The Collectors (7 page)

“I know what I’m doing,” she said.

“Of course.”

“There is the matter of you disobeying me, which won’t go unpunished. When the time suits me.”

We sat next to each other. I was still stark naked, while Jeanne was fully clothed. She started to take her belt off and I thought she’d changed her mind about when that punishment would occur.

“This is new to you despite all of your reading, and I don’t want to overwhelm you. But one thing you will learn to do every time we spend this kind of time together is to pleasure me. I insist on it.” She smiled.

I felt another rush of excitement hit my mid-section as I watched her take her pants off. Her long legs were smooth with shapely thighs. She lifted her butt again and took off her panties, black, boy-style, revealing her own neatly shaved triangle.

“Lay down. I’m going to straddle you. Tonight, I’ll do most of the work, but don’t expect such generosity in the future.”

I would consider any opportunity to pleasure Jeanne to be a gift, no matter what position she and I were in. I lay full length on the sofa and she got right on top of my face, lowering herself quickly and finding my tongue. I knew what I was doing here, but she wasn’t interested in any of my tongue gymnastics. I could feel how excited she was. Her drenching wetness. Her trembling thighs, straining to hold herself together. She used my tongue to trace herself against me and told me to keep it still when I moved it to meet her. Then she pressed down hard and moved deeply, and the only thing I heard from her were a few involuntary grunts and then a much longer groan as she tightened up over me and let herself be taken. It was glorious. I drank from her. She moved back and collapsed on top of me, shirtfront to breast, both of us breathing deeply. I wrapped my arms around her back and we lay perfectly still for a long time.

Was this me? God, I hoped so.

*

I served my apprenticeship over the next week. Every evening, I would arrive at eight and be greeted by Mrs. Kirchberger, who would escort me to the lower level. I never saw Adele. I’d do my best imitation of the ablutions shown me by Veronica. Then Mrs. K. would take me upstairs and leave me with Jeanne in the study. At midnight, I would leave Jeanne, at her command, and find a car waiting outside to take me home. In the four hours in between, I was tested in matters of agility, flexibility, endurance, and pain tolerance. There were no grades, no right or wrong. Jeanne and I were finding out what I was capable of, and it turned out to be quite a lot.

On the first evening of this apprenticeship, we sat in the study and ate pizza and watched a couple episodes of a TV show she liked. She wore jeans and a faded blue button-down shirt. I thought she looked incredibly hot. When the show was over and she clicked off the TV, she had me stand in front of her and take my dress off. I kept my bra and underwear on. Then she pulled some handcuffs from her back jeans pocket and cuffed my wrists in front of me. She pulled me down and across her lap, butt raised, arms stretched out in front of me, panties lowered, and gave me a very long and loud spanking. The sound of her hand smacking my ass was like a thunderclap, but more surprising to me was how incredibly much it hurt. At first I didn’t think I’d be able to stand it. After each smack she’d rub her hand over the warm flesh, sometimes snaking her fingers between my legs. I realized with some shame how wet I was. The more she hit me, the wetter I got. When she rubbed my ass for so long I thought the spanking was done, I actually felt sad. Let down. It was too early to stop, I thought. I hadn’t come yet. Or if not come, I hadn’t hit some mark yet that would tell me I’d had enough. I didn’t know yet what that mark was.

Nor did I know yet that from then on, Jeanne wouldn’t end a session until she knew I had enough. She rose from the sofa with me still on her lap, sending me tumbling onto the floor.

“Get on your knees,” she said.

When I did, she reached into another pocket and brought out a slender collar. She quickly put it on me and then pulled me to my feet, leading me into the play room. From the array of crosses, benches, chains, frames, and stocks, I couldn’t guess which area she’d lead me to, but I should have guessed it was Ass night. She brought me to a small bench and had me lean over it, my knees on a shelf and my torso bent forward and pointed down.  I was an inverted V. I felt ankle restraints go on, as well as straps around my thighs. The handcuffs were removed and replaced with wrist cuffs securing me at the other end. I couldn’t move my body. I could raise my head, which I did when Jeanne stood in front of me with several whips and canes in her hands.

