Niki

NIKI

Show me you're not afraid to hurt me. Put your mark on me.

Please read the Standard Disclaimer on Alextasy's bio page

Trigger Warnings-consensual scarification (cutting designs into skin) and blood

--==[サ]=[ボ]=[テ]=[ン]==--

Bloody crystal shard

Cactus kana on her breast

Love is forever

When I step off the elevator, familiar reggae bass riffs booming down the hall slam into me with an instant sense of dread. Earthy aromas spill out around my apartment door, roasted Brussels sprouts and her top-grade weed. My heart and my gut both clench.

Niki is back.

I should have changed the locks after she texted me the photo of some guy's cock in her mouth, his cum seeping from a corner of her grinning lips. I never figured she'd have the balls to show up here again.

But Niki had balls. She provoked people, getting right in their faces as if she was begging them to slap the shit out of her. Her diminutive size was her most powerful weapon. Nobody dared to hurt a willowy, five-foot-two, ninety-pound-soaking-wet Japanese woman. It was a no-win situation.

Apparently, that went double for me. I had to wonder if she was bipolar. Most days Niki was a beautiful person, intelligent, kind and thoughtful, with a deliciously wicked sense of humor and an even more wicked sexuality. With Niki around, I was never bored.

Like the day after I met her. We had sat together at a March Madness party on Sunday night, ignoring the basketball games but discussing, debating, and laughing about everything else under the sun for over two hours. I sensed an immediate connection, but I had come with another woman. My date squeezed onto the sofa next to me, hinting that she was feeling ignored. When I turned back to Niki to introduce them, she had disappeared.

At lunch with a few coworkers the next day, I excused myself to the men's room. Standing at the urinal, I paid no attention to the door opening behind me. I shook myself off, but before I could zip up, a small hand tugged at my arm, spinning me around. Niki dropped to her knees, pulling my soft cock into her mouth. I was stunned, of course. Later, I learned that a few hits of pot make her ravenous for cock.

Silently, Niki sucked me until I was hard. She showed me what she could do with the stud in her tongue and how deep her throat could go while she unbuckled my belt and lowered my slacks to my knees so her tiny, slender fingers could tease my balls.

I exploded into her mouth, groaning as her eager lips drained me. While I recovered my dazed senses, she retrieved a red marker from her back pocket and wrote her phone number on my deflating cock. Without a word, she stood up, gave me a peck on the lips, then scurried out the men's room door.

She stayed at my apartment that night. We were together every available minute for nearly two months.

Until last week.

"Bad" Niki had shown up again. It would start with something inconsequential. I used her shampoo. Or I picked up the wrong brand of milk at the store. Maybe I had simply frowned at her or laughed at an inappropriate time. It didn't matter. She was scrapping for a fight.

It happened irregularly, but usually around every couple of weeks or so. The petty conflict quickly degenerated into a hateful shouting match where she would call me names like ignorant fuck-breath or stupid pussy-boy, and claim that I didn't give a damn about her or what she needed. Regardless of whether I shouted back, acted conciliatory, or simply tried to walk away, she'd start shoving and hitting me. Sometimes, she threw things. Fortunately, her aim wasn't very good, but she broke a lot of shit.

The only thing that seemed to appease her was angry sex. Somewhere during the tussle, she would manage to bare her dainty, brown nipples or her sleek pubes. Her pussy lips would be swollen. Instantly, I would get hard. If I tried cutting straight to the sex too early, it just pissed her off more. On those difficult nights, the fight was her foreplay.

And the fucking afterward? Like wrestling with a tigress. A scratching, biting, pummeling, bitching, and extremely horny tigress. After her orgasm, the sweet, inventively sexy, and equally loving Niki would return. She could pleasure me for hours, keeping me on the edge until I couldn't stand it any longer. The intensity of coming inside her was transcendent. It was almost enough to make the whole ordeal worthwhile.

Almost...

By the fifth time, I was tired of the drama. I shoved her half-naked out the front door and leaned against it. She banged and screamed for a while, then left. A few hours later, she texted me the picture that ended us. I arranged for a friend to meet her at the apartment so she could pick up her stuff.

