Marketplace

by Laura Antoniou

  Madeleine stared in astonishment as Claudia gave Brian one hell of a formal caning, telling him how to count and ask for the next, striking him in evenly spaced red lines, and holding the cane for him to kiss afterward. Chris sent Brian away with the cane, and followed him, leaving three women in the room.

  “That’s just one thing we’ve done,” Alexandra said, pleased with Claudia’s performance. “I think you’ll want some privacy to discuss things for a while. Please ring me if you need anything.”

  As soon as she left, Claudia ran to Madeleine and dropped to her knees. “Oh Mistress!” she cried, bending her head. “I love you! Don’t send me away, please!”

  Madeleine lifted Claudia’s chin and said softly, “Why, I wasn’t planning to, little one. Alex told me all about how you’ve done. And I’m very, very proud. I want to hear all about it... when we get home. Right now, I want you to come upstairs to my room and show me what you can do.”

  Claudia’s exuberance almost carried them both up the stairs. And when she appeared later, leashed at her mistress’ side, her eyes glowing, Brian, Sharon, and Robert all envied her. Madeleine was every bit as beautiful as Claudia had claimed, and if Claudia was really as happy as she seemed, she had gotten what she dreamed of.

  Sharon chewed on the mouthpiece of her gag, hating every passing minute. She hated the way people glanced at her folder and put it back down. She hated the way no one talked about anything in front of her, and the way people ignored her, and the way they paid attention to Robert. But she composed herself, thinking, soon. Soon.

  “Bids will be collected in ten minutes, ladies and gentlemen!” Chris walked through the crowd, looking like a butler for once, instead of a working guy in a suit. A lot of people seemed to be friendly with him, and he smiled a lot. Robert’s old mistress, for example, the woman Grendel called Ali, seemed to think seeing the little bastard was a real treat. Sharon was the only one of the four not to feel any sympathy for the little man. She thought it was just fine that he would never get what he wanted. She straightened her back every time she saw him pass. Eat your heart out, Chris, she thought. I’m up where you wanna be. But he paid her no attention at all.

  Robert had his mind full of old fears and new hopes and all the knowledge shoved into him for the past six weeks. He answered questions in a daze, and even smiled at Mistress Allison when Chris brought her over to look at him. But he was elsewhere, waiting for it all to end. He envied Brian, who was going to get another month of training before he had to do this. I’m not ready, he thought. I’m scared. What am I doing here? I can’t do this! But he smiled and answered questions put to him anyway.

  “Final bids have been accepted,” Chris announced. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. High bids will be verified, and preferred buyers given their chance to bid now. Results will be announced in the main dining hall in twenty minutes.”

  Twenty minutes, an eternity.

  Twenty minutes, gone in a flash.

  Applause, in the distance, no names, no clue what was happening. And then a low rumbling noise as people entered the hallway again, heading toward the front room, the ballroom, where the two slaves knelt waiting for hands and keys. Robert ached to stretch, felt hot and cold at the same time. Sharon felt like she could throw up.

  Robert almost died when he saw the woman who was walking toward him, a pen in her hand. She was one of the women identified to him as a “friend of Madame’s,” a woman in an elite circle of mistresses who lived the life in a strict, almost Victorian milieu. She had another slave with her, a personal secretary, a woman in a high lace blouse, who followed her every step. And when the mistress signed the three copies of the contract, Robert felt tears forming in his eyes.

  “How sweet,” she said, lifting one finger to catch one as it spilled. “Emily, we seem to have purchased a romantic.” Robert lightly kissed the tear away as his new mistress extended the finger to his mouth. Her hand dipped lower and closed the lock gently. He closed his eyes in ecstasy.

  “Well, here we are,” said a gruff voice at Sharon’s side. She turned slightly to look, even thought it was against the rules, and saw one of the men who had seen her the earlier in the week. He was in his late fifties, she estimated, with longish brown hair speckled with white. He seemed to be in good shape, which was a relief. She tried to remember what he had been like. He had not used her sexually, but read her file a lot. She remembered him sitting on a narrow chair, his briefcase in his lap, asking questions. She had him pegged as a voyeur.

