The Story of Owen: One Man's Submissive Journey Read online

  Edited by

  Donna Fisk

  Jae Ashley

  Cover Art by Kelly Shorten

  Ebook ISBN 9781937337384

  Copyright 2012 Claire Thompson

  All rights reserved

  Chapter 1

  Owen wiped the sweat from his upper lip and shifted in his chair, willing his erection to subside. As he stared at the scene before him, his yearning was suddenly almost too big to contain. The sudden, fierce need to feel the sting of a whip and the grip of strong rope and chain moved through Owen with such raw intensity he had to clench his hands into fists and press them hard against his thighs. How he longed to kneel naked with head bowed, ready, willing, desperate to do the bidding of the woman who would dominate not only his body, but his heart.

  Owen’s gut tightened as he tried to imagine himself in Jerry’s place, bound and naked on the black satin-covered bondage table. Owen’s eyes slid toward the piercing needle that rested on a bed of sterile cotton beside the gold ring that would soon adorn Jerry’s cock. He took in a breath and blew it out slowly, wondering if he would have the courage to lie unrestrained as Jerry was, or if he’d have be held down when the sharp needle pierced his flesh. Maybe if he had a lover like Mistress Alana, someone who truly understood and embraced his need for erotic submission, without judging him in the process.

  “We will begin.” Mistress Alana said, sweeping the invited guests with a cool gaze, her eyes stopping on Owen, as if she could read his agitated thoughts. Turning back toward her slave, she bent slightly forward from her position at the head of the bondage table and stroked his cheek. Her buttercup blond hair obscured her face as she leaned down to kiss his forehead. The piercing artist, a slight man dressed in black, stood behind the table, facing the room.

  The room flickered in the flames of the dozens of candles set about the space. Soft music, something with guitar and flute, floated in the background. Jerry’s eyes were fixed on Mistress Alana. His hands were folded over his chest, and now her hands covered his. The gold band he had placed on her finger at the beginning of the ceremony matched the one waiting on the tray.

  Mistress Alana spoke to Jerry, but loud enough so everyone could hear. “Love isn’t always easy. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung, and possibly broken. But hearts are strong, especially when we are there for each other, able to forgive and to help heal the pain. When you and I entered this lifestyle seven years ago, it not only saved our marriage, it took it to a higher plane, a rarified place of purity and passion that sustains us both.”

  She bent down and kissed Jerry’s forehead. Standing straight again, she said, “Are you prepared to accept this ring as a token of your obedience and love, slave Jerry?”

  “Yes, Mistress,” Jerry breathed softly, his expression one of serene adoration.

  Alana faced Owen and the other people who had been invited to the ceremony. “With these rings, Jerry and I are renewing our vow to love and cherish each other in our special way as Mistress and slave.”

  Turning back, she nodded toward the piercing artist. When he gripped the base of Jerry’s cock, it caught at Owen like a hand around his own throat. His mouth was dry, his heart hammering as he watched the small receiving tube inserted into the head of Jerry’s cock. He caught his breath as the needle pierced the skin, a quick press of silver, followed by the golden ring. A drop of bright red blood was blotted quickly away.

  Mistress Alana helped Jerry from the bondage table and draped a black silk robe over his shoulders. When Jerry turned toward her with an adoring smile, Owen half expected him to drop to his knees, but instead the couple wrapped their arms around each other and kissed, a long, deep kiss that left no doubt of their feelings.

  Everyone in the room must have been holding their breath, because they all seemed to exhale at once, and then there was a scattering of applause and appreciative laughter, and more than a few of the couples in the group turned toward one another, exchanging a quick kiss of their own, or taking one another’s hand.

  Everyone there was part of a couple, it seemed, except for Owen.

  Everyone there was also heavily into the BDSM scene, again, except for Owen. He’d been watching for years from the sidelines as his old college friend Jerry and Jerry’s wife moved from a vanilla relationship to experimentation with BDSM, and finally into a 24/7 Mistress/slave relationship.

