Secrets After Dark

by Sadie Matthews

  ‘Beautiful,’ he breathes admiringly, as he retreats a little. I can sense that he is standing, staring at me, and my sex throbs with the knowledge he can see me wet with need. ‘Your breasts are delectable in that harness, my darling. I can’t resist them.’ I feel his mouth drop onto my left breast and he begins to suck and bite the nipple, still tender from its clamp, while he squeezes and tweaks the other between his fingers. He leaves the nipples to kiss and cup my breasts, saying, ‘These beauties look even more amazing with their rope ties. I can see the pink tracks they’re leaving on your skin and that excites me...’

  I’m moaning lightly, wondering if it’s possible to come just through having my breasts caressed like this. The growing sensations within tell me that it is.

  ‘And now, for being so obedient...’

  He gets up and leaves me alone for a while, and I hear sounds: the cabinet door opening, objects moved, and then he returns. Now I feel a probing at my entrance again, but it’s not the hot head of his erection, rather the smooth warmth of silicone, oiled with lubricant. The tip of the toy is small and slides in easily but its girth increases very quickly and soon it is engulfed within me, filling me up completely.

  ‘Now you may have your reward,’ Dominic says, a smile in his voice.

  I feel it deep within me curving upwards inside, but also on the outside it reaches from my entrance up to my clitoris, where a long, soft latex finger ends right on the top of it. I’m so eager for my climax that I start to writhe, moving my hips, thrusting lightly to make the thing inside me shift a little, rubbing against my clitoris.

  ‘Stop!’ His voice is firm, commanding. ‘No movement. Nothing. Wait.’

  I freeze and lie there, trying to control my breathing and the frenzy that threatens to erupt inside me if I don’t get what my body is crying out for, and soon.

  I don’t know where Dominic is, or what he is doing, but after what feels like an age, I hear a low humming noise and the thing within me begins to vibrate. It’s a sweet feeling as the plump body inside and the finger outside thrum away, stimulating the depths of my vagina and my sensitive place at the same time. Then, without any apparent interference, the vibrator picks up speed, humming away more quickly, pulsing faster, driving me a little wilder with its relentless movement. Oh, the way it’s pressing on my clit and throbbing inside me... it’s gorgeous, it’s unbearable. The knowledge that Dominic is watching it all, controlling the sensations that the device is giving me, is even more exciting. I’m panting now, lost in darkness, my eyes screwed shut even under my mask, as my body responds to the ceaseless stimulation. The device changes up a gear, humming faster now, and I feel my back arching, my head going back, my shoulders moving. It’s stirring up a whirlpool of sensation, calling it up from my secret depths. My thighs spread even wider apart as I give myself up to the voluptuous pleasure of this new friend. Then I gasp, my limbs kicking out involuntarily. The motion of the thing has changed. It no longer simply vibrates within me. Now the little engine is working a wickeder, more delightful trick as it whirs inside me, and then a wave of motion pulses along the finger on my clitoris and presses down. Oh, that’s amazing, oh... I can’t take it. I’m moaning as the machine continues in its delicious rhythm, rolling over my clit and giving it that divine pressure. Now it feels as though my pleasure zone is expanding, hot and liquid, and I can sense the orgasm growing exquisitely inside me. Oh my God, it won’t be long now... I can’t resist it...

  The gear changes again and now the silicone fingers takes on a different motion, harder, more insistent, more rhythmic, and inside me its body throbs and purrs in time. Ah, ah, ah... With each delicious push, I’m losing control. The thing won’t stop, Dominic won’t let it stop, he’ll only make it work harder and harder, revving up its engine until it’s driving me insane with pleasure, watching with lascivious enjoyment as it draws a climax of deep power from my depths.

  I know it’s here now. Pulse, pulse, push, push, it kneads my sex into a frenzy and then it comes, rolling up, a deep shuddering orgasm that stiffens my limbs and convulses me with delectable sensations. They ripple through me in huge waves and I cry out with the wonder of it, before they leave me, panting and spent. The little engine is still working away in me as my orgasm subsides. Then the motor slows and it stops. It is no longer my pulsing, vibrating friend, but a smooth column of silicone shiny with my juices. I feel it sliding out of me and then it’s gone.

