Acceptance

Ava spent the next few days with her mind in turmoil. Her head told her to leave Lorenzo, to find someone who could love her for who she felt she was, a sexual submissive. Not what they wanted her to be, a slave at their beck and call. But every time she thought of the things Lorenzo had done to her, her anger and aversion was overcome by her heart, racing with the anticipation of what she’d felt when he’d performed all of those invasive things on her body.

She remembered the astounding intensity of her orgasm, driven by the fact that she knew she was simply no longer in control. Much of what she loved about it all was the fact she simply didn’t know what he might ask her to do, or what would happen next.

Emotions began to surge through her, memories of all of the situations he’d put her in less than a day ago, causing her head to throb in time with her quickening pulse. Her belly was filled with the same strange sensation she recalled from when, as a young girl, a sudden new experience or strange sight would both frighten and fascinate her. Being a submissive was a bit like being dangled over the edge of a cliff by your lover.

She knew she had already begun to change, to feel more subservient in Lorenzo’s presence, but in an accepting way rather than that downtrodden feeling many women felt with some men.

Lorenzo had told her what to do, but also made her feel wanted and special, nothing like the feeling you got if a woman was badly treated at work by an unfair male boss. Nor like the anger that came from being taken for granted, or being made to feel your opinions weren’t being taken seriously. And certainly not that feeling of intense frustration many women got at work. That impression that, if you showed initiative, you were somehow less worthy in doing what you did than if you had been a man doing exactly the same role.

No, what Lorenzo made her feel inside, each time he took her and made her submit to his sexual will, was far more than that. It started with a deep knowledge, a gracious acceptance that her purpose at that particular moment was to please Lorenzo. For some reason, this gave her a strange secure feeling, like he was protecting her, as well as both mastering her and conquering her too.

He didn’t make her do things and abuse her sexually like a sadist might. Whilst he made her endure sexual pain, it was clear to her that part of the pleasure he took himself was in asking her intimate questions, listening to her own sexual needs, as part of mastering her. Ava also suspected that, whilst getting her to do exactly what he liked, he also had her most favoured subservient pleasures at the heart of much of their sexual activity together.

He delivered both the most indescribable pleasure and pain to her body, doing things she had never imagined would be able to be asked of any partner. Totally unlike the ninety percent of straight-laced men her girlfriends told her about. Those men who saw women as sex objects, rather than mutually adventurous sexual partners.

Ava guessed what the truth was. Whilst a large component of their relationship was overtly sexual, she relished the knowledge they maintained their roles at all times together. A master and slave dynamic that drove everything they did both with and to each other.

She thought of tales she’d read of medieval times. The way a Sultan might demand the presence of one or more concubines for sex, at any time of the day or night. Lorenzo might treat her like a sex slave, but he had no harem of women, he was only interested in her. In fact, she’d never seen him even look at another woman. She recognised it was a full-time job being a master and handling your chosen slave, making sure you were both kept sexually satisfied.

She took her clothes off slowly, testing the motel bed, thinking hard about what the day’s events had meant. Whether she wanted all of this with Lorenzo, and whether she really wanted to go back to the house again the next day, to take things onto the next stages he clearly had planned out for her, in her role as his submissive.

Ava awoke early the following day, a bright dawn slanting in with a rosy glow through the motel room’s ivory curtains. The corners of her mouth and throat were sore where Lorenzo had pushed his cock hard between her lips. Her vagina ached too, her clitoris beginning to throb gently at the memory of how forcefully he’d taken her.

Despite everything that had happened the previous day Ava felt refreshed, sleep always helping her decide exactly what she was going to do next. Making herself a coffee from the kettle and pot in the room, she thought about her feelings for Lorenzo once again.

She was willing to go back to him, to see where this master and slave lifestyle took her. But she’d make decisions on whether this was what she wanted in their future together, one day at a time.  

She threw her holdall into the front seat of her sports car. Driving back the short distance to their joint home, she began to smile as the old song ‘walking my baby back home’ came on the radio. She doubted whether the songwriter had ever experienced the things she had yesterday, walking along with the ‘tempter’ pushed up inside her bum and vagina, vibrating motors running at full throttle.

