Spotlights Ch. 01-02

Author's Note:

This story is complete fantasy. Any resemblance to people, living or dead, companies or inventions is purely accidental.

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Peter Mordant, thirty-year-old Head of Production for Culpepper Electronics Ltd, was working late on Friday night and manfully resisted the urge to slam down the telephone; but he couldn't help swearing. "Fuck the bitch, Sam Johnson!" he exclaimed, then he looked up to see Helen, the pretty Accounts Assistant, standing in the doorway, looking concerned.

"Sorry, Helen."

"So it's bad news from Horace, then?"

"Yes, the worst."

Horace Culpepper, owner of Culpepper Electronics, had telephoned Peter when he left his meeting with Sam Johnson, representative of the bank, having failed to secure an extension to a loan due for repayment at the end of the month. Now the firm would surely close its doors in three weeks.

"Is there anything we can do?" Helen asked.

"I am afraid not. There's nothing either of us could have done. In fact, why are you still here?"

"I thought, if there were good news, that I might be useful ..." she sighed.

"Well, we should both go home." He looked out of the window. "It's raining, Helen. Get your coat: I'll give you a lift."

"That's all right, Peter, it's already nearly six and it's the wrong direction for you: you'll just get stuck in traffic. I'll take the 'bus."

"Is it really that late? Damn! I'll have to phone Jenny."

He paused when he picked up the telephone.

"Helen, I appreciate all the extra hours you've done since we got into this mess. I want you to claim every minute of overtime you're due. No stinting. Don't worry about the finances. Next payday may be the last anyway."

"Oh, no! Don't say that, Peter. I don't want Culpepper's to close."

"We might not be able to help it, Helen. You know the score. You've met Sam Johnson. She has the whip hand."

"But she hasn't met you, Peter. Maybe if you talked to her..."

"If Horace cannot charm her, then I'm damned if there's anything I could do. I can hardly beat a new loan out of her, can I?"

Helen gave Peter a look that said 'You can do anything you want, if I have any say in it' but he was too preoccupied to notice, as usual: he was dialling home to tell his wife he'd be late again. He got the engaged tone. He was trying again a few minutes later when Helen passed his door on her way out, stopping only to wish Peter goodnight.

"Goodnight, Helen. Are you sure about the lift?"

"Yes, thanks. Say 'Hi' to Jenny for me."

"Will do" Peter replied absently, as the telephone again registered an engaged signal.

"Damn!" he said; then he grabbed his coat, turned off the lights, locked the door of the office and dashed through the rain to his car.

Twice on the drive home, Peter tried to phone Jenny but it was still engaged. This didn't help his mood. He was angry because the bank was ruining his company for no reason he could understand. After all, a viable company is better than calling in the receivers.

Culpepper's owed a million pounds to the bank but there had been a gentleman's agreement between Horace Culpepper and Bob Martins, Chairman of the bank, to extend the loan through the recession. Three months ago, however, the bank itself got into trouble and was bought out by a predatory City institution, which parachuted in Sam Johnson as a trouble-shooter. Her first act was to retire harmless old Bob Martins. Her second act was to give notice to Culpepper Electronics to repay their loan in three months, though she must have known the firm could not repay it.

The first Culpepper employee to ask Sam Johnson to honour the promised loan extension was the useful Helen, who had been told it would be a formality. She returned in a flood of tears. Malcolm, the senior accountant, an inoffensive and exact professional, was sent next. He came back crimson with embarrassment and refused to reveal what she said to him, other than that Sam Johnson did not recognise a 'gentleman's agreement'. It took a while to arrange a third meeting. This time Horace himself polished his cuff-links, adjusted his bow-tie and met Sam Johnson at her office. By the sound of it, he also suffered a mauling. Now Culpepper's will shut and the receivers will sell the business for half its value. What good would that do anyone?

Peter was angry because he could do nothing to stop twenty-five employees being turned out of their jobs (including himself). He was angry because the bloody rain and the bloody road-works made the bloody drivers ahead of him even more idiotic than usual. And he was angry because he was going to be late home on a Friday.

