Master Me

by Lisabet Sarai, Trina Lane, Elizabeth Coldwell, Charlotte Stein, Jane Davitt, Justine Elyot

  How true that was. He was a hard taskmaster, and I’d always known it. I liked that phrase, and I let it roll through my head again, precipitating a pleasurable shudder. Hard taskmaster.

  “Go and bend over the bed,” he directed, taking me by the shoulders and setting me off in the right direction, while he headed for a cupboard somewhere out of my eyesight. The carpet was made of that rough seagrass matting that is so ubiquitous in modern blocks of flats and I winced a little when it made contact with my bare knees. I rested my stomach on the low bed, listening to the steady clatter of Dexter’s rummagings, wondering what it was he was looking for. Did I dare to peek over my shoulder?

  I risked it, and then my sharp intake of breath drew his attention to me, giving the game away. He looked up slowly and, seeing that I needed a sign to dispel my sudden fear that I was in way over my head, he smiled—an almost bashful smile. He coughed self-consciously before following my eyes down to the weapon in his hand.

  “It looks worse than it is,” he assured me.

  “It looks bad.”

  “The tip doesn’t hurt so much. And besides, you have the power to stop me at any time. You can walk away whenever you like.”

  The tension dissipated and I smiled back at him.

  “Do you ride then?”

  He chuckled. “Not as such. They know me quite well at the tack shop, though.”

  “Haha. I’m sure.”

  Dexter decided that it was time to quit the jocular small talk and ramp the pressure back up. He did this by slapping the leather flap at the tip of the riding crop down into his palm with cracking effect. My shoulders jumped and I pressed my face quickly back into the mattress, letting it muffle the pounding of my heart.

  “I think you have to agree, Lara, that your behaviour today has left something to be desired.”

  His footsteps, soft but unmistakable, approached me and then a cold presence alighted between my shoulder blades, moving up to the nape of my neck, then back down again, following every bump of my spine as the words spun around my head.

  “Against my expressed wishes, you stalk me to my home and spy on me. You spark a panic amongst my neighbours, who have the police called out. And you yelled at me! I’d say all of that merits some fairly rigorous chastisement, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, Sir,” I mumbled, glad that he couldn’t see the hot flush of embarrassment warming the bedclothes beneath my face.

  “I should think so.”

  The crop had found my buttocks now and was circling them with menacing intent, then flapping about between each cheek, tickling the sensitive skin there. I squirmed and clenched my fists, waiting, waiting for that first stroke…

  When it came, it seemed harder than it really was, its effects exaggerated by anticipation, so I howled dramatically, causing Dexter to tut and tap my thighs in reproof.

  “I think you may be overstating your case there,” he warned. “That was a very light opening stroke. Did you really find it that painful?”

  “No, not really, Sir,” I confessed. “Just caught me off guard, that’s all. I thought it was going to be harder.”

  Suddenly I leapt halfway off the bed, stunned by a swift, hard slice to my rear end that really did catch me off guard. “Owwwww,” I sang, reaching bound fingers down to try to clutch at the line of fire on my bottom.

  “Like that, d’you mean?” Dexter’s question was nonchalant. He tapped my hands with the crop and used the tip to push me back down into position.

  “That really hurt,” I sniffed. “Yes. Something like that, Sir.”

  “I see. Well, we’ll aim for something in between then, shall we? Ten strokes, I think. And I want you to count them for me, just so I know you’re still conscious down there.”

  Ten. Ten wasn’t so bad. Ten was bearable. I could grit my teeth and do this, and afterwards, I would bear his mark and I would be his. The thought caused me to press my thighs together, feeling that familiar musky warmth there, and I pushed my bottom out farther, wanting his approval for my obedience.

  He rewarded me with a slash of hot pain. I gasped and counted it. “One, Sir.”

  I held onto my resolve, kept my nerve and regulated my breathing. I could take it. I could get through it. I rocked on my knees, through the first five strokes, taking them with the minimum of fuss, but it got harder as the whip fell on already tender portions of flesh and my count wavered, my back arched, my lip was chewed down.

