Man and Master by Jason Luke (1)

“Man and Master”

 

 Jason Luke

 

 

Copyright © 2017 Jason Luke

 

The right of Jason Luke to be identified as the author of this

work has been asserted by him in accordance with the copyright, Designs

 and Patents Act 1988.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by

any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author. Any person who does

any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to

criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Based on a premise by Vivien Sparx.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1:

 

She sat, weeping and broken, for a long time after her boyfriend had stormed angrily out of the apartment. The sound of the front door slamming still echoed violently in her mind.

She felt like an utter failure… but more frightening than that, she sensed herself on the terrifying brink of being abandoned to loneliness.

The argument had raged for an hour, and now his bitter accusations – always so cruel and cutting – came back to haunt her as she drifted listlessly through the apartment, touching framed photos of them together and holding one of his shirts to her face, inhaling the familiar scent of him with a pang of guilty regret.

She started to cry; soft slow tears that spilled down her cheek and dripped from the line of her jaw.

“You’re just no good in bed, Gabby. Sex with you is… is lousy.”

She went into the living room and poured herself a drink, staring into the bottom of the tumbler for long numb minutes as if the answers to her dilemma might be etched into the glass. Her hands still shook in tiny tremors. When she gulped down the alcohol, the scorching burn of the fumes made her eyes smart and seemed only to accentuate the hollow chill of her despair.

“I wish you knew how to fuck. Just laying there like a corpse isn’t what I want in a woman.”

The apartment seemed an empty husk without him; without his voice and his presence and restless energy. Never mind that he could be abusive sometimes, and that he could make her feel worthless with just a few words. And never mind that she felt compelled to apologize for everything to keep the peace. He was still the only boyfriend Gabriele ever had, and she feared the thought of losing him more than anything else.

“He’s right,” she spoke aloud, her voice sounding bereft in her own ears. “He’s always right.”

She went slowly into the bathroom and on an impulse pulled back the mirror-fronted door to the medicine cabinet. The narrow shelves were lined with rows of bottled medication that she had recently been prescribed for anxiety and deepening depression. She reached for the tablets and rattled the contents of two full bottles into the palm of her hand.

“If you really loved me, you’d learn to be a submissive sex-slave. At least that way I’d finally get the sex I want.”

For a dreadful and tantalizing moment she thought about how easy it would be to end it all right now; to swallow down the pills and wait for the sweet blissful peace of death. She thought about the implications with a kind of fatalistic fascination.

Would Randall miss her?

Would he weep for her at her funeral?

How long would he grieve for her before looking for another woman?

She studied the tiny white and green capsules in her hand with a new and macabre fascination. She knew they were potent drugs. The warning labels on the bottle were quite specific, and she knew also that taking just the one or two she had been prescribed each day had a powerful tranquilizing effect on her emotionally.

What would a couple of dozen do to her?

Surely she was holding more than enough to kill her. She imagined herself slipping into a tranquil, beautiful coma, laying stretched out on her bed like Sleeping Beauty and simply drifting over the precipice to death; painless and private.

Then she thought about Randall coming home to find her pale and lifeless body. She tried to visualize him dropping to his knees in shattered grief and an anguish of tears… but somehow that image never fully formed.

“My ex was a better fuck. She knew how to please her man. I miss her.”

Who would miss her?

She had read that suicide was an act of unspeakable selfishness, and she agreed. The wreckage that such a desperate act left behind, and the emotional torture that loved ones endured in the aftermath of a needless death, went against her own moral resolve.

But who would miss her?

Her mother?

No. Her mother was living on the other side of the country in a trailer park with some used-car salesman, and whoring herself out to anyone with enough cash in back alleys just for drug money. Gabriele hadn’t even spoken to the woman in the six years since her father had died.

Her work colleagues?

Hardly. She was a low level accountant in the cubicle farm of a huge multinational corporation. She went to work each day and punched a card when she left. She doubted that her supervisor even knew her name. She was a paper shuffler in a soulless working world where she barely recognized the faces of her co-workers.

Her friends?

She laughed with a bitter tinge of hollow regret. Her childhood friends were a thousand miles away, left behind when she had followed Randall to a new city as he pursued his dream career as a web designer.

What about Randall…?

Gabriele uncomfortably shrugged that thought aside, reluctant to dwell, and hating herself for the fact that she faltered doubtfully. To distract herself, she took another self-critical glance at her reflection in the mirror, then spilled the handful of tablets on to the bathroom vanity and stepped, forlorn, into the shower. The scalding hot needles of spray beat relentlessly at her body and turned her flesh bright pink. She emerged in a billowing cloud of steam, wrapped in a towel. She smeared the fog away from the vanity mirror and stared at her misty reflection. Her eyes were like haggard black pits of despair. She felt a lump rising dry in her throat, and then she began to weep again, tortured by bleak desolation and – more than anything else – fear.

Fear of being alone.

Fear of being discarded.

Fear of failing in the exact same way that she believed her mother had failed when her father had deserted and divorced.

She dried herself slowly, for she was in no hurry now that she had reconciled herself to her decision. She knew Randall would be gone for hours, probably to one of the local bars. If he came home at all tonight, it wouldn’t be until it was too late.

Gabriele caught her mind drifting; raking over the debris of their relationship and wondering where it all went wrong.

The three years they had spent together seemed, on reflection, to have been peppered with incidents that at the time had been insignificant. Now they had accumulated to the point where she feared the relationship might fracture beyond all repair. She cast her mind back over all his cruel barbed comments as if she might pinpoint the exact moment when everything had begun to fall apart. Had it been her failure to sexually please Randall that had caused the ruin of her relationship?

In secret, Gabriele had always been deeply aroused by sexual submission, though it was a fetish she had never once shared with Randall. His efforts to dominate her had been so clumsy and so far removed from her fantasies that she had begun to question her own desire. The disconnect between her perfect submissive imaginings and the reality of Randall’s crude selfish demands had turned her dreams cold.

Had the move to a new city broken them apart? Gabriele had left her life behind so they could make a fresh start together, but in the process she had isolated herself from everything and everyone who was a familiar support. And then when Randall’s extravagant plans to build a web-design business began to falter…

She went through to the bedroom still distracted by gloomy reminiscence and stood before the closet to select the dress that she would die in. It had to be something special, she decided. The clothes had to be significant, attached to poignant memories.

She reached for a white cocktail dress and held it against herself with a soft reminiscent smile that brought fresh tears to her eyes. It was the one Randall had said she looked best in; the one that he had taken her shopping to buy when they had spent a weekend in New York.

She laid the garment carefully out on the bed and then began to brush her hair and arrange her make-up. Randall had thrown a folded newspaper on the edge of the dressing table, and she picked it up thoughtlessly to set aside while she searched for her lipstick. Then something caught her eye, and she peered at the fine newspaper print more closely.

The newspaper had been opened to the classified pages, and there were two personal adverts circled in red pen. Gabriele pursed her lips, frowning. They were both advertisements from single women who lived in nearby suburbs. Beneath several lines of abbreviated text, one advertiser had posted a photo of her body posed provocatively in a bikini, with her face discretely covered.

Gabriele felt ice-cold claws of betrayal squeeze at her heart, and a chill ran down her spine. She realized her hand was shaking.

“If you don’t start giving me the sex I want, I’ll find a woman that will. You either learn to be a slave… or we’re through.”

Slowly, still trembling, Gabriele set the newspaper down. She felt her face seem to collapse of all tension, and an eerie serene calmness came upon her. She stood back and looked at herself in the dresser mirror, turning her head slowly from side to side so that her long dark hair swished across her shoulders while studying her features with cruel dispassionate criticism. She came up onto her toes to put tension in the fine muscles of her calves and thighs, then pulled in her stomach. The movement of her body made her breasts thrust out. They were small, but still firm with the elasticity of her youth. She cupped her hand under one breast and felt the weight and shape of it.

Then she relaxed her body and went back to the dressing table. Her underwear was neatly folded in the top drawer. She found a pair of white lace panties and caressed the luxurious soft silk between her fingers. Randall had bought them for her from a sex shop and then growled at her for not wearing them enough for his pleasure.

She stepped into the panties, drew them up over her long legs and across the shaved soft mound of her sex. They were as soft as a gentle lover’s hands about her body.

Still bent, her eyes drifted back to the folded newspaper, drawn inextricably to the damning evidence of Randall’s planned betrayal. Her eyes studied the photo of the woman in the personal ad, then mentally she compared her own reflection to the small picture in the paper in the same way that Randall had always critically compared her to beautiful women they passed on the street.

She was about to turn away again when a word of type in the next column of adverts caught her eye. She narrowed her focus.

Master.

It was in the midst of a block of close small text in the column next to the one with the circled personal ads. Gabriele picked up the newspaper and held it close to her face. The word leaped out at her again, and she read the notice with care.

Are you a woman who craves to understand the submissive lifestyle?

Are you a woman who has an interest in learning the art of sexual submission?

Have you ever fantasized about serving a Master?

Here is your opportunity to experience the lifestyle.

Beneath the lines of printed questions was a cell-phone contact number and a name: Master Joshua.

Gabriele trapped her bottom lip between her teeth and stared at the advert until the words began to swim before her eyes. A tingling sensation ghosted up along the length of her spine so that the fine hairs at the nape of her neck prickled with fascination… and hope.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to save their relationship.

Maybe – with professional training – she could make herself into the kind of submissive woman that would keep Randall satisfied.

She turned the idea over in her mind, caught between reckless optimism and plunging despair.

“I could pay to be trained…” she whispered the words aloud at last with forming wonder as the idea bloomed in her imagination, becoming perfect and shimmering. “Then I would be the woman Randall wanted me to be.” In the recess of her mind she again heard her boyfriend’s condescending sneers.

 

 ‘If you really loved me, you’d learn to be a submissive sex-slave…’

Gabriel spun on her heel and reached for her bathrobe. She could feel the sudden trip and pound of her heart beneath her hands as she hastily dressed. She snatched up the newspaper tightly in her hand and left the bedroom. She had to find her phone.

 

 

 

“Hello…?” The man who answered her call had a deep gravelly voice.

“Um, hi…” Gabriele clutched the phone to her ear with a white knuckled grip and fought back the paralysis of her nerves. “Is this Master Joshua?” She had been sitting with the phone in her hand for ten formless minutes of wretched doubts and angst before impulsively dialing the number printed in the newspaper advertisement. Now she felt suddenly nauseous with the stress.

“Yes. Speaking.” It was a baritone rumble of sound, somehow calm and poised, which gave off an immediate impression of confidence. Gabriele felt her apprehension jangle her into a long flustered silence.

“Um, my name is Gabby,” she said at last. “I saw your advertisement in the newspaper.”

“Yes.”

He wasn’t making it easy for her by rushing into a long compelling and enthusiastic pitch. His tone didn’t change.

“I was wondering… if you could tell me more?”

“Certainly,” the man said. Gabriele frowned curiously. She thought she heard the clip of an accent in the man’s answer. “What would you like to know?”

She cleared her throat and forced herself to sit straight. She was perched on the edge of the sofa, knees pressed together, sitting tensed as if she might spring to her feet at any instant. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

“Can you tell me how much it costs for training?”

“That depends,” the man on the other end of the line qualified. “Most ladies who seek me out for submissive training attend a ten-session introductory course to the lifestyle.” He told her how much. Gabriele bit her lip. It was more than she had anticipated… but it was less costly than losing her boyfriend, she applied her own distorted logic.

“And what does the course entail?”

“I’ll tell you,” the man assured her, “after you answer my questions.”

Gabriele blinked and frowned. “What do you want to know?” She balked only after asking the question. Her face turned wide-eyed with incredulous horror, appalled with herself. Why had she felt compelled to concede control of the conversation?

“Tell me how old you are.”

“Twenty-two.”

“Are you married?”

“No.”

“Engaged?”

“No.”

“Do you have any previous experience in the lifestyle?”

“No.”

“Then why did you respond to my advertisement?” the man’s voice was cultivated and sophisticated, each word a careful modulation that reflected both an education and a controlled demeanor. Listening to him, Gabriele felt her anxiety recede beneath the lulling appeal of his voice.

“I’m curious,” she said.

“Are you a virgin?”

“No.”

“Do you watch pornography?”

“Sometimes…” Gabriele felt herself instinctively squirm and blush with embarrassment at this unfiltered confession to a complete stranger.

“Do you read erotica novels?”

“Yes.”

“Are you willing to undress before me and perform the sexual acts that will be demanded of you in order to understand the premise of submission?”

A delay. Gabriele flinched, forced to confront the brutal reality. Of course she knew instinctively that she would need to have sexual contact with any man who agreed to train her. She knew, deep down in her soul, that it would be required and also necessary… but until this very instant she had nimbly avoided asking herself the question so that now she suddenly faltered.

Gabriele took a deep shuddering breath and felt herself free-falling over the abyss and into the dark daunting void of the unknown with a sense of helplessness.

She had no other choice, no other option. She simply had to do everything she could to keep Randall.

“Yes. I’m willing to do that.”

 

 

 

Gabriele lay in the darkness, her mind replaying the phone conversation with the mysterious Master Joshua. She had arranged to meet him the following day at the city’s art gallery and now while she waited, wide awake, she fretted over her impulsive decision to make the phone call and the ramifications of that fateful decision.

The night was warm, the silence disturbed only by the muffled sounds of other residents footsteps passing down the tenement’s corridors beyond the walls of their tiny apartment. Pale moonlight filtered through the bedroom window and washed soft shadows across the floor.

She had the buckle end of a belt lashed to a beam of the headboard and she was wearing the white dress and lace panties Randall had bought her. She turned her head to the side and saw the red lights of the clock radio on the bedside table as they counted down the time.

1:06 am.

Her mind was restless with thoughts of tomorrow’s meeting, and her body was weary from the long fraught hours of waiting for Randall’s return while she lay in the carefully staged pose. She swung her legs off the bed, suddenly unsure about her careful preparations and planning. If Randall came home drunk, he might be surly with ill temper. He was volatile and unpredictable at the best of times.

Was she making a mistake?

Would he see this effort as some kind of a taunt and not as she intended it; as a peace offering and an attempt to please him?

Gabriele saw her nightdress lying at the foot of the bed, and she pursed her lips, torn with indecision. She could simply change her clothes and be asleep within minutes. Randall would never know…

She got to her feet and then suddenly froze in horror. She could hear a key jangling in the front door lock.

Gabriele tumbled back onto the bed, flicking the bedside lamp on so that the room was bathed in a soft intimate glow. Then she hitched up the tight hem of her skirt to the top of her thighs and spread her legs wide, laying flat on her back with the pillows propped behind her to elevate her head. She reached up for the strap of the leather belt and wrapped one wrist around it to mimic the illusion of being bound and helpless.

Quickly she shut out all the distracting thoughts about the next day’s meeting and forced her mind to rehearse all the words and phrases that Randall had complained she never uttered. She drew a last deep breath. Jittering anxiety and doubt made a nerve at the corner of her eye tick.

The apartment beyond the open bedroom door was shrouded in darkness. Gabriele heard Randall muttering darkly to himself and then the clatter of his keys as he tossed them onto the kitchen table. A moment later she saw a stark shaft of light from the refrigerator as the door was opened… then closed. She listened to the scuffle of his shoes on the bare floor boards, and then their more determined echo as he finally came down the hallway towards the bedroom. Gabriele felt a wild flutter of apprehension and panic. Her heart was racing.

Randall appeared in the bedroom doorway, his tie askew, his hair disheveled, his jacket somehow loose and ill-fitting.

Gabriele made her eyes wide and simmering.

Randall stood, rooted with surprise, for long seconds. Then he came slowly into the bedroom, his gaze clouding with predatory lust.

“Master…” Gabriele panted like a breathless damsel in distress. She spread her legs a little wider and traced the outline of her lips with the pink darting tip of her tongue.

Randall stood by the edge of the bed and scraped his palm across the stubble of his unshaven jaw. He was a year older than Gabriele, with a sallow, gaunt face and features that had been blurred by heavy drinking. He gazed down upon her, and the desire was naked in his narrowed calculating eyes. He ran his hand possessively along the inside of her thigh, sliding his palm beneath the stretched hem of her skirt until he was brushing the lace of her panties with his fingers.

