The Alexandra Series

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  On the nights when we were not together, my mind dove into unexplored places in my sexual psyche, dangerous frightening places. Each night alone, I tried to dream of Will and making love, but I couldn’t stop the rush of pictures that appeared out of nowhere in my mind. They assaulted my brain with a vile fervor, not letting me avoid them until I paid attention to the strange visions of straps and whips, of dominance and submission, of brutality and chilling coldness. The images sent my body quivering to new heights as I masturbated, although as soon as my orgasm was complete, I wished it hadn’t begun. Why couldn’t I think about Will and me, about being lovers and passionate sex?

  As much as I tried to will it otherwise, my fantasy life refused to follow my instructions. Instead of happy sexual romance, I witnessed much stranger things. One fantasy in particular appeared with some regularity. I saw myself walking into elegant city mansions and beautiful estate houses where women were ornaments that decorated rooms and corridors with their beauty, where they served at the pleasure of commanding men. The worlds in my imagination were masculine, places where men of great power mixed ruthless passion and severity with the genteel politeness of good breeding. The rules were established by owners and masters; compliance to orders was mandatory. There were no other options in these worlds but to obey or leave. In my visions, I always chose compliance.

  I saw the scene clearly…a female’s initiation into a male dominated world, where taken into a shadowy domain of lust, her naked body is at the mercy of a master’s whim. She’s forced to serve on hands and knees with mouth and lips, her sexual body violated three, four, five times in a night until she’s entirely spent. On the last night of her initiation she wears a collar and cuffs and a suit of chains, and is bound to the rafters where she struggles uselessly. Her freedom comes with a price. She’ll be thoroughly whipped, her body red with welts before there will be any mercy at all. Her pain is fierce, but the pleasure just as potent. Losing control and all conscious thought, she swims in the master’s fire, consumed in sexual ecstasy.

  When I woke from my wild musings, my real body was quivering with completion that surpassed anything I’d yet experienced – except with Will, of course. I was sticky with perspiration and sex, and the smell of my cunt still lingered on my hands when I woke in the morning. I found each night of depravity made the day more difficult to bear, more difficult to create the tender sensuous lovemaking I enjoyed so much with Will. Even our most torrid moments paled in comparison to sex with these kinky masters. The agitation between fantasy and reality reared its ugly head once more.

  My restlessness became difficult to hide, but Will didn’t prod me, respecting my earlier request not to ask about my fantasies. That was until the night I abruptly bolted from bed after sex. That night, my darker fantasies encroached on my real time world, rudely violating our lovemaking. I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “You’re going to tell me what’s wrong.” Will bolted from bed right after me and whirled me back to face him.

  “I can’t,” I pleaded.

  “Yes you can! And you’d better start talking.” He pushed me down on the bed.

  We stared at each other for some time until I got the feeling that we would stay this way all night if I didn’t say something. He had no intention of budging until I made my confession. I started and stopped a couple times then finally managed to blurt out.

  “It’s my sexual fantasies.”

  He waited for more.

  “I can’t make them stop.”

  His eyes seemed to soften as I spoke.

  “When I’m with you everything is so perfect, it feels so right and it’s everything I need. But when we’re not together, I get so horny thinking about you, I start to masturbate, and…” I stopped unable to finish.

  “And what?”

  “My mind veers off to all these strange places.”

  “Like what?”

  “It’s really rough…”

  “Keep going.”

  “I think about being…well…” I couldn’t imagine saying it aloud.

  “What Alex? What do you think about?”

  “I can’t!” I was practically in tears, and covered my face in my hands.

  “Oh, but you can,” he assured me, as he pried my hands away. “Look at me.”

  I did. Nope. It didn’t make it any easier. “I’d rather look away.”

  I felt his exasperation. “Nothing could be as bad as what you’re putting yourself through. I’m sure I can handle whatever it is.”

  I was fairly sure of that, too. It was just spitting out the words.

  I gulped my emotion and took a deep breath. “I dream about being dominated, sexually dominated,” I finally spit out the truth.

  The announcement hardly ruffled a feather in his cool reserve, and as if it was no big deal, he quickly went on, “So what else? Tell me everything.”

  “Everything?” I winced.

  “Everything.” I had a feeling we would stay right where we were until he was satisfied. Well, I didn’t tell him everything, but I did tell him about being given away to several men, about the chains, the bondage, the spanking, and how the fantasies had taken over my thoughts and now suddenly appeared even when we were in bed together. I was sure to emphasize how miserable this was making me – as if he hadn’t already seen that.

  “So that’s it?” he asked when I finished my terrible litany.

  “Yeah, isn’t it enough?” I sighed. “What do you think?”

  For the first time since our discussion began he smiled – warmly in fact. “I think you’ve made way too much out of something that is more common than you think. You’re certainly not alone in your fantasies. There’s nothing you’ve said that I haven’t thought about in my own way. Frankly, I was pretty sure that this was exactly the kind of thing that you’d confess. But it was important for you to tell me yourself.”

  “So, I’m not some kind of freak?”

  He laughed. “No, you’re not some kind of freak.”

  Little by little my anxiety began to lose its grip.

