Chapter Ten
“You’re late.” Anton said when she burst through the door at three twenty. “What have you been doing? You’re filthy. Did you roll in mud?”
“I was outside. I’m sorry. There wasn’t a clock out there.”
He watched her until she grew visibly uncomfortable. After a minute or so, she pulled a leaf out of her long blonde hair and laid it on a table beside the door. She wouldn’t stop fidgeting.
“I take it you want to start every day with punishment, yes?”
She looked down at the ground. “No, Master.”
He closed his laptop and laid it on the bed beside him then carefully placed his folded reading glasses on top of it.
“Hmmmm,” he said, still watching her. In truth he hadn’t minded the extra time. He’d just finished the last of his emails and had arranged things at the spa to move his appointments to other massage therapists for the week. But he’d said three.
He wanted to have plenty of time with Annette to set a routine for them. He might have made a million mistakes with her already, but he wasn’t a total amateur at this. If he treated her like just another sub and moved through his training protocol, he could salvage this wreck he’d created.
Despite the fucked-up situation, he was sure he could gain her trust if he stuck to the script and didn’t introduce her to new scenarios he wasn’t in full control of. He was sure, despite placing too many demands and stresses on her too soon that she was still attracted to him. He could use that to mold and shape her. By the time he was finished, she wouldn’t remember she was a hostage. After all, whether lying or not, it wasn’t like she hadn’t agreed with him in the club that night that she wanted to be whisked away to his castle to be his property. And that conversation had taken place well before he’d mistakenly kidnapped her sister.
Anton gestured to the bathroom. “Go take another shower. Then dry your body and your hair and put on the pineapple-flavored whipped body cream in the drawer. I like the taste of it. Then you will come out here and kneel beside me with your eyes down and your legs spread with your palms face up on your knees. Do you understand these directions?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Good. Go.”
When she’d closed the bathroom door, he went down to the main floor. Besides the dungeons down below, there were several play rooms on the main level which were being set up for training. Brian and Gabe both had their hands full with this activity when Anton reached them.
Lindsay was in the city with a patient. No doubt he was interviewing her to see if he should bring her to the house to be trained and sold.
The doctor wasn’t supposed to talk about his patients, but none of them were supposed to be selling well-trained sex slaves, either. The guys—minus Anton—had poured through patient files and notes while Anton had been at the ballet and party with Annette the previous night.
They already had seven potentials to consider for training. Most of the women were isolated in the city without family or friends. It was a perfect pool to draw from. They were desperate to be taken in and taken care of, and their kinks made it easy to ply them with pleasure and pain in exchange for their absolute submission.
Several huge boxes had been delivered for the play rooms. Brian and Gabe were busy assembling a medical table with stirrups in a room where Lindsay had already set up his other medical supplies. On the far end of this room they’d set up a round bed with studio lighting and cameras.
“Are we making porn, now, too?” Anton asked, eyeing the photo shoot setup.
“Brian suggested we should take dirty pictures and video to show the buyers,” Gabe said.
“Why would we do that?” Anton asked.
Brian rolled his eyes while he struggled with some metal bolts in the table. “Because, you half-wit, we don’t want them coming to the house until money exchanges hands. We want them completely implicated. And they shouldn’t get to window shop or touch the girls if they aren’t buying. This isn’t a brothel.”
“Did everything for the other play rooms arrive?” Anton asked, deciding not to get into it with Brian right then. Annette would be out of the shower soon, and he wanted to be ready for her, not arguing with Brian over something stupid.
“It’s all still in boxes, but the dungeons are now functional if you want to use those for training. Most of the toys can be sterilized but a few I ordered in large multiples, one per girl.”
It was rare for Brian to use so many words that didn’t involve asking when he could kill someone. Anton liked to convince himself that Brian’s threats were just talk, but there was something cold and dead in his eyes which Anton had seen only a couple of times before. And those other times were definitely killers.
He left the guys to finish setting up the medical room and went next door to find a pile of boxes from several high-end sex toy shops. He opened some of them and selected the items he wanted to use on Annette. He grabbed another tube of the arousal cream from the large crate he’d ordered. After only a couple of days experience with it, he considered this cream the best tool to move her along the path he wanted her on and was willing to make full use of it. He had every intention of incorporating it into the full training regimen for all the house’s girls in the future.
