The Agency of Custodianship is responsible for the training and placement of bonds: adults who have voluntarily surrendered their citizen status to erase their debts and serve as companions to rich sponsors who are willing to pay for their care and upkeep. Harlan is a Custodian, responsible for the placement and recovery of bonds; in this story, we observe his technique as he examines a bond being repossessed back to the Agency after the passing of her master.
Content Warnings/Tags: sexual slavery; occasional mention of death by lengthy illness (not sexualized), and grief; mild sexual violence in a BDSM context, including rough oral sex.
Working for the Agency of Custodianship, Harlan found, provided an intimate view into the lives of the wealthy. It was a perspective that few people were privileged enough to have; even sponsors he worked with in his capacity as a Custodian often seemed blinded by their own glamour, desperate to remain ignorant of the banal realities that underpinned their lives.
Today, for example, he was in attendance at a very large and well-aged manor. Historic, certainly, and majestic--but there was an air of defeat to it, a bleakness that belied the expense of the draperies and furniture. The master of the house, Gunther Versace, had recently passed.
Walking from room to room, observing the way that time and decay had dulled the splendor of the furnishings, Harlan felt as if he had mistakenly wandered onto the set of an abandoned play: witnessing the pretense behind the magic.
Somewhere down the hall, someone was quietly crying. A relative of the deceased master of the house, most likely, or perhaps a servant who had been especially fond of him.
Harlan ignored the sound; he was not here for them. Perhaps they could have pointed him in the direction of his charge, but there was enough work to go around in a mourning house, and he didn't think he would need the help. The butler had already told him that the bond he was looking for was "upstairs somewhere, keeping out of the way," so he was on the right floor--he would know her when he saw her.
One dusty room after the next. Some had been shut up properly, with sheeting over the furniture to protect it; other room appeared to have simply been abandoned. Perhaps some of the servants had begun to neglect their duties when their master was too ill to notice.
Harlan didn't especially blame them. He could imagine that it must feel very useless, keeping up empty rooms in a vacant house for the sake of a dying man. He would never be able to tolerate such work, himself.
He preferred to feel as if he were contributing something, working on projects that felt his impact.
Working as a Custodian was quite satisfactory in that regard.
The room he finally stopped in was not dusty, nor neglected. It was an office, large and well-appointed, with a heavy mahogany desk at the far end. Massive shelves in a matching wood lined the walls, sturdy enough not to sag under the weight of the numerous books loaded into them. The rug on the floor was well-trod, faded and stained.
He paused to look around the room, listing idly to the quiet sound of breathing echoing from the direction of the desk. The sound was almost entirely absorbed by the thick rug, the heavy drapes, but Harlan had made himself very good at listening for quiet sounds; bonds were trained to be unobtrusive, and it could be difficult to find one if you didn't know how to listen.
The book collection was eclectic. He'd expected the law books, as he understood the deceased man had been a practicing attorney, once. But there were just as many books on other topics--animal taxonomy, mineral sciences, the study of human behavior; Bible translations and religious analyses; an entire section dedicated to local histories and legends.
All of the shelves up to about five feet off the floor were well-kept, very clean, as if someone had been taking out each book and dusting around it, carefully replacing them. The higher he looked, though, the more dust he found.
Well, that stood to reason. The bond he was looking for was quite petite, and given the neglect of the other rooms up here, he had to conclude that she had been doing her best to tend to this room, despite not being trained in domestic duties.
He turned away from the shelves at last, and was gratified to find that his patience had been rewarded: she had revealed herself.
A short, slight woman with dark hair and pleasantly bright green eyes knelt beside the desk. She wore a thin slip that ended around mid-thigh--something that a free woman wouldn't dare be seen in outside her bedroom, but the collar clipped around the bond's neck marked her as below such social expectations. The fabric was so fine as to be almost translucent, and the little ridges of her nipples were clearly visible where it fell over her chest.
She held her position as Harlan approached the desk, head bowed demurely. Even as he set his satchel on the desk and began to unpack the various items he'd brought, she didn't look up. It was a good sign; many bonds, having been in private hands for as long as she had, forgot their Agency training, learning instead the habits that were preferred by the masters and mistresses they served. It was possible that this one would need very little retraining before turning her over to a new home.
"Alice," he addressed her. "That is the name I have on your file here. Is that correct?"
"Yes, Sir." Her voice was a bit rough, but he was inclined to think that that was due to the circumstances; her seclusion in her deceased master's office spoke to some process of grief, as did the hint of redness around her eyes.
"I'm from the Agency of Custodianship. I think you've guessed that already."
She hesitated for a moment, perhaps unsure if that was a question she was meant to answer. "Yes, Sir," she said finally.
"I'll be bringing you back to the Agency to see about placing you with a new sponsor. But first, I will need to conduct a preliminary examination, to see whether updates need to be made to your records and whether any re-training will be necessary."
Her file did say that she had been recollected once before, after a short-term placement with a former mistress, but she had been serving Mr. Versace for over a decade and a half since. Besides, Harlan had learned that an explanation up front often put the bonds at ease and helped them perform more accurately.
"This is not a test," he went on, "and there is no way for you to fail. Although I will be using an instrument of correction at some point, it is not a punishment. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Very good. I am going to be speaking out loud into a voice recorder--it is for my own use, to transcribe for my notes later."
This, he had found, was also important to explain: most bonds had little direct experience with newer technologies, and some could be very spooked by him speaking aloud to nobody. He set up the recorder on the desk and turned it on.
"Repossession inspection of Bond NYC-1055, Alice, from the household of Gunther Versace. Reason for repossession--death of bond-holder. Upon first impression, Alice presents in good condition and demonstrates proper comportment." He snapped his fingers to get Alice's attention, and then pointed at a spot on the rug beside him. "Girl, undress and stand here."
Alice moved quickly to obey him. There was a bit of a stiffness in her knees--no surprise, at her age; a bond in her thirties was simply not going to possess the same spryness as a newly-trained twenty-year-old--but there was still a charming elegance to her movements that made it clear why she had been marked high-value.
As she took off the slip and folded it to put it aside, Harlan skimmed over the copy of her file in front of him, picking out the important parts to read aloud into the recorder. "Age thirty-seven, trained primarily in intimate companionship for both men and women. High marks in obedience training, with the exception of several instances of unauthorized masturbation; chastity belt recommended to assist with self-control."
He paused to glance over at the bond. She stood with her legs spread and her arms behind her body, presenting herself: she was entirely nude without the slip, except for her collar and the recommended belt.
"Belt in use appears to be a custom-fitted metal model, presumed to be purchased by the deceased bond-holder. I have spoken with the executor of the estate and daughter of the deceased, Celine Versace, and she stated that the belt has been used habitually during the length of the placement, as recommended. The daughter also commented that she believes the bond has not seen regular service for at least four years, since Mr. Versace fell ill." He shuffled the papers in the file, then looked at Alice again. "Alice, when was your most recent service?"
