John Jarvis sat down in the outdoor lounge chair he kept on his front porch, took a match to his already full tobacco pipe and puffed rapidly on the stem to get it started. Soon, he had settled into slowly leisurely puffs and felt himself relax. This was one of those earned moments.
A failed marriage, a dead mother and successful career had bought him retirement at 52. The failed marriage was long in the past -- college sweetheart, 10 years of matrimony, no children, 8 years happy, one mediocre and one bad one before the end.
His mother had died a year ago now at age 81, suddenly and painlessly of a stroke. That meant the huge Craftsman-style house in which he'd grown up in the Everleigh district of Central City was his.
The death had happened just two months after he was forced out of the real estate development business he'd built with his partners. The market had been white hot in 2006, and they'd had to buy him out at top dollar. After all, the future looked bright. He had had to chuckle silently to himself when he thought back on it. John hadn't thought his partners were doing him a favor at the time. He'd been furious, but they said they were tired of his negativity and Cassandra-like predictions of doom. They'd blamed him for killing a deal. So, with a low seven figures sum in his bank account, John had moved back home with his money just as the market started to collapse.
At almost 6,000 square feet, he decided he didn't want to use all of the space. It had a full basement, ground floor, second floor and finished attic. With his engineering background, he'd set about remodeling. Finding construction workers, carpenters, sheet rockers et cetera hadn't been a problem as the real estate market cratered. Central City had never been as white hot a market as other nationwide, but it still felt the chill. Within a few months of intense activity, John had finished the conversion of the attic into a master suite and two of the four bedrooms into a family room and kitchen. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms and at $200 below the average rent for a comparable space in that part of CC, well, he didn't have to wait long for renters.
The first inquiries were from Bayard University students. He turned them away. Grad students, maybe, but not undergrads. He was puffing on his pipe when he saw a woman circle the block twice in a five-year-old BMW. When she stepped out, he sat up a little straighter. She was a knock out, in her early forties but still turning heads with her shapely five-eleven figure and long legs. Her dark hair was cut in a sort of assymetrical bob. Whatever it was, John found it cool and exciting.
Her jacket and scrubs couldn't mask her assets. When she approached the porch and said, 'Hi.' John quickly stood up. Introductions were made. Hands were shaken.The raven-haired MILF - she had two teenagers -- was Mercedes Thompson, an RN and recently divorced from a vascular surgeon. She'd been a stay-at-home mom until a year ago.
"The divorce is almost final," she said. "I agreed to give up the house for more cash and child support and college for David and Lizzie. But, I'd like them to stay in Everleigh. They have friends here and they go to Dunbar. This looks great on the outside. Can I get a tour?"
Of course, John agreed. She was very impressed and loved the rent.
"Why so low?"
"I don't want to deal with keeping it occupied. I want to find the right person and keep them. Also, I'm not doing it for the money. I didn't really want to leave the house. It was my Mom's and the project gave me something to do to ease into retirement."
He paused, "Mercedes ..."
"Please, call me 'Meri.'"
John smiled, "Meri, you seem like you'd make a great tenant. If you want to rent it, I'll seriously consider you. It's first month and another month security deposit. I want to sleep on it. I'm not sure about noise and the teenage kids. My ideal tenant would be empty nest faculty or a retiree."
Meri convinced him her daughter, who was starting at Bayard in a few months, wouldn't be at the place except to sleep. Her son would spend half the time at his dad's place.
John finally waved his hands in the air and said, "I surrender. Let's sign a lease and you write me a check." He wasn't entirely sure why he had given in so quickly, except his intuition just told him to grab the opportunity.
Before the end of the month, she was all moved in. John even helped her unload and unpack. David and Lizzie seemed like good kids. Weeks passed. Lizzie went to Bayard as planned and indeed, David was only an occasional presence. It was going to be OK.
Then, it happened. It was the most embarrassing moment of his life.
Since his divorce, John had two serious girlfriends and one fiancee, but he had commitment issues. For much of his late 40s he'd contented himself with Internet hookups and then found himself addicted more and more to kink. In online profiles, he identified as a solosexual. It was fancy way of saying he beat off a lot. It was a way to avoid his commitment phobia and still satisfy his deep sexual needs.
