Unraveled by Her (13 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Much later, when Robert is out playing squash (I wish to God that I were good enough to play against him, but I'm not, and I'd hate not to give him a run for his money), I take a spin on the stationary bike in the gym, and my thoughts drift to the subject of dominance and submission.

Without me wanting it to, the thought pops into my mind that part of the excitement of
il nostro mondo segreto
is that it allows you to have two distinctly separate selves. Two separate lives, really.

So that in public, he treats me as if I were the queen to his king, and an equal, but in private, if he so decides, he has every right to treat me like a submissive, a servant, a slave. Which gives me the chance to be two people all at once, and all in one lifetime—a man's equal and his inferior—and to be that with a man who is able to be two people with me, as well: a kind and gentlemanly lover and a harsh and cruel Master. Which is part of what makes what we do together all the more highly colored and incredibly exciting to me.

Days after my brazen plea to Robert to take me down into the dungeons again, and after our adventure in Dungeon 3, we are in the basement, en route to Dungeon 2.

In a way, I'm disappointed because I assumed that he would take me to Dungeon 4. Dungeon 2 is kitted out like a den, with normal furniture in it—no stocks, no rack, no whipping post in sight. In fact, Dungeon 2 doesn't have any BDSM equipment in it at all, so I can't imagine what he plans to do to me in there.

Which, of course, is all part of his high-octane appeal as a Master: I can never second-guess his plans, nor anticipate in advance what he intends to do to me. Which renders the prospect of spending time in the dungeon with him all the more terrifying, and all the more erotic.

He unlocks the door to Dungeon 2, then steps aside to allow me to enter first, a striking departure from one of the rules that he has recently instilled in me.

“When we are alone together and no one else is present, if ever we approach a door, I expect you to stand back and open it for me, then wait humbly for me to go through it,” he says sternly, then adds, “At which point, you may follow behind me.

“This rule, however, does not apply when we are out in public. Under those circumstances, you will always comport yourself as my equal, and not as my submissive.”

I nod, and am glad.

Inside the dungeon, he toys with the sound system as he selects the tracks he wants to hear over the next few hours. The tracks that will play during whatever he has designated to be my fate in Dungeon 2.

Rock? Jazz? Baroque? Romantic American standards?

Instead, I hear the relaxing tones of some indeterminate New Age music I don't recognize, the kind of music you hear in upmarket beauty parlors, selected so as to lull you into a stupor.

A clue regarding what will happen to me next.

“Miranda, I've opted to bring you here to Dungeon Two because I intend to continue your training, but not at an accelerated rate after the events of the past week,” he says slowly.

I nod but feel slightly disappointed that he still wants to take everything at a snail's pace.

“I also intend to free you of the misconception that a dominant needs expensively furnished dungeons or intricate equipment in order to inflict punishment or to exercise his will on a submissive. Understood?”

On ‘Understood?' I almost jump out of my skin, his change of tone, the timbre of his voice throws me so off balance.

“Now take all your clothes off, fold them in a neat pile, and place them in the closet by the door,” he orders, and I do.

“Over there,” he says, pointing to an alcove on the right-hand side of the dungeon.

Shaking with a combination of fear and excitement, I approach the black leather and metal chair with silver hoops on seat and back.

“The Falcon Chair—a Norwegian design classic, a piece of art, really, but one that can have uses not initially apparent to those who are not on our own particular wavelength,” he says with a seductive smile, then points at the chair and snaps his fingers.

I immediately sit down in it, and without a word, he cuffs my arms and legs, securing each cuff to the four silver hoops, and leaves me there immobile and helpless.

With my arms raised high but supported by the back of the chair, my breasts feel extra full, extra weighty. I don't like the way they feel, or how I must look to Robert. Although I guess he wouldn't have put me in this position if he didn't relish the way it made me look.

But whether I like the spectacle I present to him or not, tethered to the Falcon Chair as I am, I have no choice but to confront my own bondage, as Robert has placed a full-length antique standing mirror a few feet away from me, and I am faced with my own image reflected in it.

My legs, of course, are spread far apart, which makes me feel intensely vulnerable, particularly when I see him walk toward me with a red silk cravat in his hands, which he then ties around my head.

“I know you hate blindfolds, but that's tough, because I love seeing you this way: helpless, vulnerable, in my power, yet trusting me not to abuse that very vulnerability, that powerlessness,” he says.

He's right, I do trust him. But that doesn't lessen the panic that sweeps through me.

Will he hurt me?

If so, where?

On my inner thighs, now tied wide apart and presented?

Up till now, I was never punished there, but I've read somewhere that in the aftermath, walking becomes acutely painful because when you press your welted thighs together, you inflame and irritate the welts.

I'd hate to experience that, but if that's what he wants to inflict on me, then that's what I'll endure, without question

Or is he going to attach clothespins to my breasts and all over my body? I know I don't have any choice, but I truly hope that he doesn't, because from past experience, I know that will hurt like hell.

Lucky for me (and this is one of the many things I love about Robert), when it comes to
il nostro mondo segreto,
his imagination is so rabid, his range of experience so all-encompassing, that he rarely repeats himself.

