by Joey W. Hill
To The Mistress’s private rooms.
The carved stone marble fireplace, a pale golden color, provided the only light. The white area rug before it looked deep and thick as a snowfall. The random scattering of furniture created amorphous shadows beyond the fire’s reach. For once, the woman wasn’t armored in her corsets and tight skirts or like-a-second-skin pants. She’d recently taken a shower, for her hair was damp and she wore a soft robe that clung to her curves. She looked almost…human. Except for those amber eyes, which held all the power of the earth in them.
“Kneel, Nina.”
Her knees gave automatically. They’d taught her to assume a subjugated posture upon command. Elbows, knees and forehead on the floor, knees spread shoulder width, arse in the air. Naked, as always. She’d learned to find an odd, cocooned comfort to the position, a little dark world all her own, down on the floor, no matter what else was happening above or around her.
She couldn’t hide there. Couldn’t hide anywhere. So she couldn’t explain why the position felt reassuring, a fortress in a way nothing else was. She expected The Mistress could help her understand. If she’d just ask.
Nina didn’t.
And her reaction, her instinctive obedience, brought more despair, and that squeezing anxiety and panic. She shut her eyes tight, fighting it. She could hear The Mistress moving around, brushing her hair. Smell the scent of her bath soap, her shampoo.
Then the rustle of clothing, a silence that had her lifting her head, just enough to see The Mistress’s crossed legs, the robe falling away from her knees. She’d sat down in a love seat near her. Then Nina saw the graceful hand drop below the knee, open, palm up.
“Come to me, little one.”
She came to her on hands and knees, expecting nothing. Just more punishment, more loss of control.
Instead, The Mistress bent and gathered her up, lifting her to sit her on her lap. She held her upper body in her arms, Nina’s legs tangled in a limp sprawl across the cushions, her head on The Mistress’s shoulder, sheltered by a thick curtain of the damp hair. Her fragrance should have been called Ghost, because the aroma was haunting, calling forth a jumble of memories. Home and first love, an exhilarating ride on a motorbike under a moonlit sky. She wondered if The Mistress and Steele had ever done that. Steele driving, The Mistress’s arms wound around his body from behind.
“All right, then,” the woman said quietly. “Let it out.”
Nina shook her head, even as she squeezed her eyes shut and a couple stingy tears found their way free. “I can’t,” she said brokenly. “If I do…I’ll never put it back together. I won’t be strong enough to do this.”
An acknowledgement that she was strong enough to do it. Insane, what a human spirit would do to survive. Even when it shouldn’t. For all she’d lost of herself, they could have everything but her grief. There was no one she could give that to now, except a woman who was dead.
In her darker more despairing moments, like this one, she doubted she could have given even Sher all of it. How could she understand what Nina had seen, felt? Or what it was like to lose the other half of herself, the other spirit within their mother’s womb…
The Mistress could have pushed it. Could have cracked that part of Nina against her will. The vampire female had proven it, time and again. But tonight, she didn’t. She held Nina, rocked her, as Nina brought her erratic breaths under control. She was gripping the woman’s forearm, she realized. But The Mistress didn’t make her stop.
The Mistress rose to her feet, lifting Nina. She cradled Nina in her arms like Alistair would have, with that same ease and comfort. Nina remembered him carrying her toward the plane. Though it was against The Mistress’s bosom her cheek rested, Nina remembered the thud of his heart, the hardness of his chest.
The Mistress took her to the white rug, letting Nina stand on her own feet a few steps away from it. Then The Mistress moved onto the rug and dropped the robe off her shoulders onto a chair. As the silk slid away, it left her bare body highlighted by the flames. It was no surprise that she was as perfect beneath her clothes as she appeared in them, a firm arse, slim back, generous breasts and long legs. But a pretty flower was a pretty flower. The Mistress was more. She was moonlight, absorbed in every breath and upon every inch of skin, coaxing a woman to dance and reach for her, even if the closest touch was to trail one’s fingers through silver-lit air.
