Arrival

Miss Anna pats my hand as we sit in the taxi. She is babbling a little, losing her thread in tangents of tangents or else going over things she has said several times. She is smiling and giggling, but it feels forced and there is a sadness in her eyes when she pauses. Miss Anna is going away for a while and I am going to stay with Miss Katya. Miss Anna's voice catches when she tells me again that Miss Katya will be firm with me, because that's how she is, but she will look after me and I am to do as I am told.

The taxi takes us to an old, huge, Georgian ex-rectory house in a rundown part of town. The buildings near it on either side seem condemned and there is only fenced off waste ground to the back. The taxi pulls into the drive - there are not huge grounds, maybe half an acre, but still a step up from your usual suburban pile. There is a gravel driveway leading to the front door, off which the paint is peeling in one or two spots. Catching me looking up and noticing the general disrepair - some brickwork is crumbling, the windows have years old grimy film and one or two are cracked or boarded up and are those weathered crenellations and gargoyled water-spouts at the top of the building? Oh my!- Miss Anna explains that Miss Katya somehow acquired the lease and has partly converted the place.

"I don't know if she's really rich or dirt poor," Miss Anna says with a hint of a shrug. As I unload my suitcase and bags, wobbling on my 4 inch heels, hefting one bag to the shoulder, changing another to the hip, shoving another in the crook of my arm, then realising I've gotten it wrong and attempting to juggle one into another hand without dropping any of them, Miss Anna heads to the door and rings the bell. I am wearing my cute cream and grey Oxford shoes, black stockings with lace garter belt, a black G-string, a tight charcoal A-line skirt and matching tight jacket and low cut cream blouse that shows the budding cleavage that the best push-up bra I own can give me. I'm kinda going for classy-sexy, but am not entirely sure I'm pulling it off.

In what feels like a pathetic fallacy, the sky is over-ripe with thunderclouds. It's that peculiar confluence of circumstances where, just before twilight, a low winter sun and a rising moon are covered by a heavy blanket of nimbostratus clouds, yet seem to suffuse them with their own luminosity. The whole sky glows yet the light on the ground is like dusk - grey and longshadowed- and most people don't actually notice, but I've always loved this type of sky. A bolt of lightning does not strike and the taxi driver does not cross himself and mutter "Dios Mio," on cue, instead saying, "Cheers, I'll be back in a couple of hours," which feels a little anticlimactic.

The door, likewise caring nothing for symbolic resonance, opens without an ominous creak, Miss Anna stepping inside after a second, but because of the shade I can't see more than a tall figure beyond her. I head up the drive and lug my clunking case up the steps leading to the door, but by the time I get there, it's shut. I wonder what to do for a good couple of minutes then, steeling my tiny resolve, knock timidly on the door. It has of course started to rain, lightly at first, but then, as the wind flares up, heavier, fat droplets start lashing into me at an angle. I pull my jacket closed and hold my bag above my head. I knock again, firmer this time. Bupkiss, again. A minute passes. Nothing I am wearing is waterproof. I ring the bell. Nada.

I start wondering if I should try and find somewhere to take shelter. 5 minutes pass, the wind ebbs then returns with a vengeful squall, sheet lightning flashes in the sky and the rain is now almost horizontal. So now with the lightning!

I mean, I know this is a test of some sort, right? It's not like I'm so unmemorable that they would have forgotten I actually exist, when the whole day, is, on one level, about me. And they can't have failed to notice the weather, given the rain is pinging and pittering off the windows. Surely, it's got to be a test. Trouble is, I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do. Am I meant to wait until I am called for to show an appropriate level of submission? I mean, I think that's the correct response here, but what if I'm supposed to find another way in, or a means of shelter to demonstrate my resourcefulness and usefulness? I'm starting to shiver now and it crosses my mind to Kobayashi Maru this shit, get a rock and smash the nearest window. Instead, I shuffle around the house, passing various windows until, after going two-thirds of the way round I find the one with a light at it. Inside, an actual fire in what looks to be an impressive fireplace and two small table lamps give the place a welcoming glow. Miss Anna is seated on a leather chair whilst a physically imposing woman reclines on a chaise longue, back to me. They are in obvious and seemingly relaxed conversation, Miss Anna taking a sip from a fluted glass, leaning in, nodding, then throwing her head back in laughter.

The scene is cosy and almost domestic, until I passive-aggressively Tiny Tim my way into it by smudging my nose against the pane and tapping with a nervous, quiet but insistent finger.

Miss Anna looks up, catches my eye, then says something to the other occupant of the room, who shrugs. Miss Anna rises and gestures to the front of the house, which I rush to, relief squishing down any resentment that had begun to rise.

"Oh you poor thing, you look frozen. Come in, come in to the drawing room. I thought you had come in behind me and were off somewhere exploring your new home," says Miss Anna, unconvincingly. I refrain from pointing out that although I've never felt more like one, I am not actually a foster dog.

The entrance hallway where I drop my sodden bags is dark, with a tiled floor and two swing doors (one of which is broken), that leads to a wood floored central hallway with 4 or 5 doors leading off it, and a large staircase ahead. A corridor runs around the side of the staircase and off to the left, although it's a bit difficult to see more from here. The whole place smells a little musty. As Miss Anna leads me to a door at the back of the hallway, I run a wet finger along the wall and a squidge of grimy dust comes off.

The warmth inside the room hits me like walking into a wall and I instantly start shivering again as my temperature starts rising.

"Poor wet thing," says Miss Anna. "Stand in front of the fire." It is half request, half command, but I do so happily, following her there and turning so my back is to the mantle.

