She took another drink. "I think it's not necessarily about restricting my movements."

"Please. Go on."

"I guess I like to meet people as equals. When I can't move around freely, I don't feel equal. I'm also accustomed to communicating by nodding. I like to be able to lower my head. Does that make sense?"

"It does." He was glad she'd chosen to leave. She had a lot to think through. "If you elect to continue training, I will use the collar often for the reasons you outlined. It will reinforce your subservience along with my desire for you not to hide. I expect answers to my questions. Nodding allows you a way to avoid being verbal."

"What if I put it on my limits list?"

"You are free to do so. Is it uncomfortable? Too big? Too small?"

"No," she admitted, tilting her head and looking up at him through her lashes, a coyness the collar wouldn't permit.

"Think about it," he encouraged. "Will you have similar objections if I tie you to my bed? To a St Andrew's cross? Why did you enjoy the experience before playing with me?"

"Do I have to answer that?"

"Not right now. If you come back, I will certainly want to discuss it." He stood. "I'll walk you to your car."

She re-capped the bottle, then placed it on the side table. She picked up her purse and unclipped her keys from a small hook inside the biggest compartment.

"You're organised," he said.

"I don't like to misplace things." She placed the tube of ointment in an outside pocket.

It was then that he comprehended. "You like to be in control." Everything she did was precise, from the way she folded her clothes, to the way she'd placed her utensils at dinner, to the deliberate way she attached her keys and put everything in its place.

"Are you calling me a control freak?"

"Are you one?" he countered, not responding to her defensiveness.

"Some people might say that."

"Tell me again about your first experiences with BDSM, when you were tied up."

"I liked it." She paused. "It wasn't strict," she admitted. "I could get out of it."

"Did you?"

She shook her head then, apparently catching herself, said, "No. Knowing I could get out of it made it possible for me to tolerate it." She opened her eyes wide.

"The thing is, Chelsea, no matter how strict the bondage, you can always get out of it with your safe word. The difference is how you think about it."

"But I could get out of it just by moving my hands."

"Your way of thinking has more to do with it than anything else," he countered.

"But I was also being whipped."

"I spanked you," he pointed out. "The only difference," he said again, "is your thought process. I question your commitment. I encourage you to just enjoy an occasional scene, something to spice up your sex life. Give up the submission idea. You're not suited for it."

She set her chin at a mutinous angle.

"You just proved my point," he said. And in a way, that was a pity. He'd enjoyed his time with her, and he was sorry to see it end.

Chapter Five.

Well, shit. She exhaled, gripping the car's steering wheel so tight that her knuckles whitened.

Chelsea had spent days trying to get Master Alexander's attention. When he hadn't called her after their night together at the Den, she'd telephoned Sara and asked Sara to put her in touch with some Doms, figuring that Master Alexander would hear about it. Chelsea had gambled that he would search her out.

She was accustomed to getting what she wanted. Her sights were set on landing him as a trainer. She had to have a trainer. Last weekend, she'd seen Master Evan C at another party. She'd approached him, and he'd asked if she knew more than she had the last time he saw her. When she'd shaken her head, he'd called her a poser. And he hadn't responded to a single solicitation she'd sent outlining how You're The Star could help him get ahead.

That was when she'd taken more drastic measures to ensure Master Alexander trained her.

When his name had shown up on her caller identification, she'd smiled.

Mission accomplished.

As usual.

But the evening they'd just spent together hadn't turned out the way she'd hoped.

It was as if he saw her deepest fears and exploited them, leaving her a confused wreck. Through her discussions with him and Gregorio at the Den, she knew there was more to this submissive thing than an occasional mind-blowing experience. She thought she'd understood the need to focus on her Dom's pleasures.

When she played with Master Alexander, though, everything became a jumble of emotional angst.

At home, she paced the confines of the apartment until she was afraid she'd wear a path in the hardwood floors. Sleep would be impossible until she'd sorted through the evening's events.

With a sigh, she changed into her swimsuit. Her apartment complex had some niceties, including indoor and outdoor pool facilities. She found water to be relaxing as well as restorative, and she did a lot of her best thinking in the bath as well as the building's hot tub. But as she was leaving her unit, she caught sight of the welts in the mirror.

