by Anneke Jacob
First we'll make sure there's no repeat performance."
He adjusted the bonds on her wrists and ankles, spreading them wide to put her inescapably on her back. Then he went downstairs and fetched a little bottle of Tabasco from the kitchen. "The trick," he said, unscrewing the cap, "will be to keep this off the piercings. So I think I'll just apply it to the very most relevant spot." He tipped a drop or two onto his finger, and with his other hand carefully spread her labia very wide, pulling the flesh forward a little to shift the clit hood off his target. As the tip of his finger made contact she arched and drew in a hissing breath. Anders stood up to watch. A fine sweat broke out all over her body; she shone with it. She was staring past him, her eyes as wide as a horror movie heroine's, mouth half open, breath held. A grating sound drew his attention from her face; the chains were scraping hard against the bed frame. Her eyes rolled back; she arched harder, let out a breath and held it again. Anders went off to wash his hand, careful to do so before he peed. He'd long ago learned to avoid the chili oil hazard. Then he settled back into bed, pulling the covers up over himself and the sweating creature beside him. In five minutes he was asleep.
***
I lay staring into the night, now shading toward grey and the merciless indictment of dawn. The burn didn't level off; its trajectory was still on an 184
As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob
upward course, heading for the stars. It took everything I had to keep still.
But after a while it got no worse. Everything was focused in that one small spot, all my straining concentration. I wanted it to stop. Then I wanted more.
Then I wanted it to stop. Then I tried in a panic to imagine how long it could possibly go on. Tears slid down toward the pillow and I rolled my head from side to side to get rid of them. Disgusting, disobedient girl! Stupid, sneaky, self-indulgent…. He was right to respond with this excruciating, finely focused punishment, exactly where I deserved. I tried to bring back some echo of the orgasm that had brought on this infliction of justice, but it had been burned away, wiped out of memory.
It was one thing to act like an animal when forced by my master to do so; it was quite another thing to take the initiative myself and hump his leg like a dog. The self-inflicted humiliation stabbed like a hot knife, burning guiltily between my legs – no, that was the hot sauce. No, that was my shame.
I didn't think I'd sleep at all, but the alarm tipped me out of a shallow trough into full daylight and a fresh sense of doom. The knife between my legs had blunted a bit, but all my limbs were stiff, and I was exhausted. I stumbled along on my leash, and it was a good thing that someone else was in charge of me, or I would have crawled right back into bed.
My fog was thickened by a yellowish pall of shame; when my master talked to me I was vaguely astonished that he was bothering to use language at all. Yanks and blows would have been the right level of communication for a creature like me. I whispered out the answers as to how the effects were persisting (numb and burning both), and never raised my eyes to his.
The cool morning air revived my higher brain functions a little, enough to allow the general dread and depression over my failure to focus and grow sharp. I knew something about the way Anders worked by this time. That drop of Tabasco was only an appetizer, a little preliminary to the main course. Or perhaps the first taste in a series – like tapas or dim sum. There would be more to come; a lot more. But would any of it be enough?
***
The only woman working at the lumberyard was the cashier. Val circled and closed in like a casual hawk. Out of the corner of his eye Anders saw a bit of paper changing hands.
"I hope that wasn't your receipt; I need that for taxes," he said, as they 185
As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob
closed the back of the truck.
Val gave him a smug look. "Jealous?”
“You just got a new girl last week; are you finished with her already?”
“Handy to have one in reserve."
"You'll have them fighting over you. I thought you hated that. Or are you getting kinkier? More than one at a time in your bed?"
"Hey, good idea. What about your own ménage? Planning to add a slave or two? Assuming you'll manage to hang on to the one you've got, of course."
Anders smiled, thinking of the clinging, frantic thighs of the night before. He'd probably manage.
He pulled out of the parking lot, feeling the restlessness over the events of the night, and how close Val was to picking up the signals. Not today; he didn't feel like an interrogation today. He could sense her turning in his direction, head like a radar dish.
