Submission Page 2

  He tugged her into a sitting position and they both tumbled onto the carpet, panting toward the still rotary fan overhead. “I told you being tied up wasn’t so bad.”

  She glanced over at the man she’d come to inexplicably and wholeheartedly trust in such a short time, and it was all she could do not to grin like a fool. “Now I’ve done something for you, you have to do something for me.”

  “Anything.” She knew he meant it.

  Emy rolled to the side and wriggled free of the tangled tie’s generous loop. She tossed the fabric in his direction. “Make it tighter next time.”

  THE ART OF DARKNESS

  Alison Tyler

  Killian said, “Put your hands over your head.”

  I obeyed immediately, the “Yes, Sir,” coming quickly to my lips.

  He clicked on the cuffs, looped the silver chain over the hook above our mattress, then looked down at me. His pale green eyes seemed to glow, like jade lit from within, and I could tell he wasn’t finished, even though sometimes all he needs is to see me cuffed. Sometimes that’s all it takes. But tonight, he had more serious plans.

  “Spread your legs,” he said next, and I followed the command, just as quickly. “Yes, Sir,” punctuated the movement of my slim thighs parting on the cobalt-blue satin comforter. He bound my ankles securely with leather thongs attached to hooks on the bed frame, and I reveled in the pull on my muscles, the ache that had started already.

  “Mouth open,” Killian instructed, dangling the bright red rubber ball gag in front of me, and I parted my lips and lifted my neck to make it easier for him to fasten the buckle beneath my heavy, silver-streaked hair. The rubber tasted bitter, an obscene flavor I found oddly pleasing.

  “Close your eyes,” Killian said finally, and that’s when I started getting scared.

  Killian, I would have said, if the gag hadn’t been in the way. Killian, please.

  The words sounded clear in my head, but as I could no longer speak, I hoped my eyes spoke loud enough for me. Hoped he understood what I was saying. Of course he did. He knew me well enough by now. In fact, I had no doubt that he’d put in the gag before giving this instruction for the sole purpose of seeing if I’d obey.

  “Close your eyes,” he repeated, his voice sterner now, and I drew in a deep breath through my nose, but kept my eyes open.

  I felt as if I’d never blink again.

  When Killian had first suggested a blindfold, I’d balked. Worse than that, I’d safeworded, to his total shock. “Jasmine,” I’d said quickly.

  “What did you say?”

  “Jasminejasminejasmine.” The words were strung together in my haste.

  “You do everything else, Greer,” he murmured, surprised at my instantaneous and—in his view—negative response. “You willingly wear the cuffs, the collar, the chastity belt. You bend over for my cock anytime. Anywhere. Why won’t you wear a blindfold?”

  I shrugged, unwilling to say, while he continued.

  “That’s practically vanilla sex. Women who read Ladies’ Home Journal use blindfolds.”

  I wondered where he got that last bit of information. He didn’t know any women who read Ladies’ Home Journal. But I understood his point. Blindfolds were almost comically acceptable now. I could have walked into any one of my friends’ apartments and found one tucked in a dresser drawer. Who wouldn’t wear a blindfold?

  That was simple: me.

  “You’ve let me drip wax on you, let me use anal beads the size of walnuts. We own a crop, a flogger, a studded paddle, and a cane. What’s up with a blindfold?”

  I hadn’t wanted to admit the truth right away. What if he thought I was some sort of freak? But Killian simply wouldn’t let go of the concept.

  He held the offending item before me, let the soft velvet fabric slide against my skin, and I squirmed away as if he were using electroshock therapy. (But the truth is that I would have let him use electroshock therapy. I’d have let him use one of the violet wands over me before I would allow him to fasten the dreaded fabric over my eyes.)

  Still, all I could think to say was, “You won’t make fun of me?”

  He gave me a look.

  “Sir,” I added quickly. “You won’t make fun of me, Sir, will you?”

  “Greer,” he crooned. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Yes, Sir.” If I didn’t trust him, then none of our dirty little games would have worked. But I needed reassurance. Because I’d been dreading this day from the start.

