The Sisterhood of Slaves Pt. 05

All the time she was telling him this, Sabrina did not raise her eyes to see his face, and so she had no way of guessing what he was thinking until he spoke.

"Is it because your love for me is unconditional that you want to give me this gift? Or is this really what you desire? Am I merely your excuse... your pretext?"

In reply, she whispered "Sophie" and the girl brought two footstools (Ottomans matching the armchairs) and set them down in the middle of the room. Sabrina placed her hands behind her back and Sophie attached her collar and bracelets. Both women then stooped and bent over the seats, their bellies and breasts resting upon the leather cushion, their haunches raised and exposed.

André pondered this tableau for maybe a minute. Then he knelt behind her and she felt cold fingers gripping and spreading the flesh of her buttocks. The excited buds on her breasts scuffed deliciously against the warm leather facing of the Ottoman and its sculpted inlaid studs. That which made him Master slid into Sabrina's body. She quietly moaned.

Her lover had made his decision.

The interview had gone well, he thought. He'd been nervous, but that was to be expected. The reputation of the pocket-sized harridan was, for those in the know, formidable, albeit spoken about in whispers, only in certain circles and behind closed doors. In person, Lydia (she insisted on being addressed by her first name) was smaller and more delicate than he had pictured her, even more beautiful, and much less fearsome. Unlike in other interrogations he'd endured, she went out of her way to put him at ease, talking not from behind a desk but in cosy armchairs, with mellow music playing in the background and coffee brought by her assistant (the pulchritudinous Gabrielle).

Daniel felt stiff and stuffy in his suit and tie. ("Not the silk one," Emma had advised. "You don't want to look too flashy." She was always right about such things.) Lydia was wearing a sheer black dress with splendid décolletage and a "neckline" that plunged far below her exquisite cleavage. He wondered (strictly to himself) how it managed to stay in place.

"Social engagement," she said with a shrug, answering at least one of his questions. And it was interesting that she'd been able to read his thoughts; or maybe he wasn't good at disguising them. In any case, it impressed him that she had bothered, or felt the need, to explain.

As she took her seat, the woman's hemline retreated all the way along her thighs, revealing that her stockings were held up by lace garters. Daniel noticed that unlike most women she did not cross her legs or keep her knees pressed primly together. And she appeared not to mind that his gaze lingered there a second or two longer than it should.

Her inquisition was direct and incisive, probing his brain and prodding his ego. She asked strange questions, as if administering a psychological test. Some of the scenarios he was expected to analyze and assess were... well, unorthodox. She did not want to know about his skills or experience.

"On-the-job training?" he asked, and immediately regretted it.

She just smiled. "Something like that."

He was still curious about the nature of the offer, unsure of what exactly he was signing up for. The description had been vague; the invitation had come from an acquaintance of Emma's. She and Daniel had been next-door neighbors and close friends for most of their lives. Two years his senior, pretty and brainy, Emma had always been out of his reach and perhaps out of his league. Daniel felt awkward around her, overawed, perhaps even intimidated. So he was surprised, if delighted, when she took him to the Gor tavern, a faraway place in the heart of the campus. That she was with her boyfriend dampened his mood only a little. Yet after a few visits he still felt out of place; until Rachel, Emma's acquaintance, introduced herself. He knew he wasn't being hit on. She was older than Emma, blond, blue-eyed and almost impossibly gorgeous, and there was no way he could measure up to that. (He preferred brunettes, but Rachel was spectacular.) Both she and Emma were freewomen in the tavern, which was a pity for Daniel because he didn't get to see them naked; but then Rachel told him about Lydia.

It was rather audacious, even reckless, to proceed on scant information. He knew only that, if selected, he would be gone for six weeks — during the summer vacation — and though not entirely incommunicado would be generally cut off from the world. He'd been given no clue as to how he'd managed to make the short list — indeed any list at all. (Perhaps it was his fish-out-of-water quality that they were after.) Sworn to secrecy (he wasn't sure why), he maintained his silence and was ignorant about the other applicants. But he seemed to have the traits Lydia was looking for — adventurous but prudent, open to new ideas and experiences, tolerant, flexible, nonjudgmental. He hoped that his sundry negative attributes would not be relevant.

After some intense cross-examination, Lydia got him talking about his personal relationships. He admitted to being complacent and complaisant, and following more probing he ended up acknowledging that he was by nature submissive. "I guess more like the passive partner," he tried to clarify.

She frowned, stared at him, and then laughed. She made a note in her pad and moved on.

At that moment he thought he'd botched the interview; and at its close she dismissed him rather curtly, with the usual "I shall be in touch," and he tried to put the meeting out of his mind. He was accustomed to the "Thank you for your application, however..." letter, so he was surprised as well as pleased to be called back.

