In the car, he turned to her and asked, "Is there something else I should call you?" She hesitated, trying to figure out what he wanted. Had she misunderstood the intent of her own question? Was it not clear that she hoped to be less formal with him? Should she try to be more formal in return? Was he asking her to be Mrs. Peel to his Mr. Steed? Or was he expecting her to be even more informal with him, in exchange with his offer to "soon" have something else to call him? Eventually, she said, "My husband calls me Cat."
Captain Jack smiled at that and mused, "Cat, a name of softness and yet a threat of claw and strength and independence. Hmmm, but I see a Kitten, not yet a Cat. Soft and vulnerable, but feisty. Yes, I shall call you Kitten. It would amuse me to do so."
Catherine just stared at this affront. She was angry at his cockiness and wanted to knock him down a peg. But then she realized she was paid to take this arrogance and it did not reduce her, but merely it reduced her in his eyes. It was his loss, she thought. If he has to think of me as a soft little kitten to be protected, then he will not be able to enjoy the confident, complex woman that she was. She vowed to enjoy the meal, the day and re-consider ever going out with him again. She also considered that she did not need to feel great self esteem on these dates. It was a job, and her job was to make this man feel like a powerful man who deserved to have a beautiful woman on his arm. It was about his ego, not hers. In this way she calmed herself and dialed her mind back to focus on his narration of the various neighborhoods they were passing through. Eventually, he had the driver stop the limo at a corner and they got out. "The restaurant is this way." He gestured in response to her bewildered look at the surroundings.
"I prefer to walk a bit to this restaurant. It is a lovely place with narrow streets and I don't like to take a large vehicle into the area. It ruins the spirit of the place." They walked a block and turned on a lane named Half Moon Street. She fell in love with the name, romantic and filled with a promise of a story. And the promise was fulfilled. The streets were narrow and seldom ran straight. The cobblestones that filled the road were handset, how many years ago, and made walking in heels a perilous event, and sang beneath the tires of the rare car that ventured the twisted paths the roads afforded.
They walked past small shops and restaurants. Here a mass of people stood in the street drinking beers, the pub too small to hold them all, and their voices too loud to stay inside. Here was a pastry shop, and another. Over there was a small shop selling tin hand painted soldiers and horses. She wondered how these businesses fared. Like many places in London, people actually lived nearby, sometimes a block over, sometimes over the storefronts. Was it local traffic that supported the shops, or word of mouth that attracted people from far and wide? And here was a Polish Mexican fusion restaurant. Her imagination lit up less based upon the potential recipes that must fulfill the promise of such a fusion; and more on the story of how two lovers must have shared their dreams, leaving practicality behind. And she almost, but not quite, hoped that it would be the destination that Captain Jack was leading her, but it was not. When they stopped, it was at a cafe named "Le Boudin Blanc." It was a French restaurant two arm lengths across the street from an Algerian cafe.
Catherine hoped her high school French would be passable, but it was not. Not only the waiters, but the hostess spoke French, and she was immediately drawn back to the two week summer total immersion trip to Montreal between her junior and senior year in high school. It was that way too, the recognition of fromage and haricot verts, and total incomprehension on everything else. To his credit, Captain Jack seemed quite at ease with the language and kept her from a dinner of cheese and green beans followed by a dessert of crème brulee. She was too embarrassed to ask what he had ordered for her, but it was all quite good and she suspected the meat was lamb, the starch was potato, and the vegetable was, indeed, a very nice form of green bean. The meal was fabulous, tastes melting memories into her mouth and wines matching flavors, then enhancing them. And she found herself enjoying the food, and his stories of discovery in London, which was not his home, or his major location, (neither of which he would reveal).
Too soon they were walking back down the cobblestone street to the limo, his cane tick, tick, ticking on the stones and her heels clicking along side. Occasionally, due to the wonderful wine, the cobblestones gave her ankle a scare and he would put a hand out to catch her. She found his grace and consideration comforting and in turn, found herself enjoying the protection.
He waved away the limo and they continued the last few blocks to her hotel. She was shocked that the restaurant was so close to the Intercontinental, but she shouldn't have been surprised. The whole city twisted around and streets changed names at random.
He escorted her to her room, and though she did not remember inviting him in, it seemed so natural for him to enter and be seated in the overstuffed wing chair at one end of the large hotel room. She had found herself standing ten feet away from him after laying her purse on the bureau. He sat there like a king on a throne and drank in her form. She felt both minimized by the audacity of his perusal, the objectification of her, and proud to be an object of what she took to be admiration. She felt both intimidated and sexy. After a long pause, he said in a quiet powerful voice, "I want to see." She knew immediately what he meant. The ten foot space between them gave her courage and she slowly unbuttoned the dress completely down the front, starting at the top. Each button brought her closer to a submission to him she did not know if she wanted, or craved. And each button exposed a bit more of her pride and courage. With the last button opened, the dress fell back and she slid it wide, like an oyster prepared for a meal. His eyes darted to the floor lightly, subtly, but she was focused on every movement, every tick of the ceiling fan, every sound in the hall outside, and she knew to drop the dress to the floor. Now standing only in her black lacy lingerie, the bra pushing in and up her proud breasts, the bikini panties lying just so on her hipbones, caressing her curves and angling to the vee between her legs, the garter belt emphasizing her narrow waist in her near perfect slender hourglass and black lace topped stockings ending at her high heels. She looked magnificent and she knew it. She slowly turned around to show him her marvelous backside and her long back that her Steven had called the most beautiful back in the world. She knew she impressed this man. He might have had more than a hundred women in his life. Of that she was fairly confident. And certainly some would have been models of some repute. Younger and more lithe. But she felt she had an impressive combination of beauty, grace, intelligence and knowledge. She wanted to impress him.
