I continue to be gobsmacked at how quickly the patreon jumped up over the past week! We’re now only $29 short of the monthly goal that will trigger the serialization of Bound by the Blood, the first book in my long-long-long awaited “BDSM meets sex magic in modern NYC” paranormal romance series.
(UPDATE: WE HAVE REACHED GOAL! AND the serialization has begun over on Patreon. See all chapters that have been posted: https://www.patreon.com/collection/886649?view=condensed)
To encourage folks to get us to the goal, I’m posting a sample chapter here! Now, you’d think I would post this on Patreon itself, BUT they have a rule that says if there’s anything naughty, it has to stay behind the paywall. So I’m posting it on my regular ol’ blog(s).
Enjoy!
Let’s start with the night I met Clive—boots laced up, my corset cinched, and a bag of whips on my shoulder. I’ll start somewhere you might recognize: a nightclub with an upstairs dance floor. The city is full of clubs like it—a thousand different vibes to suit a thousand different crowds. Upscale, downtown, psychedelic, cyberpunk, Bollywood, cowgirl, you name it.
A shirtless man would grab my attention in any of them, but especially in Purgatory.
Before I saw him, I had been asking myself why the hell I was there. The place was goth, but once a month the dance floor turned into a dungeon. People go to these places—all of these places—to hook up. Not just for sex. People go to bars when they’re lonely, when they’re looking for connection.
I wasn’t ready for connection. Not so soon after severing ties with Ethan. But there I was, anyway.
Clive—I didn’t know that was his name yet—was standing by the empty deejay booth, looking comfortable in his bare skin. A typical darkwave dance-trance playlist was on, but that night was for a different sort of dance. Two leathermen had been flogging a third on the St. Andrew’s cross, but they were mostly done, just running their hands up and down his bare back and buttocks. One of them snapped the elastic waistband of his thong and all three of them laughed. A witchy long-haired androgyne smiled in their direction and then glided down the stairs. A few mixed-gender couples nursed drinks at the tall cocktail tables along the far wall. It was early, not yet crowded, and the spanking bench and other play stations were empty…
I should have been sizing up the possibilities, psyching myself up to meet someone new, but I was trying hard not to think about my ex—which of course meant I was thinking of him—but what would I do if he showed up? I told myself he wouldn’t. Ethan had always said club nights were for posers. He preferred to play at private parties, where one could wear less and do more—even sex, if that was your thing.
Parties where you could draw blood.
If you’re reading this I probably don’t have to tell you why that’s sexy. But I will. After all, assumptions are what got us into this mess, and so much has already been lost.
For some of us, sex and attraction and lust are wrapped up in power, and invoking that power through pain or pleasure is what we do. It’s how we connect and it’s why people arrange club nights like that one, so like-minded souls can meet.
I remember looking at the empty palm of my hand, splashed red by the dance floor lights. Even if Ethan turned his nose up at club play, I might still run into someone who’d been at that party, that disastrous night when he had torpedoed our relationship (and I’d tried to send him down with the ship). What would they say? That I had no right to set foot in a “safe space” like Club Purgatory?
Don’t let anyone tell you BDSM is “safe.” It’s safety-focused, but—like parachuting and mountain climbing—danger is part of the attraction. The thrill is the point.
My worries were all in my head: I didn’t see anyone I knew. Just that rather enticing-looking guy in black jeans and engineer boots and nothing else. He had a lean-muscled chest and black tousled hair and I closed my hand like I was taking a fistful of that hair and getting ready to drag him to that then-vacated St. Andrew’s cross.
He looked up right then. Right at me.
I tightened my fist and read a flicker in his eyes—when you’re a thrill-seeker does fear look the same as desire? Was he looking for a goddess in black leather, ready to smite any she chose? And was that what he saw? As I held his gaze, his interest intensified rather than waning. So.
It had been so long that I’d forgotten how to do the next part, the two-steps-forward, one-step-back dance that was flirting.
