“I want you to be honest,” he advised her. He was hardly unkind but gave her little room to bargain for a less than candid response. Even this hesitation had to tell him volumes.
“I was looking in the mirror on the wall …” she started, “and then I had a private moment with myself.” Perhaps the word “private” would suggest he not probe further.
“Tell me about it,” he immediately replied dispelling her hope for that kind of discretion.
She blushed. “That would be embarrassing to say,” she replied.
“Then be embarrassed,” he returned. “What happens behind your bedroom door belongs to you, what happens in my private domain belongs to me. You’ll remember that after today.”
The way he spoke to her, she wondered if she’d already become his submissive slave, for she seemed compelled to obey despite her reluctance.
“I masturbated there,” she said. She stopped, knowing that was not enough, but she could hope. He sat with a open face waiting for her to continue. “I tossed my sundress to the bed and began playing with myself in front of the mirror, your “tools of the trade” hanging on the wall behind me … I could see them in the glass. They’re rather potent reminders.”
“And what else?” he said when she said no more.
“I began spanking my ass, remembering how I enjoy that sensation.”
“And then?”
“I couldn’t help myself,” she said as her voice became shaky. “I finally took the cane and flogger from the wall and began playing with them.” He waited again as she paused her narrative. A cursory explanation wouldn’t do, he was obviously a man of specifics. Was he aroused now by what she said? Or was this just some necessary accounting he required because she’d been brassy enough to take liberties in his own room? “You really do want all the details, don’t you?” she concluded.
“Every last one of them,” he confirmed.
She was annoyed for reasons she couldn’t quite understand, but she kept on with her tale. And as detail by detail the truth came out, she could feel a degree of anger rise in her. “Floggers are quite fascinating, the things you can do with them,” she said. “I let the talons make love to me. As well as I could, I snapped the thing against my legs and ass, thinking how great it would feel snapped hard on my skin. The handle went inside my cunt and I fucked it hard. Then I went to hands and knees, holding the cane in my mouth while I brought myself off. It was a vile thing, Adam, but very me.” She felt righteously indignant saying that. He wasn’t yet her dom or master, or anything but her attorney. Spinning fast downward into dangerous territory of rebellion, she felt such anxiety rise, that she had to stop speaking, or she’d end up bolting away in rage. Confused and almost in tears, she didn’t understand herself at all. And not thinking of another thing to say, she stopped talking and stared away so she wouldn’t have to look at Adam’s soulful eyes.
“That’s all you have to say?” he asked.
“Every word’s the truth,” she replied.
“But you didn’t tell me everything,” he said.
“Yes, I did!” she snapped at him turning back to face him.
“What about the flogger handle in your ass, fucking its thick stalk as though you had a real prick up your butt?”
Her eyes opened wide.
“Aren’t you forgetting that?”
“How would you know?”
“Maybe I guessed. Looks like a lucky one I’d say, considering your reaction.”
She wondered that he could be that intuitive. But then he smiled slyly.
“Then again, maybe there’s a camera in the room and your episode before the mirror was recorded on film,” he suggested.
The truth out, she dropped her jaw in a well-staged horror. On film! Recorded in the act as though he didn’t trust her? What a contemptible ass! What a disgusting idea! What a perfectly masterful thing to do!
As the facts settled in she realized what a genius Adam Cady was. “You planted a camera in the room and recorded everything?”
“It’s an ingenious device,” he said. “Senses movement and trips off—when I leave it’s activated. It’s been there for quite some time,” he said. He was amused, Eden stunned.
“And you activated it just for me?”
“Who else?”
“And the rest of the house?”
He shook his head. “Just in my bedroom. It started as a game Leanna and I would play with each other. She was an exhibitionist, loved making movies for me. If she wanted to masturbate she had to do it there before the mirror, never in my bed. Perhaps you were reading her mind?”
“The mind of a dead woman,” Eden declared.
“The mind of a woman whose presence still pervades this place from the garden to every room of the house. You already know that. You can feel her. Don’t think I don’t sense that in you.”
