‘You’ve learned it when I say so,’ Master’s tone was sharp but his expression had softened. ‘You mustn’t have secrets from me. Tell me what you wish.’
‘Your slave wishes…to be allowed out of this cage again.’
‘Why?’
This time the words came from somewhere deep inside me that I didn’t know existed, ventriloquist-like. ‘To serve you.’
That’s when I tumbled down to a dark place, clutching my name like a rope.
Light, Light, Light…
Yet the more I repeated it, the less it felt like my name and the more it sounded like a nonsense word, with no connection to the slave crawling out of the cage and gratefully kneeling at its smiling Master’s feet.
SEPTEMBER 3
If that’d been all the wankers had stripped away from me, then it wouldn’t have taken so long to fight my way back to you.
But there’s always more to lose.
One evening, before Master led me to the training room to be learnt my lessons, I knelt in silence at his knee, as he lounged in the high-backed armchair, perusing his newspaper and indulging in a cigar. Peepers downcast and holding myself perfectly still on the Victorian Oriental rug, I gazed at the reds and faded whites because they reminded me of the rug in my childhood drawing room.
The thought unsettled me with memories of kneeling at my papa’s knee, as he puffed on his clay pipe and shook the billowing pages of the Times. I lost myself in the rug’s threads; counting them, I was caught in the numbers.
Hours passed, as if I’d slept.
‘Good boy,’ when Master stroked my hair, I glowed, leaning into his touch.
It was as if I knew I should be screaming. Shouting. Swearing. But that I wouldn’t.
Instead, I continued kneeling there, happy to be by the warmth of the glowing fire, free from the cage or pain. Content to have pleased Master.
And that’s the first moment I let myself hide too deep in the dark. Only I didn’t know it then.
When Master left to answer the harsh trill of the landline, I didn’t even glance up. It was only when I heard my name – no, my slave name - that I was suddenly alert.
My true name - my Blood Lifer name - was one of the many things I’d let fade to black.
My name is… My name is….
‘Slave shadow’s a darling goog now, fair learnt. The auction’ll attract high bids.’ My nut shot up, but Master’s back was turned. I tried to calm my panicked breathing. ‘Aye, we’ll put on a right party here on the Estate for the Blood Club. It’s the best tack to boost confidence, after that unfortunate incident at Abona…’
Master continued to yak about business, as if he hadn’t been nonchalantly planning to sell me.
No one’s having you but me. No one’s touching you but… I mouthed the words because I didn’t have the bottle to holler them at Master. I no longer understood why I’d minded you saying them.
The metal collar around my neck (which I could feel every time I swallowed), read - SHADOW: PROPERTY OF CAIN. Your family already owned me.
A slave has no direct desires. But I did desire you, desired to be safe back with you, home in Primrose Hill. When I lay in my cage, it was all I dreamed about.
But an auction..? To be sold to the type of bastard, who got off on the specialised extras Master was offering..?
When I heard Master pace back to the armchair, I tried to still myself.
Master tipped up my chin, forcing me to meet his steady gaze, so tenderly the last thread of me unravelled. Then the tears fell. ‘You must always tell me your thoughts and secrets,’ Master murmured.
‘Your slave is frightened of being sold, Master.’
‘Why?’
‘My Mistress owns me.’
‘You’re my property to sell.’
‘Master, may I?’
‘Aye, boy.’
‘It would do anything to serve her again.’
I could see Master’s apparent satisfaction, when he nodded. Yet his mush was grave. ‘I don’t know; you’ve been a bad slave for my daughter.’
I lowered my gaze. With every submissive atom of me, I tried to convince Master I could do better.
Master seemed to understand because he let go of my chin and petted my nut. ‘Maybe if you continue to be obedient, I’ll inform my daughter I’ve learnt you your lessons. Then she can come from across the water and decide. Will you try harder, if I arrange that?’
‘Yes, Master, thank you.’ I was panting, like an over-excited mutt.
‘But remember, if you act the gor, you’ll lose the reward. Then the auction goes ahead.’
From that moment on, I was lost.
