“I know who you are,” she growled. “If you don’t stop orchestrating that ridiculous Misogyny Party, I will take your head back to my chateau as a souvenir of my trip to Paris. I will leave the rest of you here.”
He screwed his eyes shut and tried to cower from her, but she held him fast.
“Please don’t hurt me. It was the other two. I just financed it. They said it was going to mean more food. We’ve been going hungry up here for several years. People don’t go out at night anymore, so they thought the chaos would stir people up a little, get them moving again.” He looked like a vulnerable old man, not someone who had just threatened the political stability of an entire continent.
“If I hear of anything similar, I will find you. You are to withdraw all your financial support by midnight. I will know if you haven’t obeyed me,” Monique said sternly.
“Yes, of course, just don’t hurt me!” he begged. She released him and swept out. We followed.
When we were on the stairs, something launched itself at us. It knocked Monique and Hannah over, and narrowly missed catching me, too. I realized it was the elderly vampire. Apparently he’d changed his mind about doing what Monique had told him. He turned and ran at me, and the snarl on his face chilled my blood. I didn’t know how to fight him, and he moved so quickly that he had me pinned on the floor. A mist covered the stairwell as Monique disappeared.
“Come closer and I’ll end her,” he said to Hannah, and I tried to kick free but he held me too tightly.
Hannah threw her hands up. “Please, don’t hurt her,” she pleaded, and when he looked up, Monique recombined behind him and lifted him off me easily. After a very short fight, we managed to subdue him, and Monique drove a stake into his heart to be certain he wouldn’t rise again. If I’d been uneasy after the catacombs, I was now chilled to the bone. She walked out, and we followed, stunned, as she returned to the train station.
“Won’t the police find the body?” Hannah asked, over an hour later, as we sat on the TGV.
“It’s been staked. It was already turning to dust as we left,” Monique replied.
I ruminated on this in silence. A thousand-year-old creature, with so much knowledge and experience, gone in an instant. I had to believe that it was for the best.
Chapter Fifteen
Back at the chateau, I saw Monique in a new light. Not only was she confident and beautiful, but she was also strong and decisive, and while she still frightened me, I knew she would always have my back. Nobody had ever stood up for me like that before. I knew now that I might fight it, sometimes it may be intolerable, but I loved her.
Whether she loved me too was a more complex matter. For the next few days, she was preoccupied with her political games, and I felt more than a little left out. That might have been why I behaved so shockingly one snowy Thursday afternoon.
Hannah was cleaning windows and had asked me to dust in Monique’s office. There wasn’t much dust; Monique kept the room spotless, although I doubt she did any of the work herself. Once the bookshelves were done, I decided to take a break, so I sat in Monique’s chair and spun around in it a few times, then leaned on the desk, surveying the room, imagining what it must be like to be her.
The desk drawers were unlocked when I tried them, and I found a bottle of elderflower juice in the bottom drawer. I only wanted a little sip, but then I had another, and another. It didn’t seem to be having any effect on my thirst, but it tasted so good, then the next time I looked, the bottle was empty. I stared at it in horror, wondering how much trouble I’d be in. There was no way she wouldn’t notice this. I knew we didn’t have any more in the stores, so I went to the nearest faucet and filled the bottle with water. I hoped that if it looked full, I could replace it before she next tried to drink it.
Wanting to get back to my next task, which was to alphabetize some new additions to the library, I left the room at the same moment Monique swept in, accompanied by the presidents of Sweden and Belgium.
“Ah, Sabine, please bring three glasses, we need to celebrate,” Monique said as I passed her.
“Yes, Mistress,” I brought the glasses, trying hard to look nonchalant. Once she’d got her glasses, I hurried away to the library, feeling relieved that I’d thought to refill the elderflower bottle with water.
* * *
That evening, Monique summoned me to her office.
“Sabine, do you have something to tell me?”
I stared at her and wondered, of the many things I’d done wrong, which one she’d found out about.
