The Pleasure House

by Kitty Thomas

  Calm was easy to come by with the sun warming her skin and a light lunch in her stomach. A shadow fell across her, and she lurched as fingers trailed down her thigh. She opened her eyes; a smile drifting across her face when she saw Gabe looking down at her.

  He handed her a bottle of sunscreen. “I want you to get a little sun without lotion, then put this on before you burn. After that you can get your exercise in the pool if you promise to swim and not just splash around.” He tossed a glance at the women playing in the pool.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “When you’re finished, come back to your room. You’ve still got a punishment coming for climaxing without permission.”

  Her cheeks flushed as she looked around to make sure no one else had heard him, but everyone seemed engaged in their own activities. Then the embarrassment died away, and a lump formed in her throat as she started worrying about punishment and what it might entail.

  Before she had a chance to respond, he slid his sunglasses over his eyes and went back into the mansion.

  Vivian swam like a mad woman as if swimming laps in the pool could help her escape whatever Gabe had planned. Her faith in him being the good one was dwindling at the same pace as her energy. When she could go no more, she dragged herself out of the water. Her body ached as she trudged to her room, questioning the wisdom of causing herself so much pain when she no doubt would get more.

  Gabe looked up when she stumbled in. He frowned. “Did you think I’d take pity and choose not to punish you if you wore yourself out?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “Come here.”

  It was a relief to crawl across the floor, to not have to hold herself up after the abuse she’d heaped on her body in the pool. When she reached him, she pressed her lips to his boots, then waited, every muscle exhausted further from anxiety.

  “Good girl. I didn’t expect you to remember.”

  She wasn’t sure whether she should be offended by that. Was her emotional resistance to the training that strong, or did he find her stupid? Between him and Anton she was going to develop a complex about her brainpower.

  He was quiet for several minutes, and Vivian waited, unwilling to break the silence and make him more upset with her. Finally, he spoke again.

  “Come with me.”

  She took the offered hand as he helped her to her feet and guided her through the mansion and down a steep flight of stairs until they reached the dungeon Vivian had known Anton would have. It was smaller than she’d expected, which led her to believe there must be more than one, for people who wanted some measure of privacy for punishments or play.

  Gabe led her to stand between two sturdy poles that came up out of the concrete. A metal ring jutted from the top and bottom of each one, with a short length of chain attached to it.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  He went to a large trunk on one side of the room without a backward glance. It was obvious he didn’t want a show. Gabe was all business, and clothing would only get in the way of his plans.

  Vivian removed and folded the gym clothes, then untied the strings of the still-damp bikini. She shivered as the air hit and hardened her nipples. He returned first with a blindfold and covered her eyes, preventing her from seeing what else he was bringing from the chest.

  She stood still as he took each wrist and fastened a cuff around it, then brought it up to the chains on the poles. He repeated the action with her ankles until she was stretched wide, whimpering from the pain pulling her muscles.

  “Next time perhaps you’ll think twice about pushing so hard in the pool right before punishment. What were you trying to accomplish?”

  “I don’t know, Sir.” But she did know. It was just too stupid to put into words that she’d been running from him and the punishment that had now caught up to her. She’d sound like a head case.

  The room was quiet. Tension curled around her, a tangible thing, as she waited for whatever was about to strike her. Instead of pain, she felt Gabe’s lips kissing a trail over her neck and shoulders.

  “When you get close to orgasm, tell me. If you come again without permission you’ll be punished in front of everyone in this house, including Sabrina. And it won’t be pretty. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “What’s about to happen is mild because this is all still new to you. Remember that after it’s over.”

  Then he set to work on her, his fingers skimming over her skin, dipping inside her, circling insistently around her already swollen clit. Her arms were killing her hanging in the chains, but it still only took minutes for him to manipulate her almost to the point of orgasm.

  “I’m close,” she whispered.

  He immediately stopped, as she’d known he would, leaving her hips to buck helplessly against the air, her body begging for release.

  Moments later several strips of leather struck her back. She’d remembered the things she’d seen in the chest in her bedroom and his earlier threat about flogging. He brought the flogger down over and over until what started out an almost pleasant sensation, turned into a painful sting as her back became more raw.

  She whimpered and cried out, “Please, Sir.”

  “Please, Sir? You disobey a direct order from me right after I told you not to this morning, and all you’ve got is ‘Please, Sir?’ You little slut. Give me something creative and maybe I’ll stop for a few minutes.”

  Tears were already streaming down her cheeks, dropping from her chin and onto the concrete. “This slut is very sorry.”

  He laughed. “Third person speech. Aren’t you the little overachiever now? More.” The flogger cracked against her back again, drawing out a scream.

  “Please, Sir. Your dirty slut is sorry she was bad. She won’t disobey again.”

  She heard the flogger as it fell to the ground, and then his mouth was kissing over the skin of her back, soothing away the pain he’d just caused. It was wrong but also right to feel the softness of his lips caressing welts left by his hand.

