A Wayward Game

by Pandora Witzmann

  As I walk away from the shop, though, I feel like the ground is slipping away beneath my feet, and I can rely on nothing and no one anymore. London buzzes and heaves around me, filled with people and life, and as I pass through the streets I know that, whatever is happening, I have some powerful enemies here.

  ~

  I am still wondering later that day, in the evening, when Neil arrives at my flat. I’m still wondering while we’re drinking tea and talking over the mundane details of our day. Even as he follows me into the room where we play our games, I remain unsure. Something that still has the power to surprise me, after all that I’ve seen and experienced, is how urgent lust can be, and how it can override all other instincts. With so many doubts running through my mind, I should find it almost impossible to embark on these games tonight. But I am as aroused as ever, and none of my brain’s sombre warnings can even dampen my desire. If nothing else betrays me, my own body certainly will.

  Neil stretches out his arms and legs, positioning himself so that he is facing the St Andrew’s Cross. He is excited, but strangely serene; if he is nervous tonight, he gives no sign of it. Of course, when you play these games, trust should be absolute and undoubted on both sides. He knows that I would never truly hurt him, and I know that he will always tell me how he feels and guide me. But what if that was never truly the issue? What if there is some other, deeper deception going on beneath the surface of our affair?

  Two leather cuffs dangle from the upper arms of the cross, and I attach them to his wrists and then step back to look at him. I gaze at the white length of his back and the curve of his buttocks, and the dark hair on his thighs. He looks almost like a martyr, facing his Fate willingly and almost triumphantly, and I wonder what he thinks of when he sees the symbol of the cross. We are both Catholics, he and I, or were raised as such; and though neither of us is really religious anymore, there is a sense in which we always shall be. I continue to think of the Church as my home, with all the ambivalence that this entails; the cross is, for me, a symbol of comfort, of suffering embraced and suffering transformed. Diane would have laughed at that, I think; for her, Nature was God, and human society the word of God. James Sallow would probably not even understand the idea, because money is his Divinity. I wonder what Neil thinks. Does the cross symbolise suffering alone, or is it an emblem of triumph and redemption? Does it remind him of spiritual concerns, or of the carnal things we do in this room? Does he even recognise these things as being distinct? We have never really talked of such matters.

  I caress his shoulder, let my hand slide down his back, and stroke the soft mound of his buttock. He closes his eyes, and I hear a very slight catch in his breath. I continue to stroke him with a soft, circular motion, and lean towards him so that my mouth is next to his ear.

  “You know,” I murmur, “you really have the most beautiful ass.”

  He does not reply, but smiles – a smile that suggests that he does not believe me. I raise my hand and bring it down sharply on his buttock, and he gives a little grunt.

  “Don’t you believe me?” I ask; and then, when he remains silent, I slap him harder. “Answer me when I speak to you.”

  “I’m sorry, Mistress.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question. Do you think I’m a liar?”

  “No!”

  “No, what?” I slap him again.

  “No, Mistress.”

  “That’s better.” His buttock has turned pink beneath my palm, and I begin to stroke it again. “You see, I really love your ass. And by the time I’ve finished with you, you’re going to love it too. It’s going to give you feelings you’ve never had before. Would you like that, do you think?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Good boy.”

  I take a wooden paddle from the table, and gently run the flat edge over the skin of his backside. His breathing quickens, and he leans his forehead against one of the cross’s arms. I wait, allowing the anticipation to build, stroking him all the time; and then I raise the paddle and bring it down on his buttock. It makes a dull slapping sound as it strikes his flesh, and I imagine the sensation reverberating through his body, echoing along his nerves. He makes no sound, but his mouth opens slightly, and I see moisture gleam on his lips.

  “Pleasure and pain,” I say, running the paddle over his buttock again. “We think of them as being opposites, but very often they come full circle and meet each other. They both have the same effect, in a way: they take you to a place of pure sensation. You forget everything except the feeling. You forget yourself. You don’t think, you don’t feel afraid, you don’t know grief or despair; you just feel.”

  I bring the paddle down again, a little harder, and he groans. I stroke him, pause, and then strike, and repeat the action again and again, varying it slightly, making the blows a little harder each time, taking him closer to his limits. He keeps his forehead against the cross and his eyes closed, and grunts and grits his teeth as the blows rain down on him. Then, after one particularly smart strike, he gives a little wail, and cries, “Satis! Satis!”

  I put the paddle back down on the table, slip one arm around his waist, and gently stroke his tingling buttocks, soothing and calming him. His head falls to the side, and rests for a moment against my shoulder. I kiss his hair.

  “Satis,” I whisper. “Enough. You can trust me, you know.”

  “I know, Mistress.”

  “Can I trust you?”

  “Of course, Mistress.” He sounds surprised.

  “Because this is a two-way street, you know. If one of us trusts, then the other must be able to trust.” Neil does not respond to this; probably, he does not know what to say. There is a slightly awkward moment of silence. Then, to lighten the mood, I murmur, “Your ass looks so pretty when it’s red.”

  He gives a little giggle.

  “And soon,” I add, “your face will be every bit as red; only this time it will be with embarrassment.”

