As She's Told

by Anneke Jacob

  He had me. My god, he really had me.

  You would think that it would be orgasms, that summit of purest pleasure, that would tie me to him. A conditioned response bringing me always back for more.

  But after fulfilment one can move on. Make weekend plans. Read the paper. Go out for sushi. Or at least get on with one's slavegirl day. Not me. I stood, trapped at that barred threshold, unable to see any other path, much less take it. In the absolute grip of the gatekeeper. Why weren't we moving?

  I opened my eyes again, and examined a long row of shops, all Chinese signs, vertical, horizontal. A moment of confusion. and then I was on my feet in panic. How the hell had I ended up on Dundas? And deep into Chinatown, going west instead of east? Oh my god oh my god…. The car was a human traffic jam, through which I struggled. The streetcar must have short turned and I didn't even notice! Jesus Christ I'm going to be late!

  "Please, can I have a transfer?" I panted to the driver. "I should be on the College car." Praying this wasn't one of the hardasses who refused because you were supposed to get a transfer when you paid your fare.

  The driver sighed wearily to his windshield. "Made an announcement back there." He handed me a slip with the gesture of a man who's just been robbed of his last faint hope for humanity.

  The car jerked its way through traffic, start and stop as if to spite me, several minutes just to make it the one block to Spadina. All my anxious body language was insufficient to get him to let me out between stops. I raced north toward College, back almost to where I'd started, ignoring the 208

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  tight harness and the metal between my thighs, dodging around delivery trucks and vegetable stands and agonizingly slow elderly shoppers. My feet teetered on the edge of curbs, waiting for lights to change. I was thinking all the while that if they wouldn't take my transfer I'd be in even worse trouble; I had no more tokens, no money, nothing. My god, walking would take an hour, maybe more….

  The driver on the College car took my transfer without comment. But the car stuck fast, over and over, at crosswalks and behind cars turning left.

  God damn them! Move! Oh god, I'm incredibly late! At my stop at last, I ran all the way home, knowing it was no use. It was one minute to two by my watch, fourteen minutes beyond the latest time I should have been through the door.

  I scrambled through my chores feeling stupid enough to be used for bait, and wishing I could just curl up in a corner and hide my head until my master came home to beat the hell out of me. It wasn't until I had finished my work and locked myself to the banister that the true extent of my idiocy hit me.

  I hadn't called him. I'd been out of my route and late. And I hadn't called. Not only did I not call when I got off route, I didn't even call when I got home. The phone was off-limits without permission, but that would surely have been a lesser sin. God almighty. How could I fuck up this many ways in one day?

  ***

  Anders spent most of the day engaged in the tricky business of shoring up a badly cracked joist and a sagging floor, and it was four-thirty before he got a chance to do his usual webcam check. The girl was huddled in a tight ball by the banister, her head in her arms. What was up? He checked back, played a little, backed up some more. Tension. Tears. She'd scrubbed the kitchen floor hard enough to take the bristles off the brush. Then he saw the time she'd come in. Checked again. Sure enough.

  She hadn't called, either. He checked his phone messages to be on the safe side, but no. Nothing. What the hell had she been up to?

  "Oh, little girl," he murmured to the image on the screen, "you are in deep shit."

  ***

  "All right, bad girl. Let's hear it again." She was kneeling at his feet, 209

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  wrists chained to ankles, once again trying to droop forward to hide her head. "Look at me!" She reared back. Anders kept his eyes on her wretched face as she told the story again. "How the hell did you manage not to notice when the streetcar turned?"

  "I don't know!" she wailed. "I think I have to try so hard to focus at work – I'm so – aroused that I – when I'm on the streetcar I – relax."

  "You go into some kind of space-cadet trance, evidently."

  Maia looked up at his unsympathetic face, and swallowed down rising sobs.

  Once again he interrogated her over where she had got to, how long it had taken her to run back, what she had seen on the way. It all had the ring of truth, but the phone call, or lack of one, was hard to swallow.

