Twenty-One

by D. Victoria BonAnno

  “Enough,” Demetrius ordered. Twenty-One sat back down, licking the remaining juices from her lips.

  Abigail clapped again. “That was beautiful! She has quite the oral talent, doesn’t she, to make the little steel slave moan like that!” She ran a hand through Twenty-One’s hair. “Oh, she must suck marvelous cock, D.”

  “She is very skilled.” Again her Master’s voice was cold and clipped. He did not seem to be enjoying himself. Twenty-One’s heart stung. Was it something she had done?

  “I’d like to see her in action, actually,” Abigail rose from her seat, tossing her hair to the side, and raised her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Let’s have a new game. My boys have worked hard for me this season, and they need to be rewarded. Let’s have a head race tonight!”

  The attendants cheered, but Twenty-One felt Demetrius tense.

  Abigail’s hand appeared on Twenty-One’s shoulder. “And let’s get our little Model Slave in on the game this time!”

  “No,” Demetrius’ voice was so harsh that Twenty-One had to look at him. He sat rigid, his fist clenched around a fork, staring at Abigail with the most dangerous gaze Twenty-One had ever seen. But Abigail only laughed, and Twenty-One could only gape at her in awe.

  “Oh, come now, D, we’re all curious to see what makes her so special,” said Abigail with a little bite in her words. “After all, didn’t you tell me that she’s better trained than most slaves are after months in your care?”

  Demetrius began to speak, but fell silent, as if interrupted. Abigail laughed again.

  “Exactly, Dr. Lane,” she said, smiling at a nearby camera on the table. “We want to see the Model Slave in action.”

  Demetrius’ silence was agony. Twenty-One cringed, waiting for some violent explosion, but nothing came.

  “Very well,” his storm-grey eyes were glowing when they found Twenty-One. “Go with Abigail to the podium.”

  “Yes, Master.” Twenty-One’s heart slammed against her ribcage, but Abigail took her hand and dragged her away from her Master. They circled the table as Abigail selected seven slaves to come up with them as the invisible buyers requested them, plucking them from the floor as if she were shopping for ripe fruit.

  “This one, absolutely, how cute…and yes, you, dear, go on up, yes…oh, and of course we need this one…attendants, bring my slaves to the podium, please.”

  Before Twenty-One knew it, she was on the podium in a line of eight female and eight male slaves, awaiting orders. Abigail fluttered between the stock, flirting with the cameras.

  “For you newcomers,” she said to the cameras, “a head race is exactly as it sounds. Demetrius’ lovely girls will service my slaves with their mouths until one comes. The winner will be given to Ash, my star pupil, so we can see a demonstration of his skills.”

  Abigail and the twins paired up the slaves as she spoke. Faith ushered Twenty-One toward a tall, lean slave.

  “On your knees,” she said. “You get to play with Hemlock.”

  Twenty-One obeyed. She glanced at her Master, so far away at the end of the room, but she didn’t need to see him to sense his anger. She didn’t know what to do. Would he be angry if she lost? He had said she was a quick student. Did she really stack up against the slaves who had had so much more time for training?

  Hemlock, the slave she was paired with, stood with his hands behind his back. Abigail had twirled some of his long dreadlocks around the curling horns on the sides of his head, making them look almost natural. His sex was rigid and sloped slightly to the left. The gold paint covered most of his ebon skin, but his sex was not gilded. Twenty-One met his eyes. They were as blank and doll-like as the best trained female slaves.

  “All right, ladies, hands behind your backs,” Abigail said. Twenty-One clasped her hands together at the small of her back, ready. “And…go!”

  Twenty-One leaned forward. Hemlock was very tall, so she had to stand on her knees in order to get all of him inside of her mouth. The male slave shivered when the tip of him hit the back of her throat. She wanted to savour the moment, to experience the sensation of a new person in her mouth, but she was in a race. She closed her lips tightly around his shaft and slid down the length of him, then slid forward and took him into her throat. Hemlock threw his head back, his legs quivering. He grew inside of her, stiffer and thicker along her tongue. She tasted him, exploring along every nook and ridge as she sucked up and down, rolling her tongue along the tip of him. Hemlock moaned, a piteous sound barely audible over the jeers and whistles that echoed through the room.