  I’m a smart girl. I’d understood that eventually Killian would want to try some sort of sensory deprivation, something different than cuffs or bindings. So, yes, I’d known this conversation was coming, but that hadn’t made the arrival any easier.

  “Then what’s the fucking problem?”

  Ah, Jesus. I had to say, had to spill my secret. My darkest secret. Or, rather, my secret about the dark. “I’m afraid,” I said finally.

  “That I’ll do something to you?” he asked, incredulous. “That I’ll hurt you in some way? In some way you wouldn’t like, I mean.” A dark chuckle there, because we both knew exactly how much I liked it when he hurt me. His hand, or his belt, or the braided leather of his crop landing cleanly where he wanted each blow. He knew precisely how wet I got simply from the threat of having any one of his favorite devices used on my bare skin. He also knew that I had complete faith in him to take care of me, to know my boundaries, to never take me past where I was willing to go.

  “I’m not afraid that you’ll hurt me,” I insisted. “I’m just scared.”

  “Scared of what?” Killian had pressed, unwilling to let me get away with a simple “scared.” Which meant I’d have to either confess, or get over my fear. And I saw no way of doing so. Not after living with the phobia my whole life.

  “I’m scared of the dark.”

  It was a child’s fear, yes, but that didn’t make the fear any less real.

  I don’t believe I’d ever been in absolute blackness. Throughout my childhood, I slept with a light on, and not just some little princess-pink twinkling nightlight, but a sturdy desk lamp outfitted with a vibrant one-hundred-watt bulb. In college, I’d stay awake each evening reading until my roommate fell asleep, and then I’d pretend to fall asleep myself with the light still on. When living on my own, there was never a problem. I could light the whole place as brightly as the Las Vegas strip if I chose, and nobody would say a word.

  Dating wasn’t an issue, either. Men seemed charmed, seriously delighted, when I said I liked to keep the lights on during sex. So many women prefer to hide their bodies in blackness. And I rarely had my lovers over to spend the whole night. If one wanted to, I’d leave the hall light on, “for my cat,” so that I was never in total darkness. This is what I’d done with Killian. Up until now, anyway. But now I had to fess up.

  Because Killian wanted more than simply to stay the night.

  He wanted to move in with me.

  Once I confessed, Killian’s response wasn’t at all what I expected. He smiled. A genuine smile, lifting his lips, touching the corners of his eyes. And then he started to laugh. As if he understood. As if it all made sense now.

  I felt relief wash over me. But it was a misplaced sensation. I’d thought that he would drop the concept of blindfolding me, that he would be satisfied with the games that I could easily play. All of those other kinky interactions that we shared. What was so exciting about a blindfold, anyway? There were a million other ways that Killian and I could entertain ourselves. He had a toy chest filled with deviant devices. Plenty to keep Killian’s hands, mind, and cock well stimulated.

  That’s what I thought, anyway.

  But I thought wrong.

  Once Killian understood my fear, his mission became not to save me from my phobia, but to exploit it, every chance he could.

  “Close your eyes,” he’d say when I least expected to hear the words. We’d be driving somewhere, about to enter a tunnel, perhaps, and he’d taunt me with the command.
<
br />   “No, Killian. Come on…”

  “You’ll earn a spanking if you don’t behave.”

  I could happily agree to that. I like being spanked. I hate the dark.

  Late at night, I would occasionally hear a telltale click, and I’d wake up in a shuddering panic, realizing he’d shut off my safety light. I’d scramble spiderlike across the mattress, all sprawling limbs and trembling fingers, fumbling in my haste to turn the light back on, and Killian would watch me the whole time. Head tilted, as if storing up the information to use sometime in the future.

  Sometime in the very near future.

  Sometime like tonight.

  “Close your eyes,” Killian said again.

  I tried to beg now, even with the ball gag in place. “Please, Killian,” words which I heard in my head, but which were incomprehensible around the gag. Mere slurring sounds, rather than an actual sentence, but words that I knew my man understood plainly.

  “Do it,” Killian insisted.

