Unraveled Together (10 page)

The limo is picking up speed, but if it weren't, I might consider asking the driver to take me home again.

Only I would never wimp out and do that, no matter how much the prospect of what is ahead of me terrifies me.

I have to grip the letter with both hands, otherwise I'd drop it, I'm shaking so much.

It's almost as if Robert knew ahead of time exactly how I'd react to his note, because it goes on:

To repeat, tonight I shall be hosting a dinner for twelve Masters and their slaves. The emphasis, Miranda, is on the word “I.” Because tonight, you will not be the hostess. You will be subservient at all times. You will keep your eyes down at all times, and you will not move without being so instructed, nor will you speak without being spoken to. Tonight, you will have no choice, no options other than to do exactly what I tell you. In short, you will be submissive, obedient, and compliant throughout. —Robert.

I fold the note, put it back in the envelope, then sit back in the seat and wish that I were anywhere else but en route to Hartwell Castle and destined to be punished in front of strangers.

Half an hour later, just as I am about to relax, a phone rings, and the driver hands a phone back to me. “Mr. Hartwell, Miss Stone,” he says, and I throw him a bright smile, though inside I'm scared as hell.

Has Robert changed his mind?

“A question, my darling,” he says, and I give a sigh of relief.

Then he goes on.

“How experienced are you at serving a fellow submissive woman sexually?”

My heart thumps so loudly that I'm afraid that he can hear it through the phone.

When in doubt, say nothing . . .

He steams ahead, so my answer obviously wasn't important to him, because it's obvious from what he says next that he knows full well I'm not experienced.

“
You'll soon learn. And quickly, or you'll suffer for it. Then, once you've finished serving her to my satisfaction, I shall instruct her to dominate you to the full extent of her abilities. No one is better, more sadistic, more
enthusiastic
in dominating a submissive woman than another submissive woman. Provided, of course, that a dominant man is ordering her exactly how to do it, and commands her every step of the way. Then she'll throw herself into it wholeheartedly and be more dominant, more cruel than the most professional of dominatrixes. Good-bye, Miranda. Enjoy the rest of your journey,” he says, and hangs up.

I'm left petrified, forced to struggle with my fear for the rest of the journey until we reach Hartwell Castle, where everything gets worse. Much worse.

A butler I've never met before shows me into the dining hall.

Robert, imposing in black tie, strides toward me, and I am so mesmerized by how handsome, how dashing he looks that I don't even have time to focus on the other people in the room.

All I know is that I want to fling myself into Robert's arms, but as he reaches out, takes my hand in his and kisses it, and butterflies course up and down my body, I know that wouldn't be a good idea.

“Miss Stone,” he says to the assembled company.

All the men appear to be captains of industry—older, elegant, and debonair. They all have the glittering, piercing eyes of dominants, and their persuasion is obvious to me, simply because they all exude the identical intensity, the same force field of energy as Robert.

With them, twelve women, all startlingly beautiful and sophisticated. As we sip champagne and nibble caviar canapés, they chat to the men of world affairs, of philosophy, literature. Their vocabulary is extensive, their manners exquisite, but there is something intrinsically subservient about them, in the way in which they hold themselves, and, most of all, in the adoring way in which each one gazes up at the man she is with.

Meanwhile, I say nothing, just as Robert has dictated. At the same time, I can't help wondering what he plans to do with me after dinner, and whether his plans include anyone else currently sipping champagne with us?

Will he allow one of the other men to dominate me? Or—and this terrifies me—will he have one of the other women force me to submit to her? Or even two or three of them at once? I shudder at the thought.

Which of the women we are dining with tonight will he select to dominate me? What will he allow them to do to me? What will I have to do to them? Will they punish me? Humiliate me? Use me sexually? If so, how much? And how will I ever be able to cope? The women are all beautiful, all desirable, but the thought of being at their disposal both shames and titillates me, and I am terrified that I won't know how to respond, that I'll let myself down and, in the process, let down Robert, as well.

Just as I am about to whisper that I need to talk to him, he takes my hand and apologizes to our guests that we have to leave the room.

I look up at him wonderingly, but know better than to ask him why.

He pulls me close to him and whispers, “Upstairs to our suite, Miranda. Strip naked, then get on the bed, on all fours.”

I follow Robert upstairs, wondering whether the guests know what is about to happen to me, and I am scarlet with shame.

Upstairs, I strip off all my clothes and do as he asked, then wait, terrified yet aroused.

Within a few minutes he is beside me, a wooden paddle with holes drilled into it in his hand, and a gag, and I cower in fear, and hate myself that I do.

“Open,” he orders. I obey, and he fastens the gag like a horse's bit into my mouth.

“Say something,” he orders, and I try, but only mumbo jumbo comes through my mouth, unintelligible and animalistic, and I feel so ashamed that I could die; he just laughs.

“Now, no more noise, Miranda, otherwise all our guests downstairs will know exactly what is happening to you, and we wouldn't want that, would we?”

I shake my head, miserable, but still aware that I am throbbing all over with erotic excitement.

“Don't look around, now, and don't move,” he says, and I obey, terrified.

