She got them settled, made sure the house manager knew to check in on them and bring them snacks and drinks, showed them where the restroom was, and how to work the television remote and switch to the various gaming consoles, and then made a beeline across the house, straight to the forbidden turret.
Unsurprisingly, a security guy blocked her way.
“I’d like to go up.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Wendel. Your father’s decreed this area off limits.”
“You’re denying me access?”
“I’m following your father’s orders, ma’am.”
She looked to the door and shouted, “Reyna! I know you’re up there! Come down and face me!”
Nothing. Silence.
“My name is Iris! Did your husband tell you he has a daughter? Don’t you want to meet your in-laws?” Okay, so she wasn’t technically an in-law, but it’d popped out and correcting herself would be awkward.
More silence.
She security guard still bodily blocked her way. She met his gaze. “You’ll tell my father what happened.”
It was an order, not a request, but he still nodded.
She turned and went back to the front of the house, out the doors of the formal dining room, and onto the party veranda. It was cold, but she was dressed for it, and she’d wait for her father out here.
Her phone rang while she waited.
“What are you doing, Iris?”
“You remarried and didn’t tell me!? How could you!”
“It’s an unconventional marriage, Princess. You didn’t need to be bothered with it.”
“She’s your slave, right? Probably naked and chained, and that’s why she couldn’t come down.”
“Naked, yes. Not chained, though. Not today, anyway.”
He was pissed, and trying to put her on the defensive. She’d learned how to debate from the best, though, so she changed tactics and put it back on him again.
“I’m remembering things I saw as a child. You did the same with mom, didn’t you? Found a beautiful foreigner you could control? You let her be your wife out in public, though.”
“It’s who I am, Iris. It’s the only kind of relationship I’m interested in.”
“Because you’re a damned control freak!”
A good ten seconds of silence, and finally, “An unkind statement, but probably true.”
Iris took a breath. Screaming at her father wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Time to stop fighting and try to get them back on the same side. “Daddy, if she’s important to you, she’s important to me. I need to meet her.”
“She’s younger than you, Iris. It’s… unseemly.”
“And yet, you married her.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think expecting to be introduced to one’s father’s wife is asking too much.”
“It’s an unconventional relationship. I don’t want to expose you to my eccentricities.”
She laughed. “Eccentricities? Is that what we’re calling the Dom in a total power exchange relationship that may or may not be totally consensual?”
“You know the right terms. How?”
“I’ve been to some of the best BDSM clubs in Europe, Daddy. It isn’t my thing, but I played some, and I understand the basics.”
“You had security on you in Europe, how did...” Another sigh. “Never mind. That was probably before your mother’s abduction, when losing them was still a game to you.”
“Am I going to get to meet her?”
“Are you going to be a bitch? You terrified her, screaming up the steps.”
“I’ll apologize to her, but not to you.”
“She doesn’t do well with strangers, Iris. If you’re a bitch, you may never be in a room with her again. I can order her into your presence, but I won’t unless I’m assured you’ll be nice.”
“I’ll be nice, Daddy. I’ve told you I’m good with you dating again. No jealousy. Honest.”
“I’ll put her in one of my robes and bring her down. She wears a permanent collar and cuffs. Titanium, on her neck, wrists, and ankles. She leaves the property once a week, but I’d like to keep those dresses relegated for her shopping trips. She dislikes being forced to leave the house, and I don’t want this meeting with you to be colored by those clothes.”
Another sigh. “She has a few shirts she’s allowed to wear, since she’s taking some online classes and needs to video chat with the professors, but otherwise, she has no need for clothes. It’s… I won’t apologize, Iris. It’s who she is, and it’s what I want. It’s completely consensual. I have her on video, from before we were married, telling me what she wants in a relationship. My lawyers insisted, so I’ll have some protection if she later claims I enslaved her against her will.”
His voice was so businesslike, it made Iris’s teeth hurt from clenching them.
“Speaking of wills,” he continued, “everything you expect to get, you’ll still get. I purchased a home in her name closer to town, and she has her own trust fund. She’s signed that if we divorce, or when I die, whichever comes first, she knows this is all she’ll get, along with her personal possessions — clothing and jewelry she has custody of. Nothing kept in a safe she can’t access on her own.”
“That hadn’t even occurred to me, and maybe it should’ve, but you know money isn’t where I go first.”
“That’s because money’s never been an issue for you, Princess.”
She wasn’t going to let him change the subject. “Do you love her?”
“I adore her. I cherish her. I care for her. I think I’m approaching love. As I said, it’s an unconventional relationship. We’re quite compatible.”
The sapphire-black BMW 750 pulled up to the house — her father’s primary car. The driver got out to open the door for her dad, and Iris disconnected and walked inside to wait for him.
The house manager took his overcoat when he entered, and her father just stood and looked at her. Appraising her.
“It’s too cold for you to be on the veranda.”
“I’m fine. I guess you’ll need time to talk to her, before you bring her down?”
“I do.”
“Will I be able to see what’s in the tower?”
“I’d rather you didn’t. If you insist, you can.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “You say you’ve seen the clubs in Europe, so at least you’ll recognize what you’re seeing and I won’t have to explain. Small mercy, I suppose, but please tell me you went in as a Top and not a submissive.”