Jenny and Peter had a Friday night ritual. Jenny would have made the house immaculate and be waiting by the door when he got home at 6pm. She would lift her pretty face up to him for a kiss, stow his jacket and briefcase, make him a gin-and-tonic and then he would begin to relax. Their home would be a peaceful sanctuary. Peter would shower and change for dinner and as they ate they would each say what they had done that week. Jenny would make sure to admit to some misdemeanour, real or invented, that would give Peter an excuse to spank her; after which Peter would tie Jenny up tightly in bed and torment her with bites, slaps, whips and paddles; then they would make strenuous love for hours.

Peter was Jenny's Master although, at the moment, he realised he had not been much of a Master to her. He was exhausted from work and so preoccupied with the emerging business disaster that they'd had no bondage session in three months and no regular sex for weeks. Jenny also had a project that took up much of her spare time, so even if she missed their Friday night sessions, she was making good use of the time she did not spend tied up in bed being whipped into a frenzy.

These thoughts occupied Peter for the half-hour it took him to struggle home through the traffic. He was especially looking forward to Jenny's warm arms and soft lips hugging and kissing away his anger and cares. So when Peter finally pulled up at his house and rushed through the rain into their bungalow, he was disappointed to see that Jenny was not there to greet him. He called out to her but there was no answer. From the doorway, Peter could see there were coffee cups left haphazardly in the lounge, folders and loose papers strewn over the dining table and groceries abandoned on the kitchen worktop.

"Jenny!" Peter shouted. No answer. He dropped his briefcase and decided to check their bedroom. He opened the door and there was Jenny, lying on the bed, giggling on the telephone, kicking her legs in the air and twirling strands of hair like the teenager she still resembled, despite her 28 years.

"Jenny!"

That startled her. She quickly turned and waved Peter away with an impatient gesture, mouthing "I won't be long, Darling" to him.

Peter turned and stamped away. A few minutes later, Jenny emerged from the bedroom still giggling on the telephone. Saying "Goodbye, Sam" she ended her call and replaced the handset. Then she rushed over to Peter to greet and kiss him, exclaiming

"Peter, I am so glad you are back, I've got so much to tell you, you are going to be so ..."

But Peter had ignored her kiss and started talking at the same time, saying:

"Jenny! What do you call this?" extending his arm in an arc from the kitchen to the lounge: "Why is our house in such a mess?"

This stopped Jenny in full flow and she exclaimed "Oh, God! Peter, I am sorry, but there was so much to d..." She did not finish. Peter continued as if she hadn't spoken.

"What did you mean by ignoring me and waving me away?"

"But, Peter, I've got lots to t..."

He didn't listen to any more protests but roughly growled "Bedroom rules." This was his command to say that he was in Master mode and Jenny must adopt her subservient position.

"Oh, please, Darling," Jenny started to say, "Not now. You see, Sa...."

Peter cut off whatever Jenny was trying to say by grabbing her by the hair, sat down on a dining chair and pulled her over his knees. Then he started walloping her bottom. He did not bother to pull down her jeans but gave her thirty hard smacks. She bounced on his knees and yelped. When Peter stopped, Jenny was weeping.

Again he said "Bedroom rules."

Jenny at once knelt with her head bowed, her hands crossed at the wrists behind her back. She was sniffing, trying to be quiet.

"Slave, you have disappointed me and broken our rules. Why didn't you greet me at the door? Why have you left the house in a mess? I can see the dinner is not prepared. You did not show me the kind of respect it is your duty to show; and now you have disobeyed a direct command. You know bedroom rules applies over the whole house at the weekend."

Jenny was sobbing in earnest now.

"I am sorry, Master," she said, "please forgive me. If it pleases you, I will attend to my duties now."

"Not yet. I am aware that our relationship has not lately been as it was at the beginning. I know I have neglected my duty toward you as a husband and as a Master; and not just my sexual duty. I have let small lapses in behaviour go unreproved: I have allowed us both to relax into a lazy style of living. This is my fault."

"Oh, no, Master. I am to blame" Jenny cried, goaded to a fresh bout of tears.

"Anyway, we need to get our relationship back on track and I think we have to start now ... so you will be punished for today's infractions and, after dinner, we will have a session. I realise that I am punishing you for errors of us both and I am sorry for it; but this is the nature of our relationship. Do you have anything to say?"

She could not bring herself to make any justification, so she said:

"I am yours to use as your see fit, Master. Please forgive my disobedience and laxity."

