Crazy Eyes

A Masochist's Adventures in Wonderland

Chapter 10

--------------------

I woke up the next morning, struggled out of my blankets to clear my head, and picked up my phone from the bedside table to turn off my alarm.

The very first notification on the home screen was from Ash.

Good morning, sweetheart. Today you’re going to get a phone call from another dominant. I want you to talk to someone other than me about what is going on between us.

I frowned at the screen trying to figure this out. I didn’t know any other dominants.

I really didn’t want to talk to a total stranger about what was going on between me and Ash, but if he thought it was important, it must be.

So I just texted back, Yes, Sir.

I got up and started my morning routine to get ready for work. I took a shower, got dressed, did my hair and makeup, and checked my sidearm before I drove into town to meet up with Riley.

I kept glancing at my phone every few minutes to see if I missed a call from the mystery dominant. Who was he? What would he be like?

He probably wanted to interrogate me about my experience in the BDSM world and maybe question my motives for getting involved with Ash.

Maybe this mystery dominant was some kind of mentor or big brother figure to Ash or maybe Ash had to answer to someone else.

I fought the urge to text Ash and ask a billion questions about who the guy was, why Ash wanted me to talk to some stranger about our relationship, and what I should expect from the phone call.

I did manage to control myself well enough not to ask. I was supposed to be under Ash’s orders even when we weren’t together.

What could go wrong from a simple phone call? It wasn’t like this guy could actually hurt me or anything.

He wasn’t my dominant, anyway. I kept up my reading and research after Ash accepted me as his submissive.

I knew by now that I didn’t have to submit to any other man or even any other dominant. If this guy had any qualifications as a dominant at all, he should know this as well as I did.

I couldn’t help but burn up with curiosity about who he was and what he wanted to talk to me about. I didn’t even know if he wanted to talk to me. Maybe this was all Ash’s idea.

He did say once that I should talk to someone other than him about my journey. Maybe this had something to do with that.

I really wanted to ask what Ash told this guy about me. Did the guy know I was a newbie straight off the rack and that I never submitted to anyone before Ash?

Did Ash describe in lurid detail all the things we did during our sessions together? This guy might know as much about my relationship with Ash as Ash himself.

That idea didn’t bother me as much as it should have. If this guy was some kind of mentor or supervisor to Ash, then the guy would need to know all of that.

It actually made me feel better that Ash and I weren’t operating in a vacuum. I wouldn’t know without coming straight out and asking if Ash actually answered to this guy.

It did seem like a good thing, though, if that was what was happening. At least one other person knew what was going on between us.

The guy didn’t call. I must have checked my phone a thousand times in one day. I didn’t miss his call. He didn’t call at all.

I finally left work and went home. How long should I wait?

I would normally relax on the couch, watch some TV, read a book, surf the internet, or review my case files during my off-hours.

I couldn’t concentrate well enough to do any of that. I didn’t want to get caught off guard when this phone call actually happened.

I paced around the living room counting down the seconds until the guy called, but he still didn’t call.

I finally gave up and went to bed. Some of us had to get up for work tomorrow morning. I couldn’t wait around anymore.

I went into my room, changed into my pajamas, checked my phone one more time just to make sure my alarm was set to go off at the right time, and crawled under the covers.

I was just getting cozy when the phone rang. I jumped out of my skin and then scrambled to pick up my phone.

My stomach flipped when I read the screen. Unknown number.

I answered it and held the phone to my ear with trembling hands. “Hello?”

A deep, rumbling voice answered from the other end. The guy had a strange accent. “Am I speaking with Lucy?”

“Um…..” I stammered. “Yes, Sir.”

He laughed. “You don’t have to call me that, my dear. My name is Graham. You can call me by my name.”

My brain took a second to switch gears so I could identify his accent. He was Irish. That explained the name.

I fumbled for the right thing to say to him, but the only thing that came out of my mouth was, “Um…..yes, Sir.”

“Never mind. I understand Ash Keiff has accepted you as his submissive. He has asked me to ring you and speak to you about your dynamic.”

“Um…..yes, Sir.” God, I sounded like an idiot.

Something about the guy’s voice had an even more hypnotic effect on me than Ash’s voice usually did.

Graham’s voice was lower than Ash’s and more resonant. Did all these guys go through some kind of dominant vocal training to make their voices as intimidating and suggestive as possible?

Graham’s voice had a way of numbing my mind just as Ash’s did, but Graham’s cut with a harsher edge. I could definitely picture this guy being a serious sadist when he wanted to be one.

For some reason, the harsh quality of his deep voice was the one thing that made it so seductive. Whatever harsh, sadistic things he did to his submissives must have been unbelievably erotic.

For the first time, just from hearing this guy’s voice, the idea of someone doing something harsh, sadistic, and brutal to me actually started to turn me on.

Ash never talked to me like this. He kept his sadistic side completely hidden from me.

This man on the other end of this phone—he never did or said anything sadistic to me, either.

He acted perfectly cordial and polite—and yet his voice suggested so many wicked, dark, forbidden things—things I would have run from just a few weeks ago.

“So what is it you’re hoping to find and learn by being in a dynamic with Ash?” he asked.

“Um….you know….just….Sir…..I guess I need to explore my masochistic side or…..you know….maybe find out if I even have any masochistic side…..Ash is my first dominant….so I’m just learning…..”

I broke off before I made an even bigger fool of myself than I already was.

“Does the idea of Ash restraining you and using your body arouse you?” he asked.

I felt his voice having the same intoxicating effect on me. His voice put me into another state—a state of suggestibility where every word acted on my mind.

“Yes, Sir!” I squeaked.

“Do you get aroused by the idea of him doing whatever he wants to you, even if he does something you’ve never tried before?”

My pulse quickened. Was he doing this on purpose? I had to gasp for breath just to rasp out, “Yes, Sir!”

“Do you get aroused thinking about him laying his hands on you….or using implements on you……and imprinting his dominance into you where you can feel it branded into your flesh?”

“Yes, Sir!” Did I say those words out loud or was I panting too hard?

“You feel that, don’t you?” His voice deepened. He dragged out every word in a low, sultry, rumbling vibration. “You feel his hands getting heavier…..striking harder……the warmth of his touch turns to thuds and then to stings……You scream from the intensity of that sensation……and the pain turns to pleasure…..Everything he does to you makes you want to orgasm…..doesn’t it?”

I moaned instead of answering.

“Do you feel him striking you with any tool he wishes?”

“Yes!” I practically screamed.

His voice transported me back to Ash’s apartment. I really felt him striking me with his flogger, but this time, he hit much harder.

The strikes hurt—but the intensity of that pain turned me on beyond anything I could have imagined—because Ash was the one who did it.

That was the moment when I realized. I really didn’t care if he did something to hurt me. Anything he did would turn me on.

The simple fact that he gave me his attention enough to strike me—it would turn me on. Screaming because he hurt me felt like screaming from having an orgasm.

Graham’s voice did something else to me, too. It actually made me want Ash to do something as harsh as that.

Ash always conducted himself as the perfect gentleman—with me, at least. What would it take to get him to release that part of himself? That would be something to see.

I wanted him to. I wanted him to stamp his presence into my body—the harder the better.

I became distantly aware of the silence on the other end of the phone. I got so absorbed in thinking about the picture in my mind that I didn’t realize until too late that Graham wasn’t talking to me anymore.

I swallowed hard and took a few more shuddering breaths. I had to pull my head out of the clouds to get through the rest of this conversation.

“Tell me,” he went on after a minute. “Tell me what you feel when you kneel at his feet and you feel him standing over you.”

I clamped my eyes shut holding back a tide of emotion and arousal. He couldn’t have come up with another subject better designed to make me crumble into a puddle of desire.

“I feel….” I faltered again.

“Take your time, my dear,” he murmured. “There is no right or wrong answer.”

“I feel……Sir……um……”

What did I feel when I knelt at Ash’s feet? It took me a long time even to decide what to say.

“I feel…small…..and weak…..and vulnerable…..and scared…..”

“And yet you kneel,” he pointed out. “You kneel willingly.”

“Yes!” My voice cracked. I wanted to cry.

That feeling of being small and weak and scared in front of Ash—there was nowhere else in the world I would rather be.

“Do you feel safe when you kneel before him?”

Tears sprang to my eyes and my throat seized up. “Yes! I feel safe.”

“That is all I really need to know, my dear Lucy. Thank you for a delightful conversation. I’m sure you’ll make an excellent submissive for Ash—which I’m sure is the reason he took you on. I hope you have a pleasant evening. Sleep well. Good night.”

He hung up without waiting for me to say anything else.

I curled over in a ball under the covers and buried my face in the pillow. I choked back a wave of anguish thinking about kneeling at Ash’s feet.

Kneeling like that made me tremble in fear of what he would do to me, but that was nothing compared to the fear of losing him—or displeasing him.

All mixed up in that fear was the rock-solid certainty that he would never hurt me. He might make me feel pain, but he would never genuinely hurt me—not really.

I would never find anyone better to explore this world with. My instincts were right about him. I made the right choice by submitting to him instead of someone else.

All these feelings wouldn’t subside, so I pushed myself up on my elbow, opened the drawer of my bedside table, and took out my vibrator.

I crawled back under the covers, shut my eyes in the dark, and let the vibrations spread through me as my arousal built to an explosive climax.

I was back there…..back in the office leaning against the window with my arms above my head and my eyes closed……

This time, he walked around and around my naked body whipping me with something much harder and much more painful than his black flogger.

That pain spiraled into mind-blowing pleasure until I orgasmed thinking about him marking my body as his own. He drove his presence into my flesh where it would never, ever go away.

End of Chapter 10.

A Masochist's Adventures in Wonderland

Chapter 9

___________________

I looked down at my phone and grinned when I saw a text from Ash. Are you in bed yet, baby?

My heart skipped a beat when I texted back. Yes, Sir.

Calling him that excited me so much. I couldn’t explain why except that now we were heading out into the final frontier of uncharted territory.

I didn’t know where this journey would end, but I sure wanted to find out.

The road stretched out in front of me full of endless possibilities. The old limits no longer existed.

Get comfortable in bed. I’m going to call you on the phone.

I snuggled deeper under the covers. I was as comfortable as I could be in my pajamas. I could only get more comfortable if I didn’t have to hold onto my phone.

I’m ready, I told him.

First tell me what you usually do when you masturbate. Do you use your fingers or toys?

I blinked at the phone. He seriously wanted to know what I did when I masturbated?

He said he would get all up in my business and find out everything about my life. I just never thought it would go as far as this.

My excitement turned to nerves. I use a vibrator.

Do you use it by itself?

Yes, Sir.

What kind of vibrator is it?

Wow, he was really giving me the third degree here.

I just hoped he wouldn’t start asking me what I thought about when I masturbated. I wouldn’t want him to know how much I thought about him.

Um…..it’s just a normal vibrator. I’m not sure how to describe it.

What shape is it? What size?

It’s cylindrical. It’s about four inches long, I guess.

Do you insert it or do you use it on your clitoris?

I cringed. Damn, he was getting really clinical about this. Just on my clitoris.

Do you use your fingers inside at the same time or the vibrator by itself?

By itself. Then I remembered to add, Sir.

Get out your vibrator and put in your earbuds so I can call you.

I had to get out of bed and walk across the house to get my earbuds out of my purse. I crawled back into bed, put in my earbuds, and burrowed under the covers clutching my vibrator in one hand and my phone in the other.

I’m ready, I told him.

My phone started ringing. It was him.

“Can you hear me?” he asked.

“Yes, Sir. I can hear you. Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you,” he told me. “Are you comfortable in bed?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good. Put your phone down, lie down flat on your bed, and start using your vibrator.”

I put my phone down, pulled the covers all the way up to my chin, and turned on my vibrator.

I slipped my hand down my pajama pants and touched the vibrator to my clitoris.

The constant tapping and stimulation of Ash’s flogger yesterday left me extra sensitive.

I escalated much faster than I usually did. Heat spread through me and outward to the rest of my body.

Ash’s voice rumbled in my ear, but it sounded like it was coming from the very center of my head.

“Listen to my voice very carefully, baby. I want you to close your eyes and imagine that first night when we were in the club.”

His voice spiraled around me. It vibrated into my bones and got all mixed up with the warm, pleasurable vibrations spreading through my pussy right now.

His voice slithered between my legs, around my stomach and breasts, up my neck, over my lips, and into my mouth.

His voice stimulated every nerve ending, caressed me as if he was here in this bed with me, and even licked me between my legs to turn me on.

“You’re standing at the window with your hands above your head,” he growled. “You have your eyes closed…..your lips fall open…..your body softens……You feel me behind you…..”

My breath quickened. That moment at the window cast me under his spell. I never got out of it.

His voice transported me back there instantaneously. He stood right behind me breathing in my ear.

His presence turned me on beyond anything I ever felt before.

“You feel my arms slide around you…..” he murmured. “You feel my hands grab your breasts through your dress…….Do you feel that?”

“Yes!” I whimpered. “Yes, Sir.”

His voice dropped in tone. It cut with a harder edge and he started talking faster. “You feel me hard against your ass…..I grab your hips and pull you against me…..”

I couldn’t stop panting. I felt everything he said as if he was doing it to me right this minute.

“My hands slide up your thighs under your dress……you feel your thighs part for me……the heat between your legs turns into an ache…..You’re getting so wet you can’t stand it……You moan for me to touch you and bend you over and take you right here….”

I moaned and my voice spiked into a high-pitched whine. How did he always know exactly what I needed?

“You feel my hands slide around your thighs. I lift you back into me and grind into your ass while my fingers rub you through your soaking-wet panties…..”

I couldn’t stop moaning. My other hand flew to my breast and down my side under the covers, but I couldn’t even stand to touch myself.

Touching myself felt like such a let-down. I wanted him. I needed him. Anything else just made me more desperate.

“You can’t stop rubbing your ass against my cock. You feel how hard I am and you need me so bad. You feel my mouth on your ear and my teeth biting into your neck from behind…..”

I yelped as a spike of passion blasted me out of my mind. My pathetic moans rose to cries. I needed to cum right now, but I needed him more.

His fingers and toys didn’t satisfy me. I needed him to take me so hard.

“I pull your panties down and bend you forward. You keep your hands on the window frame above your head. You arch your back so your breasts stick out and your ass presents for me……..”

I spread my legs a little wider under the covers and writhed in ragged ecstasy. I felt him doing everything to me—everything I wanted him to do.

“You feel my cock slide into you…..You’re so wet and your muscles clamp around me while I drill into your ass…..you can’t stop screaming as I drive you up against the window….taking you……making you cum……”

“Please….Sir…..” I whimpered. “Please….make me cum…..”

“Do you feel that?” he demanded. “Do you feel me behind you….owning you….invading you……taking you and making you mine…..?”

“Yes!” I shrieked. “Yes, Sir! Please….please……”

“You feel so fucking good, baby…..your ass smacks my hips every time I bump into you…..I shove you against the window and press your bare breasts against the glass while I fuck you deep and hard.”

I couldn’t beg anymore. His voice held me on a tightrope. I needed to completely fall apart in a mind-blowing orgasm, but I also needed to do what he said.

The agreement we made acted on my mind—or maybe it just meant so much to me that I couldn’t bring myself to break it.

“Is this what you wanted that night at the club, baby?” he murmured. “Is this what you thought about me doing to you—fucking you like this?”

“YES!!” I shrieked and broke down moaning again in desperate sobs.

“Did you want me even then?” he rasped. “Did you feel me taking control of you and giving you everything you need?”

“YES!!” My voice cracked with all the emotion breaking out of me right now.

“Turn off your vibrator, baby.”

“No! Please, no!” I scrambled to turn under the covers trying to find some way out of this. “Please don’t do this to me…..”

He changed his tone to cold steel again. “Obey me, Lucy. Turn off your vibrator.”

I whimpered and sobbed, but I did what he said and turned it off. Then I collapsed moaning in my bed and seething with all this pent-up frustration.

“Lie still, baby,” he commanded. “Lie flat on your bed and listen to me. Be quite and listen to my voice.”

I tried to keep quiet, but I couldn’t stop squirming and twisting all over the place. This feeling threatened to tear me apart from the inside.

“Keep your eyes closed and concentrate on my voice,” he told me. “Feel my voice.”

Oh, I felt it all right. Feeling it wasn’t the problem—or it would have been more accurate to say that his voice was the problem.

“I want you to concentrate really hard and feel me between your legs…..feeling me licking you…….feel me thrusting into you from behind……feel my fingers rubbing you while I fuck you….you feel yourself getting hotter and hotter. You’re about to cum……”

I whined again and that whine turned into a cry that rose to a scream.

His voice cast another spell over me. I really did feel his tongue, his fingers, and his cock moving into me.

“You’re still standing in the window with your arms raised and your eyes closed. I’m doing everything you want me to, everything you imagined I would do that night. Can you feel that?”

“Yes!” I screeched. “Yes, please…..please, Sir…..please let me cum…..”

“I hear you screaming as I pound into you. I press my mouth against your ear and whisper…… ‘Cum for me, baby’…….’Cum for me now’……”

I screamed again….and again as I climaxed out of control. The pressure building between my legs skyrocketed and then cascaded all over my body in a torrent.

“Yeah!” he snarled from the other end of the phone. “Yeah! Come on! You feel so damn good when you cum for me like that.”

I convulsed on the bed thrashing in all directions. I’d never experienced anything like this.

This orgasm left me so emotionally fragile and needing him more than before it happened. I wilted on the bed and turned my face into the pillow moaning in so much heartbroken anguish.

Where were his arms when I really needed him? I would have given anything just to sit at his feet and hold onto his legs just for a few minutes.

“That was so beautiful, baby,” he murmured in my ear. “I knew you could do it. I’m proud of you.”

I couldn’t answer. I curled into a ball on my side, but I couldn’t stop stroking my hands all over my body and touching myself through my pajamas. Anything would be better than being alone right now.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“I need you…!” I choked. “I need you, Ash!”

“You have me, baby,” he murmured. “I’m right here. I’m right here with you.”

I whimpered and tried to look away, but there was nothing to look away from. He wasn’t here.

“You said you wanted to do this for me, baby,” he went on in the same undertone. “I need to know that I control when you cum and when you don’t—and how you cum and how you don’t. Your orgasms are for me to give you. I know you need me and you have me. You have me exactly the way you asked. Now you’re getting what you asked for.”

“I know!” I moaned. “I don’t want to change it. I just…..”

I broke off in another wretched moan. I couldn’t exactly complain when he really did give me an orgasm, but damn! Who knew an orgasm could make me even more ravenously sexual than when I started?

“Talk to me,” he told me. “Tell me what you’re feeling right now.”

“I’m just….lonely for you. I want you and you aren’t here. I was doing okay before….and now I’m really sad that you aren’t here.”

“We’re just as together now as we were ten minutes ago. Do you remember what you felt like when you sat at my feet and fell asleep with your head on my lap?”

I almost started crying. “I just want to be there! I need to feel you next to me!”

“Close your eyes, baby. You are there. You’re there right now. Put your arms around my legs and feel me petting your hair. You’re starting to drift off. You feel that I’m proud of you and I want you here with me. You’re warm and comfortable next to me. Do you feel that?”

His voice started to mesmerize me again—or maybe I was just really tired.

I wrapped my arms around my pillow….and my fatigue turned it into his legs.

“You were magnificent tonight,” he breathed. “I could just imagine you trembling under my hand…..the way you look up at me with your big eyes…..the way you beg…..Fuck, I love to hear you beg for it.”

His voice trailed off….and I started to drift. The intoxication of my orgasm transported me into the world of his voice. I felt myself looking into his eyes begging him to let me cum….and at the same time sitting at his feet with his fingers in my hair…..

The peace and security of that moment blurred with all the desire I still felt for him. That desire became simply the desire to be near him—to feel his presence flooding me with the feeling of him being near me……because he was near me.

I floated—and the next thing I knew, I was waking up to my alarm the next morning.

End of Chapter 9.

A Masochist's Adventures in Wonderland

Chapter 8

----------------

I stood on the outskirts of town, stared across open grasslands, and let the wind blew through my hair.

