The Red Collection (31 page)

The longer he read, the more nervy and unstable Joanna became. She felt as if she were teetering on the brink of doing something ridiculous and fool-hardy, and she discovered, to her surprise and horror, that her fingertips were touching the
welts
of her stockings. And stealing inwards. She gasped in shock when her Master suddenly spoke.

‘You’ll regret it, Joanna,’ he said without looking up.

Her heart thumping, she linked her fingers behind her back.

Mercifully, the Côte Mystère report did not take too much longer to read. Joanna had done her best to make it comprehensive, yet precise. Tapping the file shut, her Master laid aside the tablet and looked up at her, folding his long hands lightly on the desk before him. From behind his glasses, his sharp eyes appraised her.

‘Well done,’ he remarked, one finger stroking the edge of the tablet. ‘A pity though, that you could not have done this well first time around …’ He paused, a familiar expression coming into his eyes. A look that was both fierce and dreamy. ‘You could have saved yourself a great deal of suffering, Joanna.’

‘I know that,’ Joanna replied, experiencing her exposure and desire acutely. Both seemed to feed off the other, their fires stoked by a real and potent fear. She had a classic love – hate relationship with what was about to happen to her, just as she adored her Master, yet still bristled against his total control of her.

There was a long pause while her Master simply stared at her, his gaze intent on her suspenders and her knickers.

‘Lower your panties,’ he said suddenly, the light in his eyes, behind his glasses, unchanging. He rose from behind his desk, and as he did so, Joanna nervously hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her knickers, knowing that the deed must be done before he reached her. Quickly, she skinned down the thin white briefs as far as her knees, then left them there, bunched up, as he preferred. She wrinkled
her
nose as she caught the scent of her own arousal, rising up from her crotch, and from the anointed gusset of her underwear, then blushed hard as her Master reached her, smiling.

He walked around her, passing so close that their bodies briefly touched, then he stood behind her and settled his hands on her bottom. ‘Delightful,’ he murmured, flexing his cool fingers and caressing each lobe. ‘Simply delightful … ‘he repeated, lifting and parting them.

Joanna moaned and pushed her buttocks toward him.

‘Have a care, Joanna,’ he whispered, his mouth brushing the back of her neck while his hands oh-so-slowly manipulated her. ‘Remember why you’re here.’

Joanna hung her head, fighting her weakness, her burgeoning desire. Why wouldn’t he start? Begin her punishment? Tan her behind until she cried and begged for mercy?

As if he’d heard her plea, her Master suddenly released her. ‘Come along then,’ he said briskly, ‘Let’s have you across my knee … Hurry up!’ Stepping away, he drew out a tall, straight chair from against the wall where it had been standing, and sank down onto it with an easy, studied grace. Then he tapped his lap.

Joanna needed no further urging. Shuffling forward, hampered by her knickers, she moved towards him, then tipped over his dark-clad knees and struck her pose.

She always liked to savour this moment. It was like standing on a diving board, or in the open hatch of an aircraft wearing a parachute. Her Master understood about hesitation – he never felt it, but he knew she did. He allowed her these few seconds to explore her feelings, to change her mind if she needed to. She never had changed her mind –
because
she had never wanted to – but the chance was there, if ever she should need it.

The moments ticked by, and the opportunity to turn back was gone. She felt his hand settle on her bare bottom, testing her again, but more stringently this time, squeezing the flesh with his steely fingers and palpating it. One fingertip slid down along the division between her buttocks, then pressed at her tight rear closure – just for an instant, but so firmly it make her gasp.

Her Master answered the gasp with a sigh. An impatient sigh. Her involuntary exclamation was not a sign of acquiescence, and now she’d passed the point of no return, she was his and she must accept his every whim. Or at least try to.

‘Are you ready then?’ he enquired, still touching her.

‘Yes … Yes I am,’ she said quietly, suffering the delicious torment of his fingers in her sex-cleft.

‘Excellent,’ he said crisply, then began the spanking.

It hurt, and as ever Joanna had to concentrate intently to prevent herself crying out. Her Master’s hand seemed to have acquired a new and alien texture. It was no longer the gentle, soft-skinned hand that could caress her body so lovingly, but a new extremity that was as hard as stone and could move with blinding speed.

