Labyrinth

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  He smiled a little more genuinely this time. I think I amused him.

  “And that’s why you came to see me.”

  Yes, that was exactly why I’d come to see him—that and whatever the hell he’d done to my sexual psyche that turned him into an obsession. I still believed that he had a magician’s touch; that he worked the stars like a god; that he had life wrapped around his little finger and my heart firmly inside his grasp.

  “Yes, that’s why I came here,” I admitted, chagrinned.

  “Did you ever think that perhaps your lack of success is because there was something bigger, something better waiting for you?”

  I thought a moment. “No. I don’t think that ever crossed my mind.”

  It was a telling grin that greeted me, but I had no idea what he meant by it.

  He’d been leaning back, observing me with a critical eye, and chose that moment to bring himself upright and lean toward me, his elbows resting on the desk, his fingers steepled in from of him. “Well, how about I get straight to the point. The way I see it, you can go back to your life in your walk-up flat, begging for tips from customers at the diner and getting nowhere, or you could give yourself to me and let me see if I can do for you what you haven’t been able to do for yourself.”

  I tried to wrap my mind around this idea but was left offering up a meager, “I’m sorry, what do you mean by give myself to you?”

  “It’s pretty straightforward. If you have the talent for being a magazine editor—which I have a feeling that you do—I can give you that. I can also give you the unbridled sex that you so obviously desire and freedom from the burdens of the last couple years. In exchange for my generosity, you give yourself to me.”

  He stopped there, short of the answer I wanted. “Yes, well, that sounds interesting, but you still haven’t explained what you mean by ‘give’ myself to you.”

  “You give yourself to me, I own you. Like property. Simple as that.”

  My brow furrowed. “Isn’t that a little…um…19th century?”

  “Slavery has never been out of fashion, it’s just been swept under the rug. Those in polite society may try to pretend otherwise, but that doesn’t mean that women aren’t bought and sold all the time, even in the 21st century.”

  Seeing my mouth drop open in shock only seemed to amuse him more.

  “Yes, it’s slavery we’re talking about. You may cringe at the word, but consider what I can do for you. The connections I have, the sex I offer. You give yourself to me, your life will turn on a dime. You’ll live here, or in an apartment I provide for you. I’ll buy you the clothes you need, get you the job you want. Dress you. Feed you. While you give me sex and the satisfaction of owning you. You’ll do as I say—and in that I’m not an unreasonable man, nor will I expect things of you that you cannot do. But I will ask you to stretch your imagination, perform the unusual, and I will demand your obedience.”

  “Demand my obedience!”

  “Yes, exactly. As I said, you’ll be considered a slave, which includes all the various meanings that the word might summon to mind. As in slavery of old, you will give me your unquestioned submission or you can expect to be punished.”

  I wanted to scream, You’ve got to be crazy! but the words never left my lips.

  Something in his offer struck deep at the heart of me, in a place I’d never ventured, at least not until I stepped through the man’s door.

  Finally, after I’d picked my jaw up off the floor, I said: “I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to say.”

  “Oh, but I think you do. I think you know what you feel, what you want. You might have some problem at the start with this radical notion, but I think you’ll find your life pretty normal in many respects, with the one exception that you no longer need to make any decisions for yourself. You could say that this one decision is the last important one you’ll ever have to make. Oh, there will be decisions associated with your job, plenty I’m sure, but about the rest of your life the decisions will be mine to make. You have debts, I’ll take care of them. I’ll square things with your current boss—not that he’s likely to care much. I’ll even have your apartment cleaned out and your things brought here. You don’t need to trouble with the details; they will be part of my job as your owner.”

  Owner. Now there was a word, on top of every other outrageous thing he’s said.

  My response was long in coming. In fact, so long in coming that I was amazed by his patience. Up to that point, he hadn’t appeared to be a patient man, but it looked as if he would just sit there until I finally responded. The minutes ticked by slowly, while my mind whirled fast. I was too dazed to even think straight. I finally shook my head in despair as I admitted the truth.

  “I honestly don’t know what to say. I mean the sex is great, I’ll give you that, but I don’t even know who you are. I’ve been flying blind here for two days and you’re just as much a mystery to me now as you were when you first walked into the diner.”

  “That means you’ll have to take a good deal on faith. I can no more lay out for you who I am than I can walk on water. Who I am you’ll feel, in fact, you’ve already felt me in a number of ways, certainly enough to have you running to me with your obsession gripped tightly in your fist.”

  I should have been embarrassed to have been so obvious, but I was still dealing with his shocking offer. “And if I accept your proposal, agree to this arrangement—” I just couldn’t say ‘slavery’—“and I find out two…three months down the line that it’s just not working out for me, do I have any recourse?”

  “No. A slave has no recourse. You make a decision, I expect you to keep it. I’m sure you’ll suffer through days when you want to split, but you’ll get over the feeling, eventually.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  He smiled broadly. “You know the saying, shit out of luck?”

  “But this is the 21st century, the kind of slavery you’re talking about can’t honestly be enforced. My lord, I can’t even believe I’m in this conversation!”

