Folly

by Jassy Mackenzie

  As I sat down opposite him I looked at him more closely, now somewhat concerned. Not only had he turned down the coffee, but he also hadn’t engaged me in any customary banter. This was not just Simon in a mood, or having a bad day. It was more than that. Something was definitely wrong.

  ‘How do you feel?’ I asked. ‘If you could tell me how you feel, I can try to make some suggestions.’

  Just ask Mistress Caine, unofficial psychotherapist.

  ‘How do I feel?’ He put his elbow on the desk and rested his forehead in his hand, pressing his fingers into his temples as if his head was sore. ‘I feel worried. Stressed. Torn.’

  Well, upon hearing that, so did I.

  ‘I feel as if I need to gain some mental distance from what’s bothering me,’ he added.

  I gave his statement some intense consideration.

  ‘Simon, it sounds to me as if you’re too distracted to participate properly in a dungeon session today. Everyone’s different, I know, but if you’re like me, it’s going to be difficult to get into an erotic mindset when you’ve got problems gnawing away at your mind.’

  Now he gave a half-smile.

  ‘You’re right about that.’

  ‘Funnily enough, I’ve also been having rather a tough time over the past fortnight, so I can empathise with you.’

  Now he glanced at me, concerned. ‘You have? What’s—?’

  ‘Nothing serious,’ I said smoothly but quickly, realising I had slipped up. ‘But as far as your situation goes, how would you feel about some pain?’

  ‘Pain?’ He gave a small nod. ‘I think that’s what I might need.’

  ‘I’m working on the principle that the best way to distract yourself from a headache is to drop something on your foot. Simple but effective.’

  If he did have a headache, a good beating might also get rid of it.

  ‘Right.’ He was smiling properly now.

  ‘Does that sound as if it might help?’

  ‘It seems like a good strategy.’

  ‘Let’s keep it basic to begin with. I won’t ask you to think, imagine, respond or react beyond counting the blows I administer with a whip. Once we’ve done that, we can reassess, and see if you’d like the session to progress any further.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, getting up from his chair. ‘Let’s do it, Mistress.’

  Five minutes later, Simon was naked and bent over the gym horse. I stood behind him, holding the short crop with the wide flap. Beside me, my entire complement of whips was lined up. I’d even included the wide leather belt that I had bought the other day.

  Pain was what he had agreed to. Pain was what he needed. But even so, as I brought the crop down with stinging force across his buttocks, hearing his soft groan as the blow landed, hearing his whispered ‘One’, I felt my eyes prickle with tears.

  Even so, I knew couldn’t afford to feel sorry for him. Don’t get emotional over this, I warned myself. He’s not here for your sympathy. He’s here for your services. Right now, he needs the punishment you can give him.

  Steeling myself, I whacked him with the crop a second time, harder.

  ‘Two,’ he muttered, almost inaudibly.

  I hit him again and again. I rained the blows down on him, holding nothing back, offering him no mercy. I had no intention to stop unless he used the safe word. My attentions were not confined to his buttocks. I used, more gently, the belt and the cat-o’-nine-tails on his back and his thighs, leaving great scarlet stripes and smaller bursts of red. I found myself having to be careful when I hit him because it was difficult for me to see where the blows were landing as my vision was so blurred. Every time I heard his gasps, I felt a lump in my own throat.

  Although I knew Simon was a man who craved extremes, I couldn’t understand how an issue could be so bad that it would require such sustained agony to obtain distance.

  I had no idea how long I beat him. But eventually I lowered the belt. I was panting from the effort, my armpits and forehead were running with sweat, my arms ached and my muscles were quivering. His back and thighs were crimson and I knew that, on his buttocks at least, he would have some severe bruising.

  I blinked hard and wiped my forearm across my face.

  ‘Is that enough?’ I asked gently.

  He didn’t answer. He lay, prone, over the horse, immobile. Only his harsh, rapid breathing indicated that he was still conscious.

