The Slave (25 page)

For Troy had manufactured some impossible
scenario, wherein she had manipulated him into allowing her to
sleep with his best friend. Despite repeated assurances that she
was not interested in Barry emotionally or physically, he used her
own words against her in a relentless inquisition concerning her
reactions and thoughts and present and future desires.

The man who swore that he would not be bound
to any sort of formal commitment fell victim to the common lover’s
malady of jealousy.

In public, he turned hostile to anyone who
showed even the slightest interest in Robin. Even other submissives
learned to keep their distance when Troy was around.

In private though, he was simply cruel. He
wavered from angry passion to cold disinterest, and returned always
to the same questions. Did she like sleeping with another guy?

“
It was just that one time,” she
insisted. “If you don’t want me to ever be with anyone else again,
you have that power!”

“
Until you see another dick you like,”
he sneered back. “Then all of a sudden it’ll be, ‘Master, please
lend me to him!’ won’t it? Any excuse to get another cock between
your legs!”

Robin’s eyes narrowed in fury. “If that’s
what you believe, then I don’t see the point in continuing this
discussion,” she said. “You can call me if you want to talk about
this like adults.”

“
Oh sure, turn cold on me, you bitch!
Well, just remember, I made you fucking crawl to me! I was your
only real master, you’re never going to find another man like me!”
He rose, too, his slim body suddenly threatening. “If you walk out
that door, you’re making the biggest mistake of your
life!”

“
Then tell me what I should do!” Robin
thundered back. “You think I don’t want you; you believe that I’d
use you to sleep with other men! What am I supposed to do, sit here
and wait until you go insane with jealousy? It was just an
experiment that went bad, Troy. You’re the one who’s dwelling on
it. We don’t ever have to do anything like it again!”

“
Until you want to,” he repeated
stubbornly.

She stared at him, feeling the anger subside
a little bit and sadness flow in. “I’m really sorry,” she said. And
then she left, his dire threats and insults echoing down the
hallway until the elevator closed and she slumped against the back
wall. No tears, not yet.

The tears didn’t come until three weeks
later, when he called her and apologized and promised that he would
behave better if she came back. “I’m so, so sorry,” he had said,
his voice sincere and soft. “It was all my fault, I should have
never done that to you!” And as she heard him, she realized that
even in the immediate loneliness of their short separation, she had
not missed him as much as she had missed being beaten
regularly.

He had done his damage. She was no longer
interested in him.

That night, the tears flowed like rain.

* * * *

But her story with Troy wasn’t over yet.
Although she made it clear to him that she was not going to come
back, she also told him that she was not angry with him. In fact,
she emphasized that she was appreciative of their relationship, and
that she would remember it always as a pleasurable and positive
part of her life. And while he resisted the “let’s be friends”
approach as well as any rejected lover would, he realized that he
had predicted her eventual absence on many past occasions. It was
to his credit to be clear-headed and rational about the whole
thing.

She was even pleased that he found himself a
new girlfriend/slave. In her opinion, Susie, Joe’s ex-slave, was a
bit of an airhead, but she seemed to make Troy happy.

In contrast, her own search for
companionship was as frustrating as ever. Now hampered by her
public roles as a slave to a man and a woman, she became pursued
beyond her capacity to even contemplate. But the inherent quality
of her suitors had not changed. The vast majority saw their
interest in SM as an imaginative kink in their otherwise
straightforward sex lives.

And so it was that nearly a year from the
end of their relationship, in the ballroom at a large East coast
fetish gathering, Troy came looking for Robin and found her engaged
in a discussion about the comparative merits of several works of SM
fiction. Interrupting the conversation, he drew her aside, politely
but with firm enthusiasm.

“
What is it?” she asked, smiling.
Around them, the crowds chattered and milled, the crinkling and
creaking sounds of leather and PVC and crinoline adding a steady
undertone to the evening.

“
There’s someone I think you should
meet,” Troy said, gesturing across the room. Robin glanced casually
over and saw a black haired woman, dressed in a tuxedo, standing
near a pair of men in pony harness, bits firmly in place and
headstalls wrapped around their ears and foreheads. She confirmed
the target with Troy.

“
Yes, the oriental lady,” Troy nodded.
“Robin, I don’t know what exactly’s going on, but there are some
people here who seem a little bit more serious than the average
pervert. Can you tell?”

Robin nodded. She had begun to be aware of a
subtle difference in a small percentage of people she met. It
attracted her, in ways she couldn’t exactly put a finger on. This
gathering was no exception. Mixed in with the weekend sexual
warriors, the bedroom frolickers, and the organization and contest
celebrities were a few individuals who seemed unaffected by the
posturing and the presentations. Or perhaps amused by them.

“
Well,” Troy said, taking another
glance at the woman across the room, “I think she knows what’s
going on. And, more so, I think she’s willing to talk about it. But
not to me.”

“
Then what makes you think she’ll talk
to me?”

“
She told me so.”

Robin turned to look at the woman. Even
across the room, she could see her careful nod. She turned back to
Troy. “Why am I scared all of a sudden?”

“
Because you might be that much closer
to getting what you really want.” Troy said this without rancor,
and Robin loved him for it. “Shall I introduce the two of you, or
do you want to just go over by yourself?”

Robin first felt the urge to walk over and
talk to her. But she hesitated, feeling that perhaps such a move
wouldn’t be proper. So she allowed Troy, resplendent in his leather
pants and black shirt, to escort her across the room, there to
formally introduce her.

“
Robin, please meet Ms. Kenda
Mandarin.”

“
Ken,” the woman said smoothly. Her
voice was light, but serious, and her eyes were predatory. “My
friends call me Ken.”

