Liberate Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy Part One) (11 page)

‘So, Katya, tell me what you are.’

‘I am subordinate, sir. I did not follow your orders.’

‘And what do you want me to do?’

‘I want you to spank me, please, sir.’

The Russian takes her forcefully by the hand and puts her over his knee. Belle’s breath becomes short and shallow. They have done this before, and yet every time she feels a thrill. She can’t think why. When her husband hits her, she certainly does not enjoy it. She feels degraded and angry. Yet when the Russian spanks her, Belle has to admit she finds it strangely erotic. It must be because she has free will. She knows that all she has to do is tell the Russian to stop and he will. She can break the spell of their little charade at any time, but she doesn’t want to. Her skin is tingling with anticipation. She can feel his erection pressing into her chest.

The Russian pulls up her maid’s uniform so that her backside is bare. He massages her bottom with his hands. She wonders if he will use the riding crop. It is right there next to
him on the bed. All her senses are heightened, and when his bare hand slaps down on her backside, she feels it vibrate through her whole body. Its hurts, a little, but not too much. She knows it is stimulating the Russian, and that what will come after her punishment will be so very sweet. He spanks her again and again, and her flesh feels raw and alive. Five, six slaps and he stops. She hears his breath heavy with desire as he stands her up.

‘Good girl,’ he says, pushing his hands between her legs, and touching her. ‘What do you want me to do now, Katya?’ he asks, the whiskers of his little beard tickling her chin, his expression benign now that he has spanked her. Belle reaches down with her hand and touches his hard penis, which is pressing against his flannel trousers.

‘I want you to show me who is master.’ She gives him her sweetest smile and widens her eyes in innocence.

Belle is on her hands and knees looking at the pattern on her Persian rug. Her dress and apron are discarded beside her, but she still wears her stockings and maid’s hat. The Russian pushes into her with a low moan, and holds on to her breasts. He immediately begins pounding into her with such force she almost collapses on to the carpet. She loves this primal sex with the Russian. The contrast between his cool aristocratic bearing and the wild passion once he is inside her. He holds her waist with both hands and grinds into her, going further and further. Belle closes her eyes and joins him in his wild abandon. She is
Katya, his little Russian maid, his love slave who will do anything for him, because he takes care of her and always will. It is a fantasy she likes, despite the fact she hates being bound to her husband. She can’t explain this contradiction.

The Russian is crying out, ‘Katya,
milaya moya
!’ as he finally comes, his vibrations sending Belle into a spin so that she is climaxing as well. They collapse on to the Persian rug, both of them glowing with perspiration, and the Russian rolls off her back to lie beside her.

Belle turns to him. Now he is a different man. Tears are streaming down his face. His expression is one of utter devastation.

‘Oh, dear Igor,’ she says, taking him into her arms. He presses his wet cheek against her bare breasts, and she strokes his hair, letting him weep. She looks down at his scarred body, his back covered in red welts, the marks of his time in prison in Siberia. Despite his aristocratic bearing, Igor was in fact a revolutionary, a comrade of Lenin’s. It might have been amusing to consider how this diehard communist liked to play the lord and master, if he wasn’t such a tragic figure. He was forced to flee Russia after Lenin died and Stalin replaced him. He tried to stop Stalin’s rise to power, and now he was a wanted man. Belle has made herself feel sorry for him, never asking about before the Revolution, whether he was one of those Russian soldiers who burnt their way through her homeland the year she married. That was so long ago now.

She holds Igor in her arms until he has stopped crying, the
two of them naked. She feels cleansed by his wash of emotion.

‘Who is Katya?’ she asks tentatively.

Igor sighs, turning to look at her with melancholy eyes.

‘Despite my revolutionary background, Belle, I have to admit I am not working class. I was brought up in a wealthy bourgeois family. We had a maid. Her name was Katya.’

He sighs again, as if he has the woes of the world upon his shoulders, then moves away from her, standing up. She sits up on the rug, watches his pale back, stiff and narrow. He reminds her of a heron, a solitary, aloof figure, watching the business of life swim past him.

‘I was in love with Katya,’ he says, dropping his head and clutching his hands together.

‘What happened, Igor?’ Despite his obvious distress, she senses that her Russian needs to tell her this.

