Chapter 3 : Pix.
As I said earlier, I've never wanted to belong. I simply do not do 'community'. Give me one or two people with whom I can have the odd chat, and one at any given time to indulge my nastier side, and I'm happy with my books and music. But even I don't live in a complete vacuum, and I had a passing familiarity with others in my line of work. Sally Barclay was something approaching a friend: we were close enough in style to understand each other but different enough not to be direct competitors. It was nice, now and then, to be able to talk sex in the abstract with someone I wasn't doing sex to.
She was at the top end of the mainstream dominatrix trade, rather less subtle than me; and she carried it over into her personal life. She genuinely enjoyed all the leather bustier, Nazi peaked cap and 'call me Mistress' stuff that I can't abide. It was her kink, and no business of mine, but I have to admit I thought it a bit of a shame. I idly browsed the gallery on her website one day; whilst the shiny gear left me lukewarm at best, there was one picture of her in a non-camp Victorian governess look that was stunning. If I'd had a subordinate bone in my body, I'd have been round there on my hands and knees at once. Of course I didn't, and we'd never been interested each other in the physical sense. I won't say we weren't interested sexually, because for both of us sex was as much in the head as the groin, and we did play chess every other Wednesday.
'Sally' obviously didn't suit her persona in the least, and she had the taste not to go for Midnight or Viper or any of that nonsense. To almost everyone, she was Mistress Marcella. An obvious but very suitable choice, because her statuesque austerity and severe black hair owed more than a little to Detroit in that video. You know what I am like with names, I was immensely flattered that she expected me to call her Sal.
"Mind elsewhere?"
There was a distinct trace of the Mistress to her tone. I suppose I deserved it: she invariably won, but it was courteous of me to provide something of a challenge and obviously tonight was too easy. I took a long breath and told her the whole story. When I was done, she fetched wine and gave me a little space to reflect while she reset the board.
"So, you're having an affair."
"Errr ... Yeah, guess I am."
"Sex? Or love?"
"Come on, Sal, I don't do love. You know that."
"Sorry, poor choice of words. Are we talking about the thing you do that isn't love but you take very personally and seriously; or are we talking about the thing mere mortals do for fun?"
Ouch. Or rather not, because there wasn't any real mock to her voice. There was a little light distance because we were onto the type of subject which demands either laughter or tears, but she wasn't laughing at me.
"It's not ... It's not what I'm used to. I know she doesn't belong to me, not even for the moment. I've got to be honest, it's bloody hot when we do. Not in the usual way though. Jesus, Sal, I'm a creature of habit and this is weird and different. It's doing my head in."
"I really don't know what to say, V. I'm torn between telling you honestly as a friend that I think you'll regret what's coming, and being extremely selfish and bad."
"How so?"
"I've always respected your boundaries, haven't I? I understand who and what you are, but sometimes I think you might enjoy a little ..."
Significant pause as she toyed with the stem of her glass and studied the chess board. Then she fluttered at me with one of the looks that made her a pretty fair living.
"... Is she sexy?"
"Oh yeah. Very."
"Want to share?"
Of course I don't want to share with you, Marcella, because that's not remotely my scene. I don't mess about with this stuff: I absolutely and exclusively own them body and soul. I do not ... Send them home to get fucked silly by their husband, do I? I don't screw around, do I? I don't do that stuff – not because it's wrong, which I of all people am not fit to judge – it's simply not what floats my boat. Yet here I am, with my boat bobbing along on all sorts of unknown currents.
I never have, even in the drunk and loose whirl at uni' it was always one at a time. Surely you can't imagine I've never wondered ...
"Sal, could we open another bottle please?"
***
Hubby had two great passions. Using her as a vessel for his semen was one step below football. He went to every single game, which, with United doing so well in Europe that year, meant a lot of foreign travel and her free for my pleasure. I told her we were going out at the next opportunity.
"Virginia, where are we going?"
"We're going out, Pixie. That's all you need to know for now."
"Yes, Virginia."
I had her come round early and serve me in the shower – as a good and attentive maid, nothing overtly sexual at that time – and then give my hair a good brush and plait before putting it in a bun for me. Then I had her wait face-down on the anteroom lino with her arms spread out while I took my time getting dressed. My costume choice was not something I intended to share with her yet. I emerged from my bedroom in belted black raincoat, red latex gloves and strappy warrior sandals.
There are certain things I will not do. I can play all sorts of dress-up games indoors, and I'll drop unsubtle hints about how little I appreciate trousers, but I've never been into dictating exactly what they must wear if we go out. I find that disrespectful, and strange as this might sound I have the greatest respect for any woman who can take what I give out. Besides, it's not my choice; I like them to make some effort in their own mind to look nice for me.
