“We’ll be leaving in an hour. The vehicle will be ready downstairs.”
“Is that all?” I asked.
“For now.” His phone rang and I was out the door before I heard him answer.
My first night in Gatov’s house he showed me to my room and told me I’d be eating there. He had guests, and I wasn’t yet ready to entertain for him. Never in all the time I’d been a slave to Sergei did I feel as captive as I did at that moment. Lying on the bed in the strange room that was now my room, I’d been swept away from everything that was dear to me. Max Gatov seemed to know how much that would unsettle me. I thought of Rowena’s Journal, buried with the underwear in my bureau. It had been one of the rare days I hadn’t brought it with me to work. I guess I’d left in a rush that morning. Without it, I felt lost, and worse, had the feeling that I’d lost her life forever, that despite what Gatov said, I’d never see her words again.
I missed the bordello. I missed sex. The hours ticked by with me hoping I’d be used by some horny man. I finally fell asleep with my loins aching, and I didn’t have the heart to touch them.
Three days. Three long, horrifying days I lived in limbo. Gatov, as cold as ice, kept me as a useless, unused chattel. Removed from my possessions that he’d promised me, forced by the contract to sleep in his forbidding house, the only pleasure I could take was at my job, where he reigned over me as well. I begged for any assignment that got me out of the newsroom and on the street. I’d even become a mail clerk if that meant that I’d spend less time in proximity to my new, devious master.
Returning home from work on the fourth day, I noticed several things in my room that I recognized, notably my clothes, toilet items and a few books from my bookshelf. At first I thought the journal wasn’t there, but to my surprise, on opening one of the bureau drawers, Rowena’s Journal lay inside among my sexy underwear as if whomever removed the clothes and brought them to my new home, had no idea that a priceless piece of history was in their hands.
Picking up the journal I carried the book to bed assuming that I’d have some time to read before I went to sleep. I was wrong. Just as I was opening the cover I heard a knock on the door. Shoving the volume under my pillow, I said, “Come in.”
“So, are you settled?” Gatov asked as he strolled to my side.
“Of course,” I replied with a smile. How polite he was being.
“I’m glad. I will require you services downstairs tonight, but you’ll have to dress for it.”
“In what?” I asked rising from the bed.
Going to my closet, he briskly went from one dress to the next, not seeming to find anything suitable. Opening a second closet on the other wall, I watched him repeat the process, though this time he was rifling though clothes that were not mine, at least they were not the ones that I’d purchased and owned. “Here,” he said, throwing a dress on the bed. “There are shoes to match in the closet. Ten minutes, look ravishing, and no underwear. It’ll only get in the way.”
When I took the stairs to the first floor of Gatov’s house, I walked gingerly in the open toed pumps I found in the closet. The only ones available, there was little choice but these. I wasn’t used to the shoes so it wasn’t easy.
In the hallway I had no idea where I was suppose to go since I’d never been in this part of the house. The white of it was startling, almost blinding to my eye. An intensely stark home built of white painted concrete and metal struts, there was little warmth inside, especially in the sterile hall. Finding no clue to my master’s whereabouts, I was about to start opening doors, when Gatov popped his head out of one and I followed him.
On the other side of the door was a spacious living room. The furnishings were antiques, which provided an interesting clash of styles in the stark white house. For a brief instant I enjoyed the smell of wood smoke and the fire leaping behind the simple grate. It was almost unheard of to burn wood anymore.
Three men sat in chairs about the fire, while I was led between them, Gatov pushing me into the center of the room.
“Look at me, Chloe,” Gatov ordered. As stern voices go, his could sound lethal—dictatorial and masterful. I tried letting my past associations with him go, pretending that he was anyone but the man I’d been fighting for months. Just another master, no one that mattered. The idea was sound, but unfortunately the execution of it was impossible. I looked at his handsome face. His features, with their unabashed sexual darkness so easily displayed in this setting, loomed ever more intoxicating than they were in the newsroom. I was practiced at ignoring the sexual accompaniment that went with being in his presence. Practiced perhaps at work, but not practiced standing before him and the audience that watched us. Palms sweating, heart beating, I waited for another direction, while he seemed content just to let the stare between us be enough.
“Remove your dress,” he finally said in a voice so quiet and so stern, I might have believed that he was speaking in my ear. The rest of the room could have vanished and there was just the two of us face to face with all the spite and anger and age-old war that had prevailed in our testy relationship.
Remove the dress. Yes. Remove the dress. The words kept repeating and I kept thinking them and remained standing motionless not obeying them, but not yet refusing. It felt as though I’d be taking off every bit of dignity to unclothe myself in front of a man I knew in such a different way.
At last my hands found the strength to pull the thin straps of my dress from my shoulders. A tug or two and it was over my breasts, moving down toward my waist. More, and I wiggled in it a little to push it over my hips. Then with a firm shove the unveiling was complete. The blue cloth lay at my feet, bunched around the blue satin pumps.
Quiet again, I had to wait while the room of four men scrutinized me.
“My, she’s charming. You say, Max, she’s been slaving for five months?”
“Nearly six.”
“Turn around, girl,” the man said.
