He held up his hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t say that right. I don’t mean you’re like a guy—far from it. In my mind, you embody femininity, with all the strength, grace and power that goes along with that.”
Rylee sat back, apparently mollified.
Taggart continued, “What I mean is, you’ve been able to tap into a part of your sexuality—the masochistic part—because it fits in with your definition of being tough and powering through things that are difficult. Typical red-blooded American macho stuff—you can take it on the chin and come back for more, and when you do, you make Daddy happy. He notices you then, and offers approval. So playing at and winning at sports all through school, excelling on the swim team, earning belts in one of the most physical and demanding of the martial arts—all that stuff is what a winner does.”
“Not just a male winner,” Rylee pointed out.
“No, of course not. But it’s the kind of achievement a man like your dad would recognize and be proud of. Masochism, when you think about it, is an extension of being tough like that, of handling intense pain without protest. Taking it like a man, if you will, at least in your dad’s world.”
“Oh, my god,” Rylee said softly, staring down at her plate. “Oh, my god, you’re right. I never thought about it in those terms, but you are exactly right.” She looked up at Taggart, an expression of both pain and wonderment on her face. “You have my number, Leather Master. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped trying to please my dad, even though it’s never quite enough.”
“And that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Taggart said, “wanting our parents to be proud of us. The only time it’s bad, if that’s the word, is when you let it prevent you from doing or becoming what you really are—what you want to be.”
“If only I knew what that was,” Rylee whispered.
Taggart reached across the table and lightly touched her arm. “I think you do know, Rylee. In your heart, I think you’ve always known, you just don’t have the right words yet, or perhaps a full understanding of what submission is.”
He withdrew his hand and sat back, searching for the words that would reach her. “You mentioned subjugation earlier, but I don’t see submission as subjugation. To me, that implies one person wresting the power away from another—conquering them, even enslaving them—against their will. In my mind, masochism and sadism are just parts of the whole, that whole being D/s. What I’m suggesting we explore together is an expanding of your sensual horizon to experience more of what erotic submission truly entails—all of it, not just the erotic pain and intensity.”
Again Rylee was quiet for a long while, and Taggart let her be. Finally she took another bite of her sandwich, chewed and swallowed, and then said, “So let me ask you a question. If, and I’m only saying if, I were to agree to this sub training of yours, how would it work? Do we meet for hourly sessions, like I do for Jiu Jitsu? Or is it some kind of immersion, 24/7 type thing? Have you done this before? Trained someone?”
Taggart smiled. “That’s more than one question. Answering the last one first, yes, I’ve done some training, but never on a formalized basis like I’m thinking about with you. To tell you the truth, I usually hook up with women in the scene who already identify as submissive, so the training aspect hasn’t really been a focus.”
“Hook up with?” Rylee repeated, wrinkling her nose.
Taggart shrugged. “Yeah, you know, get together with, hang out with, whatever you want to call it.”
“So, no long-term relationships? No love interest? Just, uh, hooking up?”
Taggart shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. Still, he answered honestly, “No, not really. I mean, sure I’ve had girlfriends.” He paused, aware he was treading suddenly on dangerous ground. Why did women always invoke the L word? What did love have to do with it?
Rylee was watching him, waiting.
“I just haven’t found the right woman”—Taggart reached across the small table and touched Rylee’s arm—“yet.”
A small, shy smile moved over her lips.
Taggart pulled his hand away, suddenly confused about his own motivations, and hers. Relax, he admonished himself. Nobody’s talking love here. Rylee’s no simpering teenager. Everything’s good.
He smiled at her. “In answer to your question about how the sub training would work, I think the immersion idea would be best for us. If you were able to commit to that, I’m thinking a period of, say, five days of intensive training.”
“Five days?” Rylee echoed, both excitement and uncertainty on her face. “But what about our work?”
“We would still do our work. We would fit in the actual training sessions around that, though I would require certain things, even while working, to keep you in a submissive mindset. You do your website design on your laptop, right? You don’t go into an office or anything?”
“No, I can work from anywhere. That’s one of the things I love about my job.” She smiled, but then frowned again. “What about my swim coaching and Jiu Jitsu workouts?”
“Well, we’re talking about five days here, not five months. You coach on the weekends, right? Do you have a coaching commitment tomorrow?”
“No, not tomorrow. Not until next Saturday.”
“Okay, then. And the Jiu Jitsu, is that on a particular schedule, or is that up to you?”
“Up to me, I guess. Though I have been working toward the next level belt…” She trailed off.
“Look,” Taggart said gently. “If this isn’t right for you, that’s fine, too. I don’t want you to do something you’re not one-hundred percent into. If you feel like a five-day commitment is too much”—he shrugged, startled at the sudden, jagged pain beneath his rib cage at the realization she might refuse him, but determined to keep his expression neutral—“that’s cool. No big deal.”
“No!” she blurted. “I mean, it’s not too much. You’re right. I can totally take a week off the Jiu Jitsu. Marco says I’ve been going at it too much lately anyway. Sometimes a break is good.” She smiled sheepishly. “I think I was just wanting you to convince me, but if I’m going to be honest, too, I’m really intrigued by this whole submission idea. So, yeah. I’m in.”
