The Slave

by Laura Antoniou

  Tears came soon; the day had been long and confusing, and she had no idea that she had been watched for these seemingly petty errors in behavior.

  But Chris ignored the tears and the sobs that soon followed, and continued going through his mental list and his almost mechanical beating.

  When the force of one blow sent her stumbling forward, Chris came in close, and clenched the hair at the back of her neck in one fist, holding her pressed down and forward.

  The blows were steady, of an even force and crack, but as they built up redness and then bruising, they landed again and again on sore spots and over past stripes, and Robin’s sobs were interrupted with gasps of pain and shock. Each time a blow landed, heat rushed up to the skin and then burned intensely until the next one came. Before too long, Robin’s mind was completely taken over by a desperate bargain: only these few more! I can take just three more! And then I’ll beg for mercy, just two more, or three!

  And each time, she found some inner strength to keep holding on, even though she was dizzy from the position, stiff from being on her knees most of the day, even sore from her beating that morning. And through it all, still agonizingly wet, still as hot as she had been a few minutes ago.

  “And that is all for now,” Chris said, letting her go. The strap hit the table.

  Robin hit the floor at once and sought out his boot-tops. She kissed one and then the other as gracefully as she could manage. “Thank you, sir, thank you!”

  “Good girl. You remembered.” She could feel the sting of his tone, which only drove her back down to press her lips against the polished leather again. When he made no move away and failed to raise her, she continued her adoring thanks, covering the boots with her kisses, and feeling the intense heat that spread over her ass and the backs of her thighs.

  And then the doorbell chimed again.

  “Get that,” Chris said, nudging her.

  Robin pulled herself up, and wiped at the tears and the slight sheen of sweat on her face and stumbled slightly on her way out of the room. She was still dizzy. What a state to answer the door in! But it had to be Leon, with dinner, although it seemed a little early. She ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it back a little and wiped at her eyes again, and opened the door.

  It wasn’t Leon.

  Standing in front of her was a woman, taller than she was, with thick, long, curling hair, and beautifully arched eyebrows. She had fine, prominent cheekbones, and dark, glittering eyes, and her cheeks were flushed with wind. She was wearing a rich, long woolen coat, and beautiful, high-heeled boots, and carrying what looked like a leather architects’ blueprint case slung over one shoulder and a garment bag hanging from her outstretched hand.

  “You’d better take it if you don’t want another pitiless beating,” she said. “I’m Rachel.”

  * * * *

  “I don’t believe that you’re giving up your vacation for a mere woman,” Rachel said, once she had been properly welcomed and settled into a chair, a cup of tea at hand. Robin, after putting things away and taking her coat and making the tea, had been positioned on her elbows and knees on the coffee table, so that Rachel could see the evidence of Chris’s discipline.

  “I have no prejudices,” Chris answered. He was going through a stack of papers and envelopes Rachel had handed to him, placing them in different piles.

  “Humph,” Rachel made the sound as though it were a declaration in itself. “She doesn’t look like much.” Robin’s ears turned bright red. Why was it always so much more affecting when women criticized her? Why did it matter so much more?

  “I will show you her folder later, if you like. She would not be refused at our house.”

  “Yes, well, we take everything!” Rachel laughed. “And, we spend more time with them. What do you have, two weeks?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Impossible!”

  “We shall see.”

  There didn’t seem to be any annoyance from Chris at Rachel’s skepticism. In fact, he was remarkably calm. I wish he would be more angry, Robin thought, furiously. He chose to do this! He knows it can work out!

  “Well, thank you for bringing these,” Chris said after a long silence. “You could have sent it all by some messenger, you know.”

  “No, I wanted to see this paragon of yours, maybe try her out. And I’ve been wanting to spend a night out of the house for a while, too. Besides, there was some bad news, too; I figured I’d better bring it myself.” She reached into a pocket and withdrew a fat envelope addressed in an ornate hand. “I spoke to the bosses today. They said that you should go.” She passed it over to him, and on her way back, trailed her fingernails along the insides of Robin’s thighs. “Such lovely bruises. I don’t think she’ll want to sit down for days.” Robin shivered, and Rachel smiled.

  Chris took the contents out of the envelope and sighed heavily.

  “Yes, I know,” Rachel said soothingly. “But it’s only one night. And it’s close by. I brought your winter tux.”

  “Wouldn’t you care to attend?”

  “I might, sure. But they said that you should. I even told them that you, well, that you found a new project. But Alex said that this should teach you to take your vacations like everyone else does.”

  Robin stiffened in confusion, despite the scratching pleasure of Rachel’s stroking fingernails. Every new sentence seemed to raise new questions, and her curiosity seemed ready to strangle her.

  “Then I shall handle it,” Chris finally responded. He put the envelope on the side, with the others. “But now, you’re here. And, I do have a new toy, at least for a while. Of course you are welcome to stay the night, and to make use of her. However, according to my schedule, this little chit should be giving me some more of her personal history, and Leon will be arriving within an hour or so with dinner. So I suggest that you sit back and enjoy your tea while she continues her tale, and then we can have a civilized dinner together.”