Seeing her car pull in from the front room window as she arrived, Lorenzo was worried. Ava watched him tentatively open the front door, so she walked purposefully up the drive and planted a firm kiss on his cheek, slipping inside the house. He looked up and down the street briefly, as if someone might be watching, then closed the door behind them, smiling in relieved satisfaction. They were ok.

 Emotionally, in the coming weeks, Ava found herself slowly beginning to accept her role as Lorenzo’s life-long slave. But she found it odd that, when she wasn’t with him, she was left to do whatever she liked. It was usually only when he arrived, and was with her, she was expected to do his every wish.

Lorenzo’s list of requirements had lengthened, however. Ava was now to greet him at a pre-agreed hour, every time when he arrived home, either naked or dressed in stockings or an outfit he requested at breakfast each morning. This did mean that Ava now had to leave her finance office well before Lorenzo left his, but that was relatively easy, as his firm was far stricter and usually expected him to work into the early evening.

Ava would arrive home in her business suit, at around six. She’d undress and take a leisurely shower, before putting on whatever he had left out for her to wear that day. In recent weeks it had been a skimpy maid’s outfit with short sleeves, her breasts almost spilling out over the low-cut black balcony top. It was to be accompanied by sheer back stockings and a very short black and white apron that barely covered her pubic area and left her bum completely exposed. High heels as well, but no bra or panties allowed, of course.

When she heard his car in the drive, she was to be ready for him. The pose he required every workday was for her to be kneeling on the floor, facing the door, knees spread wide and hands on the tops of her thighs, palms upward. When Lorenzo turned his key in the lock each evening he would see Ava, dressed provocatively, waiting for her master. Ava was staring at the floor, demure, supplicant, and compliant. Her pussy exposed for her master.

It was often all he could do to prevent himself from pushing her over onto her back and taking her there, on the spot. In fact, many a day he singularly failed in holding back his lust for her, undoing the belt and trousers of his expensive work suit and taking her then and there in the hall. He was often left with a hefty dry-cleaning bill for his impetuousness.

But, despite all the excitement of training to be a faithful submissive, Ava was still at a mental cross roads. She recognised her leanings meant her favourite sexual activities were intimately intertwined with submissive pain and pleasure, but she was still undecided about whether this was what she wanted for her future.

The big problem was, Ava simply had never met anyone like Lorenzo before or had any relationship remotely like this one. Just thinking of his body, his penis, and what he made her do, got her instantly nervous, scared, excited, and wet, all at the same time.

Occasionally, usually, after he’d abused her body in a multiplicity of devilish ways, she still debated if she should leave Lorenzo. Yet, even when he angered and frustrated her with some or other sexual deviancy or BDSM activity, denying her orgasm, she also knew that she would likely want to go back to him. Even after she’d vowed constantly to herself that she wouldn’t too. This was all part of accepting what she needed, as well as what he wanted from her.

She thought about that day at the restaurant, the harsh way she felt he had treated her all that afternoon and well into the evening. She knew she could so easily find herself back in the same dark situation again with him. But the reality was, she also had to consider all of those intense and almost overwhelming orgasms that she’d had, that he gave her. Driven from her as a direct result of him controlling her so strictly, so roughly, and yes, often so painfully.

There was nothing like the release she got, each time he denied her sexually, often for hours at a time. She relished the feeling of his rock-hard cock finally inside her after he’d made her wait and suffer, the sensation of submission she had, when he grabbed a handful of her long hair, pulling back on it to take her, penetrate her deeply.

This was what Ava was ultimately struggling with. It amounted to more than sexual practice, it was a complete lifestyle choice and, if she agreed to this, it would likely rule every single thing she did.

All of these feelings and challenges came to a head when Lorenzo insisted Ava must remind herself of his presence and mastery over her whilst she was at work, as well as at home.

They both realised the limitations of the vibrating belt Lorenzo had made for Ava, first used on her at the restaurant. The device was bulky, took time to put on and take off, and was visible under most of Ava’s skimpier clothing that Lorenzo preferred her to wear.

