Agony Aunt (25 page)

The phone rang again almost as soon as she put it down. This time it was Katrina. Harriet had expected a call from her, if only to tell her how things had gone between her and Tom. Katrina sounded cheerful, and Harriet guessed that she had enjoyed his company. She felt a pang of jealousy. She reminded herself that she was the one who had sent Tom away under a cloud. Still, she wished he hadn’t gone to Amsterdam so quickly.

‘How about some telephone sex?’ Katrina said brightly after they had said their hellos.

‘Not today, thanks,’ Harriet said briskly. ‘I need a long rest after your last dose of long-distance erotica. What can I do for you today?’

‘It is what I have already done for you that I want to talk about. I told you what you need to do about Tom last time I called. Now I have to tell you what to do with the gift. As soon as you get it from him, go out immediately, find someone who does body piercing and have the rings fitted to your nipples. Tom will love them, as he loved mine, and so will you. Trust me. And call him. He will come as soon as you tell him to. He wants to see you again, and is worrying about what you will say. So call him and have him come over. Put him out of his misery. OK? Do I have to tell you what to do when he comes back later and sees the rings – and you?’

‘Do you have any further orders?’ Harriet asked with amusement.

‘Yes, do not be a silly cow and let him get away,’ Katrina replied promptly. ‘Call me when you have seen him and tell me all about what happened.
Tot siens
.’

Katrina hung up and left Harriet smiling at her headlong approach to match-making. But in a more sober mood a minute later, she realised she would have to do something similar to what Katrina had suggested – unless she really wanted to continue moping about feeling lonesome and at a loose end, as she had been for the last several days. It was decision time.

She picked up the phone, and then put it down again, frowning. What would she say? She considered her options. In the end she decided to keep it simple. Donning her old manner like a protective cloak, she dialled Tom’s number. It rang briefly, then his answering machine came on. Harriet was annoyed. She didn’t like answering machines at the best of times, and this was not one of her best times. Nevertheless, she had to go ahead while she had the momentum. When the tone came, she spoke crisply. ‘Come see me tomorrow. I trust you still have your key in case I’m not in when you get here.’

At least the terseness of the message would remind him who was in charge. She deliberately set no time for their meeting, because she planned to be out when he came around. That would give her an added advantage, she thought – provided he came. Harriet refused to think that he might not.

She pushed the uncomfortable thought aside. She had made up her mind to deal with Tom and their relationship, and so she would. In the meantime she had other things to do.

Harriet was just about to make a late breakfast when the telephone rang again. It was Rachel. Could Harriet come to visit her and Jeff as they had discussed? Rachel wanted some moral support when she told Jeff about her bondage fantasies, and wanted Harriet around to advise them. Harriet knew her advice would amount to no more than a simple ‘get on with it’, but she understood Rachel’s anxiety and her need for support at the critical time. She agreed to stop by on the coming Tuesday evening. It looked as if she was going to be busy during the next few days. Better that way, she thought. That kept the uncertainties at bay. Until these last weeks uncertainty had not been one of her problems.

Victoria arrived at 4.30, earlier than Harriet had expected.

‘Tom’s back,’ Victoria announced cheerfully as she came in. ‘Have you seen him?’

‘No,’ Harriet said shortly. She guessed that Victoria
had
seen him, and she felt a flare of resentment. She stifled it, assuming her customary air of command. ‘Come into the kitchen and tell me the news.’

Victoria told her everything, ending with a description of Tom’s new cock ring. From the tone of her remarks, Harriet could tell that Victoria approved of the new addition thoroughly. Harriet knew all about cock rings from a professional standpoint, but as with her sex life, she was not as
au fait
with the practical side of their application as she might have been.

After the account of the sexual aspect of her meeting with Tom, Victoria came to the second reason for her visit. ‘You have to get him back here without delay. He misses you, and I know you miss him.’

Harriet frowned, but Victoria was not to be deterred. ‘We’ve been over this before. You know you want to see him. Now he’s here and you have to do something. So do it.’

‘I already have,’ Harriet announced, enjoying the deflating effect of her remark on Victoria. ‘I have summoned him to an audience tomorrow, if you must know.’ Harriet smiled at the pomposity of the remark, but she was also aware of a strong need to cling to her old manner. She was conscious of standing on the brink of an abyss, knowing that she was going to throw herself over the edge shortly, yet drawing back for one last time.