  “Leon! Oh, I haven’t seen that boy in ages! Well, maybe I was too harsh in judging your vacations.” Her laugh was low and slightly sultry. “OK, boss, it’s in your hands.” She pulled her own hands away from Robin, who moaned in their absence.

  “Get up, Robin,” Chris directed. “You may sit there while you speak.” He pointed to a spot on the carpet. And when Robin was in position, Chris prompted her.

  “You were in college. You had not yet managed to find a partner with whom to practice or even discuss your sensual desires, but had accumulated a collection of sadomasochistic literature and a few toys to use when masturbating.”

  “How sweet!” Rachel mocked.

  “You may continue from there,” Chris ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” Robin whispered back. The wetness between her legs was maddening. How often had she dreamed something just like this, submitting to a strong man and a strong woman at the same time? How many times had she pulled out her box of toys to exactly that image?

  Her box of toys...

  Chapter Five

  Robin’s Story: The Soloist

  I have become a connoisseur of coming, she wrote one night, after an enormously good session of solo sex. I am a master masturbator. And good thing, too. Because that’s going to be the sum total of my sex life forever and ever.

  Months later, dating seemed as hopeless a pastime as it was during the night she gave her unmourned virginity to the unaware Greg. There had been two more boyfriends since then, one she gave blowjobs to, then another one she never let get past making out. Neither one seemed to have a clue about what she was really into, and she never managed to be as direct as she now knew she would have to be in order to get through to them.

  Even Marty, the guy who taught her how to suck cock (if you could call his insistently pushing her head toward it any form of teaching), seemed utterly unaware of the slightest possibility that she might like something a little more than “Oh, baby, you’re the best!” in the way of encouragement. And he was so passive, just lying or sitting back and
not even touching her, except to stroke her hair absently once in a while.

  She had tried a little harder with him, maybe because he was an English major and she figured that words might have more of a trigger effect for him. “I love being your personal cocksucker,” she had whispered to him one night.

  “Oh, I hate that word,” he responded, looking vaguely shocked. “It’s so dirty. I mean, you say cocksucker, and I think faggot. You’re my lover, baby, my sweet lover.”

  And I thought that sucking cock would make me gag, she recorded in her journal that night. She wandered into the lesbian and gay student association on campus, but found herself not fitting in there, either. For one, the president of the association also played on the basketball team, and he knew that she had dated Greg. That branded her as a bisexual, and she was immediately viewed with suspicion. And although she was willing to get involved in on-campus feminist activities, one day she found herself at a meeting planning a protest in front of the bookstore for selling Penthouse and Playboy.

  She thought guiltily about her stash of porn under her bed, and didn’t return to the next meeting. Hell, if these women didn’t like Playboy, which had the lamest, softest smut she had even seen, they would just heave at the sight of one of her newspapers.

  But one thing that she did get from the association was a list of gay publishers and bookstores. She wrote away for more catalogs, and discovered the world of gay and lesbian SM. She loved it all, even the male/male stuff, and bought as much as she could afford. The box under her bed filled, and she started throwing out things that didn’t work for her any more. And she was very, very careful about when and where she tossed her rejects.

  So she turned her attention sharply onto school, taking extra classes when she could. She started running again, to work off any excess energy, and pretended to be going out on dates so Donna wouldn’t try to set her up with someone. And she jerked off, whenever she could, getting better and better all the time.

  It was a Saturday night in late winter, and Robin had such a session in mind as she returned to her dorm after working on a special cataloging project she had volunteered for. It was guaranteed to get her into a special class with the professor who headed up the arts department, and it was giving her the skills she would need when she left. It wasn’t enough to be able to appreciate art in order to work with it. You had to be an artist, a critic, or a business person. And business seemed the way to go.

  But the work was hard and tedious, and crammed into an already crowded schedule, so she needed the release of orgasm more than ever. Luckily, Donna was home for the weekend, not due back until Sunday night. There would be plenty of privacy for a deluxe session. Maybe she would come twice, or three times. She had two new newspapers to read through, that she had been saving for a night just like this.

  So within minutes of getting in, she was stripped, collared, and lying on the floor, the short, rough carpet abrading her nipples. With sighs of pleasure, she read through the letter columns, full of patently false personal adventure stories, and then continued on to the features, some of which were illustrated. They were, without an exception, awfully written. She could usually ignore much of the clumsy, ham-handedness of the writers. But for some reason, tonight of all nights, the stark vacancy of the words made the images behind them ludicrous. Robin flipped pages in frustration, trying to get the proper frame of mind back, and ended up tossing the cheap newsprint onto the floor in front of her.

  I’ll just switch to the books, she thought, feeling the pang of more money wasted on this trash. But as she reached for the box, her eye fell on an advertisement on the back page of one of the newspapers.

  It read:

  “Find the mistress or master of your dreams tonight!”

  She pulled it over and read. Under a drawing of a physically impossible woman wearing boots that could earn a mention in the Amnesty International annual, was a series of phone numbers. Some were in different area codes, some were 800 numbers. In fine print below each one was a description. She read, “Hot Masters and their Rough Boys for Wild Masculine Encounters,” and “Large and Lovely Ladies for Mounds of Pleasure!” and “Threesomes, Foursomes and Moresomes; the Swingers Line,” and then, finally, “The Dial-In-Dungeon, Masters, Mistresses and their Willing Slaves.”