When Anton returned, the shower had stopped running. He laid everything out on the bed and went to sit in a plush chair in the corner. He’d barely sat down when the door opened, sending steam pouring out into the room.
She glanced at the bed, her eyes widening a fraction, but she didn’t say anything. Nor did she look at him. Instead, she did exactly as he told her, kneeling at his feet with her legs spread, eyes down, palms up on her knees. It was his favorite submissive position to put pets in. It was open and yielding, vulnerable, and very nice to look at.
“Sit up straight,” Anton said. “I don’t allow my property to slouch. You will always present yourself to me in a manner that is pleasing.”
She straightened.
Anton checked his watch and took the tube of arousal cream from his pocket and squeezed out a generous amount. He wanted to take her to the edge of the limits of the cream before he let her come. He reached down and massaged it into her cunt, careful to get plenty on her clit, then he closed the tube and got up to go wash his hands.
“Stay,” he commanded.
When he returned, she was exactly as he’d left her. He was surprised she hadn’t squirmed or asked questions or started bargaining yet. Maybe the reality of her situation had finally dawned on her after her daily phone call.
Anton was sure she knew she’d have to win his favor in order to keep her sister safe. Janette was such a loose cannon. He still regretted letting her go. She posed far too much risk to walk free, but her sister’s sacrifice had been noble and brave. He had a weak spot for those qualities in a woman. His best subs had been that way. Usually it went with honesty. Unfortunately, not this time.
He’d weighed the dangers many times in his mind. Would it be better to release Annette and hope both of them were so grateful they kept their mouths shut, or keep things as they were? It didn’t matter which was a better strategy. There was no way he would ever release her.
“Do you want me to let you go?” he asked.
“Let me go where?”
“Home.”
She didn’t reply.
“I asked a question. I also expect proper address.”
“I’m here in trade for my sister, Master,” she said. As if that answered the question.
The cream was beginning to kick in. She’d started to squirm the tiniest bit as if by doing so she could somehow make it stop. He knew perfectly well what he was doing, asking these questions right when the cream kicked in. He wanted to make her verbally affirm over and over that she wanted him. That she wanted to serve him. That she desperately needed to be his slave and his whore. The more she said it out loud, even if under the effects of the cream, the more she would believe in it. He needed her to believe in it.
He’d learned a long time ago that saying things out loud made them more real. It was part of why it was so important that she address him as Master. Over and over that word had to fall out of her mouth every single day a hundred times or more a day until she truly saw herself fully as his property. Not just a hostage or prisoner or some exchange for her sister, but his absolute fuck toy.
“I could have mercy on you and send you home right this minute. Do you want to put your clothes on and go home to your sister?”
She whimpered as the cream came into its full powers, destroying any ability to reason she might otherwise possess.
“I will make you an offer. You can put your clothes on right now and go home with your sister, or I can make you come harder than you’ve ever come before in your life. Do you want to come or do you want to go home?”
Anton knelt on the carpet behind her and pulled her possessively toward him. He rained kisses down the side of her throat while he fondled her tits. “What do you want, slut?”
Another whimper. An internal struggle. Finally a surrender. “I want to come, Master.”
“Good girl.”
No doubt she’d spent these few moments rationalizing everything. Maybe she thought he wasn’t offering real freedom—he wasn’t. Maybe she thought it was some trick to punish her—undecided. Or that she could convince him to let her go at another time when the powerful cream setting all her nerve endings on fire had worn off. But of course the next time he asked her, it would be with the cream, too. It would always be with the cream so she chose him over and over, no matter how wrong she knew it was.
“I can give you so much pleasure. I can drive you insane with it. All you have to do is obey me, and you will be rewarded. You aren’t the first woman I’ve trained like this. I know you better than you know you. You need to surrender to me. Your sister is a convenient excuse. I bet you touched yourself after we met the other night in the club.”
She stiffened at that. He knew it! Of course she’d touched herself after all the dirty things he’d said to her—and all the dirty promises she’d teased him with. Still, he wanted her admit it. “Didn’t you? No lies. Remember what happens to liars.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Yes, you touched yourself thinking of me?”
She nodded.
“Good girl.”
“Master, please,” she whined.
“Soon. I don’t like impatience.”
