“Yes.”
“Did he pull them down?”
“Yes.” This was sounding worse by the minute.
“Then what else?” Will asked.
“He spanked me, first with his hand each time, then with a hairbrush.”
“And it hurt?”
“Very much.”
“Did you see the results?”
“He made me stand in front of the mirror, and then in the corner until the red faded away.”
“And it was red?” he asked. He was so cold on the surface, and so hot on the inside. I could see the fire of his anger settling on a low simmer.
“Yes, very.”
“So it aroused you?”
I hate that question. How could I answer? “Some.”
“Tell me about that.”
“I don’t know how to explain it, but yes, it was arousing. Just as I was aroused by the things Reggie had me do.”
“So what was so “awful” about it?”
I think it was a mistake to have told him it was awful, because on one level it wasn’t awful at all. The guilt I was feeling at the moment was awful, the sneaking around, the lying, the whole way I’d compromised our relationship, that was awful; but I still did it, and on one level I enjoyed the hell out of it. “It’s awful not being honest with you,” I replied, trying to remain true to my feelings.
“But the experience wasn’t awful. You liked being spanked by him?”
“It’s hard to explain,” I said, trying a little whining, hoping he’d be understanding.
He wasn’t. He looked at me with the same cold, stern, fiery-eyed face. “So explain, I can wait.”
“I did like the spanking, I liked the feeling, and yes it aroused me. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted. He was a stranger and it wasn’t personal. And I guess this third time, it just didn’t seem quite right.”
“Why’s that?”
I hedged.
“Did you have sex?” Will asked.
The question was like a thunderbolt. I wanted to deny it but how could I? If I lied, it would be obvious to Will.
“Yes.”
“Every time?” he asked.
“Oh no! Just this last time.”
“Tell me about it.”
“About the sex?”
“I shouldn’t have to repeat myself,” he said. His annoyance with my hesitation was hardly disguised. We were piling hurt on top of hurt, I hated seeing that in Will’s eyes, but by now there was no way to avoid it.
“Well, tonight he spanked me as he had before. And I was turned on as I’d been before. He was turned on too, and when the session was about over, he came to me and offered himself.”
“Offered?”
I gulped.
“He felt my rear while I was standing in the corner, and I couldn’t help myself. I started to respond, and he responded, and before we knew it, we were screwing.” I was beginning to cry, telling my story to Will. That was a bad move.
“If you think I’ll somehow be assuaged by tears, Alex, your very wrong. In fact, I’d suggest that you stop crying because it’s only pissing me off!”
“I’m sorry, Will, the sex was all wrong. I never should have done it. I mean I never should have even answered Keith’s ad. This has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Well that’s one thing we agree on,” he said, though there was no softening in his tone of voice.
“Maybe you could punish me?” I ventured. “Since that’s what I really need, maybe this is something good that could come out of the this whole mess.”
“Wouldn’t that be just perfect for you,” Will said sarcastically.
“You might be surprised how perfect it would be for you, too..”
“This undying love crap coming from you, Alex, is nothing but BS. You think a little retribution on your rear and the whole thing can be swept away.”
“I didn’t say that, but we could begin there.” I was hoping with all my heart that he would agree to this. I realized talking to him how much I’d hurt him, and now how much I wanted him. Why hadn’t I asked him to meet my need for spanking instead of bringing in that ineffectual stranger? The sex with Keith had been about as empty as any I’d ever had. Even on a bad night, Will was a lover, someone whose body, sexual appetites and style I enjoyed. This other man might be an adequate spanker, but he was not a lover of any inspiration at all. For all the fancy ritual we engaged in before the sex, for all the spanking fantasy we’d enjoyed, Keith was pretty mediocre when it came to the rudiments of female sexual stimulation.
“No, Alex, we can’t begin there. You want to write this off so easily, but I can’t. You go find your lover and enjoy yourself, because you now have all the freedom in the world to pursue your pleasures.”
“No, Will!” I protested. “You’re leaving?” It certainly looked that way, since he was in the bedroom packing his suitcase. “You can’t mean that.”
“Face it, we haven’t gotten on that well the last few months. I don’t know whether it was your kinkier sexual desires that were coming to the surface again, but whatever it was, you didn’t see fit to discuss it with me. I’ve gone to hell and back for you and our relationship, but you seem to think you can up and go exploring on your own, without so much as a thought for me, and then hope to patch it up as if nothing has happened. Well, it doesn’t work that way, little darling. If you’re feeling guilty and need to pay penance, go find someone else to redeem yourself with, because it ain’t gonna be me.”
Will closed the bedroom door in my face and came out a half hour later with his bags packed.
“Please, hon, don’t do this, this is four years, we can’t throw it away like this. I’ll do anything.” I was in tears, and pleading for my life, I thought, but it was still Will’s blank cold expression looking back at me.
“Anything? Right,” he bit off sarcastically. “You’ll do what you damn well please as long as you’re in control, but you won’t do
anything
. That’s always the way it is with you.”
His scathing words stung, probably because they were so true. “Will, I mean it, you tell me what it is, I’ll do it,” I pleaded.
He considered for a moment and shook his head, exasperated with the effort.
“What is it?” I asked trying to get him to say something. The longer he stayed poised at the door, the less likely I thought it would be that he’d really leave. “What can I do?”
“There’s no use suggesting anything, because my own brand of revenge on this would be much too much for your delicate sensibilities, even though I’d find it very fitting.”
“Find what fitting?”
“Submit to Reggie again,” he said simply.
My heart must have stopped beating. I know I went instantly cold.
“No, you don’t mean that?” I said dumbfounded.
