Sensitive Research - Discoveries 01

Note to readers: This is a sequel to my story "Sensitive Research." While I had decided to end the story, I have had a number of readers contact me about whether I was writing a sequel, and I found that I missed the characters. So I've decided to write this sequel, which picks up a while after the end of the original tale. There is a brief recap of the earlier story, and then develop this new thread slowly with some new characters. As usual, your respectful feedback is welcomed.

*******************

Chapter 1

I was naked and restrained spread-eagled on the bed of a stranger. Well, not exactly a stranger, but I had just met this woman less than three hours ago. Leather cuffs held my arms to the headboard above my head, and each of my ankles was cuffed and similarly tied to its respective bedpost. My pussy was dripping in response to what she had already done to me, and in anticipation of what I suspected was to come. I was blindfolded, so was relying on my other senses to clue me in as to what was going on.

I had heard the woman walk out of the bedroom a few moments ago. I don't know where she went and for how long she would be gone. A momentary panic crossed my mind, wondering what would happen if she had just walked out and left me here, unable to release myself from the restraints. We had agreed on a safe word - Malibu - but it would be of little use to me if there was no one to hear it. But after this agonizing thought crossed my mind, I calmed myself with the knowledge that this was her home, that she would be here, and that I had to trust that she would not endanger me.

After what seemed like 15 or 20 minutes, but was probably no more than five, I heard the sound of a door opening and closing somewhere in the house. A minute or two later, it was the sound of footsteps returning toward the bedroom. I heard someone approaching the bed, and then sensed the presence of someone standing by me.

"Are you ready to continue, my little slut?" I recognized the voice of the woman who had put me in this position.

"I guess so, Ma'am," I replied, using one of the honorifics she had instructed me to use.

I felt fingers lightly brushing across my belly, just barely touching me, but enough to let me know they were there. They circled around, below my breasts, and above my mons, just barely grazing each. I willed her to go either higher or lower - or preferably both - so as to help relieve the relentless teasing she had saddled me with since she had restrained me on the bed. My mouth was dry, as I realized I hadn't had anything to drink in the hour or so since I had been here. My breaths were very short, as if I were fighting the arousal that was coursing through my body.

I felt the mattress tilt as she must have sat down next to me. She continued circling my belly, but then after two or three minutes of this she shifted, and began to tease my nipples between her fingers. Lightly at first, as if she were trying to plump up a small pillow, but then she began to apply more pressure, giving both of them a strong squeeze simultaneously. I gasped at the onslaught, my nipples responding on their own, betraying my reactions to this tormentor.

After less than a minute she stopped, but I could feel my nipples still standing at attention. I next felt a finger - or was it two? - dipping into my pussy, and rhythmically pistoning in and out of me. God, that felt so damn good! Maybe now I would receive the release I was craving. But after just no more than a few moments she stopped, and the next sensation I experienced was the smell of my own arousal as she held her fingers under my nose.

"Just as I thought, your pussy is like a river, you slut. You like this, don't you?"

"No Mistress," I tried to fight back against what both of us knew was the truth. "I'm scared, I've never done anything like this before."

I felt a sharp smack on the side of my large breast closest to where she was sitting, and I let out a yelp. "Don't lie to me, slut, I can see and feel that being my little submissive pet has gotten your juices flowing and your nipples standing at attention. Now I'll ask you one more time. You like this, don't you?"

I whimpered a bit, knowing that she could see right through me. In a quiet voice, I answered, "Yes, Ma'am."

"Yes, what, slut," she pushed me.

"Yes, I like being your slave, Mistress," I elaborated for her.

"That's right, and I'm going to get to play with you all night if I want." I felt her fingers on one of my nipples again, squeezing it and pulling it, and then as she continued tugging, feeling my large breast pulling away from my body.

She let go of my nipple and my breast fell back to my chest and flopped to the side. "I'll be right back, don't move," and she chuckled to herself as I felt her get up from the bed and heard her walk away. I wondered again how long she was going to leave me this time.

