Owners by the Dozen (Slave of the Aristocracy Book 4)

by Ashley Zacharias

  When Irene turned to look at the back of the courtroom, she saw that the three lords had already left. They had seen as much justice served as was necessary for their purpose.

  The ride home in Frank Bishop’s car was a mixture of jubilation and confusion. Adele was ecstatic, as were her mother, father, and uncle.

  But George kept looking at Irene, wondering how it had happened that three powerful lords had magically appeared at his niece’s proceeding to ensure that she was not delivered helpless into the possession of the wealthiest knight in Westmouth.

  He was frightened to find such powerful political forces swirling around him and his family. Today they had saved his niece, but tomorrow those same men might just as easily crush them all.

  Irene was the witch who had summoned three demons of immense power. The people in the car had reason to be afraid of her.

  Witches don’t fare well when the mob grows fearful.

  * * *

  George’s brother, Frank, and his wife, Wilma, came to her apartment the day after their daughter’s bankruptcy proceeding.

  It was Luke’s day for her service, but he, like almost all of Irene’s owners, worked during the day and wouldn’t come around until late afternoon.

  “Would you like to come in?”

  The two didn’t answer. They stood on the threshold and stared at her naked body in shock.

  “I can get dressed if you like.”

  “Make yourself decent,” Wilma said.

  When Irene returned from the bedroom wearing a housedress, her two uninvited but welcome guests had closed the door and were standing next to the sofa.

  “Please sit,” Irene said. “Would you like a cup of coffee or tea?”

  “Don’t bother,” Frank said.

  They sat.

  “I guess if Adele had been pressed into slavery yesterday, she’d be parading around buck naked today,” Wilma said.

  “That’s the tradition,” Irene replied. “Pleasure slaves are only allowed to wear a housedress in public. In private, they are kept nude.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Wilma said.

  “You get used to it after a while.”

  “Adele told me that you were the one who found the money to pay off her loan,” Frank said.

  “I called on a few favors.” Irene laughed. “I gave out a few favors, too.”

  Wilma looked offended.

  “That’s how the world works,” Irene said.

  “Your world, maybe. Not ours,” Wilma replied tartly.

  Frank put his hand on his wife’s, not as a gesture of affection, but to restrain her. “We just wanted to tell you how grateful we are. Both of us. I thought for sure that Adele was lost yesterday. That judge was going to make our Adele into a slave for sure. The only thing that saved her was that you got her the money and then those lords made the judge be honest.”

  “Frankly, I was shocked that the lords had to be there,” Irene said. “I thought that the money would solve the problem. I thought that our courts were more honest than that.”

  “Those were real lords? All three of them?” Frank looked appalled anew at the thought.

  For the first time, it occurred to Irene that most commoners had never seen a lord in person. There were over a million people in Westmouth and only seventy-five lords. And the lords didn’t spend much time roaming the streets.

  “They were Lord Fortson, Lord Snow, and Lord Hoffman,” she said.

  “How come they came to our daughter’s court?” Frank asked.

  “Lord Fortson arranged the loan to Adele. Llewellyn Smith is one of his business managers. I presume that when Sir Drake refused to accept payment for Adele’s debt on Monday, Smith informed Lord Fortson. He was offended and decided to bring a couple of his closest friends to court and make the point to Sir Drake that all his money doesn’t make him powerful enough to push lords around. Lords expect to get what they want. They don’t let anyone treat them lightly.”

  “So you really did get Lord Fortson to give Adele the money. You really went to see him.” Frank was astounded. Never in his life would he have dared to seek out a lord.

  “Yes. I tried to get the loan from Lord Snow first. Lord Snow and I have a friendly relationship. But Snow refused so I had no choice but to go to James.”

  “You mean Lord Fortson?” Wilma said.

  “Yes. Lord James Fortson.”

  “Adele said that you were married to him.” Wilma made the statement sound like an accusation.

