As She's Told (64 page)

As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob

the score was, but all agreed she'd won.

***

Val and Anders spent a Sunday afternoon exploring the property's several sheds and outbuildings, which were full of tangled, dusty heaps of obsolete farm equipment, discarded furniture, lumber and other odds and ends. The owner had expressed no interest; in addition to the break on rent that Anders was getting for repairs, he was welcome to use or take whatever he wanted from the sheds; the more the better. So far they had unearthed a rusty pump, a grain mill, and an old, well-used butcher block that Anders figured he could find uses for. Val had decided that some heavy old adjustable wrenches were worth cleaning up, as they were better than the ones she had.

"Look at this." Anders wiped dust from the edge of a slab of wood, about two feet by five, a good two inches thick. "Maple. Good quality.

Unused, I think. Let's have a look at the grain." He hefted it up from behind the miscellaneous lumber, manoeuvred it out the door and leaned it up against the shed. "Yup, this'll do. I'll have to pick up some urethane.”

“Do for what?”

“Another piece of obscure fetish technology; what else?”

“Jesus, don't you have enough?"

"Nah," he said. "I'm in the full flower of kink creativity; why quit now?"

"As long as you can still find your little prize under all the junk."

"Oh, come on. You get off on it, too. You were into that Scrabble game as much as anybody."

"Yeah, and I won, too!"

He chuckled. "A killer instinct. Competitive to the last tile." He picked up the piece of maple and sang a verse from a bawdy old folksong as he headed for the workshop he'd set up.

I said, my dear lady, if you're fond of the gaming,
There's one game I know I would like you to learn,
The game it is called The Game Of All Fours…

"Don't you try your musical wiles on me," said Val. "I'm wise to you country boys." She trailed along, examining her wrenches.

"How do you know it's a boy singing?" he teased.

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"Oh, there were dyke deedle-eedle ploughboy songs? I don't think so."

Anders went into the hot workshop and found what he was after, then took it outside again where there was some breeze and the air was fresh. He set the wood over a couple of trestles across the bumpy roots of a huge oak.

Leaves were rustling overhead, and he could hear the fast claws of a couple of squirrels. He oiled a cloth and began rubbing the dust off his find.

"Speaking of things lesbian, how's Maia behaving with you?"

"Not bad. Her lip service is improving. Between me and Ria, she's catching up on some of that basic training that's been so shamefully neglected." Val fetched some WD-40 for the wrenches, set them on an old oil drum and began to loosen their arthritic joints. "Your straight-arrow baby's stopped freezing up on us.”

“You don't say." He had noted this for himself.

"She's not exactly eager for it. We're part of her dom scenery now. I'll have to ratchet things up a little or I'll get bored."

Anders looked up from his wiping, eyebrows raised. "I thought all this was way beyond your tastes already."

"Not my ideal direction," Val said. "But I do like taking a girl where she doesn't think she wants to go, and watching her find out how much she needs it.”

“Needs what? The act, or being taken?"

"The second is a lot more interesting. I've used up dozens of the first kind. No doubt they've gone on to lighten the lives of innumerable butch dykes."

"You're such a community benefactor. What have they given you, a dozen toasters by now?"

Val ignored this. Anders smiled to himself and wielded his rag slowly, watching the apricot-hued grain emerge. "I take it my girl is the second kind."

"Uh huh. It's all about the journey in her case." She looked over at the heavy plank. "So what have you got in mind there?"

"Well you know, it occurred to me during the Scrabble game. The cage was okay as far as it went. But it didn't require much of her except to curl up and be decorative. Except, of course, when Svend dropped letters in there."

"Not just Svend."

"Yeah, how hard did you pinch her, anyway? She's got black and blue 405

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marks all over her.”

“Hard enough to get her to move her sweet little butt. Boo hoo."

Anders grinned. "Anyway, she'll need to work a little harder next time."

"Why not?" Val wiped her hands and came over to examine the board.

"Not bad. By the way, did you get hold of that Schaeffer guy?"