  Gabe went back to teasing her, his fingers stroking over her labia but not touching her clit or venturing inside. She twisted and turned to try to get his hands to bump against the right spots. Vivian knew it was foolish. He wasn’t going to let her come, so striving for contact that would stimulate her wasn’t her best move.

  But she couldn’t help it. He pulled his hand away, leaving her whimpering. The glass toy he thrust inside her next was long and wide, with large ridges. He fucked her without mercy, knowing exactly how to angle the toy to torment her the most. His mouth was next to her ear when he growled, “Don’t come. Warn me first.”

  She nodded, biting her lip against the onslaught. He used his other hand to manipulate her clit. She was tempted to try to have a little orgasm. Maybe he wouldn’t notice. But he would notice. And then she’d be punished in front of everyone, including the bitch who’d busted her lip.

  That thought killed her libido enough so she could think straight again. “I’m close,” she said.

  He stopped.

  “Tell me little slut, does your cunt belong to you?”

  “No, Sir.”

  The flogger cracked over her back, and she cried out.

  “Who does it belong to, then?”

  “The house,” she gasped.

  He stopped completely for a moment. No words. No flogging. Just an agonizing suspension of nothing and blackness. For one insane moment she thought she’d died, and the oblivion had taken her, but she still felt the fabric covering her eyes. Then a sharp laugh rang out, bouncing against the walls.

  “I think you’re a lot smarter than you let on, Vivian. I expected you to say it belonged to me. I thought we’d have to go through about five successive questions before you got the right answer.” He caressed her back as he spoke. “Who does your body belong to, slut?”

  “The house, Sir.”

  She flinched as the flogger came down on her again.

  “And what are you?”


  She thought back to the words Anton had said to her at Dome, the words that had gone straight to her pussy and had made her ache with the need to be stroked to soothe away the feeling they’d caused. She paraphrased them now.

  “I’m a series of warm holes meant for the house’s pleasure.”

  He kissed the shell of her ear, then whispered, “Very good girl. I envy the man who buys you, you know.”

  She flushed with pleasure at the praise, and no longer gave a shit what that said about her.

  He alternated between pleasure and pain, taking her to the brink, where she had to fight and claw to keep from falling over the edge of the cliff, then into a deeper pain each time he went to work on her with the flogger. She wasn’t sure if he was increasing the force he put behind the blows or if her skin had become so tender that everything hurt more. She felt as if she’d left her body, like she was floating in a different orbit than the one she normally existed in. The sensation both scared and excited her.

  Vivian wasn’t sure how much time had passed like this. It seemed like hours, days even. He stopped all at once, and suddenly, without every sensation being focused on her back or pussy, she could feel the pain in her arms again as she hung from the chains. And truly she was hanging. Without the strong chains holding her up, she would have collapsed to the ground long ago.

  In testament to this, when Gabe unlocked her wrists, she dropped to her knees, her cheek resting on the floor. Every part of her was exhausted, limp, achy. A part of her was more satisfied than she’d ever felt before, but another part was so consumed with the need for orgasm that she couldn’t stop the wracking sobs as they tore out of her.

  Gabe didn’t comment. He unlocked the cuffs around her ankles, and checked them and her wrists for damage.

  “Wiggle your fingers and toes for me.”

  She did.

  “Good girl. Now roll onto your back. I know you can’t hold yourself up right now.”

  She rolled over, praying he would finally let her come. The cool concrete was a balm to her heated skin.

  “Do you think you’ve learned your lesson?”

  “Yes, Sir,” she said. Please please please let me come.

  Though she couldn’t see him, she felt his strong presence as he stood over her. She imagined he must be looking down, his arms crossed over his chest as he admired the results of his work.

  “I’m not sure. I want to be sure. Stay,” he said.

  As if she had the power to go anywhere. She had no idea how she’d manage to get out of the dungeon as it was. His boots thudded across the floor back to the big box of torture devices. She held her body rigid as he rifled through the contents of the chest, fearing what awful thing he might bring back with him.

  Moments later he was rubbing a cream on her clit, the same one Anton had used at Dome. Her need climbed to an even higher peak than before. It took every ounce of willpower not to move her hands between her legs, even though she knew he was watching, and she’d just be punished again.

  Then he was pulling something hard over her legs and locking it in place. Her pussy was covered now with something so unyielding, she couldn’t have gotten off no matter what she did. She let out a little sob, half anguish that he wasn’t finished torturing her and half relief it wouldn’t require her to use self-control she was no longer physically capable of.

  “I told you I didn’t want to have to put a chastity belt on you, Vivian. But we do what we must. Your punishment will be over in the morning. If you have to go to the bathroom, let one of us know and we’ll take you.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Even after everything he’d done to her, and maybe because of it, she wanted to snuggle up next to him. She wanted to kneel at his feet and lay her head on his lap as he pet her hair. The only thing she could feel, beyond the relentless awareness of her arousal, was her need to please him. To submit.

  She felt a brief sense of dizziness as Gabe unexpectedly scooped her up and carried her to her room. He laid her on the bed, took off the blindfold, and brushed her hair back from her face. “Rest, lover. I’ll wake you for dinner.”