Now, here she is again.

When I turn the reggae down, she looks back over her shoulder from the sink.

"Hi, Michael." Her tone is pleasant. "Dinner's almost ready. You want a beer? Some wine?"

She pushes the smoldering doobie hanging out of her mouth toward me. I shake my head.

It's like nothing happened.

No matter what warnings my left brain screams at me, I can't help but want her again. I know exactly what that lithe, tattooed and pierced body can do. I remember the ripe, zesty taste of her pussy, and the way she squirms and whimpers when I suck and nibble at the gentle swells on her chest. My cock knows how the stud in her tongue feels, and the incredible oven of joy inside that tight, boyish ass. I can picture the exquisite agony on her oval face, her slender lips parted, and those smooth, brown, almond-shaped eyes, hooded and consumed with lust when she comes on my dick. She did it every time we fucked. The way her pussy gushed, there was no way she faked it.

The sex was not even the good part. We clicked. We talked. We laughed and played and argued religion and politics and philosophy and art and the best board games and the silliest Adam Sandler movies. She was brilliant, funny, and affectionate. I could see myself spending the rest of my life with her.

Except for the brutal episodes. Each brawl consumed no more than a half hour, then we fucked madly and were good for a while longer. I finally decided it was too much.

I think she was wearing that same orange tube top and black thigh-length skirt the night I made her leave. It was in the photo that marked the death knell.

"Did you bring any?"

She knows what I'm asking and grins her answer.

"Dining room."

Niki has a secret source for the smoothest Japanese spirits. In the depressing week since our last fight, I drank every drop she left behind while stroking my cock and kicking myself for tossing out the best thing that ever happened to me, even despite the psycho drills.

I turn the corner into the dining room and jolt to a stop. In the faint light from the dimmed chandelier, I recognize my late grandmother's china and crystal glassware. Two formal place settings on a plain linen tablecloth. I watch nervously while she pours a shot of clear, Moriizou shōchū into two fragile tumblers. After the second episode with "Bad" Niki, I had packed Grammy's heirlooms safely away on the highest shelf of a tall cabinet in the unused bedroom. She must have brought help in to get it down.

Niki tops off the shōchū with a splash of chilled water--mizuwari style, she called it when she wrote the kanji characters on my skin to teach me Japanese. She often did that during the soft glow between fucks and made me copy them on her with her red calligraphy pen. It was erotic as hell.

We raise our drinks, and I hold my breath until the precious glasses tink together gently. We shout the traditional "Kampai!" toast, then toss back the entire shot.

Though it's been only a few days, when we sit down to eat, I realize how much I've missed her vegetarian cooking. Her special roasted Brussels sprouts are covered in an umami sauce spiced with chopped, fresh jalapenos. She knows where to find the best tofu around, and she deep-fries it in a Chinese peanut oil to give it a silky texture with a surprising, delicate flavor. Her homemade ginger dressing is drizzled carefully over a small salad of creatively sliced Japanese vegetables. Even the food she prepares for me is erotic.

The flowers on the table are significant. Ikebana and hanakotoba--the Japanese art and language of flowers--is how Niki makes her living. She is well respected, and lots of rich and powerful people pay her more than I make as an architect.

In the center of the arrangement, I recognize the succulent yellow flower sprouting from the top of a thorny cactus. The Japanese name is saboten. She uses its contrasting thorns and lush beauty in many of her arrangements. Little wonder, the saboten is the flower of sexual desire.

A pair of pink rose buds--symbolizing trust--are still closed. They are separated by a white camellia, a tsubaki. I'm not sure what the specific color represents, but I recall that all the tsubaki represent some sort of yearning. Her message is clear. The arrangement is as close to an apology as I'll probably ever get from Niki.

"What do the small blue flowers mean?" I ask, admiring the lovely spray of five-petaled blossoms with yellow centers surrounding the base of the cactus.

Across the table, her eyes narrow. Oh, shit. Here it comes.