A new range of mobile-controlled sex toys had come onto the market, so Lorenzo selected one for her. Imaginatively called the Foxie, the slim U-shaped silicone device had a vibrating bulb at each end and slipped neatly inside her panties, held in place by a small strong magnet on the outside of the fabric. She could widen the ‘U’ out, inserting one end in her vagina and the other in her anus, or squash the ‘U’ closed and have one vibrating end inside her pussy, with the other right over the top of her clitoris.

This was the only exception Lorenzo made to one of his rules, in allowing her to wear panties when it was inserted inside her.

For her office desk he gave her a tiny combined mobile signal receiver and Bluetooth transmitter, a small red mushroom-shaped device that looked just like a paperweight, so no one got suspicious.

She also had blinds installed in her office, ostensibly for privacy when she was working on confidential client business, plus a gold embossed ‘do not disturb’ sign, similar to those used in posh hotels.

Some mornings, at work, he would trial her, texting her to put the Foxie in. Lorenzo would then send her that single word, ‘Ready?’ This gave her fifteen minutes' warning, just in case she had an important meeting. On more than one occasion, seeing his ‘Ready?’ text, she’d had to ‘invent’ a new meeting that she’d supposedly ‘forgotten’ about, throwing out all of the colleagues assembled in her office, often just in time before Lorenzo triggered the Foxie.

On her own mobile, she had a standard response to his text set up, the reply he had insisted on, to make sure she accepted. Her text back to him was, ‘Ready and willing master’, to signal he was in control. She was to sit in a chair within thirty feet of the innocuous domed Bluetooth transmitter and place her mobile, with its built-in high-resolution camera, facing her.

He would text a code ‘up’ or ‘down’. If the text said ‘down’ she was to site the mobile’s camera at waist level, on a convenient stool, looking up into her panties, so he could see them go from dry to moist, sometimes dripping wet, as he played with her remotely.

 Most times, however, he texted ‘up’ where Ava placed the mobile camera on her desk, focused on her face, so he could see all of the minute changes in her expressions as he played with the wide range of vibrating and pulsing settings the ingenious Foxie had.

Lorenzo then video-called Ava on her mobile, usually instantly but sometimes up to ten minutes later, just to tease her.

Lorenzo would press and slide the wide range of buttons on the app on his mobile. Seconds later, transmitted via Bluetooth to the Foxie device, buried deep inside her panties, Ava would suddenly feel the strong pulsing, vibrating and buzzing the Foxie delivered.

With twenty different vibration, sensation and pulse levels in the Foxie, Lorenzo relished this literally remote submission to his will tremendously. What made it all the more exciting for Ava too was knowing he was watching every nuance of her expressions via the camera on her mobile, sitting in his own private office, blinds down.

She’d got an extra frisson of excitement too, when he told her back at home that he often watched the feed from her mobile on the large TV screen in his own office, especially after he’d texted her ‘down’. She loved the thought of her white wet panties filling the screen as he played with her, watching as a tiny damp patch in her crease began to spread.

Then, finally, the fabric in the gusset of her panties unable to hold back the cum leaking from her, she loved imagining him watching her frantic side-to-side and bucking hip movements as he drove the settings on the app to the maximum, towards ten.

Ava savoured the feeling that she had, every time he texted ‘Ready?’ She loved the excitement and tension of those first few minutes, waiting in her seat, legs spread, until he pressed the button to engage the device’s fiendish wireless delights inside her panties.

He also had another text message, ‘off’. If she received this, she was to pull her panties down so he could see the Foxie doing its fiendish work inside her. Lorenzo often reserved this particular text for when he was in a meeting out of his office, sometimes even on the other side of the world. Texting ‘off’ he would watch her surreptitiously under the meeting desk, often with clients on the opposite side of the table, via a small window on his mobile screen.

She also relished the fact that, as he played around with all the vibrating and pulsing setting combinations on the Foxie buried in her panties, he would be noting every small movement or nuanced change of expression on her face as he toyed with her.

Some days she tried to fight him, struggling as hard as she could not to betray the slightest expression, just to frustrate him. But she usually lost this battle, with Lorenzo invoking his killer move, vagina pulse 5 clitoris pulse 10. That was usually just before he texted her ‘down’ to move her mobile from the desk to waist level, angled up so he could watch her pelvis thrusting and spasming.

