Submitting: A Mischief Erotica Collection
Author: Rose de Fer; Lily Harlem; Sommer Marsden; Cece Marsh; Alegra Verde; Justine Elyot; Ludivine Bonneur; Kathleen Tudor
Date: 2016-06-01 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Collections & Anthologies; Erotica; Romance; erotic; Fiction; Contemporary; General; Bdsm
Description: Kinky games and arrangements abound in this Mischief collection of original erotic fiction. In Submitting, the fun, thrills and pleasures of surrendering to that special lover, or lovers, is explored imaginatively and intensely in eight original stories, written by some of the best erotica authors writing today, including Justine Elyot, Sommer Marsden, Lily Harlem and Rose de Fer. “Tested” by Rose de Fer “Overruled” by Lily Harlem “Your Assignment” by Sommer Marsden “Two-faced” by CeCe Marsh “On Your Knees” by Alegra Verde “Doing It for Emmett” by Justine Elyot “Making Movies” by Ludivine Bonn
Publisher: Mischief

Submitting

A MISCHIEF EROTICA COLLECTION

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk

This collection is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
entirely coincidental.

Mischief

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

The News Building

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF
www.mischiefbooks.com

An eBook Original 2016

1

Tested © Rose de Fer

Overruled © Lily Harlem

Your Assignment © Sommer Marsden

Two-faced © CeCe Marsh

On Your Knees © Alegra Verde

Doing It for Emmett © Justine Elyot

Making Movies © Ludivine Bonneur

A Bid for Her Heart © Kathleen Tudor

The authors assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EBook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008190231

Version 2016-05-19

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Tested – Rose de Fer

Overruled – Lily Harlem

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Your Assignment – Sommer Marsden

Two-Faced – CeCe Marsh

On Your Knees – Alegra Verde

Doing It for Emmett – Justine Elyot

Making Movies – Ludivine Bonneur

A Bid for Her Heart – Kathleen Tudor

About the Publisher

Tested

Rose de Fer

I feel like I’m on the deck of a ship in a storm. The floor pitches and twists, rolling with the ceaseless motion of crashing waves. It’s all I can do to keep my balance as I rise to my feet.

Except I know it’s only me that’s moving. Everything around me is perfectly still. Terrifyingly still. And silent.

I need a few moments to prepare myself, and it feels like a small lifetime. I take some deep breaths and the hammering of my heart finally begins to slow. My hands don’t entirely stop trembling, but at least I am able to respond when my name is called. Slowly I begin to make my way to the door at the end of the corridor. I may as well be crossing the ocean for all the time it takes me to cover the distance, reassuring myself along the way that the floor isn’t really undulating beneath me. My legs barely feel up to the task of supporting me, let alone carrying me any distance.

I reach the end of the hallway all too quickly, however. And once there, I hesitate, trying to collect myself. I can’t put it off any longer. I grasp the door handle with a clammy palm. It doesn’t seem to want to turn and for a moment I am irrationally relieved, as though I might escape my fate after all. As though I might be spared.

But no. The knob turns when I twist it in the other direction and the door opens with a little click. A tiny rush of air escapes, like an icy breath.

The room beyond is dark, and it remains dark even once I pull the door open. Just enough to permit me to slip inside. I step across the threshold and feel the transition from hard floor to soft carpet beneath my shoes. This room will swallow my sounds. All my sounds.

‘Close the door.’

It might be the voice of the shadows themselves, for I can see nothing in the darkened chamber. It gathers all around me, swelling, a wall of imposing silence. I do as I am told, turning the knob as I push the door into the frame to keep it quiet. I don’t think I can bear to hear the click as it shuts. It would sound too serious, too final.

My small task completed, I stand and await further instructions, my hands clasped behind my back. Time crawls by while I wait and every second makes my heart beat faster. I try to calm myself again, but this time I can’t seem to control my breathing. The silence builds, a vast, terrible emptiness that threatens to consume me. I could almost believe I am being erased, heartbeat by heartbeat.

The darkness is unbearable and I close my eyes so I can pretend it’s my choice to stand here, lost in shadow, unseeing and unseen.

No, not unseen. I know from the prickling of my skin that I am not alone, that I am being watched. That he is here with me.

When the voice comes again, it makes me jump.

‘Remove your clothes.’

I open my eyes, startled to find that I am no longer in darkness. A spotlight has appeared. I stand inside it like an animal in a circular cage, suddenly missing the shadows. I even miss the storm-tossed corridor.

There is no question of my obedience. My fingers tremble as I slide my clasped hands apart, uncertain where to begin. I am dressed in what I was told to wear – a smart skirt and blouse. The jacket is first. I can just about manage the single button in the centre and I slip it off. For a moment I stand holding it, looking around for somewhere to put it. But I am given no guidance.

I fold it carefully and lay it on the floor at my feet, just outside the circle of light. Then I focus on the skirt. It feels good to have a task, to have something – anything – to focus on doing, even if I am only delaying the inevitable. It’s very hard to fit my fingers around the tiny button at the waist, and the zip sounds to me like a predator licking its lips.

I step out of the skirt and lay it on top of the jacket. The long hem of the blouse hangs down, covering me. I am still decent for the moment, if that’s the word, and some part of me wishes for this to be as far as it goes. I imagine hearing the voice again, softer this time. A gentle laugh and a smiling tone as he tells me that is all, that I may go.

But the silence is as good as a command. I swallow hard and set about the challenge of unfastening each button of my blouse. At last I manage to peel it open. Gooseflesh stands out all over my body and I feel my nipples pucker as the thin material of my bra is exposed to the chill of the room.

It’s easy enough to slip off my shoes, and the stockings come down one at a time with a silky hiss. I hesitate again, raising my hands to the middle of my back, willing them to unhook my bra. It’s as though I am separate from my body, telling it what to do from somewhere else. The illusion fades once the hooks are undone and my breasts tumble free. My natural instinct is to cover myself with my hands, but I stop myself in time. I know that isn’t permitted. Instead I busy myself with folding the bra, as though presenting it as a gift.

My panties are all that cover me now, and the tiny scrap of silk only seems to enhance my sense of exposure. They are easier to manage than the bra. I slide them down over my bottom and thighs and crouch down to place them on top of the rest of my clothes. Then I rise unsteadily to my feet. And wait.

I clasp my hands behind my back again, grateful for the submissive posture. I couldn’t bear having to keep them at my sides and inside I plead not to have to.

Now there is the creak of a chair and a hint of movement in the shadows. The room grows a little brighter and I can make out the silhouette of a man as he stands and moves towards me. He is tall and intimidating.

I lower my head, keeping my eyes down as I’ve been taught. I have no control over what will happen next.

‘It’s time,’ he says. His voice is deep and resonant. It makes me weak. I feel lightheaded, as though I might faint.

‘Put your hands on your head.’

It’s a simple command, one I can easily obey. Gratitude washes over me as I lace my fingers on top of my hair. The position forces me to raise my head and I see him for the first time. His eyes are dark and brooding, his expression inscrutable. I can’t bear the eye contact, so I drop my gaze. Before I can focus on the floor, I see what he is holding. It’s a small whip. A dozen red and black tails hang from a braided handle.

He notices me noticing and brings the whip up to my eye level. Then he slaps it against his palm. The sound makes me jump, and I sense that my nervousness gives him pleasure.

‘Do you know why you’re here?’ he asks, his voice low and silky, full of authority.

I open my mouth to speak, but at first nothing comes out but a little squeak. I clear my throat and try again. ‘Yes, Sir.’

His expectant silence prompts me for more.

‘My Master sent me to you.’ I can barely bring myself to speak the words, but I manage to force them out. ‘To test me.’

‘You know of my reputation, then?’

Oh, yes. Who doesn’t? I am overwhelmed by the reality that I am here. Actually here. With him. My head is spinning with the impossibility.

‘Hmm? I didn’t hear you.’

‘Yes, Sir,’ I say, my own voice barely a whisper. ‘I do.’

He nods, seeming pleased – both by my answer and by my obvious fear. He looks like a judge about to don a black cap and sentence me to the gallows.

‘Very well, then,’ he says. ‘Stand still and straight. Arch your back.’

I had been expecting him to tell me to turn around. Instead, he stays in front of me and merely takes a step back. I feel my entire body begin to tremble as I realise what he intends. I lock my knees and inhale deeply.

The first stroke falls, striking my right breast. The soft leather tails impart a sharp kiss to the nipple, making my skin tingle. I close my eyes as the stinging sensation swells, gritting my teeth to keep from whimpering.

The wait is torture. My arms are already beginning to ache from their position on top of my head and my legs have felt in danger of turning to liquid ever since I got here.

He doesn’t keep me in suspense for long. The whip comes down on the other side, bringing pain to the delicate skin there as well. My nipples burn and it takes all my willpower not to press my cold fingers against them to soothe it away.

But I know better.

I picture myself in my Master’s arms, wrapped in his embrace and comforted after a challenging session. I hear his voice praising me, telling me I’ve been a good girl and made him proud. I feel his lips as he kisses mine, taste his tongue as I press myself against his hard cock and his hands explore every inch of my punished flesh. I sigh at the vision, knowing it will be my reward if I am good for this man.

The whip falls again, and again, the tails fanning out over each breast in turn, spreading their bright little kisses all across my chest. My skin feels alive, every nerve tingling. The stimulation is having an effect all over.

The pain builds in a wild crescendo, finally reaching a peak where it begins to blur into pleasure. Like a developing photograph, wonderful sensations come into focus, exploding throughout my entire body. My sex pulses in response, conditioned both to fear and to want what is coming.

When the whipping stops, he tells me to lower my arms. I do so, my shoulders flaring at the sudden return of blood. I flex my fingers to encourage the sensation.

‘Kneel,’ he says.

I sink to my knees, grateful not to have to stand any longer.

‘Right down.’

It’s as though I’m melting into the carpet. I bend my knees all the way, until I’m sitting on my calves. Then I fold my body, sliding my arms out in front of me like a sphinx and lowering my forehead until it touches the carpet. I love the position. It deepens my feeling of submission, liberating me further from the confines of reality.

I sense movement, feel the stirring of air as he walks around me, inspecting me. I know he intends to whip me more, and I’m not surprised when I feel the tails flick against my bottom. He directs me to adjust my position.

‘Present yourself for me,’ he says.

I have been well trained and I know exactly what he expects. I lift my bottom, raising it up in the air. At the same time, I curl my spine forwards, cat-like, tucking my head under. My breasts still burn and tingle, radiating warmth from the punished skin.

The whip finds my back, caressing, tickling, as he draws the tails over my waiting flesh. The first strokes are gentle, almost sensual. Each unerringly finds its mark with a resounding slap in the small room. I can feel my skin reddening beneath the slow, steady onslaught, building until I can’t restrain my little gasps and yelps.

A particularly hard stroke between my shoulder blades makes me cry out and for a moment I dip my back, as if I can escape the pain that already sings through me. I gather myself at once and resume the position, hoping he isn’t disappointed in my momentary weakness.

He says nothing, just continues to lay on, the soft leather tails painting stripes all along my exposed body. His aim is flawless.

He walks slowly around me as he whips me, circling me like a shark. Now the whip finds my bottom, and he brings it down hard on the more resilient flesh of my cheeks. I open my eyes to peek, watching him out of the corner of one eye. He gathers the tails in his left hand before releasing them as he swings the implement down, striking precisely where he aims.

These strokes are deeper and more penetrating, designed to push me. I can no longer control my cries and it’s all I can do not to writhe and struggle and try to escape the whipping. But I imagine my Master watching. I desperately want to please him, to make him proud of me. I must take this. I must endure what I am given. It’s what I want too.

The tails lick between my thighs, striking the delicate folds of my sex. I hiss with pain, sucking air in through my teeth. A few lighter strokes follow, peppering my bottom with leather kisses. Then he delivers another sharp stroke to my sex. This time I scream.

The pain is intense, but it’s also exquisite. I blush to imagine how wet the tails of the whip will be after a few more of those strokes. I can feel the sticky dampness between my legs. I am forbidden to come, but if he continues like this my body may betray me. He is testing me.

Again and again he punishes my bottom, wrenching wild cries from me. I clutch the carpet, digging into its soft loops with my fingers to draw the focus away from my sex. It doesn’t work.

My nipples are still sore from the breast whipping, hard and erect. Painfully aroused. An image flashes into my mind of being kissed there. A warm, wet tongue flicking over each burning little pebble of skin. It makes my sex pulse and another well-aimed stroke inflames the delicate nerve endings there. My entire body is throbbing, desperate for release. But if I come, I will fail the test. And I will be punished.

It takes all my willpower to hold back my climax. My thighs are soaked with wetness. I hold them far enough apart that nothing makes contact with my clit. One touch would be all it took. I focus on my submission instead. My obedience. I am a good little slave. I will hold my position and take whatever I am given, whether it be pain or pleasure. For they are not my master.

After a while he eases back, slowing the strokes and laying them on with less and less force, fading the sensations. Now it feels more like a sensual massage. I sigh as the tails flick lightly over my back again, my burning cheeks, then once more kissing my nether lips. Sensations wash over me, but I am not at their mercy. I feel like I have weathered a storm.

When he stops, he stands in silence for several moments. The only sound is the blood pounding in my ears, the pulsing of my skin as heat and desire consume me. I am flying.

‘Good girl,’ he says.

The words bring tears to my eyes. I could let go and melt into the floor now, dissolve into a quivering puddle at his praise.

Only I know this isn’t the end. I am here to be tested, after all, not merely tasted.

‘Raise your right foot.’

My entire lower half trembles as I obey. I bend my knee and lift the leg just enough to hold my foot up, parallel to the floor.

He dangles the whip over it, teasing it with the tails. I shudder, but manage to hold still. When I feel the whip lift away, I brace myself. Then I cry out as he brings it down sharply across the tender flesh of my sole. Heat flares across the skin and I point and flex my toes over and over until it becomes bearable. The feeling travels along all the nerve endings in my leg, all the way up to my sex. A second stroke wrenches another cry from me, but by the third I am succumbing to the pleasure. I lose count after that.

I hear him laugh softly, as though amused by my obvious arousal. ‘Now your other foot,’ he tells me.

I do as he orders, offering up my other delicate bare foot like a sacrifice. It receives the same treatment, first a series of gentle flicks and then proper stinging strokes. Both feet feel like I’ve walked on hot coals, the soles pulsing hotly in concert with the throbbing of my sex.

When he is done he orders me to put my leg down and kneel up. Gratitude floods me as I do it, swimming in sensation. I am slightly dazed and euphoric, my entire body excited and stimulated. My sex pounds in time with my throbbing heart. He has made my entire body an erogenous zone.

‘You’ve been very good,’ he tells me, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

‘Thank you, Sir,’ I whisper.

‘And you’ve earned a reward.’

I wait for him to continue, but it seems he wants to tease me. I resist the temptation to speak.

‘What would you like now, little one?’

It’s all I can do to choke out the words. ‘Please, Sir. Please may I come?’

He takes my chin in his hand and raises my head to meet his eyes. I blush furiously at the eye contact, delirious with arousal, drowning in shameless lust. For a long moment he peers deep into my face and suddenly I fear he’ll say no. I can already feel the tears of frustration pricking at my eyes.

‘Yes,’ he says at last. ‘But you must do it twice.’

I blink in confusion. ‘Sir?’

He smiles and strokes my face. Then he slides his hand into my hair and winds it around his fist. I gasp as he pulls my head back, forcing my body with it until I am lying flat on my back, the carpet prickling my whipped back and bottom. Only then does he let go. I don’t know if I’ve displeased him or if this is another test, and he leaves me in suspense for several agonising seconds.

Then I hear the door open. For a moment the room floods with light from the outside world and I close my eyes to shield them. Someone else enters the room and I recognise my Master’s cologne. I can’t prevent the smile that spreads across my face.

‘Hello, Keri,’ he says, bending down to kiss me. His hand trails down my throat and over one punished breast, gently tweaking the nipple and making me gasp. ‘I enjoyed watching you.’

He tweaks the other nipple and I whimper as his touch reawakens the pain. The idea that he watched as another man punished me makes me feel faint and I am grateful for my position on the floor.

‘You made me very proud.’

I melt at his words, desperate for his hands to move lower. Instead, another pair of hands grips my ankles, firmly drawing my legs apart until they are spread wide. I writhe in delicious humiliation at the exposure, my sex aching for release. My punisher draws his fingers up along my inner thighs until they reach my shaved pussy.

‘She was a very good girl,’ he says.

I gasp out a thank-you to both of them. My eyes are still shut tight and I abandon myself to the exquisite sensations as one pair of hands kneads my breasts while the other teases the slick folds of my sex.

‘She’s very wet.’

My Master laughs softly at that. ‘Yes, punishment excites her.’

‘Ah, but today she’s been a good girl, hasn’t she?’

I’m not sure if the question is directed at me or not. In any case, they seem pleased by the breathless little moan I offer by way of response.

My punisher slips one finger inside me and I cry out, writhing on the floor. My Master lowers his mouth to my chest, kissing each taut nipple in turn, flicking the other with his thumb.

I feel another finger inserted, then another. I long to close my legs, to clench them around that hand, but I know I must maintain my lascivious position for them. I arch my back, offering my breasts to one man while the other fucks me with his hand. My Master’s tongue flutters against my nipple and I toss my head from side to side. I can feel the climax coming, rising like a tidal wave to flood the world, to drown me and everything in it. The hand between my legs begins to move faster and faster, harder and rougher, the palm slapping against my clit with every thrust. Finally I can’t stand it any longer and I surrender to an overwhelming orgasm that makes me scream and convulse. They continue to play with me for its entire duration, heightening every sensation. I never want it to end.

Lights sparkle behind my eyes and I collapse, lost on a raging sea of pleasure, at the mercy of a kind of bliss I have never experienced before.

I have no idea how long I lie there, racked with euphoria, but when I finally drift back to earth, both men are smiling down at me. My cheeks flood with heat and I cover my face with my hands, embarrassed by my wanton display.

My Master laughs. ‘Don’t be silly. It was beautiful. I’ve never seen you like that before.’

I smile in spite of my embarrassment. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to do anything that might break the spell. Most of all, I don’t want to have to get up, get dressed and leave this room. Ever. The tears I had withheld earlier suddenly start to flow.

My Master understands at once and gathers me in his arms, rocking me as he whispers soothing words in my ear. It feels good to cry, to purge the stress and frustration of reality here, where it’s safe. It’s terrifying and exhilarating, but it’s still the safest place in the whole world.

‘If you can handle this,’ he tells me, ‘you can handle anything.’

And I know he’s right. Life in the real world sometimes gets too hard. And sometimes it becomes unbearable. Visiting a place where all that’s expected of me is obedience makes it all go away for a little while. It also makes me stronger. When I do finally leave this room, dressed like a normal person again, one whose partner isn’t addressed as ‘Master’, I will be more resilient than the trembling girl who entered. I will be braver.

This time was different, though. This time was both a challenge and a treat. And not just for me. My Master said he had always wanted to watch me with another man, someone well known and respected. Someone he trusted.

‘Thank you,’ I murmur, at last finding the courage to look my punisher in the eye.

‘It was my pleasure,’ he says. There is a gleam in his eye, although none of the authority has gone from his voice. ‘But haven’t you forgotten something?’

My stomach flutters nervously. I look to my Master for guidance, but he moves away, into the shadows. After a moment I hear the musical clink of soft chains from there.

My punisher stands over me and holds out his hand and my Master places something in it. I shudder when I see the nipple clamps.

‘Back on your knees,’ he orders, and I obey without a second thought. ‘I gave you permission to come, but I did say you must do it twice. Didn’t I?’

I blush deeply. ‘Yes, Sir.’ Then I arch my back, presenting my breasts for him while my Master watches, looking pleased.

Overruled

Lily Harlem

CHAPTER ONE

Tanya

Judge Damian Winston-Barrow surveyed his courtroom through narrowed eyes. After a moment, he shifted on his seat, then leaned back with the tips of his fingers pressing on his bottom lip, making him look as if he were praying.

A tense silence descended, the self-important ticking of the large wall clock to my right the only sound. The defendant glanced at the jury, and the jury appeared to make a point of not looking back at him – good, a guilty verdict was on the cards. My work was done…almost.

I twirled my pen in my fingers and set my attention on the judge again. He was hot as hell, as sinful as any deviant when he got going, and right now he was also caged the way the men and women he sent to prison were – sort of.

He enjoyed the prison I put him in. It yanked his chain and stoked his lust. If only the people in this revered room knew what he really was. They thought of him as a big powerful man who ruled and was obeyed, yet when the time came, when we were alone, it was I who ruled and he who obeyed.

I crossed and uncrossed my legs, becoming impatient for the session to end. I had a free evening; heck, I had a free night. There was only one thing on my mind, and that was showing my sub how much his Mistress adored him and claiming some toe-curling orgasms along the way.

‘We’ll reconvene tomorrow at eleven a.m.’ Damian slammed his hammer down. The sound echoed around the vast room, bouncing off the wooden panelled walls.

He stood.

A stern-faced security guard to his right opened the door that would lead the judge to his private chambers.

I watched him walk, admiring how his robes flowed behind him, the way his broad shoulders shifted, and how his solid footsteps clicked on the floor. Beneath the regal-like black cloth, Damian usually had on neat suit trousers and a crisp cotton shirt; he said that was the most comfortable, he didn’t like getting too hot. Beneath that layer of clothing was the one thing I insisted he wore for an entire week before we had a liaison. It had taken him a while to get used to, but now it was like a second skin. All it took was a simple text from me and he had it in place – of course, I insisted upon a photograph as proof, where would the fun be if I didn’t?

As he went from sight, I put my hand into the pocket of my smart navy jacket. For what felt like the hundredth time today, I fingered the small silver key he’d sent me a week ago. It was the key to everything. The key to Damian, his desires, his freedom, his love and devotion to me, and soon it would be used to unlock all of those delicious things so I could have them to myself.

The hum of conversation around me grew, excited chatter about the way the trial was going. I gathered my papers and beat down a wave of anticipation. No one knew about my longing for Damian and the hold I had on him. They couldn’t. Ours was a secret relationship. We preferred it that way. It meant no complications in our work lives. No gossip, no press interest. That was something neither of us wanted.

‘Are you pleased, Tanya? With how today went?’

I turned to Geoff, my colleague and assistant. ‘Yes, did you see the jury when we shot down the alibi? Done deal.’

He smirked. ‘Yeah, what a prick thinking a drugged-up prostitute would stand in court as reliable.’

I shrugged. ‘If the tables were turned we’d have shown her good side and made the jury believe her, but…’

‘It’s not that way round and it should play out to our benefit.’ He grinned.

‘Exactly.’ I dropped my papers into my briefcase. ‘So let’s hope, when we arrive to wrap up in the morning, the jury will have already made their minds up. Dean Lead is a nasty bastard, and he needs to go away for a very long time.’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’ His attention shifted over my right shoulder.

I followed his line of sight.

Dean was being led away by two armed guards. He had hair so short his scalp was visible. A barbed-wire tattoo wended down his neck from behind his ear. And his shoulders were hunched, likely due to the cuffs that held his wrists secure.

He glanced my way, and a shiver snaked up my spine. He was definitely the sort of bloke a woman didn’t want to meet in a dark alley.

I turned and sent a quick prayer heavenward that the jury would come to the right decision so Damian could dole out a heavy sentence.

‘Fancy a drink down at the King Billy?’ Geoff asked.

‘Can I pass on that for tonight? I’ve got something I need to do.’

He half shrugged. ‘No worries, catch you in the morning.’

‘Yes, you will.’

He reached for his briefcase. ‘See you, then.’

He was absorbed by the crowd filing out of the courtroom. It had been a packed audience consisting of the victim’s family and friends and media. It was a high-profile case, and a lot was resting on Damian. Not least because he was one of the youngest judges in the country, and he always attracted attention.

Yes, a little light stress relief doled out by me would do him good.

Well, maybe not so light.

I waited another few minutes until the room was nearly empty and then made my way to the security guard standing by the door to chambers.

My high heels clicked on the floor as I approached, and he looked up at me.

‘Hey, Jenson,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a few things to go through with Judge Winston-Barrow.’

‘Of course.’ He nodded curtly and then opened the door.

I slipped past him; he was a big, beefy guy with hands the size of dinner plates. I was glad he was on our side.

The long windowless corridor was narrow and high-ceilinged, the floor covered in a wiry green carpet, and on the walls hung portraits of old judges who’d sat in court here.

Three doors led off it, rooms that were rarely used, so Damian told me, and, at the end, his office.

I stared at the entrance to his office and walked towards it. My hips seemed to roll a little more with each step. I felt sexy, powerful, turned-on just at the thought of what was going to happen.

I paused outside the polished mahogany door and unbuttoned my jacket. Through my silky blouse I adjusted the sexy black corset I’d worn all day, especially for this moment. It was tight, constrictive, and it had reminded me of what was to come. A bit like the restrictive device Damian was wearing. I could see why he didn’t complain about it. Well, he had at first, a bit, but not any more.

