The Word Master (15 page)

Chapter 26.

It only takes one minor issue to cause a backlog of problems in the world of radio broadcasting. Usually what suffers is the schedule. At the start of the program we had difficulties with the phone lines. That meant April had to program more commercials and music. By the time we were due to begin the sub-club segment, the entire four-hour play-list had gone out the window.

“We’ve got maybe forty-five seconds!” April choked. She was flapping around the studio frantically, stabbing her fingers at the keyboard and talking to Grover in the booth through the intercom at the same time. The phones still weren’t online, and I could see Grover with his cell phone pressed to his ear through the glass, talking to technicians.

I went hurriedly across the studio and tugged down the vertical blinds to isolate the studio, then plugged in the jack for the hand-held mic. April hurled her pillow onto the floor and undressed faster than Superman in a phone booth. She was panting as she scraped hair from her face and tried to settle herself.

She was wearing black panties and matching bra. I noticed a couple of small bruises on the back of her thigh. They weren’t the marks of physical abuse… they were more like the telltale signs of some light BDSM experimenting. I figured April and Renata had spent the weekend exploring the kink of submission – but I said nothing.

“Can I still touch you – without it being intimate?” I asked quickly.

April nodded her head, “Of course.”

I stole a glance at the clock. Ten seconds remained before we were live. I snatched up the mic and stood in the middle of the studio floor, close behind where April knelt.

Familiar jazz music drifted out through the speakers.

“Hello my sexy sub-club members and welcome to a new week of submitting to your on-air Master,” my voice slipped instinctively down an octave and my speech slowed so that it sounded as if I was talking to each listener personally. “I hope you are going to be good girls for me tonight.”

I waited a couple of beats and glanced down at April. Her back was straight, her hands clasped behind her.

“I trust you are kneeling comfortably and prepared. Tonight you will need
two
tapered candles… You have one minute to be ready for me.”

I leaned across the desk and thumbed a key. Commercials were cued to play. April looked up at me, puzzled.

“Do I need a candle?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Not for what I have in mind.”

I said nothing more. The jingle at the tail end of the last commercial went to air, and then the loop of jazz music picked up from where it had left off.

“I need you undressed tonight,” I announced in a lust-filled whisper. “I want you to take off your bra and your panties – I want to see how sexy you are.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, counting in my head, and figuring how long I should allow for listeners to get undressed. When I looked again, I saw April. She had her bra off, her milky, perfect breasts free, and she was reaching for her panties. I shook my head and trapped her wrist. She read the message in my eyes but shrugged her shoulders off-handedly.

“You can see as much on any beach,” she mimed.

She left her panties on and sank back down to her knees.

“Tonight, I’m going to fuck you,” I declared over the airwaves. “Tonight will be the first night – the first of many to come. I want you on your hands and knees, your legs spread wide. Reach back with your fingers and play with your pussy – you know how much I love it when you’re wet for me.”

In the fraught, sexually charged silence that ensued, April settled herself on her hands and knees and reached back to rub herself through her panties. She circled her clit with her fingertips, and the wispy fabric clefted between the lips of her pussy as she steadily increased the pressure of her touch.

I watched mesmerized. April began to rock slowly. Her breasts swayed. She arched her back and for an instant her nipples grazed across the carpet. She let out a whispered gasp of arousal.

I dropped onto my knees behind her.

“When you’re wet and ready for me, I want you to use the second candle and imagine it’s your Master’s cock,” I said into the mic, striking a balance between issuing the instructions and filling my voice with the raw kind of desire a woman would expect from their real-life Master. “Tease yourself. Rub the candle over the lips of your sex and clit until you’re aching. That’s what I want – I want you to ache for me to fuck you. I want you to sob with a desperate desire.”

I paused for another long beat of silence while I visualized women across Boston strumming the sensitive nub of their clits until they were beginning to tremble.

“Now,” I said. “I want you to feel me enter you. I want you to slide your Master’s cock deep inside your pussy and then begin to push back against me. I want you to give me the fuck of my life as you feel my shaft slide in and out of your pussies. Moan if you must. Thrash your head from side to side… call out my name as you take yourself to the edge of climax.”

With my free hand I reached for April’s hip and pulled her back against the bulge within my jeans. She croaked in surprise and then lowered her head. I pushed against her and she pushed back until we were simulating sex, and she began to grind harder and harder, thrusting with the strength of her arms. Her breasts swayed as if to the beat of a mesmerizing dance. She growled. The soft sound of her bottom slapping against my hips was muffled by the rising thrill in the back of her throat.

“Imagine us locked together,” I said. “Think about me driving my cock between your thighs, filling your tight sweet pussy with every lunge. Imagine my hungry eyes on you – watching the arch of your back and the tremble of your shoulders – the hypnotic sway of your beautiful breasts as you impale yourself again and again and again…”

April’s braced elbow began to buckle. She whimpered. She was close to the edge of her orgasm. Her body became incredibly still, just the rhythmic movement of her arm as her fingers played across her pussy.

