From behind Elise, the voluptuous Sandra reached out to take the packages spilling from Laney arms. “What in god’s name did you bring?” she asked.
“Presents.”
“Presents?” Sandra’s blue eyes lit with interest.
“And wine, some cheese I bought at the deli, and Greek olives.”
“Oh, I see, you’re trying to make me fat. I’m on a diet, you know,” Sandra said
“You can diet tomorrow,” Laney crossed the threshold into the foyer. “How often is it that we get together?” She hugged Elise first, feeling the tickle of erotic excitement she brought with her bloom, then went on to melt into Sandra’s soft body. She stroked her long blonde hair and gave her an affectionate kiss on the cheek.
“You both look so lovely…” Laney said, on backing off. She had to fight back tears.
“Laney, it’s just the three of us, you can cry if you want,” Elise said.
Laney took a deep breath, and shook her head. “No, not tonight. Tonight I’m not going to cry. Life moves on and mine will, too,” she breezed by them both on the way to the kitchen. “Tonight I plan to drink some wine and laugh with my friends.” She turned back as she reached the kitchen door. “Now it’s time to open your presents.”
***
The fire in the grate had turned into glowing embers. Three empty bottles of wine stood like small sentinels on the coffee table. The cheese and the olives, along with Elise’s salad and Sandra’s cold-cuts had been devoured an hour before. Now nourished, happy and just a little drunk, the trio sat on the floor before the hearth, their backs resting against the sofa and two facing leather chairs, the table between them. The warm air was like a liquid bath around them, sensuous, but alarming, because it signaled an erotic mood they might all have reason to fear. They were best friends, but they’d been keeping secrets—several months of secrets. Maybe it was Erik Priestly’s death that made them close in on themselves. Laney had been their rock, their leader, and she’d crumbled like an ancient ruin when her husband died. The three became islands of their own making, afraid to talk, to touch, to laugh as they had before, driven into their private worlds where no one could disturb them.
After having opened Laney’s presents—music boxes from Denmark she’d picked up on a recent business trip—an unsettling silence gathered around them like a heavily laden cloud. The music from the prettily decorated boxes had been haunting, not the gay melodies Laney remembered when she chose them. Clair de Lune had never sounded quite so sad. But it was more than just the sad notes that quashed their merry reunion. Not since the funeral had they been together like this. Yet, it wasn’t just the recollection of that last meeting that colored their mood, but something that reached even further back.
“Do you ever think about the island?” Laney interrupted the quiet. She words slipped in, almost unbeknownst to her, as if she’d hadn’t really spoken them and they were still dancing in her mind. But with just the tiniest ripple of discomfort sweeping their intimate conclave, she knew that she had voiced her question and it had hit a nerve.
“No, I never think about the island,” Elise jumped in. She grabbed her wine glass and took another long drink of her Chablis, fidgeting nervously with her funky skirt.
“Really? I wonder why,” Laney mused. She wasn’t really asking for an answer.
Elise looked troubled, while Sandra’s gleaming eyes surveyed them both. “I don’t believe that,” she chimed in with an accusation aimed directly at Elise.
She backed up instinctively. Elise could look prim and proud—something her new casual wardrobe tried to contradict, and now woefully failed to do. The modest, self-effacing Elise reemerged.
“Elise, I don’t believe you,” Sandra said bluntly, her eyes lit strangely now. “Things have happened…I sense they have for you, too. I don’t think you can rid yourself from its influence any more than Laney and I have been able to do.”
“Well, this is a switch,” Laney looked at Sandra a bit surprised. She could feel her friend’s fear as a layer of goosebumps spread like a rash across her arm.
At that moment, a flame burst from the fire, its flickering light dancing across Sandra’s face. Something eerie, something wicked seemed to sweep through the room. Sandra hugged her arms as if she were shivering cold while Elise looked on with alarm and Laney’s vibrant expression pressed her friend for answers.
“I’m not sure the island has influenced me at all,” Elise said, defensively, as her gaze moved from one to the other.
“You don’t you remember what happened on Marquis Island?” Laney tried again.
