The Word Master (8 page)

Chapter 11.

“Take line seventeen,” Grover’s voice came over the speaker, even before the first song had finished playing. “Her name’s Gwen, and she sounds kinda interesting.”

Dutifully, April accepted the call into the studio.

“Hi Gwen,” she said without her usual touch of sultry sensuality. “You’re on the air with Jericho James. What would you like to ask?”

The caller sounded nervous. There was a stammer in her voice. She sounded mature – maybe in her forties or fifties.

“Um… hi, Jericho,” Gwen hesitated. “I’ve been listening avidly to your show all week and I really like your attitude towards BDSM.”

I smiled as I spoke. “Thanks, Gwen. That’s nice of you to say. Are you involved in the lifestyle?”

“Oh, god no!” Gwen said in an incredulous breath. “I guess I’m just like the majority of your listeners. I’m curious.”

“Okay. Well are there questions you would like to ask?”

“There are,” Gwen admitted, and then hesitated for another instant. “But they’re not about BDSM exactly – they’re about you. Is that okay?”

I froze. For a moment there was nothing but dead air. April looked up from her keyboard and shot me a withering glare.
“Say something!”
she mimed.

“It… it might be okay, Gwen. That depends on the questions,” I began cautiously. “I’m not going to share aspects of my personal life on the radio – that’s not what I’m here to do. I’m here to help answer general questions about BDSM, sex and submission. But… ask your first question,” I felt myself wincing, “and I’ll see if I feel comfortable answering.”

“Okay,” Gwen said in a gasp of relieved breath. “What color eyes do you have?”

I felt myself relax a little. Questions like this I could handle. “Brown.”

“And how old are you?”

“Thirty-nine.”

“And you’re really from Australia?”

“Yes,” I said. “I was born in Brisbane and moved to the States a few years ago.”

“Thank you,” Gwen said, and then her voice softened a little and became almost pleading. “I know I’ve taken up your time, but can I ask one last question?”

“Shoot,” I said.

“What is your idea of a perfect date?”

The question came out of left field – a question I had never been asked before in my life, and never actually even contemplated.

“Are you asking me as a man… or as a Master?” I said to buy myself a few precious seconds to think.

“As a man,” Gwen’s tone was adamant.

I stared into darkened space for an instant, and then leaned a little closer to the microphone. “My idea of a perfect date is whatever the woman I am with considers perfect,” I said honestly. I didn’t think about the words – I spoke from the heart. “Because to me, what makes any date perfect is pleasing the woman I am with. So if she loves carnival rides, my perfect date would be visiting a local fair ground. If the lady enjoys a quiet romantic candlelit dinner, then that too is my idea of a perfect date. Ultimately, I want the time I spend with the lady to be something that she will enjoy and remember. Her happiness is the way I would measure perfection.”

There wasn’t complete silence – I could hear Gwen breathing. Finally she gasped, “Oh, my…” and then the line went to static.

April swung smoothly into action. She punched at buttons and finally the opening bars to a popular song filled the studio. Then she looked up at me with a dreamy, enigmatic stare.

“Fuuuck!”
April said in an awed hiss of breath. “That was hot!”

“Huh?”

April snatched off her headphones and dropped them onto the desk. She swung back in her chair and her eyes sparkled. “That was the sexiest, most sensual thing I have heard you say all week,” she enthused. “It was the kind of answer that will have every woman in Boston swooning.”

“Are you serious?”

“Hell yeah!” she said, then tilted her head a little to the side as if to see me from a different angle. “Most guys would have said their idea of a perfect date would be a baseball game, or a football game… guy kinds of things. But not you, Mr. Fucking Smooth and Sexy. You just gave the million dollar answer.”

She gave me one last lingering look, and then leaned back over the keyboard. She was working frantically. I could hear the song was about to end and I glanced up at the clock.

“Another call, or another song?”

“More tunes,” April said without looking up from the monitor. “I’m just piecing together some background music for when you do this sub-club thing – jazz… that kind of stuff to help set the mood.”

“Okay,” I said, figuring that meant I had a break. It was twenty minutes after the hour. I had ten minutes before the start of the new segment.

I was going to need every minute of that time.

Because I suddenly realized I had a serious problem.

Chapter 12.

I paced the hallway for five fruitless minutes, wrestling with ideas and discarding them just as quickly as they occurred to me. I could see April through the open door, still building a playlist of background instrumental tunes that she would play beneath the sub-club segment.

Only there wasn’t going to be a sub-club segment.

I couldn’t do it.

Finally I went back into the studio and glanced up at the clock. I had three minutes. April turned, saw the ashen expression on my face, and her eyes widened and filled with curious concern. She tore her headphones off and swung round in her chair until she was facing me.

“Are you okay?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I’ve got a problem with the sub-club segment.”

