The Alexandra Series (29 page)

“It’s not like that. This wasn’t an affair of the heart. I have no emotional attachment to the other man. I was searching for something.”

“Searching?”

I couldn’t believe what I was saying, but now that I’d started I couldn’t very well stop.

“I contacted an on-line Dom.”

Reggie looked at me shocked. “Whatever for?” It seemed as incredulous to me as it obviously seemed to him.

“I contacted a man who spanks submissive women.”

“Spanks? As in ‘over the knee bare-bottomed paddlings’?”

“Yes. Exactly. There’s quite a little sub-culture of spanking aficionados, and there’s a lot of meetings arranged for the sole purpose of playing out the fantasy.” I didn’t think I should need to explain this, but given the blank nonplused expression on Reggie’s face, I thought I needed to clarify.

“You don’t have to school me in this. I’m aware of the fetish. What surprises me is that you’d feel the need to seek that kind of adventure outside your relationship.”

“It’s kind of strange, isn’t it?” I admitted, embarrassed to say it.

“You mean to tell me that all the
fun
we at the estate uncovering your myriad of desires was for nothing? You and Will went happily along ignoring the obvious wealth of sexual variety that you love so much?”

“It’s not that bad, but we don’t really get into dominance and submission. And I’m not sure why. But now, what is it? Three years down the road, whatever it’s been, we’re at this horrible impasse.”

“Enough for you to seek an outside master.”

“He was hardly a master, and this isn’t about mastery, exactly. I think it’s a little softer than what you and I got involved with.”

“Perhaps,” he said. He was looking at me now, much as he had years before on that very fateful day when Will first brought me to him. His eyes had a way of inspecting me, as if he could read every thought I had, could see pictures of all my desires clearly written in the expression on my face. He always made me shiver when he did this, and I was shivering now.

“So, what is this favor?” Reggie said, as he assumed a colder visage, and a haughtier tone of voice. I expected as much, but it was what I would have to endure.

“Before he left, Will told me that the only penance I could pay was with you. He knows how I don’t want to have anything to do with you again. And I guess he sees my return to you as a gift I could give him that might, in time, prove myself again, and in some measure restore his trust.”

“How intriguing. I didn’t realize that you abhor me so much.”

“I don’t think it’s abhor you exactly, in fact, I don’t abhor you at all, I just had enough of our games.” I nervously fidgeted with my hands

“And so he said you could pay for your offenses by coming to me?”

“He didn’t exactly say that in so many words. It was the only thing he suggested that might have the remotest chance of changing his mind.”

“Makes me judge, jury and…implementer?”

“I guess it does.”

“And you don’t even know whether it will bring the two of you back together?”

“No, I don’t. But I’ll do anything to set things straight with him.”

“Seems Alex, that this was the point when you first came to me. I would help you bring out your desires and accept them, then Will could profit from the treatment. You’re telling me that my methods didn’t really work?”

“They worked, I just got scared again.”

Reggie leaned back in his chair and eyed me carefully. “So I just spank your bottom, rather ruthlessly I assume, and send you back to Will, and all’s well?”

“No, I doubt it’ll be that easy. I have to prove something to him. And I imagine in the process of all this, I need to find a way to bring him back into the picture, where he really belongs.”

“Quite a favor you’re asking.”

“I know that.”

“So why would I want to do it? What’s in it for me?” His smirk was deliciously devious, as if he already knew the answer and just had to watch me squirm while I spelled it out for him.

“It would be your revenge,” I said. “I left haughty and disdainful of your inadequacy, I return humbled. You can gloat over
my
inadequacies this time.”

Reggie smiled, though not at all nastily. That would certainly come later. “You do need to be punished,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Like the spoiled little bitch princess that you are, is that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If I do this, you know I won’t be easy on you?”

“I understand that.”

“You’ll have to curb that nasty tongue of yours and submit. You think you can do that? It would appear you’ve had three years practicing how to rip off a man’s balls.”

“Reggie, you’re being cruel.”

“I’m being honest.”

“I’ll do whatever I need to do, Reggie, I’m desperate.”

“I hope the end result will be worth your trouble, Alex. Will may not care what you do. And you know damned well I’ll demand things of you you’ll find hard to endure.”

“I wouldn’t expect less. If this is going to work at all, if this is penance I’m paying, Will would demand something very thorough.”

Reggie nodded. “So will you tell him?” Reggie asked.

“I suppose you should. He doesn’t even want to talk to me.”

“Chicken’s way out,” he mused.

“So will you do this for me?” I asked directly.

He pursed his lips, tapped his fingers together while I waited for an answer. “Perhaps,” was all he said.

I hated the way he was making me sweat.

“You can tell me no more than that?” I asked.

“Maybe I need to test you, see how sincere you are.” He delighted in stringing me along. I’m sure there were some very nasty thoughts galloping through his brain. I had a feeling I’d feel the effects very shortly.

Reggie stood up and walked around to the front of his desk, and leaned back against it, looking directly at me with a stare I remember well. Held transfixed by his stunning manner, I sat there wondering what he was thinking. With his arms crossed in front of him, I know he was considering the next move.

“Alexandra, there’s a leather paddle in the cabinet against that far wall,” he nodded to the enormous credenza behind me. “Go get it.”

I felt awkward getting up, the way he just stared at me. I managed to make it to the cabinet, finding inside the paddle he wanted hanging conveniently on a hook. It had been a long time since leather had connected with my posterior, and feeling the implement was a perfectly delicious experience. I imagined that this paddle would hurt like hell, though I’d never had anything quite like this applied to my backside. Reggie’s punishments in the past had always been of a different nature, applied with an inventive twist, no two alike. What I was asking for, and what I was apparently getting would be more common and ritualized, like the punishment I’d experienced over Keith’s lap. At least that’s what I thought.

