The Red Bride Denuded

The setting is a solicitor’s office. Present are a young woman in a pretty red dress, early twenties (‘The Red Bride’); a female legal assistant, formally dressed, late thirties; an older man, handsome, greying temples, well-dressed in a fine business suit, red tie (‘Master’); the solicitor, well-dressed in a fine business suit, blue tie.

———————

Legal assistant

My boss has told me we’ll have a novelty to deal with today. Sort of like marrying two people. But he said I might be shocked. The woman would more or less sell her soul to the man, who also is a lot older. Why always the woman in the giving, inferior role? He hopes I can stomach the shock.

‘It is all legal’, he says with a smile.

Now this is her, the would-be bride. Beautiful. Not stupid. Naïve, certainly. Dressed like a girl in a pretty red party dress. She is young, but not a girl. A fully developed young woman and well endowed. She could get any man she cares to have. But she is not the conqueror’s type. Or perhaps it is just the nerves of getting married that makes her nervous, servile… Although she is suddenly alert, studies me back with intensity. In her eyes I see a flicker of spirit… She is not stupid.

The bride

I look at my Master with tears in my eyes. I cannot disobey his very first order. I cannot. But I die with embarrassment when I reach to the back of my dress and tear down the zipper. Master, he has sat down and watches me push the dress off my shoulders, the beautiful red dress he gave me upon my surrender, yesterday, and let it fall to the floor. I step out of my shoes and dress, loosely fold it up and put it and the shoes to the side. I feel very, very cold in my underwear and stockings.

And I stand there. Still.

Embarrassed especially in front of another woman. I feel she will judge me all the harder. She will feel I am letting the side down and throwing it all away. And she is right!

The command ‘Go on!’ shocks me back to the here-and-now. I bend over and strip down the left first and then the right stocking, neatly fold up each of them in turn and put it on the dress. I am so cold! But I go on and undo the clip of my bra behind my back, naturally with my shoulders curved back and my breasts pert, slide the shoulder straps down with my back curved forward and my breasts pressed together and let the pretty bra fall off. It follows the way of my stockings. My breasts are now evicted from their safe haven and exposed for all to see. In an office!

Should my nipples not be erect? Should I not be aroused by these moments? I am ashamed! When I finally remove my knickers, I am stark naked. I don’t even have pubic hair to protect me. I mechanically fold the knickers up and put them down with the rest.

There I am. Open to three pairs of eyes. Two that leer at me and one that judges me.

———————

But we’ll come to this part of the story later. Let’s start at the beginning, a few months earlier…

I MEET MY MATCH

Yes, very much so…

I am in love!

Oh, how could I not be! That man! He oozes class, force and authority. Oh, and he is beautiful…

He is older. That too. I have always kept been open to older men, but this time marks the first instance when I am actually with a member of that age group. Daddy complex? Maybe.

I said he has authority. Well, I fear him. Almost. But I have nothing to fear. I am a good girl.

Ultimately what redeems me is that I love him.

I truly love him!

To you, if you are new to the eccentric universe I inhabit, it must seem wrong: the large age difference between him and me and our clear inequality. He commands me. Yet through him I am free. Freedom through submission.

I like strong men and have always done so. I never was one for young boys. Here is my luck: I developed early from child to woman and became well shaped, quite the looker. Therefore, I had the pick of boys at high school. When I was still a sophomore, I had my first boyfriend, a senior. He was a football player and strong indeed. But within a few months I was no longer impressed by his brawn. Behind his big mouth he depended on me more than I could suffer. Well, there is only one way to learn – to get it wrong sometimes. I am sure you will agree.

I found another boyfriend before long, a less wholesome, all-American rebel, a senior to my junior. He was the James Dean type, moody, enigmatic. This impressed me at lot at the time. He was very, very sweet with me, meanwhile, especially whenever we were alone. In public, he made sure everyone knew that I was his and he protected me when I needed it. That suited me fine and I was with him for a year. What made us finally break up was that, going from a senior at school to a lowly freshman at college, he lost his air of self-reliance. Within a few months he had changed his tack and became as straight as the rest. After that, as a senior, I had a few boyfriends of various descriptions in quick succession. None of them stuck.