  "How could you possibly forget to call? The cell phone is in your bag.

  You've got me on speed dial." She cringed and winced at the end of every sentence, as if his voice was a slow lash. He considered her tear-swollen face. "When there was that construction delay last month you called me from the streetcar. It's not as if you don't know what's expected of you.”

  “It – master – it wasn't – that time it wasn't my fault. This time it was. I was – I don't know, frantic. All I could think of was getting home as fast as I could and getting my chores done. I didn't think of calling till it was too –

  too late – ." Sobs choked her.

  "Well, that was pretty damned stupid, wasn't it? Who would have thought a smart girl like you could be quite so dumb?" He took her by the hair and forced her to look at him. "Did think you might get away with it?"

  His hard voice cut like a knife. "That I might not notice?"

  Her eyes widened and spilled over again. "No! No, master, no!" She wriggled desperately in his grip. "I swear!”

  “Would you have told me if I hadn't known?"

  "Yes! I couldn't – not have told you." She took a huge breath. "I need to be punished, master. Please! Please punish me!" He released her head and instantly her face was on the floor between his feet and she was grovelling, belly to the floor, knees spread wide.

  He looked down at the harnessed little body, which seemed to be trying to wriggle right into the floor. This was no unwilling ritual to appease him.

  He couldn't mistake the need in her voice. And he'd seen it on the tape; she'd been radiating frantic guilt all afternoon.

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  Of course she had. Outside the boundaries he'd laid down, both of time and space. Stupid, careless inattention. Her own internal world taking precedence over the most basic obedience. Carefully he examined his internal thermostat. Irritation, not anger. Well-controlled. Safe to punish her.

  He hauled his slave off to the corner and chained her nose ring to the floor, then went to start dinner. As it cooked he made some arrangements.

  This was an opportunity to use equipment he'd been saving, that had felt too punitive for everyday use. He felt his groin tighten in anticipation. A bright side to everything.

  Maia lay belly down, head in the corner, legs flexed back to meet wrists.

  Anders took his time eating. Then he made some saltless porridge, loosened her chain a link or two from the wall, and shoved a flat little tray under her nose. "Lick it up, slave."

  She did the best she could, neck straining upward, tongue reaching; she cried and tried not to jerk when the whip slashed her thighs.

  Anders tightened the chain and left her for a while with her face in the sticky tray, the porridge drying on her chin and nose, flaking from her eyebrows. She could see nothing of what he was arranging, but the sounds would reach her.

  At last he released her nose ring, cleaned her up and hauled her back to the middle of the room, leaving her on her side on the floor, wrists and ankles still linked. She stared upward at the bars and pulleys above her. The harness, he decided, would get in his way; he took that off. Thick, cushioned suspension cuffs emerged from the back of the drawer with the smell of new leather. "These should keep your wrists and ankles safe. You'll tell me if there's a problem," he said coldly. One by one he unlocked her cuffs, brought her limbs forward, strapped them into the padded cuffs and linked them to the
spreader bars. Then slowly he raised her off the floor, one careful eye on her face. Maia looked dazed and frightened, but there was no sign of pain. "Well?"

  Slowly she spoke. "I'm all right, master."

  He pinched her ass very hard and she writhed and cried out. "How about when you wriggle around?"

  She breathed hard. "It's – okay, master." She was light, and flexible, and strong for her size. She should be all right. He raised her to about chest height. "How do you feel now, bad girl?"

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  She twisted in the ropes. "Completely – totally – helpless, master," she panted. "More than I've ever – Terrified." She dipped her head back, and then gathering her limbs, managed to raised herself a little. The cuffs didn't give her anything to grasp. She swayed and dropped again. Anders thought he'd rarely seen anything as beautiful as that smooth, slender form hanging and struggling like a captured animal. Deprived even of the security of contact with the ground.