"Nothing." Her curt words signal trouble. "They don't mean a fucking thing."

I keep my mouth shut and take another sip of shōchū, hoping beyond reason that my silence can stave off the next outburst. I should know better.

"Do you ever pay attention when I tell you something? Or do you think I'm just running my mouth to make noise? Because you sure as fuck don't ever contribute shit to the conversation. Except to ask some damn foolish question that you'd already know if you weren't such a fucking mouth-breathing idiot."

"Niki, let's not start this--"

"Fuck you, asshole! I'll start whatever I goddamn please, you pathetic cocksucker!"

Her slender arm sweeps in a wide circle, and time slows, the moment stretching as the stoneware tray with the flowers flies off the table along with the food, the tablecloth and everything in her path. Grammy's rare china dishes and one of the crystal tumblers crash to the floor and shatter into jagged pieces.

"What the fuck?" I shoot up from the table. This is a new record. Zero to breaking things in ten seconds. The carnage on the floor sickens me. Setting down the lone crystal tumbler in my shaking hand, I point to the door. My voice is barely above a whisper.

"I want you the fuck out of here. Now."

"Not until I get what I came for, dick-breath!"

"I'm not gonna fuck you, Niki. We're over. You killed us last time." Tears well in my eyes as I wave my hand over the destruction. "This is unforgivable."

"You're such an ignorant motherfucker. I haven't even fucking started." She smirks and whips out her phone. Sneering at me, she dials. "Hey, Stan. It's Niki. You want another blowjob?"

The picture flashes into my head. My reaction is lightning fast. I'm around the other side of the table before I know it, snatching the phone from her hand and hurling it against the wall. The pieces clatter to the floor. Grabbing her around her shoulders, I haul her elfin frame up to her feet and growl, low and menacing.

"Leave, Niki. Leave now, before something happens we can't undo."

For a fraction of a second, I would swear that I spied a hint of a grin. Just as quickly, her face is hard again, glaring at me defiantly.

"You're such a fucking pussy, Michael. You've always been a pussy. You don't know how to be anything but a pussy. You wouldn't dare hurt me. Not over a couple of old, piece of shit dishes."

She tumbles to the side, going down on one knee, clutching her cheek. My hand is stinging. I've done it. I've slapped her. One call to the cops is all it takes, and she will own me.

Niki rises from her stooped position. She's rubbing the left side of her face. It's bright pink. I can't even begin to come up with words to express my shame.

The outrage I expect from her doesn't emerge. She appears calm.

"It's about fucking time you grew a pair." She sneers. "Do ya' think you're man enough to own this bitch?"

A frisson ripples up my spine. Niki's bizarre, perverse little game pushes me past the limits of civility. Primal instincts take over, and in a flash, one hand is gripping her throat, the other is fastened around her wiry bicep, and I shove her backward until her butt hits the edge of the table. I don't stop pushing until she cries out in pain when the back of her head goes thump on the hardwood tabletop.

"Go ahead, tough guy." She's still defiant. "Hurt the filthy, slant-eyed Nip. You know you want to."

She's right. At this moment, I could break every fucking bone in her skinny, malicious little body.

With her long, scrawny neck pinned to the tabletop, I lean over inches from her face, growling. "If you're looking for a fuck, you can forget it. What will it take to get rid of you? Permanently."

She stares up, her wide eyes sparkling with excitement. Her aroused breaths are coming quick and short.

"Show me you're not afraid to hurt me," she says. "Put your mark on me."

"My mark?"

She rolls her eyes. "Why do I even fucking try? Did they teach you to be a parrot in junior architect school?" She squawks. "Awk! My mark. My mark. Awk! Architect wanna cracker."

My jaw tightens. I'm a goddamned junior partner at the firm, one rung down from the top of the ladder.

"What kind of goddamn mark you want, Niki? Another tattoo? Is that all it takes so I won't ever see you again?"

Colorful Japanese art and kanji cover about a fourth of her body. I have only a general idea of how the guys in jail do it, but I know it's painful and ugly, and that makes it damn tempting.

