Author’s note:

While this series will turn out to be wildly kinky and explicit, this story is for all my fellow romantic kinksters who like spending time getting to know the characters, reveling in scenery and ambiance, and building anticipation in their smut. While never lacking in sexual content, this is a slow-burn series. I hope to get many of you off, but it might not happen right off the bat.

This is the first chapter in the story of a slave’s extended stay with her beloved Master.

Consider it foreplay. A Free, released-chapter-by-chapter version of long romantic kink series.

If you like it, stay tuned for the good good stuff.

-Nova

My anklet rounded my left lower calf with every step that brought me closer to Master. From where he stood in the open doorway of his ivy-covered manor, I could just barely make out him eyeing the dainty, gold chain, and thought I could almost see his lips twitch with satisfaction.

Of course I’m wearing it, Master, I thought as a knowing grin crept into my cheeks.

And please don’t wait until the end of our trip to give me this mysterious gift you spoke of on the phone.

The driver behind me struggled to gracefully wheel my luggage over the cobblestone path. What an odd day this must be for him. I had not spoken a word in the car, not even when I had hopped in. He’d tried to make small talk, but got only impassive stares back from me when he glanced in the rearview mirror. Then, upon landing at Master’s, he’d held my door open for me to climb out through while taking in the size and elegance of the beautiful, French-chateau-style manor. I’d walked to the trunk and wordlessly waited, indicating to him that he was to take my luggage and grocery bag to the front door for me.

It thrilled me further to wonder what he thought of the wordless woman in a not particularly esteemed-enough-for-this-place wardrobe (a cheap, lacy, pink cami-crop trop that I’d thrifted, over a matching pink, silk skirt that hugged my hips down to my knees, and simple, beige kitten heels) was up to showing up here, with weekend-sized luggage and a heavy grocery bag, and a handsome, elegant man up ahead waiting for her with silent, but vibrating, power.

He probably figured it was a Sex thing.

Oh, man, if you only knew… I wanted to say to him, but I wasn’t interested in having my Ass beaten quite this early into the trip (a girl has to sit) so I said nothing.

We reached Master. My Master. My Master who, whether he be standing there in his front double-doorway in a gray, wool sweater, hands fisted in the pockets of his soft jeans, or in his backyard profusely sweating as he boxed with his trainer, or just woken up in bed with his beautiful just-almost-auburn hair ruffled and five-o’clock-shadow approaching well-past-five scruffiness… makes my heart burst like the setting pink sunset I now greeted him under, and the meeting of my thighs swell and pull and pulse with Hot, heavy need.

Master stood just a bit to the side, beckoning me to enter. As I turned and stood beside him once I was across the threshold, I watched Master hand the driver a few bills, causing the driver thank him profusely and offer to bring my bags inside the house. Master grabbed the bags himself and pulled them inside, telling him it wasn’t a necessary and thanking him for getting his property to him safely.

Master closed the door on the driver’s shocked face.

I giggled.

Master turned to me, a hint of amusement threatening to light up his serious demeanor.

I closed my eyes, trying to record this moment, save it to my brain. I’d waited so long for a weekend away with Master, and here I was, in his beautiful foyer again. I didn’t want to ever forget this moment. And, I needed this moment to ground myself. I was overwhelmed with all of the excitement I’d built up for this weekend coming to a brink now that I was here, and I was jittery, almost dizzy, overstimulated with energy that I needed to shed. More specifically, release. In very certain ways.

Not to mention, I needed to come back down to Earth as I was feeling absolutely dreamy, my head miles above the clouds, to be so close to Master again.

When I opened my eyes, he was standing just in front of me, peering down at me inquisitively.

“Hello, Master,” I said cheerily.

“Slave,” he said, immediately sliding his hands up my neck and cupping my head at the base of my skull, fingers deep in my just-blown-out hair. He knew I wanted a kiss– needed a kiss, and he made wait, pouting and almost panting, before giving it to me. His lips gently took my bottom one in his, and we relished the soft, sensual kiss before Master’s darker nature overcame him, taking my mouth much more hungrily. I curled my arms around his neck and molded my body to his, as if I could take his erection into me right then and there.

Keeping me in his hands, Master pulled his head back and looked down at me, affectionally running his thumb over my cheek.

