by Ava Sinclair
“Do you feel trapped by yours?”
I flush. “You know that’s not what I mean. I want this. I want to be trapped. And I don’t want out.”
“Well, that’s good, because I wouldn’t let you out.” His tone is decisively dominant, and my heart quickens. “You’re not some suburban mom. You’re mine, Sloane. Signed, sealed, and delivered. If you were going to second-guess this…”
“I’m not second-guessing it,” I say quickly. “It’s just that I’ve built this bubble around my personal life in which I exist only to serve you. And sometimes I forget how abnormal that is.”
He smiles. “Well, the alternative is normal.” He pauses. “Do you miss it? Do you miss being tiramisu in a vanilla pudding world?”
I laugh at this. “Tiramisu, huh?”
“That’s right,” he says, his voice deep and soft. “And you’re all mine, every delicious inch of you.” He grows quiet. “What’s your most important function?”
“To please Mr. M.,” I say.
“That’s right. To please Mr. M.” He nods in my direction. “Now, finish your wine.” He says it kindly, and as we quietly drain our glasses, he watches me over the top of his.
A little background. Mr. M. has the boldest and most direct gaze of any man I’ve ever known.
I legally became his the moment I signed the contract, but that was just a formality. Mr. M. captured me the moment he laid eyes on me. We were at a charity event, and his gaze was like a lasso that caught and held me. No matter where I walked, I’d look up to see him staring. As the evening went on, I found myself drawn closer, as if lured in by his gaze. I’d fully intended to ask him who he thought he was, staring like that.
But I never got the chance, and I’ll never forget his first words to me. “I fully intend to sleep with you before this evening ends.”
And he was right, and I was game. I figured him for a one-off fuck.
I was so wrong. And it all started with the same look he’s giving me now over the top of his wineglass.
“What?” I say. I put my glass down, feeling shy. Even now, after he’s seen every inch of me, tasted every inch of me, he can make me feel freshly undressed with that stare.
He leans forward, holding me with his gaze.
“Do you remember the first time I wouldn’t let you come?”
I do. I swallow at the memory, remembering the tears, remembering the physical pain of trying to hold back the flood of pleasure, the sternness in Mr. M.’s voice when he reminded me what I’d agreed to. Who knew a man I’d just met could hold such sway over my body?
“Yes,” I say quietly.
“I can still hear you begging,” he says. “I remember every whimper, every plea. Your body was as tight as a piano wire. You were shaking with need.”
“And I did it,” I say. “I didn’t think I could hold it in, but I didn’t come until you let me.”
Mr. M. wipes his mouth with his napkin. He lays it down by his plate and pushes his chair back. He stands. He loosens his tie as he moves around the table.
“Open your legs, Sloane.”
I push my chair back and obey, parting my thighs. I wear no panties. They weren’t part of today’s dress code, and going without them has made me feel like a bad, bad girl all day.
“Is your pussy wet, Sloane?”
I nod.
“Show me.”
I keep my eyes on his as I hike up my skirt and part my legs. I know what he wants. I slip my fingers between the lips of my outer labia and my own touch gives me a little shiver. I get aroused reliving the memory. My touch encounters slickness and I raise my hips in response to the feel of my own fingers. The silken sheen of my arousal glistens on my fingertips.
He takes my wrist in his hand, raises my hand, puts my wet fingers in his mouth and sucks. I groan. Just like that, just from that alone, I can feel the sweet twist of tension forming in my lower belly that corresponds with the soft throb starting in my pussy. I want to squeeze my legs together. Will he notice if I give in to the urge to enjoy one tiny orgasm?
Of course he will, so I keep my legs spread. They are shaky as he pulls me to standing. He’s taking me through the kitchen, through the living room, and up the stairs to the bedroom.
“Should I undress, Mr. M.?”
He turns and smiles. He’s undoing his tie. “What do you think?”
“I think you want me to undress.”
