Quill kept her in the box until every last guest had left the estate, allowing her the mercy of continued anonymity. She was given the further kindness of a robe as Marcus carried her back to the main house.
Saskia felt emptied of all her psychic contents, both good and bad. The deep pleasant internal ache between her legs matched the sense of calm and stillness inside her brain. She felt like she’d been away for a week on a spa getaway. Or perhaps lobotomized. One of those.
She hadn’t expected that. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t that. She was starving, though. While she’d been fed a bit before the party, the event had lasted hours.
Hours of being prodded and stroked. Hours of Marcus with her behind the panel and occasional visits from Quill to satisfy the arousal watching her like that kept creating. She wondered how other men at the party had dealt with that discomfort. Had they wandered off somewhere to masturbate or had they found a willing partner to slip behind a bush in the rose garden with? How would those other women feel knowing they scratched an itch Saskia initiated? Weren’t they being used as well?
All of them useful objects in the service of the all-powerful male boner—the all-powerful male boner she’d licked and sucked not that long ago with something close to wild abandon. Both Quill and Marcus had fucked her mouth several times during the party while strangers gave her pleasure from behind the panel. It was as if neither man could quite handle not sampling her charms for longer than a half-hour stretch.
She collapsed, boneless onto the chair pulled out for her in the dining room. Lacy put a couple of plates of food in front of her without comment and went back through the side door to the kitchen.
Marcus wrapped a hand around the back of Saskia’s neck and pulled her to him to kiss her forehead. “Goodnight, Saskia.”
“Enjoy your night off,” Quill said.
“Yes, sir” Marcus said on his way out the door.
Quill sat across from her, watching as she devoured a giant plate of party leftovers. Such an odd mix of food. Mini quiches, shrimp and cocktail sauce, tiny sandwiches on croissants, fruit tarts, little savory sausages in a tangy sweet sauce. She didn’t care. She was too hungry to care. A second plate was filled with desserts that must have taken hours to craft, which she planned to barrel through in mere minutes.
Lacy brought her a goblet and a pitcher of water. Saskia was grateful it wasn’t champagne. The way she shoveled food in, something bubbling and alcoholic was the last thing she wanted.
“Nolan has requested a private session with you,” Quill said, still studying her.
Saskia’s mindless binge halted. Her gaze darted around the room as if expecting Quill’s friend to pop through the door at any moment like a stripper in a birthday cake.
“He went home with the others.”
Saskia pushed the plate away, no longer hungry.
“Master, no, please. You said none of them would know it was me. Did you tell him?”
Quill shook his head. “Your secret is still safe. He doesn’t know. I realize how much I’m asking of you. But he’s a good friend, and it would mean a great deal to me if you consented.”
“And if I don’t?”
He shrugged. “I promised you anonymity tonight. If that’s to be broken, it’ll be your call. I’m not going to rip it from you. But think about it. Would it be so bad?”
She did find Nolan attractive. His hawkish features undeniably worked on his face. At their first meeting she’d found him both threatening and appealing in that way that seemed to be the official template for her sexual attraction now.
“Are you sure he doesn’t know it’s me? He showed interest when he met me at that fund raising event. You seemed kind of territorial. I wouldn’t think you’d want to share.”
“I just wanted to establish clearly who you belonged to.”
“I didn’t belong to you back then.” Saskia was probably inches from a punishment with the casual way her mouth was flying off.
“Oh, yes, you did. You just didn’t know it yet. And I’m sure he doesn’t know it was you. But at least you know he likes you both above and below the waist. Be flattered.”
“Can I have time to think about it?”
“I want an answer by tomorrow morning.”
“Okay.”
He raised a brow. She’d clearly hit the end of his patience.
“Yes, Master,” she corrected.
He nodded. “Tell me, how many orgasms did you have tonight? I hope you remembered to keep count as I requested.”
Saskia blanched. She’d lost count within the first hour. “I-I don’t remember.”
Quill sighed and rose from the table. He moved behind her, his hands pressed against her shoulders as if she might run. “You don’t remember. Well, then, let’s watch the video and count them together. Then you’ll get a cane stripe for each one, since you couldn’t bother to remember.”
“Y-yes, Master.”
Saskia and Quill stood in the hallway outside his closed bedroom door. Despite how long she’d been with him, she’d never seen his bedroom. He’d kept it just out of reach—a carrot on a string which was always pulled away from her at the last moment.
“Well? Haven’t you been dying to get inside? You’ve practically crawled after me, begging to warm my bed. And now you hesitate? I’m offended.”
Saskia’s hand shook as she turned the knob and pushed the door open, almost afraid of what she might find behind it.
Quill’s room looked something like a BDSM pornography set. All it needed was lighting equipment and cameras, and he’d be in business. One entire wall contained hooks with every imaginable whipping implement. A bamboo cane lay across a shelf with a little spotlight on it—as if it were his favorite. Or as if he just wanted to terrify whoever entered the room with the possibilities.
