Journey to Herself

Anna stroked her long slim fingers over the heavy ivory slip, tracing the outlines of the lace and the thin lines of the shoestring straps as she folded her lover's silk. She pressed it to her face, inhaling the smell of the warm iron; the perfume redolent of that musky female scent Anna loved so well, always there, even through the soapy efficiency of the washer.

She knew that earthy, thrilling scent so well. She remembered the first time when, elegant dress swinging at her calves, curves silhouetted against the winter fire, the dark-haired clever woman whom she loved so much, had crashed into her life. It was a smart party; punch in glass cups, tall expensive men lounging, draped as in a tailor's ad on the mantel piece. Girls fluttered and passed; uninteresting, dull, prosaic birds, trapped by intellect on the lower rungs of conversation, doomed to chase and seek armed only with the odd "Eeuw, really?" and "Oh golly?", vowels trained to fashionable indistinction by the finest schools.

Anna sat quietly on the leather sofa, watching the flames, sifting thoughts through her clasped hands like dry sand. She had long ago lost hope of finding wit and cleverness here, finding the direct panic for connection tedious, over-focused, immature. She longed for that long courtship of the mind, that seduction of argument she found most thrilling. She was, it must be said, smart. Someone described her as having gained "an effortless First at Cambridge". Wrong – she had worked like a dog, thrilling at the feeling of control over those arabesques of integrals and epsilons, at the navigation of territory unseen by most. Like a skilled sailor she relished that ability to go where some could not.

She was odd for a mathematician, socially aware, sexy and elegant, when contemporaries revelled in their introversion. They did not laugh at her short skirts, smart heels and good haircuts; neither did they envy them. Most of her elite class were boys, not all nerdy geeks, but none confident enough to approach her. Not that she would have cared. When asked to dinner she was warm, approachable, smiling, apparently flattered.........but rejecting.

After Cambridge it was internship in GCHQ, the top secret comms house in Cheltenham, home of the finest abstract mathematicians in Europe. She remembered the meeting with the Security Director on the first day. He was polite, even respectful, looking over the top of the deep red file at this small, voluptuous blonde, honey hair brushing the shoulders of her designer suit, endless legs disappearing into the short, expensive skirt. He cleared his throat. "I..uh..have to ask you if there is anything you need to tell me. Anything that might ..umm... prejudice your integrity.".

Anna looked inside herself. She had always resisted voicing her sexuality, letting her discretion speak. But no she knew she had to be open. "Yes." "Oh? Don't be put off, Miss Kallender.."

"I.. ummm...I don't go out much with boys..."

"Uhuh. You're..a lesbian? Excuse my bluntness."

Anna looked at her shoes and said quietly. "I am. I hope that doesn't present a problem.."

"My dear young woman, if that were a disbarment, half the cryptography department would be unemployed." He smiled. "Don't worry. You're expected to be exactly as discreet as anyone else. You would be amazed at the oddnesses here."

She had shone at Cheltenham, her scalpel mind cutting through deep theory to practice in a way that impressed her superiors quickly.

After the internship she decided, inevitably for a doctorate, not in some fashionably obscure number theory problem, but in the field of applicable mathematics , Operations Research in a well-known university hidden in the Lakeland hills.

It had been an inspired choice. A PhD done in two years, an immediate lectureship followed by a string of publications and a breathtakingly fast Readership and, by the age of 28, the Checkland Chair in Systems. Coruscating. Focused. Satisfying...

... except it wasn't.

She'd had a series of girlfriends, all elegant, sweet, charming things, sharing Anna's silliness and need for attention. Many had touched her, resonating with her care for herself and gentleness for others. They had made love, these dolls and her, swaying horizontally on scented sheets, romantic, thrilling....empty.

Empty not through lack of love companionship ,even passion. Empty, rather, from something missing in Anna rather than in her smooth, shaved perfumed girls, lipsticks at their bedside, mirrors to hand. Something missing.... like that difference term in an elliptic integral... something invisible but crucial to her understanding. She continued in her silken, nyloned love; polished nails scratched an occasional breast, a heel came to a hand in passion.

