‘I do know, only …’
I think of the list I wrote in my notebook. The things I have found out seem contradictory. I like older men, I like younger men. I like men, I like women. I like extreme women, women who punish me, and I like soft, uncomplicated girl-next-door types. I like being watched when I’m wanking or fucking, and yet I would do anything to have James or the girl alone, to have a little privacy in which my true feelings towards them can bloom and we can get to know each other on a natural, unforced basis.
‘Only what?’
I look at Anne, and for a moment I truly hate her and want to throw it all back in her face, walk out. When she gets snippy with me, I feel utterly humiliated to be here with her, at her behest.
‘Only, I don’t know. It seems the things I want are so different that they cancel each other out. I like men, still, but I like women too.’
‘They’re not mutually exclusive.’
‘No, but I don’t even consider myself bisexual.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then – I don’t know. I suppose I just fancy a woman every now and again. As a change, I suppose. Or if it’s someone who blows me away. At heart, it’s blokes I like.’
Anne smiles in that cold, disengaged way of hers. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ she says. ‘So if I could get you anyone now, anyone you wanted, it would be a man?’
I hesitate. I want to say ‘Yes.’ I’m thinking of James. Anne has a hotline to him, has some kind of hold over him, and it would take one nod from me and he could be here within minutes. So what’s stopping me? I think of my last meeting with him, when I begged him to see me alone and he refused, for reasons that weren’t 100 per cent transparent at the time. I was cross with him, and still am. But that’s not enough to stop me from saying his name, from making him my choice.
I think of the girl – the second girl, not the dom. Soft as butter she melted against me. With her came Sunday-morning ease, a feeling of relaxation even as we drove each other into a frenzy. A feeling of falling into each other that I’d never had with any man. I knew her body because I knew my own, and vice versa. From there it was so easy to please and be pleased. I want James, but I want her too.
I look at Anne. Dare I? Is it too much to ask? She’s asking me what I want, and that is what I want: James and the girl, together, in bed with me, the best of both worlds. Or is that just too greedy?
She’s looking back at me, a little combatively, as if she’s daring me to speak my wants and needs. I can tell that she thinks I’m not up to her, but however hard it is to ask, I won’t give her the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve failed, that I didn’t dare.
‘James,’ I say, my voice quavering.
She continues to look at me, steadily. ‘So little,’ she says, ‘to ask.’
‘Not just James. James and the blonde.’
She smiles, and for a moment I don’t understand the glitter of something like exultation in her pale-blue eyes. But then, as she steps up to a door that I hadn’t noticed, one that leads to a second bedroom I didn’t know existed, I realise why she looks so pleased with herself. She’s second-guessed me.
She opens the door to reveal James and the girl, sitting on the edge of the bed drinking champagne together. Anne, it seems, knows me better than I know myself.
For a moment I’m enraged. I hate it that she knew, even before I knew, what I most wanted. But then James and the girl both smile at me, warm genuine smiles of welcome quite unlike Anne’s, and I melt inside. I am in for some real fun.
Using all my inner resources to talk myself up, reminding myself how great I look, I slip my shoes back on and stand in the doorway, hands on my hips, smiling back. I feel like a kid in a sweet shop. Where do I begin? Where does all this begin?
James, sensing that I am struggling, extends a hand. ‘Genevieve,’ he says kindly. ‘Come in. I believe you and Celine know each other.’
I nod, a bit embarrassed. The blond girl stands up, comes towards me and kisses me on both cheeks, her hands on my shoulders.
‘Lovely to see you again,’ she breathes in my ear, and I feel giddy at the memory of our lovemaking. I sincerely thought I’d never see her again, that she’d remain forever a beautiful memory, elusive as a dream from which one awakes too soon.
