The Picture of Submission

by Diane Leyne

  “Your complete submission. When you wore our play collar, you would do nothing without permission except breathe.”

  Chris sat back, rubbing his eyes, worrying that maybe he had gone too far. He dropped his hand and eyed Maggie warily.

  “But that’s not what we are talking about, is it? We’re not talking about me becoming your sub and starting a real relationship. We’re talking about your training me so that I can understand submission well enough to take the photos for Jillian’s book. No more.”

  “Maggie, this won’t work if you come into this with that kind of attitude. This isn’t a test where you can get seventy percent and end up with a B. This is pass or fail, kitten. You either come into this intending to become my, our, sub for the duration of training or you don’t. You may walk away knowing that submission isn’t for you, but you’ll know it because you made a sincere effort to achieve it and you’ll walk away appreciating what it takes to submit and you’ll be able to properly photograph Jillian’s book. I won’t accept half measures. If you don’t think you can do it properly, don’t waste my time or Jillian’s. Say now if you aren’t going to put any effort into this, and I’ll tell Jill and Josh to start looking for another photographer.”

  “Dammit, Chris. That job is mine. I know I can do this. I can prove to you that I can learn what it means to submit. I can.” Chris heard the desperation in her voice, and it surprised him. She wasn’t kidding. She really wanted this job. He wondered why and made a mental note to explore this topic further. He wondered if it had anything to do with what Max had been hinting about earlier.

  “How?”

  * * * *

  Maggie looked at Chris, her heart beating a mile a minute. She tried to find the words, but it was Aly who was the writer. Maggie told stories with her photos. And even if she wanted to, she didn’t think she could articulate this need she had to illustrate this book. It was too personal. She burned with the need ever since she’d read the first chapter and learned Jillian’s story. This wasn’t just a job to her. It was a calling. She also knew that Chris was right. She didn’t understand what it meant to submit, but she desperately wanted to experience true submission. She’d never felt truly safe and loved with anyone but her brother Max. Not with her mother. Not even with her adoptive parents. Mr. and Mrs. Barton had loved her, but they’d also sent her back to her mother that first time, and even though as an adult she intellectually understood why, it had still felt like a betrayal.

  And no man she’d ever dated had ever made her feel so loved and secure as Joshua had for Jillian or Duncan for Andie. And now all of her friends were in D/s relationships and she’d never seen them look happier.

  She didn’t even know if she could ever let go of her self-control to the extent of fully submitting, but she wanted to try. And she wanted the man, the men she submitted to, to be the Hayes brothers. Individually and collectively, they were amazing guys. She talked about how hot they were, but they were also kind, thoughtful, and smart.

  She’d thought that by photographing Jillian’s book, she could come to understand about submission and if it was something that she could embrace. But now she realized that understanding it intellectually was only one part of the equation. She had to experience it firsthand. She had to submerse herself in the experience and truly give herself over to the care of a Dom.

  But it wasn’t easy. Maggie had never done easy. She needed a Dom who would fight for her, for them, which was why she couldn’t do it the easy way and just admit she wanted to submit to him. She needed him to prove himself on some basic level, prove that he was worthy of her submission.

  “Give me a chance I can show you that I can do this. I can learn. I can understand. I can act so submissive you won’t ever know it’s not the real thing,” she declared.

  “Like you showed my brothers,”

  “Well, yes. They were happy with me. We had fun.”

  “And look at the pictures you got. They are beautiful, but there is no understanding of the subject in them. Faking it didn’t really work, did it, since you weren’t about to translate that into your pictures.”

  “Dammit, the pictures were beautiful. Everybody says so.”

  “I agree. They are beautiful, Maggie, and that’s why we want to use them for the brochure.”

  “I still don’t understand what’s wrong with my pictures of Andie and Duncan,” Maggie lied. She could feel her composure start to crack.

  For all of her bluster and confidence, deep down she’d known something was missing from the photos but she hadn’t wanted to admit it. Getting this job would quiet that little voice inside her head that told her she’d failed. Oh, esthetically, the photos of Andie and Duncan were beautiful, but once she’d compared them to the photos of Max and Aly, she’d known that she’d missed something.

  She kept trying to tell herself that she was just imagining things. The pictures were stunning. What she thought was missing from the photos was just her imagination, because she didn’t have the same emotional connection to Andie and Duncan as she did with Max and Aly, but deep down she knew that wasn’t it. She didn’t know the people she’d taken pictures of as a photojournalist and some of those had been amazingly personal photos because she could empathize with them, put herself in their shoes.

  With Andie and Duncan, she envied their connection, but she held a part of herself back, obviously the part of her that made her a great photographer. She looked up at Chris and cringed inside as he was saying exactly what she’d thought herself but would never say out loud, especially not to a Dom, especially not to this Dom.

  And she was pretty sure she needed to hear him say the words, to make it real, to give her the impetus to do what she’d wanted to do ever since she’d first set foot on Libertine Island and seen the subs with their Doms and realized just what had been missing from all her previous relationships with men.