In a few minutes, I would drive to Ash’s apartment for what might be our final meeting, but I was ready.

I just needed to take a few minutes to collect myself.

This calm stayed with me all week, even when Ash texted to check in with me. I never dropped, as he called it. I stayed rock solid. I just had to tell him where I stood and let the chips fall where they may.

This last week was an eye-opener for me. I spent more time studying BDSM this week than in the last six months combined.

I was as prepared as I could possibly be to meet Ash. I was far better prepared to meet him tonight than I was at the club.

A vibrating alarm went off on my watch. I turned it off and walked back to my car. There was no reason to put off the inevitable any longer.

I drove to his apartment, walked in, and stopped in my usual spot. He sat on the couch with his ankle on his knee and his arm over the cushion.

We both stood there staring at each other for what seemed like a long time.

“Was there something you wanted to say to me after our meeting last week?” he asked.

I studied him for a second and then tossed my handbag onto the chair next to me.

I kept my eyes down while I unbuttoned my shirt, took off all my clothes, and tossed them over the chair. My heart started pounding when I sank onto my knees on the floor.

I didn’t dare to look up. This might not work, but I had to try it.

I had been starting to get the picture about what was missing between me and Ash—why he kept insisting that I couldn’t be his submissive—what I was missing.

I stared at a spot on the floor and waited for the axe to fall. This moment would make or break us—if there even was an us to break.

I didn’t know what to expect, but when it happened, it was the last thing in the world I could have predicted.

He stood up, walked around the coffee table, and stopped in front of me.

He lowered his voice to a murmur. He didn’t snap or give commands. “What is it you want to say to me?”

I took a deep breath, but it didn’t do any good to steady my nerves. I had rehearsed exactly what I wanted to say to him.

Kneeling in front of him made it a thousand times harder to get the words out. I could only look up as far as his knees.

“You’re right that I don’t know what it means to be a masochist,” I choked. “But I want to be that for you. I want to be what you want. I know you can show me what it means….and I want that. I want to be the one who gives you that. If that’s what it takes to be your submissive, then that’s what I want to do. I want your heart….”

“You have my heart, Lucy,” he murmured. “Don’t you know that by now?”

I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed hard. He made it even worse when he raised his hand and started stroking my hair.

“You said it was my responsibility to tell you what I want and then you would provide it to me. This is what I want—to have something real with you—even if it means becoming a masochist. I don’t know what it would take, but I want to try to at least find out if I can. I want to be that for you—to make you feel….whatever it is you feel when you do that. This….whatever it is that we’ve been doing—these half-measures—I can’t do this. I won’t do it. If I can’t at least try to have something real with you, then I don’t want to do this anymore.” I shut my eyes tight. “I….I feel too much for you. I don’t want to think about you if I can’t have you—for real. I can’t do this if I can’t at least give you what you’re giving me. I don’t want that. I don’t want this to be some kind of business transaction.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. I flatly refused to look up to see his reaction.

He didn’t stop stroking my hair, so I guess it wasn’t a complete disaster that I said all that.

“So you want to have something real with me,” he finally murmured.

“Yes,” I croaked.

“And you want to be my submissive and learn to be a masochist so you can give me what I want—so I’ll want to have something real with you. Am I understanding this right?”

I could barely speak above a whisper when I said, “Yes.”

“If you do this, you would be submissive to me all the time—not just when you’re in this apartment. You would be submissive to me even when you aren’t here. I would find out everything about you. I would involve myself in every aspect of your life. I would stick my nose into all your business and demand answers about everything to do with you. Are you prepared for that?”

I had to gulp again. “Yes.”

He waited a long time before he answered. “All right. I’ll take you as my submissive.”

I couldn’t breathe. This was what I wanted. I just still didn’t know what that meant.

“From now on, you’ll refer to me as Sir and answer me by saying, ‘Yes, Sir,’ and ‘No, Sir’. Is that clear?”

I nodded and then remembered to say, “Yes, Sir.”

Kneeling in front of him like this threw me back into the state of emotional fragility I felt when he made me beg him to give me an orgasm.

Now I was here essentially begging him to give me something so much bigger and so much more important.

Would I be good enough for him? What if I couldn’t hack it?

He was a sadist—but apparently I didn’t understand what that meant, either.

He didn’t act the way I thought a sadist would act. He wasn’t a brutal, vicious, axe-murdering psychopath.

I couldn’t fathom him ever hurting me—ever. He was too controlled—and it really, honestly never crossed my mind that he didn’t care about me.

“Now listen to me very carefully, Lucy,” he went on. “It’s important that you understand this. How much pain you receive is my decision. If you want something, you ask for it and it will be my decision whether to do it. That includes if you want to touch me. If you want to do something to me or for me, you ask and it will be for me to say yes or no. Is that understood?”

I nodded again and said, “Yes, Sir.”

He took a deep breath. Was he shaking as badly as I was?

“I am very proud to take you as a submissive, Lucy.” His voice really was shaking. “I’m extremely pleased and humbled seeing you kneeling before me like this. I hope I can be a good dominant for you—and I swear to you that I will never hurt you in any way that you don’t want me to. I will always take every possible step to protect you and make sure that you enjoy everything I do. I hope you can believe that.”

“I do…..Sir.”

He bent over and kissed me on the head before he walked away. He left me kneeling there while he banged around somewhere else in the apartment.

He stayed over there for so long that I almost looked up to see what he was doing.

I froze in horror when I saw him coming toward me. He carried a black flogger in one hand.

Finely plaited leather strips crisscrossed the handle and twisted around each other to form dozens of long falls all lying against each other.

I stole a glance at it and immediately looked away. Adrenaline burned my insides. I couldn’t let him hit me with that. No way.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked in a dangerous undertone.

“Yes,” I squeaked.

“Yes, Sir,” he corrected.

“Yes, Sir,” I whimpered.

Was he going to punish me for making that mistake?

“Lean forward, put your hands down flat on the floor, and rest your weight on your hands.”

I leaned forward. Kneeling like this made my knees ache. I wasn’t used to it. Leaning forward took the pressure off my knees.

He started pacing around me in a circle the way he did before, but this was a completely different experience.

I felt myself shrinking in front of him—and really, really hoping I was doing this right so I would be what he wanted me to be.

“Spread your knees,” he told me. “Put your head down and shut your eyes. I want you to feel everything I’m about to do to you.”

I lowered my head and shut my eyes. I couldn’t help but brace myself for the first brutal cut.

He stopped behind me….and then something touched my back.

I wasn’t exactly sure what it was because at first it felt soft and gentle. It took me a minute to figure out that he was dragging the leather falls over my skin.

He passed it back and forth a few times and then swept it higher each time. It landed on my skin just a fraction of an inch harder, but it still felt soft and gentle.

He kept increasing the height a tiny smidge each time until it actually did land with a very slight thud.

The leather strips fell together in one clump. They didn’t sting or cut. They barely tapped.

The increasing pressure felt like getting a massage. It actually relaxed me.

He worked across my shoulders and down my spine. That feeling of deep relaxation spread over me. This didn’t hurt at all. It actually felt amazingly good.

He worked back up my spine, back and forth across my shoulders, and even around my shoulders toward my arms.

He stopped long before I got tired of it. I could have gone on much longer.

He walked around in front of me. “Stand up in front of me and put your hands behind your head.”

I stood up. I didn’t realize my knees were this crimped until I tried to straighten my legs.

I had to take longer to straighten them, but Ash didn’t seem to mind. He stood there waiting.

I put my hands behind my head and laced my fingers together. I didn’t remember until I got into that position that I was naked.

I didn’t plan to look at him, but standing in that position put me in the most strategic place and my eyes automatically wound up locking on him.

He held that gaze without looking away—and raised the flogger again.

Having him flog my back prepared me for what he was about to do.

He dragged the soft leather over my nipples and down my stomach and thighs. I had to shut my eyes and gulp as the sensation sent ripples of sparks all over my skin.

He picked up speed and barely bumped the falls against my breasts, down my stomach, down my thighs, and eventually between my legs.

He still didn’t increase the pressure. That gentle bumping sensation excited me out of my mind, but he moved off immediately and worked his way back up to my breasts.

He built up power to the same deep massaging sensation he used on my back. The warmth spread through my breasts and into my chest. It felt incredible—and so unbelievably hot.

My excitement escalated when he worked down my stomach and then up my thighs to my pussy.

He beat the falls at the same steady rhythm and the same pressure against my clitoris.

I clamped my eyes shut whining in aching need as the waves of ecstasy spread outward through me. I needed to cum.

He read my mind. “Look at me,” he murmured.

My eyes snapped open—and I knew. I had to ask for it. I wouldn’t be able to if I didn’t ask.

“Please…..” I choked.

“Please what?” he snapped.

“Please…..Sir……please……” I gulped. The emotion of looking in his eyes almost made me start crying again, but this time, I had an outlet. The last barrier no longer separated me from what I really needed.

“Please…..let me cum…..” I choked and then screamed as another blast of electric power shot straight up my channel into my being.

“Cum for me, baby,” he murmured. “Cum for me right now. Let me see how much you want me to take you.”

I couldn’t stop screaming. The wave crested before he said that, but it took his word to make it happen.

He kept bumping the flogger against my clit at the same insistent rhythm while I spasmed and shrieked in agony. My knees almost buckled. I barely managed to stay upright.

He changed the angle of strikes. He didn’t land exactly on my clitoris anymore. I wouldn’t have been able to cope with that.

He struck a little deeper between my legs so the falls landed across my entire vulva. Those strikes made another warm, soothing, outward-spreading flush of heat that helped me calm down.

I was still trembling from the intensity of the sensation when he stopped. “Kneel, baby,” he murmured.

I almost collapsed onto the floor. I couldn’t sit up straight. My shoulders slumped and I buckled there gasping, moaning, and struggling to cope with all of this.

He took a step closer and started stroking my hair again. That touch actually hurt more than anything else that happened this evening.

This feeling of being totally crushed by my feelings for him—it felt like the worst agony of my life—and yet it somehow fulfilled something I never knew I needed.

I knew I needed something more from him, but I didn’t know what it was until right this minute.

This was it—this feeling of aching for him—for his approval and presence.

He didn’t tell me I could, but I scooted across the floor, put my arms around his knees, and held on.

I didn’t ask for permission and he didn’t tell me I could, but I needed this. I needed to anchor myself to him so much more than I ever did before.

He didn’t stop me. He let me hold onto him while he trailed his fingers through my hair.

He let me stay there, bowed and crushed, until I stopped shaking and finally inhaled a long, shuddering sigh.

He waited until I let go of him on my own. I couldn’t think clearly enough to decide what to do next.

He cupped my chin and made me look up at him. His voice cracked when he spoke. “Do you understand now?”

I had to gulp again to get my parched throat working. “Yes, Sir.”

“I’m very, very pleased with you, baby. I’m very happy to have you as my submissive. I’m proud of everything you did here tonight. You exceeded my wildest expectations. I didn’t think you would be able to do it, but you did it beautifully. I am very lucky to have you as a submissive.”

My throat contracted from emotion—and then he kissed me—only once.

He turned away. “Come over here and sit next to me.”

He returned to his usual place on the couch, put his foot against the coffee table, and pushed it a few feet away from him to make more space in front of him.

I got to my feet and hobbled over there.

He took my hand and guided me down to sit on the floor next to his legs.

He picked up a blanket that hung over the back of the couch, draped it around my shoulders, and wrapped me up in it.

Then he laid his hand on my head and steered me to lie down with my cheek against his thigh.

My eyes shut in the closeness of just being near him.

I must have drifted off because I woke up still sitting on the floor next to his leg. He wasn’t stroking my hair anymore. That would have woken me up.

I sat up and looked around in a daze. I was still half asleep.

I looked over and found him studying me with his head on the side. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“Sleepy,” I croaked. “I mean….Sir.”

He raised his hand and stroked it down my cheek this time. “Do you feel like going home?”

I nodded at nothing. My brain wouldn’t switch back on.

“Do you think you’ll be all right to drive?”

I glanced around. “Would you mind….if I have a drink of water….Sir?”

“Of course.”

He stood up, went to the kitchen, ran a glass under the water filter installed in the front of the refrigerator, and brought it back to me.

I took a big gulp. It made me feel better and soothed my dry throat.

“Do you feel like you need to eat something?”

“No, I’ll be okay…..Sir.”

He burst into a huge grin. “Don’t worry if it takes you a while to get used to it.”

I found myself smiling back at him. “I like it. I just need to…well, you just said it, didn’t you?”

He smiled again and his cheeks flushed. “Thank you,” he exclaimed.

My head shot up. “What for?”

“For asking to be my submissive. I’m excited and nervous all that the same time. This is going to be great.”

I blushed and looked away. “I’m sorry if I didn’t do it right.”

“You were perfect. You did everything right.”

His attention was making me uncomfortable. “I should probably get out of here.”

“Okay.” He put his hand down. “Take your time.”

I didn’t need to take my time. I stood up, folded the blanket, and draped it over the back of the couch.

I became aware that I was standing right in front of him stark naked. We seemed to have traveled so far past all that now. It wasn’t like he didn’t already know what I looked like.

He watched in silence as I put my clothes back on. I couldn’t look at him until I got fully dressed and stood in the same place facing him.

“Thank you for everything you did and said tonight,” he repeated. “I very pleased with you and very, very proud of you.”

I blushed again. “Thanks…for everything….Sir.”

He grinned. “Have a good week. I’ll text you later….and I will continue to text you during the week. This won’t just be about aftercare anymore. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “Yes, Sir.”

“Excellent. Go home, then. I’ll talk to you later.”

End of Chapter 8

A Masochist's Adventures in Wonderland

Chapter 8

____________________

I stopped at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Ash’s apartment. I had to take a few deep breaths to steady my nerves before I went up there. What would I find there?

Our last meeting threw all the rules under the bus. I had no idea what to expect.

I had to find out, though, even if it meant he didn’t want to see me again.

I climbed up the stairs and stopped again at the top door. It was closed.

Actually, our last meeting didn’t change anything. It didn’t throw any of the rules under the bus.

I knew that at the time. I was still submissive to him even when I touched him and sucked him and did it with him. Doing it with him didn’t change any of that.

It didn’t change the basic protocols and procedures we had already set up, either—or that he set up.

As soon as I opened this door and walked into the apartment, I would become his submissive again.

I had to brace myself before I did it. Being submissive to him turned out to be something completely different from what I expected.

I pushed the door open. I couldn’t even be surprised when I saw him sitting on the couch in his old place.

He rested his ankle on his knee and laid his arm over the back of the couch. Of course. Where else would he be—lying naked in bed? Not likely.

I shut the door behind me, stopped in my usual place, and put my handbag on the chair nearest me before I faced him.

He leveled me with his usual penetrating stare. Why did I even entertain the possibility that he would become less dominant after last time? That was never going to happen no matter what happened between us.

He dipped his chin once like he needed to answer a question I asked him.

“So….same rules as last time,” he began. “Touching and penetration, but only with fingers and objects—no body contact. Go upstairs, take off all your clothes, fold them on the chair, and lie down on the bed where you were last time.”

I stared back at him for a minute taking all of that in. Was he really going to act like last week never happened?

He inclined his head to one side. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” I murmured. “No problem.”

“Then go do it. Go upstairs.”

I turned away and went upstairs on autopilot. I shouldn’t be surprised by any of this—and I wasn’t. I didn’t really think anything would change—except that it changed for me.

I folded my clothes on the chair, placed my shoes under the chair, stretched out on the bed in the same place, and fixed my gaze on a spot on the ceiling.

I didn’t move or even get nervous when Ash came upstairs, entered the room, and started buckling the cuffs around my wrists.

He cinched the ropes tight to pull my arms and legs out toward the corners of the bed. He rendered me as helpless as last time, but this position didn’t make me nervous anymore.

I dropped into a sea of dead calm. Nothing bad could happen to me as long as I was here.

Whatever he did, I would enjoy it. He would never hurt me or do anything I didn’t want him to do. I knew that in the marrow of my bones.

He finished tightening the ropes and paced around me examining my body from all angles.

I didn’t look at him or watch him. I fixed my gaze on that spot on the ceiling. Whatever was about to happen would come either way.

That spot calmed me. It anchored me in the certainty that I was perfectly safe even here.

He surprised me by walking around the bed and sitting next to me on the mattress. My head snapped sideways to stare at him.

His features twisted when he gazed down at me. He looked as pained and distressed as he did after our session at the club.

He bent down, cupped my cheek in one hand, and kissed me. He kissed with all the passion of last week.

My desire for him exploded off the charts when I felt his passion building up in heat and power—but he broke away immediately. He sat up straight and went back to looking down at me.

He passed his thumb across my lips and then trailed his hand down to my neck.

I froze when he wrapped his fingers around my throat, but he only brushed it before he slid down to my shoulders, chest, and arms.

He stroked me all over and then migrated to my breasts. I clamped my eyes shut when he squeezed them. His touch made me want him so bad. Last week only made it worse.

He had been taking it easy on me by not doing it with me. I didn’t realize that until now.

I couldn’t tell where this aching need for him would end if he really did it with me—like really took me and expressed the depth of that passion.

He made me yelp and moan when he played with my nipples and then bent over to suck them.

He paid a lot more attention to them this time and took longer to tease them to hard little nubs.

He flicked his tongue over them in their hardest, most excited state and made gasp and whine while I tried in every way to get near him.

He climbed on top of me the way he did last time and mouthed both my nipples to ragged agony.

He shifted from my left nipple to my right—and his hand dropped down to my crotch.

I writhed in torment when he laid his flat fingers on my clit and started tracing slow, gentle circles over the most sensitive areas. He kept sucking my nipples until I couldn’t stand it.

I reared off the bed a dozen times trying to increase the pressure—both from his mouth on my breasts and his fingers on my slit.

He wouldn’t escalate no matter what I did. He wouldn’t speed up or press any harder.

He reduced me to a sobbing wreck of pathetic need before he gave my nipples one last delicious suck and crawled down to my stomach.

My eyes rolled back in their sockets and I turned my head away holding back sobs when he dropped one excruciating kiss after another across my stomach.

He mouthed up the sensitive skin under my ribs. I howled in agony when those kisses sent their electric charge through me. He kissed exactly the same spots on my stomach that I teased on him last week. The cruel bastard.

He kept circling at the same rhythm……and then glided his fingertips down to my swollen pussy lips.

He didn’t enter, though. He just trailed his fingertips through them….just enough to tell him how dripping wet he made me.

I actually screamed when he touched me—more from blistering desire than from anything he did. He didn’t do anything. He barely touched me at all.

He kept going down….down…..down…..leaving molten kisses around my navel and down to my mound……

He kissed on top of my pubic bone and then delivered the most meaningless kiss possible to my clitoris.

I howled in tortured, ravenous madness when he pulled away. How could he do this to me?

He finally, finally moved his body down between my legs and settled in to lick me…..but of course he didn’t just devour me the way I wanted him to.

His tongue left a feather-light trail through my engorged pussy lips, gave my clitoris the most passing graze, and breathed on me until I convulsed on the bed in brutal misery.

I kept trying to throw my hips at him, but he adjusted his position again and again so I couldn’t touch him.

He dallied his tongue a little deeper between my saturated petals and inched higher toward my clitoris. How could he torment me like this?

He sank deeper into the bed and started circling my clitoris again—with his tongue this time.

He made me scream again and again, but he still didn’t escalate. He built up slowly until my desire flew completely out of control.

I yanked against the ropes, but I couldn’t free myself. He licked a little faster….a little harder……and then I really did almost break down in tears when he eased off and stood up.

I turned my head away so he wouldn’t see me moaning and whimpering in desolate hunger.

Of course he saw. He kept pacing around the bed staring down at me. He knew exactly what he was doing to me.

I had to pay attention when he dropped his knees on the bed and propped himself on all fours on top of me.

His face hung directly over me and his voice shot straight to the center of my being. “Look at me,” he commanded.

I turned around and looked, but I couldn’t help grimacing in agony when I looked into his eyes.

Now he would see. Now he would know how much I needed and wanted him—like he didn’t already know.