Knocking wasn’t for me, not now I was in role, so I turned the handle and stepped inside.

The windows were high and looked out at blank walls, which meant the light was dim. A few lamps with bottle-green shades sat around the room, spilling out an amber glow and stretching shadows on the wooden floor.

I flicked the lock on the door, and the dense sound shot a thrill through me. I’d sealed us in, blocked out the rest of the world. It was just me and my sub now.

‘Mistress.’

Damian’s voice when he said that word could nearly be my undoing. We’d had three weeks apart and now…no, I had to stay in control. He was relying on me to be the strong one. He was tired of ruling, of making the decisions.

I turned to face him.

He was seated behind his desk and still wearing his robes. His back was poker straight and his hands spread on the shiny wooden surface in front of him, fingers wide, starfish-shaped.

I’d bet my new iPhone his cock was straining against the cage.

Without speaking, I set my briefcase on a round table that sat by a low leather couch. I then removed my jacket, letting it slide from my shoulders and down my arms before laying it alongside the case.

I undid the buttons on my blouse, not taking my gaze from him.

He was breathing slow and deep judging by the rise and fall of his chest. His lips were a little shiny, as though he’d just licked them, and a small tendon in his cheek flexed in time with the pulse thudding in my ears.

When my blouse was undone, I tugged it from my tight pencil skirt and added it to the table at my side. I knew the corset would get him going. Made of the finest silk, the intricate stitching gave it a Parisian style, and I knew damn well it showed off my breasts and waist to perfection.

I glanced back at him. His eyes were a little wider than before, and he again shifted on the seat, the way he had in court.

Oh, yeah, he’s hard, and no doubt will have marks on his cock to prove it.

I undid the zipper at the back of my skirt and let it fall to my feet, revealing tiny black panties, also lace, and hold-up stockings. Teamed with my black heels, I knew the outfit would be ticking all the boxes for what heated his blood.

‘It’s been a while,’ I said, stepping away from the skirt.

‘Yes, Mistress. I’ve missed you.’ He turned his head to follow me as I moved around his desk.

‘Have you?’

‘Yes, a lot.’

‘Then you should make sure we’re not interrupted. We have lost time to make up.’

‘I already have. I spoke to security, told them I’d be working until late and I’m not to be disturbed under any circumstances.’ He spun his chair to face me.

His legs were spread wide, so I stepped between them.

‘Good boy.’ I hooked my finger beneath his chin and urged him to look up at me.

Damn those eyes. I could get lost in them, drown in them, have them the first thing I saw each morning and the last thing at night for the rest of my life.

I set my mouth over his and probed my tongue between his lips. It was a hard, fast kiss that I had complete control over.

He whimpered, a soft breathy sound that warmed my core.

‘You’re mine now,’ I said against his lips.

‘Yes, Mistress. I’m always yours.’

‘And I can do what I want with you?’ I straightened and placed my hands on my hips, pushed out my chest.

‘Anything. You can do anything. I’m here to please you.’ He nodded and curled his fingers over the arms of his chair. ‘I am here for you.’

His attention roamed my body; he was clearly enjoying the effect the corset had on my figure.

‘You have too much on,’ I said. ‘Stand.’

He did as instructed and loomed over me. Damn it, even when I was wearing my heels Damian made me feel tiny.

He wore a white cravat. I unhooked it from the nape of his neck and held it between us for a moment before tossing it to the table. It was a flippant gesture, one that told him he was no longer the one in power, his status had gone while we were together like this.

He pressed his lips together, and his nostrils flared.

What the hell is he thinking?

I wished I could get into his mind. Swim around in all those clever brain cells. Find out how he really felt about me.

‘Much as this is sexy,’ I said, sliding my hands over his robe and feeling the hard muscles of his chest beneath it, ‘it’s not suitable for what I have in mind.’

‘Yes, Mistress.’

‘Remove it.’

He fisted it between his shoulders and then dragged it over his head, the quiet swoosh of material loud in our secluded bubble of desire.

The robe hung in his hand for a moment, and then he gave a flick of his wrist and it landed on a straight-backed chair sitting against the wall.

Good, we were getting somewhere. I bit my bottom lip and stepped close, breathing in the warm air that radiated from him. Infused with faded cologne, it seeped into my lungs, and I imagined it coursing around my body, lining my arteries, veins and capillaries with Damian, with everything that he was to me.

‘Keep still,’ I said, reaching for his top button.

Slowly, so slowly, I set it free, and then started on the next one, and then the next.

He was breathing hard; his arms hung at his sides, but his fists were clenched, his shoulders rigid.

‘Relax,’ I said as I tugged the now-open shirt from his waistband. ‘It’s all going to be OK in a moment.’

‘I’m so hard, Mistress.’

‘I know.’ I cupped his groin, feeling the device there. As always, a shot of delight went through me that he’d obeyed, that he’d been in chastity since instructed seven days ago. I didn’t need to worry about what my sexy sub had been up to since then, because he couldn’t get up to anything. ‘And it’s uncomfortable now, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ He went to lift his arm but appeared to think better of it and dropped it to his side again.

‘Not long now,’ I said, pulling his shirt from his arms and dropping it on the desk.

God, I loved his chest – wide and coated in dark hair that matched that on his head. His nipples were small and tight, his pecs square and defined.

Unable to resist, I leaned forward and took his left nipple in my mouth. I licked it, sucked it, and then gave a sharp nip.

‘Ahh…’ He shifted a little but didn’t move away.

I looked up at him and grinned as I stroked the pain away with the tips of my fingers.

His eyes were a little glazed now, as though the weight of the world was lifting from his shoulders and all he thought of was me and what I was doing to him.

The belt he wore had a thick silver buckle. I released it and then set to work on his fly.

He moaned, a rumbling sound that started in his chest and vibrated upwards. If the anticipatory prelude to sex had to be described as a noise, that guttural groan would be it.

I carefully pushed his suit trousers to his thighs, taking the time to stroke his buttocks and the sides of his hips.

‘Shoes,’ I said, nodding downwards.

He toed off his shoes and then bent and removed his socks. His trousers slipped further, and he kicked them aside.

‘Shall we let the beast loose?’ I asked.

‘Yes, Mistress.’ He nodded.

I smiled. What was the point in waiting any longer? We’d waited long enough.

I turned and sashayed to the table to retrieve the key from my jacket pocket. ‘Lose the boxers, sub,’ I threw over my shoulder.

After retrieving the key, I turned with it held high.

I caught my breath; the sight of Damian naked except for the glistening silver chastity around his penis was like a shove in the chest. It got me every time, the beauty of him, not just on the outside but on the inside too. How he was so eager to obey, please me, wear ‘that’ while at work.

He’s the one.

Through pursed lips, I blew out a breath and then set my shoulders back. I couldn’t let him see how much he affected my emotions. This was about sex – that’s what we’d agreed when we’d started this game over a year ago. Sex. Mistress. Sub. Pleasure. Pain.

Nothing more.

Or was it?

I walked over to him, key still held aloft. What would it be like to hand over sexual happiness to another? To be controlled, tied down, spanked, told when to come?

It wasn’t something I’d ever done. Not that I was the sort of woman to say never…but…

What would it be like if Damian had power over me? All that brawn and roped muscle, his hungry cock demanding whatever it wanted then taking it.

A shudder of desire shivered over my skin. I was getting wet, my nipples poking at the unforgiving tightness of my corset.

His fists were clenched so tight his knuckles were white. I imagined the anticipation, the desperation surging through him.

I walked a little slower.

He must have sensed this.

‘Please,’ he said.

He reminded me of a begging defendant, someone pleading for mercy.

‘It’s OK.’ I stroked the cool metal, following the downward curve with the tip of my finger. ‘It’s time.’

Carefully, I held the tiny lock at the side, and then inserted the small key. One click and it was open.

He sighed, his breath shifting my hair. It was clearly a relief, right to the marrow of his bones, that he couldn’t contain.

I smiled and opened the chastity, revealing his cock. He could shower and pee with it on perfectly fine. Sleeping on his stomach might prove uncomfortable, and getting a hard-on downright painful. But it was possible to live with it quite easily.

His erection surged free. Long and thick, it pointed upwards, the slit wide and dark. He had one long vein running up the left-hand side that forked near the tip. I touched it, very gently, imagining I could feel his pulse.

‘I need you…Mistress,’ he said, his voice gravelly and far removed from the poised tone he used when addressing the court.

‘I know you do.’ I reached up and released my hair, allowing it to flow over my shoulders and down my back.

‘Do you know how much?’ he asked, his voice harsher than before, stronger, louder and more belligerent.

I widened my eyes and then gripped his cock, a good strong hold right at the base. ‘I think I can tell. And don’t forget to call me Mistress.’

‘Oh, fuck,’ he muttered. ‘Heaven help me…Mistress.’

CHAPTER TWO

Damian

I stared at her – this beautiful, teasing, seductive Mistress of mine. She had my head screwed up, my body a soup of lust, and my emotions pinging around like bullets in a barrel.

Everything about her. The way she walked, talked. How she looked – fuck-me curves wrapped in fuck-me clothes. And the way she spoke to me, as if I were just a boy-toy, a thing to be enjoyed, a cock attached to a buff body.

Damn it, no one had ever been that way with me before.

I was smitten.

Her hair was a silken waterfall; she kept it pinned up in court, but like this, loose, ready to tickle my belly when she sucked me off, just waiting to get messed up when she ordered me to fuck her, I adored it, I wanted to own it, get lost in it, become part of it.

I reached behind her and slipped my fingers through the strands until the heat of her scalp reached my palm. I curled the locks into my fist, holding them in a tight ponytail.

She gasped, a delicate little sound I wasn’t used to hearing from her. ‘Sub,’ she said, ‘what are you doing?’

‘I don’t know.’ I hovered my lips over hers. She was so tiny, so utterly delicate.

And mine.

I leaned closer and breathed deep. She smelled of summer gardens and honey and the sweets I used to buy as a kid. Whenever I was near her every sense was stimulated.

‘Release my hair,’ she said with a frown.

I wanted to. I was programmed to do as she instructed, but…but I didn’t release her.

‘Sub, now, let me go.’ She let go of my dick and grabbed my face, squeezing my jawline either side of my chin with her fingers and thumb.

Immediately, I came to my senses and stepped back, her hair falling free once more. I looked at the floor and studied my bare toes on the dark-red carpet. ‘Sorry, Mistress.’

‘Don’t touch me unless I give you permission, sub.’ She pushed my shoulder, urging me to face the desk.

I knew what was coming and turned. Lying before me were several files, up-and-coming cases I was supposed to be studying. Next thing I knew, my chest was pressed over them and I was bent double. She’d shoved me in the centre of my back.

‘Did you do it on purpose?’ she asked, excitement lacing her tone as she continued to press me into the table. ‘Because you want me to stripe your arse?’

‘No, Mistress.’ That was the truth, I hadn’t. I’d done it because I couldn’t help myself. I’d wanted to hold her hair, tight, feel what it was like to have her captured by me, and not the other way around, just for a moment.

‘I don’t believe you. Start counting.’

I gripped the edge of the table where my waist touched it. The last thing I wanted was to jerk forward and have the end of my cock collide with the wood.

‘Ahh…’ I gritted my teeth as a stinging blow attacked my right buttock.

‘Count.’

‘One.’ Fuck, what the hell was she using?

I turned in time to see my own shoe being swung towards me. The leather sole hit down with another raging slap. The heat was instant, burning over my skin and fizzing its way to my asshole and cock.

‘Two.’ I twitched. The first lashes of anything were always the worst.

‘Keep still.’ She hit again. There was nothing weak about it. She’d put everything into the strike.

I shut my eyes. ‘Three.’ White-hot flashes of light burst behind my eyelids. They reminded me of fireworks, sprinkling outwards.

Another hit. The sparkles I was staring at exploded, cascading.

‘Count.’ She palmed my sore buttocks and caressed the pain.

‘Four,’ I murmured, my cheek bunching onto the files.

‘Good boy, you know it’s worth it.’

She was right, of course she was. When my arse was on fire it was as if all my senses were heightened. It was a buzz I craved. I could almost feel the endorphins scorching my veins.

Her caress stopped, and she hit again. The sole of my shoe cracked against my skin, the noise not unlike a loud clap of applause. ‘Five.’ I held my breath, waiting for the next.

It came, covering the cleft between my buttocks. ‘Jesus! Six.’

‘That’s it,’ she said, reaching beneath me and grasping my cock. ‘Collect it all here, you deserve it. Working so hard, all that responsibility. Now it’s time to play hard.’

The thud of the shoe landing on the floor registered in my brain just a second before she started peppering kisses over my burning buttocks.

I sighed into it. Enjoying being stroked and kissed. My legs were weak, but I’d locked my knees. I wondered if Tanya had ever been spanked. Ever had her pale, smooth arse cheeks reddened by someone’s hand or flogger. I pictured her in my position – bent over the desk, naked, her breasts pressing into the files, me standing behind her, palm itching to smack her hard and fast. How her skin would bloom with colour, her flesh would wobble slightly, tense, her back would arch. I’d put my hand in her hair, the way I just had, and pull her head back so I could hear her moans.

I lifted my cheek from the desk and turned my head to face the other way, hoping I might leave my reckless thoughts behind. What was I doing? I shouldn’t be thinking about dominating my Mistress. Of administering pain and punishment. That was for disobedient submissives. Not me. I always played by the rules; it was my very nature.

‘Always so hard when I let you out to play.’ She rubbed my shaft, base to tip. ‘So hard.’

I groaned. I wanted to get to the main event. I wanted her to let me come in her mouth, or fuck her over the table. Maybe she’d let me go down on her and allow me to wank myself off at the same time.

All of these scenarios skittered through my mind, each one the flash of an image. I wanted it all. I needed it all.

‘Such a hot arse you have now, sub,’ she said, kissing up the channel of my back until she reached my nape. She was still fondling my dick, her clever fingers flicking over my balls, too.

I moaned and shut my eyes. Lust spun within me like a sticky web I’d been caught in. My heart thudded, my skin was alive, sensing every shiver in the air around me.

‘Tanya,’ I murmured.

‘Mistress, call me Mistress.’ She slapped my arse, hard.

I cried out and then shoved my fist in my mouth for fear of being heard. Damn, that had been a new tier of pain on top of the layers she’d already applied.

‘What is the matter with you?’ she asked by my ear. ‘Do you want more punishment?’

‘I’m sorry, whatever you think, Mistress.’

She didn’t speak; instead, she squeezed closer, her breasts pressing through her corset against my torso. She treated my cock to more pressure, more speed, wanking me the way I’d do it myself, hard and firm with a bit of twist when reaching the head.

‘Oh, God, yeah…fuck, yes…Mistress.’ I was going to come. The climax was building within me. My arsehole trembled; the seam of skin between that and my balls contracted. Heat flooded my cock, the pressure reaching boiling point. ‘Ah, I’m going to come, let me come.’

‘No.’ She stepped away.

A void engulfed me. It was like falling from a plane without a parachute. The pain in my dick, the agony of having had orgasm only a whisper away then to be denied, was excruciating.

I stood and went to grab my erection. I had to come. The pain of not was a knife twisting in my lower belly, a basting of hot tar over my sac.

She slapped at my hand. ‘No. Don’t touch yourself.’

Her cheeks were red as she glared up at me. She was breathing fast, her breasts beginning to spill from the corset. I could see her left nipple. A strand of hair had caught on her lower lip but she hadn’t appeared to notice.

‘Mistress, I need…to come.’

‘You will when I tell you to.’

‘No.’ I shook my head and reached for my cock again.

‘How dare you.’ She grabbed my wrist and yanked my arm away.

My cock throbbed, my arse stung. I wanted this woman beneath me. I wanted to sink deep. Bury myself in her, become at one with her pussy, connect, ride to the point where we both were lost to everything except each other.

‘No…how dare you.’ The words spilled from my mouth as though I had no control over them.

Her lips formed the perfect ‘0’, but only for a second because then I covered my mouth with hers. I shoved my tongue into her the way I wanted to thrust my dick into her sweet, clenching cunt.

‘Mmm…’ It wasn’t a giving noise of acquiescence or surrender; she was mad as hell.

I shook her free of my wrist and clutched her hair again, the strands thick and satisfying in my hand. I curled my other arm around her waist and pulled her close, her breasts mashing up against my chest.

She writhed and wriggled, furious at being disobeyed, raging at being kissed passionately by me without permission. Her anger seeped from every pore on her body.

But I didn’t let up. She wanted me, needed me, the way I needed her. I knew it.

She whacked my shoulders with her fists and tore her mouth from mine. She was gasping for air.

‘Tanya.’ I cupped her arse. ‘Please, let’s do this…like this.’

‘What the hell?’ She pulled her eyebrows low and glared at me.

‘Like this,’ I said, pushing my erection forward so it lodged harder between our bodies. ‘Let’s fuck. Let me be your man, let me take the lead.’

‘No, you’re my sub, I’m your—’

‘Mistress, I know. But right now…’ I shook my head and lowered my voice. ‘I just need to fucking fuck you, woman.’

She stared at me, her eyes flashing. ‘You want me to be your sub?’

‘If that’s what it takes to make this work.’

‘I?’ She appeared confused.

‘Allow me to take the pressure off you. Hand yourself over to me, Tanya. I’ll make it good for you.’

She looked like she still didn’t believe me. What the hell? Just because I’d played along with her D/s game didn’t mean I couldn’t hold my own.

‘Are you saying no?’ I asked. ‘No, you don’t want me to fuck you?’

She was silent.

The atmosphere between us was electric. I could almost feel the charged particles fizzing the hairs at my nape.

Where was this going?

Had I screwed it up for us? Whatever this crazy thing was we had going on, was this the end? Should I have just shut up and handled the pain of not coming?

‘Damian,’ she whispered, uncurling her fists and setting her hands flat on my shoulders.

A small kernel of hope popped inside me. It was the first time she’d used my name when we’d been alone like this. ‘Say it again.’

‘What?’

I pulled on her hair, just a little. ‘My name. Say my name.’

She gasped, a small puff of air that collided with my lips. ‘Damian.’

I allowed myself a small smile of triumph. The way she’d said ‘Damian’ went straight to a place in the very core of me; it melted a piece of my heart that had been kept in the dark for a long time.

‘Tell me you want this,’ I whispered. ‘Now.’

Again she was silent.

I sensed a hundred arguments flashing through her mind.

She pressed her lips together.

‘Tanya…’ I slipped my hand from her arse to between her legs. I pressed on the gusset of her panties. Oh, yes, they were damp, more than damp. She was wet, wet and ready for me to fuck her. ‘Be my sub, just once, try it on for size.’ I circled the material over her clit, stimulating her with small movements the way I knew she liked.

‘Yes.’

I stilled for a moment. Had I heard her right?

‘Don’t…stop…’ she said. ‘Do it. Fuck me, Damian, the way you would if you weren’t my sub. If you didn’t obey me. Just…fuck me.’

I didn’t need telling twice.

I found the hooks at the front of her corset that held it together, released the top one and was thrilled when the others followed suit. It fell to the floor.

Her pale breasts spilled free, and I caught them in both hands.

She moaned and tipped her head back, as though offering herself to me.

And I was happy to take, take it all.

I licked up her cleavage and then circled first her right, then her left nipple. I wasn’t rough but I wasn’t gentle either and I was encouraged by her hands slotting into my hair and tugging.

I moaned, delighting in the candy-floss flavour of her skin.

‘Damian,’ she said again, as though knowing hearing her say it turned me on. ‘Damian.’

I straightened and caught her in my arms, spun her to the table, and plonked her arse on it. My phone skittered to the left, and a pen pot was knocked over.

I didn’t care.

‘These,’ I said, gripping the waistband of her knickers, ‘have to go.’

I yanked, my mind intent on only one thing – getting access.

The lace ripped at the seams and shredded.

She gasped and jerked.

‘I’ll buy you more.’ My cock was straining, fit to burst. Spending a few thousand on knickers suited me at this moment.

I stepped between her legs, and she wrapped them around my waist.

I positioned myself at her entrance. We’d fucked many times, in every position she could dream up. But this was different, this was me in charge. I’d chosen to put her on my desk and fuck her this way. I wasn’t going down on her, or following instructions, this was how I, my body, my greedy dick wanted it…now.

Small crescents of discomfort attacked my shoulders. I realised it was her fingernails digging into me as she waited for me to plunge.

‘Ah…yeah, baby…’ I grinned.

She was on edge, desperate for it, at my mercy.

I’ve longed for this. Without knowing it.

I cupped her nape, slid my other hand around her waist. In my arms like this, with her hot thighs around my torso, had there ever been a more perfect woman – anyone more perfect for me?

The dampness of her entrance kissed my glans. I pushed forward, just an inch, allowing the heat to surround my tip.

She moaned and clamped herself closer, her attention set on my eyes.

I stared at the blue flecks around her irises that had turned to the colour of the sky at midnight. Desire radiated between us. I could smell her arousal and mine. Heat surrounded us.

‘Do you want me?’ I asked.

Fuck, I can’t hold off much longer.

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me.’ I pressed my forehead to hers, our noses touching. ‘Tell me you want me, that you’re mine.’

‘I want you so much. Damian. It’s only you…I’m yours.’

‘And this is more than a game.’ I eased into her pussy, not full depth but enough to feel her tightness gripping my shaft.

‘Ahh…’ She breathed out. ‘Yes, more…more than a game…fuck me more.’

I gave in to it. I forged forwards, full depth, until my balls bashed up against her.

The desk creaked, the files shifted beneath her arse.

She buried her face in the curve of my neck and clung to me. I held her tighter and stilled, relishing the moment of claiming not just her pussy but also her.

For the first time I’d entered her on my terms. This was me fucking her. Taking her. Not that I hadn’t had fun before, being her fuck-toy, but now…now I was going to make her mine.

‘Jesus, you feel so good,’ I said into her hair.

She slid her hands around my back and pulled me closer still, so our chests were tightly lodged together.

‘Hold on,’ I whispered.

She did.

I withdrew, pushed back in. Set up a crazy, wild, primitive pace that drove the air from our lungs. I couldn’t get deep enough, go fast enough, get close enough. I was consumed by lust, by her. Everything else in my life, in the universe, faded away.

Tanya was all that existed.

Her desperate groans and grunts had my climax hovering. But I wanted her to come, too. I pressed my body over her clit each time I rode in, dragging on it, stimulating it.

‘Oh, don’t stop,’ she said, pulling back to look at my face.

‘Can’t…won’t…’ I gritted my teeth. ‘Come…please…come…’

‘Yes, yes…’ She screwed up her eyes. Held her breath.

Thank fuck. She was there.

I unleashed my own climax, riding through it as her pussy contracted around my cock. Filling her as her body went rigid in my arms and then shook and trembled.

On and on I came, the ecstasy ripping from my pelvis to my toes and the top of my head. I was hot, cold, shaking, my balls wrung dry.

Eventually I slowed and then finally stopped moving against her.

She released my shoulders and placed her hands behind herself, elbows locked. Though breathing fast, she released a deep sigh.

‘Bloody hell,’ I said, using both of my hands to move her messy hair from her face. ‘That was…’

‘Incredible.’ She smiled and her hair tumbled behind her again.

‘My thoughts exactly.’ I set a soft kiss upon her mouth, holding her cheeks as I did so.

‘So does that mean…?’ She studied my eyes.

‘What?’

‘That you’re not my sub any more?’

I hesitated.

‘Damian?’

‘I like what we have going on,’ I said, my cock begin to soften. I was reluctant to withdraw, though. Being in Tanya was one of my favourite places to be.

‘But…’

‘There’s no but.’ I glanced at her breasts, which were rising and falling while she caught her breath. ‘I like what we have and I hope it can continue. However…’ I smiled, knowing ‘however’ was like ‘but’. ‘What I do want is more.’

‘More?’ She raised her eyebrows.

‘Yes. More of this, more of you. When you’re my Mistress, don’t get me wrong, it’s sexy as fuck, gets me in all kinds of knots of need. But sometimes, in the future, can we do this? Can I overrule proceedings and just claim you?’

‘What are you? A Neanderthal?’ she huffed, though she didn’t look opposed to my suggestion.

‘Maybe it’s that bit of me coming out. I just…’

‘What? Tell me.’

‘I don’t want to give up being your sub, I just want to be your man, too.’

‘You are my man. When we arrange a time to be together, like this, then you’re my man.’

I liked hearing her say that, but I still wanted more and I was going to push for it. ‘I want to be your man on a daily basis.’

She opened her mouth but didn’t speak.

I knew I’d shocked her. ‘I know we’ve been playing this cool for the last however many years and months, but surely that’s not how it’s going to be for ever. There has to be a crunch point.’

‘Damian, I—’

‘Let me finish.’ I smoothed my hand down her leg, keeping her locked around my waist. ‘You’re my every waking thought, you’re in my dreams. I can’t bear it when we go so long without getting together, that’s why I’m so damn hard it hurts. I want to push this up a level.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I’m done with sneaking around. We’re both free agents, we’re both into each other, let’s just date.’

