Unraveled by Him (17 page)

Standing on my toes, my legs spread, my arms above my head, my body taut, tense, yet open and available.

I hear the whistle of an implement slice through the air, and I flinch.

But I feel nothing.

He is teasing me, flaunting his power over me.

I hear him walk away from me.

I start to panic.

He’s not going to leave me here like this, is he?

I strain pointlessly against the cuffs.

He has tethered me efficiently enough for the cuffs not to cut into my wrists or ankles, but tight enough to stop me from escaping, no matter what he does to me, or how much it hurts.

I hear his footsteps coming closer to me again.

I tense in anticipation of what he is about to inflict on my naked and exposed body.

Then I feel the sensation of a damp sponge being rubbed all over my body as he sponges my breasts, my stomach, my thighs, my back, my bottom with cold water.

Cold, but not unbearable, and I catch myself liking the soothing feel of the water on my tense body.

Clearly Robert is not in the mood to soothe me, so I don’t understand the reason for the water.

Reading my mind in that infuriating way of his, he says, “A true submissive, one with experience, knows that the pain is doubled if the skin is wet.”

There is so much to learn, and I guess I’ll never know everything.

I feel the air move once more, and the cords of the whip lash first into my stomach, then into my right thigh, then my left, not hard but fast, fast enough to make me writhe and squirm.

The stinging lash of the whip, made far worse by the fact that my body is wet all over, crisscrosses my stomach, my ass, my back, my thighs, my breasts.

The pain is excruciating, but the excitement of the moment, the thrill of being made to suffer this for Robert’s pleasure, somehow makes it easier to take.

“You want this, Miranda, don’t you,” he says in his deep, gravelly voice. “We both know how much you need it, don’t we, Miranda?”

I nod, wordless.

Meanwhile, my calves have started to ache unbearably from standing on my toes, from me fighting to retain my balance.

Now he is alternately lashing the front of me and the back, moving stealthily between the two, like a hungry tiger set on devouring his helpless prey.

I never know where the whip is going to land next, and that lack of control makes it harder to bear.

But bear it I must.

“Tears yet, Miranda?” Robert whispers into my ear suddenly.

I shake my head, only to be rewarded with a sharp crack of the whip across the lower part of my ass.

“You’ll have to sleep on your side after this,” he says, more than a hint of satisfaction in his voice.

Then, in a swift move, he lashes each side of my body hard, not once, not twice, but several times.

“Or perhaps you won’t,” he says with a rich chuckle.

Then it’s over, and he removes the blindfold and unstraps me, wraps his arms around me, and gently places me on a vast four-poster bed in the corner of the dungeon.

He orders me to lie on my back and spread my legs; I start to throb with anticipation of what he clearly has in store for me.

He is on top of me now, the entire weight of his body resting on me, and I revel in the bulk of him, the muscle of him.

Then he moves down lower, much lower, and I feel his tongue inside me, thrusting, swirling, pleasuring me, while I lift my hips up to him.

He is inside me now, filling me, pumping me, riding me, and despite the welts on my ass, which he is pressing into the mattress, making it smart and ache, I want to keep him there, forever.

I feel the pulsation of his cock and his breath quickens; he is about to come inside me and I am ecstatic that he is giving me the greatest gift of all.

At that exact moment, in a dizzyingly swift move, he pulls out of me, and I am empty.

In a millisecond he is on his feet, and in a flash he is fully dressed again.

At the door of the dungeon, he turns and says, “Return to your suite immediately, and compose yourself. I shall be joining you there in an hour.”

And with that he leaves me there, on the verge of tears because he didn’t allow me to pleasure him, because he has denied me my heart’s desire.

The Master, withholding the essence of himself—the ultimate punishment for a submissive like me.

Back in the suite, once I’ve had a bubble bath, I inspect my welts in the mirror and admiringly conclude that Robert is an artist with the whip: the welts are carefully placed over my body like diamonds but are not too deep and will fade quickly.

But will his memory of Lady Georgiana? And will I ever be able to compete with it, or with her?

It’s past eleven when Robert bangs on the door of my suite.

I let him in, thrilled to see him.

“Tonight you exceeded my wildest dreams, Miranda,” he says, and I feel dizzy with pleasure and relief.

And then he hands me a red velvet box.

Inside, a vintage Chopard watch in a diamond and emerald Kutchinsky setting—emerald like his eyes—with a diamond-and-emerald-encrusted strap by Van Cleef & Arpels.

The watch is unutterably beautiful and startlingly unique, as it has two faces for two different time zones.

Two faces!
Just like you, Robert
, flashes through my mind; then I feel massively guilty at having such a critical thought about him, given how generous he has been to me.

I kiss his neck, his eyes, his arm, then run my fingers down to in between his legs.

To my surprise, he moves away from me.

“When I’m with you, Miranda, you excite me so much that my brain turns to mush, and tonight, of all nights, I need to focus. Because, however much the doubts the wreath caused me to have about you are fading, they won’t be banished completely until you’ve passed all five tests.”

“And I will, Robert, I swear that I will. You’ve challenged me, and there is no way I’m not going win,” I say.

“As a gambling man, I’d bet on it, my little spitfire,” he says, and my heart soars.

