For half a decade, the well-to-do of Bishopsbridge Road had envied Aubain his slave Cynthia.
With an allowance of a hundred pounds a week, she cooked, kept house, did laundry and ironed shirts, dressed herself exquisitely, kept in shape, and serviced the sexual and emotional needs of her Master – who none the less was never a terribly nice person.
She had fallen for him as a pretty young blonde in her late twenties, and their relationship had died in 2004, leaving her childless with very few prospects. So she sold off whatever trinkets he had given her over the years, except for a small ring and an Edwardian necklace which together would have only got her about £5,000, and left the fashionable part of town to a small apartment which belonged to her family, south of the river.
Things could have been worse. Not having any current friends, she had pulled herself out of her depression by herself. Tonight now she was going to a party, dressed in a simple black silk cocktail dress, sleeveless, with a daring V plunge at the neck, the skirt of which stopped above her knee. One could just see the hint of her lacy black brassiere at the corner of the V and since it was summer, she had put fake tan on her legs and was wearing a pair of thin-strapped high heeled sandals to match the dress. Around her neck was a small choker of Japanese cultured pearls.
She had looked at her naked 36C breasts in the mirror as she applied her makeup and decided they would still serve. In the bathroom she had taken out her grandfather's old cutthroat razor, stropped it, and had carefully trimmed away the merest suspicions of pubic hair around her vagina. Her hand, after over twenty years' practice, was firm and sure. She preferred this old razor in its tortoiseshell handle to anything else, and the sight of its gleaming blade against the skin near her soft pink lips made her heart pick up ever so slightly even still. Afterwards, she slid her thumb over her mount of Venus to assure herself she was as soft there as the day she had been born.
She paid the taxi driver out of her little handbag (a cheap imitation but stylish none the less), walked up the steps, and with delight found she had returned to her element. With her easy charm and slightly brittle but self-contained laugh she greeted the hosts, and then slowly did the rounds of the rooms of the large Edwardian apartment where the party was held. She kept the names and relationships of who was friends of whom carefully in her card-file like memory: a little rusty from lack of use she realised, ruefully.
There was that awfully pleasant balding American professor who had spoken to her long and earnestly about committment. She smiled to herself as she saw where his eyes couldn't help straying. Too bad he was married. A nice couple from near where she lived both greeted her extremely warmly and she spent ages talking to them about something that she could no longer remember. And there was that French guy, himself doing the rooms in his own style. Suave, a hint of beard shadow on his face (had he not shaved before coming, she asked herself giggling), dressed in an expensive linen jacket and dark shirt. They had exchanged a few words at the start of the evening. As their paths crossed during the party, they would look at each other briefly and then by common consent pass on. Towards the end of the party, yes! She heard someone coming up from behind her and when she turned, eyes wide open, there he was, smiling his tight polite smile.
"I wondered if you would care to come home with me for a quiet little chat" he murmured. "I am by taxi, alas. As are you, I think, yes?"
"I'd love to... yes, you can't go anywhere by car any more... which part of town are you?" So easy! She realised they had marked each other out as soon as they had set eyes on each other.
His apartment, from the moment she stepped into it, breathed Frenchness. A small, neat, extremely stylish capsule of Frenchness in an Anglo-Saxon city. She ran her hand over his books and CDs, all neatly arranged. A book lay open on a reading desk. She flipped the cover quickly: Flaubert's "Un Coeur Simple." She smiled as she saw the start of the second chapter, which she had often read with wonderment as a schoolgirl: "Elle avait eu, comme une autre, son histoire d'amour." She had not known in those days, what her story of love would be. To be "renversee brutalment", thrown over with brutal force?
She took the glass of whisky and soda from him.
"You speak French as well?"
"Only a little, Damien. I can read better than I can speak. You have excellent English."
"A question of practice. Salut, Cynthia, cheers as you say. You were like a breath of fresh air at the party tonight. I'm glad I met you."
She felt the sting of the whiskey on her tongue and savoured the slight frisson of pain it gave her.
"This is... Highland Malt I believe?"
"Of course. You seem to have a keen sense of taste."
She laughed. "My father would drink nothing else."
"Ah. Your father. To drink whiskey like that requires a certain dominance of spirit, no? Have you inherited the trait? Please, may I show you something? It is in another room."
She raised her eyebrows. "You have etchings in your bedroom?"
He paused in mid-stride and looked back at her. "Etchings?"
She coloured briefly. "A stale joke... sorry, Damien..."
"It is not my bedroom, I assure you, Cynthia." Opening an unusualy heavy door; the click of a light switch; he ushered her in before him. She caught her breath and stopped dead.
The walls and ceiling were covered in mirrors. Silver and black were the predominating tones. At one end of the room a large bed with an elaborate wooden headboard. On the other side, a chest of drawers, on the top of which were arranged objects which gave the impression of something between an altar and a bazar stall. Several riding crops... chains... cuffs and belts... small clamps, weights... candles, a large stainless steel dildo standing proudly next to a row of butt-plugs.
Cynthia gulped, feeling the colour rise to her cheeks. "Oh my goodness!" she turned round to look at Damien. "You... er... USE all this stuff?"
"Maybe not each night, or, all at the same time, but, you surely guess I do."
She looked at him, eyes wide open, feeling her pulse rise. She quickly drew her glass up and swallowed the rest of her drink, burning down her throat. "I think... I might better... be on my way, Damien..."
"...and I can tell it isn't just only scaring you." He caught her eyes and stared into hers, calmly, blocking her exit by the way he positioned himself.
"Well.... ummm..... this is rather serious stuff, isn't it?" Her best cut-glass British accent.
"You dont really want to leave now, do you Cynthia?" She bit her lip and lowered her head, trying to keep her emotions under control. "Serious... it can be very very much fun my dear"
Fun! The last thing she wanted was mere "fun." She remembered what her beloved Colette had written near the end of her life "Ces plaisirs... qu'on appelle legerement 'physiques'" These pleasures, which one lightly dismisses as the merely physical. She took a deep breath.
"Are you.... careful?"
He reached out and held her chin up. "For your first time, I am gentle... but don't expect just a vanilla night."
She looked up at him. "No, of course not, Damien. Maybe I'd better tell you..." she exhaled a shaky breath. "I was... in this kind of dom-sub relationship before.... ended last year... I think.... our type can smell each other out... I didn't say 'gentle,' Damien. I said, 'careful.'"
His thumb played on her lower lip. "Ah. You're not a real novice. Funny, you looked so surprised."
She smiled a little crooked smile. "It's a matter of playacting. A real dom doesn't let go... a play one would have let me pass seeing my indignation."
He lowered his finger down her neck, tracing her skin down to the start of her brassiere. She exhaled as she felt his finger on her skin. "Do you know about 'safe words,' Damien? You must do of course..." She knew he could feel her heart beating, his hand was touching her above her left breast. It slid down her body and she felt its warmth over her tummy.
"You wouldn't need safe words Cynthia, I can read the language of your body..."
"... I was going to say.... I don't believe in safe words."
"...and can tell which 'no' is a real stop one." He stepped a little closer to her. She shook her head.
"When I give myself, Damien... it's completely..." she smelt the sharp odour of his body.
"I wasn't expecting anything less from you, Cynthia."
"I only ask one thing, Damien..."
"...yes?"
"Never spare me. Never let me come between you and your enjoyment of me, if that is what you want."
"Is this how it is always with you?"
She nodded her head, imperceptibly.
"And you give yourself, freely, without reserve?"
