This was written as a quick exercise in tattooing kink and posted in another, more personal writing blog that I have, but I figured it could go here as well. At 723 words it’s quite short, but I think it’s a nice little taste of something and it was fun to write.

It’s m/f, femdom, and probably not safe for work, though there’s nothing particularly raunchy in it.

The Beautiful Marks

Keller lies under the needle for her, because he loves her, because she’s commanded it. Because pain endured in her name is pleasure. He lies under the needle and the candles flare higher, and the artist summoned from the edges of the village grins in the dimness. When Keller lifts his head enough to see her, she’s leaning back in her great black chair and smiling at him, her fingers steepled in front of her breasts. Her magnificent breasts. Perhaps later he’ll be allowed to touch them, allowed to worship them with his lips and tongue.

But now Keller lies under the needle, and he does it for her.

The day before, she had ordered that he be marked and he had bowed his head like an obedient slave, because he was, but in his heart he had felt a wild thrill like something fluttering against the inside of his ribcage, yearning to break loose. If she marked him now he would be marked forever, forever hers, her pet and plaything and her love. She had showed him what she wanted, the elaborate spirals, the shapes that might be trees, flowers, mountains and beasts and birds. Dancers whirling in the flames of a great fire. All there, hidden in the marks now stabbed over and over into his skin. The shapes taking form. He’s hard as he lies facedown against the table, trying not to grind himself against it, for she’ll see it and she’ll punish him for taking pleasure before he’s been granted the favor.

Marked. Marked, by her command. He had knelt at her feet and kissed the delicate line of her fine leather riding boots and she had blessed his skin with the crop, a taste of what was coming to him the following day.

He loves her so much his heart aches with it, the most delicious pain. A slower, deeper pain than the sharp buzz in his skin. He shivers faintly but he isn’t cold; a roaring fire burns across the room and the manor stones themselves are warmed. He is slowed by it, the heat and the pain, his breaths coming at long intervals. He feels so at peace. He is the pleasure of his Mistress, her joy, and soon he will be her work of art, sitting naked and proud by her feet, turning his back to her admiring guests. Proud, but not too proud. Not of himself. Keller has no pride but what his Mistress gives him.

The beautiful marks.

He lets out a gasp as the world seems to bend around him, and he sees her lift a black-gloved hand, and the pain stops so suddenly that he shivers again. “That’s enough for now,” she murmurs. “Let him rest. In a few hours we’ll begin again.”

He lies still as she gets to her feet and comes to him, gliding across the thick carpet, reaching out to run her fingers through his hair. He wants to kiss her fingertips. It’s almost overpowering, the urge, the gratitude. He won’t, not until he’s told.

“You look so lovely,” she whispers, bending her lips to his ear. “Are you quite well?”

It takes him a second to find his voice, and when he speaks he sounds strange in his own ears. “Quite well, Mistress.”

“Very good.” She straightens up again and touches his lips, and then he kisses them, eager but slow. “I’ll have someone bring you water and food, and they will bathe your face.” She pauses, her head slightly cocked as she looks down at him, her hair long and dark and her eyes too dark to make out.

“You are my very favorite,” she says at last. “The most precious thing I own.” Again he feels the thrill swelling, so sharp and so sweet that it edges into pain, and he smiles.

“I love you, my Mistress.”

She answers him with another caress, and he watches her go, her body moving smooth and graceful in her long gown. A servant brings him food, tips a pitcher of water to his lips, and he swallows it all without ever noticing them.

And when the needle touches his skin once more and she’s there in her great chair and watching him with that perfect smile tugging at her mouth–then, and only then, is he happy again.