The Secret Life of a Submissive

It was so quiet now that I swear I could hear my heart beating. Where the hell was Max? My senses struggled to reach out from beyond the mask, struggling to track him down. Had he slipped away? Gone home? Had I blown it already with the whole Sir thing?

Finally, after what seemed like an age, I heard Max moving and sensed him circling around until he was standing behind me, so close that I could feel his breath on my neck. I shivered.

We were standing in my sitting room, and – if I had taken my mask off – I would have been able to see us both reflected in the mirror that hung above the fireplace. Being unable to see meant that I was totally focused on every sound and every sensation. That alone was heady stuff. Max stroked my cheek and I sighed with a mixture of relief and an intense abstract rush of desire.

‘There, not so bad, is it?’ Max said. I didn’t know what to say. It was much, much worse and much, much better than I’d imagined. My whole body felt as if it was awake and waiting, tingling, every molecule listening for whatever it was that was coming next. Excitement, expectation – it was hard to pin down exactly what it was that I was feeling.

Max’s fingers moved down across my shoulder to the zip of my dress. Very slowly he began to undo it. I felt my pulse quicken and swallowed hard to quell the heady mix of nerves and exhilaration. He pressed his lips into the curve of my neck, to my spine, sending wave after wave of tingling sensations through me.

He ran his fingers through my hair, tugging at it, toying with it, moving my head around. I wasn’t sure if he expected me to resist or go with it. I started to tremble, adrenaline coursing through my veins like champagne as his lips brushed my naked shoulders, breathing me in. I felt the zip working its way lower; Max was unhurried, his fingers deft and confident.

I realized I was holding my breath. We hadn’t kissed since we’d met, at least not in a sexual way – our lunch at the restaurant had ended with a handshake and the kind of peck on the cheek I’d give to a maiden aunt. Those kisses on my shoulders felt as if they were seared into my skin.

Doms didn’t kiss their subs on the mouth, he’d said. It had made sense then, but now? I was going to say it felt weird to be undressed by a man I hadn’t kissed but actually when you got right down to it the whole damned thing was weird.

‘Don’t try and rationalize it,’ Max had said, when I’d been trying to work out, and justify, why I wanted to do this. ‘You’ll drive yourself crazy. Just accept that this is what you like, and want, and that it is a part of your nature. This is what you need, Sarah. It’s not strange or weird; it’s just part of human sexuality. I can give you what you want.’

Easy for him to say. Although I was beginning to realize that he was right. I hadn’t felt so alive in years. I felt like a present being slowly and skilfully unwrapped by him. This was what I had written about for so many years; this was what I had dreamt about. Finally here I was. This was for real.

As Max’s fingers brushed my skin, I could almost see the sensations in my head, like pinpricks of light exploding in a sea of velvety darkness.

I shivered as the zipper slipped down another inch or two more, stunned by how long he was taking. How long was it since someone had taken the time to do this properly? My emotions seesawed back and forth. I wondered if Max was expecting me to call a halt. The safe words we had agreed on were: gold for ‘everything is OK’; silver for ‘please slow down’; lead for ‘stop, stop now’.

He was taking it oh-so-slowly, the slightest touch of his fingers, lips and tongue making me gasp.

Gold, silver, lead: I repeated the words over and over in my head. It would be so easy to stop this before it even began, but I didn’t want to stop – far from it. I wanted it so much. I had waited so long to play this game for real. Behind the mask, crazily, I closed my eyes and tried to remember the last time I had felt this excited, this turned on or this bloody nervous.

Max eased the dress off my shoulders and let it slip down over my arms before letting it slither to the floor. Despite the mask I reddened, extraordinarily self-aware, imagining his expression as he looked me up and down, imagining what he could see.

He made a soft throaty noise of approval. ‘Nice,’ he purred. ‘Very nice.’

Under my dress I was wearing a black satin corset and black seamed stockings teamed with black court shoes. Max and I had had long email exchanges about what I liked to wear and how he liked his submissive to dress. We’d exchanged dozen of photographs of outfits. Before today’s meeting Max had asked me to send him pictures of my favourite lingerie and a selection of dresses – without me in them – so that he could choose what I wore for our first real encounter.