  He took up his rawhide flogger. The narrow lashes stung and only the mildest application was any pleasure to her. He started well beyond mild, and she screamed.

  "Are you relaxed now, my little space cadet?" The next blow and scream pre-empted any reply. Red lines were tracing the taut shape of her flesh. Her whole body flexed and tensed and writhed, its struggles attenuated, held back by gravity and her own weight. He started on her thighs, then stopped and unlocked her shield. "No reason you should be protected here, slave, is there?"

  "No…master…" she whimpered. He couldn't tell if she was agreeing or protesting. It made no difference. Anders set the metal piece aside and aimed higher, across tense suspended thighs, and the exposed cunt came in for a stinging lash or two. She screamed again. "I thought," he went on, giving her another, "that you'd learned to pay attention. Horny or not. Evidently I was mistaken." Another blow. "Maybe you thought you didn't have to bother."

  Another. He paused long enough between blows and sobs for her to hear each cutting word. "You seem to think you can do what you like when I'm not there to see. Maybe this," – he hit her very hard – "will make an impression on that self-absorbed little hide."

  It took a while to get her where he wanted her. By that time her buttocks and the backs of her thighs were laced with narrow, swelling welts. He took her by the hair and stared into the wet and crumpled face, until she was looking at him and the washed-out eyes regained their focus. "Listen, slave.

  Listen hard. You listening?" He gave the head a small shake and felt her urgent nod. "You are not a thing that has options. What you are is property.

  Equipment belonging to me." He gave her head another little shake. "My property does not go wandering. My property had better take very good care and pay attention so that it does not go wandering. Do you think you've got that now?"

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  Yes, yes, she got that, and sobbed out promises to pay much better attention in future. But he wasn't finished.

  "You seem to have forgotten what you're here for. You're not here to wallow in erotic trances. You're not here to float around indulging yourself in subspace. Your purpose is to serve me. Is that clear? You are a thing for my use. That's your function: doing as I tell you. That's your first and only priority. Body and brain, sexuality, all of it, all the time, for me. Got that?”

  “Yes, master, yes, I'm sorry!"

  "All right," he said, letting go of her head. "That takes care of your punishment for being out of bounds. Now I'm going to punish you for forgetting to call." She gasped and pulled in her legs with frantic strength until she was almost upside down, and her head and mop of hair shook back and forth. Anders took her face gently in his hands, and looked at it, inverted this time. How strange and sweet the big, wet eyes below, above it the distorted, trembling mouth. "Yes, bad girl. You know you deserve it. Don't you." She sagged from the ropes and nodded.

  ***

  God knows I deserved it. The question was whether I could stand it. He released my wrists and cuffed them again across the small of my back, leaving me hanging by ankles only. I had never felt so much like prey. Game hung in a butcher's shop. The pulley raised me up toward the ceiling. I hung, feeling the stretch of bone and muscle and tendon, straight down from my feet to my neck, the sweep of my hair, blood in my head. The pain of flogged flesh, receding a little in the confusion.

  "Well?" My master's voice, cool and questioning. I looked at him through clouded eyes. His hand shot out and slapped my breast. "Pay attention! Jesus Christ, girl! How much of this do you need before I get through to you?"

  "I'm sorry, master," I got out in a fast whisper. "I'm – okay." Oh, god!

  Would I never learn?

  "All right. Let me know otherwise." And he took up a flogger with slightly wider lashes and went to work on the rest of me: breasts, belly, back and the fronts of my thighs. I don't think he'd ever hit me so hard. While he did this he made me count, ask for the next blow, and beg for more punishment for my specific faults.

  I had never been in bondage so dehumanizing, subjected to so much 213

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  torment, while having at the same time to maintain human intelligence and some kind of language capacity. It took everything I had to focus on my master's words, process them, and force my tongue to respond coherently, and not dissolve into a howling, mass of suffering and disgrace. No escape into subspace. No retreat from the realities of my own misbehaviour and his devastating anger and contempt. No relief from the overwhelming pain and humiliation he was meting out so lavishly in return.

