Twenty Tones of Red

by Pauline Montford

  “But are you glad you did it?” he asked.

  She paused before replying. “Yes I think so.”

  “And you’re not angry with me?”

  “No,” she said, “not at all.” She decided it was true and as she drifted into sleep she realised that the only person she was actually angry with was herself.

  Chapter Seven

  Set Adrift

  The next morning she woke early and had one of the longest showers of her life. It felt blissful to be scrubbing herself in hot steaming water and she added an extra wash of conditioner just to make certain that her hair would be back to its normal silky itself. David seemed distant and grumpy and she guessed that he was sulking about the lack of details she had given him. When she was ready she set off to the office with the promise that she would relive every moment bit by bit over the coming weeks.

  Work seemed incredibly dull. There was plenty to do but none of it was very interesting. She had three big sales pitches to prepare but walking around in normal clothes in a normal office talking about normal things seemed flat and lifeless after the excitement and repressed eroticism of her weekend. One of the worst parts was the fact that she couldn’t tell anybody. She wanted to take Jen out for a boozy lunch but sharing her experiences would have opened too many cans of worms. Eventually Jen and some of the other cooler office girls might have understood the scene and some of the things that she’d been doing but initially she was sure that they’d be shocked and would judge her. Once a secret like that is put out in the open there’s no way of closing it down and she was at heart an intensely private person. Despite the fact that it had been his idea she also felt somehow guilty about the way she was treating David and she wanted them to get back onto a better footing. After making a mental note to cook him a special dinner and buy some of his favourite beers she threw herself into her work and ploughed through her presentations.

  She made David a spicy pad Thai with prawns and as soon as he got home from work she served him his cold beers. He ate appreciatively and when they’d finished she cleared up the dishes while he started to roll a joint. Without any commands or prompting she then stripped naked and went to kneel submissively by his side. He obviously appreciated the gesture and stroked the back of her neck whilst complementing her cooking and telling her what a good slave she was. The sweet smell of cannabis filled their small kitchen and when he’d taken a couple of long deep tokes he ordered her to tell him about the weekend bit by bit from the very beginning.

  She did so, but she had only begun to tell him about how she had been made to hold open her pussy in the car when he took her by the hair and pushed her up the stairs in front of him. The second they got inside their bedroom he bent her over the bed and rammed himself inside her. Knowing how much it was turning him on she kept describing her weekend scene by scene in short breathless phrases. She described the rest of the Friday night while he fucked her roughly from behind. Physically it felt great but emotionally it didn’t connect her to him in the way it should. For some reason she resented how turned on he was by listing to her experience with another man. It didn’t feel quite right, and when they’d finished she was glad that he sat back to watch TV and she was able to lie quietly and reflect on her own thoughts. There was something slightly dislocated about their relationship and she was getting increasingly uncomfortable about his interest in showing and lending her to other men.

  Over the next few days she became more and more concerned with his talk about displaying her to others and by the end of the week she had formed a worrying suspicion that he had broken one of their golden rules. She managed to find an excuse to go home early and at four o’clock on the Friday was logging onto her laptop at the small dressing table in their bedroom. He wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours and she was determined to have a good snoop around on all the websites he visited to make certain that he wasn’t discussing their love life or uploading pictures of her.

  She took her time and worked methodically through all the chat rooms, forums and blogs, dedicated to the London BDSM scene. Luckily she knew his usernames and on most of the pages he called himself simply Master D. After an hour she had found nothing and was beginning to take regular peaks out of the window to check that he wasn’t going to come home and find her. She’d almost exhausted the full range of sites when she spotted a link to a place called the Masters Lounge. It sounded like the kind of place where dominants went to share their experiences and sure enough, after just a few clicks she found his name on a list of contributors. His most recent post was just a few days previously and she was instantly curious to see what he’d done. When the page loaded she saw a link to a gallery and her heart leapt into her mouth. What could he have put there? He knew that she didn’t want any images of them or her displayed. It had been one of her golden rules from the start and she was sure that he would stick to it. She clicked open the link and her heart almost stopped. There she was kneeling naked on the floor of their bedroom. She was blindfolded but there was no mistake that it was her.

  There were lots of them and as she clicked from one to the other she flushed from hot to cold. In all the images she was blindfolded and she realised that he had been photographing her without her knowledge. The fact that her eyes were covered gave her some anonymity but anyone who knew her well would recognise her hair, her freckles and the shape of her jaw and mouth.

  There was worse to come. As well as all the pictures he had also written a detailed diary describing everything that had happened to her during her weekend with James. He’d even cut and pasted some of James’s emails to use as proof. David’s own comments were brash and arrogant. He talked frequently about how well he had trained her and how very few masters would be so confident to lend out one of their slaves. Anger grew in her as she read. It was the ultimate betrayal. Even worse, it concluded her growing fear that he was more interested in bragging about himself as a dominant than actually developing a relationship with her. After a few more minutes she slammed down the lid of her laptop and started to pace the room. Her anger had turned to fury. How dare he!

