Chapter Thirteen
Lydia
I woke up in the middle of the night wondering if I had been dreaming. My heart was pounding in my chest and my head felt swimmy. Within a few seconds, however, I knew that it hadn’t been a dream. It had all been blissfully, intensely real, and I was still feeling the results.
It had been several days since the first time that Gabriel had called for me to come to his house and introduced me to his playroom, and now I was back. I didn’t know how frequently he was going to want to see me, but my body was telling me that it was being pushed to its edge. Through the ache, though, I knew that I wanted more. I wanted to see how much farther I could go. I rolled over and luxuriated for a few seconds in the feeling of the silky sheets against my naked skin. I hadn’t gone back to my apartment the night before, but had been brought into this room by one of the female servants of the household when Gabriel was finished with me.
Located off of the main playroom, this bedroom reminded me of the room from the simulator, if smaller. The servant had helped me into a bath and encouraged me to bathe, then lightly massaged thick, cool aloe gel into the tender places on my back. They weren’t particularly painful any longer, but the aloe took away the lingering sting and I knew that it would help my skin to heal more quickly. I smiled at the memory of Gabriel leading me into another section of the playroom and strapping me to a pummel horse so that I bent over it, my wrists and ankles shackled with in place with cushioned cuffs around each. The position presented me to him in a new and vulnerable way and I knew that this was the new experience that he had told me that I was going to have when he brought me to the house.
“Do you remember the flogger that I showed you in the chamber?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You told me that you knew what it was used for.”
“Yes.”
The word Master trembled on my lips, but I didn’t say it. Gabriel had been clear with me that that was something that I had to earn.
“Do you want to know what it feels like?”
“If you want me to. I trust you.”
“Very good.”
I felt the leather flails of the flogger run down my spine much the way that he had drawn them along my arms in the simulator. My skin warmed where it touched. Suddenly I heard a slight swishing sound through the air and felt a biting snap against my bottom. My hands stretched and then clenched in response to the sting, but in a fraction of a second the intensity of the pain eased, leaving behind a tingling feeling. He had paused only a second before snapping the flogger again. This time it licked my back, sending a different type of sting through me. He gave only a few more flicks, but by the time that he was finished, I could feel the hot juices dripping down my thighs.
Gabriel had rewarded my eager response to the flogger by releasing my ankles from the shackles, lifting my legs up so that I hung over the pummel horse, my ass in the air and his hands gripping my thighs. His mouth clamped down over my core and I moaned in response to the powerful feeling that coursed through me as his tongue pressed inside of me and then found the hyper sensitive pearl of my clit. My orgasm had torn through me in seconds, but he continued to lick and suck at me until he was satiated, leaving me shaking and almost sobbing with the sensations that continued to course through me.
Now I stretched against the bed that he had set aside for me, instructing me that I would stay at his house when he wanted me to, but that I would sleep in this bed, naked and prepared for any needs that he might have in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning. It seemed that one of those needs might have arisen now as I turned and saw the same servant who had handled my aftercare coming back into the room.
“He would like for you to bathe, do your makeup, and get dressed in a bra and panties. I’ll show you to his room when you are finished.”
“His room?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes,” she said. “He said to bring you there when you were prepared.”
“Is he there waiting for me?”
“No. He has already left for the morning.”
I felt bewildered as she walked out of the room, leaving me to use the shower that stood next to the bath where I had bathed the night before. Gabriel had provided an elaborate array of makeup for me, and some of the wardrobe he had selected for me hung in the closet of the bedroom. I delighted in choosing the lingerie that I wanted to wear and perfecting my makeup before I wound my freshly cleaned hair onto the top of my head and then stepped out to meet the servant again. She said nothing, but led me out of the wing that contained the playroom and through the rest of the house toward a large staircase. We climbed it and walked through a tall, heavy wooden door into a large bedroom.
As dark and lush as the playroom was, this bedroom was crisp and cool. It was like the smell of Gabriel embodied in the appearance of a room. I stepped onto the glistening white marble floor and turned to look at the servant who had brought me there.
“When is he coming back?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “He didn’t tell me.”
“What am I supposed to do until he comes back?”
“Wait.”
She left the room, closing the heavy door behind her. I looked around the bedroom and tried to understand why Gabriel would have asked me to come to his room if he wasn’t going to be there. This was the first time that I had seen his bedroom, and he wasn’t even there. I didn’t know when he was going to be back, and what he had in mind when he did. We hadn’t discussed anything for the day, which left me completely not knowing what to expect.
I walked around the room, feeling the cool of the floor against my feet and taking in the details of the space around me. This was an environment that I would have loved to have captured for the facility. It was at once calm and relaxing, and sensual. One wall was taken up primarily by a series of French doors that were topped with windows, creating floor-to-ceiling glass, filling the space with bright morning light. I approached the doors and peered out through the gossamer curtains, remembering the first night that Gabriel called me and instructed me to stand in front of the window, appreciating my body, coming to terms with myself. Though I knew it hadn’t been very long, that night felt like a lifetime ago. I had learned so much about myself in the time since then that I thought back on that woman as though she was barely even me.
Part of my agreement with Gabriel was that I wasn’t permitted to talk about anything that went on between us to anyone. I couldn’t even mention that we saw each other outside of the facility, much less discuss the details of the time that we spent together. That meant that when I stepped out of the rooms after a session with him, I returned largely to the life that I had led before. I continued to follow many of my patterns and allowed most of my habits to stay in place. I continued to walk the same hallways at work and even joined Cheryl for breakfast when I wasn’t rushing from Gabriel into the facility at the last moment. Even though I still followed some of these same paths, I knew that there were things about me that were decidedly different than they had been.
I wondered if my coworkers had noticed the change in me, and if they had, what they thought that it could be. None had mentioned it. Even Cheryl, who was notorious for the blunt, nosy way that she dealt with everyone who worked for the company, no matter how casually she knew them, didn’t seem to think anything different about me. Though part of me wished that they could tell that I had changed, so that they could appreciate the difference the way that I did, I also relished the secret that I contained. It was something that was mine, something that they couldn’t change or influence. Something that had nothing to do with them or the success of anyone else.
As I thought about all that had happened between me and Gabriel in the time since that first moment he looked at me, the first moment, he told me, that he decided that he would bring me into his submission, my arousal started to creep up and I wanted to slip my hand into my panties and ease the tension. But I knew that I couldn’t. Gabriel had been very clear about that rule. When I chose to give up my control to him, it was for everything, including my pleasure. I was allowed pleasure only when he was there to either give it to me, or witness and guide me in giving it to myself. He would know if I even grazed my fingers across my clit now, and he would be angry, something that I never wanted. I always wanted Gabriel to be happy. I wanted to please him, to show him how much I appreciated him.
Turning away from the window, I looked at the bed. It stood on a platform much like the bed in the simulator, but instead of being dressed in dark sheets and covers, it was completely pristine white. I climbed up onto the bed, feeling the layers of bedding sink beneath me before I found the firm mattress. I don’t know how long I sat there in the room, each moment of waiting that slipped past only making my anticipation sharper, when I heard the sound of a car approaching the house. I climbed off the bed and looked through the window at the front drive. One of Gabriel’s cars sat at the foot of the porch and the driver was stepping up to the door to let him out. I felt a smile come to my lips and I climbed back onto the bed, getting on my knees in the center of the mattress, just as I knew that he would want me.