Ellie Submits

Ellie is showering after a long workout when she hears an enormous, metallic CLANG come from the main area of the company gym.

The company gym is open twenty-four hours a day, but Ellie is usually the only one using it this late in the evening. She’s a fitness fiend. At least three times a week, right after finishing work, she comes down here and puts in several hours of exercise before heading home to eat. Normally everybody else has left by the time she’s done.

But the sound of a woman yelling means there must be someone else out there. “Oh, crap!” the voice shouts, urgently. She sounds like she’s in real trouble. “Oh no. Help, HELP! ANYONE?”

Ellie sprints out of the shower, through the changing room and out into the main area. It looks like one of the huge multigym machines has fallen over, landing at an angle across an exercise bench. There is a woman underneath the bench, stuck. She seems unharmed, but the machine is slipping and the woman is about to be crushed.

Ellie sprints over, grips the machine’s frame, plants her feet and heaves upwards as hard as she can. It’s not a great angle and her hands are slick with foam from the shower, but she moves it. She switches grip as the machine rises to forty-five degrees, and pushes it fully upright. It drops back into its usual position with a second incredibly loud metallic crash, one which rattles the whole building.

The other woman scrambles free and gets to her feet, panting, adrenaline surging through her. “Unbelievable. Thank you. So much! Ah. Um.”

“Are you hurt?” Ellie asks, reaching out to take the other woman’s hand.

She recoils. “I. Um. I’m fine. Oh. My…” And then she just stops talking, dumbstruck.

Aside from a shower cap, Ellie is buck naked. She is dripping wet, and her deeply tanned skin glistens, speckled with foam. She is twenty-three years old, more than a head taller than the other woman, with ice-blue eyes and cropped, ash-blonde hair, and she is a mountain of Amazonian muscle. Her upper body is a broad, inflated diamond, with bulging trapezii, shoulders like cannonballs, prominent pectoral cleavage extending to her collar bone, and perky, medium breasts. Her expansive latissimi dorsi taper down to a tightly sculpted waist. She has abdominals like a stack of bricks. She has the V: deep iliac furrows leading from the crests of her hips down towards her pussy, where she has a few tufts of blonde hair. Her thighs are immense slabs of muscle. Her calves are like fists.

The other woman takes all of this in in a fraction of a second. It is something of a shock.

Ellie looks down too. “Oh. Excuse me,” she says, and dashes back to the showers. The shower, which she left running, can be heard to stop. She returns a second later, wrapped in a brightly coloured towel. By the time she returns, the other woman has sat down on the bench and composed herself a little. The bench is badly dented, and no longer horizontal.

Ellie kneels in front of her, looking up into her eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay, ma’am?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.” She seems shaken.

“You’re Miriam Wright, aren’t you?” Ellie asks.

“Yes.”

Miriam Wright is the office director. It’s a large corporation, with a dozen large offices in four countries, and every office has a director. Sixteen hundred people work for Miriam here, including, beneath several layers of management, Ellie.

Miriam Wright is exceptionally good-looking for forty-nine. She is short, a little over five feet tall, but has a stern attitude to her which, in Ellie’s eyes at least, makes her seem more intimidating than her size should permit. (Kneeling in front of her, below her eye level, enhances the effect.) She has thin, dark lips, green eyes and high cheekbones. Her dark hair is pulled back tightly into a fat bun. She is curvaceous, with a very generous bust, a trim waist and broad hips. Her bust is held firmly by a robust white sports top. She wears black yoga leggings with a luminous pink stripe, and black and red pumps.

She and Ellie were introduced once before, almost a year ago, back when Ellie was originally hired. But they haven’t crossed paths since. “I’m sorry,” Miriam confesses. “I remember you, but not your name.”

“Ellie, ma’am. Eleanor Holloway.”

“Oh, yes. You started last year?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ellie is nervous. She has heard on the grapevine that Miriam can be a fierce and demanding person to work for. She can feel the authority radiating off her.

“Where are you working?” Miriam asks.

“Pharmaceuticals development, ma’am. My master’s degree was in biochemistry.”

“Brains and brawn. You were a good hire.”

“Um, yes. I hope so, ma’am.”

Unsteadily, Miriam stands up. But, as she does so, she leans on Ellie’s shoulder, informing her in a strangely indirect way that she should remain kneeling. While Ellie watches, Miriam circles the bench and inspects the exercise machine.

“For the first time in my life I decide to use the company gym instead of my own at home, and the first thing that happens is it falls on me. I think I owe you my life, young lady. Or least a leg bone or two.”

Ellie bows her head, gratefully. “I’m… I’m just glad I was here, ma’am.”

