Interview with a Master (24 page)

I shook my head. “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” I said. “I’ve read your work. You’ll do fine.”

“You read my work?”

I nodded. “Before you arrived
that first day for the interview. I had some of the stories you wrote sent to me. I thought they were good.”

She made a face. “Jonah, so far the most exciting story I have covered was the annual garden show. It’s not exactly Pulitzer prize winning material.”

“I saw your potential,” I said. “I’m sure your editor does too.”

We drifted into the kitchen. Leticia made coffee and I watched her as if she were some alchemist brewing a secret potion. She used the exact same ingredients I had the evening before, and yet somehow the coffee she made tasted fine.

“When we finished up last night, you had just told me about the time you spent with Caroline at the hotel,” Leticia said. Her tone was conversational, like we were two old friends chatting. “Is there more you can tell me about your three years with Caroline – maybe a couple of other experiences that you remember?”

I set the coffee down on the counter. “Sure,” I said. “But first I have a question for you.
‘Do ut des’
.”

Leticia had her hip resting against the edge of the bench top, her weight on one leg, so that the tight denim of her jeans folded into deep tantalizing creases below her zipper. The sleeves of the t-shirt were short, and her skin was lightly tanned and glowing with the freshness and luster of youthful good health.
She tossed back her head, exposing the soft line of her neck to me, and her hair shook and shimmered.

She seemed to brace herself
mentally, and then nodded. “Ask.”

I had thought long and hard about this question. More than any other, this was the one I wished for her to answer.

“Do you actually like me, Leticia?”

She physically flinched, as though shaken, and her expression changed gradually over the course of several seconds.

“If it wasn’t for this interview – if we had just met as a man and a woman, would I have been someone you would like?”

Leticia seemed to lean towards me, and then pull back. “Jonah, I admire you, more than you will ever know,” she said softly, her eyes searching my face. “You’re gallant, you’re a gentleman, and you’re definitely larger than life. Yes, I like you – you know that –
but I wouldn’t want to be like you.”

I blinked. “Why not?”

Leticia smiled wistfully. “You’re larger than life, Jonah. You fill a room and suffocate me. Your energy, your personality is like this big unstoppable force. You sweep people off their feet and draw them towards you like a comet. I… I could never be like that,” Leticia said. “Most people could never be like that. The majority of us watch the world go by, and adapt to what life hands us, Jonah. But you’re different. You can change your world. That seems like a wonderful gift, but I also think it’s a heavy burden. Personally, I don’t know how you do it.”

Leticia lowered her head for a long moment, and I thought she had finished speaking. Then she lifted her face again and there was sudden regret and sadness in her eyes.

“If you hadn’t pushed me away, I would be in your arms right now, Jonah. I wanted that. When you kissed me…” her voice broke off and when it came back one final time it was nothing more than a whisper. “Yes, I like you.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I said.
I meant it. I felt Leticia’s body draw towards me, and then her cell phone rang, the sound shrill as an alarm in the intimate silence. Leticia sighed and stepped back, breaking the spell that seemed to have been cast upon us.

“See,” she said wryly. “My phone rings – and now I am going to adapt to what life is about to hand me. If it had been your phone, Jonah, you probably would have been able to will it
into silence.”

I smiled into her eyes. “If it had been my phone, Leticia, I would have turned it off ten minutes ago.”

She threw me a playful look over her shoulder and snatched up her phone from the table. I carried my coffee to the window and stared down at the city. Long meandering lines of traffic cluttered the streets, sunlight glinting off windshields as cars crawled through the crisscross of downtown intersections. I stared without really seeing until I heard Leticia finish her conversation and toss her cell onto the sofa.

“Problem?” I turned and asked.

“The office,” Leticia sighed. She scraped her hands through her hair and stood with one hand on her hip. “They need the copy for the first part of your interview by Thursday. I’ve just lost a whole twenty-four hours of time to write and prepare.”

“Is that critical?”

She nodded. “It is when you have no confidence in your ability, and you are about to write the article that could make your entire journalism career, yeah. It’s kind of a big deal.”

“Solution?”

“Start looking for another job,” Leticia said, but she wasn’t smiling. “Or find some way to turn back time.”

I shook my head. “I don’t like your choices,” I said. “So how about option three? Why not make extra time.”

“How?”

“We’ll finish the interview today,” I said. “If you’re happy to put in long hours, we can wrap this up tonight. That would give you the extra time you need.”

* * *

Leticia made herself comfortable on the sofa and I went and stood by the open window.
She had a fresh notebook ready. Her legs were crossed, and she sat looking up at me with an air of expectation.

I felt sunlight on my back, warm through my shirt. “Caroline
’s biggest problem as a submissive was her discipline,” I announced. “She was a very passionate, sexy woman, and she had a mind of her own. I have told you before that she was very beautiful and very intelligent. Sometimes her independence meant that training her to submit and obey presented its challenges.

“Orgasm denial became common in our relationship. Caroline couldn’t quite find the line between retaining her own independence as a woman, and submitting to a Master. She would go for days, and sometimes even a week without an orgasm because she disobeyed me, or was ill-disciplined.”

“And yet you regarded her as a good submissive?”

I nodded.

“How did you enforce the orgasm denial punishments? It must be based on a lot of trust.”

“It is,” I admitted. “It depends on the submissive being honest. There is no point in me punishing a woman by denying her
orgasms if she breaks the rules by pleasuring herself. When we were having sex, I would turn the punishment into the most exquisite torturous agony she could possibly endure by getting her to the brink of exploding, and then backing off, being sure that after each session she was sexually aroused, but left frustrated. It was the very best way to encourage a submissive like Caroline to change her behavior.”

