We’d just finished dinner and were enjoying a tumbler of Drambuie when he brought up the subject.
“Come, Ella. I’d like to visit my dungeon with you. Are you game?”
I just looked at him quizzically. Really? I said nothing.
He smiled reassuringly. “You can ask any questions you like.”
“About your weapons?”
“About the implements, yes. I don’t consider them weapons, Ella, or I wouldn’t have them.”
As he led me by the hand, we walked upstairs to the locked room, and he began a guided tour of his wee dungeon. I slowly circuited the space, saying nothing, but pointing out each implement, as he prefers to call them. Ian is the master of euphemisms, after all—he should probably work for the government. I gestured at one that intrigued me.
“Riding crop.”
I pointed to another.
“Flogger.”
Yet another.
His voice dropped to a nearly inaudible decibel. “Single tail.”
Just the name forced ice up my spine. I quickly moved on, fingering a pretty one: it was long and almost tortoise-shell in color.
“That’s a cane, one of my favorites. She handles well.”
I arched a brow at his gender characterization but said not a word, keeping my emotions close to the vest. I did, after all, learn from a master. I realized it’s the second time I’d characterized him as such in less than a minute. My master. In the very beginning, he instructed me to address him as such when in this room and I looked at him as if he’d shape-shifted into Mephisto—he is my own personal devil, isn’t he? I stopped at a chest and opened it, picking up a colorful rope-type of thing with black hooks on each end. What the hell?
“That’s a bungee cord. It’s for suspension but it makes a good implement of punishment, so I’ve learned,” he said, chuckling. “But then again, so do rulers, large spoons, small pans, or the belt I have on. It’s always fun to improvise.”
I peeked into his eyes and the heat I saw in them made everything inside me twist and turn. I’m sorry, but this man of mine is fucking hot.
Aiming for strong and confident, the voice that projected from my throat was all breathy and feeble. Pathetic. “It all begs the question, why? Why, Ian? Why is it necessary?”
Without breaking his intense gaze, he responded softly. “Before I met you, the answer would be to keep my sexual partners at an emotional remove.”
“And now?”
He didn’t look at me as he answered; instead, he ran his hand almost lovingly over a cane hanging on the wall. “Now I haven’t done it in some time… but I think I’d still enjoy doing it.” Then his eyes traveled to mine and he grinned wickedly. “With you. The moment I saw you, I wanted you in here, baby, naked and entirely at my mercy. I’d enjoy that very much, even now.”
“Enjoy inflicting pain?”
His face sobered. “I would think that by now you’d know me better than that, Ella. No, enjoy driving you crazy with sexual arousal. Watching your lovely pale skin flush with heat until it’s bright pink. Seeing you gasp from the heights of physical pleasure. My little version of Nirvana, my pretty Ella.”
I accepted what he said as gospel but in my bones I knew he’d still like to be able to deliver some pain. Since we’ve reunited, there’s been a bit here and there but nothing with whips of any stripe—ugh, another pun. I’d have to think long and hard before I’d even open a dialogue with him about his using a whip on me again. Frankly, I doubt I’ll ever go down that road again… but one thing I’ve learned is that you should never say never.
So I’d let him tie me down to a bench of a sort and use things on me: a flogger, some vibrating toys, and a blindfold. Now that I felt comfortable with him and knew he’d have reasonable limits to how far he’d go, I felt much more at ease with these things and could actually allow myself to enjoy the experience. When he finally removed the black satin blindfold from my eyes, I realized all over again how extraordinarily handsome a man he is. It seemed revelatory that night, as if I’d never quite seen him clearly before, really seen him. That’s when I understood that his sexual proclivities are part and parcel of who he is and I’d better learn to enjoy them, for his sake. Yes, I thought, I can do that.
Thinking about the things we did is now making me want Ian all the more. I’ve grown accustomed to daily orgasms and he’s been gone a good sixteen hours. I close my eyes remembering how, after he tied my wrists and thighs down around the narrow bench, he used the flogger all over my body, sensitizing the skin to the point where I was ready to scream for him to touch me.