Chapter One

 

The leather cuffs kept her on her hands and knees, naked, her legs spread. The asshook kept her head high; the waist chain kept her back arched, the gag kept her quiet. There was no argument; no erudite debate, no negotiation, no compromise, and escape was impossible. She was helpless, trapped, with no control.

So, this was bondage!

The subject had always fascinated her. She thought about it all the time, dreamed about it when she slept, imagined it when she masturbated. The idea of a man dominating her made her wet and had done so for as long as she could remember.

She assumed she was a freak and never talked about it with anyone. The closest she ever came to revealing her fantasy was her obsession with ballet. Its focus on beauty and movement, its suggestive dance themes, its celebration of male strength and female fragility let her imagine herself surrendering. In her mind the ballet told forbidden stories about freedom, and fear, and flight, and escape. They were abstract and ethereal, but for her, they were enough.

Now, she understood, they were nothing compared to this.

How had she found the courage to agree to this? Garrett was her lover and the kindest, gentlest man she had ever known, but his proposal had been...outrageous, beyond the pale. She didn't answer him, she changed the subject, then in the middle of an unrelated conversation, without thought, she had blurted out, "Yes, I will."

It was a mistake, an error, a missed communication; she had lost her mind for a second, but there was no going back. She had never broken a promise, never backed away from a challenge, never given in to pain or fear or pressure. It was who she was.

Who she was...! Really...? Or was it "who she wanted to be?" Was it good character that kept her from backing out or was it her lifelong fascination? Had she said yes in a moment of profound confusion or was this the proposal she had been waiting for, yearning for her whole life?

Did it matter...?

She was here now, with no choice in the matter. She had never felt so happy or so sad, so excited or so scared, so anxious or so peaceful. Extreme and conflicting feelings were raging in her mind. She felt lost...and found.

Their eyes met and he nodded--he was ready to begin.

NO...PLEASE, NO! THIS WAS A MISTAKE...!

She had muttered her non-sequitur in a sudden moment of insanity. She knew this the moment the words left her lips, but there was no getting them back. He had not said anything, he just reached across the table and covered her hand with his. Garrett was like that-steady, a rock, someone whom she could trust, someone who respected her intelligence, her ability to make her own decisions.

He moved out of her sight, circling her naked body.

The ballet was full of phonies and egotists. Most of them had no interest in listening to her. Garrett was different, he didn't just listen, he heard her. The idea that a man took her seriously had thrown her off balance- the boundless selfishness and obsessions of the ballet were her world. She had not realized that there were men like him.

He rescued her, pulled her back from the edge. He became her safe harbor and her lover. When he lightly introduced kinky sex into their conversations, she thought it was safe. Even when their conversations moved from casual to interested, she still felt safe. It was only when he told her about his guesthouse on Simpson Island that she suspected an agenda. And even then, it was an agenda that she embraced, one that suggested a safe way to "experiment."

He completed his irreverent inspection and stood at her front. She locked eyes with him once again.

What would they be to each other when they returned to sanity, she wondered? Would she still be his girlfriend, his lover, or would she be something less or more, or something entirely different? She had read that people in Dominant/submissive relationships assumed dual personalities-one for their public personas and one for their private time. Would she become his pet, his possession when they were alone? Would they, could they keep this part of their relationship casual?

Whatever.

She truly did not care. At this moment, she could not think or care about anything other than...him-what was on his mind; what he planned for her; what he wanted from her? For the first time in her young life, she was powerless and facing an all-powerful man. It felt weird and strangely natural.

"Next week...?" he had asked her casually

"That good," she had answered, trying to match his casual tone.

He had smiled and gone back to cutting his steak. She continued to play with her salad. Food had been one of the many things she had given up to dance professionally. Serious relationships were another.

Not anymore, she had told herself. She was twenty years old; she needed to know a man...men, not another dancer. She needed to reach out, to experiment...and Garrett would be her guide. Who better to do that with than Garrett? She knew him, she even knew his dark side now; she would never find a better partner.

 

***

 

Garrett knew he had been right about her the moment he looked into her eyes. They were wide open, and he could see the excitement. She was scared, terrified out of her mind, and tripping out with the painful reality of her bondage, but she was also elated as if she had been waiting for this for a long time.

He had a theory that all girls had bondage fantasies and that male behavior magnified them. Someone with her incredibly sexy body and sensuous face would have been the object of endless leering and hungry glances too quickly hidden, of leud suggestions, and barely hidden inuendo.

He walked around her again, soaking in every detail. He had considered starting her with something light then rejected the idea. She was ready for this; she had been preparing herself for this her whole life. He had seen it in her eyes.

In the beginning, their conversations about kinky sex, BDSM, dominance, and submission had been intellectual and impersonal-light talk to spice up an evening-but over time, the abstractions had solidified into choices. She had moved them in that direction. Yes, he had instigated and fed the flames, but she was the one who shyly kept returning to the subject, goosing him to reveal everything.

