November became December, and the beginning of the holiday season. Sören and I decorated the shop and our flat for Christmas, with wreaths and garlands and strings of fairy lights, a large fake tree in the shop window and a smaller one for home. Snúður "helped" by stealing ornaments and batting them around. We also hung stockings and agreed to get a stocking of cat toys and treats for our four-legged owner.
Now that it was properly winter, Sören broke out his collection of lopapeysa - Icelandic wool jumpers knit in different patterns and colour combinations that were not just warm and cosy but a piece of wearable art; Icelanders took pride in their craftsmanship. We were roughly the same build, so to help make our shop look more festive for the season Sören encouraged me to borrow his jumpers. I didn't mind, and I was secretly tickled that this was the one time we would be dressed more or less alike, since the rest of the year I tended to be more preppy and he had that goth-grunge vibe.
What I did mind, though, was that we were approaching the one-year anniversary of when I'd gotten stabbed - I had been stabbed on Friday, December sixteenth, 2016, a little more than a week before Christmas. While I'd regained my equilibrium with the trip to Europe over the summer and was enjoying the new chapter of my life here in a sleepy town on the coast of Maine with a wonderful man, the memories were starting to resurface.
It wasn't so bad that I had returned to wearing a Kevlar vest and leaving the house as little as possible - we needed to keep the shop going, and I wasn't too worried about violent crime out here; our neighbours were friendly from a distance, the townspeople seemed like they didn't know or care that we were trans. But it still hung over me like a dark cloud, and at first Sören didn't press it - I had learnt the last few months that Scandinavians disliked being intrusive and tended to not ask the sorts of invasive questions that Americans were prone to, despite the tendency towards bluntness that came off as unintentionally rude to Brits and Americans.
And then finally, on Thursday the fourteenth, two days before the one-year anniversary, we had an obvious butch lesbian customer who came in and I found myself panicking after she bought her books and left, reminded of the butch TERF who'd stabbed me - even though the customer had been very friendly and I logically knew most lesbians weren't TERFs; I'd lived with two of them in New York after all.
Sören followed me to the bathroom and just before I could duck in there and hyperventilate, he put an arm around me. "Anthony, elskan, what's going on?" he asked.
"Flashbacks."
Sören led me into the bathroom and held me while I told him about the stabbing, and watching my attacker get shot by police just before I passed out. Told him about the months of anxiety, becoming a recluse who barely spoke and played video games a lot, wearing the Kevlar when I did have to leave the house. The therapist who pushed me into exposure therapy before I was ready and was very into toxic positivity bullshit. The way it negatively impacted my friendships with Michelle and Kim who went from being supportive to being resentful and seeing me as "draining and difficult", and where Michelle had invested enough emotional energy in me that Kim even thought there was an affair despite neither of us even being attracted to the other's gender.
It was a lot.
"Oh, elskan." Soren squeezed me and rocked me. I tried to cry but the tears wouldn't come, I just felt that ache gnawing at me.
"It's like... I'm doing better than I was earlier this year. But am I seriously going to have a fucking panic attack every time a butch lesbian comes anywhere near me? I don't want to spend the rest of my life having sodding anxiety attacks over -"
Sören put a finger to my lips. "I get it. I have trauma too. They tell you time heals all wounds but it really doesn't, not all of them. Some days the best we can do is live with an acceptable level of suck."
"Yes." I nodded vehemently.
Sören's lips quirked and I knew his mind went in the gutter and I shook my head at him, laughing. "I know what you're thinking."
Sören snorted. "Elskan, I'm always thinking it."
And then he distracted me with a sassy wiggle of that arse on the way out of the bathroom.
I would love to tell you that his humour resolved the anxiety and everything was better that day but I continued to struggle with flashbacks on and off, and needed to step out to breathe. After I'd done this a few times, Sören put up the CLOSED sign and locked the door two hours before we were ready to close, even though I was loath to lose any business this close to Christmas and in the evenings when more people could shop after work.
Sören made a chicken and rice pilaf casserole and after dinner I did the dishes. Then Sören gave me a foot rub and he said, "I have an idea."
"Hm."
"The anniversary is on Saturday, já?"
I nodded. "Please don't ask me to close the shop that day. We need the business -"
"But we are closed for Sunday, which means we have some freedom for how we spend Saturday night."
"...Yes."
"OK. I have an idea." Sören stopped rubbing my foot and took my hand and turned his body towards mine. He looked into my eyes for a long moment before he said, "I know this isn't a cure-all but what if... you beat me, give me all that you have, all that I can take, and then tie me up and... use a knife? Threatening isn't the right word. Playing with it, like my life is in your hands, you could kill me, but you won't. And I trust you. It might give you back a small sense of control and power. It might not. If nothing else, the sixteenth will be the anniversary of the first time we did knifeplay."
