Master Me (37 page)

Now, with my days better ordered, I didn’t have to spend half the night tearing out my hair, and that left me more time to…think. About Dexter, putting a long, strong hand under my chin and making me look at him, making me admit my faults, making me promise to make amends because if I didn’t…I shivered and my hand disappeared between my thighs. Oh, the
things
he would do to me if I didn’t…

We met on a twice-weekly basis for progress reports, and by the second of these meetings, I was barely able to speak to him, breathless with lust every time he turned his steely, bespectacled eyes on me. They were eyes that bored through me, that saw every pathetic excuse for what it is, that accepted nothing less than excellence. I had a hard time separating the fear from the lust, but sometimes I wondered if the two were inextricable and that I couldn’t have one without the other.

“You’ve made a very good start,” he told me at our second meeting, sipping on that elusive green tea.

I’d had to buy some from Whittard’s in the end.

“You’ve a long way to go still, but this shows promise.” He clicked another item off the spreadsheet, stretching his elegant neck in its high-collared black shirt as if it chafed him.

“Are you religious?” I asked him, out of the blue.

He stared. “No. Why do you ask?”

“Just…you remind me of a priest.”

He had nothing to say to this, and I blushed furiously, feeling that I had offended him.

“I mean…you are, in a funny way, aren’t you?” I said in a rush. “You’re my confessor.”

He actually laughed, though it was more a sound of astonishment than humour.
He thinks I’m insane. Good move. Smooth
.

“I suppose…in a way…that’s true.” Oh, he agreed with me! There was hope. “Yes.” He seemed to be testing the idea out for strength and durability.

I could see the information being processed in his circuits, or whatever substitute for a human brain he had up there.

“A confessor,” he continued. “For the twenty-first century.”

I kept to the plans for a whole fortnight, then I started to slide. Was it because I was lazy, or had no willpower? Well, partly. But that wasn’t the whole of it, oh no. I started to slide—just a little bit, just enough to come to Dexter’s attention, because I wanted to know what he was going to do about it.

“Can you show me the receipts for your bill payments this week, Lara?”

“Oh, no, I’m afraid I can’t.”

A silence. Rays of golden warning from above the spectacle rims. “Why not?”

“I, well, I’m not sure where they are. I think I’ve lost them.”

“Lost them? Didn’t we assign a particular drawer to receipts and bills?”

I quailed. I don’t think I’d ever quailed before. It was just as unpleasant as it sounds. “I know we did but…” I shrugged. “It’s all such a lot to remember.”

“It is, Lara, and that is why we have the spreadsheet.”

“Gah, the spreadsheet, the all-knowing spreadsheet,” I muttered.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice that milli-decibel above normal, indicating that he was extremely angry. He certainly wasn’t sorry, that was for sure. “My role is to give you the tools to build self-discipline. Your role is to use those tools. If you aren’t sufficiently motivated, then you’re throwing your money away and I might as well take on a new client.”

“No!” This was not the way I wanted things to go at all! How could I make myself clear, without being blatant? “Please don’t do that. I do need your help.”

“Then you need to make more of an effort.”

“I do make an effort. A really big effort. Honestly. It’s just that…”

“It’s just that?” He stirred the tea, an attempt to dispel tension that didn’t quite work.

“I don’t have much self-discipline,” I said softly.

“You don’t
think
you do. There’s a difference.”

“No, I know I don’t. I can’t discipline myself. So…”

“So?”

I began to panic. I wanted to press rewind. Maybe it was best if I just changed the subject. “Perhaps…somebody should do it for me…”

Oh, I said it! I said it out loud! Please let me unsay it, please open up the heavens and let those words fly up and evaporate between the clouds
.

He looked away for a second. His adam’s apple bobbed. Then he looked back. “I thought that was what I was doing. What I was trying to do.”

“No, I mean…my willpower is rubbish. Perhaps I need more than the threat of being left to sink back into my old ways. Perhaps I need…sanctions. Of some kind.”

“Sanctions?” He seemed to almost be holding his breath. His fingers tightened around the mug handle.

