by Hall, Denise
“Then speak to me. I am Daymon Tane.”
That she felt suddenly cold inside had absolutely nothing to do with the freezing temperatures, ice and snow swirling all around her. She turned her head, lifting her face to the camera. “I’m M-Mary Blackwell. I—”
“I remember you. Wife to Richard Blackwell, owner of Mahogany and China, dead of a heart attack two weeks ago yesterday. You’ve come a long way. Whose loose lips allowed you to find me?”
“I promised not to say.” She hugged herself, stomping her feet, the cold almost doubling her over. “I w-want...I-I w-want...”
“I am not going to sell either girl back to you, if that’s what you came for.” And though she looked up at the camera, shaking her head, he continued, “My girls have been trained to companion the strongest of dominants anywhere. And since I have yet to meet a female capable of becoming an adequate, much less, competent master, you by grace of your gender do not suit. Go back down the mountain before you freeze to death.”
“I don’t w-want to own them!” Mary protested. She flapped her arms, a gesture of hopelessness. “I w-want to be them!”
The intercom crackled again. “I beg your pardon. I don’t think I heard you over the wind. Could you repeat that?”
But Mary had opened her coat and was frantically searching the inside pockets. She whipped out a fold of papers, hastily straightened them, batting the snowflakes from her face as she held the sheets up to the camera. The wind snapped the paper back and forth in her hands though she did her best to hold them straight.
“I know what Richard paid for your Product!” she cried over the wind howling through the courtyard. “Look at this! I have eighteen times that! I’ll give it to you, all of it! Just—please just—” her voice began to trail away as she realized the futility of her position. She wouldn’t cry. She refused to cry. “I-I w-want to be one of them!”
The intercom box stayed quiet.
She flapped her arms again, her open coat snapping around her body as the wind tugged and pulled at it. Despite her determination not to, she felt the burn of tears. “Can you at least tell me why not? What’s wrong with me? Am I too tall? Too short? Too skinny? Not skinny enough? What makes me second best?”
Across the courtyard, the door to Judgment opened. She’d forgotten how imposing Tane was. Tall. Dark in his long winter coat, his mammoth shoulders stretching so impossibly broad as to make him seem almost as immense as his fortress. He crunched his way through the snow to her, his dark eyes assessing and his mouth betraying only the slightest hint of amusement as he leaned one shoulder against the iron grate that separated them.
Burgeoning hope flowered within her. As Mary stepped up to grasp the metal grid with both hands, her face mere inches from his, he breathed a heavy sigh and steamed the air like a dragon.
“You are too old,” he said, “Mary, wife of the now deceased supreme court justice, Judge Richard Blackwell. By a good ten years, you are too old. I don’t like to sink money and time into training even so lovely a beast as yourself, when said beast will bring me nothing in return. You are, in short, a lost cause.”
“I will be obedient,” she begged. “Whatever you ask of me, I’ll do it.”
“No one will buy you. You will bring me nothing at Auction.”
“Then give me away.” But she could tell by the look on his face that she shouldn’t get her hopes up.
“Why should I bother?” he asked, giving her another slight smile, another assessing look through the cold iron bars of the portcullis.
“B-because...” her words caught in her throat. “Because I want so much to be as they are. To be desired like that.”
“What makes you think I care what you want?”
Mary looked up at the camera, then back at him. Softly, she countered, “Why would you come out here, if you didn’t care?”
His smile vanished abruptly and he turned as cold as the weather. “Don’t second guess me, woman. I don’t like it.”
He turned to go.
“I’m sorry!” Mary said quickly. She slid along the grate to grasp the bars where he’d been standing only a moment before. “I’m sorry, Master Tane. Please!” Her voice broke. When he paused, half-turning to look back at her through the falling snow, she fell to her knees on the ice and rocks. “I’m sorry.”
He studied her, hard, expressionless.
She clasped her hands in supplication. “I’m sorry.”