  I wanted him as my master, I reminded myself. This was a test. I must see it as a test. This made it easier; I had always been good at exams. I was taking a paper in Submission one-oh-one. I had to pass this if I wanted to move on to the higher levels and achieve my goals.

  This isn’t difficult, I told myself. “Eight, Sir.”

  No pain, no gain. “Nine, Sir.”

  You have marked me as your own. A jubilant moan and a, “Ten, Sir.”

  “Oh, well done,” he crooned, bending his mouth to my ear, placing the crop on the bed in front of me. “I am pleased with you. I’m going to reward you now. Take the crop between your teeth first.”

  I could hear him undressing behind me, soft swishes of fabric, then the snappy rubbery noise of a condom, while I tried to snatch the rod up between my teeth, unable to use my hands to help. I tried to imagine how I must look to him, bent over with a burning red bottom on display, chewing at the duvet in my efforts to obey him, hands belted securely in the small of my back, and I felt the warm gush between my legs get stronger and wetter by the second. He must have been seeing that too. I felt utterly naked, physically and emotionally, in front of him. I had no secrets anymore.

  “Remember the rule, Lara,” he whispered, crouching over me with the tip of his cock dipped between my sex lips. “You come when you have my permission, and not before.”

  I groaned. “It’s too difficult. I’ve never been able to do it!”

  “Yes, it is a skill. It involves self-discipline, so I don’t expect you’ll be able to do it, yet.” He chuckled diabolically. “You’ll get there, though.”

  And then he got there—all the way there—in one deep, full stroke.

  He felt so good inside me, so firm and hard and devoid of doubt. A man who really knew what he was doing. I contracted my muscles around him, trying to convey how very welcome he was, and pushed my hot backside against his pelvis. His hands lay heavy on my hips and he used his thumbs to spread those punished cheeks a little wider. I flooded with embarrassment, suddenly aware of what he was looking at.

  “Ever taken anything up here?” he asked softly, dragging his cock very slowly back down my channel.

  “Noooo,” I whimpered, wildly aroused and afraid at the same time.

  “I’ll add it to the agenda, then,” he said, plunging back in.

  “To the spreadsheet?” I snorted, imagining a big S and M version of the dreaded Organisational Tool, though it came out as ‘Go uh shredshht,’ due to the inconveniently placed whip in my teeth.

  “Are you cheeking me, young lady?” he warned, running a finger of reminder along one of the welts left by the riding crop.

  Ouch. “No, Sir. Wouldn’t dare, Sir.”

  “Good.”

  Then the ride began in earnest, a fast-paced rocking in and out, hard thighs leaning on my softer flesh, slapping and pushing at it, fingertips bruising my hips, the whip quivering at either side of me while my head dipped lower and lower until it met the mattress. He wedged a hand down between my thigh and his hardworking cock, his fingers managing to gain a purchase on my clit, bringing me to the brink, too far, too fast…

  I said something that, muffled by the crop and my extreme closeness to the edge, I hoped was intelligible as, “Please, Sir, may I come?”

  He had mercy on me, said a gruff, “You may,” then fucked me relentlessly through my orgasm, which was a long, overwhelming journey into the very core of me.

  My teeth ground and chewed on the whip and my hands twisted and chafed against the restraining belt. I sobbed a
nd crumpled, waiting now for him to finish, which he did very soon afterwards.

  Although I wished I could see his face, it was satisfying and moving to hear the high, throaty sounds that were wrenched from him—a moment of vulnerability at last.

  I felt him withdraw, but I maintained my face-down position on the mattress, unable to move until I heard his voice giving permission. The mattress sloped me to the left and I knew he’d sat down beside me. I sensed him unfurl his long body beside me, then his hand was on my neck, ruffling the damp strands of hair there.

  He said, “Come and lie down.”

  Slightly stiff, I managed to haul myself fully onto the bed, flopping down on my side, gathered against him by one long arm. Now I was in my deepest, neediest dreams, exhausted and needing comfort, taking it from the man who had just whipped and fucked me.

