As She's Told (20 page)

I glanced higher at the face above mine, the intent agate gaze, looked at the broad shoulders and the long hands on my breasts, and felt weak at the 123

As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob

knees.

Fingers slipped into my nipple rings and tugged, pulling and turning them gently. My breathing grew even more ragged. "I think these are ready for me," Anders said. He'd been toughening them up gradually for several weeks on his visits, and making me do so also. It seemed to be effective, because I felt no worry when he pulled on them, only more lust. I watched, slightly alarmed, as he pried open the rings and slid them gently from their holes. I'd never had them out; I hadn't opened them at all since they'd gone in. He opened a little box and took out two shiny new bits of hardware, curved on one side, thick and straight on the other. I thought for a second that they were barbells with loops, but it was the curved parts that went through my nipples; the straight bars swivelled and pushed into place over the ends, like tiny attenuated padlocks. Anders located a miniscule screwdriver hanging from his key ring and inserted it deep into the side of each one. "These have specially shaped screws holding them closed," he said. "This tool is designed for them. They won't come off without it." He kissed me and put the keys back in his pocket. Then he slipped a finger through each ring and smiled; they were an exact fit.

He went back to the chest of drawers and drew out a decorative little chain, with two small locks at either end. This he fastened in a lovely curve between the rings. The weight tipped me deeper; I groaned. He made me walk some more at the end of the chain, and then he released my hands and made me crawl. And this time he did use the whip. His voice husked, "You'll have to learn to crawl better than that."

The next thing I knew he was behind me, a tight grip on the chain holding me still. Then he was sliding into me, huge, and I gasped, and tried not to howl, and bit my lip, hoping he'd let me come. Guessing he wouldn't, from the slow, deliberate way he was moving: a diver in no hurry. I felt held down all right, by the chain and corset, and by every swing of the chain off my new hardware. But he was leaving my clit alone. I would have been breathing deep and hard by now, but had to go high and shallow because that's all there was room for. Every breath against bondage…it was too much, not enough…. More, a little more…. The hands on my hips tightened their grip and he dove deeper into me, and came hard. And held me still.

Twenty seconds more and I would have come. When he withdrew I could hear my whimpering, wordless voice.

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I looked up through my miasma, to the tall figure now sitting in a chair, the line of chain running between us. Felt the tug drawing me to him, put my head in his lap. A big hand settled on my head and rested there; a still, heavy hand weighted with calm and repletion.

My own unstill hand wanted to sidle down and slide one finger over my neglected, slippery clit…. No. I didn't want to imagine the consequences.

***

Anders rested, his eyes half closed. He was still resonating, like a dozen instruments all finely tuned. It was an experience akin to that in the unfinished kitchen weeks ago: a moment of wholeness, unity, profound content.

He kept still and let this strange music pervade and occupy him, play in all his corners. All thought suspended, Anders occupied his body, and took in the texture of the dark head on his lap.

Not for long, though. Soon his analytical brain chimed in with some irony, noting that his most joyful moments occurred when he had just had an orgasm and left his slave on the edge and suffering.

He'd barely begun. He had created the setting for his exquisite little bonsai girl, and was just beginning the fine work involved in bending and shaping her according to his own aesthetic, honing and refining and nurturing so that she could flourish. So much more to do, so much to look forward to.

Anders brushed the thick hair aside so that he could rest his hand on the nape of her neck. That familiar, vibrant stalk now locked in metal, just as it should be. The slender wrist, too, resting on his knee in its shiny new cuff.

He felt more pleasure, in a good, well executed piece of design. The setting, the binding, had to be just right, just like his bonsai wires. A locksmith friend with metalworking skills had produced the cuffs, collaborating with Anders on the design, including the integrated snap locks. The idea was efficiency and fewer little padlocks. Less fiddly. And too much hardware hanging off her would spoil her pretty lines.

