Maia was overwhelmed, Anders thought. Like a nervous dog made fearful by a crowd of visitors, too many feet going in all directions; afraid of being stepped on. But also like a well-disciplined animal that obeys its conditioning. Was the rapid breathing due to anxiety or the tight corset?
Though her hands shook, she served smoothly and well: taking jackets, bringing drinks, kneeling at attention when not required. He glanced at the small figure in her place by the wall, bars of afternoon sunlight turning her skin to honey. She was listening to the impenetrable flood of Danish, alert for an English command.
‘So on Monday we’ll start out for the festival in Halifax, and see if Ria wins a prize.’ Karl hugged Ria to him fondly, not that they’d had any space between them before. They were obviously still making up for past deprivation, and looking rather smug and pleased with themselves. ‘What do you think, three days driving? Four if we stop to look at scenery?”
“Please, darling, no side trips,’ said Ria. ‘We can do that on the way back. I must meet with Biruta and others before the festival.’ She turned to Anders and Svend. ‘They were crazy about Woman Fish. I think it might be picked up by Doctober, and Amsterdam is taking it for sure. Two of the captains I filmed are going to sail into Amsterdam for it; they are asking whether they should pretty themselves up or go in oilskins.’
Ria had a new colour scheme since the last time Anders had seen her; hair blue-black, a dramatic look against white skin, and eyes a startling and artificial green. He saw his slave blink, startled, as a wineglass passed from her fingers to Ria’s.
Karl, who looked just as gaunt as usual, but happier, nodded at Ria’s glass. ‘Your own vintage?’ He and Svend were sticking to beer.
Anders was amused. ‘From that little arbour? No. In fact they were table grapes, and sour at that. I threw a few into my stewed pork, but they were hardly worth the trouble. I probably pruned the vines too late.’ He looked at the bags by Ria’s side. ‘Did you enjoy your downtown walk?’
‘Some good shops,’ said Ria. ‘I’d been looking forward to Northbound; not bad.’ She held up a thin, slinky leather dress, waved a flogger. ‘But it’s very dirty, your city.’
‘Yonge Street is rather grim,’ Karl agreed, frowning. ‘And so many begging. I was expecting it to be better than Chicago but it is not. I don’t understand how it’s permitted, to leave people on the street in this way, in such a wealthy country.’
‘Complacency,’ Svend said. ‘No one sees what they don’t want to see.’
‘People see plenty,’ his brother objected. ‘It’s failure and lack of impetus at the government level. Poverty has to be dealt with systemically –
a national strategy – look at what Ireland did – .’ This was an old argument.
Svend shook his head. ‘You can kiss any real national strategy goodbye.
Look how many benefit from the status quo – .’
‘Why do you not have the votes to put the left wing into office? There is responsibility at all levels here, not just at the top,’ Karl said.
When they had gone round the bases, Anders caught Ria up on the local housing issues. The others, knowing the topic all too well, took themselves off into the kitchen for more beer.
‘Practically no funding to build anything,’ he said. ‘There were some hopeful messages in November, but it’s come to nothing. Sixty-seven thousand families on the waiting list for lowincome housing. The money’s been legislated but it’s never actually allocated.”
“You think it is hopeless, then?’ said Ria.
‘Possibly.’ Anders felt the usual grinding frustration in his chest, now reaching into his gut, transforming into something he could hardly stand to recognize: failure.
‘Well, you must fight. All your groups must fight. Get together and keep up the pressure. Do you lead this kind of thing? You’d be good at it.
You speak so clearly, and that deep voice carries conviction.’
He laughed. ‘Good at it? I can’t stand it being around it. Coalitions, rallies, speeches? Committee meetings, ye gods! Give me something to build with my hands and I’ll build it. All the political manoeuvring is beyond my patience.’
‘So, what then? You wait for others and get nowhere?’ She looked at him with slender brows furrowed.
Russ, Beemer, Jo-Jo, still on the street. Wendy, Keswick, Ti-Jean.
Anders took a deep breath. ‘I do what I can for people, Ria.’
‘Individuals, you mean? A one-man charity concern?’
His lips tightened. ‘No. There are community workers and so on.
Volunteers, others. If I help anyone it’s not in isolation.’
Svend called from the kitchen, ‘Ria, tell him he should be offering beds himself; he has plenty of room.’
Anders’ smile was pained; he shook his head.
His brother came in and sat down. ‘Good thing he’s got a secret life to protect, or he’d be running a hostel here for sure.’
