Encore!

It had been an arduous and busy week. Hagen lay in the semi-darkness on his Le Corbusier chaise longue and relaxed with a glass of Scottish "water of life". Most of the living room was shrouded in shadow, with only a small area in front of the fireplace lit by the flickering flames, and there, right in the middle of his field of vision, he had placed Helena.

With eyes half-closed Hagen followed the seductive dance of light and shade on her bare skin, while from time to time taking a sip from his whisky and enjoying the complex flavors of the 18 year old single malt. However, the greater part of his attention was devoted to the music reaching his ears through high-end headphones. It drowned out the gentle crackling and popping of burning logs as well as the other noises Helena still managed to make despite his countermeasures.

Enraptured, he listened to the virtuoso performance of the pianist and the equally perfect accompaniment by the orchestra. As often before, his analytical mind wondered how some music managed to affect him, virtually without effort, on a deep, emotional level, something which otherwise remained elusive for his conscious mind. Despite his regrets at not having learned an instrument in his youth, he was on the other hand somewhat glad to almost be an utter layman when it came to music. He feared that given too intimate a knowledge of music theory, his naive and purely sensuous joy of it might have been replaced by an intellectual and abstract appreciation of the underlying compositional achievement.

His job as CEO of a private equity firm exercised almost exclusively the rational, left hemisphere of his brain; consequently, at least in his spare time he wanted to indulge the other side of his personality, whose impulses he had to suppress far too often in his everyday life. He managed the conflicting expectations of greedy investors and unreasonable owners with consummate skill, but playing their desires, fears and vanities off against them afforded him little satisfaction. That he reaped when he was able to focus his talents on more rewarding prey, providing himself with both a greater challenge as well as promising greater personal gain in case of success. And at times like the present, of course, when he savored the fruits of his conquests.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the music that surged around him. After a long crescendo, the Piano Concerto's spectacular finale ended on a triumphant tutti chord. In the ensuing silence a muffled whimper intruded through the padded ear cups of his headphones and made him look up. Once again, he congratulated himself on his good fortune. Since Helena had moved in with him, he had found a way to complement his love for music with a sexual dimension, and thus provide himself with a holistic experience that appealed to all his senses.

Helena was not fond of classical music.

In recent weeks, her original indifference had given way to an instinctive, physical revulsion, since she had - at Hagen's insistent behest - become intimately acquainted with the works of various famous composers. Now, the mere mention of names like Bach, Beethoven or Brahms was sufficient to cause her physical discomfort and although Hagen had expected this effect, he was conversely surprised when he observed that merely thinking of classical music got him sexually aroused. Apparently, the process of conditioning did not function as a one-way-street! As far as he knew, Dr. Pavlov had never mentioned this phenomenon in his writings, probably because he had chosen - contrary to Hagen - an experimental setup which had made keeping the required scientific distance to the object of investigation much easier: drooling dogs simply lacked the female stimuli that Helena had to offer in abundance.

Starting with her long legs, the taut stomach, firm breasts and her slender neck she fit the commonly accepted ideal of beauty to perfection. What applied to her body, also held true for her face, with the lively, light brown eyes beneath a high forehead invariably attracting attention first. A straight nose, high cheekbones and a sensual mouth blended harmonically and contributed just as much to Helena's striking looks. At present however, the latter were strongly impaired by a gag harness whose numerous straps held her head in a viselike grip and secured a rigidly inflated, thick latex bladder in her mouth. Or conversely, the strict method of her silencing augmented Helena's appeal, at least if you subscribed to Hagen's point of view, who considered her usual talkativeness to be one of her less endearing qualities.

Hagen took off his headphones, rose from the couch and walked over to his slave to gently stroke the sweat-slick hair off her forehead. She nestled her head into his palm, then looked up at him with pleading eyes and muttered laboriously, yet unintelligibly into her gag. Hagen had to smile at her heartbreaking, puppy-dog look.

"Oh no, I didn't get up to free you, not at all."

Instead, he went into a crouch behind Helena and, starting with her legs, began to adjust the fit of her bonds. Heavy black leather cuffs were clasped tightly around her ankles, with small locks securing their buckles against unauthorized opening and at the same time connecting them to a long, metal rod that forced Helena to spread her legs wide and balance on her toes. Hagen slid his hands slowly up her lower legs, enjoying the play of tense muscles under smooth skin. At the hollow of her knees, he lingered for a while until his gentle touch elicited a low moan from her, then his fingers unhurriedly continued their journey along the thighs to Helena's butt. There, his hands came upon hard metal.

The anatomically shaped, brilliantly-finished stainless steel delta of a chastity covering ran through her crotch, continuing upward between her toned buttocks before it was reunited with the wide metal belt constricting her waist. Hagen tried to reach the erogenous zones trapped beneath the crotch cover, however, despite his best efforts could barely squeeze the tip of his little finger between metal and skin. Satisfied, he rose from his crouch and let his hands slide further up her back on both sides of the spine.

At the level of the shoulder blades, he allowed himself a detour to Helena's breasts, which he cupped from below and kneaded gently, always careful not to touch the clamps attached to her nipples. Helen acknowledged his efforts with a stifled groan and leaned back into his embrace, albeit only to the extent permitted by her stretched posture.

From the breasts, his fingers traveled underneath her armpits onwards to her neck, where they met with the next obstacle. A wide metal band encircled her neck, documenting in the same manner as the chastity belt, perhaps a little less blatantly, yet more visibly Hagen's claim of ownership, especially since large steel rings at its front and back pretty much eliminated any chance of mistaking it for a mere piece of jewelry, at least if an observer had an eye for such details.

