Chase's house was located in the Jackson Heights
neighborhood of Queens. It was a two story brick house that looked rather small, but well tended. Kate was charmed by the window boxes on all four windows facing the street, each filled with brightly colored flowers. The yard was the size of a postage stamp, but the grass was neatly mowed, bifurcated by a stone path that led to his front door.
She lifted the small brass knocker in the center of the front door and let it fall twice. A moment later Chase pulled open the door, greeting her with a radiant, dimpled smile. Though he wasn't as tall or powerfully built as Master John, he was fit, his shoulders broad, his legs muscular. She hadn't been initially attracted to him at the weekend, but she realized now it was because she was so distracted and excited by
Master John and what he seemed to offer, that she'd missed Chase's more subtle appeal.
"Kate, you look beautiful."
Chase leaned forward to kiss her cheek. Kate smiled, pleased with his compliment, and stepped inside his house.
That morning when she'd showered and dressed, she'd selected her new pale pink lace bra and panty set from Victoria's Secret that she'd bought a month before, but had yet to wear. She'd had a small argument with herself as she dressed, reminding herself this wasn't a date, it was just a nice guy showing her around his bondage shop, at her request.
And yet she'd put on the pretty underwear, shivering as she imagined Chase's hands moving over her skin. Still she tried to fool herself, recalling the article in a women's magazine she'd read that said nice underwear beneath your clothing would make you feel more confident. That was all she was doing, boosting her confidence.
"It's hot out there. Let me get you something cold to drink. Then, if you want, I'll give you the garage tour of my cottage industry."
Though the house was small, Kate was aware of the
astronomical real estate prices, even thirty minutes out of Manhattan.
"There must be a huge demand for your rope, to be able to live in this neighborhood," she remarked.
The small foyer opened onto a living room, which was sparsely furnished with two blue and white striped loveseats facing one another across a dark blue rug in front of a stone fireplace.
There was also a large, comfortable looking leather recliner of caramel-colored leather, a small table beside it piled with books.
The floors were hardwood and looked freshly varnished.
"I wish," Chase said with a smile. "I'm doing well, but I doubt I could afford this place on my own. I confess I inherited it from my Aunt Polly, who lived here her entire adult life, buying back in 1959 when Queens was still considered quite a trip from Manhattan, instead of an express subway ride away. My sister got the beach house in Long Island, which worked out, since she loves the water and has little kids. Polly never married, and I guess my sister and me lucked out as a result. I miss her though.
She was a hoot.
She was actually into the scene."
"No way. How'd you find that out?"
"When I cleaned out the attic. She had a huge stash of bondage gear and equipment stored up there. The room I've taken over as my bondage playroom was already fitted with eyehooks in the ceiling and floor, and various other telltale indications it'd been used as more than the guest bedroom.
Family lore had it that she was a massage therapist, but it's pretty clear she did way more than rub out the kinks. She was a professional Dominatrix, I'm nearly certain. She was seventy-four when she died of a stroke, but I wouldn't be surprised if she was actively into the scene to the end."
Kate laughed. "That's wild. Well, I guess it makes sense. Who says one's kink has a time limit?"
My bondage playroom ... The words echoed in her mind.
Was it there he'd tied down the woman in red, before making love to her?
Kate shook away the thought. She followed Chase into a small, old-fashioned kitchen, most of it taken up by a large gas range and a round wooden breakfast table in the corner.
"Lemonade okay? Or I have water or beer."
"Lemonade sounds perfect," Kate said, watching as he pulled two tumblers from the cabinet and filled them. She liked the way his forearms looked, muscular and tan beneath the sleeves rolled to three-quarters just below his elbow.
He handed her a glass and took a long drink from his own.
He gestured toward the table, indicating she should sit.
Kate noticed the vase of fresh flowers at its center. A woman's touch? Or was she being sexist.
"Nice flowers," she said, subtly fishing for the answer.
"Thanks. I like to keep fresh cut flowers in the house during spring and summer. I grow them out back. No lawn to mow, the whole thing is a garden. I'd like to put in a vegetable garden too but never got around to it. Maybe next spring."
There was a certain wistfulness to Chase's tone, and he stared out the window, though somehow Kate doubted he was looking at the view.
Enough pussyfooting around.
She asked outright, "So, do you live alone here?"
He took a moment to answer, as if lost in a daydream. Whipping his head toward her, he said, "What? Oh, yes. Alone."
"I do too," she offered, feeling a little stupid.
"Your place is so tidy and, you know, with those flowers and all, I figured maybe..."
Chase lifted his eyebrows and grinned.
"You're assuming a guy can't possibly keep his house neat and enjoy a bright spray of flowers on his kitchen table, is that what I'm hearing?"
His voice was teasing, but his words hit home.
"I guess in my limited experience, men are, for the most part, slobs." She offered an apologetic grin.
"I'll accept that but, for the record, so, for the most part, are women. I like order. I like things put away where they belong.
There is a time for abandon, of course, for letting things go a little wild. I find that more in the emotional realm."