  She nodded as her eyelids drooped, and despite the incessant, throbbing need, sleep claimed her.

  In her dream she was running down a long hallway with many doors. A dragon chased fast on her heels. If she could just get through one of the doors, she’d be safe. They were too small for the dragon. Even if he could tear down the wall to continue the chase, it would give her a head start. She could hide.

  But every possible escape was locked to her. She finally ran out of hallway, with one final exit ahead. The basement door of her house. But Michael kept that door locked. She reached out anyway, desperate.

  The doorknob clicked open in her hand. As she pushed it, she could see a light at the bottom of the stairs and a shadow moving below. Michael?

  She gripped the rail of the stairway, but before she could get to safety, the dragon’s claw wrapped around her ankle, dragging her back down the hall. She screamed for help, but the basement door slammed, shutting out her cries. Everything tilted and suddenly the door was above her. Her hands scrabbled for purchase as she struggled against the monster. But there was nothing to stop her descent. The floor was too perfect, too polished.

  The dragon picked her up and tossed her down a hole, and she was in a free fall.

  Vivian jerked awake from the falling sensation, still screaming. She cowered away when she spotted Gabe, Anton, and Lindsay standing over her bed. Her conscious mind may have accepted her situation, even craved parts of it, but the banshee still struggled in her sleep, trying to shake Vivian up and make her fight harder, or at all.

  But even after only a few seconds of consciousness away from the dream, she felt safe and warm. Even surrounded by the dragons. Maybe because she was surrounded by them. Everything had tilted.

  “Are you all right, flower?” Anton. She’d missed him and his pet name that was somehow so dirty. Whether it was the innuendo he’d placed inside the word, or his wicked accent, she couldn’t be sure. She’d miss him when she was sold. And Gabe. She wasn’t sure about Lindsay yet.

  “Do you need to use the bathroom?” Gabe asked.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He helped her out of the bed, and she winced.

  “Jesus, Gabe. You hit her hard enough, didn’t you? I’m surprised you didn’t draw blood,” Lindsay said when he could see her back.

  She flushed, still embarrassed being naked in front of them.

  “She’ll heal. She had to be punished. I do it right the first time so the behaviors aren’t repeated. You should try it. Would save you a lot of training grief.”

  Vivian glanced over at Lindsay to find him giving her a look she could read as if he’d dumped an entire conversation in her brain. It was as if he were saying, I’m not as bad as Gabe. You calculated your hierarchy of evil wrong.

  But it didn’t matter. She still felt affection for Gabe, and Lindsay still scared her. She knew it was irrational now that everybody’s mask had been dropped to reveal who they were underneath. She just shrugged at the doctor, and he shook his head as if she were a lost cause.

  Gabe took her to the bathroom and unlocked the chastity belt. She sighed when he leaned against the wall. Of course he wouldn’t give her privacy.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t trust you won’t try to touch yourself.”

  Between her nightmare and waking to the pain of her back, orgasms were the last thing on her mind. She wasn’t about to try to rub one off in the bathroom. But she didn’t bother trying to explain it to Gabe. She’d already peed in front of Anton, but she had to do a bit more than that, and she couldn’t do it with an audience.

  “Please Sir . . . I know you don’t have to, but I really need privacy. I don’t just have to pee, and I can’t . . . with you standing there.” She held her breath, praying he had the shred of mercy she believed him to have.

  Finally, he poked his head out the door and called into the bedroom, “Lindsay,
bring me some rope.”

  A minute later, Lindsay was in the bathroom, smirking down at her as he passed the rope to Gabe. Then thankfully, he left.

  Gabe tied her wrists with such expert precision, she was sure he must have been a boy scout before he went evil. Then he tied the other end to the shower bar, causing her arms to go at an awkward angle. “This is the only way you get privacy. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  The door shut quietly behind him.

  He returned several minutes later to untie her so she could wipe and flush. “Don’t linger,” he said, as if she was going to try to masturbate her clit while she wiped. She fought back an eye roll. Vivian was so not in the mood for sex, it was almost amusing how he thought she would be.

  She expected him to put the chastity belt back on, but he ordered her into the shower instead. He stripped off his clothes and joined her. As his hands roved over her body, the soap working into a strong, fragrant lather, the libido she thought had died with the nightmare, came roaring to life again.

  He didn’t try to fuck her, and she suspected it was because he’d either fucked someone else while she was sleeping, or intended to once the chastity belt was locked in place again. She felt irrationally jealous even though he wasn’t hers to possess. And even though their association would end once she’d been sold.

  She shuddered at how casually she thought of herself as sold off to be some man’s slave. Some man she didn’t know. She wondered if she’d grow attached to him, if she’d love him, if he’d have any kind of feelings for her.

  Gabe shut off the shower and wrapped her in a towel, guiding her out onto the tiled floor. He lingered over her clit, teasing. Vivian’s eyes widened when he produced the tube of arousal cream. He couldn’t be serious. But he was. He put a healthy amount on her and slipped the chastity belt over her thighs.