It's never a good idea to laugh at your dominant. Laughter is often described as lacerating, because it can make the person being laughed at feel like they’ve been cut deep inside. And everyone knows what it feels like to be cut.
When she produces the box, he's on the bed, naked, curled up on his side in his happy place. Polished wood, stained blood red, it's about the size of a hardcover textbook. She opens it and withdraws the knife from inside. That's when he starts to laugh.
The knife is, in a word, ridiculous. Silver, brushed metal, black leather. The blade curves backward and juts with strange serrations and facets. A smaller blade comes out of the pommel. The hilt guard, like the rest of the dagger, is big and ostentatious, looking like a pair of cobra fangs inlayed with ruby red stones. He assumes they're fake; who would waste a real gemstone on such a garish, tacky novelty?
Like I said, he starts to laugh with the effervescent mirth of an unexpected joke.
She scowls.
"I'm sorry, Mistress. That looks like a prop for a Klingon."
Then she laughs. And while it seems like a perfectly happy laugh, something about it makes his hair stand on end.
His laughter trails off as he waits for hers to subside.
"I'm sorry, Mistress, I know I shouldn't laugh. I just thought that I was the nerd here. I half expect you to pull out a deck of Magic cards, now."
He's actually in full retreat, he knows she isn't pleased. She deploys one of the smiles he sees her flash at office parties. It’s reserved for people she wants to fire.
He sits up, trying to minimize his mistake by smiling and presenting himself to her. Maybe it works.
"I'm sorry, Mistress. Knife play always seems silly to me."
“Have you ever done it?”
“No, not really,” he replies, feeling somehow that this admission makes his stance more precarious.
"Why is it silly, then?"
"Because I know you're not going to cut me, so then it's all just playing dress up. It's like threatening me with a toy laser gun."
"You think I’m not going to cut you?"
"I trust you, Mistress. I mean—"
As he is saying this, she slowly extends the knife towards his heart. As the point of the blade touches his chest, his voice fails and his body seizes up. His whole torso is instantly rigid, his limbic brain driven by fears far older than his ability to reason them away. Fears older than self-awareness or sentience or even consciousness. Reptile fears. Tetrapod fears. Fish fears of sharp teeth in the inky blackness. A billion years of evolution is coiled around the top of his spine; it grabs hold of him and begins to squeeze.
He gasps. He can’t breathe.
It isn’t really painful. She holds it against him without pressing, he can just barely feel the point. It almost tickles. It’s like a low wattage, slow motion spark. He knows that it’s sharp more than he feels that it’s sharp. But, he feels it, and it short circuits everything else in his head.
She takes the knife away, and he sucks air, finally able to catch his breath.
“Not so funny now, is it?”
“No, Mistress.” He is astonished at how completely his body responded to that which his brain found so silly. He’s consumed with a sense that she has found a new piece of himself he had never known about, like she has pointed out that he’s had a third arm all this life. “I never thought that it cou—“
She touches the knife to his chest again, and again he is paralyzed. Frozen into utter stillness, petrified in the gaze of Medusa, unable to even shiver in the cold shadow of death.
And then she leans forward, and he can’t move at all. Her lips find his. He feels their supple softness, their heat. He feels her tongue stab into his mouth. He closes his eyes, flooded with pleasure, balanced on the point of a knife.
When they part, and she takes the knife away, he can already feel himself getting hard.
She takes a few moments to position him on top of her, sitting between her legs. They recline against the pillows and headboard, his back against her breasts. Her nipples poking his back feel stiff enough to leave a mark. He is silent, but focused and eager. His limbs try to anticipate what she will want. His eyes are alert but distant, watching something in the air around them, trying to make it coalesce. The eyes of a chef making his own bride's wedding feast. His will is falling out of those eyes.
She has found a new lever in him. He desperately wants her to pull it again.
Her arms wrap around him with the knife.
She gently drags the blade across his skin. He twitches with each contact. He shudders.
She has shed her clothes, and he can feel the protrusion of her mons on his buttocks as he tenses up.
She alternates touching him with the knife and gently stroking his most tender places with her hand. His world breaks down into two states: one of paralyzing intensity and cold steel, the other of stunned euphoria as the rest of his senses come flooding back to him. Fear followed by pleasure followed by fear followed by pleasure. The sun and moon rising and setting over and over before his eyes, spinning so fast that he gets dizzy.
She whispers, “Have you ever thought about the phrase, under the knife?”
His quick gasp as the blade glances over his nipple takes the place of an answer.
“It means a close inspection, it means surgery, it means cutting you open to look inside. It means violence was done to you to leave you vulnerable.”
Again, his tremulous breathing is his only reply.
“But, think about under the gun. That phrase means you’re under intense pressure. It means something is looming over you, akin to a man with a gun. Under the gun is the threat of violence, but under the knife means you are the victim of violence… Are you following?”
“Yeah… I guess…”
“Yeah?” Her voice is suddenly stern.
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Good boy. One is a threat in the future, the other, a description of the past. And I think I know why. Most people have never been shot, so the threat from a gun is an abstract idea. You see?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“But a knife…” She presses the point into his nipple. He sucks in air, and his body goes as stiff as a steel girder. “Everyone’s been cut by a knife. The threat of being cut again triggers a real memory of pain in your mind. And in a lot of ways, the memory of pain is worse than the pain itself. When I threaten you with a knife, your mind gets cut by it.”
She lifts the blade away. His skin strobes hot and cold. He slumps back against her, exhausted from the constant tension and release.
“That’s why we use the knife as a metaphor for violence, because even to hear it is to experience violence.”
He is panting.
She whispers softly in his ear.
“That’s good, boy. I like how badly you walked into this trap, how unprepared you were. It’s making me want to fuck you.”
Her fingers close around his cock.
“Thank you, Mistress.”
“You know why I picked this knife?”
“No, Mistress.”
“Because the only safe place to touch it is the handle. Every other side of it is dangerous. And even if you think I’m not going to hurt you, your mind gets cut just by looking at it.”
She holds the blade in front of his eyes, and he goes rigid, as if she had placed it to his flesh.
“Shhhh, calm down boy, hold still, this next part is the fun part.”
She places the blade against his throat.
I can promise you, he doesn’t laugh.
Hot and sexy. (As always!)