* * * *
“Come dear, don’t dwell on the drudgery,” Ken said. “We all know all there is to know about housework.”
The young woman smiled. “Very well. But you’ll want to hear about what happened when he came back.”
“By all means.”
* * * *
Suffice to say that when he returned to the kitchen fully dressed he found her picking the dead leaves out of his house plants... there was nothing left to do, she explained, unless she was going to begin repainting... To his eye she had been so thorough his stove top looked like new and even the grout between the kitchen tiles had been bleached.
He pushed her into the shower stall in the bathroom. While he sprayed her skin with stinging water from the hand-held massager-head, he asked her “Why did you do all of those things?”
“To please you, sir.”
“To earn my favor or reward?”
“Not specifically, sir. To do any less than my best would be wrong.”
“So, my pretty pet, do you pride yourself on your thoroughness?”
“Pride...? If you approve, then I am happy.” She seemed to struggle for a moment with the explanation, as if the concept were so basic she had never before put it into words. “I... can not do what I think would not please you, and I can’t not do what I think might.”
He cut off the spray and handed her a towel. “Well then, make me happy.”
“Sir?” She stopped patting herself dry with the towel.
“Exactly that. Please me.”
She sank to her knees in front of him, clutching the towel close. “Yes, sir.” Her eyes showed her hesitation, as she tried to guess what he meant. She let the towel fall and ran her hands down her front. Her nipples tightened and her stomach flattened as she drew in her breath. Then her delicate fingers reached out for him, caressing the fine silk of his shirt, creeping upward into his hair as she pressed her naked body against him. One hand loosened the top buttons of his shirt.
He would have faulted her for being presumptuous, except that yes, it did please him. She inflamed his senses and excited him in a way that made him want to make her cry out in pain and shelter her from harm all at once. He scooped her up then and carried her to the bedroom, where he put her on her feet and told her to continue.
Her cool fingers reached inside his shirt to untuck it from his pants and she scratched his back until every itch was gone. She undressed him with kisses and lay him back upon the bed where she knelt and worshiped his rising hard cock. She lavished attention on it, with her fingers, her breath, her lips, and her tongue. He liked being worshiped; he liked being her god.
After he came, and after he had inspected her pussy and found it again wet and ready, after he ordered her to lie still beside him, he told her this: “You have succeeded in pleasing me, and yet you have failed.”
“How, sir?” She trembled slightly in his arms.
“I was so hoping that you would NOT please me, so that I could punish you. And so by pleasing me, you have disappointed me, and robbed me of that satisfaction.”
She pressed closer to him. “Well, then, do I not deserve the punishment for disappointing you so? I am yours to do with as you will.” With that she slipped out of the bed to the floor, where she knelt with her head touching the soft carpet. “If it would please you to punish me,” she said, “I would be pleased to suffer.”
“Later,” he said. “Get dressed. I have some errands for you to do.”
* * * *
The next twenty-four hours were a whirlwind of pain and passion for both of them, as he turned from one tactic to another, one toy to another, playing with her skin and her mind and her sex—and he felt a stab of thrilling electricity every time he looked into her eyes and saw himself reflected there.
That night he invited his acquaintance the trainer, Alayne, to dinner, eager to exhibit his prize. Alayne had protested vehemently; it was much, much too soon! But Matson insisted, so she agreed with a laugh.
Lily, who did not know Alayne was anything but a friend to be impressed, prepared and served them a gourmet meal, beginning with stuffed mushrooms that he chose to eat off her soft skin, her flat belly like an hors d’oeuvre tray, followed by a cunning consommé served in shallow china bowls she set on the table without a sound. The roast lamb was succulent and savory and he tucked a sprig of meat-soaked rosemary into her pubic hair where she knelt beside him. And although they talked of everything else, Lily could feel Alayne’s eyes on her, and his eyes on Alayne’s eyes. The meal finished with cognac and liqueur-soaked bananas brulee on tangerine almond salsa.
Alayne’s spoon clinked into her dessert dish as she sat back. And finally she asked “Where did you get this one, again? Are you sure she’s not one of ours, run away from someone less deserving?”
Matson didn’t answer. He stroked her hair with one hand.
“Have you told her...?”
“Why don’t we retire to the other room,” he suggested, and stood. “Heel,” he said, though he hadn’t taught her how to heel and didn’t dare turn his head to see if she was following him. But when he sat down in the living room, she had crawled alongside him. He set down his half-finished cognac. He tugged on her hair until she was on all fours in front of him and he ran his hands over her smooth buttocks and thighs.
Alayne settled into the couch opposite him with her snifter.
His hands stroked her up and down until one fingers slid down her spine and through the wet folds of her cunt. He stuck a finger inside of her, almost reflexively, just as he might stroke her hair or scratch his own chin. With his free hand he picked up his snifter and luxuriated in the fine, woody scent.
They talked more, those two, now about slaves and scenes and service. And he would occasionally add a finger, or subtract one, as he caught Alayne up on the latest leather community spat, and they discussed people they knew in common, how someone named Mildred was now in a household in France, Rick under the boot of an ex-Marine...
