“Hey there…”
Daniel turned from his computer screen responding to Alice’s heated whisper. She stood by the door with her heavy purse and tote bag and took a few steps forward.
“I’m off for the day. Whatever you’re doing seems to be working for Lisle,” she went on in the same whispering voice.
“Oh?”
“I left her baking a chocolate cake.”
“You what?”
“She said, and I quote, ‘I know how to do that’ like she really knew what she was doing.”
“And you let her?”
Alice moved close enough to Daniel so she no longer worried that the girl would overhear. “She’s already shown that she knows how to use the stove. I watched her pull out the mixer, measure most of the ingredients. I told her she’d better leave the kitchen spotless or you’d hit the roof. She smiled and said, ‘I know’, like she, well, like she’s a normal person. This is better, whatever you’ve done is working…” She thought a moment. “Well, at least sort of. I wouldn’t leave unless I thought she was going to be fine.”
Just as Alice was finishing her thought a horrifying shriek ripped through the air like the fabric of nature had suddenly ruptured.
The two dashed to the kitchen, and saw Lisle standing between the sink and island with the empty paper flour sack in one hand, its contents flung through the space and covering half the walls, all the counters, most of the floor, the stove, the sink and Lisle herself. The bright colors of her sundress, another of Alice’s castoffs, had been lightened to a softer palette by a thin layer of white. The flour settled in her hair and on her face, which was at that moment filled with such fierceness and such distress that the two watching wondered if she were sane at all.
“What the hell have you done?” Daniel yelled.
He hadn’t meant to sound so stern, but the curt question brought the girl back to the real world from wherever her mind had gone. Her blank expression changed to one of shock, then remorse as she gazed at the mess she’d made. Her eyes filled with tears, her face turned ashen, and suddenly her legs gave way and collapsed beneath her. She landed on the flour-covered floor with a thud and tucked her head to her knees.
Alice rushed forward to console her.
“She’s fine,” Daniel announced.
“She’s not fine!” the housekeeper tossed him an angry glance.
“And I’m sure she is,” he said evenly. “We’ll handle this ourselves.”
Alice didn’t agree and continued to gently stroke Lisle’s arm in an attempt to comfort her, although it seemed to have no impact on the cowering girl.
“Lisle…” he said, doing his level best to remain calm.
When the girl looked up, her sane self seemed to be back in charge.
“Alice, I’m sure you have things to do, and since I’m not going to pay you for any more hours today you can run along. Lisle and I will be just fine.”
His housekeeper looked at him suspiciously but his words seemed to settle her some and she finally returned to her feet.
“At least I could help clean this mess,” she offered.
“It’ll be cleaned, don’t worry about that. But you didn’t make the mess and you’re not going to clean it up. Go on now, we’ll see you Friday.”
The two communicated well with their eyes: her concern almost palpable, his authority immovable and certain. Finally with a shake of the head, and a breezy, “Well, if you need anything just give a holler.” Alice headed for the door, adjusting the strap of the tote bag on her shoulder. She quickly ducked back in to add, “By the way, I have tomorrow free if you need me. I can always use more hours.”
“Thank you, but we’ll be fine,” Daniel replied. “We’ll see you Friday.” He didn’t waver for a moment and this time Alice marched out without looking back.
His kitchen was a disaster area, the girl was huddled on the floor like a frightened rabbit and he had the situation handled. That’s what he had to believe and act on. He’d never been hesitant with a defiant and rebellious woman; not with recently captured crazies, the spitting bitches, or hysterically sobbing females. They never affected him, never got past the wall he’d long before erected to keep out any hint of compassion, guilt or remorse toward the women who passed through his life. The effort was compartmentalized; he could turn emotions off and on as if there were a switch inside his soul, although he’d long ago banished guilt and remorse. He had no use for such feelings. Compassion, yes. The feeling came to him from time to time and those times made him human. They were reminders that he was more than the one dimensional morality play he acted out daily as an unrepentant slave trader. That single emotion had finally forced the change that brought him back to the US and a more civil world. Since his return two years before, a few other less intense emotions joined his range of feelings, although no one would ever mistake him for a kind and benevolent man.
And yet, it was more than compassion for Lisle that drove him now. The very feelings that aroused him as a bad ass slave trader surged through his body, infusing his loins with excitement he’d not felt in a long while. His brief altercations with Shelly, Alice and Val paled in comparison to the promise that stirred in him now. For the time being, however, he dashed his stiffening hard-on, knowing that ‘horny’ had no place in the scheme of things until much later. Dealing with the immediate issue, the crouching flour-covered girl, would be pleasure enough for the resurrected master he’d just become.
Though she still glanced his way from time to time, her eyes nervously flitted from one place in the kitchen to another. She was frightened but she was wary and alert too, enough for him to believe that whatever crazed fracture in her psyche that compelled her to spray flour over his kitchen had passed.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No, sir…uh, I think I’m fine.” When she began to move her arms and legs, he stepped forward to help her to her feet then he stepped back, leaving the dazed girl to lean against the kitchen sink for support. The mess that blanketed the room embarrassed her and she blushed profusely, bowing her head in shame.
