Chapter Eleven

“Let me show you around outside,” Jack said, as he pushed himself from the table and moved to his feet.

“Outside?”

“You want to stay inside on this beautiful day?” he flashed a questioning look, then peered a little more closely. “If you’re nervous about running around naked outside, you’d better get over it now cause it’s only going to piss me off and cause you grief.”

That brought her up short. “No need to get pissed off, Sir,” she offered up a sunny smile, “let me get my sandals.”

They strolled the property, walking side by side along gravel paths and then through the grassy area where the last of the summer wildflowers were blooming. These were wild gardens, seeds strewn through meadows that magically flowered in spring and didn’t stop until the remains of the wild asters were scraggly and brown. “You know, I should have you leashed,” Jack said, stopping for a moment to snag the ring in her collar and giving it a tug. His hand moved to her crotch, fingering deeply into her snatch and coming out wet. She licked his fingers dry when he brought them to her mouth.

“Maybe so, though if you’re concerned about having me perpetually turned on you needn’t fear.”

“Yes, I know,” he replied, snickering.

What she would have given for a kiss, even a small one. The sudden and very natural desire for their lips to meet suggested the inevitable end-result. But nothing was inevitable with Jack. He had the uncanny ability to remain physically close but distant. Acutely intimate, yet holding back. Even now, he held back the urge to kiss. To Jeni the urge seemed too strong to ignore. His reserve was another demonstration of his ability to control her even in such casual circumstances. A lesson in patience? Restraint? Or just another wicked means of torture?

When they came to Jack’s lab, he led her through the building, pointing out specific plants, along with notable specimens she viewed through a microscope, while he explained to her what she was seeing. He put on the role of teacher, impressing her with his knowledge about a subject that was completely foreign to her, at the same time entirely fascinating. They didn’t stay in the lab long, and when they finally stepped outside, Jack headed toward the lake, taking Jeni’s hand in his as they walked to the beach. At the water’s edge, she shucked her sandals and dipped her toes into the water.

She shrunk back when the chilly water lapped around her ankles. “Not sure I want to swim.”

“Maybe later in the afternoon, or even better tomorrow, supposed to be in the 80’s again.”

“Do you swim?” she asked.

“When it’s hot and muggy, damn right. It’s great for cooling off.”

By the time they headed back to the cottage, Jeni could feel the urgency in her body rising with some force. Jack touched her just enough to arouse her and keep her aroused, though not enough to set off the orgasm he denied her when they earlier fucked.

“You know, I didn’t cum – when we were fooling around before,” she finally piped up.

“Yes, I know that. I can tell.”

“And…?” she cocked her head, her eyes imploring.

“You want to cum now?”

“I’d love to cum now.” His hand was on her ass, squeezing it in his fist.

When they reached the porch steps, Jack abruptly stopped. “Then now it is,” he said. Turning toward her, he reached between her legs and fingered her clit as he had just minutes before. This time, it was no tease. His skillful play set off a maelstrom of spasms that had her body seizing up against him within seconds, her nerves exploding like firecrackers.

She jerked and twisted, groaning as she writhed against his hand and he jammed his fingers inside her like a hard, determined cock. For a time, he backed off, playing with her like a delicate and tender lover. All this out in the open, next to his porch, without the comfort of shade trees to seclude the act. The big climax was almost on her, but not quite. Suddenly, he’d become an expert in tease and torture. She lost herself in the feel of those fingers, and the sheer power of his physical body so intimately close. Just the thought of naked in the out-of-doors sparked another spasm and then another…

“Look at me,” he ordered.

“Damn! I need to cum! Master, please…” she moaned without looking up.

“Look in my eyes, slut!” he insisted.

She reluctantly raised her bowed head while he played with her below. His free hand moved to her chin and held it fixed in his steadfast grip so she couldn’t avert her gaze if she tried.

