His House of Submission (5 page)

‘Let's see how you take this,' he said, to himself.

He took his hand from my rear and let me experience a moment of pure anticipation before he brought it cracking back down, hard, across my outthrust buttocks.

It forced a breath from me, but not a cry. It was piquant rather than painful, spicy and peppery, moreish. He knew it, so he gave me more, fed my craving, for another dozen strokes, during which I shut my eyes and gave in to the delirious knowledge that I was having my bottom smacked by the internationally fêted Jasper Jay. Lucky old me.

‘What do you think of the show so far?' he asked, his hand falling relentlessly.

‘Mm hmm,' was all I could think of to say to that. I hoped he interpreted it as blanket approval.

‘I'll take it easy this first time,' he said, though I was beginning to gasp. ‘But one day, Sarah, when we know each other much better, I promise I'll make you cry.'

One day when we know each other much better.
What did he have in mind? I almost pushed myself up, twisted my head towards him, curious to know more.

But he stopped just then and began lifting my skirt, and all other thoughts rushed away, replaced by the imminent display of my pink lace briefs.

His hand pushed the fabric up my thighs, rippling over the protuberant curve and gathering at my waist. Extra warmth, on top of that which he had spanked into my skin, soaked through the lace when he touched it, then he grazed it with his fingernails and the sparks snapped through me.

His hand landed, confusingly, on my bare thigh. I had not expected this and I squeaked and raised my spine a little, but he pushed me right back down.

‘Lovely lacy knickers,' he said, covering them with medium-strength strokes. ‘I'm going to spank you until this pattern transfers itself to your skin. Won't that be pretty?'

‘Yes, Sir,' I moaned, my voice sounding almost the way it did when I came. It was going to be impossible to hide my growing arousal.

‘You're already the same colour. Deep pink. Soon you'll be red, though. My favourite shade.'

The heat was increasing, starting to become uncomfortable now. I wondered how long he could go on for before tiring. What if he carried on for an hour or more? What if I asked him to stop and he didn't? He'd said, hadn't he, that I only had to say no. He'd been telling the truth. Yes? Had he? Fuck, I hardly knew him. What kind of idiot was I, making important judgements about people on such a flimsy basis?

‘Ouch,' I said experimentally.

He stopped.

I let out a breath.

He yanked down my knickers.

I inhaled again.

‘Oh,' I said.

‘No?' he murmured, rubbing my stinging bum so very gently. ‘Enough?'

‘It's OK,' I decided.
I'm telling him it's OK to take down my knickers! Why am I telling him this?
‘Just … a surprise.'

‘Bad girls always get spanked on their bare bottoms, Sarah. I thought you'd know that.'

‘Yes, I did. Sorry, Sir.'

‘Thank you for your apology. You're deliciously warm now. But not quite the right colour … so …'

The crack of his hand making contact with my bare skin was so supercharged with eroticism that I pushed my bottom out for more. I wanted that noise echoing in my ears, ringing around the room. I wanted to make a sound clip of it and listen to it over and over.

He repeated it, with variations, perhaps twenty or thirty times. His hand fell harder and harder, and then he sped up and that was when I started to struggle.

‘Painful, is it?' he crooned, dashing off a final half-dozen while he massaged the shoulder he still held me by. ‘You should see the glow. Like a glorious sunset.'

He stayed his hand then, using it instead to caress my hot round arse cheeks.

‘How was that?' he whispered.

I contemplated my position, bent over a desk with my knickers around my ankles and my soundly spanked bottom on display. I was so wet he must be able to smell me, matching up the aroma with that he'd sniffed on the strop earlier.

Oh. The strop. What about that?

‘Thank you, Sir,' I said.

He made a sound of deep satisfaction.

‘You're good,' he said. ‘You can stay.'

I tried to push myself up but he held me firm.

‘Ah, ah, ah, not so fast,' he said.

I heard the slither of leather close to my ear, felt it creep off my back.

‘The punishment has to fit the crime, remember.'

I thought he might have forgotten. A little sound of dismay leaked from my lips.

