I gasped. I didn’t fall far, my back making contact with a firmly cushioned table. He thrust into me twice roughly before letting himself come with a low groan. “Mine,” he said.

I only then realized that I was lying on a massage table as he dragged his thick length out of me, turned me over onto my stomach, and shifted me until my face was over the table’s opening.

Within swift moments, he was pouring warm liquid into the center of my back, rubbing the oil firmly into my skin. He massaged up to my neck, rubbing on that sensitive area for long minutes, working over to my shoulders, taking his time, rubbing until each of my muscles had been loosened thoroughly by his strong hands.

He worked down one arm, paying special attention all the way down to each of my fingertips. He worked back up and over, paying equal attention to my other half.

“Your hands are magic,” I said to him, my eyes shut in pleasure.

He didn’t respond, working on my back, kneading and rubbing that tissue into relaxed submission. He spent extra time on my lower back, working with teasing slowness into my ass. He made a delicious little noise in his throat as he kneaded my butt. I felt a kiss there a scant moment before I felt a finger at that entrance. I gasped and tensed as he pushed a well-lubricated finger into me.

“Shhh, Bianca, relax. Relax.” He pulled that sneaky finger out of me, leaving me for too long before coming back. He began the massage where he’d left off, kneading at my butt and upper thighs.

He covered every inch of my back with strong kneading strokes, all the way down to my toes, before he flipped me onto my back. He began the same treatment at the front of my shoulders, taking his time, relaxing every part of me as he worked down. When he reached my sex, he plunged a finger into me. I was wet, of course, and he worked that flesh with sure strokes, using his other hand to part my legs wide, drawing my knees up into my chest. I gasped and tensed as he used his other hand to breach my other entrance again, working a lone finger in slowly, not stopping the smooth strokes at my sex with his other hand.

“You see why you need to be relaxed?” he asked me, leaning close as those wicked hands worked together to bring my overwhelmed body so much pleasure.

I did see; the other penetration more alarmingly intense than I would have guessed. It wasn’t even about pain, but more about the oddness of it, the strange fullness in a place where perhaps it shouldn’t be, whereas having him fill my sex only ever just felt right. Still, I didn’t want him to stop, didn’t want him to let up. The strangeness gave the act an almost forbidden quality that the perverse part of me relished, as it did all of the taboo things James was attracted to.

Both fingers moved inside of me, working together, and he had me gasping out another orgasm with consummate skill. Before I’d even come down from that blissful trip he was shoving another finger into each entrance, one cleft getting hard thrusts, the other a gentler, easier touch, just working inside and making delicious little circles.

“Relax and push out, yes, like that,” James said, jamming the fingers inside of my sex harder and rougher until I came again.

He pulled one set of fingers out, using that hand to shift me back onto my stomach and dragging my hips until my legs hung off the edge of the table. He moved his hips against me from behind, bringing a hand to the front of my neck and applying a light pressure.

“Don’t move,” he said. I heard him walk away, knew he left the room, heard a door down that daunting hallway open and close, then open again. Short minutes later he was at my back, moving close behind me, parting my legs to get close.

I felt something warm and hard and vibrating brush my clit and I knew it wasn’t a part of James.

“James,” I protested, as he worked my clit with that too intense pressure.

“Shhh,” he said, moving the vibrator from my clit, teasingly over my cleft. He dipped it in once, and then again, holding it inside of me while he worked another well-lubricated, softer object into my other entrance. I knew it wasn’t him because it was smaller, and though it was firm, it wasn’t hard enough.

“James,” I said again, my voice more urgent this time.

He worked the toy into me slowly, the vibrator in my sex still embedded deeply. “Relax.

“It’s too—“

“Yes, you want my cock, I know. Relax for this and I’ll give you what you want.” He growled, and I tried to obey him, tried to relax around those two strange pressures.

I felt like I was just growing accustomed when he pulled it out and replaced it almost immediately with his cock. It was so slick, but also so much bigger than the other. But it was James, and I found that my body submitted much more quickly with that knowledge. He worked in slowly.

He dragged the vibrator out of one entrance even as he pushed himself into the other. I heard a ‘thunk’ as he dropped it to the floor, bringing his now free hand to the front of me, circling my clit.

He began to thrust when he was nearly in, small thrusts that went a little deeper with each movement, but never pulled all the way out. I whimpered. The feelings were strange, but still not precisely painful, more of a stretching that felt like it went too far.

“James,” I cried as his fingers worked and his thrusts got bigger and faster.

“Say it, Bianca,” he said into my back, then bit hard enough to leave marks. I thought that the bite was to distract from the fact that he was pounding into me now, and that it did hurt. But pain had never been a deterrent to my own pleasure, and I came, a hard release that left me limp.