  “If you’re naïve enough to think I’d propose something as outrageous as I’ve just proposed to you without the power to back up my claims, then let me set you straight, Lana. Who I am is powerful enough to put you back in that diner, should you turn out to be more of a liability than an asset. In fact, we’d just skip the diner altogether. I would shove you into the gutter faster than you can blink your eyes, and make sure you’d never get out of it again. Don’t underestimate who I am. If after agreeing to my terms, you just up and leave a week, a month, a year down the road—which will be physically possible for you to do, since I don’t plan to keep you in chains twenty-four hours a day—you can be sure that those who I employ will seek you out, find you, and bring you back. After a revolt like that, I’ll make certain that you never have that kind of chance for freedom again. When I talk about slavery, I’m talking about the real thing, not some bdsm lifestyle game of pretend, not some loosely knit set of rules that you can easily break. I know this is not for every woman. Then again, it’s not every woman to whom I make such an offer.”

  “Right, just special women like me,” I bit off sarcastically.

  He reacted with amusement, but that response was short-lived. His eyes seemed to burn inside me, two fiery orbs of fantastical light that drew me deeper into his remarkable essence. He sat back again and stared at me with an expression of contentment, as if I was playing the game exactly as he imagined it. And yet, I also noted in his serenely composed face a look of longing, as if what I decided mattered very much to him. “You’re the woman I want right now, Lana,” he said, confirming my assessment.

  I believed he was telling the truth, and in fact, I’d never felt so wanted as I did at that moment. I was also vulnerable and terrified. “So, I’ll always be the woman you want?”

  “That I can’t say,” he admitted.

  “Then this won’t necessarily go on forever?”

  “As you consider my offer, you need to assume
it will be permanent. Slaves are properties. Properties can be sold. When I tire of a slave, I normally put them on the auction block, where I’m sure, for a woman as lovely as you, there will be plenty of buyers. I doubt that even as you age, your value will decline. In fact, there are many buyers who request more mature women.”

  He was a hairsbreadth from undoing me, from unraveling me from the inside out like you would a ball of yarn. I could have bolted right then. I can’t count the number of times that I recalled that moment over the last ten years and wondered how I could at twenty-three consider such a rash and life changing decision. The urge to flee was there, but the longer I sat before the man, the more his aura swept through me. What kind of incantations he used to create that potent force, I’ll never know, but that forceful presence was real, like something rock solid, not just an idea pulled from the imagination. Rational thought abandoned me to gut feelings, desperation and unflinching lust—and something even deeper than those: a sudden bond with the very essence of my character. Was I a fool to believe I’d have the job and luxurious life that he claimed he could give me? Probably. But even having those things didn’t seem to matter as I lived through this awesome moment.

  Again, the minutes ticked by as I waited for myself to respond. Finally I asked what seemed like a sane question—about this very insane proposal.

  “How do I know that you’ll give me the things you promised?” I was just buying time, giving myself a moment to adjust to his outrageous offer. I think I knew my answer from the start, and that was even more frightening to get used to.

  “We sign a contract,” he answered.

  A contract. Right. “As if that has any legal authority?”

  “The contract will exclude the specific provisions for slavery. That will be handled in another manner. But as far as the job and the lifestyle I mentioned, those basic elements will be secured for you. Unless you completely mess up the job, you’ll have no reason to complain. I live up to my word and I expect you to live up to yours.”

  “You say you’ll take care of the slavery part in another manner?”

  “Yes, and if you agree to this, once the contract is signed, you’ll find out what I mean. You can consider that your first challenge.”

  My heart was beating like an old bass drum, while from deep inside my crotch a crazed desire rose up with a fury that I could not resist.

  “Okay,” I found myself saying. I was a little out of body by that time, as in disconnected from reality, maybe from my own better judgment, which would have had me long gone by now. The simple ‘okay’ was easy to say. And honestly, I did not want to leave. I certainly did not want to go back to my life as a waitress. If he could do what he said, I was willing to pay his price. And though he assured me that the slavery was as real as the walls and windows and the floor of that penthouse office, a part of me was sure that if I wanted out there would be a way. Ah! What the foolishness of youth will agree to!

  After giving my answer, I thought he would ask questions, interrogate me to make sure that I really understood what I was doing… maybe suggest I take a few days to decide. There was none of that.

  He nodded, smiling. Then he pulled a document from his desk drawer and pushed it toward me.

  “Read it. It’s what you’ll sign.”

  “A contract?”

  “Yes?”

  “You already have one drafted?” I looked at him amazed.

  “Yes. Just this morning.”

  “My, you must have a lot of faith in your power to persuade me.”

  “I do.”

  I gulped nervously as I carefully picked up the document. “So, when am I going to sign this?”

  “When I have the witnesses here. A day or so, no more.”

  “And I could walk away until then?”

  “You can walk away until then, no negative consequences. You can also walk away after you sign the contract, but you will be brought back—you remember what I said? You run off, you’ll break trust and you do not want to do that.”

  My body was on fire, my desire at its peak, and the shudder that followed played back through me like a broken record on an endless loop. I never wanted the feeling to end.

