Nicoleta

Author's note -- All characters are over 18, as established within the story.

Paradise Obtain: Ch. 07 -- Nicoleta

I was having a fantastic time in Fiji. The country was beautiful, the climate wonderful and Georgia and Millie, or Brains and Butch as Millie preferred to call the Californian and herself, were proving amazing companions.

There was the problem of getting Millie out of the army. You can't just resign in the way you might with another job, and the application she had made to leave the service had been received with both surprise and disappointment by her superiors, Millie being considered an excellent soldier. However, under my instruction she was seeking a compassionate discharge on the grounds of emotional wellbeing, and the process was in train.

We had been successful in finding a wonderful beach-front property, which combined a modern villa built within the last ten years, with an older 1950s bungalow beach-house on the same site. Given that the purchase was likely to take some months to complete, I was making plans for Ilse and Delilah to fly out to join us and to summon Kanako down from Japan. I would have all five of my harem gathered together for the first time, on this paradise island. To say I was looking forward to it was an understatement.

Therefore, I was less than delighted to receive a phone call from Albrecht Haller, directing me to proceed without delay to Romania to purchase a property in the Carpathians. Aside from another trek halfway round to world, it was winter in the northern hemisphere, and I was being sent to an area where the climate could be extreme at times. And so, for the first time, I rebelled, protesting against the instruction.

"I see, Mr Mitchell," Haller said, his voice chillier than any winter, "It would be most unfortunate if I had to reconsider our financial arrangement. I would remind you that you are my employee, and on a most handsome salary as I recall."

It suddenly hit me that, while I might be Master to a harem of women, Albrecht Haller owned me equally certainly. The one thing Haller had wanted from me, the secret of my mind-control technique, I had already given him. I had nothing left to bargain with. Haller could take the entire lifestyle that I was hugely enjoying away from me at any time. It was a horrifying thought.

The generous salaries I was paying my girls, the luxury properties, the clothes, everything would go. Even if I could get my old role at Oxford back, on an academic's salary I probably couldn't even afford my harem, even if I sent them all out to work. It was unthinkable. I would have to come up with some way to monetise my powers so I was financially independent, but until I did, I had to do whatever was necessary to protect my lifestyle and my women.

"Ah, yes, I'm very sorry Herr Haller. I will, of course, do as you ask," I said humbly.

"Excellent. The plane tickets are booked for you and Miss Harding. I am afraid you will have to leave Corporal Parsons behind until her discharge from the army is arranged." Haller softened his tone a little, "I promise you this is the last requirement I shall have of you for some time. Add a Romanian beauty to your harem and then you can relax and enjoy yourself with the six of them for a while. You have done well so far Matthew, and you certainly deserve that."

Not for the first time I wondered how Haller always seemed to know everything I was doing. Still a little piqued by his treatment of me, I asked a question that had been on my mind for a while.

"Ok, Georgia and I will go to Romania. But I can't help wondering, why do you want me to own all these properties scattered around the world? I can't see a pattern."

If Haller's voice had been cold before, it was glacial now. "I believe Mr Mitchell, that we agreed that you need not concern yourself with the reasons for my modest requests of you. Kindly carry out your instructions."

The phone went dead. Albrecht Haller had ended the call. I winced; that had not gone well. I made a mental note to be more careful in future. Then, with a sigh, I went to break the bad news to Georgia and Millie.

*****

A fortnight later Georgia and I were in Bucharest. Nor were we alone. On reflection I had seen an upside to Haller's orders. Kanako and Millie were a little beyond my reach at present, at least until I had properly established a base here, but it was under five hours flight time from Tuscany to the Romanian capital and there was no reason not to send for Ilse and Delilah. They had arrived a week ago.

I will have to let you imagine the mutual delight of the four of us at seeing each other after our lengthy parting. Suffice to say, we didn't actually emerge from our hotel suite for three days. I was glad the girls were there to keep each other entertained, as their demands on me were fairly exhausting. Not that I minded one bit.