  They were genuinely grateful, but they hadn’t come only to express their gratitude. They wanted to know what kind of situation they had become entangled in.

  “That was before I became a slave. Slaves aren’t married to anyone. They serve their owner’s pleasure.”

  “And these others, Lord Snow and Lord Hoffman? You know them, too?”

  It was useless to try to hide her history now. “When I was a lady, I was friends with Snow and Hoffman and their wives. Later, after I became a slave, Lord Snow owned me for three months.”

  “Lord Snow owned you? He was your husband’s friend? He wanted his friend’s wife to be his pleasure slave?” Wilma could barely believe the depravity of it all.

  “It was awkward,” Irene said.

  “I bet it was.”

  “He kept me celibate. He wanted to own me so that he could make sure that I wasn’t giving sexual services to other men. He saw it as a gesture of allegiance to James.”

  Frank looked at her body. Her curves were obvious beneath the thin housedress. “He didn’t… You know… Want you?”

  “He had a half dozen slaves in his kennel, all at least as beautiful as me. He wasn’t deprived.” In fact, his lust for her had been palpable and eventually he had succumbed to her charms but she saw no reason to tell these two about that.

  “But he sold you.”

  “Actually, he lost me in a poker game. I found out later that the other man cheated. Snow was upset about losing me but he couldn’t do anything about it. He hasn’t had a chance to buy me back because I haven’t been auctioned since. I was sold to George and his friends in a private sale.”

  “But you’re not celibate now,” Wilma said. “And you aren’t depriving George of anything.”

  “George is one of the men who owns me now,” Irene said.

  “It’s not good for him,” Wilma said. “He needs a proper wife. Not a…” She stopped herself. She was supposed to be telling Irene that she was grateful to her, not that she thought that she was a whore.

  “George is a fine man,” Irene said. “His only problem, as nearly as I can see, is that he’s a little shy. Maybe he’ll gain a little confidence with women after he’s been around me a bit.” She smiled wryly. “Slaves aren’t as intimidating to men as free women.”

  Wilma sniffed.

  “Also, most of George’s claim on my time in the last month has been spent trying to arrange your daughter’s loan.” It didn’t hurt to remind them about why they’d come.

  “We are so thankful for that,” Wilma said. “Don’t get us wrong. We know what you did for us. Nobody else could have done it. We know that we owe you. It’s just that the whole thing is so…”

  Unseemly?

  Frank supplied a different word. “Strange to us.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “We’d better get going,” Frank said. “We don’t want to take up your whole day. We just wanted to stop by and thank you.” The two stood up.

  As she walked them to the door, Frank looked at her rather shyly. “I noticed, before you got dressed… your backside…”

  Irene smiled. She knew how nasty the welts looked – thick purple ridges with yellow highlights and greenish undertones. “I was caned a few days ago. Rather harshly. It’ll be a while before I can sit comfortably again.”

  “George didn’t…”

  “Oh, no. No, none of my owners would do that to me. Especially not George. He’s really sweet. That was my ex-husband. He still has ange
r issues toward me. It was the first time that I’d seen him since I became a slave so I had to let him work out some of that anger.”

  “So you wouldn’t have been beaten if you didn’t have to ask him for the money for Adele?” Wilma asked.

  “All part of the service,” Irene replied.

  Wilma took her hands and gave her a peck on the cheek before they left.

  * * *

  Paul was fit twenty-nine-year-old who had starred on his high school lacrosse team. A decade later, he still found ways to work that into his conversations, especially when he was at the gym for his daily workout.

  As a white-ware salesman, his gregarious bonhomie served him well. He knew a great number of people and had long ago lost count of the number of stoves and refrigerators and clothes-washing machines that he had sold. This month, he was working through his old sales records, phoning customers who had bought clothes-washing machines and urging them to also buy one of the new clothes-drying machines that had recently been brought to market.

  He explained to each housewife that if she had a clothes-drying machine, she would no longer have to worry about rain falling while her laundry was just getting dry on the line.