He may use the same implements, but rarely on the same part of my body, rarely in exactly the same way.

He's put me in bondage before, of course, but this time is somehow different, perhaps because of the position he's put me in on the Falcon Chair, but more, I think, because we are not in a typical dungeon but in an everyday room, and I am tied to an everyday chair.

In fact, I don't understand why Robert has called this Dungeon 2 at all when it's really just a den, plain and simple.

Suddenly, I feel his hot breath on my neck, then his hands stroking my hair, then he kisses my neck lightly, so lightly that I pluck up my courage and ask, “Master, this is such a nice, normal den, and not a dungeon at all, so why—?”

“Are you sure you really want to know?” he says, with a note of menace I've never heard in his voice before.

My heart is in my mouth but I'm nevertheless determined to stay true to my motto, “It's better to regret what you've done than not to do,” so I tell myself that it's better to learn the truth about Dungeon 2 than not to know it at all, and I say, “If there's one thing about me that you can be sure of, Master, it's that I'll always, always want to know.”

And he laughs a deep, rumbling laugh.

“Always the adventuress! Part of the reason I can't get enough of you,” he says.

The intimacy in his voice fills me with warmth.

“So are you going to tell me?” I say.

His answer is to pull the blindfold off my eyes, so that I am faced with the vision of him in his black leather trousers and nothing else, the muscles of his chest rippling, his eyes full of dark and dangerous promise.

“Miranda, I'm prepared to reveal the secret of Dungeon Two to you, just as long as you understand that I don't intend to permit you to experience it at any length today, and perhaps not ever,” he says.

“But why on earth not, Robert?” I say, so riled by his refusal that if I weren't tied to the chair, I'd probably stamp my foot in frustration.

Without a word, he uncoils his leather Armani belt—the leather belt I bought for him during our Manhattan spending spree—and slowly, agonizingly slowly, holds it by the buckle, and with the tip flicks my right armpit, then my left.

And light as each stroke is, I let out a yelp and struggle against my bonds with all my strength, while he watches, and his conqueror's smile plays about his lips.

“Punishment for petulance,” he says, then swirls his tongue around my armpit, first my left, then my right, while I moan with pleasure.

“More than a few nerves there. Which is why the belt hurt so very much, and then the pleasure afterward is so intense. Another lesson . . .” he says.

And all I can do is secretly thank my lucky stars that he didn't use a crop or anything more lethal on my armpits.

I still want him to reveal the secret of Dungeon 2 to me so that I can understand how a room that looks just like a den can have something sinister lurking beneath its cozy and conventional surface.

But before I can raise the topic once more, he grips my hair, pulls my head back, then thrusts his tongue into my mouth, deeper and deeper, wetter and wetter, making me feel wilder than wild.

I so want to put my arms around him, to hold him, to touch him, but I can't.

That's the way he wants it, so I accept it.

Besides, I love his kissing me, love his having his tongue down my throat, love it when he kisses me so deeply and for so long that the world suddenly dissolves, and all I can see and feel is Robert and his kiss.

“You are so kissable, Miranda, so very kissable. Particularly when you are tied up like this,” he says, his voice ragged with passion.

Then he stands up and runs his fingers through his dark, lustrous hair, and for a second he looks at me as if he were a dreamer who has just snapped out of a dream.

“You really want me to let you in on the secret of Dungeon Two?” he says.

I nod, all big eyes as if I'm about to be told whether Father Christmas will climb down the chimney tonight or not.

“Well, you present me with a great dilemma. Have you ever heard of seeding?” he says.

“Only in flowers,” I say. Flowers like the Lady Georgiana rose. At the thought of her name, I can feel my stomach lurch and my breath quicken with guilt.

“Quite right, Miranda,” he says, and for a moment he is transformed into my school principal about to give me a gold star.

Then he goes on, “But in this case, I'm talking about the seeding a dominant can do in order to inflame a submissive for days, weeks, even months.”

Inflame a submissive? The entire time I'm with Robert, and every single second I'm not, even in the dead of night when I'm fast asleep, I'm inflamed by him. I don't think he could inflame me much more.

Or could he?

“Tell me more, please, Robert,” I say, but then quickly scoot down in my chair a fraction, aware that now that we are in the dungeon together, I should have addressed him as Master.

But right now he doesn't seem to mind my lapse of protocol.

“In this case, I mean inflaming you by planting a certain scenario, a certain implement, a piece of furniture, a particular situation in your mind and then letting it simmer there for as long as I wish, while you drive yourself wild with longing for your fantasies to become a reality,” he says, and his voice rings out with knowledge and authority.

I nod, mesmerized and fully aware that I'm more than ready for him to seed me anytime he wants.

“My dilemma is this: if I reveal the secret of Dungeon Two, I have no doubt whatsoever that you'll want me to subject you to it at great length, and right away. And given everything you've endured at the hands of Tamara, the time definitely isn't right for that,” he says.

I refuse to let my memories of Tamara and Georgiana and the kidnapping, or, worse still, my knowledge that Georgiana is still alive, deprive me of what I crave so passionately.