Bertie and the Kinky Politician (3 page)

‘In a French prison, if I recall.' Celeste's gaze dropped to his groin and her lips twitched in amusement at the burgeoning bulge. She seemed extremely pleased at his reaction to her presence. ‘James, all this talk of incarceration is promising indeed. I assume your previous relationships were disappointing in that respect. Had one been in any way remotely successful then you would certainly not be here and I would be talking to myself, no doubt to the concern of our hostess.'

‘Quite. My instinct has always been to conceal the more exotic side of my life.'

‘A wise move, but, and this is important for you to understand, I like exotic. I really like exotic, as you are now most certainly going to find out.' Celeste stared intently at James, her green eyes gleaming with what could only be described as eager expectation. ‘And so, with that thought in mind, let's begin!' she deliberately let a drop of creamy mayonnaise fall onto the pointed toe of her shoe and fixed James with a steady gaze. He hesitated for a moment, then setting aside his plate, knelt to wipe the sticky blob from the shiny black patent leather with a napkin. His touch lingered just long enough over her neatly laced instep to confirm his profound interest, his fingers still gently caressing the warm surfaces and towering heel long after the mess had gone. When he stood, flushed and alert, she slipped her arm through his and very gently kissed his cheek. Across the room, Patti Duke-Warrender witnessed this obvious display of affection and hugged herself with glee. Success at last.

She might not have been so self-congratulatory had she known the utterly devastating results of her efforts …

Two years had passed since that fateful first meeting and yet James could still clearly remember their evening at Patti's; how they'd talked and talked, flirting outrageously. James had recounted some of his more disastrous moments at the hands of financially astute but stunningly uninterested consorts, amusing Celeste with his dry, oddball sense of humour. She teased details from him with little effort, charmed by his immediate faith and trust in her. They had freely consumed Patti's champagne, then sneaked upstairs to find a quiet bedroom where, with hands strapped behind back with his own belt and mouth stuffed with his tie, Celeste had spanked his bottom with expert aplomb using a fish slice he'd been ordered to steal from the kitchen. She had been most gratifyingly enthusiastic!

His descent into sexual servitude followed with blissfully indecent haste!

‘Kiss my hem!'

Suddenly jolted from his wonderful reverie, James heard the sharp order through the leather helmet pulled over his ears. Celeste's voice carried all the compulsion and force of a born dominant. There was no thought of disobeying. James was now hopelessly bonded to his beloved Mistress. He crawled forward, nose rubbing the parquet as he searched for her boots.

The floor smelt of old-fashioned wax polish. He inhaled deeply and vacuumed up a wispy ball of fluff. Damn that cat! He tried to concentrate on maintaining his subservience, but the nasal tickle wouldn't go away. The chains prevented him from rubbing his nose, psychologically enhancing the itch. He quivered for a moment in respiratory agony, then the inevitable happened and he sneezed with surprising violence.

The explosive force was simply too much for the tiny breathing holes to accommodate and the helmet inflated like an air bag, lifting from his face before slowly contracting back into its original shape. A long, drawn out flatulent rattle of escaping sneeze issued from somewhere beneath his collar.

Celeste giggled behind one hand. Such a comical thing could only happen to James. He was so endearingly sweet. However, it was still vitally important to maintain The Ambience. She recovered her composure and held herself still, allowing him to press gagged kisses all over her boots. He worked his way slowly upwards to her shins, finally reaching the supple hem of her dress, then lovingly buried his blank face into the aromatic leather.

James sighed in joy. He continued to pay homage, lost in a timeless moment of supremely erotic delight. He absolutely worshipped Celeste. She was the perfect woman for him, the ideal sexual partner, which appeared odd considering much of her body remained firmly off-limits. Even after two years he had never kissed her on the lips nor seen her in any state of undress, let alone naked,

Two years! Two years – and in all that time he'd just about made it up to her knees! Theirs was a unique relationship thriving on an amalgam of domination in all its forms, psychological role-playing, unusual clothing and very little physical contact – and both found it divinely satisfying.

