Sophie Morgan is an independent woman in her thirties with a successful journalism career. Intelligent, witty and sarcastic, she could be the girl next door. Except that Sophie is a submissive; in the bedroom she likes to relinquish her power and personal freedom to a dominant man for their mutual pleasure.

In the wake of Fifty Shades of Grey, here is a memoir that offers the real story of what it means to be a submissive. From the endorphin rush of her first spanking right through to punishments the likes of which she couldn't begin to imagine, she explains in frank and explicit fashion the road she travels. But it isn't until she meets James that her boundaries are really pushed. As her relationship with him travels into darker and darker places the question becomes: where will it end? Can she reconcile her sexuality with the rest of her life and is it possible for the perfect man to also be perfectly cruel?

Racy, controversial, but always warm, fun and astoundingly honest this is a fascinating and thought provoking look at a seemingly paradoxical side to human nature and sexuality that no man or woman will be able to put down.

» Read the opening pages of The Diary of a Submissive by downloading the Penguin Taster here

» Visit Penguin Tasters

1

The first thing to say is that I am not a pervert. Well, no more than anyone else. If you came to my fl at you would be more struck by the piles of washing up in the sink than my dungeon – not least because the cost of living in the city is such that I’m lucky to have been able to find somewhere with a living room which I could rent alone within my budget. Let’s just say a dungeon wasn’t really an option.

So, to address some of those pesky stereotypes, I am neither a doormat nor a simpleton. I don’t yearn to spend my day baking while someone hunts and gathers for me and I keep the home fires burning, which is just as well as apart from a decent Sunday roast I’m a bit of a crap cook. I also don’t look like Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary. Alas.

I just happen to be, at points when the urge takes me and I have someone I trust to play with, a submissive. Not that you’d know that if you met me. It’s just one facet of my personality, one of the plethora of character elements that make me, well, me – coexisting with my love of strawberries, compulsion to continue arguing stubbornly even when I know I’m wrong and tendency to heap scorn on 99 per cent of television programmes and yet become obsessive about the other 1 per cent to a level that frightens even me.

I work as a journalist on a regional newspaper. I love my job, and – not that it should really need to be said – being submissive doesn’t impact on my work. Frankly, if it did I’d get lumbered with tea making and picture stories about infant school book weeks, which really is a fate worse than death. Also, newsrooms are bantery places. It’s a dog-eat-dog world and you need to give as good as you get. I do.

I consider myself a feminist. I’m certainly independent. Capable. In control. To some that might seem incongruous with the choices I make sexually, the things that get me off. For a while it seemed jarring to me. In fact, sometimes it still does, but I’ve come to the conclusion that there are more important things to worry about. I’m a grown woman of usually sound mind. If I want to relinquish my personal control to someone I trust so that they can lead us somewhere which proves thrilling and hot for both of us, then as long as I’m not doing it somewhere where I’m frightening small children or animals I think that’s my right. I take responsibility for my actions and choices.

It has taken a while for me to get to this stage though.

I would, if the word hadn’t been appropriated by reality television and turned into something that sounds both nausea-inducing and in need of a soft-rock video montage, go so far as to say it’s been a bit of a journey, which is really how this book came about. This isn’t a manifesto or a ‘how-to’ book, although I like to think if you’re into this kind of thing and wanting to explore you might get some ideas. It’s just what happened to me, how I discovered and explored this side of myself, my experiences, my thoughts.

Ask another sub their thoughts and what being submissive means to them and you’ll get a whole other different book.

Looking back on it now my submissive tendencies started young, although I wouldn’t have called them that then. I just knew there were certain things that made me tingle, that I would find myself thinking about wistfully without ever really being able to put my finger on why.

I grew up in a nice house with my mum, my dad and my sister.

My mum, an accountant before she had me, devoted her life to bringing up my sister and me, and is very much the heart of our family. She spent a lot of time with us, nurturing us into little people whether that involved helping us with homework or flinging herself around the garden with us. She didn’t believe in sitting on the sidelines; if we were going roller skating she was going roller skating with us. Her other passion was doing DIY in every room of the house in rotational turn, the home improvement equivalent of repainting the Forth Bridge, albeit with Laura Ashley wallpaper.

