His House of Submission (17 page)

My thoughts drifted to the week that had passed. There had been very little in the way of kink but a lot in the way of lying in each other's arms and talking. And sex. Lots of that, if mostly of the vanilla variety. We were both exhausted and even Jasper's imagination needed a sabbatical sometimes. But now it seemed it was back and firing on all cylinders.

My body had relaxed a little during this reverie, but an unmistakable creak of the stair brought it back to full alert. Stomach in, shoulders back, legs straight. He was coming.

By the time he turned the handle, I could barely breathe and everything was churning.

The door opened quietly and for a horrible moment nothing was said, no sound heard.

‘Did you move?' he asked in a low, measured voice.

‘No, Sir.'

‘Good.'

He came up behind me and the slender intrusive presence between my arse cheeks was removed. Now I'm for it! I thought with a kind of dread exhilaration.

I felt its cold wooden tip tap my shoulder.

‘Turn around,' he said.

When I caught sight of him, I had to clench my thighs to stem the flow of juices between them. I wanted to ask him where he had got the Victorian gentleman's outfit – was it his, or did he hire it? But that would be out of keeping with the scene. I would have to keep my questions for later. For now, I could content myself with drinking him in, and appreciating his attention to detail. A well-cut tailcoat, a paisley-patterned silk waistcoat, a fine lawn shirt, a perfectly tied stock. Cufflinks, fob watch, shiny, shiny shoes – the lot. And, of course, the cane, though this was not of the gold-topped walking variety.

I think he could tell I was impressed; the severity of his expression relaxed a little and he inclined his head in receipt of my wide-eyed tribute.

‘Now then,' he said, stepping back and using his cane to trace my outline, from my shoulder, down my outer arm, up my inner arm, along the side and beyond. ‘We have quite a catalogue of faults to address today, don't we, young lady?'

I bowed my head, trying not to shiver at the light touch of the cane at my hip.

‘Yes, Sir.'

He brushed my thigh and tapped it, very gently, but it still made me jump forward on to my tiptoes.

‘I would like to hear them from your lips,' he said. ‘Before I come to deal with you.'

‘I … was not honest with you, Sir,' I whispered.

‘Indeed you were not. You concealed a very important matter from me. A matter that could have led to devastation on an unacceptable scale.'

‘I know, Sir, I'm sorry. Truly sorry.'

I flicked my eyelids up and tried to gauge his reaction to my penitence. Was it going to cut any ice at all? I doubted it.

‘However sorry you might be, the gravity of the offence must be reflected in the chastisement, don't you agree?'

‘Yes, Sir,' I sighed.

‘Furthermore, there is the matter of your … intemperate fist.'

I couldn't help a snigger at that. Hard as I tried to keep my mouth in a straight line and my breath even, it leaked out in spite of me.

‘Is something amusing?' The tapping on my thigh increased in weight, conferring a series of warning little stings.

‘No, no, not at all, Sir,' I rushed to correct my error. ‘It was inexcusable behaviour.'

‘It was, and I do not excuse it, as you will find out.'

I wrung my hands, my fingers clasping and unclasping in front of my poorly concealed pubic triangle. I could try begging for mercy, but it seemed pointless.

‘Please, Sir, how many?' I asked.

‘You should not be asking how many, girl, you should be telling me how many you deserve and begging me to be thorough in the administering of them.'

God, he was good. I could barely keep still now, wanting to squirm with arousal.

‘I cannot say, Sir,' I breathed. ‘Perhaps … six?'

‘Six? Six strokes?'

Oh dear. It would be more, then.

‘I gave you six for the trifling matter of breaking a wine glass, if you remember. Didn't I?'

‘Yes, Sir.'

‘So you must surely agree that these serious transgressions merit a somewhat stiffer sentence?'

‘I suppose I must, Sir.'

‘I suppose you must. Hmm. Well, then. How shall we have you?'

He looked about the room, sizing up various items of furniture, assessing which would best assist him in the caning of his errant submissive.

‘Over the footboard of the bed, I think.'

