The Master's Exploits: Night One (6 page)

“Couldn’t have made it to a pay phone last night?” I was letting my irritation seep through, but I couldn’t help it. She’d made me worry.
 

She made a slightly incredulous noise. “In this decade? I wouldn’t know where to find one. Besides, I couldn’t exactly remember your number off the top of my head.”

“You left me hanging,” I told her, low and stern. My annoyance was melting away at the sight of her biting her lip, worried, anxious to please me. “I don’t like to be left hanging.”

She swallowed audibly. “I’m...I’m sorry.”

I took a step back, as if I was about to shut the door in her face. “I’m not interested in your excuses. Are you here to accept your punishment?”

I watched her, one eyebrow raised, as she subtly shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
 

“I have to get back to work,” she said, softly. She glanced over her shoulder, as if she thought her boss might be standing right behind her.

“Why?” I demanded, arching my eyebrow a little higher.
 

“They’re expecting me,” she said. “I have to...I only get an hour for lunch.”

“Are you usually late?”

“Never,” she insisted. “Not once, in seven years.”

“So they’ll forgive you,” I said, stepping back into the entryway. “Am I wrong?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “You’re not wrong. I just...”

“What did you tell them you were going to do?”

She exhaled. “Pick up a prescription.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Call them. Tell them there’s a long line. Problem with the register. You’ll be delayed.”

She was nibbling on her lip again. “Lie to my boss?”

I smiled, coolly. “Are you really going to pretend like it’s the first time?”

After a moment’s deliberation, she held out her hand. I glanced at it, then up at her, questioningly.

“Your phone,” she said. “Mine’s broken, remember?”

“All right,” I said, digging into my pocket. “I suppose that will work.”

“Your caller I.D. is blocked,” she said. “They’ll never know.”

“I’m aware,” I said, dryly. “Be quick about it.”

She was trying, and failing, to hide her smile as she dialed the number.
 

“Hey Tanya, could you let Joel know I might be a little bit late back from lunch? Yeah, there’s some kind of problem at the pharmacy. I don’t know. I really need to pick this up today, though, and my shift doesn’t end until after they close.”

I made a
cut it off
gesture, indicating that she was laying it on too thick. She made a slight face before saying goodbye and hanging up.

“You’re not a very good liar,” I said, as she stepped inside.

“Well, I don’t usually make a habit of it,” she said. “You’re a very bad influence.”

“Now you know,” I replied, with a vicious smile. “Would you like a safe word this time?”

“Yes,” she said, her chest rising and falling rapidly with each breath. Her nipples stiffened under the soft, woven fabric of her work shirt.

“Pharmacy?” I suggested, undoing a few buttons and loosening my collar.
 

She laughed, stepping out of her shoes. “All right,” she said. “I should be able to remember that.”

I watched her, admiring the way her ill-fitting work clothes still managed to cling in all the right places. She make shapeless khakis look sinful.
 

“Sorry I didn’t have time to change,” she said, softly. Self-conscious, I realized, under my gaze.

“Stop,” I said, roughly. “Never apologize for the way you look.”

Her shoulders relaxed, and she toyed with the hem of her shirt. “Understood,” she said. “I won’t, Sir.”

“Turn around.” I gestured towards the center of the room. “Lean over the sofa.”
 

Some of the nervousness crept back into her face. “Right...right here?”

“Yes,” I said, softly. “Right here.”

It was different. More personal. This was where I
lived
, and she felt that, acutely, as she walked over to the sofa. She’d given me her trust, and I was giving her something back in return. A piece of me. A small intimacy that not all of my submissives were granted.

Madison took a deep breath, leaning forward and placing her hands on the back of the sofa. “Like this?”

“That’s very good,” I said, walking towards her. My palm tingled in anticipation. She was presenting her ass to me without artifice, without hesitation, wrapped up in the same tan fabric that she wore in front of the public every day. A lot of people probably walked past her, probably admired her body, probably wished they could see her the way I was seeing her now.

