Chapter 36

“I can’t stop thinking about you spanking me.”

Luke was still recovering from the morning’s long exchange of mutual oral pleasure, but any hope that his erection would fade long enough for him to use the bathroom disappeared in an instant.

“Well, now I can’t stop thinking about it either.”

She giggled as she poked his rock-hard shaft. “My devious plan worked. So I guess I can shower first.”

“Bitch,” he playfully muttered.

“I’m shocked at your language. Just for that, I’m going to take a really long one. Don’t you dare flush the toilet while I’m in there, or I’ll cut you off for the rest of the day.”

Luke foiled her plan by slipping into his running shoes, crossing the driveway, and using his hosts’ first floor bathroom. His calmness and lack of desperation when she finally emerged from a very long shower made her suspicious; even more so when he began his own without first making use of the toilet. Moments later, however, she wrested victory from the jaws of defeat, sneaking into the utility closet next to the cellar and turning off the hot water at its source. His roar of displeasure made her collapse with laughter.

He glared at her all through breakfast, plotting his revenge. But he was also secretly pleased. This feels like domesticity. I like it. I could get used to it.

“There’s another delivery today.” It was the first complete sentence he’d spoken to her since the shower incident.

“Oh. Well, given the way I look, I probably shouldn’t drop my towel like I planned. They might get the wrong idea.”

“Or the right one.”

“I wouldn’t want you to end up in jail. Any alternative suggestions?”

“Blowjobs for everyone?”

“Are you serious?”

“No.” When he decided she looked a little too intrigued by the idea, he repeated himself. “No.“

“You’re no fun.”

“I could let them spank you.”

“Now there’s an excellent idea.”

“Come on, seriously?”

“No, you’re probably right. Then they’d want to do it all the time, and suddenly I’d be spending twice as much on wine just to guarantee my weekly paddling. Maybe I’ll ask them about their birthdays and offer to spank them instead.”

“I thought you didn’t...”

“For obvious reasons I can’t do it as any sort of dominant, and I could never do it to someone who’s dominated me — which means your adorable bottom is off the hook — but if it’s just for fun? Sure. I’ve done it in the past and would happily do it again. If you’re really so eager to have your buttocks abused, though, I could call Irina. She’s good at it, and I guarantee she’d be more than willing.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Still no fun. Anyway, we’re no closer to figuring out what I’m going to do with the deliverymen. I want to do something, and this time I want you to choose for me.”

“I’ll think about it,” he muttered, attempting to sound grouchy. But his tone was a feint, for a fully formed plan already occupied his mind.

They moved bottles around for a while, though Kathryn’s flirty and patently bratty mood never went away. She was atypically unresponsive to his attempts at escalating matters to actual sex, which he recognized was just another facet of her teasing.

She’s trying to get me to dominate her again — probably to shed the emotional residue from last night — and in a different mood I might find it amusing, but today it’s getting on my nerves. I’m already far too upset about far too many things, and I’ll end up taking it out on her. I can’t do that. I have to wait until I’ve gotten my emotions under control.

Her teasing continued as he attempted to make lunch, but he’d delayed the preparations for a reason. Glancing at the clock, he decided it was time to put his plan into action. He whipped around and half-pushed, half-dragged her to the bed. When they got there, he bent her over his lap. She struggled and squirmed, complaining vociferously and calling him creatively abusive names — some that even Wendy had never used — but he could tell that it was all for show. Grimacing at her damaged buttocks, he set his teeth and spanked her anyway, much harder than he had the other day. Though she yelped and cried out, she immediately started turning docile. It wasn’t what he wanted.

“Kathryn, I’m spanking you because, given your behavior this morning, you know you deserve it — and yes, I know what you’ve actually been doing is begging for it — but I don’t want you to be submissive while I do it. Can you do that for me?” Another slap followed, stinging her other cheek. This time she moaned, and Luke didn’t think it was because she was in pain.

“God, S ... Luke, I don’t know. Once I’ve submitted to someone I fall into it fairly easily, and now that you know how to force it...”

“Promise you’ll try.”