“Did you speak a word during the drive over, slave?”

“No, Master,” I respond, softly, breathy with need.

“Good. Did he try to talk to you?”

“Yes, Master.”

“How much?”

“A lot, Master. It took him awhile to accept I wasn’t going to speak the entire trip.”

“What did he ask you about?”

“The normal small talk. How has my day been. Where am I going, who am I meeting. The weather lately. How long have I lived in New York.”

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“Not one word, Master.”

“Good girl.”

Then, Master pulled back further from me, and slapped me hard across my face.

My stunned head held to my side in shock. The lust in my blood warmed and fizzled, as it almost always does when he blesses me with a strike of his hand, but I had a harder time snapping back to reality from this strike than I normally do.

Knowing though that my Master was waiting for me was enough urgency for me to straighten back up and face him.

“Why did I do that, slave?”

“Because you wanted to, Master.”

“Do you think that was fair?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Why?”

“Because I am yours, and you have every right to do to me whatever you want.”

“Why do you think I wanted to slap you?”

With a bit of a coquettish shrug, I answer: “Because you like to hurt me, Master?”

“Yes, I do, slave. Very much.”

I was unsure what his next move would be. He simply stared at me, making me feel shy. I nervously glanced around to escape the pressure of his staring eyes.

It really is a quite beautiful property. Huge and looming and intimidating, sure, but he’d managed to walk that line between impressive and ostentatious. It was also a modernized take on the French chateau. No sprawling, outdated, patterned carpet, but deep, warm hardwood floors underneath soft white, or occasionally sage or baby blue, walls separated by arched walkways between rooms and hallways.

He finally interrupted my mental wandering with a subtle accusation that sent panicked electricity straight to my gut.

“You look pale, slave. And weak. I didn’t hit you that hard.”

Oh fuck. He’s figured me out.

His jaw tensed. “Slave. Have you eaten today?”

I looked down at his feet. They were barefoot. I figured he must be at the end of his work day, but not quite finished. He wasn’t in his comfortable, yet elegant, house clothes yet, but the shoes were off. He was winding down from emails and phone calls and contracts. I hadn’t been with Master all that long, but I was getting to know him quickly. I recorded everything about him in my mind all the time.� � � � � � � � � � � � �

And because I knew him so well, I knew that I was in serious trouble. Master puts up with a lot more feistiness from than most Masters do their slaves, or so he tells me.

But he really, really hates his rules being broken.

I kept my gaze down.

Barely whispering, I answered, “No, Master.”

He suddenly, roughly, gripped me by my arm and yanked me behind him from the foyer, over endless Persian rugs leading us through a sitting room with the fireplace going, down a hall to our right, past a breakfast nook nestled up inside a window box, through a butler’s kitchen, and then into the actual, huge, white-and-gold kitchen. Chef Luis was already in there stirring around something in a pan that was sizzling and wonderfully aromatic.

“How long until dinner?” Master asked as he pulled me behind him around the island.

“About 30 minutes, sir.”

Master stopped us at the fridge, yanking it open. I saw inside that it was stuffed with my favorite snacks, from lots of healthy stuff to a few decadent choices. Yogurts, pre-mixed salads, veggie trays, mini cheese plates, blueberries upon blueberries upon blueberries, several unpacked cases of my favorite sparkling water, and various choices of colorful and absolutely delectable-looking slices of cake and chocolates truffles.

Master grabbed a mixed berry yogurt, then a spoon in the same hand, not taking his other off my bicep, and practically dragged me through the kitchen further into the manor, finally settling us on a wicker loveseat in the sunroom.

He stopped me in my tracks, positioned me by the sofa, and pushed me down onto it. He dropped onto the sofa right beside me, and peeled back the lid off the yogurt, handing it to me with the spoon. “Eat,” he commanded me with little warmth.

I kept my head down, and dutifully gulped back a few spoonfuls of yogurt. It was rich and delicious, and I was starving, but I still did not enjoy eating it.

“Why did you not eat today, slave?”

“Respectfully, Master, you know why.”

Master rubbed his chin and watched me eat, wheels spinning in his head.

I can almost never eat the day before meeting Master, especially if it’s been awhile since we were last together. And this time, it’s been three weeks, as Master was away on business. He asked me to go with him, but I had work, to which he countered that he’d pay me for lost time. But, I liked my job, and did not want to skip out on it.

