by Jaye Peaches
“My last lovely sub didn’t want to move. Family and everything. Unfortunate, but we weren’t living together.” He pulled a mock pout. “You really can’t give me any useful contacts? I mean Doms. I don’t expect you to give me your details or other subs. I’m not here to pick up anyone.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “You wouldn’t get them, either. We’re not into the social side much these days. We’re all in long-term relationships—owned, you might say. I don’t mean to appear difficult, but we can’t give you contacts for our Doms. Well, I can’t.”
“Very protective Dom,” whispered Judith. “That’s her personal bodyguard glaring at you over there.”
“Jude,” I cried, frantically shaking my head.
“Really? Kind of makes my efforts at ownership somewhat pathetic. I rely on trust,” said Mark, not hiding the sarcasm well.
“He trusts me,” I blurted in defence. “Just not other men.”
“Look, sorry I’ve imposed on you, but this a big city, and I have to be opportunistic,” said Mark, slapping his thighs and making ready to stand.
“What job brought you here?” asked Eva, shuffling forward on her seat.
Mark rested his elbows on the table. “Accountancy. I am an accountant, but not a boring bookkeeper type. I do consultancy work. A job came up I couldn’t afford to miss, so I upped sticks and moved here. I really would like to find some decent friends. Indecent ones, too.” He grinned, showing pearly-white teeth.
“Which accountancy firm?” I asked.
“It’s a medium-sized but prestigious one, hence the quick move. Gliech Ltd. Heard of it?”
My heartbeats thumped against my breastbone. How ridiculous! A surprise Dom, in the middle of our girlie night out, who happened to work for one of Jason’s subsidiaries.
I swallowed back my excitement and dug out my calmest tone of voice. “I worked in asset valuation for a while. I’ve heard of Gliech. Its headquarters are in Frankfurt.”
“Yes, so I gather,” said Mark. He gave a small, dismissive shrug. My knowledge hadn’t impressed him. “I’m still learning about the company politics. Look, here is my business card. I’ve written my personal email address on the back. If you could think of someone to introduce me to, I would be grateful. I’m for real.” Mark stood up and glanced a wary eye over to Johnson. “Bodyguard, hey? Brings a whole new meaning to possessiveness. Thank you again for your time. Enjoy the rest of your evening and think of me over there with the vanillas.” He cocked his head towards the bar and backed away.
“He’s kind of cute,” said Zoe, once Mark was out of earshot.
“Cute?” Judith despatched a warning glance at her friend. “They’re the ones to watch.”
“What shall we do with his card?” asked Eva, examining the details before passing it to my outstretched hand.
“Oh, I’ll show it to Jason. He will be amused.”
“Why?” asked Zoe.
“Because Gliech Ltd is one of Jason’s companies. A German subsidiary operating across Europe. So Mark”—I checked the card details—“Cleveland, is my husband’s employee. Owned, you might say.”
We laughed at the irony.
Jason remained asleep when I crawled into bed a little after one in the morning. The night was humid and warm, the sheets cast back, exposing his nudity. His week in the office had been exceptionally tiring, and I knelt for a while on the bed, adoring his sleeping form.
He stirred and his eyelids fluttered. “Babe?”
“Master,” I whispered, and he returned to his slumber.
I snuggled against him and rested my head by his groin. His penis twitched, and I couldn’t resist putting my lips against it and giving it a kiss. My mouth rested alongside the softened member, and I dozed. Later, we moved about in our sleep, and he spooned into me, encasing me in his arms.
In the morning, my attempt at fellatio was greeted with a postponement and a hurried “busy today” comment.
He reappeared in the evening to spend some time with Joshua in the breakfast room. Handing him crayons and giving his small son words of praise, he indicated for me to sit next to him.
“You had a good girls’ night out?” His attention was still on Joshua’s hands, checking nothing went into his mouth or up his nose.
“Very, thank you, Sir.”
“Well behaved?”
“Naturally.” Where was this going?
His eyes shifted to me. “Nothing untoward happened?”
