I went to the bed and sat beside her. I untied the blindfold and looked into her face.
Nancy looked like a tragic clown. Her mascara had run down her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and blinking, and there was a lopsided grin of blissful contentment on her lips. She combed her fingers through the tousled tresses of her hair. She was soft and drowsy, as though freshly woken. She took my hand and pressed it between her legs. Her pussy felt hot and moist.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “That was… was without doubt, one of the most memorable experiences of my life.”
“Were they all gentlemen?” I played the game with a concerned expression on my face.
“Yes.”
“And they didn’t hurt you?”
She shook her head and became coy for a moment. “Not as much as I wanted them to,” she said softly.
I let the comment go – for now.
“And they satisfied you?”
“Oh, god yes!”
I pretended to be curious. “More than I have?”
Nancy’s expression became serious. “It was a different kind of satisfaction,” she tried to find the words. She glanced away for an instant and then looked back at me, her eyes suddenly sparkling and bright. “It was the anonymity of it that turned me on, not the men themselves. It was just the sheer thrill of being wanton and wanted – of being used by strangers who could take whatever they desired. It’s something that has always aroused me…”
I nodded. “And did you behave as a submissive? Did you please them and obey all their instructions?”
“I think so,” Nancy seemed to be replaying the events of the past couple of hours in her mind. She nodded. “Yes, I think they would have been happy with the submissive whore they found waiting for them when they stepped into the room.” She fell silent for a moment. “But maybe you should ask them that question.”
I moved my hand from between Nancy’s legs and placed it gently on her thigh. I took her chin in the cup of my hand and looked into her eyes.
“There was no ‘them’, Nancy. It was me,” I said gently. “Every one of the three men who came into this room tonight was me, in disguise.”
She stared at me for long bewildered seconds, a look of sheer confusion crinkling her features. She searched my eyes for some sign of a lie or a jest but saw nothing.
“What do you mean?” she asked softly.
“I mean I blindfolded you and then I came into the bedroom as a guy smelling of cigars with a moustache. That guy was me. So was the next guy – the man who smelled of bourbon wearing the leather gloves…”
Comprehension began to light behind Nancy’s eyes. She became incredulous, shaking her head slowly, no longer in disbelief but in wonder.
“And the last man?” she asked softly.
“That was me too,” I confessed. “Cologne, right?”
She nodded numbly. “I… I thought they… I thought…” she became small and silent. She stared at the bedroom wall blankly, maybe trying to search through the sensory experiences for some clue she had missed.
“That’s why I kept your hands tied at all times, and that’s why I used you in the positions I did. I couldn’t risk you reaching up and feeling the features of my face because I knew you’d realize it was a charade.”
“Why?” she asked at last. “Why did you do this?”
I smiled. “Because I wanted to give you an experience you would never forget, and at the same time I wanted to learn more about you – about the kind of woman, and the kind of submissive you are.”
And to make a decision about our future.
Nancy nodded, like the pieces of the puzzle were very slowly assembling in her mind. “It seemed so real…” her voice trailed away.
“It was supposed to,” I said. I lifted her to her feet and led her, still naked, out into the living room area. The props remained strewn across the sofa. Nancy held the bottle of cologne to her nose and inhaled. Then I led her out onto the balcony. I pointed at the crushed remains of the cigar in a glass hotel ashtray. “Everything was carefully planned,” I explained, “because I wanted the illusion to be as realistic as possible. I wanted to give you the illicit thrill of having sex with three strangers, while at the same time ensuring you would always be perfectly safe. I wanted to create a fantasy for you, but without the dangers and consequences of reality.”
Nancy seemed detached. Maybe she was remembering all the things she had said and done when she thought she was alone with strangers. Now, perhaps, she felt self-conscious.
“Jericho, I…” she faltered for a moment. “Thank you…”
We drifted back inside. The night was becoming cool. Fog was rolling across the city like a damp grey blanket. Nancy bent and picked up her dress. I went into the bedroom and retrieved her heels.
“I have a table booked for 9pm in the hotel’s restaurant,” I said in a change of voice. “Why don’t you take a shower and freshen up. Then you can tell me all about that exciting work news you mentioned when you arrived.”
Nancy disappeared behind the bathroom door and a moment later I heard a burst of shower water. I sat down on the sofa, amidst the wreckage of the props, and I started thinking.
They weren’t happy thoughts.
Chapter 38.
The hotel restaurant was located through a set of internal glass doors beyond the ground floor lobby. Nancy hung on my arm as we were led to our table. The restaurant surprised me. I had expected an elegant, sophisticated atmosphere, bordering on pompous, but instead the lighting was bright, and the ambiance infected with a soft buzz of conversation from around the many tables.
The walls were decorated with massive cityscape paintings in thick textured oils, and full-length windows allowed night-light to spill in from the city. We were seated at a corner table and I looked out through the thick glass at a stream of pedestrians bustling past the front of the hotel.
A waiter brought a carafe of chilled water to the table and then drifted away again with a silent smile.
