Page 13 of Man and Master

Gabriele fiddled with the strap of her shoe just long enough to strike the provocative pose and make sure anyone who wanted to see her ass got the perfect unfiltered view. Only then did she step into the restaurant and walk casually up to the counter. She was there for several minutes, pacing and posing provocatively while she waited. When one of the young men behind the counter finally passed her something, she left with a dazzling smile of thanks. Her turn was like a pirouette. She came back to the car in the same way she had departed; walking slowly, confidently, and with her head held high as though to welcome every stranger’s inspection of her lingerie clad perfection.

Gabriele was grim-faced when she reached the driver’s side window. “I brought you extra sauce, Master,” she said and arched her eyebrow with wicked defiance. “I hope it makes you happy enough to forgive my failings.”

When they arrived back at the house, Joshua parked the car in the garage, left the bag of food on the kitchen counter, and then led Gabriele silently upstairs to the training room.

Only when the door was closed did he turn on her. “Take off your bra and panties. I want you naked and bent over the table.”

Gabriele shed her lingerie with brusque disgruntled movements. In the drive back from the shopping mall some of her bitterness had returned. She was tight lipped and simmering as she folded herself over the cold wooden table and spread her legs. Her breasts were flattened against the wood; her head resting on the point of her chin so that she was staring across the room at the blank wall. Tiny shudders of seeping adrenalin made her fingers shake.

“Tell me how you feel right now?” Joshua demanded.

“Like an object, Master,” she put derisive emphasis on the last word and Joshua noted it. “Just a pussy, a mouth, and a pair of tits for you to play with and fuck at your pleasure, Master.” She did it again – the same sharp tone.

Joshua narrowed his eyes.

“Are you angry?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Still?”

“Yes. Master.” Gabriele sensed Joshua moving around the room somewhere out of her view. She imagined him feasting his eyes on her pussy. She felt nothing.

“Why?”

“Why what, Master?” the contempt in her voice rang through her every word.

“Why are you angry? I thought you were humiliated.” Joshua sounded mildly amused, and it only inflamed Gabriele’s temper. She stood up, pushed herself away from the table, defiant of his order, and turned on him, her eyes flashing.

“You made a fool of me in that restaurant parking lot.”

“No!” Joshua snapped. The ferocity in his eyes frightened Gabriele to stunned silence and sucked the anger from her like a fire starved suddenly of oxygen. Joshua’s face was set like stone, his mouth a hard bitter line.

“You felt like a fool only because you could not disconnect yourself from your purpose. You looked like a sex goddess.”

“But – ”

Joshua cut her off brusquely. “Don’t you dare direct your anger at me,” he thrust a warning finger at her. “The fault here is yours, not mine, Gabriele. You’re the one who came to me and begged me to train you in the art of submission. You’re the one who said you would obey my every instruction,” he beat down her protests and saw her face change from fury to confusion. “And you’re the one who still refuses to learn the valuable lessons I am trying to teach you.”

Gabriele drew a huffing breath. There was turmoil in her eyes. Joshua wasn’t finished. “You behave like a child, not a woman. You need to be strong to be a submissive, and I see none of that inner strength in you. Success takes resolve, dedication and a sense of purpose. But you’re too busy being outraged to see the fault in every one of your actions. You think submission is learning to lie like a corpse on a bed while a Master fucks you, and then feeling grateful afterwards. It’s not. It’s deeper. It’s a soulful understanding and connection. You need to know yourself, and the person you want to become. You need to immerse yourself in the mindset of submission.”

Gabriele shuddered like a sailing ship suddenly struck by a gale of wind. Joshua’s pointed critique blew right through her. Suddenly she began to cry. The deep realization of Joshua’s cutting truths devastated her.

More than anything else she felt ashamed of herself.

“I’m sorry,” Gabriele said through weeping tears. “You’re right. I’m failing. I know I am… and I just can’t afford to.”

There was a long moment of silence. Joshua let Gabriele cry through her fear of failure, watching her without moving, despite the own pull of his instinct for compassion. Extending Gabriele sympathy might make them both feel better… but it would do nothing to make Gabriele a better submissive. Instead, Joshua clenched his fists, knowing that doing nothing was the very best thing to do.

When at last Gabriele had wept her last tear, her face was streaked and stained with the smudges of her makeup. She seemed very frail and child-like, standing naked and chastened. She looked up to him at last for guidance and direction, and Joshua felt a glimmer of hope for her. Perhaps this had been the turning point in her training.

“I’m disappointed in you,” he spoke gently, “and my instinct is to send you home and abandon the session,” Joshua caught the sudden look of alarm and crushing despair in her face. “But that would only end our training early. And your defiant attitude deserves a more severe punishment if ever you are to realize the lesson you need to learn.”

Gabriele’s mind locked on the word ‘punishment’ with a dreaded sense of foreboding. She bit her lip, but her eyes became huge and silently pleading. Still lodged in a dark corner of her mind was an inbuilt fear that Joshua would brutalize her in the same way that Randall had physically hurt her. The fear manifested in a sudden prickly rash of panic that made her flesh crawl with trepidation, though she dared say not a word. She was sure she was on her very last chance with Joshua. He would abandon her training at the slightest new provocation.

“I’m willing to be punished, Master,” Gabriele bravely accepted her fate even though she felt her muscles tightening as if to flinch away from a blow.

Joshua grunted. “Get up on the table. I want you on your back with your legs spread wide.”

Gabriele did exactly as he had ordered, letting her knees fall wide apart and knowing that every inch of her body was utterly exposed. Joshua covered her eyes with the blindfold and then took two lengths of the soft rope. He lashed one wrist and then passed the tail of the rope through a hole that was drilled into the leg of the table. He tied it with a seaman’s knot, then secured Gabriele’s other arm. She was bound and unable to move, her arms restrained but not painfully so. Joshua heard Gabriele breathing in short sharp pants of panic.

He stepped away from the table an

d walked a slow circle of the room. Gabriele’s senses tried to attune themselves to the loss of eyesight. Her hearing became sharper; her skin felt tingling. She even caught the faint scent of Joshua’s aftershave in her nostrils as he brushed by her.

“I could flog you,” Joshua said. “I could cause you pain in some way. But to me such punishments are brutish and unnecessary. I know some Masters use physical means to instill discipline, and I assume they use such methods on submissives that enjoy punishments and torture as part of their choice of lifestyle. But that’s not my choice… and nor is it yours, based on what you have told me.”

On the table, Gabriele licked her lips and swallowed. Her mouth was dry with nervous dread of what was to come.

“However do not take my preferences as a sign of weakness,” Joshua cautioned. “Sexual punishment can be just as agonizing… in a much more sinister and lasting way. If I whip you, the sting will last for a few minutes, the red swelling for maybe an hour. But what I have planned for you, Gabriele, is going to leave a much deeper mark for a much longer time.”

Behind the blindfold Gabriele’s eyes were wide with growing alarm. She felt a trickle of perspiration run down her cheek and into the hair near her ear. Suddenly her whole body felt hot, and it took all of her resolve to force herself to lie still and not squirm against the ropes. She could hear each breath loud in her own ears, and the racing drum of her heart.

“Tell me, Gabriele,” Joshua suddenly stopped moving around the room and came to stand close beside the table, looking down at her naked and vulnerable body. “Do you think you have truly learned anything from our exchanges tonight.”

Gabriele gasped. “Yes, Master,” she put every possible ounce of sincerity and conviction into her words. “I have. I know the mistake I have been making. I know now that I need to surrender my own will in order to succeed.”