Slave Wife

by Frances Gaines Bennett

  Slave Wife

  by Frances Gaines Bennett

  A Pink Flamingo Ebook Publication

  Copyright © 2009, All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the publisher.

  For information contact:

  Pink Flamingo Publications

  www.pinkflamingo.com

  P.O. Box 632 Richland, MI 49083

  USA

  Cover © Anja Roesnick - Fotolia.com

  Email Comments: comments@pinkflamingo.com

  Prologue

  Ten years in the past…

  Mei felt their eyes as she passed the old Chinese Telephone Exchange’s three tiered black and red pagoda, firmly propelled by her diminutive grandmother. The tiny old woman, clothed head to toe in black, moved remarkably quickly and determinedly on exaggeratedly bowed bound feet. Normally she provided the girl with protection just short of claustrophobic. At this moment, though, a jolt of unaccountable fear rippled through Mei’s delicate body, spurring her deep under her grandmother’s formidable aura.

  The Caucasian man towered above Chinatown’s residents as he slowly strolled along the crowded street, so tall, handsome and authoritative. A small, exquisite woman of perhaps 40 years old, clad in a narrow black silk cheongsam dress, the flat raised collar and fitted skirt accentuating her shapely body and long white throat, took many rapid yet graceful steps at his side.

  It was a gesture so brief Mei wasn’t certain she saw it. For a shameful if unwitting instant her eyes met his. In that instant he gave an almost imperceptible nod and the beautiful woman’s black eyes were upon her, searing her flesh.

  She’d never actually met the woman but she’d overheard her parents’ and grandmother’s circumspect whispers. Though she hadn’t fully understood, clearly the woman was a force to be avoided … and feared.

  The last thing Mei remembered before waking to an elegant voice was pushing through the densely milling crowd toward a huge bucket of pink and yellow stargazer lilies sitting near one of the Walter U. Lum marketplace’s many shop entrances. Her brow furrowed with effort to remember and the sensation – rubbing? – startled her. Flowers, the overpowering floral scent, that was her last memory.

  The female voice spoke Mandarin from an older, more courtly age, rich, florid and meticulously formal. Only the words penetrated the strange black haze. And they filled her with fear so intense she thought her heart would explode. “Be still and silent – and obey – and you will live.”

  At once painful awareness shook her to her tender core. Something hard yet peculiarly yielding filled her wide-open mouth almost to bursting and bit sharply into her cheeks, making her jaw ache and head hurt. Panicked confusion threatened to again sink her into unconsciousness. Black unconsciousness like the incomprehensible blackness that covered her face, clinging impenetrably over eyes, nose and mouth. She struggled to breathe through the obstruction and the strange, clinging material. A racking lightning bolt of fear shot above her swirling mental sea. She thought she’d suffocate and almost cried out … until she remembered the woman’s words and also, thankfully, realized she could breathe, if with difficulty.

  The girl so wanted to see, to know what was happening to her, and yet the knowledge terrified her. Marshalling her courage, opening eyes wide, she struggled to see the voice’s owner but could make out only dark shapes. She tried to rub away the encroaching fabric and with a wrenching start realized she couldn’t move her hand. Horribly her mind cleared but not the blackness.

  Where was she? How had she gotten here? And more frightening, what did they want from her and would they really let her live?

  She lay on her belly – a hot flush suffused her face – naked on soft, cool fabric. Her legs and arms were spread in a tightly stretched, intensely humiliating X exposing – silent tears rose into her eyes – everything! She gave a tiny twist to her wrist then winced. Metal chains! Though her terror was almost beyond sensibility, she was certain of them when the large, rough links bit harshly into her skin. At the realization her body seemed to collapse in on itself, all dynamism, all will, drained away leaving her utterly limp. And wet! A chill gripped her at awareness of the soaking cold clinging to her face.

  Or perhaps it was her fear. She didn’t know. Tears gushed into her eyes and were sucked up by the black fabric. She didn’t know anything! Not even if she’d live.

