by E J Frost
“Good girl.” I kiss her on the forehead and nod at the end of the hall. “I’ll be right there.”
She smiles at me before she moves away down the hall. I return to Rachel, who has lifted her head. There are tears standing in her eyes. She blinks rapidly so they don’t spill.
“What do you want, Rachel?” I put enough warning in my tone that I expect her to back down.
She doesn’t, although a tear spills. “I haven’t seen you in months, Master.”
“It’s Master Logan, Rachel. You know that. And I travel a lot for work. You know that, too.” There’s no reason for me to justify myself to her, so I stop. “You have my number. You know how to contact me if you need something.”
“Padrone confiscated my phone,” she says.
“As a punishment?” I ask. She nods. “Has he forbidden you to speak with me?”
If so, I’m not sure who I’m turning over to Maude first: Rachel for disobeying her Master, or Sante for being a bastard.
“No, Master Logan.” She glances down the hallway to where Emily is waiting. “Please, I’ve been waiting weeks. If you’re back in the City, can I see you? Please, can I see you?”
Fuck, what is this about?
“Rachel, I don’t think that would be a good idea.” If she’s looking to cheat on Sante, that’s right out, and I can’t see things going any other way if we met up. “You’re exclusive with Sante—”
She starts shaking her head before I finish the sentence. “Padrone lifted that restriction.”
Before meeting Emily, I might have been tempted. Now, my dick doesn’t even twitch. “No, Rachel. I’m sorry. I’m leaving again on Thursday, and even if I wasn’t, our relationship is over. I’m with Emily now.”
The glance she shoots down the hallway has more venom than a black mamba. “Are you exclusive?”
“Yes.”
Emily and I haven’t discussed it, but there’s no question in my mind.
“When did this happen?” Rachel wails.
“Shh,” I scold her. “We’re in public.” Although the stairs, landing and corridors are currently empty, that could change any second with just a door opening. “It doesn’t matter when it happened. That’s the way it is now.”
“I’ve been waiting weeks, Master,” she says, two tears spilling to run down her cheeks. “I’ve come in every night, even when I wasn’t on the schedule. Ever since I convinced Padrone to share me with you—“
Her timing is piss-fucking-poor. “I’m sorry about that. When does your shift end?”
Hope lights her eyes, but I shake my head before she gets the wrong idea.
“Ten,” she says, lowering her head again so all I can see is the top of her head.
“At ten-thirty, you’ll report to Mistress Maude for an hour. You have my permission to tell her anything you want about us, but that’s where it ends, Rachel. No more of this.”
Her shoulders shake. “Yes, Master.”
Her pain should call to me. On several levels. That it doesn’t, tells me all I need to know.
“For the last time, Rachel, it’s Master Logan. Next time, it’s discipline. Now, if you need to take a break now to compose yourself, you have my permission. Ask Austin to spell you.”
“Yes, sir. Good-night, Master Logan.”
I turn away from my ex-slave and walk down the hall to where my baby girl’s waiting for me. Emily watches me walk towards her. Her face is neutral, but her eyes are bright.
“I’m assuming you heard that,” I say. The hall’s not that long.
Emily nods. “She’s really upset. Do you want to comfort her, sir? I don’t mind.”
“That’s generous of you.” I stroke her hair. “But I think it would give her the wrong idea. Better she vents to someone else and gets it out of her system. Let’s go.” I nod at the closed door behind her.
Emily moves so I can open the door and goes through when I urge her forward with my hand in the small of her back.
As I shut the door behind us, she says, “Can I ask a question, sir?”
“Only one?”
She nods.
“Yes, good girl for asking,” I say, over the barking that bounces off the gallery’s panelled woodwork.
“You told her we’re exclusive. Did you just say that to put her off, or because we are?”
“Because we are,” I say firmly. “I couldn’t stand anyone else touching you. Daisy really got my back up in the car just by sitting too close to you.”
She grins and reaches hesitantly for my hand. I take hers and lead her down the candle-lit gallery.
“I wasn’t sure, sir, because I know you’ve shared your other subs,” she says, almost too quietly to be heard over the barking of the hunt’s hounds.
