The Marquis' Book of Pleasure & Property of the Marquis
Page 25
She stopped her pacing as she listened to the hall clock chime the half hour.
Dammit, Laney, what a silly goose you are! It was daytime in France; she could call Corinne now!
Going straight to the phone, she flipped through her phone book, finding the number of the pretty blonde she’d roomed with at Cornell. The Marquis’ diary remained opened to that last page. After she’d spoken to Corinne she’d read more. Until morning. Until it was time to shower and return to court. She was too keyed up to sleep and there was so much to do.
Chapter Eight
Lust and imagination created Paris as an orgy of the senses. There was no better place for Laney to search for her absent master. Yet, it was determination and a good map that led her through the maze of streets to find the bookshop that Corinne had located near Bibliotheque Nationale. She could have taken a taxi, but somehow that seemed crass in these circumstances. This was a humble mission that required a submissive to think and feel humbly. Besides, she needed the brisk walk in order to gather her courage and set the mood.
Laney walked the ten blocks from her hotel, map in hand. Initially, she’d intended to stop for espresso at one of the open-air cafés but she was too anxious to put any more time between herself and her mission.
Suddenly, the book shop was there before her. Like so many things in the cities of Europe, the edifice seemed like a miniature, a replica built in modern time. But in truth it was very old, along a block of old and picturesque shops—a bakery, a clothing boutique and a jewelry store, she recognized right off.
Her hand touched the doorknob and she stopped. The urge to flee almost made her turn away, but then the door opened in spite of her hesitation, and an old man, wearing a beret and carrying an umbrella elbowed past her. She was drawn inside by the smell of old books and the promise of her mystery solved.
The shopkeeper was at his desk peering down at a ledger, a pair of spectacles perched on the tip of his nose. He was not at all as ancient as she expected him to be. He wore a blue denim shirt and a fraying grey sweater and looked every bit like a man who spent his every hour surrounded by books. A least two dozen, maybe as many as four dozen, were stacked beside him on his desk, rising in two columns that ended above his head.
“Sir?” Laney spoke quietly, as if this was a sacred place—in her mind it was.
The shopkeeper didn’t look up. Had he not heard her? She was only several paces away. And the door did have its jangling bell. She moved a little closer. “Sir?”
Finally, the man stirred. He took off his glasses and rubbed his one eye, then peered at her with the same careful scrutiny as he did his ledger.
“Qui vous est?”
“Laney. Laney Priestly.” She stepped closer.
He cocked his head as if trying to place her.
“Je vous sais?” he said.
“Non. Parlez-vous l’anglais?”
“Ah, oui! What you want?”
She sighed, a bit relieved. This was one possible barrier that she hadn’t expected to breach so easily. She tried smiling to ease the tension, but the man wasn’t very friendly.
He was, however, quite striking, now that she could actually look at his face. Not handsome, not in any typical way. He was in his forties she guessed. He had short black hair and deep lines in his tanned face. But it was a face with character and strength and surprising determination that astounded her, not what she expected in a French shopkeeper, and man of books. And the eyes, oh, how the eyes assaulted her, even held her in place. She was actually beginning to shiver under this brief inspection. His gaze moved from her face to survey the rest of her and she felt stripped.
Suddenly, his eyes caught sight of the bracelet, which she’d originally intended to hide. Coming into the shop, however, that scheme had been forgotten and now she was moved to back up in fear; he must have recognized what it was she wore. His initially curious look turned into a glare, then he abruptly stood up and moved around his desk, grabbing her high at the arm and pulling her through tall shelves of books to the back of the shop, where they slipped through a drape. The storeroom on the other side was packed with more bookshelves, dozens of boxes, huge packing crates and one empty corner with nothing but a small white chair. He pushed her into the chair and glared down at her dazed expression.
“Sir, please, I…” Heart racing, she backed up in the seat as far as she could go, which was an empty attempt since there really was nowhere to go with the small chair tight against the wall.
He slapped her face.
“Sir!” She tried to stand up and he pushed her back down
“You know better than to walk in my front door.”
“No! No, I don’t,” she rushed in. “I see that you recognize the bracelet. That is why I am here.”
His anger briefly abated. And he looked back at her, baffled.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Laney Priestly, from the United States. My husband gave me this bracelet before he died. I’ve come here to find out about it.” She took a breath.
“If you know nothing, then you should have it removed.”
“I don’t want it removed. And I do know what it means. I’ve gone to great lengths to come here, to find you. Please. If you could only give me a few answers, I won’t waste your time.”
The sound of the shop’s bell rang through the heated air, and the man turned immediately. “You stay. I come back.” Then he disappeared though the drape and Laney heard the sound of voices. They were speaking French too fast for Laney to catch what was being said, but she assumed this was a customer.
Her heart stopped racing after several minutes alone, although she could still feel the sting of the shopkeeper’s hand against her face. Alex Greenwood’s warnings came back to her—she had no reason to assume that the Marquis’ agents, his masters, would be kind, or even sane.
