I wanted to open my mouth to agree, but I couldn’t speak. The people pressed tighter, hands groping at my flesh, tearing at my pathetic little garments. Down I went to the floor, to be fucked by them all.
That’s life, I heard a male voice say, dark and rich, belonging to my father in his prime. “You’re born, you’re fucked, and then you die.”
It must have gone on for some time, because the next thing I knew, Jennifer was sitting on my bed, stroking my cheek.
“Wake up, sleepy head; it’s a new day.”
At first I imagined we were back in school, when she used to wake me every day for classes. “Let me sleep, Jenn-Jenn,” I mumbled. “I’m skipping English Lit today.”
“We’re a long while past that, honey,” Jennifer laughed. “Good grief, you really got yourself all twisted up—worked up, too.”
I looked down at myself, where the sheet had coiled over my thigh and between my legs. There was a large wet spot where the material had absorbed my pussy juices. “Uggh,” I groaned. “What was I drinking last night?”
“It’s the S and M. It has that effect.”
I blinked. “S and M?”
She arched a brow. “The caning—remember?”
I sat up with a start, the memory flooding back of what a bitch I’d been. “Oh, Jenn-Jenn, I’m so sorry! Are you hurt bad?”
The bikini-clad blonde wriggled her buttocks on the bed for a moment enjoying a delicious rush. “No, sweetie, I’m hurt good.”
I seized her shoulders--as if you could actually shake sense into a person that way. “Jennifer, we have to get you out of here, before it’s too late.”
“Why?” she giggled exasperatingly, “are you afraid you’ll turn into a sadist?”
“It’s not funny, Jennifer, you know what I mean!”
“I agree; it’s not funny. But what about you? You call me out of nowhere and tell me your boyfriend cheated you of millions of dollars and now you’re being chased by mobsters who want to make you a white slave and I’m supposed to let you give me relationship advice?”
I’d had just about enough of her mouth. Being the larger and stronger of the two, it didn’t take much to pin her underneath me on the bed.
“Jeremy wasn’t my boyfriend,” I snarled, straddling her slim waist. “I fucked him a few times, that’s all. And no one’s going to make me a white slave!”
“Get off me,” Jenn-Jenn squealed. “I love Harold and there’s nothing you can do about it. Slavery is my choice. You just can’t stand that I’m happy and you’re not!”
I released one of her hands long enough to smack her. “Take that back!”
Jennifer’s eyes taunted me. “Make me,” she teased.
“Don’t tempt me, Jenn-Jenn! I’ll turn you over and give you the spanking of your life—on top of those welts from last night, that ought to feel real good.”
“Actually it would, except you can’t do it, Raven, and you know why?”
“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“Because you’re a submissive, just like me. You want to be the one beaten and humiliated. Admit it Raven—to yourself, at least. What do you think all those games at college were about? You think was all just cause we were drunk? Like hell! We begged, Raven—literally begged boys to tie us down and fuck us. But even that wasn’t rough enough. Remember the night at the cemetery—Cal and Troy taking all our clothes and locking them in the car, making us dance for them and suck them and lay for them, buck naked in the dirt. You ran away when Cal told you to get on your back and spread it for him—why?”
Repressed memories nipped at the edges of my consciousness. “I don’t know,” I obfuscated.
I was just a girl at the time, barely nineteen; Cal was strong and handsome. He was the love of my life for the hour and somehow I needed…more. I got it, too, after he tackled me in the middle of a field. Calling me a bitch over and over, he smacked me, drawing blood. Without asking, he scissored my legs and drove himself home. I was wet to receive him, and ready.
“You wanted him to overpower you,” goaded Jennifer. “You wanted him to take you by force, to put you in your place.”
“Liar!” I flipped her over, pulling down her bikini bottoms with trembling hands. “I’ll show you!”
Jennifer offered no resistance. “I’m ready,” she pushed her branded, bruised, well-punished ass up off the bed to meet me. “I submit to you, Raven, completely.”
