Sublime Trust

by Jaye Peaches

  “Sorry.” I sniffed, wiping my nose with back of my hand, which made him roll his eyes, mocking me with a false frown.

  “No more self-flagellation. How many times do I have to tell you, I punish, not you. The truth is, I prefer it if you enjoy yourself, too.” His words echoed my thoughts. I looped my arms about his neck, forcing him down to my mouth, and he gave me one of his special kisses. My blood curdled in my veins.

  Breaking free of my clutches, he slid to one side. “Come and help me bundle the ropes then you can have a bath.”

  Jason flicked my aching clitoris with his finger. His last little admonishment, and I snapped out of my misery and helped sort out the tangle of ropes.

  ***

  The dinner was a huge success all round, both with the food—homemade paté, chicken in a citrus sauce with rice followed by sorbet—company, and conversation. As well as fellow Nightshade co-owner, Garratt with his consensual slave, Judith, Jason had invited his American friend, Damien, who was on an extended visit to the UK. No American submissive with him, as he had taken a break for training, his preferred kink.

  To keep him company, Damien arrived with a Nightshade Club submissive, Monique, whom he’d trained during his spell of living in England. They appeared very comfortable with each other’s company, and an air of nostalgia and reminiscing had occupied most of their conversations.

  Those two couples elected to stay the night and were familiar with the house, including Monique, which was unnerving for me, as it confirmed what I had always suspected—she had been a regular visiting submissive prior to Jason’s courtship of me.

  The other two couples were first-time visitors to Blythewood House, although not to the dinner tables at our London townhouse. I’d been delighted when Jason suggested we invite Matthew and Eva. They existed in the same realm as Jason and I had before my pregnancy—a relationship defined by broad rules with a semi-flexible approach to doing scenes, their Domination and submission mainly confined to the bedroom or visits to Jason’s club.

  The other couple were a marked contrast. Sebastian had had the company of several women during his search for the elusive submissive who would meet his particular requirements. What he had always wanted he’d found a year earlier: Zoe. Sebastian had Zoe’s day wrapped around a timetable of events designed to please him and keep her under his thumb. My friend loved it, she’d told me on numerous occasions.

  My previous encounters with Sebastian had always left me cold. A man who displayed little emotion other than a raised eyebrow or a frown of displeasure, his approach to submission seemed too disparaging for my taste, too dismissive of a submissive’s needs. Sebastian’s style of domination should offend Jason, and the fact it clearly hadn’t annoyed me. Upon hearing of his invitation, I’d asked Jason why he paid so much attention to a man who took everything very seriously and without passion.

  “That’s his upbringing. Stiff upper lip and no personal emotions on display,” Jason had replied. “Sebastian comes from an aristocratic background and went to boarding school. I don’t think he saw much of the outside world until he started working as a stockbroker. However, his email correspondence with me shows a different man, Gem. He doesn’t harp on about pushing limits or perfect scenes. He frets about the emotional impact, good aftercare, and resolving issues without resorting to punishments or disciplining everything. Quite a contrast to his outward persona. He just needs to find the right girl to fit his needs.”

  Before my first meeting with Zoe, I’d visions of a quiet, demur young lady who would be mouse-like and mute. Far from my vision, Zoe was chatty and vivacious. Certainly not how I pictured Sebastian’s idea of a submissive. How wrong I was, as he seemed quite taken by her, a contrast to his attitude towards his former subs, who’d rarely lasted more than a few months.

  We sat around the spacious oak dining table in our dinner suits and posh frocks, while the conversation meandered between topics with a mixture of frivolity or gravity interlaced. Nobody was criticised for their opinion; we were generous and polite towards each other. We came from diverse backgrounds and embodied different ways to achieve happiness.

  With the food devoured, the men retired to the sitting room with their wine glasses. I had an image of a Victorian parlour filled with cigar smoke, the tinkle of port glasses, and drawling speeches. In the kitchen, with the help of my troop of girlfriends, we packed the dishwasher, wiped down the dinner mats, and stashed the soiled napkins in the washing machine.

