The Academy

by Laura Antoniou

  “Tell me, Rachel,” Grendel began tentatively, “Do you have any housekeeping experience?”

  Rachel stared at him for a moment, then burst into loud guffaws.

  “I’m pleased to hear you’re getting along so well with our guest,” said a voice from the doorway. Immediately, Chris reappeared, and motioned slightly to Rachel that she should stand up again. She did so, with only a slight air of impatience. Grendel was already on his feet, and made the introductions. “Rachel, this is my partner, Alexandra Selador.”

  Alexandra was small-boned and elegant, with blond hair streaked with white and piercing blue eyes. Rachel extended her hand again, wondering why the woman looked so familiar. She sat across from Rachel, and made some pleasant comments about meeting a friend of Chris Parker’s, making Rachel feel more comfortable. Her presence was also a relief to Grendel, who quickly excused himself from the room, claiming an important phone call.

  “Tell me, Rachel, what has Chris told you about us?” Alexandra asked, when the time seemed right. She, like Grendel, was surprised by Rachel, but she was willing to believe there was something about the woman she hadn’t yet discovered. If Chris was so willing to vouch for her, willing enough to ask for leave to bring her personally to the house, Alexandra was ready to find out why.

  “Well, uh, Parker told me a lot about the Marketplace, and a bit about you two,” Rachel began, still wondering where she had met this woman before, “and that you were looking for, well, an extra set of hands around here.”

  “We’re looking to hire someone who is willing to work with the slaves we train,” Alexandra explained. “Someone who is willing to be part of the training process, particularly in basic household tasks.”

  “Yeah, Parker told me. I gotta be honest with you, I’m not really interested in becoming a trainer. At least, not the way Parker explained it,” Rachel said. “It sounds like too much work, what with that scheduling and paperwork and stuff. Too much like a real job, you know what I mean?” Alex smiled inwardly. “But Parker said, well, that you sort of need a back-up. Someone who knows how to make a slave be submissive. Keep them feeling that way for their stay, get them used to knowing their place. And I’m real good at that.”

  Indeed, Alexandra thought, looking at the woman sitting before her. If Chris says you are, I’m inclined to believe him. But what about the more mundane aspects of the job? She decided to be more explicit.

  “The slaves must also learn practical skills, Rachel. They must be prepared to serve, not just respond.”

  “Yeah, I know, it’s not just tormenting the slaves, they gotta learn something in the process,” Rachel said. “Well, Miz Selador, let me be honest with you. I hate cleaning toilets. I hate ironing shirts. But I like a clean bathroom and clean clothes. You can bet that I’ll make sure these novices learn the basics.” She grinned. “If I have a little fun enforcing the lessons, I’m sure you won’t mind.”

  Alexandra smiled back. Despite her initial response, she found herself attracted to the woman, her openness and her dominance, and her obvious sadism. She reminded Alex of someone she had seen, many years ago, while attending a party at a professional’s dungeon in the City, a young girl with wildly colored hair and a brilliant tattoo on her arm. The girl was straddling a young punk who was writhing beneath her, until the girl put a knife to his throat, and told him to stay still while she fucked him. Later, Alex spotted the same girl sitting on one of the benches, this time playing with a female, whose face was buried between the young woman’s thighs, clearly struggling to breathe. She had looked up and spotted Alexandra watching her, and grinned. Yanking on her captive’s hair, she let the woman up to gasp for breath only to push her back down in position, and lewdly moved her prisoner’s head up and down by the hair. Alexandra smiled back at her. If only all Manhattan dungeon parties had scenes like that, I’d go out more, Alexandra thought with a sigh.

  “Is there a problem?” Rachel asked, noticing that Alexandra’s mind had wandered.

  “No, no,” Alex assured her. “I was just thinking about an old friend, a pro in Midtown who used to throw great parties.”

  Rachel snapped her head up. “That’s it!” she said triumphantly. “That’s where I know you from. You were at that party that Spike and me crashed.”

  “Then it was you!” Alex said, astonished. Of course, that was the tattoo showing beneath Rachel’s blouse. “I remember you clearly.”

