In the afternoon, Miriam sits beneath a shady tree and Ellie lies beside her, with her head in her domme's lap. Miriam plays with Ellie's hair and ears, and they just talk. They talk about Miriam's ongoing search for a new job. She's been reaching out to contacts and recruiters, and she's already had some interest, but it's very early. Then they discuss Ellie's career prospects. And then the latest gossip in Ellie's department, and then office softball, and then sports. Miriam is a tennis fan. Ellie loves watching athletics competitions, especially wrestling and weightlifting.
Ellie talks animatedly about her training. She would probably never be a competitive weightlifter, she says. A weightlifter's body is optimized for only one thing, obviously, but she cares about aesthetics as well as brute strength. She lifts, of course, she's extremely strong, but her body fat percentage is much lower than any weightlifter's, because...
And so on.
Later, the conversation drifts away, and it becomes comfortable to just be peaceful together, in the shade, while birds chirrup. Miriam picks up her book and continues reading from where she left off, while still stroking her sub's cropped ash-blonde hair with one hand. The book is about management styles. Ellie turns over onto her side, facing away from Miriam, and her breathing becomes slower, and she dozes off.
Miriam admires her sleeping sub's physique, as her shoulder rises and falls. Ellie is a big girl, and puts tremendous amounts of work into her body. Her back is a network of muscle; her shoulders are like cannonballs. She weighs almost twice as much as Miriam does -- all of it pure muscle, as far as Miriam is concerned. Ellie could probably snap her in half if she felt like it.
Miriam presses two fingers against Ellie's throat, feeling her heartbeat. And then reaches around to press her palm against her chest. Ellie's resting heart rate is amazingly slow. And each individual beat is very powerful. Such a strong, beautiful creature. Miriam thinks of a tigress.
Still reading, Miriam strokes Ellie's hard body, caressing her oblique and her hip. After a little while she goes inward, following Ellie's iliac furrow down between her legs. She rests her palm on Ellie's mons, and then moves her fingertips gently inward, toward her hood. She gives her sub just a flutter of attention.
Ellie fidgets in her sleep, and mutters something unintelligible. Her legs slide past one another. Miriam doesn't know it, but Ellie was already dreaming about her.
After another half-chapter, Miriam gives her a little more attention, caressing her lips, pushing them gently apart and teasing deeper. Ellie is becoming wet. In her dream, she is wrapped up in Miriam's cascade of shimmering black hair, tangled in it, drowning in pleasure, unable to escape.
"Always ready for me, aren't you?" Miriam whispers in Ellie's ear, after a while.
Ellie stirs. She murmurs sleepily, "Yes, ma'am."
"How often do you need to come?" Miriam asks. "You've had four huge orgasms today. What does it take to satisfy you?"
"Whatever satisfies you, ma'am," Ellie says.
Miriam cackles. "Oh, what a good answer."
She pleasures her sub, gently, for a little while longer, and continues reading. Ellie purrs, and drifts in and out of sleep. Just as Miriam is reaching the end of a chapter, her phone pings. A message has arrived. It's from her other sub. She's ready.
Miriam slaps Ellie on the behind. "Up. Come with me."
*
Miriam leads Ellie inside, to a part of her house Ellie's never visited before. Ellie still feels self-conscious, walking naked and barefoot behind her fully clothed domme. But she remembers the confident walk which Miriam taught her. She lifts her head, and squares her shoulders.
Miriam looks back briefly, and smiles at her. It's almost like she noticed.
Miriam leads Ellie to a first-floor room which Ellie guesses is near the garage. "A guest bedroom," Miriam says. "In a way." She opens the door, and holds it open, making Ellie enter first.
"Oh my gosh," Ellie says.
The "bedroom" has a polished wooden floor, red painted walls, exposed beams, and moody, warm lighting. Two windows are covered by heavy dark curtains, and there are blackout blinds behind them, letting in no natural light. Half of the room is given over to a king-sized four-poster bed, with a comfortable leather love seat against the wall beside it. A door at the back leads to an en suite bathroom, and another to a walk-in closet. That half of the room could, maybe, pass as a bedroom.
But Ellie barely notices, because her attention is transfixed by the St. Andrew's cross leaning against the wall dead ahead of her: a huge X made from eight-inch-thick beams of dark wood, with shackles at each corner.
To the left of the cross, there is a set of stocks, and to the left of that, a cage. Ellie could just barely fit inside the cage, she thinks, if she knelt down and bowed her head. To the right, there is a large, uncomfortably square-looking, padded arm chair with straps all over it, and then a wooden box with a heavy lid. The box is a little smaller than the cage is. Exactly the right size to fit inside the cage, in fact.
On the next wall is a rack of equipment. Chains, ropes, cuffs, paddles, collars, whips, gags, clamps, canes... Beneath the rack is a trunk with a padded lid -- Ellie assumes that there's more equipment in the trunk. There's a table, with some regular wooden chairs. Ellie doesn't notice that there are heavy bolts and other fittings in the ceiling.
The possibilities are endless. Ellie wants to try everything. Everything first, everything at once. She clenches her fists up against her chest, and tries not to freak out. She feels like a kid in a candy store.
Miriam locks the door behind them, with a loud, metallic CLACK which makes Ellie jump. She kicks one of the chairs out into the center of the room. "Sit there."
Ellie finally finds her voice, and gasps, "You have a dungeon!"
"SIT!"
"Oh! Yes, ma'am!" Ellie sits, vibrating with tension. Miriam makes her sit sideways on the chair, giving easy access to her front and back, and has her fold her arms behind her back, gripping her elbows. Then Miriam brings over a bundle of soft red rope.
"More people than you'd think have a dungeon," Miriam explains. "You just need a spare room, and a budget. Having some DIY skills helps a lot." She smirks. "Or having a sub with DIY skills."
She works swiftly, looping rope around and around Ellie's upper body. One pair of ropes passes horizontally above Ellie's breasts, and one pair below. Another loop comes down over her shoulders and knots the two horizontal ropes together, forming a sort of rope bra.
