Page 42 of Bottoms Up (Mythic Beast #4)

Silver

From my angle on the table, I could barely see Atlas’s face — one cheek pressed against the floor, the parts I could see wet with sweat or tears. Maybe both. Eyes open but glassy, half-focused on something only he could see.

Julian fed him more pain in silence.

Three quarts of glycerin and soap. Cooler than the last. Faster flowing going in.

Atlas trembled, every muscle stretched to the edge and held there. His shoulders strained against the reverse-prayer position. His thighs quivered, forced wide by the bar.

But his face — God .

I’d never seen that much expression from him. He’s always so fucking stoic.

His mouth was parted like he couldn’t catch a full breath. His jaw didn’t grind anymore — the pain had outpaced that. He just… endured .

Julian was crouched beside him, one hand slowly crushing Atlas’s balls while the liquid carved its way deeper into his gut.

“Does it help?” Julian asked, his voice soft. “Does having your balls squeezed take the edge off the cramps?”

Atlas’s eyes flinched toward him, just barely. He gave a tiny head shake. As much as the position allowed.

“Words, Muscles. Answer the question.”

“No, Sir.” His voice was hoarse. “The cramps hurt the same. It’s just overall worse with the added pain, Sir.”

My cock jerked. Everything in him was straining.

I didn’t want to be hard while this was happening, while my guts were full and churning, but the indignity, and all the anal pressure with the damned balloons on either side of my rectum — my body has a mind of its own.

The cramps churning in my gut were brutal.

Sharp, twisting things that rolled through me like broken glass, made me clench on the nozzle.

Total reflex, but it sent another spike of arousal through me, pressure blooming under the cage on my cock.

This one had steel bars around it like a demented jail cell, constricting it in places, letting flesh balloon out between the bars when arousal filled it, when I could no longer remain soft.

Julian had walked me to the toilet earlier. Stroked my hair while I expelled, murmuring comfort while I moaned through the shame of it.

I’d thought that was the worst of it.

I was wrong.

That had been kind . This wasn’t.

Because now I had a quart of body-warm, soap-heavy water draining into me, and he’d bound me to the table. Oh, sure, I could move around a little to try to ease the cramps, but fuck , it wasn’t helping.

Worse, he’d squeezed a few pumps of glycerin in first, just for fun, and now my gut was a live wire, the cramps like rabid weed eaters tearing through me, the violent urge to go so much worse.

I was curled on my side again, arms and ankles bound, wrists strapped to the edge of the bondage table.

The solution was going in too fast. Too much. I desperately wanted to beg him to let me release, or to slow the last of the water, but the damned chopsticks on my tongue meant I was reduced to animal noises.

The cramps weren’t waves. They were knives. Moving. Twisting. Overlapping. They weren’t just bad — they were indescribable . Blades. Hooks. Pressure that bent the edges of sanity.

I whimpered. Dug my top teeth into my arm a little to center me. Rocked gently against the restraints like movement might help.

Julian had left me like this while he went back to Atlas. Just like that. As if my body wasn’t screaming for mercy.

And yet… I couldn’t look away from Atlas.

He didn’t cry out. Not once. But his toes curled against the floor, and his cock jerked in the cage, trapped and swollen. Every few seconds his whole frame would stutter and spasm, like he was caught mid-seizure — a silent jolt like something inside him was shorting out.

God, he was beautiful.

Wrecked and restrained and obedient. Controlled. Everything Julian wanted.

Everything I wanted, too, apparently, judging by the slickness on my thighs and the ache, the insistent throbbing of my caged cock.

A long, broken whine escaped my throat, and Julian glanced over his shoulder at me.

“Time hasn’t even started for you yet,” he said calmly. “Pace yourself, my love.”

I whimpered. Dug my top teeth into my arm again to keep from screaming and begging.

He focused on Atlas again. Left me to the pain he’d inundated me with.

I closed my eyes, thought I heard footsteps, only to open them and see him still with Atlas. Still looking the other way while I burned.

Eventually, when he’d wrung every last tremor from Atlas and left him gasping, wrecked, Julian returned to me.

He brushed sweat-damp hair from my temple. Kissed it. “You held thirty minutes after it was in.” Another caress to my forehead. “Good piccolina.”

He unstrapped me, walked me to the toilet, finally released the damned balloons. Sat beside me while I emptied. Watched me, as always. His toy. His property. Those eyes miss nothing .

When I thought I was empty, he pointed me to the corner with the treadmill. My second-favorite pair of running shoes beside it.

It took four tries to make it a full mile.

The first time, I made it a tenth of a mile before I had to sprint back to the toilet, humiliation painting my face red as I nearly didn’t make it.

The second, a quarter mile.

The third, just over half.

The fourth, one mile, legs shaking, ass on fire.

Julian kissed my forehead.

“Good girl.”

I cried. Quiet, shoulder-shaking sobs from somewhere deep.

He held me through it, then walked me to the shower. Held me steady while he washed my tender places, washed everything else.

Then he dried me with slow, deliberate hands, helped me back to the bondage table, and strapped me back on.

Lube. Bardex poked back in as if my hole wasn’t raw. Balloons inflated. Clamp clicked open.

And my bowels twisted inside me again.

This time would be two and a half quarts.

No longer body temperature. Cool, not cold, but the temperature hit harder than it should’ve.

The cramps twisted worse right off the bat, and with the glycerin prep before the water went in, my insides felt like knives rotating in my gut.

And the soap this time. Fuck . It felt like I was being filled with acid.

Julian didn’t speak.

He knelt behind me, stroked my pussy, teased my cock through the bars of the cage, fingered me slow and deep until I was gasping, shaking with need, right on the edge…

And stopped.