I’ve always preferred negotiation over flirtation, anyway. If you could call marching up to him and saying “I have three whips in my bag. Are you interested in seeing them?” a negotiation.
He reflected my courage back to me: “I might be more interested in feeling them than seeing them.”
A surge of emotion flooded me at his answer—excitement, lust, curiosity, hunger—I don’t know a single word to describe the feeling that comes over me when a potential partner shows their willingness to play—to submit. All I knew was I hadn’t felt it in far too long.
I tried to tread lightly—didn’t want to scare him away. “Might?”
But there was no scaring Clive. His voice held a touch of bravado. “If you’d like to use them, I’d like to feel them.” The lights shifted to white and I saw his eyes were startlingly pale blue.
Me. “I haven’t even told you what kind they are.”
Him. “And you don’t have to.”
So. He was either too naive to know what he was in for, or he was extremely confident about how much punishment he could take. Confidence is sexy. Overconfidence equals disaster.
That was when he told me, with a slight smile, “I like surprises.”
Well. He was at least a masochist, a slightly cheeky one at that. But was he submissive? I liked self-confidence, but I wasn’t into brats.
I told myself it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like I was vetting him for a relationship. I was just going to flog him for a bit of fun. We probably weren’t even going to exchange phone numbers, right? He was pretty and he was willing. That should have been enough.
But I never know when to leave well enough alone. “How are you at following directions?”
“Give me some directions and you can judge that for yourself.” Rather than being cheeky, these words were delivered with a respectful nod of his head. “Is there a form of address you prefer?”
Good manners. Not a brat, then. “One has to earn the right to call me by a title. Address me by my name, which is Mira.”
He drew my name out—“Meerah”—like he was practicing to get it perfect. “Mira, I’m Clive.”
I repeated his name back to him, too, liking the way it felt in my mouth, the way my tongue brushed the roof of my mouth before my teeth, a spoonful of something delicious. I held out my hand, fingers angled downward. He took the hint, lifting my hand gently but surely to his lips. That kiss sent a delicious shiver up my arm and I resolved—if he took the beating well—to kiss him on the mouth when his lips would be ripe from surrender.
I asked for his safeword.
He chuckled a little as he said it: “Divinity.”
I was sure there was a story behind it, but that wasn’t the time to hear it. It was time to set the rules of engagement. “The three whips in my bag are two floggers and one single tail.”
He nodded. “Yes, Mira.”
“When I meet someone new, I only use the floggers.”
“Yes, Mira,” he repeated, but was it my imagination that there was a hint of disappointment there?
“What are you wearing under your jeans?”
His Mona Lisa smile returned. “I’m legal, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That is, in fact, what I am asking. Put your boots next to the cross, strip your jeans, take hold of the handles, and then wait.”
“Yes, Mira.” Again that deferential nod, which almost made my name into a title itself. The thing that really cranked up my anticipation right in that moment, though, was the way he followed my instructions. Sometimes independence and initiative are sexy, but right then total obedience was like a balm on my soul. He did exactly as I asked, no more, no less, and then he got up onto the X-shaped cross and waited.
And waited. I knew from my early experiences in the scene—back when I didn’t know the difference between being attracted to a hot dom and being submissive—that a minute of waiting on the cross could feel like twenty. So I didn’t intend to have him stand there for too-too long. Just long enough to ratchet up the anticipation.
A little voice of doubt yammered in the back of my head: Get on with it, Mira. Don’t wait. He just wants you to flog him. Not everything has to be a test. You’re setting yourself up for disappointment when he gets bored and breaks character…
The minute, which I was counting out in my head, had almost passed when a voice behind me said, “Watch out. He’s a tough little thing. Your arm may get tired.”
I didn’t have to glance back to know one of my least favorite people in the scene was standing behind me, a man I knew by the name of Ira Dayton. I didn’t know at the time if it was his real name or a scene name. I’d served with Kanna, his wife, on the board of Gotham Kink United, and I liked her just fine, but Ira… Here’s what I did know about him: He was a doctor who liked extreme blood play. He would bring his own tarp, scalpels, and matched set of gay submissive puppy players to parties. There was nothing wrong with that. What was wrong was Ira’s disregard for the rules.
