“That’s exactly what I want, Sir.”
Noah smiled. “Good. Let’s begin.”
***
Over the course of the summer, Noah stayed true to his word. Each new country brought with it a set of training and challenges. The days we trained—the first full day in a new location before we enjoyed the sights—started with a shower and an inspection, the latter of which, he told me, was to make sure I remained healthy and up to the standards of grooming he preferred. He’d run his hands across my shoulders, down my rib cage and between my legs. I fought off a small gasp when his fingers found the sensitive skin there each and every time.
In Milan, he began at the top of the list with different postures and positions that I’d be expected to memorize. I never knew there were so many different ways to kneel. Through that lesson and each one following, Noah never lost his composure. He never raised his voice more than he needed to in order to get the point across and, since a trip around the world required so much luggage and we needed all the space we could get, the only tools he brought with him were a couple of gags—ball and ring, a flogger, a short coil of rope and a small riding crop. The crop was used mostly to guide my posture into place rather than enforce any kind of punishment. Though, if I begged well enough, he indulged me with a smack or two on my ass.
I got my first wax in Milan, as well.
It was by far the most uncomfortable and painful experience of my entire life up to that point. There are just certain types of pain that a person should never have to deal with. A bikini wax is one of them. The relaxing massage and pampering of my body afterwards more than compensated for the discomfort, however. I even went so far as to ask the stylist at the salon to fulfill another Never on my list: dying my hair an unnatural color. She was elated to give me my wish; a deep crimson dye was added to the lower layers of my hair so that it just peeked through the strawberry blonde when it was down and provided a stark light and dark contrast when pulled up.
Noah said that the change suited me. He was right to a degree. It suited the new me, the adventurous and slowly-coming-out-of-my-shell me. It made the statement that I was tired of living in the background of life. I was ready to take center stage in my own world.
And so it went, from city to city a new training session was held. It became all things pleasure and torment. And I learned; about what I was capable of, about what Noah wanted to mold me into. Of the list of things he wanted to train me in, muscle and orgasm control were among my weakest subjects.
The problem with staving off an orgasm was, once the moment was lost, I wasn’t the sort of woman who could immediately reach the edge again just because I was told to. It took serious effort to keep myself from going over the top while standing on the fine, razor-sharp line of eroticism. How others were capable of doing it with such ease was beyond me. I endured many a night with a red ass for that one, and continued to struggle with it for a long time afterward.
Pain or pleasure, I was happy to be touched by Noah.
Sensuality, another bullet point on the list of training, was not an adjective I identified with myself. For him, however, it felt less complicated. I discovered it was all in attitude and body language. A woman proud of who she is holds herself aloft quite differently than one who feels they are not worth the effort.
“You’re a successful, sexy woman, Piper,” he told me at one time, “and you need to start acting like it.”
With him by my side and a little concentration on my own behalf, it became second nature. A light, feathery touch here or a seductive glance there lit him up so bright I’d be surprised if they couldn’t see him from orbit on the ISS.
Among the lessons learned, I began to understand who Noah was.
When first I met Noah I brought to his attention the myriad of faces he appeared to wear depending upon the situation he found himself in. As we traveled from place to place, I began to realize he wasn’t at all presenting those masks to the people around him on purpose. In fact, they weren’t really even masks at all. They were simply Noah. And Noah was the epitome of the human chameleon. Whatever circumstances we were presented with, he managed to act in the most appropriate manner to connect with the people.
In Kyoto, while we ate from the overabundance of food trucks just to taste unique local dishes, he dropped the pretenses of multi-million dollar business owner for long enough to pose as the Gaijin he was for a group of giggling school girls. He wasn’t fluent in Japanese, but knew enough to get us by. And apparently he flirted poorly in that particular language. The girls walked off laughing even harder, at him more than with him, than they were when we arrived on the scene.
This was not only true for Kyoto, but also for Dubai and Beijing and Amsterdam and even Glasgow. On a dime he could flip the switch from being straight-laced executive to a twenty-nine-year-old teenager; especially when he was trying to hide his excitement over something. He was capable of becoming the sly wit of a group or the wise giver of advice depending on the company we kept. And he was ready for anything. If I suggested it, he agreed to it. We found a way to make anything and everything work because, hey, you only live once, and we had no idea when next we’d have the opportunity to pack so many Nevers into one season.
We visited cathedrals older than our country, watched street-performers live their roles, ate the best and worst local dishes, got lost in the chaos of Dubai, found ourselves in the eclectic markets of Beijing and danced to the best goddamned bagpipes I ever heard in my life in Glasgow. The Scottish group we hooked up with liked me so much they even joked that they would let me stay when they discovered I was from Irish descent. How sweet.
About the only thing I couldn’t get Noah to do while we were out on our adventures was sing karaoke. I didn’t hold that against him.
In all the whirlwind of excitement I never once forgot that Noah was still training me as his sub. After some time I started to glimpse the differences in the way he acted behind closed doors and in public. I learned what he meant when he said he wanted me to be a lady on his arm. He treated me with the utmost respect outside of our sexual affairs; it was as if he were showing me in no uncertain terms that my agreement to be his submissive was an honor he dared not squander.