A frisson went through me. I kissed his hand, then I wrapped my arms around him. "I like the way you think."
"You say that now but you never read the Barney the Dinosaur and Big Bird oviposition slash I wrote while I was high as fuck two years ago."
I doubled over laughing, tearing up. "Goddammit, Sören..." But it was just what I needed.
He was just what I needed.
What Sören didn't know was that I'd bought a riding crop and a flogger, intending to have him open them on Christmas. Of course, it was a present for us, and he had other gifts from me to open that day, so I didn't feel too badly about us breaking in the new toys ahead of schedule.
Because Sören was still fairly new to BDSM and I didn't know what his pain tolerance was like - yes, he had ink and piercings, but impact play was different - we negotiated twenty lashes with each. Sören had asked for forty but I wanted to err on the side of being easier on him this first time, and I still worried twenty with each implement was too much but I trusted he would safeword if he needed it.
We started with the flogger.
Sören stood facing the wall and got him worked up and ready for it by kissing and licking the back of his neck and shoulder while my fingers brushed down his spine. Then I dropped to my knees, licked down his spine, nibbled at his arse cheeks, rubbed and smacked them, and dipped my tongue inside his cunt to slowly lick and tease his inner walls while my hand reached around to lazily play with his cock. After a few minutes Sören was a panting, whimpering wreck. My fingers walked back up his spine and I kissed my way back up; once I was on my feet again I turned his head and claimed his mouth in a deep, fierce kiss as my fingers rubbed his cock more vigorously. "Yeah, you want this, don't you?" I rasped, before I kissed his neck again. "Such a wanton slut that you'll let me do anything to you, you'll let me beat you, manhandle you, just to get fucked -"
"Daddy!" Sören trembled and bit his lip with an adorable whine.
I chuckled, tousled his hair, then I grabbed the flogger. I gave his left shoulder a thudding whack, and his right shoulder a stinging slap. Then I moved my hand down and hit his right arse cheek, and his left. Sören cried out and used his hands to steady himself against the wall, but didn't safeword.
I let him have it, alternating between slaps and thumps, sharp and deep, shoulders and upper back and arse, putting power into my stroke. By the time we hit twenty Sören was a quivering, whimpering mess, and when I turned him around to reward him with a kiss and some pettings before the next part of our play, Sören's eyes were shining and he had a blissful smile on his face like he was high or having a religious experience. I smiled back, pleased that he was in subspace.
For the riding crop, I took him over my knee like I did for barehanded spanking. And just like Sören loved getting spanked by my hand, he loved this, moaning as he rubbed his dripping cunt against my thigh and knee, begging for more even as I made him cry out with pain.
I was going out of my mind with lust looking at the redness of his upper back, his rosy, welted arse... the way he gave himself so willingly, so passionately. He was so beautiful, surrendering to me like this.
Even more beautiful when I tied him up, attaching ropes to the chest harness to immobilise his arms on either side of him, binding his wrists to the bed. I exhaled as I took out the switchblade, holding the power of life or death in my hands, the ultimate test of Sören's trust in me. I knew this wasn't just for me to feel like I was taking back some of my power and agency, it was for Sören too, who had been beaten and raped by his uncle, then beaten by his aunt for "tempting him". That Sören loved me enough to give me the power to maim or kill him, and trusting me not to, was humbling - the same sort of wonder and terror I felt watching forces of nature or looking up at the infinite stars and realising how small Earth was. It was both a power trip and made me feel vulnerable at the same time, to be loved in such a consuming, immolating way.
I loved him right back. I brought the tip of the knife to his lips to kiss, then I held it to his throat. "You know you're safe with me," I said softly. "You know I will do my very best not to hurt you."
Sören bit his lip but otherwise didn't move, knowing as well as I did that could make the knife slip and spell disaster.
I leaned in, and slid the knife down to his heart, following the trail with kisses and long strokes of my tongue. "You're such a good boy, wanting to help your Daddy feel more in charge. Such a good boy for trusting Daddy like this."
"Oh, Daddy..." Sören smiled and gave me that radiant smile.
The knife traced around his right nipple in circles, then I pressed the tip of the blade into his nipple, just enough to let him feel a bite, not enough to cut. Sören's breath hitched. The knife dragged back and forth over his nipple. "That's right. Daddy would never hurt his good, good boy." I lapped at his nipple, suckled it hard, as the knife traced around the left nipple, poked it, scratched at it. I turned to the left nipple and lashed it with my tongue, tugged it with my lips, making Sören whimper, the knife at his right nipple again. I went back and forth between his nipples, teasing them into long, thick peaks, exquisitely sensitised.
