The girl was gently mouth-breathing while her glassy eyes failed to focus. It was odd that Dominic should have been drawn to her face at a time like this. After all, the woman was naked and on her knees; the epic curves of her bare bottom jutting skywards in submission.

“Your words, your tone, your very gestures are important here,” the leader was saying.

The leader was a runt of a man; balding and podgy. On anybody else the black suit would have looked cool, but on Leader it seemed out of place. Apparently he had degrees in sexual-psychology but calling him Leader had seemed pretentious, or so Dominic had thought. Now Dominic felt uncomfortable as if he had been missing something and had only just awoken. He shifted uneasily in his chair, actually embarrassed by his erection lodged tightly in his trousers.

Still on her knees the woman groaned and ever so slightly wagged her bottom like an eager dog.

This was when Leader struck her exposed bottom with a short thick leather strap and she groaned. Only the sound was almost a gentle sigh.

Leader ran his hand along the side of the woman’s face and she turned her head as if to lick his hand. The man whispered something that seemed to animate the woman and she bucked her hips as if to invite more attention from the strap. She got it.

There was a fierceness in what followed, which at any other time might have seemed brutal. The woman rolled and took her spanking as if she were dancing. Her bottom was shiny and strawberry red, sore beyond all normality. She was crying too, but only on the surface, as if the leak of moisture only served to moisten the glaze in her eyes.

“If you get this right,” the leader was saying, “Then you will never need your safe word, but always remember you have it.”

He spanked the woman again and let the sting roll into a burn.

“Do you remember your safe word?” he whispered gruffly into the woman’s ear.

The glassy eyes focussed for an instant and she seemed to panic, “Please don’t stop,” she gasped.

“Shhh,” Leader soothed, “No of course not, but tell me your safe word.” He ordered.

She seemed to come back to herself before breathing, “Bus Stop.”

“Do you see how her demeanour has changed?” Leader addressed the gathered men, “She has slipped out her head space. Let us restore it, remember…”

Leader played both the woman and the watching men like a fine instrument. Even the cynical Dominic went with it, even as he cursed his own lack of skill.

Gabrielle had suggested this course and he had hated the idea. She hadn’t actually threatened to withdraw her participation in their games, but the implication was there and he was at least smart enough to read her. She was good; at no point did she compromise him or his imagined authority over her. She had merely ‘petitioned’ him to think about it, leaving him the illusion of choice.

He knew now that she was far better at the game than he. A true submissive, liberated in what she wanted. He had been an ass.

The realisation sickened him and he felt his taught manhood wither even as the show came to an end.

That night he hit the books and actually read them this time, instead of cherry picking lines he liked and scanning the tasteful photographs. Only despite Leader’s class and avidly reading and rereading the texts he could not get to the heart of headspace, subspace or any real psychology of the thing.

By three in the morning his head ached and he slipped out of the building for some air. Leaving the accommodation after lights out was forbidden as was phoning home at any time in the three days. Well he wouldn’t then, he winked to himself; Gabrielle wasn’t at home.

“You awake?” Dominic asked the voice on the phone.

“No, I am still asleep,” Gabrielle yawned.

“Sorry, I didn’t think,” he winced.

“That’s okay,” Gabrielle mumbled through a second yawn, “Hang on, are you supposed to be phoning anyone? I thought…”

“Forget it,” Dominic snarled and hung up. He immediately regretted it. You ass, he thought.

The phone rang.

“Sorry,” they said together.

“No, I’m sorry, you’re right and anyway insomnia is a bad reason to wake you up,” he said.

“Don’t worry, I had to wake up tom answer the phone anyway,” she said mischievously.

He almost missed the quip before he laughed.

“Not going well?” she said.

“Hmmm, not sure. I don’t get it, not really,” he said, “Well I do, but…” He sighed.

“At least you gave it a go,” she offered.

“Yeah,” he sounded unconvinced, “Not good enough. Man I am really shit at being a top, aren’t I?”

“Yep,” Gabrielle agreed. Then she laughed. “Only a top would ask that or even think of it like that. You aren’t mending a car or running a race. You are thinking about this the wrong way.”

Dominic hated the touchy feely psychobabble she served up now and again. “Really, I thought a real top wouldn’t doubt himself; or ask his sub if he was doing it right?”

“You really are making my point for me. Why do you say that? You are not superman,” she told him.

“No I am really not, but I think Leader is,” he groaned.

“Who?” Gabrielle snorted.

“This Leader guy running the course, Dr… Marcus… eh… anyway he calls himself Leader,” Dominic explained.

There was a croaking noise on the other end of the phone and he realised Gabrielle was laughing. “Now he does sound like an arse,” Gabrielle said interrupting her mirth.

Dominic cracked and laughed too.

“Dom, maybe you should just jack it in,” Gabrielle suggested.

Dominic frowned thoughtfully. “No, I think I will stick it out,” he said, “I already know what I don’t do, maybe I have half a chance of getting some hints on the rest.”

“You’re the boss,” Gabrielle said without a hint of mockery, “Have fun, but my bottom is getting cold.”

Dominic felt his cock rise again. He used to think he might be in love, now he knew he was.