Marketplace (13 page)

“After dinner, there will
be another hour of free time, which you may spend in the library,
this room, or with one of the owners, if an invitation is extended.
After the free time, you will assemble out on the eastern side of
the garden, and you will receive any punishments you have
accumulated for the day. After that, if you are not chosen for
service—which you will not be—you will return here. Lights out will
be at 9:30.” He glanced up. “Any questions?”

And that was the way it
went. Dinner was taken by themselves, three of them stripped to the
skin and Sharon sitting in her shapeless gray frock. Sharon alone
avoided the library (having spent most of the day there already).
And when they went out to the garden, electric torches made the
whiteness of their skin seem luminous against the darkening sky.
With Grendel and Alexandra in attendance, they stripped down again,
and Chris went to work on them with the strap. He had a long list
on that clipboard of his. And, as he had told them, neither Grendel
nor Alexandra asked for their company when it was all over. Sore,
heartsick, and awash with self pity, all four of them went to their
room in silence.

But it didn’t stay that way
for long.

“So, how did you end up
here, Miss Thing?” Brian asked as he stretched out on his bed. He
was lying on his stomach, the backs of his thighs and his ass still
a dark red (and very tender) from his final strapping of the
day.

Sharon turned coldly away
from him, refusing to answer.

“Oh, for crying out loud,
we might as well get to know each other,” Brian said disgustedly.
“We’re going to be roomies for a whole week, you know. It wouldn’t
hurt to be a little human.” He winked at his terminology, and
Robert responded with a moan.

“I would like to know you
all better,” Claudia said. She sniffed and shifted her body around,
finally leaning on one elbow and keeping her pretty butt as much
off the bed as possible. “I think we should get along.”

“Oh you would,” Sharon
sighed. “What did you call her, Mr. Kissy-face? Miss
Goody-Two-Shoes? It’s a good name for you. Like, between the two of
you and the sissy in the corner, I’m surprised these people don’t
come down with diabetes. ‘Yes, sir, no, sir, right away sir, let me
kiss your ass sir!’” Her mimicry was crude and vicious.

“I hate to remind you,
Sharon dear, but that is the way slaves—remember slaves?—are
supposed to behave.” Brian rubbed the small of his back. “I guess
that wasn’t included in your guide to the scene, huh? Back where
you come from, masters are probably used to their property
delivering a seven point critical review after each torture scene.”
He began a mimicry of his own. “Oh, and by the way, master, sir,
you hit the left side of my butt six times more than the right!
Master, hit me harder! No, softer! A little lower now! Now fuck me!
Harder! Faster! Oh, God, I love it when you dominate
me!”

Claudia and Robert
snickered (although Robert hid it by burying his face in the
pillow).

“That’s not the way it was
at all, asshole, OK?” Sharon sat up, gingerly. “You don’t know shit
about where I came from!”

“So, like I said, enlighten
me, sweetie,” Brian answered easily. “We’ll take turns. If we don’t
finish tonight, we’ve got the whole rest of the week. And if they
keep us, we’ve practically got the rest of the summer.”

Sharon played with her lip,
a gentle movement that pursed her lips prettily. She looked around
the room, and than pulled her pillow up to lean against. “OK,” she
said, easing her way back against it. “I’ll tell you. Just so,
like, you know where I’m coming from.”

They all sat up to
listen.

Chapter Five; Sharon's
Story

I was always into being
dominated. Back when I was a little girl, I used to tie myself up
in my own closet, you know, looping belts and clothesline over the
clothes bar? By the time I was ten, I knew I was a pervert, but it
was like the best secret in the world. I used to stay awake for
hours every night, making up these fantasies, only they were like
soap operas. I was always this rich girl who was kidnapped, or
taken prisoner by pirates, or stuff like that, and I would have
adventures, you know?

In junior high, I was over
a friend’s house and we snuck into her older brother’s room to look
at his magazines. We expected, you know, the usual T&A stuff,
some Playboys, some cheap rags. But he had a lot of these really
sleazy newspapers with pictures of women tied to stakes, being
whipped, having rings in their nipples and stuff like
that.

