Back to Vanilla (13 page)

Alasdair paid the cab
driver and, resting his arm very lightly around her back, he
steered Tamsin into the block of flats, the clutter piled behind
his front door barely fazing her. She followed him through the
small living area into his neatly organised kitchen, where he
offered her a drink.

“But only if you
promise to stop me when I start pouring my own,” she smiled,
accepting a glass of Cabernet, and going back into the lounge,
where two high-backed armchairs faced each other in front of the
1980s-style gas heater.

“Surely you feel
comfortable taking off that coat now, my dear, or are you still a
bit chilly?” he asked.

“I think… Not quite. I
think maybe later,” she said, lowering her eyes. A vaguely puzzled
look flitted briefly across his face, but he nodded his agreement,
placed his half-filled glass down on the table between them, and
sat opposite her.

He noticed that she
was listening carefully to the slightly discordant yet darkly
beautiful folk music playing gently in the background. “RM
Hubbert,” he said. “One of the current heroes of the Scottish
scene.” She nodded her appreciation, and then, smoothly and
naturally, their conversation drifted into an almost academic chat
about PhetX, the people they knew, the experiences they had had,
and – slowly, slowly, slowly – around to Tamsin’s burgeoning
interest in the world of BDSM.

“But ultimately, I
mean, what do I know?” she said, taking a sip from her second
glass. “I sneak around the outskirts of that whole world, soaking
up the photos and the words, and, hell, you know how I’ve agonised
over even the smallest of steps… Why would a woman choose to be
dominated by a man when we’ve only recently earned the right to
avoid such situations?

“But… I just connect,
you know, sometimes I feel like I just totally connect with some of
the writings. I was reading a piece last night, lying in bed, after
we’d finished chatting. I don’t even know the woman, but I ended up
on her page, after following link after link after link, and what
she’s writing about, it’s just her totally letting go and how
everything else vanishes and she’s simply there, in that moment,
with her guy, giving over every little bit of herself and tipping
over into... into… what? I have no idea, but I want to experience
something like that.

“But I can’t see me
doing that, just flowing with it, you know? Giving up control and
succumbing. I’m just… I feel like I’m so… and I’m not used to
feeling so… like I am...”

“Out of your
depth?”

“Out of my depth,
Meister…” The word slipped out so easily in this context. “Totally
and utterly fucking out of my depth.”

“Uh huh,” he said,
raising himself and moving the two-and-a-half steps it took him to
be standing in front of her.

“It’s time you took
off that coat, LittleGirl. I think you know that, don’t you?”

Those wide dark eyes
gazed up at him between her long lashes, and then, again, lowered a
little, this time in obvious deference to his request. Standing in
front of her, he leant down and rested the fingers of his left hand
lightly underneath her chin, tilting her head gently to look into
those eyes a moment and more.

Unable, at first, to
look directly at him, her pupils focused on something and nothing
in the corner to the left. Lifting his hand from her chin, he
softly moved his index finger underneath her right lower lashes,
forcing her both look at him and smile a bit.

“Take off the coat,
Girl, and let’s see what you’ve brought here to please your
master,” he murmured, tender, yes, but with the presumption of
obedience in his tone, and he stepped back a little as she fumbled
with the velvet-covered buttons, letting the coat fall open before
slipping it off her shoulders and allowing it to drop to the
carpet.

She was small-waisted
to begin with, but the boned upper corset, with its steel hook and
eye front closing, pulled her into a pronounced hourglass shape,
knocking, he guessed, maybe three inches from her middle and
forcing her almost glowingly white-skinned breasts so tightly
together that all he could think about was how she would feel when
he unlaced her back and set them loose.

He ran the fingertips
of his left hand across her clavicle, from one bare shoulder to the
other, avoiding the allure of the heightened cleavage, but pausing
to rub the black lace that hemmed the purple silk and velvet
garment between his finger and thumbs.

“A beautiful choice,
my dear,” he said, “and it fits you so well.” And here his hand
slid quite precisely down her side to the dark netting that
encircled the lower half of the dress, which was neither knee
length nor short enough to be a mini.

