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Chapter Four

Sonnet

The things I’d seen this evening went beyond anything I’d ever pictured or dreamed.

While my imagination was wild and vivid, it didn’t hold a candle to the reality I’d glimpsed in those rooms. What was odd, at least for me, was the way my fingers no longer ached to take up one of my drawing pencils so I could pour all my focus into capturing the things I’d seen.

Maybe it was because I didn’t fear forgetting them; how could I when several had left me damp and aching to experience them for myself? I’d never been as turned on as during that tour, though I knew a good deal of those feelings had to do with Harper being my guide through the different spaces.

When had I ever been attracted to someone so much that they were able to steal my focus from my artwork in such a short time together? The answer was simple.

Never.

If my actions matched my thoughts, I’d have been considered wanton or even brazen with some of the urges that had taken root in my head.

But I’d never been tempted enough to act on any of my many, many erotic fantasies, but I dreamed of wicked things all the time and had never felt the slightest shred of shame over it either.

Then again, I’d never found someone who enthralled me so much that I wanted to act out some of the naughtier ones with them.

And yet Mistress Harper had just introduced me to a space where it was safe to do so.

And goddess help me, I wanted to know more.

“Here it is,” Mistress Harper said as she opened the door and ushered me inside a space that was filled with warm, deep wood and high windows. Every bit of it gleamed where the soft light hit it, creating the sort of ambiance I loved.

“Wow,” I murmured, turning slowly to take in the personal space she’d created. “The lightning alone is magnificent.”

A fainting couch with rich, mahogany tones jutted out from an alcove; only when I looked closer did I notice that there were soft-looking straps wound around each leg.

“What are those for?” I asked, pointing to them even as I stopped closer to get a better look.

Kneeling, I noticed that there was a gleaming wooden box beneath it, intricate carvings running along the sides.

Polished to a shimmery sheen and positively beautiful, it was definitely a work of art in and of itself.

No pressboard or cheap fabrication, that was for certain.

Someone had taken the time to lovingly create it. A gift, perhaps?

“Those are restraints,” she explained. “Each one is long enough to not only wrap around a sub’s ankles and wrists to secure them to the couch but to allow me the freedom to arrange them into enticing positions, especially the extremely flexible ones.”

“I’m flexible,” I blurted and immediately felt my cheeks heat up.

“I-I mean, I do yoga each morning; it helps me clear whatever thoughts I woke up with so I can focus on my muse without stray bits interfering. I was never very athletic. Okay, so that’s an understatement; I was never athletic at all.

I was the klutzy art geek who could trip on air, especially if there was a ball involved.

I’d have been picked last for every team if it hadn’t been for Patrick McGee being in the same class since we were ten.

He was a bigger klutz than I was, which was saying something.

He sent more people to the nurse than the stomach flu. ”

Downstairs, she smiled at me several times. Now she threw her head back and let out a throaty laugh.

“Oh, oh, that’s bad,” she muttered, shaking her head, that grin feeling very permanent now as she studied me.

“Right? I felt so bad for him. For both of us, really. I get the importance of making sure children are getting exercise, but there has to be a better way than gym class. There were times when it felt like the gym teacher’s sole purpose in life was to torment the slower, weaker students and the ones who didn’t catch on to whatever game or sport we were supposed to be focusing on. ”

“Did you not enjoy playing?” she asked as she knelt and slowly unwound one of the straps from the leg of the fainting couch to show me how long and soft it was.

Like crushed velvet beneath my fingertips, it felt as wonderfully luxurious as the sofa itself.

No way it came off an assembly line.

“Sometimes,” I replied, having to remind myself to answer the question and not get lost in the gesture beneath my fingertips.

I loved soft things, all soft things, whether they were firm or squishy.

Like with yoga, stroking over something and using it as a touchstone was a means of grounding myself and lulling me into the right headspace for my art, only here, looking at this sofa, it wasn’t a drawing I was thinking about.

It was her.

“Would you like to experience it for yourself?” she asked, while I continued to run my fingers over that strip of cloth.

“I’m so curious it’s hard not to squeal with excitement at you giving me the chance,” I admitted. “Will you show me what to do?”

“It’s simple enough,” she explained. “Just get comfortable on your side or back, relax, and let me position you. If something feels uncomfortable, or if you change your mind and decide you don’t want to be bound to the chair, just tell me and I’ll immediately unwrap you.”

“I can do that,” I said, sitting first before carefully removing my shoes and tucking them off to the side.

Not only did the cushions feel soft, but they were super comfortable too. As I stretched out on my side and smoothed my dress over my hip, the fabric draped right along the edge of my knee-high socks, showing off the bit of ribbon that was holding them up.

“You’re striking this way,” Mistress Harper declared as I got comfortable, my head resting on the pillow as she started wrapping fabric around the leg that rested against the cushions.

Giggles welled up when she reached my calf, spilling over when she wound it higher, until she found the spot on my inner thigh that always made me squirm.

“I see someone is extremely ticklish, right there,” she murmured, dangling the edge of the fabric over the spot, teasing, until our eyes met.

