Chapter Eleven

WASHING THE BUTT-PLUG at the Belfast sink alongside the caterers, who kept their eyes politely averted throughout, was one thing, but scrubbing a grate quite another.

Naked for all intents and purposes, bent double, scouring out the ash and soot, I felt like a slave. I’d expected to be put to work, but I hadn’t expected the work to be this dirty. This was not the kind of filth I was here for.

My blackened fingernails and knees dismayed me, especially when three men entered the room, speaking in loud and confident German and taking their seats in positions that afforded the best view of my wriggling bum. These must be the men who had kept Her Ladyship up all night. Perhaps they would be too exhausted for anything other than breakfast and chat.

I looked up to see Liv enter the room with coffee, which she poured for the men. They continued to talk in German, as if they hadn’t noticed her, but from the corner of my eye I saw one of them slide a hand inside the slit of her skirt and keep it there until she had put the cafetière down on the side table. He pulled her over his lap, lifted her petticoats and proceeded to spank her, almost listlessly, until she couldn’t stop herself from crying out. Then he pulled down her drawers, spanked her some more and fingered her until she came with a tiny sigh and a gasp.

‘What are you looking at?’ one of his companions asked me suddenly.

I spun back around, furious with myself at getting sucked into this moment of voyeurism.

‘No, no, no,’ he said. ‘You can’t pretend. You were watching. Come here, girl.’

I exhaled defeatedly and put down the scrubbing brush. When I stood up, ready to present myself, he clicked his tongue and shook his head.

‘What a mess,’ he said. ‘I can’t let you near this suit. Tell you what, since you watched this girl get spanked, I think she gets to spank you. Get on to your knees on the rug. You’ll have to clean it after, though.’

I got on to all fours and saw Liv, from the corner of my eye, adjusting her skirts before coming to kneel beside me. Her hand was small and soft and the spanking she gave me didn’t really hurt, but the German guests seemed to appreciate it, and so did His Lordship when he entered the room in the middle.

‘What’s her transgression?’ he asked idly, sitting down and picking up the newspaper.

‘She was not paying attention to her work.’

‘Oh dear. We will have to address that at dinner time. We have guests for a formal supper tonight – there will be twenty of us, all told. They’ll enjoy a little show.’

My cunt spasmed at his words and I pushed my bottom back into Liv’s line of fire.

‘That’s enough, Liv,’ said His Lordship. ‘You, Bottom, get on with your work. I want that grate spotless. When it’s done, you can get cleaned up and serve at the breakfast table.’

During the course of that morning, it became startlingly apparent just how dull complete submission could be. I spent over an hour standing, holding a tray in the drawing room, while the guests lounged about chatting about the snow.

After that I was sent to the kitchen to polish some silver. No matter what the context, polishing silver just wasn’t going to do it for me, and there was no sign of Damian, just Kat, Liv and the other girl yammering on and ignoring me.

But, just before lunchtime, I was finally summoned and told to present myself outside beneath the large oak tree.

‘Outside … ma’am?’ I asked Kat, staring out at the snowscape. ‘Do I get a coat to wear?’

‘No. Go on, they’re waiting for you.’

The guests, all wrapped up in scarves and huge long coats, stood clapping gloved hands and glowing by the old tree. I stepped out of the French windows and almost screamed. It was so cold my nipples turned to instant bullets, tight with pain at first before numbing. But I tottered over on my high, high heels until I stood before them, head bowed and hands at my side, as I’d been instructed, making sure I didn’t cover any of my accessible orifices.

His Lordship wrapped a length of rope about my wrists, then looped it over a low branch of the tree.

‘An endurance test for you, Bottom, and a bit of fun for us,’ he said, tugging the rope until my arms were high above my head. ‘Keep your feet wide apart. Like that.’

He patted my rump and stepped away from me, turning to the guests.

‘Right then. Target practice. Five points for her tits, ten each for her arse or cunt. Who’s going first?’

They spent ten minutes pelting snowballs at me until the impacted ice slithered down my thighs and over the curve of my breasts, torturing my nipples, thawing on my clit, soaking my apron and stockings. I shivered and squealed, trying to twist away from the onslaught, but they were merciless, laughing and comparing scores, scooping up more snow the more I moaned.

