Mastering Submission Ch. 21

In the manner of Gregory Maguire, who provided us with a version of the childhood standard The Wizard of Oz through the eyes of the "wicked" witch, I have re-written my favorite BDSM story, Both Master and Slave, written by Martin Sharpe (published in 2001 by Silver Moon Books in Great Britain), from the point of view of the submissive, rather than the Master, who was Mr. Sharpe's narrator. I hope that fans of the original book will accept my version for the tribute that it is meant to be.

*

Two weeks later the bruises were fading nicely. When I got home from lecturing that Thursday evening, Master wasn't there. But there was a note stuck to the mirror in the hall:

"Useless slave, tonight you're going to be a very popular girl. But you will be perfectly safe. By seven o'clock, you must be in the main bedroom, stark naked. You will find a blindfold and a gag on the bed. Put them on, and then bend over the chair with your arse towards the window and wait. No matter what happens to you, you are not to let go of the chair or to remove the blindfold. You will be fucked. If you don't want it to hurt, make sure your cunt is wet and ready for penetration. After a while, an alarm clock will go off. When that happens, remove the blindfold. You will find further written instructions on the bed."

Absolutely mystified, but trusting in Master's assurances that I would be safe, I followed his instructions carefully, fully anticipating that, at any moment, Master would suddenly appear and explain everything.

I had held the position Master had specified for about twenty minutes before anything happened, and what happened had me turning my head, trying to hear as clearly as possible what was happening in the room since I could not see anything through the blindfold. I heard the sound of furniture being moved, and listened intently, every nerve straining, trying to work out what was going on around me, not daring to take off the blindfold.

I jumped at the first touch, and then calmed down as a hand ran gently the length of my spine. Other hands joined in, running up and down the insides of my thighs, cupping my breasts, trailing across my belly and caressing the nape of my neck. At this point, the only sounds were my soft moans.

I barely winced when my nipples were clamped, and kept silent when a whip struck the first blow, trust overriding fear. As the blows increased in ferocity, I was sure my knuckles on the back of the chair whitened due to the tightness of my hold, but I didn't move. A tear trickled down my left cheek from under the blindfold, and was tenderly licked away. An unfamiliar whip swung upwards at my belly and the undersides of my breasts. While I was getting used to that, what felt like a riding crop began to slash at my calves. Then a third whip joined in, this was a broad leather tongue, applied to both my shoulders. Before I had time to get used to this symphony of pain everything became gentle: a feather traced its way up the inside of my left leg; a hand in a fur glove caressed my back; soft lips kissed my forehead. A broad tongue forced my teeth apart and plunged in, licking my palate, raping my mouth. Then another person kissed me: softer, but just as deep. Then a man with a beard kissed me.

Whips lashed at me from left and right. Strange textures I never had felt before whispered across my skin. I planted my feet more firmly on the bedroom carpet and prepared myself to be fucked. A finger entered my cunt, then another, then another, stretching it open. I was, as requested, already wet so all the objects that were shoved inside slid home smoothly, even the very big ones.

The first time the gag came off, I asked: "Master? What's happening?"

"Shut up," Master told me. "And put up with it." The gag was replaced by a condom-covered cock, which I compliantly sucked. Then I was gagged again. And then that gag was replaced by a naked cock, then with a dildo, and then with a different gag. Every time something hard touched my lips I opened my mouth dutifully. I reached orgasm three times, but still maintained my grip on the back of the chair. When a fourth orgasm brought me to my knees, I was beaten back to my feet.

Then I was left to myself, conscious only of my own breathing, and then it started up all over again.

The occasion was rounded off with a dildo-fucking up the arse, so vigorous the chair moved in jerks across the carpet, followed by a caning that took my breath away.

Then there was nothing. I was left alone again, in a room that now stank of male sweat and cunt. What seemed an age later, an alarm clock went off. Continuing to follow the instructions I had been given, I removed the gag and blindfold, and found a note on the bed that said: "Clean yourself up, put your clothes on and come down to the main room. Never, ever, talk about this."

Ten minutes later, I knocked on the door and Master called out: "Come in."

I breezed into the main room, feeling and looking gorgeous. I had done a hurried job of cleaning myself up, but I knew Master loves seeing me with a "raped-and-repaired" look. My floating progress into the room was halted as I appreciated that Master and I were not alone. I froze, and then glanced round the room slowly. When the other occupants of the room looked back at me curiously, I blushed and looked down. Mandy (the vocalist and bass guitarist of the pop music group Master recently had signed to represent, who I recognized from the publicity photos Master had shared with me weeks before) seemed to stare at me with an especially keen interest.

