Chapter 38: A Blazing Gift

"P-ai-n," Angique said, lazily pronouncing the word. She pressed her lips together to shape the P. Then she parted them like an opening rose, to finally shape the N by touching the back of her teeth with an unseen tongue-tip. "Pain," she repeated and smiled. "Such a common little word and yet, such a complicated concept."

She looked up from the floating jasmine flowers in her tea glass to the naked girl kneeling before her. Alicia sat on her heels, her back straight, her eyes wide open. An emerald in a white gold setting dangled from her nipple. The stone sparkled as she breathed.

"To most people," Angique went on, "pain is something one should avoid — it is the natural thing to do, they say. We're all taught to protect ourselves from hurt. But by now you and I know better, don't we, lil slut?" The girl just stared; her eventual nod was hardly noticeable. Angique smiled once more.

"You and I know there is pain and then there is pain, don't we?" Another nod hardly caused the black hair to stir on the girl's shoulders, where it lay in thick shining curls.

"Please pinch your free nipple with the edges of your fingernails, honey," Angique suggested. "Tweak it really hard while twisting it sharply." The girl did, closing her eyes and gasping from the sudden rush of pain.

"Harder, honey," Angique said, lifting the tea glass to her lips — smelling the exotic aroma. "Don't short-change yourself."

The girl moaned loudly now, as she pulled brutally on the stretched flesh, twisting it left and right. A tear sprang from her eyes.

"Tell me how it feels."

"It ... It hurts, Mistress..."

"Of course it hurts." Angique moved her face closer. "But is that all?"

"I ... I don't..." Alicia's eyes were everywhere.

"Oh, don't give me that! You DO know, lying slut," Angique cut in, smiling widely. She reached for the mangled nipple to tweak it with her own cruel fingernails.

"Your cunt gushes, doesn't it? It is pain, but it sets your clit on fire, doesn't it? Be honest, little hypocrite. You have goose bumps all over your skin and your eyes glaze over. Pain can be many things, honey — and now it's even pleasure." She let go of the nipple and leaned back, enjoying her tea, and her view.

Alicia sobbed, cradling her abused tit with both hands.

"Licia?" Angique said after leaving the girl alone with her pain and confusion for a few minutes. Alicia looked up, her eyes swimming in a haze of tears.

"Mistress?"

"There will be a lot of pain for you, these coming weeks." Alicia just watched, her lips trembling. Angique went on.

"You may not want to live through that, and that is all right with me. I'll always love you and I'll never force you. But you have to know that you can't stay with me if you won't learn to suffer through this and find pleasure in it. Offering me your pain is our only road through the third gate, the Gate of Pain — our only way to stay together."

"But, Mistress... , " Alicia said, sounding lost. "You know that I have accepted a lot of pain and punishment already. You have whipped and flogged me, clamped my nipples and clit, fucked my poor ass until it bled ... and I took it all." Angique watched her in silence.

"I really did," the girl whispered. "A lot." Angique smiled, reaching out to caress her face, but suddenly slapping it hard. Alicia yelped. Her mouth and eyes opened in wide surprise; her fingers rose to touch the abused spot. Angique's smile never left her face. She reached out, cupping the girl's hand over the sore cheek.

"I know, honey," she said. "And I appreciate what you did. But it isn't what I meant, not at all. You accepted the pain; you didn't protest — you stayed and took it, but you didn't embrace it; you don't look out for it. You endured it because you thought it would please me. But it takes more to really please me, darling. Do you understand?" Another silence proved Alicia had no idea. Tears trickled down her face.

"You see," Angique explained, removing some of the tears with her thumb. "After passing through the next Gate things will be different between us. Up until now, when I flogged you and bruised your skin, I didn't care what you felt. It was punishment, a way of correcting your mistakes — of getting you back on track. I was disciplining you and I also used it to vent my own frustrations. You see?" She waited for Alicia to nod; then she went on, getting even closer to the girl.

"Alicia, what I offer you now is pain as an extra gate to pleasure — and not just my pleasure. It is a gift to you that will enable you to give me back even more." Angique rubbed the mangled nipple, making the girl shiver.

"Would that appeal to you, honey?" Angique asked in a soft voice, now tracing the angry pink blotch on her cheek with a fingernail. "I mean, do you care at all to give something back to me?" Alicia's lips started trembling.

"Your words hurt me, Mistress," she said. "You know I give back all the time. I may fail you often, but I try to always please you. I really do!" Angique smiled, now touching the girl's lips.

