“Yes. I have a master.”
“Permanent?”
“Yes, I think so. Going on a year.”
His eyebrows rise, like he knows there’s more behind my explanation than I’m letting on. “Ironic, isn’t it, that you send me away for being too tough a master and then turn to someone else for the same thing?”
“It’s not the same thing, Benjamin.”
“I see.” I can see he’s curious.
“How about we just leave it at that?”
“No problem here.”
We return to the books, which he has been carefully inspecting for the mistakes he expects to find. I’m so glad that I spent two days pouring over the records and bringing much of the accounting into order, or he’d really find a huge mess to untangle.
“It doesn’t look as bad as I expected it would be,” he finally comments.
“Yes, well, what Randall didn’t know was that I’ve spent the week working on these problems. If he’d have bothered to see for himself, he might have decided that you’re really not needed here.”
Suddenly, the emotion in me starts to rise and I hang my head, holding back the tears. No, I can’t let him see me cry. I won’t!
“Dana.”
I ignore him.
“Dana, look at me.”
I finally do. He’ll see my anguish, but I can’t help it.
“Let’s just say I’m going to take the pressure off you for a while. I’m sure you haven’t had a vacation in a long time. You could probably use the rest. Don’t make this a bad thing.”
I try hard to accept his kindness as just that. I used to thrive on that kind of sweet sensibility; it’s very real, but I still have my pride.
Turning back to work, Benjamin boxes up a pile of books in my office while I look on, thinking how glad I’ll be to be rid of them.
“I’ll probably spend the afternoon going over these,” he says. “I’ll make some notes. By Monday, I’ll have some suggestions.” He moves toward the door lugging the heavy weight of the box. “I was thinking we could talk a little over lunch, then you could take me to the warehouse.”
“Oh, gee, Benjamin, I can’t. I-uh – have a doctor’s appointment.” We both know this is a lie, but we let it slide.
“Okay then, I’ll just drop down there myself and look around after I get a bite.”
“Sure. Mick will be happy to see you.”
He moves through the door to the office across the reception area, where Sally now sits looking busy typing something; I have no idea what. I imagine she’s full of questions by now. While I look on at this unreal scene, Benjamin returns for the second box of company records and starts out.
“So, what’s her name?” I impulsively ask.
He turns around. “Who?”
“The love of your life.”
“Colleen.”
“Pretty name.”
“She’s a pretty woman. A dancer.”
“Will she be moving down with you?”
“No, she’s busy in Seattle.”
“Well, if you need any help moving things around over there; it’s a bit of a mess,” I say, being as conciliatory as I know how to be.
“I’ll let you know.”
***
Ben grabs a cab at the airport and arrives at the rehearsal hall just in time to find Colleen cooling down from a lengthy practice.
“How about cold sandwiches for dinner?” she suggests as they walk to her car.
“Fine with me.”
“And how did the trip go?” She stops, which forces him to do the same, and searches his eyes attempting as she does to scrutinize his heart. She’s looking for signs of wavering, signs of that sadness she sometimes associates with the messy something that happened three years ago in San Francisco. She’d kicked him out; Dana, the love of his life, the girl of his dreams, he’d called her. He never adequately told him why their relationship ended and why so disastrously. She wished she had all the juicy, meaningful details a woman wants to know about the ex. But then she’s quick to remind herself that men don’t process their relationships with the fine tooth comb that women use.
“She wasn’t very receptive to start,” Ben says.
“I’ll bet she was pissed.”
“She was. But I think by the time I left today, she was almost relieved. Maybe not that I was there, but that someone was.” They climb into her Jetta, Colleen behind the wheel and move into the nearly empty street.
“You said she’d screw it up,” Colleen reminds him. “But aren’t you a little sad that she did?”
He shrugs. “I probably shouldn’t have even gone back, but I still have my money tied up in the company and I don’t want to see that disappear.”
Colleen’s heart sinks. She fears the worst, although she can’t be sure. Was it really the money that sent him back to San Francisco? She worries that the connection between him and Dana has not been broken, not completely. Is that what she sees in his eyes, his tone of voice? There has always been something bittersweet inside his aura, a disquiet in his spirit. Is it stronger now after seeing his former submissive? She worried as soon as he accepted the job from Randall Tyler, that in returning to the company he owned and the woman he loved once, he would be taking on the past with its minefield of memories. It makes sense that they would grab him back, enclose him in Dana’s emotional drama that continued on even after he stepped away from it. Does the woman still have the power to attract and snare him now?
At least Ben doesn’t notice her response. And maybe she’s just being a silly female, worried for no reason. She’ll shake it off, she’ll have to, and move on as if this is the same Ben she knows and loves.
“You wouldn’t mind if I took you to Isis’ Dungeon tonight and put you in stocks?” he abruptly asks.
She’s a little surprised, but not at all displeased. She thinks of being bound and beaten at the club they occasionally frequent when they are in need of a really good sadomasochistic scene. This was not what she expected for their reunion, which was a quiet dinner, good sex, and a long lazy Saturday morning to remind him of the life he loves. But this would work too. The tension between them is about to explode, better this than some messy argument. That happened once, and she vowed it would not happen again.
