You can view the story here on the plaza:
https://www.boundstories.net/storiessz/sophie_and_mark.html
F/m; mpov; chastity; bond; cuffs; blindfold; gag; naked; Sbm; chain; oral; cons; X
https://www.boundstories.net/storiessz/sophie_and_mark2.html
F/m; mpov; chastity; tease; mast; cons; X
https://www.boundstories.net/storiessz/sophie_and_mark3.html
F/m; mpov; bond; straps; strip; sex; cons; X
https://www.boundstories.net/storiessz/sophie_and_mark4.html
F/m; mpov; bond; rope; strip; hogtie; gag; oral; cons; X
https://www.boundstories.net/storiessz/sophie_and_mark5.html
F/m; mpov; collar; petplay; bond; cuffs; gag; outdoors; urine; oral; messy; food; findom; cons; X
https://www.boundstories.net/storiessz/sophie_and_mark6.html
F/m; mpov; buttplug; remote; toys; cons; X
https://www.boundstories.net/storiessz/sophie_and_mark7.html
F/m; mpov; fem; cd; strapon; oral; maid; costume; roleplay; anal; cons; X
https://www.boundstories.net/storiessz/sophie_and_mark8.html
F/m; chastity; strip; bond; cuffs; gag; toys; sex; cons; X
https://www.boundstories.net/storiessz/sophie_and_mark9.html
F/m; scifi; mast; chastity; alien; oral; cons; nc; XX
https://www.boundstories.net/storiessz/sophie_and_mark10.html
M/f; mpov; bond; rope; cuffs; gag; toys; sex; spank; cons; X
https://www.boundstories.net/storiessz/sophie_and_mark11.html
F/m; mpov; bond; chastity; fem; cd; outdoors; gag; public; cuffs; trick; oral; cons; X
Please feel free to leave your kind comments and feedback about this story here.
Thanks ;)
A nice start! Looking forward to part two ;D
Thanks for sharing.
Part two is online (for those not following the RSS feed).
Some nice teasing here ;D
Looks like you have more parts planned?
I'm a sucker for a love story. That was really sweet.
Eido
Part 3 is up tonight, and to answer Caras pet, yes, a few more parts in the queue.
Glad you're enjoying the stories! Yes, I have plenty more parts planned :)
Part 5 up tonight, enjoy!
Part 5 again was a joyful read, looking forward to part 6 8)
Part seven is online (for those not following the RSS feed).
Keep 'em coming :)
Part 8 is up, and once more a joy to read :)
Part nine is up - and it's a dream ;)
Up to part 10 now, enjoy!
Just a heads up for the room, the next two stories that'll be posted from me are not Sophie and Mark stories. But rest assured, we've not seen the last of these horny idiots ;)
As a sort of celebration of 10 stories, and to hold you over until number 11 goes up, I'm going to do a sort of director's commentary; if only to show that I put way too much thought into these daft little stories ;)
Let's start with questions I thought I might get asked about the series and my writing:
- Did you pick the names Sophie and Mark so the title would be S&M?
Yes :)
- But the characters aren't very sadistic/masochistic
Shh, just go with it.
- Why did you pick those specific names?
I wanted names which (to me) sounded British, millenial, slightly middle class.
- Why do all the story titles start with the letter S?
Originally, I titled the stories like "Session 1: Set up", "Session 2: Shutdown", "Session 0: Scrabble", etc. But when I came to post them to the plaza, I couldn't really call the series "Session", and titling stories like "Sophie & Mark: 3. Session 0: Scrabble" would be a bit much. Once I decided to lean in to the 'S' titles, I used it as a method for come up with story ideas - i.e. think of some 'S' words and what kink they could represent.
- Why do you write like that?
My writing background is more non-fiction, technical blogging. That's probably why the prose is so matter-of-fact. I don't have much talent for metaphor and lyricism.
Structurally I have a few rules:
1. Every story must have at least one sex scene
2. Minimise non-sex story elements (backstory, interstitial scenes)
3. Most of all - try to have fun! Sex is too important to be taken seriously
- Why are the stories so short?
See above.
I draft the stories in a plain text editor, and don't know the word count until I copy them into google docs for editing. They always seem to come out to ~2k words. So, I dunno, maybe that's just the natural limit of my imagination.
- Why don't you describe what your characters look like?
I don't actually have a clear image in my head of what the characters look like. And what they look like kinda doesn't matter; readers can imagine them looking any way they like.