“But I’m not your Leanna, I’m Eden Rose. I’m not even your lover … not yet.” Her voiced trailed away caught by the soft breeze blowing on her face, somehow her anger seemed to go with it. She felt empty … chastised and certainly vulnerable.
“I don’t appreciate being lied to,” he added to the insult.
“How did I lie?” she asked, “I told you everything.”
“Not that the flogger was in your ass and that you looked like an animal in heat, that your eyes simmered hot and you would have taken a dozen men in that moment and asked for more. You told me none of those things.”
“Perhaps you want more from me right now that I can give,” she said. “You exhaust me.”
He shook his head. “No, Eden, you’re just fighting with yourself. Women make up excuses for feeling weak when they don’t have to feel weak at all. You and I both know you’re not the simpering waif you sometimes pretend to be. You’re as strong as nails. You know who you are and what you want—when you don’t avoid it. Why you’re avoiding it now, I don’t really understand. If you’re angry and exhausted now because I forced you into this conversation it’s only because you resist what you want. My offer stands for when you’re ready to get over your fears of me. In the meantime, you may masturbate before the mirror all you like, just be aware that the camera will capture it all for me to see. I will enjoy the performance … and you will account for yourself and what you do there.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“I’ll hold anything against you that I choose. It’s my game, and I’m the only one that knows the rules.”
“You are a diabolical man,” she exclaimed.
“You can always go back to Jacob,” he suggested.
“No!” she snapped as she came to her feet.
In a move so swift she was taken completely off guard, she felt Adam clutch her arm and keep her from fleeing.
“I won’t talk to you about this again without your initiating the conversation,” he said. The fire and steel in his eyes was oddly replaced with kindness. She found herself yielding to his touch—as though she wanted to yield completely. Just one word, one step away, one gesture—she could see herself dropping to the ground before his feet. But she didn’t have the courage. “I’m not going to live in a tension-filled atmosphere,” he went on. “I’m sure you don’t want that either. It’s all the same to me if you let this offer pass. I’m sure you’ll find the right man around the next corner.” He wasn’t being sarcastic or insincere.
“I still need some time to think,” she said.
“You have all the time you need. I’ll be back in the city for a few days. The only thing I command is that you stay here and not leave. You leave? I’ll give you your retainer back and you can find another attorney and another place to live.”
“I understand,” she said quietly. Feeling meek with his hand still holding her tightly, such power swam from him to her. This was nothing like it had been with Jacob. Nothing compared.
***
After four days, Adam returned to the cottage late at night. Eden was already asleep in her bed and he didn’t want t
o wake her. There was just one clip on the videotape for him to see. But it told him all he needed to know.
She was in Leanna’s sundress, Leanna’s sunhat on her head. Not seeing her crazy white hair with its one inch dark roots, he saw her face less extreme. He glimpsed the softness of her essence without all the kicky adornments that she used to make herself as Jacob’s prize. Her smile was genuine and unaffected by some ulterior motive, game or performance.
Adam watched as she lifted the sundress above her ankles and knees, as it rose above her pubis with its thatch of dark curls, then as she unveiled her breasts that gently jiggled against her chest. Her nipples were tiny buds surrounded by generous areoles. Such glorious thighs! Her tight belly and torso hardly moved at all. Eden was slim without looking emaciated—that true especially since she was wearing some color and not all that black. She’d obviously taken a hint from him and quit using the whitening make-up and extreme dark shadows behind her blue eyes. The blue was far softer without the deep black surrounding it. Her full lips were much more sensuous in the softer shade of pink. Something in her glowed. Naked before the mirror, she looked innocent and chagrined, but not waifish. Penitent perhaps, perhaps more like herself than he’d ever seen her. By the camera’s automatic clock, it showed she took two days to get to this state of being—all nonsense aside, all anger seeming to have vanished. Even the actress, Eden, disappeared as she appeared before him bare as a babe.