He put a pillow over the wooden top, to protect my stomach and ribs, and walked me by the elbow to the site of my forthcoming woe.

It was just the right height for the purpose. I had to stand slightly on tiptoe, which he always liked, and my bottom jutted right out behind me, even when he made me spread my legs. I hoped this didn't mean he was going to aim any strokes at my inner thighs. He'd done that once before and it had been the worst pain by far.

But I didn't think I'd be in a position to negotiate today. I'd made a pact with myself that I would take everything he gave me up to the point where it became truly intolerable and I meant to stick to it.

Once my bottom was up and my palms flat on the covers, he opened the chest that contained his collection and took from it two lengths of silken cord. These he fastened around my wrists, securing them to the lower posts of the four-post bed.

‘Don't want any hands getting in the way,' he explained, tightening a knot. ‘I know you and your wandering hands.'

I'd put them over my bottom during one scene and accidentally ended up with a very sore set of knuckles. He was right, but I still wanted to protest. I stood no chance of eluding any part of my discipline now.

He repeated the procedure with my ankles, tethering them wide apart and binding them to the bottom of the end posts. I could barely move a muscle now, held absolutely fast and without the smallest area of wriggle-room.

This was going to be really, really hard.

‘Now, I want your honest opinion, Sarah, and if I don't agree with it, there will be a penalty. How many strokes do you deserve?'

‘What's the penalty, Sir?'

‘I'll add an undetermined amount of strokes to the number I deem fitting. So you could end up with many more than you were originally in for.'

‘Oh, I don't know!' I wailed. ‘I can't think.'

‘Try. Think about your misdeeds and try to translate them into a number.'

How many could I reasonably take without safewording? I tried to work it out. Six was horrible but bearable. The time he gave me ten, I nearly safeworded, but the time he gave me twelve, I started moving into a different headspace and felt like I could have taken more. Where was that magic number between ‘STOP NOW!' and ‘CARRY ON FOR EVER'? I thought it must be ten or eleven. So maybe …

‘Eighteen, Sir?' I hazarded.

‘Eighteen?' He sounded impressed and I screwed up every nerve, desperately hoping I'd made the right call.

‘That's quite an ordeal you've let yourself in for. I was going to say twelve. Ah well. Here.'

I saw the cane slither along the bed until he lifted it and held it to my face.

‘Kiss it,' he murmured. ‘Kiss the rod.'

I let my lips linger on the slender rattan, marvelling at how such an innocuous-looking thing could inflict such exquisite agony.

Then he drew it away from me, moved behind and, without further ado, laid the first stroke, full across the middle of my bottom.

Oh, no. Eighteen was too much. Much too much.

‘I can't,' I whimpered, but I didn't voice the safeword. Just wanted to warn him that it might soon get its first use. Without recourse to any kind of displacing movement, I just had to stay in my bonds and absorb the pain in its totality. And I would have to do it seventeen more times.

‘How many is that, Sarah?' asked Jasper. ‘You really don't want to lose count, you know.'

‘One, Sir.'

I endured seven more shocking swishes, feeling the heat sear through me, holding myself at the very edge of my tolerance. I say I endured them, but in fact I begged for mercy throughout and made quite a yelping, pleading, gasping mess of myself.

The ninth stroke fell and I could take no more.

‘Pax,' I squealed, then I started to cry. ‘I'm sorry,' I sobbed. ‘I'm so sorry. I let you down. I'm a crap submissive.'

‘Hey, hey, shh,' he said, leaning over me and massaging my shoulders. ‘No, you aren't. You aren't, Sarah. You've already taken more than a lot of girls can. Come on. Do you want me to untie you?'

I didn't know what I wanted. He was going to France the next day and I had been avoiding thinking about it but now it all loomed in front of me, unbearably. This was going to be over. My summer of submission was going to become an autumn of mundanity. That cane stroke had been my last for some time.

No. It couldn't be my last.

‘I've changed my mind,' I said. ‘I want more. I want you to carry on.'

Jasper's fingers pinched into my flesh.

‘Don't say it if you don't want it,' he warned. ‘I won't hold it against you, you know. It's fine.'