"Are you okay...?"

She jerked as if his words had awoken her from a dream, but the leather kept her firmly in place. He preferred that they have some movement; total immobilization was okay for punishment, but this was not discipline. He was opening a portal for her, taking her to another dimension, introducing her to another world. He wanted her to be able to move a little; he wanted her animated; he wanted her to imagine she might be able to free herself. The balance between hope and hopelessness was one of the keys to good bondage.

He scanned her lean body again noting everything from the slight tremor in her biceps and calves to the rhythmic clenching of her abs. These were normal, healthy physical signs of the inevitable conflict in her mind between surrender and resistance.

He felt this dilemma whenever they made love. He considered it essential for a true submissive. People thought that submission meant total surrender; they were wrong. A healthy submissive was always struggling with her need to resist and her desire to give in. He couldn't think of anything less interesting than one-hundred percent compliance.

It had taken him a month to get Lara to have coffee with him, and another month before she agreed to dinner, and even when she started to enjoy their time together, she had resisted him. She had refused to use her looks to win him over. Just the opposite, she hid it. She hid her face behind ugly, black-rimmed glasses and a floppy hat; she wore loose-fitting shirts and pants suits to conceal her curves and legs; she kept her great mane of silver-blond hair in a top bun that was better suited to a nun's habit.

"No one takes you seriously, Mr. Callaway, if you project sex," she had explained to him once.

"Do you want me to take you seriously, Miss Castle?"

She had just smiled. She had become an obsession for him at that point. He wasted two months "dating" her before discovering the key-a million-dollar contribution to NABCo (the North American Ballet Company). He cared little about ballet, but she loved it, and he loved her...kinda. , and, therefore, it was a perfect way to create an indirect obligation. She would never have She would never have accepted money or gifts from him directly, but the contribution had the same effect. It gave him a wedge.

He glanced at her face partly hidden by the harness. She was confused now, unsure of how the feel. She was in superb shape, but the bondage was beginning to stress her muscles and joints; the pain was beginning to radiate. She had a high tolerance for it as a dancer, but this was new, she had no way to shake it off and push through.

He walked slowly back to her rear. The wooden H-the platform he called the horse-held her long legs wide open. He could see the dark ring around her asshole, the fullness of her swollen vulva; There was a dimple in the center of her ass cheeks. As he watched, her cunt lips began to throb, pulsating with surging blood, and her asshole began to clench. These were anatomical responses to his closeness.

A glint of light revealed a viscous white liquid seeping out of her vagina. She was already leaking; this usually did not happen until he began to stimulate. The early surges of adrenaline and dopamine in her system must be immense, he thought. Only a massive release of those drugs could push her to the edge so soon.

He touched the inside of her thigh and she jerked away then continued to pull back as he ran his hand down the insides of her thighs, over her calves, to the tender soles of her feet. The second time he stroked her, she leaned into him as if comforted by the contact. This was not a conscious response; her body was acting instinctually; it had its own mind now. She was moving through the stages of surrender faster than anyone he had ever known.

He congratulated himself again on his instinct and perseverance. He had known she was special the first time he had seen her dance. The piece was La Bayadere, which she had done in Syracuse during the summer. Her performance had been magical. When she moved, it was like the wind blowing smoke across the stage; her feet didn't seem to touch the ground.

Some Doms considered their ability to sniff out truly submissive women an instinct, others said it was from experience. He didn't worry about which it was, nor did he know what made him sure-their speech, actions, movement, looks, smell, likes, dislikes-but he always was, especially with Lara.

He regretted the manipulation he had used to get her here, but it was the only way someone like him-a hard-driving Wall Street "fixer"-was ever going to win an artist like her. They were from different worlds; there was no way they would come together by accident, without a plan, without well-executed actions. It was the formula he used to get everything he wanted.

He walked around the horse again marveling at her perfection. There was no need to rush; he needed to give the ache time to work its way into her mind. This kind of agony would soften her up. He moved closer then ran the tips of his fingers over her exquisitely curved spine from her neck to her tail bone. He could feel her body responding, feel her trembling with fear and anticipation. It didn't matter which response was dominant at this stage, both were welcome.

Panic on the other hand would have been catastrophic but there was none.

He watched the dim light shimmer on the tiny droplets of sweat. The bondage and her response to it were so incredibly stimulating that he was almost jealous. There was no way he could even imagine the extraordinary feelings coursing through her body. what was in her mind at this moment.

Nor should he, he admonished himself. He was the catalyst for the chain reaction they were about to unleash. She had put herself in his bondage so he could dominate her. This was his role, hers was to submit. If played well, they could expect a sexual release that most people could never even imagine.

