Girl (4 page)

The sun hasn’t been up for more than a couple of hours when the door to my room opens, and I have a brief, joyous glimpse of him. He’s dressed in dark slacks, a crisp white shirt, the sleeves rolled again to reveal his tattoo work. His dark hair is a little wavy, a little too long, like some hero in a Jane Austin novel. Too perfect.

I begin to sit up but he pushes me back with his rough boot on my chest, and the air goes out of me as my body floods with lust. Those boots! And
him
. I bite back a moan, trying to resist the urge to press my thighs together to ease the wet, aching want there. He gives a wave and one of the Girls—I still don’t know which one—and an elegant older man with close-cropped gray hair, whom I know from my arrival to be Robert the valet, kneel on either side of me. While the Master holds me down with his booted foot, they slip a leather blindfold over my eyes. Fear is like a siren shrieking in my mind—I hate to be blindfolded. My heart races, making me want to scream. But they seem to have thought of everything. Someone holds my cheeks firmly, then a ball gag is shoved into my mouth and strapped at the back of my head.

The boot is removed from my chest and I’m flipped over onto my stomach, my arms pulled behind my back. I can smell the leather of the cuffs before they’re buckled firmly around my wrists. And my head is emptying out in a way my silly little meditations could never accomplish, as I’m lifted then thrown over the Master’s shoulders. Oh yes, it is definitely him, and it’s pure heaven to feel the muscles working in his shoulder, my breasts resting against the solid wall of his broad back. My nipples are so hard they hurt. I’m so wet I worry about mussing his lovely shirt, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

Nothing you can do.

And so, when I begin to drool a little around the gag I give myself over to it. No tears as there usually are when I’m gagged or blindfolded. Because I can do absolutely nothing. And because it’s for
him
.

He carries me down a flight of stairs, his boot heels echoing on the wooden risers, then we turn to the right. It’s only a few moments before he makes another turn and I am dumped facedown onto a smooth wooden table, or a counter, maybe. I inhale the scents of coffee and food cooking. The kitchen?

Then his voice—his beautifully modulated voice, so devoid of any accent he must be from California. “Cook. Prepare this one for me.”

“Yes, Sir.” A deep female voice, and I imagine a tall, handsome women, with large hands. I also imagine her tenderizing my flesh with one of those mallets used for steak.

The reality is not far off the mark. I hear her moving about the room and what sounds like utensils being shuffled, and almost right away she smacks my ass with something that feels like a very large, flat wooden spoon. When I squirm she places a firm and surprisingly small, strong hand on the back of my neck and smacks me harder and harder, my tender ass stinging, burning as blood rises to the surface of my skin. She pauses for half a breath, allowing me to swallow a gulp of air before she starts in again with something much heavier this time. And oh God, it hurts as she lands one solid blow after another, hammering deep into the muscles so that sensation goes from sting to a deep bruising thud, yet it still stings somehow. She works the heavy, wooden implement—a rolling pin?—down over the backs of my thighs, silent until she utters a simple, stern order.

“Spread your thighs. Wider.”

I do as she asks—of course I do—and she pinches my pussy lips so hard a tear seeps from the corner of my eye and drool pools in my mouth behind the gag. She holds onto that delicate flesh with one hand while she spanks me with the other, her palm on my flesh almost sweet in comparison to the hard wooden tool she used before. Pain builds, and what begins as something I welcome quickly turns into more than I can process—there is such a rapid build with no warm-up at all. Harder and impossibly harder until I am crying out around the gag, the noise a raw contraction of the muscles in my throat, drool spilling onto my chin.

I am helpless.

Thinking the words soothes me as much as it frightens me. It has always been like this.

Suddenly the spanking stops, although her hard, hurting fingers are still twisting my poor tortured labia. My breath comes in short, gasping pants as I try not to choke on my own salty tears.

I sense her moving nearer, then her breath is hot against my cheek. She says in a low tone, “You’d better learn to take it more quietly, Girl. The Master won’t like all this fussing. Didn’t your previous owner teach you any better? Or are you too hardheaded to learn?”

My heart drops into my stomach. I try so hard to be good. To please. To aim for perfection. But this place is too new and I haven’t been told all the rules.

