Why are you like this, Dara? Why can’t we have a normal night without you wanting me to beat you black and blue? I can’t do this anymore; this isn’t the kind of life I want . . .She didn’t blame him, she truly didn’t, but she was unable to help the things she craved, the desperate need to be punished. It seemed apt that her relationship had fallen apart at Christmastime. After all, that was when it had all started.
She’d been just a year or two out of university at that point, her roommate someone who’d answered an ad. She and Juliette got on well enough, and neither of them was home often enough to get on each other’s nerves. She did the dishes and kept the common areas clean, and Dara had foolishly thought that was all that mattered. Her lack of knowledge of her roommate’s extra-curricular activities came to a head on Christmas Eve, their first year living together. She’d worked the early shift at her retail job that morning and would be driving to her parents’ house the following morning. The heavy rap upon the door had startled her from where she wrapped last-minute gifts at the miniature kitchen table, and when she’d heard the blood-curdling scream Juliette had let out, she’d tried to run. Tried and failed spectacularly, but at least she’d tried, she told herself.
She was uninvolved, an innocent bystander, but it hadn’t mattered to the creature who’d entered the apartment. Large black horns and the hindquarters of a goat, it was draped in chains and carried a heavy-looking woven basket, and produced a hand-tie of branches. It was there to punish Juliette, but Dara had been collateral damage, guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the creature hadn’t cared, only laughed that she ought to be more selective about the company she kept. She’d felt the bite of those branches against the curve of her ass and the sting of its broad palm against her thighs, the press of its knuckles into the hot cleft of her sex before the spanking had continued. She’d watched Juliette be used over and over again, had screamed when it was her turn, eyes streaming as she was rutted from behind by the creature . . . she didn’t know when the pain had turned to pleasure, couldn’t account for the way her muscles clenched around the monster’s cock as she came again and again, why the scent of cloves and orange peel had played at her nostrils for weeks after. By the time sunlight began to stream through their windows on Christmas morning, it was as if nothing had happened. She’d woken curled in her bed, tucked in with the blankets pulled up to her nose. The living room had been unmolested, and the tipped-over furniture and strewn cushions righted, Juliette staggering groggily from her room as if she’d spent a night too long at the bar. They’d never spoken of the things that had happened that night, and Dara had moved back home shortly thereafter, determined to put the memory of that Christmas Eve behind her.
Much like her attempt to escape, she’d tried and failed spectacularly. It had been exhilarating, blinding pleasure and excruciating pain, twisting and melding into a sensation she’d never before experienced, one she’d been chasing ever since. Not a week went by when she didn’t dream about the bite of branches against her skin, of being spanked until she was unable to stand, and fucked until her legs were numb, citrus and spice and something a touch smokey clouding her senses.
Now she was free once again, another relationship down in flames, free to seek out the experience she craved. It had been impossible finding someone who could meet her expectations as the years passed, which was how she’d wound up seeking out the candy cane-striped sign of this sleazy club. She’d heard rumors that this place catered to certaindesires, and she was here to test the veracity of those claims.It’s now or never. Did you drive all this way to sit in the car, or are you going to check it out?Dara sucked in a deep breath and stepped out into the night.
Payment and ID check at the door, no cellphones permitted, a signature required to sign away the club’s liability and confirm that she understood what she was getting herself into, and then she was through the door. The ground floor was a strip club, but she had no interest in the gyrating bodies she spied shimmying down the short runway. Several pointed-eared elves executed impressive feats on the poles, while a small, muscular man thrust his hips for several tables of shrieking women, the green foiled g-string pulled aside to show off his erect member. Dara remained unmoved. It was the downstairs she wanted, the place where she might find something to fill the gaping hole where her decency had once resided. She turned down the concrete steps, the overhead light illuminating the black-painted walls, up a short hallway, and then down another painted concrete staircase, the red-lit room opening up before her. It was seedy and stunk of depravity, of sweat and sex and industrial-strength cleaner, impersonal and profane. It was perfect.
