“Thanks for all your help. Rosie’s smiling down on you. With love from Andrew and Ashley.”
Chapter 9
Ashley was kneeling up, her hands on her thighs, her legs spread. She was naked except for a slim, black leather collar Andrew had ordered for her online. He liked the way it looked against her fair skin. She was collared!
It was she who had come to him and asked for the collar. She was attending a course three days a week to get her GED, catching up on what she’d missed in high school. This left her plenty of free time to keep house and cook for him, to take Betty for regular walks and to read her treasured books. And of course to make delicious love with him every night. She also found time to surf the Internet looking for new BDSM sites to explore.
“I had no idea this BDSM stuff was so prevalent.” she’d exclaimed one afternoon. “It’s like the whole world is into it, Andrew.”
“It only seems that way because you did a search on it. Try another topic, another kink and you’ll find just as many folks into that.”
Andrew leaned over Ashley’s shoulder to see what she was doing. She was on a BDSM chat site with the heading Masters Seeking Subs. Andrew teased, “I’m not going to lose you to some online Dom, am I? You’re not making any promises to these guys, are you?”
“Oh, no, Andrew,” Ashley responded seriously, turning to stare at him with those innocent blue eyes. “I did talk to some of them. Respond, you know, to their messages, but nothing like that!”
Andrew smiled. Ashley could be so serious. He knew it would take time to help uncover the lightheartedness that had never had a chance to bloom in her. Gently he said, “I know, sweetie. I was just teasing you. I’m not threatened by those online wannabes. Most of them are really just kids anyway, with no clue about what they’re talking about. Still, you’d probably spend your time more wisely going to the bulletin boards and BDSM sites where people post articles and testimonials.”
“Oh, I know. I’ve been there too. You can really waste time on this damn computer. Now I see why Greg was so into it. I seriously doubt he was doing trades all day and all night. I bet he was surfing for porn! Speaking of which,” she pointed her mouse to the favorites button on her toolbar and selected something that caused a photograph to pop up on the screen.
It was an Asian woman, bound from head to toe in rope, suspended upside down by one ankle from a tree. The picture was arresting, with the sun lit behind her as a backdrop so that she looked as though she was lined in gold. Andrew had never been big into bondage, but just as a work of art, this was quite a picture.
“Wow,” he said. “That’s something. It must have taken hours and a crane or something to let her down that way. But look at her face. She looks so serene.”
“Yeah. It’s Japanese. Those Japanese are really into bondage, at least if the Internet is any indication. I know it’s a weird picture. I would never really want that done to me, but at the same time,” she glanced at him, perhaps to gauge his reaction, “at the same time it really turns me on.” She flushed a little but continued. “To be completely bound like that. Unable to move. Unable to resist whatever your master wanted to do to you…”
She trailed off as Andrew said, “Master, huh?” Andrew wasn’t entirely comfortable yet with the title, though he had no trouble using the word “slave”. He knew it was just a matter of semantics, but he much preferred to think of their equal and consensual exchange of power. Neither mastered the other. They each gave of themselves in the beautiful dance that was D/s.
He didn’t voice these thoughts but instead said, “So tell me. What did you discover today, besides gorgeous Japanese women bound within an inch of their lives?” That’s when she had clicked on the BDSM catalogue site, moving her mouse to point at the slave collars. She slid past the thick ones with silver studs and spikes, letting the pointer settle on the pretty little strip of very soft leather that had a single silver loop sewn into the front.
Andrew drew in his breath. Did she understand the significance of a slave collar? The ownership it implied? Or was this just a pretty piece of jewelry she wanted to wear like some fashionable choker the young girls wore?
She surprised him with her next words. “I know it’s forward of me to ask that you buy me a collar. But I want to wear one for you. I want to express my submission to you in a tangible way. I want to wear it all the time except when you remove it as it pleases you.”
Her voice was soft and low, with a sensual sureness that was newfound. She knew what she wanted. How different from the passive, frightened young woman he had found trembling and sobbing at the door of the bookstore.
