Jennifer and Slave Sarah

"So are you two going to get together again?" I ask.

"Only if you permit it, Mistress," replies Sarah-Anne.

To my surprise, Adam also seems to want my permission. This is way too heavy a responsibility on my shoulders. I've enjoyed playing the role of dominatrix tonight, but to me it's nothing more than a game. I'm not ready to control anybody's intimate relations. While I understand that Sarah-Anne wants to be my slave and well as my friend, for my part I just want to be friends. Sarah-Anne's expectations keep pushing my boundaries over and over again. My desire to help and support her is battling my own sense of propriety. I don't have time to go into an in-depth analysis on how I feel about all this. The latex dress and today's events have triggered very powerful emotions inside me. Most of those emotions are pleasant, but some really scare me. What sort of person am I being turned into by actually liking some of the kinky stuff I seen and done today?

I'm not going to be allowed to get away with ignoring Sarah-Anne's response to my question. Perhaps I shouldn't have asked my question in the first place. But what is done is done.

"I will permit it, Sarah," I reply, since it's the only answer I feel comfortable in giving.

"Oh, thank you, Mistress Jennifer," says Sarah-Anne with genuine relief. Perhaps she thought I would refuse. Would she obey me if I had said 'no'? I decide that it's my turn to push at the boundaries.

"But no sex," I add. "Kissing and cuddling is fine, but that monster of Adam's stays in his pants while he's in your presence until I permit otherwise. Is that understood, Sarah?"

I don't know what sort of response I was expecting from either of them. Certainly I wasn't expecting Adam's promise to obey my wishes, nor Sarah-Anne's almost rapture at being denied what she surely desires. It takes me a while to work out that her delight at my order is because I've effectively confirmed that I've agreed to continue playing her game of dominance and submission. In reality I've no means of policing their obedience to my command. The second my back is turned they could be fucking each other senseless. But strangely I think they will obey, getting as much pleasure from the denial as they would from the sex itself. Even stranger, I realise that I get a slight thrill at the thought of denying them a little bit of their freedom.

I look at the clock. There's another fifteen minutes before the keys are released. If I'm going to get a taxi, then I need to do so now. Sarah-Anne sees me looking at the clock and guesses that I'll soon need to go home.

"I'll be fine if you need to go home, Mistress," says Sarah-Anne. "Adam can give you a lift on his way home. The box with the keys to my collar and cuff padlocks won't unlock for another five hours, so there's no point in you waiting. It won't be the first time I've slept in bondage."

"We'll wait and make sure your wrist lock and ankle chain are removed," I say.

"No, please, Mistress," says Sarah-Anne, using the phrase she said she would use if she wasn't happy with obeying my command. "Please allow me to remain as I am tonight. It's what Greg and Pete normally make me do on a Saturday night, so I'll be fine. I'll sleep with the keys within reach in case of emergency. Pete will be home by morning to unlock me if I can't manage to get free on my own."

"When is Pete going to return?" I ask. "I presume he is lying low after tonight's little stunt."

"Oh, he does this every Saturday night, Mistress," replies Sarah-Anne. "I'm okay with it. Pete will be with Greg and his mates doing the rounds of the clubs. He usually sleeps over at Greg's place and returns here in the morning."

Sarah-Anne seems sure of herself and her obvious arousal, bordering on an orgasm, is unmistakeable. I'm not entirely happy at leaving her alone, but it's what she wants, and I'm not taking responsibility for every decision she makes. Adam seems content to leave Sarah-Anne bound the way she is, so I agree to leave her to her unusual source of pleasure. We arrange to catch up on Wednesday evening, and I make her promise not to sign Greg's contract in the meantime.

Adam kisses Sarah-Anne goodnight and says that he'll see her again on Thursday night for a date. They both look towards me as though expecting my permission, but I refuse to exercise that level of control over their lives. I tell them in no uncertain terms that they must decide when and where they are to meet.

I change back into my regular clothes, leaving the latex dress hanging behind the spare bedroom door. It feels really strange being back in normal clothes, and the pleasant thrill I was feeling moments earlier subsides. Sarah-Anne refuses our offer to wash our mugs. After a brief check that she has everything that she needs, Adam and I leave.

