‘I needed that,’ he panted behind me. ‘Never could resist a plugged bottom. Now, I think you must be hungry and ready for some less harsh treatment, am I right?’
‘Yes, sir.’ I heard the happy sighing quality of my voice as if from afar.
He bent to untie my wrists, then helped me to my bare feet, holding me against him for a moment, stroking my hair.
‘I have high hopes of you,’ he said, before leading me out of the room and making me walk with him, naked, plugged, scarlet-bottomed and dripping spunk, along the corridor and back into the Great Hall.
A head peered round a door before we made it to the staircase, but His Lordship clapped disapprovingly and the head disappeared. I recalled his promise that nobody else would be involved in my training today and drew a breath of relief.
The stairs seemed never-ending, but at length we arrived at the top floor of the house and I was ushered into a breathtaking suite of rooms, apparently decorated by the set dresser for Downton Abbeyor Upstairs, Downstairs.
Not sure if I had permission to speak, I simply goggled in the doorway while His Lordship untied his cravat and removed his frock coat.
‘While you’re in my rooms, we are equals,’ he told me, taking my hand and drawing me further in to the room.
I tried to listen, but my brain was busy absorbing its surroundings, so I might have missed a few things.
‘Are you listening?’ His tone sharpened, and I snapped to attention.
‘Sorry, sir. This is amazing.’
‘All right, I know it’s quite impressive.’ He rested on his laurels, pulling out a chair for me and waiting for me to sit – gingerly – before continuing. ‘What I was saying, Keris, is that here in this room, we are no longer master and submissive. Our time spent here is on an equal footing and gives us a chance to get to know each other as people. Unless we do that, the trust which is so vital in our kind of dynamic can’t be properly established, in my experience. Does that make sense?’
‘So I don’t have to call you sir? And I can say what I like?’
‘Exactly. You’re as unsubmissive as a naked girl with a plug in her whipped behind can be.’ He chuckled darkly and I squirmed on said whipped behind. ‘For a start, while we’re up here, you can call me Marcus.’
‘Is that your name?’
He raised his eyebrows at me. OK, maybe it was a silly question.
‘You look hungry,’ he observed. ‘For your first night, I’ll have dinner sent up and you can eat with me. It’s a privilege I reserve for my most promising beginners – it won’t be repeated this week.’
I watched him make a call, presumably to the kitchen.
‘How many staff do you have?’ I asked, once he’d put in his order for game terrine and a cold turkey platter.
‘It varies,’ he said. ‘This week, I have half a dozen house guests, so I’ve hired caterers for the week – non-kinky, but kink-sympathetic, if you catch my drift.’
‘So you don’t get to spank the chef if the meat’s overdone?’
‘No. But we have three maids, including yourself, and a couple of footmen-cum-stable lads. There’s my chauffeur, but he’s not submissive – he looks after my wife if she’s missing my firm hand.’
The food arrived, brought in by Kat on a trolley under a cloche. She didn’t even look at me, but kept her head bowed and left swiftly.
‘About your wife,’ I said, spearing the terrine and shoving it down my throat. I had forgotten all about being hungry, and now my stomach was reminding me with some insistence.
‘What about her?’ He regarded my famished behaviour with amusement.
‘Is she really and truly OK with all this? With you entertaining various random women in your bedroom and all that?’
‘First of all, they aren’t random. They’re very carefully selected. Second of all, we have an open marriage and always have had. It works well for us.’
‘So she can shag whoever she likes?’
‘No, she can’t shag whoever she likes. She can shag carefully selected partners who have been approved and tested for sexual health, as you have been.’
‘Is she a domme?’