Puppet On A String (18 page)

      
“Why do you think that was?” Doctor Ramsey asked.

      
“Revenge maybe. I’m not sure. He was never one to reveal his deep dark thoughts, if he had any… But I know that his coldness hurt me. I had my own revenge. I made him pay by refusing to attend his debriefings. Of course, as soon as I did that, he threatened to take Greystoke away from me. He could easily send in another submissive to be what the man needed. We were at war.
Shelby was always giving in
,” she mocked herself. “
Shelby
’s submissive, we can count on her to do what she’s told…
” She sarcastically spit out words laced with regret and self-recrimination. “I wanted to end it so many times, but then I’d go back to my lover and submerge myself in the sessions, letting the feel of his hands substitute for real love. I imagined them loving me, not just efficiently binding my body. I imagined him fixated on me. It was easy to do that considering how much time he spent with me, the care he took in making everything perfect before he hoisted me into the air. I could feel every tremor in his body, how it would heat as the intricacies of his task consumed his attention. It was almost as if we had the same heartbeat. I consoled myself, letting these small things be enough to encourage my adoration for the man. I even closed off my ears to those telling conversations, the ones I was
supposed
to be listening in on, when he’d be making pacts with the devil. The information I could have given to Clive would have brought Greystoke down. I kept hearing that from Clive. But I cared too much about my sessions with the sadist to ever let that happen. I don’t think Clive believed me that there was no trail to follow. I told him that Greystoke was a tough nut to crack, and at least for a while he believed me.

      
“But then things started to change.”
Shelby
stopped talking, looking as if she were lost in her thoughts.

      
“What changed,
Shelby
?” the doctor asked.

      
“Greystoke started bringing other men into our sessions, and I hated that. Sometimes one, sometimes more, three or four men maybe, they watched him work, looking as mesmerized as I was. They were fascinated by the intricacies of the bondage. Most of the time they were quiet, this eerie silence falling over us all. I felt weird, very self-conscious. Some of the men would ask questions about his technique. He’d answer simply, like he was teaching a class in how to bind and brutalize females.

      
“But it didn’t stop there. They stayed to see him thrash my pussy raw. They’d hear my cries, standing just feet away from me, stoic and dispassionate. They had to feel the symbiotic relationship between Greystoke and me, but that didn’t stop them from taking my ass when it was offered to them. They used me with the same brutal force that Greystoke and Mr. Darcy used me. Like I was just an orifice for their pleasure and not human at all. Afterwards, I was left in bondage dripping with their juices, while the men went on to discuss other matters. That was when my feelings for Greystoke began to change.

      
“With my heart taking such a beating, my ears began to open for those tidbits of information; and when Clive asked me what I’d learned – he always asked – I started telling him what I heard. I have a photographic memory, so faces were easy to describe. Since the men never used their names in front of me that became important. Clive never reacted to the things I told him, so I didn’t know if any of my information was helpful to his intelligence operation. I just gave without a thought.”

      
“So you fell out of love?” Dr. Ramsey asked.

      
“Not completely. But my love was shaken and hurt and my giving Clive information was all about revenge. But I was very selective about it. When there were no other men around I’d ignore those overhead conversations as I had before. With him alone, the feelings of longing for my handsome lover returned and so would my fantasies. I think they were woven so deeply into the fabric of my psyche that I wasn’t sure what was real and what was fantasy. I had gone so far as to tell people that I had a boyfriend. I told Maureen that I was dating a married man. I knew how wrong that would sound to a straight-laced woman like Maureen, but I began to relish the taboo excitement behind doing something that outrageous.”
Shelby
laughed.

      
“Can you believe that…? For me dating a married man was the taboo, not my kinky desires. Like every woman was bound for sex and beaten and loved it. I felt wicked – loving the man and also doing my best to see his racket, whatever that was, was put out of business.”

      
“A new kind of thrill for you, perhaps?” the doctor wondered.

      
“I’m sure. For a long time, my innocence had spun a protective cocoon around my life. But with Greystoke it finally had begun to crack wide open when I could no longer stretch the fantasy enough to fit the reality. I began to feel like one of Clive’s operatives. I could imagine the sad story of Greystoke’s demise. How he would declare himself to me, but only after it was too late. I would walk away lonely because I’d lost him, but curiously satisfied that I’d done the right thing. Oh my! What a trip that was,” she said with a huge satisfied sigh.

      
Shelby
had been huddled in the corner of the couch, hugging her knees, as she often did while spinning her story for Sylvia Ramsey. But by the end of the hour on this particular day, she’d pulled out of that hunched knot and was sitting straight up. Unlike her previous session, there was a lightness about her, a burden lifted as she finished the day’s tale.

After she left the session,
Shelby
bought a new dress at Macy’s after trying on a couple dozen. She had no idea what the occasion was, but she wanted something that made her feel sensational, as if she might find a new self inside the pretty fabric and stylish design. One last look in the mirror and she was happy with her purchase, though when she got home she wasn’t so sure if she wouldn’t have been happier in the green smock dress, rather than the blue print.

Chapter Thirteen

Session Three…

At her next appointment, a question from Dr. Ramsey about her physical experience of torture caused
Shelby
to dive right into a monologue about the effects of the bondage. By then,
Shelby
had begun to realize the purpose in coming to the psychologist: in reliving the experiences she could make sense of them…and perhaps make peace with herself. Perhaps.

      
The doctor’s latest question was not difficult to answer. “I don’t think of the bondage as torture,” she stated. “It was difficult some times. But strange things happened to me after the bondage was over. The ropes were so tight that when I was finally released, there was this terrific euphoria. I usually hurt, aching muscles, tight skin, that sort of thing. There were often painful welts, too, from where Greystoke’s whips filleted my skin. But none of those things mattered to me. The elation after my release made the experience worth the agony. I found it a little bizarre, but there were even more odd experiences.

