Folly (21 page)

‘May I have permission to ask a favour, Mistress,' he said.

‘Speak up, slave,' I responded, stepping into the steaming water and, with no small relief, lowering myself under the cover of the bubbles.

‘The Mistress has asked to be bathed. I feel I could only perform this task to your satisfaction if I was allowed into the bath with you.'

Oh, Jesus, this was another scenario I hadn't even contemplated, but this time I was at least ready with a comeback.

‘I doubt whether you'll perform it to my satisfaction in any case,' I shot back at him. ‘You've displeased me more than once already tonight by continuing to plague me with personal questions. Remember that only obedient and incurious slaves are granted privileges.'

‘Yes, Mistress.'

‘You have not earned your place in this bathtub.'

‘No, Mistress. I have been a veritable comedy of errors this evening.'

‘Slave, this cheekiness has to stop.'

‘I'll strive to control my tongue,' he replied, and from the way he said it I knew he intended me to feel a warm rush of excitement at the words.

‘Well, since I happen to be in a generous mood, I'll allow you into the bath, but only if you take off those panties you're wearing and hand-wash them carefully. But if you slip up again, I really will be angry and I will make you suffer for it.'

‘I will do my best to satisfy you, Mistress,' he said, and again I was left breathless by the intention behind his words.

He stripped naked, and I watched as he carefully soaped and rinsed the panties and patted the excess water out of them with one of the hand towels before hanging them on the towel rail. Then he climbed into the bath.

Now the water was even deeper, brimming to my shoulders, and he was leaning forward, unwrapping a plastic bath cap and gathering my hair up in it.

Great. So now I had the bonus of my hair staying dry, but the disadvantage of having to sit facing him, wearing what must be the least flattering piece of headgear that has ever been invented.

But thankfully my slave was busying himself with his allotted task instead of cowering away from the plastic-capped apparition in front of him. He'd opened one of the containers of body wash and was lathering it up in his palms, sending another layer of fragrance into the steam-filled air.

Leaning forward, he massaged my shoulders with his soapy hands. His fingers eased the knots out of my shoulder blades and stroked the stress away from my upper arms. With light, fingertip pressure he rubbed the back of my neck. Then, using a sponge, he squeezed hot water over my neck and down my back.

‘If my Mistress could stand up now, please,' he murmured.

What?

Oh, shit!

The problem was I couldn't think of any reason to deny his request. He had me on that one. And so, before I knew it I was scrambling to my feet, water and bubbles cascading down my body, to stand in front of him, calf-deep in the water, with my feet a few inches apart, stomach muscles as tight as I could get them and staring resolutely ahead, just as if I was about to start an aerobics session.

‘Thank you, Mistress.'

I was not going to look down, and I was thankful the mirror beside me was already steamed up. I kept my gaze fixed on the elegant white double basin in front of me, upon which stood a cut-glass vase containing an arrangement of fresh flowers. Around it yet more rose petals had been scattered.

I told myself that I could not afford to be self-conscious. My client was paying me to fulfil his fantasy. And if that fantasy involved looking at me naked – well, he wasn't going to recoil from the sight, even if I wanted to myself. My body was going to turn him on. There was no doubt about that, because it already had.

He knelt before me, his arms reaching around me and his hands pressing softly against the small of my back. His touch moved around over the curve of my hips to my stomach, then higher, and I literally did not breathe as he slid his fingers under my breasts, cupping them, before moving up and then inwards, circling around, until he touched my nipples, squeezing them into swollen peaks with a sensuous pressure that sent a shiver of lust down my body.

And then he swiftly moved his hands down my body to my calves, rubbing and stroking, and I was thankful that I had spent that morning in the bath at home shaving off every hair I could find.

