The Mammoth Book of Erotica Presents The Best of Saskia Walker (4 page)

He reached for her and kissed her cheek, lifting her and sliding her to her feet, supporting her in his arms. “I’m not done with you yet, Lois. I want to see you perform some more.”

She gave a breathy laugh, leaning back against him. “Is that a threat or a promise?”

“Consider it a bit of both.”

At the end of her presentation, Lois turned to the gathering and smiled, ready to take questions. Most of the board nodded in agreement. Tim Laybourne rapped his pen on the table, swiveling his gangly head from side to side as he raised the pen in the air to make a point.

Here we go, let’s see if Jack’s right
. She leaned forward and put both hands on the table, flashing her cleavage at him. “Tim, you had a question?” She glanced past him, at Jack, who winked.

Tim coughed uncomfortably, flushing from the top of his collar to the roots of his hair. “I remain unconvinced about the financing of this project.” He didn’t even sound convinced of his own words. Jack was right; he had the hots, severely.

She eased onto the table, facing in his direction and resting on one hip, her short skirt growing even shorter. She lifted the finance sheet. “The figures don’t make sense?” She gave him a gently enquiring smile.

Laybourne stared at her thigh, open mouthed and speechless.

“If I might interject?” It was Jack and his expression indicated his restrained humor. “Why don’t you just run through that last part again? I’d certainly appreciate a repeat performance.” He lifted one eyebrow suggestively.

The tone of his voice and the way he looked at her assured her he wasn’t just talking about a run-through on the sums. He reached for her again, invisibly nurturing her strengths. She’d always thrived on her role in the workplace, but under his knowing gaze she reveled in it. Since their encounter the week before, everything he’d said to her at work had been laden with suggestion of the sexual kind, keeping their affair on rapid simmer. And right now the tug of his call pulled on her, from cunt to mouth. She was salivating for more of what he’d given her.

“Of course not, Jack. I’m quite sure it would benefit everybody involved.”

Jack nodded, his eyes gleaming with affirmation. Then he sat back in his chair and watched Lois perform, just like he would watch her perform again that night, with measured willpower and the perfect level of restraint, leading to the ultimate mutual reward.

Daniel is kneeling before me. I walk around him, my paces measured, my long leather boots making a quiet but insistent sound as they brush together. They’re all I’m wearing. Daniel is stripped to the waist, his arms cuffed behind him. I’m admiring his body, so leanly muscular as he kneels on the floor before me, resting on his haunches, his torso upright and proud. As I consider the fact that he is mine, my willing pet, power plumes through me. As if it were a heady sexual elixir, I thrive on it. My core tightens and my sex grows damper with each passing moment.

His head moves imperceptibly as he watches me, and I revel in his adoring gaze. His cock is hard inside his faded black jeans, but I know he likes that confinement, just as he likes his wrists bound behind his back while I survey him. He’s so alert, so taut with restrained desire. I feel it pouring out of him and it empowers me more.

As I walk on, circling him, I reach over, pull a chair close behind him, and sit. Over his shoulder, I see our reflection in the mirror. He’s looking too, and it’s the perfect image of woman and lover.

I trace one hand down his back. His muscles ripple and I know he’s longing for more, for a more vivid assault on his senses: the whip. Making him wait, I sit back in the chair, lift my foot, and rest one stiletto heel between his shoulder blades, edging him forward. He pivots against it and groans aloud, his body arched. I know just how much pain he wants, how much he needs. My body responds to his reaction, heat rising to the surface of my skin. My inner vixen is revving up to full throttle, the essential me – the inner woman that Daniel recognized and introduced me to.

“How did you know that I would respond?” I asked him the night we met.

“I saw her, your inner vixen. I wanted to know her. I wanted to experience her.”

So did I.

That’s how it began.

We met at an alternative music event. I was there to photograph it for a guide promoting local gigs. I went alone, which I usually did when I was working. I dressed strong, which meant people wouldn’t bother me – Doc Martens, black combat pants with a studded belt, cropped sports bra, bare midriff, my tribal tattoos on display.