  The soft click of a latch, once, then again, jerked her to rigid attention. Fear, tangible as a vice, squeezed her heart. A large presence walked quietly toward her, footfalls shushing slightly against carpeting. She felt it circle, circle interminably all the way around her. Unsuccessfully she struggled to see through the thick black.

  Its first real sound was incomprehensible. Breathing, snuffling, a strange combination of both, like a live boar she’d once seen in the market. Something touched her spine and her body jerked involuntarily, almost wrenching arms and legs from their sockets and cracking slim joints against metal.

  With insane relief she recognized fingertips – warm, smooth fingertips. Gently they touched her, not stroking but lifting off and returning to some other spot, her spine, upper arm, waist, back of knee. As the fingers moved its agitation seemed to build, she could feel and also hear it. With a snort it touched her behind …

  … and it was on her, it’s hot breath, thick as treacle, on her back. Then wetness soused her back and moved lower, accompanied by the hideous sniffing noise. Its tongue! With unbearable shame and revulsion she recognized what it was doing. It was licking down the crease between her legs! Everything, even the unclean parts, covering them with warm gooey – vile – saliva.

  Its breathing had become so laboured it beat against her ears. Even her chest seemed to vibrate with it, punctuated by its moaning slobbering. The pitch intensified to fever. Suddenly something pressed high up on her inner thigh and there was excruciating pain. Her scream, muffled and thin, froze her into manic attention through which the pain vibrated. Would they kill her because of her noise? In dumb terror she waited.

  And then, to her shocked relief, it lifted off her. The next moment, though, the unimaginable happened. A force, like a fist, pushed against a part she didn’t dare contemplate. It pushed, harder and harder. Abruptly she – and her world – tore apart.

  Nine and a half years in the past.

  She’d forgotten so many things. She no longer remembered when she’d last left “her” room – that’s what he called it – nor really when she’d had a “proper” meal, as her mother would have said. A tear started in her eye when she thought of her mother, but she hurriedly repressed it. Had he seen? The thought rose disjointedly into her mind accompanied by an only partially connected surge of anxiety.

  “Are you feeling well, my dear?” The small table between them, a precious Chippendale piecrust tea table, was clothed with two heavy linen runners crossed perpendicularly at the centre and draped protectively over the fluted edges. Exquisitely detailed chintz china breakfast dishes and delicate silver flatware – so beautiful and refined, like everything in the room – were set before them on the creamy cloth. The tiny bite of egg in her fork’s sculpted tines quivered as she looked across at him. When she tried to steady it, she felt the tight seams of the dress he’d told her to wear pull against her breasts and underarms, even against the skin-like waist cinch’s constrictive ribs.

  His tone and facial expression were so gentle, so considerate. She could see that his continual assertion of love and concern for her must certainly be the truth. He was only striving to help her fulfil her potential, to attain the perfection of which he said she was capable. For an instant, she felt profoundly grateful to him.

  His brow furrowed. Her body uncontrollab
ly tensed and her breath stopped in her chest. But the next minute he smiled pleasantly and she breathed again. “I do believe your appearance is improving. Our regimen seems to be working well.” He reached across and tenderly squeezed the hand holding the fork. Her hand seemed to her to have no substance, to be in danger of disappearing all together if he pressed his fingers together. He spoke as if to a child. “Now eat before the delicious food gets cold.”

  She brought her shaking fingers toward the silver metal bands swathing her mouth and throat and running over her head, now unlocked in front and folded back on steel hinges to leave an inch wide opening across her lips. Where was his other hand? She wanted to look at the dials on the metal box at his side but didn’t dare.

  She gave an imperceptible sigh. Really, it didn’t matter. She had no choice. As the fork touched her lips, her nerves seemed to turn off – or maybe it was on, she didn’t know – in the corners of her jaw and the sides of her neck and head. From outside herself – or so it seemed – she watched her head loll uselessly forward and felt pain stab through her tongue.

