Kitabı oku: «The Secret Life of a Submissive», sayfa 3

Chapter Four

‘There is no fulfilment that is not made sweeter for the prolonging of desire.’

Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel’s Dart

I was early. For some reason the outer doors into the cathedral porch were locked when I got there. It was pouring with rain, and my feet – crammed into high heels that I’d only ever worn once, for two hours, to a friend’s wedding – were wet and cold and hurt like hell. On the walk up from the car park a freak gust of wind had turned my umbrella inside out and wrecked it, and I wasn’t altogether sure exactly how waterproof my coat was. This was not at all how I’d imagined my first meeting with Max. I was nervous enough without going from coiffured to quagmire in the space of a short walk.

Having wandered up and down the street a few times, I finally managed to find some shelter from the rain, but not from the biting wind, although at least I had a view of the main doors.

My feet ached and I could feel my carefully constructed appearance rapidly dissolving – hair, make-up, composure: going, going, gone. A party of Asian tourists trekked past me with their guide. Wide eyed and curious, wrapped up in colourful cagoules and peculiar hats, they nodded and smiled in my direction, holding up umbrellas over their cameras to take pictures of me sheltering, wet and dripping, under one of the stone arches. Maybe they thought I was performance art.

The minutes ticked by. I was getting more anxious with every passing second. I glanced down at my watch. Max and I had agreed to meet at 11.00 a.m. As I said, I’d arrived early – I’m always early. It was almost ten past. I found myself peering into the faces of strangers under umbrellas as they scuttled by. I have a problem with people who are late.

Maybe Max wasn’t going to show up after all, maybe he had just been stringing me along, maybe he was just a fantasist: my brain cheerily offered all kinds of explanations for his tardiness, each darker than the previous one. With a growing sense of disappointment, I considered my options. Up until that point I hadn’t realized exactly how high my expectations had been.

If it had been sunny I probably wouldn’t have minded waiting around a little longer, but I’d had enough. Another two minutes and if he hadn’t shown up I’d head off for lunch on my own, a little older, wiser and considerably wetter. Maybe my hopes were too high, but I was deeply disappointed that Max had stood me up. During our email exchanges and telephone conversations he had seemed genuine and genuinely interested. I was just turning to leave when someone touched me on the shoulder.

‘Off somewhere? You look like you could use a coffee,’ said a familiar voice.

I glanced round and looked into a pair of amused blue eyes ‘Max?’

He grinned from under the shelter of a large black umbrella. He was slightly out of breath. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late. I got caught up in an accident on the ring road,’ he said. ‘Did you get my text?’

I shook my head. Why in heaven’s name hadn’t it occurred to me to check my phone? How stupid was that?

‘Are you OK?’

I nodded.

‘Good.’ Still smiling, he reached out and brushed a stray, very damp strand of hair off my face. ‘Come on. There’s a café just round the corner. Let’s go and get warmed up.’ With that he took my arm and we made our way out of the cathedral precincts and across the road. ‘You look like you need towelling off. We could find a shop –’

I shook my head. ‘No, it’s OK. I’ll be fine, really.’

‘You’re sure?’

It felt easy and very natural. I felt comfortable with Max from the moment we met and there was definitely a crackle of mutual attraction – the chemistry thing, that thing I’d been looking for unsuccessfully on straight dates. I smiled.

He grinned at me. ‘Good to meet you at long last,’ he said.

We hurried across the road, huddling together under his umbrella. Max opened the café door for me, found a table and, when the waitress arrived, ordered for both of us, which I found a bit unsettling.

‘Is that a Dom thing? What if I don’t like what you’ve ordered?’ I said in an undertone as the girl left.

‘But you do,’ he said.

‘You can’t know that.’

‘Trust me.’

‘I could be gluten intolerant.’

‘And are you?’ he asked, his expression amused.

‘No.’

‘Well, in that case you’ll be able to enjoy your cake, won’t you?’

I didn’t say anything; I just raised my eyebrows. After a second or two Max held up his hands in surrender. ‘OK. It was easy. When you came in, the first thing you did was look in the cake cabinet, and I noticed the cakes your eyes lingered on.’

I laughed. ‘Lingered on?’

