“Open your ass for me.”

I put my hands over my ass and pulled the cheeks apart. He pulled me open with his fingers, looked at what he had to work with, and pressed the plug against my ass.

“How you doing, goddess?”

“Okay,” I sobbed.

“Do you remember your safe word?” He pushed in the plug. It was wider than it looked, and my asshole stretched.

“Ah! Hurts!”

“Safe word?”

“Tangerine and fuck you.”

“Breathe, brat,” he said, jamming it in. He pulled it out so the widest part stretched me.

I breathed, and he stroked my clit slowly then kissed it. My body relaxed when his lips touched me, and when his tongue flicked my clit, my back arched with pleasure.

The plug slid in and stayed.

“Legs down. Get on all fours. Let me see.”

When I pressed my legs together, I felt the welts. They were shockingly painful, yet I felt a rush of happiness and well-being when they stung.

Behind me, I heard the rustle of clothing. He was getting naked. Bless him. Bless him, bless him, he was going to fuck me. I closed my eyes and let the wash of contentment run through my veins.

He ran his hands through my hair, grabbed a fistful, and twisted my head toward him. He looked at my face, as if checking on me. Satisfied, he got a knee on the bed.

“Open your mouth. It gets fucked first.”

I opened up. I had no choice. I wanted nothing more than his cock in my throat, and I took it. All of it, looking up at him. He pushed all the way down, pumping my face five times before pulling out so I could breathe.

“Safe word? You got it?”

“I know it,” I said then opened my mouth for him.

He gripped my hair hard. “Good.”

He shoved my face onto his cock and fucked my throat, pulled away long enough for me to breathe or safe out, then fucked my mouth again. I was panting when he finally stopped.

“Good girl. Would you like to come?”

“Yes, please.”

“I’m going to punish you for the first time you came. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

He pushed me onto my back and opened my legs. He slid his hand between them, rubbing me with four fingers, then he slid them inside.

“Oh, God.”

The next thing was a surprise. The slap right on my cunt was painful and sharp, making me scream. It blossomed into a hint of pleasure.

“You get three. That was one. Count.” He slapped it.

“Two.”

Again, and hard.

My back arched, and I cried out. “Three!”

“You’re so fucking good,” he growled, moving his hands over me. “Look at me. I love you. Come now.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Not when he stroked me like that. I’d been bursting before he even touched me, so on his third stroke, my ass clenched and the pain of the welts disappeared as I came into his hand.

I came off the high when he pulled the plug out of my ass. I gasped.

He reached for his night table drawer and got out a washcloth and lubricant. The plug went into the washcloth, and the lube went all over my ass. I put my hands in his hair and turned to my side. He got up on his knees and put my right leg over his right shoulder.

“You ready?” he asked.

“Yes, please. Do it hard. Make it hurt.”

He did, thrusting his huge cock into my ass in two strokes. It stretched me to the point of pain just the way I liked, but the pain didn’t have the same sharpness I felt when he fucked it without a plug. I was full. Too full. Breaking softly around his cock.

“How is that?” he asked, leaning over my bent leg to kiss my cheek.

“Fuck. So good. So fucking… my God.”

His hips moved faster, deeper, pushing into my ass. He flicked my clit, and even though I’d just come, the rising tide of another orgasm filled me.

He put his face to my cheek and owned me, breathing hard in my ear. His right arm was looped under my right leg, and he flicked my clit. Not one part of my body wasn’t aware of his presence.

I owned him. I made this beautiful man gasp in my ear. His pleasure was mine, and my pain was his.

“Hurt me, Jonathan. Hurt—”

He pinched my clit, and I screamed. Pain drove through me, and the orgasm was so powerful, such a braid of sensation from both ends of the spectrum, that I nearly lost consciousness. My ass clenched, pulsing around him.

“Yes. That.” He grunted and thrust deep, then stilled in his release.

When he took the last gasp, I rolled onto my back, and he slid his dick out of me.

“You’re amazing,” he said, kissing my face. His cheeks were rough, and I enjoyed the scratchy sensation. “Literally. You amaze me. How good you are.”

“I love you.”

“I adore you.” One last peck on the lips, and he stood, holding out his hand. “Let me take care of you.”

***

After the shower, he sat me on the cold marble vanity and had me spread my legs with my heels on the edge of the counter. The welts inside my thighs were an angry red, and looking at them made me want to get fucked again.

“I did a number on you,” Jonathan said, rubbing a soothing cream over them. His touch was firm and gentle, healing and arousing.

“I needed it.”

“You going back for coaching?”

“No,” I said. “I think I burned that bridge. I can just practice. I’ll get it.”

He slid two fingers inside me, and I pushed into them.

“You’ll get it.”

“Oh, say can you see…” I groaned.

“I was saving your cunt for last.”

“Take it.”

He carried me into the bedroom and made love to me, healed me, brought me back to center. No one could hurt me with this man at my side.

nine.

MONICA

If you’re told you’re fantastic enough times, you start to believe it. And it was becoming a problem. I was at a plateau. I’d found where I belonged and was getting recognition from people with the power to make my dreams happen. It was their job to make sure I was happy and satisfied so that I’d continue working.

Unfortunately, they were businesspeople. They weren’t artists or fans. They didn’t know shit.

I could sing like the sound of a car screeching on asphalt, and it didn’t matter to them as long as I made money. “Sell it, don’t smell it” was the rule on the western end of Wilshire. And because I’d been traveling around with Jonathan, no one criticized me. My artist friends were back in LA, and I was too busy to just sit around making work with them. No one told me where I could be better. It was ass kissing time all the time.

Truth be told, I was really happy coasting. But the thing about coasting is that at some point, the energy goes out of the work, and I would have to push or grind to a halt.

“Should I wait?” Lil called back to me as she pulled me up to Mrs. Yuan’s warehouse in Boyle Heights.

“Yeah. I’ll be a second.”

She put the car in park right in the red zone and opened the back door for me.

“You probably don’t even have to turn the car off.”

I could have sent her up for the music. I could have stayed home even, and sent her while I worked on the national anthem in the privacy of my home studio. But I went myself for reasons I couldn’t even tell myself. I wanted to touch where the pain of the day before had been.

Yep. Pain. On the elevator, I admitted to myself that I’d been hurt, and I’d been hurt because I surrounded myself with businesspeople who didn’t know how to be critical. I hadn’t sat in a studio with a producer and had my ass beaten in two months. I’d gotten soft, and I bruised easily.

The door to the big white room with the black grand piano was open. I walked in, my shoes echoing. No one was there, but my stupid sheet music was on the piano.

Behind the door Mrs. Yuan had walked out of, I heard the snipsnap of an Asian language.

And on the lid over the keys was the black box.

I put the music back and opened the box.

A tuning fork isn’t an expensive item, but it was nestled inside velvet as if it were a jewel. I tapped the worn ridge of the piano and listened to the hum of A four forty.