  As I recover from the incredible power of my orgasm, I realise that I’m being untied and lifted up. Now my chest harness is unknotted and the ropes fall easily from my body. Then, Dominic’s hands are at the back of my head, and the mask comes away. I blink. It takes a while to readjust but I can see again. We’re in the boudoir bedroom, and the lamp is glowing softly. I gaze into Dominic’s face. He’s looking at me with such tenderness.

  ‘You’ve done wonderfully well,’ he murmurs, and takes my hand. He guides to where his erection stands, rearing out from his body, huge and swollen. ‘Look what you’ve done to me.’

  ‘It was... amazing,’ I say weakly, but unable to prevent a thrill spinning inside me at the sight of his desire.

  ‘You loved it, didn’t you?’

  I nod.

  He leads me to the bed, and lies me down on my back, spreading my thighs so that he can look into my honeyed centre, red from the ministrations of the relentless vibrator. ‘Oh, you’re so beautiful. Delicious. I want to make love to you.’

  My heart swells to hear it. In the past, Dominic has not allowed me or him to be loving here in the boudoir. It was the thing that wounded me, the deprivation of his love. I adore the way he drives me to peaks of ecstasy in so many ways, but my greatest moments are when he shows me the love he has for me.

  He’s between my thighs now, kissing my skin, sucking my fingertips, nuzzling my breasts. Now, as his tongue enters my mouth, his penis takes me as well, going in so gently but all the more exquisitely for that. My hot, fevered parts accept him like a soothing balm. I’d anticipated pain, considering what a fucking I’ve already had from him and from the vibrator, but it is the most beautiful sensation, as though the best fucking only comes after those fierce bouts. I sigh and wrap my arms around him. It’s a delight to touch him, all the more as I’ve barely been able to feel him since we began. His skin is warm and smooth, unutterably delicious. I smell the sweet warmth of his underarms, the place at the base of his neck, his hair and moan again with delight. My hands run down to his firm, muscular bottom and squeeze, relishing his hardness, my thighs spread wide to accept him and I love the way his broad chest presses down against my breasts. We kiss long and deep as he moves inside me. My clitoris is well used now, and the vibrations it gives out now are less electric and more profound, as though it’s become one with my vagina, and is slowly working to give me not the sizzling thrill of the first orgasm but the deep contractions of the final and best.

  My heart opens to him as we make love, without toys or ropes or anything else this time, but in a position as old as the world, following the ancient rhythm as he moves his hips to thrust inside me and I rise to meet him. I don’t know how long we run our course, only that everything outside the two of us has utterly vanished, we are hot, sweating, lost in our growing passion as our bodies finally take us up and out on that glorious roller-coaster ride, and we come together, both crying out as the long-awaited climax grips us with incredible intensity.

  ‘I love you, Beth,’ he says as we lie close together afterwards, his arm across my chest.

  ‘I love you too,’ I reply.

  This, I’m certain, is happiness.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The following day we sleep late and make gentle, luxurious love before showering and going out for breakfast. Dominic takes me to a diner-style café, where we eat scrambled eggs on thick slices of wholemeal toast and pancakes with maple syrup, accompanied by lots of strong milky coffee. We relax over the Sunday papers and then take a long walk around the park, enjoying the la
st remnants of warmth in the autumn sunshine, chatting and laughing as we go. Eventually we stop at a van to buy cups of tea and sit on a bench, huddled together against the wind that’s sprung up and watching the light already beginning to fade away.

  ‘I can’t believe the day is almost over,’ I say, pressing my cheek against his olive cord jacket. ‘It feels like we just woke up.’

  ‘I know. That’s one of the things I found strangest when I came to live in Britain. How you could live with the darkness coming down so early in the winter.’

  Dominic was brought up mostly in South-East Asia where his father was a diplomat, so I can imagine the seasonal patterns of northern Europe were quite a shock. I sip at my hot tea, and watch families putting on coats and getting ready to head home before it gets too dark.

