A horrible, undeniable memory rose to the surface of my mind. It was too much. Too real. The pain was too familiar.

I meant to say poodle. I did. I really did.

“Stop, Daddy! Please,pleasestop! You’re hurting me, Daddy, stop.”

I was sobbing, crying with the words “Daddy” and “stop” on my lips yet again when I heard Sir declare, “Poodle.”

Chapter Nine


Luke

Igot Mintyout of his restraints and CBT bindings quickly. Pulling him to my chest, I cuddled him close, and he started gagging softly.

“You’re all right, baby,” I whispered. “I’ve got you. It’s over. All that…now andthen…it’s all over.”

He clutched me like a lifeline, and when I picked him up to carry him to the bed, he slung his arms around my neck, his smaller body heaving against mine. I couldn’t believe that twice in our short time knowing each other, we’d both already called out of scenes.

I wondered if it was even emotionally safe for him to play these games. But then I reminded myself what he’d been doing to himself instead, and with whom, and I didn’t think this could be much worse for him, and hopefully could still be better.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered eventually, still clutching me as I held him on the bed now. “I ruined it.”

“No, you’re all right. It was an intense scene for your second time. I went too hard.”

“No,” he said, voice trembling. “If you went softer, I wouldn’t ever come back. Ithasto be this. I need it like this. I need to hurt.”

“Mitchell,” I murmured, struggling not to kiss his temple.

He’d said no kissing. He’d been explicit about that, and I would respect every wish of his that was reasonable to entertain withoutletting him know I was doing it. And no kissing was one of them. “You don’t have to talk to me now or ever, but I think you need to talk to someone.”

He huffed. “Like who? A therapist? What are they going to do? Tell me it wasn’t my fault that my father raped me?”

He said it with so much bitterness that I could taste it in my own throat. “Is that what happened?”

He nodded.

“And what we did just now? It triggered that memory?”

“The end, yeah. The part where all I felt was how thick your cock was and how much it hurt after I’d come…” He swallowed audibly and went on, “He raped me, and it hurt a lot, and I begged him to stop. Ibeggedhim.”

“I’m so sorry,” I soothed. “I know you did.”

He went very still, and I waited. There was more. I didn’t know what, but I knew it was big. Bigger even than the truth that his father had raped him. “I came,” he whispered.

For a moment, I thought he meant earlier with me, but then I realized. “It’s normal,” I said. “People come from all kinds of things.”

I should know. I regularly made people—even Mitchell himself—come from agony. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Doesn’t it mean that deep down I enjoyed it?”

“Oh, baby, no.”

“But I did, though. I came really hard, and he…” Minty wentverystill and then burrowed tighter against me. I held him fast. “He saw that I came, and I thought he’d kill me. He nearly did.”

“I’m sorry. That should never have happened to you. It shouldn’t happen to anyone.”

“I hate him.”