We meet at the train station in the midst of a rush hour crowd. She climbs quickly into my arms and I whisk her away. She wears her bright red coat because it’s cold and I wonder what’s underneath—though I don’t find out until I get her home. I like the feel of having to wait. As soon as she unbuttons it for me, I see her in leather—a white corset, stockings, and tiny pale pink panties with lace rosettes on either side.
“You’re gorgeous.”
“Oh, I missed you!” she exclaims. As we fall into bed and make love, I notice right off that her style is more reckless, a little more brisk, and bolder. “Have you missed me?” she asks.
“How can a master miss an errant slave?” I retort in a haughty though playful mood.
There’s little time to talk. I revel in her breasts, thinking that I hardly remember this bounty here. The two seem to melt against my face and then become wet from my lips kissing the silken surface. As her nipples stiffen, so does my erection. She’s on my cock impetuously, swallowing more easily than before, taking the whole of it down her throat. Then, when I ask for her ass, she sighs, but there’s no sign of misery on her face, and she turns around so I can have her rear.
With little foreplay, I enter to the sound of her delightful purring. I take her as rudely as I would two months before, but she doesn’t cringe, and the oohs and aahs are musical.
***
“Tell me about the master, Calvin.” I ask her as we lie in bed staring toward the dark shadows above us.”
She turns on her side and I see just a trace of starlight reflected in her eyes. “What should I tell you?”
“Everything.”
“Didn’t he report to you, Master made me think he would?”
“He did. But I want to hear about it from your own lips.”
“Ah, where should I start!” I can see she’s excited to speak.
“The beginning.”
“Oh, can I say everything I was feeling, even if you might not like it?” Her eyes twinkle almost merrily, though she’s still wary of how I’ll respond to what she tells me.
“I want to know everything, Delia. Leave out nothing.”
“Well, then.” She clears her throat. “I was horribly angry when you first put me on the train to him. I even contemplated getting off at the wrong stop and leaving the whole scene forever. I thought I’d just come back to you, surprise you and beg you not to insist on this. I was pissed. Furious. All I could do was cry for two days. And Master wasn’t kind at all. He was pissed too, and I took a number of punishments for whining so. He laid into me hard with a terrible wooden paddle. My skin was scorched and it hurt for days. He made me parade around his house nude—showing off my wounds to everyone who was there. He wanted the humiliation to get inside me so I’d become a more willing slave.”
She winces in remembrance, then sighs, her eyes squinting up thoughtfully, as though she’s trying to remember back and is finding it difficult.
“After a few days my routine was set, and I was adamantly against it. We fought—not in words, but determination. I refused to give in to him with my heart. Though he forced my body to comply, I was willful, cold, and sometimes petulant—but that only earned me extreme measures, which I hated…”
“What was extreme?” I interrupt.
She looks chagrinned, but excited to tell me. “He bound me, put me in a closet and left me for long periods of time. He has these tiny tweezers he’d apply to my nipples, and they bit into my skin so painfully that I screamed. But it was mostly the extreme bondage and the way he’d leave me that finally made me surrender.” She’s almost in tears. “I hate that. I can stand all sorts of pain, but not being abandoned.”
“And so things eventually changed?”