“As you may have guessed, I’ve taken a lot of care in putting this room together, including having it thoroughly soundproofed. You see, I didn’t want to have to curtail my own actions out of worry about how loud my slave is screaming.”

She sounded much harsher than she had the night before. Probably this was part of her overall strategy of seduction and dominance, and of course it was working on me. The idea that I wouldn’t be able to change her mind about punishing me or influence the severity of the punishment was what kept pulling me in. Do with me what you will, I thought. And she did.

She used a leather flogger with knots at the end of each strand. She used a leather clad cane and then a bamboo cane. At the end, and for just a stroke or two, she used a single tail whip. And I did scream. It was hard to know while it was going on whether I was turned on or not. I was so present, so exactly in that moment of anticipating and then feeling the pain, I couldn’t consciously process anything else. When it was over, when I was panting and I could hear Jeanne breathing heavily, when my ass was so hot I’m sure you could have fried eggs on it, when those few seconds ticked by since the last lash, then I could feel how turned on I was. I pushed myself against the bench, seeing if I could get anything in the general vicinity to touch me and bring me some relief.

She wasn’t quite done with me. I felt her hands on my ass, lightly smoothing over the welts and bruises before positioning herself and entering my cunt with a generously sized dildo. She went full in and I was ready, surprised but welcoming. She fucked me slowly and for a long time, and I came at least twice. I wasn’t quiet about it. I didn’t think I could come by being fucked. I never did with a man. I never did when being fucked this way by the one girlfriend I had who would do it.

Did Jeanne come? If she did, it still wasn’t enough for her. She undid my restraints and told me to go kneel by the sofa. She allowed me to drink some water from the carafe on the coffee table and then disappeared for a few minutes. When she returned she was wearing a long silk robe. She sat on the sofa in front of me and parted the robe, pushing her pelvis forward on the seat.

“You know what to do,” she said.

I eagerly bent forward, my mouth finding her and the smell of the silicone toy she’d worn. When my tongue touched her, she jerked forward, grabbing me by the back of my head and holding me close to her. It didn’t take long to bring her to orgasm, but it was a wild ride. I was bucked around like a rodeo cowboy, and I wondered if my eight and a half seconds on her was a record or not.

“The car will be outside for you,” she said. “Be back here tomorrow night.”

And that’s how it was the whole week. She introduced me to nearly every piece of bondage furniture in her room, each instrument of torture she had locked in the armoire. I have no idea how I performed relative to other newcomers, but she seemed quite pleased. Of course, she would never say she was pleased, but I could tell I was making her happy. She slowed down some and seemed to savor moments, and a few times I saw affection in her eyes. I had scant clues to go by as to her feelings, but that look and the fact that she kept telling me to come back—those had to mean something.

On the last night of the week, as I was attached to the big X they called a St. Andrew’s Cross, Jeanne spent a long time flogging me. My breasts were bright red and my thighs had marks crisscrossing them. I showed no sign of having had enough, for I hadn’t. I hoped she’d turn me around and do my back.

“You’re a true masochist,” Jeanne said.

“What?” I was gagged, so it sounded more like “Whaoaora?”

“You can take a lot of pain. It gets you off.”

I didn’t think that sounded very becoming, though it was unquestionably true. The pain did get me off, and each day I was discovering new levels of tolerance. But I didn’t really want to be identified as a masochist. They didn’t get much respect.

“Why did you pick someone like Balthus to write your dissertation on?” she asked.

“Whaoaora?”

Jeanne reached up and undid my gag. I had to work my jaw a bit before I could speak.

“What does Balthus have to do with anything right now?”

“I find him an interesting choice.”

“Why? He was a great painter. Plus, not much has been written about him. He’s an ideal choice.”

