The Apartment

Lucy departed at the end of my third week. Two men came for her early in the night. One of them knew her and seemed to know his way around the apartment. He was likely one of Lydia's apprentices, now graduated since he wore the

§

ring. The other man appeared unfamiliar to Lucy, but not to me. This cannot be a coincidence, I thought at the time. Jason had been a waiter at the Wooden Pony Club. He never seemed to fit into that milieu. Now, however, he had changed, was more mature and confident than the diffident young man I'd known back then. He also wore the ring, though as a pendant on a loose chain about his neck. (Some people don't like stuff on their fingers.)

The four of us whose rightful place was the prone position welcomed our visitors thus; and they and Master Jonathan then went to the drawing room, taking Lydia and Lucy with them. The three men emerged sometime later, laughing and smoothing out fresh wrinkles in their trousers. All this time, Evandra and I had remained prostrate on the living room floor, not daring to move.

Master Jonathan ordered me to raise myself onto my hands and knees. But it was Master Jason who crouched in front of me and stroked my head, caressed my back and bottom. I kissed his feet. I performed my duty the way I had been taught, raising and wiggling my backside, jiggling my breasts just above the carpet so my nipples brushed lightly across the pile. He complimented Master Jonathan on what a good slavegirl I was turning into. Then he knelt behind me, patted me lightly on the thighs to make me spread my legs, and cupped his hands over my breasts, fondling my nipples with his fingers. As I felt the warm shaft nudging gently between my buttocks, seeking my front entrance, I tried to make myself wet... but the picture in my mind's eye was of the naïve young man, not the imperious Master; and it was as if my body would not consent to being aroused. Embarrassed by my failure, I braced myself as he leant forward and pushed into me. I felt his quickening breath on my neck, his soft gruntings increased in tempo with the rhythm of his thrusts, and I swallowed my cries.

Next to me, Evandra moaned as the other man lunged into her.

When they were finished with us, the men went back to the drawing room. They brought out Lucy, blindfolded, her hands bound behind her back, a ball-gag between her lips. Around her throat was a stout metal collar. She was tethered with a chain like a dog's leash; but instead of being attached to her collar the clip on one end joined the rings which pierced her labia, and it was by this that she was taken away (as Desirée had been led around the Wooden Pony) by Jonathan and his companions. At the door she turned for a last glimpse of Evandra and me. Jonathan tugged sharply on her harness. She winced, and her gag could not suppress a bittersweet smile.

She and I would meet again, soon enough, in the

Château Chaînerie

.

When he returned alone, Master Jonathan ordered Evandra and me into the drawing room. There we found Lydia hog-tied on the rug. The Master commanded me to kneel with my hands clasped on the crown of my head. He wrapped a length of cord around my chest, above and below and crossed between my breasts. He ran it down between my legs and up my back, making sure it fit snugly within my cleft in front and my crevice to the rear, binding it in a loop about my neck. The noose was tied in such a way that when he pulled it as tight as he could, entrenching it within my body between my thighs, I was not strangled but nevertheless forced to arch my body backwards. He then tied my wrists to the harness behind my back. In this manner I was obliged to waddle to the elevator and down to the games room. Lydia and Evandra were bound face-to-face, their bodies pressed together, so they had to crab-walk all the way.

It was late, almost midnight, so the session was short, but our Master made it count. The pillory had been refitted. In place of the cross-boards for the head and hands were frames to clamp our wrists and ankles. We were each locked in a kneeling position, facing away from the scaffold with our haunches resting on top of the board and our arms between our legs to spread our thighs and open up our front and rear cavities. Once he had availed himself of our exposed womanhood, the Master set to work with the whip, the cane and the cattle prod until tears stained our blindfolds and our screams could no longer be stifled by our gags.

That night it was I who shared the Master's bed. Our bodies being his to do with as he willed, he seldom bothered with foreplay. He was not gentle; and the pain from the games had not yet abated. But, as always, he was more clumsy than callous. And that, as always, set me thinking. I wondered when and how and with whom he'd had his first experience of a woman, indeed how much experience he had before entering the apartment. These were not questions I could ask, but his callow attributes had fit with the nature of Lydia's tutelage.

And yet Master Jonathan had come a long way since our first introduction not so long ago. Of course, so had I. But two days later he was gone. His departure was so sudden that it took me completely unprepared. He left for his classes that morning and never returned. Lydia came home early that afternoon with a young woman who collected his personal belongings.

Unlike Lydia and Lucy and Master Jason, I never saw Sir Jonathan at the

Château Chaînerie

. Perhaps he was there at times when I was not. However, I encountered him a few months later, as I was walking through the university grounds. He was with a very pretty, dark-skinned woman aged about thirty who was wearing a little yellow sundress despite the chill of late autumn. Around her throat was the now-familiar leather collar embossed with a red

§

. It was Justine. I knew her from the Chateau. Our eyes met and she smiled, but she did not speak.

Jonathan and I talked for a few minutes, reminiscing about our time together in the apartment. He asked about Lucy and told me he had spoken recently to Lydia; but he did not mention Evandra. He was wearing his

§

ring, and seeing that I still wore my slave collar, he suggested that I come to his residence at six o'clock that evening. I might have contrived a pretext to decline his invitation; but I couldn't refuse without some excuse, and he could have insisted; but most members of the brotherhood were not tyrannical with their female property. In any case, I had no other engagements; I was unattached, idle and feeling jaded. And although to this day I have no idea if our meeting was pure happenstance or somehow prearranged, he seemed surprised as well as pleased when I agreed.

