My Mistress Declared the Battle of the Sexes That Night

The rule was simple, and we had repeated it so many times it had become part of us: when Valeria switched on the red lamp in the basement and locked the door, we stopped being a couple and became two opposing sides. She called it “the battle of the sexes,” and I, who had spent months losing every battle, had learned to fear and desire that lamp in equal measure.

—Tonight you have a chance to win, soldier —she said as she walked barefoot in front of me, measuring each step—. If you hold out until I decide, I’m in charge next week. If you give in before then… you know what hangs from this collar.

She lifted the chain on the table. From it hung the small medals she had been collecting in each game she won, one for every time she had made me beg. Trophies. Her way of keeping score.

—Yes, mistress —I replied with the steadiest voice I could fake.

I wasn’t even half as calm as I looked.

She ordered me to kneel in the center of the room, on the cold wood, and fastened the collar around my neck with slow fingers. Valeria looked magnificent: her black hair tied up, her skin still damp from the shower, a dark corset that concealed nothing that mattered. Every time she bent over me, her breasts were level with my face, and desire hit me like an order I couldn’t disobey.

—Hands on the back of your neck —she said—. And don’t move them, whatever happens. The first time you lower them to protect yourself, you lose. Understood?

I laced my fingers behind my head. I was completely exposed before her, naked and open, feeling ridiculous and, at the same time, more aroused than I was willing to admit.

She started with one finger. Just one. She slid it over my chest, down my stomach, slowly downward while looking me in the eyes, searching for the first tremor. She found it right away.

—Look at you —she murmured—. So brave when you talk, and so soft down here. All your pride hangs from the most fragile part of the body. You’re ridiculous.

Her hand circled my testicles with a softness that fooled no one. She didn’t squeeze. She just held them, like someone weighing something that belonged to her, and the feeling of being at her mercy stole my breath.

—Do you feel this? —she asked, barely closing her fingers—. All your strength, all your warrior courage, and all I have to do is close my hand for you to forget words. The weaker sex. You always were.

—I’m not giving up —I said through clenched teeth.

She smiled. That smile was the worst part, because it meant the real game was only just beginning.

***

Valeria knew my body better than I did. She knew exactly where pressure became pleasure and where pleasure became that unbearable mix of pain and need that made me moan without meaning to. She alternated: a scrape of nails along the inside of my thigh, a firm tug that made me hold my breath, her open palm stroking my groin just when I thought she was about to punish me.

—Women fight without armor —she said, repeating the line she always used in this game—. We don’t need it. You cover yourselves in metal and bravado, and still you leave the most important part hanging there, unprotected, offered up. As if you were asking us to take it.

She squeezed again, this time a little harder, and the moan escaped before I could swallow it. I saw her eyes gleam at the sound.

—There it is —she whispered—. That sound. My favorite. The sound of a man remembering who’s in charge.

My hands trembled at the back of my neck from the effort of not lowering them. Every fiber of my body screamed at me to protect myself, to cover what she had in her power, and resisting that primal command was the real test. Not strength. Obedience.

—Good soldier —she said when she noticed I was holding on—. Look at you, restraining yourself for me. You almost make me feel sorry for you. Almost.

She walked around me unhurriedly, studying me from every angle like a general inspecting a prisoner. I felt her gaze move over my back, my taut shoulders, my hands clenched at the nape of my neck. She knew any weakness she found she would use against me, and she also knew I would hand it all over to her.

—Remember the first battle? —she said from behind me, her mouth almost against my ear—. You came in so confident, so sure you were going to put me in my place. And look where you are now. On your knees, marked, waiting for me to decide what I do with you. That’s the real difference between us: you fight to win, I fight because I like watching you fall.

She dragged a nail down my spine, from top to bottom, and my whole body prickled. Anticipation was a sharper weapon than any punishment. I never knew whether what came next would be a stroke of pleasure or pain, and that uncertainty kept me completely under her control.

She moved back in front of me and leaned down until her lips brushed mine without quite kissing me.

—Apologize for thinking you could beat me —she whispered.

—I’m sorry, mistress —I said without hesitation.

—Again.

—I’m sorry for thinking I could beat you. It won’t happen again.

—Liar —she laughed—. You’ll think it again next week. And you’ll lose again. That’s why I adore you.

She bent and licked my neck, just above the collar, while her hand kept working me below with cruel precision. The contrast drove me insane: the soft, wet tongue on my skin, the firm fingers reminding me how vulnerable I was. I felt myself losing control and she noticed at once.

—No —she ordered, squeezing just enough to cut me off at the root—. You don’t have permission. If you finish before I say so, you don’t just lose the war. You lose the whole month.

The edge of orgasm snapped back at once, leaving me panting, desperate, suspended on a knife edge she controlled at will. That was her specialty: taking me to the limit again and again only to snatch it away in the final second. She said that was how real battles were won, not by finishing off the enemy, but by leaving him alive and begging.

***

—I’m going to tell you a secret —she said, sitting on the chair in front of me with her legs crossed, leaving me kneeling and trembling—. The first time we played this game, I thought you’d last longer. You had that confident look, that “you’re not going to break me.” I loved discovering how easy you were.

She slowly uncrossed her legs, knowing perfectly well what she was making me look at, and crossed them again on the other side.

—Ask for it —she said suddenly.

—What?

—Ask me to touch you. Beg for it. If you do it well, maybe I’ll let you finish and we’ll tie the war. If you do it badly… —she left the sentence hanging and shook the chain of trophies.

Pride and desire fought their own battle inside me, and desire won without discussion, as it always did with her.

—Please —I said, and hearing my own voice crack humiliated and aroused me in equal measure—. Please, mistress. Touch me. I’m begging you.

—More.

—I need you. Do whatever you want with me. I’m yours. I’m the weaker sex, I am, I admit it. Please.

Something changed in her face. Not tenderness exactly, but a deep satisfaction, the kind that comes from hearing confirmed what you already knew. She stood, came closer, and took my chin, forcing me to look up at her.

—That —she said softly— is the only thing I wanted to hear.

She knelt in front of me, and for a moment the entire war dissolved into something else. Her hand found me again, but now with a clear, generous intention, no tricks. She kissed my jaw, my neck, my chest. Her fingers took me back to the edge, but this time they didn’t stop.

—Now —she told me in my ear—. Finish for me. Let all the soldiers know who won.

The permission was as overwhelming as any command. I let myself go against her hand with a long moan that bounced off the basement walls, feeling every muscle surrender at once. My hands were still at the back of my neck, trembling, obedient to the end, because she had never given me permission to lower them.

***

When I caught my breath, I was still on my knees and she was still holding my face, watching me with that winner’s calm that suited her so well.

—You’ve lost —she said, though she was smiling—. You gave in. You begged. You finished when I wanted. Three defeats in one.

—I know, mistress.

She took the chain from the table, chose one of the little medals, and clipped it to the collar around my neck, adding it to the others. The weight of the cold metal against my still-warm skin was her signature, her way of marking me as hers once more.

—How does it feel —she asked, repeating the usual question, the one that closed every battle— to be the weaker sex?

I looked up at her, exhausted, with the trophy collar hanging from my neck and my body still humming, and I understood, as I did every time, that the question held nothing humiliating for me. It was the prize. It was the reason I would kneel again next week, and the one after, and every time she decided to declare war on me.

—It feels —I replied— like winning by losing.

Valeria laughed, a low, satisfied laugh, and ran her fingers through my hair the way you stroke something you fully possess.

—Good soldier —she said—. Rematch tomorrow. And you’re going to lose again.

I didn’t contradict her. Both things were true, and I liked both of them far too much.