“You’re in?” Taggart couldn’t stop a smile from leaping onto his face. “Cool.”
After dinner, as they climbed into the truck, Taggart said, “Let’s stop at your place so you can get your laptop and some clothes and stuff. Pack your BDSM gear and clothing, too. Do you have high heels?”
“I have one pair of stiletto fuck-me heels,” Rylee said with a grin. “I never wear them, though. I prefer boots or sneakers.”
“Pack them anyway. And stockings and garters, if you have them.”
“Is that an order?” Rylee retorted in a saucy tone.
“If you like,” Taggart said quietly.
This time he came up with Rylee to her apartment, waiting in the living room as she packed. Her place was small but immaculately clean. There were large, framed photographs of landscapes and city vistas, including several local landmarks he recognized, as well as portraits of people he assumed were family members. Each picture was like a small work of art, the lighting and angles lending them a unique and distinctive quality that told him they were all the work of one highly skilled photographer.
When Rylee came out of her bedroom, a large suitcase in tow, he asked, “Did you take these pictures? They’re really good.”
She smiled, flushing faintly as she nodded. “Yeah. Photography is kind of a hobby of mine. It comes in handy in my website work.” She hoisted a strap on her shoulder, indicating what Taggart now saw was a camera bag. “I’m bringing along my camera gear so we can get more pictures for your website. We can also pull a lot of good stills from the videos Jordan made.”
“Oh, yeah. The video. I’d forgotten all about that. You’re quite a distraction, you know that?”
Rylee laughed. “Back at you, Leather Master. Let me grab my laptop and I
’ll be ready to go.”
Once back at his place, they brought in the empty gear and equipment bags and the now-full money box from the truck, along with Rylee’s things. Taggart cleared space on one of the worktables. “You can put your laptop and camera gear here for now,” he said. “We’ll get you set up properly in the morning.”
They carried the gear bags into the dungeon to return them to the storage cabinets. Taggart turned from the cabinet to regard the now nearly empty display racks. “I’m going to need to bust my ass to get my inventory back up,” he remarked, already taking a mental inventory of his leather hides.
“You need an assistant or two,” Rylee said. “Someone to stretch the hides and someone to do the basic preparation and cutting. Otherwise you’ll never be able to keep up with demand, especially once that video goes on BDSMConnections and your website is up and running.”
“I do have two guys who come in from time to time to help out. I wonder if they’d be up for more hours.”
“Perfect. They could work on the basic whips and floggers, while you focus on the custom pieces.”
Taggart turned to regard Rylee with admiration. “Do your website services include hiring staff and helping me organize things?”
“For you they do, Leather Master,” she said with a grin. Sobering, she added, “Seriously, Taggart, you’re an artist. You need to be freed up to focus on what you do best. With the right people around you, there’s really no limit to what you can do.”
“You’re hired,” Taggart said with a laugh.
Rylee walked over to the straddle beam, a piece of equipment that always intrigued play partners he brought to the dungeon. “I have to ask”—she touched the board, causing it to sway gently in its ropes, “what is this thing?”
Taggart came up to stand beside her. “It’s a straddle beam. It can be a very effective training tool,” he replied, instantly imagining Rylee, naked and astride the board, its hard, narrow edge cutting into her spread cunt.
“How does it work?” she asked in a small voice.
“As the name implies, you straddle it,” Taggart said, reaching up to manage the pulley device that controlled the height of the board. “You climb over the lowered board and position your legs on either side so your cunt takes the weight of it as the board is raised.” He turned the pulley lever to demonstrate, first lowering and then lifting the board by its ropes as Rylee watched with rapt attention. “It’s good for positions training and discipline and also, of course, for punishment. Straddling this board for an extended period of time can provide an especially effective form of predicament torture. You can only hold yourself up on your toes for so long.”
Rylee had changed out of the corset at her apartment, exchanging it for a long sleeve knit shirt, blue jeans and sneakers. Her nipples, Taggart couldn’t help but note, had leaped to attention beneath her shirt. Her lips were parted, the tip of her pink tongue moving over her lower lip as she took in his words. He could almost smell her arousal.
Taggart put his hand on her shoulder. “Down, girl,” he chuckled. “You’ll get your chance to experience the straddle beam firsthand, I promise.”
Rylee turned to him with a lift of her chin. “Who says I want to?”
Taggart’s chuckle erupted into a laugh. “No one has to say it, at least not with words.” With gentle affection, he added, “That’s a good thing. You want the erotic pain, and I want to give it to you, along with so much more. It’s all good.”
He guided Rylee out of the dungeon. “It’s been a long day. Let’s get ready for bed. We can talk more about this upstairs, okay?”
Rylee nodded and they went up to the second floor. The bed, which Taggart had left unmade in his haste that morning, was rumpled, the quilt and sheets in a heap at the end of the mattress. He set down Rylee’s suitcase and moved to pull up the bedding. Rylee joined him on the other side of the mattress, reaching for the covers. “I can do that,” she said.
