I haven’t done one of Chuck Wendig’s flash fiction challenges in a while, so I thought I’d do one again and share the results.  But I think I got more than I bargained for.  This week’s challenge was another subgenre mashup (last time gave us Dreams of Drowning); this time I rolled “Grimdark Fantasy” crossed with “BDSM Erotica.”

I hadn’t expected that.

But I think I’ve succeeded at delivering on those things, maybe?  It certainly is BDSM erotica, and I think the trappings are sufficiently grimdark fantasy-esque to qualify.  You’ve been warned.

***

The houses, if you could call them that, piled on top of each other up the hillside, built with no regard for regularity or order.  Doors here, windows there, stairs creeping up the side of one building to reach a little house perched on top.  Elvira stood on the edge of the chaotically sprawling tenements, and eyed them with disgust.  She could feel the people within watching her, she could feel where they crouched hidden and frightened.  They were right to be frightened.

“Come.”  She twitched the leash in her hand.  Obedient, her slave followed.

“Mistress.”  The captain of her personal guard saluted as she approached.  “Our spotters placed the escapees here, in this section,” he waved a thin baton towards the closest collection of buildings, the lowest reaches of the tenement.  He scowled, “But we lost track of them shortly before you arrived.  They should still be nearby, but we can’t keep eyes on them from here without advancing further into the warren and risking your troops.”  He bowed his head.  “My apologies Mistress.”

Elvira laid her hand on top of his helmet, resting it there for a moment so that he could feel its weight.  He tensed slightly, and she smiled.  “You have done well enough, captain.  I’m glad that you did not lead soldiers into that rat’s nest without support.  They would only be lost and killed.”

She lifted her hand, then raised his chin with her forefinger.  “But now I am here.  Advance into position for an assault.  They will be ready to push forward as I strike.”

Her captain straightened and saluted again.  “Yes Mistress, they will.”  He turned and barked orders, hastily obeyed by the guards around her.

As her soldiers clattered into position, Elvira looked up into the tenements.  Her hand idly stroked the long hair of her slave.  He was a good one.  He would do well today, she was certain.  She let her eyes unfocus, feeling more than looking.  Though the outer walls of the tenement seemed impassive and abandoned, she could feel the strain building within.  It lingered like the hot tension of expecting touch, the feeling of a hand hovering, a slap about to land.  If the people within knew their place, they’d come out none the worse for wear.  If they tried to stop her soldiers from recapturing her escapees… they’d learn to regret it.

Her fingers twined through her slaves hair, tugging back harshly.  Her slave grunted and bent backwards, his lips parting for a moment.  “Do you know what we’re about to do, slave?”  Elvira whispered in his ear.

He nodded as best he could.  Elvira smiled.  He’d remembered not to speak.

“Good.”  She placed her toes in the back of his knee and pushed forward, driving him down to one knee.  He gasped, straining and off balance.  She hadn’t let go of his hair.

Elvira slowly wound the leash around her left hand, her right moving from his hair to his throat.  She could feel the muscles of his neck straining, feel his pulse.  His apple bobbed as he swallowed.  She squeezed gently, feeling his apple fight against the pressure.  The hard ridges of that structure had always fascinated her.  Mouth beside his ear, she whispered again, “You’re going to help me now.  You’re going to give me everything I need to recapture those escapees.  Isn’t that right?  You may speak.”

Her slave gasped around her grip on his throat.  “Yes, Mistress.”

Elvira straightened up again, finding the captain of her guard and holding him with her eyes.  “Captain,” she called, “begin your advance.”

Certain she’d be obeyed, Elvira turned back to her slave.  He looked at her warily from the corners of his eyes.

“You look afraid slave.  Why?”  Her right hand slid down his chest, left pulling him back against her by the leash.  She let her finger slowly circle his nipple, teasing it.  He bit his lip.  She smiled.  He still hadn’t spoken.

