Rosie's Slave Life

by Ian Smith

  Tyler Mason, who knew Peters through the golf club and the rotary club and had always got on well with him, now eyed him suspiciously. “Good morning, Jeff,” he said carefully. “Would you mind telling me why you have kept policemen around us all night? I can understand them carrying on the search for whatever killed Edward in the haunted room, but I don’t see why you need to chaperone us as well.”

  “Even I can answer that one,” his wife said acidly. “He suspects one of us killed that poor boy, don’t you, Mr. Williams?”

  “We have to take all precautions,” returned the police chief politely. “After all, you are one of Xanxta’s foremost families.”

  “Richest, you mean,” Joanne said tartly.

  “Is that true, though?” Elizabeth Mason asked. “Do you really think one of us could have done it?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure how anybody could have done it,” the police chief answered honestly. “That room is completely harmless. The toxicology report - I had the poor surgeon working on it all night - confirms his and Doctor Chase’s opinion that it was curare. Curare only works when entering the body via a puncture. There must be a wound on him somewhere, though incidentally we can’t find one. He could not have been poisoned until after he entered the room. There’s only one way in, which was watched at all times by at least three people. There are no windows and no secret passages - I’ve even had a builder in to check that.” It later transpired that this was all true. “So God alone knows how he was killed.”

  “It must have been a horrible death,” mused Elizabeth.

  “Pretty nasty, Miss: his teeth are clenched tight in a grimace and his jaw is locked solid.”

  “Spare us the details at the breakfast table, please,” Freddie said.

  “My apologies, Mr. Mason. Now, I’ll add another conundrum. Miss Mason, you asked if I think the killer is from this household. Well, I can’t see how it could be any way else. Anybody from outside would face the added difficulty of getting in as well as doing the deed and from all of your statements nobody outside knew of the haunted room vigil. Unfortunately, everybody seems to have an alibi for the first half of the hour, which is when he unquestionably died. Even the slaves all have alibis.”

  “You don’t seriously suspect one of the slaves, do you?” Elizabeth asked. “What motive could they have?”

  “Motive is another difficulty,” grumbled the chief of police. “This man arrived in Xanxta a week ago. Nobody knew him previously. Why should anybody want to kill him? We have a file on him: obviously anybody who comes to this town has to be carefully vetted. The file shows nothing even remotely out of the ordinary. Naturally, I’ve asked the national authorities to make investigations, but I’m not hopeful. So, I have an impossible murder where every involved person has an alibi and nobody has a motive.”

  “So what, Jeff, do you propose to do?” Tyler Mason demanded.

  “I have an old friend and former colleague who used to work with me in London,” he said. “His name is Donald Peters. He left the force and worked privately for some years and is now in semi-retirement. He was the most brilliant detective I ever met. I telephoned him early this morning when the problems of this case became evident.” Williams smiled to himself at the memory. “It was very early this morning and his language at being woken was rather ripe. Anyway, he agreed to hop on a plane and come over here, unfortunately at our police force’s expense. He will be arriving midday at the airport. If anybody can solve this mess, he can.”

  “I take it he is familiar with our rather unique social order here in Xanxta?”

  “Yes: we’ve used him on a consultancy basis once or twice in the past.”

  “Very well. Let Bassett know what time his connecting flight arrives and he can send the carriage to collect him.”

  Rosie reflected with some bitterness, as she was dismissed from the dining room to begin her morning chores, how some people could come to Xanxta as they pleased and depart when they wanted, but she was stuck here; and, as far as she could see, was stuck here for life.

  Flashback Three

  During the monotonous round of household chores, Rosie always found her mind drifting. Sometimes it would be pleasant daydreams about how her life used to be, or more bittersweet imaginings of how her future might have been. Over the last couple of days and not for the first time, she found herself re-living the nightmare of her slave training. Cassandra said that this was a good thing: although unpleasant, it reminded a girl of the importance of obedience and the dread consequences if a girl was stupid enough to get herself sent for re-training.