‘Date?’ She’d said it as though the idea was alien to her.

‘Yes, date. It’s not so strange.’

‘But you’re a judge and—’

‘And you’re a lawyer, so what? There’s no rules saying we can’t do what we want together. Except the one you’ve made up in your head, that is.’

She was quiet, and her attention shifted to the right as though she was mulling things through.

‘Tanya, baby.’ I kissed her cheek and then nuzzled her ear. ‘Come on. Say yes. Say yes to me being more than your sub. More than the bloke you bring out to spank and fuck once a month.’

‘You are so much more than that to me.’ She frowned and turned back to stare at me. There was a flash of anger in her eyes. ‘And don’t you ever doubt it, Damian. You’re much more than that.’

‘And you’re much more than a Mistress who knows how to get me going.’ I drew a breath. I could feel my heart rattling against my ribcage, and my stomach was a knot of trepidation. ‘The thing is…’ I had to say it. This was the point of no return. I hadn’t planned tonight to go this way but it had.

‘The thing is what?’ she asked.

‘The thing is – and I’m a great believer in telling the truth – is that…I’m in love with you.’ There, I’d said it. ‘I love you as my Mistress, I love you as a person, and I love you as my woman. I want us to be together, Tanya and Damian, and for everyone to know it, for every man to wish he were me and had you on his arm and in his bed.’

‘Oh, Damian.’ She petted my hair, smoothing it down where it was likely sticking up at all angles.

‘“Oh, Damian…”?’ I said, not liking the way she was treating me like a person who needed to be pacified.

‘You’ve grown so much since we met. You were shy—’

‘Was I?’ That surprised me. Not something I’d ever been described as.

‘In the bedroom, yes. Too many years studying and not enough time shagging.’

I felt my cheeks colouring. What she’d said was true.

‘And you weren’t sure what you wanted. I had to show you, let you try things out. But it worked, didn’t it? Now you know what turns you on, what turns me on. We’re…’

‘A good team.’ I smiled, allowing a little hope to flood my system.

‘We are.’

‘So you’ll agree. We can come out of hiding. Be a couple. A kinky couple, yes, but we don’t have to tell them that.’

‘It’s a big step.’

‘It’s not, not really.’ It was for her. I knew that. Tanya had a reputation for being a hard-as-nails lawyer. Love wasn’t something that sprang to mind when clients or colleagues thought of her.

But love was the only thing that sprang to mind when I thought of her. I loved her with everything that I was, and my cock was bloating again inside her. How could it not?

‘Mmm…’ she said, a wicked smile playing over her lips as her pussy tightened around me. ‘Well, if you’re in love with me, Judge Damian Winston-Barrow, I guess you should make love to me.’

‘So is that a yes? We’re coming out of the closet?’

She giggled. ‘Yes, that’s a yes.’ She smoothed her thumb over my bottom lip. ‘And for the record, I’m in love with you too.’

Your Assignment

Sommer Marsden

I woke to the silence I always dread. The sound of an empty house. Simon had gone away on business, rising at the ungodly hour of four a.m. to sneak quietly out of the house to catch his flight. I hated when he left.

I pushed my hand across to his side of the bed. Long-since cooled, now that his body heat was removed. I inhaled deeply, curling my fingers against the bed sheets. I could smell the bergamot from his body wash and the slight hint of mint from when he brushed his teeth. He brushes his teeth like he’s fighting a war against plaque.

I smiled despite the ache in the centre of my chest that always shows up when he has to go away. But Simon is a pragmatist. We work hard when we are younger so we can play hard when we are older. It makes sense, but separation from him has never been my cup of tea. I prefer us being together as much as possible. Always, if it could be so. He’s my anchor, but he’s also the person who can make me soar. Being apart from Simon feels like I’m missing a limb.

I know, it’s dramatic, but it’s also utterly true.

I considered a shower before coffee and then thought better. I’d need to wake up to work. I’d need to wake up to force myself through the day. The first day when he goes away is always the hardest. I drift around the house, try to get my pages in, and end up drinking coffee, eating junk food and watching movies on TV.

‘Better get under way with the TV watching,’ I muttered.

In the kitchen I measured coffee liberally into the machine and turned it on. It was only once it had started its hissing, grinding progress that I noticed the envelope propped against the salt and pepper shakers on the tiny kitchen table.

On the outside it was simply labelled ‘Your Assignment’ in Simon’s extremely neat handwriting.

I opened it. I was perplexed but noticed that, on top of that, a steady pounding excitement sounded in my belly. This was new. This was interesting. He’d never done this before.

Hello, lovely Anna,

Do you miss me? I know you do. You’ve told me how hard these trips are for you. Don’t worry, this one is only two days. I’ll be back before you know it. But in the meantime, how about something to keep you occupied? Some assignments. The first is spelled out below. When you’ve completed it, please text me COMPLETED, SIR. Then I will tell you where to locate the next. I won’t need proof of your completion. I know you are a good girl who listens. When I return, if you’ve chosen to obey and complete all of the assignments I’ve given, there will be a special reward for you, my good girl.

Assignment #1: I want you to get caught masturbating. Subtly. No tricky hey-look-at-me ploys, Anna. I want the person who discovers you to think it was an accident. Can be a man or a woman. I simply want you to get caught ‘wet-handed’. Good luck!

XXX

Simon

I blinked, read the entire message again, and then poured myself a cup of coffee. There would be no work on my freelance assignments today. I could already tell. Instead, I would be carrying out Simon’s assignment and reporting in. Already I was thrumming with excitement. My pussy was wet, my nipples hard, my face flushed. I could feel it without having to look in the mirror. I probably had the wide-eyed stunned look I often have once Simon’s done having his way with me.

I drank two cups of coffee, fingering the smooth stationery Simon had written his missive on. Where had he dug this up? I wondered. Or had he purchased it specifically for these little dirty love notes?

I put my mug in the dishwasher, grabbed a protein bar and ate it on the way upstairs. In front of my closet I regarded the rows of neatly hung clothes. ‘What does one wear to get caught masturbating?’

I laughed at my own insane question and pulled a flowered cotton dress from its hanger. Then I found a plain and innocent pair of black flats and went about getting dressed. Tiny knickers, no bra, cotton dress and black leather flats.

I regarded myself in the full-length mirror. My wheat-coloured hair was a bit wild with bed-head, and my cheeks were so red I didn’t need blusher. My eyes did appear slightly glassy but that added a subtle chaotic beauty to the whole look, I thought. I did not look like a woman who’d get caught masturbating in public.

‘It’ll do,’ I said.

I grabbed my phone and my purse and headed out to my destination. I’d already decided while getting dressed exactly where I’d go. It was busy and nice but not too fancy. I couldn’t help but wonder as I drove if I’d get caught by a man or a woman. The delicious anxiety of the whole thing had me squirming in my seat.

Denby’s Grocery was a bit on the posh side. All the local business class stopped in for the offerings of fresh pastries and croissants for breakfast, or the prepackaged frou-frou meals for lunch. It was always busy and always well maintained. I walked directly in and turned to my immediate left to the restrooms. As public restrooms go, they are nice. Always well maintained. Always clean. And despite being a single-person, unisex restroom, it had a seat near a small vanity for freshening up.

If I was going to get caught in public it was going to be in a nice room.

I went in and deliberately neglected to lock the door. I sat on the chair and lifted the front of my dress. I’d had a plan. Not terribly complex. I wore the dress so I could sit on the fabric but lift the top. I was nothing if not sanitary and polite.

That thought made me laugh, loud and a little wild, in the room by myself.

I shut my eyes, picturing Simon’s thick forearms. They were one of my very favourite parts of his anatomy. The way the muscles flexed like cords beneath his skin. The left arm sported a tattoo of a crow. I focused on that and then turned my mental attention to his fingers. Long and thick but still somehow elegant. I pictured them strumming over my clit. A few thick fingers sliding inside my cunt. Him touching me was always a mental image that made it easy to get off.

I ran my fingers over the bodice of my dress, feeling my nipples hard and spiked at the mental image. I trailed them down my belly, provoking a shiver. Then, finally, I put my fingertip to my clit and began. Small, easy revolutions. My touch light at first because just being here – doing this – had me worked up. I stroked until I felt the first wave of pleasure indicating orgasm. I waited, wondering, thinking…who would come? Would anyone? And how crazy was I to be doing this?

But Simon had given the assignment and I had obeyed. Submitted to his wishes. Which was hardly ever a question for me.

I heard footsteps out in the hallway and my body clenched tight. The rush of adrenalin was enough to slam me almost to the tipping point. I imagined a hand reaching out for the doorknob. Was it male? Female?

I pushed two fingers inside my pussy, curled my fingers, waited. The waiting was delicious torture.

My eyes were closed and I bit my lips. I heard the knob turn and almost came. But I took a deep breath and when the door swung open I heard a sharp intake of breath.

My eyes flew open just as my orgasm, teased to fruition by a welcome intruder, hit my body. I shook, unable to help it or stop what I was doing. All the while looking into the bright-blue and quite surprised eyes of a young businessman.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry…’ He repeated it a few more times as he backed out.

I couldn’t help myself after seeing the look on his face, half horror, half arousal – I just kept going until a second orgasm coursed through me. I sighed, washed my hands, fluffed my hair and left. ‘My apologies,’ I said to him as I passed him in the hall. ‘I always forget to lock the door.’

I bought a salad for my lunch and texted Simon on the way out. COMPLETED, SIR. Nothing more, nothing less.

He made me wait. It took him two hours to reply. THERE’S MY GOOD GIRL. YOUR NEXT ASSIGNMENT CAN BE FOUND BEHIND THE CUSHION OF THE BLUE CHAIR IN THE SUNROOM. XXX

I rushed into the room and plucked the envelope from behind the back cushion. My hands were actually shaking as I removed the card.

Hello Anna,

I see you’ve succeeded in completing assignment #1. I knew you would. Your second assignment, should you choose to accept it (I couldn’t resist), is to perform an exotic enticing dance for an audience. I’ll let you figure out the details, and, as with the last assignment, take you at your word that you completed my request. Have fun. I’ll be home soon.

XXX

Simon

An enticing dance! Was he insane? And yet, even as I mentally raged at the idea of such a preposterous idea, I formulated a plan. It was much easier than I’d thought it would be. Not too far from us – we were a stone’s throw from the city proper – was one of the nicer gentlemen’s clubs. I knew that Simon had been there for several bachelor parties and had remarked that it was one of the better clubs of its kind. Not seedy or sad, but a vibrant, well-run business with some taste, and beautiful women working the pole.

‘Working the pole,’ I said aloud. ‘Can I work a pole? I mean…Jesus.’

And yet I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that the idea of putting myself up there, parading around, showing my body, was a cause of arousal. It was definitely insane, but it was also extremely intriguing.

I looked up the website for Garters and found the hours of operation. They were open now. I should just get it out of the way. I’d have to change but I could be there within the hour.

I didn’t let my mind turn to worry. I went, on autopilot, back into my closet. A black bra, black panties, thigh-high hosiery, black heels and a gold and black wrap dress. It was the closest thing I could put together to exotic dancewear.

When I drove, I didn’t let myself think at all. I turned up the music and let the wind blow in my hair. I made sure to breathe and not panic.

I pulled into a parking spot and grabbed my bag. I marched into the bar like I owned the place. I’m not the calm, cool, confident one. That’s Simon. But I find at times like this the trick is to channel Simon. I adopt his attitude and his self-confidence and pretend it’s my own. Fake it till you make it, as the saying goes.

‘I’d like to see the manager,’ I said to the bartender. He gave me the once-over, cocked an eyebrow and nodded.

‘Just a second.’

He came back with a short, bald man who had an unlit cigar in his mouth.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘Well, Mr…’

‘Moore,’ he said. Apparently, it was his turn to give me a once-over. I tried not to take offence. This was a man whose business it was to appraise women like horses.

‘Mr Moore, hello, my name is…’ I faltered for a second. ‘Emma.’ What the hell. Close enough to Anna.

‘And?’

Clearly he thought I was wasting his time.

‘I’d like to dance,’ I said. ‘Just one dance. Just today. And…I was wondering if that could be arranged.’

He laughed. It wasn’t an unkind laugh. Just a startled laugh. ‘You want to dance for one dance for one day?’

‘I do.’ I reached into my bag and found my wallet. ‘I’d be happy to—’

He cut me off with a wave of his hand. ‘Save your money. Honey, you don’t have to bribe me to let you dance. I have no idea why you’re asking, but I’m more than happy to help you fulfil your fantasy. Or complete your turn in Truth or Dare or whatever the hell it is you’re doing.’ He put the cigar in the pocket of his shirt and said, ‘Any requests?’

‘Sorry?’

I noticed the bartender, tall and lean with a shock of black hair done in an undercut, smiling. He was very amused.

‘Song? Any request?’

‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’

‘Right. I’ll choose then. Something retro, maybe. Stereotypical 80s strip song work for you?’

A bubble of laughter leaked out of me and I quickly covered my mouth. ‘I’m not sure if I’ll be any good at all.’

He raked his gaze over my body again and said, ‘Trust me, with that body, you could stand still as a board and just slowly take off bits of clothing and it would work. Oh, and regulations, sweetheart. Tits out is fine, no baring the beaver, OK?’

I blinked at the sudden coarse language but nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘As soon as Marie is done you can take the stage. Can Charlie get you a drink? On the house. You might need it.’ He gave me a wry smile.

I exhaled loudly. ‘I’ll take a vodka with a twist of lime,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

The liquor went down fast and hard and before I could second-guess myself Mr Moore was announcing a special one-time-only performance. Me.

‘Good luck. Want me to hold your bag?’ the bartender asked.

I passed it over the bar, too far gone to worry if he’d rifle through it. On legs made of wispy cotton, I trudged to the stage. The stereotypical 80s strip song was cued, as promised, and I began to dance.

The men in the front row didn’t unnerve me so much as startle me. Their gazes were atavistic. A shiver worked through my core as I grabbed the pole and tried to remember what to do. What was there to do beyond shimmy and writhe while trying to get my shaking hands to remove bits of clothing? A turn, a bounce, a shoe flipped off into the crowd. A huge man in a business suit caught it and tipped me a nod. I liked him, the easygoing, ruddy-faced look of him, so I focused on him as I danced.

A thudding bass vibrated through my now bare feet and it occurred to me, too late, I should have kept the shoes. Wasn’t that the point of the heels? Bare but for heels and very little else?

I shook it off and tossed my hair as I danced. Fuck it. Too late now. I tugged the tie on the dress, hoping to distract from my sadly bare feet. When it fell open someone wolf-whistled near the back of the room and I heard the manager laugh.

After peeling it open slowly, I let the wrap dress fall from my shoulders like a bathrobe. Then I danced around the puddle of silk on the floor. It was easy enough to stoop to unroll my thigh-high stockings. Slowly, but not too much, didn’t want to run out of song.

My heart was thudding like some trapped beast’s but I paid it no mind. I was high on adrenalin and the rush of this strange spectacle I was making of myself.

I dropped my stockings and stood on tiptoe, dancing as if I had heels on. It was the best I could do. No one seemed to mind. I heard a few more whistles, some shouted encouragement, and, as the song neared its end, I remembered the words ‘Tits out is fine, no baring the beaver…’

I worked the straps down first, because who doesn’t love a bit of anticipation? My head was fuzzy like it was full of cotton but my body seemed to buzz with an electrical charge.

As the song wound down, I undid the bra clasp and held it to my chest for a beat before holding it out by two fingers and dropping it on top of my dress.

Then I got some applause. They drowned out the end of the song as I took my final turn around the pole. Not too bad for a terrified beginner.

Then the manager rushed at me with a robe and someone, maybe the bartender, gathered my clothes.

I was led to the restroom and handed my clothing and a single shoe. ‘You sure you don’t want a job, doll?’ Mr Moore asked.

I laughed. I was truly shaking then. Every part of me was in a fine tremble, even my lips. ‘I’m sure.’

‘Well, come back any time, special guest star.’

I dressed hurriedly and went out to find my bag. The burly man who’d caught my shoe was waiting at the bar. He pushed my heel across the black bar and simply said, ‘Nice.’

When I walked out into the bright sunlight I felt like I’d been dropped on another planet. It took my trembling fingers three tries to type out COMPLETED, SIR and manage to send the text.

Then I waited.

I got home and took a hot shower, my mobile phone resting on the windowsill so I could hear it. This time I didn’t get a text. This time, as I was stepping out, my phone rang.

Despite our many years together, getting a call from Simon, especially a call like this, made my heart skip a beat.

‘Hello?’

‘There’s my girl. Are you ready for your last assignment?’

I nodded before catching myself and answering. ‘Yes. Of course.’

‘It’s hidden in the pantry behind the cookies you try not to eat too often. Sugar being the devil, and all.’

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

‘You can fulfil it tonight or tomorrow. If you do it tonight, you’ll have to wait a whole day with no play before I get home. If you do it tomorrow, it’ll torture you all night. Either way, I’m satisfied.’

‘I—’

He cut me off. ‘I love you, Anna. I have to go. Be a good girl. Or don’t. Either way you’ll get punished.’ Then the connection was dropped and I had to put a hand on the sink to steady myself.

It took me only a moment to throw on a robe and make my way down to the pantry. I dug around at the back of the second shelf until I found the envelope. It was tucked behind the chocolate-dipped cookies I tried so hard not to eat. They were decadent and lovely, but one or two a month was good enough for me. Otherwise, they turned cloying and heavy.

I ripped open the envelope with shaking hands and read his impeccable penmanship. Really, who could boast impeccable penmanship in an age of texting and typing and face calls on smartphones? Simon and my grandmother were the only two people I knew.

Your third assignment, my pet, should you choose to accept it, is a nice hearty paddling. You know our new neighbour, Kyle? The one who lives behind us and stammers every time you appear? I’ve had a few words with him over that fence. I know he’s smitten with you. I’ve filled him in on some of our colourful history. All you need to do is go to him and say, ‘Daddy said I need a paddling.’ He’ll take care of the rest. You may pleasure yourself in front of him as a reward but no fucking. He’s well aware of the rules, and more than willing to play along.

XXX

Simon

I stood there absorbing what I’d read. I couldn’t quite believe it. But, knowing Simon as I do, I did believe it. Thoroughly. I conjured up the image of Kyle. Hair the colour of wet sand, bright-blue eyes, an easy smile. He did stammer when I was around but I’d assumed he did that with everyone. Apparently not. I pushed my hands to my face, forcing myself to breathe deeply. Tonight or tomorrow? Anticipation all night long or nothing to keep me occupied tomorrow until Simon’s arrival the following morning? It was a hard decision.

I poured a glass of Shiraz and thought of my busy day. Masturbating in a restroom. Dancing around a pole while strangers watched. Did I want to keep my momentum going or did I want to just barrel through?

‘Sleep on it,’ I said, and downed the wine. And then I did exactly the opposite. I pulled my kimono tighter around me and marched out the back door, through the wet grass, to the fence that divided our property from Kyle’s. I unlatched the small gate between the properties. (Rumour was, the women who used to live in these houses had been best friends and had installed the gate so that they could visit each other.) Before I lost my nerve, I forced my feet to walk across the yard, go up the two small steps and knock on his back door.

His face appeared and then seemed to pale a little before a smile erupted. ‘Anna. There you are…’ He tripped over some of his words. And now I knew it was because of me. An oddly pleasing titbit.

‘Hi, um…Kyle. I just…what I mean is—’ I wasn’t doing so well navigating my words either. Finally, I pulled in a deep breath and said, ‘Daddy said I need a paddling.’

My eyes went to his crotch and I could see his cock was hard and straining against his jeans. ‘Here or there?’ he asked.

I shrugged. I had no specific instructions on location. ‘I assume he gave you something? For the paddling?’

He inclined his head and said on a shuddery breath, ‘Yes.’

‘Then here is fine. If you’re OK with it.’

He opened the door wider and stepped back so I could enter.

I followed him through his clean but somewhat stark apartment to his bedroom. The bed was made up with a blue duvet and there was a single framed Monet print on the wall. It was clearly the apartment of a single man, but a neat one. I was grateful for that.

He opened the drawer of the bedside table and withdrew a balsa-wood paddle. A plain, run-of-the-mill paddle that you might expect to see a rubber ball tethered to with an elastic string. But I knew what a paddle like that could do. Sting like a bastard.

Face burning with blissful shame, pussy wet beyond belief, I dropped my kimono to reveal nothing underneath. He inhaled sharply and I almost smiled. It was flattering, really.

‘He said to just…have you…’ He was really having trouble getting the words out now.

‘Assume the position?’ I asked.

He nodded.

‘Bare-assed?’

Another nod. His face was the colour my ass would be soon. His throat worked like he needed to swallow but couldn’t.

I got in the middle of the bed on my hands and knees, ass pointed his way. I knew in this position he could see the wetness glistening on my folds. Maybe even see the erect little spike of my hard clit. My heartbeat had become a nearly sickening gallop and I tried mightily to breathe.

I wasn’t worried, though. Simon would never have sent me here if it wasn’t safe. I was about to ask Kyle if I was supposed to do anything else when the paddle came down on my ass. My body bucked and a low moan escaped me. A moan that echoed my own came from him. It would have almost been comical, and I might have laughed, had he not brought the wood down on the opposite cheek with equal force. I bucked again. So, that was it. Simon had simply told him to paddle me – no counting, no nothing – until my bottom reached a specific colour. Knowing him, ketchup or rubies or crimson. And, God bless him, Kyle was carrying out the orders.

On the fifth blow I felt my wetness had spread to my upper thighs I was so drenched. I reached to stroke myself and Kyle surprised me with a brusque ‘Don’t. He said not during.’

I dropped my hand and bowed my head and took my blows. He was getting into it now. I literally heard the whistle of the air around the paddle as he brought it down again. By the time I was weeping, he stopped. I turned to look at him and he reached out a hand to touch my ass but quickly pulled it back, remembering orders, most likely, not to touch me. But my bottom was so sore and so sensitive that I swore I could feel the energy of his palm as it came close. Like electricity shimmering across the swollen, hot skin.

I dropped to the bed and rolled on to my back. He stood there, eyes wide, breath erratic. ‘I was told I could reward you,’ I managed.

He barely blinked.

I spread my thighs and dipped my fingers into my wetness. Then I began slow, swirling circles across my hard clit. I met his gaze with my own, thrusting three fingers into my cunt and then resuming my teasing strokes. I was already so very close to coming. I didn’t want to rush it for him. He deserved a reward.

I ground my tender ass against his duvet and then used both hands. Burying my fingers in my pussy, thrusting deep and hooking my fingers to hit my G spot. My other hand played across my clit, swirling and stroking, occasionally pinching. When I finally came, hips thrusting up involuntarily, he looked like he might faint.

I stood on shaky legs, gathered my kimono and wrapped it around myself. ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘for your…help.’

He simply nodded, one hand straying to press flat against the fly of his jeans. ‘You should go,’ he said. ‘I have to…’ He blushed from the roots of his hair to the V-neck of his sweater.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Of course.’

I hurried home and texted my completion to Simon. I imagined, as I fell asleep, that I could hear his dark chuckle. And what he’d probably say. ‘Such an impatient girl.’

The following day dragged. I scolded myself as I worked for rushing my string of assignments. I could be having a nice paddling today if I hadn’t rushed it. If I hadn’t been greedy. I focused as much as I could on my work and then went into a frenzy cleaning the house. When evening arrived, I poured a glass of wine and took a long hot bath. I masturbated leisurely in the hot water, reliving the day before. When I finally crawled into bed, eager to get the day over with, I was heavy-limbed and tired.

So when the sheets were whisked off me a few hours later I cried out.

‘Oh, don’t make such a fuss,’ Simon said, hiking my hips up and tugging my panties off. He left my nightshirt bunched around my waist. ‘Is that any way to greet a man who left early because he couldn’t wait to get his hands on you?’

His fingers played over the small purple starbursts on my ass that I’d been admiring just a few hours earlier. ‘He really did his job well, didn’t he?’

I nodded, chewing my lip. Now that I was fully awake I was beyond excited. When he pushed his fingers inside me, he smiled. ‘Someone’s happy to see me.’

He kept fucking me with his fingers for a moment as I lay there on my belly struggling to breathe. His fingertips trailed across the skin of my ass and goose bumps rushed up to meet his touch.

‘Did you get off for him? Let him watch?’

I nodded again, face pressed to the mattress.

‘Did you like it?’ There was a pregnant pause. I nodded. His hand came down and heat spread through me like a brushfire. ‘Of course you did. My perfect little slut.’

He thrust his fingers inside me once, twice, three times and then pulled them free. The absence of them was staggering.

‘And getting caught diddling yourself? Did you like that?’

Another nod. A flurry of spanks. I knew damn well why he’d had Kyle use a paddle. He’d never in a million years let another man lay his bare hands on me. The realisation made my nipples spike hard. They ached for him to pinch them, suck them and tug them until I thought I couldn’t bear it.

‘Where was it?’

