Read Afternoons of a Woman of Leisure (9781101623565) Online
Authors: Elizabeth Bennett
Turning, Mr. Stephens motions to Jeremy, who responds immediately, walking swiftly to the chair and carrying a low footstool and something elseâa light, Joanna realizes. Mr. Stephens takes the footstool and settles it on the floor between Joanna's outstretched legs, and sits. Jeremy switches on the light, which is strong and bright. Standing behind Mr. Stephens, he points it over his head at Joanna's crotch. Joanna shudders. She has never felt so open, so exposed. Mr. Stephens, his gaze firm on her cunt, does not look up.
Delicately, his fingers unhook the garter straps behind and in front of her thighs, and roll the stockings to just above Joanna's knees. He combs the pubic hair which covers her cunt and carefully lifts it, parting it, moving it aside. She feels the back of his hands against her inner thighs, testing the softness of her skin. He rubs his cheeks against them, first one then the other, almost thoughtfully. Then, sitting back slightly, he begins to explore her, touching and tracing the thick outer lips, prickly with hair, then the smooth, slicked inner lips. His touch is questioning, curious, almost clinical, but Joanna cannot stop herself from moaning with pleasure.
Immediately he looks up, his face contorted, outraged. “I told you to shut up,” he shouts. Jerking to his feet, he reaches down to deliver a stinging slap to the tender skin of her thigh, then the other side. Jeremy, standing behind him, does not move.
Mr. Stephens turns and walks briskly across the room and out the door, tying his silk robe as he goes. Jeremy stands motionless, training the light on her crotch. She can't see his face behind it. Her heart beats wildly. When she attempts to move, the strap at her breasts cuts into them. She tries to relax.
After a minute he returns, still fierce, carrying two pieces of black fabric. “When you learn to obey, it will not be necessary to gag you,” he says, matter of factly, forcing one piece into her mouth and tying it behind her head. The other scarf covers her eyes. Through it, she can only faintly still see the light.
There is a rush of warmth between her thighs. Mr. Stephens has returned to his seat, and the fingers begin again, slowly, lingering, as if daring her to moan again and invite more punishment. She feels the warmth of his breath, and knows that he is close, inspecting, perhaps smelling her. Up and down the fingers travel, moving every fold of skin to search behind it. Her pubic hair is pulled gently, then harder. The heat is intense. Finally, a finger pauses at the opening of her cunt and circles wetly at the rim. She feels open, slicked with need, focused on the length of it. It enters slowly, joint by joint, sinking in and then moving in a stroking motion. She resists the urge to grab at it with her own muscles. The finger withdraws and two fingers take its place and continue stroking. When they slip out, she feels his two hands snaking around her thighs to the front, then carefully separating the lips of her cunt, holding them apart. His tongue glides into her, thick and pulsing. Joanna feels herself melt around it. His face pushes against her, rubbing from side to side as the tongue flicks and laps, tasting her. She imagines his cheeks wet with her, and the thought makes her bite down on the fabric, straining against her own pleasure.
He makes no sound of his own. The tongue slips out and begins to lick the insides of her thighs, releasing the lingering sting of his slaps. She feels his mouth at the edges of her cunt, nibbling, taking gentle bites, then the broad flat of his tongue again in a lapping motion, up and up and up until his lips settle just below the rim of her pubic bone and begin to suck.
Joanna strains against her straps but she can barely move. She knows that he is testing her, waiting to see how much she can take. She also knows that he sucks her not for her pleasure but out of narrow curiosity: how hard is it, will it move beneath his tongue, what will it taste like? She grits her teeth, determined, but the motion of his tongue, the slight sucking sounds she can just make out are unbearable. Involuntarily, she arches against him, making what movement she is free to make and pressing further into his mouth, wanting to explode down his throat just as he did down hers.
But as soon as she does, it is over. The lips freeze and then part and draw away. She hears him settle back on his stool. He is watching, she thinks, panting. Her breasts rise into the leather strap. An eternity passes. Slowly, she feels the urgency leave her.
A hand returns to her cunt and fingers stretch the opening. Something cool and stiff is pressed against her, rubbed clinically for lubrication then pushed inside. Joanna knows, instinctively, that Mr. Stephens has not moved. The thing inside her is harder than flesh. It probes her and then, slowly, is removed. Almost immediately, another object enters her, larger and longer. It, too, probes and is taken away. Rubber, Joanna thinks. He is testing my size.
Five phalluses in all are pushed into her cunt, carefully but firmly. They grow larger and thicker and she feels stretched and pulled. The last one refuses to travel farther than a few inches. She imagines it protruding from her. Gently, his fingers ease it out and take it away.
A minute later, those fingers are at her ankles, unbuckling. Hands brush her breasts, removing the strap beneath them, then travel to her arms. She feels them come free.