  “They have no soul, no heart. They are pictures that any half-decent photographer could have taken. They are just pictures of what you saw. You did not show the soul-deep connection between Andie and Duncan. Duncan may be a Dom and he may own Andie’s body and can use it as he sees fit, but that is only because Andie gives herself to him. He cannot own her without her permission, which she can, by the way, withdraw at any time. Whatever she allows him to do to her is because it gives her joy to please him. And he, in turn, makes sure all of her needs are met. She is well loved and well fucked on a regular basis.”

  “Even when he beats her with a cane?”

  “Yes, especially then.”

  Maggie laughed derisively. “You say that as someone who wields the cane in the relationship. You’d think differently if you were the one getting beaten.”

  “You obviously have never heard of Mistress Deanna. She’s a legend on the Chicago scene. She trains new Doms and hold classes for experienced Doms whenever there is enough demand.”

  “And teaches them what? I didn’t think Doms listened to anyone.”

  “A good Dom doesn’t use anything on a sub he or she hasn’t had the appropriate level of training with, whether it is a whip or a clamp or a form of restraint that’s new to them, especially Shibari or suspension. A great Dom experiences these things firsthand before doing them to another person.”

  Chapter Six

  Chris saw the look of disbelief on her face.

  “Clearly you don’t believe me.”

  “A Dom submitting to a Domme. You are right. I don’t believe you. And I guess you also expect me to believe your brothers did this, too, submitted to Mistress Deanna.”

  “When they showed interest in the lifestyle and asked me to mentor them, it was something I insisted on.” He made a decision. Pushing back his chair, he stood and walked around the desk as he talked. “Mistress Deanna starts off easy with spanking and works up from there. I’ve been flogged and strapped and yes, even caned.” He stopped moving when he was standing on the same side of the desk as Maggie. He leaned back so his butt was resting on the
desk. Maggie eyed him warily and pushed her chair back a few inches so she could look up into his face, now clearly fascinated by what he was saying.

  “You have to understand. Mistress Deanna doesn’t stop there. She makes sure we’ve all experienced nipple clamps and, yes, I have had various objects shoved up my ass. Mistress Deanna is a very eclectic Top and always has a number of slaves of both sexes in her care. Because I am straight, she had one of her girls use a strap-on to teach me about oral sex. I learned firsthand about the gag reflex and what it takes to take a cock all the way. So never, ever say I don’t understand. I may not have a pussy, so there are a few things I haven’t experienced, but wherever it was possible, I have given it a try.”

  He waited for her to say something, but she just looked at him with wide eyes. He wished he could see what was going on in her mind. Sighing, he tugged his shirt from his trousers and saw her flinch back.

  “Relax. It’s not what you think.” He tugged his shirt free and pulled it up to expose his right side. Then he ran his fingers along a six-inch scar. It was old and faded, but still visible. “I was restrained and waiting for Mistress to use the single tail on me. I was young and arrogant and didn’t think I needed all the restraining that a mere sub would, so I was only restrained by my arms. My legs and midsection were free to move. I’d taken only a single strike of the whip and there were four more to go, and I had realized I’d made a terrible mistake. Restraints were for the protection of the sub so he or she doesn’t move and take a strike where it isn’t intended by their Master. Just as Mistress Deanna was going into her motion for her next strike, I panicked and moved. The whip wrapped around my side and sliced into me good, drawing blood.”

  He indicated the scar.

  “Deanna was furious. She came up to me and checked it out. She had one of the members who was a doctor have a look. He told her it wasn’t serious, and when she asked, he told her that a short delay in treating it wouldn’t affect the size of the scar or the healing.”

  “Delay?”

  “Yup. My punishment for refusing to be properly restrained and for moving, which caused Deanna to draw blood, something she’d never done by accident, ever, was that I had to take the remaining three strikes with the whip, have a redo on the one I’d moved on, and then take five more punishment strikes.”

  “Oh my god. How did you stay still, knowing what was coming?”

  “Mistress had me trussed up like a chicken this time. I think the only thing I could move was my fingers. And when she was done, she left me like that for the doctor to bandage and for the club members to observe for the rest of the night as an object lesson. BDSM is nothing to fool around with, and the rules are there for a reason.”

  Chris waited to see Maggie’s reaction. He could see that she was fascinated by his scar. Abruptly he pushed away from the desk and walked to the side of her chair. Before she could move away, he grasped her hand and pressed it against his scar. He could see the fascination and horror on her face as she traced the scar.

  She looked up at him in awe before letting her hand drop and then her eyes. He moved abruptly away from her and returned to his seat behind his desk. Her touch, even one that was nonsexual, inflamed him, and his cock was pressing against his pants again and now he was hiding behind his desk. He didn’t want to scare her or make feel at risk.

  “You see. That is your problem. All you can see is the service,” he continued as if that interlude had never happened. “And that’s what you’re showing in your pictures. Did you not see the pleasure she received from submitting to her Dom or the power of that submission? Did you not see the love between them? Duncan would die for her. He loves her with every fiber of his being. It shows in everything that he does to her.”

  “Again I bring up the caning.”

  “Duncan would cut off his left nut before he would cause her harm, but yes, he sometimes hurts her, her ass, her breasts. But never in anger, never in a way that would cause damage or even break the skin. Everything he does to her is controlled and consensual.”

