The Puppetmaster

by Linnea May

  I can’t even be sure if that is really his name, because it could have been the driver’s personal mail just as easily.

  But why would he take it with him into the house? Why would he even have it in his hand if it wasn’t to deliver it to his employer?

  No, it must be his name.

  Michael Raad is the man who is touching me right now. He is the man who humiliates me by exposing my arousal in such an intrusive manner.

  And he is also the man who made me this wet in the first place.

  I can’t suppress a needy groan when he begins to draw circles across my most sensitive spot. I knew I was wet for him, but I don’t know why I wasn’t able to tell him when he asked.

  Maybe it was because I wanted this? Because I wanted him to touch me the way he is touching me now.

  “Such a good little slut,” he breathes close to my face, a triumphant smile framing his gorgeous face.

  He keeps me locked in place, forcing me to hold eye contact even when there’s nothing I’d rather do than hide in embarrassment. My gaze is locked on his, and now that we’re this close, I realize for the first time how dark his eyes really are. I have never seen eyes like his, a deep black so mesmerizing and mysterious that it’s easy to lose myself in their depths.

  I feel drawn to the obscurity and the secrets these eyes are hiding. There’s something there, a knowledge, a profound understanding about me and my needs that almost frightens me.

  Already he has shown that he knows exactly which of my buttons to push, and he has given me a taste of his strict hand and rules that are never to be broken, even if I don’t see the logic behind them.

  He spreads me further, teasing and caressing my swollen center as he starts playing with my arousal, dampening his fingers until they’re soaked.

  “You warned me not to drip on your floor,” I remind him, squirming under his treatment. “How could it be my fault if you keep doing this?”

  He smirks at me, shaking his head.

  “Smart ass,” he hisses as he slides his finger inside me with one brute push. I jump up again, squealing in a blend of delight and agony. I moan loudly as he bends his thick finger deep inside me, knowing just where to press to send a titillating spark tingling through my entire body.

  Fuck.

  He keeps forcing himself inside me, increasing the pressure on that magic spot right behind my entrance, simultaneously rubbing my clit with his palm, keeping my lips spread apart. It’s so invasive, playing havoc with me as electric sparks dart through my core. The intensity is almost blinding, sending me on a tightrope dance between agony and sheer pleasure.

  “Don’t you dare come!” he barks at me when my insides start clenching around his finger.

  I let out a desperate wail, shifting away from his caress as much as he lets me.

  His breathing accelerates just as much as mine, a threat flaring in his raven-black eyes.

  “I swear to you, Alena, if you come without permission you won’t be able to sit for a week.”

  His intimidation does the exact opposite of what I assume he intended. Another rush of heat curls deep through my lower core, luring out new waves of an impending climax, one that I’m not allowed to have.

  “Then... stop,” I beg under heavy breaths, my pleading eyes locked onto his.

  But he shakes his head.

  “You knew you were going to be punished, didn’t you?” he says menacingly. “No one ever said it would be as simple as a spanking, my puppet.”

  I growl in anguish, twisting in his grip as I try to evade a bliss that is soon going to be too much to resist. I can feel it with every new thrust against that magic spot inside me, and I catch myself begging for more as I gyrate my clit against his hot palm.

  He notices, too.

  And just when I’m hit with another wave of thrill and come dangerously close to exploding on his hand, he stops.

  He withdraws his hand from between my legs and lets go of my hair with the other, leaving me feeling strangely empty and forsaken as he jumps up from the sofa.

  I remain where I am, a trembling mess kneeling before him. My legs are still spread apart and my entire body continues yearning for the release he’s denying me.

  “Stay,” he demands in a low voice. “Don’t you dare move.”

  I nod, feeling his wish for a verbal response but not following suit. I’m too ashamed to speak, too agitated, too dazed with a heat I have never experienced before.

  He walks away, leaving my sight, and because I’ve had enough of being punished for now, I don’t even dare turn my head to see where he’s going. I hear him rummaging around behind my back, opening and closing a drawer.

  I don’t even remember seeing a dresser when we first stepped inside the room, and just as I think about turning around to see what he’s doing, I’m stopped mid-motion by his approaching steps.

  “Good girl.”

  His praise never fails to affect me, and I smile like a little school girl.

  “You can close your legs,” he says, as he returns to his seat on the sofa right in front of me. “Give me your wrists.”

  I obey on both accounts, feeling the sticky slickness between my legs as I move my knees back together and place my wrists in his lap, close to a visible bulge that fills me with pride. I was too preoccupied to notice it before, but seeing the effect I have on him widens the smile on my face.

  I expect him to tie my wrists together, but when I place my hands right next to each other, he surprises me by only reaching for one of them at first. Lifting my right hand, he quickly closes a leather cuff around my wrist. It’s quite narrow and more delicate than other cuffs I’ve seen at the club before, but it bears the same metallic hooks and clasps.

  “You are never allowed to take these off as long as you’re mine,” he announces, as he attaches the second one around my left wrist. “Never. Understand?”