He leaned across the table, his voice lowering suddenly as he reached out and stroked Kate's bare arm, sending an actual shiver of desire through her body.
"What about you, Kate? Can you let go? Have you ever given yourself over to someone else, without stopping to think how you look or what he might think or how something is supposed to make you feel?"
The shift in mood caught her by surprise. She felt her cheeks heating and turned away.
"I…I don't know what you mean," she protested feebly.
"Don't you?"
Kate pushed back from the table and stood, turning back to face him. Had she ever done that? Given herself over without stopping to analyze every possible aspect of the scenario? She'd had all the scenes with Victor scripted in her head, and had pretty much directed the show, since she was supposedly the one
"into the scene" and he was just going along.
Even with Master John, they'd carefully negotiated the scene, and she'd listed a litany of boundaries he wasn't to cross, though in the end he'd ignored them all.
"If you mean have I ever engaged in an exchange of erotic power, where I gave complete control to another person, without first negotiating my limits and boundaries, no. No I haven't."
Chase stood too and nodded, his eyes burning into hers.
"I sense something in you, Kate. Something powerful and sensual that you've never explored, maybe that you don't even know is there. But I believe you. I understand you've never given yourself completely and from what you've told me and what I've observed, that's a good thing. You've never been in an intimate situation, at least as far as BDSM is concerned, where a solid foundation of trust had been established. As we've talked about on the phone, that's the key.
You can never fully submit to another person unless you trust them with your very life. For that, quite literally, is what you put into their hands."
They were standing very close. Chase took her face in his hands.
"You can trust me, Kate," he whispered. "That I promise you."
He
kissed her, his lips just a press against hers at first, soft and warm. She parted her lips and he teased along the parting with his tongue. She sighed against him, encircling his neck with her hands, hungry for his touch. He wrapped her in strong arms, pulling her close until her breasts were pressed against his firm chest. She felt herself falling, then and there, into a new level of desire, of longing for not only what Chase offered, but for the man himself.
He was the first to pull away, gently disengaging himself from her arms.
"Don't you want to see the rope factory?"
His tone was light, a teasing smile on his lips, though the bulging erection in his jeans gave him away.
Kate was aware they were moving toward something more, much more, than just a guided tour of his rope business but she was content to wait a little longer, if that's what he wanted.
"Sure." She grinned. "It's your fault. You distracted me."
She shook her hair back from her face.
"Lead the way."
Chase led her out the kitchen door, through the riot of color in his flower gardens, to the detached garage. Inside were a number of large kettles resting on huge gas burners.
Literally miles of rope in varying hues and thicknesses were hung along the walls and rested in coils along counters on either side of the space.
Chase lifted his arms, doing a slow circle.
"This is it. The bondage rope shop. Not exactly glamorous, huh?
Actually it's sweaty, dirty business, but the end product is worth all the work."
"What are all those kettles for?" Kate asked.
"That's where we boil the raw hemp and do the dyeing.
Remember how rough that untreated rope was? I start off by boiling it to soften it. I treat it with oils and color it with dyes."
Kate moved toward one of the counters and picked up a length of bright yellow rope, not yet coiled. She fingered it, a thrill of desire pinging inside her.
"It's not as soft as the rope you gave me at lunch."
She'd taken that coil home and unwrapped it, winding it around and around her wrists in the privacy of her own bed, wondering what it would be like to scene with Chase. Though she hadn't admitted it to Chase of course, she'd made herself come with the rope still entwined around her wrists.
"That's because the coil I gave you is from my own personal stash. What you're holding now is new. High quality
hemp rope is kind of like a good pair of blue jeans. It starts out slightly stiff to the touch, but becomes softer and suppler with each use. As you work with the rope, the fibers relax until it becomes like a second skin.
"For bondage play, at least as I practice it, the idea isn't to cut into the skin or cause discomfort, or even about restraint, per se.
For me, rope is all about connection, the strands of hemp an extension of your desire for the other person, a way of wrapping them, protecting them while you take them on a journey to where they need to go."
Kate absorbed this, unable to help contrasting this in her mind to Master John's use of restraint, painful metal cuffs that cut into her wrists when she struggled, despite their lining. Whatever journey he'd been on, she hadn't been a part of it, except as an object for his aggression.
She continued to stroke the yellow rope, wondering what it would feel like to be "wrapped" by Chase, and taken where she needed to go.
"So, how about a tour of your bondage playroom, the one where you're carrying on the family tradition?"
Chase smiled, but shoved his hands into his pockets and angled slightly away from her.
"Oh," he said, still not looking at her.
"I haven't been in there in a while."
Kate waited, not sure what he meant. Was he saying no?
Then suddenly it clicked. The girl in red. He probably hadn't been in there since they'd broken up. Emboldened by his kiss, and tired of dancing around the issue he obviously wasn't going to bring up on his own,
Kate blurted, "You keep talking about trust, but isn't that a two-way street? When are you going to trust me enough to let me in?
At least a little?"
Chase turned back to her with a stricken look.