‘Denby’s.’

He chuckled and the sound seemed to tiptoe up my spine and across my scalp, making it prickle. ‘Nice place. Good girl.

‘And your second assignment?’

‘The gentlemen’s club. I danced. On stage.’

Five fast blows of his flat hand against my ass. I bucked, my body torn between trying to avoid his blows and arching into them.

He moved me up to my knees and I put out my arms to steady myself. I heard the whisk of his belt being removed. The rustle of his clothes. He paused at one point to push his fingers inside my cunt and lay a kiss on my left ass cheek. I was torn between a whimper and a sob.

I stayed there, on hands and knees, waiting as he studied me. And then the very tip of his belt licked across the meatiest part of my ass, and I sobbed in earnest.

A grunt was his only reply. Until he got on the bed and moved behind me. He pushed his cock to my wet entrance and I had to bite my tongue to stay still. If I moved, sought him out or tried to rush him in any way he’d deny me, and I couldn’t stand even the thought of that.

‘Shhh,’ he said when I whimpered. ‘There’s my good girl. Does what she’s told and enjoys it. Takes her punishment and enjoys it.’

He thrust into me and I started to tremble. His hands possessive on my hips. Holding me tight and anchoring me as he fucked me. I lost my composure and pushed back to meet him, to eagerly take him. Simon was past caring about anything like that. He was just as lost in our reunion as I was and my heart felt light from the knowledge.

He looped an arm around my waist and the other strayed up to cup my throat. His hips pistoned forward and I felt my pussy growing tighter.

‘I’m—’

‘You may,’ before I even finished the sentence. ‘You did a very good job, Anna. I’m proud of you.’

That was all it took. Those words. I came with a sob and I felt the vibration of my cries trapped beneath his palm on my throat.

He released me so that I could put my hands flat on the mattress again. His fingertips painted across the welts and the small bruises on my bottom. When he pushed a finger into my ass, I bucked and mewled. He began to slowly thrust it in and out. My entire body jittered involuntarily and he made that dark animal noise he only makes when he’s close.

‘I want you to come with me,’ he said, voice rough. ‘It’s your final assignment.’ His rhythm had picked up and his finger drove into me slowly before being withdrawn. And then again.

‘Will you accept it?’

I chewed my lower lip. I was ready then but I had to wait. Wait for him to say.

‘Words, Anna,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I gasped.

He fucked me harder then, holding on to me with one strong hand. ‘Come with me,’ he finally growled and I lost myself when he lost himself. We tripped into the release together, each body anchored by the other.

I let out a long sigh and dropped to the bed. His kisses along the tortured flesh of my bottom lulled me into drowsy silence.

‘I missed you,’ he said.

‘Do I even have to say I missed you?’ I asked, laughing.

‘But I kept you occupied?’

‘You did.’

‘Good. Because next month I have another short trip.’

I groaned even as he dropped a soft kiss on the small of my back. ‘Shhh,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to leave you some challenges.’

I smiled. ‘It’s the only thing that will make you being gone bearable.’

Two-faced

CeCe Marsh

The first time they had sex she was barely eighteen, a virgin, but she was afraid to tell him that second detail, afraid that he wouldn’t want her if he knew the truth. So she kept the information to herself and just acted the way she felt: shy, overcome by how attractive he was, amazed that someone so much older, so much more accomplished, wanted anything to do with her.

He’d undressed her himself, slowly, deliberately, and she stared into his eyes as he did, silent, blushing, not knowing what to say. All she knew was that she wanted this, wanted him, more than she’d ever wanted anything. She didn’t want to say anything to mess it up.

Because she’d never been with a man before, she thought maybe it wasn’t unusual when he positioned her face-down, her ass up high. Or when he stood at the end of the bed without undressing, just opened his pants and pulled out his cock to ride her. Or when he grabbed her hands and held them tight behind her back as he fucked her. Sex with him was nothing like it was in the movies, but really, what in real life was?

‘God, you’re tight! How many men have you had sex with?’ he asked her.

‘Just one,’ she replied, meaning him. But she couldn’t keep her secret despite how she tried. She bit her lip when she felt the pain, not wanting him to hear her cry out, but when he pulled out of her, there was blood on the condom.

‘I thought you said you finished your period last week,’ he said to her, momentarily confused by the contradiction between what she had told him and what he saw, and without thinking she answered.

‘I did.’

As soon as she said it, she realised what had happened; so did he. ‘You were a virgin?’ he asked, shocked, and she knew she couldn’t lie to him now.

‘I was. But I’m not now, and since I never will be again, let’s just forget about it, OK? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you – please don’t stop seeing me because of it.’

She was stunned when he laughed out loud. ‘Oh, my God! I haven’t fucked a virgin since I was fourteen. I never thought it would happen again.’

He pulled her up to him and kissed her. ‘You’re really mine, now. All mine. And you’ll never be anyone else’s. Will you?’ As her heart soared, he took off his clothes and repositioned her on her back, with her knees wide open, pulling them up as far as they’d go. Then he drew her hands up over her head and held them tightly in his once again as he fucked her a second time. When he was finished, he asked her to wear a pair of leather cuffs to sleep in, to show how much she trusted him already, and she held out her hands without another word.

On their second date, he brought her to his tiny apartment again, and they went right to the bedroom. Sex, for him, always had to come first. Dinner, movies, drinks, sports – if there was an activity planned, it was always Act 2 of any date. Act 3 was more sex. From his dresser he took out the leather cuffs he had slipped onto her wrists the last time. He held them out to her, saying, ‘Remember these?’ and she nodded. ‘I like a woman to be bound or in cuffs when I have sex with her. It’s why I held your wrists when I fucked you. Tonight, I want to cuff your hands first, OK? It turns me on. Do you mind if I do that?’

‘No, I guess not. I guess it’s OK.’ She thought about how it had felt when he held her hands tight as he took her the last time, how easily she had relaxed once she was under his control.

‘You can tell me if you don’t like it, and I’ll take them off. Just try it first, though. Do it for me.’

But she did like it, just as she’d liked when he’d held her wrists before, as she’d liked sleeping curled up beside him, wearing his cuffs. It made her feel safe. Loved. Held tight by him. In fact, she found that she liked it very much. And when, a few weeks later, he told her he wanted to spank her, because it would turn him on, she said that was OK, too.

He said if she didn’t like it, he’d stop. But she found that, just as with the cuffs and the other bindings he’d used since then, she did like it. She loved the feeling of his skin on hers as he struck her; the pain felt like his special gift to her. He made love to her when he spanked her. Not only after; the spanking itself, the pain, was lovemaking. It imparted an intimacy, forged a bond between them unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. And it was secret. No one knew what they did together but the two of them. The pain was a gift.

A few weeks after that, he said to her, ‘Tonight, after I spank you, I’m going to whip you with my belt. It’ll hurt, but you won’t mind that, will you? I think you’ll like it, really. It would mean so much to me if you’d do it. It would really turn me on.

‘I’ve been thinking about whipping you all day, about how pretty you’ll look with the marks I’m going to leave on you. You can lift up your skirt and look in the mirror any time you want, and you’ll see them and think of me. You’ll think about our secrets; about everything we share. Is it OK if I whip you like that? You can stop me if you don’t like it.’

She thought about what it would be liked to be whipped by him, about the marks he would leave on her naked skin. About how they would remind her of his love even when the two of them were apart. She didn’t care how much it hurt. She’d never care about that. She wanted the pain. She wanted to wear his stripes. And everything he’d done to her so far she’d liked. More than liked. She wanted this as much as he did. Everything she said yes to just proved to him how much she loved him. Proved it to herself. The marks from his belt would be a sign of how much he loved her. She would do anything to look in the mirror and see his stripes on her naked flesh.

‘Yes, it’s OK. I want you to whip me. Will you do it hard? I want you to. I won’t ask you to stop – I promise. I want you to decide when to stop.’

Then one day, at the end of her first semester, after she’d moved out of the dorm and in with him, he told her he wanted her to submit to him completely, and she said yes. He asked if she would agree to obey him in everything, to give herself to him without reservation, to do whatever he asked, whatever he said. He asked whether she trusted him that much. And she said she did, that she would be happy to belong to him, that she wanted him to think of her as his possession. And her surrender to his control released her; she didn’t have to worry about anything so long as he was in charge.

He made rules for her to follow and, when she broke one, he punished her. He said he loved to punish her, that her submission was the most precious thing in his life. It pleased him in ways nothing else had ever done. And she wanted more than anything to please him.

More than that, she understood. What she had with him made her life complete. When he tied her up, when he spanked her, when he took charge of her, it released something in her, set her free. She belonged to him. That was the important thing: She was his – always, only, his.

* * *

Kristen shifted the expensive leather tote that functioned as her briefcase into the hand holding her purse, so she could unlock the door to the condo she shared with her husband. As usual, the Schuylkill Expressway had been a bear – keeping her from arriving at six-thirty, as she’d planned; as she always planned. As she entered, she smelled dinner – he was just putting it on the table. A quick glance told her Dillon had made one of her favourite meals: chicken roasted with sweet potatoes, fresh broccoli, a green salad. She’d bet he’d made the Dijon vinaigrette that she loved, too, and had dressed the salad with it. He was so good to her. Her stomach rumbled. Work had been busy; there’d been a problem that had necessitated an unscheduled meeting, and she’d missed lunch. She hadn’t eaten all day. She was really hungry.

Kristen slipped out of her four-inch heels, flexed her toes and took off her stone trench-coat. Stone for spring and summer, black for autumn and winter. She’d started wearing the light-coloured one last week; she would pick the black one up from the cleaner’s Saturday morning. It would sit in the back of the coat closet, swathed in its flimsy plastic, until after the next equinox.

The youngest vice-president at the largest downtown bank, Kristen had a closet full of neutrals. Her skirt suits and sheaths were arranged by colour: black, charcoal, navy and shades of brown from the darkest chocolate through tobacco and taupe to the palest beige, all of them complementing her chin-length, dark copper hair. When she felt like wearing something different, she’d don burgundy or aubergine. Her blouses were white, ivory, blush, the lightest blues, pale silvery greys. Her heels were high, her skirts straight and narrow. She knew how to look the part. And she always pulled it off, perfectly. Never a hair, a thread, out of place.

Her job performance was impeccable, too, and she got off on the day-to-day of it, on working her way up the food chain, on the idea of the money that moved through her institution every day, in, out, the money that cloned itself even as the people who handled it, managed it, slept. But the best part of each day was this part: when she walked through this door, to this living room, this man, this life. When she hung up her last name, her title, all the bullshit that even the best job entails, along with her trench-coat. When she slipped off her shoes, slipped off her clothes, slipped off her bullet-proof skin, became simply ‘Kristen’ and turned everything over to him.

Dillon looked up when she entered, glanced at the clock, smiled. Seven on the dot; that gave them roughly three hours tonight. She was supposed to be home by six-thirty, but rarely made it. Her tardiness never made him angry – she couldn’t do anything about the traffic on the Schuylkill – but he would use it to his advantage, nevertheless. To both their advantages, really.

He was a doctor in emergency medicine, a trauma surgeon who usually worked the night shift. Dillon hated rotating hours, and other doctors were all too happy to pass on the gruelling nights, so he requested them; it meant he had some consistency, helped him maintain a sleep schedule. Besides, he’d always been a night owl. He left home promptly most evenings at ten, after a fresh shower and shave, wearing a clean set of green scrubs he would change yet again when he got to work. The trauma centre of the Philadelphia hospital – the busiest one in the city – was always a zoo at night, and his evening routine, between the time when his wife got home and the time that he left, gave structure and sanity to his world, a structure that work often lacked.

Kristen, whose life at the bank was far less variable, whose days (although they had their own stresses) didn’t tend, as a rule, to lurch start to finish from one crisis to another, left the house every morning at seven, before Dillon got home. They were two ships passing, living most of their lives in a three-to-four-hour window every evening. They’d learned to make the time count. He got up at four in the afternoon, sometimes hit the supermarket, then either cooked or picked up takeout before she got home. She cleaned up the kitchen later, while he was in the shower, just before he left. In the five years they’d lived this schedule, they’d become a well-oiled machine.

‘Do I have time to get out of this dress? Or do you want me at the table now?’ she asked, willing to go either way, do whatever he wanted.

‘Let’s eat first,’ he said, and she took her place at the table. They chatted about her day, his last shift, plans for the weekend. She had a glass of white wine. Dillon drank water as he ate; he’d have a beer in the morning, when he got home.

Kristen listened to her husband describe his work the night before on a sixteen-year-old shooting victim. ‘I don’t know – gang- or drug-related, probably. Or both,’ he said, shaking his head when she asked what had happened to the boy. ‘Maybe it was over a girl.’ She knew this was the hardest part of his job – that despite his years of training, his experience, his best efforts, there was so much he couldn’t control. She looked at his face – the soft grey eyes and lines that showed his concern for everyone he knew, everyone he met; his strong jaw, his full lips that slipped so easily into a smile, the straight light-brown hair that fell over his forehead. She loved this face, Dilly’s face.

And she knew he loved hers. As he looked across the table at his wife, he smiled into her deep-blue eyes, taking in her upturned nose – barely dusted with the freckles she still hated at almost thirty – her pointed chin, her sleek, shiny hair. She smiled back. She was so glad to be home. So glad to be with him.

They cleared the table and put the leftovers away, dividing the food into containers for their lunches before making their way into the bedroom, their favourite room of the condo. It was where they spent most of their time outside work. They’d gotten rid of the living-room TV – the only one they had – soon after their marriage, when they finally admitted there was no reason to keep a television; they never watched it. All it did was take up space, gather dust. They got their news online; when Dillon had time to watch a game, on the weekends maybe, if he wasn’t working or spending time with Kristen, he’d drive to a sports bar, have a beer or two with a friend, another doctor, sometimes an old frat brother. Their evening entertainment was each other, and what they did together. And there was nothing on television like that.

As they crossed the threshold, the mood shifted, small talk ceased. In this room, Kristen maintained silence, spoke only in response to a question or prompt from her husband. In front of the large bedroom closet, Dillon took Kristen’s arm and turned her, then reached out to unzip her dress, kissing her shoulder as he pulled the sleeveless black sheath down both her arms at once. Under it, she was wearing a black lace bustier and a matching garter belt that fastened to stockings trimmed also in lace. No panties. Kristen wasn’t allowed panties. And she knew better than to wear what she wasn’t allowed. She slid out of the dress, then, as Dillon hung it up for her, she spread her legs automatically, waiting. He didn’t even have to ask. He rarely did. He’d trained her too well for that.

The bustier held her breasts up high and away from her body, the way Dillon liked, and the lacy garter belt and stockings framed her smooth, shaved sex in front, her softly sloped ass behind. Dillon reached down and pulled at a garter, then let go, listening to it snap hard against her leg. He ran his hand over her cheek, beside the garter, then trailed his fingers down between her legs, over her clit, all the way up, dragging them slowly through the very top of her slit.

Suddenly, he raised his hand and brought it down hard. Crack! Kristen knew without looking that his handprint remained on the left cheek of her ass, covered it almost. It stung, and she sighed. Now, finally, she had it, what she’d waited for all day: his first mark on her. And as she waited for the next, as he teased and pinched her burning cheek before giving her what she needed, her pussy started to cream the way it always did with that first delicious strike. She reached out her hands to him as if she were praying, waiting for him to slip on the cuffs. But he had other things on his mind just then.

‘Take off the belt,’ he growled in that voice that he used every evening, and she silently unhooked the garters and slid the belt off, giving him even freer access to her ass. She noticed the bottle of lube on the nightstand. That’s right; it was Thursday. There was always lube on Thursdays, because that was when they reconciled Accounts Receivable, when they settled up what she owed for the past week. Payment in full was what was required, and that required lube. She squirmed as she stood up, thinking about what the bill would come to. It wouldn’t just be the hand spanking she got every night, not just the dozen strokes of his belt, the foreplay as integral to an evening’s fun as his cock, her cunt. Not on a Thursday.

‘Now, cuffs.’ She put her hands out again, dutifully, and he snicked the metal rings into place before settling into the upholstered chair in the corner, the one with no arms. She approached, eyes down, and draped herself over his waiting knee, noticing the erection just beginning to form in the front of his pants.

The burn of his hand striking her ass, the sting that crept up her back, forward to her belly, lodged in her clit – it was what she lived for. Work was great, her friends were great, but this – what they had together, what he gave her every night in this room, what she gave him when she submitted fully – there was nothing like this. There never had been. Never would be.

Here, she was just Kristen. His Kristen. She made no decisions, except for the simplest ones. And when she didn’t feel up to those, she only needed to hesitate and Dillon stepped in, made them for her. Here, he was in control. She had no one to answer to but him and – best of all – no one who answered to her. No responsibility but obedience. Nothing to explain, nothing to clarify. No questions she had to answer, other than his. Here, Dillon gave her the answers. He was the answer.

And the pain purified everything, clarified everything. With it, she paid for her imperfections; it balanced the scales of her life, restored her equilibrium, focused her on what was important, evaporated her worries, her stress. Here, with Dillon, all that was required was her submission, her acceptance of his will, his punishments. Her world was reduced to two things: pain, pleasure. There was nothing else. No one else. Two people, two things. It didn’t get much simpler than that.

The first years they’d been together, when she was in college and Dillon was a resident, when she wouldn’t see him for days at a time and she had to go without his touch, never knowing when she’d next feel his hands on her, caressing her, punishing her the way she’d come to need, were torment. Nothing he ever did to her, no pain she’d endured before or since, came close to the torture of living without it, without him, his presence, every day. And nothing else worked – she’d tried. She’d slapped her own face until it was bruised; lashed her own back with floggers and belts; even tried cutting herself once – he’d really punished her for that – but it was no good. The pain was never the same unless he gave it to her. It had to come from him. The nights she’d come home to that empty little city-centre apartment, when he had to stay at the hospital for those long stretches, and she never knew for sure when he’d be back – those were the loneliest times she’d ever known.

She remembered the night she’d had to call him at the hospital, had to ask him to come home because she couldn’t stop the bleeding from the too-deep cut she’d made in her arm. He’d raced to the apartment on foot, bounded up the stairs, out of breath, to find her bleeding into the sink, crying because she knew he’d be angry when he saw what she’d done, crying because she was afraid of how much blood there was and she didn’t know what to do to make it stop.

He had sutured her himself, there in the apartment, with no anaesthetic so she could feel every stitch. She had begged him to do it that way, and he’d agreed, his face still frozen in fear and fury, knowing that this punishment was what she needed. Afterwards, even though he’d been in a rush to get back to the hospital, he’d whipped her hard, again and again, and then fucked her and put her to bed before he left.

‘I’m a doctor, Kristen,’ he had said to her that night. ‘Any cutting that is to be done from now on will be done by me, understand? I know where it’s safe to cut; I know how deep. And I have the tools to do it right. If you need to be cut, ask me. I’ll do it. But no more of this. Understand?

‘I’m sorry, Dillon,’ she had said over and over, weeping. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ll never do it again, I promise. I just can’t stand it when you’re away for so long. I don’t need to be cut, but I need the pain, Dilly. I just need it. And I need it from you. All that blood. All that blood, and it still wasn’t enough.’

The next day they talked, and Dillon agreed that, on days he couldn’t make it home, nights he’d been away more than 24 hours, Kristen would come to the hospital on his meal break to see him. He’d take her by the arm to a dark corner of the parking garage and punish her there, using whatever she had brought with her for the purpose, leaning her up against a minivan with assorted stick figures on the back window, showing how many adults and kids and pets made up the family who rode around in it. Or maybe behind a truck or an SUV with bumper stickers advertising the politics or sports teams or vacation spots favoured by the people who drove it. It wasn’t the same as having him at home, wasn’t the same as spending an entire evening in their bedroom, but it allowed her to function, and she knew it kept him from worrying what she might do on her own. Until she had finished graduate school, and he’d become an attending physician, it gave both of them what they needed to live.

* * *

A hard slap on her ass brought her suddenly back to the present. As her mind had drifted, she’d lost count of the strokes. Kristen always wondered how Dillon determined how many blows to give her by hand, how he knew when it was time for the next stage of her punishment to begin. For years, she’d counted the slaps, but there didn’t seem to her to be any pattern. How did he decide every night? Was there a formula she couldn’t decipher, or did he just go by his mood? Could he detect her need somehow, which did in fact vary from one day to the next, or was it purely arbitrary? Tonight, like every other night, when he decided that it was time and slid her off his lap, she went down on her knees before him, eyes on the floor, awaiting the exchange she knew was coming. They had repeated the litany thousands of times.

‘Why are you here?’ Dillon demanded, his voice cold.

‘To submit to you, Sir.’

‘Why do you submit?’

‘Because I am yours.’

‘Do you deserve to be punished?’

‘If you wish to punish me, I do.’

‘And this is my right, as your Lord and Master?’

‘It is your right, as my Lord and Master.’

Kristen glanced at the front of Dillon’s pants as the recitation concluded, noticing how it had made him swell; it never failed to. ‘Do you know how many times you were late this week?’ he continued, his voice icy. She didn’t look up.

‘No, Sir.’ This was a lie. She knew exactly how many times she’d been late, by exactly how many minutes each day, and he knew that she did. But they both pretended she didn’t.

‘Three. Three out of five times. Really five, but you have a ten-minute grace period. You exceeded it three times.’ He sounded angry. He paused, let the tension build. She squirmed. Finally, he went on. ‘Make your request.’

Kristen sighed as her pussy clenched, wanting more. This was always the hardest part – being patient, waiting for the punishment to go on. But it was time for her to play her part now.

It could have been worse. Much worse. She knew she had earned ten strikes for each day she was more than ten minutes tardy. Luckily, she hadn’t been more than thirty minutes late on any day, or the numbers for the whole week would have doubled. Not that that mattered, really. When it came to Dillon’s punishments, less wasn’t more. More was. And she wanted more. Tonight, she wanted much more. It was a rare night that she didn’t.

‘Fifteen from a paddle, please; fifteen from your belt. Or a crop, Sir.’ Her voice lowered. ‘Very hard ones, please, from the crop or the belt. Very hard, please, Sir.

‘At your discretion, of course,’ she whispered. Her voice, so gently insistent, trembled as she begged.

* * *

Dillon loved hearing that tremble, loved hearing those words, her begging him to be harsh. He never knew whether she did this for him or for herself, begging for more pain, but it always aroused him so much when she did. He’d be happy to give her what she wanted. He could feel himself tight already against the front of his jeans.

‘Very well.’ Dillon returned to the closet and brought back a fairly new leather paddle they’d used only once and an old, worn crop that was one of his favourite spanking tools. He’d thought about using the tawse, but then, after taking it down, he’d changed his mind, deciding to save it for the weekend. Then, they would really have time to play; Dillon had Sunday off, and they’d spend hours in bed together. After he spanked her, he would use the tawse on her, then the cane. They’d push her limits yet again, see how much she could take. How much he could stand to give her before, his cock aching for release, he would have to stop and fuck her, or find what he ached for in her mouth. But it was only Thursday. This paddle, this crop, would both do fine for now.

The anticipation always sent shivers of fear through her, and, as he looked at her now, he could see her shudder before him. He knew that the waiting filled her with both dread and want. Just her saying the words ‘paddle’, ‘belt’, ‘crop’ to him, begging him to strike her hard, made her cream come faster; he’d seen it, felt it, more times than he could count. If he touched her right now, he knew he would feel the wetness drenching her lips, would feel it spreading onto her thighs.

Dillon stood up, held out his hand to Kristen and steadied her as she rose. She still didn’t look at him. They both moved towards the bed, where he secured the cuffs on her wrists to a chain attached to a ring at the head of the bed. Then he extended her legs and tied her ankles down to opposite corners of the footboard. When he was satisfied with the way she looked, restrained just so, her soft white ass nicely pinked and waiting to be spanked further, he began with the paddle, whose loud slap made Kristen flinch with every strike.

Dillon had told his wife she’d be struck thirty times, but that was a minimum; they both understood that. Besides, the number was for punishment strikes, the good hard ones, not warm-up or teasing slaps. And this was Dillon’s game. He was in charge; he decided; he delivered. Her job was to absorb the pain, to endure. And tonight, with the paddle, he wanted to tease.

The sound of the leather paddle was worse than the slap anyway, he’d decided – at least it was when he wasn’t hitting her hard. Fuck numbers – that was part of the game. He always gave her more punishment than she’d earned; otherwise, where was his control in all this? He wasn’t bound by any arbitrary system. She expected him to give her more – she wanted it – she’d admitted as much many times. In his head, he had already adjusted the number for the paddling from fifteen to twenty-five; now he doubled that to fifty. Fifty loud, hard slaps after the warm-up was finished.