“If I lose something…or forget, or just don’t bother with something…you know, your
disapproval
is quite powerful, but I have the feeling you…er…you might be holding some…stronger techniques…in reserve.”
Why did I ever start this?
I was cringing, fidgeting with the fabric corsage on my top as if I might rip it to shreds.

“Stronger techniques,” he repeated, and his tongue seemed to roll around the phrase, drawing all the juices of mortification it possibly could from it.

“You know, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Forget I said it. I’m just thinking aloud. Not even thinking. Raving. Blithering. Rambling. Babbling.”

“Hush.” He shook his head and half-smiled, holding up a hand to stem the tide of my verbal diarrhoea. “You want me to be more than an organiser? More than a life coach?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want,” I said miserably.

“Perhaps that’s the problem,” he said, considering. “Perhaps you need to be told. Perhaps you don’t want a life coach, Lara. Perhaps you want an authority figure.”

“Yes. That’s it. That’s it. That’s what I need. I need proper consequences, you know, like, um, like…”

“Punishments?”

Thank God he didn’t make me say the word. I couldn’t have said it. But it was exactly what I meant.

He knew from my open mouth and pleading eyes that he’d hit the nail on the head. I couldn’t say anything, couldn’t move, couldn’t resume my life, until I heard his next pronouncement.

“I see. But you’re a grown woman. I can’t exactly ground you. I can’t confiscate your mobile phone or withdraw your television privileges. I don’t live with you.” He left a telling space, waiting for me to say nothing, before continuing. “Ah, you don’t mean that, do you, Lara?”

“Not sure what I mean,” I whispered.

“Well, you should be. You should be very sure. For legal reasons, among others. I have no intention of finding myself on the wrong end of some unsavoury lawsuit.”

“That won’t happen. We can make an agreement. That’s if you…agree. To the agreement.”

“Such an agreement could only be informal. How could it be notarised? Would you really want it witnessed by a third party?”

“No. But you have my word. My solemn promise. Whatever you decide.”

He thought about it for a moment, drew in a quick breath and sat back, his hands steepled on his chest.

“Let’s be clear now. You are talking about some form of…physical discipline, aren’t you?”

“Mmm, hmm. Maybe.”

“And you aren’t going to be more specific than that?” He was smiling, a slightly sharky, but also slightly sexy smile.

I thought I might have tapped into something here after all. I thought I might not have completely misread him. “It’s…hard to say the words.”

“I understand. But this is a tricky area, isn’t it, Lara? Because if you are trying to negotiate me into satisfying some long-held sexual fantasy…”

“I…oh. Well. No. A bit. But no.” I needed to give up talking. I was clearly halfway there already.

“Lara, relax. I’m not rejecting the idea out of hand. I’m just thinking that if you
want
me to do…things…to you, it might not be the best incentive for you to continue adhering to the plan. I have this feeling that you might start forgetting things ever-so-accidentally-on-purpose. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“I’ve tricked you into being my life coach when what I really want is a…is a…”

“Dom?”

I buried my face in my hands. I was the biggest loser in the history of the world. I had blown it, Big Time, capital B, capital T. Pass the Merlot and the Phish Food as a matter of urgency.

I was so deep in the morass of personal humiliation and despair that I didn’t notice he was no longer sitting opposite me, so I jumped high enough to kick the chair over when his voice materialised in my ear.

“It can be arranged,” he said.

“Fuck! How did you do that?”

He had to put a hand on my shoulder, to stop me going into florid meltdown.

“Shhh, Lara, listen. Look at me and tell me it’s what you want.”

I looked at him. He was tall and I had to crick my neck a bit, which made me happy. I’d have to tiptoe to kiss him. Could I ever kiss him?

“I think it would work for me,” I said, suddenly calm and confident. I think it was the nearness of him that did it.

He was like a supportive structure, absolutely leanable-on.

“I think…it would concentrate my mind if I knew that a certain level of poor performance might earn me a…um…something a bit painful.”

“Why can’t you say it?”

“I just…can’t.”

He tapped me under the chin with a finger, and the word came rushing out.

“A spanking.”

“Good. Was that so hard? Have you been spanked before?”

“No.”

