Chapter 39

“You’re so wet, love.” Jules pinched the soft skin, unfolding her like a book, and the feather’s shaft scratched along the inside of her nether lips. She froze as he curved around her clitoris. A soft sound escaped her throat—that sharp point would be unbearable, if he dragged it over her clit, but she wanted that contact so badly, it would almost be worth the pain. “God, you’re gushing.” He sounded awed.

The point of the feather scraped the soft flesh of her stomach, pressing harder now, on the edge of pain even for this less-sensitive skin. It took her a moment to realize he was carving his name into her, and then she started shaking. Another moan slipped free. He looked down into her eyes as he began to trace a spiral around her breast. Shanna arched her back again, pleading.

As the feather’s point reached the edge of her aureola, he bent, and his mouth closed over her other nipple, and she sobbed in mingled relief and frustration. “Please,” she whimpered. “God, please!”

Jules hummed happily. Dropping the feather, he reached out and slapped the stopwatch, lifted it to check the time.

She’d already broken the rule against talking. “What is it?”

He smiled and dropped it. “Do you want me to answer that, or do this—” He drew her nipple between his teeth again, sucking hard. “—again?”A Man with an Agenda by Lynn Townsend

“So why do you like bondage?”

I squirm inwardly, but not outwardly. In the last several years, I have perfected the art of the submissive. I don’t like that question because there’s no good answer for it—no two sentence response that can be trimmed into a sound bite for the article. It’s not the first time some journalist has asked me this question. The answer is of great import, to the reporter, to the readers, and of course, it should be important to me. And I still don’t know how to respond.

Truth is, I got into bondage initially out of sheer laziness. Silly, right? Simple at first; let him tie me up with silky ropes that I could have gotten out of if I’d wanted to, but I didn’t. And then just lie there, let him do what he wanted. It was easy. I didn’t have to work for it, didn’t have to guess what he’d want. He did what he wanted and I let him and it was simple. And they paid for it, oh my sweet goddess, how the money rolled in.

Let me back up a moment, start from the beginning.

I am a courtesan. I learned my craft at the sides of my sisters in the tea house.

I can’t believe, sometimes, that they still call it that. Traditionally, for centuries, my profession bounced around between being ignored or being loathed, eventually to being accepted, common-place, and finally to being celebrated. And yet, tradition is strong. Our training centers are called “tea houses,” as if we’re involuntary comfort women in some long-forgotten war. As if we’re driven to sell our bodies because we’re drug-dependent runaways and we need to hide from peacekeepers. It is silly, archaic, and if I have my way with this reporter, I will eventually give voice to these thoughts. I may not. I recognize the look of a man with an agenda.

After training, I specialized. From soft rope to chains and cuffs, to spreader bars, and to the intricacies of kinbaku—the extreme artistic binding of ancient Japan—I was willing to do it all. Suspension, breath play, blood play, cells, cages.

And somehow, over the years, I have gained a reputation in this city.

My appointments are booked months in advance. I have many apprentices, young men and women, at my disposal. Assigned to clients as I will it, all of whom have come to me to gain prestige by associating themselves with such a famous woman.

Don’t mistake me. I love sex. I would never have been allowed to collect a courtesan’s license if I hadn’t passed years of work, psychological screenings. I appreciate my body as a work of art, a gift of the goddess, and passion is the ultimate form of worship. The cries of bliss are a ballad, an homage unto the sexual nature of our physical forms.

And yet, I’m lazy.

I want things done to me and I wish to lie back and appreciate them.

I am selfish.

I don’t want to care about someone else’s orgasm, to work for their pleasure. They can find it themselves, and they so often do.

I am arrogant.

I deserve worship. I crave it. I need do nothing but lie here, and men and women will desire me, want me, take me, and pay me handsomely for the privilege.