Femdom Book Review: At His Lady’s Command by Nicola Davidson

This is a cream puff. It’s a sugary, gooey confection you bite into and there is flakey bits all over your blouse and custard oozing out, but you aren’t sorry you did it. Our protagonists, Lady Portia and her faithful bodyguard Denham start out as unrequited, and within a chapter, rush from lust to bed at speed- we aren’t making any pretence this isn’t porn.

With that in mind, if you are looking for exact historical accuracy, this might not be for you. Rich heiress runs a sexual dream society attended by pairings and a triad from other books, and does good works. The past-ish background serves largely as a fig leaf to add propriety to rebel against and peril to intrude. As such, the premises of the plot can fall apart if you stare too long at them.

This is gentle femdom. Don’t expect bondage or sadomaschism more intense than scratches, but do enjoy that our 38 year old heroine and 44 year old hero are plausibly into each other and her control, while also keeping them as firmly defined equals outside the context of their kinks.

Honestly my biggest criticism is the speed the story was rushed interfered with the possability of larger tension and made the peril of the story a bit less fleshed in favour of Denham or Portia yearning for each other. But!

Holy hell is it a breath of fresh air to get a protagonist that is not a professional. Not that being a pro is bad, but the vast majority of femdom romances targeted for the female gaze approach the subject as a story of an idealized dominatrix, usually a service top. The characters like eachother and compliment eachother. They have plausible chemistry.

Davidson looks like she knows what she is talking about, when it comes to femdom, and although her larger suite of offerings covers pretty much the gamut of relationships (looks like M/f, a mmf triad, lesbian and gay make up the other books in her Surrey Sexual Freedom Society series, for example) this is not a tick box sampler or someone writing outside their depth.

This may be pure romance-land in the larger framing, but expect a good fusion of modern tastes and historical vulgarity- nobody does a cockstand or has a mossy grot, but there are no throbbing members. I would have a hard time placing the exactness of period, but they do manage birth control that is both plausible and historically accurate.

In all, I wish Davidson had the time to let this develop properly with more length, but having tasted her wears, even if I might have a stray crumb or two to brush away, I will be back to this particular bakery again.

Want a copy? At His Lady’s Command is a kindle exclusive. I bought it myself on a whim and have received no sponsorship to review.

Silver, Before I Kissed Him

Before the aesthetic of New Years Eve demanded a kiss, we had a first play date.

My first time in your apartment, I have teased you with a simple key necklace through the morning and previous night. I wonder now about my choice to play with you, as you whisk me away after social brunch in your car, but I have always had the ability to make adventures out of even mishaps. If it goes wrong I will laugh later.

It does not go wrong.

The purpose of this is couched light and easy, a bit of beating for me to blow off steam, nice and casual.

Getting to know you this way, you want ritual and you bring out bits of fantasy I didn’t ask for, but do not mind: submissive posing and acting just so. You kneel beside the couch, not on it until I pull you up, like you were a pet someone else house broke to have such good manners. When you do that I briefly imagine what other hands you were under where you learned that, like a third time shelter rescue with an inexplicable fear of orange shirts.

This is not the first time a partner came so pre-set, but I don’t find it as off putting as it had been with him.

I told you to wear a belt I could beat you with. You want to have tea for me, waiting on any little desire that you can please me with. You are more desperate for me to give you my needs than you are for an orgasm.

Meticulous control. You need to perform with a constance, like a shark always swimming forward. I hold a brief bit of intimidation in my head- two perfectionists squaring off, wondering if my skill will be disappointing, and I find the core of control in me, and with it confidence. Men seldom scare me.

I ask you if I should just follow my instincts or take things one step at a time, and you pick the first option. Good.

That’s probably the moment that undoes you, later, when you literally and metaphorically fell for me.

Down, your back on the carpet and I straddle you. I don’t think you have ever been touched that much by a woman. Pressing, seeking, exploring. Your hands are freezing and I put one to my neck and one to the dip of my waist.

I massage you and your back pops like firecrackers on a string. Your nose hovers inches from mine, but I won’t kiss you this time. Your body is mine now, and you have never been an object of this kind of desire before.

You stand in the trance of your own amazement, and although I do beat you, there is a moment that surprises us both where in our place on the floor the caress of my body against yours nestles the shaft of my tall, sleek black boot against your groin.

You press and are lost, rubbing, begging to come. I am a little flabbergasted at how early you move for this and tell you- ok but if you come, there goes your submissive feelings and I am not done beating you up. Was that what you wanted?

The possibility changes your intent, so you prove yourself a liar instead. He who said he was “not really a masochist” is back, bent over his cool granite counter and starting to shiver as my hits take your down yet further. You love this and the pain. You pass a test you didn’t know I set for you. I need you to want it.

I prefer masochists who get hard from my torture. I have never been attracted to the ones who endure just out of service.

And, a surprise: You bought a crop for me to use on you and almost sheepishly suggest it is available. I am perplexed of what to make of this. You are like a cork pushing back up against the water, a buoyant thrust back into my hand.

Normally I toss anyone who tries to back lead out with the brats. But… this is a lot more anticipation of what is incredibly useful, with the reassurance of an optimism you say you don’t understand. I don’t understand it, I am pessimistic and holding my needs and full self with guarded care.

I have a tiny little orgasm grinding and straddling you. So be it, this desire. I want you.

I offer you an orgasm, opening my sheer blouse. My breasts are, I wonder, an allure or just a way to show you another intimacy? There is a language here. 

I see your cock for the first time and you are notably pleased at my declaration of enjoyment, “oh my!”

We have not still kissed and I am sprawling on your carpet while you kneel. I touch myself, mostly those freed breasts. I wonder to your thoughts.

Later you will tell me you shocked yourself, at the electric moment when, earlier, you ground yourself against me, then met my eyes, saw not just my consent but enthusiasm, and from thence you were lost.

This is something incredibly new to you.

Aftercare has a stiffness to it. If we had opened with an elegance where you had knelt and cleaned my boots with all the polish and charm in the world… Here, when you are unsettled and I am still holding you, I find more I approve of, and more of what I need.

We have a simple dinner you buy me. I let you do what I usually won’t let, paying. You want to give and give. When we discussed this when I propositioned you, because of the ridiculous world we live in, although you didn’t ask, past experiences told me to tell you up front I wasn’t a pro dom.

My transportation home is delayed by the wet weather so you take me the three hours drive home, then back. I almost say no, but catch that before it lets me say otherwise. Three hours of pelting rain discussing old sci fi and fantasy. This is probably more open than you have been with anyone in a long time.

I think I like you as a person, at least the parts I have met, or easily sussed out, for all you hide them behind a seamless sheet of smooth granite. But I am still playing wait and see at this time and later months will take things further.