From now on whenever we were together, he explained, he would decide what I wore. He would email me instructions and would also go through my wardrobe, and we would go shopping for anything he felt I lacked. And from now on when we were together I wasn’t to wear any underwear.

I’d stared at him. Seriously?

Max had nodded.

I hadn’t gone braless since God knows when, and I certainly had never gone knickerless. When I protested about how awful fitted clothes looked without some sort of support under them, Max conceded that with some outfits, yes, I could wear a bra, but he would decide which ones, and the only bras I could wear in his company should fasten at the front unless otherwise instructed. A submissive’s body no longer belongs to her, he said, and she should always be available for her Master. I stared at him. ‘Available?’

He nodded.

Now Max trailed a finger across my shoulders in the same way you might stroke a piece of sculpture. It was the most astonishing sensation, hard to put into words. Dressed to please, elevated to an object of pure desire and pleasure, I have never felt more female or, perversely, more powerful.

‘You look fabulous,’ Max murmured after a few moments more. ‘Put your hands behind your back.’

I did as I was told, lulled by his voice and a peculiar sense of euphoria.

Max caressed my shoulders and neck, his touch proprietorial. One hand stroked up and down my back while the other hand worked its way into the top of my corset, his long, strong fingers cupping one of my breasts. His thumb brushed across my nipple, which stiffened in response. He let out a soft sigh that made me quiver, my skin tingling, electrified by his touch. His hands were cool and almost dispassionate, caressing, squeezing, exploring and kneading.

I gasped as the intensity increased and he nipped and twisted my nipples, before folding the top of the corset down so that first one and then both breasts were exposed.

I could feel the cool air on my naked flesh and a charge of expectation. I could sense his growing excitement along with my own. All the joking and banter were over and I realized that Max wanted and needed this as much as I did. He moved so that he was standing in front of me. I felt his lips close around my nipple, sucking, nipping, biting, drawing my nipple deep into his mouth, making me gasp, the sensations coursing through me like ripples of white light.

As Max pulled away, my body clamoured for more. His lips moved to the other nipple, eagerly licking and sucking his fingers as they worked on the heavy swell of my breasts. As he pulled away, I heard a sound I didn’t immediately recognize. An instant later I felt the unexpected bite of something cold and metallic clamping tightly down onto my nipple. I shrieked in surprise and pain, trying to pull away as little teeth bit down harder, holding the clamp fast, and as I exhaled I heard the tinkle of bells.

I discovered later that they were nipple clamps with a string of tiny silver bells hanging from them.

Now every movement, every shudder and every gasp were echoed in silvery tinkling sounds. The teeth bit into my engorged nipples, sending tiny hot splinters of pain and pleasure through me.

‘Beautiful,’ Max whispered, stroking the bells’ strings, making me gasp.

Max and I had talked a lot about what I liked sexually, areas I wanted to explore, things that were a definite no-no and represented a deal breaker – the hard limits beyond which I wouldn’t go – and those things that I might like to try once my confidence had grown. I’d told him things I had never told anyone else. I’d just signed off on it, hadn’t I? We’d definitely talked about the fact I didn’t want to be tied up until I knew Max better, so I didn’t think twice when something cool and smooth clicked onto one wrist, although I had a blinding flash of revelation as the second cuff snapped home.

I gasped and opened my mouth to protest. Bugger the no talking rule.

‘What the hell do you think you are you doing?’ I gasped, little bells tinkling furiously. I struggled to free my hands, even though I knew it was pointless.

‘That’s what the hell do you think you’re doing, Sir,’ said Max. ‘You said no ropes. And now I’m going to have to punish you for talking without permission too.’

I was stunned. Semantics: Max had got me handcuffed and helpless with semantics. There was some part of me that loved the fact that he had outwitted me and another part that was furious. Not much of me was anxious.

‘Do you want me to stop?’ Max asked, serious now. ‘If you’re not happy I can always take them off.’

I found it hard to speak.

‘Are you OK?’ he repeated, seeking an answer. ‘I’m not going on until you tell me.’

