Off Duty

by Ellie Masters

  “Hey, don’t rank on my Purina Paramedic Chow,” I shot back, and she looked at me with wide eyes then giggled. Good, I wanted her to dread punishment, but not to live in fear of me. Usually, that anorexic/bulimic wisecrack gets all kinds of laughter. I hurriedly downed three slices of toast, washing it down with orange juice, then had Laura fetch two quarts of Gatorade from the fridge. “To the dungeon,” I ordered, rising to my feet.

  Laura shuffled in her ankle cuffs, but got to the dungeon, which I unlocked. She set the bottles on the spanking bench, then made her way to the St. Andrew cross. “Will I be lashed on my back, or on my tits and belly, where I can see the marks?” she asked. I sensed a hopeful note in her tone. “It all belongs to you, Master. I’m coming to see myself as the custodian and caretaker, but you own the woman, Sir.”

  “Back to the cross,” I said. She backed up clumsily and offered her wrists to the upper arms of the furniture, which I quickly cuffed before releasing the ankle cuffs, and re-cuffing her ankles. To further hold her still, I opened a drawer and retrieved eight short belts I’d bought in the kids’ department at Walmart, and bound her at her upper and lower legs, then upper and lower arms. I removed the bondage belt, exposing her entire toned belly for the whip.

  “Kiss me?” she begged. “I know I deserve this. I was on the verge last night of begging for it, Master. I even know this is you loving me. But please … some reassurance?”

  I don’t think I’d ever object to kissing this beautiful woman. I shed my shirt first. I liked being shirtless when lashing someone, so there wasn’t a chance my clothes would bind. I approached her, pressing my body to hers, and kissed her with a depth and longing that had my cock instantly hard. God, what she did to me. I kissed a trail down her belly to the top of her pubis.

  “You know this is going to look like a war was fought here,” I said.

  “I hope so, Sir,” Laura returned. “I need you to be steel to me. My owner and lawgiver. Escape is despicable, Master, beneath contempt. You have my blanket consent, Sir. Already, I want that forever, not for this week of vacation, but for your rule to extend everywhere but the hospital. I have to be the tough old bitch there, but even there, I need you to soften me, to make me human. This is well worth what it’s going to cost, Master.” She sighed, taking another deep breath and gusting it out as she quivered. “Master, I meant every word I said last night.”

  “So am I doing this to you or for you?” I asked.

  “Neither, Master,” she said promptly. “I wondered after that too. I think you’re doing this for us, Sir.”

  “I like that answer, and it’s the truth,” I agreed. “Have you more to say before I finish preparing you? You’re to be gagged so you can’t call red, and it’s going to look a bit silly, but I’m going to put a face shield on you just so if I lose control of the whip, your face is undamaged.”

  “That would only stall this,” she said, then opened her mouth. I fetched a ball gag, put the ball in her mouth, then buckled it in place while she looked at me with wide eyes. I adjusted the headband on the face shield, and put that on her, wondering if I shouldn’t order up a welder’s mask, so she couldn’t see the lash coming.

  I slashed the whip into her, a vertical stripe between her tits that stopped just above her navel. She groaned, but didn’t fight her bonds. I lashed again, popping her left nipple, then another lash to the right, which made her shriek and fight her bonds, but she was going nowhere.

  She looked at me with an expression of mingled love and horror, and I continued lashing, showing her no mercy. She sobbed throughout the whipping, shrieking now and again at a particularly painful lash. I took my time, extending her suffering. The sixth lash opened her skin in a diagonal welt across her belly, and by the time I laid down the 80th stroke, she was leaking blood from four open stripes.

  I set the whip aside, wiping the wounds and seeing none were deep. One of them might scar, but I doubted it. I went to my first-aid box and produced a styptic pencil, one that every man knows who shaves with a blade, and dabbed her wounds to stop the bleeding. She cried out again at the burning sting of the pencil. I knew every time she bent or twisted, she’d remember this whipping and what it meant. It didn’t really mean don’t run away from your master. It meant your master owns and loves you, and is keeping you on his leash forever.