Every so often, even in the thick of the most carefree day of our journey, he’d flash me a look. It was subtle, discrete in its intensity to settle somewhere between a smolder and a mischievous smile. And it reminded me every single instant that I belonged to him. It was the cue I learned, without any words spoken between us, that he wanted me. Not always for a training session, either. Sometimes, when that look came from out of the blue, there were no ropes, crops, cuffs or tests involved.
On one such occasion, the two of us had been invited to a cocktail party in a hotel neighboring ours by one of Noah’s associates in Beijing. I was standing in the hotel bar having a decent conversation in English with a slightly older Chinese gentleman in a sharp suit about the recent Higgs Boson discovery while Noah lounged in an armchair around a small table, rubbing elbows with potential new clients. For just a moment, I glanced over to him. He’d tuned out the discussion around him, however briefly, and was staring at me from half way across the room in a manner that undressed me with his gaze.
I excused myself from my conversation as politely as possible and wandered over to him through the thin crowd. The jade floor-length gown I wore that night hugged my curves. There was a slit down the left side which afforded a peek of my bare leg up to my thigh, and it was strapless to show off my collarbone and neck. I pulled my hair up that night, as well. A few curls of strawberry blonde and dark crimson fell down the back.
I walked behind Noah’s chair, placed my fingertips on his shoulders and let them slide down the front of his suit jacket as I bent at my waist until my lips were poised at his ear.
“Did you want something from me, Sir?” I asked softly.
He took my hand from half way down his torso and kissed it. “You learned quickly, my pet. Go out t
o the lobby, I will meet you there shortly.”
“Yes, Sir.”
I slid back and straightened up, giving a small smile to the men relaxing around the table before I made my exit. Stealing their thought processes while I walked past them brought a sense of pride.
I wasn’t sure exactly how much time passed, though it wasn’t as long as I thought it might be. Noah emerged from the dimly lit bar into the stark contrast of the grand hotel’s lobby.
He approached me and held out his arm for me to take. I slipped mine around his and, without asking where we were going, allowed him to guide me as we walked slowly through the room towards a back hallway.
As we walked, he said, “You have become quite the little starlet. Every man in the bar watched you with lustful eyes as you walked out.”
“What can I say; you’re training me well.”
Noah gave a short laugh that bordered on a guffaw. “If only I could take credit. That wasn’t training; that was you owning your beauty. All I did was make you see it. You’re the one who embraced it.”
“Then thank you for opening my eyes in the very least.”
The lobby disappeared behind us as we turned down a back hallway which consisted of conference rooms and offices for large conventions. Scarcely a sole passed us by on our walkabout. All the while he seemed to be searching for something. As we passed by each door he would tap at the handle. Most of them were locked. When he found one that clicked open, I watched his eyes light up. He glanced up one side of the hallway and down the other, then took hold of my wrist and jerked me to him for a deep, possessive kiss while he backed us into the darkened room.
I loved the way Noah kissed me. He managed to find the perfect medium in every motion. That perfect medium didn’t cast aside his passion in the slightest. His lips, soft and warm in their fierceness to acquire mine, abated the flicker of doubt that he wouldn’t always want to take his pleasure from me and me alone.
But then, he’d told me at the beginning of the trip that the option to part ways was a door, much like the literal one I was being pulled through now, which also remained unlocked.
I breathed out, “Whose office is this?”
“No idea,” he muttered between kisses.
“Should we care?”
“Nope.”
That suited me just fine. This close to midnight practically nobody roamed the halls and fewer were still in their offices at work.
Noah pressed me up against the closing door until it shut firmly behind us. He fumbled in the dark for the lock, his lips never once leaving mine. It snapped into place. He didn’t bother with the lights. Enough of an ambient glow from the city poured in through the windows to bring our shadows out of the darkness and into shapely silhouettes against the tinted glass that we didn’t need harsh florescence.
He pulled me off the door for just a moment so he could grab a handful of my dress and begin to hike it up around my hips.
“Sir,” I whispered as the soft fabric of my dress steadily rose around me, “I keep thinking about what you said before, in Milan; about dismissing me from service. Do you ever think you’ll get tired of me and cast me aside like that?”
“Never. I’ll never tire of you; I’ll only get more creative.” While the lust in his eyes didn’t recede, a genuine tone of compassion filled those words. “No other woman in the world has been able to do to me what you have, sweetness. I promise.”
Complacency; it’s one of the biggest fears that most people don’t realize they carry. When a party in a relationship becomes satisfied with what they have, knowing they can have it whenever they desire, then they take the whole for granted. They fail to desire any more from their partner and the relationship stagnates. Adventure becomes meaningless. Resentment takes the place of excitement. The mystery they fell in love with has been unraveled and holds no more enticement because there is nothing left to discover.