"Not a tattoo. I want a scar," she says. "Burn me, bite me, cut me. I don't care how you do it, or even where. Just make it hurt."

She's fucking insane. She can't possibly mean that. She's just testing me to see how far I'll go, provoking me into something that will get me in worse trouble. What will she do if I call her bluff?

Whipping my head around, I quickly scan the floor. Right next to the flowering cactus, I find what I'm looking for. Lying among the pretty blue flowers and shattered china is a jagged, triangular shard from Grammy's crystal glass. Releasing her neck for no more than a second, I squat and carefully snatch it up before leaning back over Niki and grasping her throat again, waving the razor-sharp glass in front of her.

"Maybe you'd like me to slice up your pretty little face? That what you want?"

Before she can answer, I yank up on the neck of her tube top, pulling it away from her skin to slash the uneven blade down the center of the elastic. It makes a delicious ripping sound as I lay it open. That should get through to her.

Then again, maybe that was a bad idea. Her bared nipples are crinkled baby raisins, like when she gets turned on. That makes me hard, too. She's doing it again, seducing me into her angry sex game. I fucking hate to be manipulated.

I press a dull edge of the glass carefully into her breast, just enough to dent the smooth, flawless skin, and I snarl at her.

"Tell me to stop, Niki. Or so help me..."

"Don't stop."

Her voice is quiet and even. She gazes up at me, arms at her sides, fists clenched. She's making no move to defend herself.

"Are you fucking crazy?" I back off the pressure.

She laughs softly. "Crazy? Yeah, I'm crazy. I've been crazy since the night of March ninth."

The date is seared into my mind. It's the night we met. Is this cheating cunt seriously trying to cozy up to me? After the way she acted? I'm livid, about half a second from giving her a matching hand print on the other side of her face.

"So, you thought you could prove your affections by fucking the first guy you ran across?"

She shakes her head vehemently

"I didn't suck anybody, I swear."

Her voice sounds strained and high pitched, and I realize my hand is tight around her throat, restricting her air. Relaxing my grip, I keep my fingers in place, pinching in on either side of her long, narrow neck.

"Don't try to tell me that picture was some deepfake."

"Stanley is gay, an old friend. He worked himself off on my chin, then let me put my mouth over it just for the camera. I hardly touched it. I had to get your attention."

Attention? Is she really so vain?

"I don't feed your ego for a week, so you barge in here and destroy my grandmother's dishes because you wanted some fucking attention?"

My rage is pushing the boiling point. The arrogant bitch actually smiles.

"I would have come back a few days ago, but I couldn't find those old patterns locally," she says. "The shipping took longer than I expected."

"What do you mean, shipping?"

Little by little, her words coalesce, and I grasp what she's done. My jaw drops, staring at her, unable to come up with anything to say.

She stares into my eyes. "Your Grammy's dishes are safe on the top shelf where you hid them."

All reasoning whooshes out of my head, and I'm running on empty. Why would she do such a cruel thing? Did she concoct this elaborate ruse to piss me off?

Niki clasps both her slender hands around my wrist--the wrist attached to the hand that's holding the jagged glass against the dome of her breast. She presses downward and whispers a fervent plea.

"Do it." Tears gather in the corners of her eyes. I don't remember when I've ever seen Niki cry. "Put your mark on me, Michael. Make me yours. Forever."

Every fiber of who I am tells me to back away, to ignore whatever is going on inside that twisted head of hers, and yet, the idea that she would be reminded of me every time she looks in a mirror has a certain vengeful appeal. There would be no forgetting she was once mine.

And that thought collides with something she said earlier. Are you man enough to own this bitch? I didn't think much about it at the time. Her tirade screeched to a stop as soon as I lost my shit and slapped her.

Her reggae playlist has been running the whole time in the background, and in the silent moment, something the autotuned singer croons catches my ear.