“I can’t. I can try, but I can’t promise.” She laughed, playfully wiggling her cheeks at him. “Ironically, the only way to guarantee my success would be to force me to submit.”

“Well, fight that instead of me.” He went on spanking her tender buttocks. As he’d predicted, she didn’t just lie there and take it; she was extremely vocal, constantly begging him to spank her again, and to strike her harder. While her climaxes were smaller than the last time they’d done this, they were more frequent. Right on schedule, his phone chirped.

“Get on the bed.” Lacking further instruction, she arranged herself on her hands and knees, expecting him to continue the spanking. Instead, he opened the closet and selected several items from his collection of kinky accessories. Her eyes followed, curious but quite willing to go along with whatever he wanted. A few minutes later she was on her back, though certainly not flat. Wrist restraints bound her arms to opposite ends of the headboard and ankle restraints bound her legs to her wrists, leaving her spreadeagled and obscenely available for sex. It wasn’t a position he could leave her in for very long, but it would do for what he hand in mind. He added nothing else — no clamps, no blindfold, no gag — and he didn’t touch her, either. He just left her there, smirking as she gradually realized that he had something unexpected in store.

“Luke,” she whined, “please...”

“No.”

“But you’ve got me trussed up like a turkey. Aren’t you going to stuff me?”

“This isn’t going to go like you think.”

“What do you... ?”

“Wait,” he interrupted, holding up his hand. “I think I hear...” The loud exhalation of brakes and the rumble of a large engine announced the delivery truck’s arrival. “Stay there. Though I guess you don’t have much of a choice, do you?”

Kathryn’s eyes widened as she contemplated the possibilities.

As before, the load-in passed quickly and efficiently. Luke waited for them to store the loading ramp and then invited them to hang around the guesthouse entrance, chatting about their bosses, their jobs, mutual acquaintances, and so forth. When he asked what the strangest thing they’d ever seen at work was, they both laughed.

“I dunno about ‘strangest’ — we’ve seen some pretty crazy cellars — but I think our last visit here left the biggest impression. Speaking of which, I don’t suppose the lady of the house is around?” The hope in his voice was hilariously transparent.

“Actually, she is, but...” I can’t say she’s tied up. That’s way too cliché. “She’s waiting for something that, apparently, hasn’t arrived. I don’t know if it’s a phone call or something else; she didn’t go into detail. Anyway, you’d be disappointed because she isn’t dressed anything like last time.”

“I doubt she could ever be disappointing.”

Luke grinned. “Well, there’s that. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll see her again sometime. It won’t be a problem if I sign for the wine, will it?”

“Nah. The bosses don’t care who signs unless there’s a complaint.”

“Right. Hey, do you guys want to sit down for a minute? Grab a stair.” Luke plopped himself on the second highest step, clearly visible from Kathryn’s position on the bed. He deliberately drew out the ensuing conversation, speaking loudly enough so that she could hear every word, pointedly failing to intervene when the deliverymen’s banter returned to the vision of her in a bikini. He stayed mostly silent as they dissected her body in explicit detail, but when they moved on to what they’d like to do to her, he finally spoke up.

“Sorry to interrupt just as it’s getting interesting, really, but I feel like I’m keeping you from your next job. Do either of you want a drink for the road? I’ve got soda, juice, bottled water...”

“Soda’s fine,” one answered, and the other nodded in assent. Luke stood and ascended the stairs, hastening his return so they didn’t have enough time to wonder whether or not he was inviting them to follow.

A few minutes later, with the rumble of the truck audible but fading, Luke stood at the foot of the bed. Kathryn’s arousal had drenched the bedding, and there was a wild look in her eyes.

“I see you’ve made a mess.”

“Why did you make them stop?”

“Were you actually enjoying that?”

“God yes. The second time I came was when he started talking about his...”

“I was there, you know. I don’t need a recap. Didn’t you find it demeaning?”

“I wouldn’t let anyone but a lover say things like that to my face, no. But since I knew you weren’t going to allow them to come up here, I started imagining it and let myself be aroused instead.”