She takes me by one hand now, guides me into the room. I’m glad that she is taking the lead. The confidence I summoned in myself has evaporated. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
Celine hands me over to James, like a gift, then retreats, to sit in an armchair in the corner. For the moment that’s fine: I love to be watched, and who better to watch me than Celine? I glance around. Anne is in the doorway. There’s something stealthy to her, catlike, as she comes further into the room and takes an armchair in the opposite corner to Celine. The two women exchange a look, something complicitous. I try not to feel paranoid again. This is no natural situation, and I must accept that these people have met without me, talked about me, plotted and schemed and deliberated. In a way, I should even be flattered by it. None of them stands to gain anything by it, financially at least. Not unless Anne is paying them, and I don’t believe that dosh is behind all this. She may have reimbursed the dom, but not these guys. This is something that goes beyond money.
James looks me up and down. ‘You look great,’ he says in a half-whisper that we both know the others can hear. I flush with excitement and longing, with the knowledge that James does want me, even if it’s not possible without Anne’s presence or consent. And with the knowledge that it is not only James’s eyes that are on me. Is Celine getting turned on too?
The playsuit has a halter-neck top, and I reach up and around to my nape to loosen the tie. The fabric slips away from me, revealing my new bra, from which I removed the detachable shoulder straps when dressing. James watches appreciatively, lips pursed. He seems thoughtful, and I’d pay any money to know what’s going on in his head.
Taking the initiative, I bend forwards, my hair swooshing down against James’s face and shoulders. He pulls down the cups of my bra and brings his mouth to my nipples. I begin to shake but manage to maintain my focus, unbuttoning his shirt and slipping it from his shoulders. His chest is magnificent – strong, tanned, carpeted with soft hairs, a mixture of chestnut brown and grey. I run the palms of my hands against it, appreciating the delicious smoothness of his skin and his hair, then I bring my fingertips to his nipples, tweak gently. He moans, and I tighten my grip a little, remembering the spanking I gave him, how he liked a certain degree of pain.
He’s still sitting up, and I bring one knee onto the bed beside him and then the other, so that I’m straddling him. Feeling powerful and in charge, I press one hand against his naked chest and push him back onto the bed. He gasps, and his eyes tell me he’s burning for me. His hands spring to my hips, try to pull me harder onto the bulge of his cock inside his designer jeans. I resist, much as I want to fuck him, to ride him hard.
My breasts spill forth from the bra where he pulled the cups down. The top half of the playsuit is bunched around my waist. The trouser bottoms are still in place. I look behind me, wondering what Anne has in her armoury today.
As if anticipating my move, she’s picked up her wooden box from the floor and placed it on her knee. She looks at me expectantly. But I’m not getting down from James. I gesture her over, astonished at my audacity.
She looks surprised too, but she stands up, comes over to us with the box in her arms, then tends it to me. I look inside.
‘Those,’ I say, pointing out some leather cuffs. ‘And that.’ The second item is a whip that looks to be made of human hair, auburn in hue. ‘But first –’ I look down at James beneath me; he’s gazing up curiously, probably trying to guess what I have in store for him. ‘First that.’
Anne puts a hand inside, brings out an eye mask in moulded gold leather. She hands it to me. It’s butter soft – so much so that it could be skin. James watches me as I run my fingers over the surface of it. His
eyes glint in a mixture of apprehension and longing. I make him wait, continuing to caress it with my fingertips. Then I hang down over him and position it over his nose and eyes, reaching round to tie it at the back of his head. He becomes very quiet, his lips parted, his breath held. His entire body has stiffened in anticipation.
I look back at Anne. Suddenly I’m self-conscious and don’t know what to do, and I’m glad she’s here. She holds responsibility for all of this, so I have no shame in appealing to her.
In turn, she shifts to face the girl, points back towards the sitting room. The girl seems to understand, rises and leaves the bedroom. For a few moments Anne stands looking down at James, and I understand that we are to wait. Then she says, ‘Rise,’ and James sits up and casts about for my hand. I take it and together we leave the bedroom.
I don’t see Celine when we enter the sitting room, but more flutes brim with champagne on the coffee table. Then she appears, and in place of her chinos and shirt she’s wearing a maid-style skirt with a frilly apron front, seamed stockings and a black corset. She bows her head a little when she sees me. On one upturned hand she holds the platter of canapés.
‘Madam?’ she says, and I take one and bite into it, through unctuous black olive tapenade to the crisp toast beneath.
