“Then I’ll compromise too.”
Oh, how he viewed me with twin beady eyes, staring so soullessly into mine, I thought he might push me back right out of my chair.
“You know this stays with you all your life,” he went on. “You’re branded by it so it’ll never go away. Most of the women who sign these contracts just get in deeper, whether it’s with me or I sell them to another master.”
“How’s that?” I was genuinely curious.
“It’s my prerogative, as long as I enrich your contract 10%, I have the right to sell you to whomever I choose.”
“And do I have the right to decline the transaction?”
“You’re a sex slave, not a free person. That’s what you and the rest of you young tramps don’t understand. You may think you’re the same person when the contract’s been executed, but you’re not. You belong to a different species, and there’s no turning back.”
He was saying this to scare me away, but I liked that kind of talk, that kind of finality. I liked the fact that I was walking, even leaping into this. My entire body responded, sounding an internal alarm that signaled a new direction for me.
“So when do we consummate the contract?”
He’d been staring into his beer stein, and without moving he lifted his eyes to peer into mine. Then sitting back, he shook his head with that look of exasperation that suggested he’d never get rid of me. “I’ll tell you how far I’ll go today. You take care of a few friends for me on the sly, no charge, and then I’ll decide. Give me your telly number and I’ll arrange something in a day or two.”
I could see that was the best offer I was going to get, and I counted myself lucky. Men on the sly? Far more dangerous than having a contract on my ass. But I’d agree to it. There was a challenge in that alone, proving to this naysayer that I was worthy of the amoral life. Who was he to get in my way?
I went home and pulled Rowena’s journal from its safe place, so her life could once again give me courage.
11/19 - Boheme in so within me, I feel as if I’m not a separate being anymore. I await his affections every day, glad for the torture he heaps on me. The tattoo is nearly complete, this vine of ivy running from my breast, down my belly, winding erotically about my genitals and down my left leg. Sometimes it feels as if it’s an actual vine, tickling me as I move. I am naked most of the time, so this permanent ink has become the only clothing I wear—clothing no man, least of all my master can remove. There are diamonds now in my outer labia and rings hanging from the inner ones, to draw attention to that place.
The day I was pierced with the jewelry is the only time I’ve been food for other men so far. Boheme obviously prefers to keep me to himself. For the installation of these decorations however, two nights ago I was clothed in a satin gown, a brocade cape pulled over my shoulders. Taken to a house by the river, I was thrust onto a metal table while there were seven, perhaps eight men standing around me. My hands were tied over head, my abdomen strapped down so that my ass dangled over the edge of the cold surface. Raising my legs so they too were secured overhead, my sexual parts were laid out like meat at a feast. I wasn’t wrong to assume that the men would take turns with me. But there was a ritual to this taking, in Boheme’s mind an initiation to my calling. Candles burned around my bed, tall tapers nearly two feet high so I felt enclosed by fire. Each prick that spilled its warm fluid in my vagina took its time before it broke loose. There seemed to be no end to the merciless drilling. By the time their collective sexual rage was spent I ached, with every inch of me crying out for relief from the discomfort of the bonds. While momentarily relieved when my legs were loosened, the pain became more distressing. My thighs were held down with serious hands, while the man in the middle worked on my genitalia. Parting my outer labia, that well used place was splashed with stinging ointment. I recall tears falling from my eyes, as the abuse began to send me westward to that curious dream state. (Why my visions come from the westerly climate, I’m sure is symbolic. Who doesn’t associate the Americaas with enlightenment and chaos. How often I’ve dreamed that going there, sailing across the blue waters would bring me freedom! But freedom from what now? What more freedom could I have than this state of rapture?)
I wasn’t cognizant of the rest of the ceremony, just bits and pieces. When the needles pricked my interior labia, I might have cried; but in my inner mind where my immediate feelings dwelled, the vision took an abrupt turn: from a rollicking sexual theatre to one of chaos, people running in the streets, fires burning down the state houses. And then out of the fires there was a place of opulent white where I was naked at a garden party, my sex manipulated so that with a smiling face, I reported more visions to priggish guests who meandered on the cool green lawn.
