Masters of the Castle: Witness Protection Program

by Maren Smith

  “Not until I say,” he cautioned, and she fought hard to be obedient. The problem was, he never said. He left her there, perched on that razor’s edge while he turned his attention back to the next person waiting on his bench.

  By the time he sent the last guest sniffling off to bed with welts on her bottom, and Eden’s fellow employee sulking off to the Rainbow Room with demerit in hand, Eden was so aroused, so cued to come that she was terrified she would the very next time he touched her.

  “Supper time,” he announced.

  Sadistic. Bastard.

  She followed him to the dining hall on legs that wobbled. Joining the line, he took a plate for himself, but when she tried to follow suit, he took it from her and put it back. “Go to the kitchen and tell Cook Connie that I have sent you for the largest piece of fresh-peeled ginger root she has available.”

  It was a good thing he’d taken the plate from her hands when he had. Otherwise, Eden might have dropped it. It would have fallen alongside her stomach. Her right knee buckled instead, but she caught herself on the edge of the buffet table so she wouldn’t fall. “B-but… I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Whether you have or not has nothing to do with it.” The look he gave her buckled her knees all over again. “Who is your Master, Eden?”

  Her chest constricted; so did her sex, a sudden convulsion that only amplified a full day’s worth of maddening emptiness. She ached to touch herself. “You,” she whispered, fully aware of the building line of people standing right behind her, a least a couple of whom were more than close enough to overhear this.

  “Do as I’ve told you,” Grimsley told her.

  On shaky legs, Eden left him to go through the supper line alone and walked into the kitchen.

  It was every bit as hustling, bustling, hot and busy as she remembered it being the day before. She found Cook Connie, squatting down in front of the deep sink, her hand resting on the shoulder of the submissive crying underneath it. Tapping her fingers, hoping to wait until they were done with whatever was happening, Eden tried to stay far enough back not to be an intrusion, but no sooner had she identified there was an issue than did Cook Connie seem to know she was there.

  She snapped around, frowning at Eden with eyes that narrowed, and then continued to remained so even after the light of recognition flickered within them. “Did he send you to me?” she asked.

  Shaking her head, Eden relayed the embarrassing message.

  Still frowning, whatever Cook Connie said to the submissive under the sink was not for Eden’s ears. She didn’t catch a word of it, but then the grim cook was walking toward her and Eden quickly got out of the way.

  “This way,” Connie said, leading her to the massive wall of industrial-sized walk-in refrigerators. Eden waited at the door while Cook Connie entered one. When she came out, taking hold of Eden’s hand, she slapped a curved, penis-shaped length of brown ginger into it. Rough, with a bark-like exterior, it didn’t at all look like the last piece she’d seen.

  “You know how to ready it?” Connie asked. When Eden shook her head, the cook took her back to the sink and parked her in front of it. “Come along, Bianca,” she told the woman still huddled underneath it. When she offered her hand, the woman crawled out and Connie led her away. A few moments later, she returned to slap a carrot peeler into Eden’s hand. “Take off all the skin and, wherever you see these rough spots from past cuts, trim them smooth. This, here,” she showed Eden the base where the edge of the root curled into a sizeable bulge, “you only peel to this point. This is where your bung will naturally want to grip. Don’t worry about the rest of the skin down here. Be careful around this thin part here; don’t you dare break it off. If you do, I’ll make you start over and you’ll be catchin’ my switch for your wastefulness. Understand?”

  Nodding, Eden went to work. Cook Connie lingered only until she was sure her directions were understood and then, with a bellow back at the kitchen, “You know what you’re supposed to be doing, get to it!” she headed back to her office to deal with the submissive she’d left there.

  Hands trembling, Eden peeled until that spicy-smelling root was as smooth as she could make it. The whole piece was easily six inches in length, thick and curved, with the end destined to be inserted round enough to be quite scary. Her hands shook as she turned it over in her hands, smoothing and shaping where she needed to, but not enough to diminish the size. It wasn’t as if the whole thing was too big; just that one end. The girth diminished quickly after that and, of the two, the bulbous half was much bigger than the part Grimsley was going to punish her with. She supposed she ought to be grateful for that, but all she could think about, as she palmed the newly peeled root and made her way back out of the kitchen, was how much it had burned the first time he’d done this to her.

  Having filled his plate, Grimsley was waiting for her at the door to the Masters’ private dining room. Root hidden in her hands, she quickly ducked her head as she slipped past him.

  He made her eat off his plate with that piece of root sitting in her lap, a constant, pungent reminder of what was coming. It was all she could do not to squirm, and the way Grimsley kept directing her wasn’t making it easy to forget.

  Dinner was cheesy chicken in a crispy parmesan crust, garlicky green beans and potatoes, with a salad slaw speckled with nuts and sweetened with raisins, and she didn’t get a choice about what she ate or when. That was new. She’d never had someone feed himself a bite of slaw and then direct her to eat the same. She’d never had someone cut himself a bite of chicken, before cutting another for her and watching while she ate it. It was the epitome of control. It should have been grating, but it wasn’t. It felt caring, instead. He made sure she ate enough and that what she ate was well-rounded. The food was delicious, even the green beans which she normally didn’t care for and which, under any other circumstance, she wouldn’t even have tried. And all the while, the root sat in her lap. Smelling. Reminding.