Eventually, after a long silence broken only by his snuffling respiration, Celeste decided he'd enjoyed himself enough and released the web of chains. ‘Stand! Do not move!' He rose unsteadily, rubbing his knees, but she wrenched his unresisting arms behind his back and shackled his wrists with her favourite pair of handcuffs, the chrome plating worn thin from much use over the years.

‘Enough play.' Her voice assumed a steely edge. She knew he liked that. Celeste was a consummate Mistress, and all Mistresses were inventive and skilled actresses. ‘It's time for you to retire. Downstairs, I think.'

James grunted alarmingly into the gag and wrestled against his bonds.

‘No protests, James Timbrill,' she said in a businesslike tone. ‘You knew this was going to happen.' He continued his futile, albeit pleasurable, resistance. ‘You'll be hooded, gagged and strapped in the bondage wardrobe.' She clipped a dog leash to his collar and jerked hard. James staggered blindly, breath hissing, and knew they were heading for the cellar. Mmmm, total enclosure! He felt another tug at his neck and stumbled toward an ecstatic night of warm and cosy restraint.

With a firm grip on his leash, Celeste led the Right Honourable James Alan George Timbrill, BA, FCA, and Member of Parliament for Gloucester North, through the salon door and away for an appointment with his own personal padded wardrobe, where he would be spending the night indisposed.

Very indisposed indeed.

The salon fell silent, but it was certainly not empty. Their departure had been noted by a creature of surprising intelligence. He sat on a perch behind the sofa and watched the conclusion of this entertaining ritual with great interest. The Kneeling Man was by far the most frequent of the few friends who visited his mummy's home and the only one who always brought him some small tidbit to eat. He enjoyed these visits very much, even if only to see Celeste at her happiest and most relaxed. His mum exercised domination over her guest in the same way he did over Sebastian, the household Persian and source of the fluff that had caused James's earlier respiratory problems. She always wore her most spectacular and colourful plumage when The Kneeling Man visited. Of course, despite her best efforts, she really could not hope to match him. He preened complacently for a few minutes, adjusting immaculately clean azure feathers, then stared at the closed door with a strange intensity, his large brown eyes unblinking.

‘James Timbrill, hooded, gagged and strapped in the bondage wardrobe,' he announced with the clarity of a BBC newsreader.

Bertie didn't know what the words meant but had long associated them with The Kneeling Man. He liked the musical cadence of the sounds and repeated the oft-used phrase several times in his best authoritative voice before tucking it away in his jumbled mind to delight Celeste at a later date.

Chapter Two

Celeste Gordon had always delighted in the domination of men. Well, more than delighted, if truth be known. Hers was a strange and powerful addiction, evidence of which first manifested itself in her inventive childhood games. Even then she showed natural talents in manipulation and control, talents that first appeared for no apparent reason thirty years earlier.

An angular young girl with a pale face and spectacularly bright orange hair, she lived with her parents on the outskirts of Oakham in the tiny county of Rutland. Ray, her father, was a tall and athletic man, wiry and energetic, but constantly away co-ordinating the shipping department of Pringle and Padley, purveyors of fine timbers for the joinery trade. He had an infectious grin and loved his young daughter without reserve. His own mother, both his aunts, his sister, and several female cousins were all blessed with hair in varying shades of copper, so when he fell hopelessly in love with and married Barbara Phillips, herself a striking redhead, it came as little surprise to anyone in the Gordon family that their daughter was born with a mop of truly incandescent ginger curls.

The family home was a large Victorian red-brick country house full of passageways and interesting corners, where imaginary creatures lurked in darkened alcoves waiting to pounce. Celeste loved its outdated architecture and the smell of old woolly carpets. Its Gothic decorations were a delight and the house had a powerful and defining influence on her early childhood, allowing her vivid imagination to blossom.

Outside, the grounds ran to several unattended acres with the house encircled by mossy lawns. Gravel paths lined with low hedges intersected the abandoned vegetable gardens, all leading to the centre where an ancient corkscrew walnut dominated the formal plots. The convoluted limbs simply begged to be climbed and she was able to spy out the whole of her magical kingdom hidden amongst the foliage.