My dad runs his own business and is the most hardworking man I know, a provider through and through who ensured our childhoods were filled with whatever new bike or gadget we wanted (thankfully mum was around to ensure such goodies were bestowed in sensible fashion lest we get too unbearable), opportunities for travel and a wonderful home life. Funny and clever, he has a sense of adventure that I think I inherited, along with an independence of spirit and unapologetic sense of ‘this is who I am’ that he encouraged in his children, having occasionally clashed with his own parents’ views of what he should do in life, as opposed to what he wanted to do.

My sister is in lots of ways the polar opposite to me. Where I am generally fairly quiet and more comfortable around a few close friends, she is the life and soul of the party, the one whose energy lifts up the room, who gets things done. Despite our differences she is the person I would call first at 3 am if I was in trouble, not least because she is practically nocturnal. I feel incredibly lucky that this woman, who is likely to be alongside me in life for longer than anyone else, is someone so amazing – although, hilariously and despite this ringing endorsement, give us three days together in the family homestead over a Christmas holiday and we will have reverted to our teenage selves, bickering over who’s spending too long in the bathroom (usually her).

Our comfortable semi was also shared with a menagerie of animals, ranging from Goldie the Goldfish – don’t judge, I was three when I named him – to Cheesy the hamster and Barry the dog – named during my ‘why shouldn’t dogs have human names’ phase (a question answered fairly quickly when my poor dad was running round the park bellowing ‘Barry!’ in a way that undoubtedly perturbed other dog walkers). I’ve always loved animals and one of my strongest childhood memories is of burying a dead bird I found in the garden expressly against the wishes of my mum who, understandably, was concerned about hygiene issues. When she discovered I had not only gone against her wishes by picking up said bird to move it to its final resting place but was presiding over a burial service attended by my sister and our next door neighbours’ children – in for a penny in for a pound – I was sent to my room in disgrace. Usually for me such a punishment, despite being my parents’ main tactic for misbehaviour – no corporal punishment in our house – was no punishment at all. My room was one of my favourite places to be as it was filled with the books I spent all my pocket money on and I spent happy hours sat on the window ledge reading and watching the world go by. But in this instance I felt the injustice was too much to bear. I wrote an outraged letter to David Bellamy telling him about the oppressive anti-conservationist regime I was forced to live under, where dead birds were cast aside by uncaring adults. He never replied, which is probably for the best because I fear if he had he might have told me to listen to my mum, which would only have made me more irate. The fact that this is the closest I can think of to a clash with my mother while growing up is testament to the fact I was never a natural rebel. I went quietly about doing my thing, but I wasn’t busy testing boundaries, mostly because I was allowed to do pretty much everything I wanted to do, and otherwise wasn’t bothered about arguing in principle. That, admittedly, did change as I got older.

My interest in writing started young – I remember writing and illustrating stories in little A 5 booklets tied with treasury tags. My stories were usually based around children’s TV shows, books and films I enjoyed. The standard of my writing was considerably better than my drawing although at that point that really wasn’t saying much. I dabbled in art at an early age, having seen something on the news about some precocious child somewhere whose art was selling for thousands. Sadly, when I knocked up a couple of coloured pencil and felt tip mixed-media works my mum was pleased to accept the first picture I gave her, and even stooped to giving me 50p for a second original. But when I upped my price to a tenner – I felt this was reasonable under the circumstances – she gave me a firm but kind ‘no’, scuppering any further plans for a life in the arts and returning me to producing my mini books and comics. Given half a chance I would pull myself, my friends and family into the worlds of Narnia, Middle Earth or, slightly closer to home but somewhat more obscurely, having discovered it via cable TV , the city of Newcastle as depicted in Jossy’s Giants , a TV show about a school football team.