I took a deep breath. “I take it Johnson provided you with one of his pedantic reports.”
“He’s paid to be pedantic.” Jason’s impassive boss face took up residence. “Who was the guest at your table? Johnson said you let him stay for a while.”
“We let him stay. Zoe thought he was cute.”
“Cute?”
“Yes. Let me show you something. It’s in my purse.”
I fetched the card and laid it on the table in front of Jason. The company name was embossed across the top.
“Somebody recognised you?” He fixed his attention on me, his blue eyes unblinking.
I shook my head. “Not me. Us. A little huddle of subs. The collars were not subtle enough for a Dom.”
“Ah. Bona fide Dom?”
“He had one of those signet rings with the emblem on it—the triskelion. Reasonably courteous. A new employee of yours and a stranger to the area. He originates from Manchester. He was with some colleagues from work but preferred our company. Appealing, perhaps. He smiled a lot.”
“Appealing? What was he after?” His tone hardened. A history of blackmailers had made him wary.
“Not us. He wanted to know about the social scene, munches, clubs, etc. He specifically asked to connect to Doms, not subs. I took this as a good indicator. He didn’t proposition us and apologised for intruding. I’m amused he works for you. Not that I said anything to him.”
“Good.” Jason picked up the card and slipped it into his breast pocket.
I took his action to mean he would deal with Mr Mark Cleveland, and the matter from my perspective was closed. Joshua scribbled on crumpled shreds of paper with his chewed crayons. Jason’s eyes drifted back and forth between the two of us, and, as I rose, he grabbed my upper arm, forcing me downwards. I knelt staring at the floor under his chair.
“Last night, I had a dream someone gave me a blow job in my sleep. A strange sensation.”
“Must have been a lovely dream for you, Sir.”
“Gemma?” His tone had developed a frosty edge, and I hunkered lower on my knees. I didn’t want to think about his hard cock, but his recollections of last night had awoken my imagination. I tingled all over with expectation.
“I gave you a kiss of devotion, Master, nothing more,” I whispered. I must have fallen asleep with his penis in my mouth.
“Good.” His grip on my arm released, I rose. As I reached the doorway, he spoke again. “You can give me another kiss of devotion later, subbie. A more fulfilling one for me.”
“I look forward to it, Master.” I shot a glance over my shoulder and ran my tongue around my parted lips. He smirked, but I didn’t see a cross Dom—I’d not broken any rules.
The summer weeks passed, and I remembered my night out and the encounter with the adrift Dominant. I wondered if he had made his connections or had been left thinking we’d chucked his business card in the bin.
“Jason, what became of my mysterious accountant, Mark Cleveland?” I asked him one evening at Blythewood.
“I guess he is finding his way,” replied Jason from behind his newspaper.
“I meant as a Dom, not at work.”
He lowered his paper. “I know what you meant, Gem. Someone made contact with him.”
“So, he is legit?”
“Yes. Martinson checked him out.”
“Because he spoke to me?”
“Yes,” Jason paused. “I met him recently.”
“You did! Where?” I scooted over to his chair and plopped d
own at his feet.
He folded the newspaper and laid it on the coffee table. “At work.”
Jason proceeded to tell me about his encounter with Mark Cleveland. I imagined the surprise when Mark had been told of the CEO’s visit. Not the head of Gliech Ltd over from Frankfurt, nor the vice president of the Financial Services Division, but the boss of the corporate holding company: Jason Lucas.
Jason didn’t give much warning for his sporadic visits to the various company locations. However, Gliech's UK offices were conveniently close to his corporate HQ in the City, enabling him to spring a visit once or twice a year.
I took Jason’s narrative and embroidered it, filling in the gaps, imagining it like a video recording. How I wished I’d been a fly on the wall.
Mark had spotted Jason in the foyer. He’d probably been surprised by the man at Jason’s heel—Johnson—Jason’s bodyguard for the day.
