Marketplace

by Laura Antoniou

  With Rachel’s chuckles following her, Claudia left the room, suddenly supremely conscious of the red bite marks on her small breasts, and probably on her thighs as well, the sticky wetness between her legs, and the flush of color all over her body. In the cool hallway, her nipples tightened and sprang back erect, and she moaned at the sensation.

  Wait until she was ‘done’ by Alexandra?

  Oh, oh, dear. Claudia had to stop and hug herself to keep from sinking to the floor. If she was so shameless with a woman who was a servant in this household, how could she behave with the Mistress? And Grendel?

  She shivered suddenly and ran to the shower room. There, she stood under hot water until the shivering stopped, knowing full well that it wasn’t the temperature in the hall that caused it. But she couldn’t think about... that other thing. Not now, and maybe not at all. She went to find Chris, praying that he had something intensive and mindlessly difficult for her to do.

  * * * *

  “You did well, for a first day,” Chris said, after Robert backed the car into the garage. “Your driving is acceptable, your ability to concentrate on what you’re doing is very good. But you must work on your ability to respond to your passengers more naturally. And you have to learn when it’s proper to apologize and when it’s proper to just keep your mouth shut.”

  “Yes, Chris, you’re right,” Robert admitted. He felt very strange, sitting in a car, dressed in normal clothes. The light wool blend scratched against his bruises and cuts, and his nasty thing stayed at half mast throughout the trip. Chris got out, and Robert followed him, passing the keys back.

  “And, you have to keep in mind that a good driver has to see everything outside the car and nothing inside of it. That might be the hardest thing for you, actually. We’ll work on it another day. For now, I think Mr. Elliot has something in mind for you.”

  “What—?” Robert started to ask. Then, he turned around to see Grendel, pushing Sharon ahead of him, heading for the garage. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chris make a slight, formal movement that almost looked like a bow. Robert aped the movement, but instinctively preformed it deeper.

  Grendel beckoned the two of them away from the garage, and they obediently met him halfway. Sharon looked like a mess. Her body was covered with little bruises and many red stripes, and although she wasn’t dirty, there was a look of shabbiness about her.

  “Robert, get those clothes off immediately,” Grendel snapped. “You’ve been told that you should no longer wear clothing on this property.”

  “Uh...y-yes, yes sir,” Robert stammered out, reaching for the tie. “B-but I was... d-driving M-mistress...”

  “You were, Robert! Were. Now you’re back.” The owner’s voice was very harsh. There was something wrong here, but Robert was not interested in finding out what. He stripped off the tie and his fingers tore open the buttons of the shirt.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he dimly heard Chris say.

  “Yes, well, I’ll have to talk with you later, boy,” Grendel said. “Take his clothes and get inside.” Robert gasped and whimpered. Never had anyone spoken so harshly to Chris in the presence of one of the slaves. He pulled the shirt off with the jacket, leaving them entangled, and kicked off the shoes, and dropped his pants. Chris calmly and mutely gathered the pieces, and with another short bow, walked back toward the side entrance to the house.

  When Robert was naked, Grendel pushed Sharon forward. “Sharon has something to offer you,” he said.

  Robert could only stand there in confusion as Sharon shot him a glance that was pure anger and snarling hatred, and then said, in a sweet voice, “Please Robert, would you like me to suck your big, juicy cock?”

  Robert’s mouth opened and he gaped. Her pose, her voice, even the way she lightly licked at her full lips (were they a little bit cut and bruised?) was so pulsating, lusty and explosive, it was hard to believe that this was the same woman who made catty remarks about him and called him a sissy. Yet there she was, offering him this incredible service, and in such a way!

  “Very common,” Grendel noted. “I want to hear more originality, missy.” She sighed. Grendel looked at Robert and asked, impatiently, “Well? Do you want it today? I understand she wasn’t very gracious this morning, and she is very, very eager to make up for it, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered. Her tone was almost right, but that look crept back into her eyes. Robert gulped.

  “Oh, oh dear, no,” he gasped. His voice had scaled up again, without him thinking about it.

