Irene believed that the woman would do it. But she also knew that, when Jim came back and asked for sex, she would give it to him. She would obey any order that any owner gave to her.
Martha didn’t realize that the penalty for disobedience would be worse than being beaten to death with a table leg. Or she didn’t care. For once in her life, she had someone that she could treat like a dog and she was going to do it, regardless.
Martha kicked her again before dragging her beltless husband away.
It took Irene a long time to muster the strength to drag herself into the bathroom and clean herself up.
At least, she wouldn’t have to fuck anyone tonight.
* * *
Jack saw the wicked bruising on Irene’s ass as soon as he came into her apartment the following day.
“Who did that to you?”
“Jim’s wife.”
He looked at her in sympathy. “Martha is not a forgiving woman. Jim’s a strong man, but he’s a little afraid of her.”
“I can understand her anger. I just wish that she wouldn’t take it out on me. My ass had just begun feeling a little better after Lord Fortson’s caning.”
“She’d rather beat Sir Rackem, I’m sure, but she can’t. You’re the nearest that she can get to him.”
“Beating me doesn’t hurt Sir Anthony.”
“That’s a pity. He cost me my job.”
“Jim fired you?”
“Laid me off.” It was an important distinction to him. “He can’t afford to pay my salary any more. He borrowed money to restore Sir Rackem’s Excelsior. He’s got to cut his expenses to the bone until he can pay off the debt.”
“Is he going to go bankrupt? Be pressed into slavery?”
Jack shook his head. “He isn’t worth anything as a labor slave. Or Martha, either.”
The thought of Martha being sold as a pleasure slave evoked a nasty giggle from Irene. The auction would have to be conducted in reverse, the auctioneer offering men money to take her off his block. ”Who will bid five thousand plaqs? Who will accept five thousand from me to take this woman home?”
Jim narrowed his eyes, wondering what he had said to provoke Irene’s mirth. “The debt will only be paid off if Jim stays in business and his creditor wants to be paid.”
“But he can’t afford to keep paying you? You make money for him, don’t you?”
“He has enough business for both of us but he needs to do it all himself. He’ll be working double shifts, seven days a week for quite a while.”
While Sir Anthony is driving his shiny new car around on Jim’s back, Irene thought. She couldn’t blame these people for hating the aristocracy. It was a pity that they mostly met the ones who screwed them and seldom met the good aristocrats – the ones who managed the government departments that built the roads and hospitals and police departments.
“You probably won’t see Jim around here much any more,” Jack said. “He won’t have the time or energy.”
“He has me only one day every couple of weeks. Maybe he’ll take an hour out of his day to come by and have a little fun.”
“Maybe. If he doesn’t sell his share of you first. He’s been talking about that. He could sure use the fifteen hundred that he paid for you.”
“He shouldn’t sell me for fifteen hundred,” she said. “That was a bargain price. One-twelfth of me is probably worth at least twenty-five hundred or more at auction.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “You’ve said that before, but I’m not sure that people around here believe that. You’re good, but twenty-five hundred to get you for one day every couple of weeks is a hell of a lot of money. Jim’ll have a devil of a time getting someone to pay even fifteen hundred for his share. And then there’s the monthly fees on top of that.”
“You men don’t use as much of my service as you could. I spend most of my time lounging around here. You know that you could each have me for a couple of hours a day, every second day and I wouldn’t be overworked. I could handle a half dozen owners a day. Give me one day a week off to run errands and I’d practically be a lady of leisure.”
“We talked about that when we first bought you, but we weren’t interested. We liked the idea that you’d be available to each of us for as much as we wanted on the days that we had you.”
“That’s your choice.”
“Most of us are happy with it.”
It wasn’t Irene’s place to tell her owners what to do with their property.
“What about you?” she asked. “If you don’t work for Jim any more, what are you going to do?”
“I could get a job somewhere else, but I’ve been thinking about starting my own garage. I think I have enough money to rent a place and get myself equipped. I’ve already got most of my own tools.” He grinned. “I could take some of Jim’s customers away from him. That would give him time to come around here and get some service from you.”
“Isn’t that pretty risky, starting your own business?”
“No risk, no reward. I’m not going to get rich working for someone else. And I think I could run a better business than most mechanics. I’m a smart guy.”
“You sure are.” Irene ran a hand over Jack’s chest, as though that were where his brain was located.
“I heard about a guy, a knight, who gives real low rents to businesses. The rent is taken as a cut of the business profits instead of a fixed amount. That brings the cost of starting a new business way down.”
“Because a new business doesn’t make much money.” This sounded familiar to Irene. Her first owner had talked about managing his property this way. “Are you talking about Sir Frank Dodge?”
“Yes. That’s his name. You know about him?”
“He was my first owner. He traded me to Lord Snow to get his knighthood so that he could start owning property.”
“You know everyone. Maybe you could put in a good word for me. I heard that he doesn’t rent to just anyone. He has to think that the business is going to be a success. You can tell him that I’m a good mechanic. That a lot of people want me to work on their cars.”