Ever since moving back to Central City, he had ventured deeper into subspace. His biggest, newest turn on was self bondage before a webcam Mistress. Lately, it was Mistress Lena, petite blonde with a princess brat personality. John would bind his hands behind his back, his wrists cuffed in a thick plastic and metal set of handcuffs. Before doing that, he would place his cock and balls in a leather cock ring and harness and his ankles in a shackles.
Mistress Lena knew just how to punch his buttons. She would threaten to send guys and women from CraigsList to his house to suck off and lick. Lena would heap verbal abuse on him, telling him he was just a lowly beta and it was his duty to serve alpha women. For 30 minutes, the Mistress would work him into a psychosexual lather and then abruptly end the call. Denying him any release from her.
That's exactly what had happened that October night in 2009. When the call ended, John uttered his voice command to the cuffs: "314 Release!" It didn't respond. He felt a momentary flutter of panic but controlled it. He repeated the command, nothing. John started to wriggle and strain and positioned himself in front of the mirror he kept in his home office for these webcam femdom sessions. Seeing himself trussed up always added to his humiliation and excitement. This time though, he had a more everyday use for the reflection, examining the cuffs. That's when he saw the problem. Somehow the plastic clip lock on the battery compartment had come loose and the batteries had fallen out. He rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. The batteries were on the carpeted floor about two feet from his chair. John lowered himself with a thud and next attempted to put the batteries back in place. It was impossible. He could grab the cylinders but not get them into the compartment.
For the next two hours, John tried everything, dozens of attempts to do it by hand. He tried arranging the batteries against the floor in hopes he could snap them into the open compartment long enough to activate the voice command. Nothing was working. His arms and legs were getting cramped and sore. At 52, he was on the verge of balling like a baby with frustration.
John had to accept defeat. He could call emergency services, but that seemed risky. With real dread he managed to wake up the voice bot on his phone.
"Call Meri," he said with a tired, hoarse voice.
The phone dialed.
"Hello, this is Meri. Is this John?" he heard Meri ask. He also heard some faint club noise in the background, music and people.
"Yes, this is John. Meri, you can't believe how much I don't want to bother you with this, but I've sort of locked myself within my own house. I thought I was fixing it, but I think I made it worse," he lied. Although he knew she was likely to discover the truth soon, he couldn't bear revealing it on the phone. Besides, he might scare her into telling others. John thought she would be discrete, but everyone slips now and then.
Meri laughed.
"Well, it is almost 2 o'clock in the morning, John, but you happened to catch me at the end of a girls' night out."
That would explain the club noise and her slightly slurred speech.
"Things are wrapping up. I'll get Donna to drop me off first. She drew the DD straw for tonight. I still have the spare key on my keychain."
Meri had watered his plants and fed his fish while he was at cousin's wedding in September.
"That's a relief," John said. "I thought you might. Meri, please don't say anything to your friends. I'm a little embarrassed by all this."
She reassured him.
While he waited, John thought about covering himself up but it seemed pointless. However, he could minimize things. Feeling like a beached seal or walrus. John managed to wriggle himself onto the sofa in his man cave and then roll himself into the corner with his face toward the sofa back. That way his cock and balls and face would be covered and the cuffs toward Meri when she came in.
His captivity was about to be over, and John didn't know whether to panic or thank his good luck. He tried to concoct alternate stories to explain his situation but when he analyzed them they fell apart even under the lightest scrutiny and skepticism. John finally decided not to explain anything. In the course of his thinking, he was surprised to discover his cock was hard as a rock again. More than once he had asked himself why humiliation sometimes was arousing. Meri was an attractive mother of two and appeared to be solidly middle class. She even went to church from time to time. What would she think? Would she regard him as a moral degenerate? A pervert?
Although those thoughts made his dick erect, the sounds of Meri entering his some upstairs were like a cold dash of water, cooling his lust and shrinking his cock and balls. Theoretical, fantasy humiliation was one thing. Actually confronting face-to-face humiliation was another. He heard the door open to the basement steps and her footsteps descend.
