The Compound (12 page)

Alexis watched with hungry eyes as her trainer brushed the soft leather tresses over his slave girl’s back. Wendy remained perfectly still as the first hard stroke landed between her shoulders. The sound of the leather making contact with skin was the only sound in the large room. Master John moved with skill behind the girl, the flogger whirling and striking her reddening skin from shoulder to thigh.

After about ten minutes of intense flogging, the change began to happen before Alexis’s eyes. It was almost as if Wendy were sloughing off an old skin, her demeanor taking on a kind of ethereal glow. The muscles that had been clenched only a moment before eased and softened, though Wendy didn’t move her position or lower her arms. Her head fell back, her lips parting, her eyes closing as if she were slipping into a deep, peaceful sleep, though she remained standing.

Alexis recognized what she was seeing, and ached inside with the knowledge she herself had yet to experience this kind of ecstatic transformation, and maybe never would.

Faith in your trainer. Faith in yourself.

Sam’s words drifted into
Alexis’s mind as she watched Master John slow the flogging until it was once again a swishing, gentle stroke of soft leather. Was faith all that was required? And if so, where was hers? How did she find it, tap into it, harness it? Maybe someday it would be her up there, giving herself in public to her Master, her lover…

Mistress Miriam nodded toward a dark-skinned man sitting near the fireplace. The man stood and approached the stone hearth. “Master Clarence is our branding expert,” Mistress Miriam said. “He will execute the branding, with Master John’s assistance.”

Mistress Miriam waved an imperious hand toward the men. “Gentlemen, you may proceed.” She took the seat Clarence had vacated, and Marta scooted from a nearby spot to nestle against her knees. Mistress Miriam stroked Marta’s head as if she were a favored pet.

Though Wendy still seemed to be in a trancelike state, she walked with a slow, graceful gait as Master John led her to the St. Andrew’s cross on the right side of the
hearth. As she leaned with her back against the cross, her expression was serene, almost vacant. With languid movements she raised her arms, resting them against the top half of the X.

Master John secured her wrists into the cuffs set there for the purpose, and then crouched to lock her ankles into the cuffs at the bottom. He wrapped a thick strap of leather around her waist to hold her still against the cross. Finally he took a cloth gag from his pocket. He pressed it into Wendy’s open mouth and as she bit down, he tied it around the back of her head.

Master Clarence was holding the propane torch in his hand.

“Are you ready, slave girl?” Master John said, his voice low but audible as he addressed his lover.

Wendy nodded, her eyes fixed on his face.

Master John kissed the girl’s forehead and then stepped back. He retrieved the velvet pouch and slipped what Alexis realized must be the branding tool from its confines. Taking a pair of insulated pliers Alexis hadn't noticed before from the table, he clamped the long, thin handle of the brand in its grip and handed the pliers to Master Clarence.

Master Clarence flicked on the propane torch, and a long, hot blue flame shot from the top of it. As he held the design end of the brand into the flame, Alexis glanced anxiously at Wendy. Some of her sensual languor seemed to have slipped away. Her eyes were wide and though she still appeared calm, her forehead and upper lip beaded with sweat.

When the brand was heated to a red-hot glow, Clarence lifted it from the flame and quickly set down the torch. “Now,” he said, moving close to Wendy on the cross. Master John, who was standing on Wendy’s other side, clamped his hand hard over Wendy’s gagged mouth just as Master Clarence pressed the burning metal to her right inner thigh.

He held the brand in place for several long seconds. Even with the gag in place and Master John’s hand firmly over her mouth, Wendy’s small but agonized cry could be heard throughout the otherwise silent room. The smell of burning flesh reached Alexis’s nostrils and for a second she thought she was going to pass out.

While Master Clarence held ice over the burn, Master John removed the gag and used it to wipe the sweat and tears from his slave’s face. Alexis was close enough to hear his murmured, “My brave girl. My good girl,” as he unwound the thick leather strap from her waist and released the cuffs.

Though her face was very pale and her limbs trembled, Wendy wrapped her arms around Master John’s neck. A spontaneous patter of applause and congratulations rippled through the room as Master John lifted his slave girl from the cross and turned with her in his arms. As he carried Wendy from the room, Alexis saw the angry red burn, a small sideways 8.

It was, she realized, the infinity sign, a symbol of ongoing, never ending love. Alexis touched her own thigh in the spot where Wendy had been branded and she sighed audibly, her heart aching with longing for that kind of connection with another person.

Several heads turned her way at her unplanned outburst, but it was Master Paul, his amber-gold eyes burning into hers, that made Alexis blush and look away.

Chapter 8

I could be in my office right now
, Alexis suddenly thought,
reading the Wall Street Journal and sipping my first cup of coffee before checking my emails and attacking my inbox.

Instead she was naked and on her knees on the hard, cold bathroom tiles, scrubbing the floor with a huge sponge. As she spread the steaming water in soapy circles, she pondered her situation. Had she made a mistake in coming to The Compound? Should she just admit she wasn’t of the same caliber as Wendy and Tiffany and probably never would be?

No! Don’t be a quitter. This is where you’re supposed to be. This is where you belong. Don’t fuck up this chance to discover your potential. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

The ferocity of her own silent response surprised her. But when she shut out the noise of insecurity and misplaced longings, she knew it was right. She deserved this amazing chance to connect with the submissive longings that had both propelled her and left her feeling a lack all her adult life.

As she worked, she stole a sidelong glance at Marta, who was at the grooming station with Linda, one of the trainees who had been kneeling near Alexis the night before at the branding ceremony. Linda was older than most of the trainees, probably in her fifties. Her heavy breasts sagged over a body marked by childbirth and a slowing metabolism, and yet she seemed completely relaxed in her imperfect nudity as Marta expertly groomed her. The two women chatted quietly while Marta worked, spreading hot wax, pressing squares of soft cloth and then ripping them away.