She knew he recorded some of the sessions too and he made her watch them, back at home. He would play back to her the recording he had made on his phone from particularly good sessions, talking her through, in intimate detail, exactly which settings he had used to make Ava blush, or her hips writhe and grind on her office seat.

She’d sat with him one evening, eyes wide, his fingers buried in her vagina on the sofa, making her watch a video of her hips bucking under the Foxie’s rampant ministrations. He’d fingered her harder as she watched her white panties dampening rapidly in dark patches all around her crotch on the big screen. He simultaneously brought her to orgasm on the sofa as Ava watched the wet mess she made of her black leather chair, her love juices seeped out uncontrollably.

Lorenzo once told Ava that her record was five orgasms in five minutes. She remembered that day well, along with the ten minutes she’d had to spend cleaning up her executive seat and floor area. Legs trembling that afternoon, she also remembered finding it almost impossible to focus back on finance work the rest of the day.

But this was the nub of what she often questioned. Whilst she loved the things he made her do sexually, was it right to feel most valued in life when she was pleasing someone, simply by being their slave? Or was it better, for her personal sanity, to be focusing on her work and doing everything she could to drive her career forward at her finance company? The two were becoming less compatible.

What this was really about what was what she wanted in life. Was it her own free will? Was it a desire to please Lorenzo? Or was it simply a need for her to feel more valued as a person? Or was it more important for her to know she was most regarded for the life she chose and wanted for herself with her burgeoning career and future in finance?

As a bright, determined and capable career woman, how could Ava do what she wanted in her career, yet also fit in everything he wanted from her as his submissive slave, to do with as he wished?

Everything came to a head one warm sticky summer evening. Ava was kneeling naked in the hallway as usual, legs spread and facing the door, waiting for Lorenzo. Hands turned upwards resting on her thighs, this was how he liked to see her when he came home, her lithe tanned body offered to him, ready, willing to have him.

Cicadas were drumming their beat outside, and the close climate had already forced a slow trickle of sweat to slide between her breasts. She felt hot between her legs too, not just because of the sweltering heat either. She could feel the sticky slickness coating her labia, in anticipation of what he might do to her body this evening, her vagina initiating its steady sex fluid production process.

Then, when she heard his car arrive in the drive she tensed, pondering what he might want her to do to her this evening to satisfy his almost insatiable sexual pleasure. She felt the tiny rivulet of sweat trickling faster now, down gently into her bellybutton, when she heard the key turn in the lock. Her heart leapt, tensing her body for action, her breathing increasing in pace. Ava knew he was minutes away from touching her, taking her.

She thought of his favourite pastimes. Maybe he’d take her out into the back garden after dark and tie her tightly, bent at the waist, over their large outdoor wooden table, spreading her legs, fingering her to orgasm. Or maybe put her in his favourite maid’s costume, making her serve him at their large dining table, standing by the table as he played with her pussy under her short skirt as he ate, like a medieval lord.

She was getting wetter just thinking of the sexual permutations.

But tonight was different. Lorenzo came through the door with a spray of blood-red roses in his hand, a nervous grin on his face.

Ava stayed silent, remembering his rules as master but dying to ask what was going on. He simply smiled at Ava, lifting her up gently to her feet. Then he led Ava, looking confused, into the living room. She stood there and watched, perplexed but curious, as he put the cut roses into a glass vase on the small oak table in front of her.

Ava stood naked in the middle of the room, Lorenzo approached her and she breathed in quickly, expectantly. Still in his charcoal work suit, he clasped her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length, staring at her and beholding her in respect for her submissiveness.

Then he kissed her violently, passionately, pressing her pert round breasts hard against his chest, her nipples chafing slightly against the wool of his suit. They stood there together, swaying slightly with all of the emotion, hugging each other, him dressed for work, her naked for home.

“Let’s forget dinner, shall we? Let’s celebrate in a different way. As we will when we’re married, Ava.”

