I lay sprawled across her bed, staring at the pages of the open book but not reading. I was cataloguing the signs of the rearrival of masochistic longing, trying to remember when the last time had been. It was something I missed when it wasn't there, but as soon as it arrived, it began to make itself an unwelcome guest. I was afraid of what it would make me do, it sometimes made me do the most stupid things, whine and be annoying and unbearable. That's what it did in my head a lot of the time, maybe I got too used to it and let some of it show. I felt anticipation, too, because my not so couth mental houseguest did bring some gifts along for its hostess. It flipped all the negative emotions over into positive ones, except anger which it kept almost completely at bay. Sadness became pleasurable, embarassment was fun, self-hatred was positively heartwarming, pain was orgasmic. I just had to remember that it didn't flip for everyone, just me. Whining had not suddenly become attractive.
Footsteps in the doorway; I looked up. Mistress smiled at me, sat down next to me on the bed, her fingers with their long nails stroking my hair. I shivered happily and gave her a welcoming smile. It must have had some kind of edge on it, though, because her smile quirked a little and she said, "You're getting that feeling again, aren't you."
Even though she hadn't used the intonation of a question, I ducked my head, not enough to interrupt the petting, and voiced, "Mmmhm." Her fingernails weren't excessively long like artificial ones, but they did have plenty of scratching length. As long as she could grow them without them breaking while she worked, was how she explained it to me. One of them went under my chin and dug in as she used it to lift my chin so I looked into her eyes. Her eyebrows moved in a question unspoken. I had to guess it, but it was an easy one, a repeat of the previously spoken question, with a note as to how "Mmmhm" wasn't an adequate reply. I didn't even pause to savor how good being corrected felt before complying as best I could. "Yes, Mistress, I'm getting that feeling again."
"Where you want me to hurt you." Her voice wasn't anticipatory, as it was sometimes when she said things like that. No, it was only analytical, actually a bit accusatory, which meant she was not in the mood to do it, and found it tiresome that I'd actually want such a thing when she didn't feel like supplying it. I loved it when she was anticipatory, of course. But with the bad-mood reversal thing, this disappointment was exciting. I had been bad. It felt bad. That felt good.
"Well... sort of. Not exactly." I tried to ameliorate her guilt -- that was what it was, of course. She always felt guilty when we weren't in synch. "It's not to that point yet. Right now it's just more like I'm hoping you will." The eyebrow raise thing again. Of course she'd catch that. "Hoping you will hurt me," I added. The reluctance to actually say those words was one thing she never let me get away with.
It worked, a bit anyway. She was amused and distracted by the linguistic-emotional puzzle, as I'd hoped. "So tell me, what is the difference between hoping and wanting, in this case?"
"Well, they aren't completely different," I told her, going over in my mind several alternate ways to explain. "Wanting is like desire, sexual desire, or like deciding from a menu, which food do you want? Hoping is more like," I thought about it a bit longer, not liking my first idea of how to explain it, discarding a few more before coming up with, "when things are bad, all around, you hope it will change, get better, that you'll be able to think of something to do, or someone will come save you. They're both ways of having an idea of what will make things better, it's just the kind of better it makes them that's different."
I wasn't sure this explanation was very clear, and she didn't look particularly enlightened by it, but she said, "All right. I hear you saying you aren't having a sexual desire yet for pain, just that you're getting into the negative territory that surrounds that eventual destination."
I nodded, this being a reasonable summary of what I'd said, and even pretty close to how I felt. "Yes, Mistress."
"Even so, I can tell it's giving you some kind of sexual desire, and I'm just not in the mood for that. I think the best way for us to put it off is for you to masturbate."
Inside me, the untidy houseguest sat up and took notice. I felt a definite flush, my heartbeat picking up a little, and I needed a bit more oxygen. I took a measured breath and met her eyes. She wrinkled her nose for a moment as her smile changed, indicating mixed amusement and exasperation with me, along with smugness at the accuracy of her expectation of me. At least that's how it looked to me, and I've gotten pretty good at reading her, at least at times. I looked down, away from her eyes, before I spoke. "Will you watch?"
