Chapter Eleven

 

Annette stretched and rolled over in bed. Sunlight was just beginning to come into the window. Somehow she’d settled into Anton’s twisted routine. It had been six weeks. A memory stole into her mind from early in their training.

“Each morning, you will wake me with a blow job. Then when you’ve finished with that, you will go downstairs and make my coffee. You’ll bring it up to me along with my paper. Then you’ll take a shower and put on the pineapple body cream and return to me for further training.”

Anton still slept beside to her. She’d thought when he’d first made this demand that he was kidding. And what about on days when he woke up first? But nope. He hadn’t been kidding, and the man could sleep through anything. Anything except her mouth on him.

She slipped back underneath the covers and ran first her fingers, then her tongue over the shaft of his cock. He shifted in sleep. She smiled to herself and tried again, taking him fully into her mouth this time.

He moaned in response, his hand straying under the blankets, to stroke her hair. “Morning, kiska. Did you sleep well?”

She crawled up his body and kissed the side of his throat. “Yes, Master.”

“Hey! Finish your job!”

She giggled, and moved the blankets out of their way and went back to work. His fingers threaded through her hair again, petting her as she sucked him. He groaned in pleasure every few moments, urging her on.

She’d gotten quite good at this.

She sucked harder, then pulled away to lick and tease and caress as goosebumps broke out over his thighs. She might belong to him every other moment of the day, but in the first few minutes, he belonged to her.

Annette went back to her earlier rhythm. It didn’t take long for him to come.

“I think that’s my record,” she said.

“You are far too satisfied with yourself, pet. I should wipe that smirk off your face.”

“Promise?”

He smacked her across the ass. “Go. Be a good girl.”

She got up and put on a robe and went downstairs to make his coffee, humming to herself.

Phyllis was already in the kitchen making biscuits and gravy. “Why are you so perky? Is slavery still everything you thought it would be?”

Annette shot her a dirty look and went to get the cart and the morning paper. If she acted like anything but a beaten dog, Phyllis started in on her. Why shouldn’t she enjoy the beautiful man upstairs in bed? He’d been kind to her. The pleasure was off the charts. She thought she might be starting to fall in love with him, even. But she would never say it. She was still too afraid if she did, it would all somehow disappear.

She put the coffee and a cup and saucer on the cart, grabbed a pastry Phyllis had already made off the counter for herself, and went to the elevator.

When she returned, Anton was still in bed, reading email on his laptop. She loved when he wore those glasses. She rolled the cart over, poured his coffee, and placed it on the bedside table next to him along with his paper.

He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Good girl.”

She felt the flush move up her body and into her face before she looked away. She’d become such a girl with him. Every time he touched her now, it sent a flutter of pleasure through her stomach. Even when it wasn’t sexual. Sometimes especially when it wasn’t sexual. These small tender moments were the thing that had changed everything.

It was no longer some contractual obligation to keep her sister alive.

He turned back to his email and she crossed to the bathroom. Sometimes he joined her in the shower, but this morning it seemed he had things to deal with on the computer. She hated when he was in work mode. She could tell by his focus that they wouldn’t be able to play until the evening when he got home.

Still, when she got out of the shower, she put the edible pineapple body cream on. She wouldn’t break his rules just because he wouldn’t have time to lick it off her. And anyway, she loved the smell of it. It made her feel like she was on a tropical vacation. It was sometimes hard not to think of the house as some grand resort.

She went to her spot in the room near the chair he often sat in and knelt on the floor, legs spread, eyes cast down… waiting, hoping he had a few minutes for her before work.

She heard the laptop snap shut. Then he was up and crossing the floor. He went into the bathroom and shut the door. Minutes later, the shower came on. The first week with him had been amazing. They’d spent every moment together until all her fears had melted away. But now he was back to the normal routine. It sucked.

Annette heard the shower cut off. Several more minutes passed. Then the door opened. He crossed to the walk-in closet. More time. More waiting for him to come touch her. Finally he came out, dressed in a pair of dark casual pants and a black T-shirt for the spa.

He put his laptop and glasses in his laptop case. Finally, he came over to her. Annette’s breath caught in her throat at his nearness.

He took her hands and pulled her to stand, holding her close. He whispered in her ear, “We’ll play later, kiska. I’m sorry I have a busy day today.”

Even so, he pressed a kiss against her throat, and then another on her lips, and others trailing across her collar bone. Then he paused to take each nipple into his mouth one at a time, tasting the pineapple cream. “You taste delicious,” he said. “Be good, today.”

“Always,” she said.

He winked at her, then turned and left the room.