Just above her collar, the network of leather straps adamantly anchored the gag in her oral cavity. Although the sheer extent to which he had inflated the rubber bulb more than sufficed to effectively prevent Helena from spitting it out without help from her hands, Hagen remained unfazed by such purely practical considerations - after all, there were also the symbolic and aesthetic dimensions of her bondage to consider. So he carefully examined each strap and indeed, with the application of appropriate levels of force he could tighten the central strap running over her head an additional notch, thereby causing those on either side of her nose to cut more deeply into her cheeks. Helena initially struggled wildly and threw her head from side to side, so that he felt compelled to grab the ring attached to the top of her gag harness and pull her head back until she gave up her futile resistance. Afterwards, he stood in front of her and patted her soothingly on the hair.

"Now, that wasn't so bad, was it? Why the fuss?"

Helena glared at him from narrowed eyes, then turned her head to the side, mumbling something unintelligible, yet doubtlessly unflattering into her gag. Undeterred by her defiant demeanor Hagen pulled another leather accessory from his jacket and held it under her nose. Her head spun around to stare at him again, only this time from eyes wide with fear.

"Hm-hm!"

Helena emphatically shook her head, then looked pleadingly at his face again. With mock regret Hagen raised his eyebrows.

"Helena, Helena... you're still saying no to me? I'd sure hoped you learned your lesson by now."

She let her head hang with a defeated groan. He stepped behind once more, reached forward between her up-stretched arms and applied the wide blindfold. Soft cushions pressed insistently on her eyelids, plunging her into absolute darkness when he tightened the strap at the back of her head and buckled it closed. Apart from her nose, peeking through a triangular cut-out in the mask, Helena's face was now completely covered by a layer of black leather.

Hagen resumed his interrupted inspection of Helena's bondage. Only the wide leather cuffs that fixed her hands high above her head remained to be checked. He made sure the padded restraints clasped her forearms securely, but without affecting the flow of blood. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) for her, Helena was not only very flexible, but had an excellent circulation as well, and thus allowed Hagen to realize even his more fanciful bondage concepts. Compared to those, her current predicament had to be considered as rather harmless and consequently amendable.

As with her shackles, a long metal rod between the cuffs made sure she had to keep her arms spread wide and from the middle of this bar, a steel cable rose to a sturdy loop and pulley in the ceiling, and continued from there to a box on the wall housing an electric winch. Hagen pulled a small remote from the side pocket of his jacket and pressed the rocker switch. With a soft whirring sound the cable disappeared into the box, while Helena was slowly but inexorably hoisted into the air, until she finally lost the ground under her feet and her toes hovered two hands width above the floor. Satisfied, he pocketed the remote control, studiously ignoring Helena's passionate, but incomprehensible protest.

After this pleasant distraction Hagen finally addressed his actual purpose and moving over to his stereo rack, removed the previously heard CD from the player, put it back into its case and returned the latter to its rightful place. With a music collection as extensive as his, it took a certain orderliness not to loose track. Of course, he could have transferred his music to a hard drive or better yet moved it into the "cloud" and thus save meters of shelf space, but of what use was his large living room after all? Moreover, he actually appreciated handling physical goods in his spare time, since at work he dealt with predominantly virtual values constantly. And who knew, maybe digital possessions in the data center of some provider were ultimately just as volatile as the putative wealth on a depository account?

Musingly he ran his finger over the lined up CDs. Mozart? Too debonair for him now. Beethoven? Always a good choice, but played too often recently. He was not in the mood for Bach either, nor Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, Strauss, Wagner, Shostakovich. His finger came to rest on Prokofiev. Ah! Yes, there were some pieces he felt like listening to now. Hagen glanced at Helena, still swinging back and forth and turning lazily like an oversized mobile, and smiled maliciously. He would not be the only one to appreciate the music's vital dynamic and complex rhythms.

He inserted the CD into the player, then bent down to an unassuming box, whose utilitarian design refused to blend in with the understated elegance of the other hi-fi components. The input side of the device was connected to the audio equipment and from its three outputs pairs of red and black wire snaked over the parquet floor to Helena, each pair terminating at sockets on her chastity belt and nipple clamps. Thanks to the electrodes pressing against the most sensitive flesh of her body, she could share in his enjoyment of music. Yet Helena did not really appreciate this opportunity, he had to concede grudgingly.

It was a pity really, especially since he did not act out of pure self-interest. Like many other subs, Helena suffered from a passive form of the well-known attention deficit syndrome, i. e. she was obsessed with the idea that too little attention was paid to her. Formerly, when Hagen had returned home after a grueling week in the shark tank of high finance and just wanted to relax listening to classical music with no desire for further communication whatsoever, she often had felt left out and neglected. Now though he kept her involved, granted her his - admittedly not undivided - attention, and still she showed little gratitude. At the very least she should have appreciated the fact that he favored classical music or jazz over the techno music she incomprehensibly professed to enjoy and thus did not expose her to the latter's pounding beats, yet she obstinately refused to be placated. Well, to compensate, he would open her chastity belt later on and make reparations.

A characteristic, electronic beeping echoed through the room when Hagen repeatedly pressed the button that gradually increased the output voltage of the electrical stimulation device. The sound triggered the expected reaction: behind his back, Helena made questioning noises and the growing rattle of her chains suggested that her formerly gentle rocking and turning had given way for somewhat more energetic movements. Hagen returned to his chair and sank onto the soft leather. Helena's wild thrashing caused a sudden tightness in his pants, although the next act of the drama had not even begun yet. Apparently, they both mentally anticipated what would soon follow; for anticipation was, after all, really the greatest pleasure. He put the headphones back on and reached for the CD player's remote.

"Time for the encore!"