by Sue Horsford
As I stood there, trying to work out whether Abe Lincoln was smoking a joint, I was joined by Elvis.
“Hey, sugar,” he said in what was possibly the worst southern drawl I’d ever heard, “are you lonesome tonight?”
I shrank away from the smell of stale beer and gave him a tight smile then turned away, hoping he’d get the message, but no such luck.
“So, howdya know Fluff?” he demanded.
“She went to school with my younger sister.”
“You here with your sister? Cool. Does she look anything like you? Are you twins?”
“No, we’re not. The clue’s in the word younger.”
“Okay, no need to get nasty, babe. I’m only being friendly.”
“Well I’d rather be on my own, if you don’t mind,” I said.
“There you are, darling,” Gabriel said in a loud voice from behind me. He put one arm around my waist possessively. “Who’s your friend?”
He turned to Elvis with the wide, charming smile of a Hollywood gangster and Elvis suddenly remembered he had to be somewhere else.
“Thank you,” I said. “He was getting very annoying.”
“Well, you can’t blame him,” said Gabriel. “You are far and away the sexiest woman here.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really?” I said archly. “I thought that award went to Lady Godiva.”
“God, no, not my type at all, far too obvious in that body stocking, and she kept calling me Dick and giggling.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Exactly. Plus she’s a blonde. You know I prefer fiery redheads.”
“Talking of which,” I said, jerking my head in the direction of the back door.
Gabriel turned to see Ginny bearing down on him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
“I’m talking to your sister.”
“And what were you doing talking to that blonde slut?”
“Ssshh, Ginny,” I said. “People will hear you.”
She raised her voice, “I don’t care if people do hear me. They shouldn’t be listening to other people’s conversations.”
People were starting to stare, but Gabriel didn’t seem too concerned. “I’m sorry, Ginny. I assumed you’d gone off with the guy in the kilt. He seemed really keen on you, I thought.”
Ginny said nothing, just stared at Gabriel as if she was trying to read his mind. Then her eyes narrowed. “He’s at least ten years younger than you,” she said.
“Oh, at least,” he agreed.
“I’ll probably see him again.”
“I think you should.”
She turned to me. “I want to go home. I’ve got a headache.”
I was about to suggest that I stay at the party, but she grabbed my arm.
“Come on.” She turned to look back at Gabriel as she dragged me away. “I wouldn’t want to spoil your fun, Gabriel,” she said, smiling sweetly. “You can always get a taxi, can’t you?”
He doffed his hat to her with a bow and her fingers dug into my arm.
In the car, I asked her where we were going. “Really, I should get back and see how Paul is,” I said.
This was a lie. Paul would be perfectly all right without me, but I didn’t want to be with Ginny right now.
“Paul will be fine,” she said. “I need you more than he does right now. We’re going back to mine.”
Back at Ginny’s flat, she turned on the living room lamps, waking Nicholas who blinked at us from the depths of his favorite armchair. “Oh, Nicholas!” Ginny cried, running over to him and burying her face in his warm black fur. “Why are men such bastards?”
Nicholas seemed to have no opinion on the subject and, besides, he wasn’t a great fan of such close contact. He wriggled out of her arms and stalked into the kitchen to stand before his bowl, where he uttered a single imperious meow.
“I’ll see to Nicholas,” I said. “You pour us a couple of large drinks.”
Ginny lifted a bottle of pinot grigio down from the cupboard. “It’s not chilled,” she said.
“That’s okay.”
We carried our drinks into the living room where Ginny took a small sip of hers and grimaced. “I don’t want that. It’s warm.” She pushed it over to me. “You have it.”
“Well, at least now you know what he’s really like,” I said. “It never would have worked out between the two of you. Just as well it’s all over.”
“Oh, it’s far from over. He hasn’t paid yet.”
I stared at her. “What will you do?”
“Oh, nothing yet.” She smiled. “Just watch this space.”
