The Red Collection Read online

  Cicero catches my eye. His broad handsome face is troubled, and I understand how he feels for his fellow servant’s lack of dignity.

  That will never happen to you, I tell him without speaking. I will never demean you that way, no matter what the others think or whatever rules and tradition decree. Anything that happens to you will be your choice. I don’t know how, but I know he hears my silent pledge.

  If Jenna were not so arrogant, I would say she looked shamefaced now, and she snaps and fusses as James attends to her, cleaning her crotch and straightening her clothing. She glances around, looking for someone else to begin a coupling and take the limelight.

  I smile at Cicero, and he smiles back.

  Let’s play, he seems to say. Let’s really show them.

  With great deliberation, he nudges my elbow and what’s left of my wine spills on my dress.

  ‘Oh, Cicero, what have you done?’ I cry. ‘It’s not like you to be so careless or so clumsy.’

  ‘Forgive me, mistress,’ he murmurs, falling to his knees, his dark head bent as he takes one of the cloths on our console to blot my clothing.

  In a show of fussing worthy of Jenna herself, I primp and prink at my gown, tutting over the damp fabric. ‘This is one of my favourite gowns, Cicero,’ I say, mock stern. Well, at least he and I know the sternness is feigned. The others around the circle don’t seem to see anything amiss, other than a mistress who has been let down by her man.

  ‘I’m sorry, mistress,’ he intones solemnly, head still bent. I wonder if the rest of the mistresses can detect the minute shaking of his shoulders which indicates that he’s fighting to suppress his laughter. ‘Please let me atone for my clumsiness. Please punish me, if it pleases you. I am at your disposal.’

  A gasp goes up around the circle. Nobody admits to corporal punishment, but there are always whispers. Whispers of spankings and beatings – and the dark pleasure that overtakes the mistresses who inflict them.

  ‘I think I may have to take you in hand, Cicero. You’ve been lax in your attentions, and you’ve displeased me,’ I lie. This man has never ever disappointed or displeased me. I doubt if he could let me down if he tried.

  ‘If it is your will, mistress,’ he murmurs, bowing lower, pressing his noble brow against the carpet.

  ‘It is my will,’ I reply. ‘Get up. Strip off your clothes. And give me your belt.’

  Light and elegant, despite his great height and his massive muscles, Cicero rises. Within moments, he’s naked … and so magnificent it makes my heart ache. His body looks as if it’s cast from bronze and polished with silk; the plains of his chest and belly are ridged with sculpted muscle. His penis, though not erect yet, is a heavy swelling promise. Lowering his head reverently again, he hands me his thick leather belt.

  My hands shake, though I try not to show it. I suspect I’m not the only mistress in this circle who gets pleasure from games like these, but I know I’m probably the only one who’ll ever reveal it.

  Without a word from me, Cicero bends over, presenting his perfect buttocks for my perusal, and his punishment.

  ‘Do you presume to anticipate me, Cicero?’ I ask imperiously, letting the leather swing and swish, flicking it against the back of his thighs.

  ‘Forgive me, mistress,’ he answers gravely, and begins to straighten.

  I flick him again, and command him, ‘Stay where you are.’

  He resumes his pose, maintains it immaculately and with dignity.

  I strike him. Hard. And accurately. This is far from the first time I’ve done this.

  My beautiful servant makes not a sound, and across his backside appears a crimson stripe. I step back, stare around, and discover eyes, hot and avid, locked upon the mark.

  I strike again, struggling with my control, but not showing it. Between my legs my sex glows – just like Cicero’s arse. I feel an almost overwhelming compulsion to throw up my skirts, crush my sex against his pain and massage it.

  What would my fellow mistresses think to that? I wonder. In fact what indeed do they think of this performance in itself? I know it’s impossible, but I can almost seem to taste their fascinated revulsion in the air. The same sense of horror, but also hot, erotic wonder that I experienced the first time I accidentally happened upon this game.

  Cicero remains motionless, twin stripes of crimson shimmering across his perfect flesh. Those broad red lines seem to twist and tighten around the very core of my pleasure and embrace it in a fierce and dark caress.

