Twenty Tones of Red (19 page)

She’
d been so heavily absorbed in her thoughts that she’d forgotten all about the hamper that was sitting next to her on the worn leather seats. It was when she realised that she was hungry that she suddenly turned to it and became intrigued by its contents. It was held closed with a couple of soft leather straps but when she opened the lid she was surprised to see that it didn’t contain any of the traditional hamper items, instead there was a set of small ceramic pots tied closed with ribbons. She picked one, untied its fastening and took off the lid. It contained a small serving of caviar and crème fresh she found a small spoon in the basket and ate greedily. It was delicious and brought back memories of the previous night. She formed a theory that perhaps all the little pots would contain a different reminder of the special supper and decided to open them all so that she could eat in the correct order. She was right to do so. Some contained a single chocolate truffle and others small metal flasks. When she discovered that one of the thermos bottles was full of a hot black liquid her suspicions were confirmed. He’d provided a mini version of the previous night’s meal and something about the thought, care and attention that had gone into it seemed to be a signal. She decided to interpret it as a message saying that their time together had been very special and he wanted her to remember it. She had no way of checking her theory but she clung to it because it felt right and it made her feel special again. By the time she’d finished all the small samples and washed them down with the dessert wine and the coffee she was feeling much more cheerful.

They were delayed by the heavy traffic crawling into West London but even so it was sooner than she would’ve liked when they came to a halt right outside the door of her flat. She looked to see if David was there to greet her but the path to the front door was empty. She told herself that the driver had probably not rung him and he had no way of knowing she was about to arrive but nevertheless she felt disappointed and a little let down. Gathering up the now empty hamper and her clutch bag she opened the door and slid herself out of the taxi.

She went to the front window and thanked the driver then asked him if he needed paying. He was quite an elderly gentleman in a flat
cap and he replied with sincere charm and politeness that the bill was on an account and she didn’t need to worry about it. She glanced in her clutch bag and after rummaging fruitlessly told him that she wasn’t able to tip him because she had no money with her. He smiled and told her not to worry about it then glanced in his mirrors and pulled away.

When she got to the fron
t door she had to ring her own bell as she hadn’t been allowed to take her keys. It was all part of the slave play. No phones, no keys and no credit cards. She was to remain powerless to be reminded of her status as a sex object. With James it had seemed so interesting and exciting but standing outside her own flat as the evening darkened she found herself irritated and annoyed.

David hugged her with passion and enthusiasm and quickly led her up into their flat. When she got inside she felt strangely numb as she looked around the familiar surroundings. He wanted her to recount every moment of what had happened but first she found her hands reaching for the belt of his trousers. She needed to be fucked and she needed to be fucked very hard and very quickly. He obliged and she very quickly came to a screaming orgasm that made her bite his shoulder and moan. When they’d finished they lay together and he started to ask her about the details of the weekend again. James had given him an overview of each of the scenes but he wanted to hear more about them. She found herself enormously reluctant to talk. It wasn’t just that she was tired, she now felt that her feelings about her time with James were private. David felt he had a right to know and although she understood his point she felt incredibly unwilling to describe anything to him. She lay under the warm covers and sleepily convinced him that she would give him all the details another time. “I’m tired.” she told him.

“But are you
glad you did it?” he asked.

She paused
before replying. “Yes I think so.”

“And you’re not angry with me?”

“
No,” she said, “not at all.” She decided it was true and as she drifted into sleep she realised that the only person she was actually angry with was herself.

The next morning she woke early and had one of the longest showers
of her life. It felt blissful to be scrubbing herself in hot steaming water and she added an extra wash of conditioner just to make certain that her hair would be back to its normal silky itself. David seemed distant and grumpy and she guessed that he was sulking about the lack of details she had given him. When she was ready she set off to the office with the promise that she would relive every moment bit by bit over the coming weeks.

Work see
med incredibly dull. There was plenty to do but none of it was very interesting. She had three big sales pitches to prepare but walking around in normal clothes in a normal office talking about normal things seemed flat and lifeless after the excitement and repressed eroticism of her weekend. One of the worst parts was the fact that she couldn’t tell anybody. She wanted to take Jen out for a boozy lunch but sharing her experiences would have opened too many cans of worms. Eventually Jen and some of the other cooler office girls might have understood the scene and some of the things that she’d been doing but initially she was sure that they’d be shocked and would judge her. Once a secret like that is put out in the open there’s no way of closing it down and she was at heart an intensely private person. Despite the fact that it had been his idea she also felt somehow guilty about the way she was treating David and she wanted them to get back onto a better footing. After making a mental note to cook him a special dinner and buy some of his favourite beers she threw herself into her work and ploughed through her presentations.

