Authority

Kristi J. Beary

It’s been twenty years since I watched the woman on the worn tape. Arms tied behind her back, the rope snaking up her arms, criss-crossing to make an intricate web between them. A yellow bandanna parted her burgundy lips and tied behind her head. A bear of a man with a large gold medallion held her by her hair and barked something at her. The tape scrambled for a moment, obscuring his order. The screen cleared again in time to see him push her, belly down, over an overstuffed, violently orange ottoman. The man pulled a long, narrow wood paddle from underneath it, wound up, and landed his paddle directly on the centre of her arse. Her dark masses of loose curls whipped around as she tossed her head back and forth. The man behind her thumped the paddle on her skin, over and over, while her muffled cries struggled to escape the gag.

Something about the scene was wrong. It should be him bent over, proud cock jutting out from between the legs instead of a clit barely peaking between soft folds. I wanted to see the woman’s slender fingers curled tightly around the paddle, striking the man’s skin, coming dangerously close to his most sensitive parts. I wanted to see her stroke his back and whisper words of comfort to him, to guide him into letting go and experience the freedom that comes under the bonds. And then I wanted to be the one on the ottoman, struggling with equal parts obedience and rebellion, craving relief from the woman above me. I ached to be under a woman I could so completely submit to. In my youth I tried to find it, but the women I dated either laughed at the idea or were horrified by it. After I met my wife, Sarah, I let the idea go until years into our marriage. The need re-emerged suddenly, unbidden, and fiercer than ever before. I couldn’t handle the repression any longer.

I brought up the idea over breakfast one Sunday, as she lazily sipped her tea and scrolled through the news on her phone. I eyed her through my gold-rimmed glasses, speckled as always from constant wear, and ran my fingers through my chestnut bed head. What if she hated me for keeping this part of me a secret all this time? Or what if she couldn’t picture playing with kink because I didn’t look like a romance novel cover model?

She took another sip of tea. I watched her nipples harden in the chilly morning air through her white T-shirt. They surged up and down a little faster with her breath when she came upon something that caught her interest, and then died away again. Her blond hair hung straight to her shoulders, as it always had, as it probably always would, and her blue eyes finally flicked up to meet mine.

“Something on your mind, Peter?” she asked.

My voice caught. “No,” I choked.

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re nearly forty now. We’ve always been able to talk about anything, haven’t we? Remember when we first talked about swinging, and when that didn’t suit us, we then talked about polyamory?”

I hadn’t forgotten. Three days of endless talking about the pros and cons of opening up our relationship, followed by rules, contracts, what-ifs and what-if-nots, countless pots of coffee, making and remaking ideas over and over until we finally came to decide yes, we would open. It led to us falling in love and in bed with other people, and coming home to each other. She was currently dating two other people, Jason and Michelle, whom she playfully referred to as ‘the twins’ because their personalities were remarkably similar for being unrelated. They had been dating for almost a year. I, meanwhile, had been dating Trisha for eight months.

“Of course I remember,” I said.

“Remember how hard that was? How much harder could what you have to say be?”

“How do you feel about BDSM?” I blurted.

She slammed her cup down on her saucer. “Oh, yes! I would love that!”

My heart raced as she hurried to my side of the table and slid into my lap.

“What do you have in mind? Do you want to spank me? Tie me down? Force me to orgasm?” Her smile widened with every hurried word.

“Well, yes, that all sounds good, but, I was thinking it would be the other way around.”

Her smile faltered. “I don’t follow.”

“All of what you said sounds good, but maybe, you could do that to me.”

I focused on the table cloth and traced the flowers and leaves with my fingers, heart pounding, brow sweating. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. Maybe it was too much.

“Yes... I... I suppose we could try that,” she said. She stood from my lap and took my hand.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“No time like the present!” she giggled.

She dragged me to the bedroom and tossed me face down on the bed. Her fingers found the elastic of my pyjama bottoms and yanked them halfway down. Her soft hands lightly smacked my arse.