The filles du salon came and went ... and came...and then went. She was good in bed; loving, selfless, erotic, imaginative... frustrated.

Then a tall, willowy, well-bred girl took her to bed one spring morning. They talked of ponies, riding over hills, the feel of flesh between the thighs. And the willowy girl, playing in the fields of her youth, took Anna to hedges and ditches, playing, riding, cropping with each faltered stride. Anna, pinned, breathless, crushed and giving, coaxed to a screaming flight of mind as she came, under her lover's imagination and her strong thighs, as she had never come before.

And she knew.

That she sought surrender.

................................................................................................................................................................................

After the strong willowy girl and her realisation of her need for what she thought was simple, physical control, Anna sought confident, often manly girls, handsome rather than lovely. It was not a success; she found them crude, unfeminine and dull.

And then was Hanna - Norwegian, tall, sincere, clever and attractive – and flirting with the London bdsm scene, mostly as a submissive. There was an invitation, a weekend in town and what Hanna described as an 'exxottikk partee' in her singsong voice. The exotic party turned out to be a pleasant, unexciting affair with a few men in minimal leather, serving canapés and a lot of talking about 'scenes' and other terms like 'Doms' and 'tops' she didn't get.

And Sonia was there, clearly not part of this London scene, detached, provincial but nevertheless respected. She carried an air of not needing to explain herself, confidence, superiority.

Anna was wearing a soft brown leather corset dress, tight and supple, high goatskin Prada shoes and sheer beige tights, not out of place in any cocktail party. Standing in a doorway watching the little swirls of people, she felt a slight tug on the laced back of the corset. The tugger was medium height, with dark brown hair and deep blue eyes; high heels, sleek black dress to the knees and black, seamed fully-fashioned stockings. "You don't have a maid... You should get one." "Oh. Hello. I'm Anna. Why would I need a maid?"

The blue eyes looked into her, "To do these laces up. No self-respecting Domme would let them dangle around like that. I'm Sonia." They talked. It soon became clear that Anna was no Domme.

Equally clear was that something in Anna attracted Sonia. In retrospect it was not the start of any love that Anna thought she saw later, but something more inwardly directed to Sonia, almost the desire of a dog-lover to own a beautiful sleek Saluki. And to Sonia, Anna had that sleek aristocratic confidence that Sonia sought to project in herself. She was, professionally, Lady Sonia with a long list of rich and needy men, clients willing to pay a standard rate of £250 an hour to be teased, whipped, humiliated and bound. Lady Sonia, it transpired, was a business perched on 6" heels.

There was a moment at the party when time stood still. Anna turned to look past Sonia at one point and Sonia turned to face to face, blocking her view. In a device that Anna would see her practise over and over again, she stepped forward into that cylinder of comfort we carry with us, our 'persona space' looking Anna directly and deeply in the eyes. Sonia held her gaze until Anna turned away. Then "Anna.....Look at me." Obediently Anna looked into her eyes. And each knew where they stood.

Oddly, not another word passed between them for the rest of the party. They left, they went home, they caught trains and cars and buses and went back to their ordinary lives.

...................................................

Anna had not forgotten Sonia's brutal stealing of her eyes. It had been shocking, sudden, subtle and forceful at the same time. No one else had seen and no one else but her had felt Anna's belly flicker and moisten. Back at work she drifted off into a memory and a consideration of the event.

"Anna Kallender.." It was an outside call.

"Sonia. I know you remember our talk." "Of course I do. This is a surprise. How did you get my number?" "Hanna gave it me. ...I think you should come to Lincolnshire."

Anna stopped breathing without knowing why. Sonia's facility was, Hanna had said, a low unassuming building right on the heart of gentle, rural Grantham. And now she was being asked there. It never occurred to her to ask precisely why.

"Oh. Thank you. Yes"

"Good. We'll talk about things. Let me know when you can come. I'll make time."

They exchanged emails.

..........................

One ordinary Friday a few weeks later Anna drove to Grantham. It's a Lincolnshire market town, dull, prosaic, conservative , placed in a flat scenery of huge skies and low rising swells of landbound green waves. Near its centre, at the edge of a large car park was the unassuming two story building housing the facilities of the best known and certainly the most successful Domme in the UK, Lady Sonia.