‘Unluckily for you,' he said, ‘you've alighted upon one of the most devastating tools in my box. You'll be feeling the effects of this for a day or so. The leather's so nice and thick, you see, yet it bends to your shape, leaving lovely tight stripes … but you'll see for yourself. I'm going for ten, since you've never done this before. Count them. If you can't take any more, say “pax”. Yes?'

‘Yes, Sir.'

‘Say it, then, so I know you've been paying attention. What do you say if you've had as much as you can take?'

‘Pax, Sir.'

‘Right. And you're counting out loud. Right, then. I'm going to hold you down because there's no way you'll stay still for this. Ready. One … two … three …'

‘Jesus!' I exclaimed. The stroke was vicious, a scorpion's sting of pure agony. After a ferocious second or so, it burned off, leaving a beautiful throb.

‘One, Sir,' I breathed.

That was bad, but was it
that
bad? I needed another to make sure.

Yes. Yes, it was that bad. The second stroke tore through me, winding me.

‘Twooooo, Sir.' I writhed under his hand. He let me wriggle through the pain for a moment or two before pushing down again.

It was horrible, but I wanted another. I wanted to feel overwhelmed, the enormity of submission, the heart-pounding excitement of it. It didn't seem to come without pain. I would just have to get used to it.

But I also wanted to see what he looked like, wielding that thing. I needed a snapshot for my memory bank. I craned my neck, hoping to catch a glimpse.

‘Turn around,' he ordered, and he shouted it this time. I hadn't heard him raise his voice until now and it intimidated me. ‘Sorry,' he said, after a pause, much more gently. ‘I'm sorry. You have to keep still. I don't want to hurt you.'

He chuckled self-consciously.

‘Well … you know what I mean. Not really hurt you. Look, you're still OK with this, are you?'

‘It hurts a lot. But I don't mind. I want more. I want to know what happens if you give me more.'

‘You want to know how the story ends,' he said with an edge of satisfaction.

‘Yes.'

‘More of a chapter, this,' he ruminated. ‘Chapter one. I wonder if it's going to be a slim volume or something along the lines of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
. I think we'll have fun finding out anyway. Right. Brace yourself.'

Oh, that burn, that awful, unendurable, shocking burn that forces its heat deep inside me and transforms it into … something else.

‘I hate it,' I whimpered. ‘Three, Sir.'

I found something inside myself, a core of endurance, or submission, or whatever I wanted to call it – semantics weren't at the forefront of my mind at the time – that took me through the pain and let me embrace it. As a gift or a privilege, because that was how it felt to me.

Jasper was showing me something about myself, giving me an insight into my nature. I learned that I was made for this, made to be thrashed on my bare bottom with an antique razor strop, made to take whatever the higher power had to give.

It made me feel safe.

How paradoxical was that? When it came down to it, the way Jasper treated me, for all its capricious cruelty, made me feel cared for and special. It made me feel love.

When the tenth stroke came, I almost asked for more, even though my thighs were trembling and my bottom felt as if it had been skinned. I had the delusion that I could take as much as he had to give, that I could become one with the pain and make it a part of myself. I know it was some kind of endorphin-related euphoria, but it was powerful and, for that moment, uncontrollable.

‘Ten, Sir,' I panted. I hadn't shed a tear, though my eyes stung with sweat. How much would it take to make me cry? One day he would show me.

He stood, his hand still on my shoulder, keeping me immobile while I absorbed the final moments.

‘I didn't think you'd make it all the way to ten,' he said.

‘I could have taken more,' I said.

He gave my shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

‘You're as rare a find as anything in my collection,' he said.

I wondered if he was going to kiss me, or touch me, or do anything to assuage the fire that raged between my legs now that the sting was levelling into a delicious soreness.

He pulled me to my feet and held me against him until I stopped shaking. I squashed my face into his expensive shirt and breathed him in. I could have stayed there for ever, wrapped up and warmed, but eventually he gave my bottom a little pat and whispered, ‘Run along now.'

It stung far worse than his razor strop. I jerked my neck back, lips parted in dismay.

‘Run along?'

‘Yes. We've both got work to do.'

He softened visibly at my appalled expression and stroked my hair.