Nina had moved three steps forward, unconsciously, proving the point. This woman had beaten her, spent the month teaching her how little power she had. Yet she’d given Nina that one chance, every day, to best her in a fight.
No. The chance to fight. To let out the anger so she didn’t feel so pinned down, so suffocated. Tonight it hadn’t been enough. But tonight The Mistress offered another way.
The female tilted her head, her chin to her shoulder, so Nina saw her in profile. “Come stand with me.”
Nina did. The Mistress retrieved the robe from the chair. She threaded Nina’s arms through it, slid it up on her shoulders, belted it.
It was the first time in nearly a month that she’d been allowed any clothes, other than the brief exercises in how to wear lingerie and other appropriate InhServ garb. The Mistress wrapped the sash in her hands, holding Nina fast, the silk over her knuckles. Without her heels, she was the same height as Nina, so they were eye to eye.
The Mistress dropped to one knee, startling Nina, making her tremble as she parted the robe, put her lips on Nina’s thigh. Nina swayed, her body readying itself, but The Mistress’s hands went back to her hips, holding her as she tipped back her head.
“Come down and play.”
“I’m not…I don’t prefer women.” Nina’s cheeks colored at the woman’s laughter, not unkind, thankfully.
“If there is one thing I expect you’ve learned while you were with us, it’s that the body doesn’t care about gender. Pleasure is pleasure. But more than that,” the woman’s eyes sharpened, “You have felt desire because you moved past all that. You saw the shape of Chele’s mouth, the softness of Melanie’s eyes, savored the gasps that came from Edith when she rubbed her cunt against yours. You wanted to give her more. If your hands had been freed, you would have run your palms along her face, over her breasts. By the end of this, you wanted to offer them as much or more than they did you. You like Melanie’s laugh. You gave advice to Edith about talking to her family.”
She’d given up on taking out her ire on them. It wasn’t their fault and truth, they were too damn much like Sher at those ages.
“They’re girls,” she said defensively. “Just like my nurse mates. That’s all.”
“But having carnal knowledge of them, that’s pleasant, isn’t it? Another dimension to the relationship.”
The Mistress changed positions, going back onto her arse with astounding grace. Slowly, she lay down before the fire, the flickering light making love to her amazing body. The woman stretched her arms over her head, her knees slightly parted. “What would you do to this body, Nina, if I allowed you anything you wished tonight? Would you whip it? Cut it? Caress it with your mouth or hands? Would you rub your cunt over mine to make us both climax?”
“I could never hurt anyone.”
“No? Didn’t you try to hit me that first night? Haven’t you tried to best me every day in our sparring?”
“Being in a blue is different. And there is bloody well little I could do to cause you actual harm, and we both know it. I could never plan to hurt someone. Premeditated like that.”
“Even if it aroused them? What about your Master?”
Nina’s brow creased. The Mistress blinked, a mysterious, exotic creature. “A servant draws strength from her Master’s blood. He might offer it to her when she has been wounded. Or simply for the pleasure of giving her nourishment, of seeing her take what he offers. But perhaps he hands you a knife, offers his arm to you. He is a well-formed man, Lord Alistair. You have seen him shirtless?”
It took very little for her to
remember him on the beach, the shirt stripped off. Particularly now, when her body seemed on a low sexual hum not only during every waking moment, but even in her dreams. “Yes.”
The Mistress made an approving purr. “Nice biceps. He holds you close in one arm, his hand on your hip. He raises that arm, bends it, so those muscles curve, and he tells you to take the little knife he’s given you, make a cut. You are perhaps shy at first, but then you do it. And though you jump a little when you cut him, and the blood comes forth, you notice the breath he draws in, the spark in his eye, is arousal. And then you put your mouth there, taste him…
She was a nurse. The idea of tasting blood revolted her. Should have revolted her now. But the picture The Mistress painted left her with only confusion.
“You’ve mixed up my mind,” Nina said shortly, taking a step back. “It’s all brain washing.”
“Did you consider your nurse schooling brain washing?”
