Domino (The Domino Trilogy) (41 page)

“You d
on’t have to explain, dear,” Elzbeta said, sounding almost motherly. “We’ve all been exactly where you are, Domino. The key to being successful here is to take something unique and deeply personal about yourself, and make it part of the fantasy. It’s that kind of authenticity our clients pay top dollar for.”

I picked at my pl
ate for a while, but didn’t eat much more. I’d lost my appetite, though I was beginning to get some ideas of how to bring Domino alive. “Could I get a steel-boned corset, like the one Victoria has, only without any fabric between the bones?” I asked. “And a wide-brimmed Victorian hat with a black widow’s veil? And highbutton boots, and lemon verbena perfume, and a set of opera glasses?”

Elzbeta
smiled and nodded. “Of course. I’ll have them in your room within a few hours. Our suppliers are fast. Anything else?”

“Chains,” I replied. “Heavy metal chains, with a padlock. The kind Houdini would have used.”

Elzbeta’s eyebrows raised slightly, but she made no comment. “All right. Once everything has arrived, I’ll stop by. Meantime, you might want to make a plan for how you’ll use them.  I’ll need you to give me a verbal description once they arrive so we can publicize your services to our client base. I suspect you’ll get some orders rather quickly, so you’ll need to be prepared. Clean your plate, and then go directly to bed for some rest. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”

FIFTEEN

I got my first client the very next day.

My new accoutrements arrived only three hours after I requested them. Elzbeta deposited them in my boudoir while I was still asleep, leaving me a note to ring her whenever I woke up to give her my service description. After waking from a two-hour nap, I took in the sight of my requested items, arranged in a semicircle on and around an occasional table at the foot of my bed.

There was a Victorian-style corset, wrought of polished steel, but the frame only---without any fabric between the bones, just like I’d asked for.
I tried it on over my pajamas and found it fit me like a glove---almost as if someone had cast a mold of my body. It pushed my small breasts skyward, cupping them in tiny steel cages that would reveal the dark circles of my areolae when I wore it for customers. There was a black widow’s hat, wide and curved like an ocean’s wave, trimmed with velvet and towering ostrich feathers. There were a pair of highbutton Victorian leather boots, made of fine kid leather, knee-high and with sculptured heels. Lemon verbena perfume, made from the finest essential oils, in a cut-crystal decanter. Antique opera glasses, made of polished brass, with a long brass holding stick. All beautiful, magnificent things that went well beyond my wildest imaginings. But the best part were the chains and locks.

At the base of the occasional table
snaked a pile of heavy steel chains, wound around and around upon themselves like a metal ball of yarn. Balanced on top of the chains were two heavy steel padlocks plated in brass, with old-fashioned skeleton keys sticking out of their keyholes. I knelt to pick them up, and found the chains and locks surprisingly light. I surmised they must be made of lightweight aluminum, not steel---but that isn’t what I asked for.

I unwound the chains from their snaked pile and found two sets of cuffs at the bottom. Those were steel, at least----but I was unhappy that my request hadn’t been followed to the letter.

Becoming a bit of a diva are you
, Delaney? my inner self remarked.
My, my, my. how you’ve changed.

“Shut up,” I said aloud, then bit my lip in dismay. Good God, I was talking to myself.
I was fast losing my grip on reality. Either that or I was just at war with myself, two competing selves---Nancy Delaney, innocent American college student, versus Domino, mysterious international sexpot.

But after I inspected the chains more closely, the use of a lighter material made a lot of sense. I balanced the heavy padlocks in one hand versus a handful of chain in the other and discovered that had the chains been forged of the same heavy solid steel as the padlocks, they’d have been far to heavy for me to handle, rendering any effect they’d give me as a Dominant moot, making me far less marketable. Elzbeta must have known that, and altered my request accordingly.  I couldn’t help but smile slightly to myself; I hadn’t booked a single client yet, but my madam was already taking good care of me.