  I looked down at his inflamed skin. I wanted so badly to soothe it. To run cold water over my hands and gently rub my cool palms over the hot, angry marks that I had caused. To apply arnica cream or Traumeel to help with the bruising. I couldn’t touch him, though, nor offer any pain relief. Not now. It would be overstepping boundaries.

  ‘I think that’s enough,’ I said. I couldn’t do any more. I simply could not.

  I went and put the whips back in their place and sat down at my desk. I crossed my arms on the table and put my forehead down on them and stayed there until my trembling had stopped.

  I was aware of Simon standing up and practically staggering to the bathroom. A little later I heard the shower. I hoped he had it on cold, and that it was going some way towards alleviating his agony.

  When I heard the bathroom door open again I struggled into a sitting position.

  Moving slowly and carefully, Simon limped over to the desk.

  ‘Thank you, Emma,’ he said.

  ‘I hope it helped you.’

  He let out a shuddery breath and gave a small, rueful smile. ‘There have to be easier ways of gaining some distance. I think it has helped, though. And I appreciate your doing it for me.’

  He took my right hand in his and for a moment I thought he was going to offer me a formal handshake as a goodbye. Instead, though, he bent forward and touched his lips to the back of my hand. I felt his kiss, tender and lingering, his mouth warm on my skin, while his fingers wrapped around mine and his thumb pressed into my palm.

  He squeezed my hand gently before releasing it and then left, without rebooking.

  Watching him go, it felt as if a piece of my heart was being torn away.

  The following morning, I was distracted from my angst by the more practical need to satisfy my second best regular client. The Judge was arriving at ten-thirty, and I thought it would be more sensible to have the strap-on already in place so that I did not have to struggle with it while he waited. After all, this was the first time I would be wearing it and I needed to be prepared.

  I’d randomly chosen one of the strap-ons from the three I’d bought –I’d left the others up in the house. Now, I removed it from its black bag and then from its box. The large, bright pink, realistically shaped artificial penis hung from a tangle of black leather straps. But what on earth was that knobble thing at the opposite end of the contraption, I wondered, frowning down at the box.

  My eyebrows shot up as I read that this was a self-pleasuring plug. Aaaargh. Definitely not something I wanted to experience while pounding away at the Judge’s behind. I should have taken more care with my purchases at Adult Land instead of unloading my sorrows to Thandeka, who had clearly been equally distracted while ringing them up.

  Luckily for me, the plug appeared to be removable, and after wrestling with it for a minute, I managed to push it out of the plastic-lined aperture, creating a plug-free, client-pleasuring strap-on with a handy fart hole.

  I let out a frustrated sigh. Really, this experience was skirting very close to the limits of my tolerance, and I hadn’t even put the bloody thing on yet. But I had no other options left to satisfy the Judge. Not when, during our last session, he had ended up begging me to use the largest of the anal plugs on him. Or, rather, begging Judge-style, which was shouting, ‘Go on. Do it, bitch! Lube it up and give it to me. What the hell are you waiting for? Supersize me – I dare you.’

  Grasping the shaft of the penis with my left hand, I held it up, glancing down at the full-colour illustration of what looked like Barbie standing behind a bent-over Ken – and then
back up at the device itself.

  ‘This goes between my legs, these go around my thighs and those fasten up to … up to those?’ Clinging to the picture in my mind, I undid most of the fastenings and walked over to the gym horse, balancing the penis on top of it while I groped blindly between my legs for the correct strap.

  ‘The most important thing is that it needs to stay in position,’ I muttered to myself, yanking the straps as tight as they would go and wondering who on earth had thought it was a good idea to put the buckles at the back. Presumably, the manufacturers had envisioned a willing partner tightening them.

  Well, it was on now, although one of the buckles seemed to be jammed. It was digging into the small of my back and I had a feeling I might need to use a box-cutter to free myself. Still, the device was indeed firmly, in fact immovably, in place.

  Experimentally, I dry-humped the top of the gym horse, imagining myself gripping the Judge from behind, holding onto his small but well defined love handles. The only thing I could be sure of was that I was going to need a strong drink after this. I shuffled uncomfortably over to the desk and put on my trench coat. The pink penis jutted cheekily out through its front opening.