  His face, smiling benignly over at her, fluoresced neon in the blackness that filled her vision.

  Chapter One

  Ten years in the past.

  Karen and her friend, Delia, giggled together near, but not quite under, the mistletoe.

  They liked to think of themselves as identical twins. They were both on the cheerleading squad. Their pale brown hair was streaked by the same hairdresser on the same days with blond the yellow of early corn. They even had almost the same birthday – both very excited about turning eighteen in the spring.

  Actually, Delia was a little shorter than Karen’s 5’8” and about a stone thinner. Karen was healthy, robust and rosy cheeked, like the farm girl she would have been if her father had not been forced to sell off most of the family’s farm and go to work in their tiny rural town’s only factory. And though Delia was pretty, Karen’s facial features were classically regular, beautiful under a slight padding of baby fat – indeed, perfect.

  Karen’s Dad had said Delia could come with the family to the company Christmas party, this Christmas an extra fancy affair to introduce the company’s new owner to his employees.

  Now the girls stood holding plates only partially emptied of masses of Christmas sweets more fabulous than anything they’d ever tasted. They stared at the boss when they didn’t think he was looking, telling each other stories about how he would walk over and kiss them under the mistletoe. They couldn’t believe how young he was. 30? Well, much younger than Karen’s father anyway … and how handsome.

  Delia thought he looked like Jude Law, with his elegant wavy hair and smouldering eyes. Suddenly Delia gasped and poked her elbow into Karen’s ribs.

  Karen spun around to see the new owner coming toward them, toward her she realized, an expression on his face that made her breath stop in her throat. He smiled down on her and extended his hand. She quickly tried to shift her plate to her left hand so she could shake his.

  Instead he took her plate and handed it to a passing waiter. “Let me help you,” he said. He looked deep into her eyes. “You have a very beautiful face.”

  His eyes flickered discreetly lower before lighting back on her face. An anxious tremor passed through her. Did he think something was wrong with her? She was too inexperienced to know for certain and didn’t have a clue how to react. Instead she waited hopelessly for his approval, looking enthralled, almost hypnotized, into his face like a small house pet.

  He turned and walked away.

  Karen heard her parents arguing when they thought she was asleep. She heard her mother weeping and her father’s deep, agitated voice. “I don’t know what else to do. I could go to jail.”

  She heard her mother’s voice and knew she was clenching her hands as she did when she was extremely upset. “Why? Why did this happen?”

  “I swear. I didn’t do it.” In her mind’s eye, she could see her father’s hulking form bent intently over her diminutive mother. His voice became uncharacteristically plaintive. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Karen anxiously strained to hear but for awhile there was nothing except silence. What was happening?

  Her father’s loud exclamation caused her to start. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  Finally, she heard her mother’s strangled, quavering voice. “Yes, of course I do … but I don’t understand what he wants us to do.”

  Karen’s father voice was hesitant, thoughtful. “I guess he wants us to make sure she goes out with him.” His tone changed, sounding optimistic. “It won’t be so bad, will it? He’s handsome and rich. She’ll probably think it’s a fairy tale.”

  With every appearance of casualness Michael surveyed the girls, but only girls with traditional miens engaged in traditional activities. His smoky gaze fixed on girls walking with heads demurely bowed beside chaperones or quietly assisting their parents in the small shops, and then moved on.

  The superb Madame Lee minced along at his side, her femininity bewitching in its adeptness. With incomparable sensitivity, she assimilated his every movement, every intention. Though too old and experienced for his tastes, Michael thoroughly admired the woman. Not only her precisely engineered beauty and sensuality, which was remarkable. He thought her brilliant and, perhaps more useful, shrewd. She was, he believed, one of his few equals, able to fulfil his requirements unequivocally and with utmost discretion.

  In the first month of their acquaintance, Madame had offered him an array of young girls tendered for sale by their families. As with all his needs, she quickly learned, however. Only special girls, girls exceptionally pure, cherished and protected, suited him. These girls were never for sale.