"I never understood why you and Sarah-Anne split up," I comment as we make the five minute drive to my home. "You two seem to have so much in common."

"She started getting involved with Pete Ashcroft. I didn't understand why until later."

"So you know Sarah-Anne was working as a prostitute?" I ask.

"I didn't know at first, but you get to see and hear a lot of things working in the Dosla Dungeon. One of the waitresses saw her on Stout Street one night and she told me. She knew Sarah-Anne and I once dated."

I don't need Adam to tell me what sort of girls hang out on Stout Street at night. Not that I've ever been down Stout Street at night. It's the closest thing this town has to a red-light district.

"Why didn't you do something?" I ask.

"I made enquiries, and found out that Pete Ashcroft was her pimp. I confronted him, but he just laughed and told me to mind my own business. He even offered to rent her out to me at a discount. I'm ashamed to say that I did pay for her one evening, but only to find out what had happened to her. That's when she told me everything about her debts and her missing trust money."

"And I suppose that's how she knew that you worked in the Dosla Dungeon," I add. "It's a strange name ... Dosla ... where does it come from?"

"Dosla; it's short for Dominant and Slave, not that many patrons would know that. And yes, that's how Sarah-Anne knew I would probably be there tonight, even if my hood disguised my face. Neither of us have jobs to be proud of, but through them we both share a common bond which has brought us closer together than before. I was delighted when I heard that Sarah-Anne had found her inheritance and had given up prostitution. Pete wasn't pleased at first, but he and his brother seem to have found other interests. Still, I'll be glad when Pete moves out of Sarah-Anne's house."

"I didn't realise Pete planned to move," I reply. "He never mentioned it when I saw him earlier today."

"Despite his role as her pimp, I think Pete cares about Sarah-Anne more than as a source of income. She's always had a strong submissive side to her nature ... that's something she and I have in common ... and Pete developed that trait in her to attract certain types of clients. I'm not saying that he forced her into being a submissive ... it was something which was latent inside her which he helped bring into full bloom. He bought her a steel collar and cuffs which she willingly started to wear. By the time I met her again she was wanting more to life than playing at being a part-time submissive. I think she's looking for a relationship with a dominant person who will treat her like a submissive slave all of the time. Pete must have realised the same, which is why he's trying to find someone to fill that role in her life before he moves on."

"So, do you intend to fill that role?" I ask.

"Me? No. I'm not capable of being her dom for more than five minutes. As I said, I'm a submissive. You, on the other hand, are a natural dom."

"Why do people say that?" I ask. "I've never done any of this dominant-submissive stuff before today."

"Not consciously perhaps, but you didn't hesitate tonight. Your 'no sex' rule is exactly the sort of dominance that Sarah-Anne is looking for at the moment."

"And do you intend to obey my 'no sex' rule?" I ask. "You know full well that I've no means of checking whether you obey my command."

"Your order will be obeyed, because you are Sarah-Anne's mistress. When I'm with Sarah-Anne, that makes you my mistress as well. And you are able check on whether your commands are obeyed. Next time you meet Sarah-Anne, have her kneel before you and ask her to confess which of your rules she has broken. She will confess all of her transgressions because it's what she wants to do to retain your control over her."

I'm dubious about Adam's last statement, but we don't have time to discuss it further as we have reached my house. I say goodnight to Adam and go inside. Its eleven-thirty, so I'm comfortably within curfew. My parents have gone to bed, but I don't fool myself into thinking that they are asleep. They will be secretly waiting for my return. To prove my theory I walk past their bedroom door and shout 'I'm home. Goodnight' to which I receive a 'Goodnight' in reply.

My conversation with Adam has given me yet more to think about after today. I've come down from the heady high I experienced while I was wearing the latex dress. Nevertheless I'm more sexually aroused than usual, and my hands wander over my breasts and between my legs as I lie in bed waiting for sleep to overtake me. Not that sleep has a chance of arriving while I so active with my hands. I eventually fall asleep, but only after satisfying my body's needs.