He kissed me just long enough to get a rise out of me. As soon as he felt me respond, he pulled back to stare down into my eyes from directly above.

He lowered his hand between my legs, circled my clitoris a few more times, and then eased two of his fingers inside me.

I groaned that now, at last, I would be able to climax and relieve all this tension tearing me apart.

His eyes commanded me to look at him no matter what. I didn’t even try to hide how desperate and raw he made me.

He pumped his fingers into me again and again—and then pivoted his legs around to anchor his hips against his hand the way he did last time.

“Is this what you want?” he murmured. “Do you want to cum like this?”

“YES!!” I shrieked and moaned in craven desire. “I need to!”

“Beg me for it,” he snapped.

My eyes shot open. I actually froze in stunned shock. “What?!”

“Beg me for it. You want to cum? Beg for it. Beg me to make you cum.”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

He got up immediately, pulled his fingers out of me like none of this meant anything to him, and climbed off the bed.

He went back to pacing around the room doing God knows what.

“I asked you last week if you wanted multiple orgasms or only one at a time,” he told me over his shoulder. “You still haven’t answered that question…..so you won’t get either until you do answer it. Do you want to cum or not?”

“YES!!” I bellowed. “You can’t do this to me!!”

He shrugged without hardly looking at me. “You have your safe word. You can leave whenever you want to.”

I opened my mouth a second time. Beg?

I couldn’t beg him to make me cum. That would be ridiculous.

The thought of begging anyone for anything contradicted everything I knew about myself—everything I knew about the nature of reality.

It was inhuman to make someone beg for something, especially something he should have given freely. We were having sex here, weren’t we—sort of?

I shouldn’t have to beg for that—for the privilege of enjoying myself.

He rummaged around under the bed and took out a different vibrator. This wasn’t the wand. It was much smaller.

He walked back and forth over there doing something or other. I was so out of my mind with all these confused emotions and desires that I didn’t see what he was doing.

“One thing you have to learn about BDSM,” he muttered under his breath. “You don’t get what you don’t ask for. You didn’t ask me to give you multiple orgasms. You didn’t ask me to give you one orgasm. So I won’t give you either until you ask—and ask nicely.”

He sat down next to me on the side of the mattress. I panicked when he switched on the vibrator and moved it toward my crotch.

“WAIT!!” I roared. “Don’t!! Please…..stop!!”

He shot me a hard glare. “‘Stop’ is not a safe word—and ‘Please stop’ is not a safe word. Your safe word is ‘red’. Say ‘red’ if you want to end our session. Until then…..”

He lowered the vibrator between my legs. I reared back to get away from it. The minute it touched my skin, I wouldn’t be able to control what happened next.

I tried in every possible way to wrench out of the line of fire, but he didn’t even have to try to adjust his position.

He lowered the vibrator onto my already trembling flesh. The vibrations lit me on fire and I collapsed back on the bed moaning and spasming as the buzz spiked me out of this world.

“Come on,” he murmured. “Cum for me. All you have to do is look me in the eye and beg me to make you cum.”

He raised his other hand and flattened his palm against my cheek. That one simple gesture forced me to turn around and look at him.

The look in his eyes almost made me cum right there. Looking into his eyes turned me on more than anything—and just as fast he took the vibrator away and switched it off.

I buckled whining and moaning in a frenzy. I hurled my body back and forth trying to touch anything and everything that might excite me enough to cum.

He kept his hand there so I had no choice but to keep looking at him. He kissed me once more—just a short, formal little kiss.

Then he straightened up and went back to looking into my eyes. No one could look into a person’s eyes like he could.

“Come on,” he murmured. “You know you want this. Don’t you? Don’t you want to cum right now?”

“YES!!” I wailed.

“Then say it. Say you want to cum.”

“I WANT TO CUM!!” I roared. “YOU KNOW I DO!!”

“Then ask for it. That’s all you have to do.”

I opened my mouth…..and faltered. “I can’t!”

He shrugged and started to stand up. He actually turned away. “Then we’ll just keep going until you do. I can keep doing this all night.”

“NO!!” I screamed and tried again in vain to get off the bed. “NO…..DON’T!!”

He turned around and raised his eyebrow at me. “Then ask for what you want. You know how to ask for things. What do you say?”

I wilted on the bed whimpering and bawling, but I still couldn’t cry. This somehow hurt so much worse than tears could ever express.

He studied me with cold, calculated, scientific ruthlessness—and his tone changed to his harsh, commanding snap. “What do you say, Lucy?”

I couldn’t look at him. I turned my head away again. “Please……” I moaned.

“Look at me when you talk to me,” he snapped. “I’m not some bellboy at a hotel. Look me in the eye and beg me to give you what you want. You won’t get it any other way.”

I swallowed hard. God only knew how I could possibly face him. I couldn’t have faced him like this for anything.

Begging him to give me an orgasm—no way in hell.

I couldn’t lie here like this without it, though. The thought of him licking me….or fingering me….or using the vibrator on me….or touching me in any other way…..I just couldn’t face it. I needed him too much.

I clamped my eyes shut while I turned my head. I pointed my face in his direction….and opened my eyes.

Looking at him disintegrated the last walls. I crumbled into a mess of emotions and really did start crying. “Please…..” I sobbed. “Please…….please let me cum……I need to cum so bad……please…..I’ll do anything……”

He dove onto the bed immediately and started kissing me as never before. His mouth consumed my whole mind. Even my tears got into both of our mouths, but neither of us stopped.

He pivoted sideways, switched on the vibrator, locked it against my clitoris under his thigh, and shoved both fingers all the way into me.

I screamed again when he started pumping his hips into me so much harder than he did last week. He didn’t stop kissing me even for a second.

His hips drilled his fingers into me in deep, crushing thrusts, but the vibrator really did the trick.

The volcanic pocket of energy he’d been building up inside me all this time detonated in a catastrophic climax that made me break down screaming into his mouth.

He still didn’t let up. He only kissed me harder. Little grunts of primal hunger kept escaping from his nose every time he pumped into me.

He clenched his other arm around me and plastered his weight down on top of me to pin me to the bed.

I clamped my eyes shut to stop myself from flying into a million pieces.

As soon as that climax started to ebb, I dissolved in a puddle of ragged emotion. I couldn’t even explain why this made me so emotional….except that I needed him. I begged him and he did it.

He kissed me one more time and moved his head off to one side. He pulled his fingers out, switched off the vibrator, left it lying on the bed, and wrapped both arms around me.

He held me while I cried. He didn’t let go even to untie the ropes from my arms and legs.

When he did, he rolled onto his side and pulled me against him again the way he did last week—but this was nothing like last week.

This broke something in me. I couldn’t keep doing this—not without something more from him. I needed…..him.

This wasn’t about training anymore. It wasn’t about me learning about BDSM. It was him. It always had been him.

I pulled away from him first this time, sat up on the edge of the bed, and buried my face in my hands.

Now I knew why I was crying. I was crying because I needed him. I needed him for something I wouldn’t be able to get—not like this.

He didn’t get up. He stayed lying down there behind me. I didn’t turn around to look at him.

“I would like to leave now….if you’ll let me……” I husked under my breath. “I won’t use my safe word because……”

I didn’t say it out loud, but I thought it. I didn’t want to stop being submissive to him.

That was the real problem. I didn’t want to keep going back and forth between being submissive to him and NOT being submissive to him.

I didn’t want to break the rules he set for me. I didn’t want to do something against his wishes.

That was the problem. I needed more—or nothing.

He sat up on the bed next to me, but he didn’t touch me. “You can leave if you want to,” he murmured. “Do you want to come back next week?”

I nodded down at my hands. I had to tell him, but I couldn’t do it now.

My heart broke for something I never had—and might never have—but I had to tell him the truth.

I just needed to decide how to tell him.

That was the moment when I made up my mind. If I couldn’t see him again, then that was just the way it had to be. If I couldn’t have more with him—if I couldn’t have his heart for real—then I didn’t want anything.

“You can go anytime you want to,” he murmured and he bent over, picked up my wrist, and started unbuckling the cuffs.

I sat in silence and stared at the floor while he unbuckled both cuffs from my wrists. I made sure not to look at him when he went down on one knee to unbuckle the cuffs from my ankles.

He sat down on the edge of the bed to re-buckle them and hook them together. I didn’t look at him when I stood up and started getting dressed.

I waited until I put my shoes and jacket back on before I faced him, raised my head, and locked my bloodshot eyes on him. “I’ll see you next week,” I mumbled.

“Okay,” he murmured. “I’ll text you later to make sure you’re okay.”

I only nodded. I would be okay.

I walked out of the apartment totally solid in stone-cold certainty. I knew exactly what I needed. If I couldn’t get it, then I was better off alone.

End of Chapter 8.

Here we go, folks. I'm changing my work schedule, so we'll see how this works. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for reading.

_________________

A Masochist's Adventures in Wonderland

Chapter 7

I snapped awake and my head shot up. I wasn’t in my bed at home.

I glanced around before I remembered. I was in the bedroom in Ash’s apartment.

I still wore all four of the sheepskin padded leather cuffs he used on me last night. Other than that, I was completely naked.

I lay in bed alone with the covers over me. I didn’t remember falling asleep. I must have fallen asleep in his arms after our session.

He wasn’t here now. There was no sign that he stayed in this room with me last night.

I sat up….and spotted a hand-written note sitting on top of my clothes that I left folded on the chair.

I picked up the note. The shower is across the hall. Leave the cuffs here, get dressed, and come downstairs.

I smiled to myself. Daylight streamed through the windows from outside. I spent the night in his apartment. Should I read anything into that?

I unbuckled the cuffs, left them on the bed, took a shower across the hall, got dressed, and went downstairs.

I found Ash making breakfast in the kitchen. He was already wearing his business suit for the day.

He put a plate on the kitchen counter. “Sit down and eat your breakfast,” he told me. “How do you like your coffee?”

“I’m a cop. I like it black, of course.”

He shot me a smirk, poured me a cup of coffee, set it next to me, and went back to plating up his own meal. “When do you have to go to work today?”

“I’m not working today. I have the day off.”

“What are your plans?”

I picked up my fork. He’d made me a waffle, scrambled eggs, and bacon with a cut-up orange on the side.

“I usually do meal prep, clean the house, and maybe have lunch with Riley if she isn’t too busy.”

“Let me guess. You guys talk about your cases even when you’re off duty.”

Now it was my turn to smirk at him. “Guilty as charged.”

He put his plate on his side of the counter and ate standing up. “I’m glad you have someone to talk to about all this—someone other than me. It will be good for you to get someone else’s perspective.”

I winced. “I don’t talk to Riley about this—about any of it.”

His head shot up. “You don’t? Why not?”

“I don’t know. I could say she wouldn’t understand even though I know she would. I guess I just don’t want her to know. I don’t want her experience and opinion to color my experience. I already know what I’m experiencing and thinking. I don’t need her to interpret it for me.”

He studied me for a second and then looked down so he could spear some of his scrambled eggs into his mouth. “I guess I can’t argue with that.”

I glanced around. “Do we have to do anything before I leave?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—you said that when I came in here, I would become submissive to you the minute I walked in the door. You said we would go through that time over there where I would be able to talk to you, ask questions, and raise objections.”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“So do we have to go through something like that in reverse before I leave—like some kind of process where I stop being your submissive? This is the first I’ve ever…..”

I trailed off. What should I say?

It was the first time I spent the night in his apartment. It wasn’t the first time I’d left his apartment after one of our sessions. We never went through any special procedure before.

He shrugged it away. “We probably should. It’s probably a good idea. We can do that.”

“We don’t have to. I just wasn’t sure if there was….you know….some kind of turning-off point where I stop being your submissive—I mean, where I stop being submissive to you when I leave.”

“Yeah, we could do that. Good idea. Finish eating and we can do it now.”

I ate the last of my waffle and orange, downed my coffee, and then went to the apartment’s downstairs bathroom to brush my teeth. I always brushed my teeth after meals.

I came out and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw Ash sitting in his usual place on the couch facing the door.

He sat with his ankle propped on his knee. “Stand over there.” He pointed to the usual place.

I stopped there—and my chest tightened. I stood in front of him fully dressed with my handbag over my arm.

I was about to walk away—again. Whatever this was going on between us, it was about to end—again.

I suffered another stabbing sensation in my chest. I didn’t want to leave—ever.

“What did you think of the session last night?” he asked. “How do you think it went?”

I nodded, but I felt numb. “It went well, I thought.”

“Did you think you would have multiple orgasms?”

“No, I didn’t think you would be able to.”

“How did it feel when you did?”

I considered before I chose the right word. “It was overwhelming—and kind of scary.”

“Were you scared of me at any time?”

“No, not you. Mostly I was scared that I was out of control and couldn’t stop my body from responding to you. I wanted to move around so I could control the situation and I couldn’t do either.”

“Would you want to have multiple orgasms again?” he asked.

I tried to grin at him and wound up squirming instead. “Something tells me you would make me have them even if I didn’t want them.”

“I would never do that. I would never do anything to you if you didn’t want me to. If you don’t want them, all you have to do is tell me. Is that what you want? Do you only want to have one orgasm at a time—because I can arrange that if that is what you want.”

“How would you do that?”

“That’s my business. It’s your responsibility to tell me what you want. Then it’s my job to provide it to you.”

I shifted my weight from one foot to another. I really wanted to look away, but I couldn’t—not when he held my gaze with such power.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. “Just tell me what it is you want. That’s all you have to do. I can’t give you what you want if you don’t tell me.”

I hesitated again. I couldn’t say it—but I had to. “I want to be your submissive.”

“You can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Because you aren’t a masochist.”

“Can’t you teach me how to be one?”

His eyebrows shot up. “You want me to train you to be a masochist?”

“I want to understand how someone could want someone to inflict pain on them. I don’t understand how anyone could actually want that.”

He shook his head. “I think that would be a terrible idea.”

“Why?”

“Because, as usual, you have no idea what you’re even talking about. You don’t want to be a masochist. You just want to understand it. You don’t actually want to be my submissive. You want something else. Just tell me what it is you really want.”

I took a long time to work up the courage to actually say it—at least, it felt like a long time. “Are you ever going to kiss me?”

He cocked his head to one side. “Why do you want me to?”

“To show that you care about me as much as I care about you.”

“You know I care about you, Lucy. I care about you very much. You know that.”

“Are you ever going to let me touch you?”

Now it was his turn to take a long time to answer. “You want to touch me?” he asked.

“Of course. I already told you that. Don’t you already know?”

“What do you want to touch me for?”

I started to feel myself getting emotional. Why did he have to force me to say it so explicitly? He already knew how I felt about him.

He sat there waiting for me to answer. God damn, he could be so infuriating!

“Why do you want to touch me?” he demanded in a harsher tone.

“Because…..” I choked on the words. “Because I want to make you feel as good as you make me feel. I want to give you some of what you’re giving me. I know I can’t, but I at least want to do something for you. I want to express……how I feel about you…..through touch…..but you never let me…..”

I broke off. My throat hurt. I couldn’t go on with this conversation.

I should just walk away right now. Standing in front of him made me ashamed that I even cared about him—that I wanted something more with him—that all this BDSM play actually made me want him this much.

I actually meant it when I said I needed him. I needed a lot more of him than just for him to play around with my body and make me cum and teach me what BDSM was.

I couldn’t get my voice working well enough to make a polite exit. Walking out of the apartment without saying anything would be too rude, but I had to get out of here before this disaster got any worse.

He startled me by standing up, walking around the coffee table, and standing in front of me.

I almost took a step back in alarm. He’d never done anything like this before.

“If you want to touch me, go ahead and do it,” he told me.

My head shot up a second time. “What?”

“Go on. You want to touch me. Do it now. Touch me the way you want to.”

“You mean…..any way I want to? I can do anything?”

He dipped his chin once. “Anything you want.”

I stared at him with a million thoughts racing through my head. Did he really just say that?

All the fantasies I had been having about him collided in my brain. I could do anything to him…..but only to him.

I realized a split second later what he didn’t say. He didn’t say we would have a mad passionate roll in the hay like a real couple.

He said I could touch him—the way he touched me. This would be completely one-sided.

I blinked at him before it all came together in my mind. He might never give me a chance like this again. I had to make this count.

I also realized something else without him explaining it to me. I was still in his apartment—which meant I was still submissive to him.

He was letting me do this to him. He didn’t have to.

Touching him wouldn’t be a deeply moving emotional experience—not the way it would have been if we had real sex—so-called “vanilla” sex. This wouldn’t be like that at all.

The last doubt evaporated from my mind and I took a step toward him, clasped both hands on either side of his face, and kissed him.

I poured out all the emotion I’d been fighting these last few weeks into that kiss. I kissed him deeper and let my lips play on his.

He responded and kissed me back—but he didn’t touch me back. He didn’t put his arms around me.

That somehow made it so much more important that I kiss him the way I needed to—with all the painful longing I’d been keeping buried all this time.

I tilted my head to one side and let my mouth open. I kept both hands around his cheeks—and his tongue met mine.

He kissed me back building up heat stronger and stronger, but he still kept his arms down at his sides the whole time.

He didn’t back off in the slightest. All the emotion I unloaded on him came back to me a thousandfold. He kissed me hard and deep, but he still didn’t raise his hands to do anything else.

The rest of him remained locked in this rigid stiffness that never softened. His breath strained in his nostrils as the heat in our mouths built to an explosive pitch.

Kissing him like this electrified me beyond belief. I had to show him everything. I had to show him right now how I felt about him.

My fingers threaded into his hair and down his neck. My body vibrated with a kind of passion I’d never felt for anyone.

I slipped my arm around his neck, pressed my body against him, and rose on my tiptoes to kiss him to the ends of the Earth.

I dropped my handbag on the floor and let all my desire flow out of my body into him.

He rasped through his nose kissing me back just as strongly. His lips caught hold of mine and his tongue slithered around mine every time I slipped into his mouth.

I crushed my breasts against his body through our clothes. Damn, I wanted him so bad!

He stayed standing there in granite stillness. He never moved. He never raised a hand even to touch my face, but that was okay. This moment was all mine—and so was he.

I could have kept kissing him for the rest of forever, but too many ideas infected my brain. He said I could do whatever I wanted.

I eased off and stared up at him boiling in passion. I didn’t even try to hide it. I wanted him more now than ever.

I bit my lip where his saliva tingled on my mouth. He tasted magnificent. What would the rest of him be like?

He glared down at me with the same fire flickering in those dark eyes. He wanted it. He wanted it real bad. He just didn’t let himself raise a hand to take it.

He could have. He could have attacked me right now, thrown me down on the couch, and overpowered me exactly the way he said.

He wouldn’t, though. This moment wasn’t about that.

I let my fingers trail out of his hair, down his cheek, to the collar of his shirt. What would he look like under his clothes?

He never took his clothes off around me—ever. He never once took his suit off.

I glanced up at his eyes just to make sure. He never flinched. He didn’t say a word to change his mind. He wouldn’t. He told me what to do. Now it was up to me.

I held his gaze and trembled with aching hunger when I slid his jacket over his shoulders. He felt muscular and powerful under his shirt.

Touching him like this made me tremble. I asked for this. Could I really handle letting that monster out of its cage?

He moved his arms just enough to take them out of his jacket sleeves. I took hold of his cuffs to pull them down and draped the jacket over the coffee table next to me.

I looked up into his eyes and held eye contact when I pulled his tie loose. He stared down into the depths of my soul when I slid it out of his collar and started unbuttoning his shirt.

I had to look down at my hands to see what I was doing, but I kept glancing up at him to make sure he was okay with this.

The volcanic, furious energy in those eyes only became more menacing and dangerous with every button I undid. He built to some kind of explosion barely kept under control by the power of his own will.

I glanced down at my hands undoing the buttons in front of his stomach. He was just as chiseled under his shirt as he looked on the outside.

My hands shook when I pushed the shirt off his shoulders. I couldn’t look him in the eye when I held the cuffs down so he could slide his arms out of his shirt.

I laid the shirt on top of his jacket, but I didn’t dare to look into his eyes—not now when I came face to face with his naked skin.

