Spontaneous Combustion

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  “Hell if I know,” he said, sounding as if this really wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have.

  She wanted something – Jeni always want to know, she wanted the explanation, a peek into their future, but Jack did little to satisfy that need.

  “You’re my slave, that’s all you need to know.” He took another drag. “For now.” A convenient way for him to end the conversation.

  That was fine. She almost regretted she’d said anything at all, because she wasn’t in the mood to talk either, not with the blue above, the march of cottony clouds across the sky, and the serenity of the water shimmering in the afternoon sun. However, the relationship question was on the table now. She’d let it lie there. Perhaps at some point he’d pick it up and have his say.

  They read for a while on the porch, then Jack puttered in his lab for another hour or so, while Jeni was content with her novel.

  When he returned to the cottage, they made dinner – steak, roasted potatoes, salad that they ate while sitting at a rickety table on the porch. Not a lot of conversation, though the silence fit neatly into the atmosphere of the evening, and mood of the moment. Perhaps for the first time since she arrived at the cottage she felt an easy harmony between them. At least her nervousness had finally eased and she’d settled into her role as Jack’s slave.

  “How about we walk around the lake?” he suddenly asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Although you’d better put on some clothes. It’ll be cooling down fast.”

  Jeni had already felt the first chill on her naked skin, and though she’d just about come to terms with naked during that long day, she was happy to throw her denim sundress over her head, and grab a fleece to cover her shoulders.

  The collar remained around her throat where it had been all day.

  ***

  After a two mile hike through the woods, they headed back to the cottage, strolling hand in hand along the lakeshore. From time to time, Jack stopped to show her some botanical find that drew his interest, so that by the time they headed up the beach to the cottage, it was nearly dark.

  “Hey, there!” a voice called out. Jeni looked up to see a bearded man of about fifty or so sitting in Jack’s rocking chair on the porch, a beer in hand. “Thought you’d never get back.”

  “Who’s this?” Jeni whispered to Jack as they continued up the gravel path.

  “Malcolm. My nearest neighbor. Surprised he didn’t show up earlier. You’ll like him.”

  Jeni hadn’t thought about the slave collar in well over an hour, only aware of it when she heard the metal rattle from time to time. But she thought about it now, with her slave status about to be on display. She took a deep breath to ease her rising fears.

  “Don’t worry, he knows,” was all that Jack had time to say before they joined his neighbor on the porch.

  As she expected to happen, Malcolm’s eye went straight for Jeni’s throat, long before he took a good look at her face.

  “Malcolm, Jeni; Jeni, Malcolm,” Jack introduced them.

  She smiled and shook his hand, the collar rattling again as she leaned forward. “Nice to meet you.” Her face heated as her mind flashed back to hours before when she and Jack were fucking, when he had her bound and suspended in the living room, when he was getting her off at the bottom of the porch steps, when she sat naked and collared through the long afternoon and dinner.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” he said, grinning warmly. “Heard a lot about you.”

  A red blush broadened on her cheeks. “And I wonder what that means,” she said laughing.

  There was a twinkle in Malcolm’s eye, and a smile on his lips. He wasn’t the kind of man to disturb her, just a good ole’ boy – though fine looking for his years – easy manner, not some sleaze-ball. Far from it, in fact, he seemed to be the kind of man she hoped for under these awkward circumstances.

  She expected him to hang around a while like neighbors do, and worried that Jack had more surprises in store for the evening, but Malcolm rose to his feet before they had time to sit down and chat. “Can’t stay,” he said. “Just wanted you to know that the nuisance camp on the far side of the lake is out of business. Bankrupt. Out of business. An answer to our prayers.” His grin was big. Apparently this was very good news. “Just thought you’d want to know.”

  Jack was obviously pleased. “Sorry, you can’t stay, I’d be breaking out the champagne,” he chortled.

  The two walked alone to Malcolm’s truck and talked for a while, then Malcolm was off, down the road and out of sight.

  The long day ended with a cool breeze gusting through the open windows. The lights were out, Jack and Jeni snuggling down in bed. After a few kisses, Jeni backed her ass into his warm crotch, and his arm went around her waist. The soft nighttime collar ringed her throat.

  Chapter Twelve

  Day Two …

  Jack handed Jeni a beer late in the afternoon, which she drank slowly, in the time it took Jack to down three. They ate finger food, cheese, olives, grapes, salami and crusty bread they’d picked up from a local bakery when they were in town earlier in the day. That would be dinner.

  Collared and naked hadn’t begun until they returned to the cottage and by the time they were finally on the porch she was ready. After all the sexual activity of the day before, she almost felt deprived now. With Jeni in clothes, Jack was pretty much vanilla. But once the collar went on and the clothes came off that afternoon, Master emerged and the sexual heat between them was immediately on the rise.

  They were quiet again for a while, still drinking beer, Jeni feeling a mild buzz, when Jack jumped in with, “Yesterday, you asked about the future.”

  “I did?”

  “Not in so many words but that’s what you were thinking.”

  “Probably so.” She knew exactly what he was talking about, though she was surprised that he even remembered the conversation.

  “I’m not in love,” he said.

