“She was still wet from her orgasm. I entered her slowly, drawing out the moment and feeling every ripple and pulse of her body as it wrapped snugly around my shaft. Caroline closed her eyes again and moaned, the sound muffled by the sofa cushion. When I was all the way inside her, I began to move. I dragged my fingernails down her spine and her back arched in a slow voluptuous thrill. I tugged off her bikini top and reached around to cup one of her swaying breasts in the palm of my hand. Her flesh was warm, her nipple hard as a pebble. I squeezed and kneaded it gently as she began to rock her body in time with each thrust of my hips.
“I entangled my fingers in her hair and then suddenly thrust hard and urgently. Caroline groaned. I felt a mighty shudder ripple through her body and her bones seemed to soften with renewed desire.”
Leticia got up suddenly from the kitchen table and tossed her head in a gesture I couldn’t read. She breathed hard and hugged her arms tight around her body and shivered. My shirt she was wearing bunched and gaped around her breasts but she seemed not to notice.
“Something wrong?”
“It’s just hot,” Leticia said softly. There was a peculiar expression on her face. “I need to stretch my legs for a moment.”
I stayed back, leaning against the kitchen counter, and watched Leticia move. Her steps were light and stealthy, bristling with some hidden tension. She stalked close to me and I reached out for her. She stopped and stared up into my face, her huge eyes startled. I brushed my finger across her cheek. She began to tremble.
“You are every bit as beautiful as Caroline, and much more than that in so many ways,” I reassured her in a whisper. Leticia looked like she might cry. She was suddenly rigid. I put one hand gently on her shoulder. I could smell the scent of her perfume and an aroma like apples in her hair. Her eyes stayed locked onto mine. “And one day you are going to be an amazing journalist. Don’t be in too much hurry, Leticia. For anything. You’re still young. That’s your problem. There is a lot of good and bad about life you still have to learn.”
I pulled her gently towards me. Her eyes became urgent, grew even wider, but she came to me unresisting. I leaned in and kissed her on the forehead, and then stepped back before the last shreds of my control gave way, and my want and desire overwhelmed me again.
My hands were shaking slightly. I thrust them into my pockets.
It was late, and the atmosphere in the kitchen had suddenly become dangerous. I listened in the silence and heard rain still falling lightly outside.
“The worst of the storm seems to have finally passed,” I said just a little too loudly for it to sound natural. “And your sweater should be dry by now...”
Leticia nodded numbly. There was a far-away look in her eyes for long seconds until the words finally registered and she glanced around, dull and unfocussed, as though she had forgotten where we were and why we were here.
“My notes…” she began. “They’re not finished. Is there more to what happened between you and Caroline in the hotel?”
I was tempted to lie – but I didn’t.
I nodded.
Leticia sat back down, and I went to the table and turned a chair around, sitting astride it so that the backrest was like a physical barrier between us. I folded my arms across the top of the chair and rested my chin on my forearms, brooding into the shadows beyond where Leticia sat waiting silently, with the notebook in her lap and her legs crossed.
“I drove my cock repeatedly into Caroline’s pussy,” I began again at last, “marveling at how perfectly our bodies seemed to fit together, and how in tune she seemed to be with my own needs. It was as though she could anticipate each thrust, and she used her body to amplify the sensations I could feel building within me.
“She began to make breathless little sounds of desire. I put my hands on her hips and demanded she tell me how it felt to submit her body to her Master – how it felt to give herself for my pleasure. Caroline snarled, like some ferocious wild lioness at the end of her tamer’s whip, and the words tumbled from her in a litany of filthy erotic language that no lady would ever use. Her crude coarse words, and the tone she used, drove me feverishly towards the edge.
“I heard my breath rasping hoarse as sandpaper in my throat. At the last possible moment I reeled away, my chest wet with sweat, my heart thumping like a drum. Caroline turned round on her knees and took the length of me urgently into her mouth. I threw my head back and groaned at the ceiling as her lips wrapped tight around the head of my cock and the first pulse of my orgasm erupted across her tongue. She swallowed, drew a deep satisfied breath, and then took me into her mouth again until I was spent and exhausted and barely able to stand.”
There was no more to the story. I leaned back on the seat of the chair and sighed. I sensed the first symptoms of a headache and shook my head as if that might actually help. It didn’t.
Leticia continued to stare down at the page of her notebook long after she had finished writing. The silence in the kitchen was suddenly deafening.
She looked up at me at last, with a fragile expression on her face and her bottom lip trembling. “I think I might get my sweater and go home.” She spoke like there was so much more she wanted to say, but wouldn’t.
Leticia followed me to the top of the stairs. The door of the study was open. The fire had burned down to glowing coals so that the room was almost shrouded in total darkness. I waited at the threshold. Leticia drifted into the room and I saw the outline of her moving towards the leather sofa. I stared discreetly down the hall, and a moment later she was back by my side, wearing her sweater once more with my shirt in her hand. She offered it to me. “Thanks,” she said.
I walked with her downstairs and into the foyer. I held the front door open. “Tomorrow?” she asked uncertainly.
