The Scarlett Letters

by Jenny Nordbak

  “Thank you, Sir,” I said with a slight curtsy that he seemed to approve of.

  “Really, though, Scarlett, your body is almost perfect. Supple, smooth, just enough definition.”

  A client earlier in the shift had remarked, “Damn, girl … you got man calves!” To each his own, I suppose.

  He had been circling me for an uncomfortable amount of time, and I was getting bored, so I giggled this time instead of saying “thank you” to the compliment. I think he was relieved to have had a trigger. Someone who wants to train a slave has to have behavioral issues to correct or there is nothing to teach or punish for.

  “I give you a fucking compliment, and you can’t even say ‘thank you’?” he demanded with over-the-top feigned anger.

  “I’m sorry, Sir!”

  “Sorry isn’t good enough! You need to learn proper respect, you little slut! Get on your hands and knees!”

  I did. He grabbed me by the hair and started to lead me around the room. We had established that a little hair pulling was fair game. He walked faster and faster back and forth, and I had to keep up by crawling at his speed or he yanked my hair. He did this for a while, but since I had no problems keeping up, he figured out that he would need to try something different. I could have deliberately slowed down, but I knew exactly how dirty that floor was and didn’t really want to spend any more time there than was necessary.

  He had me stand up and led me over to the suspension bar toward the back of the room. He tied each of my wrists to the rings on either end of the bar. He now had me stretched up almost on my tiptoes, and he added a blindfold for good measure. This was the first time I had been blindfolded at the Dungeon. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience and let me relax and go to my own headspace without worrying about him seeing that I wasn’t really paying attention.

  “Now, my slave, I’m going to flog you for your insolence!”

  Done well, being hit with a flogger feels like a deep tissue massage, but can be wickedly painful if applied for a long period of time. Erin had demonstrated for me what it should feel like, but I quickly learned that Tom was not anywhere near as skilled. Shortly after that, I stopped expecting any of my clients to live up to any of the girls that I worked with. With very rare exceptions, they couldn’t hold a candle to the pro Dommes.

  Tom’s aim was terrible, and he was wrapping horrendously. He had chosen a thick, heavy flogger that no doubt looked impressive and brutal to him. Heavy floggers are indeed capable of heavier blows, but they are also just plain heavy, so they require a significant amount of arm strength from the person wielding them. Tom did not possess that kind of strength, so although he was wrapping, it wasn’t doing me any harm because he couldn’t throw it hard.

  The giggles strike at the strangest times when you work in a dungeon, and this was one of those instances. The more he flogged me, the more ridiculous it all seemed, and the more I giggled. He thought I was deliberately egging him on, so he was trying to throw the flogger harder. The harder he tried, the worse his aim became and the less effective his blows were … which just made me giggle more.

  When he gave up, untied me, and took the blindfold off, he was red in the face and sweating profusely. This sent me into paroxysms of laughter again. I still can’t explain what was so funny, but I couldn’t stop laughing.

  “You think this is funny, slave?” he screamed, spit flying from his mouth.

  “No, Sir,” I managed to get out by holding my breath.

  “Get on the bench, slave. I’m going to teach you to respect your Master.”

  Deep breath. Come on. Not funny. Not funny. Not funny.

  I crawled up on the spanking horse and straddled it, bending over enticingly and shaking my ass a little. I had managed to stop laughing, but I was still feeling sassy enough to push his buttons.

  That was the night I began to understand the way a SAM’s mind works. A Smart-ass Masochist (SAM) is a term for one of the most difficult subs to manage as a Domme. Usually, they aren’t submissive at all; rather they have mostly dominant tendencies, but are masochists who like to play with Dommes. This means that they will talk back, laugh in your face, and demand more at every turn. Many a Domme gets pissed and in their frustration, gives them exactly what they want. If you can break a SAM this way it can be great, but takes a great deal of energy and usually leaves you both exhausted and potentially unhappy. It is hard to turn back and save face once you have committed to this method, so you better be sure you’re prepared to really go there. I would come to learn that like a petulant child, it’s best not to give in to them. I would find something they genuinely didn’t like: tickling, CBT, nipple torture, paper cuts … everyone had something, and do that instead until they were more manageable.

  Unfortunately, Tom didn’t realize the spiral he had stepped into. He had committed to breaking me, and given that he only had a soft leather paddle, a pair of floggers he couldn’t manage, and his hands, he was going to have a tough time with that. I had taken anything that I didn’t like or couldn’t handle off the table during the interview. It was risky to push a client like this. He could not like it and not play with me again, but I was feeling flippant.

  “Let’s see whatcha got, then … Sir,” I said, shaking my ass to make it an inviting target. He was excited by the challenge, and waved the paddle in front of my face menacingly.

  “I’m going to make you regret that, slave. I’m going to give you ten good ones with the paddle and then ten good ones with my hand, and I want you to count.”

  How original.

  He was pretty good with a paddle, and ten strokes had my ass stinging, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t shake off. I wasn’t finished being a smart-ass, though.

