Contract Taken (Contracted Book 1)

by Aya DeAniege

  At the last moment I recalled that, while I was alone, I wasn't allowed to do that. I didn't know if he had cameras in the showers as well, but I didn't want to risk it.

  I shut off the water and left the shower. After drying and re-dressing, I dragged in a breath to steady myself and left the gym. I went to my room and changed into a dress.

  I wandered the room, playing with the skirt.

  Sliding backward into that fantasy of me on my knees and Nathaniel standing over me.

  Fuck, I need a distraction.

  I left the room and began wandering the halls for the first time since I had arrived.

  At each art piece I stopped. I looked over each statue and painting, taking them in from different angles. Like a tourist in an old time museum, I tried to figure out what the artist had been thinking about when they had done the piece. I wondered what the deeper meaning of the piece might have been.

  This ate up several hours. It was interesting, though I didn't understand most of the concepts I was looking at. Many rich folks kept artwork and paid a great deal to conserve the artwork. It was a statement of their wealth.

  And oh, how they liked to brag about their masterpieces.

  Then I found the library. I had never seen so many books before. Three floors of books in one giant room. All there for Nathaniel's reading pleasure. Not even collected together for the estate or to make a statement, but because Nathaniel liked books.

  Patrick sat at a table, books out and around him, reading a particularly large one. He didn't look up as I drifted by him, staring around me. It appeared that he was doing research of some sort, swinging his attention to various passages across a couple of open books before he jotted down notes. For that reason, I tried not to disturb him by making noise.

  I knew what a library was, but the ones back home were a great deal smaller and by the time I was old enough to question how it was set up, I already knew the layout of the library. I had also read most of the books.

  Not even knowing where to start, I went back to the table where Patrick sat. The young man glanced up at me.

  “Yes?” he asked in his European accent.

  “How do I—?” I said, then looked around me.

  Patrick sighed, loudly. “Novels are on the second floor, they're by genre and then alphabetized by author last name. The librarian was instructed, after you came, to pull some starters for you, they'll be sitting on the tables up top as if a reader has just set them down. Pick one and start reading.”

  “Okay,” I said with a small smile.

  I left Patrick there and went up top. Picking up a book, I sat and began reading.

  My mind wandered as I read. The book didn't interest me as much as my thoughts. It was about the time I read the same page for the fourth time that I snapped the book shut and slapped it back on the table, frustrated.

  I went back to my rooms and tried a cold shower, only to realize my mistake halfway through. Cold showers didn't work for me. They only seemed to make the fire between my legs worse.

  Oral sex was meant to prevent pregnancy, but I had an IUD and knew enough about marriage that men liked oral before actual sex.

  For some reason, it never occurred to me that women might like oral as well.

  After the shower, I wandered the halls again. My frustration made me twitchy. The fact that I couldn't find Nathaniel to ask for help only made my position worse. When I finally found a servant, I was told that Nathaniel had asked to be left alone, and that was it.

  I hadn't realized until just that moment that my frustration could go deeper.

  I prowled the hallways, growling at shadows and glowering at people in paintings having sex. Their actions caught forever in paint seemed to taunt me. I called at least one statue a wise-ass simply for existing.

  By the time dinner was called, I was spitting mad. I went to dinner and tried not to drop into the chair across from Nathaniel.

  His eyes had taken on that cold look once more. Every motion he made was under control. He didn't seem to be bothered in the least as sausages were served to us alongside boiled potatoes. A staple meal in the slums, one that I was used to, which was also comfort food.

  Sausages for the whole family meant that we had lots of money. Things were good. We were happy, and no one fought. Or it was a special occasion. My mother would buy a sausage for someone who had done something special, or if they were feeling especially down she would buy one to cheer them up.

  I was in no mood to be polite and use the correct fork, or take small bites. Instead, I stabbed a sausage and then tore a piece off with my teeth as Nathaniel watched me quietly.

  “How was your day?” he asked me.

  “Not fine,” I growled around the sausage I had been about to bite into once more.

  By that time, I was annoyed and didn't want to talk to him about the problem. I had tried to find him all day and hadn't been able to. Frustration can do that to me. Actually, frustration can do that to anyone at all.

  “Mine was productive,” Nathaniel said. “What did you do? And don't answer around a piece of meat this time.”

  The sausage was halfway into my mouth when he had asked the question. I was pretty certain he was doing it just to annoy me. Setting the sausage back on the plate, I dragged in a breath and tried very hard not to sigh.

  “I looked at the art and then went to the library,” I said. “Then I wandered the hallways some more.”

  “Swearing at my statues, I hear,” Nathaniel said calmly.

  I wanted to throw something at him. I didn't understand how he could be so calm and collected. He was the one who ended the workout early. He was the one who had walked off without warning or explanation. Yet somehow I was the one who was in trouble.

  “They're statues. I wasn't saying anything mean to the servants."

  “You were hostile towards the servants.”

  “I didn't mean to be,” I said quickly, a kind of terror gripping me as the frustration was replaced with a cold claw in the pit of my stomach.

