The Audition (4 page)

Courage. I need it in bucketfuls for what I’m about to do.

I’m still wearing the same skirt and shirt I threw on for my walk. No matter. I slide down from the couch, and I crawl over, the two steps or so to get to Nikolai. I don’t say anything. I just kneel by him.

He doesn’t break the silence. The TV still flickers and the sounds of sword fights fill the air. Nikolai hasn’t moved. He doesn’t pull away in surprise and shock, but he doesn’t invite me closer either.

I want to look up and meet his eyes. I wonder what he’s thinking. But I keep my eyes lowered, and instinctively, I stay still. The moment needs to unfold as it will. I can’t rush it.

Minutes pass, and I remain kneeling. The movie plays on, but I have my back to the television. Finally, his hand reaches out, and he nudges my head onto his lap, his fingers winding in my hair. I nuzzle against him, content.

I’m not meek. I’m kind of brash and loud. I act before thinking. I don’t ache to serve my master, or any such nonsense. I’m firmly a child of my generation, a proud, unapologetic feminist, who believes women can and should be able to do anything they want, whether it be fighting on the front lines of battle, rocketed into space, or staying at home. Different people, different choices, but it’s the ability to freely make them that I care about.

Yet when it comes down to it, if Nikolai is interested in me sexually, I’m not conflicted about kneeling in front of him. The things we do in the bedroom, the things that turn us on - those aren’t the only things that define us.

I still find myself taken by surprise at the feeling that runs through me when his fingers stroke my scalp. I feel cared for. Cherished. I feel like a kitten rubbing her face against her master’s knee, purring in contentment as her master pets her. I feel peaceful and serene. If my audition was at that moment, I’d pass it with flying colours. My walls are down, and my emotions are pouring through, but they aren’t a stormy mess. With each stroke of Nikolai’s fingers, they settle into peace.  

We stay like that for the rest of the movie, which lasts another thirty minutes or so. At the end, his fingers grip in my hair, and he inclines my head so that I’m meeting his gaze. “What do you want,
myshka
?”

I want you,
I want to reply.
I want you for real. I want all of you, and I want you to want all of me. I want to see what this is. How it works to open myself and allow in the possibility of love, need and hurt.

I lower my eyelashes. Too much. I don’t have that much courage, but I do have a little. Not enough to speak the words and ask aloud, but enough to bring my hands forward on his zipper.

He doesn’t stop me. He makes a noise in his throat expressing pleasure, and that emboldens me. I pull his dick out. He’s erect and hard, long and fat, and I lick my lips in anticipation. There’s a drop of precum glistening on his smooth, purple head. I lean forward and with the tip of my tongue, lap at it, and I thrill to hear his groan. “Allie,” he mutters and my entire body aches when I hear him say my name. I want him so badly.

I wrap my lips around his cock and suck. My tongue laps at him. My fingers encircle the base of his dick, until his fingers brush against mine. “Put your hands behind your back,” he orders.

I obey, loving how out of control I feel as I bob forward on his dick. My pussy aches, yearning for his touch, but I push my own need back and focus on him. He didn’t have to take me in and help me, but he did. I have no doubt that he’s enjoying seeing me naked and compliant, but it doesn’t change the gratitude I feel.

He groans. His head is thrown back on the couch, and his eyes are clenched shut. He looks like he’s experiencing pure pleasure, and I love that I’m causing this reaction in him. His hands wrap through my hair, hard enough that I can feel it in my scalp, but not so hard that I’m in pain. I whimper, and he looks at me.

“You don’t have to do this,
myshka
.”

I pull my mouth free for an instant, just to reply. “I want to,” I tell him.

He smiles at me, his hands stroking my hair. “I’m not going to take it easy on you,” he warns.

“I don’t want you to.” My tone is heartfelt. “Nikolai, already, I’m playing better. This thing you are doing, it’s working.” I don’t talk anymore. There’s a tidal wave of emotion rushing to the fore, and I lower my head on his dick again, and, as ridiculous as I know it sounds, I channel all that emotion into my blowjob.

I’m playing his body. Each twitch of his legs, each tightening of a muscle, each grunt of sound from his throat – these are the cues I’m responding to as I suck. I sense he’s ready before his hands tighten in my hair. He warns me, his voice thick with desire, that he’s about to explode, but I already know, and I’m prepared, and more than that, I want this.

I swallow every spurt, my fingers digging into my palms as pleasure threatens to overwhelm me. After, I clean his still hard cock off with my tongue. He looks at me then, finally, and his thumb gathers up a drop of semen dripping down my mouth, and feeds it to me. I suck his finger clean. I’m so close to the edge. I want to come. If he’s not going to touch me, I’m going to finger myself to a shouted orgasm. Every nerve of mine dances with need.

