Work Text:
Tiptoes.
Never dancing.
Always stumbling.
Balancing your position, you can almost put your feet down.
You can almost breathe.
A noose around your neck is holding your head upright.
Too tight. You try to remain calm but you can only gasp for air.
Your eyes close. Your eyes snap open. You keep drifting off. Can´t sleep. If you sleep, you choke.
You were up all night, lost in research, despite Cirrus urging you to take regular breaks.
Following day you got no rest either, chasing tasks.
When the evening fell, your master decided you would serve his needs tonight.
You protested but he only smirked, familiar derision and cruelty lighting up his handsome face: "I told you to rest last night. Did you listen?"
No. No, you didn´t. This situation is your fault. And you should give him your very best.
Rope bites into your wrists when you wiggle to relieve the pressure.
Inescapable soft touch of gloved fingertips burns a path up your bound arms. You feel too much. You feel every filament, every tissue. Deep exhaustion rolls over you in short dulling wave before your imminent reality gnaws back.
You will pass out, you are sure of it. Either from fatigue or from sensory overload. You can only guess which one will claim you first.
Straining forearms locked horizontally behind your back make you squirm in discomfort.
Breathe, breathe as much as you can.
Everything is connected.
Ropes restricting your arms to the merciless noose limiting your breathing and movement which in turn connects through another line to the hook in the ceiling.
You are lifted just enough to make whole setting extremely challenging. A small disturbance, a huge hindrance.
You are struggling on your toes, damned by obligation to stay awake.
Fresh welts Cirrus has already adorned you with add to the picture of blissful torment. He laced the whip with some of his nasty surprises and you are kept between fluctuating spikes of pure awareness and depletion.
Everything is connected.
Your mind with the will to become your best version.
Your overwhelming emotions with the man who controls your pain and your life.
Every sensation is felt thrice as intense, attacking your brain with necessity.
Each stimulus carves a new neural response threatening to tear you apart.
Sleep. Five minutes, please. Let me close my eyes. You sleep, you choke.
No, you won´t die. You are safe. He will catch you if you fall. But he will be so disappointed.
Maybe he will be so disappointed that he will let you die after all. That´s a lie. He wouldn´t. A few weeks ago? Absolutely. Now? You two are too far in, entwined in each other´s foundations like suffocating roots.
It´s hard to think. It is tremendously difficult to form whole thoughts where there exist only displaced fragments. There is a threshold to be experienced. You are not certain whether it is meant to be crossed or avoided. Is the experience based on the awareness of the threshold and therefore knowledge that you shouldn´t cross it?
Rules should be clear but you keep forgetting. Oh gods, you keep forgetting. Wrong. Your consciousness takes a glimpse of panic and your foot slips.
Oh.
You inhale sharply as the noose dangerously tightens. You manage to catch yourself.
Back on your toes, legs shaking.
Cirrus lets his knuckles stroke your arm again. "My beautiful star. Stay calm."
"Yes, sir," you automatically rasp out, words brief, yet painful.
I love you. I hate you. I love you.
You are patient, you are brave. You want to cry but you don´t recall the reason. Do you not have everything?
His arm wraps around your waist, long fingers clutch at your skin. A gloved thumb lightly rubbing your side under your rope-decorated ribs drives you insane. You eat up every piece of attention. You are ever hungry for more because he never gives enough. Scraps and crumbs and you feed on them with devotion. His lips linger at your ear and you won´t move.
You crave real contact. You are dying for his bare hands mapping your body, opening it, even if only with the intention of hurting. You would welcome anything.
But you won´t lean into his presence. You won´t try to press against him. That way lies longer deprivation, you know that well by now. You keep as still as you are capable of, twisted between longing and the floor simultaneously so close and unbearably distant.
Deep voice, soft like silk on flawless marble informs you: "Another seven –" You whimper in alarm. " – and then I will let you stand. If you perform well."
He lets go, leaving you empty, flesh itching and expectant.
When the whip falls, you hear the sound first. Certainty cutting through the air you lack. Unavoidable. Crack. Time stops around its trajectory.
One. Flowers of pain painted over your thighs.
Two. Upper back. The impact pulls you up straighter than before.
He hits hard. He believes in you, doesn´t he? Thin leather tails cut into your skin and your fists spasm, your teeth clench.
Three. Across your thighs once more. Licking fire. You bite your lip.
Four. Your belly. You start sobbing. Your already restricted breathing enters new stage of absence.
Five. Across your backside. Scorching suffering. You cry out.
Six. Again. Dripping sweat. Endure. You mumble incoherent pleas. Through the fog of agony you hope that your voice sick with despair is lovely enough melody for his pleasure.
