by Alison Tyler
But Jack surprised me. He did grab me up, but instead of taking me to any of the places I’d thought, he spread me out on the rug I’d bought, a soft crimson rug. Spread me out on my back and settled himself between my legs. He was still fully clothed, and he sported a rough five o’clock shadow, and I was naked and splayed out in front of him. Jack took his time; he parted the bare lips of my pussy, opened me wide, and then used his fingertips and tongue in the same manner he had when I was seated on the table. But now he employed this trick on my pussy. His fingers trailing in circles and diamonds, his tongue tracing over those same dangerous designs.
I closed my eyes and lifted my hips, silently hoping that he wouldn’t stop. That he would take me to the edge. Take me past. Take me over. He rubbed his face against the tender skin on the insides of my thighs, and I groaned at the way his whiskers scraped against me. And then he was back. All softness. All sweetness. His tongue on my clit, tapping now, rapping, until the pleasure flooded over me, through me, and I couldn’t help myself. I gripped his shirt with my hands and held him to me. Crying out. My voice harsh, as rough as the feeling of his evening beard on my skin.
Sighing, I leaned back again, but Jack didn’t stop. He continued to trick his tongue between my nether lips, knowing not to touch my clit directly now. Giving me time to recover. I started to moan, not even aware at first that I was making any noises at all. Helplessly crooning under my breath. He brought me to the brink again like this, with tongue and fingertips, cresting, teasing, until I started to beg him…
“Please, Jack—”
Beg him louder.
“God, Jack, please—”
And now Jack sat up and looked down at me. The light through the glass doors was red tinted and colored our skin. He didn’t speak; he simply stared at me and then started to pat my pussy with his hand. Light little taps. I arched to meet his hand, my brain barely processing the moment when the taps grew sharper, stronger, when the love taps turned to spanks. My hips rocked back and forth on the rug, and I shut my eyes tight.
“Look at me,” Jack instructed.
Automatically, I opened my eyes.
“This is what you need,” he said, stopping all contact. I was on the verge, so fucking close to coming that I could taste the pleasure.
“Please, Jack—”
“Say it.”
“I need this—”
“What do you need?”
“You.”
He smiled. It wasn’t the answer he’d expected, but I could tell it was acceptable. His hand came back down, building in the rhythm, the intensity, until I was coming, hard, fast, breathing as if I’d run a 10K, and then Jack was stripping quickly and fucking me on the floor, the rug pushed away, so that it was hard wood under us. Jack’s body slamming into me.
After, he grabbed up the soft cashmere blanket from the sofa and wrapped us in it, neither of us having the energy or the will to make it to the bedroom.
I knew we’d both be bruised in the morning.
And I knew that’s what Jack wanted.
Chapter Ten:
More Than This
Anyone in a true Dom/sub relationship knows that there are times you want a spanking (and oh, how you want it, wiggling your ass each time you pass by your lover, hoping he or she will notice), and times you need one. Unfortunately, in my experience the two situations don’t always coincide. I can only say it’s like craving an attitude adjustment. Sure other people deal with their shifting moods in completely different manners—working up a sweat at the gym, yelling at underlings at work, swearing at drivers on the freeway. I like my way better, but that doesn’t mean I always like to be spanked.
Jack, as you can guess, could read my moods with an almost frightening ability.
I wrote my second novel quickly and signed immediately for my third. My editor had slid me into his girl/girl line. He’d read the many lesbian scenes in my first novel and liked the way I wrote them. I didn’t mind being pegged as a lesbian writer. I penned all sorts of scenarios for the short stories I was publishing, and I slipped in other scenarios in most of my books.
I don’t get writer’s block. Not in any extreme way. I’ve trained myself to stop working on a project if I’m floundering with it, and to move on to something else. This is probably one of the reasons I’m rather prolific. I always have a slew of stories in progress, and novels under construction, and I switch tracks quite easily from one to the other.
