Safe Word: An Erotic S/M Novel (15 page)

She'd lead us to Mr. Constant's rooms and leave us
there, to wait for him if he wasn't there, or to receive his
brief nod, if he was. And he'd look us over calmly, and
choose one of us, and the other would help. Would kneel
there in the flickering light of oil lamps, and help him finish
the adornment process, silently handing him the clips and
clamps, the straps and buckles and chains, out of his leather
casket.

I learned what implements to hand him and in what
order, for him to apply to Tony's body, stretched patiently
over this or that frame or wheel, or suspended from ropes.
I watched Mr. Constant's blunt hands opening little spring
mechanisms, twisting tiny screws down on firm, shining
bronzed flesh, perhaps bending an arm backward, at some
cruel angle, and buckling it into place, until silent tears begin
to course down Tony's smoothly painted face-the makeup seemed to be waterproof, tearproof, sweatproof. I learned to
recognize Mr. Constant's nod, that we were done, and to fetch
a selection of small whips for him to choose from (he liked to
take the occasional swipe at us while he fucked us-to keep
us present, I think, alert to his rhythms). And then I'd grease
Tony's asshole, and back away on my knees, watching quietly.
And the next night, perhaps Tony'd do the same for me. I
pretended to myself that I hated helping Mr. Constant hurt
Tony, but I knew that I was fascinated, that I watched with
my mouth hanging helplessly open, my breath coming shallowly I'd wait eagerly for my turn, fearfully and enviously
wishing to be the object of barbarous adornment.

Except for the strokes he'd administer while fucking us,
Mr. Constant rarely beat us those nights (though he did enjoy
coming to watch us being punished after our training sessions). But once in a while-it seemed to be a special treat he'd
only allow himself on rare occasions-he'd summon Stefan,
and hand him a whip to use on one or perhaps both of us. It
would be an oddly ceremonious event, even punctuated by our
screams, and by Stefan's frenzied breathing. "Thank you," Mr.
Constant would tell him gravely as he escorted him to the door
those evenings, perhaps laying a hand lightly on his shoulder,
to steady him. "Thank you. I enjoyed that very much."

"Take off your T-shirt," Jonathan said. He'd dragged his chair
over to the side of the bed, and he was sitting backward on it, his
chin on his arms. She paused, shrugged, and pulled it off, and
she sat up a little straighter, Indian-style, before continuing.

It was a quiet, demanding regime-designed to fit into the
spaces of Mr. Constant's work schedule. And then, every few weeks, he'd give a party, a tasteless, Gatsby-like affair, and
everything would change. The cliffs would be hung with fairy
lights, the island lit with torches. For a week before, you'd
see the guests' yachts gathering in the harbor below Caterers
and decorators would have been flown in from-from I don't
know where, Athens? Paris? There'd be huge stands of exotic
flowers everywhere, marvelous smells drifting up from the
kitchen. There'd be a buzz of deliberate, meticulous preparation for the twenty-four hours or so before the guests-as
crude and cruel and gorgeous and glittering a bunch as I
could imagine-would begin to arrive.

And two hours before party time-well, that's when the
human party decorations went up-Tony and I, of course,
together with the slaves that the guests would have sent over
throughout the day: We'd all have been herded into a holding pen to wait until we were needed, along with the ones
that Annie had rented from an agency that specialized in parties like this. Annie was a remarkable organizer-Napoleon
deploying her troops. Somehow, she'd look at this mass of
obedient flesh and know exactly where to put us. A dozen
of us would be pulling the guests from the parking area
to the house, in pony carts. Fifteen would be passing hors
d'oeuvres, and she'd have chosen ten girls to be suspended
upside down, thighs tightly gripping the heavy glass ashtrays balanced at their cunts. The buffet tables would be lit by
kowtowing pairs of human candelabra, wax dripping down
their arms and backs and thighs from thick candles held in
their clasped hands and wedged into their assholes. "Get that
bunch strapped under glass tables... those boys get tied to the
pillars-make sure they all have leather harnesses on their
cocks.. .and oh, we'll need some more footstools on the main deck...." She'd have assistants for the evening, who would
lead us where she directed, and who would apply glittering
body makeup to us, paint our faces, attach ornaments to nipples and cocks, harness and bridle us, and hang the inevitable
coinboxes from our collars.

