By His Command

by Justine Elyot

  When I slunk my gaze in her direction, I was surprised at what I saw, though. She was smiling broad approval, looking me up and down with a frankness bordering on the lascivious.

  Oh, I get it.

  ‘We miss you, Mr Jay, at our little gatherings,’ she said. ‘We were wondering if your tastes had changed. But I think we needn’t have worried.’

  ‘Oh, no, my tastes haven’t changed. I’ve been busy, that’s all.’

  ‘So might we hope to see you again one fine evening?’

  ‘I can’t make any promises, I’m afraid. Perhaps.’

  During this exchange I stood like a lemon, trying to decipher it.

  Miss Frost snapped her fingers and I nearly jumped.

  ‘I can’t measure you clothed, you know,’ she said. ‘Do you need help undressing?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  My fingers were clumsy with the fastenings and I shook my hair well over my face, attempting to hide away from this assault on my modesty.

  It was absurd that I should care about being seen naked. Miss Frost was a professional and Jasper was my lover. But something about the pair of them together had thrown me completely off course and made the situation pregnant with mortifying possibilities.

  ‘I’m surprised you can’t tell a woman’s vital statistics straight off, with your wealth of experience,’ said Jasper. ‘Do you even need the tape measure any more?’

  ‘You flatter me. I can make a good estimate, but with a corset one must never use guesswork. The intimacy of the garment demands perfect accuracy. You want it to clasp the female frame like a possessive lover.’

  Actually, corsets were starting to sound more interesting now. I pulled my shirt over my head and tried to think nothing of standing there in just my bra and knickers, being spoken of as if I were a mannequin.

  ‘But if you had a gun to your head and you had to make a guess?’ Jasper obviously wanted to make me feel objectified, and it was working. I wondered why I didn’t mind it more.

  ‘If I had a gun to my head, I imagine somebody’s bust size would be the last thing on my mind,’ said Miss Frost, sealing her lips in a tight line.

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Jasper. ‘Our mannequin doesn’t seem to want to peel off the final layer.’

  Rolling my eyes, I unclipped my bra and tried to look oblivious to the erect state of my nipples.

  ‘That’s marvellous, dear,’ said Miss Frost, stepping up with the tape measure. It was so cold against my bare skin, winding around my back and then underneath my breasts. She resumed her conversation with Jasper, pulling the tape taut. ‘If I had to guess, well, it would be easy enough, of course. She’s a C cup, probably 34 inches, perhaps a little more, perhaps a little less.’

  She was right. Without consulting her figures yet, she had told Jasper my bra size. This was impressive, considering we British women are always being scolded for wearing ill-fitting foundation garments.

  She moved the measure up to encompass the full swell of my breasts, pressing the cold length of tape against my pebble-hard nipples. I shut my eyes, unnerved by Jasper’s unbroken stare. If I couldn’t see my surroundings, I could pretend I wasn’t there.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Jasper.

  Of what? Who are you asking?

  Of course it wouldn’t be me. I didn’t open my eyes but waited instead for Miss Frost’s reply.

  ‘What do I think, Mr Jay? About the fitting?’

  ‘No. About her figure. What’s your expert opinion?’

  Evil man!

  ‘I suppose you want a ringing endorsement of your taste, Mr Jay, or you wouldn’t be asking. Well, who am I to deny you? The customer, after all, is always right.’

  Eviller woman!

  ‘That’s a very ambivalent reply,’ said Jasper. ‘I might think you had criticisms to make.’

  ‘No, I have none whatsoever.’ She pressed the tape into my nipples with her thumb, giving them a tiny rub. An electrical pulse of lust travelled down into my belly. ‘She will fill one of my corsets admirably.’ She bent forward and I could smell her breath as she spoke into my ear. Coffee. ‘Is it a little cold for you in here, my dear?’

  ‘No, no,’ I stammered. ‘No.’ I knew why she was saying it and it was nothing to do with polite solicitude. My nipples seemed to throb under the glare of her scrutiny.

  ‘There must be another explanation, then,’ she said. ‘What do you think, Mr Jay?’

