The Story of Owen: One Man's Submissive Journey (15 page)

“Yes, Mistress,” he breathed.

Sylvie lowered her mouth over the warm, silky skin of his wet cock, while gently cupping the heavy balls beneath. Owen groaned as she took him in deep, using her throat muscles to mimic the feeling of a cunt wrapped tight around him. She slid back, using her tongue to tickle and tease him, and her lips to create friction against his rigid shaft.

It wasn’t long before Owen was trembling and groaning. “Oh, god. Oh, yes, oh, please, Mistress. Please, may I come?”

Sylvie pulled away just long enough to reply that he could. Then she took him deep again, feeling the pulse of his climax and the tightening in his balls as he released his seed far back in her throat.

Letting his still-hard cock fall from her lips, Sylvie leaned back on her haunches a moment, looking up at her sexy boy, pleased he’d remembered to ask permission. He reached down for her and she let him pull her up and into his arms. They stood in an embrace for several long moments, letting the hot water sluice over them as the steam billowed around them.

After their shower Sylvie wrapped herself in her favorite thick terrycloth robe. She brushed her wet hair back and left Owen to dress while she went to the kitchen to make some breakfast. She pulled some croissants from the freezer and warmed them in the oven while she made coffee.

It wasn’t long before Owen appeared in the doorway. “That smells wonderful.”

“Help yourself to coffee.” Sylvie smiled at Owen, who moved toward the counter and poured himself a cup, adding some cream and a teaspoon of sugar.

“Can I get yours too?” he asked.

“Yes, just a little cream, no sugar,” she said, thinking suddenly about beginnings, when everything is so new and yet to discover—even the little things, like how your lover takes his coffee.

She set the croissants on the table, along with some butter and a pot of apricot preserves. Owen took a croissant and pulled it open, releasing a buttery cloud of steam. He took a big bite and closed his eyes in appreciation. “Delicious,” he exclaimed.

Sylvie smiled and sipped her coffee, feeling an ease she hadn't felt in years. She glanced at the clock. It was after ten already and she had an appointment in the dungeon at noon. She thought briefly of canceling, thinking how lovely it would be to spend a lazy day in the arms of her new lover, but Owen, following her gaze toward the clock, said, “I didn’t realize it was so late. I’m supposed to be across town in less than an hour to meet some contractors on a new office building I’m working on.” He paused a moment before adding, “But I could always cancel.”

“No, that’s okay. I have some appointments too.” Sylvie reached for Owen’s hand, which rested lightly on the table. “I should be free by the evening, though.”

Owen nodded. “Evening would be great!” He grinned, the pure happiness radiating from him warming Sylvie and making her smile back. Owen ate a second croissant before pushing away from the table. Sylvie pushed back too, rising as he did.

It felt so natural to step into his arms. He held her a long moment before leaning down to kiss her lightly on the lips. “I can’t tell you, Sylvie, what last night meant to me. I hope it’s the first of many.”

“Yes,” she whispered, “Me too.”

She walked him down the stairs to the front door. He kissed her again and she took his face in her hands, kissing each of his cheeks before letting him go.

She was upstairs dressing when she heard the front door buzzer on the intercom.  Had Owen forgotten something? His wallet, perhaps? She glanced toward the heap of sheets on the floor as she moved toward the intercom and depressed the button.

“Owen?”

“Sylvie, darling,” a voice she hadn't heard in three years said in French. “It’s me. Your Jacques.”

Chapter 11

Sylvie stood frozen by shock. The sound of Jacques’ voice gripped painfully at her heart, as if he’d put his hand inside and squeezed. How she had longed to hear that voice all these years, imagining endless scenarios, each of which involved him returning to her in tears, admitting the terrible mistake he’d made, and begging her to take him back.

She’d had a recording on her home answering machine of a message he’d left just a few days before he’d disappeared.
I’m stopping by the liquor store to pick up some wine. Is there anything you need? Call me. Love you, bye.

Such a mundane message, nothing that might have predicted that in a matter of days he would simply vanish, leaving only a short, heartless note and some blood money that was supposed to compensate for ripping her heart in two.