He took a deeper breath, roused, looked at his watch. Picked up chain and whip, and headed downstairs, aware of Maia's still tentative gait. In the kitchen, with shafts of late afternoon sun lighting up her skin, he drew her along from cupboard to cupboard, showing her where everything was kept, how the appliances worked and how to make coffee. Her lip trembled a 125

As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob

little. "Master?”

“Yes?”

“You – you know what I'm like in the kitchen – "

His eyes twinkled. The girl had a history of woeful incompetence when it came to food preparation, and giving her a recipe only made her worse.

"Oh, yes. Never fear, I'm still cooking. It's our good luck that I happen to like it. But you'll be doing the boring prep. Scrubbing vegetables and so on.

Cleaning up after me, washing pots, scrubbing the floor. And I'm pretty sure you can manage a coffee maker."

She looked relieved. Anders doubted she'd feel that way when she learned his standards regarding the cleanliness of vegetables and floors. He drew her down to her knees and made her crawl around the kitchen, looking into low cupboards: onion bins, large pots, roasting pans. Maia knelt shivering at the fridge, trying to identify large lumpy root vegetables, the nipple chain clanging against the bottom bin.

"That's celeriac," he told her.

"Okay," she said doubtfully, rolling the hairy thing back into place.

He had her put her head under the sink and tell him the names of all the cleaning products she found there. Standing back, he observed her vulva on display, dark and swollen. Poor baby. He smiled.

After a complete circuit he took off the chain leash and sprung a surprise quiz on her, naming items and watching as she scurried or crawled to locate them, giving her a moderate smack of the whip whenever she made a mistake or hesitated too long. She gave a little shriek at one that caught the inside of her thigh.

"Please!" she cried.

"Whole wheat flour," he repeated.

Maia turned frantically from one cupboard to another, cried out at another blow. "I don't remember! I'm sorry, master. Ow!" She tried to evade the next blow by twisting out of its path.

In half a second he had her face down over the table with her arm up behind her back.

"You do not try to run away from me," he growled low in his throat.

"Not. Ever." He whipped her ass in earnest now, and she blubbered apologies, legs kicking helplessly. After the last blow he held her in place, and bent his head to her ear. "Let's get this straight, girl," his voice quiet and 126

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hard. "Let's just be sure we're clear. Who owns this?" He took a handful of striped ass flesh and squeezed hard.

She wailed at the fresh pain. "You do, master…"

"Do you get to decide what happens to it?"

"No, master."

"Is it up to you how much punishment you'll take?"

"No, master."

"Just how much punishment do you have to take?"

"Whatever punishment you want to give me, master."

"Damned straight. And?"

Once she'd thanked him adequately and promised better behaviour in future he took a few inches of chain from his pocket and linked her ankles with it.

"This will remind you not to run."

When she was off the table and upright again he directed her toward the kleenex and watched her shuffle gingerly over to blow her nose. The chain jingled. "All right, girl. You'll find the whole wheat flour in the right-hand cupboard. Green plastic container." He watched her move carefully and put her trembling hand where it was supposed to go. "Fine. Oven cleaner."

Anders made her struggle on, back and forth across the kitchen in tiny steps, continuing to punish her methodically for each mistake. As he expected, though she winced and whimpered, she managed to contain any further self-protective impulses.

Finally he looked down at her sitting on her heels by the baking tins.

"That'll do for now." He dropped the whip on the floor in front of her. Maia looked up at him, then down at the whip, and then she shifted her confined body like a fulcrum to bring her head to the floor, her ass high. Her mouth pressed itself to the whip. He put his foot next to it. With only a heartbeat's pause she kissed that too. Yes. "Good girl."

She pressed her face to his shoe, kissed it again and then looked up at him, eyes swimming. For a long moment their eyes locked. A shaft of sunlight linked them, dust motes vibrating golden, the air between them dancing. Slowly Anders reached down and took hold of the ring in her collar.

"Up." She had to use her hands, on his leg and the counter, to get to her shackled feet. "All right. I want some coffee, so make me some, and put it in 127

As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob

this mug –" he said, pointing, "and bring it out on this tray – " pointing again, "so that if you spill any you won't burn your pretty tits or stain the corset. But you'd better not spill any." He went to his desk by the front window and sat down to do some work.

