by Maren Smith
“No,” Marshall drawled. “She’d be a reporter with an agenda running loose and unsupervised through the Castle.”
“Tell her no.” Eric shrugged. “Tell her as a first-time attendee, safety regulations stipulate…”
“It says right on page one of our advertising brochure that visitors may choose to have a dominant assigned to them,” Marshall told him. “The implication being that she may also choose not to have a dominant assigned to her.”
Exchanging looks with Eric, Reeve said, “The implication could also be that the only real choice we offer is which dominant she wants to be assigned to… couldn’t it?”
Marshall blinked twice, ground his jaw once and then pointed at them. “I want you both to go out there and apologize for fucking up. Tell her whatever it is you have to tell her. Tell her it will take me time to find a replacement, which will give you two time to win her over. But if she doesn’t take at least one of you back and I have to find a real replacement, it’s going to be Jackson, and you both will go on daytime baby duty so Sara can sleep.”
“Oh fuck no.” Eric recoiled.
Reeve wasn’t any happier, but his revulsion hit him for different reasons. He wasn’t any keener about the thought of soothing a fussy, colicky baby, who spat up more than she ingested, but worse than that was the idea of Jackson swooping in to save Sandy’s day. Wrapping her in his understanding arms. Soothing her ruffled feathers. Taking her on a tour of whatever program she wanted to pretend to try next, putting her across his knee when she eventually rebelled, paddling her bottom raw, maybe even discovering for himself just how wet she got.
Devoted to his wife the chief of security might be, but Jackson had access to all the same toys that any other dominant did. There were a hundred ways in which he could take advantage of Sandy and all her seductive wetness. A slow itch crawled up the stiffening ladder of Reeve’s spine as he imagined Sandy bound spread-eagle in Jackson’s bed, her body arching to the highest setting of a vibrating wand, while Jackson lubed up a set of textured dildos. Or, hell, maybe he wouldn’t bother with dildos. Just because he was married now, that didn’t necessarily mean he no longer plowed the customers with his own cock. At least, Reeve didn’t know that for sure. Hell, Sara probably didn’t know for sure.
Reeve rolled his shoulders and popped his neck, but the mantle of jealousy had settled itself firmly around him and refused to be dislodged. It didn’t even seem to care that he had no interest in Sandy and, therefore, no business being jealous. He couldn’t have cared less what Jackson plowed her with, especially since he himself had absolutely no sexual interest in her whatsoever.
None.
And if he did, it would be straight up hate-fucking. Hot, angry, sweaty, gasping, grunting, toe-curling, on her knees with her ass in the air and her hair in his hands while he pumped until she begged for mercy—that kind of hate-fucking, and that was all there was to it.
“She’s not trying to get rid of me because I did something wrong,” Reeve growled, only halfway talking to Marshall. “She’s doing it because she just realized she can’t move about as freely as she wants if she’s tied to a Master. She’s trying to manipulate you so she can get whatever it is she came here for.”
And if she thought she was going to get rid of him that easily, he’d happily show her just how wrong she could be!
Erupting out of his chair, Reeve stormed back across the room. He threw open the door, but the bench where they’d left Sandy was not occupied by her. Instead, the three young ladies from the library were sitting nervously upon it, rubbing their hands and whispering amongst themselves, right up until Reeve came bursting out to join them. When they saw him, their eyes got huge all over again.
“Where is she?” he demanded, and they all started talking at once.
“We didn’t do anything!”
“We didn’t even talk to her!”
“We tried to say we were sorry!”
“She just left!”
A slash of his hand silenced all three at once. “Where did she go?”
They pointed in the same direction, down the hall toward the main staircase to the first floor. And from there, to just about anywhere a place the size of the Castle could hide a woman intent on hiding.
Shit.
Reeve hadn’t realized Marshall and Eric were standing behind him until Marshall echoed that curse under his breath.
“Master Reeve,” he said in the softest, calmest panic Reeve had ever heard from him. “I have a reporter running loose in my Castle. Find her.”
Chapter 7
All right, Sandy thought to herself. If I was a really big story in a giant house of perversion, where would I hide?
And how was she going to go about getting it when she was dressed like a three-year-old at her first princess-themed birthday party? If she went back to Wardrobe, they might help her pick out better clothes, but she was smart enough to know they’d do it in a way that delayed her long enough for someone to come collect her. Then she’d be stuck with a new dominant and the only evidence she’d leave here with would be the remnants of cane strokes across her ass. She’d be laughed right off the paper. No one would ever take her seriously after that.
Fortunately, she had in her pocket the keycard admission had provided for her room, where she’d smuggled in a mini-camera and a cellphone with an audio recorder app. She went back to her room long enough to get them.