I beheld the splendid sight, the insolently proffered flesh of my best friend. She seemed so sure of herself, so confident. Could it be she knew what she was doing?
“I can’t do it,” I told her, replacing the swim bottoms. “Maybe someone else could, but not me.”
Jenn-Jenn rose to her knees. “Then come to breakfast, listen to his proposal. It’s a good one, I swear it is.”
There was concern in her eyes for me, and also a sense of resolution, a measure of maturity I’d never seen in her before.
“On one condition. Convince me you’re really happy.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do that, and you know it. We all decide for ourselves what to believe. All I can tell you is I spent my whole adult life looking for a master and didn’t know it. All those dangerous liaisons, all the risks, the string of bad boys, my horrendous marriage, they were all a stumbling attempt to find Harold—my master. I need to be controlled, Raven. I’m wired that way. I can’t help it—pain makes me horny, being told what to do, being treated like a child, being a man’s plaything, all of it makes me unbelievably hot. When my master gives me to someone to fuck, when he puts me in the cage, when has me caned by my best friend—it just puts me into orbit. It’s like a buzz, twenty-four seven, a continued sexual heat in my loins, and in my heart.” She put her hand over her breast pledge style. “That’s it, Rave, that’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
I gave my friend a hug and then we wept and finally I took my shower and threw on a pair of shorts and a halter-top. I felt invigorated and almost hopeful as I stepped out onto the sprawling back patio where I was told Jennifer and Harold would be waiting for me. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky and I had my whole life ahead of me. After all, I’d made it this far; surely I was spared for a reason, for something really good and noble.
Famous last words.
Harold rose from the table as soon as he saw me, extending the courtesy of a slight bow. I was surprised at the physique revealed by the man’s swimsuit. His chest was powerful and his biceps well formed. He kept himself in shape, having a body most thirty-year-olds would envy, let alone someone closer to his own age.
“Miss Lancaster,” he smiled, returning to the more formal mode of address. “Won’t you please join us?”
Jennifer was sitting next to him in her little bikini, sipping orange juice through a straw.
“Thank you, Mr. Baines.”
We dined in silence on grapefruit, croissants with jam and honey, butter and a selection of delectable and exotic fruits washed down by delicious, dark brown coffee. Harold waited till after I’d taken my fill to unleash the bombshell.
“I am prepared to assume the entirety of your debt, Miss Lancaster, as well as the full burden of your legal defense.”
I let the words sink in for a few moments.
“Rave, he’s saying he can get you off, scot-free,” Jennifer supplied at last, as though I were the most stupid person on the face of the earth not to have responded with immediate, wild enthusiasm.
“Jennifer, why don’t you take a swim,” Harold suggested.
Sulkily, she rose. “I was just trying to help.”
He waited till she was at the water’s edge to call after her shapely, wriggling ass. “Jenny? Topless, if you please.”
Obediently the girl reached behind her to open the clasp. A hot tug pulled at my loins. Baines’ subtle request and the immediate, unquestioned complicity with which it was received, carried with it a powerful reminder of the true nature of their relat
ionship. Jennifer was not just his fiancée; she was his slave. Covering her breasts was not a right, but a privilege. He could as easily have told her to take the bottoms off as well and she’d have had to do that, too. Likewise, he could have said no when she’d asked for coffee at breakfast, or given it to her not in a cup but in a saucer, down on the Italian marble at his feet.
She would then have had to get down from her chair, on all fours to lick with her tongue like a cat or dog.
“You seem distracted this morning, Miss Lancaster,” he observed as soon as his bare breasted nymph was safely frolicking. “Did you not sleep well?”
I was looking at the gardener, the young spike haired blonde in the sweaty T-shirt trimming the hedges behind the pool. Had he seen Jennifer take off her top? Did Baines even know he was there, in his low-slung shorts, a hot little earring through the left lobe? Was it a coincidence, or had it been deliberately staged, a further attempt to expose and humiliate Jennifer, as Rene had his pretty little Marie?