Miriam picks up an unidentifiable fragment of metal from the floor. “Perhaps a bolt sheared? Faulty installation. Whatever the case, someone’s head is going to roll.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Miriam peers inside the machine. “You lifted this thing? My God. How much do you think it weighs? There must be half a ton of weights in there.”

“I couldn’t say, ma’am. It’s not as if I lifted it off the ground.”

Miriam turns to her. “Stand up. Let me look at you.”

Ellie stands up. She does it almost without thinking. She’s still wearing nothing but a towel and a shower cap. She clutches the top of her towel.

“Hands by your sides,” Miriam adds. “Feet together.”

Ellie obeys, instantly. Then she wonders to herself why she is doing everything Miriam tells her to do.

She finds herself unaccountably unable to think of an answer.

Miriam takes Ellie’s unresisting left hand and examines it, with the cool, professional manner of a doctor. She turns Ellie’s palm over, then feels her powerful forearm muscle, and then runs her fingers down the groove between Ellie’s well-defined biceps and triceps, and then over her shoulder.

She lets Ellie’s arm fall. Ellie remains at attention as Miriam circles behind her, admiring her back, which is a network of muscle — at least, the quarter of it visible above the towel.

Miriam looks down. The towel drops to only a few inches below Ellie’s buttocks, which tragically aren’t visible from this angle. Miriam takes a closer look at Ellie’s powerful thighs, but doesn’t touch.

“You’ve been working,” Miriam says, appreciatively.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“For how long? Lift your foot up.”

Ellie shifts her weight and lifts her right foot up, balancing easily without needing to spread her arms. She realises… that she kind of enjoys doing what Miriam tells her.

She wonders why.

Miriam takes hold of her foot, and runs her hand down Ellie’s calf, squeezing her hard calf muscle.

“I asked you a question,” Miriam says.

Ellie says, “Oh. Um. Well, I’ve always loved running and climbing, ever since I was a teenager. But I never had proper access to a gym before, so, since I’ve been here… oh…”

Miriam has begun pressing her thumb into the sole of Ellie’s foot. She strokes her ankle, feeling more muscle and tendon, and then presses her instep. It is impossible that Miriam could have known this in advance, but Ellie’s feet are very sensitive and she adores having them massaged. Ellie bites her lip, to avoid making an embarrassing noise.

Miriam releases Ellie’s foot. She walks around in front of Ellie again, who is still standing to attention with her arms at her sides. Ellie can feel that her towel is slowly loosening.

Miriam looks up into Ellie’s eyes with a hard, calculating stare. She says, “You have an incredible physique, young lady. You’ve been working very hard. I’m impressed.”

Ellie blushes. It feels unexpectedly good to receive such praise. She’s heard stories that Miriam Wright is nearly impossible to impress. “Thank you, ma’am!”

“Who’s it all for?” Miriam asks. She gestures at Ellie’s body. “All this work.”

“Um. For me, ma’am. See, I had to move all the way across the country to take this job. It was a big opportunity. I left all my friends and family behind, my ex. I made a clean break. And since then, I haven’t really… seen anyone. I came here to work on my career. And on myself. So… I’m working for me.”

“Well, you work for me, now,” Miriam says. “Don’t you?”

“Uh, yes.”

“So all of this,” Miriam says, gesturing again, “is for me. Really. Isn’t it?”

“Ah. Yes.” Ellie gulps again. Her towel is about to drop. Somehow, she can’t move her arms. She wonders what would happen if she didn’t catch it. But Miriam’s seen everything already, right? There is a long, breathless moment.

And then the spell breaks. Miriam shrugs, and her whole attitude changes. Her poised, authoritative stance becomes casual and she turns away. “Well, don’t let me keep you,” she says, in a friendly, conversational tone of voice. She bends down to pick up some dropped things, her phone and a sweat top.

Ellie unfreezes, and grabs her towel, just in time, and tightens it up around her chest. “Yes. Okay. Thank you, it was nice to meet you. I’ll see you around, ah… Miriam?” That feels wrong.

Miriam smiles at her. It’s a smile which says, “You know better than that.”

Ellie says, “Ma’am.”

*

Ellie finishes changing. As she leaves, Miriam is using the running machine, going flat out, sports top keeping her bust well under control. She must be wearing at least a G cup.

Ellie waves awkwardly from the far end of the gym as she leaves, but Miriam is listening to something on headphones, and doesn’t look around.

*

After that, it’s only a matter of time.

