At Your Mercy: Tales of Domination. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.

      Late

      Elizabeth Coldwell

      You’ve been expecting me for the last twenty minutes, and I’m still no closer to arriving. Tell a lie, the train’s just started its slow, trundling progress along the stretch of track from Farringdon to Barbican. With nothing more in the way of hold-ups, I should be at the station within a couple of minutes. From there, it’ll be a hasty dash to your apartment. But there’s no way of covering up the fact I’m late.

      I didn’t deliberately set out to disobey you; I’ve never been one of those bratty bottoms, forever seeking ways to provoke my master and earn a harsher punishment. When you sent the message this afternoon telling me to be with you by six, no later, I made sure to be away from my desk by quarter-past five. That should have given me plenty of time to make the journey to your apartment; I just didn’t count on a signal failure stranding me between stations.

      Tense as I am, I can’t help my mind drifting to thoughts of what you’ll do when I finally arrive, stammering apologies and explaining why this delay really wasn’t my fault. Your punishments are never less than inventive; half the time they don’t even involve you laying a finger on me. I’ll never forget the time I arrived at your apartment with a bottle of Liebfraumilch, because the corner off-licence didn’t have the Riesling you’d asked me to bring. How was I to know you can’t abide the taste of sweet white wine? That evening, you made me walk the seventeen floors to your apartment, rather than taking the lift. By the time I reached you, my lungs were burning and my thighs tight and cramped, the pain more exquisite than if you’d taken a paddle to my backside. Though it taught me never to bring you the wrong wine again.

      The train slows, comes to a stop, and I feel a sick lurch in my stomach in response. We’re so close to my destination, and now I’m going to be even later.

      I’m not the only one who’s biting back a groan of frustration, or glancing anxiously at a wristwatch. Most of my fellow passengers have already fired off text messages to explain their late arrival at wherever their destination might be. You don’t allow me that luxury.

      Could anyone in this carriage even begin to guess the reason why I’m so twitchy, so desperate to be off the train? Surely not the man in the pinstripe suit opposite me, head buried in his evening paper. Though maybe he appreciates exactly what I’m going through; serious and sober, good-looking in his sleek silver-fox way, he strikes me as the type who may very well visit a mistress from time to time, grovelling at her feet in nothing but a pair of skimpy, see-through women’s knickers and begging for the feel of her flogger on his bare, vulnerable arse.

      Perhaps I’m reading him wrong, and he simply likes to watch. Would he get off on the sight of me bent over your whipping stool, panties yanked down round my knees and my wrists bound to the sturdy legs of the stool, so I can’t pull away or rub my sore flesh as your cruel, thin cane comes down again and again?

      Before I can fully engross myself in a fantasy where you punish me before an audience of leering middle-aged businessmen, wanking the cocks that jut from their flies as you thrash me till I’m a panting, tearful mess, the train starts moving again. A recorded voice kicks in, announcing that the next station is Barbican, and it’s no illusion; we’re clattering over the points, the platform coming into view. Pushing my way through the knot of commuters clustered by the doors, I make sure I’m first off the train. Normally, I’d show more in the way of courtesy, but I’m all too aware you’re still waiting. My imagination can’t help but picture you pacing the floor of your apartment in your riding boots, tapping a crop against your jodhpured thigh, and my pussy quivers in anticipation.

      Taking the steps two at a time, passing through the ticket barrier whose gate moves far too slowly for my liking, I’m out on the street. Rain falls, heavy enough to warrant me reaching for my umbrella, but that takes time I don’t have. For once, the traffic lights are kind, and I’m over the road, sprinting in the impractical heels I’d never have worn if I’d known I’d find myself racing to keep an appointment with you. But the point is I never know when you’re going to call; as you always say, you like to keep me on my toes, rather than falling into some cosy, regular arrangement that dulls the edge of our master/slave relationship.

      No one is around to pay me any attention as I trot through the small courtyard leading to the looming towers of the Barbican Estate. I stab at the doorbell and hear your answer almost immediately. ‘Yes?’

      ‘Sir, I’m sorry, I –’

      ‘In the lift, girl. Now.’ So it’s not to be torture by stair-climbing this time, but that doesn’t mean you’re letting me off lightly. I know you too well to ever assume that.

      As the lift ascends, I run my fingers through my dampened curls and glance at my reflection in the mirror of my compact. A pale, harassed face peers back at me and I take a couple of deep breaths, centring myself – something I learned in a long-ago relaxation class. It calms the anxious pumping of my heart, but does nothing to release the erotic tension coiled so tightly in my belly. Even after the best part of two years together, that reaction still begins before I’ve even set eyes on you.

      You answer the door almost before my knuckles rap against it. With a curt ‘Inside’, you usher me over the threshold, a fly stepping willingly into the spider’s parlour.

      ‘I take it there’s a reason for your tardiness?’ you say, not even glancing at me as I follow you through into the hall.

      ‘Signal failure at Moorgate, sir. We were sitting outside Farringdon for ages.’ The words sound woefully inadequate, but they seem to satisfy you for the time being.

      ‘Can’t be helped, I suppose, girl, but there are still consequences for being late, and I intend to make sure you appreciate them. Now, strip.’

      This part of the routine never changes. You like me to be naked from the moment I step inside your apartment to the moment I leave. As I shrug off my coat, I take my first subtle glance at you. As always, the sight of you melts something inside me, setting off a rush of fierce, liquid heat. Dressed in your trademark black T-shirt, jodhpurs and those delicious shiny black riding boots, you’re my every submissive dream made flesh. I might have been surrounded by dozens of better-looking men on the tube, but, though they might be taller than you, more athletically built, with thicker heads of hair and cheeks unmarked by the legacy of acne scars, they don’t possess