Safe Word: An Erotic S/M Novel (9 page)

And you could see a lot from the smaller plane that took us
to Mr. Constant's island. Beautiful, fierce, rocky landscape
in the shimmering sea. There was an open four-wheel drive
car parked at the airstrip. We drove through a small villagewomen in black with kerchiefs peering at us as we passed.
When we came to a low stone wall, Stefan stopped the car
and told me to take off all my clothes except my boots. He
clasped my hands behind my back and told me to kneel up
on the back seat. He attached the leash to my collar, hooking
it to one of the door handles.

He drove quickly on the bumpy gravel roads. People
passed on their ways here and there, leading horses, or herds
of goats. I guessed they worked for Mr. Constant or used his
land. Two teenage boys who were repairing a bit of wall at the
side of the road looked up and laughed uproariously, gesturing broadly with their hands. And about five minutes later, the road stopped, and Stefan led me the last bit of way on
foot, over a little rise, to a corral.

No one greeted us. A small figure in black and a naked
boy were all I could see at first in the glaring sunshine,
against the cruel blue of the sky. I was panting a bit; Stefan
had been dragging me along quickly. But now he quickly
unhooked my leash and shoved me forward. I think he'd
hoped that I'd go sprawling, without the use of my hands
to break my fall. I cried out, staggered, shifting my balance wildly, calling on all my will to keep me upright, and
miraculously succeeding. It all happened very quickly, but
it got the momentary attention of the pair in the ring. And
just quickly enough for me to catch a detailed glimpse
of them.

First, the smaller figure. My trainer, I guessed. But had
Mr. Constant ever said it was a woman? Well, I thought, he'd
never said it wasn't. No reason for me to have imaginedas I had-some big, hunky guy. But in the moment while I
struggled to keep my balance, I watched her lip curl as she
watched me frantically shifting my weight. She knew her job.
No need for big hunky guys around here.

She was maybe five foot two, pumped, wiry, with sharp
black eyes that contrasted with her pale skin and whitish
buzz cut. Her jeans and sleeveless T-shirt were black too, and
the very abstract tattoos on her impressive deltoids looked
like unreadable pre-Columbian designs. The tattoos were all
black, except for the red eyes on the narrow, realistically rendered snake that wound around her left wrist.

Stefan pushed me to my knees and looped my leash
around a fence post. "I'm leaving, Annie," he called. She
turned, grunted, and turned back to the sweaty panting boy.

And I did too. I mean, it was difficult not to want to look
at him forever. The muscles bunched with exertion under his
tanned skin were long, neat-looking dancer's muscles. He was
shining with sweat, his chest rising and falling, but he was
also intent on following her instructions, as he pranced and
capered to the snaps of the riding crop in her right hand, the
tugs at his reins with her left. His cock was erect, you could
tell that he liked this. He tossed his head, bowed it, snorted
behind the bridle that distorted his mouth. It was pony dressage, and he was very, very good.

But I have to admit that what most fascinated me was the
long tail he wore. It was of bright chestnut horsehair, to complement the thick, wavy, bright brown hair that fell around
his shoulders. The tail was attached to a dildo up his asshole,
which was held in place by narrow leather straps attached to
a belt around his waist. Just like the tail I'd worn during my
week of pony training. But it wasn't the technology that made
me catch my breath, it was the gender coding. Because all the
pony slaves I'd been trained with had been girls. I knew boys
did this sort of thing, too, of course, but I hadn't seen a lot of
them, and I was oddly moved by the long tail streaming out
from between the cheeks of his tight, muscular boy's ass. I
was glad that my hands were bound behind my back, but I
couldn't help rubbing my thighs together, moving my hips in
rhythm with his.

Well, I'd have to learn those moves soon enough, after
all. But I'd never be nearly as good as he was, I thought. It was
discouraging, and frightening: What would they do when
they discovered that I was a washout? I reassured myself that
it would be a while, anyway, before they gave up on me. And
until then, I told myself, at least I'd get to try it-to preen and prance, to snort and toss my head, and to respond, as he
was doing, to her small hands, skillfully wielding the reins
and riding crop. She almost never gave him a verbal command, doing it all by degrees of touch, laying the whip on
him but also, it seemed to me, cajoling him with prods and
tugs. I wanted to know what it would feel like.

