Subjection (3 page)

Mistress Bethel started beating me instantly; the lazy bitch could move awfully fast when it came to beating me. She grabbed my hair to drag me out of the room, muttering apologies as she did.

I squirmed, desperate. “I can count cards!” I insisted, locking eyes with the man again. “I know how to play all the common casino games and I’m good at it! I’m good, really good, sir! Just let me show you!”

Mistress Bethel smacked me again, still attempting to drag me away.

Bobby gave his friend a look and shrugged. “If the kid can really count cards, that would be a neat trick!”

“He’s too stupid for something like that!” Mistress Bethel snapped. “He’s just a torture whore. Good for nothing but beating and fucking.”

I clawed desperately at the floor, at the reception desk, anything I could to avoid being dragged away. I usually hid from visitors, but I fought to stay on the floor, displayed for all to see. It was my only chance.

The man held up a hand, indicating for Mistress Bethel to stop. I fell to my face.

“Do you have cards, then?” The man asked.

I nodded, my head spinning.

“Go get them so we can stop this foolishness!” Mistress Bethel snapped.

I tried to run, failing pretty damn miserably. I finally located the cards and flipped through them to make sure they were all in the deck. They were.

I returned, walking as boldly as I dared, trying to feel some of the confidence I needed to pull off my trick. Bobby grabbed the cards from my hand and announced that he was going to play dealer for a game of blackjack.

It was as easy to make this man win against the “house” as it had been to make myself win when I played against the other slaves for food or blankets. I had learned traditional card-counting measures when I was in middle school, and could figure out the probability of a given card coming up with near-perfect accuracy. Statistics had always been fun and challenging. I let myself get absorbed in the task, and in a few minutes, Bobby was cheering, and the man I wanted to rent me out went quiet, a slight indication of approval on his face.

“Give him the cards back,” he said quietly. He turned to study me. “Have you ever attended any sort of formal event?”

I thought of how I must look, and I could see the doubt in his eyes. “Not since I was a kid, sir,” I answered, then added, “but I swear, I’ll do whatever you say. I learn fast and I promise I’ll make you look lucky, and I’ll be obedient and perfect, I promise!”

Bobby laughed. “Come on, Cash, I bet he cleans up all right! Take him home and try him out!”

“He is rather personable,” he admitted, scrutinizing me. “A slave might even rectify my image, and he might not look too bad once he’s cleaned up.”

I wasn’t sure whether to stand tall and display my bruises and welts, or shrivel to the floor to hide from his gaze. I stood there, frozen, instead.

As they talked about price, it dawned on me that I would still be stuck at the brothel for the rest of the month. I risked further beating and dropped to my knees. “Sirs, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to take me to a nice event looking the way I do—only trash would leave such visible marks on their slave!”

I felt Mistress Bethel glaring at me, probably memorizing the two or three inches of my back that weren’t already covered in marks to beat later. “If you rent me out until the Celebration, I can heal and look much better and learn how best to please you. Nobody will ever know that you rented me out from a place like this, it will be like I’ve been trained specially for you!”

The man frowned. “I’m not sure if I need a slave around for a month…”

“Give me a chance?” I begged. “I can cook, I can clean, I’ll beg you to fuck me every night and do everything else you tell me to! Mistress Bethel just uses me for torture—I could be worse off by the time you pick me up for the Peace Day Celebration!”

My Mistress seethed, and I was terrified of what she would do to me if I was left with her. To my surprise, the man relented, and Mistress Bethel quoted him a price to rent me for the month.

“May as well buy him for that price!” Bobby commented. “He could be fun to have around.”

“If
you
like him so much, why don’t
you
buy him?” the other man retorted.

I was astonished when he went on to discuss the purchase price with Mistress Bethel. They settled on a price, and Mistress Bethel retrieved my ownership paperwork.

I dared to stand up, watching the man sign his name on my ownership papers. “Cashiel Michaud.” Cashiel. I rolled it around in my mouth like a cock. Er, like a candy. Or whatever people who aren’t whores say. I wanted to try to be a bit more classy, since I was leaving the brothel.

“Keep a firm hand with him,” Mistress Bethel sneered at me. “He’s a stupid whore. Very difficult to train.”

