Excerpt: A Litany for Monsters - Apocrypha

"Turn around," I say. "Face the corner. If you try to face me once we have begun, do not expect me to stop striking you the way I did last time."

He drops all his weight onto his wrists, onto the cuffs holding his arms overhead, and he spins himself with a toe, as if he is turning a lazy Susan.

"Okay," he says, "but is that meant to be a warning so I'll keep my ass pointed in your direction, or is it an incentive so to make me turn around, in case I get bored?"

I wrap the buckle end of the belt around my wrist and slide the rest of the belt through the buckle and keeper, even though there are no holes on the buckle end to fasten the it. I only want to make certain my grip is secure, that there is no chance the belt will slip out of my hand. I heft the belt again, and give it a test swing.

"I will try not to bore you."

"You know what? You ought to add an extra stroke on just for my suggesting that was even possible. You don't bore me. Not ever. Not once."

"As you like," I reply, and as he has already turned his back to me and I have come within range, I go on and administer the stroke, swinging the belt as hard as I am able. It hits him at an upward angle, cutting across his back and lapping around his right side, eight or ten centimeters below his shoulder-blade.

He lets out a string of undecipherable profanity and every muscle in his body tenses as he absorbs the pain. The belt has left a beautiful mark on him, every rivet laid into his skin in red and all of the belt-mark itself a bright, attractive pink. "Fuck me," he says, after a moment, when the mark has begun to fade. "You got my nipple ring with that, Christ." He shudders, and a second later the wave of his arousal hits my face, warming my skin as if I have stepped into a spot of sunlight. "I can't for all the life of me come up with even a single reason why you'd think I wouldn't want you to finish my confession when it means you're going to hit me like that. I can't understand it. Not even for a moment."

"You misunderstand me," I say. "Of course you will enjoy your punishment. I expect you to enjoy it. And I want you to. I am not sure I would care to punish you if you did not like it. It would not be the same for me. But I also want the truth, Kynan. All of it. I want to know everything you have been keeping from me. Every single thing. Even if you don't want me to know it."