But I had a day—a crazy day—when I know that if I’d been working on a typewriter the floor would have been littered under my feet with crumpled-up white paper. This is because there are songs in this novel. I’m somewhat proud of the lyrics I created, but they came under great duress. I’d never attempted to write words for a song before. I have such intense respect for actual songwriters—what they do is astounding to me. The poetry of the words matching with the perfect melodies—I can’t begin to explain my awe. I am no songwriter. That became clear after my seventeenth attempt to write the lyrics for one song in my book.
Jack came home to find me in a truly black frame of mind. He’d never seen me like this before. I hate to say that I’m a perpetual optimist. Rarely do I fall into true funks. Even when I was depressed during the months it took for me to break up with Byron, I managed to have happy days. Sweet moments.
Jack observed me in silence as he had his first drink of the evening, watched me stomp around in my heavy blue Docs, grumbling to myself. I wasn’t late on the deadline. But I’d wasted a day. I hadn’t taken my own standard advice of pushing the work aside and moving to something else. I hadn’t tried my basic trick of going for a run on the beach or even on the rubberized gray treadmill at Jack’s gym. Instead, I’d fallen in deeper and deeper. And, fuck me, I was beyond rational thought by the time Jack entered my mood.
He walked around me, catlike, avoiding me. I’d said hello when he entered. I wasn’t a total idiot. I didn’t need to spark his wrath. But I couldn’t put on a smiling face, couldn’t tie on a false frame of mind like a lace apron around my waist and play happy housewife.
He let me be for over an hour, and then he called me into the bedroom. I’d been reading and rereading my notes, growing even more despondent about the likelihood that I’d be able to make this thing work. And then what? Would I have to go back to the beginning? Would I have to scrap the concept completely?
Oh…god…
“Samantha,” Jack called, and I sighed, not wanting to get up from the desk, and not wanting to spend another fucking second staring at the words I disliked so intensely. “Now!” His voice had been warm, welcoming, even. But at my hesitation, the change was immediate and intense. I could feel the cool air all the way to the spare room. And like an animal aware of a predator, I realized what I’d done.
During the day, Jack had called, and I had been curt. Bordering on rude, even. I’d told him the situation, but I hadn’t asked him about his day, hadn’t been able to shake myself out of my mood even for a moment. As I headed toward the bedroom, I felt myself coming back to the present. For the first time all day long, I was able to leave the worries of my work behind. Because the worries of what Jack was up to surpassed them.
When I got to the bedroom, I felt my mouth go dry. There was Jack, waiting. Jack, ready. Jack was dressed in a black T-shirt, a pair of black leather pants, and black boots. He wasn’t dressed like that to stay in—I could tell. He looked imposing and menacing in a manner I rarely saw. More serious somehow because of the severity of the outfit.
On the bed was his favorite of my schoolgirl skirts, so short that you could practically read the back of my day-of-the-week panties (if Jack allowed panties to be worn). He had chosen a plain white blouse and a black cardigan, and a pair of high-heeled patent-leather Mary Janes with ankle straps. White fishnet thigh highs completed the look. There was a bra but no panties on the bed. But his belt was coiled up next to the schoolgirl uniform.
“When we’re finished here, you’ll get dressed. I do
n’t want to be late.”
“Finished—” I echoed, feeling the dismal mood slowly draining out of me, replaced bit by bit with a fresh wave of fear.
“You don’t think I’m going to let your behavior today go unnoticed.”
I hung my head.
“Not rewarded, of course,” he continued. I heard the dark smirk in his voice, yet I knew that had I looked up, his face would be stone.
“No, Jack.”
He didn’t tell me what to do next. He took over, coming forward and placing me roughly against the wall, palms flat to keep myself steady. He worked the buttons on my fly before hauling my jeans and panties down for me, just past my knees. His belt was already off, and he had easy access, was able to grab it up, double the leather, and start without hesitation.