Then he goes on: “As—judging by your performance this evening—I am certain that you will prove that the wreath and the message it carried are an unadulterated lie, I am going to take another risk. Not just once, but each and every time you have passed one of my tests,” he says.

“Risk, Robert?” I say, and can hear the rising panic in my voice.

“I’ve always been an extremely private man, Miranda, so this is more of a risk for me than it would be for most men. What I intend to do tonight, and every night until the tests are over, is to reveal the secrets of my past to you. Then you’ll understand everything,” he says, and adds, “I don’t do this lightly, Miranda, but no other woman has ever had the effect on me that you have,” and I almost faint with a combination of shock and pleasure.

“Not even—” I start to say, once I’ve recovered.

Ignoring me, he goes on: “And I know I was wrong to react so strongly to the wreath. But it played into elements of my past that still haunt me. So I want to pay you the compliment of telling you the whole unvarnished truth about it.”

He looks so tense, so full of shadows, that I reach up and kiss his cheeks, then his eyes, then his lips, and for a moment he closes his eyes, luxuriating in what I’m doing.

Then he clears his throat and goes on: “Miranda, the truth is that I have finally realized that if we are ever to find happiness together, I need you to know the truth—the best and the worst of me.”

“I can’t imagine that that there’s anything bad about you that I don’t already know, Robert,” I say.

He gives me a faint smile.

“We aren’t just talking about my arrogance, my dominance, Miranda, but much more,” he says, and pauses, while I try to digest the enormity of his words, and to prime myself for whatever horrifying revelation he is about to make.

Then he goes on, “I have to warn you, my tale also features a number of unsavory characters, who, shady as they are, are crucial to the story I’m about to tell you.”

“That doesn’t bother me, Robert. All I care about is you,” I say.

He lights a cigarette, the first I have ever seen him smoke, takes a deep drag on it, and begins: “Let me take you back ten years, Miranda. At thirty-five, I was already a man who possessed everything money could buy—power, prestige, influence—and who, as far as the world was concerned, was wholly above reproach.

“From as far back as I can remember, I was always determined that no man, and particularly no woman, would ever control my life in any shape or form. And that determination was and remains the guiding principle of my life.

“On the sexual and emotional front, right from my early teens, I was consumed by dark thoughts and a craving so intense that it throbbed within me incessantly: the burning desire to dominate and control a woman.

“But by the time I was ready to live out my fantasies, to satisfy my true desires, my status was such that I couldn’t afford to take the risk of dominating a woman as severely as I craved, lest she turn hostile to me afterward and spread the tale of my sexual proclivities to the media, or, worse still, press assault charges against me.

“Years passed, during which I hoped that chance would intervene and I’d one day meet a genuinely submissive woman who longed to be dominated as vigorously as I wanted to dominate her. A woman whose drive to walk on the wild side was as passionate as mine. My dream woman, my fantasy woman, the woman I swore I would one day find, love, and marry.

“But much as I yearned to find her, she never appeared.

“At times, I toyed with availing myself of commercial sex, and hiring a professional submissive, but I never did, because I believed—and still do—that if you pay a professional to submit to you, her primary motive is financial gain, and ultimately, she will have the upper hand. And, as you know, Miranda, I never want a woman to have the upper hand over me.”

Fat chance of getting the upper hand over you, Robert
, I nearly crack, but I don’t because I can tell that he isn’t really here with me anymore. He’s in another time, another place, and I guess I’m lucky that he wants to take me there with him.

Robert continues, “As it transpired, the great blizzard of 2005 proved to be the act of God that finally eradicated all my misgivings about hiring a professional submissive, and enabled me to live out my secret sexual cravings at last.

“Marooned in a Manhattan hotel suite because all the roads were closed, late at night, I passed the time watching soft-core porn and chanced on an advertisement for Le Château, an S&M fantasy parlor. Or, to be blunt, a brothel. An upmarket brothel a couple of blocks from Wall Street, situated in an elegant eight-room apartment. Five of those rooms were outfitted as dungeons in which customers could act out their fantasies, either playing a dominant or a submissive role with professionals prepared to participate in every aspect of their own particular sexual scenario.

“Drawn to the glamour, the exclusivity, and the sexual possibilities of Le Château, I made a call, and was put through to Murray, the owner and manager of the club. Introducing myself as Mr. Blake, I made him the proposition I had evolved as a way of living out my desires without danger of them being made public.

“I agreed to pay him a substantial sum of money on a regular basis, provided that he guaranteed the following:

“One: He would sign a confidentiality agreement promising never to disclose my identity to anyone.

“Two: He would have a peephole installed in the door leading to the biggest, best-equipped dungeon in Le Château.

“Three: He would keep Le Château open for two extra hours on any evening of my choice.

“Four: He would select six of his most beautiful, most submissive girls and have them line up outside the dungeon with the door with the peephole in it.

“Five: I would then appraise the girls from behind the door, make my selection, and convey it to him.

“Six: At that point, he was to dismiss all the other girls and ensure that they leave the premises immediately.

“Seven: The submissive girl I’d chosen would then, for a specific sum of money I would decide, sign a nondisclosure agreement ensuring that she would never reveal my identity to anyone.