“What?” April spat the word and managed to inflect it with a hint of sudden panic. “You’re telling me this now? What’s the fucking problem?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I can’t do it,” I said. “I can’t give instructions over the air to these women and make it realistic enough.”

April snatched a glance at the ticking clock and then turned back to me. There was a sudden flare of temper in her expression.

“Why not?”

“Because I won’t be able to visualize everything and concentrate on the instructions at the same time. I can’t hold an image in my imagination and talk about it like it was real.”

April became incredulous. “You do it all the time!” she said, the reedy waver of panic rising in her voice.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t,” I said. “I talk about concepts. I talk about ideas and my beliefs. I can’t narrate an imagined scene and make it detailed and real enough for it to become an actual listener experience.”

April threw her hands in the air in frantic exasperation. “Well what the fuck are we going to do?”

I shrugged. “Cancel it? Cancel the segment?”

April’s face turned to stone. “No way,” she came out of her chair. “Collett would fire me. No fucking way. This is her baby, Jericho. It
has
to happen… and we’ve got sixty seconds to find a solution.”

Our eyes went to the clock as if it were counting down the final seconds to our doom. I dropped heavily into the chair and pulled the headphones over my ears. April was prowling across the tiny studio floor¸ her hands on her hips, her ponytail swishing across her shoulders like the tail of an agitated lioness. She was glaring at me.

The music finished. I leaned in close to the microphone.

“Welcome back, listeners,” I said, the words sounding somehow brittle in my ears. “This is Jericho, and tonight I have a special segment for you. We’re calling it the sub-club, and it’s an opportunity for everyone interested in the thrill of BDSM to become my on-air submissives, and for me to become your on-air Master. We’re going to begin your training in just a few minutes, but in the meantime I want everyone who wants to join in to fetch a pillow and a candle…” I paused for just a heartbeat. “When you come back to the radio, turn off the house lights and light the candle. I want you kneeling on the pillow, in just your bra and panties… waiting for me…”

There was a block of commercials already cued to play. April leaned across the desk and angrily thumped the keyboard. She glanced up at the clock.

“Two minutes,” she declared. “That’s all we’ve got.”

I sat back in the chair and stared numbly at the ceiling. The air hissed from between my lips like I had been heart-punched.

April was on the verge of blind panic. She was wringing her hands and gnawing her lip in agitation.

“What do you need?” her voice cracked and wavered.

I shook my head. “I need to see…” I said abstractly. “I just can’t visualize and…”

I heard April swear bitterly, then suddenly she peeled off her sweater and stood only in her bra, her chest heaving, the mounds of her breasts barely contained within a flimsy lace of lingerie. She threw her sweater on the floor and dropped to her knees. She gave me a look of pure venom. Her eyes had narrowed into glinting arrowheads and the powder of fine freckles across her nose glowed like flakes of gold.

“The pants stay on,” she thrust a warning finger at me, “and if you so much as touch me, I will break your fucking arm.”

For an instant I didn’t understand, and then suddenly, with a lift of relief, I understood it all. I nodded and snatched at the microphone just as the final commercial’s jingle faded out.

“Welcome back, ladies,” I said. I deepened my voice, made it lower and slower, turning the tempo and cadence of my words into a measured pulsing beat. “And welcome to our sub-club segment. I trust you are somewhere private, kneeling in your panties and bra by candlelight…” I glanced over at April. She was watching me warily, her face flushed and her lips wrenched into a resentful sneer. In the background I heard the soft strain of a saxophone, and realized that April had somehow linked the block of commercials to the mood music she had been arranging.

“I want your knees parted,” I said across the air, “nice and wide for me,” I glanced at April. She took a deep breath and then shuffled on the cushion of her sweater. “That’s better,” I said in a soothing croon. “Now I want you to clasp your hands behind your back.”

April followed the instruction. I left a moment of deliberate dead air as though I was waiting for the thousands of listeners to do the same.

“Good,” I said. “Seeing you in that pose pleases your Master. This is the pose you will adopt for me at the beginning of future segments because it gives me access to your body – and that’s what I want. I want to admire you. I want to walk slowly around you and run my fingers across the soft skin of your shoulder, and hear your breath hitch in the back of your throat with sensual anticipation…”

I glanced again at April. She was watching me, her eyes slowly slanting with the first traces of her own smolder of arousal. She was kneeling with her back straight, the flame red color of her hair a stark contrast to the milky pale tone of her flesh.

“Thrust your breasts out for me,” I said. “In this position you are presenting your body to your Master. I want to know you are proud of your curves, and confident in your ability to serve and submit.”

Another instant of pause – just a single beat before I went on.

