Fall From Grace

by Lizbeth Dusseau

“Oh!” She almost screamed.

  “Skittish?”

  She hadn’t really thought so until that moment, but with him standing so close, and looking so handsome in his khakis and flannel shirt, she immediately felt dwarfed by the scope of his presence. All the sexual roaring in her physical body burgeoned as if she were a flower that had suddenly—in mere seconds—come into bloom. She stood before him almost ready to attack him in all his manly handsomeness, but it was a moment of calm instead. He dictated that fact, keeping her enthusiasm restrained like a wild bird inside a cage. That cage only magnified her desire.

  Her lips were wet, and she could feel a familiar stickiness between her thighs—her body juices were on the rise. Because she was presenting him with birches, her bottom was already tingling, already feeling hot and aroused. The pain would be sharp but sweet.

  “I’m very skittish, yes.”

  “That’s good for the soul of a slave. Now, turn around. Take off your shoes and pants.”

  The air was still brisk, the cool caressing her heated skin. For a moment, goosebumps appeared on the surface, but they seemed to wash away with the gentle breeze and the body heat working its way from deep inside her sexual self to the surface.

  “Now your sweater.”

  Regan looked at him with her green eyes widening like saucers. “I’ll be naked,” she stated the obvious.

  “Yes, you will,” Kurt agreed. He said no more but stood casually waiting for her to follow the order, as if in the midst of a late winter tangle of thorns it was customary for women to be baring their bodies for a good attack.

  Regan hesitated at the order, but only for a second, just long enough to feel her body heat soar again. She thought she would explode before she managed to pull her woolen sweater over her head. He’d not seen her naked—not completely, by daylight, and certainly not outside.

  There was no shuddering cold in her now, only the fires of expectation building rapidly to a crescendo.

  “Against the tree, Regan.”

  She started to turn around, not an easy task with her barefeet caught in the prickly bracken.

  “No, back into the tree. I want your breasts, your thighs… your belly… everything you want most to hide.

  Ah, this was heaven!

  Regan stepped back clumsily, until she could feel the scratchy tree bark behind her. Then, she leaned back allowing the substantial oak to support her wavering form. Only once had Jon worked the front side of her body. She remembered the floggers raising a red rash all over her breasts and belly. She remembered how it stung her thighs—the sting of a thin birch would only cut more deeply.

  “Close your eyes.”

  Regan did that, too. There was no getting ready for a moment like this; a submissive’s only choice is to relish the exhilarating expectancy and Regan did that well. Eyes closed was even better than eyes open, as the element of surprise dared her to peek. She worried that the cut would bite, that it would gnash so hard that she would scream. By the time that first cut landed, she was worked into a frenzy, feeling elation and fear run in circles around her toes and up her thighs right to her windswept crotch.

  Seconds of waiting seemed to take forever, until the element of surprise turned into sheer wonder. Kurt wasn’t beating her, he was teasing her with the tip of the birch. He ran the end lightly over her breasts like he would a feather or his hand when he wanted to make love. Her crotch instantly exploded. She pressed tight into the tree trunk undulating her ass against the scratchy bark. She rubbed it hard—in contrast to Kurt’s more sensuous stimulation. For several minutes, he held her enrapt by the simplicity of the gentle caress. He moved his aim from her breasts, drawing a thin line down her belly and then another and another… until he started probing her genitals with the tip of the branch.

  “Ah, sir, yes,” she gasped. Her body thrashed back and forth, not caring how she scratched her ass and back, or how her hair got tangled in the briers and bark. Withdrawing the branch from her crotch, he tickled his way from her throat in a line downward between her breasts, to her belly and then the place where her pubic mound parted.

  Snap! The birch cut briskly, but not harshly across her thighs, then at her belly, her breasts, back to her thighs and up the ladder until, as her moans turned into screams and red lines blazed with beauty into her skin, she reached the peak of her passion.

  “Turn around!” Kurt ordered.

