Switch - a full length bdsm erotic novel (16 page)

It was a fact that I’d had sex in the office with Joe. If Marcus had proof of that, would we both be fired? But what proof did he actually have?

I thought of my knickers in my boss’s hand, his fingers touching the material that had touched my cunt. Was that sex? The slave spending the night trying to force his fingers into his virgin arsehole. Was that sex? A room of shadows, me naked, tied up, the weight of my master crushing my breasts as he whispered into my ear all my most forbidden desires.

‘You know nothing.’ The words spilled over with a disdain and pity that emerged from the depth of my being, emotions so deep I hadn’t been aware they thrived inside me until that moment.

His chest puffed out and he met my gaze. ‘I’ve spoken to Joe.’

‘Did your mother not warn you about what happens to little boys who lie?’

‘Do you want your boyfriend to lose his job?’

‘Joe is a big man, more than capable of looking after himself.’

Marcus stood up and stepped closer to me. I remained still and strong. He opened his mouth and I smelt the sharp tang of mouthwash and the fire of whiskey. He closed his lips and took a deep breath before he spoke.

‘I have the power to fire you and to fire him. This is your only chance to keep your and your boyfriend’s CVs clean. You’re a clever girl; you know it’s an employer’s market out there at the moment. If you and Joe want your futures to include anything that can be called a career, you’ll take this one opportunity I’m giving you.’

I moved my body a fraction closer to his. ‘Explain this chance, this opportunity, you’re kindly giving me.’

‘You’re going to be my whore. You’ll do everything I tell you whenever I tell you.’ His voice quivered.

I smiled. ‘You and I watch the same porn films, Marcus.’ I rested the tip of my nail on the bow of his upper lip. ‘Maybe not quite the same. I do admit that I enjoy the ones where bosses indulge their whims with buxom, flexible secretaries. I like it when he pounds the breath out of her and her big, preferably natural, breasts are shaking and bouncing. But I much prefer the ones where those same big, preferably natural, breasts are bound with thick ropes and pinched with a dozen metal clamps.’ I moved my hand and caressed the lace of my knickers across the crotch of his trousers. Then I jerked my hand away and took two steps backwards. ‘Undress.’

His fingers went to his belt buckle, then paused. ‘I’m the one with power. I tell you what to do.’

I laughed a short, hard laugh. ‘If this isn’t what you want, keep your clothes on and I’ll go and clear my desk.’

I turned around and listened as I heard the expected sound of his trousers falling to the floor.

‘I’m going to fuck you so hard.’ His voice was a growl, a holiday camp mimic of the force and authority of my lover.

‘I want you naked.’ I looked over my shoulder at him.

Marcus leant on his desk and pulled his right shoe off. His legs were muscular and covered with dark hairs. He repeated the manoeuvre with his other shoe but left his black socks on. He removed his tie, undoing the knot completely and laying it carefully over the back of his chair. Next his jacket went, then his shirt. He started at the bottom button. This little idiosyncrasy was the first thing that had endeared him to me.

When his shirt was removed, his torso fully revealed, I turned completely around and gazed at him. A red, raw scar split his chest in two. He hunched his shoulders in, pushed his shoulders back, hunched them in again, neither one thing or the other, not proud or ashamed. Or rather, both proud and ashamed. He’d survived. He was disgusted by his own mortality.

I stepped forward. My fingers traced down either side of the scar. ‘Why didn’t you tell anyone you had heart surgery? Which business trip did it happen on? Are you older than you look or very young to have heart problems?’ My questions came out as a succession of soft whispers.

He opened his mouth to reply; I put my hand over his lips and shook my head. ‘I don’t care about the answers. I’m not your wife, or girlfriend. I never intended to have sex with you. I was just going to humiliate you; that’s my thing lately.’ I dropped my hand from his mouth and put it gently around his throat, applying no pressure, just letting it rest there. ‘I get it now, though. I understand. Why you’re being so different, trying on a different personality. You needed the power thrill of blackmailing an employee into sex; you thought it might make things feel better.’ I moved my fingers to his shoulders and pushed him back a few steps and into his chair. ‘My father died of a heart attack.’ I let my fingers hover in the air above his scar, then down to the crotch of his Calvin Kleins before drawing my hand back to my side. ‘I do pity you. Not in a bad way. In a kind, sympathetic way. I would give you a handjob, but you’re married, and although I do a lot of things, I don’t do that.’

I smiled a private smile at discovering a sexual limit within myself. Marcus looked at me with wide eyes. With fear? I winked at him and lightened my tone. ‘If your wife ever wants a threesome, feel free to phone me out of office hours.’

