by Serena Dahl
I feel a pang of sympathy, but there’s no room in my heart or my life for a relationship with Michael now. “I’m so sorry, Michael. I never planned it this way, and I didn’t want to hurt you. But I’ve moved on, and you have to, too.” The raindrops are starting to permeate my hair now and I’m getting cold. I’ve found my keys.
“I can’t,” he states. “I need you, Justine. Please...”
“Goodbye, Michael,” I tell him firmly and stride to my door. He follows me.
“Can I come in? Can we talk?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Michael,” I reply, turning the key in the lock, and to my relief he doesn’t try to follow me into the house. I shut the door with relief.
I lean my back onto the door, shaking my head. Poor Michael. I never thought it would turn out this way. I’ve inadvertently hurt people before, it’s inevitable sometimes when a relationship ends. I’ve been hurt too, so I know what it’s like. Of course, I wouldn’t say that I’ve been in love before I met Adam, so any painful breakups have been bearable for me. But when I’ve been the one to break things off, my exes don’t normally follow me home and stand around in the rain for me, imploring me to talk things over.
But then I look at my watch, and I can easily push Michael out of my mind, because Adam will be here in less than an hour. I’ve been looking forward to this since the moment I kissed him goodbye last time, and I’m not going to let my ex get in the way of enjoying myself with Adam. It’s time to make myself look beautiful.
******
I LICK THE LAST OF MY chocolate dessert off the spoon.
“You look like you enjoyed that,” says Adam, still eating his.
“Mmm.”
“Here.” He offers me a spoonful of his. I open my mouth and he feeds me.
“Mmm. Oh, that’s lovely.” I smile to myself. I hope I’ll be saying the same thing later on, for an entirely different reason.
Adam seems to be reading my mind because there’s a wicked glint in his eye. He gazes at me a few moments longer than really necessary, before scraping the last little bits of chocolate out of the little bowl and feeding me again. I give another murmur of appreciation.
Then I feel his hand on my knee.
I’m not one for wearing tights. I don’t like the way they constrict my tummy; and moreover, they’re really not sexy. For a long time, every time I put on a skirt, I’ve had either bare legs or holdups.
But normally I go for the subtly tanned type, sheer and matt and as close to bare legs as possible. A hint of sexiness because of the lace tops, but nothing too fancy. And when I wore a skirt the last time I saw Adam, I went bare-legged. So in theory, he doesn’t know whether I’m wearing tights or something a little more racy.
But I know, I just know, that he’s guessed that the black hosiery he can see adorning my legs under this black pencil skirt is a pair of sheer black stockings held up by a suspender belt.
After our conversation in Adam’s bed about my fantasies, I’ve been eager to dress up in the bra, knickers and suspenders that I told him about. The idea of him taking off those knickers, tying me up and doing whatever he pleases with me is indescribably arousing.
So when he takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom my heart is racing with anticipation. Especially as he picks up a rucksack that he brought with him, and takes it upstairs too. I’m desperate to know what’s inside.
I go into the bedroom, Adam following, and he shuts the door behind us.
“So, Justine,” he begins, his voice full of erotic promise. “What am I going to do with you now?”
I don’t answer. I just look at him, a half-smile on my lips.
He reaches out and gently caresses my cheek in a gesture of complete tenderness. “So beautiful,” he says. “And so obstinate. When I ask you a question, Justine, you’re supposed to answer me.”
So we’re in character already. “Yes, sir,” I answer.
“So? What am I going to do with you now?” he demands.
“Fuck me, please, sir.”
“Oh, no, Justine. I know you’d like that,” he replies, his face full of amusement, “but I think you have to earn the right. Don’t you?”
“Sorry, sir. Yes, sir.”
“And what are you going to do to earn the right?”
“Whatever you tell me, sir.”
“That’s a good answer. I like that.” He smiles, considering his next move. “Take off your top.”
I look into his eyes as I pull off the camisole I’m wearing, exposing my black bra to Adam.
“This is nice,” he says, touching the fabric of my bra. It’s sheer over my nipple, and as his fingers brush over it I feel it harden under his touch. “What else have you got under here? Take off your skirt now.”
I reach for the zip and pull it open. I let the skirt fall to the floor, and step out of it. I’m standing in front of him now in my black underwear, bra, suspender belt, lace-top stockings, and knickers.
But they’re not just any knickers: these ones are special. Instead of the usual elastic at the sides, they’re held up with satin ties. So all Adam has to do is pull gently at the fabric at each of my hips, and they’ll come off completely.
He stands there, looking at me appreciatively. “Now, Justine, it’s time for you to do exactly what I tell you.”
I look at him expectantly. Tall, handsome, kind, gentle, sensitive, funny Adam – now completely transformed into a new Adam. One who wields the power of pain and pleasure, the keeper of my heart and of the deepest secrets of my psyche. I shiver. He smiles, and walks past me around behind my back. I keep still, afraid to move without permission.
“Stand against the door, and put your hands up to the top of the door frame.”