Whether it was something in my file, or by watching the way we’d acted together at M.C.’s, Master had known to exploit my greatest weakness: love.
I was desperate not to be separated from you and flown, like another one of those glowing lights, somewhere around the globe to be a billionaire’s plaything.
It wasn’t a lie, what I’d told Master: I’d have done anything to get you back.
A month’s undercover work now looked like the least of it; I’d be lucky if I ever saw you again. Terrified by that prospect – the stick - and thrilled about seeing you at last – the carrot – I jumped through every hoop and endured every humiliation. And the more times I did? The easier it became. As if my mind was being subtly reshaped.
Soon it was a struggle to even imagine I’d sworn at Master, fed from anything but a bottle or slept in a bed, rather than a cage.
One night, I was in the training room, placed in nose (a position I bloody hated): facing the wall on tiptoes, my wrists tied behind my back and my nose delicately holding an old Isle of Man penny with a triskelion motif - whichever way you throw, it will stand - to the wall. If I let the penny fall, I was in for a bleeding sore arse.
When I heard Master behind me, I tensed but he only removed the coin. ‘When Grayse was little, and Marlane wasn’t yet a woman,’ Master unfastened my cuffs roughly, ‘my wife loved riding in the evening by the coast.’ To my surprise, Master was also clicking open the cuffs’ clasps; they clattered to the floor. I jumped. Then I felt Master rubbing at my sore wrists. ‘This yarn I’m spinning, it’s a show but all true.’ He fixed on new bondage cuffs. These were leather but softly lined with suede. If I hadn’t been so tense, I’d have luxuriated in the comfort. Master shoved me hard onto my knees – crack – before working on my ankle cuffs too. ‘She didn’t come back, so at day-lift, I grabbed my shotgun and took a sight up the coast.’ One ankle now had the leather cuff on, instead of metal; Master clutched the other, his fingers biting hard enough to bruise. ‘I found her. Heart attack, they said. Still,’ he pulled the last cuff on tight, before spinning me round and slamming me to all fours, ‘no one could say why the horse was dead right next to her, its heart stopped just the same: until the Blood Life Council spun me a yarn, which was even more of a show.’ He clicked on my leash. ‘She’s here.’
Master dragged me after him, without looking down.
I shivered at the thought of returning to Master, after what he’d just told me about his wife.
I’m sorry…but you should know the bloodied truth, even if you hate me, as much as your dad hates Blood Lifers. Even if you punish me for your mum’s death.
At that moment, the wisp of hope I clung to was that you’d arrived. My heart hammered with joy and nervous anticipation.
Please let you decide to keep me.
How could I not be wary of your reaction to…whatever I was now? You’d always said you didn’t want a broken thing…
Yet I’d survived, and you’d come for me: in the battle of wills, your dad might’ve chipped away at me. But he hadn’t shattered me.
I was surprised when Master stopped at one of the bedrooms. When I’d had a gander in here before, it hadn’t struck me as your style: a spherical bed slap bang in the middle, in satin scarlets and blacks, trapped by glass screens, which were printed with erotic photos o
f Blood Lifers.
Master unclipped my leash. ‘She’s waiting for you. Be a good boy and remember your lessons.’ Then – clump, clump, clump – he retreated to the snug, firmly closing the door.
I was dead excited, yet something held me back. I was ashamed when I realised what you’d see: me, starkers, collared and in cuffs, crawling like an animal. I told myself you must know what to expect. But that didn’t take away the bite.
Unable to raise my nut, I crawled slowly into the bedroom.
The first thing that was wrong was the smell. Not gorse and sunlight but leather and sweat.
Alarmed, I looked up.
The second thing that was wrong was the footwear. Not Fendis but black army surplus boots.
I scrabbled back against the wall.
‘Dad told me he’d learnt you, liccle leech, but seems to me you be still a proper disrespectin’ bitch.’ M.C. stepped towards me, studded and spiked from head-to-toe; the only flesh showing was filmed through her black mesh top. I suddenly felt twice as starkers. ‘Kneel.’
Conditioned now, even through my horror, I folded into position.