She looked deeply into his cool brown eyes, almost stunned by the way they made her feel so entirely owned. What they did to her was criminal. But like magic. How the hell could he be so coldly ruthless and remote and still generate a degree of affection? Somehow, all this added up to sexy, and that sexy feeling lit a bonfire in her body that traveled all the way to her toes. He’d clearly upped his game this time.

She waited, heart pounding, pussy ready to ignite.

“Cum now, slave!” he ordered at last. His voice was quiet but fierce.

She didn’t know if it was his fingers in her cunt or the look in his eyes that got her off. Though it really didn’t matter what pulled the switch, her body responded. She seized up for several seconds then slumped against him in a near faint as the powerful climax spread like a wildfire through her body. She was stunned, ravaged by the power of the cumming. She couldn’t stop it, contain it, control it – not when Jack kept stimulating those ever-so-sensitive places inside her cunt and out. She couldn’t have remained on her feet if he hadn’t been holding her tightly against him. Even when the spasms eased, she felt her body long for more. She would always long for more, but no matter how long the finale lasted, cumming always ended too soon for Jeni.

“You had enough?” he finally asked.

“Not if you keep playing with me the way you are,” her moaning voice rose out of her dreamy subspace.

“Well then, I’ll stop for now,” he said. He pulled his hand away and wiped her juices on her belly, then he pushed them into her mouth, and she cleaned them up as she had before. She sucked and licked them as he moved them around her mouth, and could have gone on with that for a long while, with another orgasm building toward climax, but Jack’s mood sharply shifted – becoming rude and aggressive. He tugged on her lips, pulled them out, played and teased, and tugged some more. Fingers in her mouth like this always made her feel like nothing but a piece of property. And now Jack’s slut. He could do anything he damn well pleased with her when she felt this way. By the time he was ready to go back inside the cottage, she’d forgotten naked entirely. There was no prim, no proper, no shame left. Just out in the open, in plain sight of the world and god knows what, surrendered and immodest, and not mindful enough to care what she looked like.

She was almost too weak to stand, let alone walk up the steps, so Jack took her by the hand. “Like I said, I should have brought my leash,” he joked. And at the top of the stairs, he stared down at her. “You do bring out the sadist in me. Not sure if that’s good for you, but I’m thinking it’s time to do something for me.” The chill in his voice sent a shiver up her spine. “But first, you rest.”

***

The bench that held her body was five feet long and two feet wide, heavy and substantial, much like his dining room table. It had been made from the same sacrificed tree. Handmade, too.

A thin cushion covered the top, which was good, considering the amount of time she would spend there. He ordered her to lie back against it, then with sturdy cuffs going around her ankles and wrists – ones she’d not seen before, not your average, everyday kind of cuffs, but ones meant for special occasions like this – he pulled her arms and legs outstretched to the sides and tethered them to nearby table legs and one chair leg. She lay there like a pinned insect. Like staked to the ground would be if she were outside in the dirt. A blindfold slipped over her eyes, and he left her there to let the bondage take her down.

“Let’s see if you can get through this without a lot of fuss,” she heard him say. Without a lot of fuss? Whatever in the hell did that mean?

She’d never been bound this way before, and as she adjusted to the tethers, a lusty fire bloomed inside her body. Her frantic thoughts let go their grip. She reached a state of mind not always easy for her – quiet, surrendered, and happily at his mercy. She would have thought she could sense him near, his beating heart and the fire in his crotch – this had to be turning him on as well. But she had no idea where he was, and for a time as she languished in that surrendered state she wondered if he was even in the room.

Floating. Like on a wave of water rising through the lake. One with it. At peace with it…

…until the first sharp snap of pain brought her senses back to life. A whip on her thigh, then her side, her belly and then her breast, moving randomly from place to place. Jeni jerked each time the whip bit into her flesh. Every snap cracked her open wider, arousing every goddamn fucking nerve until it would have taken just one small touch. Just one to have her body exploding into orgasm. One. If only…

What happened at the foot of the porch was child’s play compared to this.