Lily’s cunt tightened as she realized they were speaking of slaves like her, speaking seriously of people who lived this sort of lifestyle, not just on weekends or in professional dominant’s dungeons.
The sudden tug on his fingers brought Matson back to life. He shoved her roughly down onto the thick carpet. “I do believe,” he said to Alayne, “that tonight’s entertainment is about to begin.”
“Oh, good,” Alayne declared, spreading her legs. “I could use a good cunt-licking. Come over here, honey.”
Lily looked up at him, questions in her eyes, and Matson’s pride swelled as he realized she awaited his word before beginning. So many slave sluts he’d played with would do anything anybody said, but not her. He nodded his approval to her and stood up.
Between the two of them they flogged her, blindfolded her, and tickled her, made her pleasure Alayne with her tongue while Matson impaled her with his, all manner of decadence until in the early hours of morning Alayne declared that she had to get going.
“You could stay the night,” Matson said as Lily helped her put her boots back on.
“No, no, I want some time to think this over. We’d better have that conversation soon, though. I’ll call you tomorrow and we can discuss this when I’m not so... distracted.” Alayne blew a kiss at Lily and slipped out the door.
Discuss this? Lily thought. This? Me?
That night, as she lay at the foot of Matson’s bed, she lay awake despite the exhaustion of use and effort. They had been careful, so careful, as they talked around the subject, but she knew, somehow, that there was more there than they had told her. They had tantalized her with hints, but she knew to be patient was the only way.
Or, perhaps not. Did he not say she could always ask questions of him? What could she say, how could she ask about what she did not know? She feared offending him, though, and put her questions out of her head, and kept silent.
* * * *
Matson did not keep her waiting long. That afternoon in his stud
y he explained to her the basic workings of the Marketplace, and Alayne’s role as a trainer, and then spoke to Alayne on speaker phone so that Lily could hear.
“You know,” Alayne told him, “I don’t usually like to rush things, but there’s an auction in Vienna I could certainly put her into. That’s three months, and I’ve already got quite a full plate. But considering her skills and her potential value... did you mention she speaks French?”
“Spanish,” Lily corrected, at his prompting.
Matson and Alayne went back and forth over financial dealings, until finally Alayne said “Matt, this is really quite a generous deal. Why are you being so standoffish about this? Are you listening to me?”
“Mm,” he agreed, looking at Lily. Maybe he had the idea then, or maybe he’d had it in mind all along and was waiting for this moment. “I’d like to make a proposal,” he said, never taking his eyes off the curve of Lily’s neck, her luminous naked skin, “regarding Lily’s training.”
Lily listened in amazement as Matson proposed that he “continue” her training, with Alayne’s periodic supervision, and that rather than be given spotters credit and fee, he’d share the training credit with her.
“I didn’t know you wanted to be a trainer, Matt.” Alayne’s voice was alive with sing-song.
He stroked Lily’s hair. “She’s responding so well to me.”
Alayne was silent for a few moments. “Could you pick up the receiver?”
He picked up the receiver and Lily waited with her head bowed. Matson did not know if she heard Alayne’s next comment or not but he liked to think not. His Lily was surely trying to block out the sound of her private comments.
What Alayne said was “That’s...a sudden proposition, Matson. It may be as much work for me to supervise you than to train her myself.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve known me for a long time, Alayne.”
“That’s true. I’d like to talk it over with a colleague, though.”
“Fine. But you know I will not disappoint you.”
He hung up the phone and slid down beside her on the floor, burying his lips in the dark smoothness of her hair.
* * * *
He had been training her since the first day, he decided. He took her to public parties and was pleased at the way her eyes rarely strayed from him, her attention always on his needs. She learned he hated cilantro and cooked with basil instead. When he left her free to her own devices, she did things for him that he did not even know he needed, like replacing the batteries in his smoke detectors and retacking the playroom carpet where old nails had begun to come up.
Alayne visited from time to time, but never stayed longer than a meal or a brief evening, and as time passed, Matson spoke on the phone with other people in the Marketplace as well, or so Lily overheard. He was unconcerned that she should hear what might be her own fate, and made sure that she knew that one evening their guests would be special, that several trainers would be coming to evaluate her performance. “I’m sure you will make me proud,” he said.
* * * *
The night arrived only a few days later, giving him plenty of opportunities to push her. If anything he was harder on her then than he had been at any other time, priming her with severe canings and merciless sex. He marveled at how even after beating her across the back with the dog whip and then fucking her long and hard for over an hour, when he told her immediately afterward that she had free time, that she spent that free hour doing the things she knew he loved after a scene, pouring his cognac, rubbing his feet. God, she was everything he had ever wanted, he realized. He wanted her more than he wanted to become a trainer, more than he wanted the respect and approval of the others.
And, if all went right according to his plan, he would have both.