"I did."

"Any good?"

"Might be," he said. "We're talking. He's interested."

"Cool."

"Yeah, yeah. Might all come to nothing."

"Just look out that some kind of power and control out in the real world doesn't make you lose interest in your little ménage. Or menagerie, I should say."

Anders shook his head. "Won't happen. What, are you after a piece of her?"

Val grimaced. "Christ, no. Anything that dependent? Spare me. I'll help you out with her, you know, like a good buddy should, but I'd never want that kind of responsibility, even part-time."

"Good, because I'm not giving her away." He turned the board over and started on the other side. "So you still think I do all this out of frustration with my failures. Stoking up my inadequate ego and so on; is that it?"

She snorted. "Oh, relax. Who wouldn't use some kind of power at home to make up for all the shit out there."

"A lot of people." He examined a knot in the grain. "But the question is whether I do. Or whether they're two separate tracks I follow."

"You don't think you put more energy into this stuff when you're blocked somewhere else?"

"That, maybe." He put down his rag and stared at the thick, deeply-furrowed bark on the tree beside him. A tiny insect was making its way over one ridge and down into the next. "But this isn't some minor diversion, some little hobby that I can take or leave. Whatever happens out there."

"Yeah, no shit. You think too fucking much, Thygesen, you know that?

You're a head case, you're happy, leave it." Val sighted along the plank, and rubbed a thumb over the grain. "This is good and straight. Trim this end and it would make a nice coffee table.”

“You read my mind."

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***

Karl stood at the kitchen window. A rainy Wednesday morning. "I was going to fish, but this is too wet, even for fishing," he remarked to Anders.

"And the pony would be miserable.”

“Yeah. Damn, I was going to get some of the squash and potatoes in."

"A day for staying close by the fire, I would say. Ria doesn't even want to get out of bed." Neither she nor Svend had put in an appearance. Val was in the city, this being a weekday, helping a Church Street juice bar double its floor space.

Anders glanced at the books and papers Karl had stored in a ragged heap on the sideboard. "Are you going to do some work, then?"

Karl warded off the thought with violently waving forearms. "No, no!

Not today! I have had enough of sleep loss for now. Especially since I can no longer relate; I have been sleeping extravagantly!" Karl narrowed his eyes and stretched until all his joints popped, then dropped into one of the fireside armchairs and sagged like a farmer after a long day in the fields. "It is so relaxing, doing all this scening at home in normal hours.”

“I told you. The joys of domesticity.”

“Yes, it is very charming. I never thought I would come to this."

"Getting old, Karl. Sedentary habits. Never mind. In another month you and Ria will be completely bored and healthy and ready to get hollow-eyed back at the clubs."

"Indeed," Karl yawned. He glanced at the cage in the corner. "So? Can we have some entertainment for a rainy day?"

"Of course. What's your pleasure?"

"Well, you must first tell me," Karl said, looking up at the ceiling above his head, "what is the purpose for the eye bolts you put in those beams."

Anders looked up, considered. "I thought we might need to hang a little game.”

“Interesting, given that we none of us hunt or have brought a gun.”

“Braids of garlic?" Karl sniffed. "I would rather hang game. Where is the equipment?"

Half an hour later they had the hunhund hanging by her wrists and ankles before the fire, looking very much like something captured in the woods. The belt was off for a change; Karl had promised to be very careful.

They took turns with Anders' favourite flogger, until the upraised ass and 407

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thighs were moderately red and the slave was crying into her muzzle. Anders went to the coffee pot. "A little rest. Let her simmer. You want more coffee?”

“Yes, thanks."

They sat at the kitchen table and rested their eyes on the dangling figure.

"Here we are in that secluded country house," said Karl, "doing our wicked will on her." Anders laughed. "I forgot about that. What prescience on your part.”

“Your delusions about total control were not so deluded after all.”

“She's certainly not about to walk away."

"Not with those tags you have on her. Someone would return her for sure.”

“Or call from the pound so I could pick her up."

