“Yes, Mistress. Thank you, Mistress,” Rita replied.
Sensual envelope, Donovan thought. I like that.
Jordan touched Rita’s shoulder. “You may rise,” she said imperiously.
When Rita stood, Donovan saw that the nipples on her ample breasts, bare beneath the sheer white robe she wore, had hardened into points and her features had softened into a submissive gaze he knew well.
The three of them moved to one of the private play areas. Along with a rack of whips and floggers, the room was equipped with a St. Andrew’s cross and a padded spanking bench. Donovan hadn't told Jordan what room they would use, wanting to see how well she improvised.
Without missing a beat, Jordan pointed to the bench. “Drop the robe and lie facedown,” she said to Rita.
Without hesitation Rita untied the sash and let her robe fall to the ground. She draped her body gracefully over the center bar of the spanking bench, positioning her knees and forearms on the padded rests that paralleled either side of the center bar.
Donovan moved to one wall, standing where he would have a good view of the scene. Pressing the sole of one of his boots against the wall for balance, he leaned against it, crossing his arms over his chest. He had given up trying to fight the erection bulging in his jeans. He’d have to be dead not to react to the erotic scene before him—Jordan in her sexy Dominatrix outfit and Rita, her shapely ass creamy white against the black leather of the bench, waiting to be whipped to a rosy red.
Jordan moved toward the toy bag she’d brought with her, but Donovan shook his head. “Pick something from the rack. Sometimes clients bring their own toys. I’d like to see how you handle something you might be less familiar with.”
A flicker of annoyance moved over Jordan's face, but it was gone as quickly as it had arrived. With a cool smile, she nodded and moved toward the whip rack. She selected a medium flogger and returned to Rita. She dragged the leather tresses over Rita’s bare back and ass. “The Master has told me you love the sting of leather and the cut of the cane.”
With her other hand, Jordan stroked Rita’s cheek. Donovan sucked in a surprised breath when Jordan suddenly slapped the cheek she’d been caressing a moment before.
Rita gasped and then sighed. “Ooooh,” she breathed, “thank you, Mistress.”
Jordan slapped her again, leaving the imprint of her small hand on Rita’s cheek. “You’re welcome.”
When they’d talked on the phone, Donovan hadn't mentioned that Rita loved having her face slapped, but somehow Jordan had intuited it. Though Rita probably had a good ten to fifteen years on Jordan, there was no question Jordan was completely in charge of the scene so far and, in spite of himself, Donovan was impressed.
Still holding the flogger, Jordan flicked her wrist, letting the tresses land with a slap on Rita’s ass. Rita moaned and wriggled her bottom, clearly wanting more. Jordan obliged, striking Rita hard over both cheeks before moving to the backs of her thighs. As Jordan whipped the woman, she continued to speak, her voice low and seductive.
“The Master told me you need the erotic pain to fully experience the pleasure. You need to suffer, don’t you, Rita? It’s what you were born for. It’s who you are.”
“Yes, Mistress. Please, Mistress.”
Jordan flogged her harder and Rita moaned. Donovan wanted to take the flogger from Jordan’s hands. But not to whip the naked, eager sub girl kneeling over the spanking bench. No, he wanted to place Jordan there instead. He wanted to rip away her sexy bustier and slide those soft leather pants down her legs. He ached to explore the longing he’d seen in her face when she’d watched his shows. He wanted to uncover the secret submissive he was almost sure she kept hidden behind that masterful façade. Was it hidden so deeply even she didn’t know it was there?
Stay in the moment, he reminded himself. This isn’t about you.
After several minutes of flogging, Rita began to gyrate against the bench, grinding her bare cunt against the leather. Donovan would have stopped her from such overt self-stimulation without express permission, but Jordan did not.
Instead she replaced the whip in the rack and selected a cane. Without warning, Jordan struck Rita’s ass hard, the sound of the cane against skin cracking like a gun’s report. Rita jerked and squealed, her gyrations momentarily interrupted.