- Why did you do X?
Probably because I thought it was funny.
- Are the stories true?
Not literally. But they contain a lot of true details.
- How many stories will there be?
I have 20 stories clearly planned out - 4 'seasons' of 5 stories each, with a short interlude between each season. I'm committed to finishing and posting all of those, at least. I have ideas for more stories after that, but whether and when they're posted will come down to motivation. The series doesn't have a planned, definitive end.
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If you have any questions I didn't cover, feel free to ask - either here or via my author email.
Next time: 1. Set up (Commentary)
[Teann - if this isn't the right place for this sort of thing, let me know where to put it instead :) ]
01. "Set up" Commentary
The title is a pun (a lot of them are). Establish (the series/relationship), preparation (self-bondage), and deceived (into a chastity cage).
The section titles all starting with 'P' isn't significant. Usually, I pick a word or a random letter and try to think of a set of titles starting with the same letter. If I can't, I pick a different letter.
The idea for the first story (and the start of the second) came to me in a dream. The first version felt a bit lifeless. The female character especially felt very two-dimensional, like she only existed to provide pleasure to the narrator (a 'sexy lamp'). So I spent a lot of time thinking about who the characters are, what their relationship is, why they're doing this, etc. Then I did significant rewrites. The opening section in particular was a late addition, and I was quite pleased with how efficiently it answers those questions.
It felt important to show Sophie being affectionate and caring towards Mark before the domme persona, and that she gets affirmative consent before starting. Admittedly, that was partly to soften how cruel the ending is.
I wanted these stories to feel grounded, like they could plausibly be true. One of the elements of that was being considerate of money. This is Sophie and Mark's first proper BDSM session, and potentially the only one, if Mark isn't into it. So they're not going to spend a load of money on bondage gear that might only be used once.
The workbench is a contrivance; I needed something that could be used to spread Mark's legs. Why does Sophie have a workbench in her garage? I dunno, maybe she does recreational woodworking. Likewise, I don't think the pipe along the ceiling is typical. Even if it is, putting weight on it is probably a bad idea.
When I sent the story in, I apologised to Teann for using so many ellipses. Re-reading the story now, I'm realising I also did way too many rhetorical questions.
"Once the cuff was tightened, I would be trapped." - Pink fluffy handcuffs usually have a safety latch, but we're not going to worry about that ;)
It was important that Mark was the one binding himself. As he applies the restraints he has several opportunities to back out. And when he closes the cuffs around his own wrists, he's actively choosing to give up his freedom and submit to whatever Sophie might do to him.
"One thing that doesn't come across in porn is how quickly a ballgag makes your jaw stiff." - a running theme in this series is the little imperfections of real life. It goes back to the groundedness - the sex is by no means bad, but nor is it some perfect idealised fantasy.
"I wanted so badly... to be released." - oh look, another pun
"There was something unfamiliar in her voice - a confidence" - I imagine Sophie being quite reserved prior to the series. As it goes on and she embraces her domme-ness, she becomes more confident in life in general.
The downside to writing the story from Mark's pov is we can't see directly Sophie's thoughts and motivations. So a lot of stuff is only hinted at. In this story, Sophie has an obvious motive - she wants to indoctrinate Mark into the cult of kink. But that's not her only motive. Prior to this story, Sophie and Mark have not had sex in a long time (chapter 3 goes into more detail). A side-effect of this is that some part of Sophie is worried that it's because Mark doesn't find her sexually attractive anymore. So her secondary motive is wanting to feel desired by Mark. This comes out in two ways. First, she blindfolds Mark, and works him up into a sexual frenzy before finally letting him see her. Second, her domme look is relatively modest because a part of her is hedging - if she goes hard on making herself look sexy and fails to get the desired reaction, it would hurt her even more.
The choice of outfit also goes back to financial considerations. She's not going to buy a new domme outfit that she might only get to wear once. So either this is underwear she already owns, or new underwear that she could use again in a non-sexual context.
The shoes being described as 'professional', combined with the earlier statement implying she doesn't wear heels often is meant to suggest that these are shoes she already owned for work or formal occasions; and only wears them when she has to.
In the end, she succeeds - "She'd gotten the reaction she wanted... It had been so long since I'd looked at her like this"
When I submitted the story, I said to Teann I was worried American reader might be confused by my use of 'pants' in the British sense - i.e. 'panties', a word I do not like.