Broken all the pieces I've been shaping lately

Focused on the things that didn't make no sense

Finally, something is making sense. I don't yet have all the pieces of the Niki puzzle, but the big picture is coming into focus. So many colors and shades to her personality--enchanting, intelligent, loving, and a luscious fuck, yet devious and infuriating, especially when she gets into one of those damned prickly moods.

Prickly... Yeah, that's it. She wants my mark? The tendril of a malevolent thought slithers up from some filthy, worm-crawling cellar of my subconscious, and the grisly image it brings causes a chill to race up my spine. Could I do it? I shouldn't, and maybe that's why I have to do it if I'm going to prove I'm not a pussy. I've developed a steady hand at work, and Niki taught me what she wanted me to know, as if this has been her plan all along.

I'll give her a fucking mark, all right. And I know exactly where it's going and what it's gonna say. All I need is a few tools. One is in my hand.

"Why are you smiling like that, Michael?" She sounds worried when I pull the crystal sliver away from her beige skin. "Aren't you going to--"

Clenching her throat tighter chokes off her words.

"Quiet, Niki." My tone is calm, yet satisfyingly ominous. "You're going to get everything you asked for."

Under the web of my thumb, her larynx moves with a nervous gulp. My grip eases.

"I need to collect a few things. When I come back, I'd better find you right here. The next time I have to slap you, I won't be nearly so gentle."

A quiet gasp comes from Niki. I think I've finally intimidated her. Then she utters a too-familiar phrase.

"Ara maa!"

It's a multi-purpose Japanese expression that roughly translates to "Oh, my!" with a variable meaning that depends on the context. It's sort of like the way Grammy could say, "Well, bless your heart, sweetie," to either praise her only grandchild, or to tell the snippy cashier, "Fuck you, too." Niki often shouts it when she comes. It may pop out when she's surprised or pleased. Most often she employs it as a taunting insult.

In this case, it's the last one. Niki is only barely holding back the grin. Two weeks ago, I would have ignored her impudence. This time it arouses whatever nonhuman thing has awakened inside me. Without conscious thought, my hand flies up to snatch a clump of silky black hair at the top of her head. She yelps when I yank her head back to lift her chin. The next instant, my teeth are clamped firmly onto her windpipe.

Niki freezes. I'm overwhelmed by a sudden impulse to bite down, to sink my canines into her larynx then jerk back, ripping her throat open. My civilized soul is holding the leash, and would never let that happen, but that can't stop the feral thrill that rushes through me. I'm not a pussy anymore. The spirit of a tiger has awakend.

Working my lower jaw side-to-side, I gnaw at her esophagus, stoking her terror. She whimpers, trembling. I recognize enough Japanese phrases to know she's begging me, though I can't say whether she wants me to stop or keep going.

When I've made my point, I move to her lips. Still tugging at her hair, I cover her mouth, possessing it. This is not like any kiss I've ever given her. She pretends to resist my tongue, but I force it through her tight lips, and a weak moan comes up from her throat, and in that moan, I sense her surrender and feel her energy passing into me, making me stronger.

Relaxing my grip on her hair, I warn her. "Don't you fucking move, or your next stop is out the door, and this time I won't be living here when you try to come back."

"No!" she cries out.

It's the first time I've seen a hint of real fear on Niki's face. Maybe we're making progress.

My shoes crunch in the broken porcelain as I dash to my room. As I pass the light switches, I raise the dimmer on the eight-lamp chandelier above the table to max. In less than a minute, I return with an antique raku bowl she left behind and the red calligraphy marker she used to draw kanji on me. Niki is lying right where I left her, except now she's completely naked, her legs spread, draped over the side of the table. It's all I can do to keep from dropping to my knees in the shattered glass to worship at the tangy temple of her dark, puffy cunt.

After I fill the raku bowl half-full of the clear shōchū, I lay the crystal blade in the alcoholic spirits to soak. It's not medical grade, but it is appropriate and will be quite adequate for my purpose for now. Then I fill my tumbler, the only one remaining of the two she bought to show how much she loved me. I may cherish that glass more than any of Grammy's.

