Chapter 1

 

The old hatchback with a slight clank in the mostly harmless rumbling of its engine pulled in the neighbor's driveway. The garage door buzzed on and started to rise, though the car stopped in front of the trash cans at the side of the house. The driver hesitated a moment then leaned toward the passenger mirror. His hands returned to the wheel and the vehicle backed up and pulled forward again, drawing closer to the driveway's edge.

This same ritual played out nearly every afternoon, as the old man watched from his rocker on the porch: The peculiar habit of his new neighbor, the great care to leave space in the driveway, the opening of the garage door, though the young man entered the house through the front door. His female companion always arrived home a couple hours later, coasting in her brand new sports car up the wide berth of driveway available to her and straight into the opened garage.

He waited till the young man was halfway up his porch-he'd never seen a man hurry like that to get home. "Hey there, whaddaya say, Alex?"

Alex turned and nodded, gave a wave that resembled a salute. "Hello, Mr. Kent." He hurried to the front door and rushed inside, to what, Mr. Kent couldn't imagine. He leaned up out of his rocker and, standing, grabbed hold of a beam of his porch while he let his legs un-stiffen. He walked inside and sat in the dining room. The table was set for two with only the hot food that filled the room with an enticing aroma still being moved from pots and pans to serving dishes by the man's wife.

"I just saw our neighbor."

"Alex?" The woman turned her head but didn't stop dumping clumpy mashed potatoes into a bowl.

"He just pulled in, if it's all right with his lady friend."

"Oh, is Kim there?"

"Nope. Didn't see her."

The woman moved swiftly around the counter and into the dining room. She set a platter of Salisbury steak and the bowl of potatoes at the center of the table. She patted her husband's shoulder. "You're teasing him, again. Stop that, now."

The woman sat at her husband's left, drawing her patting hand from one shoulder to the other then down his arm till she reached his hand. She had an expressive face that matched her sprightly movements and bright blue eyes that made her gray hair look like it might return to blonde in a few more years. She waited until her husband had chosen his slice of meat and piled his plate with potatoes before serving herself. "He's a nice young man."

"She seems to order him around."

"Well, maybe he doesn't mind."

"That's no way for a man to behave."

"He does seem to dote on her, but could you blame him? Kim is such a beautiful young girl."

The man shook his head and lifted his knife and fork. He surveyed the dinner prepared by his wife. He gave his approval with a single nod directed her way and began to eat. As she took a bite after him, he gave her a seductive smile, his eyebrows slightly raised. All it took for him to remind her how a younger version, by fifty years, of the dashing man across from her had swooped her up.

His courting her had been a single, confident approach in front of her twittering friends at a college dance, and she had immediately become his, and she'd loved him since. Their shared life still resonated with memories of joy, but as she smiled staring past her husband's head, as he grinned back thinking she was gazing at him, she caught Kim's car pull in the driveway adjacent to theirs. She saw Kim ease her car into their garage, and then cross the porch with a confident, playful glint in her eyes as she peeked in their living room window, looking excited and eager to be greeted by her husband, and the old woman thought, with a vague sense of wonder, of what might have been different.

 

***

Alex, though embarrassingly aroused, resented having to cook naked while Kimberly wasn't even there to watch. She had called soon after he got home and given the command. Alex asked if she would be home early. "No," she had said, "I'll be home at my normal time. I just want to know you're cooking naked."

Alex, of course, didn't object or even allow his resentment to sound through the phone as he replied, "Yes, Ma'am." After hanging up, he stripped out of all of his clothes, folded and put them away in the bedroom, then returned to the kitchen to continue chopping celery for the meatloaf he was preparing.

After nearly a year as Kimberly's servant, he should have become accustomed to being naked in front of Kimberly while she was fully dressed, as it was a nearly daily occurrence, whether he was massaging her feet, being punished for some reason or for Kimberly's amusement, or simply kneeling next to her chair while they watched TV, but somehow Alex never had quite gotten used to it. It always touched the core of his submission to his mistress and left him humiliatingly aroused and eager to please her.