“Head back downstairs. Sleep in the cage.” The words are an order.

I should feel slapped, and insulted, but I don’t. I don’t always understand Nikolai’s methods, but they seem to work. And I know Nikolai. My Juilliard audition will come first.
I made him ejaculate in my mouth,
I think to myself with a smile. I feel good. I feel powerful.

“Yes Sir,” I say. I don’t know where the Sir comes from, but of course he notices, and his lips quirk.

“Allie?” He holds my gaze, and his eyes are intent. “No fingering yourself downstairs. No getting yourself off.”

I should be more annoyed than I am. I just nod. “Why?” I ask in mild curiosity, though I already know what his answer is going to be.

Sure enough, he says exactly what I expect him to. “Because you have an audition in four days.”

Because you have an audition in four days.

Of course that isn’t it. That’s never it, is it? I have a theory about why Nikolai won’t fuck me and why I’m still sleeping in a cage on thin blankets.

For six years, I’ve been a gloriously undisciplined mess. My entire life has been one giant cry for help, yet I pushed away the one person who might have helped me. Already, in one day, with Nikolai’s firm treatment, I feel more grounded and more assured.

In some way, through the way he’s humiliating me, I’m finding my strength. Not to resist him, not to endure. I’m finding the courage to embrace what I want and fight for it.

Juilliard. Nikolai. No matter what happens this week, the two of them will be forever entwined in my heart and soul.

***

I’ve tossed and turned for a few hours, but I can’t sleep. At the start, I’m too sexually keyed up to rest. The urge to touch myself is strong, but I take heed of Nikolai’s words. Somehow, though I should be angry, obeying his desire makes me feel the same way I felt when my head was in his lap and he was stroking my hair. His order becomes the thread that connects us – me, sleeping in the basement in a cage, and him, upstairs in his bedroom.

I wonder if he’s lying awake as well, or if he’s deep in sleep. And if he is, does he dream of me?

Finally, I give up and get out, pushing the cage door open and stretching. The room is dark, and I pad over to the light switch, turning on just the one bulb above the piano. I need to play. The music needs to become the outlet for my churning emotions.

I’m naked. Somehow, even though I was dressed when I headed downstairs, it felt wrong to be wearing clothes in this dungeon. I’d disrobed before going to bed in my cage.

Now, I sit on the stool, naked again, and my mind flashes back to earlier today, when Nikolai spanked my body with a riding crop.

The notes sound in the room. I can hear emotion, but I’m dissatisfied. I want more. I am capable of more.

The walls of the dungeon, filled with their instruments of pain and pleasure call to me in the darkness. As if I’m sleepwalking, I obey their call. In a daze, my fingers glide over a pair of nipple clamps. These are different from the one Nikolai used on me earlier today. These are more delicate looking, and a thin chain connects them.

I pinch a nipple, almost on autopilot, before guiding the clamp on. A sharp twist of pain greets that gesture, one that reawakens the lust in my cunt. But I daren’t touch myself. I have my orders. So, I just pinch the other nipple, and I attach the other clamp. Then, I resume playing.

As my fingers stroke the keys and the music pours forth, I’m very aware of the pain in my breasts. The initial sharp lance has softened into a background ache. When I move over the piano, my upper arms brush the clamps, sending fresh jolts through me. Instinctively, I’ve widened my legs as much as I can, though I make sure I can still hit the piano pedal.

I feel very wanton and very perverted.

Real melody emerges from the keys, and satisfaction surges in me. I start at the top of my recital, and play each piece, all sixty-seven minutes of it. Bach. Mozart. Chopin. Liszt. And finally, the three Ginastera
Danzas
, which is my wild-card choice, to showcase my expertise with more contemporary composers.

When I’m done with the program, I reach to take the clamps off, and I yelp in agony as blood flows back in my abused nipples. I rub at them, hissing at the pain. Sixty seven minutes was a mistake. They are bruised and tender to the touch, and I wince each time my palm rubs them. Nikolai is going to be so angry with me.

“No instinct for self-preservation,” his voice speaks out of the darkness. Absorbed in the music, I had no idea he was even there.

“How long?” I start, and his eyes flash at me as he moves into the light. He’s just wearing a pair of boxers and nothing else. I feast on his body. I can see his thick erection though the thin cotton fabric, and the ache in my pussy intensifies.

“Long enough,” he responds. “There’s definite improvement in your playing,” he tells me.

