Another way

  Copyright

  Published by

  Dreamspinner Press

  382 NE 191st Street #88329

  Miami, FL 33179-3899, USA

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Another Way

  Copyright © 2011 by Anna Martin

  Cover Design by Taria Reed TariaReed@comcast.net

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 382 NE 191st Street #88329, Miami, FL 33179-3899, USA

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  ISBN: 978-1-61372-160-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  September 2011

  eBook edition available

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-61372-161-2

  Dedication

  To Jennifer and Kira, who guided me through when the words wouldn’t come and forgave me for my kinks.

  And to John, who unknowingly supplied the soundtrack.

  Tied up and twisted, the way I’d like to be,

  For you, for me, come crash into me.

  “Crash Into Me”

  Dave Matthews Band

  Chapter One

  IT WAS 4 p.m. on a Friday, and I was at work when my phone chimed with a familiar tune. The message was simple, and gave me no idea of what sort of mood he might be in.

  Will: 7 p.m.

  That was it. Three characters, but they told me all I needed to know. For the next hour I itched to leave my job in a downtown independent bookstore, and I practically ran from the building when the clock ticked over to five o’clock.

  As was our routine every Friday, I got into the house just as Adele was leaving. I gave her a quick kiss as she trotted out of the door in a black pencil skirt and a white blouse, her long, red hair bouncing in her ponytail. She loved her job as a front of house manager in a nice French restaurant in the city; it was a pretty small place, and she was almost as famous there as the food was. It was Adele who practically kidnapped a chef when she was living in France a few years ago and convinced him to relocate to America. She now ran his restaurant, while Theo got to cook the food he grew up with. Everyone was happy.

  Although… I had my secrets. As soon as Adele left, I went down to the basement and spent twenty minutes on the treadmill, followed by twenty minutes of a boxing program to loosen up my muscles and warm up, so to speak, for the evening ahead. When that was done, I went up to our bedroom and set out some nice clothes—in case I went out after—and took a shower, making sure I was perfectly scrubbed all over.

  He didn’t like it when I wore strong-smelling deodorants or aftershave, so I used a scent-free antiperspirant and dressed in loose clothing. This routine was familiar to me too. I left the house with twenty minutes to spare in order to travel the ten minutes to his house.

  After I’d parked outside, I went around to the back of the house and let myself in, making sure to lock the door behind me, and went straight up the back staircase to the attic, where I undressed and piled all of my clothes neatly by the door.

  Then I sat back on my heels, laced my fingers behind my neck, dropped my head, and waited.

  “Good evening, Jesse,” he said from behind me, and I heard the door click shut. He must have been waiting for me to get into position. It was nice to think that he was as anxious to start our session as I was.

  “Good evening, Master,” I said softly, and I felt him come up behind me.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said simply and ran his fingers through my hair. I decided to break position and lean into his touch, just with my head, as he lightly scratched my scalp and tugged on the roots of my hair. This was my way of saying I missed you too.

  It had been about two weeks since we saw each other last—circumstances and family commitments had gotten in the way of our relationship. It wasn’t the longest we’d ever gone without seeing each other, but it was pushing the boundaries of how long we could cope. I needed him more frequently than once every two weeks. If we got our way, it was usually two sessions a week.

  “What shall we do with you tonight, I wonder?” he asked as he let go of my hair and walked to the stereo. Both Master and I were fond of persistent rock music playing in the background—something rough and edgy that created an atmosphere up here.

  I kept my eyes glued on the floor, even as I felt him come up behind me with two padded cuffs and attach each of my wrists to the opposite elbow.

  “Test them,” Master said, and I obediently tugged on the restraints. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  These cuffs were familiar to me; they were a light tan leather with white sheepskin lining. They were my favorites because Master bought them for me, and would never use them on anyone else. I caught sight of him as he moved, and I couldn’t help the rush of blood that went straight to my cock. He was wearing dark brown leather pants and a T-shirt that might once have been the color of milky tea but had been washed out to the point where it was so thin you could see straight through it.

  His hair was long and messy, as always, and through the windows that were set in the ceiling, it shone all sorts of shades of red and mahogany in the evening light. Master Will had a lean, athletic build that he’d earned snowboarding in the Canadian mountains visible from his Seattle home—through the windows in the ceiling, in fact, if one was standing at them.

  Once I was secured, Master came around to my front and braced his hands against my naked chest, helping me rise to my feet. Now that I was secured, he cupped my face in his hands and brought his lips to mine.

  The feel of his lips and his hot tongue probing my mouth was almost too much for me. I rose up onto my toes to close the small gap that was created by the height distance between us—he was wearing boots and I was barefoot. My cock, which was hard already, began to ache in another familiar way, and I wanted more. With him, there was always more.