I finished my drink and looked at the clock. It was only half past nine, but I didn’t want to sit there with Ginny any longer. I knew she just wanted someone to agree with everything she said, someone to tell her that she was right and that Gabriel was a bastard, but how could I do that without being a total hypocrite? Besides, I wanted to speak to Gabriel. Would he have stayed at the party without us? Was he even now finishing what he’d started with Lady Godiva, despite her blonde hair and dubious double entendres? As I was wondering how soon I could make my excuses, my mobile vibrated in my handbag with a text message, and I went off to the bathroom, taking my bag with me.
The message was from Gabriel.
I’m back at my house.
I texted him back.
I’m at Ginny’s about to leave.
The message came back immediately.
Get a taxi. I’ll pay.
Gabriel was waiting at his front gate, still wearing his costume, minus the coat and hat. He knocked on the driver’s window with a twenty-pound note in his hand. “Keep the change,” he said. He opened my door for me and handed me out of the car then led me up the path without a word.
Once the front door was closed behind us, Gabriel slipped straight into Dominant mode. “My bedroom now,” he growled. “Take off everything except your jewelry. I want to see you standing in front of the mirror admiring yourself. I want you proud and haughty, Queen Boudicca, so I can humble you.”
In Gabriel’s room, the lights were off, the only illumination coming from the candles flickering on the fireplace. In one corner was a full-length, free-standing mirror and I stood before it naked except for my torque, my headband, my wristbands and my armlet, feeling more excited than I could ever remember.
I didn’t turn as he came in the room. He threw something down on the bed, but I didn’t look.
He came up behind me minus his shirt, but still wearing his breeches and riding boots. He stood behind me, his body not quite touching mine.
“So, Queen Boudicca,” he said, “here you are, naked and vulnerable, totally in my power. Are you ready to kneel to me and acknowledge me as your Master?”
I met his eyes in the mirror and stared back at him defiantly. “Never,” I said through gritted teeth.
Gabriel’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “So proud,” he said, bringing his hands to my breasts and squeezing my nipples painfully. “I shall take great pleasure in taming you, my lady.” He trailed one hand down my body and pulled my thighs apart and spread my lips, two fingers delving deep inside me. “You’re very wet, Boudicca,” he said in my ear. “Anyone would think you liked being conquered and subdued by your Master.”
“You’re not my Master,” I said, “and it’s Queen Boudicca to you.”
Gabriel laughed in delight. “Have you finished admiring yourself, Queen Boudicca? By the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll be too ashamed to look at yourself.”
He gathered up my hair then held it in his clenched fist at the nape of my neck and marched me across to the bed where wrist and ankle cuffs, bondage tape, a riding crop, a butt plug, lubricant and a flogger with short leather tails were laid out in a fearsome display.
“Are you still feeling so defiant, my lady?” he murmured, his voice like silk.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the implements lying on the bed and my knees trembled at the thought o
f what he intended to do to me.
“If at any moment you need me to stop,” he said, “you only need to say one word. Just call me Master and it will all stop.”
“You’ll wait a long time,” I said, playing my role with relish, despite my nerves.
“Oh, I think you’ll find I can be a very patient man,” he said. He kissed the back of my neck and shoulders, and the tenderness of his actions, in the light of what he intended to do to me, made me shiver. Gabriel certainly knew his craft. “You have one more chance, my lady,” he said. “Submit to me now or you’ll be flogged.”
I said nothing.
“Very well,” he said, picking up the wrist cuffs from the bed. He fastened them securely around my wrists, removing the decorative wristbands I’d been wearing. Then he passed long strips of tape through the rings in the cuffs and tied them to the bedposts and secured my ankles in the same way so I was held immobile, arms and legs outstretched, between the two posts.
For a split second, I felt a tiny frisson of fear as I realized I was totally helpless. But this was Gabriel. This was my Master and I would always be safe with him.
He picked up the clamps and attached them to my nipples, making me suck in my breath as they pinched the delicate flesh. Then he moved back to the bed and picked up the flogger.