Before I turned blue, they took pity on me, untying me and supporting my shivering body back inside. His Lordship laid me down on a sheepskin rug in front of the now roaring drawing room fire and caressed me gently while I warmed back up, crooning that I was a good girl and had done well and 90 per cent of other submissives would have safeworded after a minute.

Pride seeped through my heating blood, along with the relief of warmth. I was going to beat this. I was going to win. I was going to be the best trainee he’d ever had.

‘I think you’ve earned your lunch,’ he said. ‘I’ll send down to the kitchen for a bowl of something for you. But first, when you’re warm enough, I have a little appetiser for you.’

The appetiser was the cocks of all four of the men, followed by the ladies’ juicy pussies. I sucked and licked at them all, on my knees between theirs, draining every last drop until each was replete and red-faced and ready to dine.

While they ate, I was made to stick my face into a bowl of sloppy pasta salad and eat it like a dog, with my hands behind my back, which was messy but possible.

‘She’s good, Marcus,’ commented one of the Germans. ‘Where did you find her?’

‘At a slave auction, showing herself off like the whore she is,’ he replied. ‘We’ll have fun with her tonight. Stand up, Bottom. Christ, what a mess you’ve made of yourself. Go and wash it off, then you have permission to take a two-hour nap. After that, you have a lesson with me.’

The nap was just what I needed, but I woke after an hour, shivering under my scratchy prison-issue blanket while the bedsprings creaked. Outside the barred window, the sky had that iron-grey cast that presaged more snow.

I sat up and looked around. The other maids must all be busy; distant kitchen noises travelled from one direction while I could hear music floating down from the floor above. I got up and the bedspring creaked again, then again.

Except that couldn’t have been my bedspring. I was on my feet, looking for something properly warm to wrap around myself. It must have come from the room next door.

That must be the men’s sleeping quarters.

Throwing the blanket over my shoulders, I tiptoed to the corridor, wanting to investigate. By “investigate” of course I mean “find Damian”.

It was easily done. I knocked on the neighbouring door, concocting a story in my head about needing a dressing gown. Within seconds, Damian stood there, tall and draped in a long cotton robe that showed the freckles on his chest.

‘Oh,’ he said with an inviting smile. ‘It’s you.’

I forgot my cover story in an instant.

‘I’m so fucking cold,’ I told him.

‘Need warming up? Step right in.’

He peered out into the corridor, pulled me up to his chest and whisked me into the room, shutting the door smartly behind us. Within seconds, I was against the wall, crushed into a kiss that stole the reason from my brain, stole the cold from my bones, stole everything except my need for Damian’s body.

‘What about His Lordship?’ I gasped, letting him lead me over to his narrow bed. ‘Isn’t this against the rules?’

‘It’s me that’d get into trouble,’ he reassured, bundling me down and kissing me again. ‘I’m in the position of authority. You’re just obeying me.’

‘I don’t want to get you into trouble.’

‘I don’t care, babe. I want you. I’m going to have you. His Lordship only comes down here when there’s someone in the punishment room anyway. We’re safe. Even if the staff find out, they won’t snitch, I promise.’

‘You’re very sure of that.’

‘I’m very sure of them. They won’t want to get me into any strife. Now shut up and kiss me.’

I was happy to do so. Here was a feeling I had almost forgotten amidst the formality and strictures of my D/s couplings. Spontaneity, passion, lust that was triggered by the man rather than the situation. This was what I had felt with Stuart, and what I had been reaching towards ever since. I didn’t want an either/or. I didn’t want to be vanilla or kinky. I wanted to be both, but with the same partner.

Lying beneath Damian, luxuriating in his hard, male body, I was so struck by this revelation that my tongue stopped pushing, fingers stopped pinching, hips stopped gyrating until he extracted himself from my lips and blinked down at me.

‘Are you OK? Did you hear something?’

‘No, no. It’s fine. Just … had a thought, that’s all.’

‘Don’t think, love, that’s always fatal. Thought is the enemy of fucking. What do you think of that? Just made it up – might have it monogrammed on my chauffeur gear.’ He grinned, devilish and much too attractive to blow off in favour of navel-gazing. I pushed my self-analysis to the back of my mind and replaced it with his taut chest and shoulders.

