Venus in Furs.

Warning:Will contain descriptions of S&M play and Bondage/Restraint, including flogging, piercing play and wax play.

"Mick." Josef's tone was casual breeze, as he saw Mick walk through the door "So glad you could make it."

Mick surveyed the scene in front of him, eyes wide, like a deer caught in the headlights of a car.

At one end of the room stood a band playing the strangest music Mick had heard. Dressed in leather with black and white art house movies projected onto them as if they were the screen, the sound they made with their instruments was droning and relentless; the Violin player pulling the bow across the strings as if in a trance, punctuating the rhythmic beat of the music every now and then with stabs of high pitched out of tune noises.

In the middle of the room a young male, muscles glowing in the light of several candles placed in a circle around him, hung naked and suspended by his wrists from the ceiling. An older male stood beside him, the braided leather handle of a flogger held in one hand. Leather tails lashed across exposed flesh in time to the beat of the music as the voice of the singer called to them.

Severin, Severin, speak so slightly
Severin, down on your bended knee
Taste the whip, in love not given lightly
Taste the whip, now plead for me

And then there was Josef himself. He stood in front of Mick, smiling and looking resplendent, in black leather pants and a floor length black leather waistcoat. A Venetian cat's eye mask of red velvet and feathers adorned his face.

"Josef." Mick hissed in exasperation. "You didn't tell me it was going to be this sort of a party."

"Would you have come if I had?" Josef removed the mask and walked over to him, the leather of his waistcoat swishing along the floor.

"You know I wouldn't have." Mick's eyes darted nervously from Josef's face to the scene being played out in front of him "This is just…a little too weird for me."

"Well, you're here now aren't you, Mick?" Josef replied matter of fact, and placed a hand on Mick's shoulder "Why don't you just come in and relax, no one's going to hurt you." Josef formed another quick arch with an eyebrow and grinned. "Unless you want them to of course".

"No, I...um...look, Josef, I...ah...I'm just going to leave now, ok?"

"Suit yourself." Josef replied with a dismissive shrug "Pity though, the party's just getting started."

"Yeah I can see that." Mick averted his eyes and stared at the ground for a moment. "I'll come back later, alright."

"Yes, you will."

A wicked glint formed in Josef's eyes. He hadn't failed to notice the way Mick's eyes had been drawn to the look on the younger male's face, as the tails of the flogger had snaked across his skin.

"Ok then, we'll be wrapped up here in a few hours time." Josef responded out loud, and then placed his lips to Mick's ear and whispered his allure. "Come back and see me then."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mick returned three hours later. He hovered just inside the doorway and stared apprehensively at the ground, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, as he waited for Josef to farewell the last of the party stragglers.

"Hello again, Mick" Josef closed the door behind the last guest to leave, and then turned to face Mick.

"I... I...ah...I thought I might...I thought I'd better come back and help you tidy up a bit." Mick tripped and stumbled over his words.

"Are you sure that's all you came back for?" Josef's voice fell seductive as he picked up one of the cat 'o' nine tails that had been left lying on the coffee table and walked over to Mick, running the handle of softly along Mick's cheek and down his neck.

"No." Mick whispered, his voice cracking with nervous anticipation.

"No. I didn't think so." There was an edge of laughter in Josef's reply. "I saw the way you were looking at that guy's face, Mick. Piqued your curiosity didn't it? You, want to know what it feels like."

Mick hesitated for a moment, eyes averted and hands fidgeting nervously, before he gave a single, affirmative nod.

"Come with me."

Josef took Mick by the hand and gently pulled him down the hallway, leading Mick towards the stairs that lead to a basement playroom he'd had installed when he first moved into the property.

"Wait." Halfway down, Mick snatched his hand out of Josef's grasp. "What exactly are you going to do?"

The uncertainty on Mick's face was apparent and Josef quickly moved to reassure him.

"Nothing you don't want me to do, Mick." Josef's voice was even, the words spoken matter of fact. "But I can take you higher than you've ever been."

A tremor of anticipatory arousal ran along Mick's spine. Josef reached for Mick's hand once more, leading him the rest of the way down the stairs.

In the middle of the darkened, windowless room stood a stone bench altar, four point velvet restraints at either corner. Josef lifted Mick up onto the bench and slowly began to undo the buttons on his shirt, feeling Mick shiver under his touch as he did so.

"Josef? Mick's voice quavered, eyes averted, and nerves apparent. "Are you going to have sex with me?"

"Do you want me to have sex with you, Mick?" Josef's fingers continued to move deftly along the line of buttons on Mick's shirt.

"I don't know." Mick drew a hesitant breath. "Maybe?"

"Well we don't have to." Josef slipped Mick's shirt off of his shoulders and pulled the sleeves down Mick's arms, and then discarded the piece of material to one side, "But I have to say, sex in subspace is one experience you never forget."

"Subspace?" Mick tilted his head and scrunched his brow, his curiosity piqued further.

"You'll find out. Lie down." Josef's hands gripped Mick's shoulders, and then gently laid him out on the cold stone surface of the bench.

"Ok." Mick's voice was barely above a whisper, throat bobbing nervously.

"Ok to what? Lying down or having sex?"

"Both."

Mick's reply was another hushed tone whisper, and Josef quickly stripped him of the remainder of his clothing, and then stretched Mick's arms above his head and tied velvet restraints around wrists and ankles.

"Trust me." Josef pressed his lips to Mick's ear and whispered a low instruction. "And remember to breathe."

Josef removed a length of red silk from a small box on the floor next to the altar. He covered Mick's eyes and tied the ends of the scarf around the back of Mick's head, blindfolding him with the delicate material.