His smile widened. ‘Well, OK – lusted after. It’s OK, I really like a woman with a healthy appetite. And every time we’ve spoken on the phone, at some point during the conversation you’ve mentioned needing a cup of tea.’

Was I that obvious? And was it that simple? I really hoped not. I didn’t want the Dom/sub relationship to be some trick or sleight of hand.

A few minutes later the waitress reappeared with our order: a pot of Earl Grey for him and good old builders’ tea for me. Alongside it on the tray was a slice of lemon drizzle cake.

Max raised his eyebrows in a silent question. He was right. He’d ordered my favourite cake, although I wasn’t about to tell him that. He laughed as he poured tea for us both.

‘Come on, eat up and stop bristling,’ he said. ‘Would you prefer to stay here and talk or shall we go for a walk? It looks like the rain is easing up and there’s a really nice little restaurant which a friend recommended in the lanes.’

‘In these shoes?’ I said ruefully. ‘Isn’t there any chance I can be kinky in flats?’

He threw back his head and laughed. ‘I’m sure I saw a shoe shop round the corner. We’ll go there first, if you like. I prefer any pain I inflict to be deliberate rather than accidental.’

I looked at him and smiled. ‘It’s fine. I’ve got spare shoes in my bag,’ I said.

‘OK, in that case we’ll walk, then, shall we?’

I nodded.

Max was very upright, with broad shoulders, and his demeanour was slightly stiffer than I’d expected from talking to him on the phone, although there was no mistaking the mischief in his eyes. There was a slightly leonine quality about him – he wore his hair swept back off his face, he was heavily set, with a web of laughter lines picking out large blue eyes. While we were in the café I noticed his hands, which were large and very still, something I noticed particularly because I gesticulate all the time and find it almost impossible to talk without moving my hands. He wasn’t handsome in any traditional sense but his features were strong, even and nicely made, and it was obvious from the way he moved that he looked after himself and worked out.

We settled into easy conversation. We talked about our journeys, my job, his trip to Europe, the weather, my choice of footwear, the tourists, the cake – all very comfortable and conversational, but it was impossible to ignore the undercurrent of expectation that was beginning to build up between us.

‘So,’ he said, ‘have you done as I asked?’

I stared at him; the words made my heart flutter. I nodded.

‘Is that a yes?’ he pressed.

‘Yes,’ I said, not quite meeting his eyes; God, this felt so tricky. I was aware that this was the moment of transition when potentially it all finally began to become real.

‘Good. You understand that if we continue with this arrangement you will call me Sir, but not today. Today you can call me Max, but if we take this further it is one of the few things that are non-negotiable. Do you understand?’

I nodded.

‘And I want you to answer me with a word, not a gesture, from now on. So, are you wearing stockings and suspenders or did you decide on hold-ups?’ he asked.

I was wearing stockings and suspenders, not wanting to risk the possibility that the hold-ups wouldn’t.

Max raised his eyebrows. ‘Well?’ he said.

‘Stockings and suspenders,’ I said, glancing around to see who might have overheard our conversation, feeling my colour rise. ‘I’m finding this hard. I’ve never done anything like this before.’

‘I know,’ he said, and then he took an envelope from his jacket pocket and slid it across the table towards me. ‘Do you remember what I said?’

How could I possibly forget? I’d read and re-read the email so many times that I could practically recite it in my sleep. I stared down at the envelope, deciding to play dumb.

‘Let me refresh your memory, Sarah. If you make the wrong choice, then you will be punished.’

‘And if I make the right choice?’

‘If you make the right choice, then you will be rewarded.’ His expression was neutral but I could see the amusement in his eyes. ‘Why don’t you open it while I try and attract our waitress’s attention?’

I picked the envelope up, peeled it open and took out the card inside. Glancing down, I read the words neatly written in block capitals across the centre. I could feel Max watching me.

According to the card I should have been wearing hold-ups and my punishment for not doing so was to be spanked. Soon. At a time and place of my choosing.

I looked across into Max’s face and from him up into the face of the waitress, who was standing by the table holding a pen and pad.

Max was smiling, triumphant. ‘More tea?’ he asked.