My love of Jossy’s Giants and football in general came very much from a tomboyish streak a mile wide. I was – and still am – quite a way from the girlie stereotype. I have a pathological dislike of pink and never developed a love for make up, expensive clothes or fashionable shoes – to this day put me in a pair of heels and I walk not unlike Bambi trying to get across the ice, although what I don’t spend on shoes I more than make up for with nail varnish and handbags. Growing up I definitely didn’t have much interest in worrying about boys, a fact which, ironically, meant I had lots of male friends at school as I’d quite happily play football with them in the lunch hour and didn’t bother with anything much like small talk. If you asked me my favourite things when I was 10 , I’d have said reading, roller skating, riding my bike and climbing the tree at the end of our garden, which gave me a view of the nearby allotments – a source of endless fascination for reasons that seemed very important at the time. The tree was my private place – my sister had no interest in the inevitable scrapes and dirt borne of making the initial jump up, even with my cunningly engineered skipping rope pulley system, which provided a boost to the first climbable branch. I was quite a solitary child in lots of ways, very comfortable on my own, reading or daydreaming, which is probably a bit unsurprising bearing in mind the picture I’ve just painted of myself as a bit of an antisocial bint.

Of course no woman is an island – even if they do spend time hiding up a cherry tree given half a chance. My sister was a constant companion and co-conspirator at home, while at school – a mixed primary school until I was 11 and then a girls’ grammar after that – I had a mixed circle of friends, many of whom I’m still close to. While I wasn’t one of the popular group – I tended to veer towards the geeks, of music, drama, technology – I for the most part got on with everybody, using humour to smooth over any problems when they did occur. I was, by the time I’d settled into secondary life, very much a mid-range student. It took a while to find my feet as I’d gone from being one of the cleverest of my primary school class to midclass at most subjects in secondary, which suddenly meant things weren’t coming so easily and took effort. It was a culture shock in lots of ways, but probably not a bad thing in that it burst any precociousness that might have seeped in from having the kind of supportive home life where everyone thought I was some kind of genius because I liked reading. I wasn’t the prettiest or the brightest in the class, although I soon realised this worked in my favour because it seemed to me that the smartest and prettiest girls were the people who attracted the most bitchiness. Instead I was conscientious and worked hard, a by-product of an inherent need to please. Despite occasional worries at letting either my teachers or parents down, I for the most part really enjoyed school. I know, it’s sickening.

Somewhat ironically, I was a bit of a late bloomer on the romance front. I had my first kiss when I was twelve or thirteen with a boy I knew through one of my friends and, if I’m honest, I wasn’t that impressed by it. There was no thunderclaps, no roll of romantic music, and a feeling of anticlimax – no pun intended – afterwards. I think one of us actually said, ‘Well then.’ Suffice to say no one’s world was set alight.

That said, I read Just Seventeen and Minx magazine and I knew the mechanics of sex, although I had no interest in trying it at that point. I had however learned that when I couldn’t sleep rubbing my hand between my legs would bring a pleasure that made me doze off and when my mind wandered as I brought about this kind of pleasure it did always return to similar topics.

I’ve always been into myths and legends, and growing up Robin Hood was a favourite. I watched the films, the TV show – we’ll overlook the most recent incarnations before I start gnashing my teeth – and read all the books I could lay my hands on, fictional and historical. But through every medium I had a difficult time with Maid Marian. I hated that she was continually getting into peril for stupid reasons and then having to be rescued. That she didn’t fight, wasn’t even given the relative dignity of being a bona fide sidekick and seemed to spend most of her time patching up the wounds of the Merry Men and looking pensively into the middle distance as they disappeared off for adventure.

Despite that, my favourite parts of those stories involved her in the very peril I scorned her for. When she had been captured – as the inevitable bait in a trap to catch Robin Hood, seemingly her major purpose in life – her defiance of Guy of Gisborne and the Sheriff of Nottingham captured my imagination. She would be held in some dank dungeony place, with the pictures often showing her tied or in chains. Powerless. But she would be unbowed, dignified in her indignity, and somehow that struck a chord with me, made my heart race. You know how when you were a kid and something you read or watched caught your imagination so deeply that you were transported into it, it was you in that moment, living it, feeling it? (Actually, I say ‘when you were a kid’, but I still feel that now when I read or watch something amazing, it just happens less often). Well, all the scenes I replayed in my mind with me in the lead role were the scenes of Maid Marian, even if she was a bit rubbish and I tended to gloss over the dull stuff after Robin saved her and she had to go back to the camp and resume tending the fire. Those were the stories I used to think about lying in bed at night.

