Thomas cut off my words and kissed me hungrily, without the restraint he'd been imposing on himself in the past weeks. His hands fondled my ass cheeks roughly, spreading them so he could finger my already wet pussy. As soon as our lips parted, his whisper caressed my face, both tender and harsh.
“Allie told me once that submissive women are much stronger and braver than they're given credit for. Now I know what she meant.” With those words, Thomas wrapped his fingers around my bun and yanked my head back until my neck arched, fully exposed. He sank his teeth into my skin and his fingers deep inside me. My moan echoed throughout the kitchen. My pussy clamped around his hand, soaking it with its generous juices. “I've been neglecting your training, dear pet, but you deserve a reward for being such a brave girl.” His words, whispered in a low voice in my ear, sent a thrill running through me. “Bend over the table. Hands behind your back. Spread your legs for me.”
We didn't go further than spanking, a makeshift blindfold, and wax on that Saturday morning, but it was a wonderful start and a return to the good old habits. I hadn't realized how much I missed our play. With every session, Thomas restored his self-confidence and raised the heat. It took us both some time to go back to the dungeon, but when we got over our initial fear, we felt free to release all our pent up sexual energy and restrained fantasies.
He encouraged me to share more of what I had in mind. Sometimes, we'd go through more elaborate play, which required a few days of preparation. Once, we tried a Total Power Exchange weekend, under my initiative. In that scenario, I was an actual slave. The part of a modest, shy girl was so different from my personality but the experience was a blast. I was dripping wet the whole time even when I performed utterly degrading tasks on my hands and knees, serving as a pleasure pet. It was interesting to delve into that dark world but I knew I could never do it full time. Luckily, Thomas didn't expect it of me. On the Sunday evening when he took the chains from my feet and kissed me, he said he’d enjoyed having an obedient slave girl but he preferred his sassy submissive boss.
For the first time in my life, I was emotionally and sexually sated. The craving for another nicotine fix was no longer a factor in my life. It was liberating. Sometimes, though, in a rush of naughtiness, I would place a new pack of cigarettes in a place where he could easily spot them. Of course, Thomas was smart enough to know my bratty intentions and invested extra force in my punishments. He kept a leather paddle in my office and would often blister my behind and leave me soaked and longing for more. I hated that I adored his discipline and control in those situations.
Our relationship wasn't all sex, kink, and games but they fortified our bond. There was a mutual understanding between us. I'd lacked such a connection with all my previous lovers. Erotic freedom in sexual submission, intellectual and emotional compatibility – what more could a woman ask for?
Of course, I wished we didn’t have to hide the fact that we were a couple. The balance between our work and love life was too fragile and there was always a risk of someone revealing us. As much as I hated to admit it, I was still worried he would leave me for a woman closer to his age.
Sometimes I'd wake up early on the weekends and stare at his sleeping form. The thought of losing what we’d worked so hard to build together left me feeling cold and numb. Those were the only times I found myself wishing for a cigarette. Luckily, Thomas would stir in his sleep, open his eyes and pull me on top of him for morning sex. It did the trick, whipping the fears out of my brain. Until the next panic episode.
Happiness was a strange emotion. It elated my spirit and made me feel invincible, capable of achieving the impossible.
Sadly, it also made me blind to the shadow creeping into our lives.
If I only knew.
It had been nearly three months since Thomas and I started dating in secret. We were both discrete about it. Well, except when he fucked me on my desk and it was hard for me to stay quiet. My balled up panties often served as a gag. Katie and my other female friends grilled me about the mysterious man I'd been spending every weekend with. My lips were sealed, but at times, I wished I could throw caution to the wind and announce the news to everyone.
Nothing struck me as out of ordinary when I entered the office on Monday. My brain was still high on endorphins after the last two passionate days. Later, I'd remember all the signs of catastrophe I ignored – the whispering, the strange looks, the stifled giggles while I walked down the hallway towards my sanctuary. I was so out of this world with happiness I even forgot to turn on the Wi-Fi on my smartphone, which was part of my usual morning ritual together with coffee. That day, though, it slipped my mind. Thus, I arrived at work blissfully unaware of the bomb waiting for me in my inbox.
