Experience Is the Best Teacher

By Pat Harvey

After many years as a modest, unpretentious wife, at age thirty-seven Karen Black began a journey of self-discovery at her husband's company retreat that took her into the shadowy, secretive realm of erotic power exchange: dominance and submission, bondage and discipline, and the transformation of sensual pain into previously unimaginable ecstasy.

Freed of inhibitions through her voluntary surrender to the control of Steven, a man less than half her age, Karen's latent sexuality and saucy personality blossomed. As she bonded more strongly with her master, Karen accepted, and mostly enjoyed, her consensual participation in a variety of sexual and sadomasochistic activities.

Four years after that retreat, Karen and Steven met Robert, an older dominant, and she was both challenged and exhilarated in a private session with him. Six months later, Steven faced major life decisions, and he sent Karen to live with Robert while he resolved them.

That's the back-story, the prologue. That's where this story really begins.

Robert's style is different from Steven's. Both his erotic scenes and his day-to-day interactions with her are more cerebral; he plays with her mind as well as her body. But then their lives take an sudden turn. After exchanging emails with Lisa, a newcomer to BDSM, Robert meets her for a scene. Karen reads what Lisa wrote about her experiences and agrees to be a training aid for Barry, Lisa's husband.

Karen highlights for Barry the realities of what Lisa experienced with Robert. During their first learning session, Barry has his eyes opened further, first watching Robert play with Lisa with Karen's explanations and then attempting to perform similar play with Karen while Robert provides coaching.

After a few weeks of training, Lisa confesses that she's admitted to her long-time friend, Dorothy, how her relationship with Barry is evolving. Dorothy insists on meeting Robert, then verbally attacks him at a dinner as a man who abuses women. But Robert calmly conducts an extended discussion with her and Tony, her date, about the differences between SM and abuse. Robert invites Dorothy and Tony to witness the scene planned for later in the evening, and he fulfills Tony's fantasies by orchestrating his participation with Karen at the end of the evening's play.

Barry comes face-to-face with a woman he believes he's read about in Karen's journal. He conducts a private job-fair interview that not only becomes erotic in nature but takes advantage of his secret knowledge of Barbara's kinky needs and desires. Barry then takes his turn at the computer to describe the event.

Lisa and Barry arrange for Barbara to do a scene with Robert. He includes Karen and runs a playful yet highly arousing two-bottom game with Barry and Lisa as voyeurs. The next day, it's Robert's turn to hit the keyboard.

On the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, Robert gives Karen an amazing night and morning-after of love-making. But then Steven calls; he's made his life choices and he'll be arriving soon to pick Karen up. Robert and Karen put brave faces on an emotional difficult situation; they recognize and acknowledge that they've had a wonderful year together.

More than sixty years ago, the original Kinsey reports established that a significant percentage of the American population participates in or fantasizes about bondage, spanking, or other varieties of power-based sex play. In this educational and erotic story, Karen relates her experiences as a teacher and training partner for a novice dominant. She and the other principal characters reveal the intimate details of their thoughts, feelings, and interactions as Karen continues to embrace her true submissive destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514425138

Pat Harvey

Pat Harvey is the pseudonym of a former information technology practitioner, instructor, and manager who spent much of the last three decades based in the DC metro area managing complex new-business proposals for major global services companies. Lending reality to his writing of erotica, Pat Harvey has been a party to erotic power exchange relationships, ranging from casual to committed, since 1986. He is a long-time member of Black Rose, a DC educational, support, and social organization for people involved in both the psychological (dominance and submission) and the physical (BDSM) aspects of such relationships. He is also a former director of the Baltimore Educational and Social Society, an organization that had, prior to and during his tenure, a similar charter and goals, and one of the earliest members of The Crucible, a DC dungeon. He and his long-time submissive now reside in Nevada.

