Chapter One

Life was chaos all around her on the eve of France, her head spinning with random thoughts. The trip was an imminent reality and there was much to be done before she left, a thousand details that required her attention. Though it had taken a year’s worth of planning and a lot of hard-earned cash, Jeni had little time to think about embarking for this foreign land miles from home. Though hugely important to her – she’d seen it as a pivotal piece in the journey to the next phase of life – when asked if she was excited about France, a question that came at her from all directions, she couldn’t exactly say she was. She hadn’t the time to get excited, and almost to the day she left, the fact that she was actually going to France still seemed like a fantastical dream.

Plans for a few days off from work before the trip failed to materialize. Even the day before she left, there was a project at work to complete and progress was painfully slow. None of this was a surprise. Life routinely gets in the way of best laid plans. And yet, for all the activity, all the details to attend to and the lists of items not to forget, what was responsible for her current turmoil really wasn’t her job or the packing or the butterflies in her belly on the eve of her first Transatlantic flight.

On this occasion, instead of revolving around the logical suspects, chaos revolved around a man.

Absurd, huh? After twenty years with one faithful man and giving up men for one long year of loss, the idea that a man would rock her world on the 10th of May, when the first knighthawk925 email landed in her Outlook, was absurd. What the hell was she supposed to do with the eager attentions of an on-line suitor? Especially now, when starting a relationship should have been the last thought in her mind. And yet, once the conversation began, the emails between Jeni and Jack Hawking continued at a brisk pace and soon every minute, every thought in her mind seemed to be taken up by this phantom behind the email address. Was it the easy conversation? Or the face staring back from his obscure photo? Or the fact they shared a common interest in kink?

Absurd, yes. The whole idea of him was absurd, but the most fantastically amazing distraction she’d had after a long list of distractions that had kept her slightly unfocused over the previous year. Hard to believe that someone she’d never laid eyes on could take hold of her attention in such a commanding and thorough way. When chaos suddenly became a beautiful place to be in those hectic days, she could do nothing but smile when the thought of him took control. She’d retreat to her bedroom, finding herself wet with arousal from the moment she touched the sensitive place between her thighs to minutes down the road when an explosive orgasm caused her back to arch and her body to convulse with spasms. Juices flooded over her hand, as Jeni imagined Jack’s hands on her, his lips on her, his cock inside her cunt, her mouth wide open – he could penetrate that, too.

Their early conversations were innocent enough. With a few short emails they got through the basics: work, family, their goals and aspirations, where their lives stood now. Then the correspondence changed, delving into the kinky subjects of her blog, where the dynamic between them began to shift.

As the questions from Jack became more blunt, more personal and probing she couldn’t help but feel her lusty libido come back to life. Once that familiar spark of desire arose, it wasn’t long before a brush fire seemed to burn within. What had begun as an innocent back and forth became something much bigger than informative small talk.

Jeni had forgotten what it felt like to be so passionately aroused. But just the thought of Jack was all over her now, feeding her psyche with thoughts and feelings she’d shunned so long that it was an unexpected thrill to be feeling them again. Her libido broke wide open. Random trips to the bedroom became more frequent, so was rubbing her crotch against the seat of her desk chair, the kitchen chair, her bathroom counter. Sexy, nasty, kinky thoughts rose up unbidden as she tapped a fresh spring of erotic thought inside her slutty psyche – just when she thought the spring had run dry. Jack was there in the middle of it all. Still a phantom, still a dream, still a fantasy – but she could almost feel his flesh, taste his pheromones, smell his scent. A fantasy – really? Not this time. There was flesh and blood on the other side of the emails, a man, not a phantom at the end of her lusty dreams.

For a woman often defined by her sexual obsessions, she was shaken, taken off guard and completely flustered by this budding relationship – did she dare call it a relationship? This wasn’t supposed to happen, not yet. It was too soon to be entertaining thoughts of a new man in her life – wasn’t it?

For two decades and a year her heart had belonged to another man; he was all she knew about men. Suddenly thrust back into the world of men and sex, and dating – god forbid dating! – she felt like a fish floundering out of water in the unfamiliar territory of men. The thought of being ‘courted’ was entirely new. She’d blindly fallen into her last relationship and never emerged – not until that relationship had been taken away.