“Of course, I do,” she shot out, as if she was trying hard to forget. “What good is it to talk about…”
“We get stranded in a storm,” Sandra cut her off, “the boat won’t start, and suddenly we’re captive to Jason, Matthew and Erik, imprisoned in a strange house with that strange caretaker Archibald Devane and his vile book.” Suddenly she’s a little dreamy, staring trace-like into the fire. “Chapter by chapter we followed the path of some mysterious Marquis, and were turned into sex slaves…stripped, bound, beaten…used …” Each word and her voice softened a little more.
“Sandra, dear, do you think we could forget?” Elise tried again to stop her, speaking plainly, but maybe a little too curt.
“I want to talk about it,” she declared, but her declaration was met with silence. Sandra looked up. “I have to talk about it. It’s impossible to forget—you’d think by now…. If I mention it to Jason, he just shrugs it off and when the three of us have been together—which has hardly happened—it sits like an elephant in the room that no one sees.”
“As I recall, Sandra,” Laney said, “you and Elise were both quick to write the experience off when I brought it up a few months after we got back.”
“Well, that was a stupid thing to do,” Sandra said flatly. “Although maybe that day, it wasn’t stampeding through my mind. But it has often enough since.”
“Really? Like how often?” Laney asked.
“Often enough that we shouldn’t be sweeping it under the rug like that vacation from hell didn’t exist.”
“You thought it was hell?” Laney probed.
Sandra waited to answer, then shrugged. “Depends on my mood.”
“And what has made your mood so dour today?” Elise asked.
Sandra’s tone changed. Her blue eyes danced with amusement and her lips formed a pouty smirk. She made them wait, their anticipation turning the thick, fragrant air electric.
“I saw Essex yesterday.”
“What!” Laney leaned forward, while Elise’s eyes shot open.
Sandra sat back and smiled smugly, her fleshy body seemed to jiggle with satisfaction. Now she had their attention. She stared directly at Elise, whose eyes still shone with agitated fear.
“You remember, don’t you?” Sandra said. “He enslaved you, Elise, the way Darius enslaved me and that nasty Mistress Gina turned Laney’s world on end.”
Elise appeared to shake off her alarm. “Of course, I remember him, Sandra,” Elise spoke ardently in an attempt to placate her troubled friend. Of course, she remembered Essex, the proper gentleman, the sadist, the master who bound her to a rack, beat her body raw and fist-fucked her ass to an orgasm she could never drive from her thoughts. Essex, who with Master Darius had branded all three women as properties, as slaves forever in the world of Marquis Island. “And you’ve seen him?”
“Yes.”
“How did that happen?” Elise was now all ears. Her heart was feverishly thumping, and her pussy clenched and moistened…just the sound of Essex’ name…
Laney seemed hardly surprised at all that the man would reappear in the world of their real lives. In fact, she was surprised that this hadn’t happened sooner.
“You remember, Elise,” Sandra spoke, “when you said you wanted to have a tattoo added to your brand, something to disguise it?”
“I never did,” Elise said.
“Well, I tr
ied to. I went to three tattoo artists. The first acted like he was scared of it, the second man just shook his head and said he didn’t do that kind of work, the third recognized the style of brand. He touched it admiringly and said something like, ‘This is a slave brand, isn’t it?’ The look in my eyes must have given me away because I know I didn’t answer him. Then he said, ‘You don’t tamper with a brand like this.’ I was spooked. I finally blurted out something stupid like, ‘How do you know that?’ His twisted smile made me want to run for cover. Like any minute I’d have whips and floggers raining terror down on me. I was so horny, I could hardly stand myself. In fact, I masturbated as soon as I got back in my car. Right in the parking lot behind the tattoo parlor, next to that old surplus store on 8th St.. I didn’t care if the neighborhood drunks were staring at me.”
“My god,” Laney gasped quietly. “When did this happen?”
“Year and a half ago, after we had that little get-together.”
“And Essex?” Elise’s questioning brought their attention back to the man. She had to know more, as the memory of this master emerged from the sanctuary of her deepest memories where it lay lurking like a haunting dream.