Gabriele gulped dramatically, playing her part, but her eyes were tense with uncertain anxiety. She slowly undulated her hips for him.

“My tight little pussy needs Sir’s cock,” she breathed the words she had been rehearsing for hours, still tripping awkwardly with the mild profanity. “I’ve been such a good submissive girl waiting for you.”

Randall’s eyes flashed, triggered with wicked arousal. He leaned over the bed and fisted his hand into Gabriele’s hair. She gasped in shock and pain, but crushed down on the squeal that leaped to her lips. Instead she winced, and let her mouth fall open with a soft moan.

“Beg me to fuck you,” Randall hissed the words, and there was a streak of gloating malice in his tone. His voice was slurred, but Gabriele could smell no alcohol on his breath.

Gabriele nodded. With her free hand she reached for Randall’s cock, flattening her palm against his crotch and feeling the impatient lump of his erection strained within his pants. “Please, Sir,” she recited her lines, “my tight little pussy needs you to fuck me hard.”

“Now say it like you mean it, slut.”

“I do!” she appealed.

He was looking down on her, and his face was a mask of cruel power and savage contempt.

He unbuttoned the front of her dress while she dutifully continued to rub his hard cock through his pants. He was grunting. When the dress was open all the way down to her flat toned navel, he reached inside and cruelly pinched one of her nipples. Gabriele gasped and felt the prickled sting of tears leap into the corners of her eyes. Randall was watching her expression with a bright shiny gaze, in the same dispassionate clinical way a scientist observes a laboratory specimen. Gabriele turned her whimper of pain into a breathless moan.

Randall stood, sneering but satisfied. He undressed quickly and Gabriele closed her eyes as he covered her body with his. She felt his hands, clumsy with haste, as he tugged aside her panties, and then the weight of him as he settled above her. His cock stabbed against her abdomen, then he forced it between her legs. Gabriele tensed and drew a deep hissing breath. She wrapped her arms around him to feel the intimate connection of their entwined bodies, but he shrugged her hands away, then started to rut and snuffle over her.

“Fucking slave,” he muttered as his features contorted and strained in the race to his climax. “The only good place for you to be is on your back being fucked!” His words became strangled.

After just a couple of minutes, he went suddenly limp with a wheezing groan of breath. When he rolled off her, he was panting, gazing sightless at the ceiling until his pulse settled. He got to his feet without another word and disappeared behind the bathroom door. A moment later Gabriele heard the hiss of running water.

She let go of the leather belt and slumped on the bed, cum seeping slowly from within her. Her body was trembling with a confusing blend of unrequited desire and crawling revulsion. Randall’s orgasm had happened so quickly that she felt only sullied and violated.  Her body ached with a vague craving that Randall hadn’t been capable of satisfying, which left her to wonder fretfully whether this was all that sex would ever offer.

Gabriele shrugged out of the dress and drew her nightgown over her head. She knew the rest of the night would pass slowly; her dreams haunted by her own erotic fantasies, and her soul unsettled by a creeping sense of loathing.

 

 

 

In the morning Randall ate his breakfast in silence then suddenly shrugged on his jacket and snatched up his keys. Gabriele noticed a packed suitcase at the front door. She frowned, suddenly overcome with a dark sense of ominous foreboding. Randall’s face was stony with impassive resolve. He had his hands deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched. His mouth was a bitter slash across his face.

“I’m leaving you, Gabriele,” he said callously. “I can’t live the rest of my life sexually unsatisfied.”

Gabriele recoiled in devastated shock and disbelief. “But… but what about last night? Wasn’t that the kind of sex you wanted?”

Randall grunted. “Too little, too late.”

His eyes were dead and black, his face waxen and drained of all color. Gabriele felt seeping cold numbness creep across her chest until it was strangulating her heart. Impulsively she opened her mouth to tell Randall about her plan to meet Master Joshua – but the plea became choked in her throat by a shuddering gasp for breath. With one last scorching look of contempt, Randall slammed the door behind him like he had done a hundred times before.

By the time she could draw fresh breath he was already gone.

“But I love you…” she whispered lamely to the empty space where he had been standing.

For long moments Gabriele stood stunned and reeling. She felt her world begin to crumble down around her but right before she collapsed, a small instinctive voice in the deep recesses of her mind called just loud enough to be heard through the pounding of her heart and the first sobbing tears.

“Try to win him back.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2:

 

Gabriele had thought they might meet at a public place like a café – that would have made sense to her. She had never visited an art gallery before in her life.

She caught a cab into the city, paid off the driver on Main Street, and then walked the rest of the way under a warm sunny sky. By contrast her thoughts were dark and troubled. She had wept through the morning and picked up her phone twice to call Master Joshua and cancel. She was torn between grieving the loss of Randall from her life and the realization that to win him back, she must take urgent and decisive action. In the end, it had taken her an hour to fix her make-up, leaning over the bathroom vanity to touch up her reddened eyes, while the handful of tranquilizers from the night before remained a dark and final provocation.

The city’s gallery was an imposing old building with tall marble columns that stood like sentry guards before vast open doors. Gabriele went quickly up the broad stone staircase into a high-ceilinged building filled with the echoes of people’s voices and hollow footsteps sounding on the marble floor.

She paid a token admission fee, picked up a leaflet that promoted the current exhibits, and then began wandering the labyrinth of corridors that were hung with paintings amidst sprinkles of hushed art admirers.

As she had promised Master Joshua during the phone call, Gabriele was wearing a powder blue sweater and her best pair of denim jeans. She meandered without purpose or direction; one eye on the paintings she passed and the other searching for the approach of a man. Every few minutes she would sense someone coming towards her, and her hands would begin to shake. She was fidgety and nervous, and could feel a flush of color hot on her cheeks. She barely took the time to appreciate the paintings – too distracted by a cocktail of nervous anticipation and anxiety.

She found herself walking from one great vaulted gallery into another. At the entrance to the vast room beyond was a set of marble columns and draped between them hung a canvas banner.

‘The Dutch Masters’.

Gabriele passed into a magnificent area like the grand ballroom of a palace. The ceiling was arched and painted like a cathedral, and the floor was polished dark timber. The lower panels of each wall were made up of ornate gold tiles, and above them hung a collection of dazzling paintings. There were people lined around the edges of the room, peering and pointing at the artworks in voices hushed by awe and admiration. She cast a pointless searching glance at the crowd around her, and then drifted aimlessly towards a lustrous portrait of a middle-aged man enclosed by a thick golden frame.

“Rembrandt van Rijn,” a man’s voice suddenly intoned from somewhere close behind her like he was talking about an old familiar friend. “Portrait with Two Circles. Not one of his finest works, but the brilliance is still there in every brushstroke, don’t you think?”

Gabriele spun on her heel, startled for an instant. The voice had come ghosting out of nowhere without her ever sensing a presence. She turned and came face-to-face with a man in his mid-thirties; a tall broad-shouldered figure in a perfectly cut jacket and white open-necked shirt. He was smiling at her, his eyebrows arched into an expression of mildly mocking amusement that caught her completely off balance.

Other features pressed quickly in upon her; the man’s narrow face, the firm thrust of his jaw, the dense dark hair, the smooth tanned complexion and the white teeth amidst an intrigued smile. She noted them all in an instant but faltered at his eyes. They were dark and enigmatic, flecked with a sense of thoughtful incisive intelligence that intimidated her. His gaze was utterly confronting, and she had the fleeting realization that those eyes would know her every secret and see through her every lie.

“Um…?” she was utterly lost for words, gawking and embarrassed. The man’s energy seemed to steal the breath from her. He held out his hand politely.

“My name is Joshua. We spoke on the phone. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gabby.”

She felt herself melt just a little at the cadence and tenor of his voice. It was infused with a rich educated dignity. Numbly she shook his hand, and felt the eclectic spark at the fleeting contact. His hands were strong.

He was still smiling at her, and she stammered a greeting, flailing under the blowtorch of the man’s intense gaze. A hot rush of color spread across her chest and began to creep up her throat.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she got the words out at last and then drew a deep breath. The man wasn’t what she had been expecting at all, and the difference between her quailing expectation and the reality left her reeling. In her mind she had visualized a crude brutish man, with a hard face and eyes like stone.

The shock and surprise showed in her expression as wide-eyed incredulity, and then a slow rising relief.

Joshua turned his attention back to the painting, standing intimately close beside Gabriele so that she could feel the heat of his body against her shoulder. He pointed to the figure’s face in the painting.

“Rembrandt never quite re-captured the energy of his early works,” Joshua said. “You can see the looseness of the brushstrokes in the neck and the way he’s described the clothing. I think at this stage in his career, he was all about capturing the face and the personality; the clothing and setting seemed to become of less significance.”

Gabriele stared up at the painting, frowning. She had no knowledge of art although the name of the artist was vaguely familiar. She tried to see the artwork through Joshua’s explanation, but the deeper significance was lost on her. It was a nice picture. That was all she knew.

“It’s nice,” she said meekly.

Joshua turned on her so that their faces were just inches apart and Gabriele went as still as a deer caught in the glare of blazing headlights. Joshua’s expression was distraught, almost disappointed.

“Gabby… aren’t you a student of fine art?”

She shook her head, and bit her lip, fearful that she had failed by some secret standard of assessment. “I’ve never really understood art,” she shrugged her shoulders apologetically. “It never really mattered to me.”

Joshua pressed his lips together, and Gabby felt his eyes studying her face like he was making a decision. At last his features changed with a grunt of resolve.

He turned to face her while about them other gallery visitors drifted past their periphery.

His voice was pitched low, but infused with passion and earnest energy.

“Modern art is a farce,” Joshua conceded, “but the great art of the past masters is at the heart of our culture and civilization.” Despite herself, Gabriele felt herself being drawn towards Joshua by the force of his personality and the strength of his conviction. “Surrounding us on these walls are some of the finest paintings ever to be created, and every one of them – every single one of them – has helped to shape the way we see our world, our society and its people.”

Joshua paused for a moment to sweep his gaze around the gallery before bringing his eyes back. Gabriele felt her heart trip and flutter. The force of Joshua’s eyes slamming into hers seemed to pin her feet to the floor so that she was unable to move. She was transfixed.

“Art is critical. And every man should be taught to appreciate it, for it’s only through an appreciation of such cultural icons can he ever truly know how to appreciate a woman.”

Gabriele blinked. Joshua saw the flicker of confusion in her eyes. He smiled, but it was just a small icy tug at the corner of his mouth.

“It’s not about the aesthetics,” Joshua cautioned softly. “It’s about learning to appreciate the beauty of things that go beyond appearances. If a man can admire the work of Vermeer or Rembrandt or Jan Steen, and see within their paintings the innate beauty, then he can begin to see the beauty in a woman, beyond her physical appearance. The lesson men must learn is the value of appreciation, not for what it can do for you, but for the beauty that it already is.”

There was a long moment of silence. Gabriele was overwhelmed, and vaguely aroused… but uncertain why. She wasn’t sure if it was a physical reaction to Joshua’s presence and physique, or if the secret to her awakening sexual interest was hidden within his words and their meaning.

“I’m not sure I really understand…” she said timidly, cowered a little by how he might react.

Joshua smiled, and it was the most dazzling charm-filled smile that Gabriele had ever seen. It washed over her like the warmth of the sun as it reached all the way to sparkle in his eyes, stripping away the mask of intensity and changing his face completely.

“Good!” Joshua’s smile became a light hearty chuckle. “We can keep talking. Now I know you’re honest.”

 

 

 

They drifted around the exhibit halls of the gallery, chatting inconsequentially. Gabriele felt herself relaxing with every passing moment. Joshua was urbane and intelligent, talking conversationally about the merits of each painting, and asking Gabriele bland questions about her work, her favorite foods, and her likes in music. For Gabriele, the afternoon seemed to flash by too soon. She felt utterly captivated by Joshua, for he was everything she had dreamed of and like no one she had ever known. He was educated and fascinating, and she felt child-like and awed by his views and understanding of the world. When at last he fell silent and the mesmerizing spell of his voice was broken, Gabriele looked up with a start at the darkening shadows of afternoon and realized the day was over. The gallery’s staff was beginning to usher visitors out onto the wide front steps.

They strolled to the sidewalk, and Joshua reached into his coat pocket. He handed Gabriele a small white card. On one side was printed his address.

She tucked the card carefully into her purse and then dared a look into those deep hypnotic eyes.

“Does this mean you will train me to be a submissive?” she asked.

Joshua shook his head. “No. This means that I am comfortable you are not a crazy obsessive woman, and that you are welcome to visit my home. That is where the interview about your suitability for training will take place.”

Gabriele was a little taken aback. She frowned down at her shoes; her lips pursed with confusion.

“Wasn’t that the point of us meeting today?” her voice dropped confidentially. She felt like she was being rejected – again.

“No. The point of the meeting was for me to assure myself that you were a stable, intelligent young woman. It was also to see whether we were in any way compatible. As a man and a woman, I believe we are. But that doesn’t mean you will be suitable as a submissive,” Joshua paused, studying the effect of his words before he went on. “You have to ask yourself the same question. As a man, am I someone you would feel comfortable around? If you do, then you should come to my home for the interview. After that you can decide whether I would be the sort of Master you would like to be trained by. It’s all entirely mutual, Gabby. We both need to feel comfortable with each other, our motives and our intentions before any training can begin.”

Gabriele stared sightlessly into the passing stream of traffic and the tall high-rise buildings of the cityscape for long seconds. The day was turning to dusk, and her thoughts became brooding when she realized she would be going home to an empty apartment, lonely and abandoned – her greatest fear made nightmarishly real. She thought briefly of Randall then, and felt her heart ache with a pang like grief.

“When would you like me to visit?” she asked at last with a resolute little lift of her chin.

“Tomorrow night at 7pm,” Joshua said. “And remember, it’s an interview. Do not be late.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3:

 

Gabriele arrived at the address ten minutes early and paused in the back of the cab long enough to draw a few last calming breaths before finally stepping onto the sidewalk. She was as nervous as a schoolgirl on a first date. Her knees trembled, and she patted at her hair one last time with hands that shook in spasms. Her heart felt like it was lodged in her throat.

So much depended on these next moments of her life.

She looked across a wide manicured lawn to the front door of a sprawling two-story mansion with a high-pitched roof and a dozen windows facing the street. A porch light was on above a bank of three garage doors. She was wearing low heels, and the sounds of her steps along the concrete driveway as she approached the light were so loud in the silence that she felt herself cringe.

The home was in an exclusive suburb filled with magnificent architect-designed houses on large open blocks of land. Luxury cars formed neat lines along the curbs. Gabriele, still in the grey slacks and jacket she had worn to work that morning, felt dowdy and out of place.

The night was eerily calm – so different to the restless hum of city life that she was accustomed to. She could hear the frantic beat of her pulse, and the strained rasp of every breath.

Gabriele reached the front door and knocked lightly. Behind a curtained window, she saw a light inside switch on, and then calm measured footsteps approaching. She brushed nervously at her hair with the back of her hand and drew herself straight, shoulders back. The careful smile on her face was fixed in place before the door even opened.

Joshua stood in the threshold, backlit and outlined by the light so that the broad of his shoulders and taper of his torso was emphasized in silhouette. He was wearing a blue open-necked shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and denim jeans. The casual attire threw Gabriele off balance. She’d never imagined him in anything other than the suit jacket he had worn to their meeting at the gallery. He turned his arm to glance at an elegant gold wristwatch and, satisfied, stood back from the entrance.

“Good evening,” he said simply, but Gabriele caught the gleam of concealed pleasure in his eyes.

She stepped into a foyer with a tiled floor and white walls, hung with original landscape paintings. The décor was simple, understated and seemed in some subtle way to be a reflection of the man; refined and orderly without the clutter of anything unnecessary.

“Hi,” Gabriele breathed, her voice husky with anxiety. She licked her lips nervously. Her smile faltered like a flickering light, then beamed again.

“Thank you for being on time,” Joshua’s deep modulated voice made Gabriele’s body clench in a sudden delicious spasm. “It’s a measure of good manners that I appreciate.”

