"What's the matter Shannon?" Matt's voice is inappropriately jovial as he taunts me. "Does it hurt?"

It's a stupid question. Of course it hurts, that's the whole fucking point. I resist the urge to point that out, closing my eyes so I don't have to look at his arrogant smirk. Earlier in the session I'd have made some smartass retort, but I'm past the point where coherent speech comes without effort. Probably just as well.

I hear another tiny plastic sheath drop onto the table beside my bed and I find myself holding my breath again, every muscle in my body clenched with the effort of controlling the fear. We never do this at his house, obviously; God forbid my blood should ruin one of his precious Egyptian cotton sheets.

"Don't bother putting on that 'I'm so brave, I can suffer this in silence' crap, you know it won't last." I feel the bed shift as he sits at the side of me again. "One way or another I'll have you screaming."

He's right, of course. He has to break me before he can move on to pleasure for either one of us. He always gets what he wants in the end, but every second I can hold out is a small victory.

I feel his fingers on my cock and only the fact that all my muscles are already tensed saves me from jumping out of my skin; right at this current moment, that would be bad. He uses his forefinger and thumb to gently pinch the skin on my cock and pull it slightly away from my hard shaft, keeping it absolutely taut, and the litany in my head starts all over again as the terror peaks for the fourth time tonight.

Don't move, don't move, it'll only take a second, don't cry out, grit your teeth, don't give that fucker the satisfaction, don't you fucking dare move...

As the point of the needle touches my cock the words in my mind all stop, nothing left in my head but the deafening white noise as my sanity leaves the building. It seems to take an eternity before the needle emerges from my flesh, and a further eon before he's pushed it as far through as he wants it. When he stops pushing, the breath I'd been holding escapes in a sudden rush and I'm dizzy as the fear begins to subside again.

I spend a minute just breathing, trying to regain my grip on my mind. I can hear the little clicks and whirrs as he takes pictures of his handiwork. When I feel able I open my eyes and look down to see for myself what I'm enduring. The four needles lie horizontally across my cock, just barely beneath the skin although they always feel much deeper. He's thoughtfully arranged them so that the lengths sticking out before and after the piercings are equal. In his own way he's as much of an artist as his brother.

It's like watching a car crash. Looking at it makes me wish I could pass out just so it would go away, but I can't tear my eyes from the hypodermic tips violating my flesh. I watch transfixed as Matt's fingers hover into the corner of my vision, and I would cringe away from them if I had enough control over my body right now. His index finger skims featherlight over my shaven groin and even that tiny touch is unbelievably intense in my state of heightened sensitivity,

He runs a finger through a little trail of blood seeping down from the lowest needle and in spite of all my efforts I shiver. The movement rasps the needles inside my cock against the flesh they're brutalising and the sharp pain feels almost unbearable. Through my fog of agony I can hear him laughing at me.

Needles are funny things. Technically they're not such a big deal; we've all had needles one way or another. They don't hurt that much and they're really not anything to be scared of. But there's a world of difference between letting a doctor give you a jab and allowing an evil bastard like Matt to shove needles into your genitals. It all comes down to psychology and fear. Your brain convinces you it hurts as much as if you were in a meat grinder.

Presumably that's why the endorphin rush they give you is way out of proportion to the pain they cause. That's what makes all this worth it - days of bliss in return for a few hours of fear. It's a pretty sweet deal, as long as you have somebody to provide the stimulus without having to listen to him whine about his conscience afterwards, Matt's very useful in that respect. He doesn't feel guilty for hurting me at all.

Matt puts his camera down and selects another packet from the pile of sterile needles. In a way I'm surprised he bothers getting sterile ones; maybe it's because he can't be bothered cleaning the ones we already have. It certainly isn't because he's worried about one of the piercings getting infected. Then again, he'd probably either leave them for me to clean or use them dirty. Perhaps it's a ritual for him. I find it easy to imagine his arousal beginning from the moment he hits the 'buy' button.

I watch Matt tear the back away from the blister pack and I wonder for the millionth time if I'm going to be able to walk away from today. That's not a new thing, I spend every session I have with him debating internally whether this is going to be the one where he finally decides to go the whole hog. It's what makes him useful to me in the first place. Matt, you see, is a sociopath.

I wonder why I'm attracted to sociopaths - cold, amoral, intelligent. I'm not sure what it is about them that makes them quite so addictive to me.

I guess part of it is that I can't read them. Most people's motivations are pathetically easy to pinpoint, and ridiculously pedestrian. I can pick their every thought out, between their body language and their voices; they're painfully obvious. Sociopaths, on the other hand, are a mystery. They're a blank slate, their mental mechanics so deeply hidden that I can't see even a trace of them.

Of course, they're also very charming. And a lot of sociopaths have a vastly higher than average intelligence. I think part of the attraction is in knowing they can feed my masochism - they aren't about to have a crisis of conscience at a critical moment. Plus they add to the fear element, because you're never a hundred percent sure that they won't go too far. Maybe even all the way.

Granted, on the surface of it giving a sociopath carte blanche to torture you is a silly idea. But how the hell else am I supposed to know I'm alive?

Matt pulls the sheath from the needle and discards it, sitting next to me again. I'm so selectively conscious now that I can't even see the room behind him, although I can still think perfectly clearly. It always happens this way, my thoughts stay very coherent right up until the last moment. Presumably that's my brain trying to distract itself from what it knows is coming. Natural human defences are impressive.