No, it was worse than that. Ira could couch his penchant for breaking the rules in such a way as to make it seem like he was upholding them. That was my conclusion after one time he had set up one of his extreme scenes right there at Purgatory. Afterward, when the club tried to ban him, he pointed out that in their rules prohibiting fluid exchange they’d failed to mention blood by name. When they pointed out that anyone sensible would know full well you shouldn’t be doing anything of the sort, he claimed he only did it to force the club to update their rules “for everyone’s safety.”
Yeah, right. It had been a dick move and I’d had the sound of puppies whining stuck in my head for weeks afterward.
With a little “excuse me” tossed in Ira’s direction, I began to swing the first of the floggers in the air. I figured I’d warm up my arm and maybe drive him away. If he was standing too close and got caught with a backswing it would be his own damn fault. And what did he mean by “little”? That word didn’t seem to apply to any part of Clive that I could discern. I’m sure it was just supposed to get under my skin. Being short myself, even in heels, has never bothered me, but Ira didn’t know that.
Clive had not moved a muscle. Another jolt of powerlust surged through me. I hadn’t bound him to the cross. Above his head, padded handlebar grips were attached to the wood and he was holding them tight as instructed. His shoulders curved enticingly. I don’t know who invented the St. Andrew’s Cross, but I said a little prayer of thanks to them before I let the suede tails of the flogger come into contact with Clive’s skin. Not hitting him hard at all, just swinging the flogger around and around in a circle, thwapping him lightly on each pass, to wake up his skin and get him ready for more.
Every flogging has a rhythm to it, whether you synch up with the beat of the music or let your own body set the tempo. I tend to start with the beats coming quickly but lightly, tap-tap-tap, but as I start to hit harder, I slow down and give more time between the blows. It’s all about judging when the moment comes to go to another gear. Has my dance partner been lulled into a sense of security that I want to shatter? Or are they literally aching to be pushed harder, to take more?
Clive was one of those who wanted more. He arched into the strikes, muscles bunching and tensing, skin turning a lovely shade of pink. I went from criss-crossing with my wrist to swinging from my elbow, laying longer strokes across his shoulders and his bare buttcheeks. Eventually I used my whole arm, letting all the suede tails thud against his back in unison until his breath was coming in quick gasps.
When his breath lengthened again, as he lost himself in the sensation, it was time to switch floggers. He shivered a little as I trailed the cool tails of the second one down his back, letting him guess what it would be like. The second one had a hide with a stiffer finish; it could sting or leave marks depending how I wielded it. I stepped up to the cross and pulled his hair the way I’d imagined, tipping hs head back and taking a quick kiss before he realized I was going to. He brimmed with vigor, his mouth taut with energy.
Number two genuinely caused pain. It did not damage, but it did hurt.
The body always resists pain at first, even with a masochist who craves it. That would be when Ethan would pull at his bonds like he was trying to get free and shout “no!” at me and curse me. But it was an act. He knew that to stop me for real, all he had to do was utter his safeword. Ethan just “needed” to struggle, he told me. At the time I had thought he needed to be relieved of the guilt over wanting to feel something, and lay the responsibility on me for “making” him feel that way.
At the time I failed to understand the true depths of his guilt.
But though I’m comparing the two of them now, at that moment I was not thinking of Ethan or failure. Clive was alive and present in front of me in a way I hadn’t connected with another human being in months. (Years, really, if you counted that E. and I had stayed together long past any true connection.) Clive captured my full attention. And as I began laying into him with the leather, harder and harder, he got past the struggle and into that place where all sensation is welcome, where each stroke is another step toward ecstasy. His breath and mine fell into synch, and although he never let go the handholds entirely, his fingers flared against the padding, like tiny fireworks blooming on the horizon.