  The slaves around Twenty-One were silent, though she could see their heads bobbing up and down out of the corner of her eye. She waited to hear Abigail or the twins call the end of the game, but nothing came but cheering. She continued, teasing Hemlock with tongue and teeth, wishing she could hear his breath or that he would begin to thrust into her mouth so she could gauge his arousal. His stillness told her nothing.

  Twenty-One nearly jerked back when Hemlock gave a single involuntary thrust and spilled his seed into her mouth. She struggled to swallow and breathe at the same time, certain she would be punished if any of the seed spilled from her lips. She drew back and wiped her mouth clean, finally able to catch her breath. Hemlock had given no indication that he was anywhere near orgasm. Was that what buyers wanted in a male slave?

  She had no time to dwell on it. The twins encircled their slender arms around her and pulled her to her feet. The attendants were deafening, banging on the table with their fists, shouting, some of their arms in the air. Abigail’s gold heels appeared in Twenty-One’s eyeline. She tilted the slave’s chin up. There was an edge to her smile that made Twenty-One’s spine tingle.

  “Well, well,” Abigail purred. “Look who won?” She tossed a glance back at Demetrius, who remained at the table, unmoving. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you, D. What a mouth!”

  “Thank you, Mistress,” Twenty-One whispered, uncertain if she should speak.

  Abigail reached up and patted Twenty-One’s cheek with the tips of her fingers, “Such a good girl. I hope you enjoy Ash while you have him, baby girl. He is quite a treat.”

  Twenty-One followed Abigail’s pointed finger as she beckoned for her favourite slave. Her chest tightened. The rest of the slaves melted away. Abigail and the twins, too, retreated. Ash approached her, growing hard as she watched, his smile wide and white and somehow terrifying.

  “Give her a kiss before you fuck her, Ash!” Abigail called out. “Be a gentleman!”

  Demetrius rose from his seat a little too quickly. Twenty-One took a step back even though her Master was across the room. Abigail smiled and shook her head, her lips moving. Demetrius walked off, disappearing through the gold curtains that hid the French doors. Twenty-One suddenly couldn’t find her breath. Her Master was gone. She was alone in a sea of attendants and slaves and strangers with a naked man bearing down on her.

  No sooner had Ash hopped onto the platform than he slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him for a kiss. It was a short, sweet kiss, almost polite, but the erection which pressed against her stomach was anything but cordial. Twenty-One grew wet immediately, a kneejerk reaction despite her racing heart. She wanted to break free, to run away, to find her Master, but that was not what a good slave would do. That was not Model Slave behaviour. But Ash’s lips moved to her neck and she surprised herself by moaning softly, shocked by her own desire. Demetrius had trained her well. She was ready for Ash even when her mind was elsewhere.

  Ash nibbled her earlobe, his hands roaming her body as if it had always been his to use. He cupped her breasts and the attendants gave a fresh roar. The hall was nearly deafening with chatter and cheers.

  “What’s your name?” Ash whispered in her ear. His tone was not the low growl of a man enthralled. It held an urgency, but not the urgency of desire.

  “What?” Twenty-One dared reply.

  Ash’s fingers found her nipples, squeezing them, distracting her. Hi
s hands were quick and rough and all over the place. Something felt wrong about his touch.

  “Tell me your name,” he whispered. He slid a finger into her sex so suddenly that she cried out and tried to spring back, but he took her cry into his mouth with a quick, hard kiss, and his muscular arms kept her captive. Twenty-One smothered a burst of anger inappropriate in a slave. She would be used, even by another slave, if her Master or Mistress ordered it. What she could not understand was how this rough and awkward creature was Abigail’s favourite. Demetrius had not trained her to be so mechanical. She was certain Abigail would not train a male slave to be an awkward lover.

  Ash slid another finger into her sex, finding her wet but too tight. His fingers were almost painful, too soon inside of her.

  “I’m Twenty-One,” she murmured into his ear. Were they allowed to speak? No one stopped them, but Twenty-One wasn’t certain anyone had noticed their exchange with Ash’s busy hands to distract them.