Well at least until I discovered porn.

When I was about fourteen there was a brouhaha about a magazine that gave away an erotic book aimed at women with their issue one month. I didn’t have the internet in my room and, frankly, while I knew if you wanted erotic inspiration that was the place to go I had no interest in pictures of boobs because I had my own and didn’t think they were that epic. This book though, this was different. Lots of talk of moral decay and the like meant that I spent most of the month desperate to get hold of a copy, in part because I’d started to suspect I was dirtier than my school friends, or at least dirtier than they dared to admit aloud. Even aside from getting to see exactly how scandalous this stuff was, it could, I reasoned to myself, act as a kind of smut barometer.

Except there was a problem.

My next door neighbour worked in the only newsagent big enough to sell the magazine in our small town, and not only would she not let me buy it as she knew I was a long way under 18 but she’d also be bound to tell my mum, which would leave me open to one of those conversations so hideous you want to pull off your own ears just to make it stop. Definitely a no go. So one afternoon I took a different bus home, one that took me to the nearest big town, and bought the magazine there, hands clammy, still wearing my school uniform, terrified at any moment that the disinterested woman behind the counter would realise I was underage and shamelessly buying what the Daily Mail had described as utter filth and demand I give it back before I ended up inadvertently corrupted forever. She didn’t. I stuff ed it in my rucksack and, my heart still pounding, walked the two miles home to explain to my Mum that I was late because of hockey practice.

Looking back at that book, which I can’t bear to chuck away though it’s now so well thumbed that the pages have started to fall out, the scandal and outrage at the time seems laughable. But reading it then was a revelation. My favourite chapters still have the tops of the pages folded over for ease of finding. One particular section involved a feisty yet vulnerable woman having a row with a man who she clearly fancied but also found herself continually clashing with. She ended up tied to a tree with ivy (I know, it’s a bit lame, but go with it – it was special Greek ivy, which may have heretofore unknown bondage qualities) while he did whatever he wanted to her – running his hands over her body, viciously kissing her, verbally abusing her. She stood there, aroused in spite of herself and he made her come, all without her able to do anything but rest her head against the tree and moan out her pleasure.

It sounds quite cheesy indeed now, almost Mills and Boon-esque, but at the time it struck a chord with me. Suddenly that was what I was replaying in my head as I lay in bed at night, now accompanied by a hand between my legs rubbing myself to bring about blissful sleep.

Of course, there comes a time in every girl’s life where actual boys overtake both books and the Guys of Gisborne of our imaginations (I was never really the Robin sort). My first serious boyfriend, older but not wiser, initially seemed somehow to pick up on signals I didn’t even know I was giving out. Unlike other boys I’d kissed, he’d hold my head firmly in place, my ponytail twisted around his hand as we kissed goodnight, and I loved it. I loved feeling under his power, immobile as our tongues duelled.

I used to daydream about the possibilities of those kisses, what they could be a prelude to, the hint they gave of a different side to him, a side the world didn’t see but which I could feel, as if that side of him was calling to a complementary side of me. And then one night he bit my lower lip, so hard I whimpered into his mouth in a kind of surprised pleasure. Instantly he broke away, nearly taking a clump of my hair with him in his haste, and apologised for hurting me. It felt awkward to explain that actually I’d liked it, so I accepted his apology, said it didn’t matter, and went indoors disappointed, with my nipples erect and my knickers moist.

