Justine Elyot - Her World of Submission

Dressed and ready for action – but not the kind of action in an action movie – I tiptoed on my stockinged feet over to the office.

I felt so sure that Jasper would be in there that I knocked first.

No direction followed, either to enter or to wait. I knocked again, then turned the handle.

No, he was not there.

On his leather swivel chair was another box, stout and square.

This one proved to contain a little silk-embroidered case inside which lay a pair of shining silver balls. They jingled when I took them out. Of course, I knew what they were. I hadn’t studied the historical evolution of sex toys for nothing. But, strangely perhaps, given our no-holds-barred relationship, I’d never yet experienced them in play.

A label was stuck inside the lid of the case.

‘Insert them,’ it said, ‘and walk (carefully) up the stairs to the master bathroom.’

And now I was glad to be alone and, hopefully, unobserved. I removed the box from the chair and sat down, considering how this was best to be done. I thought it best not to put them in while I was sitting bare-bottomed on the seat, so I stood up again and leaned against the desk instead. Or did I need to be lying down?

No, I would stay in this position and, if any adjustments needed to be made, I would see to them. I took one of the balls out of the case and jiggled it up and down in my palm. It made the most beautiful low chiming sound. Whose idea was it to make them do that? It seemed a bit random, but pleasingly so.

I reached down below, keeping my thighs apart, and rested one shiny curve against the shallow dint behind my pussy lips. It felt cold, but unthreatening. Jasper had certainly put more menacing objects than this up there quite painlessly.

I gave it a little nudge, thinking perhaps it would be better to do this lying down, because my wrist was beginning to ache. But I didn’t have to struggle to insert it at all – it glided in and my pelvic muscles held it in place. For a moment, I worried that it would be lost up there, but all the same I pushed the other one in behind it – and now I could really feel them together, squashed in and stretching me. Keeping them in would constitute a fairly serious workout for my pelvic floor. I supposed Jasper was only trying to be helpful.

I pushed myself off the desk and tried to stand up straight. I felt the balls move inside me to accommodate themselves to this new posture. I clamped my thighs together and they seemed to grow, then shrink when I relaxed my stance. I tried bending over, which threw my muscles into a panic of clenching, desperate not to lose their new guests. How freely was it possible to move wearing these? I tried a few dance steps. It required a high level of concentration, but it was possible.

Obeying the directive on the card, I left the office and headed for the stairs. I was conscious of a faint click-clicking inside me as I walked, and an occasional musical note. As I took one step after another I felt the balls slip and slide as if struggling to escape, and I was careful to keep my muscles clenched. It was a potent reminder to me that I was never to forget my sexuality. I wondered if Jasper would make me wear them in any other contexts and the thought was shiver-inducingly exciting.

The bathroom door was open and I walked in and looked around. I failed at first to locate the next parcel but found it eventually underneath the sink.

I wasn’t particularly surprised to find a string of anal beads – very pretty ones like pearls that you could probably get away with wearing around your wrist at a party – and a small bottle of lube.

I didn’t even remember to look for the card before I started coating the tip of a finger in the gloopy substance. Too late now, I thought, grimacing. Still, this was undoubtedly the thing to do, and I could read the card once this business was taken care of.

I prepared myself carefully, then began to insert the little string of beads until the plaited end was left protruding. Again, these were not uncomfortable compared with some of Jasper’s plugs and once it was done I felt no more than a little daring and very sensually stimulated.

I took a good look at myself in the full-length mirror from all angles. I was a sex kitten, ready to play. If I’d been able to send a snapshot of myself like this to my year-ago self, she’d have screamed and probably torn the thing in two. Would she even have recognised herself? It was hard to know.

Finally, after preening my fill, my attention was drawn back to the empty box – but it wasn’t empty, of course. Nestling in the tissue wrapping was the inevitable card.

I picked it up and read, confident of a summons to the bedroom now.

But it wasn’t.

‘Go to the guest bedroom at the end of the hall. Attach your wrist cuffs to the apparatus you find there. And wait.’

Apparatus? What could that mean? I couldn’t restrain a little shudder as unpleasant images of torture equipment flashed into my head.

But my curiosity would not be denied and I tiptoed along the landing, keeping all my senses on alert for any signs of Jasper. But there were none.

The end guest bedroom was a spartan little chamber containing, usually, no more than lots of shelves and cabinets on which various art curiosities were displayed. It contained no bed and nothing in the way of useful furniture, as a rule, but today the Turkish rug in the centre of the room had something on it.

I laughed and then frowned.

It was a sleigh bed. You know the kind – they have a curved kind of prow at each end instead of a head and foot board. Fancy calling it an ‘apparatus’. Jasper had just been trying to psych me out, as usual. This looked really rather comfortable. But he had mentioned attaching the cuffs to something …?

I drew closer and noticed that a pair of small hooks were fixed to one of the sleigh ends. Did he mean me to kneel or lie? I couldn’t be sure.

I decided to lie, placed my wrists up behind my head and pushed their rings against the hooks until they clicked together. Now I could sit on the pillows and wait.

But for how long?

From where I sat, I could look through the window. Light was failing. Soon the room would be dark. Luckily it was heated by a radiator beneath the deep window ledge. All the same, my nipples were starting to complain, stiffening beneath the gossamer lace.

I strained my ears to hear any telltale sounds but the house was so silent my scalp began to prickle with dread. What if those notes weren’t from Jasper? What if he’d been … kidnapped … or … For God’s sake, Sarah. Who the hell else would they be from?

The mantel clock tick-tocked and I heard the grandfather in the hall strike a solemn five. It was now fully dark and I hadn’t thought to switch the light on in the room. I was getting colder and more shivery by the second. If I called out for help, what would happen?

I was just breathing in when I heard something.

Not much, a soft click, possibly from somewhere along the landing. I held my breath in my lungs and listened.

There was a definite creak – a floorboard. He was coming.

I shuffled, adjusting my posture for maximum attractive helplessness, whilst at the same time trying to make sure I could aim a good kick if needed. This wasn’t an easy manoeuvre.

The sudden downward turn of the door handle made me gasp, even though I was expecting it. I stared transfixed at the rectangle of white in the greyish gloom and watched it slowly open inwards. It brought with it a glow of orangey light, a candle, preceding its bearer. Its brightness concealed for a millisecond the identity of the person who held it but my eyes soon overcame the difficulty.

I saw an intent gaze above the flame, the curl of a familiar lip, a dark suit.