"Speaking of hardware," he said, "have you ever heard of a ring for a piercing that will lock, and open and close easily? Not like I've already got.
Something round."
Val looked amused, and with the air of indulging a madman said, "No, Thygesen, I don't have your passion for obscure fetish technology." She pulled the receipt out of her shirt pocket and frowned at it. "Hang on, did we get the drywall screws? Shit." Her sliding thumb paused. "Okay, here they are; never mind." She tucked the receipt away. "Check with the woman who did Maia; maybe she's got something."
"She can get the same thing I've got already – round on top, straight on the bottom. Opens with a little tool. It's fine for nipples, but for a nose it needs to be round.”
“Why?"
He said dryly, "Because it's more aesthetically pleasing to me that way."
Her suppressed laugh came out as a snort. "Oh, well, can't argue with that." Then addressing the problem despite herself she added, "There's not much room in a little ring for any kind of lock. What about a drop of glue?"
"I want to be able to get it on and off."
"Oh, c'mon, make her wear it to work! No? Wimp. Could you get one with a really stiff closure that she couldn't manage without a tool?"
"I thought of that. Though I'm hardly an expert with piercings myself."
186
As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob
"Well, you can practice. I'm pretty sure that the ring will loosen up, though, if you keep opening and closing it.”
“Yeah, well, I'm not crazy about that solution anyway. I want a lock."
"A controlling son of a bitch who's also obsessive-compulsive. Lucky girl."
When they got to the site he began cutting floorboards to fit around a fireplace, working alone so he could think.
Maia was slipping beyond his grasp again. He knew by the way his body was feeling; there was an uneasy sensation in his chest, and his hands kept wanting to grab something. Today was all right; he had her back under control today, but he could hardly use hot sauce on her every night. Topical anaesthetic? Possible, if it lasted long enough, which he doubted. He could imagine some uses for it, but it felt like a bit of a cop-out in the present case
– a cooling down for her, a negation rather than an action on his part.
Anders measured, made another cut. Last time he'd felt this way, the answer had been to step up control. But the equipment to control her wasn't available yet. He was fed up with himself for having once more screwed up the timing. If he'd taken the teasing more slowly they wouldn't be in this mess. Whole generations of fatalistic forebears apparently couldn't suppress his arrogance and overconfidence. Too much damage from that little problem. Perfectionism, too. His own petulance exasperated him; he had ninety-nine percent of the control he wanted and was grumbling because he didn't have it all. You can't nail everything down, Thygesen. He shook his head. No. Beyond this relationship his power had limits; that was more than clear. Inside it – no. And she needed him to have it all, just as much as he did. The problem had to be addressed. What was he going to do? He couldn't reward her for her disobedience by holding off on the teasing that had prompted it. He shifted the cut boards to the wall and brought the next pile over to the bench. His control was going to be increasingly at risk if he kept teasing her, no matter how much guilt she felt or how much pu
nishment he inflicted. Like it or not, she'd defied him, and that had set a precedent. I can't stop her. He clenched his fist on the saw, then made himself relax before he screwed up the board he was cutting. He really couldn't stop her. And then he had an idea.
***
That evening I watched from my knees as Anders installed a couple 187
As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob
more D-rings in the living room baseboards. More attachments points, in a house that was by no means deficient in them. Then I was spreadeagled on my back, straps pulling all four limbs taut. He stood between my legs and gave me a long, unreadable look.
"You know the expression, 'Be careful what you wish for?'"
Oh-oh. I bit my lip and nodded. He pressed something between my labia, something hard and smooth, and tightened straps around the tops of my thighs to keep the thing in place. I couldn't get a look at it. He adjusted it so that it pressed on my clit, now fully recovered. Fear didn't interfere with arousal; instantly I was wet and eager. How stupid could I be? I sucked in a fast breath, then opened my eyes in shock when the buzzing started. A vibrator. Oh, my god…. My back began to arch, like it had with the hot sauce, except that this was another thing altogether. Anders stood looking down at me for a minute, then stepped over my legs and sat down on the couch.