Because submissives were to be used and abused by the Doms, in her father’s eyes. She understood him enough not to bother trying to argue the point that there’s nothing weak about being a sub.
She lifted her chin and refused to look away. “I played around as both. I like rough sex, so being a submissive wasn’t terrible, but I much preferred being the one in charge, most nights.”
“If you submit to Mr. Franklin, I don’t want to know.”
“It isn’t like that with us.”
He seemed relieved, but his voice was still that of the businessman and not the father. “Will you wait for us in my office? She’s used to that room. I haven’t allowed her access to the entire house. It would overwhelm her.”
“I’d ask if there’s a piece of furniture you haven’t fucked her on, but I don’t think I want to hear the answer.”
He lifted a brow, clearly refusing to be embarrassed about his sex life, and Iris rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’ll wait for you in your office.”
He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, seemed to weigh something, and shook his head. “She dresses on the front porch for her grocery shopping trips, and removes the dress on the porch before entering the house. Other than wearing a shirt at her desk for video calls, she’s never been clothed in the house. You’ve obviously seen naked submissives before, but I don’t think introducing you to your unclothed stepmother is appropriate, no matter the situation.”
“How do you handle security? An
d your house managers? And maids? And the cook?”
“Everyone who works for me is familiar with my eccentricities, and they’ve all signed ironclad nondisclosure agreements.”
“So, they see her naked?”
“Yes.”
“I can handle a naked woman. Bring her as she is if you think she’ll be more self-conscious being clothed than bare.”
He shook his head. “The robe will knock her off balance. We’ll go with it.”
“Fuck. On top of being a control freak, you’re a sadist too.”
He turned to reprimand her, and she said, “Oh no. You don’t get to tell me you’ve hidden a sex slave in the castle turret and then bitch at me for saying fuck. It doesn’t work that way.”
He smiled and walked away, and she asked, “What about her health? She’ll need dental work, and I assume she’s on birth control or something, right?”
“The doctor comes here.” He stopped and turned back to her. “She’ll see a dentist next month, for the first time since she’s been here. She’ll go with a Tagalog translator. Reyna speaks English just fine, but when in public, she pretends not to. Her translator is her go-between, so she doesn’t have to make any decisions. Baby steps. She knows she’ll have to go out in public with me eventually and converse with others in English. We’re working up to it.”
She waved her hand for him to go, and he did.
Her father’s office hadn’t changed much since she’d been a small child. The same desk, in the same place. A different chair, different drapes, different sofas. Same pictures. How did Reyna feel about seeing pictures of him with his dead wife and daughter all over the place? He hadn’t taken them down.
She checked her social media accounts, but put her phone in her pocket when she heard footsteps.
The woman was blindfolded, but she walked beside her husband with total trust. He held her upper arm, but it wasn’t a tight grip. This was obviously something they’d worked on. She stopped when he did, just inside the office, and stood still while he closed the door and then removed her blindfold.
The woman looked terrified, and Iris stood.
“Reyna. Hello. My goodness, I guess this meet-the-daughter thing isn’t going the way these things usually happen. I’m sorry I scared you, yelling up the steps. I was upset with my father for not telling me, and then pissed at the guard for not letting me upstairs, but I realize I was yelling at you, and I apologize.”
Reyna looked at her husband, as if needing permission to speak. He nodded, and she looked back to Iris. “Thank you for the welcome. I’m sorry if I’ve caused you pain.”
“You haven’t caused any pain. My father didn’t make the best decisions, and that hurt, but it’s all on him. Not you. Can you come sit, please? I guess I need to learn your rules, so I don’t make you uncomfortable by asking you to do something you aren’t allowed.”
“Reyna needs my permission to use furniture, but I think that, at least for the time being, we’ll change the rules so she can sit with you on furniture when you invite her to do so.”
Reyna still waited for her husband to sit and pat the sofa in invitation before she dared join him. Iris settled in a chair facing them, and told her new stepmom, “I’m not in the lifestyle, but I understand it, a little. I’d originally planned to demand to speak with you alone, but now that I’ve met you, I understand how uncomfortable you’d be. However, I have some questions to ask, and I’m going to ask my father to order you to tell the truth, even if you know he’d rather you didn’t.”
Her father glared at her a few seconds, but his face softened when he looked at Reyna. “Answer her question with the truth. My daughter needs to understand you want to be here, and she may ask questions that aren’t any of her business, but unless I interject and say you don’t have to answer, I’m requiring you to.”
“Yes, May-ari.”
She looked at her father in question, and he said, “Tagalog. Consider it’s like saying master in English.”
She turned to Reyna. “Is that accurate?”
The woman looked uncomfortable, so she said, “Forget I asked. I’m sorry.”
Iris asked her phone what may-ari meant in Tagalog, and Google told her it was Filipino for owner.
She closed her eyes a second, and resolved not to make Reyna feel bad about being her father’s slave. It wasn’t Iris’s kink, but she’d learned enough about the lifestyle to know how to act. First, she actually did need to ask some questions, though.
