Stephen was awoken by a loud knocking at the door and, wearing just his pyjama shorts, opened it. Victoria strode past him, snapping at her submissive toy. "Took you long enough to answer."
"I was asleep. I didn't get to bed until midnight and it's six forty-five. What are you doing here so early?"
"My aunt had to travel to Gloucester for ten."
"What's going in Gloucester?"
"The West Country is a sizzling hotbed of sin and lust. Behind every quaint coffee shop is a bustling network of sodomy, vice and rampant debauchery. Dr Foster only went there to get thoroughly and rampantly spanked."
"Really?"
"No. Four of them have rented out a manor house until tomorrow evening, and are spending day and night fucking crossdressers in the arse, forcing them to blow each other and spanking them until they all have bottoms like baboons. There are twenty of the little perverts, and they've each paid over a monkey for the privilege. It's crazy."
"And she wouldn't take you?"
Victoria sniggered. "I'm not experienced enough or good enough to do that for that sort of money." She hesitated. "OK, I begged. And begged and begged. And still I got told no. Sounded so much fun."
Stephen smiled at her and flicked the switch on the kettle. "You are, you are fabulous when you wield your toys. And you looked so sexy in that Latex last night. I'd suck a dozen dicks to see you in that again!"
Victoria beamed. "I know. Because you are a pervert. However, as I have the house to myself, I am having a couple of friends over. We need a naked waiter to torment. Be at my place for seven."
"Do I get to leave with my clothes?" He asked, and she smiled at him.
"Maybe. Maybe not. See how I feel."
He sighed. "You could have sent that in a text."
Victoria bit her lip and sat down at Stephen's kitchen table. "Yeah. I know." She hesitated and looked at her fingers. "Anne-Marie spoke to me last night. She thinks I owe you an explanation, about my family. You weren't to know when you asked the other day and I feel comfortable telling you now. I've known no one that would have done what you did last night. I never thought I would be able to tell a guy like you my history and only a few people know."
She took a cup of tea from Stephen. "You don't have to tell me," he said. "I respect that there may be things in your life that are very personal to you."
"Sh!" She snapped. "Don't interrupt, numbnuts. My dad died when I was a baby. My mum remarried an utter arsehole, and that shit stole the money my dad had left for me. When I started secondary school, his brother, my step-uncle, tried to sexually assault me and I broke his fingers, broke his nose and fractured his arm. And I ended up not in Geography, but in the cells at the nick. And that piece of excrement who was supposed to be my stepdad lied. He chose to protect his brother. Those bastards in the Police believed I was a disturbed individual, and they gave me a caution. Never crossed their tiny fucking minds I might have told them the truth about a nonce."
"Oh shit," Stephen cried. He stroked Victoria's trembling hands as she delivered her story in a voice that crackled with emotion. Her tone wavered, and she took a few deep breaths as she punched out her sentences.
"I burnt his shed when he called me a slut. Said I put it about. I was fourteen when he called me that. And so he threw me out. The only person in my entire family who I liked was my aunt, my Dad's sister. I loved coming to stay here. She never did her kinky work when I stayed in her house, 'cause she didn't want me to see anything about her lifestyle. But at fourteen she took me in. She got the big house in the divorce, but she taught me how to channel my anger and energy. Karate and football at first. And then, well, you know. She couldn't hide her job anymore."
"So when did you...?"
"When did I start helping her?" Victoria asked. "When I was eighteen. But before that, I heard how men screamed for mercy when she worked. Sometimes. It was heavenly."
"Heavenly?"
She smiled. "Yeah. I imagined it was my fucking stepdad and his brother at first. Every cry, and wail I heard through the walls, I wanted to be in there punishing them. I fantasised I was behind the whips. But we soon found out that I was pretty good at being a dominatrix, and I learnt it's not about revenge or hating men. My stepdad used to say that 'I just brought misery and pain.' So now I really do. He also said that 'I don't deserve proper love.' Maybe I don't. I don't care. I'm happy and I'm settled and I don't want a relationship with anyone."
"You don't bring misery and pain," Stephen exclaimed. "And you will find someone to give you proper love. Your stepdad is just an abusive arsehole."
"Yes, he is. And my mother stood by and let him steal from me and defend someone who sexually assaulted me. So I have no love for her. Anne-Marie told me three months ago they had diagnosed her with cancer. I felt nothing. It might be terminal, it might not be. I really don't care. I won't go to visit her on her deathbed, and I certainly won't go to her funeral. I don't want to reach out, because ... well, I might end up wishing her dead. Because that's what I feel. I can't change that. Anne-Marie is the only family I have. And the only person I want right now."
Stephen listened to her, and she wiped her eyes. "Breakfast? How about bacon, eggs, toast, mushrooms, beans, everything?"
"Go on then," she purred. "Seeing you with your family. That's something I never had. I can't remember my dad, but if he was anything like my aunt, then I've missed out big-time. Your mother was really concerned about you. And your sisters wanted to know what you are doing and everything about you. That's ... alien to me."
"It's family. I bet Anne-Marie wants to know what you are up to. And she cares." Victoria blushed, and they talked as Stephen cooked a fry-up and then walked her back to her house on his way to work. The young domme admitted that only a few of her friends knew why she was living with her aunt, and she asked him to keep her confidence.
As they reached Victoria's home, she passed him an envelope. "That's your pay from last night. Anne-Marie forgot to give it to you. I told her I should pocket it, but she was insistent that you must have it and bank it." Her eyes met his, and she pecked him on the cheek. "See you later, numbnuts!"
Stephen's mind whirred as he worked; he kept imaging the torturous young life Victoria had had, and how broken it could have made her. It was just by chance that she matured into a confident, amazing young woman. On the way home, he bought a colourful bouquet, a large tub of chocolates, a bottle of vodka and a twenty-four bottle box of Victoria's favourite cider. He put these in a hessian bag and then stuffed a pair of shorts and T-shirt into a small camo-bag left over from a scout camp years ago.