The Stranger Master (Vol. 2 - Total Control) (3 page)

Katherine quickly pushed the thought out of her head. She had enough problems right now without having to deal with guilt and betrayal. Her guilt. And her betrayal. She shook her head. If it wasn't Sam then what else could there be?

Her best friend’s father…

Katharine had practically lived at her best-friend’s house when she was younger. They had been friends since birth, and shared everything. Her best friend’s father had been a typical hard-working blue-collar man. Kind and loving, he had never laid an angry hand on anyone. Really? Had her friend’s father been that perfect? Reluctantly, Katherine searched her memories. Her friend’s father had died the year before and in an effort to hinder the pain of grief, she had since tried to avoid thinking about her childhood. But now the situation she found herself in demanded she take a closer look.

And after a while, she thought she had finally found what she was looking for.

Katherine must have been about eight, maybe nine years old. She had been playing out front on the lawn of her best friend’s small semi-detached suburban bungalow, when she had heard her friend’s father shouting in the kitchen. Her friend’s father hardly ever shouted, except when he watched football on TV. Curious, they left their Barbie dolls half buried in the sand- pit and crept into the house by the back door.

Her friend’s mother was pressed up against the refrigerator. Her friend’s father had one hand on the hem of her skirt, which he had pulled up and over his wife's hips to reveal her white underwear. Unseen and silent, Katherine and her best friend watched from the doorway as the man pulled down the woman’s panties until her bare buttocks shone in the late afternoon light. Then he spanked her.

His hand rose and fell upon the woman’s backside. First the left buttock, then the right and then, again and again. Katherine and her friend watched as the woman’s behind change from white to a bright, angry red. Then the man took something from his pocket. Katherine had never seen anything like it before. It was short and plastic, pointed at one end and fat the other. The man pushed the object into the woman’s mouth.

'Make it wet,' the man had said to his wife. She smiled brightly and did as she was told.

After a moment, Katherine saw him take the thing out of the woman’s mouth and slowly, push it into her anus. And all the time, the woman had not moved or made a sound, only a few pleasurable moans. Katherine, too young to understand what she had witnessed, fled out through the doorway and ran back to her dolls. But before she was out of earshot, she had heard the woman say;

'Thank you, Sir.'

After all these years, Katherine finally realised her best friend’s mother had been a secret submissive...

*****

Congratulations, Kitten, you have passed the test. Now we can begin with your education...

The text arrived just as Katharine’s doubts were highest and her self esteem lowest. The knowledge that she had seen sexual domination in her younger years suggested to her that she had no real choice in this matter. She felt it was a kind of
inevitable that she would be led down the path of sexual servitude. Katherine felt relieved. She could continue playing the game and not feel bad about any of it. She was liberated.

She had spoken briefly with Sam that morning. Just the nondescript 'Hi...howya'...doin?' kind of phone conversation, but both had been on their guard, listening intently for innuendos, each aware that the simple misuse of a word or sentence could mean the end of their relationship. Katherine had hung up with a feeling of impending regret.

Within seconds of talking to Sam, her phone had buzzed again with Dominick’s text. She was instantly thrown into a state of consternation and confusion. One moment she had decided to end it all and try to get back with her husband; the next her body glowed with the carnal curiosity and appetite of a woman struggling to control her newfound sexual awareness.

She sat at the kitchen table and read the text again. Education, it said. There was a phone number attached to the end of the text. She was instructed to call and make an appointment. She didn't recognize the number; it was no one she knew. What had he planned for her now? She was intrigued beyond belief.

She dialed the number and a woman answered.

'This is Madame Sworde.'

Madame Sworde? What the hell kind of name was that? Katherine thought. She introduced herself.

'Katherine?' came the woman's voice, puzzled, questioning, and then;

'Oh, you must be Kitten...'

Katherine again had the feeling that she was nothing but a pawn in a game. Everyone but her seemed to know what was going on. But by now she knew that if she did agree to whatever scenario had been prepared for her, it would be exciting and risqué and totally sexually fulfilling. One more weak, fleeting thought of Sam scuttled into a far corner of her mind. Katherine closed her eyes, took a deep breath and said;

'Yes, this is Kitten. What do I have to do?'

Katherine listened intently as the woman spoke. She had expected the usual clear, precise instructions but on the contrary, Madame Sword sounded more like she was arranging a dinner party with an old friend. She asked Katherine when would be the best time for her to come into town to meet and there was no absolute deadline, an hour either way was fine with Madame Sworde.

'Us girls are so busy!' She had said, and Katherine could not suppress a smile. 'Us girls' ?

They arranged to meet for dinner at 8 o'clock that evening. Katherine put the phone down with a relieved, girlish grin. She felt as if all the pressure had been taken from her. And her rendezvous with Madame Sworde promised to be a lot of fun... even though she had no real idea what to expect.

*****

Katherine entered the restaurant at five minutes to eight and found Madame Sworde already seated at a table for two in a quiet, candle lit corner. She stood up, smiling to greet Katherine, taking her outstretched hand warmly in hers and kissing her on both cheeks with the panache and charm of an old fashioned aristocrat. Katherine felt immediately comfortable with this woman. They sat down and Madam Sworde ordered champagne. The two women eyed each other with open, good-natured curiosity.