He spins around to face her. His eyes are still wet from his tears, yet lit up with passion like the blue flames at the heart of a fire.

‘She died. It was my fault. I was supposed to take care of her. She was so loyal . . . so innocent . . . so sweet . . .’

Belle gets up and walks over to Igor. She puts her arms around him. Now that they are no longer in the throes of passion, their nakedness seems so trusting and pure. He bends his head and speaks into her shoulder.

‘I left her behind thinking she was safer, but she wasn’t . . . My family escaped, but not Katya. I had ordered her to go with them if the time came to flee, but apparently she refused.
She waited for me until everyone else had gone, and the Whites rode into town looking for me. They made Katya pay for my absence.’

‘Oh, Igor.’ Belle embraces him tightly. He lifts his head, looks her in the eyes. She can see the anguish in their blue waters.

‘Dear Belle, thank you for understanding.’

She squeezes his hand.

‘You will find love again, Igor.’

‘Do you believe that, Belle?’ he asks hopelessly.

She looks inside her heart. There is a perverse part of her that almost envies Igor. At least he has known what it is like to be in love. She says a silent prayer.

‘Yes, I believe that within one lifetime, every single one of us will experience true love. If we lose it and our hearts are open enough despite our loss, we can find it again.’

‘Everyone!’ He smiles ruefully. ‘Even Stalin? Or Mussolini?’

‘Yes, even them.’ She smiles back, gently wiping his face with her maid’s hat. ‘It is the human condition.’

WHEN VALENTINA STEPS THROUGH THE DOORWAY INTO
what Leonardo calls the Atlantis Room, all appears serene, not at all the den of iniquity she imagined. The walls are painted Prussian blue and the floor is white marble. There is a sturdy black desk in the centre of the room, with a large sea-blue pile rug beneath it that takes up most of the floor space. There are no windows in the room, only one large skylight, which lets in a golden glow as if it is the middle of the day, although Valentina knows it is dark outside. There is a wrought-iron daybed, and sturdy white wooden beams support the ceiling. All in all it is bright and minimalist, like an Ikea showroom.

‘So, Valentina,’ Leonardo says, ‘let me talk you through everything in our Atlantis Room.’ He walks to the desk and sits down upon it facing her, his legs spread a little provocatively. Valentina tries her best not to look at his crotch, glancing up at the skylight.

‘I thought it would be darker in here,’ she comments.

‘Some of our clients don’t like the dark,’ Leonardo says. ‘They want to act out their scenes somewhere that could almost be from their ordinary lives. So this room is what we call a day room, or a light bondage room.’

He pulls out several drawers in the black desk and indicates for her to come over and have a look.

‘Here, for instance, are a number of things a dominant can use with his or her submissive.’

In the first drawer Valentina looks into, she sees a whole bunch of electrical sex toys – mostly vibrators, but a breathtaking array of types: petite pink clitoral massagers, elegant medium-sized vibrators with curves in various places to provide different stimulations, and full-on dual-action vibrators. One of them is so immense it is frightening; how would it feel to have that up inside her? She quivers internally at the thought. Most of the products she recognises as part of the Swedish LELO range, sleek, stylish designs that appeal to her artistic sensibilities. They look like art objects rather than tools of passion. She imagines the squeals of delight if Antonella were here. Her friend would certainly explore the contents of this drawer. She picks up one item, intrigued by its design: a black oval pod that loops into a ring at its tip. Leonardo reaches into the drawer beside her, his hand brushing against her bare arm, making her catch her breath despite herself.

‘It works with this,’ he says, taking out a round golden object. ‘It’s a remote control.’

He presses a button, and the toy in her hand starts to vibrate. Unwillingly she feels herself blushing.

‘It has several different speeds,’ he says, as easily as if he is showing her how to change the channel on a television.

‘Thanks,’ she says, feeling the pod throbbing against her palm.

‘Do you know what it is?’ he asks, his lips curved into a mischievous grin.

‘Well . . . it’s a kind of vibrator?’

‘Yes.’ He nods, trying to keep a straight face. ‘But one for her
and
him.’ He takes it from her, and pushes the ring end around two of his fingers. ‘This is a ring to go around the penis. It stimulates the man, and helps enlarge him.’