Chapter Five

‘Sex is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.’

Marquis de Sade

Max and I spent the afternoon together. We ate lunch. We walked round the castle. We explored the shops. We talked and talked and talked, and at no time did Max mention the card or my punishment. As he walked me back to my car he shook my hand and kissed me on the cheek.

‘Call me when and if you’re ready,’ he said as a final farewell.

As I watched him walking away, I wondered exactly what I’d started. Was I ready? It felt as if this was one of those now-or-never moments. Taking a deep breath, I took the phone out of my bag and scrolled down to his number. He was still so close that I could hear the phone when it started ringing. I saw him pull the phone out of his pocket, saw him look at the caller display, saw him smile as he turned back to look at me.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Fancy it being you.’

A week later and Max was wearing much the same expression as he pulled a mask down over my eyes. The mask was nothing threatening, a black, silky little number, not dissimilar to the kind of thing they hand out free on airlines.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked, as the lights went out.

I nodded.

‘I’m afraid that’s not good enough, Sarah. From now on you have to say “Yes, Sir.” Or come to that, “No, Sir.”’

Have to? I pulled a face – preposterous. But this was supposed to be me being punished, and earlier we had signed a contract, designed to protect us both, and yes, I had signed up to calling him Sir.

‘I’m waiting,’ he said. His tone was unmistakably crisper.

‘Yes, Sir,’ I mumbled. It felt ridiculous and made me feel stupidly self-conscious. Today was the day when I was supposed to be receiving my punishment for not wearing hold-ups, and in a perverse way, my reward – for being bad by some contrived set of fantasy rules that we had set in motion.

‘Very good,’ Max said. ‘It will get easier, I promise you, until in the end it’ll be second nature.’

I very much doubted that. I stood still – possibly the stillest I’ve ever been in adulthood – blindfolded, wondering what would come next.

‘So here we are at last,’ murmured Max.

He wasn’t alone in feeling that way and I wondered if he had any idea just how much I had agonized – once the giddiness of our first face-to-face meeting had evaporated – about whether to meet him again or just ring and call the whole thing off. I also wasn’t altogether sure how I felt about being punished for a made-up crime. I was heading into completely uncharted water here.

Since we had met for lunch Max and I had spoken every night on the phone.

I had no questions left – only a decision. He had sent me a contract the evening after our first meeting so that I might have a better idea of what to expect if I took it to the next stage. He had also mailed me a long list of book and film titles and links to websites, so that I could find out more about the reality of the lifestyle. But, as he said, he couldn’t make that final decision for me; nor would he attempt to coerce or force me into making it. I was always free to change my mind. If I was unsure about taking the next step it was better to walk away and take more time to think about it than to commit to something I was uncomfortable with – and it would be a commitment.

He was keen to impress on me that for him BDSM was not a joke. If I didn’t want to abide by the rules that was fine, but then he wasn’t the Dom for me. He also pointed out that once I had taken the step there was no going back. You couldn’t unknow something – and it had the potential to change my life and the way I looked at relationships for ever.

So not exactly a lightweight thing, then, I’d joked. This wasn’t quite what I’d imagined when I’d fantasized about being tied up and spanked.

For once Max didn’t laugh. ‘No, that’s true. It changes you,’ he said. ‘You need to bear that in mind before you go any further. And yes, it’s a game and in some ways it’s just role play, but getting involved in BDSM is not without consequences, and the effects and the pay-off are real.’

The contract itself had come as no great surprise. Contracts are common currency and typical for people involved in a BDSM relationship in fiction. I’d written them myself for several books, and the ones I had drawn up for my novels had been a good deal more extreme and a lot pervier. The difference, of course, was that this one wasn’t a work of fiction for some long-limbed, doe-eyed virgin. It was about me.

CONTRACT

On this _th day of __________, 20 ___, I, ___________, hereafter referred to as the submissive, offer myself to Max _________, hereafter known as her Master, for His pleasure in a BDSM relationship defined in detail as follows.

The submissive understands that her Master is a strict Dominant, and that she is a willing submissive masochist to be used for His pleasure. The submissive expects and longs for the Domination of her Master and is willing to endure any punishments deemed appropriate by her Master. The submissive hereby grants permission to her Master to inflict any punishment that He may deem appropriate to the submissive totally for His enjoyment and the pleasure.