When she had completed her slow twirl, he raised a hand and beckoned her towards him. And strangely, for the first time since he had entered her room, it dawned on her on what might happen next. She was not prepared to offer herself to him, but she was not sure that she wanted to turn down the opportunity to find out what might be next. Up until now, she had not felt that she was being unfaithful to her husband, but merely acting on a fantasy, a job where rich men paid her to be beautiful and intelligent in their presence. But now, intimacy, with this stranger, for that was what he still remained despite her efforts to the contrary, was now a possibility. And now, as she slowly stepped towards him, she realized that she would have to make a decision soon, and she was ashamed to admit that she hadn't thought it through as she should have. She felt like a naive little school girl enjoying her budding sexuality without appreciating the power, the overwhelming power, it had over men, and how subjugated to that power, these strong men could, and sometimes did, take what was not theirs. Could she say no? Did she even want to say no? Each step made her more into a powerless creature and less the sexy-in-charge vixen she had imagined herself to be moments before.
A step away from him, he said, "Kneel." She sank to her knees in front of him and felt even weaker as she looked towards him, sitting regally in the throne before her. Was she to suck his cock, a thing she had once tried vainly in college and never had tried again, and had
made it clear to any sexual partner that it was beneath her to even be asked to perform such a task? Her arms to her sides, (she did not know where else to put them), she felt awkward and completely in his control. She was on her knees, in her underwear, before a man whose wealth and knowledge could empower him to take her and forbid her from any justice in return. She hung her head in helpless shame and felt the liberation simultaneously. Once she had knelt to this man, submitted to his will, she knew she could not pull back and she was now free from the decision. Her mind swirled with possibilities of where he would take her next and she was afraid the suddenness of events would force her to balk in fear and anxiety. She wanted more time to think, perhaps even to relish the submission.
"Kitten," he said gently, and with immense relief, she knew she was safe for tonight as the very name made him her protector. "The next time we meet, if we should meet again, you may call me Master. I will not force myself on anyone, but you must know by now where the trajectory of this path is taking us. The next time I put the collar on you, you will call me Master, in private, and I shall be your master and you my little plaything. I will find in you a person you did not know existed, but a person you surely must now suspect is inside you. If you wish not to explore her with me, then let the Agency know. I will not call again for at least a week. If I do not hear something by then...well, we'll see."
He stood and loomed over her. Her eyes had been downcast since she had fallen to her knees and now, with one hand, he cupped her chin and made her look into his dark impenetrable eyes, and with his other hand, his large other hand, he reached behind her soft neck and adroitly, nimbly unfastened her collar, one end sliding around her neck, tracing a light stroke of pattern on her throat as he gently pulled it away from her. "Do you understand?" He asked in his firm, but quiet voice.
"Yes, Master." She whispered before she even thought about it.
He smiled and shook his head. "No, not yet, my dear Kitten. But next time." He paused, sliding the necklace/collar into his pocket and pulling a wad of silk from it in exchange. He tossed it on the chair he had just left and said, "You should wear that to sleep in tonight. And take care of yourself while you do so.” He walked around her and out the door, picking up his cane he had leaning against the chair as he did so.
The door closed gently and it was several minutes before Catherine had the peace of mind to rise from her knees. She found herself trembling and she did not know why. She had never felt more helpless and she also realized she had enjoyed it. As she peeled off her panties she found she was wet. She had never felt such a sexual desire without physical contact. She smiled to herself as she came to the realization of what Steven received from his submission to her and she knew now what more she could, what she would, what she wanted to do to him in that state. She finished undressing and pulled a mushroom hat over her hair and stepped into the shower. She didn't know whether she was washing the shame of her feelings off of her or whether she just needed time to think. Confused by the conflicting feelings of lust for the scene of her submitting to her Master Jack and her desire to be faithful to her husband, she begin the slow justification for submitting.
Her husband was, in her perception, incapable of providing a dominant sexual force to her. He could not be both her master and her slave. It was not in his DNA. He was, to all she could see, a born submissive. And until Captain Jack, she would have been convinced that she was a born dominant. But until Steven's mountaintop confession, and the subsequent mutual unfolding of their hidden sexual desires, she would have thought herself neither dominant nor submissive. So perhaps she was wrong, but she quickly pushed that thought away. She did not want to even try to find a dominant side in Steven. The risk of admitting to him that she wanted him to 'go caveman' on her was so overwhelming, she wouldn't take that risk. In this sense, she had less courage than Steven and she respected what it must have taken for him to do so.