Alexis had been assigned to work with Marta that morning. Master John was taking the morning off to tend to Wendy, she had been informed by a different trainer, a woman called Mistress Elena, who had conducted
Alexis’s morning inspection in his stead.

“When you’re done with the floor, you can clean the toilets,” Marta called out to Alexis.

Can’t wait,
Alexis nearly said aloud. Instead she just nodded.
Service is a form of submission. Do it with grace.

~*~

“Position 4,” Paul said, pointing to his booted feet. Tiffany dropped at once to her knees and crawled with a sexy sway across the dungeon floor toward him. There was little work left to do with her. She was trained and ready, eager to meet the Master who was flying up from Texas to claim her. The man was due to arrive sometime today. Contracts would be signed, money would exchange hands and Tiffany would leave The Compound with a man she’d never met.

Paul tried to imagine linking himself with a stranger, based solely on emails, videos and testimonials of her sexual submission, her physical appearance and her ability to
endure erotic torture. James Bradley had paid Mistress Miriam a hefty sum to take Tiffany back to his home in Texas and Tiffany herself would also receive a sizable stipend, as it was referred to, once she had completed a six month contract with her new Master. At that time, they might negotiate her continued servitude, or she would be free to return to her former life, which Paul knew had been as a flight attendant for a major airline.

“Position
8b,” Paul said, watching as the young woman pivoted so her pretty little bottom was facing him. She lowered her forehead until it touched the floor, her blond curls spilling over her shoulders. She reached back and spread her ass, revealing the tiny rosebud of her perfect asshole for his inspection.

She was twenty-four. James Bradley was forty-eight. They were strangers to each other, and yet she had committed six months of her life to him. Was this really what she wanted?
To serve without love? To submit without passion?

Paul shook his head, silently berating himself for his romantic notions. The Compound was a professional training facility designed to teach potential subs and slaves how to submit with grace and honesty. Though much of the fixed costs of maintaining The Compound were covered by a hefty endowment from a wealthy patron, Paul knew Miriam relied on these slave placements and the fees they generated to keep the place running. Not everyone required love to serve or dominate. For many just the power of BDSM itself was enough to provide deep and lasting fulfillment.

Paul selected the largest butt plug on the tray. Mr. Bradley had been clear in his requirements about anal prep. Paul thought about their last phone conversation. Mr. Bradley’s thick Texas accent almost seemed like a parody. “All my fillies got to wear their pony tails with pride, you understand me? Any girl that can’t take it up the ass ain’t got no place in Master B’s stable.”

Tiffany was fully aware she would be expected to be Bradley’s pony slave, complete with her own harness, pony tail and mouth bit, and she didn’t appear at all fazed at the prospect. It was a consensual arrangement, and everyone seemed perfectly happy with it. Who was Paul to pass judgment on anyone else for their choices?

Paul eased the huge, well-lubricated plug between Tiffany’s pert ass cheeks, watching as the whole of it slipped into that tiny hole while the girl remained utterly still. He placed the specially-designed mouth bit between her teeth and buckled it behind her head. Finally he bound her arms behind her back with the leather sleeves that ran from shoulder to wrist.

“Prance,” he ordered, and off Tiffany went, walking around the dungeon in a slow, stiff-legged movement, lifting each foot high in imitation of a horse lifting its hooves. She moved sedately and gracefully despite her getup, weaving between the training scenes already in progress at the various stations.

There’s nothing left for me to teach her
, Paul thought as he watched her. He couldn’t deny the pride he felt at how she had blossomed under his tutelage. Though to be fair, she was a natural with a lot of prior experience before coming to The Compound. She had only needed minimal guidance and direction to achieve her full potential.

I wonder who I’ll get next.

When he’d first arrived at The Compound eleven months ago, he’d been thrilled at the opportunity to hone his training skills, and to work with Miriam, whose reputation as a master trainer was international in scope. Disenchanted with the practice of law, he’d resigned from his law firm, prepared to live on his savings while he figured out what he wanted to do next.

The arrangement at The Compound was ideal—free room and board, plus a modest salary in exchange for six hours a day of BDSM training. Not to mention the perks, like use of the Olympic size pool and daily blowjobs without any relationship strings attached.

Relationships.

Though he’d been in a few of those complicated entanglements over the past couple of years, so far no one had managed to penetrate the walls he’d built around his heart since his breakup with Jessica three years before. With the passage of time and the healing of his wounded ego, he realized even with Jessica it hadn't been love. Not the kind of all-consuming and committed love he knew was out there—somewhere.

The Compound had seemed the ideal place to fully exploit his dominant drive and sadistic urges without even having to think about the possibility of falling in love. Miriam’s policy of trainers not getting romantically involved with their trainees made sense. It jived with
his own belief that a certain emotional distance was necessary in this sort of environment. While he could appreciate a woman’s beauty or submissive ability, he tended to view his trainees at a clinical remove, always aware that within a month or so they would return to their lives outside The Compound. There were exceptions of course, like Wendy and Marta, but even they were off limits during their initial training phase.

He looked around the dungeon as Tiffany continued to move with equestrian grace through the room. Where was Alexis this morning?
The girl with the shiny dark hair and those lovely brown eyes?

Alexis
.

How riveted she’d been while watching last night’s ceremony. Even from the across the room he had seen a flush of rosy color moving over her cheeks, the nipples on her luscious breasts perking and her lips parting as she watched John flog Wendy. He could almost feel the girl’s longing, and in spite of himself, his cock had hardened as he watched her.

I want her.