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Copyright © 2015 by Left Side Signals.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 11/18/2015

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Contents

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter I Settling In

Chapter II Lisa’s Story: First Meeting

Chapter III Negotiating the Plan

Chapter IV Getting Things Started

Chapter V Teaching From Below

Chapter VI The Lessons Continue

Chapter VII Dinner and a Debate

Chapter VIII A Rousing Demonstration

Chapter IX Mid-term Excitement

Chapter X Barry’s Story: The Interview

Chapter XI Surprises

Chapter XII Robert’s Story: The Card Game

Chapter XIII An Intimate Gathering

Chapter XIV My Master’s Gift

Chapter XV Closing the Circle

Author’s Afterword

Dedication

As noted on the copyright page, this is a work of fiction. That declaration notwithstanding, some parts of this book are fictionalized accounts that are based on my personal real-life experiences. I therefore respectfully dedicate this work to the real first-meeting Lisa, the original card-game bottoms, and the actual recipient of the master’s gift; to Joan Elizabeth Lloyd, for her early encouragement and support of my writing; and, always and forever, to the love and light of my life, my precious b.

Prologue

I came to live with Robert four and a half years after the retreat week that changed my life completely. When my husband received a formal invitation to his company’s retreat, Bill was at a critical point in his career, and we knew that week would be a key test. He and I had both heard rumors about sexual games being played at the retreats, and I knew the wife of the company president would want me to participate. Based on past encounters, I was certain that Helen Cummings would make it part of Bill’s test for me to play along in any such games.

With a combination of curiosity and uneasiness about the unknown, I went to the retreat knowing it would test me as well as Bill. Even so, I had no idea of what would actually happen during that fateful week.

Looking back, I suppose I’d always been a latent submissive without realizing it, but ever since the retreat I’ve been, with my complete consent, totally under the control of a man who at the time was less than half my age. Helen sent her son to play sex games with me, doubtless as a way to both bring me down and give him some fun. But Steven quickly set out to dominate me, and by the time the retreat week was over I was his rather than my husband’s.

Steven freed me from all my inhibitions, sexual and otherwise, and over time he helped me find the joy and security of true submission. He led me, with a mix of firmness and gentle prodding, to learn how to process sensual pain into the incredible pleasure such pain can produce. I’m not a masochist; I don’t crave pain for its own sake. I enjoy the pleasure-pain I get from skillful SM play, but pain inflicted as punishment isn’t pleasant for either party, and even a masochist cries when she stubs her toe. But by punishing me when I failed to measure up to his expectations, Steven taught me self-discipline and self-respect.

He also showed me, with infinite caring and compassion, the differences between sex and love and between play and commitment. Steven really opened my mind on the subject of sex. Prior to the retreat, I’d had sex with three men, and two of those were the men I’d married. Since then, I’ve enjoyed sex play with a number of women and couldn’t begin to count the number of men who’ve fucked me. It took me a while, but, after Steven explained and demonstrated those differences, I was able to mentally decouple the physical acts from the emotions I had previously associated with them and I started to really like all that sweaty exercise. I did gang-bangs for Steven’s viewing pleasure and under his protection, sucking and fucking until everyone involved was beyond exhaustion. While there were moments when I was afraid, in hindsight I can truthfully say that I enjoyed all the games we played.

Steven enrolled in our local junior college after the retreat, and then a year later he blackmailed Helen into providing more than enough money for his tuition and our living expenses. I divorced Bill when Steven and I moved to the town where Steven would be finishing his education. Shortly after we got there, Steven lent me to Paul, one of his new-found college friends, for a couple of months. Steven played with Barbara Keller, Paul’s widowed landlady, while Paul used me to explore his own fantasies. I’ve done, and had done to me, a lot of unusual and occasionally nasty things over the past few years, but no one has ever pushed me to the depths of self-degradation and self-loathing that Paul did. Even that experience taught me some things, though, including how fortunate I was to have Steven as the dominant force in my life.

Steven brought two beautiful blonde sisters near his own age, Steffie and Connie, into our household right after he got his bachelor’s degree, and I became a sort of middle. That’s not an SM term, it’s a description of my changed status; I was in charge of the girls and responsible for their behavior while all three of us belonged to Steven. He cared about the girls, cared enough to help Connie rescue Steffie from her self-destructive bent, but he set rules within our various relationships that kept emotional distance between him and them. The girls knew that Steven and I had a special relationship, a commitment to each other on multiple levels, and they accepted that.

