50 Shades of Drake 5 and 6

Chapter Eighty-One

    Face-down, ass up, that's the way that...Aubrey liked Destiny positioned when it was time to punish her. She lay across his lap, dreading each smack to her bottom long before the pain was inflicted. She remembered how she'd felt the first few times she'd received a punishment from him: simultaneously appalled and thrilled by the feeling of his hand making contact with her backside. Now, only one thought coursed through her mind: I deserve this. I failed to follow direct orders, and I deserve this. She made a vow to herself as a single tear rolled down her cheek: next time, she would do better.

DAY TWO

    After giving herself to Aubrey exactly how he wanted it, showering with him, dressing him (and then herself), cooking him breakfast, and seeing him off to work, she walked through the house making note of what needed to be cleaned. There was no surface left undusted, no dish left unwashed, no floor left unmopped, unvacuumed, or unscrubbed.

    The irony of it all wasn't lost on her. Not long ago, she would have considered Aubrey's mandates misogynistic. I, Tarzan, go off to work and make the money while you, Jane, stay at home and cook and clean for me, while decked out in a designer skirt or dress...The old Destiny would have cringed at the thought of agreeing to an archaic display guaranteed to set feminism back decades.

    With that irony aside, the truth of the matter was that she enjoyed making love to him and showering with him every morning. She even loved dressing him and cooking for him. The cleaning... she didn't enjoy that exactly, but knowing that it would make him proud of her did fill her with a bizarre sense of pride. A few hours into cleaning, she started to feel tired, but put on one of Aubrey's old albums and pushed past the exhaustion.

    By the time Aubrey arrived home, she was kneeling in the living room, right where she should be. Every surface visible to the naked eye was gleaming and sparkling in the afternoon sunlight filtering in from open blinds.

    He stood in the entryway of the living room staring at her for a long moment. Then he cast his glance down to the tiled floor beneath his feet, which looked glossy. His eyes slid over to her, and a wide grin spread across his face. "Good girl," he said, entering the room.

    The days bled into each other. When Destiny wasn't doing Aubrey's bidding, she was working on the website or starting the daunting task that was wedding planning. Her mother and friends from college demanded to be a part of the planning process. Her mother hadn't been all that amused when Destiny informed her that the wedding date was set in a little less than seven months.

    "Didn't you say that you and Aubrey were going to have a long engagement?" her mother queried. "I thought we would have more than a year to plan this."

    "Neither of us want to wait long," Destiny told her while scribbling notes down her notepad. "And we don't want the wedding to be a big deal. Just...a small, intimate gathering of our family and friends."

    "Small gathering?" her mother repeated. "He has an endless amount of friends and family, doesn't he?"

    Destiny laughed. "As small and intimate as the wedding can possibly be, anyway," she said as an afterthought.

    "Seven months isn't enough time to plan this," her mother fretted.

    "We'll make it work," Destiny said, flipping the notepad page. "All that matters is that I'm marrying him. As long as he's standing next to me on that day, the day will be perfect. I'm not going to sweat the small details."

    "You say that now..." her mother muttered.

    Late-afternoon conversations with mommy, after washing dishes and folding laundry and working on her website - but not too late in the afternoon because she had to be kneeling in the living room by the time Aubrey arrived home from work every day. The routine became ingrained in her. The instructions seemed endless, because there were so many of them, but carrying them out became easier and easier over time.

    Days bled into each other, forming into weeks. During the weekdays, she catered to him. In the evenings and on weekends, he in turn catered to her, spoiling her with his kisses and his touch, bathing her and pampering her as if she were a princess.

    The renovation of the blue room continued, until the room wasn't even recognizable. Furniture and contraptions were rearranged and replaced. The walls were painted a deep crimson color. The Red Room, deux.

    In the course of her training, Aubrey threw a few curve balls at her, and challenged her way of thinking. He deliberately pushed her buttons to see if she would act out or talk back to him. The first few times, she took the bait and snapped on him. Once she realized what he was doing, she fell into line and held her tongue.

    They lived behind closed doors as loving Dominant and dutiful submissive, but attended industry events arm-in-arm as equals. Whenever they showed up to an event, the cameras were always there, ready to capture them. They were always splashed on the home page of TMZ or E! News. Everyone wanted to know more about them. Aubrey told her that he'd received more than one offer for them to have their own reality show. "I would never agree to that," he declared. "There's something cheap and tasteless about them. All of them. The love that I feel for you is for you. I don't want it to be a part of some show, some song and dance for network executives to make money on."

    "I agree wholeheartedly," she said.

    Lying beside her in bed, he drew her closer to him. "You have impressed me with how well you've taken to training."

    "I've impressed myself," she admitted.

    "Which is what has me thinking...that you deserve a considerable reward for how well you've done."

    "I seem to remember you rewarding me every night," she murmured, leaning in close to him and nipping at his earlobe with her teeth.

    He grinned. "You deserve a much bigger reward than that."

    Her brows furrowed.

    He turned and looked her in the eye. "There was a request you made of me some time back, when your training first started. At the time, I laughed it off...but the more I think about it, the more my interest is piqued."

    He couldn't possibly mean...

    A mischievous sparkle glinted in his eyes. "You've excelled in your training, and I'm curious to know...what it would be like to be trained by you."

    Her heart stopped beating.

    "So starting this weekend, you will take on the role of Dominant and I will be your submissive."