It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure. – Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade
A little light BDSM works its way into Joy & Pain, a Daddy/sub story of a twenty-two year old ex-ballet dancer, Tevin, who makes his living as a stripper, seducing an audience of men for tips. Zeke is the man, nearly twice Tevin’s age, who claims the boy as his own.
I have such a love/not love relationship with short fiction; I love the instant payoff, but sometimes it’s hard for me to take the stories for what they are and not want much more from them than the author intends for me to have. This one has made me go back and forth quite a bit over whether I really liked it or whether I’m really disappointed that I didn’t get to learn more about Tev and Zeke, because what was there did nothing more than make me want more of them; I liked them that much.
Taken as it is, Joy & Pain is an erotic vignette that paints a picture of a Dom who sees the man he is determined to have, and sets about making that a reality. It’s also the story of a young man who wants to sub, who wants that Daddy play, but also is determined to establish his own rules because he’s willing to submit and because he loves that play, but it also means he has to make Zeke understand that he, Tev, has some limits on how and when and what he’s willing to submit to. It works and works well if you’re willing to go into the story knowing that the start of a brand new relationship that has no backstory happens, if my calculations are right, in less than 40 pages. Not to mention the fact that I’d also have loved to know exactly what happened that forced Tev to give up ballet.
What I got in these four short chapters, I liked, and I’ve got to say that for a FREE story, one I happened across entirely by accident, I’m pretty glad I gave it a chance.
You can download Joy & Pain here: 