He locks a belt around my waist and fastens it to hooks on either side of the bed, imprisoning me on the bed, my ass up in the air, ready and presented.

And although I know exactly what is coming next, the shock of the blazing pain from the first stroke of the paddle almost takes my breath away.

And the next and the next, until I am burning and shaking and quivering and accepting and aroused, all at the same time.

“Good, that should be sufficient,” he says.

Then he fastens a collar and leash to me, and blindfolds me.

“Now, sweetheart, you are about to make your official debut in society. My society. I am going to take you downstairs, where everyone is keeping an eye on the staircase, awaiting your arrival.

“Then I will bring you, naked and leashed, into a crowd of them: twelve dominants and their slaves.

“What will they do to you? Will they stroke your body? Will they pinch it? Will they squeeze your welts? Or will they add more of their own? Will they talk about you, laugh at you, make fun of your nakedness, or will they take turns licking and pleasuring you? Will you be penetrated? If so, where? In your ass? In your cunt? Or will I remove the gag and allow all the men to fuck your mouth? Then turn you over on your back and allow all the women in turn to squat over your face and I'll order you to lick them? What will it be, my darling?”

Behind my blindfold, my eyes are wide, my heart is thumping, my mouth is dry, and even if it weren't dry, the gag ensures that I am unable to answer.

He places me on all fours and drags me out by the leash to the top of the staircase. The famous horseshoe staircase, one of the most glamorous and dramatic features of Hartwell Castle.

Then he removes the leash.

“Is your ass very sore?”

I nod, my eyes still moist from the pain of the paddling.

“Good. Lift up your arms.”

I obey, and feel him grip under each of my arms, so that he is supporting all my weight.

Then he lowers me down onto the top step.

I sit there, bewildered and afraid.

“Get downstairs now. I'll be supporting you, so you are safe, so just do it,” he orders.

I don't understand, and even though I can't see him, from behind my blindfold I look at him pleadingly.

“Don't be stupid, Miranda, because I know you aren't. Go down the staircase on your ass, and make sure you bump it down on each step really hard, or else . . .”

I know better than to protest. And so I start my shameful, painful descent into the dining hall below, where the group of Masters and their slaves are waiting, and watching me in my humiliation and pain.

I hear excited murmurs and flinch.

“Hear them, Miranda? They are loving this. And I hope you are loving being their entertainment for the night . . .” he says.

How many stairs, how many stairs will I have to take, how much pain, how much humiliation? I want to run, I want to hide, but he won't let me.

I know I must have almost reached the bottom of the stairs, my ass is in such agony. Then I hear a loud, Texan voice: “Very endowed up top, you must have plenty of fun with those, Robert . . .”

And then a woman's voice: “Poor thing, bumping all that way, must really hurt.” I can tell that she is enjoying every second of my discomfort, my shame, my exposure. But how would I feel if she were in my position? Would I feel happy, too? Or would I feel sorry for her, just as I now feel sorry for myself?

The last step, I end up there with a bump, just as Robert commanded, and everyone in the room bursts into applause.

“Stand up and take a bow, Miranda. You've acquitted yourself remarkably well for your first public performance,” he says, and helps me to my feet.

And blushing all over, I do what he says, while the crowd laughs and claps more.

Then he whispers in my ears, “And now for the next stage, my darling.” And leads me to the left, to the far end of the room, where I know the long oak table stands.

I know that oak table only too well, as during my time here he has more than once ordered me to bend over the end of it and said, “Take what's coming to you . . .” But surely not now, surely not in front of all these people? Surely he won't go as far as to spank me here, in front of them? If he does, I'll die of shame. I'll die, I know I will, but at the same time, I don't understand why I am so wet. And I'm deathly afraid that when he orders me to bend over the table and part my legs, as he always does, he'll find the evidence of my arousal. I don't know how I'll live through this, I don't.

He clicks his fingers. “Down! And then crawl under the table,” he says.

Under the table? Not bend over it?
races through my mind, but I don't dare question his instructions.

Instead, I crawl under the table.

I feel him fasten leather cuffs to my wrists and ankles; then he attaches me by my arms and legs to long chains locked around each table leg.

Without any warning, or saying even a word to me, he strides away and leaves me under the table, and I start to panic.

The floor under the table is not carpeted and is cold and hard and uncomfortable.

Do I stay this way? Do I change position? What do I do?

The answer, I know, is nothing, because nothing is what Robert has reduced me to right now.

Meanwhile, the conversation in the room is getting louder, more animated, but I am so shocked at my position that I can't grasp any of it.

Then Robert comes back, reaches in, and I hear the clink of two metal objects being pushed under the table and toward me.

“Water in case you get thirsty. And a bowl for when you need to relieve yourself, and you will. It's going to be a long night,” he says, then laughs. And leaves me there.

Where I remain alone, abandoned, neglected, while—as the night goes on—all around me I hear the sounds of naked bodies lashed, men issuing commands, women moaning, sometimes in pain, sometimes in ecstasy, and I hear Robert talking in his deep, hypnotic voice to the woman he must be fucking, and then to the next, then the next, just as he always talked to me.