by Aya DeAniege
“Your mother was ill, a trip to the hospital for the medicine would have been quite expensive,” Nathaniel said. “Your siblings were all of working age and pulling in double shifts to impress the women they wanted to marry. No one had time to work a side job to earn the medicine.”
“That's illegal,” I said.
“But a necessary part of the slum economy. It happens, for the most part, the government looks the other way. Why police people who are sacrificing their own time, risking their lives, to get medicine for their sick parents?"
It's true. I've seen the files. Every theft is reported, every child that works, ever trade that's made illegally. A computer scours the videos and then reports every incident and attaches the video. Then a human worker dismisses anything that was done for the sake of another.
They call it the pity rule.
“You went to school the day before, worked all night, and then went to school again,” Nathaniel paced back and forth in front of me. “It's that stamina I want to bring out, because you didn't waver in school until she debated with you as to whether or not Pluto is a planet. Even then, you had the evidence, but she refused to see reason.”
“Lost myself a teaching job,” I muttered.
“We have lots of teachers, lots of doctors and nurses too. Only the best of the best get in now, and no one is told until they are removed from the scholarship.”
I went a little cold at that. “So I was always bound for labour?”
“If you had made it through school? Who knows? Others who aren't accepted into university find a way somehow. You could have worked at the Program building, or taken a job as an accountant or auditor, even joined the policing force. There aren't a lack of jobs for our smartest candidates. But you hadn't slept, and you called your teacher a word that even makes Mr. Wrightworth hesitated before he says it. So no one forgot."
“But if everything is videotaped, why was I marked as a thief?" I demanded.
“Slum justice must be allowed to happen. It gives poor folk a belief of control over their lives. It also shows them that the government can't see all, because if they knew they were watched all day, every day, there would be mass hysteria. We tried it in a small slum on the west coast, up north. It did not end well, but your history books don't record that."
“But I didn't do it!”
“I know, just like the computer knew. Which is why six months after you were accused and marked, the man in question lost his job and debt was added to his plate. They had to watch him carefully, with a human watching him all day, and have another on standby to walk in on him as he stole.”
“That seems excessive, actually,” I muttered
“You could have also taken a job like that," Nathaniel countered. "And it wasn't excessive. He stole a great deal. The man who ran you over, you may not be aware, but he went into work about two years later and tried to program his machine as he had every other morning. Something went wrong. It ran him over, then backed up and did it again."
My mouth fell open. “That's really excessive!”
“Crippling someone for turning down your sexual advances is not something the government would look the other way on.”
“Then why didn't they,”—I gritted my teeth and tried not to growl—“Because then we'd know we were being watched.”
“There are programs in hospitals for people just like you. Free programs where you could have gone and they would have found a solution for you,” Nathaniel stopped pacing just in front of me. “Which brings me to one of my rules.”
“Rules?” I asked.
“Yes, the rules. The first is that you may not come without my permission. The second is that you may not drink alcohol without my permission. The third is that you are to trust Sir.”
“You being Sir?” I asked, motioning to Nathaniel.
“Yes, me being Sir,” he responded. “Nathaniel is a name that can belong to a man and men are fallible in your eyes. You will call me Sir during play, and most of the time. In public, I am Nathaniel. And you will be Darling.”
“My name is Izzy,” I said.
“Your name is Isabella Martin. Izzy made a mistake that cost her a great deal. Izzy was run over by a man for standing up for herself. Izzy was abandoned by the man she should have been able to trust," Nathaniel studied me for a moment as I struggled with my emotions. "Izzy's family sold her off for a few thousand shy of a hundred because they couldn't deal with her anymore."
I almost started crying, but the emotion turned to rage instead.
“How dare you! They did not sell me off!”
“Your brother didn't get in trouble for signing the contract, in fact, he returned the hero. I set my price to well above the debt you incurred. I want them to know that you have value, just not to them. For poor folk, family is everything, but this is a lesson I need you to learn quickly. In my world, the one you are now going to be a part of? Family will sell you off, stab you in the back, and won't care if they hurt or abuse you for the sake of making a little money off of your cold carcass."
“My family loves me,” I tried to protest.
It was difficult to breathe. There was a sudden weight on my chest and even though air was getting in, it didn't seem to do anything for the burning sensation in my lungs.
“That remains to be seen,” Nathaniel said. “I've upset you, I see.”
“Screw you!”
I'd include what the journal says of the end of that meeting, but it was mainly scribbles and promises to hurt him the way he had hurt me.
“Ah, there's the rage, the anger, the resistance,” Nathaniel said, reaching out to pull me off the stool. “I've brought a stylist in, you will submit to her, or I will beat you black and blue, and then you will still submit to her. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Sir,” I snarled out.
The man smiled ever so slowly. "One day I will call you, and you will come to me. We will begin your training then. For now, we will follow the routine I follow. Friday nights are movie night. Saturdays are game night. Sundays we will go to a meeting, let's call it a meeting. Monday to Thursday is work. But that work will include working out in the gym. You will join me so that I can make certain you are doing things my way.
