Safe Word

by Molly Weatherfield

  I gazed at her curiously, at times when the party guests' demands and desires threw us into proximity. There was a slight blue cast under her eyes, from crying so hard that afternoon, I imagined. But she was quite recovered now, and certainly didn't deserve the harsh treatment she was gettingthe commands spat at her, the bruises left on her skin.

  She probably wasn't used to treatment like that. Nor to receiving demerit tokens-the hollow lead sounds at her throat must have been hard to bear, not to speak of the token master's affectation of surprise when he held up the lead disks later that evening, for the crowd to see. Or the audience's coarse, drunken, dull-witted shouts of delight. They'd already done a similar number on me, but not so elaborately. It's the elegant, polished slaves like Sylvie or Stephanie that the crowd goes wild about, when they get a chance to see them punished.

  There were lots of other slaves up there on the dais that night, and quite a few had gotten demerit tokens. So there were lots of other little dramas to endure as the master went through the line, checking out the contents of everybody's coinbox. They make you wait up there if they've found lead in your coinbox. You kneel up with your hands at the back of your neck, your legs open wide, chest and belly and genitals as completely displayed as possible-the pose that Stephanie had struck in Madame Roget's bedroom. You wait for them to finish the stupid ceremony, the contest. And then they march you off to your punishment.

  Except they didn't march me or Sylvie off. We remained kneeling on the dais as everybody else was led to the gauntlet they'd be running. And much of the audience had stayed in their places too.

  The token master cleared his throat. What would the gentlemen and ladies say, he asked, to a rematch between these two troublesome ponies? A midnight race? Of course, he added, when the laughs and cheers and applause had subsided, we probably wouldn't be covering much ground this time.

  Oh, yes, they loved that. And they all knew what he meant too, chuckling appreciatively as we were attached to whipping frames-two sets of posts set side by side in the ground, each set with a plank between them. We each stood behind a plank, spreading out our arms to be attached by our cuffs. The planks were high off the ground. When they moved my chin into the little valley sanded into the center of the plank-to keep my head still-I had to stand on my toes. I guess we both did, side by side as though we were at the starting line of a race. They strapped bridles to our heads, handing the reins to the punishment masters who'd be whipping us on. And I couldn't see Sylvie, but I knew that she'd be responding exactly as I was doing-as any real racing pony would have done. You feel the whip at your back and the pull at the soft inside of your mouth and you run-you raise your knees in elegant pony gait, and you run as fast as you possibly can. Even on bare feet when you're trussed up too high to land squarely. Even if you're running in place and there's no finish line to head for. You run until the crowd is satisfied and the whipping stops. And then you weep while they jostle to get close up, to poke and slap you, and to comment appreciatively on how nicely you've been marked.

  They got bored pretty quickly though, and drifted away. I felt stupid and embarrassed to be left alone with Sylvie there. We listened to each other's sobs until the guy in khakis came and cut her down, kissing her gently, and carrying her off.

  I had to wait a little longer for Annie to come get me, and of course she was too small to carry me. She was professional about taking care of me, though-she didn't flaunt the happiness in her eyes. She was sweet to me, too, gently rubbing salve into my wounds, cleaning the makeup off my face, kissing me goodnight as she put me to sleep in my stall. But I could tell that she wanted to get back to Kate. And I couldn't blame her. Anyway, I thought, I should sleep-it had been an exhausting day, and who knew what was going to happen tomorrow? Annie had said she'd tell them to let me sleep through breakfast. Good, I thought, I'd need it. But I was too excited to settle down. I tossed and turned, the straw in the stall tickling the bruises and welts on my ass. And the sky, I could see through the half-open stable door, wasn't entirely dark anymore, whenever it was that I finally drifted off.

  So I was pretty wrecked when I woke up the next morning.

  And of course I hadn't really been able to sleep through breakfast. The stable was far too noisy, ringing with the clatter of pans of food and galvanized buckets of water, the banging of doors and the creak of hinges, and the brisk, loud voices of grooms and trainers preparing for the day's events. Still, I was glad to be allowed just to lie there for a while. And then it got later and the sun got brighter. And I got a lot hungrier. Hungry and thirsty and tired and thrilled and nervous. But mostly hungry. Had they forgotten me?