And he knew that she loved how he did that, how he teased her cunt with his manipulations. ‘Thirty’ was just a number, after all; a concept for her to wrap her head around; a distraction, really. Reality was something else entirely. Dillon knew what he was doing, knew how to play her, how to play her clit. The fear, the not knowing, was as much an aphrodisiac for Kristen as the pain, as his domination. She’d told him so many times – at his insistence, of course – the questions that ran through her mind as he punished her. How much would it hurt? How long would he test her? Would this finally be the night he took her beyond where she was willing to go? And what if he did? Would she really stop him? Could she imagine ever wanting to stop him, no matter what he did? (She was always quick to assure him she could not. She would never stop him, she said. Her entire being was focused on enduring, on taking everything, anything, he wanted her to have.) He knew that those questions made her clit throb as the paddle fell. And fell. And fell.

As so often happened, Dillon hated to stop when he reached the end; he felt he could have spanked her with that paddle all night, until Kristen had blisters like those she’d gotten last summer, from that new pair of shoes she’d just bought that had rubbed on the outside of each foot, right under the ankle bone. The kind of blisters that leather will give you from rubbing, rubbing, over and over the same spot, on damp, sweaty skin. And she was damp now – he could see the sheen of sweat glistening on her back, her ass. He could blister her so sweetly with this paddle, if only he had enough time.

When he finally switched to the crop, he gave it to her fast and hard, just as she’d begged for: fifteen sharp, swift lashes that made her cry out with each one, struggling against the restraints. Whipping Kristen did something to Dillon that went deeper than his cock. It shot into his belly, suffused his breathing, his thinking. He’d snorted cocaine once, years ago, in college. Whipping Kristen was like that – the rush it gave him flooded his system, sent him soaring.

At work, it was eight, ten, twelve hours of pain, all around him; people struggling for each breath, or not breathing – bleeding, screaming, moaning, begging for help, for relief, if they could even form the words, if they could make any sound at all. And his job was to fix whatever hurt, whatever was broken, to make the pain stop. To undo what they’d done to themselves or what others had done to them – the shootings, the crashes, the beatings, the stabbings. To divert them from the cliff each of us is moving towards, that some of us are hurtling towards, each at our own secret, unknowable speed. The cliff over which each of us will someday plunge. They all wanted to be saved, needed to be saved. But he couldn’t save them all.

When he was with Kristen, like this, the tables were turned. He didn’t need to fix anything, didn’t need to stop her pain. His job was to dispense it, to inflict it, to revel in it. And he did. Oh, how he did. It made him so hard, hurting her, listening to her moan in pain and pleasure when she felt his hand, his paddle, his crop on her. He made her cry and suffer, yes, but it was pain that she wanted from him, that she needed.

Here there was no unspoken condemnation because he couldn’t make everything perfect, couldn’t take all the suffering away. Just the opposite; she begged him to hurt her. It felt good – so, so good – to hit her, to listen to her cry. She wept just for him, she wanted to cry, and he loved it, loved too that she wanted it. He was always able to save her. What he gave her, every night in this room – it saved her. He saved her. He never failed her. It felt so good. It healed him: hurting her, giving her just what she needed.

He looked at her now, lying there, weeping, panting with lust. He knew her pussy was soaked, her clit throbbing. But Kristen still owed him, and she needed to pay up. His cock felt as if it would burst if he didn’t get into her, if he didn’t complete what he’d started. Whenever he whipped her to punish her, he had to finish inside her ass; she liked it that way, too. They both craved that completion, that push into her, that stretch that always made her whimper, the hard thrust through the tight ring that took him all the way in, and then the relentless pounding that came after. They both needed the feeling of his pelvis hitting her stripes again and again and again, the tip of his long, hard cock thrusting as far into her as it would go, the pain and the lust attaching him to her, sealing their bodies into one. They both needed to complete the dance this way, to watch the film through till the credits had ended, till the last note of the score – her last sob – had sounded.

Dillon freed her legs, and slapped her whipped ass hard, just once. She cried as she pulled herself up to her knees and spread them wide for him. Next, he unlocked the cuffs that bound her hands, and she wiped the tears from her eyes, then reached back and held herself open. He knew that, after the beating he’d given her, her pussy would be aching for him, but he knew too, she wanted this final part of the punishment even more. When he poured the lube over her and thrust in, Kristen wailed, a sound that always pushed him right to the edge, but he forced himself to hang on for as long as he could. He felt himself swell inside her – she must have felt it, too, because she reached down just then to touch her clit, and she came with tight contractions around him, crying out his name. When he felt her clenching on him, he let himself go, shooting deep into her.

* * *

Kristen looked over her shoulder at Dillon, tears staining her cheeks, flushed with her orgasm. She looked into his face for the first time since they’d entered the bedroom together. The cold look in his eyes, the look he wore whenever he punished her, was almost gone now, washed away by the pleasure of his release. His face was relaxing, as hers had already done. The tension in the room had evaporated. She saw him glance at the clock, and she followed his gaze: eight thirty-three. She could see his mind working – there was still time for a quick blowjob before his shower; a blowjob and the pussy-fuck he knew she still needed.

While Dillon went into the bathroom to clean himself, Kristen lay in the bed, her breath and her heart-rate returning to normal. When he came back, she would take him in her mouth. And when she had him really hard, he’d slip the clamps onto her nipples, take her doggy-style the way she loved, and fuck her until she came. Then she’d throw on a robe and go clean up the kitchen, finish packing his lunch while he showered, dressed. He’d lay out her clothes for tomorrow morning, carefully choosing the lingerie, the dress, the shoes he wanted her to wear. At the door, he’d hold her close for a moment, kiss her tenderly. He’d ask, ‘You good now, baby? Did you get enough?’ and then wait for her to smile at him and nod, the way he always did, before he left.

Afterwards, after she took her own shower, she’d rub herself with lube and push a clean plug into her ass, holding on to the soreness of the sweet, hard fucking he’d given her. She knew he liked when she did that, liked when he’d come home in the morning to find the plug, washed and laid on a clean towel in the bathroom to dry. On nights he was here, he’d cuff her, too – the same soft leather cuffs she’d worn since the first night they’d slept together, when she was a college freshman and he was a first-year resident – more than eleven years before. She loved those cuffs – the very first night, they’d marked her as his, the same as if he’d slipped a collar around her eager, adoring throat. The plug would make her feel like he was still in her; it would stretch her, make her feel less alone in the big empty bed where she’d curl up, clutching the pillow that smelled like him. Some nights, when she couldn’t fall asleep right away, she’d suck on the dildo he’d bought her that looked and felt like his cock. She’d close her eyes, the thick, veiny pacifier in her mouth, the plug stretching her, and pretend he was in her ass, in her mouth, at the same time. She’d fall asleep sucking on that cock, sucking like a baby at its mother’s breast.

While he was at work, trying to stop the bleeding, to make sense of the chaos, bring the dead back to life, her chest would be rising, falling, here in the bedroom, where he saved her life every night. One of them conscious, the other dreaming, they’d both be waiting for the following evening to descend on them, when she would come through the door as she always did, to find him waiting for her on the other side.

On Your Knees

Alegra Verde

Graham should be banned from wearing clothes. His body was so beautiful, all that clean caramel skin, taut muscle and artfully drawn tats, but what I loved most was his ass. It was tight and round with well-defined glutes like those pictures of that Russian dancer, Nureyev, only better. I liked the way it blushed a hot pink, adding heat to its creamy colour, as I knelt behind him and nipped a bit of caramel candy, the resilient plumpness hovering just between my teeth. He groaned like he liked it and his bottom bounced backwards, the smooth skin grazing my smile. I licked the pinkish bite, and then nipped him again. His groan sounded like a shiver.

‘On your knees,’ I said rubbing the highest point of his ass as I stood up and stepped back a little to make room for him.

‘Like this?’ he asked as he knelt beside the bed, long arms and large hands stretching across the peach chenille bedspread. I reached under him to press his hips back so that his backside would be more prominent, but my hand got distracted by the firm jut of his thick cock. I wrapped my fingers around it and squeezed. His breathing increased and he stilled in anticipation. I tugged his cock a couple of times and then I released him and kissed the top of his head as I unwound my body. He looked back at me over his shoulder, a little sullen. I smacked his beautiful ass and he lurched forward, his arms slipping further across the bed and his ass accessible, just where I wanted it.

As I dipped three fingers into the jar of petroleum jelly that stood on the nearby nightstand, he watched me over his shoulder.

* * *

I met Graham at Belle Isle, a little island park in the middle of the city. He was sitting atop a picnic table licking a chocolate ice-cream cone. His eyes were fixed on the Canadian skyline just across the river. It wasn’t the first time I’d caught him invading my spot. When it was sunny and warm like it was that day, I usually ate lunch or read there. The first time he’d just stood on the shoreline looking out over the river. I’m sure he’d seen me, but he didn’t say anything to me. The second time he’d stood on the shoreline silently like he’d done before, but he nodded at me as he headed back to his car. I nodded back, but he didn’t stop, he just kept going. I watched as he climbed into a silver Lexus.

‘Where’s mine?’ I asked when I caught him sitting on the table that I considered mine.

‘This was for you, but you took too long to get here,’ he’d said, holding the half-eaten cone out to me.

I could tell he was surprised when I took it.

‘Graham,’ he said as he held his hand out.

‘Miza,’ I said, ignoring the hand.

I wondered how long he would hold his hand out. He’d held it out longer than he should have, which told me that he was polite, and, based on his age, the nice car, the Jacob Cohen jeans and the crisp collared Dolce dress shirt worn casually with its sleeves rolled up, I surmised that he probably came from a good family with money. I watched him sitting there leaning forward, legs wide, fingers laced as I finished off the cone.

When we began to talk, I found that my assessment was pretty much on target. It was summer and he had come home for a couple of weeks before going back to finish the last year of his Master’s degree. He’d chosen grad school, but it seems that most of his friends were doing corporate or congressional internships in DC or New York or tramping about Europe. ‘Amsterdam, London and Rome have become more popular, but the more adventurous learn Spanish and head to South America to work with the poor.’ He had grinned as though it was a joke, but I knew it wasn’t. With all of his friends away, he was bored. He’d made the last admission with a shrug and a prep-school pout.

He squinted and looked at me as though making his own appraisal. ‘You look young. You’re probably still an undergraduate. Where do you go to school?’ he asked, smiling at me with those straight white teeth.

‘I don’t go to school,’ I said. ‘I wait tables.’ He didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. He just shrugged and kept his smile going.

I liked that he didn’t apologise or say something fucked-up to try to cover his blunder, like he felt sorry for me. Besides, he was fine, had time on his hands and I was horny. That was the first time I took him back to the old two-bedroom bungalow I inherited when Gran died.

* * *

‘I’ve never done this before,’ he reminded me as he peeked back at me, his forehead pressed into his forearms.

‘You’ll like it,’ I assured him. He was already hard, the shiny tip of his cock bobbing towards his stomach, his balls hanging loosely between his thighs. I liked the way they looked there dangling between his legs, like dark gumballs still in their wrapper. With my free hand, I reached between his legs and cradled his balls, tipping them in my palm. He shifted his knees, widening his stance so that I could have better access. I liked the way they felt in my hand, the weight of them and the flexible texture of the ball sack, the steamy heat. But even better, I liked the way that Graham let me have my way with him. I liked that he trusted me. I was tempted to taste the saltiness of his balls, but there were other things I wanted to do more. Instead, I reluctantly released them, placed my hand on his lower back and pressed firmly. He shifted, teetering uncertainly, his knees sliding further apart before he gained control and locked them in place to steady himself.

The wider position gave me an even better view of his ball sack and I couldn’t resist cupping and tugging and rolling his balls around in the palm of my hand again. He pressed backwards, trying to urge my hand up towards his cock, but I ignored him. I leaned down and ran my tongue up the centre of his sack then sucked each ball. He shivered and shifted, unintentionally taking his sack further away, and my mouth tried to follow, but his muscled thighs served as a stalwart gate.

A surge of electricity lurched and shifted deep inside my pussy, causing the muscles to tighten and flex; I sat back on my haunches. I could feel the wetness growing and coating my inner thighs. Later, I vowed. I would suck his balls again later. But right then, I wanted to fuck him.

* * *

Graham admitted that he hadn’t experimented much with sex, and I haven’t known him long, but he likes to play and so far he’s been pretty fearless. His most thrilling sexual experience was fucking his high-school girlfriend doggie-style on her back porch while her parents were making dinner. And while that’s hot, it’s still pretty much a straight fuck.

He’s a fairly big guy and kind of macho with those tats. On his chest, he has a tribal design with thick black lines tipped in red that covers his left pec and continues over his shoulder and halfway down his back. A circle like barbed wire is wrapped around his well-muscled right bicep. His walk is so sexy, so confident, like the world is his and he knows it, and the way he wears those well-worn jeans low on his hips sends a jolt straight to my pussy that makes me want to squeeze my legs together. He looks almost Latin, reminds me of that actor Daniel Sunjata, all wholesome and wicked at the same time. The first time I saw him, I wanted to suck on that lower, pouty lip, and then I wanted to make him kneel before me, pull my panties down and bury those beautiful lips between my legs. And he hadn’t even smiled at me yet.

I was surprised that he trusted me enough to let me take the lead, especially since this was only our second time together. Maybe he reasoned that I was female and younger and smaller than him. Maybe he thought that those things made me more vulnerable, but he was the newbie here, the one most susceptible.

My last boyfriend, Larry, was a banker in his forties. He liked role-playing – a lot; he rarely ever wanted plain sex. We only did it missionary-style once, and that was the first time, when he was testing the water. But I liked playing with him, and I found I liked it better when he gave me control. He could take a lot of licks and came hardest when his ass was striped red and I was fucking him in the ass with his braided leather crop. But I liked it best when I fucked him with a strap-on; he could take it fast and hard, and if I made him wear a ring, I could ride him awhile afterwards.

We used to go to this toy store in Royal Oak to buy restraints, butt plugs, collars and costumes. It was like an unending birthday party: presents, party favours and games. He would let me pick out whatever caught my eye and then he’d take me to his apartment and show me how to use it. When he decided to marry a girl he’d been crazy about since college and put ‘boyish’ things away so he could become a loyal family man, we parted ways. There were no hard feelings, we’d had a lot of fun and he’d taught me a lot. I went to our store for the first time by myself and bought a brand-new strap-on. The dick part was a flesh tone, a darker tan, and made of a nearly lifelike substance that felt like skin when you rubbed it and warmed it up between your palms. I think it’s perfect for Graham’s maiden voyage. It’s barely six inches long and maybe a little less than an inch in diameter. I could tell he liked the way it looked when he saw me wearing it.

* * *

I stepped behind him so that my dick was aimed at his ass. My left palm rested on a high, tight cheek, holding him in place; I stroked the smooth skin with my right, enjoying the slide where the muscle hollowed. Then I dipped my warm fingers into the hot crevice that separated the two taut cheeks and stroked its length before pressing the cleft wider to reveal the tiny puckered hole. With the three coated fingers, I worked the petroleum jelly around the hole, then dipped the tip of one finger in, making sure that the hole was well lubricated. He squirmed and peeked at me over his shoulder again. I pulled the finger out and used another oily finger to stroke along the crease again, slow and easy, before dipping the finger deep. As I bent over him, touching and teasing with my fingers, my dick grazed and rubbed the sensitive strip of skin between his ass and his balls. He squirmed and groaned a little, but didn’t shout ‘Uncle’.

I dipped my fingers into the jar of jelly again, coating them once more before sliding the longest one into his tightly curled anus, pressing it a little deeper. He tensed, but I could tell he wanted more, so I gave him what he wanted, sliding in a second finger, pressing both fingers deep and fucking him slow and easy, sinking them deeper before pulling them almost all the way out. He leaned forward, palms flat on the bed, backside pointed in my direction. Fingers still in the hole, I leaned down and nipped the smooth skin of his ass, tugging the creamy flesh with my teeth. His breath caught and he whimpered. I smiled and drew my tongue over the tiny bite mark.

He was on his knees, ass oiled and ready, waiting for my next move. I stood behind him and ran the tips of my fingers over his shoulders to get his attention. I wanted him to see who was fucking him. He watched me over his shoulder as I stood, legs wide, the nipples of my healthy C-cups rouged, freshly shaved and oiled legs accented by a pair of black stilettos, and my hand on my cock, its straps braced around my ass so that it jutted out from the base of my pussy.

He grinned and shook his head like he couldn’t believe me, but I knew it was a gesture of appreciation. The he licked and tugged at his pouty lower lip with his teeth and half turned his body towards me as he reached out to tug at the soft leather straps that harnessed the dildo to my hips. He slid two fingers beneath the base of the dildo and cupped my sex, then ran his fingertips back and forth across the juicy lips of my pussy, testing their wetness and sending a chilly jolt up my centre. I let him stroke me for a few seconds because I liked it, and I knew that touching me would make him even hotter; the moistness and my musky scent were all a part of it. When I could tell that he was really into it, I slapped him, a quick flat palm across his cheek just as he’d slipped a finger deep inside my pussy.

‘Don’t touch me unless I give you permission,’ I warned.

My handprint was a red, hot stain on his cheek; he ducked his head as though acknowledging my words. To let him know I was pleased with his obedience, I sat down on the edge of the bed and, pulling him forward, let him suckle at my tits while I slid the beaded cock ring onto his penis. I fondled him awhile because I liked the way it looked, straining upwards, all powerful and strong while wearing its little necklace.

His was a beautiful penis, long and darker than his skin, a work of art in sepia. I wanted to suck it, to feel the smoothness of its hood on the roof of my mouth, but that could wait for another time. He leaned forward to kiss me, pulled me close, his hands massaging my ass then slipping lower, under my ass, trying to tease the damp lips of my sex from behind. The slow trail of his fingers in my wetness felt good, and the muscles of my pussy constricted. I stepped back, nearly out of reach, and gave him a mean face, but he just leaned up and took one of my nipples into his mouth. He was still on his knees and even though he was six feet to my slightly over five, I had on four-inch heels and felt like I was towering over him. His face was just about level with my dick, and it felt good; I could feel the cream gathering in my pussy.

When I ordered him to turn back towards the bed, he stubbornly lingered, sucking my nipple long and hard, tugging and stretching it before grumpily obeying. It was his way of rebelling, letting me know that he was still the man; I thought it was cute. I smacked him hard on his ass, a burst of sound that corresponded with the stinging flat of my hand, but it had been necessary to remind him that he’d agreed to play by my rules. He squirmed, wiggling his ass as though to cool the red mark, and then he ducked his head, letting me know that he’d gotten the message.

The ancient bed creaked a little under his weight as he leaned forward. I was behind him again, pressing my oiled cock into the crevice of his ass. He tensed. I pressed further, poised at his tightly curled opening. Stopping just there, I waited and, instead of pressing home, I stroked his ass, massaging and kneading the cheeks before reaching beneath his stomach to pump the steel of his jutting penis. His breath was coming hard and fast as he waited to see what I would do next. I kissed and sucked and nipped, using my teeth to gnaw and graze the skin of his shoulders and neck, all the while pumping his penis with my hand. The head of my dick was tucked into the cleft of his ass, nudging the tight hole every time I moved to nip a bit of his back with my mouth. His skin was hot and growing damp, his slick body scorching me wherever our skin touched, the thick flesh and savoury taste of his shoulder and back filling my mouth.

When his cock was damp with precome and he was moaning and squirming in front of me, I pushed forward, easing the slippery tip of my dick into the little puckered hole. He grunted and tensed, but he didn’t try to get away. I swatted his ass, a flat palm to a hot muscled cheek, and then I gripped his hips to make sure my aim was straight. I like to wear the strap-on low so, when I’m fucking, the base of the dildo bangs against my clitoris, sending little jolts every time I push into him. It was hung just right, smashing my clit as I pressed forward. I took it slow at first, just the head, and then a little more. I could feel him opening to me, the resistance lessening even more as his muscles relaxed, but he was still cautious, his body stiff, waiting for more. He whimpered and spread his knees, opening to me. I pushed forward a little more and he rose up, his chest coming off the bed about a foot, but I didn’t stop. I pushed home, a slow easy slide.

‘Oh, fuck!’ he choked out. I slapped his ass again and slid in further, knowing that I’d made it past the sphincter muscle and that now it was just about getting him used to the glide and feel of my cock deep in his ass.

My fingers left little dents where my short nails gripped his hips as I rolled mine, moving deep inside him. The suede base of the dildo was pressed tight against my clitoris, and as I rolled my hips and bounced against his ass, my dick sliding deeper, the movement sent little jolts and sparks of sensation that caused my pussy to get even wetter and the muscles to quiver and clench.

He was groaning now, his torso supported by stiff arms as his head hung between them while he offered me his ass to plunder. The rasp of suede against my clit and the way my dick slid in and out of his tight ass had my pussy humming. It was so wet I could feel the cream sliding down my inner thigh, and his skin was so damp with perspiration that my fingers were slipping as I gripped his shoulder with one hand and his waist with the other. I was fucking him, my dick sliding in and almost out, long easy strokes. Sweat was trying to roll into my eyes, but I shook it away, not wanting to miss the way his ass swallowed my dick and how he pressed backwards, eager for more.

He was groaning loud now, clutching at the pillow, the sheets, but he didn’t try to pull away. And then I was ramming him, hard and fast, all six inches sliding deep, each thrust a sharp jolt against my clitoris. I aimed downwards like Larry had taught me so that the dildo stroked his prostate. He moaned, a long guttural sound, like a distant foghorn, and then he shuddered, but I held on.

‘Fuck,’ he grunted as he pressed his mouth into a pillow. I closed my eyes and rocked into him again and again until he cried out, trembling and trying to tumble forward. I gripped his hips, tight, and held onto him, continuing to thrust forward until a quake began deep in my pussy and quivering waves surged through me, tightening my innermost muscles and causing the wetness to overflow and spill down my thighs. My hands slipped on his wet skin and I fell forward. He grunted again at the unexpected jolt, but I quickly righted myself and pulled out slow and easy. Graham collapsed onto the bed and belatedly moved to the side to avoid the damp spot he’d made on the sheets.

‘I’m not done with you,’ I said, but it came out breathy as though I had just come in from a run. Graham looked up at me, one eyebrow raised. ‘Get in bed,’ I said as I unstrapped the dildo and tossed it onto a nearby chair. ‘Fuck,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I’ve got any more, babe. You might have to give me a minute,’ he added, but he did as he was told and climbed heavily onto the bed.

I wasn’t worried about Graham’s stamina. He was maybe 25 or 26, only a couple of years older than me. Admiring his hard body as he lay stretched out, all muscle and creamy skin spread across the peach bedspread, it was clear that he ran and did some lifting. I liked his strong, thick runner’s thighs. I wished I had one of those green saplings that my Gran used to whip us with when we were small. I would have loved to slap those thighs with one and watched as the skinny welts rose like candy stripes as he winced at the tiny stings. Maybe next time. I let my eyes trail along the flat stomach and land on the still rigid cock that jutted up from its beaded necklace. He winced, his hand going to his cock.

‘You look like you’ve got a little something left,’ I said as I stood over him.

He grinned up at me, his hazel eyes still a little dazed.

* * *

Graham lay on his back and smiled up at me. When I didn’t smile back, he reached for me. I stepped away. He’d been a sport, giving me control, and I’d just come really hard, but I still wasn’t ready to let him touch me. We’d agreed that he wouldn’t unless I directed him to, unless I told him when and how. I turned to the closet behind me, pulled a couple of scarves from the rack on the door and proceeded to tie his wrists to the iron slats of the headboard. I pulled them tight and double-knotted them. Laughing, he tried to nip at my nipples as I leaned over him, but he stopped after the second slap. The first was a warning smack to his side; the second fell soundly on his right cheek and chin. He looked surprised and then daunted, but his penis was as hard as ever.

I liked the way he looked, arms stretched over his head, elongating his body, adding definition to the muscles of his arms and legs and the flat plane of his stomach. His arms tensed, muscles flexing and tightening, as he tested the bindings, his hands tugging at the silk. I touched myself, two fingers tucked between my labia, sliding back and forth, circling the hood. He stopped tugging at the restraints, his eyes following my action, alert, the slap forgotten. Trying to get a better look at what I was doing, he pulled at the silky bindings again, only to be brought up short. My fingers slid deeper. He spread his legs, his feet slipping along the chenille of the old bedspread. His cock surged, struggling to stand up straighter from its beaded base.

I leaned forward and rolled the beaded band off his penis. He looked up at me hopefully. Yes, I would take him inside me and maybe even let him come that way. He’d been good and besides, I wanted to feel him surging and spewing inside me. I crawled further onto the bed and straddled him. Then I lifted myself over his long, hard cock and pressed down slowly until my labia were flush against his skin and the crisp, coarse pubic hair that sprouted around his cock. All at once, he surged up, his arms and elbows flailing as though he wanted to hold me. But the bindings held fast and by then I was riding him bareback against the wide open plain, my head flung back, and he was murmuring something that sounded like ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck me’, as he surged upwards trying to touch the centre of my being with the head of his cock. I squeezed him, the muscles of my sex clamping down like a long sucking kiss, again and again as he tried to push through the kiss, rasping along my inner walls, growing harder and longer and thicker. I loved his cock, in my hand, my mouth, in my pussy. Not only was it a work of art, it always performed eagerly, rising and yipping like a grateful pup.

