The Dominant Male

pert ass as she could manage, reinforced the point, she hoped. She’d long ago figured out that her submissiveness had at least something to do with remaining irresponsible; with merely observing a course of action that maybe you didn’t even care too much about in the first place. But she did, indeed, hope that her wish, her will, would be the one to prevail on this occasion, that like a true gent he would divine what she wanted without their having to step into a real conversation, a boring reconciliation between equals of the pros and cons. Though she could cry off at any time of course, this wasn’t entirely a game.
    Paul had put the proposal to her several times now, at first gently, over a dinner he had cooked the previous evening, of pan-fried kidneys, pulses and veg. This much was routine, rather than part of any particular attempt to butter her up. He had always loved to cook – ‘always’ meaning during the four, going on five, years that she had been with him. At least it felt like she had known him forever – they seemed to inform each other’s outlook, such that when she thought of her own, distant-seeming past she thought of it on his terms too.
    One time, he’d explained to her his belief that, in order to be really in control in life, you ought to be able to take care of everything yourself, to the standard you’re happy with, which included preparing food. He had laughed at the thought of dominants who could not do for themselves, and said that true control depended on being able to be truly independent, if that was what it took – that part of your strength can come from others’ knowledge that you might be just fine by yourself.
    She had pictured him at school, an unusual kid perhaps – taking home economics with the girls and wondering about a growing desire to tie them up, to see their bodies restrained, their flesh taught, slapped and reddening – a fetishist’s desire, without deep malice or anger towards the sub, however charged the scene.
    When it came to herself, at any rate, she didn’t find this hard to buy into: she knew how good she looked, whether wriggling in bondage as she was right now, or sashaying down a summer street in a summer dress. It was easy to believe he worshipped her. How else could four years of his smothering, pinioning defilements have left her feeling so empowered and energized?
    Each of Manda’s shapely, shaven legs was fastened to one side of an old vaulting-horse – a classic, school-gym horse of the kind that came apart in layers, so you could move it. The wood had been filed and finished so that it didn’t leave splinters, and the top had been recovered with a padded piece of supple, stud-fastened black Napa leather. Simple black leather straps buckled each ankle to the side of the horse, ensuring there could be no Great Escape for Manda, not when her arms were swept upwards behind her and fastened with similarly padded, leather cuffs at the wrists, palms facing inwards.
    The wide, brick-pink institutional cuffs were suspended by a chain from a load-bearing fixture that abutted the ceiling, ensuring that Manda was unable to lower her arms, let alone unfasten the leather ankle cuffs, even though they weren’t lockable.
    When the wrist cuffs had arrived by courier van in response to Paul’s online order, and as instructed Manda had stripped away the high-tech, vacuum-sealed packaging intended to reassure the friendly-neighbourhood pervert that they could continue to shop with discretion, she’d thought it somewhat scarey that they had been supplied with two unique keys and were lockable, coming as they did across the Atlantic from a retailer of genuine medical supplies. Still, as Paul had said, that was one less pair destined to lock down a person in real distress, if indeed they ever were supplied for that purpose these days. The institutional orders had probably gone out of style around the time of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
    While putting her in bondage – stripping her, or else asking her to strip – requests with which Manda had found herself complying this time, as most times, out of a mixture of curiousity, anticipation and the growing sense of herself as a sluttish sexual being that being bossed about did wonders to bring on – Paul had kept up a consistent narrative. He’d discoursed on the nature of Medieval locks, and the early history of locksmithing, about which, he’d said, he knew very little but, as with a lot of