How swiftly I fell into my new role! Once upon a time, not so long ago, the notion of whips and chains would have terrified me. Now I just accepted them as the required tools of my newfound occupation.

I arranged my new toys on my bed and rang for Elzbeta. She appeared in less than a minute, letting herself in to my room with her master key. I noticed she carried a thick black file folder tucked underneath one arm. “I trust everything is to your satisfaction?” she asked.

“Yes, thank you,” I replied. “And thank you for, um---“ I trailed off, and motioned in the direction of the chains.

“Of course.” She fingered one of the sets of steel cuffs, which I noticed for the first time were lined with the highest-quality shearling wool. “I already have some idea based on your request on what kinds of services you plan to offer, and as such I sent a bulletin out to our list of contacts. Even without providing details of your persona and fantasy scenario, we have already received three confirmed bookings for you. Your first shall arrive within the hour. Are you ready?”

My stomach fluttered.
“No.” It was the truth. Then again, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready.

Elzbeta
seemed to expect this. “It’s all right to be nervous,” she said, patting me lightly on the shoulder. “And you’ve had a very rough couple of days. That’s why I made a point to book a very gentle, nondemanding client for your first appointment. He was my own first client, in fact. I think you’ll like him. His name is Ludwig and he’s a Swiss banker. I serviced him for several years, and his generosity is one reason why I was promoted from hostess to my current position as manager.”

She took the file folder out of the crook of her elbow and handed it to me. “You’ll find everything you need to know about him in there.  Read it over while you’re getting ready. I’ve arranged for my personal maid
Katerina to assist. She’ll do your hair and makeup and provide any assistance you might need with dressing and setting up your props.” She pointed a red-lacquered nail towards the ceiling. “Katerina will also explain how to use your harness apparatus.”

I cast my eyes skyward as
Elzbeta flipped a switch on the wall. A trapdoor slid open in the ceiling, and the crystal light fixture disappeared inside, soon to be replaced by a descending steel pole system that held a series of metal hooks. “The hooks are of various sizes and capable of suspending various weights,” Elzbeta explained. “Ludwig is a large man, so I suggest you use the ‘G’ hook, at the end of the pole.” She didn’t explain exactly what I’d use the ‘G’ hook for, but my mind was already racing with the possibilities. I only wish I had access to the Internet for research purposes.

As if reading my thoughts,
Elzsbeta produced a small tablet computer from her dressing-gown pocket. “This tablet is preloaded with several articles and diagrams about suspension bondage,” she said. “Feel free to peruse it while Katerina does your coiffure. But active internet usage and outgoing phone calls are prohibited on the premises, per Mr. Bluschencko’s orders. Do not make any attempt to do either. If you do, we will know, and there will be consequences.”

I took the tablet, but a cold shiver went up my spine as I again noted just how astute
Elzbeta was. She could read me like a book. I wondered for at least the third time if she was psychic. Was that how she became so successful as a hostess here at the House of Pleasure? By reading her clients’ desires before they even knew what they were, and then fulfilling them, only to deny them satisfaction in the end? Small wonder she’d been given charge of us prisoners. She could kill anyone with kindness.

“Tell me what your fantasy plan is, Domino,” she said, peering deep into my eyes in a manner I found more than a little unsettling. Still, her penetrating stare served as an inspiration of sorts. There could be no dilly-dallying, no
compromise of ideas as long as she was present. I supposed that was yet another attribute that put her in a position of power here. I also supposed I could learn from that, and from her.

I returned her stare, tit for tat, feeling suddenly older and stronger as I did so. “I shall be a Dominant,” I said. My voice changed as I spoke these words---becoming deeper, heavier, with a sort of gravitas I’d never known myself capable of. I felt as though I were watching the scene unfold from somewhere up above, not recognizing myself or my surroundings.
“I will be a Dominant in the Victorian tradition,” I said. “I will rely on my knowledge of the literature of the period for inspiration. I shall portray a chaste Victorian woman, but instead of being the traditional passive, mewling sort, I shall turn that archetype on its head. I will rule my clients with my feminine wiles. They will never lay a hand on me, yet I will bring them more satisfaction than they ever thought possible.”

