Audition

I must have jumped off the sofa a hundred times before midnight finally came. With each sound out in the hall I leapt into position: face flushed, hands trembling.

Of course, I knew rationally that she was the sort that when she said midnight, she meant midnight. Not that I harbored any illusions that our clocks would be in perfect sync, mind you; just that it was unlikely they’d be an hour to an hour and a half off.

It didn’t help that I was bouncing around the apartment naked. It made me feel just the way it was supposed to: embarrassed, vulnerable, and incredibly nervous. Still, the discomfort I felt from that was child’s play compared to not being logged on to my computer. It was the first thing I did after getting home from the gym at night; and I’d sometimes stay up till well past four, hoping to catch a glimpse of the screen name that had ruled my world for the past two months. Sometimes she logged in, and sometimes she left me dangling. But after midnight, I’d no longer be able to hide behind my machine again.

By 12 A.M. my pulse was racing like a jackrabbit. Exactly one minute and thirty-five seconds later, it stopped altogether as I head the click of a key at my door. I’d mailed it to a P.O. box she used for snail mail three weeks ago when we’d finalized the details of this night.

My interview. My audition.

I barked my shin against the coffee table by leaping into position: feet spread wide, shoulders back, sweaty-palmed hands clenched together at the small of my back, and my eyes shut tight.

I wasn’t unaware of the risk I was opening myself up to. I knew her only from her words on a computer screen, and it could be anybody behind that door about to see me exposed and relatively helpless. Some snarky teen-aged boy could quickly snap a Polaroid and take off running, bragging at leisure to his buddies about how he’d pulled one over on a “freak.” But I’d thoroughly, maybe obsessively, researched everything she’d posted on the net - every story and rambling discourse about sexuality - and as she’d said herself as she laid out the terms of our meeting, “You have to jump in the water if you want to learn how to swim.”

The door opened and cold night air washed over me. A chill ran down my spine, distinct and separate from the nervous shakes that had been wracking me since 10:30; and my nipples and cock, already hardened by anticipation, began to throb. I prayed fervently that none of my neighbors had taken their dogs out for a late night walk and were just getting in.

She entered and closed the door behind her. I was disappointed somewhat by the sounds she made - or rather didn’t make - as she moved. I’d expected the creak of leather or rubber, or at least the click of heels on the floor. The latter being a bit much, I admit, since my apartment had carpeting.

Instead she moved quickly and quietly. The only way to mark her passage being the whisper of what I pegged to be jeans and the subtly shifting air as it wafted across my trembling, alert body. With that air came the scent of herbal shampoo underscored with a touch of Chanel and a hint of lilacs.

“Good evening Michael,” she said in a soft, silky voice that certainly did not disappoint.

“Good evening, Mistress.”

“I’m not your mistress yet, Michael.”

“Then what should I, uh...”

“You may address me as ‘Your Ladyship’ for now.”

“Yes, of course, My Ladyship.”

“Not ‘My Ladyship,’ Michael, ‘Your Ladyship.’ You might become my slave, but I will never be anything that belongs to you. Do you understand?”

Damn! Damn! Damn! After all that dreaming and planning and waiting and I was already screwing myself over! My face felt so hot I pictured it lighting up the room with a pulsating red glow.

“Of course, your Ladyship! Please forgive me, your Ladyship!”

By the sound of her voice, she was halfway to me by now. She didn’t say anything or make a sound for a minute, leaving me to twitch and writhe from the suspense.

Finally, she broke the silence by saying, “Well, you certainly weren’t being modest, were you?”

The subject of her remark started to droop morosely, while the pit of my stomach sank. A shooting pain began to build behind my eyes and at my temples, putting the fear in me that I might very well stroke out under the pressure.

She closed the rest of the distance between us and, with a soft rustling of fabric on fabric, sat on the sofa. She must have been sitting at the edge, as I could feel her breath as she exhaled. It blew across the aching skin of my cock, like a warm and gentle caress. Immediately the blood rushed back, swelling it back up again to painful fullness.

She made a rueful tch-tch sound and said, “Modest and with a mind of its own. My, my.”