“You did?” he asked, a little deflated. “I was trying to play with your uncertainty.”

“I know, and one day you’ll be ready for other people to see me naked, but someone else seeing me like this is way too much for you right now.”

“Right now? You think that some day I’ll actually want complete strangers to see you naked, restrained, and spreadeagled?”

“You’ve heard my fantasies, Luke. For quite a few of them, this is essentially step one.”

He shook his head. “You’re always so sure what I will and won’t do.”

“I keep telling you that I see the real you. One day, you will too.”

“Just so you know, I’m not going to suggest that you get naked the next time they’re here. I’m not going to stop you if you really insist, but I think it’s a bad idea.”

“Now you’re confusing me. Explain?”

“Pretty soon it’s not my approval that’s going to matter.”

She sighed. “You’re right. It’s just that the idea turns me on so much.”

“So I see.”

“Speaking of which, was that the only reason you put me in this position? Or did you have more elaborate plans? Preferably of a sexual nature?” She was clearly on the verge of pleading, and his own arousal began to mount.

“Actually, yes. Both sexual and otherwise. Like I said before they arrived, I know what you’ve been asking for all morning. After last night, you need another release. One that’ll clean out the emotional pipes, so to speak. I do too, but until a few minutes ago I was still too upset and a spanking was all I trusted myself to do. If we had sex I would’ve taken my frustrations out on you, and I was in a terrible frame of mind to attempt to dominate you.”

“Luke, never be afraid to have forceful, rough, or even angry sex with me. For one thing, I love it. For another, I trust you more than enough to let you do whatever you want. I’ve told you over and over that my body is yours to use. As for dominating me, how do you feel about it now?” Her desire was plain.

He responded by wrapping his hand around her neck. Not particularly hard, and without putting any kind of pressure on the most dangerous points, but making it clear exactly what he wanted. He held it there until her eyes closed and her breathing modulated. When she reopened them, the expression on her face was completely different; all her earlier playfulness and carnal desperation were replaced by placidity. “Thank you, Sir.”

“Let’s get one thing out of the way: I didn’t enjoy you as a brat.”

“I’m sorry, Sir.”

“There might be a time and a place for it, but it wasn’t today. Not while I’m upset about other things. Theres’s a difference between hurting you and hurting you. Tell me you understand.”

“I do, Sir. I’m sorry. I acted selfishly.”

“You did, and you’ll be punished for it.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Same safe words as before, and like last time you don’t have to ask for permission to come. Give in to your pleasure.”

“Thank you, Sir. Are ... are you going to be using the vibrators again, Sir?” Her distress was genuine, bordering on extreme.

“What if I am?”

“This is a very expensive mattress, Sir, and I’ve already made a small mess.”

He laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ve no plans that involve vibrators. Still...” He disappeared into the bathroom and reappeared with a small stack of towels. Her ass was already elevated above the bed by the restraints, so it was a simple matter of wedging several beneath her drooling sex and another under her head. “Are you ready, slut?”

She shivered. “Yes, Sir.”

Another trip to the closet produced the same flogger he’d used in the boathouse. Without further preliminaries he laid into her cunt, repeatedly battering her exposed flesh, holding nothing back. He knew that she’d experience more pleasure than pain from the incredibly soft leather tassels, and in fact she started coming almost immediately.

A few dozen strokes later he stripped naked and mounted her, pounding her pussy through a trio of ear-splitting orgasms and then unloading all over her stomach. He resumed beating her sex with the flogger, but now her exhortations were essentially uncontrollable and her tears began to flow, though there was no interruption in the regularity of her orgasms. Over and over he switched between the flogger and his cock, always coming on rather than inside her, until he’d tallied a hundred strokes, each and every one of them right on her drenched center. At last he filled her with his cream, abruptly yanking his manhood from her depths, watching her tremble and, with the help of his semen, make even more of a mess of the towels.

After admiring his handiwork for a while, he unhooked her restraints and drew her close. “Are you okay?”

“I enjoyed that more than I should enjoy a punishment, Sir.”

“I’m afraid we both did, my lovely whore.”