  A lot of rain blew in from the Western Sea to fall on Westmouth. Sales were good.

  He had heard rumors about another new machine that was coming that could wash dishes. He found it hard to believe that it was possible to make a dish-washing machine, but his supplier assured him that it could even scrub pots. The supplier claimed that wealthy aristocrats already had such devices. He was suspicious because he knew that wealthy people had maids to wash their dishes for them. Why would they need a dish-washing machine?

  Irene was surprised when Paul brought a woman with him on his day.

  Paul introduced the woman as Judy.

  “Judy and I have been together for a few years now, and she thinks that it would be good fun for all three of us to have some sport together.”

  Irene didn’t have to be told that having some fun together didn’t mean a rousing evening playing hearts and whist. “That sounds like fun.”

  Judy grinned like a good sport.

  Irene doubted that the threesome was her idea, but she looked willing. More telling, she didn’t avert her eyes from Irene’s naked body. Though, unlike most men, she looked at Irene’s face longer than at her tits.

  Irene could also see that, though Paul was married and had three children, he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring tonight. She had never met Paul’s wife and she wasn’t about to jump to the conclusion that Judy was the woman that he’d married. She looked more like a good time than a wife.

  It wasn’t a slave’s place to pass judgment on her owner, only to satisfy his desires.

  “Let’s have some fun, then,” Irene said.

  Paul put his hand on Judy’s back and pushed her lightly toward Irene. He wasn’t pressing hard enough to force her physically, only to prompt her to begin.

  Irene stepped forward to put her arms around her.

  Judy was the one to kiss her first. And she didn’t press her lips to Irene’s tentatively, but applied them with a degree of ardor.

  She was into the scene.

  “Let’s get these clothes off,” Paul said.

  Irene was already naked. Paul was referring to Judy’s clothes. She released Judy and helped her strip.

  Judy wasn’t as pretty as Irene but she exuded enough raw sexuality to make her an interesting choice of partner.

  Irene had been required to service women in the past, but she didn’t especially like it. It was a chore, about equivalent to washing dishes or cleaning a bathroom. She had never climaxed from intimate contact with a woman.

  Judy, though, presented herself differently from other women. She was keener to participate. Irene found that she was not only looking forward to playing with Judy, but was getting a little excited thinking about it. Her pulse quickened and deeper breaths made her chest swell and heave.

  As soon as Judy was naked, Irene drew her into another embrace, breasts to breasts and thighs to thighs, enjoying the feeling of another woman’s hot, bare skin pressing against her body.

  While Irene had been stripping Judy, Paul had rendered himself naked as well. He joined them in a three-way embrace, all hugging each other, each alternately kissing the others.

  Irene reached down and gripped his erection, stroking him gently. He began massaging Judy’s cunt and Judy, in turn, massaged Irene’s.

  They couldn’t keep that up for long. In a couple of minutes, all three of them were too excited to limit themselves to heavy petting.

  They pulled each other into the bedroom and flung themselves on the bed. Limbs tangled around limbs. Mouths sought the nearest available skin. Hands massaged breasts and buttocks and cocks and cunts.

  After a few minutes, they sorted themselves out so that Paul was fucking Judy while she licked Irene’s cunt. She licked and slurped with abandon and Irene was stimulated to orgasm at the same time that Paul and Judy came together.

  The bedroom walls vibrated from the power of their combined shouts of ecstasy.

  Afterward, they collapsed into a heap of limp, sated bodies. None of them had the will to attend further to the others. None of them needed further attention.

  After a long while, Judy whispered to Irene, “You are as good as Paul said.”

  Irene replied, “I never came with a woman before. That was all you.”

  “I’ve never been with a woman before. Not that way.”

  Irene stared deep into the other woman’s eyes. “I never would have guessed that. You have astounding natural talent.”

  “I just did what I thought that I might like a woman to do to me.”