He turned on his heel and she followed wordlessly down a long corridor, past several closed doors, before the passage opened into a dark wood-paneled study. The walls were lined with shelves of leather-bound books, and behind a heavy dark green curtain was a bay window. Joshua gestured to an empty seat and then rounded an antique desk. He dropped into a deep chair of upholstered leather that matched the color of the drapes. The whole room was decorated in rich earthy greens and the dark tones of brown.

Gabriele sat carefully, knees pressed together, hands clasped in her lap, clutching her purse to keep her fingers from fidgeting. Joshua had a secret knowing smile on his lips that unsettled her. She felt herself tensing under the cool scrutiny of his gaze so to distract herself she cast a careful glance around the room. On one wall, between nests of bookshelves, were several framed photographs of men in military uniform. Gabriele arched her eyebrows in fresh surprise. Joshua saw the direction of her eyes and then her expression.

“That’s me in the middle,” he nodded to a photo in a simple black frame that showed three buddies with their arms around each other’s shoulder, smiling with comradely expressions into the camera.

“You served?”

Joshua shrugged. “Not on the front line,” he admitted. “I spent nine years in Naval Intelligence. We got to wear the uniform but all our work was behind the scenes.”

“When did you leave the Navy?” Gabriele was genuinely curious.

“Three years ago.”

“You retired?”

A dark shadow of hurt passed across Joshua’s eyes and then he smiled thinly. “I guess so,” he said without explanation. “I went into business investing in stocks and shares.”

The fact that Joshua had served in the Navy seemed to fill in a small piece of his personality puzzle. To Gabriele, it explained his calm confidence and the sense of instilled discipline that he radiated. To her, it was also vaguely reassuring.

“And what about your knowledge of art. Surely they don’t teach that in the Navy?”

This time Joshua threw back his head and laughed. “I picked up a few insights along the way, but the origin of my appreciation goes back to my mother. She was born in Amsterdam,” he explained. “So naturally I became interested with the Dutch masters, and then later I developed a more extensive fascination when I realized that art could be used as a metaphor for more important aspects of life.”

“Such as women,” Gabriele remembered his impassioned explanation at the gallery.

Joshua inclined his head. “Yes.”

Apart from the few photos there were no other personal pieces of memorabilia in the office. The desk was orderly with just a penholder and leather blotter, and the bookshelves held no keepsakes or mementos. With nowhere else to look, Gabriele’s eyes were compelled to drift back to meet Joshua’s patient waiting gaze.

“I know you’re nervous,” Joshua spoke softly. “Please don’t be. I had hoped that our meeting at the gallery would help to put you at ease. I do realize that you are in a strange house with a man you only just met.”

Gabriele acknowledged Joshua’s appeal with a nod and a smile she couldn’t hold on her lips. “I am nervous,” she confessed.

“Do you have any other questions?” Joshua made a gesture that embraced the room. “Anything else that might help you to feel comfortable?”

Gabriele thought for a moment. Her voice was so low that Joshua barely caught the words.

“Are all submissive women expected to like physical violence as a part of sex?”

Joshua frowned and took great care with his answer.

“Firstly, not all submissive women enjoy or respond to physical violence from their Master,” he explained. “And that’s perfectly fine. I’ve known a lot of women who are abhorred by anything physical beyond maybe an occasional spanking. For those ladies, the erotica of submission lies in the more emotional aspects of the role. They enjoy the mental peace of submitting, the thrill of being able to let themselves completely shed their day-to-day persona and become someone very different. The sex for these women is still submissive, but their obedience isn’t encouraged by being physically hurt. What is critical is willingness. If the woman being trained is willing and knows her limits… why would physical punishment be necessary? If a Master is displeased with a submissive, it’s just as easy to use orgasm denial or some other form of pleasure deprivation to correct misbehavior.”

Gabriele pondered the answer. “But some women like whips and torture, right?”

“Sure,” Joshua said. “And for them, those things are part of the whole sexual experience.”

“Is one type of submissive right and the other wrong?”

Joshua shook his head. “Not at all. So long as everything that happens is safe, and provided both the Master and submissive are willing and consenting, then it’s entirely their choice. Matching a Master with a suitable submissive is no different that any other relationship match. There are some people you just aren’t compatible with because of your beliefs, interests… and everything else that make us unique. Generally a successful BDSM relationship is a matter of compromise; the Master and the submissive discuss their limits and interests and there might be a trade off.”

Gabriele sat up straighter in her chair and studied Joshua’s face.

“Trade off?”

Joshua nodded. “The submissive might like to be whipped, but the Master might find such physical punishment beyond his interest. But the Master might insist on anal sex. Often they can find a place in the middle where both their needs are met, at least enough to be satisfied.”

Gabriele fell silent again, but Joshua could see that she was immersed in thought.

“What kind of Master are you?” she asked finally, her voice made small as though she didn’t know how to phrase the question.

She was looking into his eyes.

“I’m a Master who is still learning,” Joshua admitted frankly. “But I train each new woman to the best of my abilities and in accord with my own rules. I believe in erotica before sex; I believe in sensuality before orgasm. I think a caress is more powerful that a spanking and that a whisper resonates more than a shout. I hate sex without kissing, and I’d prefer to see a woman’s face masked by rapture than twisted in pain.”

Gabriele felt herself give a silent little gasp of sensual swooning, mixed with a growing sense of confusion. Everything Joshua spoke of seemed diametrically opposed to her experiences.

“Why do you advertise in the newspaper?”

Joshua tried to keep his tone neutral, his reasoning balanced as he explained.

“Because there are a lot of women out there, interested in the lifestyle – interested in submission. And there are an equal, if not far greater, number of predatory men who would think nothing of taking advantage of a woman’s earnest urge to sample BDSM,” Joshua said. “The inspiration behind my advert is to offer a safe, sane environment where women can experience small aspects of submission without falling prey to ruthless men who believe submission is just another word for brutal punishment and one-sided sex.”

“But you make a living off the money the women pay you for their training…”

Joshua dismissed the question with a short abrupt gesture. “I make no money at all from the training I give,” Joshua clarified, then straightened himself in his chair. “Look around you, Gabriele. The paintings on the walls are originals, this mansion is owned outright. I have a Ferrari in one garage and a new Cadillac in another. The money I have earned has all come from my business investments – not from training women in the art of sexual submission.”

“But you still charge a fee.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“To test your resolve,” Joshua’s voice hardened. “To be absolutely sure that you really want to learn about the lifestyle. Once you complete the ten sessions, all the money you pay is returned to you.”

Joshua’s explanation came like a rebuke, and for a moment Gabriele felt chastened and guilty… as though she should never have doubted this man’s morals. “I… I didn’t know that,” she dropped her voice.

“And if you fail to complete the ten sessions, then the money you pay in advance is all donated to a women’s refuge that I support in the city. It’s a volunteer-run venture that helps women who have suffered at the hands of domestic violence. I have written receipts to verify each donation,” he began reaching into a desk drawer. Gabriele held up her hand to stay the movement like she was apologizing, and then fell awkwardly silent.

Joshua took the moment to re-set his mind. He wasn’t angered by Gabriele’s questions – not at all… but he recognized that his own fervor for the lifestyle sometimes revealed itself in tones that were unintentionally brusque.

It wasn’t umbrage – it was passion.

He smiled his own apology, and the gesture crinkled the skin at the corners of his dark eyes. “Would you like a drink?” Gabriele recognized the question as a peace offering. She nodded her head.

Joshua turned in the chair to a small cabinet set beneath the bay window. “What would you like?”

Gabriele shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

He splashed scotch into two tumblers. “With water, or neat?”

When she had her drink in her hand, Gabriele sipped contritely, swallowing small measures like it was medicine. The silence in the room stretched out; the disconnect between them mending then circling back to a taut sense of tension.

“Why are you interested in the training I offer, Gabby?” Joshua asked at last, deliberately softening his voice to encourage her answer.

She shrugged her shoulders but knew immediately that not answering was never going to satisfy this man. “Being trained to sexually submit is very important to me.”

“But why?”

“Because I’m searching for something,” she said in a moment of profound insight – without recognizing the fact.

“Peace?”

“I… I don’t know,” her voice began to falter. She had to be careful. “I’ve just always been drawn to the concept of the lifestyle. The idea of a woman serving and satisfying her man…”

“Always?” Joshua frowned a little. “So the appeal of submission is something that reaches back to your earliest sexual fantasies?”

Gabriele squirmed a little in her seat. She had always been aroused by the concept of sexual submission. She remembered dreaming about it when she was still a young teenager, unsure back then even why the fantasy had been such a strong ingrained desire. But since her relationship with Randall that urge had faded before the tirade of his cruel cutting complaints, and the crude way he had taken advantage of her attempts to please him.

“Yes. Since I was first aware of sex,” she confessed, and then felt her face flush hotly.

Joshua shifted his weight in the chair, and the intensity came blazing back into his dark eyes. Gabriele had the sudden realization that the superficial chatter was over. The real interview had just begun.

“And what form did those early fantasies take?” Joshua’s eyes were narrowed. He was listening intently.

Gabriele started to shrug, then stopped herself. She felt her heart begin to beat faster and her mouth turned dry. She had never spoken about her secret urges to anyone.

“I used to picture myself in a dark room, kneeling under the glare of a spotlight,” she began in a dispassionate voice as though to distance herself from the memories. “I had my hands bound behind my back by chains, and there was a black collar around my neck.”

“Were you naked?”

“Yes.”

“And what happened in that room?”

Gabriele closed her eyes. To this day those early fantasies were still fresh and clear in every detail. “There was smoke swirling across the floor,” she said softly. “And then a masked man came from out of the dark.”

“Masked?”

“Yes. His face was covered by a leather hood.”

“Was he naked?”

“Yes. And he was hard. He walked around me like he was inspecting me. I had my head lowered, watching his feet. Then he stood in front of me.”

“What happened?”

“He ordered me to open my mouth.”

“And did you?”

“Yes. He wasn’t cruel. He didn’t hurt me. His voice was reasonable.”

“Then what happened?”

 “He pushed his cock into my mouth and instructed me how to suck him.”

Joshua tilted his head a little to one side. He was quite sure Gabriele’s obvious nervousness at retelling this story was also tinged with a deeper memory of pubescent arousal. He heard her desire gently welling up in her voice.

“How did this fantasy make you feel?” Joshua asked.

“Excited,” Gabriele said instead of what she really meant.

Horny.

“And did this fantasy man cum in your mouth?”

“Yes. Eventually.”

“And what were the deeper feelings, beyond your sexual excitement?”

Gabriele frowned, puzzling reflectively over her answer. “Satisfied,” she said at last. “I felt I was performing my duty. I felt… happily obedient.”

“Did you use this fantasy to make yourself cum?”

Gabriele lapsed into long tense pause, fraught with the last vestiges of her most intimate secret.

“Yes!”

Joshua leaned back in his chair, thoughtful and contemplative. “Do you know what submissive training actually involves?” he asked at last.

“Yes.”

Joshua arched his eyebrows with unfeigned mockery. “And where have you gleaned this understanding from? The books that you read?”

She paused and Joshua sensed the moment of her capitulation.

“Yes, from the books that I’ve read.”

Joshua nodded his head in slow understanding, tinged with his own regret. The truth was that he found this young woman captivating in a peculiar way. She had an intensity about her that he admired, and he was certain she had the desire to learn submission… but the picture-perfect fantasies she had filled her impressionable head with were a long way removed from the concentration and discipline that BDSM demanded.

“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 concentration 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 away. 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.

She went through the front doors of the office block running on high heels and came down the steps onto the sidewalk waving her arm to hail a passing cab. She clambered into the back seat and glanced at the time on her phone before she allowed herself to relax with a long slow breath of relief.

When the cab pulled up out the front of Joshua’s mansion in the quiet exclusive suburb, dark had fallen like shroud over the day, and the night was eerily still. It was one thing she might never grow accustomed to; the bustling city that had conditioned her to the ambient noise of voices and sirens and traffic.

Gabriele paid the cab driver off and went briskly up the long driveway towards the front door of the house. She was fifteen minutes early. She felt exposed in the heavy silence, drawing attention to herself by the loud echo of her heels. She imagined the eyes of neighbors upon her, watching from behind their curtains and made curious by the jarring sound of her steps across the tranquil peace of their lives.

She knocked politely on the door, clutching her handbag in front of her hips and fidgeting in her stance. The same jittering nervousness from the night before washed over her. She felt like she was about to step into the unknown. It was a leap of faith – like skydiving out of a high-flying aircraft. She simply didn’t have the life experiences to know what to expect once the front door opened, and Joshua beckoned her inside. Fear of the unknown mingled with fluttering arousal and anticipation. It was almost enough to make her heart seize in her chest.

When Joshua appeared in the doorway, a shimmer of giddy shock overcame Gabriele. He was wearing a dark elegant suit, as though dressed to attend a gala event, or maybe the opera. He looked the picture of debonair charm; his eyes sparkling through the tiny crinkled lines caused by his grin.

“Welcome to your first training session,” he held the door wide and Gabriele went inside. She paused in the foyer. Joshua closed the door behind her and took her politely by the elbow.

“Follow me.”

They went up a staircase to the top floor of the house, following a wide corridor that ended in a vast spacious bedroom. The bed was king size, and the room lavishly decorated in soft green shades, contrasted by turquoise cushions and accessories. There were two floor-to-ceiling windows on the far wall and between them waited the high, wide bed. The carpet was shades of pale grey and on the wall to her left, beside a white upholstered reading chair, was an unlit fireplace.

Gabriele blinked in unfeigned awe. The room was almost the same size of her entire apartment. Joshua saw the expression on her face but said nothing. Instead he steered her towards a door to her right.

The door was closed.

Joshua stopped suddenly and shrugged off his coat. He draped it over the back of the reading chair and loosened his tie. Gabriele could smell the scent of his expensive aftershave as he leaned suddenly close to her.

“Beyond this door is the room where I train my submissives,” he explained. “Out here,” he made a broad gesture with his hands to encompass the rest of the house, “it’s life as normal. But in this next room, Gabriele, everything changes. The roles of Master and submissive apply once you step across the threshold. Are you sure you are ready for that?”

Gabriele wasn’t sure. She felt suddenly intimidated. A tremulous little shudder of anxiety sent an icy-cold chill down her spine.

She studied his eyes with trepidation, searching those deep dark mysterious pools for some insight into his soul. Was Joshua a good man? Would he hurt her like Randall had? Did she have the right to feel afraid of him and what he might do to her?

She took a deep breath. Desperation to keep Randall drove her to this point. She had to keep going if she ever had a hope of winning her man back.

Gabriele stepped through the door.

If the bedroom was ostentatious in its grandeur, then this room, she decided, was a disappointment. The walls were stark white, and there was tracked lighting in the ceiling. There were no windows. The carpeting was the same grey color of the bedroom, but the only furnishings were a single wooden table in the middle of the room, and a black leather chair set in one corner. On the table, she could see a length of soft rope and what looked like a leather glove. She pursed her lips, and as she turned back to search Joshua’s face with puzzlement, she noticed a couple of hooks that were embedded in the wall at head height. The rest of the room was bleak and empty.

Joshua came into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. He seemed restless with sudden energy, and the set of his face changed. He walked a pacing circle of the room in silence while Gabriele stood unmoving, like prey that was being hunted. She felt the atmosphere around her change, the air suddenly warmer and humming with tension.

“Get up against the wall,” Joshua ordered with his voice pitched low and commanding. “With your back to me. Now.”

Turmoil and confusion flashed across Gabriele’s face. For a split-second fear flickered in her eyes but it was gone in a blink. She turned silently and pressed her hands against the wall as if she was about to be patted down by a cop.

“Do you give your permission?” Joshua asked, still speaking in a powerful low voice. The tone sent voluptuous shivers through Gabriele’s body.

“Permission for what?” Gabriele whispered timidly.

“For me to touch you and command you?”

There was a long pause, fraught with tension. Joshua could hear her nervousness in the scratchy rasp of every breath. They both sensed that this moment was the defining instant.

