Off Duty

by Ellie Masters

  I bound her again and retrieved my whip. “All the way to red,” I repeated as my cock started twitching back to life.

  CHAPTER 23

  I really must be insane. The cat was out of the bag and I was crawling toward my doom, terrified and horribly turned on. To red, he said. Holy hell what did that even mean?

  Insane!

  When I reached the base of St. Andy, as he called it, a quick glance over my shoulder showed Keith staring at my ass. I shook it for him, enticing him to maybe light me on fire.

  “Not going to work, slave,” he said. “You’re not going to distract me from what I have planned. Now stand and let’s try this again.”

  Raising up, I was surprised to find my legs shaking. This hadn’t happened the first time he’d strapped me in, but I’d been full of more bravado then. Maybe my leg would cramp again? A girl could hope.

  Only that didn’t happen. Keith tightened the leather cuffs around my ankles. He strapped in my wrists with a sense of finality. My mind spun and whirled, because this was happening. A yank on my restraints confirmed the truth. I was here until he set me free.

  To red?

  I hung my head and took in a really deep breath, then confessed. “Master?”

  “Yes, slave.”

  “I’ve never really done... this.” That spanking he’d given me had been my first real exposure to pain. I’d done the slap-and-a-tickle thing once or twice, but it never progressed beyond light play. Of course, there were my half-assed attempts of self correction. They amounted to more frustration than anything else. At the first blush of pain, I held back. There’d never been a man I could trust to take me to the place of my dreams. Not really sure why I was trusting Keith, except somehow I felt it bone-deep, I’d allowed him to immobilize me. He would push me, but not destroy me. At least, he wouldn’t if he didn’t think that’s exactly what I needed.

  “Can you take it kind of easy on me to start?” I begged. Suddenly, this didn’t seem like such a good thing.

  “You don’t get to call the shots, my pretty slave. You’ve handed over the reins, unless you want to go back to using first names?”

  My life lacked in many ways. This wouldn’t be obvious to someone looking from the outside in. To them, they would see a woman who seemed to have it all. Only I knew where the gaps were, the aching chasms in my life screamed at me, every lonely day of my life. I didn’t need Keith to fill them in. I needed him to carry me across. I needed him to break me down and gather up the pieces, do with them what he wanted. Because I sure as shit was done playing at pretending I had the perfect life.

  I tucked my chin to my chest and pulled in a deep breath. “No,” I said. “I don’t want that, at least not for this week.”

  He swatted my ass, right over the bruises he’d placed less than an hour ago. I rose up on my toes, screeching at the top of my lungs.

  “Holy shit!” That hurt like hell. My butt was bruised and swollen, and in no shape for more pain.

  Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.

  Four more blows found my lungs billowing with my screams.

  “What the hell was that for?” I screeched, tugging on my restraints and twisting to glare at him.

  “Don’t ever forget your place, slave,” he said. “Sir or Master! You’ll show some damned respect. And don’t ever question a punishment you damn well deserved. Eyes front.”

  Fire! My ass burned like fire, but that was nothing compared to the anger rising inside my belly. Those swats had been uncalled for.

  “For someone who’s never done this before,” he said, “you sure seem overly eager to be laying titles at my feet. Perhaps I’ve misjudged you and this is just a game? Although, I’m not sure I believe you, my pretty slave.”

  “It’s called research,” I spat at him. “Fantasies and research. I’ve never been a slave before. I’ve never found a man... I’d never found a man I respected enough to kneel down to.”

  He took a few steps back, then the rasp of leather dragging across the floor hissed in my ears.

  “You’ve got one chance, Laura,” he said, using my name. “We stop now. I take you down. But if I do that, you’ll march out that door and we’ll never speak of this again. Or, you dig in deep and accept this is your place. Embrace your position and stop running that mouth. Your only purpose is to accept whatever I have to give. Pleasure or pain. You’ve surrendered that choice. I own you now, and tonight I intend to mark you with my whip. I’ll decorate your flesh, and the pain I lay down will etch deep into your soul. Neither one of us is coming out of this unchanged. Now tell me...red or green.”

