Chapter 4: Dueling Submissions
The cold eggs were glue in her mouth. The bacon tasted of ash. Leah chewed mechanically, swallowing past the knot of shame lodged in her throat. The hardwood floor bit into her knees. Beside her, Lori sniffled, a wet, pathetic sound that grated against Leah’s nerves more than any taunt. She wanted to slap her, to tell her to shut the fuck up, that she’d asked for this. But the energy wasn’t there. The fight had been bled out, whipped out, sat upon and crushed.
Sunlight tracked across the floor, warming their battered skin. The marks were livid now—a grotesque gallery of overlapping stripes across Leah’s torso, a pristine, angry roadmap on Lori’s. They were a matched set, broken on the same anvil.
Footsteps approached. Leah didn’t look up. She kept her eyes on the grey veins in the maple floorboard.
Mark’s bare feet stopped before her. Luke’s scuffed boots beside him.
“Stand up,” Mark said. His voice had lost its disciplinary edge, replaced by a flat, assessing calm.
They struggled to their feet, movements stiff and pained. Leah kept her gaze lowered, a show of submission that felt as natural as breathing now. Lori mimicked her, shoulders hunched.
Mark’s finger hooked under Leah’s chin, forcing her head up. He studied her face, then her chest. “Color’s coming up nice.” He trailed a thumb over a raised weal on her breast, making her flinch. “Lori? Look at me.”
Lori lifted her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her makeup a smudged mess.
“You still think this is a game? Still think you can waltz in here with your strings and your pout and get what you want?”
Lori shook her head, a quick, jerky motion. “No.”
“Good.” Mark dropped his hand. “Because the game’s over. You’re in it now. You wanted his attention?” He gestured to Luke, who leaned against the kitchen island, arms crossed, watching silently. “You got it. But it comes with the same rules. The same consequences.”
Luke pushed off the island. He walked to Lori, his presence a slow, gathering storm. He didn’t touch her. He just looked at the marks on her chest, his expression unreadable. “You took your stripes,” he said finally, his voice a low rumble. “That earns you a few answers. What do you want?”
Lori swallowed, her throat working. “I want… I want to be here. With you all.”
“Specifics,” Luke cut in. “You don’t get vague. You want to be fucked? You want to be hurt? You want to serve? What is it?”
Her breath hitched. “All of it,” she whispered. “I want… what Leah has.”
Leah’s head snapped up. A fresh spark, dry tinder catching. “You have no idea what I have.”
“I’m learning,” Lori shot back, a flicker of her old defiance in her glistening eyes.
Mark laughed, a short, humorless sound. “She’s got a point. She’s learning fast.” He turned to Leah. “You challenged her. You brought her into the ring. You don’t get to be pissed she’s still standing.”
“I’m not pissed,” Leah lied, the words tight.
“You’re possessive,” Luke said, his eyes still on Lori. “It’s written all over you. Every bruise is a claim. So prove it. Show her what the claim entails.” He finally looked at Leah. “You want to be the standard? Then set it.”
Mark nodded, understanding passing between them. He walked to the closet by the door, not the cabinet of toys, but the everyday one. He pulled out his thick, worn leather belt with its heavy steel buckle. The casualness of it was more terrifying than any flogger. He doubled it in his hand, the buckle dangling.
“Against the couch,” he said to Lori, pointing to the wide arm of the largest sofa. “Bend over. Ass in the air. Hold on tight.”
Lori’s bravado shattered. Fresh tears welled. “The belt?”
“You wanted in,” Mark said, devoid of sympathy. “This is ‘in’. Move.”
She stumbled to the couch, leaning over the broad arm, her back arched. The emerald strings of her bottoms were a laughable contrast to the reality of her position. Mark positioned himself behind her. He didn’t tease. He didn’t warm her up.
He swung.
The crack was a gunshot in the quiet room. Lori screamed, her body jackknifing, her knuckles white where she gripped the leather. A brutal red line instantly bloomed across both pale cheeks.
Leah watched, her blood thrumming. There was no pity. There was a dark, hungry curiosity. And beneath that, a rising, competitive heat.
Mark laid another stripe, parallel to the first. Lori choked on a sob, her legs shaking.
“Count,” Luke commanded from his leaning post against the wall.
“One!” Lori gasped.
Thwack.
“Two!”
Leah’s own wounds throbbed in time with the blows. Each strike felt personal, a reminder. Her nipples tightened, a traitorous ache spreading low in her belly. She hated Lori in that moment. Hated her for being here, for being an excuse, for making this necessary. But she hated her more for the way her own body was reacting—the slick heat between her legs, the desperate need to be the one under that belt, to prove she could take it better, own it harder.
Mark paused, the belt held loose at his side. He looked at Leah, his green eyes sharp. “You’re jealous of the attention.”
It wasn’t a question.
Leah didn’t deny it. She lifted her chin. “She doesn’t deserve it.”
“Then show her what deserves it,” Mark said, his voice dropping. “Show us.”
He didn’t have to tell her twice. The permission, the challenge, was all she needed. She strode forward, her soreness forgotten in a surge of adrenaline. She didn’t go to the couch. She went to Mark, stopping right in front of him, so close she could smell the leather of the belt, the faint sweat on his skin.
