The Inner Room by Claire Thompson Page A

word. Somehow the wrist cuffs soothed her, and she wished he would also bind her waist and ankles, but she said nothing.
    He moved out of her sight and a moment later she felt his strong body pressed up against hers from behind. He smelled so good! Something woodsy and masculine. She wondered if he had a lover—a partner. Was the guy a sub? Did he cuff him to a whipping post and flog him before making love to him?
    Stop it, she ordered herself sternly. It is what it is.
    “Are you ready, sub girl?” Cam’s mouth was so close she could feel his breath tickling her ear. Though she’d just had a powerful if unexpected orgasm, her perverse cunt, which apparently didn’t know the man leaning against her was gay, perked to instant and throbbing attention.
    “Yes, Sir,” she managed, though in fact she was frightened of the flogger, which had to hurt way more than a mere spanking.
    Cam stepped back. “Good. We begin.” He appeared once more in front of her and held the handle of the flogger close to her face. “Kiss it,” he ordered. “Kiss the flogger as a gesture of your appreciation for what it can give you.”
    Though this sounded a bit contrived to Marissa, she dutifully touched her lips to the soft, fragrant leather.
    He moved again and she could just see him in her peripheral vision. “We’ll start light,” he said, “and gradually increase the intensity. My goal is to see what you can handle, and how you handle it. Feel free to cry out. It’s okay to tell me if it hurts, or to say that you don’t think you can take it anymore, and I’ll listen to you, though I won’t necessarily stop—not until I think it’s time.
    “Regarding your safeword—be very, very careful about using it. It’s an absolute last resort, and should only be used if you sincerely believe I’m not getting the message and the action needs to stop immediately. I should tell you, I’ve never, not once in the six years I’ve been doing this, had a sub need to use their safeword. I will pay attention to your body and your reactions, and all you really need to do is open your spirit to what I’m giving you. That said, you can use the safeword if you think you have to, but know that all action will cease at that moment, and the session will end. Are we clear?”
    “Yes, Sir,” Marissa said, now thoroughly terrified at the thought she was going to be taken to the point of crying out and screaming that she couldn’t take it anymore. Nonetheless, she was determined to see this through. No way was she going to back down now.
    “Okay, then. We begin.”
    The first strokes were little more than the brush of leather whispering over her skin. It almost tickled. After about ten of these, however, the intensity increased a little, and the leather now lightly smacked her skin, though still nowhere near as hard as Tony’s palm had been. This wasn’t so bad. She could totally do this!
    The flogger moved away from her ass now, landing between her shoulder blades. It stung, but at the same time, it felt good. It felt right. The leather moved down her back to her ass, this time striking harder, so the sting matched that on the thinner skin of her back. Next the flogger shifted to the backs of her thighs.
    The first really hard stroke took her by surprise, and Marissa gasped and tensed. “Relax,” Cam said at once. “Flow with the pain, not against it.”
    She had no idea what this meant, but Marissa did her best to relax, in spite of the fact she was naked and tethered to a whipping post, while an incredibly sexy gay Dom smacked her ass with a flogger.
    He hit her again, just as hard, and Marissa yelped a little. “Flow with it,” she heard him whisper behind her. He struck her again and again, each time a little harder than the last. It hurt, make no mistake, but at the same time her body seemed to crave the pain, just as it had when Tony had spanked her. Or no, even more. She thrilled to the thuddy caress of the flogger as it crashed