by Eden Myles
THE DOLLHOUSE SOCIETY
Volume II
RACHAELA
By
Eden Myles
Copyright © 2012 Eden Myles
Published by Courtesan Press
http://courtesanpress.wordpress.com/
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be distributed, shared, resold, posted online, or reproduced in any electronic or hard copy form.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities between actual persons or events is entirely coincidental. This book contains adult content and is intended for a mature readership. All sexual scenarios depicted in this book occur between consenting adults over 18 years of age.
Cover art design by Courtesan Press
***
CONTENTS
The Rules of Conduct Inside the Dollhouse
The Rules of Engagement
Big, Bad Wolf
The War of the Roses
Beauty and the Beast
Bonus Story: Namibia, Six Months Later
***
THE RULES OF CONDUCT INSIDE THE DOLLHOUSE
(Failure to comply with these rules shall result in immediate expulsion from the Dollhouse.)
- No gentleman under the age of thirty shall be permitted to enter the Dollhouse. Gentlemen desiring permanent membership within the Society shall be subject to a trial period lasting no less than one year, after which he will be reviewed for possible permanent inclusion in the Society.
- A gentleman and his courtesan may do anything they wish, so long as it is consensual, tasteful and entertaining. Consensual acts of entertainment within the Dollhouse are hitherto referred to as “plays”.
- “Plays” between a gentleman and his courtesan may not be interrupted in any way or for any reason by a third party. “Play” can only be begun or ended by the parties involved.
- “Plays” shall be conducted only in a designated playroom of the Dollhouse. The only time this rule shall not apply is for a new courtesan’s debutante party, in which “play” shall be conducted in the great room.
- A gentleman is not permitted to touch, address or otherwise acknowledge another gentleman’s courtesan while in the Dollhouse.
- Proper decorum must be observed at all times.
- Courtesans shall not be allowed to imbibe any kind of alcoholic beverages while in the Dollhouse.
- Courtesans shall be shown the utmost respect while in the Dollhouse.
- A new safe word shall be issued at each gathering. When a safe word is used by a gentleman or his courtesan, all “play” shall immediately cease between all the parties involved.
***
THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
“My pet, I have exciting news for you,” Wolf said when he stepped into my office that Monday morning.
I flinched and stopped dismantling the storage box on the desk in front of me. The box contained about two hundred file folders, covering contracts from over seven years ago in the company. I sighed. It was only Monday, seven o’clock in the morning, and already I was annoyed with this week. I hated it when Wolf called me pet. It made me feel like a child when we were nearly the same age, both of us in our late thirties. He poured himself into my power chair, steepled his fingers, and waited for me to ask about his exciting news. I was seriously starting to hate the sight of Wolfgang Beck and I questioned why I had ever taken him on as my partner in the company.
I stopped attacking the box and looked up. He knew I would, of course. It was almost like he counted on me giving in first. Like he was playing some game, only I didn’t know the rules.
He sat there, staring at me, virtually glowing. He wore a dark Italian suit with creases so sharp they could have drawn blood, complete with tie and a waistcoat that hugged the width of his chest and the slimness of his waist like he had been sewn into the clothes just that morning. He was the only man I knew under the age of sixty who regularly wore a waistcoat to work. His hair was a shocking white-blond color, almost surreally brilliant against his ruddy, sun-baked complexion—the end result of icy Germanic genes left to warm under an African sky. He wore his hair long and knotted at the nape of his neck so it twitched when he walked like the tail of a cat.
The first time I’d met Wolfgang Beck, I’d thought he was ugly, like pieces of different men all sewn together, the slim, rangy body of a male stripper, the hard, blade-like face of a cutthroat Wall Street man, the silvery, faintly amused eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy who had just gotten hold of his first Playboy magazine. He normally spoke with a soft, lilting, faintly mocking voice, but he could turn all majordomo in the boardroom in seconds. I half-expected to see him come to work one day with a bullwhip coiled over one shoulder. With Wolf, nothing seemed to fit correctly, and yet it all came together somehow to produce a man who was not exactly classically handsome and yet somehow unforgettable.
Wolf pressed his lips together in a little smirk. He never smiled, only smirked. I figured he was going to throw a curve ball my way. He’d been doing so for the past six months since our partnership had begun, making me scramble to keep up with him as he reorganized the company so it ran like a smooth, fast, efficient locomotive. In the beginning, I’d thought he was just another billionaire playboy messing around. I knew better now. He genuinely loved doing business, he loved the company, he loved the magazine, and he was very good at what he did, which only made me hate him more. “I may have found a courtesan,” he said when he could contain himself no longer.
I stared at him a long, hard moment, thinking maybe he was joking. “Excuse me?”
“I haven’t asked, just yet. And it may take some time for her to decide, but I believe I may have found the one.” His phone went off, probably a call from some celebrity he knew, but he ignored it. This was more important to him than any celebrity.