“You’ve made a mess. Clean it up.” He didn’t need to raise his voice; the clear command in his tone communicated enough. “I don’t care if it takes you till midnight, unless you have to go piss, you stay here until it’s done. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir. And I’m so sorry… I don’t know what came over me.”
“Of course, you do,” his eyes flashed as he challenged her. “When you’re finished, come see me. We will talk about it then. And yes, we, you and me, we’ll talk.”
This threatened her. Her eyes widened and her body shivered again in fear, but he knew, they both knew, that she wouldn’t lose it again, not that day. If he weren’t mistaken, her sexual energy was sky high. She feasted off this sort of drama, just as he did—though in a very different way. For now he’d have to tamp down that lusty surge of arousal and so would she.
Daniel was in luck that he had no reason to leave the house that afternoon. He didn’t want to leave the girl alone, especially in a kitchen with knives, scissors and a shitload of cleaning items she could use to hurt herself. He didn’t take her for a cutter, or suicidal. Her quick rage might have been impulsive—it wasn’t all that surprising that her feelings would explode on her so violently. However, there was an important message that she conveyed here, and the outburst was one he would not ignore even if it immediately looked that way.
The sun was low in the sky by the time Lisle knocked on Daniel’s office door—the forward door off the hallway—the official door in everyone’s point of view, even Lisle’s. Her choice was deliberate. This was an official visit.
Twice during the afternoon he’d popped his head in the kitchen door to see if she was okay. Both times she was busy cleaning. He saw her a third time when he went to the kitchen to get something to eat. Although she didn’t attack the cleaning with the same vigorous vengeance that Alice would have, she worked steadily, from one end of the r
oom to the other with bucket, mop and sponges, showing that she knew exactly how to get the job done and in an efficient manner—a relief to him. He imagined that she zoned out like anyone would with such a rote and miserable task to complete, but the times he saw her she didn’t seem deeply entrenched in her fantasy world the way she had so often since he’d brought her into his house. She’d even turned on the radio to a music station, though it played so softly in the background that he doubted she heard much. Top 40’s. He made a mental note of that, an interesting choice for such a sheltered girl. Recalling a mention of piano lessons in Marcus’ description of the girl, he would have guessed she’d prefer more classical music. Of course, the radio station may have been Alice’s choice and Lisle was simply afraid to change to another one.
Hearing the knock on his office door brought Daniel out of a lazy afternoon snooze. He was sitting in his reading chair with a stack of files piled at his side and a book in his lap and a couple of magazines nearby. There was little to interest him; the book was boring, and so were the files he combed through as part of investigative research he was doing for the Pentagon project. The magazines he’d already read. He’d been killing time waiting to hear that knock, and now he had…
He took a breath, sat up a little straighter in his chair and put his feet squarely on the floor. The moment was a critical one and he gave the next few minutes the importance they deserved. He was prepared to be patient, but prepared to be firm. “Come in,” he announced at last.
The door creaked opened, but rather than see his spritely houseguest tiptoe in as he expected she would, he watched her drop to her knees just inside the doorway and press her forehead to the floor. Her hands were tightly locked behind her waist and sticking out on either side of those tightly clenched fists were the long thin ends of a bamboo cane. The brightly colored sundress flowed out around her like a diaphanous robe. Although it appeared to have been dusted off, the vibrant hues were still softened by an embedded layer of flour. She made quite an alluring vision in her humble pose, the sight enough to give his crotch a jolt. He had to give her credit; she managed to do the unexpected nearly every day—this another sterling example and one that made his stiffening cock begin to throb.
He waited for nearly thirty seconds before he spoke and when she didn’t change positions, he spat out crisply, “You intend to just stay there?”
She instantly scurried forward, hardly rising to her feet, though she certainly didn’t accomplish the move on hands and knees. When she settled herself directly in front of him she was kneeling, this time with her bottom resting back against her legs, and the cane lying across her open palms as she presented it to him like an offering. Her head was raised, her eyes pleading for him to use it.
“The kitchen spotless?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Except for the light fixtures. I’ll need a step ladder to clean them, maybe sometime you could show me where one is?”
Brushing aside her concern, he focused on the bamboo rod. “Where’d you get the cane?” he asked.
She gulped guiltily. “From your closet, sir.”
“Were you given permission to enter my room?”
“No, sir. I-I—”
“Did you have permission to rummage through my things?”
“No, sir. But I—”
He cut her off again. “I recall telling you when you came there that I’m a master in my home, the same way the Baron was in his. It’s a term I assumed you would respect.”
“Oh, but I do, sir!”
“Really? You’ve been in this house nearly two weeks, Lisle. You’ve watched me as much as I’ve watched you. Do you think I’m the kind of man who’s going to be happy about someone going through my private room, my closets, my clothes, my sexual toys?”
“No sir.”
