The Plume: The First Anthology (21 page)

Thrilled by the idea of being so helpless.

“But you’re not sure when or where I’ll make my move.” He smiled. “Will it be in the elevator? In the garage? In the stair well? In the last stall of a public washroom? In your own apartment?” He leaned closer, whispering to her. Joanna’s heart was racing. “Where will I truss you helpless?” His voice dropped an increment lower. “And when I’m done, will I release you? Or toss you in the trunk of my car and keep you forever?”

Joanna’s mouth opened and closed. She was wet as a result of his story, the lips of her labia thick and slick. It was her fantasy, uttered aloud. It was the dinner date she wanted with Mike.

The Master offered her the black velvet blindfold. “Let’s find out.”

They were going to act it out. Joanna couldn’t believe it.

She put on the blindfold, enfolding herself in darkness. She wasn’t really surprised when the Master placed his hand on the back of her neck and drove her out of the cell.

She also wasn’t surprised when they danced through an open space, and assumed it was the area where she’d entered the Dungeon. She heard the murmur of voices and knew there were guards watching. The scenario excited her, especially when the Master gave her a slow soulful kiss, his hand framing her chin. He’d removed both his hood and his gloves, his skin warm against her own.

Like they were out in the world.

Joanna swallowed when she heard the soft bell of an elevator. The Master locked his hands around her waist, urging her inside. His hands rose to cup her breasts, his fingers massaging her nipples until she squirmed against him. He kissed the back of her neck, her ear, her throat, making her think of every amorous date she’d ever had.

The doors closed noisily, sealing them inside. The elevator began to ascend as he trapped her in the back corner and kissed her thoroughly. His hands roved over her, touching and exploring, so ardent that they might have been a couple on a first date.

Joanna imagined Mike touching her like this.

The elevator doors opened and he urged her out of the space, then swept her into his arms. He kissed her deeply as he carried her to some destination. Joanna wound her arms around his neck, loving this interval. He kicked open a door and carried her into a smaller space, as if they were entering an apartment. He dropped her on what felt like a couch upholstered in velvet, his kisses and caresses uninterrupted.

It felt like the antique couch Louise had in their shared apartment.

Joanna was on her back, the skirt of the dress around her waist, when he tugged the roll of tape from her wrist. He tore off a piece and bound her wrists together in front of her. He pulled her hands up over her head, rolled her to her stomach, then ran a length of tape down her back, securing her bound wrists to the back of her waist. He twined the tape so that there was no stickiness exposed, then rolled her to her back again. Joanna struggled but the tape was strong and pulled tight.

“Turns out it will be in your apartment,” he murmured, then lowered himself on top of her.

The blindfold allowing her to imagine that she was home, to fantasize about a date taking a turn she hadn’t anticipated. He crossed her ankles and taped them so that her legs were wide open. She moaned and struggled, knowing that she shouldn’t cry out but that in this situation she would.

He chuckled, then locked one hand over her mouth, silencing her with his palm. “I’ll need that mouth later,” he whispered as he crushed her breast in his hand. He slid down her length, still ensuring her silence, and sucked on her nipples until they were aching. Joanna twisted beneath him, hearing him breathe more quickly, feeling his erection against her leg.

Then he shoved something in her mouth. She realized from the taste of leather that it must be his glove. She couldn’t spit it out. His palms pressed on the inside of her knees to hold her legs wide. She writhed against the velvet and struggled against her bonds. She couldn’t escape him, much less his marauding tongue.

He locked his mouth over her and ate her with deliberation. He flicked his tongue against her hard clitoris, sucking and biting. Joanna wasn’t sure whether she was allowed to come, and didn’t know whether she could stop herself if he continued like this. She was lost in a haze of desire, one that she didn’t want to escape. He tormented her until she was sure she couldn’t stand it any longer. When she was quivering and moaning, he stretched her out on the coach and lowered himself on top on her. She was crushed beneath his strength and power, almost buried in the cushions.