‘Yes, I’m fine, just bloody annoyed,’ I snapped, after a second or two, and added more haltingly, ‘Sir.’

Max laughed. ‘Pleased to hear it,’ he said, ‘and I’m glad to see you’re getting to grips with the Sir thing.’ As he spoke he traced the line of my jaw with a finger.

Despite the trick, I felt more excited than I had in years. I also had no doubt that had I asked Max he would have taken the cuffs off. I couldn’t have gone this far if I didn’t have an underlying trust in him and feel inherently safe. No one else can make that call for you. I trusted him.

‘Are you ready?’ he said.

Ready for what? ‘I think so, yes – Sir,’ I said.

‘Good,’ Max said, and I could hear the warmth and approval in his voice. He led me across the room and had me stand while he settled himself on a chair. He stroked me gently until I was completely still and those little bells finally stopped ringing.

‘I’m going to put you across my knee and then I’m going to spank you. But before I do, I want you to ask me to do it,’ he said.

I froze. ‘I have to ask?’ I said incredulously.

Max laughed. ‘Yes, and you’ve broken the no talking rule again – and not calling me Sir. You’re only supposed to speak when you’re spoken to, and only answer the question you’ve been asked.’

‘I’m going to find that hard.’

‘Really?’ he said, with mock surprise. ‘Now ask me.’

I’d never found it particularly easy to ask for what I wanted sexually. Had I told him that? I tried to remember. Ask? In my fantasies all this happened without a word being spoken.

‘Well?’ pressed Max.

‘I want you to spank me.’

‘Want?’ There was more than a hint of rebuke; submissives can’t demand anything. ‘Ask nicely, Sarah.’

It was the kind of thing adults said to small children and said in almost exactly the same tone. A little charge of humiliation stoked the fire of desire.

‘Please will you spank me?’

‘Better, but not quite good enough. Sir,’ added Max. ‘Ask me again, properly this time.’

‘Please will you spank me, Sir?’ I murmured, squirming with embarrassment.

‘Very good. Here, let me help you.’ Very gently he guided me down over his knees, which was not elegant and certainly not easy in handcuffs, with the little clamps biting into my skin and sending little flares, bright as stars, through my consciousness. When you are blindfolded, pain and pleasure are not just sensations but colours; bright, unexpected flashes of colour.

Then, when I was calm, the bells were still and my breathing had slowed, he pulled down my knickers. I was so stunned that I almost stood up again. I had to remind myself that I’d agreed to all this. I had, I really had.

‘Gently, gently,’ he murmured.

Gently, my arse, I thought, although under the circumstances maybe that wasn’t quite the right phrase. I was flooded with a wave of panic and a horrible squirming embarrassment. In my fantasies I was altogether more lithe and the scene of my spanking more subtly lit; certainly I was not in broad daylight in my sitting room. Had Max been expecting lithe? Did Doms get put off? In fantasies they didn’t, but in the flesh – the acres of flesh, offered my brain helpfully – maybe they did. I could feel myself blushing scarlet. Then I wondered if it was this, the sense of discomfort and humiliation, that Doms got off on? More than that, this felt like my fantasy – the sense of exposure, the vulnerability. I shivered. I was doing it; this was it.

Max, meanwhile, didn’t seem at all put off – quite the reverse, in fact. He made soothing appreciative noises and stroked my thighs and backside, easing the tension from my body, and gradually, remarkably, unexpectedly, I began to relax.

‘Gently,’ he murmured. ‘You’re fine, Sarah. Just fine.’

And just when I had been lulled into stillness, Max hit me, one big flat-handed, stinging, spanking slap that ricocheted through my body. The slap wasn’t hard, but it was enough to make me cry out in surprise and pain – my whole body flexed.

I had been so busy thinking about the fantasy and more recently thinking about the indignity of having my bum up in the air that it hadn’t really occurred to me that spanking would hurt – and it really did hurt. How come I hadn’t factored that into my fantasy?

Then Max slapped me again, slightly harder this time, which sent another hot stinging wave coursing through me. Before I could recover, there was another slap and then another.

