Marketplace (15 page)

There were no collars, no
leather cuffs, no sexy, threatening whips or delicately painful
nipple-clamps. No costumes were affected, ever, and even their
periodic nudity went so unnoticed that it lost its power to make
them
other.
And
although Grendel and Alexandra made it clear that they were
interested in the ability of the applicants to be salaciously
interesting and available, neither they nor Chris made the
slightest carnal use of them. The most attention they got in that
area was a cursory acknowledgement of the applicant’s ability to
get aroused by their treatment. But nothing ever came of it. The
four walked a constant path of pain, arousal, and frustration. And
each night, they retreated to their room, aching and exhausted.
Despite their assurances to get to know each other better, after
their first night, no one had enough energy to continue their
personal narratives. They barely had the energy to get into a
comfortable position to sleep.

It was baffling.

Grendel remained true to
his word and only saw Sharon when she was with the other three. But
she was not left in the library all day any more. She too found
herself peeling potatoes, polishing furniture, and folding laundry
as she rotated household tasks with her fellow
applicants.

Two days had passed before
she realized that Grendel had every intention of keeping his word
to her. Her fit of anger that night cost them all ten additional
blows from Chris‘s strap. The following morning, when Chris came to
wake them, he threw a piece of Sharon’s luggage to the foot of her
bed and left it there, making no comment.

That day, she went to the
library after lunch and started really studying.

* * * *

As the week drew to a
close, the anticipatory tension was maddening. They received no
encouragement and no hints that any of them had been accepted for
the longer stay. In fact, the inclination of the master and
mistress of the house to take any of them to bed or demand some
sort of sexual service weighed heavier and heavier on them,
especially Sharon and Brian, who at last had something in
common.

“I just don’t get it,”
Brian moaned one night. It was just before lights out, and he,
Sharon, and Robert were all seated on their beds. There was one
more day left in their evaluation period.

Robert was more or less
seated—he had gotten one hell of a strapping just moments before,
for bursting into tears at what Chris had called “an insignificant
level of chastisement.” Robert’s entire body, now covered in a
light layer of new hair, itched and ached. He shifted from time to
time, trying to find a spot that didn’t hurt.

“I mean, Paul told him I
was a great cocksucker,” Brian said, leaning back against the wall.
“Told him I was a great man-lover. But the only time he ever even
suggested that I show him was... that first day in his office!” He
controlled what felt like a blush growing on his cheeks. Could that
be the reason why he wasn’t allowed to show off how well he could
suck? Because of what happened with Chris? No, it couldn’t be, he
thought. No one else is getting sex. He wondered briefly if anyone
else had been given the same test. “I mean, how the hell can they
tell if we’re worth anything if they don’t have any... experience
with us?”

“My mistress almost never
permitted me to... be that way with her,” Robert said.

“Yeah, well my masters
never got enough of me,” Sharon said spitefully. “I could have a
dozen guys fighting over me on any Saturday night! I could make
them insane, guys would get off just looking at me. I’d walk into
this club on a busy night and instantly, all these guys would just
run up and they’d wanna worship me. Understand? Like I was a slave
and everything, but guys would line up to lick my boots and stuff.
And the sex? I could tire any guy out. One night, my master brought
two friends over and they all fucked me, you know? I told you all
this, right? And girls too, every once in a while.” She sighed.
“Not that Grendel would know. I mean, he only decided to look in on
me today, and the only thing he wanted was for me to fucking recite
this stuff I’m memorizing. Like memorizing things is high up there
on the list of stuff masters want from their slaves,
right?”

“Way up there next to
knowing how much fabric softener to use,” Brian added
bitterly.

“You two shouldn’t talk
that way,” Robert said softly. “How do you know you won’t be sold
to someone who just wants a pretty face to do the laundry? How do
you know you won’t be sold to someone who just wants labor out of
you? Once you’re a slave, you’re a slave! You have no choice in
what you end up doing.”

“Listen, sissy,” Sharon
snapped, “I may have to listen to them when they lecture me, but I
don’t have to hear it from you!”

“Sorry.” Robert lowered his
head and turned away from them.

“You know, you could
lighten up,” Brian said. “By tomorrow night, we could be out of
here. Back to whatever you used to have to do to get through the
night.” He made jerk off motions with his right hand. “But come on,
prima donna. Didn’t any of them do anything to, you know, test you,
or something? Even on the first day?”

Sharon shook her head
firmly. “Fucking nothing. Like I was some ugly old hag or
something. I swear, Grendel has to be gay, and Alexandra... she’s
just jealous.”

“Whoa!” Brian chuckled.
“You’d better hope this room isn’t bugged, Sharon baby, or you just
got yourself a first class ticket home.”

“I don’t care!” Sharon
cried. But then her face screwed up and her eyes glistened with
tightly restrained tears. “I want to be wanted! I want them to want
to fuck the shit out of me! What the fuck is wrong with that? It’s
not right that they’re not... not... interested!”

“You’re just pissed because
they’re probably the first people you couldn’t wrap around your
little manicured fingers, darling. For your information, Grendel
isn’t gay, and Alexandra is.” Brian announced this with all the
confidence his voice could carry.

“How do you know that?”
Sharon and Robert echoed each other, Robert’s head coming off his
arms.

“Because Paul told me so.
He said that Grendel had a woman slave a few years ago, and that
Alexandra has girlfriends. Grendel is kinda bi, actually, because
he and Paul used to go out to the gay sex clubs, but Paul thinks
he’s mostly straight. And I don’t know where you get off on the
jealousy thing, either, because Alexandra is one classy piece of
work. You may be prettier in the mirror, but you’re all shine, no
substance. Alexandra is...” He paused and considered. “Elegantly
beautiful. And no fool. Definitely not the type to fall for a
pretty face. So you struck out on two counts, babe.” He
grinned.