With the dress completely off, so went the hat. Nothing but skin and perspiration remained. It was a simple gesture that followed, the one that told him everything. Eden dropped to her knees, bowed before the mirror and kissed the floor as though she was at his feet. In true supplicant’s pose, her eyes were yielding. Her lips were parted as though she was breathing him in, and her thighs were open signaling that she was ready to be taken. With her ass slightly raised, he knew if he stood behind it, he would see her offered treasures poised for his pleasure.
She remained submissively posed for some minutes so he could see her body rise and fall just slightly with her breath. What this boldly outrageous woman couldn’t say in words, she did well in silence by herself. She’d have to declare herself more than this if she wanted what he had to give her. But it was a good start.
The video ended with her rising to her feet after kissing the floor once more. She was a lonely woman filled with so much wanting passion. She would challenge him far beyond what Leanna had, for Leanna easily gave what she had to give, but then stopped. In the end, he expected that Eden would give him far more than his dead lover. She was much more complex, more thoroughly submissive—even though she was flighty, unstable and often insecure because she thought too much. Regardless of her faults she was exceptionally inspiring, a bottomless vessel, a well-spring of lust and desire. When she was free of her fears and inhibitions and crazy quandaries, free of Jacob, she could be become the essence of surrender. All the usual implements would discipline her, but she was moldable to teaching even if the teaching would be harsh.
In the last piece on the video, she flashed him a half grin, then the lusty siren grabbed the hat and dress from the bed and scooted toward the door. Slipping out of sight, she left an empty room and the picture of the two implements on the wall.
***
The next morning, Eden dressed in another other of Leanna’s dresses at the breakfast table. She made Adam a pepper/sausage omelet and toast. Omelet’s were becoming much easier with all this practice. After pouring orange juice from a glass pitcher and decorating his plate with fresh strawberries, she sat down in front of him, elbows on the table, her chin resting on her clasped hands. She smiled.
“I want some dye for my hair,” she said.
He looked at her pleased. “You’ll have it today,” he replied. “What color?”
“What would match my roots. Get rid of the white.”
“And you’ll let it grow,” he said as he scrutinized the zany starched looking spikes on her head.
“Yes, and I’ll let it grow,” she agreed.
“I told you the country air and a little color would do you some good.”
“Ah, you’re so very wise,” she retorted.
“Don’t get impudent,” he advised.
“You saw the video?” she asked.
“What did I tell you I’d do?” he asked, sounding stern.
She smiled happy to know that he’d glimpsed her first surrender to him. “I hope you understood what I was trying to say.”
“I understand nothing,” he countered. “Why don’t you tell me.”
“You’re going to make it hard on me, aren’t you?” she began to whimper.
“Frankly, Eden, this may be the easiest thing you ever do for me, so let’s not sweat it.”
She gulped contritely as she felt another wave of a submissive’s small joy skirt through her body. It gave her that magical feeling of bliss that was her pleasure for giving herself to a man. “I want you to dominate me, to take control,” she said. “I was trying to tell you without words that I’m yours. I think I’ve been yours since the first day I arrived in your office. I mean subtly, subconsciously. I was never so relieved to find you the way you are ….”
“How’s that?” he asked.
“Authoritative. Controlling. I can’t stand men putting up with my shit. And I throw a lot in their faces. Or I can. I already have with you.”
“But you won’t anymore,” he reminded her.
“Yes, I know.”
She was steamy and warm, practically undulating before him. He fed her a large bite of his omelet and watched her try managing the small pieces of it that didn’t quite make it to her lips. He chuckled at the attempt. When she finished, she licked the surfaces with her tongue and batted her eyes at him.
“Be careful how you flirt with me,” he suggested.
“I like to flirt with men, particularly men like you,” she said.
“Then rest assured that your flirtations will not go unrewarded, though you may not like the reward.”
“Oh, but I want you hard on me,” she said. Eyes still smoldering, head still pertly cocked, she moved against the chair below her bottom as though she was fucking the seat. He could guess that her naked crotch was pressing into the wood. “It’s been too long since I’ve really had what I need.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” he said as peered cautiously into her face. “If there’s anything at all between us, it’s not going to be something to get you off a few times. I don’t beat asses without expecting a lot more before and after.”