The submissive will refer to her Master as ‘Sir’ at all times when they are together, unless instructed to do otherwise.

The submissive will not speak until spoken to or given express permission to speak and will be respectful in her conversation and comments.

The submissive will be under her Master’s complete and total control and will immediately obey and comply with any order or instruction given to her with the full joy of knowing she is His property and His to use however He chooses.

If the submissive displeases or disobeys her Master in any way she expects to be punished in any way He so chooses, as necessary for her inappropriate actions.

The submissive also agrees not to make any change in her physical appearance without the prior approval of her Master.

The submissive agrees to full participation in any and all activities her Master desires as she does not know the extent of her limits with Him at this point and desires to learn how complete is her submission. These activities may include but not be confined to:

Bondage of short or long duration

Pain threshold

Nipple and other clamps

The use of toys

The use of any safe stimulation chosen by her Master

Any and all sexual activities that her Master may wish to partake in, which involve the total use of the submissive for His physical pleasure

In return for her complete compliance and obedience the submissive expects the following:

The right to use safe words or signals if she finds the play to go past her as yet unknown limits

That her Master and the submissive will have open and honest communication with each other so that she may learn her limits

The knowledge that her Master may reward her for good behaviour and compliance

Her Master will practise safe sex

Her Master will be responsible for the submissive’s safety during all play and ensure that no permanent harm or damage will befall her

Name:

Signed:

Safe words:

We had talked about a sex clause. Despite fancying Max and feeling an unmistakable chemistry between us, I wanted to wait a little while until we knew each other better before having full sex – which with hindsight seems crazy – but I thought it was telling, and certainly made me trust him more, that he’d put a line through it without comment.

We could reconsider it at a later date, he said.

I nodded, although I didn’t think either of us believed we would wait for long.

‘You know that this contract is complete nonsense, don’t you?’

‘Not if you believe in it,’ Max said calmly, picking up the pen and handing it to me.

I took another look. ‘Can’t we do what we’re going to do without this?’

‘No,’ said Max. ‘There are some things that you can pick and choose, Sarah, but this isn’t one of them. If you don’t sign it we don’t take the next step.’

‘But no one is going to enforce this.’

‘They don’t have to. It’s for our benefit. If you don’t trust me enough to sign it, Sarah, that’s fine, but we don’t play without it.’

I read it again. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Never more so.’

I was torn between frustration, amusement, annoyance and apprehension. If I signed it, it was a sign that I took all this seriously and that we were moving forward. Surely after I’d come this far it was what I wanted.

‘It’s mad,’ I said.

‘Possibly.’

I agonized. When it came right down to it, I realized I was also afraid. Afraid of him? Of me? It was hard to be specific.

‘You have to trust me. I’ll look after you and I promise not to do anything to you that you can’t cope with. I promise …’

And he was right: if we wanted to move this on, then I had to trust him. Looking back, I have no idea why I believed him, but I did.

The contract was currently sitting on my office desk, all signed and sealed. Even as I’d added my signature there was still a part of me that thought it didn’t really count and that, when you got right down to it, it was all completely crazy. I knew full well that in reality no one could hold me to a contract like this if I didn’t want to comply with the conditions.

As I passed the pen over to Max, as if reading my mind, he looked across at me and said, ‘Sarah, this contract is only as meaningful as you make it. I want you to understand that for me this isn’t some kind of joke. Have you read the list of hard limits that I sent you?’

I had. Hard limits are areas of engagement between a Dominant and a submissive which are off-limits: no-go areas. Both subs and Doms can have them, list them, discuss them and expect their limits to be respected. Once again they were things I had read about before, but they had never related to me, or anyone or anything I’d actually been involved in. It was the last part of the bargain to be sealed before we could play:

No breath or underwater play

No animals, no children or minors

No electrical play

No scat

No suspension

No needles, blood or blades

Max asked me if there was anything I wanted to add before we both signed. I said I wanted to include no photographs and no video, and also reserve the right to add things to the list as I discovered more about the lifestyle. Max agreed, happy to accept that our contract was a work in progress, and watched while I added the clause.

