Carrie's Story: An Erotic S/M Novel (5 page)

And then I also had to give Mrs. Branden about a million of my measurements, and she took about a million more,
odd sections of my body that I didn't like to think anybody
was going to deal with. Which just shows how realistically I
was going about this. Of course, if I'd been a more realistic
person, no way would I have gotten into this thing in the first
place. Then, finally, on a Thursday night just after Halloween,
it was showtime.

But it's hard for me to describe those first sweaty, embarrassing
couple of weeks. Probably because I looked like such a klutz
for so much of it. I like to remember the parts where I felt halfway pretty, and I also like to tell about some of my wisecracks.
But those first few agonizing weeks.. .like, for example, the
very first time I actually went to his house after all the fittings
and appointments. I was on my knees, trembling with fear and
excitement, tethered to a hook in the wall near the fireplace,
waiting for him. What would he say, I kept wondering, and
what would it really be like to fuck him? I even wondered - I'm
embarrassed to admit - if he'd like the haircut. I waited there
for about ten minutes, until finally he came in, looked me over
impassively, and asked, "How do you greet me?"

Trick question. Of course I didn't know, but I thought
of porn novels I'd read, so I put my head down and kissed his
shoe. And got my new crimson lipstick, that he'd bought for me to wear, all over the toe. He thwacked me hard with the
riding crop he was carrying (I'd never seen a riding crop, but
I recognized it from my porn reading) and told me to lick the
lipstick off his shoe. And then he said curtly that of course I
didn't know how to greet him, because he hadn't told me yet,
and that the first thing I should learn was that I shouldn't pretend to know anything I didn't, and to please spare him the
benefit of all my damn adolescent jerkoff reading.

The thwack from the riding crop was a shock, but it was
his cold and contemptuous tone of voice that really got to me,
that first time and in the weeks after it. I knew that it was ridiculous to feel this way, but he'd fucking hurt my feelings. Not
that he'd been exactly affectionate in our first conversations,
but he'd been forthcoming and appreciative. I knew that in the
two weeks before I'd begun coming to his house, I'd caught
myself replaying bits and snatches of those conversations in
my head, and yes, his compliments "you're pretty" and "you're
smart" - and even "that beautiful butt" -were among my favorite selections. Pretty soon into the training process, though, I
resigned myself to never hearing stuff like that again.

Because that's what it was, training. And even though a
big porn reader like me should have known exactly what to
expect, I was shocked and insulted. Somehow I'd imagined
that of course I'd immediately know how to give him everything he wanted-hell, I thought he'd take care of all that,
maybe with mirrors, I don't know. Somehow, when it was
me and not 0 or Jamie or others of my beloved literary bottoms, I'd shifted gears, or genres, in my imagination, thinking
it would be more like one of those pseudorape scenes from a
novel you buy on a rack in the supermarket -you know, "He
held her in his granite-hard grasp, his hungry desire making her swoon." I think I'd expected to do a lot of swooning, while
his "hungry desire" did all the work. Wrong.

He did know what he wanted, though-what, when,
where, and how. I was amazed, and oddly comforted, that he
knew so exactly. I hadn't known that was possible. Nobody
I'd ever slept with had known, I thought, considering my last
few years of boyfriends. Or if they'd known, they certainly
hadn't let me in on it. Even Eric, who had been the major love
of my life -we'd played at living together for a few months
during my junior year-he hadn't known. We'd been really
proud of ourselves, Eric and I-lots of loud sex all the time
and everywhere-we'd thought the shower was especially
cool. And we'd been considerate, going down on each other as
often as we thought the other guy wanted it, though we'd been
guessing, really, because we'd both been shy about asking.

Well, forget shy. Jonathan wasn't shy, and he also
sure didn't ask. He used precise, grammatical sentences to
demand exactly what he wanted, and the operative word
was "exactly." And I began to wonder how people ever knew
what each other really wanted, without, you know, somebody demanding it. Well, maybe people who'd been married
a million years and had hit it by trial and error, but that didn't
sound like an attractive way to go about it. So in an odd way I
was beginning to think the deal we'd made had a kind of logic
and integrity. His getting what he wanted was his right and
my obligation was to hit it exactly.