‘Oh, Sarah,' he said. ‘Don't get in too deep, my love.'

‘I'm not!' Arrogant swine.

‘I hope not. Do you want me to fuck you?'

I shook my head, though I did, of course, but it wasn't meant to be like this. It wasn't meant to be this bald, flat question, almost a statement.

‘You don't? Well, what's the matter then?'

‘I thought … forget it. I was mistaken.'

I tried to wrench myself from his grasp but he held me fast, his eye on me, sizing me up.

‘Sarah, you're here for the whole summer. We've got plenty of time. We can get to know each other.'

This was better. I stopped struggling.

‘And I want you to want it,' he whispered. ‘I want you to want it really badly. I want to make you wait until you can't bear it for another minute. I want to hear you beg me for it.'

He slid his hands under my skirt, which had fallen back down over my bottom, and lifted it again, cupping the sore buttocks, squeezing them.

‘I think you're wet,' he said into my ear. ‘I think you're a real glutton for punishment, aren't you?'

I tried to remove my ear from the toxic influence of his silken words, but he found it again, and poured more of them in.

‘I think I might have to punish you again,' he said. ‘Maybe every day. And when you're good and wet and ready, I'll tie your wrists to the bed.' He nipped at my earlobe, so delicately, so devastatingly. ‘Then I'll make you spread your legs and hold them wide open for me and do you know what I'll do?'

‘No.'

‘I'll breathe on your clit. Just one hot breath. And I'll leave you there, tied up, legs wide, every cell in your body screaming to be fucked. And maybe I'll come back and fuck you later. And maybe I won't.'

He rubbed his nose in my hair, then down my neck.

I almost ground myself against his pelvis. Almost. God, it was hard not to.

Kiss me
, I pleaded silently.
Kiss my mouth.

But he let go of me, then turned me around by my shoulders and propelled me to the door. I was still hobbled around the ankles by my knickers and I nearly stumbled.

‘Take them off,' he said, leaning idly on the desk, watching me. ‘And the skirt. Go on.'

I don't know why I obeyed him, but I did, standing before him half-naked, my hands clasped over my pubic triangle.

‘Good. You can work like that, can't you? Go on then. And no touching yourself. I'll know if you do.'

His gleaming heartless smile shooed me out of the study and back across the hallway.

I knelt down amongst the Sèvres porcelain, wincing as my strapped bottom touched my heels, and put my face in my hands for a long moment of orientation. I was breathless with lust, longing to touch myself. I had no idea how I was going to get through the rest of this afternoon with my clit swollen like a barrage balloon.

I picked up a vase and stared unseeingly at the painted figures on it, thinking of what had passed, thinking of Jasper and who he might be. What he might be to me.

I couldn't make sense of it, though. The painted figures crystallised, a shepherd and a shepherdess cavorting on a hillside. What a simple life. I envied them.

I picked up my notes and set back to work, my bursts of activity frequently interrupted by an ever-present nag between my thighs and the sore, tight feeling in my bum cheeks.

Was he finding it difficult to work as well? He must have been turned on by it all or why would he have bothered? My nerves stood to attention at a click from his study door and I tried to look extra-busy.

‘That'll do for today,' he said, standing in the doorway, watching me. ‘I'm going to make dinner. Well, I'm going to order something in anyway. You need to get dressed for it.'

Dressed for dinner? I hadn't brought anything like that with me.

‘It's all right,' he said, reading my thoughts. ‘I've picked something out for you. I'll leave it on the bed. See you in the dining room at eight sharp.'

He left and I heard his footsteps on the stairs.

I replaced all the porcelain in the cabinets and went over to the window. Just as well nobody could see the house from the road, given my state of partial undress. Looking out at the gardens I thought, for the first time since his departure, of Will.

Where was he tonight?

I stood in the full-length glass arch and imagined Jasper had put me there, as a punishment, while out on the terrace his guests drank tea and ate cucumber sandwiches and played badminton on the lawns beyond. Occasionally they might look over at me and shake their heads, knowing that I was serving my punishment, squinting over for a glimpse of my strapped backside.