And suddenly it comes to me that maybe they
want
me to fail. I’m hoping it’s only to have more reason to punish me and not because they simply don’t want me. That
he
doesn’t want me. I need so much to belong…somewhere. And if not here, where?

Memories flash through my head, spurred by my panic, a million thoughts rushing by like a film in fast-forward: My arrival at Millbrook Academy, the boarding school that was my father’s answer to having an invisible child who was still somehow in the way, when I was only eleven. How alien the place seemed at first—the long, vaulted hallways, the towering trees on the grounds, the headmistress, Mrs. Brerens, who frankly scared the hell out of me. But then there was my series of crushes—Mr. Curtis who taught math and looked like something out of an Abercrombie and Fitch ad. My dance teacher, Ms. Lordham, who was the perfect blonde English rose, and whom I once caught fucking Mr. Curtis in the stables like something out of a classic porn film. She was naked, her gorgeous, lithe body bent over a bale of hay while he took her from behind, and her shouting, “Fuck me harder!” Oh yes, even though I was only thirteen years old, that scenario fueled my fevered masturbatory fantasies until long after graduation from Millbrook.

And then there were the girls… It was a school for “young ladies,” after all, and we had to do something to keep our raging hormones busy. It was either that or sneak out after curfew and meet strange men in town, ask them to buy us beer in exchange for a quick hand job. If the wealthy and powerful parents of the Millbrook girls had had any idea what their daughters were up to, that place would have been shut down decades ago.

Boarding school was that terrifying and intoxicating combination of fear and yearning. Loneliness and wanting. And it was those things I still sought, always feeling as if satisfaction were just beyond my grasp.

But now I’m here. In the Training House.

Cook yanks me up until I’m sitting on the long table, my ass burning against the cool wood, and I realize I am truly afraid.
Will
he reject me? Is it possible, once my contract has been signed? But of course it is. I can’t bear it if I’m returned to Master Graham in shame.

Not good enough.

No.

I’m crying in earnest now, in long gulping sobs, the ball gag nearly choking me.

“Hey! Stop that now.”

Cook slaps my face, leaving my cheek burning. But the shock of it calms me down right away. I swallow the next sob and do my best to contain myself.

“Better,” she murmurs, not unkindly. “Here.” A soft, damp cloth on my cheeks as she wipes the tears and the snot and the drool away. “Don’t get me wrong,” she says with a small chuckle, “he likes his Girls to cry, but he prefers to be the one to make it happen.”

I sniff. I’d smile if I could, both because she’s being kind to me along with being cruel, and at the idea that he’s one of those who enjoy a woman’s tears, which is inexplicably hot for me.

Taking a deep breath, I try to breathe out around the ball gag, then inhale again—and swear I
smell
him before I hear him. He smells of leather and sex and expensive cologne. My body turns to warm rubber, all but my nipples, which are hard as stone.

“What nonsense is this?” the Master demands. His heavy boots ring on the hard floor as he crosses the room. “I could hear you halfway down the hall, Girl. All of this over a spanking from
Cook
?”

I sense Cook stepping back, but it’s too late to be afraid. The Master grabs my hair—not even close to the scalp, a sensation I love—he simply winds my long strands around his fist and pulls me right off the table. Something goes crashing to the floor and I know it’s my fault, but I couldn’t apologize even if I weren’t gagged. He’s pulling me along and my feet hit the edge of a carpet and I stumble. He catches me, pulling up on my hair, and the tears want to start again because I am being so clumsy. But the Master simply keeps dragging me along, and I keep tripping over my bare feet, blind, with my arms bound behind my back and no way to catch myself should I fall. I’m a little shattered by how he’s handling me. But that’s his intention, I’m sure. Keeping me off-balance, physically, mentally, emotionally. People like him, the real trainers of the world, are masters of the mind fuck. They are the masters of everything, as far as I’m concerned.
My
Master, and I feel it on a new, deeper level. This is exactly what I wanted. This is exactly what I fear.

This is exactly what I have needed all my life.

Yes.