“Of course,” I smiled. “I’ll call you.”
I watched her to her little car. It started in a belch of grey smoke. The engine sputtered, then roared to life and Leticia drove out through the main gates and into the misting night.
I pushed the door closed and stood in the silence.
I held the shirt up and inhaled the lingering scent of her perfume.
* * *
When I knocked on Leticia’s door it was just before three o’clock in the afternoon. She greeted me with a smile and stepped aside for me to enter.
The apartment looked somehow bigger and brighter. Leticia had thrown open all the drapes so that warm afternoon sunlight streamed into the living room. The window was open, and I could hear the muted sounds of the city drifting on the still air. Leticia was wearing a t-shirt and old jeans. I shrugged off my jacket and hung it over the back of a dining table chair.
I felt comfortable here. I felt comfortable with Leticia. Her smile was easy. I had spent the morning at a meeting in the heart of the city. I slipped the knot of my tie and unfastened the top button of my shirt, then set about rolling up my sleeves.
“Are you ready for a long afternoon?”
Leticia nodded. She had all of her notebooks stacked on the coffee table. Beside the books were loose pieces of paper. She picked up a sheaf of the pages and brought them to me.
“These are my editor’s notes,” she explained. “I’ve been on the phone with the office since before lunchtime. The boss is excited about the article, Jonah. He’s keen to publish the first part of your story in next Saturday’s edition.”
I scanned the pages. Overshadowing the moment was the realization for us both that the interview was almost over. In a couple more days, my story would be told. I felt the pang of impending loss like a dull ache in my chest that I couldn’t quite ignore. It was like a single dark cloud in a clear blue sky.
I handed the pages back, but the smile stayed firmly fixed on my face. “That’s fantastic, Leticia,” I said, and my enthusiasm was genuine. “I’m sure you will do a fine job.”
She shrugged and suddenly became self-conscious. She made a pained face. “Well if I don’t, it’s my ass,” she said. “My inte
rnship finishes soon. If this interview doesn’t convince the editor I have what it takes, I’m afraid I might be on the bus back home.”
I shook my head. “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” I said. “I’ve read your work. You’ll do fine.”
“You read my work?”
I nodded. “Before you arrived that first day for the interview. I had some of the stories you wrote sent to me. I thought they were good.”
She made a face. “Jonah, so far the most exciting story I have covered was the annual garden show. It’s not exactly Pulitzer prize winning material.”
“I saw your potential,” I said. “I’m sure your editor does too.”
We drifted into the kitchen. Leticia made coffee and I watched her as if she were some alchemist brewing a secret potion. She used the exact same ingredients I had the evening before, and yet somehow the coffee she made tasted fine.
“When we finished up last night, you had just told me about the time you spent with Caroline at the hotel,” Leticia said. Her tone was conversational, like we were two old friends chatting. “Is there more you can tell me about your three years with Caroline – maybe a couple of other experiences that you remember?”
I set the coffee down on the counter. “Sure,” I said. “But first I have a question for you. ‘Do ut des’.”
Leticia had her hip resting against the edge of the bench top, her weight on one leg, so that the tight denim of her jeans folded into deep tantalizing creases below her zipper. The sleeves of the t-shirt were short, and her skin was lightly tanned and glowing with the freshness and luster of youthful good health. She tossed back her head, exposing the soft line of her neck to me, and her hair shook and shimmered.
She seemed to brace herself mentally, and then nodded. “Ask.”
I had thought long and hard about this question. More than any other, this was the one I wished for her to answer.
“Do you actually like me, Leticia?”
She physically flinched, as though shaken, and her expression changed gradually over the course of several seconds.
“If it wasn’t for this interview – if we had just met as a man and a woman, would I have been someone you would like?”
Leticia seemed to lean towards me, and then pull back. “Jonah, I admire you, more than you will ever know,” she said softly, her eyes searching my face. “You’re gallant, you’re a gentleman, and you’re definitely larger than life. Yes, I like you – you know that – but I wouldn’t want to be like you.”
I blinked. “Why not?”
Leticia smiled wistfully. “You’re larger than life, Jonah. You fill a room and suffocate me. Your energy, your personality is like this big unstoppable force. You sweep people off their feet and draw them towards you like a comet. I… I could never be like that,” Leticia said. “Most people could never be like that. The majority of us watch the world go by, and adapt to what life hands us, Jonah. But you’re different. You can change your world. That seems like a wonderful gift, but I also think it’s a heavy burden. Personally, I don’t know how you do it.”
Leticia lowered her head for a long moment, and I thought she had finished speaking. Then she lifted her face again and there was sudden regret and sadness in her eyes.
“If you hadn’t pushed me away, I would be in your arms right now, Jonah. I wanted that. When you kissed me…” her voice broke off and when it came back one final time it was nothing more than a whisper. “Yes, I like you.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I said. I meant it. I felt Leticia’s body draw towards me, and then her cell phone rang, the sound shrill as an alarm in the intimate silence. Leticia sighed and stepped back, breaking the spell that seemed to have been cast upon us.