I heard her walking around in another part of the house, not too far from the bedroom. And then I heard another sound, very faint at first. I strained to focus in on it, and realized that it was voices. At first I thought it was coming from a radio, or television, but then after a few moments it was the sound of two people talking.

"Oh shit," I thought, "she has someone else here with her!"

*******************

It had been about a month since I had returned from my field work in Chicago visiting dommes and their female clients for my research study. My research assistant Tara had been busy transcribing the interviews we had conducted with the women. She was also assisting me with the coding of all of our notes from the sessions where we observed the dommes in sessions with their clients. We had a lot of work to do to make sense of all the data we had.

I also was wrestling with making sense of what had happened to me - and Tara - during the last couple of days in Chicago. I had embarked on this study because the topic of dommes and female clients was one that was very under-studied in the research literature. There was much scholarly work on dommes and male clients, and male doms, but almost nothing written about female-on-female relationships of this type. So I thought I had an opportunity to make a contribution to the literature, and after receiving a small grant from an open-minded family foundation that helped pay for Tara's time and our travel and other expenses, I embarked on the study.

My name is Susan Phillips, and I am a professor of social psychology at a major research university. At the time of this study, I had been a professor for eight years, having achieved tenure three years earlier. I was at the stage of my career where I could begin to take on more controversial research topics, and this was certainly turning out to be a very controversial one.

What I had not counted on was the way that both Tara and I would get pulled into the world of female domination ourselves. The last domme we met in Chicago, Lady Amber as she was known, had manipulated both Tara and me into her world of BDSM. I found myself being dominated by her, as well by one of her clients, and she even forced me to sexually service Tara in the last session with her.

My instincts were that I should have just shut the study down; my being drawn into such intimate contact with the research subjects was a serious breach of professional ethics. Never mind what had happened between Tara and me; that was likely enough to get me fired by my university, and damage my professional reputation irreparably.

But Lady Amber, as manipulative as she had been, gave us her assurances that she would keep confidential what had happened in her home, and she had full confidence that her clients would do the same. For some reason, I decided I had to trust her, and the stakes for shutting down the study were just too high. For one thing, I would likely have to pay back the foundation's money I had already spent; this was tens of thousands of dollars and I just didn't know where I would get that. In addition, I was still very interested in the study, and felt there would still be an audience for it. We had some incredibly rich material from our field work, and I knew there would be opportunities to get a number of journal articles out of it, and I felt there was even the possibility of a book. It was not just my career that was at stake, but Tara's as well; she needed to get some publications out of our work as well in order for her to stay on track for graduation and getting a job as a professor herself.

Tara and I had discussed the issues at length on our flight home from Chicago. While we knew there were great risks, she agreed with me that we were better off trying to continue. So we put aside the ethical considerations, relied on Lady Amber's assurances of confidentiality, and decided to plow ahead with the study.

Resolving the professional issues, however, did not relieve the anxiety over the larger issue of what my experience in Chicago meant for me personally. I had been strictly heterosexual in my life until the experiences with these women, and had not been involved in the BDSM lifestyle myself. I had gotten the idea for the study after talking with a couple of friends who were into BDSM. I had had just two long-term relationships with men, one before graduate school while I was working at a publishing house, and one in graduate school. But both ended as I moved onto the next stage of my life, and I had dated only sporadically since.

So here I was, now 43 years old, and I had found I had been very aroused observing the sessions of the dommes and their clients. And I had to admit to myself that I was incredibly turned-on when I was being dominated by Lady Amber and one of her clients, a doctor named Martha, who I discovered was actually a switch who enjoyed dominating women as much as she did being a submissive herself.

