Having set up my account and put in some brief details about who I was and why I was on the site (I went for a vague ‘dipping a toe’ message, a generic picture with no distinguishing features and a brief note to say that I was looking for friends or possibly even an online relationship although I didn’t see myself meeting anyone in real life any time soon), I started getting messages in my inbox every time I logged in. When people could see you were live on the site they’d message you straight away, often it appeared without reading your profile or taking time to bother with quaint concepts like punctuation.
– RU feeling horny filthy bitch? Do U want to kneel before you’re master?
– No, because you talk in text speak and don’t know the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ and I’m enough of a grammar fascist that on that basis I don’t think I could submit to you, sorry.
– I think I have use of a slut such as you. Present yourself at my house in Bournemouth to see if you meet my requirements.
– Firstly, I don’t like Bournemouth. Secondly, do you really want someone you know nothing about to meet you at your house? Honestly? Cause if so you’re a bit bonkers and I think I’d best pass. Thanks anyway.
– Are U online now? Do you want to talk dirty?
– Erm, yes I am. But no, not so much. Thank you.
Don’t get me wrong, there were intelligent, articulate, interesting people to meet, but overall the overwhelming majority were disappointingly a bit mad or full on. Yes, I liked the idea of someone spanking me, even fantasized about it going further and letting them hurt me more. But, well, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to make sure they’re not a nutter first.
I got the odd email which I replied to rather than just auto-deleting, but overall it was all a bit disappointing.
And then I started chatting to Mark.
We first started talking because I bookmarked him. I’d read his profile, found him interesting, but it was late and I wasn’t sure whether I should mail so I bookmarked him, meaning to mail him later. I didn’t think anything more of it.
Well, not until he mailed me, saying: Favouriting me is lovely. But what’s the point if you’re too shy to say hello?
I was mortified, having not realized the site software showed someone people who had expressed interest in them that way. The first few messages we sent were me apologizing for being a technotard, and him reassuring me. Well, that and laughing at the depth of my horror. And then we started talking generally. He was a techie type. Interesting. Articulate. We chatted slowly, not about kink initially, but over time things developed.
We were going quite slowly. Well, very slowly actually. While I liked Mark I was wary about meeting someone from the web without knowing them well enough to know I felt safe with them. Especially with this. I’m cynical and guarded in relationships at the best of times, even before you factor in the Dominant/submissive dynamic. But that didn’t stop us having stupid amounts of fun online and on the phone. He had a filthy mind and a sexy voice and our chats often degenerated into phone sex with both of us reaching satisfaction while we chatted about what we could do to each other if we were in the same room together. But I had been deliberately aloof. I felt a bit uncomfortable at the thought of sending him pictures of me naked – even if there was a way of taking them that didn’t make me look slightly deformed or like a secretary photocopying her breasts after too many lunchtime G&Ts, which, let’s face it, with a camera phone with no timer and normal length arms isn’t as easy as you’d hope. So ours was very much a meeting of smutty, kinky minds using words to weave various erotic scenarios round each other.
We never met. We lived relatively close to each other, but the timing was never right and, as often happens, connections forged intensely online flare and then die quickly, although not before he sent me a set of Ben Wa balls to wear during a long council election shift. I started work at 7am, meeting the head of the council to cover him casting his vote, worked through the day and then sat through the count after the polls closed, all with them inside me. It was a ridiculously safe council, with no upsets or changes of leadership, but I was excited through the whole process, albeit probably not for the reasons my colleagues imagined.
Over the next few months I chatted to various other people online. Some I was tempted to meet, others I’d have actively crossed the street to avoid if they’d appeared in front of me. I shared some amazing fantasies, got an idea of what I found erotic – and what I most definitely didn’t – but still ended up too nervous to actually do anything in person, to take that final step.
For all that there are people that moan about the internet being full of fantasists who want to hide behind their computer screen and not try anything out in real life, for me it was a great place to start – somewhere which felt safe and gave me a chance to explore some of my fantasies and think through some of my feelings in an utterly secure, non-judgemental environment. But eventually thinking about or talking about being hurt or humiliated was going to be pushed into the background for something more hands on. And finally I met a three-dimensional, real-life man I felt comfortable enough to start exploring with in person.
4
I met Thomas in a queue. I know, it sounds ridiculous and oh–so-British, but it was a very long queue and we were in it for a very long time. And if you could ever call a queue serendipitous then in hindsight that’s what it was, because when I first met him I thought he was an arse and if I’d had anywhere to escape to I would have wandered off and not spoken to him again, which with everything that’s happened since would have been a real shame.
Ella and I had met at a cinema somewhere in between us to go to a one-off screening of His Girl Friday, journalism geeks to the end. We were chatting, waiting to go into the film, and he interrupted. He was alone and obviously bored and I remember thinking he was rude, arrogant and clearly thought a bit much of himself, although my irritation was tempered in slightly fickle fashion by my finding him attractive. After pre- and post-film chat – and a surprising amount of laughter – I had developed a grudging liking for him and when he suggested we go for coffee in the slightly pretentious cafe attached to the cinema afterwards Ella and I agreed, happy he wasn’t an axe murderer and would be bearable company for a while – after that, who cared anyway?