I laid my trembling hand on his chest….and ran it back and forth from one shoulder to the other. His nostrils flared and his breath rasped in his nose, but he didn’t let himself move.

The weight of his intense stare wouldn’t let me look up. I concentrated on his body.

A kind of awe came over me when I touched him. I actually felt like I was standing in front of some kind of god or maybe a statue of male perfection.

He wasn’t perfect. He was too old to be perfect—but the person he was made him perfect. It made him the most perfect man in the world—right here in front of me.

He actually flinched when my hand trailed down to his stomach. His breath caught the way I flinched when he touched my stomach when he blindfolded me.

He kept his eyes open the whole time and so did I. I stroked him all over his chest and stomach, but this overpowering need for him pushed me onward.

I leaned and kissed his neck. The minute my face made contact with his skin, the walls came down and I couldn’t hold back.

I dove in much harder and took a big, hot juicy mouthful of his neck right under his ear.

He choked trying to breathe. I loved that sound. I wanted to make him love it. I wanted to make him want it so bad that he couldn’t stand it.

I mauled his neck, bit his ear, and crawled down his neck to climb up the other side. I burrowed into his hair breathing on his skin and dropped down to kiss across his chest.

He didn’t grab my head or follow my movements. He just stood there and took it, but his breathing told the truth.

He panted harder when I got to his nipples, sucked them in greedy madness, and then nuzzled down his stomach. Touching him, kissing him, and turning him on like this made me intoxicatingly hungry for him.

He said I could do whatever I wanted, and by God, I would do it. I wouldn’t walk out of here until I did it. To hell with the consequences.

I nibbled across his stomach and found the sensitive place under his ribs. I reveled in the sound of him gasping and flinching when I dragged my tongue down that skin and then raked my teeth over it.

I sank lower onto my knees and, in my last act of triumph, I looked up into his eyes when I took hold of his belt to pull it loose.

He glared down at me breathing heavily through his nose. He looked even more like some mythical hero standing here with his shirt off.

His cock pulsed and twitched inside his pants. He wanted this. He wanted every last living inch of it.

I pulled his belt loose….and slid his zipper down……

He was wearing a pair of spandex boxers under his suit pants. I slid his pants down and took his boxers with them.

His cock fell out into my face. I planned to take his pants and shoes off so he would be completely naked—the way he made me be naked last night.

I couldn’t resist that cock in my face, though. I caught him in my mouth and sucked for all I was worth.

He stiffened and clenched his hands into fists, but he still didn’t touch me. He didn’t grab my hair or shove his prick into my mouth. I really wished he would.

He went rigid when I picked up speed and cupped his balls in a gentle grip. His nuts spasmed in my hand.

I sank down on him deeper….and coiled my tongue around him tasting every inch of his flesh.

I worked him deeper into my throat and let my tongue trail out toward his balls.

The next time I pulled out toward the tip, I dove under his cock and circled my tongue around his balls.

He actually stopped breathing—but just for a second.

I looked up at him. He still stared down at me from high above.

This view of him stabbed me in the heart more than anything. He was such an amazing guy. I wished I could somehow communicate to him how much he meant to me—but maybe this was the best way.

I eased off and looked down at the floor to untie his shoes. He bent over and rested his hand on my shoulder to keep his balance while I took them off and then slid off his pants and boxers.

He straightened up immediately and went right back to the same stiff position. He didn’t touch me or direct me at all.

I could have gone back to sucking him, but that would never be enough, either. I didn’t want this moment to end like that—not without going all the way.

I stood up in front of him. He stayed where he was with his rigid cock sticking straight out at me. Now it was my turn.

I took a step back, pulled off my blazer, and started unbuttoning my shirt in front of him.

His hard eyes traced down my body when I pulled it off. He watched me unclip my bra and then push my pants down.

I put all my clothes on the coffee table next to his.

This procedure didn’t cool the fire between us at all. We both knew what was coming and we both wanted it.

Letting him watch me undress excited me as much as undressing him. I already knew I was good enough for him. He wanted me.

He wanted me that first night at the club. He said so.

He had been wanting me every time we met since. Only his own iron self-control held him back.

I took a step nearer and kissed him with everything I had. I let my own hunger off its chain and rubbed my body all over him while we kissed for the ages.

I kept my eyes open and so did he. I shuddered in aching desire when I dragged my breasts across his chest and rubbed my swollen pussy down his thigh.

Him standing there not touching me somehow turned me on beyond belief. I could let it all go. I didn’t have to guard myself or protect myself or make out that I was purer or better behaved than I really was.

I wanted him in naked, animal passion and I took it.

I could have worked myself up to an orgasm just from rubbing my pussy against his leg.

This would have felt so much better than doing it with our clothes on, but no way in hell would I let myself cum like that when I had his bare, hard cock right here in front of me.

I wrapped one arm around his neck still kissing him in raving madness. I raised one leg, hooked it behind his ass, and worked his cock into my dripping slit.

He let out one deep exhalation of pleasure and then we both swam in each other’s eyes while I sank down on him.

His body went as hard as iron when I stroked up and down on him. I hung onto him to keep my balance.

Looking into his eyes like this fogged my mind with one delirious wave of lust after another. I felt myself winding up to another life-changing orgasm.

This one would be one for the record books—now that I could feel his whole body against me and look into his eyes.

Having him grab me and take me would have been even better—or would it? I couldn’t think clearly enough to decide.

I was still submissive to him even now. Touching him like this didn’t diminish his dominance at all.

He would never let me do anything to him without his dominant control over the situation. I never had to question that.

I picked up speed. Doing everything myself like this made me take longer to climax, but in a way, the erotic charge of holding myself in this position also sparked me into a paroxysm beyond anything I’d ever known.

I kept kissing him through it all. I couldn’t lose that contact, especially not when my body took over.

I slammed myself down on him harder and faster. I couldn’t stop it and then I detonated in a bone-crushing climax that almost knocked me over.

I had to hold onto him quaking and screaming as the wave hit. I couldn’t kiss him anymore. I smashed my mouth against his howling all this torment into him.

My body went into convulsions. I couldn’t even ride him anymore. I just had to hang onto him and take it in all its mind-blowing power.

He never broke eye contact, not even when I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.

I wilted on him, but I didn’t want to let go of him. I wanted to cling to him forever just to find some protection from all these raging emotions and sensations.

His cock pulsed inside me, but he didn’t cum. He stayed as hard as ever. He didn’t release when I did.

I felt my body starting to sag. I wanted to pass out, but one thought kept me standing up. I wasn’t finished. I said I wanted to give him as much pleasure as he gave me. I hadn’t accomplished that yet.

I looked up at him in drunken ecstasy. His eyes mesmerized me. Did he see now? Did he understand by now?

I almost fell flat on my ass when I let go of him. I put my other leg down…..and turned around.

He wouldn’t do it, so I had to. I bent over and backed up to him. I even had to guide him into me.

He groaned in agony when I slid all the way back and took him all the way in. I would have fucked him like this, but in that moment, he finally raised his hands and took hold of my hips.

My eyes rolled back in their sockets when he pulled me back down on him. Holy fuck, he felt good!

He started slowly and snarled through gritted teeth every time he stroked in. That sound melted together with the blissful feeling of his thick meat filling me full of everything I always wanted from him.

He built up power and speed with every thrust. Oh, yes. I needed him to cum. I needed to know he felt it.

I arched my back into his thrusts….and he slid his hand up my back to my neck.

His fingers closed on the back of my neck from behind—so gently—but he held me there in that position while his rhythm escalated.

I arched higher to take him into the most sensitive spots of my already quivering channel.

He was the one who taught me how to have multiple orgasms. I felt myself winding up for another massive one.

This angle felt different. It felt better, deeper, and more brutal.

He slammed in harder with every thrust. His fingers tightened on my neck and on my hip. Hell yes.

Those hands took hold of me and he slammed in impossibly hard. This was it. He was doing it. He was taking me somewhere no one had ever taken me before.

He knew what I needed in ways no other man did. He knocked me nearly off my feet with the force of each penetration.

I needed it hard. I needed it as hard as he could give it to me—and he gave it to me.

I heard myself starting to scream and then I couldn’t stop screaming. My own screams took over and I wheeled off into the stratosphere of another epic climax.

He roared at me to match my screams and his cum flooded me. The heat spiked me off the charts and I floundered just to stay conscious.

That moment spiraled me into outer space for a long minute, but I started to float back down immediately. I didn’t go into another zoned-out trance. I didn’t feel like I was about to pass out.

His hands relaxed. He kept growling and groaning as his strokes eased. His cum gushed out of me and dripped down my thighs.

I stood up first. I didn’t wait for him to let go or pull out on his own.

I turned around…and our eyes met.

I couldn’t define all the emotions in his eyes. I didn’t try to. I was still too lost in space to even think about that.

I only knew I wanted him. I wanted to feel this way about him and for it to be okay. I didn’t want to hide it anymore—and I didn’t have to.

I put my arms around him and kissed him—and this time, he put his arms around me and kissed me back.

One hand slid up my spine to cradle the back of my head. My hair spilled over his face when he tilted my head to the side….and then he pulled away and buried his head in my shoulder.

He crushed me against him holding me tighter than tight. He hid his eyes against my shoulder and just held me there.

This moment—this hug—it meant something so much different than all the other times he held me.

I stroked the back of his hair and neck…and then I kissed the side of his head. It was all right because we both wanted this.

He clung onto me because he needed me as much as I needed him—and it was all right. He didn’t have to hold himself off from me.

If he went back to that in our next meeting, that would be all right, too, because we had this.

He took a long time before he straightened up. When he did, he started kissing me again. We kissed each other gazing into each other’s eyes.

I saw so much in those eyes—so much that could never be expressed in words.

I petted his cheeks and ran my fingers through his hair. I got so lost in his eyes and mouth that I forgot for a long time that we were both still naked.

I didn’t remember until he loosened his arms from on my body.

His voice cracked when he finally spoke in a husky undertone. “Are you going to be okay today?”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Are you?”

He nodded and gave me one more light peck on the lips. “Yeah. I’m good.”

I found myself grinning and blushing at him. “Do I need to text you to check on you in the next few days to make sure you’re okay?”

He burst out laughing and his cheeks colored. “I think you better. I might drop hard from this. That was the most brutal session ever.”

I laughed, too, and we kissed for another minute before we both broke apart.

Neither of us spoke while we put our clothes back on, but we kept stealing looks at each other and smiling. I definitely caught him flushing when he smiled at me.

We both got dressed and I hung my handbag over my arm before I kissed him again. “Thank you. I loved that.”

“Thank you,” he murmured. “You are so beautiful. You gave me such a gift today.”

I kissed him again, but I had to stop sometime before I got stuck in kissing him for the rest of the day.

I pulled away. “Bye,” I whispered.

“Bye,” he murmured. “Have a good day. I’ll see you next week.”

I pointed at him when I backed toward the door. “I’ll text you.”

He laughed. “I can’t wait.”

I left and went down to the sidewalk. I couldn’t stop grinning to myself when I got into the car. Then I had a crazy idea, pulled out my phone, and sent him a text.

Are you okay?

I feel like I just got injected with some kind of super drug that turns me into Superman.

I laughed. I’m sure you could find some crashing airplanes to save.

Don’t you have carpets to vacuum and meals to prep? he asked.

I laughed again. Oh, yeah. I forgot.

I’m okay. You don’t have to keep checking on me.

But I want to.

He sent back a kiss emoji. So that was the end of the conversation.

I smiled to myself and put my phone in my pocket. I would text him tomorrow. This was my session, so the aftercare was my responsibility, too.

Texting him to check on him would almost be as fun as doing it with him—almost.

End of Chapter 7

Good morning, dear readers. You have all been unbelievably kind about me posting my work. Unfortunately, life has a way of interfering and I need to pause the story for a bit while I straighten out other areas of my life. I will take an indefinite haitus after today's post. I hate to disappoint everyone, but I need to prioritize other things until I get back on track. Thank you for reading. I hope to continue this soon as soon as things settle down. I hope you understand.

__________________

 

I walked into Ash Keiff’s apartment building—and stopped.

The door at the top of the stairs was closed this time—and he had left a note taped to the outside of the door facing the stairs.

Did he cancel our meeting? Why wouldn’t he just text me to tell me?

He texted me earlier to tell me to wear casual clothes again—nothing fancy. He didn’t give me any other clue about what to expect.

I climbed the stairs and read the note.

Walk in and stand where I told you to stand last time. From now on, you’ll enter through this door without knocking and stand in the same place without waiting for me to tell you to do it.

Those words sent a torch of fire through my insides. This changed things. I couldn’t exactly define what it changed, but he was escalating this…..whatever it was.

Dynamic. That’s what people in the BDSM world called this kind of dominant/submissive relationship. Ash and I were in a dynamic. I just couldn’t define exactly what that dynamic was.

I guess I had to admit that he was dominant and I was submissive. That much was obvious. I just wasn’t his submissive.

I took the note off the door and walked into the apartment. He sat in the same place on the couch facing the door with one ankle propped on his knee and one arm draped over the back of the couch.

He locked eyes on me with that look that told me exactly what was about to happen.

I shut the door behind me and stopped in the place that he told me.

“There will no time limit tonight—or any time after this,” he began. “From now on, the minute you walk through that door, you will obey me in everything and submit to everything I do and say without question. You’ll be free to raise any objections here—when you first walk in. We’ll talk here about what we’re going to do—and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. You can raise any objections or ask any questions here. Other than that, you’ll submit to me for as long as you’re in this apartment. Is that clear?”

I gulped. So this was it. We were crossing that line. “Yes,” I quavered. “It’s clear.”

“Do you have any questions now?”

A million questions rushed into my mind. Did he ever plan to have sex with me? Did he ever plan to kiss me? Would he ever let me touch him—or do anything else to him?

What did it really take to be his submissive? Did he love his submissives—or did he just use them? Did anyone hold that place in his heart—the place he was starting to hold in mine?

I couldn’t bring myself to ask any of those questions—not now—so I just said, “No.”

“We’re going to take things further tonight,” he told me. “You’ll be completely naked this time and I will penetrate you—but only with my fingers and maybe some small objects. I’ll keep my clothes on the whole time so you won’t have any kind of genital contact with me. Is that clear?”

I could barely bring myself to nod. Should I be happy about this?

He took this teaching, protective role over me. He never took it further. He never made this about any kind of romantic relationship between us. It was almost like a business transaction for him.

Did he want that kind of romantic relationship—or did he just want to play around with me and make me have all these orgasms by myself without ever touching me?

I shifted my weight from one foot to another waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nothing prepared me for the moment when it did.

“Have you ever had multiple orgasms?” he asked.

My head shot up. “What?”

“Multiple orgasms,” he repeated. “More than one orgasm either in the same sexual encounter or more than one per day. Do you ever have more than one at a time?”

“Um….no……I never have.”

He just dipped his chin once. “I didn’t think so. Go upstairs to the bedroom where you stayed last week. Take off all your clothes, fold them on the chair, put your shoes under the chair, and lie down on the bed on your back in the very center of the bed.”

He clipped off his words in that short, commanding tone that left absolutely no wiggle room to question his order.

I turned away and headed for the stairs. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure where they were, but it didn’t take me long to find them.

I went into the bedroom and got to work. My heart pounded while I took my clothes off. Part of me dreaded what Ash would do when he came up here, but he basically already told me.

He would touch me—and penetrate me with his fingers and maybe some small objects—but that was it. He would try to make me have multiple orgasms, but he would probably fail.

Orgasms were a one-time thing for me. They always had been. My body was just wired that way.

I folded my clothes on the chair, put my shoes under the chair, and stretched out naked on the bed.

I stared up at the ceiling with my pulse racing. Something huge was about to happen. Something huge always happened when I visited Ash.

I only knew one thing about all of this. I would come out the other end of this a completely different person.

I had no idea who I would be then, but I couldn’t stop this until it came to its natural conclusion. This path or whatever it was—this was the direction I was supposed to be going now.

I waited for what seemed like hours, but it was probably no more than a few minutes.

I heard him coming up the stairs and then he walked into the room.

I forced myself to stare at the ceiling while he paced around and around the bed a few times inspecting me with that hard, unwavering glare of his.

He always did this at the start of our sessions. His gaze made me feel small and vulnerable, but I was already starting to get used to that, too.

I just had to lie here and wait for him to tell me what he wanted me to do.

I no longer believed he would be capable of hurting me. He kept every promise he ever made to me.

He swore he would never hurt me unless I specifically asked him to. He wouldn’t break that promise, either.

He paced around the bed again and stopped near the headboard by the lamp. I didn’t let myself see what he was doing.

He bent over, pulled something from behind the bedside table, and started attaching another cuff to my left wrist.

This cuff was made out of black leather with soft, sheepskin padding on the inside. He clipped another snaffle hook to the D ring and pulled on something.

It cinched tight and straightened my arm over above my head.

Then he did the same thing to my left ankle. These cuffs must be attached to some anchor points under the bed.

He walked around the bed restraining all four of my limbs. He left me lying spread-eagled with both arms and both legs stretched to the limit.

He returned to the bottom of the bed and stood there beyond my feet and directly between my legs.

He surveyed my helpless body from the vantage point directly in line with my exposed pussy. He could see absolutely everything with nothing in the way to block his view.

I couldn’t look at him. I concentrated on a spot on the ceiling. I couldn’t take seeing any kind of disapproval, disappointment, or annoyance in his face right now.

He startled me into paying attention when he took a step toward the bed, sank his weight onto one knee on the mattress, and crawled up my body.

I froze when I saw him coming closer, but he moved too fast. I braced myself for him to attack me—and he dove his face into my neck the way he did last time.

He straddled his knees on either side of my ribs and mauled his hot mouth up my neck to my ear and down. His teeth sank into my skin and set off a lightning bolt of sensation that actually made me scream.

That charge of power skyrocketed me into a dizzy tornado of ravenous lust. I wanted him to attack me—for real. I wanted him to attack me exactly the way I just braced myself to prepare for.

He gnawed up to my ear, exhaled one scorching, ragged breath of pure animal madness into my brain, and crawled down to my collarbone.

Every torturous dragging flame of his lips on my skin sent me into a thrashing convulsion of insatiable need. My body exploded—but I couldn’t touch him. I couldn’t do anything with my arms and legs tied like this.

He bit down my neck, up to my chin, across my chest, and up the other side of my neck to my other ear.

Every kiss—every mouthful—every bite—each one rocketed me out of my mind until I whined and screamed for him.

I thrust my body up trying to touch him any way I could—but he still wore all his clothes. He wouldn’t take them off.

Knowing I could never have him tore me apart—and it also made me achingly hungry for him. He would never satisfy that desire—not ever.

He grabbed a handful of my hair to hold my head down while he took one blistering mouthful of my neck after another. He held me there while he worked his way down to my chest.

He let go of my hair when he got to my breasts, but he clamped his hand on my shoulder instead like he really did need to hold me down.

He would. He didn’t need to tie me up. He could have held me down and taken me like he did in all my forbidden fantasies.

He sucked, nipped, and flicked my nipples with his tongue to make me howl and sob in naked lust. The dripping ache between my legs escalated to the breaking point.

I actually felt in that moment that I might have an orgasm just from all these torrential sensations rushing through me.

He tore off my nipple and left both of them tingling and wet from his saliva. His sucking mouth made them hard and sensitive to the slightest movement of air across my skin.

He left a trail of blistering kisses down my stomach and sank his whole hot, greedy mouth between my legs.

I really did scream when he licked me the first time. As wolfish and devouring as he had been before, he backed off instantly and gave me only the lightest licks at first.

I bucked against the ropes trying to shove my trembling flesh down on his face, but he only backed off and left me sobbing in miserable need.

He slowed down so much I really felt like I might start crying if he didn’t finish me off right this minute.

He didn’t. He swirled his tongue in my delicate tissues and made me yelp every time he teased my clitoris.

I collapsed on the bed, turned my face away, and moaned in agony. The feeling of him licking me actually hurt. It hurt worse than any torment I could remember. I needed him so bad.

He built up slowly eating me harder and faster until he took big mouthfuls of my flesh, sucked the juices off them, and then dove in to maul me.