Moved, Andrew had wrapped his arms around her and answered, “I would be honored if you’d wear my collar, Ashley.”
And now here she knelt, the collar so pretty and sexy against her throat. Her eyes were downcast as befit a slave girl, but her posture spoke of her pride. Andrew knelt in front of her and said, “Who do you belong to?”
“You, sir.”
“And what are you willing to do for me?”
“Anything, sir.”
“What’s your safe word?”
A pause, then, “Flashlight, sir.” Ashley looked up at him suddenly and bit her lip. It was clear she wanted to speak but when they were in this mode, she knew she was only to speak when responding to a direct question.
He saw the question in her face and said, “What? What is it?”
“It’s just—I know we’ve talked about this before, but this safe word thing. I don’t need a safe word. It seems, I don’t know, artificial. It makes it a game.”
“I know you’ve said that, Ashley. And you don’t have to use it. I know you’ve said you want me to be the one to stop it or start. I know you trust me completely in that regard and I love you for that.”
He stroked her impossibly soft cheek with a finger and continued. “Think of it as something for me, Ash. I’ve told you this is new for me too. New as something real, and not just a game. I’m not sure of my own limits, much less yours. This will give me comfort that if things do get out of control, you’ll have a very clear way of letting me know. You see? I just want you to feel completely safe. We’re not going to play around tonight. You’ve insisted you want this whipping, and I intend to give it to you. But what if it’s too much?
“You think this is going to be a sexy little massage,” he fingered the heavy-tressed flogger he held in his hands, purchased at the same online sex boutique as the collar. It was made from braided burgundy leather, the handle nicely weighted, the suede tresses long and soft. A good first whip to introduce her to the pleasures of erotic pain.
Janet had loved a “thuddy whipping” as she called it when he used a flogger, quickly moving to that near-trance state of submissive compliance where it seemed that he could have cut off her arm and she wouldn’t have protested.
But how would Ashley react? How would the real beatings she’d received in her life, at the hands of her father and that asshole Mundy, affect her ability to process a sensual whipping between consensual partners?
As he looked at her sweet, trusting expression, Andrew felt misgivings for the hundredth time. He would never have dreamed of initiating her into the world of erotic submission if she hadn’t stumbled on those books and essentially forced the issue.
His initial efforts to dissuade her had been half-hearted, he had to admit. His surprise and secret joy to discover that the woman he had come to believe was his soul mate was also submissive or at least expressed an interest in a D/s lifestyle had seemed almost too good to be true. Part of him felt an obligation to refuse her. She couldn’t handle this after all she’d been through. Could she?
But she’d put him in his place. He smiled now remembering how she’d said, in that serious sweet way of hers, “Andrew, no offense, but I’ve been through more in my twenty-four years than you’ll probably experience in a lifetime. And I’m here to tell the tale. Don’t you think I can make up my own mind? Make my own decisions?<
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“Did I leave Greg only to come to someone else who is going to tell me what is good for me and what I ought and ought not to do? Who is going to decide for me what I can and can’t take? Don’t you give me more credit?”
Now as he looked down on this lovely woman waiting eagerly for a whipping he reiterated, “This is your first whipping. We’ll take it slow at first. I will gauge what I think you can handle. You can struggle or you can stay still and take it. Either way I won’t stop until I’ve decided you’ve had enough. The decision is removed from you, do you understand?”
As she nodded, her eyes wide, her cheeks flushed, he added softly, “That’s why the safe word, darling. It isn’t only the sub who can be transported by this intense experience. The Dom can be swept away too.” He stroked her back, trailing his fingers along her spine and reveling in her little shiver. “You might say ‘no’ or ‘stop’, and I won’t stop, because I’ll know those are just automatic responses to the new sensations of the stinging whip and, if you truly want this, the heat in your pussy. You get mixed up, you might say, because it all becomes so intense. But you won’t just scream out ‘flashlight’ unless it’s a conscious decision on your part. Do you understand? It’s to protect us both.”