Sex aside, Ilse and Delilah were keen to hear about our stays in Japan and Fiji and, most of all, every detail we could give of Kanako and Millie. Both were appreciative of the beauty of their new harem sisters as shown by the photos I had taken, and Delilah was practically salivating over my description of Kanako's submissiveness. She was less keen on my description of Millie's up-front assertive nature.

I organised some on-line conferencing so everyone could at least say hello, but of course it is no substitute for meeting face to face --especially when you are talking about a harem of sex-slaves. I vowed to myself that I would get all five of my women together as soon as possible, and that meant finding a house here in Romania. My second item of business was to find a new girl -- my sixth and perhaps final one -- to go with it.

Georgia was already hard at work looking for a suitable property. The Romanian authorities were less keen on allowing foreigners to buy up their land, but once more Herr Haller had oiled the wheels. The purchase was to be made through a Romanian registered company that was part of the billionaire's business empire. I would lease it from the company for a modest rent, but otherwise have total control.

I was doing the searching for the girl. Haller had pretty much given me Ilse, and Georgia was someone I previously knew, but I had got very lucky in finding Delilah, Kanako and Millie with relative ease. However, this time my luck ran out. There are plenty of attractive women in Romania and no doubt many of them speak very good English, but for the moment they all seemed to be in hiding and I drew a complete blank.

Georgia did much better, albeit by coming up with something distinctly different from my other properties. The Castle of the Hawk it was called. Castelul Soimului was my mangled stab at it in the local language.

It was a place with some genuine history. Although most of the existing building only dated from the 19

th

century, there were walls and stonework that went back to a medieval fort built in the 14

th

century by Saxon settlers in the region. An aristocratic family had renovated it and used it as a summer retreat until the communist takeover after World War 2. That regime had established a Party training school in the building. Now it was back in private hands and up for sale.

All four of us journeyed out to see it, deep in the Carpathian Mountains. We were headed for the region traditionally known as Transylvania, which prompted a certain amount of chatter about vampires and werewolves, mainly from the more romantically inclined Ilse. Ever the scientific rationalist, Georgia was dismissive of such things, while Delilah spent most of the journey asleep on the backseat, her head on Ilse's lap, having had a rather heavy night of drink and sex.

Commenting on the latter, Georgia, who was driving, said to me, "It is wonderful what you did for Delilah. From what she's told me, time was she would have been in a far worse state after a party."

I wondered what she meant and was about to ask, but then I got distracted. With no satnav in our hire car, I was navigating from a map and we had almost missed an important turning. By the time we were back on track I had forgotten Georgia's remark, and thereby wasted much time and missed out on a lot of money, but I didn't find that out until later.

*****

When we finally got to the castle, I also found myself thinking about vampires. It was set on a mound, not too high but still dominating the valley it was in, with a hamlet below it. The building consisted of a 19

th

century mansion, with lots of large windows, and a single stone tower on the east side, clearly medieval. If you want an idea of what it looks like, check out Bran Castle, but then reduce the size by about two thirds.

We were met by an estate agent who showed us around. The place was being sold fully furnished, and those furnishings fitted the building. There were massive heavy oak tables, chairs and other items of furniture and similar four poster beds in the bedrooms. The walls were hung with heavily framed landscape paintings, the stuffed heads of assorted local wildlife, or crossed weaponry -- halberds, swords, muskets and the like. The walls of the main halls were wood panelled, while the bedrooms and living rooms featured a lot of heavily patterned wallpaper.

Ilse was enchanted by the history and décor of the place. It is fair to say that modern girls Georgia and Delilah pretty much hated it, the Englishwoman in particular having a good deal to say about the rather antique plumbing. Georgia, going into planning mode, announced that the first thing we would have to do if we bought it was to rip out most of the interior, then totally redecorate and refurnish.

She was rather taken aback when I said, "No, I like it. We need to get everything deep cleaned and spruced up, but I think we should keep it as it is."

