It was clear to me now that my humiliation was one of his primary objects in enslaving me. Why? Because I made him that way - a personality so dominant that it can't bear the thought of other sources of strength and power, and seeks to emasculate them. He had made me into the very opposite of him, of what I once was. I was the epitome of physical and emotional emasculation.
To his mind, I probably didn't even belong to the category of "woman"; I was in his worldview something lower, something of his creation - a slave girl, good only for, and only aroused when, serving him.
I wasn't going to prove myself otherwise if I kept obeying him, kept submitting without protest. Yet I wasn't sure I was really capable any more of protesting; or at least the protestation would be somewhat insincere. The fact was, given the new psychological and emotional personality traits I now posessed, John was actually treating me the way someone like me wanted to be treated. I just didn't like the fact that he'd induced me to put myself in this position.
Damn him! My cunt lips felt swollen, my clitoris was stiff and sensitive, and I couldn't even touch it. What good is a nymphomaniacal sex drive if you can't satisfy it?
I knew what John's answer to that question would be, and it bothered me. It made me more easily controllable, of course.
And control was the issue. He wanted power over me , to control me, so made me crave to be in someone else's power, under their control.
His methods, if convoluted, were admirably effective. Despite myself I wanted his cock in my mouth again.
Chapter 19
Natalie was naked, her wrists bound together with cuffs identical to mine. She was accompanied by a large man in a valet's uniform. He produced a key and proceeded to unlock my ankle cuffs, and remove the lock binding my wrists to the chain. My wrists were still bound behind me.
"Attend her. And Natalie, I expect this room to be spotless in an hour." He left the way the two of them had come.
Natalie looked at me, then back at the closed door. She turned again to me, smiling.
"How do you like your new life, Anne-Marie?" she asked. "When we last met, you didn't seem so sure of my choice."
I stared at her. "Jesus. Does everybody on the planet know?" I retorted, exasperated. "Why does a slave like you get told something like that?"
"I wasn't told. Our Master just places too much faith on earplugs and my irrelevancy. And no, not everyone knows. But - most among John's friends certainly know that you have been feminized, and that your former life has been taken over by a replacement. They just don't know who. All the girls here share that story. It's one of John's pet projects, and looked on with curiosity and a little bafflement by his fellow Masters and Mistresses. You have to remember that the old Natalie was sort of an oddball feminist. She believed women were superior beings born into inferior bodies. This way of thinking, coupled with the changes I hired you to make in her, has caused her to develop a rather absolutist mindset. Becoming John did something to him. It's been interesting to watch. To John, you and I were inferior creatures born in superior bodies. He realized he could free the born women by exchanging their lives with their oppressors - us. This, to him, represents a more balanced world - inferior creatures trapped in inferior bodies."
I thought about this as she helped me off the bed.
"All of us? How many are there?" I asked.
"I'm not sure, since I think he has slaves at all four of his houses, and I never leave this one. There are thirty one here full time - meaning 24/7. Plus he brings in occasionals like you that he generally keeps at large, for his use away from home.
"I was the first, of course, but he began his project almost immediately. From what I gather, they were all very important people. Maybe not you, but I think with you he developed a fixation on his creator. He wanted to take you down pretty badly."
"Natalie? Do me a favor," I asked. "Take off my cuffs. I'd like to at least poke around a little, see if there's any chance of escape."
Natalie paled, and her eyes widened in shock and terror. "I - I can't. For one thing, Anne-Marie, I don't have the keys, and you should know that. No female in this house has keys to anything. John is...very controlling. As for wandering around the house, I'm only supposed to help you use the bathroom. If you go looking about, one of the staff will find you - your status is pretty obvious - and they have orders regarding that kind of insubordination. Look, I have to start cleaning soon, or I won't get done in time, and I get whipped pretty badly when I don't finish my chores. I can't really stop you, but - listen, you won't get past the hallway. Please, just follow me." She walked over to the open bathroom door.
She turned back and glared at me. I was still hesitating. "Don't be stupid, Anne-Marie!" she said crossly. "You know what kind of man John is now. He's got hidden cameras all over the place. Whatever you're thinking, if anything at all, it's an idiotic idea. He'll stop you. And even if you made it past the mansion walls, he'd find you and drag you back. And you know what? You'd be overjoyed to see him. You're a slave girl, honey - whether you like it or not, here is the place for you, and it's the only place in the world where you're going to feel most truly yourself. Now come here." Her girlish voice tried to assume an authoritative tone, but it came out sounding petulant. I stifled a chuckle, then realized I probably wasn't any more capable of assuming a commanding tone of voice than she was.
Well, hell.
I followed her.
After using the toilet and taking a short bath - in which Natalie bade me keep my hands over my head, so as not to wet the leather cuffs - she led me back to the bed.
She pulled a sash, and a bell rang. The door opened and the valet returned. The valet buckled a collar around my neck and attached a leash.
"Get back to work, Natalie," he hissed. Natalie, who'd been eyeing us as she stood at attention, jumped, then turned to the bathroom and collected a bucket and sponge. She dropped to her hands and knees and began scrubbing the tile. I saw with a shock that a kind of dogtag hung from her labia.
