Much different from that sweltering night when they took the train all the way out to Coney Island and fucked on a deserted part of the beach until they both had way too much sand in annoying places. But they had been poor and wild and crazy then. Now, they were comfortable and secure and he was very, very proper.
Bet I can make you crazy still, she thought, as he collected her empty. “Come on. I don’t need any pleasure slaves when I got you,” she said, rising.
He obediently followed her and caught her clothes as she stripped. Impatiently, she slapped at his hands. “Forget that shit. I want to see you in something different.” She opened the louvered doors of the wide closet and grabbed one of her wrap-around skirts and tossed it at him. “It’s not a sarong, but it’ll do!”
He caught it neatly, but made no move to change. “Thank you,” he said, shaking out the cloth. “Mistress. But I’m afraid my wardrobe has already been chosen for this trip. Is there some other way I may be of service?”
“No, there isn’t,” Rachel insisted. She turned to face him, her hard body naked and brown from the sun. “Listen—I’ve been doing this long enough to know I can get you out of livery for my own pleasure. So please me, slave boy” She said the word in a sing-song. “Come on, put it on.”
“With all respect, Mistress,” Chris said, his eyes down. “I must ask for another service I may provide for you.”
“Fuck that formal shit,” Rachel snapped. “Talk to me like a normal person.”
Chris tossed the skirt onto the bed. “Very well. No.”
“No?” Rachel’s jaw dropped, and then she laughed. “Did you say no to an order, Mr. Slave?”
“I’m not going to put on your clothes, Rachel,” Chris said. His voice was strained, but very quiet. For a moment, she wondered if he was angry—sometimes, when he was really pissed, he got really quiet. But this was something else, something she wasn’t quite as familiar with.
“Well fuck off, then,” Rachel snapped. “You wouldn’t say no to Alex or Grendel, I bet. What happened to your perfect obedience, huh?”
“I regret that my actions have disappointed you, Rachel,” he said in that same weird voice. He picked up the skirt and folded its edges in and walked to the closet. “I beg your forgiveness.” But as he reached for the hanger, she pushed him away and grabbed the skirt.
“Get out,” she snapped.
When he left the room, he closed his eyes for a moment and clenched his fists to keep from shaking.
* * * *
Grendel and Alex were very pleased with their loaner slaves and ate dinner with their owners. But they and Rachel returned to the suite to take evening cocktails on the verandah to the sound of the surf and the faint calypso music coming from the beach party. They chatted about the people they had run into, and plans for a deep sea fishing party, and Rachel coaxed Alex into telling salacious details about their afternoon delight. And after she laughed and congratulated them, they asked her how her afternoon went.
Chris heard Grendel call for him, and he sighed and put down the shaker he had been rinsing. He wiped his hands dry and walked to the doorway to the verandah. “Master,” he said softly.
“Take your glasses off,” Grendel said, rising.
* * * *
“So you thought you could disobey me?”
“This-this slave has no excuse,” Chris stammered. He was still dizzy from the first two blows, which had been to his face. Then, Grendel had gotten the belt again. Alex was sitting on the couch, her eyes hard, watching. Rachel had fled to the bedroom once, but Alex followed her and brought her back.
“There is no acceptable excuse,” Grendel said, as he brought the belt down again across Chris’s shoulders. Chris swayed forward on his knees, and winced. “My instructions were clear. If Rachel wanted you in a grass skirt and coconut bra, you’d dance the hula for her, is that understood?”
His eyes closed, Chris answered, “Yes, Master.”
The belt didn’t come down again, and Chris took a deep breath to steady himself. He heard the door to the bathroom open, and when Grendel came back, he steeled himself.
But the belt did not return. Grendel pulled Chris up by the collar and then shoved him against the wall with one hand. In the other hand, he was holding a little gold-colored cylinder; one of Rachel’s lipsticks.
“If I wanted you in a ball gown and elbow-length gloves, that’s what you’d wear,” he growled. “Or in the sluttiest costume to come out of a cheap whore’s castaways. Do I make myself clear?”
Chris tried to answer, but his throat was dry—he coughed and whispered, “Yes, Master,” and shook as the garish lipstick came closer.
Grendel did not just crush it haphazardly against Chris’s mouth. He applied it precisely, feeling Chris tremble and hold his breath. Chris’s lips were soft and full, one of the things which had attracted Grendel to him in the first place. When Grendel was finished, he tossed the lipstick aside and dragged Chris over to the mirror.
“You are what you are made to be,” Grendel said harshly into Chris’s ear. “You are whatever we want you to be. Open your eyes and tell me who and what you are!”
Chris’s breath caught in a short, harsh sob, and Rachel sprang to her feet. Alex pulled her back down and whispered to her, holding her by the arm.
Chris pulled himself together and said, staring at the reflection, “This is your slave, Master. Your disobedient slave.”
“There is no room here for disobedience,” Grendel snapped. “You’ll sleep in the dormitory tonight, maybe for the rest of this trip. Maybe we should outfit you as Rachel suggested. Send you over there in a nice, short skirt and enough color on your face to let them know what you are.”