She immediately came upon a young woman on her knees, being taken from every angle by a handful of pointed-eared elves, their small bodies thrusting without abandon, a double penetration spit roast as a circle of frantically masturbating onlookers surrounded the scene.No, definitely don’t want that.Gulping, Dara moved further into the dungeon. She saw a man with a gag in his mouth being whipped by a leather-clad woman; another young man spread eagle on a large wooden cross. Finally, a girl around her age bent over a leather bench, her ass high in the air, reddened skin and raised welts showing just exactly how long her spanking had lasted. The man who wielded the slim cane being used on the girl was hunched and shabby looking, in a long, tattered coat, absent of horns. She couldn’t hear the words the man spoke, but the girl begged, whether for the punishment to end or last indefinitely, Dara did not know, but she found herself yearning to be in the young woman’s place.Thiswas what she craved. She decided to wait for her turn before moving on, feeling slickness pool between her thighs as the girl cried out.
The unkempt man had a high-pitched cackle and he loosed it then, laughing maniacally as he increased the pressure on the squealing girl’s thighs, but Dara barely heard it, her attention captured by a different sound, one that she knew well, one that wrapped around her ear as she slept and prevented her from having normal relationships. Across the room, at just that moment, a rougher, raspier laugh curled around Dara, raising goosebumps on her skin as her core quivered in remembrance.
Sheknewthat sound.It’s not possible . . . it can’t be possible. Drifting away from the scene before her, she followed the deep, throaty growl until she was standing before a large black throne. There was a velvet cord separating the throne from the room at large, a bored-looking elf manning the short line that she entered. On the throne sat the creature who had invaded her apartment, her dreams, and her fantasies, ruining her for normal relationships, who’d blown into her life that long-ago Christmas Eve like an unexpected snow squall, leaving just as abruptly with a hole in his wake.And now, Dara thought, balling her hands into fists to control the tremor in her hands,he’s going to fill it.
* * *
“Do you remember me?”
She stood before the creature, fists clenched, wondering if it could see the way she trembled. Its black head cocked, regarding her with detached amusement. She remembered the way it had looked at her that night, so long ago, the same amused consideration.Such a shame you decided to be home this night . . . careful of the company you keep, little one.“Do you?” She was unable to hide the tremor from her voice, feeling her breath stutter when the creature chuckled.
“You’ll need to come closer for that, sweetling. There’s no way to tell from such a distance.”
She nearly stumbled over her own feet as she shuffled closer, the heady smell of cinnamon and clove filling her nose. Her breath caught in her throat when her hair was gripped by long, hooked claws, dragging her forward, and she rememberedthatas well, the tug at her scalp and the loss of balance as she fell forward. The creature leaned in, pressing its face to her hair. It wassmellingher, Dara realized, her heart climbing up to her throat.
“Christmas Eve, 2013,” he rasped, rubbing a strand of her dark hair between his fingers. “Money laundering, theft, fencing stolen goods. You were a spare, if I remember correctly . . . I see your luck has remained absent, little one.”
“You,” she accused in a voice that still shook, with what emotion she wasn’t sure. “You’re the one who did this to me. Youruinedme! You made me . . . want these things, these terrible things! And then you-you just left! What kind of monster are you that you ruin lives and then go on your merry way as if nothing happened? You’re nothing but a—”
“I restore the balances,” the creature interrupted haughtily, releasing its grip on her hair. “Wrong-doers must be punished, the scales must be set even. You ought to be thanking me, sweetling.” Garnet eyes glittered over her, and he smiled. “I give second chances, and it doesn’t even cost you anything.”
“It cost meeverything,” Dara whispered, feeling the fight die out of her, shoulders slumping . . . but she’d come here for a reason. “And I want you to do it again. Ineedyou to do it again.”
The creature’s laugh was low and throaty. “How unfortunate for you. Alas, sweetling . . . I’m quite comfortable where I am.”
The world seemed to grind to a halt at his words. She’d never expected to come face-to-face with him again, had fully planned on moving from one poor substitution to another forever, always chasing that horrifying mix of pleasure and pain. To find him here now, to beso close!to having her darkest desires sated and slaked . . . she couldn’t leave. Dara clambered onto the beast’s lap, using the back of the throne as leverage.
“No, that’s not . . . I’m not leaving. I can’t leave. Tell me you can give me what I need.” The creature cocked its head, considering her with an amused look, but he’d shifted his fur-covered hips slightly, preventing her from toppling backward. The smell of him — bright, juicy oranges and spicy cinnamon and cloves, the scent of hot mulling spices and icy cold nights — was completely different and nothing that she remembered. The smell of him that long-ago night had been one of ash and cinders; a cold, abandoned fireplace that would never keep her warm . . . this smell, by contrast, was nothing but warm, and she leaned forward to inhale against him in a mirror of his actions. The air was forced from her lungs as one of those sharp claws dragged up the back of her knit dress with ashink! as she exposed it to him, the material parting like tissue paper. Dara shivered as his knuckle moved down her spine, slicing through the back of her bra with ease, the scrap of her panties doing the same.