  Right now she remembered once more standing in that circle with the rest of her hockey squad, arms raised above her head and wrists chained to the metal girders suspended from the ceiling, ankles chained to the floor. Her arms and shoulders were on fire from the length of time she had been forced to stand there; and her bottom was on fire too. Five strokes of that dreadful riding crop had landed on her virgin posterior and those of her colleagues; but progress, of a sort, had been made. The gags had been removed and the girls, who had of course immediately protested their treatment, demanded release or pleaded for mercy, had learnt the hard way that what was required of them was simply silence. Now, not wanting any more pain from the crops, they just stood and listened to the incredible, bizarre statements their “teacher” was making. They were to become slaves. Those of them who were attractive enough, which was most of them, he said, would be sex slaves. Those who fell short of the required standards would be factory slaves. “You may think,” Amir said wryly, “that being a factory slave isn’t as bad as being a sex slave.” He smiled to himself. “Trust me: it is far worse. I suggest you pray to your gods that you are good enough.”

  Rosie remembered herself feeling dizzy with all this. The soft menace in Amir’s voice frightened her terribly. She fully believed him - and later had it confirmed by others - that being a factory slave was the worse fate; and yet, to be used for sex! Rosie was still a virgin, intending to save herself for her wedding night. This was all just too awful.

  “Now,” Amir continued, “in order to make that assessment and for our own pleasure, we require you to be naked. However, as part of your training, each of you will volunteer to remove your clothes. Indeed, you will plead for the privilege of stripping before us. Should you choose not to volunteer, or do not plead sufficiently convincingly, it will indicate the need for further training.”

  Several of the girls only just managed to remain silent; only the very visible threat of the two crop-wielding heavies prevented them from saying anything. Amir turned to Sarah and smiled at her. “Number one, would you like to be the first to volunteer?”

  Sarah shook her head vigorously, her blonde hair swaying from side to side.

  Whack!

  There was a yelp of pain from Sarah as one of the men slashed the crop into her mini-skirted bottom. Collectively, the other girls gasped, but Amir had already turned to the second girl. “Number two, would you like to be first?” Hannah, the brunette, stared bewildered at him.

  Whack!

  Her jeans gave her little protection from the cruel rod. Amir turned to the third girl, Sophie, who was crying softly to herself. “Please, please,” she sobbed, and then added “yeaggghhhh!” as the crop bit home.

  Watching, horrified, Rosie saw the man with the crop move behind the fourth girl, an upper class girl called Belle. “Please,” Belle blurted out, “can’t we negotiate this? Yeowww!” Once again the man with the crop had made his presence felt and now he moved to behind the fifth girl, a lovely redhead called Jessie.

  “All right!” Jessie cried out. “I’ll do it!”

  Whack!

  Jessie yelped in pain as the crop bit home. The girls, not understanding and quite a few of them crying softly, watched in fear. After Jessie’s squeal subsided, Amir spoke. “I said that volunteers
were required to plead for the privilege of stripping, not just agree to it. Number five, you may try again.”

  Jessie, acutely aware that the man with the crop had remained behind her instead of moving on to the next girl, swallowed her sobs. “Please,” she stuttered, “please let me take my clothes off. Yeeowwww!”

  Rosie had seen the faintest nod from Amir to the man behind Jessie that preceded the latest stroke. Again the man did not move on and Amir waited patiently for Jessie to bring her crying under control.

  “Please,” the redhead babbled, “I want to strip for you! I want to be naked in front of you! I want you to be able to see everything I’ve got! What more do I have to say?”

  This time, Amir’s small gesture was different. The third man operated a pulley and the chains holding Jessie’s arms high began to slacken. Gratefully, Jessie was able to lower her aching arms. The man stepped forwards with a set of keys and Jessie’s wrists and ankles were released from the heavy manacles. She rubbed her wrists, eyeing Amir ruefully then jumped as the man behind her swished the crop through the air menacingly. Jessie knew she had to get on with it. As Rosie watched, the redhead pulled her t-shirt, with the number five sprayed on it, over her head to reveal a lacy bra. Pushing her sandals off with her other foot, she unzipped her jeans and lowered them to leave herself in just the bra and a thong. Trying to look defiant, she pulled the bra off and tossed it aside, then shoved the tiny thong down over her hips. It fluttered to the floor and she put her hands on her hips, refusing to cover herself. Rosie knew that Jessie was one of the less bashful girls, keen on skimpy swimsuits and so on, but even so this could not have been easy for her.