My hands, still behind me, now clenched into fists; my teeth ground together. I’d spent every free minute I had at the gym; from the instant I finally worked up the courage to contact her openly, up through the last, frantic three-week period where I’d nearly worked myself to death just to get my body into shape for this tête-à-tête. For her. And now the whole thing was falling apart over the one fucking thing I couldn’t change. Fuck her! I didn’t need this shit. I wanted to snap my eyes open and take a good long look at her! Just how pretty was she, anyway? How big were her tits? How long were her legs?

Before I could resolve to do anything, she broke into laughter.

“Oh, Michael, relax,” she purred, drawing out the “X” sound into one long sibilant draft across my cock.

“It’s not as if you were ever going to stick it into my body. Not my pussy...” She lingered on the “S” again.

“Certainly not my mouth.” She was close enough to me now that the slightest twitch from me would have belied that statement; and in the state I was in, provoked an accident of Biblical proportions.

“Not even up my ass. I’m afraid the only use I’d ever have for it would be to use it to hurt you, Michael. And I’d certainly never let you stick in someone else.”

She paused.

“Unless...”

She stood up, pressing her unbearably warm body against my side. I could feel her breasts pushing against my arm through the sheer cotton of her shirt. She ran one hand across my midriff, gently stroking my hair with the other.

“Tell me Michael, have you ever thought about having sex with another man?”

My gut twisted violently. I’d never considered myself homophobic, and I’d had gay friends throughout high school and college. But I viewed the act itself as something akin to eating snails or jumping out of an airplane: it was fine if you enjoyed it, but it made me queasy.

“Not even a little Bi? A special friend in college?”

All I could do was shake my head “no.”

Her voice had dropped to a whisper, her lips as close to my ear as they had been to my prick.

“Well, then we’ll have to find you a nice, pretty one. A sweet soft sissy that’ll help ease you into it. And when you’re a little loosened up, we’ll find a big, hung stud to break you in back here!” she hissed, swatting my ass, making me jump.

The hand on my abdomen clenched, driving her nails into my skin. Her other hand swung back up and clutched a fistful of hair.

“And you’ll do it, too.” She released me violently, striding away across the room.

“Because while we’ll play our share of games, your servitude to me is not among them. There’s only one punishment, and that’s you being kicked out on your ass. Understand that when I hurt you, it’s because I get off on watching you being hurt. Not because you were ‘naughty.’”

She hadn’t drawn blood, but the wounded flesh still burned with astonishing intensity.

“You’re having second thoughts, aren’t you?” she asked, echoing my thoughts with uncanny precision.

“You probably want to know what you get out of this. Well, the fact is I couldn’t tell you, and what’s more, I don’t care.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was this the woman who’d written all those posts, espoused all that philosophy that I’d read with such care and devotion?

“I get what I want, and if you don’t get something from giving it to me, then you’re wasting both our time.”

“You want to say something?”

I did, but I couldn’t find the words to express my sense of betrayal and disillusionment. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

Except -

“What about love?”

She skipped a beat, then broke into incredulous laughter. “Christ! You are a virgin to this, aren’t you? What about it, Michael?”

I considered my reply for a good long minute. “You wrote once about pony training. You thought that it was so popular as a fetish because the Domme-slave relationship was fundamentally similar to a horse and rider. One calling the shots, the other bearing the brunt of the effort, but both eventually learning to establish a rhythm, forming a bond, working together towards an ultimate goal.”

She didn’t say anything for a while. I was convinced I’d totally shot my last chance.

When at last she spoke, she startled me by the plain, unaffected quality of her voice.

“You’re pretty cheeky, using my own words like that to seduce me. She lapsed into another long silence. I was growing tired and sore from holding my stance so long. The muscles in my back were beginning to feel the strain, my calves were stinging, and even my penis began to flag again.