I knew what was coming, and it wasn't going to be me. This was remote control, and he was going to turn it off at the last minute. I tried to struggle away from the vibrator, but it moved with me. Then I was struggling to get more of it, just as unsuccessfully. It buzzed away, doing what it did, a blind, oblivious blunt object. The restraint was having its usual effect on me, and the build-up came fast, then faster, and I gulped for air, and tensed, and cringed inwardly, anticipating the cut-off, the terrible need, his laughter and punishing eyes. No more than I deserved.
And then, like the flick of an enormous switch, the thing pressing my clit became the source of a thousand volts; my body clicked over and convulsed. I came so hard I howled, hips trembling, fists clenched. It was gorgeous. In the second wave I arched my back and looked painfully behind me at Anders on the couch, watching. He made no move.
The spasms ended, but the vibrations against my clit, excruciatingly, did not. In panic I thrashed; I couldn't bear continued contact right after an orgasm. But it didn't stop. I was screaming, trying desperately to pull away from the vibrator, begging for it to stop. Behind me again I glimpsed the upside-down view of him watching. And I understood that this was the punishment. My face was wet, and my body continued its frantic, pointless thrashing. Eventually the intensity shifted and rounded out and spread, and I was building again. Oh, god! I lay flat on the floor, trying to give my body a 188
As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob
rest, but the insistent buzzing kept at me. Soon my muscles were taut again, and my hips were rocking. Anders stepped over me and came back with a beer.
My pleas and whines were completely ignored. It took longer this time, but I came again, in one single long surge, the hard plastic giving me no room to manoeuvre, no chance of subtlety, no interplay of nerves and flesh.
Just an infliction, intense, mechanical, the pleasure followed almost immediately by that overwhelming, unbearable intensity. I wrenched my hips desperately, and howled, and begged again. He picked up a book.
The cycle continued. Decades went by. I was a wrung-out dishrag, wired like a marionette, my eyes cracked and seeping. Orgasms and their excruciating aftermath alternated and merged, from one aching throb to another barely distinguishable. The room became a series of blurs with salt prism edges.
At last one blur resolved into a long form, standing over me.
"Had enough?"
I nodded passionately, past the point of whispered pleas. The vibrations stopped. He untied me and lifted me and let me sit, stunned, in his lap.
Gently he massaged my arms and legs, rubbed tender places on my back and butt that I hadn't been aware of, stroked and kissed me. I saw the clock; and my mind reeled. It had only been an hour since dinner.
"Well," he said. "That ought to hold you for a while." Bastard.
Then he pushed me to my knees and came in my mouth like a cavalry charge.
I have to admit that the ordeal did lower the tension. The next day, for the first time in all the weeks I'd been at my job, I wasn't fighting arousal.
Actually I couldn't imagine ever being aroused again. The harness was just something that I wore, a necessary accessory for the slave that I was, but the sexuality of it was for my master, not for me. I was still slightly depressed because I'd had to be punished like that, but I worked like a very advanced piece of software: all systems firing, no errors.
That evening my master came home and let me up out of my corner.
After my chores I'd spent my waiting time sitting on my heels there on his written instructions, collar closely linked to the wall, wrist cuffs chained to the same spot. He was taking no chances. Completely unnecessary, I thought at first – if he imagined I wanted to touch my clit today he was crazy. But 189
As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob
gradually, leaning into my corner, looking down between my harnessed breasts, I began to feel that crucial nerve bundle regain its function. I knew I was back on line when his big body crouched next to mine, smelling of rain, sawdust, and his own electrifying atmosphere: essence of Anders.
He didn't allow me up off my hands and knees for quite a while. Half an hour after dinner I crawled up the stairs and stared at the floor in the back room, hands braced, legs wide, as the harness came off.