“Now open your mouth,” I said softly. “Open your mouth wide for your Master so I can see how eager you are to please me.” The words across the airwaves were a deliberate caress of gravelly sound, firm but not demanding. It was important that the women felt seduced, not demeaned.

I saw April open her mouth wide, and the pink tip of her tongue licked her lips glossy. “That’s right,” I said. “That’s beautiful. It shows your Master that you are willing and wanting. I like that. I like knowing my submissives are eager to feel their Master’s hard shaft slide across their lips as they take me in their mouth...”

I saw a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye and glanced up. Beyond where April knelt, Grover was suddenly standing with his hands pressed against the window, his eyes wide, his ragged breath leaving little clouds of fog on the glass. He was like a prisoner, denied the sight of a beautiful woman for too many years. He stared hungrily down into the studio at where April was kneeling, his face twitching with perverse arousal.

I bounced out of my chair and pulled down the blinds, shutting April and I away, deepening the darkened isolation of the studio so that it seemed – in that moment – that we were alone in the world. The jazz music in the background wavered through the air like a slow flowing river, the sound lulling and almost hypnotic.

“Now I want you to think about me,” I said softly into the microphone. “Think about me standing before you, my hands on my hips, the clench of my hardness in my jeans unmistakable. Imagine how much it would satisfy you to please your Master. Imagine the pleasure you could bring me with the skillful use of your mouth…

“I want you to visualize me before you, your face turned up to mine, your mouth open and willing, and an eager, wanting look in your eyes. That’s what arouses me – the look on a woman’s face as she offers herself totally and completely. The more real this experience is for you, the more intense the emotions you should be feeling right now. Concentrate. Picture me in your mind…”

I saw April slowly close her eyes, and a tiny furrow of concentration creased her brow. I watched her for several moments as the background music ebbed and flowed.

“Now I want you to fold forward at the waist,” I said. My voice stayed carefully modulated – firm but not insistent – the harsh edges of each word smoothed away by the softness of my tone. “Put yourself on your hands and knees, with your back arched, and your head lowered.”

I looked across at April. For an instant she didn’t move – it was as if she had drifted into some kind of hypnotic trance. Her eyes came open slowly, blinked and focused. She flicked a dreamy glance at me and then bent her body forward so that she was in position.

“Good girl,” I said. “Arch your back for me.”

April arched her back. With her head lowered, her ponytail had fallen forward so that it hung beside her face.

“Now reach back between your spread legs with one hand,” I commanded, “… and touch yourself.”

I let the music swell to fill the silence. April moved like she was mesmerized, shifting her weight and balance, and then her fingers began to drift down across her abdomen until her palm was pressing through the fabric of her slacks. She rubbed at the mound of her sex and I saw a tiny shudder of something sensual ripple along the length of her spine.

“Visualize me watching you right now,” I spoke into the microphone, trying to make each word a caress. “Fantasize about your Master and how much pleasure your obedience gives. Slide your fingers inside your panties until you can feel the damp slick heat of your pussy.”

April continued to massage herself through her slacks. I heard her inhale a deep shuddering breath.

In the darkened seclusion of the studio I imagined women across the city pleasuring themselves in the privacy of their own homes. In the silence, the only sound was the soft purr of music and April’s breathing, now becoming irregular and ragged.

“Feel the heat of your arousal,” I encouraged the listeners. “Touch your clit and explore the softness of your folds. Imagine me watching you, my eyes hot with sudden hunger for you as you slowly bring yourself closer and closer to the edge of orgasm…”

I glanced up at the clock. My timing was perfect. I let the music play for a few seconds longer and then suddenly said, “Now stop.”

April’s head lifted and she shot me a look of confusion. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted and glossy. I could see the movement of her shoulder blade beneath the flawless skin of her back as she continued to use her palm between her spread legs.

“That’s enough for our first night together, my sensual submissives. Your Master has not given you permission to come,” the tone of my voice altered in an instant, transforming into a firm warning. “You will not orgasm until I allow you – control of your pleasure is one of the most precious gifts a submissive offers to her Master when she surrenders to him. I now have that authority and the power of your release. You will only orgasm when I allow you. That may be tomorrow night… so be sure to tune in to our next sub-club session together. In the meantime, I want you all to stay wet and willing and wanting…”

I saw April clamber unsteadily to her feet. She was trembling. She flashed a heated glare at me and snatched up her sweater. She thumbed at the keyboard and soft rock filled my headphones. I sat back and let out a long breath of relief.

April had one hand on her hip, her eyes fixed on mine. Her breath was coming in little pants. “You could have at least let us – them – come,” she was flustered with incredulity and irritation. She tugged on her sweater and seized her handbag. “Fifteen minutes of music,” she hurled the comment over her shoulder as she went storming unsteadily out through the studio door towards the ladies’ room. “It’s already programmed… asshole.”