Against Her Will (Dragon's Lair) (4 page)

“I don’t want you!” Sarah sobbed her rage and betrayal into Julia’s chest. “You’re a horrible, nasty, horrible…”

Julia chuckled again. “You said ‘horrible’ twice, my pet. I’m indulging your tantrum this time, but please know it will only happen once. In the future, shouting at me and hitting will be punished.”

“I hate you!”

“Oh no, dear one. You haven’t jumped off my lap, or tried to run away, or stopped me from drying your tears with my handkerchief. Shh, pet, and relax. You’re allowed this. You deserve this.”

“No,” Sarah wailed, but she obediently tilted her head back so Julia could wipe her nose. “I want to go home.”

“Tsk, my sweet pretty pet, you
are
home. This is your home now.”

Sarah tried to keep crying, but instead she contorted her face into strange expressions in her attempts to bring out more tears. She was ashamed at how glad she was to let this woman coddle her, ashamed at her gladness at being called pretty, and ashamed for wanting to stay in this woman’s arms forever. She settled on a slight pout instead. “
You can’t make me stay.”

“Oh yes I can, but I’d prefer not to. Wouldn’t you like to stay with Nurse on your own, the nice way? Today was just the beginning. I can give you pleasure you’ve never known before in your life. You will want for nothing. Your every need will be taken care of, you’ll eat food specially prepared for you, you’ll wear the prettiest clothes, you’ll receive the very best medical care, and you’ll have job security for the rest of your life. Doesn’t that sound good to you?”

Sarah had to admit that it did. “But you hurt me,” she whined. “Plus, how do I know you’re telling the truth?”

Julia snuggled her. “As my little girl, you’ll
be getting spanked every day as a rule and extra for naughtiness. You’ll be one sore little girl, I promise. But I also promise you that I will love you like my own child, fight for you, and devote my every waking moment to make sure you are treated well. And someday, you’ll find that the spankings can also bring pleasure.”

Sarah thought back to the mixture of the blinding pain and exquisite pleasure, and she had to admit this Nurse might be right on the last point.
“What if I don’t want to stay?” she asked.

“If you are naughty and disobedient, you’ll find yourself across my lap more quickly than you can think. But if you are a good girl and complete your training, then you can make your own choices.” Julia smiled. She, too, had argued with her Nurse that she didn’t want to stay.
Until now, none of her charges had been brave enough to use that argument with her. Sarah’s boldness pleased her enormously. Few girls would have the guts to speak, let alone argue, after receiving their first training session. Every moment together made her admire the girl more.

At last, Sarah dried her swollen eyes and looked at her captor
, a woman who treated her like a favorite child. Not for millions of dollars would she admit how good that made her feel.

“Who are you?” she asked. For surely she was still just as captive as when the handcuffs and blindfold had fettered her, yet this captivity felt less like a vengeful prison and more like a cocoon.

Instead of answering, the woman brought Sarah to a porcelain white bathtub that stood on four gilded paws. “Let me show you how you’ll be taken care of here,” she said. She bathed Sarah, scrubbing all of her body but especially her tender bottom. Sarah whimpered, but a stern look silenced her. She had not forgotten the kiss of the riding crop. Who could?

After the bath, the woman toweled Sarah dry. At last, Sarah was put into clothes. The rough cotton nightgown left much to be desired, but Sarah could have cried at the relief of receiving back part of her stolen dignity. Before she could respond, Sarah was brought back to the rocking chair. This time, the woman laid Sarah facedown over her lap, hoisting the nightgown over Sarah’s back. Sarah squirmed
as fingers pried apart her bottom cheeks.

“Ooh!” Sarah protested, trying to wriggle away, but she had nowhere to go. To her horror,
something thick and gooey oozed onto her skin before a thick metal plug found its way into her most secret of openings. She cried out in pain, but the force of the intruder was relentless. It clawed at her fragile skin until she thought she would split in two, but at last the horrible plug popped into place. She cried and fought to get the plug out of her most private and shameful of openings, but a few hard slaps stopped her squirming. Still, she could not keep back a few piteous moans.

“There, pet,” the
woman pronounced cheerfully, as if she were Mary Poppins proclaiming that a spoonful of sugar would help the medicine go down. Or, rather, up. Oh, horrors, they would not make her…surely…? “You’ll remember to be a good girl for Nurse as long as you have that plug inside of you.”

“Take it out,” Sarah pleaded, blushing behind her tangled tresses. “It hurts.”

The woman spanked each cheek smartly, and Sarah gasped. “If it hurts, you’re clenching. Relax.”