Now this new man was under her skin before she knew what was happening, causing her heart to beat and her crotch to warm with very little effort. He was a Dom, she a sub. In the BDSM world they were a matched set. Responding to a dynamic natural to her personality, her sub-self began to arise as his dominant one emerged. It was so effortless, a bit of a game, she supposed. Nothing particularly serious, she thought, but certainly fun to play.

“You said, you wanted to read my naughty stories? I have so many, making me wonder what you’d like most.”

His reply went straight to the point.

“I like good head, a good tight anal, heaven. I wrote some stories with a previous gf, very immature, but a lot of fun. So you write about your fantasies?”

She had to smile. Wasn’t it just like a guy to keep it to the basics – cocks and ass. “Yes, they’re my fantasies. I wouldn’t know what else to write about. Of course, fantasy is not reality…I learned that early on. My subs are naughty, do stupid things, love/hate getting punished and create lots of drama, which makes good fiction. Let’s not forget the wide variety of sexual options. But that’s just fantasy. In real life, you’ll find I’m a mature and well balanced woman who hates drama and who just happens to like kinky fun in the bedroom.”

When he wrote back a day later, he’d moved on to other questions. “I’ve been wondering, you have any tattoos or piercings? Just curious. Been thinking about my cottage on the lake – very private. I need to be walking in the woods, by the water, smelling the fresh air.”

“Hi! No tattoos but currently one piercing – which I plan to keep.” Answering that question created a little flutter in her tummy. And just as he’d done in his email, Jeni quickly moved on to other matters. “I love walking in woods, too, and I could sit by the water all day. You asked what other things I do. Read, garden. I love movies and theatre, traveling. I’ve not traveled much in recent years, although I am taking off for a two week vacation in a couple weeks.”

“I read Story of O a long time ago,” he began his next email. “About O’s piercing through her lower lip. So, where’s yours? Come on, fess up.”

Now that’s getting personal, she thought, although a flutter of excitement lit up her libido just thinking of his question. “I didn’t remember that O’s was on the lip…I was thinking it was through the hood of her clit, which is where mine is. So, tell me about your cottage.”

“I’m sure you’re right about ‘O’,” he answered. “It was a long time ago that I read that book, so I’m stretching my memory here. Your piercing sounds delicious. What’s it look like? Bar? Ring? I like the idea of a single piercing, any more than that is too much for me.

My cottage is a work in progress. It began with just the small log shed you see in the picture, no plumbing, no electric. Pretty primitive. About twelve years ago, I started adding on, and the new section is almost complete. I have running water, electric, basement, a hardwood floor last year. Beautiful. A few years back, I built a separate laboratory and dorm for students when they’re working on the property. Keeps them out of my hair.

So you mentioned that you’ve been into public play, tell me about it.”

His cottage was taking shape in her mind, all in a beautiful way. Cabins in the woods brought back fond memories from her childhood. Times when she was free, far from the hot sidewalks of Southern California suburbia. Cloaked in their woodsy surroundings, they represented little havens away from the isolation she felt at home. She rested well amidst the trees, and often dreamed of staring up at a sky full of stars. A man with a cottage on a lake – in her mind it said a lot about his character and what he valued. That he was a botanist said a lot, too.

With the mention of public play, Jeni’s mind danced around the possible confessions, wondering which of the many events Jack might like most. There was a lot to confess about her kinky past. Thank goodness they weren’t face to face so he could see her blush as the memories came flooding into her mind. Amidst all the many scenes, however, one particular one stood out from all the rest. A day to remember unlike any other sexual experience she’d had – or would have for that matter. The scene had taken her deeply into submission, to places she’d never been before in her kink life. After it was over, in a therapeutic explosion of feeling and experience, she’d written about it, creating a factual account of the scene as she tried to sort out all that had taken place on that exhilarating day. The lust, emotion and profound state of surrender had been a special kind of magic. But did she dare send him that story? Reveal that she’d been auctioned before a kink crowd of twenty-five, during which she was hooded, stripped, intimately inspected and finally sold to one of the attending masters. Was it too soon for that kind of revelation?