‘You’re right. Less thinking, more fucking. I don’t want to waste a minute.’ I pushed him back down with a hand to the back of his neck and let him have his way with me. His way involved much less pinching or slapping than I had become used to, though he managed a good few bites before his hungry mouth found its way to my hungrier pussy. He sucked at my clit and made a strawberry-coloured mark on my thigh, licking me until I almost came, then he pulled away, flipping me on to my stomach and driving hard and fast into me.

Hard and fast, feverish and disordered, this was the way sex hadn’t been for so long. He braced a forearm beneath my stomach, grabbed a hip and pounded, grunting behind me while I jolted and wobbled on my knees, trying to keep my bum up while the pillows edged further and further into my face.

He’s really having me, I thought with delirious joy. He isn’t going to stop until I can’t walk straight. I moved a hand to my clit and stroked it slowly, letting the sweet sensation mingle with the brutal stretching above it, trying to find the perfect balance. He removed his own hand from my hip and made me cease my strumming, which was disappointing until it became clear that he meant to do it himself. Thrusting vigorously, he dipped his fingers deep into my well of juices, rubbing up and down. I tried to strain against him, to get my release, but unexpectedly he stopped fingering me and put my own hand back on the needy button of flesh. I waited a moment before starting again, needing permission.

‘Go on,’ he whispered. ‘Touch it. I’ve got a surprise for you.’

I was so close, so close, almost there, and then his slick forefinger slid up the crack of my arse and pressed at my newly-trained hole, testing it for give and tension. I yelped and contracted my muscles.

‘Tch tch,’ he said softly, holding me still with his cock fully seated inside me. ‘You’re going to get this, aren’t you? From His Lordship, by the end of the week. I just thought I could help with preparing you. What do you think?’

‘Oh God,’ I moaned, horribly turned on by the thought, despite my anxieties. ‘I thought you said he wouldn’t let anyone else … You know.’

‘Not going to put my cock up there, am I? Just a finger. Or two. Just give you a taste … of how it feels to be double-penetrated. Don’t you want to know?’

‘Ohhhh,’ was all I could say to this. Of course I did.

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Go on, then,’ I whispered furiously. He had no right to know how to push my buttons this well. He was a cheeky bastard. But oh God, I wanted him to do anything and everything to me, until I passed out.

He took his time inserting the first finger, pausing every time I squeaked or shot forward or tensed my ring to utter soothing words and sounds. It was really no worse than that butt-plug anyway – in fact, it was better because the finger was flexible and warm and responsive to my body’s cues.

He slid it in to the knuckle and twisted it around, his broken sighs of, ‘Ohhh yeah,’ calming me, turning me into clay beneath his expertly moulding hands. Then he chose to resume his thrusts and my forgetful cunt tightened around him, greedy for more of his cock, more of his energy, more of his mastery, more of everything.

By the time he got the second finger in, I had come, a long, sobbing, wailing kind of orgasm that made him chuckle even as he fucked and up his speed, up his rutting cock and delving finger-play until he too had had his fill and poured himself into me, uttering obscene endearments until he was wrung out.

We lay together for a while, limp and thirsty and wordless while the snow fell outside and the room grew darker still.

‘That was a fuck and a half,’ he said at last. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Am I allowed to say?’

‘Of course. Well, not really. But you have my permission.’

‘Cherry,’ I said, and then I bit my lip. Why had I told him my real name?

‘Cherry? That’s a sexy name. Suits you. I’m Damian.’

‘I know. You’re allowed to have a name. It’s just me that isn’t.’

‘Listen, Cherry, thanks. That was seriously fucking incredible. I wish we could do it again.’

I turned to him, pouting. ‘Can’t we?’

‘Probably not a good idea. Fuck. Listen, I’ll see what I can do, OK? But we’ll have to be careful. Really careful.’

Something occurred to me.

‘Why?’

‘Why? Because we’ll both get booted out on our arses if His Lordship gets wind that we’re fucking without his dispensation.’

‘And? So what? We’re here voluntarily, aren’t we?’

‘You’re saying you want to leave?’

I pondered this proposition. Did I want to leave?

‘I … don’t know, actually. When I got here, I really thought it was what I wanted. But now I’m not sure.’

‘The reality of kink is different from the fantasy. A lot of the girls find that. More than half don’t make it through the week.’

‘How many have you seen come and go? How many have you had?’

Damian smirked. ‘I’ve never had one without His Lordship’s knowledge before. But a fair few, yeah, when there’s been a scene I’m part of.’