  Her chin, throat, and belly were coated in drool, the inevitable result of gagging her, but the gag had a hole through it so she wouldn’t choke if she puked, although nothing was in her belly to puke up. Doctors took an oath that included primum non nocere, a Latin term meaning “above all, do no harm,” or words to that effect. I would do no harm either. My Laura would face suffering and discipline, but I would never do her harm. I loved her, and I knew that. It was that simple. I removed her face shield and gag.

  “God, I bled,” she whispered in a marveling tone. “Marked by my Master. I’d have shrieked red ten lashes into this. Thank … yes … thank you for gagging me, for being the iron bastard to my iron bitch, and making me take it. I doubt I’m broken. It took years to become such a bitch, and I know it’ll take years to break me.”

  “That’s how punishment will be, Laura,” I said. “And, yes, I expect you’ll be punished often, my dear, at least until you settle in. You are a headstrong type. I don’t take it personally, but I will outlast you, my pet.”

  “It stopped feeling sexy or kinky by ten lashes,” she told me. “You took me beyond. I can’t believe I’m thanking you for owning me and whipping me bloody, but I am.”

  I released her cuffs and straps. “Put it all away, then come kneel at my feet,” I ordered. I was horny, almost painfully so, but knew I wanted to fuck her under her own roof, so I reluctantly stifled my urges. She came to me and knelt, and I let her drink her Gatorade, which she gulped down while I drank mine.

  “Let’s go to your house, slave,” I said. “And you’re going to wear your runaway tee-shirt and nothing else. I hope that drives your lesson home as well.”

  “Master is inventive,” she muttered. “I get to do the walk of shame anyway. Yes, Sir.”

  CHAPTER 29

  I wore Keith’s shirt and nothing else, slipping into the passenger seat of his truck. I’d wanted to take my car, but he insisted on driving. As far as I was concerned he could drive the Mercedes. Hell, the man owned me body and soul. A car was nothing next to that. It took about half an hour to negotiate the roads to my house and I squirmed in the seat as he backed down the drive, my mind a flurry of excitement for what the afternoon would bring.

  “Lift it,” he commanded.

  I turned to him, not liking the direction this was headed. In his truck, the daily drivers wouldn’t be able to see in, but we passed more than a handful of truckers. They had an eagle’s eye into the cab.

  “Lift and spread,” he said. “I need to feel you.”

  Feeling me turned into finger fucking me into oblivion. How he kept us from crashing wasn’t something I cared about. My ass stung. Small twinges of pain still pricked at my back. My midsection, tits, and hips remained angry and deliciously raw. He’d put his marks on me to imprint how he owned my pain, but his fingers had me writhing and screaming with pleasure. One trucker gave us one long ear-splitting blast of his horn. I’m not sure what expression was on my face, except I was riding Keith’s hand hard, grinding my pussy, and making a mess of the seat.

  I really didn’t care about the trucker, and Keith seemed pleased with the result. After I climbed down from the intensity of the orgasm, he tilted his strong chin downward and licked his fingers. “Damn but I’ve got one tasty slave,” he said.

  My pulse hammered in my chest, and my insides still vibrated with the coursing of pleasure. “And I have one generous master.” A glance between his legs revealed he agreed. “Master?”

  “Yes?”

  “What would you say to a little bit of worship from your slave right about now?”

  His chuckle bounced around the inside of the truck. “I’d say
we’re lucky we haven’t already crashed, but wrap your lips around me now, and I’m sure we’ll find a ditch in no time flat.”

  “Ah, that’s a shame,” I said. “You can deny me all you want, but you shouldn’t deny yourself. Not when you have me.”

  “Oh, I’ll have you. I plan on fucking your ever-loving brains out as soon as we get inside.”

  “I would like that very much, Master.” I used the title more often than needed, but I loved that I could say it at all. If it were up to me, I’d give a litany of verse of what he meant to me.

  “Doesn’t matter what you want,” he quipped. “You get what you’re given.”

  As it should be, but I loved when he fucked me, and we hadn’t done that nearly enough. I had a few days before work sucked me under. Keith had longer on his workman’s comp. I wanted him to fuck me until I couldn’t walk, until I ached remembering him all day. Shit, the man intoxicated me. My master had turned me into an addict whose favorite drugs were domination and control.