“I guess they did. They had to, but I’m not certain how. He was steady, the same day after day. I would have thought a man so clever and exuberant would be fun to serve. I’d see him dancing deliciously with other woman—he’d have these entertainment nights at the house… Before I gave in, I’d be looking on wishfully, watching master enjoy himself without me. He dances divinely, his sensuous hips move with such ease…” Delia drifts from one thought to the next as she remembers back. Her face is animated and full of joy. Her eyes brighten with sparks, and occasionally darken when she talks about the pain. “Anyway, back to me, I’d see him with so much charm. But with me, he was ruthless and unbending. I tried to plead with him, pour out my passions—sometimes it was only with my eyes—but nothing moved him. Master is a very duplicitous man. I don’t know how it happened exactly, but my will finally seemed to drift away. He’d wake me early in the day, have me flogged… which was a wonderful experience, because he had this suede whip with dozens of thongs. It awakened me with this beautiful energy, but then…” she bites her lip, and begins to fidget with the sheets. I take her hand in mine and hold it so she’s forced to focus on me. She looks in my eyes, nervously. “Master punished me for my halting attitude. He used a cane, marked me many times. Then sometimes he’d tie me and spank me with a wooden paddle so hard… Time turned me inside out. And then one day I forgot about being annoyed and irritable. I forgot about you as much,” she blushes, “then my good times with Master began.” She keeps talking in this beautiful monologue, and I’m intrigued by her animated eyes and the sound of her voice. Her passion makes me wonder if it was wrong to have sent her to Calvin—not wrong for her, but wrong for me.
“He mastered me well, Heinrich. His scenes were very nasty. He said he needed to remind always of being submissive and doing as my master ordered me. I learned a good deal about being less possessive. I know I can possess no master—only serve them.”
I see she’s changed. She’s a more confidant submissive, which makes her more appealing than the clinging vine I sent away.
In our first scene since her return, Delia seems to float. I tie her arms above her head in the living room where she’ll dangle for a while as I watch admiringly. She wears a cream white corset, which makes the hourglass of her bounteous flesh pour out above the lace edge, while her waist is firmly clipped at the middle. I use a long lash of leather thongs, covering her body in strokes, then change to a more biting whip, and still another more intense until she’s pouring heat, the sensation in her soon driving into me. Her skin is marred with red stripes and marks and rashes everywhere. I hold in her my arms upright as I fuck her cunt and thrust a dildo in her ass. She cums just as I do.
I see the changes in her. Delia’s body moves into this with great ease, she takes the pain with little complaint, and her determination to submit bears a different quality as though she’s not as needy and slavish with her affections—they are instead, in a more proper and appealing form. I think my Delia is exactly as I would have created her in the beginning—but still, I’m worried. I don’t understand why, but I suspect she’s not telling me everything she’s feeling.
***
It’s been three weeks since Delia left Calvin and we’ve resumed our life together. I left for the office early this morning, Delia still in bed. I awaken her with a kiss and she looks at me, her face a bit strange before she smiles.
“You have a meeting this morning?” I ask.
“No, that was canceled,” she tells me.
“Ah, then I’ll see you later.”
At ten o’clock, Delia’s still not at work. I call at eleven, after a lengthy meeting kept me from trying her earlier. She answers the phone in the apartment, her voice strange. “Would it be possible for you to meet me here for lunch?” she asks.
“You’re being vague, my dear,” I answer her with a stern voice.
“I know, but I can’t talk about this over the phone.”
“This? This what? And why aren’t you at work?”
“It’s okay, I have it handled. Just come home, please.” She’s pleading as she used to, and that gnaws at me unpleasantly.
Rearranging my day, I’m home at twelve-thirty. As I open the apartment door, I’m surprised to see her luggage in the
hallway. She’s heard me enter, and stands in the doorway of the living room with a winsome smile on her face.
“I’m leaving, Heinrich.”
“So it appears.”
“I didn’t realize how much Master got inside me until I’d left him. I never meant for this to happen—and truly, I don’t want to hurt you…”
“Hurt me? Why should this hurt? I half expected it to happen,” I quip as though I don’t care.” Certainly, it’s not the first time a submissive has fallen in love with a interim master.” I know I need to be cold. It’s in my nature. It’s how I survive. It’s how I master women, though something in me hurts strangely. I’m not sure what I feel by this rejection. I shouldn’t feel anything—she’s just a sub, and can easily be replaced.
Delia looks confused by my response.
“It’s a risk we take, my dear,” I rattle on, “and as impressionable as you are, I can’t be surprised.”
I can see her in tears, as she speaks, “This isn’t hard for you at all, is it?”