“You can go.”
Infuriated, I turned and marched to my nightie, still on the floor where I had left it, and snatched it off the cold stone. I pulled the nightie on as I walked towards the door, determined to get out of the room before Nathaniel said something else upsetting.
“Oh, wait," Nathaniel called out.
I stopped walking towards the door but didn't move back towards him. Turning to Nathaniel, I clenched my hands and glared at him.
He walked past the trolley and plucked up a pen as he did so. As he approached me, he grabbed me by the hair, dragging me close. I struggled, and he gave my hair a yank. My whole scalp hurt. With his hand tangled in my hair, I had no choice but to stop struggling, or lose a good portion of my hair. Nathaniel pulled my head so far back that I was looking up at the ceiling as he leaned down casually and wrote something on my leg.
Finally releasing me, he tossed the pen on the cart.
“Now you may go,” he said.
I looked down at my leg, wondering why in the hell he thought it necessary to mar my skin.
'You are beautiful,' was scrawled a little crookedly across my leg. Written left to right, it was done in such a way that every time I went to the bathroom and sat down I would be able to see the words.
You are beautiful, yeah, like I believe that.
Chapter Six
The moment I got back into my rooms, I went to the bathroom to shower. It took me twenty minutes of scrubbing to realize that the pen Nathaniel had used on my leg was not a normal pen. The ink was still just as bright as it had been before. The only change had been a cherry red colouring that came to the flesh I had tried to clean of his words.
I was infuriated by the fact that I had to walk around with those words written on m
y leg. The nightie didn't cover them. A couple of the dresses wouldn't either, by my estimation.
My rage turned to horror when I walked out of the bathroom in a robe and found the stylist waiting for me.
She seemed about as surprised to see me as I was to see her. The woman should have knocked on the outer door and waited, even as a poor person I knew that. She had a little travel suitcase with her, which had all the tools of her trade.
Over the course of three hours she cut my hair—but only two inches or so to remove damaged ends—and waxed my legs, arm pits, and asked the awkward, "trim, or wax?" question before I had another person between my legs.
Apparently, I couldn't even be trusted with an electric trimmer. I don't care how smart Nathaniel thought I as, I had no idea how to hurt myself with an electric trimmer.
Once I was considered made up well enough, the stylist left as abruptly as she had come in. She didn't say anything to me the entire time she was in my rooms besides the question and telling me how to sit or stand so that she could look at me. Nothing friendly about the woman at all.
She was a favourite of Nathaniel's.
Alone finally, I went to the wardrobe and snapped it open. There was no way I was putting the nightie on again. I needed actual clothing. I stared at the clothing offered to me and made a shocked, and mildly disgusted sound.
My day clothing, which had been made up of trousers and t-shirts larger than I was, hadn't been brought back. They had been replaced with dresses. In one size, but all different colours and styles. The styles ranged from the rich person formal gown in a sheer, gauze material that shimmered opalescent, to the much less formal simple cuts of sundresses.
It was either wear a dress or wear the robe.
Angry, I ripped one off the hanger and threw the robe off. On the dress went.
My mother had once tried to force me to wear a dress. I had rolled in the mud with it on, then ripped it off and went naked rather than wear another one. That had been in the slums, though when I was still a young child. My brothers and the other children had found it amusing. The adults who spotted me had laughed all the way to my mother.
Who was not impressed in the least.
I spun to stomp out of the room. The skirt spun with me. Instead of marching right out, I walked to the floor-length mirror by the door.
When I had been given the rooms, the mirror had been covered by a sheet. That first night I had pulled the sheet off the mirror and stared at myself, wondering just what Nathaniel had meant when he had said he wouldn't call me pretty.
The skirt came to just below my knees and flared just slightly. A wide black belt was sewn to the dress just over my stomach. I had to adjust the straps that went up from the top and tied behind my neck. My legs, under the skirt, grazed together as I stopped in front of the mirror.
I couldn't help but stare at myself.
The stylist hadn't altered anything about my look. Yes, she had taken hair off, but it still hung the way it had before she had visited. I looked just the same as I had before, though bereft of hair on my legs. They were silky smooth, sliding so easily over one another. It was very nearly sexual. I couldn't help but run my calves together, sucking in a breath at the feeling that trembled over my nerves.
I thought the colour of the dress was ridiculous. Emerald green, it's colour so vibrant that it couldn't have ever been washed. It just happened that was the dress I had yanked down in my anger. I wasn't one for bright colours, though, in my defense, there weren't any colours that vibrant in the slum. Newly dyed material was saved for important occasions.
The edges of the dress were crisp, it hadn't been sewn together from more than one item, it was all the same colour. There were black flowers embroidered along the hem of the dress.
My eyes followed the embroidery, and I turned on my toes, keeping my face to the mirror as much as possible. On the back of the dress, the embroidery moved upwards slightly. Above the belt there was nothing. My back was bare, the two welts from the cane plainly visible and already dark purple.