M.C. smirked. ‘Good liccle bitch.’ When she slunk towards me, I battled to stay still: to obey. M.C. stroked down my cheek with her black-nailed fingers. ‘See? It just needed da right discipline to train you, innit?’
I kept my gob shut, even though my brain was whirring.
Why hadn’t you come for me?
Christ I felt…abandoned.
M.C. prowled around me, trailing the back of her hand across my shoulders, as if assessing a purchase. ‘Spoilt Boston brat never could share her toys.’
I stiffened. Sod it – M.C. wasn’t Master and she wasn’t my Mistress – she wasn’t you. I shredded the wankering Rules for Blood Lifer Slaves and gave the bastard slave voice a slating. ‘I’m Grayse’s,’ I whispered.
M.C.’s fingers transformed to claws, slicing into my right shoulder and anchoring me to kneel. ‘You muggin’ me off?’
‘I’m hers - not yours - to touch.’ Expecting a hiding, I licked my lips in a quick, anxious swipe.
M.C., however, only let go of me with a shove, before caressing my cheek again. ‘You be no one’s, you get me? An unwanted goog, sold to da highest bidder.’
‘But Grayse--’
‘Made her decision. She be gone back to dat neek Professor at Harvard. She don’t want da Cain Company. And she don’t want you, you feeling me?’
And yeah, I felt her, down deeper than anything Master had done to my body.
This was different because for the first time, I felt it deep in my mind.
You were what I’d been holding onto. My safe haven. Freedom. Love.
But if you didn’t want me..? If you wanted Fernando instead..?
I’d opened your First Lifer peepers to the truth of the world, as I had for Kathy. Yet instead of embracing the darkness, you’d run from it. You’d chosen a life in the sun, which only Fernando could offer. I could’ve shared with you the wonders of a whole new reality, but it hadn’t been enough: I hadn’t been enough – and in the realisation of my worst fear, my mind began to break.
‘Liar,’ I hissed.
I could see the sudden alarm in M.C.’s peepers, as she reached for the tracker. Then she relaxed, as she sniffed. ‘What, liccle leech? You reckoned she’d come running to save you? Da flower boy slave has a crush on its Mistress, innit?’ Humiliated, I bit my cheek hard, tasting the tang of my own copper blood. When tears pricked my peepers, I fought for them not to fall. But I failed. M.C. leant down, wiping them away, before lifting them to her lips, as if savouring their saltiness. ‘You ain’t wallad enough to reckon my sis loves you? Grayse has never loved no one.’
I shook my nut, as if to deny M.C.’s words, but they stung.
‘Look, here’s da truth of it,’ M.C. slipped out her mobile, shoving the screen in front of me. All I could process was message after message between you…and Professor Zuniga Sanchez.
I didn’t know how M.C. had got hold of them. We should’ve known, however, that your family were monitoring us.
M.C was right. You hadn’t come back for me after the month. You’d let your sister have me instead: because of Fernando.
That’s when I stopped resisting. What was the point?
M.C. noticed the change in me. She prowled to the satin bed, which was between glass panels of male Blood Lifers. Then she patted the space next to her. ‘Lie down.’ Dazed, I crawled up and onto the bed. I lay on my back, with my legs spread and hands at my side. You’d chosen Fernando… You’d left me here… You’d handed me over to your sister… M.C. straddled me, the studs and spikes on her bondage trousers digging into my naked flesh. Her scarlet-tipped hair swiped my cheeks. ‘Maybe I’ll buy you. But you better show me how happy dat would make you, you get me?’ When M.C. clicked something to the side of the bed, the Sex Pistol’s “Submission” blasted. I wanted to howl. ‘Your file said you’d find dis tune heavy, yeah?’
M.C. gave a feral grin, as she licked her lips. Then she was snogging me, ferocious and fierce, biting my lips and fucking my mouth in fierce jabs.
You were gone… Back to your old life, whilst I was betrayed to slavery. This was no longer undercover: it was real. M.C. savaged my lip, sucking at the beaded blood.
Had you always known what this would mean? Always known my choice to return here would mean my abandonment?
