Sold to the Sheikh (5 page)

“Then look, Stella. Look.”

And the Sheikh pulled her roughly into the crook of his arm, against the warm heat of his hard body and the silky feel of his expensive suit, pinning her helplessly. He gently took her chin in his other hand, and turned her head towards the one place she’d been avoiding: the other occupied booth, on the other side of the room.

It looked like a group of normal businessmen enjoying an expensive dinner, except that they were being waited on by several women in what Stella thought of as the slutty Halloween version of a cocktail waitress uniform. Except with even less clothing.

She winced. She couldn’t help but think about the things she’d tried to do for Robert, to help reignite the spark, or whatever the magazines were calling it now. Stella actually
had
rented a sexy maid outfit from a Halloween store. She actually
had
pranced around, waiting for him to get home. And then, when he finally had, hours later, without calling, he’d just been annoyed that now he was expected to do something else.

The humiliation had been excruciating. Somehow Stella had been supremely rejectable, even in a French maid’s outfit and fuck-me heels.

But now, watching these women serve drinks in their tight tank tops with the nipples cut out, and their short skirts and garters, Stella thought back on how sexy she’d found the idea of serving her man. Maybe not necessarily Robert, specifically, not in retrospect, but…her man. That’s why she’d rented the maid’s outfit, and not the nurse’s. She was getting a little excited just watching the scene over there.

“Ah,” the Sheikh said.

You have got to be kidding me
, Stella thought, reddening.
Does he really, legitimately read minds?
She squirmed a little against his grip, but that did not help. It only made her think about his touch, and how, only minutes ago, he’d nearly made her come with just his fingers and a slight pull on her hair.

And then told her he wouldn’t let her come until he commanded it.

Stella’s skin went hot. Why did the idea of that drive her wild?

“Stella, do not retreat into your thoughts,” the Sheikh said into her ear, squeezing her to him with a delightful pressure. “I don’t think you have looked hard enough. Look at the table, Stella.”

One of the servant girls stepped aside, and Stella looked.

Oh. My. God.

The table wasn’t a table. It was a naked woman, lying on top of a table, covered in sushi. The businessmen ate off of her as though she weren’t even a person, as though her body were just part of the meal. Whoever she was, she was naked, in public, on display, like an object, a possession.

Like I’m his possession
, Stella thought, and immediately her pussy began to pulse, angry for attention.

“It’s called
nyotaimori
,” the Sheikh said. Stella could feel his warm breath, so close to her face, and his hands on her chin, still gentle. She wished he’d let his hands roam a little further, and was instantly ashamed of herself.

“I see that you have a reaction to this, Stella,” the Sheikh said. “What is it that excites you?”

“I don’t know if I’m excited,” Stella lied. “She’s just…in
public
…”

Stella could swear she felt him smile. Something in his body changed. She was suddenly even more aware of it, next to hers, as though it exerted a real, physical force on her.
Sheikh Bashir
, she thought,
physical miracle.

“What do you find amusing, Stella?”

“Nothing.”

“Get up out of the booth,” he said, and suddenly he was using that tone. That tone that brooked no disobedience. Stella froze for a moment while her brain realigned and reminded her of what she had agreed to. Slowly, she scooted her way out of the booth, sad to be leaving the warmth of Sheikh Bashir’s body behind. She stood and turned to face him, inexplicably contrite.
I haven’t even done anything wrong
, she thought.
What the hell is happening to me?

The sight of Sheikh Bashir stilled all her thoughts. Somehow, he was imposing even while seated.

And those
eyes
.

“Strip,” he said.

What?

Stella shook her head, glancing at the other occupants of the Black Room. They’d notice if she just took her clothes off. This wasn’t like before, in the privacy of a room. Surely he didn’t mean…

His face said that he did.