The half that I don’t eat I bring to James’s mouth. At first he recoils, not having expected it, then not knowing what it is. I press it to his lips again, whispering ‘Trust me,’ and he nods and parts them, lets the crisp bread and silky topping slip inside his mouth. Biting into it, he nods again, as if in recognition. I realise that the word ‘trust’ was like a trigger, reminding him that we know each other, that we mean each other no harm – quite the contrary.
I gesture over towards the coffee table with my chin. Understanding, Celine steps towards it, picks up a glass and hands it to me. I take it, bring the fizzy straw-coloured liquid to James’s lips. He greets it with a swig, then another. His hand moves towards my wrist so that I can’t take the champagne away, and it’s now that I remember the restraints.
I look at Celine. ‘In the other room. The cuffs.’
It’s hard not to say ‘please’, to be so rude, but I need to stay in the role, otherwise this whole staged scenario will break down. If anyone steps out of their role, that will be the end of it.
Of course, we all know we’re playing a part – there’s no escaping that. But we all want this to carry on, and for that it is crucial to keep up the charade. Like actors on a stage, we have to maintain the pretence until the curtain goes down.
Celine scurries away with a duly deferent ‘Yes, madam,’
I turn back to James. ‘You’ve been a very bad boy.’
‘I know,’ he says, and there’s a faint undertone of mirth that I know he’s trying so very hard to contain.
‘You do know you’ll have to be punished?’ I go on, also struggling against the laughter that’s threatening to rise like the bubbles in the glasses of champagne.
‘I should be,’ he says. ‘I should be punished.’
Celine appears by my side. As well as the cuffs she’s holding the whip.
‘Put them on him,’ I say, and she steps forwards.
‘How would madam like it?’ she asks.
‘Behind his back.’ I realise I’m grinding the spiked heel of one stiletto into the carpet. I really am getting into role here.
I watch as she turns James around, so that he’s facing away from me. Celine handles him a little roughly, and I sense that she is struggling to remain within the confines of her role, that she is spilling out a little. She wants to be in my place, the ringleader. But I’m not willing to cede it – not yet, at least.
She places the cuffs on each of James’s wrists, buckling them slowly then attaching them with the bronze link. James is bent slightly forwards, his head drooping. He seems to have gone all floppy, as if all will and decisiveness have gone from him, his acceptance of his submission being total. And yet with his back and torso naked, his trousers still on, his wrists cuffed behind his back, he looks so sexy I’m creaming my pants. But I will wait for the satisfaction of my itch. There are other things to attend to.
‘The whip,’ I command Celine, and I take it from her. The ribbed handle is supple yet firm in my hand, but when I run the auburn hair through my clenched fist, it’s silky soft and feather light. Lifting it away from me, I bring it down against my palm. It tingles rather than hurts.
‘Get him ready,’ I say, and Celine takes James by the elbow and draws him over to the sofa. There, she pushes him down, so that he’s on all fours on the sofa itself, and slowly pulls down his jeans and then his crisp white boxers. I look with relish at his arse, this arse that I paddled only a few days ago. An arse honed and yet well rounded. An arse just waiting to be reddened with my whip.
I step up to him. ‘Say you’re sorry,’ I bark, and before he can speak I bring the tail of the hair crashing down on him. He jerks: it must sting, like the paddle, like the crop that the dom used on me. It’s up to me to gauge how far he wants to go by his reactions. I raise my arm and bring it down again, then again, harder and harder. He begins to make guttural little noises that bespeak pain and pleasure, or perhaps an inextricable melding of the two. I lose myself in the rhythm of my strokes, heedless now to the presence of either Celine or Anne.
After a while I’m sweating. James is showing no signs of wanting me to stop: he must be used to much worse than this. I climb down from my stilettos and slide the bottom half of my playsuit down, then step out of. Slipping my shoes back on, I stand there in my nude polka-dot undies, whip in my hand, feeling like the queen of the world but unsure where to take it from here.
Celine appears at my side. ‘If madam would permit,’ she says, and she takes the whip from my hand.