She turned her back to him, presenting her own marked, aching ass. Then she arched her spine, pushing her hips back, offering herself. She looked over her shoulder, her dark eyes blazing. “Don’t go soft on my account.”
Mark’s smile was a razor. He swapped his grip on the belt. “Since you’re offering so nicely.”
He swung for her. The impact was a white-hot brand across her existing bruises. The pain was astronomical, a supernova that wiped her mind clean. She didn’t scream. She grunted, a deep, guttural sound from her core, and shoved her ass back harder against the line of fire.
“Fuck yes,” she panted.
To the side, Lori watched through a blur of tears, her own pain momentarily forgotten in sheer shock.
Mark alternated. One for Lori, who sobbed out a ragged count. One for Leah, who took each blow with a sharp, delighted cry, her hands braced on her knees, her back a dramatic bow. The sounds filled the room—the crack of leather on skin, the sharp cries, the choked counts, Leah’s filthy encouragements.
“Another! Right there, you fucker! Yes!”
Her world narrowed to the searing punctuation of the belt. Each stroke was a claim, a confirmation, a fucking sacrament. The pain burned away everything else—the jealousy, the doubt, the messy humanity. It left only this pure, brutal exchange.
After the sixth stroke, Mark stopped. Both girls were gasping, their skin a fiery canvas of stripes. Lori was limp over the couch arm, crying quietly. Leah was still arched, trembling with adrenaline, her body screaming in glorious protest.
Mark dropped the belt. It landed on the rug with a heavy thud.
“On your knees,” he said, his voice rough. “Both of you. In front of Luke.”
They obeyed, scrambling to kneel on the soft rug, facing Luke who hadn’t moved from his spot against the wall. His gaze was heavy, approving.
Mark unbuckled his jeans. He wasn’t fully hard, but he was getting there. He fisted himself, stroking to full erection under their watchful eyes. “You want to prove who’s more devoted?” he said, his cock thickening in his hand. “Prove it. Together. Like before. But this time, make him come.”
He stepped aside, and Luke took his place. Luke didn’t touch himself. He simply looked down at them, his expression hungry and dark. The implicit command was clear.
Leah moved first. She crawled forward, closing the distance, and without preamble took the head of his cock into her mouth. She swirled her tongue around the broad tip, tasting salt and skin. She was claiming him, marking him with her mouth as surely as he’d marked her skin.
Lori, after a heart-beat’s hesitation, joined her. She was clumsier, less sure, but she mimicked Leah’s movements, licking along the shaft, nuzzling his balls.
“Use your hands,” Leah muttered around a mouthful of him, her words slurred. “Get him wet.”
Lori obeyed, spitting into her palm and slicking his length, her small hand working in tandem with Leah’s mouth.
Leah took him deeper, her throat relaxing, accepting. She looked up at Luke through her lashes. His jaw was tight, his hands clenched at his sides. She pulled off with a wet pop. “Tell her what to do,” she rasped, delegating her own authority. “Make her useful.”
Luke’s hand tangled in Lori’s blonde hair. “Suck my balls,” he growled, guiding her head down. “Deep.”
Lori went, her mouth opening, taking one then the other into the wet heat of her mouth, her tongue working frantically.
Leah went back to his cock, bobbing her head with a practiced, relentless rhythm. She used her hand at the base, twisting on the upstroke, her other hand cupping and rolling his balls alongside Lori’s mouth. It was a chaotic, fervent symphony of sucking, licking, and stroking. Spit dripped, messy and unheeded. Leah moaned around him, the vibrations drawing a sharp hiss from Luke.
“Gonna come,” he warned, his hips giving a shallow thrust.
Leah took him to the root, her nose pressed into his pubic hair, and held still. Lori, sensing the moment, redoubled her efforts, sucking hard.
Luke’s release was a guttural roar. The first hot pulse hit the back of Leah’s throat. She swallowed convulsively, milking him with her throat muscles. He pulled out slightly, and the next bursts shot across Lori’s cheek and chin. She gasped, her mouth still full of him, and some of it leaked from her lips as she tried to catch it.
They stayed there, kneeling at his feet, as he softened. Leah finally pulled back, licking her lips clean, a feral satisfaction settling in her bones. Lori wiped her face with a trembling hand, her expression dazed, overwhelmed.
Luke tucked himself away, his breathing slowing. He looked from one kneeling girl to the other, their faces glistening, their bodies decorated with matching violence.
“Clean up,” he said, his voice back to its normal gravel. “Then get dressed. We’re going out.”
He walked away, leaving them on the floor.
Mark followed, pausing only to run a hand over Leah’s hair, a possessive, almost affectionate gesture. “You’re a fucking menace,” he said, but there was a thread of awe in it.
Then they were alone.
The silence was different now. The competitive fire had burned down to embers. Leah looked at Lori, really looked at her. The girl was a wreck—mascara tracks, come-streaked face, a body painted with pain. But she was still there. Still kneeling.
Leah spat onto the rug, a final, visceral act. “Bathroom’s down the hall,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Don’t use my towel.”
She pushed herself to her feet, every muscle protesting, and walked stiffly toward her room. She didn’t look back. The framed photos on the wall—the seven boys and her, younger, laughing in a sun-drenched field—seemed to watch her pass, their frozen grins holding a secret she was only just beginning to understand the weight of.