Ria laughed. ‘I would understand that. It is very hard to pass those faces. I have supplied myself with – what are they called again?’ She reached into her purse.
Karl, settling next to her with his beer, glanced and smiled. ‘Loonies and toonies, I believe.’
‘Yes, why on earth? Explain, please.’
Svend pointed out the loon on the dollar coin. ‘It would have been much cooler to call the two dollar coin the doubloon, but toonie is what caught on.’
Anders noticed the flicker on Maia’s face; she had caught the familiar words in the sea of Danish. He sensed her, neglected in her corner, shifting imperceptibly from knee to knee, held a hand out to her and clicked his tongue. She crawled rapidly to his side and settled on her heels where he placed her, snug against his leg. The others eyed her with some expectation, but he just gripped the hair at the base of her neck and went back to the subject at hand.
‘A dollar here and there – we’re left with no choice, but what does it solve? But if you give one person enough help to get back on their feet; at least one life is improved.’
‘No, look, charity is only dragging out the agony,’ Karl objected. ‘The more the reliance on voluntary handouts, the less responsibility your government has to take.’
Ria made a face. ‘You may be right, but these are human beings, and they are miserable; it is wrong to pass them by.’
‘You talked about public responsibility, Karl,’ said Anders. ‘That’s the level it’s at. There’s a program now to get individuals back into the system and housed one by one, which has the kind of benefits I mentioned. Helping individuals is important. But they’ve only got existing housing stock to place people in, and for low income that stock is appalling. The underlying causes – you have to understand the careful manipulation behind the public attitudes that prevent any kind of focused effort to address poverty – Ria, do you need more wine?’
His slave was quickly up and serving. Ria, holding up her wineglass, wrapped the other hand around the breast of the leaning figure. The bottleneck rang very slightly on the rim of the glass, but nothing spilled.
Maia froze; only her hand moved, bringing the bottle upright.
The seated woman sipped, her fingertips stroking the flesh pressed high by the corset. ‘Pretty,’ she commented. She set her wine down, felt over the corset, turned the girl and looked over the locking arrangement at the back.
In English she said, ‘This slave must have naughty fingers, with so many locks needed.’
The frozen quality persisted in Maia’s face and neck. A long slender hand, with fingernails a green to match the eyes, was now lightly pinching a buttock. Anders could see thigh muscles outlined that were normally only visible when the girl was exercised. She gave him a haunted look, which was also an instinctive check for any sign from him, then turned obediently enough, and spread her legs for an examination of the belt.
‘Fine quality,’ Ria commented. ‘Go stand there, girl.’ She pointed at a spot a few feet away. ‘She stands well, but why barefoot? Heels would be a great improvement, no?’ she said to Karl, still in English.
‘Absolutely. And some strong makeup. Even a mask. Here is a little girl showing rather too much emotion.’
‘Oh, please,’ said Anders, ‘not one of those kinky display mannequins.
One just like another. What is this fetish for soulless fashion models in inch-thick makeup?’
Svend laughed. ‘My brother’s fetishes are of course superior.’
Anders smiled. ‘Naturally. But look, what’s the fun of forcing the body to do my bidding if I can’t watch what it does to the soul?’
‘The point is objectification, obviously,’ said Karl. ‘But of course if you prefer it otherwise….’
‘And I hate heels.’
‘But those legs, if she was up on her toes…’
‘She’s up on her toes often enough. Look at those beautiful feet. Do you know what the toes would look like in a month if they were shoved into high heels?’
‘Il faut souffrir pour être beau,’ smiled Ria.
‘Oh, she knows that. Don’t you, girl?’
‘Yes, master,’ Maia whispered.
‘Come here,’ Karl said. ‘Do you suffer for that tiny waist?’ He braced his long hands around it, fingertips just touching.
‘Not much – any more – ‘ She hesitated.
‘Sir.’
‘Not much now, sir. It was hard at first.’
‘I see. And in this belt do you suffer?’
Anders watched her eyes flicker; a just-perceptible cringe. But the rigidity had passed from her muscles. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, in a voice coming muted from back in her throat somewhere.
‘How long is it since you have been allowed to orgasm?’
A shamefaced glance at Anders. ‘Not since Christmas, sir.’
‘My, my. What a little sufferer you must be.’ Karl took hold of her nipples in front of the rings, and rolled and twisted, watching her face. ‘And why are you not allowed; are you being punished?’
Her slightly creaky voice responded, ‘No, sir, I don’t think so. My – my master likes me better this way.’
‘What way?’ He squeezed harder, and her eyes lost their focus.
‘Ah – always aroused, sir. He says it – improves me.’