She froze for a moment, remembering the way he'd effortlessly picked her up and deposited her across his lap for a brutal spanking.

It had been nothing like her previous, albeit limited, experiences.

The tawse had stung. It hadn't been fun or arousing. It had been punishment, pure and simple, a painful, awful expression of his displeasure. She'd hated it. She had felt as if she would drown in her humiliation, and she'd been pissed off that he was treating her that way, like she was an errant pupil. Gregorio had told her that subs were corrected all the time. In theory, that was fine. But enduring it was another thing entirely.

She grabbed a long terrycloth robe from the closet and fiercely knotted the belt at her waist. With any luck, no one else would be using the hot tub.

Other than a couple of teenage boys who were horsing around in the deep end of the pool, she had the area to herself.

She turned on the jets to drown out their noise, then removed the robe and sank in deep, letting the water bubble around her chest. Eventually, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back.

Yeah, she was pissed off. And if she were honest, she'd admit she was as angry with herself as she was with Master Alexander.

He'd given her everything she said she wanted. And damn him, he made her question the course she'd set for herself. She hated that he was right, that she had some serious thinking to do.

Why couldn't things be simpler?

She replayed their evening. Once she'd got past the discomfort of having him place her dinner order, she had enjoyed the experience of being cared for. Her entire life, she and her mother had fought and struggled for their place in the world. She'd never relaxed and drank her wine while someone else handled the details. And he'd done a good job, soliciting opinions and ensuring her needs were met.

It had been better than she'd expected, and she'd had to remind herself she was being trained, rather than on a date.

At his house, the message had been clear. She wasn't his submissive. She was simply someone who had hired him to do a job.

He'd treated her as if she were chattel, rather than a respected equal.

She opened her eyes.

When she'd set her course, she'd had the idea that it would be a lot of fun. They would have two weeks together that would include some sex, a whole lot of arousal, a few orgasms, being tied up, and some beatings. They'd try some wild and wonderful things that she'd only read about and, hopefully, some she'd never even heard of.

She hadn't anticipated that it would include things she found humiliating. What was worst about that was that she hadn't known ahead of time that she'd find anything upsetting. That first night, they'd talked about limits. She'd been honest that she didn't think she had any. But that was before physical acts caused unexpected responses.

If she were honest with herself, she would also admit she hadn't expected it to be so much work. Holding up her arms, kneeling, being spanked and restrained taxed her body.

This whole thing was frustrating. She kept intellectualising the process of submission. But it turned out the more she thought she knew, the more she realised she still had to learn. It was as if once she understood something, there was another layer to be explored.

Several more teens came down to the pool area, and so she went back upstairs. As she showered, she remembered him asking if she was a control freak. She shampooed her hair and considered the question. She supposed the description fit.

She took down the handheld showerhead and rinsed off. Being a control freak probably didn't make a good sub.

She'd read about subs who were naturals and others who embraced it after learning about it. She was definitely in the latter category, if she could get there at all.

Despite her hesitations, even after her problems this evening, she was drawn to certain things. And she'd liked it a whole lot more at the Den when he'd fucked her and brought her to orgasm. There was an intimacy about the way they interacted that she'd found lacking in her previous relationships.

In retrospect, the kneeling, being in the posture collar, having her hands secured, even the spanking wasn't all bad. He'd never hurt her, and even at his roughest, he'd ensured her safety, and he'd talked to her the entire time.

He had been right when he said that everything she experienced was coloured by her perceptions. The thick leather collar was only bad if she allowed it to be. It hadn't been all that uncomfortable to wear. He'd made sure it wasn't too tight, and the inside was lined so it didn't chafe her skin. She'd been able to rest her chin on the top.

She wondered how different their scene might have been if she had stopped the internal struggle. At most, she would have been confined in it for a couple of hours, and if luck held, she might have ended up with an earth-shattering orgasm.

She moved the showerhead down her body, from her chest to her belly, then between her legs. She used one hand to part her pussy folds. Tonight's interaction had left her with raw feelings. She hadn't become very aroused. There were times-like when he entered the living room and she was naked near the fireplace, that she was aware of him, his proximity, his masculine power-that she'd started to be a little turned on. But then he'd kept himself remote.

