Interview with a Master (20 page)

I stared at her, and figured that she could not have possibly found a more complicated way of expressing a simple answer.

* * *

I led Leticia downstairs and into the kitchen. I felt we needed a change of environment in order to change the mood. She sat at the kitchen table while I scalded myself with hot water making coffee for us.

I carried the mugs to the table and deliberately sat at the chair beside her.

She turned so that we were facing each other, close in the soft light of a lamp. She sipped her coffee, made an excruciating face, and then smiled weakly.

She set the mug down on the table
and pushed it away from her like maybe it was poison.

“You told me in the study that we couldn’t have
just a sexual relationship because – for women – sex comes with emotion. Can you explain that?”

I
didn’t drink the coffee.

“I can,” I said. “The problem with most relationships is a lack of
understanding. You see, women need to feel loved in order to want sex. And men need sex, in order to feel loved.”

Leticia played th
e words back in her mind, and then nodded with slow dawning appreciation. “That’s very profound,” she said.

I nodded. “They’re not my words. Someone much smarter and wiser than me came up with that, but I think it sums up the probl
em between the sexes perfectly.”

Leticia
nodded. “You’re a smooth talker, Jonah,” she said. “Your voice, your words. In fact you’re very smooth at everything you do.”

Suddenly the suggestion
of sexuality in her comment occurred to her, and Leticia fell guiltily silent. She looked down at her handbag and then across at the coffee cup, as if she couldn’t meet my eyes.

“I didn’t mean it to sound the way it did,” she apologized softly.

I arched my eyebrow in a roguish gesture of innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, and brushed the awkwardness away. Leticia smiled into my face and nodded. She relaxed again.

“Caroline,” she began. “I’d like to know more about her, and how you met. I’d like to know about that night at the party. Will you tell me, please?”

It felt better between us then. The ice had thawed enough so that the memories came freely back to me and I began to talk.

“Caroline was beautiful,” I said simply. “She had classic features: high cheekbones, and exotic slanted eyes. She looked like a modern-day Cleopatra, with long straight black hair and a figure like a delicate vase that curved and flared in perfect proportions. She was quite tall, and moved with a feline grace. She was simply stunning.”

“How old was she?”

“We were the same age,” I said.

Leticia made a face, frowned, and then wrote something into her notebook. Then she scratched it out and wrote something else.

“And the party?” she looked up at me. “Tell me what happened. How did you and Caroline become Master and submissive?”

I sat back in the chair and stared at the far wall. I could see Leticia’s face from the corner of my eye, watching me with some kind of intent fascination. I went back through my memories to the first night I had seen Caroline in a social situation.

“We exchanged small-talk,” I said. “But she didn’t seem surprised to see me at that party. It was only much later that I found out she had talked herself into an invitation, as part of a deliberate plan for us to meet again.”

Leticia’s voice seemed to come from out of the shadows. “She must have been very desperate to meet you.”

I didn’t answer. I saw Caroline in my mind’s eye. I rememb
ered the sights and sounds of that evening. I remembered the cool breeze blowing across the beachside house, and watching Caroline disappear into the fringe of trees that bordered the property. I had followed her down onto the sand, and she stood there in the moonlight waiting for me.

“We ended up on a beach,” I told Leticia at last. “The breeze was coming off the ocean, and it flattened the flimsy dress Caroline was wearing against her body so that she might have been naked. The fabric wrapped around her hips, and tugged firm around the jut of her breasts. I stood back and admired her, because she was truly a thing of beauty.

“‘I didn’t know you knew these people,’ I said to her. ‘I didn’t know you were into the BDSM lifestyle’. She smiled at me – it was one of those sexy, seductive smiles that only a woman knows how to deliver – and then she told me that she hadn’t known when she arrived for the interview that I was looking for a submissive, as well as a secretary.

“She kicked off her sandals and strolled down to the water’s edge. I stood on the beach and watched her. The moon was rising, and the sky was full of stars. Caroline glanced over her shoulder at me and then looked back at the ocean. She slipped her dress from her shoulders and let it fall to the sand. She was completely naked underneath. She stood staring at the waves for a long moment, and then turned back to face me. Her legs were long, her skin the color of caramel, and her breasts were full.

“She cupped her hands beneath her breasts and squeezed her nipples between her fingers. She looked up at me with hooded eyes, and there was an invitation in her expression, as clear as if she had spoken the words aloud.

“I went to her, and we stood in the wet sand. I circled her like I was inspecting some exquisite treasure and she stood obediently still. I could hear her breathing as I came up behind her.
I told her to get on her knees. She made a small, hissing sound of arousal as though her breath had hitched in her throat. She lowered herself to her knees and bowed her head submissively.

“
It was like some ancient ritual – some kind of ceremony of possession.”

I stopped speaking suddenly.

Did I just say that? The description sounded ridiculous, but I couldn’t find a better way to explain how it had felt that night on the beach. I looked across at Leticia, expecting to see her smiling at me like I was a fool. She wasn’t. She was staring at my mouth, and her lips were slightly parted, glistening and full.

“I stood before Caroline and put my finger under her chin. She lifted her face to mine and stared
passively up at me.

“‘If you want to submit to me you should know that I expect your unquestioning obedience,’ I told her. She said she expected nothing less. She told me she was willing to give herself to me and learn to please me. I told her to stand and follow me back to the fringe of trees.

“Did she?” Leticia asked.