She had on an entirely normal and respectable skirt, and as luck would have it there was an entirely normal and respectable slit at the back. I stopped for a moment to consider her raised bum and that tempting possibility. Part of me thought it might come in handy later; another part wondered if I should just stay in and keep her all to myself.
"Up you get, Pix. We'll take your car."
I held out my hand for the keys.
Marcella was bi and pretty well insatiable. She ran a harem of at least seven that I knew of, who managed to cover most of the available bases. Out of deference to my feelings, she had planned a girls-only night with a small cast. I strolled up the path and rang the bell, with Pixie two paces behind in the approved manner. The door was opened by a vision that made me swallow hard and Pixie's jaw drop.
Everyone has the dirty little secret of which they are genuinely ashamed. Perhaps one day I will tell you about my whirlwind of depravity with the sweet and fearsomely intelligent Abi, who held down a very successfully responsible job all week and then unwound with two solid days of being a naughty schoolgirl. She was rather beautiful in her way and I quite liked her as a person. I played along but nudged her now and again to drop the act so we could put down the cane and characters to just fuck like the very dirty adults we both were. Then she would kneel and do those fluttery-Di eyelashes as she started to undo her tie with shaking hands, and that small voice said 'Please don't hurt me Miss Kavanaugh'. I didn't like how much I did like it.
Marcella's doorwoman didn't engage my guilt in the same way, but I would never have been comfortable admitting she was my scene. Marcella, as I said, was far more of the mainstream than me, she liked the things one is supposed to like. Her slave would have been a couple of inches taller than me if she wasn't tottering in crystal-clear stilettos. She was wearing a sleeveless knee-length hobble dress in matt black leather which went right up to her throat and ended with an integral padlocked collar. There was a long zipped opening angled across each breast; if your mind followed the lines down they'd have met just precisely between her legs. She wore heavy leather bracelets on each wrist, not quite bondage cuffs because they lacked attachment points but they sent the least subtle of messages. She had fair hair piled up on top to show off her neck.
"Mistress V, please come in, you're expected."
I gave her the tight little smile I keep for people who use the M-word at me. When we'd both stepped inside she shut the door and led us down the hall. As I had suspected, it was a spanking dress with a good foot of vertical space open at the back. There was a thin silver chain round her waist, pulled down by a second that disappeared between her buttocks. Below the open panel two straps held her thighs and knees together. Both straps, and the junction of those two chains, were secured by small steel padlocks matching the one at her throat. Intellectually, aesthetically even, it was all a bit tacky and obvious for my taste; but I couldn't help staring at her rather peachy bum and thinking 'yummy'. I noticed in passing that each padlock had a small dot of paint by the lock.
Pixie was staring too, from the corner of my eye I wasn't entirely sure which was winning out of lust, nerves and simple shock.
"Virginia, what are we doing here?"
"You're proving just how much you want to please me, Pix."
Our hostess was such a traditionalist that she actually had a converted basement, even if it wasn't permanent dungeon. Doubtless there was gear somewhere that could have been moved in, but tonight it was dining room. There was a smaller room off to the side with the door just ajar enough to glimpse a bed within. I'd never actually been down here before, we played chess in the mundane lounge. Her back garden was several feet lower than the front, so there were small windows in the very top of the wall. I liked that, it lifted the whole thing from subterranean gloom – made it just different enough from the stereotype to be Marcella's own thing.
The lady herself was being a considerate hostess. She knew my feelings on concentration camp and gulag games; she wasn't wearing that bloody SS hat she liked so much. She wasn't wearing much, in fact, except for leather bustier and knee-length boots that must have taken someone an hour to lace up.. You see, we might have very different aesthetic visions, but we agreed on the stuff that matters. Neither of us had any time for the idea that a strong woman needs to hide her cunt away in situations like this. The doorwoman knelt daintily in front of her and bobbed her head to kiss both boots.
"Pay attention, Pixie. Not easy in a skirt like that, and see how pretty it looked?"
Which was true, very pretty. Nice display: if you're going to parade your property around with her arse hanging out, you might as well make her kneel and bend for the audience.
"Do you approve, darling? ..."
I smiled back at her. Darling? C'mon, Sal, let's not do the Noel Coward thing.
"... I'm not so sure. I think she'd look better with a few stripes. Care to put them on for me?"
"Whatever you say, Marcy. Your house."
It was bad form to address her informal in front of the slaves, of course. Tough. Your house indeed; but try domming me, sweetheart, and I'll make you eat me for breakfast. As it happened, she didn't mind. She had felt the need to push a tad, I'd pushed back: done and dusted with no hard feelings. So much classier than peeing on each other's furniture.
"Like to take off your coat, V?"