Reaching under her body, letting my fingers brush against her stomach, I slowly popped the button and began to drag the zipper down. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly. Her breathing quickened.

“Do you know what I’m about to do, Madison?” I asked her, very quietly.

She nodded tightly. “I think so,” she whispered, without opening her eyes.

I pulled the pants down lower, chuckling a little when I saw the silky red panties underneath.

“Were you thinking of me when you put these on?” I asked her.

Again, she nodded before she had a chance to gather her words. “Yes,” she said.
 

“Did it turn you on?”

“Yes.”

My cock felt heavy. I ran my fingers along the hem of the panties, tracing along her skin, watching the goose bumps appear. With one finger, I gently pulled back the panties to expose more of her ass cheek. “Did you touch yourself, Madison?”

“No.”

On impulse, I pulled back and smacked her where I’d tucked the panties back. She yelped, jolting forward slightly.

“That’s for lying,” I said. “Did you touch yourself this morning?”

Her fingers gripped the sofa so hard that her knuckles were beginning to go white. “Yes,” she muttered, finally.
 

I smacked again, and this time, she only let out a soft noise. My dick was throbbing to life, watching her pale skin redden from the impact of my hand. “Why did you lie?”

“I didn’t have permission,” she said, faintly. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be angry.”

“Lying is worse,” I said, just resting the palm of my hand on her ass. She flinched, then relaxed when she realized another hit wasn’t coming. Not yet. “Besides, I never told you that you weren’t allowed to come when we’re not together. Is that something you’d like?”

She hesitated for a few moments. “I’m not sure.”

I smiled, rubbing my thumb absently along the juncture of her thigh and her labia. She shuddered, her back curving to present herself to me better. Her pants slid all the way down past her knees to pool at her ankles.
 

“We’ll work up to that,” I whispered, moving my hand to suddenly cup her growing heat through her panties. She gasped, arching her back even further. Just as quickly, I pulled away and spanked her once more, letting her feel the reverberations between her legs.
 

 
“How many, do you think, for leaving me hanging?” I murmured, leaning over her, letting her feel my growing arousal against her thigh. “How many, Madison?”

“Fifty,” she said.

I just laughed. There was still so much stubbornness in her, and I loved it.

“You wouldn’t even make it to thirty,” I said. “Before you were crying and begging me to stop.”

“Try me,” she challenged, gripping the sofa harder.

“Madison, no.” I rested my hand on the back of her neck, gentling her. “I would never push you past your limits like that. Not even if you asked for it.”

She let out a small noise, either of assent or protest, it didn’t matter.

“Just five more,” I said. “Because you’ve been so good. Count them off for me.”

She nodded.

“One.”

Smack.

“Two.”

Smack.

My cock jumped and strained, jealous, wanting to feel where she was molten and dripping for me. Every jolt of pain just made her want me more. As she counted off the last of them, every heartbeat felt like an eternity. As the last hit landed, I unzipped.

Finally, we were through. I yanked her soaked panties aside, out of my way, and plunged inside her without prelude. She moaned like anything, head thrown back, arching and straining and pushing herself against me like her life depended on it. I lost myself then, the pretense of Dominant and submissive, Master and slave, lost in the frantic mating of two ordinary people in heat. She was wild, thrashing, begging me for
more
,
harder
, in filthy panting demands that I somehow heard over the ringing in my ears.

When she came, she almost squeezed the life out of me, clamping down like a vise and screaming,
oh God, yes, Sir. Yes
.
 

Just before I exploded, I remembered that she still didn’t know my name.

***

Madison and I kept seeing each other for several months. She never asked who I really was, and I never gave her permission to call me anything other than Sir. She preferred it this way. With all the intimacy that we shared, she still wanted to keep some distance.
 

As a Dom, I had to respect her boundaries. But as a man, it frustrated me beyond belief. I wanted the parts of her that she would never share with me. I wanted to know the story behind the sadness in her eyes.