Lorenzo changed out of his suit, leading Ava out into the garden. There he tied Ava’s hands above her head over a limb of a large, tall beech tree, leaving her dangling, still smiling, with her feet only just touching the soft grass. Then he got the old croquet set box out of the shed, opening it up on the nearby bench to reveal an assortment of leather paddles, strops, canes, rods and wires.

He took out a thin switch, holding it up for approval. Ava nodded. Over the next thirty minutes, spinning her lithe tanned torso around on her tiptoes for access, Lorenzo whipped all the publically unseen parts of Ava’s body. He gazed in fascination as thin red and purple welts emerged all over Ava’s delicate round breasts, inner thighs and the soles of her feet. Then he turned his attention to her cunt.

He roped her ankles, pegging her feet wide using old croquet hoops, still left in the box. Then he set to with the switch, directing it either side of her tender labia, with the occasional direct hit into her vaginal crease. On the last stroke, catching her clit, Ava screamed.

After she had calmed down, he released her, bending her over the bench, soothing her whip marks with cream as she wept. Then he led her back and tied her hands up to the beech tree once more.

Opening her up with his thumbs and spreading her labia lips wide, Lorenzo’s rampant purple penis head pushed up hard into her, its passage made easy by her copious juices. He took Ava fast, forcefully, their stomachs touching and his balls bouncing into her perineum over and over. Each time Lorenzo thrust into her soft willing vagina he gave her a gentle kiss on the lips, making her melt.

He pulled from her with a soft squelching sound, seeing creamy cum dribbling down her left thigh in the dusky light. With Ava still hanging from the tall tree, her feet just above the ground, he then twisted her around, pulling her pert bum towards him. He squeezed his hard cock between her tight cheeks, opening up her anus and making her grunt as he took her once again, plunging into her backside with deep thrusts with fervent delight.

Half an hour later he was done, spent. Ava felt the same, the tension in her arms beginning to push her into a dream-like trance of submission, her body quaking and trembling in fits and starts as Lorenzo let her orgasm, at last.

He left her there for a few moments, torso twitching in the twilight. Her sensitive sex and anus were dark pink with the pounding he had given her, her inner thighs streaked with wavy streams, the copious cum beginning to run down her shaking legs.

Then he took Ava down, holding her and caressing her limp body in his arms, wondering at her in delight. This woman who was going to marry him and be his lifelong submissive, in just a month's time.

With him, Lorenzo, as her master at last.

Jitters

As the weeks rolled by, and their wedding day approached, Ava got no nearer to the crucial answers she sought. The impossible dilemma she had between her slavish desire and personal freedom.

The day of their wedding came so fast, Ava could hardly believe it. When she thought back, it seemed barely weeks ago that she had read Lorenzo’s letter of new conditions. The list of demands for her to be his submissive slave bride, that she had to acquiesce to without question, in order to marry him. And that fateful contract, embossed in flowing script on vellum, had been presented to her the day after she had accepted to be his bride, for better or worse.

She was slightly surprised that he wanted their wedding day to be traditional, with a hundred guests. Coyly, she’d thought Lorenzo might insist on her having the Foxie vibrator strapped in her panties during the ceremony, but he’d looked at her oddly, saying no.

Now, she was sat here in her hotel room in her sext cream underwear, her wedding dress on the bed, having a panic attack.

It was her wedding day, yet Ava was still in two minds about marrying Lorenzo. What should she do? Was she seeking something unattainable by marrying him, by being his submissive? Or was she just trying to fix some fatal character flaw inside her, by agreeing to this permanent sexual contract with a highly dominant male?

Or was the whole idea of this contract with her, the list that he insisted on, part of some major character flaw that he had? Or was it simply a manifestation of Lorenzo being obsessed with detail and control? And was that the sort of person she really wanted to marry, for ever?

Screwing up the bedclothes with her hands in indecision Ava sat there, the hour rapidly approaching when she needed to put her wedding dress on and get ready. Did she still have serious doubts or was this just classic wedding nerves. Was the undisputed sexual joy, bliss and security from being with him, as his life-long slave, enough to compensate for his fastidious marriage contract?

Certainly if, once they were married, she did all he asked of her within that contract, it would undoubtedly affect everything else she loved in life. Her work, her social life, and time with her best friends.