  “That was good, slave. You took that very well. I think you are starting to learn. It will take many more months of training, but under my careful hand, we will mold you into one of the best slaves in the kingdom. Then I will give you to the sultan as a gift, and reap the rewards. Now ten good ones with my hand.”

  Smack. “One, Sir.”

  Smack. “One, Sir.”

  Smack. “One, Sir.”

  “Slave…” he said menacingly.

  “Yes, Sir?” I asked innocently.

  “I believe you are at four.”

  “Oh. I’m so sorry, Sir. I must have forgotten how to count properly.”

  “We will start back at one for your mistake. Now, ten good ones.”

  Smack. “One, Sir.”

  Smack. “One, Sir.”

  SMACK. “One, Sir.”

  He caved and started spanking me over and over again, harder and harder. I put my face down, buried it in the towel, and took in the new sensation. He continued spanking frantically for a while, muttering about training me properly for the sultan the whole time. His blows got lighter, and I could only assume that his hand was starting to sting. That idea made the giggles return for an encore.

  “Are those tears, slave? Have you learned your lesson, then?”

  I tried to keep my face buried to maintain the illusion that I was crying, but he got concerned and walked over to lift my chin. I tried to stop giggling. I really did. But I just couldn’t manage it in time. He lifted my face expecting tears of contrition, and instead saw tears of laughter.

  I expected never to play with Tom again after that first session, but we played together for months after that. He said he felt alive again playing with me, that I was a challenge the likes of which he hadn’t had in some time. We developed a friendship of sorts and I gradually let him “train” me a little more each time we played. I liked him and he had put up with a ridiculous amount of sass from me, so I had no problem fulfilling his fantasy.

  * * *

  There was no doubt that as a sub, I was starting to have a bit of an attitude problem. I was aware of it and tried to keep it to a minimum in my sessions, but I also knew that it came from a place of excitement at the power growing within me. I had discovered a limitless well of confidence and seeme
d to be drunk from it.

  It was in this state that I decided to take a riding crop to the jobsite with me as the solution to my little Vance problem. I waited until I saw him approaching the trailer through the window and laid the crop blatantly on the top of the desk in front of me. At first I thought he was going to miss it and keep walking, but he did a double take and stopped short.

  He looked at it. Looked at me. Laughed awkwardly and said, “Why do you have that?”

  I noted that he hadn’t asked me what it was. I picked it up and ran my left hand down the length of it suggestively and slapped it across my palm when I reached the end.

  “I have it in case I need to teach the next person who ignores me and interrupts my project manager some manners.”

  I let one side of my mouth curl up in a half smirk and arched one eyebrow expectantly.

  “Was there something you needed help with, Vance?”

  “I just need to talk to Rich. Could you check his calendar and let me know when he’ll be available?”

  “Please…”

  “Please.”

  “Why don’t I have him stop by your office in about an hour?”

  “That would be great. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Have a great day!”

  I never had a problem with Vance being rude again. In fact, even when he had a scheduled appointment, he made a point of stopping at my desk and politely asking how I was or how my day was going before continuing on. He always seemed to take a few seconds to glance around my desk, checking for the crop. Maybe he wasn’t sure it had really been there. I could hardly believe I had done it either.

  * * *

  It was a full week before I was scheduled at the Dungeon again, and when I arrived the dressing room was filled with girls I had never seen before. It seemed crazy that so many new people could have started in a week. Maybe I just hadn’t worked the same shifts as them. I was about to introduce myself when Lady Viv came bursting in and said, “I’m out of rooms. I need you girls to clear the dressing room so we can use it for a scene.”

  Everyone scrambled to grab the mess of stuff that was lying around and move it out to the patio. I had never seen the Dungeon this busy or frantic before. Erin walked outside, and I was relieved to finally see a familiar face.

  I hugged her in greeting and asked, “What the hell is going on?”

  “We’ve inherited a bunch of new clients and girls after what happened.”

  Clearly, I was missing something.

  “Viv will chew our asses if she catches us talking about it. She banned everyone from gossiping,” she said, pulling me into a corner by the Dumpster.

  “The owner of the other dungeon by LAX was murdered by a house slave he tried to fire. The house slave came back with a gun, killed the owner and his dog, and burned the building down. The cops found him hiding in the bushes outside.”

  “Holy shit, that’s terrible.”

  “It is. I never worked there, so I didn’t know him, but most of the other girls did. For a few days it was really quiet while everyone absorbed what happened, but girls still gotta make money and guys still gotta get their fix, so life goes on. They’re obviously closed now, so we inherited their clients and their girls. It’s chaos.”

  There had always been rumors that the rules had been looser at the other dungeon, that the girls who worked there would do anything for extra cash. When some of our regulars naturally started sampling the new flavors, some of our girls muttered that they were doing extra favors to lure the regulars away. That settled quickly as we got to know one another, and acknowledged that we were all in this together. Extra girls meant extra options to get a shift covered, which was great since the holidays were just around the corner. The owner of the Dungeon had to send a few more Dungeon-wide e-mails out in the weeks that followed about silly shit. She felt the need to remind us to keep the cross-dresser closet and the costume closet separate. She banned us from using the electric toothbrush for tickling sessions because it was a health hazard since it couldn’t be cleaned properly. We had to be reminded that nudity wasn’t allowed in the lobby and smoking sessions had to happen in rooms that had an open door or window. Other than that things went back to normal. Or as normal as things get working in a dungeon.