  Still feeling the aftereffects of his strong reaction to the piercing ritual, Owen wondered if it wasn’t time, at last, to step off the sidelines and into the game. Maybe he was finally ready to begin his own exploration.

  But how?

  The party had dwindled, and Owen was in the kitchen with Jerry, who was rinsing the champagne glasses and handing them to Owen to dry. Jerry was the only person in whom Owen had confided his secret and lately growing desire to explore the world of sexual submission.

  “I talked to Mistress Alana about your situation,” Jerry said.

  “My situation?”

  “You know. The fact you want to explore BDSM but you aren’t sure how to start.”

  “You told her?” Owen wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about that.

  “Owen, you know I tell Mistress everything. And why is this something you want to hide? It’s a beautiful thing, man. There is nothing in this world that can compare for guys like me and you.”

  Like me and you…

  “Tonight was fucking incredible,” Jerry enthused. “When I felt that needle, and she was looking down at me, her hands on mine, I could have died right then, you know? Right then because I had everything I have ever wanted.” He looked over at Owen, shaking his head. “Owen McCarthy, I love you like a brother, but I just don’t get you. What the hell are you waiting for, man? I frankly don’t know how you’ve survived this long in your bland, vanilla world.”

  Owen snorted. “Bland and vanilla, huh? Yeah, I guess that about sums up my sex life—shit, my whole life. But I really don’t want to get involved in the singles scene, even a BDSM singles scene. It’s just not my style.”

  “I know. Mistress Alana had a good suggestion. She wanted me to give you this.”

  Jerry moved toward the small bulletin board over their kitchen telephone, upon which was tacked a jumble of receipts and reminders. Taking a business card from the top right corner of the board, he handed it to Owen. It read:

  Mistress Sylvie

  By Appointment Only

  No phone number, no address—nothing. Owen looked questioningly at Jerry.

  “What you have there, my friend, is a ticket into BDSM heaven, provided you’re willing to pay her not-insignificant fee. Mistress Sylvie Dubois is the real deal, one of the best in the business. It’s word of mouth only. You have to be referred by someone she knows and trusts.”

  Owen raised his eyebrows. “Alana wants me to go to a pro Domme?”

  “It’s not like you think. Mistress Sylvie isn’t some player just out there to make a buck off smacking guys’ butts with a crappy whip she bought from some catalog. Mistress Sylvie is known in BDSM circles as the crème de la crème. She and Mistress Alana trained together in Paris under the same Domme.”

  “That’s right.” Both men turned toward the sound of Alana’s sexy, low voice. She was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, and in the bright light of the kitchen Owen could see the outline of her nipples poking against the red lace of her sheer gown. “I saw your expression tonight, Owen, while Jerry was getting pierced. Let’s just say that the word longing only barely scratches the surface of what I saw.”

  Owen felt his face heat at her words, t
hough he couldn’t deny their truth. “You have what I call the mark,” she continued. “The mark of a true submissive. I’ve sensed it for a long time, even before Jerry talked to me about it. It’s time, Owen. It’s time you took control of your own destiny. You need training and discipline. You deserve the chance to find the joy that’s been missing all these years.”

  Just those words—training, discipline—had a visceral effect on Owen and he felt his cock harden. He looked down at the card in his hand, running his finger over the raised black lettering. He looked back at Alana, who was regarding him with a small smile, her eyebrows arched in question. He glanced at Jerry, who was gazing at his Mistress, the adoration shining in his face. Was it possible Owen might find someone like her? Someone to love and cherish, as Jerry so clearly did?

  Though Owen wasn’t naïve enough to think true love was waiting in a pro Domme’s dungeon, at least he could find out if his longing for erotic submission was anything more than a masturbatory fantasy.

  “What do I do? How do I get in to see her?”

  “Now you’re talking.” Jerry thumped Owen’s back.