My hands on the flat plane of his belly and then gripping his waist for support, I rose up his cock until only the tip remained inside me before sliding back down, the slick skin of his penis a long dark piston disappearing into a raging cauldron. He leaned up to watch, his stomach tight beneath my splayed hands. His lips were a rigid line, his eyes intense as he lifted his hips, thrusting upwards, each thrust surer and faster. My pussy was dripping, the hot wetness splashing over our thighs as I rode him faster and faster, my ass bouncing against his thighs as he drove up into me. All at once, a shard of ice burst and melted over my heated body, lathing my skin with icy tingles. I shivered, my whole body trembled, the muscles of my sex flexing involuntarily around the hardness that impaled me.

Graham was shaking his head from side to side, his upper body trembling while his lower body thrust upwards and upwards until suddenly he stilled, shouting, ‘Fuck, baby!’ as a thick warm wetness filled me, coating my insides, blending with my murky dampness. I sat astride him trying to maintain my seat until our quaking finally began to slow and I fell forward and rested my head on the warm, slick skin of his chest. Beneath the taut skin, his heart was racing. I listened until it slowed and then I closed my eyes.

* * *

‘That was fucking hot, babe,’ Graham was saying.

I opened my eyes. My cheek was wet with his sweat. I sat up, wiping my face with my arm.

‘Untie me, babe, so we can go again.’

I let out a long breath. ‘I’ll untie you so you can go. I need my rest and I don’t let people sleep over.’

‘People?’

I got up, pulled my robe from the hook behind my closet door and put it on before gathering up Graham’s clothes and setting them on the bed next to him. Then I untied the scarves releasing his wrists.

‘You gotta go,’ I said patting his clothes and then I left him there as I headed down the hall to the bathroom.

When I came back, he was pulling his jeans on, slowly.

‘We could go to Greektown and get some more gelato. It’s only eight o’clock, Miza.’

‘Not interested.’

‘Look, you just fucked my brains out and you’re not interested?’ He sounded incredulous.

‘Look, I just felt like fucking and you were willing to play. Don’t make a big thing out of it…I’ll call you, OK?’

‘What about dinner? You haven’t eaten dinner. The Bistro does a nice steak and there’s The Oyster Bar, if you want seafood.’

I was hungry.

‘Look,’ he said, looking all solemn and compliant, his eyes on the blue plaid shirt he held in his hands. ‘I like what we did. I like you. Whatever you want, Miza, I’m willing to try.’

He looked like such a sweet boy. I reached out and tugged on one of his dark flat nipples, pinching it until it poked out. He shivered and his cock nudged the zipper of his pants.

He did have the perfect penis. I smiled. I really enjoyed playing with him and he was such a good sport. ‘OK. Dinner,’ I said.

Doing It for Emmett

Justine Elyot

If you’re going to behave like a cheap whore, the best place to do it is an expensive hotel.

This was the thought running through my head as Emmett led me by the hand through the polish and glister of the lobby, towards the miniature fountain that signified the entrance to the bar.

I didn’t look like a cheap whore. Emmett had chosen what I was wearing: silvery silk shirt, knee-length pencil skirt, heels that were high enough to make me wiggle but not high enough to make me totter. I could pass as a delegate en route to pre-conference drinks, or somebody’s elegant mistress. Who would guess what I actually was?

We stopped at the fountain, and Emmett took my other hand, tilting his head and looking deep into me.

‘Are you nervous?’ he said.

‘A bit,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t want to let you down.’

He let out a breath, kissed my forehead, then my lips.

‘You won’t,’ he promised.

He walked me over to a corner table underneath a potted palm, where a pinstriped gentleman in his late forties sat working on the Times crossword.

Impressions of him were quickly absorbed and filed: elegant, distinguished, wealthy, watchful, intimidating, attractive. Everything Emmett had described.

The man looked up, and I turned quickly to Emmett, lacing my fingers more tightly into his.

‘Your order, sir,’ said Emmett.

The man – I knew his name, but the idea was to pretend I didn’t – stood up and shook Emmett’s hand.

‘Thank you,’ he said, then he looked me up and down with hard grey eyes. ‘Yes, this one will do.’

Emmett nodded, unlocked his hand from mine and went away to the bar. I placed the hand he’d released on my chest, clenching and unclenching it, and looked after him. Come back, I pleaded silently, but I knew I couldn’t say it aloud.

He would be in the hotel room later. He wasn’t abandoning me.

‘You can sit down,’ said the man. ‘I’ve ordered you a gin and tonic.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, following his instruction and taking a sip of the welcome drink.

‘I’m Charles,’ he said. ‘But you will call me Sir. What’s your name?’

‘Suky,’ I said.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Suky? Suky Tawdry?’

He’d got the allusion straightaway. I suppressed a smile. Emmett had said it was too obvious.

‘That’s right, Sir.’

‘And is your boyfriend over there Mack the Knife?’

‘No, Sir,’ I said. ‘He isn’t a criminal.’

‘I should hope not, although I believe procuring is still a shade on the illegal side.’

‘I don’t think it counts if no money changes hands, Sir,’ I ventured.

He smiled, running a finger around the rim of his brandy glass.

‘You’re probably right. You’re doing this for nothing, aren’t you? Why?’

I clenched my thighs in an effort to stop them quivering. The tension of this encounter was exquisitely tightly strung. A barrage of conflicting feelings coursed through me with each exchange.

‘I’m doing it for Emmett,’ I said. ‘Because he told me to.’

‘Ah, he told you to. And you do everything Emmett tells you, don’t you?’

‘Yes, Sir,’ I whispered.

‘Why is that?’

‘Because he owns me.’

Charles liked that answer; he shifted in his chair and recrossed his legs, smiling expansively at me to distract me from his obvious discomfort.

‘How did he come to own you, Suky? Did he buy you?’

‘No, Sir. We came to an agreement. It was mutual.’

‘A contract?’ he suggested.

‘Yes, Sir. This is its outward symbol.’ I put my finger on the silver collar I wore around my neck and jiggled the dog tag that hung from it.

‘Show me.’ He leaned forwards across the smoked glass and took the tag in lean fingers. ‘It’s engraved, but the writing’s too small for me to make out without my glasses. What does it say?’

‘Property of Emmett J. Marlow,’ I said, a little throatily. I needed some more of that gin.

‘I see. What does the J stand for?’

‘I don’t know, Sir. He won’t tell anyone.’

‘You mean he won’t tell you,’ said Charles, with a snakily triumphant smile. ‘I know what it stands for. But I’d better not say, if he doesn’t want you to know.’

This really stung. For a long moment, I was speechless, hiding in my gin and tonic to conceal the humiliation of knowing that my lover – the man I had given myself to, and who had given himself in return – had trusted somebody else with his little secret.

‘I know you’ve known him a long time,’ I said, subdued. ‘You were his first boss at PlayCorp.’

‘Yes, yes, but you’re breaking the rule,’ said Charles. ‘We don’t know each other at all, remember. All right, to be fair, I broke it first. Let’s forget about Emmett’s middle name, shall we, and try to get back on track. What are you wearing under that stunning outfit?’

The change of tack took my breath away. I put down the gin and stopped fidgeting with my dog tag.

‘A bra,’ I said, peering around to make sure nobody could hear me.

‘Describe it.’

‘Er, black, strappy, kind of demi-cup, so it doesn’t cover…everything.’

I looked down. This much was obvious – my silky shirt had two unmistakable dimples.

‘Nipples, you mean? Front or back fastening?’

‘Always front. Emmett prefers front-fastening.’

‘Don’t mention him again unless I ask you to,’ said Charles, tightening his lips. ‘And what else?’

‘Matching knickers,’ I said. Charles’s expression conveyed that he needed more detail. ‘They have a kind of criss-crossing elastic effect that means…Actually, I’m not sure you can really call them knickers, strictly speaking. They have quite a few bits…missing.’

‘Are they open at the back?’

I pursed my lips, nodding as my cheeks blazed with colour.

‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘That’ll come in handy. Anything else I need to know about them?’

‘They’re crotchless,’ I whispered.

‘Excellent. And is there anything else?’

‘About the knickers? No.’

‘No, I mean, are you wearing anything else under your skirt?’

‘Oh! Yes. Stockings and a suspender belt. Matching all the other stuff again.’

Charles put the folded newspaper in his lap.

‘I think you’re going to have to show me,’ he said.

‘What, here?’ I sucked in a breath.

‘Yes, here. Unbutton your blouse. Three buttons should do it.’

My thunderstruck stare lasted two seconds before Charles’s commanding one galvanised me.

My fingers got to work, clumsy with nerves, but eventually the three buttons he had ordered were undone and the front-fastener of my bra was visible between the slopes of my breasts.

‘Yes, I see,’ he said. ‘Very nice. Thank you. Now, the stockings.’

There was no way I could show him these without raising my skirt several inches up my thighs. It would be an awkward move, and much less easy to conceal than the unbuttoning of the shirt. All the same, I had my back to the room, and we sat in a corner and at an angle that didn’t invite casual scrutiny. I had to trust that Charles, who faced outwards, was confident of our privacy.

I squared my shoulders and took a moment to level my head. I wasn’t going to panic. I thought of Emmett, watching us from the remote island of the bar.

I would make him proud of me.

I curled my fingers under the skirt hem and began to ease it slowly up my legs, revealing more and more of the sheer black nylon as it rose. In order to get it high enough, I had to shuffle my bottom in my seat, squirming from one cheek to another as I pulled first the left side of my skirt and then the right. It grew tighter, the fabric rucking, as it reached mid-thigh, and I found myself struggling to maintain composure – and to stop myself looking around the room with red-faced defiance.

‘Keep going,’ said Charles, as if he knew I was on the brink of an outburst.

I had to hover slightly now, my legs trembling as I exposed more and more of them to Charles’s view. Finally, oh, sweet relief, the first glimpse of elasticated lacy stocking-top peeked from beneath the rumpled satin.

I glanced at Charles for permission to stop, but he shook his head.

‘Keep going. I want to see the suspender snap,’ he said.

I almost huffed, almost protested, but I bit it back somehow and continued my task with fierce concentration. My face was aflame and I imagined every eye in the place on me. The thought made me long for a crotch in my panties, to soak up the juices it had stimulated.

I wanted to turn, to find Emmett, to see him watching me with proprietorial approval. The need was so bad I twisted my neck slightly in his direction, but Charles knew my game and put a stop to it straightaway.

‘You should be looking at me, nowhere else,’ he said. ‘Is that clear?’

‘Yes, Sir,’ I replied dutifully.

The snap hove into view, and so did the top of the stocking, with a tiny strip of bare thigh between it and the skirt hem.

At last Charles was satisfied.

He cleared his throat and told me, raspingly, that I could leave it there now.

Then, to my consternation, he raised his hand to summon a waiter.

‘Oh, what are you…?’ I blurted, but he silenced me with a look.

When the waiter appeared, Charles ordered himself a mineral water.

‘Nothing for the lady,’ he said, succeeding in his intention of drawing the waiter’s attention to me. He averted his eyes straightaway, his face flushing. ‘But I was wondering if you still provided condoms as part of your minibar offering?’

Oh, my God, the total bastard! I clenched my buttocks tight with embarrassment, aware all the same that the flow between my thighs was becoming a steady gush.

‘Err, yes, sir, I believe so,’ said the waiter.

‘Well, that’s good news, isn’t it, Suky?’

I stared down into my crumpled lap. ‘Yes…’ I stalled. Could I get away without using ‘Sir’ in front of the waiter? Charles’s stern brow told me I could not. ‘Sir,’ I added, as quietly as I could.

‘Will that be all?’ The waiter was clearly dying to get away.

‘That’s all, thanks.’

Left alone again, I kept my eyes down, waiting for Charles to speak.

‘You almost let me down there,’ he said, his tone deceptively light. ‘But you passed the test in the end. Luckily for you. You might not want to know the penalty for failure.’

‘Is there any more of this test to come, Sir?’ I asked.

‘No. And I didn’t really want that water. Let’s go upstairs now.’

We stood, and I saw Emmett move discreetly away from the bar towards the elevators in the lobby. As I crossed the bar, my bottom wiggled sensuously against the satin material of my skirt, unshielded by underwear. I was not permitted to pull the skirt back down, so I was a little hobbled by its tightness and had to take tiny steps. My blouse flapped as I moved, drawing attention to my half-bared breasts. I looked exactly how they’d wanted me to look – a blatant slut on her way to be fucked.

In the elevator, Charles made me look at myself in the mirror while he stood behind me, his hands on my hips.

‘Plenty of people got a look at these,’ he said, moving one hand up to cup a breast in its silky shell. ‘And everyone saw your stocking-tops. I bet there were a few mouths watering down there. A few jealous daggers in my back.’ He chuckled. ‘I’m a lucky man. And so is Emmett.’

He wrenched my face sideways by the chin and pressed his mouth on mine for a hot, tongue-thrusting kiss that was still ongoing when the elevator doors slid open.

The door to the suite was open. A mirror on its back wall reflected my flushed, lipstick-smeared face back at me, together with Charles above and behind me like a shadow, his hand between my shoulder blades, guiding me rapidly into the bedroom.

Emmett was in there, busy making adjustments to the giant-sized bed. He had thrown a pile of pillows into its centre, and went on to take a selection of clanking, jingling objects from a holdall beside them.

He looked up as we entered and gave me the merest flash of a smile. It was enough to dispel any doubts or fears I might have had. If he’d looked upset to see Charles handling me so intimately, I wouldn’t have been able to go through with the rest of the afternoon’s schedule.

So I let myself be scooped against the older man’s chest and thoroughly kissed once more, one hand on my tight-skirted bottom while the other held me in place by the neck.

By the time we broke apart, Emmett had unpacked the essentials and was sitting in a Regency armchair in the corner. He looked light and refreshing, mouthwateringly attractive in his pale suit and sky-blue open-necked shirt; a foil to Charles’s darker and more formal presentation.

I knew I shouldn’t look at him, though, so I tore my eyes away as quickly as I could and fixed my attention on Charles, waiting for him to give me my next order.

‘When I bring a whore up to a hotel room, I expect her to know why she’s here,’ said Charles, plucking at the half-undone neckline of my shirt. ‘Why are you still dressed?’

‘Sorry, Sir,’ I mumbled, fumbling and tugging the offending garment away from my body until I stood in the half-cup bra, nipples at attention over their pointless cradle of lace.

‘I wonder why you even wore a bra at all,’ mused Charles, running his thumbs across the stiff red buds. ‘Such a flimsy pretence. No, keep it on. You might as well. It doesn’t hinder access in any meaningful way. Now, the skirt.’

The skirt, in its bunched-up state, required a lengthy process of easing down if it wasn’t to be ripped. Bending over took me away from Charles’s scrutiny, and I was grateful for the small mercy. When eventually it reached my knees and fell the rest of the way, I knew my brief respite was over.

I stepped out of it, pushed my shoulders back and stood self-consciously aware of his attention and the disgraceful near-absence of knickers.

‘You weren’t joking about the knickers,’ said Charles, inspecting the area. ‘They leave nothing at all to the imagination. They provide framing rather than coverage. Turn around, let me see the rear view.’

I did so, keeping Emmett deliberately unfocused at the periphery of my vision.

Charles put a hand mid-thigh and ran it slowly up, past my lacy stocking-top, over the bump of the suspender button, up my inner thigh until it cupped my bare, shaved pussy, making me spread my legs a little.

‘Does your Master make you keep this shaved?’ he asked, pressing his fingers between the folds of flesh.

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘So he should. So would I. I wonder what he’d say if he knew you were wet right now, very wet, on another man’s hand?’

‘I don’t think he’d be surprised, Sir,’ I said, which made Charles chuckle. Another sound, something breathy, reached me from the corner of the room. Emmett was enjoying this.

‘He wouldn’t? He knows you’re a slut, does he?’

‘He tells me all the time, Sir,’ I said.

Charles ran his fingertips slowly, torturingly, between my lips and over my clit, bringing his other hand round to flick at my nipples.

‘Does he like to have you used by other men?’ whispered Charles.

‘This is my first time, Sir, but yes, I think he does.’ I wanted very badly to look at Emmett, but I held myself rigid and obedient.

‘It’s a very good test of submission, I think,’ said Charles. ‘I wonder if you’ll pass?’

‘I hope so, Sir.’ His fingers continued to feather-stroke my clit, too lightly, so that I wanted to grind myself down on them.

He pulled them away and laid a sharp smack on my bottom.

‘Enough of that. This isn’t for your pleasure, after all. Get over those pillows with your bum up high.’

I climbed on to the bed and arranged myself as he desired. Once I was in the correct posture, he crossed my wrists in the small of my back and cuffed them tightly just above my buttocks.

Moving further down, he spread my feet wide and attached my ankles to a spreader bar, ensuring that everything between my legs was open and accessible to him.

Once I was helpless, he stood back and admired his handiwork.

‘What do you think?’ he said.

I mewed into the duvet as Emmett cleared his throat and said, in an uneven, husky voice, ‘Beautiful.’

‘Do you often have her like this?’

‘As often as I can.’

‘Ah, so would I. You’ve brought along quite a few interesting toys, Emmett. I’m not sure where to start. Can you recommend anything?’

‘I think – you’re going to spank her, yes?’

‘Oh, yes. That goes without saying.’

‘OK, then I think taking a spanking with her plug in really brings home the reality of her situation.’

‘Ah, good. I can imagine she’d find that very humbling.’

‘She does. Here – this is the lube we use.’

‘Thank you.’

I gritted my teeth. Emmett was a bastard! How did he manage to put his finger right on the button of what I’d find most shameful and difficult to take? It came of knowing me and my kinks through and through, and understanding how to get me quickly into the required headspace.

Charles loomed behind me on the bed and I felt the first blood-chilling drops of lubricant between my cheeks, soon joined by his fingers, rubbing it enthusiastically into my crease and the tight pucker at its centre.

‘Does she get plugged a lot?’ he asked.

‘When she needs it. We kind of keep it for “best”, if you know what I mean. So it doesn’t get over-familiar. It’s used more for discipline than pleasure.’

‘Ah, yes, discipline,’ said Charles, gloating over the word. ‘I can imagine you have to be strict with her.’

‘She knows her place,’ said Emmett. ‘But she forgets it from time to time. A firm reminder is sometimes needed.’

‘I can imagine.’ Charles finished massaging my ring and introduced the coldly slick rubber tip of the plug in place of his fingers. ‘Has she been recently punished?’

‘Just yesterday,’ said Emmett, over my little gasp of discomfort as Charles began to push it in. ‘A minor infraction. I just had her over my knee with a leather paddle for ten minutes, then six with the tawse. As you can see, it wasn’t hard enough to leave evidence, but she was red and hot for some time afterwards.’

‘I wish I’d seen it,’ he remarked. ‘No, keep still, Suky.’ He smacked my bottom hard on both cheeks, a punishment for squirming as the widest part of the plug stretched me without pity. To make sure I knew who was in charge here, he held it there, at its most uncomfortable point, until I was still and compliant, then he pushed it all the way in.

‘There, your spanking is going to feel very interesting now,’ he said, twisting the flanged end this way and that, sending tremors through my bottom that made my pussy clench and quiver in sympathy. I was soaking wet, the evidence gathering in a dewy layer on my thighs.

He turned his attention to the array of implements on the bedspread, picking up each one, weighing it in his hand, stroking it, tapping it lightly against my buttocks or between my thighs. I recognised each one from its own tactile quality without being able to see a thing that was being done to me. That was the riding crop…that was the ruler paddle…that was the knotted flogger.

‘I think I’ve made my decision,’ he said at length, and I resisted the strong urge to look around and see what he held in his hand.

‘Good choice,’ said Emmett.

‘Thank you. Now then, Suky, keep that bum up high for me. Do you think you can keep your voice down, or would it be better if I gagged you?’

That depended on what he was using – but I didn’t say it. I calculated the likelihood of Charles using one of the milder toys and found it to be low.

‘Perhaps a gag, Sir,’ I said.

‘Very well. Emmett, could you do the honours?’

Emmett came to stand by my head. I gorged on the sight of him from the corner of my eye, drinking in his long fingers as they stroked my face, putting the long rubber gag in place. He pulled down my jaw, settling the gag between my teeth, and fastening it gently, but with unforgiving tension, at the back of my head. I wanted very badly for him to kiss me – just a brush of his lips on my cheek, anything – but he didn’t. My heart sighed as he went back to his chair to watch.

Charles stood at the side of the bed, from which I deduced that his weapon must need to be wielded at arm’s length. That ruled out some of the oval paddles, and the short, thick strap.

He laid it across the fullest part of my bottom, and I knew my fate.

The riding crop. Better than the cane, but only just.

‘So, then, Emmett,’ said Charles. ‘What does a sound thrashing look like for our Suky?’

‘She can take quite a bit,’ said Emmett. ‘You don’t need to hold back. I’ll know when she’s had enough.’

‘Good,’ purred Charles. He drew back the crop. I tried not to clench up.

He sliced it down smartly, so that it landed square across the flange of the butt plug, causing mad vibrations to mix with the sizzling smart. I moaned into the gag. As a statement of intent, this was quite something.

He didn’t wait long to lay on the next stroke, and he placed it in exactly the same spot. I chewed on my gag helplessly as he repeated, with quick cruelty, the same manoeuvre over and over until I was bucking on the pillows. Only then did he turn his attention to the rest of my bottom.

His treatment was similar even then – he concentrated on one stripe, over and over, until I could picture the deep crimson bar sinking into its white surroundings. It was almost unbearable, and he put plenty of wrist into each snapping smack. He moved slowly around my buttocks, making sure he achieved full coverage. No patch of skin was going to be left untended, and Emmett wasn’t going to come to my aid, no matter how much I tried to bounce and writhe out of the target zone.

Emmett knew I could take it. He’d given me more and harder than this before.

‘I hope she’s going to feel this for a while,’ remarked Charles to Emmett.

‘A whipping with that will leave bruises,’ said Emmett. ‘She won’t sit comfortably for a good day or so. The best I’ve managed is four days, after a really hard caning.’

‘I’d like to cane her sometime,’ said Charles, whipping my upper thighs with brutal and systematic efficiency.

‘Well, you can, of course,’ said Emmett, his breathing heavy now. ‘You know the arrangement.’

‘Yes,’ said Charles, a long and satisfied exhalation. ‘There, now let’s try…’

My bottom and thighs were on fire, as if a layer of skin had been stripped from them. Charles moved the whip between my legs and began to flick it, quickly and devastatingly, between my inner thighs. Their tender skin was soon overwhelmed and throbbing, causing Charles to slap the leather tip of the crop upwards, catching my spread pussy and pulsating clit so cruelly yet so sweetly. It burned like buggery, but I opened myself up to the pain, embracing it, showing my obedience and submission to the two men who now demanded it.

He spanked my pussy until I let out a sob into the gag, then he let it go and gave my bottom and thighs a sound and salutary reprise of their earlier treatment, just in case I’d forgotten to feel sore.

Only then was he content that I’d taken what I deserved. He threw down the crop and crouched down by my head to untie the gag.

‘You’re a very well-whipped little whore now, Suky,’ he said softly, stroking my cheek. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Do you have anything to say to me?’

‘Thank you, Sir.’

‘You needed that, didn’t you?’

‘Very much, Sir.’

He turned to Emmett.

‘I’m in awe, Emmett. You’ve trained her so well.’

Emmett didn’t reply for a moment or two, and the pause caught at my heart. Was he pleased with me? Had I been everything he’d hoped for?

‘I’m so very, very proud of her,’ he said, and his voice shook on the second ‘very’.

I pressed my face into the bedspread, letting the tears soak into it, then I let myself look at him. His face shone with love, a transfiguration.

I pushed my bottom out, enjoying its heat and tenderness. I could take all that again, double, triple, if it was for Emmett. Anything for Emmett.

‘So,’ said Charles. ‘What shall we do next?’

Making Movies

Ludivine Bonneur

Mason made me take his Merc today even though he knows driving it turns me into a nervous wreck. For a saloon it feels like a tank and God knows what he’d do to me if I put a scratch on it. And he made me wear that little leather skirt I bought that barely keeps me decent and was intended purely for the bedroom, for his pleasure. He knows things like this burn me, and in truth I know him well enough to guess he’d send me straight out wearing it. I got every single eye in that place judging me, either lustfully or scornfully, and the ground simply refused to swallow me up. My blood felt like hot soda in my veins. I swear some old bastard over by the dairy counter muttered something about me being a filthy whore. I can’t say I didn’t feel like one.

So I’m still trembling now, my mind a-whir as I try to negotiate my exit from the parking lot. I’m taking extra care to look and make sure the road is clearer than clear. I’ve got the image flashing through my head of those three college guys grinning and eyeing me up and plotting in whispers about what they think of me and what they want to do to me. That’s not helping. I blink and try to concentrate. The road is empty but I keep my eyes right as I pull out in case some sneaky so-and-so tries to come out of nowhere – and then…wham! I actually shriek with the shock. The body bounces up towards me to smack against the windshield before rolling back down the hood to drop out of sight. I swear I was only going, like, three miles per hour but I know if you aren’t extra easy on the gas this baby can reach sixty in the blink of an eye. And so I’ve hit her.