I awoke to the scene of tall candles burning around me, the plump flesh of my outer lips jerked hard by tongs, which flattened the thick fold before the needle punctured through it. The act repeated with the second labia, those sensitive folds of flesh and blood were raw and swollen, throbbing from sexual arousal and throbbing from the marks that bound me even closer to Boheme.
In the middle of the night I was returned to my bed in my torture chamber home. Boheme leaned over and kissed my lips, a first kiss from my master. I’m sure he expected my silence as always. I rarely spoke. The piercing of my tongue made my words seem awkward to me, even though I could speak plainly. “My love?” I addressed him when I never had before.
“Rowena?” He was surprised to hear my voice.
“You should know that the sex brings me visions,” I said.
“Does it?” He looked amused. “How interesting. Perhaps we should talk about that sometime.”
It has been two days and I’ve not heard from my master in all that time. I’m sure he’s remained away because I’m so dreadfully sore everywhere around my crotch. I can’t touch myself that I don’t gasp a little inside. Warms baths give me some comfort. I’m lucky to have the large porcelain tub in the pristine tiled room next to the chamber where I sleep. It’s the one place where I feel like a queen mounted high on a throne. When I’m there, I think. The water coats my skin with its fragrant dew, oozing into me, and my mind takes trips to relax my soul. Submerged in the delicate liquid, the five pierced places between my thighs give me some clue as to how I’ll experience their rewards when they heal.
I feel that my master will call me to him any hour now. If not, I’ll have to find the opportunity to speak with him about the visions soon, the way they haunt me in the daylight hours and return to me when I sleep.
I met my first mount in an alley by the theatre just after the last show let out at midnight. I watched the flick, trying to get my nerves in check, knowing all along that the man would be somewhere in the place, perhaps scouting me out. He’d know me by the red beret I was wearing on my dark hair, by the shocking red lipstick on my full lips. When I left the theatre with the crowd of people, busily rushing home after the last act, I spotted a man with a gray overcoat leaning against the brick building, just around the corner from the theatre entrance. Nodding to me, I obeyed his intent.
“You’re Sergei’s girl?”
“Yes.” So urbane. The man didn’t meet my expectations. I figured him for a money man, someone with lots of cash to spend on very little. Stores had been bleak this season, but then not necessarily bleak in the sexual trades. He introduced himself as Kulkarin.
It surprised me when he manacled my left wrist like I was already slave flesh. If we were caught in this precarious position we could have both been jailed, but there was no one to see us at that hour, especially when he led me back into the inky blackness of the dead-end pathway, and then through an opened door of a tenement apartment. Kulkarin had sex with me in the back corridor of the building just inside the door. Pressed to the wall, he raised my skirt, stripped away my panties, and bent me over just enough so he could enter me. Slapping my ass until it stung, he then fondled the rear opening as his erection glided in and out of the wet space.
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“You’re a virgin here?” he asked me about the back door.
“I am.” I knew he was going to breach me there, but I would withstand the act. I led Sergei to understand I was serious about this. And of course this was the master’s test.
After splashing the cleft with something cool and slippery, Kulkarin’s fingers began the penetration, working their way into the tight, uninitiated space. A strangely exhilarating feeling followed. I don’t recall ever feeling quite so submissively inclined or willing to surrender as I was with this crude violation. The way I moved my ass against Kulkarin’s fingers told him I wanted more.
And yet, when I felt the head of his penis press against my sphincter, I almost screamed because I knew it wouldn’t fit.
“Relax.” His voice was mellow. “Relax, Duchet, and it will go in easier. It will go in,” he assured me, seeing the way I trembled. Just the feeling I was looking for: one being subdued and conquered, forced to give, even when it pained me.