I also have no interest in his money.

Sure, being spoiled by Master as much as he does feels wonderful, especially after a grueling, unaffectionate, bouquet-less dating experience throughout the entirety of my adulthood thus far. But the money and the gifts really do not interest me. It’s always been about him and only him ever since the first time he put me over his knee and spanked me, holding me in place with my hair wrapped around his fist, calling me the most beautiful and desperate whore he’s ever seen, promising to ruin me for all other cock.

Which he has.

But, as much as my sanity rests in being owned, I still need a sliver of my time to be spent as just Nadia. Being owned by Master was to be a flittering kite in the sky, Free to fly and dance with the breeze, but always safely pulled back down when the storms come. Without a Master down on Earth gripping them in his hand, a slave is lost to the skies before unceremoniously crashing in tatters onto some far away land.

This is what being a slave is to me. To be anchored, but by choice. Free to float, but able to depend on never being let go. Knowing I’ll be treasured once back on Earth. Never drowning in my anxiety disorder when I can’t properly gauge the importance of the many, varied choices I have to make all day, because with the first lightening crack, Master will have me back in his arms in an instant, and take away my ability to choose for myself, which in effect dissipates the pressure inside me to perform. He lets me be me. And I am a slave. His slave. Underneath it all.

It all means so much to me that I can’t eat the day that I am to meet Master, sometimes even the day before, as well. It’s too much energy. All the stress and tension and trauma that I carry in my “Nadia life” is impatiently bubbling under my surface, threatening to crack my dermis like an earthquake, craving release. Screaming anxiety and the joyful expectation of relief swirl together in my stomach, and overflow up to my throat, making it impossible to enjoy food, much less think about it.

Master’s strike across my cheek in the foyer was the first crack I needed, which sort of felt like the emotional equivalent of taking my bra off, but it wasn’t not enough. I needed Master to break me.

Master stopped rubbing his chin. “No, I don’t know why you feel so nervous before our dates.”

My lips twitch with shy affection. “Master, don’t you like that I get excited over you?”

“Excited, sure. But you make it sound terrible, getting ready to see me.”

“It’s the anticipation over-stimulating me, but also stress about getting all of your requests right when I’m packing. I feel too sick to eat because I like my Master so much.”

Ugh. ‘Like.’

That sounded lame. But it doesn’t feel quite right yet to use any stronger word, no matter the truth behind it. And, I am not ready to risk losing him, which I could do if I told him what I really feel. No, I need more time with him first.

“But you’ve never let me down, slave,” Master replied, the hand of his arm that he had stretched across the back of the sofa coming down to my neck, his pointer finger tracing up and down between my shoulder and ear.

He knows when he touches my neck like that, he might as well be running his tongue up my slit. I began melting instantly, the vibration of anxiety shedding off me like heat waves.

This is heaven.

“So, I don’t know why you stress so much about it still.”

I shrug, and tilt my yogurt cup so he can see I’ve finished it.

“Very good, slave,” he said gently, taking the cup and spoon out of my hand and placing it on the accent table in front of us. “Now tell me, what rule have you broken?”

“Rule 3, clause 1.1, Master. The slave must prioritize her physical and mental well-being. That includes properly feeding myself on a set schedule.”

“That’s right, slave. Why?”

“Because I am your property, and you need your property in tip-top shape so you can properly ruin it, and still be able to put it back together again,” I respond with a smile.

“Yes, slave. So I have to punish you now, you know that right?”

I barely shake my head yes, fear locking me up all over. I realized I was supposed to say, yes, Master, and I know he caught the slip, too, but he let it go. Which is how I knew he was really up to something dreadful.

My Pussy clenched. I just hoped whatever it is, it involved his cock.

“How long as has it been since the last time you ate?” he asked me.

“Mm. Just about twenty-four hours, Master.”

“Okay. Then I shall punish you twenty-four times, does that sound fair?”

“Yes, Master.”

Master stood up, and grabbed my hand, pulling me up with him.