“I want you to come for me!” I hissed the order. I dug my grip into the flesh at April’s waist and held her against me. She gasped out a long choke of breath and then threw her head back so her face was lifted to the studio ceiling.

And she came.

April collapsed to the floor, her strength melting away in a single explosive moment. She slumped forward, her fingers still buried within the folds of her pussy, and her legs shaking violently. I saw a spasm shudder along the length of her spine like ripples on a lake. She convulsed, sobbed… and then lay still, the sound of her breath sawing in her throat.

I got to my feet and had to step over April to reach the console. I ripped the mic from its jack and dropped down into her big leather seat.

“That…” I paused with all the theatrical drama I could manage, “was shattering. Thank you my submissive sweethearts for one of the most memorable experiences of my life. You’re branded now. I have made you my own – claimed you as my property to serve my every sexual desire. Welcome to your new reality…”

We went into a block of four commercials. The sub-club session was over. I looked down at where April lay, panting like a marathon runner who had collapsed across the finish line. Her legs were splayed, her body flung down on the carpet like she was broken. She must have sensed the gaze of my eyes. She rolled onto her back, her breasts perfectly formed rounded mounds, her legs wide apart. She threw her hand up to her face and felt her cheek, then licked her lips. Her eyes were misted and dreamy.

“In-cred-ible…” she broke the word into three separate syllables between gasps of breath. “It felt like you fucked me – fucked my mind…” the words she groped for weren’t there. She hesitated, took a breath, and tried again. “It felt like you were inside my head – your voice – your presence… You consumed me, Jericho. You burned through me like a fire.”

Chapter 27.

Four commercials were not enough for April to compose herself and dress with fingers that still shook and fumbled. We went into a block of music, and I listened to Joe Cocker rasp about a girl who could leave her hat on. Finally April fell into her chair and clamped her hand over the two-way intercom.

“Do we have the phones working yet, Grover?”

His voice came back, vaguely breathless and tinny. “Almost,” he said. “Two more minutes.”

April frowned. “What have you been doing? You’ve had over half an hour.”

Grover didn’t answer. April shrugged and looked at me across the desk like she wanted to say something profound but still couldn’t encapsulate her feelings with words.

I said nothing.

The music continued. We played three more songs before Grover finally came back on the intercom. “We’re up,” he said with a note of triumph. “Twenty lines at least. We might get the rest back later. Take line sixteen. It’s a question about something to do with the sub-club.” There was a second of silence and then Grover’s voice was back, sounding rattled and off-balance. “Um… her name is Angelina.”

April smiled before she spoke, inflecting her voice with the kind of light-hearted happiness listeners expected. “Hello there!” she said. “Thanks for calling the station, Angelina. Jericho is sitting right here. Are you ready to ask the man a question?”

Angelina sounded quite young, but also serious – maybe troubled. She spoke softly like she was frowning through the phone.

“Hi, Jericho. Thanks for another wonderful night of sub-club.”

“G’day, Angelina. I am glad you are enjoying the program.”

“I am,” the woman said, “but I have a problem with submitting to you through the club, and I wanted to ask your advice on how to deal with this.”

I sat forward. The caller sounded serious and so I treated her that way. She obviously had concerns. “I’ll help in any way I can,” I said levelly. “Tell me what’s causing you conflict.”

The woman sighed, and I thought for a moment she might hang up. I waited in the brief silence.

“When you started the sub-club last week you asked your listeners who wanted to experience submission to go somewhere secret in the house… and that has been making me feel really awkward, Jericho. I love my guy and I feel terrible that I have to keep what I am learning a secret.” Angelina paused for a moment, then added. “I just need to understand why.”

I shook my head as I spoke. “Angelina, I never advocated that anyone joining the sub-club do so in secrecy,” I said. “I only asked that you listen to my commands while you were somewhere in your home that was
private
.”

There was a bewildered pause. In the silence I imagined Angelina replaying in her mind the actual words I had said a week earlier.

“I never suggested that people should keep their submission a secret, Angelina,” I went on. “All I suggested was that you follow my instructions in a place where you wouldn’t be interrupted. For some women, perhaps they need to keep this time secret – that’s their choice. But if you have a husband or a boyfriend, then I would encourage you to talk to him about your interest in submission and maybe even invite him to listen in on the show.” I wasn’t trying to make Angelina sound foolish, but I wanted to be specific. “The ideal situation for couples would be if your partner participated, right? If that was the case, you would be able to submit to a real live Master, and someone you trust, rather than obeying me through the radio.”

Angelina made awkward embarrassed sounds. She stumbled over a rush of apologetic words and hung up.

I looked at April and shrugged. I only hoped I had cleared up any confusion for other listeners who might have misunderstood my intentions.