Aside from finding out how much Steven loves me, the most important thing I gained from my experiences with the girls was some insight into why a dominant derives such pleasure from that side of the D/s-BDSM equation. I felt the rush from exercising the pain/pleasure power over another person, and I had fun topping the two girls, but I also learned that I don’t want to ever dominate a man; I am, at heart, a man’s woman.

Steven took the three of us on a vacation in his motor home, and along the way we met Robert in Las Vegas. Robert taught Steven how to play craps and the girls how to play roulette; he taught me, in a private scene that tested my courage and my resolve, that I could conquer my fears and embrace my submission to the fullest. Robert and Steven became good friends, and the girls adore Robert; they get a real charge out of trying to totally wipe him out whenever they can get him to play with them.

For those who haven’t read my first story and are curious, I’ll describe myself. At the time I’m writing this, getting ready for Steven to take me home, I’m forty-two years old. My eyes are brown, and my hair, also brown, is long and straight; it hangs below my shoulders. I stand five-foot-four in my stocking feet, but anyone who sees me is much more likely to find that the top of my head is sixty-eight or sixty-nine inches off the ground; I wear high heels virtually all the time. Steven put me on an exercise program after our relationship began, and I’ve kept it up and stayed in shape. Men, especially, usually want to know, so I’ll say that my measurements are the same as several years ago: thirty-six-C, twenty-three, thirty-seven.

I believe there were two reasons why Steven sent me to live with Robert for a while. Like many good dominants, Steven pays attention to details. He uses them to surprise me, sometimes to my chagrin and often long after I’ve forgotten whatever it was I said or did that he remembered. I know, because Steven told me, that one reason was because of an offhand comment I made after we’d met Robert in Vegas, but I think my second reason was the real one. Steven was coming to the time when he had to make decisions about what he’d do after graduate school. I know he valued my input, but he was intent on making those decisions completely on his own. Steven didn’t have to prove anything to me, about his ability to take care of me or anything else, but I sense that he felt differently at that juncture in his life.

The way things are these days, I suppose we’ve been lucky. I’m confident that Steven has always been prudent in arranging our escapades, even when he didn’t tell me what precautions he’d taken, but we’ve never practiced safe sex. There are probably people who would lie about themselves, concealing their health status to pursue selfish pleasures, but none of us—Steven, the girls, Robert, or myself—has ever contracted any kind of sexually transmitted disease. I wouldn’t advocate the approach we’ve followed for anyone else, but I trust Steven, and now Robert, completely, and I’m content to let them assess the risks and make those decisions.

This is the story of my time with Robert.

* *

Chapter I

Settling In

Living with Robert was an interesting blend of the familiar with some new and stimulating twists. I had left Steven’s house wearing nothing but a velvet choker, a luxurious new fur coat, and five-inch stilettos, but Steven had sent a few of my things ahead without my knowledge. Much of the rest of my wardrobe followed a couple of days later, but Robert was smart enough to realize that few things make a woman feel more cared for than taking her out shopping. I knew nothing of his lifestyle or preferences when we started, but between chatting as we shopped and the kinds of things he had me try on I quickly learned a lot.

I had expected that living with a man older than I, and much older than Steven, would be different, and I had been wondering how those differences would manifest themselves ever since Steven told me about his arrangement with Robert. I found out one exciting difference as we walked from his car to the mall. Robert opened the conversation in his usual quiet way.

Tell me, Karen, he began, how you feel about the way you’ve been dressing the last few months.

I feel pretty good about it, I answered. I feel very attractive in my everyday outfits.

That’s good, he responded. My tastes are similar to Steven’s in most respects, so we won’t be making any radical changes in your basic attire, but there’s one part of your wardrobe that needs expansion. As you now know, I have a housekeeper, and you’ll be my consort, not my maid. I enjoy dining out and I both give and attend dinner and theater parties, so you’ll need some suitable additions for when you accompany me or are my hostess.