“Please, Master... you are correct, this slave begs...” Chris gasped as Grendel pulled his head back with a handful of hair. “This slave begs for mercy.” His face was almost as red as the make-up, and he forced the word out in what looked like more pain than what the belt had given him.
Grendel dropped his hold, and Chris stumbled. “It’s not your color anyway,” Grendel said. “Go clean it off. That’s my mercy. But while you are in there, boy...” He touched Chris’s sideburns with one finger. “Take these off. And...” He traced a line down Chris’s chest, and then cupped his crotch. “And legs as well. When you get back here, I want you in shorts and a T-shirt and nothing else. Go.”
Chris left immediately and when he was gone, Grendel turned to Rachel. “You know why you had to watch.”
“That’s not fair,” she spat. “Making him shave. It wasn’t that big a deal!”
“Not to you,” Alex said gently. “But it is to us. And to him. You agreed to this, too.”
“I don’t agree anymore,” Rachel said, crossing her arms. “I don’t want to play mistress. This sucks.”
“Would you rather be doing what he is?” Alex asked.
“Fuck no! You know I can’t do that for anything but fun! I just want it to be like it really is again, that’s all. I should have known this wasn’t going to work.” She glanced at the bathroom door, half in sulk and half fearfully. Grendel and Alex exchanged glances.
“I’ll arrange a different room for you if you want,” Alex finally said. “But for this little period of time, Chris is our slave. You are our guest. We’d rather that you took full advantage of our hospitality.”
“This is just too weird,” Rachel mumbled. “Can I leave now?”
Grendel nodded and she stormed off into her bedroom. Alex sighed and said, “I’ll talk to her.”
Grendel nodded and looked over to the bathroom. They could hear water running. “How does he do it?” he asked, idly.
“What?”
“Disobey just enough to get me interested without ever really getting me mad.”
Alex smiled. “Part of his charm, I guess.”
* * * *
Chris was shown to a single bed at the end of a row of six, in a room of twelve total. There were chests and personal belongings by most of th
e beds. He came with nothing. The dorm was austere and dimly lit. The woman who walked him in picked up his collar and studied the colored tags Grendel had affixed before sending him off, and sighed.
“Long night for you,” she said. “If you need to piss, do it now.”
When he came back, she was waiting with an ankle chain. She was kind and apologetic, but he said nothing to her, only sat stiffly as he was chained to the steel frame of the bed. There was enough give for him to sit on the edge and have both feet on the floor. The key was locked, on slender chain, within reach—but it might as well have been thrown into the sea. No slave would break that chain in any circumstance other than a fire or similar catastrophe. Besides, it wasn’t for the restriction of movement as much as it was for the loss of dignity. And, of course, for what it advertised.
The first one came to him within the hour. “You’re new,” whispered an American voice. In the dim light, Chris could see pale skin, and a soft, bare belly. “Show me.” Chris shifted and sat up, and the man’s hand was warm against his throat as the tags were examined.
“Shit. Must have pissed the Mistress off in a big way, kid. But I don’t wanna beat you. Just sit up and take this. Be good, and I won’t tell anyone you’re back here. These two dykes rode the guy who was here all fucking night last night.”
He reminded Chris of the straight men in the large suburban cars who would pull over on the streets up in the 20s and get their ten-dollar blow jobs on the way home, shy and hungry, trying to be kind yet trying to show they were not too involved. He was smaller than Grendel. He was easy to please. And perhaps he kept his word and didn’t tell anyone else that there was a slave in the dorm who could be beaten and abused, whose mouth was available for use. But it was a long, bitter night anyway, made worse by the fact that Chris knew that Rachel wasn’t taking any pleasure in his punishment and probably felt about as bad as he did.
Except that she was being cuddled by Alexandra and he was being shaken awake every hour or so by some fellow slave who wanted to try the new victim in the dorm. Thankfully, no one asked questions, and no one wanted to get elaborate.
As he watched the sun come up, he half believed that he really lived like this. Am I a man dreaming I’m a slave, he thought, or a slave dreaming I’m a man?
* * * *
He was sent back to the dorm for the next night as well, minus the punishment tags. He had spent that day in silence anyway, forbidden to do anything but menial tasks, ignored and unused. It was almost a relief to go into a room where he could have a conversation with someone. There was a slave, a woman, chained in the bed he was taken to the previous night. She was as popular as he had been, perhaps more so, since more of her was available. But he did not partake.
“Don’t leave me,” Rachel said, in the silence of the room. Alexandra, who had just slipped into her robe, looked back at the bed and then walked back to sit on the edge. “I hadn’t planned to,” she said, patting Rachel’s leg. “But in the absence of someone to send for these things, I thought you might like a drink.”
Rachel sat up and pulled her legs away, scowling. “So that’s my fault?”
“Nope, it’s his,” Alex said. She studied Rachel thoughtfully. “Come on, sweetheart. You know better than this.”
Rachel sighed and grabbed pillows to make herself more comfortable, not answering. Alex got up and left the room, and when she came back, Rachel had pulled a T-shirt on and turned on one of the lights. She took the glass of water and put it down after a sip.