When I stopped flogging him, it was to lick clean, freshly earned sweat from the back of his neck. Then I kissed him again, and this time the fight was gone. His lips felt supple and yielding in a way they only ever are after surrender. Like he was completely wrapped up in the state of mind known as subspace.
Completely mine.
He opened his eyes slowly—I’d forgotten they were blue.
“Welcome back, angel.” That was when I made the decision. “Remember how I said I wouldn’t use the single tail on you?”
“Yes…?” Oh, what a hopeful note he struck!
“Be honest. Did you want me to use it?”
“I want you to do whatever pleases you most.”
Pure bullshit. I tightened my grip in his hair. “I said ‘be honest,’ not ‘tell me what you think I want to hear.’” (There’s a difference.)
“Yes, Mira.” He swallowed. “Yes, I would like to feel it.”
“I normally won’t use it on anyone unless I’m sure they can take it.”
“I’m sure I can take it,” he said, eyes glittering. Such a courageous heart. “In fact, it would be an honor to.”
“An honor, eh?” It was like he knew exactly what I needed to hear to have my choices validated. “All right, angel.” That was the moment I decided to take him home.
Just like not using my signal whip on a new person, bringing home someone I’d just met at a club was against my usual rules. You were supposed to have a sober conversation in a coffee shop, and check their social media, and ask around about them, before you let a person you just met into your place or went solo to theirs. But he felt too different from all the others—so intriguing, so perfect for me—for the old rules to apply.
Or maybe I was just too desperate. I made him “remind me” of his safeword (“Divinity”) and he gave me a nod that seemed to say he knew I wasn’t reminding myself of it so much as reminding him that he could use it.
Me. “I’m going to give you three strokes.”
Him. “Three?” Plaintively, as if that were far too few.
Me. “I’ll give you the chance to opt out after each one and there will be no dishonor in that.”
“Ah.” He understood. This was going to be a challenge to get through. This was going to hurt. And then he asked, “Is this… is this how people earn the privilege to call you by a title?”
So sharp and engaging! He clicked with me on every level. “It’s not the only way, but yes, if you take it well, I’ll allow it.”
“Thank you, Mira.”
“Don’t thank me yet, angel.” I stole another quick kiss, prompting a pang of lust deep in my gut. It had been ages since I wanted anyone that much. I felt almost hollow with hunger for him, and that feeling alone felt like a miracle.
I pulled the braided leather whip from the bottom of the bag, where it lay coiled like a snake. Once upon a time I’d gotten good enough to do demonstrations for BDSM community groups. I could slice paper—or a banana—with it. (It was especially fun if a volunteer held the banana at their belt buckle. I could wrap the end of the whip harmlessly around the fruit from a distance, and then for a truly wicked finale, slice the tip clean off.)
I ran a hand down Clive’s bare back one last time, feeling the heat and welts left by the flogging, and letting him know I was there. Then I stepped away, pacing out my distance. I took my stance, left foot forward, whip swaying in my right as I rocked back and forth, preparing myself.
On the cross as he was, back bared to me, Clive couldn’t see me, but his head swayed in time with me. I figured it was probably just the rhythm of the music, but I liked the thought that we were in synch. The lights shifted to blue and it was like we were in a bubble under the sea, just the two of us.
The first blow cut diagonally across his right shoulder and I heard the breath go out of him—not a scream or cry, just a breath—followed by a shiver, a tremble. I gave him time to process it and there was no sign he wanted to stop.
I matched the first cut with one on the left, and this time a little cry came forth, and he shook, hands opening as if he could let the pain out faster through his palms.
I drank in that agony, like I could soak it right down to my bones.
When he was still again, and breathing in synch with my sway once more, I knew he was ready for the third and final blow. The dark red welts from the other two were clearly visible. I knew where the third would go.
My own breath went out of me as I laid a line of fire straight across his shoulders. The welt crossed the previous stripes and made him sing out clearly, an animal cry with a guttural end. A kind of phantom orgasm swept through me at that sound, a shiver of longing so intense it felt like relief when it passed. I pressed myself against Clive, then, tasting the sweat on the back of his neck once more… and sneaking a swipe of my tongue at the blood that beaded on his right shoulder where the two blows had crossed. I hadn’t intended to draw blood. No one did that here, not since Ira’s little stunt.