I was a research psychologist, not trained clinically, so I hesitated in trying to diagnose my own issues. But I knew enough about the field to know that what I had experienced in Chicago had likely brought out some latent desires that I had been suppressing for some time. The truth was, I realized, that perhaps the reason my dating experiences with men since I had left graduate school - as few and far between as they had been - were uniformly unsatisfying for a reason I hadn't considered. I had chalked it up to just not meeting the "right" man, as well as being so busy with work that I didn't have a lot of opportunity to date. At age 43, I knew I was heading into middle age and beyond the range that many men found desirable. I also knew that the 30-40 pounds of extra weight that I carried put me into a body type that was beyond the societal norms most men found attractive.

Even in my two long-term relationships, the sex wasn't all that great. I guess I just thought it was me, that I wasn't a sexual person, and never tried to address it with my partners. I had almost thought of myself as asexual, not really interested in sex. But now I had to wonder if the reason the disappointment in sex was because I wasn't attracted to men as much as I was to women. All I knew was that I had never been so turned on in my life as when I was being dominated by Lady Amber and Martha.

As I was wrestling with these issues, I had considered seeing a therapist after our return from Chicago. But I had had a bad experience with therapy earlier in my life, and decided I would just try to work through them myself.

I was in my office one afternoon reviewing some of our field notes, when I saw a notification on my laptop screen that I had an email from my friend Maggie. Maggie and I had been in graduate school together, and were best friends there. We started on our academic careers together eight years ago, and while we lived far apart - she was at UCLA in Los Angeles, and I was on the east coast - we had stayed in touch over the years. We also got together at the American Psychological Association annual meeting we both attended each year, and if I had a business trip to or was vacationing in Southern California, I'd always arrange to see her. We'd also talk on the phone every now and then, just to get caught up.

I switched to my email program clicked on her message.

Subject: Coming your way!

Hi sweetie, how are you? Been too long since we've talked, but I've got good news. Dave's niece is getting married Memorial Day weekend in your university's chapel, so we'll be in town then. I know it's short notice, but we just nailed down our travel plans and figured out what all the family activities are during the weekend. Hope you'll be around so we can connect!

Love ya,

Maggie

I was very happy to hear she was coming, as I realized it had been almost a year since we had seen each other, and she had never been here for a visit. Being in a small college town we didn't get many visitors who were just passing through. I quickly sent her a reply:

Subject: Re: Coming your way!

Hey, wonderful to hear from you. It's so strange you emailed, because I was just getting ready to email you and let you know that I was actually going to be heading your way! I just confirmed that LA is going to be my final site for field work on my research project. And yes, I'll be around Memorial Day, so let me know what your schedule is.

Love ya back,

Susan

After a few more back and forth emails over the next couple of days, we had figured out a time to get together for lunch.

*******************

Memorial Day weekend finally arrived, and I was looking forward to meeting Maggie for lunch. She had called when they arrived in town, and said she'd pick me up at my home.

The next day, I heard a car pulling into my driveway, and looked out the window to see Maggie coming out. I opened the front door and waited as she walked up the steps. As usual, Maggie first gave me a big kiss on the lips; while this was a little forward for me, she was much more physical and "out there" than I was, so I had gotten used to her way of greeting me after we hadn't seen each other for a while. After pulling back from the hug, she came in and I showed her around my small, but tidy, home. She oohed and aahed over some of the art on the walls, and commented on the colors I had painted the different rooms.

After showing her around, we went out to her car and got in. She backed out of the driveway and drove us to the restaurant that was just a short distance from my home, and we sat down to get caught up.

"So great to see you, sweetie," she said, "and I really appreciated the opportunity to get away from Dave's family for a little break!"

"No worries, happy to be of assistance."

"Have you figured out when you'll be coming to LA?" she asked.

"Well, I was thinking the last week in July, but want to make sure you'll be around, so I haven't confirmed the dates until I talked to you."

"I think that's okay," she replied, "but hold on and let me check my phone." She pulled it out of her purse and started tapping. "Yup, we're around the last week in July, so that'll be fine."