Hearing the noise getting closer, I draw her to the side as we reach a corner. The “fox,” Tessa, one of the house subs, wearing a cute little red tail and perky ears that match her perky, bare breasts, runs around the corner a moment later. She waves at me as she trots past, heading toward the portrait of the club’s founder, William Warrell, Earl of Blunt and exile from London to the New World for Acts Unspeakable. All of the house subs know about the secret passage behind his portrait. The man leading the hunt knows about it, too, of course, but he won’t tell the “hounds,” who are likely guests. It’s all part of the game.
After Tessa disappears, I say to Emily, “I’ve shared some of my other bottoms, sweetheart. Not all. It’s not something I need to do, and it’s not something I feel comfortable doing with you. Maybe it’s part of the daddy-thing. I feel very protective of you, and I wouldn’t be happy giving over your care to anyone else.”
She beams up at me. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“You’re welcome. Ooop, stand in.” I pull her a little closer as a tangle of bodies careens around the corner.
It’s the hounds: six men stripped down to their kecks, skins oiled, ankles chained together, running on all fours, unpracticed, uncoordinated, skidding and slipping on the smooth parquet floor. One of them loses his balance and crashes into the corner a few feet from where Emily’s standing. I shift her out of the way as he scrambles up, only to be flattened to the floor again by the crack of a horse-whip across his shoulders.
“Ow, fuck!” The whipped hound yells. “That’s not the way this is supposed to go! I thought I was going to get to do the whipping!”
“You thought wrong,” Ryan says, stalking smoothly around the corner on polished black boots. “I might let you give our fox a little spanking, if you ever manage to catch her.” Ryan catches sight of me and grins. “Master Logan, are you joining the hunt?”
“Master Ryan,” I acknowledge. “Not tonight. Just watching. This is my date, Emily. Emily, this is Master Ryan.”
Ryan bows, flipping the tails of his hunting jacket back smoothly, and doffing his top hat. “Good evening, my dear. Would you like a ride on one of my hounds?”
Emily bites her lip and looks up at me. She gives me a tiny nod.
I take her hand and lead her to the pack of tangled, sweating men.
“That one,” Ryan says, flicking his whip across the shoulders of the already whipped hound. “It may be his only chance to get between a woman’s thighs tonight, at the rate he’s going.”
“Yeah! C’mon, pretty girl. Mount up!” The hound tries to crawl forward, but the ankle chain yanks his right leg out from under him. “Fuck, Pete! Work with me here!” He yells at the man nearest him.
“Enough talking,” Ryan says, flicking his whip across the back of each hound, to yelps and curses. “Dog noises only. Give Emily a smooth ride or I’ll whip you bloody.”
The men growl and bark while I help Emily onto the back of the talkative hound. Once she’s seated, with me still holding her hand for balance, Ryan whips his hounds again, snapping the thighs and ass of the man Emily’s riding but carefully avoiding my girl’s tender skin. Ryan really is a master of the horse-whip.
“Since you’ve lost the fox, you imbeciles, turn
around and head back the way you came. We’ll try to pick up her scent,” Ryan says, between whip-cracks. The group shuffles and bumps as they about-face. I hold Emily’s hand and walk beside her. She giggles and slides on the hound’s sweaty, oily back. She grabs a handful of his hair and, at my urging, kicks him with her Mary Janes as though she was applying spurs to a horse. Her hound curses colorfully but scrambles a little faster and I release her hand once it looks like she has him under control. I fall back a few steps to enjoy the show.
Once he has the group turned around and headed back up the hallway, where the “fox” doubtless will be waiting for them, Ryan falls into step beside me. “Good to see you, brother. You in town for a while?”
I shake my head. “Just until Thursday.”
“Shame. When’re you back? Tania was just saying that we haven’t seen you in months. She wants to feed you.” He snaps his whip almost lazily across the back of one of the hounds, sending the man sprawling and the rest of the group stumbling. Emily squeals and giggles as her hound struggles to stay upright. “You’re welcome to bring your girl. Tania would love to meet her.”