  Alana smiled. “I’ll give Mistress Sylvie a call. She sees new clients only by referral. Her assistant will set up an interview and you go from there.”

  “An interview?”

  Alana nodded. “Mistress Sylvie will want to know about your experience level, expectations and that sort of thing. This isn’t just some hour where you get your kink massaged. This is about real training with a pro Domme who takes her work very seriously. If she thinks you’re just looking for a cheap thrill, I doubt you’ll get past that initial interview.” Alana moved closer and placed her hand on Owen’s arm, squeezing it reassuringly. “But that won’t happen. Because you don’t just want this, Owen. You need it. Am I right?”

  Her clear gray eyes stared into his. Owen looked away, aware he was far too old to blush like a boy. He looked down at the card in his hand to avoid her gaze. Finally he lifted his head.

  “Yes,” he said. And with that single word, something heavy that had been resting on his heart suddenly lifted.

  ~*~

  Two weeks later Owen stood on the stoop of the address he’d been given, hesitating as he stared at the red door of the Greenwich Village townhouse. Did he really have the balls to go through with this?

  Don’t be a chicken shit. This is what you want. Don’t back out now.

  Owen reached for the doorbell located on a small intercom panel to the left of the front door. Before he could even depress the button, the door was pulled open by an imposing blond with ice-blue eyes. She was wearing a tailored silk suit, the skirt hem just below the knee, her feet shod in high black heels.

  “Good afternoon. Won’t you come in?”

  “Thanks.” Owen replied, entering the small foyer as she gestured him inside.

  “My name is Isabel. Follow me.”

  Owen followed the woman into a sitting room. The furniture was modern, black leather and chrome, the walls adorned with abstract paintings in splashes of color. The woman’s heels clicked on the dark hardwood floors. Owen admired the curve of her ass in the slim skirt as she moved.

  Isabel sat on one of three chairs set in a group beneath a large bay window that looked out onto a small patio enclosed by iron railings. She gestured for Owen to sit as well.

  She reached for a clipboard and pen from the end table beside her chair. Crossing her slender ankles, she leaned forward. “I’m going to ask you some questions. You will answer with complete candor.”

  “All right,” Owen said, hiding his nerves behind a smile.

  “First question. Do you consider yourself a submissive or a masochist, or both?”

  “Oh, I, um…” Owen felt his face heating and told himself to get a grip. This was what he was here for, wasn’t it? Isabel was just gathering information. It was part of the process. “I’m not really sure. I don’t have a lot of experience.”

  She looked at him, lifting one eyebrow in a delicate arch. “Answer the question.”

  Owen swallowed and blew out a breath. “Both, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “Both,” he said more firmly, a little annoyed.

  She nodded and made a mark on her clipboard. “Gay, straight or bi?”

  “Straight.”

  “Any hard limits?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Things you can’t or won’t tolerate. Some people don’t like being slapped in the face, for example. Others faint at the sight of their own blood.”

  Their own blood…

  Owen felt sweat prickling under his arms. An image of himself, shackled in chains, his back crisscrossed with bloody lines from a single tail whip wielded by a tall woman in a black leather corset leaped full blown into his brain. “Um, I don’t really know, to be honest,” he hedged. “I guess I’m open to pretty much anything.”

  Isabel nodded and scribbled something on the clipboard. “Okay. Any injuries we need to be aware of? Back. Knees. Surgeries.”

  “No. I’m in good health. Fit as a fiddle.”

  She continued the questioning, asking Owen for pretty personal details about his sex life and fantasies. He tried to answer as honestly as he could, hoping his answers passed muster. Finally she stood, smoothing her skirt. “Wait here. I’ll be back in a few moments.”

  She turned on her heel and left the room. Owen could hear her ascending the staircase. He leaned back in his chair and stared out the window, noticing the flowering vines climbing over the iron railings. Was he really up for this whole pro Domme scene?

  What the hell. If she came back and told him to take a hike, so be it. He wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

  Liar.

