Fall From Grace

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  Kurt’s slave careened again as her body took the pain. He got off to the feel of her; the way her agony became his aphrodisiac, the way she shot electric fire into her physical self. It was a malevolent screw, filled with his desires to sadistically watch her writhe in the sin of her own making. He’d see her humbled, take her down where she belonged and let her worry for awhile.

  Regan needed attending, and he was a most apt and attendant master.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Kurt never bothered rapping on her office door—whether it was open or closed. And though he didn’t exactly barge in, he always entered the studio as if he owned it. He caught her in the act of working, reading, eating, goofing off—sorting through pictures—always off guard. It would seem after six weeks that she should have had some precognition of his arrival, but every time she was always surprised and feeling just a little guilty that he would be displeased with her activities—no matter what she was doing. She wasn’t yet his slave and he wasn’t her master, but that didn’t stop her natural inclination to please him, as if she were already collared and under contract.

  While her ‘vacation’ with General McIntyre seemed like a critical juncture in their developing relationship, she could not yet gauge its effect. Two days after coming home, she was hardly back into the mindset of work—or the rest of her life—let alone able to figure out exactly what Kurt Kingsley was thinking when he sent her to be trained. Even when he’d arrived at the end of her dungeon scene and had been the one to bring her out of subspace back to the land of reality, he’d said very little with words. His care and regard for her had been without fault; but he refused to speak of his motives—or speak at all for that matter—from the time he disengaged her from the whipping post until he walked her to her front door.

  The next time he appeared in her studio, she was more anxious than ever for him to address her eight days with the General. Regan was sitting on the floor now, sifting through portfolio pictures. Although this was part of her job, she felt like a little girl arranging her scrapbook.

  “Kurt!” She stopped what she was doing.

  “Regan, hi.” He eyed her for several seconds, his face a bit perplexed. “Are you scared of something? Or are you not feeling well?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You’re pale and nervous.”

  She examined his expression, finally deciding to answer with the truth. “It’s you, sir. You do this every time you show up. I don’t know what to say, or even how to act.”

  “You’re behaving just fine. Trust me, submissively always works well with me.”

  She smiled, feeling more at ease and started to pull herself from the floor.

  “No, stay there,” he ordered.

  He pulled a chair to her side, one of the overstuffed ones she used for clients, or for herself to read in. They were a little piece of body candy to her tired back when she needed a break. Now, though, the button-tufted burgundy one had become a Master’s chair, and she was sitting at his feet.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, tucking her feet under her a little more and pulling down her short skirt—though it was almost impossible to cover the tops of her hose and the garters that secured them to her garterbelt.

  “Tell me about your days in the General’s house.”

  She thought a moment, while gazing at his sincere blue eyes. They cut less today; and his mood was casual and not as intense as the other times he’d entered her office. She assumed that she could speak freely, so she did. “It was unique, sir. But I was surprised that you required me to go there. I didn’t think that your style of mastery would require such formalities.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Then, it makes me even more curious why you would have me train with him.”

  “For the sake of being trained, Regan. To know that you would do as I ask, regardless of how you question or feel about it. A submissive woman doesn’t have to know the motives of her master. What did you learn from the experience?”

  She thought again of the selfless times when her mind let go while she was washing dishes, scrubbing the floor or polishing the General’s boots. “Guarded focus and concentration,” she concluded. “It’s a mindless rapture.”

  “Guarded focus? Tell me more.”

  For a Master so young—she figured Kurt was thirty-five, though he’d never said so—he seemed remarkably astute.

  “The long hours taught me to be vigilant and dedicated. I had to be careful, observant, but unobtrusive. To work as though I were a blank slate, which nothing would attach to—even though at a moments notice, I might be ordered to some task. I couldn’t be flighty.”

  “And were you ever flighty?”

  “A few times.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “I was punished.”

  “How did you feel about being punished?”