He slowly came back to her, grasping the grate in one powerful hand. “There is nothing as melodious as the sound of a woman’s begging. I find it most pleasing to the ear.”
“I c-could p-please you in many ways,” she offered, her desperation making her bold.
He was unimpressed. “I have a mountain full of females who would do the same, or suffer a taste of my whip and the loss of at least one good layer of skin off their backsides.”
The snow beneath her knees was cold, melting into her pant legs, near freezing on her skin.
He leaned down to her, his voice the softest of caresses, his words steaming the air as they fell from his mouth and seeming like the devil’s own. “All right, Mary Blackwell. I will school you in begging. No doubt you will excel at it before I grow weary of you.”
She shivered and shook. “Th-thank you, M-Master Tane.”
His barest hint of a smile returned. “Take off your clothes. Leave them in the snow. I would see the beauty to be had in my newest beast.”
Mary looked up at the falling snow, but her trembling hands, after only the briefest of pauses, hastened to obey. Her fingers already felt numb as it was, but she unbuttoned her shirt and dropped both it and her coat into the drifts of snow. Her bra followed, exposing her breasts to the frigid wind that pebbled her nipples in an instant. She gave in to the urge to rub her arms once before gritting her teeth and bending down, her smooth back a slender arch as she pulled off both shoes and socks and dropped them on the ground.
Her gasp was involuntary, a sound sucked from her as she shifted from foot to foot on the icy rocks. Her hands shook violently and she struggled with the fastenings of her pants, pushing both them and her underwear down her legs and stepping free of them. Teeth chattering, crossing her arms between her breasts, she hugged herself as she faced Tane without a shred of clothing to protect her from the freezing temperatures.
“Hands at your sides,” he admonished, but he turned and walked off to the right of the portcullis. She heard the sound of a lock turning, then a previously unnoticed door creaked open to her. When Mary bent to gather her clothes, he said, “I told you to leave them in the snow.”
“It’s freezing,” she shivered.
“Have I given you leave to speak to me?”
Mary lowered her eyes and shook her head jerkily from side to side.
“Mouth closed,” he told her, “eyes down, and follow me.”
She trailed behind him, crossing the empty courtyard on feet so cold that it felt as though she were walking on needles. Just as he was pulling open the fortress door, a gust of wind knocked her into his back. She latched onto his coat to keep from falling to her knees, only to gasp through gritted teeth an instant later when Tane hauled her onto her tiptoes by a fistful of her own blonde hair.
He pushed her inside ahead of him. Barely had she cleared the threshold than did the wind slam the door shut.
Her breath steamed the air; it wasn’t much warmer inside than out, and the only light came from the adjacent room straight ahead. That was all Mary had a chance to see, before he spun her around to face the wall.
“Bend over!” he barked, as cold as the air around them. “Hands on the wall. Spread your legs.” His broad hand cracked solidly across the very center of her buttocks. “I said bend over. And get those legs apart; don’t make me repeat myself again!”
Being cold made Mary feel clumsy, slow and stiff. She spread her feet so wide, she could feel the strain along the insides of her thighs, and she adjusted her hands on the icy stones so t
hat she bent straight over at the hips.
His warm hand settled between her shoulders, the heat of his touch emphasizing just how cold she really was. It slid slowly down her back along her spine to caress her bottom, his fingers stroking lightly over each summit before delving between them. He skimmed the rim of her anus before moving further down, parting the clenched lips of her sex with his middle finger. He stroked her slowly up and down, the tip of his finger circled her hooded clit, around and around endlessly until she began to shake from more than just the cold. Without speaking a word, he then slipped it inside her, sinking that single digit in all the way up to his palm.
“Is this what you wanted when you came here?” he asked. “Or did you have something more like this—” His hand abandoned her body, only to come crashing down on her right bottom cheek with brutal intensity. “—in mind?”
He swatted the other side just as hard, and Mary almost jerked upright.
