Joshua stood in the ankle-deep water for long moments, staring out at the sunlight as it glinted like cut diamond shards on the ocean’s surface. Somewhere out there, past the pale blue of the shallow water line, Jan had drowned. She had died alone, overcome with helpless panic. Those had been her last moments. Joshua prayed fervently – as he had a million times since – that his dead wife was now resting in peace.
He lowered his head to say a silent prayer, and then drew his eyes towards the heavens.
“Honey, I’m sorry it’s been so long,” he apologized haltingly. There was a lump of emotion rising hard in his throat that he couldn’t quite choke out of his voice.
“You know that not a day has gone past that I haven’t grieved for you, and until the end of time, I’ll always remember you, Jan. But… but I know in my heart that you’re never coming back. I know that I have to cherish our memories, but also make new ones.
“It’s been three years, Jan. Three sad and lonely years in the dark of despair, but finally I’m finding my way out of the pain. I’ve met someone, Jan. She reminds me of you in as many ways as you are both different. She’s feisty and she’s passionate. Her name is Gabby. I think you’d like her…”
Joshua paused for a moment struggling to find the words to go on. He felt guilty, but he sensed too that Jan would be happy for him. He clung to that belief as he stepped back out of the water, back onto dry sand.
“I’m going to do my best to make the relationship with Gabby work,” he explained to the sky. “I’m ready to let myself feel again. I… I hope you will give us your blessing, my love.”
As if in a heavenly sign, one of the gulls swooped over Joshua’s head and then came to land on the sand by his feet. Boldly the bird waddled close to Joshua’s side, unafraid. Joshua held out his hand, and the gull fluttered its wings and perched timidly on his forearm. Joshua blinked, and then felt an enormous rush of relief sweep over him. The gull took to flight a moment later, seeming to carry the weight of Joshua’s guilt and burden away on its wings.
Joshua felt hot tears fill his eyes. He cuffed them away with the back of his hand and sniffed. His bottom lip was trembling as he blubbered the last few words.
“I’m a different man now to the one you fell in love with. I’ve turned into a hard cold shadow… but there is something special about Gabby that has drawn me back into the light. I think I need to start living and loving again, Jan – even though the prospect scares me. I know you’ll understand…
“I won’t come back to this beach again, but please know that I will always remember you, and always remember how precious your love was.”
Joshua lowered his eyes, and settled them back on the far blue horizon where the blue sky smudged into the dark steely shade of the deep ocean.
“Goodbye, Jan…”
Chapter 11:
Joshua wrapped the small box carefully and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket, then glanced at his watch. He had fifteen minutes before Gabriele was due to arrive for her nightly training session. Joshua took the time to rehearse the words he would say, making sure to get the tone and their meaning just right. He was surprised when he realized he felt strangely anxious and apprehensive.
When the doorbell rang, he was waiting impatiently in the foyer.
Gabriele was kneeling on his doorstep. She was dressed in a strapless white cocktail dress that hugged her figure and then flared at the hips. Beneath the hem of the dress Joshua could see her tanned brown knees on the concrete step.
She was looking up into his face, her hands obediently clasped behind her back. The position emphasized the flawless perfection of her skin and the narrowness of her shoulders. The dress was scalloped and lacy around her breasts. Gabriele had spent an hour on her makeup. Under the porch light her face glowed and her hair shone like a black shimmering wave down her back.
Joshua held out his hand. “Come inside.”
Gabriele used Joshua’s grip to draw herself elegantly to her feet. She had a small white clutch purse in her free hand. The outfit looked brand new to Joshua, and he wondered how much she had spent. Whatever the cost, it had been worth the investment. Gabriele looked stunning.
“I know tonight is a training session, but that will have to wait,” Joshua began, “because I’m taking you to dinner.”
Gabriele’s expression filled with a light of excitement and surprise. “To a restaurant?”
“Yes. The ‘Sandhurst’. It’s the new restaurant at the Charlsten Hotel.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Gabriele went quiet with awe. The ‘Sandhurst’ was one of the finest establishments in the city.
