Nothing Like The Sun: One (F/m)

Prologue: A Sincere Petition

Catherine woke feeling weary. Her mouth was flooded with the stale

taste of dinner from the night before even as the bulk of it rumbled low

in her midsection.

She slithered reluctantly out of bed and lumbered into the bathroom. On

the other side of the mirror over her sink she could see a pale, disheveled ghost
make a run for its own toilet. She wondered how long the

ghost could go on eating General Tso's Chicken and hot curries before its

thirty-year-old ghost stomach finally gave out. She wondered how many more

nights the ghost could sleep alone and not go crazy.

Catherine pitied the ghost.

Even her morning shower didn't do much to revive her spirits. She had

the day off from the clinic and there was nothing to do. She dragged

herself, still dripping, into the library and turned on her computer for

the first time in a month. She had at least a hundred messages, that the

online service had saved anyway. The filters caught most the Spam, but she

still had to dump a few that had gotten through. That left 111 E-mails.

She read though a few applications and stories by wannabees before getting

too depressed. Any message with a subject header that was a jumble of

acronyms - SWM ISO GS & CBT - she dumped. Ten messages left.

There were four from Dommes she knew online who were concerned about

her or just wondered what she'd been up to. She held off on deleting those

in case she felt more human later in the day.

The last five were applications by men at least smart enough to put

together whole words. One caught her eye, and stirred mixed emotions: "a

sincere petition." She liked the word "petition", but hated the "sincere"

part. In her experience if it said it was sincere, it usually wasn't. She

saved it for last.

She read the other four. Three were the usual tripe: I'm looking for -

I want this. One at least was promising and came with a GIF of the sender

in the nude; a rather fetching dark-haired young man, with an impressively

sized penis. His words were very smooth, very flattering. Just her type.


She had begun seriously considering the boy when she finally got

around to reading the last message.

The E-mail read:

To: P.t.altaic@******.com From: MikeR0172@******.com Subject: a sincere petition,

humblest of greetings, oh Beautiful Mistress Catherine.

Please forgive my arrogance in contacting you so brazenly, but i have

long been an admirer of your many postings and stories and could keep my

silence no longer.

my name is Michael R-. i am twenty-five years old and a virgin. i have

always been powerfully drawn to Women of strength and intelligence, Women

like You. i have been submissive to such Women - to all Women, really - my

entire life, always putting their needs ahead of my own. Now i wish to

take the next step. i wish to become a slave. Specifically, i wish to

become Your slave.

What can i offer You to grant such a boon? It is easy for me to write

words like faithfulness and obedience; to pledge to obey Your every command and
indulge Your every whim, but my words are no less true for the

ease with which they come. As for any talents i may posses, i regret there

is only one of note: i have some faculty with drawing in pen and ink. i

would be happy to send You samples of my work; and even if You do not

choose to accept me as Your slave, i would always be willing to accept

commissions from You for no charge.

For myself, i ask only for the opportunity to learn and to serve at

Your feet. It is not that i have no specific desires of my own, i do, but

my strongest desire is merely to please You in any way that i can, no

matter how trivial or mundane. Should any of my other needs be met in the

process, then i shall consider myself thrice blessed.

There is one thing You should know: i am not a masochist. As i stated,

i have read Your many wonderful writings and am fully aware that You are a

sadist, first and foremost. Such a pairing may not be preferable to You,

yet, again i say that my chief desire is to serve and to learn. i am

prepared to endure whatever hardships may incur from such servitude,

taking comfort in the knowledge that my discomfort brings You pleasure.


i have never been more serious about a thing in my entire life. i am

deeply appreciative for whatever consideration You have given me thus far,

and for whatever thought You may yet give. i await whatever reply You see

fit to send, with baited breath and bent knee.

i am, and shall remain, humbly Yours,

Michael R-

Catherine sat back after finishing the message. She read it again. She

wished she'd made coffee first; she always thought better with coffee.


Finally, she leaned back in to the keyboard and began to type.

Dear Michael...

Chapter One: Michael's Number

Thursday Night.