  “I should untie you,” he said, yawning, and he reached around to loosen the belt from my wrists. “Much as I like you like that. Where’s the crop?”

  I realised I was lying on it. I felt its curved edge making a ridge in my hip.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Oh God. Nothing matters any more. Just this.”

  The words seemed to come from somewhere way down deep inside him. He sounded more than exhausted—he sounded weary, as if surrendering to a higher power after years of struggle.

  “Just this,” I whispered, kissing the lobe of his ear.

  I wasn’t consciously waiting for him to give me answers, but he seemed to know I needed them, at a deeper level.

  He turned and kissed me, full and long, on the lips, then he stroked my hair from my face and said, “You know things are not perfect in my life, don’t you?”

  “I’ve had…an inkling.” I didn’t dare ask. I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer. I just wanted the one answer that said, “I want you, regardless.” If I didn’t get that, I wasn’t sure how I would face tomorrow.

  “I can’t tell you much. I once had a different name and a different life, in a different country. I lost control of my financial affairs and got involved with some dangerous people. This is why I think it’s important to be on top of your affairs.”

  “Oh. I think I understand.” I widened my eyes. I didn’t say the words, ‘Witness Protection,’ but my eyes flashed the signal, and his seemed to respond in the affirmative. “I won’t ask, I promise.”

  “The less you know, the better. I want to protect you and, if I’m honest, the best way I can do that is by letting you go. But I don’t think I can. I’m not as strong as I make out sometimes.”

  “Is there a serious risk?”

  “I hope not. There shouldn’t be. I just have to be cautious. The really dangerous people are behind bars now, probably forever. I’m going to give you the chance, right now, to walk away, if you feel you can’t…”

  His voice trailed off, sounding hopeless. I had never felt so much love, so much desire to make everything right.

  “I’m not going to walk away,” I told him. “What, after all that effort I made to stalk you? I’m staying. If you’ll have me?”

  “Oh, I’ll have you,” he said. He kissed the top of my head. “Thanks,” he said. “You’re a glutton for punishment, obviously.”

  “Ahem. That’s why I’m here, remember?”

  * * * *

  In the end, we made a new spreadsheet.

  Complex arrangements of suitable chastisements and their relative misbehaviours were described in each rectangle of the document. For simple oversights and memory lapses, I’ve found myself over Dexter’s lap for a hand spanking, whereas deliberate disobedience or dishonesty has merited a trip to the Dreaded Cupboard for a cane or a whip. For added salutory effect, Dexter has used butt plugs, nipple clamps, vibrators or good old-fashioned home-made techniques to devastating effect. But, on the closure of the spreadsheet and the learning of the lesson, I was rewarded with treats behind the bedroom door.

  One night, shortly after I moved in, portrayed a good example of our rituals and routines. Dexter arrived home from work, ejected me from the computer chair where I was working—naked, as was our house rule—bent me backwards for a breath-stealing kiss, then spoke the fatal words, “Open the spreadsheet, Lara.”

  This phrase always induced the Pavlovian shaking of the hands, and my fingers trembled on the keys, my mind racing through a speedy recap of all the ways in which I had failed to achieve perfection over the last few days.

  On this occasion, there was a clutch of Latenesses for Meetings, a Failure to Charge the Mobile Phone, and a shamefully long list of Wasting Work Time on the Internet.

  Dexter breathed down my neck behind me, his hands on the chair back, his tuts travelling directly into my ear.

  “It doesn’t look good for you, Lara,” he said. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “I’m very sorry, Sir. I will try harder, I promise.”

  “We’ll make sure of that, shall we? Fetch the cuffs, the bench and the crop, please. Oh, and the large vibrator, I think.”

  Words of doom, they were enough to line any heart with lead. So why did they make mine leap? I had to hide the spring in my step en route to the Dreaded Cupboard and conceal my flushed face and sparkling eyes behind my hair while I dragged the specially constructed whipping bench into the room. It had a padded step for my knees and a handy rope-tie feature on the corners so my ankles could be fastened with my legs spread apart. Leather cushioning also protected my stomach from too much discomfort. Too bad Dexter didn’t extend the same tender care to my bottom.