Funny how it was easy to spit out the truth in an email, reveal with a few keystrokes private matters she would never have confessed if she were face to face. Jeni wondered if she should be more careful with her confessions – after all, they had not met and she had no idea who he really was. Revealing such deeply private matters could be a dangerous venture for a single woman in the lifestyle. But she hadn’t felt even the smallest reservation about this man, never compromised nor disrespected; his genuineness pulled her forward, while her arousal and surrendering spirit happily followed along. Of course, there was always the possibility that she was blinded by lust, and was foolish to assume that he was telling the truth.

Replying to his question on public play, she kept it simple without supplying much in personal detail. “Kink parties…I’ve been involved with the usual stuff. Been bound to a cross and tied to a spanking bench. There have been whips, spanking, clothespins, floggers, nothing terribly exotic, but it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve had some spectacular times, though some have been less than stellar.” With the thought of that ‘one particular’ scene still flashing through her mind, she went on to add, “If you want, I can send you a short story of a real time scene I had years ago at a Bondage B&B – certainly the most outrageous public experience I’ve had. The B&B went out of business a few years later, but at the time, the place was perfect for playing out my fantasy. The master of the house pulled off quite a show and I was in the midst of it all…talk about subspace. The high lasted for days.”

With his Yes, I’d love to see the story about the B&B coming in his next email, she dashed off her Auction tale – with a bit of trepidation. The scene was edgy, for some a little out-of-bounds, but she figured that any creditable lifestyle Dom would find it hot.

Two days later, his response to the story arrived.

“Just read ‘The Auction’. Whew! The first time I read it, I thought great story. The second reading I realized you had this experience. Saw it in a whole different light when I realized that, damn, that was you! Your imagination put me right there. I read it just before going to bed, and dreamt all night of you standing there for sale to the highest bidder. Yes, I had a good night. I wish I could have been there. Sometime I’d like to talk to you about what you were feeling, but later.

Attached is a picture of the cottage.”

Dreamt all night of you standing there for sale to the highest bidder…he’d dreamt all night of her. Had anyone ever dreamt of her before? After a long time languishing in the comfort of an easy relationship, it was exciting to realize that she had that kind of power with men. Yes I had a good night. She could imagine his hand at his crotch, taking care of a man’s business. Wish I could have been there. And she would have liked that too – although the auction was just a memory now, a good one, but a piece of her past, from another lifetime.

About his comments on the auction, she didn’t know what to say. It was much easier to talk about his cottage…

“I am so impressed! The fact that you’re building it yourself…I love handmade things. It’s just beautiful.”

His reply to her praise of his handiwork only titillated her more.

“The interior of the new section has exposed beams. Great for bondage. I screwed rings to the floor when needed for play. The nearest neighbor is about a mile away. It’s a great place to walk a naked sub on a leash (smile). Ah, yes, but back to reality.”

She could see the gears in his mind working as hard at their mutual fantasy as hers were.

“Oh my, now you’ve done it! The mention of those bondage beams and naked walks in the woods!” She could feel her body respond just thinking of the possibilities. “You’d be impressed by the number of erotic scenes I’ve written about being tied to a tree, taken over a tree stump…etc etc. whew…” a shiver of lust raced right down her spine, “Boy, did the dynamic just change here!” Her body was on fire, overwhelmed with physical desire. But she was going too far, too fast, assuming too much from an on-line dalliance? Maybe so, but she wasn’t about to quit. This was just too much fun.

“The beams turn you on, huh? When I was building the add-on a local farmer gave me a three foot piece of tree branch he used to harness a horse to a plow. It looks like a suspension bar. I made a hanging lamp out of it. My friends jokingly call it my bondage lamp, if they only knew.

So where are you going on vacation?”

“France. I’m going to France,” she wrote, wondering why admitting this seemed more personal to her than the intimate details of her kink life she was so quick to share. “However, I hardly believe it’s actually happening.” The trip was nearly upon her, but France was still far from her thoughts. In fact, this on-line conversation played a far bigger role in her daily life than imagining herself in Paris.