This was torture and Jack knew it, his sadist speaking, the dispassionate, glacial part of him that would not be moved even if she cried for mercy. Maybe if she screamed without restraint, but she would never do that. She didn’t want to scream. Without a lot of fuss, he’d said.

She groaned instead. She writhed and ached in every square inch of her body, in every atom and molecule, until the moment he shoved her cunt full…of what? The whip’s handle? A thick dildo? A beer bottle? Anyone of them would generate the feeling of fullness she experienced at that moment. She screamed silently, and when the pain was just too much to take without responding, she did scream. She was sorry if she’d failed him but she couldn’t help herself; she was just not that good. Not a minute later, he shoved a ballgag in her mouth, as if he’d already planned to do that, and now he had his excuse.

This was how he silenced her and she hated it – if she’d only known that her scream would offend him that much, she would never have opened her mouth. Maybe he would have gagged her regardless – because he could.

If she were willing to admit the truth, there was part of her that loved this, too – another level of surrender.

She rocked inside her prison of rope as the whip lashed out again, leaving streaks on her breasts that would stay for days. A few on her belly would be tender for a long while; and those that etched themselves into her sides – the worst of all – wouldn’t let her forget they were there, for every time she moved, she’d remember them.

She suffered in silence – although this was the kind of suffering that cut through the chatter in her head, expelled demons and eventually healed her.

In the long quiet that followed, she heard him moving around her. She heard the porch door open and close with a bang.

A well-remembered image came back to life, of an old screen door banging back against its frame. Seemed like a lifetime ago she’d heard it first, at another cabin by another lake, with another man.

The sound snapped her back to the present. She imagined her master standing on his front porch – smoking a joint if he had one, which she had no idea if he did; although she thought she detected the aroma of that pungent smoke. The picture of him in her mind’s eye was a comfort. He was standing near, just taking a break. Letting his sadistic beast have a rest.

When the screen door banged to announce his return, she was wide awake, and sighing with relief as he removed the blindfold and the gag and loosened the tethers.

When she sat up on the bench, her body was still vibrating. Her mind was spinning so wildly that she could hardly focus He massaged her legs and her arms, rubbed her back, and kissed the back of her head.

“You feeling okay?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said dreamily.

“Dizzy?”

“No, sir.”

“Light-headed?”

“No.”

“Think you can walk?”

“Sure.”

“And you’re ready for the rest?”

“The rest of what?” She looked at him worried.

“The rest of what I’m about to do to you,” he answered amusedly.

“Only if you think so, Sir.” She smiled weakly, hurting everywhere, though it was a pleasant, sensuous hurt that enveloped now.

“That’s not an answer, wench.”

“I’m feeling fine, just a little bit lost.”

“And for you that’s good, lost.”

“Humm,” she rested her head on his hand when he offered it, and felt his fingers affectionately massage her cheek. Then the hand was gone and he pulled her up and led her out to the porch. Her dreamy subspace following her there.

He sat her down in a padded lawn chair next to his, then pulled out a joint, lit it, took a couple puffs and let her do the same. They sat there for a long while, staring at the water in silence.

She didn’t need that joint. Nor the beer he found later in the fridge. She enjoyed both, but Jack was the drug that kept her high and she need nothing more.

“So, this is the rest you were talking about?” she finally asked.

“This is it,” he smiled. “For now. But there’ll be more.”

She laughed. “You do make me wonder where this relationship is going,” she said rather absently. She hadn’t planned to say a word and this came out.

“You mean you and me?” he asked.

“Of course, I mean you and me, Master and slave, and whatever else we are together. Which, I guess, is why I’m mentioning it at all.”

“Hell if I know,” he said, sounding as if this really wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have.

She wanted something – Jeni always want to know, she wanted the explanation, a peek into their future, but Jack did little to satisfy that need.

