrassing, so humiliating, as
Nora said. Degrading, almost.

“Very jealous,” he admitted and Nora laughed.

“Do you ever imagine what your priest and I do when we’re alone
together?” she asked as she made a circuit around him. Her stiletto heels
clicked against the stone floors.

A blush flared up on Michael’s cheeks.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, swallowing hard.

“Tell me what you fantasize,” Nora said and he heard the hard
edge of the order in her voice.

His fantasies about Nora and Father S were beyond humiliating.
Sometimes he saw them at church and Nora would be trying to annoy Father S. Nora
would put her innocent face on and say something like, “Father Stearns, about
St. Elmo…” And Father S would barely glance at her and say, “Patron saint of
sailors. What about him, Eleanor?” And Nora would say, “Was he, by any chance,
ticklish?” And Michael would hide in the shadows and imagine his handsome priest
bending Nora over the back of a pew and brutally fucking her. That was just the
PG stuff he thought of. When masturbating it got really intense—threesomes,
foursomes, orgies, vicious beatings… The stuff that went on in his head freaked
even him out sometimes.

“I…” he began and swallowed. His fingers clenched in
nervousness.

“You can tell me,” she said, her voice coming from behind him.
“Trust me, I’ve heard worse. And even if I haven’t, I’ve thought worse. Just say
it.”

Michael took a deep breath. He hated disappointing Nora. He
wanted to say it. Wanted to say everything to her. But the words turned to glue
and stuck in his throat.

“I can’t,” he said, his voice flush with anguish.

Nora grazed his face with the back of her hand again.

“It’s okay, Angel. We’ll get there. If you’re going to be a sub
you have to learn how to talk about what you want and need. This,” she said,
indicating the room and then pointing at herself, “is a basic fantasy. Dominant
woman, gorgeous dungeon full of S&M toys, big bed. Generic even. Start
talking and tell me what you fantasize about in your most private moments, and
we can change it. Do you want to see me in black instead of red? In lace instead
of leather? Would you prefer scening outside at night? Do you have fantasies
that take place in the kitchen? The shower?”

Michael shifted nervously from foot to foot.

“Maybe,” he admitted.

“You do know what you want matters, don’t you?”

Michael rubbed at his arms. “I guess, ma’am. Trying.”

“I’ll teach you that this summer. You’ve got a lot to learn.
Let’s get your lessons started.”

Nora strolled off toward a table covered in a black cloth. Once
she reached it she turned around and crooked her finger at him again, beckoning
him to her side.

Naked but for his blush, Michael came to stand beside Nora.
With a flourish she pulled the black cloth off the table.

“Wow,” Michael said at the sight before him.

“Thank you. I packed a few of my favorites. A few are Griffin’s
he’s letting us borrow. Griffin’s very fond of you. You’ve made quite an
impression on him.”

Michael’s blush deepened at the insinuating tone in Nora’s
voice. Did she know he’d watched her and Griffin having sex in the dining room?
Did she somehow intuit that ever since seeing Nora on her knees in front of
Griffin, he’d been having trouble not imagining himself in that same
position?

“He’s really cool” was all Michael could get out before
clamping his lips shut. Nora only eyed him before turning her gaze back to the
table.

“Do you know what these are, Angel?”

“Some of them…but not all, ma’am.”

“Let me introduce you then. This,” she said as she lifted the
first object, “is a basic flogger. Six-inch handle, eighteen-inch suede thongs.
Feel?”

Michael reached out and ran his fingers over the flogger. The
suede felt so soft to the touch.

“Used lightly,” Nora explained, “it will feeling like a
tickling sort of massage. Used with full force, however, the impact on your back
will knock the breath out of you. Tricky thing. I could beat you with this until
you cried and within the hour it would appear no one had laid a finger on
you.”

She laid the flogger back on the table.

“And this…you know what this is, don’t you?” She lifted another
object, this one similar to the flogger but more sinister looking.

“A cat-o’-nine-tails, ma’am,” Michael answered.

“Very good. This is a lighter variation of the kind used to
discipline sailors in the British Navy. Even this lighter version could break
your skin if I wanted it to. But if I use it on you correctly, you’ll have the
loveliest freckle bruises on you tomorrow courtesy of these little knots on the
ends of the cords. Here,” she said, handing it to him.

Michael accepted it with almost trembling hands. He touched the
knots, hefted its deceptively light weight.

“You know, there was an even smaller version of this that was
used on the cabin boys aboard ship,” Nora said with laughter in her voice.
“Guess what it was called?”