I nodded. “I led her naked to a tree and she put her back against the trunk. I told her to spread her legs, and she shuffled her feet wide apart. Her breathing became erratic. She had her hands by her side. I told her to put them on her head and lace her fingers together. Her eyes were wide, and there was
a recklessness in her expression, like this was the realization of some secret thrill for her. I ran my fingers down between her breasts and then drew them lazily up again so they circled around one nipple.

“Caroline began to squirm. Her hips rocked, and then she tilted her pelvis forward. Her nipple hardened and I slowly lowered my lips and sucked it into my mouth.

“I heard Caroline groan, and then felt her hand on my shoulder as though to hold me to her breast. I broke contact and my eyes flashed. I told her to put her hands back on her head, and if she moved them again I would take her dress and leave her naked on the beach. She groaned again, but the sound was more like a stifled plea. She did as I told her, and I sucked her nipple back between my lips, and then ran my hand slowly down towards her parted thighs… and then stopped.”

Leticia looked up in complete surprise. “Stopped?”

“Yes,” I said.

“So… you didn’t um… touch her…?”

I looked at Leticia like she was insane. “Of course not,” I said. “Not immediately. That would have been a mistake.”

She
shook her head and I saw the same insane look I had given her, reflected. She didn’t understand.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

I scraped the chair back and got to my feet. Leticia knew what was coming. She saw me begin to pace, and she immediately flipped over to a new blank page and flexed her cramping fingers in expectation.

“Leticia, one of a Master’s most potent, powerful weapons is…” I left the sentence unfinished, but continued to pace the floor. After a minute, Leticia made a sound like a subtle cough to get my attention.

“Is what?” she asked, frowning with curiosity. “What’s the potent weapon?”

I smiled. “Anticipation.”

“That’s a weapon?”

I nodded. “Anticipa
tion is more potent than a whip and more compelling than handcuffs. The ability to tease and arouse a woman is a subtle skill few men ever bother to learn,” I said. “But learning the art of anticipation can make a woman go weak at the knees with longing.”

“I’m listening…” Leticia said. “But I don’t follow.”

“I’ll give you an example,” I smiled mischievously. “Come over here.”

Leticia
rose from her chair obediently and stood facing me.

“Now close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to touch your shoulder, and then your cheek.”

She looked puzzled. She shrugged and closed her eyes. Then I touched her shoulder gently and slid my hand across the soft skin of her cheek. She opened her eyes again.

“How was that?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Um…okay.”

I nodded. “Because you knew exactly what to expect.
Now close your eyes again, and keep them closed.”

When Leticia closed her eyes, I waited for a long moment, until she began to move her head as though listening to some soft secret sound. “Jonah…?”

I reached out and brushed my hand down the soft trembling skin of her throat and she let out an involuntary gasp. I withdrew my hand, and waited, counting out the long seconds. Leticia smiled a little nervously, and then I traced my fingertip down her forearm. She shuddered, and her breath caught in her throat.  She opened her eyes, her face lightly flushed.

“Anticipating is expectation,” I said. “It’s the mystery of not knowing, and the heightening of all a woman’s senses. Anticipation draws out the moment so that the moment then becomes exquisite,” I explained. “And it is only something as powerful as anticipation that can elevate an ordinary touch to a breathtaking caress.”

Leticia sat back in her chair as though I had just revealed some profound mystery of the universe, while I continued re-telling my first encounter with Caroline.

“Caroline held her breath for as long as my hand remained unmoving, and then, as I edged it slowly lower, she let out a gasp. Her sex was shaved smooth, and my fingers slipped over the velvety soft lips of her pussy.

“‘You sought me out tonight,’ I said in a whisper. My mouth was just an inch from her ear. Her eyes were closed. ‘Why?’

“
Caroline licked her lips. I kept my fingers teasing the flesh of her pussy and used the wetness of her to gently massage her clit. She bunched her hands into tight little fists of restraint.

“‘I want you as my Master,’ she told me. She said she had been involved in the lifestyle for over a year but had left her previous Master. When I asked her why, she said he hadn’t been man enough to dominate her.

“I asked Caroline what made her so sure I would be interested in a woman like her – and then I slid two of my fingers inside her. She arched her back so that her hips and breasts strained forward, her body bowed and trembling. Her mouth fell open in a soft purr of arousal as I played the tips of my fingers around her sex.

“She pleaded for me to take her on as my submissive. She promised she would deny me nothing. I told her it all depended on the taste of her pussy – and then I eased my fingers
from inside her and held them up close to my face.

“Caroline’s eyes fluttered open. My fingers were slick and glistening with the juices of her arousal. I slowly licked at the taste, and then slid my fingers into my mouth.

“I narrowed my eyes, kept my expression stern and made her wait.

“You taste like honey,” I told her.

Leticia was fascinated. She had moved as I spoke. Now she was sitting on the edge of her chair, with her elbows on her knees and her hands cupping her chin. “Did she? I mean, did she really taste like that?”

I gave Leticia my serious face. “Leticia, no woman tastes like honey – but every man should tell the
woman he is with that she does.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that every woman I have ever known intimately has been inhibited and self-conscious about the way their pussy might taste to a man.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “How the hell would I know? You tell me. All I know is that women relax and let themselves go sexually once a man reassures her that he loves the way she tastes. I tell women they taste like honey. That’s the line I use, because I want them to relax and I want them to enjoy the experience of my tongue deep between their legs and licking their clit. Good sex isn’t possible if the woman I’m with is tense and anxious.”