I have to admit though that I think part of it is because they're just as 'unreal' as me. They're empty, devoid of normal emotion and values. If a normal person saw what I need and why, they'd pity me. And hollow compassion irritates all holy fuck out of me. On top of that, because I know they can't love me I don't have to be concerned about using them. They can't love me or hate me; I'm furniture to them, a means to an end, just like they are to me. They can't judge me.

I feel his hand readying my cock for the needle and I taste blood in my mouth. I've bitten into the inside of my lip. The surprise almost distracts me from the petrifying sight of Matt's other hand approaching my crotch with the needle in its grasp; almost, but not quite. I don't know if he's moving very slowly or I'm thinking very fast but it takes forever to reach me and it's maddening.

I nearly let a whimper escape me when the needle pierces my skin, but I catch myself just in time. I already know he can fit a lot more than five needles into my cock, and this is going to be a long night for me yet. There's no fucking way I'm going to give in and let him hear my pain before I absolutely have to. He knows it too; it's the main reason we find our little games so satisfying. He's always utterly determined to break me, and I'm always utterly determined not to let him. We push each other further every time.

I lie with all my muscles frozen, deliberately throwing myself into the pain enveloping my mind instead of shying away from it. I've long since learned it's the only way to deal with it. Pain becomes a close and dear friend if you grasp it tight enough, and I'm holding on tight enough to choke it. I'm almost disappointed when the needle is all the way through. Before I know it, I'm coming down again.

Isn't that one of the traits of sociopathy though? Not comprehending the reality and importance of other people's feelings? Maybe I have some sociopathic tendencies myself. I certainly don't feel real emotion. I need pain in order to feel much of anything at all. Would it be normal for a sociopath to be masochistic? And if so, would it be normal for them to seek out other sociopaths to feed it?

Any sociopathy in me pales in comparison to Matt; his persona is a work of genius. What better disguise for a man who's emotionally dead than a character who can't keep his emotions in check? If he ever does kill me, nobody's going to suspect him. Everyone would assume that if he'd done it it'd be all over his Myspace within three hours.

That's part of what attracts me to him too. I'd never admit it to him, but I quite admire what an impressive job he's done of hiding his nature. I mean, that takes talent. The sheer volume of planning, constructing a mask so complete and formfitting, the effort of keeping it in place almost constantly... a lesser man would have cracked up from the stress.

The bed shifts as Matt stands up. I can only barely see him in my peripheral vision, the area I can see clearly has shrunk to a tunnel about a foot in diameter. Nonetheless, I see his black curls descending on my groin and I steel myself against the pain I know is heading my way. Matt has really mastered the art of pain, he can set you up so that a tiny, sensual movement can leave your body wracked with agony.

I'm insensible with dread, and still I want it more with every second, breathlessly waiting for his tortures to stop the awful background noise of life.

Remaining still as his hair tickles my thighs and abdomen is almost impossible; I know I'm going to be sore literally all over for days as a result of keeping all my muscles tensed this way, and I'm amused that I can still think about that at a moment like this. His breath on my body makes my skin crawl, but I resist the building urge to beg him not to touch me.

The world flashes white again. My whole existence is concentrated on Matt's tongue licking ever so gently at the blood seeping from the little wounds in my cock. Against all my stoic intentions I let slip a low moan, although I can barely hear it over the rushing of my blood in my ears. I lie frozen in anguish and rapture for a thousand years, or maybe just for a couple of seconds. It's hard to tell.

For a moment, life isn't complicated. There's just the pain and the blood and the silence. And the bliss.

But then he pulls back from me, and as I spiral back down to earth I'm furious with myself for allowing him to wring a vocal expression of my suffering from me so soon. I'm positively seething to feel the air cold against my face, because I know that means I've let him force tears from me. I fucking hate him for exposing my weakness, and at the same time I adore him for it because he's so breathtakingly talented.

This is why I can't stop. I can pretend to feel like everyone else ninety-nine percent of the time, but these split seconds where it's actually real are too addictive to ever let go of.

I did make an attempt to be normal. To feel the things other people do, to love people like other people do, but there's just nothing. Even when I lie to myself really hard, I know there's nothing underneath it all; that if anything of me is real it's sitting deep inside this shell, watching people it doesn't care for having emotions it doesn't understand.

As the high drifts away I entertain myself with thoughts of the horrible things that could have happened to Matt if I'd twitched, if those needles had made contact with his face. He knows me too well though, he knows what my reactions will be better that I know them myself. Either that or he gets off on taking those risks. I can't tell.

I can barely see at all now, my brain is gradually shutting down conscious thought as it tries to process the torment Matt is inflicting on it. Although he's not touching me I can still feel his movement more than see it and suddenly his mouth is at my ear.

"I told you so," he gloats in a heated whisper. "But I intend to take a lot more from you than one little groan. Start praying, Shannon, you're going to need all the help you can get." I grit my teeth against the desire to spit in his face, knowing from experience that it'll only make things worse. Praying wouldn't help; at times like this, the only god I believe in is him.

The apprehension is building to the point where it's virtually giving me palpitations. I can hear him rummaging through the pile of sealed blister packs again, choosing his next instrument of torture, and I'm panicking but still hungry for the clarity my agony and terror will bring me.