Gently, he guided me to the dining room, and stood us at the end of the long, 12-seat table adorned with a generous row of half-melted, dripping taper candles. The air was heavy with quiet, like we’d walked into a church. And the silence buzzed. I could feel that Master had an electric current under his skin, overcome with the urge to hurt me, and treasured this moment with the kind of reverence that people bring to church altars when they feel they’ve been lost, but finally found.

Master pulled away the chair from the head of the table.

“Bend over, slave.”

I knew I was to move as soon as Master commanded me to, but my muscles locked in fear.

“You’re going punish me here, Master?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at the doorway that leads to the kitchen.

“Bend over.”

Demurely, I folded my hands in front of me, and stepped to the table, but couldn’t bring myself to comply. Surely Chef Luis was going to hear? Or even worse, see?

Master’s temper snapped. He closed the distance between us in a flash and grabbed my hands, turning them palm-side down to the table, flattening them to the cold wood.

“If you didn’t want to be humiliated in front of Chef Luis, then you wouldn’t have broken any rules,” Master snapped at me with a strained attempt at speaking evenly, temper threatening to erupt. He then yanked up my dress over my Ass, and pushed between my shoulder blades to fully flatten me across the table, allowing the silk to settle around my waist.

Master yanked down my panties to my knees without any care for seduction, and in the process, I heard a small rip.

“Master, those are the purple panties. You told me to get purple lingerie for this weekend. And you made me use your card, you bought those.”

I heard Master behind me breathe in slowly, but harshly, between his teeth, which is what he does when he’s reigning in annoyance before he loses control, which sometimes he succeeds in, but not always.

“That’s very nice of you to worry, but I don’t really give a fuck. Are you ready, slave?”

Before I could answer, he brought down a stinging spank on my bare Ass, no warm up provided.

“One,” I dutifully said, trying not to visibly wince.

Another one, just as hard.

“Two.”

Another, just a bit harder, but enough that I realized this was not going to be an average spanking.

“Three,” I said with a crack already in my voice.

By the time we got to 10 spanks, I was sure that the tears pooling behind my eyelids would betray me at any moment, and Chef Luis had become oddly noisier in the kitchen, pans and pots and silverware hitting the countertops much louder than seemed necessary. I felt it was his way of trying to create an illusion that he couldn’t hear my humiliation, which endeared me to him, but did not make me feel any less embarrassed.

Sometimes, as Master stood behind me bringing his hand down with a crack, I could feel his erection against my Ass, and I marveled at my ability to compose myself and not give in to the urge to back my behind into him. With more spanks, his erection became more hard.

Tears were splattering on the table by spank nineteen, which is when he paused and gently stroked my hair away from my face.

“You’ve been very good, slave. You counted faithfully, never missing a beat, never cursing or complaining. Do you think if I spared you these last five, you’ll have learned your lesson?”

I took a moment to answer, hating myself for being such a good slave, because I already knew what the right answer was.

“Yes, Master, but, I disobeyed you. Please give me the last five spanks. I deserve them.”

“Really? What if I want to hit you harder than ever before?”

I shut my eyes closed hard, squinting with a wince, bracing myself. “Yes please, Master.”

Master affectionately ran his fingertips over the inflamed handprints on my Ass. “I wish you could see your Ass right now, slave. You’d be proud. Like I am. You’re such a good slave. Even when you disobey, it’s because you’re thinking about me so intently that you make yourself sick.”

I slowly opened my eyes, but did not dare reveal any sign of hope that I had perhaps saved myself from the worst of the punishment.

“But I am still going to hit you. You’re right. You disobeyed. You deserve these last five.”

I quickly squinted my eyes again, bracing myself for my already quite tender Ass to take the hardest five spanks it ever has had brought down on it.

But Master did not hit me with full strength. He did not hold back, it still stung like hell, but they weren’t his full-strength spanks, and mercifully, he brought them down so fast I could hardly comprehend that they were over.

The relief was so intense that I almost stood right back up without permission, but I remembered to stay put until Master told me otherwise.

“Okay, slave,” he said as I spotted him checking his watch in the limited peripheral of my view. “Ten minutes until dinner. I have a few emails to send. Wait here for me.”

I felt Master bring his hand to my underwear, and start to pull it back up my legs, giving me hope that he’d at least cover me before he left me to stand here bent over the table, but he changed his mind, withdrawing his hand, and left me there without a word.