“I could, if you want. We parted on good terms.”
“If I can get the property at a low rent, then I’ll do it. I’ll open my own shop.”
“You understand that there’s a downside to Dodge’s business model. At first when you’re not making much money, you get cheap rent. But later when your business is a success, you end up paying more than market value. Way over market value if you’re really successful.”
“Yeah, I know. But so what? If I’m making that much money, then I won’t care if the rent is high. Or I can look for a cheaper place.”
“I don’t think so. If Dodge is doing what he said that he was going to do, you’ll have to sign a contract that locks you in for a long time. The penalties for breaking the lease will be so high that you’ll end up bankrupt.”
“Then I won’t break the lease. If this is the only way that I can own my own business, then I’ll have to do it.”
“If you’re sure that you want to do that, then I’ll go see Dodge on the next day that you have me.”
“That’s great.”
“I’m not making any promises, you understand. All I can do is put in a good word for you. It’s up to Dodge to decide if he wants to rent to you or not.”
“That’s all I ask.”
Irene put her arms around him and pressed him close to her naked body. “The bigger question is what do you want me to do for you, today?”
“You got any suggestions?”
“How’d you like me to give you a bath? You’d be amazed what I can do with a man in a bathtub.”
True to her word, he was soon amazed. Soap was slippery and clean bodies were fun.
* * *
A few days later, Irene answered her door and, instead of one of her owners, found six women standing outside.
They didn’t wait for an invitation. Led by Jim’s wife, Martha, they pushed past her into her liv
ing room.
They formed a semi-circle around her, staring at her nudity with open hostility.
Irene remembered Martha’s threat to come back and beat her to death. But she hadn’t serviced Jim since that day. Not by her choosing, but because his next day hadn’t come around yet.
“What can I do for you ladies?” Irene struggled to keep her fear in check and her voice calm. She had heard that wild beasts were more likely to attack if they thought that their prey was afraid of them.
“We’re the wives,” Martha said. “You’re screwing our husbands.”
They were a couple of wives short. By Irene’s count, eight of her current owners were married. She wondered who was missing. “I only do what I’m told,” Irene replied. “If your husbands don’t tell me to screw them, then I don’t. If they hadn’t bought me, then I wouldn’t have to listen to them, no matter what they said. But they do own me. I can’t do anything about that. I don’t have any choice but to do what they tell me. If I don’t they can punish me. Even torture me to death.”
“If you keep screwing our husbands, we will torture you to death,” Martha said. “We will do whatever we need to do to protect our marriages. And there’s no penalty for us if we kill you. Our husbands aren’t going to do anything to us.”
She was correct about that. Killing a slave was no crime; it was only a matter of financial damage to the owner, who could demand repayment for his loss.
“There are six of you. That’s only half of my owners, so your husbands only own half of me. If you kill me, you’d have to repay the other six men what they lost. I’m worth at least thirty-thousand plaqs in auction, so you’d each owe twenty-five hundred plaqs to my other owners. If you can’t pay that, then you could be found bankrupt and pressed into slavery yourselves. That can be hard on a marriage. Harder than your husbands owning a slave. I’ve known a lot of men who owned pleasure slaves and not one of them got divorced because of it. But no marriage survives the enslavement of the wife.”
The women moved a step toward her. It was dangerous to tell a mob something that they didn’t want to hear.
The only way to deal with a mob is to break it up into individuals and target them one at a time. She pointed at the woman standing closest to Martha. “Can you pay twenty-five hundred plaqs? Or are you willing to become a pleasure slave yourself?”
The woman was young, about Irene’s age, and pretty. Maybe pretty enough to be sold at a pleasure auction instead of at a labor auction.
Irene could see that her question had struck a nerve. The woman hesitated and looked uncertain.
“It’s not farfetched,” Irene said. “You could be standing naked on an auction block in less than a month, sold to a wealthy man, and then get violated by owners and their guests in every orifice, every day for the rest of your life. That happens to women all the time. It happened to me. It can happen to you. ”
She pointed at another young woman. “You, too. Maybe the two of you would be sold to knights who knew each other and they’d lend you to the other for their entertainments. You could make you put on a sex show together in front of their guests to excite them before they spent the rest of the night using you in every way that they can imagine. This isn’t just a fantasy. I’ve been there. I’ve been made to eat out another woman’s cunt in front of a crowd of men for their amusement. Men love watching that.”
The two women looked at each other.
“What about you?” She pointed to another woman, this one older and less pretty. “You want to be whipped until you collapse? Because that’s what happens to slaves when they make their owners unhappy.” Irene looked back at Martha. “They get whipped with a leather belt until their legs give out. You know that. And, if you rob my owners of their investment, you’ll get to live through that lovely experience. Unless you have twenty-five hundred plaqs sitting in the bank, waiting to be paid for the privilege of killing me.”
Martha looked around. She could see that her little mob had lost its steam. Anger was an impractical solution to their problem.