  Unfortunately for David it was at that moment he returned home and met her in full rage. She didn’t wait or hold back. She hit him with her indignation the moment he walked through the door. She remembered showing him the images and being appalled at his feeble excuses and nonchalant replies and then after perhaps thirty minutes of shouting she snatched up her coat and marched out of the flat. He tried to phone her straight away but she ignored his calls. She marched at full speed along the darkening streets around the tube station until her rage started to subside.

  When she’d finally calmed down she realised that it was fully dark and she was quite vulnerable and alone in a rough area. She quickly formed a plan. There was no way she wanted to see David that night and she needed somewhere to sleep. She set off for the underground and phoned the person who was both the most reliable and the most likely to be at home on a Friday night; her brother. He answered after a few rings and agreed immediately that she could come and stay. His only condition was that she pick up a bottle of good white wine on her way. She agreed and ran down the steps to catch the train. It would take her more than an hour to get out to Surbiton where he lived but it would mean a meal, someone to talk to and a place to spend the night.

  It was warm and homely in Sean’s big detached house. His wife Cathy met her at the door and with a sympathetic look gave her a hug. Siobhan felt tears well in her eyes during the brief embrace and allowed them to flow. She might as well be as honest as possible with these people. They must have already guessed that she’d fallen out with David. Why else would she have rung at short notice on a Friday evening and come on her own?

  She was taken straight through to their kitchen dining room where her brother greeted her with a warm smile and a kiss on the cheek then went back to picking at the olives and peanuts that were obviously sustaining him while they waited for her to join them for dinner. They made small talk
while they ate and Siobhan found herself knocking back big mouthfuls of white wine as quickly as she could. The inevitable question of what had happened came up at the end of the meal while they were eating warm chocolate brownies with ice cream and she confessed that she’d had a row with David and without intending to also found herself saying that she had found images of her that he’d posted on a website.

  Cathy and Sean both raised their eyebrows but were restrained in their response. It was difficult for them she knew. It was difficult for anybody to arbitrate in an argument. They couldn’t start to criticise David too heavily because she might easily be getting back with him the next day. Instead they sympathised and told her that she could stay as long as she liked while she worked things out. They said it very sincerely and she knew that they meant it. Although they were a little dull they really were good people and Siobhan found herself feeling guilty that when she was having fun she tended to neglect them.

  The wine and the big meal and made her sleepy and she found herself drifting off into a slightly troubled sleep as she sat on the sofa watching TV. Cathy spotted her drowsiness and invited her up to the guest room where she found some towels for her and put a glass of water by her bed. Siobhan thanked her profusely then had a quick wash and slipped into bed. Her mind was still spinning and below the temporary calm all kinds of emotions were whirring around inside her. She told herself that she would deal with everything the next day and drifted off into a light and fretful sleep.

  She woke very early with a mild hangover and found herself immediately checking her phone. She didn’t want to talk to David but she was both disappointed and angry to see that he hadn’t tried to ring her or text her. What was he thinking? She’d marched out and he had no idea if she was safe or not. Surely he should have checked to see that she was okay?

  She met Sean standing at the kitchen worktop gulping down a bowl of cereal. He had to catch one of the commuter trains into London and she decided to go with him. She planned to get into town early and then go to her flat. She would wait until David left for work and then rush in immediately after him to get a change of clothes and some essentials.

  The scheme worked beautifully. She knew David’s routine and was able to arrive in their street a few minutes before he left. She hung back at the end of the road behind a queue of people at a bus stop and saw him come out of their street and walk up to the underground station. Once inside their bedroom she dug out her weekend bag and started to pack it. They might be back together that night but there was no harm in being prepared for the worst.

  She packed several days worth of clothes and essentials and then went to unplug her phone charger and laptop. Just as she was picking up her computer she paused. He must’ve taken the pictures of her down from the website by now and that would be a good start. She fired up the machine and in a few minutes was back on the fetish website looking at his entries. The photos were still there! Why hadn’t he taken them down? What was wrong with him?

  With a renewed fury burning inside her she thrust the laptop into her bag and stormed out of the flat. Her lover had a lot of explaining to do and she was feeling increasingly unsettled and pessimistic about the relationship.

  She tried to carry her bag into the office as discreetly as possible and to act as if nothing had happened. Of course it didn’t work. Jen sent her an email asking her if there was anything wrong and Siobhan found herself going over to her desk to arrange a quick chat in the kitchen. While the kettle boiled she told her best work friend about the argument and they agreed to slip out for a boozy lunch. Abi and Sarah also somehow got invited and it turned into a drunken girly gossip fest.

