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After many years as a modest, unpretentious wife, at age thirty-seven Karen Black began a journey of self-discovery at her husband's company retreat that took her into the shadowy, secretive realm of erotic power exchange: dominance and submission, bondage and discipline, and the transformation of sensual pain into previously unimaginable ecstasy.
Freed of inhibitions through her voluntary surrender to the control of Steven, a man less than half her age, Karen's latent sexuality and saucy personality blossomed. As she bonded more strongly with her master, Karen accepted, and mostly enjoyed, her consensual participation in a variety of sexual and sadomasochistic activities.
Four years after that retreat, Karen and Steven met Robert, an older dominant, and she was both challenged and exhilarated in a private session with him. Six months later, Steven faced major life decisions, and he sent Karen to live with Robert while he resolved them.
That's the back-story, the prologue. That's where this story really begins.
Robert's style is different from Steven's. Both his erotic scenes and his day-to-day interactions with her are more cerebral; he plays with her mind as well as her body. But then their lives take an sudden turn. After exchanging emails with Lisa, a newcomer to BDSM, Robert meets her for a scene. Karen reads what Lisa wrote about her experiences and agrees to be a training aid for Barry, Lisa's husband.
Karen highlights for Barry the realities of what Lisa experienced with Robert. During their first learning session, Barry has his eyes opened further, first watching Robert play with Lisa with Karen's explanations and then attempting to perform similar play with Karen while Robert provides coaching.
After a few weeks of training, Lisa confesses that she's admitted to her long-time friend, Dorothy, how her relationship with Barry is evolving. Dorothy insists on meeting Robert, then verbally attacks him at a dinner as a man who abuses women. But Robert calmly conducts an extended discussion with her and Tony, her date, about the differences between SM and abuse. Robert invites Dorothy and Tony to witness the scene planned for later in the evening, and he fulfills Tony's fantasies by orchestrating his participation with Karen at the end of the evening's play.
Barry comes face-to-face with a woman he believes he's read about in Karen's journal. He conducts a private job-fair interview that not only becomes erotic in nature but takes advantage of his secret knowledge of Barbara's kinky needs and desires. Barry then takes his turn at the computer to describe the event.
Lisa and Barry arrange for Barbara to do a scene with Robert. He includes Karen and runs a playful yet highly arousing two-bottom game with Barry and Lisa as voyeurs. The next day, it's Robert's turn to hit the keyboard.
On the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, Robert gives Karen an amazing night and morning-after of love-making. But then Steven calls; he's made his life choices and he'll be arriving soon to pick Karen up. Robert and Karen put brave faces on an emotional difficult situation; they recognize and acknowledge that they've had a wonderful year together.
More than sixty years ago, the original Kinsey reports established that a significant percentage of the American population participates in or fantasizes about bondage, spanking, or other varieties of power-based sex play. In this educational and erotic story, Karen relates her experiences as a teacher and training partner for a novice dominant. She and the other principal characters reveal the intimate details of their thoughts, feelings, and interactions as Karen continues to embrace her true submissive destiny.
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