  “Not even when I take a shower?” I ask dumbly.

  “Not even when I clean you,” he responds, making me blush once again. Up until now it never occurred to me that being the Puppetmaster’s toy could also mean giving up any sort of privacy.

  Did he really mean that? He’s going to wash me? Every day?

  I lift my hands before my face, moving and turning as if I’m seeing them for the very first time, and he watches me. Without saying a word, he then produces a thin rope, which he loops through one of the hooks on my right wrist cuff. Yanking at it, he forces me to lean forward while he ties the other end of the rope around one of the sofa legs. He gets up from his seat, carefully moving around me to repeat the same thing with my left arm. This time he chooses a leg on the other side, so that my arms are stretched out to the sides and I sit bent forward in an awkward position as if I am bowing before the sofa.

  Tearing at the strings, I notice that his knots aren’t very strong. They give in even to the slightest pull from my part.

  “You know I could just tear these open,” I tease him, unable to stop myself, even though I know I’m asking for trouble with remarks like that.

  “Yes,” he says from behind my back, probably enjoying the view of my naked ass on display in front of him. “But you won’t, will you?”

  And with that, he marches away and leaves me alone in the room.

  Chapter 23

  Raad

  Once again, Alena made me go off plan. Attaching the strings to my puppet before the paperwork has been signed is wrong, and it’s not how I usually proceed. With what just happened between us, I already sent her into a state that fogs the mind and may prevent her from making smart decisions.

  Touching her and then denying her an orgasm is one thing. That is what I do. It’s simply a way to get to know my puppet, to understand how her brain works and to see whether my assumptions about her were right.

  I wasn’t wrong about Alena. Yet she keeps surprising me. As much as she has a head of her own, she also guides me more clearly than most puppets have before her.

  She’s so fuc
king responsive to me, to my words, my touch, my sheer presence. Playing with her has been a delight so far, and I can’t wait to see where we will go next.

  But first things first. I won’t go any further with her until she signs the paperwork. Flying her to New York has only been the first step, and she knows that. She can still say no, she can still leave and get out of this—and as long as that’s the case, we can’t get started for real.

  I walk over to my office just in time to see the cat stalk away from the door, its thick tail swaying nonchalantly. It doesn’t even deign to look at me for a second.

  It’s always like this when Dorota is gone and I have a new puppet in the house. Dorota is its main caregiver, and when she’s around, the cat always stays in her immediate vicinity. We’re not very fond of each other, but when Dorota is not around, the cat has no other choice but to turn to me when it’s in need of human attention. Still, it never comes too close, it never curls its body around my legs like it does with Dorota, and it certainly never falls asleep on my lap or anything like that.

  It’s implicitly forbidden to get too close to my puppets, but that has never been an issue anyway, because it appears to hate any other woman besides Dorota. I make sure to lock it out when I’m in the midst of a session with my puppet, but other than that it’s just free to roam the house, with the only room off-limits being my office.

  There were puppets who tried to befriend the cat, seeking a companion during a time that is as exciting as it is challenging. They fed the cat, they tried to lure it into play, and one of them even went as far as trying to pick it up and force the damn thing to cuddle. After that, the girl wore more marks from the claws it inflicted on her body than I inflicted on her.

  I was amused and annoyed at the same time. That little fucker sure knows how to set and protect its boundaries.

  The cat stops about ten feet away from me, sitting down at the foot of the stairs that lead up to the first floor. It’s facing me now, the white fur blending in with the marble floor and bright walls, its blue eyes piercing me with that same fuck-you expression that seems inherent to this creature. It’s actually the only reason why I can tolerate this little bastard; it’s got an attitude that I can relate to.

  I acknowledge it with a short nod before I disappear inside my office, heading for the big desk, on top of which a stack of paper is waiting for me. I pick it up and see Alena’s letter lying next to it. Pausing, I wonder whether she expects me to address it. Would she want me to? Would she become suspicious if I don’t? After all, to her it feels as if she dared to reveal something to me that not many, if any, other people know about her. It’s a dark and harrowing secret she’s been carrying for years, something that’s been eating her alive long enough for her to jump at the chance to finally share it with someone else.

  The thing is, I already knew this about her. I’ve known pretty much ever since it happened, so reading that letter wasn’t as shocking to me as she thinks it must have been.

  Still, the difference is this: now she knows that I know. And she may want to talk about it, or expect me to talk about it.

  I reach for the letter, weighing it in my hand for a moment as I ponder whether to take it with me or not. The solution turns out to be something between yes and no as I slip the note underneath the stack of papers in my hands.

  She hasn’t moved an inch by the time I return, and even when I close the door behind my back noisily, she only twitches slightly, not turning her head to face me. Her forehead is resting on the sofa cushions, her back still hollowed and her arms stretched out to the side as if the rope wouldn’t allow her any leeway. She’s right; she could easily tear the rope apart from the sofa legs with just a quick yank.

  She could free herself, but she doesn’t. Because it’s not the strings that are binding her, it’s her mind.

  “Good girl.”