Seven. Back to your thighs. Tears flow freely down your cheeks and –
Your knees buckle under you.
Cirrus catches you just in time not to choke. "Easy. You did very well, my obedient star."
Treasured hand on your lower back, waiting for you to find your footing. You resume the position, strenuously swallowing tears.
You lick your lips. The response is not required but you provide anyway: "Thank you, sir."
The rope fixing the noose loosens.
"You can stand now."
You step back, easing yourself on your feet, heels regaining contact with the floor after seeming ages of separation. You don´t feel strangled anymore. Calves hurt. Everything hurts and you let the awareness of pain fill your body with awe and acceptance.
You hear his footsteps on your left. You lick your lips again. So dry, so desperate.
Cirrus returns into your blurred field of vision. He looks down at you, beautiful lips and sharp teeth, all just there in front of you, forbidden. Radiant and ethereal as ever he smiles at you and you want to immerse yourself in him. If he only allowed you...
Leather handle of the whip tenderly glides down your chest and belly, between your legs.
Tapping at your inner thigh. Buzz in your ears is a challenge to suppress. You spread your legs more, dividing your weight. They are still trembling but you can withstand it for a moment more before you´ll be finally permitted to lie down.
But first and foremost you are here for him. Ready to postpone all your needs.
You stare at him, surprised every time anew how his closeness affects you in various contradicting ways.
"Change can´t be forced by unkind hand. It must be organic. To transform naturally is to understand the potential before reaching out and fulfilling it," Cirrus tells you, trailing the rope he dressed you in.
"If you say so...," you mutter under your breath, out of habit you can´t quite bury. But you catch yourself in an instant and shut up.
"Do you have something to add, my little star?"
"Mm-mm."
Leather handle strictly forces your chin higher up.
"Enunciate clearly, please."
"No, sir. I have... nothing to add. You are correct, of course."
You dig your nails into your arms.
Kiss me, just kiss me, please.
You want a taste. You would settle for a tiniest form of affection. You don´t dare dreaming about anything else today. Pleasure is a rare reward Cirrus offers. Hardly won. But when he deems you worthy of such concession, your world unravels. The more he takes from you, the more grateful you are for drops of warmth.
And every kiss, every caress, every orgasm feels like falling deeper into the pit of misery. He doesn't need it. You do. And that has proven to be an excellent method of control. You are aware and still you walk into the same trap over and over. Each time passing from one such occasion to the next manifests as an eternity unto itself. You will never have enough.
You wouldn´t trade what you have for anything in the world. But your hunger for him is slowly taking you apart.
You won´t say it aloud, never aloud. He can read your yearning in your gaze, never leaving him. In your posture, even bound, still inviting.
You wish he would at least hit you if he won´t caress you. He will not. Because right now you want it too much.
Cirrus puts the whip on the table, reverently, carefully. When he appears in front of you again, towering over you, you shiver just a little. Supple and broken and tired to the bone you smile at him, new tears standing in your eyes.
Gloved hand adjusts the knot on your neck and slides under the rope, closing comfortably around your throat. If you are to fight for breath, this is your preferred method. To be choked by his hand feels like a reward by itself. Your body reacts immediately, arousal quick to coil inside you, dripping down your thighs.
His face is near, near enough to kiss. He won´t. It´s too soon.
Still squeezing your throat, fingertips of his other hand lightly trace your lips and you open your mouth for him, eagerly yielding. His smile is wide and satisfied when you suck at his fingers, grateful, even if it is through the barrier of the thin fabric this time. The priest knows you are his but he will always remind you. Yes, you need him but he needs you all the same. He can brag about his patience all he likes but you know his sharp angles, you know the depths of his need and the terrible well of his jealousy.
Cirrus removes his fingers from your mouth, your saliva coating them thoroughly, and stops choking you. The treatment wouldn´t be enough to come undone in the way you wish for but you still miss it when it ends. He takes you into his arms, pressing you against his chest, his lustrous hair sheltering your raw skin and for a moment your mind succumbs to half-sleep. His smooth voice complements the building dream:
"How do you feel?"
"Exquisite, sir," you whisper with effort.
"You are perfect."
His lips brush against yours. You moan before you can stop yourself. Stupid.
Cirrus steps back and almost imperceptibly shakes his head.
He gives nothing. He takes your breath away. He takes your blood and more than that. He takes your heart if you still have one. His eyes behind the graceful metallic mask remain unapproachable.
You feel like losing your mind but haven´t you lost it already?
The only quality you still possess is hope.
One day it will be close enough for you.
Maybe his Lunar God hears your prayers. But you know well there is only one god worth kneeling for.
One day he will be must be close enough.