The room is large and sumptuous- wooden floor, an expensive looking rug, two two-seater leather sofas, a writing desk, a bureau, bookcases, and a chaise longue. And on that chaise lounge, recumbent (I hate to use such a wanky word, but in the circumstances it's the only one that will quite do), is a striking woman who is watching me intently.

She is tall. Even when she's- ahem- recumbent (and she recumbs like no-one I've seen outside of posed photographs, queenly and imperious), I can see that. Maybe 6'2 or 6'3. Not lightly built. I hate the word 'voluptuous,' but again, here we are. In my head I hear Jack Lemmon saying "She's like Jello on springs!" and I suppress a nervous giggle. Wide shoulders, though, and there is muscle underneath the curves. A -ahem- plenitudinous body that strains just the exact right amount against its well-fitted confines. Late thirties, maybe early forties, maybe older, but well maintained if so. Strong but beautiful features. Not pretty, not cute, not handsome, but actually beautiful. She must have been a model at some point, when younger, thinner and (was she ever?) naive and pliable. The planes of her face are just... remarkable. Shoulder length hair, black as sin, but somehow elegant yet effortless. Dramatic makeup (dark eyeshadow, almost gothy contouring, scarlet lips) accentuates the look until it's positively vampiric.

Her eyes flick to me and, as she meets my gaze, I feel... what do I feel?... She is stunning and I literally feel stunned for a second. She is sooo beautiful, it's unsettling. I feel like I've been scanned, like I've been X-rayed. Like someone has seen deep inside of me. I am trembling now, and not through the change in temperature.

She hasn't said anything yet, but if she were to speak with the voice of Shere Khan in the first Disney Jungle Book, I would not be at all surprised. Or the snake, I can't remember what it's called. Something subtle shifts in her expression and her face smoothly changes its aspect into one of semi-ironic detachment. She looks at me like this for barely a half-second, and I feel like I've been released from a Star Trek tractor beam, then she turns to Miss Anna.

"So tell me Anna," and her accent is heavily Eastern European or Russian, "what are your plans for the next 6 months?"

"Well, I have to go away, with work, as you know, ah ha ha." Fake, brittle laugh. "No, I'm looking forward to it. Relocating to a new city, a new country. Challenging, of course, but such fun!"

A look passes between the two, which has so much history I struggle to interpret it.

"Your choice?"

"Oh, of course, of course. I mean, perhaps not the best time and circumstances could be better, but..." Her eyes flick to me and they are cold above her smile.

I'm steaming. No, I am actually standing in front of a roaring fire in sopping wet clothes and steam is literally coming off me. I also have so much to say, but...

"I do sooo appreciate you looking after little Suki, Katya. And I think your... methods... will work wonders for her. I'm afraid I have been too distracted of late to be a proper top. A tip-top, haha." Miss Anna doesn't normally talk as much like a distracted dowager in a Noel Coward play. I mean, she's upper-middle, but she's not usually this insane first year drama student rendering of a dotty aristo. I think Miss Katya must be making her nervous (she certainly scares the bejeebuz outta me). Or maybe it's the situation.

"Well, let's take a look at you," says Miss Katya, rising langorously. She moves towards me slowly, hips rolling, feet overlapping with each step; a poised, cool, model's walk. She is wearing a white blouse that is so minimalist it must be designer, a leather midi a-line skirt, stockings (I'm guessing) and some seriously gorgeous shoes. A ridiculously high heel, slight platform, ankle strap. Louboutin? Westwood? I dunno. My eyes flip back to hers and I try to suppress another shiver.

Kaa! That's the name of the snake in The Jungle Book. No, she'd never sound like that. What was I thinking? Christ, why doesn't my mind work properly?

"You are dripping on my rug," she says as she reaches me. She is almost a full head taller than me, and I don't think the shoes account for that much.

"Oh, er, sorry, Miss, I, er-" A finger uncurls and rests lightly on my lips. She mouths a shh.

"You need to get out of those wet clothes," says Miss Anna before taking a glug of wine. Whose side is she on, exactly?

"An excellent idea," says Miss Katya, now unbuttoning my jacket. She pulls it down by the back until the sleeves crumple and catch around my wrists, effectively binding my arms to my sides temporarily. Her eyes have not left mine and she begins to undo my blouse. With unexpected delicacy she traces the line of buttons to my navel, gently pulls the tucked blouse free and finishes the last button. Swiftly, she pulls it down so it too is bunched at the wrists.

Her hands move to the side and she unzips then unbuttons my skirt, which sags on my relatively thin hipped frame. A small tug and it falls to my ankles. Miss Katya glances down and I think I'm interpreting her right, so I step out of the skirt. She bends to pick it up, takes it with her.

Miss Katya and Miss Anna talk. For ages. Mostly it's reminiscing. I get the feeling that they haven't seen each other in a few years. Maybe they were friends back in the day, or something? They're talking around things, obliquely and allusively and I feel like a kid earwigging on an adult conversation. Miss Anna seems to defer to Miss Katya, as you would. It's like deferring to a storm, or a mountain range. But standing here, in my best lingerie, mute, unregarded, like furniture (damn sexy furniture, if I do say so myself), I'm kind of figuring out that maybe Katya somehow owes Anna something. And maybe I'm the lien for the debt, in some way.

Around half an hour passes. I am starting to sweat. And worry that my clothes are going to get crisped.

"You had better turn round, we wouldn't want you to cook on one side, would we?"