“Oh!” She caught herself before her hands left the wall and quickly resumed her bent position.
“I asked you a question,” he said.
Her teeth chattered. “B-both.”
“You must think this a game.”
“N-no...”
“Did I give you permission to contradict?” He swatted her again, this time his hand catching the tops of her thighs, right, left, right, left, four to each in rapid succession.
Her skin was so cold, the pain of it instantly flooded her eyes with tears. It made her back arch, and she wiggled her hips, fighting to keep from kicking or twisting away.
“I am not your friend,” he said, and punctuated each statement with a slap so hard that it made her cry out. “I am not your buddy, your chum, or your pal. When you speak to me—” he delivered another teeth-jarring blow that had her arching up on tiptoes with a ragged gasp as her fingernails scraped the wall. “—you will do so with respect.”
“Yes, sir!” she panted, then cringed, squealed and finally cried out in frantic desperation as he lay a vicious barrage all over her smarting flanks.
“Master!” he snapped.
And she cried out an immediate echo of, “Master! Yes, Master!”
The blows ceased and the heat of his palm returned to rest between her shoulders. He didn’t say anything. As Mary stood panting and gasping, marveling at the fury of his bare hand and praying for it to be over, from behind them she heard a voice very similar to Tane’s, “Here’s the leash. Who’s the stray?”
“A little kitten,” Tane rumbled, “I found mewling at the gates.”
“And you brought her inside?” The owner of that sonorous voice chuckled. “Quite the Samaritan you’ve become.”
“Hardly.” Tane fastened the choke collar around her neck, then attached the leash. “On your knees, female.”
Mary sagged down the wall to kneel upon the floor, so cold everywhere except where he’d spanked her. There her skin burned and stung, the heat throbbing deep into her muscles.
Tane pulled the length of leash through the palm of his hand, tightening the collar and forcing her head up. “You left your name with your clothes out in the snow. Until I give you a new one, you will be called Blonde. You belong to me, and to any master with the whim to make of you his plaything. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master,” she rasped, her eyes watering as she tried not to choke.
“You are nothing here. You have no worth or status. You are not even Product.”
The other man came into view, looking down at her. There was a tight smile on his mouth, though his eyes, like Tane’s, were cool and assessing. There was a strong family resemblance there; they could very well have been brothers. “What are you going to do with her?”
“I admit, I haven’t thought that far.”
“You can’t put her in with the Personals.”
“Heavens, no.”
“Can’t put her in with the rest of the Lessers, either. Where does that leave? Solitary confinement? We’ll have a gibbering animal on our hands within the year.”
Mary closed her eyes and concentrated just on breathing. Her hands itched to grab the collar and leash and pull, giving herself just enough slack to draw air into her struggling lungs. She clutched her thighs to keep from doing it.
“I suppose I shall have to give her a job,” Tane said.
The other man laughed, but when Tane glanced at him without joining in, he promptly sobered again. “You can’t be serious.”
Tane sighed and his eyes returned to her. “In all likelihood, this won’t work anyway, but my interest has been piqued.”
“We haven’t recovered from the last time that happened.”
“Come now, Master Deaton. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“In California,” Deaton said caustically. “Where we still can’t go because the Los Angeles police won’t leave us alone.”
“She’s paid a lot of money to lay her submission at our feet.”
“She paid us?” Hands on hips, Master Deaton, brother to Daymon Tane, studied her again. “How much?”
“Eighteen times the price of a good Elite.”
Deaton blinked twice, then began to laugh. Still laughing, he turned and headed back into the fortress. “Welcome to Judgment, Blonde.”
Chapter Two
Mary clung to the white tile wall with both hands, gasping as the pressurized spray of cold water hit her back like thousands of sharp glass shards. The cold wrung involuntary cries from her and her teeth chattered violently as the focus of that icy spray ran up and down the length of her body no matter how she twisted and squirmed.
