The Secret Life of a Submissive. Sarah K

good. Here, let me help you.’ Very gently he guided me down over his knees, which was not elegant and certainly not easy in handcuffs, with the little clamps biting into my skin and sending little flares, bright as stars, through my consciousness. When you are blindfolded, pain and pleasure are not just sensations but colours; bright, unexpected flashes of colour.

      Then, when I was calm, the bells were still and my breathing had slowed, he pulled down my knickers. I was so stunned that I almost stood up again. I had to remind myself that I’d agreed to all this. I had, I really had.

      ‘Gently, gently,’ he murmured.

      Gently, my arse, I thought, although under the circumstances maybe that wasn’t quite the right phrase. I was flooded with a wave of panic and a horrible squirming embarrassment. In my fantasies I was altogether more lithe and the scene of my spanking more subtly lit; certainly I was not in broad daylight in my sitting room. Had Max been expecting lithe? Did Doms get put off? In fantasies they didn’t, but in the flesh – the acres of flesh, offered my brain helpfully – maybe they did. I could feel myself blushing scarlet. Then I wondered if it was this, the sense of discomfort and humiliation, that Doms got off on? More than that, this felt like my fantasy – the sense of exposure, the vulnerability. I shivered. I was doing it; this was it.

      Max, meanwhile, didn’t seem at all put off – quite the reverse, in fact. He made soothing appreciative noises and stroked my thighs and backside, easing the tension from my body, and gradually, remarkably, unexpectedly, I began to relax.

      ‘Gently,’ he murmured. ‘You’re fine, Sarah. Just fine.’

      And just when I had been lulled into stillness, Max hit me, one big flat-handed, stinging, spanking slap that ricocheted through my body. The slap wasn’t hard, but it was enough to make me cry out in surprise and pain – my whole body flexed.

      I had been so busy thinking about the fantasy and more recently thinking about the indignity of having my bum up in the air that it hadn’t really occurred to me that spanking would hurt – and it really did hurt. How come I hadn’t factored that into my fantasy?

      Then Max slapped me again, slightly harder this time, which sent another hot stinging wave coursing through me. Before I could recover, there was another slap and then another.

      Instinctively I squealed and kicked, bucking and writhing against his thighs, wanting him to stop, begging him to stop, yet at the same time wanting him to continue. This was what I had dreamt of, this was what I had wanted, and now it was happening I wasn’t altogether sure that I liked it. It made me squeal and wriggle and gasp for breath, and I kicked some more as my eyes filled with tears. The bells kept on tinkling, more frantically now.

      ‘If you want me to stop, all you have to do is say the word,’ said Max.

      I knew that. I really truly knew that. I could make it stop, so why didn’t I? Because in among the pain there was something else: a glow of need and desire, a rolling, aching want.

      Max slapped me again. Being spanked hurt more than I had ever imagined; it wasn’t at all like my fantasy. Yet there was something else lurking under the surface. It was liberating to make a fuss, to be so directly connected to how I felt and to react to it. I’m rationalizing this after the event. At the time it felt like a great raw emotional force steaming through me, and it set me free.

      One of the things Max had said to me over lunch was that there was no going back – once you crossed over, there was no unknowing what you discovered about yourself – and I had a glimpse of what he meant. How could anyone sane like something that hurt them? It was impossible to make sense of it, yet it was an amazing, free-fall cascade of sensations with no walls between what I felt and what I was and my reaction to it; it felt as though I was completely connected to every part of myself.

      The blows weren’t that hard but they were shocking. I gasped for breath, tears trickling down my face, and then between strokes Max began to massage the hot, stinging flesh of my backside, stroking the hand prints, and slowly started to go further, opening my legs wider – touching me, exploring. Letting go and letting him touch me without boundaries, without hindrance, added to my excitement.

      I groaned with pure animal pleasure as he found the warm wet folds of my sex and I felt my whole body start to respond as he stroked me in altogether more intimate ways. The pain had brought me so far, and the pleasure that took over was intense and all the deeper for the spanking. I could feel my heart rate quicken, the warm glow across my backside echoing the one that was beginning to grow low down, deep in my belly.

      Max slid a finger inside me, making me moan with pleasure. He slid deeper, deliberately brushing my clitoris as his fingers began to work in and out. I was stunned by how intense the sensations were, as if the pain had amplified what I was feeling. Where did the desire come from? Was this about the pain, the embarrassment, the sense of helplessness? I had never experienced anything quite so all-consuming before, and as I began to move with his caress I could feel his erection pressing against my torso through his trousers.

      My whole body was focused on his touch as I moved instinctively, relishing the attentions of his knowing fingertips, the way he teased me into reaching out for each delicious sensation.

      God, this was fabulous and the sweetest of tortures! I was so close to the edge now that I thought I would die, gasping, whimpering with pure undiluted pleasure as he brought me closer and closer to oblivion. I had not expected this. My hips lifted in time to his touch, longing for release …

      ‘Please,’ I whispered, shocked at my own need. ‘Please.’

      Max chuckled.

      Hadn’t we just agreed that there would be no sex, not today, perhaps not ever? This was down to me. There was a part of me that had been thinking I could have a ‘real’ relationship alongside a BDSM one – naïve but true. In an early conversation Max had pointed out that it was quite possible to have a BDSM relationship and never have full sex or in fact any sexual contact.

      Never? I’d asked. Never, he’d said. Other couples did it where one was involved with a partner who didn’t engage in BDSM.

      It had all sounded so perfectly feasible when I’d got my clothes on and we’d been deciding whether to have the sea bass or the lamb for lunch. I had taken everything Max had said to heart, and fondly imagined going off to see someone like Max for a weekly spanking and a bit of light bondage, alongside another more conventional relationship, a bit like going to a t’ai chi class or having my legs waxed. I realized now that for me that would be close to impossible. I was aching for him.

      ‘Please,’ I sobbed. ‘Please.’

      ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘And that’s the fourth time you’ve broken the rules.’

      ‘Please, Sir,’ I gasped.

      How could you feel like this, share this intimacy, this exposure with someone, and then go home to a boyfriend or a husband, girlfriend or wife? I realized I couldn’t switch off my emotions and isolate my sexual need; I needed to have both together in the same relationship.

      My body was aching for Max in a great rush of animal lust – something that in all the years I’d been having sex, even lust-driven hungry sex, I don’t think I’d ever felt before. It was earthier and more physical than anything I had ever experienced. And I could sense Max’s excitement growing along with my own. I heard his breath quicken to match mine. Maybe this was where mutual desire overturned the rules?

      Eagerly I leaned into his caress. I brushed myself against his engorged cock. It felt like a challenge. Maybe I could make him break the rules. How hard could it be? I was an instant away from the long, tumbling descent towards orgasm. I wanted him to take me there. I wanted to take him with me.

      I arched my back. I pressed down onto his lap, brushing myself against his fingertips, seeking his caress, gasping as he stroked my clitoris, riding the great waves that threatened to drown me. I groaned, feeling the first ripples – which was exactly the moment Max stopped.

      I