After a small sip--I can't afford to get sloppy--I raise Niki's head to help her drink. "You're gonna' need a lot of this."

"I'll be fine," she says, but takes a long swig anyway.

When I bend over her chest in the nearly shadowless light from the chandelier, she lowers her eyes to watch the angled tip of the felt pen begin its strokes.

Four scarlet characters appear in a vertical line beginning high on the inner curve of her right breast. The last one ends just below the point of her pebbled areola. Four characters, fourteen strokes--サ ボ テ ン--sa-bo-te-n, the cactus flower. An exquisite golden blossom surrounded by spiny thorns, yet inside, so tender and delectable.

She whispers. "Your calligraphy is perfect."

I have to laugh. I lean over her for a long and loving kiss.

Pulling the crystal shard from its shōchū bath, I remind myself of her lessons on the proper order of traditional katakana strokes, and I place the sharp edge on the left end of the long, red line of ink that forms the center horizontal stroke of sa.

"I love you, Niki."

"I know you do. Show me how cruel your love can be."

Drawing the glass blade through the top layers of her rubbery flesh, I slowly carve the first, shallow, slice. She shudders, inhaling sharply and clenching her fists. This is different from cutting skyscraper models out of cardboard, but the technique is the same. My hand is steady, and I take my time--I can't rush this. A bead of blood forms at one end of the thin red trail. When I glance up, her teeth are clenched, and tears are rolling down her cheeks.

"You want me to stop?"

"No!" she cries out, then sniffles. "Keep going. No matter what happens."

I make the second cut, a short, downward stroke, and from the corner of my eye, I notice her arm angle down across her belly.

The third stroke is long and curved. The lean muscles of her forearm flex rapidly.

I warn her. "You need to be still." The fingers of my free hand press above and below the kanji to hold her skin tight while trying to focus on the keen edge of the glass blade instead of what's going on out of my sight.

As a reach the lower end of the cut and lift the crystal shard, I recognize her high-pitched, squeaky voice.

"Ara maa! Fuck!"

No, she didn't... Did she?

Her face, her neck and upper chest are flushed. Her breathing is quick, and tears stream down her cheeks. The scent of her arousal fills my nostrils.

"Are you alright?"

Niki laughs softly, panting. "I came. Hard."

No shit.

"It's gonna get messy if we have to have to go through this every time."

She shudders. "No, I'm good now. I was already so cranked up, I couldn't hold back." She sniffles, wiping the back of her hand across her cheek. "It was like losing my virginity again, the unbearable sting, all the emotions. I need your cock now. Put it in me? Please Michael? Just for a minute?"

If I did that, it wouldn't be just a minute. She would have hold of me, and I would be lost. As much as I want her, I need to own her first.

"No."

I've never denied her, and my muscles tense, watching for the reaction. This is the sort of thing that could set off another firestorm.

Instead, her smooth eyelids narrow, crinkling at the corners with her pleased smile.

"I like your new balls. Sorry I had to piss you off, but I'm not sorry how it's turned out."

The separation felt like the end of the best thing in my life, but if this shift in our roles is the result, I won't complain. For the first time, I see something with a future beyond tomorrow. I'll need to adjust my expectations of myself. So far, that's going easier than I would have imagined.

The second character, bo is the most difficult. Niki's fingers continue playing idly with her sex.

The edge of the glass slices the long vertical hook stroke. She tenses and shivers, mewling painfully and digging her nails into my back like she does sometimes when we fuck. Her arm wiggles quicker.

When I finish the stroke, she says, "Are you really gonna slap me again when I get my bitch thing on?"

"Isn't that what you want?"

"It's what I need." she says, then utters a strained whine as I make the horizontal stroke. She's panting heavily. "Sometimes... I get this Rambo thing. It's not PMS. My therapist says it's an impulse control thing. Something sets me off, and my temper goes through the roof."

"Yeah, I noticed." I'm trying not to chuckle. She's never mentioned a therapist.

"It doesn't happen often. Not really. I, uh... I've been giving you shit intentionally. I'm sorry, Michael."