  It took a moment for his words to register, and for a second her heart dropped to the floor. This was what he had to say? Cold, blunt and without explanation. “I’m not in love.”

  “I see,” she finally found her voice, if not her rational mind. He must have seen the wounded, baffled look because he added:

  “I’m not ready. Nor are you ready for love.”

  She sat with that thought a moment, a tiny bit relieved. “You’re sure of that?”

  “At least for now.”

  “Well, if it’s not love, and I’m willing to concede that,” in fact she wasn’t sure that it was or wasn’t love she felt for him, “then whatever we have is an awful powerful something.”

  “I’d agree to that.” He cleared his throat and put down the beer. “Just so you understand I’m not ever going to get married again. So please don’t think along those lines.”

  “Who’s talking marriage?” she spit back incredulously.

  “It’s just what men assume a woman’s thinking.”

  “If you want to know what I’m thinking, just ask. I’ll tell you.”

  He nodded, “Good. That’s good to know.”

  Her senses were sharpened. Gone was the dreamy subspace she’d surrendered to during the last thirty-six hours. She sat up straighter, feeling a little defiant but definitely cautious. She needed her wits about her for this conversation. “So, what do you want, Jack Hawking?” she ventured at last.

  He thought a long while, then shrugged. When he spoke again, he sounded pensive, and a bit befuddled. “This, you and me? Took me by surprise.”

  “Me too,” she said gently.

  “Still surprises me, how far we’ve gone. Which is why I can’t jump to easy conclusions about falling in love. Jumping into the fire too fast burned me before. Don’t get offended if I’m not wanting to do that again.”

  “Seems we already jumped into one big bonfire.”

  He considered the thought, “Yeah. You’re right.” He took another gulp of beer. “Which means, we need to be caref
ul, both of us.”

  There was a lot of masterful authority behind that warning. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to pursue. He said his piece and would end it there.

  He was quite right about careful, and could have added prudent, sensible, sane – words she understood but would rather not hear. At times she felt a romantic imperative embedded in the female of the human species rising without her conscious choice involved, and driving her forward with a power that reached far beyond her. Some women, maybe most women, sought out a mate the way their lungs sought breath. A female thing that broken-hearted men resisted – until they felt safe perhaps, though she really didn’t know what men thought. The tension between them now had a familiar feeling, but she didn’t know why. There was no basis for it in Jeni’s past. With the love of her life questions about love simply didn’t exist. They were young and naïve when they met. Love was welcomed, assumed and eventually taken for granted. They knew the future because they held the same picture in their minds of the years ahead. Their hearts didn’t bleed until it was clear that it was time for him to go.

  Love couldn’t be that easy now. At least not with this man. His brokenness arose, a half-healed wound she felt in her gut, in her heart and head. They’d passed by this moment before the day they met, when he was an open book to her in the matter of his broken heart; when he allowed himself to open and be vulnerable. She’d felt his pain inside her. If only she could kiss the wound like a mother kisses her child’s scuffed knee, and make it heal.

  Relationships were more complicated this time around, and Jack wasn’t about to be led anywhere he didn’t want to go. At least for now, Jeni was content to back off. She had the information she needed, and plenty of her own concerns to challenge her. She’d let the matter rest.

  Plus, he was probably right, neither of them had any business talking about love. Not yet anyway – even if that was not something a woman with her great passion for this relationship wanted to hear.

  The next thing she knew, Jack was on his feet, behind her with the key to her collar, opening the lock and pulling it from around her throat.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, surprised by the abrupt move.

  “In the shower, slave. You get to scrub me down.” He smiled wickedly – the last ten minutes forgotten.

  With Jack in charge again, she headed off to the shower. Maybe that’s what they needed to wash away all this serious thought and awkward conversation. Do something just for fun.

  Jeni should have understood the timing of the shower long before she stepped into the big tub and felt the jets hammering away the tension in her body. Jack’s warm, sensuous hands massaged her wet skin, and that felt like heaven. She played with his cock, diligently trying to bring it to life, though this time it seemed to resist her attempts to make it hard. They slow-danced for a time with arms around each other and lips kissing, the water bouncing off their bodies. Then, almost imperceptibly at first, something changed. A warmer stream of water…and suddenly it hit her. Jack let loose – all that beer…

  She backed away slightly and looked up at his smiling face, while feeling that warmth splash on her belly and cunt, running down her legs and into the drain. “You’re not, are you?”

  “Oh, yes, I am.” Then he pushed her down to the built-in bench behind her, and sprayed her breasts like a lordly brute marking property.

  “Oh fuck!” she laughed then sputtering with disgust when he aimed for her lips.

  “Open wide,” he ordered.

  She tried, she really tried, but she couldn’t stand the taste and she turned her mouth away. She fought him when he tried to force her back. First time she resisted a command.

  “So, there’s actually something you don’t like,” he exclaimed, jubilantly.

  “Just that—” and she spit out, “your piss tastes terrible!”

  “Not my problem,” he laughed. She was laughing, too, and he was finally finished pissing and almost giddy. He pulled her up and washed her down with soap, then she washed him. When he turned so she could wash his back, she slid her fingers down between his ass cheeks, and reaching in deeper, she found his cock and gave it a few awkward squeezes.

