As I crossed to the sideboard to put down my serving bowl and drop to my knees until I'd be needed again, I saw Andrew's eyes move from my breasts to Jane's. They were pretty, just a bit heavy for her slender frame, and I could see that he wanted them criss-crossed with painful red lines too. And I knew that she could see it, as well. Her face flushed and at first her eyes looked frightened, and then I could see a new knowledge gathering within them. I watched her back straighten, her breasts lift under his fascinated gaze. Happy birthday, Jane, I thought, and I wished suddenly that I were back on the island, Mr. Constant's eyes on me as I preened for Annie in the corral. I was envious, I realized. Of Jane, but really, of course, of Stephanie and Sylvie.
Especially Sylvie. Because Kate, you see, had not just "done herself," as she'd said she would that afternoon. I mean, she started that way, caressing herself while Sylvie skillfully laid those even marks on my breasts. But she was also watching carefully, too carefully to abandon herself to pleasure. She called out sharply when I'd had enough, and then, her voice clotted with desire, she called Sylvie to her, and pulled her head, by its honey-blond hair, down to her cunt. And only then did she let go, moaning delightedly under Sylvie's mouth while I watched helplessly, invisibly, still presenting for the beating that was over and done with. I remembered what Stephanie'd said up there in the nursery. She'd been right: You needed a master or mistress all your own. It was awful, being-what was that phrase Kate had used?-an extra girl.
So I was glad to concentrate on clearing away plates and dishes, and to help serve dessert and coffee. And anyway, things had begun to get a bit strained at the table, the conversation becoming rather halting as Andrew grew content simply to look at Jane, and to drift off into reveries. I thought Kate would just send them to bed-it appeared to me that the scene had been a big success-but she seemed surprisingly edgy.
"You would like to see her bridled, wouldn't you?" she asked sharply, and when he nodded absentmindedly, she called Steve over and whispered something to him, causing a hint of a scowl to appear at the corner of his well-behaved mouth, below the squared-off edge of his mustache. He disappeared, and soon after, Kate told the four of us to go out the back door to the garden shed, and let the regular house servants finish clearing away.
"We're just camping out here, after all," she smiled at Andrew "There isn't a regular stable, but we've set up a kind of makeshift tackroom and there's a nice two-seater pony cart. I thought Sylvie and Carrie could take us for a little night ride while Jane learns a few of the basics."
He agreed politely, and the four of us filed out, Sylvie and Stephanie exchanging little shrugs as soon as they were outside Kate's purview. Sylvie raised her eyebrows and nodded in my direction, and Stephanie scowled back at her-Steve's scowl in graceful miniature. I followed Jane, surprised at how confident and serene her step had become, as we walked barefoot across the soft grass of the back lawn, to the gardening shed, which was down near the river, and where Steve was waiting to harness and bridle us.
He hadn't had time to take off his dark blue butler trousers, but he'd put on a fresh pale-yellow oxford cloth shirt. I thought of an actor in a repertory company, who has to double up on roles, making bits and pieces of costume do double duty during quick scene changes. The trousers were disconcertingly stodgy and butler-like, even with the leather suspenders dangling down his hips. But the shirt, the cuffs folded one impeccable turn up over his powerful forearms, was every bit as much a costume. I mean, he was clearly playing the role of Steve now, whose job it was to get us harnessed and bridled in no time flat.
I watched Jane, wondering how she'd respond to being harnessed up her first time. And she surprised me, bending and opening so eagerly and obediently that you couldn't miss how much she was enjoying Steve's hands on her. Oh dear, I thought, I don't think this was supposed to happen.
Steve led an eager Jane and a slightly grim Stephanie to a pole, attaching their collars to the long thin chains that hung from the top, in a kind of maypole arrangement. They'd circle the pole, Jane copying Stephanie, as Steve put them through all the elementary pony gaits-walk, trot, canter. It's how you begin pony training, you know, and it's not as easy as it looks. But it all seemed blurred, somehow, by the confusion in the air-confusion that I felt inexplicably guilty about, as though there were a way that I, and only I, could set things to rights.