Gatov nodded, and I obeyed, more than happy to turn so their eyes weren’t on my face and my glistening cunt.
“Not a mark. Hummm. You say your father made the contract?”
“Just did my bidding.”
“And a good price you insisted on.”
“She’s mine, gentlemen. My prize. Turn back around, Chloe, and get to your knees.”
That done, my bare knees sank into the carpet, feeling its prickly fibers scratch my skin.
“Crawl to them and take their cocks,” he ordered next. “Suck them dry.”
I made my way to the first horny man, aware the entire time that Max stood over me as if he had a lash in hand, and was about to beat my backside if I faltered at all. He didn’t need a lash, his eyes were enough.
The first man was ready for me, his penis growing. With lips wrapped around his stalk, I sucked his rod until it was stiff. Once I completed that, the other two men surrounded me, all three acting as one man. From cock to cock to cock, my mouth swam between them, giving a vigorous blow-job to each. When one seemed about to peak, I moved on until the next was ready to climax, and then the next. The round robin continued until I felt the first bath of cum spew on my face, then all three finished within a few seconds of each other.
“That’ll be all, Chloe,” Max told me. Nothing more said, I was dismissed. For a slave it was an easy night. I’d have been dammed happy to have had something more for myself, but my master was contrary enough to keep me waiting.
After midnight that night, I knew because I’d heard the clock in the hallway chime the hour just before I drifted off to sleep, my bedroom door opened and Gatov moved inside. At first, only half awake, I thought he was just there to look at me, like a father might look at a young child. Playing possum, I lay there without moving, waiting for him to leave before I’d stir at all, but he didn’t leave. Coming to the bed, he drew up my hips, so I was on my knees. His erection was obvious the way it bobbed hard against my back. I knew it would poke me hard and it did. In as much need as I was, so deprived
of sexual affection for days, I climaxed just as my master did. Hearing the sibilant sounds of my pleasured voice, and feeling my cunt squeeze hard, he knew what I couldn’t deny. By then, I didn’t care. I might care in the morning, I might care on Monday when I’d face in him in his office at work. But I didn’t care in the middle of the night. The orgasm was mine, all mine. If he was part of it, it was only his cock and nothing more.
When he withdrew from me, I expected him to leave without a word. However at the door, I heard him speak. “Marchan will wake you in the morning, Chloe. At five thirty. He’ll whip you before your day begins. The ritual will continue every day except Saturday. Only when the lash starts to contain the vehemence within you will that change.”
Marchan, a handyman/gardener/driver/valet to Max Gatov came every morning like a bell tolling the hour. At his whim, he choose one particular part of my anatomy to suffer. I was whipped there thoroughly, though not long, just long enough for a blush to appear, and some stripes to show and the skin of my breasts or ass or thighs to bear the rash for several hours, after which it would usually fade.
Working with Gatov was the cruelest blow. To see him daily, to often ride with him to work and then pretend I was nothing but a copy editor on his staff made my days tense. Perhaps the lashings in the morning were necessary to calm me down. Even though I might masturbate at night before I slept, there was no real reprieve. I was not getting what I needed.
One afternoon at work, Gatov ordered me into his office. “Did Marchan whip your breasts this morning?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, still feeling the discomfort.
“Let me see the marks,” he asked.
“Here?”
He nodded.
The activity in the newsroom proceeded outside the windows and the opened door of the foreman’s office. Gatov knew he was stretching my limits to have me expose myself in this vulnerable place. I suppose he thought I’d balk at the command. But I was proud of who I was and I refused to let him know how I suffered from fear those long moments.
Buttons easily undone, my breasts were exposed to his eyes revealing the pale marks that lingered from my morning’s episode with Marchan.
“Pull them from your bra,” he said, when he hadn’t seen enough.
My hands followed the command, taking each fragrant mound of flesh from the lace that confined it. The exposure was more complete with each orb bearing at least three lines that were easily distinguished, and several other faint ones.
“He marked you well,” Gatov observed. Impassive and cold, the nod of this head led me to believe that this exhibition was complete “You can go.”
The spasm between my legs moved like an earthquake moves in a lovely wave, rippling from the center of myself, outward. I know I would have responded to him, if he’d advanced on me sexually, but he chose instead to let me suffer with the rawness of desire for the remainder of the day.
After two weeks of this ritual morning humiliation, Gatov came to me after midnight again. Again he watched me for sometime while I pretended to sleep; though I’m sure he could tell that I was awake. When he began to speak, he expected me to hear him.
“You know, Duchet, Chloe…” he said my first name more softly than the last, “if you hadn’t already chosen the life as a slave I would have recommended it to you. My first impression of you was a distinctly sexual one.” He’d approached the bed; I could tell by his footsteps drawing near. “Then, perhaps you have no idea the aura you exude, the darkness that precedes and follows you. You’re hard with me because I know you too well. Sometimes I think this war we have is unfortunate, but perhaps it will only enhance what will happen later.” I remained motionless as my master’s words caressed the air and traveled beyond my ears to a place where I hear within. He moved to the bed, where I felt his hands pull on me as they had the time before when he used me for sex. “I find your hatred of me all the more intriguing because of that well-spring in you from where it comes. We will be ravenous lovers.” He picked me up and turned me in his arms, our eyes meeting for just an instant before mine closed him out. Pressing his lips into mine, he cupped my pubis with his free hand. An audible gasp generated a more intimate fondling as I felt his fingers play about the folds of my sex. So brisk, that swift orgasm stunned me, but not Max, my master. In the black of the room, I could make out a tender smile on his face. He fondled me more, taking more of the wild unleashed passion and bringing it to the surface. Again, I climaxed.
