‘Look at the camera, Sarah.’
I’ve seen that look many times when I’ve watched the film back. I always wonder what a stranger, viewing it without knowledge of me or Jasper or our dynamic, would make of it. I look the picture of defeated woe, yet I know that, in my heart, I am perfectly thrilled.
‘Now tell the camera what’s happening to you. In precise detail.’
‘I’m tied to a tree,’ I said slowly, fighting for breath. ‘And I’m naked. I’ve just been whipped. My bottom is very sore. I have a plug up inside it, and my master’s cock is in my cunt. I’m about to get fucked.’
‘Beautiful. Perfectly scripted.’ Jasper patted my flank in approval. ‘And I think that’s my cue.’
It wasn’t the easiest or most comfortable way to get fucked, but Jasper knew what he was doing and he managed to hold me in a position that didn’t wrench anything while he thrust inside me, jiggling the plug with each surge forward. I gripped my ropes for dear life and let him lift me slightly, so my feet were off the ground and my legs braced around his calves. He must have had amazing strength and stamina to maintain this position, but he did it brilliantly. Sparks of friction built and built while the butt plug added an exquisite element to proceedings. When the climax came, it would take my whole body, crown to toes, and the anticipation of it stopped up my breath and made my skin tingle.
‘Take it, take it, take it,’ he grunted.
‘Please, Sir, may I come?’
‘Louder!’
‘Please, Sir, may I come?’ I shouted it, hearing my voice ring through the wood.
‘Yes.’
He nearly dropped me. I kicked and bucked so hard, my anal muscles clinging to the plug while I spasmed around Jasper’s thrusting cock, that he swore and lurched forward, stumbling.
By the time I was wrung out, he had regained his footing, and he gripped me bruisingly hard for the last few strokes, growling in triumph when he filled me.
‘Christ,’ he said, panting, lowering me to the ground again. ‘Thank God for weight training.’
He seized me by the chin and pushed his tongue, deep and possessively, into my mouth.
‘You horny little bitch,’ he whispered, letting me up for air. ‘I’m adding you to my collection. You’d better catalogue yourself, love, because I own you, and you know it.’
I caught his mouth with mine and made him kiss me again. And again, and again.
Did he mean this? Did he want to keep me? Did I want to be kept?
He pulled out, leaving his spunk to trickle down my hot, sore thighs.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said. ‘Fucking ravishing. And ravished.’
I wanted him to come back, come close, kiss me again, but he didn’t.
He walked away.
By the time I looked around, to see what he was doing, he had gone.
‘Jasper!’ I called, but answer came there none.
So there I was, hanging from a tree, dripping with semen, plugged and whipped in the open. The bastard.
After ten minutes, I became genuinely anxious that he wasn’t coming back. There had been an accident. He had taken an urgent call. He had fallen asleep.
The crackle of undergrowth lifted my heart and opened up my lungs for big breaths of relief.
‘That was mean,’ I called out. ‘Really mean.’
The crackling stopped and I craned my neck round, but he was just beyond my range of vision.
‘Please, Sir, could you untie me now? My arms are aching.’
‘I don’t know about that.’
My feet left the floor and I almost broke the branch in my efforts to twist around.
‘Will!’
‘Well, fuck me. Look what the bastard’s gone and got himself. A willing little sex slave. I knew he’d got you into his kinks, but I didn’t know what a pervy little slut you were. I’d have gone to town on you if I had.’
‘Fuck off, Will. He’ll be back any minute.’
‘I’d rather fuck you than fuck off,’ said Will.
I could hear the leer in his voice and I stiffened.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ I hissed, as threatening as I could make it from my position of humiliating bondage.
‘What would you do about it?’ He moved closer, sucking in a breath. ‘Ouch, that looks sore. Seriously, what are you doing with this guy? He enjoys hurting you. I don’t get it.’
‘I want him to. I like it.’
‘And, to think, you didn’t even know what a butt plug was …’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘And now you’ve got one stuffed up your bum. Did you have it in when he fucked you?’
‘Just … fuck … off. Don’t even think about touching me or I’ll have Jasper on to you faster than –’
‘Oh, stop it. I know he doesn’t like to share his toys. I hope you aren’t getting in too deep, though. It won’t last. It never does.’
‘Go away,’ I said, but my resolve was weaker, shot down by his wounding words. I both did and didn’t want to know what he had to say about Jasper’s track record.
‘He’s a collector, love. You know that. And he isn’t about to stop collecting. You’re just another entry on the list.’ He paused for a moment while I tried to ignore all the implications of this statement. Not listening. Don’t want to know. Then he spoke again. ‘Then again, you could just be the last. His style might just be cramped, pretty soon.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Never mind. Look, Sarah, I appreciate your not telling him you’d seen me before. You could have got me in all kinds of trouble. Thanks.’
‘I’ll tell him about this.’
‘Please … why don’t I untie you and you can come with me? You should get away from him. Things are going to get sticky around here and there’s no reason you should be involved.’
‘Tell me what you mean.’
Rustling bracken foretold the reappearance of Jasper.