"I enjoyed last night," my master said lightly, hanging up the harness,
"but you talked too damned much." He picked up something else. Leather and rivets dangled before my eyes. "We're going to try some enforced silence for a while." Something cylindrical, black and rubbery was pressed between my teeth, a tight strap pushed under my chin. He adjusted straps around my head, over the bridge of my nose. A bridle. The final ratcheting adjustments at the back of my head pulled the heavy bit deep into my mouth.
It was curved, with a thicker portion in the middle that pressed down on my tongue. I'd worn simple one-strap ballgags before, but not this head-encasing web of humiliation. There were reins attached to the bit, dangling from rings on either side of my jaw. I glanced up at the mirror, and some kind of animal looked back. Anders was behind me now. A cold sensation on my asshole that I knew well, and then the prod of something hard. Not him; not warm flesh. Something cool and rigid pushing past my sphincter. I cried out as the thing slid into me, narrower and harder than his penis; cried out again as he drove it higher. Straps tightened straight up the back, in a Y up the front; a belt circled, locks clicked. I groaned, my bridled head in my arms.
There was a yank on the corners of my mouth that pulled my head up. I stared up the whole length of the man in front of me, at a face austere and impassive from that angle, like a Calvinist statue consigning the sinners to hell. Suddenly he was just pure and scary god-like dom. A god of judgment, offering no latitude, no quarter.
He fastened the length of the reins to the wall, ran the tip of his whip down my side, and started me on stretches to warm up. Exercise time. The butt plug, that astonishing intrusion, kept bringing me up short, but Anders made no allowances. I'd rarely been punished during warm ups, but he punished me now. Then he started me on aerobics – standing jumps, lunges, wall squat thrusts, jumping squats. All apparently chosen to make the plug as disturbing as possible. All continued until I gasped hoarsely around the 190
As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob
bit. I couldn't open my mouth more than a millimetre wider than the bit, because of the jaw strap. There was plenty of room at the sides to draw in air, but in addition to everything else, I felt the frustration of being unable to hang my mouth open and pant, to close my mouth and swallow. Saliva dripped down my chin and onto my chest. I wanted to plead with him, beg for a rest. The whip bit and stung and my voice flung
out its inarticulate vowels of pain. I wanted to be flung down and fucked, hard. Occasionally my weary legs would take me too far from the wall and I'd run into the bridle and feel it yank me back like an unruly horse.
At last my master let me do some cool-down stretches, and it was over.
Except for the arousal, which seemed to have been pumped into all my body tissues along with the extra oxygen and the endorphins. My frantic breathing hardly slowed. He mopped me up and wiped me down where I was, still held by the reins, butt plug a sweet immovable hell in my rear. Then I was back on my hands and knees. Long fingers ran along welts, tickled my belly, drew my swollen nipples out and tugged the rings. The fingers journeyed in lines between my legs, running along the labia rings like a stick along a fence. On the return trip one hand dipped into my soft, soaking wet centre, while the other pressed and twisted the butt plug. Wordless subhuman sounds emerged from my lowest levels.
My master's deep voice murmured my ear. "Well, well. You're horny again, my naughty girl. After all that work last night." I groaned and let my head drop. "Now, what am I going to do with you this time to keep you out of mischief?" I looked up at him and began shaking my head, but he caught me by the bridle and held me still. "Come on." I stumble-crawled after him, hoping for anything but a repeat of the night before.
But it looked like that was exactly what I was going to get. He pulled me to the modified exercise bench arranged in the middle of the back room, fastened me down on my back with my legs up and hanging from short straps from the weight rack, and brought out equipment that was clearly electrical. I began a panicky moaning, and got my thigh slapped, hard.
"Quiet!" I swallowed and suppressed a whimper.
His eyebrows gathered like storm clouds, and I shrank. "Even bridled you make too much noise, slave. Altogether too free with your vocal cords.
Time to learn how to shut up." He clipped something to the bridle.
Something got inserted into my vagina, and something else pressed my clit. I 191