The Picture of Submission

by Diane Leyne

  She’d never been in these offices before and had to stop herself from pausing to admire the photos of the various construction projects on the walls and the huge oil painting of a stylized skyscraper behind the receptionist.

  Maggie almost found herself giggling at the expression on the poor girl’s face. And girl was no exaggeration or insult. She looked to be about eighteen or nineteen and totally unable to stop Maggie when she was on a rampage.

  “I’m here to see Chris Hayes, and before you ask, no I don’t have an appointment and no you don’t need to announce me. I’ll announce myself. Now just tell me which office is his or I’ll barge into each and every one until I find him.”

  The poor girl seemed speechless, her lips moving but no sound coming out.

  “Left or right, sweetheart?”

  She didn’t answer, but she did glance to the right so Maggie turned and barreled down the hallway, trailed by the young and now-desperate receptionist.

  “But he’s busy, miss. Miss.”

  “I really don’t give a damn, honey. I’m not leaving until we’ve had it out.”

  Just then, she saw a door at the end of the hall open and two men exit. Chris Hayes was definitely the man on the left. He was even taller than she imagined, with the broad shoulders and short blond hair. She remembered his body from the resort, and her pussy clenched at the memory. He had the body of a man who did physical labor, not a gym rat. She felt a jolt of arousal shoot through her body, but she ruthlessly tamped it down. He’d had his chance, and he rejected her. Now she was here about work. It was a professional visit.

  When she reached the end of the hallway, she finally got a good look at the man with Chris. He was as dark as Chris was fair, and it took her a moment to recognize him out of context. He was not as tall as Chris, and his body was less muscular, but he radiated power. She got the impression of a jungle cat, all lean with a deadly grace.

  “Tina, you may go back to reception now. I’m fine. Maggie. How good to see you. I believe you have already met Reynaldo Montoya back on the island.” Chris’s tone was pleasant and businesslike. She had met him already, of course, after Max and Aly’s wedding on Libertine Island. He and his lover and sub, Dr. Caleb McKenna, were involved with Jen, and it looked pretty serious. “Rey’s in town to interview for a job with my company. Hayes Construction is building and managing the latest branch of Club Libertine here in Chicago, and Rey, Caleb, and Jen will be moving here when Caleb’s contract on the island is over.” He turned to the other man. “Rey, have you seen any of Maggie’s photographs of the ceremony or of the resort? She’s an artist with a camera. We are hoping to obtain her services once the Chicago club is complete as well as on the new island brochure.”

  She automatically took Reynaldo’s hand when he reached out for hers. His grip was firm and his smile warm. On the island he’d been very solitary, and she now knew that he and Caleb had been having problems prior to Caleb taking the job as island doctor, but now he, Caleb, and Jen were in a serious relationship that involved Rey topping them both. She studied his dark good looks. Caleb was a ginger and Jen blonde. She’d love to photograph the three of them together.

  “Your photos are lovely, Maggie. Perhaps you can photograph the commitment ceremony I’m planning with Jen and Caleb. But don’t tell them yet. It supposed to be a surprise.”

  He smiled, the love clearly evident on his face, and suddenly she wished that someone loved her enough to look at her with that expression. She felt her energy suddenly drop. It was as if she’d run out of gas. Her fire and anger were now gone, and in their place were sadness and bewilderment.

  Before she could speak, Chris was talking again.

  “Now you don’t want to miss your plane, Rey. Caleb and Jen would never forgive me if I caused that. I’ll be down in ten days, and I’ll be staying for two weeks. We’ll talk more then and finalize the details.”

  With a smile and a shrug, Rey nodded to them both and headed down the hall toward reception. Maggie stared at his departing back and backside. The man certainly filled out his pants nicely. Once he turned the corner and was out of sight, she turned to Chris, who said nothing. He merely stepped back, holding the door to his office open and making a welcoming gesture.

  Maggie tried to bank the fires again and swept past him into the office, stopped, and turned, ready to tear into him. Nothing like a good dressing down to get the engine stoked again. Chris didn’t seem worried. He walked back into his office, shutting the door behind him, and then walked behind his desk and sat down facing her. Maggie hesitated and then moved to one of the guest chairs in front of his large desk and sat down. All of her energy and anger seemed to have seeped away for good, and now she was just hurt and confused and wasn’t quite sure how to say what she had stormed over to say.

  The silence just seemed to grow, and Chris sat there, just looking at her, his expression unreadable, his blue eyes expressionless as he watched and waited. Just when she couldn’t take the silence a moment longer and leaned forward, Chris surprised her again.

  “I’ve been expecting you.”

  * * * *

  Chris looked at Maggie. She’d been spitting fire when she strode down the hall, but the short interlude with Rey seemed to have taken the wind out of her sails. Clearly she was angry and hurt about not getting the book job. Everyone had loved the photos, but they’d all seen the slight distance between her and her subjects. Jillian’s book was a loving ode to her husband and Master as well as to the joy she found in submission. No matter how much Chris was attracted to Maggie, he had to agree that she hadn’t demonstrated the insight and empathy required to do justice to the subject. However, Maggie didn’t know yet that he’d offered to help her find that headspace. Now he just had to convince Maggie that she wanted him to train her.