  “Yeah, I remember you, too,” Rachel said bluntly. “You were the hottest thing there. But I was too busy dumping Spike and getting to know Tikka to find you. Afterward, I mean.”

  “You were the one person worth watching at that party,” Alexandra laughed. “You certainly had the room going.” And me, she remembered.

  “Yeah?” Rachel grinned. “How about you? Did you like it, too?” She looked Alexandra directly in the eye, and found the invitation.

  Amused, but also interested, Alexandra smiled slowly, and waited for Rachel to move closer to her before she leaned toward the dark-haired woman to kiss her deeply. Rachel’s mouth had the sweet-turned-bitter taste of marijuana, her lips full and soft. Surprisingly, she didn’t immediately thrust herself into Alexandra’s mouth, but instead teased her with the tip of her tongue flicking once, then twice, across the older woman’s teeth.

  There’s even more talent here than I suspected, Alexandra thought, responding with her own quick thrusts before finishing the kiss and rising from her seat. Rachel stood immediately, and followed Alexandra out of the room, and up the stairs. After they disappeared into Alexandra’s wing, Chris quietly reentered the library, picked up the glasses and the empty can and Rachel’s shoes, and departed as noiselessly as he arrived.

  * * * *

  Rachel did her best not to stare at the room. Unlike her own experience in the dark, industrial-district loft dungeons of her professional colleagues in Manhattan, Alexandra’s room was light, with sunlight flowing through the windows, and beautiful, welcoming furniture that didn’t crowd the room, but invited you to sit or recline in comfort.

  Alexandra turned back toward Rachel, and shrugged out of her dress with a simple movement, letting the fabric drop and flow over her feet. Damn, Rachel thought, the woman is incredibly hot! She watched as Alexandra unhooked her bra with that curiously experienced double-jointed movement that women so take for granted until they see another woman execute the move. Alexandra stood like a Greek statue, her skin smooth and pale, her blue eyes like sapphires as she reached toward Rachel, and brought her close. Alexandra quickly unbuttoned Rachel’s blouse, even as Rachel was unhooking her skirt and shrugging her hips out of it. She stopped, then, and traced her fingers over the tattoo on Rachel’s arm and shoulder. It was a fierce-looking cat, snarling, with almost bat-like wings and long, vicious claws. Alexandra felt a set of tiny scars just where the cat’s teeth appeared to be sinking its teeth into the muscle of Rachel’s upper arm.

  “My familiar,” Rachel grinned, as she kissed Alexandra and pulled her down on the bed. “She bites, sometimes.”

  She ran her fingers through Alex’s blond hair, then tugged gently, keeping Alexandra’s mouth upon hers. She kissed her more urgently, pulling Alexandra’s hand down to her dark, thick bush of pubic hair, wanting the woman to feel her arousal. Alexandra felt her own wetness grow when her fingers slipped through the hair and dipped into Rachel’s ready cunt. After the years of shaven cunts and cocks that seemed perpetually fashionable in the Marketplace, Rachel’s bush held a deep, erotic fascination for her. Its dark, tangled hair implied a sense of wild, sexual pleasure without compromise to any lover.

  The older woman’s nipples tightened as she pressed deeper, and Rachel responded, thrusting toward the fingers hungrily, demanding more. When Alexandra pushed three fingers, then four through the tangle of hair surrounding Rachel’s ready opening, she sighed with delight. Pulling out slightly, she pressed her thumb tightly against the palm of her hand, and rocked it against Rachel’s wet cunt. Rachel groaned as Alexa
ndra rocked her hand across the wetness, and thrust harder and more urgently against the fist. With perfect rhythm, her cunt swallowed Alexandra’s hand. Both women stopped briefly, enjoying the tightness, the fullness that no cock could ever match. Then the fucking began in earnest.

  Rachel was a demanding, hungry lover, who wrapped her legs around Alexandra’s thighs, keeping the woman against her and the fist securely in her cunt. Alexandra shifted her hand against the hot, fleshy walls of Rachel’s cunt in minute movements that drove Rachel into wild humping thrusts that buried Alexandra’s wrist even deeper into the tangled bush of hair. She used her free hand to pull Rachel’s head back and felt the woman’s entire body arch against her.