  I heard Annie's nasal little voice, cutting through the din. "...biting off more than she can chew. I mean, it's really all about him, you know?"

  And a lower voice, a man's voice that wasn't as familiar to me. I couldn't make out all the words. "...he's not so bad...."

  And Annie, a bit shrill this time, "Yeah, I know, he makes her happy. But he doesn't deserve...." And then, opening the door to my stall, "Oh, shit, she's up already"

  I struggled to my knees, catching a glimpse of them before I remembered to lower my eyes. The guy who'd cut Sylvie down looked accusingly at Annie, and then relented a bit. "It's okay," he said, "you didn't really say much."

  All of which would normally have inflamed my curiosity. But at that moment I was much too hungry to be curious, so I was soon gratefully-and literally-eating out of Annie's hand. She'd brought me an apple and, even more exciting, a banana, and I was quite beside my self with enjoyment. The guy disappeared, reappearing with a little trough of water for me to lap at, while he and Annie watched me wordlessly.

  And after I came back from the latrine, Annie punched me lightly on the arm. "Okay, asshole, go with Steve now," she said. And to Steve, "Well, back to work," hurrying out to Tony and Randy, leaving him to take care of me and me to wonder about him. He had a thick mustache, and he was very muscular, wearing precisely ironed khakis again, and a light blue shirt. I could feel him looking coolly and steadily at me. Perhaps he was still angry at me, I thought, for having won yesterday's race.

  I'd be an extra girl in Kate's scene, I thought, as Steve led me to a car with dark-tinted windows, closing the door after me. Which probably meant that Sylvie and Stephanie would be there as well, and probably they weren't going to be any friendlier than Steve. Well, you couldn't blame Sylvie, of course, but I wasn't looking forward to Stephanie either. Because when I'd first gone for pony training, she'd been there, in the same stable. And I'd loathed her, snooty little goody-goody with her flawless manners. My friend Cathy and I used to whisper through a knothole between our stalls at night. We'd giggle and make spiteful fun of Stephanie, like bad kids at summer camp. And Stephanie must have known, I thought. The kids who get made fun of at summer camp always know.

  We were driving through the stone gates of an estate now, down a dense, overgrown narrow back road, the dappled sunlight flickering through the trees and the tinted car windows. 1 stared curiously up at the big story-book house Steve had parked in front of, and followed him up the stairs and through the silent entryway-graceful polished stairway to the right, lace-curtained double doors and large ferny houseplants in front of us and to the left.

  "Two flights up," Steve said briefly to me, "first door on the right."

  He watched as I walked silently up the thickly carpeted stairway, light from the stained-glass windows painting mottled, vivid designs on my naked skin. I climbed the second flight of stairs. First door on the right. The ceilings were high, the doors at least ten feet tall. I knocked, feeling like a small child.

  I had hoped that it would be Kate behind that door, but I wasn't too surprised to find Stephanie, all tumbling black curls and huge blue-violet eyes, peachy skin and single dimple in her cheek. All smiles, too, but not friendly ones. She looked shrewd and calculating, nodding curtly and motioning me into the large room.

  It was a nursery. Well, that's what it looked
like, anyway-like that enormous Edwardian dormitory where Wendy, John, and Michael Darling had slept, in Peter Pan. I guessed that whoever owned the house had hired a decorator to create it for their kids, in a fit of upscale retro Anglophile whimsy. It wasn't a fancy sort of room; it was big and clearly expensive, but the decorator had gone for a sort of shabby, aristocratic, cold-showers-and-beef-tea asceticism. All the more dissonant, then, as a setting for Sylvie and Stephanie and me-naked in our collars and cuffs. Sylvie was lying on her belly on one of the small white iron beds, carefully making up her face in a mirror propped against the pillows. No smiles from her, not even evil ones. Just calm concentration on the mirror, a brief glance at me, and a determined glance at Stephanie, who nodded firmly, shutting the door behind me. The children's hour, I thought, gulping.