My reasoning was that I already had plenty of modernity. The villa on Hokkaido had been built in the 1970s. That on Fiji was 21

st

century, albeit with a 1950s building also on the site. My Tuscan house was older, 19

th

century in origin, but had been completed renovated and modernised. This place would make a nice contrast.

And then, when we were exploring the ancient tower, we made a discovery that changed Delilah's mind. The tower had a spiral staircase upward to three chambers stacked one above the other and finally opened out onto a crenelated roof. However, at ground level there was also a heavy wooden door studded with iron bolts. Once opened there was a stair beyond that descended into a large cellar under the tower and house and built into the mound they sat on.

I suspected that it was really just a storage area for supplies, but I have to admit that when you passed through that door and down the steps the word that sprang to mind was 'dungeon'. I had allowed Delilah to set up a BDSM room at the Tuscan villa, which she referred to as a dungeon, but now here she stood in a real one, that positively dripped atmosphere.

"Bloody hell", she said gazing in wonder at the windowless space, "cleaned up and properly kitted out... I know a lot of men, and some women come to that, who would pay a fortune for one hour under my control in this place! Matt, we have to buy it."

I grinned at Georgia, "Sorry sweetie. That makes it three to one."

She laughed, "It's all right Matt. I know when I'm beaten. The good news is that the price is not that high. I think the sellers recognise that it is going to need some money spent on it. And it's unoccupied and furnished. If you wanted, we could move in immediately." So we did.

*****

Of course, it wasn't quite that simple. There was a lot of work to do. But I left the organisation to Georgia and Ilse and despatched Delilah back to Bucharest to look into sourcing the requirements for her dungeon. The first thing I did was see about getting Kanako and Millie to Romania. For various reasons that was going to take a couple of weeks to bring about, but at least it was in hand. The idea of having my harem gathered in one place gave me a thrill of anticipation.

My second task was to find that local girl I was seeking to manage this property for me. I spent a day wandering around the tiny village below my new home hoping for a miracle, but again without result. So, finally I decided on a formal recruitment campaign.

I wasn't just going to put an advert out or go to a normal recruitment agency, because a prime criterion for the role was that the girl had to be smoking hot, and you can't put that in a job description. With one exception -- acting and modelling agencies pretty much specialise in hot girls and guys and they let you see pictures of what they look like in advance, which was going to help my short-listing a lot.

My cover story was that as the new owner of Hawk Castle I planned to turn it into a hotel and was making a promotional video about the place. Through the agency I wanted to hire a model or aspiring actress to be in the film. It was plausible enough and the agency accepted the tale. I gave them an outline of the sort of girl I was looking for, including the requirement for fluent English, and they directed me to a series of potential candidates, from whom I shortlisted six for interview.

I went down to Bucharest for the interviews and since Delilah was already there, we did them together. One of the girls didn't turn up and another withdrew during the interview, stating that she thought we might be going to make some sort of porno movie. I suspect that had something to do with Delilah, who I had to ask to stop eyeing up the candidates quite so blatantly.

Another girl's English was not good enough, and a fourth, when I saw her in person, I didn't really find attractive. This left two.

In most ways the best was a girl called Nicoleta Paulescu. According to the information supplied by the agency she was 20 years old, 1.75m tall (so 5'9"), 57.6kg (about 127lb) and hailed from the little town of Borca in north-eastern Romania. What it didn't say was that she was almost ethereally beautiful, with very long brunette hair, grey eyes and a calm face that radiated a sort of inner harmony.

Her figure was pretty amazing too. A lot of her height (she is the tallest of my girls, only an inch shorter than me) comes from long, slender but shapely legs -- and I have always been a leg man. Her body was curved in all the best places. On top of all that she spoke beautiful English in a soft and melodious voice. And yet there was a problem, which meant I was learning toward the other girl.

Having interviewed her, I had decided that Nicoleta was several sandwiches short of a picnic, as they say. Her answers to every question were downright weird. For example, when I had asked her what she thought about filming at Hawk Castle, she informed me she was excited by the chance that she might see elves in the woods there, but she was concerned about vampires so would cast a ritual of protection before going and be sure to carry both a cross and a Black Tourmaline gemstone.

