Chapter 1 - Morning in the Garden
Astoria Morgan squatted in her garden planting bluebells and pansies. Her straw blond locks spilled out from under her wide-brimmed hat, which she always wore when gardening because, while the sun loved her hair as kindred gold, it was less kind to her delicate ivory skin. Astoria therefore prudently covered up with a pair of dirty, faded jeans and a practical denim work-shirt, though the buttons of the latter were hard pressed to keep her gloriously betitted torso from bursting out into the fresh spring air.
"You can put them down there," she said to her pet boy Giorgio, who had appeared carrying two big bags of mulch, one on each of his broad, tanned shoulders. "And just one at a time, dear. I don't want you to hurt yourself." "That's my job," she added silently to herself. "Yes ma'am, yes ma'am," Giorgio replied, with a face as open and beautiful as one of her prize-winning begonias.
She had plucked Giorgio last summer while vacationing on the Dalmatian coast. It was the little-boy-lost look in his eyes that first attracted her. That those eyes were directed to the business of rifling the contents of her purse, which he believed unattended, was no matter. Even when interrupted, he did not run, but simply looked up with those big, begging eyes, begging her to reveal her treasures to him. A lost boy, curious and hungry, without fear or shame. Definitely hungry. One large, steaming bowl of FiΕ‘ PaprikaΕ‘ later and he was hers. Dommes are notorious animal lovers, and Astoria was no exception. She would adopt this stray, she decided, as a testament to both her superior nature and good heart.
Pleasingly docile from the beginning, Giorgio lived to make her happy. And happiness it was to watch him laboring in the garden, the sweat glistening on his muscular frame. He definitely had curves in all the right places, mused Astoria, as she enjoyed the sweet luxury of watching a well-built man working for her, and knowing that his efforts were driven by pure love and devotion. The sight just made her want to tie him up and do things to him.
Astoria had had many opportunities to live out these desires over the past year. She took things slowly at first. Giorgio, while naturally submissive, was also rather unsophisticated, and she did not want to scare away her find by any too outrageous acts of perverted lust, not at first. There would be time for that. But as a good gardener, Astoria knew that the soil of submission must be carefully cultivated. The harvest of dominant debauchery would come later as the reward of patient virtue.
It helped that she had taken Giorgio far from his native land, far from any family or friends he might have had. Their identity and number remained unknown, as Giorgio proved remarkably reticent when Astoria probed him about his past. His English, never strong, always seemed to break down completely under her questioning on this topic. Odd, she thought, but of no present moment. No one had come to claim him and so she enjoyed undisputed possession. Giorgio, for his part, did not appear to miss his old life at all. There was nothing to miss when he had his mistress, and he clung to Astoria with the ardor typically felt by the recent immigrant for his new homeland.
His greatest joy came at the end of the day when Astoria tucked him into the little bed on the floor at the foot of her own. As she attached the chain that ran from the bedpost to his collar, he would look up at her pleadingly and say, "Giorgio is a good boy, yes?" And she would invariably reply, "Giorgio is a very good boy," and give him a kiss good night.