Miss Katya places her hands on my shoulders and, with gentle pressure, turns me around 180 degrees. She doesn't yank or force me but there is no mistaking the firmness, the threat of strength in her grip. She tugs my jacket and blouse free at my wrists then gently takes one hand and places it at the other arm's elbow, thumb nestling in the crook of the arm, then takes my other arm and crosses the first so I'm stood there with hands locked behind my back. I feel her breath on my neck for just a second, then hear the sound of her heels as she makes her way back to the chaise longue.

I hear a brief whispered convo, Miss Anna saying something to Katya and a murmured reply.

Miss Anna throws back her head and says, "Oh, Beardy. Bless."

Miss Katya laughs along and even from here I can see it's fake.

"Yes, you know what happened to him?"

"I only heard. It was stupid to try. No wonder he was picked up."

"Always the same. Ever since Cambridge."

"Out in another five years, I hear."

After a while, given the heat and the earlier stress, I start nodding off. Or zoning out, at least. The fire crackles and splutters. The Misses murmur and laugh behind me. I feel a heaviness in my limbs and a dampness of the nape of my neck. A droplet of sweat beads and trickles between my breasts. I couldn't really say how long this goes on for- minutes or several gently swaying, drowzy hours. Nevertheless, it is over too soon, Miss Anna answering to the taxi driver, knocking back her glass of champers and air kissing with Katya, suddenly all of a fluster.

"Be good and do as Katya tells you," Miss Anna says, cupping my cheek. She kisses me lightly on the forehead and pats at her eyes with a paper hankie.

"See you soon Miss Anna," I say. I don't say, "Take me with you, Christ I can't stay here, this bitch is obvously psycho, she'll kill me. Look, she's looking at me like I'm meat. For the love of God, I'm scared. If you care for me at all, please, please- anything. I'll hide in your luggage and stay in cargo if you can distract the guards at the check in. Please, I know we've fallen into a bit of a rut of late, I've not been great, but I can change. We can get back the spark! That's no reason to abandon me to this hellhole. Who knows if I'll even be alive by the time you get back. DO IT TO JULIA, DON'T DO IT TO ME!" I don't, of course say any of this, but I hope that Miss Anna can pick up on the subtext, although Miss Anna has been historically woeful with subtext. At least as far as I'm concerned.

I watch as Miss Anna gets in the taxi, giving me a weak smile and wave before dabbing at her eyes again as the car pulls away. It takes a surprising degree of will not to run after it and instead go back into the warmth of the living room.

"Come here," Miss Katya says, clapping her hands together. It occurs to me that I've not actually introduced myself, and Miss Anna obviously didn't care enough to do so.

"P-pleased to meet you, Miss Katya. My name is-"

"Your name is bitch, you stupid cunt," Miss Katya snarls and backhands me. I gasp and fall to one knee, my hand coming to my face. Miss Katya bends at the waist, her face coming within an inch of mine.

"Oh, we'll cure you of that," she whispers, her words deliberate and razor edged. "By the time I'm finished with you, you'll offer your face willingly. You'll beg for it again and again. And you'll want it. You'll actually want it, like the attention whore you are." She pauses, cocks her head. "We may as well start now. Say thank you, Miss Katya, may I have another."

"Th-thank you, Miss Katya. M-may I have -" WHACK!

A forehand slap, from the elbow, connecting with flesh of my cheek and spinning my head almost a full 90 degrees, my hair swooshing in front of my face. It stings, but only a little, the main thing being the shock. It forces, if only for a second, any crowding thoughts from the brain. Then, as warmth creeps into my cheek, the realsiation of the invasiveness of the act. Something about being hit in the face is just so.. I dunno. Intrusive? Dominant? Maybe I'm hella stoopid for thinking this, but this is how I rationalise it. Your face is, for better or worse, your identity. Although you can tell yourself it isn't the whole 'you', it is how others attach an identity to your self, and how you do too. Being slapped in the face is as immediate and as naked an act of power as is possible, in some ways, as the other person is claiming that space, is claiming dominion over your identity and daring you to stop them. That and the flush of adrenaline and the tingles... Nothing usually makes me subby faster, but today I'm having a hard time getting my head in the game.

"Stand." I am about to when she grabs me by the neck with both hands, lifting me to my feet and off them. I don't even have time to kick out before I am back on the floor.

My hands flutter to her arms then, catching myself and feeling the heat of her gaze, I once again lock them behind my back, thumbs in the crook of the opposing arms. Miss Katya moves to the writing desk in the far corner of the room, returns with a leather collar with an O ring that she places around my neck, tightens and buckles at the back. She clips on a chain lead, turns on her heel and walks back to the desk, suddenly dragging me behind her.

She brings out a document from a drawer.

"Sign this."

I look through it. It seems like a standard slave contract. I've never actually used one- myself and Miss Anna made things up as we went and my other experiments had been mostly just single scenes. There is a long list of consent terms. All have been ticked as agreeing entirely. I scan through it.

"Erm, sorry, er, Miss, but, err..."

"Mhh-hmm?"

"This seems very much a total power exchange, which I, I, I hadn't-"

"Yes?"

I remember seeing Steven Fry waxing lyrical about seeing Kasparov in the flesh, so to speak, playing chess, and the waves of intense concentration being almost palpable from the audience. There is something similar going on here. Although I've never signed a contract, I have negociated with Doms before, and it's generally fine, even with arseholes. This is different. She is elemental, she is terrifying. As a natural sub I can't help but surrender. I pick up the pen, move it to the paper.

"But Miss," I say, "What is my safeword?"

"You need a safeword? You expect a safeword?"

C'mon Suki. C'mon. You can do this.

"Yes?" Timid, small-voiced with an upward inflection, but you stood your ground. I'm proud of you, ma gurl.