  Which wasn’t so bad, really. Spending a lot of time jerking off wasn’t a terrible vocation, but it might get dull after a while. What was more important was what she remembered about the man. He was a widower, for many years, he had said. And he lived in Texas, but traveled back east a great deal.

  “Let’s make sure this is what I recall,” he said carefully, pulling the contracts out of her folder. He scanned through one and nodded. “Yes, that’s me. Someone get me a pen!“ Chris handed him one and he signed all three contracts with a flourish. Sharon wished she could give him a great big smile, but she would wait patiently until he got around to taking the gag off. This wasn’t going to be so bad! He was older, and a widower, so he was probably lonely. He lived south and traveled east, so he was probably very rich. And if he made few demands on her, so much the better. In time, she’d win his heart, and then who knew what could happen?

  Then, suddenly, a hot-looking young woman appeared next to him. “Hi, Daddy,” she said, looking up at Sharon. “Is this the one?”

  Sharon snorted out a sigh of relief. It was only his daughter!

  “Yes, she sure is, honeybunch. You like her?”

  The girl looked at Sharon critically. “I guess,” she said finally. “I wish you’d let me pick them!”

  “Next time,” the old man said. Sharon felt bewildered. Her eyes shifted back and forth between the two people. “I had to buy this one because of the clauses in her contract, honey. Says here she wants a single fellow, and I guess that you getting married soon is gonna get in the way of your being single. But when you and Chet move into the big house, she’ll be right there for you, honey. You just keep her for when I come visit, and that’ll be just fine.”

  “Well,” the girl said, her eyes narrowing, “I guess so. We can put her to work in the kitchen, I suppose, when you’re not home. I wonder if we can train her to give a good pedicure. I could use home manicures and pedicures.” Sharon felt those eyes boring into her. She panicked and started to snort air around the gag. Manicures? Daughter? Son-in-law to be? When you’re home?

  “You can train her to do anything you want, sugar. All I need her for is a little warmth in the sack three or four times a year. Y’all can do what ever makes sense when I’m not there.” Taking the contracts and his daughter, the man moved on, accepting the congratulations of his friends.

  Sharon caught Chris looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She expected him to look triumphant. Instead, he looked sorry for her. She looked away, unable to bear it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The house did very well on the two sales and on the money paid for Claudia’s retraining. As expected, Sharon’s stunning attractiveness had driven the bidding up a great deal. And Grendel couldn’t help but laugh over the situation she was sold into. It was petty and mean-spirited, he knew, but it felt good. He did not regret not fucking her in a conventional way.

  In the nights after the sale, they finished up assorted old business and put the money away and took some time to figure out their fall schedule. Alex blocked out two weeks on her calendar for “Resort,” and he knew better than to argue. Besides, the vacation would be needed. They expected at least two more applicants before then, and of course, there was Brian.

  Brian was kneeling, his hands behind his back, facing them as they worked on their schedule. They were doing patience and endurance training, dull but absolutely essential in a valuable slave. And he was showing his sustained excellence nicely, even u
nder Chris‘s almost satanic supervision.

  Part of being boss, Alex noted to Grendel with some amusement, is knowing how to motivate your people. You sure motivated the hell out of our butler. Grendel could only shrug. His long-awaited full reunion with his partner had taken place when the three slaves were taken away. He and Alex loved to come back after a separation like this. Still feeling pretty damn good about it, he wasn’t about to argue anything. You know how to motivate the hell out of me, he admitted to her, and they laughed.

  When it got late, Chris came looking for Brian and kicked him off to bed. Alexandra waited until Brian had left the room, and then said, “Why don’t you take his place, Chris?“

  It startled him, which was always good. But he recovered and went to kneel in the space vacated by the trainee slave, putting his hands behind his back. “Thank you, Ma’am,” he said softly.