  “I was told not to let it bother me, since punishment would be frequent.”

  “So, it didn’t bother you?”

  “Yes, it did. Punishment always bothers me. I want to be perfect, sir. Knowing I’m not annoys me.”

  “Then that was why you were trained. So, you would remember that being a slave requires a steady, easily accessed mind—at the same time letting go.”

  “I’m more there than ever, sir. But then, too, I just got back. I’m not sure how long this mindset will last.”

  “It will last as long as you want it to.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sure it will.” She was even more sure of herself while staring into Kurt Kingsley’s eyes. He had the power to nourish her submissive mood and drive it deeper, at the same time quicken all her sexual responses so that every nerve ending was raw and waiting the caress of his voice, the touch of his hand on her skin, and the taste of his breath.

  She adored the smug expression on his face.

  All these things she imagined were natural for a submissive woman.

  As she stared into his eyes, there was only one thing on her mind—her unconditional surrender. “Sir, if I were to give myself to you right now…”

  He shook his head and looked dismayed before she could finish her question.

  “You’re not going to,” he said. “Neither of us are ready.”

  “No?” She was confused this time.

  “No, not yet. We still have places to explore, another journey or two to take. There’s no need to rush. Now’s the time to absorb each other. I don’t want a slave I don’t know well. I need to know every quirk and oddity, just as you need to know me. If I were to take your freedom now, I’d be handicapped by my ignorance of you. And you, Regan, would be a foolish woman. You may be a slave, you may want me to control your life, to take over your body and mind; but you do have a mind, and the choice for surrender to any Master needs to be carefully, thoughtfully made. There may be slaves who flit from one master to the next on whims, or masters who toss their slaves around like a piece of furniture they can use and just as easily throw or sell or give away. But if you’re my slave, our lives will not be like that. That kind of behavior doesn’t suit me. I’d rather take the time to know your insides as well as the God who created you. And, I want you knowing who I am in all my darkest moments of mastery.

  “You will be treasured, protected and nurtured. You’ll be schooled, controlled, punished and loved. But I will not take your freedom on a lark, and you will not offer it to me again, until you know you’re ready.”

  She was so afraid and so excited by his speech that she couldn’t reply. She wanted him to repeat every word again so that she could absorb that lecture and know it by heart. But he didn’t leave her with that option. Moving on, he began what he set out to do when he walked through the door…

  “Tell me a fantasy, Regan. The darkest, nastiest one you’ve ever imagined.”

  The abrupt command made her mind go blank. “I don’t know…” Her voice was small, and her eyes empty as she stared into space as though the answer to his question would suddenly materialize there. “
I don’t know,” she repeated.

  “Yes, you do,” he disagreed.

  “But I-I…” She searched a moment as the immediate thought sizzled hot inside her brain. She pushed it aside to find another… certainly with all the sexual fantasies she manufactured over the years, there was one raunchy one that would do just as well as the one elbowing for brain-space right now. After a dozen times trying to push it off, the dreadful thing kept coming back. “I-I…”

  “Can’t be as bad as you think,” Kurt smiled for encouragement.

  “Oh, yes, it can,” she declared. “It’s nothing pretty and I hate thinking of it.”

  “Then that’s the one I want to hear.” He’d made up his mind.

  She didn’t dare ask why. “Understand, I only think this when I’m desperate. When I haven’t cum in days and my body is all bottled up, and I won’t fall asleep without releasing some of my pent-up energy.” She halted, looked at him again and he nodded.

  “I’m in a nunnery,” she finally began, sighing hugely. “An ancient, old world convent, huddled between hills and valleys, scrub trees and vineyards. There are arched doorways, columned corridors, flagstone walks and thick ivy crawling up the side of the buildings. I walk barefoot in my habit. And while my body is covered in black, and I wear the white of purity about my face, beneath the robes I’m naked, my body heated and aroused.