“Hard?”
“My leaving.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I guess I should have figured that.” A tear escapes and travels slowly down her cheek. “I do still love you, Heinrich. But you’re cold and aloof and distant—just like you are now. I can’t live with that. I just can’t.”
“I see.” The accusation is familiar. “Well, then, I guess it’s better that you go.”
“Yes, it’s better.” She looks at me again, her eyes soft and wet.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to draw her back to me. I know it would take very little effort to do so, but I can’t seem to make myself. I’m not sure it’s wise to change her mind. I wonder if I can tolerate a woman who needs so much from me. “What are your plans?”
“I’m returning to Master.”
“I see. His temperament suits you?”
“I’m sorry, Heinrich, but he has a heart big enough for me.”
“Then I wish you well.”
The final kiss is brief. Before we can spend another moment saying our farewells, the taxi driver has buzzed the apartment, and she has to leave. “There are a few boxes I put in a corner. There will be someone calling for them in a day or so.”
“I’ll have them in storeroom downstairs,” I tell her.
“Thank you.”
She’s gone and I still don’t know how to feel. I don’t know what to think—except that this can hardly surprise me. The way her eyes light when she speaks of Master, the way she calls him Master still, the way she seems to drift away from me in the middle of a scene, and when she returns, how she holds back her thoughts.
There’s this awful pain in my heart, an ache that weighs on me heavily. All I manage to do is slump into my chair and stare into the blue sky outside the windows. I think of her, and then I think of Anna and the ache expands.
Chapter Eighteen
It’s nearly fall again. My days drift on as Lockhart’s pony-slave. But as the weeks go by, I realize that I’m spending more time at the shop and less with my master. I’m more often in his bed, and less in the stable. I wear clothes more frequently—even in the house—and spend fewer hours shoveling shit and wearing a pony harness.
Despite the way my life alters, I never disobey my master—the thought of doing so would never arise in my consciousness. And on a whim, or if some inflection in body or voice displeases him, he still strikes down on me with fury. I’m still punished when it’s necessary, but the necessity is as rare as a summer breeze in winter.
I don’t miss the extremes—all this seems appropriate as our time together reaches that magical two-year mark. I can sense a change coming soon.
I feel as though I’m climbing out of a cocoon, arising with great wings and I’m restless.
We’re in the shop.
“How would you like to spend less time with me this winter?” Lockhart says after we share our thoughts about Expressionist painters, Munch, and Gauguin, over a cup of expresso.
My response is guarded as I’m accustomed to deferring to his opinions, “I think that would be fine,” I manage to reply.
He nods. “It’s time for you to reenter your world.”
I look at Lockhart, knowing that I don’t love him. I respect him completely and I will for the rest of my life honor him. But for our relationship to remain the same would probably not suit either of us. I imagine the end will feel strange, but not painful. We will have lost the need for each other.
The worst part about this is picking up with the rest of my life. He’s eased me into the change a week at a time, but when my life with Lockhart is finally over I imagine I’ll be lost without something I’ve come to trust.
Chapter Nineteen
The following spring…
I was initially worried moving back to the city—my thoughts suggested that I should simply find another place altogether. Start so fresh that I’d feel like a babe in the woods, no baggage of any past to haunt me. But then, returning to visit my friend, Joanne, I realized that two years away cleared out all that murky stuff that drove me to my master to the north. Besides, I love the city, and the gallery that Joanne’s boyfriend, Cameron, needs me to run, and the loft apartment on the second floor with two big spacious rooms and a garden roof that reminds me of an English country garden. I can think of Lockhart the minute I step out on the patio. And I can also think of the promise a big city brings for finding that next man in my life. Not that I’m anxious. Lockhart took me beyond that.