  “You’re welcome. Chris, would you like to come with us to the resort?”

  That too, caught him off guard. Better and better.

  “If it would please you, Ma’am. To help me make a more independent decision, would Ma’am like to tell me why I would be there?”

  “Because there, you can be our slave, and here, you can’t,” she said, leaning forward. “I’ve discussed it with Grendel, and we’d like to reward you for your work on the four summer applicants.” She looked at him seriously. “You can take your bonus as well, if you want it.”

  Chris took a deep breath. “Thank you Ma’am. I don’t need the bonus.” No surprise, he never took it; it went elsewhere. “But I accept your offer to accompany you to the resort as your slave, Ma’am.”

  “Even knowing that the collar comes off when we leave and you get back to work?” Grendel asked.

  “Even so,” Chris nodded.

  “Fine.” Grendel shrugged. “Then we’re settled. We’ll go after the next two have completed training and Brian is sold. I’ll bet you can’t wait until the winter comes, eh Chris? In fact, I’m willing to bet you’d love nothing more then to start practicing tonight, and crawl all the way over to our bed and sleep at the foot of it.”

  “Gren,” Alex said softly, “Don’t tease him any more.” She got up and reached her hand out to her lover, who took it with a nod of acquiescence.

  “We’ll see you in the morning, Chris,” he called over his shoulder. And the majordomo got up, turned the lights out, and went to lock the front door.

  * * * *

  Have I told you that the mark of the best slaves is patience? Infinite patience.

  A LEASH HAS TWO ENDS

  A bonus story from the Mystic Rose edition of The Marketplace

  Grendel didn’t drop the belt until Chris fell for the third time, unable to keep the wide-legged stance with his fingers locked together behind his neck. Other barriers had already been passed; Chris had screamed, he had already cried. But perhaps those particular tears didn’t count to Grendel. There are tears of pain and there are tears brought on by choking.

  Time for more of those, anyway.

  “Get up, boy,” Grendel ordered, as he took the comfortable seat in the shaft of mid-morning sun that was streaking through the billowing curtains. The red tile was cool against his bare feet, the sun warm against his back. The sounds of his morning recreation probably carried well out the broad windows and across their private verandah, which was just fine. Their neighbors had been very generous with some pretty energetic activities during dinner the previous night.

  Grendel wound a hand in Chris’s hair and tugged sharply. It was hardly necessary, but felt good. Almost as good as the head of his cock slamming comfortably down his normally sexually frustrated majordomo’s throat; the head compressed tightly against muscles fighting the mental battle between providing pleasure and the physical one of providing oxygen.

  Grendel kicked out his legs and looked down. Chris’s back was a mass of red welts with faint bruising underneath. Alex had really done a number on him the previous night, acres of tiny, wicked clamps, some toothed, some not, some removed carefully others just jerked off at random. She was so precise; so exacting and deliberate. Her light hands could soothe away cares or make you scream. Grendel sighed in pleasure, even as he ground Chris’s face harder against himself. Sleeping with Alex again was a joy, sharing beds and touches. Their happiness depended on being able to work apart, which made their reunions all the sweeter. This same pattern of denial had a beneficial effect on this most valuable switch of theirs—although for entirely different reasons.

  It was sometimes hard to keep himself away from this, though. Even the most talented and dedicated novices lacked the sheer skill that this oh-so-reserved butler possessed. And while there was something to be said for variety, Grendel was enough of an honest hedonist to crave a certain level of expertise on a regular basis. He was self- disciplined enough not to slip and ruin the balance, but damn, Chris was an excellent cocksucker.

  And looking better these days, too. As he struggled to keep his hands behind his back, the lately acquired musculature in his upper and lower arms and in his shoulders seemed exaggerated, bruises and all. “The name of the game this morning is balance,” Grendel had said when he had deliberately pushed Chris into the corner of the bed, and followed the man’s descent with a few kicks. “You won’t have much. But you’ll please me just the same.” Chris’s last words had been “As you wish, Master,” which had given Grendel a guilty thrill even as he cuffed his slave-for-the-week and told him there were better uses for his well trained mouth.