“I seem to remember you screaming so prettily,” his grinding voice hissed, a long, red tongue dropping from the corner of his mouth to flick against her ear. “Are you so eager to scream for me again?”
The tongue dropped further, unspooling from his mouth in an endless coil to slip between their bodies, wriggling between her legs to slide in her slickness. Dara remembered this as well, remembered the way it tickled and teased, making her arch in pleasure before it brought the hard branches down across her again. She wanted to feel the sting against her skin, the release of control . . . she was once more at the goat-man’s mercy, she realized: splayed open over his lap, a position she’d placed herself in, exactly where she wanted to be with his claws at her back and his hot, red tongue curling around her clit, pulling a cry from her throat.
“Sweet as cherries,” he murmured, setting to work. Dara didn’t know if this was part of the normal service here, but she liked to think she was getting a repeat customer perk he set to work, licking her cunt with precision and focus that no mere human tongue could match. The constant pressure against her clit had her shaking against him completely overwhelmed by sensation, and he growled in pleasure as if he were enjoying the task as much as she was enjoying his efforts.
She didn’t have a chance to react when she was abruptly lifted, never even saw the long spear of the beast’s cock before it breached her, hot and too thick and burning like fire. Her mouth opened, but she was unable to make any sound her body slowly slid down the molten length, stretching her wider than she’d even been stretched . . . well, with the exception of that Christmas Eve night. This, though, felt different. That night she’d been taken roughly, had been punished alongside Juliette. This was a slow opening, a deep stretch that made her ache in a way she would be able to feel for days. The pressure of being so full took her breath away, but Dara was forced to admit — it was beginning to feel good. Black, leathery hands gripped her hips again, raising her, lifting her completely off his lap before dropping her, her own weight forcing him in to the hilt, and then shedidscream. It was too much, too hot, she was not ready or prepped and it felt like she was being cleaved in two. Pain clouded her mind, seized her body when he thrust up into her and another scream built in her throat . . . when that long tongue, hot and wet, dropped from his mouth and curled around her clit once more, squeezing and sliding until the scream became a moan.
Thiswas what she wanted. Blazing red pain edged with intolerable pleasure, like nothing she’d ever experienced outside of that Christmas Eve night. She continued to moan and gasp as the beast fucked up into her with his burning cock, his vulgar tongue teasing at her clit, his hands slamming her down fully on every pained thrust. When she came, there were tears in her eyes, her cry of pleasure cut short on a squeal when his hand raised, coming down on her ass hard enough to make her teeth rattle.There was nothing like this anywhere else.
“Is this what you came for, sweetling? Have you found what you’re looking for?”
She had fallen forward against him when he spanked her, and his mocking question was a hiss in her ear, dragging her off his cock and dropping her unceremoniously to the floor before she could form an answer. Dara barely had time to draw a full breath before her mouth was filled, huge hands gripping her head tightly as he used her throat for his pleasure, thrusting his cock into her mouth until he came with a grunt. She was reminded of the red hot cinnamon candies she’d been fond of as a child, if those same candies had been set on fire. Spicy and burning, her eyes streamed as he ejaculated, filling her with what felt like a gallon of magma, mixing with her drool to leak down her chest until she was dropped, his spent cock slipping from her swollen lips.
For a long moment, she could nothing but sit there at his feet, attempting to catch her breath, heedless of the mess down her front. Itwaswhat she was looking for, she thought, exactly what she’d been desperately seeking . . . but now that she’d found it, foundhim, she knew she’d not be satisfied with one night.He works here, you can come back whenever you want.But wasthatwhat she wanted? To come back to this club week after week, to diminish her savings and risk word getting out that she was a visitor? To be forced to go days at a time without, always jonesing for a fix until she was stealing away in the middle of the week to be paddled in the dungeon? It wasn’t what she wanted, wasn’t at all what she wanted, and she didn’t understand why she’d found him in this place.
“Why are you here?” she demanded, raising her head.