I must have jumped off the sofa a hundred times before midnight finally

came. With each sound out in the hall I leapt into position: face flushed,

hands trembling.

Of course, I knew rationally that she was the sort that when she said

midnight, she meant midnight. Not that I harbored any illusions that our

clocks would be in perfect sync, mind you; just that it was unlikely

they'd be an hour to an hour and a half off.

It didn't help that I was bouncing around the apartment naked. It made

me feel just the way it was supposed to: embarrassed, vulnerable, and

incredibly nervous. Still, the discomfort I felt from that was child's

play compared to not being logged on to my computer. It was the first

thing I did after getting home from the gym at night; and I'd sometimes

stay up till well past four, hoping to catch a glimpse of the screen name

that had ruled my world for the past two months. Sometimes she logged in,

and sometimes she left me dangling. But after midnight, I'd no longer be

able to hide behind my machine again.

By 12 A.M. my pulse was racing like a jackrabbit. Exactly one minute and

thirty-five seconds later, it stopped altogether as I head the click of a

key at my door. I'd mailed it to a P.O. box she used for snail mail three

weeks ago when we'd finalized the details of this night.

My interview. My audition.

I barked my shin against the coffee table by leaping into position:

feet spread wide, shoulders back, sweaty-palmed hands clenched together at

the small of my back, and my eyes shut tight.

I wasn't unaware of the risk I was opening myself up to. I knew her

only from her words on a computer screen, and it could be anybody behind

that door about to see me exposed and relatively helpless. Some snarky

teen-aged boy could quickly snap a Polaroid and take off running, bragging

at leisure to his buddies about how he'd pulled one over on a "freak." But

I'd thoroughly, maybe obsessively, researched everything she'd posted on

the net - every story and rambling discourse about sexuality - and as

she'd said herself as she laid out the terms of our meeting, "You have to

jump in the water if you want to learn how to swim."

The door opened and cold night air washed over me. A chill ran down my

spine, distinct and separate from the nervous shakes that had been wracking me
since 10:30; and my nipples and cock, already hardened by

anticipation, began to throb. I prayed fervently that none of my neighbors

had taken their dogs out for a late night walk and were just getting in.


She entered and closed the door behind her. I was disappointed somewhat

by the sounds she made - or rather didn't make - as she moved. I'd expected the
creak of leather or rubber, or at least the click of heels on

the floor. The latter being a bit much, I admit, since my apartment had

carpeting.

Instead she moved quickly and quietly. The only way to mark her passage

being the whisper of what I pegged to be jeans and the subtly shifting air

as it wafted across my trembling, alert body. With that air came the scent

of herbal shampoo underscored with a touch of Chanel and a hint of lilacs.


"Good evening Michael," she said in a soft, silky voice that certainly

did not disappoint.

"Good evening, Mistress."

"I'm not your mistress yet, Michael."

That shook me. I had always addressed each E-mail to "The Beautiful Mistress
Catherine" without any complaint from her. Then again, it suddenly occurred to me
that there was a world of difference between someone who was a mistress and
someone who was your mistress.

"Then what should I, uh..."

"You may refer to me as 'Your Ladyship' for now."

"Yes, of course, My Ladyship."

"Not 'My Ladyship,' Michael, 'Your Ladyship.' You might become my slave, but I
will never be anything that belongs to you. Do you understand?"

Damn! Damn! Damn! After all that dreaming and planning and waiting and I was
already screwing myself over! My face felt so hot I pictured it lighting up the
room with a pulsating red glow.

"Of course, your Ladyship! Please forgive me, your Ladyship!"

By the sound of her voice, she was halfway to me by now. She didn't say anything
or make a sound for a minute, leaving me to twitch and writhe from the suspense.

Finally, she broke the silence by saying, "Well, you certainly weren't being
modest, were you?"

The subject of her remark started to droop morosely, while the pit of my stomach
sank. A shooting pain began to build behind my eyes and at my temples, putting
the fear in me that I might very well stroke out under the pressure.