I couldn’t resist. I knew she couldn’t touch me, and I lost my fucking mind at the momentary freedom. “Difficult for ignorant assholes like you!” I spat out. “You wouldn’t know intelligence or potential if it bit you in the ass!”

I felt a rough hand grabbing the back of my neck, and it occurred to me that Mistress Bethel wasn’t exactly the person I needed to be worrying about anymore. The grip tightened and my master dragged me outside, ownership papers clutched tightly in his other hand.

Once we got outside, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a set of keys, and tossed them to Bobby. “Bring the hov-car around,” he ordered, and Bobby obeyed without question.

I was slammed against a wall by my neck, and I tried to look pathetic.

“I don’t deny that she deserved that, but I will not tolerate disrespect!” My master hissed, his face close to mine. At first I thought he was being intimidating, but I realized he didn’t want to cause a scene, as if anything could cause a scene in that part of town.

“If I
ever
hear you speak to a free person like that again, you will be beaten and gagged for the remainder of the day, is that clear?”

I didn’t move. “Yes, master,” I whispered. I was relieved to avoid beating that day, but his threat was real.

He pushed me away and we stood in silence until Bobby returned with the hov-car. We dropped Bobby off at his house, and I stared out the window, amazed that I was never returning to Bethel’s Brothel. I dozed off, lulled by the movement of the hov-car and the momentary safety. I was taken by surprise when I heard the door to the hov-car open, revealing my irritated master.

“I’m sorry, master,” I mumbled, trying to surreptitiously wipe the drool from my face. “I wasn’t able to sleep much when I was with Mistress Bethel.”

He gave me wide berth as I exited the hov-car. “Don’t mention her again,” he ordered, calm, yet threatening. “I wasn’t particularly fond of her.”

I wanted to agree with him, but that might have been disrespectful, and I didn’t want to challenge him. I wanted to be good, to jump through hoops, to earn and keep my place. I wanted to try with him, like I hadn’t with anyone else since I had been Demoted.

Chapter 3
Arrival

I followed him into the house in silence. It was meticulously clean, almost to the point of not looking lived in, and I wondered why he bothered to purchase me if he had an adequate cleaning service already. Clearly, he could afford a cleaning service; the house spoke of money, taste, refinement. It wasn’t overly large, but it was spacious, and each piece of furniture I could see must have cost more than my parents used to make in a year. The casually displayed rack of vintage wine and massive vidscreen in the living room confirmed my observations.

I tried my best to memorize each room, and I ran into my master because I was too busy trying to remember the layout of the house to realize he had stopped walking. I yelped and cowered away.

“Pay attention,” he advised, his tone dry. He opened a door to a room on our right, and I forced myself to stand tall and act like I wasn’t terrified to be beaten. When he reached over to turn the light switch on, I flinched away again, whimpering.

“Jesus, is that all she ever did was hit you!” my master exclaimed, grabbing me rather roughly by the arm and pulling me into the room.

I did my best not to disappear, trying hard to stay in my body and not float off like I do sometimes. “Yes, master,” I answered.

He sighed. “Well, calm down, I’m not going to waste my time hitting you for no good reason. You were right, only trash would leave their slaves marked up like you are—my god, you’re bruised and beaten all over!”

I wanted to hide, which was stupid, because there wasn’t even anything to hide behind. I was wearing some hotpants and nothing else, and even those were ripped. My clientele never cared much for costumes.

“This will be your room,” my master informed me. “There’s a bathroom attached; I don’t fancy sharing my shower with you. You’ll use this one, and you will keep it clean at all times. Your job right now is to get in there and get yourself cleaned up so I can tolerate being in the same room as you. You’ll find shampoo and soap in there and you’d better put them to good use. I’m assuming you can bathe yourself?”

The words stung more than I wanted to admit. I wanted to scream at him that it wasn’t my fault, that I hadn’t chosen this, that I hadn’t made the decision to get hosed off on the back patio instead of being allowed in the shower because the blood stained the tiles. I never chose to have other men’s come in my hair and on my skin.

“Yes, master,” I replied tonelessly.

“Good,” he nodded, satisfied. He turned to walk out.

“Master?” I risked asking. “What should I wear?”