“Not at all,” she answers. “I think we could both use it.”
“Good.” He’s already sounding hard, brutal as he’s likely to be with her tonight. She shivers with anticipation, while her sex melts warmly from belly to crotch. “You drop me off at home,” he tells her. “Get cleaned up and dress sexy, black and sexy. I want to shower myself, so I’ll pick you up about ten.”
***
The first time he saw Dana she was walking her dog on the beach not far from the Presidio. He’d been running and was cooling down when he caught a glimpse of her from the corner of his eye. She was hard to miss, dressed in overalls—lime green overalls with nothing but a thin, skimpy tank top underneath—and barefoot with slave bells around one ankle. Her brown hair was in thick schoolgirl style braids. He’d learn later that her outfit was just one of the many costumes that emerged from her closet like quirky dreams. She made her own clothes from brightly colored fabrics. He’d never seen anything quite like them—or her. Her hair, her hats, her funky jewelry and the wild shoes, not to mention the goofy clothes that seemed thrown together and yet they oddly melded into a look that was right for this chic, sexy one-of-a-kind female.
When they struck up a conversation there was an instantaneous connection. It started with nothing but talk, which began in the morning and continued long into the night, where they revealed all their deep dark secrets, the personal things they could relate to an attentive stranger at a time when it was safe to do so, when they had nothing to lose and the ear of someone far removed from their troubled past and their lonely present. Everything was discussed in such detail that long before they got to bed, they assumed they knew everything about the other and there could be nothing to get in t
he way of their shared bliss.
While he loved her odd manner of dress, he liked her best when she was natural, all the quirky clothes shed so the simplicity of her nature would be bared for view. Otherwise, she was always hard to figure. Silly, fun, reckless, sad, impulsive, her life was one of the most completely unstructured lives he’d ever been exposed to. She ate cream soups and toast in the morning, washed her hair in beer and ran for exercise at night under the stars, then worked for hours after until she was finally too exhausted to go on. She often wore glasses that blurred her vision just so she could see the world from a different perspective, so that the sharp lines of her life would ooze together in a strange and dreamy haze. She often slept for days, after one of her non-stop marathons. Everything centered around ‘the new creations’, her wearable art, and achieving some degree of perfection that only she clearly understood.
Dana liked him because he was her opposite in every way. He was fixed, adamant and dictatorial by his own admission. He dressed simply, ate simply and worked regular hours. They seemed like an impossible pairing, and yet, their odd melding persisted because her changeable nature could mold easily to his wants and strange sexual desires. The fact that he expressed himself so differently when it came to sex was his one very quirky trait. It worked well for Dana, as it drew from her a few sexual peculiarities of her own she avoided mentioning to other lovers.
Ben Hunter reeled her right into his private kink, knowing that she would have little problem with what he’d demand of her—bondage, spanking, hard anal, even the heavier stuff like clamps, single tails and groveling submission. He never expected her to resist him; some things are simply obvious about people and Dana’s submission was one of those things.
One night, Ben took Dana to a seedy bar in an obscure part of the city. She was wearing a black Lycra snake print dress that fit her like a second skin starting at her shoulders and ending just below her ass In front, the dress was cut low enough to exhibit her cleavage, which was not a particularly grand show, but with her small waist and gentle hips, she gave off the air of a sex kitten with no real effort at all. Her eyes were exotic: made up with ebony liner, gray shadow and glitter on the lids. Her lips were painted hot pink. She was all over him from the moment they entered the bar, as if she wanted to fuck him without waiting for a more appropriate location. He learned later that her aggressive sexual come-on was really a mask. She was feeling shy in the sleazy bar where the patrons were mostly men and every eye followed her every move.
After a few drinks, she loosened up and became more flirtatious with the strangers around them, who were mostly black men listening to the music of a jazz quartet. She stared at one particularly large black man for sometime, until Ben finally noticed and ordered her to sit on the man’s lap.
“But I’m naked underneath the dress!” she whispered her only objection.
“All the better,” he whispered back. “You want him, you’ll have him. Or better yet, he’ll have you.” She quivered with fearful excitement and moved toward the man, looking sheepishly apprehensive while giggling girlishly the whole way.
The big man radiated warmth and sexy charm with a body that hugged her small white frame as if she were some delicate porcelain doll. Ben could see the fright in her eyes as the black man appeared to swallow her whole, while mauling her flesh from ass to cunt to breasts. He saw her fear, but he also saw the unmistakable lust in her expression. When the man’s fat fingers went under her dress, and he pulled her face toward his mouth, he kissed her deeply. Ben was afraid she’d revolt as the man demanded that she kiss him back. But instead, her entire body quaked as if she was on the verge of orgasm. Turns out, she was. Minutes later, she was cumming on the man’s hand, half screaming, only half mindful of where she was. Her audience didn’t care; they were pleased to watch.
By then, the quartet was going home for the night, although no one else was heading for the door. Instead of closing down, the proprietor locked the entrance and put up the closed sign while there were still over a dozen of his customers inside. Considering the swiftness of that move, it looked as though it was all pre-planned.