Mark would have the intelligence to piece the information together. Originally, he’d assumed the bodyguard comment at the bar was a ploy to put him off pursuing his conversation with us girls. All we’d have to do was pick out a convenient solitary man from the crowd. Seeing Johnson with his obligatory earpiece striding alongside Jason, Mark had re-evaluated to whom he had been talking during his evening out in the bar. Imagine his nerves when summoned unexpectedly to a conference room, knowing Jason had taken up residence there, or perhaps he wasn’t too shocked to find he was meeting Jason—an inevitable consequence of his interference.
Jason opened the conversation up by asking to see Mark’s signet ring.
“I didn’t mean to be disrespectful towards your wife, Mr Lucas.”
“She wouldn’t have taken your card if she’d been offended.”
Jason admitted to me he’d arranged for another Dominant to contact Mark, enabling the young Dom to build a useful network.
Jason, in his Dom mode, remained affable and polite towards his employee. Mark thanked him for his help, but also made a point of saying he didn’t need threats to keep his mouth shut about Jason’s connections. I could picture the pair of them: CEO facing off his subordinate, deciding how to play out their encounter.
Jason could not temper his curiosity about the younger man. I speculated it was because Mark was an earlier version of Jason, however, my husband didn’t reveal his motives to me. He’d asked about Mark’s preferred style of domination. Like subs, Doms came in many varieties, depending on their tastes and goals.
Rather like Jason, Mark’s preference turned out to be predominately sexual submission. “Obedient in bed and daring to try out something new,” Jason repeated Mark’s summation. “He’s a potential sadist, too,” Jason deduced, when Mark described scenes involving intense bondage and pushing a sub’s pain limits as an achievement, a source of pleasure for him.
“He’s going to find meeting a new sub a challenge,” I remarked.
Jason agreed. “Finding the pain slut rather than kinky spanking lovers is difficult. They trust the Doms who care,” Jason had told him. “But humiliate and torment them, they’ll want more, if it’s done right. Staying consistent requires skill.”
The two men had moved on to discuss company business, and he had been pleased to find his new employee knew his stuff. I didn’t learn much else about their encounter, except Jason smirked and I waited patiently at his feet for an explanation for the expression.
“We’d shaken hands. Mark appeared a little worried, the first time I’d seen him so. He wanted to know how to explain our meeting to his colleagues. After all, I don’t personally welcome new staff at his level.”
“So, what did you suggest?” I asked.
“We both went to Oxford and were presidents of the chess club.”
“The old boys’ alumni excuse. Plausible.”
“It sufficed. I pointed out it was better than the best beeswax for floggers. He went somewhat pale at that remark.”
Mark then knew I’d told Jason the finer details of our encounter and the revelation would cement the understanding that Jason didn’t forget such things. Mark had best behave. While Jason returned to his reading, I rested my head on his lap with a weird sensation I’d be meeting Mark Cleveland again.
Chapter 17. The Other Submissive
I had spread the photographs across the kitchen table and proceeded to regroup and shuffle them about. Each photo reproduced a picture, one of my potential exhibits for the opening exhibition at the gallery. Numerous students had submitted portfolios in the hope they would be picked for my first exhibition. The stress of choosing worthy contenders mounted with each passing day. Presented with numerous styles, techniques, content and vision, I floundered, unable to make a final decision. My own portfolio remained incomplete, adding to the stress.
Collecting the pictures, I began to slip them into a folder, when the doorbell rang.
To me, Michael was Jason’s younger twin. Blond, blue-eyed, but leaner than Jason—he lacked the muscular finish of my husband. Their mannerisms were similar, too, notably the observant eyes. Michael’s followed me about as I made a cup of tea for him then he watched his nephew play with a dumper truck in the breakfast room with his nanny.
Michael lived on the other side of London in the northern suburbs. Working as a prosecuting barrister, he spent much of his time in his chambers or in court. Gifted in the art of interrogation, rather like Jason, he had the ability to tease out people’s inner thoughts and force witnesses to betray themselves before others. He invariably won his cases. Even with his infrequent visits, he and Jason were close, unlike Anthony.
