Maud and the Secret Society of Saint Valentine by Emily Tilton
Chapter One: Summons
The summons arrived on the thirteenth day of February, a Thursday, pushed through Maud's mail slot for her to find when she got home from work. The envelope was of heavy paper, cream-colored, and it bore Maud's name in a calligrapher's hand, like the inside envelope of a formal invitation to a wedding. Indeed, Maud found inside the envelope a rectangle of cream-colored cardstock which bore an ornate, engraved message that she supposed as she began to read it must be such an invitation.
She did not have to read far, though, before she understood that what she had received represented something quite different from a wedding invitation, although the resonance with that time-honored and cherished tradition clearly played a role in the extreme heat of the blood that rushed to Maud's face as she read.
The disciplinary tribunal of the Secret Society of Saint Valentine requires your presence at its hearing of the fourteenth instant, at seven o'clock post meridiem in the society's headquarters, Forty-Five Hunt Road, Highfield, Connecticut, for the purpose of awarding your sexual submission and erotic obedience to the gentleman whose friends have referred your case to us. Having evaluated your erotic profile and observed your conduct, the tribunal has elected to docket you for a disciplinary hearing and a mastering ceremony. You will dress yourself in the clothes our staff will give you upon your arrival, and submit yourself to preparation, punishment, training, and sexual use by the gentleman to whom we have decided to award mastery of your body.
Any attempt to evade this summons, or to discuss it with anyone including the gentleman whose property you will be, will result in dire consequences. We urge you simply to accept your new life of submission and your new role as the erotic possession of the gentleman we judge able to master you as thoroughly as we judge you need to be mastered.
Maud did not think for a moment that the thing might be a joke, or a hoax. She did, however, decide that it must be a game—and one that seemed to her in very poor taste. David had tried to get her to play sex games before, but Maud always said, "Don't be silly, David."
Now, apparently, he had gone to great expense to see whether he could interest her in what Maud had come to think of as his little quirk. Yes, David had gotten exasperated on the morning of New Year's. After she had gotten so drunk at the fancy New Year's Eve party to which he had taken her she knew he had a right to his frustration. He had really let her have it, verbally: he had said that his ideas about taking the lead in their relationship and about guiding Maud held more importance for him than she seemed able to realize.
He had even said he had begun to think that his love for her might not be enough to get them through to the future. But Maud could tell—thought she could tell, she admitted now—that he didn't really mean it. She thought she could tell David was just looking for excuses to put off proposing to her.
Maud Fredericks had met David Carroll in October. They had already begun in November impetuously to talk about a shared future. At thirty-one, David said he had had enough of bachelorhood; Maud, twenty-three, couldn't really say why she found older men so much more attractive than men her own age, but she couldn't deny it either. The idea of this dark-brown-haired, blue-eyed software entrepreneur, with his high cheekbones and his crew-strengthened shoulders, choosing her with whom to settle down made her nearly swoon whenever she thought about it.
They had had sex only a week after meeting, at his palatial apartment in Boston. Maud still blushed to remember the way she had seemed to melt in his arms, as he unzipped her dress as he kissed her next to the table where they had just eaten the spectacular dinner he had made. So confused had she been by her arousal that she had excused herself and gone to undress in his bedroom, so that when he came in he found her naked and waiting: ready for the traditional missionary-position sex they then had, as Maud tried desperately not to show David the embarrassing way her body seemed to cry out for so much more.
The next morning, Maud had invited him to her family's Thanksgiving dinner, pretending—not lying, really, though perhaps implying falsely, which wasn't the same thing at all—that her family didn't consider bringing a boyfriend to Thanksgiving a big deal. It was a big deal, though, as appeared very quickly at dinner, and David had called her on it, that night in her childhood bedroom.
That had been the first time he had suggested one of his games.
"You didn't tell me," David said softly but with a steely edge in his voice, "that your mother thinks we're engaged."
Maud's heart started to pound in her chest. "She doesn't! I mean, I didn't tell her anything like that."
"That makes it worse, Maud." The furrow in his brow grew deeper. "That means she assumed it because you invited me for Thanksgiving dinner, which in turn means you failed to tell me your family's Thanksgiving is a great deal more important than you said. Do you remember when I specifically asked if your parents knew that we had just started dating?"
"Yes?" Maud said. "But, David, it's not a big deal, is it? I mean, you really seemed to have a great time, and you like them, right?"
David sighed. "No, it's not a big deal. Yes, I like your parents very much, and I hope they like me."
"Oh, they did!" Maud said, glad that the little storm seemed to be passing off.
"But I think I need to make something clear. I consider it my right and responsibility to bring some discipline into your life, so that you don't think you can keep this kind of information from me. I think I need to spank you. After that, we'll have sex before I go the guest room. I'll take you from behind so that you feel more submissive."