‘Oh, yes? How?’
The dark eyes glistened with unshed tears. Karl’s fingers gave a little yank, and she bit her lip and said, in a throaty voice, ‘I’m a – I’m a juicier product, sir.’ Her face was a study in humiliation and arousal.
‘See what I mean?’ Anders asked. ‘Still want to cover that up with a mask?’
‘I admit it is lovely.’ Karl released the nipples. ‘Very personal and rather amateur, if you don’t mind my saying so. 24/7 slaves usually show more self-control. But it is all a matter of taste.’ He turned Maia around and began to go over the marks on her ass and thighs. ‘These are good. Did you use a crop?’
‘Dog whip. Amateur is right, my friend, at least in one sense. You’re handling something I developed for my own personal enjoyment, not some staged bondage circus.’
Karl smiled, unoffended. ‘I am forgetting how private you two have been.’ He said over his shoulder to Ria. ‘No clubs at all, no play parties, nothing.’
‘No wonder she is so nervous; not enough experience with public display.’ Ria ran an assessing eye over the slave. ‘Don’t you want to show her off? Even a little affligée, she appears well-trained and very pretty.’
‘I’m doing that now. Select audience.’
‘Ah.’
‘Come here, girl.’
Maia stepped lightly to Anders and knelt down at his side. He could feel her trembling against him. Neck and shoulders shuddered and relaxed beneath his touch, while the rest of her stayed as still as discipline required.
Even the out-thrust breasts barely quivered.
Ria looked at the warm and intimate embrace of hand and collared neck, and smiled a little. ‘Well. A happy household, I think, however Anders likes to arrange it. Are you going to show us your dungeon?’
His mouth twitched. ‘Pick a room.’
‘I thought so,’ said Karl. ‘Your track lighting is suggestive.’
These experts perused, examined the paraphernalia with all its trappings and trimmings, appreciated the arrangements, tried out the appurtenances of the house. They left Maia kneeling in corners until wanted, then firmly applied bridles and blows before dismissing her into corners again.
Ria spent a while perusing the cabinet with all the jewellery. Then she turned, holding the nipple stretchers. In the time it took to reach the beckoning hand, the girl had gone completely scarlet. Ria clipped the thrust-out, barbaric points to a twin leash, and when the tour continued she held onto it. Anders saw with some surprise that his slave got subtly out of step more than once, and suffered the consequences. This was revealing; by this time Maia knew very well how to make her body obey minutely, whatever she was feeling.
They all headed for the stairs. Karl and Ria were off to meet with a sleep researcher that Karl had been corresponding with. Svend had things to do. Maia got it right this time, matching steps with care. Anders took the leash at the bottom of the stairs, and helped Ria into her jacket. ‘See you later, everyone. Dinner at seven.’
The door closed. Suddenly there was silence. Two of them alone again in the soundproof house.
Anders turned to the small creature beside him. ‘All right, slave. Come here.’ He drew her over to the couch and set her on her knees facing him.
‘What is it?’
She looked at him apprehensively. ‘Master?’
‘You tighten up every time Ria touches you. And you were actually resisting the leash. You know better than that. What’s going on?’
The small body drew itself in a little. ‘I’m sorry, master. I’m not sure ….
I just don’t – I mean my body, it doesn’t – seem to – want – ‘
‘Want what?’
‘Want her to – to tell me what to do.’
Her and Val, too. He nodded, not unduly surprised, and said, ‘Go on.’
She was struggling to articulate something. Finally there was a tiny, resentful shrug. ‘Women are always – bossing me,’ she muttered.
‘What?’ he laughed incredulously. ‘And that bothers you?’ He looked more closely at her face. ‘It does.’
She nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Oh,’ she sighed. ‘It’ll sound – stupid.’ She paused and shifted her weight back and forth, just once. ‘My sister was always telling me what to do. My mom, too. They kept pushing me to be – well, like them, you know what I mean. But I wasn’t mouthy and assertive enough. Or at all. Never came close to their standards. I couldn’t fight them so I just – hid. As much as I could.”
“Shadow.’
A faint smile. ‘Yes.’
Anders ran his eyes over the tense lines of her face. ‘I’m forcing you into the light now, aren’t I?’
She shivered and nodded, shoulders hunched.
‘And it’s still going on? At work, maybe?’
She shook her head. ‘Not so much at work; I’m mostly on my own there. But teachers used to push me. Friends sometimes. Nikki. Val – you said yourself, dependency annoys her. And look at Pam! Everyone telling me I should be something I’m not.’
