Chapter One

 

The fog creeps in across the landscape outside my window, swallowing the day. It steals away the cheer of the morning sun and leaves in its place the flat gray of a chilly summer San Francisco afternoon. Maybe there's a message in this encroaching tide of gloom, telling me I don't have the time for staring out of windows, for pondering the meaning of life, or toying with my creative thoughts. I have this business to run, this business that is falling to pieces. Some days I see it like a child's blocks kicked, and in slow-motion scattering in a dozen disjointed directions. Other days, I dig in and tackle the issues of inventory, purchasing and customer fulfillment, all of which require organization, which I'm lousy at. Ever since Benjamin left that is what I do with ever-increasing inefficiency.

But this is my business, I tell myself again and again.

A pile of invoices have yet to be recorded and three customers are screaming at me for goods I thought I shipped a week ago-then again, maybe I didn't. And Jerry down at the warehouse tells me that shipments from Singapore and Tokyo didn't arrive. I sent Sally downstairs to find out what happened and now the phone rings, jarring me back to reality.

I hesitate to answer, wishing I could crawl under the desk and hide AWOL from my world.

"This is Dana; may I help you?"

"Your phone has been ringing off the hook," the caller says. I recognize the voice, and on hearing the sound of the man's deep baritone, a warm sexual heat spreads across my belly, moving outward from within.

"It's been busy, sir," I tell him.

"But not too busy to answer the phone."

"No, sir." It's not part of the game to resist this man, even as the wild horses of resentment are galloping through my sane mind. I can't leave now and this is what he wants-I must assume.

"You're wearing your ropes?"

"Yes, sir," I answer as I feel the rope bondage that confines my body pull ever-tighter around my middle, my breasts and my groin.

"And the tall heels, the zip skirt and the thin blouse?" he inquires.

"No, sir." I stare down at the paint-stained overalls and my combat boots knowing how much he'd hate what I'm wearing. In my defense, I was running late today and these just jumped from my closet. Even my receptionist sighed with contempt seeing me so attired. "But I have them with me," I hastily add.

"Then you'll dress and meet me..."

"But, sir, please, I really can't, not now. I have mountains of work, customers breathing down my neck and a major crisis in the ..."

He interrupts. "You remember that warehouse the other side of Market Street?"

"In the Mission?"

"That's the one."

"I'll expect you in twenty minutes."

Impossible! I scream without sound, swallowing my words until they hit my stomach and turn it immediately sour.

The phone clicks off.

"No, I can't go!" I say aloud to no one because no one's in the office with me.

I won't! I can't! I'm risking too much. Every time I answer one of Sir Locksley's calls I dig a deeper grave. Might as well climb in for good.

Randall Tyler, the investor with the bucks, will have my head. Locksley demands my body. What am I supposed to do? I'm owned by forces far beyond me.

I sit...in fact, I slump listlessly in my chair and gaze into the fog that shrouds the building. A teasing tingle of sexual mirth stirs wickedly between my legs as Locksley's orders return to me. I want to masturbate myself to ease the anxiety, but I'm not allowed to touch myself without His permission. My fingers can hardly keep from crawling to my crotch, from digging inside the overalls. I tug at the denim, then clutch it in my fist in frustration.

Oh, please, stop this feeling! My head pounds, my gut is clenching, and then like a tidal wave come to bring me back to the sea, I'm ripped from my moorings, from what's right and responsible, and set adrift.

I know where I'm headed; my obsession draws me and I can't help myself.

I move quickly to the cloak room and scramble into the clothes he wants me to wear. As I do, the persona of the dutiful submissive drapes my body. The ropes he bound me with three nights ago cut in, the reminder of his dominance, what is fierce and authoritative, what I love. He is with me every hour, and these bindings are the armor that protects me from betraying him.

Heels, zip skirt-zipped from hem to waist up the back along the crack of my derriere-and the sheer blouse; that's all I need to wear, just as he ordered.

Before Sally returns from the warehouse, I'm gone, leaving the cardboard clock on the door pointing to 4:00 pm, when I hope I will return. Two hours, I'm giving him two hours, no more, I tell myself. But I'm on Locksley's time now, not my own, and I haven't a clue about when I'll finally get back to work.