“I was only thinking that Jennifer doesn’t like to be called Jenny,” I observed, keeping my deeper feelings to myself.
“What my fiancée likes, Miss Lancaster,” Baines smiled crookedly, “is to have her choices taken from her. What about you? I’ve given you a choice to be free of your current troubles, yet you haven’t said a word.”
“I’m waiting to hear the catch. I know there’s a whopper in there somewhere.”
“My, you’re a suspicious little creature, aren’t you?”
“I’ve been burned enough to know the score; and one look at Jennifer tells me your generosity comes with some mighty big strings attached.”
Baines nodded. “Excellent. A woman who doesn’t mince words. Allow me to do the same: I want your time, Raven. A commitment to me for a period of six months.”
“What sort of commitment?”
“You’ll stay here in the house, of course, with all your needs provided.”
“It’s sex, isn’t it? You want the use of my body.”
“Don’t be naïve,” Baines laughed dryly. “I have at my disposal the finest female flesh on the planet. What I’m looking for is something a bit deeper.”
“Like what,” I scoffed. “Love? What about Jennifer?”
Baines shook his head. “Not love, Raven. Obedience. The systematic bending of one will to that of another.” Snapping his fingers, as if to demonstrate, he called for Jennifer.
She came to him wet, having hauled her lithe body instantly over the edge of the pool. “What is it, my sweet master?” she bent to give him a kiss on the cheek.
Baines accepted the girl’s affection with an indulgent smile that utterly belied his next instructions. “Strip off the rest of your suit, Jennifer; I’m going to offer you to the gardener.”
A visible shiver passed through Jennifer as she straightened herself and shook out her hair in preparation. It wasn’t fear, but naked, open-mouthed desire. Looking intently at her master, both thumbs hooked under the waistband, her convex belly sucked in deliciously she did as she was told, sliding the Lycra down with a slow, sensual wriggle of the hips. When the suit had fallen to her ankles, she stepped daintily from them so that she was standing entirely free of all covering.
“I’m ready, master.” Her pose was a challenge, a submission, an invitation all rolled into one.
“Come here, girl.”
I watched in horror and arousal as he reached for her proffered cunt, twisting his fingers in one of the rings. “Baines, if this is another attempt to blackmail me,” I warned. “It won’t work.”
“No, Raven,” he assured me. “It’s not.”
Tugging gently but decisively on the rings, he brought the naked slave down to her knees. “Go to him,” Baines commanded, “to the gardener, on all fours.”
Jennifer waited till he’d released her, then backed herself onto hands and knees. “Yes, master.”
“You’ll sign a contract,” Baines addressed me, as though nothing unusual were occurring. “It will stipulate the terms of your commitment. Whippings, beatings, bondage, all these will be essential.”
Jennifer moved fast. She was already close enough for the young man to see her. The shock on his face was almost comical. He seemed unable to move, which gave Jenn-Jenn the opportunity to approach him and kiss his booted feet.
“Those things are out of the question, Baines. Forget it.”
The dude in the drenched T-shirt made an effort to shake her off, but Jennifer was persistent. In the end, she won, having taken her place between his legs to lick and suck his stiff member. His gloved hand was on the top of her head, pressing down.
“I don’t see that you have much choice, Raven. Either you make a friendly agreement with me, or…”
“The Galentanos,” I finished for him. “Silvio senior and junior, gang banging me and parceling me out as a white slave, I know all about it. Of course, you probably think I’d enjoy that sort of thing, don’t you? Writhing in chains, begging to be beaten and branded. Well trust me, it’s the farthest thing from my mind.”
Baines raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Actually, I was thinking of prison.”
I flushed red at having revealed so much of my own fears…and desires. “Where I end up is no concern of yours; you may have Jennifer, but you’ll never have me.”
“On the contrary, Raven. I will have you; it’s only a matter of time. I already know your secrets, the things you did in school, the things you wanted to do and hadn’t the guts. Subconsciously, in fact, I believe you got yourself in all this trouble deliberately; so that you’d have no choice but to put yourself under some man’s protection and be at his total mercy. You’re your own worst enemy, Raven. Take my advice and submit now. Surrender your pride, grovel a little. It will be worse later on if you refuse, much worse.”
