“And now you regret it.” His voice was flat.
“No. I didn’t say that. I haven’t regretted it for a minute. I don’t mean that I don’t regret some things. You saw me be crucified for half an hour at the end of last week’s entertainment. Believe me, I regretted a lot of things when I was hanging in that frame, suffering like you can’t believe. But I never regretted the big jump. I don’t regret that I left the life of a lady.”
He looked curious. “No? You had the best clothes. The best food. Servants to do whatever you wanted. The company of some of the finest wits in the county. What was not to like about being a lady? Didn’t you have a fine husband? Was James cruel to you? Was he secretly a terrible person?”
“No. James was a fine man. He is a fine man. He never treated me with anything but perfect respect. He tried to give me whatever I wanted. But I wanted a life and he didn’t know how to give me that. My fine clothes were a burial shroud. His manor was a mausoleum. The fine food couldn’t nourish the kind of life that I needed. The company – your company – was the best part of that life. But I have your company now. I didn’t give that up.” She smiled at him. “I just see a different side of you when I’m a slave. Now, I see the lusty side of gentlemen and I like that more than their refined wit. I’d rather have your cock shoved into me right up to the root and hear your screams of passion than sit across the table from you and hear your clever literary allusions.” She laughed. “Now if you could toss out a few clever allusions to Shakespeare and Moliere while you were buggering me, I’d have the best of both worlds.”
He laughed. “I don’t think that I could do that. Buggery has a way of diminishing a man’s intellect. It’s like that trick picture where you can see either the old hag or the young beauty but never both at the same time. I can be either a sodomite or a sophisticate but not both at the same time.”
“And I always thought that sodomy was the epitome of sophistication.”
“After all the sodomy that I saw you endure last weekend, you must be the most sophisticated woman in the county.”
“My asshole is certainly the most sophisticated part of me, now.”
He grinned. “There’s not another lady on the continent who can say that.”
“There’s not another lady on the continent who would want to.”
He sobered. “You don’t think there are any others like you?”
“No. But a bit of that kind of sophistication would do some of them a world of good. It did for me.”
“Your slavery gives James a world of pain. You know what you did to him.”
“I gave him an opportunity. He rejected it.”
“What opportunity? You were his wife and you rejected him.” Anger was rising again in Snow’s cheeks.
She didn’t care about mollifying him. She would have preferred to hash this out directly with James but she’d settle for Lord Snow. “I rejected him? Like hell! I gave him an opportunity to buy me. I gave him an opportunity to put me in his kennel. I gave him an opportunity to do anything he wanted to me any time he wanted for the rest of his life. And he turned his back on me. He didn’t even bid on me. He walked out of the auction. He didn’t even wait to see who bought me. You want to know about rejection? Well, that was the cruelest rejection any woman ever experienced. I offered myself to him in the most complete, most humiliating way possible and he walked out on me.”
Lord Snow’s jaw hung slack. “Seriously?” He was almost sputtering. “Seriously? You expected him to buy his own wife? Seriously? You expected that he would raise his hand and offer money for you? After you humiliated him in public. After you told everyone in the world that he was an inadequate husband. You put yourself on the block because you would rather sell yourself to a stranger than go home with your husband and you expected him to just shrug it off and compete against the other bidders?”
“I was only saying that I loved him so much that I was willing to be his slave.” A bitter tear dropped from her eye. “And he said that he didn’t love me enough to place even a single bid on me.” She looked at him. “You did. I was told that you traded a knighthood for me. You wanted me and you’ve got me, here, naked, kneeling in front of you in your pleasure room. I’m ready to give you your money’s worth. Today and tomorrow and every day, any way you want me, for as long as you want me.” She raised her chin. “I was blindfolded so I don’t know if you were one of the gentlemen who used me at the entertainment last week, but if you weren’t, I can assure you that I have developed some considerable skill. And my enthusiasm is unflagging. However you want me to serve you, I won’t disappoint.”
“I want…” His voice broke. He recomposed himself and said, “I want you to get the hell out of here. And tell Apple to get the hell in here, right now. And Lime, too. Both of them.”
* * *
“That didn’t take long.” Nickel’s tone expressed her suspicion.
“He wants to see Apple and Lime right now,” Irene said.
The two slaves scrambled toward the pleasure room. It was a foolish slave who kept her owner waiting even a second longer than necessary and neither of them were foolish. Not after having suffered under Lord Snow’s talented strap.
“What happened in there?” Nickel asked.
Peach, Cherry, and Tamarind sat silently and waited to hear Irene’s answer.
“Nothing much. We talked.”
“About what?”
“About why I sold myself at auction.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him that the life of a lady wasn’t exciting enough.”
Nickel rested her hand on the strap clipped to her corset and waited for more explanation.
Irene didn’t volunteer anything more.
“You better tell me exactly what happened in there or I’ll make your life exciting enough for both of us. And, believe me, it takes a hell of a lot of screaming to make my life exciting.”
The other slaves looked at Irene with eager fascination.