“You’re my slave, that’s all you need to know.” He took another drag. “For now.” A convenient way for him to end the conversation.

That was fine. She almost regretted she’d said anything at all, because she wasn’t in the mood to talk either, not with the blue above, the march of cottony clouds across the sky, and the serenity of the water shimmering in the afternoon sun. However, the relationship question was on the table now. She’d let it lie there. Perhaps at some point he’d pick it up and have his say.

They read for a while on the porch, then Jack puttered in his lab for another hour or so, while Jeni was content with her novel.

When he returned to the cottage, they made dinner – steak, roasted potatoes, salad that they ate while sitting at a rickety table on the porch. Not a lot of conversation, though the silence fit neatly into the atmosphere of the evening, and mood of the moment. Perhaps for the first time since she arrived at the cottage she felt an easy harmony between them. At least her nervousness had finally eased and she’d settled into her role as Jack’s slave.

“How about we walk around the lake?” he suddenly asked.

“Sure.”

“Although you’d better put on some clothes. It’ll be cooling down fast.”

Jeni had already felt the first chill on her naked skin, and though she’d just about come to terms with naked during that long day, she was happy to throw her denim sundress over her head, and grab a fleece to cover her shoulders.

The collar remained around her throat where it had been all day.

***

After a two mile hike through the woods, they headed back to the cottage, strolling hand in hand along the lakeshore. From time to time, Jack stopped to show her some botanical find that drew his interest, so that by the time they headed up the beach to the cottage, it was nearly dark.

“Hey, there!” a voice called out. Jeni looked up to see a bearded man of about fifty or so sitting in Jack’s rocking chair on the porch, a beer in hand. “Thought you’d never get back.”

“Who’s this?” Jeni whispered to Jack as they continued up the gravel path.

“Malcolm. My nearest neighbor. Surprised he didn’t show up earlier. You’ll like him.”

Jeni hadn’t thought about the slave collar in well over an hour, only aware of it when she heard the metal rattle from time to time. But she thought about it now, with her slave status about to be on display. She took a deep breath to ease her rising fears.

“Don’t worry, he knows,” was all that Jack had time to say before they joined his neighbor on the porch.

As she expected to happen, Malcolm’s eye went straight for Jeni’s throat, long before he took a good look at her face.

“Malcolm, Jeni; Jeni, Malcolm,” Jack introduced them.

She smiled and shook his hand, the collar rattling again as she leaned forward. “Nice to meet you.” Her face heated as her mind flashed back to hours before when she and Jack were fucking, when he had her bound and suspended in the living room, when he was getting her off at the bottom of the porch steps, when she sat naked and collared through the long afternoon and dinner.

“Nice to meet you, too,” he said, grinning warmly. “Heard a lot about you.”

A red blush broadened on her cheeks. “And I wonder what that means,” she said laughing.

There was a twinkle in Malcolm’s eye, and a smile on his lips. He wasn’t the kind of man to disturb her, just a good ole’ boy – though fine looking for his years – easy manner, not some sleaze-ball. Far from it, in fact, he seemed to be the kind of man she hoped for under these awkward circumstances.

She expected him to hang around a while like neighbors do, and worried that Jack had more surprises in store for the evening, but Malcolm rose to his feet before they had time to sit down and chat. “Can’t stay,” he said. “Just wanted you to know that the nuisance camp on the far side of the lake is out of business. Bankrupt. Out of business. An answer to our prayers.” His grin was big. Apparently this was very good news. “Just thought you’d want to know.”

Jack was obviously pleased. “Sorry, you can’t stay, I’d be breaking out the champagne,” he chortled.

The two walked alone to Malcolm’s truck and talked for a while, then Malcolm was off, down the road and out of sight.

The long day ended with a cool breeze gusting through the open windows. The lights were out, Jack and Jeni snuggling down in bed. After a few kisses, Jeni backed her ass into his warm crotch, and his arm went around her waist. The soft nighttime collar ringed her throat.