I hoped I didn’t feel so defensive when I actually had to defend my dissertation before my committee. Chances were I wouldn’t be hanging naked on a cross while they questioned me. I had a hard time with discourse when my skin was on fire and my pussy throbbing.

Jeanne continued. “He was a wonderful painter, I agree. But what do you make of Balthus very pointedly denying having any Jewish blood? Do you approve of people denying who they are?”

She stood before me with her flogger held behind her back, in a sort of at-ease position. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“It makes me wonder if you gravitated toward him because you too have spent a lot of time denying who you really are.”

“I have not.” I was indignant.

“I believe you have. How old are you, Laura?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“And when did you start having fantasies of a woman dominating you?”

“Uhm. Seventeen?”

“You see what I mean, then. It took ten years before you were willing to act on what makes you happy, to operate from who you really are.”

Jeanne poured herself some wine and came back over. She ran her hand lazily over my body, stopping to feel the weight of my breast in her hand. I decided to hold my tongue and not argue. I could easily dismantle her point about Balthus and his Jewish heritage. He was not an anti-Semite. And I didn’t believe I’d said anything indicating I was ashamed of who I am. Jeanne was up to something I didn’t know the purpose of, which was her prerogative as a dominant. I just hoped she didn’t talk too long.

“Then there’s Balthus’s subject matter, which has always been controversial. What do you make of
The Guitar Lesson
? Can you deny he depicted a girl in a sexual pose with a grown woman?”

Oh, dear. I felt as Balthus must have. Pilloried for something he never intended.

“Balthus maintained until his dying day that he simply showed the sometimes confused sexualities of adolescents,” I said.

“And you believe this?”

“Perhaps you should read my dissertation.”

The air seemed chilly now. Jeanne continued to sip her wine, staring at me as if I were a new installation at Madame Tussauds. After several minutes of silence, I couldn’t stand the discomfort. Hanging by my wrists on the X-cross was fine. It was the psychological discomfort of the silence I couldn’t stand.

“I’m sorry you don’t approve of the subject for my dissertation. If you were to read it, I’d welcome your comments.”

Jeanne smiled now, putting down her glass. She began to disengage me from the cross.

“It’s just the opposite. I applaud your choice. I think it’s distinguished and brave, and I’m sure you’ll be published.”

She took me over to the sofa to sit and drink some water while she rummaged in the armoire. I was convinced there was some magical space behind the armoire large enough to hold every sex toy ever created. When she came back she instructed me to turn and face the rear of the sofa, kneel on the seat cushion, and brace myself with my arms on the back. She put a blindfold on me. She put the gag back in my mouth. Before she put plugs in my ears she said, “I’m shutting down some of your senses so you will feel this completely. I’m not tying you into place, but you will stay exactly where you are, in exactly this pose, until I tell you to move.”

Then she put the plugs in my ears. I couldn’t see, hear, or speak. But I could feel. The cold surprise of lube being pushed into my ass by a dildo—I felt that. It was not as large as the dildos she’d used in my pussy. I would have been trying to scream bloody murder if it were. As it was, I moaned the whole time she pushed it in. It was slow, and it hurt, but I also wanted to cry with joy. I completely trusted her. I felt bonded to her. The higher up my ass she went, the closer to her I felt. Perhaps that’s not the most romantically worded sentiment, but the entire week of beatings and suspensions and orgasms all culminated in this one act—me, unchained, held in place by nothing more than my desire to give myself to her. It was hard to think of this as just sex. There was something else entirely going on.

When the dildo was all the way in she locked it in place with a belt of some sort and walked away. I didn’t hear her leave, but I could tell she was no longer there. I had no idea how long she’d be gone. I thought about Balthus.

After a solid week of sweet punishment, I can’t say I wasn’t glad to spend a night or two at home. I was falling behind on the schedule I’d set to complete my dissertation. And I was late getting papers back to students in the introductory art history class I was teaching. It was time to give real life a little attention, but I missed Jeanne the moment I left her house.