  One of the henchmen had placed a large bin in the centre of the circle. “Put your clothes in the bin,” Amir ordered. Rather uncertainly, Jessie gathered up her discarded outfit and shoes and placed them in the bin. Then one of the men stepped forwards with her manacles again.

  Jessie cracked. “You’re not locking me back up in those again,” she began. The two henchmen simply grabbed her and with frightening ease manhandled her back into her bonds despite her protests and struggles. As the one man operated the winch to raise her now bare arms once more, Amir spoke silkily.

  “You will find that the crop hurts more on bare skin.”

  Thwack!

  “Aiieeee!”

  The sixth girl was crying too much to sensibly reply to Amir’s brief question and received a whack from the crop. The following five all pleaded to strip, though three of them got the crop for not begging enough before they were released to denude themselves. None of them struggled as they were returned to their bondage. The twelfth girl, Caris, refused point blank to strip and swore at Amir as she was cropped, so she got another one. She screamed at him to ‘f*** off’ and got a third, after which she learnt her lesson and was silent. As the thirteenth girl, Scarlet, dropped her clothes in the bin and submissively allowed herself to be re-chained, Rosie frantically mentally rehearsed her lines. She knew it was pointless to resist. Amir turned his gaze to her and she felt her heat pounding.

  “Please, teacher,” she gasped, “I want to strip myself naked, because you want me to be naked and so that you can train me to be a slave; and so that you can enjoy looking at me if you want to,” she added. It was utterly debasing, but it had to be done. There was a long moment when she wondered if she had humiliated herself enough, then she heard the clanking of the chains and felt the tension in her arms ease. The relief as she was able to lower her arms was tempered with the knowledge of what she had to do next. As the henchman stepped forwards and unlocked her heavy metal cuffs, she steeled herself. Then, as if in a dream, she found herself lifting her t-shirt up and over her head and lowering her shorts. Never before had she appeared in front of any man in just her underwear, but she knew that worse was to come. She fumbled with her bra catch and lowered the cups to unveil her large, jutting orbs, then pushed her knickers down to reveal her hairy snatch. Without needing to be told, she gathered up her clothes and dumped them in the bin, then returned to her place in the circle and obediently held out her wrists for the manacles to be reattached. She felt her bare breasts rising as her arms were pulled up once more, felt the cold draught of the dungeon around her hips, thighs and chest and the coldness of the stone floor under her bare feet. Her face felt red and flushed and she was totally ashamed both of her nudity and her capitulation.

  By the time they had gone once around the circle, seven of the girls, including Rosie, had ‘volunteered’ to strip themselves naked. Six more capitulated on the second round, two more on the third and Caris gave in on the last round. Sixteen naked teenagers now watched as Amir lit a match and tossed it into the bin. As their clothes burned to ashes they felt even more naked and vulnerable.

  Chapter Four

  Rosie was busy working hard polishing in the billiards room, but her mind was busier. If the police were right, the murderer was someone in the household. Under normal circumstances that would be scary enough, but for her it was worse. As a slave, she was totally vulnerable. Assuming the murderer was a free person - and it was hard to see how a slave could get hold of the poison or have the freedom to lay the trap, whatever it was - they were someone that Rosie had to obey. If she were commanded to go with them, she would have no choice but to obey, and if they then wanted to kill her as they had killed Edward Harris, she would be quite defenceless. It was a chilling thought. However bad her life as a slave was, Rosie had no wish to die.