  Halfway through the meal, she noticed her leg was jiggling rapidly up and down and she couldn’t make it stop longer than a few seconds at a time.

  “Dessert?” Grimsley asked, when she returned from clearing their empty plate away.

  She was too nervous. She shook her head, her hands shifting that root back and forth between them. Her whole body shivered with anticipation.

  Had he noticed? His dark eyes remained hooded but that slight smile was back, playing at the corners of his normally stern mouth.

  “Let’s go home, then.”

  Her belly twitched, a reflexive flinch that tugged from her navel to her nipples and all the way down through the sheath of her pussy. He wasn’t taking her back to the Little Maids’ dormitory. She knew that without needing to ask.

  Ginger root concealed in her hands the entire way, she followed Grimsley back to his private apartment. For a change, she did not bump into him when he paused to unlock the door. Her eyes were on his back the entire time. She could sense him; with every inch of her skin, she knew exactly how far away from her he was every step of the way. And it only got worse once they were inside.

  He held out his hand.

  Flesh tingling, she gave him the ginger root she had peeled.

  “Go into the bathroom. You’re to make yourself ready, and I do mean I want you clean. Do you understand? Every single part.”

  Looking from him to the ginger root in his hand, Eden walked into the bathroom. When she flicked on the light and caught that first look of herself, she almost laughed out loud. Her face was flushed, but her eyes were huge. She looked both excited and scared. Coupled with knees that kept trembling so hard it was a wonder they didn’t knock, she imagined she more closely resembled a condemned prisoner climbing gallows steps than a woman about to be ravished by one who was, quite possibly, the man of her dreams.

  Stripping out of her uniform, she turned on the shower and then, because seeing her clothes crumpled on the floor of his tidy bathroom seemed hugely disrespectful, she fol
ded her clothes and laid them on the lid of the toilet. She wasn’t sure if she ought to put them in the laundry hamper and yet, somehow, she also doubted if she’d be putting them back on again tonight.

  Climbing into the shower alone, after what they’d done here earlier, was nothing short of invigorating torture. She stepped in under the spray, but she could feel Grimsley there before her. Tipping her head back under the warm pouring water, she could feel the way he had stood here with his feet on these very tiles and his hands braced against the wall. She soaped herself up, but in her mind, she saw again how the water had cascaded down off his lean body, following in the lines and valleys of every well-defined muscle that made him. She washed her face, her hair, and put her own soapy fingers in places her fingers had never before wandered in a quest for ‘clean.’

  Her body tried so very hard to tell her they weren’t her fingers at all. They were his. It would have been such an easy thing to take an extra minute or two and let herself come. She so badly wanted to, but in her ear, she heard him whisper: Don’t you dare come before I say. Because her orgasms did not belong to her. They belonged to him.

  Submission was a gift, someone had once said. Not to her, but she’d seen it on a meme, posted online for all the world to marvel at and either agree or become offended. Eden had liked the saying, but though she thought she had at the time, it wasn’t until this very moment when she turned into the spray to rinse herself clean of soap, ignoring the clamoring wants of her aching pussy, that she truly did understand it. Yes, to some, submission was a gift. But it was also a thank you that she gifted to Grimsley each and every time he extended his dominance over her. It wasn’t just her orgasms that belonged to him. It was her body. It was her mind and her soul. It was everything that she was, and it was all for him, because maybe it had only been for just a couple of days, but already she couldn’t imagine returning to any kind of life without this in it. She owed him for that. She owed him the very best of her, starting with her obedience. If only she were better at it.

  Eden pulled her hands from her body. Locking her fingers behind her head, she stood under the spray with the heat of the water running in trickles all down her, concentrating on keeping her breathing steady and even in between the drops dripping off her nose and onto her lips. Concentrating on how she was going to be good through all he might do to her tonight, both the things she knew and the ones she didn’t.

  She never heard him and yet, somehow, she knew it when she ceased to be in that bathroom alone. Shivering under the full heat of the water, she turned to find him watching her with that piece of ginger in his hand.

  Her whole body shivered all over again. Her breasts grew heavy, the tips of each tightening nipple aching as they peaked.

  “Water off,” he said.

  Eden turned the faucet off. Brushing her wet hair back from her face, she faced him as he came to open the door. Her hands only just resisted her shy urge to cover herself. Whether because of her epiphany of only a moment before, she didn’t know, but it was the most exposed she’d ever felt in front of a man.

  He gave the ginger root a twirl, gesturing for her to turn around. The rounded end sparkled when he did that, catching the recessed bathroom lights. He’d lubed it up already.

  Her pussy pulsed and throbbed, sending faint echoes of every beat humming through her womb. She turned, placed her hands upon the wall and bent forward when he told her to. Her pussy flushed hot, the folds of her sex pulsing as the cool tips of his fingers caressed down between her buttocks, seeking and finding the entrance there. She rolled her lips when he pushed, inserting a finger inside her. Already slick with whatever lubrication he’d used, it went easily, slipping right up inside her. In, then out. Then two fingers in, and promptly out again.