Each stroke felt impossible to bear. I don’t know why or even how the pain can fluctuate—or maybe it’s my ability to take the pain; maybe it’s the mood that matters. But I was in that place, that bratty, mule-headed place, and I lost my head. I tried to turn, to tell him—what? To tell him no? That it wasn’t fair? That I hadn’t done anything specifically to him? I’d been in a funk because of my writing. That was all.
But none of that counted. My mood had bled into Jack’s world. And that’s all that mattered to him. That and the fact that I tried to fight the punishment, which changed the situation for both of us.
He was on me now, dragging me over to the bed. And I fought him, not wanting to get away—not really. If I had been desperate, I would have acted differently. We both knew that by now. I would have groveled. Begged. Wept. Instead, I tested him, struggling, and he had to work to get cuffs on me, to pin me down the way he wanted, ripping my jeans and panties all the way off and going to work on my ass seriously now, blow after blow, until the struggling subsided and I was…
What was I?
I was…tamed?
No. Never tamed.
Broken?
No, not that either. Jack didn’t want to break me. He liked me wild and spirited.
Fixed. That’s how I felt. Back to normal. As if he had given me a dose of some strong medicine. Jack knew. I don’t know how he knew. He knew because of who he was and who I was. He’d said he’d known me since he’d first seen me at Jody’s party, years before. He’d claimed he understood me way back then. Now he’d known—in himself, in his heart—that I was craving this sort of treatment. The fighting on my part was merely a last desperate struggle to hang on to a foul mood. Why would I want to do that?
When he was finished, we were both breathless. But I was me again.
Jack kissed the nape of neck. Then bit into my shoulder through my T-shirt. He didn’t tell me not to behave in this manner again—as he had when I’d worried him with my absence. I think he understood he would come home from time to time and find me craving a tune-up, the type only he could give. He kissed me again, then undid the bindings and left the room, waiting for me to dress in the outfit he’d set out, giving me no other hint as to what was to happen next…
Chapter Eleven:
Hate Me Today
Jack took me to a private club, a members only environment deep in the heart of Hollywood. I’d done the club scene for years. Byron and I were extremely busy when we dated. We rarely stayed home more than one night a week. As a result, I’ve seen hundreds of concerts from Parliament to Neil Young to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Marianne Faithfull in locations ranging from the Roxy to the Hollywood Bowl to the Forum. We often went to clubs to see friends’ bands, or simply to soak in the scene.
But believe me, we’d never been to a club like this.
The place had been in business for years—decades?—and was dedicated to those with a penchant for BDSM-type play. The club’s special rooms were available to rent hourly, with racks, punishment chairs, and examination tables. The place boasted multiple dungeons and hosted special nights, purposeful parties.
Had Jack been reading my novel in progress late at night, after I fell asleep? I’d set part of the book in a similar type of club. But mine was created mostly from imagination—and wishful thinking. Had Jack decided to give me a burst of reality in order to lend authenticity to my book? Or was it a coincidence, an overlapping of life and art that made me feel even more connected to my man?
On this night, Jack explained, there was a costume party. That was why he’d chosen the most extreme of my schoolgirl outfits, one that could not be mistaken in any way for an actual skirt. The thing was so short that it hung like a sash around my waist. Jack had given me a pair of Thursday panties before we left the penthouse, but that didn’t provide me much relief. Especially when I saw the rest of the girls heading into the club. Most were wearing much less clothing than I had on—which made me think that by the end of the evening I would be missing the majority of my attire.
Jack greeted several of the other partiers by name, and then led me forcefully through the lush rooms of the club toward what I discovered was one of the multiple dungeons. This one, Jack whispered to me, was an Inquisition-themed room, and featured a variety of wicked ways to bind a naughty slave in place. We were early, I believe, and had the room almost to ourselves. Jack wasted no time choosing the device that he wanted, binding me with my arms overhead to a black metal bar, my legs wide apart. He’d left me in my full schoolgirl costume, and while I thought he’d start to play with me—if not punish me, then at least tease me—I was wrong. After firmly binding me into place, Jack not only didn’t touch me, he left the room.