"Of course you do and of course I know," she said. "And it pleases me. You make me very happy." They both smiled now. Angique's fingers returned to the throbbing nipple.

"But you see," she went on, still smiling, "this is different, let me explain. The same nerve endings that give you ecstasy through fondling and sucking are able to give you even bigger climaxes by way of pain." As she uttered the last word, she once more pinched the sore nipple. Her eyes never left the girl's.

"Many a Master and Mistress I know wouldn't bother to consider this," she went on. "They are in it for the quick kill. Hurting their slaves is a one-way, selfish thing. They just see it as another way to feed their egos, a power trip they thrive on." Angique paused to let her words sink in, knowing the whole idea must be alien to the girl. She let go of the abused nipple, now cupping the girl's face with both hands. One palm registered the heat of the slapped flesh; both were slick with Alicia's tears.

"I am not like them," Angique went on. Their eyes were locked now, excluding the world. "Because I love you," she whispered. "I want to give you the chance to become the best slave girl ever. You see, the more pleasure you derive from pain, the more pain you can endure. So when the pain I'll inflict on you will increase over the days to come, it isn't meant to just hurt you — it is meant to increase your pleasure and mine. In the end even the mere anticipation of pain will make you orgasm and beg for more. For that is what you want, isn't it? You want to come, don't you, little slut? You need to come hard and often — it is what keeps the doubts and confusions out; the nightmares and the demons ... Soon it'll be what you live for. Controlling that is what I live for."

Alicia didn't respond, but the white showed around her irises — was it fear, panic? Angique got even closer and pressed her mouth on the girl's. They kissed, opening their weak lips to receive each other's tongue. When they parted, they were both breathless.

"Now rise, honey," Angique said, regaining her breath. "Rise and walk over to the leather club chair. Fold yourself over its back."

Alicia didn't rise; she just stayed on her knees, her chest heaving. After a minute of pregnant silence Angique repeated her request, keeping her voice flat and neutral.

The girl rose to her feet, still hesitating. Then she turned and walked to the chair. She stood for a second, her hands caressing the leather. Then she bent at her waist until her hair pooled in the seat. Her feet rose to tiptoes. She smelled the leather — it soothed her agitated mind, allowing memories to rush in. She'd been here before.

Angique caressed the high ass, circling the telltale black plug at its center. She pulled it out, making the girl sigh. Then she dropped the black thing in the chair, telling Alicia 'to take care of it.' She smiled when she heard the wet suckling noises. Her hands started caressing the ass cheeks. She pecked them with small kisses.

"Honey," she said. "Spread your legs a bit wider, so there will be room for my tongue."

Within minutes Alicia was on the brink of orgasm, but Angique stopped abruptly. She then slid two fingers into the girl's cunt, wetting them on her copious juices before plunging them into her still open ass hole. A moan rose up from the well of the chair. Once again Angique took her to just below the crest of her climax, fucking her ass while teasing her clit.

"Wait, don't look," Angique whispered, removing her fingers and leaving the girl to totter on the very edge of coming. Minutes went by; Alicia just stood, gradually breathing slower, feeling her built-up climax slip away. Then the fingers returned and her heart hammered as she climbed to her high again. She was close once more when a searing pain cut through her haze of ecstasy. Two, three blinding splashes of excruciating heat hit the skin of her ass cheeks, making her cry out in ... pain? Ah, yes — pain for sure, but ... Why didn't each new splash add up to more pain? Why did every following splash of agony push her closer to this incredible ... this unbelievable... ?

"Aaaaaaah! Oh God, aaaaaaahhh," Alicia cried out, coming hard. She humped against the fingers that fucked her ass, dancing on tiptoes, shaking the chair as she came and came again. New splashes of burning candle wax painted her skin, each drop throwing the girl into a new shudder of ecstasy. At last she hung over the chair like a wet, limp coat — utterly spent.

Angique kissed her skin wherever the wax had fallen until she reached the dripping cunt. She slowly started sucking the outer labia, making the girl shiver over and over again.

"The pleasure of pain," she mumbled. "Sweet, sweet pleasures of pain."

The next weeks felt to Angique like dancing on a tight rope, never knowing if the next step might bring her closer to her goal or cause her to fall. She felt exhilarated whenever she could make the girl somersault into magical, pain-ridden orgasms, but awful when Alicia failed to show up without a word of warning. Twice Alicia said, after returning, that she had been sick — or 'too busy working.'

Angique knew they were just transparent excuses.