“You’re a naughty boy!” she said. “Naughty, naughty!”

I turned to look at her. She collapsed into laughter.

“I’m sorry, Peter. I’m sorry. I just can’t take this seriously.”

“Please try,” I begged.

Sarah straightened her face and rolled me onto my back. She stripped naked, but left me with my wrinkled pyjama shirt covering my chest and my bottoms scrunched half way down my thighs.

“Don’t move,” she said. She lifted my shirt and kissed down my body, starting at my shoulders and meandering around my cock, careful not to make contact with it. My shaft jumped in response, even without directly being touched. Her tongue flicked out to my balls, teasing, toying. I stroked my hand through her hair. She shot up, grabbed my hands, and pinned them above my head.

“I didn’t say you could move,” she shouted into my face. She sat down on my chest, just below my neck, her knees crunching into the soft flesh of my upper arms. She grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her. “You are going to lick my cunt until I come.”

She thrust forward, covering my mouth between her entrance and clit. I started with broad strokes of my tongue up and down her clitoris, pausing only to dip into her wet pussy, tasting her, wanting her, then back up to her nub. She grew wetter with each moment. I tried to reach for her, to feel her hips and heat in my hands, but her legs still trapped me in willing torture. She was taking what she wanted from me, and if she just reached back, if she just slightly stroked my cock, I knew I would explode. As if she heard my thoughts, her fingers trailed down my side and reached behind her, but just as before, she avoided my cock and trailed her finger down the junction of my leg and groin and under my balls. Her hand left for just a moment, then came down, hard, on my balls. I bucked at the sudden pain. It was too much, but I didn’t want to stop.

Sarah slid forward another inch and rocked her hips as she neared her climax. She ground into me as she came, cutting off my air. I tried to push her off, but she still held me tightly to the bed. Finally, she sat back on my chest.

“Can’t... breathe!” I gasped.

“Oh!” She jumped off and sat down next to me. “So other than that last bit - and sorry about cutting off your air - how was it?”

I rolled onto my elbow. “It was a good start,” I said. “I liked the ball slapping, but it may have been a bit too rough to start with. I loved you taking total control, but next time... Why are you looking at me like that?”

She frowned. “Peter, I love you, but this didn’t feel right to me. It was really hard to take it seriously, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to give you what you want. I’m sorry. Even this took a lot for me to do. I’m just not the dominant type. If this was only a good start, I can’t take it any further. Maybe Trisha would want to?”

I thought about Trisha. Short, spunky Trisha with her cropped black hair and green, mischievous eyes and quick, pixie-like movements. We had never discussed our kinks, but maybe it was time to. If I worked up the courage to tell Sarah, maybe I could get the courage to tell Trisha.

Sarah reached onto the nightstand and grabbed my phone. “Call her.”

“I will.”

She pushed the phone at me. “No, call her now. Before you lose your nerve to ask. If this is something that makes you happy, you deserve to have it, even if not with me. Look, you know I like old horror movies, and you don’t, right? So the twins watch them with me, and that makes me happy. You deserve to be happy, too. Call her.”

I touched the icon with her picture and waited. Sarah stretched out on the bed and flashed her Cheshire cat grin at me. I’m sure the look I returned was something closer to terror.

“Hello, Trisha? Look, I know it’s early, but something is on my mind. We’ve been dating a few months now, and I would love to be able to be more open about different, um, sexual experiences. I was wondering, how do you feel about BDSM?”

Sarah mouthed ‘go on’ at me, and I pushed ahead.

“Specifically, femdom BDSM?”

Trisha laughed so hard I held the phone away from my ear until she composed herself.

“Yes, Peter,” she said at last. “We can do that. Remember the wooden chest you saw in my house a few weeks ago and asked what it was, and I said I’d tell you later when we knew each other better?”

“Yes?”

“It’s later. Be at my house tonight, 9pm. Oh, and Peter? Don’t you dare be late. That is a direct instruction. I suggest you not start off our first power play session by being disobedient.” My phone beeped as she hung up.