But he, too, knew about suspense, my wicked slave, because now his hands were roaming higher, inch by delicious inch, soaping the skin on my thighs which he'd so disobediently kissed earlier, then cupping my buttocks, then trailing around to tease just below my navel, moving lower and lower …

And then, sliding in between my legs tantalisingly slowly, his hands touched me, caressing my most intimate folds of skin in movements so exquisitely sensual that felt as if they were turning me into liquid gold. His touch was so divinely erotic that I had to clamp my jaws together to try to maintain control, glaring ferociously at the innocent basin I faced.

‘If my Mistress would like to sit down now …'

With legs that felt a lot weaker than they had when I stood up, I lowered myself into the water again. My legs slid in between his, my thighs resting on his own, and, with a shock, I saw his indigo eyes were looking directly into mine. What I saw in his expression was deep, powerful arousal, raw lust, a look distinctly un-slavish, and all I could think was that, right at that moment, he could do whatever he wanted to me and I would not have the will to say no.

And then, from somewhere deep inside, I found the strength to say, in a low and rather breathless voice, ‘Dry me now, slave.'

A minute later I was stepping out of the bath, into the fluffy embrace of the oversized towel he was holding, into pleasure of a different kind, one less sexual, more sensual. As he stood behind me and pressed the towel against me, holding me against him as he did so, it was all I could do to stay on my own two feet and not succumb to the desire to lean back against him and let him enfold me in his muscular arms.

I walked back through to the main bedroom, still holding the towel around me.

‘You can hang this up,' I told him, discarding it as I slid in between the sheets. ‘And on your way back, slave, because you have pleased me, you may put on my used panties. The ones I've just been wearing, that are folded at the foot of the bed.'

Officially, because you've pleased me. Unofficially, because after seeing that look in your eyes, I think a layer of fabric between you and me would be a good idea if I'm to keep you in check.

‘Has my performance been satisfactory to you, Mistress?' he asked, returning to my bedside.

Performance … satisfactory … a tantalising choice of words, to be sure. My panties, worn proudly around his lean hips, did nothing to diminish his masculinity.

I remembered how, when I'd done training on the sex lines, most of the would-be dominatrices had been confused and put off by the fact that their callers would beg to be dressed in women's clothing before being ridiculed.

‘If they're transvestites or gay, why do they want to speak to women?'Melissa, one of my slower-on-the-uptake trainees, had asked.

‘They're neither of the above,' I'd responded.

‘What are they then?'

‘Heterosexuals,' I'd replied, somewhat dismissively.

‘Who wear ladies' panties?'

‘Who happen to enjoy being forced into female attire. It shames them, because you tell them they're not good enough to wear it, and at the same time it turns them on because it's so sexy and feminine and forbidden.'

‘So these guys like women?' Melissa had frowned, absorbing what I was telling her with some difficulty.

‘They love women. In fact, they hold them in extremely high regard.'

The truth was that, despite what I'd told Melissa, I had never thought of the clients who got aroused by wearing women's clothing as being particularly masculine. I had imagined them to be effeminate and insipid.

Looking back, my job had been so easy, with the callers safely on the other end of a phone line. How confidently I had judged them, and how sagely I had offered my opinions.

In real life, and having gone way too far already with my client, the situation was less clear cut but more confusing, more erotic, more dangerous.

In addition, I was having to revise my views. I understood now that Simon was, in no way, effeminate. Rather, he was totally assured of his masculinity. Secure enough to explore his darkest fantasies without shame or embarrassment. Fearless enough to subjugate his power to a woman without becoming threatened.

‘You have been …' Propped up on the pillows, I considered my slave's behaviour for a long moment while he waited at the foot of the bed. ‘You have been adequate. There is room for improvement most certainly, but tonight you have not displeased the Mistress.'

‘It would be an honour to please you further, by worshipping your body more intimately,' he said softly, ‘if you feel I have earned the privilege.'

I swallowed. How far to let him go? How much control did I dare to relinquish?

‘There are many levels of privilege,' I said, hoping he wouldn't notice my voice was slightly hoarse. ‘Each must be earned. On this occasion, I can offer you … the privilege of pleasuring your Mistress intimately, but only with your fingers …'

I didn't miss the flicker in his expression. He wanted more. He powerfully desired oral sex, to go down on me, to plunge his tongue inside me in slavish devotion. This was the reward he had hoped for. I would be foolish to be too strict with him. If I left my decision as it was, it could be a deal-breaker.