I screamed as the energy picked up momentum to an unstoppable tide. He hooked his arms around my thighs and lifted my flesh into his greedy mouth.

He devoured me in every bigger mouthfuls until he burrowed all the way into me rooting like an animal.

I bucked against his face screaming in desperation. My body strained out of control—and then I exploded in his mouth.

He gobbled every ounce of my flesh as I thrashed, screamed, and bellowed on the bed. The unstoppable cataclysm blasted me apart the way all my orgasms did when I was with him.

He kept going until I collapsed shuddering and shaking on the bed. He eased off to light, gentle, tender licks again. Each flicker of his tongue sent another shockwave through me.

He sat up, wiped the juices off his chin, and reared onto his knees.

He passed his warm hands up and down my body in long, comforting waves sweeping up to my breasts, down my sides, and onto my thighs.

That touch brought me back to earth, but his hands didn’t let me relax completely.

He gripped my breasts and pinched my nipples in ways he never did before. He never touched me like this before.

He massaged my thighs in deep, comforting grips, worked higher up toward my slit, and then rubbed his palm into my saturated mound.

His heat radiated into me and both soothed me and turned me on at the same time.

He rubbed his flat fingers into my clitoris, but he only did it a few times before he pushed back and stood up next to the bed.

I shut my eyes and turned away whimpering as the last ebbs of climax died away. I needed to curl up in a ball and go to sleep. I needed him to hold me, cover me with a blanket, and let me rest after that orgasm.

He moved off and turned his back on me. I couldn’t look at him. He didn’t untie me. He didn’t even seem to notice my distress.

I wilted in relief when he turned around—but he still didn’t untie me.

I jolted when he passed something down my body. It tickled.

My eyes shot open and I realized he was teasing me all over with a feather duster.

He held it on the end of a long handle. He could stand at the edge of the bed and pass it up and down my skin without bending over.

He swirled it around my breasts, under my chin, and down to my sensitive trembling mound.

He stroked the feathers between my legs and made me jolt as another flame of excitement electrified me.

The feathers felt like his tongue between my swollen pussy lips. I yelped—and then he went back to passing the feathers up my stomach.

He tickled my sides, aroused all my most sensitive areas, and flicked the feathers across my erect nipples again.

I convulsed on the bed between an inescapable desire to get free and getting impossibly turned on—even more turned on than I was before. How was this even possible?

He put the feather duster down without explaining anything to me. He didn’t have to explain. He did what he wanted.

He did something else under the bed down there beyond my feet. I didn’t see what it was until he sat down on the bed next to me.

He picked up whatever it was and turned it on. It was a wand vibrator.

He took hold of a handful of my hair behind my neck, clenched down hard, and pulled my head around to face him. “Look at me, baby. You look at me and show me how much you want this.”

I gasped and then whined in agitation when he jammed the vibrator right up against my clitoris. The vibrations spread outward and drilled into me with unbelievable power.

“Cum for me,” Ash murmured. “I want to see you cum. That’s right. Do it for me. You want to obey me, don’t you?”

“Yes!” I choked.

“Cum for me.” He rotated the vibrator in a circle and I screamed again when it came to rest on my clitoris for the second time.

The vibrations felt so different from his mouth—or anything else he ever did to me. They burrowed deep into my being.

They infected me with an irresistible urge to fuck something. I needed something thick, fat, and hot inside me right now. I needed it real bad.

His eyes went hard again. I struggled against the urge to fall apart and start crying, but this aching need wouldn’t let me. It wouldn’t let me look away from those eyes.

He was right. I wanted to obey him even if I didn’t know how to have another orgasm. I never had more than one orgasm. That just didn’t happen to me.

I convulsed on the crest of a huge wave, but it wouldn’t break. The vibrator kept driving the wave higher and higher, but it wouldn’t release no matter how hard I tried.

I needed something else—something to make it happen.

“Cum for me, baby,” Ash murmured again. “Come on. Give yourself to me.”

I grimaced and almost burst into tears. I couldn’t do it, but I didn’t dare to tell him that.

He must have seen something wrong, because right then, he dove his face into my neck again.

He buried his mouth, nose, and eyes into my hair and his breath blew through my hair to flood my neck.

That feeling of him on top of me burst the dam apart. I screamed and then dissolved in a hideous orgasm that demolished my whole being.

This was so much bigger and more devastating than the orgasm I had in his mouth.

I shrieked and bellowed in his ear. I turned aside and plastered my head against his so I could feel him right there next to me.

I needed him. I needed to hold onto him for some solidity in this storm.

He stayed down there for a long time—long after I stopped screaming and roaring in his ear. Maybe now he would hear how much this shattered everything I knew about myself.

He switched off the vibrator, but he didn’t sit up right away. He let his weight rest on top of me in a comforting kind of embrace.

I drifted out of the clouds and floated in a daze. Now I really needed to lose consciousness for the next twelve hours before anyone asked me to function.

Ash stayed where he was for so long that I really started to believe he might be done. Maybe he was tired and wanted to go to sleep, too.

No such luck.

He sat up, but instead of standing up and moving around the room, he propped himself up on his hands and knees above me.

I dragged my sex-drunk eyes open to find him staring at me at close range.

I couldn’t figure out what his expression was trying to communicate—until he raised one hand and placed it on my quivering, sensitive tissues.

He rubbed his flat fingers over my clitoris again—just enough to flood me with another delirious wave of pleasure.

“Give me this,” he breathed. “Give me what I want. This is all mine.” He slid two thick, muscular fingers into me. “Do you feel that?”

I gasped again and wound up moaning as he thrust it in, but he did it gently.

The delicate nerve endings of my saturated, swollen flesh responded to him instantly, but my nerves wouldn’t function.

“Mmmm,” he murmured. “You feel so good. You’re delicious. Do you know that? Do you know how much I want to be inside you right now?”

He never said anything like that to me before, but I couldn’t appreciate the compliment. His fingers gave me no peace.

His arm and shoulder muscles strained and bulged when he drilled his fingers in. My inner channel spasmed around his fingers—and then he rotated on top of me.

He planted his knees between my thighs and pressed his leg against my pussy with his fingers still buried inside me.

His leg crushed his hand all the way in and he rocked his hips in a wicked fucking motion.

He locked his eyes on me. “Do you feel that?” He panted slightly at the end of every sentence. “Do you feel me fucking you like that? Cum for me. Let me feel you cum when I fuck you like this. Come on. I want to see how much you want me.”

I howled again as another brutal wave of passionate longing enveloped me. His body carried me on its own rhythm.

This wasn’t his fingers filling me up. It was him.

His clothes evaporated. He was on top of me jamming me full of his cock and making me cum as never before.

This was as close as I would ever get to actually having sex with him. I better make it count while it lasted.

He flexed his hips. That undulating rhythm traveled down his body. It mesmerized me with how powerfully sexual he was.

What would it feel like to really fuck him—to really feel his thick meat in me and throbbing as he built up to release?

My eyes rolled back in their sockets thinking about it. I fought to bring my vision back into focus so I could look at him, but the whole vision took over my mind.

He tied me up and fucked me. He used me the way he wanted—the way I wanted.

This was my fantasy coming true, right here and now.

I erupted in another orgasm. “Yes!” he bellowed down at me. “Yes! Come on! Cum for me! Come on! Do you feel that? You’re mine! This is mine!”

I screamed again and drown out whatever he said next. His body kept rippling down to his hips in magical thrusts to drive his fingers deep into my core.

I spasmed so hard I lost track of where I was and what was happening. I convulsed again and again until he pulled his hand out and lowered himself on top of me.

His hand migrated to my hair and he buried his face in my neck again. He didn’t try to get up and now I felt his full weight resting on top of me.

His weight felt so damn good. He was right here with me. I couldn’t hold him, but he was here.

He lay on top of me exactly the way he would if we really did just have sex. It was good enough the way it was.

In a minute, he rolled off me, but he didn’t get off the bed. He stretched out next to me, twisted back, and did something to release the rope binding my left wrist.

He did the same thing to my right wrist and then sat up to untie my legs. He didn’t take the cuffs off.

He lowered himself down on the bed next to me where he was lying before, pulled me onto my side, and folded me in his arms.

I huddled into his chest, shut my eyes, and let the last trace of consciousness go. I could finally take shelter in him and block out everything else.

End of Chapter 5.

A Masochist's Adventures in Wonderland

Chapter 5

_______________

I looked up from my computer when my phone buzzed on my desk. I picked it up and read a text from Ash.

When you come over tonight, wear the outfit you wore to the club.

I blinked at the message. This was the first time he ever contacted me for anything other than aftercare.

That’s what he called it when he checked on me after our sessions.

I started to smile and sent back a message of my own. Okay. See you there.

He didn’t reply with his usual kiss emoji. He didn’t reply at all.

I frowned at my phone waiting for his response. He always ended his messages with the kiss emoji.

Was something wrong? Did I do something to piss him off?

Wouldn’t he tell me if I did? We were still meeting tonight. Maybe he would tell me then—so why tell me to dress up?

I finished work, went home, and made sure to get every detail of my outfit right before I drove to his apartment.

I got butterflies walking up the stairs. This was only my third meeting with Ash—the second at his apartment. What would he do next?

I slowed down when I saw the door standing open at the top of the stairs. I eased inside and came face to face with him sitting on the couch in the living room.

He sat facing the doorway at the top of the stairs—right where he could see me show up.

He didn’t move or get up to greet me. He stayed sitting there resting one ankle on his knee.

He draped one arm over the back of the couch and the other resting on the arm next to him. He was wearing another suit.

“Stop right there,” he snapped. “Stand over there.”

He pointed at the spot where I was currently standing.

His tone made me freeze. He didn’t smile. His eyes and features hardened to a wall of ice. Now I knew I did something wrong.

I couldn’t even squirm. His gaze snapped down to my dress, shoes, necklace—everything. Was he checking that I did what he told me to do?

“Our session will last longer tonight.” He checked his watch again. “It will last no longer than an hour—and I will touch you tonight. There won’t be any penetration—of anything—no body parts—no objects—no penetration at all—but I will touch you. Do you agree?”

“Um…..yeah….” I hesitated to come right out and ask if he was mad at me about something specific.

His tone, the hard glint in his eye, and the way he sat there staring and evaluating me stopped me from asking—or doing anything.

He told me to stand here. He stayed sitting down. He didn’t soften or even try to make me feel comfortable or welcome.

I cringed in front of him. I sure hoped he didn’t think I screwed up somehow—but how could I have?

He had been over-the-top nice to me ever since we met. He had been beyond sweet and caring every time he texted to check on me.

“I’m going to restrain you again,” he went on in the same clipped, commanding tone. “You won’t be able to just walk away this time. You’ll actually be restrained—and I won’t blindfold you. You’ll be able to see everything. Are you ready for that? If you want to leave, you’ll have to use your safe word.”

I gulped. I actually had to think about it before I said, “Yes, I’m ready for that.”

“Strip down to your bra and panties,” he snapped.

I flinched again. He didn’t tell me I had to obey. His tone said it for me.

I couldn’t look at him while I pulled my dress over my head. I didn’t have to do anything else other than take off my shoes.

I would have liked to rub my arms and hopefully keep them crossed over the front of my body. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me at all.

He leveled me with such a hard, unforgiving stare that I wound up looking at the floor. Was he about to tell me to leave and never come back? I couldn’t face that.

He picked up something from the couch cushion next to him and tossed it to over to me. I didn’t realize until I caught it that it was the same set of soft cuffs I wore last time.

“Put these on,” he commanded.

I got busy putting them on. This seemed to be the way things were going now. Would I always wear this same set of cuffs every time I came here?

I finished pressing the Velcro into place. Now what?

He didn’t move for so long that I wound up looking up at him to see what the problem was. His eyes never wavered—nor did they soften.

“This is your last chance to walk away,” he told me. “Do you agree to all my conditions? You’ll do exactly as I say for the duration of our session—no questions. Once I start, the only way you walk out of here is by using your safe word.”

I forced myself to nod and say, “I agree,” but my voice sounded tiny and scared in the silence.

He waited another long, torturous minute and continued staring at me like he really had to think about whether I was good enough for him to go through with this.

He finally stood up, walked around the coffee table, and shut the apartment door behind me.

I knew better than to turn around when he stopped behind me.

He did something—I didn’t see what it was.

He took hold of one of my wrists and clipped something to the ring in my cuff on that side. Then he did the same thing on my other wrist.

He activated some other thing—and I realized that he had lowered ropes from some motorized attachment anchor in the ceiling.

The ropes extended from hidden portals up there. That’s why I didn’t notice them when I first walked in.

He used a remote control to lower and raise the ropes. They retracted, lifted my arms, and stretched them out on both sides.

He stayed behind me until the motor stopped with my arms extended all the way out and slightly above my shoulders.

He didn’t do anything for a minute. He just let me stand there and feel this.

I couldn’t get away. Tugging at the restraints did nothing. The ropes didn’t give. This position left me no room to move anywhere.

Without warning, he kicked his shoe against my ankles. “Get your legs apart,” he snapped.

I stumbled trying to stand with my legs apart. The air cooled my inner thighs.

This position made me tremble, but it also turned me on. Part of me didn’t want him to know it turned me on. I didn’t want him to take advantage of that.

I really dug myself into a hole now. This position put me in a compromising situation where he couldn’t fail to take advantage of me.

Was that really what I wanted? Wasn’t that what it meant to have a man possess me, own me, push me down, and take what he wanted?

He took his sweet time walking around me. He surveyed me up and down with the same brutal glare.

He stopped in front of me and stared straight down into my eyes. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t even breath.

He took a step back, surveyed me from head to toe, and compressed his lips in an expression of what looked like frustration or annoyance.

I squirmed—or tried to. He was seeing me completely exposed in a whole new way. I was helpless before that merciless gaze—and anything else he wanted to do with me.

He had me completely at his mercy. He could do anything. He could hurt me or even kill me.

Did I make a big mistake by trusting him?

He walked the rest of the way behind me again and stopped. I turned my head, but I stopped myself in time before I actually looked over my shoulder to see what he was doing.

I faced front expecting him to just stand there or maybe snap a few more commands at me.

Out of nowhere, he grabbed my hips, squeezed hard in a crushing grip, and pulled my ass back toward him once before he let go.

He slid his hands up my back, grabbed me around the ribs without actually touching my breasts, and then raked his fingertips down my sides to my waist.

He made a few small noises of appreciation like he might really have to work hard to hold himself back.

He circled my waist with both hands, and before I even knew what was happening, he grabbed me from behind in both arms.

His hands ranged all over me and he dove his hot, panting mouth in my neck. He buried his face in my hair and growled low in husky, animal snarls.

That sound set my nerves on fire. He sank his teeth into the side of my neck and a  lightning bolt of power coursed over my skin.

I gasped and then started panting hard in rising anticipation. The tension spiked off the charts and my swollen pussy lips unfurled to gush an ooze of wetness into my panties. Was he going to take me right here?

He said he wouldn’t. He said no penetration—but he could break that rule if he wanted to. He had me tied up. He could do whatever he wanted.

He grabbed two handfuls of my body across my abdomen, raked his fingertips up the front of my thighs, and then seized my hips to yank my ass back against him.

He dug his pelvis into me from behind—and that’s when I felt how raging hard he was.

He didn’t try to hide it. He plowed his bulge into my ass, moved his hands behind me, raked his fingertips up the backs of my thighs, and grabbed two fistfuls of my ass cheeks.

He pulled them up and apart. He practically lifted me off the ground so I hung by my wrists.

He drove his prick right up between my ass cheeks in such an obvious fucking motion that he blasted me out of my mind. I really hoped he did fuck me right now.

He eased me down and stroked up my sides again, but this time, he planted one hand on my back between my shoulder blades and pushed me forward. I had to bend over while he pulled me back against his crotch by one hip.

“Is this what you want?” he growled under his breath. “Is this the way you want me to handle you?”

I gasped again. I could only speak above a breathless whisper. “Yes!”

Thank the stars he couldn’t see my face. I couldn’t think straight from the heat building between my legs.

I almost had another uncontrollable moment of actually breaking down and begging him to fuck me. Holy shit, I wanted him so bad!

“You want me to pull your panties off and bury my cock in your wet pussy, don’t you?” he growled. “You want me to make you scream and beg for it all night. You want me to keep you tied up here for hours and do whatever I want to you while you cum for me a hundred times. Say it.”

“Yes!” I practically screamed.

He grabbed me again, buried his torturous hot mouth against my ear, and used both arms to hold me down while he drilled his prick into my ass.

“I’m gonna take you,” he rasped. “I’m gonna use your body until you don’t know anything but me. I’m gonna make you scream until you can’t see straight. I’m gonna make you beg me to own you, body and soul.”

I really did scream—in desperation. God, I really wished he would.

Even in that moment, I already knew he wouldn’t—not now. If he meant it at all, he meant later—a long time later.

He let me go completely and left me hanging there whimpering in desperate misery. God, I needed him so bad right now!

How the hell was I supposed to walk out of here without him penetrating me—with something? I would take anything—his fingers, an object—anything.

He stopped in front of me, placed both hands on my hips, pulled me toward him, and slotted his knee between my thighs.

I screamed again when he pulled me down hard on top of his leg.

I almost collapsed when that pressure crushed against my sensitive pussy and rubbed me back and forth.

“Look at me!” he snapped.

I looked up and almost lost consciousness when he pulled me forward to grind on his thigh.

“Ride my leg,” he told me. “Make yourself cum—but keep your eyes on me the whole time. I want to see you cum.”

He let go of my hip. I moaned and then actually did scream when I tried to move my crotch along his thigh, but the power became so intense that I had to stop and look away.

“I can’t….” I gasped.

“Don’t tell me you can’t!” He seized me by the hair on the back of my head and forced my head up so I had no choice but to face him. “I said look at me!”

I dragged my eyes open with an almighty effort.

He stared at me from inches away—and I couldn’t break that stare. His eyes held me in an unshakable hold.

“You agreed to do what I tell you,” he snapped. “You said you wanted a man who knew what to do with you. Is that what you want—to walk out of here and go back to all the guys who don’t know what they’re doing? Is that really what you want?”

“No…..” I whimpered. I really wanted to cry.

“Then do it,” he snapped. “You do what I say or you use your safe word and walk away. You said you wanted someone who knew what to do with you. I know what to do with you better than you do. Now come on. Ride my leg like I told you to—and you keep your eyes open so I can see you. Come on. Show me how much you want this.”

My mind went into a confused rollercoaster of a thousand emotions, sensations, desires, and fears all jumbled into one chaotic mass.

I tried in every way to force my body to do what he said, but something froze me in place.

His eyes burned down into my very soul. I had never looked at him this close before—close enough to kiss me.

He would never kiss me. God, I would have given anything to have that with him, but he would never go there. He would never cross that line. He was too principled for that.

He didn’t even feel that way about me. I knew that now. He only did this to help me—the way I asked him to.

I grimaced and started to whine on the verge of tears—or was I on the verge of another catastrophic orgasm? I couldn’t even identify what I was feeling right now.

At that moment, he put his other hand behind my back, flattened it right on top of my tailbone, and pulled me forward in a slow, sensual rocking motion exactly like he really was fucking me deep, slow, and hard.

“Come on, baby,” he murmured through gritted teeth. “Come on. That’s right. Do you want me? Huh? Is this what you want? Do you want me to fuck you like this?”

“Yes!” I practically shrieked. I could have cried that he actually made me admit that to his face.

He still held me with his fist clenched in my hair, but I couldn’t look away from him if my life depended on it.

That movement sent an unstoppable wave of searing heat through me. All my buried desires exploded off the charts. I couldn’t stop the cataclysm from taking me over.

“You feel me fucking you right now, don’t you—just like this?” He pulled me down on his leg and flexed his hips just as if he really was fucking me. “You feel that, don’t you? Do you feel me inside you? Come on. Come on. Give me that.”

I screamed as a vicious spike of pure fire rocketed through me. I couldn’t hold it back.

“I need you!” I shrieked. “I need you, Ash!”