I was surprised how when the head of his cock was pressed against the door it suddenly gave way so his penis could slip inside without a cry from my lips. He’d made me ready. With the erection lodged deep, I felt it pulse, then move slowly while a painful agony rendered the moment a useless one for any pleasure of my own. Then, perhaps my pleasure had nothing to do with the matter. I was in training as a whore. No one, least of all this man, cared if I enjoyed even an instant of this taking.
And yet, there was a gift for me. Sparks flew in my brain and body. I felt wild and happily freed. Exactly what I was looking for. There was in me the joy of doing what I wanted with my body. The thrill of living out the desires of the dark realm had only been fantasy in the past. This put me on a perpetual high from which I didn’t think I’d ever come down.
“You might make it in Sergei’s world,” Kulkarin said as he withdrew, rapping his still hard erection against my pained rear end. Following that, he slapped my ass with as mean a smack as I think he could manage. Undoing the manacle still about my wrist, he left me in the hallway without another word. Still bent over, my sore ass bared, I finally came to my senses and hastily left the building through the front door, not the alley.
***
The next two set-ups were less frightening. The first of these mounts I met in the bustling cafe of a large hotel. Once the preliminary introductions were complete, he took me to a room on the fifth floor, not his room but one bare of any personal things. This is how I’d imagined such affairs, in sterile environments where nothing matters but the consummation of the deal. Watching me disrobe, the brown-haired man on the bed requested I make the process slow, a lazy sex dance. With an active imagination I let music play in the back of my mind, wishing there was real music, while I accomplished the act. Thinking of bordellos of old, of pandering clubs and those strip bars that are ever present in my mind’s eye, I fashioned myself the purveyor of the sex trades of old, one of those grand whores who gave my beloved Rowena inspiration.
This event was mindless and uninventive, but I made it as exciting as I knew how, figuring that every detail, or at least the final outcome would be reported to Sergei.
The third mount was much more to my liking, why I wanted to enter the slavery agreement in the first place. Sergei had given me Ezra’s address one morning when he’d slipped into the newspaper office and found me shocked to see his face in a setting where he did not belong. Though it wasn’t unusual to have visitors in the city room, I had a terrible time keeping this quick meeting casual. My hand seemed to tremble uncontrollably taking the paper from him. “He’s expecting you for lunch,” he informed me.
“Lunch? Today?”
He looked at his watch. “When do you usually get off?”
“Whenever I want.”
“Then he’ll be expecting you at twelve-thirty.”
“But the time? I have to be back.”
“This won’t take more than forty-five minutes, and Ezra lives close. Don’t be late. He’s a very punctual man.”
I watched Sergei leave, stared down at the paper and the address printed there, then looked back to see the last glimpse of him as he disappeared into the elevator. A strange sensation, like something crawling up my neck made me turn the other way, only to see Max Gatov staring at me from the other side of the room. Seeing no expression on his face, I wondered what he was thinking, or if perhaps he knew my visitor? That was a chilling thought.
Ezra lived two blocks from the newspaper, in an older but very elegant apartment building made when wood was still available for building. I loved the way the floor boards creaked in the entryway, even though I could see that they were virtually worn away from years of use. I’m sure the substructure of this building had to be shored up with metal and concrete, though it was pleasant to see that someone cared enough to take those measures. Feeling the wood molding on the doorway—it was still oily from being polished—the pleasant smell remained on my hands like perfume. Thinking of that I smiled to myself, only whores wear perfume anymore.
On the third floor, I knocked on door number 332. A silver-haired man answered the summons. He stared at his watch, nodding. Apparently, I arrived on time, because he showed no displeasure.
“In here please, Miss Duchet,” he said, clicking his heels behind him so formally, I mistook him for a butler. On the walls of his living room there were pictures everywhere of military campaigns, plaques indicating awards and decorations the man had won, dozens of smiling and frowning photographs of stern men consummating the ends of battles. Ezra himself was dressed in military pants, which I recognized from the open wars. He’d been at Coitroun and Marchett and the Prussian highlands, places in a school child’s history book. I saw photographs of journalists whose lives were the stuff of my aspirations, though there were no more wars, these campaigns made sure of that. The whole world would keep the peace after the Coitroun blood-bath.
