Chapter One

 

Life had not always been so good.

So Corinne Beswick mused as she relaxed on the sofa lapped in indolence; her every reasonable and achievable desire catered to by the handsome older man on the carpet before her.

A handsome man whose attention was concentrated on the slender foot resting in his lap, its unblemished and smooth whiteness standing out starkly against the navy apron she insisted he wear when performing his chores. His eyes seldom rising above calf level as he squatted on his haunches and prepared to provide her with the kind of meticulous pedicure she insisted upon and he had been trained to deliver.

That she had "Trained" him at all something she could still be surprised by whenever she took time out to consider it -which, seeing as how it gave her so much pleasure- was often. Her domestication of him something she could still marvel at no matter how numerous the examples he provided of her success on a daily basis.

At just over six-feet tall, he was not only handsome but stood over a foot above her diminutive, if Junoesque, body.

At forty-four years of age, he was not only her husband but her senior by some ten years.

Facts, when she considered them, which did nothing to diminish her sense of achievement and when he did, she was certain, nothing to lessen his shame and outrage.

The clock above the fireplace facing her was saying almost seven-thirty and, with some satisfaction, she realised her day until then had been filled with nothing but pleasure.

A far cry from the deadly dull round of routine and mundane tasks it had been not too long before.

Waking naturally at ten and served breakfast by that same husband whose eyes were currently fixated upon a bottle of flaming red nail varnish and the perfectly shaped nails of her foot to which he was about to apply it; she had taken a leisurely shower before meeting her friends at the Bluewater Mall and spending the next few hours shopping, drinking coffee and gossiping.

After that, it had been back home for a nap before being gently roused from her slumbers by her attentive spouse, this time bearing a tray with a light snack which she picked at before sauntering downstairs for a little TV and some catch-up phone calls.

Bliss.

Her pleasure, she acknowledged to herself, undiminished by the satisfaction she took in having mapped out such a day of humiliating and unmanly drudgery for her husband.

"Have you finished all your chores?" she asked the top of his head as he applied the brush to her big toe with painstaking delicacy, preferring the sightless digits of her foot to the twenty/twenty and the constant mockery he knew awaited him above them.

"Yes, ma'am," he answered.

Though his eyes did not move from the foot in his lap and his tone was deferential, she was not fooled in the least; aware as she was that he hated her with a fire raging beyond uncomplicated passion that would burn as long as he had a memory to recall the level to which she had reduced him.

In fact, it was his inability to extricate himself from the hell she had fashioned for him that ensured his hatred remained at a white-hot intensity; while giving her ample opportunities to twist the knife in the wound she herself had opened.

An ongoing process that kept him firmly in his place and provided her with much entertainment as she implemented it.

His suffering something from which she knew she would never tire.

"Garden?" she asked; certain there was no need but loving the rush she got from hearing her older husband address her so deferentially; drawing the interrogation out that she might repeat the experience.

His deference something she never tired of witnessing.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Windows?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Floors?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Only when he had answered an affirmative in reference to: vacuuming and surfaces, laundry and toilets, did her interrogation cease; though this in no way meant a respite for the unfortunate man.

"I'll be disappointed if I check and find you've lied," she warned him. "You remember what happened last time you disappointed me."

"Y-Yes, ma'am," he answered instantly, the quaver in his voice assuring her he was unlikely to forget. "Everything was done as you asked, I promise, ma'am."

"God!" she told herself, "I love it when he grovels to me like this." The over the knee spanking she had given him -together with the ping-pong bat she had bought specifically for that purpose, and the childlike state of sobbing remorse to which she had reduced him- not a memory she was not likely to forget any time soon either.

As well as being something she fully intended to repeat on a regular basis

"Very well," she said aloud, "I'll take it on trust - this time."

There was no detectable sigh of relief from the excuse for a man at her feet but it made no difference.

The workings of his inner mind were as obvious to her as the hatred she could see bubbling away beneath the expression he tried so hard to keep neutral and unreadable.

Her next words, she knew, guaranteed to test both his expression and his resolve to the limit:

"Now, it's getting late. My visitor will be here soon and I don't want you here when she..."

She paused in mid-sentence to puzzle over this, before:

"Or should I say: 'He'?"

The wretch below her remained with his head bowed, eyes for her toes only.

"What would you say, Robin?"

A clearing of the throat answered her and she knew he would rather never speak again than say anything on the subject of Mariah.

"I... Well... It's..."

"Oh, don't bother," she snapped. "Why am I asking you anyway, you're completely useless."

"Yes, ma'am," the 'Useless' one -the same poor wretch who had just spent his day toiling like a peon for her- agreed.

"Anyhow, I want you all nice and snug in your little room in the basement before he/she gets here. I expect to have that lovely black cock and the marvellous she/man tits above it all to myself tonight and I don't want he/she distracted by you."

Though there was no outward reaction from the man at her feet, Corinne knew he would be relieved at not having to be present when she entertained her lover.

Robin being neither gay nor bisexual, she knew, gave her yet more opportunities to abuse and degrade him.

"We both know how much Mariah enjoys filling that tight little arse of yours," she finished.

Another thought causing laughter to bubble to her lips not a moment later:

"Not that it's so tight anymore."

From below her, as she continued to laugh, there was no reaction and, not for the first time, she wondered what it must be like for him and how he could possibly bear up under the constant reminder of his inferiority - especially as that constancy was served up to him in what had once been the home they shared and in which he ruled as king.

Not for the first time, she wondered how she herself would react if the life she had known had been stripped from her and given to him in the same way she had taken his - to no longer have a say in even the most trivial aspects of her life and be forced to look to him for everything.

At least when he had been in emperor mode she had been able to enjoy some small degree of self-sovereignty.

Smiling grimly, she knew the answer almost before her thoughts had assembled the question, realising knowledge of it made him even more contemptible to her.

There was always a door, after all, and one needed only courage to walk through it and...

She smirked at the top of his head, thoughts truncated by the certainty her former lord and master would never find the balls to do such a thing.

And, if he did, she was convinced that a few days on his own in the cold outside world would bring him back cringing to her feet, begging to be allowed to return.

In truth, Corinne told herself, the only thing she found perversely admirable about him was the cowardice preventing him from doing away with himself and depriving his wife of her dogsbody, slave, and sex toy.

The same way, as it happened, that Mandy's Ron had deprived his wife of hers.

A course of action her Robin would never have the backbone to take.

"Yes," she congratulated herself, thinking general thoughts of the life she now led:

"Bliss, indeed!"

And yet it had not always been that way.

Not by a long, long, shot.

Only one year ago, in fact, things had been very, very, very, different...