Nobody grows up with a dream to join the town watch. It wasn't a glorious thing, but it paid decently, and all Jess had to do was stand there and make sure nobody got up to trouble in the marketplace.
Yawning, she shifted in place, casting a bored eye over the bustling square. It wasn't unpleasant at all, not really. The summer heat could get burdensome, and in winter the blowing wind would cut straight through one's clothes - but nobody important was out and about, then. Right now was that perfect middle ground, the air just cool enough to be refreshing and the greenery just starting to turn for autumn, with enough mercantile activity so that she wasn't completely bored out of her skull.
Then she blinked. A short blonde lass had skipped up next to her and was looking at her rather insistently. Grinning, too.
"Can I help you?" Jess didn't actually like to talk much while on-duty, least of all to youthful pranksters with no better pastime than to annoy the town watch.
"Of course you can." The girl stepped closer, until her lips were nearly brushing her ear. "The word for tonight is 'turquoise,' dear pet. The Mistress wants to see her favorite toy again."
Jess opened her mouth, half-thought questions fizzling out. Then the trigger word washed through her mind like a roll of silent thunder and her mouth shut again.
The rest of her shift passed by very quickly. At least, that's how it seemed for Jess, dazed as she was. Fortunately, nobody asked her any more questions. She would have been fully prepared to do her best answering them, but distractions would not do. Automatically she ended her day at the guardhouse, placing her hauberk and truncheon on their respective shelves and signing out with the bored clerk.
Then, still entranced, she quietly made her way home, where she shucked off her day's garments and ran herself a refreshing bath. Mistress always did like her to be clean.
When that was done, she had to choose her clothes for the night. Something casual, she decided.
It's not like she'd be wearing it for very long.
Dusk had fallen when she made her way outside again, and the day's coolness had become positively chilly. Jess paused on the doorstep. There was a faint lilt of music in the air. A trade caravan from one of the akir families had set up in the local campgrounds, and were due to stay for a week. Their holiday festivities were always an enjoyable experience.
Jess ignored them. Stiffly, but then with growing confidence, she walked out into the night.
Her feet seemed to know the way, even if the memories were slow in returning. They led her on a zig-zagging path through the town. Some part of her subconscious told her that this was to prevent her from being followed, if anyone were to be made curious by her night-time wanderings.
It was only a few minutes to her destination, anyways. A stately home, but not ostentatious. Jess turned and went down the nearest alleyway, to the side entrance that she knew was there. The same blonde girl from the marketplace greeted her.
"C'mon in." She held the door open. "You know where to go."
The girl was right. Jess knew exactly where to go, and as the door shut behind her was already walking over to the stairs she knew so well. The stairs that went down, down into the depths of the house where not even the town watch could see...
Without thinking, she began to undo the fastenings to her clothes, lifting them over her head and stepping out and suddenly she was naked as a flower.
Jess shivered. She could have been in this place a hundred times, and the moment that she was bare was always the best.
Then, leaving her discarded clothes on the floor behind her (some servant would soon pick them up), she began to descend the great stairs.
She knew what sorts of sounds she would hear coming from the other side of the great door. The Mistress was surely hosting a revel tonight. With a deep breath to steel herself, she pushed the door open.
These were the many servants of the Mistress, cavorting with her guests or with each other, depending on their orders. Most of them were human, of all kinds. The akir were the newest addition to the crowd. Whether they had been invited, seduced, or purchased, Jess did not know. She was amused, on some level, to see that most of them were getting fucked silly. One of them Jess recognized as the daughter of the caravan leader; sweat glistened on her brown skin as she rode a burly wastelander. The akir girl cried out, tossing her head back in ecstasy. Then her partner roughly pulled her over until she was on the ground, ass-up, and began to pound the little slut senseless as cheers came from their audience. Apparently, she hadn't been riding enthusiastically enough for their tastes.
Others were present, too. A few city elves, because that was fashionable. And at least a couple beastkin. The two neko dancers were drawing a lot of attention with their sensual, coordinated movements. It seemed that anyone who wasn't watching the akir maiden lose her composure (and her virtue) was slavering over the exotic beastkin servants.