Mick listened to the hiss and spark of flame as Josef lit one of the large white pillar candles that stood on the small table next to the altar. Shivers of anticipation ran through Mick's body as Josef took the soft leather flogger in his hand and ran the ends of it lightly across his chest and stomach; swishing it over Mick's body, teasing him.

And then Josef raised the flogger above his head and whipped the ends of it across Mick's chest.

Mick gasped and sucked in a sharp breath as he felt the first stinging blow, and then the initial pain softened to a warm tingling glow on his skin.

He heard the soft click of a tape recorder's play button being pressed then. The strange droning sound of the song he had heard the band playing before filled the room. Josef had always thought the song had a nice rhythm to it, the perfect rhythm to whip someone to. He'd had the band record a special extended version for him, and always felt inclined to play it during a scene.

Just as Mick's body had recovered from the first bite of the whip, Josef lashed the flogger against the skin of his stomach, the sharp sting of leather against flesh causing the muscles there to tense and ripple. Josef paused for a moment and caressed the ends of the flogger softly along Mick's torso, before raising the implant above his head and lashing it across Mick's flesh once again.

Mick's skin tingled and glowed where the leather had bitten into it, his nerves beginning to fire with sensations of pain and pleasure. Josef alternated light caresses with sharp stinging blows, building up gradually to the point where he was lashing the flogger repeatedly over Mick's chest and abdomen.

Judging by the way Mick shivered and gasped as the leather lashed across his exposed skin, Josef knew Mick's body had begun to fall into a rhythm with the blows he was landing over his flesh, the release of endorphins into Mick's blood stream turning the stinging pain into a heated glow of pleasure. Josef continued the steady beat of the whip with one hand and reached for the candle behind him with the other.

Holding the candle just above Mick's body, Josef slowly dripped the melted hot wax along Mick's chest and stomach, stopping every now and then to kiss and caress the areas of Mick's flesh where the wax had fallen, using his lips and tongue to create alternate sensations of cooling wetness.

Mick's jaw fell slack, breath coming in short ragged gasps, muscles tense and straining with heightened sensation as nerves were stretched taught and exquisite.

"Breathe." Josef bent his lips to Mick's ear and whispered another low instruction, his fingers brushing sweat dampened strands of hair from Mick's forehead.

Josef continued landing alternate blows of the lash, with drips of molten wax over Mick's skin. A rushed haze of Endorphins flooded Mick's body, electric sensations passing through each and every nerve.

After a few more minutes spent carefully noting Mick's reactions, Josef stopped what he was doing and placed the candle back on the table behind him; unrolling the small velvet package that laid there at the same time and drawing out one of the long, sharp needles contained inside.

"Breathe in and then breathe out." Josef spoke a heated command, as he pinched a small area of Mick's skin between thumb and forefinger and then pierced the needle through Mick's flesh.

Mick drew in a sharp breath as he felt the needle slide in, his body rushing with an adrenalin flood of sensation as another massive release of Endorphins flowed through his veins. Josef took the second needle and pierced Mick's flesh just below the first, the small wound healing immediately around it, and then repeated the same action with the third and fourth.

By the time Josef had pierced Mick's flesh with the fifth needle Mick could no longer tell pleasure from pain, taste from smell, and sight from sound. All his senses blurred into one long and continuous rush of euphoria as Mick's mind and body lifted upwards and he began to fly.

"Welcome to Subspace." Josef whispered, and then quickly released Mick's wrists and ankles from the restraints.

He lifted Mick off the altar and laid him down on the floor below. Pushing Mick's legs back against his chest with one hand, Josef reached for a small tube of lubricant kept under the stone altar bench with the other, and slicked his cock with a quick application of the viscous liquid. Pressing himself against Mick's entrance, Josef penetrated Mick's passage with one sharp, swift thrust.

Mick's body arched at the sensation, his mouth hung open in a wordless cry of pleasure. Josef was right; sex in subspace was an experience he was never going to forget. It was like they were floating together in space, flying through a black void of sheer euphoria; every nerve and cell in his body tingling and alive with the desire and bliss of pure unadulterated gratification as Josef began to fuck him with slow measured strokes.

Josef gradually increased the pace of his thrusts, until he was withdrawing and slamming back up into Mick's arse as hard and fast as he sensed Mick's body would allow. He could feel Mick trembling violently beneath him, rapidly approaching the point of no return, Mick's body held taught by an invisible string stretched high above him.

And then the string broke and Mick was falling headlong into the abyss, crying out his release and sinking his fangs into the flesh of Josef's wrist offered to him.

If the experience of sex in subspace was something Mick was never going to forget, the experience of orgasm in subspace was something he was never going to be able to express. The entire world fell away at that moment, leaving him soaring through a grey void where nothing existed but pleasure, and joy, and sensations of bliss beyond anything he had ever experienced.

Mick barely felt the sharp sting of Josef's own fangs as Josef thrust into him a few more times and then fell into the rhythm of his own climax, fangs biting deep into the flesh of Mick's neck. Through the haze of his own pleasure, Josef lifted Mick up to him, holding him close and feeling Mick's body convulsing against his as Mick's orgasm continued to rip through him.

When he was sure Mick was spent, Josef laid him down gently and carefully withdrew himself from Mick's body. Rolling over to lie next to him, one hand softly caressing the planes of Mick's face, Josef waited for Mick to come back down to earth.

"What the fuck just happened?" Josef heard Mick's gasp of surprise a few moments later as Mick's mind and body rejoined. Mick removed the blindfold from around his eyes and stared at Josef, uncomprehending, trying to process what he had just experienced.

Josef snorted a soft laugh in response, and then turned Mick's face towards his and kissed him gently on the lips.

"Didn't I tell you I was going to take you higher than you've ever been?"