Copyright 2003 Frank Downey. All rights reserved. Any use other than personal archiving requires the permission of the author. Do not repost.

This story contains adult material. If this is illegal where you reside or if you are underage where you reside, begone.

CONDITIONED RESPONSE
By Frank Downey


He didn't enjoy this. In fact, it's probably fair to say that he hated it. But he did it for me. And, every time he did it, it cost him.

I met Ben right after I graduated from college-at my next-door-neighbor Sean's college graduation party, actually. Sean and I had grown up together and had been the best of friends. We were never romantic-in fact, I introduced him to Amy, who became his high school sweetheart and is now his wife. But we were close friends. We went to separate colleges. At his party, he introduced me to his college roommate, Ben. We immediately hit it off. We dated for a year, he asked me to marry him, and a year later, we did just that. I loved him, heart and soul, and still do.

We were having sex three months after we started going out. Ben was a skillful, gentle, and considerate lover. I adore having him in my bed, inside me, his tongue all over me. It was exquisite.

Except, I couldn't orgasm. Now, I expected this. I did what any girl who loves her man does-I faked it. 

Ben was too smart for me, though. After a couple months, he finally looked at me, smiled, and said, "You know, you don't have to fake it. Instead, maybe you could tell me what I could do differently so you might have a real one."

That's when I lied to him. I told him that I couldn't orgasm, had never had one. That was a lie, but there's no way I could tell him the truth. But I did tell him the truth that I loved our lovemaking just the way it was, lots of women had trouble climaxing, and it didn't bother me. 

Things went along this way right through our engagement, and into the first couple months of our marriage. It was six months after we were married that things changed.

We had just finished making love, and Ben sighed and said, "I only wish there was a way I could make you cum."  The problem was, he had come close, awfully close, and but I just couldn't go over. So I was frustrated. I was 24 years old and hadn't had an orgasm since I was 16. So, I finally revealed part of my deep, dark secret.

"You can," I said quietly. "Make me cum, I mean. There's a way." He looked at me, and I got off the bed, went to my dresser, and grabbed my biggest hairbrush. I went back to the bed, put myself onto his lap-ass up-and handed him the hairbrush. "Spank me. Hard." 

"What?" he gasped.

"That's the only way," I said in a strangled voice. "Ben, I haven't had an orgasm in eight years. Please." 

He looked at me in disbelief, then brought the hairbrush down on my ass.

"Harder." He did it again, still obviously trying not to hurt me. "Ben, harder. You need to hurt me. Hit me harder!" He hit me again, a little bit more like it. "Harder! Ben, hit me! Come on! Beat me!" My egging him on had the desired effect. He started wailing on me with the hairbrush. I felt the searing pain spread across the battered cheeks of my ass-and then I felt that gut-clench. I came, screaming.

I rolled off of his lap and eased my battered ass down on the bed. "Oh, God, fuck me!" I demanded. Poor Ben. I could see his eyes, he was at war with himself. But he did as I asked-he fucked me.

We didn't talk about it afterwards, but I could see the look of distress on his face as he got a glance at my black-and-blue butt.

Knowing that he hadn't enjoyed beating me, I let it go, for about two months. But I had come so hard when he had beaten me that first time, I couldn't let it go completely. Two months after the first time, I handed him the hairbrush again and said, "Please?" 

The next time, in another two months, I did something different-I handed him a whip and a pair of handcuffs.

"No!" he said. "Spanking you is bad enough. I will not whip you!"

"Please," I said. "I get off stronger that way." 

"Jocelyn, this isn't normal."

"I know that. Please?" 

He did it. I know the poor man didn't like doing it, but he did it. He handcuffed me behind my back and took the whip to my ass. The orgasm I had that time was cataclysmic. Afterwards, I screamed, "Fuck me!" and he did. I came again-twice, actually-while he fucked me. Afterwards, crying tears that were a mixture of utter joy and a not inconsiderable amount of pain, I told him about it.

He thought for a moment, and then said, "Honey, I think you need help."

"You mean, like, therapy?"

"Yeah."

"Jeez, Ben, it's not that abnormal," I said, covering. "You've heard of BDSM, I know you have."

"Of course. I even had a close friend in college that was into the scene. This was a girl, but we were just friends. However, she told me quite a bit about it." He looked at me. "This is different, and you know it."

"Yes," I admitted with a sigh.

"That's why I think therapy might be a good idea. Maybe you could find out why this happens."

"Oh, I know very well why this happens," I spat out bitterly.

"You do? Why?"

"I can't tell you. Not now. Maybe someday, but not now. Anyhow, I'll try the therapy. For you. I know this bothers you."

"Yes, it does." He sighed. "I wouldn't even be interested in being a traditional Dom. And, as I said, this is something different."

He was very right about that, though I wasn't prepared to tell him why. 

I did try the therapy. It, unfortunately, didn't help much. Not being willing to completely open up to the therapist was part of it, for sure. Because of that, the therapist misinterpreted what was going on. He thought I was a Sub that was trying to break away from the BDSM scene. That wasn't the problem.