  “I’m told this is the natural state of my being. That to be holy and serve the Lord I must give my body fully in any way I am ordered. Because I am naïve, and being holy is of prime importance to me, I do as I’m told… all the while knowing that the acts that I endure are depraved. I can’t stop them of my own accord, as they feel so satisfying. I crave more.”

  Regan stopped talking, with her head bowed and tears collecting in her eyes.

  “What do they do to you?” Kurt prompted her.

  Her breath was shallow with fear gripping her throat. Her mouth felt so parched that she could hardly speak, and she was sure that she’d never get out the worst of these pictures.

  Seeing her struggle, Kurt grabbed for her tousled blond hair, holding it in his grip gently as a reminder. She looked up feeling not sorrow, nor worry, but inescapable heat that brightened her cheeks.

  “What did the nuns and priests do to you?” he whispered. He was in her head, already knowing how she’d answer, but he would force the words from her mouth.

  “They take me into a secret chapel where there were candles lit all around the room. I can hardly breathe for the thick incense that almost makes me choke. When I get used to breathing again, I’m instructed to kneel at the alter with the other novices… there are always at least seven in my fantasies, young girls like myself on the brink of the most spectacular choice of our lives. We stare in penitent submission at the candles burning in one great brilliant array before us; dozens of nuns and priests congregate behind us. The light is blinding, but they continue to force our stare. The chanting begins… to something ethereal. The music hits my groin and my sex turns wild. But we’re required to contain ourselves—only inside the ceremony can we allow this wild power free.

  “One by one, our habits are pulled off our backs and torn away, left in a heap of black and white behind us. Our heads were shaved some weeks before, so there is just the fuzz of new hair beginning to grow back. We are each, in turn, taken to the altar, our backs laid against the crude, cold stone…”

  Regan’s mind numbed as she felt that cold make her entire body shiver. The room around her was warm and Kurt’s hand winding through her hair seemed hot, but her body quaked from chills and fright.

  “Don’t stop, Regan,” Kurt urged her again.

  She tried to look away, but he reached for her chin and made her eyes meet his. “It’s just so…” She could see by the seamless resolve in his focused eyes that he wouldn’t let her stop. She took another cleansing breath of air. “There are several nuns to hold us in place,” she started again and the grip on her chin eased, “one to grab each arm and two at my thighs to hold them wide, legs bent so that every private part of my anatomy is there to see, unmasked, exposed to every element and eye. As I look at the faces around me, I see the hint of lurid expressions on their mouths and in their eyes. Then, I notice the women’s habits have been curiously cut up the middle and parted widely, so that I can see their white breasts and their bare cunts below—displayed just as mine is now. Their beautiful nakedness winks at me, as though it knows secrets and understands mysteries that I’d never heard of, even in my imagination. My sexual body beats hotly, while the fantasy plays on. In one moment, I’m an innocent and unsuspecting twenty-year old lying on an altar, for some kind of sacrifice—and in the next, I’m nothing but a horny, slavish woman with no one to master her mind.

  “My sacrilegious imaginings are maddening, but so hot beyond my dreaming that they turn my body savage.

  “My skin smells like my pussy. From every pore of my body, the scent of sex flees to the open air as though I am asking for lovers to come to me and take my flesh. My genitals are so hot that I’m sure one single touch will deliver them to orgasm. But these randy nuns aren’t looking for my climax. They are there to torture me.

  “I watch them, seeing their cruel expressions as they remove my pubic hair. My crotch becomes as naked as the ones I stare at. Once they have me bared, the Mother Superior comes to me with her tapered candle and a contemptuous grin. She drips her hot wax over my flesh, not from high above so that it will cool before it hits the skin, but just inches from the surface, beginning with my freshly shaved pubis, rising upward until she reaches my throat. She circles the wax around my nipples, then drips it on the very tip. I want to scream but the scream gets caught in my throat.