The pre-party organization would happen in a blur,
but the parties seemed endless. So many cruel hands to pass
through, clits to lick, feet to kiss, meticulously polished shoes
kicking your butt or prodding your genitals. So much cum
to swallow, and all those pinches and pokes and taunts and
torments to endure. You'd be assigned a territory-a room,
a lawn, a patio. Perhaps the pony cart area-guests liked to
race-or the trapeze, ingeniously engineered with slings and
pulleys. The worst territory was the games area, near the pool.
There were bets, contests-you might have to wrestle, or run
a gauntlet, scamper around on your knees fetching things
with your mouth-or perhaps not with your mouth. You'd
be impaled with unlikely objects, forced into impossible positions, and kicked or slapped if you couldn't maintain your
balance or keep up the pace. And you always had to maintain
that extra level of awareness, that readiness for the stray nod
or snap of the finger. "You there. Put that down and get over
here. Now. And open that mouth. Hurry up, what are you
waiting for?" And the laughter, after they'd finished with you,
especially when they'd made you cry.

I'd never have been able to handle it without that week
I spent learning to satisfy the people who worked for Mr.
Constant. But then, none of us could really handle the games
area, because the people who enjoyed using it were way
beyond, hellishly beyond, satisfaction. I thought of it as the
Garden of Earthly Delights, only scarier. I was smarting there one night, just about to pick myself up after a raucous game
of human croquet, when I heard a voice above me.

"Come on, don't be afraid, Sarah." Where had I heard
that voice before? Oh, yeah, "Buy! Sell! Aw-right! " His name
was Teddy, I'd picked up from the workroom, and he was big
and blond and, yeah, bearish-well, I mean, he looked that
way, I don't really know whether he was prone to selling.
And she-she was my mystery woman, the dark, dark eyes in
the smooth, sad, olive-skinned face. I knew that they were a
couple. He was gentle, solicitous with her.

"Just try it," he said to her now. And to me, "Kneel up,
stay still."

"Come on," he said softly. He picked up her little hand
in his large one, covered with light hair. And he moved it over
my breast.

"You see," he said, "you can touch her all you want.
That's what she's here for." He grasped the nipple of my other
breast, pulling me toward them. I shuffled forward on my
knees.

"Stand up," he said.

He showed her the stripes and welts on me-some from
Annie, and some from who knew where. He had her touch my
collar, so that she'd see how stiff it was, how high I always had
to carry my head. He tried to persuade her to put a finger in my
cunt, so that she could feel how wet I was, but she refused.

"But you will grease her for me, won't you?" he said.
"Come on, you promised you would."

"Yes," she said. "I promised."

And she took the tube from him, and timidly began to
rub the lubricant up my asshole.

I wished I could see her face, but I tried to content myself
with the feel of her little fingers exploring me. And I couldn't
help but let out a little wriggle of pleasure.

He slapped my breast. "They're not allowed to do that,"
he explained to her.

"So," he said then, "are you done yet?" I could hear him
unzipping his pants.

"I don't know," she murmured. "Did I use enough?"

He laughed, pushing me onto my knees. "I think so,
hon. Like enough for a rhinoceros, maybe."

And then he knelt behind me and entered me. I closed
my eyes and tried to keep myself open and relaxed. His cock
was thick, very hard-the rhinoceros remark didn't seem like
such hyperbole right then. And then I felt her fingers on my
cheek. She knelt in front of me, and then she sat down on the
ground, and she pulled my head into her lap and stroked my
face the whole time. Her lap was warm under the cool cotton
cloth of her skirt. And I let myself come. I didn't care how
much I'd be punished for it. Teddy knew the rules-slaves
didn't come while they were being used. I figured he'd put a
demerit token in my box after he finished with me-probably two. But, I was beginning to realize now, he'd finished
coming, he was withdrawing from me, and he wasn't paying
any attention to me at all.