Although what, realistically, could I possibly do, standing there in my boots and bridle and tail? Well, if you could use the word realistic to describe the scene at all. Maybe, I thought, I'd better just chill out and enjoy the ride.
It's not my problem, I thought, as Steve harnessed us to a two-seater pony cart on the path by the river. Hey, I told myself, as he pulled straps and buckles tight against me, I'm only a pony, and I'm not responsible for whatever strange emotional muddle these people have got themselves into. The tight harness held me upright when I almost blacked out for a few moments after the clips came off my nipples. And then I just enjoyed the breeze, and the moonlight on the river, and the feel of Sylvie-her warmth, her breath, her smell-strapped and harnessed next to me. Kate stepped into the cart, with Andrew after her, and snapped the whip over us; we trotted obediently, sharing our understanding of the reins' tugs at our mouths, the whip's sting at our asses. After you've raced, you know, a gentle night trot can seem like the height of polite civility. Although toward the end I began to wish that we could go faster, so that I could show off more. But maybe, I thought then, she didn't want us-meto get too tired. Because maybe, later tonight, when she was finally finished with Jane and Andrew, maybe, I thought, Kate would. . .well, I was afraid even to think about it.
But she didn't. She kept Stephanie with her that night, and Steve put Sylvie and me to bed in the nursery, chaining us so that we couldn't touch ourselves or each other, and warning us not even to think of whispering. Silly of me to have imagined anything else, I thought, willing myself to sleep, to forget the day's confusions and frustrations. And when I did sleep, my dreams were crowded with sitcom and fairy-tale characters in lascivious positions, eagerly sucking and eating each other, within overlapping dream narratives that gobbled each other like snakes swallowing each other's tails.
And after Sylvie had punished my breasts again the next morning, for Andrew's instruction and entertainment, I thought of those dreams again. And of the end of Through the Looking Glass, when Alice wonders who had dreamed all these adventures, she or the White King.
Well, Andrew'd paid for the scene after all, so I guessed that made him our young white king. The scene had been his dream, the rest of us symbolic actors within it. Only I wasn't so sure. I glanced at him in his armchair, Jane kneeling between his legs, her naked back against his groin. He leaned forward, forearms on his knees, eagerly drinking in Kate's hints and instructions, his big hands on Jane's bare breasts. Kate had positioned her that way, so that she could also watch me being beaten. And also, I suspected, so that Andrew wouldn't notice the slight disappointment that had started up in her eyes when breakfast had been served by the house's real butler, Steve being conspicuously absent.
The visit wound down quickly. There was a light buffet lunch with champagne and a birthday cake for Jane, decorated with lilies of the valley and candied violets. Jane looked chic and grown-up now, in a short black cotton knit dress, bare legs and sandals, and she chattered to Kate, in a brittle and determined voice, about the last Gaultier show, while Andrew watched her proudly and possessively. And then the butler-the real one, again-carried their bag out to their beautiful car and they got in and drove away. And soon after that, Kate and Steve brought me back to Mr. Constant, and they all watched Tony and Randy win the boys' pairs race.
"And she never made love to you?"Jonathan asked slowly.
"No," she answered, "and that made me very sad, you know, because I did want her very badly. And maybe I was kidding myself, but I thought she wanted me too. But I guess I was wrong.... Because, you know, I've thought about this over and over, and I'm
sure of it... the whole time I was there, in that house, she never once touched me."
He made a small noise that she couldn't decipher. Amusement, amazement, and something else, she wasn't sure what. Happiness, she surprised herself by thinking. Yes. She'd never seen him so happy.
"Oh, she wanted you, all right," he said. "You weren't kidding yourself there. She wanted you so much that she lost control of her scene a little at the end. No wonder Steve got ticked off at her."
She shrugged in bewilderment.
"Oh, come on," he said. "I mean, you told me the story yourself. The story she wanted you to tell me. Well, she wouldn't have expected you to observe Jane and Andrew, not to mention Steve, in such detail, but... "
"But?"