“Don’t stop, slut,” Jordan ordered, painting another dark red line across Rita’s already rosy ass with the cane. “You take your pleasure without asking. I’ll give you pain in the same way.”
Donovan was surprised by her action—it was their first session, after all, and he would have expected Jordan to start slowly with what was a potentially dangerous implement. Rita’s flesh was already welting where the cane had landed, the welts rapidly darkening from red to purple. He leaned forward, ready to intervene if Jordan went too far, but Rita seemed to be handling it well. Rita continued to masturbate herself against the leather, her hips swiveling provocatively as Jordan added three more welts to the ample target of her ass.
“Take it, slut,” Jordan ordered, her voice now a little breathless as she danced around the sub girl, expertly wielding the cane. “Suffer for me.” Donovan could smell the rising scent of Rita’s lust perfuming the small room. He caught a glimpse of her glistening cunt as she gyrated against the spanking bench, squealing with each cut of Mistress Jordan’s exacting cane.
Donovan found himself trying to catch Jordan’s eye, but she was totally absorbed in her task, which of course was as it should be. As the Mistress caned the sub girl, Rita moaned and trembled against the spanking bench, her toes curling and uncurling with each stroke. Donovan pressed his palm against his crotch in an effort to ease the pressure building there.
“Do it, slut,” Mistress Jordan said suddenly. “Come for me. Now!”
The cane whipped through the air, landing in a blur of slicing strokes. Rita began to wail, a high-pitched keening sound that blended pleasure and pain as her body shuddered in convulsive climaxes. Jordan didn’t stop the caning until Rita lay limp against the bench, her body bathed in sweat.
Finally Jordan put down the cane. Crouching beside Rita, Jordan smoothed back her dark hair, which had fallen in a curtain over her face. Jordan stroked Rita’s cheek and her back, and glided her fingers over the welts she’d raised on Rita’s ass. “Are you okay? Did you have fun?”
Rita opened her eyes, which seemed to Donovan to be sparkling with submissive fire. Her face creased in a broad smile. “I’m more than okay, Mistress! That was amazing. It’s like you were inside my soul, taking me just past the edge of what I could handle, but holding my hand in the process so I wasn’t even scared. Does that make sense?”
Jordan nodded, drawing in and letting out a deep breath. “Yes. You pleased me, Rita. You’re very responsive. I like that. You may kneel now and thank me properly.”
Rita lifted herself from the bench and executed a kind of slow roll to the floor. Again she kissed the tops of Jordan’s feet. This time when Jordan met Donovan’s eye she offered a triumphant smile, and he smiled back, lifting a thumb of approval.
When Jordan touched Rita’s head, Rita sat back on her haunches. She wrapped her arms beneath her large breasts as she twisted toward Donovan with a wide grin.
“She’s fantastic, Sir. Can we do it again?”
Donovan laughed. “That’s up to Mistress Jordan.”
Turning to Jordan, he smiled and reached out to shake her hand, resisting the sudden impulse to pull her instead into his arms. “Congratulations. You’ve passed stage one of the audition.”
~*~
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Jordan finally said, once Rita had dressed and left the club. “What did you mean, stage one?” They had moved from the dungeon and were seated side by side at the bar. While still riding high from the success of the scene, Jordan was uneasy as to just what stage two might be.
Donovan regarded her with his very blue eyes. They were the blue of a clear spring sky and somehow just as vast, contained only
by the darker blue ring around each iris. And those eyelashes! Why was it always the men who got the great eyelashes?
She forced her gaze away from his face, lingering on the three snakes curling together around his arm beneath the short sleeve of his black T-shirt. The tattoo wasn’t large, each of the three snakes no thicker than a pencil, bringing to Jordan’s mind a DNA double helix, though with the addition of fangs and serpent tongues. Inked in black, turquoise and red, the snakes were skillfully rendered, and looked as if they might leap from his arm if she came too close.
“Stage one,” Donovan replied, drawing her eyes back to his face, “was my assessment of your ability as a pro. You satisfied me that you have what it takes to execute a scene. But that’s not all there is to being a Master, or in your case, a Mistress.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not following.”