“And now, you know
what your master would like, I think…” Alasdair took Tamsin’s hand
and walked with her through to the bedroom, which was dominated by
a large pine-framed bed on to which were attached, she noticed,
four black leather restraints – two at the headboard and two at the
foot.

In the room, he stood
with his back to a full-length mirror and, with her gaze following
his hands, he undid the zip on his suit trousers, keeping the
jacket on, and told her to remove her boots.

“And now, that
delightful mouth of yours, slut, needs to be filled, for which,
you’ll be wanting to get on your knees.”

For ten minutes, maybe
more, she had not said a word. Kneeling down in front of him, she
looked up as he nodded with straight-faced encouragement, his eyes
making it totally clear that she was to take the almost fully erect
cock from his zip.

Using her right hand,
she did this, looked up at him again, to be clear, and grasped the
shaft, pumping with her hand. Briefly. Just enough to pump him
fully up. Just enough. And then she let go with her right hand,
looked up at him and slid her mouth right the way down and back up
again.

He let this happen
several times, before touching her on the head, and at this, she
opened her eyes. She found herself staring directly at her own
image in the mirror behind him, which made her pause briefly, and
here, totally aware of why she had slowed, he grasped her hair
tighter so his hand created a small ponytail at the top of her
head, which he used to pull her mouth back into action.

“Don’t be shy,” he
murmured, as she bobbed. “Eyes open, and take it all it your
mouth.”

Tamsin watched
herself, not thinking, just watching, the pace set by his urging
grip, until, guided by that same hand, she stood up and turned her
back to him.

She let out a deep,
heartfelt sigh as he unlaced the back of the dress that had been
clinging so tightly to her for the past 10 hours. “Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure, my
dear, and now we make you even happier,” her Meister said, still
devoid of expression. He laid her on the bed, legs fastened open by
the foot cuffs, hands stretched and tied above her head. “You’re
comfortable?”

She had decided,
despite his guidance to the contrary, against a safe-word, although
they had discussed at length how far she felt she could go, and
Tamsin knew she could slip easily from the Velcro bindings of the
ties above her head. Still not saying a word, she watched as, back
to her, he rummaged in the chest at the foot of the bed. The entire
length of her tingled and she was consumed by curiosity and
excitement as she stared at his bent spine.

What he produced
looked so much like a vintage carpet beater, made from interwoven
willow reeds, that she sniggered, partly with disbelief, but he
stilled this with a raised eyebrow.

“Uh huh, but you know
this is happening, cunty-girl, because why else have you come?” And
he flicked the paddle, first over the soles of her feet, which made
her giggle louder, and then a quick, sharp snap across her lightly
furry pubic mound, causing her to flinch with the shock.

“Not happy?” he asked.
Her eyes had hardened sharply and for a moment it looked like she
wanted to slip out of those bounds and punch him.

Taking a long, deep,
focusing breath, she relaxed back into role. “Happy,” she
replied.

At this assurance, he
repeated the same action three times – never hard, though each with
a hint more force than the previous – and her eyes never left his
hand. He loosened her bindings, put a blindfold on her and turned
her freed body around, so she that lay, face down, before
refastening her.

She couldn’t say how
long he lightly tapped the backs of her legs with the beater, each
whack slightly harder, moving up towards her bottom, where he
paused and she waited. Her whole skin prickled, her breath on hold,
awaiting the next move of the beater, knowing that this would be a
harsh one on soft flesh and readying herself for it.

The shock of a soft
feather, maybe two or three, suddenly running down her thighs and
calves released the air from her lungs and, no longer giggling but
smiling, she relaxed into that feeling, knowing it wouldn’t last,
soaking it up while it did.

And then thwack. With
no clue what would happen next, she allowed him to untie and
refasten her, as her body flinched and relaxed and she mmm-ed and
ahhh-ed. No thought. No concept of time. Just there.

Every inch of her skin
was alive and desperate for something… touch, softer, harder… and
when, at last, he penetrated her, it was first with his fingers,
one, two, three, maybe four, maybe his whole fist, and then, or
maybe first, she later discovered, with a three-wick candle. By
this time, she was gone.