“Suspension bars and bondage lamps…now you do have me going…wink.” She couldn’t remember when she’d teased a man like this. “Makes me think of floggings and whippings and all the things that could be done suspended from those bondage beams. I can already feel the whip…oh my, did I just say that?”

“France. Really? That’s a great place for sex, kinky romance, whatever you’re looking for. Bet you’ll have a lot of fun. So, you want to be whipped? (smiling)”

It had been a long while since she’d felt a whip dance across her shoulders and down her back – the bite, the sting, the anxious moments waiting for the next nasty cut. She was ready now.

“Well…” she started evasively. Thank goodness he wasn’t there to see the red blush on her cheeks. “You might appreciate this…I wrote it a few weeks ago.” She gave him the blog link where this recent posting appeared.

BLOG POST: The remembrance begins late in the evening when the toys come out to play. In his hand they are magic, taking me to places unknown. He orders me to raise my hands and grab the door jamb; he wants my back, a canvas for his playthings, in particular the whip. This nasty number was expertly crafted by a friend in the scene, hand-braided leather with two long strands of cowhide anchored at the end. I recall its maker demonstrating the implement of torture on his sub, and how one biting cut of the thing left two long streaks on her pretty white shoulder. The marks were side by side, so close they blended into a single wicked welt. Although she barely made a sound, I heard the pain screaming from her body and my entire insides reacted with arousal. What if it left a welt like that on me?

That night he started lightly, warming up. He never followed any routine – not in the bedroom, and certainly not late at night when the dark gremlins from the day emerge from hiding and demand to be appeased.

Light was fun. Light was easy and sensuous, but hardly what either of us craved, and not what either of us needed. He picked up speed when he felt my energy start to climb, and I could only wonder how hard he’d hit tonight. Into what demon realms would he take us? I was smiling inside all the way down that rocky road to pleasure.

My crotch was wet. My breath shallow. The pheromones in the room signaled our mutual lust. Subspace didn’t take long, the point when pain turned into something quite different from pain. When the altered states began, the spasms burst through my body and the cumming began. Later, because I simply couldn’t remain on my feet, I sat on my ass before him on the bed, and rocked my naked crotch against the sheets as he delivered me into my happy world of surrender.

The whip came down hard against my back, on my right shoulder and then the left. I came in one long continuous flight of body nirvana. I quit my brain, forgot to think and rode the feeling for as long as he dared to love me with such intimate fierceness. Any moment, I knew that he would throw the whip aside, gather me into his arms and take me, stuffing his prick in my cumming pussy. Any minute. Any minute…

Until then, I’d be there waiting, as the whip struck and the pain moved through me, cumming happily in my prison of love. END

The auction story, now this – What was she thinking? She hardly knew the man, and her intimate revelations just kept working their way into her emails. Never had Jeni allowed herself to share personal experiences with fans of her blog – not in such a candid manner or in such depth. That had been forbidden territory, and for good reason – she didn’t want trouble and she already had a man – until she didn’t anymore.

But her world was different now. She didn’t have another man to think about. She had no rules, no restraints in her reborn life. To the insistent probing from Jack, she opened herself like a book, allowing him to read from the pages of her darkest self. Did she really want this unknown man to know her this intimately?

Some days, she looked at herself from a distance wondering…was she so needy now that she would throw herself at a man so easily? However, by the time she took that question seriously, she was already too far inside the restless tide, being carried away into something that had a ring of inevitability about it. Other Doms had approached her and she’d found them easy to dismiss. Jack was different. There was a substance to him, and a self-assurance, that had caught her in its snare. She couldn’t let go.

With her dormant sexuality awakened, grief had taken a back seat. She fell in love with the physical arousal, with the thrill of her body and a fresh new fantasy – which wasn’t a fantasy at all, was it?

Why not ride it out? See where it took her. A harmless diversion, right? For the first time in years she was single and free to do whatever she chose. In all likelihood, the trip to France would end the whole affair before they ever met. She would have had the first flirtation of her new life and be ready for the next. Not a bad idea. But a brief on-line affair wasn’t what she hoped for. When she thought about this man something in her stirred much deeper than casual, much more important than flirtation.

It was just days before the trip when this email arrived in response to her ‘whipping scene’.