“That’s a shame. Although, maybe we wouldn’t be here right now if you had. So, do you think you’d enjoy it? A spanking, I mean?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it would hurt?”

“I suppose it would.”

“Have you…ever…y’know…dabbled, then?”

“Dabbled?” He laughed softly, a snuffle almost, and put a finger so close to my cheek I thought he was going to stroke it—but he thought better of it and pulled it away at the last minute. “Yes, I’ve dabbled. More than dabbled.” He sighed briefly. “You know, this isn’t the first time I’ve had this kind of conversation with a client.”

“Oh God, really? I’m such a cliche!”

“No, no. You’re not. You’re by far the quickest off the mark. It usually takes months…but I’ve never agreed to it before. I think I could make an exception for you, though.”

“An exception? Really?” I felt utterly flattered that this austere, poker-straight man was willing to smack my arse. It made me quite warm inside.

“You’re so extremely in need of it, Lara,” he said. I could have curled up and fallen at his feet. What a thing to say. I thought I may be in love. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a girl so desperate for disciplinary attention.”

“So…if you turn down the clients…where have you got your experience from?”

Please don’t tell me you have hot and cold running slave girls at home…please, please, please…

“Ex-girlfriends. Experiments.”

Yeah for the letter ex! I smiled, far too broadly. I wished I could be enigmatic. “So…what’s the verdict? Should we try this? Do you think it’ll work?”

“I’ve no idea. Given that you’ve never been spanked before, it’s hard to tell. In fact…yes…I really think that, before we can move forward with planning the new regime, you need to know whether your idea of corporal punishment matches up with the reality.”

“You mean…?”

He sat down in the kitchen chair and slapped his palms down on his thighs.

“I mean, you should come here and put yourself over my lap, Lara.”

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I gasped. I had never seen anything sexier. Then he started to roll up his shirtsleeves, and I
had
seen something sexier. His forearms were strong and his hands were broad and he was going to…

“Now!”

He patted his lap and I almost dissolved with lust. I took his point about my finding this all a little too enjoyable for it to be a punishment. But, hell, I was sure I could pretend otherwise. He wasn’t doing this in the spirit of self-sacrifice, after all. Whether I loved it or hated it, we were both winners in the end.

“Feels a little surreal,” I hedged, rendered immobile by the intense oddness of it all.

“Believe me, my dear, it will be feeling anything but
surreal
in a moment or two. Now bend over my lap or I’ll take my spreadsheet and leave.”

No! Please don’t take the spreadsheet! I was almost giggling as I tried to arrange myself as neatly as possible over his sharply creased trousers. I was concerned for him, worried that the weight of me would crush his thighs, but I soon realised that my anxieties were misplaced, for his lap was rigid and strong and I fell across it like a big, clumsy rag doll. What I must have looked like to him! I wondered how my backside compared to the others of his acquaintance, but then I remembered that comparison with ex’s is the way to madness and I resolved to hang on to the moment and extract the maximum amount of fantasy juice from it. Who knew how many long, cold, lonely nights I’d need this memory to warm me?

He seemed quite happy with my bottom anyway, running a hand across the seat of my leggings. They were only thin cotton and I found myself wishing I’d gone for jeans, or the fleece-lined jogging pants I sometimes wore when I had no plans to leave the flat. Maybe I’d knit myself a pair of knickers for next time and line them with leather. Even the faintest tap of his palm made me want to vault forwards onto the floor. I was stiff and pent-up with nervous tension.

“We don’t have to do this,” Dexter reminded me. “Perhaps you should relax. I’m not going to kill you, you know. This is just a taster. You’re in control.”

I’m in control, am I? Upended over a strange man’s thighs with my legs swinging through the air and my bottom primed for a spanking
. It was an interesting version of the situation, but then everything was topsy-turvy now. I was in UpsideDownLand, and Dexter appeared to be the reigning monarch.

“Right, stop kicking and get your feet down, please.”

The firm tone of his voice did what no words of reassurance could do, and I instinctively let my shoulders drop and my legs stop their scissoring ballet.

“Better. Perhaps we’ll have to work on presentation and posture. Next time.”