I’m a scullery maid, serving wench, and housekeeper, working twelve hours a day. I break to eat what Lockhart’s content to give me, and to satisfy him sexually—which might mean passionately making love in his bed, or being used in the mouth or ass as briskly as he can get off. If I cum, he seems pleased, though he makes no effort to see that I’m satisfied.
There are a thousand rules to remember, how to wash his clothes—taking care to separate them properly, look for stains and scrubbing certain items individually. His kitchen is a deathtrap for a negligent slave, full of pitfalls everywhere I turn. He has a place for every item—the system carefully coded in his head. But with no written instructions, I have to go on memory. I try making pictures in my mind of where things belong so I won’t forget. There are specific ways to wax and polish his floors and the thick oak banisters, as well as explicit instructions for washing the windows and disinfecting the bathroom. I wonder if he has some obsessive/compulsive neurosis that demands all this—or if it’s just because this serves his purpose in training his sex slaves. There are so many things to remember and work to accomplish every day that I don’t have the time to think of anything else.
At any moment, I might find myself hauled over the back of a chair, the sofa, his lap, or just ordered to bend and touch the floor. He’ll deliver a thorough spanking, paddling or caning on my ass—I swear the implement has no particular meaning. It’s simply the one that’s most available at the time. Once he’s finished, he tells me how I’ve erred. A glass out of place, a banister too dull, a floor left wet, a speck of dust here or there. I can never be perfect, and after several days, I realize that is not the point. These practices put me in Lockhart’s world so the details of his life consume me—the way I’m delivered from my own life into his. I’ve quit thinking of myself because I have no time for anything that frivolous.
My day ends near ten p.m.—sometimes before, if I look especially sleepy. There is no relaxation planned, no television or books, just an endless amount of work until he tells me it’s time to stop. If he wants to use me sexually before I sleep, he takes his pleasure. But always, before I’m bound and tethered for the night, I go over the bedrail and take another punishment. In the morning, he always uses the lashes, which do nothing more than warm my skin to a sensuous blaze. But at night, the implements vary just as they do the rest of the day. He’s seems fond of a school paddle with holes, or the cane if he plans to be particularly vicious. On lighter days, he’s satisfied with a belt or other lengths of leather—straps, tawses, and whips.
There are no S&M scenes in this painstaking ritual. There seems no need, since he sees no specific reason to give me any pleasure. I trust this will change. For now, however, he is training me to serve him. Though his demands are great, and the punishments alarming in their number and severity, this structure for my days has certain merits. I tend to drift, to lose myself, to think of nothing but my master and his next demand.
***
I wake on the fourteen day, knowing that only because Lockhart pointed out the fact the night before when he put me to sleep, as though this is the hallmark for something special. Though, the same ritual of punishment and cold shower begins my day, when that’s finished he leads me to the bright sunroom where he pierced me and sits my bare ass on the table. He has generally ignored my piercings since I came here—except to make certain that they are properly cleansed. He plays with them now, as though he’s considering what he plans to do with them. Finally making his decision, he opens each of the five rings, removes the additional beads that weight them down and adds new, heavier ones.
“I think you’re ready for these,” he tells me. I feel the change immediately, the way they tug so heavily. I’m reminded of the weeks I enjoyed the feel of the fresh piercings while I waited for them to heal.
“I’ll add even more soon. Get used to them.”
I spend most of the day in the kitchen. He has a special dinner in mind and I help him with the cooking, though this feast is his creation, not mine. He talks some, and I answer when asked. This has not happened in all the days I’ve been here, and it seems a little strange. It takes some time to answer even the simplest questions, as though I’m reentering the real world again. What conversation we have is so completely different than the master/slave conversing we’ve done, it takes time for me to think. Nearing the dinner hour, Lockhart dresses me in a short leather skirt, lacy thigh-high stockings, and a leather halter with zippers to expose my pierced nipples—all in black. Later, when his guests arrive I realize his purpose for the meal, my dress, and the more normal conversation.
Five gentlemen join Lockhart for cards and other diversions every Thursday evening. They talk, joke, tell stories, and occasionally shoot pool—so I’m informed—though this doesn’t happen the first time I serve the party. After several rounds of cards, it’s nearly eleven o’clock and I’m growing weary. Occasionally during the evening, I’ve been asked questions which I’m obligated to answer. Most of these are quite personal—some especially about my decision to be Lockhart’s slave. One man in the group has a slave like me at home, while the others are simply content to observe what their friends enjoy so much. There is enough double entendre to assume that I’ll be serving them all personally before my relationship with Lockhart ends.
On this particular night, they’re easy on me. Just one, a very horny man with horn-rimmed glasses takes me into the sunroom—now dark with shadows—and plants a rigorous but not hefty dick into my ass. He holds my head by the hair—something that would have been nearly impossible for me to endure a few months before.
I am exhausted, but a little troubled by the time I go to bed. I see things changing and worry what that change will mean.
It’s time to return to the shop and what I believe to be my home, though I’m not really sure right now what home means.