Madame Sworde was in her fifties, Katherine guessed, well dressed and well educated with that air of subtle sophistication and confidence that comes from living a privileged life. Her silver black hair was perfectly coiffed in a bun tied with a single scarlet ribbon, her skin had a dark, shimmering tint that suggested a life spent in exotic climes and Madame Sworde's make-up was perfect, with lipstick to match the colour of the ribbon in her hair. Katherine was in the presence of a 'woman of breeding,' she thought to herself and smiled. She had always considered the archaic phrase to be redundant, until now. It was Madame Sworde who spoke first;

'How lovely to see you my darling, you look fabulous!'

Katherine grinned with embarrassment. She was wearing her favorite black dress and boots, nothing nearly as glamorous as the woman opposite her. The waiter came with the champagne in a bucket of ice and two crystal glasses.

'May I propose a toast?' Madame Sworde asked, lifting her glass and a questioning eyebrow at Katherine.

'Please do.' she said and raised her glass.

'To absent friends,' announced Madame Sworde, 'may they fare well and return to us soon.'

The crystal glasses, caught pink and blue in the unobtrusive restaurant light, chinked in the air between them and they sipped the fizzy champagne, and then suddenly they were both giggling like a pair of naughty schoolgirls. Again Katherine felt the tension leaving her body in waves. The past few weeks, exciting as they had been, had taken their toll, physically and emotionally. Katherine thought that an evening with Madame Sworde would be just what the doctor ordered. When her laughter had subsided enough for her to speak, she took another sip of champagne, lent forwards across the table and asked;

'Tell me, why am I here?'

'To learn to serve.' Madame Sworde said simply, as if it was such a matter-of-fact thing to say.

Taking the bottle from the ice bucket, she refilled her glass, and topped up Katharine’s. She was looking intently at Katherine now, openly, in a manner that was totally unashamed, her grey-green discerning eyes searching Katharine’s face.

'What?' Katherine asked, squirming slightly under the close scrutiny.

'His exquisite taste in women still holds true,' Madame Sworde said, 'you, my dear, are a fine specimen indeed.' Katherine blushed and gulped at the champagne, then in a whisper she asked;

'So you know him? You know Sir ummm...Dominic?'

'Oh yes!' Madame Sworde said with a soft laugh, 'he and I go back a long, long way.'

And Katherine saw a wistful look of remembering in the woman's eyes, a flash of hidden, happy memories but also a fleeting shadow of regret. Katherine felt at once that somewhere, sometime in the past, Madame Sworde had also served a man, and her intuition told her it was the same man she was trying to serve now. Her man. Her Dominic. Katherine felt a mixture of jealousy, excitement and almost overwhelming curiosity welling up inside her.

'Tell me about him. Please.' Katherine pleaded, eager to learn something, anything about the man she felt she had known for so long now, yet in truth she knew absolutely nothing about at all. Madame Sworde smiled and shook her head slowly from side to side.

'I am not allowed to tell you much,' she said softly, 'there are certain things about him he insists you learn personally from him. He chooses which knowledge you shall have at your disposal and which you shall have not. I...,' Madame Sworde sipped her champagne and then continued in a hushed, almost reverent tone, 'I serve him too. And I have my instructions.'

Katherine felt a rush of disappointment. Here she had hoped to finally discover something substantial about her Master. She pressed on.

'He said we would meet soon,' she told Madame Sworde, 'but he didn't say when. Do you know when I will finally stand face to face with my Sir?'

Madame Sworde shook her head again.

'I am sorry, my dear, I know nothing of any meeting between the two of you. But I can reassure you, if that is what he said, then that is what will come to be. He is a man of his word. Now, olives, and more champagne. Then let us attend to this night's particular business.'

A wave of her hand brought the waiter back to their table. Madame Sworde ordered another bottle of champagne and a huge tray of thick, ripe, black olives. Over the next few hours, Katherine would learn just how much Madame loved champagne, how much she adored olives, and exactly how she had become the Dominant Mother responsible for the training and cultivation of all of her Sir's submissives...

Born the only child of Christian Arab parents, Madame Sworde grew up on a thriving olive plantation on the outskirts of Jerusalem. She'd had a different name then, and a different life. Her father had been a man with acute business skills and over the years the family became what Madame Sworde described as 'obscenely wealthy'. Nannys, au-pairs, private tutors, servants and chauffeurs, this was the childhood Madame Sworde had enjoyed.

Then as a young teenage girl she had been sent away to the most exclusive and expensive boarding schools, where she was taught how to behave within the circles of the fabulously rich, taught the etiquette of the movers and shakers of the financial planet. Taught to be a Lady. Aged 21, she had returned home with majors in Art, History and Philosophy from Cambridge University. By then she was fluent in six languages and was quite simply, beautiful. She settled back into her happy, carefree life of luxury, and waited for a potential husband to call...

The mortar bombs came without warning. Ripping huge craters into the olive groves, blinding and maiming a dozen of the migrant workers. In the confusion that followed, a small band of Arab terrorists overran the main house, shooting dead anyone that got in their way. Madame could vividly remember the shouting and the clatter of machine guns as she cowered with her mother on the library floor. Her father, pale and shaking, stood behind the door, a scimitar held high over his left shoulder.