Miss Katya sags for a brief second then, something rising within her, full-on Smaugs me. I feel her breath on the side of my neck and when she speaks, it is with cold fury.

"Your safeword is irrelevant. It will not change a thing, even if I grant you one. Or three. Your safeword means shit. Your safeword is nothing, do you hear me? Nothing!" She shouts this last word in my ear. Trembling, I sign.

Oh Suki, why do you disappoint me so continually?

She co-signs the contract with an angular scrawl and puts it into a nearby envelope.

"Tongue!"

I push out my tongue and she drags the sticky flap across it, giving me a tiny paper cut. As Miss Katya is pulling back the painting on the opposite wall to the mantle and depositing the envelope into a safe, I am tasting iron in my mouth.

Miss Katya leads me back into the hallway, past a huge and grimy looking kitchen, round to the corridor that dog-legs past this, through a quite frankly knackered looking wooden door and down into the basement. We move through a soundproofed room- what may at one time have been a studio or media suite, although most of the equipment is missing, clearly broken or obsolete, then through what looks like a partly stocked wine cellar. Down yet more steps and through a heavily reinforced door and into what I am only beginning to realise will be my own personal heaven and hell, my home, for the time I am with Miss Katya.

On the door, on a piece of A4 paper, written in some sort of gothic font is the legend: In this room there is no dignity. In this room, there is no joy. In this room there is no respite. In this room there is no complaint. In this room there is no redress. In this room, there is no worth. In this room there is no love. In this room there is no escape. In this room, there is no God but Miss Katya.

Even though I'm genuinely terrified, and this is not reducing my terror one iota, part of my brain, the part that always stands detached and judgemental, sneerily wonders if it's a bit on the nose. A bit much, maybe? Before I can do much with my supercillious response, I am dragged through and down a final couple of steps.

The room is large, maybe 70 feet by 30, low ceilinged, with exposed brickwork and a tiled floor. Miss Katya flips a few switches and, instead of the single bulb dangling from an overhead wire I was expecting, multiple spotlights come on around the room. I can make out a padded table, a saltire on one wall, a largeish metal cage, a bench, a large, heavy chair, far off, some sort of glint of various metal restraints anchored to the walls, floor and ceiling at different points in the room, several cupboards and metal wardrobes and shelves and shelves of implements fade into the unspotted darkness. There is a large TV bolted to one wall.

After being made to strip to my stockings and shoes Miss Katya puts my hands in leather cuffs connected by a short chain, then links these to a rope that dangles loosely from a ring in the ceiling. Her movements are automatic as she ties off the rope and she is eyeing me as a cat eyes a wounded bird. With one swift tug the rope goes taut and my arms are jerked above my head. She goes back to an organiser bolted to the wall and returns with a couple of lengths of rope and, within less than a minute, my legs are tied securely in loops of rope around my ankles and above and below my knees. She circles me twice, her heels click-clacking on the floor, seemingly admiring her handiwork before coming to a stop behind me.

After a few seconds, I feel a smack to my bottom. Then another to the other cheek. Then again, alternating for a minute or two. I feel heat begin to prickle and spread throughout both of my buttocks.

So far, so familiar. We are still in the territory of pain as a stand-in, of pain as a game, as a signifier of other things- power, submission, humiliation. Still there, still very real, but not the main focus.

Then again... Miss Katya moves away for a second, then back, and again starts to hit me, this time with a flogger. Several leather straps strike my skin with each swipe. I like floggers- they diffuse the impact and spread it across a larger area, so you get the sense of a hit, but it's not as focussed on a particular spot. Leather also has a bit more give to it than wood, for example.

Miss Katya moves from my arse down to my thighs and then across my upper back for a dozen or so hard strokes, swinging from the shoulder. She pauses, slowly dragging the leather strips from my thighs, over my butt and up to my back. I tingle and shiver deliciously. A very soft moan escapes my lips.

"Oh, we've a long way to go yet, bitch," says Miss Katya, stepping round to face me. Without warning she brings the flogger down across my breasts. Lightly at first, spreading each blow across both, then harder, putting more of her body into each swing, aiming at one then the other. After about 20 to each she pauses and grabs my left breast, squeezing then pulling on my nipple until I utter a stifled squeak and bite my lip. She hasn't expressly forbidden me from making noise, but for some reason I feel that might, I dunno, displease her? Incite her? It won't be good, at least.

She moves to one of the racks on the wall and comes back with a paddle and a wicked, sly, expectant expression on her face. Her eyes sparkle as she brings the paddle up to my mouth.

"Open." I do and gently bite down on the wood, only enough to hold it in my teeth, rather than applying any force. Which becomes difficult when Miss Katya takes hold of my breast, tugs and flicks the nipple with her finger until it hardens, then applies a clothes peg to it. I hiss and give a high, keening whine. The same to the other breast and I hear a succession of short, gasping pants escaping my mouth as I am having to force myself from biting down as I suspect that if I leave any teeth marks on her paddle, Miss Katya will introduce me to a hitherto unexplored definition of the word 'displeasure.'

Miss Katya moves behind me, taking the paddle with a swish. She begins, tapping my bottom with rapid, light, regular strokes, for around a minute, then building in strength until she is swinging metronomically; hard, smarting swats thudding into my jiggling butt. The pain is sharper than before and my already warm buttocks are starting to prickle uncomfortably as the heat deepens in my flesh. A pause, when I think she may be finished, then- Aaah- a really hard one. And again. And again. I realise I am crying out with each strike. As she moves down, covering the back and sides of my thighs I try and look around, under my raised arm. She is smiling a twisted, lopsided grin that, almost more than the repeated blows, shocks me.

