Author's Note: This chapter involves some elements of non-consent. As with all my stories, your comments and feedback are welcome.
*****
I woke to the screaming of three separate alarms in the room and moaned when I tried to move to get out of the bed. My body was sore in places I never knew could be sore, and then the memories from the night before came rolling back and I groaned. When I tried to turn over and go back to sleep, a small voice stopped me, "You're going to need a shower before you go to muster."
The girl was young and I wondered if maybe her parents had sold her into this life. Her hair was cut in a sort of bob that left the front longer around the face while the back was extremely short. "I showered before I fell asleep." My voice croaked and I tried to clear it.
"You moved enough to bleed onto the sheets," she said, pointing to the bed. I looked and could see the pink and red stains where I had been about to roll over. "The master won't like it, but I can bleach them before he finds out if you could just get up so I can take the sheets off."
I managed to stand up and she made short work of pulling the sheets off the mattress and dumping them through a hole in a cabinet I hadn't noticed the day before. "What's your name?"
She startled, but then looked at me, "I'm Kelsey. The others are already in the shower and I need to hurry if I'm going to make it in time." When she turned toward me in the dim light I could see faint scars on her neck.
We walked into the bathroom and I saw Ferrel standing before a mirror shaving with just a towel on and another woman under the spray of one of the showers.
"You're going to have to clean the tile before you go downstairs," the other woman said, and I looked around a bit more. There were faint pink stains where I had showered the night before. "I'm not going to get a beating because you leave a mess behind."
"Kenzie," Ferrel said, looking at her in the mirror. "Take it easy."
"No," she wrung her short hair out before tousling it with a towel and going to another mirror. "The last time he did this to a girl and she left a mess behind I got beaten for not cleaning it up. It's not happening again." She shot me a look in the mirror and I wondered what she would do if I flipped her off. Probably bitch about that, too.
I went to the shower I had used a handful of hours ago and turned it on, watching the blood run down the drain and off the tile. Kelsey cleared her throat and pointed to a plastic clip that had been left on another shower head and then to my sink. I found a similar clip in the basket beneath the sink and mouthed a thank you to her. The water stung as it ran over the marks that Chaz had left, and I eyed the soap dubiously before biting the bullet and lathering up again.
Once I was dry and the towel had been sent down the same chute as the sheets, I pulled a dress on and went downstairs with the others. Kenzie was already standing at the foot of the stairs with a nasty look on her face as I followed Kelsey and Ferrel down. We hadn't been standing there five minutes before Chaz came out of the living area and frowned at us.
"Kelsey, take care of the usual chores but make sure the green room is ready for a guest. Kenzie, fix the Expedition or you will be on the hook later. Ferrel, get a list of everything needed from Kelsey and then go into the city." They all muttered their acknowledgements and then scurried away. I watched him as he walked toward me and hadn't even braced for the slap that rocked me to my knees. "I hate getting blood on the uniforms. It's so hard to get out and the dry cleaners charge extra for it."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I spat blood onto the tile and was rewarded with his foot in my stomach that left me curled on my side.
"I thought maybe you had learned from yesterday," he said. "Get off my floor and walk to my office."
I hugged my arms around me and pressed my face into the cool tile that suddenly felt really good against my skin, "Fuck you."
That got me pulled to my feet by my hair and thrown through the air in the general direction of his office. I screamed as I tumbled to the floor, but kept my comment to myself this time. How I hadn't passed out or been knocked out was beyond me.
"Now do as you were told and get into the office, or I'll do you here in the entrance and our guest can watch."
I crawled toward the office and then through the door when he opened it. As soon as the door shut, he pulled my dress off from behind making me face plant into the floor to get it over my legs. The cuffs were on my wrists before I could think to move away from him anymore, and he used them to raise me to my knees and attach the hook to the chain. He raised the hook so fast that I cried out as I swung through the air and fought to find some kind of footing beneath me.
He walked back to the door and locked it as though he thought I was going to miraculously get away from him. When he walked back around me to the desk he had already gotten his shirt unbuttoned and was pulling it off while I watched. His pants were next and it was only then that I realized he had never been wearing shoes. If there had been underwear I hadn't seen it, and then I was concentrating on a very interesting spot on the floor.
"What did I tell you to do last night, girl?"
"You told me to take a shower and get some sleep." I hesitated until he moved toward me, "Sir."