I was acutely aware of the energy he put off, and of the nice, solid barrier of a desk between us. I felt a prickle of rage, which only ignited my anxiety. I took a deep, calming breath and said, “I don’t know that I want to hear anything about that Dollhouse nonsense…”
His face changed, sharpening in that way he had. It reminded me of the time he promised me an exclusive interview with Oprah Winfrey for the magazine. I hadn’t believed him, of course—why in hell would Oprah give an interview to an African-American men’s magazine?—yet he managed to pull it off and our sales had tripled in less than a month. “This is about the Dollhouse, yes. If the girl says yes, I’ll finally be an active participant in the Society. I’ll be able to play. I wanted to share my potential good news with you, Rachaela. We are friends, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” I answered cautiously. I’m happy you’ve found a little sex slave to play with. I turned my attention back to dismantling the box, stacking file folders on the edge of Wolf’s desk. One of our longtime photographers was insisting his contract had expired and the rights to his shoot had reverted. He wanted to resell it to Ebony magazine, our number one competitor, but I knew better. I knew he was locked in for ten years. We just had to prove it. And right now, I really wasn’t interested in hearing about Wolf’s kinks.
“You don’t sound happy,” Wolf said in an accusing way. “This is very important to me, pet. One of the reasons I came to the States.”
“Jesus,” I br
eathed. “I’m sorry if I’ve insulted your favorite sex club.”
“It’s not a sex club. It’s an exclusive gentleman’s club.”
“Gentleman’s club, then. I’m happy for you, Wolf, thrilled you’ve finally found the one.” I worked at not rolling my eyes. There were a hundred exclusive “gentlemen’s clubs” in the city of New York. All you really needed to get into them was a healthy appetite for sex and a lot of money, both of which Wolf had. Why he was tying himself down to just one club with a lot of weird and outdated rules and regulations, I had no idea. On the other hand, it was none of my business what Wolf did with his free time. “If that’s everything, then I really need to get back to finding that contract.”
He grabbed my hand as I was reaching into the box for another file folder. The strength in his fingers surprised me. I stopped dead in my tracks. Until now, Wolf had never touched me. He had thrown plenty of offers and double entendres my way, and I had successfully deflected them all. I knew he was a cad. You didn’t dress like he did, look like he did, or flaunt your weekend sexcapades unless you were. I also knew that a smart girl never gets involved with a cad. I’d done that with my ex-husband Jerrel, a professional golfer with an ego as big as the package in his pants, maybe bigger. I’d gotten that T-shirt. I wasn’t going back.
Wolf’s eyes flashed beneath his winged brows, the color of storm clouds on a rainy night. “Rachaela, my pet, you don’t understand. You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited for this. I should like you to meet my future courtesan. As my partner and best friend, I should like you to approve of her.”
***
Blaze Magazine was doing remarkably well up until the end. Then the Great Recession rolled in, and my elite, African-American men’s magazine—a magazine that I’d dedicated over ten years of my life to, a magazine that had once been called the black man’s answer to Playboy—had started falling apart. It was a simple enough equation. People were losing their jobs and mortgages. They were turning to the internet for their fixes. Print couldn’t compete.
On the day I realized I was facing the very real possibility of letting some of my staff go—people I had known and worked with for years, people who were more like family than coworkers to me—one of my longtime photographers called. Malcolm told me he and his partner Devon were throwing a holiday soiree at their Upper West Side studio apartment. I’d been in no mood to party, but my daughter Asia insisted I go. She said I needed to get out and clear my head. There are times when I think Asia knows me better than I know myself. I finally gave in, which is how I wound up meeting my partner Wolf.
I’d dressed down in a simple holiday-red cocktail dress. Nearly all of Malcolm’s friends were gay; it hardly seemed worth the trouble. I was there less than ten minutes before a tall, rangy blond stranger started hitting on me. He wore a dark suit and carried a cane with a wolf’s head on it. He spoke with a singsongy British accent I could not place. When I finally got Malcolm aside, I asked him who let the British Viking in who thought he was Barnabas Collins. Malcolm laughed and told me I’d just met the “big bad wolf,” as he and his friends called Wolfgang Beck. He was a South African Namibian of German descent, and one of the bigger landowners in what Malcolm called “The Colony”—a small collection of German immigrants who had taken over Namibia to the late 1880’s to forestall the British encroachment of the region. Malcolm said Beck owned over one billion head of cattle, a vast, one-hundred-thousand acre game reserve for the rich and very bored, and at least three different gold ore mines. He regularly employed over ten thousand people both in Africa as well as in the United States.
I immediately disliked Wolfgang Beck just a little bit more. If it was one thing I’d learned, it was that if you follow the money, it always leads you back to the rich white guy.
I asked Malcolm what Beck was doing in the States, and Malcolm smiled a little and said, “Sex tourism.”
“You must be kidding me.”
“Be careful around him, my dear,” Malcolm warned me with a wise smile. He looked me over in a concerned, fatherly way. “You look like Little Red Riding Hood tonight and there’s a saying among my circle: ‘Everyone take cover when the wolf is on the prowl.’” With a wink and a gracious smile, he went off to find his partner Devon among the melee.
