It's Wednesday night, and he's in a funk. He would rather be home, ensconced on the couch watching TV. He knows I need his help, though, so he's come along, grumpy but basically willing.
This morning the electric percolator literally melted down, frying the wall outlet in the process. Victorian buildings just weren't designed to handle modern appliances. He's surprisingly handy; he has offered to repair the damage himself and save us the expense of an electrician. As we wander through the aisles, selecting cable and junction boxes, red wire nuts and sticky black tape, I smile up at him. I want to let him know how grateful I am for his company. Not just for tonight, but for his presence in my life.
At first it does not seem that my message is getting through. He's still scowling, his brows knitted together in dark concentration. As we leave the electrical section and head toward housewares, though, he absently fondles my bottom through my light cotton dress. A hint of a grin crosses his lips as he realizes that I am not wearing panties. He touches me again, more deliberately, smoothing down the fabric of my skirt, poking it into the crevice between my cheeks. I hold my breath, savoring his surreptitious caress.
"Being naughty again, Sarah?" He speaks softly, his rich, melodious voice seducing me as it always does. "Trying to tease me, my little slut?"
"Just trying to cheer you up." I arch my back slightly, silently suggesting that he explore my cleft more deeply. In typical exasperating fashion, he takes his hand away.
"Perfectly innocent, I'm sure," he mocks, but he's smiling now, TV forgotten, the power and challenge of his attention fully directed at me. I bask in his gaze, proud and humble simultaneously. "You know what happens when you tease me. I'm sure that you remember the other night."
Of course I do, and the memory leaves me wet and breathless: the binding, the beating, the final delicious buggering. My sex overflows. My thighs are slippery with my juices. I imagine he can hear the liquid squelch as I walk. His arm is around my shoulder now, guiding me along.
We pass a display of galvanized steel fittings. I stop, fascinated. Sturdy eye bolts and swivel bolts, hooks and pulleys, interlocking rings and brackets, all sensuously curved and shining a dull silver. I can't take my eyes away, imagining spread limbs and stretched muscles. Hardware stores always bring out my creative side.
He laughs at my intensity. "You know that we can't attach anything to the walls, Sarah. It's in the resident's agreement."
"Well... what about out on the deck?" Our top-floor condo has a lovely patio built out on the flat part of the roof. From there we have a fabulous view of the city, from Twin Peaks to the Golden Gate.
"You want me to bind you out in the open, where anyone uphill can see you?" He rolls his eyes heavenward, pretending annoyance. "And you say that I'm perverted!"
He steers me onward. Reluctantly, I leave the suggestive display of fittings, only to be transfixed by the rolls of self-service chain at the other end of the aisle.
"Chain is completely impractical," he reminds me with a grin.
"But it's so decorative, so evocative," I counter. "Whips and chains, you know."
"Whatever you want, dear," he says, bowing low. I make a choice and he cuts me a four foot length of the pretty, brass-finished stuff with half-inch links. He dumps it into our basket. It gives a satisfying clink whenever we move.
My nipples go taut at the sound. He notices, of course, and leans down to tweak one, hard. Another wave of lubrication gushes from my cunt. His nostrils flare as my scent fills the aisle.
"My turn," he says. "Let's go check out the dowels." His thumb and forefinger are still grasping my swollen tit. He leads me toward the back of the store.
I look around nervously, but there are few customers at eight PM on a Wednesday evening. Despite my comments about the deck, I'm actually terrified of public exposure. To be more accurate, public restraint or punishment is still beyond my limits, something I'm not ready to admit that I want. He knows that perfectly well.
He halts in front of a rack holding wooden rods of varying diameters and lengths. I have small hands; I could not get my thumb and forefinger around one of the thickest. The thinnest are perhaps a quarter-inch in diameter, like the sticks used to mount children's balloons.
When he releases his hold on my nipple, I still feel the echo of his fingers on my throbbing flesh. "Bend over," he orders. Trembling with fearful excitement, I bend at the waist. I rest my hands on my thighs for support, but he can see that I am not comfortable. He flips my skirt up, baring my buttocks. "Don't move," he cautions, and then disappears, leaving me alone in this awkward and obscene position.
He is gone for what feels like forever. Slight currents of air brush my exposed ass like ghostly fingers. My engorged pudenda ache for his touch, and the scent of my lust is stronger than ever. Sweat trickles down my neck, dampening my hair. My heart sounds so loudly in my ears, I do not even hear him when he returns. He has a folding stepladder, which he assembles and places in front of me. "Hold on to this."
The position is more stable and places far less strain on my back. "Thank you, Master," I whisper, once again marveling at how finely tuned he is to my needs.
He slips a casual finger into my soaking cunt and wriggles it around. "You certainly are wet, Sarah." My pelvis churns at his touch. Without thought, I grind myself against his hand. I am rewarded by a sharp slap on my butt cheek.
"Be still!" he says softly. "I did not give you permission to move."
He continues to explore my well-lubricated folds. Meanwhile I press my lips together and tighten all my muscles, struggling to obey his directive of immobility.
"What are you thinking, little slut?" he whispers in my ear. "Tell me."
I can hardly speak, aroused and taut as I am. "That I'm yours," I gasp, finally. "That I would do anything for you."
"Really? Well, we'll see about that, won't we?" His voice holds that familiar hint of mockery, but I can tell he is pleased. He pulls his hand abruptly from my sex, and I almost cry out in disappointment. "Now, let me think about this..."
I can hear him rummaging among the dowels. My mind paints pictures of what he will do, what he will choose. I see him easing the fattest rod into my cunt. My sex spasms at the thought, and an electric thrill seizes my clit. But then, why would I think he'd prefer my cunt to my rear hole? He's told me, often, that taking me anally is the purest form of domination. What if he forces a dowel into my ass, presented so conveniently to him here in the aisle of this hardware store, where anyone could watch and observe my total degradation?
I almost come with that thought. But as usual, he surprises me. Just as I am getting control of myself, I hear a swooshing sound, and something burns a fiery track across my left buttock. Before I can recover, my right cheek is symmetrically assaulted. Tears rise and spill down my face at the sudden, spectacular pain.
I tense, expecting more blows, but instead there is the blessed relief of his palm, delicately stroking my inflamed skin. "Yes," he says, "this should do quite nicely, seeing as birch switches are fairly hard to come by in the city..." He circles me, raises me up, and deposits a gentle kiss on my grateful lips. "Don't you think that this will work well, Sarah?"
I nod, still dazed by the pleasure and pain surging in my lower parts. He smoothes my dress over the rosy streaks that I know mark my skin.
I am barely decent when a bespectacled clerk in a blue-striped vest rounds the corner and almost bumps into us. "Oh, excuse me," he says, flustered. "Can I help you with anything?"
My Master looks down at me, pondering a moment. "Let's see, we have plenty of rope... which way to the plumbing supplies?"
Reading the excited question in my eyes, he shrugs. "Well, rubber tubing is always useful. And then we mustn't forget clamps, clothespins, a sawhorse, candles, bamboo plant stakes, yardsticks, wooden paint stirrers, plastic clothesline, webbing cargo straps..." He smiles in that provocative way that makes my stomach do somersaults. "I love hardware stores, don't you, Sarah?"
I blush as the clerk points us to the appropriate aisle. I have a fearful, delighted conviction that we won't be watching TV tonight.