Master of the House (16 page)

‘I’ll get you electronically tagged,’ he said, only half-joking. ‘You needn’t think you’ll get away from me.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘All right then. Let’s go.’

It was a quiet, moonlit night. At Joss’s insistence I’d left my mobile phone in the caravan, so there was no chance of a quick pre-scoop snap or two. He walked ahead of me, holding my hand tightly as if he thought I might make a break for it.

‘Which way now?’ he whispered at a fork in the path.

‘Right.’

Within a few yards, we were at the little slope, fronted by foliage, from which the whole of the back garden and rear of the house could be viewed. Many times I had stood here watching Joss look for me in one of our savage games of hide and seek. I was always the hider, he the seeker. If he found me, there would be pain and tears. He had never found me here.

I stood, looking over the darkened lawns. He was behind me, his hands on my upper arms, chin resting on my shoulder.

‘I don’t think they’re coming out to play tonight,’ he said.

We could see lights on, in the east wing only. People were there. It was an eerie kind of knowledge.

‘It’s a warm night,’ I said. ‘They might still.’

Joss reached around so his hands were clasped on my stomach. He began to kiss my earlobe and the tender skin beneath it, rubbing his face against mine. I shut my eyes and let the sensations couple with the loamy, woody smell of our surroundings. An owl hooted somewhere close by. Joss’s body felt warm and strong, enveloping mine. I wanted him, even though we had gone back to bed after our momentous conversation of earlier and worn each other to scraps.

Our breath was heavy, and some of our clothing lifted to allow access for wandering hands, when the sound of a voice calling not far distant put an end to our petting.

There were figures on the lawn, carrying lamps, which they set in a wide circle. Twelve people in all – quite a gathering. The interesting thing was that quite a few of them were naked, or nearly-naked. They weren’t close enough for features to be made out and, besides, the ones wearing clothes also wore full face masks with large eyeholes, which Joss seemed to find a relief. The naked ones wore blindfolds. Once the circle of light was made, one naked woman was brought into the centre of it by two clothed people and forced to her knees.

She put her hands on her head and knelt there, in a position familiar to me from my exercises, while the others walked around the circle.

It appeared to be some kind of game. The promenaders came to a halt at somebody’s command, and the person closest to a large stake set in the circumference of their route moved towards the kneeling woman.

I watched, half-appalled and half-intrigued, as the man lowered his leather trousers and fed his semi-hard prick into the kneeling woman’s mouth. She took it in and sucked it until it was rigid, at which point the man moved behind her, pulled her to her feet, ordered her to bend over and fucked her.

The others in the circle clapped in rhythm and shouted encouragement while the man, his hands on the woman’s shoulders, pounded her hard. She staggered forwards and fell on to her knees, but he didn’t get off her. Only when he had come did he disengage.

She reverted to her original position as if nothing had happened, and the prowling rotation started up again.

The next person to win this perverse game of musical chairs was a woman in thigh-high boots and a leather corset. She pushed her crotch into the submissive’s face and ground it there. The submissive licked and lapped while the mistress held her head so it couldn’t move back.

The mistress beckoned to another man, and they got the submissive on to all fours, to continue licking the woman while the man smacked her bottom with a belt, then spread her legs and caressed her.

I was, much as I would have hated to admit it, hot and bothered at the sight of the submissive’s predicament. She took it all meekly and obediently, continuing to service her master and mistress until the mistress was satisfied and the dominant pair retired again.

I knew Joss was moved by it all too, judging by the hard mound digging into my bottom. He began kissing my neck again, and moving his hands up inside my shirt. I was more than happy to let him.

Watching the submissive being used by each dominant in turn was the hottest show of my life. I imagined myself in her place, now bent over to be taken, now laid down, now standing straight for a hard spanking, now made to part her bottom cheeks for anal penetration. Joss got his hand down my jeans and he found me needy inside the tight denim, squashing his fingers between my legs and pressing my clit in rhythm with whatever was happening on the lawn at the time.

Everybody was obviously primed and ready for pleasure, for nobody among the dominants took longer than a couple of minutes to reach climax. But there were six of them, and that made for a gorgeous, long, slow, dirty massage from Joss.