I stared across the table. Nancy’s eyes were bright and glittering with a sparkle of barely restrained excitement. She was floating on the afterglow of her orgasms and buoyed by the exciting news she wanted to tell me. I sat back in my chair and regarded her carefully.
“Okay, so we have a lot to talk about,” I said. “Why don’t you start? I’d very much like to hear your work news.”
Another waiter glided past and set a woven cane basket of herb bread on the edge of the table. “It’s complimentary,” he said. He handed us menus. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to take your orders.”
Nancy took her menu with a dismissive smile and set it down on the starched white tablecloth without even opening it. She leaned across the table with her hands clasped together like she was physically trying to restrain herself.
“I’m leaving Boston,” she said around an enormous smile of accomplishment and pride. “I’ve been offered a job in New York – the big smoke… and I start work on Monday.”
It was impossible not to show my surprise. I arched my eyebrows and then started to smile with genuine happiness.
“Monday?”
Nancy nodded. “I fly out tomorrow afternoon. The station has accommodations already booked until I find something permanent, and I’ll need to get everything moved…”
“Congratulations,” I said. I found myself leaning forward, mirroring Nancy’s body language. “Tell me all about it.”
Nancy was brimming, fit to burst. She pouted her lips, like she was trying to decide where to start. There was so much she had to tell me that everything poured out in a torrent of chattering words.
“It’s the career move I have always worked for,” she gushed. “I’ll be heading up a special project through our headquarter station, and rolling out a program to every one of the twenty-seven affiliates around the country.”
“A program?”
Nancy nodded. “Your program, Jericho! The chairman phoned me personally. The figures for your
show are so astonishing that the Board has decided to take the idea nationwide. They want twenty-six other BDSM Masters just like you – one in every affiliate across America. It’s the biggest, and most innovative development to happen in radio broadcasting since…” she shrugged her shoulders, still giddy with her enthusiasm, “well since ever!”
I frowned. “They decided all this based on just a couple of weeks worth of ratings?”
Nancy nodded. “Yes,” she said, fixing me with her stare. “Because the results have been too good to ignore. They want to move fast – before other stations try to imitate the concept.”
I was smiling - Nancy’s joy and enthusiasm was infectious. I filled our glasses with water because we still hadn’t ordered food or wine, and we toasted each other. “Well here’s to you,” I grinned with unaffected pleasure. “May your career in the Big Apple be a continuous success.”
We clinked glasses and a man from the table beside us turned his head curiously. Nancy giggled.
“It gets even better,” she took a sip from her glass and then set it down. “Much better…”
The waiter arrived. I saw a brief flare of aggravation spark in Nancy’s eyes. She was impatient, and resented the interruption.
I flicked open the menu and ordered. Nancy gave the man a curt stare and ordered the same without ever browsing the menu. She snapped her finger and ordered a bottle of champagne. I saw the waiter narrow his eyes in a reflex of annoyance – and then he turned on his heel without the customary smile.
Nancy noticed none of this. As soon as we were alone again she leaned closer and lowered her voice.
“I’ve negotiated a job for you too,” she declared, and her smile widened. “I’ve demanded the Board make you my assistant. They want you to come to New York with me, Jericho, and then help me go through the selection process of choosing the on-air Masters for each of the affiliates. We will be able to live together, and travel the country together.”
I said nothing.
The smile on my lips faltered.
Nancy looked suddenly bewildered.
I sat back. “Why do they need twenty-six other Masters,” I asked carefully. “Don’t they just pay one guy a truck-load of money and then syndicate his program out to everyone else?”
Nancy nodded her head, but frowned at the same time. “They do – normally,” she said. “Some of the big broadcasters have shows that reach all around the country, but the Board has decided we need a grassroots approach. They’ve listened to the program tapes, and they feel the one thing lacking is more information about the local BDSM scenes. They want the personal, informative feel, where part of each night’s show will be about what is happening within the lifestyle in each city we broadcast to.”
“I see…”
Nancy’s expression began to crumble. She reached across the table and took my hand. “Jericho? What’s wrong?”
I said nothing.
“I thought you would be excited for us,” confusion spread across Nancy’s face. “This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Can’t you see that?”
“Your lifetime, Nancy,” I shook my head. “Not mine. I never wanted to work in New York. I never wanted to travel the country… and I don’t feel you and I are compatible enough to ever live together.”
The air in the room seemed to fill with sudden frost. Nancy started shaking her head with slow incomprehension.
“But… I thought everything between us was…”
The champagne arrived. The waiter made a grand display of presenting the label and then uncorking the bottle. He poured a small amount into my glass and I sipped.
“Thank you,” I said. The young man looked relieved. He filled Nancy’s glass, and then re-filled mine. He set the bottle into a silver bucket beside the table and then vanished.
I took a deep breath.
“Nancy, one of the reasons I arranged tonight’s event for you was to gain some insight into who you were – what kind of a submissive you would be – without the restriction of you knowing I was the one pleasuring you. I wanted you to be unrestrained – to express those inner desires that people sometimes keep hidden. Do you understand that?”