I was on my feet, ready to upend the table. “You’re a pig, Baines—no, you’re lower than a pig. I wouldn’t submit to you anymore than I’d kiss a water moccasin.”
I’d intended to walk away arrogantly, defiantly, but it ended up degenerating into an undignified trot. Blocking the sight of Jennifer abasing herself on the end of the lawn boy’s cock, I made a beeline for the house. If I had to hide in my room till the end of time, it would be too soon to ever see Baines again.
Or Jenn-Jenn.
I kept the tears at bay till I’d safely bolted my door. Flinging myself onto the bed, face buried in my pillow I gave way to the hot rain. Tears, pent up for days, weeks. Sure, I talk tough, but I have a heart. And it can and had been broken. Losing my business and potentially my life was bad enough, but I’d trusted Jeremy. Hell, I’d even started falling in love with the bastard.
He’d been the first man I’d ever run across who didn’t just want to jump in my pants the moment he saw me. Little did I know he had a much bigger game plan for screwing me. What a little fool I’d been. Jennifer was right; what business did I have criticizing her for letting a man brand her ass, when I’d allowed Jeremy Rich to sell my soul?
For a split second I thought of Rene. Had he taken the soul of little Marie? He’d turned her into a whore; he’d humiliated her by practically fucking me under her nose. And she hadn’t said a word when I’d given him my number, like a little tramp.
Maybe he’d call me. Rescue me, even. Panic gripped as I considered the fact that I might actually need rescuing. Baines hadn’t said in so many words, but it didn’t seem very likely he’d just let me waltz out of here, not after the threats he’d made about having me one way or the other.
On the contrary, Raven, I will have you; it’s only a matter of time.
Welcome to the club, Harold. You can put yourself on the list, right after Silvio Galentano who’d already promised to recover “every last penny out of that bitch’s cunt if she has to fuck a continent.”
A wave of hot weakness overcame me; I hated that it turned me on to hear such things. I was a grown, self respecting woman—why would it arouse me to have a man want me so much he’d t
ake me at any cost—even against my own will? For that matter, why had I thrilled at the feel of a man’s sperm, insolently sprayed on my ass as I prostrated myself naked over an airplane bathroom sink?
More troubling still, why was there a kernel of jealousy beneath my contempt for Jennifer’s impending role as a slave-wife? Did a part of me want the same treatment—not from Baines, maybe, but someone else?
The knock on my door snapped me out of my pitiful reverie. “Who is it?” I sniffled, trying to conceal my overwrought state.
“It’s Rolf,” came the reply, deep and deliciously masculine. “I am here to see if you need anything.”
I was at the door before I had a chance to think. “Yes,” I flung it open, “there is.”
Obviously I was operating off the cuff, having had no time to formulate a plan.
“Rolf,” I looked earnestly into his eyes, attempting to be as charming as possible. “I need your help. But I have to know if I can trust you.”
The chisel-featured blond looked both ways down the hall. “We will talk in private.”
The next thing I knew, he’d closed the door behind him and I was spilling my guts, laying on as thick as I could how horrible his boss had been to me and how greatly I’d been wronged this last year of my life.
It didn’t take very much acting, believe me.
Nor was it too much of a hardship for me to make the offer I knew I must. “Rolf,” I said throatily. “I am prepared to offer you compensation for helping me…in advance.”
His face remained expressionless, but he allowed me to rub against him, my scantily clad, barefooted body soft and eager against the hard muscles imperfectly concealed beneath a tweed jacket and polo shirt.
“I will let you have me,” I spelled it out, leaving nothing to chance. “I will allow you to make love to me.”
And why not? The man was good looking and I was horny as hell and legitimately desperate enough to be exempted from any charge of behaving like a slut.
His next words were like a hot, erotic knife in my belly.
“Women do not give themselves to me. They are taken.”
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