This was not a moment like that. This moment burned bright in my night sky as a beacon of hope that Noah would be with me forever. My own small forever on the grand scale of the Universe was meaningless to others. They had their own Forevers just as they had their own Nevers. For the innocuous forever, which belonged to me during our trek of discovery across the world, the empowerment I grew into thrived. This Forever proved perfect in every way.
That was, until Sydney.
My downward descent into the Nine Levels of Hell almost certainly began with Sydney.
***
August tenth was our final day of vacation. The next morning we’d fly home. Exhaustion crept up on the both of us. Hopping from time zone to time zone every couple of weeks perpetually fucked with our sleep schedules. As much as I enjoyed the time away from the good old US of A, I began to get antsy with the need to sleep in my own bed again.
The pair of us had spent the day lazily hanging out in the hotel room which backed up to the coast of Australia. We ordered room service for breakfast and recounted our exploits while our tired bodies came down off the high of the experience.
Around two o’clock I rummaged through my luggage for a book so I could spend some quality time with myself before I thought about one last plane ride across the Pacific.
“Think I’ll go down to the beach for a little while,” I told Noah.
“It’s fifty four degrees out! This is not swimming weather.”
“Says the man who suggested wetsuits just so we could surf yesterday,” I noted with a chuckle. “Poorly, I might add.”
Noah tilted his head to one side. “You surfed poorly, my dear. I, on the other hand, rocked it.”
“Not according to our instructor. Anyway, who said anything about swimming? I’m just going for the view and to read a bit.” I held up a brand new copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to show him. “All this rest and relaxation has made me need some rest and relaxation.”
“Alone time, you mean.”
“Still an introvert at heart, Sir.”
“Oh, very well.” Noah crossed the room to give me a kiss. He tucked my hair behind my ear and allowed his fingertips to linger on my jaw. “We’ve reservations for one last nice dinner at seven, though. I want to soak up as much time with you as I can before I’m sucked back into the world of Corpspeak. I swear; I’ll choke-slam the first person who utters the words ‘Paradigm Shift’ at me when I return.”
I tapped his chest with the book. “The brilliance of owning your own company is that violence is not required. Firing is always an option.”
“That comes with wrongful termination lawsuits.”
“Which is better than an assault and battery charge.”
He shrugged. “Details.”
I laughed and headed for the door. “I’ll be back at six to get ready.”
The entire adventure seemed like such a dream. Two and a half months of travel in the most ideal of conditions, experiencing the most ideal scenery and cultures with the most ideal man I’d ever met all zipped by at the speed of light. My small Forever. It was difficult to believe; come tomorrow, we’d be on a plane back to Los Angeles, and the lives we left behind.
I situated myself on a lounge chair out on the beach. Despite the cold, it was a sunny winter afternoon. I pulled my knitted blue sweater to me and curled up against the cushioned chair to lose myself in literature for a few hours. As much fun as the summer—or winter for that matter now that we were ending our tour Down Under—was, I was grateful for a couple of peaceful moments all to myself to absorb it with the appreciation it demanded. We hadn’t run into any major disasters or mishaps which we were unable to find our way out of yet. For that I was truly grateful.
A woman sat in the sand nearby. She was busily keeping to herself as she forgot the world and drew away the afternoon in a sketchbook. She studied the horizon, the shadows of puffy clouds dancing on the water, and a large private sailboat several hundred yards out at sea. When she was satisfied with her quick glance, she would put graphite to paper again. I glimpsed over her shoulder at her
work from my seat ten feet away. For a sketch, it was brilliant. Even in black and white the shading popped so vividly it almost felt I’d be sucked into the scene, was I not already there.
A gentle breeze blew in from the ocean. It tossed her dark brown hair around her face. She fought against it with her free hand to keep her attention locked on her subject before it had the chance to disappear over the horizon. Briefly, she turned her head to one side and I caught her profile. When I did, I thought my heart would stop beating. The way she swept her hair back reminded me of…
No, that wasn’t possible.
I cleared my throat so I wouldn’t choke on my words as I tried to get her attention. “Excuse me,” I said as I lowered my book. “That’s a beautiful sketch.”
She turned to me then, and I about lost all composure. High cheekbones and a small chin on her heart shaped face made her a vision of beauty. Sparkling brown eyes smiled the same as her warm lips did. She was thin and lithe and the spitting image of the woman pictured on Noah’s mantle.
“Thank you very much,” she said with an American accent. “It’s just a rough draft though. I’ll take it back to my studio to paint it properly tonight.”
I must’ve looked so pale and taken aback I was surprised I managed to form a coherent thought much less a coherent sentence after seeing her. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to stare. You just look strikingly familiar.”
“I don’t know about me,” she laughed, “but I have a few paintings up at local exhibitions around Sydney.”
“But you’re American,” I noted.
“Born and bred,” she confirmed. “I moved here a few years back to start up my career in art.”
“This is going to sound really weird, but is your name Selene by chance?”
The woman twisted completely around to face me, her glowing smile never fading. “That’s me. Selene Reynolds. Are you a fan of my work?”
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