There were tears in his eyes. He was crying. Marcus, the tough emotionless robo-boss, was crying. What kind of twisted, fucked-up world was I living in? The kind of world where I undid my blouse, slipped my breasts out of my bra, and pressed his head against my naked chest. I held my nipple out for him and he took it and suckled on me as I stroked my fingers through his hair.

The moment lasted an eternity, as all moments of raw emotion do.

Then the end, when we both looked at each other and remembered we were nearer strangers than lovers. Abrupt and awkward.

He searched for his clothes; I found the guilty pair of knickers that I’d dropped on the floor at some point.

He muttered excuses in a voice so low I couldn’t make out the words, just one long murmur of embarrassment and regret.

I found something inside me and held on to it long enough to turn to him before I scuttled out of his office. ‘I think that over our lives we forget 99 per cent of the things that happen to us. And great, important events that are at the very core of our being fade away into watered-down, pastel colours within our memory. We continually rewrite and restage our lives depending on the time of the month and who we’re talking to. This thing that just occurred between us was something. But in the years of life it is nothing. We can cut it out, and before too long it will cease to exist.’

I didn’t know what I meant, but Marcus nodded at me and I nodded back at him.

At night I took a couple of painkillers with water. Fifteen minutes later, my head still pounding, I downed a couple of glasses of wine.

I kept thinking of being in the office with Marcus. I couldn’t cut the incident out of my mind. My nipple in his mouth, wet with his saliva, warm with his breath. A minute after I’d told him I wouldn’t do anything sexual with a married man. It hadn’t felt sexual at the time. It had been natural and real. But removed from the moment, alone in my kitchen, there was no emotion here but guilt. Marcus’s shame was contagious.

What had he said?

“You’re going to be my whore. You’ll do everything I tell you whenever I tell you.”

That was my line, that was my identity, and he hadn’t known it. If he hadn’t been scared of his own desires. If he’d delivered his order the way I imagined he’d practised it many times in the mirror, with firmness and authority. If he’d asked earlier, before I’d found the distraction of Slave, instead of waiting to build up his courage and passion. Would I have dropped to my knees? Would I have become his willing mistress?

I went to bed with the phone in my hand. I dialled my lover’s number. When it clicked into the answer machine I listened to his message, not hearing his words, just pressing his voice against my ear. I breathed into the receiver. Then I hung up and dialled again. And again. And again.

Chapter Eleven - Three

I woke up and decided I wasn’t going to bake a cake for my lover today. I wasn’t going to write a letter declaring that I was eternally his possession. Simple. A new tactic for gaining his attention under the guise of being independent, moving on, and obeying him.

What was I learning from all my new experiences?

That men wanted what they couldn’t/shouldn’t have.

That either I was a sexual magnet for subs, or a surprising amount of men wanted to be dominated.

Work passed without incident. I read through a few of the emails that Slave had sent me and I hadn’t been bothered to look at before.

Mistress, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to endanger your possession by meeting the man. I only thought how I was pleasing you. I have brought the chilli oil but I fear this is a test. I read in the paper yesterday about a chef dying from a heart attack after eating too much chilli. I don’t mean to whine or complain. I only mention this as you are punishing me for not taking enough care of myself as I am your property. Please let me know what you wish me to do.

Your humble and blessed slave.

Damn. You could die from eating chilli? Surely that had to be a freak event? I hoped it was a freak event. If I had read the email when he sent it I would have changed his punishment.

But I didn’t. There were more emails from him, hopefully not written from a hospital bed.

I almost vomited when I drank the chilli. My stomach is swirling, I am dreading going to the toilet as the chilli stung my bottom much more than I anticipated.

Your punishments are always so apt. I am in awe of your wisdom.

I wanted to cry. What sort of life it is when you’d be in awe of someone telling you to put chilli on your arse and mistaking that casual command for wisdom? I forced myself to smile.

Marcus might have been avoiding me. It might have been an ordinary working day. We didn’t generally see much of each other. When I did spot him walking across the other side of the office, it made my chest tighten. He appeared engrossed in a sober discussion with his PA and didn’t look in my direction. For a moment, I didn’t want him to ignore me; I needed some acknowledgement of what happened yesterday. I yearned for the thrill of being desired. I wanted the option he laid before me.

Then it passed and I only wondered if that business-focused man had really ordered me to be his whore. Was it all a figment of my wistful, warped imagination?

I’d told him that you could forget things, cut them out of your memories. Was that possible? You could be so close with someone and then … Nothing.

I knew this. There had been people before my lover, people whose names I could barely recall, their bodies, voices, scent, all lost. But at one point I had trusted them with my naked desire. And they had trusted me.

Why did it feel so revolutionary, hurt so much and so deep, thinking about how effortlessly sexual passion transformed into indifference?

I looked over to where Joe was typing away at his desk. He lifted his head and gave me a half smile, then a more confident wink.

