It was a disturbing thought, such that he couldn’t help hesitating as Dona turned and began to walk away, expecting him to follow. She glanced back at him.

“Keep it up and I’ll shove a dildo as big as Fiona’s strap-on back up your ass to keep your mind where it should be. You’ll shuffle along behind me like an old man.” That galvanized him into motion, despite his upper lip curling in a rebellious sneer she acknowledged with a half-smile and a sharp tug. He followed, for he didn’t want his ass stretched like that again. The memory of the pain was far too vivid to ignore.

When he took two steps after her, the oasis was gone. He blinked in semi-darkness.

Flashing lights and heavy metal music pounded through the soles of his feet. Bodies were on all sides of him dancing, turning, bumping. Sweat, perfumes, aftershaves, the smell of sex and excitement. He was in a nightclub, a fetish club apparently, for those around him were in various BDSM wear, though he was the only one he could see that was completely naked. It made him self-conscious, more so as all eyes turned toward him, male and female, enjoying the show. Suddenly the mob of people made room, putting him inside a clear circle of space for as many as possible to see him so subjugated before his Mistress. Naked, shaved and pierced, tied to her with a leash, his arms bound behind him in a way that he could be booted off balance with a shove.

“I don’t like this,” he said in a hoarse voice. There was no way she could hear him over the noise, but of course her eyes were on him and she seemed to understand. She wrapped the chain around her fist, tugged. He sucked in a breath, took a step forward.

“You’ll dance for me, now. Move that fine ass.”

When he shook his head, she wrapped another length around her fist. Deliberately raising her arm into the air, she drew up the slack, taking him to his toes as she pulled on his scrotum. His swelling cock was pulled down in a curve by the limits of the scallops of chain connecting the ladder barbells.

“Jesus…”

“You can dish it out, but you can’t take it? Remember Mistress Narcissa?” Dona’s voice resounded in his head, an insidious whisper impossible to shut out. “You danced with her on a club floor like this one. You’d been hers and hers alone for several months. On a slow song, she pressed you to your knees, her eyes full of you, her soul open. Every eye turned to watch, sensing that something important was about to happen, something worth watching. She laid her hand on your shoulder, caressed your nape with her fingers. Whispered, ‘I love you’.” He knew what was coming, but he couldn’t look away from the dark truth in Dona’s gaze. “You looked up at her a full moment without saying anything. Slowly, the eyes she’d always seen focused on her in adoration and obedience transformed to an expression of triumph and scorn. You spat in her face, laughed at her. Then you rose and left her there on the floor by herself.”

Dona’s eyes glittered, her lips thinning.

“So dance.”

A sharp barb stung his flank. Nathan spun as much as he was able to do so.

Another Mistress stood on the outer edges, tall, an Amazon. Her female submissive crouched at her feet, watching him and Dona. She wore a collar and leash the Amazon held in her free hand. That leash had a second chain that connected to a navel and clit piercing revealed by her transparent body stocking. The arrangement would give the big woman a similar control over her sub to that which Dona had over him.

The Amazon had struck him with a long buggy whip. As he turned, she did it again, stinging his erection.

He cried out from the pain. Dona brought a whip she now had in her right hand into play, striking his thigh so he shifted it, pulling on the other side of his leash so he hopped that way. He spun as the other Mistress struck him again. He was dancing like a puppet between them, the artful tugs of the cock tether and skillful placement of the whips making him perform a lurching shuffle, awkward with his arms bound. Those surrounding jeered at him while eyeing his stiff cock appreciatively and making crude comments.

Punishment from a Mistress, from Dona, he could take. This was different. He was horrified to feel tears stinging his eyes. Blinking them back, he kept up the dance.

You’re not supposed to betray those you love.

But you betrayed those who loved you…

His gaze rose, despite his intense desire to keep his eyes down. In the crowd, waiting for him, he saw all of his past Mistresses, almost a full dozen.

Narcissa, Lady Jane, Melinda…even the murderess who had put him here, though he tried not to look at her. Every one of them was there…except Lauren. All beautiful women, well-cared for, self-assured.

The shadows of his past haunting him. They were not jeering. While he wondered why Lauren was missing, he was grateful that she was, for all of them just stared at him silently with the expressions they’d had when he had shown them his true face. His moment of victory. That moment that said, “You thought you had my love. I never needed you. I’ll never depend on any of you. You’ll never make me a fool.” They spun around him as if he was the fulcrum of a merry-go-round that had gotten knocked off its pin, lurching him in a spiraling motion he couldn’t predict. His throat was tight, his chest aching, and he didn’t know why.