Ironically enough, after a while I found I cared. He took our email addresses when he left, and we ended up having round robin email chats about films, current affairs and general life. He was funny, intelligent and had just come out of a long-term relationship. His ex had got custody of most of their friends and he seemed a little lonely. Sitting in my flat alone of a night sometimes I imagined him doing the same. The difference seemed to be that he wasn’t as comfortable with his own company as me. Where I closed my door – and put the chain on immediately as per my dad’s pleas – feeling as though I had come back to my sanctum where I could throw on PJs and just enjoy the peace, it seemed that he perhaps didn’t feel quite the same. Ella and I met up with him a couple of times for drinks, dinner and cinema trips, but with Ella and I both working weekend shifts and Ella living considerably further away from him than I did, eventually we started meeting for cheap midweek films, just the two of us. He was a thoughtful person; he asked a lot of questions about me and remembered the answers, and I found myself confiding in him about my life. My instinct when something funny or interesting happened at work became to email or text him. We might have become friends out of a shared loneliness, but the more we got to know each other the more we had in common. I liked having a male friend who was straightforward and honest. This translated as bluntness sometimes, leaving me spluttering out my tea a couple of times when he was discussing women he fancied and how he was angling to ask them out, but I admired how articulate he was, and he made me laugh like few people I’d ever met. We quoted from the same films, liked the same bands, and soon I was spending a lot of time at his.
Why his, you ask? Well, winter had come. I earned enough
to just about manage life in a tiny flat alone, but the lack of central heating became an issue very quickly. One weekend when he sent me a text asking me what I was doing and I told him I was hanging out in Starbucks to keep warm he suggested I just come round to his and stay in his spare room for the night. So I did. The next weekend I was working, but the weekend after that he suggested it again. I popped round on Saturday afternoon and left the next day after cooking Sunday lunch – thanks, Mum, your roast potato recipe does wonders. It was comfortable, lazy, fun. We walked his dog, I brought my laptop and hooked it up to his Wi-Fi so we could play co-op computer games, and we watched DVD box sets and films aplenty, all in the warmth. Simple pleasures, but it was wonderful and, as Christmas came and went and spring blossomed, I found myself going round to his more and more often, despite the weather no longer being an issue. Ella would come down too if she was free, but if she wasn’t then we’d happily hang out alone.
It probably sounds naive now, but I didn’t really think about having sex with him. He was a good looking guy, with dirty blond hair, glasses and a laid-back style that I approved of, but as he’d been keen to point out during that first invite, my visits were platonic with no expectations of sex on his side. I was fairly pragmatic about such things and just assumed he didn’t fancy me, and I had no intention of scuppering our friendship by pushing things, not least because I knew he was still thinking about his ex. It was OK. I enjoyed his friendship without feeling the urge to jump him.
But then one night things changed. It all started pretty innocently. Thomas, Ella and I had booked tickets and hotel rooms to see a band together. But the week before the gig Ella suggested a change of plans. Another friend had got a ticket, so if I moved in with Thomas for the night this fourth person could join Ella, thus reducing all of our hotel costs. Practicality won out and, since we’d been seeing each other alone anyway for months by this point, why did it matter? It didn’t really, and we had a fantastic night, enjoying the gig, giddy and excitable and a little hoarse by the time we got back to the hotel room, on an adrenaline high from the energy of the music.
We took turns in the bathroom, got changed and then climbed into bed. We lay talking in the darkness for a while, still too awake to sleep, talking about the night, the music, our weeks, life in general. And then, quietly in the darkness, he spoke.
‘Sophie, have you ever thought of us sleeping together?’
Taken aback, the silence lengthened as I tried to formulate a reply. I decided to fudge it rather than inadvertently putting my foot in it by saying something that would either hurt his feelings or have him reassess my motivations for our friendship – did he actually want me to think that sort of thing? Or would it make him feel awkward knowing I felt that way? Vagueness was the plan.
‘There’s no point really, you don’t fancy me.’
He laughed. ‘What makes you say that?’
I threw a pillow at him. ‘You’ve never tried to make a move. It’s all platonic, remember?’
The silence lasted so long that I thought he’d fallen asleep. When he finally spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper. ‘It doesn’t need to be.’
‘Oh.’ Not my finest response, I’ll grant you, but I honestly didn’t know quite what else to say under the circumstances. Suddenly his hand was stroking my shoulder in the darkness, over the duvet, tentative and a little shy. I let it linger for a second or two, before finally succumbing, grabbing his wrist and pulling him over.
Our hands traced each other’s bodies, firstly over our clothes – he mocked me for my pyjamas, being too cool for anything other than a t-shirt and boxers himself, and got a smack on the arm for his troubles – and then he slowly undid the buttons of my top, sliding his hand in to touch my breasts, moulding them and playing with the nipples. I whimpered quietly, enjoying the sensation, after so long, of someone touching me there, even before he slid his hand further down, into the waistband of my trousers, and under my knickers. As he touched me between my legs I moaned, spreading them wider, encouraging his fingers to continue their playful dance, thrilling at the sensation. Meanwhile I was sliding my hands into his boxers, taking his cock in my hand, echoing his movements with my own, and eliciting a similar moan from him. Our hands moved for a long time, back and forth, as we enjoyed the sensations we were evoking in each other. His hand, assured, pressed firmly against my clit, over and over again, until I couldn’t restrain myself any more. The orgasm literally made my toes curl. My breathing returned to normal, and as I whispered to him I couldn’t hide the need in my voice. ‘Please, go get a condom.’