I still didn’t really know the significance of that kiss exciting me. All I knew was that nice girls didn’t get off on such things, or if they did they certainly didn’t talk about it. So I didn’t. I went about my life, going through all the usual milestones. Eventually my first beau and I, taking advantage of his mum having to go into work to cover a poorly colleague’s shift as a doctor’s receptionist, did lose our virginity together, but the mixture of neither of us having done it before, feeling a bit self-conscious and keeping an ear out in case his mum returned home unexpectedly meant it was perfunctory and, while perfectly pleasant, didn’t rock my world. Afterwards I reflected that it didn’t feel as pleasing as lying in bed touching myself – although at the time I didn’t connect that with the fact that I hadn’t orgasmed. Looking back on how naive and tentative our fumblings were, it seems a miracle we managed to have any kind of sex that first time at all. However, we found that practice made, if not perfect, then certainly ‘good enough that we’d both grin giddily at each other for a long while after’, although the lack of privacy meant we were constantly in fear of being discovered in flagrante delicto, and developed skills for a quick change that Clark Kent would be proud of, although possibly also slightly disturbed by.

2

My first youthful romance fizzled out as we both moved out of home and went off to university at other ends of the country. We missed each other to start with but, in that way of freshers everywhere, were both soon caught up in academic life and the extra-curricular fun it offered.

That said, for a fair while my extra-curricular fun mostly involved using the shared kitchen to bake bread – my mum didn’t take kindly to people using her kitchen so I was enjoying finally being able to do some cooking for myself. There were also post-lecture drinks punctuated with the kind of discussions that in hindsight are pretentious tosh but that, when you’re 18 , you think are very important and show how grown up you are. It was during one of these drunken rows that I met Ryan. If Ryan didn’t exactly lead me astray (by this point I was fairly sure I was capable of coming up with enough dodgy thoughts of my own, even without my burgeoning book collection and access to the internet in my room, another perk of academic life), he certainly opened the door to a world I hadn’t fully realised I wanted to visit, even if I had been vaguely aware of its existence. So that makes at least a few of those hours debating Foucault, feminism and Chomsky (I told you it was pretentious) worthwhile.

I’d first seen Ryan in the library during my third year of uni. His favoured corner to sit and work was opposite mine, which makes us both sound more diligent than we actually were. We were on polite nodding terms, even moving up to the ‘would you keep an eye on my stuff while I nip to the loo?’ level, although I’d still have taken my handbag with me. I’m not that much of a sucker for a handsome face. He was though.

My friend Catherine bought Ryan to the pub one night and he joined the melee of drunken burbling, although I noticed he mainly observed everyone, rather than getting involved in the discussion himself. When he did intervene to say something he said it slowly and carefully, he was articulate and would not be shouted down. I found him impressive and in sharp contrast to most of the other guys huddled round our table.

He was a little bit older than I was, an American graduate student majoring in politics on a term’s exchange at our university, and while he was kind and funny and good company he took his studies – and indeed most things – very seriously. I liked that though. College life was fun, but I was not into freshers’ week and drinking until I puked. I was always mindful it was costing money for me to study so I should work hard. I liked his work ethic and that he felt the same. Plus, I couldn’t help but note, he was sexy in a brooding and slightly geeky way, and had an accent that could seriously cause butterflies, assuming of course that he was moved to speech.

It took a little while. Debate was raging about a calendar being organised by one of the female sports teams to raise funds, which involved them posing naked but with a selection of random objects covering their modesty. Someone who lived on my floor was moaning about how demeaning it was, mostly it would appear because his girlfriend was appearing in one of the pictures. I was arguing that it wasn’t demeaning, and wasn’t actually his business as long as she felt comfortable doing it. The ongoing row got increasingly heated, which was inevitable since he was worried about people letching after his lady’s ample charms, and what he lacked in articulateness five pints down he more than made up for in volume, wild flailing gesticulation and hyperbole. I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t actually care either way, but arguing was fun and frankly talking to him about it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Possibly one filled with beer.

It soon became clear that I wasn’t the only one who saw debate as a kind of sport. Ryan weighed in on my drunken floormate’s behalf, calling me anti-feminist, discussing the nature of intent and effect of pictures, via a discussion of old style bawdy holiday postcards and landing squarely on a debate on the pros and cons of pornography.