“Why did you have to send him back again?” Rachel asked. To Alex’s relief, the question didn’t come out whining or bitter.
“That was Grendel’s decision,” she responded. “He’s pretty much in charge of Chris, you know that. But... I can tell you that he’ll be back here tomorrow night. Gren misses him, too.” She didn’t add that Grendel especially missed Chris because Alex had been so busy catering to Rachel. Not that Gren suffered unduly; the Argentine master had practically insisted on sending the handsome male slave over.
“I will never understand that punishment crap,” Rachel said suddenly. “It’s one thing to smack someone around a little because they fucked up, and you get to hurt them. But what use is it if Chris is unhappy and Grendel and... and me?” She folded her arms over her knees and just looked sad, no longer distressed.
“Well, luckily, you don’t have to worry about that very often,” Alex said. “But I assure you that Chris isn’t angry with you, if that’s what you’re worrying about.”
“How can he be angry with me when he’s so busy being angry at himself?” Rachel snapped. “Jesus, you guys don’t even have to punish him, you know.”
Alexandra smiled. “Oh, yes we do,” she said.
Rachel looked at the older woman and sighed again. She nodded sadly, a look of resignation on her face. “I know,” she said softly. “But I didn’t have to be a part of it. I shouldn’t ever be his boss, ever. Next time, I won’t agree.”
Alex climbed onto the bed next to her and wrapped one arm around her comfortably. “OK,” she said. “Back to normal when we get home. But in the meantime...?”
Rachel nodded. “I’ll stay here,” she said. “I don’t want another room. I want to be with you guys.”
Alex held onto her for a while, until Rachel started to get sleepy. She could hear the suite’s outer door open and close, and knew that Grendel had decided not to keep the loaned slave for the night. Well, that wasn’t a surprise. Grendel hadn’t actually told Alex that he was going to lift Chris’s banishment, but she knew her partner better than anyone.
* * * *
Two days later, it was almost as if the entire incident had not occurred. Chris was back at his duties, Grendel used him, Alex took the personal services she most enjoyed of him. But Rachel avoided him, which was kind of hard to do in a three-room suite. She could barely bring herself to ask him for anything. She took a sudden interest in excursions and activities she yawned at before, and started dancing at the disco until late.
One afternoon of lazy pleasure left Grendel and Alex lying on the bed together, letting the cool breezes dry the sweat from their bodies. Chris would have brought towels and cool drinks, except that his hands were tied behind his back and he was still blindfolded, and no one had felt like moving enough to free him. They all heard the suite door open, and then the shower running, and finally Alex rolled over and reached down to take Chris’s blindfold off. He blinked in the half light and heaved himself up so she could undo the knots while she lay over the edge of the bed.
“There’s something for you in that plastic bag by the door,” she said as she unwound the rope. “Take it and make peace with Rachel in any way possible.”
Chris rotated and massaged his wrists and stood up. The thin cotton cloth in the bag was not too garish, but a deep, indigo blue with batik designs of fish on it. He stood with it in his hands for a moment.
“You do know how to wear it, don’t you?”
He looked back at them. Grendel was up on one elbow, watching. “Yes, Madame. Thank you.“
It wrapped around his hips with plenty to spare. He layered the edges together and made a tight knot, feeling the light material brush against his smooth legs. He had an odd flash of his older brother with a towel around his waist, long, hard torso and narrow hips, so like the handsome pleasure slave only so much more masculine. A man like that could wear a sarong and look like an exotic tropical god, fresh from a sun-drenched beach or steaming jungle.
Across the room in the darkening mirror, a short, vaguely dumpy man with scars wore a long skirt and looked back at him. He dropped his eyes, but squared his shoulders and said again, “Thank you, Madame.”
* * * *
Rachel was wrapped in her towel, brushing her hair back when she called for him to enter. She glanced over at the door, and gasped, and then covered her mouth.
“Oh, shit, shit, I can’t believe they made you do this,” she moaned. “Oh my God, Chris, I’m so sorry, oh,
Jesus fucking Christ, I didn’t mean it! It was just a joke, really...”
“Shh, shh,” Chris said, putting out a hand. “It’s all right.”
“What do you mean, it’s all right?” she insisted. Then her eyes widened. “Hey! You’re off formal manners?”
“No. I’ve been given permission to make peace with you in any way possible. I just thought you might find it easier to—” He smiled slightly. “Talk normal.” He closed the door behind him and then approached her and knelt, first on one knee then the other, so as not to trip on the sarong. “First of all,” he said before she could object, “I am truly sorry I disobeyed you. Obviously, you were right. I would have done it if Grendel or Alex ordered it. It was disrespectful to you.”
“No, no, it was all my fault, I should have never mentioned it, I should have never told you to wear a skirt. My own fucking skirt! Me, of all people, I swear, I don’t know what I was thinking, I swear!” She bent down and then just got on her knees next to him and threw her arms around him. “Oh, shit, Chris, please, please, I’m so fucking sorry! I didn’t mean it, I didn’t want to get you into real trouble!”
He hugged her back and sighed into her damp hair. She still smelled of coconut oil and fresh soap, and she was warm in his arms.
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