That first, teasing brush against my skin drew a gasp from deep inside my chest, my body tightened, and I flung my free leg wide when she did it again. When she licked her lips, one eyebrow arching at my inadvertently flashing her, it was the hottest thing in the world.

Like a cat fascinated by dangly bits of fluff hanging from a string, she waved it about, catching the curve of my knee with a light enough graze that I giggled again. When my squirming revealed another patch of skin, she tickled that too, but never for long enough for me to beg her to stop.

It was only when she stopped tormenting me and finished wrapping the strap that I realized there was nothing to hold it in place. No Velcro, no buttons, zips, or snaps, just the end looped over another strip and tucked beneath it.

I didn’t need to be freed, but I did give an experimental tug of my leg to see how it all worked and quickly discovered that the cloth had very little give. In fact, tugging seemed to tighten it.

Okay, that was good to know and to think about once I was ready to incorporate those strips into a drawing, because holy shit, they were both soft and snug.

Like a hug.

“Does that feel okay to you?” she asked, her fingers light as she caressed my cheek and brushed a wavy lock of hair back behind my ear.

“I like it,” I admitted, my words followed by a contented sigh in response to her touch. “It isn’t tight at all.”

“Good,” she replied. “This type of restraint isn’t about being tight, just secure enough to let someone get lost in sensation and enjoy what’s being done to them.

Sometimes, it’s hard to sink down and get lost in the moment when inside of your head you’ve got a whirlwind of suggestions playing on an endless loop, telling you what you should be doing in response to what’s being done to you.

This type of bondage removes the urge to focus on things like that. ”

“How?”

“By making them impossible,” she explains. “Once the mind accepts that the body can’t do something, it quits trying to suggest it.”

“I never thought of it like that,” I murmured as she began securing my wrist and arm next, so it remained at my side but secured in a way that made it impossible to lift it.

This time, I didn’t feel the need to test how well it held, since I knew what pulling would do, and I liked it. She was right; not having to think about doing anything at all made it easy to just be there in the moment, especially when she playfully drew the end of that strap down my arm.

I wasn’t ticklish there, but it did raise a crop of goosebumps along my arm that she noticed and blew on, raising more. So many more that I shivered and watched as my nipples pebbled enough that they were visible through my thin, lacy dress.

She noticed, of course she did, and flashed me a wicked grin as she moved around the end of the couch to reach the other side.

There, she started with my wrist and arm this time, bringing it to the top of the couch, but with no way to cover myself up if I started feeling shy or modest. I felt neither and doubted I would, not when I had her expression to study.

Concentration and desire. Her focus reminded me of my own when I was deep within a piece of artwork.

I’d recorded enough videos of my process to know how lost I got when I was deep in a moment of creation. Was that what I was for her right now? A living, breathing piece of art for her to mold into the picture she envisioned?

Was that what a mistress got out of a scene? Was that part of where they derived their pleasure?

I didn’t want to break the mood by asking, nor did I think I could muster up the effort, or words, when she trailed the end of that strap along my bustline, then back again, over my nipples, so taut that they reacted to the barest whisper of fabric ghosting across them.

When she did it again, I raised my hips, just a little, such a small, inviting motion that hiked my dress up further than I expected it to go.

Damp, my panties grew wetter as she used that strap to tease my nipples over and over again until I couldn’t swallow down my gasps any longer and let one out.

“You don’t have to hide your sounds of pleasure from me,” she whispered, leaning over me to speak right against my ear.

Like in the dining room, her breath and the rumbling murmur vibrating against the shell of my ear made me shiver more and a moan escaped.

She’d barely touched me and already my body felt like pinpricks of electricity that danced along my skin. I wanted, no, I needed to see what would happen once she had me completely entangled in those straps.

One limb to go.

My dress was high enough that it barely hid my lavender lace panties from her.

Yet she took her time, finding my ticklish spots again and chasing them higher.

Each slow discovery made me giggle more.

In between gasps and moans, she found a spot near my hip, the flesh that the dress revealed once she’d positioned my leg the way she wanted it.

Open.

It was as if I were on display the way the subs in the displays had been. When she asked if I liked to be watched, I didn’t know how to answer, because I’d never been put into a position where I had to consider it.

Now, as her eyes peered down at me, as they gleamed like the wood in that soft light, I knew that yes, yes I did.

As long as she was the one watching me.

Each time she met my eyes, it felt like she wove a connection between us. Eyes were one of the first features I’d mastered when I was learning to draw. The window into the soul, many had called them.

I’d done a whole collection of them, with images inside the iris depicting what the soul might desire.

I’d do one for her, even if it didn’t mesh with what she wanted for the club’s walls. I’d do one to reflect on some of the naughty, wicked, lascivious things I’d only fantasized about. Things she’d proven to me were possible all evening long.

The edge of the strap brushed the high curve of my thigh, inches away from the damp place between my legs that grew wetter as I shivered and sucked in air.

This was sweet, sweet torture, and I couldn’t have moved if I wanted to.

Goddess knows I didn’t.

My hips couldn’t even rock anymore or squirm with the way she’d placed me. Words were the only things that would free me, words I felt no desire to say.

Instead, I gazed up into her eyes, smiled, and whispered, “Please, please touch me more.”