“So, what did she say?” Sarah asked.

“I think she said yes. And she was very forceful about it.”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “Is that bad?”

“No,” I muttered. “Actually, I think it was kind of hot.”

I arrived at Trisha’s country house at 8:43. Its manicured garden and sparkling white façade were a far cry from my tiny flat in the city. She inherited it from her parents, and although she could sell it for a fair sum, she said the house was perfect for her. Enough space to comfortably wander around inside, small enough to clean easily and far enough away from neighbours that she could have whatever kind of sex she wanted without risking someone contacting the police.

She met me at the door, dressed in her usual jeans and sweater, with heeled boots to make her taller. Even so, she was still half a head shorter than me. In bare feet, the top of her head barely reached my shoulder. Her obstinate short, black hair was secured at the sides with rhinestone pins. She hugged me and brushed her pink-tinged lips across mine.

“You’re early,” she said. “But no matter. I’m ready, anyway. Come in.”

She brought me into her spacious living room. The couch, coffee table, and end tables now stood against the walls. They were replaced by a padded bench with restraints along the legs, a high-backed bar stool, and the large, wooden chest I had asked her about. The lights were dimmed, and several candles burned on the mantle and on the tables against the wall, filling the room with a faint vanilla scent that reminded me of cookies and snow.

“I hope I wasn’t too harsh on you on the phone,” Trisha said.

“I was surprised, but I didn’t really know what to expect.”

She frowned. “So you’ve never played this way before?”

“No. Well, once, with Sarah. This morning, actually.”

“And how did it go?”

“I’m not really sure. I mean, she tried, but it’s not really her.”

She flashed her teeth. “Then I suppose we have some things to talk about first. I’m going to give you a bit of a crash course. For starters, this is all about consent. If at any point you want to stop, we stop. To make it simple, we’ll use a colour code. Green means ‘everything is fine’, yellow is ‘slow down or back off a little’, and red means ‘stop everything and temporarily, or permanently, end play’.”

I glanced at the padded bench. I saw myself tied down on it, unable to move, Trisha towering over me in a way she couldn’t do even in her heels. Unable to move. The words rang in my head. Unable to move, unable to move. I shuddered. It felt real, more real than it had with Sarah. What if I didn’t like it? What if I panicked? What if?

“Are you listening?”

“Huh? Oh, yes.”

“You’ve gone a little pale. Look, we don’t have to play this way. You are the one that suggested it. If you want to stick to tried and true vanilla sex, that’s perfectly fine with me. I love you regardless, Peter.”

I thought about the woman in the video all those years ago, bent over that ottoman, and again wishing it was me. Maybe it was better left to fantasy, but if I didn’t try, how would I ever know?

“No, I want to go on. But I’ve never really tried any of this...any of this stuff,” I said, gesturing to the bench. “I don’t know what I’ll like. I don’t know what I’ll be okay with.”

Trisha smiled. “Then we’ll take it slow until we know. Are ready to start? Do you remember your colour codes?”

I nodded.

“Good. We’ll start with just some basic power play. For simplicity, you can call me Mistress, and I will call you Pet. If we decide to continue to play this way in the future, we can choose titles a little more to our liking. So here’s how it works, Pet. I will give you an order, and you will obey it. You will always acknowledge what I say. You will thank me, whether I reward or punish you. Before and after each act, I will ask you for your colour. You will answer me promptly. At no point may you come or act in any way that brings you pleasure that I have not instructed you to. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Mistress,” I breathed.

She circled me, combing me up and down like she was seeing me for the first time. I felt uncomfortably like I was being considered in the same way she might a suspicious new fruit at the supermarket. This was a different Trisha, but the same Trisha, discovering the different and yet the same Peter.

“Take your clothes off,” she said at last. “Fold them. Lay them neatly on one of the tables along the wall. And hurry. Do not make me wait, or you will receive your first lesson in discipline.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I said. My fingers fumbled with the buttons of my shirt. My hands were shaking and my fingers felt numb.

