Clara had lost the ability to be astonished. She had lost the ability to feel nervousness or anticipation, to look forward or back. She had been whipsawed between so many different experiences and emotions, in such a short time, that her mind simply refused to process any more. She existed as a single pin-point of consciousness, tethered only to Adam, to his wishes and his commands. Her finger slid into the folds of her body.

“Show me.” She obediently spread the labia and slid her finger along her clit. Her legs began to tremble. “Lie down, Clara.” She did so, starting to lie horizontally in front of him but moving when he indicated that she was to position herself with her legs facing the leather club chair. “Scoot down. Wrap your legs around the chair.” She did so. “Go on.” Clara resumed her caresses. She was getting close, closer. . . . Suddenly, Adam grabbed her legs and pulled her so that her ass was up against the chair’s cool leather while he held her legs apart and viewed her openness from above. Like being at the gynecologist, she thought irrelevantly. “Clara,” he said patiently. “Continue.”

She waited for a moment to see if he had any other adjustments to make, then began again. She caressed her breasts and then her nipples, tugging on them gently, licking a finger and spiraling it around the hardening nubs. She pinched them, rolling them between her fingers, until the ache in her clit became too much for her. Slowly her hand again crept downward.

It was such a relief to be offered release, she wanted to savor it. She stroked her open thighs, her belly, circling in on the core of her desire. She slid a finger into her own wetness and rubbed it along her smooth cunt-lips. Finally, she moved her finger toward her aching clit, beginning at the base and working her way to the very tip. Adam’s clinical gaze had unnerved her; her head was turned aside and her eyes were half-closed. She was floating on her own sensations.

“Clara!” he hissed. There was menace in the whisper. “Clara, look at me. Look at me.” She faced him, startled. “Clara, you are mistaken. This isn’t for your gratification, but for my amusement. I want you to know, at every moment, where your pleasure comes from. Look at me.” He was leaning over her, his thighs holding her open, his eyes summoning hers. As she met them, there was the same shock she had felt the last time he forced her to face him. Although he had again interrupted her self-ministrations, that moment of meeting his eyes throbbed in her, moved directly to her cunt. She gasped. He held her gaze. “Go. On.” She resumed rubbing the sensitive tip of her clit.

Now she was lost, not in her own mind, but in his eyes. He owned her. Her hands were his hands, her pleasure his pleasure. She felt like a mirror, or a vessel, as if it were he, and not she herself, who was feeling this mounting excitement, as if it were he who, in minutes, moments, seconds, would shatter into orgasm. His orgasm, for which she was only the conduit. She began to feel almost dizzy.

“Keep your eyes open,” he said, sitting up but continuing to spread her wide. “Don’t you dare come. Keep yourself there.” She struggled to obey, but feared she would tip over the edge. She lightened her touch. “Ah, ah, ah. Right at the edge.” She increased the pressure as instructed. Moments passed. “Please, Adam.” – “Please, what?” – “Please, I can’t do this much longer. Please let me come.” He just shook his head slightly, almost incredulous. “Then please let me stop touching. Please. I can’t wait, I can’t keep doing this.” – “No. And don’t ask me again.” He got up from the chair and wandered over to the small bar at the end of the room. “Keep touching, exactly like that.” She felt a despair she had not felt under his eyes. Her moving finger never lost its rhythm.

Adam returned, stepping over her supine form and settling back into the chair, a double old fashioned glass in his hand. As he sat down he casually slopped a portion of the icy Scotch over her breasts and belly. The cold instantly shocked her away from her orgasm. “There.” Don’t say I never did anything for you, he thought to himself.

Clara knew better than to stop her caresses. She was still aroused, still ready, but no longer on the very brink of coming. “Monique, come here,” commanded Adam. Monique crept over. “Clean that up.”

Monique’s warm mouth descended on the frigid pool of liquid that rested in the hollow of Clara’s belly, in the cleft between her breasts. She parted her lips generously and traced upward, from the floor where the liquid had seeped, along Clara’s ribcage, across her belly, up her breasts. Clara was rapidly approaching that same pinnacle she had been wrested from moments before. Monique finished cleaning Clara with long upward strokes of her tongue on the tight breasts, ending at the aching nipples. She sat up slightly and looked at Adam. He motioned her away with his head.

This was too much for Clara. Monique’s mouth had been so arousing, she so wanted to feel it continue to pleasure her breasts, to feel the teeth as she had before on the base of her nipples, the gentle nursing and the harsh, bruising bites – to have that erotic experience reduced to the indignity of being bathed, to feel the trail of Monique’s saliva cooling stickily on her skin, to have borne the casual contempt of Adam’s drink splashing across her open body – Clara began to quiver in the realization of Adam’s complete ability treat her in any way he pleased. She could feel her orgasm building. As it rushed upon her, Adam, as if reading her thoughts, leaned over and, with quiet deliberation, spit wetly onto her clenching belly. She screamed as her vision blurred.

She was engulfed.