Carrie's Story: An Erotic S/M Novel (21 page)

If he hadn't, I probably would have just stood there
gaping, ignoring the pain in my wrist until it jumped another
notch, but I hurried to the next Argus, embedded in a low
wall next to a small cafe on a brick terrace. I almost bumped
into a bearded man in a pale gray suit, blissfully leaning
against the wall, while a naked red-haired boy sucked him off. I buzzed myself in, and the prickles in my wrist stopped.
I was finally where I needed to be, I guessed, as I stood there
taking in the scene some more. At the tables, drinking wine
and coffee and eating ices, were a few very elegant people,
dressed in soft silks and linens, as though they were visiting a
resort in the middle of winter. More of them strolled down the
paths, talking, laughing, and pointing out the sights, the slaves
posed as living statuary on pedestals, columns, and fountains,
or beautifully masked as animals in cages in the little zoo or on
the tiny carousel by the lake. Every so often, if a slave seemed
inviting enough, one of the sightseers would simply gesture to
him or her and the slave would approach and strike a position,
offering mouth, ass, cock, or cunt-rather like the presentation competitions Jonathan had, once upon a time, taken me
to. It was a lot to take in-the bigness and the prettiness of
the space, the well-bred tinkling laughter that seemed to be
everywhere, the absolute graceful obedience of all the slaves,
and my own stupid, naked amazement in the middle of it.

Just then a man dressed as a waiter thrust a tray of
refreshments at me. "The table by the lemon tree," he said,
and I hurried over. I was a part of it now and I was determined to do it right. Don't spill a drop, I told myself. Stand
straight and never mind that they are clothed and powerful
and you are naked and totally at their mercy. And if you can
feel your breasts bounce a little, and you can feel their eyes
upon you...well, just don't spill a drop of these refreshments
you are carrying to these frightening people in this beautiful,
demonic place. I was at the table now.

"The ices?" I asked politely, holding up the delicate
goblet. A pretty young woman with short black curls and
pink-and-white porcelain skin smiled and nodded. So far so good. "Beer?" I continued. Same with the thickset older
man with the graying hair and beard. The tea went to the tall,
angular man with the shaved head. I put it down in front of
him and was preparing to nod politely and withdraw when he
reached a large hand behind me and grabbed a big chunk of
my ass. Which was quite painful, as you can imagine, given
the beating less than an hour ago. I tried not to show it.

"I like it," the bald man said, "when I can get a lot of
an ass into my hand. And I like the feel of this one. Welts,
too. Perhaps she's been naughty, or more likely somebody
just thought she'd be more provocative this way. What do
you think, Francis, Chloe?" And to me he said roughly, "Turn
around for the lady and gentleman, you."

I held the tray in front of me and slowly turned my back
to the table. "Bend over," the bald man said, moving his heavy
hand to the small of my back and pressing. I bowed at the
waist, keeping my back straight, letting them have a good
look at Paul's handiwork. I felt like a baboon, presenting my
decorated ass to them, and tried to console myself by bowing
as gracefully as I could, stretching my hamstring muscles as
though I were at ballet class. I felt grateful that I didn't have
to look these people.

Francis, the bearded man, sounded a bit bored. "Is it
necessary, Andre," he asked, "to encourage Chloe this way?"
And to Chloe, he asked, "Well, are you satisfied, now that
you're here?"

She spoke softly, but very clearly, and I could tell that
she didn't need the least encouragement. "Yes, Francis," she
said, "it's as interesting as I expected. And I don't think she's
been a naughty girl. I think Andre is right and somebody thought she'd be improved by those marks. Send her over to
me, Andre."

"Call her yourself," he returned shortly.

"You," she said, "slave, put down that tray and come
over here immediately and face me."

I walked over, my eyes down. She spanked my breasts a
little with the cold bottom of her spoon. "Too small for you,
Francis," she said. "I suppose Andre and I are just wasting
your time with this one."

He nodded, and in fact he was looking across the field,
some bigger ones having doubtless caught his eye. "Why
don't I meet you two in a hour?" he said. "I'll tell that waiter
up there to turn her little bracelet off for a while."