Yet in the days and weeks after he left she’d listened to the voice message over and over, tears running down her cheeks. She would stare at the photo they’d kept beside the bed from a trip to the Bahamas, Jacques smiling wide for the camera, Sylvie looking at him. Sipping wine and feeling sorry for herself, she would stare into those blue eyes and stroke the picture, almost feeling his scruffy, three-day beard that had lent him a sexy air.

She’d been furious with herself when she’d accidentally erased the message, even though she knew she was being obsessive and ridiculous. Chloé had been the one, as usual, to knock some sense into her, reminding her of what she knew in her heart—she was lucky to be free of a man who could so easily walk away. He wasn’t worth her time; he didn’t deserve her. “You are young, Sylvie. Don’t let the ghost of a man not worthy of you haunt you for another second,” Chloé had advised.

Finally, about six months after he’d gone, when Sylvie was forced to admit he was really never coming back, she had torn all of the photos she had of him into tiny pieces and tossed them down the garbage chute. That was the moment she truly began to move on with her life.

But now, hearing his voice, her heart kicked into high gear, and she found she could hardly catch her breath. Closing her eyes, she took in a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. She could handle this. He was nothing to her now. Less than nothing.

“What a surprise,” she said coolly. “I didn’t know you were in New York.”

“I only just arrived late last night. I couldn’t wait to see you! My queen, how I have longed for you. I have thought of you a thousand times over these years we’ve been apart. I was such a fool. I will make it right again, I promise.”

My queen.
Once upon a time she had loved that appellation, though now it sounded faintly ridiculous. He had never called her Mistress, but rather his queen, to whom he had promised eternal fealty, devotion and undying love.

That is, until something better had come along.

She considered telling him to go to hell, but realized, though she no longer wanted this man in her life, she was curious to see what he looked like, if nothing else. Still keeping her voice deliberately cool, she said, “I’ll be down in a moment.”

She made herself go slowly down the two sets of stairs to the front door. She’d waited three years to see him—he could wait on her stoop a few minutes. Yet as she made her way down, she couldn’t stop the wild feelings whirling through her. What would it be like to feel his lips on hers again? To have him kneel naked at her feet, ready to serve her as he had once done?

She pulled open the door, her heart beating high in her throat, despite her best efforts to be calm. There stood the man she had thought she would spend her life with. The beard was shaved smooth and his hair was cut shorter than when she’d last seen him, but otherwise he looked the same, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners as he grinned at her. He was holding a huge bouquet of spring flowers and an oblong robin’s- egg-blue box wrapped in a white ribbon, which she recognized as coming from Tiffany’s.

Seeing that cocksure grin snapped Sylvie back to reality. The last vestiges of the old longing drained from her, like water swirling down a drain. As she stared at Jacques she felt none of the joy, or even any anger. Instead she felt…nothing.

“
Ooo, la, la
,” Jacques breathed as he swept her with his eyes. “You are even lovelier than I remembered, my queen. It’s been so long, darling. Too long. I made a terrible mistake.” He dropped theatrically to one knee. “Can you ever forgive me for being so stupid?” He thrust the flowers and jewelry box toward her.

“No.” Sylvie shut the door.

~*~

“Owen McCarthy.” Owen tucked the phone under his chin so he could finish the last bit of work on the blueprints he’d just spent the morning reviewing with the contractors.

“Owen, hey, man, it’s me.”

“Jerry?”

“Yeah. It’s Saturday afternoon but you have on your work voice. Don’t tell me you’re at the office. Not after last night!”

“What?” How the hell did Jerry know about last night?

“I heard all about it, man. Or rather, Mistress Alana did. A friend of hers was at
Chains
. The buzz is out that the reclusive Mistress Sylvie has reemerged on the scene, and she’s got a hot new boy toy in tow. Word has it they did a public scene at the club, a flogging that got quite a few engines revving. How the fuck did you manage that?”

Owen chuckled. “Guilty as charged. Though I’m not sure about being called a boy toy, hot or not.”

“Oh, come on, admit it. You love it.”

Owen grinned, shaking his head. “It was a pretty intense scene and Sylvie—“ He caught himself, for some reason not quite ready to tell Jerry more. “Mistress Sylvie,” he amended, “was absolutely incredible. If you’d asked me a few months ago if I would agree to being publically flogged at a BDSM club, I’d have said you were out of your mind. But yeah, it really did happen.”