She could accept the fact that he demanded that he be able to fuck her anywhere in public. That was enticing and often exciting for her. What she was worried about were the final two terms in his marriage list, outlined on the contract page he’d sent her all those months ago, and that she now had framed on her bedroom wall.

Despite all the amazing and painful sexual and BDSM activities they’d undertaken together over the years the last two, nine and ten on the list, were very daunting and still yet to happen.  

She really had no idea exactly what he had in mind with number nine, where she was to submit to men or women of his choice. Did this mean her having to accept being taken sexually by any anonymous person he insisted on? Or would he ask her consent? Lorenzo hadn’t specified this in his letter or said when or how often this might happen. In five months, she’d been too scared to ask.

But the crunch point for her indecision about the wedding was the thing that concerned her the most. Number ten on his list of pre-nuptial demands, the last part of their future master and slave contract together that he’d shared with her the previous summer.

But this was something he’d agreed that she could do after their wedding, rather than before. Ava had to submit to being tattooed, as the property of her master, with a special feather motif hidden from public view just above her buttocks, as well as his initials tattooed directly above her vagina.

He’d explained it all to her one evening, over a candlelit Italian meal. The week after the wedding she was to visit a very discrete artist uptown, someone who only did tattoos to order and by special contract. Lorenzo had already paid him in advance.

Lorenzo showed her the bold designs, the LM initials in a red gothic script, an inch high, in pride of place emblazoned just an inch above her vulva. Then, at the base of her back, just below her pantie line, was the wide tattoo of a feather wrapped in barbed wire.

These two designs, respectively, signified her acceptance as his physical and sexual property, and her acknowledgement of her future life with him as her master, in slave bondage.

Time and time again Ava went over in her mind about the thought of being permanently inked as his property. But, since that first night all those months ago that she’d read his marriage contract the tattoo was the only thing they hadn’t spoken about. Ava had been too nervous about it to broach the subject again. But she knew he was expecting her to comply with all of his ten demands, and the last had to happen immediately after they were married too.

Of course, it was possible Lorenzo might rescind the last two alarming conditions, submitting to having two tattoos and then, at some point in their future together, being taken sexually by others.

But Ava knew Lorenzo was meticulous about details. Having said in his marriage contract letter the tattoos must be done, and that she submit to being taken by as yet unnamed people, then she knew it would happen eventually.

Snapping out of her reverie into her wedding day preparations, Ava realised, what other choice did she have in this, today?

Over a hundred people were already gathering in the large sandstone church just a few miles away. All of their social friends, work colleagues from their respective finance firms and their families too would likely already be there. Her mother in particular had been anticipating her wedding day with excitement, even since Ava told her of Lorenzo’s marriage proposal all those months ago.

She breathed in and out deeply, trying to calm quaking nerves.

After all, she reasoned, Lorenzo was hardly likely to make her have sex with a complete stranger without her consent, just a few days after they were married. This last condition would have to be discussed, terms of reference agreed, so she could go along with it.

Plus, with the other condition, half the women she knew had a tattoo, and the two ink motifs he demanded that she should bear wouldn’t be visible in the gym or even on the beach, in a bikini.

Ava looked at her watch. Barely an hour to go to the ceremony. Ava Chided herself for these last-minute doubts. She was nothing if not a perfectionist. If she was going to embrace being a submissive bride, then she must put her reservations to one side and go into it wholeheartedly. She started to carefully apply her makeup.

Everything now completed to her satisfaction she checked herself over in the long mirror. Cream garter belt, sheer stockings and thin silk panties with delicate embroidery around the edges.

The balcony bra accentuated her round breasts more than usual, pushing them up and forward, putting what she thought were her best assets out on display. Yes, she looked really hot.

She had been wrong about his thoughts of a completely traditional wedding too. An hour before she was due to leave in the wedding car, Lorenzo had sent her a brief text on her mobile.

“Make sure you’re shaved smooth Ava. No panties and no bra.”

She touched herself gently between her legs where it was still sore. She stroked the thin red mark on her left labia that Lorenzo had given her yesterday evening. He’d made her stand naked in front of him, legs wide apart as he gave her a single switch stroke, up between her legs.