"Eyes front," she barks. More blows, across my buttocks, thighs and back. I am desperately trying not to cry out and my eyes are scrunched as tightly shut as they can be. Miss Katya stops, comes to my front. The pain in my butt and legs and back is still fresh and I feel hotter than when I was standing in front of the fire. I can feel sweat on my forehead and my legs, quivering a little already, would be shaking violently if they were not so tightly bound. I open my eyes and look down, seeing reddening around the sides of my thighs and rips in my stockings (drat, they were my favourite pair). Miss Katya raises my chin with a finger and looks into my face. I'm guessing she sees in my unfocussed eyes and slack-jawed expression a mixture of pain, worry, need. Maybe some arousal buried deep in there. She won't see a slightly blissed-out subspace expression there, though. That state is too fragile for me and I'm far too scared at the moment. Some tops will take this as a failure on their part, feeling an obligation or pride in getting their sub to that point. Miss Katya, I somehow understand on an intuitive level, simply could not give a shit.

The spreading, deepening pain in my back and ass suddenly becomes irrelevant as Miss Katya grabs both of the clothespins and squeezes. I shout out, the tone racing up through a scale of pain from a throaty groan to a high squeal. I start to thrash ineffectually against my bonds, hopping on the spot, my torso jerking back and forth until Miss Katya grabs my throat with a strong hand.

"Be still, slave bitch." She is staring into my face and her expression is implacable.

I nod and wince, her hand tightening around my throat as her other continues to pinch angonisingly.

"I was given to understand you were obedient. That you could follow orders and would not cause problems. Was I mistaken in this?"

Eyes wide and now watering, I shake my head slightly. Her palm is pressing into my throat and her fingers and thumb are pressing strongly into the sides of my neck. I try and take a breath but get only the slightest hiccup of air. I feel something hard brush my sternum and realise it is the paddle, dangling from a leather loop around Miss Katya's wrist. My face starts feeling flush and what begins in my throat as a moan escapes as a gurgle. The world takes on a slight purplish-tinge, darkening at the periphery of my vision. My eyes, now feeling as though they are bulging out of my head, dart around wildly before being drawn magnetically back to her. She looks focussed, intent yet almost detached, as if she were engaged in a particularly difficult crossword puzzle, not choking the life out of a complete stranger in the basement of a semi-delapidated ex-rectory. There is no mistaking the urgency flaring in the dark pools of those eyes, however, nor the sadistic joy that is now twisting that wide, thick-lipped mouth into half-smile, half-snarl.

My hands jerk and jangle pathetically in my cuffs. My body instinctively spasms once, twice. Panic is twitching in my bound limbs, which are scrabbling hopelessly. My throat and lungs are on fire. My face feels like an over-inflated balloon. There is a fizzing in my skull, like carbonated bubbles.

"Still," Miss Katya says, her other hand relinquishing the clothespeg and moving to my throat.

"Shh, shh," says Miss Katya as two thin tears streak down my cheeks, my mouth flapping open and closed, like a landed fish. The world turns monochrome as thoughts are crowding my brain and I wonder, almost abstractly, whether it it is the cutting off of oxgyen to my lungs from my obstructed trachea or the lack of fresh blood through my carotid arteries arteries to my brain that will kill me first. If I ever get out of this alive, I must look that up. My mind is doing that thing you read about, where it scrolls through the timeline of your life, looking for something useful. I see a lot of Anna and a lot of other things I didn't want to ever see again. My tongue, suddenly too large and dry, seems to stick to the roof of my mouth. I hear, as if coming from very far away, a sticky, glottal, gulping noise.

My eyes close.

All thoughts drain away.

I feel floaty and blissed.

The pains throughout my body are still there, but it's as if they are behind a curtain or a screen where I can sense them, but they have no power to hurt me any more. My consciousness is freed and it is almost like I can peacefully move it around my body, sensing the pulse there; the tension flowing from the muscles in my shoulders there, as my legs give way and my weight hangs like a side of meat; the thick, foamy drool dripping from my lips; the bite of the rope above my knees.

I feel the pressure on my neck release, the heavy lids in front of my eyes fluttering open and slowly seeing through those slits a jumble of shapes, incomprehensible at first, resolve themselves into Miss Katya's face. I take a breath, but it is oddly shallow, as if my body had forgotten how to.

WHACK! A sudden, sharp impact in my stomach, as Miss Katya fully brings the paddle into my adbomen and, like on TV when someone is shocked or injected with adrenaline, I gasp, although that word seems insufficient for the way my whole body seems to inflate, taking a giant lungfulls of air.

And I cough, foamy spit flying out of my mouth. Pain rushes into the void, my body wracked with gulping, choking spasms. My throat is on fire as I splutter and heave and wheeze. My feet scrabble as I manage to stand again. The needling pain in my nipples and deep aches across the whole of my back jolt back into my consciousness.

Miss Katya stands, head slightly cocked, looking at me, until the raggedness recedes a little from my breathing. She then reaches out and slowly unclips a clothespeg. It is almost as painful as putting it on, the hurt pulsing anew as blood rushes back into my nipple. A low, long moan escapes as she unclips the second, then I shriek as she brings the paddle back into my stomach again and again.

Miss Katya moves away from me again and for a few seconds there is respite. I hear her heels echo as she comes back, along with a swish that cuts the air in an ominous way. By turning my body and looking under my armpit I can see her strutting back towards me, sleeves now rolled up, a leather crop in hand, trialling a few strokes in the air.

"Er, Miss, I, I, I," I manage to stutter before she is at my back, arm raised not quite to the height of her shoulder, but not far off. The crop comes down, swift as a blade.