Trusting this man
implicitly right now, she lost all sense of what was what and when
and how and just felt. They were on slightly different journeys,
perhaps, but with a mutual focus that was tangible, that charged
and crackled through the air, fuelling each action.

Whether it was his
hand or something else, it was the repeated thrusting invasion of
her body that finally pushed her over and into an exposed mass of
sighing, sobbing, panting with a raw awareness of every tiny part
of herself, so that when it slowed, this thrusting, and she
gradually left that zone, still weeping gently, her body and mind
reconnected in an absolute and utter state of relaxation and
relief.

“Happy girl?” he said,
lying beside her on the bed and rolling on to his side to free her
arms and legs. And, too weary to speak, she nodded her
very-happy-girlness in response, her lazy, faraway-eyed smile
backing this up.

“You truly were, you
are, a very, very good LittleGirlLost… you know that, don’t you?”
he asked tenderly, looking directly into her eyes, stroking under
her chin with his middle and index finger. “Very good. Your
Kindly_Meister is immensely pleased with his own precious little
slut.

“Right now, though,”
he said, taking off the shirt and trousers he had worn throughout,
stroking her hair back from her damp face, and sliding himself
inside her, “we give that cunt of yours what she’s truly crying out
for.”

It was 27 minutes
before their planned first date when Megan got off the bus at the
stop two doors down the road from Costa Coffee. She took a breath
so deep it presented as a sigh, followed by several slower, more
steadying breaths. At the last exhalation, she pulled her head up
straight and walked in, directly to the counter, looking in no
direction save forwards. She was deliberately early enough to be
there, waiting, when he appeared.

She ordered a medium
latte and sat, facing the door, before scanning the coffee shop. It
was a Tuesday morning during summer half term, and the place was
half-empty. Several men in suits tapped away on smartphones, but
most of the occupied tables were filled with chattering mothers and
bickering kids. Anticipating this, Megan had gone several stops out
of her own school’s catchment area, to avoid the delighted calls of
“Mrs O’Hare!” that generally greeted her wherever she went, as
amazed children realised that school staff occasionally also
ventured out of their classrooms and into the real world.

Three quarters of an
hour later, he still hadn’t arrived; her cup was empty and her
casual face was starting to look less so. Trying not to stare at
the time on her phone was becoming pointless, and she directed her
eyes down at the screen, as if the meaning of life were etched into
it.

And this was how he
found her. She looked up and Randy_Waterhouse was standing there
looking down at her. She was pleased to note that he looked like
his photo, and what she saw was the tall, skinny, blond late-40s
guy she’d been chatting to for three-and-a-half weeks, mostly
online but the odd phone call too, although if she were honest with
herself, she’d have admitted that nothing had ever come close to
the frenzy of that first time. But she had tried, and with each
message, each photo, each exchange, they had taken things further
and further and further.

“So, here we here,” he
said, as she looked up and smiled. “Finally here.”

“Waterhouse… Mark…”
she said. “I don’t know what to call you. In my head… in my head I
think you’ll always be Randy_Waterhouse. But, please, don’t just
stand there; you’re making me even more nervous. Do sit,
please.”

He got them both a
coffee, while she simply sat and watched the guy who had, just the
night before, spoken of mercilessly anally fisting her after a
bukake session in the woods behind his house, while they both, with
maybe 15 miles between them, rubbed and tugged and buzzed
themselves to separate but well-timed orgasms.

As their
communications had burgeoned over the previous weeks, they had
shared greater and greater extremes of fantasy. And in her case, 43
years old now and having notched up 20 years of monogamy, it had
been purely that: fantasy.

She’d first met Rich
at 15, when he’d been a university friend of her big brother Joe’s.
At four years older, they’d hit it off instantly as friends, her
being well used to the joshing of older boys, and their paths had
occasionally drifted together over the six years that followed.
When Joe chose Rich as his best man, it had been a while since he’d
seen her, and it was certainly the first time, at 22, that he’d met
the woman who had grown out of the girl he had known. He liked what
he found.