Trisha noted my difficulty. “What colour are you, Pet?”

I stopped. “Colour? Oh, right. Green, I guess?”

“Green, you guess? This is not a guessing game, Pet. You are, or you are not. Does my Pet wish to continue serving his Mistress or not?”

“Green, Mistress,” I said. “I’m definitely green.”

“Good boy. Now, get undressed. And hurry up about it.”

I went back to my buttons. I heard the wooden chest open and turned around in time to see Trisha pull out a leather riding crop.

“I’m growing impatient, Pet,” she said. “If you continue to move so slowly, I will strike you on the arse with this. Now what’s your colour?” she added, almost smugly.

My skin came alive at the thought. A tingle ran down my back and shot down my fingers. “Still green, Mistress,” I said.

Her smile widened. “Good.”

Whack!

The crop came down hard on my arse. Above my clothes, it didn’t hurt much, but I was startled enough to jump.

“Final warning, Pet,” she threatened.

My hands worked again. My shoes, shirt, undershirt, trousers, and boxers came off in rapid succession. Time was on fast forward. I stepped away from them, and waited for Trisha to give me further orders.

She looked at the pile of clothes on the floor and shook her head. “No, no, no. Stand right where you are, and do not move.”

She stood to my side. She tapped the crop lightly on my arse and the backs of my thighs, slowly at first, then faster, and slower again as the light taps became harder thwacks. Harder and harder. I struggled to stay still, to fight through the pain. I had no idea such a little woman could hit so hard. Finally, she stopped.

“Colour, Pet?”

I swayed. My tongue seemed stuck to the roof of my mouth. I blinked, trying to focus.

“Colour?” she asked again. She sounded like she was in another room.

She moved in front of me and took my face in her hands. “Peter? Peter!”

I snapped back. A slow smile crept across my face. “Green,” I said. “I am green, Mistress.”

Her face relaxed and she sighed with relief. “Do you want to continue?”

“Oh, yes, Mistress,” I said. “Thank you for my discipline.”

“Good. Now answer me, why did I discipline you?”

“I’m unsure, Mistress.”

She rolled her eyes. “Your clothes. You were told to fold them and put them on the table.” She paused. I didn’t move. “I’m waiting.”

I scooped them up and rolled them.

She knocked them out of my hands. “No, do it right.”

“Mistress, I’m sorry, but Sarah folds the laundry at home. I don’t know how to.”

Trisha made a disgusted tsk sound, picked them up, and folded them. She held the neat stack out to me. As I reached for them, she threw them on the ground.

“You saw how I did it. Now you do it. I am not your servant, Pet. You’re mine.”

I did my best to fold them. My stack was not as neat as hers, but good enough to win a nod of approval. I crossed to the table and laid them down, and hurried back to her.

“I think you’ve won a reward,” she said. She sank to her knees and engulfed my soft cock in her mouth. She ran her tongue around the head. I grew harder in response, craving to fuck her beautiful face with her pink, fleshy lips around me, like I had so many times before. I laid my hands on her head and moved my hips in a single, shallow thrust. She jumped up like she had been shocked, grabbed the back of my hair, and yanked my head back.

“Did I say you could move? Did I give you permission to fuck my mouth? Your orgasms belong to me. Your pleasure belongs to me,” she hissed.

“Yes, Mistress!”

Her other hand found my balls. She gave them a tug and I automatically tried to shuffle away from her grasp. She held me firm.

“If you dare to try to take pleasure again that I did not give to you, you will not come tonight at all. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Good boy.” She released me and stood back. Her clothes were off in a flash. She kicked them over to me and demanded I fold them and put them away, as I had done with my own. I rushed it, and the pile was even less neat than before. She scowled at them.

The riding crop came across the backs of my thighs once, even harder than before.

“Sloppy,” she snapped, gesturing at her clothes across the room.