Joe and Slave both claimed to love me. Neither of them knew me. The last thing I received from my lover was a text telling me he liked my cakes. I got my phone out and read through the text just as I had read through it hundreds of times before, as if it was a missive directly from God above offering me eternal salvation from all my sins.

My lover did know me, better than I knew myself. He had told me to go out into the world and experience it. I’d stumbled into someone else’s fantasy, a fuck-the-world-and-don’t-worry-about-hurting-the-one-you-love fantasy. It wasn’t that easy, though. Was it? It was a riddle that I hadn’t solved, a test that I hadn’t passed. Yet.

I realised I’d been staring at Joe and he’d been staring at me as my mind whirled. His face was now serious, asking me a question that would be clear to anyone who looked at him. I bit down on my lip and went back to my computer.

After a minute I sent him an email filled with work stuff and then, at the bottom, a p.s.

I can’t give you what you want, but I can give you something in memory of the great fuck. I think you’re a sub like me. If you are, or you want to find out if you are, leave with me tonight. You’re not going to have sex with me, but you’re going to do everything I say.

I worked a little late, Joe worked late too. As I knew he would. I gave him a small nod and he came over and held my jacket out for me. Were we so easily in sync, me and this near stranger I felt nothing more than friendship for?

Joe’s breathing was heavy, nervous, but his posture was relaxed and he smiled at me.

I looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. ‘If you come with me now I expect you to obey everything I tell you without question.’

‘I know. I read your email.’

‘OK.’ My own heart was beating fast. ‘You’re going to drive me to see a friend of mine.’

I didn’t text Slave to tell him we were coming to see him. I wanted the power of surprise. I just hoped he was in.

Joe tried to make conversation in the car.

I shook my head. ‘You’re a slave now. You don’t speak unless spoken to.’

‘Like a Victorian child, seen but not heard?’

‘That’ll work.’

But he seemed incapable of driving without speaking; throughout the journey he asked questions.

‘Do you realise how happy you made me today by sending me that email?’

‘Why do you think I am a sub?’

‘How did you find out that you were a sub?’

‘Are you sure you’re a sub? You don’t seem that submissive to me.’

‘The sex we had was the best of my life, but I suspect it was normal for you?’

‘Is there something between us, or is it just my imagination?’

I answered that last one. ‘Mostly your imagination.’

‘Mostly?’

‘Ninety-nine point nine per cent.’

‘Good to know I’ve got a chance.’ He winked at me.

‘I was trying to be kind. Our relationship is 100 per cent your imagination. This is all a dream, I’m not really here. In a minute you’re going to be standing naked in your school, late for all your exams.’

‘My earliest fantasy. How do you know so much about me? Just need Ms Bailey to appear and take me to her office for a long detention.’

I laughed. Were mistresses supposed to laugh? Fuck, I could do whatever I wanted. Kind of. It was a strange balance where I was apparently in charge but I had to think all the time about the sub’s desires.

‘Stop this dream car here and we’ll see if we can find Ms Bailey, or some equivalent, for you.’

Joe walked around and held the car door open for me. ‘I would say that I don’t think anyone can ever match all the excitement and thrill of that first rites of passage crush on an impossibly experienced and enchanting teacher. Damn, she had great tits. You’ll laugh but I sometimes still, you know, wank thinking about her. But, anyway, none of that holds now that I’ve met you. You go beyond everything else.’

I stepped out without looking at him. ‘Ms Bailey was your English teacher?’

He matched my pace, shaking his head and chuckling. ‘How do you know these things?’

Because it’s always the English teacher. With their poetry. Their reading, constantly experiencing other people’s dreams and desires. Their command of language giving them command of everyone else’s mind. Their voice.’

His voice.

My lover whispering Shakespeare into my ear before bringing the whip down across my buttocks.

Let not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.

Thwack. Stinging, beautiful pain.

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.

Thwack. Pain upon pain.

I could not remember any more of the sonnet, just the timbre of my lover’s voice and the tenderness of his hand rubbing my arse when the whipping finished.

I swallowed hard. Joe had an occasional wank and laughed about his teenage crush. I was living mine, clinging on to the dream that I could remain a child and be protected and looked after by the experienced, intelligent, older man.

We reached Slave’s flat. I ignored the doorbell and rapped on the door. In my mind I’d had a series of images like a flick book of what I wanted to happen inside his home.

When Slave opened the door, though, he was somehow more real than he had seemed before. It didn’t quite make sense to me, but I realised that for me he existed almost as a mental caricature of a person, yet here he stood before me seeming more human than he ever had before.

It was the upright confidence posture of his body, the expression on his face which was distant and distrustful. ‘Hello, mistress.’ He looked beyond me at Joe.’

‘Hi, mate.’ Joe held his hand out and Slave took it and gave it a firm shake.

