by Jason Luke
“Your dreams are not reality,” Joshua said flatly. “The notions promoted in fiction novels are created to titillate readers, Gabriele. Those stories can’t accurately detail the sacrifice, the time, and the perseverance that it takes a man or woman to learn true sexual surrender. You’re worshipping a false god.”
Gabriele frowned. “Excuse me?”
“You’re like a child who still believes in the Santa Claus story of Christmas, swept up in the romance of fiction. The adult reality is far less glorified… but far more intense.”
“I want to learn,” Gabriele’s voice took on an edge of defiance that hinted at her deeper desperation.
Joshua’s own expression turned blank. “I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself in for,” he said. His voice had changed completely. It was flat and bleak. “You probably believe that you can be fully trained as a submissive in ten sessions, but as I clearly state in my advertisement, what I am offering is merely an introduction to the lifestyle, Gabby. It’s not the kind of training that comes with a diploma at the end. It’s a chance for women to step beyond the threshold of fictional fantasy and to glimpse what life might be like if they decide to immerse themselves in submission. I get the sense that you’re looking for some quick fix to a different problem.”
Joshua’s words seemed to pound at her, relentlessly battering her will and resolve. She admitted to herself that he was right; she had mistakenly thought the training would be a quick fix to winning Randall back – but she couldn’t admit that, ever.
“I really want to do this. I need you to train me,” she said instead, hearing her voice quaver with emotion and hating herself for it.
“Then tell me why.”
“I… I have my reasons,” Gabriele was trembling. “But they’re personal.”
Behind the big antique desk, Joshua was shaking his head. “That’s not how I do business, I’m afraid. You expect me to train you without telling me your true motivation. I won’t do it,” he thrust an accusing finger at her. “And this is why.”
He got up out of the deep leather chair and stood with his bunched fists on the desk, leaning over the polished tabletop to make his point. His face was hard, his eyes turned dark. “This course is intense, even though it serves only as an introduction. We’re going to spend a lot of time together, and during those sessions you will be naked, or dressed in lingerie, offering me your mind and body and soul unconditionally. You will cry, Gabby, and you will experience mild pain. You will be frustrated, and you will weep with despair. You will be made to discover the edge of your own limits and then encouraged to go further. And the only way you will emerge at the other end of the course is if you are totally honest with me, and brutally honest with yourself. Anything less than that can only lead to failure.”
She lowered her eyes like a chastised schoolgirl before the withering ridicule of a headmaster. She felt tears well in her eyes and then splash down her cheeks. Her face and throat were flushed with heat.
“I’m very sorry,” Joshua’s voice lost its sting and softened sympathetically. “But if you can’t be completely honest, you can’t be well trained. I think it’s best if you leave.”
He came around the desk and stood resolutely in the doorway. Gabriele got to her feet and followed him like a woman on the way to the gallows.
Joshua’s thoughts were in their own hectic turmoil. He was attracted to the woman, beyond the physical appeal of her looks. She intrigued him, and stirred disquieting emotions he hadn’t felt for years…
Come on, Gabby! He urged her, his mind silently screaming as they drew closer to the front door of the house. Show me that you want it. Fight for it!
He reached the door at last and held it open with a sad sigh. Gabriele faltered, her quivering lip between her teeth, her breath coming in ragged shudders… and then stepped, forlorn, out into the night.
Joshua closed the door.
He was well down the long corridor when he heard the defiant knock echo through the walls. He balked, frowned, then turned on his heel and went back. When he pulled the front door open, Gabriele was still standing on his porch beneath the haloed glow of the light.
She looked like a sad waif, with tear-streaked makeup and a face as white as paper.
“The truth is that when I called you two nights ago, it was because my boyfriend and I were having troubles in our relationship... with our sex life,” Gabriele bared her soul in a voice that was empty of all emotion. “He wanted me to be more submissive. I called you because I thought that if I got training I could hold things together and learn to please him. But he left me this morning. He walked out.”
“So…?”
Gabriele lifted her face to his at last, her chin thrust in the little jut of defiance and determination he had already learned to recognize.
“So now I want to win him back.”
“Before we get started, I want to make some things very clear to you,” Joshua said. They were back in the office at the end of the corridor, and Gabriele was sitting quiet and attentive, the tears now dried on her face. She sat small and hunched, as though to make herself insignificant, lest Joshua change his mind.
“Your training can only succeed if you are completely honest with me. I will accept nothing less. I need to know your every feeling, your every desire, and your every emotion, Gabby. Every time you address me or answer me it will be preceded or followed by, ‘Sir’, as a measure of your position. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, Sir,” Gabriele nodded meekly.
“If I think you are lying at any time, or if I believe you are holding anything of yourself back, I will terminate your training immediately,” Joshua warned. He paused for a moment with his eyes far away and gazing as though lost in a moment of memory or abstract thought. Gabriele waited in silence. At last, Joshua’s eyes came back to hers, and he went on as if he had never paused. “A Master-submissive relationship is built on trust, but it works both ways. Emphasis is always placed on the Master gaining the submissive’s trust in order for her to fully relax and accept her training. But there is another side to that coin. The Master must be able to trust his submissive. I have to be confident that you are answering everything I ask you truthfully.”