  He saw the startled look on Maggie’s face. Whatever she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. He deliberately kept his expression neutral and waited for her to speak. He needed to assess where her head was at. Was she still furious? She looked a bit bewildered. Was hurt taking over? Or, worst of all, was she deciding that she didn’t really care about the job.

  He watched her start to fidget. She looked around his office. It was a place of business, so there were no nudes and certainly no pictures of sex on his walls. He studied her profile as she studied the pictures of buildings. He watched as she got distracted by the model of Libertine Island on the table by the wall. He waited until she was standing over it, engrossed in model of the new extension that he was going to oversee, before walking over to stand beside her and point out some of the details.

  “There’s the new residential building that we will be building. Like the main building, it’s a low rise, only three floors. There will be another pool over here, and an outdoor play area here where Doms can torment their subs out in the open air. There will be lighting if they want to play at night. And, of course, all play areas are continuously monitored for safety. As you can see from the model, there will be St. Andrew’s Crosses, spanking benches, and a number of sex swings so a sub can be fully restrained and suspended outside in the fresh air while they are being flogged or fucked.” He stopped and smiled at her.

  “But that’s not your thing, is it? At least the impact play and restraint part. You only like to fuck.” There. He had thrown the gauntlet down. It was up to her to take it up and run with it. As much as he’d had a hard-on for her almost since they met, he was a Dom. He was not an asshole. He would never push an unwilling woman into the position of serving him. But he suspected that Maggie was much more submissive than she liked to acknowledge even to herself, and that was why she went with the old saying, “the best defense is a good offense.”

  He felt like sighing but held it back. He knew her a lot better than she thought. He’d had several long conversations with her brother and with her friends Rebecca, Aly, and Jen. They all confirmed what he believed from their short time together. She covered up something with aggression. She used men b
efore they could use her. She may have submitted to his brothers, but it had been on her terms, which wasn’t submission at all. He would have to have to figure out what the root cause was before he could teach her to submit. Damn. He wasn’t a psychologist.

  “Do women really enjoy being beaten?” Maggie’s voice startled him out of his reverie. Chris looked over at Maggie. She was starting down at the miniature spanking bench.

  “Yes. But maybe you should be talking to your friends about this. I’m the one who gives the beatings, if you want to call it that. We prefer, as I said earlier, impact play. However, if you want to use that term, fine. I’ve never beaten anyone who didn’t want me to do it.”

  “But you hit your slaves with paddles and canes and whips and stuff. That’s got to hurt. Why would they want that?”

  “Yes, in bald terms that’s correct. But there’s more to it than that. I would never give a sub or slave more than they could take. It might be more than they think they can take, but while I would push them, I would always respect their hard limits and safewords. And when it comes to pain, there are different reasons why I would inflict it, so their enjoyment of any beating would vary.” He stressed the word beating because he really didn’t like it. It implied something very different than what a good Master did with his sub.

  “What do you mean?”

  Maggie still wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “Sometimes, hopefully most of the time, I dish out erotic pain, which produces endorphins and adrenaline in the recipient. This enhances the pleasure being received by sending them to a place some people call subspace. I’ve been told it’s a bit like a runner’s high where pain and pleasure meld together into something greater than the parts and the sub can feel like they are flying as all rational thought gives way to pure sensation.

  “Of course, at other times, I use pain to discipline a sub, so that she learns to obey me. And once a punishment is given, the sin is expunged and we can move on. I don’t hold onto anger or grudges. The punishment lets us both let go and move on.”

  “But it doesn’t seem fair. You’re the Dom. You make the rules.”

  “Yes, but the sub sets the limits. I can’t make any rule that goes against the hard limits you agree to.”

  “For example…”

  “If we agreed that your pussy would be accessible at all times, then you’d be punished for wearing panties, which was a deliberate flouting of the rules. However, if we further agreed that you would be allowed to wear panties at work, then I couldn’t punish you for having them on when you got home from work even though it goes against our other rule.”

  Chris watched her face closely. He’d deliberately couched his example in terms of themselves instead of some hypothetical Dom and sub combination to judge her reaction.

  “What if I don’t know what my limits are?”

  “Then, if I were training you, I’d probably start with some hard limits that I have. Those are the ones that are never violated, such as no blood or water sports, no breath play, no sharing with other Doms other than my brothers, and then I’d work with you to figure out what your soft limits were and help you push them, if I think you need them pushed.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  The whole time they were talking, Maggie contemplated the model, not making eye contact. He tried to read her expression but was stumped. He’d expected her to storm into his office, which she did, and then argue with him, which she didn’t. Hell, he’d expected a rip-roaring fight followed by some general cursing and yelling followed by him offering and her reluctantly agreeing to being trained so that she could understand submission better and get a second chance to do the photography for Jillian’s book.