“We have a reservation for 9 pm.” Joshua checked his watch again.
“Will we return here afterwards for training, Master?”
“Yes,” Joshua nodded. “But the dinner itself is more than just a meal, Gabriele. This will be your first public outing with your Master… apart from the night in the restaurant parking lot. I hope you remember the lessons you learned on that occasion. I expect your behavior tonight to be exemplary.”
She nodded her head. She felt a small thrill of delight at the prospect of being seen on Joshua’s arm.
“I have learned a great deal since that night, Master.”
Joshua grunted. He had car keys jangling in his pocket. He led her through the house towards the garage and Gabriele followed him obediently, her heels clip-clopping on the floor and echoing throughout the empty house.
Joshua held the passenger door of the car open for her and Gabriele slid into the seat, deliberately giving Joshua a flirtatious look all the way up to her white lace panties as she splayed her legs to settle herself comfortably.
Joshua noticed, though his face remained impassive.
The car’s engine started with a throaty rumble of anticipation. Joshua nosed the vehicle out of the garage and steered towards the distant lights of the city.
In the soft muted glow of the car’s dashboard lights, they were isolated and insulated from the rest of the world. Cars streamed past, and the lights of the distant city seemed to beckon them. Shopping malls, apartment complexes, and housing suburbs drifted by beneath the throaty hum of the engine.
Gabriele was curled up in the deep leather of the bucket seat, staring down the beams of the headlights. Her mind was locked in its own turmoil of apprehension and excitement even though she knew she was making a mistake by allowing any emotion to interfere with Joshua’s plans for the evening. She had been trained to disconnect her own feelings, and to immerse herself instinctively in submission.
But her excitement and apprehension were powerful distractions. She sat in the silence and pursed her lips, becoming withdrawn by the grips of her internal struggle.
Joshua was driving unhurriedly, his own mind focused on his plans for the night. Each time he flicked his eyes from the road to study Gabriele’s profile, he saw the frown on her brow. The next time he checked, she was gnawing at her lip and her hands were clenched tight in her lap.
He sensed her anxiety.
“You will stroke my cock while I drive,” Joshua commanded, slicing across Gabriele’s thoughts and dragging her suddenly alert.
“Master?” she wasn’t sure she had heard Joshua correctly. He was staring through the windshield at the surrounding traffic, watching the taillights of the car ahead as they flared red.
“You heard me,” he said.
Gabriele set aside her purse and reached across the center console of the car. She put her hand in Joshua’s lap and felt the heat of his body through the fabric of his pants. Although her touch was on his thigh, she could already sense he was hardening. She walked her fingers slowly towards the tenting bulge in Joshua’s crotch. She scratched her nail across the material, and Joshua felt the sensation as a thousand tiny jolts of electricity. His cock twitched instinctively, thickening and swelling like an uncoiling python.
Gabriele licked her lips. Her gaze became dreamy. Suddenly all her doubts and anxiety melted away
into nothingness. Now she had a focus for her attention. Her mouth curled into a croon of melting desire and anticipation.
She unzipped Joshua’s pants and reached inside the folds of the material. She felt his cock immediately; it was straining and hot as molten steel. She drew it through the open flap, and it thrust hard and accusing at the roof of the car. Gabriele felt her pulse quicken. She caressed Joshua’s cock with loving light strokes of her hand until it had swollen to its full length. She had slumped a little in her seat to reach him comfortably. Now – with an impulse – she unclipped her seatbelt and tucked her knees beneath herself so that she was leaning across the car, with one elbow supporting her weight on the top of the console and her other hand free to work diligently up and down the length of Joshua’s cock.
Her knees were on her seat, her ass in the air. One of her breasts slipped out of the scalloped top of her dress but she didn’t notice. All her attention was devoted to pleasuring Joshua.