“I’m right here, baby. I’m right here. Now come on. Come to me. You know you want this.”

Right at that moment, he slid his hand down to my ass, grabbed a big handful, and crushed it in his grip.

He used my ass to pull me down harder on his leg and my own torturous need went off like a bomb tearing my body apart.

That blast of energy took hold. He didn’t have to move me anymore.

I smashed myself down on his leg riding him hard and fast. I screamed again and again bucking, grinding, and rubbing myself into another world-crushing orgasm.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his face. I heard him yelling at me to come on and give it to him, to show him how much I wanted him, and to feel him inside me taking me and owning me.

My eyes drifted out of focus. I couldn’t see him anymore before I dissolved in a mass of convulsions still grinding on his leg with all my strength. I couldn’t stop.

He released my wrists somewhere in all that screaming. I couldn’t keep track of what was happening or where anything was. I folded onto his chest—and then my knees gave out.

I didn’t realize until too late that he must have let go of me. I buckled and hit the floor.

I huddled there twitching and spasming trying in every way to come back to Earth, but the tempest still raged in my mind as much as my body.

Ash stood over me doing something. I couldn’t even lift my head to look at him. I could only see the legs of his pants up to his thighs.

Did he think I didn’t obey him well enough because I couldn’t do as he told me? Was he standing there about to tell me I wasn’t good enough to be a submissive?

I couldn’t face that. I couldn’t bring myself even to look up at him to find out if he was disappointed in me.

I couldn’t handle it if he was disappointed in me. I wanted more than anything to do what he said. Anything would be better than walking away—from all of this.

I didn’t know what this was. I might never be able to understand it, but I had to keep doing it. I couldn’t stop—not now when I was up to my neck in it.

The hurricane of emotions drove me to the breaking point. I needed some shelter—and I had no other shelter besides him.

I needed him more than he knew—more than I knew. I teetered on the brink of collapsing for real. I would fall apart if I didn’t do something.

In my last act of hopeless desperation, I dragged myself a few inches across the floor and wrapped my arms around his knees. I couldn’t ask him for more than that.

I clung to him—the only part of him I dared to touch. I might not even be worthy to hold onto his legs like this, but I had to hold onto something—some part of him to anchor me in this madness.

He didn’t kick me away or shake me off or tell me to stop. He just stood there and let me hold him.

He was always the one who held me before. He wouldn’t let me hold him like that—not until he did it first.

The raw emotional need to be near him—to take shelter from all of this turmoil—it welled up into a surge of misery and torturous need. I needed so much more from him.

There was no bottom to this dark pit of aching need—the need only he could fulfill.

I couldn’t face letting go of him—not now when he reduced me to this wreck of emotions.

Just then, he lowered his hand on top of my head and rubbed his fingertips into my scalp through my hair. He didn’t say a word. He just combed his fingers through my hair a few times.

That one act—that one small sign of his approval—it meant more than a thousand declarations of love from every other guy I had ever known.

I just wanted to be good enough for him. I could never hope to be his submissive—whatever that meant. I didn’t let myself think about what it meant.

I never would have let go of him—not ever—but he had other plans. He bent over, pulled me off his legs, and scooped me up in his arms.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, put my head down on his shoulder, and shut my eyes. I didn’t want to know where he was taking me or what he planned to do with me.

I didn’t care as long as I was still with him.

His movements changed. I opened my eyes just enough to see him walking up some stairs in a different part of his apartment. I didn’t see this before.

He carried me upstairs and into a bedroom. I hung onto his neck while he took one hand away from my back to turn on the lamp and pull down the sheets. The room looked like a hotel, but it was still in his apartment.

He laid me down on the bed, pulled the covers over me, kissed me on the head, and stroked his hand once down the side of my hair.

He left me lying there while he went around the room doing something.

He came back with an armchair from the other side of the room, put it next to the bed, kissed me once more, and whispered, “Go to sleep, baby. Shut your eyes and go to sleep.”

Those words worked their spell on me. I was getting so used to obeying him that my eyes shut automatically without me even trying.

I must have blacked out immediately because I woke up hours later. The lamp was still on.

Ash sat on the armchair by the bed doing something on his phone in one hand and holding a piece of paper in the other.

He was in the act of looking back and forth between them when I opened my eyes.

I didn’t move. I just stared at him for a long time.

He was such an amazing guy—and yet I didn’t understand one percent of what he was.. He was too fine even for me to comprehend what he was.

I could study him for the rest of eternity and never find out all the dimensions of him—especially since he didn’t want me to.

He kept switching between his phone, the paper in his hand, and another stack of papers balanced on his knee. He frowned at them—and then noticed me watching him.

He raised his head and studied me from his chair. His eyes didn’t go hard.

They didn’t go soft, either. He scrutinized me with some question hanging over his head.

I couldn’t look away from those eyes—the eyes that commanded my soul to respond to him.

He made me show him how much I wanted him. He knew now—in case he didn’t already know.

He was right. He knew how to handle me better than I did. He knew everything better than I did.

He didn’t want me lying here awake watching him work. He wanted me to sleep.

He was sitting in that chair to watch over me while I slept—so I could recover from our session.

I had to obey him in that, too. My eyes drifted closed and I didn’t wake up again.

End of Chapter 5.

I put my mega-burrito on the table in the outdoor café down the street from the Police station.

I sat down in front of Riley. We always came here for lunch.

“Well, we’ve eliminated all the suspects we know about,” I told her. “Who do we have left?”

She took an enormous bite of her burrito and put it back down while she talked with her mouth full. “We’ve eliminated Maynard Sutherland’s accountant, housekeeper, ex-wife, and all of his business associates. We don’t have any more suspects.”

“There must be someone We still haven’t checked his associates or social…..”

I stopped in mid-sentence and stared over her shoulder as Ash Keiff came around a corner three blocks away. He was wearing a navy blue business suit.

I hadn’t seen or heard from him in a month since my visit to the BDSM club.

He kept his word and texted me regularly for three days after that. He waited just long enough to make sure I came out of my depression—or whatever it was.

I had read his last text so many times I had committed it to memory. I’m glad you’re doing better. I’ll stop pestering you so you can get back to work.

I didn’t want him to stop pestering me, but I had already made my peace with the idea that we were both going to move on after that night.

I threw myself back into work. I had actually started to forget about that night. Seeing him at this distance brought it all back.

I didn’t actually start to forget about that night—not at all. It made me even more curious to find out everything about BDSM—but I did it in my free time.

I didn’t discuss it with Riley anymore, either, except when it specifically came up in the Maynard Sutherland case.

Riley frowned at me. “Are you okay?”

I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t even move. Ash didn’t see me. He stood on a street corner facing the other way while he did something on his phone.

She glanced over her shoulder to see what I was looking at. “Who is that?”

I shot out of my seat. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere—and don’t touch my burrito, you pig.”

She laughed.

I raced away with my heart in my mouth. Was I really going to do this?

I had rehearsed this moment a thousand times, but I never really let myself believe I would go through with it.

I always found it so much easier to pretend I would never do anything in the BDSM world again. I had no reason to—except that I had to. I couldn’t explain why even to myself.

Ash stiffened and his eyes narrowed when I walked up to him. He kept his guard up when he said, “Hello.”

“Hello,” I replied. “I just saw you over here and I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind if we met for coffee or something—just to talk. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind if I asked you a few questions—not related to the murder case. This would be strictly personal—just between you and me.”

“Um….okay…..” he began. “What do you want to talk to me about? Give me a clue beforehand so I don’t think you’re going to arrest me.”

I couldn’t even take the joke. I inhaled a shaky breath to steady my nerves. “I was wondering….if you would be willing…..to….you know….do what you did that night again……I mean…..maybe like as many times as you feel comfortable with…..you know…like…..not do anything….but just so I can gain experience. I want to have some more experiences and I don’t even know where to start looking for someone I trust enough to do that. I already know you and I already trust you….so…..if you’re willing….I would really appreciate it. You were right. I don’t know what I don’t know. I’ve been doing a lot of research since I last saw you ….and I know enough to know I’m too ignorant even to start looking for someone to get experience with…..but I already know you…..so I was wondering…..you know….either just once…or more than once…..or whatever…..I mean, I wouldn’t be your submissive. It would just be a set time limit thing. I read you can do that…..like you did that night.”

I heard myself babbling, so I forced myself to stop. I wasn’t making any sense at all even to myself.

He stood there scrutinizing me for a long time. He must think I was a real idiot if I couldn’t even speak coherently about this.

I started to squirm. I was just about to make a tactful exit when he pulled his phone out of his pocket and sent me a text.

“All right. I’ll do it,” he replied. “Come to this address at seven o’clock tonight. We can talk more there. Wear something casual—nothing fancy or provocative. I gotta go.” He looked behind me. “Are you okay? Do you need anything else?”

“I’m okay. I’m having lunch with Riley. We’re at work.”

“Okay. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

He walked away and I went back to the table.

I didn’t let myself think about my upcoming meeting with Ash while I blundered through the rest of my workday.

I finally went home, took a shower, and changed my clothes.

I chose a pair of khaki capri pants to wear along with a plain white blouse. That should be casual enough. I put on my white ankle sneakers to finish off my outfit.

I showed up at the address at five minutes to seven. The place was a warehouse in an industrial part of town.

It looked like the kind of place an axe murderer would bring his victims before dismembering them with a chainsaw and cannibalizing their remains in his basement.

I shivered at the thought and tried to shake it off. Ash wasn’t a cannibal…..or was he?

Was that the reason he didn’t want to take me as a submissive?

That couldn’t be right. He looked and acted so….normal.

If he wanted to kidnap me, cut me up with a chainsaw, and cannibalize me, he could have done it that night.

I was alone with him multiple times in the middle of the night. No one would have seen him.

He came across as a businessman—and I had done some research on him, too, as part of the murder investigation.

He was involved in multiple high-level business ventures around the city. He engaged in angel investing, stock market investing, real estate investing, and a bunch of other dominant-appearing activities.

Someone like that wasn’t likely to be a closet serial killer—but if he was, the missing and dismembered victims would have turned up on my desk. I would at least have heard about it by now.

It was too late to back out, though, because right then, he pulled up in his car. It was a sleek black BMW roadster with all the trimmings. Of course.

He used a remote control to open a garage door in the side of the building, pulled his car in, and came out to meet me on the sidewalk. He used his remote to shut the garage door behind him.

“Follow me,” he told me. “Let’s go inside.”

He used a normal key to unlock a door in the same building. It opened into a stairwell leading up one floor to another locked door.

I really expected him to lead me into another dim, moldy torture chamber of emaciated prisoners screaming on the rack.

Instead, he waved me into a giant loft apartment with blazing sunshine streaming through enormous windows along one wall.

Potted plants, trees, and green walls separated different sections of the huge open floor.

He had set it up into multiple sitting areas full of couches, desks, and chaise lounges in different spots. An open plan kitchen and island occupied the far end of the apartment.

He shut the door behind me and didn’t lock it. He tossed his keys into a carved wooden dish on the table next to the door. “Come on in,” he told me. “Make yourself at home.”

“Is this….is this your place?”

“Does that surprise you? What were you expecting?”

I didn’t tell him what I was really expecting. For some stupid reason, I expected something more formal than this—something more like a “real” BDSM dungeon or playroom or something—something like the pictures I had seen on the internet.

This apartment didn’t look like anything related to BDSM. It was all so….so normal.

He stopped next to the kitchen counter and leaned against it. “So….here you are. Tell me what it is you want.”

“Um….just what I told you. I want to have more experiences….and I don’t really know how to do it. I don’t even know what my next experiences should be. That’s what I was kinda hoping to ask you….like…..if you weren’t willing to do it yourself…..that you could advise me on what I should try and what I should tell whoever I do it with what I want them to do.”

“What have you done? What have you experienced sexually with your other partners?”

I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“Have you ever been tied up in bed?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been blindfolded during sex?”

I shuffled my feet. His questions made me uncomfortable, but I also sensed them starting to turn me on.

My voice quavered when I said, “No.”

“Have you ever been spanked?”

I couldn’t answer at all. I just shook my head.

“So you’ve never had anything but straight sex. Has anyone ever gotten rough with you in bed?”

“No, definitely not. Everyone I’ve ever been with has always been really nice.”

He studied me across the room. “Does any of that appeal to you—being tied up, being blindfolded, getting spanked, or someone getting rough with you?”

I squirmed again. “I guess so.”

“Was there something else you wanted to ask me?”

I opened my mouth. “You said being your submissive meant something different than what we did. What did you mean?”

“You aren’t ready to be my submissive.”

“I know that. I’m just trying to understand. What is so different about being your submissive?”

“I’m a sadist,” he blurted out.

The words set off a cannon shot in my brain. Sadist. That word made my blood run cold.

I glanced around. His apartment didn’t contain any racks of whips, chains, and implements of torture the way I always thought a sadist’s apartment would.

Did he even own any whips and chains? Maybe I knew as little about that as I knew about everything else in this crazy world.

He saw my reaction right away. He couldn’t miss it. “Now do you understand? Are you sure you still want to do this—with me?”

I opened my mouth. I had to swallow again before I could make a sound. “So you……you get off……on hurting people?”

“Yes. That is what a sadist is—but I swear to you I will not hurt you. If you want me to help you gain experience, I swear to you on my honor I won’t do anything painful to you. I will never do anything painful to you unless you specifically ask me to.”

I snorted in his face. “I would never ask anyone to deliberately hurt me. That’s ridiculous.”

He shrugged. “You might. You might even beg me for it.”

I made a face. That was never going to happen.

“Are you sure you still want to do this?” he asked. “You said you trusted me. Do you still?”

I threw back my shoulders. “Yes. I do. If you say you won’t, then I believe you.”

“Are you ready to get started, then?”

I nodded. “I’m ready.”

“We’ll follow the same rules as last time. This session won’t last longer than fifteen minutes. You’ll obey everything I tell you to do without question. You’ll be able to stop whenever you want to either by just walking out of here or by using ‘red’ again. Understand?”

“Are we keeping the same rule about you not touching me?”

“I will touch you, but I won’t use my hands. No part of my body will touch any part of your body ever at any time during the fifteen minutes. Do you accept that?”

I nodded. “Okay. I agree.”

He pushed himself off the counter, walked around it to the kitchen, opened a drawer, and took something out.

He brought it over to me and held it out to me. “Put these on.”

I had to put down my handbag to see what it was that he wanted me to put on. They were a pair of soft, padded, fabric wrist cuffs with a strip of nylon webbing around them.

A Velcro strap tightened them around the wrists with a metal D ring sewn into the webbing.

I slipped the cuffs over my wrists and cinched the Velcro closed. The webbing spread the pressure over a wide area of my wrists. The cuffs actually felt comfortable.

I pressed the Velcro into place and looked up to find Ash standing in front of me. He held up a black piece of cloth.

“I’m going to blindfold you. As soon as I tie this around your head, our session will start and you’ll obey everything I say without question. Are you ready?”

I nodded. This was really happening.

He stepped behind me and spread the black fabric in front of my eyes. Only then did I see that the part that went over my face was actually a thick padded foam mask with indentations where it fit over my eyes.

It also had a piece cut out to make room for my nose. I held the mask in place while he tied the two lengths of fabric behind my head.

The blindfold completely blacked out everything, even the sunshine coming through the windows.

I plunged into darkness…..and also plunged back into that breathless place where I had been that night in the hotel.

Ash retreated and left me there in silence. I waited….and waited.

His voice came from in front of me. Was he far away or right next to me? I couldn’t tell.

“How do you feel?” he murmured.

I tried to fidget and wound up looking around at nothing. “Um…kind of….nervous.”

“Do you still trust me?”

I couldn’t stop my voice from trembling when I said, “Yes.”

“Strip down to your bra and panties, but keep them on.”

My pulse started racing. My hands shook when I fumbled with my blouse buttons. I had trouble unfastening them without being able to see what I was doing.

I might be getting myself into another compromising position here, but I always fell back on my trust in Ash.

He could have taken advantage of me a dozen times, but he didn’t. He didn’t even really want to do this. He was doing this as a favor to me—so I could gain experience with someone who wouldn’t take advantage of me.

One other thought sent a torch of excitement through my insides. He was going to see me with my clothes off. Was I good enough for him? Would he like what he saw?

At least I wouldn’t be able to see his reaction.

I pulled off my blouse and pushed my pants down. I kicked off my shoes and straightened up wearing only my bra and panties.

Now he could see me, but I couldn’t see him.

He waited another long time. Every second dragged. What was he doing out there? Was he deciding that I wasn’t good looking enough for him?

His voice came out of nowhere. It curled around me and slithered over my skin the way it did last time.

“Now I want you to listen to my voice very carefully,” he murmured. “I’m going to lock your wrists together. I’ll be using a regular snaffle clip and your hands won’t be restrained in any other way. If you decide you want to leave, all you have to do is push up the blindfold, unclip the hook, and walk out that door. Do you understand?”

I nodded, but my nerves wouldn’t let me speak.

Something touched my wrists and then I heard a click. The hook locked my wrists together in the front.

I shivered at the sensation. This was the closest I had ever come to being tied up or restrained in any way.

I got a flash of what I must look like from his point of view—half naked, blindfolded, my wrists tied together.

My restrained arms pushed my breasts together in the middle. They made my cleavage stand out.

I looked like a BDSM submissive—like all the pictures I had ever seen of this kind of thing. Is this really what I was becoming—one of those kind of people?

He started pacing around and around me the way he did that night. He was looking at me, seeing me helpless and trembling….waiting for his touch.

He stopped behind me again and murmured in my ear. “Does this turn you on?”

I started to nod and wound up gasping out, “Yes!”

“Does it turn you on that I’m the one seeing you like this?” His breath tickled down my neck. “Does it turn you on that I could do anything I wanted with you right now and make you love it—make you scream for it?”

I tried to say, “Yes!” again, but no sound came out.

He circled some more. “Did you think about me touching you during our last session?”

“Yes!” I choked.

“Did you think that I was the one pushing you down on the couch, holding you down, and overpowering you?”

“Yes!” I panted.

He stopped behind me and barely whispered in my ear. “Is that what you want? You want me to take you right now—bend you over—make you scream for me—make you beg me to own you—make you crawl for the privilege of doing anything I say?”

I tried again to say, “Yes!” but a sob came out instead.

Those words burned. How did he know?

I couldn’t stop fantasizing about Ash. So many forbidden fantasies had been coming to the surface ever since that night—and he was the man in all of them.

I didn’t even let myself consciously think most of those fantasies. They were too insane even to consider.

He stepped away, but that powerful, radiating presence didn’t go away. He stood right there. He didn’t have to lay a finger on me. He overpowered me just by standing there.

“Are you wet right now?” he murmured.

I grimaced in agony. I wanted so badly to say, “Yes!” but I couldn’t even form the word.

Of course he knew. He had to know the effect he had on me.

He moved farther away and I heard him rummaging around in the apartment.

My ears became hyper-tuned to every sound. I followed his movements until he came back over to me. He stopped in front of me—and something grazed the side of my stomach.

It felt soft—like very soft buffed suede. Being blindfolded and tied up made my skin extra sensitive, too.

I jolted at the sensation and a charge of electricity went down my skin. It almost felt like an orgasm.

I started to pull away. “Stand still!” he snapped so harshly that I froze. He had never spoken to me like that—ever.

He leaned in extra close and snarled in my ear in a deadly undertone. “You promised to do exactly as I told you. Now stand still and don’t move again until I tell you to. Do you understand?”

I swallowed hard. I couldn’t speak. I could only nod in trembling shock.

He stepped back and grazed the same soft suede object over the same part of my stomach—and then it migrated across my belly to the other side—and around my back….and up my sides to my neck.

The sensation excited every nerve ending. The softness turned me on even more….and then it traveled down my chest to my breasts.

I gasped for breath trying in every way to cope with this intoxicating sensation. I squirmed, but his command stopped me from trying to get away from that touch.

The pressure increased as it passed back and forth across my bra cups…..floated down my stomach……and against the inner surface of my thighs.