After a while the circle of people talking tightened, with others moving away to buy more beer, mingle or – frankly – hide. But we kept arguing, him against any kind of pornography, me for it as long as everyone involved was there by choice and paid fairly, while Catherine’s head moved back and forth like she was watching a game of particularly wordy tennis.

Part way through I began grinning internally. My theory on porn is very much (legality allowing) an each-to-their own policy, and as such I didn’t care that much either way, but I couldn’t allow him to have the last word and wanted to see how long before he would run out of steam. Also, if I was being honest and a bit fickle, I kind of liked how the hot American’s entire attention was focused on me, even if he had taken to occasionally putting his head in his hands in response to my debating intransigence.

It took a little while, but I saw in his eyes the moment he realised I was arguing for sport. His head was in his hands again, and he straightened his shoulders, took a long look at me, saw my smile twitching in a way I couldn’t hide, and then leaned over to shake my hand.

‘Well played miss. Well played.’

I grinned at him and bought him a beer. It seemed only polite.

By the time the bar kicked out and we all began our stumble home both Catherine and I were unsteady and a little giggly. He offered to walk me home, and as I put my scarf on Catherine leaned over and grabbed his arm.

‘You can walk us both home. We live in the same halls.’

It might have been wishful thinking but he didn’t seem thrilled by that as a suggestion. If I’m honest I wasn’t either – the guy I’d been eyeing for weeks across the library had turned out to be rather fun, and I was hopeful he might feel the same about me. However, bearing in mind how buttoned up he was when he hadn’t had copious liquid lubricant, I was unsure how I’d get the opportunity to find that out again.

All praise the in-room internet though. I woke the next morning, with a banging head and yearning for a bacon sandwich, to find an email asking me if I wanted to meet and see a film at the local cinema. I was so keen I replied before I even got up in search of a stomach-settling cup of tea.

We went to the cinema. He made the mistake of chivalrously letting me choose the film, which meant I inadvertently dragged a man who disliked the shocks and tension of horror films and the implausibility of sci-fi to a film that was both. Even in the darkness of the room I could see the slight look of disdain on his face in the flickering light from the screen – when his hands weren’t over his face at least.

After the film we went out for dinner. The chat was spirited, not least because I was mocking him for being even more of a wuss than I was, while he was decrying how silly the whole thing had been and nitpicking plot holes in a way that made me laugh out loud. It was lots of fun and when he said we should consider doing it again I found myself agreeing without hesitation.

So we did. A trip to a comedy club, a band at the students’ union, and then eventually he just invited me round to watch DVD s, which even in my relatively innocent ways I figured was make or break on the flirting front. I made chocolate brownies and, while I’m not sure how they compared to those from back home, he devoured them while we drank massive amounts of coffee and channel hopped. And then finally, after I’d pretty much given up trying to work out if he was interested in me romantically, he leaned over and made his move. Ostensibly he was brushing crumbs from the side of my mouth, but he quickly followed the touch of his fingers across my lips by pressing his mouth to mine. I smiled inwardly, but didn’t feel the urge to quibble. By this point I’d been thinking about what this moment would be like for weeks.

He started tentatively, gently kissing my lips, pressing little kisses over and over against me, and then, braver, he pushed his tongue inside my mouth and kissed me properly. I wasn’t disappointed. He tasted of chocolate and coffee, his mouth soft against mine. As he explored me, I opened my mouth eagerly, urging him deeper.

His hands slipped around me, stroking my back, pressing me closer. The feeling of his fingertips along my spine made me shiver with arousal, all my nerve endings on alert at his touch, at every whisper of a connection his body made with mine – his hands, his mouth, even his groin pushing insistently against me.

For a long time we just kissed, drinking each other in. He was a great kisser, leisurely and passionate, and while our hands roamed each other over our clothes he was happy to continue teasing me with his tongue in a way that broke my brain a little. A splintered, half-formed thought came somewhere through the haze: If he can make me feel like this just by kissing what on earth will fucking him be like?

