The handsome woman leaned back and gazed at Claudia with a thoughtful expression on her face. “And that’s not bad,” she said after moment. “There is a strong market for fancy slaves, people trained in one specific task or role, and little else. It’s not usually what we like to deal in, but we have contacts all over the world. You could go to England or France, for example. There’s also a strong interest for slaves like you in Brazil and in the Far East. Not that you have much of a choice,” she added, “but your future certainly wouldn’t be dull.”
Claudia nodded, her face forlorn. “I... thank you, ma’am. And if I had to, I would be a good slave in the Marketplace, I honor you all, I do! But I want to stay with my Mistress. Please, please... I’ll do better! I’ll be the best girl you ever had here.”
“Claudia, it took you almost four days to clean a pile of silver that could have been done in two.”
“Please, ma’am, I know I haven’t been good,” Claudia said, desperation growing in her voice. “I was so unhappy! And I didn’t know why I was here! I thought that Mistress was punishing me for something!” The words began to spill out in a rush. “And... and I didn’t want to think about anything else, because I thought that... oh, I didn’t know what I thought! Maybe Mistress just wanted me to be... better. And I want to! I can be whatever she wants me to be!”
“Claudia, you burst into tears as soon as Chris takes his strap off his belt.”
“I’ll be braver! I won’t cry any more! I’ll never cry, if only I have a chance to go back to my Mistress!” Her voice scaled up.
Alexandra pulled at one curl, longer than the others, and twirled it through her fingers. Claudia was actually beginning to change, in subtle, barely noticeable ways. There was some sincerity behind the note of desperation in her voice. Maybe there was some potential there after all. Maybe it had been a mistake to hide the depth of Madeleine’s disappointment from the little slave? It would be a shame to deprive them both of such quality.
“So what do you think I should do,” Alexandra asked carefully, “to encourage proper behavior from you? Supposing that I decided to allow you to try and change, what do you think you should be doing to break you out of your role?”
Claudia swallowed hard. Normally, she had been trained to answer any question that began with “What do you think...?” with, “Please do as you think best, Mistress.” Last week, during her interviews, that answer had been denied to her. Here, they really wanted to know what you thought. It was unnerving.
“Perhaps you could give me more work to do, ma’am,” Claudia suggested, trying to think quickly.
“And...?”
“And, maybe, I mean, should you decide to use me, ma’am, I could be trained to do the things that Mistress wanted me to do.”
“Name them,” Alexandra snapped back. “Be specific. You’ll have to learn to talk about them before you’re able to do them comfortably.”
“Oh!” Claudia squirmed. “To... to play with myself, ma’am?”
“And...?”
“To be, to be...to take ma’am’s, um, to be...”
“To be fucked, Claudia?”
She blushed a deep red. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Then say it!” Alexandra’s calm voice was edged with impatience.
“To be fucked, ma’am.” Claudia’s blush deepened.
“And you know that it wouldn’t be just me who will use you, Claudia.” Alexandra stood, a study in strength and determination. As she walked toward Claudia, her eyes bored into the younger women and held her still. “If I choose, anyone in this house might want to try a taste of you. Certainly Grendel might be interested. Perhaps even Chris would. I might even decide to turn you over to one of your fellow slaves. Do you understand that?”
Claudia trembled but held her ground. “Yes, ma’am!”
“And there’s a lot more in life than fucking and sucking, Claudia. You do understand that sucking is a part of this?”
Claudia nodded. “Y-yes ma’am.”
Alexandra paused in front of the slave and studied her from up close. Yes, there was definitely something new here. Perhaps she could salvage this situation after all. There were other things happening as well, once you got into the poor girl’s face. Her breath was getting more shallow and coming faster. And beyond the embarrassed blush from having to use a forbidden obscenity, was a growing sensual flush. Her nipples were wrinkled little knobs of flesh.
“Chris,” Alexandra said softly. “Come here and take her in hand, will you?”
“With pleasure, ma’am.”
As Chris approached, Alexandra smiled. “Hm,” she said out loud, “it seems that Chris is more interested than I thought.” Claudia made a slight whimpering sound, but cut it off quickly. “Good girl,” Alexandra noted.
Chris came behind Claudia and firmly pulled her arms behind her back. She gasped at the unexpected move, but submitted. He held her wrists together in one hand and reached around her body, pulling her so that she half rested on his bent knee, which he pressed between her legs. Her thighs parted, and she lost her balance and fell against him. But he stood firm.
Alexandra stepped back a little. Claudia stared up at her, her breath coming in pants now, her body shaking. Chris felt solid behind her back, but her position seemed dangerously unsteady.
“Stroke her,” Alexandra said, going back to her chair. “Let’s see what she’s got.”
Chris took his free hand and slowly let it drift up Claudia’s body, from her waist to her throat. She shivered and gave a little moan. Gently, the majordomo began to run the tips of his fingers across her body, making little swirls around her nipples, and then gentle rubbing motions on her belly. She sighed.
“Good. Now get more specific,” Alexandra prompted.