I chuckle. “You don’t have to bribe me, Ry. We’re back on the nineteenth. How about Thursday of that week?”
“That’s a date.”
“How’s Tania doing?”
“Eh.” Ryan shrugs, and cracks his whip again. “Third trimester’s no fun for her. She’s swollen and cranky and constipated. Great for me, though.” He gives me a grin that has brought countless of our house subs to their knees. “The titty fairy has come again. You know I love that, and Tania’s unbelievably horny. I have to peel her off my dick just to go to work. I’d keep her pregnant all the time if I could.”
Since this is their third child in four years, he’s not doing so badly in that department.
“How are Ellie and Elise?” I ask, referring to his daughters.
“Great. Leese announced yesterday that she’s going to be the first American princess and sit on the throne in Washington.”
I chuckle. “You’re so screwed, Papi.”
“Don’t I know it?” Ryan snaps his whip again and shouts to the hounds as the “fox” appears from between two busts of illustrious founding members, shakes her tail at us, and prances away down the corridor. The pack begins baying, and scrambling, and slipping.
Ryan shakes his head and lets the pack pull a little distance ahead of us.
“Is Tessa going to let them catch her?” I ask.
“Doubtful. You know what a tease she is. These guys can’t get it together for ten whole feet. I’ve already told the girls in the spa to be ready to give them the royal treatment. Their knees aren’t the only thing that’ll be blue by the end of the hour.”
I chuckle. “Who are they?”
“Bunch of ad execs who want to play at kink. Alan told me to make sure they had fun but nothing too crazy, so I thought we’d hunt Tessa. If they manage to catch her, which I doubt, she’ll be happy to show the winner a trick or two while I send the rest of them to the spa.” He snaps his whip at a straggler, catching him across the backs of his thighs, which really gets him moving. “Tell me about your new girl. Give me the deets, as Tania would say.”
“I only met her yesterday. This is our first real date—”
“You brought her here on your first date?”
I shrug. “Rick Errol called in a favor.”
Ryan scowls. “Look, I know he’s a good client—”
“Don’t.” We’ve argued about Rick before. I know Ryan voted against his membership. I’ve tried not to let it affect our friendship. “Does Emily look like she’s having a bad time?”
I wave my hand at my little girl, who is whooping and giggling as she rides her hound.
“No,” Ryan concedes. “Is she a slave?”
I shake my head. “She’s a little.”
Ryan raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you were into that. Daddy Logan, huh?”
Hearing it from Ryan doesn’t feel nearly as good as hearing it from Emily, but I shrug off the weirdness. It’s still new. “I might be into anything she’s into. The Daddy-Dom thing? Blows my mind. Everything clicks.”
“Good, great. That shit after Christmas? I know it was really rough. I’m glad you’re dating again.”
I clap him on the shoulder. “Thanks.”
Ahead of us, the hounds skid to a jumbled halt. Emily applies her heels to her mount like she’s riding the Kentucky Derby, but the hound can only slip around a few feet, hobbled by his ankle chains.
“They’ve lost her again,” Ryan says, shaking his head.
“Niche behind Fowler’s portrait?” I ask, referring to one of the many hiding places in this part of the gallery.
“Air vent under the Hues bust, I think, but they’re so slow, she could be anywhere. I’ll get them past the statue of Teigan and then turn them around again.”
“Okay, good luck. Emily and I are going to head on to the library.”
“Are you doing a scene? Fuck, I’m sorry to miss that.”
“Just a taster tonight. There’ll be plenty more when we get back from L.A. Little girl says she needs heavy play.”
Ryan rolls the whip handle between his palms. “Damn, I know a man who can give it to her.”
“So do I, brother, so do I.” I clap him on the shoulder again and go to retrieve my girl.
Emily bounces on my arm all the way to the library. If she didn’t have a plug in her ass, she’d be skipping. “Do they hunt every night, sir?” she asks.
She’s peppered me with questions about the hunt. Far more than she asked after that ugly moment with Rachel.