  It was true. I hadn't meant to be hostile towards the servants. They had no control over Nathaniel's behaviour, and I knew that. Just as I knew that they weren't at fault for anything that had happened to me that day. I had put in an effort not to be rude to the servant who had told me that Nathaniel had asked to be left alone.

  “Now would be a good time to be very clear on my expectations concerning the servants,” Nathaniel said. He paused to sip his water. “They may be servants, but each of them signed a contract just as you did. That contract extends to them the same protection it extends to you. Should you be found to be abusing the staff in any way, you will be held accountable for your actions.”

  “I didn't mean to be hostile towards them. I was frustrated."

  “Ah, frustration can make even the most level-headed seem hostile," Nathaniel murmured.

  I ate a little slower but was suddenly tense.

  “Tomorrow I'd like to negotiate our first scene,” Nathaniel said. “No negotiations now, but I would like you to seriously consider how much pain you are willing to allow me to cause you.”

  “Oh,” was all I managed in response.

  Nathaniel and Mr. Wrightworth were given the title of 'sadist' by the community. Of the two, I believe Mr. Wrightworth to be the true sadist and Nathaniel a shade of one. Don't take that as a complaint of Nathaniel's qualities or lack there of.

  Only the one of them, for example, truly reacted to the suffering of others. Only one of them put themselves in a position where they would see, possibly daily, others being abused.

  But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit.

  “Most people, at that point, protest that they don't like pain,” Nathaniel said, breaking whatever line of thought I had at that moment.

  “Hm? What?” I said, giving myself a shake. “Sorry, I was distracted. No, I see no point in saying I don't like something. A week ago I would have said I didn't enjoy being spanked and look at us now.”

  �
��Keeping an open mind is a good thing,” Nathaniel murmured.

  “Will there be spanking?” I asked.

  Nathaniel choked on a piece of potato momentarily. “Pardon?”

  “Tomorrow, will there be spanking?”

  “Ah, I misheard you. Yes, we can work that in."

  “Oh good," I said, stabbing another sausage. I took a bite as his green eyes narrowed, watching my mouth. After chewing and swallowing, I set the piece of meat back on my plate and watched his eyes follow it back down. "I so look forward to the activities."

  I wanted to protest the need for something then and there, but at least after announcing the negotiations, I had some timeline as to when my craving would be seen to. Without being redirected, all my mind did was revolve around the scene. I had a running fantasy as to what would happen going on inside my mind as I ate the last bit of that sausage.

  “What is a play scene, anyhow?” I asked.

  “As I told you before, it's somewhat like a scene from a movie, you and I the actors of that scene,” Nathaniel said. “It's the easiest way to explain it.”

  “But what are the rules to it?” I asked, feeling more frustrated because the movie scenes I had seen up until that point hadn't exactly contained sex.

  And Vikings Versus Zombies: An Erotic Tale did not count.

  “The rules for each scene are negotiated before hand by you and I. I, for instance, will ask how much pain I can cause you that day, you will respond with your level of comfort and perhaps a demand for me to be able to do that to you.

  “We will lay out which items will be used, or which toys may be brought into the scene. In any given scene we are allowed—or I am as you will be tied up most of the time—to introduce one or two new items, but it is the exception, not the rule. If for instance, I feel it's time to start a specific sort of training, I will bring in the item to use on you. For the most part, however, the scene will play out as we discuss beforehand."

  “Will you tell me how many times you will strike me with a certain item?” I asked.

  “Only if that item is special in some way, or if I know you don't like it. Then we would negotiate how many strikes. This could include a disciplinary item. However, those items will not be brought into the first session. I always find straightforward sex is necessary after such an event, and that cannot happen."

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because you've yet to beg me for it.”

  Was he actually going to make me beg?

  I made a small sound in response and ate a little as Nathaniel watched me. I was all too aware of the fact that he was looking for some sign, anything at all, that I had considered the idea. However, at that point, I simply didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me squirm.

  “Consent is a very important thing when it comes to sex. Especially with me.”

  “I'd consent,” I said, trying to sound slightly bored.

  Trying to sound bored and managing it are two separate things. The tone of voice that came out of my mouth was more of the one that I might use if I thought someone was a moron for thinking what they thought. Nathaniel gave no outward motion of having heard me even though I was certain he had.

  I ate another bite of food and then sipped my water.

  Nathaniel only served wine with dinner when he had other rich folks for visitors. Any other meal was accompanied by water. With breakfast, I was provided tea, which was just about the best tea I had ever tasted before, and a glass of water. Nathaniel had coffee instead of tea, a fact that I never debated because I enjoyed the tea.

  The one taste of coffee I had while in the slums had turned my stomach and almost made me sick.

  Nathaniel wiped at his lips gently and cleared his throat. “I find my appetite for food has dimmed. If you'll excuse me.”

  I stood as Nathaniel had told me to at the first dinner. “Of course, may I continue eating?”

  “Yes, don't eat the whole platter of sausage,” Nathaniel said idly before he left the dining room.

  I finished my meal, wiped my mouth, and left the dining room. Walking back into my room, I sighed and wandered over to the wardrobe. Upon opening the wardrobe, I discovered that several items were gone, all of a particular colour which I had been wearing that day.

