Tabula Rasa (18 page)

Shannon crossed the expansive space and sat in a large black leather
chair across the room. From this vantage point, he silently and
unnervingly watched me. Unconsciously, my fingers strayed to my hair
to fix imaginary flyaways. I licked my lips. I became paranoid
something was on my face from dinner. I straightened my clothes and
shifted my weight.

“What are you doing?” I asked, finally unable to stand the
silence any longer.

“I’m studying.”

This went on for another several minutes. After a while, I couldn’t
take it anymore and sat on the floor.

“Did I tell you you could sit?” he asked.

“N-no, Sir.” I said, remembering what he’d asked me to call him
when we were like this. I quickly stood back up.

“When we are down here, you make no independent decisions. Your
only decision is whether or not to obey my orders immediately.”

I didn’t have to ask what would happen if I didn’t. Looking
around the basement, I realized this place was even more of an
outfitted dungeon than I’d thought. He must have kept some things
put away during the party, because now that everything was out on
display, I noticed there was some extra bondage furniture I hadn’t
noticed the other night.

There was also a big box of toys and implements that hung from
shining silver hooks in the exposed brick wall that hadn’t been
there during the party. The recessed lights in the ceiling cast
bright spotlights on everything. I stood inside the pool of one of
those lights. There was an empty unobstructed path between me and
Shannon. Was he waiting for me to come to him?

I was about to ask what he wanted from me when he spoke again.

“Are you ready to begin, Elodie?”

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Y-yes, Sir.”

He stood and went around behind the chair and retrieved a couple of
decorated bags that had clearly come from nice stores. He crossed the
room, set the bags down at my feet, then went back to the other end
of the room and resumed his reclining.

“Put the lingerie on. You can use the furniture if you need to sit
for part of it.”

By this point, the contents of the bag weren’t surprising, though
the quality was. Inside one bag was the most supple black leather
lingerie: a mini-skirt with slits up the side, and a corset of the
same color with material that didn’t cover the breasts. Inside the
second bag were thigh-high shiny black heeled boots with laces that
looked at though they would take ages to get on.

Shannon watched from across the room, his expression indiscernible.
“I would like you to consider this performance art, Elodie.
Entertain me.”

I started to remove the glasses.

“No. Leave those on. I like the way they look on you.”

I left them and slowly took off the shoes and dress I’d worn to his
parents’ house. Music began to drift through the space from the
speakers located near the ceiling at the four corners of the room.
When I looked back at Shannon, there was a tiny black remote in his
hand. The music was hard to describe—sort of an electric drumbeat
with other lighter instruments layered on top.

Almost as if it possessed me, I began to move to it, forgetting to be
self-conscious. He’d seen everything already anyway, what was a
little strip tease? My panties and bra joined the pile, and then I
began to dress in the lingerie as slowly and provocatively as I’d
taken the other clothing off.

I was right, lacing up the boots took a small eternity. And I had to
sit on a spanking bench to get it accomplished. The bench was just a
few feet to the left of where I’d stood previously and had another
spotlight shining on it.

I started to get up, but Shannon’s voice stopped me.

“Spread your legs and show me your cunt. Look me in the eyes while
you do it.”

The last part was the hardest part. He held my gaze for nearly a full
minute—I counted the seconds, my breath unconsciously held the
entire time—and then his gaze dropped to the flesh I’d exposed
between my legs.

“Stroke yourself. Feel how wet you are.”

My fingers moved between my legs, rubbing circles over my clit in
light butterfly touches.

“Keep your eyes on mine,” he said.

I was almost to the edge of my orgasm when he said, “Stop. Now,
walk over to me.”

I started to walk carefully across the floor, afraid of damaging it.

“No,” Shannon said. “I want to hear the heels strike the floor
and echo along the walls. You have to walk with purpose for that to
happen. Go back and start again.”

I went back to the spotlight I’d been standing under and hesitated.

“Well?”

“Sir, I can’t. These heels will mess up the floor if I walk any
harder. It’ll put little dents in it.”

Shannon smiled broadly. “And you’re afraid if you put dents in my
floor, I’ll punish you.”