As the smacks built up, and the sensations of pain and heat grew rapidly in her buttocks, Joanna asked herself, as she always did, why she let this happen.

Why?
she posed as her Master’s skilful hand kissed the crown of her right bottom-cheek, then matched it with a stinging impact to the left. He was creating a pattern now, a design of crimson soreness and susceptibility, a redness to match the aura of his beautiful room. The slaps went up
and
down, and from side to side over the whole area of her tautly toned backside. Occasionally, he would stray down to the upper area of her thighs – in the zone delineated by her stocking top and the crease where thigh and buttock met – and decorate her there with the same glowing ornament. It was an area where her skin seemed especially tender, and his attentions there made Joanna grit her teeth. Her cries and whimpers she still held back, but only barely.

Just with his hands
, she thought, struggling for control, for lucidity as her pulsing, flaming rear consumed her senses. He’d hardly begun yet, and already her resolve was crumbling. And a groan escaped her when a deft spank caught her anus.

The fact that he’d invoked a cry clearly pleased her Master. He struck again at the same site. And again. Then repeatedly. Joanna heard an uncouth choking yelp, and knew it was coming from her own lips, but she was too consumed by the waves of feeling to suppress her noise. It seemed as if she had passed inside herself somehow, her whole consciousness was settled in the area of skin and flesh that lay beneath the volley of impacts. The rest of her body was operating on auto pilot. The mouth that cried and keened. The eyes that watered, and so shamingly wept. The legs that kicked. The sex that grew so puffy and engorged … and also wet.

‘Oh God,’ she moaned, feeling her Master perform a devilish trick. He had grasped one coral-pink buttock in his hand, the pressure of his fingertips a pain in itself, and was stretching open her anal cleft to create a target. Each blow now landed fair and square across the portal of her bottom, a zone where he knew she feared it most.

‘Agh!’ she yelped, her feet flailing through the air, as a sharper slap made her seething vulva quiver.

‘Not so stoic now, my love,’ whispered her Master,
inclining
his lithe body over hers. His lips moved gently against her ear as his fingers cruised her backside, stirring her anguish with the tips of his dragging nails. He paused again at the vent of her anus, prodding the inflamed little entrance in a vulgar rhythm. ‘You can’t help yourself at all now, can you?’ he quizzed her softly. ‘I hurt you … Hurt you right there –’ he pressed again, making her whimper ‘– and all it does is arouse you even more.’ The finger stopped pushing but remained exactly where it was.

Making a supreme effort, Joanna remained still, although every nerve in her was screaming that she move; that she grind her pelvis against his knee and immediately come. It seemed perverse to resist a climax, he’d made her suffer enough for it. Even with his only hand, he’d turned her buttocks into slabs of fire.

But there was a pride in her that still forced her to defy him. It always did. It was the wild and stubborn heart of her that was as dominant as he was, and which always brought her submissive side to grief. Closing in on herself, she ignored her dripping and swollen crotch. She ignored the agony that smouldered in her bottom cheeks. She ignored the delicate, invasive fingertip that sought to enter her rectum. She gritted her teeth, and raised her bottom, to invite him still more.

Her Master laughed. ‘It’s like that is it?’ he said, and though she couldn’t see it, she imagined his glacial eyes warming and dancing with amusement, and a smile spreading across his chiselled, handsome face. He loved her to fight him. He delighted in the defiance that gave him permission to test her limits. He pushed his finger a little way into her bottom, and, though it was just what she didn’t want to do, Joanna squealed. She heard him laugh again, but the finger was swiftly removed.

His hand touched her back, almost caressingly, as he spoke again. ‘It was such a little slip up, my darling. Just a figure transposed. Nothing really.’ He sounded amused, mock-regretful, profoundly happy. And so he should be, he’d got exactly what he wanted. ‘A hand spanking would have sufficed …’ He stroked her back encouragingly, through her jacket, seeming to ignore the crimson lobes that beckoned below. ‘But you leave me no choice now.’ His voice was jubilant, full of excitement, but strangely tender. ‘There’s no remorse in you yet, Joanna. No genuine regret over anything.’ He paused. For effect. She just knew it. ‘It will pain us both, but you clearly need a sterner test.’ He gave her a pat – on the bottom this time, which made her yap – then helped her, with some difficulty on her part, to get to her feet.

