Julia Unbound

By Serafina Conti

After six years of marriage, Julia Page is all alone and facing a lawsuit brought by her late dominant’s daughter Madeline, who she discovers, to her great distress, looks almost exactly like her. To make matters worse, just about everybody Julia knows is trying to get into her bed, though she is uninterested in sex. She is near despair when Madeline approaches her with a frightening but irresistible proposition that may fundamentally change her concept of herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Serafina Conti
• Release date: Nov 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463621226

Serafina Conti

Serafina Conti has been writing and publishing for most of her life, and she’s been writing fiction for more than two years. Her specialties are dark romance, raw humor, horror, and adaptations of ancient stories. She lives in the Northeastern United States with her husband Daniel and a tank of tropical fish.

Book preview

Julia Unbound

A Novel

by Serafina Conti

Copyright © 2019 by Serafina Conti

Smashwords Edition

Also by Serafina Conti

The Polyerotic Reader

Manhattan Kink

Julia and Mr. Page

Foreword

This story is set in a fictional circle of practitioners of BDSM in New York City. All characters are eighteen years of age or older. Any resemblance between these people and actual persons is coincidental. Establishments mentioned here (such as The Club and Mistress Shigemi’s House of Kink) are fictional. On the other hand, toys and devices are based on real items, except for the vibrators that figure prominently in Chapters Seven to Twelve. I have no idea whether vibrators like these exist in the real world, though my opinion is that they ought to.

Chapter 1

This story is about the day I made peace with myself. That day was exhausting and confusing, the way important days in your life often are, and it involved a lot of people—acquaintances, friends, and lovers. It also involved two vibrators, a bondage frame, an anal hook, a set of nipple clamps, and a penis gag, which are important enough to the way events unfolded that I think of them as characters in my story.

To make sense of it all, I’m going to have to back up a little more than a month, to the day I met Madeline. It was in the conference room of a law firm—an unpromising place, I know, to begin this kind of story. But don’t worry: we’ll get to the fucking soon enough.

*

The instant I stepped into that conference room, I knew I was in trouble. I stared at the two women already seated at the long oaken table: the mother in her early fifties, slender and brilliantly blonde, with a face somewhere between round and oval, a clear, not-quite-pale complexion, and a short, upturned nose; the daughter much the same, except that the wrinkles and angles that gave away the mother’s age hadn’t shown up yet.

The daughter was in her late twenties, I guessed—about my own age. That wasn’t all we had in common, though: it seemed to me at that moment that every detail of her face was a match for mine.

There were differences, of course. Her hair was pulled back severely and fastened in a tight bun at the back, while mine cascaded abundantly over my shoulders. Her makeup was harder than mine—lips redder, features more sharply defined. She wore a gray pantsuit, very businesslike and totally unlike my modest dress, which was in a blue I thought went well with my hair. She sat ramrod straight in her chair, white legal pad, pen, and cell phone arrayed before her in military formation, while I, suddenly dizzy, gripped the back of a chair to keep myself upright.

She looked at me with triumph in her eyes, like she’d won a bet, while I was fighting a battle, which I was pretty sure I’d lose, against the panic that was at that moment invading my body and mind. The room seemed an oven: I couldn’t breathe.

Having ushered me into this room, Samantha Willis, my lawyer, lowered her comfortable frame into a leather-upholstered chair and, smiling at me like nothing at all was wrong, gestured towards the empty chair next to hers.

But I couldn’t sit. I bent down to whisper urgently in her ear: I need to talk to you, Sam—outside.

Sam raised her eyebrows at the other lawyer, levered herself out of her chair, and followed me into the hallway.

I can’t do it! I said. Not today.

What’s the problem, Julia? This was hard to set up: these people have busy schedules.

"It’s her: she looks exactly like me!"

There’s a resemblance—so?

No, Sam, it’s not just a resemblance: we could be twins!

"Okay, she looks a lot like you. So what?"

"I don’t know what, Sam! I’ve got to think—I need time to think!"

It’s understandable you’re nervous, said Sam with maternal gentleness. You’ve never done a deposition before. But you’ll be fine. Just remember what I said: stay calm, take your time answering questions, and consult me if you need to. I’ll make sure things don’t go off the rails. Why don’t you take fifteen minutes, get a drink of water, and take some deep breaths? They’ll wait for you.

I spent the fifteen minutes pacing in the hallway, unable to think about the deposition for thinking about Mr. Page. The love the two of us had shared might not look like love to you, unless you like being roughed up and treated worse than a piece of furniture—but for every moment of our six years of marriage, I had been sure that everything that passed between us, however unconventional, was an expression of a love in which I had complete confidence. Now, without quite understanding why, I felt like someone had kicked me hard, right in the chest, over my heart. I needed time to figure out what it all meant.

My fifteen minutes were up all too soon, and Sam summoned me back into the conference room. Remember what I said. Don’t answer more than he asks. Don’t answer without thinking. Consult with me if you have the slightest question. Ask for a break if you need one.

Back in the conference room, the other lawyer and a court reporter were waiting patiently. The young woman smiled a predatory smile and her mother fidgeted impatiently.

The lawyer introduced himself as Steve Bertelli. A friendly man, he began by asking me a few harmless questions, as if to put me at ease. After a few minutes he asked if I was ready, nodded at the court reporter, and announced that he was taking a deposition in the case of Madeline and Barbara Page, plaintiffs, vs. Julia Page, defendant.