It also was obvious to her, as the warm water streamed down her head and back, that she would not call the agency and ask for no more contact with Captain Jack. As she stood there, she knew she couldn't avoid the next steps to her submission. She was going to become this man's sex slave. She knew that she would do what he told her to do. She desired to do what he wanted. She found a wonderful exultation in the very idea. She felt sexy, weak, lustful, submissive, delighted, slutty, free, confused, and ashamed. The floods of emotions running into each other threw her mind back and forth like a dinghy in a storm.
While she toweled off, she remembered his last gestures and she returned to the chair and unfolded the panties he had left her. They were red with black running down the sides and they would be a hideous fit. They were large and would rise to above her belly button. But she slid them up her long legs. She hated the feel of them. They sagged against her butt and were intermittently baggy and too tight as she moved about. They would twist and pull, then would slide effortlessly across her ass or clit and remind her of their soft fabric and of her sexuality. She hated wearing them, but wore them proudly as she slid softly under the bed covers. She reveled in the conflicts within her as she obediently wore them for him and hated herself for doing so, as she snaked her hand easily inside them and pleasured herself, knowing he knew she would do what he had ordered. She came as she imagined him watching her with his brown-black eyes. She laid awake for an hour wondering what to do, knowing she had to talk to Mike for his insight, and at last fell asleep, dreaming of being in leather collar and chains, mouth stretched open as she sucked a massive cock, while she both gagged on it and craved to have more, to please a dark eyed mystery.
Chapter 14: Steven-5
One time when Steven had time to ponder, he thought how unaggressive he was with women, and how that had worked out for him. All in all, very well, thank you. Even though, the few times he had been bold enough to strike up the courage to speak to women he found interesting looking, it had not worked out as he had thought. One time, way back in his single days, he saw a voluptuous blonde in a red string bikini strolling down a beach in Florida. His jaw dropped as he watched her hips swing and sway, as she dug her feet into the sand for traction. The un-natural stride emphasized what would have been a very deliberate va-va-voom move of her back side, even on steady ground, but screamed for a second look while on the beach. The nicely browned flesh that slid out from under the bikini bottoms were as evenly tanned as the skin that was never hidden, causing his mind to imagine her naked sunbathing episodes.
The couple he was with, (He was a fifth wheel quite often in those days, as his shyness and high standards left him unassociated most of the time.), were amused at his sudden focus, as he watched the woman slowly disappear around the point to their north.
"You should go get her.” Kathy remarked.
"You'll be sorry if you don't." Mark added, sliding his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose as he smiled at Steven.
"She probably has a million guys that she is dating now." Steven explained.
"You don't know that," Kathy retorted. "In fact, that's what a million guys are already thinking and that is why she is walking by herself down the beach."
"She's trolling for a guy,” Mark said. "You have to go for it. I got Kathy because I tried when no one else was."
"That's right," Kathy added. "That's how losers, like Mark, get trophies like me." She laughed as Mark slid a piece of ice out of the cooler and threw it at her.
"She's probably a mile away by now." Steven sighed.
"So what?" Mark exclaimed. "She's not trying to outrun anybody, and besides, you're a marathoner. You can do it."
Kathy looked over at him, "What's the worst that could happen? If you don't go, you'll be sleeping alone for sure."
Steven stood and ran down the beach before his courage gave out. He set out at a pace he knew he could keep up for hours. As he rounded the point, he hoped that he would see her bright red bikini, but it was not to be. The beach opened up and he could easily see down the beach for a mile and he knew her p
ace would not let her be near that far ahead. He imagined that she had turned to go up to one of the endless beach houses or hotels along the shore. Out of habit really, he kept his jogging pace up for another five minutes so he wouldn't appear to be doing what he was doing; and finally he stopped and walked a minute before he turned back and thought about what he would say to Kathy and Mark. He was proud that he had overcome his reticence, but wished he had decided sooner, and maybe he would have met her. But maybe she would have been angry or a boyfriend would have found him talking to her, and then he realized he was ‘sour-grape-ing’ the entire thing.
"Are you looking for me?" A voice called out. He looked over and there lay the red bikini girl on a beach towel. He immediately was embarrassed that his search pattern had been so linear and hadn't expected her to stop and lie down. She smiled casually at him, knowing full well that he was embarrassed.
"Yes," was his simple reply.
"Come sit down then," she offered, as she sat up and moved over to make room for him.
She introduced herself and in the course of the conversation, Steven found himself wondering what he had done. As beautiful as she was physically, with clear blue eyes, flawless skin and not a wrinkle on her body, her mind was as empty as the sea beyond the lapping waves. She offered him a toke of her marijuana and even told him to meet her at a party that night, and gave him a deep, drug induced, (so he imagined, in retrospect.), kiss before he was able to leave. As he jogged back down the beach, he realized that it had been worse than a rejection, or a boyfriend intervention. A perfectly formed body had been wasted on a small mind. He was easily at peace with himself and he never even thought twice when he skipped the party that night.
Three Sides of the Coin (Catherine I) Page 15