The Compound

by Claire Thompson

  Though she was conscientious about writing about the progress (and sometimes the lack thereof) of her training, not all the entries were directly about that. She found herself writing about various events in her childhood that had affected her, and events at work that had stressed her out. She wrote about Master John and Wendy, and her yearning for that kind of all-encompassing connection with another human being. She wrote about the other trainees, and what she witnessed of their experiences, and how they compared with her own.

  And of course, she wrote about Paul. She filled many pages wondering what he would be like as a lover, as a Master, as a partner. She mused on if he’d ever been married, and what his dreams were. She knew very little about the man, and yet she felt closer to him in some ways than to any guy she’d ever been with in an actual relationship. She often fell asleep at night with the memory of his hand on her back, or the way he had cupped her face into his hands when she’d been so panicked in the harness. She would touch her face as he had and close her eyes, hearing his voice inside her head. His words had brought her back from the brink of a scary place. It was as if he’d reached a hand directly into her soul and pulled her back into safety.

  It’s okay, Alexis. Shh, it’s okay. We’re getting you down.

  There was a week left to her training, and though Master John didn’t give up on her, she thought she detected a certain subtle withdrawal on his part ever since that awful day. Though maybe it was she who had withdrawn.

  She continued to work hard, and she did well with the slave positions and grace training, but the peace and serenity she saw in others continued to elude her. She felt certain if she could just let go, she would get there. But she just couldn’t figure out how.

  In her heart of hearts, she secretly believed the key lay with Paul. If only he could have continued to participate in her training, she felt she might have broken through her resistance. But that was not to be. Master Paul had received a new trainee and she only saw him across the dungeon with his new charge, or across the table at meals. He always smiled and nodded at her, but he was busy now with someone new.

  She looked down at her open journal and saw with horrified amusement what she’d been doodling on the page while her mind had wandered:

  Paul Evans. Paul and Alexis Evans. Master Paul and his slave girl, Alexis. Paul. Paul. Paul.

  A tap on the doorframe made her look up. Rachelle stood there, her arms crossed protectively around her torso, an anxious look in her eyes. “Hi,” she said. “Can I come in for a second?”

  Alexis flipped the journal closed and capped her felt-tipped pen. She patted the bed. “Sure. What’s up?”

  Rachelle came into the room, settling on the end of the bed. “I’ve got that thing tonight and I’m so nervous I could spit.”

  “That thing?”

  “Yeah. After dinner Master Clarence is going to present me. He says I’m ready, but I don’t feel ready.”

  “He’s going to present you?” Alexis felt stupid echoing the girl, but Rachelle’s words had hit her like a punch in the stomach. She thought about their shared predicament bondage scene, and how she had been the example of proper behavior for Rachelle, who had nearly pulled the double-headed dildo from them both with her lack of grace. And now she was ready for presentation? How could that be? “But you haven’t even been here three weeks,” Alexis blurted. “Didn’t you sign on for a month, like me? I don’t get it.”

  Rachelle nodded, furiously twirling a ringlet of her curly hair in her fingers, her face scrunched with anxiety. “I know! I need more time. I’m not ready! But Master Clarence says I am. He says I’m a natural. He says he’s done what he can with me, and it’s time to show the others what I’ve learned.”

  Envy and compassion warred inside Alexis. Rachelle was only, what, twenty-two? And she had arrived at The Compound after Alexis. Now here she was, ready to be presented. Master John had never told Alexis she was a natural.

  At the same time, Rachelle looked so unhappy. Alexis forced herself to focus on the girl, instead of her own shortcomings. “If Master Clarence thinks you’re ready, then you’re ready,” she offered. “I bet you’ll be fantastic. Do you know what he has planned for you?”

  “He’s going to use the bullwhip! I’m to stand there in front of everyone, no rope, no cuffs, nothing. Just stand there with my hands behind my neck in position one, facing the audience, while he stands behind me and whips me until I fly.”

  “Until you fly…” Alexis repeated.