I look up. "Did I just hear an apology from Niki?"

"Don't get all weepy on me. You'll have to work for the next one." She smirks, then gasps with a croaky "Fuck..." when I cut the lower stroke that's closest to her nipple.

"I'm tired of you breaking shit."

"Cut it off early. Don't let me get riled up before you do something."

"Should I just slap you around a little every day? Or do I need to keep a two-by-four on hand?"

"A slap or two once in a while would be good. Maybe while we're fucking?"

Keeping my head down, I lift my eyes under my brow. She's looking straight at me, not smiling. It isn't a joke.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you can."

I'm picking up on a recurring theme.

She says, "The choking and what you did with your teeth on my throat was awesome. I never felt so... alive."

The whole situation is turning my world on its head. I'm not sure where the boundary lines are anymore.

I raise my head. "Maybe it would be easier if I know what I can't do."

Niki pauses, looks away in the distance, then her eyes come back to mine.

"Nothing."

Nothing? As in...?"

"As in nothing you could ever do to me will make me leave, so long as it comes from your heart." She points to the pattern of incisions on her breast. "This says I'm yours. All of me. All the time. You set the limits. I'll push them. Don't hesitate, don't think about it. Do the first thing that comes to mind."

I pop her right cheek. The urge appeared out of nowhere, and I let it happen, mindful to use the hand without the shard. That stuns her, then her lips curl up. I crane my neck to place a tiny kiss on her lips. I never imagined owning someone could be so satisfying, yet humbling, in its way.

"Hold your breath for a second," I tell her, allowing me to make the two tricky, short diagonal slices at the top of the bo. She trembles with each one. I tell her, "Okay, you can breathe."

"I like spankings," she says.

"Hand? Or paddle?"

"Mmm, hands are sexy. You can do that any time. A paddle will make me appreciate the spankings. When I get my bitch-face on, maybe you can show me what your belt feels like."

I was a precocious kid, and I still recall the sting of the narrow leather strap my father used on my legs and backside when I talked back or really fucked up.

When I wash her wounds with the shōchū, she jerks and yelps "Shit! Fuck!"

"Did someone ever hit you with a paddle or a belt? Your parents?" I fear she's had some experience. How could I live up to that?

She laughs, then the breath catches in her throat as I start the long horizontal center stroke of te.

"We don't do that sort of thing in Japan," she says. "A lot of slapping, sort of like that last one you gave me. They're only supposed to shame, not hurt. Tonight was the first time anyone ever really hit me. It was way better than I imagined. I've sat with friends who were arguing the pleasures of all sorts of whips and stuff. I want you to show me how those feel."

With my head still down, I raise my eyes toward her face in wonder. What a strange woman she is. I smile inside. She's my strange woman. All mine.

That leads to another line of thought. Just as she is mine, I am hers. I'm like the counterbalance in building design, the opposing force in the structure that creates symmetry and stability.

Yin and yang...

"Hold still again."

The curving stroke below te will point the sharp blade directly at her nipple, so I set my thumb in the path to block any accident.

"Fuck!" I yell as the leading edge slips like I was afraid of. My thumb is gushing.

Niki grabs my hand, forcing my bloody thumb down onto the weeping cuts on her chest. We stare at each other. The traditional implication of our consanguinity is not lost on me. She lifts my wound to her mouth, her soft eyes watching me while she sucks on it in that special erotic way she does.

I wash my cut in the shōchū, biting my lip at the sting. I'm not nearly as strong as Niki. Before cleaning the cuts, I give each of us another drink, then I relight the joint she was smoking when I came in. I'm nearly done, so I take a deep hit, then put it between her lips, well aware of how hungry she gets for cock when she's high.

She sings along with the reggae tune, and the words catch my attention.

I'm not gonna fight what I have become

I've got bruises where I came from

But I wouldn't change if I could restart

I ain't gonna hide these beautiful scars

Only two strokes are needed for the last character--n.