It was getting towards evening; the building was shutting down, offices closing, workers heading home. Lydia was waiting for him as the elevator doors opened, dressed in a powder blue jacket, white blouse and short black skirt. This time she was not wearing stockings, but her legs were as sleek as the finest silk. Around her throat was a slim, leather choker with a small gold insignia. He had already seen this motif, on the letterhead of Lydia's mail. Intrigued, he had done some research, but had not learnt much. (In its more familiar form, § — signum sectionis — is a sign used in documents, but its meaning for Lydia eluded him.)

She beckoned him into the conference room. She sat on the edge of the big oak table and told him to take a seat. A chair was parked directly in front of her. She kicked off her shoes and began swinging her lovely bare legs. One brushed casually against his trousers. She took off her jacket and calmly threw it onto the desk behind her. She leaned forward, close enough that he sniffed the subtle fragrance of an expensive, exotic perfume.

"Does this make you uncomfortable?" she asked.

"I'm cool," he said.

"That's disappointing," she replied.

"Getting warmer," he answered.

"Relax," she said. "Take off your tie."

She held out her hand, took the tie and caressed it, stroked it across her cheeks. She laid it beside her on the desktop.

"And your coat."

She took it also and set it down on top of hers. Then, without another word, she began unbuttoning her blouse.

Not knowing whether to follow her example, he did not; and she nodded when his hands moved away from his shirt. She smiled again and there was a strange sparkle in her eyes. She slipped the blouse off her shoulders and tossed it casually behind her. She was not wearing a bra. Her breasts were not large but perfectly shaped, the rosy nipples already erect. She reached behind her and unzipped her skirt. Then she lay back, reclining on the table with her backside right on the edge and her legs dangling, feet off the floor. She placed her hands on her hips and made a pushing movement. Daniel understood and (with slightly trembling hands) he pulled the skirt down her legs and threw it onto the growing pile of cast-offs.

It was surprising how easily he was taking this all in. For though he'd suspected that he'd applied for something more than mundane, he was not prepared for this. At the same time, he was not (he was sure) attractive enough for wanton seduction.

Lydia paused, took a deep breath and then wriggled rearward and lay full-length on her back on the gleaming tabletop, near enough to one side that Daniel could stand next to it and reach all of her. She turned over to lie on her belly, put her hands behind her back and slid her fingers under the elastic band of her panties. He took hold of the briefs and drew them, at a leisurely pace over the deliciously soft curves of her bottom, her thighs and her calves. As he did so, he saw that on her left buttock was a mark — the § — which appeared to have been seared into the skin with a branding iron. The scar was pink but not fresh, so it must have been colored with tattoo ink. There was also a criss-cross of fading streaks, like welts from a whip or cane. He knew he should have felt disgust, and it disturbed him that he didn't.

For some reason he left her panties crumpled at the woman's ankles. There was something very sexy, and symbolic, about that, although he didn't know exactly what it was. But she seemed to approve, because he heard a faint sigh of pleasure. Her hands were still behind her back, resting on her naked buttocks, wrists crossed. She was facing away from him. Her hair was cut in a short, cutely boyish style, exposing the scruff of her neck. Her collar was secured with a tiny padlock, and he saw that there was an inscription embossed into the leather.

LYDIA PROPERTY OF THE CHAÎNERIE

Daniel was uncertain where to go from there, how far he was expected or permitted to go. So he stood in silence, studying the woman's marvelous, inviting, nude form prostrate on the tabletop. Her skin was goosebumpy and glistened with a golden film of perspiration. Was it nerves (could this cool, self-confident, assertive woman actually be nervous?) or was it simple arousal?

Testing the limits of his privilege, he traced his fingernails along the backs of her knees and thighs, glided them over her bottom, ran them up her spine and across both her shoulders, ending on the nape of her slender neck to play with the lock on her collar. Her felt her shiver. He put one hand in the furrow between her butt cheeks and caressed the tender flesh. He felt her shudder. His fingers entered and fondled her, and he heard her gasp and then softly moan.

She lifted her head off the table and her body made little jerking movements.

"Lie still," he commanded. To his amazement she obeyed.

Near her feet at the edge of the desk was his necktie, and he realized that she'd placed it there for a reason. So he began winding it around and between her wrists, slowly to see if she'd offer any resistance. But she didn't and he knotted it with a sharp tug. He did not make it too constricted, not to spare her the discomfort but because he didn't want to damage his tie. And then, with a flash of inspiration he took off his belt. Lydia must have heard the tell-tale swish as he pulled it from the loops of his trousers, because she flinched. (It only occurred to him later that the use he planned was not what she expected.) He wrapped it around her arms halfway up and when he buckled it her arms were drawn together so that her shoulders were wrenched and her torso arched backwards from the strain, and her elbows almost touched. Her small fists were tightly clenched, her toes curled.