As if pain could cause anyone to relax! Still, the slaps continued until Sarah loosened her cramped muscles. As promised, the ache from the plug subsided from unbearable to an uncomfortably full feeling. Sarah clenched gingerly, and immediately she felt pain.

“Relax,” the woman commanded once more, and this time Sarah obeyed.

Despite her bath, Sarah’s exertions made her wish she could take a shower. She swayed her bottom from side to side, unknowingly giving the woman a delicious lap dance.
The sting of the spanks had enhanced all of the other sensations in her bottom, and all of her attention focused on her bottom that now felt twice as large as normal. She moaned, again not knowing how closely her sounds resembled the lusty mating calls of those less innocent. The woman tolerated her show, if “tolerated” could even be the correct word, until she gave another hard spank to each of Sarah’s bottom cheeks.

“That’s enough of a display for today, miss,” she scolded, and Sarah stilled in chastened shame. “Bed for you, and if you don’t get y
ourself into any mischief tonight tomorrow we’ll begin your training.”

“Training?” Sarah swiveled her head to look at the woman. “What training?”

The woman laid a hand on her back and smiled. “To become a Dragon’s girl, of course,” she said, as if Sarah could know what she meant.

“Why?” Sarah asked, aware how stupid she was sounding but unable to think of another way to ask.

“To prepare you for your Daddy,” came the answer, and for reasons Sarah could not understand, the answer was enough.

She followed Julia into the little side room and obediently got under the covers. With a kiss, Julia tucked Sarah into bed and turned out the light.
Sore and strained by the invader inside of her body, Sarah was still soothed enough to fall asleep almost immediately.

*              *              *

Becky slammed her car door shut and started walking toward the office door. She hated Monday mornings, and she hated training new office temps. This new one had better learn fast, or Becky would be ready to quit. If she had a rich fiancé like Sarah did, Becky would have quit long ago. A flutter of color caught her eye, and she bent down. Wedged behind one of the parking poles was a scrap of paper. The paper was square and black. For no particular reason except curiosity, she picked it up, wondering, and gasped.

On the front of the card was the same dragon insignia as the card the children had given her in front of Sarah’s apartment complex.
The back was blank. Becky pawed through her glove compartment in the car to check, and indeed it was exactly the same. The cards were the exact same size. Surely it must be a sign? But from whom and how did it get there?

Richard Winston III looked up in annoyance at the video call flashing across his screen. Major Jeffrey Sanders may have given enough donations to support several pet projects in the Lair, but no amount of money could stop him from being a royal pain in the ass.

“What now?” Richard wanted to say, but he cleared his throat before he accepted the call. “What can I do for you today, Major?”

The burly man boomed out his orders without preamble. “Give me the vid
eos of your new recruit. I hear she’s quite the prize.”

Richard could have kicked himself. What was he thinking, sending Nurse Julia’s job assignment by public courier? He should have known the g
ossip mill would begin to circulate wild half-truths. The Major had purchased five Dragon girls already, but his appetite—and wallet—knew no limits.

“She’s barely
settled in,” Richard objected. “No training whatsoever, still practically fresh-caught.”

“You’re trying to hide her from me!”

“No, sir,” Richard answered hastily. Maybe he was. From the moment he had touched her cheek, so sweet and soft, he had wanted to uncover her eyes. Her body had lain naked and available for his touch, but he had longed to find her looking back at him. The problem was, he feared what she would see in him.

“She’s mine, or at least will be mine.”

“But…” Richard fumbled for an excuse. “You just took Snapdragon home two months ago. Surely she needs more time to settle in before you add another?”
Arrogant jerk
, he thought to himself.
As if anyone woman would stay with him, if she were free to choose.
Then he sighed. At least the Major could afford to buy women, even if he couldn’t get love. Richard had neither.

“She’s too fragile,” the Major complained. “She can’t even take ten licks of my belt before screaming hysterically. She’s faking a mental breakdown, just because she thinks it will save her from having to pleasure me.”

Richard shuddered. He could well imagine a girl in the Major’s service who would fake anything to avoid having to touch him. Then again, the mental breakdown might not be an act. “If you damaged a Dragon girl…”

“Come off it, Dick.
You sold me defective merchandise.”

