I awoke in the four-poster bed in the large master bedroom of my house in Dorset. I spent some moments waking up fully, then swung myself out of bed, crossed to the window and drew back the curtains. It was a beautiful summer's morning outside, and as always I drank in the view out to rolling chalk hills, cloud-shadows moving across them like stains. No other human habitation was visible, just hills, trees, and a small river winding through the landscape. One of the major attractions of the house - apart from its size - had been its isolation and abundance of living space, including a very large cellar.
I do not wear any night-clothes when I sleep, so I padded naked into the en-suite bathroom, my bare feet cold on the granite floor tiles, and started a bath running.
While the bath filled, I walked down to the library on the ground floor. As I opened the door and entered, slave Ella stirred in her cage, the shackles at her wrists and ankles clanking slightly. The cage was spacious, long enough for her to stretch out fully and wide enough to shackle her as she was now; arms above her head cuffed to the cage itself, legs spread slightly, each cuffed to a corner of the cage so there was no chance she could rub her thighs together and achieve an unsanctioned orgasm. She fully understood that I controlled her pleasure, and that her only purpose in life was my pleasure and not her own but still, sometimes after many days of orgasm denial she would try and bring herself off, even though she knew the severe punishment that would follow if she were caught.
Ella was 35, with pale skin and raven hair. Her eyes, when they were visible, were jade green, and carried a look of desperate submission sure to inflame the dominant sensibilities of man or woman. She had full breasts with large, dark areolas. Her pubic mound was, of course, bare, and as I ran my eyes over her I noticed a slight stubble. Soon it would be time to shave her again, or perhaps let the hair grow slightly longer and pull it out with wax strips. Ella didn't enjoy the sudden tearing pain of pubic hairs being pulled out by the root - which meant, of course, that I did. I fed her carefully, so that she didn't gain any weight - she wasn't exactly slim, but not by any means overweight either.
She was naked except for a blindfold, a small overnight ballgag, her slave collar - which she never took off, even in the shower, except with express permission - thigh-high black sheer stockings and black patent high-heel shoes. She was laying so that I could not see the buttplug she always wore, but I knew it was there; she would never have dared to take it out without permission, even if she could.
"Good morning, Ella," I said. She mumbled something around her gag which might have been "Good morning, master".
I undid the cuffs which kept her hands above her head in the cage, undid her ankle cuffs, and opened the cage door.
"Out," I commanded, and she slowly turned around in the cage and came out head first, on all fours, her breasts swaying beneath her, moving carefully as she could not see where she was going. I re-attached the cuff chains at wrists and ankles, selected a twisted leather leash from the eight hanging on the wall by her cage, and attached it to her collar.
"Crawl," I commanded, and led her out of the library, up the stairs, and through the bedroom to the bathroom.
I put her in the corner, kneeling, arms cuffed before her, hands resting on her thighs, palms upwards. I looped the leash around her neck - usually I would have put it in her mouth to hold, but she still wore the ballgag.
I lowered myself into my bath, luxuriating in the warm water. After a while I soaped myself, then commanded Ella "Come to the sound of my voice." Carefully she shuffled across the cold stone floor until she knelt by the bath.
"Give me your hands," I instructed, and she instantly obeyed. I placed a sponge in one and bar of soap in the other. "Soap my back," I told her, and she did as she was instructed, rubbing the soap against the sponge and then lathering my back, all by feel. Then I rinsed off and got out. I dried myself - often her job, but not today - and led her by the leash into the bedroom, to the side of the bed. I crossed to a corner of the room where an old record player sat on a small Regency table, riffled through a selection of vinyl records, and the sounds of Mozart's The Magic Flute filled the room. Ella began to whimper gently - she knew what classical music meant.
I instructed her to lie on the bed on her back, and attached each ankle and each wrist to tether points on each of the corner posts of the four-poster bed, put there for just that purpose. I opened a drawer of the bedside table and took out three wooden clothes pegs.
Ella's nipples were semi-erect - she spent her life in a constant state of denied sexual arousal - but I stroked and pinched them until they were fully hard, then placed one clothes peg on each, eliciting two gasps. In the same way I licked my fingers and caressed her clitoris until that too became engorged and excited, then put a clothes peg on that too, along its length: she grunted in pain through the gag as the peg clamped onto her most sensitive part.
Then I left the room, closing the door behind me, the strains of Mozart becoming muffled.
I spent twenty minutes getting dressed in blue cinos, black brogues and a short-sleeved summer shirt, and catching up on my emails and the day's news online in the library. The distant music ended, but I waited another five minutes or so before returning to the bedroom, now silent apart from Ella's deep breathing, a mix of pain and arousal.
I walked to a cupboard in the bedroom, opened both its doors. Hanging there were a variety of whips, canes, lashes, paddles, cat-o-nine-tails, and the cupboard itself contained a variety of dildos and vibrators of various sizes, plugs, hitachi - everything that could be used to bring pleasure and inflict pain. I selected a leather lash, a dozen strips of black weather well-worn and soft from long use, and crossed back over to the bed.
Ella writhed on the bed, trying to escape the torment of the wooden pegs on her nipples and clitoris, but of course there was no escape. I crossed to the record player, flipped the record, and once again beautiful music filled the room. Then I crossed back to Ella, undid the ballgag and unclipped the pegs from her nipples. As the blood flowed back into them she squealed in pain.
"What do you say?" I demanded.
"Th- thank you, master," she replied, turning her blindfolded head towards my voice.
I stroked her nipples, bringing gasps of pleasure from her. Then I said "After each stroke you will count it and say 'Thank you master, may I have another'. Is that clear?"