As soon as I crossed the threshold, Katie looked up from her computer screen with wide eyes. Her tanned face had gone unusually pale. She was clutching the top of the desk, as if she wasn’t sure what to say.
“Are you okay, Katie? You look sick. Do you need to take the day off?” I asked with concern, taking my coat off and frowning at the water dripping from it. It hadn't stopped raining since yesterday.
“You haven't seen it, have you?” She swallowed, inhaled sharply and kept drumming on the desk.
“Seen what? What is going on?” Her agitation slowly got to me and I crossed the distance to her desk. The poor girl sighed and muttered in a trembling voice,
“I hate to be the messenger of bad news but you'd better see it right now.” Katie stared at me with such sympathy I nearly screamed. What was she trying to do, drive me insane with suspense? “I'm really sorry, Lina.”
When I stepped behind her desk, all my determination and confidence leaked out of me like blood from an exit wound. The computer screen was covered with a high definition image of me in the red latex boots with a matching ball gag in my mouth and the black collar around my neck. The picture showed me bent over with a glowing red ass, restrained in bondage on top of Thomas's spanking bench.
I’d often wondered how I'd react to a natural disaster. Would it make me panic and run for my life? Or would I stay behind and accept my plight calmly. What does one do when the earth opens up beneath their feet and the world falls apart like a crumbling sugar cube? The helplessness provokes extreme reactions – despair, horror and a sense of doom. Never had I imagined the dominant feeling would be one of nausea.
My body and feelings were often pushed beyond what they could endure during my sessions with Thomas. Sometimes he'd cane me so hard I'd see blinding light through a veil of tears, pleasure and pain all wrapped up in one. But it couldn't come close to the sickness that possessed my body in that moment. Bile rose from my stomach and for a moment, the world's sounds faded away into a blend of white noise. My vision registered Katie, how her mouth opened as if she were a fish. None of what my ears caught made sense. The shock hit me straight in the core and made my senses go numb. I felt nothing but the increasing urge to vomit. I was losing balance and motor control. Everything felt surreal, as if I was drowning and not fully understanding anything. The thin film of sweat under my blouse and the blood on my lips were abstract ideas from someone else's mind. My eyes were burning but who knew why they remained dry. A lonely, distant howl of genuine agony echoed somewhere deep inside me, begging, pleading, looking for an answer. Why?
Sharp pain in my thigh and hands broke my state of absolute denial. I'd lost balance and was leaning against the sharp edge of my assistant's desk. I clutched the wood so hard one of my long nails broke. My own weak whisper resounded like a mantra. Why?
Someone's hands grabbed me by the collar and pushed me into the tall leather chair. All the better because my legs could no longer support me. Katie's pale, worried features resurfaced before my blurred vision and in the next moment, she was splashing cold water on my face. The girl grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me hard. The more she spoke, the more real the situation became.
The pain of waking up was too much to handle.
“Lina, L
ina, please, say something.” I realized my mouth was still open in a stupid way and blinked a few times before the world shifted back into focus. “Stay here. I'll call an ambulance.”
The panic in Katie's voice finally brought me back to earth and I shook my head. Cold droplets ran down my face, ruining my make-up, but the horrible sickness had withdrawn and my logical thinking process was slowly coming back to me. I raised my hand and pulled her by the sleeve.
“No, I'm fine.” It was painfully obvious I wasn't, but like hell I'd go to a fucking emergency room in a moment like that. “I just... Are there any others? How many have received them?” Who was this woman speaking through my voice? How could I sound so foreign to my own ears, so pathetic and whimpering?
Katie looked hesitant as to whether she should tell me more. I must have really looked like death. That was how I felt, anyway, like I was in the process of a slow, painful death.
