Master Stephen (2 page)

I realized, with crippling embarrassment, that he didn’t have any intention of talking to me and my silly little idea of us getting together, even only for one scene, was rapidly becoming a pipe dream. I pushed off the wall, ready to make a dignified exit, to walk off as though I hadn’t spoken to him at all. That would be best. Not to make a fuss.

He reached out and clamped his hand around my wrist, preventing me from going anywhere. I stared down at my arm, blinking. Heat seared into my skin, his hold firm and, if I were honest, it was hurting me. I glanced up to find he wasn’t even looking at me but in the direction of the cross.

“You’re hurting me, Sir.” I narrowed my eyes. Wondered if my earlier idea of him not being a very nice person had been spot on. “Please take your hand off me.”

He loosened his hold but didn’t let go. “Stay with me?”

“I would, but it doesn’t seem like you want any company—not really. You’re always alone here, Sir, and I think I’ve overstepped the mark, entered your personal space.”

“If I asked you to stay, I meant it. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t. What would be the point in that?”

I sighed quietly. “I don’t know, Sir, but your body language, the way you’re not even looking at me… I find it odd. A bit disconcerting, if I’m honest. It’s probably better that I go, leave you to do…whatever.”

“I’m not very good at this,” he said. “This…
This.
”

I frowned. I’d been watching him for long enough to know he appeared to be very good at
this
. At being a Master. So it was a puzzle as to what he’d actually meant.

“I don’t understand, Sir. What’s
this?
”

“One on one,” he said.

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“I think so.”

I leaned back against the wall again, him still holding my wrist, and waited to see if he’d say anything else. It was a long wait.

Then, “I find it difficult to approach people with a view to asking them to sub for me on a regular basis.” He cleared his throat. “I can Master, but I’m not too good with the relationship side of it.” He laughed. “A Dom who isn’t emotionally strong. Possibly not something you hear about every day, is it?”

I thought about how I maybe wasn’t your usual sub. “I can relate to that, Sir. There are things I like, things I want, that may make me seem as though I’m not proper sub material. I get caught up in the rules, how I’m supposed to act and feel, when inside I just want what I want.” I paused to grab a cheeky glimpse of him. “I probably don’t belong here at all.”

He turned and saw me looking, blushed at being caught observing me. But he didn’t turn away. He stared at me as if he were feasting, like he’d wanted to do it for a long time but hadn’t dared.

“I like you,” he said. “Have done for a while.”

“You do? You have?” I sounded dumb, but his admission had surprised and shocked me. I’d gone all this time thinking he’d never taken any notice at all.

“Yes, but each time you’re near, I feel like I’ve gone back to high school. Tongue-tied. Not worthy.”

“Goodness,” I said, not knowing what else to say. “I had no idea.”

“No, I don’t think you ever caught me looking until now.” He smiled, glancing away into the distance, perhaps thinking of the times he’d watched me.

“I didn’t.”

Boldly, I reached out and touched his jaw, pushed his face a little so his attention shifted from the scenes in his head to me.

“Sir, would you like to have a drink? To talk?”

My heart pounded while I awaited his response. If he said no thanks, I’d know it was because he seemed to suffer from shyness. But if he said yes…that would be nice, wouldn’t it?

“I can’t say I’ll be any good at it,” he said, lowering his eyes. “But I’ll give it a go.”

“You might want to give making eye contact a go as well, Sir. If you don’t mind me saying, you not looking directly at me makes me think you’ve got some sub in you.”

That gave him a jolt. He stared right at me.

“Sub in me? No, just a touch of shyness.”

“Then maybe it’s about time you ditched that, Sir. If it’s only a touch, it’ll be easy to get rid of, won’t it.” I walked two steps, tugged my arm.

He didn’t let go. And he pushed off the wall to follow.

“I’ll give it a go,” he said.

“Good. Come on then. I fancy a lemonade.”

Chapter Two

Switching roles wasn’t something I’d contemplated doing at any time, but here I was, sitting beside Master Stephen and being the one who seemed to have more Mistress about her than sub. Then again, I was acting as if I thought everything always had to be about the lifestyle, when actually, we were just being people, our personalities shining through. To be a Master didn’t mean he had to be strong and confident at all times, and to be a sub didn’t mean I had to be meek and mild.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Sir, do you find it easier to play with someone else’s sub?”