The mini-camera was the size of a harmonica. It fit in the palm of her hand, but also tucked neatly into the pastel sash of her dress. The audio recorder she tucked into her cleavage, nestling it as flat as it would go so there’d be no bulky, telltale lines showing beneath her dress. She wished she’d tested the app. She had no idea how long it would record, but if she was successful in her venture, she supposed she’d find out. She was also about to find out how long someone could wander the halls without anyone becoming suspicious. Her saving grace would become the Castle itself. A place without any modern conveniences… like telephones or cellphones—or security cameras—allowed anywhere except for in personal rooms and the media room. That meant anyone who might become suspicious of her would have to carry his suspicions a long way before he could call them in. By the time he got back with security reinforcements, she’d definitely be gone.
At least, that was the hope.
Hitting the bathroom long enough to check her hair in the mirror, she checked once last time to make sure that neither camera nor cellphone could be detected, then grabbed the Castle map that came with her welcome packet and out the door she went. She had no idea where to start looking, but there was an undeniable thrill to at last be able to start.
Considering what she was looking for, the Nursery was the logical place to search. But she’d already been there and they’d know who to contact if they saw her alone. However, there was a playground, according to the map, and Eric had mentioned kittens, puppies and ponies. All three of which were sure-fire ways to reward kids for doing things they didn’t want to. That was where she had to go.
She found the Pet wing, complete with rooms for grooming, training, boarding and even something called a Mosh Pit. Unfortunately, every way she could see to get there consisted of first walking past a security office. The Castle had a lot of security, which made sense since they certainly had something to hide. On the other hand, the stables were located outside, with plenty of space between where she had to go and each clearly-marked security station. Deciding on a route that would take her first by the outdoor playground and then the stables, Sandy got walking.
Finding her way back out of the residential wings was only half the battle. A few choice signs and the wafting aroma of fried chicken, pepperoni pizza and spaghetti drew her better than any map down the winding staircase and back through the maze of halls to the common dining hall. It was after the lunch hour, almost two o’clock, but the buffet was still hot and looked fresh, and she certainly wasn’t the only person taking advantage of it. They even had take-out co
ntainers right there at the head of the line alongside the heavy cafeteria plates.
Grabbing one, Sandy cherry-picked helpings of all her favorites—grilled ham and cheese sandwich halves, seasoned curly fries, bread pudding without raisins that looked like dead flies (she took an extra helping of that) and then—because some stern woman in a chef’s outfit paused between checking the quantity and quality of the food on the line to shake a spoon at her and scold, “Get some vegetables on that plate, missy. Don’t you look at me like that. And no, French fries do not count!”—Sandy took a helping of buttered carrots.
What she didn’t grab was a coat, and the moment she found a side door leading out to the nursery playground, she regretted not being provided one at Wardrobe. Winter was definitely in the air. The skies were clear, but she could smell the impending snow with every crystalizing breath. Frozen grass crunched under her shoes as she made her way around the building, past a massive pair of naked statues and a garden put to bed until spring. Eventually, she came to a towering privacy fence. It was well-made, but wooden. She could hardly see anything through the cracks of the slats, much less take pictures. But wood slats meant knot-holes, so she walked until she found one. She had to hunker down to see through it, but it did provide a nice little window into that private playground.
There weren’t a lot of people playing outside, only a pair of women dressed as she was, taking turns pushing each other on the swing and laughing as they talked. They soon got cold and went back inside, however, and so Sandy huddled against the fence to eat her lunch. This side of the fence gave her a great view of the grounds, but there wasn’t a lot beyond snow to look at. The forest provided a natural border to the frozen lawn. Beyond that was probably an empty field, followed by the highway. Now and then she thought she heard cars, but it might just as easily have been wind. Sound carried strangely out here, and what bits she thought she could hear, be they distant voices or cars, were distorted by the creaking and groaning of the trees under winter’s weight and the rustling of the few dead leaves still clinging to their claw-like branches.
Sandy shivered, her teeth beginning to chatter as the cold pierced her thin clothes and the wind raked her flesh with its icy breath. But just as she was about to give up and go inside, the story she wanted shoved open an upper floor balcony door and came skipping out onto the playground.
“Daddy, Daddy! Come on,” she cried. “We’ve got it all to ourselves!”
She sounded like she was twelve. Dressed as she was in Castle Little clothes, she looked fifteen, but the man who strolled out after her, laughing as he tugged his coat tight against the chill, was fifty, at least.
“You’re going to fall down,” he called after her. “Be careful, there’s ice.”
“I want to play on the seesaw!” Ignoring his caution, the young girl dashed across the playground and was almost to it when she hit a patch of the ice he’d warned against and down she went.
Sandy almost gave herself away. It took everything she had could not to jump up, but even if she had called out, the fence didn’t seem to have a gate. All she could do was watch while Daddy hurried to her.
“Are you all right?”
“My knee!”
He hunkered down to examine the damage, which was how long it took for Sandy to realize she wasn’t recording any of this. They were too far away for the audio recorder to do any good, but she still had the camera. Her hands were so cold, she fumbled and almost dropped it in the snow just trying to extract it from her sash. She almost dropped it a second time trying to turn it on. Through the knot-hole, she took picture after picture as the man brushed the ice and dirt from the girl’s skinned knee, then scolded her. “I told you to slow down. I told you to be careful.”
