Excerpt:
She admits to being scared. She follows him timidly, her heels digging into the carpet, as he unlocks the iron dungeon door with an old-fashioned key. Here they are, master and slave again. She wonders if he purposefully designed the door this way - to intimidate the submissive before she even steps across the threshold.
If that is his objective, he has succeeded well. She's virtually quaking as the door whines open.
"Don't worry, Susan. You'll enjoy this," he says.
She isn't so sure. She wants him inside her badly, she can't deny that. But this is a whole new experience. She remembers the spanking and how she had cried at that, and her legs wobble as they propel her into the viper's pit.
The dungeon is cavernous. Channing closes the door behind them with a clang, and she jumps. She notes that the door on the inside is decked with en electronic panel - a strange modern application that clashes jarringly with the rustic material it's embedded in.
It's a strange chamber, about the size of a large office meeting room. The walls are opaque grey. Various pieces of furniture that resemble medieval torture racks line the perimeter, alongside black cabinets and metal safes.
She quails.
His palm is at her back, stroking her gently. "Don't be afraid. It's going to be OK. You'll like it . . . if you let your inhibitions go and free your mind."
She remembers the pact she made with him. Her body at his every whim in exchange for her promotion to Vice-President. Much of it has been enjoyable . . . so far . . . but now, at the sight of all this BDSM paraphernalia, she isn't so sure. Maybe she had made a pact with the devil himself. He's certainly handsome enough.
He says, "This doubles up as a panic room. The walls, ceiling and floor are concrete. They are padded with asbestos and other insulated structures."
"A panic room?"
"Yes. To protect its occupants," he says this in a meaningful tone.
I could have hidden here last night, she thinks faintly. Oh, the irony of it.
He goes to a tripod and caresses the wood. It is a triangular structure, almost like an easel. There are leather bonds at the top and at the sides. She can envision herself being bound upon it - wrists at the top and thighs stretched out and tied to the side beams. She recoils from it.