“Thank you for calling me that, Sir. Please don’t ever stop.”

“I won’t, my beautiful, submissive slut.”

She had one more small, quiet orgasm in response to his demeaning appellations. “Thank you, Sir.”

Gradually, her breathing returned to its normal cadence and she fell asleep in his arms. His thoughts were less troubled than before, but he was unable to join her.

“So how was it? Did you get what you needed out of it?”

“It was wonderful, Luke. Absolutely perfect. It was short and spontaneous and fun. Nothing really hurt, either. I might be a little sore between my legs tomorrow, which means you’ll just have to sodomize me instead, but then again I’d probably insist on that anyway,” she laughed. “I loved the whole episode with the deliverymen — god, I was so excited by the idea that they might discover me naked and tied up and take advantage of me, even though in my heart I knew you wouldn’t let it happen — and the rest was exactly the sort of brief but intense interlude I needed to get my head on straight. I really am sorry I teased you so unmercifully, though.”

“I meant what I said, you know.”

“I know. I doubt I’ll do it again. I’m no good at being a brat, anyway. It’s not a natural facet of my personality and I can’t seem to force it. Someone like Faith could probably pull it off, and despite her lack of interest Wendy’s a natural, but I just ended up being annoying.”

“I’m not sure I agree. You were annoying me, but you weren’t annoying. It was just the wrong place and time because I was on edge. Still, I think it’d be best if you didn’t attempt it again, at least not anytime soon.”

“I promise.”

“Luke?”

“Yes, my love?” He’d been drifting in and out of a preprandial nap; one she’d driven him to. The moment she woke from her post-submission rest, she rolled on top of him and gingerly impaled herself, making only the smallest possible movements necessary to keep him erect and inside her. As predicted, she didn’t feel any pain aside from minor soreness. To him, their joining felt more like foreplay or simple connection than sex. Eventually, she took pity on him and ground against his shaft until he came.

“Are we going to talk tonight?”

“I don’t know. Normally I’d say no, because I still think it’s a bad idea after I spent part of the day essentially controlling you, but we’re running out of days. What do you think?”

“Maybe we can keep it factual. Rather than digging into our emotions, I mean. If it feels like we’re going to, we can stop.”

“That’s actually a good idea. But what you mean by factual?”

“For example, I’d like to know how you picture our future.”

“I’ve already told you.”

“I mean if I choose to be with you.”

“Oh.”

“‘Oh?’ Just ‘oh?’ I kinda hoped you’d be a little more enthusiastic.” She was teasing, but there was an edge to it, and he couldn’t help but feel it.

“It’s not the prettiest of pictures. I mean, I obviously believe it would end up blissful, but the beginning’s a bit rough.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Well, as you say, nothing’s going to happen right away. That gives me a little time to prepare, though not as much as I thought if you’re going to go ahead and tell Bill about us.”

“What sort of preparations do you mean?”

“I consult for restaurants, hotel chains, private clubs, functions, and individual clients. With the possible exception of restaurants — small, independent establishments can’t really afford me anymore; if I take those jobs at all, I charge reduced rates, and it’s only because I like the project or the people enough to do them a favor — everyone else on that list is wealthy. Which means that my list of potential customers is fairly small, and more likely than the general population to know, or even socialize with, each other. But no matter who I’m working for, at this point in my life my professional relationships are based on trust and reputation as much as knowledge. If anything happens to damage either one...”

“You don’t have to keep explaining. I understand what you’re saying. Your professional life will suffer.”

“Unless Bill says absolutely nothing to anyone, almost certainly.”

“I seriously doubt he’d try to ruin you. That’s not the sort of man he is.”

“To repeat what I said yesterday, I don’t think you can promise that you know what he’ll do. But whether you’re right or wrong, he doesn’t have to do much. He tells a few friends, each of them tells a few of their friends, and a few iterations later I’m basically done in this market. Anyway, it’s possible he wouldn’t have to tell anyone. There’d be no way to hide the fact that you two are no longer together, after all. Rumors and whispers could do the work for him.”

“So what would you do?”

