Irene slipped into the kennel and padded softly toward Nickel’s cell. She was not surprised to find the cell door closed and the light switch, located outside the cell was on.
Slaves never bothered closing their doors when the were out of their cells.
Irene didn’t bother opening the door. She turned the lock, switched off the light, and then returned to the garden.
The gentlemen never did bring the slaves back to the billiard room. As the hour grew late and they grew tired, they abandoned their “victims” and retired to the billiard room without them.
The abandoned slaves stayed in the garden, available to any gentlemen who still wanted them. There were few takers.
When the last of the gentlemen left the field, Irene and Lord Snow joined them in the billiard room.
The men broke into spontaneous applause when Irene passed through the door.
She smiled and waited until the applause died down. “Gentlemen, thank you for that. It is my policy to offer myself for punishment if I have failed to please you. If you think that I have failed to provide a better-than-average entertainment tonight, then you may raise your hands now and I will ask Lord Snow to punish me by imposing a three-day fast on me.”
She had decided that the fast would be her standard punishment for failing to please rather than a beating because the gentlemen might choose to see her beaten just for their amusement. A fast would give them no special entertainment.
Not a single gentleman raised his hand.
“Thank you so much, kind gentlemen. I do love my meals and having to wait until Wednesday to eat breakfast would have been an excruciating ordeal.”
There was a bit of light laughter at that, mostly from surprise. The gentlemen hadn’t appreciated how long a three-day fast was. It was Saturday night; Wednesday was half a week away.
An earl that Irene had met two or three times when she was a lady, Earl Bloklas, said, “Please thank your slaves for us. They put on a most enjoyable show. Most enjoyable.”
Irene was shocked. She had never before heard a gentleman say that he wanted to show gratitude to a slave. “My lord, you are so gracious that you steal my breath away. I will certainly tell them that they were appreciated. When they see you again, they will be delighted to show you how welcome you are.”
There was another round of applause, peppered with enthusiastic “Hear! Hear!”
Irene waited until Lord Snow had herded his guests out of the billiard room. She wondered how the gentlemen proposed to explain their dirty, grass-stained clothes to their wives.
Most likely the issue would never arise. Their wives would know better than to ask indelicate questions about what had happened in the billiard room after dinner.
She found most of the slaves were gathered in the kitchen, waiting for their turn in the shower. Out of courtesy, they let the borrowed slaves shower first because cars were waiting to take them back to their own kennels.
“Aren’t you all a lot of dirty slaves,” she said with a grin.
They chuckled a little.
“The gentlemen asked me to give you their thanks for a fine entertainment.”
The slaves looked puzzled.
“I know,” Irene said. “I’ve never heard of a gentleman bothering to thank a slave, either, but Earl Bloklas himself asked me to thank you all. Pretending that you were being raped – pretending that you could be raped – was inspired. I’m grateful to Lime for coming up with that idea and to all of you for catching on and playing along. I don’t know how we’re going to top this entertainment, but we’ll have to try.”
“Just don’t starve us again,” Lime said.
“Been there, done that,” Irene answered. “Every entertainment has to be a surprise. We won’t be repeating ourselves.”
“How long do you think you can keep that up?” Peach asked.
That was the question, all right. “I don’t know. But I’ll keep it up for as long as I can.” Especially when the penalty for failing to please would be a three-day fast.
She didn’t bother checking to see that Nickel’s cell door was still locked and her light extinguished before retiring to her own cell. No slave would dare open the cell door of another if were locked.
In the morning the kennelman would clean the cell and check Nickel’s health, but, lacking any other instruction, would leave her hungry and locked in the dark, exactly as he found her.
* * *
“The kennelman reported that my whiphand is locked in her cell. Without food, water, or light.” Lord Snow frowned.
“Yes,” Irene said.
“Your doing?”
“Until I can advise you of the situation. Then you can decide what to do with her.”
“So, advise me of the situation.”
“You ordered that Nickel would participate in the entertainments and do her share of servicing the gentlemen. Last night, my instructions to all the slaves were clear. They were to hide in the garden until they were found and then submit to the gentlemen without resistance. But when the slaves were out of sight, Nickel took advantage of the situation to go back into the kennel and close the door to her cell. When I found out where she was, I simply locked her door until you were available to decide what to do about her blatant disobedience.”
“What do you think I should do about it?”
“That is entirely your decision.”
“Good God. Don’t play games with me. Obviously she has to be punished. You were in charge of the entertainment. What punishment do you recommend?”
“If the entertainment failed, I was willing to suffer a three-day fast. She did not contribute to its success so I would have her suffer the same fast that I was risking.”
“So she doesn’t eat again until when?”
“Wednesday breakfast.”
“Okay. That sounds fair to me. And she can endure her fast in her cell. Water deprivation, too?”
“No. Three days is too long to be deprived of water.”
“Okay. I’ll instruct the kennelman give her a pint of water every morning and leave a bucket in the cell for her to relieve herself in.”