There was an abrupt pause. ‘What?’
‘What do you mean, what? A condom. Please. I want you to fuck me.’
‘Fuck!’
‘Yes, fuck.’
‘No, that’s not what I mean. Fuck!’
‘What?’
His voice was so forlorn that in another situation I’d have laughed. ‘I don’t have a condom with me. I wasn’t expecting us to do this tonight.’ He paused. ‘I don’t suppose you have a—’
I snorted. ‘I haven’t had sex for over a year, and I definitely wasn’t expecting anything to happen tonight.’
Now he sounded really forlorn. ‘Oh.’
I definitely couldn’t hide the amusement in my voice – or my urge to make mischief – then. ‘Look, don’t worry about it, let’s just say goodnight …’ His cock twitched in my hand as I spoke, and he made a strangled noise I assumed to be part outrage and part frustration. But then, I gave him a squeeze, and moved myself lower down the bed to take him in my mouth.
His groan as my lips encircled him was rich and made me feel not unlike a goddess. I licked him languorously, taking my time and enjoying the moment his hands clenched to grab the duvet, the way his body arched and stretched as I began to wring the pleasure from him. It had been a while since I’d had the chance to do this, and while I wasn’t planning on being too mean on the teasing front, I had no intention of ending it too soon either. I took my time and, finally, when he came, stroking my hair and whispering my name, I felt a strange sense of achievement. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t be putting it on my CV or anything, but it felt lovely, and I fell asleep with a smile on my face.
Of course the problem with nights like that is you have to wake up. I came back to consciousness to find myself pretty much nose to nose with him, our legs entwined. I opened my eyes, saw him staring back at me and shut them immediately, feigning sleep.
‘Sophie? Are you awake?’
I stayed quiet. Fuck. What did I do now? ‘Sophie? We need to go to breakfast soon. Are you OK? Talk to me.’
My eyes stayed closed. ‘I’m fine. Great.’ Too effusive? ‘Fine.’
‘Are you going to open your eyes then?’ His voice was certainly starting to sound bemused.
‘Yes, in a minute!’ Mine on the other hand had a bright sing-song quality to it not dissimilar to my mum when she was being faux cheery. Which in hindsight is a mental image that didn’t help.
His hand took mine. ‘It’s OK, you know. It doesn’t mean anything.’
My eyes shot open and stared at his, reassuring, calm, oddly sweet. I couldn’t decide whether I should be offended, but my glare must have given me away, because his hands came up in a gesture of surrender. ‘Sorry, that’s not what I meant. It was amazing, I enjoyed it, it was brilliant.’
‘Damn right,’ I said grudgingly, although a smile was starting to form at the edges of my mouth.
‘All I’m saying is it doesn’t have to happen again if you don’t want it to, and it hasn’t changed anything about our friendship.’ I stared at him for a long time.
‘You’re sure?’
He nodded. ‘Really.’
At that exact moment my stomach growled and I blushed. ‘Right, time for breakfast then. I get the bathroom first.’ I leapt up, grabbed my clothes from the side and headed for the shower, trying to act vaguely normally. He lay in bed, watching me move, not turning away or moving at a
ll. I got halfway across the room before I couldn’t restrain it any more. ‘Stop checking out my arse!’
‘I’m not, I’m admiring the pyjamas.’
By the time we had both washed and dressed and got ready to meet Ella and the friend who had inadvertently kick-started this turn of events things had returned to a kind of comfortable normality. We were bantering as normal, breakfast was as it would have been if I hadn’t become intimately acquainted with his cock the night before, and no more was said about it, at least until later that night when I got a text.
Glad you got back OK, I’m
back fine now too. PS. Wish
I’d had condoms.
Git.
It is, in hindsight, somewhat inevitable that not long afterwards we ended up sleeping together properly – ironically we both bought condoms that time. My visits were much the same as they’d ever been, it was just that over time I ended up sleeping in his bed rather than the spare room. We’d continued being friends first, talking frankly about everything, and that extended to our sexual relationship. We liked each other – a lot – but I was really not the woman for him, and as for him, he was wonderful, funny, clever, and I found him very attractive, but he didn’t make my stomach flip when he walked into a room. I didn’t put it that way to him – not least because I feared I’d sound like a naive fool – but in long chats walking the dog we came to our shared understanding of what this was, the terms of engagement for our relationship. It was fun, no expectations, no responsibilities. If either of us started seeing anyone else it stopped. Otherwise, as long as we were both having fun and one of us didn’t have deeper feelings than the other, anything went. And, over a period of time, as we got to know each other, it really did.
The Diary Of A Submissive: A True Story Page 5