“Let me at least get you a glass of water.”
“Katie, please, what the hell is going on?” Despair was choking me and tears brimmed over in my eyes.
“Lina, I know it's difficult, but try not to have a heart attack.” Clearly, Katie realized how silly her words sounded and immediately cut to the chase. “The e-mail arrived this morning at about 4am, and all the images in it are of you... in a similar pose.”
She avoided looking at my eyes and the horror choked me even harder. “Everyone at the company has recieved it, as well as some of our biggest clients. The phone hasn't stopped ringing ever since I arrived this morning. I told them you'd get in touch as soon as possible.”
About a week before, I’d had a terrible nightmare. Thomas had tied me up in the dungeon with a blindfold on and whispered he had a surprise for me. There was no sound except for his echoing footsteps and my voice begging him to come back. Who knew how long I'd been alone in the darkness, sobbing, close to falling unconscious. When someone finally ripped the covering from my eyes, I was faced with his cruel smile and a crowd of people from the company. He pointed at me and called out to them,
“Take a good look at your boss. Isn't she formidable? See the pathetic slut you're all working for.”
Who would ever have suspected my dreams were prophecies?
I’d woken up in tears, screaming at the top of my lungs. My body was numb and I couldn't stop shaking while he held me tight in his traitorous arms. “It was just a dream, pet. You know I'd never do that to you.”
Katie brought me another glass of water, as if the cold drink could ease the pain twisting my insides, tearing at me. Or help me remove the knife sticking out of my back. It only refreshed the acid taste in my mouth and helped me climb out of my catatonia. It just increased the pain I was in.
“Thank you, Katie,” I muttered and forced myself to get up from her chair. The movement made the nausea resurface, but staying in the same spot would mean death to me. “Hold all calls and tell everyone I'm in a meeting.”
While I trudged my way into the office, my feet felt heavy as if they were made of lead. Katie wasn't used to being so helpless and called after me.
“Is there anything else I can do, Lina? Can I get you a pill or something stronger? You look horrible. Maybe you should visit a doctor?”
I placed my hand on the door handle and turned around to her with insane laughter, dangerously close to hysteria.
“How about some scotch and a gun?”
What a nice wrap of the Lina Riley Lifetime Project. A successful career as an IT entrepreneur, an empty emotional life followed by a disgraceful plunge and a murder – suicide. Before Katie could show more of her sisterly concern, I opened the door and slammed it behind me with a little more force than I intended.
Much to my dismay, I spent the first hour at work lying on the couch curled in a ball, just staring at a point ahead of me. The shock hadn't completely cleared my mind. I wasn't even able to cry. The phone kept ringing and the sound of e-mail notification alerts on my laptop wouldn't stop beeping every few minutes. I wasn't ready to face the music and ignored them all. If only there was some way to switch myself off forever.
Well, there was. It wouldn't need a gun. Several handfuls of pills and copious amounts of hard liquor would do the job just fine. Just an hour and I could be untouchable by all earthly worries. Angry customers, a board of directors, public disgrace, backstabbing boyfriends – none of it would matter. Lina Riley would leave an empire behind, as well as a beautiful corpse. Rise and fall, love, lust, and tragedy. What more could one ask of their life story?
I shook my head and got up from the couch. My feet were still shaking. The nausea was gone, replaced by my oldest friend. The one that had always helped me out of the swamp. My raw determination. Falling asleep forever would be a coward's way out. Wallowing in pain and self-pity would feel good for a short time. I could always indulge in them later. It was time for war and sacrifice.
The first step was to look at the pictures that had provoked the chaos. I sat behind my desk and opened my e-mail client. The notorious message from 4am was flagged as important. The sender was anonymous and the e-mail was encrypted. My hand trembled on the mouse when I clicked on the attachment icons. For a short moment, the hope it could have been a misunderstanding overwhelmed me. It was soon crushed, though, as I went through the images.
