In Front of the Mirror, I Relive What My Master Taught Me

Renata stood in the large bathroom of her house, an isolated building on the outskirts of the village, where the only sound was the wind slipping through the eucalyptus trees. The full-length mirror, with its old wooden frame, returned her whole image beneath the warm light of a floor lamp. At fifty-four, she was still a woman of curves, softened by time but not erased. Her skin, still firm in places, showed the honest marks of the years: silver stretch marks on her thighs, breasts that sagged under their own weight, a belly that had rounded without asking permission.

She looked at herself harshly, almost with resentment. She was no longer the woman who turned heads, the one who provoked desire with a single sidelong glance. Now, in that solitude she had chosen for herself, her only lovers were her own hands.

Slowly she took off her silk robe and let it fall to the floor like a skin that no longer served her. Her eyes locked on the reflection: the dark nipples, hardened by the cold air; the neatly trimmed patch of hair in a tidy triangle; the broad hips that had so often been some man's prize. But no one touched her anymore. No one but herself.

With a broken sigh she lifted a hand and slid it over her neck, down the groove between her breasts. Her long fingers traced her skin with deliberate slowness, as if exploring forbidden territory. She felt a shiver when she pinched one nipple and tugged hard enough for pain to mingle with a sharp pleasure.

—Ah… —she murmured, her rough voice bouncing in the silence.

The other nipple got the same treatment, a cruel pinch that made her clench tight all the way inside.

She turned sideways to judge her ass in the mirror. It was no longer as firm as it had once been, but it still kept that roundness that begged for a hand laid over it. She raised her arm and brought it down with a sharp slap against her right cheek. The crack rang through the walls, shrill, and then came the burn spreading like liquid fire. She struck again, harder, imagining it was his hand: firm, sure, masterful. Her skin flared beneath the blow and she gasped, feeling the heat seep toward her cunt.

Only her own hand was punishing her now. But in her head it was the echo of a past that had marked her forever. The master who had dominated her, him and no one else, in the intimacy of their closed-door encounters, until a miserable illness took him five years ago. Since then she had felt like an empty vessel. When you give yourself completely to a master, the drug gets into your body and your blood, and nothing can replace it.

She sat on the edge of the bathtub and opened her legs in front of the mirror to see herself in full. Her lips, swollen by the rising excitement, shone with early dampness. Renata licked her fingers and brought them down to her clit. She circled it gently at first, remembering what she had been in her youth: a woman who walked like a challenge, short skirts, heels clicking on the pavement like a provocation. Eyes followed her through the streets, at parties, in bars. Men and women alike undressed her with their eyes, imagining what it would be like to have her. For years she had played with that, flirting, seducing, leaving a trail of desire in her wake.

And then he appeared. Her master.

Renata quickened the rhythm of her fingers, slid two of them inside herself while her thumb pressed insistently on her clit. She remembered the first time: a chance encounter at an art gallery, where their eyes met and he, with a calm smile, invited her to coffee at his apartment. At first everything was subtle, quiet. There were no clubs or crowds, only the two of them in the dimness of his living room.

—Take your clothes off —he told her, in a calm voice that admitted no argument.

And she, intrigued by that certainty, obeyed. She stood naked in front of him, trembling only slightly, while he watched her without touching her, letting the air fill with thick tension.

—Kneel —he ordered after that.

Renata went down, feeling the floor against her knees like a promise of what was to come.

At the beginning the domination was gentle, almost tender, but relentless in its control. He tied her wrists with a silk tie and stretched her arms above her head while she lay on the bed. His fingers explored her body with exasperating slowness: they brushed her nipples until they hardened, slid down her belly and stopped just before reaching where she wanted, forcing her to beg in silence.

—Ask me for it —he whispered.

—Touch me, please —she answered, her voice breaking.

Only then did he sink one finger into her wetness and move it with a skill that took her to the brink, then stopped dead.

—You don't come without my permission —he told her, teaching her obedience from the very first day.

Renata was moaning now, her fingers pumping inside herself at a faster and faster pace. In her head she relived how he had trained her in that intimacy: on her knees, learning to please him with her mouth while he held her hair firmly. Serve. Please. Obey. He repeated it like a mantra, and she absorbed every lesson as if it were water.

The pain came little by little, in private, with no witnesses. First it was open-handed strikes on her ass while she was on all fours on the rug, each blow followed by a caress that confused her senses.

—Pain is your teacher —he would explain to her.

And she would arch her back to take more, feeling herself soaking with every impact.

There was an afternoon, one among many, that came back to her with unbearable clarity. He had made her wait on her knees in the middle of the room, naked, hands crossed behind her back, without permission to move. Long minutes passed in which only the ticking of a clock and her breathing could be heard, each second more ragged. He circled her in silence, studying her, letting her steep in her own anxiety. That waiting, Renata discovered, was a form of domination as deep as any whip. By the time he finally touched her, she was already on the verge of tears, ready to give him anything as long as he didn't stop.

—Who is this body for? —he asked her that afternoon, gripping her chin.

—For you, master —she answered, and the word came from her chest like a truth she didn't need to think about.

***

Over time the domination became more intense, but always between the two of them, in the privacy of their world. He tied her to the bed with soft cotton ropes and blindfolded her to sharpen her other senses. He clipped her nipples, biting only a little at first, then with more cruelty, sending waves of agony through her that turned to ecstasy when he entered her slowly, filling her completely while he whispered orders in her ear.

—Give yourself completely.

He took her with absolute control: sometimes from behind, marking her thighs red with the palm of his hand; other times he forced her to ride him while he pinched her clit, denying her release until she begged.

—You're mine. Only mine —he said.

—Yes, master. Only yours —she answered.

In the mirror she could see her own reflection twisted by pleasure. Her breasts jolted with every movement, her ass still burning from the slaps she had given herself. She slid a third finger into her soaked sex and felt it close around them, imagining it was him filling her. Fuck me harder, she begged in silence, remembering a night when he had tied her to a chair, legs spread, plunging a vibrator into her while he marked her breasts with a light riding crop. Pain and pleasure melted together until she fell apart in tremors, only for him to make her clean up the mess afterward and thus reinforce her obedience.

—Yes! Give me pain! —she shouted out loud, and her voice bounced off the tiles.

Her fingers moved like pistons, splashing in her wetness, while she relived the peak moment of her submission: tied on her back, every opening occupied, used in every possible way until her body surrendered completely. Now, alone in her house, Renata reached the end. Her body tightened, the muscles of her sex closed around her fingers, and a violent orgasm shook her from head to toe. She screamed, a primal, guttural sound, while the waves rolled through her mixed with the echo of the pain from before.

She collapsed against the bathtub, spent, her fingers still inside, feeling the last spasms. In the mirror, her reflection looked back at her: a mature woman, sated and yet empty. She was no longer the one who turned heads, but in her memories, in her own hands, she found the fire time had never managed to extinguish. The legacy of a single master who had shaped her behind closed doors.

Tomorrow she would do it again. She would flog herself, pinch herself, fuck herself until pain and pleasure once more made her feel alive.