  “Why are you grinning?” he asked.

  “I was thinking about your hand reddening my ass as you plowed into me from behind.”

  Really, my mind was buzzing over what would happen later today. Confinement would be new to me, and I wasn’t looking forward to all the thoughts that stirred up. He planned to take all of me too, as was his right. I may have overstated my love of ass play, but I’d felt a need to give him every piece of me. In truth, I’d experimented, but I’d never really had a partner who was any good at it. All it meant to me was discomfort and pain. But, like everything else, that choice no longer belonged to me.

  The corner of his lips turned up. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Oh yes. My favorite position actually.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s the most dominant position. When a man is behind a woman, he’s not making love to her. There’s little eye contact. When a man is behind me, I’m pretty certain I’m getting fucked.”

  “First off,” he said, “no other man is ever touching you again. And second, you’re getting fucked in every position, not just when I’m behind you.”

  “Mm,” I said. “Thank you, Master.”

  “Oh, you might want to hold off on the thank yous.”

  We’d arrived at my house. He pulled into my drive and turned off the truck. Turning to me, fire burned in his gaze, heating with his lust.

  “Master.” I spoke in a whisper, my breaths captured by his gaze.

  “Do you feel all the evil things I want to do?”

  My belly still burned. Each twist of my body reminded me of the lashes he’d laid down. A punishment for running away. Those hadn’t been strikes for his pleasure. They’d been a lesson to me. A good one too, because his look made me want to run, but I would never run from this man. The penalty was too severe, both in the lashes I would endure and the disappointment I would cause.

  My words came out a breathy whisper. “Yes, Master, I do.”

  “I’m going to fuck you in your home, Laura. I’m going to mark every square inch with the memory of me taking you. Mouth, ass, and pussy, we’re not leaving until the deed is done.”

  My entire body quivered. This man had an insatiable appetite. He’d said he’d wanted to dust off the cobwebs. We’d done that and more. By the time we were done, we will have polished granite to the highest shine. Only, I hoped he never tired of me.

  I reached into my purse and pulled out my only key. “This doesn’t belong to me anymore.” I surrendered my freedom. Only one place remained free of this thing between us. Work would see our roles dissolved by necessity, but for now, I remained his.

  He took the key, opened the door, and jumped out of the truck. I took several deep pulls of breath bracing for the removal of even more of my freedoms. He came around the truck, helping me out, hiding my nakedness beneath his shirt from the inquisitive stares of Mr. Hurley next door. Then Keith led me into the home I no longer called my own. By his grace, I would live here, or not. We hadn’t discussed what came next.

  He closed the door, sealing off the outside world, then turned his gruff voice on me. “Strip, slave. You haven’t earned the right to cover your body from me.”

  The shirt came off, and much like before, it puddled on the floor.

  Pointing to a spot in the front hall, he ordered me into place. “On your knees, ass up, head down.”

  I thought he would fuck me, but he left me there instead. His heavy step turned toward the kitchen, moved through the living room, and faded down the hall. He opened doors as he explored my home, taking his time. Then the sound of his steps heading down alerted me to his visit to my dance studio. To my most private place, where I danced to forget my job and sank into another place. Beneath my knees and palms, the deep vibrations of my soundsystem shook the floor. He’d turned on the music and my breath caught.

  He returned, deep breaths tugging and slapped my ass.

  “Who’s the damn chair for?” he demanded. “Who’s the asshole you dance for?”

  I gave a squeak with the next slap of his hand, lifting my ass as my body surged forward. “No one,” I huffed. “It’s for no one.”

  “Doesn’t look like no one,” he said. “Who is it for?”

  How to explain to him the meaning of that chair? How that chair embodied my fantasies of the nameless and faceless man I danced for until my body gave out.

  “No one has ever been downstairs,” I said. “The chair is a symbol.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of you!” I yelled. I shouldn’t be yelling at him, but it was true. Only I hadn’t really known who would occupy that chair. In my heart, I’d always known it would be claimed someday. Not once did I ever think it would be him.

  “Come,” he said, and angled back down the hall.

  I rose to my feet, tugging in that breath.

  Keith turned around, a scowl on his face. “Did I give you permission to stand?”

