The Plume: The First Anthology (14 page)

“Hello, Joanna,” he said.

She swallowed. “Hello, Master.”

“Are you sure of your choice?”

“Yes, Master.” Joanna began to walk toward him with measured steps, wanting to prolong this moment for as long as she could. She had never actually seen the Master, although she had felt him and kissed him and had his heat inside of her.

With every step, she could see more detail in the shadows. He was as tall as she’d imagined, his shoulders every bit as broad. He wore dark jeans, the denim straining against the muscles of his thighs, and dark boots. He wore a black leather jacket, zipped up over a black T-shirt, and black leather gloves.

And he wore a black leather hood.

It covered his head and the upper part of his face, his eyes gleaming through holes. He looked like an executioner or a disciplinarian, except that she could see his mouth and he was smiling slightly.

And he was black.

She’d never imagined that he was anything but Caucasian, although the sight of him, like a shadow who knew so many of her secrets, excited her even more.

She paused before him, her breath hitching slightly as she tried to control her pulse.

His eyes were green. Their gazes locked and held for a moment, her surprise making her lips part. That green was so striking. She’d known a kid in high school who’d been black with green eyes, but she couldn’t remember his name.

Just that she’d always thought his eyes were beautiful.

“Do you surrender?” the Master asked, that low rumble of his voice making her sex hotter and thicker than it was already. Wetter. She was going to drip.

She nodded. “I surrender. I surrender to you, Master, and to the Dungeon.”

He glanced down and she realized there was a tote bag at his feet. “You must enter the Dungeon naked and bound. These are the rules.”

Joanna quivered at his words. Of course.

She untied the belt of her raincoat, shrugging out of it and feeling the chill of the air against her skin. She shivered slightly, wishing she’d been wearing something more attractive for a strip tease. She’d been to the salon again the night before, to have all of her hair removed like the last time. She saw the Master’s eyes gleam as he reached to cup her breast. The leather was smooth and cool against her skin, his hand strong within the glove. He stroked her, running his thumb across her tight nipple and she arched her back in pleasure.

He smiled.

Then he pointed at the bag. She tugged off her boots, the concrete cold against her feet. At his gesture, she put them in the bag first, then shoved her raincoat on top. The bag had a zipper so she closed it, then straightened before the Master again.

Naked.

Now he would bind her.

The Master walked once around her, his tread solid and slow, as if he might change his mind about taking her captive. Joanna tingled, sure she could feel his gaze touch her body. She closed her eyes, savoring the impossible tension of the moment.

When she opened her eyes, the Master was offering something white in his hand. When Joanna took it, it tumbled loose into a silky streamer. It was long and stretchy, wider in the middle, with clips at either end. She looked at him in uncertainty.

“Captives must be gagged for transit,” he said, as calmly as if they were discussing the weather. “It’s like a hood.” He took it out of her hand, fitted the middle part over the back of her head like a hood. The ends were covered her ears. He took the right one across her mouth and Joanna realized there was a thick pad affixed to it.

She opened her mouth, guessing the intent and he pushed it between her teeth. “Bite down,” he instructed, then passed the other end over her mouth from the other side. It was wider, cut to cover her chin from the base of her nose to the top of her throat.

To hold the pad in place.

The ends slid through guiding loops on either side of her head and met above her nape. The clip made a click as the two ends came together and he tightened the bonds, ensuring that they were secure. He checked that it was tight but not too tight, sliding his fingers beneath the binding, just as he had once before.

“Scream,” he instructed.

Joanna made a cry, but no sound came out. She tried to shout and then to scream, but could only make a muffled sound of futility.

The Master smiled. He cupped her head and kissed her temple. “The sweet sound of helplessness,” he murmured, then released her. She could feel the heat of his body through jeans and T-shirt and wanted to rub herself against him. But he lifted her hands in his and guided her fingertips over the loops, teaching her the path of the ends.

Then he unclipped it and shook it in front of her.

She looked up in surprise and his eyes gleamed. “There is nothing more enticing than a slave who binds herself captive,” he said. “It’s the ultimate act of surrender.”