I nodded.

“You’re right about the dents and the punishment. Now walk. I
want to hear it.”

He wanted me to walk across the floor in such a way that ensured I
would damage it and invite retribution. So I walked, exactly as he’d
asked, across the polished wood to him. When I reached his side, he
got out of the chair.

“Don’t move. I need to inspect the damage.” He walked slowly
across the floor and then slowly back, studying and counting and
recounting the dents my high-heeled boots had made in his beautiful
floor.

“Twenty-eight,” he said finally. “I counted twice.” He shook
his head as if disappointed. “Whatever will I do with you for
putting twenty-eight dents in my floor? So many thrilling
possibilities.”

He moved in close to me, his lips brushing my ear. “I think we both
know what kind of girl you are, don’t we?”

Yes, I think we did both know. I could feel the excitement dripping
down my thighs as much from the thrill of hurting his floor and
knowing what it would mean as from the almost-orgasm. Shannon parted
my legs with one hand, slipping a finger inside me. “My filthy
little whore.” His voice was practically a growl. “Go get on the
bed.”

I crossed to the bed, walking as carefully as I could so I wouldn’t
put any more dents in the floor.

“Not that bed,” he said. “The bondage bed.”

I turned toward where he pointed. The bondage bed was an elevated
table-like piece of furniture covered in black leather. There were
various shiny rings around it as well as a shiny silver pole affixed
to each corner, allowing a wide variety of bondage options.

“On your stomach,” Shannon said when I reached it.

I climbed onto the table and lay on my stomach. He came up behind me
and spread my legs and arms out wide. He produced leather cuffs from
the box and put them around my wrists and my ankles over the boots.
Then he connected them to rings at the edges of the bed. He carefully
unhooked the back of the corset and opened it so that my back was
bare. Then he flipped the skirt up so he could get a clear view of my
ass.

“You like being exposed this way, don’t you, you little slut?”

“Yes, Sir.” I didn’t even think I was lying. I did like it. I
liked the way the cool air flowed over my skin and then how just as
quickly it heated again from his eyes on me.

He took a blindfold from the box and covered my eyes. I heard him
going back and forth across the floor and wasn’t sure if he was
collecting items he planned to use on me or if he was just pacing.
There was a deliberate, measured sense about his movements that
suggested the latter.

“Elodie... Elodie... Elodie...” he said it in a slow sing-song
voice, dragging out the syllables. The way he said my name sent ice
cold fear shooting through my veins and a trail of goosebumps moving
down my spine.

Finally, he stopped beside me, his lips again brushing my ear.
“Elodie, I tried so hard to be a good boy where you are concerned.
But then you had to come down into the basement. I wonder, did you
think the other night was all I planned to do with you?”

“No... No, Sir.”

“Are you going to cry for me like a good girl? It will make me so
happy if you cry for me.”

“Y-yes, Sir.”

I heard something light thud gently on the table next to me, and I
flinched. Shannon just chuckled in response. “You’re terrified of
me.” He didn’t say it like he was displeased about that fact.

Somehow I had faith that whatever happened in here wouldn’t
permanently damage me, that even if I couldn’t trust in some sense
of humanity in him, I could trust that he wanted to keep doing this
enough to be careful with me. And I knew from the length of time he’d
had the white cat that Shannon was capable of caring for fragile
living things.

I gasped as his hands slid under my breasts. He stroked them for a
moment, and then something hard and metal closed around each nipple.

“Ow!”

“Just wait until they come off,” he said, chuckling.

He walked away for a moment, rummaging in the box, then returned. He
pressed what felt like a rubber ball, about the size of his fist,
between my legs. Then he secured it to me with straps which he
wrapped around my body and buckled in place.

A humming vibration began.

Before I had time to enjoy that, he dragged something that felt like
several long leather cords gently across my back.

“Twenty-eight dents in my floor,” he said. Then I heard and felt
him climb up on the table with me.

I jerked in my bonds when his warm tongue stroked from the base of my
spine all the way up between my shoulder blades. A moment later, the
flogger came down hard across my back.