The valet jerked on the leash, and I stumbled forward.
"Follow me, slut," he said, and led me out down the hallway. I furtively looked around, trying to get my bearings without obviously lifting my chin from my collarbone. Funny, I thought, how I could talk back to Natalie, demand justification for a command or redress for a wrong, but when a man was in the room I became as docile as a lamb.
The hallway was rich in textures - an oriental runner carpet covered marble tiles; on the wall to my left were framed oil paintings. I recognized a large Matisse and two De Koonings - more indications of John's power, for each would have fetched over ten million at auction. One my right was a marble banister.
The valet led me down a circular marble staircase, and here I recognized John's atrium from some of the parties I'd attended. I made a mental note that at least I now knew which mansion he'd taken me to. The thought wasn't comforting - I was in Briarcliff, built on a peninsula jutting into the Hudson River and flanked on three sides with high cliffs. The west end of the mansion was gated and protected with military detachments - courtesy the US Government, for the classified work John had inherited from his predecessor, the erstwhile and infuriatingly coy Natalie.
The scale of the place - grand even for the tall man I had been - seemed made for a giant to me. The valet led me past a butler and a Marine who seemed to be discussing guest lists. I kept my eyes firmly on the ground, blushing. I felt sure the Marine was looking at me.
The valet brought me to the far corner of the atrium. He commanded me to kneel, and when I obeyed, he rearranged my restraints so that my wrists were bound in front of me. He pulled a bucket and sponge from a utility closet and placed them before me.
"Scrub the floor. You can get fresh water from the sink here. I'll inspect your work in a few hours, so do a good job." He gave me a kick to get me moving.
I hurried to obey, and soon I was washing the marble tile, doing my best to remove scuff marks and dirt. At least he didn't give me a toothb
rush, I thought ruefully.
Damn John. I really liked this. Crawling around on my hands and knees, feeling tiny and helpless, servile. The Marine and the butler walked out the front door, leaving me alone with the immense task of washing a thousand square feet of marble with a little sponge.
Chapter 20
A few hours later I'd worked my way across to the other side of the atrium. The hardest part was carrying the bucket of water back from the sink - my body was simply weak, and carrying several gallons of water was backbreaking work for my little underdeveloped muscles.
A valet had me kneel face forward - presenting myself - and inspected the cleaning job. He had me clean several spots again where Marines had tracked in mud near the front door.
He hovered over me as I scrubbed. I got a peek out the front door, which was propped open. Past the two Marines posted one either side of the door, a wide marble staircase descended to a circular carraigeway. A Bentley was parked directly in front. High walls ran on either side of the front lawn, and I saw they were topped with barbed wire. At the far end was the gate - the only gate - which was shut and guarded. Jesus, John even merited an armored personnel carrier. It was parked on the far side of the gate, blocking the road.
Okay, I thought. Natalie's right. Even if I managed to get out of the house, I'd have to get past a small army, or scale sheer twenty foot walls and over barbed wire naked. Hmmn. Not a pleasant thought.
The sight of the kind of military protection John had made me realize two things. First, John's power over me was more than sexual domination. He could easily own me - literally. Within these walls slavery wasn't just a sexual role, it was a fact. Outside, in free America, slavery was quite illegal. But I was in here, which seemed tantamount to being trapped in a minor kingdom. Second, I was probably of incidental interest to him - a plaything, representing his power - while his true interest was in power of a more expansive flavor. This man wanted dominion over much more than a few slavegirls.
I'd created him that way, of course. But it was still terrifying to think of it. I'd made a megalomaniac.
And, of course, the thought of being controlled, subjugated by such a man made the sweet little slave girl I'd become wet with longing.
What a predicament.
Chapter 21
When the valet was satisfied with my work, he led me back through the house to the kitchen.
Three cooks were busy with what looked to be a feast. Assistants were busy chopping vegetables while two of the cooks were basting a whole pig.
"Anne-Marie is to work dinner service," the valet said. "She's yours for the night."
One of the cooks came over, eyed me. "Get up, slut," he commanded. I rose to my feet and stood at attention.
He opened a cabinet and pulled out a few small items of clothing. He handed them to me.
"Put them on."
I rolled black thigh-high hose up my legs. I slipped into a black corset. The cook turned me around and laced it up, very tight. He slapped my ass.
"Exhale." I obeyed.
He cinched the thing so tight that I had to work to inhale. I felt dizzy. I tried to suck in air as he padlocked the corset at four places along the seam.
"Don't hyperventilate," he said. "The intention isn't to suffocate you, it's to debilitate you. Move slowly, and pace yourself, and you'll be okay. Exert yourself too much and you'll faint."
He removed my wrist cuffs and slipped loops of black silk around my wrists. The silk had plastic ribs around the loop; once cinched tight through a slot in one end, they didn't loosen. They would have to be cut off. Each loop continued at one end to sewn openings in the back of the corset. The cook demonstrated their purpose by pulling on two cords at the top of the back of the corset. My wrists were pulled behind me, until they stopped at the small of my back, tethered to the corset.