“Get up,” Mr. Stephens says. Slowly, Joanna brings her knees together. The joints ache. She sits up and finds the floor with her high heels. Holding on to the chair behind her, she gets to her feet. “Jeremy will lead you,” Mr. Stephens says from across the room. His voice is brisk, businesslike. A slim hand settles on Joanna's wrist. She steps blindly, shakily, following him.
When he stops, she stands, quivering in the darkness. She senses the nearness of another object, the closeness of Mr. Stephens' breath. “You will take a step up on your knees, then bend forward,” the voice says. “Feel with your knees.” Joanna does. There is a ledge, like a high step, covered with something rubbery and soft. She climbs onto it, rests for a moment on her knees, then begins to bend. Abruptly, a hand grabs her head and forces it forward more roughly, pressing her face against a leather surface. There is a thick round cushion under her hips, raising them higher than the rest of her. She feels as if she is lying over a mound. A hand fastens a leather strap behind her back, then her wrists are bound together and attached to it. She turns her cheek to the cool leather, and sighs.
Joanna feels the silk of Mr. Stephens' gown brushing over her back. A light finger slides down the crack between her buttocks, then, abruptly, her right leg is lifted and moved. She feels a strap tighten around it, just above the knee. Next, the other knee is taken and moved and strapped. She is in a position like praying, her head down, her ass raised, her legs bent beneath her and spread. Behind the hump of the cushion at her hips, the length of her vulva is open, unfurled. She senses the nearness of his face to it. A casual fingertip touches her anus and a quiver runs through her. “Try to relax,” he says, almost kindly. “You will find this less painful if you are relaxed.”
His hands settle on her ass, moving the flesh, squeezing it, testing its firmness, then gliding down the backs of her thighs. The motion is both teasing and comforting. She lets herself sink into it, warm to it, but then, suddenly, he stops and steps back. Automatically, Joanna tenses again. There is a whistle. Something long, slender and hard flicks through the air and lands, stinging the skin of her left buttock, then rises again and beats the right. Joanna thinks rather than feels pain, but the actual sensation is a mild, almost sweet sting. He continues to use the whip, pausing after every few strokes to caress her ass and inner thighs with his other hand. Once or twice, the whip itself is drawn lazily through the crack of her buttocks. Once or twice, its tip is brought close to her anus, where it vibrates. He turns his attention to the backs of her thighs, striking them softly with the whip while the fingers of his other hand creep into her cunt. Ignoring his command (after all, he is already punishing her), Joanna moans. If Mr. Stephens hears, he doesn't react. Stepping behind her, he kneels between her open knees. His fingers still move inside her and now he disposes of the whip and begins to slap her buttocks. She feels blood rush to them, imagines them red and furious. She wishes she could see them like this.
The fingers slip from her cunt. His other hand moves over her anus and, very gently, begins to touch it, pulling it, separating it. Joanna hears the suck of a tube being squeezed. Something cool and gelatinous is deposited in the crack of her ass. “Try to relax,” he says. Slowly, he begins to rub, first the tops of her thighs where they meet the buttocks, then the globes of muscle, tingling from the slaps and whip, then the narrow valley from coccyx to cunt and finally the hole itself. A finger circles it, working the lubricant in. She feels him stand behind her, then hears the squeeze of the tube again, this time directly against her anus. Two smaller hands slide around her hips and press the buttocks apart. Jeremy, she thinks. There is a rustle of silk, his robe undone and pulled apart, then the cool penetration of his finger, boring through the sphincter muscle and into her rectum, slipping its length into her. Joanna cries out, her gag muffling but not preventing the sound. The finger twists and tests then withdraws. Joanna exhales, relieved. But two fingers present themselves and, against her will, the sphincter opens to admit them. Stop, Joanna thinks. She almost says it aloud but then remembers what will happen if she does, and bites her tongue. Come on then, she tells herself. Let's get it over with.
The two fingers pull slowly out. Joanna hears a grunt, then, to her surprise, Mr. Stephens rises from his knees and steps around to her shoulder. Immediately, Jeremy's hands slip from her buttocks. “I'm too thick for you,” she hears him say. “I'm afraid we'll need another arrangement.” Without warning, he removes her gag and blindfold and she blinks at him, trying to make him out. When Joanna's eyes adjust, they focus on Mr. Stephens, the belt of his robe tied again at his hips. Jeremy stands beside him, stripped to the waist, his slim body hairless and childlike. As Joanna watches, Mr. Stephens' fingers unbutton Jeremy's fly and pull down his trousers, then roll down his underwear. Nonchalantly, Jeremy steps out of his clothes and stands naked in front of her. The expression on his face is vacant, but his cock is rock hard, veined and straining. It is narrow but excessively long. Mr. Stephens places protective hands on Jeremy's shoulders. “I can use the rubber phalluses again,” he is saying. “I'm sure you would prefer that. But I think Jeremy will enjoy this. Don't you?” He smiles and waits for her response. This is the moment, she is thinking, when he expects her to ask to leave. She grits her teeth, then remembers that she is supposed to be afraid.