Slowly Ashley nodded though Andrew could see she wasn’t convinced. He would just have to feel his way with her as she was clearly doing with him. Would she come to crave the lash? Or would it frighten her, sending her back into some dark place where all men were monsters and a beautiful whip, lovingly wielded, was confused with the abuse of a son of a bitch like Greg Mundy?
Forcing himself to quiet his own trepidations, Andrew pressed gently against Ashley’s back, a signal that she was to kneel down, ass in the air, and wait for whatever he gave her. Ashley sighed, a low sexy sound that he knew was part excitement, part fear. His cock responded, hardening as he handled the soft tresses of the whip and snapped them in the air. Ashley jumped a little as he had anticipated and he smiled.
She was tightly strung now, tense and as ready as she would ever be for the first kiss of the lash. Slowly he smoothed her bare ass as if preparing the skin for what was to come. “I’m going to whip you now, slave girl,” he murmured, and was met with an answering little sigh.
The first strokes were gentle, not much more than the massage he had said she shouldn’t expect. Ashley moved a little at each lash but otherwise was silent. She seemed to be taking it well and so he increased the intensity just a little, moving from her ass to her back.
As a few of the tresses curled around her rib cage, striking her soft breast, Ashley cried out and jerked spasmodically. Andrew, who hadn’t meant for that to happen, quickly knelt down, his hands seeking the spot he had just struck.
He smoothed the tender flesh, feeling the heat he’d created with his lash. He didn’t apologize or even think of stopping the whipping. A sub should learn to accept the occasional errant flick of the whip. It was her place to suffer whatever he chose to mete out.
Ashley’s eyes were screwed tightly shut and her breathing was labored. “Shh, shh,” he said soothingly. “Take it easy, baby. You’re doing beautifully. You look so sexy right now. You look so hot kneeling like that, your sweet ass offered up for my lash. There, yes, slow your breathing, Ashley. Yes, that’s it.” Gently he touched her back and ass, smoothing away the sting.
“Shall I continue?” he asked, secretly testing her reaction.
“That’s up to you, sir,” she whispered, passing the test with flying colors. Now he grinned broadly and stood. Exhilaration coursed through him as he realized she was answering and responding as a true submissive, leaving the decision of her whipping up to him. How different from Janet who had always controlled the show, ordering him to stop when she was hot enough for sex or ordering him to continue if that pleased her at the moment. Their game had been fun but he had never Dommed her, and he knew it now more firmly than ever.
“Stand up,” he commanded, and Ashley slowly stood, unfolding her gorgeous body, the perfect breasts like soft little peaches on her torso, the nipples hard and erect. “Put your hands behind your neck, locking your fingers.” As she obeyed, he stood close in front of her and bent toward her, kissing her hard on the mouth.
She responded eagerly, parting her lips, her tongue seeking his. When he pulled away, it was she who moved forward like an eager little bird.
“Are you ready for a real whipping now?” he murmured in her ear. Ashley, whose eyes had fluttered closed, nodded slowly. This was it—the first real test of her submission. Andrew felt adrenaline pumping through him as though he was ready to run a race. He held himself under tight control as he began to whip his beautiful girl again.
The first strikes were gentle, as before. As Ashley swayed and moved in time with the lash, he again increased the intensity and tempo.
Ashley moaned and jerked when the whip caught her on the tender flesh just below her ass. Lovely pink lines were crisscrossing her back, her thighs and her ass, and still she managed to move only a little with each strike while keeping her fingers laced behind her head.
Andrew’s cock was straining in his jeans and he felt sweaty, almost feverish. Dropping the whip for a moment, he pulled off his T-shirt and slid out of his jeans. He stroked his cock through the cotton of his underwear as he savored the beauty of Ashley’s flesh, turned pink at his hand.