  “Why not?” Grendel asked, pushing Sharon down to her knees. She adopted a position that was totally open and inviting, her knees spread wide and her shoulders thrown back. “She’s apparently not too bad, according to two accounts. And you do like to have your cock sucked, don’t you?”

  Robert blushed, and his hands flew down to cover his nasty thing before he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to do that any more. Grendel’s eyes narrowed in anger.

  “Get your ass inside, you idiot,” he growled, pulling Sharon up and pushing her back to the house. His voice was low, and his words came out in a slower, metered pace, but fury burned in them. “How dare you try to cover yourself in front of me? How dare you fall into that pattern Alexandra has told you a hundred times not to act out?”

  Robert fled ahead of the master of the house, tears filling his eyes. Each angry word and question forced them out, and he passed the door frame sobbing. Grendel stepped in last and slammed the door behind him. “Chris!” he called out, his deep voice echoing in the main hallway. “Get over here! You,” he gestured toward Sharon, “are dismissed. Get back to the stable and do some real work for a change.” She ran, passing Chris in the same doorway. Grendel put his hand out.

  “Give me your strap,” he said. And as Chris unhooked it and passed it over, Grendel’s eye caught Claudia coming down the stairs. He looked over at Robert, who was crying freely and shivering, and then back at Claudia, standing shock still on the stairs.

  “Claudia, front and center,” he said quietly, pointing to a spot before him. Then, as she approached, he gestured to Chris. “Hold him on the side, so he has a good view.”

  Chris pulled Robert by the arm over to the side of the hallway, against the wall, and gestured for him to kneel. As Robert did, Chris pulled his right arm up high behind his back and grasped a handful of hair, keeping Robert’s head up. Robert whined.

  “Present,” Grendel said softly. Claudia was positioned so that the dainty curves of her ass were presented to Robert in their fullest glory. She braced herself against a table on the opposite side of the hall. Grendel stepped into position and brought Chris’s strap across her ass in a perfectly straight line, bisecting them. The sound seemed deafening. It echoed in a series of cracks, and Robert cried out an inarticulate scream that was louder than Claudia’s.

  Claudia heard her voice and Robert’s mingle. Her confusion and fear were at their zenith. Why was this happening? Had Rachel complained about something? What did she do wrong? And why was Robert forced to watch her being punished like this? And why was Grendel doing it? She wailed as the blows of the strap built up. If Chris was accurate with his tool, Grendel was deadly. And his blows were harder, each one pushing her forward. Her arms trembled with every new crack. And she could hear Robert’s sobbing and carrying on behind her between the kisses of the strap.

  And then, as suddenly as it had started, the beating ended. She sank to her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks, and kissed the leather when it was presented to her lips. Grendel carried the gesture further and pressed it to her cheeks to gather the moisture before passing it back to Chris.

  “Give these worthless people something to do,” he snapped, as Chris let go of Robert to take his strap. “And then come see me. Obviously, you’ve been lax in some basic training matters.” Without waiting for Chris to acknowledge him he turned and strode up the stairs.

  “Yes, sir,” Chris said softly. Then, the majordomo turned bac
k to the two slaves kneeling in the hallway and he fixed the harshest, most intimidating glare they had ever seen upon them.

  “You,” he whispered, with all the displeasure any human being could lodge in a single word, “you... will report to Shaw, right now. Tell Mr. Shaw that I think it’s time to turn the compost. Tell him that I think it will benefit from being done with bare hands. And be grateful I didn’t say with your teeth.”

  Robert and Claudia fled as though demons were on their heels. And if either one of them had been familiar with the filthy, odorous job they had just been assigned, they would have run just as fast.

  Chris mounted the stairs holding his strap on one hand. It glistened with Claudia’s tears.