  Apart from the men, we had the first opportunity to chinwag and we did as women do—over, above, across, and through each other’s dialogue. Standing around the kitchen, wine glasses in hand we re-hashed scenes we had done recently—with the exception of Monique, who couldn’t because of the club’s confidentiality agreement. We discussed rules—ones we liked and the ones we struggled not to break. What we liked being spanked with and why and favourite bondage positions. The big ugly head of punishments peered over the parapet, and we beat it back with a, not tonight!

  Lost in a nattering huddle, we failed to notice time had passed by or the appearance of Jason, who leaned on the kitchen doorway with an empty wine bottle in his hand. The moment we spotted him, it was like hitting mute on the remote control button for a TV. Our mouths stoppered mid-sentence, and our collective eyes descended on the empty wine bottle, which he waved at us. We had forgotten to service the men. Not just partners, husbands, or sometime companions: our masters and Dominants. Men who didn’t like to be neglected or thought of as nuisances. They were meant to be the focus of our attention, our thoughts, and our actions.

  “Same again, Sir?” I chirped, taking the empty bottle.

  “A rioja this time.” He walloped my backside as I attempted to swing it out of his reach, failing miserably.

  We scuttled into the sitting room, giggling at our foolishness, and parked our bottoms by our waiting Doms with an apologetic murmur of obsequiousness.

  The evening sun had faded over the horizon, the long summer day ending, and I switched on the lamps. I felt a pang of disappointment it wasn’t winter because a real fire lit in the fireplace would have made the room cosy and warm. I anticipated it wouldn’t be long before we were required to be naked. After dinner was the time for entertainment and games. Impromptu scenes probably involving some kind of humiliation.

  Nervously, I fidgeted on my knees at Jason’s feet and waited. Waiting was part of the game, too.

  Chapter 19. After Dinner Play

  “Now that the ladies have seen fit to keep us company, perhaps they should entertain us, too,” suggested Garratt, and the others nodded in agreement.

  Here goes—what? I eyed my deck of playing cards on the mantelpiece. Jason followed my gaze, cocking his head to one side and smiling. “How about Scabby Queen? I’m sure suitable penalties can be given.”

  I picked up the cards.

  “What is Scabby Queen?” asked Monique.

  “Like Old Maid,” I said, and she nodded. “I’ll take the Queen of Clubs out of the deck. You match off numbered pairs from your hand, red with red, black with black then select a card from the person to your left and discard a pair if they match. The person left with the Scabby Queen, which is the Queen of Spades, has to be punished.”

  “Punished?” said Monique, her eyes darting back and forth between me and Damien.

  “At school, losing meant raps over the knuckles with cards.” I glanced at Jason. He thrummed his fingers on the armrest, and, in slow-motion style, a smile materialised on his face. I ventured he had other ideas for penalties.

  Garratt chipped in with his own twist to the game. “I’m sure they’re overdressed, aren’t you? A scabby queen should look a little beneath her contemporaries.”

  We placed our discarded clothes by a wall in neatly separated piles. What would be terrifying in the context of the vanilla world came easily amongst my own kind. Judith’s skin was adorned with elaborate tattoos, which she’d had done for Garratt. During our stripping, Jason had
left the room and, when he returned, he had a basket of wooden clothes pegs, which he place on the coffee table, and a round rubber paddle.

  I dealt the cards out as we knelt around the central, low-level coffee table, eyeing the pegs. I pointed at them and coughed, raising an eyebrow at my husband.

  Jason settled in his seat and crossed his legs. He’d dispensed with his jacket and bow tie, as had the other men. With the top button of his shirt undone, he exuded a delicious sexiness that took the edge off my nerves. He explained his idea with a wry smile. “Each pair you discard requires a clothes peg on your breasts. You can do it yourself or help each other out. We don’t mind, do we, gentlemen?”

  I tried hard not to roll my eyes up to the ceiling. Discarding the existing pairs in our hands, I ended up with two pegs on one breast—and they pinched terribly when self-inflicted. Judith had one pair, Monique, no pairs, Zoe, three, and Eva, two. I watched them squeeze the pegs on with grimaces.