Double-checked my wrists and ankles to make sure they were securely bound to the table.

And walked away. Left me writhing.

And went back to Atlas.

* * * *

Julian

Atlas sagged as much as the restraints allowed, panting hard, sweat running in rivulets down his spine.

I released the air in both balloons.

The release came fast — too fast to be clean, too violent to be quiet. But there was no shame in it. No smell, no mess. The magic of shapeshifting.

I wiped him down without comment. Efficient. Unemotional.

The final bucket was already full of plain water. Cool, edging towards cold.

Four quarts. Thick. Heavy.

“Let’s go over what we’re putting in this cocktail,” I said.

Silver moaned behind me. She was curled on the table again, arms and ankles bound, a glossy pool where her cock leaked onto the padded vinyl through the bars of the cage.

I turned back to the job at hand.

“Fresh grated ginger. Dried cayenne pepper — powdered, for even distribution. And cinnamon oil, for a slightly different kind of heat.” I stirred it well, the scent biting my nose, my sinuses, my eyes. I tapped the stainless spoon against the rim of the stainless bucket.

Atlas whimpered.

I smiled.

“No soap or glycerin in this one,” I said. “But since we didn’t rinse you between rounds, there’s still plenty in you, lining your bowels. More than enough to add to your fun.”

I lifted the bucket to the hook and uncoiled the tubing slowly, deliberately, letting the scent waft into the air.

His hole was already red and twitching. Trying to spasm around the nozzle that wasn’t even in yet.

Time to rectify that. Heh .

When it was in and the balloons inflated once again, I gave his balls a slow, deliberate squeeze.

He flinched and jerked. Breathed through it without making a single vocalization. Perfect .

I opened the clamp.

The rush of fluid streamed into him. Hit hard.

Atlas screamed.

Loud. Raw. No restraint, no discipline. No decorum left.

“ FUCK! ”

Not acceptable from our big, strapping pain-toy.

I paused the flow, a valve to turn the pain down fast, and crouched beside him. Let the silence settle.

“Were you asked a question?”

He shook his head — eyes wild, body trembling violently, breath hitching through clenched teeth.

“Were you asked a question?”

He shook his head. Eyes wild. Sweat poured down his face. He couldn’t breathe properly.

“I’m sorry, Sir… I…”

I slapped his cheek. Not hard. Just enough to get his attention.

“That’s ten minutes off your time at the end. Ten minutes of suffering you’ll be denied.” I let that sink in. “No speaking unless asked a direct question.”

He nodded. Frantic with pain. His entire body shaking.

But still obedient.

I stood. Turned the flow back on, retrieved the cane from the wall, and stepped behind him. Waited for the worst of his screams to fade from the second rush of water.

The backs of his legs were bare. Beautiful. Vulnerable .

The first stripe landed just beneath his ass, across both thighs. A brutal kiss of the cane.

He flinched hard, but didn’t scream again. Yet .

Another. And another.

By the seventeenth, he was sobbing. By the twenty-fifth, his body shook so hard I paused to recheck the restraints.

Still in place. Still fine. All secure.

I wrapped a rubber ball stretcher around the base of his balls. Clipped on the weight — three pounds, enough to stretch him mercilessly, to drag everything down while his guts were forced to hold the heat inside.

The fluid level in the bucket was halfway down and steadily dropping.

I slowed the clamp.

Gave him another dozen slices of the cane.

He was still trembling. Still trying not to scream.

I crouched beside him again.

His skin was flushed. Drenched in sweat. His ass twitched with strain. His balls hung low under the weight.

I reached under and tapped his cock cage — a cruel little flick.

His head jerked. He gasped.

“You’re quiet now, pain-toy.”

He nodded, and I said, “Good boy. Now pretend it was a question.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Why?”

“Because… it hurts , Sir.”

“Try again.”

His breath came faster. “Because it hurts too much to scream, Sir.”

I smiled.

“Good.”

Time to pay attention to my darling Silver.

Her eyes were closed when I walked to her, a string of whimpers coming from her. Curled in a ball, mouth frozen open, face twisted in mute anguish, arms bound out to one side. Her skin was flushed and slick with sweat, her cock leaking, her hole visibly pulsing around the nozzle.

“Breathe for me,” I said softly, leaning over her.

I can’t, she telepathed.

“You can. In through your nose.”

I stroked her belly with one hand, letting her feel the water shift inside her. Her hips bucked. Her body jolted.

I cupped her flushed cheek, brushing damp curls back from her temple. She was trembling. Her cock twitching against her belly, breath ragged and shallow.

Her eyes filled with tears. She arched toward me, desperate for touch, but her hands were bound away from me.

“I know it hurts. I meant it to.” I kissed the corner of her mouth. “But you’re mine, and I take care of what’s mine.”

I stroked her cock through the bars. Soft. Teasing. She gasped — the cramps surging at the attention, the pressure inside her growing unbearable.

“Breathe through it,” I said. “Use your pain.” Another stroke. “What does the pain mean?”

She blew out a breath, breathed in, and telepathed, Affection, but please, Sir. Please have mercy .

I pressed a kiss to her thigh. Stood.

“You’re not even halfway,” I said, voice cold again. “If you think this is hard, wait another twenty minutes.”

She cried out. A long, keening moan.

I kissed her temple. Let my hand slide between her legs. Didn’t stroke. Just rested it there, my cool hand on top of all that heat. Let her feel me. Let her feel owned.

Then I stood. Returned to Atlas. How did I get so lucky? Two people to torture at once?

I wiped the sweat from Atlas’s forehead, and decided to leave the speed of the water where it was. His cries had quieted into near-silent sobs, chest stuttering with every breath, the weight on his balls dragging harder with each movement.

He was good. I turned back to Silver.