‘That’ll be you one day,’ he whispered to me.

The last dom had taken their pleasure, and this was the signal for a free-for-all, everybody diving on the woman and fighting over her, so she was at the centre of a giant twelve-handed monster. I could hear her howl of orgasm so clearly, and I joined her, much more quietly, as Joss rubbed me to my own furtive spending.

By the time I had recovered, the group were in a tangled orgy on the lawn. I panted the fog of orgasm out and regained my sanity, together with an absolute certainty that I would never be able to put myself in the place of that submissive. Never, ever.

‘It won’t,’ I said, still hanging on to the thread of Joss’s words, although he seemed to have forgotten them.

‘Won’t what?’ He prodded the small of my back with the lump in his trousers.

‘Be me. That. I couldn’t do something like that.’

‘Good. I wouldn’t share you anyway.’

I twisted my neck to look at his face. He meant it.

‘But if that’s how they do things …’

‘Hush. She’s obviously very experienced. They wouldn’t ask anything like that of a new girl. By the time they’d expect it of you, all this will be over and the house back in my hands.’

My misgivings crowded into my head, via my stomach.

‘It’s such a huge risk,’ I said.

‘Everything’s a risk. You don’t scare easily, Lu, I know that. You can do this.’

I turned all the way round and let him pull me against his chest and hold me there.

‘What if I decided I couldn’t?’ I whispered. I needed to know this. ‘What if I said I didn’t want to go through with this stupid plan?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Would that be it for you and me? Over?’

‘God, no. It’d just be back to the caravan plan. I mean, it’d be hard for me, but as long as I had you … Are you having cold feet?’

‘I’m not sure.’

I had the answer I needed, at least. Any other decisions could be postponed.

‘Lucy, we can pull this off. We can get the house back. I promise it’ll work. In the meantime …’ He broke off and glanced down sheepishly at the ever-present bulge in his trousers.

I kissed his face and slid down to my knees.

* * *

Five minutes later, with a mouth that tasted of salty bitters, I buttoned his fly and stood back up. Before we’d finished kissing while the owls hooted around us, the company had gone back into the house.

‘Damn,’ I said. ‘I wanted to get a bit closer. See if I could make out any distinguishing features. Can’t we try and sneak a peek through a window?’

‘No,’ said Joss firmly. ‘Much too dangerous. If we were caught …’ He did a neck-slash gesture.

‘Can’t you just give me his name?’ I wheedled.

‘Absolutely not.’ He patted my bottom in warning as he said this. I could feel the welts from the riding crop, still spreading a dull ache through my deep tissues.

‘You don’t trust me,’ I said with a pout.

‘Now don’t sulk,’ he said, with another, stronger, pat. ‘I do trust you, but I know that journalistic streak of yours and I don’t want to put temptation in your path.’

‘So you don’t trust me?’

‘I don’t want you to have to struggle with your loyalty to me and your need to advance in your career. I’m thinking of you, Lu.’

‘You’re all heart.’

‘If I am, it’s because you make me so.’

I couldn’t sulk in the face of such words, sincerely spoken, so I merely accepted his hand and let him walk me back through the woods, towards the gap.

Back at the caravan, he undressed me and laid me on my stomach on the bed so he could rub salve into the welts made by his riding crop earlier. The application of the salve soon led to more intimate explorations and before much longer had passed, he was on me, inside me, taking me from behind, telling me how he had wanted me and dreamed of having me like this for all these years, how he still couldn’t believe it was real, before our animal natures took over and turned the words to grunts.

In his arms, in the still of night, we talked about the training process and what was to come.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to match up to those submissives I saw out there,’ I said. ‘I can’t just kneel there and take things. She was so quiet.’

‘She’s had years of practice. You’ve been doing this kind of thing, what, three weeks? Four?’

‘You’re saying you’d expect me to reach her level one day?’

‘I’m not saying anything of the kind. I don’t want you to be some kind of performance submissive, Lulu. I want you to be mine, that’s all.’

‘You aren’t deluding yourself into thinking you’ll ever be able to order me about outside the bedroom, are you?’