‘Is it just me, or is there a bit of tension around Her Ladyship’s role in all this?’

Damian bit his lip and sucked in a breath.

‘You think?’ he said eventually.

‘I can’t say anything for certain, but …’

‘Things change, relationships change,’ said Damian vaguely. ‘What you want changes. What you need changes.’

‘So this set-up isn’t how it used to be?’

‘Sweetheart, I’ve been doing this on and off for five years. Obviously I’ve seen some changes. I don’t know if they’re good or bad. To be honest, I’m a little bit worried about Her Ladyship.’

‘Really? Why?’

A bell rang, somewhere along the corridor.

‘Shit. Nap time’s over, babe. We’d better get clean, get dressed and get out of here.’

‘Fuck!’

I leapt towards the old-fashioned sink and scrubbed at my nethers with the rather harsh cloth that hung over the side. I grabbed my blanket and ran for the door, but Damian stopped me just before I reached it for a quick but indecently thorough kiss.

‘Take care, babe,’ he murmured. Then he opened the door and threw me out into the corridor.

I barely had time to brush my hair and try to tone down the flush on my cheeks and the swollen, stretched throb of my nether regions before His Lordship rapped sharply on the door before entering.

His total lack of resemblance to Damian irritated me and I kept my eyes to the floor while he stalked up and around me, inspecting my naked body. Suddenly I became horribly conscious of the tiny red mark Damian had left after sucking on my thigh and I contrived to hide it as unobtrusively as I could, hoping upon hope that His Lordship wouldn’t notice. He didn’t.

‘Lessons, then,’ he said briskly. ‘You will need to put on your uniform and follow me to the study.’

Some laundry fairy had put a fresh, unsnowballed apron in my drawer so I put that on along with the stockings and suspenders and followed my master out of the servants’ quarters and back to the main house. This time, I was not so conscious of my near-nudity, but I was highly conscious of my recently fucked state and sure it would be picked up upon. I kept my buttocks clenched, although they were itching from their recent attentions, and my thighs almost clamped, walking slowly in a geisha-style shuffle along the corridors to the study.

‘Kneel,’ said His Lordship, before he had even turned to face me. I fell to my knees on the Persian rug and watched him open a bureau and rummage inside.

When he turned to face me, he was carrying a leather flogger and several pairs of cuffs.

‘Today’s lesson covers positions. In some ways, it is a test of endurance and stamina. I need to know that I can place my submissives in certain positions and expect them to maintain those positions. If they are unable, of course they earn a punishment. The discipline side of our relationship is very important to me. I need to know that you will accept it without question. Indeed, I will want you to embrace your corrections and to accept them in a meek and joyful spirit, because you know that they are merited and deserved. Do you understand?’

‘I think so, sir. It’s difficult to be joyful about a whipping, though.’

‘Yes. It’s difficult. That’s the whole point, Bottom.’

I nodded sagely. Testing of limits, pushing oneself, finding strengths one didn’t know one had. It all sounded disturbingly reminiscent of a pep talk I’d given my tutor group last year. This BDSM stuff was really just life, sexualised.

‘So, let’s start with the kneeling position. Your knees should be apart, Bottom, at least a foot’s breadth.’

I shuffled them wider, grateful for the minimal coverage of the apron which would at least hide the evidence of Damian upon my body.

‘Now, I need your hands to be clasped on the back of your neck, elbows out. Yes. Back absolutely straight, to enhance your breasts. I need your breasts to jut, Bottom. That’s what everyone will want to see. Firm, prominent tits. Of course, we usually want good hard nipples too. Ah, you can oblige. Marvellous. Sometimes we might help them along the way with a pair of clamps, but that doesn’t seem to be necessary today. Now, I am going to sit at my desk and do some work. You are going to maintain that position until my timer goes off. I’m not going to tell you when that will be. If I see any sagging of the spine, or adjustment of position, I will use the whip. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good.’

It might have been ten minutes. It might have been an hour. My knees began to ache and so did my nipples. My arms shook and my toes froze, but I didn’t break position. The trick of it was to be somewhere else. I took myself to bed with Damian and stayed there for as long as the timer ticked, reliving the length of his cock and those rude fingers in my backside, his soft, dirty words spoken like caresses, his lean, fit, freckled body.