“That’s right…..” Ash lowered his voice to a husky murmur. This wasn’t his gentle soothing undertone or the deadly snarl. “Do you feel that? Do you feel me about to take you the way you want me to? Does that excite you? Do you want me to touch you….here?”

The suede object barely grazed my panties.

I gasped out in a sudden rush of desire. “Yes!”

He stroked whatever it was up and down my inner thighs and then slid what felt like something long, hard, and cylindrical between my legs.

It grazed the damp section of my panties right between my legs. That feeling of whatever it is thrusting between my legs drove me out of my mind.

I moaned and shuddered as a wave of delicious pleasure swept over me. I wanted more—a lot more. I wanted more pressure on my slit and for whatever this was to push inside me.

He took the thing away the minute I moaned like that. I almost broke down crying when he left me standing there throbbing with need….for him.

He wouldn’t do it. He said no part of his body would touch any part of my body.

I had learned one thing about him. He would never do anything he said he wasn’t going to do. Once he made that agreement, he wouldn’t break it no matter how much I wanted it.

I actually considered falling on my knees and begging him to take me. I pushed the thought away immediately, but it did actually cross my mind. Christ, was I really coming to that?

He walked away again and came back. I couldn’t stop shaking. I needed….sex. I needed to do it with someone—like right now. I couldn’t stand this.

Something about that agreement we made acted on me with just as much unbreakable power. I couldn’t push the blindfold up and walk away. I couldn’t bring myself to break any part of the agreement.

I put myself under his control for fifteen minutes. As long as I stood here with my eyes covered and my wrists tied, I had to stay under his control for whatever he wanted to do to me.

Did it turn him on to see me like this?

He touched me with a different object. This one felt soft, too, but I couldn’t identify what substance it was made out of.

It started buzzing against my skin with a very faint vibration so soft I could barely feel it at all. It made no sound.

He passed the thing up and down my arm first. The buzz spread a layer of warmth through my skin. The vibration relaxed and excited me at the same time.

He passed the object around my shoulders and back, down my chest, and teased my nipples through my bra.

I moaned again and yelped in rising need as the vibration excited me to the limit. Would he use this thing to touch me between my legs? Was that where this was going?

My chest heaved, but he followed my movements exactly. He teased my nipples until I screamed out in desperation. Should I beg him now?

He stroked the thing down my stomach and up and down my thighs exactly the way he did before. The buzz barely touched my slit.

I screamed, but he pulled it away instantly and moved off.

I thought he would walk away and leave me practically sobbing in ravenous desire, but instead, he circled behind me and stopped there.

He ran the thing over my ass, down to the backs of my thighs, and finally, finally, stroked the thing between my legs from behind.

It followed the same thrusting motion as the suede thing, but this time, he held it there and let the vibrations take over.

They spread up my vulva and penetrated deep into my innermost core. I really did scream then. A colossal wave of ecstasy radiated outward from my center. It would blast me apart as soon as it burst.

I convulsed on one surge of energy after another building to the breaking point. I spasmed so hard I almost fell over—and that’s when I felt something in front of me.

It felt like the back of a couch, but I hadn’t been standing near a couch when he blindfolded and restrained me.

That convulsion made me bend over whatever this was. That one small change in position drove me out of my mind.

At that moment, Ash moved the vibrator up between my ass cheeks, teased my asshole for a split second, and then thrust the vibrator back down between my legs.

I never understood anal sex before, but that one instant of stimulation exploded me beyond my limits into a catastrophic orgasm.

I screamed, but I couldn’t stop bucking on whatever this vibration was between my legs. It drove me wild until I couldn’t stop.

He stopped it for me, took the thing away, and the vibrations ceased. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think even to take the blindfold off. What the hell just happened to me?

Out of nowhere, he scooped me up in his arms, carried me somewhere, sat down with me on his lap, and pulled the blindfold off.

I couldn’t open my eyes except to steal a peak at where we were before I shut them again. We were sitting on one of the couches. I was still wearing my bra and panties. He was still wearing a suit.

He pulled my head down on his shoulder. I couldn’t stop quivering and whimpering from the power of that orgasm.

I couldn’t function, but I didn’t have to. He just held me there without saying a word.

I finally sank into a dazed trance. I must have dozed off because I woke up still sitting sideways on his lap with my head on his shoulder.

His fingers trailed through my hair the way they did that night. He didn’t move otherwise.

I sat up and looked around. I felt drugged.

He must have taken the snaffle clip off the cuffs because I could move around just fine when I raised my hand to rub my eyes.

He gazed up at me and used his fingertip to comb my hair out of my eyes. “How do you feel?” he asked.

I tried to answer, but the words wouldn’t come.

Having him see me like this felt natural—almost like this was normal, too. It felt almost as if he had always seen me like this—like my clothes had always been invisible to him.

His hand stroked down my back and infected my skin with warm, comforting heat.

“So what did you think?” he asked. “What did you think of your first time being blindfolded and restrained?”

I should have looked at him. I should have said something intelligent and insightful—or maybe made a joke.

I couldn’t do any of that. I didn’t want to function or have to think about anything.

I curled up on his lap and put my head back down on  his shoulder. I just wanted to feel this—just for a few more minutes.

I would leave here and we would go back to living separate lives. I would probably never find out what he meant when he said he was a sadist. He certainly never did anything sadistic with me today—or ever.

He could, though. I understand that now. He showed his hard, rough, cruel side when he told me to stand still.

I could definitely see how he could be hurtful and brutal if he really wanted to. He just wasn’t with me. He never did anything like that to me.

Those words—that threatening warning—it actually made me trust him more. He could bring out the steel when he needed to. He was more than just a kind, caring, soft-spoken businessman. He was much more than that.

He didn’t rush me to get off his lap. He kept massaging the back of my neck, combing his fingers through my hair, and hugging me down deeper into his neck.

“I want you to come here at this time every week,” he murmured. “I want you to set this time aside to come here and learn from me. I want you to promise me you won’t play with anyone else as long as you’re coming here to visit me. I’ll take charge of your education, but you have to promise not to play with anyone else until I decide that you’re ready. Can you do that?”

I nodded without picking my head up. I shut my eyes as an unspeakable wave of gratitude overtook me. “Thank you,” I whispered. “I really didn’t want to go with anyone else.”

He twisted his head sideways and kissed me on the forehead. “You don’t have to. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

I could have put my arms around him and kissed him for that, but something about the way all of this was progressing stopped me from doing it.

The fifteen minutes were over. I wasn’t wearing a blindfold anymore and his body was touching my body even if he was still wearing a suit.

Technically, I wasn’t bound by the rules of our agreement, but an invisible barrier stopped me from touching him.

Our relationship—or whatever this was—it didn’t include that. He could give me the most mind-blowing orgasm of my life, but the process didn’t go the other way—not unless he told me to do something.

He only ever kissed me on the head or forehead. He never even tried to kiss me on the lips. This wasn’t about that. I couldn’t explain why.

It wasn’t even about sex. Him doing that to me wasn’t about sex. It was about something else.

He never once suggested that I get up, put my clothes on, and leave. He waited there without another word until I sat up by myself.

“Do you feel ready to go?” he asked.

I nodded down at my hands. He could see me stripped and raw and fragile like this because it wasn’t about sex.

It was more about him being able to access a part of me I couldn’t access on my own. It was more about him being able to do things to me that no one else could or would ever do.

Part of me—this part of me—it already belonged to him. I didn’t want to share it with anyone else. I just wanted….him.

He kept touching me in the same innocent way. He never tried to touch my body—not like that.

“I guess I better go,” I mumbled.

For the first time, he cupped his hand under my chin, lifted my head, and made me turn around and look at him. “You’re perfect,” he murmured. “You’re everything a man could ever dream about.”

I gulped. I wanted to say so many things, but there was only one thing I absolutely had to say before I left. “Thank you….for next week.”

“Of course. I won’t let anything happen to you—and our agreement still holds and will always hold. I will never hurt you or do anything to you that you don’t want me to. I swear it to you on my life.”

I couldn’t speak to answer. Looking into his eyes made me emotional. If I stayed here, I would fall apart the way I did last time.

He must have sensed that because he let me go. I stood up, took the cuffs off, and put my clothes on.

I felt myself slipping back into my everyday businesslike persona. No one outside this apartment knew I was doing any of this. Not even Riley knew what was going on between me and Ash.

He went to the kitchen while I got dressed. He got a plate out of the cupboard and took a sandwich and a bottle of lemonade out of the fridge.

He cut the sandwich, put both halves on the plate, poured a glass of lemonade, and brought everything over to the couch. “Come over here and eat and drink something before you leave.”

I retrieved my handbag and sat down next to him. Now what was I supposed to say?

I took a gulp of the lemonade. It tasted unbelievably good. Then I took a bite of the sandwich. Damn. I really needed this.

“How’s the case coming along?” he asked. “Do you have any leads on what happened to Maynard?”

“Not really,” I mumbled with my mouth full. “We keep ruling out suspects. That’s the best we can do in the absence of any other evidence?”

“What evidence do you have that his death was even murder?”

“Just that there weren’t any other fingerprints in his apartment. The knot on the plastic bag made the ME think someone else tied it.”

Ash frowned. “So….the bag was knotted?”

“The ME consulted with an asphyxiation expert upstate. The guy is also an expert in auto-asphyxiation. He says that, when someone uses a plastic bag to auto-asphyxiate, they usually just twist the bag and hold it in their hand. That way, if they really do pass out, the bag comes loose and they’ll be able to breathe again. He says it doesn’t make sense that Maynard would actually knot the bag unless he was trying to kill himself.”

Ash frowned some more. “That makes sense, I guess—except that Maynard wasn’t suicidal.”

“I know. Everyone who knew him says the same thing. That’s why the investigation was transferred to homicide.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Okay. So are you feeling okay about everything that happened tonight?”

I nodded again. “Thank you again for doing this. I’m really grateful.”

“You don’t have to keep saying that. Consider this my civil service of getting a dangerous newbie off the street.”

I laughed and almost choked on my sandwich. “Great.”

He smiled at me—and the tension dissolved. I could face the world again.

I ate one half of the sandwich and finished the glass of lemonade. “Thank you for this. I’m ready to go now.”

“Okay. I’ll see you next week.”

He escorted me to the door. He stayed in the apartment while I went down to the sidewalk, got into my car, and drove home.

All my energy drained the minute I walked into the house. I couldn’t stay upright a second longer even though it wasn’t even eight o’clock at night.

I toppled onto the couch still shivering from the energy of that orgasm. I needed to get some sleep to recover from it.

Right then, my phone buzzed. I took it out and laughed again when I read a text from Ash. Guess who. I’m back in your messages.

I couldn’t stop grinning when I texted back. Hello, stranger.

I’m going to keep track of you in the next couple of days. If you start dropping, you text or call me, day or night. Don’t hesitate. Understand?

Yes, I understand. Thank you. I feel fine now. I’m just really drained.

That’s normal. Get some sleep.

I will. Thank you again. Good night.

He sent back another kiss emoji. He almost always ended his messages with that.

I put the phone down and threw my arm over my eyes. Next week. Seven days from tonight. Could I really wait that long?

A Masochist's Adventures in Wonderland

Chapter 3

--------------

Riley and I came out of the Police station after filing our reports on tonight’s visit to the Maynard Sutherland’s BDSM club.

 

That was the shortest report in law enforcement history because there was nothing to report.

 

Riley waved to me over her shoulder. “See you later. Good night.”

 

I waved back at her. “Good night. See you tomorrow.”

 

We parted ways to opposite ends of the parking lot. I unlocked my car, got behind the wheel, turned the ignition, and pulled out onto the road.

That was the moment when all my buried feelings came back with a vengeance. My swallowed hard thinking about my meeting with Ash.

 

Now I had to go home to an empty house thinking about everything that happened between us—even though nothing happened between us.

What did he even do to me? I could still barely even think about it.

 

I couldn’t go home to an empty house—not with all these confused emotions waging the Battle of the End Times in my mind.

 

I shook that off. Nothing happened between me and Ash. He showed me what domination was. That was it.

 

He never laid a finger on me. All he did was talk—which is exactly what he said he was going to do.

 

I couldn’t get his voice out of my head. Just thinking about his voice made me tremble.

 

I tried one last time to push those thoughts away, but I couldn’t go home when I was this wound up.

 

I pulled off the highway, drove back to the hotel, and parked across the street near the park where no one would see me.

 

I didn’t plan to go back inside. I just needed to sit here and think about it until I understood…..whatever this was that was happening.

 

The club wasn’t going on anymore. No one was in there except the bartender.

 

I planned to just sit in my car and watch from afar, but as soon as I saw that everyone was already gone, I got out and went over there.

 

I had no plans to go inside. I just wanted to look for some odd reason.

 

I peered through the windows. The torture chair was gone. Everything was gone. The room looked like the quietest, sleepiest hotel lobby ever.

 

No one would ever have guessed what went on in there just a few hours ago.

 

I turned away feeling….I couldn’t define what I was feeling.

 

I glanced around at the empty street. It was the middle of the night. What the hell was I even doing out here? I should just go home….but something stopped me.

 

I looked up and down the sidewalk at nothing. Something was missing—something I couldn’t even define.

 

Every fiber of my being told me to go out and find it, but I didn’t even know what the thing was that I should go looking for—much less where to look for it.

 

I was still standing there in confused agitation when someone walked around the corner from an alley between the hotel and the building next door.

 

My heart stopped when I saw that it was Ash.

 

He did a double take and frowned at me. “Are you okay? What are you doing here? It’s almost midnight.”

 

“I…..” I glanced around. What could I say? I didn’t even know what I was doing here.

 

He took a few steps toward me still scowling. “Is something wrong? Did something happen? I thought you were going home with your friend.”

 

I opened my mouth again, but no sound came out.

 

He stood directly over me furrowing his brow. His dark eyes flashed the way they did when he…..Did he actually dominate me? Sweet Jesus, was I even really thinking that?

 

He lowered his voice to a growl. “Did something happen during our session? Is that what this is? Did I hurt you somehow?”

 

“I just….” I waved my hands at nothing trying in every possible way to get my brain working. “I don’t know…..I don’t know what happened….I just…..”

I floundered to a stop. Nothing was working, least of all my brain.

 

He glared at me a little longer, but it was a glare of real concern. He could see how hard this was for me.

 

He cast a flinty glance up and down the street and out toward the park. My car was the only one out there.

 

He finally pursed his lips and extended his hand to take hold of my elbow. “Come here. Come sit down in here so we can talk.”

 

He led the way back into the lobby. I stumbled after him in turmoil. I would never be able to look at this place the same way again.

 

He nodded to the bartender, escorted me through the lobby, back to the same office, and switched on the lamp.

 

I stood in the middle of the floor shuffling my feet in confusion. Now what was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to stand here while he dominated me like he did before?

 

He steered me to a leather couch against one wall. For some reason, I didn’t see it here during my last visit. It matched the armchairs in front of the desk.

 

He pushed me down on the couch, sat down next to me, and turned to face me. He kept his voice low and leaned in, but not too close.

 

“I know what’s happening to you,” he murmured. “This what’s called sub drop. You went into an altered state during our session and now you’re coming out of it. We have protocols to help a sub deal with this, but you left before we could do any of that. I never should have let you walk out of here so abruptly. That’s why you’re confused and don’t know what’s happening. It will pass. You just need to understand that this is normal.”

 

“I don’t know how to….” I looked around in panic. How could I say something I didn’t even understand? “I just….I want…..”

 

“What?” he murmured. “What is it you want?”

 

“I want……” I choked and tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t know what I wanted….and yet I did. “You said…..you said you would know what to do with me!”

 

His eyebrows came together in the middle for a second and then shot up. “You mean…..you want me to……you want to be my……” He lunged back and waved both his hands. “No, no, no, no, no! What we did was just one time. You said you wanted to find out and now you know. You’ll get over this. What you feel right now is just the aftereffects of what we did. You’ll wake up tomorrow morning and realize it didn’t mean anything.”

 

“But….what if it did? What if…..?” I broke off with those words hanging on my lips.

 

What if it wasn’t a one-time thing? What if I didn’t wake up tomorrow morning and realize it didn’t mean anything? What if it really did mean something?

 

What if I never felt this way about anyone else—ever? Could I really live like this—craving something from a man I would never see again?

 

I wasn’t so far gone that I actually said those words out loud, but I sure was thinking them.

 

The idea of walking out of here and never seeing Ash again brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t do that. I needed…..him.

 

He must have seen exactly what I was thinking. He tore away, shot off the couch, and paced across the office with his back to me.

 

“You don’t know what you’re asking!” he snapped over his shoulder. “You don’t know enough to make that decision.”

 

I buckled and my shoulders slumped. Tears streaked down my cheeks and I stared down at my hands in sinking despair.

 

Those words sealed my fate. Now what was I going to do—spend the rest of my life searching for what he gave me in a few short minutes?

 

Was there even another man alive on Planet Earth who was capable of that?

 

I made sure to cry silently. He already made up his mind. He wouldn’t do it.

 

I respected him too much to actually beg him to take me. I also still had enough respect for myself not to do something as pathetic as that.

 

I mentally steeled myself to walk out of this office for the second time. Going home to an empty house after this would be a thousand times harder.

 

I would just have to cry myself to sleep. Then I would have to go through weeks of torture getting over this heartbreak for a man I only talked to for a few minutes. God, what a disaster tonight turned out to be!

 

I didn’t hear him turn around before he came back over to the couch and sat down next to me. “Hey!” he murmured. “It’s going to be okay. Come here.”

 

He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into a hug. It was the most innocent, innocuous, meaningless hug imaginable—and yet it meant the world.

 

Before I knew what was happening, he leaned back on the couch and pulled me down on top of him with his arms around me.

 

I collapsed on his chest and couldn’t hold back sobs. I broke down wailing my heart out—and for what? I didn’t even understand enough to know what I was crying about.

 

He rubbed my arms and back, stroked my hair, and then, like magic, he kissed me on top of the head. “It’s going to be all right,” he murmured. “Everything is going to be all right. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

 

Those words made me cry so much harder. I would give anything to believe him.

 

That was the weird thing. Having him hold me like this and talk to me like this actually made me believe it.

 

I was okay as long as I was with him. I could even face walking out of here—now that he gave me this.

 

“You were so beautiful tonight,” he whispered. “You were everything I dreamed you would be. Any guy would be lucky to dominate you. You’re a treasure. I feel honored that you let me go there with you.”

 

He kissed my hair again. I really wanted to look up and kiss him for real, but he already made it clear that he didn’t want that.

 

He let me cry myself out, but he didn’t ask me to sit up. He just stayed in that position rubbing my back, running his fingers through my hair, and occasionally kissing the top of my head.

 

He waited a long time after I calmed down before he said, “So what happened after you left earlier? Did you go home and then come back?”

I clamped my eyes shut.

 

For some reason, the promise I made before our session continued to hold some power over me. I had to tell the truth.

 

I forced myself to sit up straight, but I couldn’t look him in the eye. I looked down at my hands. My face hurt from crying so much. I must look awful.

"I have to tell you something,” I husked.

 

He propped his elbows on his knees and frowned at me. “What is it? Did something happen?”

 

I opened my mouth once before I summoned the courage to say the words. “I….I didn’t come to the club tonight because I was curious. My name isn’t Mila. It’s Lucy Kelso and I’m a detective with the Millford Police Department. Riley and I are investigating Maynard Sutherland’s murder. That’s why we came—to question all of you about his activities.”

 

Ash frowned even deeper and then his eyebrows jumped again. “Oh. Okay.”

 

My head shot up. “You don’t care? You don’t care that I deceived you?”

 

“You didn’t deceive me, though, did you? I never asked who you were or why you wanted to know. You actually were curious about BDSM, weren’t you—and your friend really is a dominant woman.”

 

“Um….yeah.”

 

“I thought you might be a reporter. It doesn’t matter. I don’t think I would have done anything differently even if I knew you were a cop. It isn’t like I had anything to do with Maynard’s death.”

 

I stared at him in shock. He really didn’t care. I was more concerned about it than he was.

 

He swiveled on the couch to square his shoulders at me and pulled me around to face him. “Listen to me. I would love nothing more than to take you as my submissive, but you don’t know enough to give consent on that. You don’t understand enough to know what you’re seeing and what you would be agreeing to if you did that.”