The moment arrived when I went to college myself. My major was fashion. Far away from home, all the way at the other side of the country. I arrived in NYC, the capital of the free world. I was beautiful and quite self-assured and had the time of my life. My world was that of fashion, the world of make-believe, of fine, funny, moody and mysterious faces and bodies and extraverted but often superficial behaviour. I was not nearly interested in ‘relationships’, but in making good-looking matches, plural. And in sex, which I had plenty of. I was a fashion queen.

Then, at a party, I met Him. He was a business consultant to a modelling firm that a friend of mine worked for and evidently some fifteen, twenty years my senior. I happened to be on my own and near him just when the dancing started and it was I who took the initiative and asked him to dance. Why not? I was self-assured and liked his mature good looks. My initiative, but it was he who grabbed the reigns and led me dancing, smooth, yet forceful and without hesitation.

We talked a little throughout about my course and my ambitions and his area of work and where it had taken him. I had a ball. But nothing had prepared me for the words he spoke when we parted ways. I had been considering whether I would engineer having sex with him. My first older man! When I had decided I would, I managed to share a taxi with him on the way home. When the taxi approached my place, during those final few seconds before the taxi came to a stop, just when I took a breath to offer the invitation for him to come in, it was he instead who spoke.

‘No. It is clear what you are thinking. I will not come up with you.

‘But this time next week, you will have called me,’ and he handed me a business card, ‘and you will be mine.

‘On my terms. Now leave.

‘Goodnight.’

He reached past me to open my door, but did not kiss me. Astonished, I complied and got out of the car, which swiftly zoomed off. I stood there on the curb, stupefied and frozen, holding his card. Rejected! When I finally got to my senses, I stamped off inside. I was fuming! The arrogant bastard! Who did he think he was! Yes, I would call him and be his, on his terms! In his dreams I would!

——————–

During the next few days, I often found myself thinking of Him. Yes, in a dismissive way to start with. But the point was that I could not dismiss the thoughts, no matter how hard I tried. As the anger wore off, thoughts of him kept on creeping into my consciousness. I found myself daydreaming about him all the time but did not realise that my mood had changed. Then the epiphany took place. When I surfaced from the depth of a daydream, I found my hand doing its dirty work in my crotch as if with a mind of its own. I was interested in Him – in love – no, in lust! – and wanted one thing only: to see him again.

I called him within the hour. He was very sweet to me. I had braced myself for more bluntness and assertion on his part. But it was clear that he was taking nothing for granted and was genuinely very happy that I had called. He, nor I, referred to the brazen claim he made on the first night – that I would be his within a week. I might have done so and flung his claim far away, in his face. Why didn’t I? Was I afraid? He might have and reel me in from the word go. Was he that confident that I would come to him of my own accord, didn’t need any reeling in?

Could any move from either of us have me prevented the drastic change of direction that my life was about to take? A pointless question! Water under the bridge.

We agreed to meet in a bar downtown.

—————————–

I am early and sit at the bar with a drink, looking fine in green and being stared at by many of the patrons. I am impatient. Oh, come, my man! It takes close to half an hour before he turns up, by which time I am so nervous. He strides towards me, stands still for a few seconds, his gaze piercing through my eyes into my soul, utterly disarming me. ‘Come,’ he says, grabs my wrist with one hand and my coat with the other and ushers me out of the bar, oblivious to the heads turning in our direction.

A taxi is waiting. We enter and it drives off immediately, apparently under instructions. He still holds my wrist. ‘Kiss me! Oh, kiss me!’, I whisper. And he does! He embraces and kisses me with such passion yet finesse that I know that I am his for the taking, unconditionally. The kiss and embrace last minutes and minutes and could have gone on forever, but the taxi reaching its destination terminates our little eternity. He pays the driver and once more grabs me by the wrist and practically pulls me out. He guides me into an apartment building, past a doorman, with whom he briefly exchanges greetings. In the elevator I once again try to kiss him, but this time he will have nothing of it. I am greatly shocked. What am I in for?

‘Wait!’ I mutter. He turns to face me.

‘That is for me to decide, my dear,’ he says. ‘We are proceeding on my terms, as you are mine. I told you last week. The matter is simple.