Meanwhile, since most of the time I wasn't even near perfect, he treated me like a new puppy that was constantly making
messes. Only he was a whole lot less affectionate than you'd
be toward a puppy. Still, if I had to come up with a metaphor
for that awkward early period, it would probably be dog obe dience school. Not that this would be such an original insight
on my part-he set the mood by hanging a humiliating little
oval brass tag with the name CARRIE"" etched on it from the
new, stiff, brown leather collar Mrs. Branden buckled around
my neck those late autumn afternoons.

It was hard, it was humiliating, and worst of all, he
hadn't even kept one of his promises -remember that impressive little speech about my being aching, exhausted, and fucked
out? A big shocker was that he rarely fucked me, preferring,
nine times out of ten, to use my mouth-my mouth and particularly my throat.

And that was embarrassing, because I wasn't even that
good at it. I gagged the first few times, defending myself
against that moment when he most wanted me defenseless,
that moment when not only would my mouth be entirely
molded to him and my nose entirely full of his smell, but
when my throat would open, when I'd abjure any choice
about what went deep, deep down into me.

He was icily patient-"Pay attention," he'd insist-and
he beat me a lot, as well. He was abstract, precise, and he
scared me; I wondered if it would go on like this forever.
I felt I had little choice but to keep trying, and, yeah, I
did get better at it, feeling little proofs of my own power
in the shuddering strength of his orgasms. Of course he
wanted me that way, I realized one late afternoon, looking up at him through a haze of pain and tears. My mouth,
that motormouth, the orifice that had the most to do with
consciousness, intelligence-he wanted me to use it, consciously and intelligently, to learn, adore, accept, and
caress his every fold, contour, and smell. And when he was
ready to come he wanted to overpower it all, transforming active intelligence into pure receptacle. It was a hell of an
exchange, involving a whole lot more than bodily fluids.
I became oddly proud to do it.

And then, of course, there was lots of crawling around,
ass high, lots of being cuffed, smacked, and thwacked-puppylike-for clumsiness or messes I'd made (and might have to
lick up), lots of strokes of the cane for talking out of turn or
disrespectfully. More subtly, maybe, there were the beatings
for what, that first time, he'd called "lapses in form or sensibility."
This could mean anything at all, I learned, but in practice it
usually came down to having gotten too turned on and carried
away and not noticing fast enough what he wanted next. Or
being overwhelmed by some rare instance of tenderness, like
after I fetched him something with my mouth, and he'd taken
it and stroked my cheek. And I'd hoped that his hand might
come close to my mouth, so I could kiss it, maybe even lick it
or suck his finger. And I did, a little, and it was worth it, even
though he cuffed me for being sloppy and silly.

Not to worry, though-there really wasn't much tenderness. Just mostly lust. Overriding the awkwardness,
incoherence, embarrassment, and confusion there was wallto-wall, overwhelming, dizzying lust. And even though I'd go
home those evenings sore, humiliated, miserable, and vowing
never to return, I always did return. Promptly.

And then he switched gears on me. This happened-no kidding-on a dark and stormy night. And ifyou think I'm trying
to make it sound all gothic and sucker you with the pathetic
fallacy, well, maybe I am. I mean, it u'a,; dark and stormy; it
was November, after all. And while I don't believe that nature
was reflecting my emotional situation, I know that nature was putting me in a mood that matched its wildness. Because I
was certainly feeling dark and stormy that night, trudging up
the hill with the wind whistling and the rain falling around
me, wondering why the hell I was out there just to get my ass
whipped.

I can't speak for Jonathan, though, meticulous Jonathan
who probably never strayed from his lesson plans, no matter
what else was going on. I suspect that any correspondence
between his emotional situation and the weather is total coincidence. Or maybe not.

In any case, I was as wet, dark, and stormy as the
weather when I rang the kitchen doorbell. Mrs. Branden
came to the door, cool, friendly, and quiet, as usual. I took
off my clothes, shook off the water, and hung them on a hook
in the corner. Then I went to the little room off the kitchen,
turned on the very bright light near the little table, and made
up my face, very, very carefully, as usual.