“One,” he said with the kind of satisfaction I was sure only
killing normally gave him.

It was clear he intended to lash me twenty-eight times for the damage
he’d insisted I cause to his floor. I gasped after each stinging
blow, but I didn’t beg him to stop. I knew it wouldn’t do any
good, and a fucked-up side of me that I was sure had done this before
didn’t want him to.

After the tenth lash he said, “Where are those tears, Elodie? Don’t
disappoint me now.”

I could only imagine what disappointing him could mean, so I stopped
trying to be brave and strong and tough and I let each strip of
leather cord coax the tears and pain out of me until I was crying so
hard I wasn’t sure if I would be able to stop.

“Good girl,” he said.

When he was finished, and I had a stripe across my back for each
little mark I’d put on his floor, he put the flogger down and
started to caress me. First he ran his fingertips over my back where
I could feel the tender flesh welting up. Then he moved a hand
between my legs and pressed it over the vibrating ball I’d almost
forgotten about. He pushed it against me, then released the pressure
and rolled it around on my rapidly moistening skin. He used the
vibrating ball to massage me until I came in a cry more forceful than
anything that had come before.

After the pleasure had run its course, he turned the ball off and
unbuckled the straps and took it off me, then I felt him enter me
from behind. He was rigidly hard, my tears having the same effect on
him and his anatomy that they’d had the night before. He drove into
me in a kind of frenzy for several minutes while the music in the
room blanketed us in drumbeats and some exotic wind instrument.

When he came, his weight fell heavy against me for a moment. Then he
rolled off me. The blindfold came off then, and I could see he lay
next to me, his eyes locked with mine, staring intently. I would have
looked away except that I couldn’t turn my head easily the way I
was bound. He brushed my hair out of my eyes.

A few moments passed like this, and then his hands moved to my
breasts again, and he removed the clamps. The pain was as exquisite
as promised.

“Fuck, Shannon!” I shouted.

He struck my ass with his palm. “Sir,” he corrected.

But I couldn’t imagine screaming “Fuck, Sir!” at him would have
been much better.

He moved behind me again and massaged a soothing gel into my back,
then he refastened my corset and pulled my skirt down. He uncuffed me
and then he carried me upstairs to my bedroom and put me to bed.

***

That night, I had another nightmare. Only this time it was different.
It wasn’t the park. It was a memory from before the park. I was
studying for my Master’s degree in Botany at the University of
Washington. I was in the biology lab, my professor standing behind
me. He was far too close for my comfort, as if he didn’t believe in
the concept of personal bubbles.

His hands slid under my shirt, and then underneath my bra to stroke
my nipples. He wasn’t even subtle. He had no shame about the brazen
act at all. He acted as if he were entitled to this, but he wasn’t.
This wasn’t a repeat occurrence. It was something new. And the
boldness of the act shocked me.

I pulled away, trying to shift out of his grasp, trying to pretend
what was happening wasn’t happening. I wasn’t into Professor
Stevens. Not that way. I respected his mind. I’d been thrilled to
get to study with him, but this had not been a part of the course
work I’d signed on for.

He smelled of scotch and cheap cigar smoke as he leaned in close to
my ear. “Elodie, come on now, we all know what kind of girl you
are.”

From the moment he’d walked in on a private sex party a few of the
students had thrown together at one of the frat houses—one I’d
been at—I’d been his number one target. Because certainly if I
liked to be tied up and whipped and fucked by half a dozen frat boys,
I must have no morals at all. I must have no limits. There must exist
no man that I could legitimately say
no
to. How could I even
have that right anymore when I’d said
yes
so many times?

If I said no, then I was just being selfish and terrible because, of
course, I was
that kind of girl
. In my grandmother’s
generation
that kind of girl
had been as tame as a woman who
would blow her own husband. In my mother’s it had been the girl
who’d slept with a couple of different men before marriage. In my
generation it was the freaky ones. That bold, open freakiness made
unsavory men believe that it was all up for grabs and that the word
no
, simply wasn’t allowed if you were
that kind of girl
.