***

I did what I'd been told to do with the coffeemaker; luckily when he'd shown me that I'd actually been listening. The weals on my bottom attested to how distracted I'd been otherwise. This wouldn't do. I had to pay attention, no matter how distracting all these new sensations were, no matter how desperately aroused I was. No matter how much I wanted to be down on my knees begging to come. I couldn't serve him properly unless I listened to his every word, caught every nuance of meaning. And unless I actually remembered what he told me. Cheese grater there, pot lids there, and what was that thing in the fridge called? Oh, yeah, celeriac. I could think about mistakes like that, because they were minor compared with the colossal failure of trying to avoid the whip. I could hardly bear to think about it. How could I have done such a thing? After weeks of obediently presenting for it.

As I waited for the coffee pot to fill, I took a surreptitious look at Anders at his desk at the other end of the house, in profile against the light from the window at his side, just then pulling out a file drawer. In the process of renovation he'd opened up all the space downstairs; there was not even a counter between us. Nowhere to hide. No doubt that was the intention. I got out the tray and put his mug on it, noticing that everything felt different in a corset. But he was right; I was getting used to it. My breathing was all up in my thorax, but I was getting enough air. Still, the restriction, and my burning ass, and the scene upstairs, and every moment since we'd come through the door had me at a level of arousal that was very difficult to ignore. My pelvis pressed itself forward into the counter, then I pulled back. No. None of that. The chain caught my ankles and I caught the counter for balance. I'd forgotten the new restriction and my undignified new gait. Worse than crawling in front of him; I'd begun to get used to that a little, to the animal quality of it, and the feeling of his eyes burning on my rear end. Now I had to actually face him as I shuffled and minced and tripped. Was there any possible way to move gracefully like this? I doubted it. But every halting, hampered step communicated itself up the sinews of my legs, like hidden cords tugging at my cunt.

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The sliding doors to the back looked out onto a deck that was shaded with an overhead trellis of some kind. Weaving through it were thick branches not yet fully in leaf; an arbour then. Beneath it sat a sturdy lawn chair, and a small table holding three shallow-dished plants. Bonsais. There was the one with red clusters sprouting, the one he'd been working on behind my back while I stood in the corner steeping in sore humiliation. I glanced back at the corner, which though now clean and smoothly painted, looked like it was ready for me any time.

The rest of the yard was long, with a high privacy fence all around. It was full of plants and bushes, pale green, well short of their summer foliage.

A bit wild looking. I wondered whether I'd get to go out there much. Not dressed this way, presumably.

The corset's embrace felt like his big arms crushing me. And I had to admit that I loved it. Still, I could easily imagine that at some point I might, indeed, want it off. Would he release me from it then? What if he didn't? I'd never be able to get it off on my own, not without him knowing. Lacing it up again the same way would be impossible. I felt my back, curious to know what was stopping me from releasing the straps and undoing the corset.

There were no buckles, only those narrow metal rectangles, not entirely flat but slightly raised like tunnels, through which the straps passed. After a moment's exploration I located a keyhole in one of them. I was really locked in this thing. Really, truly locked and without a key. I took a fast, restricted breath, fought down my reactions, and decided to stick with the moment.

Despite my ineptitude with food, I did at least know how he liked his coffee – cream, no sugar – and I carried the tray in with great care, step by tiny, jingling step. He seemed to be adding up receipts. An offhand voice said, "On your knees." His thumb flipped up another page; he added another figure. I sank down gingerly, my eyes glued to the mug, very much afraid of a spill on the expensive-looking Indian rug beneath my feet. But I managed.

To my surprise, once he'd taken a sip he put the mug back on the tray, and went on with his work. I froze there, arms half extended, waiting for directions. None were forthcoming. After a minute he took another sip, and replaced the mug again, and I got it. I had been servant/slave, now I was furniture. Table space. I tried to keep as still as possible.