"I told you to be naked at the foot of the stairs, now I have to have your uniform dry cleaned to get the blood out of the material. That won't be cheap." He kept moving toward me until he was standing in front of me. I braced for a blow, but screamed when his hand went to the breast he had bitten last night and white hot pain shot through my chest. "You will learn to follow orders."
His hand left my body and I swayed, gasping and sobbing at the throbbing pain as I felt that odd shifting deep within me again. This time, there was no pleasure. I had moments to stop screaming as each touch brought a welt or blood to my already bruised body. Finally, he let me swing above the floor before standing in front of me.
"Put your legs around me," I did as I was told and he was once again hard between my legs. But this time, he held most of my weight with his hands on my ass. "Don't disobey me like this again, girl. It's much more fun when it's like it was yesterday. I'm going to let you down now," he moved one hand to my cheek until I looked into his eyes. He had small spots of blood on his face and I wondered when that had happened. "You need to go take a shower and then have Kelsey bring you to the north wing of the house. Do not get dressed, just sit at the top of the stairs and wait for me to get there. Do you understand?"
I nodded, "Yes, sir."
"Good girl," the tension on my arms lessened, and I slid down his body to stand in front of him. He undid the cuffs and I left the office after struggling to get my fingers to work on the lock.
I showered, making sure not to leave any bloodstains behind. My bed had been made while I was gone, and I made a mental note to thank Kelsey for that. I put my hair into the clip and then walked down to the hallway naked just as Kelsey was leading a man toward a room. He took an interest in me, but something he saw made him turn back to the room and I waited for Kelsey.
She smiled softly when she came out of the room, but it didn't last long. "I think he's here for you, but you shouldn't be up here."
"I was supposed to follow you to the north wing," she paled, but nodded.
"This way," we went down the stairs, and she had to walk slower than I thought she normally did because the stairs were a special kind of pain. She led me through the hall past the office and into the kitchen. At the back of the kitchen she pointed to a door, "That leads to the laundry room, back door, and garage. This door is the way up to the north wing. I wasn't told I could go up there today, so you'll have to follow his instructions from here."
"Thank you," I said, and then remembered. "Thanks for making my bed, too."
"That was nothing," she paused and then thought of something. "Don't let Kenzie get to you. She's had it pretty rough."
I nodded and then turned toward the second door. The stairs weren't as wide as the set at the front of the house, and they weren't as steep as the ones leading to the attic. I took them as slowly as I dared, but I was still in a lot of pain when I reached the top and slid to the floor to wait for Chaz.
"Jezza," his voice sounded from my left and I looked over to find him standing at a door with a towel around his waist. It was a little surprising that he knew my name, but I didn't put much effort into thinking about it. "Come here."
I got up and walked toward him, more than a little wary. When I was a few steps from him I stumbled and he reached out to catch me. The towel fell to the floor, but I didn't care anymore. What bothered me most was that his hands were on me, and they were warm and heating fast. "I didn't do anything this time."
"Hush," he said. I hushed. His hands stayed warm on my skin as they moved over me from my breasts to my thighs and then over my back. I looked down at myself and realized he was healing all the marks he had left in the last two days in his office, except for the bite mark on my breast. That stayed, but it wasn't as angry looking. When he was done, he just sat there with me on his lap.
"Thank you, sir," I felt him startle when I spoke. I could finally take a deep breath without wanting to cry out in pain, and that deserved thanks. Even if I was thanking the man that had made me hurt so much in the first place. My life had become fucked up in a very short amount of time.
He slid me from his lap and stood, reaching for his towel, "Go get a uniform on and then go to the green room. One of the others can tell you which one it is. You are to do everything the man in that room tells you to, except have sex with him. He knows the rules, but if he touches you in any way sexually you will come straight to my office. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," I said, and I stood to go.
===
The man that had seen me standing in the hallway covered in bruises was staying in Chaz's house while he was in town on business. He didn't tell me his name, and I never asked. I did his laundry, including putting a different set of fresh linens on the bed when he asked. Later in the evening I delivered his dinner and sat and watched him chew with his mouth open. It took everything I had in me not to tell him to act more like an adult and chew with his mouth closed. After a few hours, I was pretty sure using words with too many syllables would give the man a headache.
It was nearly nine o'clock when the man undressed and climbed into bed. He glanced at me a couple times and I could see his erection growing beneath the covers each time his eyes flashed my way. After a few awkward moments of standing near the door staring at a spot in the carpet, he spoke, "Well, are you going to take care of this? I didn't pay this much for a room for the slave to just stand there."