Thanks, Francis, I thought, as he hurried off. Andre took a
leash out of his pocket and handed it to Chloe, and she attached
it to my collar. "What would you think," she said, "a little jeweled collar, painted toenails, nipples gilded to match? Maybe
powder blue, hmmm? And a pretty little kennel for her to crawl
into. It's sweet, isn't it, that little bit of sadness about her."

"But it's too bad," she continued, "that we're not allowed
to make her even sadder. Why can't we whip her, or at least
watch somebody do it?"

"Be logical," he answered, "with the crowd that's out to
buy this week, she'd be hamburger by the time of the auction. But it's still fun, isn't it, to see her working to control her
humiliation. I always enjoy that part."

And I was blushing rather furiously. I think it was the
painted toenails, the idea of being her pet in a jeweled collar.
She pushed me to my knees. "Now follow me on all fours,"
she said. "Andre," she added, "are you really going to walk
behind us in that ridiculous way?"

"Just, you know, to make sure she holds herself well," he
mumbled, his eyes, no doubt, on my welted ass.

The tiled walkway was hard, cold, and smooth under
my knees and the palms of my hands. She led me around the
little artificial lake, stopping once or twice to talk to friends
or acquaintances who also had slaves in tow. Finally she
sat down on a bench by the lake, where it was fed by a little
waterfall. "Drink," she said, and I lapped some water.

"And now eat," she said, raising her skirt, showing me
a dazzling white shaved cunt, surrounded by intricate black
garters and stockings. I entered her with my tongue, while
she kept a tight hand on my leash. I heard her groan softly, as
I licked all around, returning often to her clitoris, but circling
and teasing as well.

And I wasn't entirely surprised to feel Andre entering
my asshole, his big hands on my breasts. I tried to cry out, but
Chloe kept my head buried in her. So I just gave in to their
rhythms, his pushing and her pulling, and me trying to be as
active and passive as it all demanded, until finally they both
came and leaned over me to kiss each other hungrily.

"We'll try a boy next," he murmured to her sleepily,
"a very pretty little one." Since she'd unsnapped my collar,
I guessed I was dismissed.

As I scrambled to my feet, I noticed a man alone on
a bench halfway around the little lake. He was looking
through some papers, which seemed like an odd thing to
be doing in the Garden, but it still seemed to me that he'd
been watching me with Andre and Chloe. I don't know how
I knew that, or what exactly I had even sensed, besides a
vector of attention and a quality of stillness. I turned and
looked at him for a moment, though all I could really catch was the glint of dark-tinted glasses. And then I remembered to lower my eyes, and I felt a pinprick at my wrist.
Fuzzy logic kicking in again, I thought, as I hurried to the
Argus.

The screen directed me back to my room, where a maid
cleaned me up and gave me some lunch. Then I napped for
an hour or so, before my bracelet led me to the gym. My punishment signs were dangling from my collar again. I waved
my bracelet at the Argus, and a nearby printer started spitting out paper with information about me, so that the trainer
who took charge of me knew what program to set me on, how
many minutes of stretches, StairMaster, free weights.

Margot was right; it was all very businesslike. Just
like a downtown yuppie gym, except that nobody was using
a Walkman-they piped in some dreary upbeat Europop
instead. And, of course, not to forget that everybody using the
machines or the weights or the mats was a naked slave, cuffed,
collared, and coded into the system. A few, like me, wore little
placards announcing that they were scheduled for punishment that evening and telling anybody who was interested
the nature of the transgression. Mine were pretty typical,
though I also saw UNDISCIPLINED GAZE and, most provocatively, WILLFULLY DISOBEDIENT. This last one fascinated me.
It hung from the collar of a tall boy using a Nautilus machine.
He had very strong, beautiful thighs, the kind where there are
muscles peeking out from under the muscles you can see. His
long black hair was bound at the neck. I wondered what you
had to do to merit WILLFULLY DISOBEDIENT, instead of just
DISOBEDIENT, or my own wimpy SLOW TO OBEY/TALKED OUT
OF TURN. If you'd gotten this far, why would you purposely disobey, and what exactly had tipped the balance to WILLFUL?
I wondered if I'd ever find out. Well, you need something to
occupy your mind when you're on the StairMaster.