Jerry chuckled. “Why am I not surprised? You never did do anything half-way, did you?”

Owen shrugged, though Jerry couldn’t see him. He swiveled in his office chair to face the view of the Manhattan skyline from his window. “I was nervous as hell, being up on that stage with everyone watching, but she was really great. She just guided me through it and made me feel safe. And the flogging itself was just incredible. I don’t know how to describe it—the way the stinging pain of the leather hitting your skin kind of segues into this sort of cloak of heat and just pure, utter peace—it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”

Jerry laughed. “I think you described it pretty damn well. I know what you’re talking about, but I didn’t know it was possible without love being part of the equation. The kind of love that comes from complete trust in another person.” He paused and Owen made no attempt to fill the gap.

Then Jerry said, his voice filled with disbelief, “What a second. Just wait a fucking second here! You aren’t telling me--you and she aren’t—I mean there’s no way that—”

Owen laughed, a rush of joy flooding his senses. What the hell—he would tell Jerry. Shit, he would tell the world! “You know me too well, old buddy.” Owen laughed, feeling like a kid, giddy with a strange, new happiness. “After the club, we went back to her place.”

“To the dungeon, you mean.”

“No, to her place, where she lives, on the third floor of the townhouse. I stayed. I only left this morning because we both had prior obligations.”

“You’re lying!” Jerry shouted, laughing. “This is fantasy stuff, dude. No way the aloof and unapproachable Mistress Sylvie took you into her bed.”

Owen laughed. “And her shower too.” He bit his lip, not wanting to be the kind of man who kisses and tells, wanting to respect Sylvie’s privacy. So he added, “Listen, Jerry, this is all really new. I don’t exactly know where I stand with her yet, so please keep this to yourselves—you and Alana. This means a whole lot to me. I don’t want to fuck it up. And obviously, the rumor mill in this little BDSM community of yours is alive and kicking. So, promise me, okay?”

“My lips are sealed and Mistress Alana is the very soul of discretion,” Jerry promised. “Oh, and Owen?”

“Yeah.”

“You totally rock, dude!”

Laughing, Owen said goodbye.

Giving up even the pretense of doing any more work, he locked up the office and made his weekly trek to the supermarket near his apartment. While he grabbed items to fill his cart, he kept drifting into a dreamy daze as he reviewed each incredible detail of his time with Sylvie.

Though he knew he should take it slow and not appear like the overeager, love-struck puppy he in fact was, it had been hard to resist his impulse to call her a hundred times, or have a dozen long-stemmed red roses delivered to her door, or better yet, appear himself with a diamond ring in his pocket and a proposal on his lips. At twenty he might have done something that stupid, but at thirty-nine he liked to think he could exercise some self control.

Finally it was five o’clock, and he couldn’t wait another minute to reconnect with Sylvie. He realized he didn’t have her phone number, other than her business line, but he took a chance and called it, praying Isabel didn’t answer.

“Owen!” Sylvie’s voice was happy, and Owen smiled as he held the phone to his ear.

“Sylvie, hi. I was wondering if I could take you to dinner this evening? There’s a great little Indian place just a few blocks from you. It’s kind of a dive but the food is great. Do you like Indian?” He knew he was talking too fast.
Slow down,
he admonished himself, aware he was grinning like a fool.

“I do. I’d love to have dinner with you, Owen. Shall we say seven?”

When Owen arrived at Sylvie’s townhouse, she was sitting on the stoop, gazing pensively into the distance. As he approached she looked up with a smile and a small wave. She was wearing a silky sleeveless dress the exact sea-green color of her eyes, white sandals on her pretty feet.

He climbed the stairs and Sylvie rose, lifting on her toes to kiss both Owen’s cheeks. Impulsively he caught her face in his hands and kissed her lips. She kissed him back, but Owen felt a hesitation and he let her go.

Was this the pull-back after the first night? Was Sylvie reconsidering now that some time had passed and they’d had a few hours apart? But she’d sounded so happy on the phone when he’d invited her to dinner. Owen searched Sylvie’s face for some clue, and while she was smiling, her eyes seemed troubled.

“Sit beside me a moment, Owen.” Sylvie sank down, patting the stone step. “I need to tell you something.”