“Was this about the von Masoch book? Because I wasn’t sure whether it should be shelved as a ‘v’ or an ‘m,’ Mistress.” I started to feel uncomfortable. The book was the least of the things I’d done this week, and I knew it. I tried really hard not to look at her desk, where I knew the incriminating bottle of elderflower was waiting in its drawer to tattle on me.
“No, Sabine, that’s not why I summoned you.” She stared hard into my eyes and I tried not to squirm. She opened the desk drawer, pulled out the bottle of elderflower, and slammed it down on her desk with a thud. I flinched at the sound, and stared at the bottle, hoping it might disappear if I looked at it for long enough.
“Explain,” she said.
I took a breath. “I’m really sorry, I only meant to have a little sip, but it was so delicious and before I knew it, I’d drunk it all. I wanted to replace it before you noticed but I didn’t know where to get any more from.”
“I asked you for glasses and no bottle. Did that not make you think I might intend to use the elderflower in the desk drawer? That was why you’d looked so guilty, wasn’t it? You had just drunk it all! I poured out water for two presidents, and it’s all your fault. Remove your panties, then go and stand in the corner while I fetch a cane. If you move, I will know.” She spoke so forcefully that I slipped my panties off then went straight to the corner, where I waited for her to return. I wished I’d never seen the stupid bottle of elderflower.
When she returned, she banged the door closed behind her and locked it, then I felt her iron grip on my shoulder. The butterflies in my stomach migrated into my legs as I was pulled across the room to the desk. She pushed me over it, then I felt the satiny fabric of my short maid’s dress being slid up to my waist.
“Put your bottom up very high, Sabine, I want to see all of you.”
I gripped the edge of the desk with my hands and rearranged my bottom so it was as high as it would go. Then I waited, straining my ears to know when the first stroke landed.
It exploded in a line of lava so thin that I wondered if I had been cut. Instinctively I reached my hand back, but when I looked at it, there was no blood. The cane was just very mean.
“You were going to get six, but since you just moved out of position and covered your bottom, I’m going to make it nine.” There was a horrible half-minute of uncertainty while I waited for the next stroke, and the first one still stung when the second one exploded above it.
I gritted my teeth and blew air out through them, trying hard not to make any sounds. When the third stroke landed, I felt tears prickling at my eyes, and one of my legs shook while I fought to keep both feet on the floor. The burning feeling lingered in my bottom.
Another stroke scorched my sit-spot and I felt the tears start trickling down my face, and when the fifth landed soon afterwards, I was sobbing into my sleeve as I fought to keep my bottom up. Monique said nothing, and in the silence I could tell she was disapproving of how upset I was. The sixth time that the cane whistled down, I wriggled and flexed my bottom to try and get the sting to subside, but nothing seemed to help.
“If you move again, you’re getting twelve,” she stated, and her voice was cold.
“It hurts!” I sobbed, but I knew it wouldn’t change anything.
“Good. It’s intended to.” Monique brought the cane down a seventh time and I tried to ignore the searing line of flame that joined all the others on my bottom, but it demanded my full attention and my entire
existence became the burning pain.
The eighth stroke caught me by surprise; it was sooner than I’d expected and I howled as it cut across the other lines.
“Please, Mistress, I don’t think I can take any more,” I pleaded.
“You had one more, but perhaps there’s a valuable lesson in knowing how much you can take. So let’s make it two more.” She seemed amused by the pain I was in, and I realized that if I spoke again, the ten strokes could easily become twelve.
The ninth made me howl uncontrollably as it bit at my butt, and I regretted the fact that I’d earned another one, as it would have been over by now if I’d remained silent.
She bided her time with the final stroke, and I tried to breathe as I waited for her. When I wondered if she’d changed her mind, the tenth cane stroke exploded straight across both cheeks, making me yelp in surprise. She sat in her chair, in front of my face, and waited for me to stop crying. When my tears gradually slowed, she fixed me with a piercing gaze.