Pain is a mirror. You weren’t content until everything was a mirror of your own pain.

He was beyond questioning how Dona could speak in his head as easily as he could talk to her with his lips. He tried to turn away, but they were on all sides, backing him into the center of the circle again.

Why did you do it, Jonathan? What’s the face in the mirror? The final one, behind everything else?

“Stop.” He shouted it, trying to get away from those faces and find Dona. She had to be at the end of the leash, but he couldn’t see her. A crowd of strangers pressed in on him now, invasive hands on his cock, his ass, playing with the nipple rings. A tongue at his scrotum, fingers pushing between his buttocks as his legs were held by multiple hands. Lifting him up like a rag doll with no control of his own actions. Goading his lust and his fear as he struggled, his body vibrating toward an orgasm that he didn’t want, a violation like rape.

“Dona, please…”

Stripped, nowhere to hide…you’ve been there before. Why did you forget what it was like?

Why would you do this to someone else?

“You’re not supposed to do this to me!” He screamed into the roar of club noise which swallowed his protest like a monstrous beast, making it insignificant. Not even a whisper among the din. “You’re not supposed to do this to me…” Not to someone you love.

You’re so right. So why did you?

With each of them, a part of him had craved something he couldn’t dare to want. It had gotten worse and worse with each game, each Mistress. He felt it now, looking at them.

But what about Mistress Lauren? Why isn’t she there? Dona’s voice, mocking him.

You’re controlling this. You should know. He shot the thought back to her resentfully.

Desperately. I don’t want to talk about Lauren.

We will. Not now, but we will. You felt something for all of your Mistresses, but especially her, because she reminded you of someone…

“No, stop it!” He started to struggle and kick, fighting the hands on him, not caring who he struck, just so long as they let go. It was futile. The more he convulsed in their grip, the greater their laughter and cruelty became. Their hands became more brutal, stretching him, thrusting, pinching. His upper body was dropped so his legs were higher in the air, allowing someone’s tongue to tease his anus behind, his cock in front.

At eye level he saw a man’s cock approaching, enormous and adorned with a spiked shield piercing, sharp metal tips that would cut when the organ was thrust brutally into a vulnerable mouth. Despite all of these frightening things, nothing was worse than that laughter. He needed the laughter to stop.

Surrender. Just surrender.

Not to them. Never. Not to anyone…

Even me, your true Mistress? The one who knows who you are, everything that lies within your heart? Every hope you’ve had, every dream you’ve destroyed because you didn’t dare to believe in hope?

Her words wove around him like a net, inexorably immobilizing his limbs, taking away his will to fight. Surrender…

Surrender to his Mistress. He could do that, couldn’t he? He knew there were reasons not to do so, but he didn’t want to hear those voices. It didn’t matter anymore.

They could defile him and it would mean nothing. He was nothing. Going limp in all those hands, he let them do what they would. He was just an object anyway. Something nobody wanted, even himself. It was an unexpected thought, but as that huge dick came toward him, the acrid smell of bloodstained metal approaching his lips, it all made sense.

There you are. Nathan. That’s who I want. Not Jonathan.

The others melted away, returning to their couplings and dancing. He was standing again and Dona was there. Cupping her hands around his bound forearms at the small of his back, she pressed herself to him. Her hips, lower abdomen and pubic mound were against his arousal. Her thighs caressed the sensitive tip, the movement of her body sliding the D-ring back and forth.

“Dance with me.”

This he could do. Sway with her, let her grip steady and guide him as she shifted her weight to a poignant song. The lead singer crooning that he wanted to kiss the eyelids of his sleeping lover and never leave the world of dreams with her. He didn’t want it to end.

Of course. Only Aerosmith could provide the proper soundtrack for Hell.

“Just dance with me. Don’t think.”

His Mistresses’ faces still stared at him from among the crowd around them. Their eyes were everywhere the strobe lights were, eyes glowing in the dark.

Dona’s palms caressed the upper curve of his buttocks. He dipped his head, pressing his face against her hair. “There are so many of them,” she observed in a whisper. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the words kept coming. He wished he could touch her, but she had everything. The right to touch him, cup him as she did now, bringing one hand between them to arouse him even as she punished him with her voice. “In the end, you wanted the next one even before you were done with the previous Mistress. You were getting desperate, too hungry. So at last you chose a Mistress who could destroy you. Put an end to your hunger.” The S&M Killer had been described that way. The bloodlust driving her mad so she took her victims faster and faster, until she made the fatal step. He shook his head, tried to pull back, but the cock leash and Dona held him fast. “No. I wasn’t like her.”