"OW! (did she just bite me?!)" - I think of the prose like we're hearing Mark's inner-monologue, narrating things as they happen (kinda like 'Scrubs'). And sometimes the 'real world' interrupts his train of thought.
The final title 'Perverted' is another pun. Sexually perverted (obv), but also misrepresented (tricked) - she let him think that she was finally going to let him cum, then locked him in a chastity cage instead.
The trick for deflating an erection was something I read about a long while ago. It kind of works, but not as effectively as depicted here.
I think Mark goes in to the session with a general awareness of BDSM from pornography, but likely never looked at anything involving chastity cages. He seems like the type that mostly watches girl on girl.
I wanted to end on the cliffhanger so that readers would come away feeling 'unresolved' like Mark. At the same time, I knew it was a risky move to leave reader frustrated. Truth be told, I felt like this story was the weakest of the series and was worried that people wouldn't come back for the later, better ones. So the positive response it got was reassuring and very much appreciated.
02. "Stamina" Commentary
Original title: Shutdown. That felt like a good pair to "Set up", but then I worried readers would think 'shutdown' meant the story (series) was finished.
"it's going to help you with your self-control" - it's never explicitly called out in the story, but one of the reasons Sophie and Mark didn't have sex for so long was because Mark was getting gratification from porn (more on that in chapter 3). So one of the motives for caging him was to force him to go a week without jerking off. Though, tbh, I think he still watched some porn during that week.
"REMEMBER... NO touching" - Kinda moot when you're in a chastity cage. But he does give it a good old try.
At this point, we should address how messed up the situation is - she tricked him into a chastity cage, and kept him locked up for a week without warning. The consent is dubious at best. So there are several elements in the story intended to soften that.
"you can wait that long right?" is something like checking consent. Mark says 'sure', but clearly isn't happy about it. He was given a way out, but didn't take it because of pride or not wanting to appear weak or something. Emasculated by toxic masculinity, you hate to see it.
"Sophie would message me to ask how I was... was the cage causing me any problems" - another missed opportunity to back out.
"I was on my knees." - literally and figuratively
"Her hair was still damp... Her make-up was simpler" - she rushed getting out of the shower and doing her make-up. She didn't want to make him wait too long.
"she placed my palms flat on my thighs... 'no moving until I say.'" - this was inspired by a scene from the first episode of the "Irma Vep" mini-series. It wasn't even a sex scene, and yet the power play was strangely hot. I didn't watch the rest of the series, but that scene really stuck with me.
It was interesting to contrast not being able to cum due to the physical restriction of the chastity cage, against the 'psychological' restriction of submission.
"my own breath would be enough to finish me off" - foreshadowing
"I'd fill her up with everything she'd done to me" - not sure if that phrasing is sexy or gross
"What was stopping me?" - If Mark decided to jerk off, or "jump up and grab" Sophie, she really couldn't stop him. If she says "you lose, the cage is going back on", he could just say "nah, I'm not doing that", and what's she going to do? It's all a game, and Sophie only has power over Mark for as long as Mark chooses to keep playing along.
"Maybe another week wouldn't be so bad" - and he very much is playing the game, even as he considers breaking the rules.
The sequence of ellipses are meant to evoke that feeling when you're right on the edge of an orgasm and you're just waiting for it... to... pop.
"Cum sprayed from me like a fountain." - that's such a dumb fucking line, especially after the build up with the ellipses. I had a giggling fit when I first wrote it ;D
"I felt like I was being turned inside out" - you ever cum that hard? Buddy, it's something else.
"Clarity" - as in 'post-nut clarity'
This final section is what I like to call the 'no hard feelings' epilogue. I use it in most of my stories. It's the after care stuff, and it's to reassure readers that whatever just went down, no matter how intense, everyone came out of it okay. Everyone's happy and there are no hard feelings.
"I don't think I can have normal, non-kinky sex anymore" - hurray, Mark's on board. The series can continue!
"I kept messaging you... if you used the safe word, obviously I would have let you out." - she's being a little underhanded here. Yes, she gave him opportunities to back out, but never explicitly told him he should use the safe word if he wanted to stop (because she didn't want him to).
"I hid a spare key in your flat" - do you believe her?
"I think it's called... a hogtie?" - I wanted to show Mark actively asking to do some BDSM. I didn't want the series to just be him passively going along with whatever Sophie wants to do to him.