She made David a spicy pad Thai with prawns and as soon as he got home from work she served him his cold beers. He ate appreciatively and when they’d finished she cleared up the dishes while he started to roll a joint. Without any commands or prompting she then stripped naked and went to kneel submissively by his side. He obviously appreciated the gesture and stroked the back of her neck whilst complementing her cooking and telling her what a good slave she was. The sweet smell of cannabis filled their small kitchen and when he’d taken a couple of long deep tokes he ordered her to tell him about the weekend bit by bit from the very beginning.

She did so, but
she had only begun to tell him about how she had been made to hold open her pussy in the car when he took her by the hair and pushed her up the stairs in front of him. The second they got inside their bedroom he bent her over the bed and rammed himself inside her. Knowing how much it was turning him on she kept describing her weekend scene by scene in short breathless phrases. She described the rest of the Friday night while he fucked her roughly from behind. Physically it felt great but emotionally it didn’t connect her to him in the way it should. For some reason she resented how turned on he was by listing to her experience with another man. It didn’t feel quite right, and when they’d finished she was glad that he sat back to watch TV and she was able to lie quietly and reflect on her own thoughts. There was something slightly dislocated about their relationship and she was getting increasingly uncomfortable about his interest in showing and lending her to other men.

Over the next few days she became more and more concerned with his talk about displaying her to o
thers and by the end of the week she had formed a worrying suspicion that he had broken one of their golden rules. She managed to find an excuse to go home early and at four o’clock on the Friday was logging onto her laptop at the small dressing table in their bedroom. He wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours and she was determined to have a good snoop around on all the websites he visited to make certain that he wasn’t discussing their love life or uploading pictures of her.

She took h
er time and worked methodically through all the chat rooms, forums and blogs, dedicated to the London BDSM scene. Luckily she knew his usernames and on most of the pages he called himself simply
Master D
. After an hour she had found nothing and was beginning to take regular peaks out of the window to check that he wasn’t going to come home and find her. She’d almost exhausted the full range of sites when she spotted a link to a place called
the Masters Lounge
. It sounded like the kind of place where dominants went to share their experiences and sure enough, after just a few clicks she found his name on a list of contributors. His most recent post was just a few days previously and she was instantly curious to see what he’d done. When the page loaded she saw a link to a gallery and her heart leapt into her mouth. What could he have put there? He knew that she didn’t want any images of them or her displayed. It had been one of her golden rules from the start and she was sure that he would stick to it. She clicked open the link and her heart almost stopped. There she was kneeling naked on the floor of their bedroom. She was blindfolded but there was no mistake that it was her.

There were lots of them and a
s she clicked from one to the other she flushed from hot to cold. In all the images she was blindfolded and she realised that he had been photographing her without her knowledge. The fact that her eyes were covered gave her some anonymity but anyone who knew her well would recognise her hair, her freckles and the shape of her jaw and mouth.

There was worse to come. As wel
l as all the pictures he had also written a detailed diary describing everything that had happened to her during her weekend with James. He’d even cut and pasted some of James’s emails to use as proof. David’s own comments were brash and arrogant. He talked frequently about how well he had trained her and how very few masters would be so confident to lend out one of their slaves. Anger grew in her as she read. It was the ultimate betrayal. Even worse, it concluded her growing fear that he was more interested in bragging about himself as a dominant than actually developing a relationship with her. After a few more minutes she slammed down the lid of her laptop and started to pace the room. Her anger had turned to fury. How dare he!

Unfortunately for David it was at that moment h
e returned home and met her in full rage. She didn’t wait or hold back. She hit him with her indignation the moment he walked through the door. She remembered showing him the images and being appalled at his feeble excuses and nonchalant replies and then after perhaps thirty minutes of shouting she snatched up her coat and marched out of the flat. He tried to phone her straight away but she ignored his calls. She marched at full speed along the darkening streets around the tube station until her rage started to subside.

When she’
d finally calmed down she realised that it was fully dark and she was quite vulnerable and alone in a rough area. She quickly formed a plan. There was no way she wanted to see David that night and she needed somewhere to sleep. She set off for the underground and phoned the person who was both the most reliable and the most likely to be at home on a Friday night; her brother. He answered after a few rings and agreed immediately that she could come and stay. His only condition was that she pick up a bottle of good white wine on her way. She agreed and ran down the steps to catch the train. It would take her more than an hour to get out to Surbiton where he lived but it would mean a meal, someone to talk to and a place to spend the night.

It was warm and homely in Sean’s big detached house. His wife Cathy met her at the door and with a sympathetic look gave her a hug. Siobhan felt tears well in her eyes during the brief embrace and allowed them to flow. She might as well be as honest as possible with these people. They must have already guessed that she’d fallen out with David. Why else would she have rung at short notice on a Friday evening and come on her own?