“Never be so underhanded again as you were today. If you want something that doesn’t belong to you, what do you do?”
“I ask permission, Mistress,” I said, still racked by occasional sobs.
“Go and stand in the corner until I say you can leave.”
I got up with difficulty, my bottom sizzling like I’d sat on a hot grill, and I stumbled to the corner feeling clumsy and stupid. As I waited, the pain subsided into a buzzing ache.
“Come here, please, Sabine,” she called me back. When I turned, the clock showed I’d been in the corner for barely fifteen minutes. “You are forgiven. Don’t do anything that naughty again. You may leave now.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I wondered if turning into a precipitate would ease my stinging bottom, but I still couldn’t do it confidently, so instead I went to the kitchen and sat on my old faithful box in the walk-in freezer, savoring the instant cooling sensation as the frosty cardboard reached my bottom through the thin fabric of my maid’s dress.
* * *
In the early afternoon, shortly after Monique caned me, all the diplomats had left, satisfied that there was no imminent danger of women being forced out of their careers. There were only the three of us in the chateau for the first time since I arrived.
I knew it was my own fault today, but I felt like Monique was distancing herself from me more with each passing day. The incident with the elderflower was the closest I’d gotten to her since we had returned from Paris, and I didn’t know what I’d done, or what I could do to make it right. Since coming to the chateau, I had learned through experience that she had this infuriating way of shutting people out when she was displeased with them. It put me in a bad mood and even sex with Hannah couldn’t fix it.
“You need to talk to her,” Hannah said, after I washed the same glass for a third time.
“Don’t want to, she should talk to me.” I didn’t feel like being a peacemaker.
“Someone needs to make the first move,” she observed.
“She’s my mistress. She should do it.”
“What if she’s busy? Or doesn’t realize this is affecting you, because you haven’t told her that you have a problem?” Hannah took the glass out of my hands and placed it firmly on the drainer. I turned and looked at her.
“Why should I sort this out? It’s her house.”
Hannah threw her hands up. “Oh, you’re impossible, little sister.” With that, she marched out of the room.
I went to put the glasses away in a cupboard, and when I turned around, Monique had appeared in the kitchen. She looked irritated.
“Why did you need to speak to me, Sabine?” she demanded. “Does your bottom need reddening again already?”
“Excuse me? I didn’t need to talk to you about anything.”
As the kitchen door slammed shut, I realized Hannah must have brought her here. I wasn’t going to give in so easily, so I tried to leave, only to find the door was locked.
“Hannah! This isn’t going to work!” I hammered on the door, then Monique pushed me aside and tried punching a hole in it, but it was made of a thick solid wood and it remained intact.
There were so many things running through my head that I didn’t want to say to Monique that I adamantly went to the freezer to count packets of chicken. When I returned, she was still in the kitchen, and there were two herbal teas sitting on the countertop.
“Yours has two spoons of sugar, as you like it,” Monique said, picking her drink up and taking a sip.
I glared at her.
“We are going to be in here until Hannah changes her mind. You really should drink something.”
I was overcome with a strong urge to pour the tea down the sink. I didn’t want anything from Monique. She couldn’t soothe my rejection with a drink. I looked around for something else to do.
“Sabine, why are you ignoring me?”
I spun around and glared at her. “I think you’ll find that you’re the one who is avoiding me. And I don’t have any interest in being your toy.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
Then the floodgates opened and I started telling her exactly what I thought.
“I know nothing about you, Monique. I don’t know why you took me from Hannah, since you never seem to want to be around me. I still don’t know why I’m here, or what exactly you want from me. What am I supposed to think, when you are all over me one minute, then you vanish again?”
She sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Is that all you can say? You have ruined my entire life and you want my complete obedience, but you can’t even tell me why?”