The music would have been the second question on my lips. The first? I don’t know exactly what the first question is. It is wound up in the blowjob I gave him earlier, in the throbbing of my nipples, in the wet, slippery feeling in my pussy.

“What time is it?” I ask instead.

“Three thirty,” he responds. “You should be asleep.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Are you too tired to play your program again?”

Damn it, Nikolai. I’m naked. I’m in your dungeon, and all you can think about is the music?
But who
am I kidding? It is this single minded dedication that had once made him a force to be reckoned with. “I can play.”

He gestures for me to rise, and he sits down on the stool, right in the middle. There’s no room for me on either side, but that’s okay, because he puts his hands on my hips, and pulls me down onto his lap. I can’t hide my reaction, and I don’t want to. I sigh in pleasure, and lean on him, relishing the feeling of my naked skin in contact with his.

Although it takes real effort to tear myself from the warm strength of his body and lean forward to play, I do. His hands rub at my aching nipples while I play, soothing them between his fingertips. I can feel his hard erection underneath me, and I grind down on his lap subtly. But my prime focus is the music. The damn crop is back in Nikolai’s hands, and my legs are spread open on either side of his knees, making my inner thighs and cunt a tempting target.

He doesn’t crop me. He lets me play two pieces, then he stops me and launches into a technical dissertation on finger positions. He’s got insane amounts of self-control, Nikolai. Even if it’s only on a purely physical level, I know he wants me. I can feel it in his erection. But he ignores his desire in favour of the music.

His little lecture on finger positioning technique is actually helpful, and I dismiss the lust in my mind to pay attention to his words. I nod when he’s done, and I play the rest of my program. I’m still sitting on his lap, I can’t forget that. My nipples still ache, though each pass of his hands over them is a balm that soothes them. My pussy is damp. I must be leaving quite the stain on his boxers.

But before all this, before the BDSM, before the leash, before the sexual attraction that shimmers in the air, Nikolai and I had one thing that bound us together, and it was the music. When I play, it is, in a way, a homage to that.

Sunday, March 3

Another day. A warmer day, though the radio in the kitchen blares out dire warnings for rain. The bits of sky revealed through the windows agree, and are appropriately overcast.

It’s late by the time I head up, but I justify sleeping in by telling myself I didn’t go to sleep until well past five in the morning. I glance at the clock, and I’m not surprised that it is noon. What I am surprised by is that the kitchen is empty. Nikolai is nowhere to be seen. There’s no smell of coffee hanging in the air, no aroma of cooking.

I wonder if he’s still asleep, and I smile at that thought. Nikolai was never a morning person, even back in New York. It appears that he still isn’t. Somehow, the fact that he’s still asleep makes him very human.

I should practice my program again, but I’m useless without coffee. I hunt around his cabinets, until I find coffee grounds. I spoon them into a clean filter, add a potful of water, and turn the machine on. Then, I head upstairs to look in on Nikolai. From memory, I know he can sleep away most of the day, but then he wakes up with a headache and turns grouchy.

Last night, I could have sworn he wanted to touch me. There had been something there, almost within reach, when I’d finished playing my program. But I’d been too timid to reach out for it, because to ask and to be rejected would invite hurt again into my life, and I didn’t want to do that.

But I’ve let the music in, and I sense that I can’t be selective. If I am open to the music, I am truly open to everything else.

***

He is indeed fast asleep. His bedroom door is ajar, and I push it open and tiptoe in.

I’m being bold. Really, really brave. But I’m tired of lying to myself. I’m tired of going through life feeling only surface emotion. I’m ready again for intensity and passion.

I’m naked. Somehow, though I felt my nudity most acutely at the start, I’ve grown used to it as the days have gone by. I hover by the side of the bed, looking down on his peaceful face, before I slip in next to him, and snuggle against his body.

He makes a noise in his throat, a growl of contentment, and wraps his arms around me. I move closer to him and I just lie there, feeling incredibly secure and peaceful.

I don’t mean to, but I fall asleep.

He is awake when I finally stir, but he’s still holding me. I scramble away, embarrassed to be caught in his bed, but his grip around me tightens. “Running away?” he asks.

I can feel his erection against my ass. In a way, it bolsters me to know that he is attracted to me. But he’s also made no move towards acting on it, and it stings, and it makes me unsure. “I don’t know. You tell me.” I sigh. “Do you want me, Nikolai? Because I’m around you and naked, and you just seem to ignore me.” My voice has a tremor in it that I hate.