“Jason will be home soon. I’ve texted him, and he’s driving back as we speak.” I poured hot water into the teapot. “How is Rebecca?”
“Good. I hoped to chat to Jason about her.”
I stirred the pot, wondering why he’d want to speak to Jason about his girlfriend. “Oh? You two still planning on moving in together?” The slow-burn relationship seemed to be heading towards commitment territory, according to Jason’s last update.
“Something has come up, and I need advice.”
He hadn’t answered my question. “Sounds worrying.”
He took off his jacket and sat at the kitchen table. The warm evening sun cast lovely shadows around the work surfaces—the shadows of tree branches waving in the breeze. I heard Joshua giggling in the next room. He wanted to see his daddy before bedtime.
“Nothing terrible. She had been holding back on telling me something, and it’s kind of a bizarre thing. One of life’s great coincidences, to be honest. She had been dreading telling me for months and months.”
“Telling you what, Michael?” I joined him at the table.
I couldn’t believe it—he blushed as he accepted the cup and saucer. “Last week, she made a confession. I think she thought I wouldn’t understand, or I’d end it. But, because of what you did at my parents, the way you set the table….” Michael took a deep breath. “She told me she is a submissive. Like you, Gemma.”
I dropped my teaspoon with a clatter. “Really?”
I’d met Rebecca a handful of times and, on each occasion, other family members were present. She was a confident woman and very pretty, too. A solicitor by profession, she’d met Michael through a mutual court case and the two hit it off straightaway.
“I asked if her previous relationships were with Dominants. She said some, but not all. She told me because we want to move in together and she’s never done that before, plus she has friends who are like you and her, and she doesn’t want to leave them behind.”
I was still reeling from the revelation about Rebecca, flashing up recollections of our previous meetings, wondering if there had been clues to her traits. “Sounds a fair point. Does she want to be submissive with you in any way?”
“What’s the point? I’m not the kind of Dominant Jason is.” Michael shrugged and took a sip of tea.
“Very few Doms are like Jason!” I laughed, but Michael didn’t join in.
“She said she
doesn’t do kinky stuff, which confused me. I thought that was what it is all about?”
“She probably means she isn’t into bondage or discipline. Does she like you to take control in bed, hear your opinion, follow your lead? That sort of thing?”
Michael scratched his head. He never rushed to answer, always cautious with his words. “I suppose so. You’ve seen what she is like with other people, forthright, opinionated, and strong willed, but when we’re alone, she waits on me. No, I mean, she waits for me. Do you understand?”
“Of course. She wants you to take control. It’s not all about kinky sex, you know. Some people don’t need or desire it. I suspect her experience of domination would be different from mine. You mustn’t compare us. Perhaps she wants you to take the lead, not about her career, but maybe how she communicates with you.”
“What do you mean?” Michael snatched a mouthful of tea. I seemed to have opened him up in a way I’d not thought possible. Typically, with me, he remained introverted and subdued. As if…. I straightened. A thought whizzed through my head. Did the fact he knew I was a submissive alter his attitude towards me? Perhaps, in my absence, he showed other traits I’d not seen. After all, he was a successful orator.
“When you’re in the courtroom and you stand up to address the jury or judge, the whole room is watching you and what you have to say. How does it make you feel?”
“Kind of a buzz. When I first started out as a barrister, it was nerve-racking. I won cases, and my confidence grew. Now I get this amazing kick out of the cross-examining and presenting to the jury. Persuading and....” His lips moved, but the word didn’t sound.
He knew and understood. I could see the debate going on in his mind as he pushed aside the word. He didn’t want to see its presence outside of the courtroom. “Controlling,” I added. “You’ve that voice, Michael. Jason has it, too. It makes people sit up and listen. A presence. I bet you don’t have to queue long at the bar, or if you ask a waiter to hurry your order, it comes quicker than anyone else’s.”
“I suppose. This is really helpful, Gemma. I should apologise. I came here to speak to Jason about all this, and I’ve been rude and thoughtless, ignoring the fact you probably know as much about this…lifestyle as he does.”