Jonathan was living in an on-campus student housing complex. It was a Friday night, and the place was busy with young people coming and going. There was a party in progress in a couple of adjoining flats, which spilled out onto the veranda. No one paid any attention at all to me, except for Justine, who was waiting on the footpath. She was still wearing her tiny dress, swinging her arms and stomping her feet to keep warm. She asked me to take off my coat, and when I did the piercing bite of the cold air on my bare arms made me wonder how long she had been standing there shivering. She held out a black satin scarf and I tied it over my eyes. Then she steered me up two flights of stairs. I heard voices and footsteps around me, but nobody did or said anything to indicate curiosity over a woman being led blindfolded to one of the third-level units. It was a typical Friday night on campus.

It was Jonathan who restored my sight. He had standard undergraduate student shared accommodation, with a small living room cheaply furnished, bathroom, kitchenette and two bedrooms. On the sofa were sitting two young men, and in the single armchair an elfin-sized, flaxen-haired, pixie-faced girl who unlike her fully clothed companions was in her underwear, an incongruous combination of expensive lace brassiere and cotton novelty knickers (embroidered with cupcakes and birthday candles). Jonathan introduced only the girl, Lorelei, and said "Enjoy your presents" before kissing her on the cheek. Then he left.

I watched him depart, too perplexed to react and thinking he might return. In the moment of mute, awkward inertia which followed, I lost the chance to extricate myself. Instead, training, habit and instinct kicked in. As the three youngsters sat there watching us in silence, for all of their feigned bravado they were clearly nervous, not knowing how to proceed. So Justine and I took off our clothes and knelt on the linoleum floor. Lorelei was the first to respond. She reached down beside her chair and held up a coil of nylon rope. She waited until I nodded, and then ordered me to lie on my stomach. She stood up and spoke in a childish, high-pitched voice. The resemblance to Jonathan was strong enough that she was most likely his sister. That made his birthday gift to her even more intriguing.

She certainly knew the ropes, as she deftly trussed me in a frog-tie, then a shrimp-tie, and then other, more exotic positions. There was a lot of rope and she used it all to weave intricate webs about my limbs and torso. She was gentle but never spoke except to give commands; and it felt weird to be totally compliant and under the control of this young, diminutive, squeaky-voiced girl. In the meantime, her companions amused themselves with Justine. They were actually saying things like "Make her sweat" and "Make her squeal." So after a short while an irritated Lorelei said "Listen boys, why don't you take her to the bedroom?" and they did.

But the really odd thing about that evening was that I was not able to work out exactly what the girl's true interest was, besides in tying me up, down and sideways. She was lovingly attentive in applying the breast harness and the crotch rope but, at the time, took no other advantage of my nude and helpless condition. After maybe two hours she left me in a more conventional hog-tie and went to the bedroom where her friends were playing with Justine. She came back a long time later, naked. She was panting heavily, and the wisps of hair between her legs were moist. She tossed her crumpled underwear casually onto the sofa and resumed where she'd left off with me.

This time she was more interested in my body than the ropes embracing it. She kissed and caressed me. She straddled my face and pressed her groin to my mouth; and as I pleasured her I smelt sweat and saliva and semen. She seemed fascinated by the silver rings which pieced my labia. She toyed with them, pulling and twisting; and looked disappointed when I didn't flinch. After that, she untied me so our bodies could intertwine. But she seemed edgy and impatient, rather than passionate. And when she'd had enough of kisses and caresses, she bound me again. Getting more excited, she also became more creative and cruel. She stung me with rubber bands and seared me with dripping candle wax, all over -- my nipples, my pubes, my backside, down to the soles of my feet.

My tiny tormentor was methodical as she went about making me squirm and moan and groan. She seemed curious about what it was like to be on the receiving end, to be a slave. She stared into my eyes, a searching, thirsting expression glowing in her own eyes and etched upon her brow. She stroked my limbs, pressing her nails into my skin, and explored with her fingers between my thighs to test my responses and gauge my reactions. Just before she gagged me (while I sat tied in the lotus position), she fondled my lips and cheeks and explored inside my mouth, as if she were trying to experience vicariously the sensations I was feeling. But she asked no questions, and I volunteered nothing.

When Jonathan came in at midnight the game ceased, so abruptly that Lorelei whined "It's still so early," and he scolded her like a parent would a five-year-old. This behavior was especially discordant as I sensed that she was the elder sibling. Anyway, it added another perspective to her brother's character, compared with the Jonathan I met for the first time in Lydia's office, when that woman's was much the more dynamic personality. He had since changed, but I cannot help but wonder if his sister played some role in his admission to the brotherhood of Masters.

I put on my clothes in silence and massaged the parts of my body where the ropes and the girl's sadistic ministrations had left their marks. Lorelei also dressed and, leaving Justine with the three males, walked with me to the taxi rank. We did not speak until I offered her a ride back to the apartment building. She haughtily declined, and in her face and her voice I saw both contempt and wistful envy. And as the cab pulled away from the curb, she smiled and waved good-bye. She hugged her little body against the cold, looking distracted and unsettled... looking lost.