When the timer went off, my pussy was wet again.

His Lordship put down his newspaper, picked up his flogger and used the handle to check the perkiness of my tits and the width of my thighs. He found nothing to punish. I thrust out my chin and took a deep breath.

‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘Impressive. Are you wet?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Even better. You may stand and shake yourself out a little. Our next position is rather more difficult.’

I followed his order and rose, my knees creaking a little. I wriggled and writhed until he called time and beckoned me over to his desk.

‘Because you seem to have excellent stamina, I’m going to fast forward you to one of our most challenging positions. Lie flat on the desk, please.’

I climbed up and let my body take up the full length of the desk, smoothing the flimsy apron rather compulsively over the spot Damian had stupidly marked.

‘Now I need you to lift your bottom and put your legs in the air.’

I braced my hands in the small of my back and levered my coccyx up, watching my knees rise above my face. Fortunately, this position caused the little strawberry mark to disappear into the fold of skin it created at the crease of my thigh, even though my apron rode straight up and pooled in my belly.

‘Now spread those legs in a good wide V shape. Show me everything you have there.’

I parted my knees, opening my cunt and, lower down, my anus. I shut my eyes briefly. Would His Lordship be able to tell that certain fingers had been there recently? If he noticed, he said nothing.

‘Now, bend your knees. I want you open to the very fullest extent.’

I strained to bend myself into the required pose, completely and inescapably displayed.

His Lordship made me grip my ankles with my hands and ordered me to hold this pose – which was already telling on my thigh muscles – without moving until the timer went off.

‘We call this Full Display. It’s what you’ll be doing at tonight’s supper party. You’ll be the centrepiece. Of course, it’ll be a little more complicated than this. Penetration of orifices may be involved, and you’ll be available for all the guests to handle and toy with.’

Now I was seriously wet, leaking down into the crack of my arse.

He noticed, and leant over to breathe hot beads of steam into my cunt. I longed for his tongue to dart out and flick my clit, but he wouldn’t do that.

He took a long sniff and stood up, frowning.

‘Very ripe,’ he said. ‘I’d almost think you’d been recently fucked. But of course I know that can’t be the case. Can it?’

‘No, sir.’ But my heart was banging and I momentarily lost grip on one of my ankles, letting it wave wildly in His Lordship’s face.

‘That’s one fail,’ he said calmly. ‘We’ll deal with that at the end of the session.’

To my utter relief, he dropped the subject of the state of my pussy and sat back down, inches away from my rude exposure, and began fiddling about with his android phone.

The pose was much harder to sustain than the kneeling. My thighs and arms began to shake in pretty short order, and hard as I tried to concentrate on breathing, I was soon struggling.

Before the timer went off, His Lordship remarked that I seemed to be having difficulty, but I shouldn’t worry because tonight I would be cuffed into position. He rattled the metalware on the desk in a sinister fashion.

Just as the timer blared, I let my ankles drop with a resounding thud, letting out a gusty sigh.

‘The timer is a signal for me, not for you,’ admonished His Lordship, transporting me eerily back to my classroom again. ‘That’s two fails. Get up, stretch, and then I have some homework for you.’

From a large walk-in cupboard, he dragged an old-fashioned school desk and bench affair, complete with inkwell, slate and chalk.

‘You’ll need your school uniform,’ he noted, dragging out a plaid skirt and white shirt.

‘Oh … no!’ I froze in mid-stretch and shook my head. ‘I can’t do schoolgirl role play. I’m sorry. It’s just too weird for me.’

He stared.

‘Because of my job,’ I explained, though I hadn’t ever told him I was a schoolteacher. ‘It feels too wrong. Too taboo.’

‘That’s a safewording then,’ he said after a stunned pause.

‘Fine. So be it.’

‘You don’t mind sitting at a desk, though?’

‘We don’t have them any more,’ I said. God, I was giving myself right away, but I felt I owed him the truth. ‘Tables and chairs.’

He stared at me and I subsided into the desk and clasped my fingers, waiting for the black cloud that had settled over us to pass.

‘Right,’ he said eventually. ‘I have here a diagram of all the different positions you will be called upon to take and maintain. You have twenty minutes in which to memorise them, and then you will be tested.’

He handed me a laminated card with twenty different positions. The one I had recently held was number twenty.

I said, ‘Thank you, sir.’