  The game began in earnest, and each matching pair we discarded was rewarded by another peg attachment. We peeked over our cards at each other, wondering who had the rogue unmatched card. With straight faces on display, whoever had the Scabby Queen wasn’t letting on.

  By the time we were down to our last few cards, we’d collected more pegs and a heap of matching pairs before us. Zoe was the first to go out, tossing her last pair into the discard pile. She waved her hands in delight until Jason handed the paddle to Sebastian; then her eyes widened.

  “The first out gets five,” said Jason. “The second, ten, until we find out the overall loser.”

  A chorus of gasps went up from us girls. “So even if you win you get, what, twenty smacks?” I glowered.

  “Who said there had to be a winner?” He laughed, and the other Doms joined in.

  “Whoever has the Scabby Queen,” I leant over the table whispering to my playmates, “lose it under the table.”

  “I heard that, Gemma,” called out Jason. “Cheats will be dealt with severely.”

  I wriggled on my bottom—some threats were too enticing, but Judith shook her head. “Best be good,” she said in my ear.

  Five swats with a paddle didn’t make much impact on Zoe, although Sebastian whacked her hard as she bent over his knee, having first removed the pegs. The brisk spanking elicited an unusual amount of emotion, and he kissed her bottom—he was smitten. His slave had Cupid’s arrow deep in her heart.

  Eva was next to go out, and Matthew showed no leniency either, but far as I was aware, Eva was a pain slut, and she moaned as the ten came down in quick succession across her bottom.

  Judith, Monique, and I eyed each other cautiously. I didn’t have the queen of spades and, with trepidation, my fingers twiddling, I picked a card from Monique’s hand.

  Shit! Monique grinned shamelessly at me, punching the air. Judith danced her fingers around my cards before choosing one, not the unwanted queen, but her chosen card didn’t match any in her hand. She scowled. Monique took a card from Judith and, with a screech of joy, threw her last pair into the pile.

  Damien waved her over with a solitary finger. She crawled across the floor, licking her lips, and he wagged the same finger at her. She received her fifteen across his lap as he held her in place and she expressed a few exhaled ows. I’d forgotten what a hard hitter Damien was.

  Judith and I faced off on opposite sides of the table. I peeked at Jason, and he gave nothing back to me, not even a smile. Did he want me to win or lose? Although, according to him, there were no winners. The next person out would be rewarded with twenty swats—manageable, probably better than being left with the Scabby Queen. I inhaled and nodded at Judith, whose eyes had narrowed to slits.

  I grabbed one of hers—a match, and I threw the cards down with a whoop. By now the pegs on the tits was a side game. I shuffled my cards, which included the unwanted black queen and held up my last three cards.

  Please, please take the Scabby Queen!

  Judith groaned as she viewed her choice, and her shoulders slumped. I didn’t give her any sympathy and shouted, “Yes!”

  I focused on my hand. I had to get a match for my remaining cards—the eight of diamonds or a ten of spades—and avoid reclaiming the queen. I shut my eyes and tugged a card from her hand. She clung onto it, refusing to let go, and stuck her tongue out at me when I forced her to relinquish the eight of hearts. I had my pair, leaving me the ten, which I tossed in her direction. She was the guaranteed loser with the last matching pair and the Scabby Queen. I performed a little jig around the table, uninhibited by both nudity and pegs dangling off my tits.

  I handed the paddle to Jason, and he tapped his lap. I lay across it, my head hanging off the chair, my legs trapped under one of his. Before he started, he removed each of the pegs, and I yelped, battering the armchair with my hand. “Fuck,” I growled.

  He stroked my buttocks, and I shivered, filled with anticipation and a little apprehension. He explored, trailing his knuckles over my bottom then dragging a finger up my slit. “Wet, baby. I’m disappointed. I wanted to treat you to the loser’s penalty. Never mind, twenty will do.” Jason wasn’t going to be upstaged by his one-time mentor, Damien, and the slaps came hard and fast, searing my bottom. I gritted my teeth, holding back the cries, and sucked in my breaths. The last spank jarred my sit spot, and I squirmed, feeling the dampness spread down my inner thighs. Throughout, my guests, who remained silent, had watched my paddling. I tingled, aware of the shared excitement of seeing me writhe and moan. Damn, I’d forgotten the thrill of group spanking sessions. Once, they’d been regular fodder for my submission, but since Jason had captured me, they were rare.