My thighs were stinging, but I was relatively sure that rubbing them would win me another stripe. I wasn’t even certain that I didn’t want another. “Yes, Mistress. I’m sorry. Thank you for my punishment.”

“You’re forgiven,” she muttered, almost lazily. She sat on the bar stool, just barely on the seat, and spread her legs.

“Come here. Get on your knees, and lick my clit until I tell you to stop.”

I hurried to her. My breath quickened. I felt so alive, but I worried that she may come, then have me fuck her, and that would be it. I wasn’t done, couldn’t be done. I wanted more servitude, more freedom, more reward, more punishment.

I opened her folds with my fingers. She was already wet. I stuck my tongue tentatively in her pussy, just for a moment, mostly just to taste her, but partly to see what she would do with such very subtle disobedience. I glanced at her. Her eyes met mine, and her mouth turned down, just ever so slightly. Good. She noticed. My tongue returned to her clit, lapping up and down, then tiny flicks on her nub. Her hands combed through my hair, her hips raised to press even harder on my mouth. She leaned back and moaned.

“Stop,” she demanded. “Stand.”

“But, Mistress, don’t you want to come?” I asked. Speaking out of turn, I thought. Let’s see what she does with that.

She slid off the bar stool but ignored the question. Had I stumped her? Did she not know what to do when I hadn’t truly disobeyed, but hadn’t really obeyed either? My heart sank in disappointment.

“Colour, Pet?”

I raised my eyebrows. Really? She wasn’t going to punish me at all for my flirting with the boundaries?

“Green, Mistress,” I sighed.

She ran her fingers down my jaw. “Good. Because I’m nowhere near done with you. Do you see the spanking bench? Get on it. Now.”

I strolled over, my disappointment growing heavier.

“Face down.”

I lay down, my head resting at the top, my cock just barely hanging off the end, arms and legs dangling. My glasses slid down my nose and I pushed them back up.

“I’m going to strap you to that bench, Pet. If you have an objection to this, claustrophobia, worried about not being able to move or anything now is the time to tell me.”

“No, Mistress,” I said with an edge of nervousness. This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? What I had been waiting for? To be in this position of absolute helplessness? I knew Trisha. I loved Trisha. If anyone could guide me through this, help me through this, understand this when even Sarah couldn’t, it was her. Still, she must have heard the hesitation.

“The colour rule stands. If at any point you feel uncomfortable, or too restricted or restrained, you safe word out. Do not wait. It is easier to back off a sub and stop play than to re-establish trust and heal one that feels their boundaries have been pushed too far. I mean it.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

She reached down and strapped my arms and legs to be base of the bench. She moved to the end and stroked her fingers down my arse crack to my cock, giving it a couple of pumps.

“Of course, you will need to get punished,” she said.

I turned my head as far towards her as I could.

“You didn’t think I didn’t notice, did you? When you stuck your naughty tongue in my cunt, and when you spoke out of turn and dared to presume to suggest to me, your Mistress, what I wanted? Pet, I will tell you what I want. What you have is mine to take, not the other way around. And you will be disciplined for it.”

She went back to the chest and pulled out a long, wooden paddle, dotted with holes.

“I’m going to hit you with this,” she said matter-of-factly. “It will hurt, but in a different way than the crop. Each time I hit you with it, you will count out loud. You will receive ten strokes. Do I make myself clear, Pet?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Good. I will begin now.”

I heard her retreating footsteps to the other side of the bench, followed by the slice through the air. It landed with a hard thud on my upturned arse. I shuddered.

“Count!” she snapped.

“One,” I panted. Then, “Two, three, ow, four!”

I struggled against my bonds but they held. I did well until the eighth stroke, when I cried out my pain and ecstasy. I wanted her to keep going, keep using me, but when she asked me my colour, I breathed out a defeated, “Yellow.”

She placed the paddle back in the box and rubbed a salve on my aching skin. She leaned close to my ear and whispered that she would be right back. She returned with a glass of ice water with a straw. She put the straw to my lips.