  ‘Work tomorrow,’ Dominic says, ‘is going to be phenomenal. I may not be able to see you too much this week. This deal is coming to a close. But afterwards, all going well –’ he gazes down at me, and I admire the chocolaty richness of his eyes ‘– I’m going to be on the road to freedom and success in my own right.’ He laughs. ‘I can’t wait to see Andrei’s face. First we’ll toast the deal, and then, with my cash in the bag, I’m going to tell him that I’m stepping out on my own.’ He looks so pleased and excited that I don’t want to tell him that my first instinct is to worry. Don’t rub Andrei’s nose in it, that’s not the way to deal with him! But I say nothing for now. I’ll try and advise him when the time is right. I’ll tell him that acting humble to Andrei, telling him he’s the greatest and will never be matched, is the way to go.

  But I’m hardly one to talk. I remember the things I said to my boss on Friday and a cold shiver that has nothing to do with the autumn wind goes down my back.

  ‘And how about you? Are you nearly done with Andrei’s project?’ he asks.

  I nod. Although I might not have a job on Monday. I’ll have to see. ‘Yes, it should be over by the end of the week.’

  ‘Don’t let him persuade you to carry on,’ he says, a small frown creasing the area between his brows. ‘I know Andrei, he likes to collect people and keep them, and he’s obviously taken a shine to you. Watch out, okay?’

  ‘Believe me, there’s nothing he could say that would make me stay,’ I say feelingly.

  ‘Why?’ Suddenly Dominic is searching my face. ‘Has something happened? Has he made you feel threatened?’

  ‘No, no,’ I reply hastily. ‘Of course not. He’s fine, really. I just don’t like the atmosphere, or the way that Anna is always around. She’s determined to let me know just how much she and Andrei enjoy having sex – as if I care.’ I know I’m shifting the subject away from Andrei but I don’t know how I can begin to explain to Dominic about the tensions between Andrei and me. Would it help him to know that his boss has come on to me? Or that I had the crazy idea that I might have had sex with him, by mistake? And that there is still a question over whether or not he drugged me in the catacombs? Of course it wouldn’t. Dominic needs to keep a cool head this week, and any of this stuff might make him furious and unable to deal rationally with Andrei. ‘What do you make of her?’

  ‘Anna?’ Dominic shrugs. His gaze slides away from mine for a moment and then returns, dark and candid. ‘She’s an interesting woman, full of talent and very clever at her job. She loves to immerse herself in life, you know? Show her a challenge and she’s there. Tell her she can’t ski down that slope and she’ll be at the top before you can say Jack Robinson. Dare her anything, and she’ll take it on. She does everything at full tilt, so it doesn’t surprise me that she makes her presence felt at Andrei’s place.’

  ‘If you told me she has a good secondary career as an opera singer, I wouldn’t be surprised, not with her lung power,’ I remark drily, and Dominic laughs.

  ‘She’ll do anything,’ he says, and then more thoughtfully, ‘I sometimes wonder if that’s what draws Andrei to her. Not just her beauty – there are hundreds of beautiful women who’ll sleep with him – but because she’s so unafraid. Whatever he wanted, she would do – and she would love it.’

  His words fill me with a kind of dread. Is he telling me this because he wants me to be the same? Does he wish that I didn’t have my limits, places I will not go? Perhaps Anna is the perfect woman because she has no limits. But is she submissive? Could she lie down and take whatever someone else longed to give her – and truly want it? She doesn’t seem that type at all to me. I picture her in spiked heels and a corset, brandishing the instruments rather than letting them be played on her. But who knows? No one knows what goes on in the bedroom unless they’re in there too.

  ‘Are you happy... with us?’ I venture in a small voice.

  He looks at me, puzzled. ‘Of course I am. Don’t I seem that way?’

  ‘Yes... but I mean, with our sex life.’

  He lifts my free hand to his lips and kisses it. ‘Yes,’ he replies firmly. ‘Very happy.’

  ‘I like where we are,’ I say, feeling a little braver. ‘I like what you do to me.’

