‘Feel good?’ he said.
‘Yes, Sir,’ I whispered. They felt like silk. They set my nerves tingling. So good. So very soft. I closed my eyes. In my books I had imagined this moment a hundred times.
‘Let go. I won’t do anything to you that you don’t want or can’t cope with, and you always have the safe words – remember that. Let me show you what you’re capable of loving …’
I shivered, lulled by his voice, soft, warm and dark.
‘Come with me.’ It was an invitation to surrender. Some part of me understood what he wanted but I wasn’t sure that I could, or that I was ready. How do you learn to let go and lose yourself in sensation? There was a split second when I was aware of the narrow suede leather strips sliding away and an instant later a stinging, stunning, white-hot crackle of leather across my back. The tails of the flogger wrapped around me so that the very end of the thongs caught my ribs and breast. The feeling took my breath away.
‘If you don’t count them, then the strokes don’t count either,’ Max said, as the flogger landed for a second time.
‘Two, Sir,’ I gasped, every cell, every fibre of my body awakened by the flogger’s kiss.
The leather strips found their mark again.
‘Three,’ I hissed.
The suede thongs that had felt so smooth and so very soft when stroked over my back grazed into my skin like hot fingers. I could hear them moving through the air an instant before feeling them hit home, and between strokes I could hear Max breathing from the effort of using the flogger, as my skin grew hot and tingled.
I heard the swish of the tails again and closed my eyes.
‘Four.’ The expectation and the sensation were building with every stroke, a rush of endorphins cascading, intense and all consuming, and blowing away all thoughts; everything was gone but the here and now, the feel of the flogger, the sound of my ragged breathing, the count and the glowing heat of each stroke as it rolled through me.
‘Five,’ I cried out. Tingling all over now, my skin feeling as if it was glowing red hot, I was gasping, trying hard to retain my control.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Let go. I’m here …’
‘Six.’ I am losing myself in pain. All there is is the sound of my voice and the explosive sensation of the flogger, and I know I can call a halt but I don’t want to, I don’t – and then Max hits me again, leather and heat, crackling, rippling through my nerve endings.
‘Seven.’ The word is a gasp. I am being sucked under by the flogger’s kiss but I’m nearly home now. Just three more strokes …
‘Eight.’ The stroke is harder still, I think, but I can’t gauge it, I’m so lost inside what I am feeling. I am sobbing for breath and for him to stop, but I don’t say the safe words. I feel a great rush of euphoria.
‘Nine’ – I am almost done.
‘Ten,’ and my knees buckle and Max is there to catch me.
‘Good girl,’ he murmurs. ‘Good girl.’ Now his lips are on my neck and shoulders, scattering feathery kisses that light beacons in my mind. His fingers find my breasts, and he is teasing the nipples, twisting and tugging, and I feel the great surge of desire I felt earlier rekindle. I’m trembling as he guides me to a side table and lifts me up onto it, pressing me down onto the cool solid wood so that my back, red hot, striped and alight with sensations, slides down onto the cold shiny surface.
The chill is a stark contrast to the heat from the welts, but before I can surrender to the coolness Max spreads my legs and stands between them, leaning over me, stroking my shoulders and breasts, touching, nipping, and then kissing, licking and sucking hard my dark stiff nipples.
I arch up towards him as the feelings of pleasure flood through me, hot on the heels of the pain – intense and heady. His fingers are between my legs now and I’m breathing hard as he draws first one nipple and then the other into his mouth; I am wet – his fingers slide into me, his thumb brushing my clitoris.
I am gasping, white hot with need and hunger, and then slowly but relentlessly his tongue follows his fingers. He is kissing and sucking my nipples, pressing his lips to the junction between my breasts, kissing and licking down over my ribs.
He laps at my navel, pressing kisses into my belly, fluttering down to the rise of my sex, opening me up, all the while murmuring softly, whispering words of encouragement and approval, and then his tongue slides down over my clitoris, and I am lost – totally, totally lost.
I cry out in pleasure. He pulls back a little, making me work for his touch. My hips lift to chase his tongue and I am wanton, opening to him. He laps and licks and sucks, taking me higher and higher until I think I might faint. His hands cup my backside, pressing into the handprints from the spanking, pulling me onto his mouth, fucking me with his tongue, lapping at my clitoris, I am moaning and begging – and all at once I am there, and totally, totally consumed. As I tumble over the edge into oblivion I know that Max is right: I will never be the same again.
‘But seduction isn’t making someone do what they don’t want to do. Seduction is enticing someone into doing what they secretly want to do already.’
Waiter Rant
When Max finally left I put on a bathrobe, made a pot of tea and went to sit in the garden. Despite the bright sunshine I felt shivery and feverish. One of the last things Max had said as he was leaving was that I should eat something, which made me smile. Of all the words of support and encouragement I was hoping for, ‘You should have a sandwich’ wasn’t one of them.
As he slipped on his jacket, he said, ‘I’ll ring you this evening. And if you want to talk to me before that then all you have to do is call. I’ll pick up.’ He paused and traced the line of my jaw with his fingertip. ‘I’m not going to play you or make you wait or make you doubt either me or yourself. You don’t have to agonize about what I think of you, or whether I’ll ring you or talk to you, or whether something wasn’t right. It was perfect, beautiful – and you’re beautiful.’
I smiled, and leant into his caress. I felt weepy.
Max leaned in closer and kissed me on the cheek. I shivered.
‘Are you OK?’
I nodded, oblivious to the answering-with-words rule. He tipped my face up towards him so that he could look into my eyes. ‘Do you want to talk now? I can stay if you want me to.’
‘No, I’m fine. Really, truly,’ I said, with a shake of the head. It was true. I needed to think about this on my own, not talk it over. ‘But you’re right. It was a big step.’
He waited.
‘And I’m really OK with it. It’s what I wanted – what I want,’ I said. ‘It’s just a lot to take in.’
‘Do you want me to make you that sandwich?’
I laughed. ‘No, really. I’m fine. Please, go. I’ll talk to you later.’
‘OK.’
Max looked so innocuous as he picked up his leather holdall and made his way to the door. No one would guess what was in it, nor what this tall, distinguished man in his beautifully cut suit had spent the afternoon doing to me.
When he had gone, I started to cry.
I suppose I was in shock. I’d taken a huge first step after a lifetime of anticipation; finally all the things I had fantasized and dreamt about had happened – were happening. Was it good? Yes, better than I could have hoped. Was it as I had imagined? No, it wasn’t. Real-life sex and BDSM aren’t seamless and wordless,