Master of the House (12 page)

I wasn’t sure what he meant at first, then I realised that he had noticed how wet I was between my legs and the rush of mortification roared in my head as I said, ‘You already have, haven’t you?’

‘That was different. We were carried away. This is one popular way to end a spanking, if it isn’t a punishment. I thought you might like …’

‘No. God, no. I’m fine. I just want to get dressed and get out of here.’

I was up and running to the chaise where he’d piled my clothes, making damn sure he couldn’t see my face, which must have been every bit as scarlet as my rear.

‘I didn’t say you could get up,’ he said sourly.

I was too busy fighting my way into my knickers to reply.

‘You missed an important part of the lesson,’ he continued. ‘You’re supposed to thank me after a spanking. I should make you get back down and take some more for that.’

I whirled around to face him, fumbling with my bra clip.

‘You don’t
make
me do anything,’ I said.

‘Unless you want me to,’ he said after a long pause. ‘And I’m not at all sure you don’t.’

‘Get lost.’ I was dressed now, bar my flip-flops. I picked them up and hurried to the door, much too conscious of the way my shorts rubbed against my warm bottom.
He did that to you. You let him. You loved it.

‘Perhaps I should,’ he said.

He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t mean that, could he?

I turned and said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ in my most sarcastic tone, then I ran out of the Hall and back to the car as fast as I could go.

I didn’t want him to get lost. I wanted to see this through, much as I suspected it might destroy me emotionally.

I spent the whole night after our encounter with my hand between my legs, coming over and over again as I thought of what he had done to me and how it had made me feel. Our urgent, sweaty encounter on the lawn also featured heavily in my nocturnal envisionings and I relived it all, gloating over the most embarrassing, most shameful moments.

Joss knew what got me hot. He knew he had me where he wanted me.

I was pinned down as securely as if he’d tied me to his bed.

Would he tie me to his bed?

Oh, God. I needed to come again.

He didn’t get in touch for a couple of days and I irritated myself by constantly checking my phone for messages. I had promised myself I wouldn’t obsess over him and yet here I was, on the end of his string again.

But all those things he said … did he mean them? Did he want to be my man? Had he really changed or was it all calculated, a trick to get me into the role of on-tap shag until he got what he wanted and moved on?

On Tuesday afternoon I was interviewing a councillor about his amazing new anti-dog-fouling strategy when my phone rang and I saw it was Joss.

I couldn’t take the call, which was agony, but I wrapped up the interview in double-quick time and left my councillor to the tender mercies of Kai while I found a quiet spot to call Joss back.

‘Lulu? Sorry, were you busy?’

‘Nothing exciting, just an interview.’

‘I just wanted to let you know I’d been in for the test. Won’t get some of the results for a few days, but the good news is I’m clear for HIV and trichomoniasis. I’d say that was worth celebrating, wouldn’t you? Not that I’ve any idea whatsoever what trichomoniasis is.’

‘I can’t meet you. I’ve got to go to the Upper Brinkleton Dramatic Society’s “
Songs From The Shows
” evening.’

‘Shame. What about the weekend then?’

‘Thought you were going to London.’

I had plans to sneak into the woods through the secret entrance and see if I could spy on Joss’s unwelcome guests.

‘I needn’t go to town. I just have to be out of the Hall,’ he said.

‘You could book into the Tylney Grange?’ I suggested.

‘Can’t possibly afford it, I’m afraid. I was thinking … perhaps I might hire a … caravan.’

‘Off Mrs Wragg?’ I rather shouted it, attracting the attention of Kai and the councillor and messing up their portrait shot. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Why not? I need accommodation and she offers it. I don’t want to go to London. I want to see you.’

And I wanted to see him. Quite urgently.

‘Oh, do what you want,’ I said. ‘You always do.’

‘No, I don’t,’ he said with quiet reproof. ‘OK. I’ll let you know where I am on Friday night. And you will join me there.’

‘Unless I’m working,’ I said sulkily.

‘Yes. Unless you’re working. I should have all my test results by then, too, so …’

He left it hanging in the air but I knew what he had in mind.

‘So you’ll know the worst,’ I said, but I hated myself for being so unkind as soon as the words were out.

‘You can’t hurt me, remember,’ he said, and then he put the phone down.

* * *

I took mum out for lunch on Friday while she left her stall in Animal’s charge. We sat in the little vegetarian café on the high street and talked about love.

