Waiting for the Master

By Lisabet Sarai

Gregory watched the comprehension dawning in her eyes. “Yes, Kate. I prepared these for you. Only for you.”

He leaned closer. “I want to tie you here, hand and foot, so that you will be more completely at my disposal. I believe that you want that, too. But you must tell me so. I will not do this without your permission.”

Kate was silent. She had never been so unsure in her life. Fear, suspicion, shame, and distrust warred with curiosity and desire. In his arms she had felt both sheltered and helpless, and she longed for those feelings again. Yet he was essentially a stranger, she reminded herself, a stranger with a shady profession and an unsavory reputation.

When she looked him, though, she saw concern and attentiveness in his eyes, even though his cock still pulsed hugely from his fly. The sight sent a delicious weakness through her limbs. I must be crazy, she thought to herself, as she nodded her assent.

“Do it.,” she murmured, and did not trust herself to say anymore.

With expert skill, he bound her wrists with the silken braids. “Silk is a marvelous substance,” he commented. “So soft, but incredibly strong. Like you, my little Kate. I know that you can endure much, Kate. Much more than you would believe.”

Kate shivered, wondering exactly what he meant. He was working on her ankles now, in a business-like fashion, leaving her knees bent and open so that her sex was spread wide. Every time he touched her, heat traveled through her to that burning center, still sensitive and hungry from her earlier ministrations. She squirmed a bit, involuntarily pushing her pelvis toward him.

“Be still,” he said sharply. “Be patient. You must learn to wait.”

Finally, she was bound, restrained from all but the most subtle movements. She found she was panting.

Gregory stood at the foot of the bed, admiring her, or his handiwork.

“Excellent. Just as I imagined.”

He began to remove his clothes. Her eyes followed his every gesture. When he dropped his shirt to the floor, Kate sucked in her breath. Marshall’s left arm, from shoulder to wrist, was elaborately and beautifully tattooed. A pattern of multicolored flames writhed over his flesh, scarlet, green and turquoise. A trick of the flashing neon, or perhaps simply the motion of his muscles, made the flames dance across his flesh as if they were consuming him. A similar flame flickered in his blue eyes as he pulled off his trousers.

He mounted the bed and straddled her with his thighs. His engorged penis hovered above her body. Despite herself, she writhed a bit below him. In response, he leaned over and pinched both her nipples, hard enough that she cried out.

“Still, I said! You are mine now, mine to do as I wish. I will fuck you, or not fuck you, as I please.”

*********

The excerpt above comes from the very first BDSM scene I ever published, the first kinky interaction in Raw Silk. I post it here, as an introduction to our fortnight discussing patience, because patience and submission are strongly related, at least in my mind (and apparently in my writing). A dominant teaches his or her sub many lessons, including endurance, courage, trust and honesty. In a serious D/s relationship, the submissive also learns how to wait.

Once you've surrendered control, the timing of a scene is out of your hands. The whip may tease you, delicate, maddening, when what you crave is more pain, more of a challenge. Never mind. The dominant decides what you will suffer, and when. You'll wait for a kiss, wait to come, wait for the prize of his cock taking you over and breaking you open. Perhaps your patience will be rewarded; perhaps not. But if you've truly given yourself into the hands of your master, your patience is one more gift you offer, along with your body and your trust, to prove your devotion.

During my most memorable and moving D/s experiences, time slowed to a crawl. I floated in an unending Now. Every sensation, pleasant or painful, had a crystalline quality, ringing through me and setting up echoes. At the beginning, I was greedy and eager. I wanted more, wanted to rush to see what new and shocking delights his twisted imagination had conjured. As he took me deeper, though, my impatience melted into a sort of dreamlike acceptance. I could wait forever, if that was what he required (though my Master, as young and fevered as I, rarely tried to test the limits of my patience).

I took the lesson back into the vanilla world with me. When I'm stuck in traffic, or my Internet slows to a crawl, or I've been waiting for an editor to respond for months, I remember: be still and wait.

My characters continue to learn, at the hands of their masters and mistresses, that surrender means releasing impatience. Here's a snippet from a much more recent book, The Understudy.

*********

“Don’t forget, girl. I’m in charge here.”

“Yes, sir. I know.”

“Good. Now put your hands over your head and grab hold of the bars.” The headboard of the colonial style maple bed featured ranks of vertical wooden spindles.

“Are you going to tie me up?” I couldn’t believe what I was saying. Everything was happening so fast. I was driving on the freeway without brakes, my own perverse desires looming up and rushing by as I sped along.

I knew he read the naked desire in my face. He chose not to mock me.

“No. I want to see if you can be still, without being bound. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes,” I whispered, wondering if I really could.

“Tonight I just want to use you, to fuck you. To see just what kind of a slut you are.”

He climbed on the bed and nudged my thighs apart with his own. His cock gleamed like a rod of steel. He rubbed the knob back and forth in the slick groove of my pussy. I arched and ground myself against him, the movements waking echoes of his spanking.

“No!” He clamped his nails around my nipple.

“Ow!”

“I want you to lie still, as if you were bound, or drugged. No squirming around. No trying to come. You’ll come, I promise—I said you deserved a reward—but only when I want you to do so. Do you agree?”

Strange emotion welled up, tightening my chest. I could only nod.

“Trust me, little one. I won’t hurt you. Well, not much. Not more than you can bear. In return, I’ll lead you into a whole new world of pleasure.”

I gripped the wooden bars, watching him smooth a condom over the rampant length of that gorgeous cock. My pussy twitched and wept. I wanted him so badly I was ready to cry. Even more, though, I wanted to show him that I could obey.

Geoffrey positioned himself between my splayed thighs. “Remember, Sarah,” he said. “Be still.” Then he rammed his cock all the way into my cunt in one fierce stroke.

The force drove the breath from my lungs. The fullness made me suck the air back in. If I hadn’t been so wet, he would have torn me apart, but as it was my flesh parted for him as though sliced open.

My pussy clenched reflexively around his invading bulk, but otherwise I managed to avoid moving. His eyes, locked with mine, told me he approved. His hardness pressed against my engorged clit. A climax loomed, then faded away as he kept me there, motionless, pinned to the bed.

He pulled mostly out. My hungry cunt fluttered, empty for an instant. He drove back into me, harder than before. I strained against the bars, struggling not to jerk and writhe as his cock plunged in and out of my cunt like a pile-driver.

God, it felt good! His roughness somehow heightened the pleasure. I was his, to use and abuse. His fuck toy, as he had said. At that moment, that was all I wanted to be.

Each stroke grazed my cervix, adding a twinge of pain to the rich stew of sensations his cock stirred. His thrusts grew faster and wilder, but he never stopped watching me. His sweat-drenched hair tumbled into his eyes and still he pounded me with his cock, again and again and again until I was raw and sore. I didn’t care. I was crying but I didn’t want him to stop fucking me, not ever.

I relaxed. I didn’t need to work any more to satisfy his injunction of stillness. He held me with the force of his will. I lay beneath him in a submissive trance, cunt gaping, inviting him to ravage me.

His lips curved into a demonic grin, full of triumph. “Mine!” I heard him say, perhaps out loud, perhaps only in my mind. Yours, I agreed, too shattered to speak but knowing that he understood.

*********

Sometimes I think I'm just writing the same book, again and again.

But then, some lessons bear repeating.