Page 44 of Be Careful What You Wish For

Grand Master and a couple of others had stayed on. It seemed they were to help Richard with a helicopter trip from the island to the mainland on their way back. They were just waiting until Richard was ready and preparations done. But that only doubled his work, Shadow grumbled to himself irritably. He’d been asking Richard for some time to bring staff in for special occasions, but his suggestion had fallen on deaf ears. Now Richard had admonished him about being careless with everyday tasks, which meant he was overloaded with jobs and still more besides.

It hadn’t been this way in all the years of their relationship, and Shadow didn’t understand what was happening now. He’d become a pressure cooker ready to explode, resentment was growing, and it even alarmed him at just how malicious he felt towards the man he had been proud to call his colleague and friend.

He also had an unnerving suspicion he was being ousted. Nothing had been said directly, but everything about Richard’s manner reinforced this fear, and his instincts had rarely been wrong.

This was his home, or at least it had been for a good many years. They had enjoyed a lavish lifestyle together, had a plethora of friends both home and abroad, and then Richard had brought their long-held dream into reality by bringing Pandora to the island. But it was he who had moulded and shaped and taught her what she knew, and now the man he had thought of as his friend was about to snatch it all away.

He had already been instructed that, in Richard’s absence, he was expected to look after Pandora but to leave her alone. These were his express instructions, told him in a stern and forthright manner. It wasn’t something which could be negotiated. The good times were over, that was for sure. Was he really expected to leave and to create a life elsewhere?

He was being abandoned, rejected, dumped, a tool that had outgrown its usefulness, and it simply wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t going to happen and he wasn’t going to being treated this way. He had to find a way to take control, and he was running out of time.

He’d been in a similar position before, years ago, when his wife Sheila was threatening to disclose his activities. It was she and Beth who had first wanted to explore their darker fantasies, but even so she knew, from the first night they’d slept together, she knew the way he was when she unexpectedly discovered his secret. Caught in the throes of sexual torment he had spanked her bottom. She appeared to enjoy it, and later, when he used a paddle on her, much to his delight she orgasmed. And then when he pressed a crop into her hand, urgently needing to feel the same, it both shocked and excited her. They led a kinky lifestyle which became more and more outlandish. She’d been willing to experiment, to be led. They had involved Richard and Beth in visits to country playhouses, and only later did she rebel. Perhaps she had reached her own limits and felt intimidated. Perhaps she was frightened because his needs were growing, becoming more and more bizarre, pushing the barriers, wanting to experience beyond.

Whatever the reason, it all reached a head one evening. He had heard about knife and needle play. The idea of it excited him, especially as he could fantasise about it during his work as a surgeon. But Sheila freaked at the suggestion, especially as he suggested it when she was restrained and hooded. She had used the safeword, and following an evening of frustration she blurted out that she would go public if he didn’t back off. It began to go downhill from that point on. It was never the same between them.

He knew she had gone to see Beth. He didn’t know why they were in the car together, but did he care? How fortunate then that she had met the drunken driver whilst driving at speed, and later he’d been able to tell Richard that they were going to view another country playhouse with a newly constructed dungeon.

He laughed at the sheer madness of it all.

Already a plan was forming, spurred on by the rapid turn of events. He’d always been at his best under pressure. Richard was moving ahead at speed, and seemed willing to cut him out of his life altogether. So be it! He was asking for what would follow. He had only himself to blame.

It was a Thursday morning when finally Richard and his guests took their baggage to the helicopter. He’d allowed Pandora to see him off, and together with Shadow she stood like a fragile leaf caught in a storm. Tears meandered down her cheeks. Her hands were clenched into balls at her side, and she was shaking. It was easy to see the rapport between them, but then again, over past few days she had also spent time with Grand Master. And he too, it seemed, had his own agenda. Even Richard was taken off guard when he saw the way he held her, whispering into her ear. He had been too busy to notice the number of hours they’d spent cosseted in her rooms, and the keen interest Grand Master had taken in her since the Ceremony.

‘How long will he be gone?’ The words fell between sobs from her lips as she stood beside Shadow. He smiled knowingly.

‘Oh, Dream Catcher has much more pressing matters to think about than you and I. He has a lot on his mind right now. He’ll be away awhile.’

A fresh outburst of crying was drowned by the noise of the helicopter rising from the ground. He placed an arm around her shoulders to appease both Grand Master and Dream Catcher, who were watching them from the hovering aircraft, but inwardly he knew his feelings even towards her had changed. Events had made it so. It surprised him how, in such a short time, everything had turned topsy-turvy. Not so long ago he had felt on top of the world.

‘Go and amuse yourself in your rooms. I have things to do.’

With those few words he left her, knowing she was disappointed, needing him for comfort and strength. She would feel the absence of Dream Catcher keenly. She would crave company he just couldn’t give. He didn’t want to, at least not yet awhile. His urge would rise eventually, aching to be satisfied, and then he was going to have some fun.

Breach of Trust

It hung on a whisper.

Eyes tight shut; hoping, needing, aching, craving, but not knowing! That is what held her. It focused both her body and her mind.

The blackness excited, aroused, strengthened, but then scared her, clearing all patterns of thought, concentrating only on what might be, what might come, and from where...

Pain, pleasure, or pleasure, pain; she didn’t know what to expect first or what might follow after. And despite her reservations something held her, like the graphic details in a book which

tore the heart and repulsed and sickened in the reading of it, yet at the same time gripped and held the imagination, baiting, making the reader squirm and yet hold right on in there until the bitter end.

When finally it came the attack was so violent, so savage it shocked her beyond reason, gripping tight her senses, leaving them reeling, completely overwhelmed. Yet in truth she was aroused beyond measure, excited far beyond any point in her life.

And that worried her deeply.

At first he stroked, caressed, fondled, kissed. It made her cry with the sheer gentleness and softness of his touch. She was being lulled into a false sense of security and, snuggling in, she laid her head on his shoulder feeling protected, warm, seeking that place of solace and peace in his embrace. He’d handled her with care, knowing she was special, needing to feel wanted, loved, missing Richard so very much. She was so vulnerable, so needy, so hurt. She didn’t really know what she wanted at all. Yet hidden deep within the surface in a place she didn’t yet know, there was a very real part of her that sought pain, and with it the release that came after.

And he knew. He knew by the way she reacted. He pulled and twisted, squeezing nipples hard. She didn’t pull away or scream or try to stop his advances. She didn’t slap him or brazenly argue the toss as another might have done, for she accepted she had no choice. Her back arched, her neck stretched taut, her body accepting and so open... there for the taking.

A moan slipped from her lips, caught somewhere in the space between them. Eyes closed, lips parted, and like floodgates opening, her legs automatically separated to receive him. He couldn’t disappoint. Not now. Not for one so willing. She was almost leading him on, almost taking control. It was her need. Always it was her stupid aching pathetic need that led her into such a situation as this, leaving her vulnerable, totally unable to say ‘no’, to stop it even had she wanted to.

Did that make submission a weakness? Or was it a strength; a strength because she was able to give so completely where others held back, keeping a part of themselves secret?

In some remote part of her she remembered the question posed by Grand Master. But whatever the answer the need betrayed her, it was always the way, leaving her begging, aching for him to take her, for her to be saved from herself.

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