"Hi, Darling," Master said. "You remember 'Satan Wept,' one of those groups I manage. We're listening to a remix of one of their numbers. Could you get some beers?" I nodded in recognition: Master had spanked me many times to the sound of their records.

Master had talked to me quite a bit about this group since his association with them began after I had started my first year's contract in Master's service. Master explained that the five members of the group are actually pleasant middle-class teenagers from a picturesque rural town, despite the fact that they style themselves to look like a gang of terrorists taking a break between massacres, and they speak with rough big city accents. They're not the most skilled musicians in the world, but they earn good money for Master and they certainly look the part.

When I returned, I almost (but not quite) curtsied as I handed the drinks round. When I got to Stan, the fat, bearded, sweaty drummer, I knew Master could see that my hands were trembling. Then I stood quietly as we listened to the tape, my eyes drawn to the musicians. All those times when I had worn a blindfold for Master were racing through my mind. From now on, whenever I addressed a room full of young people, I would wonder what it would be like to be fucked and beaten by them all.

The moment the musicians left, I knelt at Master's feet and said, "Permission to speak, Master?"

"You're going to ask me about what happened upstairs, aren't you?" Master asked. I nodded.

"And what did it say on that note?" Master inquired.

"That I wasn't to talk about it, Master," I responded.

"Then shut the fuck up, Meat, there's a good girl," Master instructed.

"Yes, Master. Sorry, Master," I said.

"That's better," Master said. "What I decide to do with your cunt is none of your business."

I remained on my knees, silently replaying in my mind the events I'd experienced whilst blindfolded and gagged earlier, trying to place the musicians who were waiting in the front room into the roles of the people who had used me under Master's supervision. After an hour or so of companionable silence, Master leaned forward and softly kissed my forehead before assisting me to sit next to him.

Master held my hand in his, and quietly said, "In these days of incurable diseases, I would never allow you to be gang-banged, least of all by one of the rock groups in my stable. They wouldn't be so eager to take my advice and pay me my ten percent if I let them fuck my woman."

I was taken aback by this revelation, although relieved to have the reassurance that Master's care had been there when I was defenseless, blind, and unable to speak out in my own defense. But then I realized that now I was back to not having even the slightest clue about who had taken part in the blindfolded interlude that Master had arranged for me earlier in the day.

The following Saturday we were driving home from one of Dave and Fuckpuppet's parties, not a fancy dress one, a savagely physical session in which I had come in second in a weight-lifting competition (all the female slaves raising increasingly heavy weights attached to their nipples). To round off the evening, we'd stood round watching Fuckpuppet being thrashed non-stop for over an hour, no restraints, no gag, no spreading the pain across the body; just a naked woman bending over a dining room table and being beaten on till her skin was a mass of welts, and everyone in the audience was shaking with the sheer intensity of the scene.

"Master?" I asked.

"Yes, bitch," Master replied, his voice full of love.

"Master, about you wanting to marry me," I began.

"Yes?" Master calmly prompted.

"Well, you see, Master, it's a big step," I said.

"Go on," Master encouraged.

"Much bigger than deciding to let you fuck me up the arse, or agreeing to be your slave for a year," I explained.

"Yes," Master replied. "I can see that."

"Well, what I'm thinking is that the reason I can't decide whether to marry you or not is because I don't know anything about you," I said.

Master continued to drive quickly and carefully down the highway, but his breathing deepened and quickened. Although his driving claimed the majority of his attention, Master continued to flick glances my way, almost as if he were reminding himself of things about me that had been forgotten during our time together. Finally, after taking a deep breath, Master began to respond to my comment.

"I found out many years ago that you can get on with a woman without putting much of yourself into the relationship," Master said. "You simply listen to her talking, listen to her scream, playing her like a musical instrument. And for a lot of women, that's enough."

I maintained my silence, hoping it would encourage Master to continue his explanation.

"You are like that, but only up to a point. You enjoy basking in the warmth of my attention, in the agonizing heat of my attention, but you also are interested in me. No wonder I love you so much."

At that, I had to say, "And I love you, too, Master."