Ellie falls into a more predictable routine, working out for a solid three hours per night, three nights per week, right after work. And Miriam starts showing up more frequently, coming down for a quick workout session most of the same nights as Ellie. Miriam is pleased to act as a spotter for Ellie when she lifts, and help her with her form during other exercises. Most evenings they have the gym to themselves. They talk about exercise and diet, and work and business. Miriam is a fountain of valuable career advice. And they both open up a little, and Ellie talks about her life back home.

She hated it. “I had to get away,” she says. “I needed a clean break. I was sick of sacrificing so much of myself for other people who treated me like dirt. I needed some space to be me.”

Miriam understands.

Almost every time they work out together, they end up using the showers together too. Ellie tries not to stare, but she can’t help it, or hide it. Miriam has curves for days, magnificent lush breasts with fat areolae, and an equally magnificent ass and legs. A classical hourglass figure. Great skin, and, Ellie soon discovers, masses of shimmering dark hair, a silky curtain which falls far past her shoulders when it’s not carefully pinned up or tied away. She favours red or black yoga leggings. She is a vision when she’s working out: when she’s running hard, or stretching, or sweating.

When she’s dressed for business, if anything, it’s even harder not to stare. Miriam usually arrives at the gym wearing a white or cream cotton blouse and a tight, high-waisted skirt, with opaque tights and practical ankle boots. Stud earrings, thin silver necklace. All business. Dressed to rule. Green eyes and an icy stare. Ellie can hardly tear her eyes away. When she’s waiting for Miriam to show up, she finds herself constantly glancing up at the door, in anticipation. And when Miriam does arrive, her stroll down the middle of the gym to say “Hi”… her swaying hips, her delighted smile at seeing that her friend Ellie is there to greet her… it has, somehow, become the highlight of Ellie’s day. When Miriam doesn’t show up — it happens sometimes, like when she needs to call the Australian office — it is a crushing disappointment.

When Ellie ventures a hesitant question about Miriam’s attire, she describes it as part of her job.

“At my level of seniority, appearances are crucial. It’s a balancing act. The wrong look, the wrong hairstyle or the wrong weight, can hurt your credibility. You don’t want to look too severe or you get taken for a… a schoolmarm, or a police officer. But too far in the other direction and you’re just eye candy, and nobody pays attention to a word you say. Men. Women too. It’s all very shallow, and stupid. But… it’s a game I’m good at. And I like the authority playing the game gets me. So it’s a conscious tradeoff.”

“What would you wear instead? If you had the choice,” Ellie asks. “Um. Ma’am.”

Miriam looks down at her office wear, her skirt and polished shoes. She smiles at a private thought. “Well. I like to dress for authority. I think I’d go for something like this, but… more. If you know what I mean.”

Ellie shakes her head. She doesn’t.

Miriam knows she doesn’t. She declines to explain further. She saunters away, to get changed.

When she comes back, Ellie is doing leg presses. Miriam takes a position on a mat nearby and starts cycling through advanced yoga positions. Ellie tries to focus on her own work, but Miriam’s body is a wonderful distraction. It’s almost like she’s specifically choosing the most sensual, provocative poses. Ellie watches, mouth dry, as Miriam drops into the “downward dog”: forehead and feet on the floor, ass raised up, legs and body straight to form a triangle, arms splayed forwards across the floor. Ellie forgets about her own exercises and the machine falls silent as she watches.

Miriam smiles to herself, knowing exactly what effect she’s having.

“Young lady, when you’re done, don’t start your next exercise,” she says, not looking around. “I’m going to teach you something.”

“Ma’am?”

Miriam doesn’t clarify.

A few minutes later, Ellie is done with her leg presses. Miriam takes her to one end of the gymnasium. There’s a straight walk down the middle to the far end and back. Mirrors on most sides.

“I want to teach you how to walk properly,” Miriam explains. “A little discipline. This is about grace. Not brute strength. Have you ever done any ballet?”

“When I was seven, ma’am,” Ellie says. She gave it up pretty quickly, after the instructor told her that she was growing up too big, and that she would never be a real ballet dancer. It’s not a fond memory.

“I want to see you walk to one end of the gym and back. As naturally as you can. Don’t think about it, just do it.”

Ellie obeys. The walk back makes her a little self-conscious, because she’s walking straight towards Miriam’s appraising stare. She looks down and away, avoiding eye contact.

“Alright,” Miriam says. “Same again, but keep your head up. Proud nose.”

Ellie obeys. As she reaches the far wall and turns back, Miriam tells her, “Look forward. Lift your chin up a little. And don’t close yourself up. You’re hunching your shoulders. Let your arms swing naturally.”

Ellie tries to do what she’s told. It’s weirdly difficult. “Ma’am, what’s this about?”