  Rachel growled and wrapped her arms around Alexandra, binding them even more tightly together, then took one of Alexandra’s nipples into her mouth and began to suck and tongue it. The intensity of Rachel’s hot mouth on her nipple was an erotic counterpoint to the warmth enveloping her fist, and Alexandra began to moan as well, a sheen of sweat appearing on her neck and forehead. She pressed her knuckles against Rachel’s cervix carefully, knowing that some women found that painful and others enjoyed it. Rachel was apparently in the latter category, and bucked hard. Alexandra let out a hiss of pleasure, and began to pull her hand out of Rachel’s cunt, then thrusting it in with a gentle twist of her wrist.

  Rachel cried with pleasure, her mouth releasing Alexandra’s nipple, only to catch the other in her mouth, this time using her teeth. Rachel bit down harder as Alexandra pumped her hand in and out of her cunt, pressing down, watching with astonishment as her hand appeared, then disappeared into the thick bush of hair. She fucked Rachel harder, until the woman cried out again, releasing her nipples. Then Alexandra bent her own head quickly, grasped one of Rachel’s heavy nipple rings in her mouth, and tugged.

  It was like riding a tiger. Rachel’s cunt tightened almost painfully around Alexandra’s fist as she came, thrusting upwards, as if to pull the hand even deeper into her. Alexandra slowed the movement of her hand, wanting to feel the power of the come as it squeezed, then released her fingers. Rachel was yowling, screaming to be fucked harder, demanding it as her right, and Alexandra shifted her hand slightly, amazed as the woman bucked again against her, grabbing the back of her head and pressing her mouth even more tightly against the dark, pierced nipple. Alexandra flicked her tongue against the rock-hard nub of flesh, sending Rachel into another orgasm, feeling Rachel’s nails digging into her back as her body jerked again, her cunt tightening once more.

  Finally, exhausted, Rachel released her, falling back against the bed, her brown curls spread across the pillow, a satisfied smile on her face. Alexandra smiled back at her, and carefully pulled her almost numb hand slowly out of Rachel’s body. When her knuckles were free, another wave of orgasms pulled Rachel off the bed, almost as if she had been given an electric shock, leaving her to flop back like a cotton doll. Then Alexandra realized she, too, was exhausted, panting, and she fell against the pillow next to Rachel, flexing and re-flexing her hand until the blood flowed through it again.

  When both women caught their breath, Alexandra rang a small bell on the bed stand, which immediately brought forth a slave carrying a tray with a carafe of light-colored liquid and two glasses. Alexandra poured a glass for her most-recent playmate, then filled one for herself. The slave vanished into the bathroom for a few moments and came back with warm, damp hand-towels, but Alex merely indicated the bed stand and waved a dismissive hand. As the slave quietly left the room, Rachel laughed and used one of the towels to wipe the sweat off the back of her neck. “Shit, I can get used to that kind of help! Are they all like that?”

  “They can be,” Alex said after a drink. “Chris is a good overseer for them, but we could use another. How long have you known him?” Alexandra asked.

  “Oh, Parker and me, we go way back. Back before he found this Marketplace thing. The seventies,” Rachel said. “We met each other on the street. We hung together for a while, and kept in touch after he, you know, went into all this training shit. No offense.”

  “None taken.” Alexandra thought about that. Rachel and Chris must have been in their teens when they met. Street kids, in New York, it was amazing they were both still alive. “How did you live?” she asked.

  “The usual,” Rachel shrugged. “Parker would stay sometimes with his brother, sometimes with some freakin’ mistress this or that. Probably locked up from time to time, if you know what I mean! Sometimes I would find a girlfriend with an apartment. If not, we’d trick for food and dope and blow and find some crib to crash in until something better came along. The piers on warm nights, it wasn’t that bad.” She smiled. “You know, Parker and I always promised each other that some day, we’d get ourselves our own place, with a dungeon, where we could spank rich stockbrokers for hundreds of dollars.” She laughed at Alex’s expression of amazement.