  There was the Judge’s Range Rover arriving now, thank heavens. I watched him climb out, greeting Goodness with a slap on the shoulder and the African handshake, before strutting over to the door of the folly.

  ‘How’s it going, darling? How’s it going? The traffic coming from Fourways is bloody diabolical this morning, I can tell you.’

  I bent slightly to allow him to give me his customary peck on the cheek, while I breathed in a powerful wave of his expensive cologne. His eyes lit up as he noticed my new accessory.

  ‘We’re going to have some fun today,’ he assured me, offering a dirty grin.

  ‘Well, if you’re ready, we can …’

  But, at that moment, I was interrupted by the rattle of dry branches from outside the folly’s front door and a loud cry of, ‘Coo-eee! Emma, are you there?’

  The Judge and I stared at each other for a long, and in my case horrified, moment.

  I was hoping I was hearing things, but then it came again.

  ‘Emma! It’s Gillian.’

  Crap. At the same moment a timid but rapid knocking on the door indicated that Goodness was doing his best to make me aware of the situation.

  What on earth was my neighbour doing? What did she want?

  ‘I’m going to have to step outside for a moment,’ I told the Judge. ‘When I come back, we’ll get started.’

  I turned towards the door, and at the same time that I felt the strap tighten between my legs, I heard the Judge’s warning. ‘Uh-uh, darling. Step outside like that and you’ll soon see ‘‘For Sale’’ signs going up all around the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Tell her I’ll be a minute,’ I called to Goodness through the closed door. Hastily I shrugged off my coat. Hands behind my back, offering stammered apologies to the Judge for the delay, I began tugging ineffectually at the buckles.

  ‘Here, let me give you a hand,’ he said. ‘Damn it. This little bugger really is stuck. Bend over the horse, sweetheart. I’m going to have to force it open.’

  Great. Now here I was, legs splayed, prostrated over my own punishment horse in my basque and bikini panties, while directly behind me the Judge engaged in a tug of war so violent that, at one stage, he jammed his knee into my left buttock to obtain better purchase.

  We were both panting when, eventually, I felt the strap loosen.

  ‘Off you go. And I’ll put it on you again when you come back. It’s a man’s job, darling. A man’s job.’ Cackling, he gave me a hard swipe on my behind with the flat of his palm as I turned towards the door.

  Wrapping my trench coat tightly around me and realising too late that I was still wearing my spurs, I left the folly. I closed the door behind me and gave a reassuring nod to Goodness, who was standing near the Judge’s Range Rover and looking worried. Then I hurried over to the bushy undergrowth where, on the other side of the palisade, I could see Gillian was once again rattling a branch with her well-manicured fingers.

  ‘Morning,’ I said, hoping she couldn’t see me too clearly through the foliage.

  ‘Emma, I just wanted to say, firstly, how sorry Keith and I are about your husband’s accident.’

  ‘No problem.’ I glanced over my shoulder at the folly’s closed door. Now she decides to come and tell me this? Now, while I have a paying customer left alone and unattended?

  ‘What is happening in that cottage?’ Gillian asked curiously, a question that sent a thrill of fear through me. ‘You know, every time Keith and I drive past, it seems there’s a different luxury car parked under that carport.’

  I tried for a light laugh but it came out more like a nervous giggle.

  ‘I have no idea. There’s a tenant living there and he works from home, I think.’

  A strident silence followed my comment and I had time to kick myself inwardly at the idiocy of my statement, because Gillian was now doubtless assuming that my tenant was either a male gigolo or a dealer in expensive drugs.

  ‘Maybe you should ask him what he does,’ she reprimanded me in chilly tones.

  ‘Oh, I will, I will,’ I said. ‘Most definitely. And if it’s anything he shouldn’t be doing, I’ll tell him to stop. But anyway. What can I help you with right now?’

  ‘It’s about this problem area. Keith said I should ask you if we can send our gardener over to help cut back the shrubbery.’

  ‘Well, you could do,’ I told her. ‘But it’d be a waste of time. I’ve decided I’m going to build a wall this winter.’

