"Spending time with you is a delight." He said, his hug most lasting.
Yes, she too wished the moment never had an ending. But as the elderly say; everything that has a beginning, has an ending.
A few months had gone by, and the pair seemed inseparable.
Unfolding from the embrace, they laid back, watching the artificial personification of stars on her ceiling. His chatty mood was most welcome, sealing the hope she had of him really being present with her at that moment.
But times arrived when she couldn't help but think of the days she had to go through, accepting that he was just a figment of her imagination. Just as her therapist had suggested.
It was true then, the man was not real. She had somehow thought him into existence.
He was a human being she manifested into life through her dreams in coma.
Days like these, her therapist told her were a repetitive pattern. She told her to refrain from turning good feelings into sad ones. Diaginosed her as a downer, or with lypophrenia to be more specific.
Her sadness was rooted within her. It was a place she found solace.
So on these days, though the man was with her, she would think about how unreal he was a few months after she woke up from coma.
She thought about the times she was closely monitored because of the danger she could pose to herself and to those around her.
And those days reminded her of how she would be sad, in her dreams, when she saw his scars. His accident had shaken her then.
She was addicted to sadness even deep within her mind. As she would often think of how she almost lost him to the accident that never happened except in her head.
"We belong here. Right at this moment." He said breathlessly.
Had it not been for her deep feelings of blue, she would have recognised his admiration of the rain. Or that his voice soothed her aching heart.
The thought of his absence...
A sob broke from her.
"Hey..." he turned like he was getting burned, watching her intently under the tiny lights decorating the ceiling.
The sobs broke from her the more she tried to make them stop, it was futile.
He engulfed her, still laying on the rug she so adored on her bedroom floor.
What else could a man do? In the presence of a million pieces of a castle falling apart? What else could a man do? Rocking her back and forth was proving to be difficult as her body shattered with every sob, her small shoulders shaking.
He hugged her, hoping the tighter he holds her, the more she would understand that he was present for her. Willing to listen, or perhaps just hold.
No questions asked, no probing, just a tight embrace as she let her pain pour through all the pores her body had.
"You've been crying for an hour now, please tell me how to make you feel better?" He asked, his voice breaking at the sight of her.
What could've brought on such a tragedy? Her whole body had shaken to exhaustion.
"Or sleep. I'll be right here until you feel better." He suggested, but she knew he had to leave soon. He could not possibly not sleep at home. His home.
"I'm sorry..." she tried to croak out, but instead a sob broke the words apart until a point of no recognition.
But he heard, and he understood. "Tell me what to do... please." This, by his tone, was tearing him apart.
Her sobs paused, her sniffs couldn't. Her breath was still hitching. And it was almost quiet as she thought his words over.
"Hurt me." She managed, tears everlasting.
"What?"
"Hurt me. Please. Hurt me." She had expected that question from him. She knew he would want to understand if he heard correctly. Or if she meant what she was saying.
"Hurt me. I need it, please..."
"Hurt you?! H-how?!"
"Physically..." she sniffed and sat up. Her top came off first.
"Wh-" he sat there, watching it all unfold before him. She meant what he was dreading she meant.
"Okay, slow down. That is not how this is going to happen." He stopped her hands as she pulled down her sweatpants.
She looked at him, eyes full of unshed tears and begging.
"Please..." she said, her voice betraying her. It broke, and her vulnerability made tears flow again. She sounded so broken, even to herself.
"Please..." she tried again, watching his control slip. Hoping his resolve cracked and laid to waste.
"I can't... you can't..." he tried to find the words. But again, what could a man say? When a woman laid down her pride and trust for him? For what she believed she needed?
She, keeping her eyes on him, took off her sweats. Never standing.
He watched, quietly wanting to know when her sanity will return to her. Would it return when she was down to the last material on her body?
"You do not know what you're asking for..." he tried again, swallowing the lump that had formed on his throat as he watched her skin glisten with temptation.
"Hurt me. Please." She repeated the words, hoping he would understand that she understood what she was asking for.
He hummed as she took off the last bit of cotton covering her womanhood. She, still watching him as he was watching her, put the small material in her mouth. Shutting down whatever small breaths were making noise from her crying.
He called her name, watching her body tense from the words so unusual on his lips.
Yes, those lips had to punish her. Just once.
"Answer me when I call you..." he stood, deciding to give the girl a taste of what he had in store for people who asked for it.
She removed the material from her mouth, "Yes."
He understood immediately that she was answering his previous call.
He walked behind her, pulling her braids in his loose fist.
She yelped, having not expected the sudden change in demeanour.
"What will you say when I'm crossing a line you have set?" He asked, hoping she had no easily broken lines.
"Love me..." she whispered, her hand clasping around his on her braids.
"What?"
"My stop phrase; love me." She clarified, and instead of her previous sadness, she felt excited.
"And what of when your mouth is gagged?" He asked, letting go of her hair and pulling his shirt off.
The room was chilly, thanks to the heavy rain knocking at her window.
"I shall remain-" she gasped at the contact his cold palm made with her bare back.
"No safe word when you're gagged?" He said it like he enjoyed the sound of that.
"No." She whispered. Her excitement was evident, slick with it between her thighs.
"Hm..."
Pulled up, laid across his now sitting form. Stomach down on his thighs, the first one landed.
What instrument of delivering such punishment was used? A slipper.
It was the curiosity first, that made her hypersensitive. Then the embarrassment when the item made itself known to her skin.
But now, beside the pain building with each strike, the fear of him having no trouble using whatever he found suitable to do this... that was heightening her senses more than she preffered.
It was pain she wanted, and it was more that she got.
"You're losing count again. Do you want me to start afresh? Again?"
The tantalising effect of his voice was getting unbearable, the temptation was not as great though. So a small, "no" passed her curled in lips. The bite, nothing compared to her sore bottom.
But her sore thoughts, those of dark days she spent believing him to be none existent, those were gone too.
"What does a good girl say when she's grateful?"
"Thank you."
"Hm, time to nap. We have a few hours before I have to go."
And with that, she succumbed to the darkness her mind had learned to build so well, away from dreams of him.
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