Instinctively I squealed and kicked, bucking and writhing against his thighs, wanting him to stop, begging him to stop, yet at the same time wanting him to continue. This was what I had dreamt of, this was what I had wanted, and now it was happening I wasn’t altogether sure that I liked it. It made me squeal and wriggle and gasp for breath, and I kicked some more as my eyes filled with tears. The bells kept on tinkling, more frantically now.

‘If you want me to stop, all you have to do is say the word,’ said Max.

I knew that. I really truly knew that. I could make it stop, so why didn’t I? Because in among the pain there was something else: a glow of need and desire, a rolling, aching want.

Max slapped me again. Being spanked hurt more than I had ever imagined; it wasn’t at all like my fantasy. Yet there was something else lurking under the surface. It was liberating to make a fuss, to be so directly connected to how I felt and to react to it. I’m rationalizing this after the event. At the time it felt like a great raw emotional force steaming through me, and it set me free.

One of the things Max had said to me over lunch was that there was no going back – once you crossed over, there was no unknowing what you discovered about yourself – and I had a glimpse of what he meant. How could anyone sane like something that hurt them? It was impossible to make sense of it, yet it was an amazing, free-fall cascade of sensations with no walls between what I felt and what I was and my reaction to it; it felt as though I was completely connected to every part of myself.

The blows weren’t that hard but they were shocking. I gasped for breath, tears trickling down my face, and then between strokes Max began to massage the hot, stinging flesh of my backside, stroking the hand prints, and slowly started to go further, opening my legs wider – touching me, exploring. Letting go and letting him touch me without boundaries, without hindrance, added to my excitement.

I groaned with pure animal pleasure as he found the warm wet folds of my sex and I felt my whole body start to respond as he stroked me in altogether more intimate ways. The pain had brought me so far, and the pleasure that took over was intense and all the deeper for the spanking. I could feel my heart rate quicken, the warm glow across my backside echoing the one that was beginning to grow low down, deep in my belly.

Max slid a finger inside me, making me moan with pleasure. He slid deeper, deliberately brushing my clitoris as his fingers began to work in and out. I was stunned by how intense the sensations were, as if the pain had amplified what I was feeling. Where did the desire come from? Was this about the pain, the embarrassment, the sense of helplessness? I had never experienced anything quite so all-consuming before, and as I began to move with his caress I could feel his erection pressing against my torso through his trousers.

My whole body was focused on his touch as I moved instinctively, relishing the attentions of his knowing fingertips, the way he teased me into reaching out for each delicious sensation.

God, this was fabulous and the sweetest of tortures! I was so close to the edge now that I thought I would die, gasping, whimpering with pure undiluted pleasure as he brought me closer and closer to oblivion. I had not expected this. My hips lifted in time to his touch, longing for release …

‘Please,’ I whispered, shocked at my own need. ‘Please.’

Max chuckled.

Hadn’t we just agreed that there would be no sex, not today, perhaps not ever? This was down to me. There was a part of me that had been thinking I could have a ‘real’ relationship alongside a BDSM one – naïve but true. In an early conversation Max had pointed out that it was quite possible to have a BDSM relationship and never have full sex or in fact any sexual contact.

Never? I’d asked. Never, he’d said. Other couples did it where one was involved with a partner who didn’t engage in BDSM.

It had all sounded so perfectly feasible when I’d got my clothes on and we’d been deciding whether to have the sea bass or the lamb for lunch. I had taken everything Max had said to heart, and fondly imagined going off to see someone like Max for a weekly spanking and a bit of light bondage, alongside another more conventional relationship, a bit like going to a t’ai chi class or having my legs waxed. I realized now that for me that would be close to impossible. I was aching for him.

‘Please,’ I sobbed. ‘Please.’

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘And that’s the fourth time you’ve broken the rules.’

‘Please, Sir,’ I gasped.

How could you feel like this, share this intimacy, this exposure with someone, and then go home to a boyfriend or a husband, girlfriend or wife? I realized I couldn’t switch off my emotions and isolate my sexual need; I needed to have both together in the same relationship.

