The Secret Life of a Submissive and Bonds of Love: 2-book BDSM Erotica Collection. Sarah K

       Chapter Eleven

      ‘It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.’

       Henry James

      ‘Do come in out of the rain, darlings. Come in, come in,’ said our hostess, beckoning us inside. ‘So lovely to see you again, Max, and you must be Sarah. Delighted to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you,’ she gushed, as she embraced first Max and then me.

      I wondered exactly what it was she had heard, and when I say ‘hostess’ I use the term loosely. Georgina was six foot four if she was an inch, built like a brick outhouse with the kind of physique most men would kill for at thirty, let alone in their early fifties. She had broad shoulders, a narrow waist and great legs, which had been waxed or shaved, as she was wearing sheer skin-tone stockings, along with the most fabulous shoes.

      Georgina had huge feet, size twelve – I know because I asked her – and was wearing a pair of custom-made kitten heels. They were gorgeous, covetable, in peacock blue, and set with diamanté and little blue and turquoise stones. Her outfit was equally gorgeous: a beautifully cut cocktail frock and matching long jacket in a fabric that draped like liquid silk, matched her shoes and reached to just above the knee.

      When I admired her shoes she positively purred with pleasure. ‘I’m so glad you like them – I had them specially made to match my evening dress. This fabulous man makes all my shoes for me. They just have a nice little inch-and-three-quarter heel, but they still do that whole calf thing,’ she said, turning her foot to the side so that I could admire her long shapely legs. ‘I mean, I’d look ridiculous in stilettos,’ she added, without a hint of irony. ‘I have all my clothes made for me. I found this amazing little woman. Buying anything really special off the rack for a woman my size is just about impossible.’

      I nodded. She seemed absolutely delighted to have another woman to talk to.

      In another life, a million miles from this one, Max told me, her alter ego, Ben, was something high up in a multinational that everyone had heard of.

      ‘My seamstress said that just above the knee is a very flattering length for the older woman,’ Georgina assured me, taking my arm and guiding me towards canapés and champagne, which were arranged on trays on a table in the centre of the huge hallway. She’d teamed the outfit with a Purdy bob in soft caramel blonde, subtle make-up and lots of jewellery, and she moved in a great cloud of Chanel No 5.

      I liked Georgina the minute I clapped eyes on her. It didn’t take me long to discover that she was quick, funny, candid, gossipy and a mine of information. Better still, I didn’t have to wrestle with the dilemma of whether to call her Sir or Madam.

      Max and I had been invited to a supper at Georgina’s house with a small group of people that Max had known for years. They were into the lifestyle – that’s what Max said. The lifestyle.

      During my research online I had seen endless websites and that there is a huge industry servicing the lifestyle with sex toys, restraints, whips, canes, bondage gear, outfits, dungeon equipment, holidays, chains, and even greetings cards, gifts and soft toys. But up until Max’s phone call I had assumed – wrongly, as it turned out – that as far as the whole BDSM thing went, other than the odd date à deux out in the vanillaverse, he and I would be keeping ourselves to ourselves. I thought that it was something that for the most part – fetish clubbers and exhibitionists aside – went on between couples in secret, behind closed doors, and that what went on between us would be happening either at my place or Max’s. I hadn’t really thought about going out together as a couple with my straight friends, let alone going out with any of Max’s weird ones. Wrong, wrong and wrong – birds of a feather flock together. People who are into BDSM don’t live apart from the rest of everyday life; rather they’re part of the rich tapestry of it – it’s just that they’re some of the more twisted stitches.

      So I had been flattered, but also really curious, when Max had asked if I wanted to go out for dinner with him, with this group of his friends who also were into BDSM.

      ‘When you say “into”, what does that mean exactly?’ I asked. I had visions of me rolling up all Brad and Janet straight into a scene from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with a dungeon full of leather-clad, whip-wielding weirdos.

      ‘Everyone who will be there is either a Dom or a sub, and Georgina, our hostess, is a transvestite.’ Which certainly chimed with the whole Rocky Horror thing I’d got going on in my head, although Max said it casually, in the same way you might say Georgina was a keen gardener. ‘Oh, and she’s gay. And a switch.’

      ‘Which means what exactly?’ I asked.

      ‘A switch is someone who takes on the role of Dom in some situations and subbie in others. Some people would say they get the best of both worlds.’

      ‘Have you ever wanted to switch?’ I asked.

      ‘No,’ said Max. ‘Although Georgina keeps telling me I shouldn’t knock it till I’ve tried it.’

      ‘So what do I wear, Sir?’ I asked.

      ‘It’s black tie, so dress up,’ he said.

      ‘When you say “dress up”, what do you mean exactly, Sir?’

      ‘Georgina loves entertaining. Her parties are always over the top, so evening dress, heels, jewellery – knock yourself out, go to town. Something stunning would be just fine.’

      ‘Stunning?’

      ‘Stunning, Sir,’ Max corrected. ‘And no underwear,’ he added, as if I needed any reminding.

      I already knew that Max kept a running total of how many times I broke the rules. I suspected there was a good chance that he was writing them down somewhere.

      Life had changed so much in the months since we’d met. I still couldn’t walk past the side table in the sitting room without getting flashbacks of the first time we’d got together, which left me with a funny little shiver of excitement.

      After our first session together I’d slipped off my dressing gown as I was about to get into the shower and had caught sight of my body in the bathroom mirror. I saw the marks across my back from the flogger, which I guessed would bruise, and the sight of them gave me an odd and unsettling sense of pride. I felt strangely peaceful after that first meeting and since I’d started to play I was sleeping the best I had for years. It was as if finding BDSM had finally joined up the random patterns of dots in my head. It felt as if I’d finally found what I was looking for.

      For a couple of weeks before our dinner date at Georgina’s Max had been away on business and I’d been away teaching on a residential course. Trying to talk on the phone had proved close to impossible – I’d had no mobile signal at all except in the lobby by the reception desk of the hotel where I’d been staying, which wasn’t exactly the ideal place to explore the continuing mysteries of BDSM – so we’d been spending a lot of time emailing, texting and IM-ing. Writing ‘Sir’ is so much easier than saying it.

      We spent hours online. Max liked to tease me with descriptions of what he planned to do to me. I played along and described my fantasies. Text and internet sex might not be as great as the real thing, and the fantasy element loomed large, but it was huge fun and not something I’d been expecting to be doing in my forties. And I was excited and at