“See,” she said wryly. “My phone rings – and now I am going to adapt to what life is about to hand me. If it had been your phone, Jonah, you probably would have been able to will it into silence.”
I smiled into her eyes. “If it had been my phone, Leticia, I would have turned it off ten minutes ago.”
She threw me a playful look over her shoulder and snatched up her phone from the table. I carried my coffee to the window and stared down at the city. Long meandering lines of traffic cluttered the streets, sunlight glinting off windshields as cars crawled through the crisscross of downtown intersections. I stared without really seeing until I heard Leticia finish her conversation and toss her cell onto the sofa.
“Problem?” I turned and asked.
“The office,” Leticia sighed. She scraped her hands through her hair and stood with one hand on her hip. “They need the copy for the first part of your interview by Thursday. I’ve just lost a whole twenty-four hours of time to write and prepare.”
“Is that critical?”
She nodded. “It is when you have no confidence in your ability, and you are about to write the article that could make your entire journalism career, yeah. It’s kind of a big deal.”
“Solution?”
“Start looking for another job,” Leticia said, but she wasn’t smiling. “Or find some way to turn back time.”
I shook my head. “I don’t like your choices,” I said. “So how about option three? Why not make extra time.”
“How?”
“We’ll finish the interview today,” I said. “If you’re happy to put in long hours, we can wrap this up tonight. That would give you the extra time you need.”
* * *
Leticia made herself comfortable on the sofa and I went and stood by the open window. She had a fresh notebook ready. Her legs were crossed, and she sat looking up at me with an air of expectation.
I felt sunlight on my back, warm through my shirt. “Caroline’s biggest problem as a submissive was her discipline,” I announced. “She was a very passionate, sexy woman, and she had a mind of her own. I have told you before that she was very beautiful and very intelligent. Sometimes her independence meant that training her to submit and obey presented its challenges.
“Orgasm denial became common in our relationship. Caroline couldn’t quite find the line between retaining her own independence as a woman, and submitting to a Master. She would go for days, and sometimes even a week without an orgasm because she disobeyed me, or was ill-disciplined.”
“And yet you regarded her as a good submissive?”
I nodded.
“How did you enforce the orgasm denial punishments? It must be based on a lot of trust.”
“It is,” I admitted. “It depends on the submissive being honest. There is no point in me punishing a woman by denying her orgasms if she breaks the rules by pleasuring herself. When we were having sex, I would turn the punishment into the most exquisite torturous agony she could possibly endure by getting her to the brink of exploding, and then backing off, being sure that after each session she was sexually aroused, but left frustrated. It was the very best way to encourage a submissive like Caroline to change her behavior.”
“How did that work?” Leticia asked. “I don’t quite follow.”
I started to pace.
“It was normal for me to insist that all my submissives ask permission to orgasm,” I said. “That way I had control of their releases, and could use that control to heighten their pleasure, or drive them crazy with desire and anticipation. Caroline was no different. Whenever we were having sex, she was required to ask my permission before being allowed to have an orgasm.
Leticia cut in. “And that is normal?”
“It’s normal for me,” I said. “I insist submissives ask permission before they come. I don’t know about other Masters, but I imagine the practice is pretty common.”
She made a note of that on a separate page of her book, and then flipped back to the page where she had left off. “And so you would use this punishment technique to keep Caroline on edge, right?”
“Right,” I said. “I remember one particular session that was held in the upstairs room I showed you next to my bedroom. Caroline had been denied orgasms for a full week,
and during those seven days I had used her for my own pleasure on several occasions, wickedly teasing her pussy as I fucked her, but never quite letting her come. For the first two days she endured, but as I said, she was naturally a highly sexual person. By the fifth day she was begging and pleading with me to allow her an orgasm – even if it was merely one she gave herself while I watched her. I said no. By the last day of the punishment she was on the brink of having a meltdown. For her, being denied an orgasm was like being denied chocolate, or oxygen.
“I told her to meet me in the upstairs room, and I was waiting for her when she arrived. She was bright and smiling. She glowed with excitement. She stood before me in black lace panties and bra, and heels. Her body was perfect; her skin was flawless, her breasts the perfect size and shape, her waist tiny, and her legs long and toned.
“She was trembling with suppressed excitement and there was a trace of a smile in her eyes. She looked up at me with hooded eyes and licked her lips.
“‘I am ready to give my body to you, Master,’ Caroline breathed demurely. I smiled at her. I asked her if she would be my good girl from now on. She nodded her head vigorously. I asked her if my good girl would obey all of her Master’s instructions. Again, she nodded vigorously. I walked to the table in the middle of the room and stood there for several seconds. Every day for the past week I had taken Caroline as she stood bent over the table with her legs spread widely. Now, as I moved in the same way I had every day for the past week, she slipped her thumbs into the elastic of her panties and pulled them down.
“I asked her one last time if she promised to be my good girl, and she nodded again. I smiled my pleasure at her and she beamed back at me. ‘You can suck my cock, today,’ I said. ‘I have no need for your pussy. I have decided you can make me come with your mouth.’