My friend was like, totally
grossed out. She wanted to just leave them all and forget about the
whole thing, because we had another friend who had some normal
magazines, and we could always go look at those, OK? So I kind of
went along with her, made her believe I thought these things were
the grossest things in the whole world, and when she went to the
bathroom later on, I snuck in and stole a couple. I mean, who was
her brother gonna tell, right? Anyway, he never noticed, because
she never mentioned it.

Meanwhile, I go home and I
read these things until the ink starts coming off the pages. I mean
everything! The letters, the stories, the ads, and all the
personals. It was just amazing, you know? Like finding out that the
totally cool guy you’ve been looking at for weeks is really turned
on to you. I mean, there were all these people who were into the
same stuff I was. I couldn’t wait until I grew up, you
know?

So I started collecting
these things. I would go into a busy store, like one of those
little cigar shop places where they sell lottery tickets? And I’d
just grab anything weird and kinky and bring it up to the guy and
pay for it. Mostly, they didn’t notice. Once, I like blushed and
told the guy they were for my brother, who had a broken leg, and he
couldn’t tell my mom to get him stuff like that. The guy laughed,
like it was the funniest thing in the world, and whenever I went
back, he’d ask about my brother. And I don’t even have one. A
brother, I mean.

In the meantime, I really
filled out. I mean, every girl in school hated my guts. I was
always real thin, but my tits came in kind of early, and guys would
really just glom onto me all the time. And like, I couldn’t be
bothered with most of them. They were all so immature! I knew what
I wanted. I wanted an older guy, rich, who had a car and his own
place, who was into all this kinky stuff. I didn’t want some pimply
face, all-hands-and-mouth high school brat who was gonna live at
home until he was thirty, you know? Like, they had no imagination.
If you asked them to do something kinky, they’d probably think you
were talking about moving to the back seat, OK?

So I waited, and I kept
buying these books and magazines and things. I even rented a PO box
so I could order by mail and not have my mom open them by accident.
I mean, she would have died! And I had this whole drawer of my
dresser that was full of my own toys. I had a bag of clothespins. I
used to put them all over my body before I jerked off. I dripped
candle wax on myself, I got really good at figuring out ways to tie
myself up so I could let myself loose, you know? Like, no good
getting stuck and having to call Dad to come get me out, right? I
had this really neat leather gag, like it cost me all of my
allowance and two weekends of baby sitting, but it was really worth
it. I just got off on that fat thing stretching my mouth open while
I came.

Oh yeah, I was a real jerk
off artist. I mean, that was my sex life until I met
Jerry.

I was hanging out at the
local community college. Like it was either that or get a full time
job, you know? So I was there killing time, and I took this course
in literature for idiots, or something like that. A whole class
full of airheads, you know? But the teacher was way hot. He dressed
up to come in, and he had the best clothes, like designer pants and
Gucci belts, and silk shirts. And he was like,
incredibly
strict in class. He had
this real short haircut, just when it was really cool to do that,
and dark eyes, and this really square jaw. He had this way of
looking at you that was totally scary.

I fell in love with him the
first day. I mean, really in love. He was just like the masters I
made up when I was a kid, you know? Older, smarter, he made money,
and he was totally in control. So, I waited a few days to make sure
I was right, and than I hung out near the teacher’s parking area
until he was going home, and I stopped him. I told him all this
stupid stuff about how much I liked his class, and I was starting
to like, come on to him, and he totally put me down. He started
telling me all this stuff about how it was real nice I liked the
class and all, but he thought I was acting inappropriately. That’s
how he put it, too, acting inappropriately. That he was my teacher
and I was a student and that was it, you know?

So the next day, I dropped
the class. And three weeks later, I moved in with him.

He was so cool. Like, he
knew right away what I was into. The first time I ever had sex, I
was tied to his bed, I mean really tied down, ropes everywhere. I
was crying and laughing and coming all over the place that night,
it was just fucking incredible. He would get me real hot, and than
stop and make me like, beg and beg, and then he’d do mean things
like pinch my nipples, or pull my hair, and then he’d start making
love all over again, like from the beginning. He was really strong,
and he worked out and had a great body, and he was just the hottest
thing I could imagine.