“I’ll explain more clearly in a second. First, though, I have to say, I was a little surprised at your decision to use the cane so soon into the scene, and with such force.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Jordan retorted. “She loved it.”
Donovan nodded. “She did, but it could have backfired. You don’t know Rita personally. And you’ll know even less about the clients who come to you at the club, especially at first. You’re not going to have the luxury of a pre-scene briefing about a sub’s likes and dislikes the way you had regarding Rita. You have to be careful not to go too far, too fast, especially in the kind of public, paid-for-hire scene we’re talking about for the club.”
Jordan ducked her head, embarrassed. “Got it,” she said.
Donovan nodded. “What’s your personal take on the cane versus the flogger or a single tail? Which do you prefer?”
Jordan thought about it, glad he’d changed the subject. “I like them all. It depends on what the sub wants, I guess, or what they need. I have less experience with a single tail than with the flogger or the cane, but I’ve done it a few times.”
Donovan shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. I mean which do you prefer to experience? To feel on your skin? What do you find erotic about one versus the other? What do you find frightening, or enticing?”
Jordan snorted. “Oh, I get what you’re asking now. You’re of the school of thought that you can’t possibly understand the masochistic experience unless you subject yourself to the same treatment.” She shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t buy it. Not to be crass, but just because I don’t have a cock, that doesn’t mean I don’t know my way around CBT, for example.”
Donovan lifted the corners of his mouth in a small smile, but his eyes remained serious. “Point taken. But that’s a very specific experience. Here’s where stage two comes in. In my professional opinion, it’s important to know everything you can know about how what you’re doing impacts your sub. You have a special responsibility that goes above and beyond a typical relationship because of the vulnerability of the submissive during a scene.” He spread his hands on the bar. They were large, powerful hands, the fingertips square, the nails short. “If you’re going to flog someone, to whip them, to cane them, to drip hot wax on their skin, to clamp their nipples or bind them with rope, you should first experience it yourself.”
“What, are you telling me you’ve experienced all those things?” Jordan tried to muster the image of the Master, naked and bound, his face twisted in erotic agony as the cane cut his skin, but she couldn’t seem to manage it.
To her surprise, he nodded soberly. “Absolutely. My mentor insisted on it, and he was right. It deepens not only your intellectual knowledge, but your ability to empathize and connect with your sub. Whenever I trained dominants, it’s a requirement.”
Jordan wrapped her arms around her torso, shaking her head. “Not happening.”
Donovan lifted his hands, palms upward, and shrugged. “That’s entirely up to you, Jordan. If you want the job, though, it’s not open for debate. There is no way I would hire someone who hasn’t experienced on a personal level everything he or she does to another person in the context of BDSM play. Stage two involves you submitting to me in a controlled scene. It’s important you experience firsthand what that feels like, both physically and mentally.”
What the hell? Was he for real? He was bluffing—he had to be. Yeah, she believed he was sincere in what he was saying, but his experience wasn’t necessarily the universal experience. He just needed to understand that. Yet, even while Jordan’s head rejected the idea out of hand, her body was tingling with the possibilities. A sudden image of herself, naked and restrained on the bondage wheel, her heart pounding, nipples throbbing, cunt wet as she watched the Master lift the whip and then let the leather strike her bare skin, leaped into her mind’s eye.
What was going on here? She took a deep breath and blew it out.
“I get what you’re saying,” she finally managed, pushing the image out of her consciousness as best she could. “But I just can’t agree that this stage two thing is really necessary. You saw for yourself that I can handle a scene. You saw Rita’s reaction. You heard her words—she can’t wait to scene with me again.” When Donovan didn’t reply, Jordan continued, “Look, I think it’s quite clear I can handle the job. I can give you references if you want. Betsy Hanover back in New York and any number of guys at her club for starters.”
Donovan shook his head. “Sorry. We’re talking deal breaker here.” He slid from the stool and stood. “Not to worry, though. Annette’s very satisfied with your work as a waitress. We’ll just leave it at that. I’ll set the alarm on my way out. There’s a two minute exit delay, so don’t linger too long.”
