Spontaneous Combustion

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  For a moment, even Jeni’s butterflies were content to take a break, and she experienced the scene for its magic without worry. “I think I needed this,” she said, as she settled into the feel of Jack’s rooted strength. The tree-line rimming the far shore of the lake was still dark as midnight, the sky brightening above, the water turning more silvery, shimmering with a ghostly glow as the sun continued to rise.

  “You didn’t lie,” she said.

  Jack didn’t need to say about what? He knew. This was his lake, his cottage, his terrain. She was merely borrowing a space in this sacred territory, and the moment that thought hit her, she understood why he’d waited to bring her here. Demons and rapture, either one, could be flushed out in circumstances like this one. People got stripped naked, metaphorically speaking, in settings this pristine, when the distractions of the real world disappeared and you were left to the bare bones of living – virtually unplugged no less. TV yes, but no Wi-Fi, no Internet, and cell phone service – when it worked. There was more to coming here than romantic sex – this was living together without the distractions of life to clutter the mind. Their kink life could flower here, or fall apart.

  Would the relationship survive their days together in this untainted wilderness?

  Jeni was scared. Glaring deficits they’d not seen before could arise, so could moments that might bind their relationship together. So much about Jeni and Jack had to do with Master/slave, which was beginning to feel almost comfortable. However, everything that wasn’t about sex and kink was a huge unknown. She had her hopes for a happy outcome, but she wasn’t betting on anything. Nothing about this relationship was fixed, nor was it easy, and she didn’t expect this first stay at his cottage to be easy either. But she was ready for it, she had to be. She was there with him and couldn’t turn back now. Jack must have thought she was ready; he wouldn’t have invited her otherwise.

  Looking into that beautiful horizon, she realized what had eluded her before: Jack wasn’t thinking his way through their relationship as she once assumed. He might have been ‘relationship deprived’ in many ways but his gut feelings about matters of sex and kink, and how quickly they should move forward were remarkably spot on. He didn’t over think as she was prone to do. He didn’t obsess. It was mysterious to her that anyone could make life so simple. But in this regard, Jack was probably much better at seizing the moment than she was.

  When they finally turned back toward the shore, Jeni stepped back startled. Her first lingering look at the cottage was not what she expected. It was not the cottage in the photograph he’d sent her, but a rambling house much bigger than the one in her imagination. A fieldstone porch ringed the front and the entire west side; along the east side was a screened-in porch extending the length of the house, with what appeared to be a massive stone chimney rising above the second story. Above the stone foundation was a cobbled edifice; an ancient log cabin to the east; a newer brown shingle add-on to the west. Blooming flowers circled the perimeter. Though it seemed to have been thrown together, the elements not quite a perfect fit, the resulting combination was pleasing. Beautiful even. Quaint. Picturesque. Appropriate adjectives were endless.

  Jeni wanted to love it and embrace it as hers. But not yet. This was Jack’s; the imprint of his vision would be the glue that held it together, and it would be for him to decide if she belonged there.

  “What do you think?” his question penetrated through her bewildered daze, but as far as a response, she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know?”

  She flashed him a grin. “I know, easy question…just not what I expected. The picture you sent was of the log cabin side; the rest of the cottage isn’t even in the photograph. It’s completely different from what I imagined.”

  They stood together silently appraising the sight.

  “But I love it,” she finally spit out.

  “You do?”

  “Of course. It’s kinda funky and fun and weird. Though this shouldn’t surprise me, Jack Hawking, everything about you surprises me.” She looked up at him smiling and would have nuzzled into his side ready for a long passionate kiss. But there was no kiss, not then.

  “I surprise you? Really?” He pulled away and gave her ass a sharp crack. “Let’s get going. We have food to unpack and a there’s a post, maybe a beam or two, waiting for a naked slave to christen it.”

  “Yes, sir!” she laughed, then headed back down the pier with Jack following closely behind. The tingle of that smack on her ass reminded her how sexually pent-up she’d become over the last couple days.

  They walked up the steps to the cottage’s broad front porch, and through the double doors Jack opened wide. Before Jeni had a chance to look around, she heard him speak, his voice filled with the kind of authority that made her want to immediately drop to her knees:

  “Clothes off, slave.”

  She turned around and gazed into his grim expression – the spark of lust in his eye as he viewed her was the only thing to soften the moment. But for that spark, she might have thought she’d been a bad girl and was about to get punished. Her heart started to race. She was breathless and a little dizzy.

  Jack was about to repeat the order when she abruptly dropped her purse, and started removing tee shirt, shorts, sandals, bra and panties, until she stood naked before him, instantly chilled. Even standing in the sunlight, she shivered before him, just like she did the first time he made her strip.

  “Where’s your collar?” he asked – as if she should have been wearing it all along.

  She shook her head and thought hard – her mind was a complete blank. Finally, she blurted out, “In the Jeep, yes, it’s in the Jeep.”

  “Go get it.”