“Yes.”

Joshua stepped close behind Gabriele and leaned forward so that his mouth was against her ear. “You will obey every order I give you. Understand?”

“Yes, Master.” The words came instinctively.

“You will not question me. Understand?”

“Yes, Master.”

“You will follow every instruction enthusiastically. Understand?”

“Yes, Master.” With every question and answer, Gabriele felt herself sinking deeper under the mesmerizing spell of Joshua’s resonate voice, and the will of his desires. She was helpless; unwilling and unable to resist. His presence was like the silken chains of a beautiful snare.

“And will you be willing…?”

“Yes!”

Joshua gently caressed the perfect shape of Gabriele’s ass with his hands, running them from the hem of her dress up over her bottom and then to the small of her back, exploring the feel of her exquisite body for the very first time and drinking in every curve and line like a blind man. His touch sparked little electric jolts through Gabriele’s tight dress. He could feel the soft movements of her responding to his fingers, and her struggles to control her breath. She made a sudden sharp hiss between her lips when his hands drifted over her bottom and lingered.

“The highest words of praise you can ever hope to hear from me is the expression, ‘good girl’,” Joshua explained. Slowly his hands slid around her body like he was embracing her, then drifted up over the mounds of her breasts.

“If you hear me say those words, you know that you have pleased me.” He rested the palms of his hands under her breasts, feeling the restrained shape of them, but doing so perfunctorily. Her heart was racing wildly “Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

It was the mistake Joshua expected, and it gave him the opportunity to reach up and grip Gabriele loosely around the neck. His hands hung there like a snug-fitting collar; no threat, and no malice.

“You will call me Master every time you address me.”

Gabriele nodded and swallowed. Joshua could feel the movement of the muscles in her throat as they pressed against the touch of his fingers.

“Yes, Master.”

He let his hands loosen. Deliberately he let them brush over her breasts again as they fell to his side. “Good girl,” he whispered.

He stepped back and ordered her to turn around. Gabriele faced him with her eyes downcast. Joshua reached possessively for the front of her dress and unfastened every button from her collar to her navel, slowly exposing the pale smooth flesh of her body. The deep cleft of her cleavage between the lacy pillows of her bra mesmerized him.

“Tell me how you feel.”

“I’m aroused,” Gabriele admitted. She was trembling, and her voice wavered as she hung on the edge of breathlessness.

“Are you scared?”

“I was, Master,” she confessed.

“When?”

“All day at work, and when I first arrived tonight, Master.”

“When I showed you this room?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Why?”

Gabriele hesitated – not for fear of telling the truth, but merely because she found it difficult to express her emotions. “I… I wasn’t sure whether I was doing the right thing. I wasn’t sure whether I could completely trust you.” Her face flushed, worried that Joshua would be upset by her explanation, but he seemed unperturbed.

“Are you still scared?” he asked more gently.

“No, Master.”

“Why? What has changed?”

Gabriele licked her lips. “The feel of your hands on me,” she said abstractly. “I could tell by the way that you were touching me that you’re not a cruel man. You won’t deliberately hurt me.”

Joshua stared unblinking. Behind the fixed gaze there flashed a flurry of genuine concern. Gabriele had been badly handled by her boyfriend, and even if the scars of his treatment didn’t show on her skin, they were there in her words and her thoughts.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said to reassure her. “But I will discipline and punish you because those things are necessary to correct errant behavior.”

She nodded. “I expect it, Master. I came here to learn.”

He grunted. Then narrowed his eyes, circling back to her earlier comment. “I do not expect your full trust immediately, Gabby. That will take time to develop. At this early stage, all I expect is your obedience. But as a further safeguard, I’m going to give you a word; it’s a single word you can say at any time that will immediately stop whatever act we are engaged in. The safe word guarantees that nothing will take place during your training that is expressly against your will.”

Gabriele nodded. Another brick in the wall of her wary caution fell away.

“Your word will be ‘Saratoga’.”

Gabriele blinked. “Saratoga?”

Joshua nodded. “She was an old Navy aircraft carrier that served in the Pacific during the Second World War. It’s not the sort of word you would use in everyday conversation, which makes it suitable,” and then turned his voice into a caution. “But be careful. Your safe word can only ever be uttered if you feel truly uncomfortable, or in some way threatened. It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card for you to use when you feel yourself challenged or stretched. The ramifications of using the safe word to stop your training are profound.”

Gabriele nodded. Her eyes were solemn and serious. “Yes, Master,” she replied obediently.

With the safe word decided, Gabriele felt a lift of relief. Joshua felt the urge to press on with the session.

He moved until he could clearly see her eyes and read the expressions on her face. Her lips were parted and glossy, her breath coming in tight little gasps. He caressed the top of her breast with the palm of his hand, and she closed her eyes like she was trying to amplify the fierce thrill of the sensation.

Joshua paused for a final moment of dramatic tension and then asked a question.

“Is your pussy wet right now?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Would you like to touch yourself?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Do you make yourself cum often?”

“Yes, Master.”

“And what did you fantasize about the last time you pleasured yourself?”

There was a pause in Gabriele’s reply like a faulty phone line with a delay. Joshua waited with his eyes narrowed.

“Submitting,” Gabriele’s answer was too long coming to be the pure truth, and Joshua knew instinctively she was evading.

“Submitting to who?” he persisted. “I want details.”

Gabriele glanced at him, saw the stern mask of his expression, and focused her eyes back forward. “I was submitting to you,” she said in a voice that was a low whisper of embarrassment.

“And in your fantasy did I fuck you, Gabriele?”

“Yes, Master.”

He paused and just studied her face in the ensuing silence. Her cheeks were hot with color and there was a nervous tick at the corner of one eye. Her lips were wet; her voice hoarse and scratchy.

“Do you like to suck cock?”

“I would, I’m sure.”

“What do you mean?” Joshua shot.

“If it was the right man,” Gabriele qualified. “If it was someone I respected and someone who aroused me.”

“Do you like swallowing cum?”

She shrugged. “I would, happily…”

“…If it was a man you respected, right?”

“Yes, Master.”

“But you’ve sucked your ex-boyfriend’s cock before, haven’t you.”

She gave a short sharp jerk of her head, and Joshua noticed the disdainful curl of her lips. “Yes.”

“Grudgingly?”

Gabriele made a weary face but said nothing.

“When was the last time you orgasmed?” Joshua asked the next question without pausing.

“Earlier.”

“Earlier today?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Before you went to work this morning?”

“Yes, Master.”

“And when you came, it was while you were thinking about me, not the masked man in your fantasies?”

“Yes,” Gabriele squirmed with acute embarrassment under the intense scrutiny. “I was thinking about you, Master.”

Joshua grunted. He imagined Gabriele lying naked on her bed, her legs spread wide and her hands busy between her legs. He pictured her slim toned young body writhing, and the muscles of her thighs and torso clenching beneath the smooth toned skin as the first tremors of her orgasm struck her. He pictured her face then, twisted and gasping, her eyes screwed tightly shut as the force of her release drove the air from her lungs in a long moan of pleasure. Despite himself, he felt himself harden.

“Strip,” he said.

Gabriele let out a long breath and nodded. She swallowed hard. She had never been more nervous, nor felt more exposed in her life.

Without another word she shrugged off her dress and then clawed behind her back to snag the clasp to her bra. It came away in her hand, and she let it fall at her feet. Her breasts were small and firm, Joshua noted. Her nipples were hard as pebbles.

His eyes were on her breasts, and she pulled her shoulders back, her chin lifted.

“Do you want the panties off?” there was a sudden calm boldness in Gabriele’s voice.

Joshua shook his head. His eyes were all over her body, hungry and appreciative. She stood with her hands by her side, utterly exposed for his inspection, with her eyes closed and her lips pressed together in a thin line that made her expression seem almost fearful. Joshua’s eyes dropped to the sheer black lace of her panties. Through the whorls of delicate pattern he could see the shaved smooth mound of her sex, and the shadowed cleft of her pussy.

After enduring a long still moment of shivering tension, Gabriele heard Joshua speak at last.

“Go to the table. I want you to present your body to me,” he said.

Gabriele opened her eyes. Her skin felt scorched from the heat of Joshua’s gaze. She went to the middle of the room. She had thought there was a leather glove on the tabletop when she had first come into the room. Now she realized it was, in fact, a blindfold.

“Bend over the counter.”

Gabriele folded herself forward from the waist so that her forearms and cheek were resting on the table, her legs spread, her back straight, and her breasts hanging invitingly in space.

Joshua stepped behind her so that his cock nudged provocatively against her panties through the fabrics of their clothes, and then clawed his fingers down her back to get her attention. A rash of goosebumps sprung up along her arms and she groaned.

He reached for the blindfold. It was black, with an elastic band connected to each side of the mask. He slipped it over her head to cover her eyes and immerse her in the dark world of sensory stimulation.

“Learning to still your mind is something that all submissives should practice,” Joshua began. “Because being able to find that quiet space in your head will allow you to understand patience and peace. It will also attune you to your Master, which will make your reactions to his commands more instinctive. But…” he stressed the word for emphasis, “you must also learn to concentrate your mind. Focus is critical, and being able to direct all your thoughts to a specific task is just as vital as being able to let your mind drift. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master,” Gabriele’s voice was small.

Casually Joshua ran his palms over her back again and then his hands worked lower, edging down to her narrow waist and over the delicate lace of her panties until he was rubbing her ass. Finally he let one hand dip boldly between her parted thighs and brush across the apex of her sex.

Gabriele flinched and then arched her back. Joshua’s hand was insistent and exploring; working the damp fabric between the lips of her pussy and teasing her clit. She pushed down against the pressure of his palm, and heard herself strangle a ragged breath of arousal. She forced herself to relax and focused her attention on the strong practiced movements of his fingers. Joshua was stroking her calmly, and her skin seemed alive with the electricity of each skilled touch.

“In my world of domination and submission you must learn to concentrate,” Joshua continued. His voice was pitched like a lovers croon, soft and settling. “Because my rules are probably a little different from other Masters. My rules suit me – they’re not snatched out of books or off websites. They’re specifically to satisfy my purposes.”

Gabriele clenched the muscles in her legs as he teased her mercilessly. He saw her hands bunch into fists like she was trying to restrain herself from crying out in passion.

“And the first rule is this,” the tenor of his voice became a warning. “When my cock is deep inside a submissive’s pussy, it is purely for my pleasure. I never ever fuck a submissive to stimulate her. In such situations, it is the woman’s role to focus her attention on making her pussy as tight and pleasurable for me as possible. That’s what I expect. That’s why I fuck her – for my own needs and nothing more.”

Gabriele grunted. Joshua’s fingers were pressing at the fabric of her panties, taunting her mercilessly. She moved her hips a little in the hope to meet his touch with those aching parts of her sex, but Joshua pulled his hand away as punishment, and then swatted her lightly across the ass.

“Stay still!” he commanded.

She went limp with a shuddering sigh. Joshua pushed her legs a little wider apart. The material between her thighs was rucked up into twisted creases. When he ran his fingers back between her legs, they became quickly coated in the damp slick rush of her juices.

“If I want to arouse a submissive, I do it with toys, my fingers or my tongue because those methods give me absolute control. They allow me to increase pleasure… and to take it away. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.” There was an ache and a need in the strain of her words. Joshua smiled knowingly to himself.

“So a submissive must learn the pose I have placed you in, and learn to focus her attention on only her pussy. Because this is the way you would be fucked – bent over the table, or on your hands and knees. And with every thrust of my cock I would expect you to direct your will and your body to giving me pleasure. Nothing else… certainly not your own need to orgasm.”

“Yes, Master!” Gabriele’s response was almost an agonized cry for relief. Joshua left her stretched out on the rack of her desire while his fingers brushed away the strap of her panties and slid directly over the sensitive wet folds of her pussy. His touch was a tantalizing graze; like a fleeting kiss that gave her no chance for relief.

“Do you want to cum?” he whispered the dark temptation.

“Yes… Yes, please, Master!”

Joshua stepped to the far side of the room He could see the enticing wet gap of Gabriele’s pussy, her body seeming to tingle with the electric urge for release. The room filled with the heady aroma of her sex and the soft rhythmic groans of her breath.

“Then make yourself cum,” he said casually. “While I watch you.”

Gabriele was literally shaking with the desperate need to orgasm.

She had never felt so turned on in her life, bent over with her legs parted shamelessly and her pussy leaking juices down the inside of her thighs.

Joshua had made her feel felt like a brazen sexy whore, and the sensation filled her with delight; her body spread and displayed, her primal hunger for release made impossible to ignore. And knowing that Joshua was watching her with the cunning eyes of a predator intensified the acute perversion of it all. She felt exposed and vulnerable. She felt like a wanton wicked woman.

She was helpless to resist him, or her own need.

Gabriele reached down tentatively between her legs and was shocked at how wet her pussy was. Her fingers slipped within the slick coating of her arousal and jammed against her clit. She groaned aloud with relief. The touch of her hand was like a soothing salve; the pressure eased momentarily, and she teased herself until her ache became so urgent that she started to sob through every breath. Her whole body felt on fire, and she could hear the pound of her pulse in her ears, hammering like the ragged beat of a drum.

Joshua watched with narrowed assessing eyes. Nothing escaped him. He studied the way Gabriele’s fingers slid slowly along the length of her sex, and the teasing way she pushed her fingers inside herself. Everything she did, Joshua committed to memory.

Gabriele had clenched her teeth as the strain began in her arms, spreading through the rest of her body. Her fingers felt like they were blurring as they brushed across her clit. She gulped a last lungful of air and then her pussy tingled with the numbness that preceded orgasm.

Joshua’s timing was cruel and perfect.

“Stop!” he ordered Gabriele when she was right on the edge of coming. His command cut through the fog of her wicked fantasies, and she faltered in confusion, torn between the primal need to finish what she had started, and the persistent interruption of his voice.

“Stop!”

Behind the dark veil of the blindfold she was in complete turmoil, instinct railing against intuitive obedience.

At last Gabriele’s hand slowed then stilled, one finger still pressed firm against her clit, feeling its throbbing pulse. The breath she had been holding escaped her lips in a sigh that sounded like the petulant whine of a child denied a treat. Slowly, the tension went from Gabriele’s body and she slumped there, still twitching. Her pussy was wide open.

Gabriele heard Joshua’s footsteps and imagined him close behind her.

“Stand,” he gave a one-word command and she obeyed, straightening and stretching and still shaking. Joshua came close behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. His hands became busy then, sliding up to knead her breasts and then possessively reaching down between her legs. She shuffled her feet apart wantonly and gave him free access to her pussy. He ran his fingers along the slit of her sex. He teased her clit until she started to tremble again.

 “You must obey every instruction instantly,” his voice explained stern and gruff in her ear. “I will not repeat myself ever again.”

“Yes, Master,” she choked out the words because as he spoke, one of his fingers spread the lips of Gabriel’s pussy apart and then dipped tentatively inside her. Gabriele shuddered and a flush of prickling heat washed over her. She had her head thrown back; Joshua’s hands roaming over her like Gabriele was his property.

“Your pussy is mine, Gabriele. That means it is to be used for my pleasure, and only for my satisfaction or gratification. In future, whenever you step into this room, you will present yourself to me for inspection… and you will no longer orgasm without my express permission. Do you understand?”

Joshua spun Gabriele around in his arms and snatched the blindfold from her eyes. They were face-to-face, his eyes dark and demanding, her chin lifted as if she were trying to remember this moment forever.

Then he froze suddenly and his face was expressionless, the lusting fire extinguished in an instant. His breathing was regulated, his hands steady. He stared at Gabriele dispassionately, and she was appalled by his composure… and how raggedly aroused she was in comparison.

Gabriele was naked, and wet and aching. Her entire body craved the sweet release of orgasm so that she felt the need like a keen ache deep in the pit of her stomach.

“That will do for tonight,” Joshua’s voice was a monotone.

Gabriele flinched. The sting of his rebuttal hurt more than any slap from Randall ever had.

“You mean… you mean you don’t want to…?”

“What?”

“You don’t want to fuck me?” Gabriele whispered.