"Nobody ever fucked me the way you do, Michael. Nobody," Niki says, twitching with the sting from the short slash at the upper left of the character, near her brown, quarter-sized areola. "I can't stop coming when your cock is inside me. That never happened before. You're like a drug."

"You're the most exciting woman I've ever known," I tell her, cutting the final stroke. It's a long curving cut that follows the round shape of her breast. "I was so depressed when you weren't here. I knew I'd never find anyone else like you."

Niki says, "This was the worst week of my life. As much as I knew I loved you, I knew we wouldn't last together if you couldn't set your man-beast free to put me in my place."

"Yeah, I get it. Who knew cruelty could be this much fun?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" She sounds concerned.

"I'm thinking it might be a good idea to let the beast out to play now and then, even when 'Bad' Niki's not around."

She screams murderously as I slowly pour shōchū over her fresh wounds. I don't understand the perverse joy that bubbles up inside me, but I'm eager to explore more of this part of my psyche, especially its effect on my sexual arousal.

I drop my slacks. My aching erection demands attention. Grabbing her slender, beige-skinned thigh, one in each hand, I pull her succulent, juicy center onto my cock, stabbing to the hilt with one fierce lunge.

She screams again and locks her ankles behind my back.

"Fuck me, you asshole!"

Rocking my shaft in and back at a slow, steady tempo, I warn her. "Go ahead, bitch. Keep talking like that. I'm sure I can find new levels of pain to explore."

Her breaths are short and ragged, and she stammers. "A Japanese tattoo artist I know... he performs hanabira... ritual Japanese scarring. He says to create... the scar, you should... keep opening the wound."

"You're sure?"

"Stop your stupid whining and get on with it, pussy-boy!"

I smack her cheek again, at the same time as I stretch the skin around the first characters with my fingers. Niki screeches, arching up and throwing her head back in agony. Fresh blood seeps from the wound, and her core muscles constrict around my thrusting cock.

"Don't call me pussy anymore." I like my new threatening tone.

"What? You think I should call you 'sir' now?" Taunting again.

"You can call me anything you want. Each choice has its own consequences."

She wails and writhes on the tabletop when I pull the skin another direction, and more blood trickles down her breast and onto the stained, linen tablecloth. Her cunt convulses on my dick. I drive into her harder, faster, and she shrieks, "Fuck!" as she locks up in a powerful, trembling climax.

She hasn't recovered when I pull on the second character. I keep fucking her, slamming my pelvis against her bottom while I re-open each stroke. Niki is in conniptions, her body lurching and squirming in a seemingly continual orgasm.

When I use both thumbs to stretch the last character open, she quivers uncontrollably. The visual and visceral stimulation of Niki's agonized joy pushes me to the brink. I can't contain my adoration of this extraordinary woman--my woman. My balls spill over, and I surrender to pleasure with a powerful, primal growl. A galvanic charge rushes up my spine, and I bask in the prickly tingles that light up over my skin as my semen gushes deep into Niki's body.

"Ara maa..." She sighs, tears pouring down her cheeks. Her face is stretched in a smile, big and bright and lovely as a golden cactus flower.

Still standing in the clutter of destruction, I can't take my shoes off and I can't go anywhere with my pants around my ankles, so I squat and slice the pants legs to get my shoes through the leg holes, then hoist her small, limp frame into my arms, kissing her while I carry her to the bathroom and turn on the shower.

I kick my shoes off, watching Niki admire her chest in the mirror.

"I love the way you marked me. I belong to you, now."

"I love my beautiful, sexy Niki."

With the water raining down on us, her hands at my waist and our bodies pressed together, she looks up at me.

"The small blue flowers? The ones in the arrangement?" she says. "I lied. They do mean something. Those are wasurenagusa--the blossoms of everlasting love."

As soon as she tells me, I decide that a day will come when I will inscribe the simple design of that flower into her skin. I have some other ideas, as well. Whatever happens from here, I know what I have to do to make it work.

And perhaps someday, I will be strong enough that I will ask her to put her mark on me.

Lyrics are from DJ Buang's reggae remix of Maximillian's "Beautiful Scars"