  She stared at him for several seconds as if she expected something more, but there was nothing but his solemn expression to send her scrambling out the door, down the steps, across the yard – which was a little rugged on her bare feet – and to the Jeep, where she pulled out her suitcase and dragged it to the porch; well aware that she was naked right out in the open. Yes, Jack’s little corner of the world was secluded from the road. There were no nearby neighbors, but that didn’t stop her from feeling exposed to a hundred eyes peering at her from the surrounding woods – rabbits, deer, woodchucks, some old nosy neighbor who just happened to be walking through. Deciding not to take the time to pull the suitcase up the steps, she opened the zipper compartment and retrieved the collar, then it was up the stairs and into the house – she couldn’t have been gone two minutes. Once inside, she smiled, breathlessly, hoping for something other than the sight of her master’s grim face.

  She cocked her head and with a sweet and bashful grin held out the collar. They both stared at it for several seconds, then he nodded, “Go ahead, put it on.”

  She took a breath, gulping down her anxious nerves. Then she opened the lock, handed Jack the key and with trembling fingers and flustered movements, fit it around her throat, feeling for the clasp and making several failed attempts to match the two ends in the proper notch. When she finally got it right, she noted the sound of it snapping shut with a shudder of pleasure. Jack stood back watching every move with careful scrutiny and his stoic expression unchanged.

  He eyed her so critically that she wondered if she’s done something wrong. Her belly ached with lust, and her legs grew weaker the longer she stood before him in that dreadful silence. Finally, he reached out, grabbed the ring at the front of the collar and yanked. Not hard, but enough to make plain his authority over her.

  “Perfect,” he said. “Now I have work to do. And don’t you dare go running out of here again in bare feet.”

  “Yes, Sir.” He rarely scolded her – rarely did she do anything to be scolded for – but this sounded like a rebuke, and she took that with a shiver of concern.

  With the collar in place, Jack turned his attention to practical matters – bringing her suitcase and his duffle bag inside, stocking
the fridge from his cooler and opening windows around the cottage, none of which required her help, even when she offered. She needed his direction since she was too dazed to know what to do, but he gave her none.

  “Have a look around,” he finally suggested, which would have been just fine, a basically pleasant and very doable idea, if he hadn’t been staring at her naked body with a perverse grin – breasts, belly, smoothly shaved cunt, thighs and legs, then finally back to the collar ringing her throat, “Collared and naked,” he nodded pleased. “Exactly how I like you best.”

  She was swimming in the sexy sensation of ‘turned on slut’ – and though he was just pointing out the obvious, just hearing him say the word naked made her instantly recoil. She was awkward, anxious and embarrassed. A blush rose on her cheeks, as if she’d forgotten that she hadn’t a stitch on, save for the collar. How could she possibly forget? For the first time since he’d ordered her clothes off, and she’d made the mad dash to the Jeep to get the collar, did the reality of naked really sink in. She experienced the same resistant shuddering she felt at her house and his. She’d seemed to conquer her embarrassment in those closed-in settings, but there was something entirely different about naked here. She didn’t like naked, a little too raw, too exposed. She’d never – ever – been entirely comfortable with her clothes off. All her physical flaws so obvious. No way to dress-up naked. Nothing held back, nothing private. She hadn’t enough arms and hands to cover up naked…besides, what do you do with your hands when you’re bare-assed naked?

  You’d better get used to it, Jeni, her inner voice whispered. Get used to it. Naked was how Jack wanted her and she didn’t dare complain.

  When he passed by her next, he said, “You just going to stand there in a daze?”

  The comment woke her up. “No. I’m good. I’m fine,” she quickly rattled off. She began to roam about the cottage, peeking into each room. From the mud room and laundry in the back of the cottage, to a store room stocked with Coke, a few canned goods, and a small freezer. When she found the bathroom, she stopped to pee. Should she close the doors or not? she wondered as she sat down. In some kinky slave worlds, slaves weren’t given the privacy of closed doors. She decided to leave the door open.

  Returning to the kitchen she made note of the items in the pantry – peanut butter, honey, olive oil, pasta, crackers, a few more canned goods, the kind that she would never eat, and a shelf of spices that were obviously years old. The refrigerator was even more sparse, a typical row of condiments, and now the fresh items that they’d brought from home. Like the rest of the cottage, the kitchen had ‘bachelor’ written all over it. Pots, pans and utensils he regularly used sat in plain sight. Other things, cake pans, mixing bowls, even a blender, were dusty and stuffed in the back of the lower cabinets. Dishes and glassware were neatly stacked in an open cabinet above the dishwasher – real dinnerware, not the paper plates and plastic she expected.

  In the main room were comfy couches and a couple of tables arranged in front of a fieldstone fireplace, which was massive in size, functional and quite beautiful. She noted a hook just inside the four foot high opening where an iron pot hung. Something he actually used? There were quilts for winter stacked in a corner, a large mirror on one wall, and a series of botanical prints arranged artfully in a group hanging in what served as his dining room. She studied each print for a moment, admiring the way the drawings were executed with such precise detail. Then she gazed down at the handmade table beneath them. In an early email Jack had attached a picture of the table with several whips laid across its length. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, had been the theme of the week, about the time she left for France, when they were exchanging pictures of their kink toys. His whips were nowhere to be seen now, though the memory of them flashed through her mind, as she recalled how he’d described using that table to inspect and torture his previous slave.