He was driving sedately, both hands loose on the wheel. The nearer to the city they drew the denser the traffic around them became. The car hit the first in a series of traffic lights, and Joshua eased to a halt. The vehicles in the lanes on either side of them were indistinct in the night. The dark tinting on the windows turned the cockpit of the sports car into a private secret place.
With her elbow on the console, Gabriele realized she could use that hand to grip the base of Joshua’s cock. She held him tight, her knuckles brushing across the whorls of his pubic hair. Her other hand wrapped itself around the swollen head of Joshua’s cock. Gabriele saw Joshua’s face flicker with the fresh fire of the sensation.
“Does that please you, Master?” she asked in a sweet, delicious voice.
“Yes,” Joshua’s voice was thick.
Gabriele wanted him in her mouth, but the position was just too difficult with the car constantly moving. She took her hand from the top of his cock and licked her palm, making a sexy show of the action. When she took hold of him again, the wetness coated his hot flesh, and her hand slid up and down his shaft like a piston.
Joshua kept his face impassive, but the tiny signs of rising strain were there in the set of his mouth and the narrowing of his eyes. Gabriele’s hand was a wonder of sensations; squeezing, stroking and teasing him until he could feel himself beginning to clench like a slow squeezing fist.
They were in the heart of the city now; all around them on every side loomed tall skyscrapers, clawing up into the darkness of night. Joshua turned at a set of traffic lights and then turned again.
He turned his head a little and caught the intense concentration in Gabriele’s face. Her lips were parted, glossy and wet as ripe fruit, and her brow was furrowed. Her eyes were fixed on the swelling head of Joshua’s cock. He could smell the scent of her perfume and almost feel her hungry anticipation as she stroked him. The milky firm flesh of her exposed breast swayed and jiggled with the movement from her shoulder and the swaying motion of the car. Joshua turned his attention back to the road as Gabriele bit on her bottom lip and flicked a glance out through the windshield. She seemed startled to realize they were almost at the hotel. For an instant she was alarmed. Joshua was hard and straining, but not yet on the edge of coming.
Gabriele redoubled her efforts, her hand on the head of Joshua’s cock suddenly frantic with her efforts. She licked her palm and made it slick again, wishing desperately that she could just reach with her mouth. They were turning once more. Gabriele felt the car slow to jounce over a speed bump in the road. Then suddenly they were descending down some kind of a ramp. She sensed the light around them change and become muted. She stole another worried peek through the window. They had pulled into a parking garage.
“Stop,” Joshua commanded her. He was still driving, turning through a tight corner at crawling speed. Gabriele let out a petulant sigh of frustration and reluctantly loosened her grip on Joshua’s cock.
“But Master, I haven’t finished.”
“You have,” Joshua said sternly. He nosed the car to a darkened corner of the underground parking station, far away from the banks of fluorescent lights that hung from the grey concrete ceiling. This section of the lot was deserted. He parked by a wall with a red fire hose box attached to the concrete and switched off the burbling engine.
For a long moment they sat in silence while the big engine ticked and cooled. Gabriele was still on her hands and knees across the center console. Joshua reached down and tucked his straining cock back into his pants. He struggled with the zip for a moment. Gabriele felt like she had failed him – again – by her lack of sexual skills. The disappointment crushed down on her. She adjusted the cups of her dress, resetting her breast within the garment and sat back in her seat. She stared darkly out through the windshield, fuming with her own ineptness.
“I’m sorry, Master,” she said meekly. “I’m just not skilled enough to please a man the way you need, and deserve.”
Joshua said nothing. Instead he let his hands drop from the steering wheel, and unbuckled his seatbelt. He was shaking. Gabriele had teased him to the very brink of exploding – despite his dour determination not to orgasm at her touch. It had taken every trick he knew, and every ounce of grim resolve to hold back the release that she had almost wrung from him. Now he was trembling, relieved that he had somehow managed to endure.
Focusing Gabriele’s attention on a sexual task had been nothing more than a ploy by Joshua to distract her during the journey into the city, and to lure her away from the panic he sensed within her His plan had so very nearly backfired. Gabriele’s touch on his cock had been cunning, and far more intuitive than Joshua had ever anticipated.