One entire corner was set up for suspension. There were hoods, and gloves, and riding crops. There were duplicates of much of the sex furniture from the gallery. Maybe he’d found a buy one get one free sale.
An enormous bed stood at the far end, far from most of his kink accoutrements—a safe space. The bedding was black.
A somewhat innocuous red leather couch angled out from one corner to create a small sitting area. Though it was the kind of couch one imagined a Dear Penthouse letter might be composed from.
There was a cage next to the bed—like the one on the jet and the one inside his gallery. She fought not to start crying. She had been sure he’d meant for her to actually share his bed. To sleep in it. What was the point of any of this if she’d only be relegated to another cage?
He caught her staring at it.
“I told you, you could sleep with me in my bed if you were good at the party. You’ve got a punishment coming for not counting like I told you to, but assuming you accept that without excessive whining, nothing has changed.”
She nodded, still not trusting herself not to cry. She couldn’t sleep in a cage again.
“Lose the robe and get in bed.”
Saskia stripped off the robe and got under the covers on the other side of the room while he pressed a button on a remote. A large panel in the floor slid open and a flat screen, lying horizontal, rose into the room. He pushed a second button, and the screen lifted at an angle until it was fully vertical. It was massive, much larger than the screen he’d made her watch herself on before in his study.
She wasn’t sure she was prepared to see her pussy in oversized high definition and wondered if she could get away with keeping her eyes closed for this.
“Would you like to know how much of your debt you paid off tonight?”
Admittedly, she’d been curious about how much money had gone into that glass jar. She hadn’t been able to help thinking about it every time someone new took a turn with the toys.
“Yes, Master.”
“A little over twenty-five thousand. I’ve already made a note of it in the ledger. That’s not bad. At this rate, you may live to be debt free.”
“And then what happens?”
He couldn’t release her even if she managed to buy her way out of this slavery. It wasn’t as if any of this was legal. She had so much on him, it was amazing he didn’t keep her chained down 24/7, lest she somehow escape and make it to the proper authorities with a laundry list of felonies to charge him with.
And anyway, Quill was the one setting the prices. If she got close to paying him back, he could simply lower the amount he charged for access to her body. It was all a game to him. A never ending pit of debt. He would arrange it so she could never climb out and was always reaching up to him from the dark hole he’d tossed her down.
“Of course, interest accrues daily.”
Of course.
“But, in the unlikely event you ever paid off your debt, I would allow you your freedom if you still wanted it by that point.”
How magnanimous of him.
“You aren’t worried I’d report you?”
He chuckled. “No. I know you won’t report me for the same reason you were so torn up over stealing from me. Because you know who I am. Because you can’t bear the thought of hurting Joseph Quill. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Joseph Quill was a lie. The art was real, but everything else around him was carefully crafted artifice, yet she still fell for the illusion.
Saskia wanted him to be wrong. Desperately. There had to be something he could do, some line he could cross that she couldn’t forgive. There had to be a level of depravity he could take her to, a place so dark that could erase any feelings of reverence she had toward the artist. But so far, her tolerance for his whims seemed bottomless.
Quill stripped off his clothing and draped it across the couch then joined Saskia in the bed. He pulled her against him, holding her close.
She barely breathed. She could hardly believe they were wrapped up in his bed, skin pressed against skin in something that almost looked like an affectionate embrace. Marcus was kind to her. Why was it so important to her to have Quill’s affection as well?
So he was a great artist. So what? There were a lot of great artists. He was an arrogant rich asshole who wasn’t worth the tears she’d shed for him or the admiration she’d felt, but as he held her, Saskia was sure there must be something deeper in this man worth knowing and being connected to.
He pressed the button on the remote, and the screen came to life with footage from the party.
It was jolting to see herself this way—as disconnected pieces rather than a whole. At the same time, not having to watch her own facial expressions allowed her the distance she needed from it. It was like watching porn with decent dialogue. As long as she didn’t think too hard about who all of this was being done to, it was as exciting watching it as it had been experiencing it.
“We’ll fast-forward to the best parts, but even during the fast forwarding, you will count every orgasm.”
“But if we’re skimming through part of it, how will I know?”
“Trust me, you’ll know.”
He was right. She did know. Even while moving fast, she started to see a small jerk she always made to the right. Like a poker tell. She hadn’t realized she did that. She wondered if she’d done it with all her lovers in the past.
He slowed the footage and pressed play to let her see the part with Nolan.
Quill’s hand slipped between her legs. Saskia tried to scoot away, but there was nowhere to go.
“I knew you liked him,” he said.
She tensed, waiting for that to turn into an issue, but it didn’t.
Quill skimmed through most of the film, stopping for each turn Nolan had taken. He’d drilled her with various toys a total of five times. Each of those times, he’d dropped more money into the glass jar. How much would he pay for a private session with her be? Would he pay more so Quill could maintain a defense of his territory, or would he get the friends and family discount?