  And I shook my head, wondering what that would mean to Killian, wondering what my disobedience would do to him.

  In the past, we’d arrived at this precipice, and stopped. It was almost as if Killian thought that someday, I’d simply obey. At some point, if he asked often enough, if he told me often enough, I would get over my fear, or swallow my fear, for him.

  But phobias don’t work like that.

  I once worked for a woman who was afraid of balloons. Beyond afraid. They sent her into serious chest-tightening panic attacks. And you might think this is an easy fear to simply avoid. Stay away from children’s birthday parties, right? But now that you know about this fear, pay attention to the world. There are balloons everywhere—helium balloons tied to the dry cleaner’s sign, outside of the car dealership, heralding one grand opening or another. She’d cross the street to the other side, or drive blocks out of her way, to avoid the ones she knew. But when balloons arrived in her world unexpectedly, she would take an emergency Xanax and call her doctor.

  Why was she afraid of balloons? She never said. In the office, we had our guesses. Something to do with pregnancy, with being all puffed up. Or possibly a fear of the unexpected. Of loud noises. Of pops.

  Fears don’t have to make sense, to play by anyone’s rules.

  Not even Killian’s.

  “Tonight’s the night,” he said, staring at me. “We’ll go slowly. We’ll take our time. But I want you to know that by the end of the evening, you’ll understand.”

  Why had he gagged me? How could I safeword?

  “I’m not going to blindfold you,” he continued. “You’ll do it yourself. See? If it’s too frightening, too difficult, you can just open your eyes again. You won’t need to give a safeword.”

  It was as if he’d read my mind.

  “Try,” he said again. “For me, Greer. Do it for me.”

  He had attempted to understand before. I shut my eyes every night, after all, right? To go to sleep. How was that any different?

  Because, I’d tried to explain. Because it is. Just shutting my eyes for the hell of it, for the sole point of plunging myself into darkness—that was a completely different sensation than closing my eyes to sleep.

  “Come on, baby,” he said. “It’s like the first time we had anal sex. Remember? I let you back up onto me. I let you take it inch by inch. That’s what I’m asking you to do now. Get used to the feeling of me touching you, kissing you, playing with you while your eyes are closed. Then we can move forward. Then we can try all sorts of things. You do trust me, baby, don’t you?”

  I did. That was the truth.

  But the first time I shut my eyes for him, I opened them up immediately.

  “That was half a second,” he said, laughing.

  I tried again, shutting my eyes, my whole body taut. Killian set a hand on my leg and I opened my eyes once more.

  “A bit longer this time,” he said, “but I think you can do better than that. Try harder, doll. Try for me.”

  That’s what the whole game was about, wasn’t it?

  Obeying him. Pleasing him. And by pleasing him, pleasing myself. I closed my eyes, and I tried to focus on the sensations that immediately flooded over me. It was as if Killian could tell when I started to give in, when the magic of being a sub began to work through me. He touched me so softly, so gently, and I shuddered and almost opened my eyes—almost, but didn’t.

  He put his hands on the insides of my spread thighs, and his fingertips began to tickle me, sweetly, so that my body would have squirmed away had I not been so completely bound.

  My breath came in great shuddering gasps, but I kept my eyes shut. I don’t know how I managed to do so, but I did. But then he brought his mouth to the split of my body and licked me firmly, and immediately my eyes opened. The pleasure making me forget the game. Making me fail.

  “Good girl,” he said. “Let’s try a little longer.”

  Once more, I put my trust in Killian. I took a deep breath in through my nose, as if preparing for an underwater spring, then closed my eyes, and let myself go. Killian was between my legs once more, licking me, his fingers spreading apart my pussy lips. I shivered at his touch, but I was aware now. I kept my eyes shut tight, knowing that if I wanted him to continue, I had to obey. And then, right when I felt that I had got the knack of this, Killian surprised me.

  He stopped his licking tricks, and moved on the bed. My eyelids fluttered for a moment, so that his actions appeared almost in strobe-effect. He was coming closer, and I had an idea what he was going to do, but I didn’t squirm. Fear spread through my body, but this time, rather than fight it, I let it in.