  As they approached the historic black and red pagoda he saw her. Underneath his unwavering exterior, excitement billowed into his chest like a piercing wind. She was perfect! He’d never been certain why but height was always an issue for him. Like every other female aspect, height must be modest, not short but no more than 5’6”. He estimated hers at 5’5”. Her fragile body was nubile, in its first full bloom, her features as delicate and harmonious as a rare, pale orchid. Celestial! His blood pulsed in intoxicating accord with each beat of his heart.

  As her grandmother turned her into the bustling marketplace, she looked up and their eyes met. That one look gushed like a waterspout into his groin. Hurriedly, demurely, her eyes dropped to the ground. Yes! He had to have her!

  His nod was almost imperceptible but Madame Lee was, as always, ahead of him. Her red-lacquered fingertips touched his forearm. “Michael, would you care for tea?”

  Happily he smiled down on her. “Why don’t we watch first?” With cloud-like effortlessness, she guided him into the market, through crowds who miraculously parted before them in, he was certain, awful respect.

  The grandmother moved between booths and shop-fronts, examining, haggling and buying with the girl in her wake. Madame again touched his arm as the girl walked intently toward a bucket of pink and yellow lilies at a storefront. As she approached, a Chinese workman, one of the identically dressed hundreds populating Chinatown, stepped forward and offered a long golden stem. Carefully, so as not to cover her face with the flower’s profuse yellow pollen, she sniffed. Appearing from nowhere a second workman joined in their admiration. The two men helped her hold the flower as they gently ushered her away. Michael and Madame had already retired to her house for tea when the girl’s grandmother rushed through the marketplace shrieking hysterically.

  The tea was, of course, exceptional. Until he’d met Madame Lee he’d not realized tea’s vast differences in quality. She served a quality suitable for the Emperor, a different variety each visit. Today it was jasmine, and the contradiction of exotic flowers with superbly acid tannin blossomed sublimely on his tongue. With it were delicate, pale yellow almond cookies decoratively nestled in a fine Song Dynasty rimmed celadon dish. “For good fortune and virility,” she invariably told him.


  Leisurely they partook. When they’d finished Madame raised one long finger and excused herself. Without moving, he waited for her return. But within his breast his heart beat like a hammer.

  She slipped silently into the sitting room, graciously holding the door ajar, while she bowed him through. He ascended a lushly carpeted staircase to a familiar lacquered door. Each step made his eagerness more palpable and the insistent voice louder within him.

  With infinite gentleness he turned the gilded handle and eased open the solid – soundproofed Madame told him on his first visit – door. His breath ceased and he lurched awkwardly as he stepped inside. Yes, perfect!

  Centred in the ornately decorated chamber on a black lacquered bed, no really a platform, the slight body stretched, wrists and ankles chained to U-shaped attachments at each corner. The girl’s alabaster skin against blood-red silk coverlets highlighted her perfect form. With almost unbearable anticipation, Michael stood still, examining the spine’s fragile curve and the swell of young twin bottoms.

  Slowly, quietly, he approached, pleasurably noting his feet’s immersion into the thick scalloped Chinese rug. He circled, all the way around the platform, touching this part and that with flattened fingertips, sucking in her quivers of life. For several moments he stood at her head, enjoying the contrast of the small black undifferentiated roundness, which appeared even smaller in the stretchy hood that clung fast to every contour, to the body’s lean pallid detail. He bent and examined the gag’s rounded bulge, only slight due to tight straps pulling the ball far back into her mouth.

  All the while the voice was speaking to him – first whispering then raising its voice louder and louder until now it almost screamed. Michael heard his own disturbed breathing, the voice’s breathing. His hands pressed over his ears but he knew it was hopeless. The beast within him would very soon have its way. Even now the pressure was growing unbearable. With excruciating determination, he struggled against it, still walking, still touching.