  I think my breath seized in my lungs. “Please,” I begged. “I didn’t mean—”

  His voice dropped to a rumble. “That’s another five if you stay. You seem to want to rack up the punishments.”

  A chill swept through me. I didn’t want to leave, and I certainly didn’t want him to kick me out.

  “I’m sorry, Master,” I managed to find my words. “I’m just really scared.” I was offering myself up to him. Nobody knew where I was. I was trussed up and completely at his mercy. For my safety, I should do exactly as he said. I should run; run far and fast. This was insane, and yet I ached for it.

  I gulped in air and gave my answer. “Green, Master. For the love of God, my answer is green. I just thought you should know, I’ve never been whipped before.”

  “Then consider this your initiation, slave. And I have to tell you something about me.”

  “Yes, Master?”

  “I’m going to love your screams.”

  A crack sounded in the garage, like a bullet going off, but my scream pierced through the air as the tip of his whip found my left hip. I rose up on tip-toe and tilted my head back. I fisted my hands. Agony lit through me, sharp and blinding pain became my universe.

  “Now, that was number one.” He came to stand in front of me, gloating perhaps in the power he held over me. Cupping my chin in his hand, he lifted my face to meet his. “Tell me, slave, shall I take you down? Do you want this to end?”

  Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. My hip still burned with that cutting strike. I looked at him and sealed my fate. “I don’t know what you’ve done to me, Master, but I-I don’t want down.”

  “Oh, you’ll be screaming for it soon.”

  “Break me, please. Make me yours.”

  Keith leaned in and kissed me. “Ah, you see, but you already are. You have been since you crawled through that door.”

  “I know,” I said, “and Master?”

  “Yes?”

  “I won’t say red. You chose when this ends.” He was my master. I knew this in my heart. It was up to me to trust him. I had only one regret. I wished he’d fucked me before strapping me down. Through the pain, I couldn’t deny, that man turned me on.

  CHAPTER 24

  I chuckled as she trembled, then popped the whip in the air. She trembled harder, shaking like a leaf on a high wind, and I sent the whip into her back. I left a thin welt as she loosed a pained yelp. Her flawless skin looked all the more beautiful to me, painted in welts and suffering, so I drove the whip into her back again. This time she grunted a high-pitched sound as the second welt rose in the whip’s wake. God, she was stunning like this, and four lashes later, I was again stone-hard, gripped with desire. But business before pleasure. I told her all the way to red, and so it would be. I fell into a slow and cruel tempo of lashes, one stroke about every ten seconds. She sobbed shamelessly, her pride and defiance out the window, but I didn’t miss the puddle between her feet. My Laura was horny as an alley cat, but not at her limit yet.

  I kept lashing, stroke after stroke, keeping a silent count in my head. Twenty-seven … twenty-eight … twenty-nine … Laura was sobbing inconsolably, but still taking what I gave. My cock was near to painfully hard for her. I craved her, but I wanted her to know humility, to be humbled, so I kept lashing. Fifty-four … fifty-five … fifty-six …

  That was the one. “Red!” she screamed. �
�Oh, God, red, please, Master … please …” she broke into wracking sobs as I coiled the whip and returned it to its hook, then released her cuffs, turned her and held her while she sobbed it out. She said she wouldn’t call red, but everyone has limits and boundaries. I didn’t hold it against her. She was proud, and devoted. She probably didn’t want to let me down. But at least now I knew that “punishment” for my Laura would begin at around fifty of the whip.

  “God, thank you, Master,” she whispered when the tears abated.

  “For?” I asked.

  “For everything,” she groaned. “For giving me this chance, for whipping me, shattering the armor, for stopping, for holding me, for everything, Master. I knew I said I wouldn’t call red. I’m sorry, Master..”

  “Back to the bench,” I said. “Offer yourself, slave.”

  “Oh, no,” she groaned, then caught herself and corrected herself. “As Master wishes.”

  She placed herself into position and I examined her skin in better light. She was welted, even painfully, and it might occur to her to be grateful for her enforced nudity. A bra strap across those marks would be its own visit to hell. One mark had a couple dots of blood, but nothing a bit of ointment wouldn’t handle. And it could wait, I knew.

