His House of Submission (6 page)

I shook the thought from my head before I was tempted to do anything about it. I wasn't allowed to touch myself. Jasper had forbidden it.

This made things even worse, the knowledge of my helpless obedience to his will sending a thrill of pure lust through me.

I had to get to my bedroom while I still could.

I was avid with curiosity about this outfit he had picked out for me. Was it some kind of ballgown?

On the bed lay a strange little bundle of black lace.

It didn't look like a dress.

I picked it up and held it out. It was some kind of all-in-one body-suit type thing, but with certain parts noticeably missing.

It took a long time to put on, because I kept mistaking armholes for crotch holes and so on, but eventually I prevailed and went to grimace at myself in the full-length mirror. Jesus. I looked utterly whorish.

My legs were the only part of me that were fully covered, in the stretch lace-patterned tights. At least, they were covered to the thigh and then strips of the material linked up with the upper part of the garment in a suspender effect, while the gaps exposed my pussy and my bottom and the sides of my thighs. My waist was nipped in by some cunningly situated embroidery and the plunging cleavage left most of my breasts on display, though my nipples hid behind lace rosettes.

It was a garment whose only function was to make one easily fuckable.

I twirled, noting the deep colour of my bottom, still, parts of it speckled with tiny bruises.

What was he going to do to me now?

Bend me over the table and have me.

My fingers brushed my little thatch of pubic hair, so close to skimming between my lower lips, but I resisted. No touching.

How the hell was I going to eat? I was so strung up with excitement I could barely keep still. I strutted in front of the mirror, running my hands up underneath my hair and pouting like a trademark vamp. I had never seen myself this way before. Was it the way Jasper saw me?

For a moment, I was convinced that all this was some kind of delusional fever dream. Then I looked at the clock, saw that it was nearly eight, and scampered, shoeless, down to the dining room.

He sat alone at the head of the table. He was dressed to kill in black tie, every hair in place, perfectly composed.

I stopped in the doorframe, wanting to see his reaction to my outrageously rude outfit.

He looked up and smirked, then rose and walked towards me.

His pace was so leisurely, so relaxed that I forgot to feel intimidated. Then he picked up my hand and sniffed my fingertips and the impulse of pleasurable fear kicked back in. He was so unpredictable. Anything could happen.

Having sniffed them, he put my fingers in his mouth, one by one, giving each a sharp little suck.

‘Mm,' he said, once this ritual was done. ‘You've been a good girl, haven't you?'

I put my damp fingers to my lips, unable to speak, until he encouraged me forward with a hand between my shoulder blades, escorting me to the table.

‘Are you always so well behaved?' he asked, pulling out a chair for me.

I sat down. My bare bottom sank into deep velvet pile, easing my residual soreness.

‘I'm not a hellraiser, if that's what you're asking.'

He sat down himself, his own seat at the head of the table, at right angles to mine. He had put a serving cloche between us, as if this were a banquet, minus the waiting staff. A bottle of champagne stood in an ice bucket. Both the cloche and the ice bucket were sterling silver and I leaned forward, looking for the hallmark.

He seemed to enjoy my scholarly interest, lifting the champagne bottle with a clatter of ice.

‘Yes, they're genuine,' he said. ‘This bucket's Edwardian. From Tiffany's. You're really into all this, aren't you?'

‘Of course. When I was six years old I told my mother I wanted to be one of the experts on
Antiques Roadshow
.'

‘That's cute.' He smiled and poured me a glass of champagne. ‘And is that still your ambition?'

‘I'm not sure I want to be on TV,' I admitted. I sipped at the champagne, trying to remember the last time I'd had any. When I graduated, possibly. Anyway, I wasn't used to it and the bubbles went up my nose, making me splutter like the sex goddess I'm not. ‘I don't think I'm the type.'

‘Why not?'

‘You have to get your hair done all the time and have spa treatments and, oh, you know, the pressure to look impeccable all the time …'

‘Not on
Antiques Roadshow
, surely. Besides, you're very attractive.'

‘Oh, don't.'

‘Don't what? You are. Hasn't anybody ever told you?'

‘Only my creepy third-year tutor.'

‘What, seriously? What about your boyfriends?'

‘No, we weren't … into that kind of thing. You know, compliments about physical appearance and so forth.'

He furrowed his brow, smiling curiously, and took a sip of his champagne.

‘So what
were
you into?'

‘I suppose we liked to think that we were, you know, beyond all that kind of, of frivolity. Shallowness. And that our connection was on a more cerebral level.'

‘My God, it sounds like passion incarnate.'

‘You're teasing me.'

‘Yes, I am. But, Sarah, it sounds drier than the dust on my top-shelf collection of Victorian erotica.'

‘Yes, but you work in a world where looks and appearances and visual impressions are all-important. That's not the world for me. It's you people and your film stars that are responsible for so much angst and low confidence and crappy self-esteem. Hardly anyone can look like a movie star – yet we all go crazy trying to do it and feeling like shit if we fail.'

He paused, blinking at me over the rim of his glass.

‘That's a fair comment,' he said eventually. ‘And an interesting one.'

‘Not really. I think it's quite a commonplace point of view.'

‘It's your point of view. That's what makes it interesting to me.'

‘I'm just a normal person, Jasper.'

‘And I'm not.'

He lifted the cloche on a risotto.

‘We should eat,' he said.

Spooning a pile of sticky rice studded with asparagus on to my plate, he continued the theme.

‘So what's normal nowadays, then, Sarah? What are the normal people doing? Tell me all about being normal while you sit there on your sore, spanked arse drinking champagne at my table wearing nothing but a lewd bodystocking.'