‘Do you think it’s the real deal with you and Animal?’ I asked her.

‘I don’t know about real deals, Lucy-In-The-Sky,’ she said, digging into her aubergine bake. ‘He’s kind to me and we have a laugh. I don’t ask for much more than that.’

‘He seems nice. Way nicer than …’

‘Hey. What’s past is past. I admit I always think the best of people and perhaps I should be warier. I try to see beyond a person’s bad behaviour, see the pain that’s caused it, understand what’s making them lash out.’

‘Yeah, but when they’re lashing out at
you
, Mum.’

‘I promised you I wouldn’t let it happen again, and I’m going to keep my promise. Don’t you worry. I know I can’t heal the world.’

‘You used to think you could.’

‘I know. And it got me into too much trouble. You can kill with kindness, after all.’

‘That’s true. I just want you to take care of yourself, Mum. It killed me, when I was in Budapest, to think that some bastard was taking advantage of your gentleness.’

‘I’m a survivor, love. I’ve gone through a lot, and I’m still here. And I’ll always be here for you. You know that, don’t you?’

‘I know that.’

‘Except next month, I’ll be away for a few weekends. Festivals. Come with us if you like.’

‘Oh, I should think I’ll be busy,’ I said vaguely.

‘Bring His Lordship if you want,’ she said with a sly smile. ‘He might like a chilled-out weekend under canvas.’

‘There’s nothing going on between me and Joss,’ I lied. Even as I said the words, I hoped one of her festival weekends might coincide with one of His Nibs’s visits to Willingham. Joss could come and stay with me.

I had to repeat this line on Friday night, when Joss rang and said he was in van number 216 and could I bring him some bed linen, as he hadn’t realised he had to provide his own.

I laughed at the thought of him looking with dismay at the bare mattress and pillows and asked if His Lordship had any further requests.

‘Just bring yourself,’ he growled.

‘Have a nice night,’ said Mum archly as I sailed out of the door with a pile of her hand-knitted blankets and throws.

‘It’s work,’ I insisted, and she laughed as if she’d smoked sixteen joints, which she hadn’t – at least, not yet.

Joss was sitting on the steps of the van when I pulled up. The early-evening sunshine was sporadic, occasionally blanketed by low, thunderously dark clouds, but it was very warm and Joss was in knee-length chino shorts with his linen shirt undone, exposing his chest. His feet were bare and he was reading Keats.

‘Back on the Romantics?’ I said, looking pointedly at the spine.

‘Your favourites and mine,’ he said, shutting the book. ‘
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
, to be precise.’

‘“O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering?”’ I quoted. He was more tanned than palely loitering, truth be told, but the well-loved words still seemed apposite.

‘“I met a lady in the meads,”’ he replied. ‘“Full beautiful – a faery’s child/Her hair was long, her foot was light,/And her eyes were wild.”’

‘Has she gone now?’ I asked lightly, my foot on the lowest step.

‘No,’ he said, looking up. How he could accuse me of having wild eyes, when his own …

I took the book from his hands and snapped it shut.

‘How are you finding my elfin grot?’ I asked, shoving past him to the open doorway.

He laughed uncertainly and rose to follow me.

‘Grot isn’t far wrong,’ he said. ‘And it’s certainly on an elfin scale.’

I went into the bedroom and threw the bag of linen on to the bare mattress.

‘Right,’ I said, turning to face him. ‘When you’re used to Willingham Hall it is. To me, it looks pretty normal.’

‘How the hell did you and your mother manage in a place like this for all those years? You must have been constantly tripping over each other.’

‘This is actually bigger than her current flat,’ I told him, sarcastically mirroring his aghast look. ‘Yeah. How the other half lives.’

‘Are you my other half then?’ he said in a low voice, leaning on the door frame so I couldn’t get past him.

‘More like my polar opposite,’ I said. ‘Rich versus poor. Idler versus worker.’

‘Man versus woman,’ he said. ‘Dominant versus submissive.’

I swallowed. There was some very buzzy air between us. I could almost hear it crackle.

‘Can I get past, please?’

‘Please, sir,’ he prompted.

‘Yeah, yeah, please, sir.’

He stood aside.

‘I might not have brought bed linen but I didn’t forget my riding crop,’ he said as I passed by. I clenched, hoping he couldn’t see me shut my eyes in a swoony manner. I made it to the living area without collapsing and sat down at the little dining table.