Maud felt her face turn as red as a tomato. She found that she had begun to chew on a stray chestnut lock that had come loose from her French braid. For an instant, she hadn't realized that the idea was only a sort of game David thought might spice things up between them. In that eyeblink of time she had pictured it: the two images superimposed one on the other—Maud held firmly over David's lap as he sat on the side of the bed of her girlhood, her blue dress' skirt raised and her grey briefs pulled down around her knees, the firm little cheeks of her bottom growing red under his hand; Maud on her hands and knees on the bed, that same backside offered to him as he knelt behind her, reaching forward to caress her little breasts and down to claim her between her thighs, as he got her ready for the pleasure he would take inside her there.
By that time they had had sex twice more—all three times in the usual way. Maud, having had two serious boyfriends before David, hadn't experienced anything but the usual way, but she was proud to say that when a man offered to use his fingers, afterward, she came quickly and—if she didn't—she faked an orgasm for him. Yes, she usually came when she felt like the man had been selfish in one way or another, while he had sex with her: had pushed her knees back, or said something filthy like, "Such a nice, tight pussy," as David had the second time.
That didn't by any stretch of the imagination mean, however, that she wanted to play silly sex games. Maud had no interest in anything other than the usual way of having sex. It was difficult these days to avoid the presence in the media of images that tried to make it seem normal to play silly sex games, of course, but she had grown up in a household where you learned right from wrong, and you learned that just because you saw something on TV or in a movie—or even read it in a book—that didn't mean it was right.
So when the image of what it would look like, to play David's sex game, flashed through her mind she shuddered and said, "Don't be silly."
He had looked into her eyes calmly, with an air of assessment, as if trying to determine her precise state of mind. For a few moments Maud felt like David could see things in her that she didn't even know about herself. The feeling didn't make her happy, and she pursed her lips as she looked back at him, wondering if this bizarre notion of spanking and the other thing he had said indicated there were something wrong with him.
"Alright," he said finally. "I'll see you in
the morning. We can talk about this later." He stood up and regarded her from above, where she still sat on the side of the little bed covered with the pink comforter.
"Wait," Maud said. "Don't you want... I mean, you know..." She smiled and patted the bed. No sex games for her, thank you, but suddenly she very much wanted... well, she wanted David, and there was nothing wrong with that as even her parents acknowledged. To have sex in her childhood bed, which she had never before done with a boyfriend, would be fun, right?
David's mouth twisted into a wry, lopsided smile. "I don't think so, Maud. I want you at least to think about how you didn't tell me something I really needed to know."
With that, he had left her room. They hadn't talked about it, because Maud changed the subject every time David brought it up. David, with whom Maud had by Christmas fallen desperately in love, more desperately than she had ever loved anyone before, endeared himself to her all the more with his extraordinary patience. Every time she steered the conversation away from her parents and Thanksgiving—the dinner and the strange sex-game proposal in her room afterward—she saw that wry smile flash across his face, and he let it drop.
Until the New Year's Eve party, when Maud had refused to stop drinking champagne although David had repeatedly and with increasing urgency and anger asked her to think about their plans for the hotel room afterward. Instead of making love in the enormous Jacuzzi tub in the beautiful suite, he had held her hair back from her face while she threw up into the toilet.
When she awoke, with the memory of David's kindness and patience warming her heart, she found him sitting on the side of the bed with a grave look on his face. "Maud," he said in the same soft but steel-edged tone he had used in her room on Thanksgiving, "I know you don't want to hear this, but I need to try again. It's very important to me that I be the one to take the lead in our relationship, especially when you're making foolish choices."
"I know, I know," Maud said, feeling sorry but also feeling a little panicked that she might have to have another of these conversations. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have drunk so much. Any chance we can take that tub now?" She tried to smile winsomely.
David shook his head. "No, it's nearly eleven. We have to pack up and get going. But before that, I need to make it clear to you that you're going to have let me guide you, and discipline you, or I think we might not make it."
"Might not..." Maud tried very hard to pretend she didn't know what he meant. Really, she didn't, at least as far as the leading and the guiding and above all the disciplining went.
"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm saying, Maud," David said calmly and a little sadly. "I've tried to let you think about if for the past few weeks, without any pressure, but what happened last night makes me think I should have forced the issue earlier. In any case, I want you to get up out of bed and come over here and lay yourself over my lap. I'm going to spank you. Then I'm going to fuck you from behind just like I should have done on Thanksgiving. We'll pack and go, after that, but when we get back to my apartment you're going to give me a blowjob, and then we're going to have anal sex. I'll be gentle, because I know it will be your first time, but I feel strongly that I need to do what I can to help you understand my expectations."
Maud's whole body had seemed to go burning hot and then ice cold while David delivered this speech. Her mouth hung open as she gazed at him across the rumpled bed. He regarded her with his kind eyes set in a determined face. She tried to speak, but for a moment no sound emerged from her throat. The stillness of the beautiful hotel room seemed perfect—oppressive in its perfection, actually, as if the furniture itself waited for Maud to make up her mind how to respond.
Again, as on Thanksgiving, she pictured it: over his lap, then on hands and knees; then, much worse, on her knees before him, trying to give him pleasure with an inexperienced mouth; and, at last, the... the other thing.
