Interview with a Master (6 page)

“No,” she said. “That would probably be a deal-breaker, if I had my heart set on having a family.”

I nodded. “Of course you wouldn’t. And it’s the same with BDSM play. No submissive is going to want to submit to a Master who is obsessed with whips and handcuffs, if they hate the idea of being whipped and bound.”

“You’re saying
submissives have a choice.”

“Of course!” I said. “More than that, generally speaking, in a BDSM relationship, the submissive is the one who holds the real power.”

Leticia shook her head. “How can that be?”

“Because BDSM is based on consent,” I said. “The Master cannot exert control and power over someone who does not willingly –” I raised my finger to emphasize the point, “willingly offer themselves. A Master without a submissive is a guy.
Just a guy. He needs someone who wishes to submit to him, in order to become a Master.”

Maybe I was doing a poor job of explaining the lifestyle, and the roles of the Master and the submissive.
Leticia looked more confused now than when I had started with my ridiculous seafood analogy.

I
really needed to get some better material.

The problem was that I’d never felt the need to explain the lifestyle to anyone before. Whenever I had engaged in conversations about BDSM, it was invariably with someone who already understood the lifestyle. I didn’t have the ‘sound bites’ I needed to make a convincing case for someone like
Leticia – someone who was outside the lifestyle, and with very limited sexual and relationship experience.

“You called the Master a guy,” she said softly. “Can’t women be the dominant one, and the man be the submissive?”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course. Generally the stereotype is a male dominant, and a female submissive. But certainly the roles are equally valid if reversed.”

For some reason I was getting annoyed. Maybe I was irritated with myself because I had failed to present the case for BDSM clearly.
“But don’t start that political correctness bullshit,” I said. “I warned you last night. I’m not a fan. So if I call the Master ‘him’ and I refer to a submissive as ‘her’, you’re just going to have to deal with it. Okay?”

Leticia
flinched. I saw hurt or disappointment cloud across her face. “Okay,” she said softly. She looked down at the table.

There was a long simmering silence.

I was the one who was simmering.

The shutters of
Leticia’s cool reserve were back up.

Noble, you’re a jerk!

I checked my watch. The waitress was hovering discreetly in the background, waiting to clear away the table.

“I’m sorry,” I sighed, and shook my head. “I didn’t mean to snap. I got annoyed because I can’t explain the BDSM lifestyle to you in twenty-five words or less.
Leticia, it’s not that simple – but no relationship, emotional or sexual, is easy to explain. It takes time to assimilate the information. I can tell you the facts and the way it works, but you can’t understand them instantly. It’s a process of awareness and understanding. That’s why I knew an interview could never be completed in one session, and why you would never get a real understanding of the lifestyle if you asked questions that weren’t insightful and probing – and very personal.”

She looked up, smiled faintly.

I stared down at the dinner plates. “It’s like – ”

Suddenly
Leticia leaned forward across the table and reached boldly for my hand. She looked up into my eyes and her expression was almost pained. “Please,” she said softly, with a mischievous glint in her eyes, “please don’t use another seafood analogy!”

For a split-second there was only brittle silence.
Then I started to laugh.

And then we were both laughing and everything was all right again.

* * *

“Every night for the next three weeks I went to the guesthouse for sex,” I said.

We were back in the apartment. Leticia flicked on a lamp and then perched herself on a small two-seater sofa. I paced the floor between where she sat and the television. I glanced at her and saw her face lit by the gentle glow, and in that subtle light her features seemed to take on a new depth and dimension of beauty. I paused, distracted for just a second, and then continued speaking.

“Sometimes we would fuck, but most
of the time she wanted me on my knees, licking her clit,” I said. “And if I didn’t do it right – if she didn’t come at least a couple of times – then she got angry.”

“Angry? How?”

“Threats,” I shrugged. “More threats to tell my father everything. Then one night she threatened to go to the press. That was it. That was when I knew I had to wrest the power from her. She was like a stick of dynamite. Sooner or later she was going to explode, and I knew the damage would be extensive. In short – I didn’t trust her.”

“What did you do?”

I smiled bleakly. “I waited,” I said. “Then one weekend Claire said she was going to New York to visit family. Her sister had fallen down subway stairs. She left Friday afternoon, straight after study, and as soon as the cab disappeared out through the gates, I went to the guesthouse.”

“You broke in?”

I shrugged. “I had my key…”

“You broke in.”

I nodded. “And I went from room to room through the unit, looking for something – looking for anything I could use as leverage. I started in the bedroom. I went through every drawer and found nothing. There was nothing in the closets – I even went through the pockets of her coats and a couple of handbags she left behind. Nothing.”

Leticia
wasn’t making notes. She followed me with her eyes as I paced.

“It was only a small guesthouse: no larger than your apartment,” I said. “There was a bedroom, a small living room, a bathroom and a kitchen.
Eventually, I found what I was looking for in the kitchen.”

“What was it?”
Leticia whispered.

“It was a diary,” I said. “She had hidden it in the air exhaust vent of the range
hood that hung above the cooking hotplates.”

“God! She had a diary? She kept a record of everything you did together?”

“No. It wasn’t that kind of diary. It was a small, personal one – the kind of thing women keep in their handbags.”

Leticia
sat back, and her shoulders seemed to slump as though she were disappointed.

“So there were no descriptions – no incriminating confessions like in the movies?”