‘Screw it,’ muttered Will, taking to his heels. ‘Screw you. And him.’
‘Who were you talking to?’
Jasper appeared to my left, a curious, not altogether comfortable, smile on his face.
I took a deep breath.
‘Will.’
‘Will? The groundsman?’
I nodded.
‘Please … could you untie me.’ A sudden gush of tears surprised me.
Jasper leaped up behind me and unknotted the rope, then he stood with his arms around me, tight and encompassing. My sore bottom rubbed against his jeans in a rather wince-inducing manner, but that wasn’t why I was crying.
‘What were you doing with Will?’ he asked, the severity of his tone implying that he had gleaned completely the wrong idea. ‘You know what I said when we got together.’
‘No, not like that,’ I sobbed. ‘You can’t think I’d cheat on you. I never would.’
‘OK, OK.’ He turned me round and let me water his chest, his hands in my hair. ‘I’m sorry. I trust you. What was he doing here?’
‘I don’t know. He … he seems to think something bad’s about to happen. But I don’t know what. He was warning me.’
‘What sort of something bad?’
I shook my head. ‘He seemed to think he could tell me things about you that I wouldn’t like to hear.’
‘But he didn’t say what they were?’
‘No.’
Jasper held me at arm’s length, frowning.
‘Get the camera,’ he said, fishing out his mobile from his pocket and jabbing at it.
I picked up all the equipment and trotted after him, clutching all the cold hardware to my bare chest. Walking wasn’t easy – my legs were stiff, my bum still full of plug – but I barely noticed. I was too interested in Jasper’s phone conversations.
The first one was obviously to Will.
‘Whatever you’ve done, you’re going to tell me what it is, now. I don’t care what you’ve got on me. You could only have anything on me if you’d broken into my hou
se and stolen my property. Is that what you did? So I should inform the police then? I don’t give a shit. Bring it on. You can say what you like about me. I’m not a fucking politician or a royal – it’s not going to do me any permanent damage. Right. I know what you’ve got then, and it reflects pretty badly on you. What’s she ever done to hurt you? Damage limitation first, and then you’d better prepare yourself for a whole world of pain. Don’t think I’ll ever let this go. I won’t. But it’s not me you’ll have to worry about.’
‘What’s he done?’ I asked nervously.
‘He won’t say for sure, but I think he’s stolen a videotape of mine. An old one, from about twelve years ago. And he’s given it to somebody – one of the newspapers.’
‘What’s the videotape?’
‘The fucker,’ he fumed. ‘Look, I have to try and call around a few people first. I’ll tell you when I’ve done that.’
A long and frantic conversation with his lawyer took us all the way up the house and beyond. I went upstairs to my room and dealt with the butt plug. Then I took a shower, dressed and came back down.
So this was a crisis. I felt a sense of dread, but also a weird kind of hope – as if this might finally bring our relationship into sharp focus and show me whether it was viable.
He was sitting in the biggest drawing room, hunched forward, hands steepled with fingertips over his mouth, when I found him. He didn’t look up when I came in.
‘So.’ I spoke into strangely deadened air. ‘What’s going to happen?’
He watched me walk towards him. He didn’t hold out a hand or anything, so I sat in the armchair. Acres of space seemed to lie between us, though it was only a couple of feet in reality.
‘I don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘My lawyer’s making some calls, trying to see if he can spike it. If not, he’ll have to shoot for an injunction. It might be too late. We’ll just have to wait and see.’
‘What’s the video?’
He looked away from me, towards a large Fragonard painting on the wall, packed with merry creatures disporting themselves in green pastures. Just as we had been doing, not so long ago.
‘Shit,’ he said quietly. ‘There’s another call I have to make. I have to warn her.’ He slapped his palm against his forehead. ‘Fuck.’
‘The videotape’s definitely gone?’
‘Definitely. Why didn’t I burn it? God, why?’
‘Jasper. I’m really worried. What’s on it?’
‘It’s not what’s on it so much. It’s standard BDSM play, though it could be misinterpreted, of course. It’s who’s on it.’
‘So who’s on it?’
‘Ava Rose.’
‘Ava Rose! Who married the –’
‘The King of Saxenland. Yes. Her.’
‘Oh, bloody hell.’
Queen Ava had filled the void in the worldwide public appetite for beautiful royal women left by Diana’s death. She had been the most photographed, most written-about, most idolised and most scrutinised woman in the world ever since her engagement to the European monarch was announced nine years before.
The presses, from Alaska to Australia, were going to explode with the heat of this story.
‘Yeah,’ said Jasper contemplatively. ‘Bloody, as you say, hell. Look, if you want to get out of here before the circus starts –’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I want to stay with you.’
He finally looked at me.
‘I should send you home,’ he said.
‘I wouldn’t go.’
He shook his head. ‘Silly. But thank you. And now I really have to make that call. Would you mind …?’
I left the room, wishing I could stay and listen in to Jasper’s hotline to royalty. I tried to cast my mind back and recall if I’d ever read something about him and Ava Rose seeing each other, but nothing sprang to mind. Surely it would have been in all the magazines. He was pretty popular in that hospital soap, and she was the hot TV presenter of the day. It must have been a purely sexual arrangement.