“Please don't hurt me,” Joanna says, trying to whimper. “Do anything you want, but please, please don't hurt me.” She turns her head away and pretends to cry. Behind her, she hears his low laugh.
Hands part her ass again, broad hands this time. There is a soft brush of skin as Jeremy climbs up behind her. She tries to breathe deeply when he splits her open, cold and wet, pushing deep into her bowels, drawing back and pushing again. Jeremy's sounds are mottled, guttural. He leans forward, grabbing the strap at her waist to pull himself farther inside. Each thrust is a sharp and radiating pain through Joanna's body. He rocks on top of her, wild, one hand absently slapping her back between the shoulderblades in time with his pounding. She hears shouts, a final rhythm of quick pounding as he comes, emptying himself deep within her. Joanna imagines she can feel the heat shooting up to her heart as he relaxes, breathing heavily against her back.
Jeremy pulls back and drops out of her. Immediately he kneels and unbuckles the straps behind her knees. At the same time, Mr. Stephens releases the buckle at her back. Her wrists come apart and are stretched over her head and refastened. “Turn over,” he says. Joanna turns on her back, her ass resting high on the pillow, her legs hanging free. She expects her ankles to be refastened, but they are not. A rubber phallus is inserted, quickly and expertly, into her cunt. Mr. Stephens kneels between her open thighs and swiftly begins to lick her, tenderly, like an animal. Desire floods back into her crotch. Dimly, she feels the fluid seep from her anus. His mouth is passionate now, and hungry. He finds her center and sucks loudly, rhythmically. This is a reward, Joanna thinks. She rubs against him and he responds, giving her what she wants. His hand rises and motions. Instantly Jeremy falls over her and begins to feed at her breasts, urgently sucking one with his mouth, pressing and squeezing the other between his fingers. Joanna cries out loud. She moves frantically. At the verge of her climax, Mr. Stephens suddenly stands and removes the rubber phallus, filling her with his own swollen cock. His thumb rubs where his mouth had been a moment before, smoothly but with friction. Her nipples throb in Jeremy's mouth and fingers. Joanna arches and writhes, her ankles locked around Mr. Stephens' waist. When she opens her eyes, she sees him grinning, waiting for her, and she comes and comes and comes.
Chapter Twelve
Afterwards, Jeremy takes her back to the bathroom and washes her again. Her hands are free, but Joanna is not permitted to touch herself. She stands limply as he rubs soap over her breasts and between her legs, attentively but as if he has no particular familiarity with these places. This time, he rinses her with a handheld shower, motions for her to bend forward and lets the generous stream of water run into her cunt and anus. He leaves her to dry herself, then brings her clothes and stands blankly, watching her change into them. When Joanna is ready, he takes her downstairs to the study next to the front door.
Mr. Stephens, dressed in casual pants and a clean, pressed shirt, is seated behind a heavy desk. He motions for her to take a seat and she does, demurely crossing her legs. Mr. Stephens lights a cigarette. “You did well,” he says flatly. “Frankly, I was surprised. You were a little defiant at first in the bathroom, looking for me behind the mirror. I thought you would ask to leave.” Joanna is silent. “Do you have any questions?”
“Will there always be whips?” asks Joanna.
“No. Few of our clients enjoy using whips, though many like to administer spankings, or some other light manual punishment. The âNo Brutality' restriction means that whips can only be used lightly, for effect. As I used it,” he adds, after a pause. “You didn't mind it, I saw.”
“No,” Joanna says. She is silent for a moment. Finally she says, “I didn't like being fucked in the ass.”
“Ah,” says Mr. Stephens. “We will have to bear that in mind. To some extent, âO' can take care of the problem, simply by not sending you to clients who enjoy anal sex. Conversely, though, you may find that you grow to like it.”
“Possibly,” Joanna says. She is doubtful.
“You are a beautiful woman,” Mr. Stephens says. “I have enjoyed our session.” He pauses. “I also enjoyed watching you come, but I must warn you that not all of our clients will want you to come. You are aware of that?”
“Yes,” Joanna says.
He gets to his feet and, rather formally, extends his hand. “Thank you for visiting with me,” Mr. Stephens says. “I will speak with Pauline this evening. I hope she will hear from you soon.”
“Thank you,” Joanna says. She turns and leaves the study. Jeremy is standing calmly by the front door, waiting to let her out. His face contains no message of its own. When she steps out onto the street, Joanna's heart begins to beat loudly. The air is soft and moist and heavy, the passersby are self-contained and busy, and everything seems relentlessly normal.