She could see through the maze of packing boxes that there was a door in the very back of the storeroom. Light seeped from around the frame—she could escape. But then what would she gain? Before she could reach a decision, however, the Frenchman came through the drape, his attitude as assailing as before.
He looked at her, and the bracelet again. “Let me see it.”
She held out her hand, which he took in his warm one. He held the band, reading the inscription.
“I’m looking for the Marquis,” she explained.
“Hush!”
She didn’t want to hush, she wanted him to answer her questions. Once she had an address where to find the Marquis, she’d be gone.
“How did you know to find me?” he finally looked up and asked. He seemed saner now, not agitated, but there was a hardness and cruelty about him that got inside her. She was afraid. Not panicked, but afraid, realizing that if he was a key to finding the Marquis, he could also be one of his masters. This was real now, not the island, not the fantasy, not the pretend with Alex Greenwood, or the loving dreamlike submission she’d reveled in with Erik.
But how would she know to find him? How could she answer without revealing that she had the Marquis diary?
“You going to speak,” he asked impatiently.
“Twice, I’ve been to the Caribbean Island, Marquis’ Island. I was there by chance with my husband and some friends several years ago. But my husband died six months ago. Last month I returned to the island in hopes of finding something that would lead me to the Marquis. That is what I really want, sir. If you could help me.”
He dropped her hand abruptly and turned away.
“I have no clue to his whereabouts.”
“No, that’s not possible!” she almost came up off the chair.
He turned back, half scowling, half smiling. “But it is.” He laughed. “You want to browbeat me for an answer?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
He looked her over again; the salacious craving in his eyes was unmistakable.
Laney could not stop shaking, even as she sensed herself wet between her legs. This was the damned
est seduction.
“You offend me, Mrs. Priestly, and I’m sure you’d offend the man who gave you that bracelet. It demands your respect.”
“I do respect it. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. I haven’t had this long. I wasn’t initiated. I barely know what it means, but I know that if my husband trusted the Marquis enough to give me to him in this way, then I need to find the Marquis now.”
He eyed her again, carefully going over the same flesh, the same body parts he’d examined before.
“I can see a use for you,” he said obliquely. “Stand up.”
She stood trembling as she felt the man’s warm hand move up under her skirt—she’d not defied the rules as she had on the island. She lowered herself metaphorically speaking, allowing her consciousness to take on the mantle of her station. She bowed her head, diverted her eyes, and stood with her legs apart, while he reached between them with his fingers going directly toward her vagina. He found her wet.
“You’re sopping,” he exclaimed.
He fondled her snatch with the skill of a man well-versed in pleasing women, which only made her body more aroused. Although a feeling of shame suffused her being, it was not a feeling that disturbed her; rather, she was even more fully aroused.
She began to pant, her body bursting to life, feeling as if it were dancing on his fingers.
“You have few limits?” he asked, while continuing his play.
“That is right, sir.”
“And you’re privy to the rules of behavior as the Marquis’ property?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re wearing a bra?”
“Yes, sir. It is allowed.”
“Yes, I know it’s allowed,” he snapped. He removed his hand from her crotch. “But I don’t like bras, so take it off. You can do that without removing your blouse?”
“Yes, sir.”
She’d dressed carefully that day in a knee-length skirt with a five inch slit at her left knee. Dressing sexy was not a rule she’d ever heard of; in fact, being reasonably decorous in her dress had always been what turned Erik on. He liked evidence of her slutty side, without it being obvious. Slit skirts, high heels, transparent blouses and lacy bras turned him on as much as more overtly sexual clothes. In that vein, she’d chosen a simple short-sleeved white blouse and wore a white lace bra beneath it. Decorous yes, with a hint of sexuality. She thought that as long as she wore no panties she would be properly attired for the Marquis and his masters.
To remove her bra without removing her blouse required an ingenious little trick most women can manage. She untucked her blouse and reached around to the back, unhooking the bra, then after unbuttoning two buttons at the front, she reached in and drew the bra straps out of her sleeves and looped them over her hands. Finally, she reached back inside and pulled out the brassiere.
The man observed, indifferent to her technique, and when she was finished, he said, “Now tuck in your shirt.”
She tucked the blouse back inside her skirt, giving it an extra tug so that her freed breasts would press against the thin fabric, deliberately showing the outline of her nipples, and as they hardened—which was almost instantly—how they made distinctive indentations in the smooth cloth.
He ran his hand across her chest with such delicacy that her entire body visibly quaked.
“You have nothing to be afraid of. I’ll do no worse by you than any other master you’ve bowed to. In fact, I imagine in the future you’ll remember this occasion fondly.”
Her nipples stood out now unmistakably, hardened nubs, their deep rosy color showing from underneath. He pinched them hard with unceasing force, letting the sensation shoot through her body in a river of pain.
She muffled her anguished gasp, afraid to make a sound.
He pinched the second nipple with the same effect, the same sharp, shooting pain rifling through her body.
“Someone’s trained you,” he said dryly.
An ever-present scowl on his face, he let go of the nipple and pushed her toward a crate, bending her over at the waist, allowing her torso to rest on the hard surface.