"You are forgiven, Slave. ... These are you orders: Go and wash thoroughly, then return here clothed in a manner that I will find pleasing. Bring wrist and ankle straps, ropes, a gag, clamps and something I can punish you with. The choices are yours. You have twenty minutes."

"Toronto, Master." This was the weakest of her safe-words. It simply meant she had something to say that, as a slave, she might hesitate to say.

"Speak, Jenny."

"Master, I am due to go swimming tomorrow."

"You want to know if the marks will show? Do you have a Victorian bathing costume?"

"No, Master."

"Then you'd best not go swimming tomorrow. Anything else?"

"Yes, Master. Sam is due to call in this evening."

"Who is Sam? Do I know him?"

"Samantha Harding, Master. Our neighbour in the Corner House."

"The new people? I haven't met them: they only moved in a few week's ago, didn't they?"

"Master, I took them the village welcome pack. Since then, Sam has become a good friend."

Peter had a good ear for subtle gaps when he was in Master mode and knew his Slave would not correct him even indirectly but would rather leave something unsaid. He remembered Jenny making the welcome pack, however:

"When did Sam move in, Jenny?"

"About three months ago, Master."

Can it really be three months? Peter thought to himself: That's how long I've been neglecting Jenny, when his business troubles began. He told himself to stop thinking about work. What had she said? Sam Harding is coming to visit.

"Your friend, Sam: is she good looking?"

"Yes, Master, she's very beautiful."

"Good, then she can join in our session when she arrives. Would she be a submissive or a dominant, do you think?"

Jenny thought Peter was joking but she answered honestly.

"Very much a dominant, Master."

"Have I forgotten anything else?"

"No, Master."

"Good. Go now."

Jenny sprinted for the bedroom. When Peter was confident she was in the shower, he picked up the telephone, scrolled through its memory for 'Sam Harding' and pressed dial. After a few rings, a cheerful baritone voice boomed out:

"Battersea Dog's Home."

Momentarily perplexed, Peter quickly recovered and said:

"This is Peter Mordant. My wife, Jenny, is friends with Sam."

"Good evening, Peter. David Harding here. What can I do for you? You can't speak to Sam, I am afraid, she's still on her way home from work."

"Will you give her a message, please? Sam was due to call on Jenny but I am afraid she is going to be tied up all evening. Instead, we'd like to invite you both to dinner tomorrow night."

"Thank you, Peter. The diary looks free. We'd love to come. Can I get Sam to confirm with Jenny?"

"Certainly."

"What time and what colour wine?"

"7 for 7:30 and white as an aperitif, please."

"Excellent. Nice talking to you, Peter."

"Likewise. I look forward to tomorrow night. Goodbye."

After replacing the telephone and setting it to go automatically to the answer phone, Peter went outside to bolt the garden gate. Then he collected the empty cups and put away Jenny's shopping. He decided there was not enough time to make what Jenny planned for dinner, so he set a frozen lasagne cooking in the oven. Finally, he looked at the papers Jenny had left on the dining room table and found it was her private project, so he left them for her to clear up and returned to the kitchen.

Jenny's project was a revolutionary lighting system she had invented and called 'Lumenite'. Peter was familiar with it because Culpepper's had made all the prototypes.

Lumenite was a thin material consisting of tiny luminescent dots, each of which could be individually controlled to be bright or dull and to change colour. Lumenite could be made in strips, sheets or regular shapes, such as cylinders. Attached to a computer, it could be used it as a projector or television screen. It could be programmed to display advertisements or direction signs. Lumenite was cheap to use though expensive to make at the moment.

It had only one problem: the communications signal to program the dots would travel only about one foot through the material, which limited the size of a Lumenite screen or sign. The stuff was fun as a novelty lamp but required an unwieldy and unreliable mess of wiring for any commercial use.

Peter was checking the food in the oven when he heard the bedroom door open. By the oven clock, he could tell that thirty minutes had passed. As soon as he saw Jenny, however, he understood why she had taken so long: "God, she looks a slut!" he said to himself, greatly amused.

Jenny had sprayed gel into her hair to make it stand up straight. Her lips and eye-lids were painted bright purple. She had a nearly see-through white blouse on and no bra, a tiny white leather mini-skirt and black fishnet stockings. Carrying a holdall out of which a riding crop stuck ominously, Jenny tottered precariously on eight-inch high heels. He didn't know that she possessed clothing like this and had to laugh at her idea of what would please him.