And there, as we continued speeding along the highway at half past one in the morning, we had the kind of conversation most couples go through on their first date. Master told me about his years at school, including funny stories about the rock group in which he played bass guitar. After school, Master went to art school where he spent a year learning that he preferred a place out of the limelight. The time spent in art school gave Master the tools to pave the way for other people to make hits, and to design T-shirts and produce advertising to make those hits bigger.

Going back to his beginning, Master then told me about his parents: how his father escaped from Hungary during the rising in the Fifties, and changed his name from Schartner to Sharpe when given British nationality. Master related how he had gone on his own back to Budapest to visit relatives with whom he spoke in his schoolboy German, making his own connections to his family roots. And, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Master went back again to start a radio station there with his distant cousin.

Having covered the facts and background of his life and family, Master began to relate stories to fill me in on his early explorations of love and sex. Master said that normal sex always seemed numbing to him. He discovered S&M through books: the Marquis de Sade and The Story of O. Master believed such things, exciting and engaging to him as they were when he read about them, only happened in fiction, in books, and in the imagination. Then there was the Easter weekend in a woodland cottage with a girl who, too shy to ask for what she wanted, nonetheless wanted it enough to cut, trim and hand Master a birch switch -- and made Master see that the things that he wanted and needed weren't limited to the imagination.

"Did you ask any of your other slaves to marry you?" I asked.

Master drove on in silence for a moment. "I was married," Master replied.

"Tell me about it," I asked.

"Her name was Elizabeth," Master said. "I called her the Red Cow, because of the colour of her hair, and her docility."

"What happened to her?" I inquired.

"She died," Master responded.

I was silent for a moment. "If this is too painful for you," I began.

"It's in the past," Master said. "It took a long time, but I got over it." By now we'd arrived in our street. Master parked the car in silence and we made our way home.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," I insisted.

"We shouldn't have secrets," Master replied. "Make some coffee and I'll tell you about it."

I came into the main room carrying two mugs and looking concerned. "The Red Cow was killed in a train smash," Master began. "It was six weeks after we'd discovered she was pregnant. One of the nurses she'd worked with was married and had a kid, and got ill. Elizabeth took a week off work and went down to help."

I could see from Master's face, and hear in his voice that talking about it brought it all back.

"I blamed myself for a long time," Master continued. "I was always interfering in her life, trying to make things better, or more interesting, or more painful." I smiled gently. "She didn't drive, and I wanted to take her, but she insisted on going by train. So I made her go first class, because I could afford it. That's why she was at the front of the train, and that's why she died."

I touched Master's arm.

"I was on the rack for months afterwards," Master went on, "my days empty, my evenings lonely, my dreams filled with images of freckles stark against my wife's lifeless skin. Months later, when the power of the pain had died down, the loss stayed with me. No matter where I was or what I was doing, it was as if tears were flowing down the insides of my cheeks."

"If it hadn't been for meeting you, I'd have been like that for the rest of my life," Master concluded.

We slept in the same bed that night, cradled in each other's arms, the first and last time I spent the whole night in Master's big four-poster bed.

"Can I visit some of your businesses?" I asked Master the following morning.

"Of course," Master replied. "As it's the university vacation you can start now. I have to drop in to the design studio tomorrow anyway. And we'll be mixing a new CD for one of my groups on Thursday. Have you been to Budapest?"

"No," I said.

"It's great. We'll go to the radio station, and you can meet my family," Master enthused.

Although I expected to be a bit intimidated and uncertain in exploring the far-flung business empire Master managed, but it turned out the trip was much less difficult than I anticipated. Years of academia had trained me to meet strangers well, and helped me exercise charm with Master's employees. Master gave me access to his business records, and even listened when I made a suggestion that I thought might improve the traffic control of design jobs as they went through the studio.

It was strange dealing with Master as an equal, and even weirder knowing that this was an opportunity when we both were aware that I was in a position to judge Master, evaluating his suitability as my life partner. Master showed me all the treasures Master had amassed: the design awards, the records that had reached the top fifty, and the top twenty, and the one that had reached number four, and Master did all of this with courtesy and patience. But I knew Master hated it. Master prefers to be the one that does the judging.

Although I knew Master was uncomfortable, I wouldn't let Master off the hook. If pressed for a decision, I always gave Master the same reply, "I'll let you know by Christmas."

To make up for treating me as an equal in real life, and pay me back for making Master wait for a decision about marrying him, Master beat me harder than ever when we were at home, anxious to regain in the arena of sex the dominance Master had given up in our day-to-day lives.