‘Please remove all your clothes, my dear,’ he said, leaving her swaying as he walked around to the back of his desk. ‘Every stitch.’ He opened a drawer, seemed to debate for a moment, then took out a thick leather strap about a foot in length. ‘But you may bring me your panties, because I’m sure we can put them to use.’ He ran a contemplative finger over the length of supple black hide in his hand, tracing its texture and the way it was divided into three equal tongues. ‘You’re likely to scream soon … and I can’t concentrate when the noise gets too loud.’

Oh God
, thought Joanna as she undid the buttons of her jacket, her fingers trembling.
Why do I always ask for this?
she demanded of herself, stripping off her blouse and revealing her thin silk bra beneath. When her body was naked, she stood there defenceless, her knickers in her hand.

Because you love it
, answered her submissive self as she walked towards the desk and prepared to lay herself over it.
Because
you love
him, she thought, watching her Master’s long fingers caress the menacing black taws.

‘I hope there won’t be any more problems with Côte Mystère, my darling,’ said Joanna’s Master later, as she lay panting across his denim-clad knees in the scarlet study. She wasn’t face down this time, but the torment she felt now was as bad as a spanking – because his rough-textured jeans were harsh against her hot, punished rump.

The discomfort would have been less, she supposed, if she could have managed to keep still. But the way he was touching her – in the cleft between her legs – kept her well-whipped cheeks in motion.

‘I’ll do my best,’ she gasped, ‘but I can’t make promises … Things … Agh! Oh God! Th-things happen …’

‘I know that,’ he said, kissing her throat as she climaxed. ‘But I want everything to be perfect next time we go to Côte Mystère. I’ve bought a new birching trestle. And I’ve put it in the south cellar. All ready for you.’

Joanna’s head felt as light as a feather set adrift on a stream. She was sore, terribly sore, but at the same time sublimely relaxed. Her bottom was in agony, but she was blissfully happy. She was deeply in love.

Her Master was obviously pleased with life too. He’d removed his glasses, and his bright, teasing eyes were now twinkling like stars. They were so blue, as Joanna looked up at them, so sweet and wise. She raised a hand and tousled his thick smoky hair, flicking it forward from its combed-back severity into his usual endearingly floppy fringe. He smiled, his expression indulgent as he let her have her way.

‘I love you, Master,’ she whispered, brushing her fingers over his brow, his elegant cheekbone, his firm, chiselled chin.

Beneath her touch, he shifted his face, then pressed his lips against her palm before he spoke. ‘I love you too, Joanna.’ He placed his hand over hers, caressing her gently with the same living weapon that had not long ago turned her bottom-flesh to flame. ‘But I’m just Kevin now … Just ordinary Kevin. Not your Master anymore.’

Joanna laughed. ‘No, not until next time there’s a problem with Côte Mystère … or any other damned thing you can conjure up out of thin air to get me into this abominable red lair of yours!’

Swirling her bottom on his lap, she felt his erection swell and jerk, then echoed his gasp with her moan of pain and joy.

Ill Met by Moonlight

1

IT WAS A
dream. She knew it was a dream. But somehow that didn’t seem to matter.

She was in a warm place, and she was deliciously, tropically warm. And, even though she didn’t recognise her surroundings, she felt as safe and enclosed as if someone she loved and trusted was holding her tight.

Sniffing the air, she caught the scents of pine and balsam. Woodsy odours that were both clean and earthy at the same time.

She was waiting for a man. She’d been waiting for him quite a while, but somehow that didn’t seem to matter either. Just to be here, relaxed and ready, was a pleasure.

Who are you? Do I know you?

Lois wondered if it might be Oliver, her ex. But why would she be waiting for him, even in this floating unreality? They’d parted ages ago, in an easy break, and, when she was awake, she barely ever thought of him … so why suddenly dream about him now?

In their heyday, though, the sex had been good. So maybe that was the reason? She was horny, so her body had fixed
on
its last source of satisfaction – other than her by own efforts. She remembered some of Ollie’s finer moments with a twinge of hot nostalgia.