Karl's eyes followed the lines of the slender form, and he nodded appreciatively. "She is quite lovely," he said. "You are a lucky fellow."

"My little prize, Val calls her."

"That is not sarcasm?"

Anders looked at his cousin, surprised. "Not from me. She is an incredible prize. And this summer – well, this is the logical extreme, isn't it?

I've actually made it happen.”

“It is coming up to expectations, is it?"

"It is, you know. How can that be? Incredible. I can't help questioning sometimes."

Karl rolled his eyes. "Here it comes," he said. "Cassandra, that killjoy.

Can't you see, her function is finished now? You have been as careful as can be. You used your luck and good management and you earned the prize.

Leave those threads of Mormor in Copenhagen where they belong, and be a real hedonist for once."

"Val tells me I'm a happy head case and to shut up.”

“She's right."

Anders drank some coffee, sat silent for a minute, and looked at Karl.

"You know me. On the face of it, how likely was it that I would ever be able to live a life of anything but makeshifts and frustration?"

Head to one side, Karl eyed his cousin and considered this. "I'm not so sure. You have much will, so many resources…there would have been compensation. And one adapts, even if life does not offer perfection.

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Perhaps you would have done that. Ria and I have adapted, and we are very happy. But – you aren't someone who bends very easily. So, okay, if I had had to predict about you, I would not have been very hopeful. Not that you would be truly satisfied.”

“And yet here she is, and I am – myself."

Karl smiled. "I'm glad. And you are of course doing the same for her.

She seems to be thriving in a remarkable way. Like one of those strange species at the volcanic ocean vents. Lovers of extremes of heat and pressure."

Anders nodded. "Good analogy."

"And so I wonder if she will get the bends when she must go back up into the world.”

“Not if I'm careful. Take her up slowly."

Karl took one of the zucchini muffins that Anders had baked the day before and tore off the top. "Will you be sorry when the summer is over?" he asked. "Would you rather keep her in this way?"

"No. Eight weeks is long enough; she'll need to come up for air. Be a person again, at least some of the time. And I would miss her conversation, you know, if this was all she got to be.”

“True," Karl said through a mouthful of muffin. He rolled his eyes toward the mitted hands in their restraints. "You know, eight weeks without using her hands, that is rather extreme."

Anders laughed. "She's been trying to pick up bits of straw with her toes. Very cute.”

“Is she any good at it?”

“No, completely inept. It makes me hot just watching her try."

Karl's eyes twinkled. "So," he said, "just the summer then. Perhaps next summer again?"

"Absolutely; if I can, I will."

"We could use a few more of those. Fill the stable."

Anders' smile became one-sided. "That would be interesting. Given that very few would go to the same extreme. A kinky weekend being locked up and harnessed to a cart; some stockbroker's dream fantasy. And then off home in his BMW. I could charge admission.”

“Don't be so superior. Not everyone must be so immersed as you and your property there. Other serious slaves exist in the world. And she could 409

As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob

use the company, don't you think?”

“Hmm."

"You aren't convinced." Karl swallowed the last of the muffin and took a peach out of a bowl.

Anders considered, conflict evident in his face. At last he said, "The fact is, I like this. I like her to be the only animal among humans. The intensity is so much greater. Nothing gets watered down."

Karl waved his free hand in a dismissive gesture of capitulation. "You must of course define the terms. Control everything."

Anders snorted. "This surprises you? If you and Ria rent an Illinois farmhouse next year and supply the slaves, you'll make your own rules. In the meantime…." He got up and lightly pinched the glowing buttocks. Then he ran his fingers up and down the slippery labia. The slave squirmed and rocked, and her knees widened. Anders checked her hands and feet to make sure they were warm, and then picked up a paddle.

The sounds brought Ria and then Svend downstairs at last. They took a hand, in between bites of breakfast. For the next little while they all took turns with available instruments, including a violet wand, which made the creature squeal and thrash in desperation in her attempts to get away from it, and then to find it again.