Victoria acted as if she was completely unaware of the inner struggle. ‘Good. Now that we’re done with business, let’s go out for a meal. I need some nourishment after the starvation regime I endured here. And the sooner I regain a pound or two, the sooner I’ll be able to return here and let you work it off me.’

Harriet was glad to leave the subject too. ‘You’re a hopeless masochist. All right. We’ll go for a drink and a meal. Let me put on my shoes.’ A sudden thought occurred to her. ‘Do you mind if I stay at yours tonight?’ She didn’t offer any explanation, and Victoria looked sharply at her.

Clearly she would have liked an explanation, but she only said, ‘Yes, of course.’

Harriet looked relieved. ‘Thanks. I’ll just leave a few things for Tom and then we’ll be off.’

So she was not in when Tom arrived the next day. She left his chains out where he would find them, with a note, ‘Welcome back. Make yourself comfortable.’ It was signed simply, ‘H’. It was very much a Harriet note, terse and lacking any endearments. She had debated being more forthcoming, but in the end her old habits prevailed and she took refuge in the role of the mistress giving orders to a slave. She would gauge her further reaction by whether he followed instructions. She gave him plenty of time to make up his mind. And of course she was also giving herself plenty of time to try to sort out her own final responses. I’m temporising, she told herself scornfully. She had made a career out of keeping her emotions under tight control, and the old habits were her enemies now.

You’re not a schoolgirl, she reminded herself. Mature women – especially mature dominatrixes – did not step out of character by letting their slaves make love to them. Nor did they consider falling in love with their slaves. And was it love? She was more inclined to call it lust, but that didn’t make things any simpler. Looking forward to seeing him again; looking forward to making love with him; feeling an emptiness where before there had been self-sufficiency; feeling just the faintest touch of jealousy when she thought of Tom and Katrina together or Tom and Victoria in bed: did this constitute love? It was easier to think of it as the formation of a new habit. Yes, that was definitely easier. Less embarrassing.

Yet why her and not someone more obviously attractive? He had said, ‘You’re beautiful,’ but she hadn’t paid much attention to that, having trouble believing the adjective could apply to her. She knew several women whom she considered beautiful, and she was nothing like them. But might Tom not have a different concept of beauty? We all know the cliché about the eye of the beholder, she reminded herself. And he kept coming back to her despite the treatment she had meted out. Surely he could have found an easier relationship if he had looked around. But – and this was a key factor – he hadn’t looked around after she had come into his life. Maybe he really
did
want her.

That possibility brought her back to the original question: what would she actually do when she got back home? She forced herself to find one thing after another to delay her return, but she had no answer to the question. The one thing she didn’t attempt to deny was the warm excited feeling she had when she thought of him touching her, finding all the secret and neglected places of her body with his hands, cherishing her with his touch and making her weak in the knees with desire, wanting to feel him inside her.

It was almost tea-time when she got home. She let herself in and locked the door from force of habit. She turned on the light in the hallway, testing the atmosphere of the house. It was quiet, but the house didn’t feel empty. She found Tom in the front room. He was sitting on the sofa in his chains. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and he had run the chain between his ankles around the leg of the coffee table so that he was in effect anchored there until she came back. Harriet was relieved to find him there, though she said nothing. It was going to be all right – business as usual.

‘How was Amsterdam?’

‘Fine,’ he replied. He didn’t volunteer any more information.

‘Katrina all right?’ Harriet was trying not to sound too inquisitive lest he think she was jealous or worried about his liaison with the young Dutch woman she had sent him to see.

‘Yes. She’s a lot happier.’

Harriet wasn’t sure she liked that idea. Was she happier with her husband and family, or happier because Tom had been to visit? Both? She wanted to know the answer, but she couldn’t ask. And Tom wasn’t saying. Was he playing with her? Trying to force her to ask? Or was he afraid of arousing her jealousy? She couldn’t bring herself to say anything directly about being glad to see him. For one thing she didn’t trust her voice not to give away too much. She noticed the ring around his scrotum with interest, but that was something else she couldn’t ask about. He sat tensely and said nothing.