“You’re learning to walk properly,” Miriam says again. As Ellie returns the second time, Miriam says, “You still don’t know what to do with your hands. Try to forget about them. Think more about your legs and spine. In fact… Fold your arms behind your back. Like they don’t exist. Now walk. Focus on keeping your legs straight. Poise. Lift your knees just a little higher. Make every step a conscious one. Now turn around and come back to me.”

With her arms folded behind her, Ellie finds she stands up a little straighter, and pushes her chest out a little more. Miriam smiles. “Good. Better. Okay. Same again, but walk on the balls of your feet.”

“Ma’am?”

“Like you’re wearing tall heels.”

“I don’t–”

“The young lady doesn’t wear heels, of course. A crying shame. We’ll take care of that another time. But walk like you do. Tiptoes. Place each foot almost exactly in front of the last.”

Ellie tries to obey.

Miriam watches her form. “…No, not exactly in front! You’re weaving like you’re seasick. Almost in front. Just enough to shift your behind a little. And keep your head up. Be proud! Think to yourself, ‘I’m the best-looking creature in the place. I want all eyes on me.’ Watch your form in the mirror. Keep it symmetrical. ‘I deserve to be looked at.’ Ah. Look at that.”

Ellie walks back to her. “Ma’am, I didn’t know walking took so much effort. And it feels strange not using my hands.”

“Once you’re used to it, it’s barely any effort at all. Watch me.”

Miriam kicks her shoes off, and demonstrates. Ellie watches, still with her arms folded behind her, and not able to speak. Miriam walks in a way Ellie has never seen her move before, the way she was trying to train Ellie to walk. A gazelle-like stride. Her whole body sways, under perfect, sensual control: legs, hips, shoulders, arms too, neck, even her hair. She’s so calculated in the way she moves… and yet, it looks like she does it without any effort.

As she comes back, Ellie realises that her mouth is open. She shuts it.

Miriam smiles. “Dignity, poise, grace, fine motor control. Again. Walk with me. Walk like I do.”

Ellie walks beside her, in step, trying to imitate her.

“Ma’am–”

“You’re still trying to move your arms,” Miriam interrupts her. “Stay there.” She goes away to her kit bag, and returns with a long orange piece of elasticated rubber, intended for resistance exercises. “Hold still,” she says, and in a trice, she has tied a knot around Ellie’s upper and lower arms, fixing them in place, folded behind her back, with an attractive bow in the middle and the loose ends trailing.

Ellie flexes her shoulders. She can stretch the band quite a bit, but there’s plenty of resistance and she can’t free her arms. “Ma’am!”

“I’ll teach you what to do with your arms another time. Walk. Walk like you’re beautiful.”

Ellie walks.

“Better,” Miriam says.

The exercise continues for another quarter-hour. Eventually Ellie is able to demonstrate the walk Miriam is asking for, and performs a full circuit, up to the far end of the gym and back again, unassisted, without instruction, flawlessly, though not without a lot of concentration.

“And, when you return to me, stop.”

By now, Ellie has kind of forgotten about her bound arms. She returns to her boss and stands at attention in front of her, dropping from tiptoes to stand flat, and awaiting further instructions.

“Very good,” Miriam tells her. “Very good indeed.”

“Thank you, ma’am!” Ellie smiles and blushes. “Um. Ma’am? You don’t walk like this.”

“Of course not. I’m not teaching you to walk like me, I’m teaching you to walk the way I want you to walk.” As she’s saying this, Miriam produces another resistance band, this one purple, and slings it around Ellie’s neck, like a short scarf.

Ellie asks, “Why?”

Miriam grasps the ends of the band. She pulls with both hands, slowly increasing the tension until Ellie has to bend forward, lowering her head until her face is just a few inches from Miriam’s.

“Because I care about you, Ellie. And I want you to look good.”

Ellie stares into her hard green eyes. Miriam stares back at her. Ellie’s eyes are ice-blue, big and doe-like.

“Ma’am, I–” Ellie begins, but Miriam silences her with just a look, just a single slightly raised eyebrow.

There is a long, breathless pause. Ellie waits for the spell to break again, but this time it doesn’t. She feels herself stretching, tension rising.

“You work for me now,” Miriam tells her. “Directly. From now on, I want you to do whatever I tell you to do. Immediately and without question. No matter what it is. Can you do that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ellie says, immediately, instinctively, urgently. She feels small and hot. She wants to scream, to beg Miriam to tell her to do something.

“Kneel.”

Ellie kneels, gazing up adoringly at the woman with the power over her.