“Allie.” He exhales. “Of course I want you. You are beautiful and talented and intelligent, and it’s killing me to do the right thing.” I can hear the thread of humour in his voice. “Though I’m probably stretching the definition of the right thing.”

“Why is it the right thing to avoid me?”

He strokes my cheek. “Because you are vulnerable,
myshka
, and you want to pass your Juilliard audition so very much. So much so that your ability to make rational choices has been compromised.”

“Well, that’s patronizing as all fuck,” I snap. Please. Does he really think that I’d be curled up in his bed in the absence of genuine desire? The cage isn’t that uncomfortable. “I’m not a child anymore.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed,” he says dryly. “Trust me, that’s very, very obvious.”

“Don’t treat me like a child then.”

“Ask for what you want.” His voice tickles my ear, even as his hands run over my body, pulling my hips towards him so that my ass is nestled right up against his erection.

If I stop to reflect, I might call myself an idiot. After all, our time together ends in two days, when I head back to New York and to my audition. But I know that if I don’t ask for this, I’m going to spend my entire life regretting my silence, and wondering –
what if?
When I reply, my voice is certain. “I want you to fuck me.”

“I like my sex kinky.”

I roll my eyes. He’s had me sleep in a cage the last few days. “Yes, I’ve noticed,” I mutter, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

He smacks my ass. “Don’t be trite. I’m doing the full disclosure thing.”

“Do I have to call you Master?” This time, the sarcasm shines through, loud and clear.

“Sir during a session,” he responds, remaining serious and ignoring my sass.

I expect to be outraged, but only heat trickles through me. “I think I can do that,” I whisper, turning towards him. “Can we do it now?”

He laughs out aloud, and smacks my ass again. The crack echoes around the room. “That one hurt,” I accuse, rubbing at the spot where his hand had made stinging contact.

“It’s meant to. Now, get up. First, coffee and breakfast. Then, piano practice. Then, if you are very, very good, sex.”

“You get to have sex too, you know,” I grumble. “You don’t have to act like it’s some kind of special treat for me.”

His lips twitch. “It’s taking all my self-control to keep my focus on your audition, Allie,” he confesses. “Now, before I change my mind, and do something we will both enjoy in the present, but will regret in the future, let’s get to work.”

***

I put everything into my piano recital. Everything.

Some of it is because of the promised sex, but it really is becoming easier to unlock the emotion safely. Here, in his home, in the last few days, I’ve felt embarrassed and aroused by Nikolai’s treatment, but I’ve also felt secure and cherished. It seems that I need to feel that. I need to know that I’m not alone, and that there is someone out there who cares for me.

When my mother died, I was left alone, a lonely eighteen year old with no other family, and no one to care whether she succeeded or failed. This week, Nikolai has shown me that he cares. Sure, his methods are completely insane. But he’s shown me that he expects only my best, and I want to live up to that promise.

“Much better,” he says when I’m done.

“Good enough for sex?” I wink at him. I’m shivering with anticipation, but that doesn’t stop me from throwing out the smart-ass one-liners, and to be honest, I’m not sure if Nikolai would really expect anything else from me.

He smiles, a wide smile that transforms his face. “Good enough for sex,” he agrees. “Thank heavens.”  He grabs my face and kisses my mouth, with passion and intensity, and I thrill. I’ve wanted him since almost the moment he opened the door of his Cambridge townhouse. His desire for me, so far held in check, is very, very welcome.

***

He positions me in a different corner of the dungeon, and he withdraws, standing a few steps away from me. I face him, and my heart pounds, and my skin feels feverish.
At last.

“Are you going to do as you are told, Allie?”

Am I? I’m half-tempted to say something flippant.
We’ll see. Maybe.
But this moment has its own gravity, and I don’t want to trivialize it. I want it to be real.

“Yes Sir.”

He gives me a half-smile. I wonder what he’s thinking.

“Move and stand by the table, Allie.”

The table he speaks of is a long massage table, about two feet wide and five feet long. It is padded with a white leather cushion. I’ve noticed it before in the dungeon, but so far, my focus has always been the piano in the centre of the room. Not right now though.

I obey. Though I’ve been naked around Nikolai most of the last few days, I suddenly feel very exposed. Though I face him, I’m unable to meet his eyes, and I lower mine, looking at the floor.

His gaze is on me. I can feel the weight of his assessing stare. Heat rises in me, and I feel my entire body flush in reaction to his scrutiny.

“Turn around,” he says finally. I comply silently, and face the massage table. I look intently at the white leather, as if it has something to teach me. Mostly, I just wait. I use this moment to clear my head completely. To embrace this thing with Nikolai, whatever it is, and to be the best version of myself.