  All this, the ad promised, for 10 cents a minute.

  Ten cents a minute? Robin thought. That’s not much. If it’s just a stupid recording, it’ll still cost less than calling home to say “hi.” She dug her toes into the carpet while she considered. What could it possibly be? What would she say if someone actually answered? Could they trace her number?

  Oh, don’t be stupid. It can’t hurt, not for a few minutes. No sense in getting paranoid over this. So she reached over to her table and pulled the phone down on to the floor. When her call connected, she heard:

  “Welcome to the Dial-in-Dungeon, where your hot Mistress or Master awaits. Your call will be 30 cents for the first minute and 10 cents each additional minute. If you are under eighteen years old, hang up now. And if you’re old enough and bold enough, you may now enter the Dungeon!”

  What is this, a computer game? Robin asked herself. I wonder when I have to tell them whether I want a master or a mistress? But before she could actually giggle, she heard someone speaking.

  “...so we ended up going to the movies while she had a plug up her ass. I kept pinching her nipples all through the show. Thea was wet as a fucking river! Weren’t you, babe?”

  The voice was masculine, but slightly muffled. Robin pushed the phone closer to her ear, fascinated.

  “Yeah!” came an enthusiastic response. Thea’s voice also sounded slightly muffled. Robin figured that it must be the connection. “I was so sore when we got back! Master had to soothe me all night.” She laughed, and her laughter was joined by several other people on the telephone line.

  “So what did you do this weekend, Cutiepie?” Another man’s voice cut through the laughter. For a split second, Robin thought that he meant her, although how he would even know she was there was a mystery. But a different woman, her voice making her seem older then the first, sighed and answered.

  “I stayed home, Roy. And did the fucking dishes. I tell you, life’s a bitch when a slave can’t get a good master.”

  “Awww, poor baby. You can come over and I’ll be your master.”

  “Yeah, right. Roy, you’re a fucking slave, honey, and you just wanna get laid.”

  “Well, a man’s gotta try, right?” More laughter sounded out.

  “All you guys gotta try. I swear, one night you’re all masters, but let one mistress get on the line and you’re all foot slaves. I need a real man,” Cutiepie whined. “Someone who’s really the boss. Like Mark.”

  “Thank you, Cutie,” responded the man whose voice had welcomed Robin to the line. “But I have my hands full.”

  “Anything more than a handful is wasted, buddy!” someone added.

  Robin sighed, heavily. That line was tired among the freshmen. God help any adult who thought it was witty. And this was where she was going to find a master or mistress? Not bloody likely. She was going to hang up when she heard yet another voice.

  “Hello! Any submissive sluts out there who need some phone domination?”

  “Hi Bob,” chorused a few of the voices on the phone. Robin drew her knees up to listen for a little while longer. What on earth was phone domination?

  “Hi, Master Bob,” purred Cutiepie. “When am I gonna get to meet you?”

  “Anytime you want, Cutie. On the phone. Care for another session with my toy bag? Call me right now, and you’ll get it all.” His voice was very deep, and compared to the others on the line, much more assured.

  “Oh, you tease. You know I’m on the courtesy line. Lemme call you later.”

  “No. Now. I want to see how much you’ll give up for me.”

  “And what will you do if I get off... the phone I mean!” Giggles and muffled laughter flooded the line.
“Will you do all the things I like?”

  “I’ll do whatever I want, Cutie. Take it or leave it.”

  “Whoa!” came several exclamations.

  “Such a tough guy,” someone muttered.

  “Well, be that way. There’s no one else out here except for me and Thea anyway, so you wasted your call!” Cutiepie did actually sound miffed.

  Robin swallowed hard and said, “I... I’m here.”

  “Hey!”

  “Who was that?”

  “Is that a new girl?”

  Voices crowded each other, and Robin almost slammed the phone down. But she held onto it, hoping that Bob hadn’t left.

  “Who’s out there? Is that you, Destiny? Or is it Lola?”

  All the women seemed to have made-up names, Robin thought. Quick! What do I call myself?

  “Um. This is...” Her mind shut down on her. What could she say? Oh God, what a time to freeze; isn’t it just like her, the pervert who couldn’t say her name! Then she drew a deep breath and said, “I’m Perverse.”

  That got a hearty laugh. “So are we all, honey, so are we all!”

  “Hey, Perverse! Waddaya look like?”

  “Waddaya into?”

  “Are you dominant or submissive?”

  “What are you wearing?”

  The questions were fired off in rapid succession, all of the inquisitors male. Robin bit her lip, trying to figure out what to say, when Cutiepie’s voice cut through the noise.

  “Hey, cool it, fellas, cool it! You’ll scare her away with all your fucking questions! Perverse, you still out there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, speak up, honey, we all wanna hear ya. What’s your story?”

  Robin panicked again. “I... I don’t know what to say.”

  “For starters, are you dominant or submissive?”

  “Submissive.”

  “Oh good!” some male voice said. “Wanna call me?”