The Journal Entries

I picked up my wineglass and examined Katherine's face closely. "She may not want to do it. She may be lousy at it. Worse yet, she may be so good at it that you lose her forever."

"It's something she has to learn."

"Has to?" I asked.

"Has to," Kathy emphasized. "She's naturally good as a bottom, Ken. She's as stable a sadomasochist as any you and I have ever met. She can even discuss the spiritual terms in vocabulary that took me years to master. And it's not aping; I know she believes in what we talk about."

"Then why topping?"

"I keep thinking about that one party-- it was almost five years ago now-- when she fucked Aaden under my orders. I think she was truly bottoming then, but you saw the smile on her face. She was enjoying raping him. I think she would enjoy abusing you just as much."

I grinned, recalling the smile Kathy spoke of. "Okay, I'll do it."

---

The party started calmly enough. There was a little play going on around the fringes of the room, a little bondage here and a little spanking there. I rolled my eyes to see the Dahria couple sitting at one table, then grinned to see Rachael Covington sitting with them, looking slightly bewildered. I waved and she waved back, gesturing me over. I debated momentarily; the last thing I wanted was be in range to hear Melmet Dahria's opinions. "Lance, can you ask Rachael to join me here?" I mouthed quietly.

"Done," the AI replied in my ear. I looked over at the room as Rachael stood up and apologized to Melmet, then walked over to me.

"Hi!" I said. "Glad you volunteered to come over here."

She gave me a tight grin. "Why didn't you join me at my table?"

"The couple you were sitting with. I'm not fond of them."

"Oh?" she asked, glancing back in their direction. "Why?"

"Melmet Dahria is a complete centric. He's convinced that people should stay within their own species, that homosexuality is wrong, that women who show any bodyfat are unattractive, that women are naturally submissive, that..." I scratched for another insult and couldn't find one. "There's more, but I can't think of them right now."

"What about her?"

"What about her?" I replied. "She's completely under his control. I know that she's been hospitalized a few times for trying to stay within his guidelines of attractiveness. I think she's so lacking in bodyfat she may not menstruate anymore."

Rachael looked at me, puzzled. "Then why does she stay with him?"

I shrugged. "He gives her something she wants in ways nobody else she's ever met has. Maybe its innate in her nature to be the way she is. I don't know. She's on the medical staff and her teammates are constantly panning their sensors over her to see if she's all right, but she doesn't get the clue. She's lived this long, hopefully she'll live a long and happy life." I grimaced briefly. "I just wish he wouldn't push his agenda on everyone else."

Rachael waited, to drop the conversation or to hear more, I didn't know, but I took it to be the second. "There's a world of difference between 'I don't like women with fat,' and 'All women with fat are ugly.' Melmet can't see that, and usually speaks the second."

"Ah," she replied.

"So how are you finding this little event?" I asked.

The nervousness in her grin was obvious. "I'm finding it educational. I can't say much more than that. I was totally unprepared for this kind of... activity. I know it's nothing I'll ever want to do."

"That's understandable. So this is some sort of anthropological outing?"

She nodded. "I'm surprised. I expected you to be one of those 'everyone can enjoy this sort thing' person."

"Rachael, when it comes to people, I've learned that it doesn't matter what I believe; the universe is going to hand me evidence to the contrary. Even if I feel in here that I've got more of something or less of something than my neighbor because of my interests, I'm going to find people who believe just the opposite." I shrugged. "If you're not interested, I gain nothing by arguing with you and I risk losing a lot."

She covered my hand with hers. "You've such an interesting outlook."

"I'm honest. And I'm old. And I know that I'm better company than someone who's perfectly honest all of the time."

She looked up behind me just as I felt something cold go about my throat. "What?" I asked, looking up.

Trianna was standing over me, grinning wide. "Hello, Ken."

"I take it I'm supposed to be impressed by this?"

She yanked on the collar's ring, hard, pulling me out of my chair, off-balance, and onto the ground. She looked down at me, reached down and bunched my hair into her fist, and pulled my head backwards. "Yes," she said, grinning. "You are."