I don't get off on submission. I don't like being beaten. It's horrible-except for the payoff, the orgasm. It was almost like it was a physical response-instead of cumming when I get my clit rubbed, I cum when I have my ass beaten-but I knew it wasn't all physical either. But, as I said, I wasn't prepared to talk about that.

Anyhow, things went on, for more than the next year. I did continue therapy. I begged Ben to whip me every other month or so. We actually achieved a breakthrough-he could use the whip to get me almost there, and push me over while fucking me. It certainly was an improvement, cumming around his dick rather than with a whip on my ass. However, we never got to the point where the whipping wasn't necessary. He always had to do that, first, and a lot of it.

It all changed on our second anniversary.

We went out for a lovely dinner, and, when we got home, we went up to the bedroom. I took off my clothes, then handed him the whip and handcuffs. He cuffed me, then put me on the bed and starting whipping me. I don't know why-maybe because he'd hoped for a more romantic anniversary-but his heart wasn't in it. 

So I goaded him. "Dammit, Ben, whip me! Whip me hard! You fucking pussy, hurt me!" He looked at me. "Whip me, you asshole! Hurt me! You fucking chickenshit pussy, whip me!" It worked. Boy did it work. He'd never whipped me that hard. He was in a frenzy, as was I. I was in such a frenzy I took it too the next step. I flipped over and screamed at him, "My boobs! Whip my boobs! Hard!" Ben was out of his mind. The whip landed on my tits with incredible force, over and over again. When I couldn't take anymore, I demanded, "Fuck me!"  He tossed the whip aside, and slammed into me with more fury than he'd ever used before. This was flat-out animalistic fucking. I was delirious. I think I came three times before he did. 

It was the aftermath that changed everything. After Ben had cum, he raised his body off mine, and looked down. He looked down at the blood-soaked bruised masses of flesh that were supposed to be my breasts. He just stared at them for a good five minutes. Then he got up, and walked out of the room. I heard him rummaging in the bathroom, and he reemerged a minute later. He wordlessly leaned over me, and started cleaning the wounds on my breasts, applying ointment, and bandaging them. 

It was a couple of minutes of doing this before I realized something-Ben was crying. Big, fat, silent tears rolled down his cheeks the whole time he was tending to my wounds; on my boobs and then my ass. Ben wasn't a crier, not at all. I was horrified. After he had me bandaged, he motioned to me to stand up, and he ripped the bloody sheets off of our bed. Then he found a clean set, put them on, and then walked out of the room. He still hadn't stopped crying. I heard him go downstairs.

Look, every one-every single one of us-has a dark side. Most of us keep in under wraps, or let it out in fairly innocuous ways. Ben, the most gentle of men, kept his dark side well under wraps. And, that night, I had yanked it out of him. I had taken my sweet, gentle, loving husband and egged him on into becoming a monster. 

I curled up in the bed. I didn't cry. I felt too numb to cry. I was in searing pain, physically. The emotional pain might have been worse. I wished I could cry, but I couldn't. Nor could I sleep.

About two hours went by, and Ben came back up-with liquor on his breath, another very unusual occurrence. He came into the bed behind me, and very gingerly curled himself up against my back. At least he didn't completely hate me. Neither of us slept that much, but we slept some.

When we woke up in the morning, he kissed me, and then said it. "Jocelyn, I love you. I wish I could be the man you need sexually. But I can't. If you ever ask me to do that to you again, I'm leaving you."

"I understand," I said. And I did. This couldn't ever happen again. Not after that.

"And you need to tell me."

I knew what he meant. "Yes. Not right this second, but, yes, you're right. You need to know."

He seemed satisfied with that. My dressing needed changing, so Ben took me down to the kitchen to do it. The kitchen had the best light in the house, and he wanted to see how bad everything was. 

That's when the shit really hit the fan.

I love my mother dearly, but she has this horrible bad habit-she doesn't knock. So, as I sat there, my bloody, bruised breasts in plain view, she walked right in.

It's probably no surprise that she freaked. Of course, she immediately thought the worst-that Ben was beating me. Well, technically he was, but not the way she thought it. And, since he was so fragile and upset about it to begin with, I had to quickly tell my mother the truth. She was mighty upset.

And, as Ben had earlier, she pressed for an explanation. She was the last person I ever wanted to tell this to, but I was tired. I was so tired of keeping this secret, so tired of holding it in, so tired of being ashamed and fucked-up and abnormal. I had had it.

"When I was 12," I began, "I was raped. The rape was accompanied by a beating. The person in question threw me over his lap and spanked me until I was black and blue, and then fucked me. To my everlasting horror, I had my first orgasm that day."

"This went on until I was sixteen. The sex was always preceded by a beating, and the beatings got more intense. By the time I was sixteen, I was usually tied up, gagged, had nipple clamps put on, and was whipped. I also was forced to have both my nipples and my clit pierced. I took those out many years ago."

"And I came. I came every time. It must have imprinted, or something, because, since then, I've never been able to cum without the beating."

Ben and Mom both looked at me in disbelief. Finally, Mom asked The Question: "Who?"