I sank lower and lower, locking what was left of me tight and safe, where it couldn’t be touched.
I stared up at the bright cloud light on the ceiling above the bed, as M.C. explored my body with experienced hands. I lost myself in the twists of white nylon tube wires and tiny lights, which had no edges, as if of infinite size. Soon I was flying in the unreality of the sky above, as down below a bint in leather violated my body.
And unlike you, she didn’t stop.
She didn’t bleeding. Stop.
That’s when it started. When I broke.
Everything gets hazy after that, as if I was blanking out…breaking down…broken. Fragments left, only…successions of sensations and emotions…agony, fear, hunger, warmth, contentment and comfort…but each one in Master’s power to give or take away. Only what he desired mattered. Ghosted, I didn’t exist, except to serve Master’s pleasure or take his pain.
My snatches of understanding were briefer still… Good boy… Bad boy… Crawl… Lie Down… Corner… 300 strokes… Limited to conditioned positions, orders, rewards or punishments.
Flayed truth? Once I’d stopped fighting, life became simpler – easier.
It flares me with shame but I’d retreated…somewhere else. And what was left? Knew how to submit. Obey. Accept punishment.
I was learnt: a good little doggy. Not a hero at all.
A true slave.
SEPTEMBER 4
I still forget you read this – not Reader you, the imaginary figment - but the real you.
This afternoon, when I was burrowed under my duvet, you came barrelling into my room, shaking this opened journal at me.
I tumbled out of bed into automatic kneel.
‘Sodding hell…’ Furious at myself, I made to stand, but you dragged me up with trembling hands, crushing me to you.
I stared down at the journal, which was crumpled between us.
Then I remembered: what I’d written about your mum’s death. I didn’t know for sure whether she’d copped it natural-like or at the fangs of a Blood Lifer. The Blood Life Council wouldn’t have only exploited the weaknesses of Blood Lifers: there’d also be a fat file on you Cains as well.
‘I’m sorry…’ We both said at the same time.
Then you shook your nut. ‘Naw, I’m sorry…that Marlane…that you were…for everything. I didn’t abandon you, Light. I’d never abandon you.’
Too surprised to know how to react, I let you clutch me, as finally, I smiled.
At last it felt like I was back home.
You’d saved me, when I was lost.
&nb
sp; When the pine crate was first delivered into your sitting room at the end of the month I’d spent on the Estate, I remember thinking, as the red nylon ropes were torn away and I was hauled out, that I hoped I’d please my new Mistress, as I had Master.
Master had stood over me on the last day, stern but patting my nut in the way I liked and ordered me to be a good boy.
There was bright light sharp in my peepers from a plastic chandelier of bottles and fishing lines, before I dropped to kneel. I shivered: it was colder here than it’d been in Master’s snug. There was no rug, just a mahogany floor, which made me sad. I was careful, however, to keep my expression blank, like a good slave.
‘You a bit parky?’ My new Mistress laughed.
Confused, I hesitated. I didn’t understand, so it was best to be honest and face the punishment. ‘I dunno, Mistress.’
‘Relax, it’s just us now. Drop the act. I’ve been wicked frickin’ worried, like, haven’t slept or…’ Pretty platform shoes clattered over the wooden floors towards me, and then soft fingers were caressing my cheek. I could smell gorse, like on my runs on the Estate: maybe Mistress lived near there too? That thought cheered me. When she tipped my chin, relieved at last I realised my new Mistress wanted the same from me, as my old one had – pleasure – I could serve her needs. I clasped my hands behind my back, opening my lips in preparation. Mistress, however, drew back, apparently dissatisfied. Anxious, I watched for her fingers to tap at her belt buckle but to my surprise, they didn’t. It unsettled me. Whenever Master hadn’t counted, it’d always meant he was planning a severe discipline session. How had I failed Mistress so quickly? When she raised her hand again to my cheek, I couldn’t help the flinch. Mistress drew back. ‘Let’s go see if we can’t get some clothes on you.’ She sounded troubled.
Clothes. That I understood. Mistress was testing me. ‘Mistress, may I?’
Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Book 2) Page 26