He’d told her that it was a final reminder of his mastery over her.

Pulling on the sheer stockings gently, careful not to ladder them, Ava put the final touches to her hair and veil, steeling herself for her big day in front of her awaiting and family and the assembled friends already waiting out there in the church.

The wedding

As she entered the church Ava heard the organist start to play the Wedding March from Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, the classical music Ava had chosen to walk down the aisle to. She blushed when she saw Lorenzo turn round to stare at her in her gorgeous satin wedding gown.

She’d been insistent that he shouldn’t see her at all the night before the wedding, as much to get her own thoughts together about the marriage and his strict terms, as for tradition’s sake.

He looked stunning in a dark grey Armani suit and black tie, and he glanced back at his parents who were seated on the front row next to him, smiling in broad grins.

Ava’s slim ivory gown, veil and white high heels looked stunning, but appearances were deceptive. Ava was getting more and more nervous with each stride. There was so much riding on this ceremony and what it meant for her afterwards. It was suddenly dawning on her just how much independence she might forfeit the second that she said, ‘I do’, and when he put his ring on her finger.

She knew that, for both of them, those two acts also signified her implicit compliance with the final two demands on Lorenzo’s list.

Now, walking down the aisle, she felt as if all the guests could sense her nakedness beneath the wedding dress. Each swish of the ivory silk across her upper thighs caused her an electric jolt of nervous excitement.

She walked steadily and purposefully, trying hard to hold back the growing blush in her cheeks, imagining gasps if she were to trip, exposing her nudity to the attentive audience watching every step.

Lorenzo wore a sly smile, knowing what she was going through, accepting the embarrassment as his right, as her sexual master.

As Ava reached the end of the church aisle and joined Lorenzo at his side, all the recent emotions she had been feeling Suddenly came to a tumultuous head.

She saw an image of herself standing there, stripped completely naked, pirouetting around in front of the stunned audience. Lorenzo parading her brands to the wedding guests, the barbed feather over her bum and his initials emblazoned in red, just above her vagina.

Then she visualised the men in the audience that Lorenzo knew, and maybe some of the women too, all standing in a line, queuing down the aisle, waiting to have their wicked way with her body.

Waiting in line to fuck her, dominate her, control her, beat her, submit her will to them sexually, just as his marriage list demanded.

Something snapped. It was all suddenly too much for Ava.

It could have been barely a minute after she’d arrived at Lorenzo’s side, the two of them standing there, opposite the priest.

Ava suddenly turned to Lorenzo and mumbled.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t do this. So sorry.”

She spun on her heels and fled, running back down the aisle, lifting her dress just enough to avoid tripping but not enough for people to spot here nakedness.

She kept her head low, ignoring the gasps of astonishment and cries from the assembled throng and families, all gathered there to see this supposedly perfect couple tie the knot together.

As she reached the church door, she wrenched off the high heels, throwing them aside, running in bare feet over the church gravel to the white Rolls Royce wedding car, still parked at the church gate, waiting for the happy couple.

The driver had seen wedding situations before and every facet of last-minute bridal nerves. But he could see from the expression on Ava’s face that she was beyond reasoning with, as she leapt into the back of the car, insisting he drive away as fast as possible.

He didn’t mind, he got paid whatever the wedding outcome.

As they drove off in a cloud of dust the driver watched Ava in his rear-view mirror, fascinated. He saw her pull her veil off, then tear off the train at the back of the dress, throwing it into the footwell.

Then she attacked the lace trim all around the cleavage of the crisp ivory satin designer dress and pulled off all the ivory flowers.

She nodded to herself at the results, leaving behind a dress that might just about pass muster as a high-class party outfit. That would have to do, as Ava was only just about holding herself together.

“Get me to the airport as fast as possible. I’ll pay you extra.”

The driver grunted his assent, gunning the powerful engine in the aging limousine, driving as close to the speed limit as he could.

As he glanced back once more, he saw Ava had slowly curled herself up into a foetal position along the length of the white leather back seat. In the back Ava gave herself up to despair, crying and howling in pain, wracking sobs shaking her whole body.

The white Rolls sped on, destined for any plane, going anywhere.