He tosses his tie on the chair and removes his cufflinks. “Clever girl,” he says, and winks in that way that makes my tummy flutter. I reach for the bottom of my silk top and pull it over my head. I’m not wearing a bra, and the fabric brushes my sensitive nipples as the shirt is pulled free. Mr. M. has his nearly unbuttoned, and now I’m the one who’s staring as he shrugs it off his broad shoulders.
His body is crazy gorgeous. Yeah, he works out, but Mr. M. isn’t obsessive about it. And he doesn’t have to be. He has pleasantly defined pecs and a naturally smooth washboard stomach. His skin is unmarred save for a single tattoo—a lock on the left side of his chest. I asked him about it once, and he said it was something he got in his youth. It was clear he didn’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t ask again.
But his arms… those are my favorite part of his physique. He rowed in college. He was the coxswain on his championship team. I giggled when he told me. I’d been just tipsy enough that night to be off my guard, and the word sounded dirty. Coxswain.
But all that rowing gave him the kind of strong, corded arms that make each embrace feel like a vanquishing. I feel helpless in those arms, and I know when he holds me that I couldn’t free myself if I tried.
“Take your skirt off,” he says. I’m on the bed now and I lift my hips, pushing the elastic waistband down and off. I hold out my foot. The short, stretchy skirt is hanging from the toe I point toward him. He grins and takes it. I’m naked, and a moment later, so is he. His cock juts from a thatch of wiry hair a shade darker than his head. It’s a beautiful cock, thick and ridged with veins. I want it inside me. But it won’t happen until he’s ready.
He’s going to tease me first. He’s going to make me wait. He’s going to make me suffer. I dread it. I want it.
Mr. M. kneels on the floor between my legs. He puts a finger on either side of my labia and spreads me wide. He blows on my inner labia. I tilt my pelvis up toward him. My fingers are digging into the duvet.
“Relax,” he commands. “Remember what I told you about the difference between expectation and presentation.”
I soften my muscles, and rather than push my pussy toward his face, I just keep my hips angled so that he can access it if he wants to. I took psychology courses in college. I’m aware of the theory of the male gaze and there’s always a feeling of betrayal of feminist principles when I sublimate myself like this. But my body has left my moral objections in the dust. My pussy is creaming, and I would give anything for him to lap it off my engorged inner labia.
But Mr. M. doesn’t do that. Instead he begins to stroke my clit through its hood, brushing it lightly with the tip of his finger. I groan, wanting more… more contact, more pressure. My pussy pulses like a heartbeat. I try to hold still, but can’t help but to squirm.
He pulls back the hood shielding my nub. My legs are starting to tremble. I bite my lip, trying to distract myself, but all my feeling has been condensed to my quivering, needy pussy. Mr. M. flicks my clit and I whimper pitifully. It hurts, but even as pain courses through the bundle of nerves, I feel a spurt of fresh arousal pulse from within, feel it trail down the crack of my ass.
“Don’t you come,” he says. “Don’t you come until I tell you to.” He says this a split second before his mouth latches onto my clit, gently nursing away the hurt. He says this as he simultaneously shoves two fingers into my pussy.
It’s supposed to be pleasurable, but I can’t focus on it. Not yet. I must focus on stopping the pleasure train that left the station the moment I lay down on the bed and spread my legs. It’s barreling uphill,
and if I don’t stop it, I’ll fail him. If I don’t stop it, I risk displeasing Mr. M.
I hate him. Tears come to my eyes. I pound my fists into the coverlet. He’s eating my pussy in an almost leisurely fashion, moaning into the wet flesh. “Mmmmm…” he says.
“Please.” I’m begging, trying to hold still. I’m begging, shamelessly. My need for pleasure has hit my fear of failure head on and I’m deadlocked, suspended. My body is stiff. He’s twirling the spear tip of his tongue around my clit.
“So good,” he says. “So good…”
Is he talking about me or how I taste? Does it matter? Happiness washes over me in a wave. He’s pleased. He’s pleased and I will be rewarded.