Later that night, Beck tracked me down in the kitchen and said, “Despite what you might have heard, Ms. Lee, I’m not some villain.”
I stiffened at the sound of that weirdly dislocated British/African voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him as I busily uncorked bottles of champagne. I’d decided that I would rather hide out in Malcolm’s kitchen than stand around and wallflower all night, trying to look like I belonged where I didn’t. Malcolm’s friends were a strange lot. They dressed like people from another era, and they all had a certain cohesion I’d never understood. I always felt like an outsider at Malcolm’s parties.
“I’ll have you know, I’ve built over a hundred schools and medical centers all over Namibia and Botswana. I’m also working on the concept of seed villages, small ports of economy all over the Central Plateau. I want to preserve my people’s way of life, yet still improve upon it.”
My people? “Congratulations, Mr. Beck,” I told him. “I’m sure you’re very proud of your accomplishments.”
He paused a moment and then said, “Have I offended you in some way?”
I stopped uncorking and looked up at him. He was big and blond and almost frighteningly imposing. He made me so angry I thought about smashing one of Malcolm’s champagne bottles over his head. “‘My people,’ Mr. Beck? You’re not African. You’re German.”
Beck ignored that and jumped up onto the edge of Malcolm’s custom-made marble countertop. He spread his legs and rested his hands on his knees. He had large, slender, heavily corded white hands. He bit back a smile, looking very much at home, dominating the space around him. “I was born in the Namib Desert, Ms. Lee. How does that not make me African?”
I knew I sounded surly, and I was starting to even feel a little stupid. I was talking to a white man who was more African than I was. “Being born in Africa doesn’t automatically make you African, Mr. Beck.”
He didn’t take offense. “I dare say I’m more African then you are, Ms. Lee.”
“I don’t think so.”
He looked amused, which just made me angrier. “You were born American. Which, by your own definition, means you can hardly call yourself African, can you?”
“I don’t call myself African, Mr. Beck!” I said, deliberately sounding churlish. “It’s African-American, thank you very much.”
“You’re mixed. Bi-racial,” he said. “And very hot. Do you like fucking white men, Ms. Lee?” Mr. Beck asked.
I startled at his words and knocked over the bottle I was uncorking. I immediately set it upright before too much of Malcolm’s very expensive bubbly splattered across his fine Italian tiles. I glared at Beck in horror.
“I feel I should ask for future reference.”
I started walking out of the room.
“Forgive me,” Beck called after me. “I did not mean to frighten you, pet.”
I stopped and turned to face him, my anger boiling over. I’d dealt with his type before. Powerful men like Beck deliberately said inappropriate things in the hopes of mining reactions from those around them—particularly women, whom they naturally assumed were weak. It was the air they breathed. But if you didn’t fan the fire, eventually it went out. “I’m not frightened. I am offended, but not because you call yourself African, Mr. Beck. I’m offended because you’re an overbearing, egotistical, chauvinistic pig of a man, and I would prefer not to associate with men like yourself.”
I started to go again when he said, “You publish Blaze magazine.”
“Yes,” I said, without turning. “I do.”
“A men’s magazine. Otherwise known as lad mags in Afric
a and the UK.” I could hear the creeping satisfaction in his voice. “Your photographers take pictures of nude African-American women and you sell them to desperate, lonely men. You sell porn.”
I turned back, biting my lip, the fury rekindled within me. “Blaze isn’t about porn, Mr. Beck. It’s never been about porn. It’s about elegant erotic art.” I’d had this argument at least a hundred times in the past with people who did not seem to understand the difference between art and porn.
Beck stared at me from across the room, rubbing his hand against the top of one of his thighs. I tried not to notice the rather substantial bulge in his tailored trousers. I had a feeling he wanted me to see. For a moment, the world seemed to tip sideways a little. I was acutely aware of how hot Malcolm’s kitchen was, and the fact that my panties were almost soaked through with sweat.
“I know what you sell, Ms. Rachaela Lee,” he said. His voice was quiet. He watched me like some cunning predator hiding in the tall grass, waiting to ambush a prey animal. “What would you say if I told you I could connect you with some of the top African supermodels and actresses today?” He rattled off a number of A-list names I found very hard to believe.
I stood there and watched him, looking for the lie in his face. “You know these people?”
“I know a lot of people.”
Of course he did. I thought about what Malcolm had said about Beck’s “sex tourism,” and I wondered just how intimately he knew them. On the other hand, if he could deliver on just one of those supermodels, that’s all it would take. One exclusive, that’s all I wanted. A top supermodel. She would be to Blaze what Marilyn Monroe was to Playboy. I didn’t like Beck, but I knew better than to slam the door of opportunity in my own face. I crossed my arms and gave him my sternest look. “What’s the catch?”
Beck smirked for the first time, but not for the last. “What do you mean?”
“Assuming you can deliver on even half of what you promise, what do you want in return? You must want something.”