  ‘A wall?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What kind of wall?’There was panic in Gillian’s voice now and I knew she was envisioning a cheap, pre-cast, concrete monstrosity.

  ‘I’m still deciding. Face brick, probably. Possibly plastered.’ There was panic in my voice, too. What would it take to make her go away, fast? How could I end this conversation? It was cutting into my client’s hard penetration time, but at short notice I couldn’t think of a good reason to rush off.

  ‘I think we need to discuss this wall, Emma,’ Gillian said.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘But not now, if you don’t mind. I’ve got … er … I’ve got the plumber inside at the moment, and he’s waiting for me to show him where the problem is.’ Plumbing wasn’t too far removed from what I was about to do with the Judge. No wonder that word had been at the forefront of my mind.

  ‘Well, when can we speak about this?’

  ‘Give me a call a bit closer to the time – um, later next month. I’m sure we can come up with some ideas that will suit us both.’This was surreal. A minute ago I’d been wrestling to remove a stubborn strap-on sex toy, and now here I was, debating walls. ‘I have to go,’ I told her.

  As I spun round, ready to hurry back inside, my spurs interlocked and I almost toppled to the ground. Pinwheeling my arms, I managed to free my left foot in time to save myself with a giant, inelegant sideways stomp.

  This was not turning into a good day. I didn’t dare look round to see if Gillian was still watching. I could only pray that my hastily thought-out excuses had mollified her, rather than further inflaming her already considerable curiosity. One thing was for sure, the sooner I could get this wall built, the safer my clients and I would be.

  Chapter 28

  An hour later, the Judge had left, satisfied and replete, after helping me remove the strap-on and, in the process, giving me yet another stinging slap on my backside. I’d thrown away the empty poppers bottle and the condom that I’d put over the pink penis, and had soaked the device itself in a bleach solution. I had washed my hands four times in hot soapy water, and I had crossed myself in relief and gratitude that both my client and I had survived another session without either of us experiencing any cardiac events.

  Picking up my phone and turning the ringtone back on, I saw that I had a missed call.

&n
bsp; My jaw dropped as I saw it was from Simon.

  What did he want? Oh, let this be an opportunity for us to see each other again, I prayed, dialling through to voicemail, my fingers fumbling in haste.

  I waited, seething with impatience, for the message to play.

  ‘Emma? It’s Simon here.’

  Like he still felt the need to tell me who was calling. In case I still didn’t recognise the voice of the man who, in recent weeks, had forced me to run a gamut of emotions from ecstasy to despair. At any rate, he now sounded a lot more like himself. Hopefully he’d vanquished his demons, and I pressed the phone to my ear, eager to hear what he had to say.

  ‘Are you free this evening? If so, would you like to go out to dinner? Sorry for the short notice. I thought I was going to have to fly to Dubai tonight but the trip’s just been postponed. Anyway, chat to you soon, I hope.’

  I felt lightheaded with happiness. I was going to see him. Tonight.

  I called him back straight away.

  ‘I am free and yes, I’d like to join you for dinner,’ I said.

  ‘Great! What time can I pick you up?’

  ‘Um – seven would be good,’ I said, already starting to fret about what I should wear.

  ‘See you then.’He hesitated. ‘Where shall I pick you up from?’

  It was quite obvious, since he knew the dungeon was on my premises, that my house was located at the end of the long sand driveway next to the folly’s gate. He’d never driven up to it, though. From the folly, all you could see was its roof and one of the east-facing windows on the upper floor. And that was quite enough. I couldn’t allow him to get closer.

  ‘Oh, from the dungeon will be fine,’ I said. As opposed to having to park in the unpaved driveway and walk through the nonexistent garden to pick me up from my half-finished house. The dungeon it was, definitely.

  We said our goodbyes and rang off, and I dashed upstairs, phone still in hand, and opened my cupboard, praying that a brandnew, sexy outfit might have suddenly materialised. It hadn’t, of course, so I’d have to make a plan – I could wear the pair of black pants, and that scoop-necked black-and-silver top that would show off my cleavage if paired with one of my glamorous new bras.