  I was rattled by what had happened. I hadn’t known the owner who was killed or the man who had snapped, so I wasn’t grieving. The very fact that it had happened was what was keeping me up at night. I had been telling myself that I was safe in this world because everyone was rational even if they were into things that would be deemed irrational. Now I had to question the truth behind that belief. I started having recurring nightmares of clients following me home and hurting my friends and family. In the dark of night, I would snuggle closer to Wes and swear I was going to quit working at the Dungeon before something bad happened. But by the light of morning, the fears seemed silly. Was Sissy Harry really going to turn into a homicidal maniac? Could geriatric Doggie Dan hurt someone? I kept telling myself that everything would be fine until I started to believe it again.

  17. DOMINIC

  Dom and I had become close over the months and as an experienced Master, he could tell what was missing from my training, but he observed quietly for a while before stepping in.

  I hadn’t yet experienced anything close to sub space. Sub space is the euphoric state that a submissive sometimes enters as a response to extreme stimulus: generally pain, fear, ecstasy, or some combination of these, which forms an intense bond between the Dominant and the submissive. Subs who are in sub space are usually unfocused and unable to make good choices for themselves, so it requires a massive amount of trust between the two players. It has been described to me as being a better high than any drug can offer. At that point, I had heard the term thrown around, but assumed it was something like the adrenaline rush of an exciting session. Dom was about to show me the truth.

  I was caught off guard when he approached me on the patio and asked, “Would you like to play with me for a bit in the cell? My first client just no-showed and it doesn’t look like you have anyone for a few hours. Cat said if there are any walk-ins, she’ll let us know.”

  “What did you have in mind?” I asked, playfully imitating his German accent.

  Why is it so hot to picture him as a Nazi when it’s so fucking wrong?

  “I thought maybe we could just experiment and have fun with it. Maybe do some sensory deprivation and sensation play. You said you wanted to know what canes and whips felt like. Maybe some flogging. We can keep it as mellow as you want or I can push you a bit and let you see what it’s like.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “Cool, I’ll meet you in there. Just need to grab some stuff.”

  I waited for him in the cell wondering with more than a little excitement what I had just gotten myself into. He returned quickly and laid a giant fuzzy blanket and a pillow on the raised table.

  “Hop up and lie down. I’ll get you started with sensory deprivation while I go get the rest of the toys we need. Here’s a blindfold and earplugs, but before you put them in, let me lay some ground rules. From here on out, you are to address me as Sir. We’ll use the old-school traffic light safe-word system. If something is getting to be too much or you are uncomfortable with something I’m doing, use yellow. If you want me to stop something I’m doing, use red. I’ll only use the implements we just talked about. Are you okay with some over-the-knee spanking?”

  “Yes.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good girl. And bondage?”

  “I would love it if you tied me up, Sir.”

  “We should be clear then. Put those on so you can’t see or hear. Lie down. Don’t move until I come back.”

  I did as I was told and lay down on the blanket in silent darkness. The seconds ticked by and felt like minutes until I couldn’t have even guessed how long I had been lying there. I had the fleeting thought that he had been called into
a session or forgotten about me, but knew that wasn’t the case. It was all part of the mind game. He knew perfectly well that I was lying there nervously anticipating his return, obsessing over what he was going to do. I kept convincing myself that I could hear muffled noises and tensed only for nothing to happen. I began to imagine that he was sitting across the room just watching and waiting. He had said not to move and I had to assume he meant it literally, so I had stayed perfectly still. Now the urge to move was warring with my suspicion that he was watching for exactly that.

  Dominic had been born in East Berlin before the Wall fell. One of his most vivid childhood memories was the day it happened. I didn’t know all of the specifics of what life had been like for him in Germany, but he made reference to poverty and oppression. The West, and specifically America, had represented a mythical place where you were free to express yourself. Once he got here, he discovered that it wasn’t the government that held you back, as it had been in East Berlin, so much as the fear of judgment. Everyone was so worried about what everyone else thought of them that they were scared to take advantage of the freedoms that he had once only dreamed of. He was notorious for coaxing people out of their comfort zones in his gentle, but precise German accent.

  I took deep breaths and tried to stay present in the moment, but that seemed to heighten my awareness. Or rather my awareness of my lack of awareness. Just as I started to contemplate peeking, another blanket was laid across me that covered me from my toes up to my chin. I jumped at suddenly being touched, but he didn’t do anything further for several agonizing moments. Then he must have taken the blanket by the bottom and slowly started to slide it downward over my body. I was still wearing a bra and boy shorts, but with every inch he pulled it down, I felt naked … like he was gradually undressing me. By the time the blanket was gone again, it was like every nerve ending was firing on overdrive anticipating the next touch.

  Want to heighten even the most straightforward, traditional sex? Deprive one partner of a few of their senses and suddenly a touch that you’ve felt a thousand times is charged with erotic anticipation.