  “Oh yeah, Parker and me were kinky right from the start,” she laughed. “Parker was really into the whole leather S/M scene, sneaking into the bars and picking up the tough guys, sucking them off in the empty trucks on the piers. They liked that innocent face, I think, liked pounding it to shit. Dangerous stuff, sometimes, but when he wasn’t doing that, he was getting fucked over by some bitch in high heels. I was pretty much doing the same things with different people. Never had a pimp, either of us, never mainlined, never got into strange cars, we did all right.”

  “Partners in more than one way?” Alex probed.

  Rachel laughed and shrugged, not offended by the question. “We’d try to do this shit with each other, but you know—it just wouldn’t ever work for too long. Always hot, don’t get me wrong—just not ...right. We were too much alike, I think. Then I got into a house and spanked stockbrokers for a living.” Her smile faded. “But the leather scene wasn’t enough for Parker. When he found out about the Marketplace, he couldn’t stop until he got in. And now that he has, well ...”

  “You miss him?” Alexandra asked gently.

  Rachel nodded. “Sometimes, it’s like we dropped out of each others lives,” she said. “And he’s just, well, different now. Not that he isn’t still a real hot fuck,” she assured Alex, “but we live very different lives now.”

  Alexandra nodded encouragingly, hoping that she was covering her shock. The vision of cool, distant Chris Parker having sex with the wildcat in bed next to her was hard to believe. Let alone the woman’s assertion that they were too much alike. She couldn’t imagine two more different people!

  “Chris and me were the best fuck buddies,” Rachel continued thoughtfully. “Didn’t matter who we were doing or how good it was, it was always great to get back together. Even if it was months between fucks, we’d be in the same bed and boom, it was like we never parted. You people—the Marketplace—it’s been the hardest separation for us. ‘Cause before, one of us would run away or get thrown out, or sneak out or just fuckin’ go out and we’d find each other. But for years now, he’s had all these rules he has to follow, and I see him only once in a while. It’s much worse than all the times he fell in love with someone.” Her eyebrows lifted in an unasked question.

  “Rachel, Chris is one of the most remarkable trainers to come along in decades,” Alex said. “Part of that, I think, is because of his love for the Marketplace itself, rather than for any individual within it. There are very few who have that kind of focus. Frankly, I don’t know if I could do it without Grendel, or someone like him.” Rachel nodded, understanding that her question had been answered. But Alex had a question, too.

  “So, Rachel, what about you? Do you think the Marketplace can be the right place for you?”

  Rachel thought about that.

  “I don’t know,” she finally replied. “I’m not like you, or Parker. The whole thing about training sounds too much like work. And I don’t get off on the idea that there might be a bunch of rules that I have to follow. That’s why I’m working on my own now—house rules didn’t sit well with me.” She p
aused. “But that doesn’t mean I’m unreasonable. Someone’s got to sweep the floors, clean the toilets, and stuff. I just hate getting attitude from people who think they’re better than me. I’ve done shit most of your owners and slaves wouldn’t dare try.” She looked at Alex seriously. “I’m not stupid. I’m willing to learn if you’re willing to try me. Just don’t confuse me with one of the slaves you’re training, okay? Give me some room to go out and play in the streets and let me see if I like being a house cat for a change.”

  “There’s no way you would ever be mistaken for one of our slaves, Rachel, I assure you.” Alex smiled, her blue eyes piercing into Rachel’s.

  * * * *

  “What do you mean, we’re hiring her?” Grendel exploded. “She’s got no housekeeping experience, no interest in the Marketplace, no resume worth speaking of, not even a goddamned GED, for goodness sakes! I don’t care if she gave you a good romp in bed, that’s not enough of a reason to put her on payroll!” Alex was waiting for Grendel to finish his rant, but at his last statement, her eyes flashed angrily.

  “Are you implying that I, I could be swayed to hire someone based solely on their ability to please me in bed?” she snapped. The menace in her voice sliced through Grendel’s anger.

  “No, I just meant—no, Alex,” he answered. “That was an inappropriate comment to make. I apologize.” There was a silence between them, growing heavier with each passing moment, while Alex willed herself to calm down.

  “I accept your apology,” she said formally, and Grendel sighed in relief.

  “Alex,” he said more quietly, “you know I trust your judgment. I just don’t understand this decision. She made only a bad impression on me.”