“No,” Joshua’s voice was emphatic. He stared at her.

She lowered her head under the withering force of his glare. “Did I do something wrong?”

Joshua’s expression was blank. “That depends,” he said. “Did you learn anything from tonight?”

She let out a long breath and with it went the tension and the lingering flicker of her ache to orgasm. Suddenly she felt cold, as though she was standing in the shadow of Joshua’s disfavor.

“That I can’t cum without your permission,” Gabriele said.

Joshua arched his eyebrows. “Anything else?”

She thought back and analyzed how she had felt… and how he had made her to feel. “That I have to be obedient.”

Joshua stepped so close to Gabriele that he needed only to lean forward to capture her mouth with a kiss. The realization made Gabriele’s heart trip and skip.

“You are a body for my pleasure,” Joshua said softly. “Repeat it.”

“I am a body for your pleasure, Master,” Gabriele said dutifully.

“Remember that,” Joshua insisted. “Because that is the real lesson from tonight’s session. Your body is no longer your own. It belongs to me until this course is completed. That means I will use you for my pleasure and my entertainment. It also means that you must never, ever orgasm without my express permission. And it means you must shift your thinking beyond your own needs for release.”

“I understand.”

Joshua looked unconvinced. Boldly, he reached between Gabriele’s legs and slid a finger deep inside her pussy. She felt her body spasm and clench to hold him within her as her legs buckled and she felt her eyes begin to roll up into her head. She was so close to cumming.

“Repeat it,” Joshua insisted.

“I’m a body for your pleasure,” she croaked.

“Again.”

“I’m a body for your pleasure,” the touch of him was torture, and it took every ounce of her dwindling will and strength to resist the cunning press of his finger against the inner wall of her throbbing pussy.

“And what are you here for?” Joshua grilled her.

“To learn to submit!” the words were wrenched from Gabriele’s throat with a hiss. “To learn to please you and to obey!”

Her eyes were screwed shut, her teeth biting into her lip to stifle the wanton groan of maddening desire. Her hands were clenched into fists, bumping against the edge of the table.

“Will you cum without my permission?” Joshua was relentless.

“No. I promise.”

“And will you please me?”

“Yes! Oh, God, yes!”

Joshua slid his finger from her pussy, and it came away wet and glistening with the sweetness of her juices. Gabriele slumped, gasping. Joshua held his hand to her lips and without instruction, she sucked her scent from his finger.

“Good girl,” Joshua said with grudging satisfaction. “Now you can go home.”

He left her alone to dress and then led her downstairs to the front door. He stood back to allow her to leave but as she passed across the threshold into the dark night, he seized her wrist suddenly and guided her hand across the huge bulge in his pants.

“Despite what you might think, I’m not made of ice,” he said. “Can you feel your Master’s cock?” Gabriele’s fingers moved by themselves, gently squeezing Joshua’s erection through the fabric.

“Yes, Master,” she said so softly that Joshua barely caught her words above the gasp of her breath.

He took her hand away. “That’s how much you turn me on. I want you to think about that until we meet again tomorrow night.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5:

 

Joshua worked at his office desk throughout the morning, monitoring the stock prices on the New York exchange, while he researched the merits of a pharmaceutical company he was interested in investing in. At lunchtime he shut the laptop down and reached for his cellphone. He dialed a number he hadn’t called since his years in Naval Intelligence.

“Buddy?”

There was a moment of silent disbelief and then a man with a booming New Jersey accent laughed down the line. “Joshua? Damn! How are you man?”

“I’m good,” Joshua said dismissively. “How are Ruth and the kids?”

“Great, man,” the voice was loud over a background of other voices. “But this isn’t a pleasure call, right?”

“Right,” Joshua said. “Are you still P.D.?”

“Sure. Still part of the thin blue line. I mean someone’s gotta keep the peace, right?”

Joshua smiled. “Then I need a favor, Bud. I want you to run someone down for me. I need everything you can get, photos too if possible.”

The man on the end of the line fell silent for just long enough to snatch up a pen. In the background Joshua heard the faint wail of a distant siren starting up. “Fire away, man. What’s the name?”

Joshua told him, and then hung up.

 

 

 

When Gabriele arrived for her second night of training, Joshua was waiting for her in the doorway. She was wearing a black figure-hugging dress, hemmed high up her thigh. She came into the foyer without hesitation, the smile more confident than the one she had worn the night before. She waited obediently until he closed the door and then turned to find him with her eyes when he made no move to lead her upstairs.

Joshua was watching her, leaning nonchalantly against the entry wall with his arms folded, his ankles crossed. There was a handsome piratical gleam in his eyes that made her tremble with the first premonition of sexual excitement.

Gabriele hadn’t cum since the previous morning even though Joshua had sent her back to her apartment the evening before with her pussy tingling and in aching need for release. She hadn’t even teased herself to orgasm when she had awoken in the early hours, her dreams haunted by the demanding touch of his fingers along the soft wet lips of her sex.

Now she was twitchy and on edge, like an addict who was strung out and in need of another hit. That was how she felt.

“Have I done something wrong, Master?” Gabriele asked shyly, her voice subdued. She was keenly aware of the way he was looking at her and the sheer intensity of his gaze made her feel like her skin was melting. She stood still and at attention. With her bag of work clothes left inside the door, she had nothing to occupy her hands. She felt exposed. She stole a furtive glance in his direction. He was wearing denim jeans again tonight and a black open-necked shirt. She could see dark crisp whorls of chest hair poking out from the deep V of his collar.

The way he stood with his arms folded bulged the sinews of his forearms and bunched the muscles across his chest.

“No, you have not displeased me,” Joshua answered at last.

With no more information, Gabriele stood in the awkward silence and slowly began to mentally melt down. She felt herself becoming more nervous with every second of quiet. It drew out interminably until the few shreds of confidence she had carried to the door had been silently stripped away. Again, she felt a fresh attack of unworthy uncomfortable insecurity.

And he had done it simply by staring at her.

When Gabriele felt herself at the very edge of screaming, Joshua suddenly pushed himself away from the wall and walked a tightening circle around her like a shark with the frenzied scent of blood in the water.

“Spread your legs,” he said as he passed her. She did as she was told without hesitation. On the next pass, Joshua ordered her to hitch her skirt up around her waist.

The fabric was stretch and clinging tight to her hips. She shimmied her hips until the black dress was bunched at the level of her navel.

Joshua’s next pass brought him closer. His eyes were on her panties. They were red tonight, he noticed; very sheer, very sexy. He wondered if they were damp.

“Put your hand down inside your panties,” he swept past again then circled behind her. Now Joshua was so close that Gabriele could feel the warmth of his breath against her neck as he drifted behind her. She shivered, and then slid one hand beneath the elastic of her panties. She cupped her fingers over the smooth mound of her pussy. She was trembling. The brief touch of her fingers was enough to reignite the dormant force of her lingering ache to cum.

“Finger-fuck yourself,” Joshua flashed past again, predatory. The sharp profanity of his order seemed to imbue every word with extra sexual tension. Gabriele dipped one finger inside her pussy. She was incredibly wet. She shuddered.

Joshua finally stopped the maddening circles when he was standing behind her. He pressed himself against her back and Gabriele felt herself yearn to melt against him. His mouth was at her ear, his breath rasping like a dangerous animal about to charge. She felt herself quail with the delicious thrill of her surrender.

“I’m taking you somewhere tonight,” Joshua’s voice was deceptively soft and measured as though he was watching her reaction to everything he said. “But before we leave, I need you damp and desperate to cum. That’s why you’re fingering yourself, Gabriele. I want you to play with your pussy until you’re on the verge of orgasm.”

She nodded her head. Her hand inside her panties seemed to move as if it had a life of its own, touching those secret places in a way that only she knew could arouse her.

Joshua heard the pant of her breath as she neared release. Soft wet sounds and the scent of her sex filled the room, seemingly amplified by the brittle silence. Gabriele cringed her shoulders, embarrassed by her wetness, but to Joshua it was a sound as sweet as music.

“Faster,” he insisted.

Gabriele closed her eyes, and her whole body began to hunch and tense. She bit her lip when the orgasm began to build and then her hips began to slowly undulate of their own accord. Joshua stopped her by seizing her wrist. He drew her hand from within her panties and, as he had the night before, insisted that she suck the juices from her fingers. Gabriele did so without thought.

“Very good,” Joshua said gruffly. “Now, take the dress off. You will be permitted to wear only your lingerie.”

A cold, sinking chill crept through Gabriele’s bones as the words echoed around in her head. She undressed slowly, but her mind was racing. She left the dress on the ground at her feet and stood in only red heels, lace panties and matching bra. She turned her head to catch Joshua from the corner of her eye and as she did her dark mane of long glossy hair shimmered across her shoulders.

“Follow,” Joshua said.

He went part way down the long corridor towards his office and then turned through a doorway into an open planned living and kitchen space. On the far side of the area, beyond a huge stainless steel refrigerator, was another internal door. Gabriele followed, her head swiveling from side to side. Joshua’s house was luxurious and magnificent, but with the sterility of a building that had never become a home. She sensed the rooms had never been filled with the sounds of laughter or living. It was a perfect shell, waiting…

The internal door led to a three car garage bathed in banks of overhead floodlights. Parked side by side were two luxury cars. Joshua snatched a set of keys from a painted wooden board of hooks and escorted her to a dark, gleaming sedan. Joshua opened the passenger door chivalrously, and Gabriele inhaled the unmistakable aromas of new-car smell and leather.

Joshua skirted around to the driver side and climbed in behind the wheel. He glanced at Gabriele. She was sitting very small and a little frightened in the dark. Her eyes were straight ahead. Joshua was smiling secretly to himself. The garage door whined to the pull of an electric motor and then folded up into the garage’s ceiling. Joshua started the car, and the big engine gurgled with throaty power. He eased out of the driveway and steered onto the quiet suburban street.

“Do you know anyone in this part of the city?” Joshua asked once the car was up to speed, drifting soundlessly through the quiet suburb.

Gabriele shook her head. “No, Master.”

“You have no work colleagues who live in this area? No associates or people you might see during the course of a normal week?”

“No, Master.”

As he had been speaking, Joshua had reached the edge of the community and drove through the welcome sign and gate posts, then pulled onto a busy thoroughfare. He merged into a stream of traffic that was winding its way into the distant horizon of lit skyscrapers.

“Do you wear a bikini to the beach?”

The question was so unexpected that Gabriele turned her head in confusion.

“Pardon, Master?”

“Do you wear a bikini to the beach, or a one-piece?”

Gabriele laughed with hollow derision. “I haven’t been to a beach for several years, Master… but yes, I would wear a bikini.”

Joshua nodded. It was all the information he needed.

Five minutes later the neon lights of a shopping mall emerged out of the dark night. Joshua cut across a lane and then turned across traffic to nose the car into a vast parking lot. Around the perimeter of the mall, the out-facing shops were all closed, except for a take-out store at the northern corner of the building. Above the doors, lighting up the night, was the name of a well-known fast-food brand. Joshua parked the car about fifty yards away from the glass-fronted shop windows and cut the engine.

Through the windshield he could see the silhouettes of a dozen parked cars scattered across the lot. Inside the store he noted three staff members behind the bright red serving counter, and a couple with a small child sitting on seats by the window, waiting for their food order. He turned to Gabriele, sitting with a look of confusion on her face, her features lit by the ghostly glow of the dashboard’s soft lights.

“I phoned through an order of food before you arrived tonight,” Joshua explained in a calm, reasonable voice. “Please go into the store and collect it for me.” He reached into his pants pocket and handed her a wad of crisp new bills.

Gabriele’s eyes flashed with panic and open-mouthed horror.

“Master?”

“You heard me,” Joshua’s voice remained a flat monotone. “I have a food order waiting inside that store. I’d like you to collect it.”

“But I’m wearing lingerie!” her voice shot up an octave and was edged with genuine alarm. As if the words themselves weren’t enough, she made a dramatic gesture with her hands, drawing attention to her smooth soft skin and the bulge of her breasts. Her nipples showed as dark shadows through the red lace.

Joshua’s look slowly transformed into a pantomime of curiosity. “I don’t see what the problem is,” he said. “It’s a simple enough request, and one you should be pleased to obey.”

Still Gabriele hesitated. She peered out through the windshield like she was staring at a daunting two-mile stretch of sewn minefield. She turned back to Joshua, and her expression collapsed into a look of pleading. “Surely, you cannot be serious.”

Joshua’s eyes turned menacingly black, and Gabriele’s sudden fear drove away her apprehension. She slumped her shoulders, then reached for the door handle. She moved in a slow disbelieving daze. She stepped out of the car; her head swiveling in every direction with furtive panic, and then she scurried towards the brightly lit store. The night was cool. Overhead the sky was cloudless, lit by a million stars. Gabriele saw none of it. Her eyes were fixed and mortified. She stepped in through the glass shop door and went to the counter, cringing with embarrassment, her eyes downcast, her whole body trembling.

She emerged a few moments later carrying a paper bag packed with food; her exit watched by the fascinated staff and customers. She all but ran back to the car; the clip-clop of her heels attracting the eyes of people in the other parked cars. Her face was burning, and the blush of color had spread all the way down her torso.

When she got back to the car, she found the passenger door locked. Joshua lowered his window and Gabriele, with her lips pressed tight together by her simmering fury, handed the food through the window.

Joshua opened the bag and casually checked off the order. “Tell me how that task made you feel, Gabriele?” He sounded almost clinical.

“Fucking embarrassed!” Gabriele snapped. She was outraged, seething with her humiliation.

Joshua grunted with disappointment. He drew a deep breath then slowly shook his head. “The staff forgot to include one of the burgers I ordered. Please go back to the restaurant and ask them to check the order.”

“What?” Gabriele was hunched and cowering beside the car’s door, trying to make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible. Despite the dark of the night, she felt cruelly exposed. She imagined each dark car in the lot filled with leering men and quailed at the thought of what the store’s staff might be saying about her. She had never felt so demeaned in her life.

Joshua turned his eyes to her, and it was like the twin dark barrels of a shotgun swiveling onto a target. “Go back to the restaurant,” he said through gritted teeth and straining patience. “And this time I want you to walk like a confident sexy woman on a beach – a woman who is proud of her body, aware of all the admiring glances and brimming with confidence because you know you are beautiful… not some pathetic sneak who is shrinking and self-conscious.”

Gabriele’s eyes blazed with venom, but she straightened obediently and went in stilted, forced steps back across the dark parking lot and into the take-out restaurant. She was there for a just a few minutes, her eyes fixed straight ahead. When she came out through the doors again, she was holding another small paper bag. She walked with stiff robotic movements.

She came back to the driver’s side window and thrust the bag through the window. Joshua looked thoughtful. He was staring out through the windshield as though reflecting on something significant.

“How do you feel now?” he asked at last through the open window.

“The same,” Gabriele was on the very brink of using her safe word. It was on the tip of her tongue and would be followed by a withering tirade of abuse that was jangling around in her head. “Still humiliated,” she spat the words through frosted lips. Her face had an icy sheen to it.

Joshua shook his head and seemed overcome with genuine sadness. “You did better, but not well enough, Gabriele. I’m very disappointed in you,” he spoke carefully, knowing the crushing effect that his displeasure could have on a woman in training. A Master’s disappointment was the ultimate measure of a submissive’s failure.

“I did what you asked,” Gabriele faltered as she defended herself. She wanted to stay angry; she had every right to be furious. But suddenly she wasn’t so sure. Joshua’s reaction threw her into hapless confusion.

Joshua fixed her with his gaze. “You disappoint me because you refuse to accept your role as my submissive. You’re still seeing yourself as Gabriele – the woman who works at an accountancy firm, the woman who lives in an apartment complex and smiles politely to her neighbors. You still see yourself in terms of your own life,” his voice was rising, becoming sharper, “but that’s not who you are. You are a submissive. You are a body for my pleasure and satisfaction. You’re making the terrible mistake of seeing everything in terms of who you are, and not who I am training you to become. In order to be a desired submissive, worthy of a Master’s training and care, you must stop being yourself, and instead be who I am training you to become.”