“You’ve done well, Anna,” Lockhart tells me as he leads me to my car. “For a time, your life will become more normal, but it’s imperative that you do not forget the lessons that you’ve learned while you were with me these two weeks. You’ll need to remember everything I’ve taught you, for the same demands will apply when you return to my house. For just an instant, the man I first met in his house and at the shop, who pierced my nipples and returned to nurture them, appears again. The mild-mannered kindness and gentle eyes hearten me. I wonder about who he is, even though I know it’s not good to speculate or even try to pry.
As I leave, I’m drained, but entirely at peace, jarred by my swift return to a more civil world.
Chapter Thirteen
Months later, at the close of summer…
Delia often claws at me, and my response to her manner turns me cold. She clings and clutches so much I begin to wonder just who is in control of this relationship. When I find my mind drifting backwards in time to Anna and her less oppressive style, I know it’s time to act.
Bernard suggests, rightly, so I believe, that she needs another master to scare her a little. He recommends Calvin, and I agree. The way she mentions the incident in the theatre makes me think she’s both frightened of him and aroused. The combination seems appropriate for what I want. Calvin decides that three weeks should do, and I can’t wait for a little freedom. She sticks too close and makes me edgy.
Chapter Fourteen
When Lockhart comes to the shop, I am Anna. When I’m in his house, I am slave. I drift gently back and forth on Lockhart’s whim, serving him on demand, pressing my face to his carpet, raising my ass for punishment, submitting to bondage and his Thursday friends. I don’t seem to think or feel the same anymore, and I don’t know why. My life breezes by like I’m always just a little drunk. Lockhart is always in the back of my head speaking to me.
In my shop we talk of Proust philosophies, Yeats bleakness, Picasso’s many periods and Beethoven’s dramatics. I order books for him, which he browses, making comments, engaging me as a real woman, a real adult in an adult world. The made-up one we live in his hou
se seems then a vague dream. In my shop, he drinks my espresso, sitting at my table while I serve without slavishness, nothing but the Anna smile on my face. I still feel this need to be humble—it seems he’s built that into my body bit by bit, command by command, by paddle, by cane, by bondage and by rules—his endless rules.
Every time I’m with him, I renew the vigor of my submissiveness, my loss of self looms around me. And now, it’s pervaded even my own kingdom, as though I don’t really have one anymore—or need one.
Strangely, any kingdom that I could call my own has mutated. I care less about the shop because Ellie runs it so well. When I’m in it, I feel as though I’m playing house. I order books, dust a little, wear an apron when I’m working at the coffee machine, and with the rest of my time, I’m painting, or writing stories on the computer in the back room, in a tiny little corner where I look out on the lake through tiny windows. The bursting creativity alarms me. But I don’t think about it—it just happens.
I suppose I really don’t think much anymore. I serve Lockhart, and while I do, I’m being served—everything else is taken care of.
It is September; Lockhart’s in the shop asking me if I know how to ride a horse. I tell him yes, and remember back to my youth. When I was sixteen, my family owned a mare that I rode bareback daily—though it’s been several years since I was on a horse.
He nods as if this means something important. I don’t find out what until days later when he whisks me from the shop. His mood is jovial and kind, but forceful. I’m warned just by his attitude that I’m to obey as conscientiously as I would if I were in his brown-shingled house.
We drive into the country going through an endless maze of turns, which mixes me up completely. I have no idea where we are. I haven’t been anywhere since I arrived in Welliston except the town and Lockhart’s house.
Arriving at a horse farm, I recall our earlier conversation in the shop. These animals are beautiful, young, and proud. Laying my hand on their flanks, I feel their energy vibrate up my palm and through me. As my cunt begins to throb, I realize how horny I’ve become.
“Is there one you particularly like?” Lockhart asks while the young and brawny stable-master stands at his side.
“Is there a reason you ask?” I ask back.
My effrontery offends him.
“Because I want an answer.” His reply is terse.
“My eye is on that dapple grey filly.” She reminds me of the shadows in which I live, but I don’t offer this information to Lockhart. He seems pleased enough with my choice.
“Then you’ll ride her,” he says.
I smile, knowing how my loins burn to have this substantial thing between them, and how they’ll quake feeling her energy rise into me.
“Can you ride bareback?” he asks.
“I have many times.”
“Good. Then remove your clothes and I’ll help you mount her.”
I look at the stable master about to blush. I’d think this request would shock him, but it doesn’t in the slightest. It takes some moments for me to recover. I confess I haven’t balked at anything in so long, I feel terribly guilty. But having little choice in the matter, I know I’ll relent. Then too, Lockhart’s order does excite me and I tremble as I disrobe. I’ve done nothing as outrageous outside Lockhart’s property, and this has me both rattled and scared, in addition to being wet between my legs.
Once naked, my collar suddenly appears out of nowhere. It’s quickly slapped around my neck and buckled tightly—I assume it’s my master’s way to remind me of my place. Climbing on the filly, the feel of the animal at my crotch makes me spasm; and with my master’s smiling go-ahead, the filly and I trot out into the paddock. Getting used to the ride takes little time. Except for the feel of bare skin to bare animal flesh, and the fact of my nudity in this odd place, I am back in a world that is familiar to me. The air on my limbs touches every nerve. This horse and I are bonding in a peculiar beastly way. She is like me, and I like her.