A dark-haired, black-uniformed master held the hose. His harsh, guttural voice barked out a command in a language she couldn’t understand, but the guard to her right, standing just out of splatter range, interpreted it for her. “Turn around.”
Slowly, Mary turned to expose her naked front and the master gave it an equally chilly and impersonal dose of the cold water. She bowed her head, turning her face away so the hard spray wouldn’t strike it directly, but the master spared her very little, the hard cutting fury of the hose punishing her breasts, stomach and thighs for what felt like forever. When he aimed for her labia, her hands clenched into fists, and Mary rose up on her tiptoes, throwing back her head with a high, keening wail that her chattering teeth warbled and mangled.
Then the hose was shut off.
Mary shook violently; she didn’t think she’d ever be anything but cold again.
The guard at her right side, handed her a bar of soap and said, “Wash yourself.”
Bowing her head, Mary dutifully lathered her skin. Her breasts, her underarms, her belly, her body was rippled with goose bumps. She kept her eyes firmly downcast, her face flushing as she bent to soap between her thighs and tried to pretend there weren’t two strangers watching her do this. Her hands slipped over her buttocks and between, then ran down each leg in turn, washing quickly and blushing furiously as she did it.
The guard then picked up a razor and stepped in front of her. She held as still as she could while he shaved her, beneath her arms, her legs, then her pubis, until she was as bare there like a prepubescent woman-child. He then took his place once more out of splatter range.
Holding the hose before him, the master spoke, and the guard said, “Wash yourself again.”
Mary repeated the process, rubbing her hands and the soap over every inch of herself, shivering and barely muffling a moan when the master turned the hose back on. The white tiled shower room echoed with her shrill gasps and cries as the icy spray stroked up and down her body again.
“Turn around,” the guard told her once more.
And Mary turned, bracing her hands up on the wall as the hose punished her back, bottom and legs. She was so grateful when the master finally shut it off. Her knees knocked together. She hugged the wall and shivered.
The master handed the hose to the guard, who re-coiled the length, and picked up a worn gray towel. He brought it to her, draping the s
cratchy fabric over her shoulder until her trembling fingers could uncurl themselves to pick it up.
He watched her fumble to dry herself, his dark eyes veiled and unsympathetic. Then he spoke.
“My name is Master Boyden,” the guard interpreted. “I am in charge of all New-comers from the moment they arrive until they are released into the Pit. For the next month, you and I are going to be inseparable. I will teach you our language, I will teach you our rules, and if, for whatever reason, you decide you do not want to cooperate, I will also make you very sorry for your incorrect choice. Do you understand?”
Shivering in her damp towel, her wet hair dripping down her back, Mary looked from the guard to Master Boyden and nodded.
Master Boyden spoke again, four short words in his hard, guttural language.
“That means, ‘Yes, Master Boyden’,” the guard told her. “Repeat it now, and I would recommend you commit that phrase to memory and use it often while you’re here.”
Mary had to repeat the strange phrase four times before she said it adequately enough and loudly enough to satisfy the frowning Master Boyden. Wrapped in only the harsh towel, she then followed him out of the shower room and down the long, dark corridor, deeper into the mountain fortress, until they arrived at what looked to be a doctor’s examining room. She balked in the doorway when she saw the table with its cold metal stirrups, but the guard behind her simply flicked her flanks with the end of the switch he carried and Mary meekly crept into the room.
Waiting for the doctor to arrive, shifting nervously from foot to foot, her gaze flitted from the upright scale to the exam table and the nearby tray with all its gynecology tools, then to the blood test equipment set up across the room.
Mary swallowed hard. She tried to keep her breathing slow and even, but she’d never liked doctors’ offices. She could have cheerfully missed every one of her annual exams, except that Richard always made her go. He would drive her there in fact, and accompany her into the office so he could watch. She remembered how he used to say he was going to order one of those tables for their home, so he could perform those exams on Mary himself. She couldn’t help but shudder, almost grateful then that his attention had turned to Mahogany and China.