“I don’t know,” Michael said shrugging.

“A boy’s pussy,” she said, grinning wickedly. She took the cat
back from him. “You didn’t know you were going to get a history lesson tonight,
did you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I believe in the value of a thorough education. Tawse,” she
said, naming the heavy leather strap that lay next to the flogger. “Used to
discipline schoolchildren in the nineteenth century. It won’t break the skin but
it will burn like fire. And this,” she said sliding one more object off the
table, “is exactly what it looks like.”

“A cane, ma’am.”

“Exactly. Rattan cane, ten millimeters thick, seventy-six
centimeters long. So painful that its use on prisoners has been condemned by the
United Nations. It can not only permanently scar a person but permanently
disable them as well. Even used lightly on the buttocks or thighs, the pain will
be so intense that you will choke on it. Traditionally six strokes are delivered
at a time; five horizontal and one diagonal. That is called barring the gate.
It’s sadistic enough that your own priest rarely uses it on me. Although,
admittedly, sometimes I do deserve it.”

Nora stepped back and with astonishing expertise twirled the
cane in her fingers like a baton. He could hear the hissing sound as the reedy
wood sliced through the air.

“Now…” Nora placed the cane back on the table. “Choose.”

“Choose?” he asked, unable to take his eyes off the dozen or so
various kinds of floggers, whips and canes on the table.

“Yes. Pick one. Whatever you pick I will use on you tonight. So
think about it carefully.”

Nora stepped away and left him alone at the table. He heard her
opening a trunk near the bed to take out something. But he didn’t dare turn
around to see what it was.

Michael raised his hand and passed it over the objects on the
table.

I could beat you with this until you
cried.

Loveliest freckle bruises.

It will burn like fire.

You will choke on it.

“This one, ma’am,” he said, picking up the cat-o’-nine-tails.
He turned around and Nora gestured for him to bring it to her. She was standing
at the foot of the bed. She took it from him. His pulse quickened as she twined
the lashes through her fingers.

“Angel,” she said as she gripped the thongs and pulled them
taut. “This will hurt you. Badly.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Nora raised her eyebrow at him.

“One for you. And one for me.”

She tossed the cat onto the bed and picked up the cane again.
Michael swallowed hard but said nothing.

“Come,” Nora said. “Stand dead center between the bedposts.
Face the bed. Back to me. Take heavy, deep breaths. Focus on the heat from the
fireplace. Let it seep into your muscles.”

Michael obeyed as best he could. He knew he needed to relax. As
he stood and breathed as instructed, Nora clamped leather bondage cuffs around
his ankles. The tension in his legs started to dissipate. She grabbed his
scarred wrists and yanked them behind his back. As she cuffed his wrists, the
stress he carried in his arms and shoulders flowed through his veins and out of
his fingertips. He inhaled sharply as she brought a black leather collar around
his throat and buckled it at the base of his neck.

“Now, Angel,” Nora whispered in his ear as she ran her hand
over the one part of his body that remained tense, “let’s spread your
wings.”

She raised his left arm and bound it to a leather cord at the
top of the bedpost. With his right arm she did the same. His arms stretched out
into a full, wide wingspan.

“Breathe the heat of the fire into your arms,” Nora said as she
strapped a two-foot spreader bar to his ankles. “Feel them getting longer with
each breath.”

Michael pulled on his bonds and found he couldn’t move. They
had no give at all. He couldn’t run away, couldn’t escape. Trapped, imprisoned,
helpless…

Nora picked up the flogger from the bed.

There was nowhere else in the world he wanted to be.

“What’s your safe word?” Nora asked.

“Wings.” Michael answered.

“You’ll say that word if you want me to stop, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good boy. Now take one more breath. This will only hurt a
little bit. Oh, wait,” she said, laughing. “No, it won’t. It’ll hurt a lot.”

With that one last taunt, Nora took a step back and landed a
hard blow right in the center of Michael’s back. He gasped from the shock of the
pain. He had the time to inhale and exhale only once before the second blow hit.
The third one struck his left flank, the fourth his right. Nora painted crosses
across his back with the flogger and each slash left him crying out.

Fire…she’d lit his back on fire. When the blows finally ceased,
Michael could do nothing but drop his head to his chest and pant. His heart
raced, his blood burned. He’d never felt calmer in his life.

“Here,” Nora said as she brought a small glass of water to his
lips. “Drink.”

She tilted the glass and he drank the water with a grateful
gulp.

“You did very well,” Nora said. “You took a lot of pain for a
beginner and didn’t even beg me to stop. Think you can take more?”