Still, it feels like hours before he stands, flips me over, and shoves his cock into me without preamble.
I wait for the magic directive and am surprised when he grabs my hair and pulls it while putting his mouth close to my ear.
“Still want to be free?” he asks. He runs his tongue up my neck. I catch the scent of my pussy, salty musk, on his breath. “If you were free, you could come whenever you want. Is that what you want?”
I’m teetering, still waiting, and I realize that it’s the last thing I want, that the mind-blowing force of my orgasm wouldn’t be possible if he hadn’t trained me to hold it on command.
“No,” I say, my voice shaking as hard as my legs.
“What do you want?” he asks.
I almost say the obvious, that I want to come. But that’s not what I want. What I want is his permission to come.
“I want you to let me feel pleasure,” I say.
“You may come,” he says.
I scream, my pussy milking his shaft until the control he’s been exercising is completely lost and he spends into me with a cry.
I’ve never been happier in my life.
Chapter Four
I suppose I can’t go any further without explaining how I ended up signing my body over to a one-night stand. I don’t think either of us thought we’d find ourselves with this kind of arrangement. But rarely do two people meet who are so sexually compatible.
It was like… electricity, and my body was left humming by all I’d experienced. I couldn’t help but Google him the next morning, just for grins. And I was floored to find out my one-night stand had been with one of the wealthiest but most private bachelors in the country. Liam Patrick McCall had inherited massive wealth in his early twenties when his father died of pancreatic cancer. His mother had passed away when he was just a toddler. In college, Liam had garnered the reputation as a playboy, but his father’s passing changed all of that. He disappeared from the jetset scene and the appearance of his name dwindled from the society pages where the juiciest bits of gossip were gleaned. In the occasional photo of him in the company of a woman, his face was turned away, or his hand was held up to block the camera.
The Reclusive Mr. M., a headline from two years ago read. Liam McCall wasn’t quoted in the story, but several former friends were, piqued that he’d fallen out of touch.
“He’s a snob now,” one unnamed source complained. “You won’t find him outside of charity events or private soirees where he is reported to have the pick of any woman in the room.”
He’d picked me, and in retrospect he’d been every inch the playboy, even if he’d taken it private. Arrogant. Entitled. But it’s not like I could blame him entirely. I’d felt an attraction stronger than I’d felt to any man, and his dominance had been so completely satisfying. Never in my life had a man made me genuinely beg like that. I was bummed out that I’d never see him again.
He called the next day. Would I like to meet for coffee, he wanted to know? He was cordial, almost formal. I told him I was busy, and that wasn’t a lie. I was in the middle of a huge case. Could it wait a week? He said of course, and I was relieved. But it wasn’t just work that made me want to put him off. The mind-blowing sex was still forefront in my mind. I wanted the afterglow to fade a little more before I sat down face to face with him.
Exactly one week later he was on the phone again, asking if I was still willing to see him. I was, and we met at Bean Counter, a coffeehouse that boasts more blends than any on the east coast. I ordered an organic fair trade Sumatran macchiato with almond milk. He ordered a straight black coffee. He offered to pay for mine, but I wouldn’t let him.
“I could have paid for it, you know,” he said with a smirk.
“Yes, I know you can. You can probably afford to buy the whole shop.” We’d taken a seat against the back brick wall. Soft jazz filtered from the overhead speaker.
“You researched me,” he said.
“I was curious,” I admitted. “But you must have checked me out, too. I don’t recall giving you my last name.”
He smiled. “That’s fair. I guess I’m just surprised that…” His words trailed off.
“What? That I’d not called you the next day to get my hooks in a rich bachelor?”
“I don’t mean it like that,” he said, but I’d figured that’s exactly how he’d meant it and felt a bit sorry for him. I could only imagine how many women were after his money.
“Look,” I said. “I’m not going to blame you for having stereotypical notions of women in general.” I paused. “Just don’t drag me into it. I prefer to be alone.”