  I swing the belt again and it cracks in the air before crashing down on Cicero. He barely flinches but he lets his breath out harshly. He will never cry out, but he’s not immune to the glowing agony.

  And I’m not immune to the power of his stoicism. Beneath my gown, my sex swims with silken honey.

  I continue. We continue. The mistresses continue to gasp, following every stroke.

  At last, though, my beloved servant’s bottom is one mass of simmering line-blotched red, and I can see tension and emotion quivering in every line of his bowed yet majestic body.

  ‘You may stand,’ I instruct him coolly, even though my heart is as wild and flaming as his flesh.

  He straightens, still regal despite his ordeal. His broad back is taut, strong and resilient. His noble head is still bowed as he stands tall, facing the couch, and his arms hang at his sides, the light clench of his hands the only sign of his internal struggles.

  ‘Turn now,’ I command, unable to prevent myself from licking my lips in anticipation. Slowly, oh so slowly, he obeys my command.

  Oh, my Cicero! I’m not your mistress … I worship you!

  He is erect, as I knew he would be, his penis jutting from his dark-furred loins like the unyielding branch of a mighty oak.

  I want it in me.

  I want it now.

  I cannot wait.

  His eyes meet mine, arrogant and sultry, and there’s no time now to play games of remonstration and imperious disapproval. I throw myself backwards on to the couch’s edge, fling up my skirts and open my legs.

  Without instruction of any kind, my lover moves between them, sinks naked to his knees again and presses his face between my thighs. Somewhere in the background I hear a faint ripple of outraged disapproval – probably as much for the fact that I’m wearing no undergarments as for Cicero’s presumption – but there’s nothing they can do about this and they’ve never been more distant.

  To me now, and to him, they no longer exist, even though we all still operate in the public domain.

  His tongue seeks out my pleasure, furling to a point, examining my intimate topography with its sensitive touch. He licks, he laves, he teases, cruising this way and that, and up and down, side to side, visiting every part of my sex from top to bottom and back again.

  At first he avoids the most critical nexus, delicately skirting around it, except for tantalising flicks. My hips begin to lift of their own accord, seeking him, almost pleading with him mutely to grant release. He’s on his knees before me, and I’m the one begging with my body for his beneficence.

  I groan, ‘Please,’ and for a moment I’m dragged out of our zone of inclusion by the ricocheting gasp of outrage and amazement. Even though they all envy me, they can’t break the rigid conditioning they’re barely aware of.

  But still I plead. I mutter. I groan. I whimper. I implore, inarticulately, to be granted ecstasy.

  And because he loves me, Cicero smiles against my flesh … and grants my wish. He closes his warm lips around my centre and delicately sucks.

  I rear up from the couch. I howl and buck. I grab at Cicero’s crisp dark hair and jam his face closer to my crotch. My feet and ankles pummel his broad bare back, thumping and pounding against his bare skin.

  It’s too much to bear. I black out. Crying his name …

  Just moments later, I return to myself again. But not to the ghostly babble of feigned indignation and disapproval that I’d dimly perceived as a soundtrack to my pleasure.

 
No, as I open my eyes, and reach for Cicero, I see a blank white ceiling, not the fresco of labouring slaves. I turn and see the ‘off’ light glowing red upon the console.

  We’re alone now, just the two of us, no longer a part of the public domain of the holosphere.

  ‘I don’t think you’re going to be very popular after that performance, my love,’ murmurs Cicero wryly, settling his long, glorious and still rampant body on the couch beside me. ‘I feel there will be reports of your recidivist behaviour winging their way, even now, to your mother.’

  ‘I’m sure there will, but do you know? I really don’t care,’ I proclaim, reaching for the gleaming red-hot bar of his rigid penis. I’m not sure I really want to talk about my mother the Matriarch whilst handling my lover’s genitalia in a way that’s far from mistresslike. But even so, I decide to clarify my bravado. ‘Who do you think I get my wicked ways from, Cicero? Who do you think recommended a rogue like you to me as my body servant?’