I’d gone from being Jack’s meek partner, following along through the place with my eyes down, not making contact with any of the other guests—to being put on display and left alone. My cheeks flamed, and I wished I’d had the intelligence to at least ask Jack what he had in mind. Most likely he wouldn’t have told me, but I could have attempted to gather information. The not knowing was always the worst.
Jack came back in the room, and he wasn’t alone. He had Alex with him, and now my heart—which had been racing—seemed to stop dead in my chest. What the fuck? Hadn’t I been punished enough at Alex’s hands? Did I have to accept a public flogging to pay for my sins as well? I lowered my head, feeling somewhat ridiculous in my bright-crimson-and-black-plaid skirt, my stark white fishnets. Most of the others I’d observed had been dressed in the standard black I’d witnessed at the two fetish-style clubs I’d been to previously.
I expected Alex to step behind me, expected some sort of repeat of the scene I’d gone through in New York. Would he ask me for my safeword? Would Jack be forced to protect me once again? I had no intention of letting Alex get the better of me, which meant that I needed to prepare myself to accept a flurry of blows without flinching. But I also knew that in this situation, Jack would have better control. He could stop Alex with a motion, with the nod of his head if he wanted to.
Except…when I looked up again, surprised at the length of time that had passed since Alex and Jack had entered the room, I saw something wildly surprising. Jack was binding Alex in place, face down, on a huge cross-like structure.
I was both excited and confused by the prospect of what was to come.
Alex had been wearing a simple black outfit, expensive, I was sure. He was like a mini-Jack, sometimes. Not in physical appearance, with his wheat-blond hair, but he took his cues from Jack—from the clothes he wore to the watch he favored to the wallet he chose. Not as high-end as Jack’s, but the same clean, elegant style. When I’d been looking downward, Alex must have stripped off his shirt, for he was clad only in black pants now, and his leather boots. The fine muscles of his back were exposed, his strong arms bound into place.
What the fuck? I thought. Oh Jesus. What was going on?
Jack stood behind Alex, and he had a flogger in place. My mind tripped over itself in a mad rush to explain the situation. But my pussy didn’t need any explanation. I grew wet at the sight, as I realized I hadn’t seen Jack in action like this before. Not outside of gazing into a mirror while he punished me
, making me watch while he tanned my ass for me.
This was different. Jack was in charge of someone else’s pain. Someone else’s ultimate pleasure. Have I ever felt such a surge of white-hot jealousy before? I can’t think of a time. My stomach twisted, but my sex responded as strongly as if Jack had picked up a flogger and walked toward me.
Alex didn’t say a word. Didn’t make a sound. Jack leaned forward so that his strong chest pressed firmly against Alex’s naked back, and I could imagine the words he was whispering in Alex’s ear. I told myself that this was about me—about Alex being unable to tail me proficiently. But that was only the story I made up for myself. I had no idea what the true dynamic was between these two men. I’d come into their game late. Alex had been working for Jack since his senior year in college. They had history I couldn’t begin to unravel.
Jack took a step back and started to work, and I saw Alex’s muscles tighten and release with each blow. The room was starting to fill up as more guests arrived. There were a host of devices in the room, and I could hear different sounds as other slaves were buckled into place, or whipped, or chastised. But that was white noise to me. I was focused, intent on the action right before my eyes.
Too intent, it turned out. Because before I was aware of what was going on, a queenly platinum-blonde woman in tight black satin stepped in front of me. She gripped my chin in her hand and forced me to face her. I tried to pull away, wanting to watch now as Jack dropped the flogger and reached for a crop. Some other little minion nearby undid Alex’s belt and dropped his slacks. And oh, I wanted to see that.