“I know that you don’t want me servicing your husbands. I don’t blame you for that. I was a wife once, too. My husband owned several slaves. He visited them every day and never came to my bed. I hated every one of his slaves with a passion. The difference is that they were brought into my house every day to do menial chores so that I had to look at them. Talk to them. Tell them what to do. Pretend that I didn’t know what my husband did with them in his kennel. That was as demeaning as being a slave. I would have liked to get rid of them, too. But there was no way to do it. I was so unhappy that I ended my marriage by becoming a slave, too.”
“That’s nuts,” the young woman next to Martha said.
“I know. I went a little nuts thinking about my husband and his slaves. I’ve had time to regret my dramatic gesture. A lot of time.”
“What are we supposed to do?” another wife asked.
“I can tell you what not to do. Don’t become a slave yourself. Your husband won’t appreciate that. And don’t freeze your husband out of your bed. That will just make him spend more time with me. Give your husband as much love as you can and I’ll look at lot less attractive to him.”
“You’re always going to be more attractive than me,” Martha said.
“Maybe. But your husband only has one-twelfth of me. He has a hundred percent of you. I’m not his life partner. You are. I’ll never be the mother of his children. You will. You have so much more to offer him than I do. You shouldn’t be asking how you can compete against me; you should be asking how can I compete against you. The answer is that if you’re really determined to make your husband happy, then I can’t.
“There’s something else that’s even more important than making your husband happy. You can let him make you happy. That’s your real power. Your husbands know that they can’t ever make me happy. Not really. But you can give them a chance to make you happy. That will tie them to you more closely than you can imagine. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t realize that when I was still married to James. If I had understood men better back then, I wouldn’t be a slave now. I’d still be married to him.”
“We ought to beat you black and blue,” Martha said.
Irene turned around to show the mob her terribly bruised ass. “You already did, Martha. But it didn’t solve your problem. It didn’t even make you feel better. That’s why you came back here. To get more revenge on me. And I can’t stop you. But there’s no amount of pain that you can inflict on me that will make you happy. The solution to your problem is between you and your husband. I have no power there.”
A woman in the back said, “Let’s go.”
Another woman said, “This is useless.”
One by one, the women left. Martha was the last one to leave. She didn’t look at Irene or say anything more. She just sighed and dragged herself after her friends.
When Irene was alone again, she collapsed on the couch in relief.
But she knew that those wives wouldn’t be able to leave well enough alone. She hadn’t been able to do it herself when she had been a wife.
They were still hurt and angry with their husbands. It wouldn’t be long before they took the next step.
Irene had no idea what it would be, but it wouldn’t be good for her.
* * *
The following day, Jack stopped by Irene’s apartment. “Ernie won’t be along until after three. You can go see Mr. Dodge today.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll have to go down to the corner and use the payphone.”
Jack looked around. “We never got you a phone?”
“I don’t need one. The payphone is close enough and it’s cheaper.”
“Why don’t we stop by my apartment and you can use my phone?”
“Sure.”
For once, she didn’t have to ambush anyone. Dodge answered his phone and agreed to meet with her in an hour.
“He’s going to meet with you?” Jack asked when she
hung up the phone.
“Yes. I’ll go over there and present your case to him. He has an office on Argyle Street.” It seemed that gentlemen who didn’t have business managers had their own offices downtown. She was learning more about aristocrats’ business practices as a slave than she had ever learned as the wife of a lord.
“Will you have to service him?”
“Probably.” That seemed to be part of the deal whenever she met with an aristocrat. Though, she had to admit that when she’d met with Lord Snow, the sex had been her idea. She liked Dodge well enough. She wouldn’t mind letting him fuck her for old times’ sake. “I have an hour. If you want to drive me over there then we don’t have to leave here for another forty-five minutes.” She took Jack’s hand and led him to his bed.
He was her owner, so he deserved to have first shot at her this morning even if it was Ernie’s day.
He rode her hard before he gave her a ride to Dodge.
She liked sex. Getting laid regularly made enslavement worth it. At least a little bit worth it.
When Jack dropped her off, she told him not to wait. She didn’t know how long the meeting would take. Afterward, she’d walk back to Jack’s apartment and tell him what Dodge said.
When she was admitted to Dodge’s office, she closed the door behind her and locked it.
“It’s good to see you again, Irene.”
“It’s good to see you, Sir Dodge. Knighthood suits you.” That seemed to be the thing to say even though he looked exactly the same now as when he had been a wealthy commoner. He had little interest in aristocratic fashion when he was conducting business. “Do you want to see more of me?” she asked. “I can remove the dress.”
“Are you trying to distract me?”
“Can I?”
“Remove your dress?”
“Distract you?”
“If you like.”
She slipped the dress over her head and laid it across the back of the nearest chair.
“You are as beautiful as ever.”
“Flattery will get you what you want,” she said.
“I want to get down to business. What do you want?”
Owners by the Dozen (Slave of the Aristocracy Book 4) Page 14