"No, I don't think so. Take off all your clothes and clean yourself before you start, and don't use anything but your own body. Come and present yourself to me the second you're finished. I'll be in the living room." She ruffled my hair and then stood, leaving as swiftly as she'd arrived.
There were subtle barbs in this order. Mistress knew how I liked to masturbate best, and that was nearly the reverse. She likes me naked, I don't like to be naked by myself. She likes to see me touch myself, but I don't like handling my genitals, nor do I get much pleasure from the touch of my own fingers there. I would be masturbating, but her way, not the way I would to pleasure myself if left to my own devices. I thought longingly of the slick touch of plastic, or the rough feel of cloth, my typical means. Subtle barbs, and those meant subtle pains, and hence in the reversal, subtle pleasures.
I did as she'd told me. Took off all my clothing, even glasses and rings, and went to the bathroom to wash. I interpreted the washing to allow for a very wet, cold washcloth and wiped repeatedly till I was sure I was clean, taking some pleasure in the touch of the cloth. I'd have to confess that, since it might be a kind of cheating. I didn't let that go far though, and as soon as it started feeling notably good I stopped using the washcloth, rinsing it carefully and leaving it draped over the shower rod.
Returning to her bed, I lay across it, staring up at the ceiling. My fingers stroked between my legs, and I thought of all the things so easily in reach in this room to make this so much better. Clothespins, pens, toiletry bottles just the right shape, even the edge of the bedsheet would help. None of it was permitted. I tried pinching my nipple with the other hand. That did help, but the feeling was so much less than it could be, even digging my fingernail in just didn't feel anything like how I knew it could. Eventually, though, sheer repetition and speed did give me a climax. I drew it out as long as I could, feeling the wetness on my fingers, my nipples' erectness. When the last bit of the climax had passed I jumped up to go present myself.
A lot of the feeling had subsided, as Mistress and I both knew happened after a climax. My guest was out of sight, and the mood reversal wasn't working nearly as strongly now. I felt a bit of frustrated near-anger creep in. It was so maddening how Mistress got when she didn't want to play. I went out to her, trying not to be annoyed with her, trying hard to be grateful. She was doing her best, she always did, and she loved me as much as I loved her, which was so much it couldn't even begin to be described, and she had been right, so I had to stop being such a bitch about it and so selfish, is what I was saying to myself as I walked out to the living room.
As soon as I saw her, even the back of her head as she was sitting on the sofa watching television, I felt a wave of love and submission that washed the anger away. I had a completely spontaneous smile for her and stood there naked and enjoying it. "I'm done, Mistress."
"Good job, love," she said, and nudged me aside. "Wait for a commercial now." I waited, holding as still as I could. She doesn't like me shifting or pacing at moments like that, it distracts her from the show. I thought about kneeling instead but she hadn't said to, not that she'd mind but it was hard for me to kneel without being told to. It felt show-offy or something. As soon as the commercial came on, she gave me her full attention. She touched each of my nipples lightly, then slipped her finger between my legs. "Nice and wet there, you did good," she said. She had a dry cloth beside her on the sofa, an old baby burp cloth or something like that. She wiped her fingers off on it and handed it to me. "You were so good. As your reward, you can use this to masturbate again, at least one climax but more if you want. Then go ahead and go to sleep after." She stood up, gave me a hug and kissed my cheek, then my neck. I hugged her back, clutching the cloth in my hand.
"But there was one thing I did," I said, while she was still hugging me. She let go slowly, pulled back but with her arms still around me lightly, and waited for me to go on. "While I was cleaning myself, I used a washcloth to clean, and it started feeling good while I was rubbing. But I stopped as soon as it started feeling like masturbating with the washcloth instead of cleaning."
She smiled. "Don't worry about that. I told you to clean. You were good. Go on now, get some rest, love." The commercial was almost over. She put one finger on my nose and pressed it very lightly, a gesture of affection, then went back to watching her show.
I went back in the bedroom and enjoyed the process much more, the cloth giving friction and keeping me from having to touch myself directly. I managed a climax and then three more semi-separate ones and fell asleep directly, into a nice deep nap.