She nodded.
Joshua waved his hand in a dismissive conceptual gesture. “Everything I tell you relates to male and female submissives. These rules are not gender related, they’re role related. If I talk in specifics, I trust you can translate them to the general roles. Don’t get all sexist and offended with me.”
Gabriele smiled for the first time, a faltering cautious little thing that touched at the corner of her lips for just a moment.
“I won’t, Sir. I understand that you’re talking in terms of our relationship, but that the roles aren’t specific to a female submissive and a man as the Master.”
Joshua grunted broodily. “These days everything can be misconstrued by those who wish to do so.” It was enough for him to lapse back into unsettling silence and ultimately he had to push himself out of the big leather chair to break the spell of melancholy and force his thoughts back on track. He began to prowl around the room, suddenly restless with energy.
“I also expect you to be open to all aspects of your training and willing to attempt them without hesitation. Naturally we will talk in detail about your specific interests and any hard limits you set will be honored scrupulously. But part of your training is about stretching yourself and developing a deeper personal understanding of who you really are. You must have an open mind to all I say.”
She nodded. He looked hard at her. A silent nod wasn’t enough.
“I will, Sir. I promise.”
Joshua grunted.
“Obedience and discipline,” Joshua intoned gravely. “They’re the bedrock of the lifestyle for a submissive.” He went to one of the long bookcases and stared, frowning, at the titles on the shelves. His hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jeans; his shoulders hunched as if in deep c
oncentration of his will.
Gabriele watched him with covert fascination. Joshua radiated a kind of raw force that aroused her like a powerful aphrodisiac. It was the sum of him; the physique and handsome looks, but also the presence he projected; the simmering sexual energy that lay restrained just below the surface. It pulled her towards him like the irresistible attraction of a magnetic field.
“May I ask a question, Sir?” she spoke timidly into the bristling silence of his thoughts.
Joshua turned, eyebrows arched with curiosity.
“When you punish me,” she heard her voice faltering in her own ears, “will you use a whip to beat me, or do you slap my face…?”
Joshua frowned, and for a moment his expression turned to horror before he smoothed his features back to neutrality.
“Why do you ask?” He asked carefully. Behind his eyes he studied Gabriele with serious concern.
She shrugged her shoulders, not quite sure how to go on. She was wringing her hands uncomfortably in her lap. She tried to hide the next words behind a kind of dismissive smile. “I… Randall can be rough with me sometimes. Not just the physical punishment if I don’t do what he wants, but also… also in the things he says. I… I didn’t know if you would be the same, or whether different Masters have different ways of punishing their submissives when they’ve been disappointed.”
Joshua crossed the room and perched himself on the edge of the desk with his arms folded. His eyes were darkly troubled.
“In your fantasies – the sexual ones you play out in your mind when you are alone,” he began, seeming to go off at a tangent, “does the Master in your imaginings ever use physical pain to punish you?”
“No,” Gabriele shook her head emphatically.
“Does he ever abuse you with cruel words for failing to please him?”
“No, Sir.”
“Why?”
Gabriele didn’t need to think about the answer. It sprung from her lips instinctively. “Because those things don’t arouse me,” she admitted. “If I fantasized about those things happening, I would never be… never be able to…”
“Cum?”
She dropped her eyes and color stained her cheeks bright red. “Yes, Sir.”
Joshua grunted and then conducted a deliberate test. He stared at Gabriele for a long time, blatantly undressing her with his eyes, his gaze slowly caressing every inch of her from the soft flesh of her neck, then down over the press of her breasts beneath her blouse where they lingered intimately until at last they drifted lower until he was imagining the lines of her inner thigh, the mound of her sex. Gabriele flushed, squirming under the intensity of his overt scrutiny. His stare was possessive as though she were some exquisite masterpiece of art.
“You’re very beautiful, and very sexy,” Joshua said at last. “Just now is the first time I truly looked at you like an object of desire.”
Gabriele didn’t know what to say. She felt no offense. In fact, she felt the opposite. She felt giddily flattered.
“Tell me how you felt when I was undressing you with my eyes?”
“Aroused,” the word choked in her throat, and her mind reeled in horror that she had just made the admission.
Joshua’s expression remained resolute. “So you liked it? You liked me looking at you with sexual desire, picturing your body naked?”
“Yes.”
Joshua slid off the edge of the desk and put space between them, the intensity dissolving from his eyes, the answers he had been searching for now obvious. He was suddenly smiling with absolute understanding. Usually the women who came to him seeking training were more confused about their desires and sources of sexual stimulation. But in just a few sentences, this girl had told and revealed enough about herself that he was sure he knew the best way to train her.
“Your sexual buttons don’t need to be beaten, Gabby. You’re not that kind of woman. For you, arousal is sensory. Just one look will achieve much more than a hundred lashes from a whip.”
