Hope

The early December night was so crisp and clear that Sara could make out the bright light of Venus through the yellow glow of the Roosevelt Park streetlights. She turned into her building and smiled at her doorman's half-hearted salute as she made her way to the mailroom. She keyed open the brass door expecting the usual collection of bills, condo association notices, and neighborhood flyers. Her breath stopped short when she saw a purple envelope with gold cursive script addressed to "Sara Rabinowitz."

If the use of her maiden name wasn't enough to indicate the sender, the ornate handwriting surely was. Sara found herself running to the elevator. Her hands trembled as she hit the button for the ninth floor.

She watched herself tear open the paper. She inhaled his unmistakable cologne and was transported. Transported to a loft in London, suspended from a beam. Suspended from a beam, where he brought her to the edge of orgasm. Where he brought her to the edge of orgasm, over and over, until she begged for release.

"My Dearest Sara," the letter read, "I will arrive in New York on the twenty-fifth. You know what I will require. I will be in touch. Nicholas."

Peace

If a Jewish man can have a "Shiksa Goddess," then Nicholas was Sara's "Shagetz God." She met him not long after arriving at her art school in England, an innocent abroad who wanted to be naughty but didn't really know how.

Nick was several years older than Sara. She first saw him at a gallery in SoHo. His mane of intentionally unkempt curly dark hair had caught her eye first. He was the center of attention; his opinion clearly mattered. She was captivated by his large but beautiful hands as he flipped his flamboyant purple scarf over his shoulder and gestured toward the pieces. But it was his eyes — his piercing, intense violet eyes — that took her breath.

She saw him many times after that. Everywhere. He played bass in an alt punk band. He ran the artist cooperative. He had a gallery show of his sculpture. Then another show of his paintings. Each time he found Sara with his gaze and each time Sara found herself buzzing with a previously unknown erotic excitement. An excitement so intense that it almost frightened her and kept her from approaching him.

They finally met, by accident, in a coffee shop in Lambeth. It was a tiny place. There was no place to hide. Sara gathered her strength and held out her hand like a charm school graduate. "Hi. I'm —"

"Oh, yes. I know who you are, Sara. You're the beautiful dark-haired woman who stares at me everywhere I go. Isn't that right?"

Sara wanted to laugh. She wanted to protest his arrogant assumption. But she did not. After a few moments, she said, simply, "Yes."

"Good. Let's get this coffee to go. My place is just downriver in the warehouse district," he said in his Birmingham accent.

"Wait, what? Your place? I—"

"Yes. My place."

Once there she put up no resistance. He was directive and rough in all the right ways. Holding her down, pulling her hair, biting her neck, spanking her bum, taking her hard, always with perfect timing and intensity. He knew what she needed before she did. It was the sex she had always wanted but never known.

Joy

It was only their third or fourth time together when Nicholas introduced a new element to their intense romance. He was holding Sara's arms above her head as he took her, standing, against a wooden timber. He looked deeply into her big brown eyes as his cock moved within her. She struggled against his strong hands as if trying to get away. The struggle was the point. It clearly turned Sara on to have this illusion of helplessness.

The corners of Nick's mouth curled into a devilish smile. He kissed Sara hard as he pinched a nipple, then picked her up and threw her onto his wrought iron bed.

"Whaaat the fuuuuck?" Sara squealed in surprise.

Nicholas rummaged in a closet, his turgid dick bobbing all the while, and returned to the bed with a handful of belts, robe sashes, and, one pink neck tie.

"What are your intentions, sir?" Sara asked, anticipating the answer. Nick crawled onto the bed with his paraphernalia. He pulled the pink necktie from the pile first.

"Are you sure?” He asked.

Sara answered with a nod as Nicholas tied the pink silk around her eyes. He then secured her wrists and ankles to the rigid metal bedposts.

And then, he used her. My god, he used her, taking her in every way. He teased Sara with ice and candle wax and then took her all over again. At some point, Nick suspended her from a beam such that only her toes touched the wooden plank floor, and forced her to cum on command as he worked her G spot with his long, strong fingers.

They followed their newfound passion into the early morning, each insatiable as they searched for boundaries but never found them. Sara awoke on the floor with one wrist still bound to a chair leg. She was sore, everywhere, but pleasantly so.

"We will be doing that, again," Nicholas pronounced as he released Sara.

"Yes, sir," Sara smiled. "How soon?"

Love

Sara and Nick quickly evolved — or devolved depending on your perspective — into a full dom-sub couple. Outside, Sara was growing in confidence and resolve, but inside Nick's loft, she became a slave to his very particular intentions.

They threw themselves into it with their artistic talents and sensibilities. Black leather restraints, body harnesses, and various whips and paddles were fine. But they augmented their toys, tools, and garments with the work of artisans. They acquired bejeweled clips and plugs. Ornately spliced ropes. Finely wovenearhers. And, Sara's favorite, a hand-crafted choker made of purple silk that she often wore even when outside the loft.

When in that loft, with that man, absent control, on the edge of ecstasy, Sara was as happy as she had ever been. And, as she sat, now, in her fancy apartment on the Upper West Side, thumbing the scented, purple envelope, she realized that in that time, in London, she was as happy as she might ever be. The twenty-fifth, and Nick's arrival, could not come soon enough.

Sara and her husband, Benji, had been planning on skiing in Vermont on Christmas. It took little effort to persuade Benji to make that a boys' weekend instead. He knew Sara wasn't that into skiing and it was easy for him to accept that his wife would be happier spending Christmas doing the other favored tradition of Jewish people on that most Goyish of holidays: a movie and Chinese food with friends.

This would be a huge betrayal of her marriage, of course. And yet, the only guilt Sara felt was for not feeling guilty. She had no real choice. She had to be with Nicholas. She had to return to her submissive excitement. She had to once again live in that altered state, on edge, mind blank, only knowing physical sensations at another person's whim. Nicholas would be her savior from the loving but passionless rut in which she now found herself.

Arrival

Sara raced around Manhattan and into Brooklyn to prepare, dodging crazed gentile shoppers wherever she went: a fitted harness and restraints from a custom leather shop in Greenwich Village, bejeweled nipple clips at a Lesbian boutique in Park Slope, a vintage ivory butt plug from a shop in Chelsea, and new shoes on, well, Fifth Avenue, of course.

Nick's instructions were delivered on Christmas Eve, by courier. They were clear: Sara was to appear at his rented townhouse on the Upper East Side at 10:00 a.m., sharp. He was almost directly across the Park from her place. She decided to walk. It would take more time but help her get into the proper headspace. Could she? Could she shed the last fifteen years of being the boss in all aspects of her life? Could she return to being…a sub?

The heels of her Louboutins clicked on the sidewalk. The silk and fur of her grandmother's white fox fur coat caressed her naked breasts and ass cheeks as she walked. The butt plug, cool at first, warmed within her. Her new, white leather harness squeaked seductively. By the time she reached Nick's front door, she was sopping wet with excitement.

Knock. Too soft. Knock! Knock!! Too desperate.

The door opened.

"Hello, you."