I paused to gauge his reaction—he appeared somber and somewhat ashamed of himself, with his eyes half closed and his mouth downturned.

“I mean, it must be something you enjoy doing, otherwise you wouldn’t do it, but what I’m getting at is, do you find it less hassle to approach subs who are already attached so that if you get rejected you can tell yourself it’s because they belong to someone else?” I realized that had sounded a bit too psychoanalyst, but it was out now and I couldn’t unsay it.

“Maybe.” He shrugged, sipped his Coke. “Coming here and using the voyeur rooms… I thought it would give me some confidence, help me to see that I can just go up to someone, wait for their Master’s nod, then take what I want, join in. The frustrating thing is, what I want isn’t so readily available.”

“What do you want?”

“A permanent sub. Someone I can learn with. Someone who understands me, accepts that although I can be dominant at times, I may not always be that way. I’m confused as to who and what I really am, so really”—he huffed out a laugh—“I shouldn’t be here. Not until I’m sure of myself, at any rate.”

He moved as if to leave, and I put my hand on his arm.

“Sir?”

He stilled—expression that of caught-in-the-act syndrome—and stared at the floor.

“If you keep running away, Sir, you’ll never get over it. The shyness.”

He relaxed a bit, like he might actually stay.

“But if you want, you can sit here, talk to me, or listen to me talk if you’d rather, and who knows, by the end of the night, you might understand yourself a bit more.”

Talking to him was better than not being noticed by him, but then he’d said he had noticed me. I could build on that, hold onto it—I might get what I’d been waiting for after all.

He sat back, picked up his Coke and toyed with the glass in his lap, twirling it around and around. Condensation dripped onto his fingers, and it brought to mind the stark visual of cum, of how his hand might look after he’d wanked and spilt. I blushed a bit at that, wondering what he’d think if I told him what I’d just seen in my head.

“I should have known you’d be nice,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows, reached for my lemonade then took a sip to compose myself. What he’d said had startled me—that he’d thought of me in that way when all along I’d had the impression he hadn’t thought of me at all. “Really? How so?”

“Oh, I don’t know, there’s just something about you. The way you move, the way you look at people, as though you give a shit. I can’t explain it any better than that, sorry.”

Just when had he been looking at me long enough to come up with that analysis? I’d thought, when I’d been here previously, that most of my time had been spent looking at him—there hadn’t been much chance of him being able to study me. “Not being funny, Sir, but the amount of times you’ve been able to look at me in the past without me knowing have been few and far between. And also, you might be very wrong about what I’m like.” I took another sip. Swallowed. “Because I got several impressions from watching you, and I think I’m wrong about all of them. Do you want to hear them?”

He folded his lips in on themselves and darted his eyes from side to side. Wrestling with an inner voice?

“If it won’t sting too much,” he said on a shaky laugh.

“All right then. I thought you might be a bit of an arrogant prick, swanning round taking what you wanted, or a commitment-phobe, or someone who couldn’t keep a sub for any length of time because you may well be an arsehole. Yet it’s the opposite—funny how that happens, isn’t it? What we see isn’t always what we get.”

“You’re right there,” he said. “About the last bit. Not getting what we see. I thought…I tried to be like the other Masters, but that kind of confidence—either you have it or you don’t. And I don’t. At least not when I try to put it into practice. It’s there, inside me, though.”

“But if you’re with the right woman, Sir, it’ll come. With trust and whatnot.”

He nodded. Twirled his glass again. “I’d like to say it would be nice if you were the right woman but I’d better not.”

“And you did say it, Sir, only you made it seem like you didn’t. Tried to sort of hide it. There isn’t any need to do that. Just say things—people know where they stand that way, and it really isn’t that difficult once you start. Try it again.”

He frowned, made to look at me then changed his mind. “What?”

“You know, just say something outright. Doesn’t matter what it is.”

“I’m not sure…”

“I’m trying to help you, Sir.”

