Madame B - Desire

"That's the end of that," I said, partly because I wasn't sure what to do now.

"I don't think so," said a familiar female voice behind me. I whirled around. Charlotte! The blood ran from my cheeks, and I felt dizzy with shame and panic. Shame that I'd let myself get caught-panic that the best job I'd ever had was now over. Now that I'd climaxed, I didn't feel like a powerful dominatrix anymore. I just felt like me, a cleaning lady with ideas above her station. And there was nowhere to go. I was acutely conscious of my nakedness beneath the thin, transparent garment.

But Charlotte wasn't angry. She was smiling. And, now that I looked down, so was Howie.

"I knew you had it in you the moment I saw you," she said, looking approvingly at my body in the form-fitting catsuit. "That's why I gave you the job. I guessed as soon as we spoke that you wouldn't be able to resist trying the whip on for size. And it suits you. You're a natural. Don't you think, Howie?"

Howie, still naked and lying curled up on the floor, nodded through his blissed-out haze. At that moment, I understood that it had been a trap, a setup to see how I would react when Howie turned up unexpectedly. I couldn't believe that Charlotte would be so devious or that I had fallen for it.

"Are you going to fire me?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, I am going to have to let you go and get a new cleaner," said Charlotte. I bit my lip, trying to hold the tears back. "After all, you can't hold two jobs down at once, can you?"

"I don't understand," I replied.

"Tina, you've seen how business is booming. I can't run this place all by myself anymore. I need a new assistant. A young, eager, beautiful dominatrix I can teach the tricks of the trade to and who can look after the clients I can't fit in. The job is yours if you want it. Do say yes."

"Yes!" I said, tears of frustration turning to tears of pleasure and spilling down my cheeks. "But there's just one thing. Who's going to clean this place tonight?"

"Howie!" barked Charlotte, suddenly in the mistress role again. "You will spend the rest of the evening washing up this room as punishment for your disgusting thoughts."

Howie looked at me and then at Charlotte.

"Yes, mistresses," he said.

Think "sex on the road" and you conjure images of steamy trysts with strangers at roadside cafes. That's the fantasy, anyway. But the reality is often the dull grayness of highways, service stations, and traffic jams. Alice and her boyfriend Paul had often shared their fantasies, but it wasn't until a chance encounter with a young hitchhiker that they were able to turn their road trip into the ride of a lifetime. Going for a drive in the car is my favorite way to spend time with Paul. We work together, live together, and play together, so that a major part of our lives is spent driving the country's roads in our vintage sedan. I like to watch him as he drives, with his slightly muscular forearm resting on the gearshift and his other hand on the steering wheel. Sometimes we find a local radio station and sing along with the tracks they play or listen to the local news. Other times, we'll stock up the car with our favorite CDs and create our own sound track.

Mostly we just talk. We talk for hours. We reminisce about the good times we've had and discuss our hopes and dreams for the future. We also swap sexual fantasies in which we imagine doing depraved, delicious things to each other and then describe them in explicit detail. We really get off on some of these scenarios, like the story I made up about me being with another woman or the one about my tying him up and going down on him.

There are a few we return to time and time again, and there's one in particular that gets us so hot that we've had to pull over and make love on the side of the road. It's the one where Paul describes how he'd like to see another man fuck me while he stands there, tugging at his own cock and balls, watching me flat on my back with another man's dick sliding in and out of my pussy. And how during these proceedings I talk about feeling that dick while I watch Paul frantically masturbate himself until one dick shoots a load of spunk into the air and the other pumps its load inside me. We've shared this fantasy so often that it's now my favorite.

We had no idea that one day it would become a reality.

We were driving back from a long weekend with friends last summer. It had been a great few days full of surfing and pubs and food and laughter. Our car roared along the tiny uneven roads that wind around the countryside like ribbons-we always prefer to take the back roads rather than the highways. Paul was behind the wheel and I had my feet up on the dashboard, one arm draped over his shoulder. It was late afternoon, and the mood was calm and content, that Sunday feeling of tired but happy after a big weekend with good friends. Neither of us spoke, not wanting to shatter the holiday illusion and certainly not wanting to think about going back to work the next morning.

As we drove, dark clouds gathered above us, and it wasn't long before big, fat droplets of rain began pelting the windshield in one of those freakish summer downpours. The landscape was bleak and utterly featureless apart from one lone figure on the horizon.

"I wouldn't like to be out in this rain," I said to Paul. As we drew nearer, we saw the man's outstretched thumb and realized he was a hitchhiker, a young guy of no more than twenty-five dressed in jeans and a denim jacket, sporting a backpack, and about to be drenched to the skin. He held out a piece of cardboard with something scrawled on it in felt pen, but the rain had blurred the ink and his destination was illegible. Paul and I often saw hitchhikers and didn't usually stop for them, but this fresh-faced student type looked very different from the hippies we habitually whizzed past on the highway. I glanced at Paul.

"Let's see where he's going," he said. "Give the poor fucker a lift if he's heading east. We've hardly seen a car for miles, and God knows who else he'll find to take him somewhere. I'd feel terrible if I left him standing by the roadside there, getting soaked."

We pulled into the shoulder of the road where he was standing. Up close, he was younger than I'd previously thought. He was good-looking, though, with light brown hair that curled to his shoulders and creamy skin stretched over sharp cheekbones. But he was wet and getting wetter, and he looked absolutely miserable.

"Where are you going?" he said to us.

"Phoenix," I replied. "Where do you need to get to?"

"Um, yes. Great. Me, too," he said. "If you could give me a lift I'd be so grateful. I've been standing here for hours."

"In you get, son," said Paul. I giggled, nudged Paul in the ribs at his use of the word son. Paul was only about ten years older than him, no way old enough to be his dad.

The young man opened the car door and slid across the backseat. "I'm Jim," he said.

"Alice and Paul." I introduced the pair of us.

"Hi. And thanks again for the lift. It was just starting to pour. Hey, it's nice and warm in here," he said. "I'm soaking. Do you mind if I just take my jacket off? It'll probably dry quicker with it off than on."

"Go for it," said Paul. I pulled the visor down and looked in the mirror so that I could see Jim in the backseat. He peeled off his light jacket to reveal a damp white T-shirt that clung to his skin, and I could make out tight pecs and a very fit body underneath. My eyes skimmed over his form as he peeled off his T-shirt, too, and I was even more impressed. Slim but not skinny, toned and lightly tanned, Jim had that firm, defined flesh that is not the result of dieting or working out in the gym but of youth. It was years since I'd been this close to a half-naked young man, and it was wildly arousing.