But there was something she could do that would make him feel more at ease without undermining her position as mistress. He couldn’t touch her anyway, so she walked over to the sofa and kissed him lightly on the mouth. She tried to make it no more than a casual gesture, a conventional welcome home. He tried to prolong it and turn it into something more, but she drew back, watching him closely at the same time. She was relieved to see that he was getting erect. The old magic was still working.

She decided to tease him a bit more. Grasping his cock, Harriet said to no one in particular, ‘Does this mean someone else is glad to see me?’ She hoped she was concealing her pleasure and curiosity adequately.

Tom’s cock grew stiff and warm in her hand, and his breathing got louder. But still he said nothing, as she had taught him. This time she wanted some reaction, but had to be content with the one in her hand. Judging him to be aroused, Harriet dropped him and moved away as she had done so often – teasing him when he couldn’t touch her. Some of the old feeling of power came back to her, but it wasn’t the same. Much as she enjoyed being in charge, she also wanted sex. It would be nice to have him inside her while they had sweaty sex. Harriet felt the stirrings of desire between her legs but the timing was wrong. In order to conceal her own agitation she began to put the shopping away. Tom watched silently.

Harriet began to wonder if she would have to prise information out of him. If it would be undignified to seem curious about what he had done in Amsterdam, it would be even worse to question him about their own relationship. Despite what she had learnt from Victoria and Katrina, she wanted to know definitely if he intended to remain as slave/assistant, and preferably from him. The only good sign, from her point of view, was that he had followed her instructions about chaining himself to wait for her return, and that suggested he wanted something like their old relationship to continue. Harriet decided to carry on as if nothing had happened to alter it. Taking the path of least resistance, she chided herself. But she took it none the less.

Since Tom was chained to the table, she made the coffee, wondering as she did so if he would take it as a sign that she had relented. She sat on the sofa next to him and held the cup for him to drink. Then she looked squarely at him, silently inviting further information. When he gave none she was forced to ask about Katrina.

As if reading a report, Tom began to tell her the details of their meeting in Amsterdam. From what he said, they might have spent all their time walking down Damrak and into the shopping centre along Kalverstraat, a visitor being shown the sights of the city by a pretty local woman. Harriet knew that they had done considerably more than that, because Katrina had told her something of the weekend. He came to the end of his brief account and fell silent. Harriet was sure that he was afraid of making her jealous or angry by describing his encounter with the young Dutch woman.

She reached for Tom’s cock and began to tease it absently with one hand while she drank her coffee. It became hard almost at once, and she was pleased and relieved at this undeniable evidence of his interest. Then she bent down and took him in her mouth. Tom looked at her in surprise. This wasn’t something she normally did so soon in the evening. Her usual practice was to tease him for hours, testing his self-control by handling him and flaunting her body. But this evening she felt different. Harriet used her teeth, lips and tongue to bring him to the verge of orgasm, then she drew back at the last moment. Tom relaxed slightly. This must have seemed like the old familiar routine.

What she did next was not routine. Harriet stood up and took off her dress. Tom’s look of surprise pleased her. Usually she wore her form-fitting leather panty-corselet and a pair of tights, the familiar dominatrix’s outfit they both liked. But this time she wore only her bra, stockings and suspenders, and a pair of her highest high-heel shoes. More accessible and, she hoped, most desirable. She had planned on this surprise when she dressed for his return. She hadn’t made up her mind then whether she would grant him access, but now she found that she wanted him inside her rather badly. She was glad to see that his cock showed no signs of becoming disinterested. It stood up straight in his lap, slightly red and moist. Harriet was wet and parted and ready too, but there was no way he could know that yet. Striking a pose, she asked him, ‘See anything you like?’ She hoped he didn’t notice the slight tremor in her voice. In the past she wouldn’t have asked him any questions. Now she wanted to demonstrate that she was in control. Of course, she still controlled him physically, since he couldn’t touch her unless she removed his handcuffs and leg irons, but now words seemed necessary too. There was a tension in her that hadn’t been there on those other evenings when she had taunted him. Harriet felt different now – less in control of herself even though Tom wore the chains as he had so often in the past.