Until that moment I had forgotten why my back was aching like that.
“Enjoying the view?” Nathaniel asked from the doorway.
He was leaning on the door frame wearing a sleeveless shirt and a pair of shorts. He wore runners for shoes instead of being barefoot, though the runners were just as new looking as the dress shoes. As he stepped into my room, I scowled.
“I'm sorry, am I not allowed in here?” he asked.
“Not with shoes on,” I said in a snippier tone than I meant to.
Nathaniel stepped backward, over the doorstop. He leaned on the door frame and gave me a look as if to ask if he was far enough away.
“I came to get you for your workout. Best start today instead of putting it off until tomorrow. I didn't think you'd be done with the stylist already.”
“She didn't change anything,” I protested.
“I didn't ask her to.”
“Why?” I asked. “You said that you wouldn't call me pretty, why not have the stylist do her job and change what you don't like?”
“Lift your skirts,” Nathaniel said.
“No, in my room I don't have to do anything like that! You said so!”
“Darling," Nathaniel purred out, smiling just slightly. "Why don't you come over here, so I don't have to shout?"
I moved towards Nathaniel, stopping before him but still on my side of the door. The man smiled, the curl of his lips distracted me as I wondered what he was thinking about.
His hand darted in, grabbed my wrist, and jerked me out of my room. I stumbled past him as he let go of my wrist. I hit the floor, and Nathaniel turned, still leaning as I glowered up at him.
“I did not enter your room with shoes on,” he said with that damned smile.
“Why are you allowed to yank me out?” I asked as I tried to get up.
As I tried, I fell again. I had landed on my bad leg, and the joint didn't want to work properly. I tried again, having to move my leg to the side and lock the knee as my other leg pushed up and off the floor. Nathaniel watched me stand without comment.
“I said I'm not allowed to do anything to you in the bedroom. That doesn't mean I can't walk in, pick you up, pull you out here and beat you for disciplinary matters.”
“A sanctuary doesn't work if you can just remove me whenever you please!”
“If I call on you, you have to leave the rooms," Nathaniel countered. "I will not allow you to hide if I'm to dole out punishment, and you run to your rooms. Though I won't add more to the discipline, if you make me chase you. That could be fun."
Nathaniel pushed off the door frame and approached me. Reaching down as those cold green eyes met my own, he hiked up my skirts.
His eyes never left mine as he asked, “What does it say?”
“You are beautiful.”
He let my skirt drop.
“I like dresses on a woman of your shape. Your walk isn't quite right, but we'll correct that over time. Once it is corrected, we'll teach you how to sway your hips a little more. Whether a man thinks your face is beautiful or not, I can't see anyone arguing over that backside of yours. Especially once you start working out on a daily basis." He reached around me and grasped the underside of my buttocks. "This here will move in with walking and stair climbing, or hiking. Guess what movement is best, if you want full use of your leg?"
“Stair climbing?” I asked, shuddering at the idea.
I could do it, and had for various jobs, but it hurt something awful.
“The more you move, the easier it will be. I'll also be providing you with two pills in the morning. Take them with food. They're multivitamins, one to supplement your diet. The other will help your leg."
“All the posters say multivitamins are useless,” I said.
“What's the third rule?” Nathaniel asked.
I struggled for a moment. “To trust you.”
“No, the third rule is to trust Sir," Nathaniel murmured. "These pills
will help you. There's nothing untoward in them. They are not there to brainwash you or alter your behaviour in any way. They are there to make your body healthier."
“So that you can beat it more,” I responded.
Nathaniel's hands, still on my backside, tightened ever so slightly. I couldn't tell if they tightened in anger or something else as he finally slid away.
“Some believe a sub's only use is to serve and please his or her Dom," Nathaniel said. "I believe that in every such relationship, just like in a real relationship, it goes both ways. It's not interesting to me if you aren't interested. Yes, I like the idea of playing a scene where you resist, and I still have my way with you. But if I wanted to rape a woman, I could pay a man a great deal less than I paid for you, for an hour with a prostitute.
“I don't want complete submission just because you are bought and paid for. Over time you will submit to me willingly, and because you trust me. I'd rather you not disobey me for the first little bit because I'd rather show you the pleasure first, then the pain. Discipline has to be doled out the moment I am disobeyed. It cannot wait."
“I'm not a dog. I'll remember what I did wrong," I retorted.
“That's not the point. The point is for you to link the discipline with what you just did. It will prevent you from unconsciously linking watching a movie with discipline. It'll help keep this nonsense from happening again."
“What nonsense?”
Nathaniel sighed out. “Why are women so much more difficult than men?”
“That's sexist!”
“That's blaming someone for making a statement,” Nathaniel responded. “Darling, I wouldn't play with you if I didn't find you to be attractive. While some have suggested we should also play without sex getting involved, I can't be a Dom to someone I'm not attracted to.
“If I had wanted your looks to change, as you said, the stylist was here. But this here, the way you look? That's what I want.”