As an only child in a rural house, the potential for boredom had been of concern to her parents, but Celeste did not seem to mind the isolation and compensated by populating her world with imaginary characters who stood at her shoulder while she fought dragons and poked sticks into rustling anthills. Fortunately, the garden provided endless opportunities for healthy play and so her parents made the fatal assumption all was fine and under control. As it turned out, Ray and Barbara couldn't have been more wrong. They had no idea, no idea at all, that the tranquillity of home life was not exactly mirrored at Celeste's school. Matters were moving to a head ...

Miss Rose Jelf, the most kindly of junior school teachers, shivered uncontrollably. Playground duty in February really sucked. She stamped her feet on the icy concrete and watched over her flock. At least the children shrugged off the biting cold. Young blood ran hot.

‘Skip-py! Skip-py!'

A chant floated down the breeze and caught her attention. Children began to drift around the corner of the library. The shouting swelled ominously. Rose recognised the signs of trouble and scampered off to restore the peace.

‘Skippy! Skippy!' screamed a ring of nylon anoraks. Rose, seriously height-challenged as she was, couldn't exactly see what was going on in the centre of the swirling crowd so caught Bobby Dukes as he ran past.

‘What's going on, Robert?'

‘It's Skippy, Miss Jelf!'

‘Skippy?'

‘Celeste Gordon, Miss.'

Confusion. The only Skippy Rose knew of was the jolly antipodean marsupial who used to appear on television.

‘But that's not very nice, calling Celeste a kangaroo.'

‘Not that Skippy.' Robert sighed patiently, as if explaining to an idiot. ‘We call her that because she likes to catch the boys with her skipping rope. Now it's Marty's turn.'

Startled, Rose experienced a splendid example of middle-aged lady bewilderment as the chanting reached a crescendo. A whiff of hysteria made her skin crawl. She had to act immediately.

‘Stop!' she squeaked at the top of her voice, but her cry was swamped. She wrestled her way forward, heaving shoulders apart, but was badly jostled. ‘Stop! Stop!' She struggled to a point mid-way towards the gladiatorial ring before becoming stuck in the tightly packed throng like a wanderer caught in quicksand, but now she was able to witness the proceedings – and what she saw instantly arrested her attention.

Celeste stood calmly, her manner supremely confident, and faced Martin Shufflebottom, the school bully. Both were surrounded by the circle of baying children. Slowly, the chanting faded to leave a silence which Rose found even more unnerving than the screams. Her spine crawled but she shared the paralysis of her fellow spectators. She could have easily leapt in to break up the incident. Well, not exactly leapt, perhaps, but a sudden need to see what would happen next stayed her hand. Instinctively, she realised she was witnessing something extraordinary.

There appeared to be a stand-off. Marty glowered at Celeste but seemed disinclined to attack, as if things were not entirely going to plan. Normally he would simply wade in with smashing blows to batter his opponents into sobbing submission, but now he just stood there staring with piggy eyes at the willowy Celeste. She showed no fear at facing what could only be described as an apprentice psychopath who enjoyed spitting into the bleeding faces of his defeated victims.

He lunged, and Celeste evaded his grasp with the twisting grace of a gymnast. Again, Marty leapt, again she nimbly avoided him – and each time it happened the audience cooed in admiration. Marty shook with fury but could not catch her. Celeste merely smiled at his clumsy charges. Rose was mesmerised. He was being humiliated by an expert. Only good could come of this – his reputation was being shredded before the entire school. What happened next left her speechless.

Celeste pointed down at her feet. ‘You know what to do, Martin. Don't make me embarrass you any more.' For a seven-year-old girl, this was an impressive example of masterful psychology.

‘Knob off!' replied Marty, employing language he'd learnt from his father in his dealings with the local constabulary.

‘Then I'll have to use the rope, Marty.' She was in total command. The finger pointed again and to Rose's disbelief, Martin howled, shook his fists violently and slowly sank to his knees. There was a gasp of astonishment from the audience. Celeste stepped forward and flipped the skipping rope over his shoulders, lassoing him neatly. With that action, the spell was broken and Rose sprang into action.

‘Stop this at once!' she yelled.