Anton rose from the chair and picked up a thin leather collar with a silver ring off the bed. He put it around her throat. “You will only take this off to shower or swim and when I take you out of the house, Yes?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Good.”
He took a silver chain-link leash from the bed and linked it through the ring on her collar. “Come.”
She got up and followed him outside onto the balcony. They had plenty of privacy out here, but doing this outside in broad daylight would make her feel exposed, watched. It was a bonus if Lindsay drove up or if Brian or Gabe or even Phyllis stepped outside and glanced back up at the house.
He positioned her where he wanted her next to the railing. “Spread your legs, lean forward, and hold onto the top of the railing. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
Anton could chain her up for everything he wanted to do, but he felt training took better if they were made to submit. There was nothing sweeter than a woman obediently holding onto a bar or railing and taking her punishment. No restraints. Just will. His will to control. Her will to obey.
He selected a long bamboo cane from the bed and returned outside to her. The bamboo had the perfect amount of flexibility and spring to it. It would sting and leave the most beautiful welts. He wasn’t an extreme sadist like Brian, but Anton liked to mark what was his.
The best way to get a sub to like the cane was to make her associate it with arousal. He’d never had the benefit of this near-magical cream before, but if he got a girl excited before caning her every time, eventually, bringing the cane out created a Pavlovian reaction. She’d be wet and aroused and ready to be fucked before the bamboo even lashed her flesh.
Without warning, he struck the back of her thighs. She cried out and looked back at him shocked—as if it were some betrayal.
“It’s not a punishment, kiska. Say, Thank you, Master.”
“T-thank you, Master.”
He laid down a second perfect set of welts next to the first. She gasped. “Again.”
“T-thank you, Master.”
Three more came down across her ass, and each time he made her thank him for it.
“Do you still want to come? Don’t lie to me.”
“Y-yes, Master.”
By this point tears streamed down her cheeks. Anton laid the cane on the table and came back to her. He ran his tongue over the marks he’d left as she quivered beneath him. “Mmmm, you taste like pineapples. This is how you should always taste for me.”
He stood and moved so that his lips were next to her ear. “I’m going to fuck you now. But I’m not ready for you to come yet. If you come, I will know it, and I will make what you just experienced seem like an orgasm by comparison. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes, Master.” She had an iron death grip on the railing.
“Good girl.”
She seemed so tuned into his every movement he was sure the sound of his zipper coming down must have been louder to her even than the cane slicing through the air before it made contact. She was exquisite warmth when he slid into her. She was so wet that it drove him to madness. She moaned and bucked against him as he rode her. He would never tire of fucking her.
“Do. Not. Come,” he ground out.
“Please, Master.”
“No. Do it and regret it.”
She stilled for a moment, getting control of herself, and then he began to move inside her again.
“I will make you live for the thrill of pleasing me,” he practically growled at her. “The only thing I want you to think about right now is my cock and how much you want your body to please me. If you think about anything else, there will be consequences. I may not be able to read your mind, but I will know if you are lying. And God help you if you lie to me.”
She let out a strangled whimper in response to this, pushing back against him as he fucked her. He eased slowly in and out of her. He wanted to drag it out as long as he could, and also because of the effect it had on her.
Finally when he’d had enough build up, he drove into her so hard she gasped and cried out from the force of it. He held her close against him as he emptied himself inside her.
Anton pulled out, zipped back up, and straightened his clothes.
“You can let go of the railing now.”
She let go, but she didn’t turn around. She was perfect. Maybe everything that had happened up to this moment was exactly right after all. Maybe she needed a bit of terror, a little motivation to submit to him so sweetly and fully. Thinking back, it was always a little rough in the beginning with a sub. Why should he think it would be any different with a genuine slave? In fact, he should have expected more resistance. It worked in his favor that she seemed so attracted to him.
But he was sure it wasn’t just attraction. This girl was a natural. He’d had experienced subs who often broke out of their role. They would joke during serious times or act like a brat in public venues and sometimes couldn’t follow the simplest instructions without complaint. But Annette didn’t break because there was no joke. It wasn’t a game. She was his absolutely. And she knew it.
He’d somehow thought it would be harder to bring her to this place. Surely it should take more punishment, more wooing. More something. He’d forgotten how powerful helpless arousal was in breaking a girl. He’d been out of this game too long.