“I’m yours, James,” I gasped. “Yours.”

He emptied himself inside of me, lingering long enough to kiss my back and soothe me before pulling slowly out of me.

He picked me up, cradling me. He carried me down the gray hallway. He slipped into one of those dark, mysterious rooms, and as he turned on the light, I saw that the room closest to the playground was just a large bathroom with an insanely large white tub.

“Since our other tub is blue at the moment, I guess we’ll be using this one,” he said, a smile in his voice.

I giggled, a little delirious from what felt like a hundred orgasms.

He carried me into the tub, arranged me until I was straddling him, my cheek pillowed against his delicious chest, and started the water.

He stroked my hair and I sighed in pleasure as the hot water slowly covered us. I didn’t think I’d ever felt so relaxed, so deliriously content to just lie down and enjoy the moment. I had been restless since I could remember, always having the instincts of a runaway, always anxious that the next moment would bring something bad, and it felt so good to just let that anxious part of me go, and savor something so wonderful.

I was lost in my own thoughts, practically purring against him, when I looked up.

His face was a carefully blank mask.

I stroked his cheek with a hand. “What’s wrong, James?” I asked.

He closed his eyes, leaning into my touch. He didn’t answer for a long time, but I knew he wasn’t ignoring me. I knew as well as anyone that the really rough stuff always took time to form into words.

“That thing we just did—that act, takes my head into a dark place,” he said finally, his words so quiet that I had to strain to hear him.

Of the two of us, he was by far better at showing his feelings, but I could tell that it was a struggle for him to share that with me.

I rubbed my hand soothingly over the spot where my name was etched so beautifully. “Will you tell me about it?”

He swallowed hard. “We won’t be doing that often, if ever. I don’t want to disappoint you. I needed to do it once, needed to claim you like that, but it doesn’t take me to a good place. It’s like the roses for you, I think, taking me too deeply into the thing that made me like this.”

I understood so well just what he meant. We were so alike in the really important ways. I cupped his face in my hands. “I won’t be disappointed. I liked what you did, I enjoyed it, but I certainly don’t need that. You fulfill so many needs that I didn’t even understand about myself, and that was not one of them. Thank you for showing me, for initiating me into so many things that I find wonderful. Don’t ever think that you could disappoint me by telling me your preferences—by telling me no.”

He was silent again, and I couldn’t tell if my words had reassured him, or if I had even reached him at all. His eyes were faraway and a little glazed over as he stared up at the ceiling.

“Spencer did that to me,” he said finally, his voice raw but his eyes still blankly looking up. “It made me feel so helpless, so…worthless. I don’t know how to explain it. I know you weren’t unwilling, but I just remember how I felt after he would do that, and some part of me feels like I’ve done something awful to you, something terrible, something like what he did to me.”

“I knew it would make me feel that way, if not during, then at least after, and I still did it, still managed to enjoy it. I feel…loathing, for my weakness, for my need, wondering if it made you feel even an inkling of what I did. It makes me wonder if everything I do to you is a sort of rape—if I’m taking advantage of that beautiful submission that you give to me.”

I started to speak, to try to reassure him, but he cut me off. “I know you’ll tell me that’s not true, and some part of me even knows it, but I still feel it. Like I said, that act just puts me in a dark place.”

I cupped his face softly. “I understand. The roses were like that for me. They reminded me more of my father than anything you’ve done, and they terrified me. I felt more pain and more fear on the violent end of those than anything else we’ve done, but the pleasure was just as great…more so. It made me think of those dark things even as it made me come. I couldn’t control my pleasure any more than I could control my fear. That terrifies me.”

I had to take a few deep breaths before continuing, still finding it hard to be generous with my emotions, and my words, even though he had been nothing but generous.

“We don’t have to face those dark thoughts alone anymore, James. I can’t say I’ve been through what you’ve been through, but I do understand your self-loathing about a thing you can’t control. You admit you’ve been a slut with your body, but I think you’re more well adjusted than I am when it comes to sex. You have a preference, but you can still function without that preference. I have a fetish. I wasn’t even interested in a man until I found you, until I found this. That terrifies me too, how broken I am. But I also know I’m lucky, so lucky, to have found someone so perfect for me, so safe, to help give me the things I need without taking my self-respect, and without putting me in danger. You’re a gift to someone like me, James. Don’t ever forget that.”

He pushed my face hard into his damp chest, my chin just skimming the water, but not before I saw the tears in his eyes. “Thank you, Bianca,” he said, his voice shaky.

I closed my eyes, my tears sliding slowly down my cheeks and onto his chest.

“Thank you, James,” I said, my voice thick.