Robin struggled with the knot over and over,
until her fingertips felt numb. It resisted her diabolically,
remaining tangled where it should be smooth, tight where it should
be loose, sloppy where it should be crisp. It never came out
even.

She never realized that so much went into
tying a simple bow tie.

But she had to get it right before Chris
came back from wherever he had gone. His tuxedo hung, freshly aired
and dusted, his shirt was crisp in white tissue paper on the bed. A
box containing the braces and studs and cufflinks was on the edge
of the nightstand. Robin had been struggling with the tie for
almost an hour. Nothing that she knotted seemed even close to the
ideal that was pictured on the instruction sheet she had gotten
from the formal wear shop.

That had been an inspiration. When Chris had
left her, all he had done was hand her the tie and tell her that
she would be expected to act as his valet that evening; she did
know how to deal with one of these, didn’t she?

Robin’s sole experience with bow ties had
been seeing them around the throats of professors, or on the
boyfriends of various girlfriends on their wedding days. And those
particular ties had an adjustable band that clipped on. So as soon
as Chris left, she opened the yellow pages and called the nearest
formal wear shops. One of them did indeed have a prepared sheet
that they gave out to their customers, and yes, they could give her
one if she came by. So she had dressed and gone out (Chris never
told her that she couldn’t), and, feeling odd to be so covered,
picked up the hint sheet.

Now, with Chris due back any moment, she was
only a little closer to tying the damn thing correctly.

When she heard his key in the door, she
shook the band of silk out and smoothed it over the shoulder of the
tux. Luckily, it showed no great sign of the abuse she had put it
through. She hit the hallway as the door started to swing inward,
and was ready to receive the large package out of his arms when he
extended it toward her.

“
We’re going to do something a little
different tonight,” Chris said as he walked into the apartment,
letting her close the door behind him. He almost never said “hello”
or “good morning.” She’d gotten used to it, especially since she
realized that on some mornings, he went to a gym and came back all
ready to tear into her at the slightest sign of sulkiness. He
shrugged his jacket back over his shoulders, and she had just
enough time to put the package (a long box) down on the table
before she neatly caught the garment and hung it on the rack. “In
the meantime,” he said, “try this on, and make sure it
fits.”

Robin eyed the large box and picked it up
again. “Sir?”

“
You may use the dressing room in the
master bedroom. You’ll need the mirrors. But first, make some
coffee.” He walked into the dining room without another
glance.

Robin rushed competently through preparing
and serving the coffee, and opened the box with trepidation. But as
she brushed aside the layers of tissue paper, she revealed a simple
but lovely black dress, suitable for a formal party. Separated from
the dress by a partition was a small cloth envelope that held
stockings and a garter belt, a box containing a pair of gold
earrings, and a larger box with a pair of fashionable shoes.

I’m going to a party!
Robin thought
deliriously as she rushed into the dressing room. Of course
everything fit, allowing for the stiffness of new shoes.
There’s no reason
why anything would be unsuitable
, she reflected.
Chris knows every inch of my body; he
has all my measurements.

The dress was long-sleeved, with touches of
layered black lace where they would add dimension without color. It
was high-necked, but cut to wrap around her sensuously. It was
deceptively simple, as all little black dresses should be. There
was no designer label on it, which said more than the presence of a
label would.

With her hair done up and the earrings and a
little make-up, she’d be very pretty. The heels would help a lot;
they would make her legs look longer. She stared at her reflection
in the mirror. It was conceivable that someone would pay an awful
lot of money for the woman who looked back at her. The thought was
amazing; it was unlike anything she had felt about herself since
she was a little girl.

Taken by her musings, she didn’t hear
Chris’s approach until he slid back one of the doors. She turned to
him with a blush. “It seems adequate,” he said.

“
It’s wonderful,” Robin gushed,
turning for him. “It’s beautiful, sir. Does this mean that I’m
going with you tonight?”

“
It does. So take it off, and do
whatever it is you would normally do before a black tie affair.
When you come to dress me, I want you naked, as usual. You’ll dress
after me. We have to leave at 6:15. Will that be enough time for
you to get ready?”

It was. Chris wanted her to be able to
complete his dressing, not oversee it from socks up. So, she
fastened the braces, did up his starched collar and French cuffs,
and standing behind him, tied the bow-tie into the neatest, most
even knot she could have imagined coming from her fingers. Chris
glanced at himself in the mirror, flipped his hair in place with
his fingers and grunted, releasing her to dress.

The recognition for a
job
well
done doesn’t seem to apply to my situation
, Robin thought as she rolled a
stocking up past her knee.
But then, I know it was done well. And I know he
knows. And―that’s enough.

Her make-up box, one of the
things she had brought back from the apartment
, seemed alien to her after
only a week without it. She used it sparingly.

When she came out of her room, Chris had
another surprise for her: a long, black coat. She was relieved that
it wasn’t fur; she had always maintained a distaste for the
sensation of fur. But it was a lush, thick cashmere, with a silken
shawl collar. He was wearing a black trench coat, with a white
scarf tucked into the lapels.

It was all too, too classy. She giggled as
she slid her arms into the warm embrace of the coat.

“
What?”

“
It’s just that this doesn’t feel like
a regular night, sir,” Robin said. “I used to go to formal parties
all the time. Hell, they were part of the job. Openings, shows,
anniversaries, birthday parties for big clients, museum
fundraisers... I have lots of dresses in storage for this kind of
thing. But tonight, I feel... different. Almost like I’m going to
the prom. Or to Cinderella’s ball.”

Chris shrugged. “In a way, you are. Tonight,
you are going to your first function that takes place within the
Marketplace. The event,” he took the invitation out of his pocket
and glanced at it, “is an anniversary. The house that manages the
New York Autumn/Winter auction, which is the one I would like to
show you in, is celebrating their fiftieth year of business.”