Craving Flight by Tamsen Parker

it would be different with him. But it’s more of a hiccup than a full stop and the gentle stroking continues.
    It lulls me into a trance although something inside me crackles with anticipation. He didn’t string me up like this to be gentle with me. That’s when the strands leave my skin and the first blow falls. Still gentle, I might call it a tease. A taste. I want more. I want to gorge myself on sensation now that I’m allowed to break my fast from touch.
    He works up, the strands falling ever harder and it’s not so long before I’d call them blows. Impact. Force. At one particularly hard strike, I gasp. He grips the back of my neck, his thumb rubbing over the juncture with my shoulder.
    “Is this better?”
    His question is soft but I hear it because I’m straining for any word from him. I nod. Yes, this is what I’d hoped for when I’d asked Brooks, heart in my throat, to try.
    “Good.”
    And then he hits me harder. And harder. So hard it feels as though he’s beating the air out of my body. I have to suck oxygen into my lungs between impacts and I love it. I’m making noise with every whack of the flogger but never do I use my words. I don’t have to use my words because he knows. When it stops, I want to cry, I want to ask for more but I can’t so I wait, hoping, too, he knows I can take more.
    I’m tempted to make an inquisitive noise—as if I think he’d answer me—but I’m stopped by a thin, sharp sting on my shoulder blade.
    “Ah!” It’s a wheedling burn that lingers, growing hot after the initial impact and fading too slowly. What the hell was that? Then there’s another and another. He’s making a pattern along the plane of my upper back. I breathe through it, only making small pained whimpers now that I’ve gotten a handle on how to process the sensation. I wouldn’t call it easy, but definitely manageable. I can do this.
    But then it changes. He’s struck the lower side of my ribs with the evil little tool and it makes me cry out. He balances it out with a strike on the other side and I try to pull away but I can’t because I’m fixed to the door by my hair and my hands.
    “Stop moving or I’ll bind your ankles too.”
    The temptation to disobey is real because I think it would be easier to bear if he took that from me as well, but I don’t want to disappoint him. So I still my feet, pretending there are roots from my soles growing into the floor and holding me fast, that the shallow stalks anchoring me could twine with his somewhere in the earth. It makes it the barest bit easier to endure what feel like tiger stripes of pain he’s clawing down my ribs.
    It stops again and he presses his front to my back, pushing me into the door, containing me. The force steadies me and I pin my draws and exhales of air to his.
    “There you go. I want control over even your breath.” The idea should terrify me but it doesn’t. It lets me sink further into his hold. When I’ve calmed to his satisfaction, he murmurs, “Just a little more for me. You can do it.”
    I nod, because for him I can. I want to. The endorphins flooding my system help of course, but he’s the one who’s given that to me, knowing I’d need them for what he wants from me. The care and consideration he lavishes on me during these times makes me ache, swells my heart.
    That’s when the first tiny little bolt of lightning falls on my arm. Shit. I’ve gotten so good at not swearing—even in my head, for the most part—but he’s driven me to this. He works his way toward my wrist and with every shrill impact, it hurts more. Maybe it’s because he’s getting further away from my core that it feels more dangerous? He stops at the middle of my forearm when I’m just shy of tears but heavy of breath and I feel triumphant. He won’t go any further because I’m positive whatever he’s using on me is going to leave marks.
    He praises me in soft, gentle words and I swim in them, soaking in his pleasure. Then he