“As I guessed, Stella, you have both an attraction and repulsion to revealing yourself in public. Believe me when I say that we will address this in the future. But for right now,” he said as he slipped out of the booth and stood far above her, “you have disobeyed a direct order, as I thought you would. And so it is time to see how you react to discipline.”

C
HAPTER 6

Stella gulped.
Discipline.
That word again. She had kind of just dismissed it as a joke, but the Sheikh didn’t appear to be joking at all.

“Listen,” she said. “I don’t know if this is really…”

“You signed the contract,” he said. Without even looking at her, he grabbed her wrist and began walking towards the various pieces of equipment at their end of the room.

“I’m an adult!” she said, and tried to twist from his grip.

The Sheikh turned. He didn’t look angry. He didn’t look upset. He only looked…completely certain.

He said, “You are an adult who signed a contract.”

And he pulled her to him, twisting her arm behind her back and rendering her immobile. Then he fixed her with that stare again, and Stella couldn’t look away. It would have felt as though she were admitting her own inconstancy, her own inability to control herself, to even know herself. Somehow that was worse than whatever he had planned. And somehow, that look, those eyes, told her that he knew it, too.

And the plain fact was, she had her safeword. So why didn’t she want to use it?

“Do I have to throw you over my shoulder like a petulant child, Stella?” he asked.

She grit her teeth. “No, Sheikh,” she said. “I signed a contract.”

Stella closed her eyes. It was almost worse, in a way, than if he’d dragged her, kicking and screaming. He hadn’t had to. He’d simply pointed out that he already had a deeper control over her.

“Open your eyes, Stella.”

She did. In front of her was a two tiered padded bench of sorts. To her left was a table, laid out with various instruments. A flogger. A cane. Something else that looked horrendous. She blanched.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Even the idea…

Sheikh Bashir gripped her chin again, and examined her face.

“Tell me what it is that you think you object to,” he said.

“Pain,” she blurted out. “I don’t…you shouldn’t inflict
pain
on other human beings. It’s not right. There’s already so much pain in the world…”

Stella’s eyes began to swell with tears, and she pressed her lips together, determined not to cry.
I must look like a two year old
, she thought, and it was infuriating. Why cry? Why would this make her cry? What right did she have to be disappointed in someone she’d known for less than a day?

“Look at me, Stella,” he commanded. She forced herself to comply. Sheikh Bashir’s own eyes were soft, and seemed…sad? Now what the hell was going on?

“It cannot surprise you to learn that some people derive pleasure from certain kinds of controlled pain,” he said.

“I know,” Stella said, sniffling. “I don’t understand it, but I know.”

“But you are not one of them,” he added.

“No.”

“There are many iterations of the dynamic between Dominant and submissive, Stella. Some Dominants adhere to a form of discipline that involves genuine unpleasantness for their submissives. I take the view that if such measures are necessary, the relationship is already a failure. To me, discipline is another way to teach, and to learn. And to grow closer.”

He let those words hang in the air between them. Stella couldn’t be sure if they were meant for her, or if he spoke to some woman from his past.
We’re all haunted by the ghosts of past relationships, aren’t we?

And then:
Wait, grow closer? With me?

Sheikh Bashir stroked her cheek, his eyes softening. “I would never hurt you, Stella, or any other woman who did not want to be hurt. It is important to me that you know that.”

“Ok,” Stella managed. “Thank you.”

“Good,” he said, and stepped back. “Now bend over the bench.”

Stella actually imagined a record scratching. What had they just been talking about? She tried to step back, but Sheikh Bashir caught her wrist.

“You must decide if you trust me, Stella Spencer. As my submissive, you will bend over this bench, and you will be disciplined. Otherwise you will leave, and our contract will be terminated.”