She closed the rest of the distance between us and, with a soft rustling of
fabric on fabric, sat on the sofa. She must have been sitting at the edge, as I
could feel her breath as she exhaled. It blew across the aching skin of my cock,
like a warm and gentle caress. Immediately the blood rushed back, swelling it
back up again to painful fullness.

She made a rueful tch-tch sound and said, "Modest and with a mind of its own. My,
my."

My hands, still behind me, now clenched into fists; my teeth ground together. I'd
spent every free minute I had at the gym; from the instant I worked up the
courage to contact her openly, up through the last, frantic three-week period
where I'd nearly worked myself to death just to get my body into shape for this
tête-à-tête. For her. And now the whole thing was falling apart over the one
fucking thing I couldn't change. Fuck her! I didn't need this shit. I wanted to
snap my eyes open and take a good long look at HER. Just how pretty was she,
anyway? How big were her tits? How long were her legs?


Before I could resolve to do anything, she broke into laughter.

"Oh, Michael, relax," she purred, drawing out the "X" sound into one long
sibilant draft across my cock.

"It's not as if you were ever going to stick it into my body. Not my pussy..."
She lingered on the "S" again.

"Certainly not my mouth." She was close enough to me now that the slightest
twitch from me would have belied that statement. Upon finalizing the date of our
first meeting, she'd ordered me to abstain from masturbating completely, and in
the state I was in after three weeks of denial, any contact would have provoked
an accident of Biblical proportions.

"Not even up my ass. I'm afraid the only use I'd ever have for it would be to use
it to hurt you, Michael. And I'd certainly never let you stick in someone else."

She paused.

"Unless..."

She stood up, pressing her unbearably warm body against my side. I could feel her
breasts pushing against my arm through the sheer cotton of her shirt. She ran one
hand across my midriff, gently stroking my hair with the other.


"Tell me Michael, have you ever thought about having sex with another man?"


My gut twisted violently. I'd never considered myself homophobic, and I'd had gay
friends throughout high school and college. But I viewed the act itself as
something akin to eating snails or jumping out of an airplane: it was fine if you
enjoyed it, but it made me queasy.

"Not even a little Bi? A special friend in college?"

All I could do was shake my head "no."

Her voice had dropped to a whisper, her lips as close to my ear as they had been
to my prick.

"Well, then we'll have to find you a nice, pretty one. A sweet soft sissy that'll
help ease you into it. And when you're a little loosened up, we'll find a big,
hung stud to break you in back here!" she hissed, swatting my ass, making me
jump.

The hand on my abdomen clenched, driving her nails into my skin. Her other hand
swung back up and clutched a fistful of hair.

"And you'll do it, too." She released me violently, striding away across the
room.

"Because while we'll play our share of games, your servitude to me is not among
them. There's only one punishment, and that's you being kicked out on your ass.
Understand that when I hurt you, it's because I get off on watching you being
hurt. Not because you were 'naughty.'"

She hadn't drawn blood, but the wounded flesh still burned with astonishing
intensity.

"Speaking of which," she said with a low, sexy chuckle, "time to see if you've
been a good boy for me so far." I heard the rip of a zipper - her purse I guessed
- and then she moved back in front of me.

"Hold out your hands," she ordered matter-of-factly. "Like you would be playing
'One Potato, Two Potato'."

"Yes, your Ladyship."

My hands came out from behind my back.

"If I remember correctly," she said, "you are a southpaw..." She stopped,
breaking into a giggle as she perceived some sort of pun in that.

"Yes, your Ladyship."

She opened my right hand and pressed something cold and hard and cylindrical into
it. At first I thought it was just a cup, but there was the faint sensation of
painted lines along the outside. She'd handed me a beaker.


She started to move my hands and arms around the same way I had once twisted and
bent my old GI Joes into various "action poses." She opened op my left hand and
lowered it to my hip. Without actually touching my penis herself, she closed my
fist again, over the root of my cock. At the same time, she moved my right hand
into position so that the beaker was poised at the tip of my cock, ready to catch
whatever was about to issue forth.