“Drink, Pet.”

I took a few ragged gulps while she stroked my head and upper back.

“There, isn’t that better?” she asked.

I nodded.

‘Ready to continue?’

“Yes, Mistress.”

“I have one more test for you. Has Sarah ever played with your arse? Penetrated it with anything?”

“No, Mistress.”

“I plan on pegging you, Pet. I’m going to put on my cock and fuck you up the arse, right here, while you are strapped to my bench. And you’re going to take all of me in you, aren’t you, Pet?”

There was a loud buzzing in my ears. My uncertainty returned. But, so far she seemed to know what I needed, how much I could take, what I would need to recover. I could not possibly submit any further than granting her this part of me that no one else had taken.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said at last.

Again to the chest. This time she removed a strange knickers-like garment with a hole in the front. A purple and silver marbled dildo jutted out of the hole. Another reach into the chest produced a bottle of lubricant and a latex love. I watched her pull the dildo harness on and slip the glove over her right hand.

She positioned herself behind me. I heard the pop of the lubricant cap and the tip of a gloved finger found my hole. I jumped from the cold slickness being spread on me. She held still for a moment, then carefully, slowly, worked her finger in to the first knuckle. Then the second. She added a second finger and a third, patiently opening me, massaging me, caressing me inside and stretching me further than I ever thought I could. Her other hand stroked my cock, stiffening it even further, which turned the discomfort of her fingers into something I craved.

She removed her fingers. I heard the discarded glove hit the floor. Another pop of the lubricant cap, and her dildo pushed at my entrance. It wasn’t much larger than what her fingers had spread me to, but it was enough to feel the difference as she inched into me, slower but smoother than her fingers had been. Her hands grasped my hips.

“Please, Mistress,” I begged. “Please, may I make a request?”

“Yes, Pet.”

“Please let me stroke my cock while you fuck me.”

She laughed, but leaned forward and released one of my hands.

“I’m going to fuck your arse in earnest now, but do not come.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

She buried her silicone cock inside me. Stroking my own cock complimented the fullness in my rear. Her pace increased until she was fucking me the way I sometimes fucked her, with long, even strokes. Her nails raked down my back and I moaned.

“You are mine now, aren’t you, Pet?”

“Oh, yes, Mistress! Fuck me like I’m yours!”

“You are mine!” she whispered.

She gave three more hard thrusts into me, and then slowly pulled herself out. The harness landed next to the discarded glove. She scurried around the bench, removing the rest of bonds.

“You’ve done well, Pet. Now is time for your reward.”

She helped me sit up on the bench and handed me the glass of ice water again. I sucked greedily and handed it back. She pushed me back down on the bench, face up this time. She climbed on top of me and positioned my aching cock at the entrance to her pussy.

“Your reward is me fucking you. And you are going to come.”

She slid onto me and bobbed up and down on the tips of her toes. Her fingers rubbed her clit furiously, building up her orgasm. Her walls grew tighter against my cock until she finally came and I felt her muscles rhythmically contract on me. Still she stayed on, alternating between bouncing and grinding until I finally exploded into her. She climbed off of me and lay on the floor, panting and wiping away sweat. I lay down beside her. She rolled over and put her hand on my chest.

“Thank you for my reward, Mistress.”

“Mmm...” she hummed. “You’re welcome. I loved playing with Pet, but I need to talk to Peter now,” she said.

“I’m here.”

“Are you all right?” she asked. Her eyes searched my features.

“I feel... I don’t know how to describe it. It was difficult, but rewarding. Even though I placed myself under your authority, I feel free.”

She laughed, high and melodic. She reached up and kissed me. Our tongues danced together.

“I’m glad you feel that way. That’s how you are supposed to feel,” she said.

“Do you think we can do this again sometime?”

She laughed again. “Of course, my love. My Pet is just as welcome in my home and my heart as my Peter.”