  “Then why does he cane her? Doesn’t that harm her?”

  “No, dammit. It hurts her, yes, but it doesn’t harm her. She’s never had more than a few bruises the next day and often not even that. The objective is to cause intense sensation, not damage. Pleasure and pain together are more powerful feelings than they are separately. And for Andie it is also a demonstration her love and submission to her Dom. For Duncan it is a demonstration of his ownership and love for Andie.

  “When they are in a scene, Duncan owns her body. He owns her pleasure and her pain and her orgasms. He takes great pride in giving her all three, but on his timetable. If you were paying attention, you will have noticed that he did not start with the cane. He started slowly and built up the endorphins. By the time he got to the cane, she was begging for it. And when he fucked her, she came and came and came. It was beautiful.”

  “But didn’t my photos show that?” Her tone was flat, almost defeated, and Chris wanted to reassure her, but lying wouldn’t help.

  “They showed the act of caning. They show that the act of coming. But they did not show the feelings of either Andie or Duncan. They did not show the very special love they have.”

  Maggie got up to pace. Chris wanted to offer comfort, but he knew it would be rejected, so he forced himself to sit and watch her face as she struggled to take in his words. He saw her shoulders sag. He couldn’t see the vulnerability on her face. She was normally so confident, but now she seemed uncertain. He wanted to reach out and hold her, but all he could do was wait for her to think things through and hope her final decision was the one he and his brothers were praying for. He decided to give her another verbal push.

  “Maggie, Jillian’s book tries to paint a word picture of the special connection a sub has to their Dom. She wants to show the beauty in submission. She wants to show people the amount of strength it takes to submit your Dom, to give up control to another person. Some people only give up control in the bedroom while others give up all control and live as master and slave twenty-four-seven. Submission isn’t easy. I know, from my brief experiences with Mistress Deanna, just how hard it can be to voluntarily give up your power and hand over your care to another, but it’s a beautiful thing as well.

  “A sub lives to serve his or her Master. They gain pleasure from submitting their need for their Master’s. And if it means taking pain to demonstrate that submission, they do it. In return, the Dominant must understand their sub’s needs and make sure they are met. While they may push boundaries, they never push further than the sub can go. They mete out pain and pleasure, and ultimately, they need their sub as much as the sub needs them.” Chris paused as Maggie stopped pacing. He waited for her to resume her seat, but after a moment, she started pacing again.

  “Does this mean that all Doms are sadists?”

  “Some are, just as some subs are masochists. Often the giving and receiving of pain is about the giving and receiving of control. You are an adult. I can’t force you to let me spank you as punishment for your earlier misbehavior.”

  “What misbehavior?”

  “You were very disrespectful to me. If I was your Dom, then that would be grounds for punishment. But we don’t have that kind of relationship, so if I force you to accept a spanking, that would be assault. But if I were to go over and sit on the couch behind you, you could choose to drape yourself over my lap and present your naked ass for punishment.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “Then you will never truly experience what it means to submit. A sub gives herself to her Dom’s keeping, and that means obeying the rules and accepting punishment when you break then. But not all punishment involves pain. A Dom also controls his sub’s orgasms. If I was your Dom, I could punish you by taking you right to the edge and not letting you go over, and I could do this for hours.

  “The longer the orgasm is held at bay, the more powerful it will be. I once watched Joshua literally torturing J
illian with pleasure. He took her right to the edge and kept her there for almost an hour until she was crying and begging to be allowed to come even though she knew that speaking during a scene would earn her a punishment. When he finally allowed her to come, he kept her coming over and over and over. I’d love to hear you beg me to let you come.”

  Chris was now getting worried that he was going to come in his pants. His cock was now throbbing with need. He wondered idly, if it got any harder, could it actually break through his zipper?

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, I love to mete out this type of torture. And I love the flip side as well, forced-orgasm torture.”

  “Forced orgasm?” Maggie’s voice came out almost as a squeak.

  “Yup. The sub is strapped down and made to come over and over and over, sometimes for hours if the Dom is really talented. And there’s no safe word for forced-orgasm torture. It would defeat the purpose.”

  Chris watched with satisfaction as Maggie’s eyes glazed over at the thought of being made to come for hours. Because of the top she was wearing, he couldn’t tell if her nipples were hard. He wondered if she was wet.

  * * * *

  It was all Maggie could do not to fidget in the chair. She wanted to clamp her legs together and press down on her clit and relieve some of the tension. Damn. His words were turning her on. She even had to fight an urge to throw herself across his lap and take that spanking he spoke of.

  Clearly he was some kind of hypnotist because she didn’t submit to any man. Not anymore.

  It took her a moment to realize he was speaking again. Damn, he’d missed his calling as a lecturer. Maybe he could teach a course on Submission 101 at the local community college? She realized she’d missed part of what he was saying when she tuned back in.

  “…others live as Master and slave only for short periods of time. It is not something most people would want to do full-time, not even the Doms. Often it is not a practical way to live. That is why many of them come on vacation to the island. It gives them a chance to live this way for a short time before going back to their regular dominant and submissive roles.”