I wished I could say I was entirely a victim of Thomas's manipulation and this was the first time I’d seen those photographs, but it would have been just as bad as stuffing myself with pills and whiskey until death took me away.
I'd given my consent for Thomas to take pictures of me in the dungeon about a month ago. He claimed he wanted to remind himself of his beautiful pet when we were apart. My lover persuaded me with tender reassurance that no one else would ever see the pictures, that they would be just for us to enjoy and savor. I was also curious to really look at myself in my times of total submission.
Thomas promised he'd make sure those files were protected and he'd only store them on his home computer.
I cupped my face and dragged my nails across my skin in some attempt at self-punishment. Had it all been a lie? Was he faking the whole time just to disgrace me? Did he orchestrate it all to gain my trust so the final blow would be lethal?
It didn't matter. The man I fell in love with, my Master, lover and best friend, turned out to be just a lying, cheating scumbag. Like all of them. The difference was that this time, my heart was bleeding with his betrayal.
It's no time to cry, I repeated to myself and pulled my phone out of my purse.
There were at least 15 missed calls and several texts from Thomas.
“Please, call me ASAP. It's not what it seems!”
“Lina, are u there? Are u OK? Please, talk to me.”
One of the last ones was screaming in capitals. “I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!”
In other circumstances, I'd have found it amusing. They all said the same clichés when they were caught with their pants down, but my ability to laugh was gone, drowned in agony. I pushed the phone away, not even bothering to respond. He would never deceive me again. ChaosTech Solutions took priority over my messed-up emotions and shattered heart.
The reactions in the different e-mails I’d received varied from indignation to confusion. By the time I finished reading the first two, my head was pounding. My death wish moment was over but perhaps some scotch would really not be such a bad idea.
So Thomas had sent the disgraceful images to the company mailing list as well as to clients from an anonymous e-mail address. However, things wouldn't be so bad, if no one spread them via Facebook and the rest of the social medias platforms. We had some more conservative clients, but with some of my persuasion skills, data of the successful rates and provided there was no leak into the public domain, the damage could be superficial. Just when I started searching the web, my cell phone buzzed again. At first, I thought it was Thomas but then my heart froze in my chest. The call was from the last person I wanted to deal with in my fragile emotional state.<
br />
My plan was to cave in today and figure out a strategy. Any confrontation could be fatal. However, it would be bad to shut myself off from the world and be the last to learn of a potential takeover.
James Douglas, my beloved vice president – greasy, old school type of businessman who had been the thorn in my side forever, like most of the board of directors. I laughed as I thought how close I'd been to getting rid of him forever.
“Hello, Lina. What a highly unpleasant situation you've found yourself in. I've had several less than polite conversations with Solar Media representatives this morning. You've been virtually untraceable. I expected better of you, young lady, but I didn't expect you to throw such a bomb at us either.” As if the week wasn't shitty enough, he also had to drill my nerves with his annoying voice and condescending attitude.
“Don't worry, James.” I closed my eyes and breathed in to calm down. “I'm preparing a public statement and will personally talk to–”
“Lina, I'm afraid it won't be enough. Several clients are considering withdrawing from ChaosTech Solutions. We need to have a boardroom meeting and make a decision on what to do about your... situation. Unless, of course, you decide to do the reasonable thing and resign.”
“You know me better than that, James. Do you seriously think I'd forfeit without a fight because of some dirty pictures? You’ll have to work harder if you plan to kick me out.”
“No one wants to kick you out, as you less than elegantly stated.” James snorted. “You can always stay as a silent partner. We'd get to keep our clients without much noise.”
“Forgive me for not being excited by the idea of being a voiceless soul in the company I built from scratch,” I said as calmly as possible.
“I'm not sure you have a choice, Lina. We're calling a meeting on Friday and there will be a vote for your dismissal as a CEO. You'd better be prepared, miss.”
Keep calm. Keep calm. Don't give him the satisfaction of seeing you angry.
[Unorthodox 01.0] Unorthodox Therapy Page 30