Alone, though, the quiet of the house seemed to tease him. The open space of the bright kitchen tickled. The heat of the preheating oven on his bare skin, his stretching up toward high shelves, and his crouching low to reach cupboards, all emphasized his lack of clothing that Kimberly, miles away behind a desk at an office, had insisted on. Alex looked at the clock on the microwave, 3:47. Kimberly wouldn't be home for more than an hour. He could easily be naked and on his knees to greet her at the door well before she would be due to arrive. He ought to wear clothes until then, but he didn't really consider getting dressed. Kimberly was his mistress. He had pledged his devotion to her. He had promised to obey. If she wanted him to barbecue on the front lawn without any clothes on, he wouldn't simply refuse. He would beg her to please not make him do it from his knees, the way she liked, and then if she insisted, beg her to please give him a different choice. Kimberly had come up with this plan for when he simply could not say yes to her, and Alex appreciated that she had devised it. As much as Kimberly did not like hearing no, Alex hated saying it to his wonderful mistress even more.

Alex refocused to his task. He put a Radiohead CD into the portable player-a gift from Kimberly so he could listen to music while he cooked and cleaned-kept on the kitchen counter and whistled along when "Creep" came on. He didn't hear the front door open.

Kimberly heard Alex's whistle, over the soft music emanating from the kitchen, as soon as she cracked open the front door. She quietly stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Grinning in anticipation of seeing him buck naked at her command and at work cooking, she tiptoed quickly down the hall and peeked around the corner into the kitchen. She had to cover her mouth to not emit a giggle at the sight of him. Her vantage point was perfect for watching his bare butt sidling back and forth in front of the stove as he stirred a steaming something in a little pot on one of the burners and got a bowl down from a top cupboard. She could just make out a row of eight pink lines, stretching from the top part of his cheeks to his thighs, from the last time she'd marked him.

When he turned with a stack of plates and cutlery, she was a bit surprised to catch sight of Cute Thing raised high, since as far as he knew, she wasn't even home and wouldn't be for another hour. It had been nearly a week since she'd allowed him permission, yet it made her wonder, with satisfaction, if making him serve long stretches of time maybe was as much of an ordeal as Alex seemed to act like. She had always thought he was trying to play a bit on her sympathies with either his whining or his over-exaggerated stoicism about her decrees. She'd spanked him for both those reactions on more than one occasion. But if less than a week without release made Cute Thing excited just while cooking a meal, perhaps it was a touch too cruel of her to hand out two and three week stretches just to amuse herself. Though she did feel this touch of pity for her suffering prince as she watched him set the table, she felt far more an exciting surge of power that pulsed from between her legs outward: making her legs feel numb underneath her, her fingers tingle, and a pleasant dizziness play in her head. She would have to make Alex serve a very long stretch some time soon, now that she could enjoy it all the more, knowing how badly he would suffer even when she wasn't home.

Kimberly dipped back around the corner as Alex returned from setting the table to the stove. She peeked around again just in time to see him stooped over, sliding the meatloaf in the oven. A full moon shot pointed directly at her. Kimberly burst out laughing, and the glass dish of meatloaf crashed onto the oven rack. Alex spun around. "You scared me. I almost spilled dinner."

"You mooned me."

"I didn't know you were home."

Kimberly strode toward him. "I brought a surprise."

Alex gave a nervous smile and pensively raised his eyebrows. "What is it?"

Kimberly reached into the pocket of her black slacks and pulled out an eclectic mix of rubber bands: small reds, long greens, thick browns, all dangled from her fist. "It's time for Cute Thing to start taking snaps."

"Snaps?"

Kimberly grinned, stretched forward and gave Alex a long closed-mouthed kiss on the lips. "Walk behind me." She spun and walked into the living room. She sat on the couch, smoothed her pants down, and crossed her left leg over her right. Alex started to kneel.

"No, no. Stay on your feet." Kimberly opened her fist, and picked through her pile of rubber bands.

"Oh please, Kimberly..."

"Please Kimberly what? I haven't done anything." She grinned up at him, cocking her head to the side. "Are you having one of your submissive premonitions?"

"I think I am, Mistress."

"Tell me what you think I'm going to do to you."

Alex's eyes were already wet with tears, and his body shook so violently in tiny tremors that Cute Thing, hard as it was, bobbed up and down. "I think you're going to snap those on me where it's really going to hurt, but please, please don't."

"Alex, your submissive instincts are spot on. It's really uncanny. That's exactly what I'm going to do. Now scoot a little more toward me." Kimberly twisted her hips, moving her crossed legs against the couch's side.

"Please, may I take a paddling instead?" Alex remained where he was, his naked hips swaying slightly.

"No, I feel like playing with Cute Thing."