Maria had indeed given her something to remember.
But now there was a new adventure to embark on. There was the studio apartment in the city, where Maria had brought some of her friends from WISE, who came with their tools and a bag of hardware. In one day, they installed hooks and rings in all sorts of places, along the baseboards and from the ceiling, and of course in the frame of the bed that was Maria’s graduation present to Robin. Robin barely had one week to move in before she had to show up to work at a nice, middle range auction house and gallery. She was an assistant to their second best appraiser and buyer. Her hours were going to be long and sometimes erratic, but she knew that she was already ahead of the game. Many people in her position spent years doing other kinds of work before they could even get such an entry level position in a good house.
And of course, now that she was on her own and in the city, there was no question about her ability to join other dominant and submissive pleasure seekers in their little underground worlds. With the safety of her collar and Maria’s company, she could finally dare to venture into the mixed gatherings and meet some men as well as women. Maria had no interests in that direction; she was comfortably, wonderfully gay. But she had long ago discovered Robin’s bisexuality, and liked to use it as a tease, asking Robin questions about who she found attractive or not, and what she would do if Maria loaned her to one of the dominant men.
Robin was never sure if what she felt at that suggestion was horror or shock; either way, it made her feel threatened and vulnerable while dampening her between the thighs.
Together, they attended parties, held in the basements of private homes and in empty rooms in theaters and schools. They went to WISE meetings together in a rented room in the Gay Communal Association’s building, where Robin sat on the floor and leaned her head affectionately against Maria’s thigh. So what if the meetings seemed to be one problem after another, or one debate after another? So what if things always ended up being issues about the patriarchy, and the overculture, and this racist/sexist/classist/homophobic society and the need for consensus? Robin didn’t need to pay that much attention. She knew what kind of a world she lived in; she was aware and registered to vote. She signed petitions and sent checks to the causes and campaigns she supported and thought that she was generally attentive to her local community politics. But when she was collared and seated on the floor, in the presence of people who would appreciate the image she was presenting, she was fully engaged in how she behaved and appeared, so that Maria would look like the excellent mistress that she was. Robin was always concerned about helping to make Maria look good.
She couldn’t believe her luck, after all. Years of anxiety and all those nagging feelings of guilt had been blown to pieces, shattered in the moment it took to meet a woman’s eyes in a bar and say one word.
I can’t imagine anything that could make me happier, Robin would think, sliding her cheek against Maria’s leg, adoring her, adoring the place she had at her side. I could live like this for the rest of my life.
* * * *
Maria finished checking the bonds before she ran her hands lightly over Robin’s bound body. Carefully, listening to the minute gasps of pleasure, she attached sharp little nipple clamps, and then a row of similar clamps along Robin’s thighs and belly. This would go on for some time before Robin’s body would betray her, as it always did, and she would writhe and stretch, and earnestly try not to dislodge the bondage while doing so. And when Maria thought that Robin had had enough, perhaps she would fuck her. Or, maybe she would climb up on the bed and let Robin’s eager mouth go to work on her, and take her pleasure that way.
Robin struggled again and again throughout their session, but her struggles were inside of her, and not against the ropes that would be so easy to slip.
I love her, Robin thought, sighing and moaning in proper reactions to Maria’s touch. Oh God, I love her so much my heart could just explode of it all. But there’s something missing.
The guilt that swept through her made it even more poignant when Maria’s fingers lightly touched between Robin’s spread legs, and Robin’s moan was doubly strong. This encouraged Maria, and her fingers’ dancing was a reward that only intensified Robin’s regret and shame. The bound woman shut out as much thought as she could and tried desperately to concentrate on the scene, and on Maria, and even on her own pleasure, until Maria seemed satisfied and slipped the blindfold off and kissed Robin sweetly, waiting for their heart-poundings to subside.
But Robin couldn’t get away from her own private thoughts when the scene was over. She tossed and turned, trying to get some sleep later that night.
I don’t believe how fucking ungrateful I am, she thought, fighting with herself. I wait my entire life for someone like her, and when I have her, and I have a life together and a collar around my neck, all I can think of is what I don’t have.
But let’s face it, what I don’t have is pretty strong.
For over a year and a half, I’ve been made love to by a woman who thinks I’m attractive, smart, and sexy. She likes me as a friend, she supports me in my job, and she enjoys my company. We’re lovers, like a million other lovers, except that she ties me up a lot, and the kinds of things we do to get off aren’t exactly commonplace. For most people, I guess that would be about the best thing you could hope for in this life!
But I’m not really her slave.
And that’s the core of it all.
Oh, she likes it if I carry her bag of toys, and I like getting her coffee in the morning, or helping her out with shopping and things like that, but she really doesn’t use me the way you’d think. I don’t do any real work for her, only little token things, like the way a gentleman used to treat his date.
And even when we’re playing, there are all those reminders that it’s just a game. The hooks instead of rings, so all I have to do is stretch to get free. Cuffs without locks. Even my collar doesn’t lock.
