As She's Told (55 page)

"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?"

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"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 346

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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.

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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 348

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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 349

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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.

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"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."

***

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 351

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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.