We went straight to another call. It was from a man – one of only a couple of guys who had ever contacted the show. April welcomed the man and at the same time also encouraged other male listeners to phone into the station. She handed the caller on to me.

He sounded middle-aged. I had an unbidden image of a businessman, sitting alone late at night in a high office building, maybe staring at a computer screen full of stock prices. Some guy who didn’t want to go home to his wife.

“Hi John,” I said. “Thanks for taking the time to phone through. What’s on your mind tonight?”

“I’ve been listening to your show,” the man said. “Every evening. I find it informative. I just wanted to give you a pat on the back. There are a lot of folks benefitting from your advice, me included.”

He sounded weary. Maybe the price of pork bellies had tanked, or the Nikkei Index was plummeting.

“That’s very kind of you,” I said. “Are you involved in the lifestyle, John?”

He laughed disarmingly. “I’m trying,” he confessed. “But I am afraid I don’t have your confidence or attitude. I’ve learned over the past few evenings that it’s something not easily acquired.”

I was curious. “Care to explain?”

Some of the wry humor drained from his tone and his voice became lower, almost confidential. “I just think it’s very hard to please a woman who has such high expectations,” he said abstractly. “I mean a guy can only do as much as he can do. For some women that would be enough,” he paused. “But not all women are that easily satisfied…”

“Reading between the lines, John, it sounds like the lady in your life wants you to dominate her, and you’re finding it hard to be the fantasy she has in her mind…”

“Yeah…” he said. “That’s pretty close to the truth.”

I sat back in the chair and pulled the mic with me. “Mate, I give you credit for being willing to try,” I said sincerely. “A lot of women around the country go to bed utterly frustrated each night because the man in their lives won’t even contemplate experimenting with the lifestyle. At least you’ve heard your lady, and you’ve made an effort to meet her somewhere in the middle.”

John’s voice stayed gruff. “Yeah, well can you tell my wife that? She’s pissed at me because I’m not comfortable in this role, and it’s taking some time to get my head around the way she suddenly expects me to treat her. I mean, we’ve been married for twenty-seven years…” John went silent for a moment, then his voice came back again, a little stung and hurting. “Jesus. It’s all right for her. She’s apparently had this whole thing simmering in her mind for years. But for me, it’s like, come out of nowhere. It takes time to get your head around, y’know?”

I nodded my head, and smiled as I spoke. “I do understand,” I said. “A lot of women just expect a dominant attitude to be instinctive to men, but it’s not – not to every guy… and being in such a long term relationship can make it hard to see your wife in a totally different light sexually.”

“So what do I do?” John asked.

Good question, actually.

“Are you home now?”

“No. I’m in my car.”

“Does your wife listen to the show?”

“Every damned night.”

“So she would be listening now, right?”

John sounded a little bewildered. “Yeah…” he said like he hadn’t actually considered that possibility before he had phoned into the radio station, and now it was dawning on him.

“What’s her name?”

“Um…”

I didn’t make a big deal about it. The guy was worried his friends or family might recognize him. “Or her nickname?”

The silence stretched out. Finally John said softly, “Missy.”

I glanced across the desk. April was smiling at me. She gave me a wink of encouragement.

“Okay…” I leaned in to the mic and lowered my voice, making my tone personal and whispered. “Missy, this is Jericho James. I’m talking to you now - the woman who is John’s wife and submissive. I want you to take a step back… give the man some time and space to develop. I want you to appreciate the fact that you have a man in your life who loves you enough to want to change for you. Now, let him change, in his own way, and at his own pace…”

I nodded at April and she intercepted the call. Her voice, after mine, sounded loud and effusive.

“Thanks for being a part of the program, John,” she said as more music began to filter through the background. “And good luck with your lady love.”

By 4am I was exhausted. The rest of the phones had come back online, and the three hours that followed the sub-club segment were filled with callers as we struggled to get the program back onto schedule and fulfill our commitments to advertisers.

When April finally signed off for the night and sat back with a weary sigh, I knew exactly how she felt.

I snatched the headphones off and scraped my fingers through my hair.

“Well that was hectic.” Somehow April managed a smile.

I nodded. “Do the phone lines go off the grid often?”

April shook her head. “Rarely,” she said, and then shrugged her shoulders. “But hey, this is radio. There are a million things that can, and do, go wrong.”

I got up out of my chair, stretched and yawned. April snatched up her handbag. “See you tomorrow?”

I smiled. “Of course. I’ll be here by 11:30pm.”

April laughed, and somehow I missed the mockery. I rubbed my eyes. They felt red raw, as if someone had thrown a handful of grit into them. I was looking forward to a long sleep.

“Tomorrow is Tuesday,” April reminded me abruptly. “8:30am meeting in the dragon-slayer’s office for all on-air announcers. Be there – or risk the wrath of the evil one.”