"I don't know exactly how much you should have," she said, tickling my balls with
the tips of her nails; causing my back to twitch and my heels to briefly rise up
off the floor, "but clearly, Michael, it should be quite a bit."


She moved away from me and sat back down on the couch.

"Well?" she asked, snapping her fingers. "GO!"

For the first time in three weeks, I began to jerk off; for the first time in my
life with somebody watching! Not just watching; I could sense her observing me,
studying me as my hand slid rapidly up and down the length on my circumcised
organ. It was creepy, yet exciting as all get-out. I was embarrassed, not just by
the whole situation, but also that there wasn't something... more... to what I
was doing: just jerking back and forth. I was already running hot, and it only
took a minute for my cock to fill up with another sort of heat.

I came with an almost mellow grunt, and shot copious amounts of fluid into the
beaker. I continued to pump myself, allowing spurt after spurt to add to what I
hoped was enough semen to satisfy her. After the last, modest squirt, she
suggested I run my  index finger along my urethra to milk every last drop I
could. I thanked her, and did just that.

I heard her rise up again and she took the warm beaker from my shaking hand. She
made thoughtful, humming noises as she examined it.

"That looks like enough," she said, suddenly grabbing my hair and yanking it
backwards. "Back it goes!"

The rim of the beaker banged against my teeth as she dumped its repulsive
contents into my mouth. It filled my mouth and didn't so much have a taste as a
feel - it felt slimy and horrible! I had to either swallow, spit up all over
myself or choke. I swallowed my seed in one disgusted gulp.

She let go of my hair and pulled the beaker away. I heard strange, squeaking
noises even as the insidiously salty aftertaste began to slowly assail my tongue.

"Still a few drops left." she said as the squeaking continued. "Open your mouth,
Michael."

For an instant, I considered rebelling, but I wanted this, I needed this, I'd
dreamed of this - of her - for months. The salty taste in my mouth had snowballed
to an unbearable intensity, yet, through the scrunched-up mask of revulsion I
wore on my face, I opened my mouth. She stuck a scum-coated finger inside.

"Clean it off." I sucked her finger clean.

When she seemed satisfied that her skin was cleansed of all my issue, she
withdrew the digit and strode over to my kitchen to wash out the beaker. Not
knowing what to do, I merely placed my hands back behind me, and steeled myself
for whatever came next.

"You're having second thoughts, aren't you?" she asked upon returning, echoing my
thoughts with uncanny precision.

"You probably want to know what you get out of this. Well, the fact is I couldn't
tell you, and what's more, I don't care."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Was this the woman who'd written all those
posts, espoused all that philosophy that I'd read with such care and devotion?

"I get what I want, and if you don't get something from giving it to me, then
you're wasting both our time. Didn't you say as much in your first letter to me?"
I had, but still I had thought there'd be something more; something like...

"You want to say something?"

"What about love?"

She skipped a beat, then broke into incredulous laughter.

"Christ! You are a virgin to this, aren't you? What about it, Michael?"


I considered my reply for a good long minute.

"You wrote once about pony training. You thought that it was so popular as a
fetish because the Domme-slave relationship was fundamentally similar to a horse
and rider. One calling the shots, the other bearing the brunt of the effort, but
both eventually learning to establish a rhythm, forming a bond, working together
towards an ultimate goal."

She didn't say anything for a while. I was convinced I'd totally shot my last
chance.

When at last she spoke, she startled me by the plain, unaffected quality of her
voice.

"You're pretty cheeky, using my own words like that to seduce me."


She lapsed into another long silence. I was growing tired and sore from holding
my stance so long. The muscles in my back were beginning to feel the strain, my
calves were stinging, and even my penis began to flag again.


"Those were old posts you dug up, Michael. Most the Dommes I've met since then
tend to view their subs as just another trapping of their fetish; as faceless and
interchangeable as a whip or dildo or table.