  I parted her labia and thrust my cock hard into her pussy, groaning at how tight she was as she loosed a hoarse grunt of surprise and passion. Lovemaking was for another time. This was hard fucking, and I slammed it into her, under far more control for the blowjob she’d given earlier. I rammed in and out, my hips slapping against her battered ass on every thrust as she moaned and writhed. Suddenly, she came, her pussy grasping my cock as she tried to thrash with her climax. I held her down, not wanting her to fall off the bench to become my patient this night, and finally her orgasm crested and fell off. I resumed fucking her, hard and fast, until I felt that familiar throbbing in my cock that told me my own cum was close. A few more thrusts and then I arched my back, groaning loudly to the rafters as another considerable load of my seed shot deeply into her.

  I helped her from the bench, where we held one another, both of us on trembling legs, spent by our evening. We gave one another one hell of a workout in my dungeon. But we’d both had enough, I knew. She was sweaty, panting, hair matted, and so was I. Right about now we smell like a bordello, I left unsaid.

  We didn’t bother with our scattered attire. My back yard had a tall privacy fence and neither of my neighbors were back-yard people, both in one-story houses. We could spend our lives naked in my back yard and be the only people in the world who would know. In the shower, we were a mass of lather, hands, caresses, and passion before coming out. Acting the geisha, Laura toweled me dry, then we stumbled to the kitchen for a snack. I poured a glass of Patron for myself while Laura opted for Gatorade. Too tired for anything else, we went up to bed. But my mind was on another matter, and I knew it would be a while before I slept. As she fell into a light doze, I went to my parlor, poured more tequila, and gathered my thoughts.

  “Are you okay, Master?” Laura asked, breaking my reverie.

  “There are things you need to know,” I said. “We need to talk. Sit down, please” I saw the look on her face. “Laura, I’m about to open up a painful door to you. I’m talking to you not as master to slave or paramedic to doctor, but Keith to Laura. Sit down, please. Make a drink if you like. You might want it.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Conversations between men and women never ended well when the words ‘We need to talk,’ were mentioned.

  Keith played that card with me, and now I was freaking the fuck out. What was this? Keith’s revenge? Was he going to sit me down and then tell me this had all been nothing but a joke? Would I really have to go through on quitting my job and skipping town? Because there was no way in hell I was heading back to work with Keith snickering behind my back, telling everyone how’d I’d debased myself for him.

  My insides quivered with fear, anticipating what would follow those damning words.

  We need to talk.

  Fuck that shit. Any talking should have happened before turning my ass black and blue, the face-fucking, the whipping...the delicious glide of his cock... Shit, just thinking about his glorious member had me wanting him all over again.

  My soul had been handed to him on a goddamn silver platter. He’d broken me down to my most base level, had heard me howl out my deepest pain. He’d seen me not just crawl, but supplicate myself before him. I’d given myself to him, moving from work acquaintances, through submission, to fucking begging to be made his slave. We were only playing at it now. He allowed me to call him Master, but he hadn’t put a collar on me. None of this was real.

  I saw the painful truth now. This was all in my head, and the ass had simply been humoring me to get in his fuck. With that out of the way, he was going to let me down, and probably not do it too gently.

  I was a damned fool! We needed to talk? I needed to slice off his dick and feed it to him on a damn silver platter.

  He patted the chair beside him. The chair! The man wanted to sit and tell me whatever was swirling in his head. I belonged at his feet, not beside him in a chair. There was no way I was going to stay, but from the look in his eyes, there was no way he’d let me leave.

  “I think I’d like that drink,” I said. “Maybe something stronger than that Gatorade?”

  “I’ve got a well stocked bar. Whiskey, wine, Patron? Name your pleasure.”

  I needed something that would take time. My mind was made up and there was no way I was sticking around for whatever the hell We need to talk meant. Of course I was naked, but I’d left my keys in the car. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d left that damn key-fob sitting in the cupholder since I’d bought the Mercedes. It’s a miracle it hadn’t been stolen ten times over. Now, that bad habit would work in my favor.

