Back to Vanilla (3 page)

If you want to take
things further, let’s chat. No question is off-limits here. I do
hope you decide to take what I assure you is no gamble. Yours,
Kindly_Meister xxx

And with a click
of the mouse, that little bird had flown.

It took her two days
to reply. This was no surprise; a treasure like her was worth
pursuing, and it was unlikely that Alasdair was the only person
thinking that way. It was, however, his absolute conviction that he
was the one to help her; indeed, that meeting him was a natural
next step for her. He took his role as dom in unashamed earnest,
viewing himself both as educator and liberator.

When had taken his
first steps on the path from monogamy to fully initiated dungeon
master, he had briefly wondered whether it was at odds with his
politics. As a 1970s vintage Socialist Worker who had manned the
barricades against Thatcher, albeit inevitably fuelled not just by
his passion but by whisky too, he couldn’t help suspecting that
there was something amiss with putting newly liberated women into
chains. However, he had rationalised and condoned it to himself
often and steadily – why, he maintained, he had seen the freedom in
the eyes of the women he had taken into the zone – and was no
longer troubled by doubts. He had also learnt that even socialists,
brothers and sisters alike, tended to drop the bullshit when drunk
enough and reveal themselves to be ordinary human animals who
simply liked fucking.

It was a Sunday
evening when she next replied. He knew she’d been out at a munch, a
casual social gathering for those in the BDSM world, the night
before, in a small village just south of Norfolk. There was, it
seemed from her page, a small but highly active older crowd there
who met, shared snacks and learnt the fine arts of knot-tying and
whip-wielding, before some retired to the backrooms, while others
stayed to trade philosophies and anecdotes.

From his casual
perusing, he learnt that LittleGirlLost (real name Tamsin) had gone
out at 7.34pm on Saturday with a sub friend, a slight young guy a
few years older than her, planning to have a few drinks before
moving on. It was appalling form to pitch up at a munch the worse
for wear (as he well knew). The photo of the two of them about to
leave simply showed their legs, from the knee down: her in the most
delightful lace-up navy-black platform boots, and him in something
remarkably similar. He supposed they looked quite charming, and
smiled benevolently as he stared at the screen. Sweet young
things.

Her return time was
indecipherable, and these gatherings are distinctly selfie-free
zones, so there was nothing from the venue itself, but her posts
the following afternoon indicated an evening of low-key fun. She
truly needed guidance, he thought, imagining her face clearly as he
demanded she get on her knees, unzip his fly, and suck.

It was time to head to
the local supermarket to get some provisions for his regular Sunday
evening meal with Lyall. Alasdair’s main priorities in a store
generally lay in the liquid aisles, and he wasn’t a particular fan
of food in general, but he made a point of buying fresh,
high-quality ingredients for the occasions when his son visited.
Not so long ago, he had enjoyed cooking, searching out recipes to
produce such exotic delights as baba ghanoush for committee meeting
lunches at his local dungeon in Edinburgh, which had since gone on
to house the munches he now regularly attended. These days, though,
ease and practicality were his guiding principles, and he left the
supermarket with a pot of premium-blend hummus, a packet of
sweet-potato falafels, six pittas, some vine tomatoes and lettuce,
and a carton of orange juice.

He walked briskly home
through the park, which today was populated mainly by children and
their dads. He remembered those times well, not from his 1950s
childhood, when children roamed like wolves, lone and in packs, but
from his fathering days, thirty years ago, when Sundays with his
son had been a regular thing. He reflected on how familiar it all
was, walking past the same old sandpit, with newer shinier,
doubtless safer play equipment, mostly in the shape of various
woodland creatures, dotted around it. It was cold and getting
darker, and the families were beginning to head home, with all the
childish protests that entails.

Alasdair glimpsed a
girl, maybe three or four years old, red-faced, lashing out and
screaming that she hated the dad who was fishing her from a small
enclosed badger-shaped swing, which had lost a lot of its black
colouring, while he promised her the world if she would just behave
like his little princess and hush it down a little. “And thus it
begins,” Alasdair thought, having been the daddy to many a woman,
both young and middle-aged, searching for an hour or two back in
the role of brat, being coerced into pleasing him through the use
of language and the promise and delivery of special treats.