“Stop talking.” She compelled me, so I had no choice but to be silent and listen to her. “I brought you here because I was fascinated by you. I wanted to explore everything about you, and I was pleased that Hannah seemed to feel the same way. My need to care for you, to protect you, to possess you, is too strong though, and every time I feel like I’m getting closer to you, I pull back because I don’t want you to see me at my worst. In Paris, I had to do something that I didn’t want you to see. I had to kill those First Ones. Nobody wants their loved ones to see them do something like that, even if it’s for a noble reason or a good cause. Afterwards, I was ashamed and disgusted that I couldn’t find a better solution to the problem. I simply acted. So I have been avoiding you. I love you, Sabine, but I am a monster, and I don’t want you to see my darkest side because I detest it. You may speak again.”
Her compulsion lifted, as I stared at her in surprise. Was I more amazed that she had said she was ashamed, or that she told me she loved me? I couldn’t tell.
“Do you really love me?” I could barely believe she had said it. All these months of following her like a lost puppy, and the whole time I’d had no idea that she felt like that about me.
She took my hand in mine, and her coal-black eyes gazed into my soul. “Yes, Sabine, I really love you. That is why I was so angry that Hannah changed you. I wanted to keep you from this dark world.” She stepped forward, took the back of my hair in her hand and pressed my mouth to hers. Her kiss was ferocious; I felt her creamy red lipstick rubbing onto my face. Her lips were firm and her tongue felt slightly rough as she explored my mouth.
She was my mistress, and I wanted her to have every part of me. I could feel my panties becoming wet under the maid’s dress, as her free hand wandered to my left breast and fondled the nipple through the satiny black fabric of my dress. I swooned slightly as she broke away, wanting more of her, the same as every time she came near me.
My heart felt so full that it might burst, and I picked up the drink she had made me.
“What about Hannah?” I knew it was none of my business but I wanted to know.
“I love her, too,” she said.
I nodded in agreement. There was something so snuggly and lovable about Hannah.
“Do you think she’ll ever let us out of here?” I wondered.
“I will find out.” Monique banged o
n the door and bellowed, “We’re good, Hannah!”
There was no response. It was several minutes later when Hannah finally unlocked the door.
“Are you two definitely speaking again?” she asked. We both nodded.
“Why did you not let us out sooner? Couldn’t you hear me?” Monique asked.
“I had to leave so you couldn’t compel me to open the door, Mistress. Sorry.”
“Of course, I’ll have to spank you for your behavior. If you’d wanted to get us to talk, there were less drastic ways of doing it.”
Hannah nodded. “Which cane would you prefer, Mistress?” she asked sheepishly.
“I already have one on my desk from earlier. Come with me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Later that evening, while I was sitting on my bed, thinking about the day, I heard a scraping sound. I looked at the door and noticed a note had been pushed through it.
My room. Now.
I wondered why she hadn’t knocked on the door, but I guessed that Monique loved intrigue too much.
I left the room and went to hers, then knocked on her door. My stomach felt like it was trying to turn into a mist. Hannah opened the door and stepped aside so I could come in. Monique was sitting in the high-backed chair beside her bed.
“Over here, Sabine, I wish to show you something.” She indicated for me to get onto the bed. I climbed up, marveling at how luxurious the mattress was and how shiny and crisp the satiny sheets were.
“Take your panties off, both of you.” The instruction sent thrills to my pussy as I contemplated what she might be planning. I discarded my panties on the floor, feeling bare and vulnerable in only my nightdress.
“Sabine, I want you to lick Hannah’s clit.”
I’d long since gotten over the fact that Monique liked to watch Hannah and me fuck each other. After Hannah lay on the bed, I parted her legs and looked at her glistening dark pink slit. I leaned down reverentially, feeling as though I was being permitted to touch something sacred. When my outstretched tongue reached the warm, smooth hood around Hannah’s clit, I was excited. I rarely got to take care of my mistress, and now I remembered just how soft and hot she was, as my tongue ran over her inner folds in several long strokes, before I settled to lapping at her with the tip of my tongue. Her musky, sexy taste was divine, and I noticed her juices trickling out of her hole as I continued working on her clit.
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