... but she wanted you to tell me that she practically staged that whole scene around you... and she didn't touch you. Because she didn't think she had a right to."
"But Mr. Constant wouldn't have cared.... "
He shook his head.
CARRIE
Okay, I guess I did understand. Typical, Carrie, I thought; you knock yourself out trying to understand what was really going on. Was it Andrew's story? Jane's? Maybe you even thought it was yours. And the answer's been there the whole time. Annie told you that morning in the stable. It's all about him Jonathan. Or it finally became so, when you obligingly delivered Kate's message for her.
He sat down on the side of the bed and stroked my shoulders. "You're chilly," he said. "Come on under the covers, I'll warm you up."
I hadn't noticed how cold I felt. He lay on top of me, kissing me slowly, holding my hands.
"I can understand why you found it so confusing at her place-all the overlapping scenarios everybody's playing. It used to drive me bats. But she keeps it remarkably coherent-I mean, this was an unusual situation, her lusting after you and not letting herself have you-mostly she runs quite a tight ship. Anyway, one gets used to it. You'll see.
"Look," he said then, "I know we're not done with our storytelling. But can we take a break for a while?"
"Okay," I said sadly, "I guess."
"Things will get clearer, I promise. There's more story to go. Indulge me." He smiled as he said it-probably, I thought, a lot like how he would smile at Marilyn the receptionist.
He picked up the phone, to make dinner reservations. It would be the first time we'd be eating anywhere you'd need a reservation. Pretentious, snobby, I thought, absurdly.
"Well, we didn't have any lunch," he said briskly, as though I'd asked him for an explanation. And then, continu ing to smile, "Why don't you wear your little black skirt, okay? and you've got a little short black T-shirt, right? ...so there'll be this half-inch of skin above the top of the skirt...."
And, not too surprisingly, the food was great-incredible really, famous, he said-and dinner was fun. He'd been reading this article in a French architecture journal. Well, trying to read it-he needed help with some of the vocabulary. Not the technical terms, of course. He explained some of them to me, as they came up, and I remembered that he was a terrific explainer-he liked talking about buildings, and about what he actually did when he was running a CAD program, the ways it was better than the old ways of doing things, and the ways it wasn't. But the author of the article had used another kind of technical vocabulary as well, borrowed from literary criticism, which was what he needed help with. He nodded appreciatively as I ran through the basics.
"Well, there's something to that, I guess," he said. "Maybe I'll give it another shot."
And then we were both silent, sipping our coffee, looking at each other.
We were still silent when we got back to the hotel room. We were nervous, fumbling with buttons and zippers.
"Hold it," he said, going to the bed and sitting down on it. "Come over here, in front of me." He peeled off the little black T-shirt, pulled the skirt off over my head. He finished unbuttoning his shirt and opened his pants, pulling off the belt, taking off his shoes. He'd already helped me with my cowboy boots, thank goodness, and I knew he didn't want me to take off the black stockings and garter belt. I knelt in front of him, kissing his belly, the muscles, the fine black hair. His cock was stiffening between my breasts, and I'd begun nibbling slowly downward, when he stopped me, lifting my chin with the knuckle of a bent index finger.
"It's time," he said softly, "for you to come back to me, don't you think?"
Had he planned it to happen this way? I didn't think so. I knew he had more to tell me. And I had another story for him too. I stared dazedly at him, my chin still resting on his finger. He stroked my jaw with his thumb. He was still smiling, but there was something darker in his eyes, and at the corners of his mouth.
"That's right," he said, "take a little time to get used to it. There's plenty of time."
But what about the rules, the arrangements? I need to know more, I thought, I need to come to terms. But I didn't know how to ask. The lines of force between us had shifted, the iron filings lined up around the poles of the magnet. I leaned forward-I didn't know what was holding me up, the energy field or his finger under my chin. And I decided that I knew everything that I needed to know. He could tell me whatever he chose. Moment by moment. Or not at all.
I lowered my eyes, relaxed my jaw. I felt my back straighten, my body rearrange itself under his gaze. He traced my eyelids with his fingertips.