“No. Once or twice a week. But any time you want a ride, baby doll, you can have one. I’m sure I can draft one of the house subs.”
She bounces up on her toes and kisses my cheek. “Yes, please, sir! That was so much fun.”
Her enthusiasm is infectious and I grin back at her. “Even with the plug? I thought that might be a little rough for you.”
She bites her lower lip and flushes a sweet pink. “It was fine.”
More than fine, I’d say. “I’m glad, because I missed checking in while you were spurring that poor bastard like a bronco.” I stop her at the library door and rub my hand down over her soft, curved behind. Her ass is delightful. As I touch her, her flush deepens. “How’s it feeling?”
She nods. “Full, but okay.”
“Good.” I show her the timer running on my watch, which is at eleven minutes, thirteen seconds. “I’d like to do the scene with the plug in, but if it becomes too much, or you feel like you’re going to lose control of your bowels, I want you to say ‘diaper,’ and we’ll stop and take it out.”
“But, sir, won’t that disrupt the scene?”
“Just for a few minutes. It’s not a problem, sweetheart. Something you’ll learn about me? I always finish a scene, even if it takes a couple of replays. Unless you safe word, I finish what I start. That’s why I’ve given you a different word for the plug. It’s just a pause button, not a full stop.”
She nods happily.
“Ready?” I ask, putting my hand on the library door’s knob.
At another happy nod, I turn the handle and open the door.
I know Emily will be impressed by the library. It’s a real library, as well as a playroom. The walls are floor-to-ceiling books, broken only by the windows, with rolling ladders to reach the highest shelves. There are thousands of titles, from leather bound classics, all the way to yellow-spined paperbacks, like the well-thumbed Gor series. Anything we don’t have, the librarian can get from the public library. There are e-readers in several flavors on reading tables throughout the library, and deep leather seats to read in, most with a pillow or two on the floor beside them.
It’s to one of these leather couches that I lead Emily after giving her a few minutes to wander around, wide-eyed as a kid in a candy store. The library’s mostly empty at this time of night, but a few of the chairs around
the scene area—indicated by a round Persian rug on the floor—are occupied. It’s to those occupants that I say, “Gentlemen, Emily has been a naughty girl and needs to be punished.”
One grumpy bastard who is reading the Financial Times, takes his paper and moves, presumably seeking a quieter place to digest the stock report. The others set aside their reading materials. Master Javier, one of the club’s silverbacks and a top almost as fearsome as Maude, taps the head of the woman in an elaborate red evening gown kneeling in front of his chair. She lifts her head from his crotch with a rattling gasp, so he must have been down her throat. “Put me away, Celina. Watch and learn.”
The woman fumbles with his tux, then turns and sits between his feet, surreptitiously wiping tears and saliva from her face with the back of a diamond-ringed hand.
“Master Logan,” Javier acknowledges me.
“Master Javier, good to see you.”
“And you. What has this bad girl done?”
“Tell Master Javier, Emily,” I instruct, while I sit down on the couch.
Emily puts her head down and twists her hands together in front of her. “I didn’t hand in my homework,” she says.
I blink at her, surprised. Not by her words. I told her the broad brush of the scene and she’s just elaborating. What surprises me is how completely she goes into role. Her whole body-language changes. She looks smaller. Younger. Her voice changes, not a childish lisp, but higher-pitched. The voice of a young teen, who has done wrong and is more resentful than contrite at being caught.
“When was your homework due, Emily?” Javier asks sternly.
“Today.”
No “master,” no “sir.” Javier notices just as I do. He sits forward in his chair and wraps his hand around his slave’s throat. She gasps and slumps against his thigh, submitting instantly to his hold.
“Did you do the homework?” His voice drops to a growl.
Emily shakes her head, looking at her feet. She starts digging a hole in the carpet with the toe of one Mary Jane.
“Stop fidgeting, Emily,” I tell her. “Answer Master Javier.”
“I didn’t do my homework,” she admits.
Javier’s mouth thins to a white line. “Do you understand the importance of doing well in school, girl? Do you understand that it’s disrespectful to your teachers and your master when you don’t give everything your best effort?”