  He’d stopped so suddenly. She was still thrashing against her beloved tree. Hearing the tone of his command, she felt her body capriciously abandoned. She wanted to weep. But she remained firm in her surrender believing that he would love her still, that he would give her back the sexual ground she was losing as she turned and pressed her breasts into the jagged bark.

  “I should hang you from the tree for awhile. Leave you blindfolded here to toss in the breeze and wonder what animals are about to eat your toes. Do you like that kind of terror, Regan?”

  That kind of terror made her insides savage. Just his talk made her fuck the tree trunk like an old friend. She couldn’t stop herself—not unless he commanded her to do so. Obviously, he must have liked the picture of lust she made—a woman in winter pressed to an oak, body writhing as if she could truly copulate with the earth.

  This time, the tease of birch branches was not as kind. They bit as much as they caressed her ass and shoulders. When he snapped them against her thighs, her whole body screamed. She hung on, trying to keep the sound of her distress inside her. It wouldn’t do to have them found out by a curious passerby. Yet, as he began to flail, not fondle and cut, but truly flail on her shoulders, she could not keep her anguish to herself.

  “Ah, sir!” she finally cried. Half of her wanted him to stop, the other half wanted him to go on and on and on.

  He delivered more. She squealed and her feet danced. Tears began to burn her eyes.

  Kurt stopped again, as he had before—as though someone had ripped the branches from his hand just before they were to land again. He dropped them on the ground, strode to her back, and pressed himself against her ass, while reaching around to manipulate her clitoris and the places so aroused with fire.

  “I’m cumming, sir,” she said, seeking permission.

  “Then cum,” he advised. He was not yet controlling her climax.

  “Ahhhhh…..sheeeeeeeeeeeeee,” she let go as if permission had been granted. As though a dam burst, she flooded his hand with cream, and then kept moving to feel every sensation, from the bark at her breasts, to his breath on her neck, to the way his one hand stroked the tangles from her mass of curly hair. She even recognized the softness of his flannel shirt on her stinging back.

  “There’s no broken skin, Regan. But there will be a rash for several days. And you’ll feel the cuts on your thighs especially. I want you to remember me when you do. They are mine. I’m marking my territory in advance.”

  My territory. She liked the sound of that.

  “I don’t follow scripts, Regan. I have no preset plans. I trust the freeform works for you.”

  It did. And she didn’t have to tell him. The fact was obvious by her response, as she settled in limply against him.

  ***

  Every night Regan returned home from painting Tennyson’s ceiling feeling flushed and aroused from her day. He’d become a grueling taskmaster with the painting, offering her both praise and scathing criticism. One day he loved the two muses in the center of the fresco; the next he wanted to change the hair color, or the color of their clothes or the shade of their lips. He would be at one moment exasperated, the next furious, the next in praise as if she was Michelangelo himself, this the Sistine Chapel. Regan took all his moods as graciously as any slave would; and yet, the emotional strain of dealing with his arbitrary whims began to make each day more difficult to deal with than the one before.

  “Sir, if you don’t mind my saying so…” she started anxiously, her chest heaving heavily as she strode into the living room and confronted Kurt.

  �
�Mind? Seems, if I don’t let you blurt this out, you’re going to explode.”

  “Sir, he’s mad.”

  “Mad? Who?”

  She was more than a little impatient. “Tennyson Hallock! Who else!”

  “You think so?”

  Oh, he could be so calmly infuriating.

  “I feel like Kate in Taming Of The Shrew. One minute, my painting is perfect, the next I need to change the facial expressions, only to have him make me change them back, saying to me, ‘why the hell did you do that!’ ‘Because you told me to,’ I tell him to his face—pleasantly so, of course. So, he growls like an angry old bear. If the sky were blue, he wants it yellow, if I paint it yellow, he wants it green. I want to fall to my knees, lay my body in front of him as I hand him the brush and say, ‘here, please do this yourself. I am unworthy of your great mastery!’” She heaved a furious sigh.