“Of course not.” Nina looked around. She wouldn’t lie down by The Mistress, but sitting in a chair felt wrong. This was absurdly like a polite debate, a conversation over tea. “It was a skill to be learned,” she added. “This is different.”
“It’s not different, Nina.” The Mistress propped her head on her hand, her other hand resting on her hip, fingers trailing over her thigh. Biblical stories of Lilith came to mind. But then The Mistress’s practical next words dissipated that visual, replacing it in Nina’s mind with one of the Matron, a highly disturbing switch.
“Different jobs require different skill sets,” the woman said. “To be adequate at them requires training. To excel at them requires more than that. How often did your intuition tell you what a suffering man needed, or had you stopping at the bed of a man who appeared as if he were fine, but you knew he needed to be checked upon, for something was amiss?” The Mistress considered her. “Based on what I have observed about you, I expect you were a nurse who exceeded expectations.”
“Something I’ll never get to be again.” The bitterness twisted in her, had her taking another step back.
“Perhaps. But your healing talents might be employed a different way. We may think we know our future, Nina, but Fate opens some interesting paths for us. Come down here.”
Nina set her jaw. “I thought I got to say what I do or don’t do to you.”
The Mistress’s lips quirked. “Then what is it you want, little one?”
Nina’s gaze slid down over the woman’s mouth, her throat, her magnificent breasts. All the soft, inviting flesh. The woman had no hair between her legs, so the lips of her sex were silky-looking. They reminded Nina of the frangipani flowers her mother grew. Her sister had brought them to her when she’d taken a trip to Hawaii, and their scent always tempted Nina to bury her nose in them, take a deeper inhale.
“You haven’t pleasured a woman between her legs yet, Nina.” The Mistress had followed the direction of her eyes, and her long thighs widened, her fingertips sliding over one to stroke her labia, show her a hint of gathering, glistening moisture, dew on those petals. “Though many of our students have had the sweet taste of your cunt. Do you wonder what it’s like? Think of how their mouths made you lose control, get lost in desire. Would you like to control me that way?”
Nina’s gaze snapped up to her face. “No,” the woman decided, studying her. “You wouldn’t think of it as control. Your submission, your need for service, is a deep, wide river inside you. Would you like to pleasure me so thoroughly I can let go of everything, entrust myself to your care?”
Trust myself to your care. It was what her patients did, believing she could help, even if it was only with her presence, telling them they weren’t alone.
“What’s your name?” Nina asked. She knew The Mistress wouldn’t give her that, so she continued without pause, the question only part of the explanation. “It’s what I would ask my patients first,” she said. “So I could connect to them when they were hurting, help take their mind off what unpleasant things the doctor was doing.”
“There is no unpleasantness here, thankfully,” The Mistress said. “Tonight, at least. Set aside your worries and anger, Nina. Enjoy what’s being offered.”
“Anything I wish?”
“Anything,” The Mistress said, her eyes glowing in the firelight. “Until dawn, when I must sleep.”
She lifted her arms over her head again, which lengthened her incomparable body, made the toned, smooth muscle shift, her breasts quiver. The Mistress closed her eyes, turning her face toward the heat of the fire, so the flames praised her flawless features. Nina had noticed a hint of an accent in her words at times, though not enough she’d been able to place it. Her skin wasn’t British milk and cream. It reminded Nina of the cream-beige of fine beach sand, up beyond the tide line, near the dunes. Only far smoother. It complimented her satin fall of dark hair and rich-earth brown eyes.
Dropping to her heels, Nina laid a tentative hand on the female’s ankle. She knew The Mistress meant what she said. For all the things that had happened while she was here, Nina had never been told a lie. Sometimes she wished they’d told her a basketful, so she didn’t have to be sick with worry about what would come.
Three things in particular had topped her worry list.
Lesson One. There were no sexual barriers in the vampire-servant world. None except those set by a Master or Mistress…or a vampire more powerful than them. If a Master or Mistress more highly ranked than your own wishes you to perform for their pleasure, your Master will accord them that honor. Proper etiquette would suggest your Master should be present, though it is not required.