And who was I trying to deny anyway? Myself, or him?

‘And with your tongue,' I finished, and saw him almost imperceptibly exhale.

‘That will be my honour,' he murmured.

Again, the question loomed in my mind as to exactly what I was at this stage of the game. Reclining on the pillows, I couldn't escape the question as to where privilege stopped and prostitution began.

Let him have his fun for a minute or two, then fake an orgasm and tell him to stop, I counselled myself.

I realised, thanks to the effect of all the wine, that although the room wasn't quite spinning around me, it was definitely starting to float away. That was all right. I could use a sense of unreality right now. It would help me cope better with what I'd just given my kinky client permission to do.

Or, to put it another way, what he had paid me to allow him to do.

Closing my eyes, I gave myself over to his sweet ravishment.

First, the pressure of his hands on my thighs as he parted my legs. I clutched my fingers around the smooth coolness of the sheets. His breath was warm on my skin, and then my grasp tightened as I felt the touch of his lips on my inner thighs. Moving higher, exploring my most sensitive folds of flesh, his kisses were warm and wet and luscious, and they were followed by the slippery and sensuous caress of his tongue.

He began to stroke my clitoris, circling the tip of his tongue over the throbbing pleasure point in a way that caused my breath to come faster and a delicious heat to radiate through me. How could I ever have entertained the thought of telling him to stop when the sensation was so divinely erotic that I now wished it would never end?

I realised that, at this point, I was about to relinquish authority over the both of us. If I did, it would be surrender. I would become
his
willing prisoner. That was not allowed. I had to resist, I had to hold back.

And then I drew in a sharp breath at the sensation of his fingers trailing over my swollen outer lips, slippery with saliva and my own wetness.

‘Tell me what you want, Mistress,' Simon whispered to me. I clamped my teeth together, biting the inside of my cheek, hoping the pain would prove to be a distraction. I could not risk voicing my desires. I was so aroused, wanting so badly to feel him inside me, that I was in serious danger of abandoning the fantasy entirely and begging him to fuck me.

‘I need to learn what pleases you,' he continued. And then, without waiting for my response, he slid two fingers partway inside me, causing me to gasp with pleasure. ‘Like this … or like this? Tell me when it feels the best for you. Show me what you enjoy.'

I knew I should not have entered into that dialogue, but I did, and from then, there was no going back.

‘Like that, yes, that feels good.'

‘And this?' He shifted his angle, rubbing a spot so deliciously responsive that it felt as if I was melting under his touch.

‘Even better. Please, don't stop.'

He didn't for a while, and then he whispered, ‘Deeper now?'

‘I … I don't know. Try and see. Oh, yes. Deeper is good. Ah. Just there. Your … oh …God, Simon, I need you to …' I bit my cheek again so hard I tasted blood. Don't say it, I told myself. Don't say it.

I didn't dare speak again. I closed my eyes, stopped resisting, and finally abandoned my fight. Instead, I gave myself over to him, let myself float into the depths of pleasure, immersed in his desire.

With his expert tongue and his sliding fingers, he was teasing and penetrating my sodden depths, discovering my most secret pleasure points, guided by the intensity of my own helpless responses.

I surrendered and opened myself to him, as his fingers moved slowly in and out of me, stretching and filling me more deeply each time, accompanied by the almost unbearably pleasurable friction of his tongue on my clitoris. Sensations followed each other as fast and powerfully as waves, each one dragging me further out, with no time to think, to claw back any mental distance from the onslaught of physical delight.

The blood was pounding in my head and I suddenly realised the room was very short on air. I was moaning, gasping with excitement and with disbelief that he was actually doing this to me, that he was taking me this far. Dear God, I was going to end up coming. I couldn't believe it. He was going to make me come.