He knew that Lyall
didn’t like him to drink alcohol, hence the orange juice. It was
almost an unspoken agreement, although Lyall hadn’t actually said
anything about it since he was 14, more than 20 years ago. Even
then, it had been more in desperation than judgment, after his
father showed him up in front of several of his friends, having
come home after a “pint or two” at the pub. In truth, Alasdair was
never too sure exactly what crime he’d perpetrated, but he
remembered vividly his son’s adolescent mortification at what he
himself perceived to be no more than his extra-loud voice.

His laptop lid was
closed, and he resisted his natural craving to flip it open before
unpacking the shopping bags and putting the evening meal items on
to a tray ready for heating later. That done, he poured himself a
crafty whisky, then perched down on his chair and opened her
response.

Hello
Kindly_Meister

Age is, they
say, but a number. I’m not sure to what degree I agree with this,
but I do think that age is no indication of a necessary connection,
and I am, therefore, not putting any barriers in the way of my
search. I read, as you suggested, some of your works. Skim read a
few and then got really gripped by “Her Master Shows the Way” –
honestly, it really turned me on.

Did that really
happen? I mean, that girl was just so totally like me, without
giving too much away, and when she curled up at his feet and he
stroked her head and just kissed her at the back of the neck… does
that really occur? I’ve read about subspace before, and, a bit like
squirting, it strikes me as physically nonsensical, but with Lila,
I just got it. I mean, I could see how that might happen, and, if
it exists, I just want that.

You say you’ve helped
women take that next step. What do you mean? What can you offer
that other men can’t? Have you been in the scene long?

And an old socialist,
you say… what do you do for a living? From your stories, you could
be a bus driver or the managing director of a multi-million-pound
conglomerate.

I need sleep. Work
tomorrow and last night was a late one. I went to a munch not far
from home, but that wasn’t the lateness. Afterwards I walked the
three miles back with a mate, and we ended up sitting in a field
swigging whisky from a hip flask and then two cans of cider we’d
bought at a late-night garage. Putting the world to rights, I guess
you could say. He split up with his boyfriend two days ago, and
mine’s a good shoulder to cry on. So, yeah, I need sleep.

’
Night,
LGL

And that was that.
Alasdair didn’t count how many times he’d involuntarily licked his
lips while he was scanning her message, but as he finished reading,
he was conscious of the fact that he was using his upper incisors
to nibble his lower lip. Such interest, all those questions; he had
to reply immediately this time – couldn’t stop himself – but first
he would turn the oven on to gas mark 6, ready for the
falafels.

In the kitchen, as if
on autopilot, he got out two plates and accompanying cutlery, and
wrapped the pittas in foil, having first sprinkled a few drops of
water over them. And then back, agitated with desire, to his swivel
chair.

Ah, wee
lassie, it happened just as I wrote it and not too long ago at
that. You remind me of her, very much in fact. She was a little
younger, but there’s a look in your eye that made me think of her.
I assure you that both squirting and subspace exist; I know because
I’ve been witness to them both, and beautiful sights they are. Most
people focus only on the physical in BDSM scenes, but there’s so
much more for us to explore. You know when you’ve been sucked into
a book or a film and you suddenly come to, with the realisation
that the world has gone on, but you’ve been away for a while?
You’ve been so focused on one thing that your state has become
trancelike, and you slowly snap back into awareness wondering what
happened in between. That’s how subspace was described to me by
that girl.

As a submissive, you
become so entrenched in the play, in the feelings of that moment,
that the world simply evaporates. Your cares drift away and the
moment, with its powerful rush of endorphins, is everything. But
with that comes great responsibility. Aftercare is a speciality of
mine. And the ability to hit that spot, and to help you deal with
the drop afterwards, is what I can offer. As to how long I’ve been
in the scene – why, it’s a lifetime and a tear in an enormous
ocean. At core, I’ve been training for it my whole life. In
reality, I’ve been active on and off since my divorce, 19 years
ago.