The only other part of the film Quill slowed down for was the women. Saskia was surprised three women at the party had actually engaged in this. The women were different, though. They giggled at doing something naughty and forbidden.
She’d heard their laughter at the time, but had thought they were only standing nearby. She’d known it was nervous laughter and had wondered if they just didn’t want to piss off the men they were with by objecting. Now she wondered if they’d somehow been coerced to join in. Perhaps they’d thought it better to be the aggressor than the one lying naked and vulnerable in the box. And yet, everyone had watched them do what they’d done.
The women had hesitated. The men hadn’t. The men, by contrast, showed no shame. They’d felt entitled. Of course, if a woman was spread-eagled near them, ready and waiting, it was practically their birthright to plow that field.
In the film’s background, Saskia watched couples slip behind the large Greek columns together—not quite brave enough for an orgy, but far too bold for a polite gathering.
Quill skimmed through the last three sessions and then shut off the video.
“I plan to watch it at my leisure, later,” he said as he stroked between her legs, giving no doubt as to what he planned to be doing while watching. “How many, Saskia?”
She didn’t bother playing dumb. “T-twenty-two, Master.”
“That’s an insane number of orgasms for four hours,” he said. “You’re insatiable. Unfortunately, that also means you’ll be paying for them with twenty-two cane stripes. If only you’d kept count like I asked, you could have had them for free.”
“I’m sorry, I just lost track. Please...”
Quill shook his head. “No. You know when I lay down a law, that’s it. You have no excuse. I’ll spread them across your thighs, and ass, perhaps a few over your breasts. And I won’t go harder than you can take. Let’s get this done.”
“You don’t sound like you want to. If you don’t want to, I sure as shit don’t want you to.”
His eyes narrowed. “Watch your mouth, little girl. I never want to punish you, but I want your defiance even less.”
He turned off the video and pressed the appropriate buttons to make the screen slide back down into the floor. The paneling closed over it. He set the remote on the night table and crossed to the other end of the room. His fingertips skimmed the cane as if it were a dear friend he’d lost touch with.
Of course he wanted to punish her. Just like he’d wanted to entrap her and enslave her, and all the rest of it. He wasn’t possessed. No one pulled his strings. Who could possibly pull this man’s strings?
“Saskia?”
She reluctantly unfolded her limbs and climbed out of the bed, following him to the corner. Quill secured her arms over her head and then stepped back to look at her, circling her a couple of times as if he were imagining this on a canvas. Abruptly he came back to himself.
He nudged her legs apart with the tip of the cane.
“You will count them out loud.”
Saskia jerked in the chains as the cane sliced the air—before it even struck her. When it did, it seemed to send ripples of pain that vibrated across the room. The sharpest sensation was the cry it tore from her throat.
“O-one.” Her lip trembled when she spoke. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever been this afraid of him before. Even the time he’d been angry. The idea of even surviving twenty-two lashes of the cane, especially a cane wielded by Quill was more than she thought she could cope with. Tears slipped down her cheeks.
“I told you that doesn’t affect me,” he said.
Of course it didn’t. He was heartless and soulless. A fucking sociopath with pretty things.
“I know, Master.”
Somehow, despite his lack of anything approaching compassion, the remaining lashes were lighter. They still hurt like hell, but it was a hurt that one could cope with. She counted each one dutifully, each one getting her closer to the end of her punishment.
In between each strike she mentally berated herself. Why couldn’t she just remember to keep track of the orgasms? At least she hadn’t lied and made up a number. That would have been worse when Quill watched the feed and counted them himself. And she didn’t think she was a good enough actress to feign a counting error.
Finally, the word “Twenty-two” fell from her lips. Quill let the cane slip from his hand onto the ground. His special precious cane with its own spotlight rattled against the hardwood like a viper.
He unchained her and led her to the bed. “Lie on your stomach.”
He disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a first aid kit. “I didn’t break skin, but I’m going to put a cream on the welts to take the sting out.”
Saskia barely breathed as he sat beside her and began smoothing the cooling cream over each mark he’d left across her skin. She could hardly believe he was doing this. He never took care of her after. It was always Marcus who’d been tasked with the comfort side of things. It had made everything with Quill feel incomplete, as if Saskia couldn’t get herself to fully bond with him because he never directly offered her the comfort she needed.
“Sit up, and let me get the ones on your breasts.”
Saskia scooted to a sitting position. She remained silent as he rubbed the cream into the welts on her chest. He screwed the lid back on and dropped the container back into the first aid kit. She watched as he crossed to the other end of the room, opened a drawer, and pulled out a short cotton nightgown. Saskia could tell from across the room that the fabric was soft and cool and breathable. He helped her into it and then pulled back the covers on the bed.
“Get in.”
She slid under the covers, and Quill turned out the lights and joined her. Saskia drifted off to sleep in Quill’s arms, certain something had changed between them for the better.