"Too much?" he asked, and immediately regretted what she might perceive as weakness.

But she replied with a grunt through gritted teeth something that sounded like "Don't stop."

He looked about. There was nothing in the room that could be used as suitable binding material. She understood the reason for his pause.

"In the cabinet... in my office."

There was nothing out of the ordinary about her office. It was expensively but sparsely furnished. There were several filing cabinets, mostly locked. One was not, and inside Daniel discovered a remarkably diverse collection of objects and paraphernalia with a common purpose — straps, ropes and chains, collars and cuffs, sashes, gags and blindfolds, belts, bars and braces, appliances and devices some sinisterly familiar, others with uses and applications he could not even imagine. Being cautious, he chose a coil of soft nylon cord, an odd phallus-shaped gag and a black satin scarf. He could always come back for more.

By the time he finished with her, Lydia was helpless on the desktop, trussed hands-and-feet, gagged and blindfolded. Gulping breaths rasped past the gag, and tiny bubbles foamed at the corners of her mouth. Daniel had never done anything like this before, except that he and Emma had once tied up each other. He thought of it as a game then, though now he wondered what it had really been, and what this might be.

For a moment, trying to decide what to do next, he contemplated the whip or the riding crop he had seen in the bottom of the cabinet; but he thought the better of it (at least for now). He was a novice at this sort of thing and felt he should stick to the basics. Instead he went to the bar fridge in the corner of the room and extracted a bottle of beer. He opened it and drained half the contents, standing over his lovely bound captive, allowing some of the ice-cold liquid to dribble onto her delightfully denuded derrière. She cringed. He pressed the base of the bottle into the sweet, bare, quivering flesh, leaving half a dozen circles of sparkling condensation. She reached out with her bound hands, and when she grasped the bottle, he told her to hold it there while he considered what more he could do. To keep it firmly in place, he wedged it in the cleft with a thrust more brutal than he intended. She groaned through her gag.

It took him a while to resolve to go forward. He turned her over, onto her back, put a hand between her shoulder blades to get her to sit up, and moved her to the end of the table so her legs were once more over the edge. Though her eyes were masked and her cheeks bulged from the thick shaft of the gag that filled her mouth, she was breathtakingly gorgeous. Panting softly, sweating and trembling, a saliva rivulet trickling down her chin and onto her chest, she looked so delicate and vulnerable that she was hardly the same woman who had quizzed him with such intimidating intensity a week before.

He untied her ankles and then gently parted her knees, placing himself between them. He took hold of her shoulders and drew her forward until her naked breasts were squeezed against his chest and their stiffened little buds pressed into his shirt. He could feel her heart beating faster as he unzipped his trousers. He hesitated, and guessing his indecision she nodded. Her body convulsed, just a tiny bit, as he pushed into her.

When he'd finished, he turned her onto her stomach once more. He mused silently for several minutes. The woman lay on the desk, inert except for the occasional squirm against her bonds and the heaving of her sublime torso as she struggled for deep breaths through her gag. He went back to the cabinet and took out the whip. It had a leather handle and two dozen tails. Lydia did not flinch, as she had when she heard him removing his belt, when he trailed the strands of the whip over her bare bottom; and her fingers did not move when he deliberately drew them over her hands.

He bound her feet once more, concerned that she might start to kick once the flogging started. He wasn't afraid of being hit, but rather that she might hurt herself on the hard surface of the desktop. (He needn't have worried. The woman was small, but she was tough.) He was hesitant — not surprising since he hadn't ever done anything like this. He wasn't sure if he wanted to now. But when she didn't react to the first, uncertain stroke, he increased the force and then the tempo. The woman never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound. He struck harder, so many times that he lost count. And then, as suddenly as it had come upon him, the lustful impulse subsided. He laid down the whip.

Lydia's stoic strength and passivity inspired in him contrariant feelings, of admiration and contempt. But he didn't feel aroused, more like numb. He left her perched on the edge of the desk while he went for another beer. And as he stood there, just looking at her, gloriously nude, delectably bound, gagged, blindfolded, sweaty and starting to shiver, he suddenly chuckled.

Her head, wrapped in the black satin blindfold, tilted sideward in that endearing way of inquisitive young children and puppies.

He took a long, deep quaff of the beer.

"Have I passed the audition?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," she mumbled through her gag.