“Do you regret signing away your freedom and coming to America?”
“No, ma’am. Some days are hard, some days are better, but never do I regret my decision to be Mr. Brock’s slave. He’s given me everything I wanted, and more.”
“Do you have a safeword?”
“I can tell him about a problem, ma’am, but I do not have a word to make him stop.”
“When’s the last time you told him of a problem?”
She took a few seconds to consider her answer. “A few weeks ago, I think, ma’am.”
“And did he stop?”
“He fixed the problem and kept going, ma’am.”
She looked to her father, who rolled his eyes. “Do you really want those kinds of details? I was fisting her ass and she couldn’t take it, so I added more lube.”
Iris closed her eyes. No, she didn’t want those kinds of details. Reyna was tiny. Maybe four foot nine inches tall, and probably eighty or ninety pounds. Possibly less. It was hard to tell in the robe.
“Are you on birth control?”
She looked at her husband, who told Iris, “She’s on the pill, plus she has a copper IUD.”
“How do you feel about that?” She asked Reyna. “Do you want kids?”
The tiny woman looked to her husband/owner again, but this time he told her, “Answer her questions, Reyna. The truth.”
Reyna nodded and looked back to Iris. “Eventually, yes, ma’am, I do, but not yet. Plus, I want to be sure they’re Mr. Brock’s, and…”
The couple looked at each other, and Iris prompted, “And?”
Her father turned back to her. “I let the senior members of my staff use her, and occasionally other people. If and when we try for a baby, I’ll stop loaning her out.”
Iris closed her eyes instead of looking away. She’d thought the kid question would safely get them away from the details of their sex life.
She opened them and asked Reyna. “Have you been a sex slave before? Were you prepared for this life?”
“Not to this extent, ma’am, but I knew what I wanted, and I’d met Mr. Brock a few times. I knew he could give me what I wanted. He paid for me to visit him on an island resort, not far from my country. The island is made for Masters and their slaves. I spent a week as his slave, so he could be sure I was up to it.” She looked at him. “There was never any doubt I wanted him to own me.”
“Are things as you expected they’d be?”
“I expected total ownership, ma’am, with no way to leave. No options. I thought I would be cook and maid, and I didn’t get that, but when he wants my cooking, he calls and orders me to cook.” She shrugged. “It’s what he wants, not what I want, and that’s what slavery is.” She looked at her owner to finish her thought. “It’s what I wanted, just not exactly what I expected.” Her gaze met Iris’s again. “Also, I was disappointed when he gave me a way to leave. An out. I didn’t want that, but I understand why he did.”
“Do you love him?”
“With all my heart, ma’am.”
“Are there members of the staff you wish he wouldn’t give you to?”
“It isn’t a slave’s place to say, ma’am.”
“He told you to answer my questions. Even the ones you don’t want to answer.”
“Yes, ma’am. Of course there are men I wouldn’t choose, but this doesn’t mean I want the ability to turn them away. I’m Mr. Brock’s slave. I’m his property. I signed a paper saying so, and if he let me make those kinds of decisions, the paper would
be worthless. For it to mean something, it must be enforced.”
“Your English is very good.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“She had a fairly strong grasp of it when she came,” her father noted, “and I’ve provided online classes to help with a few grammar issues. She’s also taking etiquette classes online. She asked for art supplies, and she’s allowed a few hours a day for those pursuits on the days I work, so long as she isn’t being punished. She’ll begin taking college classes online in the fall, and we’re handling some remedial work in the interim, to be sure she’s ready for them.”
This statement made Iris feel better about Reyna’s position than anything else she’d heard. He was seeing to the whole person, and wasn’t just using her as his property. She remembered having to write lines of verb tenses when she got them wrong as a child, and she grinned and asked, “Are you punished for bad grammar?”
Reyna looked down, obviously ashamed. “Yes, ma’am. I am.”
Fuck. “Look at me, Reyna.” She’d Topped people before, and that side of her came out without her intending it to, but her stepmother looked up without even thinking, so it seemed to have been a good call. She softened her voice. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t a nice question, considering we just met. My smile was because I was remembering having to write the tenses of a verb one hundred times when I spoke wrong, as a child. My father’s a stickler for grammar.”
“You don’t have to apologize to a slave, ma’am.”
Iris glared at her father and then looked back to Reyna. “No matter the relationship, when someone’s wrong, or when they hurt someone’s feelings, they should apologize. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Not apologizing would make me a bitch, and while there are times I proudly wear that title, I don’t want to be a bitch to you.”
“I have a few questions of my own,” her father said. “You knew her name, and you knew where she was in the house. How?”
“How much of your business are you prepared for her to know?”
“This involves her, so she needs to hear the answer.”
“It seems the MC is being proactive, and learning everything they can about you, in the event you decide to come after them. Danny had a copy of all her immigration forms, and a copy of your wedding certificate. He’d noted a guard at the base of the opposite turret, and I remembered mom staying up there a lot. The very fact it’s been off limits to me my whole life...” she shrugged. “I have a few other memories that tell me you and mom…” She trailed off. It didn’t seem right to talk about her mother too much around Reyna.
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