She felt her face, which had seemed to her to wear an unaccountably open expression for the last few moments, as if part of her didn't understand what David meant, or didn't grasp how stupid it was, grow hard in its lines. She set her jaw in her best I know right from wrong fashion. She said, "Don't be silly," and she got up and walked to the bathroom to take a shower, closing the door firmly behind her, and locking it despite an absolute conviction that David would never intrude unless invited, no matter what bizarre things he said about sex.
Chapter Two: Evasion
What was she supposed to do about this new version of the silly sex game? David could spend his money any way he wanted, of course. If he wanted to create an engraved invitation, or summons, or whatever, and hire a calligrapher to put Maud's name on the envelope... well, fine. Whatever. But frankly this one seemed to have taken the thing a little too far. She needed to confront him and make sure this was the end of it. Despite the strange quirky things he seemed to be into in the relationship department, she never felt anything but safe and secure with him, and she definitely didn't want to break up with him, but he needed to take no for an answer when it came to this stuff.
She couldn't deny that she had a tiny bit of curiosity about what might actually be located at 45 Hunt Road, Highfield, CT—was this all a way to propose on Valentine's Day, maybe? Enough was enough, however. If he wanted to propose, he would have to do it without bringing in these ideas about "discipline."
The fact that he had, with apparent regret, told her that they would have to celebrate Valentine's day a day late on the 15th seemed to Maud now evidence that David had some sort of romantic plan. He had told her he would have to be at a conference in Stamford on Valentine's Day, a Friday, but would make it up to her on Saturday with a fancy dinner. She had told him that was fine, because of course it was: David had the knack of making her feel loved even if every detail didn't come out exactly right.
This... summons, however, just didn't work for her. Maybe she could persuade him to keep the romantic bits and jettison the sex-game stuff. Maud felt no pang of guilt about that, she supposed, because the summons seemed so over the top. "The gentleman whose friends have referred your case to us"—what did that even mean? And, apparently, the us took it upon themselves to "award" Maud to David? How? Why?
Maud made a resolution before she picked up the phone. Either David would let go of this nonsense, or she would break up with him.
"Sure," he said at the other end of the phone when she told him she was coming over. "I'm packing right now, though, and I need to leave for Stamford in an hour to make it to the opening reception. What's up?"
His voice sounded so calm and blasé that Maud could hardly believe this David shared a skin with the David who had come up with the bizarre summons—or the instructions, twice given and never obeyed, to put herself over his knee for a spanking. But, she reflected, he had spoken calmly then, too: Maud herself just hadn't had the slightest chance of keeping her cool.
"It's about this... thing you put through my mail-slot...," she began, but suddenly a burst of static on the line drowned out David's reply.
It sounded like he said, "What?" or maybe "What thing?" and then something like "I wasn't even near your place today," but the interference reached a volume so loud that Maud couldn't tell. Then she thought he said, "Really bad connection, sweetheart. Just come on over, okay?"
Then he hung up.
Feeling strangely uneasy, as if the bad connection on the phone had represented some sort of omen, Maud descended the steps of the brownstone where she had a second floor apartment to the parking area in back where her little red VW bug awaited. The sight of the car reassured her as it always did: its sheer cuteness seemed to call out to something in Maud's character that loved to be thought of as cute.
But as she walked to the car door, she noticed that a tall man in a trenchcoat was leaning against a telephone pole only a few yards away. Then she noticed that he was looking steadily at her through the twilight. He had fashionably, if severely, cut salt-and-pepper hair and a well-trimmed beard, and his dark eyes seemed amused but n
ot very pleased. He wore a dark-blue suit over a shirt so white it gleamed, but no tie.
"Miss Fredericks," the man said in a pleasant baritone, "you're making a mistake."
Maud's hand froze as it reached for the handle of the VW's door. "Do I know you?" she said in a very weak voice. She found herself trying to decide whether this encounter was the strangest thing that had ever happened to her, as if somehow to rank its disquieting effect among other disturbing occurrences might damp down the anxiety that rose inside her now. The summons... the static on the phone... the man leaning against the telephone pole... All together, yes, probably the strangest thing ever, but that must mean that it couldn't get any stranger, right?
"You do now," the man said simply. "Don't go to David's apartment. Obey the summons you received, and I promise you that you will find great happiness. Indeed, I promise you that even if you disobey me, you will find the same great happiness. You will find it, however, in a less pleasant way."
Maud's stomach lurched with fear and a welter of other emotions she could hardly have named. She finished reaching for the door handle and yanked the car door open, practically leaped inside. Then realizing that she hadn't had her keys out, she started to fumble desperately for them in her purse, sure that the man in the blue suit would now approach and try to remove her forcibly from the car. But when she gave one panicked look up from the purse and out the window of the car she saw that he seemed to have gone. Shocked, Maud swivelled her head back and forth, trying to figure out to where he had moved, but she found no trace of him at all.
*****
When the police car's lights went on behind her, three blocks from her apartment, Maud could hardly believe it. At least she regarded having her registration on top in the glove compartment as a nearly religious duty, so she was ready with it, and her license, when the officer, a red-headed man of forty or so, wearing the severely disapproving look they must teach at the police academy, leaned down to speak with her.
Bound, Spanked and Loved: Fourteen Kinky Valentine's Day Stories Page 57