  “Of course, you are aware that there’s more to submission than just the physical. To truly submit is to submit with your mind and will as well as your body. A sub wants to serve their Dom. They need to serve their Dom. Their own pleasure is secondary. Of course, most people don’t live the roles twenty-four-seven outside of a special place like Libertine Island, although there are some who do. Every arrangement is different. Generally the most intense level of submission happens when the couple or triad or whatever are playing, either in their own home or at a BDSM club. The individuals involved generally agree to the length and parameters of a scene and then carry it out. But Doms are pretty much always dominant in any sexual situation. They decide when, where, and what activities are done. Subs give over all control of their bodies to their Doms, including orgasm, which is generally only done with permission. Otherwise they are punished.”

  Chris watched Maggie digest that piece of information. He could see the desire that she quickly masked. So, Maggie was intrigued by giving up that kind of control.

  “You and your brothers? Are you twenty-four-seven?”

  “Nope, not as a rule.” Chris sighed, not sure how the conversation had taken this turn. This was not what he was expecting. “While I do have certain rules I’d expect to be followed at all times, I also want a woman with a mind of her own, thoughts and feelings and opinions. And neither I nor my brothers want to be in the kind of relationship where we have to pick out our slave’s clothes and create a daily schedule for her and so on.”

  “People really live like that?”

  “Yes, and I’ve seen them be very happy.”

  “What do you and your brothers expect? Back on the island, they seemed to enjoy playing with me even though they knew I wasn’t really feeling it, the submission, I mean. The sex was great, at least for me.”

  “No worries on that score. My brothers couldn’t believe that I turned you down.”

  “Why did you, really?”

  “Like I said then. I’m not interested in one-night stands anymore. I’m looking for forever, and I wanted us to have a chance to get to know each other first. I’m a Dom, and if you couldn’t accept that, I didn’t want to risk my heart. I was planning on calling and asking you out to dinner on Friday. I’d have done it sooner, but I’d been away from the office for two weeks and my number two went on vacation, so I had my hands full. But he’s back now, and I have time for myself again.”

  “Oh.” She seemed to be thinking about something. “That wasn’t just a line, then, back on the island.”

  “No.”

  “What about your brothers? Are you looking for someone to share? I didn’t realize they were looking to settle down, too.”

  “Ideally, it would be someone who would be willing to take on the three of us. They’ve delegated the looking to me. They said I’ve had the most time to play around, and so they assigned me to find our permanent sub while they sow their wild oats just a bit longer.”

  “I see. I was just a wild oat to them.” Maggie’s tone was uncertain, tinged with hurt, and Chris was pretty sure she didn’t see, and he was going to set her straight when she took another left turn conversationally.

  “Is that why you don’t want me to do the photos for Jillian’s book?” That was not what he was expecting at this point in the conversation, but she knew that it was going to come up eventually.

  “Actually, no. I thought your photos were amazing.”

  “But…”

  “But they did lack the emotional connection of someone who understood the lifestyle, who understood what it meant to submit.”

  “So that’s that, then. I don’t get the job.”

  Chris sighed. He was going to regret saying this. It was wrong, and she was wrong, on so many levels. It was not a good idea in any way, shape, or form. He knew it, but he just didn’t seem to be able to stop himself. “We all agreed that you could do a great job if you were given a chance to learn what submission really meant, if someone took the time to really teach you.”

  “And who would do the teaching?” Maggie’s voice was wary.

  “I would.”

  Chapter Five

  Chris watched Maggie leave his office. He felt disappointed. He had hoped she would stay and discuss it, but she had turned and walked away from him.
Just as she got to the door, she paused and he felt his heart and cock jump with hope.

  “I know what you are doing, and it isn’t going to work. I could be the best damn submissive you have ever seen. If I chose to go through with this, of course.” Maggie walked up to Chris’s desk and sat down in the guest chair, placing her bag down beside her. “Convince me.”

  “You know there’s a difference between being submissive and acting submissive.”

  “Fake until you make it, baby!” She grinned impudently at him, and Chris was torn between wanting to grin back and wanting to put her over his knee and paddle her bottom until she begged him to fuck her.

  He did neither. Instead, he sat back in his chair, happy that she couldn’t see the bulge in his pants. “Speaking like that to your Dom would be a good way to get your bottom paddled.”

  “Good thing you aren’t my Dom, isn’t it?” She paused and gave him a look that would have shriveled the dick of a lesser man.

  “I don’t know. I like a challenge.”

  “Is that all I am to you? A challenge? If I were to submit to you, would you get bored with me and move on?”

  “I’d never get bored with you, kitten, not in bed or out. You are smart and witty and keep me on my toes. I like that in a woman.”

  “But do you like that in a sub?”

  “When we are in the bedroom or the playroom or the club or the island, I’d expect your complete submission. And you’d know for sure what I expected because I’d collar you before we started playing.

  “If you were mine, or rather, ours, yes, you’d have a form of collar to wear at all times to show you were owned, but it would be something you would wear in the vanilla world without embarrassment. But when it was time to play, we’d make sure there was no ambiguity about what we’d expect from you.”

  “Which would be what?”