“I couldn’t go back to an auction house. Trust and reputation are their only in-house resource; everything else belongs to someone else. And I couldn’t go back to restaurants, because everyone knows everything about everyone in that community. I could probably manage retail, but it’d have to be in the right location, and I’d take an absolutely massive pay cut unless I owned the place. None of the more famous high-end or niche retailers would take me on, for all the reasons I just mentioned.”

“It does sound awfully bleak,” she observed, “if the inevitable accompaniment to our future is your unemployability.”

“Well, it’s not quite that bad. The obvious solution would be to move. It’d have to be a fair distance, but it’s the only way out that I can see. Unless I get out of the wine business entirely, though I’m not really qualified to do anything else.”

“When you say ‘move,’ how far do you mean?”

“The domestic food and beverage world is still a fairly small community, and given that most of the significant players in it have at least heard of me, it’d have to be pretty far. Probably overseas.”

“And you’d expect me to go with you.” It wasn’t phrased as a question, and Luke began to have an uneasy feeling about how this conversation was going. He decided it was time for a little bit of offense.

“Would you even want to stay here? I sincerely apologize for mentioning it, but you don’t have family. You told me that most of your closest friends are elsewhere. And the best-case scenario with people who are friends with both you and Bill is that they split down the middle, but...”

“ ... because I’m the one who cheated, most of them would take his side.”

“That’s pure speculation on my part — I don’t know these people — but it seems logical. Anyway, it’d be at least uncomfortable, if not downright difficult, to keep socializing with the same groups of people. Unless Bill’s extremely forgiving, your friends would eventually have to start choosing which one of you to invite to dinner.”

“Sadly, I fear you’re right. Still, you do have family. What about your parents?”

“They’d probably disapprove and be upset for a while, but they’d come around. I’m their only child, after all.”

“Would they ever accept me?”

“They’d eventually love you as much as everyone else does, especially because it will be so clear how much I do, but I’m not saying it wouldn’t take some time. Not least because I think they’d want to remain friends with your husband.”

“Would it really be that easy for you to move?”

“Yes. That’s the easiest part of any of this, actually. My skills are in demand everywhere there’s wine, and no matter what happens, I’ve built up enough of a reputation to go pretty much anywhere I want. That said, that’s me. You’d be a completely different issue.”

“Right. Because I’d have to do something, and that means going back to work. I can’t even be a lawyer in a different state without taking another exam. In another country, I’d have to go back to school and start all over again. At my age!”

“You’re not that much older than me, you know. But you don’t have to be a lawyer, do you? I mean, you use your legal skills now and you’re not...”

“ ... getting paid, because I don’t need to be. Luke, unless your salary could support us all by itself — and maybe it could; I only know what we’re paying you, though your hourly rate plummets every time we have sex — I’d have to work. Aside from the fact that sitting around doing nothing is ... well, you’ve had a front row seat for what can happen, haven’t you?”

Shocked at her frankness, he asked, “You mean you think you’d cheat on me?”

“Before I met you, I’d never been even slightly unfaithful, and I would’ve sworn I’d never cheat on Bill. Right now, I could promise that I wouldn’t and couldn’t ever cheat on you, and I’d mean it with every fiber of my being, but I’m not sure you can put much faith in my declarations of fidelity anymore. I sure don’t.”

“I ... I didn’t think that...”

“I’m sorry I said that so harshly, but now you know the sort of self-hatred I deal with pretty much anytime I’m not sleeping, having sex, or dangling from your manacles. Anyway, this is talking about our feelings and we said we weren’t going to do that. Do we need to stop? Because I’d actually like to hear the rest of what you were going to say.”

“Well,” he answered, still rattled by her admission, “let’s try. There’s not that much more to say, anyway. We’d go somewhere else, build a new life with new friends, and after that it’s whatever that new life brings us. I don’t really have a plan for that, and I don’t think I want to.”

“What about after I die?”

“I repeat: you’re not that much older than me. Also, you’re a woman and you’re extraordinarily healthy. There’s every chance you’ll outlive me.”

“And what about our sex life?”