  “I would like to collar you tonight, Jesse. Would that be okay?” he asked as he broke our kiss.

  I nodded silently; he hadn’t given me permission to speak.

  “Thank you,” Master said, accepting the gift of my submission. He walked to the wall and selected a slim, tan leather collar—it matched the two restraining my wrists.

  When he was in front of me again, I dropped my head. We stood like this, two equals until the moment that piece of leather wrapped around my neck, and he buckled it at the back, gently smoothing my hair out of the way of the catch. Then, until he decided to take it off again, I belonged to him.

  This was a ritual that we’d developed. In the early days of our relationship, I wasn’t comfortable with everything that our sessions entailed. So Will had set up a few sessions where I wasn’t collared and I referred to him by his given name or “Sir” and we worked on finding out our mutual limits. These days, I rarely—if ever—denied his offer of collaring me, but he still gave me the choice, and I appreciated that. It made my handing over of control to him even more profound.

  The collar helped me lose myself and go deeper into “subspace,” a state of mind where I was more willing to hand over all control to my Master. I was pulled into another kiss, but this time he held me steady and forced me to bend backward, bend to his will as he dominated my mouth. I lived for these kisses, the ones that forced me to
accept my place in the hierarchy of the room, pushed me into accepting the role I’d chosen. Because it surely wasn’t an easy one.

  Master carefully helped me back down to my knees, and when I was settled, he opened the front of those amazing brown leather pants and withdrew his long, hard cock. It only took him raising one eyebrow at me and my mouth was on him in an instant, sucking him into my mouth and licking around the head, desperate for the taste and smell of him. Once I’d sucked off all his flavor, I wanted his scent, and I took a deep breath, relaxing my throat and leaning in to take him all the way into my mouth until my nose was buried in his short hairs and his balls were tickling my chin. I used my tongue to lave him with attention until he made that low sound in the back of his throat that I lived for, half moan and half grunt—a warning.

  He liked to come before we got deep into the session. I had asked him about it once, and he said it helped him to stay in control if he’d already had one orgasm. That made sense.

  “Swallow,” he commanded, not that the word was really necessary. There was no way I could escape his strong fingers in my hair, holding me in place as his cock throbbed and shot his come straight into the back of my throat. I was enthralled by the sensation and swallowed happily around him.

  He softened in my mouth, and I licked him clean, then sat back on my heels as he tucked himself away. There were no words of praise for my efforts; instead, Master turned and went to prepare something else behind me. I appreciated the moment. It gave me time to think.

  I BECAME a submissive when I was still in college and in the process of discovering my sexuality. One wild night at a BDSM-themed club got me intrigued, and a few weeks, later I ran into one of the girls from the club in a coffee house. She was a Domme, and after a few dates where words like “hard limit” and “pain threshold” and “safeword” became part of my vocabulary, we agreed to start a relationship.

  Laura was only a few years older than me, but she held herself with a grace that reminded me of the old movie stars of the early part of the century. She was a lady in the truest sense of the word. She also prided herself on finding the darkest recesses of someone’s soul and turning them over for inspection, poking and prodding deep into their psyche and using that information to her advantage. She never really hurt me, not even when she was lashing my skin with a crop or a whip or a multi-tailed flogger. Not once did I ever use my safeword with her, although she truly pushed me to the edge of my comfort zone, always backing off before I screamed for her to stop.

  It was pretty Laura who twisted my sexuality to become a fluid thing, not a fixed label that is so often either black or white. She helped me to define myself as pansexual, heteroflexible, and willing to contemplate a relationship with another man. Our D/s relationship was tested when she got engaged and pushed when she got married, although we continued to pursue our connection with her new husband’s blessing, on the condition that we never partook in sexual intercourse. That was fine. I could count on my fingers the number of times I’d actually fucked Laura.

  When she fell pregnant with twins, however, things between the three of us became strained. I wasn’t happy with giving up on a D/s relationship I’d given two and a half years of my life to, but even I could accept that she just couldn’t continue to take on the responsibility of a submissive when she’d soon have two babies to care for.

  That was when she suggested that I meet Will.

  Despite my submersion into the world of bondage and discipline, I’d never really been a member of the wider community, even though Laura was. I’d heard his name before in conversation, but I’d never met the man until I was forced to choose between subbing for Will or being alone. My initial reaction to her suggestion was no—there was no way I was going to submit to another man. My previously open thoughts, when pushed, backfired on me.

  And then I met him. Will was charismatic and kind, and he was funny and nice and had an inner steel that was apparent even over beers in a regular bar downtown. I immediately liked him as a person, and we agreed to meet again, as friends, to see how our relationship panned out.

  “I’ll push you,” he said one night, “in ways that Laura has never pushed you before, just by the sheer nature of our relationship. But I think it’s something you should consider.”