  CHAPTER 30

  “Master, may I lead you to my bedroom?” she asked. “There are things I’d like for you to see, Sir,” Laura said nervously.

  “Yes,” I decided, knowing she could neither climb nor especially descend stairs on her hands and knees. “Keep your nipples on the floor until we’re at the base of the stairs and I give you permission to walk on your hind legs.”

  “As my Master wishes.”

  She crawled, clumsy but resigned, as I prescribed. She was beautiful, and all mine, and I reveled in this private humiliation of her. I sensed she reveled in my rulership as well. She didn’t need to make decisions, except to obey or suffer the consequences. I cursed myself for not having the good sense God gave a gopher and bringing a whip to her house, a quirt, flogger, something. God knows I had plenty of toys, even some duplicates or near-duplicates, in my dungeon. I’d have to rectify that and resolved to pack a trunk with weapons of ass-destruction to have a stash of them here.

  Her house, compared to mine, was a palace, a master bedroom downstairs, another upstairs, and four other bedrooms upstairs. One of the bedrooms up there was empty as a politician’s promise, as my grandfather liked to say. My mind took a left turn as I thought I needed to make the trip to visit him soon, maybe after Laura returned to work. He was closing in on his 100th birthday, but didn’t look a day over 65. I set those thoughts aside as another thought rose to mind. I’d taken drafting in high school, and for not one hell of a lot of money, we could make one hell of a nice hidden dungeon from the room adjacent to her bedroom.

  “You may rise,” I told her. “Show me what I’m to see, Laura.”

  “Thank you, Master,” she said, rising and going up the stairs while I followed. She led me to her bedroom and opened the walk-in closet, then opened a wardrobe at the back of the closet, revealing a decent collection of BDSM gear. She opened the drawer beneath the main carcase of the wardrobe, showing me an impressive collection of ass-intruders. “I like stretching my ass with the plugs, Master,” she said. “For a long while, I d
id a lot of DIY play, but it didn’t work for me, really.

  “No, not particularly,” I agreed.

  “Master, may I go downstairs and get my laptop?” Laura asked. I nodded, and she dashed downstairs, back in a long moment bearing an HP laptop. She connected it to the big screen TV on the wall, reset the input to HDMI-3, then tapped on the computer, sending a video to the television. “I have nearly 800 videos here, which is sad and pathetic, to be honest, but … that’s been my life until you. Truth is, I’d probably have added twenty more videos to this throughout this vacation. This first one is from a year ago, Master.”

  She hit the start button and a video began to play. It was shot in this bedroom. She appeared, spectacularly naked. “This is self-punishment, not play,” she announced to the camera. “I picked up a speeding ticket today. I tried to doctor my way out of it, but the trooper didn’t bite down. It’s not the money, but the inattention and embarrassment at my stupidity of him eating up thirty minutes of my day in the name of me trying to save myself five minutes on the drive. I wasn’t driving to an emergency, and so what if I get to the hospital five minutes late? I got there forty minutes late after he took his sweet time writing me a ticket, and nobody cared. They only care if I’m there with a tough case. Otherwise, interns, residents, and other lesser mortals can handle the load since they need the experience. But it was still wrong and stupid of me, and I know this.”

  She held up three drawstring bags, one blue, one white, and one red, and a white die with black dots. “I’m going to roll the die. The number I roll will tell me how many slips to draw from each bag. The blue bag has instruments that will hurt badly. The red bag is numbers from 30 to 100, indicating the number of lashes I am to receive. The white bag is what region of my body is to endure the punishment. It’s … I’ve never done this before, but I know I have to do it, and I know I’ll never have a master to do it. There’s a man I fantasize about, a paramedic, but he hates me. To be honest, I’m not all that fond of that tomcat either, flirting with anything in a skirt. But my God, he still excites me. No matter, none. I’m alone and that die is cast, no pun intended.” She rolled the die on the dresser. “I’m in luck. It was a two.” She drew two slips from each bag, that were in color-coded slips of paper. “Jesus. First, I am awarded fifty of the quirt to the backs of my thighs. Second, I am to be paddled 85 swats to each side of my ass. Oh, God. I’ll be back.”