“He came to me about six, maybe eight months, after I tried to have the brand altered. I have no idea if the two incidents were somehow connected; I never asked. I was sitting at that little sidewalk café by the new city center building, you know the one that changed hands a couple of months ago… Boogey’s, Bogarts… something like that…” Sandra looked at Elise’ and Laney’s shining faces, sensing their curiosity and feeling the intense passion behind their interest. The fire kept roaring back to life, then dying away to embers. It seemed like a night for ghost stories and spine-chilling memories; and they were only just getting started. “I was drinking coffee, thinking about the customer I’d just interviewed for a remodel of her kitchen, suddenly a man sits down beside me. I turn and see Essex, as straight as an arrow, as straight and formal as I remember him.” Sandra stared at Elise. “I couldn’t help but think of you.”
“Did he mention me?” Elise asked.
“No. He said he thought I might need him. That he was in town from time to time. By then, my eyes were bugged out and my heart had jumped into my throat and was banging about like a raging bear. I was almost sick to my stomach. But I sat perfectly still as if he’d ordered me to. He reached for my hand and covered it for a moment, then he ran one finger along the back, tracing a line up my arm. I was weak from trembling. I had this really strange feeling that what had happened on the island had not ended there, but had just gone on and I was trapped, a trapped slave, caught in the web of those men and women.” Sandra’s voice was terrified and very quiet, and her eyes had a faraway look as she dwelt on her recollection. Then she suddenly snapped-to, locking on to Laney first, who jumped back a bit, then Elise, who simply stared remotely.
“You’ve been seeing him, haven’t you?” Laney said.
“Four times now. I went home that first day and told Jason. I thought sure he would think I was nuts and tell me no way was his wife going to submit to another man, even if it was Essex. Instead, he looked at me really strangely and said, that yeah, maybe I should see him. I should let him have his way with me. ‘Are you serious,’ I exploded on him. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You can’t deny what happened, Sandra. You were hot, really fucking hot. You go see him, and you bring that heat home to me.’”
“Jason actually said that?” the dumbfounded Elise gasped.
“Yes, he did.”
“And you’ve seen him four times,” Laney chimed in, “So what does he do?”
“He flies in on business and calls, telling me to meet him. Once was at his hotel room, the other times were in the homes of his friends. He likes the private houses better, says it’s more intimate—which obviously it is.” She stopped talking, looking up nervously at both women.
“So…” Laney had to prompt her.
“So, he makes me take off my clothes and kneel for him. Then, depending on his mood, I wait on him like a serving wench. It’s kind of strange in a strange house, to be walking naked into the kitchen to make Essex a drink and find the lady of the house drinking her coffee or making dinner. The last woman told me she wanted to see me after I was punished. I was so embarrassed that I practically ran from the room.
“That afternoon, Essex gave me an enema in front of the woman’s husband. He had a whole room outfitted for medical play. It was cold and creepy and erotic and… oh, I don’t know, it had me shivering.”
“Really, Sandra, no…” Elise uttered through her mesmerized stupor.
“I knelt on a hardwood bench inside the sterile room, my ass in the air, my breasts crushed against the wood, strapped down with a belt, while a wave of hot soapy water swept inside my body, rushing like rapids into my bowels, going deep, like the water was going to fill me up and I’d burst at the seams. I got all confused and disoriented. The rushing water made me feel so desperate that I started to cry. After a while, the feelings seemed to settle, but the pressure was steadily building. That’s when Essex started beating my ass with a cane. I started to scream and they gagged me with a thick rubber hose, and he kept on beating my bottom. I was sure that I’d explode, but then suddenly I’m jerked to my feet and shoved into the bathroom. I was as weak as a kitten once I expelled the water, but my body was hungering for more. The pain and humiliation aroused me more than anything I remember doing on the island. It far surpassed Essex’ previous visits. A few minutes later, I was strung up in the center of that white-tiled room and the two men, Essex and his host, came on me from both sides, fucking my ass and cunt at the same time till I was delirious. I guess they’d removed the gag at some point, although I don’t remember exactly when. I don’t know how many times I came; it seemed like one long stream of crushing spasms. I couldn’t stop coming, and I could barely walk when it was over.