But no one had to know.
Clive practically vibrated against my tongue, legs shaking, pressing himself back against me. Alive and in the moment with me in a way that was more precious than I can express.
And then he hung his head. It felt almost like a different kind of heat was coming off of him, then. Was he… ashamed?
I ran my fingers into his hair, waiting to see if he’d speak, to see if he’d tell me about the change that came over him.
“Do I… did I still earn the right to call you by a title? Even though. Um.” He trailed off, trying to hide his face. Where had his bravado gone? Had I beaten it out of him?
I turned his head so I could look into his eyes. “You may call me ‘my lady.’ The fastest way to lose that privilege is to lie to me. What’s wrong, angel?”
“Just… my lady, you didn’t give me permission to come.”
He came from that? No wonder he’d made such a sound. How could he think I wouldn’t be thrilled that I could make him come that way? Good god. Another ghostly shiver of near-satisfaction flashed hot and cold through me and I clenched my fists, as if I could grab what I needed from the air.
But what I needed was much more solid than air. “Did I say that was a rule? My rules include no such thing. I have only one absolute rule, and it is that you always tell me the truth, the whole truth, with absolute honesty.”
“Yes, my lady,” he almost whispered.
I slid a hand between the cross and his abs, until just under the waistband of his thong, my fingers found the truth in his words. A masochist who could literally come from being whipped. What a treasure. I lay a line of kisses along his jaw. “I’m not disappointed at all that you came. The only thing that’ll disappoint me is if you don’t come home with me tonight.”
His breath caught in his throat, his eyes almost starry with hope and anticipation for a moment, before he grimaced, a flare of hot shame enflaming his cheeks.
Here it comes, I thought.
“I’m sorry, my lady.” He really looked pained. But I’d just told him I required absolute honesty, and there it was: “I… have another commitment tonight.”
The bubble burst. His gaze never left my face but I started to feel the people around us, hear the laughter and voices from the bar. The next couple, impatient to use the cross, lurked beside us. “Oh, really,” I heard myself saying, mind whirling. That connection I’d imagined had snapped like a lifeline and sent me tumbling back down the mountain. Reality, like gravity, would not be denied. “Another commitment.” That was the sort of thing I would say to slip away from an unwelcome advance.
Had it all been my imagination? My desperation? Maybe he wasn’t into me, after all. Maybe he didn’t give a damn about me or my rules and was only there to see how many tops he could charm.
Or maybe he was afraid. He’d wanted to earn something from me. Had I coerced him into taking those three stripes and afterward he regretted it? If he wanted to, he could easily accuse me of assault.
I still wonder why Ethan never did.
“I’m truly sorry,” Clive went on. “I didn’t expect to… to connect to you so well. And even so, I didn’t expect an invitation.”
He was right. I was far from the only one with a “Starbucks rule.” I was the one jumping the gun.
And I could handle disappointment like an adult. I stepped back from him and pointed at the tip of my boot. He hurried to kneel, to place one firm and respectful kiss on the leather, sending shockwaves up my legs. (Good god, I wanted him to place that kiss somewhere else.)
I held out my fingertips, still damp with his issue, and he licked them clean. By rights I should have just said good night, gone straight home, and forgotten all about him.
But before I went home to a vibrator and a pint of fudge ripple, I did one more thing. I gave him my card. He stayed on his knees to receive it.
“That is my number. Let me make one thing clear. I do not chase submissives. I expect you to call.”
“Yes, my lady!” Good god, those eyes. “I’ll call!”
Reader, he did not call.
(If you would like to see what happens next! Follow me on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/ceciliatan ! Directory of chapters posted so far: https://www.patreon.com/collection/886649?view=condensed)
How could he possibly not call??
(Can’t wait to read more of this!)