I shook my head. “Sorry,” I said, and then started to smile. “But there was a notation in the diary for that weekend. Just a brief little reminder….”

“Yes…? What did it say?”

I drew out the moment. Leticia was on the edge of the sofa. Somehow, during the course of our conversation she had become invested in the story, following its twists and turns.

“It was brief. Just a
couple of scribbled lines. ‘Meeting David. Excelsior Hotel. 3:00 pm.’”

“That was all?”

I nodded. “But that was enough.”

“Who was David?”

“He was her husband.”

“No!”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “She had a husband. He was some kind of an engineer who worked away in the middle-east; a fifty year old guy with loads of money who worked overseas for three months at a time.”

“My god!”
Leticia breathed. There was genuine shock and incredulity in her voice. “But you told me she was divorced,” she protested.

“She
told my father she was divorced,” I explained. “She lied.”

“How did
you find out this David guy was her husband? He could have been a friend.”

“I phoned the Excelsior Hotel. I asked to be put through to the front desk, and then I asked if
Mrs. Claire Moreland had arrived yet. The receptionist said she wasn’t expected for a couple of hours, but her husband had arrived early. Would I like to be transferred to their room?”

Leticia
gasped. She lifted her hand and pressed it to her mouth. “Oh, Jonah. Tell me you didn’t…”

“I didn’t,” I said. “I hung up, and spent the rest of the weekend making plans. When Claire flew back in on Sunday evening, I was ready for her.”

Leticia squirmed on the sofa. Her eyes were bright and shiny. She was looking up at me in anticipation.

“
Do ut des,
” I said softly.

“What?”

“It’s your turn to answer a question.”

“No. Jonah! Not now!”
Leticia protested. “I want to hear what happened between you and Claire. I want to know how this affected you and changed your life.”

“And I want to know about the most erotic sexual experience you have ever had.”

Leticia sat back in the sofa with her face suddenly in shadow so I sensed her mood, without seeing it written across her face. I stood my ground and after a long moment she realized sulking in the dark wasn’t going to change matters. She let out a long sigh and finally leaned forward, back into the lamplight.

She was suddenly embarrassed. “The only erotic experience I ever had was
actually someone else’s,” she said softly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it never happened to me,” she said. She made a little pleading gesture of frustration and then sighed again. “It happened to my girlfriend. I spent a Friday night staying at her home. Her parents were away for the weekend. We got high…”

“How old were you?”

“Eighteen,” Leticia said. “Dwayne was working a double shift at the processing plant. My girlfriend and I got drunk on cheap wine and I fell asleep. When I woke up I was in the living room. It was late. I went upstairs towards her bedroom, but as I passed her parent’s room, I noticed the door was slightly open. I paused, and heard my girlfriend’s voice coming from beyond the door. She was panting. She was moaning and whimpering, and her voice was husky.”

“
So, what did you do?”

“I peeped,”
Leticia said guiltily. “I went to the door and looked inside.” She hesitated for a moment. I stood, watching her patiently. She wasn’t looking at me. She was gazing blankly into the darkness.

“It was my girlfriend. She was on her hands and knees, naked in the middle of the bed, and there was a man I didn’t recognize behin
d her. He had his hands on her hips, digging his fingers into her skin, holding her in place as he thrust himself inside of her.”

Leticia
shifted her position on the sofa so that she had her knees tucked up beneath her. “There was a couple of candles burning – enough light for me to see the look of passion on her face. Her eyes were screwed tightly shut and she was groaning every time the man thrust against her. Her breasts swayed and swung beneath her in rhythm.”

“Were you aroused?” I asked gently.

Leticia nodded. “The man was a lot older than my girlfriend. He might have been thirty. He had a broad chest and big muscled arms. He reached out with one of his hands and suddenly grabbed my girlfriend’s hair. He pulled on it, like it was a rein. My girlfriend lifted her head and arched her back – and then opened her eyes.”

“She saw you, watching them?”

Leticia nodded. “They both did,” she said softly. “My girlfriend came over to the door, and she had a soft dreamy look on her face. She invited me to join them.”

“And did you?” I asked.

“No,” Leticia shook her head, with maybe a hint of regret in her expression. “Dwayne was my boyfriend. I wouldn’t cheat on him. I told my girlfriend the same thing. She seemed to understand, but she could tell I was turned on. She would have been blind not to see it in my face, I suppose.”

Leticia
sighed and looked around the living room. She looked everywhere, except at me.

“She opened the door wider so I could see, and then she went back to the
bed and laid on her back. The man got off the bed. I thought for a moment he was going to come and drag me into the room, but he didn’t. He just smiled at me, and then stood at the edge of the bed and slid his… his penis into my girlfriend’s open mouth.”

“They wanted you to watch them?”

Leticia shrugged her shoulders. “I guess so,” she said. “They started getting louder, saying all kinds of things to each other, like they were suddenly turned on by the idea of having an audience.”

“Saying stuff?” I frowned. “You mean talking dirty to each other.”

She nodded. “Uhuh.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“It turned me on even more,” Leticia confessed. “It was incredible. It was like nothing I had ever imagined before. Watching these two people having sex really turned me on, but once I heard them talk to each other the way they did – well I… I was…”

“You had an orgasm?”

Leticia nodded.

“Just from watching and listening to this couple having sex?”

She nodded again.