But if I asked, she’d never tell. Or worse - she’d feel obligated to. But that wasn’t a part of our game. It couldn’t be. Whoever Madison was when she was with me, it wasn’t the Madison that everyone else knew. That much was clear. I was her retreat, her vacation, her stress relief. I gave her permission to be someone she couldn’t be anywhere else.

None of this was new to me. I’ve been used before. I never minded it.
 

But damn it, I wanted to know who had made her so sad.

At times it was tempting to dismiss her, to tell her that our time was over. I was getting too entangled. Too involved. The safest thing, for everyone, would be for me to walk away. I knew that, and I could tell that Madison was beginning to see it too.

But we were having too much fun to end it yet. She was a constant challenge, always rising to the occasion, always pushing me to be
more
. More creative, more clever, more cruel. I spent nearly all my spare time thinking of new ways to delight and terrify her.

How long could this last? How long could we be sustained by the pure chemistry of it, before I fell in too deep, or Madison finally found someone she could really love?

As time went on, the answer became clearer and clearer.

Not much longer.

And that was when I knew.

It was time for my most diabolical game yet.

Time and time again, I’d found myself returning to the most memorable scenes in Madison’s favorite book. Most notable among them was a scene featuring a sadistic dinner party. The heroine was tied up amongst a group of men, and they were allowed to use her however they saw fit. It wasn’t an unusual fantasy, by any means, but it was a little outside of my usual fare.

I spent a long time thinking about it, until I’d finally devised a plan. It took a lot of revisions, and a lot of doubts and hesitations, before I got it just right. Just as I’d nudged Madison’s boundaries, bit by bit, she was pushing mine. Forcing me to think in different ways, even to question my own desires.
 

Her birthday was coming. It was the perfect opportunity, and the fact that she’d told me about it was a good sign. It meant she didn’t already have plans with someone else.

“I’d like to have you over to celebrate,” I said. “To my place on the Cape. It’s beautiful there. You’ll love it. I promise.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Just dinner and a movie?” she teased. “A quiet night in?”

The corner of my mouth twitched. “I
might
have something in mind,” I said. “A sort of...surprise party.”

She pouted. “I hate surprises.”

“That’s not true, and you know it.” I snatched the check away from her. We were in bookstore coffee shop, which had remained one of our favorite haunts, and she always made a move to pay. She
knew
I’d never let her, but it was a reflex nonetheless.

Madison was laughing, softly, such a pure infectious joy that I wished I could capture and wrap up in a box with a bow.
For you, every day, forever. Please never be sad again.
But no matter how happy I could make her, it was always fleeting. I could give her what she wanted, but I could never give her what she truly needed.

But I was going to keep trying, as long as she let me.

The day before her birthday, I left a box on her doorstep when I knew she’d be at work. Inside was a sleek black dress, barely decent, the sort of thing that lingerie stores call “sensual evening-wear.” She’d draw stares at a restaurant or walking down the street, but it was enough to get from her doorstep to my car and its well-tinted windows.

There was a note inside the box, too, instructing her to wear the dress and nothing else. It was probably unnecessary, but I felt compelled. As I wrote it, my fingers itched to sign my name. If she wanted to ignore it, she could. But after some deliberation, I decided that would be selfish - and selfishness doesn’t suit a Dom.

I arrived at the appointed time, idling there for a while before her front door opened, slowly. I could feel her hesitation as she stood there. The sheer, slinky dress clung to her body perfectly, and I knew it would be a struggle not to touch her on the drive over. But the wait would be well worth it.

As she climbed into the passenger seat, her cheeks were flushed, and I could clearly see her nipples standing at attention beneath the flimsy fabric. “You’re early,” she said.

I smiled. “I thought you might have been waiting on the front porch. It’s such a nice day.”

“I didn’t want to get arrested,” she said, coolly, smoothing the dress down over her thighs.

“Nonsense,” I said. “You wouldn’t be arrested, the saleswoman assured me of that.”

“Oh, and I guess she has a lot of experience with that sort of thing.” Madison glanced at me, amused, and slightly aroused. Her lips were slightly parted as she took me in, dressed to the nines in a perfectly-tailored suit that I saved for very special occasions.