I watched, hypnotized at the sight of him stripped to the waist, the warm glow of candlelight playing across his bare skin as he caressed the tails almost lovingly.
His eyes met mine and he smiled. “I will bring you to heel, my warrior woman, and you will kneel before me.”
Taking up position behind me, he let the tails of the flogger trail down my back then he began to whip me lightly on my back, shoulders, buttocks and the backs of my legs, the tails leaving a warm, tingling feeling everywhere they touched.
He flogged me gently for a good ten minutes, not saying a word. The only other sound apart from the slap of leather against flesh was my breathing, shallow and uneven. Then my skin began to feel hot and sensitive and I let out a whimper.
“Feeling submissive yet, my queen?” Gabriel whispered, his breath hot in my ear.
“No,” I whispered back. This was a lie. I was feeling submissive, but this role-play was so erotic I wasn’t ready to give in just yet.
He flogged me harder, concentrating on my buttocks, and the tails began to sting where they touched and I let out a cry in spite of myself.
“Just say the word and it will all be over,” murmured my torturer seductively.
I shook my head fiercely.
Gabriel kept whipping until some sixth sense must have told him I was near capitulation, and he stopped. He stroked my smarting flesh with cool fingers. “Well, my lady, you took your flogging like a true queen, but let’s see if I can shame you into submission.”
He arranged two pillows one on top of the other on the bed then untied my wrists and ankles. “Face down over those pillows,” he said in a tone that left no room for argument.
I lay flat with the pillows under my belly, wincing as my breasts were crushed against the mattress and the tiny clamps on my nipples seemed to bite cruelly. As I lay there, trembling with anticipation, my pussy throbbed deliciously and I knew I was dripping wet for my Master.
“Bring your knees up to the pillow,” he ordered.
I did as he said, my ass sticking up in the air, as if I was presenting myself to him.
“Not so regal now, are you, my lady?” he taunted me. “Hands down by your ankles.” He picked up the roll of bondage tape and bound my wrists to my ankles so I was immobilized and vulnerable, then he climbed onto the bed behind me.
I felt something cold and slippery being stroked onto my anus and I whimpered.
“Ssshh,” said Gabriel. “It’s just lubricant so I can slip your butt plug in nice and easy.”
One finger pushed the lubricant inside me and I managed to keep still, but when I felt the metal tip of the butt plug, I couldn’t help but try to draw away from it, despite the fact that, with my wrists attached to my ankles, I could only move an inch or two. Gabriel sat next to me on the bed and wrapped his left arm round my waist, trapping me, then, ignoring my whimpers of protest, he pushed in the butt plug. The cold, hard weight of it seemed to press down onto my vagina, an odd feeling, but strangely erotic and I whimpered again, this time with pleasure.
“Are you ready to submit?” he asked me.
“No.”
“Then stop whining right now or I’ll gag you.”
He got up off the bed and brought the full-length mirror over, positioning it so I had a clear view of myself trussed up, ass in the air with the end of the plug protruding from my butt.
“How does it feel to be restrained and humbled by your Master?” he said. “Still feeling proud and haughty, my girl? Watch while I tame you.” He picked up the crop and tapped it sharply across my buttocks.
The sensation was more pleasure than pain, a delicious sting as the crop bit into my flesh that made me writhe and groan. Every movement I made, however slight, caused the plug to shift inside me and the clamps to pinch my nipples harder, increasing my desire.
Unable to stop myself, I cried out, and Gabriel stopped.
“I did warn you,” he said. He pulled a strip of tape off the roll and covered my mouth with it, winding it several times around my head. “That should keep you quiet, madam.” He picked up the crop again.
I watched us in the mirror. The sight of myself bound and gagged, totally at Gabriel’s mercy, the play of muscles in his arm as he expertly plied the crop, making sure every inch of my ass was tingling and burning, brought me close to surrender, not because of the pain or the humiliation, but because I wanted—no, needed—to throw myself at his feet and call him Master.