"Why didn't you just call, honey?" she asked. "I would have understood. It's only natural to be scared." Each time the girl stubbornly held on to her excuse. But her eyes never met Angique's; she just handed her Angelthorn, the riding crop, asking without a word to be punished.

Angique often worried, but she put it aside whenever the girl sank into her arms again, soaked in sweat and totally spent from endless coming while her tits were tightly bound or her clit cruelly clamped. Angique could do nothing but kiss her and thank the fickle Goddess of Love for another fleeting moment of bliss.

Alicia might have been unstable, but she kept amazing Angique for being the fastest and easiest pupil she ever had. Her body associated with Pavlovian speed. After only weeks she almost orgasmed whenever the cold steel of a clamp touched her nipple — or when Angique lighted a candle and kept a drop of searing hot wax in check only inches over her tit.

Forcing fatter and fatter butt plugs up her asshole caused her thighs to squeeze cunt juices down her legs. Blinding cramps from checked enemas made her come hard when she at long last was allowed to release herself. Harsh corset training had her faint twice, but when Angique undid the laces and buckles, her cunt oozed with come. Weights dangled from her cunt lips. She cried in agony when screw-clamps were released from her nipples, allowing the blood to rush back in. And often she bristled with crowns of cloth pins wherever her skin was the most sensitive.

But training Alicia was like performing under the legendary sword of Damocles. The girl orgasmed with abandon, spinning out of control as soon as the first arousal made her cunt flow. But when it was over every one of her reservations returned. She just couldn't commit to her obvious needs and the way her body responded to them. Angique never knew what the next day might bring.

For days Alicia would eagerly partake in the most extreme of Angique's fantasies, only to suddenly balk. She would tearfully shower Angique with her 'sorries, ' telling her she could not go on — and yet she would return the next day and beg to be punished for her behavior.

Angique worried when Alicia stayed away for almost a week without a word, but then she shrugged her anguish away — the girl would be back, she always returned, didn't she? When Alicia at last returned, however, alarm bells went off. Angique saw her from her usual table in the Salon, where she sat with friends. The girl looked awful. She was skinnier than ever, and almost greenish pale under her tan. The clothes she wore looked as if she'd slept in them, and even her precious hair was dull and unkempt. Her red-rimmed eyes looked as if they hadn't seen sleep in days.

Angique rose with a start, excused herself and walked over to Alicia, embracing her.

"What happened, honey?" she asked. "Have you been ill? You look awful. Oh God, are you ill?" She hugged the girl tighter, but all she held was a limp, unresponsive body. Then it stiffened and two tiny fists pushed her away.

"I am sorry, Angique," Alicia whispered. "I can't do this anymore, okay? I really just can't." Angique tried to catch her evasive eyes. She reached for the girl's chin to turn her head, but Alicia stepped back.

"I'm sorry," she repeated.

"So am I," Angique said, staring hard. Then she turned around and walked back to the table. The two women she had been with whispered to her. She shook her head vehemently. They whispered some more before rising from their chairs. They took their glasses and purses with them and walked over to the bar where they sat down and never let Angique or the girl out of their eyes.

Alicia hadn't left the spot where she was standing. She seemed in a state of mind where you are so torn up that you can't move — either forward or backward. She wanted out, she wanted to run; but she couldn't. At last she found the energy to turn away and put one foot in the direction of the exit, when Angique's voice called her name. It made her freeze in midstride.

"Please, sit with me, honey," the voice said. "We should at least talk."

"I... ," the girl said, to no one special. Her second step never came. In a haze she turned and before she knew it, she sat on a fragile chair facing Angique. The woman's hand touched hers lying limply on the tabletop. She tried to avoid Angique's eyes, but she didn't withdraw her hand.

"I am truly sorry for how you feel, darling," Angique said after a minute of silence. "I guess you blame me for bringing you in this position where you keep running into cruel dilemmas. But it isn't me, honey; it is you.

"You say you can't go on, but you can — because you have to. You have no choice and you know that. You know that it is easier for you to go on than to stop. Your body aches to go on. It makes you sick when your mind refuses to give in. Be honest, for God's sake. Look at yourself after not even a week without me — another week and you'll be a skeleton. Accept who you are, Alicia — stop hurting yourself."

By then the girl's eyes had drifted back to Angique's; and when they met she felt like a helpless insect fighting the gossamer web of a spider. Her mind was in turmoil. Part of her wanted to protest and deny; another part knew the woman was right — there was no escape because she didn't want to escape.