"The corset has small cleats that hold the cordage in place. You can't reach them, so don't bother trying. It operates so smoothly because, in the lining of the corset, along the whaleboning, are four small bearing wheels. It's as effective as the leather cuffs for a girl as small and weak as you, and looks more elegant. Okay then."
He pulled the release and my hands were free again. I brought them together in front of me, the silk cords pulling out of their pockets and hanging loosely at my sides.
He led me to a pile of dishes and cutlery.
"Through those doors," he said, pointing to the wide kitchen doors, "is the dining hall. We have forty guests tonight. Lay out the table settings,
then come back here. And don't get any funny ideas. You could easily cut those cords with one of these steak knives. You won't if you're smart."
I took only a few plates at a time, afraid that with what the corset was doing to me, I'd get dizzy and drop them. The room was vast, with a large fireplace at one end and a row of bay windows overlooking the Hudson. It was night now. I'd been a prisoner since noon.
The tables were loosely arranged in a semicircle around a larger table that clearly was John's. I wondered who was coming tonight. I didn't like the idea that my situation would be so publicly acknowledged. It was bad enough that the house staff and the Marines took my enslavement for granted; that guests would accept it too was too much to bear.
I did briefly consider the cook's idea, and found myself hesitating, knife in hand. I held it a little too long to not be noticed if anyone was looking, and this thought was what made me finally put it in its arranged place on the table.
What good would it have done me? What good is a knife to a girl trapped in a corset that prevents her from even breathing properly, in a house where her continued abasement was seen as perfectly natural, on grounds overrun with Marines and fenced with barbed wire? It was all too big for me. My feelings of helplessness and defeat made the use of the knife impossible.
I was five feet tall, under a hundred pounds, nearly naked, and could be subdued with the simple pull of a cord. Everyone within a quarter mile was bigger than me, stronger than me, certainly more aggressive, and likely had explicit orders to prevent escape.
I realized as I put the knife down that my sole, if meager, advantage in this very uneven contest of wills was that no one would suspect that I would attempt to escape. After all, I had nano-conditioned urges to remain compliant, and, libidinally speaking, was in a state of near bliss. I was exactly where my body wanted me to be. And while the men around me were - so far - thorough and consistent in keeping me under scrutiny and in restraints at all times, it seemed to me their motivation to do so was more the pleasure of the rituals, and the control they symbolized, than any real fear that I could do anything to change my circumstances.
With the exception of Natalie, in whom I'd confided my escape fantasies, I was sure that everyone here took me for the sweet, pretty, compliant, feminized victim I appeared to be. So, I thought, if John insists on keeping me here longer, let that be my angle. Play the part. Don't let them see what you're really thinking. Then wait for an opportunity. Don't worry about what happens after.
It wouldn't be hard playing the part - for in truth I wouldn't be acting. No, the hard part would be resisting the attraction that staying here held for me. I reminded myself that in large measure I wasn't really myself anymore. Sam Smith was a very different person, whose motivations, loves and fears now seemed strange to me. The only thing that seemed a continuous personality trait between me and Sam was a shared sense of indignation at what John had done to me. That and intellectual curiosity - even with only a high school education, my intellect itself was unimpaired.
But where Sam might have fought his way out, or schemed revenge, Anne-Marie had to take a different approach. The thought of raising a hand against a man so terrified me that I knew it to be impossible. I was fundamentally non-violent now. Besides, my instinctive conception of men was to treat them as near God-like figures, to be obeyed unconditionally. That put an open fight out of the question. Where Sam would have acted out of anger and retribution, I was fighting an insti
nct so strong as to cloud judgement. I had to fight an instinctive belief that I was finally, happily in my proper place. I had to force myself to recognize that no matter how wonderful what John was doing to me felt, freedom was still something I wanted - even if it cost me the pleasurable, abject humiliation my imprisonment here imposed on me.
I wasn't Sam anymore. And never would be again - John had seen to that, by making my DNA encryption permanent, and by finding a replacement Sam.
I was just Anne-Marie now, and while I wasn't exactly sure what that meant, I knew that, again thanks to DNA encryption, I wasn't going to ever be able to escape from or change Anne-Marie's basic personality traits. So. Stuck in this body, with this new, hybrid personality profile. Accept that, at least, and work with what you've got. Discover what kind of stuff Anne-Marie is made of. I could, perhaps, be tough in ways other than brute strength. If I tried hard enough. My escape would be because of my weakness, rather than in spite of it. What did that mean? And what were my opportunities, given that?
Chapter 22
The head cook pulled the cord, and my wrists were pinioned behind me. He had me kneel in a long line of slave girls, identically dressed, facing the wall. Natalie was to my right; a tall black teenager to my left. I knew, from what Natalie had told me, that each of these girls had been, like Natalie and me, forcibly feminized. For all I knew the black girl was once a CEO or something. Probably a white supremacist to boot. I noted as I was placed in line that between the thighs of most of the girls I could see was that small dogtag, hanging from a pierced labial fold.
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