  “There’ll be time for that later,” he assured her. He turned back and kissed her again.

  “I hope I didn’t displease you, Master,” she said, coyly, even as she laughed beneath that demure expression.

  “Not at all, slut,” he said. He gave her cheek a light smack of his hand. “Just gives me good reason to spank your ass, whip it, cane it and fuck it. Plenty of ways for you to make amends.” Hummm. She’d heard that before. But now his words penetrated her skin, they landed in her bones, went sliding through her veins and crawling through her belly, reaching her cunt where the throbbing feeling exploded one more time. She could have cum on his hand, but he pulled it away too fast.

  She sighed heavily.

  It’s all about now. Now, not forever. But now, she reminded herself.

  Day Three …

  The cool fieldstone felt good against her skin on that warm late August afternoon. She’d been napping on the couch in the living room when Jack came in from the lab and woke her.

  She saw the belt and whip in his hand before she saw his face. That morning he’d announced as soon as the breakfast dishes were cleared from the table, that he’d be working in the lab most of the day, though he was in a mood to give her one helluva beating later, so…You’d better be ready when I come get you – was what he didn’t say then.

  The time had obviously arrived.

  In the next sixty seconds, Jack marched her onto the porch, and pushed her against one of the thick substantial pillars of stone that would serve as his whipping post. He stopped his mission just long enough to buckle the cuffs around her wrists, then he strung them up to eyehooks that had been conveniently embedded in the concrete mortar between the stones.

  “Keep those feet spread or I’ll tie them to a spreader bar,” he warned. “I want to see how well I can torture your pussy in this position.”

  Despite the warning, he spent little time trying to whip her cunt from between her legs, where with just the right wrist action, the thin leather falls would curl upwards, lapping at her tender skin. She shrieked when the whip cut deep. He tried several more times to catch her clit with the tail of the whip. The results were mixed. Jeni tried not to shriek – she didn’t want to be gagged again – but then he abruptly turned his attention to her ass and shoulders. He beat her bottom with his leather belt until she was crying. She loved that leather, but so many blows all at once hurt like hell. She didn’t beg for mercy in so many words, but the way she squirmed and hollered and stamped her feet he had to get the message. When aiming for her shoulders, he used the whip to start then tried all his favorite floggers, quite a departure from previous times when the whippings were quickly over – because he was anxious to fill her mouth or cunt or ass with cock. This time, the whipping went on long enough for him to pause several times so she could catch her breath. Every time he started in again, he got rougher. Meaner. Tougher – Jack’s version of tough love. Her horny body just got hotter as she adjusted to his pace, and the rising intensity. Soon, she was there – in subspace bliss and unconcerned with how hard his whips snapped and floggers struck.

  While her back took the brunt of the blows, the fieldstone caressed her pussy – a whole new kind of lover. As long as she could rub her wet slit against those cool stones – cool but growing warmer – she loved whatever he dished out.

  She could have gone on for a long while. The syncopated rhythm behind the act took her to lovely places where she felt herself lifted away; and so it came as a complete surprise when the beating suddenly ended and didn’t resume. Jack was at her back, slippery liquid sliding down her anal crack, his erection banging at the back door, prying her cheeks apart, and unapologetically shoving its way inside her ass.

  “Ouch!” That first shove was something to get used to. But it didn’t take long to feel t
he fullness in her ass and for her body to relax with the whole of her consumed by him. His powerful chest, his muscled arms, his strong, firm thighs, all added weight to the dominant authority that took her to fucking heaven. The climax was suddenly on them both, a shuddering unison, a cumming unanimity of spirit, after which a happy, and entirely oblivious world closed in around them for a long while. She knew that he had mastered her again.

  “You needed that, you dirty bitch,” he scowled at last, when he finally pulled out and sat back in his chair, panting, watching her body twitch, seeing the evidence of the abuse he’d wreaked on her.

  The wounded flesh – most of it would heal by morning – was sure a pretty picture now.

  “So that’s what you think of me,” she snapped back at him. She didn’t like being called dirty bitch anymore than she liked being called whore, even if the word fed her insatiable lust. “Just go ahead and fuck me again!”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he snarled. “You’d probably like a whole string of cocks riding your ass all day long.”

  She was still trying to catch her breath, but suddenly she was laughing. “No, Master. Just you. Yours is all the cock that I can handle.”

  He rose to his feet.

  “Well if it’s me you need, you’re going have to wait.” He pulled up behind her, running his hand down her ass, giving it a firm crack of his hand. Then he reached around, grabbed both breasts and squeezed them. “You like it rough.”

  “Is that a question, Master?”

  “No. Just stating a fact.”

  “Then it’s good you know.”

  His touch was softer now. He massaged where the skin was welted and hurt, where it burned, where his whip had dug deep, and she could still feel the pain rise up again from those welts.

  “Wish I could just leave you dangling here,” he whispered in her ear.

  “That wouldn’t be very nice.”

  “No it wouldn’t. But my slave doesn’t like nice. She likes it rough.”