  He leans in and whispers in my ear, ‘I know. I’ve seen you coming, remember?’

  I laugh. ‘I just wondered if... well...’ I hardly know how to say it, but openness and trust are going to be our watchwords from now on, so there’s no point in being shy. ‘Are we only going to use rope from now on?’

  He looks straight into my eyes. I can’t stop gazing at his face: he’s so handsome, I can hardly believe he’s really mine. ‘Would that be a problem?’

  ‘No... no. I like it but I wonder if... all the time. I remember we used to enjoy other things too.’

  ‘Do you have anything in mind?’

  ‘Well...’ I want to squirm. I’m embarrassed to say, considering how everything ended before, but I need to be able to talk about my own needs and desires. ‘You know, sometimes I liked it when you used things on my bottom. I never liked anything too harsh, but a little stimulation sometimes got me very hot. You know that little flogger, the one with the soft suede tails... I remember how you used that so that it was as gentle as feathers to start with, and then gradually gave it more bite, and I found that kind of nice.’

  Dominic looks away, and his fingers start knitting through mine, as though he’s thinking hard. When he returns his gaze to me, he looks serious. ‘Beth, I told you. I took a vow not to use those things on you again.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘That’s right. Because of what happened.’

  ‘So – you don’t trust yourself.’

  He doesn’t answer for a while but sighs heavily and then says, ‘There’s a part of me that’s like a bad limb I want to get rid of, because it’s gangrenous and could infect the rest of me. So I’m cutting off the blood supply and waiting until it falls off and I’m not bothered by it any more. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Kind of. Yes, I suppose so,’ I say, and it’s true, it does, in a way. But I still feel there is something unanswered. ‘And you – you’re still the same?’

  ‘Er... I think so.’ He sounds amused. ‘Do I seem different?’

  ‘Well – I mean, you’re still a dominant lover, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ he murmurs. ‘I’ll never stop being turned on from seeing you yielding to my desires and letting me take you to extremes of pleasure...’

  My stomach tightens delightfully as his words buzz in my ears. But I have the sense that there’s something I’ve forgotten, something I ought to remember and ask him about. But it stays on the edges of my mind and won’t let me seize it and pull it to the centre where I can see it.

  I push it out of my mind and snuggle into him.

  ‘Finish that tea,’ he commands. ‘I want to get you home and ravish you, if that’s all right by you.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I whisper back.

  All the way back through the park, we play a silly but exciting game in which I am already his slave, doing his bidding, obeying his commands. When I fail in something or mess up an order, he punishes me in sm
all ways.

  I’m ordered to let my master cross the road but when the traffic signals don’t immediately change so that we can cross, I’m at fault for not arranging things better. My punishment is Dominic’s hand, cold from the wind, pushed up my jumper and pressed against my warm flesh, making me squeal, though I try to stifle it.

  It’s jokey but also provocative, and by the time we’re walking through the Mayfair streets, it has taken a more serious tone. I walk obediently ahead of him, letting him watch me, waiting in case he issues another order. Darkness has fallen and the city is illuminated by the sodium orange of street lighting. As we get closer to Randolph Gardens, he suddenly orders me to change direction and walk towards Grosvenor Square. I obey, wondering what he has in mind. In the square, one side is dominated by the huge modern building that houses the American Embassy, with the concrete fortifications and armed guards patrolling in front. The guns and guards have always given me the shivers when I pass, making me think of bombs and terrorists and attacks, the kind of dreadful things I hope will never disturb the peace of the beautiful city again, even if they are an undeniable reality.

  ‘Stop.’ It’s Dominic issuing a command.

  I halt immediately. We are on the edge of the square, near the gardens. Around them, just shadows in the darkness, are benches facing into the garden, where people might stop in the daytime but which are now deserted, except one on the other side of the square that has a tramp fast asleep on it.

  Dominic walks past me, goes to the nearest bench and sits down. ‘Now come over here,’ he commands. ‘But look only into the garden. Don’t look at me. Come and stand directly in front of me with your back to me.’