She flicked his nipple hard, and he flinched.  She could feel the power building, a tiny trickle flowing from his surprise, a thready pulse of power rising from the brief instant of pain.  “I think we need a little more from you today.”  He whimpered.

Elvira ran her fingers along his flank, feeling the soft skin over his ribs.  She turned her thumb, letting the edge of her thumbnail rake him.  She pressed into his side, smiling as she saw the skin tear beneath her nail.  Her slave quivered.

She let herself become a conduit, the power of her slave’s pain seeping from her out over the jumble of houses before her.  Where the power found shaking and waiting people, it seeped into them, filling them with pain as well.

Her slave bit his lip to keep from making noise.

Elvira stepped back for a moment, letting out the leash and standing behind her slave so that he couldn’t see her.  When she struck, her slap sent him sprawling to the ground.  A large red handprint rose quickly on his back.  She knelt down, one hand going to his untouched side, the other resting on his buttock, slowly sliding between his legs.

“There there,” she murmured, watching as he turned his face to meet her eyes, lying in the dust.  She could feel him stiffening in her hand while she gently stroked his side.  He inched his butt upwards to give her easier access.  “My, you’re eager today, aren’t you?”  She smiled as he nodded silently.  Her hand slowly worked his shaft, while her other deftly alternated between flickering, lingering touches and harder pinches or scratches.  He shivered.  His pain and pleasure flowed into Elvira slowly, like honey, and tasted just as sweet.

She tugged him backwards, pulling his cock down so that it ran hard and straight down between his legs, pressing into the ground.  She let her finger run down his length, lightly teasing across his balls, then slapped his ass hard enough to leave marks.  He squirmed.

“Ah ah,” Elvira wagged her finger in front of his face.  “Further movement will result in punishment.”  And then she let her fingers skate across his skin, a light feathery touch sure to tickle him.  He held still for as long as he could, barely quivering, but he jumped as she touched her knuckle to his anus.

“Tsk.”  Elvira stood, uncoiling the end of the leash.  “Touch yourself,” she commanded, and he eagerly began to run his fingers along his cock, where it lay hard between his legs.  She began whirling the end of the leash in one hand, spinning it until she could hear it sizzling through the air.  The look of fear and pleasure on her slave’s face was perfect.

Crack!  The leash came down across his buttocks, leaving a quickly rising welt where it had touched.  Her slave jumped and shuddered.  Elvira felt the power flood into her, now a surge instead of a slow oozing push, and she immediately let it loose into the tenements.  Screams reached her ears from inside the tangled mess of buildings.  She could hear the shouts and cries of her guards as they surged from room to room.  Crack!  She brought the leash down again, the power flooding her, and through her to the houses nearby.  The screams now were reaching a crescendo.  It was the appropriate mixture of pleasure and pain, she thought, that really did the trick.  Crack!

Her slave shuddered.  The last blow had drawn blood across the thin skin of his back.  She spat in her hand and knelt down, kissing his shoulder while she took over between his legs.  He made little mewling noises as her mouth sucked on the back of his neck and her fingers ran around the head of his cock.  Then, squeezing him, she bit.  He gasped, and she pumped him furiously as she felt her slave fight not to tense the muscle beneath her teeth.  She shifted her mouth, letting her teeth run along the bone just below the surface of his skin, and he let out a little moan.  He shook as he came, and she raked his ribs savagely with her knuckles, then scratched at his welts with her fingernails.  His lingering ecstasy melded beautifully with the pain.  She ground her thumbnail into his still engorged penis for good measure, and he squealed.

She could feel the power thrumming inside her, almost too much.  Controlling it, keeping it in line, felt like fighting her rising gorge.  She let it loose, pouring over the tenements, seeking out those who would stand in the way of her men.  She was rewarded with a new chorus of screams.  She could feel their presences quaking and cowering, many falling still.  And then, a trumpet call.  Her captain had found their escapees.  She smiled.

Her sticky finger brushed the cheek of her exhausted slave.  “Well done today, my dear.  We’ll have your friends back to see you in no time.”