Ach, the ordinary
world. Yes, I live there too. A journalist for most of my life, but
my politics have always been important to me, and I’ve tried to
stay as true to them as I can, hard as that’s been on occasion.
Father of the NUJ chapel at a few papers over the years.

I know you’ll not be
reading this till tomorrow, so I hope you’ve had a good night’s
sleep by the time you get here. Me, my lad is coming round for his
tea in a bit, though not such a lad anymore, with a family of his
own. Yes, I’ve got grandbairns.

You take care,
K_M xxx

He deleted his own
name, Alasdair, a few times, before deciding to stay with his tag a
while longer. He wanted this girl, but the power was entirely hers
for now, and it was imperative that when she elected to yield this
to him, coercion wasn’t a factor. With this objective in mind, he
pressed the send button and flipped down the lid. He unplugged the
computer and carried it through to his bedroom, aware of the fact
that its presence might be disconcerting for his son.

Lyall, using the spare
key since reclaimed from his care, had recently walked in on his
father grazing the live cams on Literotica (a relatively minor
offence, considering what he might have stumbled in on, Alasdair
had afterwards reflected) with his zip down (again, that he had
walked in at that precise point, rather than 30 seconds later, was
an absolute blessing). The result was mutual pretence for both;
Lyall, that he hadn’t seen anything, Alasdair that the internet
wasn’t really important to him.

Alasdair put on his
slippers in his bedroom and returned to the living room, where he
switched on Radio 4, turned up the heating in the flat, and moved
through to the kitchen. Humming quietly, to a backdrop of a
documentary about mental health care, he sliced the tomatoes and
mixed a dressing, then swigged a tot of whisky from the cap of the
nearby bottle. If it wasn’t in a glass, he thought, it didn’t
count.

********************

Lyall’s visit was
a relatively predictable monthly routine. They also saw one another
in between, but this was a chance for both of them to relax away
from the usually ever-present family gaze. The son got to miss the
hectic scene that was a Sunday evening with three young girls and a
habitually stressed-out mother, who, if he were there, would
release on him the tension that seemed to dwell just beneath the
covering of perfect motherhood that otherwise encompassed her.

The father got an
excuse to cook and potter and steer clear of the online fixations
and offline addictions that mostly consumed his thoughts. And for
both, there was a semblance of a regular father-son relationship,
and, although not strictly a pretence at normality, it was a
comfortable reminder that, once away from everyone else, they had
something uniquely their own.

That particular meal,
before the alcohol-poisoning incident, had been a congenial
one.

Alasdair had been a
little twitchy at first, desperate to get to the laptop in the next
room, but did his best to focus entirely on his boy. The more the
young man spoke, the easier it became. Disconnected from family and
old friends, Alasdair sometimes believed that his main priority now
was himself and the pursuance of self-gratification. With his son
in front of him, this became increasingly difficult. He relaxed,
popping into the kitchen every now and again, turning on the oven,
preparing their meal in the background while they talked.

Lyall spoke about his
youngest girl, Maidie, just a little over three years old and not
yet speaking, and how he and Lorna – a remarkably Scottish name for
so English a lady, Alasdair reflected – were fretting about what
might be the issue.

“Lorna says it’s a
youngest-child thing, possibly, and really common. She lets her
sisters do the talking, and I can see that, Da’, but even she’s
starting to worry now, as the girls are at school, but Maidie still
won’t talk when she’s at nursery. Of course her ma understands her,
most of the time, but even I struggle sometimes. And anyway, her
key worker has suggested we get her referred to a hearing
specialist and take it from there.”

Alasdair briefly felt
his son’s anguish, and assured him he was taking all the right
steps, although at first he had bitten his tongue to avoid
remarking on the lass’s ability to hear a sweet wrapper being
unfurled from 10 paces away. They settled down at the table,
Cream’s
Strange Brew
playing gently in the background on the
MP3 player Lyall had got his dad three years previously, now
connected to some old speakers from his recently upgraded computer.
Lyall was privately pleased to see no evidence of the laptop for
which his father seemed to have abandoned the real world over the
past four years.