She was taken straight through to their kitchen dining room where her brother greeted her with a warm smile and a kiss on the cheek then went back to picking at the olives and peanuts that were obviously sustaining him while they waited for her to join them for dinner. They made sma
ll talk while they ate and Siobhan found herself knocking back big mouthfuls of white wine as quickly as she could. The inevitable question of what had happened came up at the end of the meal while they were eating warm chocolate brownies with ice cream and she confessed that she’d had a row with David and without intending to also found herself saying that she had found images of her that he’d posted on a website.

Cathy and
Sean both raised their eyebrows but were restrained in their response. It was difficult for them she knew. It was difficult for anybody to arbitrate in an argument. They couldn’t start to criticise David too heavily because she might easily be getting back with him the next day. Instead they sympathised and told her that she could stay as long as she liked while she worked things out. They said it very sincerely and she knew that they meant it. Although they were a little dull they really were good people and Siobhan found herself feeling guilty that when she was having fun she tended to neglect them.

The wine and the big meal and made her sleepy and she found herself drifting off into a slightly troubled sleep as she sat on the sofa watching TV. Cathy spotted her drowsiness and invited her up to the guest room where she found some towels for her and put a glass of water by her bed.
Siobhan thanked her profusely then had a quick wash and slipped into bed. Her mind was still spinning and below the temporary calm all kinds of emotions were whirring around inside her. She told herself that she would deal with everything the next day and drifted off into a light and fretful sleep.

She woke very early with a mild hangover and found herself immediately checking her phone. She didn’t want to talk to David but she was both disappointed and angry to see that he hadn’t tried to ring her or text her. What was he thinking? She’d marched out and he had no idea if she was safe or not. Surely he should have checked to see that she was okay?

She met
Sean standing at the kitchen worktop gulping down a bowl of cereal. He had to catch one of the commuter trains into London and she decided to go with him. She planned to get into town early and then go to her flat. She would wait until David left for work and then rush in immediately after him to get a change of clothes and some essentials.

The scheme worked beautifully. She knew David’s routine and was able to arrive in their street a few minutes before he left. She hung back at the end of the road behind a queue of people at a bus stop and saw him come out of their street and walk up to the underground station. Once inside their bedroom she dug out her weekend bag and started to pack it. They might be back together that night but there was no harm in being prepared for the worst.

She packed several days worth of clothes and essentials and then went to unplug her phone charger and laptop. Just as she was pi
cking up her computer she paused. He must’ve taken the pictures of her down from the website by now and that would be a good start. She fired up the machine and in a few minutes was back on the fetish website looking at his entries. The photos were still there! Why hadn’t he taken them down? What was wrong with him?

With a renewed fury
burning inside her she thrust the laptop into her bag and stormed out of the flat. Her lover had a lot of explaining to do and she was feeling increasingly unsettled and pessimistic about the relationship.

She tried to carry her bag into the office as discreetly as possible and to act as if nothing had happened. Of course it didn’t work. Jen sent her an email asking her if there was anything wrong and Siobhan found herself going over to her desk to arrange a quick chat in the kitchen. While the kettle boiled she told her best work friend about the argument and they agreed to slip out for a boozy lunch. Abi and Sarah also somehow got invited and it turned into a drunken girly gossip fest.

Once again
Siobhan found herself explaining more than she'd wanted to and discovered that there was no real way of accounting for her anger with David without talking about pictures being uploaded to a website. She didn't need to tell them about James or anything to do with the BDSM scene, but she found that she did that she did need to explain that her privacy had been exploited and that he had exposed her to the general public.

It was gratifying to see that they were as angry as she was. All three of
her companions pronounced in a tipsy way that if anyone had done that to them though it would definitely mean an end to the relationship. Siobhan examined the question in her head. She could forgive David if she wanted to forgive him and if it was worth it, but he now had to step up and to demonstrate that he really loved her and do more to admit that he’d made a mistake. So far he’d only made the situation worse. The photos were still on the website and he hadn't even contacted her to see if she was okay.

It wasn’t until she was ba
ck at her desk sipping black coffee and trying to concentrate on her emails that she received a text from David. She fumbled with her phone in her urgency to open it but when she did she was disappointed by its brevity. He made a vague apology then asked if she would come back that night so they could have dinner and talk things over. That was not nearly enough to make her happy. He hadn’t even suggested taking her out for a special meal and he hadn’t nearly apologised enough. Her fury didn’t abate and because she already had the things she needed from the flat she deliberately decided not to make things easy for him. She gave him a short reply saying that that she was busy that evening but she would go home for dinner the next night. It wasn’t true but he needed to understand that she wasn’t at his beck and call.