“I know but…”

“And you being like this—if I’m honest, you’re lucky I find it endearing. Another woman might tire of it, and that’s probably something you’ve thought about before. So then it becomes a vicious circle. I get it, I really do. But it’s time to stop that. Go on, just say something to me.”

He took a deep breath, then a long pull on his drink. Stared into the distance. “I…” Another deep breath. “The masked ball a few months ago. That was when I watched you.”

Ah, I’d forgotten about that.

“I knew it was you, even with the mask on,” he said, “because of that ring you always wear.”

I immediately twisted it around my finger, a gold signet I’d had since my teens that had once fitted on my middle finger and was now relegated to my pinky.

“And you seemed so fascinated by people,” he said. “Not in the way most of us coming here are, where what we see fuels our desires, but—oh, I don’t know, there was something else there. Like you were genuinely interested in how people work, in understanding them.”

I hadn’t thought of myself in that way before. Viewing me from someone else’s perspective felt a little odd, yet it was what I deserved to feel. I’d told him my impressions of him, and he’d taken them gracefully, yet they might well have stung.

“I suppose I am,” I said. “Interested in people, I mean.”

“Is that why you’re sitting here with me now?” He smiled.

And, damn it, he still hadn’t looked at me.

“What, because I’m interested?” I asked, not expecting an answer. “Yes, Sir. I’ve been interested in you for a long time. Only it didn’t seem like I’d be in with a chance because of those impressions I’d gotten. But—and I’m probably being bold here—maybe I
am
in with a chance. You said you liked me, have done for a while. And you’re looking for a permanent sub—I’m looking for a Master.” I left the words hanging between us for a while. Then I said, “Tell me something to do. Give me an order.”

He stiffened, whether it was from shock at being told what to do by a sub when it ought to be the other way around, I didn’t know, but it didn’t seem likely I’d be getting any orders from him otherwise—and I wanted some. Wanted so badly to hear him sling out a few instructions.

“Just try it, Sir. No one else is watching or listening. No one else cares.”

I glanced around. Other couples were chatting, just enjoying each other’s company. Not one of them looked our way.

“It might help you get into the swing of it, Sir. And who knows, once you try, it, you’ll see you enjoy it, see it fits, and you’ll wonder how you ever went without being like it.”

He shook his head. Frustration bubbled up inside me. Not because he wouldn’t do it, but because it was clear he was struggling, that maybe he
couldn’t
do it. I felt the frustration for him. What he probably was on the inside wasn’t apparent on the outside. In his dreams I’d bet he was dominant, a Master who could command without the slightest hint of insecurity.

“Go on,” I said. “It’s only me and you. A bit of fun between us. Won’t hurt, will it?”

“It might,” he said, smiling tightly.

“Give it a go anyway, Sir. Sometimes the things that hurt turn out to be the best lessons.”

He sucked in a deep breath, let it out, then, “Get down there, between my legs, and put your head in my lap.”

The way he’d said it—the fact that he’d said it at all—took me by surprise, but I hid my initial reaction and did as he’d asked. And oh, resting my cheek on his groin was something I’d wanted to do for ages. Something I thought I wouldn’t
get
to do. He pressed his legs to my outer arms, securing me, and I put my hands in my lap, wishing they were elsewhere but grateful I’d been given the chance to be in this position at all.

“More orders, Sir?”

I crossed my fingers.

He stroked my hair.

My stomach turned somersaults.

“Tell me what you’d like to do,” he said, voice stronger now.

“Suck your cock, Sir.” I’d said something daring on purpose, to draw him out, to let him know it was fine by me if he wanted to get shocking.

He cleared his throat. “Anything else?”

“To stick a finger up your arse while I suck, Sir.”

“Christ…”

“And tug at your ball sac, pinch it, maybe give it a little twist if that was something you’d like me to do.”

“Fuck…”

“And when I’m sucking, Sir, you could pull my hair or twist my nipples—or, if you really wanted to, you could use a tawse and slap my arse with it a few times. And I’d jolt forward with every smack, and your cock would hit the back of my throat. The suction would get stronger. You’d come. I’d swallow. That’s what I’d like to do, Sir.”