Taggart took a step back, watching as she smoothed the sheets and quilt into place and plumped the pillows. “I like watching you,” he said. “Household chores will be a part of your training. It’s not about the chores, per se. It’s about the service. It’s about paying attention.”
Rylee looked up, a sassy grin on her face. “Do I get to wear a frilly French maid uniform?”
Taggart was aware she was teasing, but he answered her seriously. “Something like that. I’ll require you to dress in a certain way for your chores. It’s all about helping you get into the submissive mindset.”
A dubious expression replaced Rylee’s smile, but she said nothing.
Taggart pulled off his clothing, hung his pants in the closet and dropped his shirt and underwear into the hamper. He glanced over at Rylee, who hadn’t made any move to undress. “Are you going to sleep in your clothes?” he asked with a grin.
“Oh,” she said, as if coming out of a trance.
As she began to remove her things, Taggart said, “I’ll clear out a drawer for you tomorrow and make some space for you in the closet. Meanwhile, you can just leave your stuff on the chair.”
They brushed their teeth standing side by side like an old married couple. Taggart had expected to be put out by this—he didn’t like anyone else using his sink—but to his surprise, he found that he didn’t mind.
Rylee admired the old claw-footed bathtub, which Taggart had kept when he’d remodeled, adding a modern shower alongside it. “I never take baths, but the damn thing weighs a ton—it’s made of cast iron underneath the porcelain. I have no idea how they got it up here in the first place.”
“I don’t have a bathtub in my apartment,” she said in a wistful tone. “I miss taking baths.”
“Duly noted,” Taggart replied with a grin.
They climbed in on either side of the freshly made bed. Taggart left on the small lamp beside his bed, not quite ready to sleep. He pulled Rylee gently into his arms. He hadn’t realized until they lay down quite how exhausted he was.
“Tell me more about what I’m signing up for,” Rylee said, resting her cheek lightly against his chest. “Give me an overview of what I can expect over the next five days.”
“The way I envision it,” Taggart said, “while you’re here in this house, the training will be 24/7, but in that context you’ll still be free to do your work. I will expect you to wear my training collar whenever you are here to help you remember, for these five days at least, that you belong to me.”
“I’ve always wanted one of your beautiful collars,” Rylee breathed with something like awe in her voice, “ever since I saw some of them at Naughty Boutique over on 12th Avenue. I never dreamed the Leather Master himself would actually place one around my neck.”
Taggart smiled, surprised but pleased by her remark. “I sold most of what I had on hand at the convention today, but I think I have a few decent training collars still in my inventory. I’ll pick something with O rings for when I want to chain you or use the leash.”
“Oooh,” Rylee shivered, as he’d guessed she might. Submissives came equipped with certain sexual buttons—all you had to do was push.
“Over the course of the training, whenever I address you as R, rather than using your full name, that’s your signal that we’re entering a session, during which I will expect your complete and full obedience. This can happen at any time, and when it does, you’ll stop whatever you’re doing and focus entirely on me.”
“Sounds sexy,” Rylee said, snuggling against him.
“It is. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always going to be easy for you, or fun, but sexy—yeah, definitely.”
Rylee lifted her face toward his, her eyes closing, clearly waiting for a kiss.
Taggart obliged, bringing his mouth to hers, his kiss gentle and lingering. When he pulled back, she moved forward, her lips still parted and he kissed her again.
When they separated a second time, Rylee regarded him with those exquisite, blue-green eyes, which reminded him of the oce
an. “Tell me more,” she whispered. “What happens once we’re in a session?”
Taggart smiled again, willing his mind to catch the thread of what he had been saying, though his hardening cock was making it difficult to concentrate. “When we’re in a training session, which could last ten minutes or ten hours, you will address me as Sir. During that time when you are R, you will only speak when spoken to, unless you need clarification on something, or are having trouble of some kind. Then, you will ask permission to speak and wait until it’s granted.
“I’ll give you various tasks and assignments, and then assess how well you did them, and whether further training in that area is needed. We’ll also work on things like posture and comportment, and I’ll teach you the various submissive positions I expect you to assume upon command. For the duration of the five-day period, you will never touch yourself sexually without my express permission and command. You will obey my every dictate instantly and without discussion or negotiation. I want you to be able to trust me as your Dom to guide you through the process, even if you don’t get the reasoning behind every little thing I’m asking of you. I will discipline you as needed, and punish you if I think it’s necessary.”
Rylee, who had grown very still as Taggart laid out the rules, now lifted her head from Taggart’s chest and looked up at him. “What if I can’t handle it? What if I need to use my safeword?”
“Of course you can always use your safeword within the context of a specific scene, if you truly believe you have to stop something I’m doing, and that that’s the only way. I doubt you’ll have need of it, as our focus isn’t going to be on masochistic pain, at least not when you’re being trained.”
“No whips and bondage?” Rylee said, her tone suddenly petulant. “What about the punishment you mentioned?”
Taggart chuckled. “Silly girl, of course there will be whips and bondage. But in your particular case, that’s not punishment, now, is it? That’s your reward, if you’re a good, obedient sub girl. You’ll have to earn your flogging. You’ll have to merit intense bondage and erotic torture.”
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