White-hot pain on top of the raw, tender flesh of my reddened buttock. I scream and jerk. The crop falls again, harder, crossing the area of the first. I am shrieking after each impact and gasping and crying in the pauses between them. I swear I hear a growl from Miss Katya.

"Mercy. Miss, mercy. Please, mercy!" I am jerking and twisting, shuffling my feet to try, pathetically, to move my body so that the crop will fall on some less sensitised area. Needless to say, it hurts with a horrible, sharp, stinging pain wherever it lands, and my efforts are not exactly successful. More blows fall on my arse, my thighs, my back. My body bows outwards as I wail a high wail.

"I do not know mercy."

"Please, Miss, please. Fuck! OWW! Safeword! Safeword!" I yell. Miss Katya spins me on the axis of my roped hands, my feet scuffing and scrabbling as I twirl.

"That is not your safeword." Again the crop falls, this time across my breasts, catching my right nipple and the underside of the left.

"FUUUCK!!!"

"I have told you your safeword. It is not my fault if you are too stupid to recall it." So I do have a safeword. Thank you fucking Jesus. But still, this is terrible Domme etiquette. She is sticking to the letter, not the spirit of the contract. Oh shit, what did she say, I think before another white hot, stinging blow, this landing on my abdomen, pushes all thoughts from my mind. Think, Suki, thi- OWWW!

Two more, in rapid succession, one across the front of my thighs, one backhanded to my left breast.

Another across my buttocks. I scream. I literally do scream. They're so tender now that even a hand rested upon them would make me wince. That was very Hell.

Think, you stupid bitch, think!

She said my safeword was irrelevant.

"Irrelevant. Irrelevant!"

"Not quite," Miss Katya says, grinning a lizard's grin, slashing the crop across my stomach.

I yowl and burst into tears. She said it meant nothing, it was nothing.

"Nothing! Nothing!!"

Miss Katya stops, the crop drawn back above her shoulder. I sag and sob, thick, ugly tears of relief pouring down my face.

"Hmm. Perhaps you are not quite as stupid as I first thought." Miss Katya moves to the wall and undoes the knot. The rope goes slack and I fall to my knees. Ow! Improbably, given the myriad of agonies coruscating through my body, that fucking knacks, almost worse than anything else. Typical. I bunch up, foetal and weeping.

As Miss Katya approaches I say, "Thank you Miss Katya. Thank you for honouring my safeword and respecting my-"

"You get three of those. Read the contract. Three. Be sure not to use them too liberally."

She looks at my (insert adjective here- my guess is 'destroyed') face and says "Okay. This one I'll give you a bye for, as it was your first time." She bends to start undoing the bindings on my legs.

"You lasted longer than I thought you would. That is promising." Well, that's in no way fucking ominous. Jeez.

My cuffs click off and I weakly massage my wrists then, wincing, run my hands across my butt, thighs and breasts. I feel raised welts and, looking back, there are stripes criss-crossing my thighs, butt and back.

Once I can stand I am led back upstairs, a walking bruise. Miss Katya does not speak, instead gesturing for me to take my belongings up to a small, single bedroom on the second floor. There is a shower and toilet down the hall that I am instructed to use. I check my back and butt in the mirror and am mildly shocked to see just how much of my flesh is now a dark, purpling, swollen mass. There are wheals on my arse that criss cross in too many ways so that they look like the road map to hell. I look like tenderised meat- no, I am tenderised meat.

After my ablutions, instead of going back to my room, or being allowed into one of the downstairs rooms to, I dunno, talk or watch TV or surf t'internet, I am taken into the kitchen and given a cheap and disgusting ready meal. I grimace as I sit to eat and catch in my peripheral vision a momentary smirk cross Miss Katya's face. After this, I am once again taken down to the cellar and told that I will be sleeping there for the time being. Miss Katya gestures to the cage. It takes me a second to process what she is implying, by which time her expression has curdled into a mask of irritation.

"Am I to be sleeping... in the cage, Miss?"

"Do I not make myself plain?" There is something in her voice, something else that I am only beginning to notice. Perhaps certain syllables are a semitone higher, perhaps there is something more staccato in the delivery. Whatever, although barely perceptible, it is like noticing the whine of machinery gone wrong, or a high-tension cable that screeches before snapping.

"M-may I take my shoes off, Miss?" She nods her assent and I do before climbing into the cage. A little under 4 feet by about 3 by around 3 high, it is slightly larger than a regular dog cage, and the sides are all metal mesh but with a solid metal frame. There is a thin blanket covering the plastic bottom.

Miss Katya shuts and locks the door with a very complicated-looking lock. She leans in to say, "This lock is timed and will only open at a prearranged time, or if I choose to open it with this remote control." She flourishes a small clicker device, similar to a car key.

"You have some water," she taps a bowl attached to one of the sides of the cage.

"I will see you in the morning," Miss Katya says, turns on a heel and stalks out of the room, hitting the switches and plunging the whole room into darkness on the way out. I hear the click of a lock then bolts being threaded through on the outside of the door.

Fuck.

This... this is really happening. This is real. This is not a motherfucking drill, people. I am actually lying, locked into a cage in the locked basement of some psychopathic amazon, welts on my skin still irregularly pulsing pain as I turn and try and lie in something approaching a comfortable position.

I fail and burst into tears.