  Two days later in the company of Alec West and a woman introduced to me as Megan—who I never saw again—I signed the contract that I must have read a dozen times if I read it once in the forty-eight hours before the simple ceremony. I began to think that there was something odd about the document, because every time I read it through, my sexual desire would leap up higher than a flying kite. If what I was about to do wasn’t the right thing then I was being controlled by a cunning evil spirit that had the power to disorient my mind and dictate my sexual response. Obviously, the reading of the contract did nothing to change my decision.

  As soon as my name and Dominick’s were on the dotted line, he abruptly ordered me to hold out my hand. A gleaming, stainless steel knife suddenly materialized out of nowhere, and before I could feel a moment’s panic, he slashed my palm, opening a simple, clean cut that bled out on the floor. I looked up dazed, and barely moved as he calmly guided my bloody palm over the last page of his contract where my signature boldly appeared.

  Still in shock by the suddenness of the cut, I looked down and watched a small pool of bright red blood thicken and then turn dark, directly over where I’d signed. This gave me a significant shudder as I stared at that blood-soaked page.

  It took Alec West to shock me from my numb stupor. He reached out with a handkerchief to swath my bleeding hand and smiled rather kindly in an effort to soothe me. Little did I know what was really behind that look. It did make me curiously uncomfortable—as if he was being far too familiar with a woman he’d just met.

  This was, of course, my first experience with a man who would be a thorn in my side on a number of occasions through the next ten years. It seems to be Alec’s forte—making women squirm—and I was certainly squirming, if only figuratively, nothing necessarily obvious to an observing eye. His love affairs with women are notorious, so is his sadism and his charm. I’m quite sure that the same could be said of Dominick, but I liked to think that my owner had more richness in his character, if one could quantify such a thing. Not so much razzle-dazzle showmanship as genuine substance.

  “Lana,” West placed special emphasis on my name, as his steely fingers dug into my upper arm. I turned, finding myself inches from the broad-shouldered man with the commanding presence and breath that smelled of mint. His dramatic qualities might have been a lot of smoke and mirrors, but his close proximity to me made my hair stand on end, and the energy emanating from his crotch seemed to be uncomfortably grabbing at mine. It didn’t take but seconds to flash forward and see myself in the midst of unbridled sex with Alec West. In the same rushed seconds, I knew that I was going to hate him. Why so intuitive? Sometimes the images just come to me, or I feel a certainty in my gut, an instantaneous knowing that I simply can’t shake. Usually such reactions are the true ones, not just passing thoughts. The future would prove both of my assumptions about Alec West to be correct—though much sooner than I would have anticipated. He spoke concisely now. “You signed the contract with the understanding that at the same time it spells out your financial arrangement with Dominick, it also makes you his slave.” Yes, as if I didn’t already know that.

  “Yes, I understand.” I was trying very hard to stand my ground, even though I felt it falling away from me at the same time. My lightheadedness could clearly become a problem if I wasn’t careful.

  “I’m here to make sure that you don’t forget that fact,” he gave me his cryptic explanation.

  “But I’m sure I won’t forget,” I argued. “Not after this,” referring to the wound still bleeding out through the man’s white handkerchief.

  The intimidation factor played heavily in my reluctance to pull away, though I had the strongest urge to do so. Four days in the penthouse—I hadn’t been out once—now all this gravitas seemed to have turned me into a q
uaking idiot. I wanted most to lay down and cry, either that or fuck my way back to reality. It didn’t help that Dominick had denied me sex the moment that I okayed his offer, so it had been two days since I orgasmed. He’d explained that it would be good to take that small breather in order to clear my mind before I signed the contract. I wonder if he knew that this decree would do the exact opposite, leaving me swimming in my sexual desires until my mind was in an inebriated daze. I like to think these men understand what their machinations and pronouncements and rash decisions do to the submissive female, but I’m not convinced that they are any more enlightened about the human consciousness than I am—or what kind of effect they’ll have when they toy with female properties, as they love to call us. They might simply be throwing the cards in the air and hoping they land the way they desire.

  I would have preferred if Dominick led from this point, but I was stuck with the irrepressibly arrogant Alec West taking charge of what happened next.

  “Dominick would prefer that you had a concrete reminder of your slave status,” he informed me. Concrete reminder? What the heck did that mean?

  For the next few prickly moments I was left clueless by what was about to take place. I recalled Dominick mentioning my first challenge—so this would be it, I had to assume. “Megan—” Alec turned to the thirty-something female with the dark black hair and the bright red lips. I studied her for the first time wondering what her story was. Like the two men, she was an enigma. Obviously she was there to assist, but though her nature seemed submissive, she was so polished and put together in her dark business suit that I had to wonder exactly what her relationship to these men might be. She was really quite pretty if you took away the obvious nervous tension in her careful movements. That nervous tension was quite real. In fact, she seemed to be walking on eggshells, afraid of both men. I had the feeling that she’d rather have been any where else but in Dominick’s penthouse. “If you will tie her down,” Alec directed his statement at her, his smile officious. Although he stated his aim with unerring politeness, it sounded a bit contrived. Obviously, this was not a request but an order.