I join my parents for breakfast at the usual time for a Sunday. I've prepared myself for the questions which will undoubtedly be asked about yesterday. I've learned that answering their questions truthfully, if not completely, is the best tactic. Getting caught telling an outright lie will risk the living arrangement I have with my parents. Of course I'm old enough to simply move out and live in my own place, but that would require more money than my allowance provides. My parents are wealthy enough to give me a small allowance while I study, but not one large enough to pay for rented accommodation. Like many other students, I could find a part time job, but that would mean giving up most of my social and sports activities at university. Now that I've been reunited with Sarah-Anne, I will have even less unallocated time. A job at somewhere like the Dosla Dungeon would provide good earnings for relatively short hours, but Adam is right, I'm dominant rather than submissive by nature, so allowing myself to be groped by strangers is not something that's going to happen.

"Did you and Sarah-Anne go out together last night," asks mum over breakfast.

"Yes. Sarah-Anne's friend Pete took us and his cousin Danielle out for a meal in town."

"That's nice. Where did you go?"

"Dosla's," I reply, sensing that I've been asked a trick question. I've not forgotten that the app on my phone will show my location on their phones. Not to the accuracy that it says 'table 3, the Dosla Dungeon', but close enough to point to Dosla's restaurant. Dad's satisfied grunt indicates that I've passed that test.

"Have you and Sarah-Anne become friends again?" asks mum. "What's she doing these days, anyway?"

"Yes, we're friends again. I've arranged to see her again on Wednesday evening. She's running her own fashion operation. She designs and manufactures a range of clothes."

"What, from home?" asks dad.

"Yes. It's a bit cramped but she seems to manage okay. But if she gets more successful, I suspect that she'll need to find larger premises."

My answer to dad's question suddenly give me an idea about how to solve Sarah-Anne's problem with the address on her prostitute's license.

"Dad. Do you and Uncle Steven still own that place on Water Street?"

"The old meeting hall? Yes. We've been trying to get rid of it for years."

The property in question was an investment gamble Uncle Steven talked dad into getting involved in. They bought this old meeting hall and intended to convert it into apartments. It was a plan which would have made then a good profit had it not been for the fact that the hall sat within a zone the town council classed as 'commercial and light industrial'. Council consent was required for a residential development, and that consent was refused over some technical detail which would cost too much to resolve.

"Would you consider leasing it for a while?" I ask. "As I said, Sarah-Anne might be looking for larger premises for her business, and the hall might suit her needs."

"If you can swing that deal, then I'll pay you a commission," laughs dad.

The rest of our conversation wanders onto other things and I spend the rest of the morning working and studying in my room. My older sister, Rebecca, and her husband are coming over this afternoon for a visit. As I said, Sunday afternoon is reserved for 'family time', which is a ritual the whole family respects.

It's evening before I get a chance to think about Sarah-Anne again. My initial anger at Pete's stunt last night has abated once I realised Sarah-Anne simply regards it as part of their lifestyle. I'm tempted to ring Pete and check that he's back home and that Sarah-Anne is okay. But doing so may make it seem that I'm willing to take on more responsibility for Sarah-Anne's well-being than I'm ready to commit to at the moment. I'm certain I want to renew my close friendship with her, but I'm not so sure about taking on all the baggage which comes as well. I start to research the meaning of a dominant and a submissive in a relationship.

The internet has a wealth of opinion and knowledge, but I know some of it can be ill-informed or just plain wrong. Picking out the good advice from the bad advice is tricky for a subject I had barely heard of before yesterday. The consensus of what I read suggests that everybody has a dominant and a submissive side to their nature, but in many people one side or the other tends to be stronger; much stronger in some individuals.

I don't spend long in analysing my own traits since the research quickly points to me being strongly dominant. That's something I probably knew already after yesterday. I study Sarah-Anne's traits and, as I probably also knew, she's strongly submissive. But where the advice differs is whether she is submissive because of what has happened to her, or if what has happened is due to her being submissive. In any event, none of this tells me what to do next.

I have university lectures tomorrow, so I switch to preparing for those. The excitement of yesterday has receded, although I feel pleased that I may have a solution to Sarah-Anne's license problem. I need more advice on what to do about Sarah-Anne's request to be my slave. It's not the sort of subject I feel able to discuss with my parents, since they will almost certainly tell me to refuse, and have nothing more to do with Sarah-Anne. While my own inclination is to refuse such a frightening request, I'm not going to simply abandon Sarah-Anne to her fate. It's possible that she needs professional psychiatric help, in which case I need to make sure that she receives it.