Irene shrugged. “I offered to do whatever he wanted. He wanted to talk. We talked. He was at the auction where I sold myself. He asked why I did it. I told him that it was an impulse. He said that my husband was upset when I put myself on the block–”
“No shit,” Peach said.
Nickel swiveled to glare at her and Peach wilted.
“–and I said that I was upset that my husband didn’t want to buy me. That’s all.”
Nickel turned her attention back to Irene. “Did you service him?”
“Like I said, I offered. He wasn’t interested.”
“Did he whip you?”
“No.”
Nickel frowned. “What was his mood when you left?”
“I don’t know. His mood was swinging back and forth. Sometimes he looked happy and sometimes he looked unhappy.”
A muffled scream slipped through the door to the pleasure room.
All the slaves’ heads swiveled to look in that direction.
Nickel looked back at Irene with an accusatory frown. “I’d say that he wasn’t in a happy mood when you left him.”
Another high-pitched scream penetrated the closed door.
Irene cringed. She would have liked to say that it wasn’t her fault that Apple and Lime were being punished, but everyone including her, was pretty sure that it was.
“You say that he didn’t do anything to you?” Nickel asked.
“He didn’t touch me.”
“Pity,” Nickel said. “It’s high time that someone did. Go to your cell.”
Irene walked out of the kitchen, not hurrying, but not dawdling, either. Nickel scared her but she suspected that she scared Nickel, too. She was getting special treatment from Lord Snow. At best, that created uncertainty and, at worst, Nickel could be replaced. Either way, special treatment for one couldn’t be good for the rest of the kennel.
She didn’t think that Nickel would dare do anything too drastic to her.
The day would come when she would
have to revisit that assessment.
As soon as she entered her cell, Nickel stepped in with her and closed the door.
The cell was so small that her breasts were almost touching Nickel’s black leather corset.
“Do you like getting your cunt licked?” Nickel asked.
Irene shook her head. “Not much.”
“I do. A lot. And you know what happens when I like something a lot?”
“No,” Irene said, but she was pretty sure that she could guess.
“If one of my slaves can give me what I want, then I get it. I get it a lot,” Nickel said. “What do you think about that?”
Irene’s stomach churned. She had no interest in women. Once she had to partner with another slave and give a sex show for a group of gentlemen. She had no choice but to lick the other slave’s cunt so she had done it – slaves did what slaves were told to do – but she had not liked it.
This, though, was not part of a sex show. This was an intimate service. It felt more real. Irene hated to think that she was going to have to satisfy Nickel with her lips and tongue, but slaves did what they were told to do. Their feelings were irrelevant.
“I think that your cunt is going to get an excellent licking,” Irene said.
“Damn right, it is.” Nickel sat on the edge of Irene’s cot, leaned back until her shoulders and head were braced against the wall, and spread her legs wide. Her corset did not extend below her hips. Her bald crotch was naked and her nether lips spread wide to reveal the moist pink tenderness within.
Irene didn’t need instructions. She lowered herself to her knees and bent her head over Nickel’s sex and drew her wet tongue along the pink slit, from the bottom end to the top.
Nickel tasted stronger than the other slave that Irene had licked. She was muskier. Saltier.
Irene licked at the hooded clit softly, gently, and then kissed the area with relaxed, open lips.
Nickel sighed.
Irene wished with all her being that it were cock rather than cunt in her mouth, but wishing wouldn’t make it so. She had to service what was here. She slipped her tongue back down the slit and probed as far inside Nickel as her tongue would reach. She listened to Nickel’s reaction. The whiphand’s increased rate of breathing and a soft moan said that she was doing the right thing. So she kept it up.
A few minutes later, when Nickel’s hips began to rock, trying to push themselves into Irene’s face for more stimulation, Irene backed off.
She could do to Nickel what she did to gentlemen when she sucked their cocks – tease and frustrate them – bring them to a higher level of lust than they had ever before experienced.
“God damn it, don’t stop!” Nickel shouted.
Irene didn’t stop. She began to explore Nickel’s cunt with her tongue. The fat outer lips protected the more sensitive inner lips. She licked the fold between the two, up one side and down the other. Then she licked along the slit between the two inner lips, noting different reactions, mentally cataloging the more and less sensitive parts of the woman’s cunt.
When Nickel’s breathing began to slow, she returned to the gates of her vagina and plunged her tongue back inside.
Nickel’s breathing accelerated again and she began to work her hips anew.
When Nickel began screaming, “God! God damn it! Good, sweet God!” Irene slowed down again.
Nickel sounded like she was beginning to cry. “Keep doing that. Get back inside me.” Now her voice was soft. Pleading.
Irene brought her fingers into play. When she was sucking a man off, she pumped his cock at the base. What was the analogous action with a woman?
She knew that there was a spot inside her that gave her special pleasure when a cock rubbed against it. She moved her mouth up to Nickel’s clitoral hood and began nuzzling around it, never quite making contact with the clit itself. While she was doing that, she tucked two fingers under her chin and inserted them into Nickel. Crooking her fingers, she felt a rough, irregular spot on the front of her vaginal vault.
As soon as she began rubbing that, Nickel began to scream and buck her hips.