  Her ears move upward, suggesting that my praise causes her to smile.

  I leave the paperwork on the small coffee table that stands a bit distanced from the sofa and kneel down next to her, quickly loosening the knots that confine her to the sofa legs. Holding a string in each of my hands, I get back up on my feet, beckoning her to follow me with a gentle tug.

  She doesn’t hesitate to follow, obviously grateful to be allowed to unfold her body from that awkward position she was forced to maintain.

  “Sit,” I guide her, collecting both strings in my left hand as I point to the sofa with my right.

  She casts me a quick look as if to make sure that she’s not doing anything wrong before following my gesture to sit down. I can see her cuffed wrists move nervously, trying to shield her intimate parts before shying away again, apparently worried that it might anger me.

  She’s right about that.

  I sit down next to her, suppressing the urge to touch her beautiful naked body, and place the end of the strings in my lap before I point to the paperwork before us.

  “I would like to get this out of the way,” I say, meeting her expectant gaze. “If you’re ready for it.”

  Alena’s eyes trail over to the table, resting on the stack of papers for a moment before they return to face me. Swallowing dryly, she suggests a little nod.

  I reciprocate the nod and hurry to reach for the papers before my mind gets in the way. I can’t waste any more time reconsidering, questioning whether I’m doing the right thing.

  Yet there’s a small but palpable sting in my chest, because no matter what, this still feels wrong. I feel sorry for what I’m about to do to her, because I know the consequences it will have on Alena’s life.

  I worry for her. I feel sorry for her, even though I’m the one derailing her life like this.

  I will be the one to blame.

  And I can only hope that she’ll understand.

  Chapter 24

  Alena

  “If you’re ready for it.”

  The weight in his words scares me a little, and when he hands me a pen before presenting the first page for me to sign, it feels as if I’m about to surrender my life to him.

  And I guess in a way I am.

  The contract clearly states that there is no way out for me. I can’t leave him; I can’t even leave the house without his permission. I will be completely under his control for as long as he wants me.

  I read the contract carefully, taking my time just as he asked me to. Again and again, the words blur before my eyes as I become impatient and try to fly over sections that seem pretty common sense and thus redundant to me. Others, however, make my heart kickstart with fear.

  You knew this. You knew what it would be like, I try to remind myself.

  But did I really? Do I really understand what it means to not be a free agent for weeks, maybe months? Would it be as liberating as I hoped it to be?

  The idea of having him make all the decisions for me and become the center of his attention in return is still titillating to say the least. I like the way the delicate leather cuffs feel around my wrists and my core pulsates with excitement every time he pulls at the strings in even the slightest way.

  The ends of the strings are resting in his lap as he sits next to me, waiting and watching as I read and sign the paperwork in front of me. He’s still completely dressed while I’m butt-naked, my nipples still hard from his teasing and my entrance so wet that I keep my legs pushed closely together in fear of leaving an embarrassing stain on his fancy furniture.

  I leave my signature on the first page of the contract, which basically states everything I already knew. It might be my imagination, but I feel like he’s pretty tense himself, but he relaxes next to me as soon as I write my signature. He takes away the signed paper right away and points to the next page. It contains my bank information and asks for me to give him authority to access my bank account. It doesn’t come as a surprise because he asked for all of this on the documents I left in the box at The Velvet Rooms, but it still worries me.

  “This… this I actually have some questions about,�
� I stutter, hoping that I’m not ruining everything. “I mean… why do you need this?”

  I turn to him, suddenly overcome by a very uncomfortable thought. “It’s not because you’re planning to pay me for this, right? Because that would be—”

  “No,” he cuts me off in a sharp tone, narrowing his eyes. “I wouldn’t need a proxy to pay you, doll.”

  He’s right about that. I clear my throat, glossing over my stupid question with another.

  “Then what do you need it for?”

  He nods, the expression on his face softening. “You’re smart to wonder about this, but trust me, it’s nothing to worry about. It’s simply a matter of precaution. You won’t have access to it while you’re here, and I assume no one else has access to it either. I want you to vanish from the world, so that’s why I also asked you not to share the truth about this with more people than you absolutely have to.”

  He pins me down with an inquiring look. “I assume you didn’t?”

  I shake my head, pressing my lips together as I’m not sure if I really kept my end of the bargain.

  “Just two people know,” I shyly whisper. “My friend Melina, who works at the club, and…”

  “And your sister,” he concludes my sentence.

  I nod, relieved to see no concern on his face when our eyes meet again.

  “That’s fine,” he assures me. “But I presume neither of them has access to your finances?”

  I shake my head. “Of course not.”

  “See, what if something comes up during your absence?” he offers. “What if you’re hit with some unexpected financial trouble? What if your savings aren’t sufficient to continue paying your rent while you’re here?”

  “That won’t be an issue,” I interject. “My sister is staying at my place. She’ll be paying the rent while I’m gone.”

  His dark eyebrows arch in surprise, and for a moment I worry that this was actually something he didn’t like to hear. But he doesn’t say a word and simply nods at the paper in front of me.