“Those were old posts you dug up, Michael. Most the Dommes I’ve met since then tend to view their subs as just another trapping of their fetish; as faceless and interchangeable as a whip or dildo or table. “I guess I expected that; but so damn many of the subs were that way to… worse even. They’d mouth off about worshipping you and the like, but deep down it’s just lip service to get what they want. Hell, they don’t even need us, they could do it to themselves if they weren’t so gutless. All they need one of us for is to strap ‘em down and give ‘em a few whacks until they’re ready to cry ‘Safeword’ and then it’s run along home to jerk off in private.”

“I wouldn’t...” I blurted, “I don’t need a safeword.”

“Why,” she asked, bemused. “Don’t you have limits?”

I didn’t know how to answer. I wanted to say or do anything so desperately to impress her, yet I knew full well that if my mouth wrote checks my butt literally couldn’t cash, we’d both end up bitterly disappointed.

Luckily for me, she bailed me out.

“Bullshit! Everyone has limits, Michael. That’s where the real sensuality of it all lies. Exploring, searching, finding those limits out. A good Domme will know how to skirt the line, sometimes, maybe, even take a step or two over it. And a good sub trusts his Domme to know what she’s doing, not cry ‘Safeword’ when his dirty little fantasies get all too real.” She finished with a long, heavy sigh.

An eternity passed before she said anything more.

“All right, Michael. I was wrong earlier. I would like to know what you want out of this.”

For an instant, I was living that age-old nightmare: called upon in class to give an answer you weren’t quite sure you knew. At least in my dreams I had on my jockeys to give me some modicum of dignity.

As I tried to form some kind of coherent response in my mind I thought back to the analogy of the horse and rider. That, in turn led me to a notion that suddenly struck me as summing it up nicely. My mouth was bone dry by this time, and my voice cracked and hurt my throat as I started. “I want a number… your Ladyship.” I’m fairly certain she wasn’t expecting that. It took her a moment to recover.

“How do you mean?”

I took a deep breath, and began.

“When people buy a dog, a lot of the time they make a mistake and don’t establish complete dominance over it right from the start. Puppies are cute. People love puppies and nobody wants to be ‘mean’ to one.

“But just because they’re smart and have personalities, doesn’t mean they’re little humans. They’re animals with their own behavior patterns. When dogs meet they immediately establish a hierarchy. Each one has a ranking within the pack, a number. They define themselves as individuals by the role they occupy in the group. It lets them hunt efficiently, which is good for the pack, good for the survival of dogs as a whole. I’m not saying they understand all that, but they do get something from being a part of it. Comfort… strength, maybe. Joy.

“By comparison, human behavior looks chaotic and insane. There are only two positions in our society: Number One and trying to be Number One; and people can’t imagine anyone being satisfied with anything less. Let alone happy.

“Of course, we see dogs as being subservient to us, but owners make mistakes in how they express it. They’re inconsistent, inattentive or just don’t understand. The dog gets away with jumping on the bed, but not the sofa. Some days they get to lead, others you yank the chain. A sock with a knot in it is a chew toy, a sock without one isn’t. It’s not that those people can’t be kind and loving, but by inadvertently messing up the dog’s sense of order, what they’re really doing is negating the dog’s very sense of self. He doesn’t feel like part of the family, because there’s nothing to be a part of - just one big, constantly churning mess. Without that sense of belonging, they feel isolated, confused… grow despondent over time.

“That’s how I feel around other people. I’m just so tired of trying to puzzle every fucking thing out. I want a number. I want to know my place and fulfill my role. And by knowing it, I hope, more than anything, to reach that ‘Ultimate Goal’ of yours.”

The end of my soliloquy was met with utter, terrifying silence. I felt drained; like I’d been running a marathon instead of standing in place all this time.

In spite of the dead calm, I didn’t hear her move. I barely caught a strong whiff of herbs and Chanel before soft, sweet lips were pressed to mine in an all-too-brief kiss.

The next sound I heard was the door to my apartment opening.

“Tomorrow morning, Michael, you will receive an E-mail. It will contain an address. You are to go to that address immediately after you get off work in the evening. Do you understand?”

“Yes, your Ladyship.”

“Oh, and… Michael?”

“Yes, your Ladyship?”

“From now on you will address me solely as ‘Mistress’.”

“Yes, Mistress.”