  The blindfold fit over my head, and I started, but then kept myself in check. Not only did the gag prevent me from talking, but a change had started to overtake me. This time, the blackness enveloped me completely. When I peeked through my shut lids, I could see nothing. Fear continued to creep through me, but Killian had a way to keep that fear away.

  He slid back between my thighs, and this time I felt his cock, so hard, so ready, poised to enter. Then he slid inside me, and I bucked and moaned. Overwhelmed by the sensation of drifting. Of being carried away.

  The blackness helped. The darkness made everything different. Stretched out each sensation, as if we were fucking in the middle of the night, in an open field, surrounded by a black, inky sky.

  Why had I fought this for so long? This was simply the natural progression. Being bound. Being gagged. And being blinded. But somehow, in the dark, I found my way. Somehow, in the dark, I could see.

  Killian drove in deep, and I lifted my hips as high as I could. There wasn’t much give in the bindings, but I did my best to let him know with my body how good he was making me feel. His fingers strummed over my clit, and I started to come. Seeing stars, seeing gold. Seeing beauty in blackness.

  Who would ever have thought?

  With a final thrust, Killian came, and I shuddered all over and came with him, my safeword the furthest thing from my mind.

  RECLAIMING

  Teresa Noelle Roberts

  I set Deirdre’s suitcases down, then shut the door behind us.

  “Take off your clothes,” I told her. “You’re home now. And mine.”

  I watched several expressions fleet over Deirdre’s beautiful face. First, the relief at being home after her long business trip (almost three weeks in Singapore, and then a stop in the Chicago office that morning for a meeting before flying home). The second, confusion, as she began to change gears from Deirdre McCarthy, kick-ass businesswoman, to my Deirdre, my slave.

  Finally, the melting, the yielding, the surge of raw need. I saw it in her gray eyes, saw it in the speed with which first the coat, then the suit jacket, came off, and everything else followed.

  Usually I meet her at the airport and start the transition from one mind-set to the other almost immediately—nipple clips to put on in the airport bathroom, vibrator just teasing at her clit all the way home, or maybe clothespins on he
r labia—but the way her flight worked out this time, I couldn’t get anyone to cover my noon class and she’d had to take a cab.

  I’d texted her before she got on the plane, though. As clothes went flying—blouse, bra, skirt—I could see she’d followed my instructions.

  No panties. A small weight (a dangly earring we’d modified for the purpose) on the ring through her clit hood to tease at her during the flight. And freshly shaved, which I hadn’t reminded her to do, confident that she’d take care of it herself, reminder or no.

  She was a good girl, even when we’d been apart way too long.

  “Do you need to use the bathroom?” I asked her.

  “I went at the airport.” The pause was a beat too long before she added, “Master,” and I could see her eyes go wider as she caught herself in the near-error.

  I wasn’t angry.

  In fact, I felt my cock twitch, stir, perk up more from its definitely-interested-but-not-hard-yet state.

  Sure, I have a mental image of a perfect slave, one who never slips up, never rebels, never is anything except 100 percent submissive. But what gets me going, gets me hard, is taking a girl to that point, training her, breaking her in ways we both enjoy, then putting her back together so she’s both stronger and softer than before. Repeatedly. Because perfection doesn’t happen in the real world, and it would be pretty boring anyway.

  The problem, if you want to call it that, is that my Deirdre’s a true Type A personality. She strives for excellence in everything she does, which is why she was chosen to go to Singapore to straighten out a multimillion-dollar potential disaster. She applies that perfectionism to being a slave, as well.

  And that leaves me well served, well fucked, and well loved, but without a lot to do.

  But after three weeks of having to be Ms. Kicker-of-International-Corporate-Butt, she was understandably finding it challenging to slip back into her slave role.

  And I was glad.

  Glad in a way that started in my brain, pumped through my veins, and went right down to my toes, but definitely expressed itself through my cock, which jumped to attention at the idea of administering a reminder.