  Cicero laughs softly, reaching, with a large strong hand, for the back of my head.

  Compelled to bow before him, I smile happily and become servant to his master. Taking him into my mouth, I bestow a very private pleasure …

  Are We There Yet?

  ‘WHERE ARE WE going?’

  ‘It’s a surprise.’

  ‘Oh, go on. Tell me.’

  ‘Don’t be so impatient, wench.’

  Wench? What is this? A sexy pirate fantasy? It’s Stone’s clapped-out Toyota we’re about to board, not the fucking Golden Hind.

  At least I think it’s the Toyota. He doesn’t usually use the Merc for jaunts like this. But I can’t be sure because he’s got me in a blindfold.

  Yeah, I’m wrapped around in a world of pitch-blackness, strung-out nerves and one man’s perverse peccadillos. It’s so exciting that I think I might faint.

  ‘Oof!’

  I stumble on the gravel, and obscene messages streak along those tight-strung nerves. For one churning second, I have a horrific feeling that something totally disgusting is going to happen. But luckily it subsides just as quickly and I’m back to being weak and girlie and clutching at his solid muscular arm as he helps me with all courtesy into the car.

  ‘Are you all right, Miss Lewis?’

  His voice is soft and genial as he settles me into my seat and fastens the belt across my chest. He has to do this because he’s got me in handcuffs, too, as well as the blindfold. I’m totally vulnerable, but I can’t deny that I like it.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Stone,’ I answer, keeping it bright and pert and slightly insolent because that’s the game we’re playing tonight.

  He murmurs, ‘Hmm …’ as if he suspects my motives, then softly slams the door and makes his way round to the driver’s seat.

  I know the blindfold is part of the game, but suddenly I wish with all my heart that I could see him as he settles in beside me and starts the engine. I want to see that dear profile of his. The solid, stubbly jaw. Those unexpectedly lush and overtly sexy lips. Long, long eyelashes that make me jealous as hell that it takes three coats of Maybelline to get the same effect. Taken overall, he’s not exactly an oil painting but to me he’s just sex on two long legs.

  He revs the car and the vibrations of the engine play havoc with my insides because of the thing he inserted into me earlier. I hardly dare put a name to it, because it’s not exactly the most refined and sophisticated of sex toys. But Mr Stone likes it – so that makes it fine by me.

  OK, it’s a butt plug, right?

  And it provokes the rudest, most insidious of sensations. It feels like … It feels like … God, I just can’t bring myself to say what it feels like. But at the same time, oh boy, it gets me going!

  And Mr Stone knows that. Which is why he put it in me before we set out.

  My mind flicks back to the bathroom and I start to sweat as if it were happening all over again. I’m naked, bending over, one foot on the edge of the bath. I’m totally exposed in the lewdest of ways and he’s just looking, looking …

  And then there’s that sensation. Intrusion. Pushing. Pressure, pressure, pressure, then the give as it goes in. Oh, God! Then I’m exhibiting myself to my lover, slick and dripping, with that stark black rubber base protruding from my fundament.

  It just boggles the mind what a girl will do for love.

  As I zone back into the world of here and now, I wonder if he’s deliberately searching out bumps and potholes. The old car trundles along, bouncing me around in a way that makes me gasp and gulp. The suspension leaves a lot to be desired, and so does my self-control tonight. But Mr Stone loves pushing my buttons and testing my limits.

  One particularly juddering lurch has me biting my lip, and, though I can’t see him, I know Mr Stone has noticed.

  ‘Are we there yet?’ I ask by way of a distraction. And he laughs.

  ‘Impatient, Miss Lewis?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘I just want to know when we’re going to get there.’

  ‘You might not be so keen if I told you.’

  My heart kicks, and so does my sex.

  Are we going dogging? We’ve done it before. And done it enough times for me to know that I’m just as much of an exhibitionist as he is.

  I remember the first time, travelling there in this car, and it makes me sort of breathless.

  I could see, that time, and Mr Stone gave me plenty to look at. And more. He asked me to take his dick out of his jeans and touch him.