‘I have completed the next stage of the quest,’ he said, coming to sit opposite me. ‘All my test results are clear.’

‘Thank God for that.’

‘So, will you tie your ribbon to my lance?’

I laughed, not understanding him at first.

‘Is that some kind of weird bondage practice?’

‘No, you know. Metaphorically. I’m your knightly champion. You’re my lady.’

‘Strikes me,’ I said, ‘that you’ve always been the Belle Dame Sans Merci in our relationship. I’m the poor bugger who gets sucked in too deep.’

‘Not any more,’ he said softly. ‘Not now.’

He was dangerously close to nailing me, but at the last minute I remembered that he was a master of the art of reeling women in with poetry and I slammed my palms on the table and said, ‘So!’

‘So?’

‘Here we are, then.’

‘Yes. So it seems.’

‘What’s the plan, man?’ I looked down at his hands on the table, remembering what they did to me last time. I wondered if it hurt his palm when he spanked me.
He spanked me.
The knowledge slid luxuriously through my brain then plunged downwards to my belly and my sex. He did that thing to me. I let him. I wanted it.

The power of speech seemed to have left him, too, because all he did for ages was look at me. His eyes, unnervingly intense at the best of times, became the whole room, wiping out the gas fire and the kitchenette until only their twin vortices of dark, deep brown were left in there.

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ he said at last, and my whole body spasmed, quite involuntarily and annoyingly.

‘Joss,’ I said, a mixture of plea and reproof. ‘Don’t.’

‘All right,’ he said, finally lifting the beam of oppression and directing his gaze towards the ceiling instead. ‘We’re consolidating and building on what you’ve already learned. You’ve learned the positions. You’ve learned to address me respectfully and obey my commands. You’ve learned how hard a spanking you can take. The next thing I want to do involves rope.’

‘Rope? Bondage.’ This was suddenly much more frightening than it had been in my imagination.

‘Very mild bondage,’ he reassured. ‘Nothing that will cause you pain or discomfort.’

‘Right.’

‘Some of the people I know on the scene are huge fans of bondage for its own sake,’ he said. ‘They like to bind their subs in the most amazing contortions. It’s an art form and an expression of their dynamic at the same time. It’s quite lovely to look at, but I don’t have the patience for it, I’m afraid, nor the artistic temperament.’

‘Oh, you do.’

‘Well, let’s say I’m a words man more than a pictures man. I think you’re the same.’

I supposed that was a fair assumption. I was firmly in the same camp as those who didn’t know about art but knew what they liked.

‘The aesthetic side of BDSM is often amazing, but it isn’t the primary focus for me,’ he continued. ‘Not that I can resist a beautifully presented set of cane stripes, or a cunningly designed leather harness,’ he mused, his eyes clouding with lust. ‘God, no. I’m only human. Kinky. Kinky human.’

‘What is the primary focus for you then?’ I asked him.

‘It’s about the headspace. I can’t describe it without sounding insane, but it’s a mix of power and tenderness and ownership and desire and … ugh. Well, as I said, it makes me sound quite mad, but my fellow doms would understand.’

‘I wish I could experience what you feel, just for a few minutes or so,’ I said. ‘I’d like to be able to understand it.’

‘You wouldn’t like it in my head, Lulu,’ he said, and something about his tone made my heart ache.

‘Mine isn’t exactly a party boat,’ I said gently.

‘I know.’

He reached for my hands and we clasped. It was too much. I had a lump in my throat. He lifted my fingers to his lips and kissed them.

‘I want to explain,’ he started, but I was in a blind panic, my heart too wide open, my emotions spilling all over the place.

‘Not now,’ I flustered, trying to prise my fingers from his. ‘Get the rope out. Let’s do what you planned first.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’ll need the bed made up then. You do that and I’ll get the rope and the other accessories.’

Other accessories.

These were on my mind as I busied myself with sheets and pillowcases. He had already mentioned the riding crop. My bottom tingled in anticipation, apparently connected to my imagination. I pictured Joss swiping it through the air until it landed with a fearsome crack upon the curve of my rear cheeks. Oh, that would hurt. It would leave quite a mark. I put my hand beneath the hem of my T-shirt dress and felt my buttocks, rubbing the cotton that covered them. What state would they be in later?