Free The Cyberkink Sideshow by Ophidia Cox

gave his backside a quick swat with his cat-o’-nine-tails, the plaited leather whirring through the air. “Bruises beautifully, see?” He turned him slightly so the crowd could see the parallel red lines the cat had made.
    “His safe word’s ‘dugong,’ ’cause he looks like one an’ all. Not that it’s going to be much use to him, ’cause we’re going to gag him.” At that instant, Vaughn forced a ball gag with holes in it into Victor’s mouth and fastened the strap around the back of his head. Laughter rippled through the crowd. “Now, now.” The dungeon master raised his index finger. “Safe, sane and consensual. Victor and I have an agreement, and he’ll let me know if he’s had enough.”
    Vaughn maneuvered Victor over to a large wheel with steel spokes radiating out from a central hub. The spokes were joined with various heavy-duty crosspieces that made the wheel resemble a giant spider’s web. He stretched Victor’s arms up and out, fixing them to the wheel with thick metal bands around the wrists and just above the elbow. Vaughn bent over and got hold of an ankle, easing Victor’s leg out at the hip and clamping it likewise with bands around the ankle and above the knee. He repeated this with the other leg, before closing a pair of metal pincers around his head. Now Victor was spread-eagled out, suspended on the wheel and looking totally undignified.
    “Now then.” Vaughn glanced at the audience. He rubbed his hands together and interlaced his fingers, flexing his palms outward until his knuckles cracked within the leather gauntlets encasing them. He turned to a line of upright chromed levers with handles, of the sort used in an old-fashioned railway signal box, and disengaged the lever labeled BRAKE . It activated with a click and a well-oiled creak. He reached up to grasp one of the spokes at the top of the wheel and gave it a hard tug down. This caused the wheel to turn on its axle and emit a deep, reverberating hum of raw metal.
    “Music, that.” Vaughn’s mouth cracked a grin under his mask. “Took me ages to perfect that squeak!” A few people laughed.
    Victor let out a muffled sound as the wheel’s rotation inverted him and his jester hat fell off.
    “Shut up, Victor! You’re spoiling my squeak!” Vaughn gave the wheel another push, sending Victor through two more rotations. “I’d prefer it if people with a tendency to suffer with motion sickness kept off this particular ride. Emetophilia isn’t my thing personally.” Vaughn slammed the brake back on, causing the wheel to halt precipitously with Victor back upright.
    Vaughn turned his back on Victor and Sylvia and selected something from a collection of horrid-looking metal implements on a steel trolley. He held it up to the crowd, its long shaft glinting. “Now, this,” he began melodramatically. A particularly loud noise of protest from Victor interrupted him, the muscles in the bound man’s shoulders and thighs tensing.
    Vaughn stopped talking and dropped his other hand to the cat-o’-nine-tails handle at his hip, turning away from the crowd to face Victor, whose eyes rolled to him. “Victor, shush !” The braided leather flails whisked Victor’s thigh, making him start and leaving red marks glowing on the skin. “I’m speaking now, and people can’t hear me with you making that noise!”
    Sylvia stared at Victor, concerned this was hurting him; that it wasn’t consensual. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his breathing rapid, nostrils flaring with each quick exhalation. His wide, hugely dilated pupils darted back and forth to focus first on her, then at Vaughn. A very slight tremor of anticipation was apparent throughout his whole body. He wasn’t afraid . The realization came to her with a slight dizziness and an odd floating sensation to the stomach. He wasn’t doing it for the audience, for money, either. He was madly excited and aroused. He wanted whatever perverted thing it was Vaughn intended to give