  “Well, Tenny certainly has you tied in knots, my slave. Do you handle this so ungraciously with him?”

  “I try very hard, sir, to keep my temper.”

  “And what do you suppose is behind that temper? You’re all stirred up and looking very sexy, I might add.”

  “Frustration! Please don’t make this worse.”

  “You’re sure? You certainly seem aroused to me.”

  “Trust me, this is simple frustration.” She saw the need to back down from her tirade. “And I will get through it…” she physically calmed, taking a deep breath. “I just needed to vent a little. I only wish…”

  “Okay. So, you’ve vented. I can’t really do anything to change Tennyson Hallock, he’s been a bastard all his life, and I’m sure he’s not going to change for you—or me. But I trust you, Regan. You’ll complete the job. His ceiling will be a masterpiece and you’ll be tickled pink to have created anything this grand.”

  Even if he didn’t mean what he said, he made her feel good. “Thank you, sir.” She could feel a lie enveloping her, though it wasn’t exactly a lie, it was more an omission. And not a great omission, just a simple forgetfulness—perhaps selective, purposeful forgetfulness. But nothing more than that. Slaves are accorded that much. They have to ignore a good deal of the errant thought that goes through their minds. Anything unslavelike is banished before it has a chance to take hold. And this was exactly what Regan needed to do with her desires for Tennyson that were popping up like little wildfires. She extinguished them before they caught flame. Vigilance. It became no more than a matter of vigilance.

  For a submissive woman, being figuratively bound to a ceiling could be a sought after heaven; though it almost seemed negligent to Regan that she found so much contentment in her hours aloft. She reminded herself often that this was exactly what the masters in her life required of her. She was only obeying orders, and doing that well. Despite Tennyson’s unpredictable behavior and the way he made her redo her work, she knew, just as Kurt advised her, that the job would eventually be completed to her client’s satisfaction. And if she could keep her erotic fires from getting in the way, she could move through this part of her submissive life unscathed by the episode.

  She was safe in her high perch. And the few times that she assisted in some other slave training procedure with Marta, she managed because there was someone else there to take half the physical heat. It was only when she was with Tennyson alone, with her feet firmly on the ground, that she was truly vulnerable.

  “Regan, this way,” Tennyson ordered. He’d met her at the door and escorted her into the east wing of the house where she’d never been—where, he previously teased, he had his slaves bound and gagged.

  “I thought I’d finish the ivy on the left side of the fresco,” she said. “It will need to be done before you move the scaffolding again.”

  “Probably a good idea, but I have another need for my decorator today. Come with me.” Regan could already feel the agitated energy between them roaring up in great waves, but she followed behind him dutifully.

  The mysterious East wing was not so mysterious once she was allowed inside. There was Tennyson’s office, a smartly furnished, but rather Spartan environment. She would have loved to have delved into this room with her imagination. Again, there were terrific windows and great lighting in the sizeable room. She could play with subtle color here, just a few pieces of art and the space could be beautiful. However, Tennyson had no interest in her decorating the room.

  Instead, he led her to a sweeping staircase in one of the back hallways. It transported the two downward into the depths of the man’s domain… and rather elegantly. Few basement stairs looked so inviting. Along the walls, Regan noted several sconces where there were places for torchlights. Already, she could feel a prickly sensation at the nape of her neck. This was not where she wanted to go with this man… but then, how different could this be from his deceptive library with its secrets hidden in the open for the eye to see, or miss?

  Moving downward only amplified her feeling of fear. Reaching the end of the winding staircase, her eyes were momentarily useless in the middle of the black basement. They dawned when Tennyson illuminated the dark with two overhead bulbs, which cast light and shadows over a scene that should have been familiar to any practicing sex slave.