As he leaned down and began unbuttoning my jeans I thought I might be about to find out. My hands moved to his own belt, but he stopped them, unfurling my fingers, bring them to his mouth and kissing them softly before moving them away and returning his hands to my own zip. He pushed my jeans down to my thighs, leaving my blue spotty knickers showing in a way that made me blush a bit.

He grinned. ‘Nice.’ I started stammering a justification for my slightly quirky choice in underwear, but he stopped me with a look. ‘Just sit up for me for a minute.’ I moved, and he pulled both my jeans and knickers down so I was properly bared to him.

For a long moment he just looked. I tried not to squirm, but it’s always awkward having someone see your bits for the first time, especially when you’re seemingly not playing the grown up version of ‘you show me yours and I’ll show you mine’. I watched him smile and then snuck a glance down at his crotch, relieved to see he seemed fairly pleased with what he was looking at. I moved forward again, putting my hands out to touch him, but he stopped me.

‘It’s OK . Just wait.’

‘I’m not a patient person,’ I growled.

’Consider this character building then,’ he said, as he knelt down in front of me. I kicked his knee, albeit gently, with my bare foot and then moaned as he ran his finger along my inner thigh, so close to where I wanted him to be but not close enough. Two could play at this patience game though. I waited, my thighs barely trembling at all, as he stroked up and down either side of my lips, desperate for him to just move a few centimetres in, to touch me where I was aching for him now. I closed my eyes, fighting for control. I think I was just about managing it, at least until I felt his mouth on my cunt, licking delicately up the curve of me, before sliding gently in to taste me. I moaned, but he did too, and his purr of pleasure as he tasted me intimately for the first time thrilled me. Then he began to kiss me, in the same meandering way he had plundered my mouth minutes before, and I shuffled along the sofa, edging myself closer as he made me writhe with his licks, alternating between light and teasing and more firm and forceful. My orgasm rose, abated, rose again, and finally, as he nipped my clit with his teeth and sucked it forcefully I came loudly, fulsomely and with the such force that I saw stars. It was a revelation and it made me laugh out loud with the sheer joy of it. I was desperate to catch my breath and then do it all again.

I looked down at him, still looking at me so seriously, and cupped the side of his face in my hand, stroking the down on his face. He smiled and turned his head to kiss my hand and I leaned down to kiss him before sinking down on the floor beside him, curling into him, close enough that he could feel my still-pounding heart. As I got my breath back and came back to earth, I felt his erection pressing against me, and this time when I moved my hand down he didn’t stop me. I undid his fl y and pulled him free and leaned down to take him in my own mouth but he demurred.

‘Please, let me just be inside you.’

I nodded quickly and moved on to my back as he grabbed a condom. It seemed rude to quibble when my own orgasm was still dissipating after all. He pushed inside me and that first moment of connection made my cunt clench. He moaned and buried his face in my shoulder. I moved my hips, pushing him deeper, but before he began to move he undid my top and pulled my breasts out of my bra with a groan.

His eyes were hungry as he stared at my hard nipples, but he couldn’t restrain a comment: ‘No matching spotty bra? I’m disappointed.’

I stuck my tongue out at him and began moving more insistently underneath him, inadvertently making my breasts bounce more. He leaned down and cupped them in his hands, stroking them and kissing them, taking each nipple into his mouth in turn as he began to – finally – move himself.

Our breathing grew ragged as we fucked. Everything else was unimportant but our movements, our connection to each other and our pleasure. Watching Ryan’s face lose its seriousness, to see him completely with his defences down was incredibly hot, and watching him come made me so close that my fingers sliding between us to touch my clit for just a second pushed me over the edge too.

The next morning the only blot on the horizon was knowing that our relationship, even in these early stages, had a time limit. I was disappointed, upset even, but having spent the entire evening lying naked in his room, watching TV and drinking with pauses to kiss, grope and then fuck, I was absolutely adamant I was going to make the most of every moment he was here. Making hay while the sun shines.