  Oh, my God, he might even have his dick out now for all I know!

  I edge sideways, and begin to lean towards him. I may be handcuffed, but I can still reach over in search of our pride and joy. It’s certainly big enough to find in the dark.

  ‘What are you doing, Miss Lewis?’

  ‘Um … nothing. Really …’ I lie. ‘Just trying to get comfortable.’

  He says nothing, but I can sense that he’s smiling. It’s a slow, sly, sideways grin. I know it well and it slays me every time I see it. Even after all our months together.

  Time seems to dilate and warp. I’ve no idea how long we’ve been travelling. I can measure it only in terms of what my body’s telling me. The growing pressure in my belly. The growing wetness in my knickers. The way my clit aches and throbs and throbs and throbs. I want to ask if we’re there yet again, but there’s a pressure on my tongue too. The awareness of what might happen if I speak.

  You might be wondering why I call him ‘Mr Stone’ when we live together.

  Well, I don’t a lot of the time. Mostly, he’s just ‘Stone’, or maybe ‘Robert’. And sometimes he’s ‘Bobby’ when things are close and sweet and tender. But when we go all formal on each other it’s a signal. Let the games commence. I only have to hear him say the words ‘Miss Lewis’ and I want to come.

  ‘So, are we comfortable yet?’

  His words make me jump and that plays havoc with my innards. I have to gasp for breath and gather myself before I can answer.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m just fine. Thank you.’

  ‘Really? Is that a fact? I was just thinking that by now you might want to touch yourself.’

  I’ve been wanting to touch myself since the bathroom, but I’m not going to tell him that. Instead I sneakily clench my thighs in an attempt to get some stimulation. It’s a huge mistake though, and only makes things worse.

  ‘Why on earth would you think that?’ I pause, then add sassily, ‘Mr Stone.’

  ‘Have a care, young lady,’ he shoots back. More quickly, I suspect, than he intended. He puts on this act of total self-control. Impassive lack of interest in the sexual tension growing between us. But I know I’d be on a winner if I put good money on the fact that he’s rampantly erect.

  I get that yearning, burning urge to touch him again, and confirm my suspicions. I fancy that I could come from the simple act of touching his thigh. Which is bullshit, really, and I know it. This isn’t some flowery, unrealistic romance her
e. Like any woman, I need my fair share of purposeful, inter-thigh fumbling to get me off. Fingering. Tonguing. What have you. Or maybe a good hard shag? A bit of old-fashioned, tried and true, pneumatic grinding between the sheets with Mr Stone on top, his big size-eleven feet braced against the footboard so he can really put it to me.

  Yum!

  ‘What are you thinking about?’

  Oh, shit! I realise that not only have I been quiet for several minutes, I’ve been jiggling about, trying to get some action by knocking that accursed butt plug against the root of my clit somehow.

  ‘Nothing, Mr Stone. Still wondering where we’re going and if we’re anywhere near there yet.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ he observes roundly. ‘You’re thinking naughty thoughts, aren’t you, Miss Lewis? If you aren’t, I’ll be surprised –’ he pauses for a beat ‘– and disappointed.’

  Oh, no!

  ‘All right, all right, I was thinking about coming. And how much I want to do it. And all the ways I could do it.’

  ‘That’s more like it.’ He starts to change gear and misses the one he wants. And I laugh out loud.

  Touché, Clever Bobby, you’re as horny as I am!

  He treats me to one of the foulest, most disgusting oaths I’ve ever heard – all delivered in his most cultured and pleasantly conversational tone. Then, a moment later, he brings the Toyota to a halt.

  Before I can ask if we actually are there yet, he’s out of the car, round my side, and gently but determinedly hauling me out of my seat. He leads me a few steps away from the car, and simply says, ‘Come, then.’

  ‘H-here?’ I stammer.

  But where is ‘here’?

  I can hear the roar of traffic in the distance, so we must be near the motorway, but, other than that, we could be anywhere.

  With anybody watching.

  Not that that would bother me too much. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve put on a show. But still, not actually knowing whether there’s an audience is unsettling.