“Master?” Her voice was so quiet, he almost didn’t hear her.
“Yes, kiska?”
“Please will you let me come?”
He spun her to face him and raised her chin to force her eyes to his. “What did you think about while I was fucking you?”
“Your cock and pleasing you,” she said.
He searched for the lie, but he didn’t find it. “Good girl.”
Anton gripped the leash and led her back inside. He glanced at his watch. Only half an hour since he’d put the cream on her. Still a bit more time to play.
“Lie down on your stomach and spread your arms and legs out over your head like a big X.”
When she’d done as he requested he took a couple of spreader bars from the bed and cuffed her ankles in this spread-eagled position with one, and her wrists over her head in the same way with the other.
“Do you remember this from the party?” He showed her a thin steel toy.
She whimpered in response.
“Do you remember where it goes? Answer.”
“Y-yes, Master.”
He lubed the toy and slid it slowly into her ass. “Relax, pet. You have to surrender completely to it if you want it to feel good.”
She relaxed and after a few minutes she started to move with it.
“Good girl. Are you ready to come?”
“Yes, Master. Please.”
Anton took another toy from the bed. It was a metal ball about the size of his palm. He twisted it across a seam that ran through the middle, and the ball began to vibrate.
“Lift up.”
She lifted her hips slightly off the bed, and he placed the vibrating ball under her and between her legs. Then he went back to sliding the other toy in and out of her ass. She pressed harder against the ball, grinding into it.
“Please,” she whimpered. “Please please please.”
“All right. You’ve suffered long enough. Come for me.”
She let herself go then with a long, guttural moan, riding the vibrating ball until she couldn’t take any more pleasure. Anton took both toys away.
He watched as she lay on the bed, completely spent. “Are you hungry?” He almost always fed a sub after playing with her, particularly if it had been a while since she’d eaten. It seemed to help ground them and bring them back to the normal world—not that any part of Annette’s world was normal. It would be soon enough. Anything repeated enough times could become normal.
Even in his most intense 24/7 relationships, there had been many moments when he and his pet were just people, not defined by roles. That would never happen here. He made the law here, and he had all the power to enforce it. Yet even as he thought this, he knew deep down that if she obeyed him sweetly enough for a long enough time that she would have more power in his heart than she could ever know.
“Come with me.” He helped her up and led her on the chain to the door.
“What about clothes?”
“What about them? If I want you naked, you will be naked. There is no one in the house who hasn’t seen you already.”
It was a token protest at best—probably the last vestige of the classic female I don’t want to feel like a slut before capitulating to whatever he wanted. It seemed very important to women not to feel like sluts—maybe because they were afraid of being thrown away and abandoned. He wanted Annette to feel like whatever he told her to feel like. And slut was one of those things.
He tugged on the leash again, and she followed him without another complaint. He stopped in the kitchen. Phyllis was inside finishing a raspberry glaze on some pastry or another she’d been baking most of the afternoon.
“I need a submarine sandwich and a water in the game room.”
The older woman seemed like she would give a smart retort, but then she noticed Annette. She wasn’t able to cover the shock on her face at seeing his girl nude with a collar and a leash.
Phyllis turned back to him, glaring. “What do you want on it?”
“Load it up with everything. Mayo, Meats, cheeses, lettuce, tomato, onions, olives, everything we’ve got. The works. Do you like vinegar on your subs, pet?”
“Yes, Master.”
“And vinegar.” He’d asked that last part more to let Phyllis know it wasn’t for him in case she got some wild idea to spit in it or poison it.
Anton tugged the leash and led Annette down the hallway to the game room. Gabe sat in one of the chairs watching Brian, who sat on the couch playing a video game.
Brian wasn’t exactly playing according to the rules. He’d left normal game play and was just running people over with his car and then getting out and shooting them if they got up. Every cop in the game seemed to already be on his ass. By this point, there were three police helicopters and several tanks of military-garbed police shooting at Brian’s character.
“I’m in god mode,” Brian said to explain why he wasn’t dead yet. “Hang on. I’m gonna steal this guy’s tank and run him over with it. That’s right. Cry like a little bitch!”
Anton sat next to Brian on the sofa. “Kneel like I taught you, kiska,” he said.
He turned his attention back to Brian. “Do you want to race?”
“Same stakes?”