“How did that work?” Leticia asked. “I don’t quite follow.”

I started to pace.

“It was normal for me to insist that all my
submissives ask permission to orgasm,” I said. “That way I had control of their releases, and could use that control to heighten their pleasure, or drive them crazy with desire and anticipation. Caroline was no different. Whenever we were having sex, she was required to ask my permission before being allowed to have an orgasm.

Leticia cut in. “And that is normal?”

“It’s normal for me,” I said. “I insist submissives ask permission before they come. I don’t know about other Masters, but I imagine the practice is pretty common.”

She made a note of that on a separate page of her book, and then flipped back to the page where she had left off.
“And so you would use this punishment technique to keep Caroline on edge, right?”

“Right,” I said. “I remember one particular session that was held in the upstairs room I showed you next to my bedroom.
Caroline had been denied orgasms for a full week, and during those seven days I had used her for my own pleasure on several occasions, wickedly teasing her pussy as I fucked her, but never quite letting her come. For the first two days she endured, but as I said, she was naturally a highly sexual person. By the fifth day she was begging and pleading with me to allow her an orgasm – even if it was merely one she gave herself while I watched her. I said no. By the last day of the punishment she was on the brink of having a meltdown. For her, being denied an orgasm was like being denied chocolate, or oxygen.

“I told her to meet me in the upstairs room, and I was waiting for her when she arrived. She was bright and smiling. She glowed with excitement. She stood before me in black lace panties and bra, and heels. Her body was perfect; her skin was flawless, her breasts the perfect size and shape, her waist tiny, and her legs long and toned.

“She was trembling with suppressed excitement and there was a trace of a smile in her eyes. She looked up at me with hooded eyes and licked her lips.

“‘
I am ready to give my body to you, Master,’ Caroline breathed demurely. I smiled at her. I asked her if she would be my good girl from now on. She nodded her head vigorously. I asked her if my good girl would obey all of her Master’s instructions. Again, she nodded vigorously. I walked to the table in the middle of the room and stood there for several seconds. Every day for the past week I had taken Caroline as she stood bent over the table with her legs spread widely. Now, as I moved in the same way I had every day for the past week, she slipped her thumbs into the elastic of her panties and pulled them down.

“I asked her one last time if she promised to be my good girl, and she nodded again. I smiled my pleasure at her and she beamed back at me
. ‘You can suck my cock, today,’ I said. ‘I have no need for your pussy. I have decided you can make me come with your mouth.’

“Caroline froze for a second, and then shot me a disbelieving glare. The expression hung on her face for a couple of seconds before she realized I was watching her carefully. The look transformed to one of bewilderment.

“‘It has been a week, Master,’ she reminded me gently. ‘I have gone for so long without an orgasm. I thought that today… that well… I would have earned my release.’ I shook my head sadly, and told Caroline that she had indeed served her week-long punishment, but that didn’t entitle her to an orgasm. It merely meant that she was no longer prevented from having an orgasm. I assured her that the next time I used her pussy for my pleasure, she would be allowed to come – but that I had decided the following week would be made up of several cock-sucking sessions. I might not want her pussy for some time.

“Caroline’s expression became terrible. It was like watching the four seasons of a year, played out in her emotions. She went from smiling and radiant with expectation, to distant and detached, to icy cold, her lips pale and drawn into a thin
bloodless line. Her eyes blazed with resentment – and then she made the mistake of openly questioning me. If she had a tail, it would have swished with agitation.”

Leticia was furiously scribbling notes to keep up with me. I got tired of pacing back and forth, and did a circuit around the dining table while I waited for her to catch up.

“So what happened?” she asked at last.

“I ordered Caroline onto her knees,” I said. “And I told her to open her mouth. She obeyed, but all of the vitality had gone from her. She was sullen and brooding. She had put make-up on before coming to the room. Her lips were red an
d glossy and full. I unbuckled my belt, stepped out of my jeans, and stood before her. She had her hands resting on her knees. I reached down and casually fondled one of her breasts, and then lifted it from the cup of her bra. I rolled the nipple between my thumb and forefinger and felt it harden to my touch. Caroline said nothing. I could hear her breathing, but it was a sound more like a simmer. She was angry, and that pleased me.”

“Pleased you?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because an important lesson was being taught and learned, Leticia. A lesson that Caroline needed to understand about discipline. It gave me no pleasure to be mean. That wasn’t the objective. I would have preferred if she had accepted my decision with the good grace I expect from my submissives, but she hadn’t. I wasn’t about to relent.”

I stopped in the midst of the story and turned to glance out of the window for a moment. “Write this down.” I said. “On a new page.”

Leticia flicked through to the end of her book.

“To my way of thinking, a good Master is the iron fist within a velvet glove,” I said. “The man needs to be firm and resolute. He needs to be confident and assured. He needs to be her rock:
the one man in the world his submissive can turn to for advice, help, guidance and comfort. And he needs to be able to arouse and excite her. He needs to be able to keep her on edge and off balance. He needs to know her better than she knows herself – and he needs to be all these things to her without losing his honor, or destroying her dignity and independence. He needs to lift her up, Leticia, so that she becomes the person she wants to be, and then he needs to hold her there so she can never ever fall.”

Leticia stared up at me and for a long time said nothing. She just stared at me.