  “Yeah.” Rachelle nodded glumly. “I can do that when it’s just me and him, with no one else paying attention, but I’m not sure I can do it in a formal ceremony. Like a command performance, you know? What if I don’t get there? That bullwhip of his is wicked! I mean, he’s great with it, the best ever, but it’s not like a flogging. I can fly easy with a flogging. I just love the thuddy whacking against my skin. I can go in like five minutes with a good flogging. But the whip, yikes!”

  “What’s it like?” Alexis hadn’t meant to ask, but the question had just popped out.

  “The bullwhip?”

  “No, when you’re flying.”

  Rachelle stopped twirling her hair and folded her hands into her lap. She sat up straighter, the nervousness about the evening’s presentation draining away like water swirling down a drain. Closing her eyes a moment, Rachelle lifted her face toward the ceiling in apparent concentration. “Let me see if I can put it into words.”

  After a moment, she lowered her head and looked again at Alexis, her face splitting into a grin. “I’m not sure my experience is the typical one.” She shrugged. “Maybe there is no typical experience. Maybe everyone’s unique.”

  “Go on,” Alexis urged softly.

  Rachelle stared off into the middle distance, squinting slightly as if she could see what she was describing. “It’s like a lifting into gentleness, into the middle of beautiful sunrise flames that go white. Sometimes I just sort of hover there, but other times, the really intense times, I go into this sense of running. Like I’m a four-legged creature.”

  Her voice had grown more sure as she spoke, and her green eyes were shining. “I run so fast, without touching the ground. The wind whistles past me. It’s always at night and sometimes I’m lifted higher, moving through the air with a distant awareness that something is going on far below me, but it doesn’t concern me.”

  She broke off suddenly, looking directly at Alexis with a grin. “You must think I’m nuts, huh? Some kind of shape shifter, but that’s how it is for me. What’s it like for you?”

  A rush of humiliation surged through Alexis, rising like bile in her throat. She looked down at her lap. “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

  “What? You don’t know how to describe it?” She patted Alexis’s knee, nodding. “It is hard to put into words, I agree. Even in my journal, I have a hard time really describing it.”

  “No.” Alexis said, meeting Rachelle’s eyes, blinking back sudden tears. “I don’t know what it’s like. I’ve never done it. I don’t know how.”

  “Oh.” Rachelle’s eyes slid away from Alexis, and then came back again, her smile kind. “You know, honey, maybe it’s not your fault. Maybe you just haven’t found the right Master.”

  ~*~

  Paul sat beside Miriam on the large sofa that faced the front of the room. Though it had been a dry summer, a weather front had moved in as the evening progressed and a heavy rain was whipping the trees outside the windows. Occasional flashes of lightning brought the branches near the windows into momentary sharp relief against the night sky. The rumble of thunder followed seconds later.

  Rachelle’s fiancé, Michael Horton, had flown up from Arkansas that morning. He sat on Miriam’s other side, tapping his foot and causing the whole couch to shake. Miriam finally put her hand gently on his thigh and the young man’s nervous thumping ceased.

  “I’m so glad you could come for the presentation ceremony,” she said to him. “Rachelle’s blossomed here. I think
you’ll be pleased.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied in a thick southern drawl. “Rachelle tells me I need to come on up here and get myself some Master training.” He grinned broadly and shook his head, as if the idea were absurd.

  Paul lost the thread of the conversation as his eye landed on Alexis, who was kneeling up in the group of trainees along the wall. She was in the front of the line nearest the door, her lovely dark hair falling in a shiny curtain around her heart-shaped face. Trisha, Paul’s latest trainee, knelt beside Alexis, at that moment leaning over to whisper something in Alexis’s ear.

  Alexis turned her head slightly, her eyes meeting Paul’s. He smiled at her and she flushed and looked away, as she so often did when they made eye contact. Each time she did that he had to physically restrain himself from going to her, from taking her into his arms and kissing that soft, lovely mouth…

  He thought often about that last session he’d been a part of, when she’d panicked and nearly gone over the edge. While he admired John’s work in general, he didn’t feel the fit was right between John and Alexis. Alexis, he believed, required a gentler touch. Unlike Wendy, who thrived under John’s iron rule, Alexis needed someone who could gentle her into submission without causing her to retreat inside herself. Paul had come within a hair’s breadth of asking Miriam if he could take over Alexis’s training, but he had stopped himself, not sure of his own motives.