  “No,” Ash whispered, lifting her chin and leaning into her for another kiss. His expression was completely different from the movie-star grin she had seen plastered on his face before. There was an intelligence in his expression, careful and concealed.

  “You’re not Twenty-One,” he said. “And I’m not Ash. My name is Jason. What’s your name?”

  Twenty-One tried to break away again, but he held her firm against his chest.

  “Don’t,” he warned, nodding his head toward the crowd. “Keep touching me. Don’t let them know we’re talking.”

  Twenty-One’s heart leapt to her throat. Now she understood shy his hands were all over the place, why his fondling was so automatic. He was unbroken. How had he been able to fool his Mistress? Demetrius seemed to know every single thought that passed through her mind. How could Abigail have missed an unbroken slave, let alone her favourite?

  “But…why?” she mumbled, forcing her hands to explore his body. She traced the grooves of his ab muscles, brushing his erect sex. If it pleased him, he gave no sign.

  “What’s your name?” he repeated.

  “Come on, Ash, fuck her already!” one of the attendants shouted. “We’ve never gotten to see her in action!”

  Ash responded immediately. Twenty-One found her feet off the ground in an instant. Ash scooped her into his arms as if she weighed nothing. She clung to his neck, her mind racing.

  Ash slammed her against one of the crosses on the platform. She had just enough time to grab the straps on its arms before he shoved his way inside of her.

  Twenty-One gasped. She was too tight and he was too big for her to accommodate him without proper foreplay. She gritted her teeth and fought not to cry out as he pulled halfway out of her and thrust back inside, fighting his way in. He moaned loudly and leaned into her, his teeth on her neck, as the crowd erupted into cheers.

  “My name is Jason. I’m from Pittsburgh,” he said against her skin. “I have two brothers. I moved to Los Angeles a year ago to become an actor. Who are you? Think!”

  Twenty-One was too dumbstruck to think.

  “I…I’m a slave,” she said weakly. Ash’s thrusts began to build a deep pressure within her conditioned body. She moaned, surrendering to the feeling, and gripped the straps more tightly to keep from meeting his thrusts.

  “No, you’re not,” he said, kissing her cheek fiercely. “You’re a woman with a life and a family and a name. And I need your help.”

  “Switch it up!” came an anonymous request. “From behind!”

  Ash sighed. He grabbed Twenty-One’s shoulders and flipped her around, pressing her chest against the wooden cross.

  “Twenty-One, spread your legs!”

  She obeyed automatically, parting her legs so they were in line with the bottom of the cross. Ash, being taller than she was, had to bend his knees in order to enter her again. He took her by the hips, lifted her up slightly, adjusting her like an item of clothing. He entered her again, and the pressure began to build immediately. Tears filled her eyes. Her mind was so far from their escapades, but her body reacted regardless. She hadn’t truly understood how well she had been trained until this moment.

  You were born for this…

  Ash’s hard chest brushed her back.

  “Abigail has a cell phone,” he whispered. “I’m going to make a distraction and steal it.”

  Twenty-One went cold. The crowd faded away into nothing. She hardly felt the leather straps to which she clung.

  “You can’t,” she hissed. “She’s your Mistress.”

  Ash thrust so deeply into her that she screamed, the lower part of her body burning with painful pressure. He covered her mouth.

  “She’s the psycho who drugged me and kept me locked up naked in a warehouse,” he growled, his pace increasing. His voice rose over the sound of their flesh colliding. “She’s not my Mistress, and Demetrius isn’t your Master. We were abducted. All of us were abducted. I’m going to get that phone, and I need to know you’re able to help me. Tell me something so I know you’re still in there somewhere.” His thrusts were rapid, frantic. “Tell me your name.”

  Twenty-One gripped the leather straps so hard they cut into her palms.

  “Chloe,” she whispered on the edge of her breath.

  Ash gave one last thrust and drew himself out of her. He gave another theatrical moan and turned his back toward the crowd. Twenty-One felt no seed spatter her back, though everyone cheered. Ash turned her around with the same runway smile she had seen on his face earlier in the night. She knew what it hid now.

  “Save us, Chloe.”