Gabriele was still blushing, but her expression clouded into confusion. She didn’t fully understand what Joshua was saying.
“What does that mean?” she croaked, for some reason fearful. “Does that mean you can’t train me?”
Joshua gave a little laugh of reassurance. “It means that I will never raise a hand to you, never use a whip to punish you. It means I will never use cruel words to berate you. Instead, I’ll use a blindfold.”
She blinked. “A blindfold?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to blindfold me as punishment?” In her shock, she had completely forgotten to address Joshua as, ‘Sir’. He noticed, but said nothing.
“I’m going to blindfold you to arouse you, to stimulate you, and to take you to the edge of orgasm.”
She was still shaking her head. Everything Joshua was saying seemed very far removed from the brief painful glimpses of her own real experiences under Randall’s cruel hands and lashing tongue. She licked her lips, wondering if she should ask more. Was there something she didn’t understand clearly?
“Um…”
Joshua’s secret knowledge showed on his face as confidence. He came to her suddenly and gently caressed the perfect silken skin of her cheek. His voice was soft as a breeze.
“Submission doesn’t mean that you’re used merely as an object for a Master’s desire,” he showed her kindness. “It’s a sexual lifestyle that must be just as gratifying for the one who serves as it is for the one who dominates. The BDSM lifestyle isn’t a one-way street. It’s about giving and receiving. It seems to me that you’ve been used and abused. That won’t happen here with me. I’m going to show you the sweet sexual torture of your own desires.”
Gabriele couldn’t breathe. She’d barely heard a word Joshua had said. His touch had simply sent her spiraling into a fever of trembling lust that appalled her by its intensity. She felt hot and molten desire melt through her body until her pussy ached to be touched.
“All you have to do is obey my every instruction, and answer my every question with honesty.”
“I will, Sir. I promise.” Gabriele’s mouth felt dry as a desert. In her lap her hands were shaking. “I’ll do anything you say.”
Suddenly Joshua broke the hypnotic spell. In an instant his face turned dour and cynical. He arched a mocking eyebrow.
“Ah, yes. But will you do those things in order to please me or to win back your boyfriend?”
“To please you.” Her voice was small and almost shamed.
Joshua jabbed a finger at her in caution. “You can’t expect the training I give you to be the solution to your relationship problems,” his voice rose to emphasize his point. “What we do here, and everything you learn will give you a good foundation and a clear understanding of the submissive lifestyle. It will prepare you for a sane and sensible Master if that’s the course you choose. But it won’t alter things between your boyfriend, and nor will it correct his own failings as a man. He’s still going to be an asshole. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” Gabriele swallowed. Joshua was an overwhelming conflict of fire and ice; of intensity and cool disinterest. He was an enigmatic fascination like she had never encountered before in her life. She felt completely off balance and sensed that was the whole point. He was testing her.
From out of nowhere he snapped suddenly, “What’s your boyfriend’s name?”
“Huh?” The question caught Gabriele off guard. She was still reeling and groping to understand the clever ways of Joshua’s intense psychological thrusts and cool disarming parries. She hesitated.
Joshua’s eyes flashed. “His name?” he asked the question again in a tone that made it clear he didn’t like to repeat himself.
“Randall.”
“Full name?”
“Randall Waddingham.”
“And what does he do for work?”
“He’s trying to build a web-design company.”
Joshua narrowed his eyes, filing the information aw
ay. He drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders. The interview was suddenly over. He had learned everything he needed to know about Gabriele.
“Be back here tomorrow night at exactly 8 pm,” he said. “I want you wearing the sexiest lingerie you own… and don’t ever come to my door again in a pants suit,” he frowned. “I want you in short dresses when you arrive.”
She nodded her head, overwhelmed with relief as if she had just been offered a new work position. The smile on her face beamed. Joshua gave her a final word of caution.
“This course is intense, Gabby. It reveals aspects of your deepest desires and personality. It peels away the superficial and exposes what matters most. You may find, by the time we finish our sessions together, that what you hold as important in your life no longer matters, and is no longer necessary for true happiness. That might even include your old boyfriend. Right now you want him back, but in two weeks from now, you may just never want to see him ever again.”
Chapter 4:
Gabriele went to work in a kind of conflicted daze. The long night had passed in a restless blur as she fought her own emotions that veered wildly between lingering loyalty to her broken relationship with Randall, and a keen desire to spend more time with Joshua.
She didn’t know whether to feel excited or anxious.
Should she feel like she was betraying Randall?
Objectively she didn’t think so… but on an emotional level she was brooding and torn.
The workday went by with agonizing slowness and when Gabriele finally clocked off, she disappeared into the women’s bathroom to change from her drab grey pants suit into a short blue dress. There would be no time to return to the apartment and change.
She emerged out of the bathrooms to admiring glances from workers in the same building but ignored them all. She had one thing on her mind; she had to be early arriving at Joshua’s.