Another example was when I had asked her why she wanted to job. Nicoleta replied that her horoscope had indicated that the stars had aligned so that today was an auspicious day for her in which she would find her destiny.

The CV she had given me on arrival showed a decent academic record that indicated that she was far from stupid. But it seemed that she had chosen to fill her head with all sorts of mystical quackery and fantasy. As a scientist and a rationalist, I really wasn't sure that I could stand that. My mind control method can't change someone's basic personality and if I picked her, I would be stuck with all this wacky New Age stuff.

It was Delilah that changed my mind. "Matt, you have to pick Nicoleta. Please." She seemed unusually vehement, so I asked why.

"Lots of reasons. For one thing she would be a perfect fit for that castle. If you could just persuade her to take a job there, she would really love the history and atmosphere of the place. And a reason that will appeal to you is I can tell she has a very high sex drive. She's one of those people for who making love is as natural as sleeping or eating. Also, she is a born submissive. I'm hoping you are right about Kanako, but Nicoleta is definitely one."

"How can you possibly tell all that just from a job interview?" I asked, in some amazement.

"You forget, I was a professional, it was my job to read people's sexual desires and responses. I promise you that if I sat down with her for half an hour and discussed her needs and boundaries, I would then be able to take her into one of my dungeons and do things to her that would horrify you, and yet she would love me for it. You would think I was torturing her -- and if it was someone like Georgia who is not submissive, I would be -- but I would understand exactly how far to go to bring her exquisite delight."

Delilah looked at me with unusual intensity. "Matt, I have no idea how you have got all of us to follow you, but we do and I guess that means you have a sort of harem and that makes you a type of Master. But for such a dominant man you really have no idea about submissives at all, or women come to that. You treat us all the same, thinking that's fair, but you shouldn't, because we have different needs."

She reached for her phone. "Look you should read this some time. It's some writing by a heroine and role-model of mine. Lynn Paula Russell, her name was, also known as Paula Meadows. She was bi-sexual, into orgies and swinging, did mainstream porn films back in the day, but also a lot of fetish stuff, spanking and caning and the like. Above all, she was a brilliant artist; did loads of great erotic and BDSM art. Comic books too."

"And she was a born sub and wrote about how that works and how it is possible to find pleasure in pain and humiliation. Read what she wrote and maybe you will understand how to be a Master to those who want it. And that everyone has different needs to fulfil their sexual potential."

I could see Delilah was just warming up in her lecture so I said, "Ok, enough; you can stop. If you think this Nicoleta Paulescu is so wonderful, she's got the job."

Delilah gave me a beaming smile, "I can't help thinking about what she said about destiny. I have a good feeling about this."

"Oh, don't you start going all mystical on me as well," I groaned.

*****

I contacted the agency with our decision and through them invited Nicoleta to come to the castle the following Monday. She travelled in her own car and I greeted her as she drew up outside the entrance to the main, Victorian part of the building. She stood in the covered portico in front of the main door, taking in the building and the view of the valley, with its cluster of houses below us, and the forest covered slopes of the surrounding hillsides.

"This place is wonderful, Mr Mitchell. I could be happy here, I think. It has good vibrations."

"Really?" I said, thinking that the only vibrations I was aware of here were battery powered. "I am glad you like it. And please call me Matt. Come, I will show round the house."

"Thank you, Matt. My friends call me Nikki," she said with a warm smile.

"In that case so will I, Nikki. I hope we are going to be very good friends," I replied.

I had been worried that she might have been concerned by the complete absence of a film crew and equipment, but Nikki seemed far more interested in the house. She seemed to love everything about it. She was also delighted to meet Ilse, Georgia and -- especially it seemed to me -- renew acquaintance with Delilah.

I was starting to think that the latter had done me a huge favour in talking me into inviting Nikki here. Not only was she beautiful but she had a warm and placid sort of temperament that seemed to love everything and everybody. With my growing harem containing a number of strong personalities, that could be a very useful asset.