I won’t argue with that idea, I said with a smile. Dressing up for Steven’s special occasions always made me feel feminine and super-sexy.

I’m glad you felt the way you looked, Robert said gallantly. I flushed and dimpled at his compliment and slipped my arm through his as we entered the mall.

We spent time that day in upscale chain, specialty, and even bridal stores looking for cocktail and evening wear. I couldn’t guess at the number of things I tried on for his inspection; it was a wonderfully heady whirlwind experience. Robert would have nothing but the best for me; he chose the most beautiful styles of suits, dresses, and gowns in exquisite fabrics and flattering colors. It was overwhelming, and I tried to take it as seriously as he did. Mostly I succeeded, but there were a few giddy moments when I felt like a cross between a teenager choosing her prom dress and a debutante about to be presented to high society.

We stopped in several shoe stores and in the shoe departments of those specialty shops that had them. Robert shared Steven’s view of the effect and appeal of high heels, but he wanted me to have evening shoes, dressier than my basic pumps and more appropriate for the clothes we were buying. Evening shoes are not readily available with heels as high as my usual minimum, and the way Robert resolved this dilemma showed me his delightful, if slightly warped, sense of humor; he decided, as he put it, to average my heel heights.

We bought a pair each of gold and silver evening sandals, one pair with three-inch heels and the other with three-and-a-half-inch heels. Then, when we got home, Robert logged onto the Internet and ordered two more pairs of shoes for me. One was a pair of pumps with five-inch spike heels, and the bottom two inches of each heel was an actual metal spike. The other pair had ankle straps, and the slender heels were a towering five-and-a-half inches. I had never tried to wear heels that high, but Robert told me with a twinkle in his eye that if I was good enough I would spend most of the time I was wearing them in other than a standing position.

Either I was really good or he was really nice to me, because that’s the way it turned out.

*

Aging inevitably takes its toll on the human body. Robert was not an old man by any means, but he no longer had the stamina of his youth and his approach to sexual activities reflected that fact. In terms of time, he took more of his pleasure from the control aspects of the D/s relationship and their effects on me than from his own calisthenics. Based on my experience with him in Las Vegas, I had expected him to play with my mind a lot, so I wasn’t surprised that he did.

This is not to say that we didn’t share plenty of both traditional SM and sweaty exercise. He was generous with the bittersweet pleasure/pain that gives me my strongest orgasms, and more than once he fucked me so long and so hard that he wore me out. But I was eager to experience more of what Robert could teach me about myself, and he did not disappoint me.

I’ll cite just one example. I had never doubted it, but Robert proved to me in no uncertain terms that Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a genius. Shortly after I came to live with him, Robert began whispering a certain phrase in my ear every time I started becoming sexually aroused. A couple of weeks later, he added a different phrase when I got close to coming. Finally, he added a third phrase that he whispered just as I started to have an orgasm. This continued unfailingly for about three months.

Then one day, while we were sitting in a restaurant having lunch, he leaned over and whispered the first phrase, and before I realized what was happening my nipples were as hard as rocks and both my panties and the chair seat were sopping wet with my pussy juice. I couldn’t believe it! I turned every shade of red imaginable, while Robert just sat there with the most smug expression possible.

He watched me compose myself as best I could, then leaned toward me again and whispered the second phrase. I felt another flood between my thighs as my clit stood up and tingled, my body shivered with anticipation, and my breathing got fast and shallow. Robert smiled and said, Remember that movie, Karen, in which Meg Ryan fakes a screaming orgasm in a diner?

Robert, you wouldn’t! I gasped between trembling lips.

Well, I don’t know why not, he drawled. If I say the next phrase, yours won’t be a fake.

Oh, please, Robert, please don’t, not now, not here, please, I’d be so embarrassed, please don’t…

Why should I care if you’re embarrassed? he teased. Just try to keep as quiet as possible, and maybe no one will really notice.

Fat chance, I thought, but I resigned myself to the idea that he was going to push my button no matter what I said. He whispered that third phrase, and I clamped my mouth shut and balled my fists at my sides as a thunderous orgasm surged through me like a bolt of lightning. I did a pretty good job of keeping it in, but a few squeaks and squeals got out, and even though my eyes were shut tight I could feel the stares of people at nearby tables.