Miriam bends low, and gathers the band in her fists, and pulls Ellie in, and kisses her, deeply. Ellie kisses her in return, neck bent back, lips flickering over the older woman’s lips. Their tongues dart curiously around one another. They kiss for almost a minute. Ellie struggles with her hands. Normally should would be running them through Miriam’s hair, and around her waist, and maybe up under her top. It’s a novel and exciting experience to not be able to take any control. Miriam is controlling the moment, and Ellie… loses herself, just a little bit, in Miriam’s moment.

Miriam withdraws, slowly. Ellie gets a few smaller kisses in, but soon her boss is standing up straight, achingly out of reach.

Ellie sits back, blushing deeply, smiling, tingling, rapt, and still somehow confused.

Ellie is twenty-three years old. She has dated and slept with various boys and girls of her own age, with varying degrees of commitment and enjoyment. Brief loves. One serious love, which ended very badly. Some miserable one-night experiences. But through all of it, she has never found real satisfaction. Romance became a stale puddle for her, with nothing new to experience. Nobody in her home town ever… took her seriously. Nobody matched up to her.

She has never been with someone like Miriam. This is new to her. It is not a relationship of a kind she fully comprehends.

And then, just as she’s attempting to muster the courage to ask what is going on:

“Tell no one of this,” Miriam orders her. She is still holding the ends of the purple band in her fists, like a kind of leash. “Act like it never happened. Even when you’re with me. Even if we’re alone together. Wait. Until I tell you when. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Now stand up and resume your exercises.” Miriam releases the purple band. She walks away, to a running machine, and starts configuring it.

Ellie stands up. She turns, struggling with her bound arms. “Um, ma’am?”

“Oh, and you can take that off now,” Miriam remarks, casually.

“Ma’am, I don’t think I can.”

“Of course you can,” Miriam says. “What use is all that muscle if you can’t flex your way out of a trivial bind like that?”

“But how?”

Miriam shrugs. “Work it out.” She starts jogging on the machine.

Ellie flexes. She looks at herself in the mirror, turning so she can see the complex knot behind her. Then, while looking, she flexes again, harder, shoulders bulging, stretching the orange rubber to its limit. She gropes for a loop of the rubber with one hand, catches it in a thumb, and pulls it down below her elbow. That’s enough for the entire assemblage to come loose. She unthreads it from her other arm, and it falls to the floor, a confusing knot of orange. She picks it up and unties the knot. There’s a slight burning in her arms from the effort.

“There, see?” Miriam says, breathing heavily as she runs. “If I really wanted to immobilize you, you’d know about it.” She puffs. “I wouldn’t use stretchy elastic, for one thing.”

“What would you use?”

“What?” Miriam didn’t quite hear over the sound of the machine and her pounding feet.

“What would you tie me up with? Ma’am.”

“Oh, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

*

Ellie lives with another girl, Sonja, who is outgoing and flirty and dirty and generally the best buddy she could have. Sonja already knows that Ellie has been working out with her boss’s boss’s boss, and knows that Ellie thinks Miriam is an impressive woman. And, Sonja is gossipy and heavily invested in Ellie’s love life.

Point being, she may or may not have guessed that Ellie has a crush on the woman. Ellie doesn’t know either way. She does know that Sonja would flip out completely if she were told what actually just happened.

When Ellie gets home, Sonja is waiting, making a huge amount of curry. “Hi, babe! You’d better be hungry. I fucking am.”

Ellie considers telling her what happened. But Miriam said, “Tell no one of this.” So it’s an easy decision to say nothing.

Ellie realises that she kind of likes having the decision made for her. It gives her a warm, secure feeling to not have to think about it. It doesn’t matter that Miriam didn’t exactly explain why. She trusts her.

*

The next two times they meet in the gym, Miriam behaves as if nothing happened at all. It’s as if the whole encounter was just an act, a little one-act play they were performing in, and now it’s over. Miriam runs on her machine, and Ellie lifts. They chat about work, music, food, fashion. They shower. Ellie bubbles with puzzled lust, desperate to make a first move, or second move it would be now, and struggling to obey her order not to.

The third time, a few weeks after the machine fell over, Ellie is doing bench presses while Miriam spots her. Miriam is, to some extent, acting as Ellie’s personal trainer now.

“That’s five,” Miriam says, guiding the barbell back into its cradle. “Very good. No, don’t sit up. Stay there.”

Ellie stays lying down on the bench. Miriam circles around her, producing another pair of resistance bands. Miriam uses them quite frequently, for actual resistance exercises, but Ellie’s heart skips every time she gets them out, because of the association. She has told herself that she has to stop getting so excited. But it’s hard.