Jordan watched, stunned, as Donovan walked out of the bar, heading through the dungeon toward the back door of the club. As he left, it was almost as if he took the oxygen in the room with him, leaving Jordan gasping for air.
Fuck! The dude was serious. She was going to blow it—she wasn’t going to get the job. She’d be stuck serving beer and wiping down tables, when she could give more, so much more, to the club.
Come on, Jordan. You can do it. What’s the big deal? It’s just the one time. Surely you can handle this one session with a trained Master. And maybe he’s right. Maybe you can learn a thing or two. If it’s going to make you a better Domme, why are you fighting it so hard? It’s just a kind of rite of passage, a requirement to get the job. No big deal. Don’t blow this, Jordan. Not when you’re so close.
Jordan leaped from the stool and ran through the dungeon. She could hear the sound of the alarm being set, a series of beeps as he entered the code. “Donovan! Wait. Come back. Let’s talk a little more about this.”
She came up behind him. Without turning to face her, Donovan said, “What’s left to say?” But he punched in the code again, deactivating the alarm.
“Okay, okay,” Jordan said. “I’ll do it. I’ll do a scene with you and experience the whip and whatever all you think is necessary. Okay? Do we have a deal?”
Donovan turned toward her, his eyes boring holes into her face. He lifted his hand and touched her cheek with two fingers. Jordan stepped back as if struck, drawing in a quick, involuntary breath at the power of his touch.
“Why are you fighting so hard, hmm? What’s really going on beneath the surface, Jordan?” Donovan spoke gently, but held her captive with his gaze.
Flustered, Jordan finally managed to look away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do. Come on, you don’t have to pretend with me. I certainly won’t think less of you as a Domme, if that’s what you’re worried about. There are plenty of dominants who are submissive in the right circumstance.”
She turned back to glare at him. “Yeah, well, I’m not one of them.”
Donovan shrugged. “Hey, if all this resistance is because you’re afraid you might just discover I’m right about your submissive tendencies, don’t worry. I won't hold it against you, I promise.”
“Submissive tendencies!” Jordan blurted. “Are you nuts? I’m as domina
nt as you are. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
Donovan smiled, a maddeningly smug expression on his face. Jordan barely resisted the impulse to slap it away. “I’ve watched you all week, Jordan. Your reactions during my shows have given you away, even if you’re not yet self-aware enough to recognize it.”
He placed his hand on her arm and this time Jordan didn’t pull away, even though she wanted to. She found herself rooted to the spot, Donovan’s sexy, deep voice weaving a spell around her senses. “Listen to me, Jordan. I know you believe you’re one-hundred percent dominant. Let’s say for the sake of argument right now that you’ve never felt the desire to sexually submit to another person, that you’ve never ached to experience that kind of surrender.”
“Never,” Jordan asserted, though it came out as a whisper. His fingers wrapped around her arm sent sparkles of heat through her body, which hummed with a curious kind of energy.
“Fair enough. It’s possible my instincts regarding you are off the mark, but I don’t think so. So here’s the deal. In order to get the job, you will scene with me, and I will help you experience the various modes of erotic torture you would use in your role as a Domme. If nothing else, the experience will make you a better dominant than you already are.”
Finally he let go of her, stepping back. “But I bet you you’re going to find it’s more than just a pure act of will on your part to endure the scene to get the job. I bet it’s going to take you to a place you never dreamed you would go.”
“Yeah, well, you bet wrong,” Jordan snapped, her strength and will returning now that he’d let her go.
Donovan regarded her with an amused air. “Okay then. Why don’t we formalize it? Formalize the bet.”
“Excuse me?”
“I bet you’re going to get in touch with the submissive part of your psyche that’s buried beneath the tough, sexy persona you project as a Domme. If at the end of the session, you can honestly tell me there’s nothing there—that my instincts are wrong about the secret, aching need you have to submit, then you win the bet. But if”—he paused, waiting until she looked at him before continuing—“if it turns out there’s even a germ of truth to my theory that you’re submissive on some level, then I win.”