  For several hours, the police had been asking questions and taking statements of the free people. Rosie and the other slaves had been questioned only very briefly, to her slight puzzlement. Perhaps a slave was considered too insignificant to know anything. Not that Rosie did know anything, as far as she could see: she had absolutely no idea who might want to kill Master Edward, let alone any insight into the mind-bogglingly frustrating puzzle of how the deed had been done. A mouse could not have got into and out of that room, so how had the murderer? Wait a minute ... what if someone had trained a rat to sneak in and bite the victim and had coated the rat’s teeth with curare? No, that was such a stupid idea. Besides, there wasn’t a puncture mark on the body. How could that be, if the poison had to be injected? Rosie shook her pretty head. It was such a simple puzzle and yet there was no solution. It was just impossible, but it had happened.

  Her reverie was interrupted by the appearance of Cassandra. “You’ve got to go to the bondage room to be harnessed up for the cart,” the elegant blonde said without preamble. “You and Charlotte have got to go and fetch that detective guy.”

  Rosie felt her eyes drawn to Cassie’s exposed chest and the small aureoles that tipped her beautifully shaped breasts. It was an unpleasant reminder of the fact that her own melons were also on display. “How come you’re not having to go?” she asked, slightly miffed.

  “No idea,” returned the blonde beauty. “Ours not to reason why, as always. You’d better hurry.”

  There was just a trace of superiority in the girl’s carefully modulated voice, but as she turned her back on Rosie to go, Rosie was amused to see a slight redness of her bare bottom. Had the posh Cassandra been smacked this morning? It looked like it. Still, Rosie had no choice but to go, so it was a very, very minor victory.

  The bondage room, or ‘play room’ as Freddie Mason called it, was well stocked with all sorts of restraining devices. Rosie had spent quite a few uncomfortable hours in here since her arrival and entered nervously. Slave Ashley was already there, laying out two pony girl harnesses. “I’ve been ordered to get you ready,” he told her. “Take your uniform off, please.”

  Rosie stripped with more than a little irritation. She suspected that somehow Ashley had engineered this, although she knew she had to be naked for the harness. She did not like being nude in front of him especially with her pubic hair shaven into this Mohican style letter M.

  Ashley produced the harness, wh
ich was basically a web of straps. Rosie had worn it once or twice before and hated it, but she had no choice but to stand meekly and let him put it on. He started by attaching the collar around her neck, then the over-head straps. Two more straps led down from the front, leading to twin circles. He grasped one of her breasts and pulled it through one circle, then did the other one.

  “I could have done that myself,” Rosie said sharply as he moved on to secure the circles with straps behind her back.

  “It needed doing.”

  “Nice for you that you were able to cop a feel while you were doing it, then.”

  “Yep,” Ashley replied brazenly. The waistband fixed in place, he took two small straps, one of which led down each side of her front inner thigh just at the juncture with her pubis. They then came together and rose up the back through her bum cleft until they connected to the waistband once more. He spent a few moments at the front adjusting them, his eyes only inches from her letter M and most certainly not averted.

  “Is your pubic hair shaved into an M as well?” she asked bluntly, trying to hide her humiliation.

  “Nah: Mrs. Mason prefers me the natural way.”

  “How nice for you,” Rosie said icily and bitterly. “Does she prefer everything else the natural way?”

  “Sometimes,” he said easily. “I don’t think we should talk about what our owners make us do in bed.”

  Reminded in that blunt way of the shame of her own sexual availability, Rosie fell silent. He put on the heavy, steel-heeled boots that accompanied the harness, keeping his face (it seemed to her) a lot closer to her exposed pubis than was strictly necessary. Then he returned his attention to her head. Several straps went from the collar over her head, which had the advantage of keeping her hair in place but made it difficult to turn her head. Two stiff leather tabs jutted out from the straps, following the line of her cheeks. Ashley produced a wooden bit. “Open wide,” he said, a slight mockery in his voice. Rosie opened her mouth without comment and felt him attach the bit to each of the tabs. She closed her mouth as far as was now possible, her even white teeth clamping onto the bit. It was no longer possible for her to speak coherently. Her arms, by means of leather wristbands, were secured at her sides, making it impossible for her to shield her exposed feminine charms in the slightest.