Chris made more determined motions, circling Claudia’s erect nipples with rough fingers and squeezing them. She gasped, but didn’t protest or try to squirm away. From there, he stroked her hip with ever smaller circles until he moved inward, toward her belly, and then down to the mound above her delta. There, he pressed and rubbed until she did squirm, just a little bit. At that moment, his fingers darted down to an area so recently shaven white, and pressed her lips together.
She moaned! After a week of self denial and shame, the security and the pleasure was nearly overwhelming. This was so right, this was so good. Held securely, explored with skill and gentility, and then teased to a climax, oh, it was heaven! She sighed lovingly and settled deeper against him as his fingers opened her and explored. She thought warmly, he knows what he is doing, and closed her eyes.
Chris’s fingers stroked her outer lips until her moisture began to gather, and then gently pried them apart. They opened like the proverbial petals of a flower, and he easily located that elusive center of pleasure, which he gave but one soft touch before returning his attention to her lips. The soft glistening folds of her inner lips almost throbbed with the intensity of her arousal. Alexandra smiled as she watched.
She might be a lot of fun once she gets into this, the mistress thought. Should I give her an easy one, for encouragement? No, I don’t think so. She makes it now, or she realizes that she hasn’t got what she needs. Either way, we know, once and for all.
Claudia was beginning to shift against Chris. Her breath came in a rhythmic pattern, and Alexandra nodded. “That’s enough, Chris.”
Claudia’s eyes snapped open. Chris took his hand away, and brought his fingers up to Claudia’s mouth. Even as she moaned her frustration, she licked them clean of her juices.
“Finish yourself off, Claudia,” Alexandra said, when Chris pulled his hand away.
Claudia bit her lip, fighting back an instinctive protest. Chris released her right arm, but maintained a strong hold on her left, and kept his knee firmly between her thighs. Claudia let her hand hang loosely for a moment and looked flustered, but then started to bring it up to her mouth. She stopped herself before it got there and looked up at Alexandra, her eyes wide.
Al
ex nodded. “Get them good and wet,” she said softly. “Do whatever you have to do to get yourself off for me. Make it good. Get me interested. Show me how much you need this.”
Claudia gulped and placed her own fingers in her mouth to moisten them. Then, she let her hand seek that place she knew so well, and her eyes closed as she began the familiar series of touches that until now had been her private pleasures.
Alex gave a moment’s thought to telling the girl to open her eyes, but decided that this time, she would let Claudia have the comfort of that much privacy. Next time would be different.
Held tightly against Chris’s compact body, Claudia began to shift against him, responding to the steady pulsing that was building between her legs. She couldn’t squeeze her legs together the way she would have if she were alone, but a week of frustration and confusing desperation had done some remarkable work on her psyche. She needed this so bad! Her fingers began to fly as she dipped into herself for more of her sweet wetness, bringing it up to that little center of heat. She began to gasp, and then pant.
“That’s it,” Alex coaxed. “That’s a good girl. Let’s hear you come now. Let’s see how good you can be. Let it out for me. Let it all out.”
“Ahh!” Claudia moaned, twisting and squirming back onto Chris’s leg. “Ah, yess!”
Alexandra smiled and moved in closer. “Do it now! Come!”
Claudia gave a long, uneven moan of pleasure and stiffened in Chris’s embrace. Her hips jerked upward, as though she was rising to meet the thrusts of a dynamic lover. Gritting her teeth, she collapsed back into Chris’s arms, shuddering and crooning, and gulping air in between a series of erotic shivers.
When she opened her eyes, she knew that her entire face was flushed with the humiliation of displaying such passion before a mistress, but Alexandra seemed very pleased.
“You may release her,” Alexandra said with a nod. “And go call Madeleine. Tell her we may have something to work with.”
* * * *
Grendel met Chris in the hallway in the late afternoon, just before dinner. The sounds of table setting and the clattering of the kitchen were faint in the background, and no one was near them. Chris had nodded, and was about to pass Grendel by, but the master of the house put out one hand to stay the majordomo.
“I hear you’re interested in Claudia,” Grendel said.
Chris’s eyes matched Grendel’s for a long moment, and then he dropped them. A tiny smile touched his lips. “I’m eager to aid their training, Sir.”
“Oh, I see.” Grendel moved in closer and carefully took a firm grip on Chris’s shirt front, grasping it and the tie in one fist. Chris let loose an involuntary gasp and looked up, keeping his eyes open and locked as Grendel pulled him closer, and then higher, until the heels of the man’s boots lifted off the floor.
“Wise-ass,” Grendel said fondly. He didn’t relax his grip. “That’s the epicure in you, you always go for the ones with the best pedigree. Has Alex said you can have the girl?“
“No, Sir.” Chris’s breath came in short, paced inhalations. When Grendel lowered his fist and began propelling Chris backwards, until his back touched the wall, Chris took two long, ragged breaths, and shifted his eyes to the right.