“It’s time for another lesson,” Miriam says.

“Oh!” Ellie says, involuntarily. Her heart starts pounding. “Does that mean I can ask–”

“No, it means you can be silent until I tell you to speak,” Miriam says. She smiles thinly.

“Oh!”

“Quiet!”

Ellie bites her lip.

Miriam bends down beneath the bench. She takes Ellie’s left wrist and uses a band to tie her wrist to the bench leg. A proper knot, not a simple loop. Very little give. She does the same to Ellie’s right wrist. Ellie wears a strappy pink top today, one which ends just below her breasts, and cyan boyleg shorts with a pink stripe. With her wrists knotted beneath the bench, and her shoulders pulled backwards, Ellie’s whole abdomen is on display, an acre of tanned, rippling abdominal musculature, with deeply grooved serrati anterior. She flexes her arms, trying to free herself. She can’t. An excited tremble runs through her.

Miriam ties her ankles to the bench’s front leg, for good measure. Then she stands back, admiring her handiwork, her newly wrapped gift. Miriam, for all her cool indifference, has been looking forward to this too. It has been very difficult, waiting, letting Ellie simmer, slowly becoming more… tender. Spread out before her, Ellie’s body is a lush, well-tended garden of pleasures, aching to be explored.

She walks up to near Ellie’s head, and runs a teasing finger around the inside edge of her ear.

Ellie squeaks.

Miriam says, “Try to get out of that.”

Ellie struggles, and puffs. She’s able to rock the bench a little, but can’t get any of her limbs loose. At least, not immediately. She feels awfully self-conscious and vulnerable.

“I can’t,” she says.

“Good. If the bindings are too tight, or if you feel like you’re losing circulation, you have to tell me immediately. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Miriam lets her hair down, a silky cascade of shimmering midnight black, falling in waves around her shoulders. She’s wearing black today, black leggings and a taut black Nike T-shirt with the swoosh across her bust. With her hair free and her scrunchie discarded, she straddles Ellie’s bare abdomen. She sits there, legs spread, resting most of her weight on Ellie’s abs.

Ellie looks up at her, adoringly. Miriam is imposing from this angle. Ellie finds that she is a little scared.

“Ma’am, what are you teaching me today?”

“This.”

Miriam leans forward and kisses Ellie deeply on the mouth. As she does so, she runs her hands up along Ellie’s toned underarms, and back across her trapezii and neck and chest, across the smooth front of her top. The kiss continues and deepens. Miriam’s tongue finds its way into Ellie’s mouth. One of her hands finds its way up under Ellie’s top, and cups her sensitive breast, and grips it, and strokes her areola, and thumbs her already-perky nipple. With her other hand, Miriam toys with Ellie’s ear.

“Mmmmh,” Ellie says. She fidgets, frustrated again by not being able to reciprocate. One-way foreplay. She doesn’t know if she likes it at all.

Miriam lifts Ellie’s top up, freeing her breasts, which rise up like little mountains atop her pectoral muscles, with stiff nipples for peaks. Miriam cups and squeezes Ellie’s breasts, admiring them with not a little envy. (Her own breasts are huge and luscious, and she loves them, but they’re heavy, and it’s annoyingly difficult to find good underwear.) Then she sits up again, and looks Ellie in the eyes. She plants one hand on Ellie’s chest, between her breasts. She reaches back with her other hand, not looking, and draws a tender line down Ellie’s hip, and iliac furrow, toward the top of her tight shorts.

“Ma’am,” Ellie says.

“Quiet,” Miriam says. She lays her palm flat on Ellie’s belly, and then slides her hand inside Ellie’s tight blue-green shorts. And further. Past her fluffy mons, cupping her pussy, rubbing it lightly. A few delicate fingers find the inviting cleft between Ellie’s lips, and curl inwards. And inwards.

Ellie mewls softly. “That feels so good…”

“I said, quiet,” Miriam snaps. “I want absolute silence from you. Do I need to gag you?”

“No, ma’am. I’ll be quiet.”

Miriam slides another few fingers into Ellie’s pussy. Ellie is soft and warm and quite tight, wrapping snugly around Miriam’s fingers, holding them firmly. Miriam uses her thumb, spreading Ellie’s nether lips some more, in search of her clitoris. She squeezes until Ellie’s tiny clit makes an appearance from beneath its hood. Still working by feel alone, Miriam begins strumming the sensitive nubbin with her thumb, while she works her fingers inside Ellie’s sex.

Ellie twists, closing her eyes.