Lockhart rides out of the stable on a chestnut stallion and we take off toward the pasture beyond. My hair is flying behind me—no, not Lady Godiva yet, it’s only to my shoulders. Yet, the feel of the breeze inside it enlivens me more. I’m far ahead to start, but gathering my submissive wits about me again, I slow my pace, until my master catches up.
“Ah, I can see we need to bridle this willfulness of yours,” he announces as we walk the horses side by side to a small lake where they take a break to drink. He seems so lighthearted I’m not sure if he’s serious. Such a breach at his house, if anything could compare to this, would warrant a hefty punishment. Then too, it’s not for me to fear anything with my master—my only job is too accept.
***
The day after my ride on Willow—the dapple-grey filly—Lockhart summons me from the shop by phone and I’m at the brown-shingle within the hour. I feel anxious. I’m sure that it has something to do with the day before, and I’m not wrong. He takes me to his own stable where I find Willow waiting for me. In another breach of etiquette I exclaim aloud, “You bought her for me!”
“I love to ride, and even more so with a naked woman at my side. You’ll have your freedom on her, but you’ll pay a price for that.” I’m astounded and excited all at once, until he finishes his announcement. “You’ll be trained for a bridle and bit of your own.”
I shudder and my knees knock. I’ve heard of pony slaves, but never imagined myself trained as one.
My education comes quickly. As each day goes by, I serve more and more in the stables. At first, I’m naked as usual, wearing just my collar. I groom all of Lockhart’s horses including Willow. Until this change in my ritual, I was only vaguely aware that the stable even existed. It is, however, quite a modern one, heated, with both inside and outside paddocks. Great pastures and woods extend miles beyond, much of which is Lockhart’s own property.
Working in the stable, I’m expected to obey as diligently as I do in the house, and am punished in the same swift and thorough manner if I fail to please either Lockhart or his stable-master, Juno. Juno has all the rights that Lockhart claims. He’s as apt to lay a cane or strap on my ass, as apt to order me to bow at his feet if I rile him. Though he may not be the masterful kind of man that Lockhart is, he is a gruff and wiry fellow whose earthy eyes can bore holes into me as easily. He appears to be Lockhart’s age, somewhere in his forties but by the look of his expression, his life has been quite hard. His face is craggy and often tired, though his chest is muscled and compact, and his hands provoke the same surge of desire I often feel when I gaze at any master’s strong hands. I’m not sure if he likes the fact that I’m serving in his domain, but I do my best to please him because that pleases Lockhart.
A week after this new training begins, I’m taken into the tack room and measured for my own harness by a professional harness maker. A tall man in leather pants fingers me at will, pinches, squeezes and pokes, all of this arousing me sexually. It’s been so long since I’ve had real sex that I think I’ll break into a climax in seconds.
But, when I feel a rod suddenly driven into my ass, I’m alarmed as he presses and presses until I squeal. Lockhart’s looking on with a grim expression of warning, suggesting that I don’t want fight this if I plan to save my ass some pain. I’m measured for a bridle and bit, finding myself almost in tears with the picture of me so tethered. This does alarming things to my cunt, something that the harness maker realizes when he puts his hand to my crotch and finds it flowing with juice. He slaps my cunt for good measure, then moves on. My vagina is measured as well. I can only assume that this harness will be a fully equipped device with plugs to impale me in both orifices.
The custom gear arrives just days later, and with it, I take another step into this stable world. The harness becomes my only clothes. Even on the few days I’m allowed to return to the shop, Lockhart instructs me to wear it under my working clothes. Thankfully, the straps are of smooth and supple leather. Though it fits snug to my body, it do
esn’t bind. It has been perfectly made. There’s a band about my waist, a piece that divides my crotch in two with places for dildos to attach front and rear. Two straps run up my back and an open-breasted halter fits in front. Chains attached to the sides of the halter thread through my nipple rings as though my master had this planned long ago. The rings from my labia are often pulled wide to open my cunt. Depending on Lockhart’s whim, I wear a dildo in my ass or pussy, sometimes in both places—that’s when he’s peeved with me. Occasionally, I wear none at all. Most days, working around the stable, I wear knee-high black boots with a hefty two-inch heel. They are comfortable and appropriate for the work I’m doing.
Once the harness arrives, I spend my nights on Lockhart’s property in the stable, in my own stall. There’s bed of straw and a bucket I use for a bathroom. I’m tethered to the stable floor each night by my collar and a length of leather. I’m afforded some measure of movement, but only what is essential. There is one measure of sanity in this: in an emergency I can easily remove the leash and free myself.
Every day, I wake to the same punishing treatment on my ass that I receive in the house. More often now, Juno administers this first flogging. I then go to work cleaning stalls, shoveling horse manure, feeding and grooming the animals. Once a day, usually when Lockhart finally appears, I bathe in a tub of warm water, using the same kind of scrub brush I’d use on the horses.
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