You were actually still supposed to keep your gaze down,
but it was hard to stick to that, and the trainers wisely didn't
make a big thing about it. Mostly, you were here to work-no
pain, no gain, though of course all of us already knew that.
How you dealt with your feelings of arousal or humiliation
or whatever this all made you feel was your own problem. I
suppose everybody, like me, was covertly eyeing the competition. The slaves, or the ones I could easily peek at, ranged
from okay to drop-dead gorgeous. And everybody, sweating
and straining at their machines or with their weights, had, as
you'd probably expect, quite a good body, or even better than
that. I could only hope that whatever "quality" Kate Clarke
had discerned in me would be evident to some buyer as well.
Otherwise, I'd have to think about graduate school again.

Meanwhile, my eyes kept straying to Willful, who was
now walking a treadmill across from me. I wanted to stare
and stare at him, at the sensitive little muscles in his belly and
at the root of his purplish cock, surrounded by wonderful
little black curls. I guess I did stare and stare at him, though
I kept trying, as Margot put it, to "discipline my gaze." I was
glad when they moved me to a slant board and I had to concentrate on my own stomach muscles.

The Europop kept tinkling on, but my inner ear turned
it into a cut from the oldies stations, one I hadn't even remembered I knew (one, in fact, that my mother used to annoy me
with by loudly singing along whenever it came on the car
radio). I sighed and reset the slant board a notch steeper.
Great, Carrie, let's regress to Sexual Fantasy Number One in your whole life (and maybe it isn't really even your fantasy,
maybe it's Mom's) -the Bad Boy in the Class. He's a rebel.
Watch the way he shuffles his feet.

He had stepped off the treadmill, and was, in fact, just
standing around shuffling his feet while the Argus, for some
reason, hung. It came up, though-way to go, Margot-and
he scanned his instructions. What was particularly remarkable about this place was how everybody seemed to have his
or her own distinct schedule. I mean, if I'd had to handle a
group of slaves, I would have treated them like a group, like in
the army or elementary school or Sir Harold's place. But they
didn't do that here; rather, they treated you, as Margot had
put it, like a "rather unique commodity." Our paths crossed,
but we didn't march in lockstep. This was, I knew, the point
of Margot's complicated software. They didn't have to use
regimentation here-except, I supposed, when they wanted
to, when it would serve some distinctly humiliating purpose.
It made me think about just how unsubtle some forms of
control were and wonder what other forms of control were
available, for those of us who get off on contemplating and
enacting the rituals of power and domination. Jonathan had
said that the idea, often as not, was to mimic the social structure of late feudalism, the azzeiezz regizne just at the cusp of the
advent of bourgeois democracy. I was wondering just how
necessary that all was, or how relevant to the strange times
we were living in now, when all of a sudden Willful caught
my eye, and-swear to god-quickly mouthed the words,
"See you tonight." Then he sauntered out the gym door.

I was scared. I thought of Cathy and the little piece
of hose. And I was sure somebody-trainer or guard-had
noticed, that any minute they'd drag me off to some dark dungeon for some drawing and quartering, or maybe the rack,
something tasty out of early-never mind late-feudalism.
But nothing happened. If anybody had noticed, he didn't say
anything. The boy, I had to admit, had timing. Street smarts,
maybe. I imagined him dressed (like early Marlon Brando -
Mom again) to match the song-blue jeans and a tight white
T-shirt, a pack of cigarettes under his rolled up sleeve. Black
Garrison belt. Engineer's boots. I found the image very
hot. Well, I'd already seen him naked. And I would see him
tonight, I realized.

I spent the rest of my gym time in a confused haze, the
remainder of the two and a half hours floating by without my
much noticing. Then my bracelet prickled and I followed the
schematic back to my room, where another maid cleaned me
up and gave me lots of water to drink. As usual, she left me
kneeling, in the preferred position of abject attention, waiting, I supposed, for somebody to come to the room to fuck
me, as Margot had promised. Cleaned, fed, rested, exercised,
and fucked, she'd said. And sure enough some staff member,
a really ordinary middle-level bureaucrat, I thought from the
look of his shoes, came along. And fucked me silly, though I
hardly got to see his face. After he left, I j ust lay facedown on
the bed for about twenty minutes, wondering just how much
of this they thought I "needed." It was an interesting question,
and not an entirely unpleasant one, a whole lot more pleasant
than the punishment that I was trying not to think about, as
the sky darkened outside my window.