 

 

***

 

Annette sat in a lounger beside the pool with a wide-brimmed hat shading her face still wishing he’d had more time for her this morning. She’d had very little time to angst about how wrong any of this was. And in a way, she was just grateful that once they’d settled in, Anton had turned out to be the fantasy. Every woman’s fantasy. Rich. Hot. Intelligent. Powerful. Decent. In his way.

Annette had been sure in those first few tumultuous days that he would end up some abusive monster. But it hadn’t turned out that way. They’d somehow bonded, and he’d kept her in such a frenzied aroused state and given her so much physical pleasure that it was increasingly hard to see any of this as some great sacrifice anymore.

The evil arousal cream was part of the daily ritual more than once per day. She should hate it, but she loved it. She loved the loss of control and that she couldn’t really blame herself for how shameless she was when under its spell. She was helpless to resist it or anything her master demanded of her during that time. It made things easier. It kept her from fucking up something that was bizarrely somehow working.

Though if she were a bit more honest with herself, she might admit that she also felt these things when there was no arousal cream in play. She’d often catch herself having lunch in the cafeteria, and Anton would come into the room. He’d catch her eye, and she would immediately blush and look down at her plate. She’d get a nervous flutter in her stomach which was now almost a constant companion whenever he was near, and then the excitement would push further, between her legs, and all she wanted was for him to touch her.

By the end of the first week, she’d given up all pretense of lying to herself—that she was some hostage. Maybe in the strictest sense, but by that point, she’d already stopped believing Anton would ever hurt her or her sister. If she somehow managed to get away from him, she didn’t believe he’d kill her, or even that he would send Brian to do it.

But she didn’t want to get away from him. It was a secret she held ever closer to her because she didn’t want him to know how much power he had over even her mind at this point.

He hadn’t been lying when he said he could take excellent care of her. She’d been eating so well that it took hours in the fitness room per week to stay in shape. Every need she had: material, sexual, emotional… he met them.

After a time, it began to feel that the trade was no longer her enslavement for her sister’s life and freedom, but her absolute obedience in exchange for all that Anton gave her, which made it worth doing. She often had moments where she forgot this had all started in a much less fairy tale place.

In their quieter moments, when her master would lie in bed with his laptop and reading glasses and she’d snuggle against him, there was a peaceful coexistence between them that she couldn’t explain with words. It was a visceral contentment.

She had begun to feel a sort of compulsive pathological need to please him. She’d started to care about his opinion of her. When he wasn’t at the spa working, she’d taken to making food for him instead of Phyllis. Annette wanted to be the one to cook things or make the sandwiches. She wanted to be something more to him than just sex. And she took care of not just her laundry, but his as well. She couldn’t do the dry cleaning, of course, but everything else.

She’d seen her sister several times in the intervening weeks. The first time, Janette had flung herself into her arms and cried for fifteen minutes straight. Despite daily phone calls, Annette hadn’t fully realized just how hard it must be for her sister to not see her and know she was fine. At that first meeting, she’d felt guilty that she hadn’t begged to see her sister sooner.

She just hadn’t wanted to push him.

But once Janette had settled down and gotten a good look at her and had a long talk with her, she’d finally become convinced Annette was okay. Since then she hadn’t had to worry too much about her sister. She could, instead, focus on the new reality that was her life with Anton.

He’d also taken her out of the house. By the third week, he’d thought she was ready for the ballet again. The after party had actually been fun, and she’d gotten to play with Katya, which she was surprised to find she looked forward to.

Now the house was changing significantly. For the first time, there were other girls here. Ten of them, in fact—all between nineteen and twenty-three. Anton had brought in a couple of other guys to help with training and a few guards.

The house had become a well-oiled machine. Phyllis handled the kitchen. The girls cleaned up after themselves, did their own laundry, kept their rooms clean. All the girls, including Annette, were on rotation for other chores. The trainers and guards were on the rotation as well. A lot of deliveries came to the house, but they always got delivered to a secondary location where the guys picked them up and brought them back in a large white van Brian had purchased.

Annette had gotten to know a few of the girls quite intimately and considered some of them friends, including a new girl she’d just met named Shannon.

Anton had kept Annette nude a lot at the house in the beginning, but once the other girls started arriving, he’d stopped. He’d said she was above those girls, and he wouldn’t humiliate her in front of them. From that point on, she got to dress like a regular person outside of designated play areas.

She jumped at the sound of glass touching glass on the table next to her and looked over to find Shannon had brought her lunch outside—some sort of sandwich and a lemonade.

“Where were you?” Shannon asked, taking the chair a couple of feet away. She’d been at the house for three days now, and already she was like a fish in water. This girl had clearly known who she was and what she wanted.

“I was just thinking,” Annette said.

“You’re lucky you belong to Anton. I really hope I end up with someone like that.”

Annette laughed. “Which part? The accent? The hotness?”