  ‘Another explanation for what?’ He played along, smirking at my discomfort.

  She tightened the tape again in reply.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘Yes. What do you think, Sarah?’

  ‘I think you must have the measurement by now,’ I said desperately, and they both chuckled, Miss Frost winding the tape back in and scribbling some figures on her notepad.

  I tried to work out exactly what it was about this situation that made it so embarrassing and horribly arousing. It wasn’t the sheer fact of nakedness, nor the measuring, nor the witnessing of it.

  No, it was the sense of Miss Frost knowing exactly what went on between Jasper and me. It was just clear, a given, that she was somehow party to every dirty thing we had ever done. I couldn’t have told you how. But she was.

  She turned her attention to my waist then, and talked to Jasper about some mutual friend or other, as if I weren’t there. This was almost as exquisitely humiliating as her chatting about the state of my nipples. I was a mere shop doll, Jasper’s toy, as far as she was concerned.

  Lowering the tape to my hips, she frowned and tweaked my knicker elastic.

  ‘We must have these off,’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, unconsciously moving my hands to my crotch. ‘Can’t I just lower them a little?’

  ‘Do as Miss Frost tells you,’ said Jasper.

  I paused for a delicious moment of squirminess and then obeyed. When Jasper told me I had to do it, it was easy. It had to be done.

  I bent my knees a little and shut my eyes as the underwear fell to my ankles. I put my hands back over my shaved triangle, knowing that she would ask me to move them.

  ‘I can’t measure with your arms in the way like that,’ she said.

  I covered my breasts instead, the nipples still betraying me as merrily as before.

  There – now Miss Frost could see everything. Too late I remembered the healing yellow bruises from the crop on my bottom. I had completely forgotten about them, until she prodded at one and inhaled sympathetically.

  ‘How did you get these bruises?’ she asked, but from her sly tone it was obvious that she knew.

  ‘Oh, you know …’ I said vaguely, looking all around the room for escape but finding none, especially when my glance rested on Jasper.

  ‘Tell her,’ he said, steepling his fingers.

  ‘It was … a riding crop,’ I admitted in the tiniest of voices.

  ‘A riding crop, eh?’ Miss Frost sounded thrilled to bits. ‘Somebody’s been a bad girl, is that it?’

  I nodded swiftly, wanting the conversation to be over with, everything over with, out of here.

  ‘You’ll have to learn to behave yourself, won’t you, dear?’ she said, measuring my hips now. ‘I’m sure Mr Jay is helping you with that, is he?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered.

  ‘Show some respect,’ said Jasper reproachfully. ‘Say, “Yes, Miss Frost” please.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Frost.’

  What had started as a corset fitting was turning into a double-topping scene. We had never discussed introducing third parties into our play – indeed, Jasper gave me to believe that he would never share – and yet this was happening so smoothly, so organically, that it seemed natural to accept Miss Frost as my Domme.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘I have all the measurements I require for our standard corset. But I wonder if you might have any of my special accessories in mind?’

  Special accessories? I was relieved, in a way, when Jasper shook his head.

  ‘Not yet,’
he said. ‘I may bring her back in a few weeks, though. Get the thing customised.’

  ‘Very well.’ She put the measuring tape away.

  I bent to pull up my knickers but Jasper stopped me with a raised palm, clicking his tongue.

  ‘Stay there,’ he said.

  Miss Frost had pulled out several big catalogues of fabric samples and she went through all of them with Jasper, a process that seemed to take for ever while I stood there, perfectly naked, with my hands at my sides. As they browsed, they periodically looked up at me as if to picture the different designs on my body.

  Once the fabric was chosen, the whole rigmarole was repeated with the design and the trimmings. In all, this took nearly half an hour. I was desperate to move from my spot, get my clothes back on, get away by the time the final decisions were made. This was partly due to the physical discomfort of my position, but I was also beginning to burn up with arousal. The more they looked at me, the more I wanted them to go further. In my idle mind, fantasies grew and wove around each other, of the pair of them treating me like their submissive sex slave, putting me in depraved outfits, tying me up, spanking me, using my body in every way they desired.