I moaned softly, the pleasure of her sudden domination over me sweeping into my bones. I love having my hair pulled, and usually it's all that's needed to bring me to my knees. I had agreed to this, but I had also told Kathy to expect me to be a bit contentious for this little scene. I didn't want Trianna to think this was going to be easy.

I heard a tinkling sound at my feet. "Put those on," she said. I looked down and saw four cuffs, two wrist and two ankle. I hesitated, trying to think of something more appropriate than "Or else what?" when she answered the unspoken, impending retort. The cane she held in her hands came down across my back and fire erupted from my shoulder where the tip had landed. I whimpered.

Rachael moved off.

I put the cuffs around my ankles, then around my wrists, all the while Trianna watching me from above. I looked up at her and she grinned down at me. "You will enjoy this," she mentioned.

I didn't say anything. When I had the last cuff closed down, she grabbed me by the hair again and, without even acting concerned, hauled me to my feet and across the floor to a variable- position rack. Made up of interconnected beams of wood, there were critical joints where the rack could be spread out into a table or raised to make a standard 'A'-frame. I allowed her to put me up there and to restrain me into place. She didn't even take advice from me when I started explaining to her how the ropes should be tied.

She walked around behind me and I saw a dark shape before my eyes. The she pulled the blindfold close and tight and I was effectively blinded. I growled softly and said "I don't like this."

"That's too bad," she said. Even worse, I felt her place something over my ears. "Active headphones," she cooed into my ears. "The only thing you can hear comes through my microphone."

I swore aloud and, sure enough, other than the vibrating of my bones I couldn't hear a thing. Now, why hadn't I thought of this a long time ago? I felt other restraints going around my legs and I recognized that she was planning on flogging me. The thigh restraints were to keep me from lifting to the left and making it hard for her to aim her blows. By now everyone who had ever lifted a flogger to my back knew about that annoying little habit.

Her claws touched my back, making me jump. I heard her purr softly and realized she must have been wearing the microphone. She could talk to me, I could talk to her, but any other communication was out of the question. Her hands began slapping my back, gently bringing the blood to the surface and warming the skin. She knew very well how to handle a human back. I wondered if the headphones weren't to prevent me from hearing Katherine's coaching. Either that, or Trianna had been practicing... on Kathy!

She stepped away and I felt the first touch of a flogger. It was just a touch, a gentle stroking of leather across my back. I sighed and lay down against the rack, anticipating the pleasure of a good flogging.

She allowed the leather tails to stroke across my back once, twice, three times, then picked up the pace. The next strike landed with enough force that we progressed rapidly outside of the 'touch' of leather and into warm, massaging strokes. They weren't yet painful, but I recognized the onset of what was eventually to be a very painful experience.

She began building in strength, sometimes asking me if I was okay. "I'm fine," I told her. She never asked if she was doing okay; that, apparently, was a given from my continued, tacit consent. The tails were coming down, becoming hotter and hotter with every impact. I started moaning; the pain became stronger and more pronounced. She was doing very well, and her pacing was easily within my favorite tolerances. I grinned; hard to believe this was supposed to be bad for me in some way. As the hot, searing strikes blew through my skin and shoved me against the heavy wood frame, I giggled softly.

Someone reached through the wooden bars and began stroking my skin. It felt rather nice, in its own way, until the hands started fondling my cock. I haven't yet figured out how people can combine the pleasure of sex with the pleasure of pain, at least not in my own mind (I can do it from the top for those who can, or even from the bottom as long as it's the other person getting off), and the fondling of my genitals only distracted me. "Safeword."

"Ken?" Trianna asked.

"Whoever's playing with my dick, please stop. It's annoying and it'll ruin the scene."

The hand faded away and the flogging continued. I enjoyed that particular attention until Trianna was really putting her back into it. I screamed with a particularly strong blow, and wished for another. She gave it. I started trembling; I could feel the sweat pouring down around the outside of the blindfold. I was breathing hard, and I heard Trianna saying "Breathe deep, Ken. Take deep breaths."

I took her advice, slowing down my breathing as she slowed down her flogging until it was just a light tickle against my back. Then again she built to roaring pain very fast, the last four strikes coming down in slashing hot impacts of pure, red pain that sent my mind spinning.

