The Slave (8 page)

Running her hands quickly over her body, she
imagined someone examining her. Their hands would be cool, hard and
impersonal, stroking her to catch her reactions, pinching and
squeezing to test firmness. She gathered the leather string between
the clothespins and put it in her teeth, so she could pull on them
by jerking her chin back. The sensation was doubly thrilling, since
the thong tasted salty and rough and the hands-free movement of the
pins made it easy to imagine foreign fingers manipulating them.

She spread her legs apart with both hands on
her thighs, one leg going off the side of the bed. It made her feel
wide open. One, two quick, hard pinches on the lips of her sex, and
she knew that she was already more than prepared for coming. But it
would be a while longer before she permitted herself that
release.

With a deliberate slowness, she stroked the
insides of her thighs and her belly. She cupped her breasts,
brushing her fingers alongside her nipples, tapping the
clothespins. She didn’t have a pattern. In fact, she tried to vary
her actions as much as possible. Sometimes, she would reach up and
twist the pins sharply, so that she couldn’t help but gasp.

Finally, she let the pins go, and carefully
pulled them open and off, hissing through her teeth as blood rushed
back to her nipples. Then, she slipped the blindfold off, and
reached over the side of the bed and picked up the book on top of
the pile. She scanned it quickly, stopping at favorite passages and
folded over pages, and read about the things that made her breath
quicken and her clit thrum like a guitar string. But she didn’t
touch herself; no, not yet. With a growing impatience mixed with
her need to make it last as long as possible, she picked up, read
through, and tossed aside each of the books.

Scenes played themselves out in her mind;
leather cuffs around her wrists and ankles, a heavy black whip in a
gloved hand. Bending, bowing, lapping her tongue across smooth
leather. A slap across her face, angry words thrown at her in
contempt. Rough hands squeezing her breasts, long, slender, cool
fingers with gleaming red nails cruelly pinching her nipples. A
hand pulling her head back, forcing her mouth open, thrusting into
her with passion and fury! Her own mouth pulled down, buried in
another women’s cunt, commanded to please, worked until she gasped,
and then pulled back for more. Hands, many hands, upon her body,
pulling apart her ass cheeks, preparing her for another
violation....

Time had lost all meaning when she finally
dropped the last book and grabbed blindly for her vibrator. Arching
her back, she lowered it to the exact right spot, directly on her
clit, and with her other hand, she pinched one nipple, hard. There
was no teasing now; she had reached the end of her limit on
arousal. At the first touch of the insistent toy, she jerked
against the bed, and clenched her teeth together to still her
cries. Oh this would be a good one! She reached across her body to
pinch the other nipple and moaned, and then yelped, and with a
burst of wetness and an explosion of body-shaking tremors, she
came, her hips thrusting at nothing, her eyes tightly shut.

“
Oh God, oh God,” she whispered,
collapsing back onto the bed. “So good. So... so good.”

Robin awoke with a start,
knowing immediately that she wasn’t in her own bed, and feeling the
disorientation that comes with darkness and deep sleep. Then, she
turned over and remembered; she was in the room that had been
locked, and Chris Parker was presumably sleeping in the room across
the hall.
That’s twice in two days
, she thought, stretching a little.
I guess I really
haven’t spent that much time waking up in strange beds, have
I?

She had never been one for one-night stands.
Predictably, plain sex, ‘vanilla sex’, as she came to call it,
became something she just avoided. She stopped going to the singles
hangouts that her friends from school and work crawled through,
except when she had a large group to insulate her from unwanted
attention. And if her reputation seemed to be somewhat prudish,
well, there was ample evidence that she did have relationships with
other people. Somehow, it just didn’t seem that she met them
dancing, drinking, or while conducting the dating and mating
rituals of her class and culture.

Two mornings waking up in different places
was already something new.

Disappointingly, the locked room turned out
to be another bedroom, at least to casual glances. Before she
turned out the light, however, she realized that there was a
distinct spartan atmosphere to the room, a lack of heavy furniture
and a lot of wall space. There was a small bathroom, with a shower
stall. Large closets with locked sliding doors lined one wall
entirely, and unlike all the other rooms, this one had heavy drapes
to close out the light.

Or to hide the interior from
voyeurs with binoculars across the street
, she added. She had made a note to
carefully examine the room the next day if she had time, but she
was pretty sure that it was a playroom.

But there had been no time this night. By
the time she finished filling Parker in on her erotic life up until
college, it was already getting late. Her trainer did not touch her
or use her in any way, but merely sent her to bed with a wake-up
time and a wave of his hand. Still trying for best behavior, she
had gone, and dove into the single-sized guest bed within the ten
minutes Chris had suggested.

She glanced at the
clock.
God,
was it really only three in the morning?
She flopped back down into the sheets
in frustration. Insomnia would be damn hard to combat now. She had
been given some very simple instructions concerning her sleeping
arrangements.

“
You will sleep naked,” Chris had
ticked off, looking her directly in the eye. “You will remain in
bed, unless you have a physical need to leave it. You will keep the
lights off; no reading, no watching television, if there is one
present. And you will not, under any circumstances, give yourself
pleasure. That right belongs to me now. If you even absently stroke
yourself for the calming effect, you will be stealing from me, and
will be punished.”

Her hands itched to do just
that. Just thinking of the instruction caused a twinge of
excitement to run through her, and she moaned, turning over onto
her stomach to trap her hands under the pillow. There was a part of
her mind clamoring for attention, a strong and determined segment
which demanded satisfaction.
How would he know?
that part of her screamed.
You know how to
keep it quiet! And you are going to take a nice shower in the
morning, plenty of time to make sure there’s no evidence, not that
women really leave anything men know to look for. It’ll calm you
down, it’ll get you to sleep, it’ll be all right, just this
once!