  Chapter 31

  August 26, 2005

  The sterile stench of the Ochsner Baptist Medical Center summoned unwanted memories to torment Demetrius. In the present, he saw Dede lying in the bed, her waxy skin stretched over her bones. When he closed his eyes, he saw himself from years ago, awakening confused and panicked in a Toledo hospital. Only Dia anchored him to reality. She clung to him, her face buried in his chest. She had been sobbing ever since the nurse had called Demetrius to tell him it was time to say goodbye. He didn’t think they had anticipated Dede holding on this long. Nurses came and went, checking the heart monitor, but for the most part, the three were left alone while the nurses gossiped about an impending storm Demetrius knew nothing about.

  “They don’t know,” Dia murmured into his chest. “They don’t know.”

  “Sh, sh, sh,” Demetrius stroked her hair.

  He knew what she meant. The nurses didn’t know who lay dying in this bed. They didn’t know her as the pillar of an underground community of people from prostitutes to socialites who relied on her for spiritual guidance. They didn’t know her strength, her mystery. All they saw was an old woman with terminal cancer about to draw her last breath.

  Dia moved to Dede’s bedside, kneeling beside her as if she were about to take Communion.

  “Demetrius,” Dia’s voice was strained through tears.

  Demetrius came to kneel beside her. He barely saw movement in Dede’s chest. Her hand in Dia’s was limp and nonresponsive. Demetrius did not dare look away. He stared at the body of the strange and wonderful woman who had taken him in, shielded him, and given him a name. Her breath slowed to a stop. The heart monitor flat-lined. Demetrius waited for a feeling, a sound, or maybe some sort of spiritual rush. There was nothing.

  Dia collapsed into tears, clutching a corpse’s hand, looking as young and as lost as she ever had. She did not notice two nurses come in to shut off the heart monitor.

  “…supposed to be huge,” one of the nurses whispered.

  The other nurse nodded, glancing at Demetrius, staring at his attire, but saying nothing. The other nurse continued under her breath as if he and Dia weren’t even there.

  “Do you think we’re going to have to evacuate?” she asked the silent nurse, who shook her head, looking again at Demetrius. Her oblivious companion continued whispering. She covered the shell that Dede had left behind with a sheet. “If Katrina makes it to-”r />
  Dia uttered an alien scream and sprung from Dede’s bedside, startling the nurses and Demetrius himself.

  “Get out!” she screamed as the nurses backed away. “Get the fuck out!”

  Demetrius got to his feet, but Dia seized the heart monitor and hurled it to the floor before he caught her. Its cord ripped from the wall and writhed in the air before the monitor crashed to the floor.

  “Fuck you!” Dia screamed at the nurses. She broke in his arms, crumbling like an ash log.

  Demetrius scooped her legs over his arm and held her like an infant. Demetrius looked at the two nurses, giving the chatty one a long glare.

  “Move,” he said.

  They scattered from the door, heading toward the bed out of habit, as if their patient’s corpse were in some sort of danger. Demetrius carried Dia out of the room. The incident had frozen nurses in their tracks. They gaped at the masked man carrying the sobbing girl out of a patient’s room as if he were some sort of classic movie monster abducting an innocent. He didn’t care. He stepped into the elevator and shifted Dia to punch the number for the bottom floor.

  “Let’s go home, ma chère,” he said into her hair, holding her tightly. He was grateful for the hollowness inside of him. It was the quietest his mind had been in a long time, and the first time he had been able to hold Dia so close without that sickening flame of desire threatening to torment him. She was simply his sweet girl, his broken girl in his arms tonight.

  “No,” Dia whispered into his chest, her broken heart in her voice. “She’s gone. I can’t go there. I can’t see her rocking chair and know she won’t ever sit in it again.”

  Demetrius’ chest stung, envisioning the empty rocking chair on the porch.

  “Where can we go?” he asked.

  Dia sniffled so sweetly against him. “My mom’s house?”

  Demetrius nodded. The Garden District wasn’t too far from here. Though he wondered whether or not it was wise for Dia to interact with her pathetic excuse for a mother right now, he would not question her. He hailed a cab and held Dia like a porcelain doll. Dede was gone. What would become of them, her lost children, without her?