  The room stilled suddenly, a collective hush moving through the crowd as Clarence and Rachelle entered the room. Clarence came in first, a large black bullwhip coiled in his hand. Clarence, with his dark skin, shaved head and massive shoulders, was quite a contrast to the petite young woman who followed him. Rachelle was a pretty girl, her fair skin dusted with freckles on her nose and shoulders and a mop of reddish-brown curls on her small, delicately-shaped head. She looked nervous as she turned to face the audience. But when her eyes landed on her fiancé, she broke into a broad smile and lifted her chin.

  “That’s my girl,” Paul heard Michael Horton say in a loud stage whisper. “Ain’t she the loveliest thang you ever did see?”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Clarence boomed. “Tonight is a special night. This young woman you see before you has excelled in her training and is ready to display that for you tonight. When Rachelle first arrived, she was terrified of the bullwhip. She has moved through her fear and conquered it.”

  He focused on the young man beside Miriam. “We are especially glad to have Rachelle’s Master here tonight to witness her grace and courage.” Most of the eyes in the room turned toward Rachelle’s fiancé. Paul kept his eyes on Rachelle. Though she was offering a brave smile, he could sense her tension, and see it in the clenching and unclenching of her hands at her sides.

  Clarence unfurled the whip and snapped it in the air, creating a sonic crack that rivaled the thunder outside the thick walls of the old house. Several people in the room startled and jumped at the sound, Michael Horton included. “You sure about this?” he whispered loudly to Miriam, who just nodded, again placing her hand on the man’s thigh. Marta, who was sitting on the carpet at Miriam’s feet, caught Paul’s eye and grinned.

  “Position one,” Clarence said, turning his attention to Rachelle. She placed her hands behind her head and lifted her chin, her eyes on her fiancé. Clarence moved behind her and to the side, again cracking the air with the tip of the long, shiny whip. Paul had seen him use the bullwhip before, and knew what a master he was with it. He could make the tail dance like a snake, slithering over the skin with a kiss or a bite, controlled by the expert flick of his wrist.

  The trainer began slowly, stroking Rachelle’s ass and the backs of her thighs with the leather tail. She stayed perfectly still, her eyes on her man, only a small, sharp intake of breath or a clenching of her stomach muscles indicating she felt the lash. The tail brushed over her back and curled seductively around her narrow waist, leaving a red mark on her stomach and pulling the first gasp of real pain from the girl’s lips.

  Clarence returned his focus to her ass, letting the tip of the whip snap and crack against her flesh. Rachelle’s lips were pressed together but she remained still, her back arched to present her large, well-shaped breasts, her red training collar snug around her throat. Clarence moved gracefully around the girl despite his bulk, the tip of the bullwhip snapping against her ass, her thigh, her breast. The room was silent, save for the crack of the whip and the rain pounding the roof and tapping at the windows.

  Paul pulled his eyes from the scene and stole a glance at Alexis. She appeared riveted to the scene, her eyes wide, her body jerking slightly with each crack as if she, too, could feel the stinging kiss of the whip. He turned back to Rachelle and Clarence. Rachelle’s fair skin was marked with red welts where the whip had made contact. Though the room was cool, her body was softly sheened with sweat and he could see the tremble beginning in her limbs.

  Clarence leaned his head close to hers, his lips grazing her ear as he murmured something inaudible to everyone but Rachelle. She nodded slightly and closed her eyes. Paul could feel Michael Horton stiffen beside Miriam, but he stayed quiet, thank goodness. Paul could sense Rachelle was nearly there, skirting the rim of fear, sliding into the pain and letting it take her where she needed to go.

  Though he’d seen it a thousand times before, it never failed to amaze Paul when it happened. He wished suddenly he was up there with her, the one to wield the whip, the one to take her to that special, intensely intimate place.