‘You do attract that sort of thing. Just from women, though? I take it men appreciate you more.’
‘I guess. Not my dad, obviously; he still seems to think I’m destined to be some corporate information management exec in a power suit. Though apart from that he tends to take me at face value. Characterological study isn’t his strong suit.’
‘So, your dad aside – ?’
‘Men – don’t seem as – critical of me.’
He smiled. ‘No, probably not. But women are, are they? And you actually get resentful and evasive and dig in your heels?’
‘They’ve got no right! – ‘ she blurted out, then stopped dead. ‘I’m sorry, master. They do if you say so.’
‘That’s right; they do. And you know that.’ He jingled her chain a little, thoughtfully. ‘Val and Ria both know what you are, Maia. And they enjoy it.
I hardly think they want you to be more assertive.’
She bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry, master. I’m just – expecting judgment, I guess.’ Her face took on a dejected look. ‘Critical looks, their voices – well, whatever sullen brat I’ve got, that fetches it.’
Anders’ eyes ran along the lines of her brow and jaw. He took her by the chin and searched her eyes, which attempted to evade his and then gave up and gazed back. He sat back. ‘Maia, I don’t know anyone who needs to obey as much as you do. If I give them the power, why doesn’t their power work on you?’
‘Because – I don’t know. They’re not – big enough. Or strong enough.’
She frowned, shook her head and gestured with her hands as if to negate the words. Then the hands reversed themselves; she took a deep breath and went on. ‘Their arms are too small. Their hips are too wide. They smell wrong.’
She looked up at him, and her oppressed expression softened; a smile pulled at one corner of her mouth in response to his amused face.
‘You flaming heterosexual, you.”
“Yes, master. ‘Fraid so.’
He pulled her by the head between his knees, and let her snuggle against his belly, stroking her hair.
‘It makes no difference, you know. Whether you like it or not.’
‘I know, master.’
‘It’s amusing either way.’ He tipped her head back and looked down into her face. ‘As long as you do exactly as you’re told.’
‘Yes, master.’
He snuggled her face back against him, and settled back. ‘I imagine you’ll get used to it. Or not. Doesn’t matter.’
She relaxed against him. ‘As long as it – pleases you, master.’
‘Indeed. I need to be a good host; it’s a Nordic tradition. All those long cold winters. You don’t stint your guests.’ She looked up into his twinkling eyes, and he stroked her hair back.
‘Best quality bed, board, story and song. All the facilities of the house.
So make sure you come up to standard.’
She promised to try her hardest, then said, ‘Master?’
‘Yes?’
‘Nikki – Nikki’s mad at me, I think.’
‘Why?’
She detailed their conversation. ‘She sounded – really annoyed. At me.
She’s been – you know, frustrated, but never – angry.’
‘Mm. Maybe she’s been attracted to you and was pissed off that you weren’t going to reciprocate.’
‘Oh, lord. Do you think so?’
‘Or did she think your little rebellion was directed at her? She’s been pretty directive with you, or tried to be.’
Maia thought back. ‘Could be.’
Anders ran his eyes over the hunched shoulders. ‘You’ve made someone angry. A friend.’
She lowered her head. ‘You’re feeling bad about it, aren’t you?’
She nodded.
‘And it took you, let’s see, about ten days to tell me this.’
She flinched and tried to recoil within herself, like a turtle in retreat.
The thrusting breasts and nipples made this self-protective impulse an absurdity.
‘Yes, master,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry. If I’d told you, I would have had to explain what it was about, and – it would have sounded like –
complaining.’
‘Telling me how you feel is not complaining. We’ve been over that.
That’s not the point. The point is that you needed punishment and didn’t tell me so.’
He observed her cringing attempts at apology and considered. Already she was somewhat marked, and more was to come by evening. Not a beating this time.
‘All right,’ he said, fingers deftly removing the nipple stretchers and their leash along with them. ‘Bad girl box for you. Somewhere to think about lies of omission, and deceit, and to try to remember what’s expected of you. And the branks. We’ll teach that tongue to behave.’
***
Cold concrete beneath me, heavy head drooping, I sat in an enclosure less than half the size of my cage. Anders had created this little lock-up in the basement, with steel where there wasn’t concrete. I’d only been in there twice before, but then it hadn’t been in existence very long.
My head was caged in Anders’ version of a scold’s bridle, and nodded under its several pounds in weight. The thing fitted me exactly. It wasn’t quite the torture device of the branks of old; the intrusions that forced my mouth open were padded, one on either side. Another, dead centre, clamped my tongue.