  Owen sat up expectantly at the sound of heels on the stairs. He waited for Isabel to reenter the room, hoping he’d passed whatever tests had been hidden in the interview questions.

  But instead of Isabel, a tall, willowy woman with coppery hair and large gray-green eyes swept into the room. She wore a sexy black lace blouse that hugged perfect, round breasts and a long, narrow torso. As she approached, Owen saw flashes of shapely bare legs, visible along the slits of her ankle-length black skirt.

  Owen stood as she came to a stop in front of him. She held out a slender hand and he took it. Her grip was strong and confident as she looked him in the eye. “Bon jour, Owen. I am Mistress Sylvie.” Her voice flowed like smooth honey, the accent decidedly French.

  “Enchanté,” Owen replied in his best high school French.

  Mistress Sylvie graced him with a smile and a slight nod. “You will follow me, please.”

  Owen felt a sudden surge of adrenaline—part elation, part jitters. Mistress Sylvie led him up the stairs, passing one closed door and stopping at a second room, the door of which was ajar.

  If he had expected a dungeon, he was disappointed. There were no whips or chains anywhere in sight. The room was more like an office, albeit an inviting one, with fresh flowers in a vase on the table beneath the window, and a comfortable-looking sofa and chairs set near a large desk made of pale blond wood.

  Mistress Sylvie entered first and turned to face Owen. “Come inside,” she said. “Close the door behind you.”

  Owen did as he was told. Mistress Sylvie sat on one of the chairs, crossing her gorgeous, long legs. Owen stood uncertainly, waiting. “Take off your clothes and stand at attention. You may leave your underwear on, for now.”

  For a moment Owen didn’t move. He wasn’t shy about his body, but he hadn't been expecting this. He’d been told today would only be for the interview, and then, if he was accepted, he would make an appointment for a full BDSM session.

  “Tout de suite. I don’t have all day.” Mistress Sylvie lifted her eyebrows, tilting her head as she waited for him to obey.

  You’ve come this far, Owen reminded himself.

  Having gone to the appointment straight from work, he was still wearing his suit. He removed his jacket and laid it on the sofa.
Reaching for his tie, he pulled at the knot and slipped it over his head. Mistress Sylvie remained seated, watching his every move.

  When he was stripped down to his boxers, she stood and moved toward him, her eyes glittering. “Hold out your arms on either side of your body and stay still while I examine you.” Owen did as he was told, aware his heart had picked up its pace.

  “You will answer my questions promptly and honestly. Otherwise you are not to speak.”

  “Okay,” Owen said.

  Mistress Sylvie frowned. “When you speak to me, you will remember to address me as Mistress Sylvie. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Mistress Sylvie,” Owen replied, feeling a little foolish, but also very excited.

  Mistress Sylvie wrapped her fingers around his right biceps and squeezed lightly. “Nice,” she commented with obvious approval. “You work out, I see.”

  “I swim, Mistress Sylvie. And do some weights.”

  “I did not ask you a question.”

  Owen pressed his lips together, feeling his face heat. Mistress Sylvie began to walk in a slow circle around him, moving her hands over his shoulders, chest and back, squeezing and prodding him as if he were a horse. She drew her fingertips lightly along the inner part of his arms. Whether or not she intended it, her feather-light touch tickled when she reached his armpits and though he hadn’t meant to, Owen pulled slightly away.

  “Stay still,” she commanded. “Have you no discipline?”

  It was a question, but was it rhetorical, or did she want an answer? And what was the answer, when it came to that? He’d had this fantasy of submitting to a strong sexy woman a thousand times in one form or another, and now it was actually happening. But was discipline part of the equation?

  “I will answer for you,” Mistress Sylvie said, standing directly in front of him. In her heels, she was nearly as tall as he was, and she leaned in close, so close he could have kissed her if he’d dared. She spoke softly, but her voice was hard. “You have no discipline. You are untrained and I’m not sure I should bother to take you on.”