The girl began to cry. “Daddy, don’t yell at me when my knee needs kisses!”
“Your knee will live,” he soothed, before bowing to plant a healing smooch just above the injury. He then gave her a kiss on the brow for good measure. It was that kiss that gradually turned into something more.
While the little girl sniffled, he brushed the tears from her cheeks, then brushed his thumb across her trembling lips, and then tipped her chin to raise her mouth and kissed her there as well. Sandy felt sick to her stomach. Again, the urge to jump up almost gave her away, but it wasn’t as if she could scale this fence. All she could have done was shout for him to stop and then watch as they disappeared together back inside the Castle, where the man’s disgustingly lecherous behavior would continue to go unpunished and that poor girl…
Her lunch no longer sitting well in her stomach, Sandy snapped picture after picture, kiss after lascivious kiss, because that was all she could do.
“Feel better?” the man finally asked, grinning.
The girl sniffled. “My lips feel better, but my knee still hurts.”
“How would your knee feel about a cup of hot cocoa?”
“Can my knee have mini marshmallows?”
He laughed, promising, “And a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.”
“Mm!” Grabbing his hand, she let him help her up. Her knee obviously hurt, she limped a little, but that didn’t slow her excitement as she wrangled for a few extra marshmallows on the grounds that her other knee might get jealous unless there was enough to go around. They went back inside, but Sandy stayed where she was. Sagging down to hunker in the cold grass, she shivered and stared at the mini camera in her shaking hands. For a long time, she didn’t feel anything. She didn’t move, she wasn’t really even aware of thinking, except she supposed she had to be. This was evidence. Some of what she’d been thinking about this place, a lot of what had been whispered around Granger regarding the Castle… this proved at least some of it was true. She’d just got the story of the century.
Why wasn’t she happy about this? She’d just made her bones. This was a story she could put in her scrapbook. Never again would she have to write another story about bake sales or lost cats. No longer would she be the one who covered the grand new opening of that freshly-poured sidewalk along a street nobody used anyway. This was the kind of story that made national news. This was the kind of story people went to jail over, sometimes for a very long time. It was the kind of story that could lead to her writing her own paychecks from here on out. It was the kind that made a difference between working at her crummy desk in the noisy plebian pits and a corner office with a window and view, for God’s sake.
Seriously, why wasn’t she happy?
Maybe because she hadn’t wanted to believe Reeve or Eric, for all that they had spanked her poor bottom to the point that it was still tender when she rubbed it, to be child-harming predators. Reeve had looked right at her and said being a Little wasn’t about pedophilia. He’d looked so serious and… and believable when he’d told her that many Littles were survivors of abuse. He’d seemed so serious, so… protective, but pictures didn’t lie and neither did her own eyes. She knew what she’d just witnessed. That girl had been young, maybe fifteen, maybe sixteen, but she sure as hell she wasn’t older than that.
So.
So, men could be deceiving and she’d just got what she’d come for. Again, why wasn’t she happy?
Because, Sandy realized, if she left here with nothing but a bunch of pictures, then it could still be covered up. The photos she’d just taken were only partial evidence. Sandy needed more. She needed actual, irrefutable proof.
She needed that girl’s admission file with all the same personal information in it that Sandy herself had provided when she’d filled out her application package. Or, better yet, if that girl was an employee, then she needed her personnel file. Something with a birthdate. Something with concrete documentation that showed not only had she really been here, but that she was underage.
Sandy needed to find and break in to the personnel office and she needed to steal that girl’s files. That, along with the photos she’d just taken, that would be all the irrefutable evidence she’d need to break this story wide open.
A plaintive whimper startled Sandy from her thoughts only a half second before a cold wet nose tapped up under her right arm. Jumping, she almost threw the puppy trying to wriggle under her arm before she recognized what it was.
“Where the hell did you come from?” she said as it crawled into her lap. Although clean and well-fed, its feet were cold and wet, and the thick felt of fluffy white and black spotted fur was damp underneath. It couldn’t be a stray, but although there was no collar, it certainly wasn’t wild. “Are you old enough to be away from your mama?”
The puppy wagged its tail, its front paws climbing up her chest in an attempt to lick her face.
“Toby!” a faint voice called.
Oh shit. It was too late to hide herself, but Sandy did her best to hide the camera, stuffing it back down in her sash, alternately fluffing and jerking at her dress until she was sure her cellphone couldn’t be seen. She was just tamping down her boobs when who came jogging around the far corner of the privacy fence, but her friend from the bus ride in, Wendy.
“Oh, hey!” Wendy’s face lit first with surprise, and then delight. She lit even brighter when she saw the puppy. Turning, she bellowed behind her, “I found him!”
Jogging awkwardly through the snow, Wendy followed the fence all the way to Sandy. By the time she reached her, a man was rounding the far corner, following in Wendy’s icy footsteps. His eyes widened when he saw Sandy. He also broke into a run, but he did so already unzipping his coat.