“I remember the first time I whipped a woman, I was in my mid 20s and not very bright. We went to a party, she got drunk and made an ass of herself with my friends. When we got back to the apt, I smacked her on the butt a couple times and she just chuckled. Pissed me off that she didn’t take me seriously, so I pulled down her jeans and panties and forced her over my knees. I started spanking her with my bare hand, and when that began to hurt, I pulled my leather belt from my jeans, doubled it in my fist and started smacking her hard. Felt damn good as mad as I was. When her ass turned red I began to smile. I liked the way it felt. The leather belt became a regular part of our sex life. I don’t know how she felt about it, but she never made a sound when I used the thing, and she never objected. I hung it in her closet and made her fetch the thing when I wanted the feel of it in my hand, and the sight of her red ass.”

Leather belt! His first kink experience was punishing his girlfriend, reddening her naughty ass with his leather belt! Jeni’s eyes did a double-take as she read the email again, and then again. What the fuck…?

Did he actually write leather belt? She checked his words again a dozen times while her heart skipped beats and her libido kicked into high gear once again – like ‘zero to sixty in three seconds’ high gear. Could he have said anything more stimulating to her erotic mind? Could he have picked a more electrifying image? Had he read her thoughts, peered into her past, had some intuitive flash of inspiration?

How in the hell could he have known?

A happy accident? A quirk of fate? Some angelic being whispering in his ear?

Of course, he couldn’t have known. How would he?

All this easy conversation about a lake cottage and sexual fantasies, exposed beams and suspension bars, naked walks through the trees and where’s the piercing? Fess up? All of it fueled a growing fire. But nothing hit her like this email did.

Out of the wild blue heaven of sexual desires, he hit on the one image that had more power to provoke her lust than any other in an enormous file cabinet of deviant fantasy she’d compiled over many years. From out of her first erotic thoughts, this singular image always appeared front and center, and she was taken back to that time…the fantasy simple, of a dominant, masterful man, holding a leather belt in his fist. She even heard the voice behind it whispering orders in her ear, demanding her obedience. His was a straight-forward, no-nonsense kind of discipline enforced by the threat of that long length of leather. The sharp sting of that fantasy belt had been a powerful aphrodisiac all her life, turning meandering erotic thoughts into explosive masturbations once that image appeared.

That image alone. That terrifying length of leather doubled in a man’s firm grip. She’d be flying to ecstasy at the thought of her ass beaten red in atonement for her bad behavior. In her inner life, she was always naughty and in need of punishment, lusting for the pain it produced and the authoritarian force behind it. The story of his first kink encounter hit her leather belt obsession head on. Almost sounded like a plot device for an erotic novel. But no, this was real time; his past colliding with her most powerful fantasy. Suddenly, that leather belt fantasy didn’t feel like a fantasy anymore.

That image staring out at her from an otherwise innocuous email sent an erotic shockwave through her that verged on orgasmic. How was this even possible? Without a lick of warning the game had changed; this phantom on the other side of her emails had unknowingly marched into her sacred territory and staked his claim.

Their on-line conversations continued for the next several days, kicking up so much sexual heat that she thought she’d explode from the power of her lust. By the time the storm hit and her muse kicked in and she sent her “Yes, yes, yes,” in answer to Jack’s, Did I cause all that? she was ready to take the next step. Had this masterful man been plotting this seduction all along, leading her every step of the way? That was too absurd to believe possible.

But she’d once lived in a world of impossible dreams come true, could this be another one? Was he the dominant man with the leather belt? The dominant master who haunted her dreams?

***

A week before she was to leave on her trip, the phone calls began. The prospect of talking on the phone to Jack ushered in a whole new level of excitement. Unfortunately, the phone was not Jack’s best means of communication, and sometimes the conversation lagged for lack of subject matter they could comfortably discuss. The explicit sex they spoke of in their emails was not easy to discuss on the phone. She could forgive him for that. This wasn’t easy for her either.