"Good, good," he said, in a soothing tone. "Oh, yes, that's my good girl. Now tell me what you are."
And I wasn't surprised by how matter-of-fact my voice sounded.
"I'm your slave, Jonathan," I said.
JONATHAN
Bingo. Just like that. The jolt to the solar plexus. I wanted to come right then, between her tits. No. Not now.
"My belt's on the floor," I said, "next to your right knee. Get it for me."
She bent gracefully, picked it up with her mouth, and dropped it into my outstretched hand. It was a shame I didn't have anything better, I thought, but this would have to do for now. I stuffed one of my handkerchiefs into her mouth and tied it in place with another. A nice, gentlemanly, oldfashioned habit, using big cotton handkerchiefs. I'd learned it-and a lot of other stuff that has come in handy over the years-from my Uncle Harry.
"On the bed," I said, "hands and knees. You won't need to count the strokes. I'll beat you until you can't hold position any more."
I knew that she wouldn't cheat. And when she did finally collapse on the bed, sobbing behind the handkerchief gag, I could see that she was ashamed that she hadn't lasted it out any longer.
I took off the gag, and then I sat down in the armchair to wait while she cried a little more. But she was already scrambling to her knees on the floor at the side of the bed. She was sobbing silently, her breasts heaving, huge tears coursing down her face.
"Stand up," I said, "and go to the mirror. Let's see how I've marked you."
I had done quite a job-the flesh marbled under the darkening welts. We'd sit in a restaurant the next evening, I thought, and I'd explain what I'd planned for us, what she could expect. I'd let her look at me, so that I could look into her eyes. And as we spoke, I'd enjoy knowing how much it hurt her to sit down. But meanwhile, I liked watching her inspect the damage. I even liked her momentary little look of pride that she'd taken as much as she had. I knew I should discipline her for it, but what the hell. Look, I knew by now that I was too lazy and self-indulgent to be doing this job alone. I was glad I'd have help this time around.
"Thank you, Jonathan," she said, turning around to face me.
"Yes," I said, "you look very nice that way"
She dropped to her knees, crawled back to me, and looked shyly at the belt, which was still in my hand. I let her kiss it and then to bend from the waist and kiss my feet. I leaned over and raised her chin in my hand again.
"Or rather," I continued, "you would look very nice, with a collar and cuffs. You look a little silly without them, don't you think? Well, tomorrow we'll go to Paris to start outfitting you. I'm very happ
y to have you back, you know. Now bring me my cigarettes and an ashtray"
The Fourth Day
CARRIE
nd so, the next afternoon, I found myself in front of a .three-part mirror, modeling collars and cuffs, leashes and bridles and harnesses. We'd taken the train to Paris that morning and headed directly to the shop. It was small. You got to it through the cobbled courtyard of a shabby building near the Place de la Bastille. Of course there was no dressing room, and anybody could have walked in on us while I tried on the fetishes, sturdy leather and cold metal buckled tight against my naked skin. The proprietor (Jonathan had told me he was a saddle maker-with sidelines) was old, small and wizened, courtly and loquacious with Jonathan, and terse and direct with me, communicating in short commands-kneel, turn, bend, open.
They were fitting me with full pony equipment-harness, boots, and bridle. And tails, of course-several different ones, actually, more than I'd really need as a pony. Jonathan hastened to repeat that, after all, I'd won the big pony race in New York, and that he'd certainly be racing and showing me some more. Which surprised me, because he'd never shown any interest in that sort of thing before. Still, he was buying all this custom-made gear. The saddle maker said that it would take a week or so to finish it and pack it up to send back to California. Jonathan nodded thoughtfully. "But," he said, "I must have a whip today"
"Bien sur Monsieur," the saddle maker agreed, heading toward his stockroom. He came back into the fitting room with several of them, and together he and Jonathan agreed on the most evil and beautiful riding crop I'd ever seen. The piece of cane, encased in buttery russet leather, was so supple that you could touch its ends together, make a circle of it. There were thin gold bands on the handle.
Safe Word Page 15