Oh, my submissive yearnings are ever present. I made one trip to Tethers a week ago. But as soon as I crossed the threshold, I knew it wasn’t right. I left in a half-hour, deciding that I’ll post a few inquires in the Internet personals and sees what comes from that. I’m not desperate as I was when I left Heinrich, or when Ian turned me out. No. I can wait. I can be peaceful with myself, and not need to run in panic to Bernard, or into the arms of any man.
Cameron has arranged a loft warming for me. He and Joanna insist. He tells me that I need to get a social life—I’ve scoffed, but they’re probably right. They know about my sexual inclinations, though they don’t share them. They also know that I’m being patient this time. They see that I’m taking time to rebuild my life and make a lot of things new. I may scoff at their concern, but I’m actually glad they’re here to help.
It’s a brilliant Saturday in April, and I have a thousand things to buy for my party tonight—Cameron didn’t handle everything, though he’s doing all the food, and that’s a relief.
I carry two bags of groceries from the corner store, staring up at the sky wondering a little wistfully what the rest of my life is going to bring. With my eyes refocusing on the path in front of me, I suddenly stop on a dime. Heinrich Keller is walking toward me, just as surprised to see me, as I am to see him. His blond hair is slightly tousled by the wind—though in a way, that unkempt look sits well against his well-groomed perfection. His face remains clear, arrogant, and handsome, and my heart starts a little anxiously. “Hi,” I’m the first to speak.
“And hi to you,” he says back smiling, his bright charming grin is as powerful as I remember it to be. “Your hair, Anna, you let it grow.”
Yes. Of course. It was at Bernard’s, well over two years ago, long before Lockhart, when my husband saw me last with my short spiky hair. “Yes. I did.”
“It looks lovely.”
“Thank you.” I’m almost blushing. He has such charisma. His eyes are full of life, and yet, he’s not quite the same as I remember him. I can’t pinpoint the difference, but I’m sure it’s there. “So, how are you doing?”
“Very well.”
“And Delia?”
He’s slightly rattled. “We ended the affair some time ago,” he says, unusually chagrinned.
“Oh, I didn’t know.”
“So, how are you? I guess I knew you were back in the city.”
“Bernard told you?”
“He did.”
�
��Yes… and here I am,” I’m not sure what to say, although I find myself not wanting to end the conversation. “I’m having a loft warming,” I finally spit out. “Joanne and Cameron Michels—you remember them? I’m running Cameron’s new gallery and have taken the loft above it.” I point down the street.
“Really, that close. I just live a few blocks away.”
“Why don’t you come?”
He looks puzzled.
“To the party. Tonight. It’s very informal.” I can’t believe I’m asking him.
“You want me there?”
“Why not?”
He can’t figure this out either. The invitation astounds us both.
***
I never thought my new apartment was small until I tried packing a hundred people inside. Joanne and Cameron think I should make all these people fast friends. It’s a great idea but also impossible in one night. I find myself running from place to place, playing hostess more than getting to know my neighbors, and the friends of the gallery, and Joanne and Cameron’s handpicked guests. I literally bump into Heinrich at about ten o’clock. It’s the first I’ve seen of him and I’m actually surprised he showed up.
“Oh, have you been here long?”
He consults his watch. “About an hour.”
“My, how did you slip past me?” I’m staring into the blue of his eyes. My right hand reaches to brush the hair from his brow.
“Actually, I’ve been staying out of your way.” He grins.
“And why would you do that?”
“I’ve been enjoying the look of you from afar.”
What is he doing wooing me like this? My crotch is getting hot—little tingling sensations almost making me giddy. I feel flirty like there isn’t four years of pain and a divorce between us.
***
I sit with Heinrich on the patio, side by side, in the dark, staring into the night and at the stars and city lights. There’s hardly a chill in the air—even at twelve a.m. He asked me to dinner because he had to leave my party before we had a chance to talk. I couldn’t do dinner soon enough to suit me, so I asked him to a late supper in my loft. We’re getting along strangely well, talking about everything but what’s really personal. I can’t remember when I felt so comfortable with him.
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