  “And see, you made a big deal of it for nothing. Don’t you feel better?”

  “A little. But those thoughts aren’t going to go away.”

  “I wouldn’t imagine that they would. How long have you had thoughts like these?”

  “Oh, dear…I don’t remember when I didn’t have them. I mean they’ve changed over time, certainly becoming more extreme – but even when I was a kid I had odd kinds of spanking fantasies.”

  “Then you’re right. They aren’t about to go away just because you confessed them to me.”

  “So what do I do about them?”

  He thought a moment – considering options, I’d guess. “I’m afraid you’re not going to like what I have to say,” he warned.

  “Well, go ahead and say it.”

  “Start diving in. Get a little crazy for awhile.”

  I flinched. “You don’t mean that!”

  “I do. You can’t ignore your fantasies anymore – you know how well that’s worked. Getting a little kinky certainly isn’t going to kill you. You know the old saying…you gotta confront your fears. Your fantasies are at the heart of your problem. You need to have fun with them. …trust me, it’ll untie the knot that has you so bound up.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start.” I gazed away, suddenly inside myself and needing Will to leave me be. “I imagine you’re right. I certainly haven’t gotten anywhere trying to will them away. But I need to think about it…”

  “Well then, you think about it.” He tousled my hair and pulled me into his chest, where I felt the warmth of his body and his embracing arms soothe me. “I’m not going to push you, Alex. Take all the time you need. But this isn’t something you can avoid forever.”

  I thought about that conversation long and hard over several days. Will was right. My dark musings didn’t end with my confessing them. If anything they were more prominent than ever and more intrusive in our lovemaking. How
ever, hHoHI didn’t raise the subject again for nearly two weeks, when I finally had the courage to act on his suggestion.

  We were eating take-out Chinese in his apartment. It was after sex, when my anxieties were at a low ebb and introducing the topic didn’t seem half as difficult as it might have at another time. “Will you help me?”

  “Help you?” he gazed at me quizzically.

  “Sorry, I guess that’s out of context.” I smiled. “Help me with my sexual fears.”

  For a moment he looked at me as if he was exploring every inch of my mind and my soul.

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “You said that it’s time to face my fears, not to avoid them. I can’t do it alone.”

  “Okay then. Of course, I’ll help. But let me warn you, it won’t be easy. And you may not like the things I suggest.”

  “I imagine that I won’t, but I’ve got to try.”

  It wasn’t until weeks later that I truly understood what he meant.

  Chapter Nine

  I had run out of that house full speed, racing into the night, block after block until a taxi pulled up beside me and took me home. My brain was reeling. I knew my decision to leave would alter everything in my relationship with Will. If I’d only known how much, I probably wouldn’t have left that way.

  I grabbed a carafe of wine from the refrigerator and downed a glass quickly, taking several deep breaths to calm the roar that had driven me into the night. The door bell rang. I don’t know why I was so surprised to see Will standing there, but I was.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, pushing his way inside.

  “I decided that the party was just not for me, so I left.” I tried to sound calm, when I wasn’t calm at all.

  “We went together,” he reminded me. His stared at me with steely eyes.

  “I didn’t want to spoil it for you. I’ve spoiled so much for you lately, I didn’t want to do it again.”

  “You unthinking bitch!” he suddenly blurted out, scowling as he did. He rarely scowled. “You think I’d stay and fuck a room full of people not knowing where you are?”

  “But you were so excited.”

  “Of course I was, only a dead person wouldn’t be excited in that house, it’s a sexual playground. But I took you there for you, not me, and you know it. And now you play games with me, running off without a word.”

  “I’m sorry, we just seem to want different things,” I pleaded.

  “What the fuck!”

  My lord, he was angry! The closest breakable thing in the room was a vase of flowers on a table by the door. He picked them up and threw them at the fireplace, the ceramic vase crashing in pieces against the marble. I backed away.

  “Don’t worry, I don’t strike women.” Some of his anger had dissipated, though I could sense his rage still churning beneath the surface.

  “Will, we’ve tried, how many times? It’s not working.”

  “Because you won’t let it work,” he lashed out. “You ask me to try all these scenarios, to take you places, to play your roles, and then you back down from them over and again, as if I could be jerked around forever.” His anger was on the rise again.

  “It’s just not working for me,” I tried again.

  “Because you won’t let it.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You have no problem with the kink. But I do. The fantasies are made up, in my head, where they’re meant to stay. You expect me to be some kind of slut!”

  He paced the room agitated and fuming. “You’re impossible, totally impossible!” Suddenly he whirled around and slammed his fist against the closet door. The plywood splintered but he ignored the cuts to his hand. With his back still turned, he breathed deeply to regain his composure, but it wasn’t a calm and gentle man who turned to me and spoke. It was as if a wall of ice separated us. Cold and steely eyes gave out no warmth at all.

  “You asked for this. You wanted to travel in the world of your fantasies. I couldn’t care less about going there. Well, I’ve taken you, but you don’t experience. You judge. And you know what’s saddest?” His eyes pierced through me like lasers. “What’s so sad is that though you judge the players, what you judge most is yourself. You won’t allow yourself to enjoy what you desire most. You’re stuck in some antiquated version of right and wrong that’s driving you crazy. And as long as you do that, you’ll continue to be miserable.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wound it around his hand. “Well tonight you can be miserable alone.”