  His tongue darts out and runs over his lips, and he gives a little smile.

  I go to stand just behind him, so that my groin brushes against his buttocks, and move my arms around his waist. My hands begin to stroke his cock gently, my fingers sliding over him, and I feel him hardening beneath my touch. He sighs and moans, and I slide my right hand lower and cup his balls. I run my fingers over them, and then take them in my hand and give them a gentle squeeze. He breathes sharply in. I release them, kiss the back of his neck, and step away. He gives a little whimper as my body moves away from his, and I feel a heavy, hungry ache of desire for him.

  Returning to the table, I slip my right hand into a latex glove, and squeeze some lube into my left palm. I go back to him, and kiss his cheek.

  “Now,” I whisper, “lean forward, so that your ass is sticking out.”

  He leans forward as far as his cuffed wrists will allow, and spreads his legs. His buttocks part slightly, the cleft between them marked by a narrow streak of hair. I dip my latex-covered index finger into the lube, and begin to smooth it gently over the wrinkle of his anus, caressing the delicate flesh around the opening to his body. He makes a small sound of longing. I stroke him until I feel him beginning to relax; and then, positioning my finger at his entrance, I push gently until he opens up around me. The tip of my finger slips inside him, up to the first knuckle, and he groans. I lean forward, and kiss his earlobe.

  “What a lovely, sweet hole you have,” I whisper. “So hot, so ready for me.”

  He moans, and I push a little further inside him. His body relaxes around me, and my finger slides in up to the second knuckle.

  “You’re going to feel so much pleasure here,” I say. “One day, I’m going to make you come so hard that you feel like you’re about to explode. And then you’re going to cry out for more.”

  I push again, until my finger is entirely inside him, and I feel his muscles clench around it. He gives a soft sigh of longing.

  “And,” I say, “by feeling pleasure, you’ll give me plea
sure. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  My finger finds the small bump of his prostate, and I begin to caress it gently, very gently. He gives a whimper of desire.

  “This,” I say, “is a beautiful way to give and receive pleasure, and I don’t want you to feel any shame. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Good boy.”

  I continue to caress and tease him, stroking his shoulder and arm with my free hand, listening to him sigh and moan as his pleasure builds. A small droplet of semen drips from his engorged penis, and falls to the floor. Sensing that he is close to climax, I gently withdraw my finger, a knuckle at a time, and he makes a small sound of loss and frustration.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell him. “I haven’t finished yet. I think you’re ready for a little bit more.”

  His eyes close, and he leans his cheek against the cool wood of the cross. I peel off the glove, and then wipe my hands. I pick something else up from the table and take it back to him. His eyes remain closed, and I run it gently along the side of his face. He gasps at the feeling of the cool silicone against his warm skin, and his eyes fly open. I hold the object up in front of him, and he looks at it with eyes that are dazed with sex and longing.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  “A butt plug, Mistress.” He blushes as he says the words. His eyes meet mine, their expression almost beseeching. He has reached that point, I think, where desire and dread are roughly equal in strength. He wants this, and he fears it too. Everything he has heard and experienced in his life to date tells him that real men do not do such things, and all the old insults and insinuations continue to circle around in his mind.

  “Do you want to do this?” I ask.

  He hesitates, just for a moment, and then says, “Yes, Mistress.”

  I place the tip of the plug just at the entrance to his wet anus. He parts his legs a little further, and I gently push it up inside him, a little at a time. He groans, but does not protest. I stroke his hip with my free hand as the plug slips inside him. He sighs, and his head falls forward a little. Then the plug is resting inside his body, up to the flared base that keeps it in position.

  “Does it feel good?” I ask.

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Good. Because I want you to enjoy this so much. I don’t want you to feel any shame. Here there’s no wrong, no bad. There’s only us, and what we want to do. Understand?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Good.” I reach up and begin to unshackle him. “I’m going to set you free now. There’s something I want you to do for me.”

  Neil stands up straight as the cuffs fall away from his wrists, and gently rubs the flesh there. He stands still for a moment, adjusting to the sensation of having the plug inside him, stretching him, pressing against him. His cock is large and hard. I embrace him, stroking his shoulders, kissing his lips. I move closer, so that his cock slips between my barely-open thighs and presses against the lips of my cunt, just grazing my clitoris. A jagged little current of pleasure forks through me, lightning-quick, making my whole body tingle.

  “Oh God,” I breathe in his ear, “you’ll never know how much I want you.”

  I kiss him again, and his tongue slides between my lips. We begin to kiss fiercely, hungrily. It’s different to the kisses we’ve shared before: it’s more intense, full of half-hidden meanings and unspoken yearnings. His arms slip around my waist, and suddenly I don’t want to dominate him anymore; all I want, I realise, is to be held, to feel treasured. I want to know that I can trust him. I break away, and lean back against the St Andrew’s Cross.

  “Do you think you can hold me? Support my weight?” I ask.

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Good. Pick me up.”

  He slips one arm under my buttocks and the other around my waist, and lifts me up easily. I brace myself against the cross, taking some of the weight, and wrap my legs around him. And then, for the first time since childhood perhaps, I experience what it is like to be carried and supported in another person’s arms. It’s such a simple thing, and yet so profound; it’s an expression of absolute trust and dependence. I wind my arms around his neck and lean my forehead against his. Our eyes meet, and there is something new and strange in the look we exchange.