“They’ll either come and see you like this or they won’t,” Grendel said. “Keep your eyes on me, boy.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“That would be something, wouldn’t it? To let them know right now that we can make you shake and tremble the way they do? That one touch can make you lose your cool? That might do something to the effectiveness of your discipline, don’t you think?” Grendel continued to speak softly, his voice just above a whisper, slow and almost hypnotic. Chris pushed his head against the wall to better be able to look up into Grendel’s eyes.
“They’ll obey you, Sir,” he said. There was now a raspy quality to his voice, and he gave a little cough to try and clear it. “I’m just a tool.”
Grendel shook his clenched fist, digging his fingers into the hollow under Chris’s throat. “Don’t pull that false modesty on me too often,” he warned. “I don’t like being buried in your bullshit, boy. The fact is that you still wish you were in their place. Every morning, you wake up and you go to them and you hate their guts because they’ve got what you never had. And they’ll get more this year than you’ll ever dream of getting. That’s why you want them, the best of them.”
Chris swallowed hard and replied, “As you say, Sir.”
Grendel smiled, but kept his grip. “When was the last time you were fucked, boy?”
“Two months ago, Sir. And a few days.”
“Ha! Good, you’re pretending that you don’t know the exact number of days, that’s good. You might sound desperate and petulant if you did that. Well, let me tell you this,” Grendel enforced his words with a rocking motion of his hand. “You’ll get yours when they start to break, and not one minute before. And we’ll see which of them you’ll get to handle when they start to show the signs of your teaching. There’s one thing for sure, boy.” He released his hold and smoothed down the crumpled shirt-front, and carefully straightened Chris’s tie. “You won’t get Claudia.” Chris nodded and closed his eyes, and Grendel gave him a gentle pat on the head. “You’d better go,” Grendel said, looking over his shoulder. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
* * * *
That night, the four slaves sheepishly eyed each others’ marks and badges. Claudia looked terrified, but strangely determined. Sharon was a mass of red marks, faint bruises, scratches and smudges. And Brian couldn’t even hold his head up. His body was still decorated with various ribbons and bows, and marked in several places with reddened areas that looked almost angry in their intensity. Only Robert seemed to have survived the day without something traumatic happening to him—at least as far as anyone could tell.
Back in their room, they retreated to their beds in silence. Once again, none of them were chosen to accompany either the master or the mistress of the house for the evening, and Chris told them to just go and sit on their beds until lights out and think about what they could do to remedy that situation. Before dismissing them, he took Brian’s decorations off and took them away without saying a word about them.
They sat in silence for about one minute.
“How... how did everyone do today?” Robert asked. Groans from three directions was his response. The four looked up at each other, and a ripple of hesitant snickers and giggles swept through the room.
“That bad, huh?” Robert said, leaning back. “Well, at least you all are getting some attention. I think Mistress Alexandra is so disgusted with me that she just wishes I’d go away.” He said it lightly, but the look on his face was very serious.
“Aww, you don’t know that,” Brian said, waving a hand at the big man. “It could be just another psych-out game they’re playing with you.” They nodded in agreement and then fell back into silence.
“It’s not just games,” Claudia announced suddenly. “If...if Mistress Alexandra didn’t tell me something today, I might have...I might have made the biggest mistake of my entire life!”
“Oh yeah? What did she say?” Brian asked.
Claudia gently bit her lip, considering. “I think I’d rather not say, Brian,” she said finally. “But I did learn something frightening! Chris... wants me.”
“Really?” Brian and Robert echoed each other.
“Yes! While Mistress Alexandra was... um... training me... he held me. And I felt him, behind my back. His... you know.” She blushed slightly.
Robert looked down in embarrassment. Brian stroked the place where his mustache had been and wondered if he should share his little piece of important information. He coughed and said, “Actually, Claudia, there’s something you should know about that little bastard. The first day I was here—”
“Could all of you just shut up?” Sharon interrupted with a snarl. “We’re supposed to be quiet!”
The three reacted to her outburst with r
aised eyebrows plus one snicker from Brian. “Oh dear, look who’s turned out to be the new Miss Goody-Two-Shoes. Reading that manual and reciting it every night has brainwashed you, hasn’t it, sweetie? Or was it your refreshing experiences in the outdoors today?”
Sharon looked like she was going to retort, but turned away from all of them with a jerky twist of her body. Without another word, she wrapped the thin covers over her body and put her head to the pillow. Brian shrugged, and then turned back to Claudia.
“You might as well spill it, Claudia. It looks like we’ll be in this for a while. Why don’t we get back to telling our life stories again? Wanna start the next chapter?”
“Oh no, I don’t think I can,” Claudia said soberly. “Not tonight, anyway. Why don’t you go, Robert?”
Robert shifted on the mattress and thought it over for a minute. “All right,” he finally said. “But it’s not very interesting, I’m afraid.”
“Trust us, we’re a captive audience,” Brian sighed.
And with the rapt attention of at least two of his comrades, Robert began his tale.
Chapter Ten: Robert's Tale
I guess I had everything a man could want these days. I had a good job, a wife, two kids, a house in the suburbs, the works. We even had a dog, this mutt we picked out from the shelter. The kids went to camp in the summer, we even took them to Disney World one year. We had it real good, and we knew it.
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