Then I made little nicks at his chest and stomach, small trickles of blood that I licked tenderly, tasting the metallic tang. "You belong to me," I whispered. "Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood."
"Daddy, Daddy!" Sören bit his lip and whined again, driving me mad. "Oh, Daddy, I love you, Daddy..."
"I love you, sweet boy." I nicked at his top surgery scars and kissed there too. "My brave boy."
The knife raked over his right hip and thigh, then over his left as I kissed, licked, nibbled where the knife had been. I watched the cream pooling from his cunt, the way he pulsated as he went deeper and deeper in that zone of submissive trust.
The knife poked at his hood. "I could cut your cute boybutton off but I won't. Daddy likes fucking it too much." I dove down and gave it a long, slow lick. "And licking it."
"OH GOD, DADDY!" Sören seethed with clenched teeth and gave another delicious whimper. "Daddy. Daddy..."
"Mmmmmm." I dragged the knife over his hood, then around his cunt lips. I sucked one of his labia into my mouth, then the other, then I sucked his cock as the knife pressed into his mound. Sören made inhuman noises, breath in shivering gasps, eyes feverish.
After a few licks inside him I came up to kiss him, letting him taste himself. I rose up, turned the knife around, held it by the heel and bolster, and pushed the handle of the knife in his cunt. I watched his cunt kiss the knife handle again and again as I slowly worked it out of him, impressed by the thick cream coating the handle and making streamers. "Oh, look at that wet, slutty boypussy. Someone likes this, don't you?"
"Yes, Daddy. God, yes. I love this. I love you..."
"I love you too, baby boy." I pulled out the knife handle then brought it to his lips. He sucked it like it was a small cock and my cunt throbbed. I had wanted to run the knife over every inch of his body for hours, see how far I could take him, but the lust was too strong. I couldn't take it anymore.
I put down the knife, wrapped his legs around me, my cunt aligned with his, and then I began to thrust, rocking my hips, cock rubbing cock, cunt lips kissing. We were both drenched and I savoured that liquid silken feeling, the sloppy smacking, suctioning sounds and Sören's breathy moans as we found that perfect rhythm, our cocks teasing, pleasuring, exciting until nothing else existed but our hot, primal fuck. I went wild, fucking him hard, and Sören bucked his hips, giving that passion right back. He burned like the phoenix inked on his skin and it made me love him even more, so beautiful.
When we were both getting close, I took the knife again and held it to his throat as I kissed him roughly. I growled, licked and nipped his neck, and then I snarled, "Now I want to see what an obedient boy you can be and come for Daddy -"
Sören climaxed immediately, screaming and squirting. The feel of him gushing and contracting against me set me off, coming with a hoarse shout. Coming and coming and coming, the intense pulsing pleasure bringing tears to my eyes. "Oh god, I love you," I called out. "I love you, baby, you're such a good boy for Daddy, I love you..."
"I love you, Daddy." Sören's eyes were too bright. "I love you so much, Daddy."
"Oh, baby boy." I kissed the tip of his nose.
After I freed Sören from his bonds, I just held him and petted him for a few moments, whispering "good boy" over and over again like a mantra. I had held a knife to Sören and nobody died. I wasn't cured of my trauma, I knew there would still be days when something sent me back to collapsing in the parking lot in New York, bleeding out. But for tonight, I felt less powerless. Sören had given me a precious gift.
He was precious. "My sweet, precious baby boy." I got out the salve, had him lay on his stomach on a body pillow, and then I got to work, massaging where the flogger and riding crop had been, soothing the sore spots. Giving little kisses. "You were such a good boy tonight."
"I like being your good boy, Daddy."
I tousled his curls. "The best boy."
Once Sören's poor back and arse were all salved up, and I put some salve on his rope burns, I took him in my arms again and snuggled him against my chest, letting him suck my thumb. I felt protective of him - and I had to trust myself to protect him. Had to trust that as life threw things at us, I would deal with it somehow. I didn't know then that we'd be facing a pandemic in just over two years, increasing civil unrest and an anti-trans backlash that would eventually send us fleeing for our lives to Canada before the 2020s were over. I just knew that I had to keep putting one foot in front of the other to keep my baby safe from the Einars and Katríns of the world... and that was the therapy I needed.
chapter 23 | return to A Place Called Home | return to Original Works | return to index