It won’t last. It never does.
I sat on the stairs, then thought better of it and stood up, contemplating the dark wood panelling that stretched above me and on all sides, making a mental inventory of all the pictures and objets in the hall. There were loads, and I was still only halfway through when Jasper opened the living room door. He looked pale and a bit sweaty.
‘That’s done,’ he said ominously. ‘And at least there are better lawyers than mine on the case now. Let’s go to bed.’
‘Bed?’ I stood up, confused. ‘It’s five o’clock in the afternoon.’
‘The phone’s going to ring like fury from now until tomorrow morning. We might as well grab what rest we can while it’s quiet.’
Still exhausted from the open air activity, we lay in each other’s arms, waiting. The waiting kept us awake, so we talked.
He told me all about his brief affair with Ava. They had bonded at some TV awards and quickly – accidentally – recognised their mutual interest in BDSM. They had made a pact to meet in secret and play scenes once a month. Jasper had promised to destroy the one film he had made, but somehow had never been able to bring himself to. The affair had ended when Ava met the Saxenlandish Prince.
‘I should have burnt it there and then,’ he groaned. ‘I was a fool.’
‘You weren’t to know that Will was going to snoop around your private belongings,’ I said.
‘I should have been prepared for it. People pry; it’s part of human nature. I was so careful with that cupboard. I kept it locked.’
‘I think he must have some kind of master key.’
‘I made him hand them all over when he left.’
‘Well, he obviously had an extra one, or how would he have been able to keep breaking in whenever he fancied?’
Jasper turned to me with one eye open and I went cold all over, realising my mistake.
‘Whenever he fancied? He was in here more than once?’
‘Maybe,’ I mumbled. ‘Oh God. I’m sorry. I should have told you.’
‘Told me what?’ He had sat up straight now and his expression frightened me.
‘I saw him once before. That day we had the picnic by the lake.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘I … I just didn’t want to … make trouble.’
‘Make trouble? What the fuck do you think this is? What did he do? What did he say?’
‘He just made vague threats. Said he was going to get even and all that kind of thing. I thought he was just blowing off steam.’
‘Well, you thought wrong, didn’t you? Jesus Christ, Sarah.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I pleaded.
His cold fury had the better of him.
‘Get out of here,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you here. Go on.’
‘I don’t want to leave you –’
‘I don’t care what you want. You’ve had your fun. Now get out.’
It was difficult to leave the room in a dignified manner when I was buck naked and my backside scored with birch welts, but I tried my best. I only broke down in tears once I’d made it into my own little room.
I packed my bags and took them downstairs. The last thing I heard before I shut the front door was the shrill of Jasper’s mobile phone.
I loaded my bags into the boot of my car and drove to the village. I almost carried on past the crossroads towards the motorway and home, but something made me park the car by the war memorial in the village centre and head into the pub.
A few enquiries were enough to get me Will’s address, and I ran through the streets to the new-build development on the edge of the fields.
He was outside, watering the plants in his postage-stamp-sized garden when I pulled up at his gate, massively out of breath and bent double.
‘Oh, look what the wind blew in,’ he said, putting down his hosepipe and wandering over to the gate. ‘You got out while the going was good, did you?’
‘Why did you do it, you bastard?’
I panted.
‘Not a very nice way to greet your lover.’
‘Ex-lover.’
He shrugged.
‘Come in. I’ll brew up.’
‘Don’t bother. I just want to see if I can stop it.’
He opened the gate and waved me down the path.
‘Stop what?’
‘This horrible thing you’ve done. Can’t you contact whoever you gave the tape to and tell them you don’t want to run it? Whatever they’ve paid you, can’t you give it back? I’m sure Jasper could match whatever their offer was.’
‘Yeah, yeah, Jasper the man. Gets what he wants, uses it, throws it away.’
Will’s bitter tone made my heart sink.
‘Take a seat,’ he invited, once we were in his cramped living room.
I sat gingerly on the fake-leather sofa. The birch welts throbbed.
‘It’s not about Jasper. It’s about the other person involved. Have you given a second’s thought to the implications for her?’
‘You?’
‘No, you dingbat. Ava. Queen Ava.’
He looked through the window for a moment, his lips pinched.
‘Listen, Will. I’ll do whatever it takes to stop this happening. Is there anything I can do? Anything you want from me? I’ll give it to you if you get that videotape back.’
Will stared.
‘Christ, he’s really got you well trained, hasn’t he? Got you whoring yourself to save his skin. Gotta hand it to him.’
‘No, you’re wrong. He doesn’t know I’m here. Besides, we’re finished.’
‘Finished? Really? So he did what he always does, then. Took his fill and pushed the plate away.’
‘I don’t know about that.’
There was a silence.
‘He’s called Ava’s people. I imagine her lawyers will come down on you like a ton of bricks. This is so much more serious than simple theft.’
‘The newspaper promised not to name me.’
‘You think heavyweight international lawyers can’t get past a worthless promise from a tabloid rag?’
His House of Submission Page 11