Just then the waitress came over to take our order. After Maggie finished her order and the waitress walked away, she turned to me and asked with a conspiratorial wink, "So, how is the big BDSM study going?"

"It's not a BDSM study," I laughed back at her. "It's a study of dommes and their female clients."

"Whatever," she laughed back, "I want to hear all the salacious details."

"Oh, c'mon hon, you've been a researcher long enough to know I can't breach confidentiality," I teased her back.

"So you mean you're going to make me wait until you publish to get the inside peek at that world?"

"Yes," I reiterated, "you'll have to wait just like everybody else."

She let the topic drop, and we started getting caught up on our respective lives. There wasn't much to say about mine; my life was pretty much taken up by work, an occasional vacation on my own, a family event every now and then, a rare date, and not much else. Hers, however, was much fuller. She and Dave had dated in graduate school, and got married when Maggie was finishing up. Dave was about ten years older than she was, so they had started a family pretty quickly. They now had two young girls, four and six, and Dave was a very successful real estate developer in Los Angeles, having gone into his family's business after graduating from college. His father was now retired, so he headed the firm, which was into both residential and commercial development throughout Southern California.

So Maggie had a lot to fill me in on about what the girls were up to, what she had been doing at work, some great vacations they had taken over the course of the last year, and life in LA. I loved hearing her stories, as I felt that she had a much more exciting life than mine.

After finishing our entrees, we decided to order dessert as Maggie was in no rush to have to get back to all of Dave's family's activities. As we waited, Maggie leaned forward again and spoke softly. "I know you can't talk about the details, but I have to ask you what it was like to sit and observe those women together?"

"What do you mean, what was it like?"

"I mean, sitting there while two women were having sex like that, was it a little weird?" she clarified.

"First of all, they weren't always having sex," I explained to her. "Sometimes it was just bondage and discipline, and there was no sexual activity. But sometimes, yes, there was sex involved."

"Okay, okay. Sex or no sex, what was it like to watch?"

"I'll admit it was very strange the first few times. As much as I tried to maintain a professional, detached demeanor as the researcher in the room, it was a little weird. A little what I imagine it is like to watch a porn shoot," I chuckled. "But after the first few times it became more routine."

"Were you behind a two-way mirror or something like that?"

"No, none of the dommes had a set-up like that. It's not like we were in a research lab or something - we were just in their place of business," I explained to her.

"So you were sitting right there in the room with them?" Maggie inquired.

"Yup, either Tara or I, or in a few cases, both of us, were sitting just a few feet away as the action ensued," I smiled.

"And I have to ask, sweetie - did you get turned on?"

I wasn't totally shocked that she asked me this question. Maggie knew the history of my relationships over the years, and we had talked some about our sex lives. She knew mine had been largely unsatisfying, and I knew that she had a very good and healthy sex life with Dave, even with two small kids in the house.

"Well. . .," I hesitated, trying to decide how much I could - and wanted to - tell her. I was going to gloss over the question, but I realized that she really was my closest friend, even though we saw each other as infrequently as we did, and if I couldn't be honest with her, I didn't know who would play that role. "Okay, yes, some of it was very erotic," I conceded.

"What parts?" she asked.

"Really, Maggie?" I laughed back at her, "You really want to know?"

"Of course!" she responded.

"Okay, you asked. I never thought I would feel this way, but it was very erotic to watch one woman subjugate herself to another like these women do. It was the combination of the mental and emotional aspect of it as much as the physical which I found so erotic," I explained to her.

"I understand," she replied. "I've never seen it live like you, but I've seen a view videos in my time," she said, winking again.

Now it was my turn to be surprised. "You've watched BDSM videos?"

"Sure, sweetie, I may not be quite as vanilla as you think."

"But female BDSM videos?" I asked, looking for a clarification.

"Yup, both Dave and I find those hot, and we've watched some together. And then have great sex afterwards," she said, chuckling.