Nancy nodded, but her gaze became wary. She was watching me carefully, analyzing every word and its meaning.
“After we had finished – when you were showering – I had time to think… and confirm what I had already begun to suspect over the past few days.” I leaned across the table suddenly and fixed her with my gaze. “We’re just not compatible as a Master and a submissive,” I said sympathetically. “That’s not your fault, and it’s not mine either. It’s just a fact, and it needed to be recognized before we went any further.”
Nancy flinched, her face frozen. I saw the start of tears in her eyes, but then she blinked them away. “What makes you say that?” her voice became low and level, almost menacing.
“Because you want pain – you want a Master who will demean you and treat you more roughly than I am comfortable doing. You want to be beaten and almost abused… I just can’t give you that.”
She sat straight in her chair. Her gaze remained bitter and frosty, but there was also a flicker of some understanding. “Why can’t you give me that?” she asked coolly.
I sighed. The waiter arrived with our meals. He set them on the table without either of us acknowledging his arrival or departure. There was a fraught tension that seemed to crackle in the air.
“Nancy, when I first came for the job interview, you asked me if I was in a relationship? Remember that?”
She nodded.
“And I told you that I wasn’t. I told you that I was a boat builder, and that there was no one special in my life.”
“I remember,” her eyes turned into narrow suspicious slits.
“Well I only told you part of the truth,” I explained. “I only told you what I thought you needed to know – until now…”
Nancy’s expression became darker. She touched at an errant strand of her hair and I noticed her hands were trembling. “Go on…” she said. She had become tense. There was a rigid set to her shoulders.
“I did have a submissive,” I said softly. “Her name was Joselyn, and we were very happy together. I worked for her father in his shipyard building yachts. When Joselyn and I broke up, she went off the rails in pretty dramatic ways. I think she got involved in drugs, and then she became involved in an underground BDSM scene. I don’t know much about it – I really don’t. But I do know that one night she went to a bar, and a few hours later the police found her dead. She had been beaten. Badly. It was some kind of a BDSM scene that went very wrong – that she couldn’t get out of. The cops found her handcuffed and dead in a basement. I still have nightmares about it.”
Nancy gasped an explosive breath of shock. Her expression filled with dark horror.
“We had been apart for a few months by then, but her father somehow blamed me. Maybe he resented me for introducing his daughter to the lifestyle,” I shook my head. “I honestly don’t know. After Joselyn was buried I decided to look for other work.”
“The radio station.”
I nodded. “That’s right,” I said. I glanced at the glass of champagne and suddenly decided I didn’t feel like drinking. I tipped the contents into the ice bucket while Nancy watched in silence.
“Since that time I simply abhor violence to women – especially the kind of treatment you were asking from me tonight. I can spank you, but I can’t beat you. I can dominate you, but I won’t abuse you… I can’t give you the rough demeaning experiences that you crave.”
Nancy looked like she was about to say something. I held up my hand to cut her off. I had to get this said – I had to explain everything.
“Please don’t think I’m damaged, or broken… or any of that other romantic stuff that women seem to fall over men for. I’m not,” I shook my head. “I’m just changed. And that’s why we could never be Master and submissive. And it’s also why I won’t come to New York with you.”
/> Chapter 39.
For a long time Nancy said nothing. The ebb of sound and laughter from the other tables seemed to swirl around us.
“Jericho… I can’t give up this opportunity to work in New York. It’s just too great an opportunity.” Nancy said softly.
I leaned across the table and held her hand. I smiled. “I know,” I said. “And I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to stay in Boston because of me. That would be madness – and it wouldn’t alter anything, Nancy. We’d still be the same two people who have different desires and limits. Staying here won’t change who you are, or what you want. And it won’t change the fact that those things you’re looking for in your personal life are not the kind of experiences I could ever comfortably give you.”
She shook her head slowly, not in denial, but maybe in disbelief.
“You could try…” she offered weakly.
“No,” I said. “I know the man I am. I know the kind of submissive I am looking for – and you should now know the kind of man you need to satisfy you,” I kept my tone conciliatory. This wasn’t an argument – it was just the truth.
Nancy’s eyes brimmed with tears again. Her lips were trembling.
“You’re not the kind of submissive who is ever going to completely surrender to any man, Nancy,” I went on slowly. “You know what you want, and you know how you like to be treated. A true submissive is obedient and accepting – you’re not. You still want to influence the experience. You still try to get what you want from a scene, rather than accepting the events as they unfold.”
She started to protest. She opened her mouth and there was a flash of defiance. I held up my hand to cut her off.
“It’s not a criticism,” I assured her. “It’s an observation. In the room tonight you were compliant… but for all your willingness to give your body, you still craved something more.”
“But…”
I shook my head. “Deny it,” I dared her. “Look me in the eye and tell me you could be a willing submissive who accepted every scene without question, and a submissive who would be satisfied with the pain limits I will not cross.” I stared across the table, my gaze serious and unwavering. “Tell me that – and I’ll come to New York with you.”