"I guess I expected that; but so damn many of the subs were that way to - worse
even. They'd mouth off about worshipping you and the like, but deep down it's
just lip service to get what they want. Hell, they don't even need us, they could
do it to themselves if they weren't so gutless. All they need one of us for is to
strap 'em down and give 'em a few whacks until they're ready to cry 'Safeword'
and then it's run along home to jerk off in private."


"I wouldn't..." I blurted, "I don't need a safeword."

"Why," she asked, bemused. "Don't you have limits?"

I didn't know how to answer. I wanted to say or do anything so desperately to
impress her, yet I knew full well that if my mouth wrote checks my butt literally
couldn't cash, we'd both end up bitterly disappointed.

Luckily for me, she bailed me out.

"Bullshit! Everyone has limits, Michael. That's where the real sensuality of it
all lies. Exploring, searching, finding those limits out. A good Domme will know
how to skirt the line, sometimes, maybe, even take a step or two over it. And a
good sub trusts his Domme to know what she's doing, not cry 'Safeword' when his
dirty little fantasies get all too real." She finished with a long, heavy sigh.

An eternity passed before she said anything more.

"All right, Michael. I was wrong earlier. I would like to know what you want out
of this."

For an instant, I was living that age-old nightmare: called upon in class to give
an answer you weren't quite sure you knew. At least in my dreams I had on my
jockeys to give me some modicum of dignity.

As I tried to form some kind of coherent response in my mind I thought back to
the analogy of the horse and rider. That, in turn led me to a notion that in my
own mind summed it up nicely.

My mouth was bone dry by this time, and my voice cracked and hurt my throat as I
started.

"I want a number, your Ladyship."

I'm fairly certain she wasn't expecting that. It took her a moment to recover.

"How do you mean?"

I took a deep breath, and began.

"When people buy a dog, a lot of the time they make a mistake and don't establish
complete dominance over it right from the start. Puppies are cute. People love
puppies and nobody wants to be 'mean' to one.

"But just because they're smart and have personalities, doesn't mean they're
little humans. They're animals with their own behavior patterns. When dogs meet
they immediately establish a hierarchy. Each one has a ranking within the pack, a
number. They define themselves as individuals by the role they occupy in the
group. It lets them hunt efficiently, which is good for the pack, good for the
survival of dogs as a whole. I'm not saying they understand all that, but they do
get something from being a part of it. Comfort… strength, maybe. Joy.


"By comparison, human behavior appears chaotic and insane. There are only two
positions in our society: Number One and trying to be Number One; and people
can't imagine anyone being satisfied with anything less. Let alone happy.

"Of course, we see dogs as being subservient to us, but owners make mistakes in
how they express it. They're inconsistent, inattentive or just don't understand.
The dog gets away with jumping on the bed, but not the sofa. Some days they get
to lead, others you yank the chain. A sock with a knot in it is a chew toy, a
sock without one isn't. It's not that those people can't be kind and loving, but
by inadvertently messing up the dog's sense of order, what they're really doing
is negating the dog's very sense of self. He doesn't feel like part of the
family, because there's nothing to be a part of - just one big, constantly
churning mess. Without that sense of belonging, they feel isolated, confused…
grow despondent over time.

"That's how I feel around other people. I'm just so tired of trying to puzzle
every fucking thing out. I want a number. I want to know my place and fulfill my
role. And by knowing it, I hope, more than anything, to reach that 'Ultimate
Goal' of yours."

The end of my soliloquy was met with utter, terrifying silence. I felt drained,
both mentally and in an all-too-literal sense, physically; like I'd been running
a marathon instead of standing in place all this time.

In spite of the dead calm, I didn't hear her move. I barely caught a strong whiff
of herbs and Chanel before soft, sweet lips were pressed to mine in an
all-too-brief kiss. The next sound I heard was the door to my apartment opening.

"Tomorrow morning, Michael, you will receive an E-mail. It will contain an
address. You are to go to that address immediately after you get off work in the
evening. Do you understand?"

"Yes, your Ladyship."

"Oh, and... michael?" The way she said it: "michael."

"Yes, your Ladyship?"

"From now on you will address me solely as 'Mistress'."

"Yes, Mistress."