“Ah, but I do like that,” she purred. “So you do understand?”
“I won’t ask for your commitment right now, not for a few days or a week, maybe much longer than that. But I will ask for it and it will be complete.”
“I can give it to you now,” she said without hesitation.
“But I haven’t whipped your ass or teased your cunt. We haven’t made love and we haven’t kissed. You’ll have your answer after I’ve gotten inside you for a while—and we’re certain that Jacob’s out. I won’t live with another dominant man populating my submissive’s mind.” About that he was certain, considering the way his eyes became so fixed and even darker than their usual hue.
“I don’t want to be in a position where I can back out of this,” she said.
“You’re so unsure of yourself?”
“That worked well for me before, thinking in absolutes and forever.”
“Worked well?” he looked at her incredulously. “There was no forever with Jacob. If anything, signing that contract was a rash and desperate move by an unsure women who was easily led. In the end, it was utter foolishness since you couldn’t keep your word.”
“And part of me needs to atone for that,” she thought out loud. “I think that was why I was so reluctant to take your offer. You have no idea how you’ve gotten inside me. It was all at a low simmer when I didn’t realize who you really are. When I did, there was nothing in this world that
I wanted more than what you’ve proposed to me. Nothing.” The guilt in her was refreshed speaking this way, thinking again of how she left Jacob and how that sorrow weighed on her. “I was in a big muddle sorting this out, all the fear screaming at me. But I knew when I woke two days ago, something just clicked inside my brain. There was only one choice. I want to surrender to your will, and to show you my love.”
“The fact that you couldn’t say it in words makes me think we’ll take this slowly, though I suggest that you expect us to last forever. If that can’t happen, I’ll be the one to decide to end it. A good man would do that, and I consider myself a good man.”
chapter seven
Adam left again that afternoon. His stay so brief, Eden mourned, though in the mourning one terrific piano piece was artfully written and refined to reflect her inner sorrow. A song without words, the melody spoke of her aching heart and even of the anxious and turbulent waiting. Working was the only thing that could keep her mind off of Adam, which seemed essential for at least a few hours every day. To think of him every minute was overly obsessive and dangerous—she was wise enough to realize that.
When she wasn’t writing, she colored her hair, strolled the garden and even planted several flowers that Adam left for her to “find a place for.” With her hair returned to its real color, she let the natural curls appear again as well. They looked unkempt and awkward. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t glued her hair in place with its crazy spikes. To have it falling softly like an unruly halo when she moved her head, there was a subtle sensation of pleasure to the feel. She imagined Adam pleased. He was a natural sort of man, especially as she saw him here in his country home. Perhaps he was natural too in his law practice, though there it took on a different form.
Strolling the garden was a new experience. So unlike cement and brick and asphalt streets and horns that blared. She learned that the quiet in the garden, as peaceful as it was, teemed with activity and abundance. From the family of scampering ground squirrels that noiselessly darted about the garden path, to the bees looking to make honey, to the birds—from cawing crows to sweetly singing finches—she was reminded of worlds of life far beyond hers. Hers seemed so infinitesimal and small, highly unimportant within the scheme of nature. She just one humble creature and there were so many. Humbled more, she planted the flowers in the ground with her knees dropping into the soft damp earth. She watched her hands break up the hunks of dirt into a loamy carpet to blanket the roots. Packing the earth around the vulnerable looking stems she wondered that such delicate things could take the beating the elements of nature offered to sustain them. But then, was it any different than Adam, or any masterful man, like the elements of the human soul, sustaining her with harsh realities. Jacob had sustained her that way. She’d braved the harsh sun and its burning heat, pelting rains of terror and the winds of wintry cold that hit her soul, knowing she could survive. But with Adam she hoped for more than just the harsh sustenance. She wished for the gentle rains of love and the warm breezes of a mellow attitude, and the delicacy of the morning dew as it would caress her cheek with a tender hand.
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