“Same stakes.”
They’d finished the first race when Phyllis walked in with Annette’s food. Brian slammed the one hundred dollar bill Anton had lost the last time back into his hand.
“Put it on the ground next to her,” Anton said.
Phyllis sat the plate and glass of water down on the ground. “You are a disgusting piece of shit for treating her this way. Do you know that?”
“Maybe we should strip you down and punish you?” Brian said.
Her bravery evaporated at the threat, and she rushed out of the room.
***
When Phyllis had gone, Annette picked up one half of the submarine sandwich and took a bite, grateful to have a distraction. She knew they weren’t really paying attention to her, but she still felt watched.
“How is it?” Anton asked.
“I’ve never had black olives on a sandwich before.”
“You’ve led a sheltered life. Do you like it?”
“Yes, Master.”
He stroked her hair.
“Another game?” Brian asked.
“No, I want to hang on to my money for a while.”
“We could play for something else.”
“Such as?”
“Her.”
Annette tensed. After the previous night, she realized that not only would Anton play with other women, but he seemed inclined to pass her around, at least in a limited capacity. Brian was certainly attractive, but there was something about him that just made her skin crawl. He was the kind of man she was sure nobody was safe with.
“You’re out of your mind,” Anton said. “No way in hell.”
“I mean just to fuck, not permanently. Trust me, I don’t want to have to deal with a slave permanently. Sounds like hell.”
“And if I win, what do I get?”
“Two hundred?”
“Not today. Maybe some other time.”
Brian shrugged and switched back to his previous game.
Anton reached down and took the other sandwich half off her plate and took a bite. “Not bad,” he said, returning the rest of it to her.
As Annette ate, she thought about her time upstairs with Anton. She was starting to wonder how much of this was about her sister and how much of it was about her. Oh, she wanted Janette safe and knew she had to keep Anton satisfied to do it, but why wasn’t this more of a trauma?
Because she was a fucking human. And he was rich and hot and was paying for all her sister’s expenses and sparing both their lives when he could have just killed them both to keep things neat and tidy. And that accent. How many women could realistically resist this? Why did she want to be such a fucking martyr all the time? What was the harm in just… falling? Especially when it wasn’t like there was any realistic way out anyway.
And besides, when she saw her sister—if she saw her sister—it would be so much easier if Janette could see she was really okay. If she’d already convinced herself, it would be that much easier to convince her sister.
She felt so ashamed. But it wasn’t shame over what Anton was doing to her as much as it was shame that she was going along with it so easily. Could she picture a reality where Janette hadn’t been a pawn and she’d do this? No. She could never have just abandoned her sister without any financial support to run off with some guy for kinky sex games.
And besides, she hadn’t thought she liked kinky sex games. She’d been sure this wasn’t her thing. It had all been a lie that night at the club… hadn’t it? But the more he touched her, and the more he commanded her, the more she just kind of … fell into it.
It seemed impossible to her that only a few nights ago Anton had asked what she would do when she started to crave this enslavement. No matter how beautiful he was, she was never going to crave being his property or toy. And yet, already… here she was… craving.
The door opened, and Lindsay walked in. He glanced briefly at Annette. “This much success already?”
“She’s a good girl,” Anton said. “Very little of it is my doing. You know my history with subs. I would have committed a felony a long time ago if I thought I’d get these results. So what about the girl?”
“I’m sending her to you at the spa. She’s passed my test. Let’s see if she passes yours.”
“What does she know?” Brian asked sounding much more tense than he had just moments ago.
“Almost nothing. I said I was sending her to a kinky friend of mine who would give her a massage she’d never forget if she was game. Anton can feel her out from there.”
Anton chuckled. “Yes, I can feel her out.”
When Annette had finished the sandwich, Anton took her plate and glass and got up. “Stay,” he said. “Gabe, I’ll be back in a few; you’re in charge.”
Almost the second the door had closed, Brian reached for her.
“Brian!” Gabe snapped.
“What? What will you do if I touch her?”
“Annette, come to me,” the blond said, ignoring the bait.
Annette crawled the few feet over to Gabe and knelt next to his chair.
“No, sit here with me,” he patted his lap.
When she sat, he pulled her closer and cuddled her against him, stroking her hair.
“You’ll spoil her,” Brian said. “Anton won’t like it.”