He nodded abruptly and left the room.

I contemplated leaving my desk and snooping in his drawers, but after all, twenty minutes wasn’t such a long time to learn all these poses, some of which were hellishly complicated, so I resisted temptation and applied myself to the task.

When His Lordship returned, he made me stand and demonstrate ten of the poses chosen at random. I scored six out of ten.

‘Not the worst score I’ve seen,’ he noted, ‘but not the best either. You have amassed a total of six fails. For each fail you will take ten strokes of the flogger. Now, put yourself into the fourth position.’

The fourth position was the classic touch-your-toes, with the slight variation of having to keep your feet wide apart. Grabbing of ankles was also permitted, and I decided to avail myself of this steadying tool.

The backs of my thighs already ached from the earlier practice and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep myself in position for sixty strokes, unless he decided to give them very quickly.

As it happened, he did. The flogger flew, speedy and stinging, across my bottom, a stroke landing every couple of seconds. It was an easier pain to take than some of the other implements – lighter, although it built to a substantial and steady burn after only the first ten. I was moaning and complaining within a minute, but His Lordship flogged on, ignoring my oohs and aahs.

Finally he finished and I took my hands from my ankles.

‘Ah ah ah,’ he said, indicating that I had presumed too much.

Gasping, I re-clasped, conscious of my aching calves as well as my sore bottom.

‘We have one more thing to attend to,’ he said.

The cold kiss of lubricant against my anal pucker soon gave the grand finale away. I held my breath and screwed my eyes shut, suddenly convinced that he would know Damian’s fingers had been inside that sacred orifice, but he said nothing, simply inserted a slightly larger plug than the previous night’s, twisted it for luck then stepped away with a final smack of my bum.

‘You’re to keep that in until the banquet,’ he said. ‘Kat will remove it for you before bringing you in. Now go to the bedroom – they’re waiting for you. They need to get you ready.’

I went back down to the servants’ quarters feeling strangely unenthusiastic about the evening’s prospects. Yet I had planned this with His Lordship over the preceding weeks, working with him on every detail. Why would I not want to do it?

Sex with Damian had unleashed a craving for a more immediate intimacy, I realised. The formality and coldness set out for me had its place in my needs, but those needs weren’t playing ball tonight. I just wasn’t in the mood. I wanted more monkey sex with the red-haired pervert, much more, all night long. The unlikeliness of getting it threw me into a kind of existential sulk.

Liv and the other girl – Sukie, I think – were indeed waiting for me in the maids’ bedroom.

‘Come on!’ said Liv. ‘What kept you so long?’

‘Lessons with His Lordship.’

‘Let’s see your bum then – oh, I see. I love lessons with His Lordship,’ grinned Sukie, prodding my butt-plug with a malicious fingertip.

‘What’s that, though?’ Liv frowned, crouching to peer at the love bite on my thigh.

I shrugged.

‘I didn’t think His Lordship fucked a new sub on debut day until the banquet,’ she continued. ‘But this looks fresh. Have you got a boyfriend at home?’

‘She didn’t have it this morning,’ said Sukie, who’d come round to investigate. ‘Is it a birth mark?’

‘Deffo a love bite,’ said Liv with a frown. She leant further in and sniffed my cunt, mortifyingly. ‘You smell of spunk. You’ve been fucked today. Jesus, woman! Was it one of those Germans? Didn’t you know you were meant to wait till tonight?’

‘His Lordship will go crazy.’ Sukie sounded satisfied.

‘No, no, you’re wrong.’ But my heart wasn’t in the denial. So what if the stupid rules stated I was supposed to do this, that or the other. I was here by choice. If I chose to shag the chauffeur, so chuffing what?

Perhaps rigid discipline and unquestioning obedience weren’t for me after all.

‘Wrong, my arse,’ said Liv. ‘Kat, come and look at this.’

The terminally unfriendly chief maid had arrived through the doorway, appearing dissatisfied with our rate of progress, grabbing nipple pasties and body glitter from a cupboard.

‘Look at what? All I can see is a naked girl who needs to be prepared. What have you been doing?’

‘She’s got a love bite on her thigh,’ said Sukie.

‘Really? Show me.’

A third woman busied herself with the close inspection of my crotch area. Just as well I’m not shy.

‘Look – totally a love bite. Quite a hard one too. And she reeks of sex. Naughty girl.’