  Though he’d never personally experienced flying, he had been taken along for the journey many times in the process of leading his subs there. It was almost like jumping onto a train that was lurching out of the station, and hanging on as it sped up, sharing in the exhilaration and becoming a part of it as they hurtled along the track.

  Rachelle’s head fell forward onto her chest, her eyes closing, her mouth going slack. She remained in position, fingers laced behind her neck, her legs strong and straight. The trembling in her body eased away and she seemed to lean into the whip’s biting embrace as if it were her lover.

  “Holy shit,” Paul heard Michael Horton breathe, the awe evident in his voice. Paul couldn’t take his eyes from the scene. Rachelle’s body was covered now in small red welts and still the whip flicked and cracked around her with Clarence’s expert control. He moved with a panther’s grace around the girl, the long tail of the whip like an extension of his arm. Rachelle remained still as a statue, her spirit lifted from her body and soaring somewhere in the heavens. The scene was spectacular. It was pure poetry, Paul thought, a perfect demonstration of submissive grace, as good as any he’d witnessed.

  When Clarence finally lowered his arm, Rachelle remained still, her head heavy against her chest, her eyes closed. Clarence laid down the whip and moved behind her. He wrapped his dark arms around her, gently pulling her back against him. He nodded toward her fiancé, who stood and moved toward the stage. As if they’d arranged it beforehand, the two men lifted the naked, slender girl between them and carried her to an empty loveseat in the corner of the room.

  Michael sat down first, and together he and Clarence maneuvered the girl so she was curled on his lap. Rachelle opened her eyes and smiled at her fiancé, who grinned back. “Hoo wee dog!” he cried. “You were something else up there, baby.”

  The room broke into spontaneous applause and warm laughter. Paul turned to see his trainee’s and Alexis’s reactions. Trisha was smiling and clapping along with everyone else.

  Alexis was nowhere to be seen.

  Paul scanned the room. Maybe she was with John. But no, John was on a chair nearby, Wendy curled contentedly at his feet, her head resting on his leg. Paul leaned toward them, catching John’s eye. “Where’s Alexis?”

  John looked toward the row of trainees. “She’s over there,” he began, but stopped himself with a surprised grunt when he saw she was no longer in the line. “That’s strange. She was there a moment ago. Maybe she had to use the bathroom and did
n’t want to disturb the scene, so she just slipped out.”

  Paul was relieved John didn’t ask him why it was his business. It really wasn’t, but her absence had taken him by surprise. John was probably right. She would return momentarily.

  But she didn’t.

  Miriam got up and spoke a few congratulatory words to Rachelle and Michael, and thanked Clarence for his usual stellar performance, and still Alexis didn’t return.

  “Maybe she went back to the quarters,” Wendy suggested. “It might have been hard on her, watching that performance.”

  Hard on her? Paul considered this. He thought about their shared session, and how hard she’d tried to fly, and how close she’d been before the panic had set in. Maybe Wendy was right. Maybe it had been hard to watch someone else slip almost effortlessly into that place, while she herself continued to struggle.

  The words from her essay popped into his mind: I need help to chip away at the mortar and knock down the bricks that are hiding the true submissive within.

  He should have been the one to help her. He should have been her trainer. But he wasn’t. He turned to John. “You need to find her—to make sure she’s okay.”

  John looked hard at him for a long moment and Paul suddenly realized his friend understood more than he had let on. As if to confirm this feeling, John smiled as he placed his hand on Paul’s arm, squeezing gently. “You go, Paul. Go find her.”

  Chapter 14

  Alexis stumbled as she ran, her bare feet splashing in puddles of muddy water, the rain blinding her and drenching her skin. She was crying as she ran, clutching her arms around herself as if that would provide any protection from the storm.

  Watching Rachelle had been a heart-wrenching experience—so beautiful it hurt, especially because Alexis knew she would never achieve that level of grace and release. It just wasn’t in her. She didn’t know how to do it. For the first time in her life, Alexis had to admit she was a failure. The thought wrenched another sob from her lips.