  “And you never had that done to you?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll do it to you if you want so that you can know what it feels like.”

  “I’d like that. Not right now, though.”

  “Later, then.”

  Paul was asleep. The two women let him sleep and murmured together for a while in low voices. Judy was fascinated to hear about Irene’s experiences as a slave – alternately excited by the thoughts of the orgies that Irene had experienced and horrified by the tortures that she had endured.

  For her part, Irene was saddened to hear that Judy fully expected Paul to keep his promise to someday leave his wife and children and marry her. But she didn’t have the heart to disillusion the poor girl. Besides, she couldn’t have said anything that would have mattered. Judy volunteered that all of her friends had told her that Paul was lying and that she should leave him and find a better man. She ignored them because she was in love with the cad.

  Before the evening was over, while Paul was still asleep, Irene kept her promise and brought Judy to a second climax with some expert cunnilingus.

  Irene suspected that if Judy ever did leave Paul, it might not be for another man.

  * * *

  George’s next day was a week after the trial. At eleven thirty, someone knocked on Irene’s door. She opened it to Adele, who was accompanied by two young men about her age.

  “This is Clovis and Hunter. They’re my friends. Uncle George said that we could take you out to lunch. If you want. Do you want to come out to lunch?”

  The two young men stared at Irene’s naked body, struck speechless.

  Adele noticed and struck Clovis on the arm, not lightly. “Close your mouth, Clovis. And stop staring. You act like you’ve never seen a naked woman before.”

  Maybe he hadn’t. Both he and his friend had to force their eyes up to meet Irene’s and mutter apologies. Their faces were flushed red with hot blood.

  “That’s okay,” Irene said. “That’s pretty much why we slaves are kept naked. For our aesthetic appeal.”

  The two men’s eyes dropped back down to her tits.

  Her eyes dropped to their crotches to appreciate the bulges in their pants.

  “Let me get a dress on. You can step inside if you like.�
� She knew that the boys were staring at her ass as she strolled away and put a slow undulation into her stride.

  She believed that a slave should always give men what they wanted, especially when her owner had invited them into her presence. But Adele hadn’t indicated that George wanted her to fuck the men. Otherwise she’d be happy to invite them into her bedroom, fling herself on the bed, spread her legs, and show them paradise on earth.

  She would have enjoyed that. Pity that she didn’t have the necessary instructions.

  The men appeared to appreciate her as much when she was wearing the housedress as when she had been nude. Wives demanded that the simple garments be plain and shapeless but their husbands instructed the tailors to construct them with light, clingy fabrics that perverted their wives’ intent.

  Pleasure slaves were chosen from among the most beautiful women in the city. There was almost nothing that would dim their radiant sexuality.

  Clovis drove an Excelsior Stag. It was a relatively inexpensive faux sports car that included a back seat so that young men could enjoy the sports car fantasy while still having enough room for a couple of children.

  Adele sat in the passenger seat. Irene was squeezed into the too-small rear bench with Hunter.

  The young man didn’t mind being packed tight against the beautiful slave.

  As they pulled out of the parking space, Irene turned her mouth to Hunter’s ear and said, softly, “I don’t have my owner’s permission to give you service but no one will object if you put your arm around me.”

  His arm flew around her shoulders.

  She nestled against him, and then reached across his body to take his left hand and place it on her left breast. “Or if you feel me up a bit.”

  His hand never left her boob all the way to the restaurant. He pressed it, hefted it, and stroked it. He didn’t try to kiss her, but his face had the expression of a boy who’d entered the gates of paradise.

  It’s delightfully easy for a sexually desirable woman to make a young man happy. Or a man of any age, for that matter. Irene didn’t understand why women didn’t do this for men all of the time.

  The restaurant, the Pasta Palace, was located a block from the university. It catered to students and faculty, featuring a menu of large plates of spaghetti, linguini, and fettuccini covered in various lightly spiced sauces. That was as exotic as foreign food got in Westmouth.