Having my head locked up in metal wasn’t so much more difficult than the leather bridles I wore almost daily. But that tongue clamp was truly unpleasant. It wasn’t painful – not much, anyway – but my god! I hated it.
Anders had modified and adjusted and readjusted it in the course of manufacture, to ensure that my tongue would have no hope of wriggling free. The top part of the clamp went way deep and on either side, pressing tightly. The whole thing was so snugly fitted that even if my hands had been available and not locked behind me, I wouldn’t have been able to get the slightest relief. In fact, I had done chores locked in the branks; not fun. In my one visit to the Science Centre years before, I’d seen a bizarre plaster statue depicting the human body as it would look if each body part was proportional to the number of its nerve endings. The tongue had been huge, of course, protruding from its mouth, too large to be contained. That was my body in the branks.
My master had snapped the two thick padlocks and looked me over carefully, pinched the end of my trapped tongue and grinned.
‘Comfortable?’
I shook my heavy head.
‘Good. Safe?’
Reluctantly I nodded.
‘Fine.’ Down the stairs we went. His grip on my arm didn’t change as he bent to unbolt the metal door, didn’t relax until he’d pushed me down and in, firmly tucking in stray shoulders and knees, like a Tokyo subway pusher minus the white gloves. ‘Now. You think about how you’re going to be a better girl. And incidentally, how not to annoy the ladies.’ Then he’d shut the heavy door on me and shot the bolt.
The darkness was relieved only by thin glowing lines at the door vents, which went a faint grey almost immediately. He’d turned the basement lights off. Cold sheet metal pressed against my arms. The concrete felt dank and chill beneath my ass. My tongue tried in vain to wriggle in its prison. I groaned.
I’m not at all claustrophobic, quite the contrary. More of a claustrophiliac, if there is such a thing. I knew my master wasn’t far away; that this discomfort would end eventually, that I was safe. I knew I deserved to be punished. I’d endure it all right. When you have no choice, endurance is what you do. And I’ve never been scared of the dark.
But I’d rather have been caned than left alone this way. Being stored away in the narrow trailer wardrobe had been a miracle of human warmth compared to incarceration in this cold hard dungeon. Only a very bad girl deserved a punishment like this. Tears slid and tickled along the metal bands beneath my eyes.
Bridles and close confinement were the stuff of my daily life; they kept me secure, like a bauble safe in its fitted case. You’d think I would have been happy that my master had upped the ante. But just as the cane took me well beyond the point of pleasure into real punishment, so did this. I swallowed with difficulty, and whimpered. Recollection of my master’s words, tinged with the dreaded accent, added weight to the steel round my sinking head: ‘Deceit.’ ‘Lies.’ I felt awful. He wasn’t pleased. Oh, god. I must tell him everything in future. Like it or not, no excuses.
Why hadn’t I told him? Had I really just been avoiding punishment?
That absolutely was not allowed. I hadn’t wanted to be the one to raise my discomfort with women. But why? For fear he’d feel obligated to change his plans? I knew him better by this time, surely.
In fact, the discussion with him had been a relief. There would be no accommodation to my preferences; that was a given. I could trust my master by now not to bend to any whim of mine. His expectations remained perfectly clear: absolute obedience, no matter what sturm und drang was going on inside my skull. But at least my reactions were on the table. If a female guest got off on reluctance and a bit of distress, she was in luck. If not, she could find her pleasure elsewhere. I rather think Val had liked it. Ria I was sure didn’t care one way or the other. My hidden resistance was out now, and the fact that my master had been accepting took the wind out of my sullen, bratty little sails. Reaction was setting in. What kind of excuse for a slave was I, anyway? Some born slave I was, all turned on by being shared out and used without consent – as long as the users were male. As long as my preferences were honoured. Awful. I broke into a sweat just thinking about it. Who the hell did I think I was?
And yet – and yet the thought of those women’s hands still turned me cold.
What had Nikki been angry about? I’d have to call her. Anders’ ideas had been insightful, but my guess was that she had simply given up on me, at least for the moment. Despite all her warnings, I had given over all control and now was paying the price. She was fed up. There had been a ‘fine, you made your bed now go lie in it’ tone in that flat voice.
Would she even want to talk to me? She’d imagined she was talking to a human being, after all, or at least she’d tried to maintain that pretense, as had I for her benefit. But maybe now she was beginning to see what I really was.
Still a person, of a kind. But not a human one. The animal rights people talk about animals as non-human persons. I was a slave person. The usual assumptions associated with homosapiens didn’t apply.