The other thing was, since chapter 3 is a flashback, I wanted to set up the subsequent story (4) to reassure readers that there would be more stories. As indeed there will be more commentaries!
03. "Scrabble" Commentary
As mentioned in (1), after writing the first version of chapter 1 I spent some time thinking about the characters and their backstory, and this chapter is the direct result of that. Even tho the events take place before 1, I kept it as chapter 3 because it takes a long time to get to the sexy stuff, and I was worried that might put readers off.
The first line I wrote was something like - "it all started with too much alcohol and a losing game of monopoly." I was just making a dumb joke. But then I thought, well what if I take it seriously - how would that play out? Turns out, pretty well. I changed it to Scrabble mostly because it starts with the letter 's', but it ended up providing a useful plot device (the tiles).
"Why don't we have sex anymore..?" - while I was figuring out the backstory, there was a column in the newspaper from a woman who hadn't had sex with her husband in over a year (despite her best efforts). Eventually she discovered he had been watching porn on the sly.
For my story, I didn't want it to be solely either character's 'fault' that they weren't having sex. The way it went in my head was: Sophie had this secret desire for doing BDSM. And since she was too scared to talk to Mark about it, she had to settle for vanilla sex. Naturally, this is less satisfying for her, so maybe she's less interested in - and less inclined to have - sex at all. Meanwhile, rather than questioning or trying to push for more sex, Mark is gets his gratification elsewhere (porn). Granted, none of this is explicit in the text, tho Mark's multiple references to pornography is meant to imply that he's a voracious consumer.
"C H A I N S (11 points)" - I like a good gimmick. These Scrabble words are scattered throughout the series. The choice of words isn't random. The scores come from an online Scrabble score calculator.
"I like BDSM" - around the time I was writing this, I'd just read volume 1 of the "Tease Me Harder" manga; in which a sub confesses to her boyfriend that she wants to be dominated. I didn't want to copy that, so I flipped it to the domme confessing. I think it works better this way - it makes the pov character the newbie being taught about all this stuff; like a Doctor Who companion, but with more ball gags.
"I'd seen images, videos" - as noted, Mark clearly consumes a lot of porn, and has at least a little interest/curiosity in BDSM.
"you want me to, um... tie you up?" - Mark comes out of this story in the sub role, but that doesn't mean he has no interest in being a dom: "It was kinda hot"
"there were other videos" - I didn't want this to come off as kink-shaming. It's more a statement of the kinds of things that won't appear in this series - because they're things I (the writer) am not into, so I couldn't write about them authentically.
"if I win this game..." - It's not like the bet is legally binding. I think of it like the confession - it was something Sophie wanted to say, but the alcohol gave her a way to save face if she wanted to take it back. By making this a bet, she's allowing Mark to save face if he ends up regretting it, "I HAD to do it, I lost the game."
"sexy french maid" - I like to imagine Mark having really basic, middle of the road sexual tastes prior to Sophie corrupting him. French maid, specifically, was added retroactively to set up chapter 7
"You watch too much anime" - maid cafes are a common trope in anime/manga.
And to quote Marin Kitagawa from 'My Dress-Up Darling': "is there a single person on this rock who hates bunnies?" Rest assured, bunny girls will come back around as soon as I find a good place for it.
"L O S E C R V" - I don't know if I can claim to be the first person to put a Scrabble joke in a work of pornography, but I can't imagine there's much competition. Mark's tiles include the words LOSE and LOSER, but also LOVERS and CLOSER. And for those playing along at home, there are the 7 letter words CLOVERS and VELCROS; but I can't find any 8 letter words containing all those letters, so Mark couldn't have played all his tiles for the 50 point bonus.
"The tiles were mocking me." - Mark isn't trying to lose, exactly, but his subconscious is clearly sabotaging him.
"S [E] R V E" - [E] means the 'E' tile was already on the board. "Serve" is a loaded word, of course.
"S P A [N] I E L S" - I picked the word 'spaniel' as the title for the pet play story (5), and when I noticed 'spaniels' was 8 letters I retroactively made it Sophie's winning word
"pulled my t-shirt up over my shoulder, covering my face." - as I mentioned in (1), the dry spell has left Sophie doubting whether Mark finds her attractive. She covers his face because she's self-conscious about getting undressed in front of him.