"I don't think I can tell you that."

"You'd better," Mom said, "because I'm trying to figure out who had access to you at that age, and the only person I can come up with is your father, and I just refuse to believe that."

"It wasn't Daddy," I said. No way. My father was a gentle, loving man himself.

"Then who? Who could get to you at twelve?"

"You went away for a week that summer. Where did you send me? And who moved far away when I was sixteen?" I spat out.

My poor mother. The blood drained from her face and I thought she was going to pass out. I couldn't blame her. I had just told her that her only brother, my Uncle Jack, was a rapist, sadist, and pedophile. 

"Who?" Ben asked.

"My Uncle Jack," I confirmed softly. "Mom's brother."

"Oh, God," Mom moaned. Her legs went weak. I had to help her into one of the kitchen chairs. She sat in the chair, her head in her hands, weeping. Damn. I never wanted to do this to her. Uncle Jack was her only sibling, they had been very close growing up.

Suddenly she sat up. "SHIT!" she declared. "I just thought of this. Oh, God. Lori's that age-she just turned twelve."

"Oh, no," I moaned. "Lori's my cousin, Uncle Jack's daughter," I told Ben.

"I need to call Stacy," Mom said-my Aunt, Jack's wife. "I need her to talk to Lori. How am I going to tell her that her husband is a monster?"

"Thank you for believing me," I said softly.

"I shouldn't be receiving your thanks, I should be begging you for forgiveness," she said. "I knew something was wrong with you at that age, but I just thought it was normal teenage angst."

"I hid it well. Uncle Jack threatened to kill me if it ever got out."

"That bastard. And of course I believe you. You'd never make something like this up." She came over and hugged me, then hustled out the door.

Later, that night, Mom returned. She looked upset and haggard.

"Jack's molested Lori. Stacy finally got it out of her. He hasn't had intercourse with her, thank goodness, but he's molested her. And, yes, with beatings included."

"Oh GOD," I gasped.

"Luckily, it hasn't gone on long. The police were called. Jack's in custody." She looked at me. "Jocelyn, you have to go to the police and tell them." I nodded. It wasn't just me anymore. My little cousin-Jesus. And, I couldn't help but ask, how many other people had he done this to?

That's the very question Stacy asked me the next day when she stormed into my house. She had brought Lori, driving the 500 miles, because she thought seeing my grandparents would be good for Lori. Stacy wanted to see me. 

"How could you not tell?" she cried.

"How could you not know? You were there! You'd go to work, and Jack would start beating me and fucking me the minute you left. And you'd get home and not even notice I was walking funny!" 

"God, Jocelyn, I'm so sorry."

"I know. I am, too. I was scared, Stacy. Do you know how badly this has fucked me up?"

"Yeah. Your mother told me."

"How's Lori?"

"Not bad. Jocelyn, I told her. I thought it would make her feel better if she knows it just wasn't her."

"That's fine." 

It was fine. Lori and I ended up spending a lot of time together the week they were there. I think it helped, both of us. She didn't know how it was still affecting me-hopefully she'd escape that, since it hadn't gone as far or nearly as long-so I think seeing that I'd still managed to marry a man as wonderful as Ben helped Lori out a lot. Ben and my Dad tag-teamed Lori a lot that week, just being Uncles, true Uncles, even if Ben wasn't really.

I did contact the police, and was prepared to do anything I could, finally, to put that monster away for a long time. It turned out not to be necessary. One of Jack's buddies got him out on bail, and he promptly went home, took out his gun, and blew his brains out. I hope God will forgive me for not being upset. Lori was upset, and blamed herself, until the rest of the family talked her down. Still, that's another little girl that man has fucked up-and she was his own. If there's a hell, I hope he enjoys his stay.

The day I found out he killed himself, I did my own ceremonial killing. Ben watched me as I took the whips, handcuffs, and paddles and put them in a big trash bag, and dropped them outside to be collected with the rest of the garbage. That night was also the first time Ben and I had made love since the whipping. My breasts had pretty much healed, and Ben lavished his attention on them before he made sweet love to me. I didn't cum. I didn't care any more. 

After my therapist finally heard the whole story, and spent a number of sessions watching me break down, he asked to see Ben. Ben readily agreed. I later found out that what happened next was the therapist's suggestion, but Ben thought it a good one.

We'd had a steady sex life since we were married, two or three times a week. We both worked, we both would get tired, and the frequency was just fine with both of us. Ben changed that. He made love to me, in the gentlest way possible, every night. On weekends, sometimes it was two or three times. I must admit, I was exhausted, but I really didn't mind. I felt like he was trying to love the hurt out of me, and I reveled in it. He was, but he was also trying to do something else-teach my body a new trick. That was the therapist's suggestion.

It worked. It took six months, but it worked. I had an orgasm-and a good one-under Ben's gentle loving tongue. It was the most glorious orgasm of my life. I cried-we both did. 

I finally felt healed. I finally felt in control of my life. That's when I knew-that I'd be OK; and that I didn't have to put off my life waiting to heal anymore. I'd suffered enough. 


--the end-