"You're right. I'm sorry. It's just ... it's been a while. You're the first ... I mean, I haven't..."
He took a breath and blew it out. Putting his face in his hands, he moved them over it like he was washing it, and continued up through his hair.
Finally he dropped his hands and looked at her.
"I apologize. And you're right. Trust is a two-way street. I owe you more of an explanation."
His voice dipped to where it was nearly inaudible.
"Her name was Lisa."
There was a pause, during which Kate tried not to tap her foot with impatience. Did he think he was the first person ever to be dumped? At the same time she felt a stab of compassion for what he must be going through. She'd been devastated when Victor had walked out, convinced she'd never get over him or what he'd done in rejecting the trust she'd dared to place in him.
Time, she wanted to tell Chase, really does heal even the most shattered of hearts. But she said nothing, sensing such words would be received as trite advice. Instead she waited while he composed himself.
"I'm sorry. I'm just not ready to talk about it yet. I want to, I will, I promise. If you could just give me a while longer.
I want you, Kate. The past doesn't matter."
As he looked at her his beseeching gaze slowly changed into something quite different. As had happened at the café, Kate found herself falling into his dark blue eyes, which drew her with a power that skipped past words and went straight to the core of her being. Kate forgot about the woman in red.
She forgot about her own nerves at the thought of starting something new. She forgot about everything except how much she wanted him to kiss her again.
He held out his hands and she moved closer, lost in his fiery gaze. He pulled her into his arms, drawing her against his chest.
He held her tight, after a moment lifting one hand to stroke her hair.
"Thank you," he whispered, "for your trust."
CHAPTER 11
Had it really been a year since he'd gone into this room?
It wasn't that he'd meant to stay away so long, it had just happened. Since Lisa, he'd had no interest in casual scenes with the women he met at the workshops and seminars he conducted, though he'd had plenty of offers.
It wasn't that he'd lost his passion for sensual bondage and erotic BDSM play. He still loved it as much as ever, the feel of the rope artfully knotted against smooth skin, the softening of a woman's features when lust and submission overtook her, his own power when he claimed control of not only her body, but her spirit.
He loved that still, it was a part of what and who he was. It was just that he'd lost his interest in any specific woman.
Until now.
Chase took Kate's hand and led her back into the house.
He was aching for this woman in a way that was new to him.
Not even with Lisa at the height of their passion had he felt this kind of burning longing, like molten lava ready to gush over the lip of a volcano of denied feelings.
They walked through the living room to the narrow, steep stairs that led to the second floor of the old house.
As they entered the room, he watched Kate, her mouth dropping open slightly as her eyes flitted over the space, taking it all in.
He'd painted the walls a deep, rich blue, a color he found calming. Unlit white candles lined a high shelf
that ran the perimeter of the room, some of them nearly melted away to stumps. He made a mental note to replace them.
The free standing suspension rig rested against one wall, ready to be set up for instant, portable suspension play. He'd designed it from aluminum pipes, welded together into a triangle, perfect for any number of suspension positions, both upright and upside down, legs spread wide. Against another wall were coils of rope of various thicknesses and lengths, d
yed in deep red, blue and black. Hung along a third wall, beneath the large window, was his cache of whips, canes, floggers and crops.
In the center of the room, stainless steel suspension rings were firmly secured into a wooden beam in the ceiling, with ropes from each threaded through a pulley mechanism that operated from a winch set into the wall.
Kate was turning slowly, her eyes wide, her hands clutched at her chest.
"Gosh," she said, the single word laden with wonder and awe.
"This is amazing."
Her gaze fell on the safety shears, which hung on a large red hook on the wall just inside the door.
"What are those for?"
Forcing his lust down, Chase focused on her question.
"Those are EMT shears, or some people refer to them as bandage shears. The edges are blunted so you can press it safely against the skin without danger of cutting the person's flesh. It's a must-have safety tool for anyone doing rope bondage, because if anything goes wrong, from a muscle cramp to the house catching on fire, you have to be able to
get someone untied quickly and safely."
Kate nodded. "That makes sense."
"Yeah. I think one of the scariest days of my life was back in college. I was just messing around with bondage back
then, still learning the ropes."
He grinned while Kate grimaced at his pun.
"Anyway this girl I had tied up suddenly started passing out.
Turns out she was on some kind of stupid diet and hadn't eaten anything but grapefruit and lettuce for like three days. Those were the longest, scariest thirty seconds of my life, trying to get her untied and into a safe position."
"I guess I should be glad Master John used cuffs and not rope, huh? All you had to do was turn the keys."
Chase winced.
"Ah, Kate, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you think of that."
"It's okay. I'm all right, really. No more nightmares. I learned my lesson. I'm just lucky you were there. I never really thanked you for what you did. So, thank you. You were my knight in shining honor."
Chase laughed.
"I don't know about that. I didn't handle myself so well, if you want to know. In fact, Brighton and I got into a fist fight. We knocked over one of the screens in the process, caused a ruckus and got a stern talking to. I doubt Power Play will be asking me back anytime soon."
Heart of Submission Page 11