Irene tilted her head and began mouthing Nickel’s clit, not touching it directly, but compressing the sides of her clitoral hood against it with her lips.
Nickel screamed incoherent gibberish for a long time while closing her thighs and squeezing Irene’s head.
Then she relaxed. Her thighs fell limp and she reached down to grab Irene’s hair and pulled her head away.
Irene withdrew her fingers and rocked back on her heels. Her neck was aching from being kinked backward and cricked over to the side. Her knees were burning. Even her jaw was sore.
Nickel’s eyes were closed and her chest was heaving inside the corset. She flopped over onto the cot and pulled her legs up, kicking Irene in the head when she failed to clear it.
Too late, Irene ducked down out of the way.
As Nickel curled up into a fetal position on the cot, Irene rose to her feet – an awkward, ungainly maneuver because her knees were so stiff.
She stood and massaged her shoulders, trying to work the kinks out.
After a few minutes, Nickel opened her eyes. “God damn, woman, that was good. Don’t tell me you never licked a cunt before or I’ll beat you half to death for lying to me.”
“No, ma’am. I did it once before as part of a show. But I’ve sucked a lot of cock. I tried to adapt what I know about stimulating cocks to your cunt.”
“You expect me to believe that you were thinking about sucking cock when you were eating me out?”
“I’m a great cocksucker, ma’am. Gentlemen tell me that I’m exceptional.”
Nickel grunted at that.
Irene stood and waited for instructions.
After a bit, Nickel said, “I was going to beat you after you finished eating me out, but I don’t feel like it any more.”
Irene’s last owner had beaten her on the first day because he said that it was important for a slave to know her place. “You may beat me if you wish, ma’am. But I can assure you that I know my place even if you don’t feel like doing it right now.”
“You want me to send Cherry in here and lick your cunt? She’s pretty good at it. Not quite as good as you, but pretty good. She’ll get you off.”
“Thank you, ma’am, but that’s not necessary. I’d rather have Lord Snow get me off, but he doesn’t seem interested in my service.”
“He’s missing out.” She sighed. “There’s no accounting for the whims of a gentleman slave owner.”
“No, ma’am.”
Nickel rose from the bed. Once again, she was standing so close to Irene that their chests were almost touching. Nickel wrapped her arms around Irene and pulled her into a hug. She whispered in her ear. “Now that I know what you can do, you’re going to be doing that for me a lot. Believe me, if you ever give me any less than your best effort, I’ll part your legs and strap your cunt until you’re bruised and swollen. You know why I’d do that?”
Irene shook her head against Nickel’s shoulder.
“So that, when a man, Lord Snow or some other man, does fuck you, it’ll hurt like hell and you’ll get no pleasure from him. You understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am. I will always give you my best effort. You have my promise on that.”
“Good. Now I’m going to see how Apple and Lime fared with Lord Snow. You can come or stay. I don’t care.”
Irene followed Nickel out of the cell.
* * *
The muffled screams finally stopped and no sounds emanated from the pleasure room for a long time. But Apple and Lime didn’t return yet.
Irene sat with the other silent slaves, waiting to see what would happen.
She wondered if she had made Lord Snow so angry and frustrated that he’d killed them. He could do it if he wanted – they were his property to dispose of as he wished – but Irene couldn’t imagine her old friend doing such a thing.
But what did that mean? A couple of hours
ago, she couldn’t have imagined him being so expert with a strap that he could cover Tamarind’s entire ass with an even, unbroken bruise, either. Or imagine him making the two slaves, Apple and Lime scream themselves horse in response to some kind of agonizing torture behind a closed door.
She wondered if other ladies suspected that their husbands were capable of such cruelty or if she had been unusually naïve.
Then she wondered if her own husband – ex-husband – James, beat his slaves when he went out to his kennel. Extrapolating from all the other gentlemen that she’d encountered as a slave, she had to conclude that it was likely.
The idea startled her.
Then she had another epiphany. If she’d known that he was capable of cruelty, she would never have dared put herself on the auction block. Refusing to buy her had been the cruelest thing that any gentleman had ever done to her, before or after enslaving herself.
She was relieved to see the door open and the two stray slaves emerge alive.
They looked disheveled and acted subdued. Exactly how Irene would expect women would appear after they had been beaten into submission for over an hour.
Lime raised her eyes and looked at the other slaves waiting in the kitchen.
Irene could see trails of sweat and tears marking her cheeks. Her hair was matted against her head.
“He was an animal,” Lime said.
“A beast,” Apple confirmed.
Irene looked for bruises but could see none. She looked for dried blood but couldn’t see that, either.
Apple slumped into an empty chair. “I’ve never been fucked like that in my life.”
Lime sighed. “He was hard as steel.”
“And it took him only a couple of minutes to get hard again after he came,” Apple said.
“He fucked me twice,” Lime said.
“Me, too.” Apple looked disappointed. Then she smiled softly. “But he was slower the second time. I came three times before he was finished.”
“I can’t believe that a man could get it up four times in an hour.”
A Gentlemen's Agreement (Slave of the Aristocracy) Page 2