It was a hot night and heat was rising from the pavement. Inside the pub venue I found the performance room was a large space upstairs, filling fast with the alternative crowd, black-wearing fetishists and goths. I stationed myself by a pillar near the front, where I had a good view of both stage and audience. The atmosphere was already humming with energy when the music kicked off.

I was busy photographing the first band when I became aware of someone watching me. I scanned the crowd. The man caught my eye and, as he did, he acknowledged me, quickly smiling and walking over. All in black, he was a studious type with shaggy hair and a lean, whip-strong countenance.

He ducked in against my head to speak over the music, introducing himself, commenting on what I was up to. “Nice camera, is this a hobby?”

“Started that way. It’s work, this time around. I’m photographing the gig for a new music magazine.”

He nodded. “I haven’t seen you in the scene before.”

“I just moved from the other side of London.” I nodded my head to the people behind him. “Looks like a fun crowd.”

“You better believe it.” His smile held so much mischief that I was immediately affected by it.

Looking back at how events unfolded that night, I often contemplate how surprised I would have been if I had known where it was going. I tried not to get too distracted from the job as I answered his questions. There was something compelling about him but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Was it because he was looking so attentively at me?

During the gap between the bands I took a break to chat properly. He started to talk about astronomy, of all things. He was intelligent and amusing, and I was quickly laughing, unable to stop enjoying the rapid-fire conversation he initiated. The crowd moved around us, a parade of peacocks, a blur of black, velvet, shiny, metal-studded – a visual feast for the senses. The DJ music between the bands had my pulse racing, or was it because of Daniel’s attention and the fact it was all mine? All mine. Like a devotee. Oh, yes, I was hooked, even though I didn’t yet know why.

When he made the move, he did it subtly, never breaking his conversation. He reached inside his biker jacket and pulled out a small, soft leather object. He turned it in his hands, attracting my attention to it. I saw that it was a leather head mask. He looked up suddenly, and stopped talking.

He was measuring my reaction to the object he held.

My pulse tripped and then raced on, fascination flickering inside me.

His eyes narrowed, glinting, his smile wickedly mischievous and attractive. I couldn’t stop myself from returning it. Behind him I saw that people were looking our way. Part of me wanted to walk away. Whatever game he was playing with me right there at the front of the venue was going to attract attention. But he triggered something inside me, and it was because of his demeanor, somehow respectful, and intrinsically sexy. It tugged at my curiosity, and aroused me.

“Will you lace me in?” He paused, his eyes scrutinizing me as I considered the remark.

Something was unfolding inside me, and it was something big, overwhelming.

I nodded, still smiling. I’d never done anything like this before, but the adventure had me firmly in its grasp. He pulled the mask over his head. It moved easily into place, pushing his hair down and outlining his head starkly. The leather was polished black, reflecting the stage lights as he turned and dipped down to let me tie the laces that ran down the back of his skull to the nape of the neck.

Oh, how that simple act affected me, fuelling me for what was to come.

My camera dangled from my neck as I moved into place. The laces felt good in my hands, and I enjoyed the feeling of control I got when I pulled the soft leather into place. It hugged tightly to his skull, enclosing him. Even though I tried to concentrate on the task, I was acutely aware of my own reaction to it, as well as the attention we were generating from the crowd beyond. People were watching, and somehow that made it all the more arousing.

When I was done, he turned back to me, his eyes twinkling through the peepholes. Incredibly, he unzipped the mouth and continued his conversation as before. The second band came onstage. The singer, a striking punk in leather jeans and a studded corset, strutted the stage as she sang, twin keyboard players behind her moving to the drum and bass sound. Daniel and I shifted to the music at first and then, without warning, he dropped to his knees before me. Resting back on his haunches, he looked up at me adoringly. Laughter escaped me and his eyes twinkled as I reached out and instinctively put my hand on his head. I could almost feel him urging me on. Something certainly was, and I was getting high on the rush it delivered. After I stroked his head, he rubbed it against my thighs in an affectionate, catlike way, first one side, than the other. It was an incredibly sensual thing to do and my pussy was getting hotter and damper all the time. Arousal and self-awareness of the observers affected me strangely. I couldn’t quite believe it, and for some reason I couldn’t stop smiling. It was different from what I had thought it would be, though, because it felt so . . . right. Something inside of me was responding to him, and it felt good.