Moving round me, she stands behind me and places one arm around my waist, hand flat against my belly. Then she brings the other hand around and starts moving the whip between my thighs, so that the trail of auburn hair sweeps my inner thighs deliciously, tickling and teasing me. Slowly her other hand moves down my lower abdomen and into my knickers.
For a minute or two her fingers flicker at my clit, around my lips, so that my head falls back and my mouth falls open in an ‘O’ of pleasure. Then she pulls the panties down around my thighs and lets the hair of the whip play around my pussy, moving first around my clit and lips, as her fingers did, and then dipping through my legs along my perineum to my sphincter. There it flickers, turning me to jelly, continuing its exquisite torture.
But I don’t want to lose control just yet. I want to maintain it. In some dark part of me I’m enjoying this master-and-servant relationship, and I don’t want it to be reversed. Far from being the cuddly, cute, sweetly fuckable girl-next-door, Celine is turning out to be quite the little vixen. But she’s not taking over my show.
I snatch the whip from her hand, turn it on her. ‘Madam does not permit,’ I say, and there’s savagery in my voice, despite the role-playing. ‘And for your cheek, you’ll receive forty strokes as well. Bend over.’
She does as I command, without resistance, all too ready and willing, it seems, to submit and to be punished. Turning her back to me, she pushes out her bottom, which peeks out from the back of her apron-style skirt, and throws me a look over her shoulder – a look of invitation. Wildly excited, I lash her with the spray of mahogany hair. She shrieks playfully.
‘More, mistress,’ she cries out. ‘I’ve been so terribly bad.’
Her arse flesh is softer, less aged and paler than James’s. The hair, silken as it may be, soon begins to leave visible marks. They will fade quickly, but seeing them appear drives me on to more. Celine is not complaining. What is it in her own life that makes her accept this, even seek it?
James has rolled over onto his face on the sofa, and I can tell from the way the bottom half of his face is twitching, from his moans, that it is killing him not to be able to see this. I turn my attention back to him, sitting beside him
and rubbing his arse with my hands.
‘I’m thirsty, mistress,’ he says.
‘Oh, are you? Then what do you say?’
‘Please, mistress?’
‘And what else? What else can you do for me?’
He’s quiet for a moment, and then his lips quiver in an attempt not to smile. ‘I could … I could lick your shoes, mistress.’
I glance down at my shiny patent stilettos and see my made-up face staring back up at me. I look like an alien being, like someone I’ve never met before, and for a moment I feel lost, freed from my moorings. There’s liberation in there, but there’s fear too. How far I have come from who I am, or who I thought I was.
‘On your knees,’ I say to James, although to myself my voice lacks self-assurance. He doesn’t seem to notice, acquiescing. As he bends forwards, I look at the back of his head, with his close-cropped grey hair, and I want to grab it, take it in my hands and pull him up and cover his hair and face with kisses. Want to make love to him, in the boring, old-fashioned way. But that would mean moving back into my comfort zone, which would be a retrograde act. I must see this through, if only to learn that I am, at heart, a conventional girl after all.
He’s prostrate before me now, his lips swollen in a pout, approaching my shoes. I push my feet forwards a bit to meet them, and he presses his mouth to the pointed tips of my stilettos, one at a time. Then his tongue inches its way out and he begins to lick first one shoe then the other. I’m still sitting down, and I open my legs and begin to massage my pussy through my pants. I’m very wet, and ready to be royally fucked. But I must resist, must keep resisting the desire for satiety, the push towards orgasm. Must learn to slow the tempo right down, in order to savour every sweet moment to its core.
I lie back a bit, still feeling between my legs, my eyes half closed. A bounce beside me on the sofa announces the fact that Celine has sat down. I turn my gaze on her. She smiles, takes a chocolate from the plate that she’s holding and brings it to my lips. I close my mouth around it, bring it whole onto my tongue and feel it melt inside me as it reaches body temperature. Something sweet leaks out of its centre – cherry liqueur, I’d guess. I close my eyes fully. The Aztecs, I remember, thought chocolate to be an aphrodisiac. In modern scientific jargon, it’s claimed to have ‘mood-lifting agents’ that mimic the effects of falling in love. I struggle to remember the name of them, and then give up.
The Apprentice Page 19