  Once I was bent and tied in position, Dexter cuffed my wrists behind my back, leaving me helpless, my bare breasts squashed against the cold leather upholstery of the bench. Now all I had to do was wait.

  It sounded simple. Just bent there, waiting, with no need to perform any further task. But for me, the waiting was the hardest part of the whole ritual, worse by far than the slashes of hot pain across my rear.

  Sometimes he made me wait for an hour or more, while he sat at the computer and worked, or made dinner preparations in the kitchen. This, he said, was because I needed time to reflect on my misdeeds and consider my position. It’s quite a position to consider, bent and spread and naked, posed for a good, hard whipping. On that night, I had to think about my Perpetual Lateness, and how it affected other people and how it was a sign of my disrespect for myself, and the world in general. I was getting better, I really was, but I was still far from good enough. I thought about it. I thought about it for a few minutes, then I started to think about the cool air on my exposed bottom and sex, and the slow, inevitable dampening between my thighs, and the crushed sensation of my breasts. This had me thinking about the aftermath of my punishment, and wondering how he would take me. Mouth? Pussy? Arse? I thought probably the latter. I’d learnt that it’s a firm favourite of his, and I no longer flinched when my sore, hot bottom was dripped with lube and readied for a corrective reaming.

  So by the time he came back into the room, I was wet and churned up with lust, a fearful flicker at the pit of my stomach keeping me from out and out carnal frenzy.

  He prowled around behind me, picking up the crop and slapping it into his hand because he loved the way I tried to jump in my bonds when I heard that fearsome crack. I wanted to ask him, “How many?” but of course, I wasn’t permitted to speak. When he was in a kind mood, he’d tell me in advance, but on that night he wasn’t in a kind mood, so I had to breathe and clench and moan through every hard, loud swipe, having no idea how many more I would have to endure.

  “Thirty-four,” he said at the end, running the tip of the whip along each throbbing welt.

  It seemed a rather random number, and he knew I would be wondering, so he was good enough to explain.

  “The number of minutes you have kept me waiting in the last four days since our last session.”

  It seemed fair enough, though fairness was usually the last thing on Dexter’s mind.

  “I’m going to get the arnica. Those are goin
g to bruise,” he said.

  His hands soothed and kneaded my punished cheeks, working the remedy deep into my skin, transferring the flaming heat from my bottom to my already-quite-hot-enough-thank-you pussy. His thumbs travelled the ridges and slid into the crack, stopping to give my arsehole a little nudge—a foretaste of pleasures to come that made me shudder.

  I released a helpless little, “Oh!”

  Then his fingers were underneath, testing me for wetness, though it hardly seemed worth bothering—he knew perfectly well the effect his treatment had on me, and today was no exception to that rule.

  “Such a slut,” he said, his voice triumphant, approving. “You really need this, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  No gag today—it was sometimes a sign that he meant to use my mouth, though not always.

  “Where do you want it, Lara?”

  Oh, he was going to make me choose. I always found that part so embarrassing, but I suppose that was why he did it.

  “Where do you want my cock?” he elucidated.

  “My…uh…I would like to be buggered, please, Sir.”

  “Oh, that’s a good answer. Explain it in a little more detail for me.”

  I clenched my teeth. He is so very, wonderfully cruel.

  “I want to be fucked up the arse, Sir.”

  “Do you? And why is that?”

  “Because I’m a dirty slut who loves the feel of your hard cock inside my bum, Sir.”

  “Oh yes. That will do. That will do nicely.”

  The lube was applied and massaged in, my hips were gripped, my ring of muscle coaxed into relaxation. A large vibrator appeared unexpectedly between my pussy lips and was eased up inside my front passage, then I braced myself for the push, the forward thrust, the momentary pain and the deep satisfaction of double fullness.

  I struggled against my bonds while he took his pleasure, not because I wanted to burst out of them but because the feeling of being restrained thrilled me. Here I lay, sore, whipped, bound, used, fucked and I loved every moment of it. Loved the man who treated me so, loved my life and myself at last.