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“And you never saw her again? Ever?”
I shook my head. “In hindsight, it was for the best. Claire sensed we were on some reckless collision course. We both knew it could only end in disaster. So she did what she needed to do to protect herself and her marriage. She did the right thing. The whole affair with Claire was a burning fuse. We were lucky it didn’t explode in our faces.”
Leticia sighed. She scribbled a note into her pad and then glanced at me with her head tilted at a curious angle.
“What stops a BDSM scene from getting out of hand?” she asked. “It seems to require a great deal of trust from the submissive.”
“It does,” I agreed, and then shook my head. The question deserved a more complete answer. “Write this down,” I said. “I think it’s important.”
Leticia flipped over to a new blank page and furrowed her brow. She nodded, pen poised.
“Young men make terrible Masters,” I said suddenly. “They’re too focused on themselves. They get into the lifestyle because of what they think they will get out of it, not because of what they can share. Does that make sense?”
“No.”
I took a deep breath and paced across the room. When I reached the door I stopped prowling and tried again.
“I’ve never met a man who I considered to be a good Master who wasn’t at least thirty years old. Any guys younger than that only seem interested in their own sexual pleasure. They get involved in the lifestyle because they think it’s a great way to get themselves off, without the burden of needing to feel any real responsibility towards their partner – their submissive. It’s all about the guy’s pleasure, and in those circumstances, the submissive is more likely to come away from a scene or a relationship feeling used and unsatisfied. Maybe even abused. I believe a true relationship between a Master and his submissive is as much about the emotional balance and interaction as it is about the sexual aspects. A submissive needs to have complete trust in her Master. She needs to know she can give her mind and body to him with absolute confidence that he will treat them as a gift, not a right. Women submissives are just as entitled to feel enriched from a BDSM relationship as their Master. It’s a fusion of energies – a meeting of minds – and bodies. The woman needs to know that her Master will put her safety ahead of his demands, and her welfare ahead of his needs. Young men don’t get that. They focus too much on the physical. They think BDSM is all about sex, so they make no effort to understand the submissive woman’s mind, and how important her trust and her physical and emotional needs are to his pleasure.”
I looked up hopefully. “Did that make sense?”
Leticia shook her head uncertainly. “I… I don’t know. Um… can I read it back over?”
I smiled. “Do that,” I said. “I need another drink.”
I sank back into the old leather chair and splashed whisky into the bottom of my glass. From the corner of my eye I watched Leticia with covert pleasure until suddenly she looked up from her notebook and swept a loose tendril of hair from her face with her fingers. She tucked the errant lock behind her ear and nodded.
“I think it makes sense. It’s a lot more ‘normal’ than I expected. I had the impression a BDSM lifestyle was all about extremes. You know… ropes and whips and leather…” her voice trailed off into silence.
“It can be,” I agreed. “And for some people it is exactly as you imagine.”
I sat forward and propped my elbows on the desktop. I studied her face carefully. “Leticia, there are no rules – apart from the safe, sane and consensual requirements I have already mentioned. If those conditions are met, then a BDSM relationship can be as extreme or as borderline-vanilla as the people involved want it to be.”
She sat back and was thoughtful for a moment. She seemed suddenly reluctant.
“You can ask me anything,” I prompted her gently.
She nodded. “I was just thinking back over what you said about BDSM relationships. It sounds all very nice, but it’s exactly opposite to what took place between you and Claire. The way you treated her once you found out about her husband was the exact opposite of what you now advocate.”
“You’re right,” I said honestly. “That’s because I was a young arrogant fool, obsessed with my own pleasure and my thirst for revenge. I was the poster-boy for dangerous selfish stupidity.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “I… I didn’t mean…”
“There is nothing to apologize for,” I said bluntly. “Jonah Noble at age nineteen was a self-obsessed bastard. Jonah Noble at age twenty-five was still learning to understand women, and certainly not a worthy Master. It’s only now – fifteen years after I first met Claire – that I consider myself a decent man.”
“You’re very hard on yourself,” Leticia made a face.
“I’m no saint, and I’m not trying to become one,” I confessed. “I’ve spent a lot of years learning about myself and learning about the women I have shared my life with. And it’s only now – after a lot of mistakes – that I’ve finally worked out who I am.”
There was a distant rumble of sound in the night and then a spray of rain against the window. A gust of wind rattled the glass in its casement. I got out of the chair and twitched the curtains aside. The night was black, seeming to match my own sullen mood.
I watched raindrops spatter and dribble down the windowpane and then turned suddenly. “I want to know your secret fantasy,” I said. “I want you to tell me the sexy things you lay awake at night thinking about.”
Leticia glanced up at me in dismayed alarm, and then lowered her eyes shyly. “I don’t have a fantasy.”
“You’re lying,” I said. “Every woman has a fantasy.”
Leticia stared at me for fully ten seconds, and then a transformation slowly came over her. She got to her feet, set the notebook carefully down on the chair, and walked to the office door. She turned back, the space of the floor separating us, and she hugged her own shoulders as if suddenly she was cold.
“I… I used to wonder what it would be like to be blindfolded by a man,” she said. She looked across to where I stood and her gaze was solemn and enigmatic.
“That’s interes
ting,” I said carefully. “Tell me more.”
“What is there to tell?”
“I want to know exactly what happens in your fantasy, and how it makes you feel.”
Leticia narrowed her eyes and chewed at her lip like she was making some kind of mental calculation. Then her eyelids fluttered and closed, and she stood with her back against the wall taking short shallow breaths as though preparing to face a firing squad.
“I’m standing in a candle-lit room,” she said, and her voice was so soft the words barely carried to me. “It’s a bedroom. I am wearing red lingerie. There are hundreds of candles on the floor and hung from wrought iron candelabras along the walls. The light has a golden magical glow, and as I’m staring into the flickering lights I feel my lover’s warm breath on my neck, and then his strong hands on my shoulders. My skin tingles. I feel a delicious shudder run down the length of my spine. My breath hitches in my throat until at last I gasp.
“Does he say anything to you, this mystery lover?”
Leticia shook her head. Her eyes were still closed. She licked her lips. “He just reaches around and presses a silk blindfold over my eyes. He is gentle. He ties the knot tightly at the back of my head and then I sense he is no longer there – the heat of his body suddenly fades so that I feel like I am completely alone.
“I stand, not daring to move. My senses come alive. I can hear the soft sound of his footfalls and the faint scent of his cologne. And then I feel the brush of his fingers across the silk bottoms of my panties. I flinch. His touch is like electricity. I take a tiny step, and then I feel something ice-cold on my arm. I move again – just another small step, but as I do, I feel his soft wet lips on my neck and I start to tremble.
“Suddenly I realize I am lost – I don’t know where the door is anymore. I reach out with my hands and my fingers press against his chest. His body feels like it is on fire. I feel the beat of his heart, and then he steps away, and the sense of longing in me is so strong that I groan aloud.
“An instant later I feel the teasing kiss of a feather on the tender flesh of my thigh. I feel myself clench, and then I turn and take one more step. Suddenly I feel the edge of the bed against the back of my knees and I begin to fall. He catches me, takes me in his arms, lays me down gently, and then covers my body with his own.”