I know it was a her. The flailing limbs were lithe. I saw the ponytail under the baseball cap. My mind pieces the fragments to tell me she was a jogger, in vest top and tight leggings, with smooth, tanned calves bare above white sneakers. And now I’ve killed her. Or maimed her for life. Whatever, she hasn’t got up. I want to stay sitting here for ever so that I don’t have to drag my shocked, shaking body out to go witness the mess I’ve made of her. But I can’t do that. The air is suddenly warm on my skin, out of the realms of the Merc’s air-conditioning. There are no sounds coming from the front of the car, no moans and groans to assure me it wasn’t a fatal hit. I creep forward inch by inch, trying to delay the sight of her all broken and bloodied, as if somehow she might miraculously mend in the meantime. Then I do see her. She is sitting on the road glaring at me. In a threatening but measured tone she says, ‘I’m going to have you for this, you bitch.’

I gawp in silence and blink three or four times. At first I think it is Jennifer Lawrence herself – a chestnut-haired Jennifer Lawrence. The similarity of the cheeks and eyes is so uncanny she could be a double. But the eyes are a bright green, not blue. And the lips are fuller – more reminiscent of Angelina’s. But then that’s me: since I’ve been transported across the Atlantic and immersed deeply into the sublime madness of Hollywood, I think I see A-listers in every face I set eyes upon. I cannot think outside the movies, can’t really separate the fact from my fantasy any more. My world has become a thrilling, sunny montage of beauty and glamour that I have been brought here to serve.

Strikingly pretty this woman may be; one thing that she isn’t is dead. Nor does she seem to have a scratch on her. However, this escape from injury hasn’t apparently dampened her fury. Glowering expressions always send the quivers right through me. I can’t help it. They defeat me in an instant. I have no answer to any kind of power used against me. I buckle and yield in the next breath, as if just doing so brings me a comfort I crave. So when she holds out her hands for me to take to help her get up, I clasp them immediately and start pulling, even though I’ll be even more at a disadvantage with her off the floor. Then she is right there in front of me, strong and toned, gorgeous and unnerving at once, all sweet scent and eyes like fire.

‘I didn’t see you,’ I stammer. I’m hoping my accent will make her cut me some slack. People over here have said it makes me sound more innocent.

‘You didn’t see me, you blind British bitch,’ she snarls, moving closer, ‘because I’m guessing you always have your dumb blonde head so far up your own ass. Was my fluorescent orange top not bright enough for you? Or were you too busy wishing you’d worn a skirt that showed off your prissy cunt completely, instead of only half showing it?’

This tirade sees the last of my strength disappearing south. My pulse is racing and I feel hot to my core. My skin tingles with nerves. My breath is already too heavy to enable me to speak, so I can’t tell her it was only an accident, and that I was, in fact, trying to be super-careful when she jumped out of nowhere onto my car. I can’t tell her that a girl as stunning as her has no right to be angry at the world ever, let alone so foul-mouthed and nasty to someone who actually doesn’t deserve it. I can’t tell her how flustered and blood-fizzed her confrontational closeness makes me, how unfair a target I am in my weakened state. Or that the reason it makes me so beside myself is because it turns me on so much.

‘I didn’t…’ I start to say.

‘No, you didn’t,’ she cuts in. ‘And every camera in this parking lot will have recorded that, which is why I’ll have no trouble suing your trash-whore ass for every single dollar it has ever earned you. Unless, of course, you do something else for me.’

Her face is inches from mine now. One dip forward could see her take my trembling bottom lip between her teeth if she should so choose. I can almost feel the heat from her mouth. She has one eyebrow raised as if impatiently awaiting an answer. Except I’m standing here clueless.

‘I don’t…’

‘No, you don’t,’ she intercedes again. ‘Your sort never does. So let me spell it out for you. Your carelessness nearly caused me serious injury and now you owe me. If you prefer, you can let a judge decide how much. Or you can decide to let me deal out my own form of punishment.’

With that she brings up her open hand, almost like she intends to slap me. Instead she spits messily upon the palm, then turns it towards me so that I can watch the thick saliva make its slow, wet descent onto her wrist.

‘Either way,’ she says with a hint of a smile, ‘your ass is mine.’

Another shiver goes right through me. Sure, this situation now seems as surreal as any movie could be, this Hobson’s choice to either commit myself to financial ruin or give up my body as payment to a gorgeous fantasy woman. The thing is, as bizarre and far-fetched as it seems, it is actually happening, right now, to me. My pulse seems ready to race me to an early demise.

‘I don’t…’

‘Think before you speak, little bitch,’ she says. She looks like she might indeed bite me. Her mouth is wet from where she spat but it could just as well be her salivating at the thought of sinking her teeth into me. ‘You are clearly a whore and if you sell your body you should have no qualms about paying with it from time to time.’

Just one extra-short skirt has turned me into a prostitute in the eyes of everyone, and it wasn’t even my choice to wear it. And it was Mason who made me add more makeup than I’d already applied, so that I totally looked the part.

‘I’m not a whore,’ I whisper.

‘That’s what you say, but we shall see. I paid my dues the moment you decided to run me down and now I want what’s coming to me. Either you can talk to my lawyer or…’

‘Or?’

I shouldn’t speak out of turn, really, but I have to know. She moves closer still. I’d think she was about to kiss me if not for that glower.

‘Or you can give yourself up to be my spank-bitch for the rest of the day. And that is going to be as much an ordeal for you as it sounds. My two greatest loves in this life are money and spanking thick-assed bitches until they come from the sting. You are going to give me one or other of my pleasures today. Which, is up to you, and one chance is all I will give you, so think carefully before you decide. But I do want to hear you say it.’

This situation, this deal, has come out of nowhere but it is stark in its simplicity. Just like that she has me bent over a barrel. I wonder in what circumstances I would choose the lawyer option. Maybe if she were ugly, rather than essentially my ideal of the dominatrix to finally force me to bow to another woman’s every sexual desire. Perhaps if she were a man, since, although I find it hard not to cave in to any authority, I have sworn privately to never take any other man’s cock, whatever my lusts, while Mason deigns to be my Master. Maybe then if Mason were here, since I look to him to be my guide in all things, surrendering my very being to whatever he decides. But he’s not here, and with that goes my only chance of a reprieve.

‘I’ll do as you say,’ I mumble, so softly and incoherently that my own ears can’t even pick it up.

‘You’ll what?’ demands the woman, even raising my chin with her finger to ensure I have to look into her eyes.

‘I’ll be your…thingy, like you said.’

‘My “thingy”? My what? What will you be? I want to hear you say it!’

‘Your spank-bitch!’ I say, way louder than I’d intended, although fortunately my reckless driving hasn’t gathered a wider audience than the two of us. I colour at the words. However, I can’t deny they also caused a twinge of longing down below. The smile of triumph spreads slowly across her face, almost like she knows.

‘You realise you are agreeing to let me treat you like the kind of fuck-bitch that I take you for?’

‘I don’t have much choice,’ I say, back to mumbling and staring at my shoes.

‘And you know I like to treat my girls with even more disdain than my men?’

‘I can’t stop you,’ I say.

This doesn’t seem to provoke even an ounce of remorse in her. Blackmail clearly comes easy. She has me abandon Mason’s car and teeter on these way-too-high heels to where her own sleek cabrio is parked. I picture her forcing me to drop my underwear to my ankles to add to my difficulties. She certainly moves well for someone who has just been run over. Her hand is on my hair, propelling me forward and ready to hold me up should I trip. Her urgency to drive me forward could tell of her desire to get me alone, but then it might just be a sensible precaution, allowing fewer witnesses to this apparent kidnapping.

She lets me sit up front alongside her. I imagined I would be all trussed up across the back seat. I even fleetingly imagined a henchman to hold me down, but then again, I am going with her voluntarily. Her threats are her handcuffs.

‘You are going to have to agree to be blindfolded,’ she says. ‘I can’t have you seeing where I live.’

She flips down the glovebox flap and there lies the silken sleep mask for me to put on. There is some light at the edges but otherwise I am blind. You have to wonder at the type of woman who takes her cars out to malls rather than a park or off up into the hills when she goes jogging, and who carries a blindfold with her in case she bumps into anyone along the way that she wants to abduct. One might think she goes looking for trouble. But why wouldn’t she want me seeing her house when I could already identify her by sight?

‘Are you famous then?’ I say. Imagine if she was. I’m surprised at my own boldness in speaking up, although blindfolds always do unlock a less nervous part of me I seldom see otherwise. Maybe I’m just surprised I can speak at all. In my mind’s eye my mouth was already stuffed with my knickers, her fingers deep inside me right there in public to demonstrate how completely at her mercy I am.

‘I was thinking more in terms of you wanting to stalk me after today,’ she says. ‘But yes, I have a modicum of fame. I have been in several movies, including a few blockbusters, although I’d have to forgive you for not being able to name one of them, since you never get to see my face. I am a stuntwoman, you see.’

It’s not quite up there with Mason. He’s a director. No blockbusters just yet but they will come. It’s the perfect job for someone who loves to control any scene he’s in, to plan it with the finest detail, to boss it and shape it for his perfect outcome. I’ve seen his work and even with all those egos he is always in total control. It’s enough to turn me molten. I guess being a stuntwoman has its own kudos. It certainly gives her the body of a Domme goddess. She’ll be stronger than most and without fear. And she probably knows just how to leap onto the hood of a moving car to great effect and then roll off it unhurt again afterwards. Imagine if she was able to use that to trick people into being in her debt.

The drive isn’t long, no more than it would take me to get to Mason’s flash pad. There is birdsong and warm sunshine as we park, and the familiarly thinner, more breathable air of the hills. If anyone saw me blindfolded, no one thought to raise the alarm. Maybe they just saw me as a fuck-bitch on her way to be used. I couldn’t be sure but it seemed to me that we climbed, and high round here equals affluence. I wouldn’t expect this woman to be anything other than rich. Whether born into wealth, like Mason, or having fought tooth and nail for it, she carries that air of untouchable superiority that money brings. People like me will always be in awe of it, always be kept. It brings me some comfort; being used is mortifying but at least it won’t be any old skank getting their hands on me.

For some point of reference, I picture Mason’s leafy avenue, the houses spread wide and with teams of hired help endlessly manicuring the gardens out front. Who knows if there are any witnesses to see my plight? She comes round to my side to open the door and pull me out. I teeter around a bit and I can hear her tutting impatiently. All this will cost me, for sure.

‘What kind of cheap whore wears a skirt this short?’ she says. I have no time to even think of a suitable answer. I can feel the garment in question being tugged up by the hem, turning inside out as it peels upwards, clinging to my bare outer thighs in some courageous attempt not to expose my skimpy underwear to all. It fails. The gardeners will have stopped what they are doing, hunching behind bushes to spy in earnest. I can picture exactly how rude I must look because I know how tight these knickers are – scant lacy covering for my cheeks and almost shrink-wrapped to my mound to fully define her contours and her split. What possessed me to wear them under this skirt I will never know.

I feel the light graze of her fingernail there, tracing those contours. I draw in my own breath as I feel hers at my ear.

‘My God – you are actually wet!’ she sneers. ‘You actually fucking like all this! Or were you turning tricks before you ran me down? Is that what you were doing in that parking lot? Am I going to find this dirty whore cunt of yours full of hood-rat come? Well?’

I’m actually full of protests and indignation but the image of a horde of bandana-wearing gangbangers, chucking dollar bills disdainfully onto the hood of the car as they bend me over it, gets me so tongue-tied that all I can manage in answer is a mumbled ‘No’.

‘What? I can’t hear you. Speak up. Say it out loud.’

I feel that fizz in my veins again, the lurch within, the heat in my cheeks. Things like this get me every time. I picture those hidden gardeners straining their ears to hear what I have to say. I have to draw in a big breath before I let the words come out, loud and clear, just like she asked.

‘No, Mistress, you won’t find my dirty whore cunt full of hood-rat come.’ It’s using the c-word that withers me most.

‘My, aren’t you all prim with that accent of yours, calling me “Mistress” and all? A real lady of the English gentry. Except, of course, for this whore skirt and this wet cunt of yours.’

With that she presses her finger flat and hard to my slit and I feel the material of my underwear relenting its cling to be forced inside me. The buzz it gives me there causes a gasp and a weakening of the knees. The pressure yields before her finger can defeat the resistance of the fabric and slide deep, but then I sensed she would know just how to tease most effectively. The knickers are then yanked clear of me, down my thighs and calves, pulled clean off as I hop from foot to foot to allow this.

‘Here, hold these,’ she says tersely.

I obediently hold my hand out flat, awaiting my wet underwear. I hope I haven’t made them too sodden or how is that going to look?

‘Not you,’ she says, the derision plain in her voice.

My hand closes quickly with the shame. Not just at standing there looking stupid, but at standing there like this at all, with a third party clearly present. My mind’s eye conjures a servant girl in classic maid’s dress, my knickers now borne upon a silver tray. It could just as easily be some grubby handyman, twirling them around the end of his finger or stuffing them into his trousers to bring out later, once he is alone. Either way, that third person will have seen me in all my lewd glory. You could warm plates with the heat in my cheeks.

There is going to be no quick escape, however. She is manhandling me, moving me back so that I am sitting upon the sun-heated hood of her car, my thighs forced apart so that I can feel the rays on my weeping puss.

‘You are a dirty bitch,’ she says. ‘One that likes to make a show of herself. So do it now – make a show. Put your fingers inside. I want to see two of them in there, stirring around.’

I almost whimper at this cruelty. My humiliation is obviously her pleasure. But nothing and no one is coming to save me so what can I do other than whatever she commands? I try not to make too much of a meal of it, whatever she wants to see. I rub just a little, as much to ease the throb there as anything, then I part myself shyly before slipping my fingers inside, pushing them deep, as she will want. Of course it is going to make me gasp and shiver. She knows this. She wants my quivers to be seen by those bastard spies hiding behind bushes either side of us. She wants them forced to pull their stiff cocks from their pants.

Too much of a show and they might be driven here from their hiding places, cocks at the ready. But what other option do I have? I have to stir my fingers around as she instructed and that makes my hips grind and hump against them. There is nothing I can do. I can’t prevent the vulgar noises it makes – so audible in the still, quiet air – any more than I can stop the warm flow from within me.

‘Take your fingers out and wipe them across your lips.’

Oh, I will look a hussy. They won’t know I’m here under duress, acting this way because I have to. They can’t see my heart racing with the mortification. I smear but it’s not lewd enough for her. She wants my lips, my nose, my cheeks all coated. She wants me to get my fingers wet three more times so that those treacherous juices can be wiped right across my face. My nostrils are filled with my own scent. My skin will be glistening in the sunlight, apparently incontrovertible evidence that I am loving this humiliation.

‘Enough!’ she snaps, as if this rude display was all my idea.

I am guided up a few stairs and through a doorway. At least those prying gardeners are behind me now. The house sounds big, if that makes sense. A big open atrium hall like Mason’s. It is cool on my bare limbs. My heels clack as if on marble or some other smooth stone floor as I am led further inside. I’ll get no scent clues; all I can smell is my own arousal smeared across my top lip and that will be all I detect for the remainder of this. Even her sweet perfume is now blocked out. Sound might be my only reference point from now on.

‘That will be all,’ she says. There is no answer nor do I hear any departing footsteps but I take it the servant has been dismissed. It calms me just a little, although I doubt I’ll see my knickers again. A door swings open and I am led inside another room. I am gladdened by the silence here. I picture a library, dead quiet and totally private, a place where the Mistress of the house can guarantee not to be disturbed. Uninvited eyes provide my greatest shame. The thought of them upon me can leave me almost beside myself. Mason once sent a video he’d taken on my cellphone, of me naked except for black pegs on my aching nipples, lewdly pushing a pair of fishnet stockings up inside myself. He took it upon himself to send it unannounced to one of my girlfriends, as if from me. It took me days to get over that.

Libraries have desks and I expect one to be where I end up, forced unceremoniously across it. My mind’s eye pictures a wooden, glass-fronted case of canes and paddles too, like a headmaster’s study. I hope not. Paddles and whips I can take at a pinch but the cut of anything thinner is too much. I need the sting spread over a greater surface area. Mason, the one who brought this darker side of my sexual self into the light, has always known this. I’m not sure I trust this woman, and trust is all.

I still don’t try to stop her as she peels off my top and unclips me to let me bounce free. I know my nipples are hard. There’s little I can do about it. They always get that way when I’m pushed into these situations, made to look every inch the slut. She circles me, and I know I am being examined. These are the times I cannot temper my pulse, can’t stop the internal flutter from almost overwhelming me. Who knows what twisted minds have in store for me?

‘We will begin,’ she says, from further away than I’d pictured her. I could have sworn she was close by. Then her grip is on me and I am being put into position. It is not a desk, that’s for sure. Some kind of frame – my imagination can’t entirely form a picture but it’s like being astride a low motorcycle, hunched forward across a solid surface to clutch at a straight bar, my thighs forced apart and my backside jutting. I can feel straps or something by my hands; loops of soft plastic or leather. I tentatively run my fingers over them to ascertain more information. They are wrists restraints, no doubt. I think maybe I am meant to put them to use.

‘Should I?’ I ask, not quite having the guts to go on with the question.

‘Are you likely to try and stop what I do to you?’

‘I might,’ I whisper.

‘Then you had better secure yourself.’

I slip my hands through the loops. I knew she wouldn’t show me any quarter. Now I am at her mercy. My ears strain for signs of her collecting an object to use on me. I’m sure I can hear little things here and there but I cannot pick up anything distinct. In my head she is parading around, viewing me at her leisure. I squirm against the leather padding beneath my crotch and belly.

‘I am going to spank you,’ she informs me in her measured tones. ‘You may cry out but you are forbidden to either ask or beg me to stop. I will do it for as long and as hard as I wish. If you can get through it without pleading at all then I will reward you. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Mistress,’ I say. She makes it sound so easy, but my trembling body shows her it will be anything but.

‘I want your ass wet before I start,’ she says. I nod a little, more to myself than to her. I’m aware wet skin changes the feel and adds to the noise. It would be the choice of an adept spanker.

‘Do it for me,’ she now says. I don’t know what she means. How am I supposed to?

‘Ready?’ she asks. How can I be ready when I don’t know what I’m to do? Will asking her cost me dearer than failing to do anything?

‘Action!’ she says loud, cutting through my whirring thoughts.

The word has hardly died when the flow hits my backside. The internal flutter spreads its heat as thoughts and images cascade through my mind once more. I’m pretty sure I know what’s happening. The flow is warm, for a start, and a direct stream, targeting my cheeks first and then between them, hitting me with precision and force to splash me all over my inner thighs, pooling beneath me on what I take for a saddle. I gasp at the utter rudeness and humiliation of being used this way but I cannot sink into my shame because two more things demand pondering. Firstly, I am not alone with her as I thought. There is at least one other present, maybe female, maybe male – and indeed who knows how many more witnessing my debasement? Secondly, that word she used, ‘action’. That’s the word a director uses to get the cameras rolling.

The scene in my head changes in an instant, making the glow inside warm to a burn. Gone is that picture of empty solitude, morphing into a whole cluster of script advisers, light and sound technicians, clapper-loaders, boom operators, runners, extras, all sorts, all around the periphery of the twin cameras and the director sitting in the big chair. You wouldn’t think I could have failed to detect such a horde but I’ve seen it in the flesh – when Mason calls for quiet he gets absolute pin-drop silence. You’ve never seen focus like it: bated breath; eyes that daren’t blink; every ounce of concentration trained on the performers; scrutiny as intense as you will ever witness. And that scrutiny is falling on me.

They’ve already seen my backside come out, yawning for them in all its naked glory. You can’t open yourself up much more shamefully than that. I mean, in these days when rounder rumps seem to court more admirers than of old, I can’t say I’m not a little proud of mine, but I’m far from wanting to show it off to a room full of strangers, let alone that mass of avid porno watchers out there, all ogling my bare body as wank-fodder, imagining themselves finishing all over that rude arse of mine. The camera has already captured the dirty way she had it drenched. Thousands might get to see that, if this movie she’s making is given wider distribution, and all I have is a flimsy sleep mask to protect my identity. Imagine that shame. I doubt I’ll even be able to leave the house.

Of course, I don’t even know that I won’t be revealed to the camera in the final frames. I don’t know what lies in wait for me. They do. They have the script. They can see all the players. I don’t even know if it was a man or a woman who defiled me with their warm stream. How could I tell? There could be any number of other players surrounding me, already in character, their roles defined. Some might have their frilly maid’s knickers down around their knees, waiting for the order to present themselves to my slut face. Some could be stroking their oversized porn-cocks hard, ready once any spanking has subsided to bury themselves into me as the script demands, regardless of any oaths I have made to be true to one Master alone. Women I have made no such promises about, maybe because so many of my fantasies recently have seen me under the control of a gorgeous Mistress just like this one. In fact, when Mason spanked my most intimate secrets and fantasies from me, this was the one he said he would readily entertain.

‘I do want to keep you happy, after all,’ he said that day. ‘And keep you mine.’

There is no more time to flesh out the scene. The first of her spanks lands out of the blue. The slap echoes around the room, the noise louder than the weight of it. I still yelp. It is sharp but the afterglow swamps any pain. The camera will have zoomed in to show the hand mark she left. The watching crew will have stifled gasps. The waiting cocks will be straining harder than ever. Eventually the next slap comes, on the other cheek this time to even the score. I buck and yelp again. The delicious sear spreads and then the sting rises to the surface. The only way to stop it is for another slap to land to swamp the pain with that soothing glow. I’m still new to all this but I already know the cravings are as addictive as anything I will ever experience.

The next slaps have me waiting just as long. The tease is almost unbearable. The camera will have captured my wiggling slut arse, pleading silently for more. God, she is so cruel, making me whimper and writhe like this, the intensity of the moment so much greater because of all those eyes upon me. Mason always deals his spanks in a flurry, as if wanting to unleash an immediately gathering, unstoppable rush of panic-pain-pleasure inside me, sending me over the top so quickly I’m almost in a trance when his well-timed pinch allows the climax to pour from me. After that, I will gladly do anything he says, and he so loves me to finish him with my mouth – something his wife would never do.

Each fizz is made to count. She won’t pick up her pace for anyone. It drives me to distraction. The director must know this and either it’s what he wants or he’s seen how much more impact it will have on his audience. If it’s as tantalising for them as it is for me then something will have to give soon. Those cocks will be in me like a flash when the signal is given. How will I even have a chance to refuse them? She’s up to a dozen smacks now and I’m trembling. I expect to feel the press of hard flesh against my holes between each blow but it doesn’t come. Every eye watching will be wondering what it would be like to take my place, wondering what it is to feel your whole body on the edge like mine, tingling beyond any inbuilt coping mechanisms – an almost unmanageable bliss.

I must have taken two dozen to each cheek before I feel my hair being grasped and the softness, the gorgeous warm wetness of her smooth cunt pressed to my mouth. I mean, I suppose it’s her, since the slaps have abated for the moment, but I guess it could be one of the maids. She might be elsewhere, putting on a latex glove to protect her palm from the sting there. I can’t think too much of that now. This is a treat I’ve waited a long while to savour. I wish I could get my hands to her, at least to pull her closer. This woman just loves to punish me. She can’t even know how wet the tease makes me. It’s barely more than a titillating taster when I so want to feast. I want all of her forced into my mouth or onto my tongue. God, I hope I get to do so in the sequel.

My face is left dripping with her juice. The smacks come again – a faster pace this time and delivered with a paddle. I’m already so pent-up it feels like I might explode. The sound man is going to have to be on his game to cope with the screams. I’ve been good, though. I’ve done what she’s asked and taken it so far. I’ve wanted to cry out and beg but I’ve kept in mind that reward she promised, and I’ve stayed quiet. It is taking all my willpower now. My backside will be bright red, juddering for all the world to see, dancing open between each smack to show me off. Can that audience tell how much I’m longing for a cock inside me? A rock-hard pole to sink right to my belly?

Then there is one at my face, smacking my cheeks. I should close my mouth to stop it entering but the cries are forced from me with every slap to my behind. I will just have to pray it is Mason’s. I can’t get my hands on it to give me that familiar feel. I can’t get its scent because all I can smell is pussy, the cream from two now coating my top lip and up my nostrils. There is a chance it might be him. Who better to direct such a film? It is perfectly possible he might know this stuntwoman and have used her to lure me here. And if it is him I must open up and take him because it is my sworn oath to suck his cock dry just as soon as he has had his pleasure and spanked the orgasm from me.