  She hummed, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead to the wet tiles as she endured. It wasn’t a hardship. On his third impaling thrust, still two fingers, still pushing only just deep enough to gradually relax the tightness, her hips began to push back. She tried to hold still—he hadn’t said she could move, so she didn’t want to make anything he was doing more difficult. She didn’t want him to have to admonish her or, worse, stop altogether. But she couldn’t help it. Her hips were like someone else’s rocking back as he pushed in, wanting to feel him deeper and deeper still. He twisted his fingers inside her and she locked her knees to keep them from sinking out from under her. She covered her mouth with both hands, but still her moan echoed through his bathroom, obscene with all the naked desire she could not otherwise verbalize.

  He pulled his fingers out and the slick head of the ginger root took their place. “Deep breath.”

  She breathed in.

  “Push back against me.”

  She did, grunting once as she felt herself opening to accept the girth of the invading object. She buried her face against the tiles as it hit that point of resistance when her body cried ‘enough,’ and she felt that pinch of discomfort just before the tightness of her yielded. She didn’t just accept the root, she sucked it up inside her, all the way to the bulb of the unpeeled base.

  The cool tingle began instantly. Slow-heating burn followed close behind.

  Taking hold of the base, Grimsley pulled until the widest part was again at that point of supreme resistance. It wasn’t as bad as before, but it still hurt. “Look at me.”

  Swallowing hard, Eden made herself open her eyes, but she didn’t want to. She knew as soon as she locked her gaze with his, he was going to read in her everything that it was too soon to say out loud. Thank you was the least of what she had to say. I love this hovered right on the tails of her gratitude, and it was too closely joined to I think I love you.

  God forbid he saw that. She wasn’t ready to face that, but obedience was everything in moments like this, with his hand cupping and squeezing her bottom and that ginger root burning her up inside. Look at him, he had said, so she did and promptly grew lost in his eyes.

  “I have thought of you like this all day long,” he confessed. “I know exactly what I want to do. Some parts you might not like, but I am going to do them anyway and I am going to enjoy it. So remember that, if it helps, but also know, just because I am enjoying it, if it becomes too painful, I want you to use your safeword. Can I trust you to do that?”

  Eden nodded, every nerve centered on the burn and the fullness, particularly when he let his hand wander back down between her buttocks to take hold of the root and give it a few practice thrusts. In and out, shallow and steady, pressing in deep for a moment just before he let go again.

  “Grab a towel.” He backed away, as if he were as reluctant to let her go as she was to be released by him. “Coffee will be ready in ten minutes. After that, I think it will be time for bed.”

  The delicious intent of that phrase went straight to her clit. Please, oh please, she begged to herself after he had left. Tonight, please let him come to bed with me.

  Chapter 15

  Grimsley savored his after-dinner coffee, sipping slowly from his preferred seat at the table. Eden sipped hers kneeling naked on a pillow at his feet.

  He kept the conversation light. He knew what she had done today, as she’d done most of it right by his side. So, he asked about other things. Things that weren’t in her admission or employment forms, like: When did she first suspect she might be into the lifestyle? And, did she always know she was submissive?

  For every question she answered—and she answered them all; there was no real concern that she wouldn’t—he rewarded her by giving his own answer to the same. He shared himself with her, something he’d only ever done with one person here at the Castle. Cook Connie, the relationship he had with her was as close as he’d let himself get to anyone after his divorce. But while he was her Dom upon occasion, they were not play partners. Cook Connie had never come to grips with her secret submissive self. She kept that part of her locked up tight and, unless it was triggered by stress to emerge, she never let anyone see it.

  Still, Grims
ley knew it was there. He knew how to deal with it, and he also knew that once those triggers had passed and Connie put her clothes back on, he would not be invited to talk about it afterward. He and Connie were a lot alike in that regard. They were both dominant souls and neither of them welcomed the closeness of others. Not until Eden. When it came to Eden, all Grimsley could think about was closeness.

  This right here, this kneeling at his side and taking bites off his fork—this was intimate connection the likes of which he hadn’t known he was missing.

  Even more intimate was answering his questions about her past, her secrets, and that part of herself that she kept hidden way down deep inside her. He willingly returned the favor, giving back every intimate secret he had to share in turn. He told her about his divorce. He told her about his profession in his past life. He even told her about the one aspect of his job that he found the most rewarding—identifying those submissives most at risk for abuse and sending them into Cook Connie’s very capable keeping. Those were things he didn’t even share with Marshall.

  When the coffee was gone and at last the hour was right, he took her by the hand, helping her to her feet, and led her across what few feet of distance separated his dining table from his living room sofa. He set out the straight-backed chair, the same one he’d used the night before, the start of a tradition that he hoped would continue for years to come.

  “But I didn’t do anything wrong today,” she protested, more puzzled than truly upset.

  “No, you didn’t,” Grimsley agreed, taking his seat and unbuttoning the cuff of his long white sleeve. Her eyes followed it as he began to roll first one and then the other up past his elbow. “I’m not spanking you because of anything you did or failed to do. Tonight, I’m spanking you because I enjoy it.”