  Punishment, or did Nathaniel not like the particular shade of pinkish-purple I was wearing? I had no idea but didn't much mind. I had worn the dress because it had been there and I was slowly making my way through all the dresses. Right-to-left, that was the way I had decided to go about things.

  Seeing the others of the same colour gone, I stripped off the dress and tossed it into the laundry bin. There was no sense staying in the dress any longer than I had to.

  I pulled on a nightie and climbed into bed with a book I had taken out of the library earlier in the day. While I had found Paradise Lost in the library, I hadn't had the courage to take it out. I figured Nathaniel would be upset if I showed up and suddenly knew the whole plot.

  Jane Austin, Pride and Prejudice was the first book I ever read at bedtime. I found the wording difficult to understand and had to pause here and there to contemplate what that string of words meant.

  No one in the slums read classics. Schools taught Shakespeare, but as a trope, not the actual plays. We were told that none of us would be able to actually understand Shakespeare, that it was written in another language.

  I felt that way about Jane Austin, but the more I learned—the more books I read—the more I realized that it wasn't difficult at all. Yes, some things didn't quite make sense, but the classics were not in another language.

  I curled up atop my blankets and tried to read.

  Let me be clear. I enjoy Jane Austin. I really, truly do. I've reread her books several times.

  That night, however, my mind didn't want to focus on what I had before me. The words seemed to swim on the page. All I could think about was Nathaniel getting up and leaving dinner. I wondered if it meant something, that he stressed that it was food he was no longer hungry for.

  I had to put the book to the side, giving up after only a few paragraphs into the first page. With a sigh, I stared up at the ceiling, unable to even shut the light off and try to sleep.

  My mind kept doing that same circle, back and around again to that moment in the gym when I was on my knees, staring up at Nathaniel. Each time our eyes met, the memory played back once more from the moment when I accepted the bottle. At some point, the memory morphed into a daydream and I reached for Nathaniel's tight briefs, hooked my fingers under the elastic and pulled down.

  I caught myself with a hand sliding over the slit of my sex. The heat of my fingers alone was enough to make me pant.

  The feeling was becoming too much. Suddenly the frustration of before was back in full bloom. Nathaniel chastising me at dinner about being hostile towards servants had tempered my mood.

  Alone, the frustration returned. I shifted my hips under my hand but made no attempted to pleasure myself. For some foolish reason I thought that if I adjusted myself, that would somehow ease the tension.

  It was when I bit down on my free hand that I realized I truly had a problem. Sliding out of bed, I marched into the bathroom and ran the cold water. I placed my bitten hand under the cold water, again foolishly thinking that would help. All I was thinking at that moment was that there was a burning.

  Cool water helped with burns. Therefore I put my hand under cold water.

  I do not think well when sexually frustrated.

  When my brain started working again, I found myself standing in the bathroom with a cold hand and a burning fire between my legs.

  I'm an idiot.

  I shut off the water and walked back into the bedroom once more.

  There, standing at the door sheepishly, was an older servant who I hadn't seen before. Nearly every servant who visited me was different from the others.

  “I'm sorry,” he said, adverting his eyes quickly.

  I went back into the bathroom
and pulled a robe from a hook on the wall beside the door. Sliding it on, I went back out to the bedroom and tied it as the servant glanced at me nervously.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  I was only slightly embarrassed by the fact that the nighties I was provided with didn't exactly hide everything. The man had looked away quickly and had the pointed look of one who knew the consequences of peering too closely.

  “My Lord asked that you come at your pleasure."

  Surely the servant didn't know what he had just said to me and what those words meant. I gaped at him, not quite understanding them myself.

  “Oh dear,” the servant said as an embarrassed blush came over his face.

  “Was that what he said exactly?” I asked.

  “No, he said I was to send a summons for you,” the servant said quickly, his eyes on the flood somewhere between the pair of us. “And I was to show you to his rooms.”

  “Then you'd best show me before either of us says something that might be misunderstood,” I said quietly.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next day was supposed to be our first play session, so what did he want from me that night?

  I had the servant wait outside as I changed from the nightie into a dress. I didn't even pay attention to the colour or the cut. I was so distracted by curiosity.

  Following the servant to Nathaniel's rooms, I had the most startling thought. It might have been the increasingly Gothic paintings down the hallways that led to his rooms. It may have been a fear of the unknown.

  Or it could have been suddenly remembering the conversation he and Mr. Wrightworth had had during that first meeting while I was sitting mute on the sidelines. My mind was bringing up everything from that meeting and wondering if that would be done to me now.

  I found myself wondering if this was the point where I would come to regret not going with the homicidal maniac. Between my room and Nathaniel's, I bounced back and forth on the possibility that Nathaniel might be worse than the maniac.

  Maybe he was the maniac, and I would have ended up with him either way.

  So far with Nathaniel, nothing had been a task. Maybe weird, but never something I wouldn't have done. I was waiting for the ax to drop, so to speak. Nothing is perfect. Nothing is exactly what you want it to be. Even if you were picked from a long list of women and supposedly met every qualification on a man's list.