  Once again Siobhan found herself explaining more than she'd wanted to and discovered that there was no real way of accounting for her anger with David without talking about pictures being uploaded to a website. She didn't need to tell them about James or anything to do with the BDSM scene, but she found that she did that she did need to explain that her privacy had been exploited and that he had exposed her to the general public.

  It was gratifying to see that they were as angry as she was. All three of her companions pronounced in a tipsy way that if anyone had done that to them though it would definitely mean an end to the relationship. Siobhan examined the question in her head. She could forgive David if she wanted to forgive him and if it was worth it, but he now had to step up and to demonstrate that he really loved her and do more to admit that he’d made a mistake. So far he’d only made the situation worse. The photos were still on the website and he hadn't even contacted her to see if she was okay.

  It wasn’t until she was back at her desk sipping black coffee and trying to concentrate on her emails that she received a text from David. She fumbled with her phone in her urgency to open it but when she did she was disappointed by its brevity. He made a vague apology then asked if she would come back that night so they could have dinner and talk things over. That was not nearly enough to make her happy. He hadn’t even suggested taking her out for a special meal and he hadn’t nearly apologised enough. Her fury didn’t abate and because she already had the things she needed from the flat she deliberately decided not to make things easy for him. She gave him a short reply saying that that she was busy that evening but she would go home for dinner the next night. It wasn’t true but he needed to understand that she wasn’t at his beck and call.

  She immediately felt better and organised a mini girls’ conference in the kitchen to tell her friends about the latest communication. They fully supported her stalling tactic and she managed to calm down a little. She felt a bit more in control and even managed to do some useful work before setting off to catch the train to her brother’s house.

  That evening was much more comfortable. She got home early and helped Cathy cook dinner then updated her hosts on the latest in her relationship problems. They approved of her plan and she started to relax even more. She actually enjoyed sitting watching television with them and felt much happier when she went to bed. She slept more deeply with much less tossing and turning and woke up to a beautiful bright summer’s morning with a strange optimism in her heart. She was going to take control of her relationship and if David couldn’t convince her of his love then she knew deep down she was prepared to move on; recognising her strength and determination made everything feel much more manageable.

  Her morning at work past uneventfully but after lunch she started to feel an anxious tightening in her stomach. She was slightly nervous about her dinner with David and had to continually remind herself that nothing bad was going to happen. She was right. When she did get home David wasn’t even there. She had expected to find him cooking, having bought some flowers and made an extra effort to tidy their little flat, but he came in twenty minutes after her with a takeaway in a white plastic bag. She couldn’t blame him for not making dinner, he was never much of a chef, but the effort would have been appreciated.

  They ate and made small talk for a while and then after a few glasses of wine she asked him why he hadn’t taken the photos of her down. He told that he’d tried and explained that whilst he could post things he had no editing access. He reassured her that he’d emailed the Webmaster and asked for the galleries to be removed. She felt strangely distant while she listened to his excuses. It all seemed a bit lame and she wasn’t convinced that he’d even made much of an effort at all. He didn’t seem to understand why she was so upset, and even worse, he didn’t seem to be making much of an effort to make her feel better.

  After dinner he asked if she’d stay but she told him that she had made other arrangements and left as quickly as she could. She cried as she walked to the underground station. It took her a little while to work out the cause of her sadness but in the end she had to admit that she was becoming more and more uncertain about her relationship and increasingly accepting that it might have to end. There was no hurry. She would stay as long as she could with her brother and use the time as a cooling off period. She needed to create som
e distance from her past life to see if she really loved David or not.

  Chapter Eight

  So Lonely

  Over the next few weeks she returned frequently to their flat and removed more and more of her possessions. By the fourth trip there was nothing left that she wasn’t prepared to walk away from and she suddenly felt much happier. She gave herself lots of excuses why she was removing so many of her things but what she needed to accept was that she was preparing for the worst. David did nothing dramatic to try and win her back. They had several more dinners together but he never once did or said anything romantic or made any real effort. When they’d finished eating he always asked if she would stay and she found increasing pleasure in telling him that she had somewhere else to go. He knew she was staying with Sean and Cathy but she avoided giving too much detail. It wouldn’t harm him to think that she might be going somewhere else or seeing somebody else occasionally. Maybe it would snap him into action.

  When she finally came to face facts it was more than a month after she had stormed out. She admitted to herself that she had given up on David and had extracted all her possessions so that she didn’t have to create a dramatic ending. All she had to do now was keep herself busy and find somewhere new to live and he would eventually just fade into the background. As her anger subsided she was surprised at how little she felt for him. The worst stage was when she started to feel pity. He did genuinely seem to be confused about why she was leaving him but at the same time he seemed completely unable to see her view of the world or express his own emotions. He remained incredibly calm and self-contained and that was one of the things that infuriated her.