So she could just be handed off to whomever, whenever.
Scary Lesson Number Two. While everyone made a lot over the whole pleasure part of things, they hadn’t given her the illusion that it would always be that way. “Your pleasure is your Master’s. Even when his pleasure brings you only pain.”
Steele had been chosen to inflict that lesson. He was quite the sadist when he chose to be. Nina had been bound on a wheel, her arms and legs pulled out to the maximum level of muscle strain. Then he’d taken up his Mistress’s switch and gone after Nina’s arms, legs, torso, sex. When she’d screamed and cried, he’d ruthlessly had her gagged with a rubber plug shaped like a very thick male organ, wrapped in cloth so her cries were suppressed.
He’d been wearing only a pair of pants that were like no pants she’d ever seen, so tight his sex was clearly visible. The more she struggled, the harder and thicker he became, showing her that her distress was exciting him.
When at last he set the switch aside, she was almost faint with relief. He sat down on a chair before her, reached into the pants and took out his impressive organ. He leisurely pulled on it, massaging himself to climax, all while his eyes devoured her spread and tortured body.
After he finished, he tucked himself back in, rose and came to her. Turning the wheel so her head was down at his knees, he put his mouth between her legs. Though her body shook with the stress of the whipping, and she had blood drying on her from places where the switch had cut through, she nearly came to a hard, terrible climax from the manipulation of his mouth, the rough tweaking of her nipples from his strong fingertips. But as always, a female trainee stepped in at the last moment to push her over the edge, while Steele watched.
It wasn’t close to her definition of pleasure. Yet her body had still responded. Because she’d given her Master what he wanted. Her foundation and fear had crumbled somewhere during the process, leaving her with a fierce determination to live up to everything he wanted from her.
Everything. His pleasure is your pleasure, even if he gives you intolerable pain. She’d thought that meant that, even if she derived nothing from the moment except agony, she was supposed to be happy she’d pleased him. Instead, Steele had shown her the horrifying truth that serving him had become the most important, satisfying thing to her.
“What scares you the most, Nina?”
She wondered if The Mistress had
some avenue into her mind like that second mark she’d described, because the female was too damn good at picking up on her thoughts.
“You know,” Nina said, bitterness giving way to weariness. She shifted to her knees, and stroked a fingertip over the woman’s delicate ankle, just one questing touch. She didn’t look at her face. Instead, Nina’s chin dropped to her chest, her other arm hugging her body.
Lesson Three. “That I understand this without understanding it. Even as I hate it, and I want to go home. I want to go back to my life. But I fear you’ve broken my mind and soul, which were none too solid to begin with. You’ve made me addicted to the things that you can make my body do. It’s a drug, is all. As hopeless and pointless as all addictions are. A waste of life.”
The Mistress slid her foot closer to her, touched Nina’s curled toes as Nina’s hand remained on her ankle, slid listlessly up her calf. “It’s not an addiction, but a craving that was always there. We simply opened a road to it, to all the possibilities that can come with it.”
“But this isn’t what I wanted to do with my life.” The tears were there, but they were as useless as saying what she’d already said too many times before, so she pushed them back.
“I know. Come kiss me, little one. Let the disappointment go, for one night.”
Nina didn’t kiss The Mistress yet. Instead, she adjusted and slid her hand across The Mistress’s throat, from shoulder to shoulder, tracing the collarbone, the tender pocket between. Then, at length, she followed the sternum between the woman’s breasts. Back up, back down. Over the top of one, then the other. Fingertips trailing.
The first night, her three roommates had done that. Just fingertips, all over, until she was shuddering and crying out as if in climax before they ever got her there. The first lesson they’d taught her was that any part of the skin could conduct arousal.
When The Mistress shifted, Nina’s gaze went to her face. The female’s lips had parted, her fang tips showing. She was lifting to Nina’s touch as Nina herself might do. She was arousing The Mistress.