He was hard and thick and inside her, stretching her wide and filling her completely. He moved slowly, dragging his hardness against her, making her moan with pleasure. He locked his hands over hers, his fingers encasing her own.

“Mine,” he whispered and Joanna moaned.

He tugged the glove out of her mouth with his teeth and cast it aside. Then he kissed her, his tongue in her mouth, his dick inside her. He surrounded her on all sides, trapping her with his body and his heat, driving her closer to the brink of orgasm with every long slow stroke. His hands tightened over hers, his heart pounded against hers, his cock got harder and thicker. Joanna squirmed, rubbing herself against his strength and he began to pound into her. He moved harder and faster. His kiss became more demanding. He clenched around her, claiming and possessing her, and she wished with all her heart that he wouldn’t let her go.

She imagined Mike binding her like this then tossing her in the trunk of his car, to keep her captive forever, and came in an explosive rush.

Joanna didn’t realize until her partner had abruptly abandoned her that she had shouted Mike’s name.

* * *

Rex was livid. He left Joanna bound on the couch in the apartment above the Dungeon and marched out of that building, returning to the Plume itself. Annette could find Joanna and return her to her cell.

She’d called out Mike’s name.

And that completely shattered his fantasy.

Naturally, Athena found him. She must have had some adventures this evening as well, because she’d changed. She wore yellow cotton knit dress, with only a thong beneath. Under other circumstances, the shadow of her ripe breasts visible through the cloth would have been worthy of Rex’s interest.

Not on this night.

Athena sat down in the chair opposite Rex, crossing her legs and swinging her foot, as she studied him. Her gold mule dangled from her toe, her copper nail polish gleaming like exotic metal. “Bad night?

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He turned his back on her, seething.

“She’ll learn her lesson. They all do.”

Not this time, though. Rex tried to change the subject. “You’re in a good mood.”

Athena laughed. “Why wouldn’t I be? Mike came back, just as I always knew he would, and he’s hotter than ever. This has been some week.” She sighed happily. “I’m doing my duty to the Plume to persuade him to rejoin.”

Rex glanced up at that. “You always knew he’d come back?”

“He’s one of us,” Athena said with force. “He belongs here. He could pretend otherwise, but only for a while.” She smiled at Rex as she caught her hair back in a ponytail. Lifting her hands behind her head made her breasts swung in an enticing manner, cocooned as they were in the knitted cloth.

He realized that she’d noticed him looking when she smiled in triumph. “He only came back for a while,” he said, his tone hard.

“That’s the excuse not the truth.” Athena got to her feet. “He came back for me, just as I always knew he would.”

Rex was annoyed, both with Joanna and with his partner, and wanted someone to share his misery. “No. He came for Joanna.”

Athena spun on the threshold, her displeasure clear. “What?”

“He only wanted to come back because Joanna was surrendering to the Dungeon. He thought he would protect her here.” He turned the knife in the wound. “I think he loves her.”

He couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge aloud that Mike’s feelings might be reciprocated.

Athena paled and her lips tightened. “That’s not true,” she said, but he knew from her tone that she was half convinced.

“It’s what he told me,” Rex said, feigning indifference. “And he’s only staying the same two weeks as she is.”

Athena’s eyes flashed. She pivoted and marched out of the office, her heels clicking resolutely on the tiled corridor.

Mike, Rex suspected, was not going to get anywhere near the Dungeon or Joanna in his last week at the Plume. Just hours before, that would have suited him just fine, but with one word, Joanna had changed everything.

Now he had to decide what to do about it.

The first thing Rex would do is take the advice Athena had given him earlier. He’d go out to the bar and find someone new.

* * *

The Master didn’t return.

Joanna understood the magnitude of her mistake when she was left for days. Even Annette didn’t bother to punish her. She was still imprisoned in the cell, but naked and unbound. It was as if the Master had discarded her.

Or forgotten her.

Because of one word.

Joanna had no idea how much time passed. The situation only gave her more time to think, to fantasize and to plan.

It fed her determination to go out with Mike and take a chance. She started to count the meals, calculating how much time she had until she was freed and could act upon her plan.