Kat straightened and stared me in the face.

‘Who have you been with?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Liar. I’m taking you to His Lordship. Explain to him.’

I recalled Damian’s words – that the staff wouldn’t split on him if we’d been discovered together. Perhaps if I told them the truth, they’d soften.

‘Listen, OK, it was Damian.’

Sukie and Liv looked at each other. Kat slapped me so hard across the face that I staggered backwards.

‘Liar!’ she said again. ‘He wouldn’t. Not without telling me.’

‘I’m not … lying,’ I panted, clutching my jaw, aghast. ‘Ask him.’

‘You little slut, he’s my husband.’

Oh shit.

‘Take her to His Lordship,’ urged Liv.

‘I will,’ said Kat. ‘They’ll all be in the drawing room by now. Let’s get this sorted out there.’

‘I’m not standing before any kangaroo court,’ I told them, backing away, but Kat and Liv caught me and yanked me, one on each arm, out of the room, Sukie following behind.

In the drawing room, at least twenty people sat and stood, chattering and drinking in the glamorous golden glow of the chandeliers. When I was dragged through the door, all conversation stopped.

Damian, acting in the capacity of butler and master of ceremonies, turned paler than ever and looked away.

Her Ladyship, resplendent in an ostrich feather head dress, was first to speak.

‘What’s the meaning of this?’

‘I have to report a rule break.’ Kat was trying hard to keep calm, it seemed, her voice low and contained.

‘Put Bottom on her knees before us,’ ordered His Lordship, ‘and explain.’

They pushed me down on to the plush rug. My awareness of so many pairs of eyes studying my naked body, my open cunt, my flogged and plugged bottom failed to arouse me. My throat was dry and I suddenly felt endlessly vulnerable. If they decided to murder me … Was that possible? How wrong could this go?

‘She has allowed herself to be taken by another man before Your Lordship performed her debut,’ explained Liv, because it seemed Kat was all out of speech.

‘Is this true?’

I nodded.

‘Which man? A member of our staff?’ asked Her Ladyship sharply. When I didn’t answer, she addressed the maids, none of whom replied.

‘She won’t say,’ said Kat. ‘We think it might be somebody from outside the house.’

‘Stop this. It was me.’

Damian’s voice.

‘Shut up!’ screamed Kat.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he said, but she had leapt at him and was slapping him about with abandon. ‘I’m sorry, Kat. And I’m sorry, Cherry. I should have controlled myself.’

‘Who’s Cherry?’ Now His Lord and Ladyship were confused.

‘If you want me to leave, I’ll understand,’ said Damian, putting my own thoughts succinctly into words.

‘What about me?’ shrieked Kat. ‘What if I don’t want to leave?’

‘Then stay,’ said Damian. ‘Stay and be His Lordship’s favoured submissive, since that seems to be what your life is all about.’

‘You did this deliberately,’ she spat. ‘To get away from me.’

Damian finally managed to extricate her, his face a mess of scratches.

‘Sorry, love,’ he said quietly. ‘It suited me for a while. But I can’t live with you like this any more.’

‘I did this for you!’ Kat was beside herself.

‘No you didn’t. You always pushed things further and further. Just being your husband and your dom would have been enough for me. It wasn’t enough for you, I see that now.’ He shrugged. ‘I should go.’

‘Wait,’ cried Her Ladyship, rising from her chair.

‘What for?’ he asked gently, then he left the room.

‘I should go too,’ I ventured. ‘God, what a mess. I wish I hadn’t come here now.’

‘So do I,’ said Her Ladyship. ‘And what’s this Cherry business? Did you even give us a false “real” name?’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to risk my vanilla life, my career, any of that stuff.’

‘Because you’re a schoolteacher,’ said His Lordship. ‘Not a piano tutor.’

I looked around the room, at the avid faces of the guests. They might not be getting what they had expected, but this would entertain them at least.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I don’t feel I can stay, under the circumstances.’

‘I think you should stay.’ Her Ladyship’s voice was uneven with rage. ‘I want to thrash the living daylights out of you, you fucking whore.’

‘She was fond of Damian,’ remarked His Lordship. ‘But she’ll get over him.’ He reached over and gave her wrist a very firm squeeze. ‘Now get out, Bottom, and don’t darken our door again, eh? There’s a girl.’