  The chemistry between us was undeniable, and in the back of my mind I was curious. I ended up taking two weeks’ vacation from work, lying to my girlfriend as to my whereabouts, and moving in with Will. Those were, without any doubt, the most intense two weeks of my life.

  When they were done, I moved out again, back to my own apartment, and he told me that if I wanted to continue our relationship, I should be waiting for him, on my knees, the following Saturday. I was there, and our relationship started to grow over the following eight months.

  “What are you thinking about so intently, Jesse?” Master asked while tipping my chin up with his finger so I was looking at him.

  “You, Master,” I said truthfully. “About how I came to be yours.”

  Master smiled, and I could see his inner warmth, despite all the pressure he put on me to perform for him. “You always know what to say,” he said with a slight laugh, and reached down to stroke my cheek gently.

  Instead of helping me to stand this time, Master had me follow him on my knees to the south wall, and I rose to standing by resting my shoulders on the knee supports of the bench and pushing back onto my feet. Once I was upright, Master bent me over by placing one hand on my chest and another on my lower back, forcing me to bend over facedown on the bench. He quickly restrained my ankles and then began to work a length of rope around my waist, between my legs, and back up to attach to my restrained arms and wrists.

  Master took hold of my hands, making sure my circulation was still good, then left me for a moment to go and select a toy. I took slow breaths, reminding myself that he’d never really hurt me before, not beyond my limits, and that I trusted him implicitly.

  His soft footfalls signified his return to my side, and from this position of my chest pressed into the bench, I could feel every thundering beat of my heart. I wondered if he’d show me the toy first, or if he’d just hit me, or if he’d run it over my body. Maybe he’d put it between my fingers or my lips or my legs….

  There was a dull thud across my backside, followed by a familiar warmth as blood rushed to the area. Master trailed the flogger across my ass and thighs, the ends of the soft suede tickling slightly before the sensation disappeared, and I prepared myself for the next blow.

  “Let me hear you, Jesse,” Master commanded, and with the next fall of the flogger, I let out a low moan.

  From the position I was restrained in, he could only aim his blows across my ass and thighs—not that I was complaining. Rather than hurting, the sensations he caused just turned me on, more than I was before, and especially while he was only warming me up with light thuds. Too soon, though, he stopped, and I couldn’t help but whimper at the loss.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not the end,” he said, and I could hear the smirk in his voice.

  Rather than letting me down, Master left me in position and released my arms from the cuffs, leaving them around my wrists and retying them to the bottom legs of the bench. I was now stretched out with my back exposed to him, and Master retied the ropes so my thighs and biceps were included in the intricate web.

  He disappeared for a moment, and I was left alone with my thoughts again, although this time they didn’t stray far from the feeling of friction around my body and how I could wriggle to make the rope chafe against me. Then he was back, demanding that I open and sliding the ball gag into my mouth, securing the straps around my face so they were tight but not biting into my skin.

  I was dubious the first time he gagged me; it wasn’t something Laura was fond of because it limited my ability to stick my tongue in her pussy. But Master liked it, so it was something I frequently found pressed between my teeth, forcing my mouth open and my tongue down. He pressed a soft,
red square of fabric into my hand; since I couldn’t shout red at him (my safeword), which would make him stop whatever he was doing, dropping the cloth would have the same effect.

  Another thing I had learned was to never predict what Master would do next. Just when I was expecting him to pick up the flogger again and start laying into my back, I felt his well-oiled hands come down on my shoulders. He gently rubbed them, easing out my tension, and I relaxed under his skillful manipulation of my muscles. It seemed like he had used some kind of warming oil, because it was leaving an amazing tingling sensation on my skin.

  After his hands left me, I felt a trickle of warm liquid that started at my spine and slid down between my ass cheeks. From there I felt tiny amounts slide down between the hairs on my thighs, pushing me into a frenzied need. I jerked my hips forward, but there was no relief, nothing for me to buck up against, and my whimpers were now those of frustration.

  I couldn’t relax, not really, even as his hands came down and continued to knead my back, along my spine, and down my biceps, eventually working down to my waist and lower, gently rubbing the skin that he’d beaten not so long before.

  “Are you okay, Jesse?” he asked, checking in on me. I nodded. “Good.”

  For long moments I was left alone again to only the sounds of my breathing, harsh over the gag, and the feel of the air in the attic cooling my oiled skin. He must have taken his boots off because I didn’t hear him approach, so the sting of the riding crop against my ass made me scream and jerk in my bonds.

  Instead of continuing to deliver strong, stinging blows, he started to tap the fold of leather over the most sensitive parts of my body—the soles of my feet, under my arms, my ribs, just above my navel, the crease where my buttocks met my thighs, my inner thighs.