Chapter One

 

Emma sat down at the computer. "What shall I wear today, Master?" she typed, and pressed Send.

As she waited for the answer she sat back, sipping her coffee and looking out of the window across to the beach. It was going to be a fine day, even quite a hot one. Perhaps she might venture in for a swim later; the water was almost warm enough now. Or if not that, maybe a game of tennis with Carol. It was always fun to see her; Carol cheered her up, told such funny stories. And doubtless there would be more "shocking" confidences about sex with Howard. Carol acted like she led a daring sex life, always trying new things, role-playing with Howard at home, dressing up, new sex toys.

She smiled to think how shocked Carol would be if she should ever tell her about her secret life. Yet she doubted if that would ever happen. Carol would never understand. She'd be disturbed, even distressed, if she knew the truth.

The computer bleeped. There was a reply.

"It's black today, for elegance. Bathe, wash your hair, shave your cunt carefully. Put on your new corset with the matching thong and new stockings. Your black patent leather shoes. Your black polo neck sweater, your calf-length black velvet skirt. Silver earrings and matching necklace."

As she read the message she wondered if he had anything special in mind for today. You couldn't always tell. Sometimes when he made her dress up, all she had to do was walk about the house and follow a few instructions.

Then came a second message. "You will receive a surprise this morning."

Well, life was full of surprises these days. What could it be? Another vibrator, even more ingenious than the last one? Some new underwear, even more outrageous than before?

She went to run her bath, and lay in the scented water, daydreaming. Was it only three months since her first encounter with her Master, since that first tentative email responding to one of her stories, so flattering about her writing talents, but perceptive too? How quickly he had divined the impulses behind her writings, sensed the longing for submission, the barely conscious movements towards delirious humiliation and abasement. With his encouragement she had got bolder, writing more explicitly about women who were in thrall, women who prostrated themselves, who begged and pleaded to be used. One story had been about a girl with two Masters, one of them a younger one who was being trained. The heroine was given to him to practise on.

He'd written her a lengthy email about that story, praising her invention and facility with language. After that it built rapidly, shared confidences following thick and fast, then the exchanges of personal histories, and finally photographs, photographs such as she had never taken of herself before, which she blushed to take and then blushed even deeper to send via email. And once, but only once, a telephone call, just half an hour, which left her flushed, her heart pounding, butterflies in her belly, a tingling in her cunt.

From that point it escalated quickly. Terse little notes ordering some action or other: "Put a clothes pin on each of your nipples." "Go into town without your knickers." "Excite yourself till you nearly come, then stop." Orgasm control had been rigidly established. Sometimes she was ordered to come, often forbidden after being brought to the brink, on occasion denied her release for days on end.

It was ridiculous from one point of view. How could he be sure she was obeying orders? He might tell her not to come that day, and for all he knew she was indulging herself shamelessly. There was no guarantee. But as he said to her when she raised the question, "yes, you may be deceiving me, but if so to what end? What conceivable point could there be in just pretending to submit? How could you find pleasure in that?" And it was true. The pleasure in obeying was intense, a pleasure such as she had never known. Why would she deny herself this and merely pretend?

Emma sat on the edge of the bath, obeying her instructions for the day. She shaved herself carefully, pulling the lips of her cunt outwards to ensure every stray hair was removed. When he had first asked her how it was between her legs, she had answered that there was a clump of thick, dark curls, only lightly trimmed at the edges in the summer to avoid them straying beyond the edge of her bikini. He'd ordered her to send a picture. Then he'd told her to crop her bush short all over. She'd had to send another picture when it was done. Next he wanted her to reduce it to a small delta shape on her mons, and then finally he had ordered that shaved to a narrow strip barely an inch wide. At first she found it strange to look at (thought she loved the delicious feel of her smooth, bare cunt after shaving). But now she was used to it. In any case, he had said, and she had thrilled at the strictness of his message: "It's not done for you but for me. Whether you like it isn't the point; perhaps if you didn't like it there would be even more pleasure for me in ordering it done."

Such perversity, she thought. How could he know that such enforcement was so exciting to her? How could he know that this was what she had craved all her life? How could he know this, when she didn't even know it herself until it happened, until he said those things?

She dried herself carefully, then looked at herself in the mirror. She saw a tallish woman with long black hair, a woman with firm breasts, quite full, but not too much so. Perhaps if she were perfect her waist would have been a trifle more narrow? But she liked her legs, long and shapely, and turning to look at her bottom, felt reasonably satisfied with that too, the buttocks nicely rounded. She stepped closer to look at her face. Like any woman, when she looked in the mirror she tended to focus on the things she liked less well. Was her mouth too big? Was her nose just a shade too long? Were her eyes, admittedly large and lustrous, too wide apart? She knew she was being ridiculous. Enough men had told her of her attractions, and she knew how they looked after her in the street or gazed at her across a room and longed to kiss her. She saw the desire in their eyes and it pleased her. But she thought often enough about her imperfections, however imagined, and so she was never conceited or complacent, never assumed she might have any man she pleased.

She began to dress. A sweater and velvet skirt over a corset were hardly suitable clothes for a Carolina morning in late spring, the thermometer pushing seventy already. But perhaps she had to do nothing today except pretend for him, perhaps she was going nowhere except in his fantasies.