“Bend over.”

My hands rest on the leather. My legs are spread shoulder-width apart. I stick my ass out towards him, and hope he enjoys the view. From his appreciative rumble, he does. “Mmm. Very nice,” he says, and I can hear the approval in his voice.

“Turn back around.” He stalks towards me as I face him demurely. His footsteps echo in the quiet, and the look on his face is unreadable. I want to ask him what he’s thinking, but I stay silent.

He is dressed casually. A white t-shirt and black pants, yet the contrast between his clothing and my nakedness could not be more apparent. I shiver slightly, my arousal already at near-unbearable levels. I really, really want Nikolai.

His fingers stroke my shoulders, and push my hair back. They tweak my nipples, which are erect with desire. I throw my head back and groan out my need, and he hisses in displeasure. “Stand up straight, and look forward.”  

Being good is going to be harder than I realized. I want to let my body feel these sensations, slump towards him as his touch possesses me. But we’ve barely started, and I’m determined to obey. I straighten, and look ahead.

“Very good,” he mutters, his breath caressing my ear. His lips brush my cheek, and I exhale through the full-body shudder that claims me. Goosebumps rise on my skin. A thousand little pinpricks of desire, serving as a visible sign of my complete immersion in this moment.

His hands caress my shoulders and chest; his fingers tweak at my hard nipples. “Mmm.”

He is excruciatingly slow. I am ready to scream in frustration by the time he dips his head towards my chest, and captures a nipple between his teeth. “Ah,” I groan as his mouth closes over my areola.

Lick. Flick. Nibble. Bite. He is playing my body, as expertly as he plays the piano, though my whimpers are nowhere as musical as the melody he draws from the keys.

“Do you like that?” he growls, lifting his head up. His fingers tug at the bud he was just tonguing.

Is it not obvious? “Yes Sir,” I exhale. I fight to stand still and straight; I struggle to look ahead. I want to collapse into him.

“Do you want these nipples clamped,
myshka
?”

“If it pleases you, Sir,” I answer.

He smiles. “Very good, Allie, that’s the right answer. It will please me very much to clamp these lovely breasts. I want to hear you moan into my ear.”

I feel him leave, and it’s like a bit of me has been torn away. But he returns, with a set of clamps. His fingers tease my buds into complete readiness, so they are protruding from my chest. The flat prongs of the clips close on them, and he tugs at the chain connecting them. I whimper in response.

“Such a good girl.” His praise warms me. “So very beautiful.” His lips meet mine, as a reward, and he sucks my lower lip between his teeth. Sharp lust spikes in me; sharp, painful lust. I moan again, this time into his mouth.

His hand slides down my abdomen, almost in slow motion, towards the cleft between my legs. His fingers tease, gliding on my mound, but he refuses to part my pussy and satiate the feverish need within me. Instead, he torments me with excruciatingly slow strokes.

“Nikolai,” I protest with a groan. “Stop teasing me.”

A stinging slap greets that complaint, right on my mound. “Are you going to be a good girl for me,
myshka
, or do I have to punish you?”

Don’t stop touching me
, I want to plead. “I’ll be good, Sir,” I sob out.

If he senses my desperation and my fervour, he doesn’t give any indication. His hands glide up the inside of my thighs, and I hold my breath in anticipation, but though he comes close to my folds, he refuses to make contact. Instead, his nails rake at my skin, and I whimper again. I shut my eyes and surrender to the pleasure.

“No, Allie.” He sounds disapproving, and his fingers tug at the chain connecting the nipple clamps, sending jolts of pain running through my body. “Keep your eyes open.”

I force them open in response to his order, and he tugs at the chain again. I feel my pussy clench, and I gush as he
handles
me with sure control.

“Do you want me to do this, Allie?” he teases, swiping a finger through my dripping slit.

“Oh, god, please, yes Sir.” The words come out in a rush. I can’t think. Everything hurts in the best kind of way.

“Or do you want me to do this instead?” He drops to his knees, and one hand curves around my ass, pulling my pussy close to his mouth. His tongue snakes out and traces a path through my folds, and I throw my head back in complete abandon.

“Yes, please,” I exhale.

The flat of his tongue laps at my pussy, and I spread my legs for him. He chuckles at my cooperation, but he doesn’t rebuke me for breaking position. Instead, he
feasts
on me, circling my clitoris with the tip of his tongue before sucking it between his teeth. Lust skyrockets in me; my hands clench at my sides. The fact that I can’t touch him back? Every bit of awareness and focus turns inward, and I feel each little lick on my body with startling clarity.