  “Something cold, evilly cold pierces my cunt; and a sudden burst of pain follows as my virgin hole begins to rip apart with this first breach. I am fucked by that cold thing, wondering for a time, if it won’t stop at my cervix, but impales me so deep that it will finally reach my heart.

  “The wax and prick are followed by a fist, a female fist taking aim at my vagina. I’m screaming now. Clamps dig into my nipples at every side, and then I arch back in a powerful strain as I try to keep my flesh from ripping away.

  “I am screaming, ‘my lord, yesssssssssssssssssssssssss,’ as the beat of that fist and the fire at my nipples converge to produce a flood of ending. It’s like dying; nothing matters but the end.

  “As the blood of my virginity runs dripping from my crotch, the clamps are released and the fist is removed. I am caressed back to earth, knowing that I am no holy virgin anymore, but a sinful and depraved beast, hardly fit for hell, but certainly fit for these blasphemous rites.” Regan shook her head. “I can’t tell you anymore… I don’t remember anymore….”

  She was staring into Kurt’s eyes, realizing that she was talking through her tears, opening the windows of her bare soul for him to see inside.

  “You want me now, after that?” she wondered.

  “Nothing has changed. Your fantasies are my fantasies, Regan Wheat. It makes no difference to me what you think or fantasize. It only matters that you arouse me and that you submit. And it matters a great deal to me that you shared that fantasy.”

  “And you’ll share back?” she asked.

  “I will. But for now, you’ll have to get to work, and so will I.”

  Before he exited the studio, he held her close to him, deep within his arms, in such a tender embrace that from just the stimulation of her body as she told the tale, and this affection, she nearly climaxed. He didn’t allow her to go that far, however. There were other matters more important to him. For the moment, denying her the climax was one of those.

  ***

  Regan stood in Tennyson Hallock’s foyer looking into the ceiling thinking how it seemed quite lovely now painted in cream. Wouldn’t a few clouds be enough to set the mood? Did he truly need an orgy of women fucking across this lovely vista?

  She turned to her client with her thoughts, “I
wonder if it wouldn’t be more effective to keep the statement simple… the guests in your house should be focusing on what’s down here.” She made her point succinctly, hoping to engage in a dialogue about this piece he wanted.

  He shook his head, looking righteously amused. “Oh, no, you’re not going to get out of this one. Paint, slave!”

  “But what if it’s absolutely horrible?”

  “Then I’ll inform your Master and he’ll whip you until you quit denigrating your talent.”

  She took a deep breath, knowing that she couldn’t fight him.

  “Don’t make it so hard on yourself, Regan Kingsley. It’s not going to hurt you to lie on your back and create for the next few weeks. I’m sure it’s something you’ll do very well—after all, you’ve had a good deal of practice from what I’ve heard, even if you haven’t been creating with paint and brushes.”

  He was unscrupulous, unabashed, incorrigible—and acutely sexual. There was no way she could ignore the wildness surfacing in her physical body when she was in his presence.

  Realizing that she had little choice, Regan started up the scaffolding, making an uneasy peace with the wood and metal that shakily held her body along Tennyson Hallock’s manufactured sky.

  She didn’t dare look down. With every move the scaffolding swayed. Though she did get her bearings, Regan was certain that the uneasy structure would topple to the floor leaving her nothing but a pile of rag-covered bones.

  It took some time to plot the position of the figures, to allow for the curvature of the domed ceiling and how that might alter the appearance of the bodies. She’d start with sketches, making those right until she had everything sketched into the cream. It might require moving the scaffolding several times, but that wasn’t her worry. Her mind spun off anxiously as she started figuring the time it would take to complete the entire project. Weeks, certainly. Maybe several months. She’d never figured this one job would consume so much of her time, and require that she put everything else aside. But it was Kurt’s decision, and as far as she knew, Tennyson was paying her Master a decent amount for her work. Then, too, he might be paying him nothing. Those were arrangements in which she had no say.