Dana was their whore, or more properly stated, Ben’s whore. Most just watched, but the big black man, the saxophone player and an aggressive white macho-man had their way with her. Once her orgasm was clearly finished, the black man lifted her off his lap and pushed her over a table. Her dress was riding high on her hips, uncovering her ass and showing off a pair of rounded ass cheeks that were as white as the black man’s snowy teeth. He smacked her hard until the pearly surface turned pink, then he pulled a thick black organ from his pants and fucked her cunt. His big hands clutched her pink-white ass as he lunged again and again in that steamy valley between her legs.
Dana was cumming again long before the black man finished. She was on a natural high, willing do anything asked of her as long as Ben remained in her line of sight; as long as she could look at him in a moment of panic or confusion and she see him watching, protectively observant. Occasionally, he even smiled, which seemed to make her entire being light up.
The saxophone player wanted her mouth, which he used for a time. For a few seconds she resisted the organ that tapped against her bright pink lips—but then she looked at Ben and he gave her his permission. Opening wide, her tongue lapped at the smooth surface of the man’s erection, until her eager mouth sucked him inside.
When the black man finally pulled out of her cunt, the aggressive white guy wanted to beat Dana’s ass using his leather belt, and a smirk of angry lust broke out across his face when Ben signaled his approval.
Before he started, the snake print dress was tossed into a corner so Dana was naked for this exhibition except for her patent leather knee-high boots. Once again, she was dragged over a tabletop by two accommodating men in business suits. Another pair of men joined in to hold her legs while the white man doubled his leather belt and beat her ass. She started to scream, sounding terrorized, until someone’s hand reached between her legs and fiddled with her wet privates. Screams turned into moans and moans into sobs of pleasure. She was cumming madly again, just from pain and exhibition and the intoxication of the night. All combined, it was the aphrodisiac of choice for a woman who until that time knew nothing about being spanked, beaten, abused and dominated, except what images popped into her randy little head as unspeakable fantasies. The fact that Benjamin Hunter understood this about her was both amazing and a godsend.
There was no question during the ordeal that Ben was firmly in charge of the situation. He kept several other men away. Only the saxophone player fucked her now. Someone pawed her hair, another man stroked her bowed back; there were hands lovingly, aggressively all over her. But once the sax player finished, Ben at last stepped up and they all backed off. Dana went limp across the table, looking awkwardly splayed out with her pussy dripping a stream of cum on the Formica table. He wiped her with a couple of napkins, then picked her up in his arms, carrying her like a baby from the bar into the cool night air. His car was just two blocks down the street and once she was safely inside, she snuggled her nakedness against his warm body and, feigning sleep, remained that way all the way back to her apartment.
“What have I done?” she asked. She looked up when they finally pulled to the curb. “My dress?”
“I threw it in the back.” He reached around and grabbed it.
“Did I really do all that—?”
He smiled. “Yes, you really did.”
“Oh, my. I would never have behaved that way if you hadn’t…” she didn’t know how to say what was on her mind. She felt it though. “I think you bring out the whore in me and I don’t think that’s good.”
“It’s not good or bad; it’s just what is. Do you feel bad about tonight?”
“No.” She giggled. “I loved it.”
“Big, black dick in your cunt, a white man’s belt and the saxophone player’s prick in your mouth… none of that bothers you? Not even the dozen pairs of eyes wat
ching?”
Her expression was tantalizing. He wanted to read her mind, but he imagined it was too confused to be a decent story yet.
“I know you like giving me orders,” she finally said. “It’s all okay because I don’t have to think about it.”
“Ah, so that’s it? That’s what made you bold, my ordering your around?”
“Hm, maybe. It makes me all quivery inside. All I could think about was doing it for you.”
“So, it had nothing to do with cumming a half dozen times, eh?”
“Oh, that too. But it started with feeling like I’m yours. Does that make any sense?” She looked at him with a coy grin and cocked her head. The pink lipstick was long gone, her hair was a terrible mess and the Gothic eye makeup was smeared and worn away. Still, she looked as lovely and desirable as any woman he’d ever known.
“It makes lots of sense to me. Some men and women like sex roles that put them on top or on the bottom, that makes some dominate, others submit. I think it’s clear that you’re the submissive sort.”
“Oh, I must be. But not to just anyone,” she said, worriedly. “Just you.”
“That’s the way it should be.” He had her exactly where he wanted her as if it was a diabolical plan he’d deliberately executed; when it was really just an accident, one thing leading to the next until she was doing as she was told, while he was in control. His dreams were coming true, hopefully, hers were too.
A few weeks later they became not just lovers but business partners in a venture that seemed to grow successful because of his business acumen and her creative genius, and a shared interest in imported fabric. He’d already been in the import business for several years, so he was a natural in giving her what she needed to stir her creative juices. Dana thought that God had blessed her when she stumbled on Benjamin Hunter, who knew everything that she didn’t about acquiring the fabric she wanted and marketing her creations.
A Master For A Desperate Slave Page 5