Guest Blog: Justine Elyot

Country House

There’s something about a country house, isn’t there? Especially when it comes to erotica. So many of my favourite stories take place in remote ancestral piles that I could almost classify it as a fetish.

I’ve indulged this taste of mine in my new Mischief novella, His House of Submission. Jasper’s house full of antique furniture, set in lavish grounds, makes for a perfect bubble away from the real world – a fantasy place where he and Sarah, the graduate student he has hired to catalogue his collections of artefacts, can play to their heart’s content, away from prying eyes. (Or can they?)

I’m a lover of rolling lawns, overgrown walled gardens, gravel paths and statuary outside. Inside I like a huge central staircase, wood panelling, writing desks and four poster beds. All of these are in evidence at Jasper’s house. I wish I could live there. With Jasper.

Here’s an excerpt:

‘What room are you working in at the moment?’ he asked.

‘The, uh, the one with the piano.’

‘The drawing room,’ he corrected me. ‘I’ll be in the study. Come and wait outside in, shall we say, two hours? That’ll give me enough time to devise something suitable.’

Instant shivers. Something suitable.

‘Run along then, Sarah,’ he said with a ghoulish smile. ‘We mustn’t neglect our work, must we?’

But I’m afraid I did neglect my work.

Over and over again I came to with a start, some ornament or other in my hand, after drifting into reverie. If I carried on like that, something was going to get broken. And then what might be my fate? I kept going to the door and looking around it, towards the study, listening. Sometimes I could hear his voice, faintly, making telephone calls, or the tap of a keyboard.

While he worked, he was thinking of me. Thinking of what was to be done with me, for my shameless behaviour with his property.

And while I worked, I was thinking of him. Thinking of how he compelled and disturbed and attracted and repelled me. I had never met a man who could do all those things simultaneously before. Perhaps there was no other man in the world who could.

The hands of all the antique clocks made their slow forward progress through time until the two hours had elapsed and I put down my clipboard and pencil, patted down my skirt and left the room.

I could keep walking, walk to the front door, walk to the car, get in the car, drive away.

But I stopped at the study door and lifted my hand and…

I heard his chair creak.

I knocked.

He didn’t reply.

I knocked again.

‘Come in.’

The study was a glorious room and his desk was one of my favourite pieces in the whole house. Mahogany with brass handles and a green leather writing area in the shape of a cross, on top of which his computer looked somewhat incongruous. He should be writing longhand with parchment and ink. There was a raised gallery at the back of the desk, along which were perched a procession of film awards, the Palme d’Or in pride of place.

I breathed in the beeswax and stillness, letting it calm my jangling nerves.

‘Sarah,’ he said, sitting back in his oxblood leather chair. ‘Now we come to the real test.’

‘Do we?’

He opened a drawer and brought out the strop. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, staring at it.

Uh oh! What happens next? Well, here’s the blurb and a buy link:

He’s a collector with some kinky interests on the side. She’s here to catalogue his possessions. But will she end up being one of them?

Sarah turns up at Jasper Jay’s country house thinking she has been hired to make an inventory of his large collection of historical artefacts. But when she and her lover, Will, are caught by the boss sneaking a peek at some of his more private pieces, she starts to suspect an ulterior motive. Alone with Jasper Jay in his secluded manor, Sarah finds herself enthralled by the enigmatic collector, especially given the intimate interest she shares with him. Pretty soon, they’re entangled in an intense relationship of domination and submission that excludes the rest of the world. Until it intrudes, in the form of a vengeful Will, bent on exposing everything his erstwhile boss has worked so hard to keep secret.

Available at Amazon etc. and via Mischief Books website: http://www.mischiefbooks.com/books/his-house-submission/