Obviously, whoever bought Shannon would have to have wealth. It was kind of the whole deal of this place. But he could still be some evil troll. Anton had reassured her the partners had a system in place to screen buyers for both security concerns for the house as well as safety concerns for the girls. Annette still worried about it, but it wasn’t like it was something she could control, so she mostly ignored it. There was no benefit to rocking the boat.

“Nah, just… the way he is with you,” Shannon said.

When the guys had started bringing girls here, Annette had been sure she wouldn’t be able to handle it. Not because Anton might show them attention—she’d moved past that—but because she thought they would be terrified victims. But that wasn’t what had happened. The girls here knew why they were here; they were total pervs and completely into it.

It was actually nice having female companions who didn’t judge her. She could barely stand the judgment she still felt from Phyllis. When the older woman had thought her a helpless prisoner, she’d had pity for her, but now it was just a barely veiled contempt. Annette was tempted to be catty and think Phyllis was jealous, but she was just different. It wouldn’t have mattered if the former realtor was twenty and gorgeous; she was the type of person Annette had been trying to convince herself she was.

It had taken the contrast of Phyllis to fully understand that lack of experience in kink wasn’t the same thing as lack of a kink.

Annette glanced over at Shannon’s sandwich again. “God, I’m fucking hungry.”

As if by magic, Gabe showed up with a plate of food and a lemonade and put it on the table beside her.

“Anton is coming home early. He wanted to make sure you’d had lunch,” Gabe said.

Annette tried not to ogle him. But he made it impossible not to. He was sporting reflective sunglasses that she could see herself in—not that she would bother looking at herself when she could look at him. He had a perfect golden tan and wore a pair of off-white swim trunks that only made the tan seem darker. His hair had become even more streaked by the sun.

She thought she might be falling in love with Anton, but it didn’t mean she was immune to other eye candy. All the guys at the house were incredibly good looking. Even Lindsay, despite being a bit older, was fit and had a certain kind of power that older, more confident wealthy men often had—men who had settled into their power and money and wore it like a finely tailored suit without apology.

Gabe had already turned around and wandered off to tease a couple of girls in the pool. Annette lowered her sunglasses slightly to ogle for another minute or so.

Shannon laughed. “Have you slept with him?”

“Who, Gabe? Only under direct supervision from my master.”

“He doesn’t let you out of his sight?”

Annette turned back to Shannon, a suspicion forming in her mind. She didn’t yet know Shannon well enough to know much of anything about her except that she’d enjoyed the other girl’s company in the short time she’d been at the house.

“What do you mean?” Annette asked.

“Nothing,” Shannon said, suddenly flustered.

Annette was sure she knew what Shannon was getting at, but was just too shy to say it. “Anton lets me play with other girls without him here, though he really, really likes to watch.”

Shannon blushed. “I think I’m going to get in the pool. Come with me?”

“Let me eat first, then I will.”

Shannon nodded and got up.

“You’d better take your plate and glass back to the kitchen. They don’t like it if you don’t clean up after yourself,” Annette said.

When Shannon had gone, Annette focused on her own lunch. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t eaten yet. It was pretty rare for her not to obey the call of the kitchen.

Gabe had brought her a hot grilled sandwich with turkey and artichoke and spinach and tomatoes and some sort of dressing that Phyllis had made. Beside the sandwich was an apple that Annette knew had come off an apple tree on the property.

She finished her lunch and took the plate and glass back in to the kitchen.

“How’s your fantasy enslavement?” Phyllis said with some derision when Annette set the plate and glass in the sink.

Annette had had about enough of this shit. She turned an icy glare on the other woman. “Look. I’m the queen bee around here. You know it, and I know it. Anton has become quite attached to me. If I told him the way you’re treating me, I’m sure there would be consequences, so why don’t you back off?”

Phyllis snorted. “Sure. Queen bee. Such a stately position on your knees.” But despite the bravado, there was a touch of fear in her eyes.

It felt good to finally confront the other woman. The judgmental looks and snide comments had gotten old three weeks ago.

“Keep pushing,” Annette said. “We don’t have to be enemies, but we could be. You aren’t my only source of conversation in this house.”

She didn’t wait for a reply; instead, she went back outside to join Shannon in the pool.

When she got out there, an argument was in full swing between Brian and Shannon.

Shit. She tried to think if anyone had bothered to warn Shannon about Brian—that Brian was different. Of course no one had. The house had been too busy. Some of the guys put up with a little attitude as long as it was very limited. Not Brian.

Annette had noticed a trend in the girls. Even though they didn’t act like traumatized hostages, they very often pushed buttons in their early days—like they were trying to feel out the boundaries to see what they could get away with. It almost seemed like they were testing the bars of their cage to make sure it was solid.