  The room was full of toys, too, though not the kind the original owners had imagined-these toys were made of leather and latex and brass and iron. There were big wicker baskets filled with whips and restraints of various sizes and shapes. There were high-heeled shoes lined up at the scuffed powder-blue baseboard, and black corsets and garter belts hanging from hooks on the wall that once must have held sweet little smocked pinafores from Laura Ashley and overalls from Baby Gap and OshKosh B'Gosh. There were latex cocks on harnesses, too-a large selection of them, in all the colors of the rainbow. There were two-tone jobs, marbled ones. And some were translucent as well, with glitter embedded in the latex. All sizes and shapes-I mean, besides your traditional naturalistic ones, there were twists and bumps and spirals. I watched warily as Stephanie chose a handful-a bouquet-of them, strapped one on, and tossed another to Sylvie.

  "I'll go first," she said to her, blowing her a kiss, "unless you really want to."

  "No," Sylvie answered, coolly, "you go ahead."

  But first Stephanie just walked around me, critically. "She's really not all that terribly pretty, is she?" she asked.

  "Oh no," Sylvie answered, "but, well, she does have something, you know Even Kate says so."

  "Attitude, Kate says. Makes people want to hurt her."

  "Umm, well, I can see that, yes. Too bad we only have permission to fuck her."

  "Well, her ass is her best feature, after all."

  I started to look around nervously, for the grease. I mean, they were going to grease that cock, weren't they, before Stephanie stuck it up my best feature? And I wasn't at all reassured when Stephanie positioned herself squarely in front of me, her voice icy. "Suck it, Carrie," she said.

  I hesitated for a heartbeat. Did she mean that the only lubrication I'd get was my own saliva? And then, just before she had to push me down to my knees, I got down quickly, opened my mouth, and inhaled the monster, watching its shaft, in its obscene fuchsia color, disappear down my mouth to my throat.

  Sylvie had gotten off the bed and was watching closely. "Deeper," she said to me. She smacked my ass with the cock that she hadn't strapped on yet. "Don't imagine you can hold back on us."

  No, I didn't imagine I could. And yes, she was right. I could open my throat a little more widely. I could keep from retching, if I tried, if I gave it everything I had. I felt the latex fill my throat, in hollows that nobody usually touched. My eyes filled with tears, but I kept going down on that cock as though it were my life's work. I was frightened, disoriented. I mean, I'd known I wasn't their favorite person, but this didn't seem like Sylvie or Stephanie at all-more like their evil top twins. It was like getting to see the dark side of the moon. And then they blindfolded me-in soft, thick black velvetand I couldn't see anything at all.

  A hand grabbed the ring in the back of my collar ("sillylooking collar," I heard one of them sneer) and dragged me to one of the beds. I scrambled onto it, banging my shins, and raised myself up on my knees. And I breathed an enormous sigh of relief when one of them shoved some grease up my asshole.

  They took turns fucking me-speeding up and slowing down, squeezing and slapping my breasts, and commenting dryly from time to time on my form, my looks, my performance. "Well, she can do this okay, anyway," I think that was Stephanie, very grudgingly-and from Sylvie, a giggled "I should hope so, or I'd lose all my respect for Jonathan." They tried different cocks, commenting on some of the more exotic ones, and giggling about how they looked in them. They kissed and stroked each other, too, I think, though I could only feel and hear it, rather than see it. I began to cry out-it was painful, and it was also arousing-but when I felt the tears soaking the blindfold, I knew I was crying because I was lonely. I wanted one of them to kiss or stroke me.

  They didn't, of course. They left me kneeling on the bed and I guessed that they'd gone to one of the other little beds, where I could hear them giggling and kissing, hugging and poking and playing. And then deep moans, and I supposed that they'd taken off the cocks and were happily eating each other, crying out, and then ending with creamy sighs of contentment.

  And whispers, then. "Oh, well, she took that pretty well, anyway," and "You can't really blame her for winning, I guess." More ominously, "She's probably not going to have an easy afternoon, after all," and then lots of stuff I couldn't hear, until Stephanie called out to me, "You can come into bed with us if you want, you know."