“I think that will make your point.” Irene nodded solemnly.
“You think that’s enough? I could cane her before I let her eat on Wednesday.”
“I think the fast is punishment enough. Three days is a considerable ordeal. She will suffer.” Lord Snow had not thought about the lights, but Irene would make sure that Nickel was suffering in the dark. She would have no stimulation to distract her from dwelling upon her transgression. “One small point.”
“Yes?”
“It would be best if she understood that this punishment is being administered by you. She’s going to suspect that I was behind it, anyway, but if she can’t be certain then maybe there’ll be a little less bad blood in the kennel when she gets out.”
He smiled. “I’ll tell her personally.”
“It would be best.”
“So the nasty business is done,” he said. “Let’s move on to lighter topics. I trust you realize that congratulations are in order. Last night may well be the most splendid entertainment that I’ve ever seen. It’s not yet noon and Lady Snow has already been inundated with invitations to all manner of social events. People that we’ve never met are hoping that we’ll reciprocate and invite them back so that the gentlemen can enjoy the next entertainment that you devise. Lady Snow is sending regrets to anyone of lower rank than an earl unless they’re already an old and dear friend. Not just an old friend and not just a dear friend, but both old and dear. We have the privilege of being terribly exclusive right now.” He grinned.
“I’m happy to be of service,” Irene said.
“You won’t have to stage another entertainment for three weeks. Like I said, we’re accepting a lot of invitations so we will be entertained elsewhere for the rest of the month.”
“I’ll start planning something for the second Saturday after next.”
“Any idea
what you’ll do?”
“Not a clue. I’ll have to think of something.”
He looked at her for a minute, as though he were trying to decide if he should believe her. Then he shrugged. “If you need anything, let me know.”
“There is one thing that would make it easier for me to deal with the other slaves.”
“What’s that?”
She fingered the gold collar about her neck. “I’d like you to have this removed. And change my name back to Flame. Or some other slave name. You like fruit. How about Tangerine? Or Kumquat. Anything but Irene. That’s a name for a lady, not a slave.”
He shook his head. “No. The collar stays. Along with your name.” His flat, uninflected tone made it clear that he wasn’t going to entertain discussion about it.
She didn’t understand why he wanted her to keep wearing that humiliating punishment collar and to keep answering to the name that she had been known by when she was a lady. His wife, Lady Snow, had to cringe every time she heard it. Not that she would hear it much. Lord Snow would have little reason to mention Irene. There was no need because she was never called up to the manor to perform even token housework.
“Then I need something else.” Irene stared hard at him.
“What’s that?”
“I need to get fucked. I need it so bad, it hurts. I’d give anything if you’d throw me down on that bed and rut the hell out of me. Anything.”
“Jesus Christ! I told you not to say that. Get the hell out of here! Right now!”
She sauntered across the room, throwing as much sway into her ass as she could. He had to be watching and she hoped that this would be the day that his resistance crumbled to dust.
It wasn’t.
But, as she passed through the door, he yelled, “And send in whoever is available out there. Two of them. I don’t care which two, just make it fast.”
She hooked her thumb at Apple and Cherry. “You heard your owner. Get in there and give him some relief.”
She envied the two slaves as they scurried to obey.
And she envied them a whole lot more when they were shrieking in delight a few minutes later.
Lime was staring at her in silence.
“What?” Irene asked.
“What on earth do you do to him in there?”
“I begged him to rut the hell out of me.”
“He still won’t let you service him?”
“Not even when I fall on my knees.”
“What a waste. I bet you’re a terrific sex partner.”
Irene smiled. “Thank you. Nickel thinks so and I service her by rote.”
“Not that you’re not a great entertainment director. I’m not saying that. All I’m saying is that you could direct all the entertainments and you could still get fucked every day. And at the entertainments.”
“I sure could.” She didn’t want to think about that any more – it was making her crotch too juicy; she was almost squishing when she moved her thighs – so she decided to change the subject. “How did you become a slave?”
“The most common way. Bankruptcy. My husband was a gambler. We had a good income but he lost more than he won. All gamblers do. He thought that he could win his money back if he kept placing bigger bets until he got lucky. No gambler ever gets lucky enough. We were married so his debts were my debts. When I was twenty-four, I fetched eighteen thousand on the pleasure block. I heard that Daniel was worth only eleven hundred on the labor block. Between the two of us, we still didn’t raise enough to pay off his debts. His bookie was stupid. He could have foreclosed on us much sooner and made a profit. I think that Daniel convinced him that he earned a high salary and the bookie thought that he could get paid in full without foreclosing on us.”
“How long ago was that?”
“I think I’m about thirty now, so that was six years ago.”
Irene was surprised. That made Lime the oldest slave in the kennel save for Nickel. “You don’t look thirty. I’m twenty-eight and I thought that you were younger than me.”
“I try to look and act young. It helps that I’m small and that I pretend to be naïve. The longer a pleasure slave can stay young, the longer she can stay out of the labor auctions.”