  Beneath her bare feet was the feel of hard wood, cherry perhaps given the color. It was old and stained and uneven in places, worn smooth and polished from years of use and care. Like standing on years of history.

  Her eyes were then drawn toward the high ceiling and the open beams above her head. She almost expected to see the heavy chains that had been part of previous discussions dangling down. At the moment, however, the hefty log beams were gleaming in the sunshine that came streaming through the high windows, looking lustrous and without a hint of anything ominous.

  The cottage was homey, functional, as simple and straightforward as the man who owned it. It was basically clean, as much as you would expect from a remote cottage. A little clutter here and there. Could have used a woman’s touch, but then it wouldn’t be entirely his if it looked like some picture-perfect example of cottage appearing in Cabin Life Magazine. It was evident to her that it would be a while before he’d share ownership of his sacred space with anyone, if he ever did. Perhaps the best she could hope for was to care for it with the same reverence that she did her own home.

  Without his saying anything at all, the cottage confirmed what she already knew about her master: he was the king of every domain in which he lived – his city house, university office, and here, too, especially here. He owned every bit of it and the environment surrounding it all, every floorboard, shingle and beam above, every leaf on the trees outside, the out-buildings, pier, boat and sandy beach. She felt dwarfed by the way his spirit permeated the air and the ground and the sky above – even the water in the lake belonged to him. He kept his eyes on it all. All in a flash of intuition, the essence of the man hit her in the gut again. Dominant. Authoritative. Commanding. His essence inspired her inner submissive. It’s what brought them together. In the midst of his things, inside his domain, she was his slave, another piece of the property he owned. She loved, dearly loved the way he made her feel.

  If anything spoke in favor of their belonging together, it would be this. Whether Jack sensed it too, Jeni didn’t know. Though they had been living out Master/slave for weeks now, the reality of it seemed more obvious in this cottage than it did elsewhere. She was here at last, a captive in his world. Alone with him. In the middle of nowhere, with no way out. Until he was ready to drive her back to civilization, she’d be his happy prisoner.

  A cold chill shook her body as she stood at the double doors that opened to the porch. She savored the meaning of captive and smiled.

  “I need to check on things in the lab,” he interrupted her contemplative trance.

  She turned his way. “Your lab?” she looked at him, wondering if he’d be taking her.

  “I’ll show you later,” he said. “Won’t be long. Get settled in. Put your suitcase in the bedroom. There’s plenty of room. There are empty drawers in the dresser you can use.”

  Nearly an hour passed before Jack returned from the lab. During that time, Jeni arranged her clothes in the bedroom – smiling now about how she’d warred over what to bring when it looked as if she’d be wearing nothing. All that fretting had been entirely unnecessary. After her things were neatly placed inside the dresser, she returned to the living room and fished through a pile of magazines, though they did little to spark her interest. She read the book titles in a stack next to what had to be Jack’s reading chair. All academic tomes and journals, plus a copy of Thoreau’s Walden, buried between a book of poems and a tattered copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of the Universe. Jack Hawking. Stephen Hawking. Related, perhaps? On top of the stack was a dog-eared copy of a Tom Clancy novel.

  Time wore on, minutes ticked by. Jen’s body ached for him, all naked with nothing to do. After nearly an hour and no Jack, her anxiety began to rise again and she was tempted to take the thirty foot path to the building behind the cottage where Jack was tending to whatever experiments that needed his attention. She wanted to see him, she wanted his hands on her and the kink to begin. Restless, useless, wasted minutes ticked by so slowly. She repeatedly resisted the urge to take off out the back door to find him. She hadn’t been invited. An
d she was naked.

  Naked out of doors would happen soon enough. They had too many kinky outdoor fantasies to assume that she’d stay in the house the entire stay. But for now, she felt safer sticking close to the cottage until that inevitable moment when Jack ordered otherwise.

  Returning to the bedroom to retrieve the novel she’d brought with her, she stopped short at the bedroom door and took a long look at the room, the rough paneled walls, the patchwork quilt, the bed, the pillows. All she could think of was slipping between those sheets, their bodies entwined, his firm hand on her ass, his prick in her cunt. A long, slow then vigorous fuck.

  Shaking off the image, she looked out the window to the long low building that housed Jack’s lab, and was reminded of cabins she stayed in when she was at summer camp as a child. The memory made her smile, though there was something melancholy and a little sad about that, too. She imagined that at one time the lab had open air windows, no glass, with large wooden shutters that opened horizontal to the ground and were propped up with posts – just like the cabins of her youth. The shutters were still there to cover the windows in the winter. But they were glassed-in so the lab could be properly heated, free of bugs and used year round. He’d told her that half of the building was used as a dormitory for visiting students, and there was a second student dorm in the loft above the living room, though it was rarely used. As far as this weekend was concerned, they had the place to themselves.

  Jeni returned to the living room with her novel just as Jack returned to the cottage through the kitchen door, a scowl on his face as he entered.