The realisation stunned her.

She'd been hoping for something different. Even that night at the Den, she'd hated it when he seemed impersonal with her, and she had told him so. But at the end of the evening he'd fucked her. The connection had soothed her and made everything else okay.

At his house, that had been missing.

She didn't want him to interact with her as if she were just any random woman. She'd seen the way he treated Brandy. And Chelsea wanted something more meaningful. Heaven help her, she'd wanted sex, hugs, even caresses.

Some of her previous boyfriends would be shocked by that admission. She'd always hated to snuggle. One man had called her cold, another had said she was standoffish.

So now what?

She wanted Master Evan C. Master Alexander wasn't interested in her.

In order to be successful at training, she knew she would have to keep the relationship with Master Alexander professional, as if he were any other teacher. That he saw her nude and could do almost anything with her body was beside the point.

She continued to move the showerhead between her legs. She turned the dial so that the water pulsed, rather than sprayed, and she teased her clit with the warmth and the pressure.

The orgasm she'd wanted loomed out of reach. She rose onto the balls of her feet and clenched her buttocks, striving for completion.

She needed pressure on her nipples, she realised. And with the way she was using the showerhead, there was no way to do that.

A minute or so later, she gave up in frustration. Until he'd introduced her to the more extreme BDSM, she'd been able to get off easily. Now she wanted exquisite sensations everywhere.

The water ran cold, and she turned off the faucet.

After drying off, she took the tube of arnica from her purse and crossed the bedroom to stand in front of the cheval mirror.

The welts were almost all gone. But there was one that still looked a bit raw. She squirted ointment onto her fingertip and then dabbed it on the red mark.

Her breath caught as she recalled the way he'd picked her up and deposited her across his lap. He'd been perfunctory in his punishment, but it hadn't been brutal. He hadn't expected an apology, rather, he'd encouraged her to consider what caused her to react the way she had.

She recapped the tube and froze, recalling the way he'd treated her at the Den. No one had ever tormented her breasts the way he had, and she had liked having them distended. The exquisite line between pain and pleasure had made her orgasms so powerful.

Chelsea told herself she should go to bed. Instead, she put on a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt and buried herself in housework, trying to ignore the truth that was nagging at her-she wanted to continue her training.

But she couldn't fault him for being frustrated, even if he insisted she'd never disappointed him. He had done his part, and she'd shown up without practising anything that would make her a good sub.

She recalled the way Brandy had knelt at the Den, and the way she'd executed his commands. The woman hadn't questioned anything, and she hadn't blushed with embarrassment when he'd issued orders. Instead, she'd moved from position to position with confidence. And Chelsea knew that mastery came from practice.

Why had she thought submission to be anything different from anything else she'd ever learnt?

She might decide he was right, that it wasn't for her, and that she should be satisfied with an occasional scene. There had been moments during her times with Master Alexander when she'd felt at peace, when she'd harnessed her mind and stayed in the moment, which was a real change from the way she spent the rest of her life.

Since it was late, probably too late to call him, she decided to do the one thing she knew would please him and test her commitment. Despite the fact she was tired and more than a little sexually frustrated, she set an alarm on her phone for twenty minutes.

She knelt, then practised moving between the positions he'd taught her, from kneeling up to standing, from kneeling back to inspect. After a few minutes, the repetition became uncomfortable. Her muscles started to fatigue, and she glanced at the timer. Damn. She was only halfway through.

Drawing on the same determination that had got her this far in life, she kept going.

With five minutes to go, she realised how badly her body hurt, and she was thinking of all the other things she could do be doing, like a load of laundry, paying some bills, making a grocery list, even getting some much-needed sleep. Not that insomnia wouldn't keep her awake, regardless.

But instead of giving in and quitting, she harnessed her runaway thoughts. She pictured him, his legs spread in a commanding way. Then she imagined him ordering her onto her back so he could lick her cunt.

She stumbled.

The man had the power to discombobulate her, even when he wasn't there. She should have conjured that image while she had been in the shower. The orgasm would have been there for sure.

By the time the alarm rang, she was sweating. She had to give credit to Brandy. The woman had made things look easy As Chelsea had just learnt, it took a lot of work to make elegance appear effortless.