The meat keeps beating my cheeks as the climax builds within, awaiting that trigger. The spanks have stopped but the glow and sting will pervade for ages. It will make the final rapture no less glorious. My hips are being gripped. I cannot tell if the hands there belong to a man or to a strong female like my Mistress. My yearning tells me I cannot now care. Something glides down the sodden split of my puss. I imagine her there with the toy strapped tight to her waist; then a burly male, a porn star, guiding himself into me. It feels more like a toy but I’m actually too wet to tell, my nerve endings too overwhelmed with pleasure. In it sinks and I do scream, as loud as I have ever done.

A hand has to hold my hair so that the cock can plunge into my waiting mouth. I suck and slurp with all the greed I show my Master. I feel the hand beat my lips as the cock is stroked fast. I am fucked deep and hard from the rear. I thrust backwards to aid this because Mason told me that time he’d want me to buck like a bitch if he ever got to see a woman have me. The final straw is a buzzing toy held to me. My brain is almost too scrambled now to picture who might be doing this. I think it is most likely to be a naked maid. Whatever, the effect is immediate. My mouth is flooded but I cannot concentrate on identifying the male grunts I hear through my own shrieks. The quakes are massive; incomparable.

Through muffled ears I hear her calling out, ‘Cut! That’s a wrap!’

She helps me up off the frame onto legs that can barely stand. She yanks my skirt down again and pulls my top back on, ensuring the blindfold stays in place. I am led away from the room, the house. In the car I am still too shaken, my head too full of stars to speak. One thing does strike me: I will have to watch the film to see exactly what went on. I cannot ask Mason to show me the tapes in case it wasn’t him. I will have to sit in trepidation hoping he never comes across it, and he does like to watch porn, particularly scenes with young, round-arsed British girls getting spanked. And I could easily find myself blackmailed by the same woman. She could threaten to identify me as the star unless I agree to more of the same. When will that end? My fall from grace, my endless shame, seems inevitable.

I am pulled from the car and she tells me to wait where I am. I hear the sound of a door shutting and a car driving away but still I stand there bewildered for a while, unable to go against her wishes. After maybe half a minute I give in and remove the sleep mask. She has gone and I am by my car, released back as if nothing at all has happened. I have been used, though. Whether it was her idea or whether it was Mason’s I shan’t know. My shamed arse might be on countrywide release very soon or all over the Internet by midnight. There is nothing I can do except shiver with the indignity and bow for ever to those who know how to control me. Here’s the thing: when it comes to making movies, you think it’s all about the star, but really and truly it’s always about the director.

A Bid for Her Heart

Kathleen Tudor

As she stood waiting in the dark corridor, Eva wondered, not for the first time, why she’d allowed her best friend to talk her into this.

‘Because you love me very much,’ Tiffany reminded her when she returned, ‘and because it’s for a good cause. You look sexy.’

Eva let her lips quirk halfway into a smile. ‘Isn’t that the point?’

‘Well, yes, and I’m just telling you that you did a really good job. You’re third. Now go make me proud!’

Third. As in: the third person to be auctioned off to the highest bidder for charitable funds to help support veterans within the community. It was hard not to sigh; Eva was used to being in a position of strength and authority. She was known all over this area as a merciless Domme, yet here she was putting herself in a pretty damned helpless position. She tried to look at the bright side: the sub with the balls to buy a play session with her would surely prove interesting, at least.

‘OK, you’re up,’ a voice whispered. Then a gentle hand – she’d pay to know whose – gave her a shove at the small of her back, and Eva straightened her shoulders and allowed herself to be pushed onto the temporary stage that had been set up in the dungeon’s open hall. Her heels snapped smartly against the wood of the stage as she strode forward, hands on corseted hips, to stand beside a woman she knew only as Grayling.

Grayling, the MC for the evening’s festivities, introduced her to the crowd and invited her to give a little spin. Eva smiled against her gritted teeth and indulged in a little fanciful daydreaming about what horrible things she’d do to Tiffany the next time she had her in some rope.

‘We’ll start the bidding at a hundred dollars! Awesome! How about a hundred and fifty? A hundred and fifty! Now I’m looking for two hundred dollars, ladies and gents, for this fine-looking bitch-Domme!’

Eva added Grayling to the list of people who were going to have to watch their asses around her in the near future. She glared, but the MC only dropped her a saucy wink, and Eva had to smother the urge to laugh. This whole situation was absurd.

‘Come on, folks,’ Grayling continued, ‘Get your paddles up!’ They were using actual spanking paddles, of course, with numbers taped onto the ends. ‘Ooh, five hundred and fifty dollars! It’s getting hot in here, kinksters! Amazing! Six hundred! We have a new high for this evening, but can we push it any higher? Going once? Twice? Sold!’

Relieved at being allowed to retreat from the stage, Eva turned to the stairs and took the hand of the sub who’d been stationed there to help the light-dazzled and the dizzy out of the spotlight gracefully. A handsome Indian man replaced her on the stage, but Eva made straight for the desk, not interested in the bidding.

She almost turned right back around, though, when she noticed who was lounging against the front desk. ‘Hunter,’ she said instead, refusing to give in to cowardice. ‘Better hurry up with your paperwork or you’ll miss the choicest plums,’ she teased. He grinned back, though, and she had to keep her knees from going rubbery on her. Hunter was…Hunter. He was the embodiment of sex and chemistry, and she would swear that she could often feel his presence in a room, even with her back turned. He was intelligent, funny, painfully handsome and also the one thing she could never afford to fall for: a fellow top.

‘Actually, I’ve already got what I came for,’ he said, tapping a paddle subtly against his leg. Of course it wasn’t one of the borrowed paddles. No, he’d brought his own, dark and thick and wicked-looking. She didn’t often use paddles, herself, but she admired his taste in them.

She was so caught up in the gloss of the wood that it took her a moment to process what he’d said. Done already? She wished she’d paid more attention to the two people who’d walked on stage ahead of her. ‘Oh? I must have been backstage. Who did you…?’

Hunter’s grin grew wider and he slid a signed cheque across the counter. It was made out to the Leather Veterans’ Association. For $600.

Eva gaped as Rose, the desk-girl and co-owner of the club, grabbed the cheque and slid it into a manila envelope. ‘Thank you for your generosity, Hunter. Enjoy your special night!’ She looked at Eva and winked, and Eva snapped her mouth shut.

‘You didn’t just—’

Hunter interrupted her, thanking Rose and taking Eva by the arm, guiding her gently toward a table where refreshments had been laid out. She accepted the water and pretzels he handed her, but her mind was still a bit preoccupied.

‘You bid on me?’

‘Seems so,’ Hunter said quietly, his voice a rumble that she could feel as much as she could hear it over the din from the next room. He was too close…

She stepped back and nearly tripped over a misplaced cushion. ‘Hunter, I’m a Domme.’

‘Oh, I’ve noticed. Trust me.’ He hadn’t moved, but he still seemed so close.

She took another step back, reaching for calm. For cool. ‘I won’t kneel to you, Hunter. Not even for charity. Not for anyone.’

‘We’ll see,’ he answered, looking unconcerned.

‘No, we won’t—’ she started, but he stopped her with a gesture, and she wanted to kick herself for letting him.

‘I don’t mean to push you. We won’t do anything you’re not comfortable with, OK? I promise.’ He stepped forward, back into her personal space, and this time she let him, refusing to let him chase her. Still, she damned near whimpered when he ran a rough thumb over her lips. ‘I’ve wanted to kiss you since the day we met, but you’ve never let me. We’ve got sparks, Eva.’ When his thumb moved from her lips to caress her cheek, it was all she could do not to follow it with her lips, she was so hungry for a taste of him. ‘But you always keep me at arm’s length. Is it because you don’t want me?’

All she had to do to save herself was to lie. But it was beyond her. ‘No.’ He couldn’t have heard her over the cheers in the next room, but he read the word on her lips and something kindled behind his eyes.

‘Then give me a chance. Just a chance.’ His wandering thumb had found her chin, and he tilted her head up towards his as he leaned forward. ‘Will you do that?’

Fuck! ‘Yes,’ she breathed. Her entire body was on fire for this impending kiss.

‘Good,’ he said, close enough for his breath to feel hot on her lips. Close enough that she could practically taste the Italian he’d had for dinner.

Then he backed away from her, his hand falling away from her face as he straightened, leaving her feeling untethered and dizzy. ‘Then I’ll book a room for next weekend. Is Saturday night OK?’

Eva gasped and rocked in her heels. ‘Fuck. You,’ she enunciated.

He laughed, then leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, nothing more than a parting gesture between friends. She was going to…to…she didn’t know, but he was on her list.

‘I’ll see you then. Have you still got my number from that demo we did? I’ll text you when I have our reservation.’ Then with one last wink he turned and strode out, snatching up his motorcycle helmet on the way.

Tiffany appeared at Eva’s elbow as if by magic. ‘Wow, that looked steamy. Was that Hunter?’

Eva blinked twice, trying to clear her mind. Then she turned a glare on her good friend. ‘Are you done organising?’

‘Yes, why?’

This time it was Eva whose sharp grin threw a helpless woman off balance. ‘You and my rope have a date. Come on.’

* * *

Even with Tiffany’s enthusiastic help with taking the edge off, Eva was tense for the rest of the week. She jumped at every notification on her phone, but when Hunter finally texted her on Tuesday afternoon, it still managed to catch her by surprise. And once she had the time plugged into her calendar, the imminent train wreck felt all too real and painfully inevitable.

Maybe that was why she took such care with her wardrobe. She didn’t wear anything she might normally have been seen in, at least not at the dungeon. Instead, she slid a pair of ass-hugging jeans on over her thong, and coupled them with a button-up blouse and some sexy-but-vanilla heeled boots. She looked like any single woman might, getting dressed up for a Saturday-night date. Which was the point. She had to remember that no matter how sexy Hunter might be, neither of them was submissive enough to kneel for the other.

Rose didn’t even raise an eyebrow when she checked in at the desk. ‘Hunter’s already here,’ she said, and then waved away Eva’s $20. ‘He already paid for both of you, and he told me that whatever you threatened me with in order to get me to take your cash, he’d do twice.’ Rose smirked. She was a hardcore masochist who was known to take quite the thrashing from time to time, so it wasn’t a threat with teeth.

‘Fine,’ Eva said, conceding with what grace she could muster. ‘Where?’

‘Green room.’ Rose blew her a cheeky kiss. ‘Have fun, now.’

‘I’d spank you if I thought it would teach you any manners.’ Rose’s laughter chased her down the hall, but even the familiarity of their banter couldn’t distract her from her fate for long. Eva walked through the nearly-empty room where the stage had been constructed only the week before, avoiding by habit the suspension points where toys – and people – sometimes hung, and found her way to the green room.

Hunter hadn’t spared any details that was for sure. The whole room seemed to glow with the light of the candles he’d placed on nearly every flat surface. His smile, when he saw her, threatened to outshine them all. ‘Eva. You look gorgeous.’

She wanted to warn him away. To threaten him. To defy whatever expectations he had of her. To remind him that he’d bought her time and nothing more. Instead, she stood silent, waiting and watching. A good top was patient.

Hunter didn’t make her wait, though. He walked up to her, took both of her hands and drew her into the room. ‘Tell me what you love about dominance,’ he commanded, but gently.

Still, Eva was surprised. She didn’t know what she could say, so she let her eyes show him her confusion.

‘Is it the sadism?’ he prompted.

‘Not…necessarily.’

He nodded encouragingly. ‘The trust?’ This time she nodded, but not emphatically. ‘The power?’

‘Yes.’

He squeezed her hands and smiled. ‘I’m a sadist,’ he said, unselfconscious. ‘But I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t feed on the power exchange to some level or another.’ He lifted one of her hands to his mouth, and his eyes never left hers as he kissed her palm, sucking gently on the fleshy pad beneath his thumb. Then he bit her, and her eyes went wide at the shocking sensation. She started to pull back, but he was already releasing her. ‘Did you like that?’

‘I – don’t know.’ She really didn’t. It had felt so good up until the bite, but that…the bite hasn’t felt as bad as she’d expected. Painful, but not bad.

Hunter stepped into her personal space. ‘I want to hurt you, Eva, but I don’t want to scare you away.’ When she didn’t move, his hand circled her waist. He smelled delicious, like leather and the clean scent of the evening air.

‘I’m not scared,’ she said, managing to sound steadier than she felt, ‘but I’m no submissive, Hunter.’

‘Then don’t submit to me,’ he said, looking earnest. ‘Submit to the pain and to the pleasure. Let me hurt you and make you feel good. You lead,’ he promised, ‘and whatever you let me do to you…I’ll let you do to me later. Any of it.’ The thought of paying Hunter back in kind was almost too tempting. Still, she thought she might have been able to resist him if he hadn’t leaned forward again and said, right against her ear, ‘I want to find every possible way to make you scream.’

Shivers ran through her and she shoved him away, her back stiff and straight. Hell, what she wouldn’t give to take a flogger to his backside…

But, of course, she could arrange to do exactly that. ‘Anything I want,’ she clarified.

‘You’re in control.’

‘And I get to give back everything I take.’

‘All of it.’

‘Then…I want you to flog me.’ That was certainly something she’d never expected to say.

Hunter smiled and gestured to his toy bag, inviting her to choose. ‘What’s your safeword?’

‘No,’ she said, pausing in her rummaging to face him. ‘I’m not a sub, Hunter, and I’m not going to play one. I’m going to take a little beating so I can get a little payback, and maybe I’ll like some of it. But I’m not playing games. If I say stop, you stop.’

He actually looked flustered. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘habit.’

She nodded acceptance and pulled out a black flogger with thick, heavy leather tails and a carved wooden handle in true Hunter style. ‘Should we be keeping a list?’ she asked, handing it to him.

‘Oh, I’ll remember.’

He waited patiently for her to decide what she wanted to do. Eva took a deep breath, walked to a padded table, undid her jeans and pulled them down to her knees. She bent over, presenting her virtually bare ass to him.

Hunter made a hungry sort of sound, but before she could think too hard about what she was getting into, the first blow fell. ‘Fuck!’ she shouted, jumping at the unfamiliar pain. Heat bloomed across her left ass cheek, and she started to straighten. A second blow fell on the other side, and she yelped and spun, forcing him to abort midway through his next swing.

Her mouth dropped open. Then shut. Hunter raised his eyebrows and waited, saying nothing. Her ass felt hot, like she’d gotten a particularly inconvenient sunburn, and she gritted her teeth and reminded herself that she’d soon be able to make it hard for him to sit.

With a deep breath to collect herself, Eva turned and bent over the table again. The next punch from the flogger came even before she’d settled herself, but she managed to stifle her cry this time, gritting her teeth against the pain as it slammed into her ass and thighs again and again…

Enduring wasn’t enough. How did her subs deal? Some of them talked about the joy of submitting to a sadist’s whims, but others…she remembered Tiffany telling her about the high she got from the pain itself and the endorphins that followed. Runners got the same thing, didn’t they? So anyone could do it…

Difficult though it was, Eva tried to surrender to the sensation. To embrace the pain. To submit to it. And slowly, her body started to work its magic. It was hypnotic, the way that the blows rocked her, hurting, yes, but less so as she learned to relax into it. To let it carry her away. To let the pain work itself out while she focused instead on the body’s reaction to that pain.

‘Eva?’ It took a while to realise that the blows had stopped falling. Hunter was beside her – when had he moved? – and he was shaking her shoulder gently. ‘I need a new target, Eva. Your ass is as red as the cherry-on-top.’

‘Hmm,’ she said.

‘I’d hate to have to stop already,’ he said, ‘but I promised you I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t ask for.’

Well, crap. She’d been enjoying the floating, pulsing pleasure, but she’d lost track of her surroundings and somehow misplaced her ability to think straight. All she knew was that she wasn’t ready for it to stop. Not yet. This feeling was new and it was intriguing. And surprisingly arousing. Her pussy felt flushed and wet, and her nipples were so hard they ached.

Nipples…

Eva turned, scooted back until she could sit on the edge of the table, and caressed her breasts, looking Hunter right in the eye so he’d understand.

‘You want me to flog your tits?’ he asked.

She nodded and leaned back, bracing herself on her arms.

‘It would be better if I could take your shirt and bra off. Is that OK?’

She nodded again, and tried not to whimper as he moved in close, standing in the space between her legs, his face close enough to kiss as he worked his way down the row of buttons. When he got the last one undone, he parted the fabric with one finger and worked it down her body from her throat all the way to the top of her silly, impractical panties. Then he put his hands on her waist and made her shiver as he ran them smoothly up her sides to the place where her bra clasped. It was unfastened in a heartbeat, and he helped her lean forward to strip the shirt and bra away.

She should have been embarrassed or excited to be sitting there exposed in front of Hunter, spread out like a picnic feast. There was a touch of that, yes, but mostly what she felt was eager as she waited to see what new sensations he’d bring.

He didn’t keep her waiting long. The flogger fell gently at first, teasing over her breasts and her aching nipples like leather-scented rain, but the force and the pace slowly increased until she was moaning softly with each heavy blow. Then whimpering. Then crying out, each hit pounding the sound out of her even as it drove her like a nail back into that floating haven.

Hunter, however, seemed done with the kid gloves. She should have expected it from a sadist. And she did have to appreciate – in an abstract way – his precise control. He took a half-step back, and then snapped the flogger down. Only the very tips of the tails made contact, right against the tip of her left nipple, in a sting like a hundred fucking bees.

Eva screamed.

Hunter snapped the flogger down, this time on her right.

She screamed again.

Her every instinct was to curl up. To cover her stinging breasts. To demand that he stop.

But she’d learned something, submitting to the discomfort. There was bliss to be found hiding behind the pain. And there it came, in a rush of heady ecstasy even as the flogger snapped across her left nipple again. Anguish. Euphoria.

Right. Left. Right. By the third strikes she was screaming full-throated with each blow, letting the power of her lungs drive the pain aside to make space for the pleasure.

She waited for a fourth pair of strikes, but when they didn’t fall, she opened her heavy eyelids to see what Hunter would do next.

He was standing staring at her, flogger hanging at his side as if forgotten and his breath coming as heavily as hers. She’d never expected to find pleasure nestled in with pain, but he’d been right, and once she’d given in, her body had taken over. Now it was primed and ready, her pussy throbbing with want and her heart pounding.

But as soon as Hunter surged toward her, boxing her in, her natural dominance couldn’t be denied. Her ardour cooled and her head cleared as he tugged her hair to tilt her head back, his every gesture one of dominance and control, and suddenly it was easy to put a palm flat on his chest and push. ‘Stop that.’

He backed off at once, his free hand raised in mute apology, frustration in his gaze. His words immediately clarified that it wasn’t her that had caused it, though. ‘I’m sorry – I got carried away.’

‘That’s why this can’t work, Hunter,’ she said quietly. ‘I might be able to bring myself to enjoy a little pain play –’ he laughed at that ‘– but neither of us can take power all the way out of the equation.’ She started to get off the table, but he stepped forward, not close enough to crowd her, but enough that she’d have to move into his space if she dismounted. Eva settled back, wary.

‘I made a mistake, Eva, but I can learn not to. With practice.’ He gestured to the front of his pants, which were straining to hold back the erection within. ‘Does this look like I’m put off by you asserting yourself?’

She’d tried something like this once, years before. She’d gotten married young and only found out afterwards that her new husband was a rigid Dom. Unfortunately for him, she hadn’t been the pliant sub-in-waiting that he’d thought he’d landed. ‘You think you can handle me in my glory?’ she asked, sliding off the table and into his personal space. The faint smell of his sweat and the heat from his body sent thrills down her spine, but she didn’t let it show as she stared up into his face.

He froze, tensing up as if to reach for her, but remained as still as she could have hoped. ‘Eva, I want you in your glory.’

She brushed past him, looking for what she’d need. There was no chair in the room, but there was a low bench along one wall that would do just fine. She grabbed one end and pulled it out towards the centre of the room, then pointed to the end. ‘Sit there.’ When he moved to comply, she held up a hand. ‘Wait. Strip first.’

He groaned and tugged his shirt over his head, toeing out of his shoes before it had even cleared his torso. That done, he wasted no time skimming out of his pants and boxers, and stood bare and proud before her. For a second, she almost lost her nerve. He was…like a work of art. Beautiful and strong, with just enough flaws – a small scar on his chest, a dark freckle on his lower belly – to make him fully human and all the more enticing. She wanted to devour him, and that passion made her fearful.

But even that hesitancy couldn’t cut through the desire that had hit a fever pitch within her.

Hunter sat as he’d been directed, and she took a condom from a handy bowl and tore the packet open. ‘Lean back, grab the bench and don’t move.’ If he could handle that, maybe…maybe he could handle her.

When he’d leaned back, she rolled the rubber slowly down his cock, taking her time to enjoy the feel of his erection in her hands. Then she leaned forward, close enough that her breasts were nearly pressing against his face, and said, low and husky, ‘I’m serious. I’m going to pleasure myself, now, and if you really want to prove that you can handle me, you won’t move.’ She thought of ordering him not to come, but he was a smart man; he’d figure it out.

She didn’t make a show of removing her panties. This moment was hers, not his. She merely tugged them down and stepped out of the scrap of fabric, shuddering as the scent of her arousal wafted up to her. Her body was ready and she didn’t want to wait another second. Anticipation twinged in her stomach as she stepped forward, straddled his lap and slowly lowered herself onto his cock.

He moaned as she sank onto him, her pussy clenching tight around the head, but he behaved himself, holding back from reaching for her. She grinned wickedly and, impulsively, dropped the rest of the way onto him, slamming his cock deep into her slick pussy.

This time he let out a shout and his back arched, his eyes squeezed shut. His knuckles, where she could see them, were white on the bench. Eva rocked her hips experimentally, purring with pleasure as his cock moved deep within her. He was a delicious size, thick and long and hard as stone, teasing at the very depths of her being.

She rocked again, searching for the perfect angle, and his breathing grew ragged as she found the particular thrust-and-grind manoeuvre that pleasured her inside and out. Slowly at first, she rode him, increasing her pace as she felt the pleasure within her begin to mount. He was hard and throbbing between her legs, powerful and under her spell, and she revelled in it, drowning herself in ecstasy until it burst over her like champagne, tingling and sweet.

But when she looked into the face of her lover and saw Hunter’s bright, hungry gaze, the afterglow dimmed. Her ass burned, her tits throbbed with as much pain as pleasure, and the look on his face was barely restrained predatory desire. And she’d just fucked Hunter, the one man she’d told herself she couldn’t have.

‘Satisfied?’ he asked. He wasn’t quite speaking through gritted teeth, but almost.

‘Apparently,’ she said breezily. His cock still pulsed and throbbed inside her, and she felt her inner muscles clench almost involuntarily against him.

‘Good,’ he said, ‘because fair’s fair, and now it’s my turn.’

‘I didn’t—’ Before she could say another word, or move off him, Hunter wrapped his arms around her and lifted her as he stood. His fingers dug into her bruised ass and she yelped, too surprised to do anything but cling to him. And oh, did he take advantage of that! He spun around, quick as can be, and deposited her on her back on the bench, his cock still buried deep within her.

‘Don’t say no,’ he begged huskily. ‘You may not be willing to submit to me, but I still want to make you scream one more time.’

Her mouth fell open, but she couldn’t say no. Didn’t want to.

Hunter growled, bracing himself half-on and half-off the bench, and fucked her like she’d never been fucked before, hard and fast, totally in control. She stiffened for a moment, her instincts fighting against the feeling of submission to his body and his will, but his cock drilled into her, hard and deep, and she let the fear go, submitting instead to the pleasure that was once again mounting low in her belly and sparking through her clit every time he slammed home.

‘Eva,’ he groaned, his face tight with control. ‘I want you…to fucking…scream.’ Then he reached up and pinched one of her poor, abused nipples. Pain and pleasure, still so tangled in her brain, spiked in her like magma and set off an explosion that shattered everything else. Her body convulsed with the intensity of the pleasure as Eva came harder than she’d ever come before. And she screamed until she had no breath to carry the sound.

Distantly, Eva was aware of Hunter burying himself twice more in her clenching cunt, and of his groan, low and earthy, as the throbbing of his cock intensified within her. It was several moments before he moved away, and even longer before she felt capable of sitting up.

When she did, eyes half-glazed with pleasure, she found Hunter crouching beside the bench, watching her. His grin was as erotic as it was infuriating.

‘This can’t possibly work out,’ she said baldly, though she was too satiated to even wish for clothes, much less put force into her rejection.

‘It worked out just fine in my view,’ Hunter said easily. His voice lowered to a husky growl and he leaned in. ‘I loved every second of hurting you tonight, and I think you did, too. Are you really not going to let me hurt you again?’

Her breath caught. The nerve! She meant to tell him to take his paddle and shove it, but what came out was ‘I’ll make you crawl and beg for every moment of pain you give me.’

Hunter laughed. ‘Did you see me complaining?’ He moved to sit beside her on the bench, his presence warm and inviting, and she gave in to the urge to lean against him. ‘And if either of us misses the real thing, we could always team up and make some lucky sub suffer.’

Hope sparked, and Eva shivered. ‘I still get to pay you back for that flogging.’ As Hunter laughingly agreed, Eva allowed herself to dare to imagine new possibilities.

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