She lets me get away with almost anything, Robin admitted, sitting up in bed and forgetting any thought of an easy sleep. I don’t have to call her by any title, even at meetings and parties. If I tell her I don’t feel like playing, we don’t play. And isn’t that a kick in the head? I’m upset because my lover cares about me too much.
But it’s more than just caring about me, I know it is. And I haven’t been facing it. When we played early on, she used to train me, tell me how to act and punish me if I did things wrong. Now, she never does anything like that, and I know I’m not near being a perfect slave. It’s just that she’s lost interest in that aspect of play. Now, the only time I get punished it when she uses it as an excuse to be a little rougher in our sex.
I’m wearing a collar with her initial on it, but I really don’t feel like I belong to her, at least no more than any person belongs to their lover. All it seems to mean is that we’re monogamous. And we’re a “couple.”
But we do have great sex! She’s so sexy, and so sensual. All she has to do is look at me thoughtfully, the way she does when she’s thinking about what to do, and I start to melt inside. And she does do the things I need. I do get tied up and beaten and tormented and pleasured in all these wonderful ways. So what if it’s not as often as it was at first? All I need to do is let her know I want it more and I’m sure she’ll try to accommodate me.
But I don’t want to be accommodated, her inner voice screamed. I want to be owned!
She’s the best I’m ever going to get, Robin thought, hugging her knees and feeling the tears come. She pushed that inner voice back and down, until she silenced it again. I can’t fuck this up. I can’t afford it. She deserves better than to have me whining at her. I can learn to deal with not having these things. And maybe one day she’ll get back into being more of a mistress and less of a lover.
And maybe I’m just drowning in all the lies. I thought I stopped all the lies.
Chapter Eight
Imagine that you found yourself going to hell for a week, Robin thought. She w
as always composing for her journal, even when she couldn’t add anything to it. But then, you found out that you liked living in hell. What would that do to your value system? Or your self-image?
Hell might have been an exaggeration, but not much of one. Early Sunday morning, Chris unstrapped Robin’s bonds and physically threw her across the room to the shower. Standing in the doorway, just like Rachel had the previous night, he barked commands at her for her morning rituals, how she was to wash, and to what degree of thoroughness. Then on to when and how to present herself to him, and her chores and responsibilities.
Once she could pass his inspection for cleanliness, and she had answered his directions with crisp “yessirs,” she was taken back across the room, bent over the edge of her bed, her knees against the side, her hands braced on the coverlet, and Chris savagely caned her.
But no, savagely wasn’t the right word. Like his other punishments, it was cold, icy cold and precise. Each stripe felt like he had laid a line of acid across her buttocks, and when she couldn’t hold back the screams, he gagged her, a heavy, thick tube pushed into her mouth and held in place with a leather strap. She could breathe through it, but the sounds she made were muffled and distorted, and she couldn’t bring her mouth to make any meaningful sounds. It was humiliating, but much, much easier to take than the next few cane strikes. The strikes themselves seemed even harder, as though they were supposed to check the efficiency of the gag. When she fell forward, twisting her body away from that terrible, burning pain, he pulled her back in place, pushing her head down lower, making her thrust her ass back and up.
No safe words, Robin managed to think, fighting back the flow of tears and panting through the air hole in the gag. This is real! No safe words! No mercy!
When he finally did stop, and he took the gag out of her mouth, it was the most natural thing in the world to kiss the cane he presented before her and then to sink to the floor and cover his boots with kisses, thanking him again and again for both the punishment and for stopping it.
But that was just the beginning.
Sending her scampering into the kitchen on her hands and knees to prepare and serve breakfast was the start of her real day. Kneeling in one corner, ass up, to show off her stripes while Rachel and Chris chatted and drank their coffee was the immediate follow-up.
Cleaning and polishing Rachel’s boots came next, on her knees in the kitchen, rubbing and brushing until her arms hurt and the boots gleamed with a mirror-like finish, and then scrubbing her hands and arms and the spots on her thighs and her chest which were all touched with oily, black polish.
“That took too long,” Chris told her, when she delivered the boots back to the bedroom. He put a pair of nipple clamps on her again, and attached the chain connecting them to her collar. “Try again.” This time, he gave her a pair of boots from out of the closet. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that there were plenty of shoes and boots in the racks of that closet, and she compressed her lips together to stop the moan that threatened to come out.
The entire day was like that.
Nothing she managed to do turned out right. And Chris was all over her, always there to spot clumsiness or hesitation, always quick to point out a gesture missed or a display of a forbidden emotion. Rachel acted like a guest and sat back to watch, laughing from time to time, but mostly ignoring what was going on. She and Chris went over some kind of business for hours, and Robin could never figure out what they were talking about from the snatches she heard. All Robin knew was that Rachel had become distinctly uninterested in her.
And Robin couldn’t decide whether that was part of her training or not. In fact, Robin was far too busy to give it much thought, and by the time she realized that Rachel had actually left the apartment and she was alone again with Chris, there was only a little confused sense of gratitude and regret. One demonic trainer was quite enough, thank you.
But it was so nice having a woman near!