I hadn’t planned these words, they just sort of fell out of my mouth like so many stars. My inner self had taken over; she was calling the shots now, not I. Domino had arrived.

Elzbeta seemed pleased. “You have very good instincts, Domino,” she said. “You will do well here, and so will we. As I said before, your inexperience can be a great advantage in our line of work, if you channel it properly.” She got up and headed for the door. “Katerina will be here shortly. Take a shower now, and be sure to wash your hair to give Katerina a clean slate to work with. Ludwig should be here soon, but I will not send him back to you until you ring me that you’re ready to receive him. Ring your call bell three times, that’s how I’ll know.”

She made a motion to leave, but stopped short just before stepping over the threshold. “Ludwig likes to be bound, hung, and gagged in various ways,” she remarked. “You’ll see some photographs of his past sessions that give examples. But he’s done it so many times and in so many ways that I think he’s grown bored. Your job is to find a new way to satisfy him.”

With that, Elzbeta left.

I ducked into my private bath and took a quick shower and
Katerina was waiting for me by my vanity table when I came out. I seated myself on the padded vanity stool in my bathrobe while Katerina worked on my hair. I flipped through the documents and photographs in Ludwig’s file while she combed, tugged and pulled my locks into an elaborate Victorian-style updo.

Ludwig was a high-ranking banker and economist with the Swiss bank UBS. A graduate of the London School of Economics, he was a native of Zurich and currently made his home in Geneva, maintaining
pied-a-terres
in Moscow, Berlin, and Sevastopol. A corporate-style headshot showed a man who looked to be in his early fifties, with a prominent jaw and a receding hairline. Nothing seemed unusual about him at first glance, but under the surface lay a lusty, kinky man----as evidenced by the stack of bondage photos that displayed him naked in a series of ever-more-elaborate restraint poses. The first had him naked, with hands cuffed behind his back. The second, naked in a spreadeagle position, each limb cuffed to the four posts of a bed. The third in an upside-down pike position on a spreader bar suspended in midair while wearing a ball gag and a leather vest; the fourth in an allover leather catsuit that left only his genitals exposed, as he was suspended and chained from the ceiling in the teardrop position. He appeared slightly older and heavier in each photograph, as if they were arranged to show a chronological projection of his ever-more-kinky tastes.

I studied the final photograph carefully, searching for ideas on what I could possibly do to top it, and came up with nothing.
Elzbeta had said several times now that my inexperience came as an advantage here, but I no longer believed her. I’d never seen anything like these photos before, and what little I knew of bondage came from books or my imagination, not personal experience. My soon-to-be client was a connoisseur who had seen and done everything there was to do in that world, and my future life and safely lay in my ability to please him. What would happen if I failed? I was stranded in another country without so much as a passport, and nobody knew where I was----what was stopping Bluschencko from taking me out and having me shot if I proved unsuccessful? Nothing. The very idea terrified me.

I had to stop this line of thinking. I was nothing if not resourceful, not to mention creative. I prayed that a solution would present itself, and fast.

Katerina tugged hard on my hair, jerking my head backward. “Ouch!”

“Sorry,”
Katerina mumbled in her heavily accented English. “I only try make you look good.”

I studied
Katerina’s reflection in the mirror.  She looked to be in her mid to late forties, with graying hair and a double chin, though her features were sharply drawn and perfectly symmetrical. She was short, paunchy, and might once have been beautiful, but now she looked like any middle-aged housewife you might meet on the street. I wondered how much a lady’s maid like her got to see in a place like this. “My client, Ludwig---do you know him?”

She gave a single nod as she tucked bobby pins into the chignon she’d fashioned out of my shoulder-length hair
, but said nothing more. Despite her reticence I was impressed with her handiwork so far. Then she started on my makeup. “You wish to look Victorian, yes?” she asked, opening a trunk filled with expensive MAC cosmetics and brushes.