Meanwhile, Miriam roams the rest of Ellie’s body with her other hand: her breasts and trapezii and neck and ear. She strokes Ellie’s cheek; Ellie nuzzles happily against her hand. She puts her thumb in Ellie’s mouth. Ellie sucks it, on instinct. Ellie is being carried away on a wave of pleasure. She wants to close her legs around Miriam’s hand to pull her in, but she can’t. The tight elastic bindings mean all she can do is flex uselessly.

Miriam is watching her responses, and taking mental notes. Ellie is like a box of treasures. It’s wonderful to explore her body, to watch her respond to different forms of teasing.

Soon, Ellie’s mouth opens and she gasps, silently. Miriam feels a pulse of lubrication inside Ellie’s pussy, although no telltale involuntary flexing. It doesn’t seem like she’s coming, yet, but it won’t be long.

“Don’t come,” Miriam says. “And don’t make a sound. Or I will punish you.”

Don’t come? Ellie has never been asked to do such a thing before. She is naturally orgasmic, multi-orgasmic, and noisy, too. This could be very difficult for her.

And then Miriam really goes to work, stirring Ellie’s pussy until her hand is soaked with Ellie’s excitement, other hand dancing across every part of Ellie’s exposed flesh, grabbing her nipples and ears and squeezing her breasts and her throat, piling on the stimulation, turning her into a writhing animal. Ellie flexes, bucking, breathing hard through her nose and gritted teeth, butt leaving the bench, almost throwing Miriam off. Miriam grips her around the waist with her thighs, rubbing her own crotch against Ellie’s belly. Ellie grits her teeth, the flood of pleasure overwhelming her. “Nnnh!”

“Don’t come!” Miriam barks.

Ellie shakes her head. “Aaah! I can’t do it! I’m sorry!” She fails. She clamps down tightly on Miriam’s fingers, over and over. Her hips can’t help but gyrate, thrusting up to meet Miriam’s palm. A strong, delightful tremor runs up from her pussy to her scalp. Divine, sweet colours fire off behind her eyes. She wails with pleasure and dismay.

Miriam swirls Ellie’s happy wet pussy until Ellie gains some measure of self-control, and can see straight again. Then she withdraws her hand and climbs off her lover. She wipes her fingers with a tissue. “Hopeless.”

This is a crushing blow to Ellie. Tears form in her eyes, even though she’s still humming with pleasure. “I’m sorry!”

“Oh, you will be.” Miriam picks up another resistance band. It’s just a long, flat strip of colourful rubber. She lifts it over her head and brings it down with a snap on Ellie’s inner thigh.

“Ah!” Ellie is more surprised than anything.

Miriam hits her other thigh too. She alternates for a while, then transfers her attention to Ellie’s bare abdomen, leaving a mild redness on her thighs.

“Ah!”

It’s nothing, really. It’s a beginner-level punishment, more for show than inflicting real pain. Miriam knows she could whale on her all day with a flogger as insubstantial as this. At least, her thighs and abs. But then she moves up a little, and strikes Ellie across her bare breasts.

“Ah!”

“Hold still.” And again.

“AH!” Ellie tries to hold still. Then Miriam lands a blow directly on one of her nipples. “OW!”

Miriam works up and down Ellie’s whole body for a little while, giving a little attention to her upper arms too. She strikes Ellie’s nipples a few times. She ignores Ellie’s pussy — Ellie wouldn’t even feel it through her shorts — and is extremely careful to avoid her face. She gives her several minutes of beating, and then stops.

Ellie’s head spins a little.

“What have you learned?” Miriam asks her.

“Um. I’ll try harder not to come next time.”

“What you’ve learned,” Miriam snaps, “is that you’re a filthy, degenerate slut. Just a thirsty wet pussy with legs.”

Ellie hates this. “No, ma’am! I’m sorry!”

“Who deserves a sound thrashing.”

“No, ma’am!”

“How many times did I flog you?”

“What?”

Miriam growls. She pulls one end of the resistance band back from her other hand, and releases it, allowing it to snap, very hard, against Ellie’s left nipple. This is not a beginner punishment, it stings to high hell and Ellie yowls.

Miriam barks, “You say ‘ma’am’! How many times did I flog you with this?”

“I don’t know, ma’am! I wasn’t keeping count! Ma’am! F-fifty?”

Miriam flicks her other nipple. Ellie shudders and pulls against her bonds, fruitlessly. It takes a lot of effort for Miriam to keep her face straight while she watches the show.

“Fifty-five, ma’am?” Ellie guesses, desperately.

“It was forty-five times,” Miriam says. She raises the resistance band again, and holds it against Ellie’s nipple again, waiting for a long moment while Ellie gets good and scared. And then, releases it. Snap! Ellie’s breast quivers, and she yelps again.