Handing the paddle to Reggie when I returned, I watched intently the way he held it, the way his hand grasped the heavy leather handle. He had remarkably handsome, powerful looking hands, with just a trace of blond hair on the surface. The picture I saw in front of me was severe; the image of his hand and that leather together would make an indelible imprint on my mind that would last long after this moment.

“I’ve never spanked you, have I?” Reggie mused aloud.

“No.”

“Then it will be a treat for both of us.”

I smiled meekly, not sure how much of a treat this would really be for me.

The phone buzzed loudly, interrupting the tense moment. Laying the paddle on the end of his desk, Reggie turned around and answered it. A brief conversation ensued, filled with ‘yes’s’ and ‘no’s’ and a final “I’ll be right there.”

“Sorry Alex, I’m going to have to take care of a matter that can’t wait.” Without another word, he left the office, with me sitting staring at the paddle as it lay in front of me.

I had time then to breathe a sigh of relief, though I didn’t doubt he’d be back soon to fulfill the order of the moment.

Being back in his presence was not as horrible as I imagined it would be. Perhaps I’d created a horror story in my head as the time passed between the present and those months we had together. He was still the charming, arrogant, dominant man I was so wildly attracted to, for the way he was able to draw from me desire that I found so difficult to express. And now he was working his magic again.

Certainly I’d know this time not to fall in love with him. That kind of response was a silly school girl fantasy that I would not succumb to again. And yet, the idea of being under Reggie’s dominant command once more was exciting me as it had always been. It was even making me wonder where in all this mess Will would be. Wasn’t it for him I was doing it?

Reggie returned to his office with a self absorbed expression on his face. His aspect was curt to the point of being brusque, even rude.

“Stand up, Alexandra,” he ordered.

I complied, and found him quickly taking the paddle from his desk and sitting down where I had sat. On the edge of his seat, he pulled me to his side and then over this lap. It all happened so quickly, I wouldn’t appreciate until afterwards the breathtaking intimacy of the position. Oh yes, I’d been over Keith’s lap, but this was something quite different. Reggie was disciplining me for something real, not some imagined thing. He was stern, gruff and seemed genuinely pissed off at me for being unfaithful to his friend Will. Maybe a little bit of morality was peeking out from this typically amoral man.

“I don’t know whether you’ll thank me or curse me; but you will pay very dearly for your artful deceit. I can imagine the agony you’ve caused Will. We’ll take it out of your ass stroke by stroke by stroke.”

He pulled up on the hem of my tight skirt, tugging at it until it was bunched around my waist. I was wearing a garter belt, stockings and nothing more. I figured that it would please him to have a well prepared bottom with no underwear to obstruct the application of a punishment; but if Reggie was at all pleased, he certainly didn’t indicate that.

He was all business. The leather paddle came down on my bottom with a ruthless half dozen smacks. The crack against my flesh was loud, but at least the first smacks of the leather were not painful. In fact, I should say they were warming, sending a lovely wicked feeling through my bottom side. I was instantly grinding my hips against his lap, but that was soon to stop.

Reggie paddled my bottom with the leather striking at all kinds of odd intervals. Unlike Keith who was so methodical and steady, Reggie laid the punishment on, first in short blasts with the leather literally peppering my ass with quick shots, then with a longer, slower, but infinitely harsher impact.

At first the leather felt good against my rear; it was a much more satisfying feeling than the stinging hairbrush Keith had used. Yet once Reggie had covered my bottom several times, it didn’t seem to matter what he was using to punish me, the pain was so intense, there was no way to imagine that this was some sexual turn-on. I constantly murmured my protests; though I knew very well Reggie would ignore them. And yet, this seemed my only recourse. The ‘oh nos’ and ‘please stops’ pouring from my mouth were the only way I could endure the pain, which was quickly becoming unbearable.

The longer he went on, the more I wiggled against him. I was surprised by the sheer strength of the man, never having tested it before. His lap was like granite, and the arm fixed around my waist made the position I was in immovable.

“Oh Reggie, please!” I finally pleaded with him, thinking he never would end this. I wasn’t even considering that I might be heard outside his office—the embarrassment of that would come later.

“Alexandra, my dear,” he said, stopping for just a moment. “You’re creating your own torment, the more you struggle with this, the longer I’ll go on.”

“Oh, please, you don’t mean that?”

I thought he would laugh at that statement, he was probably smiling to himself. And he certainly wasn’t finished. The welcome pause was followed by a renewed zeal, Reggie laying the leather paddle against my sore ass again and again. He seemed to be determined to take me to some limit; and only he knew what that was.

Somewhere deep inside, I knew it was only right to yield. Perhaps he was even waiting for that. Once giving in to the pain, it didn’t seem as fierce anymore, even though he continued smacking my blistered bottom again and again. Maybe he lightened because he felt me surrender, or maybe I just didn’t find it as painful anymore. But finally succumbing to him, with any thoughts of full-fledged mutiny vanished, Reggie ended at last.

When he pushed me from his lap, I was disheartened. I was hoping for some kind of tenderness; but I should have known, that was nearly impossible from Reggie. He’d never been one for sweet nothings and nurturing attention at such moments.

“It seems you’re in need of a good deal of retraining, my dear Alexandra.”

I looked down at his severe expression, feeling rather guilty for the way I’d handled myself, when it was me that had started this whole thing. He was quite right.