Chapter 7: Locked in a Leather Harness

I recall that Sarah-Anne has spent her adolescent years without proper adult guidance. Her parents died when she was thirteen, and her grandmother was too frail and ill to provide Sarah-Anne with proper nurturing. At times I may have resented my parents interference in my life, but I can't deny that their advice and guidance has helped me to develop into the person I am today. Sarah-Anne has missed that parental control, which may be why she now wants a dominant person to guide her. She's not helpless, though. Sarah-Anne is intelligent and talented. Developing and running her own business shows that she can do many things without her dom's instruction or supervision.

Providing you can put aside the decidedly kinky side to what Sarah-Anne wants, her proposal makes sense in many respects. Could I fill that role in her life? Perhaps. But I've no experience in this sort of thing, unless you regard my efforts at being a dominatrix last Saturday as experience. I want to help Sarah-Anne, and I'm not adverse to taking on the role she expects me to adopt. But will I do more harm than good?

Having decided that my parents aren't a possible source of advice about what to do, I think about whether I know anybody at university who may able to help me. While I have several friends among the students, I don't know any of them well enough to broach such a sensitive topic. Besides, I suspect none of them have any more experience than I have on the subject. The university student counsellors are strangers to me, and I don't feel able to discuss Sarah-Anne's request with them. Which only leaves my lecturers.

Although psychology isn't one of the major subjects for my degree, I am taking PSYC101 as an optional course for some extra credits. Doctor Wells, the lecturer, is a woman in her mid-thirties who seems very approachable. The subject is also something she has possibly encountered during her academic career. I steel my nerves and pay her a visit during her office hours on Tuesday morning. I spent Monday evening mentally rehearsing what I want to ask her, so I feel confident that I can at least say what I want to say to Doctor Wells without tying myself in knots and muddling the issue. I must phrase my questions carefully so as to give the appearance that I'm asking out of academic interest rather than discussing a personal problem. Any hint of the latter and she'll promptly direct me to one of the student counsellors for advice.

My conversation with Doctor Wells doesn't really help me. However she hands me a small booklet about dominant-submissive relationships. It's title intrigues me, 'The four Rs: Respect, Rules, Rituals and Role-play'. I put it in my bag to read later as I need to concentrate on my studies for now.

I want to read the 'Four Rs' booklet before seeing Sarah-Anne tomorrow, so I go to my bedroom at ten-thirty, which is slightly earlier than normal. I settle down to read. I'm surprised by how much of what I read is something that I feel I already know. Certainly the part about treating the other party in the relationship with respect seems so obvious to me. But then I think about Pete and Greg, and how they treat Danielle and Sarah-Anne. There's no respect in their behaviour, and the rules are made up by them as they go along.

My biggest shock is when I realise how much of the booklet's material applies to my current relationship with my parents. When I was fourteen we were forever getting into blistering arguments. It's a miracle that my bedroom door is still in one piece given the number of times it got slammed. Then things started to change. The name calling, and senseless threats and demands gradually stopped. I started getting treated and respected as a young adult, and I responded in kind. Rules were negotiated and agreed. Even the 'family time' Sunday afternoon ritual evolved at that time. Of course we agreed changes to the rules as I got older. Curfew was extended from ten o'clock to eleven o'clock and then to midnight. Apart from none of us playing a role, then you have the four Rs - Respect, Rules, Rituals and Role-play. Yet I couldn't tell you who of us is dominant, and who is submissive. Perhaps each of us can be one or the other at different times.

On Wednesday I leave university as soon as my last lecture finishes, and go straight round to Sarah-Anne's house as arranged. It's much quicker doing that than going home first. My carefully thought out plan for tonight is thrown off course the moment I enter Sarah-Anne's house. I knew that Sarah-Anne would be wearing the ever-present steel collar and cuffs which Pete gave her. However, I had assumed that she would be wearing normal clothing. Instead she is wearing nothing but a complicated leather harness criss-crossing her body, leaving her breasts bare. It's a very erotic outfit, but not what I anticipated seeing tonight. I want a regular girls night of conversation and fun. Instead I'm being trapped into something far more sexual than I expected.