Jess slipped past all of them, and if anyone paid her any notice they wisely kept their hands to themselves. She belonged to the Mistress, and to the Mistress alone.
When she got to the inner sanctum, she found that the Mistress had started without her. And, in fact, that one particular guest was very special, indeed.
"To whom do you belong?"
That was the Mistress, quietly imperious with the assurance of true power. And, in reply, Jess heard:
"I...I belong to the Mistress."
"You belong to me."
"I belong to you."
"Good girl." The Mistress patted her plaything on the head. "Jess, darling," she called without looking round, "come in here and say hello to my latest acquisition."
Jess took another few steps, curious. Then she nearly laughed. On the floor in front of her was none other than the town's own Mayor.
The Mayor was a proud woman. Proud, despite the fact that she had never amounted to much more than the administrator of a backwater market town. True, the place held influence beyond its small size, as the empire was very much interested in the regular flow of trade. Perhaps that was why they had sent someone as clever as the Mayor to take charge.
She had been handsome in her youth, when she'd arrived a decade ago, and she was handsome still. All long legs and statuesque beauty, brains and an iron will. Never married, either. There'd been whispers floating around the town, but none could deny that the Mayor earned her solitude, if that was what she desired.
Clever as she was, she'd proved quite capable of foiling some of the backroom deals that the Mistress had cut with the local merchants. Jess wasn't privy to the details. All she knew was that her Mistress had been
very
frustrated during some of their meetings.
The Mayor moaned. Oddly, she still had on her blouse; she was probably the only person in the house still wearing a scrap of clothing. She was naked below the waist, though, and Jess saw to her delight that she was being tamed by the Machine.
"P-please..."
The Mistress grabbed the other woman by the face. "Bad girl. What did I say about speaking out of turn?"
Jess giggled as she listened to the Mayor fumble through half-coherent apologies. The Machine whirred between the Mayor's legs. A stout, saddle-shaped thing, easy enough for a woman to straddle comfortably. Nor was Mistress taking any precautions, as Jess saw the Mayor's wrists shackled to the Machine's front. Her legs were similarly restrained; no matter how she might have struggled to get away, her pussy belonged to the Machine.
And the Machine belonged to her Mistress.
"From the top, now." The Mistress patted her guest on the cheek. "Your pussy feels so good."
"Yes. So good."
"Your pussy belongs to me."
"Yes. Belongs to you."
"You love what I do to your pussy."
"Yes. Love what you do to my pussy."
With a snicker, the Mistress turned to look at Jess for the first time. "Heya, pet." Jess squirmed with pleasure. "You're just in time to watch the best part. Oh,
Alice
, dear," she sang to the Mayor, "tell my friend Jess what you discovered last night."
The Mayor's breath came unsteadily. "I-I found a discrepancy in the pay stubs of the town watch."
"And how did you discover this?"
"The woman who does the figures was on vacation, and I thought that I could do it myself."
"Sandra's another of my creatures," the Mistress said as an aside to Jess. "She helps cover up the little oddities of this town's budget. Like how I give little rewards to my favorites," she winked, and Jess blushed, "or take a little off the top for myself. I'll have to have a
word
with Sandra. Her carelessness is inexcusable."
She turned back to the Mayor. "Then what did you do?"
"I...I found your name in her papers."
"And?"
"And I decided to investigate."
The Mistress snickered. "This is the funniest part. So how did you go about doing that?"
"I walked down to this house and knocked on the door. Demanded to be let in."
It had obviously amused the Mistress. "You came here all by yourself."
"Yes."
"Without telling anybody where you were going. Why?"
"I was angry."
"And you didn't bring an escort from the town watch."
"Yes."
"Like a silly girl."
"...yes."
The Mistress laughed. "It wouldn't have helped," she informed her guest, "even if you had suspected anything more dangerous than minor corruption. Jess is not the only one of my eyes in the watch. But it was still very, very foolish of you to move against me. You were a foolish girl, weren't you, Alice?"
"Y-yes. Very foolish."