“When I’ve asked the others how they were enslaved, they were all either pressed or adjudicated. None of you were born into it.”
“Peach was. You should talk to her if you want to know about that. It’s not common, you know, to be born into slavery.”
“I didn’t realize that it was uncommon.”
“Sure. Think about it. If an owner breeds his slaves then he’s responsible for feeding and housing the children until they are old enough to sell. That costs a lot of money. Half the children are going to be boys and that means that they’ll almost certainly end up in labor auctions. There’s no demand for male pleasure slaves. Of the girls, most of them won’t be pretty enough. Plain-looking females join the males in the labor auctions. So maybe one out of five children at most will be sold for a good price. Only fools think that they’re going to get rich raising slaves. They hear stories about some pleasure slave fetching a hundred thousand and they think that they’ll get a whole crop of children who will grow up to be those special cases.”
“So why does anyone breed slaves at all?”
Lime leaned close. “That’s an open secret. Some owners have only good-looking girls to sell. People are pretty sure that they kill the boys at birth and the homely girls by the age of two so that they won’t have to waste money raising labor slaves. I don’t know if that’s true but it seems likely.” She stroked two small scars on her lower belly. “I’ll never have to find out, myself. My second owner had me spayed.”
Irene was horrified. “Sterilized?”
“Those pesky tubes are history. They were gone by the time I was twenty-five. They left the ovaries, though, to make sure that I still get a full complement of hormones. Slaves with no ovaries aren’t as good at servicing men so their value decreases dramatically.”
“Did you have children before you were pressed into slavery?”
“A boy and a girl. They’re my sister’s children now. It was a relief that she was willing to adopt them. Being pressed into slavery would have been a lot worse if it had put my children in an orphanage. The youngest was one and a half. I guess she’s in second or third grade today. She wouldn’t recognize me. The boy probably wouldn’t, either. He was four when I was sold. I don’t think four-year-olds remember people very well. Do you?”
“I think he’d remember his mother. I’m sure that he treasures those memories of you.”
Lime wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “It doesn’t matter, does it? He’s never going to see me again. Children never see slaves, except on the street when we’re running an errand. And then their mothers tell them not to look. My sister might have told my children not to look at me some time when I was out on an errand.”
“I’m sorry I brought this up,” Irene said.
“No. It’s good. I like to remember that I did something good before I was sold. My children are good, you know. I’m certain of that. They’re going to grow up to be fine people. They won’t make the kind of mistake that I did, getting involved with a gambler.”
“I’m sure they won’t.”
“Anyway, I better go clean up. You never know when the owner is going to decide that he wants service.” She left in the direction of the bathroom.
Irene stayed and listened to the muffled sounds of Apple and Cherry’s exuberant romp with Lord Snow in the pleasure room.
Their joy made her want to weep in despair. But she didn’t. Slaves learned to be tough.
* * *
On Wednesday morning, the kennelman brought Nickel to the table to eat with the other slaves.
She was naked – her corset and strap were nowhere to be seen – and her hair was wet.
The kennelman had made her shower and wash her hair before coming to the kitchen. He didn’t want her rank sm
ell to ruin the other slaves’ appetites. She hadn’t been able to wash for three days but that was not the worst of it. The kennelman’s instructions had been to provide a bucket for her to relieve herself but made no mention of toilet paper.
Using the bucket in total darkness had been a messy business.
Lord Snow told the kennelman not to clean Nickel’s cell. He was to leave a brush and soap for her to clean up her own mess. She already had a bucket. Her first task would be to clean that out.
Lord Snow was considerate of his kennelmen.
Nickel’s eyes were red with hate when she glared at Irene but she dared not speak her mind for fear that the kennelman would snatch her precious bowl of porridge out of her grasp.
A kennelman had the duty and the authority to keep the slaves in order when he was tending to them and he had discretion about how to do it.
Nickel never took her eyes from Irene, never once looked down at her bowl, as she shoveled spoonful after spoonful of oatmeal into her maw.
Only when the bowl was completely empty, did she look down to make certain that she cleaned up even the tiniest smidges of food.
The kennelman did not offer her a second bowl. The slaves never got seconds and they would never dream of asking for more.
One bowl of porridge would have to satisfy Nickel until dinner.
But it was clear from Nickel’s glare that the only food that would satisfy her was Irene’s heart, fried and sliced on a plate. She would delight in eating every bite of that gourmet treat.
“Nickel, you’ve been assigned a chore,” the kennelman said. His voice was mild. A kennelman never had to raise his voice to a slave. Slaves knew that they would live an exceptionally uncomfortable life if they failed to mind their kennelman.
She left to clean her cell.
After the kennelman left, Peach said, “It seems, Lady Irene, that you have caused our whiphand some distress. I reckon that we’ll see how your strong cunt holds up after it’s been well tenderized by her strap.”
A Gentlemen's Agreement (Slave of the Aristocracy) Page 8