“I promise to take any and all pills necessary to keep up with you, and will make it my final goal in life to expire while giving you one hell of an orgasm.”

“That’s not funny,” she grumbled, though the glint in her eyes suggested that, on some level, it did almost amuse her. “Anyway, that’s not what I meant.”

“You mean your cavalcade of erotic adventure? You know as much as I do. I’m absolutely willing — well, when it comes to some of it, at least — but as for facing my doubts when it actually might happen? How can I know? Even if I’ve started catching up to you in terms of activities, your imagination is still light years ahead of mine. It might take me my own lifetime to catch up, and by then you might be fantasizing about sex with aliens, or on the Moon, or...”

Despite herself she started laughing. “You’re such a dork. I suppose that’s part of why I love you. And here I was working up a good head of anger.”

“Anger? Really? Why?” His earlier uneasiness came roaring back, this time in triplicate.

“Your view of our future ... it’s so cold. So clinical. So sterile. What about romance? Not to sound too much like the Wilson sisters, but what about love?”

“Well, we agreed we weren’t going to talk about emotions, so I left those out. But I have a better answer: those things are, as you termed it the other day, baked in. I don’t question my love for you. I stopped doing that a long time ago. I think about the prosaic stuff — the process and the practicalities — because, for me, the issue of love is finally and forever settled. If we’re together, I’m completely free of doubt that it will do nothing but grow. All my unanswered questions regarding love are focused on the alternative, especially if my biggest fear proves correct.”

“That you’ll never love me any less, even if we’re not together?”

“A subject we really shouldn’t get into right now.”

“I agree. That was an excellent answer, by the way, and I was wrong to be angry at you. It’s just that...”

This feels dangerous. “What?”

“It’s not the same for me. Or rather, I don’t know if it is. If I choose one of you, I’m going to attempt to love the other one less. I might not be able to, and even if I am it might take a really long time, but for the sake of the relationship and my emotional survival, I’d have to at least try.”

Of all the moments of hopelessness and despair he’d experienced since he first began confronting the harsh reality of their relationship, this was the worst. Given the strength of her sudden, desperate embrace and the wretchedness of her sobbing, he guessed the same was true for her.

Dinner was a fairly somber affair, and though it was a rare occurrence since they’d started eating together, neither was in the mood for alcohol. As soon as they cleaned up, Kathryn took his hand and led him to the bed, quietly removing his clothing and lifting her arms so he could to the same to her. The attempt at lovemaking that followed was as troubled as their meal; several hours of ostensibly romantic coupling, complete with endless kissing and caressing, that resulted in a smaller than usual number of orgasms and a lingering feeling of dissatisfaction, as if they’d somehow misplaced a small but essential element of their union.

Even when he declared that he could do no more, she refused to let him roll away, holding him on top of her (and keeping his slowly deflating member inside her) until his weight finally became too much for her lungs to bear. As he rolled away, she reached for his hand and held it, listening in quiet desperation to the profound silence of the night.

The next morning their hands were still locked together. Pulling back the covers, she bent her head to his cock, kissed the head of his limp shaft, and began her daily gift of oral pleasure. By the third time he exploded in her mouth, the drama of the previous evening was, for him, a receding memory.

Until she brought it up again.

“My love, we have to talk about last night,” she said, distractingly swabbing stray droplets and smears of semen from her chin and dragging them across her tongue.

“Now? We’re doing this now?”

“Yes. We lost an entire morning of potential fun yesterday because you were grumpy, because I was being bratty, and because I needed another good cry. I want to resolve anything we didn’t last night, then get back to whatever it is we’re going to do today, though as you can probably tell I’m very much hoping that a tremendous amount of fucking is involved.”

“Kathryn, I woke up and was immediately greeted by your usual unmanageable sexual hunger. About which, mind you, I am not complaining, nor will I ever complain. But my mind’s a pile of blissful post-orgasmic debris right now. If you’re serious about this, you’re going to have to start. And you’re probably going to have to hold the floor for a while. Also, speaking of holding, you should probably let go of my dick if you want me to be able to pay the slightest bit of attention.”