  I imagined Miss Frost bending me over her desk and having me with a strap-on while Jasper sat in the chair opposite, making me maintain eye contact with him all the way through.

  By the time they gave me permission to dress again, I was glazed and dreamy with lust and the order came as a disappointment.

  ‘Get dressed?’ I repeated idiotically.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jasper, with some impatience. ‘Miss Frost can’t make the corset while we wait, you know. It takes time and skill. She’ll have it delivered in a week or so.’

  ‘I know that,’ I grouched, pulling up my knickers. I was just as fumbly getting dressed as I had been getting undressed and the pair of them watched me like hawks, which made it even worse.

  ‘She lacks polish but I imagine you will train her well,’ said Miss Frost, which made me trip over my leggings and stare at Jasper. I felt like bloodstock.

  ‘I’m working on it,’ he said, returning my gaze with a cool appraisal of his own.

  ‘You’d both be more than welcome at our gatherings, you know. Do consider bringing her.’

  ‘I’ll consider it. You’d like a deposit now, as usual?’

  ‘Yes, if you don’t mind.’

  That rather incendiary topic of conversation diverted – what exactly were these ‘gatherings’? – Jasper and Miss Frost left me to finish dressing while they dealt with business.

  * * *

  ‘Well, that was weird,’ I said, once we were outside on the street again.

  ‘Weird, was it?’ He took my arm and steered me sharply around a corner into one of the many little alleys and courtyards that were still a feature of this unreconstructed part of east London.

  ‘Jasper!’

  He pinned me to the wall, my wrists above my head, his eyes alight with mischief.

  ‘What was weird about it?’ he asked. He bent and kissed me, scouring my mouth with his tongue, while the noises of the street carried on mere yards from us. ‘Hmm?’ He came up for air, the question still on the tip of that scouring tongue.

  ‘It wasn’t so much a fitting as … foreplay,’ I said. God, my knees felt weak. I needed him to press me against the wall before I slid down it.

  ‘Mm hmm,’ he said, pushing his face into my neck, tugging aside my coat collar so he could suck at it.

  ‘You knew it would be like that,’ I said, struggling now to get the words out, wanting to retreat into groans of need.

  ‘I knew dear Miss Frost would want to get her hands on you,’ he said, loosening my coat buttons and thrusting his hand inside and up my top. ‘She was dying for me to let her at you. Poor Miss Frost.’

  Another kiss, a vampiric, voracious beast of a thing. At the head of the alley, perhaps people caught sight of us as they passed by. I hoped they did. Hipster voyeurs, watching us make out and grope each other in a dark, seedy alleyway. The more depraved the better. Mind you, we were largely concealed by a big dumpster used by one of the shops, so in theory we could do anything …

  ‘I thought you might …’ I panted, struggling against his pinion grasp, wanting to grab him round the neck and pull him on to me.

  He squeezed my breasts then moved his hand up under the skirt of my jersey skirt, looking for the waistband of my leggings.

  ‘What, let Miss Frost have her wicked way?’ he said, his voice overloaded with pained lust. ‘I didn’t think you’d want that. Would you want it?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Not without some warning. But it kept me on edge, just to imagine that you might … that she might …’

  ‘Turned you on?’

  His hand slipped down the front of my leggings, his fingers curling inside my pussy lips.

  ‘Mm, yeah.’

  ‘You’re soaked. Fucking soaked. You need it, don’t you?’

  We kissed, more like maniacs than lovers now, biting lips and clashing teeth.

  I should say no, let’s get a hotel room, let’s wait …

  But I couldn’t wait.

  I let him lift my skirt and wrench down my leggings and knickers. I clung to his neck with my arms and wrapped my legs around his hips, holding tight while he unbuttoned himself.

  His belt buckle clinked as his trousers slipped from his hips. He put one hand underneath my bare bottom and held on to the wall with the other. I was open, I was ready, I was wet.

  He slid in as if I were made of butter, stopping up my moan of delight with another fierce kiss.