Anna had rung as she approached Grantham and they had arranged to meet just outside the building. Sonia was waiting, looking more like a landowner's elegant wife in town for shopping than a Domme, full skirt, high pale blue heels, a white blouse and fine pastel wool jumper. She had a gorgeous figure, for sure, challenging (but not quite surpassing) Anna's natural large bust and small waist on her tiny frame. Sonia was about 5'7", with a commanding look that you sometimes see in farmers' wives and in women executives.

They went for coffee. A small neat café on the High street, ordinary, towny, everyday...

"Thank you for coming, my dear." "It's a pleasure." "Are you staying over?" "Yes, I'll go back tomorrow morning – it's a bit of a drive." "That's nice. Plenty of time, then for a chat."

They 'chatted' in Sonia's facility. It was unassuming from the outside grey painted, plain, office-like. Inside you entered a short corridor to a sitting room with a shower off it, passing storage and an office. The two settled in for a nice cup of tea and a chat; white china, langue du chat biscuits.

Sonia leaned back in the easy chair, parallel legs tucked over one another at an angle, perfectly positioned to show off 5" heels and fully fashioned stockings in an elegant display. Tea cup held elegantly in the left palm, the right hand tilted the cup elegantly. "Anna, we both know you're a submissive, don't we? And we both know that you find me magnetic and I find you .... toothsome. [a pause] How would you like to come under my control?" She leaned forward, her dark blue eyes penetrating Anna's mind. She felt the room swimming as Lady Sonia pushed her face forward way into Anna's personal face, taking her eyes in a forceful and direct manner.

Anna's breathing stopped.

She knew there was only one answer...

...and dropped gracefully onto her knees, looking into Lady Sonia's eyes, held as if by a thread to Her will. "How will that ...work?"

Sonia raised her up and sat her back on the chair. Anna's heart beat fast and strong in these early moments of a future she had dreamed of but never grasped.

"I need assistance here. I have a client list of needy gentlemen who like to be dominated and I need, not a maid exactly, but an assistant. Normally I'd charge you £250 an hour to be humiliated and thrashed...[a long pause]...but if you're good I'll let you work for service."

To her own surprise, Anna found herself nodding. "But will I have to be here a lot? I have a job."

Sonia smiled. "Of course you do. We'll work it out. We can probably come to some arrangement where you give me a number of weekends and I call you up. Most of the work is Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. "

They talked about what Anna liked, what excited her, what she could and could not do. The limits were quickly and accurately defined. No permanent marks, no full sex with men, no dirty play. Sonia wanted Anna to agree to be put to a man, but met a brick wall. Anna was pleased that she was so understanding; it gave her a sense of protection and safety.

They talked costume. Always fully fashioned seamed stockings. Sonia literally had a chest full of them - Aristoc, Gerber, Kayser-Bondor. Each pair worth at least £15 and the collection worth, then, thousands. She explained that her male clients got a thrill out of buying her stockings but she always insisted that they buy them in person, telling the sales assistants exactly what they were for. It gave her a thrill (she said) to think of the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England blushing in front of some shop girl in Harrod's.

Sonia explained her business. She ha clients of a social standing that amazed Anna. Sonia only ever took clients over 40. Most wanted humiliation in some sense, to provide a complement to a working life of power and influence. The fees, she was later to discover were eyewatering; an initial 'consultation' involving merely an identification of the client's preferences and some light teasing cost some £500. Thereafter it was £250 an hour, minimum two hours. Sonia had few busdrivers and many executives and high grade civil servants on her books.

Gently, insistently, Sonia drove out Anna's limits and preferences. There were few – no marking, no 'dirty games' (even Sonia shuddered at some of the clients' requests – but she usually complied, business was business, after all). Apart from that, it appeared Anna came with no preconceived limits; she gradually discovered and adumbrated her need for submission. The extent of it surprised her; she found herself asking for pain rather than discomfort, humiliation rather than embarrassment, total emotional control submission rather than trivial submission.

And with every revealing page turned, her excitement rose at the thought of filling the many-cornered gap that the word 'submission' now meant to Anna.

To be continued