I walk forwards and stand as near to the door as I can. I put my hands above my head and reach up. I am tall enough to touch the doorframe at the top, and I hold onto it with my fingers.
“Now I’m going to beat you,” he states baldly. “And I want you to stay like that right up to twenty. Count for me, Justine, and I want you to show your gratitude afterwards.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
I look round as I hear him pick up the rucksack and open the zip. “Eyes on the door,” he warns me. I turn my head back and shut my eyes, leaning my forehead against the wood. My breath is a little ragged now with a mixture of fear and desire.
Then he touches me. But it’s not his hand. Something travels from the nape of my neck down my spine and down to my bottom. Try as I might, I can’t work out what it is. I open my eyes, still keeping my face turned to the door.
“I like these,” he says, moving whatever it is over the silky fabric of my knickers. “But I think,” he continues as he moves it round to the side of my hip, “they’re going to have to come off.”
Out of the corner of my eye, as I strain to look round and see what he’s touching me with, all the time without moving my head, I get a glimpse of what he’s holding. I gasp; it’s a leather riding crop.
“I said eyes to the front,” he reprimands me, and suddenly he delivers a stinging blow to my bottom. I wince and stifle a cry. “Not a good start, Justine. We’re going to have to go up to thirty now.”
I am about to protest, but I realise it might make things worse for me. Suddenly I wonder what on earth I am doing, standing here willingly allowing a man to beat me. Wanting him to do it. Am I completely mad?
It’s not like I’m sure that it’s hardly going to hurt – in actual fact, I suspect it’s going to hurt a lot. I’m genuinely afraid. But despite this, I want it. It’s making Adam turned on, and more than anything I want him to want me. I know he wants me in any case – even if we don’t do anything kinky. But I remember the way his breathing quickened when I told him about my fantasies and the urgency I could feel in him when he fucked me before, tied up and blindfolded. I know how this affects him – and it’s affecting me in the same way. Although I’m trembling slightly at the thought of the pain he’s
going to inflict on me, the wetness between my legs is betraying me. It’s not just fear that’s making the adrenaline course through my body.
Yes, perhaps I am completely mad. But I want more. So I close my eyes and wait for the next blow.
Nothing happens.
“You’re forgetting,” he says. “You’re supposed to count.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. One. Sir.”
“That’s better.” Then I feel a movement as he pulls at the ties at the sides of my knickers, and easily pulls them off me.
My bottom is completely exposed to Adam now, ready for the next twenty-nine blows. I brace myself for the onslaught to start. But first he has another order for me to follow. “Move your legs apart,” he instructs.
I move them.
“Further.”
I do as I’m told. Now I really do feel exposed: all the bare flesh of my bottom and even my sex is accessible to the riding crop. Suddenly he touches me, sliding his finger inside me. I whimper as he touches my wetness and moves inside me.
“Only one stroke and you’re completely wet,” he says, with a note of wonder in his voice. “You really want me to fuck you, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Then without any further warning the second blow comes stinging down onto my right bottom cheek. I bite my lip against a cry and count the number out loud. He follows with two more on the right and three on the left. The warmth of the blows spreads over my behind and I’m panting. My arms are starting to get tired, but I daren’t move. “Seven,” I count.
Then he moves his aim, using the crop on the back of my right thigh above my stocking top. I am so surprised at feeling the blow land there that I don’t manage to stifle my cry. “Eight,” I pant.
More blows to my right leg follow, then he moves to my left and I count twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen as he lashes my thigh over and over again. The blows are hard, biting, stinging; reflexively, I jerk my hips forward with each blow, but my paradoxical body still thrills with as much excitement as pain and as I push against the door each time, I feel my tingling clitoris make contact with the door and rub against it, affording me a tiny stab of pleasure each time. I grip onto the top of the door frame, eyes screwed shut and body braced against the beating, and he starts again on my behind. I whimper again as the blows come thick and fast. “Twenty-five.”
Then, “Aagh!” I scream and he changes his focus, angling his blows so that he hits me upwards, diagonally across each buttock, the tip of the crop so far between my legs that I’m afraid he’ll hit my most intimate parts. “Twenty-six.” Again and again he hits me, closer and closer to my sex, but every time missing by a fraction of an inch. At last it’s over. “Thirty. Thank you, sir,” I pant, and my arms are so sore now that I have to let go of the doorframe and move them down to my sides. But I daren’t do any more: I stay stood against the door, face to the wood, legs apart, awaiting Adam’s command. Now that it’s finished, my body is suffused with a warm glow of desire. My body tingles, longing for Adam’s touch, for him to enter me.
I don’t have long to wait. “Good girl,” he says, and he takes hold of my shoulders, moving me away from the door and turning me around. He firmly propels me towards the bed. Then he pushes me down onto it, my legs off the bed and my body flat on it, face down. He pulls my legs apart and pauses, looking, while I wait, yearning for him to fuck me – please, please, Adam, I need you.