Stella felt totally unmoored, untethered, battered about. It was ludicrous. All of this was just absurd. She had no frame of reference for situations like this, no idea what the rules were for these kinds of relationships. She looked at Sheikh Bashir’s patient and immovable face, and it looked like it contained the whole world. She realized:
I don’t have any idea what to do all the time anyway.
She hadn’t felt like she could rely on her perceptions of people or relationships since Robert had shown her how wrong she could be about both. It was like the Sheikh only pointed out to her what her life was already like, as though, so far, every interaction with him was simply life with the volume turned way up, and with all the boring bits taken out.

Had she felt able to trust any one else since the divorce? Had she even considered the possibility? Of course she hadn’t. And that seemed a terrible way to go through life.

Slowly, Stella nodded. Her feet seemed to move forward of their own accord. Her arms gripped the edge of the upper tier of the bench, and she carefully placed each knee, one and then the other, on the lower tier.

And then she bent over, resting her stomach on the upper tier, her breasts pushed forward and her eyes facing forward. She had a perfect view of the rest of the room. She would know if anyone looked back and saw her.

“Good girl,” she heard the Sheikh say.

He placed his hand on the back of her neck, slipping it under her hair, and that touch made all the difference. Stella focused on the feel of his warm, rough hand as he slid it down her back, over her hip, and onto her ass, and on the fire that he left in his wake. She’d never been this responsive with anyone.

“Stella, I have made a few observations,” the Sheikh said, his unmoving hand still drawing all her attention. “You have an unquiet mind in times of stress. You are insecure. You are so preoccupied with these insecurities that I suspect it is difficult for you to feel ‘in the moment.’ And that,” he continued, “is unfortunate.”

Now the hand moved down the sensitive underside of her thigh until it reached the hem of her tight dress.

“Because I demand your full attention, Stella,” he said, and began to pull her dress up.

She may have squeaked. Her naked ass was exposed to the air now, and her pussy, too. Stella gripped the end of the bench as if her life depended on it, and prayed the men on the other side of the room wouldn’t look up.

Is this really happening?
she thought.
Is he really going to—

He spanked her. Hard.

The blow echoed up and down her body, obliterating all thought, all feeling, all sensation apart from where his hand connected with her ass. That it had really happened was stunning, a sideways shove that pushed her completely out of the realm of the ordinary world and forced her to take every new stimulation on its own terms.

And then he did it again. She felt his open palm cup her ass, heard the smack of flesh against flesh. Briefly she wondered whether any of the businessmen, busy with their debauched meal, might hear, might care to look up, but before her mind could follow that thought down a trail of what-ifs and worry, he spanked her again.

“What did you do wrong, Stella?” he asked, and smacked her on the other cheek.

“I…”

“I asked you a direct question.” His hand connected again, this time lower, where her cheeks joined. The vibrations went straight through her pussy, and she felt her thighs shake.

“I disobeyed an order,” Stella gasped.

He hit her again. She was beginning to feel light all over, as though teased with thousands of feathers, and she was having trouble focusing on anything other than the pulsing ache that gathered around her pussy.

“Will you repeat that mistake?”

She shook her head. It was not enough. “Perhaps I need to call those gentleman in the booth to act as witnesses,” he said. “Perhaps I should invite them to take a turn?”

She startled, and reflexively tried to push herself off the bench, but he pushed her back down and held her there. She whimpered, and one large hand took hold of her shoulder while the other delivering a loud smack against her ass before burying two fingers in her pussy.

“No, Stella,” he whispered in her ear. “That is my prerogative, if I wish.” His fingers swirled slowly inside her, building up that pressure. She wanted to come so badly, and yet, if she did, she’d have disobeyed another order, and who knew what he would do then.

“Please,” she panted.

“I think you care entirely too much about what other people think, Stella,” the Sheikh said. “But that is something I can use. And I will. But not yet.”

And suddenly, he was gone. Stella looked wildly over her shoulder; he was already walking toward what she guessed was the entrance, with the unstated implication that she was to follow him. The sudden shift left no room for thought. Hastily she pushed her dress down and trotted after him, trying to maintain some semblance of dignity while her body still burned and her ass still stung.