One would think that upon learning that, yes, the bars were in fact solid, and there was no getting out that they’d panic and freak out and start crying or spiraling into depression, but without exception, they’d each become more serene in the face of confirmation of their lack of power.

It was kind of nutty. Yet, at the same time, even with her own more fucked-up story, she understood. When Anton had made all the rules firm and rewards for obedience and punishments for disobedience, there had been a sort of comfort in knowing there was real consistency in his behavior. He wasn’t actually some abusive nutjob who would turn on you in a blink. She’d found herself feeling safe inside his twisted system of rules and protocols.

And now, Shannon seemed to be having her run at this behavior. Except nobody bothered to tell Shannon that if she absolutely felt she must try this shit, that it needed to be with Gabe or Anton or Lindsay. Or one of the new trainers. Never ever with Brian.

But it was too late, now. Annette hadn’t even caught any of the content of the conversation, just the anger.

Annette’s heart began to pound in her chest as she noticed the terrifying darkness that fell over Brian’s features.

“Get out of the pool, now!” Brian barked.

“Please go easy on her. She’s new,” Annette heard herself say. She couldn’t believe she’d had the bravery to say those words. There might be a tenuous understanding between Anton and Brian about Annette’s place in the house, but she knew if she pushed him, he would hurt her.

Brian rounded on Annette, the full force of the swirling black evil of his eyes boring holes into her soul. “Did I say you could speak to me, slut?”

She took a step back. “N-no, Sir.”

Brian looked back at Shannon in the pool. “GET OUT NOW!”

There were four other people in the pool. They’d all moved to the edges as if hoping they’d fade just enough out of his line of sight to become invisible to him.

Annette wasn’t sure what was wrong with Shannon’s survival instincts, but unbelievably, the girl said, “Fuck you.”

Annette had had less fear for her sister’s life than she had for Shannon’s at this moment. Because despite the dangers Janette had faced, her sister hadn’t awakened whatever sick fucking thing lived just under the surface of Brian.

Annette thought of him as the soulless one. And she was sure she meant this descriptor quite literally. Thinking back on her first punishment in the house when she hadn’t known if Anton was any safer than Brian, she now knew beyond any doubt that he was because if she begged him, Anton might show her mercy. Brian could only be moved to stop by a threat from Anton.

Things were escalating, and the other guys were nowhere in sight. Though none of them but Anton had committed to protecting any of the girls from Brian. And Anton only seemed interested in protecting her.

She thought about trying to beg him again, but he’d probably push her into the pool and then go for Shannon anyway. She stood frozen as Brian calmly took off his socks and shoes, and then he went into the water after her. By this point Shannon seemed actually afraid of him. Too bad that instinct hadn’t kicked in before whatever had happened.

“Apologize. Beg him!” Annette said, cringing at how shrill and terrified she sounded.

Finally, whatever weird pride Shannon had, had finally vanished as she found herself backed to one corner of the pool. By this point everyone else had gotten out and was huddled shivering in the shade near the door. They were far enough away so they could flee and hide in their rooms but close enough they could keep watching this train wreck unfold.

“Please, Sir, I’m sorry.”

He laughed. “You should have tried this shit with Gabe. He would have punished you, but I will destroy you.”

He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the pool kicking and screaming, then he swept her up into his arms and carried her into the house. Annette followed. She ran into Gabe in the hallway.

“Stop him!” she said.

Brian heard and called out over his shoulder, “Oh, you’re on my list next,” he said to Annette. “I’ve known Anton a lot longer than you have. Don’t be too sure he’ll protect you.”

Gabe stared after Brian and Shannon as he disappeared around a corner heading toward the dungeons.

“Well? Aren’t you going to do anything?”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know exactly. I just know there was an argument.”

One of the other girls came out of the shadows, wrapped in a towel from the pool. “Shannon smarted off to him. It seemed like he was flirting with her or something, which was weird. But then… I don’t really know... it happened fast.”

Gabe followed after Brian and Shannon down the stairs. Annette followed Gabe. By the time they’d gotten downstairs, Brian was already in a cell binding a sobbing Shannon to a St. Andrew’s Cross.

“I think you should calm down,” Gabe said. “Punish her later when you’re calm.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you think. Cigarette. Where’s my cigarette?”

“You don’t smoke,” Gabe said, bewildered.

Brian had lost his mind. It seemed like he wasn’t even fully aware they were there anymore. But then he seemed to notice them again. “OUT!”

Annette didn’t have to be told twice. She scrambled out. Then Brian forced Gabe out and locked the cell door.

“I’m getting another key,” Gabe said.

Brian laughed and held up a large jingling key ring. “Nope. I have all the keys. Shannon’s a bad girl. I’m going to fix her.”