When she had put on all her clothes, the corset squeezing her, holding her so firmly, she sat down at the computer to see if there were any instructions about perfume or make-up. But there was nothing. She was just about to email asking if she should apply eye-liner or eye-shadow or both, when there was a ring at the door. She frowned. She was expecting no one at this hour of the morning. Then she remembered the promise of a surprise. Perhaps it was the UPS man with a lovely present for her.

As she walked to the door she glanced outside. Parked in the road was a large black car of recent make. She squinted through the peep-hole and saw two men standing outside, each wearing a suit. She opened the door a fraction on the chain.

"Yes?"

"Emma?" one of them said. He was about her own age, with long black hair tied in a ponytail.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"We have been sent by your Master."

She hesitated. How could anyone know about that?

"I don't know what you mean," she said. She made to shut the door.

"Wait," the man said. "Haven't you been informed?"

"Informed of what?"

"You can check on us. Email him. Say Gerry and Clyde are here."

"Gerry and Clyde?" She felt foolish repeating his words. But she could not imagine what he was talking about.

"Email. Ask for the password," the man said.

She shrugged. "Very well," she said. "Wait here."

She shut the door and went to the computer. When she'd sent the email she tiptoed back to the door. The men were still there. The other one was younger, barely out of his teens, she thought. He had long blond hair, which he wore loose.

Her computer bleeped and she downloaded the message. "Gerry and Clyde have arrived earlier than I thought. They are there on my instructions. Let them in. You will do as they tell you. The password is Lubricious."

She went to the door and opened it on the chain.

"Password?" she demanded.

"Lubricious," the dark-haired man said.

She undid the chain and let them in. The blonde one, whom she thought rather good-looking, gazed around him as he entered, taking in her taste in soft furnishings, looking at the pictures on her walls. The one with the ponytail, who carried a black leather briefcase, sat on the sofa.

"I'm Gerry," he said. "This is Clyde. We are here to make arrangements for your journey."

"My journey?" Why must she keep echoing him?

"You are going on a trip."

"Where?"

"You will discover eventually. Now we have to get ready. Clyde will pack for you, with your help."

"Pack? You mean I'm going away? I can't do that. I've got a date this evening. And what about my dog?"

"Cancel the date. Clyde is going to look after the dog."

"What do you mean, look after it?"

"I told you to help Clyde. There is no need for any more questions."

"Look," she said. "Two strange guys come to my house and start ordering me about. Of course I've got questions."

Gerry looked at her. His gaze was stern. "Don't take that tone with me. Should you like me to tell your Master you are being uncooperative?"

She'd taken an instant dislike to Gerry. She didn't like the way he spoke, for one thing. His accent sounded like New York, one of the outlying boroughs, the Bronx perhaps. Not an area she would care to visit, she thought sniffily. She didn't care much for his appearance either. A ponytail wasn't her idea of a gentleman's haircut. On his wrist he had a chunky gold bracelet and round his neck, above the black hairs that emerged from his unbuttoned shirt, was a matching gold necklace. Her mother had always declared that jewellery on men was vulgar. A wedding ring, and a watch if you must, she used to say. There were many things about which she did not agree with her mother, but that was something on which they concurred.

"You can tell my Master what you please," said Emma. She didn't care for his manners.

"Go and help Clyde pack," Gerry said, dismissive, and busied himself with the contents of his briefcase.

Emma shrugged, a gesture she knew she would never have made to Master, then went into her bedroom. Clyde had opened a drawer and was rummaging through her underwear.

"Just a minute!" she said sharply. The cheek of the boy, she thought. "Stop doing that!"

"I have my orders," Clyde said. "Only silk and satin, only black or white."

He tossed aside several flimsy garments of varied hues. On her bed he'd put a large suitcase. He turned and threw a handful of underwear into it. He opened the drawer below and started rifling through her hosiery.

"Only stockings," he said. "No tights or pantyhose."

Emma stood by, feeling helpless. Clyde appeared to know exactly what he was looking for. He didn't seem to need help.

"You are going to look after Bobby?"

"Bobby?"

"My dog."

"I'll come over every day, feed him and take him out."

"You're going to be coming into my house, on your own?"

"Of course," said Clyde. "You won't be here."

"How long is this going on for?"

"Don't know," said Clyde. "Couple of weeks, maybe more."

"A couple of weeks! I can't be gone that long. What about my work?"

In fact that was the least of her worries. She had just completed a major project, had sent it off two days ago, and had promised herself a week off. She tried to remember if she had told Master that.

"Orders are orders," said Clyde.

He walked over to her closet and started selecting dresses and skirts. Emma went back into her sitting room. Gerry was sorting through some papers.

"About my date tonight," she said. "I guess I'd better phone."

"I guess you better had," said Gerry, not looking up.

She went into her study and closed the door. She'd known Richard about six weeks. He'd picked her up at a party; or had she picked him up? It was her first sexual activity since encountering Master. The next day she told Master in an email what had happened, how she'd gone home with Richard, had sex. She'd been terrified of Master's reaction, fearing his anger. After all, she'd signed her contract by then. She'd given him total ownership of her body. He'd made it crystal clear her cunt was no longer hers to dispose of. "Breasts and nipples, cunt and ass", as it stated. And now she'd let another man use it.

In fact Master had been amused rather than angry. Of course, he said, you must be punished. Rules are rules, you have broken them. But you are a beautiful and highly sexual woman. It's not surprising men will want to fuck you. From time to time you may weaken. As long as you are willing to pay the price, we can live with that.