  All I had to do was get Keith out of the room, find something to wear. My clothes were locked up in his dungeon, and I knew better than to ask for them. I’d have to escape in more daring attire. “Do you mind mixing me a drink?”

  Depending on how Keith wanted to run things, as his slave I might be the one responsible for serving him, but I wasn’t really his slave. The ass could mix me a damn drink.

  “Sure, love. What’s your poison?”

  I was a wine kind of gal. I had no idea what went into most mixed drinks. My mind blanked for half a second. “Whiskey and coke...Diet Coke if you have it.”

  “Do I look like I keep Diet Coke on hand?”

  “Whatever you please then.” I’d dropped the honorific. He wanted to take us all the way back to Keith and Laura. Well, I could run with that.

  The moment he left the room, that’s exactly what I did. Buck naked, I hurried down the hall, went to his dresser and grabbed the first tee-shirt I found. It hung to my thighs, covering up all my bits. At least I wouldn’t get caught for indecent exposure on my drive home.

  As dressed as I was going to get, I sprinted for the rear door and ran barefoot around the house, heading for my car. I drew to a halt, my heart pounding, because Keith was there, waiting. How the hell had he known?

  “Now, love,” he said. “What the hell is going on in that pretty little head?”

  CHAPTER 26

  “Come back inside,” I told her. “Look, I guess ‘we need to talk’ sent the wrong message. I’m not breaking up with you. There are just … you need to know about me, more about me than you do. I’m trusting you, honey, and I’m asking you to trust me just a few minutes more.”

  “This isn’t some bullshit prank?” she asked.

  “No, no shit, bull or otherwise,” I said sadly. “Come back inside?”

  “Fine,” she said, not looking at all mollified, but damn cute in my tee-shirt.

  Inside, I handed Laura her Jim Beam and Diet Coke, the very thought of which sounded like some killing potion Snape would teach those evil little fucktards in Slytherin House. I had three cans of Diet Coke lurking in my fridge, that had languished th
ere for a year since a cousin of mine visited. She took an experimental sip and set it on the coffee table, then knelt on the floor, but I sensed she was only playing the role at this point.

  “Laura … I got married thirteen years ago,” I said in a wooden tone. “We were so happy together. I adored Cindy. Until one Wednesday nine years ago. I got home from a 48-hour shift, a bit late. My partner wanted us to have breakfast together, and I needed a tank of gas and a car wash on the way home, so I was in no hurry. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, right? She wasn’t there but usually she was leaving for work about the time I got home if I hurried, so I didn’t think anything about it. We were renting a house, a nice place with a pool in back, but had just signed the dotted line on a house we were buying, this house, in fact. We’d scrimped and saved like you wouldn’t believe, but we had a strong down payment and good credit. I was off the coming two weeks so we could do the move and just have some time together. I wasn’t worried. Until about eleven that morning when her boss called, hopping mad and wondering why she wasn’t at work.

  “I didn’t know where she was, and told him that,” I continued. “I looked in the garage, and lo and behold, her car was there, a three-year-old Nissan. So I looked all over the house. She wasn’t in the bedroom, but her purse was there. There was no sign of a struggle or forced entry, no blood.

  “I went out to the back yard, wondering if she was out there,” I went on. “She was.”

  “Was she okay?” Laura asked, looking fretful.

  “She was at the bottom of the pool, and bloodstains dried on the diving board, which had shattered,” I said. “She often liked taking a bedtime dive and swim to cool off and burn off energy. But I called 911, dove in, fished her out. My stupid fucking ass did CPR on her, even knowing she’d been at the bottom of that pool the past twelve or fourteen hours. I couldn’t … I couldn’t accept that Cindy was gone. Air wouldn’t go into her lungs because they were full of water. A thousand other times I wouldn’t have lifted a finger, not for anyone else. But this wasn’t some nameless patient. She was my Cindy, you see? She was irretrievable and this part knew it.” I tapped my head. “But this didn’t … couldn’t … accept that.” I put a hand on my belly, then over my heart.