That dazzling, cruel smile again. I clamped my thighs together, shamefully aware of the absurdity of my situation.

‘Why are you doing this?' I asked quietly.

‘Because I want to. And you want me to. Deny it – go on.'

I wanted to, but I couldn't.

‘So tell me about your paper-dry boyfriends of yore. Tell me what you did with them.'

‘There was only one. He was a student in my year.'

‘What was his name?'

‘Hugh.'

‘And Hugh … I'm trying to picture him now … a university scarf, a bicycle, spectacles.'

‘Two out of three,' I said with a grimace. ‘No scarf.'

‘He was the first then?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'm jealous of him.'

‘No, you aren't.'

‘I am. What was he like?'

‘Nice.' I couldn't think of another word, which seemed a little damning.

‘
Nice?
'

‘Nothing wrong with nice.' I shovelled my fork defensively into the rice and took a mouthful.

‘I'm nice,' he said, leaning forward on an elbow, smiling his half-demonic half-angelic smile, willing me to react. ‘I'm as nice as you want me to be. And in bed – was he nice there too?'

‘He was … it's none of your business actually.'

‘Oh, that bad, eh?'

My scalp prickled as if I'd been caught thieving. It was true, the sex had been less than stellar. The whole affair had fizzled out after we graduated and picked different universities for our PhD studies.

‘It's good that you finished it, then,' Jasper opined, turning his attention to the food.

‘Who said I finished it? It was mutual, in the end. It just ended. We still email, you know, as friends.'

‘How very fucking civilised.'

‘Yes, it is. You're kind of an arsehole, you know? Just for your information. At least, that's how you're coming across. I don't know if you're aware of it.'

He stared, eyebrows up, until I didn't think I'd ever be able to swallow the mouthful of risotto I was shifting from cheek to cheek.

‘Thank you for your honesty,' he said at last.

‘I thought you'd like to know. Why are you trying to belittle me and my past and my life choices? What do you think I'm going to take from that, apart from an impression that you're a bit of a git?'

‘I've always found that submissives like a bit of theatrical arrogance.'

‘Submissives? What, like, a homogeneous ball of girls who like being spanked?'

He sat back and looked me over, his gaze roaming all over me, ending at my ridiculously plunging cleavage.

‘You're right,' he said. ‘I'm just not a very nice person. Perhaps I'm even a bad person. But I'm a good master. And I can show you things. I want to show you so many things, Sarah. If you'll let me.'

Every ounce of common sense screamed at me to run. But I was trapped, enticed by the beguiling promise of sinful pleasure to come. He had a hold on me. It just wouldn't do to let him know.

‘I'll consider it,' I said.

‘Good. Well, let's finish eating, shall we?'

I dug into the risotto, but my appetite wasn't much in evidence, having been replaced by a tugging tension in my lower abdomen.

This was not alleviated by the sudden arrival of Jasper's shoe against my foot, then my ankle, then sliding up my calf. I chewed doggedly on a stalk of asparagus but it seemed more and more probable that his footwear journey was going to end at my open crotch.

I put my fork down and shot him a panicked glance.

He winked at me and moved his foot higher, shoving it in between my thighs, parting them. He had to stretch a little and shift forward in his seat but he managed to get his toecap right inside my pussy lips and he held it there, swivelling it this way and that, for about ten seconds while I sat and stared at the ice bucket.

Then he took it away again and said, ‘Strawberries. Come here.'

I hesitated and he pushed back his chair and held out his hand.

‘Come on, Sarah. I'm going to give you your dessert.'

‘My just dessert?'

‘Yes. Exactly.'

He put me on the edge of the table in front of him, my bottom on his place mat. Once he had moved all the silverware and plates out of the way, he had me lie down with my legs dangling off the edge of the table, following the fall of the fine white cloth, almost to the floor.

Once I lay in my place, looking up at the chandelier and the plaster ceiling rose, he stood between my knees and leaned over me to reach for a dish of strawberries. He took one, dipped it in cream, and put it to my lips. Some dim remembrance of being told never to eat in this position lurked at the fringes of my mind, but the cream was slick and the fruit smelled full and ripe and I opened my mouth for it.

Jasper wiped it along my lips until they were coated in cream, then he pushed it towards my teeth, crushing it there until I took a bite.

‘Mmm,' he said, his face low over mine. I could feel the lump of his erection, inside his dress trousers, pressing into my exposed pussy. ‘Is that sweet?'

‘Mmm,' I replied in kind, sucking on the pink flesh.

‘Let me taste,' he whispered and he dropped still lower and his mouth clamped down on mind so that we both licked at the strawberry simultaneously, its mushed pulp spread by our tongues into the far corners.

He repeated this with a number of soft fruits, plunging us again and again into this messy, juicy, creamy version of a kiss until I felt utterly abandoned to sensuality. I twitched my groin against his, rubbing my pussy up and down his trouser-covered bulge, taking his tongue deep inside my throat, pushing back into his mouth with mine.

‘You've had yours,' he murmured, pushing the last remnants of a strawberry on to my tongue and lifting his head a little. ‘Now I want mine.'

I don't know what I hoped he meant by this, but he could have meant anything at all and I'd have consented to it like a shot. My body wanted him to do things to it that it had never heard of, my mind having conveniently located its off-switch at some point during the preceding events.

He picked up a fistful of strawberries and stood up, spreading my thighs wide with his free hand.

‘There are rules for this game,' he told me. I watched his fingers close around the fat red fruits, mashing them a little, pink juice dribbling on to his skin. I wanted to lick it off him. ‘I'm going to eat these off of you. You're going to like it, I promise you. You're going to like it a lot. But you aren't going to come. Because I don't want you to, not yet. Let's see how you do with that, shall we?'