Standing there now, blindfolded and alone, it occurred to me that that still left an awful lot of things that weren’t hard limits. An awful lot of things that Max could do to me and not break our contract.

‘I’m scared,’ I murmured.

‘I will keep you safe,’ Max said. ‘I promise.’

I swallowed hard, trying to quell my nerves. I was trembling.

The room was still and there was complete silence. Seconds ticked by. I was tempted to ask Max what was going to happen next. What he was playing at? What was he going to do to me? Hadn’t he said that he would tell me what he was going to do? Despite being desperate to say something, I was also painfully aware that less than half an hour earlier I’d signed up to the ‘not speaking unless spoken to while we were together’ thing and I’d already broken the rule once. This was going to be so much trickier than I had imagined. At forty plus I’d never willingly kept quiet about anything in years. I had an opinion and a wisecrack for every occasion.

It was so quiet now that I swear I could hear my heart beating. Where the hell was Max? My senses struggled to reach out from beyond the mask, struggling to track him down. Had he slipped away? Gone home? Had I blown it already with the whole Sir thing?

Finally, after what seemed like an age, I heard Max moving and sensed him circling around until he was standing behind me, so close that I could feel his breath on my neck. I shivered.

We were standing in my sitting room, and – if I had taken my mask off – I would have been able to see us both reflected in the mirror that hung above the fireplace. Being unable to see meant that I was totally focused on every sound and every sensation. That alone was heady stuff. Max stroked my cheek and I sighed with a mixture of relief and an intense abstract rush of desire.

‘There, not so bad, is it?’ Max said. I didn’t know what to say. It was much, much worse and much, much better than I’d imagined. My whole body felt as if it was awake and waiting, tingling, every molecule listening for whatever it was that was coming next. Excitement, expectation – it was hard to pin down exactly what it was that I was feeling.

Max’s fingers moved down across my shoulder to the zip of my dress. Very slowly he began to undo it. I felt my pulse quicken and swallowed hard to quell the heady mix of nerves and exhilaration. He pressed his lips into the curve of my neck, to my spine, sending wave after wave of tingling sensations through me.

He ran his fingers through my hair, tugging at it, toying with it, moving my head around. I wasn’t sure if he expected me to resist or go with it. I started to tremble, adrenaline coursing through my veins like champagne as his lips brushed my naked shoulders, breathing me in. I felt the zip working its way lower; Max was unhurried, his fingers deft and confident.

I realized I was holding my breath. We hadn’t kissed since we’d met, at least not in a sexual way – our lunch at the restaurant had ended with a handshake and the kind of peck on the cheek I’d give to a maiden aunt. Those kisses on my shoulders felt as if they were seared into my skin.

Doms didn’t kiss their subs on the mouth, he’d said. It had made sense then, but now? I was going to say it felt weird to be undressed by a man I hadn’t kissed but actually when you got right down to it the whole damned thing was weird.

‘Don’t try and rationalize it,’ Max had said, when I’d been trying to work out, and justify, why I wanted to do this. ‘You’ll drive yourself crazy. Just accept that this is what you like, and want, and that it is a part of your nature. This is what you need, Sarah. It’s not strange or weird; it’s just part of human sexuality. I can give you what you want.’

Easy for him to say. Although I was beginning to realize that he was right. I hadn’t felt so alive in years. I felt like a present being slowly and skilfully unwrapped by him. This was what I had written about for so many years; this was what I had dreamt about. Finally here I was. This was for real.

As Max’s fingers brushed my skin, I could almost see the sensations in my head, like pinpricks of light exploding in a sea of velvety darkness.

I shivered as the zipper slipped down another inch or two more, stunned by how long he was taking. How long was it since someone had taken the time to do this properly? My emotions seesawed back and forth. I wondered if Max was expecting me to call a halt. The safe words we had agreed on were: gold for ‘everything is OK’; silver for ‘please slow down’; lead for ‘stop, stop now’.

He was taking it oh-so-slowly, the slightest touch of his fingers, lips and tongue making me gasp.