‘Right,’ she says, trying to look dignified, as if this is a conversation one might have with a man you have only just met.

‘And this part, the pod, can be used to stimulate either her clitoris, or, if you swing it around, his balls.’

Valentina can’t help it. She imagines herself and Theo playing with this toy. The thought makes her blush spread to her chest, weave into the sinews of her body, so that her heartbeat is racing. Something primal within her wants to touch Leonardo. It is absurd. She takes a step away from him, and hastily puts the sex toy back into the drawer.

Leonardo, seemingly unaware of her physical reaction to him, pulls out another drawer.

‘Here are toys a dominatrix can use to pleasure her submissive . . . if he is a man.’

Valentina looks inside. She recognises an array of gentleman’s plugs and G-spot massagers. One of them looks uncomfortably large. There is also a collection of gentleman’s rings, some of them quite beautiful. Sleek black onyx, burnished gold, silver studded with tiny diamonds. She wonders idly if Theo would like one.

Finally Leonardo pulls out the last drawer.

‘In here we have some items used in light bondage scenarios,’ he says, looking at her with curious eyes. She guesses he is watching her to see her reaction, and keeps a poker face plastered on her features. She feels silly after her ignorance over the vibrating toy. She doesn’t want to show herself up again. However, there are no surprises when she looks inside. The usual bondage gear: several sets of silver chains, with varying thicknesses of links, silk ties, a rope, blindfolds in different materials, handcuffs, and a ball gag for the mouth.

‘So for instance,’ Leonardo picks up a chain and balances it on his fingertips, walking over to one of the beams, where he swings one end over it and pulls both ends together, ‘one could be chained up like this.’ He loops it round a vertical beam and stands with his back to it. ‘Or the chains could be bound around you like so.’

He catches her eye, and she can’t help imagining being chained to one of these beams. There is a loaded pause before he drops the chain on the floor and picks up the handcuffs, swinging them between his hands before throwing them at her, so that she is forced to catch them.

‘One could be handcuffed to the end of the daybed . . . or to the desk . . . There are all sorts of variations.’

He walks past the black desk, stroking it with his hand as he passes. She can’t help noticing how long and slender his fingers are, and wondering what he can do with them.

‘This room can become an office fantasy. Or,’ he says, opening up a set of doors behind him to reveal a storage space, ‘it could be a doctor’s or dentist’s surgery.’

He wheels out an examination chair for her to see. She looks up at him in disbelief, and he is grinning at her.

‘Please sit,’ he commands.

She hesitates, gripping the handcuffs tightly.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t do anything.’

She shrugs, embarrassed by her coyness, then walks over and climbs into the chair.

‘Sit back,’ Leonardo says. ‘Relax.’ And she can hear the humour in his voice as he presses a button on the side of the chair so that it tips back just like at the dentist’s.

‘Now you see you could be bound up on this thing and all sorts could be done to give you pleasure.’ He pauses. ‘And pain.’

Leonardo grins down at her, and she can see that he is actually having fun showing her all these things. She has an irresistible urge to laugh out loud, which is something she
never
does. However, she manages to maintain her sangfroid. Looking at all these instruments and gadgets in this brightly lit room makes them seem silly. They are just toys really, she
thinks. All these people are doing is playing games. It’s harmless enough, isn’t it?

Yet when she looks up at Leonardo as he leans over her, the scent of him beginning to pervade her, she feels a tremor deep within her pelvis, a sensation halfway between fear and excitement. She is missing Theo. It’s Theo she wants. So why is Leonardo having this effect on her?

‘Any ideas, Valentina?’

She sits up, ignoring his gaze, and swings her legs over.

‘I’ll have a think.’

He takes her hand and helps her off the chair. His skin is warm and soft, yet not too hot.

‘Well, let me tell you about tomorrow’s protagonists,’ he begins.

‘Oh.’ She lets go of his hand, and fumbles with her bag, looking inside for a notebook, the handcuffs still dangling from one of her wrists.

‘I thought we should start gently. Just in case it’s not for you. You see, we really do need you to reflect our mindset.’ His earlier mischief is gone. He is all earnestness now.