The sudden realization of Joshua’s words struck Gabriele more powerfully than a blow. It flattened her; crumpled her. She felt the air wheeze from her lungs in bitter understanding. Suddenly she felt crestfallen.

“You’re right,” she hung her head and spoke in soft apology. She felt herself on the brink of defeated tears. “You’re right.”

She looked away because she couldn’t stand to see the disappointed way Joshua was studying her. She saw the blurred neon light of the store in the distance through a mist of tears. She thrust out her chin and pursed her lips together in a flash of defiance.

Gabriele sauntered back towards the fast-food restaurant, taking her time, swaying her hips like a catwalk model with every long-legged step. As she strutted, she turned her head from side to side, her gaze cool and dismissive as she passed each dark shadowed car. When she got to the glass door of the shop front, she hesitated for a moment. Joshua was watching her with keen interest. He thought her resolve had crumbled at the last hurdle, but he was wrong. Gabriele reached for the door handle, then used it for balance, bending at the waist with her legs slightly parted and perfectly straight, like she was touching her toes.

Despite himself Joshua laughed his admiration.

Gabriele fiddled with the strap of her shoe just long enough to strike the provocative pose and make sure anyone who wanted to see her ass got the perfect unfiltered view. Only then did she step into the restaurant and walk casually up to the counter. She was there for several minutes, pacing and posing provocatively while she waited. When one of the young men behind the counter finally passed her something, she left with a dazzling smile of thanks. Her turn was like a pirouette. She came back to the car in the same way she had departed; walking slowly, confidently, and with her head held high as though to welcome every stranger’s inspection of her lingerie clad perfection.

Gabriele was grim-faced when she reached the driver’s side window. “I brought you extra sauce, Master,” she said and arched her eyebrow with wicked defiance. “I hope it makes you happy enough to forgive my failings.”

 

 

 

When they arrived back at the house, Joshua parked the car in the garage, left the bag of food on the kitchen counter, and then led Gabriele silently upstairs to the training room.

Only when the door was closed did he turn on her. “Take off your bra and panties. I want you naked and bent over the table.”

Gabriele shed her lingerie with brusque disgruntled movements. In the drive back from the shopping mall some of her bitterness had returned. She was tight lipped and simmering as she folded herself over the cold wooden table and spread her legs. Her breasts were flattened against the wood; her head resting on the point of her chin so that she was staring across the room at the blank wall. Tiny shudders of seeping adrenalin made her fingers shake.

“Tell me how you feel right now?” Joshua demanded.

“Like an object, Master,” she put derisive emphasis on the last word and Joshua noted it. “Just a pussy, a mouth, and a pair of tits for you to play with and fuck at your pleasure, Master.” She did it again – the same sharp tone.

Joshua narrowed his eyes.

“Are you angry?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Still?”

“Yes. Master.” Gabriele sensed Joshua moving around the room somewhere out of her view. She imagined him feasting his eyes on her pussy. She felt nothing.

“Why?”

“Why what, Master?” the contempt in her voice rang through her every word.

“Why are you angry? I thought you were humiliated.” Joshua sounded mildly amused, and it only inflamed Gabriele’s temper. She stood up, pushed herself away from the table, defiant of his order, and turned on him, her eyes flashing.

“You made a fool of me in that restaurant parking lot.”

“No!” Joshua snapped. The ferocity in his eyes frightened Gabriele to stunned silence and sucked the anger from her like a fire starved suddenly of oxygen. Joshua’s face was set like stone, his mouth a hard bitter line.

“You felt like a fool only because you could not disconnect yourself from your purpose. You looked like a sex goddess.”

“But – ”

Joshua cut her off brusquely. “Don’t you dare direct your anger at me,” he thrust a warning finger at her. “The fault here is yours, not mine, Gabriele. You’re the one who came to me and begged me to train you in the art of submission. You’re the one who said you would obey my every instruction,” he beat down her protests and saw her face change from fury to confusion. “And you’re the one who still refuses to learn the valuable lessons I am trying to teach you.”

Gabriele drew a huffing breath. There was turmoil in her eyes. Joshua wasn’t finished. “You behave like a child, not a woman. You need to be strong to be a submissive, and I see none of that inner strength in you. Success takes resolve, dedication and a sense of purpose. But you’re too busy being outraged to see the fault in every one of your actions. You think submission is learning to lie like a corpse on a bed while a Master fucks you, and then feeling grateful afterwards. It’s not. It’s deeper. It’s a soulful understanding and connection. You need to know yourself, and the person you want to become. You need to immerse yourself in the mindset of submission.”

Gabriele shuddered like a sailing ship suddenly struck by a gale of wind. Joshua’s pointed critique blew right through her. Suddenly she began to cry. The deep realization of Joshua’s cutting truths devastated her.

More than anything else she felt ashamed of herself.

“I’m sorry,” Gabriele said through weeping tears. “You’re right. I’m failing. I know I am… and I just can’t afford to.”

There was a long moment of silence. Joshua let Gabriele cry through her fear of failure, watching her without moving, despite the own pull of his instinct for compassion. Extending Gabriele sympathy might make them both feel better… but it would do nothing to make Gabriele a better submissive. Instead, Joshua clenched his fists, knowing that doing nothing was the very best thing to do.

When at last Gabriele had wept her last tear, her face was streaked and stained with the smudges of her makeup. She seemed very frail and child-like, standing naked and chastened. She looked up to him at last for guidance and direction, and Joshua felt a glimmer of hope for her. Perhaps this had been the turning point in her training.

“I’m disappointed in you,” he spoke gently, “and my instinct is to send you home and abandon the session,” Joshua caught the sudden look of alarm and crushing despair in her face. “But that would only end our training early. And your defiant attitude deserves a more severe punishment if ever you are to realize the lesson you need to learn.”

Gabriele’s mind locked on the word ‘punishment’ with a dreaded sense of foreboding. She bit her lip, but her eyes became huge and silently pleading. Still lodged in a dark corner of her mind was an inbuilt fear that Joshua would brutalize her in the same way that Randall had physically hurt her. The fear manifested in a sudden prickly rash of panic that made her flesh crawl with trepidation, though she dared say not a word. She was sure she was on her very last chance with Joshua. He would abandon her training at the slightest new provocation.

“I’m willing to be punished, Master,” Gabriele bravely accepted her fate even though she felt her muscles tightening as if to flinch away from a blow.

Joshua grunted. “Get up on the table. I want you on your back with your legs spread wide.”

Gabriele did exactly as he had ordered, letting her knees fall wide apart and knowing that every inch of her body was utterly exposed. Joshua covered her eyes with the blindfold and then took two lengths of the soft rope. He lashed one wrist and then passed the tail of the rope through a hole that was drilled into the leg of the table. He tied it with a seaman’s knot, then secured Gabriele’s other arm. She was bound and unable to move, her arms restrained but not painfully so. Joshua heard Gabriele breathing in short sharp pants of panic.

He stepped away from the table and walked a slow circle of the room. Gabriele’s senses tried to attune themselves to the loss of eyesight. Her hearing became sharper; her skin felt tingling. She even caught the faint scent of Joshua’s aftershave in her nostrils as he brushed by her.

“I could flog you,” Joshua said. “I could cause you pain in some way. But to me such punishments are brutish and unnecessary. I know some Masters use physical means to instill discipline, and I assume they use such methods on submissives that enjoy punishments and torture as part of their choice of lifestyle. But that’s not my choice… and nor is it yours, based on what you have told me.”

On the table, Gabriele licked her lips and swallowed. Her mouth was dry with nervous dread of what was to come.

“However do not take my preferences as a sign of weakness,” Joshua cautioned. “Sexual punishment can be just as agonizing… in a much more sinister and lasting way. If I whip you, the sting will last for a few minutes, the red swelling for maybe an hour. But what I have planned for you, Gabriele, is going to leave a much deeper mark for a much longer time.”

Behind the blindfold Gabriele’s eyes were wide with growing alarm. She felt a trickle of perspiration run down her cheek and into the hair near her ear. Suddenly her whole body felt hot, and it took all of her resolve to force herself to lie still and not squirm against the ropes. She could hear each breath loud in her own ears, and the racing drum of her heart.

“Tell me, Gabriele,” Joshua suddenly stopped moving around the room and came to stand close beside the table, looking down at her naked and vulnerable body. “Do you think you have truly learned anything from our exchanges tonight.”

Gabriele gasped. “Yes, Master,” she put every possible ounce of sincerity and conviction into her words. “I have. I know the mistake I have been making. I know now that I need to surrender my own will in order to succeed.”

Joshua grunted. He ran his eyes over her body, admiring the perfect shape of her breasts and the jutting hardness of her nipples. Gabriele was a strikingly beautiful young woman, and even more so naked. That wasn’t often the case, to Joshua’s mind and experience. Most women looked more attractive in lingerie than completely naked. Gabriele was one of the deliciously rare exceptions.

He gently ran his hand up the inside of her thigh, and Gabriele squealed and flinched with the sudden shock of his touch. It felt like the burn of a branding iron, so unexpected in the fraught tense silence. In an instant she was panting.

“You jumped an inch off the table,” Joshua said casually.

“Master, you surprised me,” Gabriele gulped.

Joshua gave a wintery smile. “Well, now you know what is coming, so I expect you to endure – in silence and without orgasm. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Master.” Gabriele was already on the ragged edge of sexual frustration, having been denied an orgasm after the previous night’s merciless teasing. Now she had a sudden insight into what kind of torturous punishment Joshua had in mind for her. Normally she could comfortably orgasm once or twice a day under the cunning touch of her own fingers. The effects of being denied a release for the past two days had already begun to manifest at her workplace through small moments of snapping irritation.

Gabriele forced herself to lie calm and composed, demanded her breathing to slow and stay controlled.

 Joshua had not removed his hand from Gabriele’s thigh. It was still resting on her leg. Now he glided it up and over the mound of her sex and brushed his fingers over her torso. Gabriele smiled dreamily, then sucked in her breath so that her stomach muscles contracted. Joshua drifted his hand over her breasts, casually pinching and plucking at her nipples until they became aroused. He noticed Gabriele’s own hands. They were clenched into white-knuckled fists. He leaned over her, with his hand wrapped possessively around the mound of one breast, and then trailed a line of soft wet kisses from her throat to her nipple. Gabriele writhed and curled up her toes. The caress of Joshua’s lips was a maddening thrill that tantalized her flesh and rippled small wavelets of arousal down her spine. She held her breath, felt it swell in her chest, then exhaled through a delicious shudder that seemed to be drawn from the molten pool of lava that simmered in her pussy. The air rasped across her throat, through her open gasping lips.

“Oh, God!” she quailed in the smallest whisper.

“Quiet!” Joshua snapped. He squeezed her nipple just enough to fill the flesh of her breast with a yearning for his mouth.

Gabriele rolled her head to the side, trapped in a blindfolded darkness that was starting to fill with flashing pinwheels of light. She wanted to thrash against the ropes. She wanted to reach up for Joshua’s head and pull his mouth over hers. The muscles in her thighs were tensed and cramping. More than anything else she wanted to pleasure herself; needing desperately to release the pressure that was building relentlessly between her legs.

Joshua took his hand away from Gabriele’s breast and then suddenly stooped to kiss the soft skin at the back of her knee. Gabriele went rigid with fresh erotic desire. She could never have guessed that such a place would be an erogenous zone, but Joshua’s lips proved her wrong. The feel of his mouth sent stabbing muscle clenches all the way to her groin, spasming along the nerves of her legs like pulses of electric shock. Behind the blindfold, her eyes rolled all the way up into the top of her skull.

Joshua started at the bend of her knee and then kissed his way around to the top of her thigh. He could smell the alluring temptation of her pussy, fragrant as perfume, and he could feel the radiated heat of her desire warm against his cheek. He took his time, meandering his mouth with no real direction, so that each new kiss and flicker of his tongue brought Gabriele renewed gasps of cruel delight.

Finally Joshua was kissing the very top of Gabriele’s thigh; his warm breath fanning the lips of her pussy. The mound of her sex was glistening with the dewy wetness of her desire, and the nub of her clit looked engorged, aching for its own attention. Joshua drew the tip of his tongue towards Gabriele’s pussy and then stopped just an inch away, still breathing tingling warm air. He glanced up between the valley made by her parted thighs and studied the expression of Gabriele’s face. Her mouth was twisted in a wrench of tense restraint, and there was a blush of bright red color on her throat and cheeks.

Joshua could see the frantic undulations of her breasts with every quick sharp gasp of her breath and sense the desperate need of her.

Slowly, he drew his tongue across the hard button of her clit. Gabriele flinched in a fresh paroxysm of groaning passion.

She had known the sensation of a man’s mouth between her legs only once before in her life – a fleeting half-hearted attempt by Randall when they had first begun dating. What she was experiencing now was manifestly different. Joshua seemed ravenous with the desire to consume her, to taste, and explore every fold of her body with his lips and tongue. The sensations erupted behind her eyes as bright explosions of light.

After the first tentative flick across her clit, Joshua had devoured her; drawing his strumming tongue across her clit and then pulling apart the sweet wet folds of her with his lips. She couldn’t help it; the experience was simply too much. She cried out at the top of her lungs – a sound of groaning hunger – and at the same time thrashed against the ropes that restrained her. Her hips went wild, bucking hard against Joshua’s mouth. She could feel the press of her orgasm, like a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach about to plunge through the last barrier.

Suddenly Joshua stopped, his mouth glistening with Gabriele’s juices. This time the sound torn from Gabriele’s lips was a bereft moan of desolation. “Please!” she begged. “Please, Master!”

“I told you to be silent, and I ordered you not to come,” Joshua’s voice cracked like a whip.

Gabriele slumped back on the table, rolling her head from side to side, panting for fresh breath. The strength it required for her to withhold her orgasm had left her broken and on the verge of sobbing tears.

She realized, through the maddened turmoil of her fantasies that she would have preferred to be whipped as punishment. Being driven to the brink of orgasm and then cruelly denied seemed like a torture employed only by sadists.

Joshua sat up abruptly. He had taken Gabriele to the very edge of her ability to resist. She couldn’t take any more.

He stepped away from the table, removed Gabriele’s blindfold and then loosened the bonds that held her arms. She blinked up at him, her eyes clouded and swirling without focus. “Remember the point of tonight’s lesson,” Joshua said, looking down at her. “And ask yourself whether you truly wish to learn the art of submission. You came to me unprepared, and ever since then you have been failing. It’s time you decided how badly you want to learn, and whether you even want to continue with the course.”

Gabriele sat up. Her pussy was throbbing; so tender and on edge she feared that even the slight touch of her panties against her clit would be enough to send her spasming in orgasm. Joshua was reading her the riot act; shape up or ship out. She lowered her eyes.

“Now you should get dressed and go home,” Joshua said bluntly. “The session is over. If you turn up tomorrow night, I expect it to be with the right attitude and a determination to please. If you don’t…” he shrugged his shoulders, “then I wish you every success in your future life.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 6:

 

Gabriele phoned the accountancy firm the next morning and said she was too ill to work. Then she went shopping.

As she went from one store to the next her thoughts were focused on Joshua and her own behavior under the guidance of his training. She saw again where she had erred, and all those times where her reluctance to free her mind in order to surrender her will had been obstacles. In the heat of each moment her resistance had been reactionary. But scrutinized in the cold light of day, they were almost belligerent.

Did she really want to learn the art of submission?

Yes.

She knew it wasn’t submitting that she was instinctively protecting herself against; it was the fear that her submission would be cruelly taken advantage of. If her desire didn’t match with the good will and honorable intentions of her Master, then she was placing her emotional and physical well-being in peril. That was the reason behind her reactionary resistance.

Gabriele didn’t doubt that Joshua was a man of honor. But her training under his guidance was only preparation for life afterwards. She thought then about Randall, and the memories of him were like raw tender wounds. He would not be so careful with the gift of her submission. He wouldn’t treasure it like something precious. He would be more careless…

She found a dark blue demi bra and panty set in an exclusive boutique, and though she shuddered at the price tag, she was irresistibly drawn to the high-waisted cut of the panties and the feel of the delicate lace at the tops of her thighs. The bra was a comfortable fit, and she spent several minutes modeling the clothes in front of the full-length changing room mirror, twisting and turning herself to catch the look of the garments from every angle.