And he was really good with
like, talking to me the right way. He never said, “oh, honey, would
you mind going to Pedro’s tonight for tacos?” He’d just take me
there, you know? And then he’d order for me, without asking me what
I wanted. And then, he’d make me eat it! At home, he’d have all
these little rules, and I’d forget them (because they were stupid,
sometimes), and he’d spank me until I couldn’t sit down. I mean,
this is for not hanging a towel up, or for not talking nice to him,
or stuff like that. And he used to call me names all the time, like
slut, cunt and bitch. I really got off on that, because he did it
so casually. It was just, “hey, slut, get me a beer!” and off I’d
go! But the best was when he called me all those names while we
were having sex. He used to fuck me real slow, telling me how
slutty I was, what a cheap, dirty whore I was, and all sorts of
stuff like that, until I was just screaming.

But after a while, I
realized that he was only into it
sometimes.
Like, he’d begin to talk
regular to me during the week, or he’d have temper tantrums and not
spank me or do anything but yell at me. I woke up one day and I
thought about it, and it was suddenly clear to me. He really only
did that stuff on the weekends. During the week, he wanted me to be
like a regular girlfriend or a wife even, and not have to deal with
ropes and chains and spankings and stuff. He even started calling
me sweetheart. I mean, he was a teacher in a tiny college, OK, and
he was sounding like he wanted me to be his wife. No way, baby, I
was in this for thrills, not for a lifetime of K-Mart shopping,
OK?

And I got so bored, so
fast. I began to find rules to break, and like, I’d make it
obvious? Like I wouldn’t go say hello to him when he got home, or
I’d leave the stupid bath mat on the floor, or something like that.
But he’d just forget it, or not notice, unless it was when he
wanted to play. Then, I tried to get him into some more stuff. I
got some catalogs and showed him some toys we didn’t have, like
whips and leather blindfolds and dildos and butt plugs and stuff. I
mean, we were still using my old clothespins for nipple clamps! But
nothing seemed to interest him, you know? Then, in the back of one
of my magazines, there was a listing of these kinky clubs in New
York, so I went out one night to check out what they
had.

And that’s how I joined
the, um, Equivocal Coalition. I mean, I don’t know what the fuck
that name is supposed to mean, but that’s what they called it, OK?
The first time I went, I thought it was the hottest thing since
in-line skates. I mean, it was like hundreds of people into this SM
stuff, and they had meetings and parties and stuff. But it was at
my third time there when I realized that it was really this club of
total dweebs who were trying to get some kinky nooky, like
right now
.
I mean, I’d walk in and there’d be this parade of
men growing around me. And they’d all be ‘masters,’ you know?
Because I told them, I was this total slave bitch, and they all
became instant masters. Like instant coffee. Just add
bullshit.

They weren’t really
masters, not most of them. If I walked in there with boots and a
riding crop, they’d all be slaves, you know. They were just regular
guys who liked their sex a little kinky and needed to get laid real
bad. I played with some of them, and it was just like Jerry. OK,
now we’re master and slave, and now we’re like, Bob and Sharon, OK?
I mean, nothing was ever real for longer than a couple of hours.
But these guys did do one thing right. They showed me the sex
clubs.

They were great! I went to
one, and this night there were these guys just rolling around on
the floor, dressed in rags and shit? And this woman was tied to
this really weird bench, with like, thousands of feet of rope? And
all these pervert guys into feet were crawling around licking boots
and stuff. Everyone was dressed in tight leather and sexy clothes,
and some of them even carried whips and handcuffs and stuff. And I
went to this other one, and they gave out play money and pretended
they had a slave sale? I did that a couple to times, and let me
tell you, if that money was real, I’d be a fucking millionaire, OK?
It was a lot of fun, though. The sale part. Seeing all these guys
fighting over me, borrowing this play money from all their friends
and stuff. And the best part was seeing that other people did this,
well, seriously. Like they were masters and slaves, and the slaves
wore little collars, and masters wore black boots, and it was so
much better than what I had with Jerry.