It must have been close to a week later when Annette came for her. With a cursory gesture, she blindfolded Joanna, then led her out of the cell. To Joanna’s amazement, she was taken up the steps from the Dungeon. She felt the change in the air, the hum of conversation, the sound of running water. Was it the end of her captivity? Was she being sent home?

In moments, she was being washed by many hands.

When she was shaved clean and smooth, she knew this attention could mean only

one thing.

She was being prepared for the Master’s pleasure.

Or his punishment.

* * *

The Master arrived when Joanna was still being washed. Joanna knew by the sudden silence that someone important had arrived. Abruptly there were no hands on her body and she was standing alone in the spray of the shower. Her skin tingled with the conviction that she was being watched. Her blindfold was removed, leaving her blinking in the brightness, and Joanna met the steady gaze of the Master.

He wore only a black velvet domino.

For the first time, she saw him completely naked.

A circle of slaves and staff stood back, watching, their eyes shining through the holes in their black domino masks. The showers were tiled in white, the ceilings high and the air filled with steam. The space was large, like a shower in a gym, at least twenty shower nozzles around the perimeter spraying warm water downward. The Master was as dark as an ebony sculpture, the beauty of his body in stark contrast to the white tiles and stacks of white towels.

He held out a white cloth, maybe a facecloth. Joanna took it from him, uncertain what he wanted of her. She was keenly aware of their audience. “I’ll have you here,” he said, his voice as low and thrilling as she recalled. “But I’ll have you silent.”

He held out a length of flat cloth, like a ribbon of gauze, and met her gaze. Joanna recalled how he liked for her to submit, to actively bind herself for his pleasure, and guessed what he wanted. She rolled the facecloth around the gauze, improvising a gag. As he watched, she lifted it to her mouth and willingly bit into it.

“Deeper,” he said and she took more of it into her mouth, biting deeply into the cloth. She tugged the ends of the gauze behind her head and crossed them as he smiled. He stepped forward, pinning her against the cool tile of the wall, and systematically wrapped the gauze around her head. It encircled her head, over and over and over again, tighter on each round, securing that cloth in her mouth and sealing her in silence. When the gauze was almost all used up, he knotted it behind her head, tightening it with unexpected ferocity.

He arched a brow. Joanna tried to scream but made no sound at all.

The Master smiled. He put out a hand and one of the staff rushed to give him another roll of gauze. The woman’s eyes were glistening as she glanced at Joanna, her own reaction unmistakable. Joanna looked between her and the Master, saw his smile turn secretive. He indicated something above her head and she looked up.

There was a heavy stainless hook secured into the wall.

She’d be hung here, like a piece of meat. When she looked back at the Master, he nodded at her hands. Joanna extended them before herself and he quickly bound her wrists together with the gauze. He worked quickly and decisively trapping her palms against each other. He lifted her up then, putting her bound wrists over the hook. He left her feet drop and she was dangling there, her toes just barely brushing the tile floor.

At the Master’s expectant expression, she writhed and struggled, tried to scream. She proved that he was his captive as he watched. And the heat of his gaze made her nipples tighten and her sex throb.

He got the body wash and began at her toes. He lathered her skin and worked the foam between her toes, under her foot, around her ankles. He scrubbed and he massaged and he brought her skin to tingling life. It was that same body wash she’d been given when she first came to the Plume, the one that contained an ingredient that stimulated the skin, the one that smelled of sin and sex and forbidden pleasures. By the time he reached her crotch, Joanna was burning to be taken.

He stood before her, his cock against her hip, and washed her labia with dedication. He caressed every fold. He ran his fingers over every increment of her. He coaxed her sex to thumping, vibrating life, and Joanna knew from the look in his eyes that he wasn’t going to let her come.

He wasn’t going to take her either. This was a display of his power over her, proof that he commanded her completely, the final punishment for her shouting out Mike’s name.

She would have begged forgiveness but she was silenced.

She would have pleasured him but she was bound.