Would Joshua like the way she looked?

Did the clothes hide enough of her to create sexy intrigue?

She bought the clothes on impulse and was out the shop’s door, swinging the carry bag contentedly in her hand, before a sudden realization struck her still.

She had bought the expensive lingerie to please Joshua.

Anticipating Randall’s response to the lingerie had never once entered her mind.

The recognition gave her an unsettled sense of disquiet, and her mind clouded over in confusion as she strolled past the shop fronts searching for a new outfit.

It was the sight of the red dress in a window that finally brought her thoughts back into sharp focus. She stood on the busy sidewalk and peered through the glass. The dress was fitted to a mannequin; a vibrant shade of color that was cut high on the thigh and figure-hugging. The neckline was scooped and the sleeves of the dress were lace, reaching down to the elbow. Gabriele knew instantly that it would be perfect. Her credit card took another painful hit.

As she rode the subway back to her apartment, rocking and swaying on her seat to the motion of each stop along the route, Gabriele decided that the idea of winning Randall back must be a long-term objective that she was not yet ready to expend energy on. Right now she had to focus on completing her training. Nothing could happen until she was prepared.

Not once did she consider abandoning the course with Joshua. Not now. Not after Joshua had lashed her with the painful truths of her resistance the night before.

No. Now Gabriele was filled with grim resolve and determination to prove that she could be the perfect submissive. She felt the change in her mind and in her attitude, like she had been liberated from shackles. At last, she sensed that both her mind and body were in harmony, working together with the same sense of purpose.

For the first time since commencing her training, Gabriele had the luxury of an entire afternoon to prepare. She spent the hours showering and perfecting her make-up, then went down onto the sidewalk to hail a cab, puffed up with feminine confidence by the head-turning glances of admiration she caught from men on the street.

The cab arrived on Joshua’s street twenty minutes early. The night beyond the interior of the vehicle was already cloaked in darkness. Gabriele gave the driver an address that was two doors away from Joshua’s. When the cab finally pulled away into the night, she kicked off her heels and walked to Joshua’s door, creeping like a stealthy thief. There was a coarse foot mat on the landing. Gabriele got down on her knees and waited…

 

 

 

Joshua checked the time on his watch and saw that it was almost 8 pm. He pushed himself away from the desk and went down the corridor, frowning. He was unable to hide his disappointment. Gabriele should have arrived before now, and he felt the oppressive silence of the big empty house like a leaden weight. He had just begun to feel a connection – the first tenuous links that were the beginnings of a bond. And he had thought the girl was made of sterner stuff. When he had told her to think carefully about her suitability for submission, he had expected her to return tonight with defiant resolve.

Now…? Well now it seemed as though he had miscalculated badly, and the side-effect of his ultimatum was a hollow feeling in the pit of his guts at the realization that he would never see her again.

And he had wanted to see her again…

Joshua stood at the window by the door and peered through a chink in the drapes at the empty night. There were no vehicle lights, no sound of an arriving cab pulling up at the curb. His frown deepened, and so did his quiet despair. The frown became a grimace.

He went back down the long corridor to his desk, but his thoughts were suddenly jittering and inconsequential. The figures and graphs on the laptop’s screen made no sense and no longer seemed to matter. He went back to the front door one final time. Through the window he could see a garage door opening, and one of the neighbors backing their car out on the opposite side of the road. The red glow of the taillights lit up the street. On an impulse, Joshua unlocked the front door and cracked it open.

Gabriele was kneeling on the landing, her face a picture of stunning submissive beauty, her pose a sensual vision that snatched the breath from him.

“How long have you been waiting there?” Joshua’s voice was gravelly.

Gabriele looked up into his face, and her features were serene and softly adoring. “For about twenty minutes, Master,” she said in a whisper.

Joshua held the door wide open. “Come inside,” he could not quite hide the wash of relief from his eyes. “Go upstairs to the training room and wait for me there.”

Gabriele came to her feet and stepped through the door, and Joshua was entranced by the beauty of her; the poise as she moved, and the way the new red dress highlighted the exquisite perfection of her figure. He watched her until she disappeared through a doorway and she did not look back or falter once. There was a calm assurance about her, he noted. It was in the way she held herself - even in the provocative sway of her hips as he watched her walk away. The secret spell of her newfound sense of place was unmistakable and powerfully alluring.

 

 

 

When Joshua pushed open the internal bedroom door and stood in the threshold of the training room, he saw Gabriele standing against the far wall, waiting for him. She was wearing exotic new lingerie, her hands clasped demurely in front of her hips, her head lowered with just the right hint of respect and servility. Joshua’s eyes roamed, hungry with appreciation, over her body. He knew she was watching, peeking anxiously up at him through the hanging fringe of her hair, but despite that – or maybe because of it – he took a long time drinking in every inch of her flesh, noting the way her breasts were presented by the lift of her new bra, and the accentuated flare of her hip when she shifted her weight onto one leg.

“You look beautiful,” Joshua said with a gruff nod of approval. “And I appreciate that you are stripped and ready to present yourself to me.”

Gabriele nodded. The fiery flare of Joshua’s arousal that flickered in his gaze thrilled her in a way that was ample reward for every cent she had paid for the clothes and every minute she had spent in front of the mirror preparing.

Joshua beckoned Gabriele to him with a crook of his finger, and she came across the room immediately. She stopped before him, still with her eyes downcast so that she was staring at the crisp whorls of his chest hair that curled above the first button of his shirt.

Joshua ran his hand across Gabriele’s naked shoulder, then let his fingers drift down onto the laced bulge of her bra. Her breasts were like pale perfect pillows of flesh. He teased her nipple through the gauzy fabric, and she gave a little open-mouthed gasp of warm breath as her body responded to his touch.

She felt her body begin to sway towards Joshua, like she was drawn towards the warmth and the powerful commanding presence of him. The earth seemed to tilt beneath her and a roaring rush of blood sang in her ears.

“Good girl,” Joshua whispered.

Gabriele felt her heart lift with insane pleasure that was out of all sensible proportion. Joshua’s uttered praise literally made her swoon with satisfaction. It gave her a new soaring hope, and seemed to compel her emotionally towards him. Some profound feeling of devotion squeezed her heart and the sensation was so overpowering that it made her teeter for balance on her heels. She clutched for him to keep her feet and her hand pressed against the hard muscles of his chest. Through the crisp white linen of his shirt, she could feel the beat of his heart, racing at the same frantic pace of her own.

She gasped a whispered apology, but Joshua seized Gabriele’s wrist and held her hand to him. The heat through her fingers sizzled. She looked up into his eyes; they were dark and enigmatic. Then he drew her hand down over the ripples of his abs, and let it rest on the leather strap of his belt. Gabriele held her breath. She swallowed hard. Joshua’s cock was just an inch or two from her reach and suddenly she was desperate to hold it, to taste it… even merely to see it. The realization that she had not once been asked to give him any pleasurable sexual relief struck her like a hammer blow. So far, everything about her training had been for her benefit. Joshua hadn’t asked for, nor taken anything.

Would tonight be the night?

The thought made Gabriele giddy with hopeful anticipation.

She rested her hand on his belt, fighting the instinctive urge to reach inside his pants and try to please him. Suddenly she wanted that more than anything else – to please him.

All the while, Joshua was looking down at her, imagining how her mouth would feel to kiss, fighting his own terrible battle between desire and discipline. Finally, after a mighty struggle, he shrugged her hand away.

Gabriele let her arms fall empty by her side. She sensed how close and fraught with tension the moment had been.

“Tell me what you have been thinking since you left me last night?” Joshua asked. He began to prowl around the room, putting space between them. Gabriele knew better than to turn to follow him with her eyes. She stood without moving and spoke calmly to the wall she was facing.

“I thought about everything you said,” she admitted. “And those thoughts have troubled me… because I’ve seen how difficult I have made my own training by my refusal to follow your instructions.”

Joshua grunted. He was standing on the far side of the room, where Gabriele had left her red dress.

“And I want to apologize to you, Master,” Gabriele said. She felt no humiliation, no shame for saying she was sorry. In fact, she found the moment liberating. It was the unburdening of all her sins and failings; shrugging them off like a dark heavy cloak that had weighed her down. It was cathartic. “I should have understood what you were trying to teach me last night. I should have known because your instructions and explanations have always been precise. But I let my pride get in the way. I couldn’t get past my own self-image and see myself for who I want to be… and what being that person means in real life.”

“Do you feel you are now ready to move forward?” Joshua’s voice had become more relaxed; his own inner-tension resolved… for the moment at least.

“I think so,” Gabriele wanted to sound more definite but the truth was that she still felt uncertain. “I have thought back on everything you told me, and every warning you gave before we started. You were right. I was emotionally unprepared. I did struggle with trust issues. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand those feelings.”

At last Joshua came quietly back into Gabriele’s view, appearing in the corner of her eye. He was standing near the closed door of the training room, leaning against the wall by the light switch. He had his arms folded across his chest, his head titled to the side, thoughtful and pensive.

“There are no more chances, Gabriele.”

“I realize that, Master.”

“I won’t be disobeyed or defied ever again.”

“No Master. I promise.”

Still Joshua did not move. Gabriele began to feel awkward under his gaze. She felt like he was peeling away the layers of her persona, peering past the pretty feminine exterior as if he could see her heart.

That thought troubled Gabriele deeply, for if he could see her heart, he would see that she was becoming infatuated with him.

“So you want to continue the course?” Joshua’s voice brought her back from her thoughts.

“Yes. Definitely, Master.”

“And you will obey my every instruction?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Regardless of your instincts?”

“Yes, Master.”

Joshua pushed himself off the wall and came quietly to stand before her. He studied Gabriele’s expression carefully.

“Will you trust me implicitly?”

“Yes, Master.” That was a significant moment. They both realized it.

“Why?”

Gabriele drew a breath. Her eyes were still lowered, but she felt the need to inflect her next words with all the truth she could. She looked up into Joshua’s ruggedly handsome face.

“Because you’re a good man.”

Joshua’s stern features seemed to waver and soften. It was just for a second; so fleeting that if Gabriele had not been gazing into his eyes she might have missed the reaction entirely. She lowered her eyes again.

Joshua cleared the gruffness from his throat. “Tell me again, why you want to learn to sexually submit.”

Gabriele’s answer came back without the need for thought. “I want to learn to please my Master’s every desire and satisfying him sexually like no other woman can.”

Joshua’s tone turned wry, tinged with bitterness. “You mean your boyfriend?”

Gabriele shook her head. “No. I mean you. You’re my Master while I am being trained, and you are the focus of all my energy. I want you to be pleased with me. I want to make you proud. Only when my training is complete will I think about how to win Randall back.”

Joshua frowned. Just the mention of her ex-boyfriend’s name seemed to taint the atmosphere in the room, but he knew it wasn’t yet the time to confront and slay that particular beast.

He sighed and blew out a long breath. For a few more moments he was silent in thought. Then suddenly he was the Joshua that Gabriele had come to know again; commanding, resolute and sexily confident.

“Tonight’s lesson is about positioning,” Joshua said. “These are the poses you should learn because they are intrinsic to your success as a submissive. Most Masters will want you waiting for them in one of two positions. Both of these postures are reflective of your willingness to submit and satisfy your Master’s sexual needs. But,” he held up a warning finger, “even though their basis is in sexual submission, these positions are fundamental poses that you should practice and perfect, whether your Master might want to use you for sex, or any other conventional domestic task.”

Gabriele nodded her silent understanding. Behind her blank-faced façade she felt a small thrill of arousal begin to seep through her body, triggered by Joshua’s deep baritone voice and the way he looked at her as he spoke. The lust in his eyes was thinly veiled; it was a look Gabriele had seen in the gaze of a thousand men before. But with Joshua, the phenomenal discipline of his restraint was just enough to dam back his temptation. Gabriele wished secretly that the man had a little less willpower. The sexual yearning she felt slowly began to uncoil itself and writhe around in the molten pit of her stomach as she fantasized about his hands roaming over her body and the feel of his cock sliding deep inside her clenching pussy.

“Get down on your knees.”

Gabriele obeyed, still in the misted daze of her fantasies. She was on automatic, and she had to force her erotic hunger for Joshua’s cock out of her mind to focus.

“Clasp your hands behind your back,” Joshua instructed.

Gabriele obeyed. Kneeling with her hands behind her back forced her back straight in order to keep her balance. She had her eyes on the grey-carpeted floor.

“Shuffle your knees apart,” Joshua corrected her position. “They’re too close together. They need to be the same width as your shoulders.”

Gabriele did as she was told. Joshua walked a slow circle around her, noting the enticing gap between her thighs and the clench of lingerie that was creased in the trap of her tightly clenched bottom. He could see the knuckled mound of Gabriele’s spine and the soft shadow of her ribs through the lean smooth flesh of her torso.

“Good,” he nodded. Her hands were clasped loosely at the small of her back. He noticed abstractly that her fingernails were painted the same blood-red color of her dress.

He came back to stand close in front of Gabriele. “Now open your mouth wide.”

Gabriele parted her lips and formed her mouth into a red lipsticked ‘O’.

Joshua got down on his haunches beside where Gabriele knelt. Her eyes were dutifully averted, staring at some point on the floor. She was breathing quietly and comfortably. He rested one hand on her thigh like he owned it. Gabriele blinked.

“This is the first submissive position I want you to practice. Don’t just do it here when we are training. Spend time alone at your home and practice it. You will need to patiently hold this pose for many minutes, sometimes longer, until your Master has a use for you. Don’t think it’s easy. It’s not. It takes rehearsal to be able to wait like this and remain comfortable. The last thing you want to do is constantly fidget. That will annoy your Master and probably get you punished. Practice makes you prepared.”

To Gabriele that last line of Joshua’s sounded like something that had been drummed into him during his Naval service. She nodded her head, understanding the position, its purpose, and the need to practice.

Joshua got back to his feet and came up onto the balls of his feet. With a small thrust, he pressed his crotch against Gabriele’s face. She felt her heart leap, thrilled with excitement, into her throat. She inhaled the sent of him like it was an addictive drug and felt the unmistakable hardness of his restrained cock against her chin.

“When you are in this position, you are making yourself available to your Master and welcoming him to use your mouth for his pleasure,” Joshua said. “That means you need to be at the height to accommodate him and to accept him between your lips without delay. Don’t position yourself so high or so low that adjustments need to be made. That defeats the purpose of all your hours practicing. After the first couple of times with your mouth open and your Master’s cock deep down your throat, you will know how to set yourself.”

Joshua stepped back just a pace, and went on. “Relaxation is critical when you are in this position. You need to be able to hold your place effortlessly while your Master is fucking your mouth, and you also need to accept him without choking or gagging.”

He came forward again, and the uncoiling serpent of desire in the pit of Gabriele’s stomach lashed it’s wicked wanton tail so that she felt her pussy throb with a burning need. Joshua rubbed himself across her open lips, and she heard herself making small mewling sounds of desperate wanting.

Joshua reached for her hair with his hands and held her head very still.

“Remember that this is not a position from which you can give a usual blowjob,” Joshua’s voice was thicker than Gabriele remembered it. “This is not about you giving pleasure. This position is about you being used for pleasure.” With his hands he began to move her head, tugging gently at her hair and using it as a grip to position her mouth. He could feel the aching hardness of his cock, straining. Gabriele’s hot breath through the fabric was maddening him.

He let her hair go at last and stepped back, breathing deeply, as if he had run a great distance. Gabriele knelt unmoving, her mouth still open. Her lipstick was smudged, and her panties were a pool of seeping wetness. In her eyes was a silent pleading desire for more.

Joshua’s tone turned brusque. “Very good,” he gruffed. “But there is more to the position I have shown you than merely the way you should settle yourself. In fact, the pose is both a position and a place.”

Gabriele looked up uncertainly. “I don’t understand, Master.” Her lips felt numb, and her jaw ached a little. There was a small twinge of cramp in her calf. She would practice diligently when she returned home.