He laughed and kissed me, his hands woven into my hair.

‘I’d like to try it,’ he said. ‘But I doubt I’d get very far. You wouldn’t go in for Domestic Discipline then?’

‘Oh, I read about that.’ Stories of women accepting their male partner as their transcendent authority figure flooded into my recall. I’d found them hot, as reading material, but the reality was beyond my ken. ‘And no.’

‘You might change your mind,’ he said lightly, but I could hear a little lilt of disappointment in there somewhere.

‘I might. But don’t hold your breath, eh?’

‘Breath control!’ he exclaimed.

‘No. Just no.’

‘I hope one day you’ll learn to really trust me and let go of your fears,’ he said.

‘So do I.’

‘What do you think of anal sex?’

Rather a left-fielder. I was speechless for a moment, half-sitting up and staring down at him.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I thought we ought to make a start on it, that’s all. It’d be useful to know how much experience you have.’

‘None,’ I admitted, tightening my sphincter at the prospect. Like Domestic Discipline, it was one of those things I found tantalising in the abstract but couldn’t imagine actually doing. ‘What do you mean by making a start? Is it, like, compulsory?’

‘I have to say, yes, pretty much. The idea is that all of you is open to your master. Every orifice.’

His words made me shudder as much as they made me flood with dark and unnamed excitement.

‘A submissive who closes part of herself off is not a true submissive,’ he whispered, pulling me back down so his lips were at my ear. ‘He is going to want to know that I’ve taken your bottom.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘What are you afraid of?’

‘Surely it’ll hurt? I mean … it’s not really what nature intended, is it?’

‘If we stick to what nature intended, I’ll have you serially knocked up for as long as we’re together. Your implant will have to come out for a start.’

‘I know. Just … the discomfort. I can’t imagine how it could … work.’

‘Well, it’s a thing, sweetheart, and quite a popular one, and I’m sure you’re made the same way as every other girl I’ve done it with. Besides, I’m not going to climb on and get stuck straight in. By “making a start” I mean preparing you.’

‘How many girls have you done it with? And what do you mean by “preparing” me?’

‘I’ve done it with submissives I’ve played with at parties. And a couple of casual girlfriends, when they’ve been into it.’

‘You’re quite experienced, then.’

‘I’m experienced at the act. Never had the privilege of preparing anyone for it, though. I’ve been looking forward to it.’

‘Good. Well, I’m glad you’ve done it before, at least.’

He chuckled into my hair.

‘I’m glad you haven’t,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘I get to take your virginity all over again. No matter what happens, you were mine first, in every way, and no other man will ever be able to say it.’

‘You’re a possessive knob,’ I told him, but I was pleased by the idea he had evoked, of being his, of belonging to him. ‘But then, you always were.’

‘And ever will be.’ He spoke into my hair and kissed me, ears, face, neck, until we were slipping and sliding limbs together, grinding into each other.

Inevitably we joined again for a slow, deep, night-time coupling that felt as if we were the only people alive in a silent world. Wrung out and aching all over, my body rejoiced to bear the physical marks of his possession. I wanted to feel this way always, broken and bruised by his desire for me and mine for him. Whether I submitted to him or not, he could claim all of me.

The next morning, as I sat in the shower (in preference to standing, which was altogether too difficult given the weak state of my legs), I let my sense of trepidation slide down my body along with the soap suds, pooling somewhere at my base.

He was going to prepare me for anal sex.

I had agreed to it. I had told him that inviolate part of me could be his.

I enjoyed the enormity of this feeling, the sense of being on the brink of something truly momentous. Maybe it wasn’t life-changing – but then, maybe it was. Perhaps all the people who had done anal sex held on to a secret knowledge that we backdoor virgins could not be party to. It was like crossing a line into a realm of mystical experience, wreathed around with myths and exaggerations.

I think he liked the idea of doing this in a caravan. It lent it a vaguely sordid air that perhaps it might not have had if performed on the decades-old coverlets of his bed at the Hall. He had told me to get thoroughly clean, and I had taken the hint. I hoped I’d succeeded.