Reaching down he forced her legs a little farther apart as his fingers sought her hot cleft. Pressing a finger into her pussy, he met with the slick wetness of her obvious desire. Her labia were swollen as he slid his fingers over them, wrenching a moan of pleasure from her. He continued to fondle and tease her until she moaned again, grinding her pelvis wantonly against him. He pulled his fingers away, leaving her on the edge of desire.
“You want this, don’t you? You need what I’m giving you?”
Her eyes slowly opened and she fixed him with a piercing gaze. “Yes,” she breathed, her voice low and throaty, “Yes, yes, yes.”
Andrew didn’t need another invitation. Grabbing the whip, he began to stroke her in earnest, his passion unbridled by her overt permission that he continue. It was clear she wanted what he so desperately wanted to give.
The only sound in the room was the lash, its whistle the second before it made contact, and then the loud smacking sound of leather against skin. Ashley’s heavy breathing overlay it all, keeping a kind of frenzied tempo to this strange and heady dance.
One particularly savage strike of the whip against her back, much more sensitive than her padded buttocks, sent her sprawling forward, her arms flailing wildly in front of her to regain her balance. Andrew grabbed for her, catching her from behind in his arms. Pulling her head back, he roughly kissed her mouth again, his lust almost out of control.
“This is your fault,” he whispered hoarsely. “Your fault for being so fucking beautiful. So perfectly submissive. I can’t stop. I can’t stop. This whip is a part of me. I use it on you and you become a part of it. Can you take more, slave girl? Can you?”
As he spoke, he pushed her from him, grabbing her arms and bending them again so her hands were behind her head as before. She locked her trembling fingers together and stood, her chest heaving, her head falling back so that her blonde hair streamed over her fingers and her crisscrossed back.
He focused on her ass, whipping her hard now, as hard as he’d ever dared whip Janet. Part of him was amazed she was taking so much and the very first time. He kept expecting to hear her safe word or at least a “no” or a “please”, but nothing came from her lips but the staccato of her labored breathing.
He touched her sex again—she was soaked and hot to the touch, literally on fire. Stepping back, the smell of her arousal sweet on his fingers, he whipped her again and again. Each strike of the lash against tender flesh felt like a stroke of long fingers against his cock. He felt as if he might orgasm just from whipping this beautiful girl.
Dimly, caught in his own dominant trance and rhythm, he knew he
should stop now. This was her first time. He didn’t want to damage her. He didn’t want to overdo. And yet, how still she stood—how tall and straight—taking what he gave with such amazing grace.
One more and one more still. Oh, he had to stop. His last blow was savage, delivered with too much force and Ashley fell forward, dropping to her knees, her head bowed. His trance was broken by her fall and he dropped the whip, suddenly horrified that he had gone too far. He had violated her sacred trust in him as her Dom.
Kneeling quickly behind her, he gently pulled Ashley back into his arms. She was whispering something, her head lolling back, her eyes closed. He leaned forward to hear it better.
“Flashlight.” Then she passed out.
Chapter 10
“No.”
“Oh, come on,” she said, an edge of irritation beneath her plea. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m sorry, but the answer is no.”
They were sitting in bed together, naked and cozy under the covers, the Sunday paper spread out around them. Ashley had slipped from the bed to retrieve the flogger and was playfully waving it in Andrew’s direction.
Three days had passed since the whipping session. Three days of vanilla-only sex that had Ashley frustrated and itching for more BDSM play.
In a more serious tone she said, “Have I failed you so completely, Andrew, that you won’t give me another chance?”
“No, oh, god, no. It isn’t you. You were magnificent. I’m the one who failed, Ashley. I didn’t know when to stop. I didn’t pick up the signals. Or I did, but somehow I chose to ignore them. I let my own lust and excitement get in the way of taking care of you. Of being a responsible Dom who doesn’t betray the trust of his sub.”
“Andrew, stop it. Listen, you said yourself we’re learning together in this. Yes, maybe you went too far but it was my fault too. I was determined not to use that stupid safe word come hell or high water. I should have made my needs clearer. I should have communicated better.”
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