Red Handed(19)
A loud female cry coming from Danielle’s left caught her attention. A young blonde was cuffed to an X-shaped piece of equipment, which Danielle had learned from her reading was called a St. Andrew’s cross, and a handsome man stood behind her with a whip in his hands. Sweat trickled down his face as he spoke to a man beside him.
Master Cole.
He’d changed from what he wore earlier into a pair of leather pants and a leather vest over a red T-shirt. A dungeon monitor medallion hung from his neck. Even as he answered the other man, Cole never took his gaze off the blonde on the cross.
The whip coiled so quickly Danielle barely saw it, but she couldn’t miss the cracking noise it made as it struck the woman’s back. The blonde’s body jerked, and she groaned as the man did it once more.
Each time he struck, Danielle’s pussy clenched. Her clitoris pulsed as if keeping a beat for the whip. Her fingers drifted between her legs, and she rubbed her swollen clitoris through her panties. She was two seconds away from plunging her fingers inside and getting herself off in front of these people.
Then the woman screamed. Her whole body writhed as she thrashed her head back and forth, crying the word “no” over and over.
Danielle waited for the man to stop—for Cole to stop him—but the whipping continued. A bubbling rage built and overflowed. She pushed off the wall and ran over to the scene. “Stop! Didn’t your mother ever teach you ‘no means no’? She’s crying, for heaven’s sake! Why are you just standing there? What kind of monsters are you?”
The room grew eerily quiet. Cole’s body was stiff and his jaw rigid, as if he were angry with her.
Too bad. Since the dungeon monitors had failed to do their duty, someone had to step in and protect the woman.
Gracie suddenly appeared and grabbed Danielle by her arm. “I’m sorry, Master. I take full responsibility for Danielle’s outburst and will take any punishment you believe I merit.”
Cole’s eyes narrowed on Danielle. “While I appreciate the defense of your new friend, I will deal with Danielle.” He turned to the man. “Jaxon, please forgive me for the interruption. Feel free to use your choice of private room for Kate’s after-care and keep it for the rest of the night.” Jaxon went to the woman on the cross, where he proceeded to remove the cuffs from her ankles.
Danielle folded her arms over her chest. “She’s not safe with him.”
He splayed his hand on her lower back and led her through the club. “Come with me to my office.”
Several of the people in the dungeon watched them with interest, but most of them had returned to their scenes.
“Do you know what ‘Safe, Sane, Consensual’ means?” Cole asked as they climbed the stairs. “It means the members of my club are held to a strict set of rules they must follow in order to sustain their membership. Let’s start with ‘consensual.’ Everything that happens in this club is negotiated and agreed upon by the parties. Nothing will happen without consent. Every person in Benediction may utilize the club-recognized safe word, ‘red,’ to terminate a scene and face no repercussion. Kate and Jaxon negotiated their scene prior to its commencement, whereby she consented to the whip.”
She’d read about consent, and Gracie had mentioned it as well, but it was a difficult concept for her to understand. “How can someone give consent to being hurt? That’s crazy.”
“I assure you, it’s not crazy. Only the sane can legally give consent, thus the ‘sane’ component to the standard. You may not get off on pain and I may not get off on giving it, but there are those like Kate and Jaxon who do. Benediction provides them a safe place to meet those with compatible sexual interests and indulge in the practices. It’s not your place to judge or impose on others’ sexual expression.”
“She was screaming and crying. How was that sexual expression?”
“In some, pain enhances the pleasure. Whether she chooses the pain because she’s a masochist or because she wishes to please her Master by taking the pain he wants to incur, it has nothing to do with you.” He frowned at her as he unlocked the door to his office. “You obviously failed to read the books I provided to you.”
“I read them, but reading about it and the reality of it are two different things.”
He waved her into the room and followed, circling behind his desk, then taking a seat behind the computer screen. “Go on.”
She twirled a piece of her hair around her finger and sat in the chair in front of his desk. “Before I interrupted, I couldn’t tear my attention away.”