I cry for about an hour, although there is no way of knowing how long exactly. I am crying because my body still hurts, smarting wherever I try and place myself. I am crying because I am in a cage in the dark and this is exactly how much I mean to my apparent new mistress. I cry because my new mistress seems an unrepentant sadist and on my very first night here she has pushed me further physically than I have ever gone before and she's obviously just getting started and I don't know how far she will go. I cry because, at best, she simply does not care how I feel, and at worst actively wants to terrify and distress me. I cry because I'm alone and frightened. I cry because my lover has left me. I cry because my lover has left me here. Of all damn places, here! I cry until exhausted, then drift into a fitful sleep.

I wake up after an unknown period of time, panicking. I often have anxiety dreams that lead to me waking up being out of bed, running from ghosts or demons or zombies or nazis or zombie nazis or witches or whatever, until part of my brain wakes up enough to override the instant limbic response (usually a second or two after consciousness returns, although without actually telling the limbic system why it's doing this, so I am forcing myself back to bed still kinda thinking there are monsters in there). Exactly what you might think would happen happens. I bang into the top of the cage, then the side, then the other side, then thud back into the cage floor, shouting like, for all intents and purposes, a spooked animal, pain blooming afresh across my back, buttocks and thighs. Sorta like Buffy when they brought her back to life, except way less glamorous and with way smaller hair. Though it rocks, the cage seems weighted enough to not fall over, in spite of my bashing into it. Water slops from the bowl across my face and chest.

As my temporal lobe and prefrontal cortex come back online and my breathing normalises, I realise where I actually am and I freeze. For once, this sudden awareness of reality is no comfort. My stomach is a lift with all safeties cut, plummeting.

I have hardly ever had panic attacks, per se, but this is not too far off and I have to spend a while focussing on my breathing, as otherwise I feel I might actually die. After a certain amount of time, I feel okay enough to try and succumb to the Hokusai of exhaustion and defeat that hits me.

I attempt to find a comfortable position. There isn't one. I have to lie on my side with my knees curled foetally or my calves scrunched up under my bottom. Or if my legs are straight, I have to sit up, hunched over, the back of my head bumping the top of the cage. I can't lie on my front, which is my favourite way of sleeping, as I would have to curl my legs over my back like some yoga position.

I cry again for a few more minutes, more out of frustration than anything else then, very dehydrated, try and check out the water situation. The bowl is fixed to the side of the cage, about 2 foot off the floor. I can either cup my hands and pretty much bail water awkwardly to my mouth, or manouver my body until my head is in the bowl and faceplant into the water, lapping at it.

I go for the former, but end up with another massive spilled wet patch that I can't avoid when I try and go back to sleep (there was one from me banging the cage, so there is now no way of avoiding sleeping in a wet patch- oh joy)... I so bet that that devious bitch designed it this way. I scream in frustration then, unable to do anything else, curl up again.

I lie in the dark, shivering, waiting for but not expecting sleep to take me.

I suppose I should say a little about myself, as I kind of started in media res, you don't really know anything about me and now's as good a time as any. I'm Suki, but you knew that already. I'm 24, trans, bi/poly and a submissive. My pronouns are she/her, although I have answered to it/its before. In special circumstances. I'm 5'9 and a little under 10 stone. Skinny, if you couldn't do the maths. Mousy brown hair- too fine and thin for my liking- cut an inch above my shoulder, though I want to grow it out. My skin has the sort of palour beloved of introverts, recovering semi-goths and people who spend far too much of their lives tied up indoors. If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be New York. In Europe, probably Hamburg. Venice might be cool. Beautiful, but as touristy as a theme park. My first and indeed only pet was a hamster called Max. I wish I could stop biting my nails. I have a small, barely noticeable scar on my feltrum, from when I got hit in the face by a swing when I was 6 years old. My favourite part of my body... used to be my brain, I guess. Nowadays... my butt? My eyes? Green with a ring of brown around the pupil, so that they almost look entirely brown in low light and green when it's bright. If I had to have a style icon, at the moment I guess it would be Lucy Liu. Specifically, her character in Elementary (at least the first four seasons). Lots of ankle boots and gorge monochrome print mini dresses. NY professional, basically. Or Kate Beckinsale in full Instagram glory, not that I get to be that fancy very often. Or ever. My style changes a lot, though. When I was 19 and a brand new tran (not really, but ish) I tried to be Gwyneth Paltrow in The Royal Tenenbaums. Endless t-shirt dresses with loafers and natural makeup with heavily kohled eyes. Another for the what-were-you-thinking mental drawer.

I properly transitioned when I was 18, although before that I had been taking hormones off and on for a few years whenever I could get them. Typically illegally or unethically sourced. There would be months and months of taking female hormones and/or testosterone blockers then months without access to one or both of them. Then a few weeks without, then a coupla months on, then some time without... You get the idea. I wouldn't recommend this, unless you're trying to perfect a way of simulating cyclothymia.

I would describe myself as definitely, 100% a submissive, but only kind of a masochist. My relationship to pain is... complicated, I guess. Like a lover who you feel you will not be able to live without when they're not around but whose habits and attitudes and taste and turns of phrase irritate you beyond belief until they're actually not there, at which point you miss them ferociously, then you get back together and after a day you remember why it was all so annoying and why did you see anything in them, then they say something funny or interesting and profound, or you make love or do a scene and it's great, but ephemeral, followed inevitably by another few weeks of increasing irritation and awkwardness until they leave you with a valkyre who scares the crap outta you, beats and chokes you half to death, puts you in a cage in a cellar in total darkness and I'm sorry, where were we?

There are some masochists who genuinely enjoy the sensation of pain in of and as of itself. I kinda get this, to an extent, sometimes, but for me it's often about deferred gratification, or else an affirmation of my submissiveness. Outside of the few differently neurologically-wired individuals who experience pain as pleasure, forcing someone else to experience pain is, ipso facto, the most naked expression of power possible. And that's what I like. Pain is the price I pay. Sometimes willingly, sometimes grudgingly, but I accept I have to pay it.