“What I remember most,” her blue eyes blazed darkly, “—and this is so funny—” funny, but she wasn’t laughing and she didn’t look a bit amused, “I looked toward the door as I’m finally coming back to life, just before the men pull out, and there’s the wife I met in the kitchen staring at us. She’s drinking her coffee, all dressed up like a perfect suburban housewife, and there’s nothing odd at all about seeing a naked woman dangling from her ceiling, with cum juice dripping down her ass and legs.”
It took a long while before Laney spoke. “This happened yesterday?”
The trance-like spell Sandra had maintained throughout her story seemed to break and she giggled nervously, “Yes.”
Laney looked at her strangely… “So you want this, Sandra, or what?”
“I don’t know,” the emotional blonde seemed close to tears. “I only know that I can’t stop. I can’t tell Essex no.”
“And what about Jason? You told him what happened?” Elise asked.
“Not exactly. Sure, he found out how I spent my afternoon, and was all smiles, all cock by the time I finished telling him the story. He started fucking me in the kitchen, then we moved to the living room. We fucked like a pair of minks until dawn, and I slept until just before I came over here. I guess I still barely believe it happened. There were other times, but yesterday was definitely the most extreme.”
Only the sound of the softly snapping fire was heard for several minutes as Sandra’s revelations sunk in and she finally added, tearfully, “I’m so glad we decided to meet, I had to tell someone, and you’re the only two people who would understand.” She looked at them for comfort, approval… something she sought with her deep, blue teary eyes.
She waited for comments, but none came.
“Didn’t they say that their influence in our lives wouldn’t stop on the island?” she reminded them. “We didn’t believe them at first, but then this happens to me…” She stared back and forth from Elise to Laney. “Oh, please, come on now. You want to tell me that nothing unusual has happened to either of you since Marquis Island?”
Eli
se sighed audibly. “I need another glass of wine,” she said abruptly. “This one is wearing off.” She hopped to her feet, moving swiftly toward the kitchen and reemerged with another bottle of Chablis. “Anyone else need to soften the blow, huh?” She poured herself a glass, while Sandra turned down the offer and Laney held out her glass for more.
“Elise, you’re flushed,” Laney said, as she sat back.
“Am I?”
“Thinking of Essex?” Sandra asked. She wryly turned the phrase.
“Actually no, dear, I’m not thinking of Essex at all.”
“Matthew?” Laney probed. Elise had a history of being obtuse.
“Matthew?” said as if she could hardly remember that Matthew was her husband. “No, no.” She shook her head. “He’s been in San Francisco a lot in the last eight months.”
“Has something soured between you?” Laney wondered.
“I don’t know.” She half smiled, answering the question with the vague reply. “But you’re right, Sandra… life has not been the same since the island. Like you, I thought that world was just a break from reality, but the last eight months…there’s no Essex,” her voice was now musical and dreamy, “but, but… I guess I can’t keep the secret forever, can I?” The diminutive Elise liked to appear mysterious and uncertain. She was quiet, introspective, brooding at times, a little like a scared mouse. Her innate beauty soared with her music, and when she was sexually engaged, she could be the tigress. Until now… as far as anyone knew, she’d reserved the tigress for Matthew—and those few public moments on Marquis Island.
“Can’t keep what secret, Elise?” Laney spoke fiercely.
Elise smiled. She was thinking hard, looking for a way to keep from turning the night into her true confessions, but that wasn’t really possible. Maybe she was as torn inside as Sandra apparently had been. She didn’t know about Laney, although her intuition said that Laney was hiding something, too. Elise took her time; she always liked the drama behind a really good story. Although maybe this time, she didn’t need more drama, her monstrous story would stand on its own, drama enough. She got up and moved to the record player, one Matthew had bought at a flea market a couple of years before. It still played the old vinyl records beautifully. Elise loved to hear the loping sound of the turning disc, the slight lisp in the music, the scratches in the wearing grooves. Chopin’s Etudes. She could play everyone herself by heart, but tonight she was content to listen to her favorite recording.
The Marquis' Book of Pleasure & Property of the Marquis Page 16