“As well as making yourself sexually available for your Master’s cock, you should also adopt the pose when you want to center yourself mentally and emotionally,” Joshua advised. “Get into the habit of using the submissive position to free your mind from whatever is happening in your daily life and train your thoughts on your role to give pleasure. Kneeling should be a chance to find peace.”

That idea struck Gabriele as particularly profound; the concept of training her mind to peace and stillness at the same time she was preparing her body for a Master’s pleasurable use. She nodded her head only after a long thoughtful moment of reflection.

Joshua was heartened. Gabriele’s attitude reflected a deeper desire to not only obey, but to comprehend the philosophy of submission.

“The second position starts at the same point,” Joshua fondled one of Gabriele’s breasts with gentle authority as he spoke. It was passionless, but expressly possessive and he did it deliberately, constantly drawing her mind deeper into submission.

“In this position you adopt the kneeling pose but there is no need to open your mouth. Instead, you lean forward and rest your head on the floor. Do it now.”

Gabriele dutifully leaned her upper body forward and had to use her hands to get the position right. Her head was turned to the side facing Joshua so that she could see his shoes. Once she was comfortable she re-clasped her hands in the small of her back. Gabriele understood the position immediately; she was unmistakably exposed, with her pussy lifted into the air like an open invitation.

“Let your back bow,” Joshua offered. “You’re too rigid. And bending your back will elevate your pussy a little more.”

Gabriele obeyed. With her knees parted, a man need only pull aside the wisp of lace covering her pussy and he could take her unresisted. Joshua circled the floor, studying her position from both sides and then finally from behind her.

Gabriele felt her pussy clench. She was highly aroused, and she knew instinctively that her panties were a damp hot mess of desire. Surely her arousal had soaked through the flimsy lace.

She heard Joshua moving, then a scuffle of indistinct sound. Too late she realized he was on his knees behind her. She had no time to brace herself. Suddenly she felt the arrogant thrust of his hips and the bulge of his cock as it prodded against her open body. She swayed on her knees like a spring in response.

“In this position you are utterly open to your Master’s cock,” Joshua explained the obvious. It is the ideal position in which to fuck a submissive because her body is available without hindrance. Provided she is wet, she can be taken with little effort, and used specifically for personal pleasure because the Master can pin her at the hips with his hands to hold her still, or control her by gripping her wrists,” he demonstrated, seizing Gabriele’s clasped hands. The pressure of his pulling elevated her face off the carpet and drew her body tense. The change to the position of her pussy was subtle but significant. “Remember,” Joshua went on, still grinding his restrained bulging cock hard against her panty-clad pussy. “As much as this is a position of dominance for a Master and complete surrender for the submissive, the pose is also about power. The Master has the ability to move the submissive and manipulate her body to derive the greatest amount of pleasure from her. Restrained at the hips, or pulling back on her wrists; both methods offer different types of control… but control nonetheless.”

Joshua got to his feet and left Gabriele kneeling for several minutes while he disappeared into another part of the house. When he returned, he was holding a small video camera. He set it down on the armrest of the black leather chair. Then he ordered Gabriele to her feet.

She felt a little stiff and cramped, but she also felt entirely aroused. Joshua grinding his hips against her pussy had just about tipped her over the edge, and the frustration of being denied the release of an orgasm for so long now was a constant jarring grate that clouded her every thought. Unprovoked, perhaps she could have forced her need to the back of her mind, but Joshua was constantly antagonizing her primal urge, scratching at an itch that just made the irritation worse.

“You have done well,” Joshua said. “I am pleased.”

The praise made Gabriele blush. “Thank you, Master.”

Joshua was studying her closely, wondering at her thoughts. He watched her expression as he delivered his next words. “I’m so pleased with your change of attitude and your renewed commitment to completing this course that I’m going to give you a well earned surprise.”

Gabriele’s eyes flashed curiosity and interest. “A surprise, Master?”

“Yes,” Joshua let a small smile slip through his stern veneer. “I’m going to allow you an orgasm.”

Gabriele was instantly wary. She had seen Joshua set a video camera down on the chair in the corner and she was cautious enough to take nothing for granted, though at the prospect of being allowed to finally cum, her pussy betrayed her by clenching with a tight cramp of acute need.

“Really, Master?”

Joshua nodded. “Orgasm denial as a method of punishment is theoretically limitless – I have known highly-sexed submissives who have been made to go for weeks and even months without release. But orgasm denial also presents a Master with the unique opportunity to grant rewards. This is one such moment. You can cum, Gabriele… but you will do it while I am watching and filming you.”

“Filming?” Gabriele’s reluctance was not with the task, but being recorded. “Master… that makes me uncomfortable.”

Joshua acknowledged her trepidation with a dismissive wave. “Relax,” he promised. “You will take the camera home with you and return it tomorrow night. This is not for some cheap thrill or to blackmail you on social media. It’s for your own reference only. I want you to be able to see your own face when you cum. Delete the footage yourself. That way you can be reassured.”

Gabriele nodded, though now she was filled with the anxiety of an exotic performer about to go on stage. That was how she felt. Somehow just the knowledge that she would be filmed changed her whole mindset. She had masturbated herself in front of Joshua once before… but that fact did nothing to make this moment any more comfortable.

Joshua picked up the camera and settled himself comfortably in the chair. Gabriele was standing by the table like a private dancer waiting for the music to start. Joshua inclined his head. “Begin,” he said, “and tell me everything you are fantasizing about.”

Gabriele closed her eyes and rested her bottom against the edge of the desk, facing Joshua. She slid her hand down inside the elastic of her panties and felt the rising heat of her sex. She was very wet; the juices of her arousal coated her fingers as she slid them across the jutting button of her clit.

Disconnect!

“I am kneeling before you,” Gabriele said so softly that Joshua had to strain his ears in the acute silence to catch her words. “We’re in my bedroom, in the apartment. You have come to visit and I have been kneeling by the bed, waiting for you.”

“What are you wearing?” the tight hoarseness is Joshua’s voice took him by surprise. He was hard. Gabriele had her legs apart, slowly swaying her hips from side to side as though dancing to an erotic beat of music that was playing inside her head.

“I’m naked,” Gabriele answered. Her eyes were screwed shut with the power of her efforts to remain concentrated. Her lips were parted and glossy. The movement of her hand down the front of her panties caused her arm to brush against her breasts, pressing them together and forming a deep cleft of cleavage.

“I am only wearing nipple clamps,” Gabriele said, and her tone was a little startled – as though the fact surprised even her.

She was teasing her clit with soft skillful touches; her fingers not yet brushing against her pussy. The movements of her hand were slow and measured, almost matching the lazy undulations of her body. Joshua zoomed the camera in to focus on Gabriele’s stunning face. In the grips of erotic arousal, she was even more beautiful.

“Tell me everything,” Joshua urged her. “Tell me what is happening in your fantasy.”

“Your cock,” Gabriele gasped. One of her fingers finally dipped into the molten heat of her pussy, and the shock of it made her clench her teeth and moan. “It’s hard. I have it in my hand.”

“And what are you doing?”

“You’re standing over me with your hands on your hips, looking down at me. I’m staring up into your eyes and slowly stroking you. You feel so hard. I can feel the ridges of you, and the heat…”

She drew a short stab of breath and moaned again. The sway of her body turned to spasmodic jerks. Joshua panned the camera down and captured the concealed movement of her hand; the swell of the fabric as her knuckles pushed out against the lace, and now the soft wet sounds of her wetness.

“Do you want to suck your Master’s cock?” Joshua asked, feeling himself no longer just a spectator, but now a participant. It was as if he had become an active player in Gabriele’s fantasy.

“Yes!” Gabriele gasped.

“Then do it!” Joshua whispered.

The room fell silent, but the quiet hummed with erotic energy. Gabriele threw her head back and hunched her shoulders. Her hand within the confines of her panties suddenly became frantic. Gabriele’s mouth was wide open, her breath sawing across her throat.

Joshua sensed she was on the edge of her orgasm, and he was hushed to mesmeric silence. He watched on in fascination until suddenly Gabriele cried out in a voice that was breaking apart.

“Yes, Master! Oh, fuck yes! Cum in my mouth!”

The words strangled into a tight shriek of swelling tension and then a staggering wave of relief. Gabriele shuddered, froze for a paralyzing moment… and then convulsed in thrashing spasms that threw her forward like a tree buffeted by storm winds. Joshua filmed it all, from the moments leading up to her orgasm right until the instant that her eyes cleared and she clutched at the edge of the table to support her legs, panting and drained.

For a long time Joshua said nothing. He had turned the camera off. He set it on the armrest of the chair and got slowly to his feet. Gabriele was drawing deep breaths of air to fill her lungs. Her arms were shaking. One hand was still deep inside her panties, touching herself through the last shreds of afterglow.

Joshua came to her slowly and took her in his powerful arms. Gabriele had the glorious look of a freshly-fucked woman. She went soft at his touch and her eyes closed.

“You are very, very beautiful,” Joshua breathed.

And then he kissed her.

At first Gabriele thought it was a gorgeous dream; an extension of her fantasy brought about by the delicious glow of her orgasm. Joshua’s mouth was hot and demanding, and she instinctively parted her lips and fluttered her eyes open. The realization that this was real made her heart stop beating. Joshua’s arms were wrapped around her shoulders, sliding down her back as he crushed his hard body against hers. She felt herself molding to him, pushing her hips forward to meet the thrust of Joshua’s groin, and at the same time drawing her own arms about his waist.

The kiss was like an impossible scorching fire that sucked the breath from her and burned on her lips. Yet she felt compelled to leap into the flames. She kissed him back with the same reckless ferocity, feasting on the taste of him; reveling in the unfettered access to his body with her exploring fingers.

Joshua dominated her. Joshua plundered her. His tongue thrust to explore the inside of her mouth and the thrill of the sensation was a delicious taboo that Gabriele had never before experienced. It was so intimate, so demanding that she felt, incredibly, renewed desire begin to stir inside her panties. Joshua bent her backwards with his savage need for her and she clung to him fiercely until her lips felt wonderfully bruised and the sparks between their entangled bodies threatened to consume them both in flames.

At last Joshua broke the kiss, cupping Gabriele’s face in the palms of his hand, their mouths still so close that they shared the same breath. Joshua’s gaze was misted with lust. Gabriele’s eyes were deep dark pools of willing desire.

Gabriele gasped and tried to grasp the enormity of what that kiss meant; tried to put into words how intense it had been.

“I felt it,” she said with slow awe and wonder. Her eyes were hectic, searching Joshua’s for some sign of understanding. “When you kissed me… you left your mark on my soul.”

Joshua blinked in dawning shock, and then his hands came from Gabriele’s face as though her flesh had scalded him. Pressure punched him in the chest. It was as if he had lived this moment once before and he struggled against instinct and desire, forcing himself to claw through the mist of emotion. He reeled away, stricken and mortified. “You need to leave,” Joshua’s voice rasped, tight with pain. Suddenly he was stiff with restraint, as though on the verge of transforming from man to beast. “The session is over. Take the camera and go, Gabriele. Go now!”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 7:

 

“Check your email,” a voice advised when Joshua picked up the phone in his office the next morning.

“Thanks, Buddy.” He said and then hung up.

It was as simple as that.

 

 

 

When Gabriele arrived a few minutes before 8 pm she sensed, with feminine intuition, that something was not right. Joshua was standing in the doorway waiting for her. He was soberly dressed in dark pants and a grey shirt. He was wearing a tie, but the top button of his shirt was undone, and the knot of the tie was hanging loose.

Gabriele came inside like a wary cat entering an unfamiliar room. She had rushed here from work again. She let the carry bag strap slide off her shoulder and set it down by the door. She was wearing a pale pink dress. Beneath the garment, Joshua could see the shadow of a darker shade of lingerie – maybe it was red.

Tonight it wouldn’t matter.

Without a word, Gabriele reached for the buttons of her dress and began to disrobe. Joshua stayed her hand. His face was deeply etched with apprehension and a look of dreadful foreboding. “Don’t undress,” he said gravely. “There will be no training tonight. There are things I want to talk to you about instead.”

Gabriele faltered, searching Joshua’s eyes for some sign, some sense of understanding. Her fingers were shaking as she re-fastened the buttons. “Have I done something wrong, Master?” she asked in a small fearful voice. “Are you displeased with me for some reason?”

Joshua shook his head. “You have done nothing wrong.”

Gabriele pursed her lips. “I… I don’t understand…”

Joshua nodded. “You will.”

He led her down the long corridor and held his office door open for her. Gabriele entered the room and instinctively dropped to the floor. The fit of the dress made it impossible to spread her knees, so she hitched the hem up around her waist and then lowered herself to the carpet, clasping her hands behind her back and averting her eyes. Joshua watched her distractedly for a moment. He saw a flash of purple lace panties between her spread thighs.

“No,” he said. He lifted her to her feet and indicated the chair facing the desk. “We’re not doing any training tonight. This is not a situation for Master and submissive roles. This is me talking to you, Gabriele.”

She perched herself on the edge of the seat like a patient waiting for bad news from a physician. Her eyes were enormous and deeply troubled. Instinctively she began to shake. Joshua’s dark serious expression worried her.

Joshua dropped wearily into the big leather chair behind the desk, and the old worn leather creaked as it settled about his body. He spun round to the cabinet under the window and poured two tumblers full of scotch. He slid one glass across the table to Gabriele and held his own in his hand for long contemplative seconds without drinking. His gaze was unfocussed, his stare directed at a blank space on the wall as though he were seeing some other time, some other place in his mind.

Gabriele watched him anxiously, waiting as the silence drew out until she thought she might cry out.

Joshua seemed to be at war with himself. Finally he spun his chair around and fixed his eyes on Gabriele.

“Tell me again how old you are?” he asked softly.

“Twenty-two.”

“And your ex-boyfriend, Randall? He was your first ever sexual partner, right?”

“Yes,” Gabriele began to feel uncomfortable by the apparent line of Joshua’s questions, but she answered Joshua honestly. “We met about three years ago. After two years together, we moved to the city and rented an apartment.”

“The apartment you are currently in?”

“Yes.”

Joshua nodded. For the first time Gabriele noticed a slim manila folder on Joshua’s desk. He was absently thumbing the cover as he asked his questions.

“And you said that Randall is trying to establish a web-design company?”

“That’s right,” Gabriele’s anxiety was beginning to bristle with the first hint of her resentment. What she did outside of training and who she had relationships was none of Joshua’s business. She was his – mind, body and soul – when she was here with him. That was the only claim he had on her.

“Is there a point to these questions?” she asked boldly.

Joshua’s smile was as cold as winter. He didn’t answer. Instead he went on with his next question.

“Does Randall spend time in other cities, talking to investors?”

Gabriele shrugged. “Sometimes he is away overnight, meeting with people from other similar design ventures,” she said lightly. “Maybe once a month, depending on who he has been trying to contact, and when those people can fit a meeting with him into their schedule.”

Joshua nodded. Finally he sipped at his scotch and then straightened in his chair, squaring his shoulders and clasping his hands on the desk like he was about to conclude a business deal. The burn of the alcohol bloomed through his bloodstream.

“Gabriele, what do you think my impressions of you are?”

The sudden change of Joshua’s questions came as a relief. She had felt herself tensing with antagonism. Now the subject was coming back to a more relevant subject, she began to relax.

“You probably think I’m a pretender,” Gabriele said brutally. “Just another young woman with her head filled by romantic notions about the lifestyle, trying to match her dreams with an impossible reality.” She paused for a moment of self-analysis before she went on. “And a few days ago, I would have agreed with you. I was. I had no idea exactly what submission required. I’d been misguided by the books I had read, and the wonderful erotic tales they told. My head was in the clouds even if my heart was well intentioned. But I’m different now. I understand, Joshua. I know in my heart that this is the piece missing from my life.”

Joshua said nothing, and in the disconcerting silence Gabriele felt compelled to continue speaking. She frowned and pursed her lips. “I doubt you would have noticed me if I’d walked past you on a busy street. I don’t think I’m the sort of person you would normally be attracted to… if I wasn’t paying you for the attention and the training.”

Joshua laughed, and the sound was like a contradiction to everything Gabriele had said.