“Really?” He put his coffee down.
“Really,” I said.
“You think that’s why I asked you here? Because I want a relationship?” He smiled as he stirred his coffee, and I realized at that moment that I was the one who’d sounded arrogant.
I sighed. “That’s not what I meant.” An awkward silence falls between us and I wished I’d not come.
“We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot here,” he said. “Let’s start over. And I’m going to be perfectly frank, Sloane. Sex with you was… phenomenal. I’ll just be straight up. I’m a dominant, and I’ve been with a lot of women. But you’re the first one I’d call a natural submissive.”
Hearing him describe me as a submissive was like pulling a trigger. My sexual life flashed before my eyes as I relived short-term relationships with men whose dominance felt unsubstantial or forced or born of insecurity. I’d known all my life I had strong submissive tendencies, but the man sitting across from me was the first man who’d made me feel like a submissive.
“I’m like you,” he went on. “For a variety of reasons, I don’t feel like I’m ready for a relationship. But I’ll be frank. I’d like to explore more of you. Of us. Of our needs.”
I sat back and considered what he was saying. He was propositioning me, but to what end.
“Like a friend with benefits thing?” I asked with a laugh. “We aren’t even friends.”
“I know.” He looked around to make sure no one was listening. “And that’s not exactly what I want. What I’m looking for is something exclusive.”
“An exclusive sexual relationship?” I asked, trying to get my head around exactly what he was saying. “Look, pal. If you’re offering to pay me…”
“I’m not.” He interjected this forcefully. “And I never would. But what I do want is to become your master.”
Hearing him say the word conjured up images of whips and collars, and when I told him I wasn’t into that stuff, he nodded and agreed that master wasn’t the right word. What he wanted, he said, was a fulltime submissive. He’d not been able to stop thinking about me, he said, and had a feeling I’d not been able to stop thinking about him, either.
“You’ve crossed my mind a few times,” I admitted, although it was way more than a few times. I was close to naming my vibrator after him by the time we’d met for coffee.
“I’m not going to assume that you need me, or that you don’t have a stake in this arrangement. I’d like to work something out with you, Sloane.”
His businesslike tone appealed to me. We could draw up a contract, I’d joked, and was surprised when he jumped on what I’d not intended to be a serious comment.
/> Looking back on it, I’m not sure I could have taken the leap otherwise. The framework of legality made it easy to step outside my comfort zone. It allowed me some control of the situation in which I’d agree to give up control.
My desire to please was at the heart of my decision. I’d worked so hard to please my parents, to be perfect for them. After that I went on to be the perfect student and the perfect lawyer. But school and work are easily controlled environments where most everything is structured. Follow the guidelines and perform well, and you can’t go wrong. It would be the same with the rules of our arrangement, I decided. Relationships, on the other hand, weren’t predictable. I was still sure that I’d be a bitter disappointment. Love was the one thing that scared me, because it represented true vulnerability. If my parents couldn’t love me unconditionally, even when I was good, then how could anyone else?
I didn’t need it. I had my work. I had success. And now I’d have passion.
Contract negotiations were interesting. I shared my darkest desires—fantasies of capture and forced orgasms. I told him of my bisexuality, and shared a bit about my one female lover who had been nurturing, but not dominant. He shared little information himself, however, beyond his own fantasies. Some were dark, but others were softer than I imagined. He wanted to choose my clothing, for instance, and insisted that this would mean he’d purchase everything.
We met three times over a period of two weeks, discussing and tweaking the terms. When it was finally drawn up, we met back at the coffee shop and I handed him his copy of the very official contract that I believe we both knew was more symbolic than anything. But I also knew we’d both honor it, and that made it as real as anything I’d hand another lawyer.
The only thing left was what to call him. I didn’t want to call him by his first name. It felt too familiar, although I had no problem with his calling me Sloane. I didn’t want to call him sir or master. And although he’d had me write an ageplay clause into the contract, I wasn’t about to call him Daddy.