Joanna wanted to be the ultimate slave to him. She took the hood, her fingers brushing against the smooth leather of his gloves as she did so. She held his gaze, watching his eyes shine as she bound herself for him.

She put the hood over her head, savoring the silky stretchiness of it over her ears and her cheeks. She put the pad in her mouth, biting down on it with vigor, and pulled that strap across her face. She folded the other one over it, worked the ends through the loops and fastened the clip at the back.

She tightened it a little bit more than he had and he inhaled in surprise. He cupped her head in his hands then, running his thumbs across her silenced mouth. His fingers were splayed, his hands large enough that he held her head captive. Joanna made the loudest cry she could, which was barely a whisper, and he smiled down at her with satisfaction.

When he stepped back, she saw that his erection was straining at the front of his jeans. She remembered the size and the thickness of him, the way he had deliberately dragged himself against her clitoris to drive her crazy, and her knees went weak. She recalled the taste of him in her mouth, the smooth heat of him, the way he’d made her lie about liking to suck men off come true. She wondered whether he would take her right here and now, and the idea made her pulse race.

He reached inside his coat and shook out another white silky length of fabric. It fluttered as if it was made of the same silky knit. He pooled it around her ankles on the floor and fitted the ends of the zipper together. She realized that it was a tube, with a zipper on its long edge. There was a facing behind the zipper so the metal teeth wouldn't touch her skin.

He shifted so that his shoulder was behind her, one hand on the pool of fabric, the other on her thigh. He zipped the stretchy tube up to her knees, trapping her shins together.

“Sit on my shoulder,” he said. When she did so, he pulled a length of shiny black rope from his pocket. It was as thick as Joanna’s thumb. “Bind your own feet together.”

Joanna looked at him in surprise.

“No cheating,” he said with a smile.

The most enticing slave is the one who binds herself captive.

Joanna took the rope with trembling fingers. At his instruction, she put it under her arches so that it met over her feet. He told her to knot it there, then behind her ankles. It was a bit slippery and hard to knot, but the Master was patient. She was instructed to repeat the figure eight of knots and rope until there was no rope left.

There were six rounds of rope by the time she was done. Joanna looked at her feet, so thoroughly trussed together, and by her own hand. She trembled at what she was doing, even as she admitted how exciting it was.

She liked being complicit in her capture, as well.

The Master took her hand and they stood up together. He zipped the stretchy sheath up over her legs, smoothing it with the palms of his hands. It was like a girdle, holding her legs together with merciless inflexibility. She realized the tube had been made in a shape, wider for the hips and breasts, narrower at the waist and ankles. She could barely part her knees when it was at her waist.

He held it just below her breasts, then gave her another longer segment of rope. “Around your waist,” he said. “So nothing slips.” He grinned then, his teeth flashing white. “But mostly because it looks so good.”

Just as he had bound her in ribbon before.

But this time, she was to do it herself.

Joanna swallowed and took the rope, pulling it around her waist so that the ends were of even length. Echoing what he had done with ribbon, she knotted it at the front, then passed the ends to the back and knotted it there. The rope went around and around her body, surrounding her and encasing her.

The circles of rope rose from her waist to the undersides of her breasts when the rope was used up. The Master ran his hands over the result and she saw his satisfaction. He cupped her breasts in his hands and smiled down at her, the hood making him look like a rogue and a thief.

She was half bound and gagged, and she’d done it to herself.

For him.

“Blink three times to beg me to finish,” he murmured and Joanna’s heart leapt.

He trapped her head between his hands, his fingers spreading to cradle her skull, his palms over her ears. He was taller than her and so muscled that Joanna knew he could do whatever he wanted to her if he so chose. But his thumbs moved in a relentless caress, that mix of tender and tough completely seducing her. She felt again that sweet surge of realization, that acknowledgement that she could do nothing but enjoy, and her resistance dissolved to nothing.

For better or worse, she was his.

Joanna blinked three times.