“You’re diverting attention from the band,” I teased, when he stood up, speaking close against his head so he could hear me.

“Ah, but they don’t mind, they’re friends.” He looked toward the stage and as he did I realized the singer had been watching him and she was beaming. She winked at me. I felt welcomed, part of it, and oddly at home.

Daniel reached inside his leather jacket again, his hand resting there.
What would it be this time
? I wondered with anticipation. From the pocket, he pulled out a whip, a cat-o’-nine-tails with its leather strands wound tight around the handle.
A whip
. I watched as he ran the strands through his fingers, untangling them. My heart was pounding. I couldn’t imagine where the situation was going next. Just thinking about it set me on a roller coaster of emotions. Over his shoulder, I saw that several members of the audience were completely riveted. Men. Hungry men, with envy in their eyes. Did they think we were together? That we were part of the show?

Before I had time to wonder any more, the singer jumped from the stage and strode toward us as she belted out the lyrics of her song. She took the whip from Daniel and pointed it at the ground. I watched, riveted, as he knelt and curled over. Moving to the music, she thrashed his upper body through his leather jacket. As he pulled the jacket tight I became aware that there was something under it. Daniel was wearing a bondage harness under his clothes. My pussy clenched.

The singer handed me the whip and smiled, before leaping back onto the stage. She hovered at our side of the stage, where the light poured down onto us. There was a moment of fear, a moment of confusion, and then it happened: a rampant urge to do it, to take control, rose up inside me, as if a switch had been tripped. I knew what to do, and why. I stepped over to where he was crouching, looking up at me with expectation. I clenched the handle of the whip, running the strands of leather across my other hand. What would it feel like, whipping a man? My body told me how it would feel: good. Any doubt I had was pushed aside as I reminded myself that he wanted it, and he enjoyed this. So would I.

The audience had created a semicircle around him, and I stepped in front of them, facing the stage. Music pounded in my ears, powering me up even more. My senses were being overloaded, and yet I was strangely honed and clear-headed. I was in this scene. More than that, I was in control of it now.

Oh God, how good it felt
. I was wet, my sex clenching.

I ran the strands of leather across his back, testing it out. The line of his bondage harness was obvious now. As I considered how it might feel for him, and for me, something flared inside me: need, and desire. I thrashed him across the back of one shoulder, then the other, moving in rhythmic patterns. He flinched at each thrash and my pussy gushed. The rush of power I got, heady and deviant, startled me with its intensity. Pleasure ripped through me. I bent down and put my hand under his jacket and T-shirt, grasping for the harness. Pushing my fingers under it, I gripped, applying enough tension so that he would feel it all over his body.

His hands went to the floor, bracing himself, and I knew I had tuned in to something. “You naughty boy,” I said with delight against his head.

Shame poured out of him.

I lifted and stepped away from him, returning to my pillar at the stage, the whip dangling from my hand. My heart was pounding. I couldn’t believe what I’d just done and, most of all, I couldn’t believe the way it made me feel. Daniel rose to his hands and knees and padded over to me, like a pet panther. He stayed by my feet for the rest of the gig, his head rubbing against me affectionately. As I stroked his head in between taking photographs of the band onstage, a feeling of inner calm washed over me. Even though I was still aroused, startled, and confused by my reaction, it was like a feeling of honesty and true realization.

This has empowered me
.

The whole experience had been like sex itself, with its arousal, its peak, its transcendence. I’d had no clue I would enjoy dominating a man, whipping him publicly, but I had. And, judging from the adoration at my feet, it was a two-way street.

As the gig ended, the lights went up and everyone was suddenly far too real for me. I didn’t want the staring eyes anymore. I needed a drink. I needed space to think through what had happened to me. The band members were with Daniel; he was on his feet, chatting. Maybe if he hadn’t been with me, he would have gone to someone else. Whatever his reason for choosing me to approach, it had altered my life. Grabbing my stuff, I headed to the bar downstairs, where I ordered a double shot and downed it quickly. My legs were like jelly as I put down the glass and made ready to leave. Daniel was on his way down the stairs, and the mask was gone.