I had hoped he’d know what I had referred to so I didn’t have to ask for it. He wasn’t saying anything, but I think he was waiting for me to say it. I turned to look at the leather strap that was cradled by two oversized pegs on his wall. I knew it was hisfavorite.
“Ryan,” Russell said my name and I turned back to look athim.
“Sorry—”
“For?”
“Not payingattention.”
“Tell me what you want.” He took a step closer to me and stopped. “Tell me what youneed.”
“I—”
I glanced back at the leather strap. Fuck, could I ask forthat?
“I need…I need to hurt, so I can release the tension,” I admitted while looking at hischest.
“Good boy, Ryan.” He took a few more steps closer to me and gestured to the wall of impact tools behind me. “The strap doesn’t have to be used. That is on your limitlist.”
“I want to move it to the other list. The maybelist.”
Russell was quiet and his eyes were onme.
“Ryan, I think that is very brave of you. We’ll put that on your soft limit list and visit that anothertime.”
“No, it’s okay.” I pointed at it with my thumb over my shoulder. “You can use itnow.”
I was desperate to feel some physical pain so I could get all of that built up shit off mychest.
“You’re telling me to use it because you’re not in a good place right now,Ryan.”
“Then put me in a good place!” Oh, fuck! What the fuck had I just said to him? And I hadn’t said it but yelled it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to sound demanding or to be a dick. Ijust—”
He stood a foot in front of me now and reached out to put his hand on my shoulder andsqueezed.
“You need the ache to besoothed.”
He hadn’t sounded angry with me for my outburst. I nodded to agree with him. He had been right; I had an ache that needed to besoothed.
“Would you like to try the spanking?” heasked.
I turned to look at the strap displayed on thewall.
“Not that, Ryan. This,” Russell said and held his hand out for me to lookat.
Bare-handed.
“But, I can take the belt, I mean, the strapthing.”
“Not today,Ryan.”
“But, you even said yourself that you could help replace my old memories of pain with pleasurableones.”
“I did, and I will. Ryan, you need to be in a better place before we attempt the strap. Please trust me on that. My bare hand will help us achieve the memory replacement, and it’ll give you the release you needtoday.”
“Okay,” I found myself saying but doubted the results of this would be thesame.
“Good boy, Ryan. What do you say if you want tostop?”