They seemed to be finished, now, or taking a break. He
stood before her and she spoke softly, sternly to him, criticizing his performance, I guessed, though I couldn't hear the
words. He hung his head. And then he turned and bent over,
presenting his ass to her for punishment. He turned again,
straightening up so that she could beat his cock. And then
she took off his bridle so that he could kneel and acknowledge his punishment, kissing the riding crop, and then the
soft, red, peat-mossy ground at her feet. The slope of his
back was unspeakably elegant, I thought, trying to memorize
it in my muscles.

She pulled him to his feet by the big ring in his collar,
and she slapped his ass and sent him loping toward a small
stable a few hundred feet away. And then-gulp, show's over,
Carrie, time to show your own unimpressive stuff-she headed
toward me.

I knelt at attention, my eyes on the dirt at my feet.
And I wasn't entirely surprised at the stinging swipe of the
riding crop against my breasts. I didn't know why I was getting it, but I did know that somehow I'd had too good a time
watching Tony.

She reached for an odd, harness-like leather contrivance
that was hanging on a fence post.

"Stand up, asshole," she said. She had a nasty, nasal little
voice. "I thought you might need this," she continued, buck ling strong brown leather straps around my thighs. There
were clumsy little squares of wood on the inner surfaces.
Just wide enough to keep my thighs apart, to deprive me of a
small way of pleasuring myself. I hoped they wouldn't make
me wear this all the time-it would make me waddle. But I
could see where they'd think I might need it.

She freed my hands from behind my back.

"On your knees," she said briefly. "On your knees and
present."

Present-the verb in its imperative case, as in "Present
your body to me, slave."

She paused for an uncomfortable moment, realizing that
I didn't know what part I was supposed to present first. And
then she sneered, as though it should have been obvious to
anybody, "Ass."

Okay. On my knees, turned around, back arched. She
probed, roughly, but I was ready for her. Impatiently, she
pushed me through the other stages of the presentation.
Cunt. Crawling around to face her, kneeling up, parting my
legs, leaning my torso back to show her how wet and open I
was. She pinched my labia. She put her fingers up me, way up
this time. The difficult part was remembering that this was
for her, not for me. I had to be still, controlled, no matter how
much I wanted to come. I tried to even out my breathing.

And now my mouth. She took a small blunt whip out
from where her old black garrison belt was holding it in place.
I leaned back even further, opened, relaxed my throat to let
her fuck it with the whip's thick handle, while I caressed it
lovingly with my tongue, my lips. And then I bent to kiss
her feet, and to kneel up, my eyes cast down. She nodded,
grunted noncommittally.

"Hey," she said now, "Stefan seems to hate you even more
than he usually hates the new pet. What did you do?"

No question of lying to her. She had my chin in her hand
now and was looking at me searchingly. Round black eyes,
like marbles.

"Uh, I talked back to him, Mistress," I said.

"Madam," she said idly, flicking the whip against my
breasts.

"I talked back to him, Madam."

"Yeah? About what?" Another little flick of the whip.
No point drawing this out.

"Well, Madam, I knew he wanted to fuck me where Mr.
Constant had fucked me, to, you know, uh, get close to Mr.
Constant, and so, I told him, you know, all the places...."
This was not, I was realizing, the easiest thing in the world to
confess to her.

She laughed. "Get out," she said. "You said that?"

I nodded, my eyes on the ground in front of her Doc
Martens.

"Well," she said, "I won't bother to punish you for it.
Stefan will, though, first chance he gets. He doesn't get to give
out a lot of whippings, but I do have to get a day off once in a
while, you know"

She paused, looking me over some more. "Can't have a
slave with a fresh mouth around here. Still, you could have
fooled me. I thought you were just a nice eager set of open
holes. Well, but that's what you will be, for me, won't you?"

I assured Madam of that. Madam! Jeez, all ninety-six
pounds of her. Still, she was right, silly nom de guerre notwithstanding. I wanted to please her. I hoped I'd never think
of a smart remark anytime when she was around.

"You need some lunch," she said. "And then you can
rest. I'll try you out on the trail this afternoon. Come on."