“So beautiful, Chloe, so beautiful,” he murmured. “There will be more tonight, many more.” Fondling me again, I was at another peak, though this one he used for himself. Dropping me to the bed, the robe about him fell away and glistening with sweat, his firm muscled body descended to mine. My legs parted, a natural move to accommodate the thick erection that pressed into my vagina. We played like lovers, moved like lovers, kissed and clawed and moaned like lovers. He was right. I came and came again. With no seeming end to the rush of energy pouring through me I thought the night would never stop.
“You are beautiful,” he whispered over and over, as though he was in awe of me. I was in awe of him. This would change my view point of the man I despised. How could I despise him when he treated me to such delicious ends? I could love him if this didn’t stop. That idea hurt the most, that I might have been wrong about Gatov, about Max.
And yet, I was glad to know that my anger wasn’t completely vanished. When a tiny speck of it surfaced again, reminding me that I still had reason to detest him, I almost smiled with happiness. “I hate you,” I managed to say, as he lay next to me, both of us wondering if we’d make love again or simply fall asleep.
“I know,” he said. “But you don’t hate me here.” He held my pubis affectionately in the palm of his hand.
“No,” I admitted, my voice as soft as his.
“Then we can put the hate away for the rest of the night,” he said. “You can despise me in the morning.”
In the morning, Max was gone. I don’t imagine that I slept more than an hour or two. And as every other day for the past two weeks, except Saturday of course, I was awakened by Marchan hovering over me with a lash in his hand.
“This morning?” I offered the first protest I’d ever given him.
“Your master’s orders,” he reminded me.
“You’ve seen Gatov this morning,” I asked.
“I did, in fact,” he said. “He told me to lay it on especially hard, and be sure to whip both your breasts and ass.”
The hatred that had been diminished by the gentleness of my master’s gentle hands, welled up again as I lay with my hands clutching the metal headboard. With my beasts bared, I let that hatred build with each cut of the leather that struck my tender skin. On my stomach, the fury was doubled as the lash did its work on my ass. If I had considered altering my opinion of Max Gatov when dawn first broke, I’d changed my mind by the time I was ready to rise and dress for work.
I rode to the newsroom by myself that day. It was just as well, because I wasn’t sure I could hold my tongue. To call me beautiful, whisper such affections in my ear, bring me to such exquisite climaxes, a half dozen of them, and then to order another beating, I found the man unconscionable. Once at work, I found that he wasn’t there. He’d be in meetings until evening. Just as well, I thought to myself, the anger in me having turned to an abiding rage.
Before I began my day’s job, I perused my messages and some of my unfinished work, stumbling again on that piece I’d written about Rowena Dulciat, the one that despite Gatov’s orders had never been purged from my files.
Looking the piece over, reading it word for word, I began to expand on it, for nearly two hours hammering out more commentary on Rowena’s thoughts and prophesies, offering a quick-witted editorial that I knew was some of my best writing. I was bucking the entire climate of sexual thinking to publish this piece, with its bold indictment of current sexual mores. But that was the purpose. I lived in a world that forced women in one of
two sexual personas with no middle ground. Some day that would have to end.
The finished piece was just shy of explosive. After all, I wanted to be heard. With it done by noon, I sent it to the editorial page with a forged note from Gatov to print it. The transmission was accompanied by the proper password, one I’d discerned while I watched Max working just a few days before. I’m sure he didn’t know I could pick up his keystrokes so easily. At the time, tucking the information in the back of my head, I thought it might come in handy. How prophetic I was.
***
“You conniving bitch!” Gatov seethed under his breath as his eyes shot their venom into mine. It was just a day later. I was standing haughtily in front of his desk, answering for my crime. Only when his lethal glare didn’t stop was I tempted to be afraid. Though I remained unfazed by his anger. “This will get you fired.”
“What does that matter to me?” I said, taking the moment to revel in my proud triumph. “Do I detect some hurt?” Sarcasm too.
“You detect only a reprisal you’re not going to want to face, Duchet.”
“Go ahead, string me up and beat me. I’ve been through that before and I’m not afraid.”
I know that I surprised him.
There was a knock on the door, Gatov answering gruffly, an underling of the administrator peering in at us from outside. “There have been at least two hundred telly messages on the machines,” he said.
“And?”
The man moved inside the door, glancing at me, then turning back to his boss. “The ones you expected are among them. It doesn’t look good for anyone in the newsroom, but then, the overwhelming opinion is not unfavorable. Mostly women in that category.”
I smiled to myself, but I didn’t want my expression too mirthful, not yet. A few quick messages was not necessarily the tide of the reaction to my inflammatory piece. I couldn’t gloat too soon.
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