  * * * *

  Long, hot showers were the order of the day when the four slaves wearily returned to the house after their assorted afternoon chores. Claudia and Robert in particular stank of rotten foliage and old garbage, and looked about as dejected as two dainties could be when covered with slime and muck. Brian, pungent with the richer smells of a stable, looked as though he had accumulated the most damage in one day. His body was a battlefield of marks, and his every move advertised an assortment of aches. After they finished drying, they all noticed that Sharon no longer had a comb or a brush in her bathing kit. She struggled to pull the tangles out of her hair with her fingers, but didn’t ask any of them for a loan. No one offered one, either.

  Claudia was serving dinner in the main dining room, under the supervision of Cook and Chris, so the other three ate without her. It was another gloomy meal, with no chatting and no complaining, and very little eating. For their own reasons, each of them had lost much of an appetite, even though Brian and Sharon hadn’t eaten since breakfast. When Chris came into the room with Claudia, they sat up with a combination of relief and dread.

  “Tonight,” the majordomo said, “Robert starts his studies in the library. Brian and Sharon, you are being punished for her ill manners and the failure to obey orders that both of you demonstrated today, and you will go right to bed. Claudia, you missed an opportunity for study this afternoon, so I suggest that you join Robert in the library, or you may also go to bed.” He handed Claudia a paperback book, with erotic looking cover art. “You may find this work of particular interest. Mistress Alexandra recommends that you read a little every day. As soon as you are all finished eating, you may consider yourselves dismissed.”

  They looked at each other in confusion when he left. No lectures? No nasty comments? No sarcasm? Even the tone of his voice was much softer than usual, barely edged with his usual cool. Robert wondered what happened after he and Claudia scampered away to their afternoon of wallowing in filth. What did Grendel say? What did he do?

  “Who is he?” Robert gulped when he realized that his thought had managed to sneak out of his mouth.

  “A fucking nasty bastard,” Sharon said, toying with a piece of whole wheat bread.

  “Oh, very perceptive,” Brian shot back. “What do you mean, Rob?”

  “I mean, well, who is he around here?” Robert kept his voice really low. ”The first day I was here, I thought he was a master. But he’s not, really.”

  “He’s the majordomo,” Claudia said, putting some vegetables on her plate.”It’s like a butler. It means house manager, or some thing like that.”

  “Hmph.” Sharon shrugged. “More like overseer, if you ask me, OK? Like in the old south. Yassuh, Mr. Big Shot, I’ll keep the slaves in line fo’ y’all!”

  “No, no, it’s not like that,” Robert insisted, his tone still soft. “He may seem like an overseer, but overseers were free men. I think Chris is their slave. Alexandra and Grendel’s, I mean.”

  Claudia turned to look over one shoulder, as if she expected the man to return. “I don’t know, Robert,” she said in between chewing. “He doesn’t wear a collar; at least I don‘t see one. But on the other hand, the way he answers them is very deferential. And the way Master Grendel spoke to him today was very frightening!”

  “Oh yeah?” Brian asked. “Tell me.”

  Claudia and Robert shared their story, with Sharon dropping in to add that indeed, Grendel seemed more than a little pissed today. (She of course, pretended to have no idea why. Brian exchanged glances with her and they both kept mum about their early morning adventures.)

  “So the little guy gets a taste of what we live with every fucking day? Aww, too bad,” Sharon finally remarked.

  “So you think he’s a slave?” Robert asked. “Do you think Grendel... punished him? The way we are?”

  They sat in thought for a minute, considering what little they knew. Finally, Brian decided that now was a good time to expose that delicious piece of gossip he had been hoarding about the man, and he leaned forward to share it. “I don’t exactly know what he is,” he began, his eyes dancing suddenly in the joy of spreading a juicy bit of news, “but I do know something special about the guy. The first day I was here, Paul was telling Grendel what a good cocksucker I was? And then Grendel told Chris to get into the office, and—”

  The door opened suddenly, and the four slaves, who had all leaned forward on their elbows to hear what Brian was saying, jumped up in their seats. Plates and mugs clattered against the table and chair legs squeaked across the tiled floor.

  Chris stood in the doorway, and four hearts pounded faster than four hunted rabbits.

