Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [204]
I nodded and whispered, because I knew he’d hear me. “Flashback.”
“Not as strong as those that our Asher can give.”
I shook my head.
“Interesting,” he said, “are you well enough to finish this show?”
“I promised,” I said.
His smile widened, and his voice was suddenly that room-filling, jolly sound, “Now, you may help us punish our bad kitty. You may make him pay for taking liberties.” I got a shadow of what he was doing to the audience. When he said “punish,” it was a sharp pull on the body; “bad kitty” made you think of very naughty things; “pay,” and more money hit the stage; “liberties” had a lascivious lilt to it that made the audience do that nervous giggle, like what they were thinking was worse than anything they’d seen tonight.
I just nodded and let him take my hand. That one touch was both a mistake and a help. It made me feel less shaky, but it also opened me to him more. Touching just his hand was more distracting than touching so much more on most men. He led me a little dazed across the stage, until we were standing behind Nathaniel, facing the bareness of the back of his body.
Jean-Claude let go of my hand and went to him. He touched the bare back. “You may hit him here”—his hand slid down Nathaniel’s back to his buttocks—“or here. He has been a bad kitty, but we don’t want to damage him. He is far too pretty for that.”
The audience agreed with him, most of them.
Jean-Claude handed the whip toward me. “I don’t know how to use a whip.”
“First, it is a what, my sweets?”
Most of the women yelled, “Flogger!”
“And second, it would be my pleasure,” and that one word slithered over my skin, and apparently over the other women as well, for they squealed, “to show you just how it works.” And every word seemed darker, more suggestive than it should have.
He tried to show me first by simply using it on Nathaniel. He made the heavy leather tails blur and blossom against Nathaniel’s skin. Nathaniel reacted to every blow with a spasm that went from his fingers to his toes and everything in between. I could see enough of his face to know that those closed eyes and parted lips weren’t from pain. Jean-Claude whipped Nathaniel, or I guess flogged him, until his skin was pink in places and the stage was littered with money at their feet.
He leaned close to Nathaniel’s face, said something, and Nathaniel said something back, then Jean-Claude turned to me. He held the flogger out again. “He’s such a bad kitty.”
I shook my head.
“Shall I show her how it’s done?” he asked the audience, and they yelled louder, and I wished I’d just taken the damn thing and tried, but too late now.
He put the flogger in my hand and pressed his body against the back of mine, with one arm around my waist and the other hand on the hand that held the flogger. It was the way lecherous men stand when they try to teach you how to golf or swing a bat. He swung my arm back and tried to make me give that sharp crack against Nathaniel’s body, but it wasn’t sharp, it was sort of flabby.
“You must relax and let me do the work, ma petite.” Loud enough for the audience he said, “Relax, my sweet, relax, and we will show him pain, and perhaps more.” The “perhaps more” was like a whisper in the dark against your skin.
I let out the breath I was holding and tried to relax, never my best thing. But I also knew that if I didn’t relax, this part of the show would last longer, and I wanted this part over. It was sort of demeaning, like I was a girl who couldn’t swing at the ball without help. Okay, maybe I didn’t know how to use a flogger, but I really didn’t need this much help.
We got a couple of good blows in, enough to make Nathaniel shiver in his chains. Then Jean-Claude stepped away from me, leaving the flogger in my hand. “Give the bad kitty what he wants.” And what he said was not what it felt like in my head, or on my skin, or deeper in my body. The women around the stage and farther into the room made small noises. Shit.
I threw the flogger at Jean-Claude the way you