“So what else have you learned?” Miriam asks her.

“I’ve learned to keep count, ma’am!”

“Good. And after I flogged you forty-five times, how many times did I flick you?” Miriam raises the band and takes aim once more, threateningly.

“Three, ma’am! Please, not four!”

A long, anxious pause.

“Please!”

“…Good.” Miriam lowers the band. She wraps it up and throws it into her kit bag.

Ellie slumps, gasping for breath. She shouldn’t be so out of breath, she tells herself. She’s barely been moving! A mad little thought bolts through her head: does any of that qualify as cardio?

Miriam stands over her. She bends low over Ellie’s face, allowing a curtain of her dark hair to fall around them, wrapping their heads in a kind of private room. She bends lower, and kisses Ellie, tenderly and sweetly. Ellie drinks the kiss in, and Miriam brushes her cheek.

Ellie breaks off. “What’s happening, ma’am?” she asks. She is having trouble processing all of this. The pain, the insults, the harsh restraints… none of these are things she associates with sex. But it all feels so good. She feels like she just stepped off a roller coaster. “What are you doing to me?”

Miriam finds it a little amusing that a girl like Ellie wouldn’t know BDSM when it strapped her to a bench and fucked her. Maybe that’s why she really had to get out of her home town: it was Vanillaville, and she needed to be exposed to some good, hard kink.

Still, if she doesn’t know, Miriam thinks it would be far more enjoyable for Ellie if she just waits and sees. So, she ignores the question. Instead, she says:

“I’m going to give you some ground rules. First: You still can’t talk to anyone about our ‘lessons’. Not even me, not even if we’re alone together. Not until I tell you when. Second: You aren’t allowed to touch yourself. Only I get to touch you.”

“Ma’am?”

“You are a filthy slut,” Miriam reminds her. “I’ve seen how you look at me in the shower, and I know exactly what you do with yourself after I leave. You need to be kept in check. We will work more on this.”

Ellie blushes unhappily. The accusations are true. “I’ll try, ma’am.”

“You had better do better than ‘try’,” Miriam says. “If you fail, you will confess your failings to me at the beginning of your next lesson.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ellie says, nervously.

“Third. This.” Miriam puts a hand in Ellie’s shorts again and tugs hard on her little tuft of pubic hair.

“Ow!”

“Get rid of it. From now on, I want you smooth as cream. I’m not masturbating you through a thicket again.”

“But ma’am, you don’t shave yourself–” Ellie begins. She’s seen it in the showers. Miriam has a similar amount of darker pubic hair. More, if anything.

Miriam plucks one of Ellie’s hairs, pulling it right out of her body with her fingers, root and all.

“Aiih!”

“I am without flaw,” Miriam explains. “You are a delinquent sex-pot, in dire need of training and discipline. Hairlessness will form a part of that discipline. So: that’s three rules. There will be more rules, later, but let’s stop at three. You can count to three, can’t you? I think we demonstrated that.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Miriam gets up. She ducks beneath the bench and unties Ellie’s wrists and ankles, then stands up and walks away with the used resistance bands, bundling them up. Ellie sits up, rubbing her wrists, which are a little sore, and have red strain marks. Her ankles are the same. She is still wet between her legs. She needs to use the lavatory, and then the shower, and then the laundry. Same as after any workout, really.

She looks at Miriam, who has her back turned, and is untying her pumps. Her dominant personality seems to have vanished again, and she is ordinary Miriam. The lesson is over.

She can’t talk about it anymore. That’s the rule.

“Um. Thank you, ma’am. For… spotting for me.”

“Oh?” Miriam turns. “Anytime.”

Ellie finds that something is bothering her. The whole scene was one-way. Miriam didn’t get to get off. “Ma’am,” she says, “I would love to spot for you sometime.”

“Hmm? Oh,” Miriam says, seemingly caught off-guard. “Well. Uh. Maybe another time.”

*

Sonja is on the couch reading social media on a tablet while some reality show plays on the television. She looks up when she hears Ellie come in through the door. “Hi, babe.”

Then she double-takes. Ellie has an expression on her face which Sonja has never seen before. It’s new, but it’s incredibly easy to decode. It is an embarrassed, happy, guilty, utterly-failing-to-be-nonchalant expression.

“Oh my God,” Sonja says. “What happened? You finally ask her out? She ask you out? I know you had a crush on her, you are the worst at keeping secrets.”

Ellie shakes her head. “Mm mm,” she says, lips pursed. She is trying not to say anything or admit anything or do anything. When did her feelings become so transparently obvious to everyone?