  “I believe you’ve had enough time to eat,” the majordomo said evenly. “Get going!”

  They fled. They didn’t notice that no one was called to serve that night until they were all in bed. Robert and Claudia returned at the usual lights out time, and found Brian and Sharon dozing but not sleeping. They got into their beds with the usual creaks and moans, and lay there, staring at the faint shadows on the ceiling.

  “All right,” Robert said, breaking the silence first. “Who’s turn is it next?”

  “Huh?” Sharon asked.

  “To tell their story. You told yours, I told mine. How about you, Brian?”

  Brian groaned. “Oh God, not tonight. I can’t even think tonight. You wanna tell us all about your life and loves, Claudia?”

  Claudia sat up, clutching her pillow. “Well,” she said, considering, “it’s not very interesting, I’m afraid. What you see is what I’ve always been.”

  “Yeah, but there’s more,” Robert said encouragingly. “How did you end up here? I mean, you’re so good! Why would... oh!” He blushed suddenly. “I-I’m sorry, Claudia. I’ll shut up now. You don’t have to say anything.”

  “Why not?” Sharon demanded. “We did! We agreed that everyone was going to tell their story, right? Well, I wanna know how you got here, Goody-Two-Shoes.”

  “Now wait...” Brian began.

  “No, Brian, it’s all right,” Claudia said. “Sharon is right. We did agree. I’ll try to make it short.”

  Chapter Fourteen: Claudia's Tale

  I was nothing before I realized what my true purpose in life was. I know that sounds odd, but it’s true. I lived a dull, ordinary, nothing life. My father was a big, scary man, who worked at building big office buildings, and my mother was a nice lady who perhaps drank more than she should have. I was a middle child. I wasn’t oldest, or youngest, or a boy, so I lived like a little nothing.

  It was very nice, sometimes, being nothing. People never expected anything from me, except that I stay out of the way and not make a lot of noise. And I was a good child, I think. I tried not to bother anyone.

  When I was in school, thinking about going to college, I had a boyfriend. He was kind to me, and very gentle. We would take long walks together, and I wrote poems to him. It was like one of those romances you read about in those cheap books with the pretty covers, the ones that sell millions of copies to secretaries and housewives. It was... sweet. Yes, that’s it. Sweet. We were sweethearts.

  But one day, all of that changed. He became very, well, obsessed, with one thing. If I loved him, he told me, I would, um, sleep with him. All the other kids were do
ing it, he said. And besides, if I didn’t want to, it meant that there would be no future for us as a couple. Grown up men and women have sex, he kept telling me. When would I grow up?

  I guess he was right, really. Everyone was going it. And he was never forceful with me! No, he was always insistent until I firmly said ‘no!’, and then he’d sigh and start the car and we’d go home. It was just that even though I really liked him, maybe even loved him, I didn’t want to... do that... with him. It didn’t seem right.

  So that year, I thought maybe there was something wrong with me. All the other girls I knew were interested in boys and sex. They talked about it all the time. And the grownups at school spent so much time telling us not to do it, I knew it must be wonderful! But I was never interested in anyone enough to investigate it. I was a good student, and I acted and danced in plays, and I had a busy life. I guess I didn’t miss it much.

  But I still was always aware that something was different about me. I knew what it was when I walked into my first part-time job and I fell in love with my boss. You see, my boss was a woman. A very sexy, powerful woman, with short hair and a long stride and a way about her that made men afraid of her. And there I was, a little invisible nothing, loving her and wanting to be with her. So, I thought I was gay.

  Which was fine. You see, gay women are just like bigger nothings! No one notices them at all. When people talk about why they don’t like gay people, they’re really thinking of gay men. Even in big crowds, almost no one ever notices the women. So it was kind of natural for me to find a place where women I thought were like me hung out, and it was easy to start seeing a woman, and it was easy to go to bed with her. No one noticed, no one was hurt, and I guess everyone just thought that we were best friends. The only trouble with this was that it wasn’t very interesting. She was nice, and I guess I loved her the best I could, but I always thought something was missing.