She hung her head again and he countered the poor pitiful look with a crusty, “Look at me!” She immediately looked up. “Are you deliberately baiting me? You want to be punished so badly that you resort to this?”
Her face paled at the comment. “Oh, no no no, sir! I just…just need it so badly after what…” her voice trailed off.
He could feel the turmoil boiling up inside her and that excited him.
“There are wooden spoons in the kitchen, perfectly appropriate for punishing naughty brats. A ruler in plain sight on my desk…”
“Yes, I’m sure they’d all work well.” She looked at him eagerly.
“But you violate the sanctity of my bedroom instead.”
“Then I’ve done a very bad thing.”
“Several bad things. You think a caning is going to make up for your angry outburst? For your breach of protocol? For all your bad behavior?”
“Don’t I deserve it, sir?”
“Since when do slaves choose how they’re punished?”
She seemed confused. “I didn’t know I was a slave here.”
“You aren’t. But you still consider yourself one. You still think like one. You’ve behaved badly, you expect to be punished as a misbehaving slave, and now you’ve compounded your crimes by attempting to manipulate me. Was the master in your life so easily finessed?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand it either. I only know that when I’m punished, when I’m caned, all the bad thoughts in me disappear—” she hesitated, “for a while anyway. I’m not so likely to explode.” She lowered her hands and the cane, letting it rest across her lap. Her face was filled with anguish and defeat.
“And it’s been a long while since you’ve been punished?”
She nodded, her spirit diminishing before his eyes like the proverbial shrinking violet.
“Don’t disappear on me, girl,” he rattled her with the abrupt retort. “Tell me about being punished.”
“It’s been months, sir. I’m not really sure how long. After the master got sick I was beaten several times a week by one of his staff, but then that stopped too, maybe three or four months ago. I’m not used to so little…”
“Which is why the flour all over my kitchen?”
“I don’t know.” She looked terribly sad. “Something in me wells up. I think I’m going to explode, and I do.”
“You’ve exploded like this before?”
“Yes, sir. Several times. A few weeks back, before that I don’t remember when.”
“And caning takes the rage away?”
“Not really. But I need the pain. It’ll wash over me like a heavenly rapture and I’ll feel much better.” She shrugged self-consciously. “I guess, in spite of what I do, there’s always a little pilot light burning in me, always there threatening to explode. I don’t like it and the explosions scare me … but I don’t know how to make them stop.” Tears welled in her soft blue eyes.
The more she spoke the more her intelligence shined through the ‘bereft little girl act’ she played so well. How much was real, how much was just an act, how much was part of the elaborate set of rules that governed her behavior would require some study. At least twice since she’d been taken from Brauer’s estate he’d had his theories about her shattered. She was not insane and dysfunctional; nor had her spirit been broken by the brutality of her slavery. She was not a mindless playacting robot. In fact, her whole energy could teem with life. When her vibrancy surged forth her beauty shone through proving she was not a twisted soul, not defeated in the slightest. She had the inner strength of Michelle Monroe, Val’s sagacious understanding of her deepest needs, and the same kind of the gutsy nerve that propelled Alice forward in her life. Quite a potent combination for a girl he’d plucked from sure disaster two weeks before.
The fact that she excited him as a master had not been welcome. The ‘enlightened’ version of masters and slaves was just a game, fraught with rules and limitations that made it look silly in his eyes. Once you’d had the real thing, the enlightened version of slavery, and all the carefully crafted ‘power exchange’ of the bdsm lifestyle, held little thrill. He’d moved on from that to something different. But Lisle
was another matter, a distinctive force—and she was a force, not an eager wannabe who liked a little flogging with her sex. She was real, gutsy and infinitely moldable, which meant there’d be yet another change in plans. How it would all work out he wasn’t sure but he was willing to bend his own new rules, at least while the girl was in his house.
“On your feet, girl,” he snapped the order.
Wasting no moves he rose to his feet and grabbed the cane from Lisle’s hands. Then with his fingers tightly gripping the base of her neck, he marched her toward the back of his office and through the far door into the kitchen. He saw that it was clean, clean enough anyway. The sink was spotless, so was the stove. The floor could have used another pass with the mop, but she’d done a creditable job and he wouldn’t demand more. Pulling a wooden stool away from the counter, he motioned to the girl.
“Bend over, raise your skirt and grab on below. Keep yourself steady because I won’t.”
While Daniel still used and punished women in the brutal way he loved, polite society had had its effect. He was more satisfied now when he knew he had the woman’s consent. The thrill of delivering a beating to a female against her will was too twisted to enjoy in an urbane world and he refused to love it as he once had. But the women in his new life, for all the sadistic satisfaction he derived from dominating them, were too willing to take what he delivered, love it while it lasted, then toss it off as a surrendering thrill in their otherwise ‘take-charge’ lives. It was good to keep the blood moving and the lust stirred. Good for venting emotions that had built up between sessions—although a vigorous game of tennis might have had the same effect.
Little Savage Page 9