He turned, looking irritated, but not exactly angry. “I’ll bring some clothes,” he muttered. “Don’t walk around naked in my house like a whore.”

I had always thought the shame would stop if someone saved me, took me home, but it wasn’t stopping. I was torn between screaming and sobbing, but neither was acceptable.

I reminded myself that he was at least bringing me clothes, letting me wear them, letting me shower. He didn’t even seem particularly interested in fucking me, which I hoped meant that I would get a chance to heal from the tears left from brutal fisting I had endured a week before. I focused my thoughts on how nice it would be to be able to shit or sit down without pain again.

I went into the bathroom once he left and peeled off the disgusting hotpants, dropping them in a trash bin. I didn’t even care if he wanted me to keep them; they were disgusting and they reminded me of what I had been doing and what had been done to me.

I looked at myself in the mirror, the first time I had the chance to look in weeks. My face had mostly been left alone, at Mistress Bethel’s request, but there were still some bruises there. The cutting and breaking of skin had been reserved for my back, stomach, and legs. I wondered what the hell I could wear to the Peace Day Celebration to hide the mess.

I looked like a beat up whore, and I was ashamed to realize I was still naked. Like a whore. I was doing exactly what I was ordered not to do.

I turned on the water and stepped in immediately, yelping and pressing against the wall when the warm stream hit the open welts on my skin. The hose on the patio had been miserably, painfully cold, especially in winter, but at least it had somewhat of a numbing effect. The shower just burned, and hurt, and it took me a minute before logic kicked in and I realized I could turn the fucking water down to a cooler temperature. I tried not to cry as I lathered up a washcloth and started to carefully wash away terrible mess on my skin. I had to stop three or four times to rinse the blood, dirt and come from the washcloth.

I was sobbing by the time I finished.

Washing my hair was a little more pleasant, which was why I saved it for last. There was minimal damage done to my head. It hurt to lift my arms above my head, but I figured that would go away. A few days before, one of the brothel clients had tied my arms together and hung me from them for hours while they beat me. I had felt far worse pain.

I finally got clean, and I felt a little bit better. I even forced myself to wash my ass, which made me cry some more, and my dick, which miraculously got hard. I took advantage of it, jerking off into the shower drain like I used to when I was growing up at home. My master hadn’t told me not to jerk off, and besides, he didn’t look like he wanted to fuck me. Maybe de-louse me, but not fuck me. I didn’t think of much of anything while I jerked off. It was barely sexual for me anymore; it released tension, it killed some pain, it gave me an endorphin rush that was better than the drugs I had tried a few times as a teenager.

I came out and took another look at myself in the mirror. I looked better clean. I hoped my master would like me better, too. I desperately wanted him to like me, at least a little, at least enough that he wouldn’t hurt me too bad or sell me back to Bethel’s Brothel.

I found a towel and clothes on the counter; my master must have brought them in while I was showering. I dried off quickly, hoping I wouldn’t get in trouble for getting blood on the towel. He had to have known, right? He saw me. He had to have known what would happen when I went under a stream of water. He had to have known that all of the scabs and fresh wounds would open up. He had money; I knew he shouldn’t be too upset about a towel, even if it was a plush, high-quality towel, not just a scrap of old sheets like I had gotten used to. I trembled at the thought, anyway.

I stood there, dabbing at the cuts with the towel, waiting for them to stop bleeding before getting dressed. I heard a loud knock, which must have been from the entrance to the bedroom, not the bathroom, because it was muffled.

“Yes, master?” I called out, wishing I would hurry up and stop bleeding already.

“What’s taking so long?”

I winced, afraid that I had angered him with my slowness, not to mention the bloodstains he had yet to discover. “I’m sorry, master.” I tried my best to sound pathetic. “I have to wait until I stop bleeding. I don’t want to damage the clothes you brought me.”

I expected him to go away, but I heard his footsteps drawing closer. Suddenly, he was standing in the doorway. He looked at me, his nose turned up in disgust, and he raised an eyebrow as he saw the towel. “Yes, it would be best if you weren’t bleeding. You’ve ruined the towel, and you’ve managed to bleed on the floor as well. Turn around and lean against the wall.”