“You will play with yourself,” Joshua said, giving her the order and ignoring her apology to cover his own turmoil. In his own ears, his voice sounded still thick with the lust she had stirred.
Gabriele froze for a split-second, and hated herself for the instant that she used to check the parking lot for passers-by who might see her. “Yes, Master,” she tried to camouflage the hesitation by shifting her weight in the bucket seat.
“Now.” Joshua gave the order like he was impatient.
Gabriele reclined her seat until she was almost laying flat and then lifted her skirt around her waist and tucked the loose fabric against her body. Then she spread her legs as wide as she could and raised her knees slightly. She was wearing skimpy white lace panties, and her flesh was the color of burnt honey in the gloomy light – a stark and tantalizing contrast.
Joshua turned in his seat to watch. His cock was still uncomfortably hard. He checked the time. It was 8:45 pm.
Gabriele reached inside her panties with both hands, using two fingers of her left hand to push inside her pussy while her right hand began to draw quick circles over her clit. She sucked in a deep breath. Joshua saw the muscles of her abdomen undulate.
With a groan, Gabriele felt for the aching, needful places of her body, and her right hand on her clit began a blur. She felt the fingers of her left slide inside herself to the second joint, and she held them there, manipulating her touch with practiced understanding.
It didn’t take long for desire to flood over her. She rolled her head to the side and her mouth fell wide open. Her eyes were closed. Joshua took two of his own fingers and pressed them against Gabriele’s bottom lip. She groaned with desperation and sucked Joshua’s fingers into her mouth while she continued to pleasure herself.
She was gasping and groaning. Her tongue swirled over Joshua’s fingers like she wished they were his cock instead. The scent of Gabriele’s perfume mingled with the new, stronger aroma of her fragrant pussy juices.
Gabriele was incredibly aroused. Her pussy made wet suckling sounds as her fingers began to plunge in and out of herself. She opened her eyes and saw Joshua leaning over her. She looked up at him with an impassioned plea.
“Can I cum, Master?” she panted.
Joshua took his fingers from her mouth and clamped his hand around her throat. “Not yet,?
?? he demurred. “Keep yourself on edge.”
Gabriele gulped. She stared up at the roof of the car and the muscles in her neck began to strain. Her nipples felt hard as pebbles and incredibly sensitive against the fabric of her dress. She gasped and gulped. Her hand over her clit had slowed lest she lose the control to hold herself on the edge. Now her body seemed drawn as tight as a bow and she could feel her wetness soaking into the crotch of her panties.
“Please, Master!” Gabriele strained. She was shuddering. She wiggled the two fingers inside her pussy, and the pressure against the internal wall of her body sent her into a spasm. Her legs were shaking as if she had run a frantic race. “Please!”
“You need to beg me for an orgasm,” Joshua’s voice was dispassionate and clinical. He brushed her hand aside from her clit and ran his fingers across her pussy. They came away warm and sticky. Joshua smeared Gabriele’s own juices across her lips like it was lipstick.
She tasted herself and her eyes rolled suddenly up into the back of her head. Her back arched and she gave a long low groan that was carried on the expended breath of her lungs.
“Stop.” Joshua said suddenly, and pinched one of her nipples through the dress. “You are not permitted to cum. Stop immediately.”
Gabriele was not entirely shocked, though the depth of her disappointment left her shattered. With an effort, she eased her fingers from her pussy and drew her other hand from her panties. She was shivering; trembling. Her breath sawed across her throat. For a long moment she just lay still, feeling the tremors of her arousal gradually sink back below the surface; subdued, but far from quenched. She had kept her legs spread wide, her dress still bunched around her waist. Her hips were stirring rhythmically as if she were in the midst of a slow sensual dance. Joshua reached down and rubbed the palm of his hand boldly across her pussy. Gabriele flinched with shock and then rekindled passion. She caught her lip between her teeth and bit down to stifle a groan.