“Let’s get on with it, Miss Duchet. If you’ll disrobe I’ll begin.”
“Disrobe?” How abrupt. I was wrong to question him. Seeing the disgust on his face at my hesitation, I nervously began to unbutton my coat, letting it fall to a chair behind me while I went on to complete his order. Pulling my white blouse from my pants, I shivered as Ezra impassively looked on me. While he waited, he leaned against a table, content to stare as each button quit its loop and the two sides of the blouse fell to the side. The garment slipped off me with a shake of my shoulders. Undoing the belt of my pants I lowered the zipper and the soft fabric dropped to my feet. Stockings, bra and pants suffering the same fate. My pile of clothes ended up on the chair behind me, while I stood shivering and naked before this uncommunicative man.
“A little slow, but you’ll learn,” he commented as he came to me, taking my wrists in his hands and drawing them over my head. He pulled them through tight fitting loops hanging from a beam in the ceiling. With a pulley, he raised me higher still, so I was on tiptoe when he was finished. A million thoughts raced through my mind, from the absurd—as in what could he possibly be doing with me? to the mundane, as in how will I possibly be back at work by one-thirty for my conference with Max? All thinking ceased, however, when the first strike of his lash hit my skin. Then, I was in Rowena’s land, thinking of her alone, allowing the prima donna of masochism to dance inside my brain. I’d been waiting to taste pain like this, rich, full and lingering. Each stroke of the lash against me was laid on separate from the one that went before, giving me ample time to feel the full effect. Across my back, my ass, thighs and calves, and then my belly, breasts and sex in front. Within minutes I was writhing as much as possible within the bonds, encouraging him to strike another blow even though I knew that it would only be more painful than the one before. At intervals, Ezra stopped long enough to fondle my genitals and poke his fingers in both caverns between my legs. Starting again, Ezra’s blows became less painful, more exuberant with the pleasure delivered.
Picking up the pace of the attack however, the man’s style changed so the
re was no break between blows. I tried to keep up with the rush created in me, but that became impossible. Rather than moan, I was screaming. And with each bit of anguish, another tear dropped from my eyes and ran down to my chin. Those tears tickled my skin but there was no way to wipe them away. Every once and awhile, I’d look up to see the clock on the wall and another minute tick by, thinking all the while that the timepiece was moving in slow motion, or that real time had stopped, leaving me there forever in this suspended place of agony. When at last the man finished, I hung for a while limp, twitching—the air itself stung my raw skin.
“I think that’s all I need to make my report to Sergei,” he said watching my prayerful attitude as my eyes begged him to let me go. “I’m afraid it might be painful for you to work the rest of the day. But that is part of the life you want to live. You’d be wise to consider this carefully before you make a final decision.” Ezra lectured me a while longer as he paced about me, looking at the results of his work. I could see my breasts myself. They looked as though they’d been clawed by a cat. Little places where the skin was broken were smeared with blood, drying. I imagined that the rest of my body would bear the same marks, especially my ass where he’d spent the most energy.
Finally letting me down, my arms felt like dead weights. “I suppose you’ll be expected back at work in fifteen minutes,” he said, rhetorically. “You’d better dress quickly so you won’t be late. Clicking his heels again like the military man he was, he left me, my nakedness, and my marred body to decently restore myself.
One glance in a mirror on the far wall, I saw quickly that, while the skin on nearly every part of my body was raw from the lashes, there were no other broken places, no blood to clean up. Dabbing a handkerchief in a glass of water, I washed away the smeared blood on my breasts. Seeing that these places would heal, I put on my bra and the remainder of my clothes quickly, wishing that I didn’t have the meeting with Max at one. I’d have never returned to the paper that afternoon, and there were lots of reasonable excuses I could give.
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