The trainers arrived in ones and twos on an evening pouring rain. Lily, clad in nothing, shook wet raincoats and hung them to dry, fetched clean socks, and stowed umbrellas. Once everyone was gathered, all total four men and two women: two of the men and one of the women trainers, the other three possibly some kind of slaves themselves, Matson seated them all in the living room and began to run Lily through her paces. They observed while the female slave and she were made to spank each other, while the two male slaves were made to put her through various acrobatic sexual positions. But the physical portion of this was easy. Then came the interviews. They sat in a circle around her, sunk into plush couches or leaning forward with elbows on knees, while Matson stood behind her in shadow.
“Lily, do you understand fully what we say when we mean entering into service in the Marketplace?” Alayne began.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And do you feel you’re ready to enter service?” This from a man off to her left, his face unclear to her.
“I feel I am already in service,” she answered. “And yes, I feel I am ready to enter the Marketplace.”
“Nice answer,” said another man, she could make out his longish hair and knew he was the one called Gerard, who had been the last to arrive.
“Or nicely coached,” continued the man on her left. “Why do you think you crave this lifestyle? What drew you to it?”
Lily spoke clearly, but not so quickly that she seemed to have canned answers. “There’s very little honor in the world, very little to believe in. I was unhappy when I had no direction, no focus. Through service, I have something to believe in, a reason to be.” She did not fidget where she knelt but looked down at the carpet instead of into the darkened faces. “As to your second question, I...”
“Tell the truth, Lily,” Matson commanded.
“I came into the scene looking for someone special. But I’m not looking anymore.”
Matson’s heart pounded to hear her say it. When the questioning was done, he locked her in the playroom and said good-bye to everyone else himself.
* * * *
When he entered the playroom, she was kneeling in the center of the carpet, as he’d taught her to do. There were indentations in the carpet that fit her knees.
He knelt in front of her, his hands clasped together. Candles burned at the periphery of the room. He inhaled as if to settle his stomach in that moment that felt so holy, so right.
“Did I please them, sir?” she said. Asking a question was always allowed.
“Oh, yes, you pleased them. They would take you into the Marketplace in a flat second.” He lifted her chin and held her gaze. “But, consider this, my sweet Lily...” He interrupted himself to kiss her, to bury his tongue deep in her and smother himself in her scent. “Consider this.” He held in his hands a length of chain, a collar. “Consider that you are mine. I know you want to make me proud. But, Lily, you do not have to go into the Marketplace to do that. You have proved you can pass muster, that you can stand with the finest slaves on Earth. That has made me more proud than you know. But you can stay here with me. You need never leave my service.”
He held up the chain with two hands, a near beatific smile on his face.
* * * *
We can only suppose what he must have been thinking. Perhaps he was expecting a moment of triumph, when she would at last set aside her calm to declare how much she loved him, how deeply she knew she had found the right master and need look no further. As he held the collar out to her, though, her eyes did not light with joy and his smile faded a bit as she asked a question, “Are you offering me a choice, sir?”
He stammered, as if he had not expected there to be choice involved. “I... I want to hear it from you. You know what would please me most.”
Her head stayed where it was but her eyes seemed to focus past him. “I thought... I thought you wanted to train me for sale. Sir?”
“Yes, Lily, I acted as your trainer, but did you come to me looking for a trainer, or a master?” He fairly growled with growing frustration and confusion. “I am not a trainer.” He proffered the collar again.
“But,” she said, trying to make her words slow and cautious, “I thought that until
I enter the Marketplace, no one owns me.”
“I own you!” he bellowed then, and leapt upon her.
Lily was a strong woman, but small and caught unawares. The struggle was brief as he wrestled her into bonds that locked her hands behind her back. The struggle only seemed to excite him. The resistance he had expected from her in the beginning was finally showing itself and it was time to remind her of his tenets.
He forced her to stand and clipped her bonds to a chain hanging from the ceiling, so that she stood on her feet, her back bent over horizontal and her ass displayed for him. First, pain, to reinforce the conviction that her body was his and not her own. Her flesh was still sore from that week’s beatings, and he went directly for the cane, not waiting for her to count or ask, merely laying it on while she cried and cried.
Then humiliation, to distance her from her ego and her sense of self. He lowered the chain and cuffed her ankles apart, and set about trying to find what would humiliate her most. An hour ago, he would have said nothing would humiliate her other than to catch her making a mistake—she would submit willingly to any activity or attention. But she was no longer playing willing. She needed to be overcome, he decided, this was not so far off from his original plan, and through this they would be cemented and bonded forever. He squatted down in front of her.
“Yes, Lily, you are mine, just as Marketplace slaves belong to their owners, to use, or abuse, as we see fit.” And he...
* * * *
The young woman stopped and looked at the people around her. Many had stopped eating, others had taken their quiet conversations into other rooms. Michael had left half of his ice-cream to melt, and the bowl had vanished without his noticing.
“Go on,” Ken urged, her face a mask of scandal.
“Can we just say that it does not matter what he did next? Pick the most horrible thing you can think of one human being doing to another short of murder. Whatever it is you are each thinking, hold that thought.”
The Academy Page 17