‘I want you to finish. I want to take them all. Please.'

He kissed the back of my neck.

‘All right. But safeword again if you have to. Promise me.'

‘I promise.'

That tenth stroke was hell and heaven together, but I had new strength from somewhere and I knew I could keep going. By twelve, I was flying. I could take more and more and more. The pain was no longer hectic, shocking my body, but a constant erotic burn, feeding every nerve, filling me up.

I made it to eighteen and moaned out the count, ecstatic in victory.

Jasper put down the cane and knelt behind me.

‘I'm so proud of you, love,' he said and he started kissing along each throbbing line, holding me by my hips as if he thought I might move away, not that I possibly could. After kissing each criss-crossed welt, he buried his face between my thighs, sucking at the delicate flesh there before pushing his tongue over my clit and into my cunt, licking me thoroughly until I yelled for permission to come, which he gave with a hot, breathy command that made my clit tingle underneath it.

‘While I've got you where I want you,' he said, rising again and probing between my tender bum cheeks, ‘what about this arse? I'm thinking it's looking a little empty. What do you think?'

He prodded my tight ring. I could only clench, immobilised as I was.

‘Take what you want,' I said.

‘Oh,' he moaned. I could imagine his face, that little flicker of bliss that sometimes passed over it. ‘I think I will.'

Then there was lubricant, cold and inexorable, then fingers inside me, then at last his hot, thick cock. How he fitted inside I couldn't work out; it seemed contrary to the laws of physics, but he spread and stretched me while I tried to fight but, too tightly bound, could only submit. And I didn't really want to fight him, but a little token resistance added enormously to our mutual pleasure.

I liked the feel of his linen shirt rubbing against my smarting bum cheeks as he thrust, creating a raw friction that seemed to complement that of his cock in my tight passage. I wanted the brutality and force of it, the sense of utter possession that came with it. Every single part of my body was his; every orifice had accepted his mastery of it.

And now, as his fucking of my arse reached its height, he cupped a hand beneath my cunt and began to rub my clit.

‘I want you to come with me in your arse,' he said. ‘I want you to. You have my permission. Whenever you have to …'

Climaxing with him inside my bottom seemed somehow like the most potently submissive act the universe had to offer – a true stripping down of all my pretences. An admission that I loved to be shamed and humiliated and used like a slut, and the more he did it, the harder I came.

‘Yes, yes, yes,' he hissed. ‘Feel that now.'

The orgasm seemed to go on and on, aftershocks and vibrations continuing to inhabit my senses. When he came, pumping into my back passage like a man possessed, I almost experienced a second wave.

It was perfect. My life, here, with him, was perfect. He knew what I was, and only he could nourish that part of me.

I was only semi-conscious when he pulled out and untied me, then laid me on the bed. I was trembling all over and aching and sore and just, oh, it was the best feeling. I was floating.

He took off the period costume and lay with me in his arms, cradling me, making soothing noises and stroking my hair.

‘When do you have to start your job?' he whispered.

‘End of September. Four weeks.'

‘Come to France with me.'

‘I can't …'

‘Surely you can spare a couple of weeks?'

Actually, I could. There was nothing to stop me going for a short holiday.

‘I'd need to … tickets and passports and all that. And I'm supposed to be spending some time with my family …'

‘You can spare a couple of weeks,' he repeated. ‘If we part company now, you're going to have the worst sub drop of all time. I'd be neglecting to care for you properly. Come on. Have a fortnight's holiday in France. After that … we'll see.'

‘Well, I suppose …' I thought about this. I was desperate to stay with him, on so many levels, but also afraid of leaving this place. It was as if we only existed here and our dynamic couldn't translate to the real world. And France was in the real world, or so I'd been told. I loved him here, with all my heart, but would I love him there? And there would be people everywhere, curious colleagues and beautiful actresses and clamorous paparazzi.

‘Say yes. You have to say yes. I'm not leaving you like this.'

‘Do you really want me in your real life?' It seemed absurd, too much to hope for.

‘I want you. There aren't any conditions to it. I just want you. But you don't feel the same?'