 

“What do you mean? You said you would show me tonight.”

 

“I said I would show you what domination is and I did. Being my submissive means something completely different.”

 

Now it was my turn to frown. “What does it mean?”

 

He raised both hands again. “We aren’t having that conversation because we aren’t going there. I would be doing something extremely irresponsible if I let you do that. Now give me your phone number. I need to check on you in the next couple of days to make sure you’re okay and that you’re coming out of this sub drop. Don’t worry. I won’t leave you on your own. I can help you get through it.”

 

I pulled out my phone, navigated to my messaging app, and handed him the phone. I couldn’t watch while he entered my number into his phone and then entered his into mine. He sent me a text and then answered by sending himself one from my phone.

 

I knitted my fingers together behind his back and prayed to God he didn’t see how distressed I still was. I’d never felt this fragile in my life. I really wanted to cry again that I was about to walk away from him.

 

He handed the phone back. “I’ll text you when you get home tonight. Come on. I’ll walk you out.”

 

I stuffed my phone into my pocket. He put his arm behind my back on the way out of the office, switched off the lamp, and escorted me back outside. The hotel lobby was still deserted.

 

He conducted me back across the street to my car, opened the driver’s door, and stood there while I got in and shut the door with him on the outside.

 

He didn’t move while I turned the ignition and raised my hand to wave. He did the same thing.

 

I reversed out of my spot. He was still standing there when I drove all the way home.

 

I went inside, sat down on the edge of my bed, and let out a deep, shuddering breath. I felt like I had been crying for hours.

 

That time I spent with him in the office—the second time—it changed things again. I still didn’t understand what was happening to me, but at least I could face it now.

 

I was still wearing the little black dress I had on when Riley and I showed up at the club.

 

The dress almost made me feel like I just spent a night out hooking up with some random guy at a club—but I didn’t. Nothing happened—or so I told myself.

 

Right then, my phone buzzed. I took it out and smiled when I saw a message from Ash. Are you home yet?

 

My heart skipped a beat when I texted back. Yeah, I just got here. I’m going to bed.

 

Good plan. Thank you so much for tonight. You were perfect.

 

I actually laughed in nervous happiness. Thank you so much. I’m really glad I had my first experience.

 

Are you comfortable in bed yet?

 

I’m just changing into my pajamas.

 

I’ll wait.

 

I put the phone down, shimmied out of my dress, slipped into my favorite flannel pajamas, and climbed under the covers clutching my phone in giddy excitement.

 

Talking to him made my stomach flutter.

 

I’m in bed now.

 

Good night, baby. Sleep tight. You’re beautiful.

 

I texted back. Thank you. Good night.

 

He sent back a kiss emoji and that was it.

 

I stared at the phone for a long time feeling a thousand feelings tumbling in my chest.

 

I didn’t know what to think of him and everything that happened—but at least I knew I would hear from him again soon, even if we never took this any further.

 

I would always have tonight. He gave me a priceless gift. Now I just had to unwrap it and find out what it was.

 

End of Chapter 3.

A Masochist's Adventures in Wonderland

Chapter 2

_____________________

Ash led the way through the hotel lobby toward the stairs near the bank of elevators. I glanced over at Riley again.

I probably shouldn’t go off alone with someone I just met, but I sure as hell couldn’t stay here.

Riley and the other dominant woman were in the process of unstrapping their victim from the torture chair.

He sobbed his eyes out and even screamed every time they unclipped the clothespins from his body.

They petted his hair, kissed his wet cheeks, and stroked his chest, face, and neck. He barely noticed.

Riley petted, kissed, and stroked him, too.

I had to look away. She was not acting so intimate with a total stranger when we were supposed to be questioning these people about Maynard Sutherland’s death.

Coming here with her was a colossal mistake. I should just walk away right now, but I couldn’t leave her here alone, either.

Anything would be better than staying here in the lobby, though.

The man who had been holding the woman by the throat and spitting curses at her a few minutes ago now had her on her knees in the middle of the floor.

He stood over her with a leather dog leash attached to a padded blue and black collar buckled around her neck.

He wrapped the leash around his fist and yanked the leash hard enough to make the woman flinch. He used the leash and collar to drag her face closer to his crotch.

He held a black leather riding crop in his other hand. He kept cutting her across the hips, thighs, and sides with the crop while he went on snarling at her through bared teeth.

The look of ferocious rage on his face sealed the deal. I turned on my heel and walked away to follow Ash out of the room.

Following Ash was the only place I had left to go. I was already getting myself into a situation I couldn’t get out of exactly the way he said I was.

I expected him to go up the stairs, but instead, he turned off into an office tucked underneath them. I didn’t even know this room was here.

He switched on a lamp to light the room. “Come on in,” he called over his shoulder. “Shut the door behind you so you don’t hear what’s going on out there.”

I shut it. It mercifully cut out the sound of that man crying in the torture chair. How in God’s name did I get myself into this?

“Take a seat,” Ash told me. “Make yourself comfortable. You can wait here until your friend is ready to leave.”

I slumped into a deep, padded leather armchair in front of a massive oaken desk. Was this Ash’s office? How could it be when the club only used this hotel as the venue for their…..whatever the hell this was?

He leaned against the edge of the desk on the other side facing one wall. Giant windows covered that wall and looked out into a garden behind the hotel.

The garden hung in shadow. Only a faint glimmer of light from inside made it out there to light the shrubs and flowerbeds.

“Your friend seems like she has a lot of experience,” he remarked over his shoulder. “She looked like she knew what she was doing out there.”

I looked away. “I don’t know how much experience she has—but yeah. She was a dominant before we came here. I don’t know how long she’s been into it. I never knew she could do that. I feel sorry for the guy.”

“Why?” he asked. “He loves it. That’s why he does it.”

My head shot up. “He loves it?! Are you serious?! You saw him. He was in agony. He was crying his eyes out and screaming in pain.”

“Did you also see the way his dominant looked at him while she was doing it? They love each other. She takes good care of him. She would never let anything happen to him. She would never even let anything happen to him that he didn’t want to happen to him. That’s why they do it—to take care of each other.”

I looked away. “I don’t know anything about that.”

He turned around and frowned at me. “Why are you here if you think it’s so horrible? You came here to find out about it. That’s what you said.”

I tried to shrug it away and wound up looking at my hands. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just curious. I mean, I know what BDSM is and I’ve read a lot about it—and Riley has told me about it. I just don’t know how anyone could do that.”

“How do you think you’re going to find out about it if you don’t experience it for yourself?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I won’t experience it for myself. Maybe I’ll just have to live in wonder. I mean, it isn’t like I could experience it without going through something like that. I couldn’t do that.”

“It wouldn’t have to be like that. You could have an experience without anything happening to you. Then you would know whether you like it or not.”

“How would I do that without someone….you know…..dominating me?”

“Do you even know what it would mean for someone to dominate you?” he asked.

“Of course. It means….all of that.” I waved my hand toward the door. “I saw you whipping that woman out there. I could never let anyone do that to me.”

“I whipped her because she begged me on her knees to give her a whipping. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”

My head snapped up again. “She….you mean…..so she’s your….submissive or whatever you call it?”

“No, she isn’t my submissive. I don’t have a submissive of my own. She actually belongs to another man, but he isn’t here tonight. He texted me earlier and asked me to whip her, but I didn’t do it until she asked.”

“You mean she begged,” I corrected.

“Yes. You weren’t here for that part, but I’m sure you could go out there and ask a dozen people who will tell you that she did.”

I looked away again. This conversation was going somewhere I really didn’t like.

“Domination doesn’t mean any of that,” he went on. “You don’t understand what domination or submission are if you think it’s only that. I think you need to do some more research before you do anything with anyone.”

“What is it then, if it isn’t that? How would I find out if I don’t do something like that with someone?”

“I could show you what it is without ever laying a finger on you,” he told me.

I gaped at him in shock. “You could not.”

Now it was his turn to shrug. “I’m just saying. I could show you what domination is if you want me to. Then you would at least know.”

I frowned more to myself than at him. “How would you do that?”

“I would dominate you.”

“But how?”

“I would have to show you—but I swear to you on my mother’s grave that I won’t lay a finger on you. You have my solemn word of honor that nothing will happen to you. You’ll be completely safe at all times. You won’t be restrained. You can walk out that door anytime you want to. I won’t do anything but talk.”

I couldn’t stop furrowing my brow. “I don’t believe you.”

He stood up, spread both arms, and walked away toward the window. “The offer is there if you want it. If you don’t, no problem. At least you would know.”

He turned to the windows and looked out at the garden like he just put the whole matter out of his mind.

My brain turned a few somersaults. I really didn’t believe he or anyone could dominate me without at least doing something physical.

I had been getting progressively more curious about BDSM the longer this case went on. Riley filled my head full of all kinds of stories.

Mainly I just became insatiably curious to find out how any sane person could let another person do something like that to them and actually enjoy it while it was happening.

Riley talked a lot about how BDSM brought a couple closer together and actually fostered deep emotional bonds. She didn’t think those bonds were even possible without the intensity of a BDSM relationship.

I wasn’t ready to believe her, but what if there was no other way to find out? Could I live with all these burning questions gnawing a hole in the back of my mind for the rest of forever?

Ash’s offer kept repeating in my mind. I would probably never get another opportunity like this.

He said he wouldn’t touch me. What could possibly go wrong?

I looked up. “All right. I’ll do it, but you have to promise you won’t touch me.”

He turned around to face me and raised both hands again. “I won’t. I swear it.”

I looked around from right to left. “So….what do I have to do?”

“Not so fast. We have to negotiate terms and consent first.”

“How do we do that?”

He came back over and sat down on the edge of the desk. This time, he did it right in front of me so he could look straight down at me.

I got a sinking feeling like I was a high school kid at the principal’s office. Did I get myself into something here—something I would regret?

“If we do this, you have to promise to do exactly as I say for the duration of the session.” He checked his watch. “I promise the session won’t last more than fifteen minutes. Then it will end. I’ll stop dominating you and you’ll leave, but during that time, you have to do exactly as I say. Do you agree to that?”

“I guess so.” I didn’t see how anything could go wrong with that as long as he didn’t touch me.

“You’ll be able to stop the session at anytime, either by just walking away and leaving whenever you choose or you can say the word, ‘red’. Do you understand the traffic light system?”

“Yeah. Riley told me about it—and she told me all about safe words and everything.”

“Great. So you understand your safe word and you also know that you can leave at anytime. I also want you to promise me to be entirely truthful with me about what you’re feeling through the whole session. I won’t ask you to reveal anything personal that might compromise you in any way, but you have to be honest about how you’re feeling in that moment. Do you understand? You have to tell me if you’re feeling scared or excited or bored or anything. Is that clear?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s clear.”

“Is there anything you want to ask me or that you think we need to clarify before we get started?”

“I don’t think so.”

“If anything comes up during the session, you can stop and ask me. Okay?”

I nodded again. “Okay.”

“Okay. We’re starting now. Stand up and go stand over there.”  He pointed to the open floor behind the armchairs.

I stood up and made an executive decision to leave my clutch on the seat of my chair. I wouldn’t be able to grab my sidearm the instant something went wrong, but I would be able to get to it quickly if I needed it.

I stepped behind the chair and stopped where he told me to. I shuffled my feet waiting for something to happen.

Don’t even ask me why I agreed to this, but something about the guy made him seem solid, practical, and level-headed.

He had been nothing but polite, considerate, and casual toward me since the minute he dragged James away from me.

Riley had also explained to me what Dungeon Masters were. They were responsible for the safety and good behavior of everyone in the club.

Ash must be pretty responsible if everyone put him in charge of their safety and good behavior.

He came across as very responsible—probably because he was an older guy. He came across as being perfectly self-possessed.

He didn’t need to do this or anything else. He could take it or leave it.

He didn’t do anything or even say anything at first. He just sat there on the edge of the desk staring at me for what seemed like a long time.

He always kept his eyes and expression casual before now—except when he got mad about James hitting on me.

Ash didn’t turn those ferocious eyes on me now, but his intense stare made me squirm. What did he see? Was I being submissive enough just by standing here in front of him?

He finally pushed himself off the desk and walked over to me. His eyes hardened as he got closer. His eyes actually narrowed, but he still didn’t look angry.

I cringed before that look. What was he going to do?

He promised he wouldn’t touch me. I had to remember that at all costs. He promised nothing would happen to me—and I had a firearm right over there on the chair.

He stopped in front of me, gave me one hard look, and walked around me in a complete circle.

He didn’t even try to hide it when he dragged those hard, all-seeing eyes down my dress and back up to my face. He cocked his head to scrutinize me in every detail.

I fidgeted like the science specimen that I was. He walked behind me and came around the other side still studying me under a microscope.

His eyes flashed with something like danger when he passed me in front for the second time.

He stopped behind me.

His presence radiated a kind of power I had never experienced before. I gulped.

He lowered his voice to a husky murmur. “What made you think you were submissive?” he asked.

“I….I don’t know….” I stammered. “I guess…..I don’t know…..I guess……guys that I’ve been with…..they seem……kind of like they don’t know what they’re doing…..like I just really want someone who knows what they’re doing……”

He leaned in close behind me until his hot breath seared the side of my neck. “Do I seem like the kind of guy who would know what I was doing with you?”

I swallowed hard. I promised to be totally honest with him. I could have easily lied, but the feeling of unstoppable energy coming from behind me wouldn’t let me lie.

I couldn’t speak above a whisper. “Yes,” I choked.

He leaned back, but his presence didn’t go away. “Shut your eyes,” he told me.

I shut them. His presence back there racked my nerves. How was he even doing this to me?

His voice started migrating in a circle around me. He walked around and around me like a shark circling its prey.

I trembled waiting for something—something like an attack. He didn’t touch me, though. I was really starting to wish he would.

Him touching me right now would have felt like an attack, but it also would have been a relief. At least then I wouldn’t have to wait and wonder what was about to happen.

“I want you to imagine you’re in an intimate situation with a guy,” he murmured. “I want you to imagine you’re either sitting on a couch or lying in bed or in a car or something like that—and you’re getting intimate with each other. You’re kissing and touching each other. He runs his hands down your sides and then up to your breasts.”

Those words hypnotized me into a trance. I actually started to get turned on.

His voice throbbed with low, sultry power. It reverberated into my bones. I couldn’t get away from it.

That voice caressed me all over. I felt his hands touching me—not some random guy. It was him. It was Ash.

“You feel yourself starting to want him. You want him to take you. You want him to push you back on the seat or on the bed. You want him to take control of you and tell you what to do. You want him to own you and move you around the way he wants.”

My body started to vibrate with the kind of passion and desire I would feel in that situation. A rush of heat blasted to my crotch and soaked my panties.

Ash stopped behind me again and whispered in my ear. “Do you feel that? Do you feel how much you want him to take you?”

“Yes!” I whispered.

“You want him to hold you down, don’t you? You want him to do whatever he wants with you. You want him to grab you and possess you. You want him to overwhelm you and overpower you.”

“Yes!” I could barely get the word out. Saying it hurt.

He leaned back again and took his massive presence with him. That hurt, too. I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted him to stay near me and keep radiating into me.

“Open your eyes, go stand in front of the window, and put your hands on the window frame at the height of your head.”

I dragged my eyes open. I felt drunk and dazed. What was happening to me?

His voice acted on my senses like another command. I blundered over to the window and rested my hands against the window frame.

I felt myself shaking as Ash came up behind me again.

He leaned in extra closely and passed his breath up and down my exposed neck and all the way up to my ear.

“You want this, don’t you?” he breathed. “You want a man to own you, don’t you?”

My eyes clamped shut on their own now. His breath made me shiver. I felt myself shaking all over.

“Yes!” I whispered.

“You feel me stroking your sides right now, don’t you? You feel me touching you and turning you on. You feel me squeezing your hips and pulling you into me. Do you feel that?”

I choked. I couldn’t speak.

I tried to answer, but I wound up gasping instead. How was he doing this to me? He didn’t touch me or even hardly look at me.

His voice did something to me that no other man had ever done to me—ever. I couldn’t stop shaking.

I really felt his hands on me—and his voice on me. His voice squeezed my hips, scooped up to my breasts, crushed me against him—and took me.

His voice crept between my legs and teased me to a screaming orgasm. His voice coiled inside me and occupied the deepest recesses of my soul.

“You have no idea how beautiful you look right now, baby,” he murmured. “You have no idea how much I want to touch you. I could make you feel things you never imagined. You’re beyond beautiful.”

I almost started crying from those words. I just wanted to be good enough for him to touch me, but he wouldn’t.

That seemed like such an insult now. I never should have agreed to him not touching me. I needed his touch in ways I never thought possible.

He stood back again and left me cold. I didn’t know what I needed. I didn’t trust this guy. I didn’t even know him and yet he did something to me I couldn’t explain even to myself.

“Stand up straight and put your arms down,” he told me.

I did it, but I still couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes. How could I face him? How could I face anything with all these feelings burning a hole through my insides?

“In a few minutes, you’re going to open your eyes, walk out that door, talk to your friend, and you two are going to leave and go home,” he told me in the same soft undertone. “You need to come back to Earth before that happens. You don’t need to rush. Take all the time you need to pull yourself together. Then you can turn around, open your eyes, and look at me. Do you understand?”

I nodded down at the floor, but I couldn’t stop myself from gulping again. I really didn’t know if I could face him after he said all those things and made me feel this way.

That was the weirdest part. He didn’t make me feel this way about a random guy. He made me feel this way about him.

I stood there with my eyes closed and my head bowed for a minute trying to understand what the hell was happening to me.

Riley said dominants and submissives created deep emotional bonds with each other. Was this what she meant?

The idea of walking out of this room and never seeing Ash again—it made me want to break down sobbing uncontrollably. I couldn’t face it—but I had to.

I took a deep shuddering breath and forced myself to open my eyes. I wound up looking through the window at the garden.

The sight brought me back to reality. He was right. The moment was over, but I would never forget it.

I would walk out of here and go on with my life as though none of this ever happened—but it did happen. I just didn’t know what it was that happened.

I turned around.

Ash stood behind me looking down at me with a very different expression on his face. He actually looked sad—or maybe just like he was in some kind of excruciating emotional pain.

His voice broke when he asked, “Are you okay?”

I lowered my eyes. Looking at him hurt.

I nodded in stupid shock. How did I start feeling this way about someone I didn’t even know?

He raised his hand, cupped my chin, and lifted my face to gaze into my eyes. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “You’re perfect. Your heart is so pure. You’re going to make some guy very happy.”

I gulped again. I really wanted to kiss him—or maybe crawl into his arms and disappear.

No one had ever made me feel this way—not ever. I didn’t even know what I was feeling for him right now.

Right at that moment, my phone rang in my handbag across the room. Ash dropped his hand immediately.

He stayed where he was while I rushed over to my handbag, took out my phone, and answered it.

It was Riley. “Where are you?” she demanded. “You better not have left me here by myself.”

“I’m in the office talking to the Dungeon Master. Some guy tried to hit on me and the Dungeon Master brought me here to get me out of the line of fire.”

“Did you question anyone? No one here knows anything about Maynard Sutherland.”

I glanced at Ash. He couldn’t hear our conversation—except for my side of it. “I know. We can leave now.”

“Okay. I’m still in the lobby, so I’ll just wait for you.”

“I’m on my way out now.”

I hung up…..and turned back to Ash. What was I supposed to say to him—thanks and see ya later?

He straightened up, came over to me, and stopped in front of me. Just standing here with him looking down at me felt like the most torturous sexual experience of my life.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked. “It’s best practice for me to get your phone number and check on you in the next twenty-four hours after any kind of play—including psychological play. I understand if you don’t feel comfortable giving me your number, but if you want me to….”

“That’s okay,” I blurted out. “You don’t have to. I’ll be fine. I better go. My friend is waiting for me. Thank you. I’ll see you later.”

I bolted out of the office as quickly as possible, met up with Riley, and got the hell out of there before anything else could go wrong.

End of Chapter 2.