“See? What did I say?” His smirk was absolutely as dreadful as his tone of voice. He left me standing in the middle of the living room. Closing the door ever so quietly, I suddenly had thoughts of Reggie Harold going through my mind again for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. Why did he have to say that? Why that? Why Reggie? I went to the bedroom and cried my eyes out.
Chapter Two
Reggie had a sweet looking young secretary, blonde, demure and very pretty. She kind of reminded me of myself a few years back. I found myself wondering if she played Reggie’s submissive sex games the way that I had. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to find him surrounded by hot looking, submissive women there to satisfy his curious lusts.
“An appointment with Mr. Harold,” I politely told the woman. “My name’s Alex.”
“Yes, he’s expecting you,” she said smiling.
I hadn’t called him
personally
three days before. I let the secretary arrange the meeting. It was easier than trying to explain my dilemma on the phone. I couldn’t believe how much I was trembling at the thought of seeing him after all this time, trembling more than I even did that first time, and far more than I had when I first met Keith. There was a quality about this meeting different from anything I’d ever experienced. It was sexual certainly, and submissive, and from my point of view extraordinarily humiliating.
Never say never. I was certainly eating my words now.
I’d vowed when I left Reggie never to return to him. I didn’t need him. At a very horrifying time in my life, going to Reggie was an awakening. He helped me understand the great cloud of fantasy and desire that so often occupied my mind. He made me feel accepted for the raunchy things I thought about. My submissive tendencies, all those kinky sexual thoughts were all right in Reggie’s world. And for a while, I was even smitten by the dashing dominant man.
But that changed. The ‘love affair’ we had fallen on its face. Rudely. In fact, I actually left under a guise of triumph. I bested Reggie Harold in his games; when it came to his playing in my world of love and intimacy, he came up strangely shallow. He couldn’t return the real affection and love that I had for him. For reasons I’m still not sure about, Reggie was oddly lacking in any real depth of feeling.
Returning to Will after that revelation became one wonderful reunion of body and soul. Too bad now, I never tried to integrate the ‘games’ I played with Reggie into my life with Will. I was certainly paying for it now.
“Mr. Harold will see you now,” the blonde announced. She rose from her chair and escorted me to the massive walnut double doors leading to Reggie’s office. It was plush in the outer office and I expected something even more elegant beyond the doors, I wasn’t disappointed. Opening the door, the secretary motioned me inside and my jaw practically dropped to the floor as I looked at the enormous walnut desk set against a backdrop of floor to ceiling windows looking out on the city. Everything about the office was first class. I wouldn’t expect otherwise, knowing how lovely his country estate was.
Reggie was not at his desk but at the far end of the room. I turned to see him coming from his private bath. He had the sleeves of his white starched shirt rolled up as if he had been working on something that required such informality. A lock of his usually well-groomed hair had fallen in his eye. His aristocratic jaw, aquiline nose and impeccable presence were as they had always been, enough to send my female juices flowing.
“Alexandra, how are you?” he said approaching me as he rolled down his sleeves, and buttoned his cuffs.
He grabbed me at the shoulders and drew me to him, giving me a kiss on the cheek, warmer than any affectionate gesture he’d ever bestowed on me.
How could I hate him when he sent my desires through the roof!
“You look terrific. Come in, sit down,” he said with an expansive gesture, motioning me to a chair in front of his desk.
“I’m well,” I replied. I was hardly great, wonderful, ‘happy as a lark’ well. I couldn’t lie.
I sat in front of him thinking it strange to see him in this venue when in the past we’d only been together at his estate. A few ventures out, but never here.
“The suit is quite suited to you, Alex,” Reggie noted. He was a connoisseur of style, had always been particularly concerned with how I dressed. In our former association, he’d often demanded certain attire which I sometimes resisted and always found challenging. Wearing the black suit today, I was totally comfortable in the short skirt and deep cut jacket. The lavender lace teddy under the top was meant to provoke a man’s reaction, and dressing this way had really become second nature for me. The truth was, I knew I’d chosen this particular outfit for a little confidence booster; I knew I looked terrific in it. If I hadn’t had my whole life hanging in the balance, I would certainly have enjoyed Reggie’s positive response more.
“So, to what do I owe this visit?” Reggie asked.
He looked perfectly ignorant of any knowledge of my crimes, perhaps, Will hadn’t talked to him; a circumstance I greeted with displeasure. Will really didn’t expect me to do this, which made the likelihood of a reconciliation seem even more remote.
“I need a favor,” I said. This was hardly the way to begin, but I wasn’t sure how else to start.
A favor?” he raised his eyebrows.
I took a deep breath, tried to start and stopped. I wanted to stop the tears that were forming in my eyes.
“You’re very agitated, my love, is there something wrong?”
“Will left me. We broke up,” I said. I could hardly say it without crying.
“Oh, really, I find that rather difficult to believe, I think of you two as the perfect couple.” He might have mocked me with this statement, but he was perfectly sincere.
“That is, unless I can prevent it.”
“Maybe you should be more explicit,” Reggie proposed.
I smiled, chagrined. “I am being kind of vague, aren’t I?”
He smiled in return, waiting patiently for me to gather my wits about me.
“I had an affair of sorts. Will found out, and he’s totally unwilling to remain with me. He feels as though I’ve completely destroyed his trust, and I’m completely desperate to make amends.”
“An affair? That surprises me. You always impressed me as someone impeccably honest.”
“And I usually am,” I agreed.
“So, if you had reason for an affair, perhaps you really don’t want this relationship with Will?” That sounded reasonable, but it wasn’t true.