My body was aching for Max in a great rush of animal lust – something that in all the years I’d been having sex, even lust-driven hungry sex, I don’t think I’d ever felt before. It was earthier and more physical than anything I had ever experienced. And I could sense Max’s excitement growing along with my own. I heard his breath quicken to match mine. Maybe this was where mutual desire overturned the rules?

Eagerly I leaned into his caress. I brushed myself against his engorged cock. It felt like a challenge. Maybe I could make him break the rules. How hard could it be? I was an instant away from the long, tumbling descent towards orgasm. I wanted him to take me there. I wanted to take him with me.

I arched my back. I pressed down onto his lap, brushing myself against his fingertips, seeking his caress, gasping as he stroked my clitoris, riding the great waves that threatened to drown me. I groaned, feeling the first ripples – which was exactly the moment Max stopped.

I howled in protest.

Max laughed and let me slide gently onto the floor.

‘I said not yet,’ he said, in answer to my indignation and frustration.

‘Not yet?’ I gasped, ragged, hot and desperate.

‘It’s your own fault. You can’t stick to the rules. No talking. And here, with me, I’m the Dom and things happen according to my timetable, not yours.’

‘Are you planning to punish me some more, Sir?’ I said, thinking about how much I’d enjoyed my punishment up until now.

‘Possibly. By stopping now and going home if you can’t be quiet.’ He knelt down beside me and unlocked my handcuffs, gently massaging each wrist in turn before taking off my mask. I blinked in the light and peered up at him. His eyes were alight with mischief and delight. I suspected mine were ringed with mascara.

‘How are you feeling? Are you OK?’

‘Yes, Sir,’ I said. He was right: it was getting easier.

‘Good. Would you like to touch yourself?’

My eyes widened. No, I would not.

‘Well, would you?’ he repeated.

I’d never admitted to anyone that I masturbated. Not that it had ever come up much in conversation. God, what if he asked me to do it in front of him? I said nothing but my face obviously gave me away.

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ he said. ‘From now on I forbid you to masturbate unless I give you express permission.’

I bristled. ‘Are you serious?’

‘You are going to be such a pleasure to train,’ said Max, laughing. ‘I’m making a note of every time you break the rules, you know. And you will pay for every last one you break.’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘Yes, really. And that, in case you hadn’t noticed, is another one.’

He helped me to my feet, and as he did he kneaded the tender muscles of my backside, making me wince and momentarily forget the warm, dull, throbbing ache between my legs. Finally he removed the nipple clamps, which made me yelp with pain and then gasp as the blood flooded back into the sensitive flesh. Then he rubbed them, which I thought was a kindness until I realized that actually it made the discomfort much, much worse.

‘While we’re playing I want you to keep your eyes down and your hands behind your back, as a sign of humility and submission. And now I’d like a cup of tea. Earl Grey. Black.’

I stared at him. My legs were jelly, my whole body was tingling, I’d been a nanosecond from orgasm and the man wanted tea?

‘Be careful,’ he said. Obviously the disbelief showed on my face. ‘Remember, humility and submission. Do you have lemon?’

I managed not to swear. Frustrated and annoyed, I teetered into the kitchen and made Max a pot of tea, on a tray with a bone-china cup and saucer, retrieved from a box of nonsense that hadn’t seen the light of day for years. I was being sarcastic. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything.

‘Very nice,’ he said, as I slid the tray onto a little table alongside the sofa.

‘I’m fresh out of doilies,’ I said.

‘Next time,’ he said, pouring himself a cup. ‘And by the way that’s another two for the punishment list. Sir and no speaking, remember? When you’re not otherwise occupied I would like you to kneel beside me.’

‘Kneel?’

He nodded. ‘Assuming you want to continue with your training? Or have you changed your mind?’

I could hear from his tone that he was serious. I knelt.

‘Would you like to hear about how I got into BDSM?’ he asked, setting the cup and saucer back on the side table.

What I wanted was for him to finish what he had started, but I could hardly say that, so instead I said, ‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Is the right answer,’ he said.

Chapter Six

‘Nature, who for the perfect maintenance of the laws of her general equilibrium, has sometimes need of vices and sometimes of virtues, inspires now this impulse, now that one, in accordance with what she requires.’