As regards deferred gratification, there are basically two kinds. Firstly, physical. The after-effects of the right kind of pain can be delicious in of and as of themselves. And pain often sensitises parts of the body. If those parts are then subsequently touched or used in a sexual way, it can often, I would say, be very Oh My Wow. Amplify the sensation, basically. If you don't believe me, have someone paddle your arse then kiss it. Or slap your breasts, pull your nipples and then just gently lick and suck on them. Eye-crossingly intense, trust me.

And then there's subspace. If my general, fundamental submissiveness is the field, subspace is the particle expressed when measured in a particular way. It ties into both general servility and bodily sensation, but is not exclusively either. Basically, subspace, for me, is a nice, floaty, druggy feeling. It's partly physical- a mixture of endorphins and enkephalins, induced by pain, mainly, for me- but, like almost all female pleasure, is mediated by psychosocial circumstances. It's a specific, focussed sensation resulting from the articulation of sexualised feelings of pain, inferiority, acceptance, powerlessness, humiliation and, duh, submission. At least one of those has to also be present for it to manifest. But- and unlike my butt, it's a big one- if I don't feel safe, it doesn't happen. If I do feel safe, it often still doesn't happen. As I've found, like orgasm, willing it to happen will not help.

It's complicated. But also kind of addictive. I have to admit, I have found myself craving it, trying at times to engineer circumstances, chasing the perfect high, topping from the bottom, as they call it. Not the perfect sub behaviour, I suppose. Maybe that's why I'm here.

But as regards pain, pure and simple, there are types of pain I have learned to enjoy in of and as of themselves, outside of any wider contexts or results they may yield, up to a certain level. I kind of think of it like chilli, because it is literally like chilli. And I don't use the word 'literally' lightly. Unlike literally everyone else in the world.

Nobody likes chilli, or any other hot spice, the first time they taste them. Yet, after getting used to spice, it adds depth and complexity to a meal. Unspiced foods can seem insipid and uninteresting. And it can get you high. Being curry-stoned is a thing. There are reported instances of people from the Indian subcontinent who, moving to Britain in the 50s and 60s and being unable to source their requisite spices, ended up going cold turkey because their bodies weren't producing enough endorphins, as they usually would, in response to the blandness of their food. You start by wanting the high, and end up craving the burn. Yer basic classical conditioning. Pairing one sensation with another. If pain is paired with pleasure enough, pain will be welcomed as a prelude to pleasure, then, ultimately, enjoyed in of and for itself. Your palette changes, your tolerances expand.

As it is with someone used to highly spiced foods eating something bland, so it is with pain and sex and a fucked-up pervert like me. Maybe, by my own, erm, let's call it logic, I'll get used to it.

Not that I see that happening anytime soon, mind you, given the extreme nature of what Miss Katya just did to me. Extreme for me, at least. And the scariest thing, more even than the uncaring, impersonal brutality, is it felt like she was just getting warmed up, tee bee aitch. Is that the point of my being brought here? Does Miss Anna want to turn me into a full-on, proper pain slut masochist?

No, she wouldn't, would she? She was never that into just causing pain for its own sake, or for her gratification. She much prefers power play and the psychological hurt that only a truly vicious Top who knows her bottom's weaknesses and insecurities inside out can... No, that's not really fair. It wasn't all her fault. It was mainly me. Certainly the last few weeks, I'd been spoiling for a fight. Rows every five minutes. Acting up; storming out. I refuse to take all the blame, but maybe if I hadn't been so difficult, she wouldn't have insisted on my coming here. Maybe I wouldn't have felt so guilty and needful to please and wouldn't have ageed in the end. Let's be honest, I've brought this on myself. I know I was pushing for more of a 24/7 dynamic, but not this, eff eff ess.

It makes me wonder why Miss Katya chose to go so hard on me. Does she not know or care what my limits are? Did Anna not tell her? If not, why not? Surely as my Domme, my Top, my lover, my partner, she had an obligation to do so, didn't she? Does she care about that? I mean, she's been pretty pissed off with me of late. Maybe justifiably, but even so, there's a duty of care, surely.

Does Anna even know how far Miss Katya goes with her slaves? Oh God, how much further will she go? How much further can she go, without killing me or causing irreperable damage to my weak little body? Perhaps Miss Katya was given an idea of my limits, perhaps she wasn't. Neither thought is exactly comforting.

If she did know what was in store for me, maybe Anna was just sick of me. I mean, things hadn't been going exactly great in our relationship for some time before she left. Maybe all this is some sort of long-deferred punishment for my transgressions, for forcing things, or being a poor sub. Maybe this will be good for me and help me be a better slave. Some sort of extreme submissive bootcamp that will cure me of my worst tendencies. (Shyeah, right. Way to make lemonade, you dumb bitch.) Maybe Miss Anna knew what I would be in store for and she wanted that for me. (She couldn't, surely, could she?) Okay, she could be a bitch some of the time... a lot of the time, especially recently, but, I mean... No, c'mon. No, surely not.

I get the feeling, though, that it ultimately doesn't matter. That Miss Katya goes exactly as hard as she wants, when she wants, how she wants. Oh God. Six months. I won't last.

You can kinda tell I think way too much about this sort of shit, can't you? Or just think way too much in general. That's another good thing about pain, I think, wincing, as I try and shift my aching body to a position in which I could conceivably fall asleep. It fucking shuts my brain up, at least for a bit.