The pleasurable sensations faded after about thirty seconds. I relaxed my hands and opened my eyes, being careful to look only at Robert; I didn’t want to make eye contact with anyone around us. But I could tell from his expression as his glance swept the room that the other diners were returning to minding their own business. Eventually he stopped looking around and focused his attention back on me.

He had just given me the ultimate mind-fuck, and despite my embarrassment I was in awe of what he’d done. Thank you for that pleasure, Master Robert, I said quietly.

*

I’m not going to devote a lot of time and words to describing our everyday comings and goings. As it was with Steven years earlier, Robert and I slipped into an easy, comfortable living-together that reflected, if anyone was in a position to observe us, the reality of our dominant/submissive relationship without undue posturing or exaggeration. I’m sure his housekeeper knew, or at least strongly suspected, that our relationship was not pure vanilla, but she was discreet and we were careful not to rub her nose in our kinkiness.

Robert and I got together with Steven, Steffie, and Connie every few weeks, and we all had a wonderful time when we did. I enjoyed sleeping with Steven and having the opportunity to spend a fair amount of time alone with him, while the girls entertained Robert to the point of mutual exhaustion. Those periodic weekends with Steven helped me cope with how much I missed him.

*

I had been with Robert for several months when the direction of our life together took a sudden turn. He called me into his study one day in early June and seated me next to him on the leather couch. His seating me as an equal was a dead giveaway that something unusual was up, because normally when we were alone and not actively playing I would be standing, kneeling, or sitting on a low stool. It was only when he wanted to discuss or renegotiate the limits or other parameters of our relationship that Robert treated me this way.

Someone who read my previous story might have gotten the impression that there were no limits in my relationship with Robert, that the anything he had spoken and I had repeated when he picked me up at Steven’s house equated to total and complete submission. But there are always limits of some kind in any sane relationship, and Robert believed as firmly as Steven did in the notion of informed consent. Since by then I was quite comfortable with him as my master, I was eager to hear the specifics of what he had in mind.

He started by surprising me, saying, I have a small confession to make to you, Karen.

My reaction was hardly profound. Huh? What do you mean?

I mean exactly what I said. I’m going to tell you a little story, and then you’ll understand.

I was mystified, but willing to go along with his agenda. What kind of a story?

I’m sure you remember that I wasn’t home last Saturday night.

Of course I remember, I retorted. You didn’t tell me you would be gone until almost the last minute, and it would have been our first Saturday night alone together in several weeks.

I know that, and I apologize. My confession has to do with where I was and what I did that night.

Robert, despite my last remark, you know you are under no obligation to explain anything like that to me. Aside from making sure that I’m not harmed by anything you do, you are a free agent.

Yes, he said patiently, and my confession is not that I was with someone else, although I was. Now may I please tell you the story?

Yes, of course, I answered, and I sat back to listen.

As I said, I was with someone last Saturday evening. She is a lady I met online about three months ago. As part of our email dialogue, I sent her your story to read.

He paused, as though waiting for a reaction. Is that your confession? That you sent someone a copy of my story?

Not quite, he replied, and his face took on a kind of sheepish expression. My real confession is that I let her think I wrote it. I didn’t claim to have written it, but I let her assume that I did.

I still don’t see what the big deal is, I said. I assume you met her to play; surely you didn’t disappoint her? The way I smiled and raised my eyebrow should have made it obvious that either the answer was negative or in my opinion the lady under discussion was a complete fool. Nevertheless, he took my comment seriously.

Yes, we met to play, and no, she wasn’t disappointed, he said. It was an innocent deception, and there was no harm done, but it turns out that the circumstances are more complicated than I’ve explained so far.

Complicated in what way?

I’ll let the lady explain that herself, Karen. I asked her to write down her story, just as you wrote yours, and I want you to read what she’s written.

If that’s what you want, Robert.

Thank you, Karen, I’m sure you’ll understand much better after you read it. He took my hand, led me around his desk, and seated me in front of his PC; there was