      
“The first times he bound me, I would struggle out of the ropes after he loosened a few knots. He was terse about it; he wanted me gone as quickly as possible. I sometimes thought he was worried that his wife might walk in. But I guess not. After my initial visits, however, things began to change. He began something new that felt gentle almost loving. Instead of having me quickly extricate myself from the ropes when the session was over, he loosened them himself. Refusing my help, he slowly drew the scratchy hemp along my flesh. Didn’t matter whether it was against my pussy lips, or my asshole, my breasts, my thighs, the same slow and methodical pulling on the ropes continued – almost like a meditation.

      
“Sometimes I’d be standing or sitting, more often though, I was lying down. If I really let myself go, I could orgasm when the vibrations of the sliding rope filled my body with a weird sort of tingling sensation. Greystoke liked watching how my face would change, or the way I’d groan, as if he were taking pleasure from my arousal. In fact, I think it made him horny. A couple times he actually stuffed his erection in my mouth when he finally had me untied and on the floor at his knees. This shocked me. It was another first… the first time sex between us was anything other than anal. He’d been so consistent about not using my mouth or
vagina, that
I’d begun to wonder if Mr. Darcy had some hard limit the man had to observe. I think he probably had a preference for the tighter orifice. Who knows?

      
“One of those times he used my mouth – this was during the final months – I was kneeling before him, naked, Greystoke’s hand was in my hair, clutching it so tightly that it could hardly be called affectionate. He had his cock, which was fairly large when erect, stuffed in my mouth. He was banging away, not caring how much I was gagging as it slid deep down my throat. I couldn’t balk. But because he’d come in my ass not more than an hour before, it took him quite a while to get off. The first time it happened, I thought it might signal a significant change in his feelings for me. I was wrong there. The oral sex was just another means of playing out his fantasies for control. Except that this particular time there was something else new about the incident. I didn’t know about it until he was finished. When he finally pulled out, while I was staring up at him adoringly with his cum covering my mouth, he suddenly looked toward the door to his private playroom.

      
“I turned too, on instinct, I suppose. There was a woman there. Mrs. Greystoke, he told me. I’d never seen her before. The sight of her practically bowled me over. She was beautiful, and everything I was not: self-confident, a little brassy, but perfectly put together, her clothes the designer variety. She was wearing a pale green suit. I remember the skirt hugging her hips like skin and the coat cut deep into her cleavage. Light from a skylight above her streamed down on her breasts. It was almost blinding. And her makeup and hair looked as if she’d just come from a ritzy salon. Her nails were long and painted the prettiest shade of pink. She might have been a little brassy, but only because she reeked with confidence. I don’t think I’d ever seen a more beautiful woman.

      
“Jealousy ripped me apart. I suppose until then, the woman was just a figment. I knew there was a Mrs. Greystoke, but she wasn’t real to me. Suddenly everything with Greystoke shifted again, like it had when he introduced his friends into our session. I felt like I’d been caught red-handed with the man. I’d been through months of long sessions with him, doing all the reprehensible things he demanded of me in the name of pleasure, and I didn’t feel an ounce of shame. Suddenly I felt like an unrepentant slut. There… naked…on my knees… giving head to her husband like a street whore.

      
“My face was on fire with embarrassment. But she was so calm about it. I guess that what her husband did in his spare time to let off steam was no surprise to her. She stood there, leaning sexily against the door post, a wry smile on her blush pink lips. It was hardly even the smirk you would have expected…

      
“’So this is the latest, Grey?’ she said, staring at me looking almost amused. ‘She’s actually pretty.’

      
“She moved into the room, those hot hips of her swaying, and stood right above where I was kneeling. Greystoke was done with me, his cock stuffed back inside his pants, and it was suddenly her hands in my hair, clutching it a little too vigorously to be incidental contact.”

 
     
“‘Maybe you’d like to see me use her, Jen?’ Greystoke said.

      
“‘Yes, I might actually like that,” she answered back. ‘And if you gave her to me, I might like that too.’

      
“‘You needn’t worry, she will be back soon,’ he said.

      
“The two were eyeing each other strangely. I couldn’t quite figure out what to make of them. Affection or something a little sinister between them…” I’d never felt so diminished, so degraded.”
Shelby
left off looking at Dr. Ramsey wonderingly.

      
“And how did you leave that session,
Shelby
?” Dr. Ramsey asked.

      
“I-I was so shaken that I practically ran to my car. I drove right to Mr. Darcy’s office and shook my clothes off in seconds. Mr. Darcy could see how upset I was. Suddenly, he was using me, no inspection, or questions. None of that. When he was finished, I told him that I’d met Mrs. Greystoke for the first time…

      
“‘Ah, Jenna,’ he said – like he was really fond of her. Nothing about this went down easy. I felt like a fool, that my entire world was playing games with me and I was just their pawn. There I was, clueless about what was going down and far too unsophisticated to ever understand.”

***

Shelby left the session and walked the streets again, working off her nervous energy while trying to understand how she felt about what was going on in her sessions with Dr. Ramsey. With no answers immediately on the horizon, she finally took a bus to the coffeehouse – her car had broken down. She donned her apron and began waiting on customers. But when she hardly cracked a smile after twenty minutes, the vigilant Maureen pulled her aside.
  

      
“I don’t know what’s going on for you, but you need to go home until you snap out of it.”

      
She didn’t argue with the woman.

      
Back home, she turned on the TV and found a series of Bette Davis movies featured on
TNT
. For the next six hours she submerged herself in the engaging dramas on the screen. These were far easier to deal with than her own drama, past or present.