I wasn't even given time to recover as the rack was slowly ratcheted down at my waist level, thus shoving my butt into the air and making it an easy target. "Oh, no," I moaned. She intended to do unto me what she had done to Aaden, only this time I wasn't in control of the situation.

I felt the blunt dome of a huge cockhead press against my butt. It felt curiously like Lindsay's, although I knew it was Trianna hovering over me. "How do you get this thing into you?" Trianna's voice said into my ears.

"Which one is it?" I said between deep breaths.

"It's a big sculpted one Aaden brought me from your toybox."

Oh, no. I bit my lip and prayed Lindsay wasn't in the room; I knew my toys well enough to recognize the latex mold I had made of her dick based in readings Lance had taken from me the first time we'd made love aboard ship. Still, either way I would have to grin and bear it. "Patience, pressure, and lots of lube, dear."

"I've got the first." The head of the dildo, covered in lubricant, pressed its slimy self against my asshole, slipped slightly, then recovered. Someone else had better be doing the aiming. Finally it got a hold on my asshole, pressing the blunt tip of the domed head into my anus far enough that it wouldn't slip automatically, and she bore down. I tried to relax, but after the flogging and without much preparation, I just couldn't. It didn't want to go, and she made it. The dildo ripped its way into me and my whole body convulsed with the indignant pain of penetration. She stopped with just the head inside me and waited a few seconds, then pressed in further. I moaned in pain and wished she wouldn't take too long.

She took her own time anyway. At first she was slow, but as my butt loosened up and she began stroking faster and harder, the pressure against my prostate and rectal muscles were just too much. I could feel pre-come leaking out of the tip of my dick with every thrust, just as if she were pushing it out herself with the huge dildo. Perhaps she was. I felt the pleasure building within me. It started at the base of my scalp, my hair standing on end as the pleasure diffused throughout my whole body. There's very little to compare to the pleasure I get from anal sex; it's simply something so different, so wonderful, that I can't really describe it.

Her hips were meeting my buttocks, and I felt the heat of my climax spreading through me until it became, like the flogging, a searing, burning sensation, and then I came with a loud, exultant scream that must have just shook the walls.

Part of my reason for that was probably that I couldn't hear myself and so, didn't care to censor myself.

The restraints disappeared fast, and hands were slowly helping me down to a towel laid on the floor. I sat there, recovering, with the headphones and blindfold on, breathing to catch some air, waiting for the world, such as it was, to stop spinning. "Ken?" Trianna's voice was soft in my ear.

"Yeah?"

"Safeword," she said. "How do you feel?"

"Like I've been put through a very, very unfair wringer."

"You didn't call safeword," she said.

"I didn't say it was bad, I said it was unfair. You did great."

"Did I really?"

"Better than most people do after a hundred tries. Certainly better than I ever did on someone I had never topped before."

"Really?"

"Really. Can I take this off?"

"Oh! Sure, sure." I reached up and pulled the headphones and blindfold off in one swift motion. "Ah!" I gasped. "Much better." I stood slowly and hugged Trianna close. "You did wonderful, Tria."

She beamed. "I guess I did."

Looking around, I was grateful that I didn't actually see Lindsay anywhere. Even Rachael was gone.

---

A little while later, Kathy, Trianna and I reconvened in the main lounge. "You safeworded at one point," Trianna said. "Why?"

"For exactly the reason I said there. I'm... I don't like having my sex drive engaged while I'm in pain; I've always separated the two, no matter how hard Borodir tried to combine them when we first met. Fondling my dick was an attempt to do just that, and for me it just doesn't work. I had to choose between the lesser of two evils... either let the scene get more and more annoying until I safeworded out or became dangerously violent, or call safeword there and put a stop to what was, for me, worse than useless stimulation."

"But did I really do well otherwise?"

"Well, you weren't exactly surprising, but I can't fault you for that. You followed a well-known set of stimuli. Everyone knows that I love to get flogged and I love to get fucked. But you did a great job in those areas, and for a beginner that was a very good choice of action."

Trianna nodded, grinning. "Do you want me to top you again?"

I nodded. "You can top me any time you want."

"That's about the best compliment I could ever here!" she smiled, reaching over and hugging me.