  He turned on his heel and was out the door before I could begin to fashion a reply.

  I looked at the shattered ceramic in a thousand little pieces on the floor, the hole in the closet, the violence, the passion. I began to clean feverishly as if it would erase the night and everything he’d said.

  What was worse was that for the first time, I realized how much I loved him. What’s more, I knew he loved me. It showed in each piece of broken vase, each torn flower, each splinter of wood on the closet door that had torn his hand, each word of rage that lingered in the still air.

  First admissions of love can be painful. I discovered that as I listened to him in the apartment below, slamming doors, pounding and cursing. How many things were broken, smashed against the walls because of me, beautiful things he treasured? Ruined because of me.

  What had I just thrown away?

  Chapter Ten

  His knock at the door came early. I’d been up only long enough to throw on a robe, gather the newspaper and put the coffee on to brew. I didn’t expect to relish any of my morning ritual, after three hours of sleep at best, and a night full of tossing and turning.

  As he looked me in the eyes, I felt again that dangerous intensity deep within me, that energy that had bound us from the beginning starting to have its affect on me again. He was calm, collected, though tired.

  “May I?” he asked. I moved aside to let him in.

  “Coffee?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  I poured two mugs and we sat at my lace-covered table almost like strangers, though not quite. My once pretty apartment seemed gray and lifeless now. The lemon yellow, the pink and blue, the sweet flowers. I hated it all, just as I hated the woman who once loved my pretty decorations.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “I made a mistake, Alex…to think that I could bring your fantasies into reality. It was too much to ask of myself and too much to ask of you.”

  “It was?”

  He nodded, staring gently into my eyes.

  “But what happens now?”

  “You still have to make peace with your desires.”

  “But how?” I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. My voice sounded pleading and pathetic.

  He didn’t like where this was going. “Stop, Alex,” he bit off sternly. “Your flair for drama is admirable, but not now. Listen to me and listen carefully. I’ve thought about this a lot, most of the night, in fact. I want you to see a friend of mine.”

  “A friend?”

  “Name’s Reggie. He owns an estate on the lake where he often hosts some extravagantly decadent parties – many of which I’ve attended. But, more importantly for you, he sometimes takes women like yourself and opens them to their sexual desires. He gives them opportunities to experience them.”

  At the mention of this a drum beat of desire started up in my crotch. Nerves and fear and desire converged at once. “And he just does this…why?”

  He shrugged. “He has a strong dominant nature, loves controlling women. It’s what he does. It’s a game for him, and from what I can gather, the women who play with him enjoy it, too.”

  “Do you pay him?”

  “No. You stay with him on his estate for a period of time. I really don’t know much more than that. At the very least I think it’s something you need to explore. If it doesn’t work out that’s fine, too. But it could be a place to start
– to start again,” he corrected himself.

  My heart was beating fast by then, “I don’t know, Will. It seems a bit drastic.”

  “I suppose it does. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”

  “How do you know he’d even do this for me?”

  “He’ll need to meet you first, but I think you’re just the sort of woman to suit him. He said he’d like to meet you.”

  “You told him about me, about all the things we’ve done?”

  “In part.”

  “How could you do that? What’s in my head, that’s between you and me, it’s private! When did you talk to him?”

  “Last night.”

  “So you told a total stranger about my fantasies?”

  “I told him about some of your fantasies, about the strength of your resistance, about your ability to create your fantasies in reality.”

  I could feel myself start to panic and I wanted to run…but to where. I was in my own apartment. “How could you?” I accused him as I rose from my chair, feeling an urgent need come over me – but for what I didn’t know.

  “Alex, sit down and shut up!” he barked. I shuddered and found myself sinking into the couch. “You’re overreacting like you always do. Last night, I was desperate. Reggie’s one of my best friends. He suggested you see him. Frankly, the thought of that hadn’t even crossed my mind when I called him.”

  My throat was so choked with emotion that I found it hard to speak. “I feel so violated,” I finally said, though my agitation only seemed to feed his anger.

  “Damn it, Alex! I can’t do anything else for you unless you accept what you want, and quit fleeing from the very things that turn you on the most.”

  “If you care about me, truly care…”

  “I DO care about you, dammit,” he stopped me cold, then calmed himself. “I told you, I called a friend, just as you might have called one. I did nothing to violate you in any way. He doesn’t know you and you never need to meet him. That’s your choice.” His exasperation with me was obvious. “But you know, a possible solution has been suggested, and that is the real problem, isn’t it?” His eyes gleamed as if a light had dawned in him. “You’re angry because you really do want to go. I’ve babied you and coddled you, waited for you to open yourself and accept, but you won’t. You know as well as I do that to get beyond this damned block you have, this misery you’re wallowing in, you need someone who won’t listen to your BS! This pitiful victim routine. You’re a powerful woman and you walk through life like a scared puppy, whining. I’m offering you the best opportunity I know. You can refuse, but you’ll regret it.” His words hit me hard. But I sensed he was right.