“He said I was in charge. I’m sure he’d rather I spoil her than you destroy her.”
Brian shrugged and went back to his game.
Gabe unhooked the leash from her collar and put it on the floor beside his chair.
“Yes. Well, I’m going to do some work in my office,” Lindsay said, excusing himself. Annette wasn’t sure what to make of the older man. He’d kept a polite distance from her since she’d been at the house.
At first she’d thought the blond would just hold her, but soon Gabe began to stroke first her breasts, then her belly. Annette’s breath caught as he nudged her legs apart and slipped fingers inside her. She moaned, her hips moving in rhythm with his fingers.
There was no arousal cream involved, but it didn’t matter.
“Please,” she whimpered, wishing he’d increase his pace and let her come.
Anton cleared his throat. She startled and looked up, but Gabe’s hand was still buried between her legs.
“This is what you do when you’re in charge?” Anton asked.
Gabe continued to stroke her, and she couldn’t help the way her body arched into his touch.
“Yeah,” Gabe said. Finally he withdrew his hand leaving her unsatisfied and frustrated.
Annette waited to see if she’d somehow be in trouble for this, but Anton made no further comment. Instead he placed a lingerie bag on the floor. She recognized it from the bedroom closet.
“Go put this on and bring us some coffee and some of those pastries Phyllis was icing,” Anton said.
“Yes, Master.”
She took the bag and left the game room. She scurried down the hallway to the spa and shut the door behind her. She was still excited from Gabe touching her. Annette shut and locked the door of one of the treatment rooms then she lay down on the massage table, spread her legs and stroked herself. She closed her eyes and thought about Gabe touching her and imagined Anton watching.
She bit back a moan and let out a long shuddering breath. She got off the table on shaky legs, feeling strangely guilty doing this in secret. Already this felt like something that should only happen if Anton allowed it.
Annette sat up and took a look around the room. It was a nice little room with light gray walls and a table full of candles. And a vase filled with flowers. She wondered who kept the flowers changed. She’d never noticed anyone doing that before, but it had to be one of the guys. None of them seemed the type to really be into plants.
Annette dumped the contents of the lingerie bag out on the massage table. Wow. Classy. It wasn’t at all what she’d expected. She’d expected some humiliating costume that revealed far more than it concealed, but instead, what she found was a long black satin nightgown with thin corded straps.
The gown fit like a glove and had high side slits on each side. There was also a pair of black heels.
She put the shoes on and tossed the bag in a garbage can at the edge of the room. On her way out, she stopped in front of a full length mirror.
“Wow,” she murmured. She’d never owned something this smooth and elegant before. She ran her hands over the soft slippery fabric. The thin leather collar somehow worked with it.
Annette knew a normal person would be horrified by all of this, but all she could do was stare at herself in the mirror, twisting this way and that. Some dark part of her thrilled at the idea of belonging to Anton.
Phyllis was cleaning up the kitchen when she walked in.
“Where are those pastries you were icing? Anton wants me to bring some and some coffee.”
The older woman motioned to a far counter where the pastries sat on a wire cooling rack. “Coffee isn’t made. It’ll take a few minutes.” Then she disappeared into a side pantry.
She reappeared a little while later with a rolling cart, a coffee pot, cups and saucers, and little plates to put the pastries on.
“Put the pastries on the plates, and I’ll make the coffee. Forks are in the drawer at the end of that counter.”
Annette went and got the pastries ready while Phyllis made coffee. She could tell the woman wanted to say something to her, but she kept her mouth shut. It was really starting to bug Annette.
“He’s not hurting me,” she heard herself say. Was that true? She wasn’t entirely sure.
“You tell yourself whatever you need to sleep at night,” Phyllis said.
Annette took the forks out of the drawer and slammed it. “So you would rather I be traumatized and crying myself to sleep? Isn’t it better that I’m not?”
“Coffee’s ready. I’m sure you know how to transfer it to the pot. I’m going to bed.” With that, Phyllis draped a towel over the counter and left Annette alone in the kitchen.
She tried not to let it bother her. The only other female in this place was impossible to get along with. It would have been nice to have somebody to talk to—maybe a friend or an ally, but it seemed Phyllis would never be any of those things. Annette found herself surprised the woman hadn’t poisoned them all already.