He smiled at the hyperbole. Doms were susceptible to overreaching. Focus, he told himself; you owe it to her to focus.

He knew exactly what to do. As with most things, he had dived into BDSM with both feet, learning everything there was to know about the subject, including the physical and psychological changes he should expect. He was not a sadist-he did not enjoy inflicting pain for its own sake-he did it in pursuit of a larger goal, and because it was what he did. Vanilla sex and the ego-boost of being with a beautiful girl were simply not enough stimulation for him. He had made that choice long ago.

Which was why they were here...in his guesthouse on Simpson Island.

He had bought the property for the privacy, for its easy access from Manhattan and Boston, and because it was a romantic New England setting. The cottage and the guesthouse perched on a rocky cliff overlooking the sea. A small sand beach at the bottom, hidden by two impossible-to-cross rock outcroppings, was postcard-perfect. He had decorated the main house as a cozy lovers' cottage in stark contrast to the guesthouse, which he outfitted as a BDSM dungeon.

Lara had hesitantly said it sounded "intriguing" when he told her about the guesthouse. He knew her hesitancy was not due to fear or coyness; she was still struggling with the idea of taking her submission from fantasy to reality. He didn't rush her.

What finally tipped the scales was...love. This was no casual fling for her; she did love him. She also appreciated the full disclosure, the certainty that he would only act with her informed consent. He made it clear that once she gave her consent, there was no turning back.

"I am a serious person, Lara," he had explained. My partner also needs to be serious. If she's not; if she is looking for a casual diversion, she is not the kind of person I want."

"I am scared, Garrett," she had admitted, "but I want to know...I want to know what it's all about and I want to learn it with you. I trust you."

I trust you... Would she trust him when it was over, he wondered? Had he guessed wrong this time? Was she driven by an inner demon?

"Are you sure about this, Lara?" he asked.

She froze then turned her eyes on him with the look of contempt that only a prima ballerina could muster. He blushed, instantly embarrassed by his faux pas. Despite their pact about commitment, he had let his feeling for her interfere.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

He stepped back and quickly added nipple clamps and weights to her tits. She sucked in her breath and her eyes rolled back into her head from the new pain. It was a strange apology, but it worked-she forgot his mistake.

He touched her stretched-out nipples. She had the most amazing nipples-large and protruding, incredibly sensitive. He liked to wet and blow on them when they made love. He could almost taste them now as her body twisted with the pain. The way she responded to his painful nipple play had been his first clue to her submissiveness.

He leaned over until his mouth was inches from her ear then he touched the blunt metal hook he had embedded in her ass with his fingers.

"It's time, Lara."

She jerked back and snorted like a horse, shaking her head back and forth as a wave of justified resistance passed through her mind. The harness prevented her from turning her head more than a few degrees, and the penis gag made it impossible for her to do more that grunt and whine, but he knew from experience that she was now having second thoughts. They had discussed it and agreed that he should ignore her protests.

"It will pass," she had confirmed with conviction. "I know myself. I want to run and hide before every performance. This won't be any different. Don't you wimp out on me, Garrett. Don't back off no matter what."

Her dogged determination had been impressive. But those had only been words. He had known that she would protest wildly once the pain came, once he had strapped her to the horse.

The horse...the horse was a wooden platform, shaped like the letter H, with soft leather manacles for her wrists and ankles, and a waist belt and chain to keep her back arched. She looked like a cheetah on all fours, like a sculpture, the perfect female body, a goddess in chains, a...

Why was he hesitating? Was he having second thoughts?

He felt his body shudder with desire. He desperately wanted to fuck her but knew that fucking her too soon would ruin things. He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm, to move with deliberate speed. He lifted the leather paddle and smacked it hard on his palm. She moaned and her body twisted with the scary sound.

He ignored her, stepped back to her flank, and began to smack her ass. He mixed in blows to her thighs and calves to enlarge the pain zone. He did it lightly at first to draw blood to the skin then gradually increased the force until each blow was loud and painful. She was suffering now, struggling to cope with the agony. He ignored her sounds and continued until her skin was cherry red, until she was undulating, moving her body in a regular wave. The pain was now rolling from her head to her toes. Her grunts had become a plaintive whine, a long, tortured sound coming from deep inside.

He was always surprised by his feelings at this point. He was always contrite, thinking that he would not, could not inflict such pain on someone he cared about, but it was not true. Once the agonized writhing started, he needed to hold himself back. The urge to deliver more intense pain was nearly overwhelming. Only his good sense held him back. This, however, was not the biggest surprise-the biggest surprise was how natural and familiar it felt to whip a girl. It was as if he had been doing it forever, as if it were an automatic reflex like masturbating or fucking.

He stopped suddenly and put his hand over her cunt. It was hot and vibrating with a frantic sexual tension. It was time.