Actually, I don't think they put any tokens of any kind
into my coinbox. I think they forgot to-because after he
came, he and she just sat there for a while. And then they
simply wandered away hand in hand. And I stayed on the
ground for maybe five minutes more until I felt cold water
dripping on me, and then a kick in my side-somebody who'd just heaved himself out of the pool, standing over me
and demanding my mouth.

And I only saw her once after that-later that evening,
when I was doing my inevitable turn at the punishment station. She watched me intently by torchlight, as I bumped and
ground my hips and endured the flogging at my breasts.

They left the next day, and I never saw her again. They'd
gotten the jobs they'd been hoping for, I heard in the workroom, important jobs at some central bank. So I never found
out what-if anything-she'd been thinking that evening
at the party, and whether she'd feared or pitied or despised
me. She was beautiful, though. Sometimes I dream about her.
And when I went to Paris-to get the train for AvignonI spent a morning at the Musee de Cluny, staring at the unicorn tapestries.

"The pony races," he chided her. "Come on, I want to hear about
them."

Why, she wondered. It's not even really his thing. But, come
to think about it, she probably knew why he wanted to hear this
story. Well, too bad. It wouldn't hurt him to be patient.

"But it didn't happen right away," she answered. ,we
worked up to it gradually. I had to wait to do it. So it's only right
that you should have to wait to hear about it."

It took me a while to get good at the presentations, I told him.
And Annie thought my trot and canter could use some work,
too-I spent hours just circling a pole in the ring, while she
criticized my form, using the riding crop to purify it of wasted
motions, to sharpen up my timing. From time to time Mr.
Constant would ask when I might be ready to race, and Annie would nod absentmindedly and say something noncommittal. I supposed she had decided I wasn't good enough, and
was trying to figure out how to break it to him. But finally,
one morning, maybe a week or two after Teddy and Sarah had
left, she led me down the hill to the amphitheater I'd seen my
first day, and harnessed me to a racing carriage.

It's more properly called a sulky, though. A light shiny
black affair like a bicycle. No brass door handles-well, no
doors. It's pure function: just the big, spoked, aluminum
wheels, the small, high seat for the driver, at the apex of a
long, slender metal U-shaped shaft of metal, with a shorter
T-bar inside the U. It rested casually in the dirt on the tips of
the U-bar, waiting for me.

She stood me about three feet in front of it and harnessed
me up. Slowly, thoughtfully, she tried different combinations
of straps and apparatus that first day. First my pony tail. I
opened for the dildo that would hold it into place, and then
straightened up so that she could belt the leather straps
around me. And then a long, very sturdy strap, running down
my back, attaching the ring in the back of my collar to the ring
embedded in the base of the dildo. She tightened the buckles,
jerking my head back and pulling against the dildo. My back
arched like a bow, thrusting my breasts so far out that I could
see them, even though my head was angled back so sharply.
And I supposed, though I couldn't see it, that my tail jutted
straight out behind me as well. Annie moved in front of me,
squinting, while she stroked my belly with a finger to gauge
its tension.

Not tense enough, I guessed. She took off the tail apparatus. And then she slowly began to push in one with a bigger
dildo. Much bigger-it felt like twice the size of the one she'd just removed, traveling up into me like spreading darkness,
obliterating all consciousness except my muscles' fearful
effort to accept it, to open and reshape myself around it. Oh,
yes, that was better. Because now when she tightened the
strap running up my back-I could feel a cold drop of sweat
beading at the metal rings-not only did my head jerk back,
and my breasts and belly thrust out, but my cunt was pushed
forward, open and empty in front of me.

Now the studded leather harness, snug around my ribsI counted half a dozen buckles that she pulled tightly into
place in back-anchored in place by thin suspenders over my
shoulders and its own little straps between my legs. I'd have
thought the business between my legs would be clumsy, but I
was so opened out by the dildo that there was plenty of room.
She lashed my upper arms tightly together behind me, pulling my shoulders way back, and fastened the cuffs around my
wrists to the T-bar. I grasped the rubber handle grips tightly
with my hands-it was good to have something to clench my
hands around-but I was glad that my wrists were attached
to the bar, so that I wouldn't have to worry about losing my
grip when my hands got sweaty. Of course, a lot of the pulling would come from my pelvis: She attached the ends of the
cart's metal shafts to the belt around my hips.