* * * *
Two days passed in a blur of pain and humiliation and constant erotic agony. Chris ran her ragged, setting her alarm for pre-dawn hours so that she could exercise before he woke up, and keeping her up late at night, asking her questions about her previous experiences and her feelings. When there really weren’t chores that had to be done, he was the master of make-work, and Robin knew that when the owners of this place got back, they would be coming home to an apartment that had literally been scrubbed and polished from floor to ceiling and back again. Every shoe or boot in the closet, every toy on their racks, every piece of artwork, every dish, glass and pot, every inch of wood floor and furniture and every piece of metal in the house would have been personally and perfectly cleaned, polished and buffed to within an inch of its life.
Chris would make sure of that, even if it did make Robin’s body into a striped work of art. It didn’t take long for the bruises to start showing through the constant pink and red of the beaten flesh, and Robin could never remember being so carefully and perfectly marked.
Nor could she remember the near constant pain of a body under such treatment. Her movements from waking to sleeping were all accompanied by sharp stabs and thrumming aches―all reminders of her mistakes, both recent and aged.
On Monday, a thick envelope was delivered, which Chris opened and examined while Robin was kept busy. In the afternoon, he summoned her and placed the folder of documents before her, neatly spread out.
“These are most of the results from the examination you underwent on Saturday, plus the medical records you requested for me. You need to read them and check for accuracy, and then sign a release form allowing the Marketplace to keep them as part of your records.”
Robin grinned at the pile of papers before her. “You folks certainly are thorough, sir.”
“We’ve learned to be. If there is anything in there that you want removed, let me know. You are released from protocol to discuss the contents. Will two hours be enough to examine everything?”
It was. Robin went through her history from childhood up through the previous Saturday with slow amazement. Everything was there, from her early childhood diseases to shin splints to the first time she had a yeast infection. Plus breakdowns of all sorts of tests run on her blood and urine, and notes concerning the availability of the test results from a few that would take a bit longer. There was a rather long and involved psychological report which, when she got through all the big words, came down to this:
“Subject has a series of finely developed paraphilias for behavior which suits her placement within the Marketplace.”
“It means that selling you should be a great turn-on,” Chris commented.
“No kidding,” Robin replied. “I could have told them that years ago. In plain language, without all these tests. Chris. . . may I ask you a question?”
“You may always ask.”
“What was so special about Greta?”
He raised one eyebrow, and looked mildly pleased. Robin had already gotten so dependent on his approval that she blushed even at that faint sign of it.
“Do you mean besides being a highly skilled physician whose value is extremely well rated?” he asked, leaning back.
“You know what I mean,” Robin answered softly. “There’s something different about her. I would have known it if I passed her on the street. Is it that she’s so happy?”
“I suppose that’s part of it. Happy slaves do tend to give off an aura of contentment which usually serves only to confuse people. Our culture is not used to dealing with any individual who is so comfortable with their station in life. Leon, for example, is constantly asked what he has going for him which makes him so happy; outside of the Marketplace, there is no answer that will suffice, and he is often forced to shrug and offer some lame excuse. But Greta is, as you noticed, somewhat different.”
He paused, looking thoughtful for a moment. His eyes seemed to focus on some spot out the front window, hovering so many feet from the ground. Robin waited patiently.
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“Greta spent six months training with Anderson,” he finally said, as though that would explain everything. “And what you felt is the mark of such training. You, however, lack the opportunity for the same, and therefore must do your humble best to get the most out of what I can offer you. Which today, after you sign and initial these papers where necessary, will consist of a lot of fetching and carrying. You need to work on rising in one fluid motion and stopping with grace.”
And when she wasn’t demonstrating her skills at all kinds of domesticity, she was being tested for all the movements, postures, and the nuances of service. During the day, at any time, Chris would come up behind her and ask things like, “Two guests at your owner’s house each request something of you. One wants to see you clothed, and the other does not. Assuming that your standing instructions are to obey any reasonable request of a guest and that both of these requests fall into the category of reasonable, what will you do?”
When he wasn’t giving her verbal problems, he was running her through the ritual positions that all Marketplace slaves had to know, and making sure that she was perfect in them. When she commented that she felt like a show dog being posed for the judges, he replied, “Yes! That’s exactly the image you should think of. Sleek, still, disciplined. You want to be a possession worthy of acquiring, worthy of training and grooming and showing off. And at the same time, you want to be available, open for every touch and caress.
“Ready to be examined, poked and prodded. Braced for any sort of pain, whether it’s erotic or not. Owners may do as they like to you, and need not seek your consent, approval, pleasure, or even your reaction. And they will not owe you explanations or words of encouragement or comfort or praise. You will just be a person who belongs to them, and nothing more.”
“Oh God,” Robin had murmured, stretching her muscles and bending into the posture demanded. She was dizzy again, flush with the excitement that Chris brought up in her whenever he spoke of such things. And when he beat her shortly after, braced against his knee, she had to verbally beg him to choose some other method, because she was ready to come the next moment he touched her.
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