  I tore off the blindfold. It was difficult not to take a flying leap, and it was delightful to have them touch and kiss me. "Kate lets you make love to each other?" I asked.

  Stephanie laughed. "Well," she said, "not all the time. But for treats, yes, she does. Because, you know, Sylvie was so miserable last night, losing to you. We never expected that to happen, after all. Well, nobody did." I forbore to say that I had. I mean, no point messing up this good thing I seemed to have going with them all of a sudden.

  She continued, "And, anyhow, Kate says that it's a male thing, that business of being so stingy with a slave's sexuality. Because it seems to us there's always enough to go aroundwell, we never have any problem with it, anyway"

  And Sylvie added, "And neither does Randy"

  They giggled at that, and so did I. The evil twins had disappeared, leaving me rolling around in bed with Marcia Brady and Laurie Partridge. It was goofy, silly, a little like being part of the Babysitters' Club, but it was fun anyway. We messed around a while longer and then we took showers, toweling each other's backs. We did each other's fingernails; this was serious business, they had to be short and their edges silkensmooth. A maid-part of the staff that came with the rented house-brought us lunch, little troughs of food and water. She was terrified, uncertainly putting the troughs down on the floor, as Steve must have told her to do, and skittering out the door.

  The food was as wholesome and charmless as any food I'd gotten anywhere. Stephanie and Sylvie assured me that the food Kate gave them at home in California was a lot better, though they admitted that it was also pretty bland and healthy. They talked a lot about Kate-and home-beginning at least half of their sentences with, "Kate says...." They seemed to feel that living with Kate was their real home-their real life, and not some kind of fantastic intermission from it. Happy families, I thought. Wow-they're not alike at all.

  "But, you know, even the others at home get to have sex with each other, sometimes, for treats," Sylvie was saying.

  "The others?" I asked.

  They pouted a little at my question. But then they patiently explained. It seemed that Kate owned the both of them and Randy outright-her name was on their papers. But the other six slaves at the place in Napa were owned by Kate's corporation.

  "Well, she might fuck one of them, there's nothing stopping her. And we're all trained together in the mornings and disciplined together in the late afternoons. Steve takes care of a lot of the details, but it's really Kate that everybody tries to please. Still, it's different with us three, because we keep her satisfied on a daily basis. We bathe her, do her nails, and she takes us to bed with her. Mostly, they take care of clients. Which we do too, of course. But she's our mistress. I'd hate it if I didn't have one mistress, or a master, I guess, to please."

 
"Well, there's Marco," Sylvie said pensively. "Sometimes, I think that if Kate didn't own me, I'd want..."

  "Marco?"

  Sylvie explained. "He lives at Kate's. She boards him, trains him, has him worked and used along with the rest of us. And sometimes-sometimes quite suddenly-his mistress appears and he's all hers. I was there last week, serving tea, when she visited-she'd shown up without calling or anything-and they'd had to find Marco on one of the pony trails and unharness him, and wash him down quickly. And then they led him in, looking very pretty I must say, and he kissed her feet and presented, and she examined him very carefully-I love it when somebody looks me over that carefully-and then she complimented Kate on how improved he was. And you could see how happy he was. I mean, it must be wonderful, that moment, when you haven't even prepared or anything, and you know that they're pleased with how you're coming along. It must make the time you're separated.. .1 don't know, romantic."

  Stephanie shrugged, obviously less romantic in her tastes. "Well, anyway, we serve her directly I'd hate it any other way."

  "And when Jonathan comes to visit?" I asked.

  "Oh, he gets everything he wants," she laughed, "us, her, anybody else. And lately, she's been trying out entertainments for him, things she's working up for important clients. We all try extra hard, too-even Steve, lately, have you noticed, Sylvie?-we're all extra sweet to him because Kate's in such a good mood when he's there.

  "But a lot of what we do," she continued, "is help her with her scenes. I mean, she uses the others when she has to, like she's using you today, but mostly, the three of us have it sort of covered."

  She added that I'd see what they were talking about soon enough.

  I could feel my nervousness returning.