  Dungeons were familiar territory. Kurt’s at home was often as comforting as it was frightening—but it was never frightening to her the way this one was now. For all the scary hours she’d spent battling her erotic feelings for Tennyson Hallock, being with him now was by far the worst. Worse yet, was the way he seemed—without touching her—to physically cling to her body lust. He was just off her left shoulder, just barely behind her and to the side. Every bit of erotic longing in her was in an uproar from that alone, and even more so seeing all the structures, forms and garments of her fondest desires reaching out to her. The cross, the whips, the chains… a jail cell in one corner… stocks, pillory and leather restraints, ballgags, floggers and spanking paddles.

  “I want this more subtle,” Tennyson announced.

  “Subtle?” She revived hearing him speak, though the sonorous timbre of his voice and the body heat he generated forced her arousal higher. “How can you make this subtle? Dungeons can’t be subtle! They are intended to be bold statements of sexual demand.”

  “Indeed.” He moved closer to her side, taking her arm in his hand and escorting her into the middle of the room. “I was hoping to create more of a mood. Pillows perhaps, scarves, a different kind of lighting. Perhaps the mood of an Indian brothel… a harem room… subtle, Regan.”

  “You’re trying to hide what’s here?”

  “No. But I want it erotic, not as obtrusive.”

  “In the way that your library is unobtrusive?”

  “No. That would be impossible. No. I want this vivid but more muted. Less black, the leather less harsh.”

  “People in the lifestyle like leather.”

  “Then they can have it. But I’d like the place as comfortable for my friends in suits and smoking jackets as it is for players in their fetish attire. I want the smoke, the incense, the lights, the colors to woo.”

  A quick shudder raced up her spine.

  To break his hold on her, Regan moved away from him—couching her efforts in thoughtfulness as though she were trying to get a fix on the suggestions he was making. Standing on the far side of the dungeon, she almost felt safe—though his grip on her had not been broken. He called her to him.

  “Come here.”

  Regan looked at him hesitantly.

  “Come here,” he had to repeat.

  There was no reason not to obey him, no reason except her instincts telling her to stop. She could already feel his hands on her, roughing up her skin, trapping her neck in his fist and pushing her to the cross. He was not that bold, however, when she finally made up the distance between them. But the message was just the same to her hungering appetite for submissive lust.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Close them?” This wouldn’t help.

  “Close them, yes.
I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Regan followed the order, while her trembling heart began to beat faster in glorious rhythms that simulated cumming over and over.

  “Imagine yourself in this room being bound for a scene,” Tennyson began to speak. “You raise your hands to the chains above you.” She looked up peeking. “No! Keep your eyes closed!” he almost snapped.

  She immediately obeyed—she had been trained for this.

  “Yes, there are chains above you,” he began again in a softer voice, “but that doesn’t matter now. Imagine reaching for them and holding on as you’re stripped of your clothes before the eyes of critical men who are here to judge you, who are here to inspect you, interrogate your worthiness. Imagine yourself bound to bars above and below. Imagine…”

  She could feel her cunt oozing liquid and a delicious warming in her tummy as the fantasy took hold. She could see the critical faces before her, the intensity of the eyes… and even for a moment feel hands upon her breasts, and down her back.

  “Smell the aroma of the devil’s incense… hear the music in the background—the kind of music that grabs your guts and tears down to your creaming pussy.” He was strolling around her body, with words like rope to bind her arms and legs. “Sense the passions of dominant men wrapping around you with their sadist desires. Feel the heat of their crotches as they probe your body. They invade you harshly… your cunt, your ass, your mouth. You fuck a finger with your lips and another with your ass and then your cunt.”

  Regan’s inner muscles squeezed, clenching hard against themselves and the emptiness.

  “You’re swaying now because your feet and torso have not been bound. And your crotch heaves with one wrenching spasm after another.”

  Yes, she could feel the fire and the spasm, her belly was moving—only slightly—but as if there were hands canvassing her naked, sweaty skin. She could feel her forehead dampen with perspiration, and her fists clenched as she fought off Tennyson’s assault.

  “Imagine the subtleties, the arousal, the tension everywhere around the room as your sadistic suitors plot a scene from your ultimate fantasy of surrender. Think of the whip.”