Gabriel stopped thrashing me and he slipped his hand between my legs. His fingers swirled around my clit, slowly at first then moving faster, sending me toward the brink. I gave a muffled cry, but Gabriel stopped cruelly, leaving me on the edge.
“Have you anything to say to me?” he asked gently as he pulled off the tape so I could speak.
“Please, Master, please let me kneel at your feet.” Without warning, I started to cry, huge waves of emotion washing over me.
Gabriel eased out the plug and released me from my bonds. “On your knees then, my queen.”
I slid off the bed to kneel at his feet and kissed his boots in a kind of ecstasy. He left me fawning at his feet for a moment, then he pulled me up onto the bed. He sat me on the edge and pushed me onto my back. He knelt on the floor between my legs.
“See, now your Master’s kneeling before his queen,” he said to me, bringing a fresh outburst of tears from me. He bent his head and dropped light kisses onto the tops of my thighs, teasing me until I couldn’t bear it any longer.
“Please, Master,” I whispered through my tears.
He pulled my thighs wide apart. “Is this what you want?” he whispered back, touching his lips to my clitoris.
“Oh, God, yes.” I arched my back as he moved his tongue in slow, tortuous movements, bringing me to an orgasm so deep and intense it was like nothing I’d ever felt before. I wrapped my fingers in his hair. “Oh, God, Gabriel, Master, don’t stop!”
As my orgasm finally died away, he climbed onto the bed beside me and held my shuddering body, kissing away the tears from my cheeks.
I couldn’t hold my feelings in any longer. “I love you, Gabriel.”
He made no reply, simply held me and stroked my hair.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“What for?”
“For all the emotion.”
“That’s quite natural during a scene,” he said. “It’s just a release of tension.”
“I shouldn’t have said that, though.”
“That you loved me?”
“Yes,” I said, hiding my face in his chest in embarrassment.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.” He kissed the top of my head. “It’s quite natural for an emotional bond to
grow between us. I’m sorry I didn’t say it back to you. But I did warn you when we met.”
“I know,” I said. “And you’re not going to get frightened off?”
“Absolutely not,” he promised me.
I snuggled deeper into his embrace. “I think Ginny hates you.”
He sighed. “I was a bastard tonight. I’m not proud of myself. But I just thought if I could do something to put her off me then she could tell me to go to hell and walk off into the sunset with her dignity intact.” He kissed my head again. “I could have handled it a lot better, but it’s done now, anyway.”
“She said she’s going to make you pay.” I looked up at him, suddenly worried.
Gabriel frowned. “And what does that mean, do you suppose?”
“I’ve no idea. I’ve never seen her like this before, so I don’t know what she’s capable of.” I clutched at him. “You will be careful, won’t you?”
Gabriel laughed. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ve had dealings with far crazier women than your sister. What’s the worst she could do?”
Chapter Twelve
My first thought when Gabriel phoned and said he wanted to take me out for dinner on Friday evening was that we were finally going to do something normal couples did, then he said, “Oh, and don’t wear your best underwear.”
So when Friday came, I put on my black shift dress and I did wear nice panties, not the expensive black lacy ones I’d bought a few weeks ago, but a pair of high cut briefs that were so sheer as to be almost see-through.
Gabriel opened the door to me dressed in an expensive dark suit and crisp white shirt with gold cufflinks at his wrists. He kissed me then drew back and looked at what I was wearing.
“Very nice,” he said, “but you’re going to have to change out of that dress. I’ve already chosen your dress for tonight.” He took my hand and led me up to the bedroom. “Take off your dress and bra.”
I did as he said and he passed me another dress. I recognized it straight away. It was the dress he’d bought in the charity shop in Chester, a soft summer cotton dress that buttoned all the way up the front.
“Why,” I began to say, then caught his eye and closed my mouth. I put it on then caught sight of myself in the mirror and laughed. “I look very sweet and innocent.”