The Master smiled. He lifted her hands over her head, holding her wrists together, then zipped the cocoon over her breasts, her shoulders, her face, her elbows. She couldn’t see anything, as if she was floating in a cloud, sealed in a sack of silk. Another length of that same rope wound around her wrists and hands, ten times, twelve times, knotting and wrapping.

Confining.

She shuddered once when he was done, wriggling instinctively. She heard him chuckle.

“Touch your toes.”

She bent over as commanded and felt him fasten the ends of the two ropes together. He must have used some kind of clip, because it was done quickly.

She was tied in a vee, her hands on her feet. He scooped her up and flipped her over, cradling her in his lap. He was crouched down and she could feel his strength behind her and beneath her. Her legs were against his shoulder, her butt between his strong thighs, her feet in the air. He slid his hand down the back of her legs with possessive strength, squeezing her thighs as he cradled her against him. She heard his breath catch and was awed that he was as aroused as she was.

Joanna was his possession.

The Master slid his hand down the back of her legs again, then his thumb pushed the silky cloth between her thighs. She gasped into the gag when he stroked the heat of her sex and bucked her hips slightly in invitation. She felt the seam in his leather glove and would have moaned if she could have. The way he moved his hand so determinedly against her throbbing clitoris proved that he was well aware of what he was doing to her. He caressed her until she squirmed, but Joanna guessed that she wasn’t permitted to come. She moaned into the gag and heard him chuckle.

“I could take you like this,” he murmured. “I could keep you helpless and silent in this warehouse, and use you however I wanted.”

Joanna tried to moan her approval of that idea.

“You’re wet,” he whispered. “You want it.”

Joanna bucked her hips.

“Naughty slave.” He gave her a slap across the buttocks, but it didn’t sting. Joanna writhed as he lifted his hand away, but felt him stand up. “I’ll save your discipline for the Dungeon.”

He was walking, Joanna in his arms. Where were they going? Back to the loading dock? To a cage in this warehouse? When she smelled the cool air of the loading dock, she realized he must have scooped up the tote bag, that this wasn’t the Dungeon, that she didn’t know her destination at all.

She would be the Master’s toy for the next two weeks, wherever he chose to take her.

Joanna thought that just the idea would make her come. The Master opened the door of a vehicle, probably the van. He set her down on the floor inside, which was padded. She felt her ankles and wrist bonds being untied from each other, then he stretched her out across the width of the van. She heard the click of a clasp securing her ankle bonds to a hook or handle, the heat of him over her as he secured her wrists similarly.

She wriggled and moaned, proving her helplessness. He ran his hand over her, the weight of his palm sliding down the length of her and lingering on her breasts.

“Perfect,” he whispered.

That was when Joanna heard a rustle beside her. What she had thought was a cushion suddenly squirmed with more animation than any cushion showed, and emitted a noise exactly like the one she could make.

Joanna’s eyes went round inside her sack. There was another bound slave beside her.

A second willing captive.

She listened then, feeling the heat of a body on her other side, the breathing of several others. The van was filled with a row of trussed-up sex slaves, all of whom had chosen to go to the Dungeon.

Had they all surrendered to the Master?

Was she part of a pack?

“Sleep now,” the Master advised darkly, his words floating over his captive cargo. “While you can.”

He shut the door with a resolute clang, sealing them all in comparative darkness. Joanna could hear the others breathing in greater agitation, could smell their arousal. The bound slave beside her rolled toward her, pushing his erection against her hip.

The van’s engine started and it backed up. Was the Master driving? Had he left them in the care of someone else? Where exactly where they going?

Joanna knew she’d never look at unmarked vans the same way again.

She also knew she had no choice. The sense of powerlessness became more powerful and pervasive each time she experienced it. It felt wonderful as it flooded through her, heightening sensation.

Joanna moaned and strained and struggled along with all the others, knowing that she wasn’t the only one who was simultaneously thrilled and filled with trepidation. The slave beside her ground his cock against her butt, miming the sex act in a way that titillated Joanna too.