But I’m trying to live this
way
, she
hollered back.
There’s no point in me doing this if I don’t do it all the
way!

Somehow, she managed to fall asleep again,
and the buzzing of the alarm clock seemed like an explosion when
morning came.

* * * *

Chris seemed disgustingly alert when he came
out of his bedroom, his curly hair wet and his body clothed in
jeans and a T-shirt. Robin caught a better look at him while she
poured coffee. He was stocky in build, heavy-shouldered and
short-waisted. She imagined him fighting a lot in his youth; short
boys get picked on as a matter of course. So, he probably bulked up
his body with weight lifting, to put some muscle power in his
reactions to their taunts and provocations. She wondered if his
height cost him any dates in the gay community, or whether the
shoulders and the jacket made up for a lack of inches.

I wonder if he even
cares
, she
thought, hesitating before pouring herself a cup. She glanced over
to him.

“
Yes, you may,” he said, not looking
at her. “Normally, you should assume that you take your meals or
drinks in the kitchen, before or after your owner. You may or may
not be used for domestic services; my assumption is that most
slaves are. In the case of a single owner, you may have to snatch
something to eat while they do; your attentions may also be needed
immediately before and after a meal. Individual owners will, of
course, have their own tastes. Some may treat you like a member of
the family; I understand it’s all the rage in
California.”

Robin grinned and casually took a seat on
the floor, leaning against the wall. Cushions scattered around the
apartment took on new meaning. “And you don’t approve, sir?”

“
No, I don’t. And neither do you.” He
sipped and nodded his approval. “If you did, you’d be looking for a
position as a domestic, not a slave. You really shouldn’t try to be
too clever, Robin. I don’t appreciate it unless it’s excellently
judged and timed, and others might take it for
impertinence.”

“
Yes, sir,” Robin murmured. She buried
her concentration in the coffee for a while, to cover her
embarrassment.

“
You will have a total of three days
to complete your business in the outer world,” Chris announced
suddenly. “Wednesday of this week, next Sunday, and the following
Monday. You will live here, except for next Sunday night, which you
may spend anywhere you like. Consider it your last night in freedom
for quite some time.”

“
It sounds like you have a lot of
confidence in me,” Robin said, trying not to appear too
eager.

“
I do. But I must admit that I also
have a great deal of confidence that your shortcomings can be
mastered in a relatively short amount of time due to my training.
You’re hardly the first applicant I’ve handled, you
know.”

“
Ken Mandarin said that you’ve trained
hundreds.”

“
Mandarin exaggerates. I have
participated in the training of over one hundred slaves, yes.
Personally, I believe my standing is twenty-six to the block, four
back to their owners. That’s not an extraordinary number for a
trainer who has been doing this work as long as I have. Some of my
methods have achieved some minor professional notice; perhaps Ken
was merely trying to express that my influence has been felt to
that extent.”

Robin cocked one eyebrow, masking the move
as soon as she felt it. Chris Parker wasn’t exactly lying, but what
he was saying seemed in direct opposition to what Mandarin had told
her. In fact, Ken seemed to be excited by the discovery that Chris
was “in town.” And there was absolutely no reason to doubt
Mandarin―in fact, Ken seemed supremely confident that Robin could
be in luck if she could only get Parker to see her. So was everyone
else they had spoken to while they looked for a potential
trainer.

But there was no reason for
Chris to pretend that he wasn’t as successful and respected as
these people seemed to think he was.
And you can’t reach that kind of level in
your field without knowing your relative value
, Robin noted.
So what reason
could he have to be so self-effacing with me? You’d think he would
inflate his experience for my sake, to make me feel more in awe of
him.

“
We begin your training
today,” Chris said, bringi
ng her attention back to the real present.
“You should attempt from this moment on to behave as though you
were my property―your body, your responses, your services, your
mind, your thoughts. You will eat, drink and wear what I give you,
sleep where I direct, and do whatever work I assign. You will
accept my direction in all things, and never hesitate to inform me
of any physical or emotional limitation which may hamper you in the
performance of your duties. Is this all understood?”

“
Yes, sir!” That familiar rush of
pleasure covered her, and she drew herself up to listen.

“
I want you to ask me questions concerning
any aspect of your time with me; by the time you get to the block,
I do not want there to be any mysteries about your position or the
potential in your future. Your confidence will be what sells you,
if your passion for slavery is real. And to that end―” He focused
his eyes on her, the morning light glinting off his steel-framed
glasses, “should you ever experience real doubt as to your wish to
be sold, I want you to come to me immediately and inform me. Is
that understood?”

Robin nodded. “Yes, yes, sir.”

“
Good. There are a few other rules you
need to know besides the ones I’ve already explained to you. This
apartment does not belong to me, in case you have not already
guessed. You will treat it and its contents with respect and
courtesy, and keep it clean and straightened. While inside, you
will not wear clothing, unless I have directed you to do
so.”

Robin blushed. She had put on the same
clothes she had worn last night, not even thinking. But Chris went
on without pausing.

“
You will wake up at the time I
indicate every morning, and keep such hours as I direct. You may,
as I’ve indicated, ask questions, but you must learn to limit small
talk: speak when you are spoken to, and answer any of my questions
quickly, honestly, and to the best of your ability. As a trainee,
an applicant, you have no status in my world, and therefore you
will treat any visitor with the utmost respect and
courtesy.

“
You will keep yourself clean and
available for inspection or use at all times. You will submit with
dignity to any punishment or training exercise I prescribe for you,
and I expect that you will show the proper attitude toward
correction and reward at all times.”