Why me?

This is an excerpt from a story I was writing and abandoned months ago.  The story itself isn't salvageable, but certain pieces of it may be.  This is one of my favorites.
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“Why me?”

 

“Because, Olivia, you are different.”  Jacob circled her, stopping behind her back where she could no longer see him.  She started to turn around, but his hand on her shoulder stopped her. 

“When I came in to speak with the hiring manager that day, I had an entirely different resource in mind and then I saw you.”  His hands moved as he spoke, adjusting the tension in the rope around her wrists and forearms, pulling it tighter, forcing her back to arch as her arms were pulled closer together behind her back.  She sighed in mounting relief as she waited for him to continue.

“You were getting coffee in the kitchen.  In a room full of people coming in, greeting each other, chatting, you were completely alone.  A compact, self-contained powder keg of unexploded tension, practically radiating spiky waves warding others off.  I don’t think you even noticed people moving out of your way.  You are used to that, aren't you?  You glanced at me as you passed by on your way out, do you remember?”  Jacob paused, giving Olivia a chance to answer but she just shook her head, the feelings coursing through her making it difficult to think let alone remember.

Jacob continued working the rope, layering and twisting as Olivia began to drift, relaxing into the strands and the safety they provided.  Her eyes closed as she prepared to float, but Jacob wasn't done yet.

 

“It doesn’t matter, you were so wrapped up in your own thoughts, I doubt you saw anything around you.  But you see me now, don’t you?”  Again he paused, waiting, his hand resting lightly between her straining shoulder blades. The feel of his warm palm on cool skin sent shivers of impatience down Olivia's back.  She whimpered softly and pressed back against his hand, urging him to keep going. 

“Don’t you?”  Suddenly, it was no longer a question, it was a command.  Still she remained stubbornly silent. The feel of rope coiling around her limbs and beginning to snake around her torso was intoxicating, making her reckless.

“Answer me.” Jacob’s fingers tangled in the curls on the back of her head, tugging on them, bringing up her face. 

A shudder ran through her, warring sensations of pain and arousal settling deep in her belly as her eyes sought him out. 

“Yes, Sir.”

“Yes, Sir, what?”

“Yes, Sir, I see you now,” her lower lip trembled, the pressure in her scalp bringing unwanted tears to her eyes.  Instantly the pressure eased and blood rushed back in, heating her face.  His fingers massaged the spot, sending darts of pleasure through her entire body as her eyes drifted shut.

“Good girl.”

Going without...

I didn't think I would be adding any further posts to this blog.  With each passing week and each passing month, a bit of the "me" who wrote all those entries atrophied until I woke up one day and the life that made this blog possible was gone.

It was a gradual loss.  A slow dulling of senses and numbing of feelings.  An almost imperceptible seeping away; the cracked bucket of water on a sandy beach.  One minute it's filled with water and you think it'll just sit there waiting for you, but the next time you look it's empty.  While you were busy paying attention to something you thought was more important, while you took the water, secure in its bucket, for granted, it escaped.  It escaped so stealthily and slowly that the sand underneath is already bone dry.  It's as if the water was never there to begin with and you can't help but wonder if you imagined it. 

Had I imagined the whole thing?  Had there really been a time when a single look from Him could send shivers down my back and make my stomach contract with pleasure and fright?  Had I made up the bruises and the rope marks and the long red remnants of a knife dance?  Had I really swung, tied up and naked, in front of strangers in an exhibition hall?  Had I really enjoyed that?

My body held no memory, no scars, no residual afterglow and there was no one around to remind me.  The insidious numbness has set in so slowly and so thoroughly that by the time I realized the full extent of it, it was far too late for recovery.  Still, I tried.  I turned to the books and stories I loved, I went back to my own writing, I even came back to this blog and nothing helped.  None of it made sense, none of it connected or found an answering echo of a sensation.

So I stopped trying. 

I put away the books.  I filed away the stories.  I pretended this blog didn't exist.

You might ask, so what's so wrong with a life without D/s?  Nothing...  There's nothing wrong with it.  It's a fine life.  A fine, dull, boring, lifeless life.  A life lived at half-volume.  It's not too sad and not too happy.  On a scale of emotions from one to ten, a life without D/s is compressed to a scale of three to eight.  By all accounts, it's a safe and normal life.

It's a life that leads me to take a knife to my own arms just to feel something.

I may not remember what a life with D/s feels like, but I remember that it's better than this and I'm ready for this to be over.