Richard wanted to punch him. Yes, the Lair trained and sold girls to serve wealthy men as their Masters, and yes they were technically merchandise. Still, it repulsed him to hear the Major call a Dragon girl “defective” when the problem was most likely the Major’s ham-handed tactics. He only bought virgins, and he crowed at how much he could make them bleed on the first night. Richard’s mind turned over several unprofessional answers before settling on the least aggressive one. “We sold Snapdragon intact. If you didn’t like her, why do you want a new one from us?”
Stupid overgrown boy
, he thought.
Like a toddler who breaks a toy by stomping on it and then blames the toy.

The Major dismissed
Richard’s objections with a wave of his pudgy hand. “That’s what you Dragon folks are for. I want to see her now, before anyone else gets wind of her.”

Richard tried to think of a reason to refuse, but Major Jeffrey Sanders underwrote the expenses of half the Dragon
’s operations in addition to Richard’s favorite pet projects. Richard sighed and clicked on the screen to display a simultaneous feed of the previous night’s footage so both he and the Major could watch. All of the training rooms were equipped with surveillance cameras, both as a safety precaution and for more practical uses such as nurse training, advertising, and the technically forbidden but highly lucrative sale as a “gentlemen’s video.”

Diamond, Julia’s
assigned training suite, offered a stunning array of cameras in every room to capture the action from multiple angles. Richard swallowed hard, finding the need to uncross his legs and adjust his trousers as Sarah’s lithe body came onto the screen. Sweet and virginal, it offered itself for secret viewing. The stirrups Julia had requisitioned were a stroke of genius.

Richard made a mental note to propose obtaining similar equipment—perhaps of cheaper materials—for the other private training suites. In addition to the
increasing the ease of training, the selling of videos on the sly would recoup the cost of the equipment in no time. The girlish puckering of Sarah’s—rather, Dragonfly’s exposed bottom hole, the flowering of the crop lines across her pale flesh…it was all too wonderful for words. Richard could hardly take his eyes off the creature before him.

He had a wild, irrational desire to tell the Major that
Dragonfly had already been sold. He had only touched her for a few brief, precious moments, but she had a vulnerability that would surely break her as soon as the Major took her out of the Lair. Couldn’t she stay with Richard, instead? He might not be a powerful, elite player in world economics, but he would take good care of her. He would treat her gently as he taught her how to please. He would give her pleasure in return…but no. He could not afford the girl on his salary. It would take years to pay for her even with his employee discount. He outranked everyone but Master Dragon, but this girl was out of his league. His faint, futile hope that the Major would be uninterested died before it could take root.

“You don’t mess around,” the Major breathed, and naked lust gleamed in his eyes. “When will she be ready?”

Richard hesitated. The full training took six months, but Julia insisted on a schedule completely dependent on her whims. She refused to graduate a girl until absolutely convinced of the girl’s perfection in every way. The last assignment had taken nearly a year, but training videos had kept the girl’s buyer happy enough to wait. The Major had lost out on the chance to buy that girl, and he had hounded Richard since then. Amongst the prized and costly Dragon graduates, Julia’s girls commanded unheard-of sums. The wisest move would be to start a bidding war. A Julia-trained graduate came across so rarely that they had to make the most of the financial opportunity. Richard conveniently ignored any possibility that his violently stiffening manhood might be influencing his decisions. It was pure business sense to maximize profits, plain and simple.

“I don’t know,” Richard said at last. “I’ll put you on a notify list.”

The Major’s voice interrupted Richard’s words. “Look at her!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been holding out on me, you sly dog. You’ve been training her in secret just to impress me, eh?”

“No,” Richard replied automatically. “The girl had never so much as stepped
in the Lair before this week. What you’re seeing is raw, natural talent. The best money can buy. Or, rather, the best the Dragon’s men can catch.” Richard smiled, but he was surprised at his dismissal of the training. He should be touting the girl’s good points to a long-standing client, but instead he doubted whether she was as compliant as she seemed to be. Dragonfly must still be in shock, he decided. There was no reason for a fresh-caught girl to be that compliant on her first night. Either the girl lacked the self-respect to fight against an unexpected situation, or she lacked strength. He hoped neither would prove to be the case. Submission was for the strong, not the weak.

Then again, he reflected, everyone knew the magic of Julia’s touch. She prided herself on taming the wildest of recruits, and she took special pleasure in dealing with the problem girls. She could flip from
being a kind comforter to a wicked Mistress in the blink of an eye, spinning back and forth with enough speed to keep anyone off-balance. Few girls rebelled against Julia’s training, and no one rebelled more than once. If Richard had been less educated and more prone to superstition, he might have suspected Julia of witchcraft. The Recruit Whisperer, that’s what she was.

Clearly, her methods had only improved after her hiatus.