“Hang on to the other side,” he said. Then he lifted up her skirt to expose her naked rear. “Open your legs wider,” he said.
She opened them at least two feet apart, knowing that he could now clearly see the evidence of her arousal.
His hands were firm, clear in their purpose, as they aggressively massaged her privates. Nothing went unnoticed. Her pussy was breached by several probing fingers, while the man’s thumb slipped into her anus and began prodding it dry.
“You should grease yourself every morning after you give yourself an enema. It’s not a stated rule of the Marquis, but if you were my property, I would beat you if you didn’t and enter your pretty derriere dry. Trust me, no property forgets that rule a second time.”
The fingers probing her behind hurt, not an ounce of mercy offered as they thrust again and again up the dry channel. Her body clenched as the savage pain got worse.
“Ahhh, god,” she seethed under her breath, her fists clutched so tightly to the table that her knuckles turned white.
“Of course, I can assume you like being beaten,” he said.
He abruptly moved off toward the wall directly in front of her, where three implements of punishment hung in full view: a cane, a quirt and a leather lash. He chose the quirt.
“In another lifetime, de Sade and I drew lots to see who would first beat and bugger our pretty, young maids. We always preferred to go last, since a second beating is always the worst. Too bad that icon is not here now to send you on your way to hell. I’m afraid you’ll get just one beating today.”
There was no answer to his remarks that wouldn’t earn her some reproach, so she kept silent, while nursing the hope that he was simply toying with her mind. Yet his very words caused her belly to spasm with almost painful vigor. He had only to press his hand against her pubis and she’d climax.
Instead, however, his hand ran along the surface of her ass, contemplatively. “No marks?” He sounded surprised.
“It has been some time, sir.”
“I guess it has. And for you, too long. Properties need frequent and repeated beatings to keep them in place. I suspect you’ve been too long without a master.”
He backed off, then taking position behind her, he whipped the quirt’s cutting thongs against her bare ass. She came up howling. “Oh! God no! Pleeeeeeeeeze!”
The shopkeeper raged on her, grabbing her by the hair and shoving her head into the crate. “You come off the crate again, I’ll bind you to it and bring the hoodlums off the street to bugger your sweet ass. You think you can take a dozen, you just try that move again.”
The strikes came on in a quick cadence, each more painful than the blow before. It was hard to believe that two thin strips of leather could be so hurtful, so wounding, so capable of driving her nearly mad with pain. She writhed on the crate, keeping her chest glued to the surface, while muffling her moans by ducking her head.
And the pain didn’t cease when the shopkeeper dropped the quirt, and pulled up behind her, slathering her asshole with her pussy juices—copious by now—and shoving his erection into that back door. There was little finesse in his technique, but still that hammering erection made the sensation in her bloom, transformed from pain to endorphin-driven pleasure.
She cried now for the wonder of it. What remarkable, what horrible things these desires made her suffer. How would she survive Paris, if this was just the first of many?
“You bled a little,” the shopkeeper said, after he pulled out of her rectum. While she lay slumped against the crate, he moved around behind her, disappearing for a time she thought. She heard a toilet flush. Then the man returned. Her ass was suddenly stung with something cold. She smelled the alcohol as he rubbed it over her punished ass. “You’ll stay right here until the bleeding stops.” He dabbed a couple spots on her behind again. “Looks like that’s about it. Maybe a minute more.”
“There’s a washroom through that door,” he pointed to the side of the room. “When you are presentable again, you can come see me in the shop. You’ll want to hear what I have to say,” he said, then he left.
Just her second day in Paris and she’d already become a sex toy for another strange man. If the man’s use of her had been intended as a warning, like Alex’s warning not to pursue the Marquis, then it would be another warning she would ignore. Her body sought the sex as passionately as she sought her master, and once again, her desire had been sated.
Once she had revived, propriety pulled her off the crate and sent her quickly to the washroom. She swiped her bra from the floor as she went. There was one particularly nasty welt that was the cause of all the bleeding. But it was clotted by then, so it wouldn’t bleed on her skirt.
She quickly removed her clothes to clean herself, then she dressed as she had before. Sensing that it wouldn’t be prudent to take her time, she returned to the storefront and waited for several minutes while the shopkeeper finished with a customer. During that time, she browsed the bookshelves as if looking for something in particular. Most of the books were in French, but she did find a few English paperbacks with titles she recognized.
“Mrs. Priestly.” She jumped at the sound of his voice.
She turned, seeing that the shopkeeper had returned to his desk, and looked very much the way he did when she walked in the door.
“I’d said that the Marquis is not in Paris, and that is true. He is in Prague, at least that is where he currently makes his home.”
“And you have an address?”
“No. But you’ll go there. Driven women normally won’t heed warnings. Understand, I was kind to you in comparison to the cruelty that you may face. But, seeing how you’ve responded so far, that may be what you need. As far as finding the man you want, you can be assured that if you make the trip, he’ll know you’re coming. And he’ll find you.” He sat back, sighing deliberately. “Now, if you’ll be off, I can get on with my work.”