Gold, silver, lead: I repeated the words over and over in my head. It would be so easy to stop this before it even began, but I didn’t want to stop – far from it. I wanted it so much. I had waited so long to play this game for real. Behind the mask, crazily, I closed my eyes and tried to remember the last time I had felt this excited, this turned on or this bloody nervous.

Max eased the dress off my shoulders and let it slip down over my arms before letting it slither to the floor. Despite the mask I reddened, extraordinarily self-aware, imagining his expression as he looked me up and down, imagining what he could see.

He made a soft throaty noise of approval. ‘Nice,’ he purred. ‘Very nice.’

Under my dress I was wearing a black satin corset and black seamed stockings teamed with black court shoes. Max and I had had long email exchanges about what I liked to wear and how he liked his submissive to dress. We’d exchanged dozen of photographs of outfits. Before today’s meeting Max had asked me to send him pictures of my favourite lingerie and a selection of dresses – without me in them – so that he could choose what I wore for our first real encounter.

From now on whenever we were together, he explained, he would decide what I wore. He would email me instructions and would also go through my wardrobe, and we would go shopping for anything he felt I lacked. And from now on when we were together I wasn’t to wear any underwear.

I’d stared at him. Seriously?

Max had nodded.

I hadn’t gone braless since God knows when, and I certainly had never gone knickerless. When I protested about how awful fitted clothes looked without some sort of support under them, Max conceded that with some outfits, yes, I could wear a bra, but he would decide which ones, and the only bras I could wear in his company should fasten at the front unless otherwise instructed. A submissive’s body no longer belongs to her, he said, and she should always be available for her Master. I stared at him. ‘Available?’

He nodded.

Now Max trailed a finger across my shoulders in the same way you might stroke a piece of sculpture. It was the most astonishing sensation, hard to put into words. Dressed to please, elevated to an object of pure desire and pleasure, I have never felt more female or, perversely, more powerful.

‘You look fabulous,’ Max murmured after a few moments more. ‘Put your hands behind your back.’

I did as I was told, lulled by his voice and a peculiar sense of euphoria.

Max caressed my shoulders and neck, his touch proprietorial. One hand stroked up and down my back while the other hand worked its way into the top of my corset, his long, strong fingers cupping one of my breasts. His thumb brushed across my nipple, which stiffened in response. He let out a soft sigh that made me quiver, my skin tingling, electrified by his touch. His hands were cool and almost dispassionate, caressing, squeezing, exploring and kneading.

I gasped as the intensity increased and he nipped and twisted my nipples, before folding the top of the corset down so that first one and then both breasts were exposed.

I could feel the cool air on my naked flesh and a charge of expectation. I could sense his growing excitement along with my own. All the joking and banter were over and I realized that Max wanted and needed this as much as I did. He moved so that he was standing in front of me. I felt his lips close around my nipple, sucking, nipping, biting, drawing my nipple deep into his mouth, making me gasp, the sensations coursing through me like ripples of white light.

As Max pulled away, my body clamoured for more. His lips moved to the other nipple, eagerly licking and sucking his fingers as they worked on the heavy swell of my breasts. As he pulled away, I heard a sound I didn’t immediately recognize. An instant later I felt the unexpected bite of something cold and metallic clamping tightly down onto my nipple. I shrieked in surprise and pain, trying to pull away as little teeth bit down harder, holding the clamp fast, and as I exhaled I heard the tinkle of bells.

I discovered later that they were nipple clamps with a string of tiny silver bells hanging from them.

Now every movement, every shudder and every gasp were echoed in silvery tinkling sounds. The teeth bit into my engorged nipples, sending tiny hot splinters of pain and pleasure through me.

‘Beautiful,’ Max whispered, stroking the bells’ strings, making me gasp.

Max and I had talked a lot about what I liked sexually, areas I wanted to explore, things that were a definite no-no and represented a deal breaker – the hard limits beyond which I wouldn’t go – and those things that I might like to try once my confidence had grown. I’d told him things I had never told anyone else. I’d just signed off on it, hadn’t I? We’d definitely talked about the fact I didn’t want to be tied up until I knew Max better, so I didn’t think twice when something cool and smooth clicked onto one wrist, although I had a blinding flash of revelation as the second cuff snapped home.