But he knew better. What
Paul had really said was that he didn’t know what they were, only
had the barest information about some of their preferences might
be. But there was no chance that Sharon was going to bump into Paul
and get that information out of him. And besides, if this was going
to be their last night together, he might as well sink a few good
lines into her for posterity’s sake. She fumed and tried to compose
a retort, but Robert’s voice cut in.

“Do you mean that they’re
not, um, married?” Robert asked. “They seem to be a couple to
me.”

“They have different last
names,” Brian pointed out. “And different bedrooms. On opposite
sides of the house. Does that sound like married to
you?”

“What would you know about
marriage, fairy?” Sharon sneered.

“Enough to know what you’re
up to, sweetie,” Brian answered smoothly. He turned a knowing smile
toward her.

Before she could retort,
the door opened, and Chris came in with Claudia, who looked
forlorn. She went over to her bed and sat gingerly on the
edge.

“Tomorrow is the last day
of your examination period,” Chris began, glancing down at his
ever-present clipboard. “Tomorrow evening, you will be informed as
to your status. Those who will be leaving may choose to leave
tomorrow night, or you may spend the night here in one of the
standard guest rooms. If you are asked to leave, you must wait a
year and a day before you can re-apply to this house, unless
previous arrangements with the owners have been made.

“Those of you who are
permitted to stay will be given a contract delineating your wish to
enter a strenuous training program here, lasting from four to six
weeks. Signing the contract will make you an official part of the
Marketplace, and the records of your examination period will be
made available to the master database. The only way out from that
point is your utter failure to make it through the training
course.” He paused, took a long, lingering scan of the four of them
and suddenly smiled. “Of course, if you are accepted, you will not
do this house the disservice of failing the course.”

Claudia
shuddered.

“I have always given
prospective applicants to this house my opinion of their level of
acceptability on the night before their final day of
examination.”

They tensed and looked up
at him.

“You have been the
sorriest, most unsuitable applicants I have ever had the misfortune
to supervise,” the majordomo declared. His light voice had
hardened. “You have displayed every fault I could possibly imagine
in an applicant with the exception of a venereal
disease.”

Robert buried his head in
his arms.

“From extreme narcissism to
cultural illiteracy, from nearly pathological introversion to a
stunning lack of basic motor skills, you have all managed to
catalog a veritable banquet of unsuitability. I have to admit that
in my years of service here, I have never seen such an array of
incompetence.”

Each word was like a hammer
blow. Robert shook at the end of each sentence. Claudia bit her
lip, all out of tears at last. Brian clenched his fists and cursed
at himself, the sound and repetition drowning out the panic that
was rising.

Sharon just
glared.

But Chris seemed totally
unaffected by their reactions. He tucked the clipboard under his
arm and continued. “My opinion, of course, is meaningless. Grendel
and Alexandra are the ones who will make the decisions regarding
your futures.”

He smiled again.

“But keep in mind—if any of
you do stay on, you will still be under my supervision. Sleep
well.”

They all looked at the door
as it shut behind him, and then looked at each other.

“Yeah, right,” Brian said,
his voice slightly shaky.

* * * *

“What about training him as
a butler or majordomo?” Grendel asked, tossing Robert’s file on the
table. It was the third hour of their deliberations. “He’d look
good in the uniform.”

“Yes,” Alex admitted with a
sigh. “But somehow, it doesn’t fit him. Not now, at least. If we’re
going to make something worthwhile out of him it has to be light
years away from his former role. We have to break him totally away
from it, give him something new to focus on. And honestly, I hate
to let the potential in that body go to waste. He’d be a beautiful
showpiece.”

“We’ve already got a
showpiece,” Grendel noted.

“You really want to keep
her, huh?”

“Do you really want to take
that vacation this winter?”

Alex nodded
thoughtfully.

“The potential profit on
her is worth the other three combined!”

“That’s if we can do
something with her. Big if.”

“Well, yes.” Grendel leaned
back and thought for a moment. “She did manage to memorize those
two pages in a little over a day. That does indicate some level of
skill.”

“When she’s properly
motivated. But how do we make sure she won’t revert to her natural
state as soon as she leaves our hands? Do we really want to have to
handle a return procedure? Risk our reputation? For her? It’s not
worth it.”

They looked at each other,
both frustrated. Together, they reached for the other
files.

“We can keep Claudia,”
Grendel said hopefully.

“I don’t know what for.”
Alex sighed again. “She is almost as hopeless as Robert. That role
is so much a part of her entire nature, she just can’t let it go,
not even when her record of perfect obedience is at stake. And
Chris tells me that she is next to useless in any practical skill.”
She played with her pen, spinning it carefully through her fingers.
Her sense of balance was perfect.

Chris looked up when his
name was mentioned. He was seated comfortably on the floor, his
back resting against Alexandra’s chair. When he realized that
Alexandra didn’t want him to elaborate, he checked his watch and
went back to his patient waiting.

“Maybe we can work with
that,” Grendel said. “Elaborate on her chosen role in some
way.“

“What, make her a
better
French maid?”
Alex shook her head. “Not something I want to spend my time doing.
We can’t just keep any of these people unless we know what the hell
to do with them. Claudia is an interesting challenge, I suppose,
but I have no idea what to make of her. And let me tell you,
speaking to Madeleine about this isn’t going to be easy. Maybe we
should keep her on as a favor? After all, Madeleine is responsible
for a lot of referrals. Do you want her? Maybe she needs a man,
something different than what she’s used to.”