  He kept his mouth on mine, our hot breath mingling, while he thrust into me. They were good, strong pulses of sensation, crushing my spine into the brickwork. I didn’t care about my bones or my flesh or my blood, though. I cared only about the good and glorious feeling of his thick length inside me, giving me what I craved, making me take it in the street in broad daylight like the dirty little tramp I was.

  His tongue filled my mouth as his cock filled my pussy, mimicking its rhythm and tempo. With each thrust I tried to wriggle even closer, wanting every hot inch of it up inside. I kicked my legs and jiggled my hips and mashed my fingers into the back of his neck until the sweat was pouring from me. Pure animal need had taken over every sense and nothing else could happen now until this fuck was done. A lightning bolt could fall from the sky and into the alleyway and it wouldn’t stop us.

  He pushed his fingers between my buttocks, such a rude gesture even in the privacy of the bedroom, but out here in the alley it drove me wild. My sex sparked into wilder life and I could feel what was coming now, feel it rolling down from the pit of my stomach, growing and building on the way.

  I tried to swear, to gabble into his mouth while he carried on kissing. He knew I was close and he made the kiss harder than ever, speeding up his thrusts at the same time.

  I was gone, lost, so wrapped in my climax that I couldn’t have told you where I was or what I was doing there. Nothing was real but the spasms racking my body and Jasper, who had made them happen. I was still writhing and panting, the kiss broken now, when he emptied his load into me with a possessive growl, keeping my thighs wide as he hammered me into the wall.

  We stayed in position for a little while afterwards, coming down slowly. I was trembling like one of the autumn leaves we’d left behind – there weren’t many trees in Spitalfields – and I needed to catch my breath.

  Jasper held me close until I was less of a respiratory wreck. Even though I could breathe again, I was still an unholy mess, my clothes crumpled, my hair lank with sweat. Not to mention what would happen when he finally pulled out of me. One really should prepare for spontaneous sex, I thought, clenching my muscles around his softening cock.

  Somewhere high above us, I heard the sound of a sash window being lowered. I looked up sharply and saw a flicker, the merest fleeting glimpse, of a face turning away. It was Miss Frost, I was sure of it. That window had to be her atel
ier.

  ‘She watched us,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know who. Did you set this up?’

  ‘Of course not. But she knows me, so …’

  I steadied my feet on the uneven ground while he slid out of me. He had a tissue ready and I did my best to clean myself up, but when I pulled up my knickers and leggings I knew I hadn’t caught it all.

  ‘You’ve got form for shagging in alleyways, then?’

  ‘I’ve got form for finding those corset fittings quite … stimulating.’

  I pouted at him and he cupped my face in his hands, bending to look deep into my eyes.

  ‘Passion, love,’ he said. ‘I have a passion for you. I can’t keep my hands off you. Sometimes I try it, but I just can’t.’

  ‘I’m the same,’ I said, barely able to speak for the wild thumping of my heart. ‘I want you all the time. More than my body can even take. It frightens me sometimes.’

  ‘Don’t be frightened. I’m falling, Sarah. Fall with me.’

  ‘Sink or swim,’ I whispered.

  He nodded, his expression sombre. ‘Sink or swim,’ he echoed. He kissed me on the lips, a quick but hungry smacker, and stepped back to straighten himself out.

  ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘if all that’s dealt with, let’s go and get something to eat. I have a proposition for you.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘Does this proposition have anything to do with Miss Frost and her exclusive gatherings?’ I asked, fiddling with a napkin.

  We were in the Upstairs at the Ten Bells restaurant in Whitechapel, Jasper thinking – quite rightly – that I would appreciate the whole Jack the Ripper vibe it had going on. Not that I didn’t find it odd that this area’s most celebrated son was a hideous serial killer. But I was too preoccupied with my crumpled, rumpled, post-coital appearance to give it too much thought, as I squirmed squishily on my wooden chair and browsed the menu.

  Surely I looked every inch a woman who had just been roughly fucked in an alleyway. And Jasper looked every inch the perpetrator. It was strange, in fact, to see him looking less than impeccable for once. I couldn’t take my eyes off his grubby cuffs and sweat-damp hair. The evidence, the guilty traces, gave me butterflies.