Peter hurried to help her before she tripped up over her ridiculous shoes.

"Slave, you look gorgeous." They kissed deeply, smearing her lipstick, which only added to her slutty effect. "Where did you get this gear?"

"Most of it was for a 'Tarts and Vicars Party' that never happened, Master."

Peter helped Jenny walk to the kitchen, where he emptied the contents of her bag onto the worktop. It had contained ankle and wrist straps, nipple clamps and a huge penis gag as well as their longest riding crop.

He fitted the ankle and wrist straps first. They had clips for ropes to be attached. Then he undid the buttons of Jenny's blouse and fondled a breast, gently rubbing the nipple between his fingers. Holding her to him, he bent over to suckle her. She arched at the adored sensation and let her head roll back, though she knew this pleasure would not last. Sure enough, as soon as Peter had sucked her nipple to attention, he attached a clamp and she gasped as it bit her tender flesh. Then he attended to her other nipple, while she tried not to make the pain worse by shaking the clamp. Peter trapped her other nipple in the clamp's pitiless grip and stood back to admire his beautiful wife, checking she was all right.

The nipple clamps were brutal things that Jenny had bought to experiment with. Shaped like gargoyles from a medieval cathedral, they were cylinders with gruesome faces and serrated teeth. A spring clip was adjustable. Peter used them on the lowest setting.

Peter remembered the penis gag from the early days of her submission, when they had bought random things on the Internet. She had found it too large and uncomfortable to use. He assumed she had thrown it away and wondered why she chose it now. "Open wide" he said, and tried to fit the obscene thing into her mouth. With some straining, she took it in and Jenny was embarking on the hardest punishment session of her career as a submissive.

Peter bent Jenny forward over a kitchen stool, attached her wrists to its front legs and her ankles to its back legs. She whimpered from the pain this movement caused her nipples. He pulled her mini-skirt down to her knees. Then unclipped her stockings and looped the straps of the suspender out of the way. She had on a red thong, which Peter was pleased to see was already damp when he pulled it down to her knees.

He first tested and then placed a small electric toy in her right hand, closing her fingers over the button. It would emit a loud buzz if she let it go. This was in place of her safe words when she was wearing a gag.

Finally, Peter picked up the riding crop. He wonder briefly if Jenny wanted him to punish her as hard as he could, or was it subtle reverse psychology, bringing him their most brutal implements, thinking he would use them softly on her. If it was reverse psychology, then it had failed.

"Slave, you are to be punished for not greeting me at the door; for leaving the lounge and kitchen in a mess; for not showing me due respect; and for disobeying a direct order. You are to receive twenty strokes. Are you ready?"

She nodded.

"Remember you must use your safe word when you need to."

Jenny nodded again and braced herself but Peter took his time, swishing the crop in the air, making her wait, building tension in her. Her bottom stung a little from the earlier spanking but Jenny knew that what was coming would be far worse.

Though Jenny thought she deserved her punishment, she would also have submitted to a whipping from her Master for no other reason than he took his pleasure from her that way. She had chosen these implements to show her submission to him, allowing Peter to decide how hard she was to be punished. She wanted him to punish her as hard as she could take, for though she got aroused by his domination, not by pain, yet the more he punished her and exerted his dominance, the more quickly their relationship would be back on track. If it were an uphill path, she thought, then it were best to climb it as quickly as possible, however much it may hurt.

This last thought was exactly the one in Peter's mind as he took a step back and swung the crop with full strength against Jenny's vulnerable pink bottom, striking the centre of her left buttock, which compressed and juddered under the assault. If Jenny's shriek had not been muffled by the hideous gag, the whole village would have heard her. She panted and groaned as she tried to deal with the pain, which pulsed in time with her accelerated heartbeat. An angry red mark grew on her buttock. Her nipples protested as her shudders shook the evil clamps.

Just as she was settling down after the first incredible pain, Peter inflicted a vicious blow on her other buttock. Jenny convulsed in her restraints and her muffled scream was followed by whimpering sobs. The third blow was well-placed just below the first. Jenny's body rocked again, almost tipping the stool, until Peter's steadying hand was placed on her back. When she was breathing normally again, he delivered a fourth harsh strike. Jenny didn't have the energy to scream but the tears flowed and her breath came in short gasps.