Slave remembered his role enough to look down and not into my face. ‘Mistress, have I missed something, a text or an email?’ There was the familiar sound of worry that renewed my confidence about why I’d chosen to come here. But there was also an unfamiliar weariness. ‘My phone has been charging. I’ve noticed that you don’t usually contact me during the week before ten in the evening so I thought it was a good time to charge my phone. I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘I didn’t tell you I was coming.’ I stepped into his hall, taking Joe’s hand and drawing him with me.

‘Mistress, I …’

For a moment, I paused. I thought Slave would bar me walking into his lounge, but he moved to the side.

‘Mistress, I was not expecting you or your friend. I’m sorry, I’m not prepared.’

‘I’ve told you before that you should always be prepared for whenever I might require you.’

‘Yes, mistress, you have. It is only just beginning to sink in what you mean when you tell me to always be ready to serve you.’ He bowed his head.

A smell of cooking filled the rooms. Something plain, pasta? And probably some sort of Bolognese sauce.

‘You’re making dinner. You are ready to serve us after all. Bring us some food, slut. We’re hungry.’ I took my jacket off and dropped it on the floor. He scurried forward fast enough to catch it.

‘Mistress, may I –? I mean, I was expecting someone else. Can I please be permitted to phone them and let them know I’m now otherwise engaged?’

‘They can join us, slave. It’ll be fun to meet your friends.’

Joe had sat down on the sofa and was flicking through one of Slave’s wedding magazines. I wasn’t sure if he was following what Slave and I were doing, but now he looked up with a smile. ‘The more the merrier.’

Joe wasn’t acting like the submissive I’d created in my vision of what would happen this evening, but there was something right in his presence. Somehow the easiness of his manner contrasted with Slave’s humble uncertainty and created the atmosphere I needed to produce my performance.

Slave’s face was a strange mixture of blanched and flushed, fluctuating between the two extremes of colour and paleness. ‘I don’t think … Please, mistress. My friend wouldn’t – I mean, please let me tell them not to come. They wouldn’t be comfortable around you, mistress. Please allow me to phone them, please.’ He pressed his palms together in desperate prayer.

Was I his goddess?

I’d seen that term in books, but it was too large, too much responsibility and power. But I had willingly taken on this role.

I chucked him under the chin. ‘Is it one of your little church friends coming to visit? What is it, you don’t want me to corrupt them, or you don’t want them to know who you really are?’

Normally he smiled when I teased him and if I touched him he glowed. Tonight his expression was shocked and nervous.

I stepped away from him, towards Joe. ‘Go ahead, phone your friend. Then bring us something to eat and drink.’

‘Thank you, mistress. You’re very kind.’ He scuttled away to the kitchen and I heard him speaking in a low voice.

I sat next to Joe looking over at the glossy, airbrushed into perfection models in their bridal gowns. It made me feel infinitely sad for reasons I could not think about.

‘I was engaged once,’ Joe said.

‘You were?’

‘Don’t sound so surprised. It didn’t last. She was fickle like all women, and ate the engagement ring five minutes after I gave it to her.’

‘What?’

‘It was a Hula Hoop.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I was only seven. I could hardly afford diamonds.’

I nudged him in the ribs and we giggled. Was this what other women of my age felt in their relationships? I thought of all my girlfriends’ chatter about their various men. I listened and I laughed and I sympathised with them, but I never truly understood. Is this what it was like? A good male friend who you also happened to fuck every night?

Slave brought in two plates laden with spaghetti and a thick tomato sauce. ‘Would you like to eat here or at the table, mistress?’

‘Do I look like someone who eats dinner on their lap in front of the telly?’

Joe, who had seen me rush through my lunch at work, had enough awareness of the dynamics at play not to snigger.

‘Sorry, mistress, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’ll set the table for you.’

When Joe and I were sitting down for our meal, Slave knelt by my side with his head bowed.

‘Squeeze,’ I ordered Slave.

He obeyed. Joe looked on, amused.

‘I asked you to bring us a drink and you’ve failed.’

‘Oh pants! I’m sorry, mistress, I forgot. I’m a stupid, cock-loving slut, please forgive me.’

‘Release and get that drink quickly. Make it something strong.’

He returned with wine. Joe chatted amicably to me as we ate. At first he acted like a normal polite British person, thanking Slave for his efforts, complimenting his flat and the meal; then he followed my lead and acted as if Slave was below our notice. I looked into Joe’s eyes. It was a game to him, a slightly odd, curious game.

Joe had responded to my email because of his attraction to me, not because I had seen his inner desires and discovered his real sexual personality. The situation with Marcus, my constant unrequited need for my lover, it was tainting my judgement. Without any obvious reason or trigger my mind bounced between certainty and doubt.