I came back into the kitchen and sat down on one of
the chairs, and she knelt down to lace up my boots. They
were little brown ankle lace-up boots, with hooks at the
ankles so I wouldn't need ankle cuffs, and crazily high
spool-shaped heels. I could have put them on myself, but
the rules were that she was supposed to do it. Then the
collar, with its awful name tag, and matching cuffs around
my wrists. The collar and cuffs were so stiff that I felt them
all the time, even when I wasn't wearing them. She hooked
the cuffs together behind my back, attached a leash to the
collar, and, as usual, led me down the hall to the study. But
this time, instead of leading me to the usual spot near the
hook in the wall, she led me to a leather ottoman placed in
front of the fire.

"Kneel down on it, put your head down. Get your ass
up and spread your legs way apart," she said, in an entirely
neutral voice (her deadpan delivery was every bit as good as
Jonathan's, probably better). And when I did, she attached
the collar's loop to a hook attached to the ottoman, so my face
was against the leather. She pushed my knees apart some
more and attached the loops at my ankles to two more hooks
in the ottoman. Then she put her cool, capable hands at the
sides of my hips and angled up my ass a few degrees, lifting it
up a little too. And then, silently, she left.

From experience, I knew I'd have to wait for Jonathan.
Maybe two minutes, maybe twenty. I always felt fortunate
to have this room to wait in-leaded windows, brilliant oriental rug, real art on the walls, books and books and books,
though of course I never touched them, and the fire. The
room was perhaps a little phony-a little too Bride,ohead
Reri,iited or something. I mean, the rest of the house was
airy, simple, some Arts and Crafts and some high tech, more
like a house I'd expect him to live in. This study was definitely a stage set, and I liked its hyperreality, its surfeit of
deep colors and textures, its thickness, perhaps you could
say. Even this evening, with my face pressed against the soft
leather, I could still more or less see the fire, hear it crackling. I concentrated on it, partly to drown out the sounds of
the wind, the rain, and the evergreens blowing against the
windows, not to speak of my thoughts about what was going
to happen next. So I missed the sound of Jonathan coming
in behind me and started when I felt his hands unhooking
my wrists.

"You can use your hands to part your ass some more,"
he said.

I grabbed the cheeks of my ass and felt a rush of coldness
as he pushed some cream all the way up. "Open," he repeated
very softly and began, slowly, slowly, to push in a big rubber
dildo, the size, I guessed, of his erect cock. He pushed so
slowly and so relentlessly and seemed to be tracing such a tortuous, meandering path, that even though I wanted to resist,
I couldn't quite find the moment, or the muscular center, for
actually doing so. Instead, some part of me was discovering,
as he kept breathing the word, that there was a way to be
utterly, terrifyingly "open."

He got it all the way in. Perhaps I'd screamed; I was
moaning and trembling terribly. I felt coldness again against
my ass. There were three little chains attached to the base of
the dildo. One went up the crack of my ass toward the base
of my spine, while the other two went between my legs, outlining my cunt. All three hung from a little black leather belt
that he buckled in back. I recognized the technology-courtesy of Pauline Wage-but the emotions I was feeling were
brand-new. It was as though I needed his hands, his voice,
his desire. As though, open as I was, I had lost a kind of
authority, both against the world and my own gleeful, brute
body. I felt as though I would fall into a frightening, devilish
space beyond ego and consciousness if I couldn't please and
obey him exactly.

He unhooked me and helped me to stand up. And kissed
me in a questioning sort of way. Oddly, I found myself kissing
him back in a questioning sort of way, too. This was confusing to both of us. His question, I think now, was "What do
you feel?" and mine was "What do you want?" but in a deeper
way than I'd ever asked before. It was, perhaps, more like "Oh, please, what do you want? I'll die if I can't do what you
want." He stepped back and took a moment to consider.

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

"No, Jonathan, it doesn't hurt exactly," I said, searching
for words, "but it's different from any feeling I've ever had."

"Well," he said, "let's see what it's all about." He sat
down and proceeded to command me to do this and that, all
the puppy tricks-walk, stand, sit, squat, beg, crawl, play
with myself, fetch things with my mouth. Everything I did
seemed oddly amplified. He made me take off all his clothes,
and then-the dildo didn't interfere at all-he fucked me for
a long, long time on the rug. Afterward, he told me to stand
up. He lay under a plaid blanket, up on his elbows, facing
me. "Tell me about having this dildo stuffed way up your
ass," he said.