  With my penalty complete, the attention shifted to poor Judith. She chewed on her lip, trying a coy expression with Garratt, which he answered with a brisk rub of his groin. The man was hot for her and wouldn’t hold back.

  “Gemma, what did you do for the Scabby Queen at school?” asked Garratt.

  “Fifty-two raps on the knuckles with the whole pack. We were banned after that from playing.” I gave Judith an apologetic shrug.

  Garratt sucked his cheeks in with a mock wince and tut-tutted. “There I went thinking us Doms had the monopoly on discipline. Vicious things, schoolgirls. I’m not going to break Judith’s lovely hand with that penalty. Fifty-two on the bum it is, then.”

  Judith crawled across the room and, fetching the paddle from Jason, edged closer to Garratt.

  “Master.” She offered the paddle in the correct position for her slave status—the implement balanced on upturned palms and her eyes downcast.

  Whatever sadism he might manifest in the privacy of his personal dungeon, Garratt kept it in check. Instead of a thundering display of a hard spanking, which I’d expected, Garratt turned Judith’s bum into a glowing pink and seemed content to deliver a subdued penalty. Fifty-two swats, however, was no walk in the park. She stayed silent, eyes shut, and only occasionally did her features screw up, which gave me some idea of what Garratt was capable of doing and what Judith was accustomed to receiving. Aroused by the spanking, towards the end, she arched her back. At the end, he smeared her juices over her discoloured bottom.

  “You’re a little hussy, aren’t you?” he crooned and unzipped his flies.

  The evening appeared to be winding down, and I removed the cards and pegs. While Judith had her mouth around Garratt’s eager cock, Monique and I made coffee for everyone. Arriving back with a tray of steaming mugs and a jug of cream, I noticed the room had been rearranged. The central coffee table had gone and, in its place, a large throw had been laid out. I’d nicknamed that particular makeshift rug the fuck throw, because Jason put it down if he was going to take me on the floor and wanted to protect the carpet.

  Having handed out the coffees. I knelt at Jason’s feet and pondered what was in store for the evening’s climactic finish. Something brewed in the air, and it wasn’t just the coffee. With Judith’s oral duties completed, we girls knelt on the floor our flittering eyes not daring
to catch anyone else’s. I guessed something must have been decided much earlier in the evening, probably when we’d been gossiping in the kitchen.

  Jason removed the half-drunk mug from my hands and placed it on the small table next to his armchair.

  “Babe, you’ve done us proud this evening with your glorious food. Time to show you our appreciation.” From behind the chair, he whisked out the vibrating wand. I didn’t know whether to smile with delight or gulp with apprehension. Exactly what did he plan to do with it?

  “Thank you, Master.” I bowed my head.

  Jason gave me his instructions and, unlike the spanking, which I’d happily accommodated, his intention of putting me on display for sexual purposes had a different effect. My heart pounded, my mouth went dry, and a wave of butterflies took flight in my belly as I contemplated my humiliation. I didn’t want to do this, even with friends present.

  “Babe, be good,” he reminded me. “This is for you, your reward.”

  I unlocked my frozen joints and moved, crawling across the floor to the throw. There, I lay on my back, spread-eagled myself, and waited. Jason knelt between my splayed legs, armed with the wand. My heart thumped so much, my ears boomed with the echo. Peeking up from my spread breasts, my erect nipples betrayed my arousal, my desire to have my reward.

  “Master?” I wavered.

  “Shh. Relax, babe, and enjoy yourself.” His calm, reassuring voice was what I needed to hear and his handsome face all I wanted to see. I blocked out the others and focused my attention on him.

  The moment he pressed the head of the vibrating wand to my clitoris, the silly thing throbbed enthusiastically. My inhibitions, which held back my natural libido, flew away, leaving me sinking into the floor, whimpering and needy.