“I want to see her,” the Major demanded. “I don’t want to miss any of her first moments. She’s a virgin, isn’t she?”

Richard recoiled. Then he checked himself. The question was hardly unusual, and in fact
Dragonfly’s virginity would be her most lucrative selling point. Yet when it came to Dragonfly, Richard couldn’t bring himself to apply the same professional objectivity that he would with anyone else. He shook his head.
Get a grip on yourself
, he said silently.
You’d eviscerate any other employee who got attached to Dragon property
. Out loud, he offered a non-committal apology. “You can’t see her yet, I’m afraid, but I already have you on the notify list. As soon as Dragonfly is available for visitation, I’ll let you know.”

The Major frowned, of course, but Richard deflected him with more praise for Julia’s methods. He plied the Major with questions about his other girls, all Dragon graduates. They had settled in nicely, one after another, and despite some competition and jealousy had come to work together and truly care for each other.

“All right,” the Major conceded at last. “I’ll wait until visitation, but you better not let anyone else get his hands on her. I’ll top any offer you get.”

Richard wondered what
Master Dragon would say to that. Business sense meant protecting Dragon Lair’s financial interests, but what if the girl proved to be capable enough for training as Master Dragon’s own consort? Richard hated to think what might happen if the Lair’s big boss clashed against the Lair’s biggest client. Could Dragon’s Lair survive the loss of one or the other? What would become of the program if that happened? Richard had devoted his entire professional life to building this enterprise from scratch. He wasn’t going to allow macho competition to destroy what he had worked so hard to create.

*              *              *

Mission aborted.
The senior manager of Foxtram & Stein frowned at the latest message. Such a waste! He had been sure they would close in on their newest quarry. Normally, he trusted his underlings to their judgment. He had trained them well, and they had to make decisions on their own. This time, however, the price of failure was too great to pay. He sent a reply. They would curse him, but they would do as he said. He had trained them that well, at least.

Proceed.

*
              *              *

Sarah awoke the next morning, surprised to find herself in new surroundings. Her bottom and thighs throbbed with faint residual pain, but it was nothing compared to the treatment from the guards while she had been blindfolded. The funny metal thing inside of her, however, was another story. She slipped a hand underneath her cotton nightgown, twisting and trying to feel what had been inserted between her legs. Her fingers came across something hard, smooth, and with rounded edges. She tugged experimentally, but something made her blush. She could not help touching other places between her legs, and the desire to do so made her feel ashamed and confused. She dropped the skirt of her gown and sat up.

She threw the coverlet onto the floor as she sprang out of bed. Then she stopped, puzzled. Her alarm clock hadn’t rung, but her body told her that this was earlier than her usual rising time. Before she could figure out the puzzle, she stiffened at the sound of footsteps. For the past few days, footsteps had heralded the arrival of epithets, threats, and beatings.

She cowered, hating herself for being weak, but unable to control her fear. Her eyes darted from one side of the room to the other. The only entrance was locked tight. She suspected the door was connected with an alarm system. On the other side of the room, a grate, small but perhaps not too small if she were quick and careful, beckoned as a possible route of escape. Quick as a flash, she jumped out of bed and pried at the grate with her fingernails. The metal squeaked, and she nearly died in fright. When no one came, however, she continued until she had loosened the grate far enough to slide it to the side. She crouched down, only to realize her loose nightgown would get in the way. She hiked her skirt to the side and tied the ends into a knot. She had a feeling she should bring more than bare hands and feet, but she couldn’t see how she could fit anything into the tunnel. She crawled on her hands and knees, gratified to see a faint light coming from the opposite end of the tunnel. She bumped her hip against the wall and scraped her knuckles trying to pull herself forward. She swore, then bit her lip. She didn’t know where the tunnel led, but she could not afford to get caught.

At last, she came to the end of the tunnel. She scrambled out of the tunnel and fell into an empty room. Joyously, she bounded to her feet in the hope of running.

Before she could take more than one step, an automatic grate slammed shut at the mouth of the tunnel. Startled, she jumped toward it. The tunnel was walled off by a sheet of metal without any handle. Her heart in her mouth, she turned around to find an alternate exit. Instead, she faced metal bars spaced half an inch apart. She inspected each one, rapping and knocking in an effort to find a way out.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside her enclosure. Panicking, she looked for a place to hide. She was trapped as if in a fishbowl, exposed on every side.

“No!” A resonant man’s voice barked, and the footsteps halted. The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn’t identify its owner.

“But, sir…” A female voice protested. Sarah strained to hear. To her dismay, the footsteps receded and the voices faded into the distance.