The bed is too high for my knees to reach the floor so my parted legs are bent, but I don’t have long to wait as I hear him take off his clothes and pull open the bedside drawer. He puts on a condom and then he eases himself inside me, moving tantalisingly slowly this time, withholding the hard thrusts that he knows I crave. As he moves languidly in and out of me, I feel him caress my upper thighs, feeling the fabric of the suspenders and the lace of my stockings, then he moves his hand up to my right breast and roughly pulls the cup down to expose it to his touch.
His fingers on my erect nipple cause more shafts of pleasure to shoot down to my clitoris, and I moan as at last he starts to move faster, harder. He runs his hand down and round to the front of my body, slamming into me hard now and letting his skilled fingers make contact with the little bud between my legs, wet with my own juices, and I feel myself climbing towards the apex of my pleasure.
He slows his thrusts, and deliberately reduces the speed of his fingers, teasing my clitoris and making me moan with the sensation. Then he changes the rhythm again, and the path towards my orgasm rises again, and then I feel his movements in and out of me grow more and more urgent. “Oh, baby,” I hear him say. “Oh, Justine...” He rams inside me hard, rubbing me urgently with his fingers, and I cry out as I edge towards ecstasy. And then I’m soaring, crying out and moaning, filled with the impossibly sweet sensation of pure pleasure as he makes me come and then reaches his own orgasm, emptying himself into me as I shudder from the force of my climax.
He pulls out from inside me, and I slump to the floor on my knees, spent and utterly exhausted. His arms are around me and he lifts me up bodily, pulls back the duvet and helps me climb into bed.
He lies next to me, holding me and stroking my hair. “Are you okay?” he asks again. I nod mutely, my face pressed against his chest, and we just hold each other, sated and damp with sweat, as our breathing returns to normal. He runs his hand down to my bottom and feels me wince as he touches the tender skin.
“I can’t quite believe how wet you got from being beaten with a riding crop,” he says. I can hear the smile in his voice.
I move my head to look up at him, smiling ruefully. “I can’t quite believe how much you seem to like it.” Although what we’ve just done has given me a huge amount of pleasure, it’s still strange to reconcile the new, dominating Adam with the personality that I know from outside the bedroom.
“Only if you do,” he says. “If I ever do anything you don’t want me to, you just have to tell me. Remember your safeword.”
“Yes, I remember my safeword.” And as I hear myself sound it out in my head, I remember why I chose it. It was the one I used before with Michael. I try to push away my mental image of him, rain-soaked and pleading, waiting for me to come home from work. But now that I’ve remembered, I can’t get his face out of my head.
Eleven
Saturday, 19 May
I COULD REALLY GET USED TO this car. Adam’s Mercedes is simply the most comfortable vehicle I’ve ever sat in throughout my whole life. We’re driving to my parents’ place in Cherry Hinton, near Cambridge, and the early May weather is beautiful. As we draw nearer to the Fens the land gets flatter. The blue sky, uninterrupted by hills, stretches wide and glorious overhead.
I glance at Adam and feel a flutter of desire. He’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m finding it hard to keep him out of my mind all the time now. When I should be working I find myself drifting off into daydreams of the incredibly hot things he’s been doing to me, or what I imagine he might do next. I keep lying awake at night, enjoying my fantasies so much that I don’t want to go to sleep.
And my appetite is nothing like it used to be. Often now I pick at my food – which at least has the welcome side effect of causing my tummy to become lovely and flat. Not a healthy attitude, I know, but hey, I’m a woman – I can’t help it.
I hear a message tone on my phone so I delve in my bag and take it out. It’s Melanie, wishing me luck taking Adam round to see the family. Mum’s cooking a big roast dinner with all the trimmings and we’re staying overnight, so he’ll be treated to one of Dad’s huge cooked breakfasts in the morning.
I see there’s another message I haven’t read, and open it. But my heart sinks when I see it’s Michael, pleading for us to meet up and talk things over. What things? I think. There’s nothing to talk about and he should know that by now. I hit delete. I don’t even want to reply; perhaps if I ignore him for long enough he’ll get the hint.
I connect to the internet through my phone. “Oh, m
y God,” I exclaim to Adam. “You remember Matt’s girlfriend, Kelly?”
“The pretty blonde one? Yes, I remember her.”
“Yes, the pretty blonde one,” I confirm with a rueful smile. “How could you forget Kelly? Anyway – you won’t believe what she’s posted on Facebook.”
“Don’t people normally just tell you what they’ve had for breakfast or something when they use Facebook?”
“Well, I admit some people’s posts can be a bit trivial, but this one isn’t. She’s having buttock implants, would you believe, and she’s gone and told the world by posting it on here! Number one, why would anyone want implants in their bottom, and number two, why on earth would you tell everyone about it over the internet?”
“It just goes to prove that Facebook is a total waste of time,” he replies with amusement in his voice. “There’s never anything you actually want to know on it. I have no idea why an intelligent woman like you even bothers.”