And she led me, waddling behind her in those ugly thigh
straps, to the stable where Tony had gone. He'd been washed
down, I could see, and his tail had been removed. And he was
on his knees, bent over a trough of-oh, shit, pony food. God,
it was absolutely the worst thing about being a pony slave,
those horrible little pellets of, well, who knew what they
were-vitamins and minerals and complex carbohydrates all
rolled out and chopped up to taste like sawdust. They were
mixed with chopped-up carrots and celery, just as they'd been
on the pony farm where I'd been trained, making them just
barely tolerable. I mean, like it would kill whoever mixed the
stuff together to maybe chop an onion into it once in a while.
And I was hungry, too. I wished, now, that I'd eaten more of
the dinner the waiter had spread out in front of us the night
before-the lovely, smooth leek soup, the pale veal with its
delicate lemony sauce....-

Mercifully, though, I stopped myself before I could seriously think about the orange souffle in its pool of velvety
bitter chocolate. Soldier on, Carrie-no point crying over...
well, even spilled milk sounded pretty good compared to
what was in that trough. I knelt down in the straw next to
Tony, folding my hands at the small of my back as he was
doing, sighed deeply, and crunched down a few pellets.

And I was so mopey that it took me a moment to realize
that he was whispering to me, "Hey, we only have to eat it for
lunch."

I must have looked as though he'd just saved me from
a burning building, because he laughed softly at my look
of blissful relief, after taking a quick look to make sure that Annie was still out of earshot. "Well, except during competitions," he added quickly, turning back to his food at the
sound of her footsteps.

I could live with that. And I could more than live, I realized, with how beautiful he was close up. His eyes were blue,
I thought at first, but, no, they were green. And it took me a
while to realize, chewing thoughtfully, that one was a bluish
green, and one a brownish green, the asymmetry making
them dance in his tanned face.

Annie slapped our asses and we followed her, on hands
and knees, to the water trough. And then she put us to sleep
in adjoining stalls, on top of clean straw. I was glad I'd eaten,
and I knew that I'd need the rest for my tryout on the trail
that afternoon.

"Okay," she said, taking a breath, "your turn. But wait, are there
any more croissants in the basket?"

"Maybe a piece of one." He smiled. "Are you still thinking
about the pony food?"

She heaped jelly on the inch of croissant, grunted happily as she popped it into her mouth, and climbed back into bed
beside him.

"Okay?" she asked, giving him a slightly sticky kiss.

He was ready this time. Perhaps he'd even planned what he
might say. Earlier, so as not to be caught short.

He licked the jelly off his upper lip. "Okay," he said.

The party guests were all a little manic, not bothering to
hide the excitement in their eyes. At the auction tomorrow,
they'd be cool, appraising all the flesh set out for them, with
practiced hands and miserly eyes-as though the hundred
thousand and upwards they'd pay was really a lot of money
for them. But tonight they were slightly wild, kids the night
before Christmas, dreaming of new toys.

I'd been trying unsuccessfully to move on from a conversation with a boring old guy with enormous, bristling
eyebrows. Friend of my Uncle Harry's, telling me all about
the old days-these old farts always want to tell a polite
young fellow like me about the old days. And now he'd
launched into a deadly-and dead wrong-harangue on
the budget that had been passed this afternoon. Seems he
couldn't see why the association needed to continue investing in computer technology. Idiot. And his conversation was
a real yawner, too-even the girl at his feet was looking pretty
bored, crouching at the end of her leash. I stroked her head
sympathetically, while I excused myself. Sounded like Kate
had had her way with the association. I imagined her triumphantly attacking a big plate of bacon and eggs, tossing back
schnapps as the votes fell into place.

I stubbed out my cigarette and put another in my
mouth, inhaling smoke as a naked blond boy appeared from
nowhere to light it for me. Well-organized party. And it was
a nice apartment to prowl around. You've seen it, Carrie. It
was where you'd been examined to see if you'd get into the
auction. The party hadn't spread to that very formal room
where they'd used and beaten you so politely. At least, I don't think it had-it was a big place, with a slightly disorienting
floor plan. Madame Roget had borrowed it, I'd heard, from
some cousin, with one of those sick-soul-of-Europe names,
Esterhazy or Thurn and Taxis or something.