  Was it so wrong to enjoy being a master instead of a trainer?

  Grendel jerked Chris’s head back, and felt the pleasure of a gentle gust of air all along his cock. Chris gasped for breath and opened his eyes.

  “Cover me.”

  There was a strip of foil-wrapped condoms on the bedstead. Crawl-ing to get them was a nice touch, and Grendel enjoyed the view. Another problem with novices was that if they acted on their own instincts like that, they needed to be punished for making assumptions about the tastes of their top. It was nice to have someone who knew what would please and did it.

  Grendel was in too much of a hurry to be as cruel—or pedantic—as he could be, though. When Chris returned, he took the condom package from Chris’s mouth between his thumb and forefinger and held it up. Without a word, Chris grasped the opposite edge of the gaudy little envelope in his teeth and with a sharp tug, ripped it open. He caught the condom in his mouth, and maneuvered it even as he dipped his head down again.

  “Good boy,” Grendel said, leaning back again. “Get it on and get it very, very wet. I expect you’ll be tight again.”

  God, he could practically feel the heat from Chris’s face. Years of playing with him, teasing him, torturing him, using him, had made Grendel aware of every motion or word that could make Chris react. They were alike in that way, with finely honed responses to the spoken word. Call him “boy” and his entire body relaxed in familiar comfort. But refer to him sexually, make reference to his use, and suddenly there was a panic reaction, an edge of fear colored with the confusion of shame.

  It was cruel, delightfully so.

  Grendel did not put his hands back on Chris, but leaned back to let the younger man work. It was tempting to take up the newspaper delivered with the breakfast tray that morning, but perhaps he would do that later, after the urgency of this morning session had worn off.

  Besides, Alex would enjoy watching that.

  Gently but firmly, Chris worked the condom down Grendel’s cock, smoothing it with his lips and tongue, his head pushing deeper and deeper until the rolled edge was all the way down to the base. The pressure of his throat even as he worked at this task was so intense that Grendel almost decided to finish off this way. But there was a reason he had concentrated on Chris’s ass and upper thighs with the belt. He snapped his fingers and Chris pulled back, slowly and smoothly, his eyes down, chest heaving as he tried not to gasp heavily.

  “Perhaps I should allow you to brace your
self,” Grendel mused. Chris didn’t move, didn’t speak. Such a good boy. “Beg me.”

  Ah, so many ways to torture this man. Chris dropped down onto his hands, elbows bent as he lowered his head to the floor. “Please Master, please, allow me to serve you better...” his voice was cracking slightly, damn if it didn’t seem deeper these days. His breath came ragged as he spoke, raspy. In one of their many, many interviews—or, as Grendel had come to think of them, interrogations—Chris had admitted that he found it difficult to beg for anything other than forgiveness. It smacked of selfishness to him, for a slave, or even a bottom, to request an action. Being commanded to beg was the easy answer. Being able to do it convincingly was the trick.

  But it was hard to have patience for these trainer behaviors. The day was hot, the room seductive, the freedom delicious. And their last time together like this had been two months ago, after the summer trainees had gone to their new owners. Then Brian had to be worked on, and as soon as his sale was over—and what an excellent sale it had been, too—Chris had gone away for a little surgery. By the time he was back and recovered, Alex had gone to visit family in Atlanta and then Grendel went to the Academy, and time went by as it always did. Somewhere in there had been three other clients as well, not a bad showing, and there were no fewer than six lined up for their return.

  They had all earned this little vacation. Although perhaps Chris had not expected some aspects of it.

  All the better.

  “I should have you dance on my cock, boy,” Grendel growled. “I know you’d hate that, playing like a talented whore for me, working your ass down until I came.”

  The target of these words shivered, but did not rise; there had been no order. Grendel could feel the coolness of the spittle on the condom as it evaporated in the heat, and he smiled.