Note to reader: Rose's story may become part of a longer series, but for now this is the first foray into her experiences.
Rose Wallace gasped under her breath as the sting from an old fashioned, ornate hairbrush connected to the right cheek of her peach shaped bottom. Suspended on hands and knees, she wielded the fancy implement with her right hand. The plush softness of her pillow top mattress challenged her balance with her ankles and legs cinched tight with Shibari rope. Her crimson silk robe gathered above the small of her back for good purchase of exposed skin. She relished at the sight of her naked sex through a folding tri-mirror attached to the back of her mahogany dresser.
She loved to focus her efforts on the same cheek with repeated swats to generate a beautiful contrast of the angry red versus the virgin creamy white of the unblemished left. Though not painful, the rope she used will leave lovely braided dermatographism on her thighs and calves for at least the next few hours.
When she gave herself a rest from the self spanking, a wave of heat and latent pain would wash over the brush-shaped impact zone of her ample but toned backside. She relished in the near-future gift of sting the moment she will sit down to work.
After twenty minutes of relentless self torture, her iPhone gently reminded her of the 9:30 AM board meeting. Ten minutes to blouse up and put on a suit top and bottom, she thought. Rose fancied for a moment the risk of sitting on camera with her just-out-of-view naked slit smothered below her against the walnut seat of her nineteenth century rail back chair. Her mind frolicked at the internal self-dare.
Knowing she had precious little time, she untied the intricately woven Shibari rope from her knees and lower parts of her legs. However, her self-help rope play is a hollow, faint echo and poor substitute for the careful work of an experienced partner.
Once free of the ropes, she stood on the floor and her silk robe danced down her skin to her ankles. Her naked sex felt the puff of air from the falling garment. She would later store the rope in an heirloom hope chest at the foot of her four post bed. However, the ornate brush always remained in sight on her dresser. The thought of any visitor seeing the fancy brush and not knowing what lovely torture it exacts upon her draws an involuntary grin to the corners of her mouth.
As she pulled up her lacy low-cut panties, the graze of the waistband stung her throbbing right cheek like an over-starched shirt on sunburnt skin. She reveled in the pain. This time, she imagined the hairbrush outline will be there for an entire week - she hoped. She donned her blouse and suit hurriedly.
She walked briskly to the kitchen, aware of the time constraints.
Rose poured herself a second cup of coffee and mentally transformed into whom she had to be on the meeting. As she walked past the mirror she made sure no errant wisps of her naturally dark red hair had escaped her braided bun. Her cat-eye Gucci glasses were smudge free, and her tailored Ralph Lauren suit sculpted her sultry forty-seven year old physique like a medical exam glove. '9:28,' said the wall-hung mini grandfather clock with zodiac signs instead of numbers. It was currently the 'Sagittarius' hour.
As she lowered herself down to her rail back chair, she had momentarily forgotten the recent self-flagellation. Suddenly, the red hot pain from her right cheek radiated outward like a solar flare as she sat. Exquisite burning - her chest heaved from the pleasure as her diaphragm involuntarily drew a deep inhale of breath.
As the second hand confirmed 9:29, she clicked the Zoom link. 'Waiting for the host to start this meeting' appeared on her screen as she took a long draught of her steaming espresso roast coffee. The meeting then opened with six of the other seven board members present as well as her right-hand woman and confidant, Jean Zaminsky, her Executive assistant.
"Chairman Wallace, do you want me to start with the minutes or should we wait for Brett to join as well?" Rose's executive assistant asked.
"Yes, you can start it, Jean. He had a copy emailed to him before the meeting, didn't he?" Rose asked.
"Of course, Ms. Wallace," Jean replied with her usual polite, yet confident cadence.
"First up, before the minutes, do we have any updates on the cash and stock offer of five billion USD for the advertising agency in Japan?" Jean asked the quorum of board members.
A board member voiced, "They expressed concern over our stock price and wanted to know if we could change the percentage of cash to a higher amount as a small hedge in the current volatility of the major indices."
Another countered, "If they want to renegotiate, this is not the way to do it at the eleventh hour."
As the meeting droned on about things of 'great concern', Rose's attention drifted back, as it often did, to the post-thesis party held by her Law, Economics and Geopolitics professor and chair of the MBA program, Dr. Kaplan.
It was twenty years ago that she was invited, along with her other graduating MBA classmates, to Dr. Kaplan's seaside home on Long Island, New York to cap off the thesis defense season - a virtual end to their MBA program. On the topic of Dr. Kaplan himself, she only had him for two classes throughout her entire program, but from the moment he set foot in the classroom on the first day of her first class with him, he completely captivated her. His very presence in the classroom felt more like a naval captain on deck than your typical professor type. She couldn't possibly be the only one that felt it. The grey on the sides of his head meshed perfectly with the raven black, short-trimmed top that gave off a Connery James Bond motif sans the Scottish accent. The timbre of his voice was a crisp baritone. In class, she hung on every word - watched the shapes his mouth made as he spoke. The way he stood, and looked down upon his subjects. After class, she would then have to actually read and learn the lesson separately. Though she heard the sounds coming from his mouth, her brain replaced them with pornographic dialogue, like "Please open your book, bend over, and put your elbows on your desk and close your eyes."
She remembers very few details of the party, and hardly remembers who from her class had been in attendance. But her memory gets razor sharp around the late hour when all other students left. She was at the threshold of Dr. Kaplan's front door and even managed to step one of her leather booted feet to the porch.
"Care for one more nightcap, Rose?" Dr. Kaplan asked.
Frozen, knowing that 'Commander Kaplan' was inviting her to linger on for however long it took to make and consume another Manhattan captivated her. Of course she'd have another.
"As long as you are making them, Dr. K, I'm in," Rose replied, and made an about-face turn and swung off her thin leather coat in the same action - madly faking poise. She had no real choice in the matter.
Dr. Kaplan smiled at her ratification of his request and politely accepted her coat in his hands for safekeeping.
"Why don't you have a seat in the library, I asked the staff to stoke the fireplace before they left - I'll go make sure we have enough rye left in the bottle. One cherry or two?" Dr. Kaplan playfully asked.