He led me through the history of my relationship with Mr. Page—some of which I had hoped never to have to tell anyone. When I was a junior in college, my father committed suicide, leaving me broke and without a family. Facing the impossibility of paying my way through an expensive college, I answered an ad in Craigslist, and in return for Mr. Page paying my tuition and living expenses, I agreed to become his plaything. It was supposed to be a business arrangement, but we fell in love and got married. Yes, I said to the camera, I was aware from early on in our relationship that Mr. Page suffered from chronic leukemia, but the disease was under control at the time, and he was fit, strong, and certainly of sound mind. Yes, my father was under indictment for financial crimes at the time of his suicide. No, I knew nothing about his crimes. No, I had never worked as a prostitute. No, I had never committed adultery. Sam and I had expected that last question and decided that I could say No without lying.

Sam had thought they would follow up on the adultery question, but they let it pass. It was puzzling: did his daughter and ex-wife know nothing about our kinks? They went on to the money. I had signed a prenup waiving my right to any share of Mr. Page’s estate, and I had never discussed Mr. Page’s will with him. Its terms had taken me by surprise.

The lawyer’s questions were tedious and repetitious, and Sam interrupted frequently to question the necessity of a line of questioning: this sometimes led to lengthy discussions during which I tried to avoid looking at Madeline, because when I did, I always found her staring back at me with chilly blue eyes. The deposition went on for more than two hours, till after five o’clock, and left me exhausted.

*

You need a drink, said Sam.

I didn’t want a drink, but I let Sam lead me to a bar, where I nursed a glass of wine while we reviewed the deposition, which Sam thought had gone well.

But why didn’t they go into the kink? I said. They must know about it.

I don’t know, said Sam, who was a kitten for a woman half her age when she wasn’t playing a tigress in the courtroom. If they don’t know about it, we don’t have to tell them. And if they don’t bring it up during discovery, they can’t use it at trial.

Do you think it’ll go to trial?

Probably not. Their case is weak. They’re hoping you’ll give them a few mil to make them go away.

Maybe I will.

Over my dead body.

*

Four hours later, a taxi dropped me in front of the marble steps of The Club. I’ve never known if the place has a more official name: none of its members call it anything but The Club. It felt odd to be approaching the polished oaken door without Mr. Page: he had always been the one to operate the old-fashioned brass bell-pull, which looked heavy and formidable. I pulled it and waited until an old man in formal attire opened the door.

Good evening, Mrs. Page, he said, and stepped back to let me in. He took my coat and murmured, I am terribly sorry for your loss.

Thank you, Boswell, I said.

He was a kind and generous man—well liked by the staff of The Club. We all miss him a great deal.

I smiled at him to signal my appreciation and put a stop to further conversation. He had said what duty demanded.

They’re waiting in the lounge, Mrs. Page, said Boswell, and led me down a hallway lined with portraits of men and women in costumes from various periods, most of them carrying weapons: truncheons, swords, axes. I had seen the portraits often before and didn’t glance at them, but wondered vaguely why Boswell had said they were waiting.

The lounge, a large paneled room with a bar at one end and bondage-themed pictures on the walls, was pretty full tonight, with about a dozen couples, all dominants with their submissives. Sitting at a table by the wall, a corpulent man with coarse features grinned and waved at me. Across from him sat a woman with flawless creamy skin, fine features, and brown hair in a long braid, wearing a skimpy dress in shiny black latex.

Hello, Teddy, I said.

Teddy said, Hey there, little Miss I’m-too-rich-to-be-on-fucking-time.

The woman with him turned towards me, and I saw a pale scar running from her right cheekbone down to her jawline. Recognizing her instantly from my friend Emily’s description, I smiled at her warily.

Pull up a pew, Mrs. Page, said Teddy, shoving an empty chair out with his foot. He said, You’ve heard all about Pipit here. She’s a whore. Not a rich slut that plays at being a whore, like you, but the real thing. She’s here tonight because I’m paying her a thousand.

I’m glad to meet you, Pipit, I said, sitting down and ignoring what Teddy had said. Casual verbal brutality was the greatest part of his kink.

He went on, And this is Artie’s wife and fuck-toy, Mrs. Julia Page. He willed her to me—or at least he willed her fuck-holes to my dick.

I said, Now Teddy, that’s not true at all, but his words were too close to the truth for comfort, for Mr. Page had commanded me over and over, during his lucid intervals those last miserable days, to go on with Teddy after he was gone.

I hadn’t wanted to do it. I had resolved, after Mr. Page’s passing, that he hadn’t really understood what he was saying by that point, and I wasn’t bound by his ravings. I had steeled myself to tell Teddy that he no longer had a place in my life.

But Teddy had called me the day after the funeral and, in sober and sympathetic tones, putting aside his customary bluster, had asked after me and offered his services as an informal financial consultant. For months afterwards he had been there for me, explaining the different kinds of assets in the estate, helping me interact with banks and brokers, and guiding me through the many financial decisions I’d had to make. And when Madeline Page and her mother had sued, Teddy had found Sam for me—the perfect lawyer, he had said, for the perfect sub. After a month or so of respectable sobriety he had reverted to form—laughing, bragging, telling rude jokes—but for six solid months he hadn’t once insulted me, come on to me, or even touched me.

I had always known that Teddy would sooner or later assert what he believed to be his rights over me, and it was evident that tonight would be the night. His manner was pure over-the-top Teddy as he introduced me to Pipit. He was letting the dogs out.

Stand up, slut! he commanded. Let’s give you a proper introduction to Mrs. Page. Pipit stood obediently, though there was terror in her face.

C’mere, he ordered, and Pipit rounded the table to stand before him.

He tugged at the hem of her dress and said, "Take this off, slut. Wanna