  His cock slides inside me easily, filling me, and he begins to move, thrusting up into me. He holds me easily, without any obvious strain; he is stronger than he looks, stronger than I realised. And now I don’t feel like a Domina. Now I feel like any woman with her lover, revelling only in this: the simple feeling of him inside me, his skin brushing against mine, the contrast between his hard, muscular body and the softness of mine. Above all, I want to feel that there is more to this than our bodies, more than just sex.

  And then, when I remember how many barriers stand between us, my hot desire turns to cold ashes, even as Neil cries out in triumphant pleasure.

  ~

  Satis. Enough.

  We drew our inspiration from Great Expectations, a mutual favourite, which Neil was re-reading around the time we first met. Miss Havisham, living in self-imposed exile in Satis House, has had enough of the world, enough of life, enough of love. Trapped and suspended in time, she lives in the past, surrounded by the decaying remnants of her abortive wedding day. Belonging to the past, though, does not diminish her power in the present; memories of the man who betrayed her lead her to plot revenge against all men.

  Neil was about twelve or thirteen when he first read the book, as part of his English schoolwork. It was when he read about Estella, the beautiful, haughty vessel of Miss Havisham’s revenge, that he felt the first faint stirring of submissiveness. He did not understand it as such at the time, of course. Aged twelve, he could hardly be expected to fathom why reading about a boy’s torment and humiliation at the hands of a girl should excite him so.

  “I thought there must be something wrong with me,” he says now, lying on the bed. “I just didn’t get it, couldn’t wrap my head around it. It’d be years before I really began to understand, and even longer before I stopped denying it, even to myself. And by then, of course, I was married. Trapped, just like Miss Havisham. Ironic, really. If she knew what she’d escaped from on her wedding day, she’d have thanked her lucky stars.”

  The bitterness in his voice makes me uncomfortable, even though I understand it. My own history of failed affairs has led me to view marriage as a tragicomic farce, a sort of socially acceptable masochism. This is the way it goes: one day, usually when you’re young and stupid, you meet someone equally young and stupid, and something just fits. Your body betrays you. He or she affects you as no one else ever has, and your feelings are like a fever or madness, and beautiful while they last. And Nature, seeing an opportunity for propagation, tries any number of feints and frauds to get Her way. Illusions – love, kinship, forever – become sustenance. You’re starving, and fantasy is your food. And so you get married, and everyone congratulates you, and then you move into a little house in the suburbs together and have a couple of kids, and everyone’s happy for you because that’s the done thing, that’s what you’re supposed to do.

  And then, one day – a few years later, perhaps – you wake up one morning and everything you once felt is dead, and the person waking up beside you and stretching and yawning is a stranger. And in the wake of that bleak, panicky feeling comes a terrifying thought: that you’ve thrown your life away for a fantasy. What happens next, of course, varies. If you’re lucky, you’ll get divorced. If you’re not, you’ll stay married, and it will be like spending the rest of your life in an empty, untidy room after a party’s ended: lonely, quiet, and surrounded by the detritus of a few happy hours.

  That is Neil’s situation, and he deals with it by trying to forget about it. When we are together, time stops. The rooms in which we play our games are our own version of Satis House: a place apart, where the clocks have stopped and time stands still. But time, of course,
never really stands still: outside these walls, it ticks inexorably onwards. Neil rarely talks of his marriage now, or of any decisions that might have been made about it. If he remains in the tomb of this dead love, how will he survive? How can he continue to live with someone he doesn’t love? I know that loneliness, and it’s the worst loneliness of all. And how will he live with the desires that continue to taunt him? His wife will never satisfy them.

  “I tried to mention it once,” he once told me. “Back in the early days, when I still thought we could make each other happy. I did it casually, you know, just to see how she’d react. God, you should have seen the look on her face! Absolute disgust. I had to laugh it off, pretend I was kidding. I don’t think she was amused. I’m not sure she really believed that it was a joke, either; or, if she did, she thought it was in pretty poor taste.”

  I think of his wife. From the little he’s told me of her, I’m fairly sure that she’s no fool. She must have guessed, just as she must have realised by now that there’s somebody else in Neil’s life. Does she care? Perhaps she has someone else, too. And what if their marriage collapses? Will there be anything left over for us? How could there be, when I can’t even trust him? These are questions to which I have no answers, and they haunt me. This is not something that we were prepared for, after all. Our affair began as entertainment, our ground rule being that lust was not to be confounded by obligations or expectations. And that habit is hard to break – even now, when things have changed utterly.

  Neil is silent, staring up at the ceiling. I want to feel closer to him, and run my hand over the hair on his chest. He turns his head to look at me, and gives a tight smile that betrays his anxiety.

  “What are you thinking of?” I ask, though I’m aware of what a stupid question it is. What is happening inside another person’s mind is no one else’s business. Even if they want to share it, they often cannot: sometimes thoughts fly like birds when interrupted, and sometimes they cannot be put into the cage of words.