The carpet ends and there is hardwood beneath my feet for a moment, then another rug, this one soft and plush. Immediately I sense that someone else is here. I try to take in my surroundings through the means left me, to retain my balance as the Master has me stop, keeping a hand on my shoulder to steady me. I take in the earthy, sharp scent of ash and wood from a fire burning in the hearth, and behind it is the scent of perfume. It smells expensive, like jasmine and lace. My ass and my thighs still burn from my beating in the kitchen and I’m not quite over the emotion of the tears—I’m really beginning to overload. Taking a deep breath, I try to give myself over to it all. But the trick right now is to give myself over to
him
. That’s what will help me.

“What do you think of my latest acquisition, my dear Mistress Alexa?” the Master asks.

“Hmm.”

I hear her step toward me, then I can feel the heat of her body as she moves closer.

“Beautiful hair,” she says. “I adore red hair on a woman. But hers is really more auburn, isn’t it? So straight and sleek.” She runs a hand through my hair, her fingers catching in a tangle. “Silky. Very nice. Beautiful, small breasts. The pale nipples are perfection. Sweet.” She tweaks one of them, and I try not to wince, but I do, making her laugh, a low, wicked sound. “Sensitive girl. She’s tall for me, but I could put on my stilettos to fuck her with my strap-on.”

He chuckles. “I suppose wanting to fuck her means you approve?”

She tweaks my nipple again, pressing hard into the flesh and I breathe into the pain, exhale as she does it again, harder this time, not letting the pressure up. I have to really focus to convert the pain, and finally get a small flood of endorphins. Lovely.

“Look how hard her nipple gets,” she murmurs quietly. “How deliciously it darkens. And how naked they look, don’t they, Damon?”

Damon.

I savor the sound of his name on my tongue, a name I will never, ever use. But knowing it is like a gift.

“They might be pierced soon enough,” he says, making me shudder. Or shiver. I don’t know which.

“Of course—you pierce all your House slaves. Except for the beautiful Christopher.”

A slave called by name? Is that possible here? But I’m too immersed in what’s happening to give it more thought.

“He came with the left one already pierced and I liked the way it looked. I like even more that he did it himself.”

“Well, so do I. Speaking of your beautiful boy, I’d like to borrow him if you don’t need him and he’s not promised elsewhere.”

“As long as you bring him back in one piece.”

The mysterious Mistress clucks her tongue. “Come on, Damon. I would never return damaged goods to you. He can take quite a lot, that one. He needs it.”

“He does, absolutely. And he’s yours for the weekend.”

“I can offer you Selina the next time you visit me in exchange.”

“No exchange necessary. He needs to be worked anyway, and as you can see I’ve a new one to work with.”

“I’d like to see more of her, as well.”

She is one of those women who are expert at sounding bored, but I have been a submissive long enough to read the small thrill under that tone of disinterest. Of disinterested interest. I think the Dommes almost
have
to do these things, playing in this sort of old boys’ club of male Dominants and Masters. The Mistresses have to be tougher. Hide their emotions. They are certainly more cruel than the men.

“I thought you might,” the Master says.

Suddenly, I am shoved roughly to my knees and the blindfold is whipped off. The bright light is glaring and I blink hard, my eyes watering. My heart is hammering, my pulse going at a thousand miles an hour, as if some sort of protection was taken away along with the blindfold, even though I hate the damn things.

“Oh! You didn’t tell me her eyes were green,” Mistress Alexa says. “And such long, long lashes. Even a few freckles across her nose. Dusted in gold.”

She walks in a circle around me, and when she’s circled back around to stand in front of me she bends down, her hand sliding around behind my neck, that firm grip all of the Masters and Mistresses know how to use. It’s that particular touch they subdue you with. Command you with. Such a simple thing, but it works like crazy. She squeezes harder, her hand sliding up into the base of my scalp, where her nails dig in a little as she leans closer, until her face is only inches from mine.

She’s beautiful. Dark hair, almost black, and glittering ice-blue eyes. Her mouth is a cruel cupid’s bow of red lipstick. She’s dressed in red leather: skirt, corset, stiletto boots that come up over her knees. She wears a glass vial on a silver chain around her neck, and whatever is in it is red, as well. I only see it because it swings in my face for a moment before she absently tucks it into her cleavage.