"she pulled my jeans and my pants and my socks all the way off" - I can't abide people who keep their socks on during sex :P
"She was still wearing a pink bralet" - a bralet is a bra without wiring or padding (for those unfamiliar). She wasn't expecting to have sex that night (why would she, after so long?) so she chose her underwear for comfort over sexiness. In my mind she was also wearing mismatched pants. But since our pov character had his eyes covered, he didn't see the pants before she took them off, so that detail isn't in the text. She's still wearing the bralet because, as mentioned, she's feeling self-conscious... until she isn't, and takes it off.
"not yet" - going back to 'realism', men have that troublesome refractory period to reckon with, meaning most of the stories only have one male orgasm.
"She came. I came." - on the other hand, Sophie & Mark almost always orgasm at the same time, which is a little unlikely. But it is convenient!
"I filled her with all that wasted time." - poetic or gross?
"when do the chains come in?" - retroactive foreshadowing (back-shadowing?)
"guess I couldn't have escaped after all. Huh." - there are some sinister undertones to Sophie's behaviour, which slowly become less 'under' as the series progresses.
04. "Steer" Commentary
Another pun: steer as in cow (for the cowboy motifs), and as in 'giving directions' ("not that I didn't appreciate directions").
"pink, bedazzled cowboy hat" - I thought it would be fun to give Sophie some cowboy accessories. But this is the UK, people don't just have cowboy hats lying around, and she's not going to buy a new one for a joke. Then I remembered pink cowboy hats are a common accessory for a 'hen-do' (bachelorette party)
"I lived in a 'modest' flat" - Sophie and Mark live separately mostly so that Mark could be sent away in the chastity cage at the start of chapter 2. Mark lives in a flat (apartment) because it's easier for him to give it up when he moves in with Sophie (as opposed to having to sell a house). An interesting side-effect of this choice is it suggests Sophie earns more money than Mark.
"excellent Indian take-away" - Sophie and Mark seem to eat a lot of takeaways throughout the series. Can't be good for them.
"These ones had really good reviews. Feel how soft." - I really like these sweet little domestic moments
"what would the neighbours say" - she really is just a love machine
"careful, that's bad luck" - I learned about that superstition from Yellowstone
So the thing with the cowboy hat is, I didn't want it to be just a cheap joke that's forgotten right after it's introduced. So I made a point of tracking where the hat is through the whole story, with it almost always being on either Sophie or Mark's head.
"cow-print bra" - what can I say, I like someone who commits to a bit
"She turned into a reverse cowgirl" - naturally
"Her crotch rubbed against my cock... Was she doing it on purpose?" - yep
"I'm gonna need a picture of this" - I keep a list of things like this so that I can callback/pay them off later
"She pushed the hat down over my eyes" - see the previous commentaries for why she keeps covering his eyes
"Yar" - as it turns out, there aren't many good words starting with 'Y', but I was determined to stick with it for 'yeehaw', 'yoga', and 'yellow'. Then I happened to watch 'A Philadelphia Story' - "My, she was yar." It's a boating term, meaning (effectively) easy to steer.
"picturing her topology" - in 'The Atrocity Exhibition', JG Ballard has this way of describing people in abstract, geometrical terms that I found really striking, e.g. "The young woman was a geometric equation... Her breasts and buttocks illustrated Enneper's surface of negative constant curve, the differential coefficient of the pseudo-sphere."
"I could really see myself--" - '..spending the rest of my life..' or something like that
"my back was sore" - getting hogtied is a young person's game
"Yellow" - chapter 3 proposes 'scrabble' as their safe word, but that felt too silly for general use. Instead, they use the red/yellow system, which this section is intended to show-don't-tell
"I wanted to swallow it... I couldn't make my throat do it" - something psychological, I reckon
"sharing the load" - you guessed it, another pun
"chicken Dhansak" - I wanted to pick something non-obvious for her (i.e. not korma, tikka, etc.)
"Lamb Passanda" - 'Sliding Doors' reference? Nah, that's too obscure, even for me.
"She picked the cowboy hat off the floor" - see! Hat accounted for, start to end.
"I was pretty hungry though" - this is trying to make it feel like Mark isn't TOO upset about being left tied up for however long. Otherwise it might feel too cruel. You could also chose to believe that she never actually left and was, in fact, fucking with him.
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Teann has thrown me a curveball by skipping over the two stories I submitted after chapter 10, and has just posted chapter 11. So, ignore what I said last week :) And I will stop procrastinating with these commentaries and get back to writing before Teann catches up to me...