  At last he knelt over me as I lay exhausted on the floor, arms still locked behind me. The touch of the rug on my skin made me weep some more.

  "Now," he said softly. "Tell me, bad girl, how we should take care of this." He indicated his huge erection.

  He was still calling me 'bad girl,' which meant – oh god! – that he hadn't forgiven me yet. That face, those eyes were bleak; I almost broke down. But what remained of my brain managed to work this out. He wanted the punishment to continue, and he wanted me to ask for it. I begged in a hoarse whisper to be fucked up the ass.

  "Why?" he asked.

  "Because – master, it will hurt me a lot and – and I deserve to be hurt."

  Apparently that was the right answer. "Right. Up the stairs. On your knees."

  Groaning, I managed to get my knees under me, and made my way toward the stairs. Naturally there was punishment along the way; climbing stairs on one's knees with no hands is a slow business, even when you haven't just had the most thorough whipping of your life. You basically have to swarm up on your face and sore breasts. I almost fell back once, but he caught me, pushed me forward and gave me a terrible smack. By the time I made it upstairs I was crying so hard I could barely see to steer myself to the bedroom.

  Over the footboard, stretched and tied by ankles and collar. My master lubricated my asshole, but apart from that he gave me absolutely no mercy.

  My welted ass was grabbed, stretched and impaled. He got in as close as possible and tormented my raw flesh with every thrust, and with every thrust I screamed. Welted breasts were twisted and pinched and rubbed. I sobbed out how sorry I was, and please to forgive me, and I tried through all of this to stay open for him.

  That night for the first time I wasn't allowed to sleep in his bed; he left 214

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  me on the floor at the foot, chained by wrists and ankles. Everything hurt, but the loneliness was worse. But the next morning, when he unchained me, he held me in his arms and his eyes were warm. The punishment, that punishment at least, was over.

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  Chapter Sixteen

  Folk Fetish

  They'd been heading north for over an hour before the traffic finally, abruptly fell away. The contrast was such that Anders felt like he had the road to himself. He to
ok a deep breath and burst into a sea shanty in a big Stan Rogers voice.

  Maia offered a round of applause over the final note. "Sea shanties would roll out nicely over these pretty Muskoka lakes," she said. "Make all those weekend sailors feel tough and tarry."

  "Uh-huh. A shanty is a great experience in machismo; take it from me."

  "Are there Danish sea shanties?" she asked.

  "Oddly, only translations of English ones. Danish sailors who worked on English ships brought them back and translated them."

  "Strange. What did Danish sailors sing when they hauled up?"

  "No idea. I'll have to ask Svend some time."

  "I can still see you at the helm. With an evil look in your eye."

  "Watch your words, wench, or I'll put you in the hold on the return journey.”

  “Yes, master. Did you live near the water in Copenhagen?"

  "Not far from one of the canals. We used to go to Nyhavn sometimes to look at the old sailing boats. There are wonderful houses there. Hundreds of years old. Svend would be trying to sneak onto the boats and I'd be staring at the houses." He swung into the left lane to pass a big tractor-trailer. "I lost track of him that way once; oh, man did I get in trouble." He grinned. "But of course we knew our own neighbourhood best. We used to tear around all the time, the whole gang of us, through our friends' buildings, out the back through the basements and courtyards. All these secret routes.”

  “Who were you hiding from?"

  "Adults, I guess. Each other – spy games and so on. A whole detailed geography that I knew like the back of my hand. I think I even mapped it at one point."

  "That sounds like fun."

  "It was. Great fun."

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  anything that exciting. Everything was so new and obvious. A few trap doors and creaky attics would have improved the ambience no end." She mused, stared into the distance. "I used to make secret worlds for myself with chairs and blankets and an old card table, down in the basement. And there was a crate, too. A friend and I used to hide in that. We turned it over on its side, and set it all up with little dishes and a toy stove and treats.”