 

***

When the heavy metal door of the warehouse slides open, Locksley pulls me in. His impressive presence looms over me-just as the authority in his voice and the power behind his commands and the desire inside his threats all pull me in to his domain. I enter his kingdom whenever I am with him. I fall at his feet. I offer my body, take pain and abuse, humiliation, drinking in all the elements of my kink with exhilarating satisfaction. Whatever he deigns to give me I gratefully receive. I'm owned by him and possessed by my own need for surrender, even under these hateful circumstances.

He slaps my face, stuns me off my feet and I stumble in the heels, falling to the floor. Looking up I see two other people with us, but with a bright light streaming through a bank of windows behind them, I can't make out their faces. I nurse my wounded cheek. Although the slap really didn't hurt that much, it effectively put me in my place.

"You've got a punishment coming from me, slave," Locksley barks. His blonde wavy hair falls across his forehead in an unmannerly way, but he smoothes it back with an efficient brush of his hand. His features reek of a kingly charm, penetrating eyes; sharp, high cheek bones; a firm jaw that twitches when he's tense or angry. He could step from the pages of a fashion magazine, or off the wintry slopes of St. Moritz, handsomely tanned and self-assured. He has the air of an Ivy League graduate, the kind to be born with the silver spoon, and he's my sexual master. I know nothing of his bloodlines or his background. I can only guess, make up possible stories to explain his life, none of which are likely true. He's probably from a background of itinerant scoundrels, lucky to look so perfect.

All I know for sure is that he's had the eye of every dutiful sub in the local Bdsm scene and I'm the one he Doms, the one he loves to slap around and order to her knees, the one he loves when all the games are over. The one he takes to bed. It's His ropes I now gladly wear.

"Yes, sir," I answer his charge. As usual, the word punishment sets me off. My juices are flowing. I'm practically salivating from the word and the resulting horror I'll feel. It's a horror that will take me far from my miserable life into a land where I can abdicate my throne of dubious power. I'm no one, nothing but my body and my sexual response. That's all I have to be when Locksley punishes me.

"We'll take care of personal business later," he tells his friends, deriding me with the cold scowl on his face. "You can have her now."

I'm to be given away. Twice before, Locksley's made a gift of me to his friends, but that was months ago. I'd hoped that sort of thing was over.

He walks out and I'm left with the two strangers, a man and woman I assume are husband and wife, although I have no way of knowing this for sure.

As the man steps forward into the light, I see that he's dressed in a gray suit. His hair is dark and curly, short and neatly trimmed. There's a haughty glimmer in his eyes as they peer from a flat and otherwise unremarkable face. The woman hovers behind him, but I imagine that will not be for long. Already I sense that she's the harsher and more punishing of the two. I read this in the subtleties of how she moves, how she stands back critically appraising me, waiting. I want to study her face, but I have no time for that.

"You will do everything I say," he tells me. His voice has all the charm of a pretentious civil servant.

"Yes, sir." I unthinkingly respond as I've been trained. He moves closer still and with one hand reaches down and jerks me to my feet. At the touch of his fingers on my skin, I feel an electrical charge that moves readily to my anxious heart. Fear leaps to my throat.

He looks annoyed as if I've offended him. I've never seen the man before, but he seems to know me.

His soulless black eyes meet mine and hold me in their grip, while he wraps my wrists with rope and tosses the long loose end over an iron bar above us. By his expression, I see he's satisfied, happy to have bound me. Stepping away, he strolls around in front of me and my eyes follow each step until he finally disappears behind my back.

His wife moves toward me looking curious and cruel. She wears a navy blue business suit with a wide collar, and four inch heels on her tiny feet. Her eyes are slightly slanted, her skin somewhat sallow. She's of mixed race, and would appear to have inherited the hard extremes of her blended cultures. Her hair is tied back tightly off her face, hardening her femininity into elegant coldness. Her nose is long and pointed; her lips full. I'm not surprised to see her sleek fingernails polished a glossy red and gleaming like knives.

While the man grabs for the tail of my zipper, the woman smokes a long slim white cigarette, exhaling in my face. The smoke fills my lungs as the man rips my skirt apart. With the skirt falling to the floor, the rope bondage at my groin is immediately exposed.