Regardless, she liked hearing the sound of his voice, and what he did say confirmed the sort of man he was. He was mature, kind and easygoing, revealing in their short conversations the dominant character of his personality in a direct and forthright style that made her smile, even if it didn’t set off the fireworks she hoped for. His steamy emails were enough to keep her aroused, but she was left with numerous questions…was their on-line affair just a sexy turn-on in his busy life or was he actually serious about taking their relationship into real life? With so much about him still a mystery, she had reason to wonder if they could make a suitable D/s match.

Jack’s last call before Jeni left for her trip took her completely by surprise, coming at eleven o’clock in the morning. He’d never called at that hour – but then, he would have read her “Yes, yes yes,” that morning, so perhaps it wasn’t any surprise that there was something different in his voice, something deeper, a stronger vibrato, an authority that tickled her at the back of the neck and raced right down her spine, where the pleasant feeling settled in her crotch. He sounded more like the man in his steamy emails, but it was so much more than that.

“What’s your bra size?” he asked.

Bra size, really? She bit her lip like a bashful kid with a secret, and answered, “34C.”

“Panty size?” came next, to which she ran into the bedroom and rifled through her closest, rattling off sizes as the questions continued.

“And how do you feel about sucking cock?”

Oh my! At this point, she fell to the bed feeling the frenzied passion behind the conversation rattle her so much she felt too weak to stand. Meanwhile, there was a hot pink blush broadening on her cheeks – though Jack wouldn’t know that nor that her body seemed to beam with a lust as big as her giggling grin. “Of course, I’d suck your cock, Sir.” The sir was new, but not contrived, coming out as naturally as if she’d been saying it for years. Her head space had shifted into a submissive place, matching the masterful gravity in the tone of his voice.

“How about swallowing cum?”

“Sure, why not.”

“And licking ass?”

She hesitated a moment, then answered, “I suppose I’d do that too.”

“And sitting naked and collared at my feet, your master’s feet?” He called himself her Master – how bold was that?

So blunt. So uninhibited. So very different from their previous conversations. She’d been wary at the start, though her body was on fire from the instant the hot exchange began. Direct, demanding, interrogating, he was totally in command. He’d become the master, responding to her wilting surrender. She was his then, His. No longer was theirs a theoretical discussion of what might happen if they got together, but what would happen when they did.

“I want you to find some short lengths of string or yarn and tie little bows around each nipple. You’ll wear them tucked inside your bra all day.”

He rattled off his wishes as an order to which she felt obliged to obediently answer, “Yes, Sir.”

He’d assumed the role of Master and she the role of slave – to which she was still, at least mildly, repulsed. Wherever did he ever get this idea? These little nipple ties. So odd and strange and terribly sweet, all at the same time. Again she giggled inwardly, again she felt the sweep of desire as another intensely, physical wave. Clutching the phone in her left hand, she lay on her bed, tummy down, crotch grinding against the sheets, body melting into a puddle of submissive yearning. She felt his heat on the back of her neck, on her hot blushing cheeks and her tingling ass – as if he’d already given her a first smack on her bare skin. She could have fucked him through the phone if that were possible.

Throw away the fantasy. This was real!

A flesh and blood man. A huge demanding, unshakable force, climbed into her world that morning and took control, as if he had a right. As if he owned her. As if she’d already said yes to what should have been lengthy and deliberate D/s negotiations. He assumed, he didn’t ask. He assumed she wouldn’t balk. He counted on her obedience, and she didn’t deny him. He’d won her outright, and to his authoritative tone she surrendered without a moment’s hesitation.

Her mind spun like a dervish – thinking, listening, absorbing the message, realizing, even then, how he had taken charge of her and she made no effort to stop him. She didn’t want him to stop. She wanted that voice in her head to go on forever. She wanted his human voice, the deep bravado, the authority and quality of strength it conveyed. For the first time in forever, the old haunting masculine voice that had been with her all her life had been silenced, replaced by something real. The man with the leather belt was no phantom, no crazy piece of magic but a real man.

When the call finally ended, she lay on her bed for a long while, trying to figure out who he was that he could invade her space from miles away and have her captured. Who was this man? Good lord, she hadn’t even met him and she was ready to give herself to him, body and soul!

Stunned. Giddy. Exhilarated by this sudden, bold advance, she shook her head in wonder. Who the hell was he?